MSS in a Black Box: The Golden Dawn Papers of Dr William Wynn Westcott R. A. Gilbert ‘A friend of mine who knew of my enthusiasm for the Golden Dawn and of my burrowing among its archives, read my description of the Order’s archives! and asked me if I would like to see some regalia he had found that belonged with “Private Collection C”. On examination the regalia proved not to have come from any of Waite’s faction but to have been the property of Dr Westcott; nor were the wands and sceptres all: with them was a black japanned deed-box ~ the box about which Carnegie-Dickson had written to A. E. Waite in 1938. “You know, of course, that our old and mutual friend Dr. Wynn Westcott, left me most of his G.D. Order Documents and Papers, including his Diary of the founding of the G.D., and he also left a famous ‘Black Box’ containing the various original G.D. Documents addressed jointly to Dr. Felkin and myself, of which there was also an index in his ‘Diary’. What happened to these forms another very interesting ‘chapter’ in G.D. History.” That the box was locked and lacked a key was of little moment, for Victorian locks yield easily to large steel screwdrivers, and I had the dubious honour of being the first person in sixty years to examine the putative “original G.D. Documents”. They do not, alas, include the crucial correspondence that passed between Mathers and Westcott in 1887, but they throw a flood of light into some of the dark corners of the Order’s history. They also give rise to further questions. Why did Westcott keep a mummified hand among his papers?, Where are the Mathers letters? And what has become of Westcott’s “Diary”? These questions I shall leave to the speculative and will confine myself to the papers and memorabilia that the box did contain. On the basis of my suggested classification of Golden Dawn archives (YA 5 164-5), most of Westcott’s papers are “historical”, but it is virtually impossible to separate those concerning “origins” from other historical material. Much of his personal magical material has to be classed as “administrative and ritual”, for some of the objects are the only known surviving examples: Westcott’s set of Enochian chess pieces, his sashes for each of the grades to Adeptus Minor (5=6) 227228 Yeats Annual No. 6 and the original designs for the court cards of the Golden Dawn Tarot. In addition there are his own set of six Star Maps (relating the Tarot trumps to the constellations), his divinatory “Ring and Disk” and the original designs for the lamens and banners of the Outer Order. More important than these is a manuscript list of the “Flying Rolls”, giving original and altered titles, dates of issue and the prices charged for providing copies. (This list is printed in the revised edition of Francis King’s Astral Projection, Magic and Alchemy: Golden Dawn Material by S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Others (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1987) Manuscript drafts of Westcott’s lectures on The Practical Kabala and on Kabalistic Cosmogony (both dated 1895) constitute a bridge between “ritual” and “historical” material. Other lectures by members of the Order are largely unofficial (e.g. T. H. Pattinson’s clairvoyant vision of the Secret Chief in 1888, with an “improved” version by Mathers; and Oswald Murray’s account of Mrs Pattinson’s astral travelling, or Spontaneous Exteriorisation), but the Addresses are both official and minatory. The problems of Horus Temple and its fractious members are set out in Mathers’s Report on the state of Horus [Temple] of March, 1893 and in Westcott’s earlier Address to Horus Temple, delivered in November, 1892. Addresses to Isis-Urania Temple warn the members of the problems with the Bradford Temple. Earlier papers concern the founding of the Osiris, Horus and Amen-Ra ‘Temples. Westcott had retained the original charter of Osiris (virtually identical with that of Isis-Urania; itis illustrated in my Golden Dawn Companion (Aquarian Press, 1986), together with the Pledges of the Chiefs of each Temple to the Chiefs of the Second Order, the petition for the founding of Amen-Ra and a letter from Pattinson urging on Westcott the desirability of a Temple at Bradord: “I find 7 interested friends all ready to fall in with the idea of forming a G.D. here in Bradford, and the sooner this is done the better.”? ‘The most informative document, however, is a small notebook that Westcott kept—as Registrar of the Order- listing every office-holder in each Temple from 1888 to 1897. From this it is possible to identify all the minor officers - who are mentioned nowhere else in the entire archives of the Golden Dawn. Yeats evidently took little part in the activities of the Outer Order, for he appears only once, as Stolistes of Isis-Urania from 22 March to 23 September 1892. In this capacity he would have been in charge of the robes, collars and insignia of the officers and was required “to watch over the cup of clear water, and to purify the Hall, the Fratres and Sorores, and the Candidate with water”. Westcott also kept a small number of Second Order documents: a series of annotated sketches by Mathers to illustrate the decoration of the sashes of the Adept grades, and two of the Order’s Annual Reports for 1895 and 1896. The Reports raise a question about Yeats’s activities in the Second Order. Itis known, from his own official record that Yeats had passed some of the earlier examinations in 1895,* and the Report for that year (read out on 13 June 1895) ‘may refer to him: “Three Adepti have fully attained the Grade of Th[eoricus] A[deptus] M[inor] and two others have been named Theorici and have almostMSS in a Black Box 229 perfectly attained the Grade.” It refers also to the “Institution of Four Theoric Officers”” who have been identified by Ellic Howe® as Percy Bullock, Florence Farr, Dr Berridge and Annie Horniman. By the following June Westcott was able to report that “6 members have become Theorici making a total often. The new Theorici being V.H. Vigilate [Helen Rand], Volo [Mrs. Kennedy], A. P.S. [Anima Pura Sit=Dr H. Pullen Burry], Deo Date [Mrs. Hunter], Shemeber [Pamela Bullock}, & Non Sine Numine [Col. Webber Smith].” If these six had all reached the grade during the year of the report, it would seem that one of the two who had “almost perfectly attained the grade” had fallen back. This one may have been Yeats but was more probably J. W. Brodie-Innes who was certainly a T. A. M. by November 1896,° from which it would appear that Yeats — for all his enthusiasm for examinations — was making very heavy weather of his magical studies. (He finally reached the Theoricus Adeptus Minor Grade in Felkin’s Stella Matutina, on 10 July 1912.’) More entertaining than the Reports are the letters that Westcott carefully if unwisely preserved. These can be divided into official and unofficial correspondence, the former comprising letters relating to entry into the Second Order and the latter consisting of private letters from Brodie-Innes and correspondence concerning Mathers and Crowley. ‘The applications for admission to the Second Order were made by sixty-eight members between 1891 and 1896 (some of them wrote more than once~ there are ninety-two letters in all). They range in tone from the deferential and obsequious to the casual approach of Dr Berridge: “I think next Wednesday will suit me, but T cannot be with you till 4 p.m.”, and the quite lunatic letter of Frederick Johnson: “When the reaction comes upon him what wiser Teacher than the ‘Good Angel in the disguise of Satan could he get? None!” Among them are letters from Yeats, Florence Farr, Annie Horniman and George Pollexfen, all of which are printed below. Ten of the private letters from Brodie-Innes, dated between 1896 and 1900, concern his ‘Order of the Sun”, while the remaining three ~ all of later date — relate to Aleister Crowley and to the Golden Dawn in its decline. There are five letters from Edward Maitland regretting the demise of the Hermetic Society but declining to join the newly formed Golden Dawn, Theresa O’Connell’s long statement to Westcott about the founding of the Order,® and a startling letter of 1895 from Allan Bennett seeking a Charter for a new Temple in South London: “There are many of our Fratres and Sorores who are unable without great inconvenience to attend the Isis-Urania Temple: its meetings being so often held during the hours when we unlucky wights are bound by business ties and kept away.” Accompanying this is Mathers’s peremptory refusal. More intriguing is the correspondence between Westcott, Crowley and others relating to Mathers’s attempt to stop the publication of Golden Dawn rituals in Crowley’s journal, The Equinox. Westcott saw the case as a golden opportunity to force Mathers to retract his damning revelation (or “slander” if one chooses to believe Westcott) about the forging of the Anna Sprengel letters. In March 1910 he drafted a long “retraction” for Mathers to copy and enclosed it in a letter to230 Yeats Annual No. 6 his friend A. Cadbury-Jones, who was then Secretary-General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and Westcott’s right-hand man. Referring to Mathers’s request for financial support he said: “If he wants a gift of money from me — he must write his withdrawal of the charge of forgery:— he ought to write two—one a private letter to me dated 1901 Dec. or early 1902—and a confirmation referring to the present row — dated now. I send you copies of what I should require—-_I am not going to give him money for nothing.” A second letter to Cadbury-Jones, of 27 March 1910, offered somewhat feeble evidence to rebut Mathers’s charges and concluded with the words: “If he will do all I want, I will give him a five pound note: don’t let it look like bribery.” Evidently it did, the plan came to nothing and the papers came back to Westcott. Such deviousness is, at best, embarrassing for those who choose still to believe in the “official” history of the founding of the Golden Dawn, and Westcott’s papers do nothing for his good name, but their emergence from the “Black Box” is a delightful if unexpected gift to historians of the Order. THE LETTERS 1. Florence Farr 123 Dalling Road, Ravenscourt Park Dear Dr. Westcott, During the time I have been a Member of the G.D. Hermetic Society my whole life has assumed a new aspect. I cannot express the debt I feel I owe to the G.H. Chiefs of the order for putting me in the way of learning what I have. May I hope that by the favour of the G.H. Chiefs I may now be permitted to join the second order? Lam perfectly willing to accept the terms of the obligation I have received.® Yours faithfully Florence Emery The letter is undated but was probably written in July, 1891; Florence Emery signed the Second Order Roll on 2 August 1891. 2. Annie Horniman Surrey Mount, Forest Hill, Dec. Ist, /91 Care et G.H. Frater, T have already passed through the Grades of the First Order & in addition there has been conferred on me the Grade of Lady of the Paths in the Portal of theMSS in a Black Box 231 Vault of the Adepts. I now write to ask that I may be admitted to a full participation in the Mysteries of the Grade of Adeptus Minor. Thave received so much hope and satisfaction from the Knowledge which has been given me that I am most anxious to be allowed to go on, when it is considered fit for me. I hope to be able in the future to be of more service in the Society as well as to gain personally in Strength & Knowledge. Hoping that my sincere request may be granted. Yours fraternally, Soror “Fortiter et Recte” 5 = 6 3. W. B. Yeats 3 Blenheim Road, Bedford Park, Chiswick, W Greatly honoured chiefs I am writing to seek your permission [to be examined: (crased)} to take the first examination preliminary to entering the second order. Soror SSDD can undertake my examination. Yours faithfully Demon est deus inversus Beneath the signature Westcott has added “Ap.5 Yes” Presumably thisis 5 April 1892 (the letter is undated). Yeats signed the Second Order Roll on 20 January 1893. 4. George Pollexfen (a) 27. Octr. 1894 Die Fr Care & Very Honored Frater S.A. Iam gratified to learn that the Very Honord Chiefs have decided to permit me to enter the Second Order and I accept their invitation to do so. And I shall feel obliged by your giving instruction to the Cancellarius to inform me as to what I have to prepare for the First Examination — as I would wish to be going on with my preparation for that examination with as little delay as possible, & am ever Fraternally Yours FL232 Yeats Annual No. 6 (b) The Hotel Metropole London. 21 Octr. 1895 Dr. Wynn Westcott. Dear Sir & V.H. Frater, T have carefully read the addresses you kindly lent me I must say they cause me much misgiving as to my fitness for admission to the Second Order. I feel that I do not possess the strength of Health or the great Strength of Will and Energy which some of the writers say are so necessary. But I had hoped notwithstanding these grave limitations and notwithstanding the human frailties and worldly blots attaching to me and of which I am fully sensible; that by working on to the best of my capacities and in good faith in the Order I should perhaps sooner or later find in that path much to strengthen me in those essential qualities required; and to help me also to shed the material dross clinging to the higher Self. I fully appreciate the teaching extended to me so far in the Outer. And if under the above circumstances I can be allowed to proceed further I now apply (not by any means with a light heart) to be admitted to the Second Order & am Faithfully Yours Geo. Pollexfen PS. And I shall present myself tomorrow Wednesday evening 7 p.m. In fact it was two days later — he signed the Roll on 23 October, 1895. NOTES 1. R.A. Gilbert, “Magical Manuscripts, An Introduction to the Archives of Herm Order of the Golden Dawn” (YA 5[1987], 163-77). A summary account of the archives is contained in my The Golden Dawn Companion: a Guide to the History, Structure, and Workings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1987) pp. 176-9. 2. W. E. Carnegie-Dickson to A. E. Waite, 20 Nov. 1938, Collection of the present writer. The present location of the materials discussed in this paper is private. 3. T. H. Pattinson to W. Wynn Westcott, 27 Mar. 1888. 4. G. M. Harper, “From Zelator to Theoricus, Yeats’s ‘Link with the Invisible Degrees’”, Yeats Studies, an International Journal, no. 1, eds R. O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (1971) pp. 80-6. 5. E. Howe, The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: a Documentary History of a Magical Order 1887-1923 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972) p. 115. 6. Howe, op. cit., p. 136. 7. Harper, op. cit., p. 83. 8. The statement was written at Westcott’s request on 22 Aug. 1898. He evidently mistrusted Mathers already and was preparing his defence. The text of the statement appears in my Golden Dawn Companion, pp. 11-12. 9. The text of the “Obligation of an Adeptus Minor of the Order R.R. et A.C.” is given in The Golden Dawn Companion, pp. 103-5.MSS in a Black Box 233 Note In my paper on the archives of the Order I stated that the Minute Book of Ahathoor ‘Temple contains no reference to Yeats (YA 5, 167-8). I was wrong: it docs. Mr Roger Parisious examined the manuscript and found a number of the leaves stuck together; on separating them he found the entry for 24 February 1894, in which “V.H. Fra. Demon est D.I.” appears as Hegemon (i.e. the officer whose duty was to act “as the Guardian of the ‘Threshold of Entrance and the Preparer of the Way for the Enterer thereby”) It was not a happy occasion for Yeats, as among the apologies for absence was one from Soror Per Ignem ad Lucem (i.e. Maud Gonne) “who was on the point of leaving Paris for a short time” [R. A. G]