The Sorcerer and His Apprentice: Unknown Hermetic Writings of S. L. MacGregor Mathers and J. W. Brodie-Innes

223 Pages·1983·12.09 MB·English

by  S. L. MacGregor Mathers

CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 7
PART ONE: PAPERS BY S. L. MACGREGOR
MATHERS
Chapter
1. The Kabbalah 15
2. The Symbolismofthe4Ancients 19
3. TheQliphothoftheQabalah 23
4. TheAzothLecture 30
5. TwelveSignsandTwelveTribes 40
6. AddressonthePillars 47
7. TheTarot 51
8. OntheTarotTrumps 79
9. Note ... Upon the Rosicrucian Ritual of the
RelationbetweenChessandTarot 84
PART TWO: PAPERS BY J. W. BRODIE-INNES
10. SomePsychicMemories 89
11. SomeCelticMemories 101
12. SomeNotesontheFirstKnowledgeLecture 115
13. TheTarotCards 119
14. An Egyptian Ritual Against Apophi and Its
RelationtoModernWitchcraft 129
15. Witchcraft 140
16. WitchcraftRituals 149
6 THE SORCERERANDHISAPPRENTICE
17. TheHermetic System 159
18. The ScienceofNumbers- KabalisticandHermetic 165
19. OccultSymbologyin RelationtoOccultScience 173
20. The Esoteric Teaching on the Origin and
SignificanceoftheZodiac 180
21. The Tatwas
(1) The Tatwas in Relation to the Human
Organism 191
(2) PolarityofTatwicCurrents 200
(3) SomeAspects of the Tatwas in Relation to
DailyLife 207
(4) TheTatwasonFourPlanes 214
INTRODUCTION
When, in 1896, the Adepti Minores of the Golden Dawn's
InnerOrderbegan to rebelagainst the authorityoftheirchief,
he sent them a long, rambling manifesto to justify his
autocraticrule.lnthecourse ofthisdocumentheclaimedthat,
inorder to establish the Vault of the Second Order, 'It was
found absolutelyand imperativelynecessary that there should
be some eminentMember especially chosen to act asthe link
betweenthe SecretChiefs and the more external forms ofthe
Order. Itwasrequisitethatsuch Membershouldbeme, who,
while having the.necessary.and peculiar educational basis of
critical and profound Occult Archaeological Knowledge
should at the same time not only be ready and willing to
devote himself in every senseto a blind and unreasoning
obedience to those Secret Chiefs ...I, MacGregor Mathers,
'SRioghailMoDhream5°=6°,Deo DuceComite Ferro7°=
4°, wasthe Fraterselected for this Work: whom youknow as
the ChiefAdept of the Second Order under the title of Deo
Duce Comite Ferro which I had taken upon me.I Clear
evidence, apparently, that Matherswasmentally unbalanced,
and yetunderneaththis paranoidexteriorwhatmannerofman
was he?
Toolittleisknown ofhisearlylife,and hisbiographershave
been.toopartisanfor anythingbutphantomflesh tobeplaced
over the bare bones ofhis life. Itismost unlikely that afinal
answer will ever be given.
8 THESORCERERANDHISAPPRENTICE
He wasborn Samuel Liddell Mathers at Hackney, in East
London, in 1854 and was educated at Bedford Grammar
School.2 During the 1870s he lived with his mother at
Bournemouth, where his everyday life as a clerk was soon
interspersed with dreams of military glory in the First
Hampshire Infantry Volunteers (although he was never an
officer, despite being photographed in a Lieutenant's uni
form), andwiththe ceremonialgloryofFreemasonry through
his initiation in the Hengist Lodge in 1877.At this time he
begantorevealhisaristocratic origins(or, from another point
ofview, to display his delusions ofgrandeur); on his Master
Mason's Certificateof1878heisstyledComtedeGlenstrae, a
title allegedlyawarded to an ancestor by Louis XV, and by
1882,when he joined the SocietasRosicruciana in Anglia, he
had added MacGregor to his name.
Mathers was led into the S.R.I.A. by Frederick Holland,
whohadalreadyencouraged himtotakeup occultstudies but
whoderided his pretensions to ahighland ancestry, and was,
no doubt, highly amused byMathers' useofthe motto ofthe
Clan MacGregor, 'S Rioghail Mo Dhream (Royal is my
Tribe), on his election to the Zelator grade." But for all the
accompanying pretension, this wasthe most significantmove
of Mathers' life, for within the S.R.I.A. he met both Wynn
Westcott andDrWoodman,andslowlyandcarefullybeganto
lay the foundations of the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn.
From 1888the story ofMacGregor Mathers is the story of
the GoldenDawn,butbefore then, in 1885,hehadmoved to
London, joinedAnnaKingsford'sHermeticSociety,inwhich
he delivered his first major lecture," and published The
Kabbalah Unveiled, hismostsuccessfulandinfluential work.5
And before 1888he had met Mina Bergson, the sister of the
philosopher Henri Bergson, who wasto become successively
the first initiate ofthe GoldenDawnand Mathers'wife.After
their marriage, in June 1890,theylivedat Forest Hillcloseto
the Horniman Museum, of which Mathers had been made
curator; but by 1892 they had moved to Paris, where they
remained - save for a prolonged visit to London for the
Equinox and Looking Glass cases of 1910and 1911- until
Mathers' death from influenza in 1918. His career in the
Golden Dawn has been charted often enough? not to need
recounting here, but it is, perhaps, worth remarking that as
INTRODUCTION 9
dissensiongrewwithinthe Order, soMathers' literaryoutput
declined. Whether his growingobsessionwith 'treachery' in
theOrder stifledhisliterarytalents,orwhethertheyhadbeen
burned out by ten years of feverishactivityis impossible to
tell, but after 1898 Mathers neither wrote nor published
anything of significance.
But washe, as he claimed to be, the possessorof 'critical
and profound Occult Archaeological Knowledge'? Certainly
he filledhispublished workswith erudite footnotesand long
introductions, but his contemporaries were sceptical of his
abilities.W.E. Yeats,whowasnotunsympathetictohim,said
that 'Mathers hadmuchlearning,but littlescholarship,much
imaginationandimperfecttaste',7whileA.E. Waite,whowas
openly hostile to all that Mathers stood for, sneered at his
"abysmal ignorance of the suppositious arcana which (he)
claimed to guard'.s Yet Waite could also refer to Mathers'
'considerable fund of undigested learning', to his 'serious
studyofthearbitrary part ofkabalism'and totheearnestness
withwhichheappliedhimselftooccultstudiesintheReading
Room of the British Museum.9
Others, more loyaltoMathers and tothe magicaltradition
that he represented, painted a different picture. Mina
Mathers' portrait of him, added as a Preface to the 1926
editionofTheKabbalah Unveiled,isuncritical,unreliableand
littlemorethanahagiography,but thememoirofhimwritten
by l.W. Brodie-Innes for The OccultReview is an objective
account, oratleastasobjectiveascanbeexpectedfrom'atrue
and loyalfriend': 'Ofhisscholarshipit isnotformetospeak,
so far was it beyond my own, yet I know it was as frankly
acknowledged by some competent authorities, as it was
bitterly denied and depreciated by his opponents. I once
showedsomeofhis letters to me on the Kabalah to my own
first teacher in Hebrew, a Rabbi and an advanced Kabalist,
and he said 'that man is a true Kabalist. Very few Gentiles
knowasmuch, youmayfollowhimsafely'.Whenhearranged
a Temple of Isis for the Paris Exhibition, an Egyptologist
whose name is world-famous said 'MacGregor is a Pharaoh
comeback. Allmy lifeI havestudied the dry bones; he has
madethemlive.'Thesearebut twoexamplesoutofmany.Yet
there have been those who have said that his Kabalah and
Egyptology were shallowand superficial, a rehash of other
men's work. Who shall decide? Yet I do know that many
10 THESORCERERANDHISAPPRENTICE
questionslaskedhimwereansweredatonce, and satisfactori
ly, with abundant citation of authorities, showing intimate
acquaintance with the subject, and never have I detected a
mistake.'I0
Whatever one's opinion of Mathers, there is no question
concerningBrodie-Innes: hewasascholar,withafarlarger,if
less inspired, literary output than his Chief. He was born in
1848at,MiltonBrodie,nearForresin Morayshire,studiedlaw
at Cambridge and moved to Edinburgh, where he practised
both law and occultism with equal enthusiasm helping to
foundthe ScottishLodgeofthe TheosophicalSocietyin 1884,
to maintainits independencefrom the Londonlodges and to
preserve its emphasis on Esoteric Christianity. In 1890 he
joined the Isis-UraniaTemple of theGolden Dawn.iprogres
singwellenoughtobecomeImperatoroftheAmen-RaTemple
when it was founded at Edinburgh in 1893. Nor had he
neglected his more general hermetic studies, contributing
regularly to the Transactionsoithe,Scottish Lodge (of which
he wasnowPresident)and issuing astrangebook onTheTrue
Church ofChrist (1893).
His paththroughthe GoldenDawnwassomewhattortuous,
involvingquarrelswithhisfellowsinAmen-Ra,anambivalent
attitude towards Mathersand afailed attemptto seizeoverall
control of the Order in 1902, After the schism of 1903 he
enteredinto awary.and ultimatelyinconclusivedialoguewith
'A.E. Waite and finallyreturnedto Berridge'sTemple, under
Mathers' obedience, after breaking with Dr Felkin and the
Stella Matutina in circumstances that did him little credit.
In later years his somewhat tenuous loyalty to Mathers
strengthenedand hewasgenuinelygrieved atMathers'death,
five years before his own in 1923. Unsure of his own occult
connections, he wasyetunwaveringin his beliefin thereality
of an Occult World and was an enthusiastic proselytizer;
issuing fictional and factual accounts.of Scottish witchcraft,
justifications for the magical aims of the Golden Dawn, and
the introduction to Eckartshausen's CloudupontheSanctuary
thatsetAleister Crowley uponhismagicalcareer. BUt,aswith
Mathers, his contributions to the occult journals of his day
remain virtually unknown.
It isboththeirfugitive natureand theirinherentfascination
that justifies this anthology of those writings.. Mathers
publishedcomparativelylittle,apartfrom hisbooks,and much
INTRODUCTION 11
of what did appear.wasephemeral~ occasionalletters and
briefpiecesin LightandLucifer, and anan toobriefpieceon
the Rosicrucial1s for theS,IU.A. His,most important papers
arethosepreparedfortheGoldep.Dawn, manyofwhichwere
published byIsraelRegardie,whileothersappearedinFrancis
King's AstralProjection,Magic and Alchemy,and a few are
printedinmyownstudyoftheOrder.IIThemostsignificantof
thoseremainingaregivenhere, togetherwithhisClaviculefor
the S.R.I.A. and a short paper on the Kabalah written for
ArthurMachen, whowasthen,in 1887,theeditorofWalford's
AntiquarianMagazine. .
Mathers' papers were written principally for his fellow
magiciansand are restricted.to anarrow part ofthe spectrum
of occultism, whereas the papers by Brodie-Innes are more
broadlybased, providingavaluableinsightintothetheoretical
background of the workings of the Golden Dawn, and
indicating the breadth of their author's knowledge and
interests. For both men;' the Magus and his most eager
follower, their writings are their monument, preserving and
bringing aliveforusthedreamsand.visionsthatheldtogether
their remarkable Order. Nothing of a like stature survives,
and nothing is now written that can match the work of its
members. The occult py~mies of today who squeak at the
Order's ghost would do wellto ceasetheir clamour,to read
and to wonder.
R.A. Gilbert
Bristol,April 1983
Notes
1 The text of the Manifestois givenin full inEllieHowe's The
Magicians ofthe Golden Dawn (1972),.pp, 127-133.
2 The facts of his schoolingare disputed in Ithell Colquhoun's
Swprd of Wisdom (1975). She.gives reasonable grounds for
supposing that it was another boy of the same name who was
educated at Bedford. .
3 SeeHolland's letter to Westcott qf 1910, quoted in Howe, op.
cit., p.40.
4 Entitled TheQabalah; Mathers gavehislectureon3June 1886.
A brief abstract was printed in Light on 19 June.
5 Kabbala Denu~ata; The Kabbalah Unveiled (George Redway,
1887).
6 e.g. by Ellie Howe, op. cit.,and by Ithell Colquhoun, op, cit.
7W.B. Yeats, Autobiographies(1926), p. 232.