Magical Manuscripts: an Introduction

to the Archives of the Hermetic Order

of the Golden Dawn
R. A. Gilbert

INTRODUCTION

Yeats's memories of his friends and enemies within the Golden Dawn, and the
records of the part he played in the Order's fissiparous history are both well
known, but there is only one published account (and that both late and
clairvoyant) 1 of his ritual working within it. Clearly a more detailed knowledge
of his activities in the Order is desirable - if not essential - for a full
understanding of his intellectual development, and such a knowledge can only
be gained from a proper study of the primary sources of the Order's history
and ethos. In the past such a study has not been feasible, but it is now
beginning to become a possibility.
As the Golden Dawn [ell slowly to pieces, so its archives were scattered
among its quarrelling members, who - with a passion for secrecy that
unwittingly ensured the manuscripts' survival - promptly hid them from
public view. Today the greater part of these documentary records of the
Order's creation and working is held in five major and two minor collections.
Three of these collections have been examined in some detail, and a number
of the documents they contain have been published, 2 but there has been, as
yet, no serious attempt to make a critical analysis of the contents of all seven
collections or to produce the catalogue raisonni of the archives that is a
prerequisite of our proper understanding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn and of its influence upon its members.
This paper makes no pretence of being such an analysis, but is intended
rather to provide a preliminary survey of the papers that comprise the Golden
Dawn archives, and to suggest a method of classifying them. At present little
more can be done, for three of the major collections are in private hands and
access to the others is restricted. Lest it should be thought that they have no
existence save on the Astral Plane it will be as well to relate the history of
each collection before giving a description of the contents.
The three private collections were all utilized by Ellie Howe in the writing
163

W. Gould (ed.), Yeats Annual No. 5

© Warwick Gould 1987
164 Yeats Annual No. 5

of The Magicians of the Golden Dawn, and the manner of their discovery is
described in the Preface to that work. Mr Howe is, however, wrong in his
belief that the papers were preserved by chance: they were not. Those in the
principal collection (hereafter "Private Collection A") are largely the "official"
records of the Golden Dawn that were kept, after the schism of 1903, by the
magically inclined faction, Dr Felkin's Stella Matutina Temple. When Dr
Felkin left England in 1916 they were entrusted to a senior member of the
Stella Matutina, in the possession of whose family they have remained ever
since. Private Collections B and C, which were conflated by Mr Howe for the
sake of convenience, both consist of papers once held by members of the
Independent and Rectified Rite, A. E. Waite's more "mystical" branch of the
divided Order. As with Private Collection A, the families of the original
owners still hold them; all three present custodians, however, wish to remain
anonymous.
Gerald Yorke's collection is based on the papers of Frederick Leigh
Gardner - Frater De profundis Ad Lucem - which came into the hands of a
latter-day alchemist, Gerard Heym, after Gardner's death in 1930. He sold
them to Michael Houghton, the proprietor of The Atlantis Bookshop, who
sold the papers in turn to Gerald Yorke. Mr Yorke added substantially to
them from other sources and bequeathed them, with his extensive collection
relating to Aleister Crowley, to the Warburg Institute, in whose library they
are now housed. The remaining major collection is that part of Yeats's own
papers that relate to the Golden Dawn.
There are undoubtedly many small collections of letters, rituals and other
papers relating to the Golden Dawn, but only two known minor collections
are of any real significance. One, that of Mr Carr P. Collins, Jr of Dallas,
Texas, was built up from a variety of sources during the 1970s and consists
almost exclusively of ritual material. The other is my own collection of the
papers of A. E. Waite, or rather that part of them relating to the Golden
Dawn, which has had a curious history since Waite's death. That history
reflects badly upon a major institutional library and so cannot yet be told.
The seven collections listed above contain almost everything that is needed
for specialized studies of the Golden Dawn, with the exception of one, crucial
set of documents: the Minute Books. It is unlikely that any of the Minute
Books was deliberately destroyed and there is no obvious reason why they
should not have remained with other Order papers, but only one - for the
Ahathoor Temple in Paris - has been discovered, and that deals only with
meetings of the Outer Order. Why the Minute Books disappeared, and what
became of them are questions that cannot be answered, but any classification
of the archives must allow for the possibility of their eventual discovery.
The classification of the archives suggested here di~ides them into three
groups, containing papers relating respectively to the origins of the Order, to
its administrative and ritual structure, and to its history. Under the first
heading, "origins", come the cipher manuscripts, the Anna Sprengel letters
with their associated correspondence and affidavits, and the original charter
 Magical Manuscripts 165

of the Golden Dawn. The second heading, "administration and ritual", covers
all official documents, printed and manuscript and of all factions, including
constitutions, manifestoes, ordinances, bye-laws and summonses to meetings;
and all ritual material, including Outer Order ceremonies, Knowledge
lectures, Second Order rituals and instructions, and the "Flying Rolls". The
final heading, "history", includes both official and unofficial records. Among
the former are the parchment Rolls of the Order, the address book, lists of
members and collections of Pledge forms; also the Minute Books, reports
and balance sheets of individual Temples, committee reports, official
correspondence and the Second Order diaries. The unofficial records include
private diaries and notes, private correspondence, private records of magical
working and the miscellaneous memorabilia of individual members.
Using this classification it becomes a simple task to relate the original
documents to secondary sources, and as an aid to this I have indicated, in the
following description of the manuscript sources, where the texts may be found
of those documents that have already been published. With the exception of
those contained in the Yeats papers, all previously unpublished documents of
any significance and relating to Yeats are printed below (following the
description of the collections). This said, it must be remembered that the
descriptive accounts are general guides to, and not complete catalogues if the
contents of each collection.

THE MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

Private Collection A

Virtually all the papers relating to the origin of the Order are contained in
the A collection: the original cipher manuscripts, the Anna Sprengel letters
with contemporary translations, affidavits and correspondence relating to
their authenticity (and to Westcott's honesty or lack of it), and the original
charter of the Golden Dawn. The cipher manuscripts 3 were reproduced in
part in the occult journal Agape, while partial translations were issued in 1982
by Weirdglow-Sothis; translations of the Anna Sprengel letters appear in
Howe, and the charter will be printed in my forthcoming Golden Dawn
Companion (Wellingborough: Crucible).
Most of the official printed documents issued between 1888 and 1902, and
later official documents of the Stella Matutina, are present in the collection.
These include Ordinances and Isis-Urania bye-laws for 1888, Second Order
bye-laws of 1900, the proposed Reconstitution of 1902, pattern Pledge forms
of various dates, printed summonses for the Isis-Urania and Horus Temples,
undertakings to return documents and Felkin's new Constitution of 1916. All
of these except the summonses and undertakings will appear in The Goldetz
Dawn Companion. Ritual material is poorly represented; there are manuscript
copies of Second Order rituals by Carnegie Dixon, later typescripts of the
166 Yeats Annual No. 5

grade ceremonies as revised for the Stella Matutina, and a number of

instructional lectures by Felkin.
On a mundane level the history of the Order is represented by balance
sheets for Isis-Urania from 1889 to 1894, a series of reports on the Horus
Temple (printed in Howe, pp. 111-12) and a report of the consecration of
Ahathoor Temple No. 7 in Paris. Later material includes the warrants for
Felkin's Hermes and Smaragdum Thalasses Temples, and a manuscript list
of members of the Stella Matutina- undated, but c. 1914- on which Yeats
appears as Imperator of the Temple and as the authority on "Ancient
Traditions". More interesting are the Second Order diaries, substantial
extracts from which appear in Howe. He is incorrect over one Yeats entry: on
22 July 1893, Yeats was issued with Flying Roll No. XIII - not with No.
XII - so that he was evidently then studying Florence Farr's Secrecy and
Hermetic Love rather than Mathers' lecture On Angelic Telesmatic Images.
The history of the "rebellion" of 1900 is fully covered, for the collection
contains not only the printed Statement of Recent Events (for which see The
Golden Dawn Companion) and its accompanying List rif Documents (printed in
Harper, Yeats's Golden Dawn), but also the original documents themselves and
additional related material. Yeats's account of his meeting with Westcott, and
Westcott's notes on it, are printed below. The later dispute over Florence
Farr's Sphere Group is also fully documented, with Annie Horniman's
Statement to the Chiefs (printed in Howe), the Judgment of the Chiefs and
Minutes of the Judgment, a legal opinion on the question of liability for rent,
and Felkin's personal account of the group.
The collection also contains a wealth of correspondence, much of it utilized
by Howe. Most important are the letters of Mathers concerning the
"rebellion": one addressed to Yeats and twenty-five to Annie Horniman;
copies of the correspondence between Waite and Brodie-Innes over the
proposed Concordat; letters of Fclkin to all and sundry over the Stella
Matutina; and later letters of Miss Stoddart reflecting the increasing problems
of Felkin's branch. Other letters between members span the whole period
from 1888 to 1916, while other papers include a splendidly lunatic
Psychometric Report on the original cipher manuscript, and Miss Stoddart's
lengthy and unpublished Investigations into the foundations of the Order G.D. &
R.R. et A.C. and the source of its Teachings. This was eventually divested of its
more rational parts and incorporated in Light-bearers rif Darkness (London:
Boswell, 1930). Yeats is represented among the historical material by an
undated note to Florence Farr and a letter of 1909 to Felkin, enclosing and
explaining a letter to the Society of Authors that concerned the copyrights of
the Order rituals. All three are printed below.

Private Collection B

With the exception of a series of Outer Order Knowledge lectures in the

 Magical Manuscripts 167

hand of W. E. H. Humphrys, the ritual material is confined to Second Order

manuscripts transcribed by the Revd. W. A. Ayton, Dr Bogdan E.J. Edwards
and Florence Farr; this last is The Book of the Concourse of the Forces, Binding
together the Powers of the Squares i11 the Terrestrial Qpadrangle of Enoch which
Florence Farr compiled in October 1893. In addition to official rituals there
are transcripts of two alchemical works that were circulated in the Order: the
Aurea Catena Homeri, transcribed by Mina Mathers, and Percy Bullock's copy
of Bacstrom's Essay on Alchemy4 which has an appendix of additional texts, The
Work of Philope Ponia for accomplishing the Elixir, inscribed "recopied by
S.S.D.D." [i.e. Florence Farr] 1893.
The B collection also contains the official address book of the Golden
Dawn - unquestionably the most useful document in the whole of the
archives. This lists the name, address, motto, Temple, date of initiation and
grade attained of 332 members who joined the Order between 1888 and 1897,
together with the reasons for leaving the Order of those who did so. A
transcription of the entries will appear in The Golden Dawn Companion.
There are also three extraordinary private records of magical workings: two
that concern clairvoyant "Sword Visions", by Harriet Butler and by Kate
Moffatt, are printed in my Tile Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians
(Aquarian, 1983), while the third is a record of Ayton's experiments in
"Skrying and Travelling in the Spirit Vision", carried out with the aid of his
wife during December 1891 and january 1892. Twice during these experiments
Mrs Ayton came upon Mathers - presumably even then suspicious of the
astral doings of his colleagues.

Private Collection C

The third private collection contains some twenty-four volumes of Golden

Dawn ceremonies and Second Order rituals, copied by Ayton, Mrs Hunter,
M. W. Blackden and J. Lorimer Thompson, together with typescripts of Mrs
Hunter's Lecture 011 Clairvoyance and Neville Meakin's Stut[y of Numbers, and an
almost complete set of Flying Rolls 5 in the hand of Colonel Webber. There is
also a record of Mrs Felkin's clairvoyant Experiences in Egypt of 1907, bound
up with a single sheet headed Concerning the Points of the Six-Rayed Star, a brief
account of a magical working in 1906 that was intended to involve both Yeats
and A. E. Waite, although neither was present. The text is printed below.
Of greater importance are the three historical documents contained in
Private Collection C. These comprise the Minute Book of Ahathoor Temple
and the parchment Rolls of both the Isis-Urania Temple and the R.R. et A.C.
The Minute Book records all Outer Order meetings from the founding of
Ahathoor in December 1893 to May 1900, the meetings for 1900 being
minuted in French (from July 1896 ceremonies were performed variously in
the English or French languages). There is, however, no reference at all to
 168 Yeats Annual No. 5

Yeats and it is clear that he did not attend any regular meetings of the
Temple.
The parchment Roll of Isis-Urania Temple, which measures 2' X 4' 6", is
inscribed with the name, motto, date of initiation and assigned number of
each member, from the foundation in March 1888 to january 1910. Initially
members were numbered according to their date of entry into the Order, but
this was altered early in 1892 to numbering on the basis of entry into Isis-
Urania. This led to inconsistencies in numbering, and in 1895 all the entries
were re-numbered. After December 1901 there is a hiatus until 1904, by
which time the Roll was in the possession of Dr Felkin; all entries from 1904
onwards are thus of members of his Stella Matutina Temple. Yeats's entry on
the Roll, numbered first 78 and then 62, is dated March 1890. It is reproduced
as Plate V(b) in Howe. At the head of the Roll is the text of the candidate's
Obligation; the wording was altered in 1900 and a second parchment giving
the new version has been pinned over the original. Both versions, together
with the Second Order Obligation, will be printed in The Golden Dawn
Companio11.
The other Roll is slightly longer, measuring 2' X 5', and is signed with the
mottoes only of members of the Second Order, together with precise dates of
entry. There are 134 names on the Roll up to 1902, and a further fifteen from
Felkin's Stella Matutina Temple from 1906 to 1910. Until December 1891
members took a simple Obligation after completing the prescribed course of
study - except for the first four names of the Roll which are all fictitious - and
thereafter were initiated in the Vault of the Adepts. The first was Annie
Horniman on 7 December, followed by Florence Farr on 22 December (the
Roll gives her date as 2 August but the correct date appears on a smaller
parchment loosely inserted in the larger Roll). Yeats, numbered 32 on the
Roll, entered the Second Order on 20January 1893.
By the terms of the Concordat between the Stella Matutina and the
Independent and Rectified Rite, the Rolls had been held in trust for both
branches of the Order, but after Felkin's departure for New Zealand in 1916,
Waite took sole possession of them. Later he refused to give them up when
Carnegie Dixon, who was then virtually in complete charge of the Stella
Matutina Temple, demanded their return in 1938. It is as well for posterity
that he did so, for Carnegie Dixon told Waite 6 that he held most of Westcott's
Golden Dawn papers, all of which have since vanished without trace.

The Yorke Collection

Much of the Yorke collection is devoted to the life and work of Aleister
Crowley, but of the 104 folders in which it is contained, forty are devoted to
Golden Dawn material. The bulk of these contains the papers of Frederick
Leigh Gardner and the collection thus provides a more coherent view of the
Order and its activities during the period of his membership ( 1894-99) than
 Magical Manuscripts 169

can be gained from the more heterogeneous private collections. Extra material
added by Mr Yorke includes typed transcripts of Gardner's manuscripts, his
own essays on the Order, correspondence with surviving Stella Matutina
members, and manuscripts of Allan Bennett that came into the collection via
Aleister Crowley.
There are two significant contributions to the problem of the Order's
origin: a hostile analysis of the cipher story, in the form of Confidential Notes by
E. J. Langford Garstin, and a letter of 1912 from Westcott to Gardner
concerning the origin of the Golden Dawn.
Gardner's own papers include his manuscript copies of the Bye-Laws of
both Orders for 1900, of Mathers' Manifesto of 1896 and of the "Statement"
issued by the Adepti in 1900. There is also a printed copy of the List of
Documents and printed Bye-Laws for the Horus Temple (which Gardner joined
in 1897). An annotated summons for an Isis-Urania meeting on 26 November
1896 reads "Please conduct Mr. Vyvyan Dent' to the Hall [i.e. Mark Masons'
Hall] Address by the Fra. D.E.D.I".
The collection of manuscript rituals is extensive. There are fifty-two of
Gardner's notebooks covering all the grade ceremonies, the Knowledge
lectures, Second Order Rituals and most of the Flying Rolls. Many of the
ritual texts have been printed in Israel Regardie's The Complete Golden Dawn
System of Magic (Phoenix: Falcon, 1984). Ritual manuscripts from other
sources include seven notebooks of Allan Bennett and one of the Revd A. H.
E. Lee. Of greater interest is Gardner's 5 = 6 Examination Record, which is
the only one known to have survived.
Among private magical records in the collection are Annie Horniman's
notes of seven "Astral Vision" workings with Gardner in 1898, Enochian
workings of Gardner and of W. E. H. Humphrys, and a number of
manuscripts predating the Golden Dawn. These comprise Gardner's notes of
spiritualist seances held between 1878 and 1880, his transcript of an
unpublished work of Eliphas Levi, Libres pensees sur des idees nouvelles, a
notebook of K. R. H. Mackenzie on magical and cabbalistical science, and
two manuscripts on Crystallomancy: one in the hand of F. G. Irwin and the
other copied from a Hockley manuscript.
More important is the correspondence in the collection, for Gardner seems
to have kept almost every letter he received from his fellow magicians. These
have yet to be catalogued, but his correspondents included Ayton (the letters
are published in Howe (ed.) The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn: the Letters of the
Revd. W. A. Ayton to F. L. Gardner and Others 1886-1905 (Wellingborough:
Aquarian, 1985)), Allan Bennett (20), Mathers (41, utilized by Howe),
Florence Farr (40) and Westcott (183). Also preserved are the replies to the
petition against Annie Horniman's expulsion from the Order in 1896 (the
standard form of the petition is printed in Howe), a very large number of
letters from other Golden Dawn members and letters to them from Gardner.
Gardner also preserved all the correspondence, estimates and contracts
relating to Mathers' magnum opus, Tile Book of the Sacred Magic of A bra-Melin the
 170 Yeats Annual No.5

Mage (London: Watkins, 1898), together with Mina Mathers remarkable

drawing for the book's frontispiece. The saga of this book's production is
recounted in Howe, chapter 12. Other Gardner memorabilia in the collection
have not been well served: Mr Yorke had a regrettable habit of annotating
manuscripts and using adhesive tape to mount ephemera in scrapbooks.

The Yeats Papers

A preliminary survey of Yeats's Occult Papers has been given by George M.

Harper in YO. The open Letters to the Adepti of the R.R. et A.C. and the
Impression of 6-5 Ceremony, describing astral appearance of Postulant, Frater D.E.D.l.
Oct. 16, 1914 arc printed in the same author's Yeats's Golden Dawn (London:
Macmillan, 1974), while most of the letters relating to the Golden Dawn
(from Pamela Bullock, Dr. Felkin, W. T. Horton, Mathers and Mina Mathers,
and Miss Stoddart) appear in LTWBY. His own copies of Order rituals, and
those of George Pollcxfen, seem to be standard, to judge by the reproductions
of sample leaves from them given (although not always with the correct
ascriptions) in Kathleen Raine's Yeats: the Tarot and the Golden Dawn (Dublin:
Dolmen, 1972). Any useful analysis of Golden Dawn material among Yeats's
papers must await a full catalogue, which does not seem to be an immediate
prospect.

The Collins Collection

This collection (formerly in the Bridewell Library of Southern Methodist

University; now returned to Mr Collins), consists principally of manuscript
and typescript copies of standard rituals, mostly acquired commercially.
Many are late typescripts relating to the Cromlech and Amoun Temples,
some being anonymous and others the work of Mrs Trancheii-Hayes. Earlier
manuscripts were copies by Mrs Hunter and by W. E. H. Humphrys. The
most important part of the collection is a series of manuscript notebooks in
the hand of Mathers: Occult and Ancient Alphabets; Synopsis of the Kabbalah
Unveiled; The Practice qf the East Tablet; and Salomonis Clavicula.

The Gilbert Collection

The records of Waite's Independent and Rectified Rite are extensive, but
Waite did not possess any documents antedating the schism of 1903. There is
a complete series of both Outer Order and Second Order rituals, as revised
by Waite, and a number of lectures devised for Second Order members. The
"official" records comprise the Statement and Manifesto of july 1903 (printed in
The Golden Daw11), Isis-Urania summonses from 1904· to 1914, Pledge forms
for each candidate from 1904 to 1913, and reports of the Convocations of the
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1. Yeats's holograph list of poems for a new volume, 1939. Photograph courtesy of the Robert
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2. Arthur Symons in 1897, from a portrait by Sassano of Old Bond Street. Photograph by courtesy
of Mrs Diana P. Read and the Literary Estate of Arthur Symons.
3. Edith Ellen Hyde-Lees (nee WoodmassL mother of George Yeats, 1908. Photograph courtesy of
Dr Grace M. Jaffe.
4. Georgie Hyde-Lees (later George Yeats), n.d. Photograph courtesy of Or Grace M. Jaffe.
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5. Mrs Edward Emery, (i.e. Florence Farrl. After a drawing by John Butler Yeats, reproduced in the Art
Review, 1:6 (June 1890) 181, to illustrate a feature upon the Bedford Park production of John
Todhunter's The Sicilian Idyll.
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6a. The signatures of Annie Horniman, W. B. Yeats. Florence Emery, J. W. Brodie-Innes and others.
together with their order mottoes, on the parchment Roll of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
!Private Collection C).

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6b. Yeats's signature, as Demon Est Deus lnversus, at No. 32 on the Second Order Roll of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. (Private Collection C).
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7a. The Great Seal of the Ordo Rosoo Rubeoo et Aureoo Crucis, below which the newly obligated Adepti signed
their mottoP.s. It was painted on the Second Order Roll by Mina Mathers. (Private Collection C).

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7b. The names of Maud Gonne (No. 1261. A. E. Waite, John Todhunter, Henrietta Paget. Pamela
Carden {Bullock! and others, together with their order mottoes, on the parchment Roll of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Maud Gonne's motto, Per lgnem ad Lucem, is missing from the
document. !Private Collection C).
 Ba. llehl W. B. Yeats aged c. 9
years. Photograph courtesy of
Colin Smythe on behalf of the
O'Broin Trust Collection,
National Library of Ireland.

Bb. {right) Memorial tablet toW.

B. Yeats at the site of his
temporary burial, Roquebrune.
Photograph © Chris Spurr,
courtesy of Colin Smythe.
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Yeats, Oxford, 8 May 1938. Photograph © David Ross, from the original in the collection of Warwick Gould.
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:os alway• at my ldt ,id<· ju't uut uf tht> nmg<• 11f 1hc·
bra7.('11 wing<·d h<w;t' that I a'sudated with laughing,
<'C , talic destruction! ~lt,·n I wrotl', spurrt>d by u1t.
~en necessity, IPhcrc Tlt~rc is Notlli•llf, :o crude play
wilh some dr:mtatk li>rt·(', sincl' changed with L:u.ly
• Aftt>rw:uds tl(lSrriiJetl in ttly p•tt•lll '/"( ..\'n·mt.ICcmtiJtJ{.
/

,.
t ·' .• .• ··: <- ··-
,. •
..
\ t t ....

10. B. L. Add. MS. 55B85, f. 55'. Proof state of a page from the 'Introduction' to The
Resurrection, dated 8 February 1939, and corrected in the hand of Thomas Mark.
Photograph courtesy of the Department of MSS. The British Library.
 . ·, ... ,...
h ·'

I . '

; .• •' .I

, ...
.
~~........_
,

11. A sample page If. 1651 from W. B. Yeats' s Great Vellum Manuscript Book, sold at
Sotheby's, Bloomfield Place, on 22 July 1985. The draft is of "Coole Park and Ballylee,
1931", here entitled "Coole 1932". Photograph courtesy of Felix Pryor, Sotheby's.
 " .<:;
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 Magical Manuscripts 171

R.R. et A.C. from 1904 to 1908. The report for 1904 discusses the attitudes to
the schism taken by old members and mentions Yeats: "The V.H. Frater
D.E.D.I., moving from place to place and his views for the most part
unknown."
Throughout 1903 (strictly from October 1902 to October 1903- Waite's
birthday was on 2 October) Waite kept an extraordinarily full diary that he
labelled Annus Mirabilis Redivivus. This describes in detail the events that led
up to the schism and the many secret meetings and discussions that preceded
it. It is quite clear that· the coup d'etat was well-planned and that Waite's
account of it in his autobiography, Shadows of Life and Thought, is, to say the
least, misleading.
The remaining document concerning the Golden Dawn is a notebook,
transcribed in 1915 and entitled Ordo R Ret A C The Testimonies of Frater Finem
Respice, [i.e. Felkin] lmperator of the Templum Stellae Matutinae, on Matters
connected with an alleged Third Order, the German Rosy Cross, and the Business of his
Temple. It illustrates neatly Felkin's increasing obsession with Hidden Masters
and Waite's growing scepticism- which extended to Felkin's remarks about
Yeats (for which, see below). Many of Waite's papers after 1915 are concerned
with his fellowship of the Rosy Cross, which worked concurrently with the
Stella Matutina although there was never any direct contact between the two
bodies. William Carnegie Dixon, who was perhaps the most rational member
of the Stella Matutina, acted as the Order's hoarder of documents, but if his
papers survive their present location is unknown. If one day they are found,
they will fill the gaps in the archives of the Golden Dawn and enable the
complete picture of the Order's history finally to be painted.

THE DOCUMENTS

From Private Collection A

(a) Yeats to Florence Farr (undated, c. April 1900)

18 Woburn Buildings,
Euston Road
Dear Mrs. Emery,
I have asked Charles Russell to telegraph the hour that will suit him. I
will meet you there. His address is 37 Norfolk St., Strand.
Yrs. always
W.B. Yeats

(b) Co1wersation with "SA" on june 6 [ 1900) about 5 = 6 matters etc.

(contained in an envelope so addressed in Yeats's hand)

I met SA yesterday in a book shop I asked him to send me enclosed

172 Yeats Annual No.5

statement as a story was going about that I had asked him to lead us. I had
some talk with him about 5 = 6 matters etc. I asked was there a cypher
ms. He said not so far as he ever heard. He thought that DDCF [i.e.
Mathers] might have got it the ritual in some Paris library. DDCF had
always told him that he had met a learned Frater in Paris & he may have
done so (I gathered that SA thought the source was [p 2] probably some
library but that at the same time he was inclined to believe in the learned
Frater) I asked if it came from Germany. He said no & added nothing
came from Germany except some things for him personally. I asked if these
had been used in making the second order & he said "no - at least not by
me" (I concluded from this that DDCF had so used them & also that SA
was afraid of confirming the statement that he had "received an epitome of
the second order knowledge".) I asked about the Microcosm lecture & he
said he concluded that DDCF made this up himself & added that it was
not very difficult to [p 3] get things when one was really working. Things
had come to him which had made Mme. Blavatsky say "I thought nobody
in Europe but myself could have written that". He added rather irrelevantly
that he had written the ritual used for neophytes by the Esoteric Section [of
the Theosophical Society]. I asked about the I 0 = I 9 = 2 8 = 3 7 = 4
system. He said that Kenneth Mackenzie had been told of it years ago in
Germany & that it was confirmed by the numbers on the cypher MSS. He
was very cautious, very anxious it seemed to me, not to appear to decry any
[p 4) claim DDCF might possibly make or have made & at the same time
anxious that we should not think DDCF had done anything reprehensible.
He wound up by asking me not to let it be generally known that I had met
him.
D.E.D.I.
PS. I drew his attention to the use of the word "collegium", noted as the
"domum" of the "Fama", in the 5 = 6 ritual. I asked if there were other
editions of the "Fama" which might contain the different word. He said
"Yes a number".

Enclosed with the above note is a further sheet bearing on one side a brief
account in Westcott's hand of his meeting with Yeats on 20 March 1900. The
verso bears Yeats's comments.

Westcott's account (Headed "Copy" and dated 20 March 1900)

Frater Yeats called without warning, and said - What is your attitude
towards Mathers? and his pupils? Those I represent are inclined to throw
off his chief-ship, because he is so erratic, and makes offensive assertions
about his position, and so we are quarrelling with him. He attacks your late
position - I answered - I can take no part in your affairs - I know nothing
of your complaints - I will not interfere - even to defend myself- unless I
 Magical Manuscripts 173

am forced - You owe much to Mathers - if you do not like his rule, you
should resign -you can't contest with him.

Yeats's Note on the Above (headed "DEDI account of interview")

SA remembers what he himself said fairly though not completely; but less
correctly what I said. I went to ask him to tell what he knew about the
origin of the documents DDCF declared to be forged. I made it plain to
him that DDCF would have to substantiate his charges or withdraw them,
or clear out. When I found that SA was afraid to meet the charges in any
way I said - here I remember my exact words "your silence will have a
very bad effect on the committee" But has he heard I said the tales of
DDCF being "erratic" He said "you have a mad man for chief what more
can you expect" DEDI June 6. 1900

(c) Note in Westcott's hand about his meeting with Yeats, headed "March 20, 1900"

W. B. Yeats called & said that the Isis Temple GD was in a very disturbed
state & a committee had been appointed & was considering whether to
secede from Mr. Mathers or to throw him off. W. said he had retired years
ago from the Order, promising M. a free hand & that W. could not
interfere with him. & now just because M. did mad things- W. could not
cut in again. M. cannot prove his charges, but on the other hand W. cannot
prove the truth of the history - & his lawyer considers W. should abstain
from any statement until compelled to enter into controversy- W. therefore
declined to make any statement as to Ms new attitude because if he denied
it that would involve his calling M. a liar on the other hand - if he
confessed to M's new tale that would be to say Dr. Woodman was a liar,
and Mrs. Woodman would have a grievance- Yeats said he represented
the Committee but declined to give their names - W. said he could not
interfere & must allow- if necessary- opinion to go agst. him- because his
witnesses being dead he could not disprove anything.

(d) Yeats to Felkin, 11 June 1909, with the Letter to the Socie{Y of Authors Enclosed

18, Woburn Buildings,

Woburn Place, London, N.W.
June II, 1909.
Dear Dr. Felkin,
I send you a copy of a letter which I have sent to the Society of Authors I
will let you know the answer at once. I think a publication in Latin would
be perfectly dignified and would be a very efficient protection, if it is a
174 Yeats Annual No.5

protection at all. Of course after a certain number of years our rights would
then come to an end and the works would become public property. They
would probably not interest many people and if they are to become public
property in any case the argument is not important.
Yours
W B Yeats

Dear Sir,
I would be much obliged if you would be so good as to answer for me the
following questions as to the English Copyright Law:
A mass of MSS. is in the possession of a Society I belong to. They are of
a nature of Masonic Rituals and of no interest to the public, but have for
various reasons considerable sacredness to the minds of those who use
them. An expelled member of the Society threatens, because he knows of
this sacredness and because it offers him an opportunity for revenge to
publish these MSS. I wish to know if I can prevent this by having them
published in Latin, as far as possible merely technically published. I do not
know their author and no one else does. They may be no older than a
hundred years, parts of them may be quite recent, or they may be of much
greater antiquity. We have therefore no rights except possession of the MS.
We have not even the ancient copies for one member copies the MS. of a
predecessor and there are often slight adaptions which cause the old copies
to go out of use. If it is possible for us to secure the copyright in this way,
for how long do we secure it? And is the right of quotation which I
understand exists so large and indefined as to make an almost complete
publication by an enemy still possible? I mean could he do so in the name
of quotation. I am sorry to have to bother you with a somewhat unusual
and perhaps troublesome question.

FROM PRIVATE COLLECTION C

Concerning the Points of the Six Rayed Star

[Note Order mottoes in this document are as follows: D.E.D.I. i.e. Demon est
Deus Inversus, W. B. Yeats; F.R. i.e. Finem Respice, Robert W. Felkin; Q.L. i.e.
Quaero Lucem, Mrs Robert W. Felkin (second wife); S.R. i.e. Sacramentum Regis,
A. E. Waite; S.U.S.C. i.e. Sequor Ubi Signet Crux, Mrs [Wynne] Ffoulkes, i.e.
Mrs Louise Florence Ffoulkes, whose first motto in the Order had been In Hoc
Signo Vinces; V. V. i.e. Veritas Vi11cit, Mrs Agnes Cathcart].

Concerning the Points of the Six-rayed Star.

On july 8th V.V., S.U.S.C. and Q.L. met at 4 Nevern Square at 3 P.M. At
[3].15 P.M. F.R. came astrally. The remaining points- S.R. and D.E.D.I.
were unable to attend.
 Magical Manuscripts 175

V.V. sat on the sofa, S.U.S.C. on her right and Q.L. opposite. F.R. came
and stood between and behind S.U.S.C. He said:- "You form the
Feminine Triangle. Do not attempt to initiate, wait till the Masculine
Triangle is also formed." Q.L. repeated this to the other two and they
asked her to draw what appeared to her the correct position of the points
which she did thus:-
They then moved so that
S.U.S.C. sat in the position given,
thus formulating the Triangle as
shown.
They asked why she thought
these were the positions. After a
short meditation she gave the
attributions as follows:- Q.L.

F.R. h The Guide at the Rending of the Veil who lets the Light
through.
v.v. d The energizing power of Water; the masculine aspect of the
feminine.
s.u.s.c. 4 The religious and doctrinal aspect of occultism.
D.E.D.I. ~ The intellectual mystic.
S.R.? The Planet which includes all the Ten Sephiroth, the
feminine aspect of the masculine.
Q.L. ll The receptive and reflective.
And in the Centre 0 thee Pastos on which all Six Points are to
concentrate that they may formulate 0.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

The Upper and Lower Triangles should meet or correspond once a

fortnight on the 1st and 15th of each month, and on the 25th of each
month all should meet or write.
At these meetings if any are absent their Sacramental Names should be
written on cards and placed in their appropriate angles while those present
should formulate them as there; the absentees should try to be present in
spirit and all should compare notes of what each perceives. If correct it will
be found that they supplement each other. On the Lid of the Pastos much
will be seen, at times written messages, and again diagrams or pictures.
A formula such as:- "We invoke the Chiefs of the Third Order to be
present and to communicate with us directly, we require new teaching and
instruction regarding the carrying of the Great Work. We renew our
Obligations but we request and require the aid so often promised." This
should be repeated perhaps ten times and then all should make the 5-6
Signs after which they must await in peace for what may befall.
Note carefully that each must keep his or her own individuality without
176 Yeats Annual No. 5

attempting to combine personalities. Absolute secrecy is essential; no

reference must be made to this work outside the Angles.
All should be robed in white and wear the Rose Cross. The mind should
be as passive as possible.

Given me by Q.L. [i.e. Mrs. Felkin]

at the house ofV.H. Soror Childers
on july 20th, '06.
[in the hand of A. E. Waite]

FROM GILBERT COLLECTION

References to Yeats in the Ordo RR et AC Notebook of A. E. Waite,

1915

Entry number XXXIII in the notebook, record Waite's meeting with Felkin
on I August 1912. Each entry is divided into numbered paragraphs, built up
from notes made at the time of the meeting. Fclkin was discussing the attitude
of German "rosicrucians", in fact followers of Rudolf Steiner, to the Golden
Dawn.

[Paragraph] 66. The German story is further than DDCF worked up the
Ciphers, as arranged by the triad, and the GD was started under the
auspices of which we know.
67. There was no idea of any RC connection at first.
68. But DDCF belonged to a secret society of which Demon est Deus
inversus was a member also, and the former went to Paris in this interest -
possibly more than once.

Waite was sceptical about the reference to Yeats and commented on it in a

later paragraph.

83. If the name of D.E.D.I. was not imported into this story by FR [i.e.
Fincm Respice = Fclkin] in the accidents of conversation, the Germans arc
probably wrong on this point.

Entry number XXXV "Information from Vigilatc [i.e. Mrs. Rand] &
Sapientia [i.e. Florence Farr], August 22nd 1912" includes Florence Farr's
comments to Waite on her entry into the Golden Dawn.

II. Sapientia entered the Order at the instance of D.E.D.I., expecting little
from it.
12. She had met DDCF and Vestigia [i.e. Mrs. Mathers] when she first
went to sec H.P. Blavatsky.
 Magical Manuscripts 177

13. She thinks that the pair came over from Paris for her and Fortiter's [i.e.
Annie Horniman's] reception into the 5 = 6 and previously to paint the
vault.

The last entry appears to confirm a December date for Florence Farr's
initiation into the Second Order.

NOTES

I. Printed as Appendix T, pp. 306-7, of George Mills Harper, Yeats's Golden Dawn
(London: Macmillan, 1974).
2. The principal sources for published texts are Harper (op. cit.}; Ellie Howe, The
Magicians rif the Golden Dawn; a Documentary History rif a Magical Order 1887-1923
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972; new ed.: 1985}; and R. A. Gilbert, The
Golden Dawn, Twilight of the Magicians (Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1983}.
3. The Cypher MSS of the Golden Dawn (London: Weirdglow-Sothis, 42 Hay Lane NW9
OND, 1982}. See also Agape the Occult Reuiew, eds K. Meyers & A. Drylie, Bath, nos
5, 6, 7, 8, (1973, 4, 6, 7).
4. This text was published as Bacstrom's Alchemical Anthology, edited and with an
introduction by J. W. Hamilton-Jones (London: Watkins, 1960).
5. The "Flying Rolls" were instructional lectures concerned largely with magical
practices. The authors were drawn exclusively from the Second Order. Some of
them were published in Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn (Chicago: Aries, 1937--40,
4 vols}, and most of the remainder appears in Astral Projection, Magic and Alchemy, by
S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Others, being hitherto Unpublished Golden Dawn
\1aterial, edited and introduced by Francis King (London: Neville Spearman,
971). .
tter of W. E. Carnegie Dixon to A. E. W~ite, 20 November 1938, from 7 Upper
·ley Street. In the collection of the present writer.
. . Vyvyan Dent took the motto "Migrabo" and entered the Second Order on 20Jan. 1898.
The subject of Yeats's "Address" is not known.

[Note: As this volume went to press, an important new discovery of the papers of W.
H)onn Westcott was made. These papers contain several items relating to Yeats, including
his application to join the Second Order, and those of a number of his associates, including
Florence Farrand George Pollexfen. Further information on this collection will appear in
a subsequent issue ofYeats Annual, Ed.]