A review of Nick Farrell's article 'Secret Chiefs and the Golden Dawn'

o

Nick Farrell has published an article in the latest issue of Hermetic Virtues (Volume V Edition 17–Autumnal Equinox 2011) called “Secret Chiefs and the Golden Dawn”, in which he tries to refute the idea of physical Secret Chiefs altogether and instead promote astral and angelical channelings as a liable formula. Mr. Farrell accuses Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers of using lies and deception in trying to uphold the idea of a physical and incarnated Secret Chiefs while at the same time resorting to channeled sources.

S.L. MacGregor Mathers

Reading Mr. Farrell’s article it is shows an author who supposedly were at the scene (obviously using a time machine) when all the important occurrences worth mentioning were happening during the fin-de-siècle era. At least this is the impression one gets when reading Mr. Farrell’s article, which is a typical example of the writing style of yellow page journalism that we have grown accustomed to from his latest literary efforts. As an example he describes the process of S.L. MacGregor Mathers’ dealings with his Secret Chief, through the lens of a letter correspondence between himself and William Wynn Westcott. Yet he presents absolutely no sources or references to corroborate his story, in a manner that I have seen with other journalists posing as historians. Thus we must conclude that they are based upon Mr. Farrell’s own fabrications and fantasies, or embellishings, rather than anything solid and historically proven, other than whatever he may have read into Ellic Howe’s The Magicians of the Golden Dawn.

W.W. Westcott

Mr. Farrell also uses whatever Mr. Howe presents in his book (again not directly referring to Howe’s book as a source, although he does mention it as a important work on Golden Dawn history), as to the quotations from Annie Horniman’s “memorandum” written in 1898, to prove his case that it wasn’t MacGregor Mathers’ Secret Chief Lux e Tenebris who had told him to leave England and permanently move to Paris, contrary to whatever MacGregor Mathers himself claims in his official 1896 manifesto to the R.R. et A.C. Adepti:

I [was] able to proceed to the attainment of the Knowledge of the full 5° = 6° Ritual and of the Obligation thereof; and the establishment of the Vault of the Adepts; my quitting England being a necessary preliminary thereto.

S.L. MacGregor Mathers’ statement must be placed in juxtaposition with what his wife Mina Mathers, in her preface to her husband’s book The Kabbalah Unveiled, later wrote in 1926 concerning this matter:

Three or four years later [after the founding of the Order of the Golden Dawn] he was told by his Occult teachers to transfer his centre to Paris, where my husband and I lived for the rest of his life.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mina clearly refers to S.L. MacGregor Mathers’ prime motivation to move to Paris as to facilitate his communication with his Secret Chiefs. If they were solely astral or angelical contacts, surely there wouldn’t be any need for a physical relocation. These written statements, when compared together, for me clearly confirms that his Occult teachers, in the minds of MacGregor Mathers and his wife, were real and physical individuals.

Mina Mathers

Ignoring the accounts made by either of the MacGregor Mathers couple both Mr. Howe and Mr. Farrell lays more credibility to Miss Horniman’s word that the couple didn’t leave because of MacGregor Mathers being called to Paris by his “occult theachers” but rather that Mathers had followed the footsteps of his wife, who had received some funding from Miss Horniman to pursue her artistic talents in Paris. Miss Horniman’s quotation taken from The Magicians of the Golden Dawn reads in full:

They were living at Percy Street [following MacGregor Mathers loosing his job in 1891 and the couple consequently being forced to leave their flat at Stent Lodge, Forest Hill] and Mrs. Mathers asked me for a ‘loan’ immediately. I had only got about £8 (under £10 I know) in gold… Then I had some money to spare and proposed that she should go to Paris, not as an occultist but as a fellow [art] student of great promise. During 1891 I think they must have still lived in England–I find two cheques, on for £50, March 5th, 1891, and one of June 3rd, 1891, for £40 payable to a friend who gave me others instead as I wished to keep the matter secret. [My emphasis]

However we cannot know all the transactions that occurred between Miss Horniman and Mina Mathers or her husband. Perhaps Mina or her husband had already hinted to her that they wished to leave England for Paris, following the loss of their income and old living quarters, hoping for Horniman to fund their project following MacGregor’s encounter with L.e.T. in 1891. To me Miss Horniman emphasizing that Mina should leave for Paris without her husband and not as that of an occultist hints at such a possible scenario. Be there as it may, but whatever Mr. Howe and Mr. Farrell have based their own conclusion on is the somewhat ambiguous words of Annie Horniman (and here even Mr. Howe confesses that the “memorandum” in question is a bit difficult to follow logically) who by the time she wrote her “memorandum” in 1898 had an ax to grind with MacGregor Mathers, who by then had expelled her from the Order. It is clear that she disliked MacGregor Mathers and thought of her friend (that is Mina Mathers) to have fallen pray into his hands. Can we sense a tone of jealousy here, on the part of Miss Horniman, that her friend preferred her husband (and his influences) before her? Let us not digress to far into the topic of Annie Horniman, who would serve to be a fine case study for a psychoanalytic essay.

Annie Horniman

I won’t go into any greater details regarding Mr. Farrell’s personal opinions on this matter of Secret Chiefs in the flesh or the “mental condition” of MacGregor Mathers, other than making the readers aware that he himself has an interest in refuting physical Secret Chiefs to be anything but a myth and MacGregor Mathers to be a loony. He uses his usual talking points to further his own post-modern reconstruction of a Golden Dawn Order. Mr. Farrell clearly isn’t dealing with this subject from the perspective of a dispassionate and objective historical researcher, but obviously has his own agenda in furthering his opinionated and highly biased position, as any journalist would with an historical revisionist agenda. But I must react when he claims any historical veracity to his speculations.

Nick Farrell

One such claim is that both MacGregor Mathers and Westcott knew that the Secret Chief Lux E Tenebris was actually the Angel Raphael but that they both lied when they affirmed that he was a real and living person which MacGregor Mathers claimed to have met in 1891 in Paris. But what Mr. Farrell chooses to withhold his reader from is the true source of the Raphael equals L.e.T. story. It is actually based upon a visionary experience recorded back in 1888 (that is the year when the Golden Dawn was founded) by one Frater Vota Vita Mea, that is Thomas Henry Pattison which is listed as No. 8 of the Horus Temple No. 5 membership roll, admitted as a 5°=6° by march 1888. The letter in which this vision is presented has previously been published in full by R.A. Gilbert in his The Golden Dawn Scrapbook, pages 37-39. The transcript reeds in full thus (retaining comments by Mr. Gilbert within square brackets):

Copy of Communication from the Inner Ring, made to Fra. Vota Vita Mea, given in his letter of June 20, 1888 to Fra Sapere Aude:

The Crowned One gave to Fras. V.V.M. and H. [presumably F.D. Harrison] much information concerning the natural creation and the following symbol was the one he adopted to illustrate primary creation or the union of first causes:


After this Fra. H. was conducted by an Eagle-headed messenger into the presence of the Angel R + [Raphael] (whom I, S'Rioghail Mo Dhream, know by the motto L[ux] e T[enebris]) He said:

‘I wish to speak to you of the G.D. The prime mover of it must exercise the keenest possible care, and must not accept people into its secrets who are not Occult Students, they all ought to have some occult development which has been the outcome of their own research; otherwise much Evil Magic will be the result. Much good can come out of it if rightly directed, but one Evil One can upset the Harmony of the whole, so that its efforts would be neutral for a lengthy period. The Idea in view must be not to establish an Order; but to gather together those men who are an Order In themselves. Understand that the G.D. is MY Order and that I am and must be accountable for it. The last one initiated [Dr T.W. Coffin, who left the Order within a year having remained in the grade of Neophyte] must be considered and allowed to wait before giving information; 2 or 3 others also are not of much use, and others are likely to drop out. You must take every care not to initiate any who have no occult tendency in a degree developed. Convey my message to those who can carry out my advice.

‘You must consider yourselves highly favoured indeed for being allowed to come in contact with the one (the Crowned One) you did tonight.

‘Also, I would caution and advise you to be very careful in the use of Divine Names, and all symbols should (be) correctly traced. I have seen this lady in Switzerland whom you have been trying to release. I confirm the work you have attempted. But you have failed to fully carry out your intention. The failure is due to the want of correctness in carrying out your Ritual. When the Divine Names are used they are made operative by the emotion of the Soul; if uttered by a cold soul-starved man they are of no use. Put your soul-power into them, and let your whole being speak them; then they do become Operative; and the final Issue of this lady in Switzerland is left open at present for your instruction. You have discovered and commanded the assailants, but you have not yet subdued them; although she will be very carefully watched now: You must make your promise of protection a fact, and establish it as a permanent operation. I shall see you again as to this.’

He also said; - ‘The G.D. will soon find the prime movers plenty to do; they will have more applicants than they can take; and if not careful will get beyond their control.’

He then said to Fra. H, ‘You can go’; and the Eagle-headed Messenger conducted him back. [My emphasis]

In this letter MacGregor Mathers clearly identifies the Angel R+ (which Mr. Gilbert infers is Raphael *Please read my addendum regarding the possible true identity of Angel R+) with Lux e Tenebris, the motto that MacGregor Mathers continued to used whenever he spoke of his later in the flesh Secret Chief which he met in Paris, anticipating Mathers and his wife finally moving to Paris a year later in 1892. This document Mr. Farrell uses to “prove” that MacGregor Mathers and Westcott had lied concering the in the flesh existence of L.e.T. and that his true nature actually was that of a purely astral or angelic entity.

For me it seems plausible that MacGregor Mathers used the Lux e Tenebris phrase as a generic motto or “decknamen” for whatever Secret Chief or source of inspiration he had come into contact with or believe in at a certain point. After the meeting with his physical Secret Chief in Paris he started to apply that motto onto him. Later on there started to spread a false rumour that the identity of L.e.T. was a Dr. Thiessen of Liege, who supposedly died in 1909. However, it’s a well known fact amongst initiates that the L.e.T. motto is a blind, and that the real motto and true identity of MacGregor Mathers’ continental Secret Chief is still secret to this day.

W.B. Yeats

Mr. Farrell then goes on to “analyse” (and we who had read his Mathers’ Last Secret knows what his biased analyses actually amounts to) the two accounts that we have from MacGregor Mathers regarding his physical encounters with his Secret Chiefs. The first is actually an account made by W. B. Yeats, taken from his Autobiographies written in 1926. Here Yeats recalls a conversation with MacGregor Mathers concerning the Secret Chiefs:

Once, when Mathers told me that he had met his Teachers in some great crowd, and only knew that they were phantoms by a shock that was like an electric shock to his heart, I asked him how he knew he was not deceived or hallucinated. He said, “I had been visited by one of them the other night, and I followed him out, and followed him down that little lane to the right. Presently I fell over the milk-boy, and the milk-boy got in a rage because he said that not only I but the man in front had fallen over him.” He, like all that I have known who have given themselves up to images, and to the speech of images, thought that when he had proved that an image could act independently of his mind, he had proved also that neither it, nor what it had spoken, had originated there.

Now Mr. Farrell infers Yeats to actually say that MacGregor Mathers had proved that whatever he saw didn’t actually exist in the place he said it had, referring to the quote in which Yeats says that Mathers, “like all that I have known who have given themselves up to images, and to the speech of images” thought that he had proven that a human made image had life of its own. Now, this in not at all what Yeats says. What actually was explained to Yeats by MacGregor Mathers was that he “thought that when he had proved that an image could act independently of his mind, he had proved also that neither it, nor what it had spoken, had originated there.” This example proves that Mr. Farrell is bent on twisting his sources and quoting them freely according for them to suit his own wishes.

The second “analysis” is of MacGregor Mathers famous (and in some quarters infamous) “manifesto” (a part of which I quoted above) of which parts referring to his rendezvous with the Secret Chiefs I will now quote in full:

The working of the Second Order having been thus initiated I was enabled to proceed to the acquirement of the Wisdom of the Zelator Adeptus Minor Grade for transmission to you: - a work, the enormous strain and labour of which it is impossible for me to exaggerate. For, you must not think that the obtaining of this Knowledge of the Second Order for you has been merely and simply the somewhat commonplace labour of translating a heap of unclassified MSS ready placed in my hands for that purpose. This might indeed be difficult and fatiguing, but it would be the merest child’s play compared with the Herculean task that I have been called upon to execute.

Concerning the Secret Chiefs of the Order, to whom I make reference and from whom I have received the Wisdom of the Second Order which I have communicated to you, I can tell you nothing.

I do not even know their earthly names.

I know them only by certain secret mottoes.

I have but very rarely seen them in the physical body; and on such rare occasions the rendezvous was made astrally by them at the time and place which had been astrally appointed beforehand.

For my part I believe them to be human and living upon this earth; but possessing terrible superhuman powers.

When such rendezvous has been in a much frequented place, there has been nothing in their personal appearance and dress to mark them out as differing in any way from ordinary people except the appearance and sensation of transcendent health and physical vigour (whether they seemed persons in youth or age) which was their invariable accompaniment; in other words, the physical appearance which the possession of the Elixir of Life has traditionally supposed to confer!

On the other hand, when the rendezvous has been in a place free from easy access by the Outer World they have usually been in symbolic robes and insignia.

But my physical intercourse with them on these rare occasions, has shewn me how difficult it is for a mortal, even though advanced in Occultism, to support the actual presence of an Adept in the Physical Body; and such meetings have never been granted to my own personal request, but only by their own special appointment; and usually only for some reason of special importance.

I do not mean that in such rare cases of physical converse with them that the effect produced on me was that intense physical exhaustion which follows depletion by magnetism; but, on the contrary, the sensation was that of being in contact with so terrible a force that I can only compare it to the continued effect of that usually experienced momentarily by a person close to whom a flash of lightning passes during a violent storm; coupled with a difficulty in respiration similar to the half-strangling effect produced by ether; and if such was the result produced in one, as tested as I have been in practical Occult Work, I cannot conceive a much less advanced Initiate being able to support such a strain even for five minutes, without Death ensuing.

Almost the whole of the Second Order Knowledge has been obtained by me from them in various ways; by clairvoyance, by Astral projection on their part and on mine-by the table, by the ring and disc, at times by a direct Voice audible to my external ear, and that of Vestigia [Mina Mathers], at times copied from books brought before me, I know not how, and which disappeared from my vision when the transcription was finished, at times by appointment Astrally at a certain place, till then unknown to me; and appointments made in the same manner and kept in the same manner as in the case of those rare occasions when I have met them by appointment in the physical body.

The strain of such labour has been, as you can conceive, enormous; in especial the obtaining of the Z ritual, which I thought would have killed me, or Vestigia or both, the nerve prostration after each reception being terrible from the strain of testing the correctness of every passage thus communicated; the nerve prostration alluded to being at times accompanied by profuse cold perspirations; and by severe loss of blood from the nose, mouth, and occasionally the ears.

You know the extreme and sustained attention and critical judgment requisite to obtain any reliable and truthful answer through the Table or the Ring and the Disc. Add to all this Ceremonies of Evocation, almost constant strife with opposing Demonic Forces endeavouring to stop the delivery and reception of the Wisdom; and the necessity of keeping the mind exalted towards the Higher Self; while at the same time exercising the critical Archaeological Knowledge and having to make the many references necessary to detect any misapprehension of meanings of passages in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Egyptian and what not; and you will only then have a faint idea of what my struggles have been. The only one among you who has known the fearful difficulties I have had to contend with, has been Sapere Aude [Westcott] and he has therefore well known that such work could not be done in a hurry and rapidly like mere mechanical transcription, or even like ordinary original composition.

According to Mr. Farrell the words of MacGregor Mathers betray the world view of Helena P. Blavatsky’s and Annie Besant’s Theosophical Society and only someone initiated into that world view (which I presume Mr. Farrell is) can truly understand his message. When MacGregor Mathers says regarding the Secret Chiefs that he “do not even know their earthly names” Mr. Farrell somehow regards this not to mean that MacGregor Mathers believed they were alive at this present time but that they were deceased. Not being privy to Theosophic initiation I cannot see much more to this sentense than that Mathers didn’t know….their Christian names! I suppose that this can be equally applied to living, dead or undead persons.

H.P. Blavatsky

When MacGregor Mathers says that he “know them only by certain secret mottoes” Mr. Farrell infers this to mean that the Archangel Raphael was turned into Lux E Tenebris! Couldn’t it also mean that they didn’t want to reveal their mundane identities? What about Occams Razor? And when MacGregor Mathers states that he “have but very rarely seen them in the physical body; and on such rare occasions the rendezvous was made astrally by them at the time and place which had been astrally appointed beforehand,” Mr. Farrell disbeliefs that he actually referred to physical bodies and that he instead rarely saw them with his eyes open, that he always ran into them at astral locations. Mr. Farrell states that this astral appointment procedure was a typical Theosophic formula. Here we see yet another example of Mr. Farrell choosing statements to suit his own agenda, clearly leaving out that sentence in the manifesto which says that “For my part I believe them to be human and living upon this earth” or referring to “my physical intercourse with them” or to that “of physical converse with them”, etc. How is that for Theosophic notions Mr. Farrell?

Annie Besant

Analysing the following statement by MacGregor Mathers when he says that “When such rendezvous has been in a much frequented place, there has been nothing in their personal appearance and dress to mark them out as differing in any way from ordinary people except the appearance and sensation of transcendent health and physical vigour (whether they seemed persons in youth or age) which was their invariable accompaniment; in other words, the physical appearance which the possession of the Elixir of Life has traditionally supposed to confer...” Mr. Farrell relegates this to some meditation technique of random encounters with anyone, clearly ignoring that an astral appointment had been made beforehand and that Mathers clearly knew that he was supposed to meet someone on a certain spot.

When MacGregor Mathers states that his “physical intercourse with them on these rare occasions, has shewn me how difficult it is for a mortal, even though advanced in Occultism, to support the actual presence of an Adept in the Physical Body” and later that “the sensation was that of being in contact with so terrible a force that I can only compare it to the continued effect of that usually experienced momentarily by a person close to whom a flash of lightning passes during a violent storm; coupled with a difficulty in respiration similar to the half-strangling effect produced by ether; and if such was the result produced in one, as tested as I have been in practical Occult Work, I cannot conceive a much less advanced Initiate being able to support such a strain even for five minutes, without Death ensuing…” Mr. Farrell interprets this to be a description of a Theosophic style channelling session through the throat chakra! I wonder, how does one “channel” someone who is in his physical body and through physical intercourse? (I leave that up to our own imagination!)

It seems that Mr. Farrell himself hasn’t been in the presence of an energetically charged person; what Mathers is describing here are sensations he has concretely felt in his aura (Sphere of Sensation) in the presence of an Alchemical Master. I have heard people meeting holy persons or bodhisattvas, such as His Holiness Dalai Lama, who have sensed strong energetic sensations in their presence. In any good Golden Dawn Temple, if the Hierophant does his work properly the present should feel emanations or raditaion of energies stemming from his Sphere of Sensation. Imagine then meeting someone who has, as MacGregor Mathers puts it, “possession of the Elixir of Life!”

A bodhisattva

In closing Mr. Farrell arrives at his final point, the actual reason why MacGregor Mathers exposed W.W. Westcott hoax of the forged Fräulein Sprengel letters; because he had met the said Fräulein in person! That is through Swami Laura Horos! According to Mr. Farrell this is the first time that Mathers actually started to believe in his own lie of the physical Secret Chiefs, only because she in fact presented herself as being the real Sprengel and using the latter’s motto ‘Sapiens Dominabitur Astris’ and in fact did succeed in deceiving Mathers. Although this whole incident is the most awkward in MacGregor Mathers enire magical carrer, still Mr. Farrell’s suggestion that Horos somehow replaced L.e.T. is laughable. But it is also quite illogical because at the outset of his article Mr. Farrell holds that Westcott never believed Fräulein Sprengel to be a Secret Chief of the Third Order, only being a mere Adeptus Exemptus 7°=4° Grade of the Second Order. But now suddenly she is elevated to that of a Secret Chief of the Third Order by Mathers! This clearly shows yet another example of Mr. Farrell’s ambition to character assassinate a guy who single-handedly elevated the Order of the Golden Dawn into a truly Theurgical operative society, serving as the mouth piece for the Third Order.

Swami Laura Horos

It is however amusing, or even refreshing, to see that Mr. Farrell actually believes that MacGregor Mathers wasn’t the creator of the R.R. et A.C. corpus, such as the Adeptus Minor Ritual or the Ritual “Z” papers, etc., that he actually believes that Mathers in fact was in contact with something that can be referred to as an Third Order, albeit of the later Theosophical kind of ascended masters or astral contacts. That is, channeled Masters. It is funny though, as I was under the impression that he regarded the whole Secret Chiefs thing to be a myth and fantasy. But he perhaps suddenly feels obliged to embrace the astral teacher-channeling theory as that has lately been approved and promulgated in a recent book on Alchemy and Golden Dawn Ritual written by Pat Zalewski.

Mr. Farrell also states that MacGregor Mathers had lost connection with his early contacts of the 1890’s. On this last point he is wholly correct as the physical Secret Chiefs actually did break their ties with MacGregor Mathers, but only following the court case with Aleister Crowley over the publications in The Equinox, when reading Crowley they realized that Mathers had gone to far in blending Hebrew, Egyptian and Enochian egregores into the same rituals. This suggests that the Secret Chiefs had left him with lots of freedom in arranging the material into a workable and coherent format, for better and for worse.

*Addendum 6/11 - 2011

Let me propose another identity of the entity referred to as R+ in the vision made by Thomas Henry Pattison. It is a tradition amongst traditionalist Rosicrucian initiates to abbreviate the word “Rosy Cross” with an “R” followed by the cross symbol (+), the “R” of course denoting “Rosy” and the “+” signifying the “Cross”. This small detail is not that well known amongst modern reconstructionist Rosicrucians. In a way the “R+” is a shortform for “R+C”. It was also sometimes used amongst initiates to end any abbreviation ending with the letter “R”. As an example, the Swedish Freemason and Rosicrucian Gustaf Adolph Reuterholm (1756–1813) ended his occult Mss. with the letters “G:A:R+”. My attention was drawn to this protocol of using “R+” to denote the Rosy Cross lately when a Rosicrucian initiate ended his correspondence with me using this formula.

So, the conclusion from all of this is that the true identity of the “Angel R+” might as well be “Angel Rosy Cross” as it is “Angel Raphael”. Or rather, knowing the traditional protocol for the combined use of the letter “R” and the symbol “+” to denote the Rosy Cross or Rosicrucianism, a fact which R.A. Gilbert obviously seems to lack any knowledge of, as well as his modernist propounders amongst the Golden Dawn Community (i.e. Mr. Farrell, et al), I hold that it is most probable that the author of that letter in fact is referring to the “Angel Rosy Cross” rather than the Archangel Raphael. This brings profound connotations, which I prefer not to delve into to deep here on this blog. Suffice to say is that it may be (or rather probable is) a reference to the Guardian Angel of the Rosicrucian current or egregore. In ending, it is well to point out that there isn’t much of a contradition between such an angelic being and a physical secret chief as it may seem for an non-initiate scholar; they both may belong to the same circle of initiates, if not the same class. At least, students who may have read the course material of Paul Foster Case attentively won’t find it as such.

*Addendum 9/11 - 2011

Let me present yet another solution (or rather yet another layer) to the riddle of the identity of the “Angel R+”. It has been suggested to me that there may be a connection between it and the “Master R”, the famous Secret Chief of Paul Foster Case. Case identifed him as “The Master Rákóczy”. There actually exists certain Theosophic connotations regarding this personality, but let us ignore these. Let us instead turn our attention to Manly P. Hall who identifeied a certain Transylvanian Prince Ragoczy with Comte De St. Germain, the famous immortal Rosicrucian Adept of the 18th Century (whereas Theosophy regards the Master R to be the teacher of St. Germain). Now, this may seem to contradict my previous addendum; but the fact is that it doesn’t at all. There is no contradiction, other than in the eyes of the ignorant. Even the letters “R” and “C” are present in his name.

S∴R∴