(1854-1918)
Prominent Victorian Hermetic mage, and co-founder (with William Woodman and William Wynn Westcott) of the Golden Dawn. Fluent in many languages, he translated a variety of occult and Hermetic texts into English, including Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata (“The Kabbalah Unveiled”), The Grimoire of Armadel, The Greater Key of Solomon, and The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.
Flamboyant and eccentric, he claimed to be a descendant of the Scottish clan MacGregor, despite a lack of solid genæological evidence, and affected Highland dress. He was years ahead of his time in being a vegtarian, against animal vivisection, and a staunch supporter of women’s rights – it was primarily his insistence that made the Golden Dawn the first Hermetic order in known history to admit women as full and equal members from its inception.
He was also an ardent admirer of military history, theory, and ideals, and his stern and autocratic manner was a prime cause in the order’s eventual disintegration. His championship of Aleister Crowley as a postulant to the inner order of the Golden Dawn was another major factor, and the final nail in the order’s coffin was his revelation, in the midst of the other turmoil already brewing, that the papers upon which the order had been founded – supposedly including a mandate from the Secret Chiefs – were forgeries.
<& ./navbar.m &>