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Charles Williams and the Order of the Golden Dawn Volume 13 Number 2 Article 6 12-15-1986 Even an Adept: Charles Williams and the Order of the Golden Dawn Bernadette Bosky Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Recommended Citation Bosky, Bernadette (1986) "Even an Adept: Charles Williams and the Order of the Golden Dawn," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 13 : No. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol13/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Presents information on Williams’s association with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. Gives the convoluted history of the Order and the tension between proponents of mysticism vs. ritual magic. Suggests the level of Williams’s involvement and its significance ot him. Additional Keywords Order of the Golden Dawn; Rosicrucians; Williams, Charles—Biography; Williams, Charles—Magic; Williams, Charles—Membership in The Golden Dawn; Williams, Charles—Mysticism; Williams, Charles—Occult; Williams, Charles—Relation to The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross; Williams, Charles—Relation to hermeticism This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol13/iss2/6 MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 Page 25 Even an Adept: Charles Williams and The Order of the Golden Dawn Bernadette Bosky When I first began doing research for Williams of the doctrines and rituals he this article, I met a colleague of mine in encountered: did they ever affect him the the library. When he asked me what I was way the Church's more orthodox examinations working on, I answered, "The importance of of man's spiritual side seem to have? How Charles W illiams' membership in the Golden does his personal involvement with such an Dawn to his thought." "Oh," he replied. Order coexist with his frequent, staunch "There is none." denunciation of occult practice, not only in his novels, but argued at length, in propria Whether fortunately or unfortunately, persona, in his non-fiction study W itchcraft? things are actually a bit more complicated. What--if, pace my colleague, anything--does On the one hand, there is no doubt that study of the Golden Dawn, its various Williams was a devout Anglican. As Alice spiinter-groups and offshoots, and its Mary Hadfield states, "He remained an members and associates, have to contribute to unswerving son of the Church of England, and our understanding of Charles W illiams' was never seriously tempted by any other writings, thought, and personality? centre." [1959, p. 131] In this most, though not all, writers on Williams agree. His faith was idiosyncratic in some ways, and his I believe that such study can contribute theology considered suspect by some, a great deal, some of it of most value because most unexpected. This is an area of especially in what Mary McDermott Shideler Williams studies in which the surface has and others identify as its romantic aspects, barely been scratched. The first step is the such as its great insistence on the martialling of facts. In the following " a ffirm a tiv e way" of c lo se n e ss to God through discussion I will primarily concern myself the affirmation of images; but Williams is always fully orthodox--a point on which he with presenting what is known about Williams himself insists. and the Golden Dawn, but also try to sketch out some implications and areas for future exploration. In the course of my own There is, however, the fascinating biographical detail that, for an unknown time research, I have also found a number of during the earlier part of his life, Williams surprising misconceptions, both personal and was at least associated with and quite p o p u la r , ab o u t b o th th e G olden Dawn i t s e l f probably an initiated member of a London and Williams's attitudes as compared to it or offshoot of an occult society, founded in the indicative of his involvement with it. Rosicrucian tradition, called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Perhaps the most major is that Williams never was a member of the Golden Dawn-- It's certain, for one thing, as R. J. technically speaking. He was, rather, an Reilly puts it, that these studies "produced i n i t i a t e d and a c tiv e member of a R o sic ru c ia n at least the trappings of most of his O rder, begun by well-known Golden Dawn member fiction" [Reilly, p. 9]--helping him gain Arthur Edward Waite. fam iliarity with a wide range of supernatural Probably the single best discussion of devices which he used in a completely the topic is in Anne Ridler's introduction to practical, dramatic sense, as matters of plot Charles W illiams' The Image of the City and rather than of doctrine, in his seven novels. Other Essays [pp. xxiii-xxvi], although other These "'spiritual shockers,' or murder documents help to illuminate a set of mysteries set in eternity," as Robert McAfee situations she justifiably finds confusing. Brown puts it [p. 216], each has a supernatural "McGuffin," most of which The history of the Golden Dawn is a Williams would at least have heard about in story of schisms, conflicting claims, his training in the Order: the tarot in The dissension, and the splitting off of Greater Trumps, Simon the Clerk's dark magic rivalries and splinter groups. Although all in AllHallows' Eve, even the Holy Grail as groups had certain approaches and even it is used in War in Heaven. These are all, rituals in common, there was a wide variety first and often most importantly, catalysts of beliefs and kinds of emphasis from one to for good, rousing stories. It is clear that another. Moreover, the names chosen by these much of Williams's information came from his groups could hardly make things more Rosicrucian teachings, or at least that his confusing. Not only will the same group interest was quickened by them. (more or less) use two or more different names at different times, but also the same But this use, while important, is in name might belong, at one time and another, some ways secondary. Certainly it does not to two or more entirely different groups, imply belief or disbelief, let alone sometimes with wildly different objectives. endorsement or condemnation. There remains Both of these confusions show up in this the question of the personal significance to c a se . Page 26 MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn source for all branches of the Golden Dawn, was founded by Dr. William Wynn W estcott, we can say that the Golden Dawn often "stands Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and Dr. W. on the borderline between mysticism and R. Woodman, ostensibly as an offshoot of a magic, where the one only too easily passes German Rosicrucian and occult order, in 1887. into the other." [Scholem, p. 277] In 1888 a temple, called the Isis-Urania Temple, was started in London, with Westcott, It may be hard to imagine such an Woodman, and Mathers as the three Chiefs. approach, along with the peculiar potentials [ Howe, p. 1] and perils it would present, but it is absolutely necessary to understanding not This Golden Dawn indeed followed a only W illiams's association with the Golden tradition of magic. Much of what its Dawn, but many points of his writing. initiates were taught is explicitly forbidden Certainly Williams himself was familiar with in the Bible, including psychic control of this ambivalent twilight zone of the spirit, others and calling up of spirits, and the to an extent that made some of his colleagues basic training of a neophyte included several uncomfortable. (Probably including Tolkien. forms of divination. But there had been, [See Rateliff, pp. 277-78, and Carpenter, from the beginning, a strongly mystical side especially p. 130 ff.]) In this context, it as well. A fourth founder of the Order, from is hard to resist thinking of the domain of whom Westcott claimed to have received the Broceliande in W illiams's Arthuriad, occult ciphers he used as the basis for especially as described by C. S. Lewis [See s t a r t i n g h is G olden Dawn gro u p b u t who d ie d also Shideler, pp. 92-95]: in 1877 [Gilbert, p. 27], was a Reverend A. F. A. W oodford, a c o u n try v ic a r who h e ld a ...indeed Broceliande is what most curacy at Notting Hill. [King, p. 42] romantics are enamoured of; into it good mystics and bad mystics go: King reports the following from a ritual it is what you find when you step by MacGregor Mathers, perhaps the most out of the ordinary mode of important of the founders: consciousness.
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