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

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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

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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. You find it equally in whatever direction you step out. Remember that God alone is our All journeys away from, the solid Light and the Bestower of Perfect earth are equally, at the outset, Wisdom, and that no mortal power journeys into the abyss. Saint, can do more than bring you to the sorcerer, lunatic, and romantic Pathway of that Wisdom, which He lover all alike are drawn to could, if it so pleased him, put Broceliande, but Carbonek is beyond into the heart of a child. For as a^ certain part of it only. ...Dante the whole is greater than the part, and D. H. Lawrence, Boehme and so are we but Sparks from that Hitler, Lady Julian and the Insupportable Light which is in Surrealists, had all been there. Him. The ends of the Earth are [Broceliande] is the home of swept by the borders of His garment immense dangers and immense of flame, from Him all things possibilities. [Lewis, pp. 284- p ro c e e d , and u n to Him a l l th in g s 285 ] return. Therefore we invoke Him. Therefore even the Banner of the One thing the Golden Dawn offered, precisely, East falls in admiration before was a ticket to Broceliande. In fact, Him. [King, p. 194 ] Lewis's use of "the abyss," if not coincidental, is quite striking, as the term I quote this passage in full because it shows is used in a very similar way in Golden Dawn the paradoxical and perhaps difficult-to- and related orders; one of the initiatory understand position the Order of the Golden grades, the most difficult and yet most Dawn often presents. important, is often known as "crossing the abyss." A consistent vehicle for reaching I could, by taking only the first Broceliande would be of great value to sentence or two, have excerpted a passage in Williams, as both spiritual seeker and poet. keeping with most traditional Christian Yet W illiams, as Lewis shows here, mysticism, in which contact with the divine consistently emphasizes the need for choice can be desired by the worshipper but, between directions within the realm-- f i n a l l y , given only by God; or by ta k in g only Carbonek, the seat of the Holy Grail, is only from the second or third sentences to the one destination there; another would be the end, I could have produced a passage which, spiritual deserts Simon the Clerk, for if not entirely magical, is made of ideas instance, inhabits. heretical to Christianity: the generally gnostic idea that we are or can be identical Further complicating things, it often with God (not holy, created souls, but equal seems that some rituals and exercises of the in all ways), the neo-Platonic idea that Golden Dawn preserve the form of Christianity automatic reunion with God is a consequence without being in any real way compatible with of our soul's identity with God (obviously it. Even Aleister Crowley, apparently, took necessitating no salvation), and the a Christian motto when taking the 5=6 grade, implication of invocation which may be as f o r which Christian terminology was much command as invitation. As Gershom G. mandatory. [Regardie, pp. 94-95, 173] Yet, Scholem says of the Cabala, a Hebrew-based though Crowley "took the Order with absolute spiritual school that in fact formed one seriousness from the start," Regardie quotes MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 Page 27

Virginia Moore's book on William Butler A curious idea is being Yeats, The Unicorn, "Yeats thought that from sedulously dissem inated, and the beginning he took it wrong. For all his appears to be gaining ground, that mouthings of the word 'Christ,' Christianity mysticism is the 'Safe' Path to the seems never to have penetrated." [Regardie, highest, and magic is the dangerous p. 95; Moore, p. 159] Path to the Lowest. ...it is by no means certain that the formula is W illiams undoubtedly would find as simple as it seems.... The abhorrent this kind of divorce between a mystic is solitary and shut up, given language or symbol-system and its lacks wholesome combat.... There is meaning. In fact, he may be referring to an exaggerated awe, a solemnity of this approach in his portrayal of Simon the diction, a vanity of archaic Clerk's abuses of language, both sacred and phrases, a false veil of holiness human, in All Hallows Eve. (John P. Gigrich upon the unclean shrine. Stilted has an excellent discussion of this in An affectation masquerades as dignity; Imm ortality for its own Sake: A Study of the a rag-bag of mediaevalism apes Concept of Poetry in the Writings of Charles profundity....Corol1 ary to this Williams. Gigrich--rightly, I believe-- attitude is a lack of all human opposed Simon's abuses of language to virtue.... Celibacy is immoral, and Williams's doctrine of poetry as the deepest the celibate shirks one of the celebration of the joining of meaning and greatest difficulties of the language, [pp. 66-72]) P a th .... Beware o f a l l th o s e who shirk the lower difficulties; it's However, there has always been a a good bet that they shirk the genuinely mystical as well as a magical and higher difficulties too.... crypto-magical side of the Order, and it was [Regardie, pp. 74-75] a follower of the former path whose Order Williams joined. William Butler Yeats was From comments by Crowley elsewhere, it clear admitted to the Isis-Urania Temple of the that it is not only "the mystic" Crowley Order of the Golden Dawn in 1890 [Howe, p. waxes wroth about, but a specific mystic, A. 51], and A. E. Waite was initiated in January E. Waite. Crowley also shows his attitude in of 1891. [Howe, p. 71] The most famous, or a fierce caricature o f Waite in the character perhaps infamous, member of the Order, the Edwin Arthwaite in Crowley's novel Moonchild. "great beast" Aleister Crowley, was admitted [Carey, p. 35] in 1898. [Regardie, p. 59] These three men show in small the incredibly wide range of attitudes and temperaments found within the E llic Howe, in h is h is to r y of th e O rder, Order of the Golden Dawn. also shows a bias against Waite and Waite's One reason for a popular misconception mystical (rather than magical) orientation, of the possible significance of the Order to both in his handling of the details of Charles Williams, I think, is that many certain conflicts and in which group he people's vague impressions of the Order are chooses to follow as the "true" Golden Dawn based on Crowley, and Crowley was not at all when there are branchings out and splittings representative of the Order. Neither was off. However, he does make several good Waite, Charles Williams' initiator--and in points about Waite's thought, drawn from the opposite direction from Crowley, the two indisputable facts and from Waite's own showing two extremes of interpretations of writings. He cites Waite's autobiography, the purposes of the Order. Just as Crowley's Shadows of Life and Thought [Shadows of Life practice of certain kinds of magic led to him and Thought: A Retrospective Review in the being ex p elled from the Golden Dawn, to found Form of Memo irs, Selwyn and Blount, 1938], his own order of the Silver Star (Argentinum which treats the Order quite negatively, Astrum) [Cavendish, p. 40], Waite alienated "because," Howe states, "his interests lay in many in the Golden Dawn and eventually split the direction of mysticism rather than with it over his insistence on the primacy of Magic." [Howe, p. 71] mysticism and the impropriety of working any efficacious magic at all. Certainly, Waite was ambivalent about the Order from the very beginning—he joined in 1891, resigned in 1892, and rejoined "some In fact, study of Waite, and hence of years later" in 1899 [Howe, p. 71, 72-74] — Williams' membership in his group, is further and continued to be ambivalent even after he complicated because most historians of the had filled positions of central importance Golden Dawn, many of them magicians or at within the Order. A passage Howe quotes from least primarily interested in the Golden Dawn W aite's autobiography shows no more as a magical order, show strong bias against moderation in the conflict of magic and Waite. The most overt may be Israel mysticism than Crowley's essay does. Regardie, a disciple of Crowley’s, who calls Regarding Westcott and Mathers' objections to Waite "bitingly critical of everything and Waite's edition of and commentary on the everybody except his own execrable literary writings of nineteenth century occultist style and his own obscure brand of mysticism" Eliphas Levi, Waite writes, "Looking back at [Regardie, p. 73]—though that is milder than the days of my work on Levi...it seems one of Crowley's own condemnations, in an probable that [Westcott and Mathers] were essay called "The Dangers of Mysticism" which right; that I was certainly not an occultist is dedicated to and quotes Waite, which after their manner; that I knew them Regardie cites: sufficiently well to loathe their false Pave 28 MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 pretences, their buskined struttings and henceforth teach only an their abysmal ignorance of the superstitious exclusively Christian mysticism, to arcana which they claimed to guard." [Howe, join him in working independently pp. 71-72; Shadows of Life and Thought, p. of the Order as a whole. 99] Shortly afterwards Waite and Blackden joined forces and set up With such disparate views and their Temple, which, with little antagonistic temperaments, one would expect justification, retained the name of conflicts and schisms, and there were. R. A. Isis-Urania. [King, p. 95] G ilbert's The Golden Dawn: The Twilight of the Magicians is probably the most useful George Mills Harper quotes Waite as later guide to the complicated history. In 1900, saying, "those who regard the Golden Dawn as partly due to a conflict with C r o w le y , capable of a mystical instead of an occult Mathers lost his authority in the original construction should and had indeed resolved Isis-Urania Temple of the Order of the Golden to work independently, going their own way." Dawn; on April 27th, 1900, William Butler [Harper, p. 122] Waite and Blackden became Y eats was e l e c t e d the new le a d e r two of the Three Chiefs, appointing "the ("I m p e r a t o r " ). Mathers and Westcott, Reverend W. A. Ayton, an elderly clergyman of apparently, helped run a rival group, which, strong alchemical interests, as their Third confusingly, also called theirs the Isis- Chief." [King, p. 95] Urania Temple. [Gilbert, p. 42] Waite was apparently a member of Yeats's Isis-Urania. Howe states, in accord with Waite's After some other conflicts and compromises, statement but in a somewhat different tone, in May of 1902, Yeats's Isis-Urania elected "Waite wanted to throw overboard the old three new chiefs, including J. W. Brodie- 'M a g i c a l ' tradition w h ic h derived from Innes, whose name is usually used to identify Mathers and be free to pontificate about the this group. [Gilbert, p. 43, identifies the Graces of the Spirit in his own inimitable other two as Percy Bullock and Dr. R. W. fashion." The passage on which Howe Felkin; King, p. 94, names M. W. Blackden, comments, in a letter to Brodie-Innes right with Bullock elected at first but quickly before the split, also shows Waite's views on replaced by Felkin.] magic and mysticism:

In 1903, the Brodie-Innes/Yeats group We have not met with those members split again. Francis King's opinionated but w ho a r e alleged to p o s s e s s illuminating report of this is worth quoting 'practical power'. We do not deny at some length: the existence of such powers but we deny the importance attributed to Early in 1903 the triad them. We believe in another submitted the proposed scheme of p a t h . . . t h e proof of attainment lies government to a General Meeting... in the possession of the 'Graces' A. E. W a ite , who s e e m s to have of the Spirit, not of the 'Powers.' d e s i r e d nothing b u t to get the [Howe, p. 255] Order in to h is own hands, proposed several amendments with the object This view of magic as something real and of securing a rejection of the efficacious, yet still to be transcended for constitution, but to his surprise higher supernatural states, is, of course, and alarm Brodie-Innes and his evocatively sim ilar to the position seen in colleagues accepted them and Charles Williams' fiction and non-fiction modified their proposals a l i k e . As Chad Walsh points out, u s i n g accordingly. Waite, who loathed examples from War in Heaven and The Greater Brodie-Innes and was anxious to Trumps--one could certain ly add Many isolate him, then urged the Adepti Dimensions, Shadows of Ecstasy, and others-- to vote against the constitution as "Magic is real, magic is powerful, but in a whole. Although only a minority Williamsland it is not ultim ate. In a of the Order followed Waite in this clearcut contest with spiritual power, mere course of action there were magic loses. ...The world of the supernatural sufficient of them to ensure that therefore includes magic, but this is merely the new constitution did not get one aspect of it. Powers more d i r e c t l y the required two-thirds majority. related to the divine have the final say, Waite followed up his success by once they go into action." [pp. 68-69] speaking, as always, at considerable length; he said that When Waite took over Isis-U rania, King the Third Order was non-existent, w r i t e s , " J . W. Brodie-Innes continued his that the Order's rituals needed Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh, while Dr. Felkin much revision, and that the magical and those London members who desired to carry tradition should be abandoned as on the magical tradition and the original illusory and a dangerous path, order scheme formed the Amoun Temple, leading only to the Abyss. He changing the name of the Outer Order from the concluded by announcing that he had Golden Dawn to Stella Matutina." [King, p. no use for the Order in its present 96] One of the London members was Yeats, who form, and inviting all those who " to o k the magical side against Waite and his agreed with him that the Golden company in 1903 and became a member of the Dawn should abandon Ritual Magic Stella Matutina, remaining active until the a n d a l l a s t r a l workings and 1 9 2 0 s ," but, unlike many others on the magic MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 Page 29 side of the split, remaining on relatively avoiding some of the problems of authenticity good terms with Waite and his group. of mandate that had led Waite to reject the [Gilbert, p. 48; see also Harper, pp. 122- title of the Order of the Golden Dawn. "By 125, especially for some of the possible 1915," Gilbert explains, "Waite had set up a reasons for Yeats's choice.] completely new Order, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, complete with an Inner Order that Among those who followed Waite or joined he called the Ordo Sanctissimus Roseae et his group in 1904 (the earliest record of Aurea Crucis." [Gilbert, p. 76] membership available) were Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, w riters of supernatural This name is especially important to a fiction; Evelyn Underhill, also a writer of discussion of the magical or mystical nature supernatural fiction and now better known as of the Order, given a statement in Waite's a writer of non-fiction studies of mysticism, book Studies in Mysticism (1906): "So far as joined Waite's Independent and Reclaimed Rite the past is concerned, incorporated mystic in 1905. This was still called the Golden schools of the conscious order have scarcely Dawn, although, as King and others pointed existed in England, but there are traces of out, it did not very much resemble the Order one sodality which connects with the present from which it had sprung. In 1910, Waite subject, and this is the Brotherhood of C. R. almost completely re-did the rituals, re C., understood to be the initiates of the writing some and abandoning most of the illuminated father, Christian Rosy Cross." others. [Gilbert, p. 71] A letter from [pp. 344-345] Underhill to Waite, cited by Gilbert, says of her training, "I am glad you are inclined to Gilbert reports, "Into [Waite's] new be lenient about the knowledge lecture: I Rosicrucian Order he brought numbers of his can manage the Hebrew pretty well, but the Masonic friends and a selection of occult- astrology and fortune telling are quite minded ladies from Theosophical circles; he beyond me!" "Divination," Gilbert observes, kept very few of the old Isis-Urania members "was evidently allowed to go by the board if even though he s till looked upon many of them necessary." [Gilbert, p. 72] as personal friends." [p. 76] Another initiate of this Rosicrucian Order, within Yet this is still not quite the two years of its founding, was Oxford organization that Charles Williams joined. University Press editor Charles Stansby In 1914, W aite's Isis-U rania Temple was W illiam s. dissolved. As Waite reports it in his It does not, at this point, take much autobiography, imagination to see Charles Williams years later, as Anne Ridler describes him, In 1914 I put an end to the "laughing to remember the quarrels for Isis-Urania or Mother Temple, owing precedence among the children of the Second to internecine feuds on the Birth," as she refers to the contentious authenticity of documents. A few mages and mystics of the Order of the Golden persons attempted to carry on by Dawn. [Ridler, p. xxiii] It also adds both themselves, but it proved a poignancy and some support to Lee Speth's failure. Of a new Rite which remark, "It cannot be proven, but I arose, as if from the dead ashes, nonetheless hold as true that the 'study there will be a word to say in group' in The Place of the Lion reflects conclusion; but there is no story W illiams's memory of the Golden Dawn" [Speth, to tell, either by myself or p. 26]—or at least the more competitive, another. May that most sacred catty, and venal side of that experience. centre give up no outward form. (Given Gilbert's mention of the "selection of [Shadows of Life and Thouqht, p. occult-minded ladies from Theosophical 229; Howe, p. 273 ] circles" in Waite's Rosicrucian Order, this is even more likely, and there is probably This passage—besides perhaps making us more out-and-out doctrinal satire as well.) sympathetic to Regardie's remarks about Waite's writing style—is more than a little Not much is known about W illiams' misleading. King and Howe, who also have membership in the Order, although reasons to downplay Waite's personal success biographical studies continue to progress. and importance, both take this as evidence In Hadfield's 1959 study, An Introduction to that Waite's Golden Dawn related activities Charles Williams, she reports, "He learned a ceased altogether. No wonder King argues great deal from the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, that Waite (who is, elsewhere, notably inaccurate about dates) was wrong in saying though his wife says that he never actually Isis-Urania disbanded in 1914 [King, p. 112], joined the Order." [p. 80] However, when it is known that Charles Williams did Humphrey Carpenter, in The Inklings, quotes a not even join until 1916 or 1917. letter from Waite to Williams dated September 6, 1917 (now in th e Wade C o lle c tio n , Wheaton Coming from someone with as much College), discussing arrangements for emblematic background in Rosicrucianism and Williams' initiation as a neophyte at the upcoming Autumnal Equinox, [p. 86] alchemy as Waite, the image of the phoenix in the above-cited passage should have been a Much new information on W illiams's certain give-away. Actually, Waite founded a affiliation with the Order came out in 1983, new Order, presumably sim ilar in most ways, not only from Williams scholarship, but from though with quite a change-over of members, Gilbert's researches into the Golden Dawn and and most of all under a different name, thus its associated orders. Page 30 MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986

A Reverend A. H. E. Lee, "who had been a Williams seems to have been an member of Isis-Urania and was still a close enthusiastic participant while he was a friend of A. E. Waite," was, about the time member of the Order. "Certainly membership Waite was forming his Fellowship of the Rosy [in the Order ] ...involved the performance of Cross in 1915, "busy compiling, with the aid rituals," Carpenter states, "which Williams, of D. H. S. Nicholson, yet another of W aite's with his love of rite and ceremony, entered Order members, the Oxford Book of English into wholeheartedly; he told his friend Anne Mys t i c a l V e r s e ." [Gilbert, p. 76] Lee and Ridler that he had always taken care to learn Nicholson went on the become extremely by heart the words...so that he could important friends of Williams's, as Anne p a r tic ip a te w ith d ig n ity , w hereas many o th er Ridler reports, Nicholson being "the most members did not trouble to do so, and merely intimate friend of [Williams's] middle years" read the words from a card." [Carpenter, p. until Nicholson's death in 1936 or 1937, and 87; Ridler, pp. xxiv-xxv] Lee, the bachelor, ”fill[ing] the role...of the Plain Man." [p. xxvi] (This last, of Two of the major influences of this course, is suggestive in light of the image association on Williams's thought are the of the humble Anglican priests in Williams's Cabala and the Holy Grail—or, as both Waite novels, as well as Williams's tendency to and Williams spelled it, Graal. Ridler incorporate personal situations and self- states that Waite's influence was "an portrait in his works.) important one for [Williams],’ especially via two of Waite's books. She reports, "The The proposed collection of mystical Hidden Church of the Holy Graal (1909) had verse, as Hadfield points out in her 1983 its place among the origins of [W illiams's] book, Charles Willia ms: An Exploration of Arthurian studies, as entries in his Notebook His Life and Work, included six of A. E. show, but it was The Secret Doct ri ne of Waite's poems, [p. 24] Gilbert says of Lee, Israel (1913) which interested him most--an

Readers of Williams poetry w ill recognize a Estimates of how important Williams connection to the slave-girls and hazel- found his association with Waite and the stripes of the Arthuriad. This element of Golden Dawn-based Rosicrucian Order vary. Williams' poetry has garnered its share of Nancy-Lou Patterson says, "His biographers heated criticism --especially in Robert tend to underplay his episode as a member of Conquest's essay "The Art of the Enemy" a n occult Order, perhaps out of [particularly pp. 49-51]—and I will not deny embarrassment." [Patterson, p. 42] Another that there is a bothersome or even sordid consideration is whether the writer about aspect to this side of Williams that even Williams is personally more interested in sympathetic commentators like Carpenter and magic or Christianity. On the one extreme, Hadfield have to admit. [Hadfield, 1983, we have Georqe P. Winship, Jr., who feels especially pp. 106-07; Carpenter, especially that Williams "dabbled only" with sorcery, pp. 85-86, 115] "armored with the breastplate of faith, an However, we must, as Cavaliero does in imaginative as well as creedal realization of his discussion of the Arthuriad, put this Christianity." [ pp. 114-15] On the other, temporal discipline into a context of King feels "the Golden Dawn system—or to be universal order and coinherence. Williams' more correct Waite's heterodox version of "hazel" is not--or at worst, not only--the that system—is the key without which the birch of Victorian pornography; it is the deepest and inmost meaningfulness of Williams symbol of all order and measure—of "rule" in can never be unlocked." [p. 112] all senses--and is the baton with which are counted out the paces of what Williams calls, Lois Lang-Sims presents a position in The Greater Trumps, "the Dance." All closer to what I think is warranted by the unity, hierarchy, correspondence, and order facts: that the influence of Waite and his is included in any use of the hazel. As Order "can have been second in importance Williams says in "The Departure of Dindrane" only to that of the Church in Charles' life." in The Region of Summer Stars, "The hazel of [p. 204] It was, I believe, decidedly the cattle-goad, of the measuring-rod,/of the secondary; aspects of the teaching were slaves' discipline, of Logres' highway, of assimilated only in conjunction with orthodox Merlin's/wand of magic, of her lord’s line of Christian teaching, and always calibrated verse,/of the octave of song,/of the footpace against that unchallengeable standard. But under the altar,/straight and strong...." [ p. with his "extraordinary gift of assimilation 149] he picked out and used the best in any set of beliefs" [Hadfield, 1959, p. 131], and this At the very least, then, Hadfield shows in c lu d e d much in th e F.:R.:C.: t h a t became an that Williams kept his ceremonial accepted, long-standing, perhaps permanent accoutrements for some time, dispensing with part of Williams' thought. them carefully (not just throwing them out) and even using the sword in personally- I do not believe, as Patterson does, significant ways. Most important, to my that Williams participated in Waite's group, mind, is the significance when in his poetry perhaps succeeded in a search for occult Williams identifies magic, poetry itself, power via the Order, but then disavowed it. government, and the altar with the hazel rod, [p. 42] Rather, I think he sought out a and the vehicle he uses to enact the symbol mysticism-oriented rather than predominantly in his life is a ceremonial sword, likely magical Order to begin with, assimilated much from his Rosicrucian affiliation. of it but only in compatibility with his own Anglicanism as he knew it, and continued with One curiosity about Charles W illiams's some of those ideas, goals, and even a f f i l i a t i o n w ith A. E. W a ite 's F.:R.:C.: t h a t practices for much of the rest of his life. Page 34 MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986

One might argue that what Williams Pico della Mirandola's saying that encountered in Waite's Rosicrucian Order was 'No science gives greater proof of not occultism at all, but this is not true the divinity of Christ than magic either. Both Williams and Waite allow for a and the Kabbala.' [pp. 228-229] tradition that is in keeping with religion, and is totally different from the low and It is precisely Dee's Enochian magic, the art debasing activities most people think of as of alchemy, and the study of the Cabala that magic, yet is still a secret, occult, and formed the basis of the original English even magical teaching apart from the main Order of the Golden Dawn, and the latter two body of the church. Waite, in his that formed the core--along with Grail introduction to The Book of Black Magic and symbolism and the story of Christian Rosy Ceremonial Magic--a study very sim ilar in C ross— o f W aite's F.:R.:C.:. style, content, and purpose to Charles W illiams's book W itchcraft--calls this T h e F.:R.:C.: for Williams just a step desirable and esoteric tradition "high along the way in his own spiritual journey to magic" : God and the City; yet evidence shows that it was a very important step for Williams-- If Magic in its proper and original personally, as a writer, and as a thinker. meaning be synonymous with wisdom; If there has been too little study of this if that wisdom...means something area of Williams's life so far, I can inconceivably great, it is of certainly see why; the complications of both certitude that it has no causal events and philosophy sometime seem as wild connection with the congeries of and impenetrable as the wildest forests of arts and processes which are Broceliande. Perhaps this article has understood by Practical Magic. contributed to the measuring out of at least That there was, as there still is, a path or two. a science of old sanctuaries, I am certain as a mystic; that this science issued in that experience that imparts wisdom I am also certain.... [pp. vii-viii]

The term Waite uses for the low kind of magic is "goetia," which is the term Williams most often uses to name the practices of Simon the Clerk in All Hallows' Eve.

Williams makes a distinction that draws almost identical lines, in the preface to his book Witchcraft. In it, he states that his study inevitably "deal[s] more with the lower level than with the nobler dream," but that noble dream does exist; and, as does Waite, he identifies it with a secret tradition: "The nobler idea of virtue mingled with power either worked itself out eventually as experimental science...or it was kept carefully secluded in its own Rites (and to know them one would have to share them), or it did in fact degenerate into base and disgusting evils...." [ p. 9]

There seems to be ample evidence that Williams had reason to think he did, in fact, share at least a hint of such rites. Later in the book, he is extremely reluctant to call this tradition by the name of magic at all, yet he knows that historically he has to, especially when speaking of the Renaissance and 17th century occultism on which his contemporary Rosicrucian and Hermetic Orders were founded:

...neither [John] Dee’s concern with spiritual creatures nor [Thomas] Vaughan's with alchemical works, nor that of their BIBLIOGRAPHY contemporaries, correspond to magic, of whatever kind. Yet both, Brown, Robert McAfee. "Charles Williams: Lay and perhaps all, might have claimed Theologian." Theoloqy Today 10 (July that this was what lay behind the 1953), 212-229. old kind, and was the only valuable thing in it, as Vaughan clearly Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings. New did. They would have assented...to York: Ballantine Books, 1981. MYTHLORE 48: Winter 1986 Page 35

Carey, Robert C. "W illiams, Waite, and the Ridler, Anne. "Critical Introduction." The Golden Dawn," Crypt of Cthulhu 13 (Rood- image of the City and Other Essays by mas 1983), 35-36. Charles W illiams. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1958. Cavaliero, Glen. Charles Willia ms: Poet of Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wil Scholem, Gershom G. Major Trends in Jewish liam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, M ysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1983. 1961.

Cavendish, Richard. The Black Arts. New Shideler, Mary McDermott. The Theology of York: Capricorn Books, 1967. Romantic Love: A Study in the W ritings of Charles W illiams. Grand Rapids, Conquest, Robert. "The Art of the Enemy." Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub Essays in C riticism, v. 7, #1 (1957), lishing Company, 1966. 42-55. (See followup letters, Essays in C riticism, v. 7, #3 (1957), 330-343. Speth, Lee. "Cavalier Treatment." Mythlore 34 (Winter 1983), 26, 44. (Continuation Gigrich, John P. An Immortality for its Own of "Cavalier Treatment." Mythlore 33 Sake: A Study of the Concept of Poetry (Autumn 1983).) in the W ritings of Charles W illiams. Washington D.C.: The Catholic Universi Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Black ty of America Press, 1954. Magic and Ceremonial Magic. New York: Causeway Books, 1973. G ilbert, R. A. The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians. Wellingborough, Northamp W aite, Arthur Edward. Studies in My sticism tonshire: The Aquarian Press, 1983. and Certain Aspects of the Secret Tradi- tion. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1 9 0 6 . Hadfield, Alice Mary. An Introduction to Charles. W illiams. London: Robert Hale Walsh, Chad. "Charles W illiam s' Novels and Limited, 1959. the Contemporary Mutation of Conscious ness." Myth, Allegory,' and Gospel ed. Hadfield, Alice Mary. Charles Williams: An John Marwick Montgomery. M inneapolis, Exploration of his Life and Work. New Minnesota: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., York and Oxford: Oxford University 1974, 53-77. Press, 1983. Winship, George Parker Jr. "The Novels of Harper, George M ills. Yeats's Golden Dawn. Charles Williams." Shadows of Imagina New Y ork: B arn es and N o b le, 1974. tion ed. Mark R. H illegas. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illlinois University Howe, Ellic. The Magicians of the Golden Press, 1979. Dawn. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. W illiams, Charles and C. S. Lewis Taliessin through Logres, The Region of the Summer King, Francis. The Rites of Modern Occult Stars, Arthurian Torso. Grand Rapids, Magic. New York: The Macmillan Com Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub pany, 1970. lishing Company, 1974.

Lang-Sims, Lois. A Time to be Born. London: W illiams, Charles. W itchcraft. Cleveland Andre Deutsch, 1971. (Especially pp. and New York: Meridian Books, The World 193 f f . ) Publishing Company, 1959. Other Sources: Patterson, Nancy-Lou. "The Heart of Wil liams" (review of Alice Mary Hadfield's Colquhoun, Ithell. Sword of Wisdom: MacGre Charles W illiams: An Exploration of his gor Mathers and the Golden Dawn. New life and Work). Mythlore 38 (Spring, York: Putnam, 1975. (For review see Speth, above.) 1984), 4 2. R ateliff, John. "’And Something Remains to W aite, Arthur Edward. The Book of the Holy be Said': Tolkien and W illiams," Pro- Graal . London: J. M. Watkins, 1921. ceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conven- ( P o e tr y ) tion of the Mvthopoeic Society. Whea W aite, Arthur Edward. The Hidden Church of ton, Illinois, 1985. the Holy Graal. London: Rebman Regardie, Israel. The Eye in the Triangle: Limited, 1909. An Interpretation of A leister Crowley. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publica Waite, Arthur Edward. The Secret Doctrine in Israel. London: William Rider and Son, tions, 1970. Limited, 1913. Reilly, Robert James. Romantic Religion: A Study of Barfield, Lewis, Williams, and William, Charles. "Introduction." The Let ters of Evelyn U nderhill. London, New Tolkien. Athens, Georgia: University York, Toronto: Longmans, Green and of Georgia Press, 1971. Company, 1943, 7 - 4 5 .