The Quatuor Coronati Lodge and the Fires of Alchemy Part III

The oldest masonic lodge in Scotland is called Lodge Mother Kilwinning and comes from a legend of stonemasons who came from Europe to Kilwinning Abbey which was a Benedictine monastic community with roots dating back to the 12th century. The first lodge is said to have been built there and later we have Lodge Canongate Kilwinning 2 which was founded in 1677 in Edinburgh from a charter from the parent lodge.

Anthony Oneal Haye (1838-1877) was initiated in Lodge Canongate Kilwinning, No. 2 in Edinburgh in 1859. He later became head of the Rosicrucian Society of Scotland in 1866 and he initiated Robert Wentworth Little (1840-1878) and William James Hughan (1841-1911) into this society. In 1867, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was founded in London with the help of Robert Wentworth Little and William James Hughan. William was also one of the founders of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1886.

Robert Wentworth Little also became a founder of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine in 1865 and the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim in 1869 and the Ancient Archaeological Order of Druids in 1874. The Ancient Archaeological Order of Druids changed its name in 1886 to the Ancient Masonic Order of Druids where all who were not Masons were thrown out of the order. An associate of Little who helped establish these orders was Francis George Irwin (1828-1893) who was also in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

George Watson MacGregor Reid (1862?-1946) was politically active and is said to have founded the Church of the Universal Bond where they advocated socialist revolution and anti-imperialism and is said to have lectured at the Social Democratic Federation in 1888. In 1909 he founded The Druid Order and they describe themselves (on their homepage) as alchemists, mystics and gnostics with their history stretching back to Haymo of Faversham (d. c. 1243) who was an English Franciscan monk who was a lecturer at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), Oxford and also in Italy in Bologna and Padua. He was a monk of the Franciscan Friars Minor who took his teachings from Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202) who was an “apocalyptic thinker” who showed that doom was near and he was classified as a heretic by the Catholic Church.

MacGregor Reid was connected to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and corresponded with Aleister Crowley and began a collaboration with Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918) and in 1916 Nuada, a Druid society and off-shoot of the Golden Dawn, was founded at Chapman in London where Reid himself became the leading Arch-Druid.

Robert MacGregor-Reid took over as Arch-Druid from his father in 1946 in The Druid Order and later Thomas Lackenby Maughan (1901-1976) became Arch-Druid in 1964. Thomas had a mother who was in the Theosophical Society and he himself was also a homeopath and with John Da Monte (1916-1975) and Edwin Tomkins (1916-1992) founded the Society of Homeopaths in 1970. The circle around Thomas was involved both in homeopathy, druidry and radionics (Radionic Association) and British Intelligence during World War II. During this time when Thomas became leader as Arch-Druid some members together with chairman Ross Nichols left the order and formed the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.

Ross Nichols (1902-1975) was a socialist, naturist and member of one of England’s first naturist communities and later befriended Gerald Gardner who shared his interest in nudity. Ross was an assistant editor for Michael Houghton’s The Occult Observer who also owned an occult bookstore called Atlantis Bookshop. In 1988 one of Ross Nichols’ students took over the leadership of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids whose name was Philip Carr-Gomm.

Philip Carr-Gomm was born in London and already at the age of 11 was influenced by Ross Nichols and joined his druid order at 18. Philip was early in contact with societies such as The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and founded his own The Esoteric Society in London which had as lecturers Gareth Knight (Society of the Inner Light), W. E. Butler (Society of the Inner Light) and Arthur Guirdham (writer on the Cathar sect, alternative medicine, ESP and reincarnation). Philip studied meditation with Olivia Robertson and was a follower of the Bulgarian teacher Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov (1900-1986) and translated his books into English and learned Deunov’s Paneurhythmy dance which he taught at Findhorn in Scotland. He later trained as a therapist and trained at the Institute of Psychosynthesis in London.

Olivia Robertson (1917-2013) came from a family involved in the occult, spiritualism and Theosophy. Her father inherited Huntington Castle in 1925 and visitors there during her upbringing included Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn member William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and Theosophist George William Russell (1869-1935) from Dublin and revolutionary Maud Gonne (1866-1953) as she was also a member of Golden Dawn for a short time. On Olivia’s mother’s side of the family we find a famous person who introduced Freemasonry to Ireland by the name of Richard Parsons, 1st Earl of Rosse (1702-1741). In 1725 he became Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland and he was also a founder of a Hell-Fire Club.

In 1963 Olivia started the Clonegal Castle Center for Meditation and Study and the following year she studied at the College of Psychic Studies and the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain. During this time she also met Ross Nichols from the Druid order and others from occult societies such as Josephine and Mohun Lall, Gerald Gough (Fraternity of the Inner Light), Tamara Bourkoun (Order of the Sphinx and Pyramid, Golden Dawn) and Theodore Beskine. She founded her own order with her brother in 1976 which they called The Fellowship of Isis which they dedicated to the Egyptian Goddess Isis who they believed best represented the energies of the coming Aquarian Age and the celebration of the Divine Feminine. Within this Order we also find sections such as the Druid Clan of Dana and the Noble Order of Tara. Olivia explains the founding of the Fellowship of Isis:

It was direct spiritual experience, as with my brother, that I had a direct spiritual vocation to do this from God – the feminine aspect of God, God who is also feminine – to emphasize this because the world is threatened by destruction through pollution, through misuse of nature, often through stupidity and greed. We’re destroying the planet and the Divine Plan appears to be to emphasize the feminine – charity, kindness, care for nature, nurturing, motherhood – all that side. Not to get rid of the male aspect, but to balance male aggression and materialism. And this linear, logical, mental though – always analysis, analysis. We’re more for healing and synthesis” (fellowshipofisis.com)

Eimear Burke took over the leadership of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 2020 which she had joined in 2003. She is a student of Reiki, Shamanism and Herbalism and also became a member of Olivia Robertson’s Fellowship of Isis in 2010 and became a Priestess of Danú the following year.

Some of the Presiders in the Druid Order were John & Caitlin Matthews who were leading researchers in the Celtic Wisdom and Western Mysteries and the ancestral traditions of Britain and they have written many books on Celtic spirituality and Arthurian and Grail lore. They were both also students of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and Gareth Knight who came from Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light. John Matthews was a lecturer in both the USA and Europe at places such as the Temenos Academy in London and the Omega Center and he worked together with the Joseph Campbell Foundation and Lorian Association.

A second listed Presider of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids is John F. Michell (1933-2009) who was a founder of the Research Into Lost Knowledge Organization in 1969 along with Keith Critchlow (from Temenos Academy, Patron of Wyse International and Advisory Board on Chapel of Sacred Mirrors) and Mary Williams. John Michell takes us back to ufology and flying saucers in the 60s. He did research on ley lines and their connections to extraterrestrial craft and lost spiritual knowledge that we must rediscover before the Golden Age. Michell can be found at the Lindisfarne Association as a teacher in its School of Sacred Architecture and he was also a lecturer at the Prince of Wales’ School of Traditional Arts which had been established by his friend Keith Critchlow. Books by Michell included titles such as Dowsing the Crop Circles (1991), The Flying Saucer Vision (1967), The View Over Atlantis (1969) and The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science, and the Heavenly Order on Earth (1991) . He was briefly married to Denise Price, the Archdruidess of the Glastonbury Order of Druids, in 2007.

Melita Denning (Vivian Godfrey) is listed as another Presider of Bards, Ovates and Druids and is said to have been involved in the late 60’s with its founding. She also led the magical Order The Aurum Solis, becoming its sixth Grand Master since its founding in 1897. She is also said to have been a friend from a young age to Olivia Robertson who led the Fellowship of Isis. She published a number of books at Llewellyn Publications after meeting Carl Llewellyn Weschcke such as Planetary Magick: The Heart of Western Magick, The Sword & the Serpent: The Two-Fold Qabalistic Universe, Mysteria Magica: Fundamental Techniques of High Magick, Magical States of Consciousness: Pathworking on the Tree of Life, The Llewellyn Practical Guide to Creative Money-Making: Become a Money Magnet.

The Ordo Aurum Solis (Order of the Gold of the Sun) has a history with both Druid Orders, the Golden Dawn and the Fellowship of Isis and its name is supposed to have roots in an Ogdoatic tradition of the Western Mysteries with connections to Kabbalah and Alchemy and mysticism. On its website we can see a list of Grand Masters showing George Stanton as the first Grand Master and Morris Greenberg as the second, Charles Roughlett-Bock as the third, Michael Bernard Foy as the fourth, Thomas Maughan (of the Druid Order) as the fifth, Vivian Godfrey as the sixth, Carl Llewellyn Weschke as the seventh, Vivian Godfrey again as the eighth, Leon Barcynski as the ninth and Jean-Louis de Biasi as the current number ten.

Jean-Louis de Biasi lists himself as a Freemason (Grand Lodges in Canada, the G. L. F.A.A.M. of the District of Columbia and the G. L. of the State of Nevada (USA), united Grande Lodge of England, Province of Province of East Lancashire, Lodge 9659 , Grand Officer of the Grand Orient de France, Egyptian Freemasonry (33°-95°-AA), 32 degrees of the American Scottish Rite in Washington D.C. and the Royal Arch in Canada) and also leads the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross as is linked to Martinism. He has written the book “Rediscover the Magick of the Gods and Goddesses” and also books on Freemasonry.

Associated with a branch of Aurum Solis called Astrum Sophia (2002) is Vivienne O’Regan who is the author of the book The Pillar of Isis: A Practical Manual of the Mysteries of the Goddess (Aquarian Press, 1992. She was involved in the Fellowship of Isis and in 1986 created the College of Isis (The House of Isis-Sophia of the Stars) and she was also involved with the London Ecology Center and the Green Spirituality Movement in support of the environment and the planet.She is also a trained psychotherapist in Psychosynthesis and sits on The Pagan Federation as an Officer. She also runs The House of Isis and Osiris mystery school associated with The Invisible College founded by Marian Green in 1976 and The House of Isis-Urania led by Naomi and Jerome Ozaniec. Marian Green is an author to books on ceremonial magic and witchcraft such as Practical Techniques of Modern Magic (1994), A Path Through the Labyrinth (1994) to name a few.

At The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids we find Honorary Bards with examples such as Jamie Reid who is from the family of the founder of the Druid Order George Watson MacGregor Reid and Mara Freeman who is the director of the Avalon Mystery School with its initiation into the Celtic Mystery Tradition and Grail Alchemy that draws from the teachings of Dion Fortune (Fraternity of the Inner Light) and Geoffrey Hodson who was a Theosophist (president of the Blavatsky Lodge) and Co-Freemason and who wrote about Angels and Fairies. She has lived in the USA and has taught at the Omega Institute (from “Omega Point” from the teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin).

“The recent growing awareness of angels may be because the inner plane Adepti are at last getting through to us the importance of conscious human cooperation with the angelic kingdom. It is taught that many angels are only awaiting recognition in order to be of greater service to our world. A new influx of cosmic energies has been steadily flowing into Earth in the last forty or so years, ushering in what many hope will be a time when humanity will be drawn into ever closer alignment with the creative sources of life.” (chalicecentre.net)

Elena Danaan became a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 2016 and certified as a Priestess in 2019. Born in France, Elena trained as an archaeologist and worked in Egypt for several years and she writes that she was trained and initiated in Egyptian Magic when she was down there. Elena is also extremely involved in the UFO and alien movement where she describes how at a young age of 9 she was abducted by aliens from Zeta Reticuli and then rescued by good aliens like “Thor Han Eredyon from Ashaara in the Pleiades” from whom she later started to channel messages. She moved to Ireland in 2011 where she met druids with the following membership in the druid order.

In 2018, Elena describes how she was again caught up in a UFO and learned about the “Galactic Federation of Worlds”. Her website has this description:

“This night also marked the starting point of Elena’s “activation”: the step into the alchemical, transformational “dark night of the soul”, that would lead to her awakening. Because she was now ready to embrace the truth, Thor Han unlocked the memory of her missing time, regarding the night when she was abducted by Grays at nine years old.”

She visited the United States for the first time in 2022 where she was a guest at the “Galactic & Spiritual Informers Conference” in Orlando, Florida where she met people like Alex Collier, Dr. Michael Salla, Brad Olsen, Jean-Charles Moyen, Chris O’Connor, Laura Eisenhower, Tony Rodrigues and Mayan Shaman Quetza Sha involved in Disclosure of the UFO phenomenon.

Michael Salla is the author behind books such as US Navy’s Secret Space Programs and Nordic Extraterrestrial Alliance (2017) where the foreword is written by Robert M. Wood with a past in the Fund for UFO research (FUFOR) which was started in 1979 and financed by Robert Bigelow and Prince Hans Adam II von Lichtenstein. Wood has also been involved in productions within TV series such as Ancient Aliens, Cosmic Disclosure and UFO Files. Michael Salla founded the Exopolitics Institute where he tries to get the government to release all secret information about extraterrestrials.

Elena has written the books A Gift From The Stars: Extraterrestrial Contacts and Guide of Alien Races, We Will Never Let You Down: Encounters with Val Thor and journeys beyond Earth and The Seeders.

“The Seeders is a must-read book that is full of shock and awe moments that awakens the reader to the true extent of our suppressed history and the incredible future that lies before us as a fully liberated species destined to take our rightful place in the galactic community” -Michael Salla, Ph.D.

“This looks like a book, but in truth it’s an historical document. It takes Humanity on an incredible journey from the beginning of advanced soul groups wondering the universe looking for a cause to the liberation and acknowledging of a Humanity blessed and suppressed throughout the ages. It will be difficult to put this book down.” – Alex Collier

Emma Restall Orr (1965-) worked for the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in the 80s and then became a joint chief of the British Druid Order (BDO) until 2002. She then started her own The Druid Network which had its start in 2003. She has written a series of books such as, Spirits of the Sacred Grove (1998), Druidry: Rekindling the Sacred Fire written with Philip Shallcrass (2002), Living Druidry: Magical Spirituality for the Wild Soul (2004), Pagan Visions For A Sustainable Future (2005) etc.

The British Druid Order (BDO) was founded in 1979 by Philip Shallcrass (1953-) who called himself Greywolf and was one of the pioneers of “shamanic” Driudism. In 1978 Philip joined an Alexandrian Wiccan coven where he was ordained as High Priest the following year. Philip transformed this coven after studies in Druidry instead into a Grove called the Grove of the Badger which became the Mother Grove of the British Druid Order.

The coven that Phillip Shallcrass joined belonged to a branch of the modern religion Wicca that was started by Alex Sanders (1926-1988) during the 60s. In 1963, Sanders was initiated into Gardnerian Wicca and later founded his own coven where he practiced ritual magic. Around the 80s, he worked with a group that called itself Ordine Della Luna. Sanders is also said to have been involved in several orders such as the Knights Templar.

“Another group which Sanders operated in London during the 1960s was the Order of Deucalion, a focus for Atlantean magical research and inner contacts, as Sanders taught that Merlin was an important leader of the last Atlantean migratory wave into Western Europe. The Order of Deucalion existed as an inner cell of the Ordine Della Luna.” (wiki)

John Michael Greer who was born in 1962 in America is another member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids which he joined in 1995. Greer was early interested in the Golden Dawn’s system of Hermetic magic and he met Sara Carroll (future wife) who was a ceremonial magician and a Priestess in the Pagan arm of the Universal Gnostic Church. He later began to explore a more nature-based spirituality which led to membership in Druid orders such as the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) where he later became the seventh Grand Archdruid of the Order. He was also initiated into the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA). Greer also hold membership in Freemasonry with the 32 degree.

Michael Greer who has a membership in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is said to have also developed a program for the Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn founded in 2013 where magical rituals are mixed with druidry. He has written a large number of books in ritual magic and druidry. The Druidry Handbook: Spiritual Practice Rooted in the Living Earth (2006), Mystery Teachings From the Living Earth (2012), The Art and Practice of Geomancy: Divination, Magic, and Earth Wisdom of the Renaissance (2009), Atlantis: Ancient Legacy , Hidden Prophecy (2007), The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation (2009) etc.

Another side of Greer involves ecology and politics where he writes about peak oil, economics and the exploitation of natural resources where he describes a future gradual societal collapse where industry comes to an end. He has published books in politics and economics such as, The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age (2008), The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World (2009), Green Wizardry (2013), Decline and Fall: the End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in the 21st Century (2014).

Greer wrote the introduction to a new edition of the book The Corpus Hermeticum (2020, FV Éditions) which was translated into English by George Robert Stow Mead (1863-1933) in 1905. Mead wrote on Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism and became a member of Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society in 1884. He later started his own Quest Society in 1909.

“It also provided one of the most important weapons to another major rebellion of the age – the attempt to reestablish magic as a socially acceptable spiritual path in the Christian West. Another body of literature atributed to Hermes Trismegistus was made up of astrological, alchemical and magical texts.” (Corpus Hermeticum, Greer introduction)

Occult Alchemy (Jung) and the worship of Mother Earth as a living being we find not only in the Druids but also in the author Stephan Harding who has written the books Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia (2009) and Gaia Alchemy: The Reuniting of Science, Psyche, and Soul (2022). Harding was educated in behavioral ecology from Oxford University and he later founded Schumacher College in 1990 together with Satish Kumar and John Lane, among others. Harding was a student of James Lovelock who was also one of the first teachers at this College.

Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (1911-1977) was a German-British economist and statistician who during the 70s was president of Lady Eve Balfour’s Soil Association and who was influenced by, among others, Mahatma Gandhi whom he called “the greatest “people’s economist” whose economic thinking was compatible with spirituality as opposed to materialism” (wiki).

At Schumacher College we find Satish Kumar as Director of Programs/President and we also find him at many Institutes and NGOs such as California Institute of Integral Studies, Alliance for the New Humanity, Gaia Partnership, Marion Institute, Center for Visionary Leadership, The Vision Project, Wyse International, Institute of Noetic Sciences and Temenos Academy and more. We find Brian Goodwin who we can also find at the International Futures Forum and the Gaia Foundation. We find Jonathan Dawson from the Findhorn ecovillage community in Scotland and the Global Ecovillage Network and also Gaia Education. As teachers at this College we find, among others, Rupert Sheldrake, Fritjof Capra, James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis and Arne Naess. We find Margaret Wheatley who is also at The Vision Project and the Sophia Institute.

“The importance difference between a scientific and a mythological view here, is that we must really feel that Gaia is alive- a great mysterious, animate being. We must understand that Gaia has purpose and that all the evolution that has happened up to this point is about something. That it is not just chance or blind natural selection, but that there is something deeply teleological, meaningful andpurposeful about what is happening on the Earth and that human consciousness is an essential part of that story. To develop a Gaian consciousness is to align oneself with the deep, mysterious intention that the Earth herself is manifesting.”

“There are pre-industrial peoples who for millenia have had this insight of the living Earth very similar to Gaia Theory. For them the forest is totally alive. It has a vast intelligence that they can consult shamanically to find out what’s happening in the forest- where they can hunt, where thay can’t hunt- not through science as we would do it, but through an intuitive connection. The forest is alive, full of meaning.”

“Gaia represents the energy that brings forth life and takes life back. From an indigenous point of view, She has incredible intelligence, consciousness and is full of intention. She can be fierce to those who disobey her rules and kind to those who obey her. Death and destruction are part of her creative process.” (Animate Earth: An interview with Stephan Harding/gaiafoundation.org)

James Lovelock (1919-2022) was a scientist, environmentalist and futurist who developed the “Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system” (wiki) and who wrote the books The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity (2006), The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can (2009) and more. In 1974 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. We find Lovelock at several NGOs and institutes such as Copenhagen Climate Council, Gaia Charity, Population Matters, Lindisfarne Association, World Pantheist Movement and Gaia Society.

The Gaia Society started in 1998 and had its base at the University of East London and James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis as the governing authorities. The Royal Society was present at the launch and speakers were Sir Crispin Tickell, Mary Midgley, Chris Rapley and Tyler Volk.

“In his speech, Lovelock told the audience he had decided to keep the Gaia name for his theory because people seemed to have eventually understood that Gaia was a metaphor which had nothing to do either with religion or with any kind of New Age cult. He uses Gaia just the same way Richard Dawkins has used the term “selfish gene” as a metaphor to refer to adaptive behaviors that include the sacrifice of individuals “for the sake of the species.”” (sourcewatch.org)

Lynn Margulis has several connections to New Age networks such as the Lindisfarne Association (together with James Lovelock) and the Earthwatch Institute (Founded by Bob Citron of Foundation for the Future where we can also find Barbara Marx Hubbard and Robert Muller) and she was previously at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences where Oleg L. Kuznetsov was a past president and who was also a director of the International Center of the Roerichs (with Mikhail Gorbachev as Board of Trustees). At the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences we also find Evgueny Faydysh who is also president of the Russian Foundation of Transpersonal Psychology and director of the Institute for Noosphere Research (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin).

The International Center of the Roerichs is founded on the teachings of Nicholas (Nikolai Konstantinovich) Roerich (1874-1947) who was a painter, hypnotist, Theosophist and a reader of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and more.

We find the speaker Chris Rapley as the patron of Population Matters (founded as the Optimum Population Trust in 1991), who describes his activities as “campaign for the stabilization and gradual decrease of the population to sustainable levels by voluntary means, globally and within the UK”. Another speaker at the Gaia Society and a patron and spokesman for Population Matters was Crispin Tickell who is a relative of Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) who was a president of the Royal Society and Aldous Huxley was his cousin. Crispin was a President of the European Commission between the years 1977-1980 and sat on the Sustainable development Panel in 1994. We find Crispin as a member of the Club of Rome and as an Advisor to the Population and Sustainability Network, a member of the “Theosophical” Scientific and Medical Network and as Chairman at the Climate Institute. Crispin wrote the foreword to James Lovelock’s book The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back (2006).

Another speaker at the Gaia Society was Mary Midgley who we also find on the Scientific and Medical Network and on the Journal of Consciousness Studies and Lee Klinger who has over 30 years of academic experience with environmental sciences sat as Vice-Chair of the Gaia Society between the years 1996 to 2000. Klinger studied “Sensory Awareness” together with Charlotte Selver (1901-2003) who had an influence on the “Human Potential Movement” that came out of the Esalen Institute where she acted as a teacher from 1963. Klinger can also be found at Gaia University on the Board of External Reviewers and this university also has an influence from James Lovelock. Other “board members” at Gaia University include Declan Kennedy (Global Ecovillage Network), Ervin Laszlo, Alfred von Liechtenstein and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

“Over the years there have been several initiatives to form a university focused on the needs of Gaia, the living planet. Gaia is the name of the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth and was, more recently, re-adopted by James Lovelock in the 1970’s to promote a whole systems approach to the newly recognized field of ecology.” (sourcewatch.org/Gaia University)

Population Matters was started in 1991 as the Optimum Population Trust for “awareness-raising” among the population in relation to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and climate change. At Population Matters we find Sara Parkin (Green Party) who also sits on the Forum for the Future and the Population and Sustainability Network. We find Paul R. Ehrlich with the political movement Zero Population Growth and who sits on the Population Institute and the American Philosophical Society and more. We find Jane Goodall who also sits on several New Age networks such as the Club of Budapest, the World Wisdom Council and the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality. We find Jonathon Porritt who is also at the Foundation for GAIA, the Schumacher Society, Wyse International and as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission. Porritt was one of the founders of Forum for the Future. We also find Sir Crispin Tickell at Population Matters.

“In ancient tradition both preparation and initiation played a significant role and not anybody could successfully go through all preliminary stages which often took many years. However, the preliminary stages themselves and their sequence were very much alike. The sense of the whole process can be shortly described as symbolic death, destruction of the old Self and the birth in the new more harmonic and purified condition.” (The Mystic Cosmos, Evgueny Faydysh, president of the Russian Foundation of Transpersonal Psychology, director of the Institute for Noosphere Research)

The Quatuor Coronati Lodge and the Fires of Alchemy Part II

The Quatuor Coronati is associated not only with Freemasonry but also with numerous occult societies such as the Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and the spiritual organization Society for Psychical Research and also the modern New Age movement and various Druid orders.

Walter Besant’s (1836-1901) brother Frank was married to the theosophist Annie Besant who became one of the leaders of the Theosophical Society and she was also one of the leaders of the Fabian Society socialist think tank started by the British aristocracy. A member of the Fabian Society was also Lord Bertrand Russel who was a eugenicist and wrote about abortion and birth control.

Annie Besant was also a spokesperson for the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Malthusian League founded in 1877 by her and Charles Bradlaugh and they advocated the use of contraception and educating the public about the importance of family planning. Charles Robert Drysdale (1829-1907) was elected the first President of the Malthusian League and this family were close friends of Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Alice Vickery (1844-1929) who was Drysdale’s partner was also a member of the Malthusian League and one of the first members of the Eugenics Education Society. The Malthusian League is also supposed to form a part of the society within Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. Huxley was also a Fabian.

Annie Besant started the year 1912 together with the Theosophical leaders Marie Russak (1865-1945) and James Ingall Wedgwood (1883-1951) the organization Order of the Temple of the Rosy Cross. Russak and Wedgwood channeled messages from the “ascended Masters” during their temple meetings. This Order also had many members from the masonic organization Co-Freemasonry (The International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women, Le Droit Humain) and Annie Besant was a founder of Co-Freemasonry in England.

James Ingall Wedgwood was a member of the Theosophical Society, Co-Masonry and a Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church. James whose father was the son of Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-1891) was part of the Darwin–Wedgwood family who were deeply involved in eugenics and for generations they only bred into another family to try to bring out certain traits in the offspring they believed would be geniuses. Hensleigh’s sister Emma married Charles Darwin (1809-1882) in 1839.

Hensleigh’s interest was also in spiritualism just like his grandson and he attended séances and held membership in the British National Association of Spiritualists and a he was a vice president of the Society for Psychical Research.

Marie Russak was later involved in Harvey Spencer Lewis’s organization AMORC and helped shape rituals for this order. These rituals were similar to those of the Order of the Temple of the Rosy Cross.

Later in 1924, the order Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship was started by George Alexander Sullivan (1890-1942) whose rituals are also said to be influenced by Co-Freemasonry as many members there were also Co-Freemasons of the Scottish Rite. Several members were also connected with Alice Bailey’s Theosophical Arcane School.

Mabel Besant-Scott (1870-1952) was the daughter of Annie Besant and she too was a Theosophist and 33rd degree Freemason who assisted her mother in the Theosophical Society Adyar and in Co-Freemasonry of the Scottish Rite. She later became a member of the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship founded in 1924 by George Alexander Sullivan (1890-1942).

Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) was a Freemason, a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and became a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn three years after its foundation. He started his own branch called “The Red Rose and Cross of Gold.” In 1905, the woman Rosamund Isabella Charlotte Sabine (1865-1948) became a member of this order, which was later closed down in 1914. Rosamund later joined George Alexander Sullivan’s Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship during the 1930s. She later formed a group called the “New Forest Coven” and at this time Gerald Gardner also enters this Rosicrucian Order. A connection to Gardner also exists through Edith woodford-Grimes (1887-1975) who was a Co-mason. Gardner laid the foundation for the modern pagan religion of Wicca. Gardner also held membership in the Society for Psychical Research, the Folklore Society and was initiated by Aleister Crowley into the Ordo Templi Orientis and he was also interested in Druidry and joined the Ancient Druid Order founded in 1909 by George Watson MacGregor Reid.

In 1936 Peter Caddy (1917-1994) became a disciple of Sullivan and together with his wife Eileen Caddy (1917-2006) and their friend Dorothy Maclean (1920-2020) they founded in 1962 the New Age community Findhorn Foundation and Findhorn Ecovillage which are one of the cornerstones of the modern New Age movement.

Sheena Govan (1912-1967) was also involved in the start-up of Findhorn and she and Dorothy Maclean were during the 1940s during the Second World War employed by British Security Coordination in New York City. The BSC was set up as a secret organization by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the year 1940. Part of the work at the BSC was propaganda to mobilize pro-British opinion in America through newspapers such as the Herald Tribune, the New York Post, The Baltimore Sun , and Radio New York Worldwide which published anti-German stories. Peter Caddy also worked in the military in the Royal Air Force (RAF).

“In the early 1960s, Caddy, along with others who called themselves channellers, believed that they were in contact with extraterrestrials through telepathy, and prepared a landing strip for flying saucers at nearby Cluny Hill.” (wiki)

Sir George Trevelyan, 4th Baronet (1906-1996) is described as one of the founders of the New Age movement and he was also involved in the Findhorn Foundation. He wrote several books such as A Vision of the Aquarian Age (1977), Operation Redemption (1981), Summons to a High Crusade (1985) and Exploration into God (1991).

Sir Charles Trevelyan, 3rd Baronet (1870-1958) was George’s father and a politician associated with the socialism that grew out of the Fabian Society. He joined there in the year 1895 and had a relationship with Beatrica Webb, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russel and H.G. Wells.

Members of the Fabian Society also had several connections to occult societies such as the Theosophical Society and the Society for Psychical Research. Frank Podmore (1856-1910) who was one of the founders of the Fabian Society was also a member of the Society for Psychical Research and Annie Besant was a Fabian and a leader of the Theosophical Society.

“Annie Besant one of the members of the Fabian Society, founding members, she was one of the theosophists. She took over from Blavatsky, Madame Blavatsky. And she really was to bring in this new thought because really Hinduism when you bring it to the West is a definite form of mind control where nothing is real unless you have a master or a guru who tells you what is real. Even if the thing they are telling you is real is not real at all you will believe them. It’s a new thought, a new way of conditioning people into a belief system which is nothing to do with any actual reality.” (Alan Watt, November 24 2014, Neil Foster Radio)

Several of the Trevelyan family were members of the Cambridge Apostles and spiritualist movements. G. M. Trevelyan (1876 -1962) was a Cambridge Apostles and a Fellow of the Royal Society and wrote books about the Freemason Giuseppe Garibaldi in which he is described as a hero.

During this time with the beginning of the New Age movement in the 50s, we can also see the UFO movement emerging. George Trevelyan started after his military service in 1947 as Warden and Principal of Attingham Park where he taught spiritual knowledge. At Attingham there was also a UFO study group, but that did not last long. Victor Goddard (1897-1987) commander in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War who was a friend of George Trevelyan is said to have been the one who ran the group.

Peter Caddy is said to have also met George at Attingham Park in 1965 and he was also interested in UFO’s as he was in telepathic contact with his “space brothers”.

“– Sir George Trevelyan, in England, gathers together “all of the New Age groups under one roof for the first time,” with Air Marshall Sir Victor Goddard former chief of British Air Intelligence — in attendance. Peter Caddy, who was uninvited, “gate crashes” this event to announce the beginning of Findhorn.” (The Magic of Findhorn, Bok av Paul Hawken, alexconstantine.blogspot.com)

Flying saucers and spiritualism are said to have been an interest among several retired military personnel after the Second World War. One of them was Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding (1882-1970), also in the Royal Air Force, who was a member of the Theosophical Society and who spoke openly about his belief in UFO’s in 1954. He was also a member of the Fairy Investigation Society.

The British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) was started in 1962 from previous organizations such as the British Flying Saucer Bureau and the London UFO Research organization and involved here we find names such as Lionel Fanthorpe, Matt Lyons, Jenny Randles, Brinsley Le Poer Trench, David Clarke, John Wickham, Hilary Evans, Major Sir Patrick Wall and John Spencer.

Lionel Fanthorpe was a president of BUFORA and he was an author with a large number of published books on the supernatural and he was a former Freemason and minister of the Universal Life Church founded by Kirby J. Hensley (1911-1999) and also president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena. He is a member of the Ghost Club and has been a recurring guest on US radio station Coast to Coast AM. Books written by Lionel and his wife Patricia have titles such as Rennes-le-Chateau: Its Mysteries and Secrets (1991), Mysteries of Templar Treasure and the Holy Grail: The Secrets of Rennes Le Chateau (2004), Mysteries and Secrets of the Masons : The Story Behind the Masonic Order (2006) and Satanism & Demonology: Mysteries and Secrets (2011) to name a few.

Ufologist Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, 7th Marquess of Heusden (1911-1995) founded Contact International UFO Research in 1967 and became its first president and later became vice-president of the British UFO Research Association. He was also involved in the Ancient Astronauts Society which had ideas from Erich von Däniken and his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?. Books published by Brinsley dealt with the “Hollow Earth theory” and that Adam and Eve were experimental creations of extraterrestrials. Some titles from Brinsley were The Sky People (1960), The Flying Saucer Story (1966), Secret of the Ages: UFO’s from Inside the Earth (1974) and Reptiles from the Internal World (1979).

Involved in Contact International was J. Bernard Delair who became a later president and he wrote the foreword to several books by author and astrologer Barbara Hand Clow. Her books have titles such as The Pleiadian Agenda, Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, Awakening the Planetary Mind, Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini and Catastrophobia: the truth behind earth changes in the coming age of light.

Also involved in the British UFO Research Association was Philip Mantle who was also a United Kingdom Representative to the American Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) founded in 1969 and he is also involved in the Institute for Frontier Science (IFS).

Another president of the British UFO Research Association was Patrick Wall (1916-1998) who had many connections to anti-communist political organizations such as the Monday Club (Chairman 1978-80), the British Anti-Communist Council (chapter of the World Anti-Communist League) and the Western Goals Institute which was a branch of the American Western Goals Foundation founded in 1981 by John Rees, Larry McDonald and Major General John Singlaub.

John Spencer who is another UFO and supernatural researcher was a chairman of the British UFO Research Association and also a member of The Mutual UFO Network and a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP) and the Ghost Club.

Hilary Evans who was another member of the British UFO Research Association joined the Society for Psychical Research in the late 1960s and was a member of the Folklore Society and co-founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena.

At the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP) founded in 1981 we can see several members with overlapping memberships of the former British UFO Research Association and the Society for Psychical Research. ASSAP was helped in its start up by Mostyn Gilbert who had some of their first members at his place where he ran an activity linked to the Society for Psychical Research which he co-founded called the Survival Joint Research Committee (SJRC) which was a branch of the SPR where they explored life after death.

A member of ASSAP was Michael Bentine (1922-1996) who became the first president and he was also a close personal friend of the Prince of Wales. Lionel Fanthorpe of BUFORA was a member. Another member was David Christie-Murray who joined the SPR in 1945 and wrote about theology and psychic research and he wrote the book Voices from the Gods (1978) about the phenomenon of ‘speaking in tongues’. Vernon Harrison was another member who was also in SPK and so was Hugh Pincott who joined SPK in 1971 and was a founding member of ASSAP.

George Trevelyan was also involved in the founding of the Psychosynthesis Trust in 1965 together with Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) and Dr Martin Israel and Geoffrey Leytham.

Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) was the founder of the psychological movement called Psychosynthesis, where the psychology of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung is mixed with ideas from, among other things, Theosophy and the New Age. Also included were ideas from Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934) and Maurice Nicoll (1884-1953) who studied under George Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky.

“Psychosynthesis is a form of transpersonal psychology which insists on integration, or synthesis of various psychological functions in order to achieve the goal of healthy individual. As a transpersonal theory, it stresses the need of communion with “Higher” or “Transpersonal Self”, or achievement of the state of transegoic existence – which is generally not accepted, or is interpreted as a psychological aberration, by other psychology schools.” (wiki)

“We believe we are at the beginning of a new psychological paradigm, a paradigm based on what is emerging in terms of aspiration and serving humanity as a whole.” (psychosynthesis.org)

Geoffrey Leytham who was one of the founders of the Psychosynthesis Trust was also involved in the Center for Transpersonal Psychology and was Vice President of the Scientific and Medical Network. Also involved was Lady Diana Whitmore who was CEO of Children our Ultimate Investment UK and Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation and a patron of the NGO Wyse International.

From the Psychosynthesis Trust comes a large number of networks of organizations with connections to New Age, astrology and extraterrestrial channeling. We have Howard Sasportas and Liz Greene who in 1983 started the Center for Psychological Astrology who previously graduated from both the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust and also from the Center for Transpersonal Psychology (founded by Ian Gordon-Brown and Barbara Somers). Howard Sasportas and Liz Greene also came with diplomas from the Faculty of Astrological Studies where Charles E. O. Carter (1887-1968) was one of the founders. He was previously second President of the Astrological Lodge of the Theosophical Society from the year 1922.

We also find Lynn Bell, who works as a teacher at the Center for Psychological Astrology and as a mentor at the Faculty of Astrological Studies at Wisdom University, where we find names like Barbara Marx Hubbard, Rupert Sheldrake and Jean Houston and others.

John Addey (1920-1982) was a President of the Astrological Lodge of the Theosophical Society and in 1958 founded the Astrological Association of Great Britain. He later acted as a mentor for Charles Harvey in 1963 who three years later received a diploma of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. Charles subsequently became co-director with Liz Green of the Center for Psychological Astrology and helped create the Sophia Trust (astrology) and the Urania Trust (astrology). He wrote the book Mundane Astrology in 1984 together with Nicholas Campion and Michael Baigent.

Michael Baigent is known for the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) which he co-authored with Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Baigent is a Freemason and a Corresponding Member of the Quatuor Coronati lodge and he wrote the foreword to the Rev. Neville B. Cryer’s book York Mysteries Revealed (2006). Neville B. Cryers was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1981 and is also a Past Grand Chaplain UGLE and a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, The Royal Order, The Operatives and The Order of Eri. Baigent is also said to have been part of the order Builders of the Adytum. Paul Foster Case created this order in 1922 after being in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

We also have the Astrological Psychology Institute which was founded in 1968 in Zurich by the astrologers and psychologists Bruno & Louise Huber who worked together with Roberto Assagioli. From members of this institute comes astrology, tarot, numerology and “starseed” stories about man’s “souls” historical roots from stars far away.

Roberto Assagioli studied Theosophy and Eastern philosophy and started two schools of meditation based on the teachings of Alice Bailey. The Group for Creative Meditation and the Meditation Group for the New Age. He was also involved in the School for Esoteric Studies founded in 1956 by Frank Hilton, Regina Keller, Florence Garrigue, Helen Hillebrecht, and Marguerite Schaefer. Frank Hilton was also co-Director of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation and Regina Keller worked together with Alice Bailey. The School for Esoteric Studies is connected to groups such as Intergroup Collaboration “Within the New Group of World Servers”, Network for the Distribution of the Great Invocation and Triangles.

The Center for Transpersonal Psychology was founded in 1973 by Ian Gordon-Brown (1925-1996) and Barbara Somers (1929-) after working with Roberto Assagioli in Italy and then returning to England. Joan and Roger Evans also founded another center in psychosynthesis in England in 1973 after studying with Roberto Assagioli in Italy called the Institute of Psychosynthesis.

Ian worked for the Lucis Trust for 14 years and was an executive director of World Goodwill from 1959 to 1969. World Goodwill is recognized at the United Nations as an Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). He is also involved in a journal called World Union-Goodwill which is a collaboration between Auroville/Shri Aurobindo Ashram and World Goodville. Auroville located in India was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa (1878-1973) who practiced occultism under Max Théon (1848-1927) who founded the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the 1870s. The Order’s teachings are said to have been inspired by the Rosicrucian Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875).

At the Auroville Foundation we find names like Dr. Karan Singh (Temple of Understanding at the United Nations, World Commission on Global Consciousness & Spirituality and member of Club of Rome and the Club of Budapest) and former members such as Michael Murphy (Esalen), Maurice Strong, Ervin Laszlo etc.

“Ian was keenly aware that from time immemorial there have been mystery schools and centres of spiritual training (ashrams, religious orders, fraternities) offering seekers a progressive initiation into new, expanded states of consciousness. He saw his Transpersonal work as being in preparation for the mystery schools of the twenty-first century.” (transpersonalcentre.co.uk)

Ian and Barbara wrote several books in transpersonal psychology such as Journey in Depth: A Transpersonal Perspective, The Raincloud Of Knowable Things: A Practical Guide To Transpersonal Psychology, The Fires of Alchemy and Symptom as Symbol: A Transpersonal Language.

The British psychologist David Fontana (1934-2010) was a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and was one of the founders of a Transpersonal Psychology Section within the British Psychological Society. Fontana was very interested in paranormal phenomena and also served as president of the Society for Psychical Research from 1995 to 1998. He also wrote several books on meditation, dreams and life after death.

George Trevelyan started the Wrekin Trust in 1971 after an idea to form a new university where spiritual knowledge could be taught. With advice from Major Bruce MacManaway, Ian Gordon-Brown and Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, an “Educational Trust concerned with the spiritual nature of man and the universe” was started, named after a mountain outside Attingham. “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help, I will call it the Wrekin Trust after this central hill in England”. (Exploration into God, 1991)

“The Wrekin Trust is an educational charity concerned with the spiritual nature of humanity and the universe and part of a worldwide movement towards personal and planetary transformation.” (sirgeorgetrevelyan.org)

Janice Dolley who was Development Director at the Wrekin Trust explains how George saw life where we were all ‘drops of divinity’, and that ‘the earth lives and we are its stewards’. Janice was also a Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation and Director of the Findhorn College where she showed how we can live a spiritual and ecological life. She was also a Trustee of Wyse International and President of CANA (Christians Awakening to a New Awareness). At Wrekin we also find Tony Neate as Chairman with his colleague David Furlong as Co-Director. As president at Wrekin we also find Hertha Larive who was cofounder of the College of Healing and trained in Esoteric Psychology and Healing and also Roger Orgill as a Trustee.

Over the years, several people have given lectures at Wrekin such as Satish Kumar (Schumacher Society, patron Wyse International, Temenos Academy), Ravi Ravindra (Scientific and Medical Network, Fellow of the Temenos Academy), Peter Dawkins (Francis Bacon Research Trust), Ursula King (American Teilhard Association), Patrick Holden (Soil Association, Sustainable Food Trust, World Future Council Initiative), Roger Woolger (psychotherapist specializing in past life regression spirit release and shamanic healing) and Serge Beddington Behrens (Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution, practitioner in Psychosynthesis).

The Wrekin Trust came to an end in 2017 but has first passed on to the Chalice Well Trust which was founded by Wellesley Tudor Pole (1884-1968) in 1959 in Glastonbury. The Pole family was involved in spiritualism and Wellesley’s father Thomas Pole was a Freemason in the Royal Clarence Lodge in Bristol and was also interested in Fabian socialism and Theosophy (Jakob Böhme).

Wellesley was interested in the Holy Grail of Arthurian Legend and this brings us back to networks within The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Freemasonry, British Israelism and the Bahá’í Faith. Wellesley was initiated into the Order of the Table Round (Ordo Tabulae Rotundae) in 1910 where Neville Meakin (1976-1912) was Grand Master. Meakin tells us that the Order of the Table Round was re-established by his grandfather whose family had held this title since the time of King Arthur. Neville who died early of tuberculosis passed the title of Grand Master to Robert William Felkin (1853-1926) in 1912.

Robert Felkin joined the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh in 1886 and later joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the Amen-Ra Temple in 1894. After some time in 1903 the Order of the Stella Matutina was founded after a split within the Golden Dawn. Felkin also became a Freemason in the Mary Chapel Lodge in Edinburgh in 1907 and also admitted to the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA) in the Metropolitan College where W. Wynn Westcott (Quatuor Coronato Lodge) was minister of mass. Felkin also became involved in the Baháʼí Faith in 1911 and so was Neville Meakin who was also a member of Stella Matutina.

Wellesley Tudor Pole was also an acquaintance of John Arthur Goodchild (1851-1914) who wrote on poetry and mysticism and was associated with an esoteric group with William Sharp (1855-1905) who was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Alice Mary Buckton (1867-1944) who was a Bahá’í convert, feminist and a mystic bought in 1912 the Chalice Well in Glastonbury and in 1914 she supported an Arthurian festival at Glastonbury with a musical drama by Reginald Buckley called ‘The Birth of Arthur ‘. Golden Dawn member Dion Fortune (1890-1946) and also anthropologist, historian and folklorist Margaret Murray (1863-1963) who wrote the book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology in 1921 also stayed at Alice Buckton’s guest house in Glastonbury. George Buckton (1785-1847) who was Alice’s father was an English chemist and entomologist and was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Linnean Society of London. Alice looked after Chalice Well until her death in 1944.

Tony Neate who later ended up at George Trevelyan’s Wrekin Trust began channeling during the 50’s a “spirit” called H-A (Helio-Arcanophus) who claimed to be a “high priestess of Atlantis”. In 1957 Tony founded The Atlantean Society in London together with Murry Hope where he promoted the channelings from H-A. Tony also spent 10 years at the College of Psychic Studies in London where he was a council member and a therapist.

“I had just done my first deep trance! I had no conscious memory of what had been said through me. Following that, I had some incredibly evidential sessions which convinced me that I was very psychic, something I had denied for a long time.” (eyeofgaza.org/Greg Branson, on Tony)

The College of Psychic Studies dates back to 1884 when it was founded as the London Spiritualist Alliance. Edmund Dawson Rogers (1823-1910) was an English journalist and spiritualist who studied mesmerism. In 1873 he helped form the British National Association of Spiritualists and later in 1881 he founded the journal “Light” where he wrote about spiritualism. He was also one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research together with Sir William Barrett (1844-1925) in 1881 where many early members included people such as William Stainton Moses, F. W. H. Myers, Henry Sidgwick and Edmund Gurney. In 1884 he founded the London Spiritualist Alliance and after that the College of Psychic Studies where he was president in 1892 until his death in 1910.

Murry Hope who was the second founder of The Atlantean Society was an English occultist and author of numerous books on Atlantis, the Sirius star system, Mother Earth (Gaia) and the Egyptian civilization. She wrote books such as Practical Atlantean Magic: A Study of the Science, Mysticism and Theurgy of Ancient Atlantis (Aquarian Press 1992), The Gaia Dialogues (Thoth Publications 1995), Cosmic Connections (Thoth Publications 1996) etc.

“Particularly in The Gaia Dialogues (1995), Hope defends the natural world asserting that the Earth (Gaia) is a conscious being, a living entity who is shifting its magnetic poles as part of a plan to defend itself from desolation caused by its human children.” (wiki)

Tony Neate was also involved in the “Friends of Runnings Park” occult society in London where a small group were guided by “Helio-Arcanophus”. This group founded The College of Healing in 1983 and The School of Channeling in 1990. The College of Healing lists Hertha Larive (President Wrekin Trust), David Furlong (Chairman Natural Health Network, Wrekin Trust, Atlanta Association, Spirit Release Foundation), Dr. David Smallbone, Gilly Soper, Diane O’Connell and Tony & Ann Neate as founders.

David Furlong was a Director of Runnings Park and was involved in a number of different organizations such as the College of Healing, first Chairman of the Natural Health Network, director of the Wrekin Trust, Atlanta Association (1993) and the Spirit Release Foundation (1999) and the Spirit Release Forum (2011). We can also find him at Horizon Research Foundation, Scientific and Medical Network, Swedenborg Society, International Futures Forum, Foundation for Holistic Spirituality, Integral Institute and Advisory Board at Archai.

Tony Neate who channeled a being from Atlantis and who worked with David Furlong was later involved in the Spirit Release Foundation founded by Dr. Alan Sanderson (1931-2022) who was a psychiatrist who had worked at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London and was a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Alan was interested in people who had been subjected to “possession” and wanted to work to be able to free them because psychiatry alone was not enough for them to get the help they might need. The Spirit Release Foundation came to an end in 2012 due to financial problems but David Furlong has continued this work through the Spirit Release Forum which was started in 2011.

In a speech in 2012 during a public gathering (protest) we can hear Dr. Alan Sanderson speak:

“I am a psychiatrist. My name is Alan Sanderson and I have seen a number of adults who’ve been appallingly abused as children. And that is what I want to tell you. Not just abused in their families but abused by organized pedophile groups. Abused by satanic sex and other cults. And it starts sometimes even from birth, the indoctrination into these groups, and there’s no way out. Long before they go to school. It is their life. Now it happens to be the best crime because the way they are treated with mind control it creates in many cases multiple personality. So the child that goes to school doesn’t know that she’s been abused. That being hidden in another personality. She’s another person in school, but a child that’s being abused is hidden inside, except it comes out when she’s being abused. So this is a horror which is in general not recognized at all.

Now in 2012 the Church of England came out with a well tought through document about dealing and helping those who have suffered or are still suffering abuse. And in that document it says that every city in England has at least one sect. Every town I think. So there are these sects are all over the country and in general it’s not recognized. It’s not known. If people are affected in this way if they’re abused now even as in adult life they’re the last people to complain about it because they have come just to feel that they are worthless. They’ve come to feel that they have nothing to say, and they’re not.

So what can we do about it? There was a case, I think it was in Bristol, within the last year where he went to court and there were adults accused of child abuse who actually belonged to a satanic sect. But these things are considered so unbelievable that they are not brought to court. If abused children are brought next to the police. If the police are not themself involved, I’m afraid that happens, the police will in any case say: Well this case can be brought to court as child abuse but we mustn’t say anything about any cult activity because no one would believe it. So we wouldn’t get a conviction at all. So they have to go what they can get convictions of…”

It may seem problematic that people who channel (aliens or beings from Atlantis) also try to help with “possession”. The New Age movement whose roots go to the teachings of the Theosophical movement has been involved in several UFO and alien cults such as Heavens Gate and the Order of the Solar Temple and even “Jonestown” and has connections to the same spiritual network with military intelligence on its side.

Tony Neate was Chair of the Spirit Release Foundation for 4 years and several members of the Spirit Release Foundation were also involved in channeling. Deena O’Brien practices shamanism and helps with “soul retrieval and spirit release”.

Janet Treloar says:

“As a child I was a natural medium with a particular affinity to earthbound spirits, ghosts, souls who for one reason or another hadn’t moved on fully after death, “I went on to train as a Spiritual Healer with the SAGB (Spiritualist Association of Great Britain) and took psychic development classes to discipline and learn to work with a natural ability to link in to other vibrations. This lead me to seek professional training with the SRF (Spirit Release Foundation) as a qualified Spirit Release Practitioner.”

Wilma Davidson:

“Wilma is a member of the British Society of Dowsers, a healer member of the National Federation of Spiritual Healing, and a Reiki master. An experienced exorcist, she is a prominent member of the Spirit Release Foundation and is regularly called upon to help rescue lost spirits, and to write articles for magazines on this fascinating subject. A popular speaker, Wilma is often quoted in the UK media concerning spirits, ghosts and the paranormal.”

Involved in the Spirit release Foundation we also have the Royal College of Psychiatrists where a special department has been created called the “Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group”. The leader of this group is Dr Andrew Powell who also holds membership of the Royal College of Physicians, the College of Healing and the Scientific and Medical Network. He is also listed as an advisor on The Galileo Commission which is chaired by David Lorimer (Director of the Scientific and Medical Network and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society).

On the Spirit Release Forum we can find articles by David Furlong involving “Releasing a past-life with a ‘dark’ spirit attachment” and “Working with the Multiple Self: New insights in Spirit Release Therapy” and he has written books such as Illuminating the Shadow: Transforming the Dark Side of the Psyche, The Healer Within, Working with Earth Energies and Healing Your Ancestral Patterns. At the Spirit Release Forum we also find a range of Therapists who are simultaneously connected to the New Age movement with Reike healing, Akashic Records, Earth Energy Healing, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Hypnotherapy, Soul Integration and Past Life Regression.

Back to Sir George Trevelyan. Together with Stanley Messenger and Peter Dawkins, they founded the Gatekeeper Trust in 1980, which organized pilgrimages for personal and planetary healing. Peter Dawkins also explains that nature and pilgrimages are an initiatory path to the Holy Grail and the higher mysteries which he also calls The Green Path.

Peter Dawkins who is a philosopher and author also runs the Francis Bacon Research Trust and the Zoence Academy (and Mystery School) and Stanley Messenger (1917-2013) was also a philosopher and a metaphysician who had studied Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and also the “crop circle phenomenon” and he had his domicile at Glastonbury. At the Gatekeeper Trust we also find Barbara Siddall who went on pilgrimages to holy places around Europe and who studied the esoteric Shakespeare. Barbara is also a student of Transpersonal Psychotherapy and has been a researcher in altered states of consciousness together with C. Maxwell Cade using Bio-feedback and we can also find her at George Trevelyan’s Wrekin Trust.

C. Maxwell Cade (1918-1985) studied the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and clinical psychology and science like radar during World War II. After the war it was the scientific teachings that took up his interest and so did mysticism. He wrote about infrared radiation physics and astronavigation and he later worked for the British government on secret scientific research during the Cold War. He later obtained after hard work in various sciences a membership as Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and Royal Society of Health, a Member of the Institute of Biology and the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and an honorary member of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. He later developed techniques in sound and light and research in mind research and this became in 1976 the Mind Mirror EEG which he developed together with Geoffrey Blundell.

“The Mind Mirror enabled Cade to explore and map the brainwave patterns of more than four thousand people from the 1970s into the 1990s. His studies on the brainwaves of meditation and higher states of awareness led to the publication of his classic book, The Awakened Mind, and the field of EEG-led biofeedback meditation.” (institutefortheawakenedmind.com)

Maxwell Cade was a master hypnotist, Zen meditation master and he was a secretary of the Society for Psychical Research.

“Way back in 1974, Sir George was invited to have his brain waves measured on Maxwell Cade’s ‘Mind Mirror’, which then registered an entirely brand new brain pattern – a circle in lights, joining together the left and right brain, showing us, as Max said excitedly, “Vast Creativity!” – how could it have been otherwise?” (sourcewatch.org)

At the Peter Dawkins Francis Bacon Research Trust, we find Saira Salmon who, in addition to having an interest in Francis Bacon, also talks about Astrology and the Alchemy of Self “the transformation of Homo Sapiens into Homo Luminous, the New Human for the coming Age” and shows how we can read from the Akashic Records to get information about our Soul and its roots far out among the stars (starseeds). We also find Jill Line and Julia Cleave who we can also find on Zoence and on the Board of the Temenos Academy.

Temenos Academy was started in 1980 as Temenos journal which later developed into a project in spirituality and with lectures and study groups after 10 years. The academy was founded with the Prince of Wales’s as patron in his Institute of Architecture in Regent’s Park with Kathleen Raine, Keith Critchlow, Brian Keeble and Philip Sherrard as the founders. Kathleen Raine (1908-2003) whose interests lay in poetry, Platonism, Neoplatonism and Kabbalah was an initiate in Dion Fortune’s Fraternity of the Inner Light.

Dion Fortune (1890-1946) was interested in Theosophy and occultism and in 1919 joined the London Temple of the Alpha et Omega which was an occult group that came out of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. She later founded the Fraternity of the Inner Light in 1924.

Keith Critchlow who was a co-founder of Temenos journal has written several books in sacred geometry and is a Professor Emeritus at The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. We can also find Keith at the NGO World Youth Service and Enterprise (Wyse International) as a patron along with Laura Huxley, Sir George Trevelyan, Willis Harman (Institute of Noetic Sciences), Ram Dass, Robert Muller and many more. Wyse is in the business of training young leaders. Keith is also listed as an Advisory Board member at Chapel of Sacred Mirrors along with Deepak Chopra, Jean Houston and Alex Grey.

Temenos Academy has a large number of Fellows listed and one of these is Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi (1933-2020) who was a personal friend of Kathleen Raine. He was a founder of the Kabbalah Society and was also involved in George Trevelyan’s Wrekin Trust. We also find Wendell Berry (Lindisfarne Association, E. F. Schumacher Society), Satish Kumar (Gaia Partnership, Wyse International, Schumacher Society, Institute of Noetic Sciences), Karan Singh (Temple of Understanding, Auroville Foundation, World Wisdom Council etc.).

During the 80s, a friend of both Kathleen Raine and Prince Charles was a certain Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) who became one of the first patrons of the Gaia Foundation and he was also a founder of the Wilderness Foundation in 1974. The Gaia Foundation was founded 1984 by Liz Hosken and Edward Posey with Prof. Wangari Maathai from Kenya and José Lutzenberger from Brazil. Liz Hosken was a fellow of the Findhorn Foundation and campaigned for ecological and social justice and Edward Posey acted as a Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation and also sat on the Laurens van der Post Wilderness Foundation. At the Gaia Foundation we also find Thomas Berry with membership in a large number of networks such as the American Teilhard Association, Sacred Earth Network, E. F. Schumacher Society, Club of Budapest, Sacred Earth Network, Temple of Understanding, World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality and California Institute of Integral Studies. We find Jules Cashford who studied Psychology of Consciousness with Max Cade and we find Nic Marks who studied at the London based Psychosynthesis and Education Trust.

Another member of Gaia is Michael Shaw who is a staff member at Findhorn Ecovillage and a Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation. We find Anthony Thorley who is involved in Peter Dawkins Gatekeeper Trust and who organized sacred walks in The Glastonbury Zodiac as part of an “Alchemical Programme”.

Prince Charles was also in the focus of the book Radical Prince: The Practical Vision of the Prince of Wales published in 2004 and written by David Lorimer who was a former president of George Trevelyan’s Wrekin Trust. David was an editor of the Network Review at the Scientific and Medical Network which was a forum for the exploration of science, medicine, philosophy and spirituality. David has written a number of books on spirituality such as Prophet for Our Times (about Theosophist Peter Deunov), Resonant Mind (about One Mind), Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality and A Quest for Wisdom. We find David at the Swedenborg Society as Vice-President, Horizon Research Foundation, Integral Institute (Ken Wilber), Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology and is listed as one of the founders of the International Futures Forum (think tank with funding from a large number of companies including World Economic Forum).

The Scientific and Medical Network was founded in 1973 by George Blaker with help from Dr. Patrick Shackleton and Sir Kelvin Spencer. Blaker was a former member of the Theosophical Society and of the Horizon Research Foundation who had research on life near death. We also find the neurophysiologist Peter Fenwick who was also at the Horizon Research Foundation and the neurochemist and hypnotherapist Diana Clift. We have Geoffrey Leytham (Psychosynthesis and Education Trust, Center for Transpersonal Psychology) and philosopher and mystic Max Payne. We also have Bernard Carr who was also a member of the Society for Psychical Research. We also have former and international members such as Rupert Sheldrake (Institute of Noetic Sciences, Wisdom University), Sir Crispin Tickell (Club of Rome, Population Matters, Gaia Society), Edgar Mitchell, Ervin Laszlo, Robert Muller etc.

At the Scientific and Medical Network we also have the Swedish member Jens Jerndal who calls himself a social consultant and futurologist as he is also a member of the World Future Society based in Washington D.C. USA and also in the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) with its headquarters in California. He has written the books Paradigm Pulse (2010) and Cracking the Rainbow Code, For Access to the Secrets of Creation (2009).

“A clear and accessible account of the emerging holistic world view, giving us a picture of a living, resonant and interconnected universe in which we all play a creative role. Cracking the Rainbow Code involves breaking out of the straitjacket of scientific materialism into a new vision of human potential.” (David Lorimer, Programme Director Scientific and Medical Network, editor of The Spirit of Science and Thinking Beyond the Brain)

Sir George Trevelyan showed an early interest in biodynamic agriculture which he gained through Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy with his “mystical” agricultural teachings and at Attingham Park lectures were given on soil erosion and forestry and his friend was the woman Lady Eve Balfour (1898-1990) who was one of the founders of the Soil Association in 1946. Lady Eve was a pioneer in agriculture and she is seen as one of the founders of the organic movement.

Eve’s father Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour (1853-1945) was interested in parapsychology and was a President of the Society for Psychical Research between 1906 and 1907 and was the brother of the Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930) who was also a Fellow of the Royal Society and in the Round Table Group of the Society of the Elect. Her mother came from another famous family and it was Lady Elizabeth Balfour (1867-1942) née Bulwer-Lytton who was the daughter of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831-1891) and whose grandfather was Edward Bulwer-Lytton ( 1803-1873). Edward was interested in Spiritualism and a member of the Orphic Circle group where we find Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899) holding séances and making invocations of spirits into mirrors and crystals. We can read that Britten had been subjected to sexual abuse by some of the members of the Orphic Circle. She was later involved in the founding of the Theosophical Society in New York after being involved in various spiritualist societies after moving from England to America.

“Bulwer-Lytton was closely acquainted with Eliphas Levi, who was initiated into the occult by the Frankist Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński. Bulwer-Lytton met Levi during a trip to London in 1853. Through Bulwer-Lytton, Levi met a “certain lady,” an initiate of “a most exalted grade,” who arranged for him to summon the spirit of Apollonius of Tyanna. Lévi conceived the idea of writing a treatise on magic with his Bulwer-Lytton, which appeared in 1855 under the title Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, which presents his own system of magic, based in part on the grimoire known as the Greater Key of Solomon. Levi taught Lytton various magical rituals and procedures that Lytton incorporated into his fictional works, A Strange Story (1862) and The Haunted and the Haunters (1857), in which Levi served as the model for the magus.” (Ordoabchao, David Livingstone)

Lady Eve Balfour became the first President of the Soil Association (and Prince Charles became a patron) and a later President was Patrick Holden, a champion of “sustainable” food and a founder of The Sustainable Food Trust, and he was also an advocate of the New Age the movement. Patrick was a foreground figure at the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival (London, Olympia 1977) whose founder was Graham Wilson. George Trevelyan and his friends are said to have also been part of the construction of the festival. Patrick Holden was also an international director at the Aetherius Society who worked together with the founder George King (1919-1997) for several years. George King founded Aetherius in the 50’s and claimed to be in contact with extraterrestrials he called “Cosmic Masters” who would help people advance into the New Age.

Organic farming and ecological sustainability can also be found at Findhorn with its Findhorn Ecovillage and Global Ecovillage Network.

GaiaCorp is another connection to New Age spirituality and in 1991 Ross Jackson co-founded the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). The Global Ecovillage Network was formally founded at Findhorn Ecovillage, Scotland, in October 1995 with financial support from Gaia Trust. Global Ecovillage Network was founded by Jonathan Dawson and Declan Kennedy. Jonathan Dawson a sustainability advocate lists the World Bank, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, Intermediate Technology Development Group as his clients. Intermediate Technology Developmen Group (now knowns as Practical Action) was founded in 1966 by E. F. Schumacher (Oxford friend David Astor) as a development charity. E. F. Schumacher is affiliated with Lindisfarne Association and Planetary Citizens.

Dr Bernard Lietaer was a founding member of the Global Futures Forum and a member of the Club of Rome and a Co-Creator & Key Architect of the EURO. He works with research at the Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California. He co-founded and managed GaiaCorp (1987) togheter with Ross Jackson and and managed an offshore currency fund (Gaia Hedge II).

Gaia Trust is a Danish-based charitable association founded in 1987 on the initiative of Ross and Hildur Jackson, with the intention of supporting the transition to a sustainable and more spiritual future society through grants and proactive initiatives.” (gaia.org/gaia-trust/about-gaia-trust)

In the 1980s, Ross traveled to India and met a Hindu swami called Muktananda that resulted in a spiritual awakening that is also described in his book Kali Yuga Odyssey: A Spiritual Journey (2000).

Gaia Education is another globalist spiritual centre which was formally founded in 2005 at Findhorn Ecovillage promoting Gaia Schools. Gaia University was founded by Liora Adler, Andrew Langford and Declan Kennedy as a founding chair. It lists on its advisory board members like Ervin Laszlo, Prince Alfred von Liechtenstein, Barbara Marx Hubbard etc.

“In the Greek tradition out of Egypt, alchemy is hermetic and Hermes is the messenger of the Gods.”

“He is the flask and what is in the flask, the seal and the fire under the work. He is the catalyst, the third that comes wherever there’s a pair of opposites. He is said to be the transformative process.”

“And he’s there at the end as divine Mercury, the Philosophers’ Son, the Divine Child that’s born out of the whole process.” The Fires of Alchemy by Barbara Somers, p.19 (2004)

The Quatuor Coronati Lodge and the Fires of Alchemy Part I

The word hermit comes from the Greek god Hermes and we can go back in history to the first monastic schools that existed around Alexandria in Egypt at the beginning of Christianity. We have various sects such as the Gnostics, the Essenes, the Therapeutae and the ascetic hermits who lived out in the desert and who are associated with those who built the first monasteries that belonged to the beginning of Christianity. In these circles around the Alexandrian school we also see a mixture of Christianity with Plato’s teachings but also with Gnosticism. We can also see the beginnings of mysticism with its allegorical interpretation of the Bible.

One of the first orders in the monastic religious orders was the Order of Saint Benedict which was created under Saint Benedict of Nursia (480-547) in the year 529 and he wrote his Benedictine Rules which later spread in the western monasteries up into Europe.

Æthelberht of Kent (550-616) was a pagan king in Kent in England and he was one of those who laid the first stones as the foundation of Christianity in England. Æthelberht married Bertha (c.565-601) who was the granddaughter of the reigning King Chlothar I who was king of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty. It was through Bertha’s influences that the Anglo-Saxon kingdom became Christian. With her she also had Liudhard who was a Frankish bishop. Pope Gregory the Great also sent a monk who became Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He was called Augustine of Canterbury.

Æthelberht converted to Christianity and donated land for the construction of a monastery outside Canterbury. The monastery was probably founded in the year 598. The monastery then introduced rules that came from St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547). One of those who later introduced reforms under Benedictine Rule was St Dunstan (910-988) who was Abbot of Glastonbury and who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. The monastery was later named St Augustine’s Abbey.

Æthelstan (894-939) was a King of the Anglo-Saxons between 924 and 927 and King of the English from 927 until his death in 939. Æthelstan was also one of those who introduced the Benedictine monastic reforms during his time as king.

Suspicion existed that these monasteries acted as fronts for the occult. Through these monasteries also came occult teachings such as mysticism, gnosticism, hermeticism, astrology and magic. Hermes Trismegistus which was the Greek Neo-Platonic name for the Egyptian god Thoth was the founder of alchemy and geometry and the prototype of the “hermit”.

The Merovingian Franks (450-741) built monasteries as a means of infiltration…for Merovingian monasteries later became Benedictine/Cistercians… Pope Gregory the Great… promoted Benedictine monasticism. His feast day is the day he became pope, September 3 [590 AD]. This was accomplished by the infiltration of the Church, for Gregory was part of that infiltration. Sept. 3 became a day of victory for the Red Movement when he was installed as their pope, for Gregory marks the history of the papacy in that he was the very first ‘MONK’ to become a pope.” (text from Merovingian Infiltration of the Church Through Monasticism)

During the 13th-14th century at the Benedictine Abbey of St Augstine in Canterbury we find magical texts among the bookshelves of the monks who had one of the largest collections of books in England. These books were moved to places such as Oxford but also across the sea. Some of these monks had studied down in France, probably at the College of Sorbonne, a theological college of the University of Paris before being entered at St Augstine and they brought books with them from France to England.

Books that we can find at St Augustine’s included Plato’s Timeaus, Ars Notoria (solomonic magic), De imaginibus, Liber Razielis (Kabbalah text), books about Platonic Cosmology, the hermetic Liber Imaginum Lunae, Liber Vaccae, Secreta Philosophorum and Liber de Essential Spirituum and many more.

Many of these magical texts later ended up in the hands of the Rosicrucian John Dee (1527-1609) and he was especially interested in the texts Ars Notoria and Liber Razelius which came from Solomon and the Kabbalah. Between 22 to 27 manuscripts of magical texts from St Augustine ended up in Dee’s library and we can see that these were a source for his own views on magic.

Liber de essentia spirituum was a revelatory text about God and the spiritual hierarchy with an emphasis on Neoplatonic cosmology and Arabic image magic tradition where the author was in communication with spirits. Through communication with these spiritual hierarchies, one could be assigned a spirit at one’s side who could assist one with various magical skills and purposes.

“Dee began to envisage himself as a new Adam recieving the perfect wisdom possessed only by angels and prelapsarian man. Over a period of months in 1584, the angel Nalvage dictated to him “angelic keys” that he was told would enable him to understand all of creation and communicate with all creatures. The angelic keys were said to contain within them the whole of human knowledge and to possess great power…” (p139, Magic in the Cloister, Sophie Page)

“De Heptarchia Mystica, or On the Mystical Rule of the Seven Planets, is a book written in 1582-83 by English alchemist John Dee. It is a guidebook for summoning angels under the guidance of the angel Uriel and contains diagrams and formulae.” (wikipedia)

“Enochian magic is a system of ceremonial magic based on the 16th-century writings of John Dee and Edward Kelley, who wrote that their information, including the revealed Enochian language, was delivered to them directly by various angels.” (wikipedia)

After this time under John Dee we later see how these magical and alchemical ideas spread further through societies such as the Royal Society and also into Freemasonry and later in time these magical systems developed into an Enochian ceremonial magic under Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) and William Robert Woodman (1828-1891) who were founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1880s.

The Regius Poem which is supposed to be one of the first known and oldest Masonic texts shows how Freemasonry was brought to England under King Athelstan from 924 to 939. Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 which is a Masonic lodge of research took its name from the Regius Poem and takes its name from the Four Crowned Martyrs mentioned in the document. According to the history books, the Four Crowned Martyrs or Four Holy Crowned Ones were some of the nine martyrs of early Christianity. The Freemasons adopted them as patron saints of “Operative Masonry”.

“Told at its simplest, the story refers to four stone masons who were asked to carve the image of Æsculapius for Emperor Diocletian but refused because as Christian converts they were forbidden to produce an image of a pagan god. Diocletian consequently ordered their execution.”(quatuorcoronati.com)

The Research Lodge Quatuor Coronati was founded in 1884 and inaugurated in 1886. The founders were Sir Charles Warren (1840-1927), William Henry Rylands (1847-1922), Robert Freke Gould (1836-1915), Adolphus F. A. Woodford (1821-1887), Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), John Paul Rylands (1846-1923), Sisson Cooper Pratt (1844-1919), William James Hughan (1841-1911) and George William Speth (1847-1901).

Freemason Charles Warren (1840-1927) was a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund which excavated Jerusalem with Captain Wilson and a team of Royal Engineers and he was one of the founders of the Quatuor Coronati which was based at Freemasons Hall in London. In 1884 he also became a member as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Warren became the first Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1886.

William Henry Rylands (1847-1922) was initiated in 1872 in Faith and Unanimity Lodge, No. 417 in Dorchester and joined the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, London in 1881 and was elevated to the Chapter of St. James, No. 2, in London in 1882 and became Grand Steward in 1887. Rylands became Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1891.

Robert Freke Gould (1836-1915) became a Freemason in 1855 in Royal Navy Lodge, No. 429. He then held membership in several lodges such as Friendship Lodge, No. 345 and later became Senior Grand Deacon of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1880. Robert Freke became Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1887.

The Revd Adolphus Frederick Alexander Woodford (1821-1887) was a Church of England priest who was also a Freemason and was a member of, among others, the Lodge of Friendship, No. 278 and was a Grand Chaplain of United Grand Lodge.

Walter Besant (1836-1901) was Secretary to the Palestine Exploration Fund between the years 1868-1885 and a Freemason within the Lodge of Harmony, No. 1143 (later, No. 841 and erased 1868). He became Master of the Marquis of Dalhousie Lodge in London in 1873, of which he became a member in 1869. Walter’s brother William Henry Besant (1828-1917) was a mathematician and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His other brother Frank was married to the theosophist Annie Besant.

John Paul Rylands (1846-1923) became a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1873 and became vice-president and belonged to The Honorable Society of the Middle Temple (Inns of Court). He became a Freemason in 1872 in Lodge of Faith and Unanimity No. 417 belonged to Marquis of Lorne Lodge, 1354, Lodge of Lights, No. 148 and Elias Ashmole Chapter, No. 148 in the year 1880.

Sisson Cooper Pratt (1844-1919) was initiated in the year 1876 in Bayard Lodge, No. 1615, London and joined Kiser-i-Hind and Moira Lodges. Pratt became Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1889.

William James Hughan (1841-1911) had membership in many different lodges such as Grand Lodge of Quebec, Grand Lodge of Egypt, Grand Representative of the Grand Chapter of Pennsylvania, “Kilwinning Chapter” Ayr, No. 80, Phrenix Lodge, Truro, No. 331, in 1864, and Fortitude Lodge, Truro, No. 131, in 1866 and many more. William was a member of Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia.

George William Speth (1847-1901) was initiated in the year 1872 in the Lodge of Unity, No. 183 in London and became WM in 1876.

William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1893. He became a Freemason in 1871 and joined a number of different Lodges in the early years and during this time he also came into contact with various occult networks with people such as Benjamin Cox (1828-1895), Francis George Irwin (1828-1893), Frederick Hockley (1809-1885), Kenneth Mackenzie (1833-86), Rev William Alexander Ayton (1816-1909) and John Yarker (1833- 1913).

Westcott joined the Swedenborgian Rite in 1876 in Emanuel Lodge 1 and in 1880 was initiated into the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia of the Metropolitan College and later became a Supreme Magus of that order. He was one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with Samuel MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918). He was also a member of the Theosophical Society in the Blavatsky Lodge and also founded the Adelphi Lodge in London.

Edward MacBean (1845-1919) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1895. He was a member of several Masonic lodges such as St. John’s Lodge, No. 3, The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) No. 1, Glasgow Royal Arch Chapter No. 50 and Grand Steward in the Grand Lodge of Scotland. He joined the Isis-Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was also a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (Scotland and England). MacBean also practiced the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim founded in England by John Yarker.

Sydney Turner Klein (1853-1934) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1897. He was a Freemason and also held membership in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the Isis-Urania Temple in London. He also became a member of the Linnean Society in 1887 and several scientific institutions such as the Entomological Society, the Royal Microscopic Society, the Royal Institution and the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Linnean Society was founded by botanist Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828). He was a student of John Walker (1731-1803) who was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. James Edward Smith was a friend of Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet (1743-1820) who was president of the Royal Society of London for more than 41 years. Among other members of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society we find Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895). Among Charles Darwin’s best friends we find Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) who also became a president of the Royal Society of London.

Thomas Bowman Whytehead (1840-1907) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1899. Thomas was also a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and was Chief Adept of York College.

Frederick Joseph William Crowe (1864-1931) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1909 and for a short time was also a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with his initiation in 1893. He is said to have also known William Wynn Westcott and William Eliot Thomas (1866-1929) who were both members of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn through theirFreemasonry. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1906 and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. His membership in Freemasonry was in the year 1887 in Ashburton Lodge number 2189 and also Royal Arch Masonry Pleiades Chapter number 710, Jordan Lodge 1402 and St John’s number 328.

Edward Armitage (1859-1929) became Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1913. He married in 1892 Catherine Amy Passingham who was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the Isis-Urania temple in London in 1889. Edward Armitage was in in his youth a member of Isaac Newton University Lodge number 859 and so was George Frederick Rogers who was also a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden and also of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia Metropolitan College and the Theosophical Lodge in Cambridge. Edward’s wife Catherine Amy Passingham was also a Theosophist and president in 1888-89 of the Cambridge Lodge and she also shared membership with George Frederick Rogers in the Society for Psychical Research. Cathrine also attended meetings of the London Spiritualist Alliance.

Ernest William Malpas Wonnacott (1868-1926) shows membership of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. In 1915 he was a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge and is said to have also been Grand Librarian of the United Grand Lodge of England.

The following year Frederick William Levander (1839-1916) was a Grand Master (1916) and he also shows membership of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. He was involved in Masonic lodges such as Wiltshire Lodge of Fidelity, No. 663 and Campbell Lodge in 1415 and he had an interest in astronomy, archeology and antiquarian. Also his brother Henry Charles Levander (-1885) is said to have been a member of the SRIA London, of the Metropolitan College and the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine. The brothers’ neighbor was a certain Robert Palmer Thomas (1851-1918) who was a member of the Isis Urania Temple of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and the Theosophical Society and also the August Order of Light.

Gordon Pettigrew Graham Hills (1867-1937) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1918. He shows membership in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in London.

Arthur Lionel Vibert (1872-1938) was born in St. Petersburg in Russia and he shows membership in a large number of Masonic lodges such as Somerset Masters Lodge No, 3746, e Royal Alfred Lodge (No. 877) in Jersey, Lodge Perfect Unanimity (No. 150), Madras, revived Lodge Southern Cross ( No. 2298) at Palamcottah in 1894, becoming its W.M. in 1896 and 1897. Founder of St. Alphege Lodge (No. 4095) and became a member of the Somerset Masters’ Lodge (No. 3746) in 1920, where he served as W.M. in 1930. Lodge of Rectitude, No. 335, Corsham, In 1928, he was appointed as one of the Assistant Grand Directors of Ceremonies of the United Grand Lodge of England.

He joined the Quatuor Coronati Correspondence Circle in 1895 and became a full member in 1917 and for the year 1921 he became a Grand Master. He was also a Knights Templar and in 1919 joined the Robert Fludd College in Bath in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Later in 1929 he became a member of London Metropolitan College. He also shows membership in the Red Cross of Constantine, the Royal Order of Scotland, the Order of Eri, and K.T.P. He wrote three books on Freemasonry. Freemasonry before the Existence of Grand Lodges (1913), The Story of the Craft (1921) and The Rare Books of Freemasonry (1927).

John Heron Lepper (1879-1952) became a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1924. He wrote extensively about secret societies in the book Famous secret societies (1932). John was a VII degree member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Dr John Stokes (1865-1935) became Grand Master of the Coronati in 1925. He was also interested in secret societies and shows membership in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia at York College.

The English Priest Walter William Covey-Crump (1865 -1949) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1926. He was in the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine at Mark Masons’ Hall in London and Assistant Grand Chaplain of England. He wrote about “The Craft and the Kabbalah” in publications of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge.

George Norman (1848-1938) was a Grand Master of Coronati in 1927. He shows membership in the Masonic lodge Royal Cumberland Lodge No. 41, at Bath and also in other orders such as the Order of the Red Cross cf Constantine, the Cryptic Rite, the Royal Order of Scotland and also the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (Junior Substitute Magus, IX).

David Flather (1864-1948) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1932 and shows membership in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (IX J.S.M as Grand Celebrant).

The Rev. Walter Kelly Firminger (1870-1940) was Grand Master of Coronati in 1933. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a missionary of the UMCA in Zanzibar and became a Freemason in Calcutta in Fortitude No. 229, Chapter No. 234, Lodge No. 80 etc. He was a Knight Templar and in the Royal Order of Scotland. He was in The Red Cross of Constantine, the Allied Degrees, the Cryptic Degrees and in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

William John Songhurst (1860-1939) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1934 and he was also secretary of the lodge between 1906-1928. William was a Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia from 1925 until his death in 1939. He also shows membership of the British Numismatic Society.

Douglas Knoop (1883-1948) was Grand Master of Coronati in 1935. This professor of economics at the University of Sheffield was a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and wrote the book The Genesis of Freemasonry (1947).

Col. Cecil Clare Adams (1891-1963) was Grand Master of Coronati Lodge in 1939. This student of the occult joined Arthur Edward Waite’s Independent and Rectified Rite in 1913 and in the early 1920s became a Freemason and member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia’s Metropolitan College. Cecil was associated with members of the Golden Dawn that lectured on the Kabbalah and the Aquarian Age.

Arthur Edward Waite’s (1857-1942) was a British poet and mystic who joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1891 and later became a Freemason in 1902 and joined the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia the following year.

William Ivor Grantham (1898-1986) became Grand Master of Coronati Lodge in 1942 and was Treasurer of Quatuor Coronati Lodge for several years. He shows membership in the William Wynn Westcott College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Fred Lomax Pick (1898-1966) was Grand Master at Coronati in 1944. Fred became a member of “The Society of Blue Friars” which is a Masonic organization especially for writers within Freemasonry. It is based in the USA but has several members from England who also belong to the Quatuor Coronati Lodge.

“Of a total of 98 Blue Friars to date only seven English Brethren have previously been proclaimed into the Order. They are Brothers Arthur E. Waite (1857-1942); Fred Lomax Pick (1898–1966); Harry Carr (1900-1879); Bernard E. Jones (1879-1965); Frederick H. Smyth (1919- ); Roy A. Wells (1908–1990); John M. Hamill (1947-) and Cyril N. Batham (1909-1996).” (Friar homepage)

Col Frank Martyn Rickard (1873-1953) was a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1944 and shows membership of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia as a Supreme Magus.

Fulke Rosavo Radice (1888-1987) was Grand Master at Coronati in 1946. Fulke’s grandfather is described as a secretary to Prince Charles Albert (1798-1849) and a member of the Carbonari (secret revolutionary society) during the 1820s. Fulke was initiated into Freemasonry in 1925 in Old Bedfordian Lodge, No. 4732 and became a Master in 1936. He was in Stuart Chapter No. 540, Public Schools Lodge (Mark Degree), A. & A. Rite (Studholme Chapter). He also became a Knights Templar and a member of the Red Cross of Constantine, the Cryptic Degrees and the Royal Order of Scotland. He also shows to be a ninth degree of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Fulke also wrote about the Carbonari in An Introduction to the History of the Carbonari and Les Philadelphes et les Adelphes.

Henry Christopher Bruce Wilson (1875-1963) was a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1949 and held the ninth degree of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Darcy Kuntz published a book in 2009 entitled The Origins of the Rosicrucian Society in England. It contains older articles written by Bruce Wilson, John Frederick Birrell (1911-1994) and Robert William Felkin (1853-1926) on the history of the society.

Herbert Coulson Booth (1877-1962) was a Grand Master of Coronati in 1950. This author of an article on The Culdees (members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities) is said to have also been a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia at Newcastle College.

John Richard Rylands (1898-1983) became Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1952 and he was a Freemason of the highest degree in The Wakefield Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, No. 495, Supreme Council 33° (Rose Croix) and also shows membership in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia as a Substitute Magus.

Harry Carr (1900-1983) was Grand Master of the Coronati Lodge in 1958. This author held a large number of memberships in various Masonic lodges around the world mostly connected to research in history and was also a member of “The Society of Blue Friars”. He wrote the foreword to the book King Solomon’s Temple in the Masonic Tradition written by Alex Horne.

Joseph Ryle Clarke (1896-1983) was Grand Master of the Coronati Lodge in 1967. Clarke is said to have been a colleague of Douglas Knoop (1883-1948) at Sheffield University and both were members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Cyril E K Northwood Batham (1909-1996) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1972. Batham holds membership in a large number of Masonic Lodges and was first initiated in Bristol in 1955. He is a Past Assitant Grand Sojurner of the Supreme Gand Chapter of England and also a Knights Templar and in the Masonic Order of St Thomas of Acon where he was the first High Council Representative. The Order of Saint Thomas of Acon was founded in 1974 by John E. N. Walker who was also Secretary General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia where we can also find Batham.

Batham had theories about the rise of Freemasonry:

“Early in 1991, I was honored by an invitation to the annual banquet of the Philalethes Society, a Masonic research and education organisation. The principal speaker was Cyril Batham, long a member of the prestigious Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research in England, the premier Masonic research lodge of the world. Mr. Batham surprised us all by explaining his own theory of Masonic origins, a totally original concept.

Mr. Batham believes that Masonry began in a secret society formed by dispossessed monks after the dissolution of the monasteries in England. As a major part of his break with the church hierarchy in Rome, Henry VIII of England dissolved the smaller monasteries in his realm in 1536 and dismantled the larger ones in 1538. The crown seized all their properties, and those acts, Mr Batham believes, drove the monks and the friars of the monastic orders to band together in a secret society of mutual help and protection. His talk was later published in two parts in The Philalethes magazine.” (A Pilgrim’s Path: Freemasonry and the Religious Right, John J. Robinson)

Robert Arthur Roy Wells (1908-1990) who was Grand Master at Coronati in 1973 was an expert on the Royal Arch and also in “The Society of Blue Friars” together with other members of the Quatuor Coronati.

Alexander Cosby Fishburn Jackson (1904-) was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1974. He wrote the book Rose-Croix: The history of the Ancient and Accepted Rite for England and Wales (1980) which describes the motifs of the rite inspired from Rosicrucianism and alchemy. He also published ‘Rosicrucianism and its Effect on Craft Masonry’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 97 (1984).

“The emblems of this Degree are the Eagle and the Pelican, the Cross and the Rose. The Eagle is a symbol of Christ in his divine character … The Pelican is an emblem of our Saviour shedding his blood for the salvation of human kind.” (symbols from alchemy)

William Read (1903-1993) was Grand Master at Coronati in 1976. He is said to have also been with the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Ellic Paul Howe (1910-1991) was Grand Master of the Quatuor in 1978. Howe was an author who wrote about the occult and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Among other things, he wrote the article “Fringe Masonry in England 1870-85” (Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, volume 85, 1972). He was the author of the books Urania’s children: The strange world of the astrologers (1967), The magicians of the Golden Dawn: A documentary history of a magical order, 1887-1923 (1972), The black game: British subversive operations against the Germans during the Second World War (1982), Astrology and the 3rd Reich (1985) and Astrology and psychological warfare during World War II (1972). Howe is said to have also been part of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Frederick Henry Smyth (1919-?) was Grand Master of the Coronati in 1979 and was (probably) a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Rev. Neville Barker Cryer (1924-2013) was a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1981. This Church of England clergyman was a Freemason with membership in York Lodge No. 236 (the oldest lodge in York), Past Grand Chaplain UGLE and member of Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, The Royal Order, The Operatives, The Order of Eri, The Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests and Order of Holy Wisdom. He was also secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Neville wrote several books such as York Mysteries Revealed (with a foreword by Michael Baigent who is famous for the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, 1982), Belief And Brotherhood, Tell Me More About the Mark Degree, The Royal Arch Journey and The Arch and the Rainbow and more.

John McKenzie Hamill (1947-) was Grand Master at Coronati in 1985. John was a Librarian and Curator of the Library and Museum of the United Grand Lodge of England and wrote on Freemasonry and occult subjects such as Rosicrucianism. He was an editor of The Rosicrucian Seer: Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley (2009), The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry (1986), ‘John Yarker: Masonic Charlatan’, AQC 109 (1996) and “The Jacobite Conspiracy,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 113 (2000).

Christopher Haffner was the Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1990. He was initiated into Freemasonry during the 60s while being involved in a church within Christianity where conflicts arose between the different teachings. Chrisopher later published the book Workman Unashamed (1989) where he is said to have written about the compatibility of Freemasonry with Christianity and comes to the defense of attacks on Freemasonry by various anti-Masonic publications. He describes anti-freemasonry publications as lacking substance and described as sensational and without sufficient research on the subject.

Robert J Gilbert (1942-) was a Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati in 1993. This expert on Freemasonry has written several books on Rosicrucianism and has been a former Librarian and Archivist of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. He has written books on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Christian Esoteric as A.E. Waite A Bibliography (The Aquarian Press, 1983), The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians (Aquarian Press, 1983), Revelations of the Golden Dawn: The Rise and Fall of the Magical Order (1997), Casting the First Stone: Hypocrisy of Religious Fundamentalism and Its Threat to Society (1993) and Gnosticism and Gnosis: An Introduction (2012). Gilbert is also a trustee of the Yarker Library Trust and of the Hermetic Research Trust.

Adam McLean (1948-), who grew up in Glasgow, founded the Hermetic Journal in 1978, which he published until 1992, and in the late 80s he founded the Hermetic Research Trust.

Yasha Beresiner (1940-) was a Grand Master of the Quatuor in 1997. Yasha became a member of “The Society of Blue Friars” (which also has several members from Coronati) in 2009. In 2003 he became Past Grand Standard Bearer of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Trevor Stewart Was Grand Master of Coronati in 2001. A member of a large number of orders such as the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland and the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (High Council) and also the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis (USA) as a Ninth Grade Magus. With an interest in esotericism, he has done an English translation of Martinez de Pasqually’s Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings and written articles such as Aspects of Freemasonry and the Western Hermetic Tradition and A Mild Case of Victorian Pornography? (on William Wynn Westcott).

Jacques Litvine was a Grand Master at Coronati in 2005 and he was initiated in 1958 in Lodge Promethée of the Grand Orient of Belgium. Jacques, like several members of the Coronati, has written on anti-Masonry and has published the article Anti-Masonry: A Neglected Source,” AQC, Volume 104 (1992).

David Peabody was Grand Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 2006 and he co-wrote with Bro. Richard Gan and Susan Snell the article “Robert Wentworth Little: A Duplicitous Freemason, Wordsmith and Mystic, Part I and II. Robert Wentworth Little was the driving force and progenitor of the Red Cross of Constantine (RCC) in 1865, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA) in 1867, Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim (Misraim) in 1870 and the Ancient Archaeological Order of Druids (AAOD) in 1874.

Freemason Richard Gan is also a member of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge and belongs to the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees together with Brian Wareham, deputy supreme ruler, Order of the Secret Monitor; Peter Glyn-Williams, supreme ruler, OSM; John Paternoster, supreme magus, SRIA; Roy Leavers, intendant general, Surrey Red Cross; and Tommy Thompson, grand tyler, Mark Masons Hall .

Brent Morris was the Grand Master of Coronati in 2007. This 33rd degree Freemason from the USA was an Editor of the Scottish Rite Journal of the Supreme Council 33° of the Southern Jurisdiction, a member of the Philalethes Society, the Royal Order of Scotland and the Society of Blue Friars. He is also a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitabus Foederatis at Maryland College where he holds the IX degree.

Robert L. D. Cooper was Grand Master at Coronati in 2012. He holds membership in the Grand Lodge of Scotland, The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland and The Great Priory of Scotland (the Knights Templar) and in several esoteric societies. He is connected with lodges such as The Lodge of Light (Lodge No. 1656), Lodge Edinburgh Castle (Lodge No. 1764), Lodge Sir Robert Moray (Lodge No. 1641) and is also a Free Gardener and a Hammerman (Esoteric). He has written books such as The Masonic Magician: The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite (2008), Cracking The Freemasons Code (2007), The Rosslyn Hoax? (2007) and The Red Triangle: A History of Anti-Masonry (2020). He is one of several Quatuor Coronati members writing about Anti-Masonry throughout its history.

Brian Price became a Grand Master at Coronati in 2016. He has a 32nd degree in the Ancient and Accepted Rite. A member of numerous lodges and titles such as the Order of the Allied Masonic Degrees when he received his Red Cross of Babylon Degree, Greene Commandery of Knights Templar No. 81 (Ohio), Past Great Warden of Regalia in the Great Priory of Knights Templar, Past Grand Seventh Pillar in the Grand College of Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests, Orders of the Secret Monitor and the Red Cross of Constantine. He has also written the book In The Steps Of The Templars. The name Brian Price appears in official papers of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia so it is likely that he is also a member of that order.

Ric Berman was a Grand Master of the Coronati Lodge in 2018. An author of several books, one of which is Espionage, Diplomacy & the Lodge: Charles Delafaye and The Secret Department of the Post Office (2017).

“Berman provides a unique glimpse into Britain’s early secret intelligence service and outlines for the first time the interconnections between freemasonry, espionage and diplomacy.” (cover)

Andreas Önnerfors was a Grand Master at Quatuor Coronati in 2019. Andreas grew up in Germany and later studied at the University of Lund in Sweden. He was initiated into the Swedish Rite in 1996 and has reached degree X. He is a member of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Scania and the research lodge Carl Friedrich Eckleff located in Uppsala. Carl Friedrich Eckleff (1723-1786) is called the father of Swedish Freemasonry and this research lodge was inaugurated in 1997.

Andreas has also been involved in the Swedish state and the “Swedish Agency for Community Protection and Preparedness”, where he has written a study on “conspiracy theories and covid-19” and he is involved in a research project on conspiracy theories in Europe within the network COMPACT (Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories in Europe). He has been involved in the “Agency for Psychological Defense” where he has given lectures at their events about conspiracy theories as a threat to democracy. He has also written several articles about the radical right at the think tank The Center for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR), which is located in England.

Andreas has contributed to the publication Mystical brotherhood – powerful network: studies in Swedish 18th-century Freemasonry which has been co-authored by three writers, one of whom is Henrik Bogdan who has authored and co-authored a large number of books and publications in Occultism and the Esoteric and on the Ordo Templi Orientis such as Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation (2007), Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism (2012), Sexuality and New Religious Movements (2014) and The Carfax Monographs (Steffi and Kenneth Grant) etc. He is also secretary of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).

“The Phoenix bird rises from the burning ashes upwards towards the light, the brightly shining sun. On the ash heap rests an angle hook among six thistles, wrapped around a rope or ribbon. “The oppressed virtue must rise again” is the motto of this title vignette that adorns the publication “Freemason News” from the year 1770.” (from Mystical brotherhood – powerful network, explaining a symbol of alchemy)