Magic Monday
Jan. 1st, 2023 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The picture? I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me. Sylvester Gould, last week's honoree, was an active member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, one of the more interesting occult orders of the late 19th century. (After many reorganizations, it's still around as the Church of Light aka Brotherhood of Light.) The H.B. of L., as most people called it back in the day, was founded by two British occultists, T.H. Burgoyne and Peter Davidson. The photo is of Burgoyne. It's also the photo of another gentleman, one Captain Norman Astley, who took over the reorganized H.B. of L. in America from Burgoyne, married another H.B. of L. adept -- the remarkable and talented Genevieve Stebbins -- and helped Benjamin Williams aka Elbert Benjamine aka C.C. Zain re-reorganize the H.B. of L. into the Brotherhood of Light aka Church of Light. Yes, Burgoyne and Astley were the same person. It's a complicated story. But Burgoyne and Peter Davidson, whom we'll be talking about next week, were among Sylvester Gould's teachers -- and behind them stands another and a considerably stranger figure.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-02 08:49 pm (UTC)Say you're going to the local FHR temple tonight and it'll be working in the Seeker grade. The traditional way of opening the temple would include a part when the conductor goes around to every single person present, and the person gives the conductor the step, grip, sign, and word of the Seeker grade, partly to demonstrate that they have the right to be there and partly to key yourself into the state of consciousness.
If the FHR was an old-fashioned order, there would also be a secret sign of recognition and a password you could use to identify yourself to other members outside lodge -- it would be something very casual, so nobody who wasn't a member would notice. If you read my novel A Voyage to Hyperborea, the main character had a couple of people make the recognition sign of the Esoteric Order of Dagon to him -- it involved brushing something off one shoulder with the other hand, and then including the word "fish" in the next sentence. Of course Toby missed that completely.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-03 03:16 am (UTC)J