The Scarlet Letter
Volume V, Number 2 | December 1998
Hermetic Brotherhood Revisited
Thoughts on the Antiquity & Continuity
of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light
By T Allen Greenfield
The extremely important history of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, or Luxor, 1 also known simply as the H.B. of L. had been nearly forgotten by modern occultists after the turn of the twentieth century, but more especially in the wake of the second occult revival in the 1960s and 70s. Then Joscelyn Godwin et al began research for their work on the subject, The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (Weiser, 1995). At about the same period, I also embarked upon investigations for a book on the same theme, published as The Story of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light (Looking Glass Press, 1996). In some of its earliest literature, the then Grand Master of O.T.O., Dr. Reuss, had identified the O.T.O. with this Hermetic Brotherhood. Aleister Crowley extolled that venerable repository of insight as one of the bodies from which the O.T.O. claimed to derive its knowledge and wisdom. There seemed to be an obvious correlative connection to Dr. P.B. Randolphs Brotherhood of Eulis, but the nature of that connection was tenuous as recently as the 1980s.
As I began my research work, I concentrated on the immediate achievements and activities of this lineage in the nineteenth century. It gradually became apparent that a strong case could be made for much earlier origins. It became obvious that there was a remarkable chain of evidence here, rooted in a stream of unusual and striking ideas and practices extraordinary in the Western Occult Tradition (though better known in the Eastern Tradition as Tantric Yoga and related schools). That firmly suggested that the O.T.O.s most profound ideas had come, in large measure, directly from Randolphs Brotherhood of Eulis, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light of Max Theon and Dr. Peter Davidson, and, perhaps, also earlier manifestations of the same current. Some of these currents go back, at least, to the Rosicrucian-Freemasonic ferment that so caught the European imagination in the eighteenth century.
There was, undeniably, some difficulty with all this. No single clear name was universal to this current of manifestation. We do find such related but differing terms as Brotherhood of Light, Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, Fratres Lucis, and other variations. All espoused the same progression of thinking, and there were cases of overlapping individuals involved. Even structural and liturgical similarities were found, but enough diversity and sufficient gaps remained that there was room to challenge that these bodies were even linked, much less the same body of manifestation. Indeed, critics were to arise who professed to see no continuity whatsoever. 2
I would not presume to speak for others, but by the time the research work on my own book was completed, I was utterly convinced that these groups were indeed the same essential body of manifestation. They were, in fact, the source of the core ideas (and some of the configuration) incorporated by Kellner and Reuss into the O.T.O. at the turn of the twentieth century, just as the Oriental Rites of Memphis & Mizraim of John Yarker were, to a large extent, the source of the O.T.O.s structural formation and fraternal outlook. I was a bit baffled when several articulate critics challenged what seemed an obvious continuity and connectedness. It all seemed to boil down to several key points.
(1) It was remarkable for me to learn that the eighteenth century Brothers of Light, and for that matter the Initiated Brothers of Asia, are direct antecedents of O.T.O. I have at hand some of their rituals. It is almost certainly correct that there are enough similarities in publicly available literature to link these bodies, both directly and through intervening manifestations such as the Theon-Davidson H. B. of L. of the nineteenth century. For example, induction into the eighteenth century Fraters Lucis includes this from the Chief Priest to the acolyte as he anoints him with the Sacred Chrism: Let him that hath an ear, let him hear with what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving that he receiveth it. A hundred years later, in his monograph Vital Christianity, Peter Davidson made these remarks:
The inward and true Self, the Dual-Soul-Germ, the I am, is identical with the Christ, and the nature of such is the great Mystery and final secret which God holds in reserve for those who seek and love Him. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving that he receiveth it, 3
One is, of course, quite free to interpret white stone and hidden manna as one chooses 4; but the coincident citations are nonetheless remarkable. They both derive, of course, from the book of Revelations, Chapter 2, verse 17: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
(2) Dr. Reuss does indeed say, in 1920 e.v., The Gnostics of the Neo-Christian Church, also called the Brothers of Light of the Seven Congregations in Asia or the Order of the Templars of the Orient, proclaim to the misguided suffering humanity the message of salvation of Liberty, Justice, Love. While, for example, in the Knight Novice of the Third Year (1st Degree) in the Fraters Lucis, the reading of the articles of obligation are prefaced as The general articles on the duties of the Very Reverend and Most Worshipful Seven Fathers, the Heads of the Seven Churches of Asia....
I dont see any reason why this earlier association in any way precludes links between O.T.O. and later (nineteenth century) organizations with similar names; it simply pushes the time-line further back. Here again, we find the origin of the turn of phrase in the book of Revelations. Parenthetically, the Seven Churches of Asia references date from antiquity and show up in all sorts of places, beginning with Rev. 1:11:
Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
It is a venerable formula, perhaps with reference to the medieval mythos of Prester John 5, and incorporated into the Fraters Lucis or Brothers of Light, and then to the O.T.O., the initials of which do, after all, stand for Order of Oriental Templars.
The point I make in The Story of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light is that the continuity of ideas and similarity of names among a variety of groupsparticularly when those ideas and names are unique in the Western Worldsuggest continuity of organization. A paper trail may be lacking, or overlaps of membership are not always notedthough both of these factors are also present much of the timebut the continuity is glaringly obvious nonetheless.
(3) The thing that makes the O.T.O. unique is that it teaches a form of sexual magick which seems to arise semi-independently of Eastern (Tantric) Schools of a somewhat similar nature. Of the eighteenth century Fratres Lucis, even A.E. Waiteno friend of sexual magicknotes of membership qualification, referring to the rituals of the Fratres Lucis found among the papers of Count Wilkorki they must be free from physical defects—but the stipulation in the present case connotes something more than perfect limbs, this being insured already by the first condition (must be Master Masons): it is possible that there is a sex-implicit. Waite continues this theme, noting that their Royal Priest or Perfect Rosicrucian Degree connotes Eucharistic procedure. He further avers that it is exceedingly doubtful that the Fratres Lucis ceased operations in the 1790s, and suggests that Der Signatstern, in the early 19th Century, evidences a continuation of Order activity. It is true that the latter was, apparently, more a literary conservatorship than an active body, but many rites go through such periods. The very idea of such a conservatorship is to preserve intact a unique rite in a temporarily relatively dormant state. This brings us to the period when the Rites of Memphis & Misraim were emerging out of Cagliostros androgynous Egyptian Rite (which are both antecedent bodies of O.T.O. and absorbed much from earlier Masonic bodies), and not long before the time of P.B. Randolph, Hargrave Jennings or Kenneth Mackenzie.
(4) The latter (b. 1833 e.v.) was raised in Austria and appears to have been first exposed to Rosicrucian ideas there, according to some authorities. Randolph (b. 1825e.v.) was also absorbing (and influencing) European and Asiatic Rosicrucianism in the first half of the nineteenth century. By his own account, he became the Grand Master of the (Rosicrucian) Brotherhood of Eulis in 1846 e.v. In his secret teaching, taken up by the Davidson era H.B. of L., he says, Neither the man nor the woman must be virginal or unsexed, which is reminiscent of the qualification imposed in the earlier Fratres Lucis. In the case of Randolph, the sex implicit is more a sex explicit if one reads his public work carefully, and utterly obvious from a reading of such private works as The Anseretic Mysteries and Mysteries of Eulis.
(5) Dr. Randolph, indeed, suggests the formula of the Mass of the Holy Ghost so explicitly, that the quotation I most often cite has been edited out of some editions of his magnum opus, Eulis. One can find a very similar quotation in The Mysteries of Eros as reprinted far more recently by Godwin, Chanel and Deveney (The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, p. 243). The direct quotation is taken from that of 1896, the third edition of Eulis from the Randolph Publishing Company. It is, therefore, an authorized edition. Randolph calls it the first principle and says:
Fix this principle firmly in your memory, and roll it under the tongue of your clearest understanding; take it in the stomach of your spirit, digest it well, and assimilate its quintessence to, and with, your own soul. That principle is formulated thus: Love Lieth at the Foundation (of all that is); and Love is convertibly passion; enthusiasm; affection; heat; fire; soul; God. Master that.
One is free not to take this to refer intentionally to the Mass of the Holy Ghost. In the context of Randolphs overall work, other explanations appear unlikely.
(6) That Peter Davidson himself takes an early interest in occultism, and incorporates Randolphs work into his earliest associations with the H.B. of L. is beyond reasonable dispute. My own extensive direct contacts with the Davidson family demonstrate that. Davidson descendants generously provided me with a number of his letters and notebooks that establish his associationsfrom Papus to Hargrave Jennings beginning quite early on. In its earliest form under Davidson, the 1st Degree of the H.B. of L. was called Eulis and its instructional text was Randolphs sexual magick treatise Mysteries of Eulis. That Davidson and his associates toned down the sexual element I do not dispute. But not really all that much. The H.B. of L. (Davidson) curriculum continued to utilize modified Randolph teachings as late as Davidsons death in 1915 e.v. Davidson said, in an 1895 e.v. monograph,
Love is the attunement and self completion of the dual forces; it is the union of corresponding opposites in the same substance, and sex has its origin in the very nature of God. Sex, says the Kabala, is the true God of Hosts; Sex, says the Egyptian Priest, is the true light of Wisdom; and knowledge of the Bisexual forces, says the Adept, is the only pathway to Spirit, the inner perception of which is that knowledge of the Soul of the Universe and the individuals own Higher Self, for only Soul can read Soul.
Surely, if Davidson had done more than interject a note of caution on the sexual aspect of Randolphs work, the modifications would simply not have done, for this was the core of Randolphs teaching. It emerges again in the strongly sexual doctrines of Max Theon, who was always Davidsons Chief, to the end of his life. According to Rene Guenon, This Grand Master was Dr. Max Theon, who would later create and direct what was known as the Cosmic Movement. The last dozen years of Peter Davidsons life were devoted to promoting the Cosmic Movement, with a nod to Papus and the Martinist Order. Theons concept of pathetique 6 is a purely sexual magick Sri Aurobindo was moved to call wholly Tantric.
(7) One can thus far pass by the mysterious Paulos Metamon only lightly, for a mysterious and influential figure he was indeed. It was he who influenced Madame Blavatsky in the 1840s, and introduced her to the H.B. of L. in 1870 (the year Randolph proclaimed the Brotherhood of Eulis as well). Metamon appears to have passed the Grand Mastership to Davidson and Theon. The former, in his turn, profoundly influenced Papus, a member of the Davidson H.B. of L. who called Davidson one of the wisest of Western adepts, my Practical Master. Davidson represented the Martinist Order under Papus in the Georgia H.B. of L. colony during the American period. It should go without saying that, as documented in my book and elsewhere, Papus and Reuss were formally and personally closely associated at the time the O.T.O. was organized. This was the same period in which Papus and Davidson were associated. When the same time, the same people and the same ideas show up in and around the O.T.O. in its formative period, circa 1894 - 1904 e.v. 7, the evidence becomes more than circumstantial for direct continuity. At minimum, the continuity of ideas, aforementioned, and uniquely so, runs from one to the other in a fairly seamless fashion, allowing a bit for the fact that we are dealing with Victorian times and secret societies to begin with. In context, it is remarkable how much continuity can be shown, running from the Fratres Lucis, through Randolph, Davidson, Papus and Reuss, on to Aleister Crowley and his successors in O.T.O. to the present day.
In summary, it appears that there is a parallel tradition running through the eighteenth century Fratres Lucis and Asiatic Brethren on the one hand, and Cagliostros Egyptian Rite (androgynous) Freemasonry on the other. These fuse with primordial Egyptian traditions during the Napoleonic conquests in Egypt, passed on to Metamon, Theon, Levi, Randolph, Davidson and other nineteenth century luminaries, down to Papus, Reuss, Kellner and, eventually, Aleister Crowley and his successors and heirs within O.T.O.
I would be remiss if I did not make a more kindly gesture to the critics. Although we reach somewhat different conclusions, we are united in making the painstaking effort to ferret out, as it were, the true history of secret societies which so often seem to enjoy mythos spinning (for a variety of reasons; some quite honorable, in my opinion) and secrecy itself. It hath its uses, but is, verily the bane of historians. Better still, I find they and I are part of a relatively rarefied breed. Such people are seekers of inner wisdom who do not disown trying to sort out some kind of coherent perspective on the history and ideas of the magical societies and fraternities that have, for so long, been viewed through the distorted lenses of sensationalism and rumor.
Obviously, I adjudge The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, Brothers of Light, etc. to be, essentially, the same assemblage but, again, it depends on what one accepts as essential. I dont take a rigorous stance on lineal chartered continuity (although I consider there to be prima facie evidence for such here), which some apparently insist upon. History rarely runs in a seamless straight line. I think the line here is straighter than some critics recognize, and, as evidence continues to come in, I suspect I shall find little to regret in what I have said thus far.
1 For most purposes in this context, light (from the Middle English; d English leoht or liht), and Luxor (Egyptian Thebes, but in practice i obvious reference to Latin lux, or light), and Lucis (again Latin for light) are all variations of the same concept of illumination.
2 One of the most interesting is G.B. Smith. Smith is highly critical of O.T.O. and of our own work, but curiously provides the best evidence we have thus far found for a direct linkage between the unorthodox ecstatic Jewish sect of the Zoharists and the currents discussed in this paper. According to Smith, Thomas von Schoenfeld, also known as Mosheh Dobruschka and a cousin of Jacob Frank, was both an outstanding leader of the Frankist sect and a seminal figure in the creation of the Qabalistic character of the Fraters Lucis, or Asiatic Brethren. See my paper, The Frankist Ecstatics of the Eighteenth Century in Agape V1N2. The Frankists or Zoharists, we should remember, engaged in a form of sacred sexuality as part of their basic custom.
3 The same reference appears in Cagliostros Catechism of Master of the Egyptian Lodge.
4 How open the physical nature of the Grail still was in c. 1200, when Wolfram embarked on his Parzival, is shown by the fact that his Grail - he calls it Gral - was a Stone... The root question here is too complex for a note. Gral may relate to the ME/OF gravele or small, hard stone. The Graal is both a sacred stone and a chalice. Sometimes it refers to a specific flesh-colored stone, carnelian, defined by American Heritage as a pale to deep red or reddish-brown variety of clear chalcedony, used in jewelry. [Middle English corneline, from Old French, from cornel, cornel, from Latin cornus]. The white stone could be the white carnal substance or semen. This is reflected in the cornucopia, at once horn of plenty and fleshly womb from which all living things enter the world.
The stone before it wholly part with its blackness and become white, like most shining polished marble or a naked brandished sword, will put on all colors that can be imagined —Dr. Sigismon Bacstrom, MD, The Seven Egyptian Seals.
.... the Circle of White Light, being the revelation of the nature of the self. The Fish is freed from its spatial-temporal bonds, and the Heart is now void of passion. The Circle of Light is the White Stone, the Immortal Foetus in Taoism, the Seed Indestructible, the Wing Recovered. Vitality recovered, the Elixir prepared, the Light soars up to the Original Cavity of the Spirit and manifests brightly between the eyes. This is the Leap into the Void, the Re-Absorption into the One...... W.H. Mueller, Polaria (p. 107-8)
5 Prester John is the mythic king and priest first mentioned by Bishop Otto, of Freising (1145 e.v.). Prester John was said to be a Nestorian Christian living in the East. The story seems to originate in the Christian communities of Asia and Ethiopia that became cut off from the Christian West both physically and ideologically after the Fall of Rome and the spread of Islam. The legend took on fabulous properties during the Middle Ages in Europe.
6 The Revue Cosmique, published in France by Theon and in America and Britain by Davidson, makes clear that union pathetique refers to sexual fusion of a man and woman under idealized circumstances.
is, the time betwixt the first meeting between Reuss and Kellner discussing
a school of Masonic ideas, through the inner circle period within the Reuss
Masonic body, and subsequent public announcement of what was to be
called the Ordo Templi Orientis subsequent to the time of Kellners
Many other references and source documents may be located in these citations. Of the references we obviously give more credence to Mackenzie, as his sympathies were with—not against—occultism.