Trader and Sheila Faulkner in 1950s Chelsea

 

Jot 101 Faulkner front cover 001

We don’t know whether the Australian actor and flamenco dancer Trader Faulkner ( 1927 – 2020) acquired a copy of The Good Time Guide to London not long after he arrived in London from his home in 1950, probably accompanied by his mother Sheila, a former ballerina. But we do know that the couple moved into a houseboat named ‘” Stella Maris “moored off 160, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, sometime in the early fifties. The Guide, which was specifically aimed at foreigners new to the metropolis, had a section on Chelsea.

 

‘…this is Chelsea, undisputed artists’ quarter of London. You can wear what you please, and nobody will give a damn. Though the painters and the designers, the ballet dancers and the actors ( my italics) may be outnumbered by the sober citizens, it is their spirit which dominates. Without it, Chelsea would lose the greatest part of its attraction…Cheyne Walk and Cheyne Row is where many an ambitious London dreams of buying a house some day…’

 

The same Guide also featured a section on ‘Ballet ‘, most of the contents of which would have been familiar to the Scottish-born Sheila, who under her given name of Sheila Whytock, had danced with Pavlova  and had been in the audience when Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe had performed at Covent Garden in 1911. Three years later she and her English husband John Faulkner , a silent film star ( and inventor of a fridge and an elastic sided shoe ) , nearly two decades her senior, emigrated to Australia where in 1927, aged 56, he  fathered Ronald, whom he nicknamed ‘ Trader ‘ after seeing him exchange some of his illicitly distilled whisky for marbles. Continue reading →

Drug-induced mysticism

In a pile of magazines here in our archive at Jot HQ we found a copy dated Summer 1964 of the Tomorrow magazine cover 001magazine Tomorrow, which was devoted to ‘parapsychology, cosmology and traditional studies’. In it a review of Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception, which had originally appeared in Asia ten years before, reopens the dispute as to whether an artificially induced state of transcendence is equivalent in quality to a similar state achieved through a religious experience.

 

The author, Whittall N. Perry, an authority on Eastern mysticism, argued that Huxley’s claim that the consumption of mescaline had enabled him to  change his ordinary mode of consciousness and so know ‘ what the visionary, the medium, even the mystic were talking about ‘was  an example of the sort of ‘specious logic’ that has persisted among Westerners over the years. Huxley claimed to have attained some sort of Platonic state, whereas Perry argues that he had broken  with Platonic teaching on the issue of Being and Becoming by elevating the senses over reason and intelligence through the operation of a drug.

 

The error comes from confusing the Archetypal and principle realm of Platonic Ideas with the ‘mathematical abstractions’ of modern philosophy, and is what Rene Guenoncalls “ a complete inversion of the relationship between Principal and manifestation” Continue reading →

A  Nazi sympathizer on The Black Arts

Major-General J.F.C. Fuller (1878  – 1966) was a celebrated military tactician and theorist, an JFC_Fullerinternational expert on the use of tanks in warfare who was a strong influence on the German tactician Guderian, but also a Nazi sympathizer who met Hitler, and the only top-ranking officer in the British Army who in 1939 was not invited to join the fight against the Fuhrer. Nicknamed ‘ Boney ‘ by his peers presumably for his combative mien and brilliance as a strategist, and indeed height ( he was only 5’ 4”) Fuller was disliked by many for his high-handedness and argumentative nature. But some of this unpopularity may also have had its origin in his devotion to the occult, on which he wrote articles and books, including a study of Aleister  Crowley. Indeed we at Jot 101 first came across his name in the April 1926 issue of The Occult Review, where he contributed a long article entitled ‘ The Black Arts ‘.

 

In the piece Fuller agued that throughout time people bewildered by the mysteries of life and death have sought meaning and comfort in spiritual systems. Many of the less curious, and less intelligent, he contended, have turned to conventional religions that encourage ‘ pauperization of thought ‘ while the more adventurous and intellectually inclined looked for answers in what others have regarded as evil forces allied to Satan. However, these occult resources, argued Fuller, were not reservoirs of evil at all, but were in the hands of practitioners like Friar Bacon. Paracelsus and Dr Dee, valid paths to enlightenment and truth. Even Isaac Newton and Copernicus, Fuller contends, can be regarded as ‘black magicians’.

 

And as the age of ‘ strange spells ‘ is succeeded by the ‘Black Age of the steam epoch ‘ the anarchist arises as a rebel against the materialism of Capital; then, according to Fuller, in opposition to the rationalism of a new priesthood of Science ‘ strange forms ‘ arise in opposition—‘ spiritualism, psychical research, theosophy and all the baby prattle of “ higher thought “ ‘. To the rationalist, Fuller argues, these too are ‘black children ‘, but children that will eventually grow into ; strapping boys and girls ‘. Continue reading →

The church in the station

If you were catching a train to or from Denmark Hill railway station in Camberwell, London, any time between 1920 and 1929 you might be surprised to find that one of the waiting rooms Denmark Hill station church waiting roomthere had been converted to a place of worship. But not any place of worship. Around 19
20 a disused waiting room on the first floor was let to one Mary Elizabeth Eagle Skinner for use as a temple dedicated to her Mystical Church of the Comforter, a religious foundation, which she claimed had ancient foundations, but which she had re-established in 1901.

 

Little is known about Mary
Skinner ( 1875 – 1929) apart from the fact that she was a Rosicrucian of the Ymir Temple, was married to a schoolteacher, called herself ‘The Messenger ‘, but was popularly known as ‘ mother ‘. Her full-page advert in the April 1926 issue of The Occult Reviewwhich we found at Jot HQ recently , tells us a little more about the teachings of her Church, which were no doubt laid down by herself, she being to all intents and purposes a one-woman band.

 

One curious newspaper reporter in 1926 described the Temple thus:

 

One end of the room had been transformed into an altar, painted white and surrounded by the seven colours of the rainbow. Seven steps lead up to the altar, and at the side are two pillars representing Beauty and Strength. Everything is done by symbols, and the badge worn by members is a dove standing in the circle with a seven-leaved branch in its beak’   Continue reading →

The Aquarian Guide to Occult, Mystical, Religious, Magical London

Occult list London 001The MacGregor Mathers Society.

This is one of the more exclusive societies listed in Ms Strachan’s book. According to the entry it was founded by ‘ two writers in the occult field during the course of  a cream tea at the Daquise Restaurant, South Kensington, and its object is to commemorate  the memory of S .L. Macgregor Mathers, Comte de Glenstrae’.

Apparently, the Society was a dining club whose exclusive male membership was limited to ‘twelve English members and four honorary corresponding members’. It had neither Constitution nor rules except ‘insofar as the Founders invent ( and then forget) them as the occasion demands’. Several important dates are listed on which the members met to dine. These included Mathers’ birthday ( January 8th), his wedding day ( June 21st) and the anniversary of his ‘ famous ‘ manifesto to the R.R. et A.C. ( October 29th).These dinners only took place two or three times a year. It goes without saying that membership of the Society was by invitation only.

So who was  MacGregor Mathers?  It turns out that this celebrated occultist ( full name Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers)  was born in Hackney in 1854, and after working as a clerk in Bournemouth, became a Freemason and a Rosicrucian in London and was head of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for years before he was drummed out in 1900 for financial irregularities. He married the lovely Mina Bergson, sister of Henri Bergson, the philosopher, became a vegetarian (and possibly a vegan) at a time when such people were thin on the ground, and had among his enemies Aleister Crowley. A polyglot, whose languages included French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Gaelic and Coptic, he was well placed to translate various mystical and occult texts.

Ms Strachan doesn’t reveal what the letters R.R. stood for ( A.C was presumably Aleister Crowley), who the two founders of the Society devoted to the memory of Mr Mathers were, why they thought so highly of him, or why they were consuming a cream tea in a restaurant specialising in Polish food. Never mind. The elitist nature of the Society doesn’t make it an attractive proposition. In fact, it no longer exists. Luckily, the Daquise Restaurant is still there, looking as it might have done fifty years ago, though it no longer serves cream teas. Continue reading →

Occult London circa 1970

Occult list London 001Edited by the specialist in such books, Francoise Strachan, and published in 1970 by the Aquarian Press, the Aquarian Guide to Occult, Mystical, Religious, Magical London and Aroundis a handy paperback directory of practices, beliefs, individual practitioners, groups, national and international societies in the metropolis and its environs together with various short features on spells and associated esoteric matters.

For someone fascinated by the Occult at this fag end of the hippy movement, this was probably the most definitive guide on the market. Certainly we at Jot HQ haven’t come across anything like it. The most interesting aspect of the book is the chapter listing the esoteric societies that were flourishing in the UK in this period. Some have disappeared without trace over the past 48 years; others are still going strong. In the spirit of discovery we thought it would be instructive to mention a few of the more prominent and outlandish outfits around in 1970.

The Order of the Cubic Stone

This was run by ‘ Wardens’ and had its HQ at the ‘ Lodge’ in Penn, near Wolverhampton, a rather dreary village on the edge of the Black Country and one of the last places you would expect to find such an outfit. Its aim was to ‘ train its students in the group’s approach to Ceremonial Magic’ and their system was based on the Qabalah and The Golden Dawn. The Order also had its own system of ‘Enochian Magic’. I wonder if this was anything to do with Enoch Powell, who was a prominent figure at the time and who lived just a few miles from Penn. Today, its leading light is  Mr David F. Edwards, who has his own website, where you can read a little prayer he has composed just for you.

The Institute of Pyramidology.

Founded in London in 1940 by Adam Rutherford, who in 1967 moved the HQ to his   modest Victorian villa in Station Road, Harpenden. The building is still there but Rutherford died in 1974. Apart from Eric Morecambe, who I don’t think was at all interested in the symbolism of pyramids, the only other notable figure associated with Harpenden was the brilliant gay artist and poet  Ralph Chubb  (see Bookride ), who was born there. Continue reading →

Robert Lenkiewicz—one of the great eccentrics of our time

 

Lenkiewicz picFound, a page torn from a copy of the Bookdealer dated 13th November 2003 previewing the forthcoming sale at Sotheby’s of the collection formed by the artist and book collector Robert Lenkiewicz.

Because of his reclusiveness, little was known about Lenkiewicz before he died in 2002 aged just 60. A media frenzy then broke out. There are so few genuine eccentrics in the art world that the press can hardly afford to ignore such a prime example as Lenkiewicz. Here is a passage from the preview:

‘Here we have a man who faked his own death some years before he died …and lived for a few days in hiding at the Cornish home of one of his patrons, the Earl of St Germans. He was notorious for befriending and patronising vagrants and tramps, in particular one Edwin McKenzie, who lived in a concrete tube on a rubbish dump and preferred to be known as Diogenes. Since Diogenes’ death in the 1980s the whereabouts of his bodily bits were a mystery, until his embalmed remains were discovered in a secret drawer in a bookcase at Lenkiewicz’s Barbican library. ‘

‘If you remain unimpressed there were other discoveries including what was left of the condemned 16th –century witch, Ursula Kemp. Her skeletal remains, which had been nailed to the coffin, are believed to have been disinterred in Victorian times. This find nicely compliments his great book collection, illustrating as it does Lenkiewicz’s obsessive curiosity with life and death’. Continue reading →

A flyer from the Platonist Press

Found - a publisher's flyer loosely inserted in a copy of Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie's  Mithraic Mysteries (Platonist Press, Alpine, N.J 1925.) The Platonist Press seems to have flourished between 1900 and 1930 publishing books on philosophy, occult speculation, mysticism and the occasional work of fantasy fiction (including Guthrie's Bleiler listed A Romance Of Two Centuries. A Tale of the Year 2025 which appeared in 1919.) This flyer is eccentric, oddly surreal and now politically slightly  dubious. It was probably the work of Guthrie. There is little on the Platonist Press and some of these works may be 'ghosts' (i.e they were never published.) They appear to have moved from Alpine, New Jersey to North Yonkers, NY -which puts this advert some time in the 1920s...

SPICY SITUATIONS, and Dr Kenneth Guthrie's REMEDIES
The Board of Education's Examiner had Just turned down the blushing Miss Teacher Candidate. Weeping, she wailed, Is there no hope at all for me? Oh yes; purred he. Try again next year! What could I study in the meanwhile? Dr Guthrie's TEACHERS' PROBLEMS & HOW TO SOLVE THEM, $1.25; 'Value and Limits of the History of Education,' and 'The Mother-Tongue Method of Teaching Modern Languages,' each 30 cents. Will that pass me? Really, Miss, you are too pretty to teach school. Get his Progressive Complete Eduction, or Marriage as the Supreme School of Life, $1.25. And if I pass examination on it? Then I will marry you, Thanks, kind sir!
Continue reading →

Fairies at Work and Play

From Fairies at Work and Play by Geoffrey Hodson. Published by the Theosophical Society in 1925 (and still in print) the book is a sort of Varieties of Religious Experience anthology of meetings with and sightings of fairies, elves,devas, sylphs, 'mannikins', gnomes and brownies. All the observations are by Geoffrey Hodson (1886-1983) who wrote many other religious and occult works in a long and productive life.

Dancing Fairies
Lancashire, 1921

We are surrounded by a dancing group of lovely female fairies. They are laughing and full of joy.

The leader in this case is a female figure, probably two feet high, surrounded by transparent flowing drapery. There is a star on her forehead, and she has large wings which glisten with pale, delicate shades from pink to lavender; in rapid movement, however, the effect of them is white.

Her hair is light golden brown, and unlike that of the lesser fairies, streams behind her and merges with the flowing forces of her aura. The form is perfectly modelled and rounded, like that of a young girl; the right hand holds a wand.

Although her expression is one of purity and ingenuousness, her face is at the same time stamped with a decided impression of power. This is especially noticeable in the clear blue eyes, which glow like flame, and have all the appearance of a living fire. Her brow is broad and noble, her features small and rounded, the tiny ears are a poem of physical perfection. There are no angles in this transcendently beautiful form. The bearing of head, neck and shoulders is queenly, and the whole pose is a model of grace and beauty.

Continue reading →