William G. Gray and the Sangreal: The Bloody Magician’s Modern Tradition
Justin C. Wisner Wisner justin.c.wisner@gmai justin.c.wis
[email protected] l.com History of Hermetic Hermetic Philosophy Philosophy and Related Related Currents, Currents, One-Year Masters Thesis Thesis First reader, Wouter J Hanegraaff Second reader, Justin Sausman Student No.: 10234365 13 July, 2012
Wisner 2 Table of Contents
Introduction………………………… Introduction……………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………........page ……………........page 3
Weaving traditions together in esoteric networks……….…………………………… networks……….… …………………………..page ..page 6
Building authoritative authoritative traditions………………………… traditions…………………………………………………………pa ………………………………page ge 10
Gray as ‘Mystery-Maker’………….………………………………………………………page 13
Orienting Gray and his influences..……………………………..……………………….page 16
(A) Gray’s woven Western esoteric discourse…………………………………………page 17
(B) Traditionalism and belonging by blood and soil…..……………………………..page 21
(C) Academic exposure……………...……………………………………………..……..page 29
(D) Psychologized mysteries for the modern malaise…………………………………page 33
Network connectio connections ns built and lost…………………………… lost………………………………………………………pag …………………………pagee 37
Maintained Maintained connections: connections: sabbatic sabbatic and Sangreal Sangreal survivals...……………… survivals...…………………………page …………page 41
Conclusion……………………………… Conclusion………………………………………………………..………………… ………………………..…………………………page ………page 43
Appendices………………………… Appendices………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………page ………………page 46 46
Bibliography…………………………… Bibliography………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………page ……………page 49
Wisner 2 Table of Contents
Introduction………………………… Introduction……………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………........page ……………........page 3
Weaving traditions together in esoteric networks……….…………………………… networks……….… …………………………..page ..page 6
Building authoritative authoritative traditions………………………… traditions…………………………………………………………pa ………………………………page ge 10
Gray as ‘Mystery-Maker’………….………………………………………………………page 13
Orienting Gray and his influences..……………………………..……………………….page 16
(A) Gray’s woven Western esoteric discourse…………………………………………page 17
(B) Traditionalism and belonging by blood and soil…..……………………………..page 21
(C) Academic exposure……………...……………………………………………..……..page 29
(D) Psychologized mysteries for the modern malaise…………………………………page 33
Network connectio connections ns built and lost…………………………… lost………………………………………………………pag …………………………pagee 37
Maintained Maintained connections: connections: sabbatic sabbatic and Sangreal Sangreal survivals...……………… survivals...…………………………page …………page 41
Conclusion……………………………… Conclusion………………………………………………………..………………… ………………………..…………………………page ………page 43
Appendices………………………… Appendices………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………page ………………page 46 46
Bibliography…………………………… Bibliography………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………page ……………page 49
Wisner 3
Introduction Introduction
In many ways William Gray Gray was a paradoxical combination of qualities. qualities. This is perhaps unsurprising when viewing him in the context of his prodigious but relatively th
unsung career as a mid- to late-20 century Western esotericist and ritual magician. The cosmos presented in his literature is at once very focused on tradition and folklore, and very post-modern, incorporating academic discourses from biology, anthropology and psychology. He was a devoted mystic attempting to revitalize what he saw as a forgotten Western tradition, and he was a nasty, racist man with a regrettable tendency to fight with everyone he knew. Unlike many notable and influential purveyors of the esoteric from th
th
the 19 century’s occult revival, Gray’s life in the 20 century was one marked by its astonishing, rustic ordinariness—a Cheltenham chiropodist with a firm handshake, and a 1
strong interest in the folklore of Britannia. Nevertheless, Gray’s influential style of esotericism has been adopted and adapted by a small but devout cadre of pagans, ritual magicians and occultists since he began publishing in the late 1960s. th
William Gordon Gray was born March 25 , 1913 in Middlesex, and died in 1992 in Cheltenham, living through most of the momentous events, and meeting many of the th
2
occult luminaries, of 20 century Britain. The span of his life covers the steady decline of religiosity in Western Europe, and the triumphant march o f scientific progress through a quickly disenchanting West. Growing up after World World War I in the cultural crisis of our new killing capability through mechanized war making, and through his own military service confronting the atrocities of modern war at th e retreat of Dunkirk, Gray fostered a 3
mystical disposition alongside a rational, even technological orientation. His works display disillusionment with modernity, an enchanted mystical cosmos, and y et a rigorous rational pursuit of grasping and conveying complex altered states of consciousness through an explication of ritual magic and mysticism that draws heavily from psychological, anthropological and biological discourses. Gray viewed the pursuits pursuits and accomplishments of science to be a direct outgrowth of the magical pursuits of the
1
A Richardson & M Claridge, The Old Sod: the Odd Life and inner work of William G. Gray, Skylight Press, Cheltenham, 2011, p. 180. 2 Richardson & Claridge, pp. Claridge, pp. 11-13, 197-9. 3 ., p. 88. Ibid .,
Wisner 4 4
past. Pointedly, he viewed culture and history as an evolutionary process, with all the 5
materialistic and genetic implications. Furthermore, Gray’s Gray’s genetic dogma inevitably supported his racial doctrines of exclusivity within his variation of traditionalism and semi-fascistic beliefs so similar to the ‘blood and soil’ concepts that gained favor among th
6
the far right in the 20 century. However, Gray’s reactionary leanings do not cause him to forsake attempting to reformulate the esoteric traditions of the West for the mod ern world he engaged daily. In a period of social flux and an d great changes to the Western way of life, Gray aimed at adaptation for the future. future. Evolution, psychoanalysis and the atomic atomic bomb were changing the world, and Gray proposed to adapt what he perceived to be the ‘true’ Western tradition for the future, while trying to retain the most important components from the past. Akin to René Guenon Gu enon and Julius Evola, but with his h is characteristic twist of embracing the modern, Gray’s disillusionment with the modernity he inhabited hardened his resolve to explore so-called ‘Inner Traditions’ in order to ensure th eir viability and functionality for a better future, enriched with sacred meaning beyond the purely material for the chosen members of the human race that ‘belonged’ with the Western esoteric tradition. More akin to Hitler than Guénon, Gray’s sacred culture is is transmitted via belonging ‘with the blood,’ which meant the genes, and at times even focusing on 7
nationalistic belonging to a geopolitical identity.
The following paper will address the question, ‘ How did Gray’s Gray’s conception conception of the the Western esoteric tradition successfully build and maintain connections in the cultural th
network of 20 century Western esotericism despite his unpopular racial doctrines? ’ I
will attempt to cover as many of Gray’s pub lished works as possible in making explicit his ‘Sangreal’ or ‘Royal Blood’ tradition, which presents Gray’s racially divisive, ahistoric version of the tradition of the ancients modernized and materialized for the
4
W Gray, Seasonal Occult Rituals, The Aquarian Press, London, June 1970, pp. 3-4. W Gray, An Outlook on on Our Inner Western Western Way, Samuel Weiser, New York, 1980, pp.9, 40-50; W Gray, Western Inner Workings, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1983, pp. ix-xiv, 2; W Gray, The Sangreal Sodality Series Vol. 2: The Sangreal Sacrament , Samuel Weiser, Inc, Yorke Beach, 1983, pp., ix-xiii.; W Gray, Inner Traditions Traditions of Magic, The Aquarian Press, London, Nov 1970, pp. 40-1, 260-1. 6 Western Inner Workings, pp. 6-8, 114-5; Richardson & Claridge, pp. 184, 191; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 66-75. 7 Western Inner Workings, pp. 7-9, 109-22; An Outlook on Our Our Inner Western Way Way, pp. xi-ii; Richardson & Claridge , pp. 148-50. 5
Wisner 5 current cultural context. On the surface, facets of his belief system like his ‘Sangreal Sacrament’ seems a rather demure, universalized and sanitized version of the Western Tradition, reduced to its essential bits and having whitewashed much of its explicitly Christian elements, infusing the remainder of the mass ritual with an anglicized kabbalistic symbolism and approach. Even cursory analysis of Gray’s Gray’s works show that his tradition as extant in his texts is far darker than it would seem at first glace: a tradition bathed in blood and harboring deep-seated racially exclusive sentiments on valid membership to Western esoteric culture. Furthermore I will show how Gray’s synthesis of an ahistoric tradition of the ancients anc ients amounted to his attempt at creating a comprehensive network of Western esoteric traditions that would ally and reinforce all Western esoteric beliefs to combat the influx of Eastern ideologies, which he saw as the front line of invasion for the coming conflict between the East and West. In analyzing and situating Gray, I will predominantly draw upon the theories of Bruno Latour, Wouter Hanegraaff, Eric Hobsbawm, and Terence Ranger to show Gray as th
an important node in the cultural network of mid-20 century esotericism. Gray drew together traditionalist and various esoteric and academic discourses into a comprehensive invented modern tradition that aimed at universalizing and modernizing Western esoteric ideologies to assure their viability for future generations of Westerners. Since Gray is a th
little-known figure in 20 century esotericism outside very specific circles (namely th
magical kabbalistic, sabbatic witchcraft and late 20 century Celtic pagan revivalist networks), I will use Latour’s actor-network theory to model the ways in which Gray attempted to connect his own tradition with the traditions of various other Western esoteric discourses, and the ways in which he attempted to build a comprehensive network of Western esoteric actors through personal relation. With the theoretical framework of ANT in place, an investigation of how traditions claimed authority in the past will show how Gray attempted to network himself into the existing esoteric discourses, while modernizing their legitimation strategies to be th
st
competitive in a 20 and 21 century cultural network. network. Subsequently, an analysis of the history of inventing traditions will show how Gray participated in a historical stream of invented Western traditions. From there, an explication of Gray’s Gray’s created tradition and its influences will show how Gray attempted to craft a unifying Western tradition in the
Wisner 6 hopes of maintaining what he saw as the true and valid tradition of the West that spoke to the racial-evolutionary needs of Western individuals, to assure the con tinuance of what Gray perceived to be the proper tradition of Western culture, the populace of which he 8
claimed to be a ‘distinct species of people.’ Subsequently, I will make explicit the individuals and shorter esoteric cultural networks connected to Gray and the concepts stemming from his invented tradition to show through whom a nd by which modernizing and legitimating strategies Gray’s ideologies remain connected in present Western esoteric networks.
Weaving traditions together in esoteric networks th
To properly situate Gray’s writings and influence within 20 century esotericism, demarcations that typically separate one strand of esoteric doctrines from another, and marginalize esotericism from mainstream religion, must be circumvented. Particularly for esoteric ideologies, less well-known originators of esoteric materials can be better understood not within a hierarchically modeled culture with dominant purveyors of knowledge and distinct in-groups and out-groups, but rather as a collection of participants in a common discourse that communicate with and mutually define each other. No idea develops in a vacuum, and particularly where esoteric ‘tradition’ or ‘transmission’ thereof is concerned, an understanding of how authors, concepts, practitioners and detractors are connected beyond explicit doctrinal sympathies provides a fresh avenue for critical inspection. To this end, I adapted Egil Asprem’s method as outlined in his ‘A Nice Arrangement of Heterodoxies: William McDougall and the professionalization of psychical research,’ utilizing Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory alongside David Hess’ 9
concept of two-way boundary-work.
Originally an analytical framework coming from Science and Technology Studies, and here taken up to elucidate heavily othered cultural contexts, the concept of the cultural actor-network drastically alters the typical methods of inquiry into religious 8
Western Inner Workings, p. xiv. E Asprem, ‘A Nice Arrangement of Heterodoxies: William McDougall and the professionalization of psychical research,’ Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, vol. 46, no. 2, January, 2010, pp. 125-7; B Latour, ‘On Actor-Network Theory: a few clarifications,’ Soziale Welt , vol. 47, no. 4, 1996,, pp. 369-81; D Hess, Science and the New Age: the Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers, and American Culture, Madison: the University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, pp. 145-56. 9
Wisner 7 culture. Actor-network theory (or ANT) is a non-anthropocentric theory for analyzing activities that draws together seemingly disparate phenomena to view them in a contiguous web as phenomena networked together by actors. In Latour’s definition, 10
actors do not have to be human but must be ‘granted as the source of an action.’
In
brief, rather than assessing phenomena on a hierarchical level, necessarily buying into the ontology and politics of the phenomena inspected, and similarly refusing to succumb to complete relativism, we would be better served intellectually by conceiving of currents in culture as networks of connections that are not limited to purely human sources of ac tion. This expands the view of actors in society to potentially include ‘literally anything,’ so 11
long as that thing acts to connect nodes in a network.
As Latour outlines, this method works to subvert the typical ‘topographical’ modeling of society by reorienting concepts utilized in a hierarchical structure for use in networks that by default have no ‘a priori order relation;’ no top or bottom, no hard line for demarcating local nodes based on scale or power. It attempts to do away with geographical limitations, since networks are based on connection not proximity. Latour uses the metaphors of a cable line, gas line and phone line which may all be in the ground next to each other and never touch, or alternately how he could be a meter away from another man in a telephone booth but more closely connected to his mother on the other 12
end of the telephone line than he is to the man just beside him.
Additionally, a network
is simply comprised of well-connected or poorly-connected nod es, which frequently connect with each other to strengthen otherwise weak bonds. Various connections are ‘woven’ together, supporting each other and multiplying relative contacts that would otherwise fall short.
13
In this, no network is ‘bigger’ or ‘smaller,’ but ‘longer’ or
14
‘shorter.’ Latour says, A surface has an inside and an outside separated by a boundary. A network is all boundary without inside and outside. The only question one may ask is whether or not a connection is established between two elements. The surface ‘in between’ networks is
10
Latour, p. 373. Ibid., pp. 369-73. 12 Ibid ., p. 371. 13 Ibid ., p. 370. 14 Ibid., p. 371. 11
Wisner 8 either connected – but then the network is expanding – or non-existent.15
This very functionally driven theorization works to our benefit because, as Latour points out, the ways in which stronger connections reinforce weaker ones is a valuable component for understanding the intricate interplay of forces otherwise ignored academically in culture. At first glance, this method of inspection can seem d ecidedly ahistorical, and less pertinent outside the field of Science and Technology Studies. In his lecture ‘Knowledge in Transit,’ James Secord voices his qualms that ANT is too ahistorical even for history of science, and that Latour’s call to ascribe agency to non-human actors is itself so anachronistic it violates deeply held convictions and common methods of inquiry in its own field of application (for instance requiring a u tilization of some of the most recent scientific findings and applying them to the ev ents of the past, as with Latour’s treatment 16
of Louis Pasteur).
Secord also claims that certain aspects of actor-network theory may
be more applicable for spatially related nodes that focus around a single center, as with Pasteur and the farmers he worked with while developing his theories, than for elucidating connections between competing nodes in a common network (like Pasteur 17
and the farmers with whom he worked). This critique is less pertinent here, as Gray wa s working as the actor in the network attempting to braid together less well-connected nodes in the esoteric discourse, and he worked predominantly in Britain with a few pointed exceptions. Regardless, he seems to have worked exclusively with English speakers, so the network is at least linguistically closed. Secord claims Latour’s redrafting of the theoretical backdrop o f historical analysis is profoundly radical, but also incredibly useful in the way that it makes the basic data points of ‘process, reception and audience’ more flexible while emphasizing complexity, 18
interrelation, translation and boundary crossing.
Latour’s reappraisal of how to
examine knowledge affords a vast frontier of investigation in stressing scientific knowledge as a practice, particularly where imperial, po st-colonial and industrial 19
capitalist politics are concerned. This provides a fantastic crossover point for the study 15
Ibid., p. 372. J Secord, ‘Knowledge in Transit,’ Isis, vol. 95, no. 4, Dec. 2004, p. 664. 17 Ibid ., pp. 664-5. 18 Ibid ., pp. 664-5. 19 Ibid., pp. 665, 669. 16
Wisner 9 of modern and post-modern esotericism (and religion) in recogn izing the creation of knowledge within any cultural context as a practice, that is, something done and produced by actors specifically in relation to each other and the milieu of their networks. In a cultural context where the scientific paradigm is dominant (as with the 20
th
st
and 21 centuries), all social and cultural networks inevitably are connected to scientific culture and its pursuits. All disciplines are in one way or another beholden to science as the ultimate legitimating factor. A good example from within the academy would be how investigations into the constituent components and products of society posit themselves as ‘social sciences.’ For modern esotericism, we could look to Crowley, who emblazoned ‘The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion,’ on the frontispiece of The 20
Equinox (which he subtitled ‘The Review of Scientific Illuminism’). Alternately, the
plethora of New Age appropriations of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity to explain otherwise religious phenomena would demonstrate such culturally driven desires 21
to claim the legitimacy of science.
th
As an occult writer and practitioner in the 20 century, Gray continually attempts to legitimate his enchanted esoteric ideologies through the academic discourses of biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, and to this end seeks the material vector of esoteric thought and culture in blood, genes and cultural identity. It was, in fact, not the biological or racial doctrines which allowed for lasting connections in the network of esotericism, but Gray’s uniquely woven tapestry of anthropology, psychology, esoteric discourses and traditionalism which produced the strongest connections to nodes in the esoteric cultural actor network. As a well-connected man in th
th
20 century British esoteric circles—and a participant in 20 century culture so deeply influenced by the means, goals and cultural products of science—Gray demonstrates the overarching flexibility of ANT’s applications for the academy more generally, in that so long as scientific ideologies and doctrines are netwo rked to (either through discourse or method, in agreement or opposition), the social sciences can pull a vast amount of pertinent analytical data from Latour’s (admittedly less historical) theory.
20
An online version of the first volume with the frontispiece image is available from the Ordo Templi Orientis at < http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/index.html>. 21 W Hanegraaff, ‘New age religion and secularization,’ Numen, vol. 47, no. 3, 2000, p. 304.
Wisner 10 In sum, ANT provides us with a more useful view of Gray in light of his idiosyncratic discourse and personally crafted esoteric order, as his ideology borrows freely from available disciplines within the Anglo-Saxon world and does not abide by classic in-group/out-group distinctions between academic and esoteric disciplines. Through the lens of ANT the interdisciplinary selection of ideological components in Gray’s system becomes easier to understand in the c ontext of the invented authoritative traditions of the past. Before examining Gray’s ideology, the historical trends of claimed authority and invented tradition in Western esotericism will be further investigated.
Building authoritative traditions
Gray focuses explicitly on ‘tradition’ throughout his works. In large part, his Sangreal Sacrament is an attempt to universalize and modernize various Western esoteric discourses into a single updated Mystery. His evolutionary view of history and placing of authoritative traditions in not just the past but also the present shows his desire to adapt Western traditions to the modern context, despite his large qualms with the modern world. To show how his legitimating strategy was successful enough to overcome the repugnance of the structural, racial component o f his tradition, it is first necessary to understand how authority has been claimed by traditions in the past, and how the authors of those traditions attempted to garner legitimacy in their own times. Thereafter, I will show how Gray modernized and legitimated his unique mix of esoteric discourses, traditionalism and academic sources—trumping the impediments of his racialist ideologies—to produce lasting connections in the c ultural network of esotericism while participated in a ‘tradition of making traditions’ in the West. In his Esotericism and the Academy, Wouter Hanegraaff outlines three models of history used by religious and esoteric insiders to legitimate their ideologies, a nd Gray utilizes all three in positing his version of the Western tradition as the ultimately 22
authoritative version.
Below we will disentangle these three legitimating models of
history to the extent necessary to show how Gray implemented them in support of his own tradition. Abstruse, diverse and imprecise use of prisca theologia (‘ancient
22
W Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, pp. 153256.
Wisner 11 theology’) and philosophia perennis (‘perennial philosophy’) has plagued wisdom discourses since their inception. Moreover, in combination with rare and essential references by a few authors in the Renaissance—noteworthy watershed individuals being Marsilio Ficino for prisca theologia and Agostino Steuco for philosophia perennis —we end up with a few very different models of history becoming conflated with one 23
another.
Extracting quotes from Charles Schmitt, Hanegraaff outlines the differences between prisca theologia, philosophia perennis, and the underrepresented third option which Hanegraaff terms pia philosophia. Hanegraaff states that prisca theologia as a historical framework placed authoritative wisdom in the distant past, framing history as a 24
degenerative process.
In the early Renaissance newly available translations of texts
from the past could be seen as an appeal to ‘original’ wisdom of the ancients that 25
superceded the authority of a corrupt and indulgent Church in the then present day.
Philosophia perennis , on the other hand, attempted to preserve a continuity of the
transmission of wisdom from ancient sources through the revelation of Christ and onward to Renaissance authors like Agostino Steuco through Christendom. Philosophia perennis claims that authoritative wisdom is also ancient, perhaps pre-historical, but stresses that it 26
is universal or eternal, and that it has existed in all ages in various forms.
This idea can
27
be seen in the writings of St. Augustine, and in the Renaissance it was implemented rhetorically to marginalize the importance of newly available sources. For the Renaissance, philosophia perennis operated in a conservatory function attempting to protect the Christian status quo.
23
Esotericism and the pp. 7-12. Ibid., pp. 7-9. 25 Esotericism and the Academy, p. 8. 26 Ibid., p. 9. 27 As Hanegraaff points out, Augustine makes a very clear statement in line with perennial philosophy in his Retractiones I, xii, 3 (clarifying De Vera Religione, x, 19), in which Augustine states: ‘Further, I said this: "This is the Christian religion in our time; the safest and surest salvation is to know and follow it"; this was said in accordance with the na me, not in accordance with the truth of which this is the name. For the truth itself, which is now named the Christian religion, existed and was not missing among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came "in the flesh" from whom the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian.... I said: "This is the Christian religion in our time," not because it did not exist in former times, but because it got this name in later times’ (translation by Eller, ‘The “Retractiones” of Saint Augustine, p. 176). The perennialist ideas are plain as day, as are their conservative aims of maintaining a Christian status quo. 24
Wisner 12 The last model is pia philosophia, which Hanegraaff claims carried little weight in the Renaissance context beyond a historical opinion. The view of history most similar to Gray’s, pia philosophia is something of an evolutionary view of history, proposing a 28
progressive edification of mankind in anticipation of the ‘final revelation.’
This last
view of history, as far as political implications are concerned, was more of an intellectual curiosa, however this is also the view that is perhaps closest to the modern conception of history, since it structures history around the concept of p rogress rather than degeneration. As Hanegraaff points out, this convoluted bundling of exclusively structured macrohistories served the purposes of the defenders of ancient wisdom narratives, since as insiders they could lay claim to divergent, unquestionable sources of authority: at first, superior ancient wisdom through prisca theologia in a degenerative framing of history, and then superior eternal wisdom through claiming the universality of all absolute wisdom via philosophia perennis.
29
As an apologetic weapon, this ambivalence allowed
for deft switching between strategic appeals to authority to evade the condemnation of detractors and censors. Gray attempts to modernize the Western esoteric traditions of the Med ieval and Renaissance periods so they may be viable in the modern day, and to this end Gray uses the classical mixture of strategic claims to authority through all three above models of history. In this way, Gray’s framing of tradition is very similar to that of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who inaugurated Christian Kabbalah on the prisca theologia basis, but 30
with philosophia perennis authorities.
Gray’s utilization of a progressive or evolutionary framing of history was grounded in his own ‘ancient authority’ of the Sacred Kings (similar to prisca 31
theologia ) while stressing that genuine Western traditions existed in all times (like philosophia perrenis) and had to be amenable to the cultural and intellectual context of 32
the periods they developed in. With modernity’s emphasis on progress, Gray frames 28
Ibid ., pp. 9-11. Ibid., p. 11. 30 Ibid ., pp. 54-6; see Gray’s Qabalistic Concepts and The Ladder of Light , which explicate the kabbalistic system at the core of Gray’s Sangreal tradition. 31 An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 16-20. 29
32
Ibid.,, pp. 123-39.
Wisner 13 history (and esoteric practice) as an evolutionary process, like the progressive edification 33
of mankind seen in pia philosophia. Thus, next I shall unpick how Gray crafted his own version of legitimate authorities in the past as a part of his created tradition, and how he utilized modern biological and psychological discourses to legitimate his invented tradition.
Gray as ‘Mystery-Maker’
It seemed, much like Pico and other Renaissance esotericists, Gray had participated in the Western tradition of making a new, ahistoric, ‘original tradition’ that attempts to 34
lay claim to an ancient authority.
Gray as a kabbalist and ‘Mystery Maker’ seemed of
new importance in this light, so this section will investigate the intricacies of crafting tradition. In their introduction to ‘The Invention of Tradition,’ Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger make themselves very clear. A tradition’s ability to adapt is the deciding factor in the tradition’s survival under changing social pressures. Inventing traditions…is essentially a process of formalization and ritualization, characterized by reference to the past, if only by imposing repetition. The actual process of creating such ritual and symbolic complexes has not been adequately studied by historians….It is presumably most clearly exemplified where a ‘tradition’ is deliberately invented and constructed by a single initiator….[W]e should expect [the invention of tradition] to occur more frequently when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which ‘old’ traditions had been designed, producing new ones to which they were not applicable, or when such old traditions and their institutional promulgators no longer prove sufficiently adaptable and flexible, or are otherwise eliminated….Such changes have been particularly significant in the last 200 years….35 th
They continue, arguing that this implies both modernization and 19 century liberalism got it wrong. We should expect to see the formalization of new traditions in the face of sweeping social change. They continue, More interestingly, from our point of view, is the use of ancient materials to construct invented traditions of a novel type for quite novel purposes. A large store of such materials is
33
Ibid., pp. 9, 41-75, 111-22. Gray makes clear all of his methods for making a ritualized tradition in Magical Ritual Methods, specifically the chapters ‘Making a Mystery,’ ‘Speaking with Symbols,’ ‘Constructing the Cosmos,’ and ‘Conditioning Consciousness.’ Pp. 18-131. 35 E Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: inventing traditions’, The Invention of Tradition, eds. E Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger, The Press Syndicat of the Univeristy of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 4-5. 34
Wisner 14 accumulated in the past of any society, and an elaborate language of sy mbolic practice and communication is always available. Some new traditions can readily be grafted onto old ones, sometimes they can be devised by borrowing from the well-supplied warehouses of official ritual, symbolism and moral exhortation—religion and princely pomp, folklore and freemasonry….36
And here we have exactly Gray. Gray as Mystery Maker has crafted a modern tradition that attempts to reify an identity that is at on ce decidedly claiming an esoteric ‘tradition’ projected into the past that is entirely Western, and which is also at times nationalistically British.37 He was setting out a new tradition claiming ancient roots in the ‘Sacred Kings,’ plainly cobbling together kabbalah, Catholicism, pagan myths and Rosicrucianism, taking rituals, symbols and morality from each to craft precisely a tradition of ‘religion and princely pomp, folklore and freemasonry.’ Furthermore, Gray makes an explicit claim to a lineage of wisdom in his Qabalistic Concepts . He says, Earlier man worked instinctively mainly on an action-reaction basis. As we evolved, rationality slowly but steadily replaced sheer impulsiveness as a control factor of our behavior. Humans were becoming calculating creatures. Causes were being consciously linked with effects. Schools of though and systems of philosophy were springing up wherever intelligent humans were willing to devote time and energy to such purposes. As we might expect, a number of these concentrated in Greece, which has been called the “cradle of Western civilization.” True, the Greeks had drawn their traditions from Chaldea, Egypt, India, and other ancient sources, but they were “men of new minds,” capable of putting old concepts through a mental melting pot to generate fresh nuggets of golden thought. Perhaps some very dormant genes were waking up in those days.38
Here, in an attempt to clarify and rationalize the necessarily Judeo-Christian Kabbalah, Gray is constructing a tradition of wisdom that continues into his p resent mystical study. Gray’s tradition of wisdom is decidedly modernized, utilizing current ac ademic discourses in taking a genetic bent on the provenance of wisdom, and a psychological portrayal of the development of history that, when taken in sum, sounds very similar to the pia philosophia intellectual curiosa of the Renaissance in its ev olutionary framework.
36
Ibid , p. 6. W Gray Working with Inner Light, eds. Jo Clark and Alan Richardson, Skylight Press, Cheltenham, 2011, pp. 59-63; See the pamphlet ‘The British Mysteries,’ in Richardson & Claridge, pp. 148-150. 38 W G Gray, Qabalistic Concepts, Living the Tree, WeiserBooks, Boston, 1997, pp. 66-7. 37
Wisner 15 And perhaps in this context, Gray’s racialist ideology and spiritual ‘blood links’ becomes more plain, though no less questionable. Jacobus Swart recounted, later in life Gray claimed a mutual respect for a South African medicine man named Credo Mutwa, who was himself a practitioner of a tradition and an author. Swart quotes Gray as saying ‘Credo Mutwa is trying to do for his people exactly what we [Gray and Swart] are trying to do for ours, and that is to preserve and propagate their own Inner Tradition…’ and as such, ‘…we would show respect for his Tradition rather than try to invade or negate it, 39
and that we expect him to do the same for ours.’
The attempt to don a pluralistic
respect for different cultural traditions is here quite explicit, though the implication is still that African traditions are only for Africans, just as Western Traditions are only for Westerns. If Gray’s evolutionary approach to spiritual traditions is applied, the end result would be that Western and African traditions are evolving toward different ends. When taken in light of Gray’s belief in a coming conflict between the West and the East, his attempts at relativism seem half-hearted at best. Hobsbawm strikes on the idea of the adaptation of tradition, which parallels Hanegraaff’s theory that asserts magic’s ability to adapt and change , developing features 40
such as the separate-but-connected planes and the heavy influence psychology has on th
41
20 century occultism.
We can see a strong Jungian influence on Gray’s personal
interpretation of the Western ‘tradition,’ and a strong inclination toward psychological 42
terminology such as ‘individuation.’ In considering tradition as something adaptable, and considering Grays adaptations of his own apparent influences, it seems that Gray also participated in the esoteric lineage of utilizing academic authoritativeness in a mechanistic or materialistic cultural context to lay claim to authoritative knowledge which would provide it a competitive edge (like magia naturalis and occult science). By utilizing academic discourses on identity and the mind, Gray is modernizing Western
39
Richardson & Claridge, 191. W J Hanegraaff, ‘How magic survived the disenchantment of the world’, Religion, 33:4, 2003 pp. 36971. 41 Ibid, pp. 366-7. 42 Western Inner Workings, pp. 63-76, 98. 40
Wisner 16 esoteric discourses under a contemporary legitimation strategy, attempting to make his 43
version of the Western tradition more competitive in modern esoteric networks.
Thus we can begin to see how Gray’s invented tradition was successful despite his racial doctrines. Through utilizing all three macrohistorical narratives of legitimation Gray produced a solid authoritative point in the past via Sacred Kingship, projected into the future with an evolutionary bent of historical developments and magical practices, and assured a valid continuance of tradition into the present by emphasizing the perennial qualities of traditional wisdom. On the other hand, the most robust connections produced by Gray’s conception of the Western tradition were due in large part to his braiding together of diverse discourses from the academy and esoteric disciplines to garner institutional legitimacy from the academy to support the comparably weaker connections in esotericism. With this understanding of the invention of tradition, the h istorical means of legitimating said traditions, and the structure of a network-modeled esoteric culture, an excavation of Gray’s influences and the legacy of his writings will demonstrate how he attempted to make his own Mystery with the explicit intent of unifying all Western esoteric discourses for the coming insurgence of Eastern forces in the cultural conflict he believed inevitable. Thus, the next section will examine the esoteric influences apparent in the discourse of Gray’s tradition to lead us into an explication of his reliance upon traditionalism, and the culturally exclusive doctrines inherent in his ‘Royal’ or ‘Holy Blood.’
Orienting Gray and his influences
Gray’s cosmos is a patchwork of various influences, and in attempting to position th
his works within 20 century esotericism, I will highlight both the major esoteric currents concealed within his ahistoric formulation of the Western Tradition, and the apparent social scientific theories he appropriated to legitimate it. As is so often the case with authors of occult literature, Gray is bad at making his sources apparent, but through biographical information and textual analysis we can make a short list. Though obviously
43
Qabalistic Concepts, p. 37; W G Gray, The Ladder of Lights, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1981, p. 104.
Wisner 17 rooted in Judeo-Christian myths and rituals, several substantial undercurrents are tucked 44
just beneath the symbolic surface, such as Rosicrucianism, Theosophic and Golden 45
46
Dawn style occultism, traditionalism with a clear linkage to René Guenon, pagan 47
th
48
myths, and 20 century pagan revivalist practices. Discursively, Gray structures significant components of the theory behind his magical system in the language of midth
20 century academic studies of religion and psychology, thereby tapping institutional cultural structures of legitimation. For instance, he frames his tradition in the anthropological structure of an ‘ethos,’ and explicitly as a process of ‘individuation’ that 49
utilizes the ‘unconscious’ mind. In a comprehensive overview of Gray’s tradition we shall inspect (A) the esoteric elements of Gray’s discourse through personal influences from Gray’s life before he began publishing, followed by his use of kabbalah, Rosicrucian and Grail myths within his published system. In the subsequent three sections are elucidations of Gray’s use of (B) traditionalism with relation to his racial doctrines so similar to ‘blood and soil,’ (C) anthropological and comparative religious academic sources and (D) psychological theories in making esoteric traditions congruous with the complexities of modern life.
(A) Gray’s woven Western esoteric discourse
To start extracting the esoteric discourses networked together in Gray’s tradition, we need only look to his mass ritual, the Sangreal Sacrament . The performance of the Sangreal mass first requires the prolonged, ritualized imaginative construction of a mental or internal ‘Grail Castle’ to house a ‘Grail Temple,’ within which the actual Sacrament can take place on a mental or imaginative level simultaneously with the physical performance of the rituals. The Castle is built on an island, which itself is 50
shaped and divided like the Cosmic Cross by either a spring-fed river, or the walls of
44
Western Inner Workings, pp. 49-62; Sangreal Sacrament , pp. 24, 47-51. See Qabalistic Concepts and Magical Ritual Methods. 46 An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp.19, 51, 55-9, 129. 47 Ibid., p. 18. 48 Western Inner Workings, pp. 139-56. 49 An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, 6-7, 43, 53, 63, 80, 90, 99, 111, 125; Working with Inner Light , p. 13; Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 234, 252; Magical Ritual Methods, pp. 97, 171, 271, 300. 50 A circle that has been divided into four sections by a cross with arms of equal length. For a picture, consult Sangreal Sacrament . P 31. 45
Wisner 18 the Castle on the interior, and the ocean around the perimeter. The Castle itself is styled around the Tree of Life, with various rooms accessible from a central lift representing the various spheres of the Tree.
51
The Grail Castle and its attendant progress toward
accessing the Grail Temple and performing the Sangreal Sacrament are explicitly compared to Christian Rosenkreuz’s Tomb from Rosicrucianism, while the ‘Grail Mystery’ is related to indigenous British Arthurian Legends and Gray’s ahistorical 52
Sacred King ‘Old Faith.’
Here in this one symbols of the Grail Castle, we can see Gray
aligning pagan myths, kabbalistic symbols, and Rosicrucian narratives in a constructed 53
ahistoric modern tradition.
Gray worked on the Sacrament ritual for several years before producing a version 54
in print.
The roots of his system are obviously varied, but a few salient personal
influences rise immediately to the top. First and foremost is the undeniable influence of Emile Napoleon Hausenstein (or ENH), who Gray met through a letter he wrote to the periodical Occult Review concerning an article they published on Rosicrucianism with which he disagreed. ENH was a well-versed esotericist, a member of the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis ( AMORC ), and a one-time Martinist who knew 55
Gerard Encausse (better known under the pseudonym ‘Papus’).
ENH would be one of
the most important influences on Gray in his early life. For instance, ENH suggested that the young Gray join the military, which resulted in Gray leaving England for Egypt. There he met another individual whose influence is apparent in the Grail Castle image of the Sangreal Sacrament: the enigmatic Russian woman ‘S’ or perhaps ‘Sarah.’ ‘S’ was a member of an unnamed esoteric organization, and offered him both apprenticeship and eventual initiation into her order. Whether he took these or not is unclear, but what is clear is that over the five years he was stationed in Egypt, Gray began to formalize his
51
Sangreal Sacrament, pp. 29-36. Sangreal Sacrament , p. 19; p. 47; pp. 54-6. 53 W Gray, Magical Ritual Methods, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1984. Gray made his methods for creating a tradition completely explicit in Magical Ritual Methods, and the chapters ‘Making a Magical Mystery’ and ‘Constructing the Cosmos’ are of particular interest here. 54 Gray first published the ritual as The Rite of Light in 1976, however elements of the ritual are apparent in his magical diaries dating back to 1966. See Working with Inner Light , pp. 29-35, 109-18, 153, 169-70. 55 Richardon & Claridge, pp. 51-59. 52
Wisner 19 concept of the ‘genuine’ Western esoteric tradition around the Grail myth, an early 56
influence that shines through vibrantly in all Gray’s writings.
Though Gray rather proudly never joined the AMORC to which ENH belonged, the influence of Rosicrucianism is seminal, as the direct references to the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz and the prevalence of the Grail would attest. Attire and temple setting for the ritual show explicitly Masonic influences, from the appearance of the ring, girdle, and apron to the two pillars, alter and book with attendant lights, and areas 57
designated for both seating and celebrating.
In fact, we can see explicitly Martinist
lineage apparent in the description for the portion of the ritual called ‘Calling in the Circle.’ The ritual is based off the Gnostic ‘Hymn of Jesus,’ and is comprised of 32 calls 58
and responses that correlate to spheres and p aths on the tree of life. Gray says, Jesus…had made it clear that where there were two or three…gathered together in his Name, his spirit would concentrate in the center of them. Such early gatherings of the few faithful were often held in circular form for this very reason….Later the appearance of the “Grail” was presumed to come among its Knights in the middle of their Round Table, a sophisticated development of the old Stone Circles. Later still, the Templars constructed their circular churches, and the Grail image was replaced by a red Rose, emblematic of the Rose-Cross movement which assumed responsibility for the continuing of the Mystery Tradition in Western Europe under more modernized forms of thinking and advanced means of approach.59
For Gray, this singularly legitimate Western Tradition rising from the Rosicrucian context was deeply anchored in kabbalistic symbols and allusions. For instance, a major recurrent prayer said at crucial moments of op ening or closing in the ritual is a symbolic 60
representation of major points on the Tree of Life.
Furthermore, Gray’s kabbalah is decidedly Christian, as in the above-mentioned prayer that is accompanied by the ritual act of tracing the sign of the cross over the body. The Sangreal Sacrament is designed to structurally mirror the Catholic mass ritual, while 56
Ibid , pp. 60-73. For pictures of attire and temple, see Appendices C and D; also Sangreal Sacrament, p. 58 for the layout of the entire temple. 58 M Introvigne, ‘Martinism: Second Period,’ Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. W Hanegraaff, Brill, Leiden, 2006, pp. 780-3; G Mead, The Hymn of Jesus, Echoes from the Gnosis, The Theosophical Publishing Company, London and Barnes, 1907; Sangreal Sacrament, p. 74. 59 Sangreal Sacrament , p. 70. 60 ‘In the name of the Wisdom, and of the Love, and of the Justice, and of the Mercy, or the One Eternal Spirit.’ Sangreal Sodality, pp. 59-60, 62, 90, 92-4, 97, 101, 107, 120-1, 133. 57
Wisner 20 symbolically utilizing the cosmological schema of kabbalah. The end result, in blending Rosicrucianism with kabbalah (and the Christian with the p agan elements), is a modernized Christian kabbalah that uses English letters and Masonically-styled ritual to attempt union with supreme divinity through the ‘holy blood.’ This ecstatic union, Gray’s ‘Perfect Peace Profound,’ is both the ultimate goal of magic and the hierarchically ultimate reality. In pursuit of this Perfect Peace, the magician takes on the symbolic cloak of the sacrificial king, seeking a ‘death’ of the dross persona to be ‘born again’ to life in the exalted state of true Selfhood as aligned with the divine will.
61
This experience of a transmutative rebirth became an explicit ideological feature in his published works through the Sacred King or Priest-King, the willing sacrifice who is the personal and transcendent identity of the ‘Royal’ or ‘Holy Blood’. For Gray, the 62
Sacred King (as representing the Sangreal ‘group-soul’ or being) is the distant authority projected upon the past that becomes the lynchpin of his invented tradition and its alternate view of history. In Gray’s Sacrament the celebrants identify themselves with the Priest-King, the living stand-in for the slain mythic Sacred King, and sacrifice their independent lives to the overarching will of an idealized ‘Eternal Living Entity’ that is the progenitor and ‘Owner’ of all life. In a communion-like ritual, the celebrants bless, offer and consume bread and wine to symbolize their own flesh and blood as well as that of the Sacred Kings. Their shared communion symbolizes a ‘spiritual kinship’ that transcends the limitations of death, and simultaneously affirms a connection of ancestry between each individual and all the ‘Sacred Kings of the past;’ the symbolic representation of the aspirant’s ego joined with all egos sacrificed in the past in pursuit of this penultimate state of perfected being, mythologized as physical and symbolic willing sacrifices to the Eternal Spirit of Life.
63
Gray summarized self-sacrifice succinctly in Inner Traditions of Magic, saying ‘…‘Self sacrifice’ means just what it says—to offer the Self without reservation to the True Will of the Entity behind each individual which is their own “Divine Spark” or
61
See The Sangreal Catechism, W Gray, Sangreal Sodality Series Volume 4, Sangreal Ceremonies and Rituals, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1986, pp. 22-38. 62 Sangreal Sacrament , p. xi- xii. 63 The Sangreal Sacrament , pp. 99-112, pp. 126-31.
Wisner 21 64
Immortal Identity….Humanity offering itself to Divinity on the alter of its activities.’ In fact, in The Sangreal Sacrament , Gray states quite plainly that ‘Celebrants and
Companions alike are offering themselves as ‘Hosts’ to the Presence which they pray will 65
indeed enter them and live.’
The idea that one should subjugate one’s typical, day-to-
day identity to a supernal identity is found in many sources, and Gray’s version, emphasizing the sacrifice of the daily consciousness to the higher mind, is quintessential of his invented tradition. As an actor in the cultural network of Western esotericism, we can see that Gray has attempted to braid together various mainstream and esoteric currents to attempt to reinforce the weaker connections in the esoteric network. Relying of Christianity and kabbalah as foundational components, he weaves Rosicrucian and Grail myths together with the Sacred King image to produce a universalized esoteric tradition. He personally associated himself with Rosicrucians and Martinists, as well as invoking the mythically inflated locale of Egypt, to attempt to harness legitimacy from presumed authentic esoteric discourses through an associate of Papus and the shadowy, secretive figure of ‘S,’ participating in a clandestine esoteric organization in the mythic home of Hermetic philosophy, Egypt. However, Gray’s tradition also shows the distinctive influence of the th
writings of one of the 20 century’s most influential traditionalists, René Guénon, and thus the next section will address how Gray wove traditionalism into his invented tradition, seemingly in an attempt to bolster the racial ideologies at the core of his Mystery.
(B) Traditionalism and belonging by blood and soil
In the emphasis on ‘Immortal Identity’ and divine kingship within the context of traditions in the West, Gray seems structurally indebted to the writings of René Guenon . Through poignant discursive connections to specific works of Guénon’s, Gray connected his tradition with the Traditionalist school, emphasizing the importance of Western traditions for Western individuals, and apparently attempting to lend a modicum of legitimacy to his racial doctrines. Though there are distinctive similarities to be seen
64
Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 279. The Sangreal Sacrament , p.. 102
65
Wisner 22 with Julius Evola’s works through the spiritually oriented conception of racial do ctrines, th
Evola’s works were not widely circulated until the end of the 20 century outside of the 66
Italian language and it is thus unlikely that Gray was overly familiar with him.
However, the resemblance between the works of the two men is marked. Gray’s specific variant of traditionalism is unique when considered beside the writings of either Evola or Guenon. Like both Guénon and Evola, Gray has serious doubts about the modern 67
world.
Like Guenon (and unlike Evola) Gray recognizes some glimmer of authentic
Western tradition in Christianity, while like Evola (and unlike Guenon ) Gray more 68
heavily relies upon and utilizes Western cultural facets like Europe an paganism. In Western Inner Workings , Gray provides short explications of what he
determines to be major pertinent themes and discourses in the Western esoteric tradition. In these chapters he covers sacred kingship, the Grail mythos, the Abramelin workings, ‘paganism’ of the sabbatic witchcraft sort, and in c hapter eight what he called ‘The 69
Mysteries of Melchizadek [sic].’
In this chapter Gray offers a description of a mystery
system that he claims is at the root of Freemasonry, wherein Melchizedek is identified as the ‘King of Righteousness’ or ‘Ruler of Peace,’ who is held up as the exemplar to which all aspirants strive, and a process of self-perfection follows which Gray claims is in actuality the same ritual process as the Abramelin ritual dressed in new symbolic 70
clothing.
The explicit link to Guénon comes on the first page of the chapter, wherein Gray gives an etymological analysis of the name ‘Melchizadek.’ Gray not only gives the root for the name Melchizedek as ‘Melki-Tsaddiq’ in a very similar form to that given by Guénon in his The Lord of the World , but he also gives Melchizedek the title of ‘Priest71
King,’ and similarly sites passages from Psalm 110 and Genesis 14 to support his claim. A few pages later he directly invokes the title ‘King of the Universe,’ showing distinct
66
J Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World , Inner Traditions International, Rochester, 1995, pp. ix-x. W Quinn, ‘Guénon, René,’ The Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. W J Hanegraaff, Brill, Leiden, 2006, pp. 443-4; H T Hakl, ‘Evola, Giulio Cesare (Julius or Jules)’ The Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. W J Hanegraaff, Brill, Leiden, 2006, p. 346; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 123-56. 68 Quinn, p. 442; Hakl, p. 345; Western Inner Workings, p. 109-56. 69 Western Inner Workings, pp. 109-22. 70 Ibid., pp. 111, 117. 71 Ibid ., pp. 109-10; R Guénon, The Lord of the World , Sophia Perrenis, Hillsdale, 2004, pp. 31-2. 67
Wisner 23 similarities to the title of Guénon’s book Le Roi du Monde (The Lord [or King] of the 72
World ).
These elements seems to be taken at least in piecemeal fashion from Guénon’s
book, where in chapter six Guénon analyses the Melchizedek figure and related myths against the traditions of the East.
73
Not only this, but in the same work Guénon covers
the Grail mythos, magical locations on the earth and sacred stones, three concepts also 74
held very highly by Gray. What is more, in his Sangreal Sacrament Gray calls his Sodality the ‘Order of Melchizadek’ in both the ‘Anointing’ and ‘Arousal’ sections of the 75
mass ceremony.
Though this could similarly show the influence of Freemasonic orders
on Gray’s tradition, other works of Guenon’s seems to app ear at least with a strong conceptual affinity in Gray’s works. For instance, Gray gives explications of the symbolism of the cross circumscribed within a circle in almost every one of his books. It appears in his 1965 magical diary, Western Inner Workings , Concepts of Qabalah , Magical Ritual Methods, and many 76
others.
The ‘Cosmic Cross,’ as Gray calls it, is one of the central symbols of his
magical system, being the basis for his seasonal rituals as well as the u nderlying structure 77
of his symbol for the Sangreal Sodality.
In a surprising happenstance, Guénon
discusses the cross surrounded by a circle in con nection with the swastika symbol in both The King of the World and Symbolism of the Cross.
78
In Symbolism of the Cross , Guénon
even says, ‘If [the swastika] is compared with the figure o f the cross inscribed in the circumference of a circle, it will be seen that these are really equivalent symbols in 79
certain respects….’
Guénon’s analysis of the cross as being a symbol for the realization
of humanity’s potential as well as the construction of the cosmos falls very much in line
72
Western Inner Workings, p. 114. The Lord of the World , pp. 33-41. 74 Guénon, pp. 27-32, 54-61; W Gray, The Rollright Ritual, Helios Book Services (Publications), Ltd., Cheltenham, 1975. 75 The Sangreal Sacrament , pp. 61, 115. 76 Working with Inner Light , pp. 133-7, 160-5; Concepts of Qabalah, pp. 22-5; Magical Ritual Methods, pp. 47-55; W Gray, The Ladder of Lights, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1968, pp. 8, 62. 77 See specifically the version of Seasonal Occult Rituals that appears as Chapter 16 of Sangreal Ceremonies and Rituals, p. 252; the seal for the Sangreal Sodality appears on the cover of all four volumes of the Sangreal Sodality Series. 78 The King of the World , pp. 8-10; R Guénon, Symbolism of the Cross, Sophia Perennis et Universalis, Ghent, 1996, pp. 54-6. 79 Ibid ., p. 55. 73
Wisner 24 80
with Gray’s use of the Cosmic Cross.
With the lead in of these pointed similarities, it
seems likely that Guénon had a decided effect on Gray’s conception of tradition, particularly since Gray’s emphatic ‘Western Traditionalism,’ as he called it, focuses 81
around many of the same symbols as Guénon’s analyses of Western traditions. The major difference is Gray’s outright rejection of Eastern ideologies. In combination with the common focuses on tradition and the idea of sacred priest-kings, Gray’s racialist and conservative political leanings seem consonant with the ideologies of Julius Evola, though again it is highly unlikely that Gray read Evola’s 82
works. This political affinity demonstrates how closely aligned with the mid-20
th
century traditionalist milieu Gray’s created tradition is, despite its definitive dissimilarities. Gray’s purposeful rejection of Eastern doctrines is contrary to both Guénon and Evola, but he seems to specifically allude to this difference in the introduction to Western Inner Workings . Gray says, For many years, the publishing market of the English and European Literary world have been flooded with a variety of books dealing with Oriental occultism. This has proved of great interest and attracted a considerable number of devotees, disciples, and what might be termed sub-culturalists, all seeking spiritual safisfaction with they evidently could not obtain from existing “orthodox” religions and established mystical systems. There are two reasons for this. One is that such resources proved inadequate to supply the urgent spiritual needs arising in the souls of those who were incarnating in the West. The other is that such souls appeared unaware of, or unwilling to develop the wealth of potential already present within themselves as a genetic spiritual inheritance of the Western world. So they took what seemed to be the easiest way out of their difficulties and grabbed at anything exotic and available that looked like a ready-made remedy for their inner deficiencies…it is all too frequently found that our modern backto-the-landers are embracing foreign philosophies and Oriental outlooks on life which are at considerable variance with indigenous [read: Western] spiritual systems. Not that this is wrong per se, but only that it encourages undue dependence on imported ideology and neglects the cultivation of our inborn genetic consciousness.83
80
Ibid ., pp. 1-22, 46-53; Western Inner Workings, pp. 157-89. Gray also calls practitioners of the Western tradition ‘Western Traditionalists,’ An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 19, 129-30, 143, 154. 82 Revolt Against the Modern World , pp. ix-x. 83 Western Inner Workings, pp. x-xi. 81
Wisner 25 The condescension is palpable when he says, ‘Not that this is wrong per se,...’ and coupled with his call on the same page that Western communities are ‘…best preserved by organizing and developing [their] inherent resources until these [communities] 84
become as self-sufficient as possible,…’ we can begin to see how Gray’s antiOrientalist leanings could quickly lead into overtly racist, if not fascistic, tendencies. It is an undisputed fact that Gray was openly racist for nearly all of his life, and 85
believed the Western esoteric tradition was explicitly and exclusively for Westerners. In fact, he and Bobbie wrote a pamphlet attempting to organize a ‘Native British 86
Mystery’ order with decidedly racist overtones. His racist attitude is inexorably tied to his conception of the ‘Sangreal’ or ‘Holy Blood.’ Later in life, he called himself a ‘racialist,’ but the reality of it is that no matter how much rationalizing and cleaning up he could do, his known distaste for ‘niggers,’ as he was prone to say, was bitter and 87
unapologetic.
Over his life his views would become less overt, and he would openly
recognize the validity of all culture’s spiritual pursuits, albeit only for the people 88
originally of those cultures.
Presumably, in line with Gray’s evolutionary view of
magical pursuits, ‘other people’s’ spiritual systems were likely hierarchically under Western practices, despite his claim that all traditions speak to their own culturally valid 89
reality.
In light of Gray’s openly racist sentiments, the above passage from the
introduction of Western Inner Workings would seem a direct critique of Guenon, especially in light of Guénon’s corpus of works dealing with Eastern philosophy and his conversion from Christianity to Islam.
90
Paired with Guénon’s analysis of the cross
within a circle as being not too different from the swastika, Gray’s racial doctrines fall beneath a new shadow. Shockingly, in An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, Gray gives a chilling 91
reading of World Wars I and II through the metaphorical device of sacred kingship.
84
He
Ibid ., p. xi. Richardson & Claridge, pp. 146-51. 86 The Sangreal Sacrament , p. xii; Richardson & Claridge, p 142, p. 146-51; Inner Traditions of Magic, p 252. 87 Richardson & Claridge, p. 146, p. 161. 88 Ibid , pp. 187-91. 89 Western Inner Workings, p. 240. 90 The King of the World , p. 69. 91 An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 70-5. 85
Wisner 26 affirms that after World War II the cultural conflict that spurred both wars became predominantly an East-West conflict with the entrance of Japan and America into the 92
fray.
Further, the use of the atom bomb introduced alien, ‘anti-life’ forces into 93
humanity’s spiritual domain. Though he claims that the threat posed by the atom bomb is a common threat to all traditions on Earth, he affirms that the end result of the Second World War was to solidify a division between Eastern and Western cultures. He says, So our last War ended on a very nasty note indeed. Nobody won it and everybody lost it. Worse still, it left us on a line leading to a future conflict between Traditions of West and East, which could crash our civilizations and culture completely….The important thing is that we should stay with the spirit of our own Tradition so that it presents no challenge to any other, yet consolidates the Way of the West within acceptable areas satisfactory for our survival, complementary to other cultures, and in a manner necessary for the future of mankind….94
Though his sentiments could be taken with less of an edge under the banner of a universal threat to mankind, the inevitable conclusion one must come to upon reading the above is that should a conflict arise between the East and the West, Gray would obviously hope for a victory of Westerners over Easterners. With such possibilities weighing on Gray’s mind, the road to racial politics seams paved for him in the discourses of traditionalism th
th
95
and late 19 /early 20 century reactionary and nationalistic Continental politics.
The fact is, Gray’s ideology frequently broaches upon the doctrine of ‘Blood and Soil.’ Despite having no known connections to what Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke called the ‘British Nazi Underground’ in his 2002 book Black Sun, Gray seems to have been prey to many of the same racial fears that motivated neo-Nazi groups in the UK during 96
the 1950s and 60s. Blut und Boden in Germany emphasized hereditary belonging to the Germanic people (Volk ) and ownership/cultivation of the land those peo ple inhabited, while aggrandizing the rural way of life and a sense of ‘belonging’ to the Germanic 92
Ibid ., pp. 71-2. Ibid ., p. 73. 94 An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, p. 74. 95 C Levy, ‘Fascism, National Socialism and Conservatives in Europe, 1914-1945: Issues for Comparativists,’ Contemporary European History, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1999, pp. 97-126; A Richter, ‘”Blood and Soil”: what it means to be German,’ World Policy Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 91-8; P Betts, ‘The New Fascination with Fascism: the case of Nazi modernism,’ Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2002, pp. 541-558; E Gomel, ‘Aliens among us: fascism and narrativity,’ Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 127-30, 133-8, 140-5. 96 N Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, New York University Press, New York, 2002, pp. 30-51. 93
Wisner 27 97
culture through language, custom and a blood-based concept of ethnicity.
This is, in
fact, explicitly Gray’s view on who counts as ‘Western.’ Again in Western Inner Workings , Gray says ‘…it is time that some souls already incarnate reco gnize the
significance of a spiritual factor bound up with their own blood which was once called 98
Sang Real or Blood Royal.’
The italics are his own, as apparently the spiritual forces
‘bound up with their own blood’ were in pressing need of explicit recognition. He continues ‘Each chapter of this book may be considered as a separate thread of one single theme connecting our inner lives together like an unbreakable blood-link between family members of a common faith….The Sangreal is something you either belong with by birth 99
and blood inheritance, or you do not, but might yet claim it if you would.’
The ‘blood
link’ and the emphasis on genes already begins to beg possible Nazi sympathies, even though Gray fought the Nazis in World War II and utilizes kabbalah as a central 100
structural feature of his tradition.
Then we get the soil connection. In explaining the ‘rustic’ ancient roots of his Western tradition, Gray states, …by personifying and relating with the invisible powers and energies of life encountered on Earth by humans trying to support themselves and their families, our Inner Tradition of the West became cultivated and propagated from one generation to another. No matter how superior and sophisticated we may suppose ourselves in the midst of our modern technology, our roots are rural, and if we seek them we shall have to trace them to the soil from which they sprang. 101
Again, the italics are Gray’s own. Here we can see Gray’s holding up of rural life and ideals, his distrust of the modern world, and his reliance on heredity and breeding as key factors in ‘belonging’ with his Sangreal Tradition. He has modified the blood and soil concept to include all Westerners among the in-group, but the method of exclusion and the implications are all the same. Moreover, this is not the only instance of Gray showing blood and soil affinities.
97
Richter, pp. 91-8; R J Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin, New York, 2003, pp. 125, 211, 228. 98 Western Inner Workings, p. xii. 99 Ibid ., p. xii. 100 Richardson & Claridge, pp. 87-8. 101 Western Inner Workings, p. 7.
Wisner 28 This Western group identified by blood, genes, hereditary belonging to the cultural in-group and geographical origin from European ancestry and kinship with the land appears in every book Gray wrote. We can see it in The Sangreal Sacrament . Gray states plainly, ‘…anyone of Western origins and descent may have “Royal” qualities in themselves if they are able to rule or govern their own behavior….Furthermore they have inherited characteristics from their ancestors which enable them to b ecome whatever they will make of themselves. It is quite inaccurate to believe that “we are all equal by 102
birth.”’
This deep criticism of the key liberalist doctrine of universal equality would
seem to show that even if Gray were not directly knowledgeable on Evola’s works, h e at the very least also read Guénon, held spiritually driven racial ideologies to be deeply structural to his conception of tradition, believed the ancient pagan ways to be core facets of the same tradition (as we shall see), focused on the concept of sacred kingship as Evola did, and questioned the primacy of modernity. Gray has one strong point of differentiation from Evola’s doctrines beside Evola’s utilization of Eastern philosophy: though Gray was disappointed in and questioning of modernity, he accepted it and sought to bring the traditions of the West into a modern framework that assured their viability for modern Westerners. Evola’s outright rejection of modernity makes his doctrines difficult to square with fascism, but the same is not true 103
of Gray.
And though Gray explicitly sets himself apart from the Nazis, the exclusive,
magically bolstered material ideation of tradition bound to genes/blood and culture/soil shows definitive affinity with certain fascist ideologies, even if he did not publicly claim 104
them in an explicit manner.
Here we can see that in the web of Western esoteric ideologies Gray h as attempted to unify Western esoteric actors around a co mmon ‘Western’ identity, similarly to the ways in which post-war neo-Nazis and fascists attempted to herald a common European identity, to obscure the horrors of Nazi racial extermination agendas and 105
prepare the white populations of the world for a coming cultural conflagration.
Through appeals to ‘tradition’ and ‘native ways,’ and a conception of identity and
102
Sangreal Sacrament , p. xii. Revolt Against the Modern World, pp. 302-11, 358-66. 104 Ibid ., p. 176; Richardson & Claridge, pp. 148-50. 105 Goodrick-Clarke, pp. 30-1, 34, 37-9. 103
Wisner 29 belonging founded upon genetic heritage, the similarities to both Nazis and neo-Nazis is very apparent, though Gray had no public association with either. Furthermore, it would seem that Gray includes at least practitioners of Judaism in the ‘Western’ identity, showing a distinct dissimilarity to the pointedly anti-Semitic neo-Nazis of Britain in the th
106
mid-20 century.
Gray’s racial ideologies were exceedingly unpopular among nearly
everyone with whom he associated himself, and it can be seen plainly how Gray attempted to cover up his racial doctrines in flowery language and sideways no ds like ‘Blood Royal’ and ‘belonging with the blood.’ The situation gets more interesting when we consider Gray’s use of academic sources. He claims at the beginning of Western Inner Workings that the book is a unique experiment in ‘spiritual sociology,’ and if we take into account Hitler’s use of both anthropology and biology to ground his own racist doctrines, the similarities to National 107
Socialist ideologies become almost inescapable.
And though Gray would pointedly
reject the ideologies of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis in his writings, it is evident that through blood and soil styled doctrines and appeals to academic anthropology, Gray attempted to utilize very similar legitimating strategies as the Third Reich for his racial 108
doctrines.
Thus, a better understanding of Gray’s academic influences seems founded,
as anthropologically grounded framings of culture utilized to leg itimate racial distinctions based in a genetic vector brings Gray’s ideological system soundly to the threshold of National Socialism.
(C) Academic exposure
One of the methods of modernizing and unifying esoteric discourses that Gray utilized to successfully create lasting connections in the e soteric cultural network was the incorporation of modern academic conceptual frameworks for the illumination of esoteric ideologies. Gray’s emphasis on Sacred Kingship begins to show some of the effect that comparative and anthropological studies of religion ha d on Gray’s magical system through apparent familiarity with James Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Robert Graves’
106
Ibid , 32, 43; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 36-7, 46-7. Western Inner Workings, p. ix; Levy, p. 105. 108 Western Inner Workings, p. 240; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 72-3; Working with Inner Light, pp. 13-4, 24-6. 107
Wisner 30 The White Goddess . The ‘Sacred King’ symbol’s centrality in Gray’s system beside
perennialized pagan myths attests to his cognizance of The Golden Bough ’s 109
universalizing implications through the comparative method.
The Sacred King as the willing sacrifice of his people, and the role of the magician acting symbolically as a sacrificial king, is a p ointed similarity between the information presented in Frazer’s work and the de tails behind Gray’s formation of his anachronistic esoteric tradition. Though the centrality of the Sacred King theme is never explicitly tied to Frazer by Gray, the influence is marked for its similarly perennializing and cross-historic tone. It is also interesting that Gray’s texts have a similarly meandering style to Frazer’s opus, though Gray tends to wax more briefly. Beyond being noted by Richardson and Claridge in The Old Sod as a work well known to Gray , his familiarity with the poet Robert Graves’ expansion on The Golden Bough is also evident 110
in his treatment of Celtic myth and pagan goddess worship.
One of the clearest links
comes through an explication of the sphere on the Tree of Life associated with Venus, Netzach, which ties the ‘dog-priests’ of ancient Sirius cults to homosexual acts and 111
modern celibacy in Christian priests.
Frazer is not the only anthropologist whose discourse Gray appropriated. He also th
utilized mid-20 century anthropological models, as evidenced by Gray’s conceptualization of the ‘Ethos.’ In a 1965 magical diary commenced poignantly (in a Gravesian sense) on May Day, Gray gives his clearest attempt to relay the essentials of st
magical practice within his Mysteries. In the first entry from May 1 of 1965 titled ‘The Mysteries,’ Gray demonstrates another connection to academia, this time a familiarity with then-contemporary anthropological theories of religion, most likely through the works of Clifford Geertz. In the very first lines Gray announces, The Mysteries are a Consciousness-Pattern workable on both sides of the Veil, so that participants from each side can meet and co-operate with each other. First, there has to be a basis or background, on and against which activities can take place among individuals on personal or group levels. This is the ‘Ethos.’ It may be Racial, or 109
J Frazer, The Golden Bough, The MacMillan Press Ltd., London, 1978, pp. 1-14, 59-63, 109-40, 348-72, 756-76; W Gray, The Ladder of Lights, Samuel Weiser Inc., York Beach, 1981, pp. 163-79; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 16-39; Sangreal Sacrament , pp. 85-125. 110 Richardon & Claridge, p. 125; R Graves, The White Goddess, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, London, 1966, pp. 24, 140-64; The Ladder of Lights, pp. 161-79. 111 The White Goddess., p. 51-4; The Ladder of Lights, p. 80.
Wisner 31 Religious. It may be Qabalistic, Gnostic or plain Witch. Whatever it is, it consists of Symbols and the arrangement and use thereof. Just as the Chessboard and men are Symbols from the activity of Chess, so are the Mystery Symbols the means by which players on both sides of the Veil play the same game.112
This presents a direct link to anthropological discourses that directly applies Geertz’s description of culture and the practical functioning of religion. In ‘Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sac red Symbols,’ Geertz relates the anthropological viewpoint, saying ‘…the moral (and a esthetic) aspects of a given culture, the evaluative elements, have commonly been summed up in the term “ethos,” while the 113
cognitive, existential aspects have been designated by the term “world-view”.’
He
continues that the ethos is the ‘tone, character, and quality’ of an individual’s life within a culture, and the worldview is ‘their concept of nature, of self, of society.’ These two elements support each other in a religious system through belief and ritual, which …confront and mutually confirm each other; the ethos is made intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life implied by the actual state of affairs which the world-view describes, and the world-view is made emotionally acceptable by being presented as an image of an actual state of affairs of which such a way of life is an authentic expression.114
In this way, for Geertz, religion is an attempt to ‘conserve’ and convey the meanings of a given culture in terms an individual can use to interpret and mediate his life. Most 115
importantly, this meaning can only be ‘stored’ in symbols.
Religious symbolism as retold through myth or enacted through ritual is directly felt by the individual. In this way, symbolism encompasses in ritual and belief what that culture knows about the world, the emotional character of lived existence that v iew of the world supports, and how the individual should act as a part of that world. As a result, Geertz says we find that though we might expect there to be, for instance, a culture that develops an ethical system without an ontological paradigm, they are not apparent. He says, ‘The tendency to synthesize world-view and ethos at some level, if not logically necessary, is at least empirically coercive; if it is not philosophically justified, it is at least 112 113
Working with Inner Light , p. 13.
C Geertz, ‘Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,’ The Antioch Review, vol. 17, no. 4, Winter, 1957, p. 421. 114 Ibid ., p. 421-2. 115 Ibid ., p. 422.
Wisner 32 116
pragmatically universal.’
For Gray, as an esoteric insider, the philosophical qualms of
Geertz’s approach could likely have been trumped by the perceived reality of this ‘pragmatically universal’ facet of religious cultures. In appropriating Geertz’s use of ‘ethos,’ Gray makes the choice to approach the evaluative aspects of magic as a lived practice—‘the Mysteries’ as magical culture. Through the ethos, he makes a magical worldview intellectually reasonable and magical practice emotionally palatable. The explicit ontology of Gray’s magical culture is that it is comprised of individuals ‘on both sides of the Veil,’ that is both human and nonhuman/discarnate beings. Any Mystery, as a magical religion, conveys the lived meaning of that Mystery’s magical culture. As a successful modernizing and legitimating strategy that created robust connections in the networks of Western esotericism, we can see Gray’s conceptual use of the Ethos living on in the sabbatic witchcraft tradition in such works as Tubelo’s Green Fire: Mythos, Ethos, Female, Male and Priestly Mysteries of the Clan of Tubal-Cain by Shani Oates. This is particularly evident in the fourth section
of the book, where Oates describes the ‘Clan Ethos,’ covering what ‘the sacred’ is in their view, what their ‘Mystery Tradition’ is comprised of, the meaning of their ritual 117
implements in a ritual context, and the nature of their initiations among other topics. 118
Gray even gets an explicit reference in the section.
The remainder of Gray’s 1965 diary makes explicit how to construct a Mystery through ‘Qabalistic’ practice: with a Lodge that imparts ritual ethics, a Temple, a mystical cosmological structure via the Tree of Life, and a plethora of symbolic tools for constructing a magical cosmos through practice from the p rocess of making tea to the 119
cosmic circle cross emblem, or a kiss.
From this relatively early point is Gray’s
published magical career (still 1965), his kabbalah is the central fixture of his worldview, out of which he attempts to create a universal Western magical tradition that could apply to all Western esoteric context.
116
Ibid ., p. 422. S Oates, Tubelo’s Green Fire: Mythos, Ethos, Female, Male and Priestly Mysteries of the Clan of Tubal-Cain, Mandrake of Oxford, Oxford, 2010, pp. 213-63. 118 Ibid ., p. 229. 119 Working with Inner Light , pp. 21-3, 56-62, 133-6, 185-8. 117
Wisner 33 (D) Psychologized mysteries for the modern malaise
In his reliance on kabbalistic symbols, we begin to see Gray’s attempts to concentrate on a perceived magical tradition that is historical. Though his version of this tradition has been modernized with a disenchanted, scientized discourse (through framings of magical practice as spiritual and material evolution, frequent uses of mechanical metaphors relying upon technical/professional and craft trades, and a framing 120
of both the world as ‘material’ and the magical process as one of ‘materialization’) Gray’s tradition aims at making the magic of h is perceived ancient tradition easily 121
intelligible for the modern mind.
This is where Gray was particularly successful at
building deeply networked connections in the web of Western esotericism, and the connections he drew were lasting. Gray demonstrates a wide exposure to sources in various Western traditions, showing knowledge of major works and figures ranging from 122
the Essenes
126
Metatron
123
to the Golden Dawn, 127
to Abramelin,
124
A. E. Waite
the Comté de Gabalis to the Book of Raziel, 129
magnetism to Christian Science.
125
Enoch-
128
animal
to George Gurdjief,
As he lays plain in An Inner Outlook on Our Inner
Western Way, Gray aims at modernizing the traditions of the Middle Ages and
Renaissance so that magical culture can continue into the future as a single tradition.
130
Here we can see the comprehensive effort at unifying and modernizing that characterizes Gray’s attempt at crafting a tradition that could braid toge ther all strands of Western esotericism into a singularly networked cultural entity. He attempts to lengthen esoteric networks by interrelating them through the equalizing an d legitimating force of academic discourses, and in so doing attempts to strengthen otherwise weak connections in the network of esotericism to Western culture at large. His attempt to modernize and
120
Ibid ., pp. 43-4, 48-9, 56, 70-2, 75, 81-2; Qabalistic Concepts, pp. 11, 30-1, 117, 132, 272-4, 292; Ladder of Lights, pp. 161, 182; An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 43, 58-60, 73, 108. 121 Ibid ., pp. 129-33. 122 Qabalistic Concepts, p. 297. 123 Inner Traditions of Magic, pp. 13-36. 124 An Outlook onOour Inner Western Way, p. 101. 125 Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 18. 126 Ladder of Lights, p. 212. See also A Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2005. 127 Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 140. 128 Ladder of Lights, pp. 29-30, 191. 129 Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, pp. 66-8. 130 Ibid ., pp. 123-56.
Wisner 34 draw together the Western traditions of the past simultaneously was a leg itimating strategy very similar to those of the Renaissance, u tilizing the philosophia perennis mode of eternal wisdom alongside a thoroughly modern view of history as a progressive, evolutionary improvement of man’s state of existence within cultural bounds. A disenchanted, mechanically-described and materially oriented world based in anthropological models of culture was only on e method of modernization that Gray relied upon to attempt to update and interrelate magical beliefs for the future. Another very prominent facet of his written works is his steadfast implementation of the psychological language of Carl Jung. In fact, Gray even traces the efficacy of the cosmic circle cross 131
image back to Jung’s archetypes and dream analyses.
He frequently used the language
of the subconscious, collective unconscious and individuation in attempting to elucidate 132
his descriptions of magic.
One excellent example of Gray’s attempts to interrelate various Western traditions in a modernized context comes again in Western Inner Workings while Gray is discussing the Abramelin mystical activities. He states, ‘Carl Jung describes [awareness of Immortal Identity] as the “individuation process,” but it was described a lot earlier and more 133
succinctly as Delphi as “Know Thy Self.”’
Here, through the psychological discourse
of Carl Jung, Gray bring ancient Greek religious worship and the temple at Delph i together with Abramelin, attempting to connect two shorter religious networks through the longer, modern network of Jungian psychoa nalysis. He attempts to find affinity with modern culture through a tradition made nearly atomistic in its pursuit of individuality.
134
Gray says, ‘Not only is individualization encouraged, but until a Soul becomes sufficiently individualized to assert its Inner Identity in an independent Light, (or be
131
Qabalistic Concepts, p. 37. An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, p. 126; The Sangreal Sacrament , p. 133, p. 144, p. 206. For a discussion of the use of magical squares metaphorically explained through the relation of Rorschach blotters to the subconscious mind, see p. 165-6. For an explication of invocation and the use of divine names that draws on the collective unconscious, see W Gray, Sangreal Sodality Series Vol. 4: Sangreal Ceremonies and Rituals, Samuel Weiser, Inc., Yorke Beach, 1986, p. 10-1. 133 Western Inner Workings, p. 98. 134 Sangreal Sacrament , p. 181; Magical Ritual Methods, p. 207. Note that human individuality is identified with Malkuth, the sphere on the Tree of Life representing the material world. In Richardson & Claridge, at the beginning of Chapter 4, in an unattributed quote of Grays (presumably from his original autobiographical text based upon the use person pronouns) reads ‘Religion was collective whereas Magic was individual, and I was all for individualism.’ (61) 132
Wisner 35 ‘born again’) it cannot properly enter the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, or ‘come into its own’ as 135
that it willed. This is the real meaning of Magic.’
In spite of his very modern mentality and desire to make the Western traditions viable for the modern world, Gray also displays h is pointed disillusionment, verging on 136
barely-masked disgust, with the modern world.
His disillusionment seems connected
with his experiences during and just after World War II. In his Sangreal Sacrament , Gray says, …There is nothing like a catastrophe for bringing out the nobility and contemptibility of a human soul. On the whole during the last World War, incredible courage and comradeship emerged among even the least likely types of people. It became evident that some began to say, “If we had anything like this kind of Spirit among us in peace time there wouldn’t be any wars. Perhaps an odd remark, but that was their recognition of the Sangreal in those days. Alas, the War had not been over officially for very long before the majority of folk slipped back into their usual rat-race-greed-grab style of earthliving [sic]. 137
Gray continues to say, ‘Why should we have to wait until some unspeakable horror demands the best blood from us in…brutal sacrifice? Why not call up the best blood we have…now and devote it to spiritual sacrifice [that we may]…avert 138
the bloodiest of holocausts…?’
This sums up Gray’s position with modernity
and hopes for esotericism rather succinctly. Rather than being beaten down by the brutality of modernity, we could hope to guide our own cultural trajectory through history using esoteric disciplines to ensure ideal results for the ‘spiritual evolution’ or Western people. Gray was impressed and disappointed by man’s capacity for inhumanity, and seemed deeply dissatisfied with the modern world, particularly in light of the East-West conflict he saw as the direct product of the wars of modernity and modern methods of living and governance. He says in his Inner Traditions of Magic, ‘To those who control the States and Organizations throughout this world,
what does any individual Soul amount to?...A component to be processed according to requirement, serviced as necessary, and eliminated in an economical 135
Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 283. See Inner Traditions of Magic, ‘Authority fears spiritual independence’, pp. 264-6 and ‘Man still a Spiritual Savage’, pp 281-4. 137 Sangreal Sacrament , p. 162. 138 Ibid ., p. 163. 136
Wisner 36 139
manner.’
He believed that by preserving the core of the Western Esoteric
Tradition for future generations, updated to be compatible with modern Western minds, Westerners could assure a positive future for themselves that continues evolving toward spiritual perfection in the face of the present, disenchanted 140
situation.
In making conjecture on the place of magic in the future, Gray says,
The practice of magic in the 20th century and probably more so in the twenty first, is especially for human Souls who are “coming of age” sufficiently to seek their own Spiritual heritage of independence in the kingdom of Light which no “Darkness covering the face of the earth” can ever extinguish….For the sacrifice of a self which was no more than a slave of physical circumstances…Souls emerge into a state of Spiritual Selfhood in which they direct their own destiny by the Light of Divinity declaring Itself through them with the Creative Word of Will. 141
For Gray, the only way forward was seeking the best possible spiritual state, typified for him in the transformative experience found across the abyss of insanity—the Dark Night of the Soul expressed through the willing sacrifice of the Sacred King; a spiritual death 142
and rebirth attained in ‘Perfect Peace Profound’.
With this view of the modern world, Gray sought to network together what he saw as the extant remains of the authentic traditions of the past with a modern renovation, so as to address the mental anguish of modern living. Perhaps most importantly, he saw the functional union of all Western esoteric organizations behind the single purpose of seeking Immortal Identity (through individuation) for the evolution of individuals within Western culture in preparation for the rising tide of East-West conflict which seemed, to him, an inevitable byproduct of modern history. With this comprehensive overview of Gray’s system in mind from (A) to (D), the connections in Gray’s personal esoteric network will show through whom and by which 139
Inner Traditions of Magic, p. 282. Gray makes himself perfectly clear: ‘An employable unit to be used and disposed of by death.’ 140 The Sangreal Sacrament , p. 183-6; W Gray, The Rollright Ritual, Helios Book Services (Publications), Ltd., Cheltenham, 1975, p. 48, p. 60; Most directly addressed in Inner Traditions of Magic, under the ‘Ritual in the Life of an Initiate’ and ‘The Significance of Magic in a Nuclear Age’, pp 220-84; in The Tree of Evil Gray elucidates what a Qliphothic or ‘averse’ worldview to that of the Tree of Life would look like. To Gray, it could be summarized as materialism, instability, greed, lust, ugliness or disharmony, cruelty, apathy, ignorance, antipathy, stupidity, atheism and darkness. (p. 18) 141 Inner Tradition of Magic, p.283. 142 Sangreal Ceremonies and Rituals, pp. 49-50, pp. 56-8; The Sangreal Sacrament, p. 59, p. 102, pp.1179, pp.137-9; W Gray, An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, Samuel Weiser, New York, 1980, pp. 28-39; Seasonal Occult Rituals, pp. 4-6.
Wisner 37 strategic appeals to modern authoritative knowledge Gray’s conception of the Western tradition succeeded in building lasting connections in the cultural network of esotericism. His ability to combine esoteric discourses with traditionalism, anthropology and psychology vastly outpaced the comparable weakness of his racial ideologies in a network of Western esoteric traditions, as we shall see in the following two sections.
Network connections built and lost
After fighting in World War II, Gray married the woman who would be his wife until his death, Bobbie, and lived in Cheltenham, networking himself with many of his contemporary practicing occultists, predominantly in Britain but also elsewhere in the US 143
and South Africa.
He started his own esoteric order, the Sangreal Sodality, and made
connections through correspondence and tumultuous friendships with various notable individuals in the qabalistic and blooming Wiccan and pagan revivalist circles. Notables include Gareth Knight, a member of Dion Fortune’s Society of Inner Light (to which 144
Gray briefly and tumultuously belonged)
145
and author of various works on Qabalah;
Roy Bowers, also known as Robert Cochrane, the founder of the Sabbatic witchcraft 146
tradition’s seminal group, The Clan of Tubal-Cain; 147
Valiente and Pat Crowther;
143
several Wiccan authors like Doreen
author of and musician in the Celtic revival tradition RJ
Richardson & Claridge, pp. 96-103. Ibid , pp. 138-143. 145 Ibid, pp. 152-60; G Knight, A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, WeiserBooks, Boston, 2001. Gray and Knight’s shared Qabalistic background yields many commonalities, namely an unmanifest absolute divine principle that is totally transcendent (Ain) and a cosmos where reason is ultimately transcended (p.53: 1); a notable debt to the writings of Dion Fortune (pp. 53-4); a tendency to make racial distinctions on a metaphysical level (p. 60: 26); and a panentheistic organization of the cosmos using the Tree of Life, relating Malkuth and Kether to material existence as a human being in the world and the supreme Godhead respectively (p. 65, pp. 191-2). 146 The Clan of Tubal-Cain was a Cochrane’s Craft coven; that is to say a unique, traditionally-styled seasonal/sabbatic ‘non-pagan’ witchcraft order, which developed a pantheon and ritual system deeply contrasting its Gardnerian peers of the 1950’s and subsequent sectarian incarnations in the decades since (such as the American Joseph Wilson’s 1734 Tradition). Roy Bowers met a strange end, attempting suicide near the summer solstice with belladonna and lithium, and dying in early July of 1966 (Richardson & Claridge, pp. 134-5). The transcripts of his letters to William Gray show that he and Bowers shared a consonant interest in sacrificial Sacred King myths. Copies of his letters to various individuals are provided by the Estate of E J Jones, and can be found at < http://www.cyberwitch.com/bowers/>. 147 W Gray, Working with Inner Light: the magical journal of William G. Gray, eds. J Clark & A Richardson, Skylight Press, Cheltenham, 2011, p. 8. 144
Wisner 38 148
Stewart;
and Jacobus Swart, a kabbalist from South Africa who would become Gray’s 149
magical heir in charge of continuing the Sangreal Sodality.
For all but Bowers (who met an untimely death) and Jacobus Swart, Gray’s vehement racism was a serious point of contention, and frequently caused fiery endings to otherwise fruitful relationships. For instance, Gareth Knight recalls being warned of 150
Gray’s unpleasantness by a friend before meeting him in 1964.
The two would be
good friends for many years, but eventually disagreed so heatedly over the issue of allowing non-Whites into the Society of Inner Light (and Theosophy in general) that the 151
mention of Knight’s name would cause Gray to boil over with scathing verbal attacks.
In fact, one of the only person Gray maintained a congenial relationship with throughout the entirety of their interactions was Jacobus Swart, and Swart openly believes in Gray’s racialist perspective on the esoteric disciplines of the West, particularly the Sangreal Gray started. Swart says, Each race carries its own unique record of superphysical and subjective phenomena through its bloodstream, and these memories constitute our fables, legends, gods, heroes and what have you. They cannot be forgotten because they are locked within our genes as a blood record. I fully agree with Bill that a brotherhood of a specific Tradition is not going to work for all races, but only for those who carry the legends and past within themselves. I believe the most mystical tie to be the blood tie, the Blood Soul. This Blood Soul can only be communicated to those who possess it, and all the members, with their respective connections to this Blood Soul, become like one man, one great soul – the Sangreal in our case.152
It is easy to see how though a cloak of cultural relativism is appropriated to obfuscate potentially caustic racial doctrines, there is still a strong core of racial and cultural division inherent in the leadership of the Sangreal Sodality. Each culture has its own tradition, and in Gray’s view an individual should stay within the traditions of their particular cultural group. Thus, we can assess the networking strength of Gray’s racialist ideals. Despite the upheaval and derision his racism bred in his personal life, it did not dramatically stunt his networks, and this is mostly the result of his ability to connect 148
R Stewart, ‘Robert John Stewart,’ Dreampower.com, 2007, June 5, 2012, < http://img2.ranker.com/ user_node_image/6400/1000177795/full/memes-photo-u11.jpg>. 149 Richardson & Claridge, p. 162. 150 Ibid. p. 153. 151 Ibid , pp. 152-60. 152 Richardson & Claridge, p. 189.
Wisner 39 153
esoteric disciplines with academic and traditionalist discourses.
It seems that even
though most were unwilling to let his racism go unqu estioned in the end, there were plenty willing to conveniently rationalize or overlook it. Even his biographers, Alan Richardson and Marcus Claridge, say ‘William G. Gray’s real and supposed racism is a complex issue…’ a sentiment replete with the typical rationality of an indulgence of 154
privilege.
Open racism is never a truly complex issue beyond a matter of personal
prejudice, and Gray’s spiritual justifications of racialist doctrines do not make his open racism any more ‘complex’ than an apologist would wish to make it. What is clear is that even when Gray’s racism lost him friends and colleagues, few people did away with his esoteric ideas after cutting personal connection with h im. Certainly his affinity for pre-historic Britain and its myths garnered him supporters and enthusiasts, even continuing into today. The musician and author RJ Stewart, for instance, has very obvious ties to William Gray that he publicized in his own writings in print and online. Despite yet another untoward termination of association, Stewart’s ‘Merlin Tarot’ uses the same attribution of Tarot trumps to the Tree o f Life that Gray uses, a highly unique attribution with no clear printed precedent in other sources 155
explicitly concerned with Tarot.
In an article available on his website, Stewart relays a
meeting he had with Israel Regardie in 1976. The meeting happened through the networking of Gray himself, who knew Regardie previously. Stewart recounts some of their conversation, and then, …without preamble or explanation, he [Regardie] told me [Stewart] that I would continue to develop inner work started by Dion Fortune and continued by W G Gray. We moved on to anecdotes about other senior occultists, and it occurred to me to ask a question that had long been in my mind. ‘What about the Paths of the Tree of Life in the Golden Dawn system,’ I asked, ‘they seem to be confused.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Regardie, ‘and intentionally so. There is another layout that is only taught when you challenge the published one...but you know that layout already. As indeed I did, having been taught it by W G Gray.’156
153
Ibid., pp. 152-78, 191, 194-6. Ibid., p. 151. 155 R J Stewart, ‘Memoir of W G Gray,’ 2003,
; For a diagram of Gray’s attribution, see Appendix C. 156 R Stewart, ‘A Healing Encounter,’ Dreampower.com, 2007, . 154
Wisner 40 Here, Stewart alone claims an external authority for Gray’s attribution of the Tarot cards to the tree of life through Israel Regardie, a man highly regarded as one of the foremost th
occult writers of the 20 century. The connection is not entirely implausible, as Regardie 157
penned a glowing introduction for Gray’s Inner Traditions of Magic .
Upon inquiring further with Mr. Stewart, his reply was that Gray’s attribution of the Tarot cards to the Tree was in line with a Renaissance construction of the universe. Though the authoritative claims of Gray’s attribution are uncorroborated by other sources, the justification seems rational enough. For instance, similarities to Agrippa’s triple division of the cosmos in De occulta philosophia can be seen in Gray’s attribution of the Moon, Sun and Star trumps to the Middle Pillar as representing the sub-lunar (Malkuth to Yesod), planetary (Yesod to Tiphareth) and celestial (Tiphareth to Kether) 158
spheres.
Gray provides a comprehensive and fascinating explication of his approach to
the Tarot from within his own tradition in one of his last works, The Sangreal Tarot: A 159
Magical Ritual System of Personal Evolution .
In it, he explicitly ties the Tarot trumps
and suits through ‘Fool’s journey’ as an archetypal hero’s journey to the Grail and Arthurian myths on the basic background of the Tree of Life, here again showing his varying influences, this time from the Golden Dawn and Rosicrucian-styled initiatic 160
orders.
Whatever the case may be for the variety of relationships Gray had that went sour, people who had associations with him valued his esoteric teachings apparently above 161
their personal misgivings about him.
Gray managed to personally connect his network
of the Sangreal to a variety of different people, most of whom did not participate in his mystery. However, the fact remains that he lengthened his own network by association with Gareth Knight, Israel Regardie, R J Stewart, Jacobus Swart, and many notable figures in the sabbatic witchcraft tradition. The fact that his biographers go through such pains to make him appear truly relativistic in his view of the cultures of non-Westerners 157
Inner Traditions of Magic, pp. ix-xi. H C Agrippa von Nettesheim, De occulta philosophia libri III , Apud Godefridum, & Marcellum, Beringos, frates, Lugduni, 1550, available in full scan through the Universiteitsbibliothek Basel at . 159 W Gray, The Sangreal Tarot: A Magical Ritual System of Personal Evolution, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1988. 160 Ibid ., pp. 209-38. 161 Various accounts of personal relationships failing are given in Richardson & Claridge, pp. 152-96. 158
Wisner 41 should show how deeply drawn to his esoteric teachings many who disagreed with his racial ideologies were. His attempts to network to and ally himself with all traditions he perceived to be Western were, in the end, most fruitful among the practitioners of the sabbatic craft, and the connections he fostered to the ideologies of the burgeoning pagan th
revivals of the late 20 century will show this duly.
Maintained connections: sabbatic and Sangreal survivals
The two shorter networks within the longer n etwork of Western esotericism that most strongly connected to Gray in the present are the sabbatic witchcraft tradition and Gray’s own (admittedly less well-known) Sangreal Sodality. Gray networked robust connections with notable figures in the early yea rs of the sabbatic craft tradition, including its founder Roy Bowers. Perhaps Gray’s deep disillusionment with the modern world was what gave him such an easy affinity with the pagan revivalists and reconstructionist movements. Certainly, Gray’s traditionalist approach to Western th
traditions would have been sympathetic to the intellectual context of many mid-20
century pagan and witch groups. The intellectual camaraderie between Gray and Roy Bowers cannot be made more clearly than through Bowers’ own letters to Gray, and the subsequent elucidations of Bowers’ works by his followers after his death. In fact, the working group for Gray’s Occult Seasonal Rituals was comprised of William and Bobby Gray, and at least Patricia Crowther and her future husband.
162
In The Roebuck in the
Thicket: An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition , Mike Howard
claims that Gray worked with not just Bowers and the Crowthers, but also Sybil Leek and 163
Doreen Valiente.
He dedicates several pages of the introduction of Bowers’ magical 164
tradition to discussing Gray as a major magical player of Cochrane’s life.
The two
were likely cross-pollinating ideas between each other, though this remains relatively 165
obscure as only Bowers’ half of the letters are available publicly.
In his short appraisal of Gray, Howard summarizes a chapter of Gray’s Western Inner Workings (misquoted as Western Inner Traditions ) in which Gray provides an 162
E J Jones & R Cochrane, The Roebuck in the Thicket: An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition, ed. M Howard, Capall Bann Publishing, Somerset, 2001, p. 20. 163 Ibid ., p. 20. 164 Ibid., pp. 19-25. 165 Again, for Bowers’ half the letters to Gray see < http://www.cyberwitch.com/bowers/>.
Wisner 42 elucidation of the worldview and rituals of the Clan of Tubal Cain as an anonymous 166
‘pagan’ group of ‘West Country origin.’
Gray gives a fine explication of sabbatic
witchcraft, though throughout he refers to them as ‘p agans,’ contrary to their self167
identification as ‘witches.’
He provides a basic description of their pantheon, makes
explicit how these pagans are not Satanic witches, delineates their calendar year o f celebrations against the typical astrological festivities of the equinoxes and solstices, and 168
relays a variety of their prayers and rituals.
The most explicit connections to Bowers’
Clan come through the ritualized Mill and Maze dances and the depiction of the ‘stang’ or bifurcated staff which functions as the focal point of the Clan’s circular gathers.
169
He
also focuses on their use of the castle image as the spiritual stronghold of the Clan 170
encircled by the rings of Life, Death and Time.
His inclusion of the witchs’ Clan
alongside Abramelin operations, Rosicrucian and Grail mythos, Christian mysticism, and ‘Melchizedekian’ orders in the first volume of his Sangreal Sodality Series shows that he sought to create a total tradition of Western practitioners in the esoteric cultural netowrk—he wanted to make a Mystery that could encompass all esoteric discourses he saw as Western—through his Sodality of Royal Blood. Gray’s personal order, the Sangreal Sodality, still exists presently though its public presence is small even within the occult community, and its presence with reliable points of contact has been sporadic since Gray’s death. With Jacobus Swart as the only reliable point of contact, the Sodality is presently headquartered in South Africa. The US cell, Japanese cell, and Oceanic cells have all gone silent, with the ‘Affiliated Temples 171
and Lodges,’ section of their website still ‘Under Construction.’
Besides a very low-
traffic Yahoo! group, the Sodality’s webpage is the only apparent current Sangreal entity that offers any live connection to practitioners. The Sodality continues to publish Gray’s works on a much smaller scale than while Gray was still alive, but nevertheless the
166
The Roebuck in the Thicket , pp. 20-24; W Gray, The Sangreal Sodality Series Vol. 1: Western Inner Workings, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, 1983, pp 139-56. 167 The Roebuck in the Thicket , p. 21. 168 Western Inner Workings, pp. 140-1, 145-9, 154-5. 169 Ibid., pp. 148-9, 151. 170 Ibid., pp. 147. 171 The Sangreal Sodality’s website and bookstore can be found at < http://www.sangrealsodality.com/ site/>.
Wisner 43 Sodality is continuing to propagate the creation of new connections between nodes in the Western esoteric cultural network through the publications of Jacobu s Swart. Gray’s successes in producing lasting connections in the esoteric network can be seen through the discursive influence he had on the sabbatic craft and the continuing work of his Sangreal Sodality. With Gray’s claims to ancient, universal traditions of esoteric knowledge, his frequent utilization of academic psychology and anthropology th
from his time in the 20 century, and his very conscious attempt to demonstrate methods in constructing magical traditions, his modernized tradition seemed to bear renewed import. Discursive connections to Gray still manifest through publications like Shani Oates’ Tubelo’s Green Fire. And though the mention of a magical ‘Sodality of Witchblood’ and a ‘Sodality of Sacred Flesh and Blood’ comprised of sabbatic c raft practitioners in Andrew Chumbley’s Azoëtia would seem to harbor some of Gray’s 172
blood-based identity membership, this text also circulates in shorter esoteric networks. Through connection to the sabbatic craft and the individuals he networked with in the wider scheme of esotericism in general, we can see that it was not Gray’s racialist
doctrines that were the most robust, but rather the discursive identity elements bolstered with the modern legitimating support of anthropology, psycholog y and traditionalism that proved the longest lasting connections.
Conclusion
We set out in this paper to answer the question, ‘How did Gray’s conception of the Western esoteric tradition successfully build and maintain connections in the cultural th
network of 20 century Western esotericism despite his unpopular racial doctrines? ’
The answer to this question is two-fold: one side is the a pproach he took to networking, and on the other is the approach he took in developing his ideology. A key strength of Gray’s attempt to network together Western esoteric ideologies and practitioners was th e breadth and variety of individuals he contacted. In the framework of ANT, the diverse personal connections he developed was one of the most important aspects to the endurance of his conception of the esoteric tradition. Had his personal network been shorter, his tendency to break off contacts would have profoundly stunted the reach of his 172
A Chumbley, Azoetia, Xoanon, Cheshire, 2002, pp. 3, 18, 37.
Wisner 44 ideas. Through the interrelation of several disciplines, Gray’s ideas were able to maintain their own connections through subsequently developed esoteric discourses. In legitimating his tradition in the context of those that came before him, Gray utilizes all three Renaissance models of history through the anc ient authority of the Sacred Kings ( prisca theologia), the universal and eternal nature of esoteric teachings as presented in his tradition ( philosophia perrenis ) and an evolutional framing of history and magical practice as pushing mankind progressively toward the goal of attaining Immortal Identity ( pia philosophia). Though Gray may have been largely contrary with regard to other people, his tradition was highly compatible with the desire for an o verarching Western tradition through his universalizing and modernizing strategies relying on academic anthropology and psychology in tandem with traditionalism. Gray’s biologically grounded racist ideologies, though perhaps the impetus behind his creation of a comprehensive Western esoteric tradition, were the weakest of his connections in longer esoteric networks. The relative success of his conception of the Western esoteric tradition came more strongly through his interrelation of esoteric, anthropological and psychological discourses with traditionalism. The East-West conflict Gray saw an inevitable has yet to commence, and likewise the unified modern tradition of Western esoteric practitioners he sought to manifest has not come to fruition either. Conversely, the networks Gray wove together from a variety of esoteric circles have matured, and concepts like the ‘holy blood’ connected with the Grail mythos and Western traditionalism have seen great expansion, 173
forming more robust connection to mainstream Western culture.
Gray’s invented tradition did manage to synthesize a number of shorter Western esoteric discourses and networks into a single conception of the Western tradition, and this fact is attested to by the diverse writings of esoteric practitioners like Alan 174
Richardson, Marcus Claridge, R J Stewart, Mike Howard and Garth Knight. Though 173
For instance, the renewed interest in Native British and Celtic myths in the 1990’s, and the symbolic themes in popular books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code. Though definitive connections between the authors of the aforementioned works and Gray are not apparent, similarities like the Grail as a being not an object, and Sang Gra’al/Sangreal or ‘holy blood’ as central symbolic features tied to the Grail personage are notable. 174 R J Stewart, Celebrating the Male Mysteries, Arcania, Bath, 1991; G Knight, ‘The Archetype of Merlin,’ ‘The Blue Stones of Merlin,’ ‘Merlin and Nimue,’ The Book of Merlin, ed. R J Stewart, Blandford Press, London, 1989, pp. 55-79.
Wisner 45 his comprehensive personal network of practitioners could not withstand the vitriol of his personality or the vehemence of his racial doctrines, Grays ideas remain deeply th
networked within the circles of sabbatic witchcraft and la te 20 century Celtic revivalism, despite lurking beneath the surface of both. Though Gray’s version of the Western esoteric tradition was disadvantaged by his racialist ideologies, in the end the networked strength and relatively successful connectiveness of his invented tradition in the cultural actor-network of Western esotericism grew most successfully through his uniquely woven blend of Western esotericism, traditionalism, and academic discourses. Gray built soundly networked links between individual actors he frequently helped foster intellectually through discourse, conceptual explication of the invention of tradition, and formation of esoteric (and not racial) identity in the subsequent generation of nodes in the esoteric web.
Wisner 46 Appendix A Gray in Sangreal ritual attire
Wisner 47 Appendix B: Example of a Sangreal Temple from the Sangreal Sodality webpage, at
Wisner 48 Appendix C: Gray’s attribution of Tarot cards to the Tree of Life from Qabalistic Concepts p. 223.
Wisner 49 Bibliography
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