Social Victorians/Golden Dawn/Sphere Group

Sphere Group

Logistics

• Of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
• The Sphere Group was an organization within the Golden Dawn between 1896 and 1901.

Leaders

• Florence Farr

Members of the Original Group

• Cecilia Macrae
• a "Mrs. Hunter," according to Robert Felkin
• H. Dorothea Hunter?
• Fanny Beatrice Hunter

Timeline

1896 January 27, MacGregor Mathers wrote "a long letter" to Farr, as she put it, "in reply to a letter of mine sending a charged drawing of the Egyptian and asking him if I were not grossly deceived by her claiming to be equal in rank to an 8-3 of our Order at the same time giving me numbers which I afterwards calculated to be correct for that grade. I still [on 17 January 1901] possess his letter approving altogether of my working with her, and saying it was necessary to make offerings & then all would be well -- &c &c" (Harper 74 221).

1896 November 23, Annie Horniman wrote Frederick Gardner: "Care 'Daffodil'" -- "What a time of it you must give S.S.D.D. [Farr]. She wants me to study Egyptian too, but I find one new language enough at a time and am hard at work at Italian" (Harper 74 225).

1900 September, Farr's group had been meeting for three years, she wrote on 17 January 1901, "when I found everything I proposed was objected to. After a few weeks I discovered that my group ... was being violently attacked" (Harper 74 222). The "attack" was over meeting rooms at first. Then Farr was accused of secrecy: "I was then accused of keeping valuable information to myself. You will understand I think that with the anti-Egyptian Feeling about I shall still refuse to discuss Egyptian formulae with anyone not specially in sympathy with the ancient Egyptians." The group's purpose was to study Egyptology?

1901 January 17, Farr wrote to John Brodie-Innes, who was in the country (as opposed to being in the city) where she couldn't speak with him, to justify the Sphere Group:

• On Jan 27th 1896 I received a long letter from DDCF. [MacGregor Mathers] in reply to a letter of mine sending a charged drawing of the Egyptian and asking him if I were not grossly deceived by her claiming to be equal in rank to an 8-3 of our Order at the same time giving me numbers which I afterwards calculated to be correct for that grade. I still possess his letter approving altogether of my working with her, and saying it was necessary to make offerings & then all would be well - &c &c. I soon found there was a considerable prejudice against Egyptian Symbolism amongst the members of the Order and I began to hold my tongue after having recommended the various clearly marked groups of thinkers (such as Indian, Christian and so on) to work steadily and regularly by themselves each under some more advanced person. To you and to those who were not antipathetic I spoke more freely. When the splits in the Order itself became more and more pronounced my work with 3 others having become extremely interesting we resolved to carry out a plan suggested by an Egyptian for the holding together of a strong nucleus on purely Order lines. (Harper 74 221)
• One of the prejudiced ones was Frederick Gardner? In the 23 November 1896 "Care [Dear] 'Daffodil'" letter, Horniman says, "What a time of it you must give S.S.D.D. [Farr]. She wants me to study Egyptian too, but I find one new language enough at a time and am hard at work at Italian" (Harper 74 225).
• One of the "3 others" was Robert Felkin, I think. Another was "Volo" (i.e., Florence Kennedy)?
• "All went well until September 1900 when I found everything I proposed was objected to. After a few weeks I discovered that my group which had been working quietly for 3 years was being violently attacked." (Harper 74 222) First she was "attacked" because of a conflict over rooms to meet in, so Farr agreed to a policy requiring groups to reserve meeting rooms.
• "I was then accused of keeping valuable information to myself. You will understand I think that with the anti-Egyptian Feeling about I shall still refuse to discuss Egyptian formulae with anyone not specially in sympathy with the ancient Egyptians." (Harper 74 223)

Questions and Notes

1. Who was the Mrs. Hunter that Robert Felkin lists as being in the "original Sphere Group"? (Howe 251).
2. Fanny Beatrice Hunter could have been Zelator January 1899 (Gilbert 86 50), but Annie Horniman was out of the Order, so there would have been no error in showing the diagram to her? Not really a Theoricus.
3. What are the differences between this group and the Egyptian Group?

Bibliography

• Harper 1974