Social Victorians/People/Mathers

Also Known As

Family name: Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell Mathers (name at birth)
Golden Dawn Third Order motto: Deo Duce Comite Ferro — "With God as my leader and the sword as my companion" (Howe 296).
Golden Dawn Inner Order motto: S Rioghal Mo Dhream — "Royal is my tribe: Mathers's 5=6 motto. In the past it has usually been translated as 'Royal is my race' but Mr Owen Dudley Edwards, University of Edinburgh, assures me that 'tribe' is a more accurate rendering" (Howe 296-97). The language is Scots-Gaelic.
Comte de Glenstrae, pseudonym

Moina Bergson Mathers

Moina Bergson Mathers
Née Mina Bergson, and born in France
Bergie (Greer xiv)
Golden Dawn motto: Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum — "No traces behind — a condensation of Horace, Epistles, I, i, 75, meaning that the past leaves no traces" (Howe 297).

Demographics

Nationality:
Religion: she was born and raised Jewish

Residences

Macgregor Mathers: Bournemouth, early 1860s(?)–1885
Great Percy Street, King's Cross
Stent Lodge, Forest Hill, after they married in 1890, where he was curator of the Horniman Museum.
The Matherses moved to Paris 21 May 1892 (Greer xvii).
The Matherses moved to Paris in 1894 and did not move back before he died.

Family

Michel Bergson ( – 9 March 1898)
Katherine (Kate) Levison ()

Mina Bergson (28 February 1865 – 25 July 1928)
Henri Bergson (not sure of birth order)

Macgregor Mathers (8 January 1854 – 5 or 20 November 1918)
Moina Bergson Mathers (28 February 1865 – 25 July 1928)

Relations

Henri Bergson, Moina's brother
Macgregor Mathers' cousin, Walter MacGregor Stoddart, "a schoolmaster. He was in Paris during the years 1895-7 and may have been teaching there. Mathers referred to him as Walter MacGregor in letters to F. L. Gardner, perhaps to emphasise his Highland ancestry" (Howe 40).

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

Todd, Dennes and Lamb, solicitors, whom Mathers used. On 8 December 1899 he told Frederick Gardner to send his Golden Dawn MSS and implements to him care of Todd, Dennes and Lamb (Howe 199).

Friends

Enemies

Aleister Crowley

Organizations

Freemasons, Hengist Lodge No. 195, initiated 4 October 1877–1882
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA), Metropolitan College, 1882–1903
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Isis-Urania Temple, the Outer Order and the Inner Order (Küntz 200), 1888–1900
The Ahathoor Temple of the Golden Dawn, co-founder
Alpha and Omega, branch of the Golden Dawn that Mathers led after he left the Golden Dawn in 1900
Society of Eight, "Probable member" (Küntz 200)

Anthology

Macgregor Mathers

In an undated memorandum (which Howe says "may have been written in 1900"), Wynn Westcott wrote

Samuel Liddell Mathers, son of William M. Mathers, a commercial clerk; his mother was a Miss Collins. He was born at 11 De Beauvoir Place, Hackney, on January 8, 1854. His father died early and he lived for some years with his widowed mother at Bournemouth until her death in 1885. He was initiated in the Hengist Lodge [at Bournemouth] in 1877 but never / became a Lodge Master. While at Bournemouth his studies were directed to mystical ideas by his acquaintance with Frederick Holland, a deep student of mystical philosophy. He was admitted to the Rosicrucian Society, and so became associated with Dr. Woodman and Dr. Westcott, and pursuing his studies under their tuition he made considerable progress and proved so apt a pupil that he published a translation of [Knorr] von Rosenroth's 'Kabalah Denudata' [1677], a work which has run through several editions and gave him a recognised position in occultism.
On the death of his mother he was left in very poor circumstances, and removed to London where he lived in modest lodgings in Great Percy Street, King's Cross, enjoying the hospitality of Dr. Westcott for many years. (Howe 37-38)

Moina Mathers wrote the Preface to 4th edition (1926) of Mathers's The Kabbalah Unveiled. "Her Preface is the only source of information about Mathers's schooldays":

As a very young boy he was intensely interested in mysticism and symbolism generally. He was educated at Bedford Grammar School, specialising on the Classical side. During his spare moments he collected and made a special study of Celtic tradition and symbolism. This love of Celtic Symbology was inherited from his Highland ancestry. His ancestor, Ian MacGregor of Glenstrae, an ardent Jacobite, after the '45 Rebellion went over to France and under Lally Tolendal fought at Pondicherry. This ancestor was created Comte de Glenstrae by Louis XV. This French title was inherited by my husband and he always used it when living in France. As a young man / he came into contact with Kenneth Mackenzie, with whom he had a strong occult link. Kenneth Mackenzie, author of the Encyclopaedia of Masonry, had been a great friend of Bulwer-Lytton. After some years of seclusion in the country, where my husband led a student's life in preparation for his future work, he met Anna Kingsford, who introduced him to Madame Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky invited him to collaborate with her in the formation of her Society. After deliberation, notwithstanding his profound admiration for that remarkable woman, this invitation he was compelled to decline. Their ideals were not the same. At that time he was more in sympathy with Anna Kingsford's ideals of esoteric Christianity and of the advancement of woman. Moreover he was profoundly interested in her campaign against vivisection, in which he vigorously aided her. Three or four years later he was told by his occult teachers to transfer his centre to Paris, where my husband and I lived for the rest of his life. (quoted in Howe 38-39)
"The Headmaster of Bedford School confirmed that 'a boy called Mathers was at the School from Christmas Term 1866 until the end of the Summer Term 1870'. No further information is available in the school registers. Since Mathers was born in January 1854 he left school before his seventeenth birthday in January 1871" (Howe 39).
"...the son of a London clerk, he was educated at Bedford Grammar School and subsequently lived in Bournemouth with his widowed mother" (King 89 48).

Mathers's Jacobite Pretensions

"He claimed a romantic descent from Ian MacGregor of Glenstrae, an ardent Jacobite who was given the title of Comte de Glenstrae by Louis XIV" (Gale II 1055).
"Mathers claimed that he was perfectly entitled to both the name MacGregor and the title of Count of Glenstrae. Mathers, he explained, was derived from the Gaelic 'Mo Athair', the posthumous one, and was one of the names assumed by members of the clan MacGregor after its proscription, while the title had been conferred on his Jacobite great-grandfather in recognition of services to the French cause in India. At about the same time those who disliked Mathers began to spread the story that he claimed to be James IV of Scotland -- not, as everyone thought, killed at / the Battle of Flodden, but an immortal adept" (King 89 49-50). King speaks in Mathers's perspective here: is there any evidence that "Mathers" the name is derived from "Mo Athair"? and is there any possibility that Ian MacGregor of Glenstrae was Mathers's great-grandfather?
"Mathers was calling himself Comte de Glenstrae long before he migrated to Paris in 1892. For example, it appears on the Master Mason's certificate issued to him in 1872" (Howe 39). [Is this 1872 right? Gale II says 1878 for Master Mason, with Mathers having joined the Masons in 1877.]

"In the Adept death can only supervene when the Higher Will consenteth thereto, and herein is implied the whole Mystery of the Elixir of Life" (quoted in King 89 55, n. 4).

Timeline

1854 January 8, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers was born 8 January 1854 in Hackney, London, and lived in Bournemouth with his mother after his father died (Gale II 1055).

1866, Christmas Term, until 1870, end of the Summer Term, Mathers was at the Bedford School.

1877, 4 October, MacGregor Mathers became a Freemason (Gale II 1055).

1878 January 30, MacGregor Mathers became a Master Mason (Gale II 1055).

1879, Mina Bergson was 15 years old when she began taking classes at the Slade School of Art (AEFH memo 14 July 1898, qtd Howe 64).

1882, MacGregor Mathers resigned from Masonry.

1882 October, Mina Bergson met Annie Horniman at the Slade School of Art, run by Alphonse Legros (AEFH memo 14 July 1898, qtd Howe 64).

1884, MacGregor Mathers's first book: Practical Instruction in Infantry Campaigning Exercise (Howe 41).

1885, MacGregor Mathers's mother died (Gale II 1055).

1885, MacGregor Mathers's second book: The Fall of Granada: A Poem in Six Duans, published by Williams & Strahan, London. (Howe 41)

1885, MacGregor Mathers "must have met" Anna Bonus Kingsford "soon after he came to London in 1885" (Howe 40).

1886, summer, MacGregor Mathers lectured to Kingsford's and Maitland's Hermetic Society on the Cabbala "and was rewarded with honorary membership" (Howe 40).

1887, William Wynn Westcott asked MacGregor Mathers "to expand the material in the Cypher MS so that the rituals could be performed" (Howe 1).

1887, Mina Bergson and MacGregor Mathers met after she "had finished the regular course at the Slade School and was studying Egyptian art at the British Museum" (Colquhoun 81-2). Mathers would have been studying occult and alchemical texts -- Howe says "he read every available book on magic, alchemy, symbolism, the religious mores of Ancient Egypt and heaven knows what else (34) -- for 1887 was the year that Westcott asked Mathers "to expand the material in the Cypher MS so that the rituals could be performed" (Howe 1).

1887, George Redway published MacGregor Mathers's The Kabbalah Unveiled, having bought the copyright for £35 (Howe 41).

1888 February 11, MacGregor Mathers became a member of the Inner Order of the Golden Dawn (Küntz 200).

1888 February 12, "Of uncertain parentage, and with an unknown date of conception, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn came into being in the material world on 12 February 1888 when the three founding Chiefs of the Isis-Urania Temple -- Westcott, Woodman, and Mathers -- signed their pledges of fidelity" (Gilbert 86 1).

1888 March, Mina Bergson was the first initiate after the founders in the new Golden Dawn, Isis-Urania Temple.

1888, MacGregor Mathers sold the copyright to Redway for "an insignificant pamphlet" called Fortune-telling Cards. The Tarot, its Occult Significance and Methods of Play (Howe 41).

1889, MacGregor Mathers sold the copyright to Redway for "a translation that was published as The Key of Solomon the King: Clavicula Salomonis" (Howe 41).

1889 September 10, Bergson passed the 5=6 examinations of the Golden Dawn (Küntz 180).

1889 October 9, Bergson was initiated into the Inner Order of the Golden Dawn.

1890, MacGregor Mathers became the "curator" (King 89 49) or librarian of the Horniman museum.

1890 June, Bergson and MacGregor Mathers married, W. A. Ayton officiating.

1890 December, In Dec. 1890, meeting of the Order in which MacGregor Mathers was installed as Imperator and Berridge as Praemonstrator. Mathers had been Praemonstator before this?

Theresa J. O'Connell says, "Dr. Woodman who was advanced in years passed away. He, from the first opening of Isis Urania, had held the office of Imperator and after his death Dr. Westcott was empowered by the Continental Chiefs to appoint S. L MacGregor Mathers Imperator in his place. I was present at a meeting of the Order at Mark Masons' Lodge when Dr. Westcott as Installing Adept conferred the office on Macgregor Mathers" (Gilbert 86 12, interpolation his).

1891, "Allegedly Dr. Thiesen was the ruling spirit of H:.A:. and in autumn 1891, he supplied S. L. Mathers with material that Mathers used to write the Adeptus Minor Ritual" (Küntz 215).

1892, "Mathers claimed to have established [a direct link with the Secret Chiefs, which is what Fraulein Sprengel had said they would have to do], and supplied rituals for a Second Order, the Red Rose and the Cross of Gold, based on the traditional story of the finding of / the tomb of Christian Rosycross" (King 89 43-44).

1892 July, Yeats wrote John O'Leary about MacGregor Mathers and "nationalistic questions" (Harper 74 18).

1894, the Matherses moved to Paris and lived there from then on.

1895 June, the Matherses were in London "for the annual Corpus Christi ceremony" (Howe 154).1895, 11 September, the Matherses were back in Paris (Howe 154).

1895 September 11, the Matherses were back in Paris (Howe 154).

1896 January 27, MacGregor Mathers wrote "a long letter" to Florence 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 October 29, MacGregor Mathers demanded written submission from the members of the Second Order.

1896, neither John William nor Frances Brodie-Innes signed the 1896 petition to reinstate Annie Horniman. They did not want to "challenge" the "superiors" (Howe 142).

1897 January 18, Yeats "had just returned to London, and he invited [W. T.] Horton to come in on Friday at 1.30. Yeats had been in Paris visiting MacGregor Mathers, ... who was assisting him with the composition of rituals, similar to those of the golden Dawn, for the Celtic Mysteries, which Yeats was attempting to revive, in part at least as an appeal to Maud Gonne's ardent nationalism" (Harper 80 19-20). Yeats believed in the Celtic Mysteries, however, so his interest was not entirely an attempt to engage Gonne.

1897, late January, Moina and MacGregor Mathers were in London. Did they travel with Yeats? Where did they stay? (Harper 80 80, citing Howe 140).

1897 March 16, Moina wrote Yeats about Bailly, an editor, who "is very anxious to communicate with you on the Celtic Religious movement. ... [sic Harper] He says that the whole nearly of the french press are ready to help in this matter" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1897 May 1, MacGregor Mathers had demoted John Brodie-Innes to Praemonstrator by this time (Howe 190).

1898 sometime, MacGregor Mathers translated The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his son Lamech, A.D. 1458. Frederick Gardner financed the publication (see Howe).

1898 March, Yeats wrote George Russell: "I go to Paris on the 14th of April to see the Mathers [sic] on Celtic things. I have just heard, curiously enough, that Mrs Mathers has been seeing Conla and without knowing that we have been invoking him constantly" (Harper 74 18).

1898 March 9, Mina and Henri Bergson's father, Michel Bergson, died in London. Moina Mathers (Mina Bergson Mathers) was not mentioned in his obituary.

1898 April 14, W. B. Yeats went to Paris to see the Matherses (Harper 74 18).

1898 April 25, "On [1898, ] 25 April, Yeats wrote to Lady Gregory from Paris, where he had been 'for a couple of days', that he was 'buried in Celtic mythology' and would be 'for a couple of weeks or so'. 'My host [MacGregor Mathers]', he said in a postscript, 'is a Celtic enthusiast who spends most of his day in highland costume to the wonder of the neighbours'" (Harper 74 18). Maud Gonne was also in Paris.

1899 February, Yeats went to Paris to see Maud Gonne. "Although, as he wrote to Lady Gregory, 'she made it easy for me to see her', he was depressed" (Harper 74 20). Yeats probably saw MacGregor and Moina Mathers there.

1899 March 19, a report in the Sunday Chronicle described "an Isis ceremony at a small theatre, the Boniniere Theatre. The Paris correspondent of the Sunday Chronicle saw it and described" how MacGregor and Moina Mathers "for some time past ... have been carrying on their devotions in an underground chapel which they have established at their residence" (Howe 200). ("The Rite of Isis, which was a kind of theatrical perfomance, incorporated material that he had discovered in the available literature.") Also, a brief account of the ceremony appeared in "the New York periodical the Humanist , February 1900" (Howe 201).

1899 May 29, Moina was "still friendly" to W. B. Yeats. She "was 'plunged in "Egypt"' and apologised for 'leaving Connla for ages', pleading 'many distractions in other directions'" (Harper 74 20).

1900 January 16, MacGregor Mathers initiated Aleister Crowley into the Second Order in the Ahathoor Temple in Paris, overruling the Isis-Urania decision not to initiate him "on the grounds of his moral turpitude" (King 89 66).

1900 February 16, MacGregor Mathers wrote Farr, accusing her of "making a schism" to work under Wynn Westcott "under the mistaken impression that [Westcott had] received an Epitome of the Second Order work from G. H. Soror, 'Sapiens Dominabitur Astris' [Anna Sprengel]. Westcott, he said, had never been in communication with the Secret Chiefs, the supposed correspondence between them and Westcott being 'forged'. According to Mathers 'every atom of the knowledge of the Order has come through me alone from 0=0 to 5=6 inclusive', and only he had been in communication with the Secret Chiefs. ... He warned her of the 'extreme gravity' of the matter, entreated her 'to keep this secret from the Order', and remarked that Sapiens Dominabitur Astris was in Paris assisting him. ... His time, he said, was 'enormously occupied with the arrangements for the Buildings and Decorations of the Egyptian Temple of Isis in Paris'" (Harper 74 21). Mather "had not in fact marked the letter 'private', though he had urged her to 'Read this letter carefully before showing any part of it to anyone!'" (Harper 74 22). Mathers's letter reads, in part:

...Now with regard to the Second Order, it would be with the very greatest regret, both from my personal regard for you as well as the occult standpoint, that I should receive your resignation as my Representative in the Second Order in London; but I cannot let you form a combination to make a schism therein with the idea of working secretly or avowedly under Sapere Aude [Westcott] under the mistaken impression that he received an Epitome of the Second Order work from G. H. Soror Dominabitur Astris [Sprengel]. For this forces me to tell you plainly (and understand me well, I can prove to the hilt every word I say here, and more) and were I confronted with S.A. I would say the same, though for the sake of the Order, and for the circumstances that it would mean so deadly a blow to S.A.'s reputation, I entreat you to keep this secret from the / Order for the present, at least, though you are at perfect liberty to show him this if you think fit, after mature consideration.
He was NEVER been at any time either in personal or written communication with the Secret Chiefs of the (third) Order, he having himself forged or procured to be forged the professed correspondence between him and them, and my tongue having been tied all these years by a previous Oath of Secrecy to him, demanded by him, from me, before showing me what he had done, or caused to be done, or both. You must comprehend from what little I say here the extreme gravity of such a matter, and again I ask you, for both his sake and that of the Order, not to force me to go further into the subject. (King 89 67-68)

Mather concludes "his letter by stating (erroneously) that she was with him in Paris," and King offers this as proof that Mathers still believed in Sprengel, but of course he could be saying so in order not to shake Farr's faith in her authority for establishing the Order (King 89 68).

1900 March 23, MacGregor Mathers dismissed Farr as his London Representative (King 89 69).

1900 March 29, the London Adepti called "a general meeting of the Second Order for March 29th. At this general meeting the Second Order voted, with only five exceptions, to depose their Chief from his headship and to expel him from the Order. ["According to another account Mathers was only deposed at this meeting and was not expelled until April 19th" (n. 6).]" (King 89 69). King describes the "five exceptions": "The Five who remained loyal to Mathers were Frater Resurgam (Dr. Berridge), Frater Volo Noscere (G. C. Jones), Soror Perseverantia et Cura Quies (Mrs. Simpson), Soror Fidelis (Miss Elaine Simpson), and rather surprisingly, Fater Non Sine Numine (Col. Webber). With the exception of Webber and Berridge all these were personal friends of Crowley" (King 89 69, n. 5).

1900 April 9, Crowley was in Paris to consult with MacGregor Mathers on taking back control of the Order (King 89 70).

1901 October 23, MacGregor Mathers wrote a letter to "the Spiritualist magazine Light, describing his encounters with the Horoses, which had apparently begun early 1901 (King 89 81-83).

1902 January, MacGregor Mathers's letter to "the Spiritualist magazine Light, describing his encounters with the Horoses, which had apparently begun early 1901; the letter was written 23 October 1901 (King 89 81-83).

1903, Berridge's Temple, obedient to MacGregor Mathers, was in operation (King 89 110).

1907-1914, "According to [Israel] Regardie the Golden Dawn had spread to the U.S.A. before 1900 and a Thoth-Hermes Temple had been established in Chicago. Certainly, many Americans received Parisian initiations during the period 1904-1914, and it is alleged by more than one source that in return for high fees Mathers admitted people to supposedly high grades far beyond the actual attainments of the people concerned; in his 'Equinox' Crowley sneered at a woman who, he said, had paid hundreds of dollars for the nominal grade of Exempt Adept. By the commencement of the First World War Mathers had succeeded in not only establishing two or three American Temples, but in bringing the Masonic Societas Rosicruciana in America increasingly under the influence of himself and his followers" (King 89 111).

1907, George Redway published MacGregor Mathers's The Kabbalah Unveiled, having bought the copyright for £35 (Howe 85 38-39, n. 2).

1908-1912, "Between 1908 and 1912 MacGregor Mathers issued various side-lectures and other manuscripts to those Temples that were loyal to him. Much of this additional material reached the Stella Matutina (via J. W. Brodie-Innes) but some did not do so and, consequently, is not included in Israel Regardie's edition of the Order documents. Some of these later manuscripts are of great interest, and one in particular, that seems to have been issued to Theorici Adepti Minores, is of real importance; for it outlines an astrological system that differs in some respects from both the normal western astrology (taught, in the Golden Dawn and its offshoots, to members of the Portal Grade) and the sidereal ('starry') astrology used by the Hindus and a minority of modern western astrologers" (King 89 203). This new system of astrology is essentially a change in the numbers, taking into the account the facts that the constellations are not now where they were centuries ago and from where most astrological descriptions are based:

"In MacGregor Mathers's system the moving, or tropical, zodiac is abandoned in favour of a fixed siderial zodiac in which the signs adn constellations coincide and is measured from the star called REgulus, which is taken as being in 0 [degrees] Leo" (King 89 203).
"It is ... interesting to note that on the Mathers system we enter the so-called 'Aquarian Age' in about 2010 A.D. and not, as most occultists teach, something like three hundred years later" (King 89 205).

1913, circa, "the notebooks and letters of an Adeptus Minor, dated circa 1913 ... that there were twenty-three members of a flourishing Second Order under the Berridge-Mathers obedience at that date" (King 89 110).

1913 August, by this time John Brodie-Innes was "Deputy Archon Basileus" under MacGregor Mathers (Harper 74 126).

1918 November 20, MacGregor Mathers died (Gale II 1055). He "died in 1918, a casualty of that world-wide influenza epidemic whose victims numbered more than those of the Somme, second Mons, and the other great blood-lettings of the First World War" (King 89 141). According to Mathers's article in Wikipedia, the assertion that Mathers died of the Spanish flu comes from Violet Firth and cannot be confirmed.

1919 April, MacGregor Mathers's obituary was published in the Occult Review, written "undoubtedly" by E. A. Waite (Howe 41).

1926 June 24, Moina Mathers told W. B. Yeats that SDA [Anna Sprengel] was an American, not a German (Harper 74 166, n. 27).

1926 July 14, Moina Mathers told W. B. Yeats, in answer to a query of his, that the Matherses didn't trust Anna Sprengel (Harper 74 166, n. 27).

Questions and Notes

was Mathers Praemonstrator before Berridge was installed in December 1890?
Mathers met W. B. Yeats in the Reading Room of the British Library (Cavendish 104).
"It was undeoubtedly Yeats who introduced the actress Florence Farr to the G.D." (Cavendish 104).
1897, late January, Moina and MacGregor Mathers were in London. Did they travel with Yeats? Where did they stay? (Harper 80 80, citing Howe 140).
John Brodie-Innes was in some (Scottish?) political movement with Mathers (Howe 126).
exact dates for Horniman's financial support
deceived by the Horoses
Mathers and Edward Berridge appeared for the defence [at Crowley's trial,] and their references to a 'Rosicrucian Order' were mentioned in newspaper accounts of the case" (Gilbert 86 187-88).
"The MacGregor Mathers Society was founded in Britain as a dining club for men only, membership by invitation. Address: BM# Spiritos (M.M.S.), London, W. C. 1., England" (Gale II 1055).
How common a name is Liddell, and where did he get it?
Did Macgregor Mathers and Henri Bergson ever meet?
1897, late January, Moina and MacGregor Mathers were in London. Did they travel with Yeats? Where did they stay? (Harper 80 80, citing Howe 140).
Topics
1. memberships: Jacobite politics (MacGregor, Comte de Glenstrae), militarism, Isis Rites in Paris at Ahathoor Temple (#7) of the G.D.
2. Golden Dawn
  1. dates of org
  2. AEFH's financial sponsorship
  3. Big names: Algernon Blackwood, Aleister Crowley, Florence Farr, Annie Horniman, Arthur Machen, AEWaite, Constance Wilde, WBYeats

Bibliography

Gale II
Greer
Howe
Küntz

MacGregor Mathers's Writings

Mathers, MacGregor, translator. The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his son Lamech, A.D. 1458. 1898.

The work exists in several languages and manuscripts, but Mathers first made it available to "English-speaking occultists" from a French manuscript. The alleged date of the manuscript Mathers translated is 1458, but it is probably actually an 18th-century document.

Mathers, MacGregor. The Fall of Granada: A Poem in Six Duans. London: Williams & Strahan, 1885. (Howe 41)
Mathers, MacGregor. Golden Dawn rituals 0=0 through 5=6. Revised by Annie Horniman and W. B. Yeats (see Harper 74).
Mathers, MacGregor, translator. Grimoire, by Armadel.
Mathers, MacGregor, translator. The Kabbalah Unveiled (1907), originally Kabbalah Denudata, by Knorr von Rosenroth. In fact, Mathers "translated [from the Latin] three of the most important books ... of Knorr von Rosenroth's monumental" work (King 89 49). King 89 says 1907; Howe says 1887.
Mathers, MacGregor, translator. The Key of Solomon the King. 1889.
- Mathers's translation is, according to Richard Cavendish, "heavily expurgated" (Man Myth 1089).
- The Key of Solomon the King is "the most famous of the grimoires or textbooks of European ritual magic" (Cavendish 140).
- "The most influential grimoire, the Key is strongly influenced by astrological and cabalistic magic. It sets out the preparations that must be made in order to summon spirits and compell their obedience, advice or choosing a suitable time and place for the ceremony, what kind of weapons, robes and pentacles are necessary, and instructions on drawing a magic circle" (Man Myth 1089).
Mathers, MacGregor. Practical Instruction in Infantry Campaigning Exercise. 1884. (Howe 41)