Alton Towers, Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians

However, the C’s have made it clear that we are now coming to the end of a grand cycle, which suggests that plans set in motion by secret societies, orders, and sects, both human and alien, over vast swathes of time, are now coming to fruition with the recreation of the former high civilisation of Atlantis in the guise of the New World Order.

Perhaps with much hubris and wishful thinking - long ago, it did not work out well the last time around, which brings up Russia:

(Ze Germans) What is the karmic role of Russia?

A: Replay of Atlantis.

Q: (L) When you say replay of Atlantis, are you saying that Russia is playing the part of Atlantis?

A: No. The adversary.

Q: (L) So in other words, the one that defeated Atlantis when it attempted to take over the world?

A: Yes.

he C's also confirmed Edgar Cayce's assertion that Atlantis had been dominated by two competing religious-philosophical fraternities, the 'Sons of Belial' and the 'Sons of the Law of One'.

Additionally known words of Edgar Cayce:

"out of Russia will come the hope of the world."

perhaps takes on some new meaning; as wild as it can be from our point of view today in terms of all the western machinations against Russia - Cayce continued in 1932:

In Reading 3976-10, given on Feb. 8, 1932, the suggestion to the sleeping Cayce included a request for a "plan for establishing peace on earth and good will among men."

(Q) What should be the attitude of so-called capitalist nations toward Russia?

(A) On Russia's religious development will come the greater hope of the world {and what does one see today}. Then that one, or group, that is the closer in its relationships, may fare the better in the gradual changes and final settlement of conditions as to the rule of the world.

(Q) Should the United States recognize the present government in Russia?

(A) Many conditions should be considered, were this to be answered correctly. You could say yes and no, and both be right, with the present attitude of both peoples as a nation, and both be wrong; for there is to come, there will come, an entire change in the attitude of both nations as powers in the financial and economical world. As for those of raw resources, Russia surpasses all other nations. As for abilities for development of same, those in the United States are the farthest ahead. Then these united, or upon an equitable basis, would become - or could become-powers; but there are many interferences for those already investments, those already under questions, will take years to settle.

MJF, when reading a couple of posts above when the name Bram Stoker came up, well known to many readers and discussed on the forum in many places:

...Bram Stoker, a member or associate of the Rosicrucian offshoot group the Golden Dawn (see above)...

In Guy Mettan's 'Creating Russophobia,' he draws attention to Bram Stoker:

Mettan’s description of hidden Russophobic messages in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was also intriguing, as was his analysis of how Cold War Americans subtly changed their vocabulary when describing the Soviet Union, substituting the word ‘totalitarianism’ for the previous ‘dictatorship’, ‘in order to better distinguish friendly regimes from antipathetic socialist regimes which were to be fought.’

I don't have the book in front of me, yet Guy said more on Bram, and it all seems so much deeper then this current phobia presented.

What the Cs said (as little as it is) of this old karmic position, may well explain so much that can't be fathomed today (secret societies et al.) down through time. The events Plato described back to after Göbekli Tepe and the period to end Atlantis - the world order empire (and its sunken hub), has a story not told that centers on Russia and very likely into 4D - so again:

Q: (L) So in other words, the one that defeated Atlantis when it attempted to take over the world?

A: Yes.

In that light, one might wonder what Russia was really like back then to have thwarted that empire? What was this karmic situation exactly?

As for schisms, it was Mettan who enters into discourse on the schism between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church (the latter moved from Constantinople to Moscow) that initiated long ago, so what else was going on that was karmically deeper just in this part - did each know something the other did not and it had not to do with the surface arguments? With this historical past and now this present karmic tension, there seems to be another super old history here then what Mettan explains - don't know. However, from just these last many hundreds of years, the hostility now is abject in the extreme to the point of lunacy. Thus, did the old Atlanteans act as they are today in the West? Religion seems to factor (Cayce mentions and can be seen today in the two extreme East/West positions), and something through the veil is pulling long ago held leading strings.

Anyway, just thinking MJF, that so much in this thread that obscures the lens of time, may have more to do with this karmic Russia/Atlantis business than meets the eye. If we think we know so much about the possibility of Atlantis, conversely we sure don't know much about its karmic Russian opposite, by design?
 
Okay maybe not in line with putting together the historical records and lining up through history connecitons of secret societies and the way how they operate, I would like to share what I see in today's reflections

Hong Kong seems to be built for the growth of evil. And obviously targeted for secret societies experiments too.

Just watched this video - Darkness: The Infamous Kowloon Walled City,


The city was created by the British after the war. From today's perspective and what I learned so far from here, it looks like the planned intent of planting the seeds of evil in humans of China at that particular part of the Earth. Significantly, they had 33 000 inhabitants!! 33! at only 2 hectares. Making it the most inhabited place on Earth at that time. Almost like a concentrated camp for the production of evil energy??? It was demolished in 1993. and park was built at the top of it. Hmmm Was that chosen to clean the site? Or to spred the seads by tree roots?

I wasn't aware of all the deeply dark details of that city until today. Learning from here brought a different context and a more comprehensive understanding for many things.

Does it mean that the underground projectors of STS are stronger in that area, and that is why they choose it to create a new city in a format of concentration camp?

What crosses my mind is can we train ourselves to sense the presence of evil? Let me tell you my experiences.

I was in Hong Kong in 2008 pitching my "Mechanical FIgures_Inspired by TESLA" documentary at fast growing Chinese film and TV market. It was the most frightening experience ever I had individually through my sensitivity to the energies of the place. In 2013 when the opportunity arose to go againe ot present one other cross media medical project, related to help to kids who are spending time under the treatment of cancer. I refused as I couldn't stand the chills that went through my body even thinking about returning there. in short - every night I was shaking in my room at the some 30+ floor don't remember, but very high so you can almost feel vibrations of the city, and every night as I close my eyes more like lucid dreams will come to me that I am in the middle of the Saruman Orcs nest, and I could feel shaking of the city through my body.

Also what was shocking for me at my 1st visit is that even though I was selected by them as one of the best projects for production pitch, I had a fiery dispute with the commissioning editor form Netherlands, who just simply took me on stage to insult me and my work. I stepped off the stage crying, I stopped my presentation and I told him that I didn't come to be insulted. And as my western colleagues gave me the angry look, I got a big applause from a group of asian people who came for the pitches. I didn't understand what was all about at that time ... now I see better.

The other day I went alone to visit the city and I spotted an I guess American man in the tram that took my attention. Strangely enough the other day in the morning we spotted each other at the market and he smiled at me?!?!? Ok it could be that we just took the same random trams to drive all over Hong KOng but how could it be??? …

Also the return call for Hong Kong was planned for me and my colleague who is kind of a catholic humanitarian girl from a very suspicious and politically influential family of Croatian nationalists … also she is very very tall, all of them in that family are almost double our size. There is even a term for them like Big Croats due to their overrepresented patriotism and as well as they mostly seem to be of gigantic proportions?!? Her brother, I know his since 90s, and he always was toooo friendly to me … Hmm … now I am thinking about how those underground projectors operate?? Maybe they are just typical corporate copy cats??

Now I remember The Ninth Gate movie by Roman Polanski. I watched the movie recently and ... difficult even to explain by words. The main character is a powerful and rich American whose surname and business empire is named Balkan, and who wants to rule the universe by the means of magic from secret books.
All to all ..

All to all now when I am coming to the conclusion that all those cities built at the top of the graves etc … and as well as the Hong Kong today that is heavy predatory unbearable place to be, and probably sitting at the top of the “graves” it all make the “projection” of STS paradigm quite easy …

Horrible.
 
Perhaps with much hubris and wishful thinking - long ago, it did not work out well the last time around, which brings up Russia:





Additionally known words of Edgar Cayce:

"out of Russia will come the hope of the world."

perhaps takes on some new meaning; as wild as it can be from our point of view today in terms of all the western machinations against Russia - Cayce continued in 1932:



MJF, when reading a couple of posts above when the name Bram Stoker came up, well known to many readers and discussed on the forum in many places:



In Guy Mettan's 'Creating Russophobia,' he draws attention to Bram Stoker:



I don't have the book in front of me, yet Guy said more on Bram, and it all seems so much deeper then this current phobia presented.

What the Cs said (as little as it is) of this old karmic position, may well explain so much that can't be fathomed today (secret societies et al.) down through time. The events Plato described back to after Göbekli Tepe and the period to end Atlantis - the world order empire (and its sunken hub), has a story not told that centers on Russia and very likely into 4D - so again:



In that light, one might wonder what Russia was really like back then to have thwarted that empire? What was this karmic situation exactly?

As for schisms, it was Mettan who enters into discourse on the schism between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church (the latter moved from Constantinople to Moscow) that initiated long ago, so what else was going on that was karmically deeper just in this part - did each know something the other did not and it had not to do with the surface arguments? With this historical past and now this present karmic tension, there seems to be another super old history here then what Mettan explains - don't know. However, from just these last many hundreds of years, the hostility now is abject in the extreme to the point of lunacy. Thus, did the old Atlanteans act as they are today in the West? Religion seems to factor (Cayce mentions and can be seen today in the two extreme East/West positions), and something through the veil is pulling long ago held leading strings.

Anyway, just thinking MJF, that so much in this thread that obscures the lens of time, may have more to do with this karmic Russia/Atlantis business than meets the eye. If we think we know so much about the possibility of Atlantis, conversely we sure don't know much about its karmic Russian opposite, by design?
Thank you for your very interesting post. You make a lot of good points. I would comment on some of these as follows:

1. When the C's speak of Russia playing the part that Plato's Athenians played in the struggle with the evil empire of Atlantis, I don't think they mean that the Russian people were necessarily the Athenians, since the Russians, as we know them today, did not exist as a separate distinctive group 12,800 years ago when Atlantis was destroyed. The C's told us that there were over 6 billion people alive on this planet at the time of the Deluge, the bulk of whom lived in the huge continent or archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean which Plato called Atlantis (the Atlanteans had numerous colonies elsewhere though):​

Q: (L) How many people were on the planet at that time?

A: 6 billion.

Q: (L) Out of this six billion people, how many survived?

A: 119 million. (or 19 million)


and

Q: (L) Can you tell us more about the six billion people on the planet at the time of Noah's flood. Where were most of these beings living?

A: Atlantis
.

The C's told us that Atlantis's peak was during the last Ice Age when most of northern Europe, including the British Isles, Scandinavia and much of what we today know as Northern Europe and Western Russia was covered by ice and glaciers:
Q: So, Atlantis existed during the ice age?

A: Largely, yes. And the world's climate was scarcely any colder away from the ice sheets than it is today.


and

Q: [...] We have taken care of a couple of points; we have 3 races on Atlantis, Celts all over the place... did the Celts conquer the Atlanteans?
A: No.
Q: Did they just move in and hang out?
A: They took over the Northern section.
Q: At the same time, there were Celts in the Caucasus, along the Baltic, in Ireland, England and Europe...
A: Ireland, England, etc. was later.
Q: But there were in the Norse lands, as Sweden, Norway and Denmark, they were along the Baltic, and they were in the Caucasus?
A: Some above mentioned areas were ice covered.


It was the Aryan survivors who had occupied the north of Atlantis (no doubt migrating from the Caucasus at some stage) who would subsequently inhabit these territories as they became ice free. One such group would eventually become the Vikings (the sons of Odin) or Norsemen, who would travel down the river Volga to establish modern Russia along with the indigenous Slavs. It could be that some Aryans, the ancestors of the present day Slavs, had remained behind in the Caucuses (modern day Ukraine/Russia) to oppose their Atlantean cousins prior to the Deluge. However, only the C's can confirm this for us.

As far as the Aryan Atlantean survivors are concerned, they seem to have regrouped in modern day Turkey (Anatolia/Armenia) where the biblical Noah was supposed to have landed, where they built Göbekli Tepe, although the C's said Noah had landed in Egypt first:
Q: (L) What land did Noah/Utnapishtim live in, what continent?

A: Atlantis.

Q: (L) Where did the ark land after the receding of the waters?

A: Egypt.


[....]

Q: (L) Which came first, the Sumerians or the Egyptians.

A: Sumerians.

Q: (L) Where did the Egyptians come from?

A: Atlantis.


and

Q: (L) Then did the main Atlanteans move to Egypt when Atlantis was destroyed?

A: Yes. And elsewhere.

Q: (L) Where else did the Atlanteans go?

A: Americas. Inca. Aztec. Maya. Hopi Tribe. Pima tribe.
[MJF: you will note these are all groups of the red race as opposed to the white or Caucasian race]

This then links with the following excerpt:

Q: (L) Who constructed the great serpent mound in Adams County, Ohio?

A: Armonan sect.

Q: (T) Who are the Armonans?

A: Atlantean descendants.

Q: (T) So, this was a long time ago?

A: (L) Is there anything about them we would be advised to know or learn?

A: "Puzzle pieces."

Q: (L) What period of time did they live in this area, from when to when?

A: See answers to Sumerian question.

Q: (L) Well, my opinion to this whole thing is that the Sumerians and the Armonans were Atlanteans who set up shop in their respective places when Atlantis went under.

A: Good, now go with that.

Q: (L) I would say that the same answer holds for the White Horse at Uffington, in England?

A: Yup.


Two other groups (who the C's said were known to each other) would branch off from this group at Göbekli Tepe over a thousand years later to build first the Great Pyramid complex at Giza in Egypt and then later the huge stone circle at Stonehenge in England. However, the C's also told us that it was the Northern Peoples who would help to restore civilisation in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans and they had been in touch with some of these Northern Peoples when they had lived on the planet Kentak. Laura has linked them to the Hyperboreans (which the C's described elsewhere as something of a nebulous term), some of whom would seem to have been at Stonehenge judging from what they said about offerings being sent from Britain to Delos in Greece over many generations.
Session 19 February 2000:

Q: What was the connection between the Hyperboreans, including the Celts of Britain, I believe, and the people of Delos?

A: Northern peoples were responsible for civilising the Meditteranean/Adriatic peoples with the encoded secrets contained within their superior extra-terrestrially based genetic arrangement. Practice of which you speak was multi-trans-generational habit.

Incidentally, the people who originally built Stonehenge seemed to have been wiped out long before the people we know as the Celts arrived in Britain. It could therefore be that it was the Hyperboreans who were were the Athenians who had opposed the evil forces of Atlantis and, if they were connected to the Norse race, they may have become today's Russians when the Vikings migrated down the Volga into the Steppes to mix with the Slavs.

Thus, who the Athenians of Plato were is a complex matter, not helped by the fact that so many peoples have moved around and migrated hither and thither since the Deluge. By way of an analogy, think what future archaeologists in thousands of years time might make of findings in Australia of the remains of a primitive society of white nomadic hunter gatherers who had survived a cataclysm like the Deluge in the sort of dystopian future depicted in Mel Gibson's Mad Max films. They might erroneously think the white Australians had always been in Australia, little suspecting they were recent migrants from Europe compared to the Aboriginals.

2. I am aware of what Edgar Cayce had said about Russia at a time when that country was ruled by the Bolshevik revolutionaries under the dictator Stalin. I would completely agree with you that what Cayce described when he said "out of Russia will come the hope of the world.", is now coming true and Russia certainly seems to be undergoing something of a spiritual revival in accordance with the karmic Russia/Atlantis business.

As to what you said here:​
As for schisms, it was Mettan who enters into discourse on the schism between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church (the latter moved from Constantinople to Moscow) that initiated long ago, so what else was going on that was karmically deeper just in this part - did each know something the other did not and it had not to do with the surface arguments?

I think there is certainly something in this. When Constantine split the Roman Empire into two parts, relocating his capital to the east in Constantinople, it seems to have led to a religious/spiritual divide too. Justinian might have healed it when he briefly reunited the two halves of the empire together, only for the Justinian plague to come along and destroy his hopes along with him. With no Roman emperor in the west anymore, this led to a power vacuum that was filled by the Germanic tribes who would conquer much of the western empire. What eventually would unite them would be the Catholic Church based on Rome, where the Pope became a surrogate emperor to a new Roman (Catholic) Empire. leaving aside doctrinal differences, which supposedly stood at the heart of the Great Schism, there would be a political and economic struggle in the Eastern Mediterranean between Rome and Constantinople, mainly contested by the Venetians. It would be the Venetians who would put the Catholic Knights Templar up to attacking and pillaging Constantinople, an event the Byzantine Empire would never recover from leading to its downfall at the hands of the Seljuk Turks.

The kingdoms founded by the Germanic tribes of Western Europe like the Visigoths, Franks and Anglo-Saxons would become the modern nations of Germany, France and England etc., which until the Reformation would more or less stand resolutely behind the Catholic Church and its doctrines against the Orthodox East. These now are the nations of western Europe who through NATO are supporting Ukraine against the Russians. Perhaps this rift disguises even older philosophical differences between the Sons of Belial and the Sons of the Law of One, as experienced in Atlantis. Who knows?

3. Where you say: "In Guy Mettan's 'Creating Russophobia,' he draws attention to Bram Stoker:​

Mettan’s description of hidden Russophobic messages in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was also intriguing, as was his analysis of how Cold War Americans subtly changed their vocabulary when describing the Soviet Union, substituting the word ‘totalitarianism’ for the previous ‘dictatorship’, ‘in order to better distinguish friendly regimes from antipathetic socialist regimes which were to be fought.''

I was not aware of these Russophobic references in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. I would like to know more about them, if anyone has information on it. Part of the novel is set in Transylvania, which today is part of Romania but in the past was viewed as Wallachia. The traditional Hungarian name for Wallachia is Havasalföld, literally "Snowy Lowlands", the older form of which is Havaselve, meaning "Land beyond the snowy mountains" ("snowy mountains" refers to the Southern Carpathians - the Transylvanian Alps). For much of it history, Transylvania was part of Hungary and thus a constituent part of the Austro-Hungarian (Catholic) Empire. Despite a concerted effort to remain independent, on 1 December 1918 Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Romania by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. In 1940, Northern Transylvania briefly reverted back to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Award, but it was returned to Romania after the end of World War II. Thus, for much of its history Transylvania found itself on the front line between the Holy Roman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox world, championed and protected by Russia.

Since the Protestant Reformation, different Christian denominations have coexisted in Transylvania producing a religious melting pot, including Romanian Orthodox, other Eastern Orthodox, Latin Catholic and Romanian Greek Catholic (in union with Rome), Lutheran, Reformed, and Unitarian branches. Under the Habsburg Emperors, Transylvania served as a place for "religious undesirables". People who arrived in Transylvania included those that did not conform to the Catholic Church and were sent there forcibly, as well as many other religious refugees.

As Wikipedia explains - in popular culture, Transylvania is commonly associated with vampires because of the influence of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and the many subsequent books and films that the story inspired, which were loosely based on the sadistic Prince Vlad III Dracula as a drinker of blood. These tales strongly influenced an eruption of vampiric fiction throughout the West and, in particular, Germany before they would inspire Bram Stoker to write Dracula.

However, we must place the Dracula novel in its time and place. As Wikipedia notes Dracula is set largely in England, but Stoker was born in Ireland, which was at that time part of the British Empire (MJF: indeed it was part of the United Kingdom), and lived there for the first 30 years of his life. As a result, a significant body of writing exists on Dracula, Ireland, England, and colonialism. Calvin W. Keogh writes that Harker's voyage into Eastern Europe "bears comparison with the Celtic fringe to the west", highlighting them both as "othered" spaces. Keogh notes that the Eastern Question has been both symbolically and historically associated with the Irish Question (Home Rule for Ireland). In this reading, Transylvania functions as a stand-in for Ireland.

The Eastern question was the issue of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries and the subsequent strategic competition and political considerations of the European great powers in light of this. Turkey was characterised as the "sick man of Europe" and the relative weakening of the Ottoman Empire's military strength in the second half of the eighteenth century threatened to undermine the fragile balance of power largely shaped by the Concert of Europe. This. was a general consensus among the Great Powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence.

While there is no specific date on which the Eastern question began, the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29) brought the issue to the attention of the European powers, Russia and Britain in particular. As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was believed to be imminent, the European powers engaged in a power struggle to safeguard their military, strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. Imperial Russia stood to benefit from the decline of the Ottoman Empire; on the other hand, Austria-Hungary and Great Britain deemed the preservation of the Empire to be in their best interests. This concern would manifest itself in the Crimean War (1853-56) where for the British, the main factor of the Eastern Question was Russian imperialism towards Turkey — with Turkey being a barrier that would protect the rest of Europe, and thus Britain's interests lay with the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War. Britain could not tolerate Russia's dominance of Ottoman affairs, which would challenge Britain's domination of the eastern Mediterranean. However, Tsar Nicholas I shared the Russian historian Mikhail Pogodin's sense that Russia's role as the protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire was not understood and that Russia was unfairly treated by the West.
"France takes Algeria from Turkey, and almost every year England annexes another Indian principality: none of this disturbs the balance of power; but when Russia occupies Moldavia and Wallachia, albeit only temporarily, that disturbs the balance of power. France occupies Rome and stays there several years during peacetime: that is nothing; but Russia only thinks of occupying Constantinople, and the peace of Europe is threatened. The English declare war on the Chinese, who have, it seems, offended them: no one has the right to intervene; but Russia is obliged to ask Europe for permission if it quarrels with its neighbour. England threatens Greece to support the false claims of a miserable Jew and burns its fleet: that is a lawful action; but Russia demands a treaty to protect millions of Christians, and that is deemed to strengthen its position in the East at the expense of the balance of power. We can expect nothing from the West but blind hatred and malice.... (comment in the margin by Nicholas I: 'This is the whole point')."

— Mikhail Pogodin's memorandum to Nicholas I, 1853

Speaking as someone who is Anglo-Irish himself, you have to agree that Pogodin had a point. Indeed, one can see echoes of this argument even today when Vladimir Putin points out that it is fine for the USA, Britain and France to intervene in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but when Russia protects her vital interests, this is unacceptable.

The flashpoint for the Crimean War was a disagreement over the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with the French promoting the rights of Roman Catholics, and Russia promoting those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ironically, the churches worked out their differences with the Ottomans and came to an agreement, but both the French Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar Nicholas I refused to back down. Nicholas issued an ultimatum that demanded the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise to which Nicholas agreed. When the Ottomans demanded changes to the agreement, Nicholas recanted and prepared for war. When war commenced between Russia and the Ottomans, it went badly for the Turkish forces. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, the British and French fleets entered the Black Sea in January 1854. After a minor skirmish, the allied commanders decided to attack Russia's main naval base in the Black Sea, Sevastopol, in Crimea. Sevastopol finally fell after eleven months of siege. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion by the West if the war continued, Russia sued for peace. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, ended the war. As a result of the Treaty: Russia was forbidden to base warships in the Black Sea; the Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia (now in Romania) and Moldavia became largely independent; Christians in the Ottoman Empire gained a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. In many ways the war would prove to be a humiliation for Russia and a turning point for the Russian Empire. From these events, one might see why the Russians today are showing so much sensitivity over the present conflict in the Ukraine and particularly their seizure of Crimea where the strategically important naval base of Sevastopol is located

The Crimean War weakened the Imperial Russian Army, drained the treasury and undermined Russia's influence in Europe. The empire would take decades to recover - it would even lead to the sale of Alaska to the USA to raise much need funds. However, Russia's humiliation forced its educated elites to identify its problems and to recognise the need for fundamental reforms. They saw rapid modernisation as the way to recover the empire's status as a European power. The war thus became a catalyst for reforms of Russia's social institutions, including the abolition of serfdom, and overhauls in the justice system, local self-government, education and military service. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining. It is also an irony of history to note that the very saviours of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War, Britain and France, would be the same powers that finally consigned the Ottoman Empire to history in 1918 when they conquered Turkish forces in the Middle East at the end of the First World War.

Bram Stoker was Anglo-Irish and a Protestant and was born just a few years after the end of the Crimean War. I am not aware of his political outlook but he certainly mixed in influential circles in London (he was a member of the Golden Dawn and no doubt through this membership and his writing and theatre connections he knew many people in high society) and would have been aware of the major issues of the day. One of these was the 'Great Game' played out between the Russian Empire and the British Empire, the latter being concerned especially to guard its colonial interests in India.

For those not aware, the Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian Empires over influence in Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia (Iran), and later Tibet. By the early 20th century, a line of independent states, tribes, and monarchies from the shore of the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Himalayas were made into protectorates and territories of the two empires. Though the Great Game was marked by distrust, diplomatic intrigue, and regional wars, it never erupted into a full-scale war directly between Russian and British colonial forces. Britain feared Russia's southward expansion would threaten India, while Russia feared the expansion of British interests into Central Asia. Traditionally, the Great Game was considered to have come to a close between 1895 and 1907. You will note that this coincides with Bram Stoker's novel Dracula published in 1897. The term Great Game was supposedly coined by British intelligence officer Arthur Conolly in 1840, and the 1901 novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling made the term popular, introducing it into the mainstream and increasing its association with great power rivalry.

Whether echoes of this 'Great Game' Russo-British rivalry made their way into Stoker's Dracula remains to be proven. However, what we do know is that the resolution of the Irish Question by the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 would see the Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendancy represented by people like Bram Stoker swept away almost overnight.

Some might argue that the Great Game recommenced with the Soviet (Russian) invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and is now being played out by the forces of the US and her western allies, including an extremely belligerent Britain, in the Ukraine. As you hint though, there may be far more behind this than just imperial and economic rivalries. It may literally be built into the opposing sides' DNA.​
 
Okay maybe not in line with putting together the historical records and lining up through history connecitons of secret societies and the way how they operate, I would like to share what I see in today's reflections

Hong Kong seems to be built for the growth of evil. And obviously targeted for secret societies experiments too.

Just watched this video - Darkness: The Infamous Kowloon Walled City,


The city was created by the British after the war. From today's perspective and what I learned so far from here, it looks like the planned intent of planting the seeds of evil in humans of China at that particular part of the Earth. Significantly, they had 33 000 inhabitants!! 33! at only 2 hectares. Making it the most inhabited place on Earth at that time. Almost like a concentrated camp for the production of evil energy??? It was demolished in 1993. and park was built at the top of it. Hmmm Was that chosen to clean the site? Or to spred the seads by tree roots?

I wasn't aware of all the deeply dark details of that city until today. Learning from here brought a different context and a more comprehensive understanding for many things.

Does it mean that the underground projectors of STS are stronger in that area, and that is why they choose it to create a new city in a format of concentration camp?

What crosses my mind is can we train ourselves to sense the presence of evil? Let me tell you my experiences.

I was in Hong Kong in 2008 pitching my "Mechanical FIgures_Inspired by TESLA" documentary at fast growing Chinese film and TV market. It was the most frightening experience ever I had individually through my sensitivity to the energies of the place. In 2013 when the opportunity arose to go againe ot present one other cross media medical project, related to help to kids who are spending time under the treatment of cancer. I refused as I couldn't stand the chills that went through my body even thinking about returning there. in short - every night I was shaking in my room at the some 30+ floor don't remember, but very high so you can almost feel vibrations of the city, and every night as I close my eyes more like lucid dreams will come to me that I am in the middle of the Saruman Orcs nest, and I could feel shaking of the city through my body.

Also what was shocking for me at my 1st visit is that even though I was selected by them as one of the best projects for production pitch, I had a fiery dispute with the commissioning editor form Netherlands, who just simply took me on stage to insult me and my work. I stepped off the stage crying, I stopped my presentation and I told him that I didn't come to be insulted. And as my western colleagues gave me the angry look, I got a big applause from a group of asian people who came for the pitches. I didn't understand what was all about at that time ... now I see better.

The other day I went alone to visit the city and I spotted an I guess American man in the tram that took my attention. Strangely enough the other day in the morning we spotted each other at the market and he smiled at me?!?!? Ok it could be that we just took the same random trams to drive all over Hong KOng but how could it be??? …

Also the return call for Hong Kong was planned for me and my colleague who is kind of a catholic humanitarian girl from a very suspicious and politically influential family of Croatian nationalists … also she is very very tall, all of them in that family are almost double our size. There is even a term for them like Big Croats due to their overrepresented patriotism and as well as they mostly seem to be of gigantic proportions?!? Her brother, I know his since 90s, and he always was toooo friendly to me … Hmm … now I am thinking about how those underground projectors operate?? Maybe they are just typical corporate copy cats??

Now I remember The Ninth Gate movie by Roman Polanski. I watched the movie recently and ... difficult even to explain by words. The main character is a powerful and rich American whose surname and business empire is named Balkan, and who wants to rule the universe by the means of magic from secret books.
All to all ..

All to all now when I am coming to the conclusion that all those cities built at the top of the graves etc … and as well as the Hong Kong today that is heavy predatory unbearable place to be, and probably sitting at the top of the “graves” it all make the “projection” of STS paradigm quite easy …

Horrible.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. You certainly seem to pick up on bad vibes (vibrations) at these places. I must admit that I have also picked up on bad vibes when visiting two cities in particular and those were Paris and New York. Don't ask me why but I just felt something strange about them. Sorry to all Parisians or New Yorkers who may be reading this but I just picked up on an unpleasant feeling when there.

Hong Kong became a British colony as a result of two despicable opium wars the British government (controlled by the City of London) fought against the Chinese, who were rightly indignant at having opium shipped into China turning countless thousands of its people into opium zombies. However, post the Second World War, Hong Kong was turned into a major financial centre with strong links to the City of London. Indeed, one of the most powerful banks in the world, HSBC, originally called the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was founded in Hong Kong in 1865. Ironically, the original location of the bank was considered crucial and the founders chose Wardley House in Hong Kong since the construction was based on some of the best feng shui in colonial Hong Kong. It is rather curious to me that hardnosed British financiers should worry about such things. I know these people as I have worked with them. They are usually more interested in balance sheets and returns on capital than what they would normally view as ancient superstitions.

Another such British/Hong Kong company is Jardine, Matheson & Company, today a major conglomerate, which set up its headquarters on Hong Kong island shortly after the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842. The company grew rapidly by smuggling illegal opium from British-controlled India into China. Indeed, Jardine Matheson has been called the "most successful opium smuggling company in the world". Not something to be proud of really!

Hence, the roots of Hong Kong's current financial success ultimately lie with the Illuminati bankers of London. However, it also became over time one of the most important international seaports in the world, particularly when Shanghai in mainland China became a restricted port of entry during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. Major ports are often the centre for all kinds of evil, including not only drug smuggling but people smuggling too. In addition, you have the Chinese triads operating there, which are criminal secret societies who run all the rackets in Hong Kong. Perhaps you may have subconsciously picked up on all of this?

I wouldn't get too focused or hung-up on the Aryan STS psychic projectors, as the subterranean Nation of the Third Eye have plenty of surface agents working for them too. Remember what the C's told Laura about the army of psychic projectors:
Q: (L) And was this subliminal activity with the movie designed to create an opening for this further...

A: Not for you, but for others.

Q: (L) Why? Do you mean me, personally, or us as a group? (T) Well the movie didn't affect me.

A: Group.

Q: (L) What made us immune?

A: You already have the knowledge.

Q: (T) The movie wasn't meant for us; we already know. The movie was meant for all of those who don't understand.


Hence, by gaining knowledge through this Forum, you are protecting or immunising yourself against their subliminal influences.

When I watch movies now, I can normally identify the hidden messages built into them. This would be true of movies like The Ninth Gate, which focus on Satanism and the Occult. Its Polish born director, Roman Polanski, also directed the disturbing Rosemary's Baby (1968), a movie set in New York about a young married woman tricked into mothering the Antichrist by a satanic coven that her husband had become connected with.

Sadly, Polanski's American actress wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered whilst pregnant by the infamous (Charles) Manson Gang in 1969. Since then though, Polanski has evaded prosecution for the statutory rape of an underaged minor in 1978 by fleeing to Europe, where he makes his movies now. A number of other women have also accused Polanski of raping them when they were teenagers. Given the macabre nature of many of his films and his predilection for paedophilia, one has to wonder whether Polanski is connected to the Illuminati.

See: Rosemary's Baby (film) - Wikipedia
and Roman Polanski - Wikipedia

BTW: I am currently working on a new article, which focuses on the occult world of Victorian England and the various secret societies it spawned.​
 

Thank you for sharing your experiences. You certainly seem to pick up on bad vibes (vibrations) at these places. I must admit that I have also picked up on bad vibes when visiting two cities in particular and those were Paris and New York. Don't ask me why but I just felt something strange about them. Sorry to all Parisians or New Yorkers who may be reading this but I just picked up on an unpleasant feeling when there.

Hong Kong became a British colony as a result of two despicable opium wars the British government (controlled by the City of London) fought against the Chinese, who were rightly indignant at having opium shipped into China turning countless thousands of its people into opium zombies. However, post the Second World War, Hong Kong was turned into a major financial centre with strong links to the City of London. Indeed, one of the most powerful banks in the world, HSBC, originally called the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was founded in Hong Kong in 1865. Ironically, the original location of the bank was considered crucial and the founders chose Wardley House in Hong Kong since the construction was based on some of the best feng shui in colonial Hong Kong. It is rather curious to me that hardnosed British financiers should worry about such things. I know these people as I have worked with them. They are usually more interested in balance sheets and returns on capital than what they would normally view as ancient superstitions.

Another such British/Hong Kong company is Jardine, Matheson & Company, today a major conglomerate, which set up its headquarters on Hong Kong island shortly after the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842. The company grew rapidly by smuggling illegal opium from British-controlled India into China. Indeed, Jardine Matheson has been called the "most successful opium smuggling company in the world". Not something to be proud of really!

Hence, the roots of Hong Kong's current financial success ultimately lie with the Illuminati bankers of London. However, it also became over time one of the most important international seaports in the world, particularly when Shanghai in mainland China became a restricted port of entry during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. Major ports are often the centre for all kinds of evil, including not only drug smuggling but people smuggling too. In addition, you have the Chinese triads operating there, which are criminal secret societies who run all the rackets in Hong Kong. Perhaps you may have subconsciously picked up on all of this?

I wouldn't get too focused or hung-up on the Aryan STS psychic projectors, as the subterranean Nation of the Third Eye have plenty of surface agents working for them too. Remember what the C's told Laura about the army of psychic projectors:
Q: (L) And was this subliminal activity with the movie designed to create an opening for this further...

A: Not for you, but for others.

Q: (L) Why? Do you mean me, personally, or us as a group? (T) Well the movie didn't affect me.

A: Group.

Q: (L) What made us immune?

A: You already have the knowledge.

Q: (T) The movie wasn't meant for us; we already know. The movie was meant for all of those who don't understand.


Hence, by gaining knowledge through this Forum, you are protecting or immunising yourself against their subliminal influences.

When I watch movies now, I can normally identify the hidden messages built into them. This would be true of movies like The Ninth Gate, which focus on Satanism and the Occult. Its Polish born director, Roman Polanski, also directed the disturbing Rosemary's Baby (1968), a movie set in New York about a young married woman tricked into mothering the Antichrist by a satanic coven that her husband had become connected with.

Sadly, Polanski's American actress wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered whilst pregnant by the infamous (Charles) Manson Gang in 1969. Since then though, Polanski has evaded prosecution for the statutory rape of an underaged minor in 1978 by fleeing to Europe, where he makes his movies now. A number of other women have also accused Polanski of raping them when they were teenagers. Given the macabre nature of many of his films and his predilection for paedophilia, one has to wonder whether Polanski is connected to the Illuminati.

See: Rosemary's Baby (film) - Wikipedia
and Roman Polanski - Wikipedia

BTW: I am currently working on a new article, which focuses on the occult world of Victorian England and the various secret societies it spawned.​
I look forward to reading your article when it is ready.
 
I wasn't aware of all the deeply dark details of that city until today. Learning from here brought a different context and a more comprehensive understanding for many things.
Kowloon, was the subject of many old fictions, so what was learned followed a slew of book read in the 70's. If true and likely some was, it was simply unbelievable.

Hong Kong became a British colony as a result of two despicable opium wars the British government (controlled by the City of London) fought against the Chinese, who were rightly indignant at having opium shipped into China turning countless thousands of its people into opium zombies. However, post the Second World War, Hong Kong was turned into a major financial centre with strong links to the City of London. Indeed, one of the most powerful banks in the world, HSBC, originally called the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was founded in Hong Kong in 1865. Ironically, the original location of the bank was considered crucial and the founders chose Wardley House in Hong Kong since the construction was based on some of the best feng shui in colonial Hong Kong. It is rather curious to me that hardnosed British financiers should worry about such things. I know these people as I have worked with them. They are usually more interested in balance sheets and returns on capital than what they would normally view as ancient superstitions.

Yes, HSBC is an interesting old connected bank, and a great money laundering machine, such as this small example:


Also:


HSBC’s core values are under scrutiny. The bank has been implicated in one scandal after another, and the current leadership claims to be wanting to restore the bank’s reputation. But what reputation do they aim to restore? Is it the airbrushed version of a bank rooted in “Scottish banking principles”, or is it an altogether darker reputation reflecting HSBC’s original role as a source of funding for the giant trade of opium into the Chinese markets in the nineteeth century? As one blogger, based in Rochester, USA, put it in 2013: When HSBC executives were caught late last year financing the Mexican and other drug cartels, they were returning to the company’s historic roots.”

Don't know if this is true elsewhere or if still the same today, yet not long ago HSBC had their logos on every airport terminal at Vancouver international airport (YVR), in every corridor. It was like they owned it. Back then, money flowed heavily from mainland China into Vancouver and the influence was simply astounding.

People were off the planes and lined up at banks waiting to open an account (they were not rich at all), then they were across the street into malls and buying up new wardrobes. The area of Richmond itself would see every top end model of cars being driven by kids and so on and so forth. The whole Vancouver area had a housing problem, where condo's sold sight unseen and never occupied for inflated value, and teardown house were sold for 1 million or so. Very odd. Many locals chimed in on the laundering aspect, and HSBC was always at hand.

BTW: I am currently working on a new article, which focuses on the occult world of Victorian England and the various secret societies it spawned.

In the romance thread, had read a book from the early part of this time period that featured some pretty nasty people that might as well have been out of Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick) - speaking of movies as you list above.

Ditto on reading your article when completed.
 
Hence, by gaining knowledge through this Forum, you are protecting or immunising yourself against their subliminal influences.
Hong Kong was indeed my 1st expirience of that kind. More than a bad vibe like you noticed in NYC or PAris ;))) ...

Gaining knowledge with guidance from the forum + inspiration from threads and topics like yours, modeling me into a super sensitive awareness of energies in general. What is very interesting with my more refine understanding of emotional energy flow thorugh the day.

And thx for the last post and the interesting relations between Russians and Hyperboreans ... happy to have a day off to keep on reading! thx again.
 
Kowloon, was the subject of many old fictions, so what was learned followed a slew of book read in the 70's. If true and likely some was, it was simply unbelievable.



Yes, HSBC is an interesting old connected bank, and a great money laundering machine, such as this small example:


Also:




Don't know if this is true elsewhere or if still the same today, yet not long ago HSBC had their logos on every airport terminal at Vancouver international airport (YVR), in every corridor. It was like they owned it. Back then, money flowed heavily from mainland China into Vancouver and the influence was simply astounding.

People were off the planes and lined up at banks waiting to open an account (they were not rich at all), then they were across the street into malls and buying up new wardrobes. The area of Richmond itself would see every top end model of cars being driven by kids and so on and so forth. The whole Vancouver area had a housing problem, where condo's sold sight unseen and never occupied for inflated value, and teardown house were sold for 1 million or so. Very odd. Many locals chimed in on the laundering aspect, and HSBC was always at hand.



In the romance thread, had read a book from the early part of this time period that featured some pretty nasty people that might as well have been out of Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick) - speaking of movies as you list above.

Ditto on reading your article when completed.

Yup. The City of London and Canary Wharf, the biggest money laundering operation on Earth and the biggest casino too. And what is this at Canary Wharf - a golden egg maybe? Could this be the goose that lays it?


1687784035756.png
Oh and doesn't that large tower in the background look just a bit like an Egyptian obelisk? Hmmm .... Don't these people just love their ancient symbols!

By the way, HSBC has its main office at Canary Wharf (out of picture). I used to walk past it most days.​
 
Dancing in Wonderland

The C’s have made a few references to “Wonderland” in the transcripts. They never mention anything without good reason, so there must be some motive behind their references to this term. The first reference came in the session dated 28 December 1994:​

Q: Hello.

A: Hello.
Wonderland.

Q: (L) What does “Wonderland” have to do with anything?

A: It just popped to mind.


As I said above, the C’s seldom say anything without a purpose behind it, so this reference to “Wonderland”, which appears to come out of the blue and takes Laura by surprise, must have been made with an ulterior motive in mind, one which may have been intended to take on greater significance later.

If you mention the term “Wonderland” to a person in the English-speaking world, they will immediately think of the classic Childrens’ story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland written by the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known to history as Lewis Carroll. The C’s would next mention “Wonderland” in the session dated 13 June 1998:​

A: Yes, thank you Arkadiusz!!!! Laura is dancing around in wonderland, meanwhile all of creation, of existence, is contained in 1, 2, 3!!! Look for this when you are trying to find the keys to the hidden secrets of all existence... They dwell within. 11, 22, 33, 1/2, 1/3, 1, 2, 3, 121, 11, 111, 222, 333, and so on! Get it?!?!

However, the C’s have also referred to “dancing” elsewhere including the session dated 28 November 1998:

A: Ever feel as if you are dancing around in circles?

[…]

Q: (L) You say I am dancing around in circles...

A: We are saying, as always, pay attention to the words.

As I have mentioned before, this reference to dancing around in circles may have been to the Megalithic stone circle at Stonehenge in England where the god Phoebus Apollo danced all night every 19 years (a reference to the 18.6-year Metatonic Cycle of the Moon). However, the C’s also cautioned Laura to pay attention to their words. Since the C’s response here was given in part to comments Laura had made about Abbé Berenger Saunière, the priest at the heart of the Rennes-le-Château mystery, knowing now that he was a Martinist Rosicrucian with links to the shadowy secret society the Hieron du Val d’Or, we may also take it that the C’s were referring to the world of secret societies and the ‘circles within circles’ concept discussed in my previous article, which can be summed up by the C’s statement made in connection with the Rosicrucians: “What a tangled web we spin, when we must not let you in”. And, of course, spiders spin circular webs do they not.

This take on the C’s statement about the Rosicrucians being at the centre of a web may find further support in an earlier reference to a web of intrigue in the session dated 31 December 1994 where the C’s explained the predicament of Al Bielek a US Government whistleblower on the Philadelphia Experiment:​

Q: (T) Does Al know that he is giving out false information... does he know that the information the government is giving him is false?

A: He is so involved you would not believe.

Q: (T) He is involved with the government cover-up?

A: With all of it. He knows that what he is saying is false but he has no choice because he is entangled in the web. They are using him.


The concept of an incredibly complex web was also brought up by Laura in the session dated 21 May 1997:

Q: Okay. So, then I had the thought that 'Percy' was the centre of an incredibly complex web. It was like what you had described for me before: mosaic consciousness. I could see connections no matter which way I looked. I mean, literally everything connects... alchemy, Rosicrucians, Masons, physics, genetics, eschatology, Cassiopaea, prime numbers, Medusa, Perseus... I mean, it is the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life...

A: So far...

Q: Okay. But, that led to the idea of the universe being like a sort of spider web, with the spider being at the centre... kind of an expanded and more complex 'perpendicular reality' idea. All the levels connected by the threads, or conduits... the gravity binder from the spider in the centre... am I onto something here?

A: Stay tuned...


However, the mention of a 'perpendicular reality' leads us back to Lewis Carroll again and to his famous work Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its equally famous sequel Through the Looking Glass, both of which are surreal fantasies that can be viewed thus as depicting perpendicular realities (N.B. indeed the term “looking glass” has frequently been used in connection with the nefarious world of spying – see novelist John le Carré’s 1965 book The Looking Glass War for example – the author was himself an MI5 and MI6 agent). Indeed, Through the Looking Glass has also been the subject of comments made by the C’s, first in the session dated 18 July 1998:​

A: You are dancing on the 3rd density ballroom floor.“AK likes to go through the looking glass” at the Crystal Palace. Atlantean reincarnation surge brings on the urge to have a repeat performance.

Here we see a reference both to “dancing” and going through “the looking glass”. The connection between going through the looking glass and entering a 'perpendicular reality' was picked up again in the session dated 25 July 1998:

Q: Well you once said something about the transition to 4th density creating a ‘level playing field’. Then the people will wake up and there will be a battle between the humans and aliens.
A: Yes.


[…]

Q: You say knowledge protects. It protects against WHAT?

A: Many things. One example: post transformational trauma and confusion.

Q: So knowledge is going to protect us against post transformational trauma and confusion. You are saying that this transition to 4th density is going to be traumatic and confusing. Do you mean transformation from 3rd to 4th density, or 3rd to 5th density, i.e., death?


A: Both.

Q: So, if one does not have the shock and trauma and the confusion and so forth, one is then able to function better?

A: Yes.

Q: Well if a person transitions directly from 3rd to 5th density via dying, that implies that persons can transition directly from 3rd to 4th density without dying. Is that correct?

A: Yes.

Q: How does that feel? How is that experience …

A: AK through the looking glass


Thus, we see the C’s telling us above that going from 3rd density to 4th density in the body is akin to what Alice experienced when she went through the looking glass. Describing 4th density as a 'perpendicular reality' may connect us to the application of mathematics to the density levels and what the C’s had said about Laura dancing around in Wonderland: “Laura is dancing around in wonderland, meanwhile all of creation, of existence, is contained in 1, 2, 3!!!”

This last point may be picked-up on where Laura was describing her understanding of dimensions in the session dated 7 January 1995:​

Q: (L) Well, I would imagine so. Now, if a line is defined as the movement of a point in a single direction, and a plane is defined as a line moving at right angles to itself, and the 3rd dimension is defined as a plane moving at right angles to itself, and the 4th dimension is defined as a three dimensional object moving at right angles to itself*, then what we are talking about in 4th density, something that we simply cannot grasp. If we look at a 3 D apple, we are only seeing a slice, so to speak, of a 4th dimensional object. If we could see the apple in its true, 4th dimensional state, we would see something, probably more like a long, red tubular type thing that goes onto infinity. Is this a correct assessment?

*What Laura is describing above links with the famous Pythagorean Tetractys, which was a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row, which is the geometrical representation of the fourth triangular number. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the secret worship of the Pythagoreans. Initiates were required to swear a secret oath by the Tetractys.
1688122790370.png


  1. The first four numbers symbolize the musica universalis and the Cosmos as:
    1. (1) Unity (Monad)
    2. (2) Dyad – Power – Limit/Unlimited (peras/apeiron)
    3. (3) Harmony (Triad)
    4. (4) Kosmos (Tetrad)
  2. The four rows add up to ten, which was unity of a higher order (The Dekad).
  3. The Tetractys symbolizes the four classical elementsair, fire, water, and earth.
  4. The Tetractys represented the organization of space:
    1. the first row represented zero dimensions (a point)
    2. the second row represented one dimension (a line of two points)
    3. the third row represented two dimensions (a plane defined by a triangle of three points)
    4. the fourth row represented three dimensions (a tetrahedron defined by four points).
The Tetractys is also linked with the Kabbalist symbol of the Tetragrammaton. A Hebrew tetractys has the letters of the Tetragrammaton inscribed on the ten positions of the tetractys, from right to left. A tetractys of the letters of the Tetragrammaton adds up to 72 by gematria (that special number again!).
1688122875700.png
In mentioning all this, we must bear in mind that Lewis Carroll was a top-notch mathematician in the mid-19th Century and both his works contain allegorical references to several controversial mathematical issues of the time (including James Clerk Maxwell’s use of quaternions). Many believe he encoded hidden mathematical messages in his works for those capable of discerning them. For more on the hidden mathematical aspects of Alice in Wonderland see: Opinion | Algebra in Wonderland - The New York Times (nytimes.com) by Melanie Bayley.

Carroll's works are laced with esoteric information that may have been an attempt by him at a deliberate disclosure of long held Rosicrucian secret knowledge for those capable of understanding it. For more on this esoteric theme see Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: An Esoteric Journey – Nifty Buckles. Quoting from that article:​

[In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland one of the principal characters,] the White Rabbit, symbolises purity, spiritual enlightenment. The White Rabbit is in esoteric terms a shamanic guide who journeys between worlds such as the Earth, underground and heavens. The Rabbit leads the seeker into multiple worlds or realities to reveal truths of the universe and the seeker’s true self. [However,] the White rabbit is also about time and out of time racing in and out of seven dimensions (densities). The Book of Enoch mentions seven heavens. Time may not be linear like we have been taught, go ask the rabbit. It may represent our souls passing through different worlds being recycled and experiencing amnesia of past lives. Alice asksWho am I?

That black and white swirly tunnel that leads to Wonderland may represent our subconscious or a portal to other dimensions, or maybe a stargate? There are many references to time in the novel. This story may hint towards a tribute to time, Chronos the Greek deity the personification of time.

1688122953250.png

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

If Lewis was describing the concept of a portal or stargate in the black and white swirly tunnel, this may tie in with comments the C’s made in connection with Lewis’s book Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There:​

Session 22 June 1996:

A: Slowly, but surely. Now, get ready for a message: We have told you before that the upcoming "changes" relate to the spiritual and awareness factors rather than the much publicized physical. Symbolism is always a necessary tool in teaching. But, the trick is to read the hidden lessons represented by the symbology, not to get hung up on the literal meanings of the symbols!

[…]

Q: (F) Well, they mentioned twice to be careful about putting in the designated quotes. (L) One of the crop circles you interpreted was an "astronomical twin phenomenon." What is an astronomical twin phenomenon?

A: Many perfectly synchronous meanings.

Q: (L) Synchronicity is involved. Does this have something to do with "image?"

A:
Duplicity of, as in "Alice through the looking glass."*

Q: (L) Double images. Does this relate to matter and antimatter?

A: Yes, and...


The peculiar identical twins Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum are characters best known from Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass. The names have become synonymous in western popular culture as slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical [MJF: As an identical twin myself, my brother and I have often been called Tweedledee and Tweedledum]. As two double images, they may be a possible reflection of the matter/antimatter universes which the C’s are describing here.

Common versions of the Tweedledee and Tweedledum nursery rhyme include:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee


Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee


Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,


As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,


They quite forgot their quarrel.

In the book, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, after quoting the above nursery rhyme, go on to enact it. They agree to have a battle, but never have one. When they see a monstrous black crow swooping down, they take to their heels. The Tweedle brothers never contradict each other, even when one of them, according to the rhyme, "agrees to have a battle". Rather, they complement each other's words, which led John Tenniel to portray them as twins in his illustrations for the book (see below). This leads me to wonder whether Carroll through the characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum may have had some notion of the matter and antimatter universes through his connection to the Orphic Circle.
1688123066099.png
Q: (L) Gravity and manifesting on one side and manifesting a mirror image on the other...

A: Yes, and...

Q: (L) And images of 4th density bodies with tenuous fibers connecting to DNA as in manifesting imaginal bodies on 4th density?

A: Astronomical.

Q: (L) Okay, that relates to stars and planets... astronomical in terms of another universe, an alternate universe composed of antimatter?

A: Yes, and....

Q: (L) And is this alternate universe going to merge with our universe...

A: No.

Q: (L) Is this alternate universe of antimatter the point from which phenomena occur or are manifested in our universe?

A: More like doorway or "conduit."
[MJF: A doorway is, of course, also a portal. Let us recall here that the Greek goddess Hecate or Roman Trivia, who I have linked with Helle, Bridget and Meritaten/Hagar was a goddess of doorways.]

Q: (L) Is this alternate universe the means by which we must travel to 4th density? Is it like a veil, or an abyss of some sort?

A: Think of it as the highway.


As the C’s once said, under the guise of fiction the deepest truths can be delivered. Could this be true of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Perhaps we should start a thread on these two surreal works to study all the allegorical references in them in the light of what the C’s have told us?
Lewis Carroll and Circles within Circles

Lewis Carroll was not just a leading mathematician but a photographer, inventor, and Anglican Church deacon too. He was a first-rate scholar and had a long-term link with Christ Church College Oxford where he taught for many years and became the sub-librarian of the college library (which obviously gave him access to a wealth of academic resources).

Carroll moved in various social circles including the Pre-Raphaelite art movement headed by John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research. What most biographies seem to leave out though is that he was also involved with the Theosophy movement, which brought him into contact with the likes of Annie Bessant, Madam Helena Blavatsky (the author of 'The Secret Doctrine') and the Rosicrucian Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (the author of ‘Vril: 'The Coming Race', a book that introduced the concept of Vril energy that would later inspire the Nazis via the Thule Society. Indeed, some even think Carroll was a Rosicrucian himself.

However, it is two secret societies that Carroll seems to have been associated with that I would particularly like to concentrate on in this article. The first is the Orphic Circle, which I have written about before but would now like to add new material - which I hope will help to prove the link with Lewis Carroll. The other is an extremely obscure Victorian secret society that I will deal with in the second part of this article.​

The Orphic Circle and Emma Hardinge Britten

There is not a great deal of information around on the Orphic Circle, who no doubt took their name from “Orphism”, the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who famously descended into the Greek underworld and returned [MJF: whose head was famously cut off but continued singing whilst it travelled downstream – shades of the talking head of Bran and thus perhaps an oblique reference to the Grail]. Orpheus can in turn be linked to Dionysus (who also descended into the Underworld and returned) and Persephone (who annually descended into the Underworld for a season and then returned). However, Orpheus was in fact more closely associated with the god Apollo than to Dionysus in the earliest sources and iconography. This may make for an interesting British connection to Stonehenge and Phoebus Apollo, the deity who would dance there all night every 19 years. Much of what we know about the Victorian Orphic Circle comes from the writings of Emma Hardinge Britten who wrote about them in her biography called Ghostlight. For those who are not familiar with her, I present below a potted history of her life.

Emma Hardinge Britten (2 May 1823 – 2 October 1899), whose real name was Emma Floyd, was a skilled trance medium, so much so that Madam Blavatsky thought she was the best that she had ever seen. The two women were well acquainted and Britten, who would go on to become one of the leading spiritualist advocates and practitioners of the 19th century, would be heavily involved with the Theosophists in the early days of that movement until she fell out with Blavatsky and subsequently broke off all links. Britten was a writer, orator and spiritualist who would even have an influence on Abraham Lincoln’s presidential re-election in 1864 (via her ‘Coming Man or the ‘Next President of the United States’ speech). However, in her youth she had been an accomplished actress, singer and musician who performed on the West End stage in London. She was therefore already well known in London circles before she became a leading advocate for the spiritualist movement. It is her prowess as a medium though that first brought her to the attention of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the Orphic Circle.
1688123355169.png
Emma Hardinge Britten taken by William H. Mumler
She developed a reputation for her abilities as a spiritual or trance medium/clairvoyant during her early years, which is what may have brought her to the attention of the Orphic Circle. To make this link, I set out below extracts from an article written by David Charles Manners in 2017, which describes his ancestor, Charles Thomas Pearce’s involvement with the Orphic Circle and names Edward Bulwer-Lytton as a member, as well as quoting Britten directly.​

Although she does not name them specifically, Britten had this to say about the Orphic Circle in 1887:

“When quite young, in fact, before I had attained my thirteenth year, I became acquainted with certain parties who sought me out and professed a desire to observe the somnambulic faculties for which I was then remarkable. I found my new associates to be ladies and gentlemen, mostly persons of noble rank, and during a period of several years, I, and many other young persons, assisted at their sessions in the quality of somnambulists, or mesmeric subjects....

I should have known but little of its principles and practices, as I was simply what I should now call
a clairvoyant, sought out by the society for my gifts in this direction, had I not, in later years, been instructed in the fundamentals of the society by the author of ‘Art Magic’. When modern spiritualism dawned upon the world, for special reasons of my own, the fellows of my society gave me an honorary release from every obligation I had entered into with them except in the matter of secrecy. On that point I can never be released and never seek to be; but in respect to the statements I am about to make, my former associates . . . not only sanction, but command me to present to the candid enquirer [. . . the substance of the article to which these two paragraphs are an introduction.”


She subsequently added:

‘[They] claimed an affiliation with societies derived from the ancient mysteries of Egypt, Greece and Judaea’, whose ‘beliefs and practices had been concealed from the vulgar by cabalistic methods.

Indeed, it is in Britten’s writings and those of her mysterious friend Chevalier Louis de B_ (the author of ‘Magic Art’ and ‘Ghostland’) that we find almost everything that is now known about this society. Manners also quotes Louis de B in his article:

These initiates considered themselves ‘magians’, a term for Zoroastrian priests with ‘supernatural’ powers, though their methods were said to have been ‘inspired by far loftier aims and regulated by much more pious aspirations than those of most other English magicians [‘Louis de B’].”

So, who was this Louis de B? In 1875, Emma Britten made this statement:


In 1850 Emma Hardinge [Britten], then a resident of London, England, learned from two German gentlemen of her acquaintance some remarkable details of a society which held its sessions at Hamburgh and Berlin, the chief object of which was the study and development of the occult forces latent in Nature ...

. . . Emma Hardinge‘s friends were professed materialists, and, being officers in the Prussian Army, men of culture and ability, they were accustomed to strengthen their own disbelief in the soul‘s continued existence after death by quotations from many of the most renowned literary authorities of their own country.

“The author of ‘Ghost Land’ was himself an initiate of their body
[i.e., the society at Hamburg and Berlin ... He was also] a clairvoyant of most remarkable lucidity and power. Being associated in intimate relations with the President of the Brotherhood, who was indeed his tutor in early youth, whilst little more than a mere child he was employed as a magnetic subject


This gentleman, now a warm Spiritualist and believer in the power of disembodied spirits to effect what he once attributed to the spirits of mortals only, still affirms his faith in the superior force of the embodied human soul to perform feats of ponderous strength ...”

Despite some deliberate confusion between Prussia and Austria in her account, leading her at one point to speak of “the Berlin Brotherhood, Austria”, it is clearly Louis de B_ who is meant here; the other Prussian will then be his tutor, who bears the pseudonym Felix von Marx in Ghostland. [MJF: Since originally writing this, I believe I have been able to identify the Berlin Brotherhood – see more below on this]

If Lewis Carroll was a Rosicrucian and member of the Orphic Circle, as many have suggested, he no doubt would have been well acquainted with Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton and would almost certainly have encountered Emma Harding Britten, possibly during some of her trance medium sessions for the Circle. If so, could she have become the esoteric model for his Alice, who would go through the looking glass and dance in Wonderland? It should be noted in this connection that Emma Harding Britten was a professional singer, actress and dancer who had performed on stage in London, Paris and the provinces from 1832 to 1855.

In his article, Mathieson also makes reference to Frederick Hockley, a Rosicrucian, who was the most well-known English occultist of the first half of the 19th Century. Mathieson shows that Emma Hardinge Britten knew Hockley very well and was even allowed to use his 'sacred mirrors' for vision trances to contact guiding spirits (who in her own words were extraterrestrial and not human).

If Britten used a mirror to gain the information that Carroll and Bulwer-Lytton subsequently used in their books, this might make sense of the C's statement "You are dancing on the 3rd density ballroom floor. "Alice likes to go through the looking glass" at the Crystal Palace".

What it appears the Orphic Circle were doing was using a special mirror as a Psychomantium and employing a highly psychic person such as Emma Hardinge Britten to act as a conduit to gain the information they wanted. Here is what the C's said about psychomantiums in the session dated 17 January 1997:​

A: Time to consider construction of psychomantium. [MJF: A Kozyrev mirror may be a modern version of the same device]

Q: (Laura) What is a 'psychomantium?'

A: Chamber for viewing other realms, possible futures and entities residing in other densities. Need clear depth... such as large, polished mirror on stand, which can be adjusted as to angle... walls must be completely covered in black, so as to eliminate reflection... soft, low, indirect lighting.

Q: (Laura) Wasn't it Dr Moody that did the life-after-death thing? (Terry) He's got a room with the mirror with the black velour walls and the comfortable chair that you can look in the mirror without seeing yourself...

A: Yes, and it is real and it works. In the clear depths, you can even see us, on occasion!

Q: (Terry) This psychomantium, isn't it in essence a way of opening up a doorway to other realities and other levels and densities?

A: Yes.

Q: (Terry) It's going to vary from person to person... (Laura) OK, what advantage is there to using a psychomantium to using the board, I mean, is it going to replace the board?

A: No. Visualizations clarify and unite images.

Q: (Laura) Ok, what images would we wish, or would be suggested to unite and clarify, and particularly in the term unite? You've used the term 'unite' on a number of occasions, and in unusual ways.

A: Anything and everything in transcripts, for example... and all else.

Q: (Laura) Okay, so we would be able to see all of the things told about in the transcripts. Would we also be able to, by seeing a 4th density reality, be able to generate some sort of unification between ourselves, in some sense, and this new reality?
[MJF: This may be highly significant to the origins of Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass – especially if he had witnessed something like this first hand with the Orphic Circle or possibly elsewhere – something I wish to discuss in a follow-up to this article.]

A: Yes.

Q: (Laura) Is this part of the way and means of
bonding oneself to 4th density reality
A: Helps.

Q: (Laura) Can one also use this to visit other parts of the globe in real time?

A: Yes.

Q: (Terry) Visit the past and the future?
[MJF: This can therefore be said to be a form of time travel (to possible futures though) and might be highly significant in that it may have allowed the Orphic Circle to access future scientific advances and concepts such as the matter/anti-matter universes and free energy (“vril”). Consider also what has been said in the transcripts about the time travel experiments conducted at Montauk in the 1970’s, which manifested persons from different possible futures.]

A: Yes.

I would like now to quote directly from Robert Mathieson in his article ‘Extracts from ‘The Unseen Worlds of Emma Hardinge Britten: Some Chapters in the History of Western Occultism’, which was published in the Theosophical History Occasional Papers Volume IX (2001)
The Orphic Circle and its members.

From the scant information that Louis de B_ gave in Ghost Land and his other writings, together with the little that Emma Hardinge Britten mentioned elsewhere, it appears that the Orphic Circle had existed for some years before 1835, and that its organization had some features characteristic of Freemasonry: it met as a lodge presided over by a Grand Master and its members were sworn to secrecy. Unlike English Freemasonry, but like some kinds of European Freemasonry, the Orphic Circle admitted women as well as men to membership. During its lodge meetings the members practiced astral travelling as well as the invocation of spirits into mirrors and crystals, carrying out both activities within a ritual practice that owed something to Renaissance high magic, and entailed the use of both hymns and specially prepared fumigations. However, it was not the members themselves who travelled in spirit on the astral plane, or who saw and heard spirits in the mirrors and crystals; that was the work of young clairvoyants (also called somnambules or lucides, as in France) who had been thrown into trance by currents of animal magnetism that were produced and directed by members of the Orphic Circle (and perhaps also by the specially prepared fumigations). Moreover, the spirits in question were not, for the most part, spirits of the dead, but rather spirits that had never been incarnated in any human body. [MJF: Which raises a big red flag and may suggest they were in contact with Orion STS entities]

In Ghost Land several members of the Orphic Circle are mentioned by pseudonym. In addition to John Cavendish Dudley, who was its Recording Secretary, they are the “venerable” Lord Vivian (also called Lord V_ ), the Circle‘s Grand Master; Lord L_ ; Sir Thomas L_; Sir Peter S_; and Sir James M_(who in the same passage published elsewhere is named Mr. B_ and Mr Barton). Another member, unnamed, is ― “a fine old French gentleman [...] a poet improvisatore and divine harpist.”

Finally, there is one mention of a Mr. H. It is found in a long description of a meeting of the Orphic Circle that took place a number of years after the other meetings described in Ghost Land, sometime in the early 1850s. Although the members and clairvoyant seers present at that meeting are not named, Chevalier Louis is clearly one of them, and another is an unnamed young woman who can only be Emma herself. At that meeting they both saw in a mirror, among other things, two spirits who displayed to them a book that is surely meant to be Art Magic, as yet unwritten. She then informed him that:

"She had seen these spirits before, had been told that they were planetary spirits, the guardians of a mirror belonging to a friend whom she occasionally visited, and that the book which they thus presented was one which for ages they had been endeavouring to inspire some earthly scribe to write. She added, “These spirits seemed, when first I saw them at my friend Mr. H.‘s, to beseech me to write that book; but it now appears as if they had transferred their plea to you, and I cannot but think the vision is significant of the prophecy that you are destined to write it.

The mirror gazer named Mr. H. is certainly also the unnamed “successful Adept of the present generation” who received from a “Planetary spirit – the guardian of his mirror” a particular short treatise and ritual about “the best method of divination, also of receiving communications from spirits” which is published in Art Magic. This treatise allows us to determine the identity of Mr. H., establishing beyond any question that he is Frederick Hockley, arguably the most important occultist of the early nineteenth century*. As it happens, the text published in Art Magic is almost the same as a text received by one of the young clairvoyant women employed by Hockley, who transcribed it in his private notebooks (his “Crystal Manuscripts”, as they have come to be called). Although Hockley allowed almost no one to see his Crystal Manuscripts under any circumstances, he did on one occasion allow one of his friends, the occultist F. G. Irwin, to copy this particular text. Most of Hockley’s Crystal Manuscripts have been lost, but Irwin‘s copy of this text survives and has been published.

Since Mr. H. is Frederick Hockley (1808-1885), the Orphic Circle will necessarily have included some of the gentlemen and gentlewomen of his acquaintance who are known to have shared his interest in crystal and mirror-gazing. The careful research of Joscelyn Godwin has shed a good deal of light on most of these people, among whom were the following (listed in order of their death):

John Varley (1778-1842), an artist and astrologer;

Marguerite, the Countess of Blessington (1789- 1849);

Philip Henry, the Earl of Stanhope (1781-1855);

Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) the author of Zanoni and other novels:

Richard James Morrison (1795-1874), otherwise the astrologer Zadkiel;

Alexander William, the Earl of Crawford (1812-1880), otherwise the Master of Lindsay;

Richard F. Burton (1821-1880), the renowned explorer and translator.


It does not take much imagination to identify the individuals in this list whose names may have inspired the other pseudonyms in Ghost Land, especially if one doesn‘t worry too much about their titles, and also remembers that Ghost Land cannot be taken as an accurate chronicle of anyone‘s true history or whereabouts at any particular time. Mr B_ or Mr. Barton suggests Richard F. Burton; Sir James M_, Richard James Morrison; Lord L_, Edward Bulwer-Lytton or the Master of Lindsay; and Sir Peter S_, Philip Henry Stanhope. The “venerable” Lord V_ (or Lord Vivian) may be an older man, like Varley (although Varley had no title) or the adjective “venerable” may be a title of the Orphic Circle’s Grand Master, as it is in the Order of the Elect Cohens. As for the “fine old French gentleman [...] harpist”, if he is not a complete fiction, he may owe something to memories of the foremost French practitioner of magical mesmerism, Jules Dupotet de Sennevoy (1798-1881), who was in London, and patronized by Lord Stanhope, during the years 1837-1839.

In 1887 Emma Hardinge Britten refers to a rule of the Orphic Circle that its members should never be:

“...named, until they passed from earth to the higher life. It is in virtue of this last clause that I am at liberty to say that Lord Lytton, the Earl of Stanhope, and Lieut. Morrison (better known as “Zadkiel” and the author of “Art Magic” belonged to this society.”


As these three names are on the above list, the quoted words confirm, though only in a general sort of way, the conclusions that followed from our identification of “Mr. H” as Frederick Hockley.

*That Frederick Hockley and Emma Hardinge Britten (“EHB”) were indeed friends is suggested by two pieces of data that happen to have survived: sometime before 1870 Hockley allowed EHB to use some of his consecrated mirrors for visionary purposes; also, Hockley owned a copy of the first edition of Ghost Land with a letter from the authoress (EHB) inserted inside it.
Conclusion

So, we see from the above extracts that the Orphic Circle had existed for some years prior to 1835 and that its organisation had some features that were characteristic of Freemasonry. They also practiced astral travelling as well as the invocation of spirits into mirrors and crystals. The latter practice involving the use of scryers, or clairvoyants to invoke spirits is reminiscent of Dr John Dee’s sessions with the scryer Edward Kelley, which involved the invocation of angels through the medium of a special crystal. Let us recall here that the C’s had said of these sessions that they involved contact with 4th density beings:​

Q: I don't know what will happen here... Oh, John Dee supposedly had a vision of the Angel Uriel who gave him a highly polished black stone which was convex, and into which he gazed to communicate with other realms. This sounds very much like a psychomantium. Okay, these beings would appear on the surface of the stone and reveal all the secrets of the future. This was not an imaginary stone because it now resides in the British Museum. However, he later hooked up with Edward Kelly who was, apparently, a complete con-artist. What kind of beings did Dee and Kelly conjure through their polished stone?

A: Fourth Density.

Q: STS or STO?

A: Both.


However, in Emma Hardinge Britten’s case, she tells us that the spirits in question were not, for the most part, spirits of the dead, but rather spirits that had never been incarnated in any human body. This suggests that they may have been the same sort of 4th density beings that John Dee had communicated with. If so, were they STS or STO or both as in John Dee’s case?

We also see that the membership of the Orphic Circle included the statesman and novelist Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the famous explorer and translator Richard F. Burton who I will have much more to say about later in this article, as his various associations provide an important link to Lewis Carroll. Next though, I would like to look at where the Orphic Circle may have held their meetings.

Continued in Part 2.​
 
Dancing in Wonderland Part 2

The Orphic Circle Meets at the Crystal Palace


One possible meeting place for the Orphic Circle, where they could conduct their ceremonial and practical rituals involving clairvoyants or trance mediums was Craven Cottage in Fulham, North London (what is left of the Cottage still stands today and now forms part of the Premier League Fulham Football Club’s stadium). Bulwer-Lytton owned or rented the property between 1840 and 1846. He held sumptuous parties there where guests included Louis Napoleon (the deposed Emperor of France) and Benjamin Disraeli [Prime Minister of Great Britain]. Robert Browning the famous poet would also spend time recuperating there after an illness. The spiritualist, Samuel Carter Hall, confirmed in his memoirs that séances were definitely held there. He recalled that a young French clairvoyant, Alexis Didier, performed his mesmerism there only days after arriving in England in 1844. Craven Cottage had some odd features that may have made it ideal for such performances. These were a room referred to as ‘the Robbers Cave’, which had a doorway in the ceiling and the door into the library (known as the Egyptian Hall) had ancient Egyptian style pillars on either side. Craven Cottage was in fact a large rural residence and not a small cottage despite the name. Laurence Hutton in his description of the Cottage in his ‘Literary Landmarks of London’ described it as follows: “It stood in 1885, a picturesque ruin, and must have been, in its day a very remarkable specimen of fantastic architecture, embracing the Persian, Gothic, Moorish and Egyptian styles.” This would make it the perfect setting for rituals harking back to earlier times and ancient traditions. Whether Emma Britten performed her trance medium sessions for the Orphic Circle there is not known for certain but there is every likelihood that she may have done so since she was already 17 years old when Bulwer-Lytton first moved into Craven Cottage. One researcher, Mark Demarest (who had access to the Emma Hardinge Britten Archive), has argued that Craven Cottage did serve as the backdrop for the Circle events described in her biography Ghost Land (see more below on this).
1688124601876.png
Craven Cottage in the 19th Century
Quoting from the Georgian Group Journal Volume XIX:

"In 1805 the cottage had been bought by Walsh Porter, who lived only another four years afterwards but made extensive and expensive changes to the house. With the help of the young architect Thomas Hopper, he converted the central reception room into an ‘Egyptian Hall’ picking up on the evidence for ancient Egyptian temple decoration which had come to light during the recent Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. The columns, inward-tapering doorways and walls were decorated with mythical beasts, hieroglyphics and lotus leaves. Stranger still, the drawing shows palm trees on delicate trunks, their leaves touching the ceiling. By one door was ‘a movable camel in bronze’ and draping another was a curtain painted as a tiger skin, held up by a life-sized female figure in bronze."

1688124678750.png
A sketch of the ‘Egyptian Hall’ at Craven Cottage
An Hypotheses on the Orphic Circle

I now turn to an interesting hypothesis put forward by Marc Demarest, which I will quote from liberally since it establishes new connections between the Orphic Circle and other esoteric groups in Victorian England with overlapping memberships that again provides us with examples of circles operating within circles. I have included my own comments in red.​

When quite young, in fact, before I became acquainted with certain parties who sought me out and professed a desire to observe the somnambulistic tendencies for which I was then remarkable. I found my new associates to be ladies and gentlemen, mostly persons of noble rank, and during a period of several years, I, and many other young persons, assisted at their sessions in the quality of somnambulists, or mesmeric subjects...it was one of their leading regulations never to permit the existence of the society to be known or the members thereof named, until they passed from earth to the higher life. It is in virtue of this last clause that I am at liberty to say that Lord Lytton, the Earl of Stanhope, and Lieut. Morrison (better known as “Zadkiel”), and the author of “Art Magic,” belonged to this society.

“By One Who Knows,” in “Occultism Defined” from The Two Worlds, 18 November 1887, pp. 3-5.

From the age of twelve my public life commenced; and anyone who has become acquainted with the severe studies which musical artistes are called upon to pursue in Europe… will scoff at the idea that any leisure could have been afforded me for those metaphysical and scientific studies in which certain of my American friends confidently affirm “my youth was absorbed.” With the exception of a little dabbling in astrology, pursued under the auspices of merry gipsying parties, I never heard of, much less studied, any “ology” in my life.

Emma Hardinge, “To the Reader”, from Six Lectures on Theology and Nature

Never understood by those around me, it was only in after years and when I became called and associated with a secret society of Occultists and attended their sessions in London as one of their clairvoyant and magnetic subjects, that I myself began to comprehend why a young girl fairly educated, and blessed with many advantages, should be branded with such peculiarities of disposition as must inevitably shut her of from all companionship with children of her own age and standing.


The society of Occultists to whom I can now only allude, and who are named in "Ghost-Land" as the "Orphic Circle," obtained knowledge (by means I am not at liberty to mention) of those persons whose associations they desired.

None of the members were known as such outside their circles
, the existence of the society was undreamed of, and those whom they chose to affiliate with they knew of and called. I having been thus favoured obtained a clue to my own exceptional early experiences, which the subsequent developments of Spiritualism stamped as natural Seership.

Emma Hardinge Britten, Autobiography

Issue

Emma Hardinge Britten alleged, in various forums during her lifetime (and in the text that became her posthumous Autobiography), that an English occult group she referred to as the Orphic Circle existed in England in the 1830’s and/or 1840’s, and that she was a member of this group. Did such a group exist? Are Emma’s claims plausible?
Hypotheses

1. The Orphic Circle was a loose-knit community of occult practitioners, with shifting membership and disciplinary focus, that operated in one form or another from the 1820’s until at least the mid-1850’s, primarily in London, but also elsewhere in Great Britain.

2. The name 'Orphic Circle' was never used by the members of the community to describe themselves or their gatherings. The ʻOrphic Circle’ was in no sense a formal organization; it was a social network.

3. The initial incarnation of the Circle was more formal and referred to itself as the Mercurii in public. It formed itself around John Varley the elder 1 (1778-1842), Richard Cross Smith (1795-1832), Richard Morrison (1795-1874), Thomas Oxley (1807-1837) and others, 2 was initially a mutual aid society for practicing astrologers 3 and was as much interested in the exchange and discussion of rare manuscript material on occult topics as it was in practical occultism.

4. Richard Morrison - who was (a) socially mobile (unlike other practicing astrologers of his time) and (b) a polymath, introduced the use of clairvoyants 4, and the practice of skrying, into the Circle’s activities. On the death of Richard Cross Smith, Morrison took control of the Mercuriiʼs activities, and it is through his social connections that people who were not practicing astrologers became members of the Circle.​

5. The (a) introduction of members into the Mercurii Circle who were not practicing, working astrologists, whose interests lay elsewhere within the occult sciences and who were of different social class than the founding members, combined with (b) the death of Varley, Cross, and others moved the Circle’s centre of gravity away from astrology and related divination-oriented practices, and into areas more closely aligned with mesmerism and modern spiritualism, as well as with the broad set of practices grouped under the heading “Rosicrucian” as that term was understood in Victorian culture.
___________________________________

1 To distinguish him from his grandson, John Varley the younger, also a watercolourist, and an early and serious member of the Theosophical Society.

2 Owen Davies. Witchcraft Magic and Culture 1736-1851. p. 238.

3 Emmaʼs reference to her early experiences with the occult as “a little dabbling in astrology” may therefore be -- in her typical fashion -- an oblique reference to the Mercurii rather than a throw-away line.

4 See the curator’s blog entry entitled “A Trout In The Milk” at Redirecting... 2009_03_01_archive.html for an example of a periodical (a) edited by E.L. Blanchard (b) containing a transcription of a Mercurii session led by Morrison featuring (c) the use of a clairvoyante for remote viewing.
___________________________________

6. Frederick Hockley (1808-1880) became a member of the Circle, episodically, after going to work for John Denley (?-1840?), the book dealer. Hockley injected much of the “Rosicrucian” and spirit communications thought into the group, though it is clear that R. C. Smith and Francis Barrett (1770?-1830?) were also interested in this sort of material. It seems plain that most of Hockley's practical occult work was done solo, and that he was not by nature a joiner, so his involvement with the Circle during its transition from astrology to occult topics was peripheral.

7. Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) was brought into the circle by John Varley the elder some time in the 1830s, originally based on Lyttonʼs long association with Varley, and Bulwer- Lyttonʼs interest in geomancy [MJF: a subject the 17th Century Rosicrucians also took a great deal of interest in]. Bulwer-Lytton largely took control of the Circle’s activities after Varley’s death, in partnership with Morrison, and remained involved with the Circle until the mid- to late 1840s, when his social position made it increasingly risky for him to associate with what were perceived to be fringe social elements. He was always careful not to advertise his involvement with the Circle (giving Rosina Bulwer Lytton, for example, nothing to accuse him of on this score).

8. Bulwer Lytton and John Varley bridged the Circle’s network into the social network surrounding Marguerite Countess Blessington* (1789-1849) at Gore House: the so called Gore House Circle. Varley was the Gore House Circle’s resident astrologer, and Bulwer Lytton an intimate friend of the Countess Blessington. Varley and Bulwer Lytton connect Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), John Forster (1812-1876), Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798-1868) -- all members of the Gore House Circle -- to the Orphic Circle, at one remove. Dickens, Forster and Townshend were, as is well known, committed believers in mesmeric science.
*Lady Blessington supposedly owned a special rock crystal ball a few inches in diameter, which she sold with other effects in 1849. Apparently, people claimed to see visions in it. Her lover, the French Count D’Orsay. reputedly employed an alchemist to make gold to pay his debts.

9. When Edward Bulwer Lytton was actively directing the Circle’s activities, and in possession of Craven Cottage (c1840-46), meetings of the Circle frequently took place there, and it is Craven Cottage that serves as the backdrop for Circle events described in Ghost Land.

10. Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) was brought into the circle by John Varley and remained involved with the circle during his brief period at Oxford (1840-42). He remained involved with Orphic Circle figures, particularly Morrison, on his return to England, but was on the periphery of the Circle from 1860 onwards, as his primary interests and social connections lay elsewhere in the esoteric domain (see Richard Monckton Milnes and the Cannibal Club below).

11. Philip Henry Stanhope (1871-1855) was a member of the Circle, through his connections with the Varley family and with Bulwer-Lytton. Stanhope was an unabashed practicing skryer, fond of staging social ʻmorningsʼ in which people -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others -- were introduced to the practice by communing with “the spirits of the sun” as seen in Stanhope’s crystal, and equally fond of ʻoutingʼ prominent figures who were, in private, occult practitioners but who were unwilling to admit such in public. Philip Henry Stanhope, like Hockley, was nomadic, and was of course for some of the period under discussion here in Europe, and thoroughly enmeshed in the Kaspar Hauser scandal*, which is largely what he is remembered for today. Additionally, it seems clear from what information we have about his father Charles Stanhope (1753-1816) that Philip Henry Stanhope’s relationship with the Varleys was one of uneasy intimacy. Samuel Varley (1744-1828) was John Varley the elder’s uncle, and was Charles Stanhope’s partner, for many years, in Stanhope’s various mechanical and chemical pursuits; Samuel Varley was bequeathed [£]1000 pounds and a large body of equipment and instruments in Charles Stanhope’s will; Philip Henry grew up in close proximity to John and Cornelius Varley (1781-1873) on Charles Stanhope’s estate; it may be that John Varley the elder’s father, Richard (?-?), was Philip Henry’s tutor for a time; Philip Henry Stanhope saw the Varleys generally, and Samuel Varley specifically, as a significant financial drain on his inheritance, grumbling at the time his father’s will was proved that he would have been in much better shape, financially, had Samuel Varley not pandered to his father’s weakness for experimentation and invention.​

*See postscript for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

12. Edward Lyman Blanchard (1820-1889), the literary jobber, editor and chronicler, was involved with both the Mercurii (as the editor of various astrological magazines in the 1840s) and the Orphic Circle. 5

13. Sir Charles Wyke 6 (1815-1897) the British diplomat was involved, from time to time, in the activities of the Circle, having been brought into the Circle by Edward Bulwer Lytton, whom he knew in political life. Wyke was outspoken, in his later years, about his involvement with the Circle, and has left us (through third parties) descriptions of what may be the Circle’s practices, in summary fashion at least. 7
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5 E. L. Blanchard was not the only nomadic figure crossing between dramatic and occult circles in this period. Hargrave Jennings, who is cited as a (plagiarized) source of Emmaʼs materials by Olcott and others, was the backstage manager of the Covent Garden theatre for many years. He and Blanchard knew one another. [MJF: John Hargrave Jennings was a Freemason, a friend of Charles Dickens and an historian of the occult. He wrote The Rosicrucians without Change.]

6 Charles Lennox Wyke is a pivotal connective figure in this network, particularly at the open boundary between occult practice and public diplomacy. He knew the Barings [MJF: A major banking and establishment family of the 19th and 20th Centuries], Monckton Milnes, Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, Stanhope and other figures well, as far as I have been able to determine. Aside from his career as a diplomat, little has been written about him and I have been unable to locate his papers. Wyke was, however, in and around London during two periods of a career otherwise spent largely out of the country: 1838-1845, and 1860-1866. Additionally, Wyke is on record as claiming that he was present, with Bulwer Lytton, when Eliphas Levi performed the Ritual of Conjuration to raise Apollonius of Tyana on the roof of the Pantheon department store in London in 1854. This event and Leviʼs time in London more generally are of interest, as we have it on A.E. Waiteʼs authority that Levi was a member of a London based occult circle during this period, was expelled from that circle for revealing its secrets (see, for example, Richard Cavendishʼs The Black Arts, p. 29.), and was initially lured into performing the Rite of Conjuration by an unnamed female “adept” of Bulwer Lytton’s circle. Who might she be?

Quoting from Levi’s Wikipedia entry:

Of his initial experience with British esotericists, in 1854, Levi wrote: "I had undertaken a journey to London, that I might escape from internal disquietude and devote myself, without interruption, to science. [...] They asked me forthwith to work wonders, as if I were a charlatan, and I was somewhat discouraged, for, to speak frankly, far from being inclined to initiate others into the mysteries of Ceremonial Magic, I had shrunk all along from its illusions and weariness. Moreover, such ceremonies necessitated an equipment which would be expensive and hard to collect. I buried myself therefore in the study of the transcendent Kabalah, and troubled no further about English adepts."


It did not take long after his arrival in England, however, before his skills as a reputed magus were earnestly courted; and Levi obliged: An elderly British woman, who, on the agreement to strictest secrecy, "rigorous amongst adepts," provided him with "a complete magical cabinet" containing the necessary paraphernalia to apply his theories to the practice of magic in England.

[Levi] had a deep impact on the magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and later on ex–Golden Dawn member Aleister Crowley.

7 Wykeʼs willingness to discuss his involvement in the Circle, and to subject his subordinates in the diplomatic corps to demonstrations of skyring and other practices makes me hopeful that Wykeʼs papers, if they can be found intact, will contain important material on the Circle, its membership and its practices.
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14. Sir Charles Wyke brought both the Rev. Henry George de Bunsen (1818-1885) and Ernest de Bunsen (1819-1903) into the activities of the Circle, no earlier than mid-1841 (when Ernest de Bunsen was in London on German ecclesiastical business), and more probably in 1842 (when Ernest de Bunsen and Henry George de Bunsen became permanent residents). The de Bunsens were already involved in occult-related studies 8, through their father Christian (1791-1860), scholar, tutor to the family of John Jacob Astor [MJF: The Astors are a prominent Illuminati family with strong ties to the Rothschilds], and diplomat, who was also deeply interested in biblical studies and Egyptology. Henry George was only peripherally involved in occult practices, but Ernest was more deeply involved, and more committed, to occult studies.

15.Ernest de Bunsen 9 and Henry George de Bunsen formed the linkage between the Orphic Circle and the Berlin Brotherhood, directly (both travelled extensively between Great Britain and Germany) and via their brothers who remained in Germany (including in Berlin) and travelled frequently to London. The name “the Berlin Brotherhood” was a pun, as in fact the members (in the real sense) were brothers. [MJF: Hence, we finally find an explanation for “the Berlin Brotherhood”, which Emma Hardinge Britten had spoken of in Ghostlight]

16.Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-1885) was aware of the existence of the Circle, through his close relationships with the de Bunsens, with Burton, and with Bulwer-Lytton, but was not himself a member. Milnes is an important gateway node to other outre social networks of the period, in particular the Cannibal Club circle [MJF: see more on this below], in which later public Masonic and Rosicrucian figures would claim membership.

17. Emma Hardinge Britten (as Emma Floyd) was brought into the Circle as a clairvoyante subject (that is, as a research tool) (a) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton or by John Varley the Elder, (b) by Chauncy Hare Townshend, or (c) by R.J. Morrison. Her introduction occurred in the 1838-1841 period, as Emmaʼs articles to Thomas Welsh expired, and Emma began to transition her career from musical performance to stage acting.​
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8 The von Bunsen clan were also socially intimate with F. D. Maurice (1805-1872), usually pointed to as a [sic] if not the father of Christian Socialism. This open boundary between a crypto-Spiritualist family and the religious and political reform movements of the mid-Victorian period deserves exploration, considering (a) the Owenite influences on both sides of the boundary, as well as (b) the interesting phenomenon of Chartist conversions to Spiritualism, and (c) the plain fact that most of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research were either members of the Apostles at Cambridge, or tutored by Apostles.

9 The de Bunsen (rather than the original von Bunsen) surname is in Ernest and Henry Georgeʼs cases a voluntary adoption, an “Anglicisation” of von Bunsen. Other family members remained von Bunsens.​
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18. If it was Bulwer-Lytton or John Varley the elder who bright Emma into the Circle, that person who met her in the Blessington Circle at Gore House, where her clairvoyance was put on display, or where her clairvoyance was disclosed while she was performing, as a pianist, for the Gore House Circle.

19. If it was Chauncy Hare Townshend who brought Emma into the Circle, he did so after discovering her clairvoyante per se, directly, through Charles Dickens, or through Townshend’s close friend and executor, Thomas Helmore. Emmaʼs clairvoyance was apparently well-known in musical circles, and Thomas Helmore 10 would have known of Emmaʼs clairvoyance through his friendship with Thomas Welsh, Emmaʼs employer.

20. If it was Morrison who brought Emma into the Circle, how he met her is as yet unknown, but it is possible that Morrison met Emma through E. L. Blanchard, who would have known Emma through Emmaʼs magazine work 11 (under the pseudonym Ernest Reinhold).

21. Emma formed several relationships as a result of her membership in the Circle: (a) she was for a period of time a familiar, and perhaps a mistress, of Edward Bulwer Lytton, who may have been the original of the “member of Parliament” for whom Emma claimed to act as “amanuensis” 12 in matters involving “state secrets” ; (b) she was a correspondent of, and possibly for a period of time a mistress of, Charles Dickens, who may be the original of the “baffled sensualist” Emma discusses in her autobiography; (c) she formed a lasting relationship with Ernest de Bunsen, who provided her with material for Art Magic and Ghost Land (at least Volume I).

22. Ernest de Bunsen used Emma to publish his more outre occult research while he -- publicly, and with decidedly minimal success -- attempted to build his career in England as an (unorthodox) scholar of contemporary religion, comparative philology and Oriental studies. He published through Emma largely to protect his public career and persona, which were controversial enough -- his occult research would have buried him as a public intellectual.​
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10 Both were members of the Chapel Royal, which Helmore directed for many years.

11 We believe (but have not substantiated) that Emma wrote for several periodicals, including the Court Gazette, as Ernest Reinhold, in the late 1830s and early 1840s, on dramatic and musical topics. It also appears that E. L. Blanchard published material in the Court Gazette, and -- in any case -- the jobbing journalistic circles of 1840’s London were sufficiently small that it seems highly probable that Blanchard and Emma knew one another.

12. The original of this veiled claim, if it has a basis in fact, could as easily have been Benjamin Disraeli, or for that matter Sir Charles Wyke (if we discard the “member of Parliament” attribute and focus on the “state secrets” assertion) who was a vice-counsel in the English diplomatic corps in 1845, and remained in diplomatic service for the rest of his working life. Wyke was a pronounced Germanophile with connections to the House of Hanover who was known to his intimates from the 1830s onward as “the Baron”.
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23. Emma published de Bunsen to make money (as she thought). She adopted and extended de Bunsenʼs critique of Christianity because it suited her purpose: to establish Modern Spiritualism as a ‘scientific’ religion to replace Protestant Christianity. Louis de B-----, originally a pseudonym for Ernest de Bunsen, became, later in Emmaʼs life, a convenient attribution for her own opinions and positions in situations where she could not legitimately act simultaneously as editor and correspondent.

24.Art Magic is largely the work of Ernest de Bunsen.

25.Ghost Land, Volumes I and II, are largely the work of Emma Hardinge Britten, informed by the work of Ernest de Bunsen, by her experiences as a peripheral member of the Orphic Circle, and by her imagination. This is particularly the case with Ghost Land, Volume II, which should be seen as an example of the latter portion of hypothesis #23.
Commentary

This is a remarkable piece of research in that it exposes a whole plethora of networks involving prominent statesmen, aristocrats, diplomats, writers, artists and other notables who all seem to have been involved in occult or spiritualist practices of one kind or another during the 19th Century, including alchemy. This last arcane, occult art may provide us with a link to the original 17th Century Rosicrucians, many of whom were alchemical practitioners such as John Dee, Sir Francis Bacon, and Thomas Vaughan. Hence, we may be seeing here the preservation of a Rosicrucian tradition that takes us well into the 19th Century. You will notice, however, that nowhere in the above hypothesis is any mention made of Lewis Carroll. In order to find a connection between Carroll and these networks, we need to look more closely at some of the individuals and groups mentioned in Demarest’s hypothesis. I shall start first with the Mercurii Circle, as they seem to have been the forerunners of the Orphic Circle.
The Mercurii Circle

The Society of the Mecurii was an occult magical organisation that operated in London, in the 1830s and was one of the primary groups that launched the occult and astrological revival that has led to the spectacular growth of the occult world in the twentieth century. The first public mention of the society seems to have been an announcement in the 14 August 1824, issue of The Struggling Astrologer, a magazine that had been launched by astrologer Robert Cross Smith (1795-1832), later to become famous under his pen name Raphael. According to the brief statement, the society consisted of some "scientific gentlemen" interested in promoting occult science. In a later issue it was noted that the number of the society were few and select and that their meeting place was secret. It was noted, however, that they wished to publish occult books, and could be contacted through Smith.

Beyond Smith, the exact membership of the society is unknown, but some speculation can be made from knowledge of those who were associated with him. One possible early member was artist Richard Cosway (d. 1821). Above and beyond his art, he gathered a large occult library, lectured on occult topics, and practiced spirit contact via clairvoyance. When he died, Smith came into possession of his library.

The Struggling Astrologer was succeeded by a new periodical in 1825, Urania; or, The Astrologer's Chronicle, and Mystic Magazine, which listed Smith as the editor under the pseudonym "Mecurius Angelicus, Jur." assisted by members of the Mercurii. Like The Struggling Astrologer, Urania lasted only a few issues. However, after it folded Smith published a collection of articles from the two periodicals as a book, The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, described as a compendium of occult materials by members of the Society of the Mercurii.

From the Smith publications, membership of the Mercurii appears to have included: George W. Graham, an alchemist who assisted Smith in setting up his business; John Varley (1778-1842), a noted artist and friend of the artist/poet William Blake and student of astrology; and John Palmer (1807-1837), a young alchemist who wrote for Smith.

During this period of time, the only other significant occult group in England was the circle that had formed around magician Francis Barrett, author of The Magus, a seminal text of magical wisdom that stands at the fountainhead of modern magical practice. The Mercurii apparently dissolved following the death of so many of its members in the 1830s, though given its secretive nature it could easily have survived much longer. [MJF: Given the involvement of Richard (Robert?) Cross Smith and John Varley, one may assume it survived by morphing into the Orphic Circle – see Mark Demarest’s hypothesis 3 above.]​

The Cannibal Club

The Cannibal Club was a Victorian dining club associated with The Anthropological Society of London, most likely founded at the same time in 1863 by Sir Richard Francis Burton and Dr James Hunt. The club met in Bartolini's dining rooms near Fleet Street, London. Its official symbol was a mace carved to look like an African head gnawing on a human thighbone. The club's name is thought to derive from Burton's interest in cannibalism which he regretted that he never witnessed on his travels. Club members included: Richard Monkton Miles, Charles Bradlaugh, Thomas Bendyshe, Algernon Swinburne, Sir James Plaisted Wilde, General Studholme John Hodgson and Charles Duncan Cameron.

As we learned above, Sir Richard Burton was also a member of the Orphic Circle. Although Richard Monckton Milnes was not a member of the Orphic Circle, he had close contacts with Lord Bulwer-Lytton and the de Bunsens who were leading members. As mentioned above, many of the members of the Cannibal Club were also prominent Freemasons and Rosicrucians. Hence, we see again overlapping circles within a wider esoteric network or web.

In his biography of Sir Richard Burton, the writer Dane Kennedy suggests that "the very name of the new club signalled the determination of its organisers to create an atmosphere where subjects deemed deviant by society could receive an open airing" and to liberate its participants from "the sober, 'scientific' etiquette that governed the proceedings of the Anthropological Society."

Burton's brother-in-law and father-in-law attended the club's meetings which he facetiously referred to as "orgies." Kennedy argues that the club's function has been widely misunderstood. The Cannibal Catechism – written by Swinburne for the club – as well as the club's membership, suggest that the dinners served as an opportunity for renowned radicals and social misfits to air their views: "The Cannibal Club was much more than a meeting place for homosocial merriment; it was in fact a venue for venting what were considered at the time subversive opinions about religion, race, sex, and much more."​

Here is one description of the Club’s activities:

On Tuesday nights, in Bertolini's backroom, respected judges and doctors, esteemed lawyers, admired politicians and award-winning poets and writers drank heavily, smoked cigars and secretly discussed what they thought they knew of the British colonies, more specifically polygamy, bestiality, phallic worship, female circumcision, ritual murder, savage fetishes and island cannibalism. The gentlemen would trade in exotic pornography and tales of flogging and prostitution.”

However, the roots of the Cannibal Club lay in the debate between monogenism and polygenism. Monogenists believed that all of humanity shared a common ancestry while Polygenists were convinced that different races of man had different origins [MJF: Something the later Theosophists promoted and, of course, the C’s have averred as being true]. Thus, there was a tension in Victorian England between the creation of a democratic scientific methodology and the elitist attitudes that reinforced Anglo-Saxon superiority. By 1863, this tension drove a wedge between the Polygenist and Monogenist members of the then 20-year-old Ethnological Society of London. Determined to continue advocating their polygenist ideologies, Captain (Sir) Richard Francis Burton and Dr. James Hunt, both members of the Ethnological Society of London, broke away and established The Anthropological Society of London.

From the intellectual ferment of the Anthropological Society's inaugural year grew an even more exclusive and overtly seditious conclave of high-society rebels: a gentlemen's dining group called the Cannibal Club. Though Hunt was the president of the Anthropological Society, Burton, who possessed a Byronic love for shocking people, was to be the mastermind behind the new hush-hush fraternity.

Richard Francis Burton was an experienced geographer and explorer, a writer and translator who spoke 29 languages, a decorated captain in the army of the East India Company and a renowned cartographer. Burton was also considered by some to be a rogue, a murderer, an impostor and betrayer, a sexual deviant, and an heroic boozer and brawler. He was six feet tall (at a time when most Victorian men were little more than five feet six inches tall) with a barrel chest and an imposing scar on his left cheek. He was famous for infiltrating Mecca in 1853, disguised as an Arab merchant and for translating the raw, unexpurgated texts of erotic Eastern literature such as the Kama Sutra and the Arabian Nights. He was presented to Queen Victoria, and he dined with the Prime Minister. When asked by a young vicar if he'd ever killed a man, Burton replied cooly, "Sir, I'm proud to say that I have committed every sin in the Decalogue." Burton was one of Hell's original hounds and the Cannibal Club was his sanctuary.

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Sir Richard Francis Burton
Swineburne, a short and fragile man with a little weasel-like mouth, was perhaps one of the clubs most debauched members. As a suicidal algolagniac, alcoholic and habitué of London's flagellant brothels, Swineburne also contributed to the eminent 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1903 to 1907 and again in 1909. After Swineburne's Catechism was recited, the members would "eat, drink, and let their conversations veer absolutely wherever they wanted", writes Monte Reel in Between Man and Beast. "The members were drawn to one another thanks to a shared hatred for one 'Mrs. Grundy'—a fictional composite who epitomized the tight-laced prudery that threatened to define the era." Mrs. Grundy eventually manifested herself in the Society for the Suppression of Vice and various British obscenity laws [MJF: Mrs. Grundy thus represented the Victorian equivalent of the real-life, late 20th Century British morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse. See: Mary Whitehouse - Wikipedia] Needless to say, no minutes were kept during the meetings.

Cannibal Club members were culture-warriors. They were generally sympathetic to all religions yet loyal to none. They were unapologetic hedonists and scientific racists. They exhibited an unbridled interest in the various expressions of human sexuality and saw sexual repression as a national crisis. Another central figure of the club was Charles Bradlaugh, a political activist, renowned atheist and the founder of the National Secular Society. Bradlaugh was a pamphleteer who openly published information on land reform and birth control. In 1880, when Bradlaugh was elected to Parliament, he refused to take the religious oath—an act for which he was briefly imprisoned in a cell beneath Big Ben. In 1891, his funeral was attended by 3,000 people including a then 21-year-old Mohandas Gandhi.

Another cornerstone of the club was Baron Monckton Milnes, a poet, patron of literature and politician. Milnes' unrivalled private collection of pornography, which was known to few during his lifetime, now sits in the British Library. English author, Jean Overton, contends that Milnes was the author of The Rodiad, an unattributed pornographic poem published in 1871 about a schoolmaster who derives pleasure from flogging young boys. Cannibal Club members truly lived dual lives: honourable gentlemen by day, perverse pleasure-seekers by night [MJF: such hypocritical characters being reflected perhaps in Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic horror story The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - which in popular culture would coin the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde", a phrase used in the vernacular to refer to people with an outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil hidden nature].

But the Cannibal Club, as a furtive extension of The Anthropological Society, had motivations beyond simply rabble-rousing. In Reading Arabia: British Orientalism in the Age of Mass Publication, 1880-1930, author Andrew C. Long writes:​

The Cannibal Club's central activity was the production and distribution of colonialist pornography for their circle and other elite consumers. However — and this is key for the formation of colonial and imperial ideology — they justified their activities as the pursuit of science and art, where pornography, or their pseudoscientific combination of sexology and anthropology, would help to understand better the specific sexual practices and culture in the far-flung reaches of the Empire.”

In the latter half of the 19th century the erotic viewing privileges of the club and its consumers were undermined as British and French companies began to mass-produce pornographic postcards, many of them exploiting colonial imagery much like the Cannibal Club had been doing all along.

The Cannibal Club lasted just a few short years, however. After Hunt's death in 1869 and Burton's international diplomatic services took him abroad, the old gang began to thin out. By the early 1870s, Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), was selling at a rate of 250 copies per month in Britain and his follow-up, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), which focused more on sexual selection and evolutionary ethics, had just hit shelves. Subsequently, the racially motivated polygenist ideology adhered to by The Anthropological Society and, by extension, The Cannibal Club, became passé. In his paper, "The Cannibal Club and the Origins of 19th Century Racism and Pornography" (2002), John Wallen asserts that Burton tried to revive the Cannibal Club sometime in the 1870s without success.

In 1871, the Anthropological Society and the Ethnological Society of London reunited to form The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, which is active to this day, promoting the public understanding of anthropology.

In many ways, one can see some parallels with the earlier Hellfire Club, whose members were also renowned for their debauched behaviour. Today we might view the members of the Cannibal Club as akin to 20th Century “shock jocks” – broadcasters who express opinions in a deliberately offensive or provocative way – except The Cannibal Club were doing it in private.

For more on the Cannibal Club, see Jeff M. Campagna’s 2014 article: The Cannibal Club: Racism and Rabble-Rousing in Victorian England @ The Cannibal Club: Racism and Rabble-Rousing in Victorian England | History| Smithsonian Magazine
Dr James Hunt

However, it is through the Cannibal Club founder Dr James Hunt that we at last find our connection to Lewis Carroll.

James Hunt (1833 – 1869) was an anthropologist and speech therapist in London during the middle of the 19th Century. His clients included Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) who was the author of The Water-Babies, Leo Tennyson (son of the poet laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson), and Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

James Hunt was born in Swanage, Dorset, the son of the speech therapist Thomas Hunt (1802–1851) and his wife Mary. He was trained by his father in the art of curing stuttering by means of breath exercises, muscle control and building the patient's confidence. He bought a doctorate from the University of Giessen in Germany and set up a practice in 1856 in Regent Street, London. He dedicated his first Manual on the subject to Charles Kingsley who spent three weeks with him in 1859. He moved to Hastings where he ran residential courses during the summer season with his sister Elizabeth's husband, Rev. Henry F. Rivers.

In 1854 Hunt joined the Ethnological Society of London because of his interest in racial differences and from 1859 to 1862 was the honorary secretary. However, many members of this society disliked his attacks on humanitarian and missionary societies and the anti-slavery movement. So, in 1863 with the help of the explorer Richard Burton he set up, as we saw, the Anthropological Society of London, becoming its first president.

He established the Anthropological Review as the organ of the Society and by 1867 the membership of the Society had reached 500. However, by 1867 allegations by one of the members Hyde Clarke of financial irregularities in his running of the society caused his temporary resignation as president, though he returned in 1868 when Clarke was expelled. This took a toll on his health and in 1869 he died of an inflammation of the brain. The society shortly afterwards started discussions to merge with the Ethnological Society.

Lewis Carroll came to Hunt because he had a stammer that was said to have affected his job. The 1861 census shows that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was staying at Ore House in 1861 and being treated by Dr. Hunt a psellismollogist. Since Carroll’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865, it is quite possible that some of it was written during his stay with Hunt.

The question we need to ask is did Lewis Carroll turn to Hunt for help through his connections with Orphic Circle members, possibly his fellow novelist Charles Dickens or through Hunt’s Anthropological Society co-founder Sir Richard Burton (N.B. By 1861 though Burton was on the periphery of the Circle)? Could Lewis Carroll himself have been a member or associate of the Orphic Circle? And what of Carroll’s fellow novelist, Charles Kingsley?

Charles Kingsley, an Anglican clergyman, and novelist was a fervent Anglo-Saxonist and was seen as a major proponent of the ideology, particularly in the 1840s. He proposed that the English people were "essentially a Teutonic race, blood-kin to the Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians". Kingsley suggested there was a "strong Norse element in Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism". Curiously, he believed that the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, Norse and Germanic peoples had physically fought beside the god Odin, and that the British monarchy was genetically descended from the god [MJF: “Odin’s children” – which may reflect belief in the existence of a special Nordic (hybrid) bloodline]. One wonders whether he may have obtained these ideas through people like James Hunt and the Cannibal Club and/or the Orphic Circle.

In 1859, Kingsley was appointed chaplain to Queen Victoria and in 1861 he became a private tutor to the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). In 1860, he also became Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. Thus, we can see that he was very much an establishment man. Since they moved in similar circles and were mutual clients of Hunt, it is possible that Lewis Carroll knew his fellow novelist and academic Charles Kingsley. However, there is nothing to suggest that Kingsley was a member of the Orphic Circle or the Cannibal Club (highly unlikely given his standing as a senior Anglican clergyman).

However, it is clear that Kingsley knew Orphic Circle member, fellow novelist and social activist Charles Dickens as he sat on the 1866 Edward Eyre Defence Committee along with Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, John Tyndall, and Alfred Lord Tennyson (MJF: whose son was, like Kingsley, a client of Hunt’s), where he supported Jamaican Governor Edward Eyre’s brutal suppression of the Morant Bay Rebellion against the Jamaica Committee.​

Conclusion

It is noticeable from the above and throughout this article that many famous British writers, authors, novelists, and artists of the Victorian age were connected to social reform movements and to various political causes. Some of them like Carroll and Dickens seem to have been linked to the Orphic Circle, which numbered powerful statesman and aristocrats amongst its ranks. However, there is another far less well known Victorian secret society, which also had an eclectic membership, one which may provide the ultimate link to Lewis Carroll and Alice’s surreal experiences in Through the Looking Glass and one which had deep roots in the 17th Century Rosicrucian movement.​

To be continued
 
Postscript to Dancing in Wonderland

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser


We learned above that Lord Philip Henry Stanhope, a prominent member of the Orphic Circle, became thoroughly enmeshed in the Kaspar Hauser scandal, which is largely what he is remembered for today.

This is a very interesting subject in itself, as it involves the story of a mysterious German youth, Kaspar Hauser, who was found one day in 1828 wandering the streets of Nuremberg in Germany. He claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Although many thought he was a fraud, Lord Stanhope took a great interest in Hauser and gained custody of him late in 1831. He spent a great deal of money attempting to clarify Hauser's origin. In particular, he paid for two visits to Hungary hoping to jog the boy's memory, as Hauser seemed to remember some Hungarian words and had once declared that the Hungarian Countess Maytheny was his mother [MJF: Given the Greys penchant for abducting women and inseminating them, this could have been true]. Stanhope later wrote that the complete failure of these inquiries led him to doubt Hauser's credibility. After Hauser's death in 1833, Stanhope published a book in which he presented all the known evidence against Hauser, taking it as his "duty openly to confess that I had been deceived." However, was Stanhope’s interest piqued by something else? I say this because Morris K Jessup raised the mystery of Kaspar Hauser’s origins in his book The Case for the UFO. Jessup noted that Hauser “suddenly appeared, full grown, at the gates of Nuremberg, but without mentality enough to have arrived there by his own volition. Could he have been dropped by a spaceship?” This elicited the following intriguing comments from the three gypsy commentators who annotated the Varo edition of the book:​

Kaspar & no gravity were a problem, His legs were weak from lack of it. Kaspar could talk a complete language but none of Germany’s best linguists could define it. He did not lack mentality. Worried, Had kids. Spoke good “kraut” after a while.”

Kaspar” was a problem, a result of crossbreeding that for once failed. He had no gills and grew much too large for his old environment. He had to be dumped.”


Thus, Kaspar Hauser seems to have been the result of a genetic crossbreeding programme that went wrong in his case. From other comments that the gypsies made, it would seem that the “L-Ms, or Lemurian-Muanians, or “Little-Men” were responsible for his breeding and subsequent rejection. These Little-Men seem to be what today we call the “Greys” or Zeta Reticulians. They seem to have undersea bases, particularly in the mid-Atlantic where they have a chain of cities. They also seem to have gills and are more at home in water where the effects of Earth’s heavy gravity are neutralised. The C’s told us that the “Grays and Lizards are 4th density. They can "visit" 3rd density, but they must keep returning to 4th in order to "regenerate".” If the gypsies’ LMs are the Greys, then it seems that the Greys find the sea a more friendly environment in which to operate on Earth, as it neutralises the harmful and taxing effects of Earth’s gravity upon their 4th density bodies.

We also learned from the C’s that the Greys have been conducting crossbreeding experiments with humans in the session dated 14 October 1995:​

(L) I want to ask about one thing from the Matrix material. I want to know who and what are the "Esseseni?"

A: Hybrids, new.

Q: (L) They are new hybrids? And what are they a hybridization of? What are the sources of the material for the hybridization?

A: Humans and grays.

Q: (L) Are the Esseseni positively oriented beings, as has been suggested by some?

A: Split.

Q: (T): Some STS, some STO?

A: Yes.


Was Kaspar Hauser an Esseseni hybrid whose genetics went astray or was he an earlier generation of human crossbreed? By all accounts he seemed to be more STO than STS orientated. He evidently adjusted to Earth’s high gravity quickly since, despite what many later accounts would say, he was in good physical condition and could walk well - for example, he climbed over 90 steps to his room. Although he appeared to be intellectually impaired at first, he seemed to possess an excellent memory and could learn quickly. Hauser claimed that the first human being he had ever met was a man who visited him not long before his release from his cell where he was raised. The man took great care not to reveal his face to him (MJF: could this be because he was a Grey?).

Hauser was given into the care of Friedrich Daumer, a schoolmaster and speculative philosopher, who taught him various subjects and who thereby discovered his talent for drawing. He appeared to flourish in this environment. Daumer also subjected him to homeopathy and magnetic experiments. As Feuerbach told the story, "When Professor Daumer held the north pole [of a magnet] towards him, Kaspar put his hand to the pit of his stomach, and, drawing his waistcoat in an outward direction, said that it drew him thus; and that a current of air seemed to proceed from him. The south pole affected him less powerfully; and he said that it blew upon him." This is curious given what the C’s told us about the importance of compass directions and awareness:​

A: Up from you, Terry. Learn direction better, please. Compass awareness is to be vital in the future.

And

Q: (L) So, in other words they didn't zap him, he just lost control. (T) Yeah, he was flying a P 51 Mustang and he went too high. (L) At one point in a previous session, the remark was made when Terry was talking about directions, that knowledge of compass direction was going to become very important in the not too distant future. Could you tell us why this is so?

A: Because you will have increased sensitivity to magnetic influences.

Q: (L) So, in other words your comment was not that we needed to learn this but that this would become important because our sensitivity would increase?

A: Both.

Q: (L) Does our learning of compass directions act to increase our sensitivity?

A: Catch 22.

Q: (T) It is a contradiction. In the book: You have to keep flying the bombing missions because we don't have enough people to win the war, but we won't let you fly if you are crazy because we can't have a crazy person in the airplane with all those bombs. But, the doctor can't determine that you are crazy, you have to say that you are crazy so that the doctor can sign the papers, but if you say that you are crazy then the doctor can't sign the papers because one indication of sanity is to know that you are crazy, therefore you have to fly. (F) It's a no-win situation. (J) Does it have anything to do with the fact that when we move to 4th density we will lose the physicality we use to navigate with now?

A: One half of equation.

Q: (T) Okay, we have the ability to tell direction because of our physicality which will increase to the point where we will be able to sense direction when we don't need direction because we won't be physical?

A: Close.

Q: (T) That is the Catch-22. You will have the great direction sense when you don't need it.

A: You will have variable physicality.


Perhaps Hauser was demonstrating this sensitivity to magnetic influences to Friedrich Daumer through his actions.

The C’s have told us that the Greys are Orion cybergenetic time travellers, and are robotic beings (Q: (L) What do the robots look like? A: Grays). The C’s have also told us that the Greys feed on blood plasma rather than human emotions when at 3rd density level - transmitting our emotional energy to their Reptilian overlords and creators by the use of technology.

It also seems that the LMs have been at war intermittently over aeons of time with the “S-Men” (Secret Order members) and these wars have been waged both on Earth and out in space. This suggests that the S-Men are not Reptilians (the Greys’ overlords) but are Orion 4th density humanoids and/or bi-density humans. According to the gypsies, the LMs also seem to have been connected to the ancient civilisations of Mu and Lemuria (sunken continents) and were the builders of a massive fortress at Sacsayhuaman in Peru before abandoning it to go underseas. The three gypsies appeared to enjoy a love hate relationship with the L-Ms since they said at one point in response to Jessup stating that the open seas provide an easy catching place [for the aliens]: “Ought to, the sea is the natural home of the little bastards.” The gypsies also mentioned that the L-Ms had an underground base on the Moon. The C’s confirmed this statement in the session dated 4 March 1995:​

Q: (T) Are there 4th density beings?

A: Yes.

Q: (T) Are they Grays?/

A: They don't inhabit the Moon, they just use it.


The gypsies also confirmed that the L-Ms journey to Venus (where the Ra channel was based) and other planets. More disturbingly, they stated that the L-Ms and the S-Ms have fought each other using small asteroids.

However, for present purposes, one has to wonder whether Lord Stanhope may have had some prior inkling of this and had wanted to quiz Kaspar Hauser to see what he could learn from him. If so, could Stanhope have previously learned of the LMs (Greys), the S-Men and their machinations etc. through his communing with the “spirits of the sun” via his special crystal in a similar manner to the way in which Dr John Dee had communicated with his [STS and STO] angels by means of his special stone crystal and Edward Kelley’s psychic abilities?

The Claude glass, a device consisting of a black glass mirror [MJF: think here of a Psychomantium] stored in a sharkskin case, is thought to have once belonged to John Dee. A Claude glass was normally used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape. It is named after the artist Claude Lorrain (1600–1682), a 17th Century landscape painter whose name is synonymous with the artistic movement. It is believed that Dee used his Claude glass [MJF: the concept of this glass must have predated Lorrain as he wasn’t even born when Dee was practising divination] as a crystal ball (see image below) to look into the future, a practice known as scrying and a form of divination. According to museum documentation records, the object had belonged to Lady Betty Germaine [MJF: See more below on her], from whom it passed to the Duke of Argyll and later to Horace Walpole (1717 - 1797) who was the son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole. The documentation records show that the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, now the Wellcome Trust, acquired the object for their collection in 1937.
1688128348982.png

1688128378730.png
Claude glass, believed to be John Dee’s scrying mirror. Europe, undated. Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images
John Dee’s crystal is a clear-cut purple crystal attached to a chain and ring. Dee claimed that the crystal was given to him by angel Uriel in 1582 who instructed him and his assistant Edward Kelley (1555–1597/8) on how to make the philosophers stone, every alchemist’s ultimate goal. He believed that he had an ability to contact angels and spirits and claimed that angels had dictated several books to him. This crystal was passed down to Dee’s son, Arthur Dee (1597–1651), who gave it to Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) as a reward for curing his liver illness. Culpeper was a physician and an alchemist who used it to cure illnesses until 1651, when he claimed a demonic ghost emerged from it.​

See: The mystical objects of John Dee | RCP London

Let us also not forget that Laura and co. have also learned of such things from the Cassiopaeans via a Ouija board and Frank’s psychic powers (originally). Moreover, Lord Stanhope knew Lord Bulwer-Lytton very well, being fellow members of the Orphic Circle. Bulwer-Lytton would later that same century write a book about a golden race of telepathic beings who lived in a subterranean world and had mastered the mysterious Vril power. Could Bulwer-Lytton similarly have learned of the Nation of the Third Eye through sessions with Stanhope’s crystal or by later scrying sessions held at Craven Cottage using Frederick Hockley’s sacred mirrors and Emma Hardinge Britten’s powers of clairvoyancy?

So, are we seeing a continuing Rosicrucian tradition of using special crystals or sacred mirrors and scryers/mediums like Edward Kelley and Emma Hardinge Britten to divine the future, which runs through John Dee, Frederick Hockley, Lord Philip Henry Stanhope and Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton to name but a few?
Lady Betty Germaine

The reference to Lady Betty Germaine is also very intriguing since it may create yet another reference to the C’s enigmatic statement “it is not germaine”, which first appeared in the session dated 7 June 1997:​

Q: You guys are TOO MUCH! Next: Cayce remarked in one of his vague dissertations - and for those who accuse the C's of being vague, they ought to read Cayce, since he was a MASTER of vague! He could talk for pages and say NOTHING! - anyway he said that there were a lot of Atlanteans incarnating between the years 1909 and 1930. He described them as having strong minds and emotions as well as an 'engorgement' of carnal influences, self-indulgence and high technical ability. He also warned that there was the possibility repeating the errors of the past. Now, these are the people who have set up the world as we have it today. My question is: are we facing a replay of the Atlantean situation, in karmic terms?

A: Well, these cycles do replay from an energy standpoint, but there is always the opportunity to learn and thusly, to advance. Was not his proclamation for those born between 1909 and 1930?? And, if so, what is the significance of when it was delivered, if the orientation was one of the "present" tense?

Q: So, it was possible that he was referring to the Hitler, WWII situation.

A: Or just not referring to those of a later "date" because it was not germaine? {Seems to be a deliberate misspelling of “germane”)


Then again in the session dated 12 December 1998:


Q: Well, while we are on the subject of spelling, you DO use unusual spelling from time to time, though normally you are very good spellers. What rules direct your spelling since it is not always according to modern usage?

A: No rules, just clues, as allways.
[MJF: Note the deliberate misspelling of the word “always” that may suggest a pre-19th Century reference is intended here prior to the standardisation of English spellings]

Q: Does this refer also to the way you spell 'germain'? When you say 'it is not germain,' you spell it differently from the way someone would spell it if just saying that something is not relevant.

A: Tis French, as in clue to be.


And finally in the session dated 2 January 1999:

Q: On a couple of occasions when you have made the remark ‘it is not germaine,’ using that peculiar spelling, did you mean that it was not only NOT German, but also NOT French?

A: Maybe.


As I wrote in my earlier article ‘It is not Germaine’:

The first thing to note is that the C’s are saying this is a French term and is a clue for the future. However, they also use the word “Tis”, which is old English for “this is”, suggesting an English or British connection. I subsequently noted that King James II of Great Britain and Ireland, after he had been deposed by his daughter Mary and son-in-law William of Orange established his court in exile at St Germain near to Paris. Perhaps this is what the C’s had in mind since you have a French location linked to a British monarch.

The name “Germain” is also connected with the famous alchemist and gentleman fraudster known as Count Saint-Germain, who was one of the strangest and most enigmatic of men in modern history.​

[…]

The legitimate Rosicrucian Grand Mastership of St. Germain was inherent in the 1688 exile of Stuart Household Orders to France. King James II subsequently constituted the Noble Order of the Guard of St. Germain in Paris on 18th June 1692. The Heredom of Killwinning and the Knight of the Rosy Cross exist today within the Royal Order of Scotland. Although the Order incongruously made its first public appearance at an ale house in London in 1730, a charter was eventually granted for an affiliated lodge at the Hague, although this was implemented instead in Edinburgh in 1753. It subsequently became the Grand Lodge of the Order in July 1776. The King of Scots was henceforth deemed to be the hereditary Grand Master and his seat (draped in a purple robe and bearing a replica of the crown of James IV of Scotland) has since been held vacant at all meetings.

If this is true, the question arises, therefore, why Count St. Germain in the 18th century assumed a name and title that rightfully belonged to the Stuart Princes - James and Charles Edward respectively - as the legitimate claimants to the throne of Scotland? This is even more confused by the fact that there is good reason to believe that the strange and colourful individual who went by the name Count Saint-Germain was in fact a Jacobite spy acting for Bonny Prince Charlie who would get himself arrested in London but amazingly talk his way out of prison. In the capacity of an agent, could the Count have been involved in another even more portentous event that took place on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in 1776 at the same time the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland was formally being established? Just who was the man who called himself the Count Saint-Germain?

However, it was the same Horace Walpole who had inherited John Dee’s famous mirror from the Duke of Argyll, who had obtained it from its previous owner Lady Betty Germaine, that Laura would quote on the arrest of the mysterious Count Saint-Germain:

“In November of that year [1745], one Frenchman was arrested and accused of having pro-Jacobite letters in his possession. He became very indignant and claimed that the correspondence had been “planted” on him. Considering the mood of the time, it is quite surprising that he was believed and released!

Horace Walpole, English author and Member of Parliament, wrote a letter about this incident to Sir Horace Mann on December 9, 1745, saying:

“The other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name of Count Saint-Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings and plays on the violin wonderfully, is mad and not very sensible.” [MJF: Could he have cultivated this image of being an eccentric and a dandy, a French version of the Scarlet Pimpernel, to lull people into believing he was just a suave talking buffoon?]”

[…]

Pretty soon the Count had Louis XV and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, eating out of his hand, and it certainly COULD be true that he was a French spy in England when he was arrested there, because he later did handle some sticky business for the credulous king of France.

In 1760, Louis sent Saint-Germain to the Hague as his personal representative to arrange a loan with Austria that was supposed to help finance the Seven Years War against England. But, while in Holland, the Count had a falling out with his friend Casanova, who was also a diplomat at the Hague. Casanova tried hard to discredit Saint-Germain in public, but without success. One has to wonder just what it was that Casanova discovered or came to think about Saint-Germain at this time.

In any event, Saint-Germain was making other enemies. One of these enemies was the Duc de Choiseul, King Louis’ Foreign Minister. The Duc discovered that Saint-Germain had been scoping out the possibilities of arranging a peace between England and France. Now, that doesn’t sound like a bad plan at all, but the Duc managed to convince the King that this was a dire betrayal, and the Count had to flee to England and then back to Holland.

This last reference to Saint-Germain fleeing to England suggests that he had friends and allies there, especially as he had previously been arrested in London in 1745 with pro-Jacobite letters on his person, which were highly incriminating at the time of the Jacobite rising, yet he was still released. Were these friends and allies fellow Rosicrucians perhaps?

Is it just coincidence that Count Saint-Germain shared a very similar name to Lady Betty Germaine? Were the C’s trying to draw our attention to this Lady? If so, who was Lady Betty Germaine?​

Lady Betty’s History

Lady Elizabeth "Betty" Germain (1680 –1769) was a wealthy English aristocrat and courtier, a philanthropist and collector of antiquities, who corresponded with literary and political figures.

Lady Elizabeth "Betty" Germain, née Berkeley, was the second daughter of Charles Berkely, 2nd Earl of Berkely and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden. In 1738, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough wrote of her that "notwithstanding the great pride of the Berkely family she married an innkeeper's son," and maliciously adds in explanation that "she was very ugly, without a portion, and in her youth had an unlucky accident with one of her father's servants." The so-called innkeeper's son was Sir John Germain, 1st Baronet (1650–1718), who was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of William II, Prince of Orange and accordingly half-brother of King William III. Lady Betty met Germain at the Hot Wells, Bristol, and they were shortly thereafter married in October 1706. He was a recent widower, having first married Mary Mordaunt, Baroness Mordaunt, only child and heiress of the 2nd Earl of Peterborough, after her first husband, Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk had divorced her in 1700 over her love affair with Germain. Betty was thirty years younger than her husband, but her good sense made their union happy.

They had three children, two boys and a girl, all of whom died young. Though almost persuaded in later years to marry Lord Sidney Beauclerk, a handsome and worthless fortune-hunter, she remained a widow for more than fifty years. Lady Betty passed most of her widowhood in her own apartments at Knole (a country house and former archbishop’s palace), near Sevenoaks in Kent, the seat of her friends the Duke and Duchess of Dorset, or at her London town house in St. James Square (at its time, one of the most fashionable streets in Georgian London) where she entertained politicians regardless of party or faction. Horace Walpole paid a visit to her main seat at Drayton in 1763, and found the house "covered with portraits, crammed with old china". This suggests he may have known her personally. Indeed, the connection may have come through Lady Betty’s sister-in-law and great friend, Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk (the long-term mistress of King George II) who after being widowed, married George Berkeley the amiable brother of Lady Betty in 1735. When George Berkeley died in 1746, Henrietta found the arrival of her new neighbour Horace Walpole in 1747 helped to lift her spirits. Walpole bought a small cottage in Strawberry Hill and set about transforming it into a fantasy Gothic castle. He was introduced to Henrietta by mutual acquaintances and the pair became friends at once. Thus, it was likely that he knew Lady Betty through his close acquaintance with her sister-in-law Henrietta Howard. Although ownership of John Dee’s special scrying mirror would pass on Lady Betty’s death to the Duke of Argyll, it would subsequently come into the possession of Horace Walpole.

As to the identity of Duke of Argyll, there are two candidates for the duke who may have been bequeathed the mirror after Lady Betty’s death. The first is General John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll (c. 1693 – 9 November 1770), who was a senior British Army officer and Scottish Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1713 and 1761. Lady Betty favoured Whig politicians and may have entertained him at one of her numerous social functions and soirees at her house in St. James Square, London. Curiously, on 12 July 1746 Campbell would be the questioner of the heroic Jacobite figure Flora MacDonald famed for her role in aiding Prince Charles Edward Stuart to escape to the island of Skye and produced a written document of Flora's confessions. However, he died within a year of Lady Betty’s death, so this could rule him out as the beneficiary of the mirror. He was succeeded by his son Field Marshal John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll (1723 – 1806), who was styled Marquess of Lorne from 1761 to 1770. He was a Scottish soldier and nobleman. He commanded a regiment in Scotland where he opposed the Jacobite rebels at Loch Fyne at an early stage of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and went on to fight against them at the Battle of Falkirk Muir and then at the fateful Battle of Culloden. Since a titled aristocrat would normally pass anything of value on to his son and heir, it would seem likely that it was the 4th Duke of Argyll who transferred the mirror to Horace Walpole perhaps because he had no use for it and Walpole had expressed an interest in it. Since Walpole died nine years before the death of the 5th Duke of Argyll, he certainly could not have inherited it upon the death of the 5th Duke. This makes me wonder whether Walpole had been made aware of its infamous former owner and its special powers.​

Conclusion

Hence, we have a strange divinatory mirror owned by John Dee (which may have come from Peru and been a gift from King Phillip II of Spain for Dee acting as his astrologer) through which he contacted angels that was inherited somehow by Lady Betty Germain who had married Sir John Germain, the possible illegitimate brother of King William of Orange, who had toppled Stuart King James II of Great Britain from his throne, who then went into exile at the Château de Saint Germain-en-Laye near Paris, where he constituted the Rosicrucian Noble Order of the Guard of St. Germain on 18th June 1692, whose grandson, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, would then lead a disastrous rebellion to recapture the throne in 1745 aided and abetted by a Jacobite spy, the mysterious alchemist Comte de Saint Germain*, whose arrest in 1745 was commented on by Sir Horace Walpole, who would inherit Dee’s mirror from the Duke of Argyll who had inherited it from lady Betty, the same Duke of Argyll would be the questioner of the Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald who aided Prince Charles Edward Stuart in his escape to the island of Skye. Talk about a game of consequences.​

*Fraud or not, the C’s confirmed that, as an alchemist, the Count did have the ability to transmute base metal into gold:

Q: (L) Comte St.Germain claimed to be able to transmute lead into gold. Was this true?
A: Yes


When it comes to the term “Germain”, could it be the Rosicrucians who are the common denominator or link between the disparate things I have mentioned above? There is good reason to suspect that John Dee, King James II (and his brother Charles II who founded the Royal Society out of the Rosicrucian Invisible College), and the Comte de Saint Germain were all Rosicrucians. Moreover, as I have mentioned before, there is reason to believe that the Comte de Saint Germain was Manly P Hall’s (the author of The Secret Destiny of America) mysterious vegetarian and Rosicrucian philosopher, who was a friend and teacher of US founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, as well as being the old Professor whose speech electrified the Continental Congress held on 4th July 1776 at the old State House in Philadelphia, which led to the delegates signing the US Declaration of Independence?​
 
Dancing in Wonderland

The C’s have made a few references to “Wonderland” in the transcripts. They never mention anything without good reason, so there must be some motive behind their references to this term. The first reference came in the session dated 28 December 1994:​

Q: Hello.

A: Hello.
Wonderland.

Q: (L) What does “Wonderland” have to do with anything?

A: It just popped to mind.


As I said above, the C’s seldom say anything without a purpose behind it, so this reference to “Wonderland”, which appears to come out of the blue and takes Laura by surprise, must have been made with an ulterior motive in mind, one which may have been intended to take on greater significance later.

If you mention the term “Wonderland” to a person in the English-speaking world, they will immediately think of the classic Childrens’ story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland written by the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known to history as Lewis Carroll. The C’s would next mention “Wonderland” in the session dated 13 June 1998:​

A: Yes, thank you Arkadiusz!!!! Laura is dancing around in wonderland, meanwhile all of creation, of existence, is contained in 1, 2, 3!!! Look for this when you are trying to find the keys to the hidden secrets of all existence... They dwell within. 11, 22, 33, 1/2, 1/3, 1, 2, 3, 121, 11, 111, 222, 333, and so on! Get it?!?!

However, the C’s have also referred to “dancing” elsewhere including the session dated 28 November 1998:

A: Ever feel as if you are dancing around in circles?

[…]

Q: (L) You say I am dancing around in circles...

A: We are saying, as always, pay attention to the words.

As I have mentioned before, this reference to dancing around in circles may have been to the Megalithic stone circle at Stonehenge in England where the god Phoebus Apollo danced all night every 19 years (a reference to the 18.6-year Metatonic Cycle of the Moon). However, the C’s also cautioned Laura to pay attention to their words. Since the C’s response here was given in part to comments Laura had made about Abbé Berenger Saunière, the priest at the heart of the Rennes-le-Château mystery, knowing now that he was a Martinist Rosicrucian with links to the shadowy secret society the Hieron du Val d’Or, we may also take it that the C’s were referring to the world of secret societies and the ‘circles within circles’ concept discussed in my previous article, which can be summed up by the C’s statement made in connection with the Rosicrucians: “What a tangled web we spin, when we must not let you in”. And, of course, spiders spin circular webs do they not.

This take on the C’s statement about the Rosicrucians being at the centre of a web may find further support in an earlier reference to a web of intrigue in the session dated 31 December 1994 where the C’s explained the predicament of Al Bielek a US Government whistleblower on the Philadelphia Experiment:​

Q: (T) Does Al know that he is giving out false information... does he know that the information the government is giving him is false?

A: He is so involved you would not believe.

Q: (T) He is involved with the government cover-up?

A: With all of it. He knows that what he is saying is false but he has no choice because he is entangled in the web. They are using him.


The concept of an incredibly complex web was also brought up by Laura in the session dated 21 May 1997:

Q: Okay. So, then I had the thought that 'Percy' was the centre of an incredibly complex web. It was like what you had described for me before: mosaic consciousness. I could see connections no matter which way I looked. I mean, literally everything connects... alchemy, Rosicrucians, Masons, physics, genetics, eschatology, Cassiopaea, prime numbers, Medusa, Perseus... I mean, it is the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life...

A: So far...

Q: Okay. But, that led to the idea of the universe being like a sort of spider web, with the spider being at the centre... kind of an expanded and more complex 'perpendicular reality' idea. All the levels connected by the threads, or conduits... the gravity binder from the spider in the centre... am I onto something here?

A: Stay tuned...


However, the mention of a 'perpendicular reality' leads us back to Lewis Carroll again and to his famous work Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its equally famous sequel Through the Looking Glass, both of which are surreal fantasies that can be viewed thus as depicting perpendicular realities (N.B. indeed the term “looking glass” has frequently been used in connection with the nefarious world of spying – see novelist John le Carré’s 1965 book The Looking Glass War for example – the author was himself an MI5 and MI6 agent). Indeed, Through the Looking Glass has also been the subject of comments made by the C’s, first in the session dated 18 July 1998:​

A: You are dancing on the 3rd density ballroom floor.“AK likes to go through the looking glass” at the Crystal Palace. Atlantean reincarnation surge brings on the urge to have a repeat performance.

Here we see a reference both to “dancing” and going through “the looking glass”. The connection between going through the looking glass and entering a 'perpendicular reality' was picked up again in the session dated 25 July 1998:

Q: Well you once said something about the transition to 4th density creating a ‘level playing field’. Then the people will wake up and there will be a battle between the humans and aliens.
A: Yes.


[…]

Q: You say knowledge protects. It protects against WHAT?

A: Many things. One example: post transformational trauma and confusion.

Q: So knowledge is going to protect us against post transformational trauma and confusion. You are saying that this transition to 4th density is going to be traumatic and confusing. Do you mean transformation from 3rd to 4th density, or 3rd to 5th density, i.e., death?


A: Both.

Q: So, if one does not have the shock and trauma and the confusion and so forth, one is then able to function better?

A: Yes.

Q: Well if a person transitions directly from 3rd to 5th density via dying, that implies that persons can transition directly from 3rd to 4th density without dying. Is that correct?

A: Yes.

Q: How does that feel? How is that experience …

A: AK through the looking glass


Thus, we see the C’s telling us above that going from 3rd density to 4th density in the body is akin to what Alice experienced when she went through the looking glass. Describing 4th density as a 'perpendicular reality' may connect us to the application of mathematics to the density levels and what the C’s had said about Laura dancing around in Wonderland: “Laura is dancing around in wonderland, meanwhile all of creation, of existence, is contained in 1, 2, 3!!!”

This last point may be picked-up on where Laura was describing her understanding of dimensions in the session dated 7 January 1995:​

Q: (L) Well, I would imagine so. Now, if a line is defined as the movement of a point in a single direction, and a plane is defined as a line moving at right angles to itself, and the 3rd dimension is defined as a plane moving at right angles to itself, and the 4th dimension is defined as a three dimensional object moving at right angles to itself*, then what we are talking about in 4th density, something that we simply cannot grasp. If we look at a 3 D apple, we are only seeing a slice, so to speak, of a 4th dimensional object. If we could see the apple in its true, 4th dimensional state, we would see something, probably more like a long, red tubular type thing that goes onto infinity. Is this a correct assessment?

*What Laura is describing above links with the famous Pythagorean Tetractys, which was a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row, which is the geometrical representation of the fourth triangular number. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the secret worship of the Pythagoreans. Initiates were required to swear a secret oath by the Tetractys.


  1. The first four numbers symbolize the musica universalis and the Cosmos as:
    1. (1) Unity (Monad)
    2. (2) Dyad – Power – Limit/Unlimited (peras/apeiron)
    3. (3) Harmony (Triad)
    4. (4) Kosmos (Tetrad)
  2. The four rows add up to ten, which was unity of a higher order (The Dekad).
  3. The Tetractys symbolizes the four classical elementsair, fire, water, and earth.
  4. The Tetractys represented the organization of space:
    1. the first row represented zero dimensions (a point)
    2. the second row represented one dimension (a line of two points)
    3. the third row represented two dimensions (a plane defined by a triangle of three points)
    4. the fourth row represented three dimensions (a tetrahedron defined by four points).
The Tetractys is also linked with the Kabbalist symbol of the Tetragrammaton. A Hebrew tetractys has the letters of the Tetragrammaton inscribed on the ten positions of the tetractys, from right to left. A tetractys of the letters of the Tetragrammaton adds up to 72 by gematria (that special number again!).
In mentioning all this, we must bear in mind that Lewis Carroll was a top-notch mathematician in the mid-19th Century and both his works contain allegorical references to several controversial mathematical issues of the time (including James Clerk Maxwell’s use of quaternions). Many believe he encoded hidden mathematical messages in his works for those capable of discerning them. For more on the hidden mathematical aspects of Alice in Wonderland see: Opinion | Algebra in Wonderland - The New York Times (nytimes.com) by Melanie Bayley.

Carroll's works are laced with esoteric information that may have been an attempt by him at a deliberate disclosure of long held Rosicrucian secret knowledge for those capable of understanding it. For more on this esoteric theme see Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: An Esoteric Journey – Nifty Buckles. Quoting from that article:​

[In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland one of the principal characters,] the White Rabbit, symbolises purity, spiritual enlightenment. The White Rabbit is in esoteric terms a shamanic guide who journeys between worlds such as the Earth, underground and heavens. The Rabbit leads the seeker into multiple worlds or realities to reveal truths of the universe and the seeker’s true self. [However,] the White rabbit is also about time and out of time racing in and out of seven dimensions (densities). The Book of Enoch mentions seven heavens. Time may not be linear like we have been taught, go ask the rabbit. It may represent our souls passing through different worlds being recycled and experiencing amnesia of past lives. Alice asksWho am I?

That black and white swirly tunnel that leads to Wonderland may represent our subconscious or a portal to other dimensions, or maybe a stargate? There are many references to time in the novel. This story may hint towards a tribute to time, Chronos the Greek deity the personification of time.


Tweedledee and Tweedledum

If Lewis was describing the concept of a portal or stargate in the black and white swirly tunnel, this may tie in with comments the C’s made in connection with Lewis’s book Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There:​

Session 22 June 1996:

A: Slowly, but surely. Now, get ready for a message: We have told you before that the upcoming "changes" relate to the spiritual and awareness factors rather than the much publicized physical. Symbolism is always a necessary tool in teaching. But, the trick is to read the hidden lessons represented by the symbology, not to get hung up on the literal meanings of the symbols!

[…]

Q: (F) Well, they mentioned twice to be careful about putting in the designated quotes. (L) One of the crop circles you interpreted was an "astronomical twin phenomenon." What is an astronomical twin phenomenon?

A: Many perfectly synchronous meanings.

Q: (L) Synchronicity is involved. Does this have something to do with "image?"

A:
Duplicity of, as in "Alice through the looking glass."*

Q: (L) Double images. Does this relate to matter and antimatter?

A: Yes, and...


The peculiar identical twins Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum are characters best known from Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass. The names have become synonymous in western popular culture as slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical [MJF: As an identical twin myself, my brother and I have often been called Tweedledee and Tweedledum]. As two double images, they may be a possible reflection of the matter/antimatter universes which the C’s are describing here.

Common versions of the Tweedledee and Tweedledum nursery rhyme include:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee


Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee


Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,


As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,


They quite forgot their quarrel.

In the book, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, after quoting the above nursery rhyme, go on to enact it. They agree to have a battle, but never have one. When they see a monstrous black crow swooping down, they take to their heels. The Tweedle brothers never contradict each other, even when one of them, according to the rhyme, "agrees to have a battle". Rather, they complement each other's words, which led John Tenniel to portray them as twins in his illustrations for the book (see below). This leads me to wonder whether Carroll through the characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum may have had some notion of the matter and antimatter universes through his connection to the Orphic Circle.
Q: (L) Gravity and manifesting on one side and manifesting a mirror image on the other...

A: Yes, and...

Q: (L) And images of 4th density bodies with tenuous fibers connecting to DNA as in manifesting imaginal bodies on 4th density?

A: Astronomical.

Q: (L) Okay, that relates to stars and planets... astronomical in terms of another universe, an alternate universe composed of antimatter?

A: Yes, and....

Q: (L) And is this alternate universe going to merge with our universe...

A: No.

Q: (L) Is this alternate universe of antimatter the point from which phenomena occur or are manifested in our universe?

A: More like doorway or "conduit."
[MJF: A doorway is, of course, also a portal. Let us recall here that the Greek goddess Hecate or Roman Trivia, who I have linked with Helle, Bridget and Meritaten/Hagar was a goddess of doorways.]

Q: (L) Is this alternate universe the means by which we must travel to 4th density? Is it like a veil, or an abyss of some sort?

A: Think of it as the highway.


As the C’s once said, under the guise of fiction the deepest truths can be delivered. Could this be true of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Perhaps we should start a thread on these two surreal works to study all the allegorical references in them in the light of what the C’s have told us?
Lewis Carroll and Circles within Circles

Lewis Carroll was not just a leading mathematician but a photographer, inventor, and Anglican Church deacon too. He was a first-rate scholar and had a long-term link with Christ Church College Oxford where he taught for many years and became the sub-librarian of the college library (which obviously gave him access to a wealth of academic resources).

Carroll moved in various social circles including the Pre-Raphaelite art movement headed by John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research. What most biographies seem to leave out though is that he was also involved with the Theosophy movement, which brought him into contact with the likes of Annie Bessant, Madam Helena Blavatsky (the author of 'The Secret Doctrine') and the Rosicrucian Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (the author of ‘Vril: 'The Coming Race', a book that introduced the concept of Vril energy that would later inspire the Nazis via the Thule Society. Indeed, some even think Carroll was a Rosicrucian himself.

However, it is two secret societies that Carroll seems to have been associated with that I would particularly like to concentrate on in this article. The first is the Orphic Circle, which I have written about before but would now like to add new material - which I hope will help to prove the link with Lewis Carroll. The other is an extremely obscure Victorian secret society that I will deal with in the second part of this article.​

The Orphic Circle and Emma Hardinge Britten

There is not a great deal of information around on the Orphic Circle, who no doubt took their name from “Orphism”, the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who famously descended into the Greek underworld and returned [MJF: whose head was famously cut off but continued singing whilst it travelled downstream – shades of the talking head of Bran and thus perhaps an oblique reference to the Grail]. Orpheus can in turn be linked to Dionysus (who also descended into the Underworld and returned) and Persephone (who annually descended into the Underworld for a season and then returned). However, Orpheus was in fact more closely associated with the god Apollo than to Dionysus in the earliest sources and iconography. This may make for an interesting British connection to Stonehenge and Phoebus Apollo, the deity who would dance there all night every 19 years. Much of what we know about the Victorian Orphic Circle comes from the writings of Emma Hardinge Britten who wrote about them in her biography called Ghostlight. For those who are not familiar with her, I present below a potted history of her life.

Emma Hardinge Britten (2 May 1823 – 2 October 1899), whose real name was Emma Floyd, was a skilled trance medium, so much so that Madam Blavatsky thought she was the best that she had ever seen. The two women were well acquainted and Britten, who would go on to become one of the leading spiritualist advocates and practitioners of the 19th century, would be heavily involved with the Theosophists in the early days of that movement until she fell out with Blavatsky and subsequently broke off all links. Britten was a writer, orator and spiritualist who would even have an influence on Abraham Lincoln’s presidential re-election in 1864 (via her ‘Coming Man or the ‘Next President of the United States’ speech). However, in her youth she had been an accomplished actress, singer and musician who performed on the West End stage in London. She was therefore already well known in London circles before she became a leading advocate for the spiritualist movement. It is her prowess as a medium though that first brought her to the attention of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the Orphic Circle.
View attachment 77038
Emma Hardinge Britten taken by William H. Mumler
She developed a reputation for her abilities as a spiritual or trance medium/clairvoyant during her early years, which is what may have brought her to the attention of the Orphic Circle. To make this link, I set out below extracts from an article written by David Charles Manners in 2017, which describes his ancestor, Charles Thomas Pearce’s involvement with the Orphic Circle and names Edward Bulwer-Lytton as a member, as well as quoting Britten directly.​

Although she does not name them specifically, Britten had this to say about the Orphic Circle in 1887:

“When quite young, in fact, before I had attained my thirteenth year, I became acquainted with certain parties who sought me out and professed a desire to observe the somnambulic faculties for which I was then remarkable. I found my new associates to be ladies and gentlemen, mostly persons of noble rank, and during a period of several years, I, and many other young persons, assisted at their sessions in the quality of somnambulists, or mesmeric subjects....

I should have known but little of its principles and practices, as I was simply what I should now call
a clairvoyant, sought out by the society for my gifts in this direction, had I not, in later years, been instructed in the fundamentals of the society by the author of ‘Art Magic’. When modern spiritualism dawned upon the world, for special reasons of my own, the fellows of my society gave me an honorary release from every obligation I had entered into with them except in the matter of secrecy. On that point I can never be released and never seek to be; but in respect to the statements I am about to make, my former associates . . . not only sanction, but command me to present to the candid enquirer [. . . the substance of the article to which these two paragraphs are an introduction.”


She subsequently added:

‘[They] claimed an affiliation with societies derived from the ancient mysteries of Egypt, Greece and Judaea’, whose ‘beliefs and practices had been concealed from the vulgar by cabalistic methods.

Indeed, it is in Britten’s writings and those of her mysterious friend Chevalier Louis de B_ (the author of ‘Magic Art’ and ‘Ghostland’) that we find almost everything that is now known about this society. Manners also quotes Louis de B in his article:

These initiates considered themselves ‘magians’, a term for Zoroastrian priests with ‘supernatural’ powers, though their methods were said to have been ‘inspired by far loftier aims and regulated by much more pious aspirations than those of most other English magicians [‘Louis de B’].”

So, who was this Louis de B? In 1875, Emma Britten made this statement:


In 1850 Emma Hardinge [Britten], then a resident of London, England, learned from two German gentlemen of her acquaintance some remarkable details of a society which held its sessions at Hamburgh and Berlin, the chief object of which was the study and development of the occult forces latent in Nature ...

. . . Emma Hardinge‘s friends were professed materialists, and, being officers in the Prussian Army, men of culture and ability, they were accustomed to strengthen their own disbelief in the soul‘s continued existence after death by quotations from many of the most renowned literary authorities of their own country.

“The author of ‘Ghost Land’ was himself an initiate of their body
[i.e., the society at Hamburg and Berlin ... He was also] a clairvoyant of most remarkable lucidity and power. Being associated in intimate relations with the President of the Brotherhood, who was indeed his tutor in early youth, whilst little more than a mere child he was employed as a magnetic subject


This gentleman, now a warm Spiritualist and believer in the power of disembodied spirits to effect what he once attributed to the spirits of mortals only, still affirms his faith in the superior force of the embodied human soul to perform feats of ponderous strength ...”

Despite some deliberate confusion between Prussia and Austria in her account, leading her at one point to speak of “the Berlin Brotherhood, Austria”, it is clearly Louis de B_ who is meant here; the other Prussian will then be his tutor, who bears the pseudonym Felix von Marx in Ghostland. [MJF: Since originally writing this, I believe I have been able to identify the Berlin Brotherhood – see more below on this]

If Lewis Carroll was a Rosicrucian and member of the Orphic Circle, as many have suggested, he no doubt would have been well acquainted with Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton and would almost certainly have encountered Emma Harding Britten, possibly during some of her trance medium sessions for the Circle. If so, could she have become the esoteric model for his Alice, who would go through the looking glass and dance in Wonderland? It should be noted in this connection that Emma Harding Britten was a professional singer, actress and dancer who had performed on stage in London, Paris and the provinces from 1832 to 1855.

In his article, Mathieson also makes reference to Frederick Hockley, a Rosicrucian, who was the most well-known English occultist of the first half of the 19th Century. Mathieson shows that Emma Hardinge Britten knew Hockley very well and was even allowed to use his 'sacred mirrors' for vision trances to contact guiding spirits (who in her own words were extraterrestrial and not human).

If Britten used a mirror to gain the information that Carroll and Bulwer-Lytton subsequently used in their books, this might make sense of the C's statement "You are dancing on the 3rd density ballroom floor. "Alice likes to go through the looking glass" at the Crystal Palace".

What it appears the Orphic Circle were doing was using a special mirror as a Psychomantium and employing a highly psychic person such as Emma Hardinge Britten to act as a conduit to gain the information they wanted. Here is what the C's said about psychomantiums in the session dated 17 January 1997:​

A: Time to consider construction of psychomantium. [MJF: A Kozyrev mirror may be a modern version of the same device]

Q: (Laura) What is a 'psychomantium?'

A: Chamber for viewing other realms, possible futures and entities residing in other densities. Need clear depth... such as large, polished mirror on stand, which can be adjusted as to angle... walls must be completely covered in black, so as to eliminate reflection... soft, low, indirect lighting.

Q: (Laura) Wasn't it Dr Moody that did the life-after-death thing? (Terry) He's got a room with the mirror with the black velour walls and the comfortable chair that you can look in the mirror without seeing yourself...

A: Yes, and it is real and it works. In the clear depths, you can even see us, on occasion!

Q: (Terry) This psychomantium, isn't it in essence a way of opening up a doorway to other realities and other levels and densities?

A: Yes.

Q: (Terry) It's going to vary from person to person... (Laura) OK, what advantage is there to using a psychomantium to using the board, I mean, is it going to replace the board?

A: No. Visualizations clarify and unite images.

Q: (Laura) Ok, what images would we wish, or would be suggested to unite and clarify, and particularly in the term unite? You've used the term 'unite' on a number of occasions, and in unusual ways.

A: Anything and everything in transcripts, for example... and all else.

Q: (Laura) Okay, so we would be able to see all of the things told about in the transcripts. Would we also be able to, by seeing a 4th density reality, be able to generate some sort of unification between ourselves, in some sense, and this new reality?
[MJF: This may be highly significant to the origins of Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass – especially if he had witnessed something like this first hand with the Orphic Circle or possibly elsewhere – something I wish to discuss in a follow-up to this article.]

A: Yes.

Q: (Laura) Is this part of the way and means of
bonding oneself to 4th density reality
A: Helps.

Q: (Laura) Can one also use this to visit other parts of the globe in real time?

A: Yes.

Q: (Terry) Visit the past and the future?
[MJF: This can therefore be said to be a form of time travel (to possible futures though) and might be highly significant in that it may have allowed the Orphic Circle to access future scientific advances and concepts such as the matter/anti-matter universes and free energy (“vril”). Consider also what has been said in the transcripts about the time travel experiments conducted at Montauk in the 1970’s, which manifested persons from different possible futures.]

A: Yes.

I would like now to quote directly from Robert Mathieson in his article ‘Extracts from ‘The Unseen Worlds of Emma Hardinge Britten: Some Chapters in the History of Western Occultism’, which was published in the Theosophical History Occasional Papers Volume IX (2001)
The Orphic Circle and its members.

From the scant information that Louis de B_ gave in Ghost Land and his other writings, together with the little that Emma Hardinge Britten mentioned elsewhere, it appears that the Orphic Circle had existed for some years before 1835, and that its organization had some features characteristic of Freemasonry: it met as a lodge presided over by a Grand Master and its members were sworn to secrecy. Unlike English Freemasonry, but like some kinds of European Freemasonry, the Orphic Circle admitted women as well as men to membership. During its lodge meetings the members practiced astral travelling as well as the invocation of spirits into mirrors and crystals, carrying out both activities within a ritual practice that owed something to Renaissance high magic, and entailed the use of both hymns and specially prepared fumigations. However, it was not the members themselves who travelled in spirit on the astral plane, or who saw and heard spirits in the mirrors and crystals; that was the work of young clairvoyants (also called somnambules or lucides, as in France) who had been thrown into trance by currents of animal magnetism that were produced and directed by members of the Orphic Circle (and perhaps also by the specially prepared fumigations). Moreover, the spirits in question were not, for the most part, spirits of the dead, but rather spirits that had never been incarnated in any human body. [MJF: Which raises a big red flag and may suggest they were in contact with Orion STS entities]

In Ghost Land several members of the Orphic Circle are mentioned by pseudonym. In addition to John Cavendish Dudley, who was its Recording Secretary, they are the “venerable” Lord Vivian (also called Lord V_ ), the Circle‘s Grand Master; Lord L_ ; Sir Thomas L_; Sir Peter S_; and Sir James M_(who in the same passage published elsewhere is named Mr. B_ and Mr Barton). Another member, unnamed, is ― “a fine old French gentleman [...] a poet improvisatore and divine harpist.”

Finally, there is one mention of a Mr. H. It is found in a long description of a meeting of the Orphic Circle that took place a number of years after the other meetings described in Ghost Land, sometime in the early 1850s. Although the members and clairvoyant seers present at that meeting are not named, Chevalier Louis is clearly one of them, and another is an unnamed young woman who can only be Emma herself. At that meeting they both saw in a mirror, among other things, two spirits who displayed to them a book that is surely meant to be Art Magic, as yet unwritten. She then informed him that:

"She had seen these spirits before, had been told that they were planetary spirits, the guardians of a mirror belonging to a friend whom she occasionally visited, and that the book which they thus presented was one which for ages they had been endeavouring to inspire some earthly scribe to write. She added, “These spirits seemed, when first I saw them at my friend Mr. H.‘s, to beseech me to write that book; but it now appears as if they had transferred their plea to you, and I cannot but think the vision is significant of the prophecy that you are destined to write it.

The mirror gazer named Mr. H. is certainly also the unnamed “successful Adept of the present generation” who received from a “Planetary spirit – the guardian of his mirror” a particular short treatise and ritual about “the best method of divination, also of receiving communications from spirits” which is published in Art Magic. This treatise allows us to determine the identity of Mr. H., establishing beyond any question that he is Frederick Hockley, arguably the most important occultist of the early nineteenth century*. As it happens, the text published in Art Magic is almost the same as a text received by one of the young clairvoyant women employed by Hockley, who transcribed it in his private notebooks (his “Crystal Manuscripts”, as they have come to be called). Although Hockley allowed almost no one to see his Crystal Manuscripts under any circumstances, he did on one occasion allow one of his friends, the occultist F. G. Irwin, to copy this particular text. Most of Hockley’s Crystal Manuscripts have been lost, but Irwin‘s copy of this text survives and has been published.

Since Mr. H. is Frederick Hockley (1808-1885), the Orphic Circle will necessarily have included some of the gentlemen and gentlewomen of his acquaintance who are known to have shared his interest in crystal and mirror-gazing. The careful research of Joscelyn Godwin has shed a good deal of light on most of these people, among whom were the following (listed in order of their death):

John Varley (1778-1842), an artist and astrologer;

Marguerite, the Countess of Blessington (1789- 1849);

Philip Henry, the Earl of Stanhope (1781-1855);

Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) the author of Zanoni and other novels:

Richard James Morrison (1795-1874), otherwise the astrologer Zadkiel;

Alexander William, the Earl of Crawford (1812-1880), otherwise the Master of Lindsay;

Richard F. Burton (1821-1880), the renowned explorer and translator.


It does not take much imagination to identify the individuals in this list whose names may have inspired the other pseudonyms in Ghost Land, especially if one doesn‘t worry too much about their titles, and also remembers that Ghost Land cannot be taken as an accurate chronicle of anyone‘s true history or whereabouts at any particular time. Mr B_ or Mr. Barton suggests Richard F. Burton; Sir James M_, Richard James Morrison; Lord L_, Edward Bulwer-Lytton or the Master of Lindsay; and Sir Peter S_, Philip Henry Stanhope. The “venerable” Lord V_ (or Lord Vivian) may be an older man, like Varley (although Varley had no title) or the adjective “venerable” may be a title of the Orphic Circle’s Grand Master, as it is in the Order of the Elect Cohens. As for the “fine old French gentleman [...] harpist”, if he is not a complete fiction, he may owe something to memories of the foremost French practitioner of magical mesmerism, Jules Dupotet de Sennevoy (1798-1881), who was in London, and patronized by Lord Stanhope, during the years 1837-1839.

In 1887 Emma Hardinge Britten refers to a rule of the Orphic Circle that its members should never be:

“...named, until they passed from earth to the higher life. It is in virtue of this last clause that I am at liberty to say that Lord Lytton, the Earl of Stanhope, and Lieut. Morrison (better known as “Zadkiel” and the author of “Art Magic” belonged to this society.”


As these three names are on the above list, the quoted words confirm, though only in a general sort of way, the conclusions that followed from our identification of “Mr. H” as Frederick Hockley.

*That Frederick Hockley and Emma Hardinge Britten (“EHB”) were indeed friends is suggested by two pieces of data that happen to have survived: sometime before 1870 Hockley allowed EHB to use some of his consecrated mirrors for visionary purposes; also, Hockley owned a copy of the first edition of Ghost Land with a letter from the authoress (EHB) inserted inside it.
Conclusion

So, we see from the above extracts that the Orphic Circle had existed for some years prior to 1835 and that its organisation had some features that were characteristic of Freemasonry. They also practiced astral travelling as well as the invocation of spirits into mirrors and crystals. The latter practice involving the use of scryers, or clairvoyants to invoke spirits is reminiscent of Dr John Dee’s sessions with the scryer Edward Kelley, which involved the invocation of angels through the medium of a special crystal. Let us recall here that the C’s had said of these sessions that they involved contact with 4th density beings:​

Q: I don't know what will happen here... Oh, John Dee supposedly had a vision of the Angel Uriel who gave him a highly polished black stone which was convex, and into which he gazed to communicate with other realms. This sounds very much like a psychomantium. Okay, these beings would appear on the surface of the stone and reveal all the secrets of the future. This was not an imaginary stone because it now resides in the British Museum. However, he later hooked up with Edward Kelly who was, apparently, a complete con-artist. What kind of beings did Dee and Kelly conjure through their polished stone?

A: Fourth Density.

Q: STS or STO?

A: Both.


However, in Emma Hardinge Britten’s case, she tells us that the spirits in question were not, for the most part, spirits of the dead, but rather spirits that had never been incarnated in any human body. This suggests that they may have been the same sort of 4th density beings that John Dee had communicated with. If so, were they STS or STO or both as in John Dee’s case?

We also see that the membership of the Orphic Circle included the statesman and novelist Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the famous explorer and translator Richard F. Burton who I will have much more to say about later in this article, as his various associations provide an important link to Lewis Carroll. Next though, I would like to look at where the Orphic Circle may have held their meetings.

Continued in Part 2.​
thank you for this analysis it explains a lot I live and feel in my "TESLA" quest ... :perfect:
 
Just to let people know, I am currently writing another article, which is taking up much of my time at the moment, since it has required a lot of research. However, it is an important article, as it ties together a lot of what has previously been said on this thread. Hopefully, it will raise a few surprises and may also finally establish a firm link between Alton Towers and the resurgent occult movement in 19th Century England. It may also help to explain the C's enigmatic quote, which I think relates to the Grail:

Session 26 July 1997:
Q: Why is this described as a Widow's son? This was the appellation of Perceval...

A: Perceval was knighted in the court of seven.

Q: The court of seven what?

A: Swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden.


Session 22 August 1998:

Q: (L) They also talk about the ‘Seven Sages.’ You once said that Perceval was ‘knighted in the Court of Seven and that the sword’s points signify ‘crystal transmitter of truth beholden.’ Do these seven sages relate to this ‘Court of Seven’ that you mentioned?

A: Close.

Q:
(L) When you said ‘swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden,’ could you elaborate on that remark?


A: Has celestial meaning.


I am now convinced that the celestial meaning is the seven stars of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) or the Big Dipper/Plough. My article will try and demonstrate this.
 

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