Social Victorians/Golden Dawn/Celtic Explorations

=Celtic Explorations= The Celtic Explorations were carried on by a few members of the Golden Dawn, as well as a few people outside that organization. The Celtic Explorations group began meeting with Golden Dawn members in December 1897 and ended divinations in Sligo, February 1899. After the beginning, people who were not members, like Maud Gonne, who left the order in 1894, were working in this group.

Logistics

 * Of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
 * Began meeting and working in December 1897

Leader

 * William Butler Yeats

Members at One Time Or Another

 * Mary Briggs
 * Maud Gonne
 * Annie Horniman
 * E. A. Hunter
 * H. Dorothea Hunter
 * MacGregor Mathers
 * Moina Bergson Mathers
 * George Russell
 * William Sharp

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

1897 December, "Some divinations" in W. B. Yeats's papers (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1897 December 29, With D.E.D.I. [Yeats] as 'Conductor', a group of six Fratres and Sorores of the Golden Dawn embarked upon a visionary journey 'to get the talismatic shape of the gods done' (Letters, p. 265 ). Yeats and his colleagues achieved this end by calling the names of various Celtic heroes and gods who gave different signs when their names were called. May Briggs [sic] (Per Mare Ad Astra), the recorder, drew sketches of them as they presented themselves to the group" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1898 January, the group conducted two experiments.

1898 April 14, April 25, and May 9?, Yeats was in Paris; "extended passages" in his Autobiography (335-42) records "several vivid experiences" during this trip (Harper 74 163, n. 15). Maud Gonne was there.

1898 December 10 (to be exact: "a few days before" 13 December), Yeats and Gonne, who was out of the Golden Dawn in December 1894, performed "similar experiments" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1898 December 13, through 1899, 8 February, Yeats et al were in Sligo for the Celtic Explorations (Harper 74).

1898 December 13, there are "a number of divinations" in Yeats's papers; Annie Horniman was there.

1898 December 26, George Pollexfen "had a bad cold and felt ill fitted for divination" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1899 February 8 marks the end of the divinations in Sligo (Harper 74).

=Celtic Mysteries= A small group of members of the Golden Dawn worked on developing rituals and images for the Celtic Mysteries. The members of the Celtic Mysteries group, led by William Butler Yeats, like the Celtic Explorations group, were also primarily members of the Golden Dawn but it was not exclusively limited to them. This group met in 1897.

Logistics

 * Of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
 * Met in 1897

Leader

 * William Butler Yeats

Members

 * William Butler Yeats
 * MacGregor Mathers
 * Maud Gonne
 * Mary Briggs (Harper 74 164, n. 19)
 * William Sharp (Harper 74 164, n. 19)

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

Questions and Notes

 * 1) Mary Briggs "drew sketches" of "various Celtic heroes and gods ... as they presented themselves to the group"; also, some manuscript pages of "drafts of rituals for the Celtic Mysteries" are in her hand (Harper 74 165, n. 19).