With Brian Horne on Charles Williams

Correspondent

Brian Horne, chairman of Charles Williams’ Society

HGL to Brian Horne

13/06/14 à 15h48

Was Charles Williams a member of Golden Dawn?

I have, in France, come across that allegation./HGL

Brian Horne to HGL

13/06/14 à 18h52

Re: Was Charles Williams a member of Golden Dawn?

No, Williams was never a member of the Golden Dawn. He did, however, join the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, a Christian esoteric society founded by A E Waite, In, I think, 1917 and remained in it for some years. Brian Horne

[Not sure if adress given was private or as chairman]

HGL to Brian Horne

15/06/14 à 13h23

Re: Was Charles Williams a member of Golden Dawn?

Thank you very much.

I think that is more reasonable. Had he left it before joining the Inklings?

Reason I ask is that some Catholic Trads over here have been doing some guilt by association.

Owen Barfield and Charles Williams being esoterics, they were Luciferians, them being Luciferians, the Inklings were so too, including CSL and JRRT.

Of course, Catholicism is a bit unlike Anglicanism insofar as we are required to stay out of things like not just Freemasons (any obedience, Scottish, Established, Grand Orients alike) but also Rosicrucians and Odd Fellows and Good Templars.*

Some seem to take this so far that if A was a Rosicrucian, B a Steinerian, C and D their friends and known authors and E a known reader of C and D, then F being a Catholic must avoid E like the plague even if he also claims to be a Catholic.

But even in front of them, it might do some good to document A was not Golden Dawn but Rosy Cross.**

Hans Georg Lundahl

* A Church law and one I approve of.

** Since Aleister Crowley was Golden Dawn. I did already respond that so was the much more innocent Yeats.

Brian Horne to HGL

16/06/14 à 15h24

Re: Was Charles Williams a member of Golden Dawn?

Dear Hans Georg, I think it is now fairly well known that CW was not a member of the Golden Dawn and, anyway, everything fact will be brought into the open in the very near future when Grevel Lindop publishes his biography of Williams. Grevel is an excellent scholar and his research has been meticulous. It should come out next year.

My own view of Williams membership is very similar to Williams first biographer Alice Mary Hadfield and Anne Ridler both of whom knew him well. He was interested in esoteric myths and rites but remained steadfastly Christian in his fundamental beliefs. By the time he went to Oxford in 1939 he was hardly involved at all and none of the Inklings - apart from Owen Barfield - were remotely interested in these matters. I also think Williams himself had lost all interest in esoteric ism in the last years of his life. The unconvincing picture of Simon the Clerk in All Hallows' Eve is testimony to this.

I hope this helps.

As ever, Brian Horne

HGL to Brian Horne

17/06/14 à 09h08

Re: Was Charles Williams a member of Golden Dawn?

Thank you!

Wonderful, I hope indeed it will!

One esoteric and - if wiki is right in Nevil Coghill - one homosexual involved on his academic merits (NC did after all make an edition or translation of Canterbury Tales) in a company of some ten persons at a place like Oxford University (which had excluded Belloc a generation earlier), I cannot think that is incriminating, except to a few hot heads.

Hans Georg Lundahl @ my blogs:
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/p/blogsbloggarbloggi.html