The New Forest coven might have been formed by Rosamund Sabine, who moved to the New Forest in 1924 and who had been involved in various esoteric groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. She gathered like-minded friends who had an interest in the occult, and founded the coven.
Gerald Gardner claimed that he met, briefly joined then became dissatisfied with the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, believing them to be devoid of any genuine esoteric knowledge. Meanwhile, he met a group of people who claimed to have been involved in a form of Freemasonry known as Co-Masonry – men and women, rather than exclusively male – having moved there to be close to Mabel Besant-Scott, daughter of the famous Theosophist Annie Besant.
Mabel Besant-Scott had assisted her mother in both British Co-Masonry and the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India and after her mother's death, Mabel Besant-Scott briefly became the head of the British Federation of Co-Freemasonry and held the highest thirty third degree in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.
in the 1930s she visited India (where her mother died) and met the Avatar Meher Baba, where they discussed her mother resurrecting as a man in India. She wrote several articles for The Adyar Bulletin, a periodical of the Theosophical Society, but a year later abruptly resigned from Co-Freemasonry, joining the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship shortly afterwards and taking with her some of her followers from Co-Masonry. She was one of the most active members of this Rosicrucian theatre.
(I think the Crotona Fellowship's founder, George Alexander Sullivan, was perhaps a self-promoting dabbler with limited insight.)
Among Besant-Scott's group were Ernest and Susie Mason, a brother and sister couple who had been involved in a variety of occult groups, including Co-Masonry and Theosophy. According to Gardner: "They seemed rather brow-beaten by the others, kept themselves to themselves. They were the most interesting element, however. Unlike many of the others, they had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult."
I think the point that many in the world of British esoterica were mostly financially stable, from the upper echelons of society – hence my desire to see an informed commentary on their occult yearnings in line with Britain's fading actuality.
As an example, the coven often met in the house of Dorothy Clutterbuck, a leading member, a wealthy Englishwoman born in India (another child of the Empire). Clutterbuck was a practising Anglican Christian, and never identified herself as a witch. Researchers have debated whether the surviving evidence of her own writings indicates that she had any unconventional religious leanings at all.
Gerald Gardner claimed that he met, briefly joined then became dissatisfied with the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, believing them to be devoid of any genuine esoteric knowledge. Meanwhile, he met a group of people who claimed to have been involved in a form of Freemasonry known as Co-Masonry – men and women, rather than exclusively male – having moved there to be close to Mabel Besant-Scott, daughter of the famous Theosophist Annie Besant.
Mabel Besant-Scott had assisted her mother in both British Co-Masonry and the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India and after her mother's death, Mabel Besant-Scott briefly became the head of the British Federation of Co-Freemasonry and held the highest thirty third degree in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.
in the 1930s she visited India (where her mother died) and met the Avatar Meher Baba, where they discussed her mother resurrecting as a man in India. She wrote several articles for The Adyar Bulletin, a periodical of the Theosophical Society, but a year later abruptly resigned from Co-Freemasonry, joining the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship shortly afterwards and taking with her some of her followers from Co-Masonry. She was one of the most active members of this Rosicrucian theatre.
(I think the Crotona Fellowship's founder, George Alexander Sullivan, was perhaps a self-promoting dabbler with limited insight.)
Among Besant-Scott's group were Ernest and Susie Mason, a brother and sister couple who had been involved in a variety of occult groups, including Co-Masonry and Theosophy. According to Gardner: "They seemed rather brow-beaten by the others, kept themselves to themselves. They were the most interesting element, however. Unlike many of the others, they had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult."
I think the point that many in the world of British esoterica were mostly financially stable, from the upper echelons of society – hence my desire to see an informed commentary on their occult yearnings in line with Britain's fading actuality.
As an example, the coven often met in the house of Dorothy Clutterbuck, a leading member, a wealthy Englishwoman born in India (another child of the Empire). Clutterbuck was a practising Anglican Christian, and never identified herself as a witch. Researchers have debated whether the surviving evidence of her own writings indicates that she had any unconventional religious leanings at all.
