Author: Robert Buratti

From New Dawn 133 (Jul-Aug 2012)

I think contemporary art is a myth. It’s like a fashion, there’s only ever been one idea in art, all the arts deal with it, and you have to look beyond fashion to see it…. The question of life and death?… Exactly, Gauguin’s old question.
– An interview with Damien Hirst, 2006¹

For most people, the term ‘occult art’ tends to conjure up images of devils, demons, pentagrams, and obscure and shocking imagery far removed from what many see as acceptable and valid contemporary art. In an industry which prides itself on being cutting edge, the mainstream art world remains largely distrustful and reasonably uneducated on occult art and all that comes with it, yet when one looks at its origins, one is actually looking to the origins of art itself.

The term ‘occult’ means simply ‘hidden’, and is derived from the Latin, occullere, meaning to cover over, to hide, or conceal, and essentially occult art is Man’s search for hidden knowledge of himself and his place in the universe. Removed from the usual commercial modes of contemporary art, it has heavily influenced major movements including Symbolism and Surrealism, and often the process of creating work is more important than the result.

Occult art is an exploratory practice for divining, decoding, re-visioning, and re-reading the human condition and takes us beyond the screen of our everyday senses to evoke a dimension of creativity operating powerful archetypal images and symbols. Hidden deep in the psyche are concepts which can be both enlightening and terrifying, and many artists have been able to uncover these worlds via trance, meditation or comparable methods, gaining an insight into the unbounded potential of human creativity and the range of positive and negative impulses which dwell within us all.

Origins

Art as a pure spiritual pursuit has its origins in early human evolutionary prehistory. Scientists have put forward that along with various forms of rhythmic expression such as dancing and singing, visual art developed very early in human evolution by the forces of natural selection in order to reach an altered state of consciousness.² Researcher Joseph Jordania wrote recently that in this state, early humans lost their individuality, and acquired a “new collective identity, where they were not feeling fear or pain, and were religiously dedicated to the group interests, in total disregards of their individual safety and life.”³

Ritualistic actions involving heavy rhythmic music and movement coupled with body painting, were universally practiced in traditional cultures before hunting or military sessions in order to induce specific altered states of consciousness and raise the morale of participants.⁴ From the outset, art served a dual purpose of recording life, as in Palaeolithic cave drawings, and also as a spiritual and ritual practice reserved to achieved a specific end.

With the invention of writing, along with the rise of the great civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the pictorial and ideographic system found an expression in the cuneiform script, which emerged circa 3500 BCE. In ancient Egypt hieroglyphic writing developed, with one of the earliest examples appearing on the Narmer Palette, circa 3100 BCE. Here the practice was formalised under the direction of the High Priest, the only one charged with commissioning the creation of artwork for the land, and often the only one allowed to read and write the sacred hieroglyphic symbols inscribed on ritual objects and public monuments. The high arts of writing, painting and magic were inextricably linked and presided over by the same deity, Tahuti or Thoth (the Greeks later equated Thoth with Hermes). Tahuti maintained the balance of good and evil within the universe, stood with Maat as one of the two deities on either side of Ra’s boat, was the judge of godly disputes, judge of the dead and keeper of all secrets of arts and magic.⁵

Artistic practice during this period was a function reserved for the initiate as a communion with the sacred. This line of practice continued throughout the following period into the classical era where temples and divinatory statues were designed in keeping with universal geometry based on star patterns, earth lines and the movement of the Sun.

Modern Manifestations

Occult art provided windows to the sacred for both the initiate and the non-initiate to reach the divine, but never entered the public gallery system until the Salon of the Rose-Croix, a series of six art and music salons hosted by Joséphin Péladan in 1890s Paris. These were followed by various underground exhibitions throughout Germany and Europe in the 1930-1940’s.

The genre entered the domain of the critic during the 1960’s when art historians began looking deeper into this forgotten spiritual and mystical explanation for the modern art avant-garde. In Germany, Otto Stelzer looked to the early Symbolist origins of abstract art, while Sixten Ringbom researched how occultism had inspired painters such as Wassily Kandinsky.⁶ In America, Robert P. Welsh presented the theosophical influences of Piet Mondrian⁷ and Rose-Carol Washton Long illustrated hidden images within Kandinsky’s greatest works.⁸ In 1984, Robert Rosenblum drew his own conclusions from these new discoveries in proposing a Northern Romantic tradition leading directly from Caspar David Friedrich to Mark Rothko, taking in on the way the cosmogonies of William Blake and Philipp Otto Runge, Vincent Van Gogh’s quest for religious truth and Mondrian’s transcendental abstraction.⁹

Over the following years, major exhibitions devoted to the spirituality of the artistic avant-garde were organised in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, with the best-known and most important of these – directly inspired by these new art-historical researches – being The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985. Opening in November 1986, the exhibition presented 257 works by 95 artists, and inaugurated the new wing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Taking its title from a famous essay by Kandinsky, the curator, Maurice Tuchman, proposed that Abstract Art be reviewed through the modes of occultism, mystical thought, Theosophy and Anthroposophy. The exhibition opened with a substantial selection of Symbolist works including works by Gauguin, Redon and Ranson, along with occult and mystical books from the 17th to the 20th century, leading on to the principal rooms devoted to five pioneers of abstraction: Kandinsky, Kupka, Malevich, Mondrian and Hilma af Klint.

The staging of such a major exhibition in a high profile museum achieved a great deal in bringing the occult roots of contemporary art to public awareness, and paved the way for the innovative and highly attended 2008 exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris entitled, Traces du Sacre. Its aim was to address more than a hundred years of art’s response to what Max Weber diagnosed as “the disenchantment of the world,” and what the curators call the “irrepressible need for spirituality.” A broad selection of paintings, sculptures, installations and videos brought together some 350 major works by almost 200 artists of international renown.

Across twenty four thematic sections, the exhibition looked at art history from the late nineteenth century to the present day, showing contemporary pieces alongside Romantic and Modern works and so bringing out the continuing importance of the question of the sacred in the art of the present day.¹⁰ The exhibition included works by de Chirico, Brancusi, Caspar David Friedrich, and Eduard Munch alongside spiritual works by Wassily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Piet Mondrian, and those by iconic magicians Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare. A highlight of this exhibition was the satellite showing of The Nightmare Paintings by Aleister Crowley at the Palais de Tokyo. Sixteen never before seen works were exhibited to the public, all of which were painted during the artist’s creation of the infamous Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.

Australian Manifestations

The fascination of Australian culture with the occult is something unique and enduring. The writer Keith Richmond wrote,

In the late nineteenth century Australians welcomed Theosophy and Spiritualism with a zeal surpassing that of most other nations, and during the First World War local interest in the occult reached such a level that for nearly two years one Sydney newspaper was able to run a column in which it satirised a different occult group (and sometimes a number of them) every week.¹¹

Along with Richmond, writers such as Neville Drury did much to create a dialogue on occult art in Australia during the seventies and eighties. Drury is credited with the first serious overview of occultism in Australia with his 1980 book co-authored by Gregory Tillet, Other Temples, Other Gods, that featured, in particular, the forgotten Sydney artist Rosaleen Norton.

Dubbed the “Witch of Kings Cross” by the popular press, she remains without doubt the most famous Australian occult artist. Born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1917, Norton moved with her family to Sydney in 1924, where they established themselves in the middle-class suburb of Lindfield. Norton was expelled from the Church of England Girls’ School, Chatswood, at the age of 14 for producing ‘depraved’ drawings of vampires, ghouls and werewolves thought likely to corrupt the other girls. She later studied for two years at East Sydney Technical College.

A key influence on the young Norton was her lecturer George Rayner Hoff. A skilled sculptor, he is credited as transforming the face of Australian sculpture in his adoption of art deco principles and redirecting monumental statuary in Sydney towards classicism. In 1919, Hoff began studies at the Royal College of Art, London, under the professor of sculpture Francis Derwent Wood. He exhibited two sculptures at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1920 and one in 1922. He won the Prix de Rome scholarship in 1921 and was awarded the Royal Society of British Sculptors’ diploma in 1923. After meeting the Australian architect Hardy Wilson at Naples, and discussions with Derwent Wood in London, he accepted appointment as teacher of drawing, modelling and sculpture at East Sydney Technical College in May 1923 and reached Sydney in August.

Joining the Society of Artists, Sydney, in 1924, Hoff served on its executive and became a force for liberal ideals combined with stylistic moderation in art. The medal for the Society of Artists was created by Hoff in 1924. Later he produced, among others, the Sir Peter Nicol Russell memorial medal for the Institution of Engineers, Australia (1927), the Sir John Sulman medal for the Institute of Architects of New South Wales (1932) and the contentious Victorian centenary medallion (1934). He showed sculpture regularly with the Society of Artists, the Victorian Artists’ Society and the Australian Sculptors’ Society. He entered various official and prize exhibitions, and was awarded the Wynne prize in 1927.

The most significant contribution Hoff made was his large-scale sculpture for various buildings and public memorials: he produced the large reliefs of the war memorial at Dubbo, New South Wales, in 1925, the figures for the National War Memorial, Adelaide, in 1927-31, and the more numerous and controversial sculptures for the Anzac Memorial, Sydney (made with the aid of students and assistants) in 1930-34. Hoff was also responsible for fine decorative reliefs in the now demolished Liberty Theatre (1934) and Hotel Australia (1934-35). He began work on the King George V Memorial, Canberra, in 1936, which was completed posthumously by John Moorfield. He also interestingly created the famous “lion and stone” logo for Holden Motors in 1928, based on a prehistoric fable, in which observations of lions rolling stones led to the invention of the wheel.

At East Sydney Technical College Hoff taught drawing and sculpture, and amongst his students were Norton, James Gleeson and many others who both revered and imitated him – and were particularly inspired by his openly pagan approach to creation. Along with Norman Lindsay and Kenneth Slessor, Hoff pioneered the pagan movement known as “heroic vitalism” which was entering the mainstream of early twentieth century Australian art. The early works of James Gleeson shows elements of this approach in depicting an overtly sensual and writhing landscape dotted by idealised male figures.

Norton no doubt would have seen first hand the vilification of Hoff’s friend Norman Lindsay and his flight from Australia in 1931 under the continual backlash against what were considered his “pornographic and occult artworks.” In response, Lindsay wrote in 1920:

To whom does one offer the gift of a thought? To him who already thinks it. The mission of the thinker is not to enlighten, but to confirm. The material for enlightenment is already there, like a piled-up beacon; the new thought is but a spark that sets it alight. Anger at the stupidity of common minds is foolish, save in youth, when it is a stimulus. Yet all high minds wish to offer the gift of thought to mankind, and because it is rejected they become bitter. But gold is no use to a savage. He prefers iron, which is useful to him. And here the savage is wise. One cannot blame the common mind, because it seeks common thoughts – vulgar utilities – for these things help it. If the common man is also able to catch a little at higher thoughts, so much the better; but he has caught something in passing not addressed to him. The message of the Creative Effort is to him whose mission is to carry on the Creative Effort.¹²

Hoff’s sculpture in contrast, while remaining robustly erotic, was never prurient, embodying a neo-paganism different in quality and kind from Lindsay. His work, Idyll: love and life in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW, “might be described as chaste, despite the languor of its poses.”¹³ His work was softer and less obvious but held the same ideals. For many years he managed to avoid public outcry until later in his years. In 1932, he was embroiled in controversy with the Catholic Archbishop Kelly, the Master Builders’ Association of New South Wales, and the local chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects over the morality of the form and symbolism of the Anzac Memorial Group ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Crucifixion of Civilisation’ and ‘Victory’. He was also attacked over his design of the Victorian centenary medal in 1934 for its depiction of a Ram’s head as the central motif.

Rosaleen Norton

Amongst the basics of art technique, Hoff would have shown Norton that art has the potential to make the artist a significant target to the public, a warning most likely lost on the young artist at the time. Despite her admiration for Hoff, Norton generally found it hard to take direction and preferred to follow her own path rather than the set college curriculum.

In December 1933, whilst still at college, she submitted the first of three short stories to Smith’s Weekly that immediately drew the admiring attention of the editor Frank Marien. He saw promise at the author’s “vivid imagination” that was “quite beyond the ordinary,” and offered Norton a cadetship as a writer and illustrator. However, her graphic illustrations were deemed too controversial, and soon she lost the job. From there, Norton’s life took many turns, punctuated with high profile legal cases and often vehement vindication by the media.

Her focus throughout her time remained on the core principle of developing and exhibiting her art and magical practice. However, the art world in Australia was generally far from responsive to Norton, and she found it all but impossible to have work accepted by any serious galleries. The dubious honour of being the first Australian artist to have her work seized by the government did little to help, and the book on her art, The Art of Rosaleen Norton, was also banned. Unable to reach a wider audience and forced to find some sort of income, Norton had to rely on selling her paintings to friends and acquaintances, and found it impossible to rid herself of the ‘Witch’ image. She died on 5 December 1979, at the age of sixty-two, having spent the last few years of her life as a semi-recluse. In 2000, an exhibition of Norton’s paintings was held in Kings Cross, Sydney, organised by writer Keith Richmond, and artist/curator Barry William Hale.

It was not until the early 1940s that Norton began to seriously study the occult, starting with Eastern and theosophical texts, and slowly moving to the Western esoteric tradition, practicing Ritual Magic, and studying the texts of Aleister Crowley, Eliphas Levi and Dion Fortune. She became an active proponent of sex magick, and made regular use of drugs in her ceremonies, all of which contributed to Norton’s true lasting legacy, the techniques she developed to heighten her artistic perception. Through self-hypnosis she learned how to transfer her attention at will to inner planes of awareness in what could be termed “astral projection.” She wrote in her diaries that this practice “produced a number of peculiar and unexpected results… and culminated in a period of extra-sensory perception together with a prolonged series of symbolic visions.”

In an interview conducted with Norton at the University of Melbourne in 1949, she explained further:

I decided to experiment in self-induced trance, the idea being to induce an abnormal state of consciousness and manifest the results, if any, in drawing. My aim was to delve down into the subconscious mind and, if possible through and beyond it. I had the feeling (intuitional rather than intellectual) that somewhere in the depths of the unconscious, the individual would contain, in essence, the accumulated knowledge of mankind; just as his physical body manifests the aggregate of racial experience in the form of instinct or automatic reaction to stimulus.

In order to contact this hypothetical source, I decided to apply psychic stimulus to the subconscious: stimulus that the conscious reasoning mind might reject yet which would appeal to buried instincts as old as man, and which – I hoped – cause psychic ‘automatic reflexes’. (Religious cults use ritual, incense etc for the same reason.) Consequently, I collected together a variety of things such as aromatic leaves, wine, a lighted fire, a mummified hoof etc… all potent stimuli to the part of the unconscious that I wished to invoke. I darkened the room, and focusing my eyes upon the hoof I crushed the pungent leaves, drank some wine, and tried to clear my mind of all conscious thought. This was a beginning (and I made many other experiments which were progressively successful).

Following a surge of curious excitement, my brain would become emptied of all conscious thought: my eyes would shut, and I was merely aware that I was drawing on the blank sheet of paper in front of me… I seemed while experiencing a great intensification of intellectual, creative and intuitional faculties, to have become detached in a curiously timeless fashion from the world around me, and yet to be seeing things with a greater clarity and awareness than normally…

Through these practices, Norton came to have a special reverence for the pagan deity Pan, regarding him as, “Totality of All Being and the true God of the World and Overlord of the Balance of Nature.” Various manifestations of Pan became a regular feature of her painting from the late 1940’s to the time of her death. While she also depicted Lucifer, Baphomet, Hecate and other similar deities, Pan was a regular visitor to her trances and held a special place in her consciousness.

According to Norton, the other gods only appeared to her in trance visions if it pleased them – they could not be conjured. Some of the magical entities appearing in her artistic works seem to be atavistic hybrids – half-human, half-animal and often naked – revealing the primeval aspects of humanity’s spiritual evolution. Neville Drury saw great similarities between Norton and the English occult artist Austin Osman Spare:

There are distinctive parallels between Austin Spare and Rosaleen Norton. Both were influenced by witchcraft and the occult traditions of western magic, both utilised trance states, and both believed that the realm of the gods had its own intrinsic existence – the artist simply serving to manifest these archetypal energies by acting as an inspired channel. It is also interesting that both employed mental focusing techniques – using sigils or specific physical objects to induce a state of trance. As in the Eastern forms of meditation which utilise “one-centredness of mind,” it seems that the focusing of intent is a valuable way of unleashing stored psychic energy.¹⁴

Perhaps the most widely known occult artist, Austin Osman Spare died in 1956, similarly a recluse like Norton. In his younger days his work was applauded by the artistic establishment, until in the 1920’s he ceased showing commercially and returned to his native East End and created works almost entirely as part of his magical practice. He is particularly noted for his automatic drawing where images manifest through the artist, rather than being consciously devised. This was a practice inspired by the Surrealists of the early 1920’s who believed that art accessed through the unconscious or subconscious was more “real” or “true” than rationalist art works.

Surrealism’s initial proponent was Andre Breton, who during World War I, served in a neurological hospital where he used Freud’s psychoanalytic methods with soldiers suffering from shell shock. After returning to Paris to find many of the local writers and artists scattered, he joined the anti-art movement, Dada, and started the literary journal Litterature. Along with other writers, he began experimenting with automatic writing, which was essentially a trance inspired form of spontaneous writing without self-censoring. He also started recording dreams in the same way and published them alongside the automatic writings in the journal. These works became the pointers for writers and artists across Europe to start looking to the unconscious and trance practice to create ‘true art’. Freud’s work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious became of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination and unlock the true creative mind. As Salvador Dali explained it: “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.”¹⁵

The Australian Surrealist James Gleeson

While not considered an esoteric or occult art form, Surrealism is saturated with occult ideals and practices all of which manifested openly in the work of its practitioners, and has maintained a central conceptual association between fine art and occult dialogues. The Australian father of surrealism, James Gleeson, was a skilled practitioner of trance technique in creating his unique landscapes, and influenced a great deal of contemporary occult and esoteric artists locally including Barry William Hale.

Gleeson said that as a young artist, he caught the idea, “there existed a whole world behind what we see with our eyes, and my artwork became a way of finding and understanding that world.”¹⁶ At its heart Surrealism was an exploratory process demanding a level of mental discipline unlike any other of its day. The automatic drawings of James Gleeson remain full of insight, and up until his passing in 2008, he was at the height of his powers channelling the unconscious.

A student at East Sydney Technical College around the same time as Rosaleen Norton, and also under Hoff, he discovered Dalí, De Chirico, Ernst and Magritte, but also Freud and Jung’s theories on the unconscious mind. His most famous work features writhing nightmarish landscapes, full of sometimes violent and disturbing imagery, ranging to serene and soft humanoid forms. The early paintings, it is said, made women faint, and at least one hysterical girl had to be escorted from an exhibition. The middle period of his life saw Gleeson better known as an art critic, author, poet and curator, until the age of 65, when he devoted himself to art full-time, and went on to produce more than 400 canvases. Unlike his contemporaries, who merely dabbled in Surrealism, Gleeson remained true to its philosophy until his death at the age of 92, securing his place as the Father of Australian Surrealism.

This last phase of his artistic life is widely regarded as his most brilliant, yielding some truly monumental paintings, which Gleeson called “psychoscapes.” A key work, entitled Icons of Hazard, drew further dark inspiration from the atmosphere generated by 9/11 and the war in Iraq. One critic wrote of these works: “Representing an ineffable world in the furthest recesses of the human mind, these form an imaginary coastline, not of water, rock and sand, but a disturbing, organic morass of muscle, sinew, carapace, shell, hair and dripping membrane.”

Another work that Gleeson suggested was amongst his most successful, The Wheel Has Come Full Circle, is a major study in what the artist described as the “great return.” A pure unconscious journey back to the source of life. Another entitled, A Moment in the Process depicts the glimpse “behind the curtain” to the world behind the world we see around us. An exceptionally talented draughtsman and painter, Gleeson never received the recognition he deserved, and his major 2004 retrospective, Beyond the Screen of Sight, was belated. Some blame his subject matter. While near-contemporaries such as Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale focused on Australian themes, Gleeson described the world of the imagination. On his passing, the director of the Art Gallery of NSW, Edmund Capon, said: “James saw into our inner soul.” More than any other Australian artist, Gleeson successfully mapped the unconscious and opened the doors for local curators, critics and museums to consider esoteric and occult art.

This article includes a range of artwork, including a spread of Aleister Crowley paintings, courtesy of Buratti Fine Art. To view this, purchase the digital version of this magazine.

Part 2 of this article, published in New Dawn 134, examines The contemporary Australian artists working in the occult tradition, including the work of Wolfgang Grasse, Norman Lindsay and Barry William Hale.

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Footnotes

1. Damien Hirst, The Death of God, Conversation Between Damien Hirst and Hilario Galguera, 2006, 11
2. Joseph Jordania, Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution, 2011, 98-102
3. Ibid.
4. William McNeil, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History, 1995, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
5. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1
6. Sixten Ringbom, Occult Elements in the Early Theory of Abstract Painting, 1966; Sixten Ringbom, The sounding cosmos: a study in the spiritualism of Kandinsky and the genesis of abstract painting, 1970
7. Robert P. Welsh, PIET MONDRIAN 1872-1944, 1966
8. Rose-Carol Washton Long, doctoral thesis on the hidden images in Kandinsky, 1972
9. R. Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, 1984
10. Traces du Sacre, Editions du Centre Pompidou, Paris 2008
11. K. Richmond, The Occult: An Exhibition of material from the Monash University Library Rare Book Collection, Monash University, 1998
12. N. Lindsay, Creative Effort: An Essay in Affirmation, 1920, Art in Australia, Sydney
13. Art Gallery Handbook, 1999, Art Gallery of NSW
14. N. Drury, Three Magical Artists: Austin Spare, Rosaleen Norton & H.R. Giger, 1984
15. S. Dali, Diary of a Genius, quoted in The Columbia World of Quotations, 1996
15. R. Buratti, Interview with James Gleeson, 2006

© New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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From New Dawn 74 (Sept-Oct 2002)

A persistent legend originating in the East tells of hidden locations on the Earth where there exists certain groups of individuals with both exceptional powers and highly perfected character and consciousness. From these secret locations, they influence the whole of humanity and are known variously as the Hierarchy of Adepts, the Great White Lodge, the Secret Chiefs, the Great White Brotherhood, the Masters, or The People of the Secret.

In the biblical legend of the Three Wise Men from the East, we find one of the earliest spiritual archetypes and one of the best known written references to this Eastern legend. Researchers have openly argued the Eastern influence in Biblical writings for the best part of the twentieth century, but the appearance of the mysterious three wise men in the Gospel of Matthew is perhaps the first and most obvious example of Eastern legend in early scripture. Described as “men who studied the stars”, these travellers, “came from the east to Jerusalem” to meet the infant messiah.

…Herod called the visitors from the east to a secret meeting and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.¹

Herod consulted his own high priests and teachers of his kingdom on this matter to no avail, and afforded the three wise men great respect and reverence in requesting a private meeting with them. Little else is said of the men before they returned to their homeland following a warning by an angel that it was dangerous to cooperate with Herod. The concept of three mysterious teachers is an older element of Eastern culture certainly in circulation prior to and throughout the time of Jesus.

In the 19^th century, the French diplomat Louis Jacolliot wrote a number of remarkable works on the ancient legends of India during his posting in the East. During this time, he uncovered the Legend of the Nine Unknowns. According to this legend, a secret society of these Nine Unknowns was created by the Indian Emperor Asoka in 273 BC, in an attempt to encapsulate all human knowledge of the time, and ensure that it was governed by those incapable of misuse. Apparently the martial art of Judo is the result of a “leak” from the physiological teachings of the Unknowns.

Researchers traced the transmission of this legend through Talbot Mundy, the English novelist who travelled extensively through India. It is thought that portions of this legend filtered through to the West during the Crusades from various secret and semisecret Islamic traditions. Perhaps this legend had an influence on the foundation story of the Knights Templar, an order begun by nine knights who have since been revered as holders of the knowledge of the ancients.

The Hidden Directorate

The term “Hidden Directorate” was coined by British author Ernest Scott in his classic work The People of the Secret, in which he makes a strong argument for the reality of an assembly or hierarchy of adepts. Initially, the book reads like a history of occult and esoteric tradition, eventually becoming more complex by presenting very clearly, and at times quite influentially, an alternative “theoretical history” of the world’s spiritual heritage.

In tracing the tradition of esoteric thought throughout time, it is possible to find a pattern of movement in certain groups and individuals. This movement seems to be working in a particular direction concerned with freeing the consciousness of humanity. Scott’s work operates from certain premises.

Firstly, History is not the equilibrant of chance and hazard. The plan for human history was written long ago, and is monitored constantly. Part of this process is ensuring that certain gains are attained to ensure the balance and evolution of man and life as a whole, the direction of which is “the Will of God.” The responsibility for this process on Earth lies with an intelligence called the Hidden Directorate. Below this level, members of ordinary humanity are in touch with the Directorate, and may at times share its consciousness.

This group of advanced human individuals is what has been referred to as the Hidden Executive. It is the reality behind all legends of ‘masters’ and ‘initiates’ from earliest historical times to the present.²

Scott claims the existence of several centres employed by the Executive, one of which is, or was, in Afghanistan, and corresponds to the legend of the Markaz or “Powerhouse.” Those under a chain of command from the Afghanistan centre have been known as “Sufis,” and from this base and others around the world, the Executive works to implement the overall plan of the Directorate.

The aim of this process is to instigate the patterns and intellectual movements that will orient people to higher evolutionary states. Scott asserts that this unified theory of history is impossible if our search is limited to the “visible shadows and not the invisible substance”.

The concept of a Hidden Directorate guiding the affairs of mankind can itself be traced as a subtle thread throughout the world’s spiritual and esoteric heritage. The early civilisations of Greece acquaint us with Mount Olympus, home to the pantheon of hidden Gods who constantly meddle in the lives of unfortunate mortals. Homer’s epic work, The Illiad, depicts how the war between the Greeks and the Trojans was decided by a war in Heaven, and the death of the epic hero, Achilles, was also determined by the same divine judges. Prior to these oral legends, another was recorded in stone and considered one of the oldest pieces of literature in history. Entitled The Epic of Gilgamesh, it relates the story of a true epic king, Gilgamesh, and clearly outlines the effect of an unseen divine community upon the daily life of the king and his people.

Many researchers have wrongly likened the Hidden Directorate to subversive societies like the Illuminati. Rather than being an exterior, politically-oriented centre for control, the Directorate is more concerned with the inner dimension of human development, which may or may not be discernible to the general mind.

By reintroducing the theory of “ancient wisdom guarded by hidden custodians or Masters”, Scott argues for a benevolent group that maintains a key influence over people of the world’s cultures, implanting key ideas and initiating experiences, “in a sacred, secular, or whatever context is required for the time, place and people.”³ They exist for the good of humanity and exist to override the sinister forces keeping man from achieving his true spiritual potential and right.

It is important to understand that the Directorate seeks not to control, but to direct or influence humanity. Due to the higher natures apparent in man, he cannot be blindly lead, only prompted into action by creating certain opportunities at certain times, and implanting particular ideas. The power of man’s free will cannot be overrun.

The French poet and esotericist Maurice Magre writes in the epilogue of his book The Return of the Magi:

There have been men whose names are unknown because they cared little for fame, and truth radiated from them without knowing it. There have been revealers who were unaware of the revelation that was in them; modest sages who mingled their wisdom with their daily life… We have all of us met, at least once in our lives, one of these unheralded initiators, and received from them a priceless gift, by a kindly word, a certain look of sadness, a sincere expression in the eyes.⁴

Sufism

Sufism is a term originally used by Western orientalists to describe the mystical path of Islam, otherwise called tasawwuf by Muslims. In reality, this tradition existed long before Islam and forms a foundation for much of the world’s collective religion and ancient thought. The Directorate itself is part of many Sufi legends including those throughout Tibet involving the mythical inner kingdom of the planet known as Shambhala. Scott argues that the Sufi influence is a common thread connecting the entire history of Europe, and that its beginnings can be traced from Spain and from the Middle East.

By the early eighth century, Cordoba, Spain, saw several schools of Sufi Initiates forming under the cover of Islam. Working in a fashion similar to the Western mystics during the later Inquisition, these individuals walked a fine line to heresy, occasionally crossing that line into the view of officialdom.

As a result there were numerous Sufi martyrs, including Mansur el Hallaj (858–922) who claimed the importance of Jesus as a member of the chain of Initiates. He openly taught Sufi concepts, and was eventually dismembered alive by the Muslim Inquisition. As he died, he prayed for the souls of his murderers.

Despite their persecution by the growing Muslim establishment, the Sufis continued an unbroken line of their wisdom and methods in a careful transmission between different secret brotherhoods or orders. Known as Tariqas, these groups acted as caretakers of the continuous line of knowledge.

During this time a particular work arrived in Spain from Basra, and is known as the Basra Encyclopaedia. Held by the Sufi initiates, it is a coded written book of all world knowledge. It arrived in the first half of the 11^th century either through the Sufi known as El Majriti, or his pupil, El Karmani. The encyclopaedia was chiefly concerned with the inner development of man, and the forms of knowledge that could develop in Europe. The actions of the underground Sufi movement in Spain preceding the 12^th century was the first strategic effort from the Directorate to inject influence into Europe.

Objectives of the Directorate

It would seem that the movement of the Directorate involved five clear objectives. The first was quite obviously the injection of an intellectual component into the heart of Europe. This end was achieved through increasing philosophical and intellectual speculation through the advancement and appearance of Eastern mathematics. Another instrument was the introduction of the Kabbala into the Western consciousness around the year 1000.

The developmental secret hinted at by the alchemists was incorporated into many forms from painting to architecture, and the true nature of the Gothic cathedrals as blueprints for human alchemy became realised in certain quarters. These elements continued to be reproduced as part of an esoteric tradition through various esoteric schools. Aspects of secret cathedral design remained a busy focus of research, particularly the complex structures left throughout key points of Europe.

It is beyond doubt that some very significant material was introduced under the eyes of the official Church authority and that unwittingly they even approved much of this material, completely unaware of the hidden nature contained. An example was the commission of El Greco to paint “Burial of Count Orgaz” for the Catholic Church. Appearing to be another devotional work, it contains a few notable differences separating it from the usual.

Its composition can, however, be dissected to show reincarnation concepts, something like the equivalence of consciousness and sexual energy and the plurality of ‘I’s’ in a human personality. These are not concepts which an ordinary clerical sponsor would have approved had he known of them.⁵

The second objective was the establishment of certain modalities that could support the dissemination of knowledge on the basis of initiation. The instruments of modality were various, but survived in what would be now called Illuminism and Freemasonry, which combined as one of the most influential forces on world politics.

It is claimed that Illuminism was injected into Europe from the school of Ibn Masarra (883–931) in Cordoba, a centre of underground Sufi teaching, while Freemasonry derives from the Knights Templar, a particularly powerful order that enabled Sufism to travel from the East to Europe through interaction with pilgrims and mystics in the Holy Land. They were initiated in rituals originally from the school of Hiram Abif, the builder of Solomon’s Temple, where they acquired their namesake. The order was later condemned and their leader burned alive in 1314 as a heretic. The Templars were the prototype for nearly every esoteric society to come afterwards.

The publication of the mysterious Rosicrucian document Fama Fraternitatis in 1614 saw the open suggestion of the existence of certain “unknown superiors” or “Brothers of the Rosy Cross” who live and work in secret and yet direct much of the spiritual destiny of the world. Becoming part of the core belief system of many Western esotericists, this concept and the associated transmissions from these “hidden masters” melded with diverse strands of existing legend, and by the nineteenth century the foundations for a major unfolding of the adeptic myth were laid. The philosophy as a movement was accelerated through the efforts of Theosophy, without which the entire myth would probably have remained forever in obscurity.

Much later in modern times, organisations like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn did a great amount to further the Directorate’s goals throughout the West. In an age where magic attracted many of the keenest minds of the day, the Golden Dawn was a virtual melting-pot of personalities. The self-styled leader, MacGregor Mathers, claimed to be in direct contact with the Secret Masters, and used this influence over the majority of his followers including the poet W.B. Yeats and a young Aleister Crowley. In many ways, this order was a catalyst for the introduction of thousands into the area of Eastern magic and philosophy.

The third objective of the Directorate was the introduction of a subtler shade to the concept of love, which recovered the dying mystery tradition of female or goddess reverence. This concept of love was introduced through the Troubadour movement of the Middle Ages. While restoring the feminine element lost in Pauline Christianity, it also recovered the traditions of pagan and, in particular, Egyptian thought, creating the Cult of Virgin Mary. This cult continues to be suppressed to all extents by the Catholic Church. The appearance of statues of the Black Madonna is another permutation, which implicitly suggests the Mary/Isis, and hence the Horus/Jesus concept of shared heritage and myth. In many ways, these statues are indicators of various awakened communities and the Sufi realisation that all true religions are one.

The fourth objective was to establish a “psychokinetic technique whereby certain individuals, working perhaps in pairs, could increase their level of conscious energy.” This was enabled through the appearance of the technique of alchemy which, under the guise of base metal transmutation, outlined the course for the transmutation of the soul and increasing the level of conscious energy.

The Transmittants

The last objective of the Directorate for the Middle Ages was the act of securing an immediate development through specific individuals who have the ability to influence their society and its future for the good of humanity. These men chosen by the Directorate were capable of making a deep impression on their age, and they contributed material that had a quality of persistence in various guises through many centuries.

The earliest alchemists were probably “knowers”. They had learned techniques which gave them access to an enhanced level of awareness. From this level they knew the inner content of religion. They discovered that all true religions are one.⁶

These men were concerned with achieving particular evolutionary gains in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, regardless of whether they operated under the cover of Islam or Christianity. To declare that Christianity and Islam contained an inner truth overlaid by dogma and politics would have been considered heresy, and as Scott argues, these men “knew they had to build a bridge, but it so happened that bridge-building was illegal. The bridge builders had to pretend they were engaged in some other activity – like digging holes in the road. Not unnaturally, the holes were incomprehensible to their contemporaries and have remained largely so ever since.”⁷

One of these individuals may have been Albertus Magnus, the Count of Bollstadt (1206–1280) and one of the earliest European alchemists. He refused to believe that knowledge ended with Aristotle, and was one of those challenging and ambivalent intellects that sought to break out of any conceivable cage that may limit its movement. His independent thought and liberated writing did much to raise his name across Europe, drawing numerous young, hungry scholars to his personal teaching. One such scholar was Thomas Aquinas.

Legend has it that Magnus over the course of thirty years constructed a “talking head” and a complete artificial man. Idries Shah claims that “making a head” is a Sufi code phrase for a particular method of inner development, keeping with the stories of Magnus’ apparently obsessive attention to occultism, and his otherworldly powers of the mind. He is said to have commanded “instantaneous hypnotism”, an example of which is the story of his dinner party to whom he invited a minor royal family of Europe. It was mid-winter and he held the party in open air. When his guests entered the yard, the snow disappeared, the grass grew green and fruit appeared on the trees. As soon as the glorious dinner was finished, the perfect scene vanished, and the party found itself shivering and covered in snow. Clearly an extremely adept alchemist, his strange abilities and coded writings eventually earned him a wide regard. Throughout his time, Magnus was spoken of as holding a great amount of hidden knowledge in his grasp that seemed a great burden to him. It has been suggested that this knowledge may have been passed onto his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, later Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas left university in Naples, much to the annoyance of his family, to join the same order of Dominican monks that his teacher Magnus was a part. For the next three years, he studied under Magnus and emerged “a philosopher and alchemist.” In 1256 he travelled to Paris, where he attained the seat of Master of Paris University.

He began his post with the aim of assembling all world knowledge into a single encyclopaedia, quite similar to the Sufi Basra Encyclopaedia. He considered that both Reason and Faith were concerned with the same object. The former starts with sense-data and attains to a knowledge of the existence, goodness and will of God. The latter rests on revelation. Each requires the taking into account of the knowledge arrived at by the other. The Church took a quick and decisive stand against this notion, feeling “Rationalism” had gone too far in the European mindset and education system.

Aquinas’ writings were condemned by the Church, particularly by the Bishop of Paris and two successive Archbishops of Canterbury. The basic concepts of Aquinas, namely that the human soul is “a single substantial form of the human body” was viewed as an attack on doctrine. The sorest point, however, was that the writings implicitly suggested a system, inspired by and derived from the new translations of Aristotle into the European languages, a self-sufficient view of man and the universe, not reliant on the teachings of the Church. This was probably the single most important reason for the suppression of Thomas Aquinas that followed, but not before he managed to inject the Sufi impulse into European thought and education.

Both Magnus and Aquinas were engaged, it seems, in a perilous exercise of hunting with hounds and running with hares.

They probably knew, because of their contact with a genuine esoteric source, that “known” truth and theological dogma need not, by any means, coincide. They were probably engaged in trying to reintroduce the original developmental force of Christianity, while gently diluting the organisational accretions which had all but smothered it.⁸

If men like Magnus and Aquinas were in touch with an aspect of the Directorate, they would be capable of generating the effect required on their contemporaries and environment. Historically, it would seem that the effort failed. Yet behind the scenes much must have been achieved. “There is evidence that at the deepest levels of Sufi secrecy there is a mutual communication with the mystics of the Christian West,” says Idries Shah.

Contemporary with Aquinas was Roger Bacon (1214–292). Renown for his eccentricity and genius, he wore Arab dress at Oxford and was considered to “make women of devils and juggle cats into costermongers”. He is also remembered as one of the greatest intellects of the period.

After becoming a Franciscan monk in 1247, his views on almost everything brought him into conflict with the established cleric. He had in mind the formation of a vast encyclopaedia of all world knowledge, and in a secret letter to the Pope suggested that the Church should centralise this enterprise. This pattern suggests that one of the strongest elements of Sufi evolution is the realisation of this “World Encyclopaedia”, begun in Basra. This is argued as the platform from which the Directorate is planning the next stage of action for future centuries. Apparently in this instance, the Pope misunderstood the letter and thinking that the encyclopaedia already existed, expressed his interest in seeing it. Bacon then decided to write it himself.

He worked diligently without the knowledge of his superiors, and in an amazingly short period of time he produced three monumental pieces, the Opus Major, Opus Minor and Opus Tertium. Each outlined a scheme for research and experimentation in languages, mathematics, optics, alchemy and astronomy. The Pope, Clement IV, died in 1268 before reading the works, taking with him Bacon’s dream of introducing the esoteric and natural sciences to the universities of Europe.

Bacon professed to believe that the totality of human knowledge and possibilities was contained in the Bible; but unlike his contemporaries he did not believe that the Bible was an open book. To understand it, a certain kind of inner study was necessary and this involved a knowledge of alchemy, astrology and magic.⁹

Bacon was quite clearly engaged in secretly building a bridge between the outward and exoteric side of Christianity and its true esoteric nature that was disappearing under the weight of dogma. He was clearly on dangerous ground, eventually paying for his views with a 14 year prison sentence in his own monastery.

He openly cited the teachings of the Sufi master Suhrawardi, in particular his work “Wisdom of Illumination.” Suhrawardi claimed that his philosophy was that of the inner teaching of all the ancients – Greek, Persian and Egyptian.

It was the science of Light and through it man could attain to a state about which he could not normally even dream. Bacon repeated this claim and declared that the same secret had been held by Noah, Abraham, the Chaldean and Egyptian masters, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Socrates and the Sufis.¹⁰

Many researchers recognise that Bacon was in touch with some genuine esoteric source, and like Nostradamus and Odhar centuries later, Bacon was subject to strange visions and prophecies in which he described in the plainest possible detail the motor car, the aeroplane, submarine and the cantilever bridge, and numerous other inventions which are only making sense to us now. His visions and inventions are still secretly discussed throughout the modern world.

The Search for the Source

The legend of the Directorate is one of those few lasting for countless centuries, in a surprisingly unchanged form. While it has moved throughout cultures, great and obvious care has been taken to assure careful and clear transmission. Offering great implications for the world, it actually offers many more for the individual. In its Sufi leaning and origin, it presents perhaps the closest form of a unified world religion, and a definite course for the realisation of humanity’s potential. It may be that matters will never be more explicit than they are now, and that a successful search for a Source, as Scott says, is – and always has been – the minimum price of admission.

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Recommended Reading: People of the Secret by Ernest Scott, Meetings With Remarkable Men by G.I. Gurdjieff, In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky, The Templars and the Assassins by James Wasserman, The Sufis by Idries Shah.

Footnotes

1. Gospel of Matthew, GN Bible (New York: Collins, 1976)

2. Ernest Scott, The People of the Secret (London: Octagon Press, 1983).

3. Richard Holmes Jr, Critique Magazine

4. Maurice Magre, The Return of the Magi, trans. Reginald Merton (London: Sphere Books, 1975), pp. 223-24.

5. Scott, p.119

6. Scott, p.123

7. Scott, p.123

8. Scott, p.118

9. Scott, p. 121

10. Scott, p. 121

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