Author: Aleister Crowley

Samuel Liddell Mac Gregor Mathers was born in 1854 in London, England. He attended Bedford School and, after graduating, began work as a clerk in Dorset. His father died while he was a young boy, and his mother died while he was in his thirties. Shortly after his mother”s death, he moved from Dorset to London. He was married to Monia Bergson, the sister of the philosopher Henri Bergson. Mathers was a freemason – raised as a Master Mason in 1878. In 1882 he was admitted to the Metropolitan College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA) as well as a number of fringe Masonic degrees. Working hard both for and in the SRIA, he was awarded an honorary 8th Degree in 1886. Upon the death of William Robert Woodman in 1891, Mathers assumed leadership of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He moved with his wife to Paris on 21 May 1892. After his expulsion from the Golden Dawn in April 1900, Mathers formed a group in Paris in 1903 called Alpha et Omega (its headquarters, the Ahathoor Temple). Mathers assumed the title of “Archon Basileus”. Mathers was a polyglot; among the languages he had studied were English, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Gaelic and Coptic – though he had a greater command of some languages than of others. His translations of such books as The Book of Abramelin (14th C.), Christian Knorr von Rosenroth”s The Kabbalah Unveiled (1684), Key of Solomon (anonymous 14th C.), The Lesser Key of Solomon (anonymous 17th C.), and the Grimoire of Armadel (17th C.), while probably justly criticized with respect to quality, were responsible for making what had been obscure and inaccessible material widely available to the non-academic English speaking world. His works have had considerable influence on the development of occult and esoteric thought since their publication, as has his consolidation of the Enochian magical system of John Dee and Edward Kelley. Mathers died in November 1918 in Paris. The manner of his death is unknown; his death certificate lists no cause of death. Violet Firth claimed his death was the result of the Spanish influenza of 1918. While this seems likely, few facts are known about Mathers”s private life, verification of such claims is difficult.