Arthur Machen
(1863-1947)
Machen was a Welshman, the son of an Anglican priest, who moved to London as a young man, working as a clerk and tutor while attempting to start a career in journalism. He never went to university but, living from his father's inheritance for a number of years, immediately began an illustrious writing career with the publication of what came to be several well-known works of supernatural fiction, such as The Great God Pan. (He also published a somewhat racy version of Casanova's Memoirs, just for variety, one presumes.) Later, to supplement his meagre income as a writer, he found work as an actor on the stage, and also became a reporter for a London newspaper, which experience also gave him plenty of material for his fiction. He died in his London home in 1947. Machen is known today mainly for his horror fiction, and is commonly acknowledged as one of the pioneers in the genre, along with H.P. Lovecraft (upon whom his work had considerable influence.) Machen was of a sceptical temperament who only was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn for a brief period (1899-1900), just prior to the schism that splintered it. He remained sceptical of mystical orders and secret societies throughout his life. Perhaps the most telling piece he wroter about his experience in the G.D. comes from one of his autobiographical writings. He saved himself from potential libel suits by changing or omitting the names of the players and changing the name of the order to the Order of the Twilight Star. An excerpt:
And I must confess that it did me a great deal of good -- for the time. To stand waiting at a closed door in a breathless expectation, to see it open suddenly and disclose two figures clothed in a habit that I never thought to see worn by the living, to catch for a moment the vision of a cloud of incense smoke and certain dim lights glimmering in it before the bandage was put over the eyes and the arm felt a firm grasp upon it that led the hesitating footsteps into the unknown darkness: all this was strange and admirable indeed; and strange is was to think that within a foot or two of those closely curtained windows the common life of London moved on the common pavement, as supremely unaware of what was being done within an arm's length as if our works had been the works of the other side of the moon. All this was very fine; an addition and a valuable one, as I say, to the phantasmagoria that was being presented to me. But as for anything vital in the secret order, or anything that mattered two straws to any reasonable being, there was nothing of it, and less than nothing. Among the members there were, indeed, persons of very high attainments, who, in my opinion, ought to have known better after a year's membership or less; but the society as a society was pure foolishness concerned with impotent and imbecile Abracadabras. It knew nothing about anything and concealed the fact under an impressive ritual and a sonorous phraseology. It had no wisdom, even of the inferior or lower kind, in its leadership; it exercised no real scrutiny onto the character of those whom it admired . . .
And yet it had and has an interest of a kind. It claimed, I may say, to be of very considerable antiquity, and to have been introduced into England from abroad in a singular manner. I am not quite certain as to the details, but the mythos imparted to members was something after this fashion. A gentleman interested in occult studies was looking round the shelves of a second-hand bookshop, where the works which attracted him were sometimes to be found. He was examining a particular volume -- I forget whether its title was given -- when he found between the leaves a few pages of dim manuscript, written in a character which was strange to him. The gentleman bought the book, and when he got home early eagerly examined the manuscript. It was in cipher; he could make nothing of it. But on the manuscript -- or perhaps on a separate slip laid next to it -- was the address of a person in Germany. The curious instigator of secret things and hidden counsels wrote to the address , obtained full particulars, the true manner of reading the cipher and, as I conjecture, a sort of commission and jurisdiction from the Unknown Heads in Germany to administer the mysteries in England. And hence arose, or re-arose, in this isles the Order of the Twilight Star. Its original foundation was assigned to the fifteenth century.
I like the story; but there was not on atom of truth in it. . .Its true date of origin was [1880-1885?] at the earliest. The "Cipher Manuscript" was written on paper that bore the watermark of 1809 in ink that had a faded appearance. But it contained information that could not possibly have been know to any living being in the year 1809, that was not known to any living being till twenty years later. It was, no doubt a forgery of the early 'eighties. Its originators must have some knowledge of Freemasonry; but so ingeniously was this occult fraud 'put upon the market' that, to the best of my belief, the flotation remains a mystery to this day. But what an entertaining mystery: and, after all, it did nobody any harm.
. . .Any critical mind, with a twinge of occult reading, should easily have concluded that here was no ancient order from the whole nature and substance of its ritual and doctrine. For ancient rituals, whether orthodox or heterodox, are found on one mythos and on one mythos only. The are grouped about some fact, actual or symbolic, as the ritual of Freemasonry is said to have at its centre certain events connected to the building of King Solomon's Temple, and they keep within their limits. But the Twilight Star embraced all mythologies and all mysteries of all races and all ages, and '"referred' or "attributed" them to each other and proved that they all came to much the same thing; and that was enough! There was not the ancient frame of mind; it was not even the 1809 frame of mind. But it was very much the eighteen-eighty and later frame of mind.
I must say that I did not seek the Order mere in quest of odd entertainment, As I have stated in the chapter before this, I have experienced strange things -- they still appear to me strange -- of body, mind and spirit, and I supposed that the Order, dimly heard of, might give me some light and guidance, and leading on these matters. But, as I have noted, I was mistaken; the Twilight Star shed no ray of any kind on my path.