The first natal chart to be published in the Brotherhood of Light books is that of Thomas H. Burgoyne, followed by that of his astrological co-author Sarah Stanley Grimke.
His last appearance in the historical record was in 1891, but in 1892 he married Genevieve Stebbins as Norman Astley. A Saint Louis news story from that year shows her to be famous but controversial as she attains national fame. She is called “Mrs. Stebbins” and no husband is named, but by this point her decades long collaboration with Astley was underway.
By 1897, in addition to managing Genevieve’s New York School of Expression and her lectures and demonstrations across the country, he was managing their investments in timber, farming, and gold mining. This story reports a successful gold strike in North Carolina.
These are the three appendices included in the original 1913 edition of The Quest of the Spirit. This concludes the 2024 series of excerpts from books by early ancestors of the BOL Lessons. Henceforth the blog updates will be mostly about 20thc individuals relevant to the Lessons shared on their birth dates– upcoming in November, Max Theon and Mark Twain. Having already featured Elbert Benjamine, I have no more December births to feature. But January includes birth dates for George Ivanovich Gurdjieff as well as Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and Marie Sinclair Countess of Caithnesswhose birthdates were previous undetermined.
APPENDIX I- A CASE OF SPIRIT IDENTITY
Only a brief outline of the main and necessary facts are here given to show that a theory of self- deception, hallucination, telepathy, or fraud upon the part of others will not explain the facts of the case; each of these being rendered impossible by the peculiar circumstances of the two sides of the case.
One night, after a day’s hard study, I was trying to go to sleep, but found sleep impossible, when suddenly, the distinct form of a woman appeared before me. She stood between my bed and the window, and I remember that I could dimly see through the figure. I was not at all afraid.
The apparition spoke in a faint but distinct voice- gave me her name, date of her death; together with the name and address of an unknown stranger whom she stated to be her son. Here she related a certain circumstance in her life; then asked me to write to hereon and convey this information; adding, that for reasons, which I would know later, it was import for us to know each other.
Acting on the spur of the moment I got out of bed and made a note of the facts, promising to write to the son. Not until I had completed the memoranda did the figure speak again. Turning half round, it said: “Thank you, my friend,” then the vision disappeared. Now, if I was really asleep before, I was certainly very wide awake when the figure vanished. To say that I regarded the whole thing as a hallucination is scarcely true. I tried to persuade myself that it was a dream- but there was the writing with the names, etc. I had heard of strange tricks performed by somnambulists, and finally, felt that that must be the explanation. I put the thing out of my mind. The idea of writing what I considered nonsense to a fictitious stranger appeared to be the height of absurdity.
Nearly two years passed by, and the entire circumstance was completely forgotten, when again I had a dream- this time a real one. Upon retiring, I had fallen asleep at once. The same woman again appeared in my dream. This time there was no communication whatever- nothing but a look of profound sorrow. A feeling of remorse came over me. I remembered my former promise; but somehow I felt myself incapable of asking questions. I awoke feeling heartily ashamed of myself. Again, of course, consoling myself with the thought that it was only a dream.
Nevertheless, I could not, do what I would, rid myself of the haunting look of that sorrowful face. I determined to write to the address given to me previously. I did, and quite contrary to my expectation received an answer in due course. Now for the first time I was really astounded.
A thorough investigation followed. Every detail of the first vision was confirmed. But a still greater wonder was to follow. I found that it was no trivial affair but one of the last importance to me, which became, and still is, a dominating influence in my life.
Now for the other side of the story which to me, in view of my own experience, appeared the most remarkable: About the same time that the first vision appeared to me, a gentleman residing nearly two thousand miles from where I was staying, received a communication through the mediumship of a woman-friend of unusual psychic gifts. Only her immediate friends were aware of her abnormal power. This communication, purporting to come from his mother, who had been dead many years, stated that before many days he would receive a letter from a stranger who would ask rtain uestions and state certain things that would convince him of her identity. It is important here to say that he was very sceptical in spiritual matters. Weeks passed away. No letter was received. So he merely looked upon it as one of the “misses” of mediumship.
About a year and a half afterwards another communication was received through the same source, saying: “Be patient; wait; I shall succeed.” However, he paid no attention to this. After five or six months further delay, the unlooked-for letter arrived. I need not add that it was mine.
The promise of two years before was fulfilled. The explanations on both sides being compared left no room for doubt in any sensible mind. Only the most confirmed sceptic, who would refuse any testimony against his prejudice, could remain unconvinced.
APPENDIX II-NOTES UPON MAN’S PSYCHICAL CONSTITUTION
N.B.-The following paragraphs have been culled from many lengthy notes and “communications” received through what has been called “automatic writing.” They are here given for what they may be worth as suggestions to other “investigators.”
The Aura.
The Aura of a person is a purely psychical form of atmosphere seen or felt only by sensitive temperaments. It surrounds all forms from mineral to man. Much that we call instinct in animals is nothing but a sensing of the feelings, passing as currents in the mental strata of their race. Many times, wild animals have been observed to become suddenly suspicious, nervous, alarmed, when such warnings as scent, sound, or wind were out of the question. Transmitted by some subtle invisible current, a sense of danger was awakened, their sphere of consciousnesss received the race alarm which aroused the inherited racial instinct, or memory.
Man, to a greater extent than he is aware of, is influenced by this sensitive atmosphere. To the eye of a seer, it is varied in extent and changeable in colour.
The planet, apart from the atmosphere of gas, has also a mental envelope, a psychical atmosphere within the gaseous, and this must not be mistaken for the universal ether of space. Finally, the solar system has its own peculiar, psychical aura, so that planetary intercommunication is at least among the possibilities of the future.
Man may be likened unto a musical instrument in bis psychical constitution, and the sensitiveness of his auric sphere. He may range, according to race, from the conch, and wooden tom-tom of the savage, to the most exquisite cremona-violin, while the consciousness within the auric sphere rises from the Tasmanian Black to a Buddha, or a Jesus of Nazareth. There is, therefore, a wonderful difference in kind in the transmission and reception of thought- waves, which like light-waves in the ether, travel in their own medium. These thought- waves, producing sensation in the auric-sphere, have to be transmuted into conscious ideas; and an idea entirely foreign to our consciousness will pass without recognition, or at best, be wholly mistranslated.
One human instrument will only respond to another in harmony, or sympathy with it, and in whatever sense this sympathy, or harmony is, will be the terms in which the idea will be expressed.
To revert to our analogy, every human-being is in accord with some tone, or semi-tone of a musical- scale. Minds corresponding to B flat will receive no message from G sharp; though there are some minds, almost neutral in their sphere of sensitiveness, who respond more or less to anything.
These currents are transmitted in the psychical atmosphere of the planet. The spheres of human consciousness are but so many wireless-stations for sending or receiving messages. Each station is limited to messages of a certain kind and grade from similar stations.
We are now approaching the mystery of the frequent confusion in thought transference. According to its quality of refinement, and its complex relations with the psychic form of consciousness, and the aurio-sphere, the human brain has every degree of receptive quality, from a clear-receiving of the thought to its reception in broken rays. As light is split up by a prism of glass, so such ramifications are lost in the thought of the individual.
All musical-instruments can be attuned to respond perfectly to each other, so by training, two sympathetic persons can become so responsively attuned as to. receive and transmit thought clearly, consciously, and without error. To investigate this is the great work for the psychologists of the future.
APPENDIX III-THE GROUND OF NATURE
A critical friend, to whom this work was submitted before going to press, suggested that the writer should further elaborate what he means by the “Ground of Nature,” and illustrate that meaning by some familiar analogy. This suggestion appealed to others less critical.
By the Ground of Nature, we mean, of course, the whole invisible psychical basis of spiritual activity and material phenomena- the world-spirit, ocean of life which, ever in flux and change, ebb and flow, is, at the same time, ever becoming richer in content. Illustrative of this, we find a striking analogy to this cosmic ground in the oceans of the earth we inhabit. We can go back in the imagination to a period in geological time when the hot seas were first precipitated upon the steaming planet- before the first form of life & before the first strata of the aqueous rocks were laid down- and can note that the waters thus formed were fresh waters unimpregnated with their present saline content.
Slowly, as the primitive crust of the earth was eroded and deposited by the waters- strata after strata, the salts of the decomposed rocks impregnated the water with their quality. The ocean, at first, became brackish: gradually increasing in their salinity in and richness until the present day. Life, likewise, at first, was simple in form, and probably limited in extent. There appears to be a perfect parallel between the increasing salinity and richness of the ocean and the increasing diversity and richness of its organised life. Generation succeeded to generation through unknown millions of years. Organic life became constantly more complex, divergent, and higher in form, as the ocean became more saline. The content of the planet grew in richness until life ran riot with infinite variety. And man, that final instrument of the Spirit, burst through the barrier and added self-consciousness to intelligence and instinct. Now, we are to note that the first primitive form we can trace, the Eozoon, was impossible before the waters were formed. The giant mosses, ferns, and reptiles of the coal measures, impossible until ages of erosion of the primitive rooks had formed a suitable soil in which to flourish. The earth, in fact, increased in vital riches from age to age, as the waters of the ocean grew more saline by the continuous decomposition of the rocks, and the soil more fertile by the decomposition of its own organic life. We can use this illustration to form an imperfect but intelligible image of the psychical ground– the primeval ocean of Nature. We are dealing with the ground in our own time after inconceivable eons of preparation; after the movement of life bas become inconceivably rich in possibility. We would be worse than fools, we would be insane to imagine a beginning as a something evolving from nothing; but we can profitably go back in imagination to a conceivable period or process in which the elements of the ground were simple and the possibilities limited to simple forms of expression. System after system of solar energy, and planetary struggle arose to light and beauty, and passed away leaving their primitive achievements to live and blush un-seen by any self- conscious forms of life. But there was no waste. Each form of life added to the riches of the psychic ground. Every form evolved- though it perished and sank back into the earth again-did not really die. The experience was not lost. The form attained sank back again as a formless poteniality, adding to the richness of the ocean of life as the perishing rooks add to the chemical richness of the sea; as the decomposing bodies of organic life add to the richness of the soil.
The ocean of life, like the oceans of earth, is in ceaseless motion- action and reaction- ebb and flow- with this difference- the ocean of life reaches a higher point in matter with every tide. Something new is created, some advance is made, something comes into being which never existed before, because the life-force itself is growing richer in content with every moment of time. In a chapter devoted to the same subject, Edward Douglas Fawcett, in his valuable work, The Individual and Reality, writes:
We need not ask whether a cosmic plan or design was Immanent in the Ground. We have agreed to discard the conceptions of ‘unconscious purpose.’ ‘Purpose,’ ‘plan,’ ‘ scheme,’ ‘ design’- these imply a conscious individual, a being who is aware of desires and aversions and can remember, expect, deliberate and choose. On the other band, there is no call to suppose that the Ground was ever mere chaos, an abyss of confused differences whence, if chance so decreed, a preposterous Nature and fantastic individuals might arise. System is itself as primeval as the Ground. We have laid stress on the important part played by struggle. But the fecundity of struggle presupposes this system- a germinal system which is to change into a Nature and individuals in most respects differing from itself. This germinal system may have issued from a former one and so on. The universe in the Time- process is always becoming what it was not. Huxley said of ‘ protoplasm,’ that it is continually dying in order that it may live. This is, also, our own lot. The conscious person is always ceasing to be what he has become. This, too, on the great scale, is the lot- the ‘contradictory’ life of the universe. The supposal, even on idealistic lines, of a primeval chaos is gratuitous. The Ground while sub- conscious, was yet a psychical whole. It was the source of that very strife which sired Nature. “We do not speak of a primeval ‘design’ for we must not speak of the Ground as possessing that which presupposes individual life, for individual life belongs to a relatively late stage of becoming. But ‘design’ even if we allow only for the activities of men and animals, is certainly an important phase of reality now. The Ground, then, is the remote source even of design. Its fecundity was such that it had to pass into this form of activity at last.”
The biologists’ natural selection is familiar to all [System here means Tendency] of us. It may be viewed as continuing that strife which began with time. It has scourged man with scorpions. And even among the higher animals it involves a system of terrorism from the beginning to the end, as a famous explorer tells. [Sir Samuel Baker] It shows no partiality towards what we call the nobler forms of life. It fixed grim instincts, and renders destructive activities, which make for suffering, pleasant. The butcher-bird is encouraged to impale mice, etc. alive on thorns; parasites multiply and torment creatures superior to themselves. Men not yet touched with sympathy, and inheriting ancestral proclivities once of use in the struggle for life, show cruel dispositions which are genuine natural gifts. A passion for cruelty characterises certain communities. This need not surprise any one who accepts the metaphysics offered here. It was no moral power which ordained the process in which individuals arise. The passport to a place in reality, is- just to succeed! . . . We return now to the topic of a finite God or gods. There was no design, properly so-called, immanent in the Ground. But world-histories without number may have been their course before the present evolution era, and, more especially, the story of this minor solar system began. And Individuals, motioning to a finite god or gods may have been the fruit of such histories. A being or beings of this sort may have helped to produce our part of reality and may be continuing to modify it now. We must allow, at least, that the hypothesis must be considered.
Published in 1896 by Astro-Philosophical Publications of Denver, Celestial Dynamics was attributed to Zanoni as the author, but the title page identifies him as the author of The Light of Egypt and The Language of the Stars. “T.H.B.” adds an editorial comment in the earlier book but not the sequel.
This is the first of a series of fifteen lessons which get progressively more technical as we proceed. Only the first three will be shared as blog posts. The first lesson is shared here as a text document, but the second and lessons include astrological symbols best viewed as images of scanned pages. The full text is available at Iapsop.com.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE STARS, LESSON I. PLANETARY INFLUENCES.
That there are immutable laws in nature no man of common sense will deny. Principles are laws. Equally self-evident must be the fact that such natural law is administered through some agency, and that such agencies or instruments, obeying the attractive and repulsive forces dominating them, can only transmit their powers and fulfill the behests of creative and evolutionary law, by means of the sympathies and antipathies, which we find constituting the basis of all life, growth, death and decay. So it is with everything which has so far been submitted to the keen investigation of the human mind; the attraction of a sun for its planets, for instance; of a mother to her offspring; or of a man toward his help-mate—woman—are based upon the same eternal principle. They constitute the unchangeable analogies of nature, which we can neither ignore nor dispute.
Therefore, in this brief attempt to elucidate the nature and source of planetary influence, we are compelled, for want of space, to assume without further argument, that the sun, moon and planets are no exception to the general order of nature; but that they have a force, power and influence, each peculiar to itself, upon each other upon our earth and everything existing thereon. The fact that the tides of the ocean are ever obedient to the attractions of the moon in her orbit; that the gorgeous Helianthus, on the contrary, ever turns its golden head toward the sun, are but single straws that catch the student’s eye to indicate the trend of the great current of life. The stars and planets are the instruments by which the seven creative principles manifest themselves. They influence externally by their attractive sympathies and repulsive antipathies the cosmic life forces, which, in the realm of spirit, are controlled by their celestial rulers. By this we mean that the various physical orbs called planets, etc., act as so many magnetic centers. They are magnetic by solar induction, the sun itself being positively electric, and this mighty electrical force acts upon the physical planet precisely as an electric current acts upon a piece of soft iron.
The sum total of those powers, then, which are termed planetary influences is contained within the potentiality of the solar ray. But when so emitted as a cosmic force, the action of this solar ray upon the human organism and its material destiny is neutral. To become potential in special directions it is necessary to become refracted into active attributes. This is precisely the ministerial office of the planets. They each receive and absorb some one principle of the solar light and reflect such energy upon other bodies under a different polarity. This energy so transmitted is the planetary influence, whose laws and results constitute the language and science of the stars. That sound, motion, force and color have a distinct relationship is an admitted fact of science. The different intensity of the various vibrations produced by the mutual interaction of the planets of our solar system are productive of different colors, all of which are resolvable into each other in their natural order, and all ultimately into the pure white light from which they originally sprang. This is seen in the grandest of all solar spectrums, the rainbow. There are seven colors, three primary and four complementary, corresponding to the seven creative principles and the musical scale.
So likewise there are seven planetary forces known to astrologers as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Saturn absorbs the attribute which expresses itself as coldness, hence isolation and reserve. It is the blue ray in action. Jupiter absorbs the attribute expressive of generous warmth, hence a sanguine cheerfulness, which corresponds to the purple ray. Mars absorbs an energy, the polar opposite of Saturn, which expresses itself as fiery, aggressive; hence destruction, which is the red ray. The Sun retains and transmits an electrical, commanding force, which expresses dignity and self-reliance; it is the orange ray. Venus absorbs the attribute which expresses itself as love and ideality- this corresponds to the yellow ray. Mercury absorbs the attribute which expresses itself as mental energy; hence restlessness and invention, and is the violet ray. The Moon absorbs our earth’s influx, which is purely negative in its action, and corresponds to the green ray. These are the seven, and when these are complete in their mental actions upon the human organism, termed planetary for convenience or designation, and nature desires to continue her musical play, she ascends to a higher octave. Only two bodies are at present either visible or influential; they are as high as human evolution in the present cycle has reached. These orbs are Uranus and Neptune. The former the octave expression of Mercury and the latter of Venus. Further details will be given in succeeding lessons.
In the practical application of “Celestial Dynamics” the primary principles of Astronomy and Astrology must be fully understood, and as no really reliable practical Manual at a reasonable price has ever been issued in America upon this subject, combined with the fact that owing to the United States postal and revenue laws, European works are almost inaccessible to American readers, who cannot afford to pay prohibitive prices. It is to be hoped that these facts alone are a sufficient apology, if any be needed, for the appearance of a work in this, the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, professing to deal seriously with the rules and elementary principles of Ancient Astrology. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the present work that can be called original, more than is embraced perhaps in the style and method of presentment, because the matter subjected to the reader’s notice is but the Alphabet of that Science of the Stars which gave to Chaldea its grandeur and to Egypt its wisdom. An Alphabet of Celestial knowledge which is coeval with the history of man and whose origin is lost within the depths of prehistoric time. The writer’s chief effort has been to present the subject to the young student in the simplest form possible,and to convey to his mind the technical details of an exceedingly interesting study in a pleasing manner, free from all the unseemly personalities so frequently found in astrological authors. At the same time the subject is treated in a thoroughly practical manner to enable the student to realize the extent of his undertaking. It is vast, and requires a mind that is equally great for its full realization. At the same time it will, when once mastered, amply repay him for the time and effort devoted to its acquirement. Each subject has been rendered as brief and concise as possible, and all imaginary rules and considerations, no matter upon what authority they rest, from Claudius Ptolemy to the present day, have been ignored. The lover of truth, and the Scientific investigator has little use for “The part of Fortune,” or, “Dragon’s head and tail.” They want facts, and these facts mixed with as little theory as possible. With this we close, remembering the words of a well known critic, “The Preface is an Author’s opportunity to unload his egotistical cant.”
The Author.
In 2025 this blog will feature serialized excerpts from The Language of the Stars (1892) and Celestial Dynamics (1896) by which time he is living not as Burgoyne but as Norman Astley. In 2024 I will finish the Tour Through the Zodiac series with weekly entries on Taurus and Gemini. KPJ
This 1916 photograph of a Carmel landmark appears on a timeline of historic photographs on the admirable website of the local visitor center.
The epilogue below appears in the new reprint of The Quest of the Spirit.
The Brotherhood of Light was headquartered in Los Angeles throughout its fourteen years of public work, led by Elbert and Elizabeth Benjamine and Fred Skinner. Writing of the 21 volume Brotherhood of Light lessons and private meetings commenced in 1914, with public work beginning on November 11, 1918, the Armistice Day that ended the first world war.
Its successor organization The Church of Light was formed the week of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to the presidency in November 1932. The Brotherhood of Light lessons were complete by 1934, although revisions continued until Elbert’s death in 1951. Its predecessor organization the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor had splintered in America due to divisions among the leaders, but continued in France, Algeria, and Israel as Max Theon’s Cosmic Philosophy for decades. Genevieve Stebbins returned to her native California in 1917 after more than thirty years in the eastern United States and England.
She returned with a second husband, Norman Astley, whom she had married in 1892 in Boston and who became the manager of her New York School of Expression and collaborator in its programs until they retired to England in 1907. Her first husband, Joseph Thompson, was the brother of her business partner Mary Thompson. The marital and business partnerships dissolved by 1892; Norman Astley filled both vacancies admirably, managing her investments and artistic endeavors with equal skill.
Their choice of Carmel-by-the-Sea as a place to retire after a life of international travel raises questions related to Astley’s former life as Thomas H. Burgoyne, who had collaborated there as a co-author with Sarah Stanley Grimké. His later life, in which he spent forty years as husband of Genevieve Stebbins included the lifespan of the Brotherhood of Light, whose lessons reflect his writings as well as hers and those of Grimké.
Elbert Benjamine’s writings reflect not only the influence of his mentors the Astleys, but also literary figures in the Monterey Bay milieu, including permanent residents Lincoln Steffens and Robinson Jeffers as well as Jack London and Upton Sinclair who visited the area and wrote about it.
Thomas Henry d’Alton (Dalton, Alton) was born April 14, 1855 in Douglas, Isle of Man. He was the son of chiropodist Thomas Henry d’Alton and Emma Rice, who had him christened in Grisham, Lancashire on July 1. He married Betsy Bella Prince May 12, 1878 in Lancaster, Lancashire and was the father of a son Thomas and a daughter Veda in Burnley, Lancashire when he adopted the pseudonym T.H. Burgoyne in 1884. Soon after Burgoyne was named Secretary of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, it was revealed by Theosophists that he had convicted in 1883 of obtaining money under false pretenses in West Riding, Yorkshire and had served six months in prison. Leaving his wife and children, he arrived in White County, Georgia as Burgoyne with Peter Davidson and family in 1886. Burgoyne’s periodical writings appeared solely in HBofL-related publications between 1885 and 1888: first The Occultist and The Occult Magazine in England and then Thomas Moore Johnson’s The Platonist.
After the first edition of The Light of Egypt was published in Chicago by Religio-Philosophical Publishing House in 1889, Burgoyne was published exclusively by Astro-Philosophical Publications of Denver, which released Celestial Dynamics in 1896 and Language of the Stars in 1892. All three were published as works of Zanoni, identified finally as Burgoyne only in the 1900 expanded edition of The Light of Egypt. The influence of Burgoyne’s writings was greater in continental Europe than the English-speaking world, with translations and paraphrases of The Light of Egypt in French, Russian, German, and Spanish, and the Paris occultist Papus promoting Burgoyne’s astrological teachings in his own works. Burgoyne’s letters to Thomas Moore Johnson published in Letters to the Sage are significant evidence of HBofL practices and teachings, but later he becomes the subject of others’ letters that reveal the confusion unleashed by revelation of Burgoyne’s real name and history. Theosophical leaders saw it as a way to discredit a rival organization, and the ensuing controversy destroyed the HBofL in England, but not in France where it continued to thrive, nor in America where Peter Davidson pursued his studies in Georgia independently of Council President Johnson and Secretary Burgoyne.
Zanoni was a pen name derived from a Rosicrucian themed 1842 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in which the adept teacher of the title character was named Mejnour. Peter Davidson, Provincial Grand Master of the North of the original HBof L, had written in the Scottish Highlands under the latter pen name. On July 12, 1886 the HBofL Council met in Kansas City without Burgoyne present to deliberate on evidence that d’Alton and Burgoyne were the same person. They agreed unanimously that they were identical and advised all members to avoid contact with Burgoyne and Davidson until further investigation. In St. Louis they met again on September 5, reinstating Burgoyne who was present this time as a member. Peter Davidson, on the other hand, is never mentioned again by Johnson and colleagues in the letters. This evidence implies that Burgoyne escaped the ostracism of his colleagues in the HBofL, but Davidson was blamed for the pseudonymous intrigues. Burgoyne first traveled to California in 1887, after visiting Topeka, Kansas with HBofL board member W.W. Allen, and in Denver with what was becoming the largest local group of members. He became a United States citizen in Shawnee County, Kansas in 1887. Ten years later in 1897 he obtained American citizenship as Norman Astley in New York City.
Meanwhile, in early 1887 Sarah Stanley Grimké had sent her daughter Angelina to live in Massachusetts with her father, after which she appears to have spent at least the next year in California. She left abruptly for New Zealand in 1888 before publication of her collaborative project with Burgoyne. The precise contribution of Grimké to The Light of Egypt was later described by Elbert Benjamine as assisting with The Science of the Stars portion of the 1889 edition.
One of the most salient echoes of Chevalier Louis in The Light of Egypt is Zanoni’s claim to have made “personal investigations, extending over a series of years in England, France, Germany, Austria, and the United States, with various types and phases of mediums.” In The Key to Theosophy, Blavatsky notes the continuity of adepts “used as sledge-hammers to break the theosophical heads with” which “began twelve years ago, with Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten’s `Louis’ of Art Magic and Ghost-Land, and now ends with the “Adept” and `Author’ of The Light of Egypt.” [H. P. Blavatsky, Key to Theosophy, 239.]
Letters to the Sage includescorrespondence from Burgoyne mailed in Monterey, California in the late 1880s, but none thereafter. He did, however, live briefly in Mendocino County and advertised a forthcoming book with a Cummings mailing address in 1891. When Norman and Genevieve Astley began acquiring property in North Carolina, they were described in a February 1894 Morganton newspaper story that mentions his having lived on a California ranch, which he claims to have owned. Bureau of Land Management records for patents, which are purchases of land directly from the federal government rather than from an individual owner and show that in January 1891 160 acres of ranch land in Mendocino County was patented to a John H. Burgoyne. The land is in the northwestern portion of the county, and just twenty miles as the crow flies from Cummings where he was receiving mail in 1891.
Born in San Francisco in 1857 the only child of a lawyer James Cole Stebbins who had relocated there from upstate New York with his young wife Henrietta, Genevieve lost her mother in infancy and was cared for by her aunt Louisa. She became a successful actress in New York in her twenties and by thirty had become an acting teacher. After further studies in England and France she emerged as a public figure, becoming the most prominent American teacher of the Delsarte method of elocution and acting. She combined Delsarte methods with yogic breathing learned from a swami at Oxford, as well as exercises involving stretches and postures adapted from yoga. With her marriage to Astley in 1892 he became her business manager and in addition to running the Manhattan school they traveled up and down the east coast giving classes and performances. Between 1894 and 1906 the Astleys owned property in the Blue Ridge mountains.
After her retirement in 1907 Stebbins traveled with Astley, settling in England for several years before returning to the US in 1917. Norman Astley is far more elusive than his famous wife, and no record prior to their marriage can be solidly linked to him. We find the couple in a boarding house in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the 1900 census. Retiring first to Dittisham, Devon in 1907, they moved to St. Peter Port, Guernsey by 1911 and by 1913 were living in Slindon, Sussex which was listed as their most recent residence in the 1917 ship passenger list that recorded their return to the United States. Documentation of the Astleys’ American travels and citizenship provides dozens of such pieces of evidence of a man living more than fifty years as Norman Astley, leaving traces in five states as well as England. Thomas Henry Burgoyne, on the other hand, leaves far fewer traces, being recorded as name of an author of books and letters but appearing in no public documents other than those described above.
The thesis of Mark Singleton’s Yoga Body is that “the reciprocal influence of `harmonial’ gymnastic systems (like the American Delsartism of Genevieve Stebbins…) and modern hatha yoga is enormous.”ii While Stebbins is remembered now almost entirely as a pioneer in the history of women’s exercise and dance, the “gentler stretching, deep breathing, and `spiritual’ relaxation colloquially known in the West today as `hatha yoga’ are best exemplified by variants of the harmonial gymnastics developed by Stebbins…and others— as well as the stretching regimes of secular women’s physical culture with which they overlap.”[Mark Singleton, Yoga Body, 71.]
Stebbins’s Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics: A Complete System of Psychical, Aesthetic, and Physical Culture (1892) is as described by Singleton “a combination of calisthenic movement, deep respiration exercises, relaxation, and creative mental imagery within a harmonial religious framework. It is, in Stebbins’s words, `a completely rounded system for the development of body, brain and soul,’ a system of training which shall bring this grand trinity of the human microcosm into one continuous, interacting unison and remove the `inharmonious mental states’ that lead to discord.”[Ibid, 160.]
The Quest of the Spirit argues that “a true philosophy of life is the work of the future, in which the great philosophical systems of the past will form but a very subordinate part of the structure. We are convinced that the chief foundation-stones will be discovered in the works of Eucken, Bergson, and James.” Henri Bergson and William James were not just philosophical colleagues but close friends, and James was intending to write the introduction to the English translation of Bergson’s Creative Evolution but died before it was completed. The language about creation and evolution in the Brotherhood of Light lessons is strongly reminiscent of Bergson’s vitalist themes, and Bergson’s younger sister Moina Mathers was one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Like James, Bergson was interested in parapsychology; at the time of James’s death, Bergson was president of the British Society for Psychical Research. James was evidently a personal friend and not just an admired philosopher, in light of the Astleys’ residence in Boston in the early 1890s and longstanding interest in psychical research. Researcher Kelly Mullan reports that James became a friend of Stebbins at a Chautauqua conference where he and Genevieve were both speakers.
In the appendix to her magnum opus, written for this 1892 edition, Stebbins summarizes the conclusions reached in her decades as a teacher in a nine-point “my credo” of which the first three are quoted below: First—All faculties lie deep within the soul and are there potential as the oak in the acorn. Second—These faculties cannot be manifested without the cooperation of the brain, each portion of the brain having its own function. Third—Through the nervous system is established communication between brain and body; each function in the brain sympathizing with some part of the body, and corresponding surfaces also having corresponding meanings,—the upper with the upper, the lower with the lower, the anterior with the anterior, the posterior with the posterior, and so on. [Genevieve Stebbins, Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics, 146]
Poetics of Dance by Gabriele Brandstetter, first published in German in 1995, explains that “Stebbins’s main contribution to modern dance– her emphasis on the dynamics of dance movement– is still underestimated even today. She was the first to no longer regard dance from the perspective of dance technique, muscular training, or the systematic development of articulation, emphasizing instead its energetic principles. Stebbins’s elaboration of the Delsarte system heralded a paradigm shift in modern dance in an attempt to redefine dance movement on the basis of a vitalist understanding of dynamics. [Gabriele Brandstetter, Poetics of Dance, 4.]
Genevieve’s death in 1934 coincided with the completion of Benjamine’s Brotherhood of Light lessons and Norman’s immediate remarriage ushered in a period of discord and confusion in his personal life. He married the nurse who had cared for Genevieve within a week of her death, and his new wife Nellie Dougan immediately moved to seize his assets and declare him mentally incompetent. They relocated to Devon where she died five years later, leaving Norman to survive until 1943 living first in Plymouth and finally dying in Gloucestershire.
Carmel Neighbors
Donna Marek’s Crème de Carmel is a charming guide to local history. She reports: “The first Spanish mission in the area was the Presideo Chapel built in 1770 in Monterey, but the following year it was relocated on the Carmel River and renamed the Mission San Carlos de Borremeo.” [Donna Marek, Crème de Carmel, 8.] Monterey became the capital of both Californias in 1770, and continued as capital of only Alta California under Spanish rule in 1804, continuing as capital under Mexican sovereignty from 1822 through 1846. Carmel remained undeveloped except for the Carmel Mission and nearby ranches until 1888 when eighty acres in Carmel Woods was subdivided into lots. The community of Carmel-by-the-Sea was created in 1903 and rapidly developed with home sites and businesses. It was incorporated as a town on October 31, 1916.
By the late 1920s the atmosphere had changed, as it was no longer an artist colony but a popular beach resort, as reported by biographer Justin Kaplan. It continued to attract famous writers but Kaplan reports that by 1927, when Lincoln Steffens arrived, “the real colony had disappeared” but Steffens welcomed visits from Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. “Steffens also knew John and Carol Steinbeck, and suggested that Steinbeck write a series of articles for the San Francisco News about the Oklahoma migrants and how they were treated in Monterey County. Over the next four years, those articles led to Steinbeck’s writing The Grapes of Wrath.” [Justin Kaplan, Lincoln Steffens,]
Robert Louis Stevenson had lived for several months in Monterey in 1879 and wrote articles for the Monterey Californian. Carmel is featured in Treasure Island. The poet Robinson “Jeffers moved to Carmel in 1916 where he and his wife raised their two sons…Jeffers built their home—called Tor house—near the ocean, an undertaking that took five years.” [Donna Marek, Crème de Carmel, 30.]
The Benedict Cottage in Carmel on Scenic Drive was the site of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson’s 1926 scandal. The stories that surfaced about her affair threw Carmel into the national limelight.”[Ibid, 31.]
The Sea Lion Point Trail at Point Lobos is the most easily accessible short walk to scenic overlooks where the rocky shoreline and sandy beaches can be viewed from above. The name Point Lobos would seem to imply that wolves inhabited the area, but the Spanish term for what we call Sea Lions translates to Sea Wolf, which Jack London used as a title for a book about seafarers based in the central California coast. [Jerry Emory, Monterey Bay Shoreline Guide, 254-55.]
Lincoln Steffens relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea several years after the Astleys moved there. He is not often associated with “the occult” but his biographer Justin Kaplan commented “Despite his later claim that he had shunned the fraternities as all bunk and pretension, Steffens was glad to belong to Zeta Psi, the oldest of Berkeley’s Greek-letter societies. And it was on his urging that Frederick Willis, his closest friend in college, also joined. Willis was interested in theosophy, the survival of the soul after death, ‘sacred occultism,’ and parapsychology, and considered himself an expert mesmerist. Like many other students he has given himself over to the passion that motivated William James, in 1884, to establish an American Society for Psychical Research with its various committees on Thought Transference, hypnotism, and Apparitions and Haunted Houses. In the Zeta Psi fraternity house near Bancroft Way, Steffens took instruction from Willis and began his own experiments with mesmerism, clairvoyance and thought transference.” [Justin Kaplan, Lincoln Steffens, 30.]
When Steffens was an undergraduate, Berkeley was not the thriving intellecual community it later became. Kaplan reports that “as an intellectual community, as a breeding place for philosophers, William James had said in 1883, ‘it’s a poor place’; and some of his disciples who had been invite to teach there with a sense of going into exile. Yet it was at Berkeley, fifteen years later, that James, reading his paper ‘Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,’ first announced pragmatism as a theory of truth and formulated his subsequent creed. (Ibid, 29.]
Sources Cited:
Helena P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy. London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1889,
Brandstetter, Gabriele, Poetics of Dance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Emory, Jerry, Monterey Bay Shoreline Guide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Kaplan, Justin, Lincoln Steffens. New York: Simion and Schuster, 2013.
Marek, Donna, Crème de Carmel. New York: Roberts Reinhardt, 1994.
Singleton, Mark, Yoga Body. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Stebbins, Genevieve, Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics. New York: Edgar S. Werner, 1892.
The boundaries between fiction and non-fiction are often physical, as in separate sections of public libraries and bookstores. But in the world of occult literature the borders are indistinct between historical novels, authentic memoirs, and fictionalized autobiographies. Most interesting to me are authors who alternate between the genres. Emma Hardinge Britten and Mme. Blavatsky both wrote fiction that was claimed to be non-fiction (Ghost Land, the Mahatma Letters) and non-fiction that discussed some of the same people under their real names (Nineteenth Century Miracles, The Durbar in Lahore.) This has caused endless confusion among Spiritualists and Theosophists, along the same lines as legendary histories of Masonic and Rosicrucian orders.
27 footnotes were added to the new edition of Tom Clark and His Wife, because Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Rosicrucian novel is full of literary quotes, geographical information about places the author had visited, and historical detail about then-current events during the Civil War and famous people involved in them. All these require explanation to be understood by contemporary readers. Several editions are already in print but none offers any editorial content giving historical context for the 161 year old book.
Sarah Stanley Grimke and Alexander Wilder are finally getting some notice from readers and have good prospects for increasing recognition, thanks to the editorial labors of Patrick Bowen and Ronnie Pontiac respectively as well as my own. Genevieve Stebbins has had considerably more recent scholarly attention, and the new edition of Quest of the Spirit has more new information about her life and partnership with Norman Astley than has ever appeared in print. Thomas H. Burgoyne and Hurrychund Chintamon were targeted in recent books with outright defamation based on 19th century libels, whereas Grimke and Wilder have been unjustly ignored and forgotten. The only way to counteract misinformation and disinformation about forgotten authors is to let them speak for themselves to modern readers, which has been the motive for publishing them in new editions.
Discussion of esoteric groups’ history is frequently distorted by two opposing forces. Propaganda is defined by Oxford Language as “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” Polemics are defined by the same source as “a speech or piece of writing expressing a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something.” Neither correlates with historical reliability which requires a more neutral and objective tone to be credible.
Carmel Woods is an unincorporated community founded in 1922. Although Norman and Genevieve Astley returned to America in 1917, the earliest California address I found was the 1920 census which has them on Del Monte Avenue in Monterey; they first appear in Carmel in the 1926 city directory. They remained here until Genevieve’s death and Norman’s departure for England in 1934.
One remaining puzzle is where Burgoyne and Grimke had lived while writing The Light of Egypt in 1886-88. His mailing address was a post office box in Monterey at the time, but writing a book at Point Lobos would be impractical for someone living in Monterey in 1887, a long horseback ride of fifteen miles round trip, so living in the Carmel area and occasionally going into Monterey to the post office makes sense as a possibility for their living arrangements as co-authors. Here is a community history.
This week I visited Monterey and Carmel proceeding to Big Sur and beyond with a friend of many years who now lives in California. Elbert Benjamine’s description of Norman Astley includes Norman taking Elbert to Point Lobos at a place overlooking where T.H. Burgoyne wrote The Light of Egypt. So we went there and were welcomed by docents explaining where an author might have written a book at a place that could be viewed from above. They suggested that this overlook includes the likeliest possibilities.
Kevin Dann’s last book Enchanted New York is a very entertaining walking tour of Manhattan along Broadway visiting many sites of historic interest. In the endnotes about Blavatsky he offers a very kind and generous appraisal of my own research:
K. Paul Johnson’s The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge (SUNY Press 1994) is a superb, wide-ranging, and poliically astute study of the “elusive teachers” of HPB.
I was delighted by the entire book with one exception that hit close to home. Chapter Four, Occult Manhattan 1848-1898 includes the Letters to the Sage correspondents Olcott, Judge, Burgoyne, and their fellow TS Founders Britten and Wiggin who both figured in my Sarah Stanley Grimke research in Boston. But in a place associated with Judge, one of the least reliable sources in TS history, he condemns “Burgoyne” and “Zanoni”-
Burgoyne’s pen name for these lessons (tellingly, in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel of the same name, the main character is an adept whose occult powers divorce him from human emotion)– always signed his name with a swastika, and when one reads his mad magical announcements, one wonders if the being who later inspired the corruption of that ancient symbol of life had not taken hold of Burgoyne, It was certainly an “imperial” vision that he soon expected to reign.
I explained how misguided this was in a previous post, but did not make the point that Burgoyne was never in New York until he became Norman Astley in 1892. The Theosophical Society leaders claimed to reconcile science, religion, and philosophy but tended in practice to subordinate science and philosophy to a unique new religious sect; this also describes the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Members whose obsessions were more philosophical than religious ended up marginalized like Johnson and Wilder in the TS or Grimke and the Astleys in the HBofL. All these authors in the History of the Adepts series prioritized philosophy and science over religion unlike the later leaders of the organizations. Co-editing their letters and then republishing their works with new research has involved “putting them on the map” figuratively but l literally would like to see Carnegie Hall, first site of the New York School of Expression, added to the tour, with tributes to Genevieve Stebbins and Norman Astley who opened it there in 1893. Or better yet, The West Side YMCA to which the School moved in 1898 and is also still standing.
This is the Zoom presentation to the October 2021 International Theosophical History Conference, which opened the proceedings on a rather informal note. The recording I had made for the blog and later posted had audio quality issues which are not a problem here. As for the video, don’t sit in a rocking chair while doing this– but oh well. The following thirteen presentations are all worthwhile and on the playlist.
The chapters being rather long for serialization as blog posts, I have instead created a reformatted file of the original text, along with the photographic reprint created by Marc Demarest from a copy I had scanned. Here is the page which has both links as well as the two video conference talks related to the subject. A word of clarification on my attitude to works of contested or ambiguous authorship. I have lately published works by Wilder, Grimke, and Chintamon, as books. There is no confusion about who wrote them. But for tomes like The Light of Egypt, Ghost Land, the Mahatma Letters, I feel it incumbent on any editor or publisher to identify the authors, and leave that to future generations. As for the Norman/Genevieve team, Quest of the Spirit seems to be mostly Genevieve in the first half, mostly Norman in the second half re the shift from science/philosophy to religion/psychic phenomena, and all Norman in the final appendices. But it is such a thorough collaboration between life partners that sorting out Genevieve and Norman in the text is probably impossible without original manuscripts that might provide clues.
Today marked the first of three days of academic presentations in the International Theosophical History Conference. I opened with a live talk about the evidence in this video now uploaded to Youtube and academia.edu, but in 30 minutes meandered off into several side paths about the authors who commented on the Louis prototypes. This short video is more concise and I hope more relevant to CofL members. Play at low volume.
Here is the text of the video narrative and of some concluding remarks:
FROM GHOST LAND TO THE LIGHT OF EGYPT AND BACK AGAIN[1]
I am especially grateful to be invited to return this year as a presenter, because in 2019 I delivered one half of a two part investigation. That talk, In Search of Zanoni, explained how Thomas Henry Burgoyne was last seen in 1891, Norman Astley was first seen in 1892, and both were young Englishmen in America involved in the founding of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the US. Three identical birth dates and elaborate handwriting analysis by a qualified expert confirms that Burgoyne was born Thomas Henry Dalton and died Norman Astley. This led to the publication, in December 2019, of the Sarah Stanley Grimke Collected Works which now has the Burgoyne/Astley material as an epilogue. Its prologue is an inquiry into a closely related investigation: Who or what was the Chevalier Louis de B–? Spoiler alert for anyone who has not read or seen Murder on the Orient Express: Whodunit? They ALL dun it! But this story has a plot twist at the end that introduces a new suspect at the last minute.A companion volume to Art Magic, Ghost Land was published the same year, 1876, in the form of a memoir. The book’s authorship spans the early period of the Theosophical Society, with its first sketches appearing in 1872 before Blavatsky’s arrival in New York and its final section published in 1892 after her death. Shortly after Art Magic was published, Britten was accused of being its sole author publicly, although anonymously, by a fellow Founder of the Theosophical Society. Charles Sotheran, in a review calling it “simply a rehash of books readily available…wretched compilation which is full of bad grammar and worse assumptions.”[i] Damning evidence for this conclusion was found in Louis’s parents changing from 1872’s English father and Austrian mother to the Hungarian father and Italian mother of 1876. The language of the manuscript was variously described as being German or a combination of French and English and the Chevalier is named Austria in the 1872 sketches.
2. The first suggestion of a Louis other than Britten came in the December 7, 1876 review in Spiritual Scientist in which editor Gerry Brown identified him as Felix Nepomuk, Prince Salm-Salm.[ii]The Springfield Republican for December 19, 1876 pointed out a problem: “We suppose the editor, Ms. Emma Hardinge Britten, would object to having the book classed among works of fiction, but it certainly will not be received as a record of fact by the reading world…. Mrs. Britten describes the autobiographer as now living, and her personal friend, yet we have seen the late Prince Salm-Salm named as the original; he was a noted occultist.”[iii] Felix, Prince de Salm-Salm (1828-1870) was a Prussian military officer who studied at a military school in Berlin before serving successively in the Prussian, Austrian, and United States armies. He could not have collaborated in the writing of Ghost Land because he died in 1870.
3. The second suggested masculine model for Louis came from G.R.S. Mead, prominent Theosophist and secretary to Blavatsky in her London years, who was quoted by A.E. Waite in his 1938 autobiography that Louis was the “inner life” of Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873 About Art Magic, Col. Olcott hinted that “the book does contain passages worthy of Bulwer-Lytton; in fact, one would say they were written by him.”[iv] Britten made many claims about her association with Bulwer Lytton in what she called the Orphic Circle, which figures prominently in Louis’s narratives, including insinuations that she had been his “amanuensis.”
4. After Bulwer-Lytton, the candidates for Louis suggested within Emma’s lifetime were augmented by only one more addition in the twentieth century. In the 1970 edition of Modern American Spiritualism, editor E.J. Dingwall proposed the Baron de Palm as the prototype for Louis. Joseph Henry Louis de Palm (1809-1876) is mentioned in Nineteenth Century Miracles as a “distinguished supporter of the movement in Germany.” Louis is one of the names de Palm used in America (changed from the original Ludwig), making him one of two suggested prototypes with whom the name can be linked. NCM in its extensive discussion of EHB’s friendship with Palm is significant for calling him a “Hungarian nobleman who was associated with Mrs. Britten, as a member of the first Council of the Theosophical Society in New York.”[v]
5. In a monograph published in 2001 by the journal Theosophical History, Robert Mathiessen nominated the German-British philologist Ernest de Bunsen as a prototype, which was analyzed by Marc Demarest in his 2011 edition of Art Magic. “Mathiesen points out correctly that (a) the de Bunsen family was deeply involved in Spiritualist and occult practices; (b) the nationality, ethnicity, and honorary title of de Bunsen fits with what we are told about Louis; and (c) de Bunsen’s scholarly interests were similar to those of the author of Art Magic.”[vi] and concludes that de Bunsen’s command of English and his scholarly style in that language are incompatible with his authorship of Art Magic. Bunsen is the second nominee with Louis as a middle name. Mathiesen, Demarest, and I agree that Britten is the sole author of Art Magic and Ghost Land. They have many layers of expertise that I lack, on European languages and history on one hand and British Spiritualism on the other, and on Art Magic I stand on their shoulders and have nothing of my own to contribute. Their work, and Britten’s importance, have been very thoroughly discussed in Wouter Hanegraaff’s opening chapter of the new collection Theosophy across Boundaries, which adds European scholarly expertise in relevant disciplines to the discussion. Book One of Ghost Land seems explicable by the factors noted by these three authors. But I recognize influences emerging in Book Two and Volume Two that relate closely to my past publications, and appreciate the opportunity to add some new appendices to the story.
6. In the 2011 edition of Art Magic, Demarest nominated the Duc de Pomar, son of the Countess of Caithness, as plausible prototype for the Chevalier Louis portrait published in Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves. This relies not on any likelihood of the Duc assisting EHB directly, but rather the Countess, a friend of Britten, using her son as a mouthpiece for a variety of Spiritualist projects for which she was his ghostwriter. The best source on the Louis portrait is a smoking gun letter from Britten to Caithness published by Olcott.
7. Book Two features a Louis who has matured into a world traveling explorer and is set in India.
I have something that has followed me, or rather infilled my soul, through every changing scene, in every wild mutation of fortune—on the battle-field, in the dungeon, in the cabinet of princes, in the hut of the charcoal-burner, in the deep crypts of Central India, and amidst the awful rites of Oriental mysticism, in the paradises of love, and the shipwreck of every hope—something which has never forsaken or left me alone; something which stands by me now, as I write in my sea-girt island dwelling, on the shores of the blue Mediterranean.[vii]
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) had been deeply involved in occult circles during his time at Oxford in the early 1840s– the same circles in which Emma Floyd was moving at the time, in which the central figure was Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Burton first met Helena Blavatsky in Cairo in 1853 as he was preparing for his great trip to Mecca; this at least is the claim made by Albert Rawson in a colorful memoir written on the occasion of Burton’s death. Burton was a lifelong enthusiast of astrology and occult lore and had provided testimony to the 1869 London Dialectical Society, which also recorded Lady Caithness and Bulwer-Lytton as witnesses on Spiritualism. The 2011 edition of Art Magic notes an apparent Burton influence in the use of a phrase found only in his and Britten’s works.
8. Ghost Land shows evidence of familiarity with British occultism and American Spiritualism, both of which could be claimed by EHB. But it also includes settings and characters in India and Russia, countries unknown to EHB by personal experience. Blavatsky’s family friend Prince Emil Wittgenstein corresponded with Britten during the writing of Ghost Land. A Spiritualist convert in the 1860s, Wittgenstein published many reports of his experiences with the paranormal, which fits one aspect of the Chevalier’s persona. Britten writes about him at length in several passages of Nineteenth Century Miracle. Wittgenstein, like Burton, was an honorary founding member of the British Spiritualist Association in 1873 and joined the Theosophical Society later in the decade. Here it is important to note that Blavatsky was acquainted with Bulwer-Lytton, Palm, Burton, Caithness, Pomar, and Wittgenstein– who was accused of being the father of her child by D.D. Home. Unlike any of these individuals she was in regular personal contact with Britten from 1875 through 1877.
9. None of the Louis influences named above is either Hungarian or Austrian, but Odon and Adelma von Vay were Hungarian and Austrian respectively. Adelma is given an entire page in Nineteenth Century Miracles to describe the rise of Spiritualism in Budapest, after which she and her husband are extolled by Britten on the following page for her mediumship and his movement leadership.
10. The Light of Egypt was published in 1889 under the pseudonym Zanoni and was endorsed in 1891 by Britten who had been falsely accused of writing it. Calling it “one of the masterpieces, both of writing and instruction, of the age we live in. To the present writer, who has most carefully studied this sublime and truly-inspired treatise (or rather, it should be said, series of treatises), there is nothing comparable to it in the English language.“[viii] Returning to Louis after a hiatus of two decades, Emma has the Chevalier visiting the Monterey Bay region, where the Light of Egypt had been recently written. Burgoyne had lived with Grimke in Monterey while writing together, and Britten placed Chevalier Louis in Santa Cruz there in her Volume II of Ghost Land. Hence among the surnames beginning with B that can be linked to Louis we have: Chevalier de Britten, Chevalier de Bulwer-Lytton, Chevalier de Bunsen, Chevalier de Burton, and in Volume Two, Chevalier de Burgoyne.
These concluding remarks were made in person at the conference along with another several minutes of comments:
To summarize my previous presentation in 2019, Zanoni began as a fictional character in 1842 and in 1884 became a pen name for Thomas Henry Dalton working in partnership with Peter Davidson. In 1887 Zanoni was the pseudonym for Thomas Henry Burgoyne in partnership with Sarah Stanley Grimke. In 1892 Zanoni was the pseudonym of Norman Astley in partnership with Genevieve Stebbins. In 1900 Zanoni was the pseudonym of Belle Wagner who claimed to be channeling the spirit of the dead Burgoyne as she published his purloined manuscripts. But the transformations of Louis are equally circuitous.
The author of Art Magic and Ghost Land is Emma Hardinge Britten. The fictional narrator begins as Austria in 1872 and becomes Louis in 1876, his parents’ ethnicity changes, but the tales of the Berlin Circle and Orphic Circle appear semi-autobiographical in that Emma’s own memoirs prominently feature the latter. Louis reappears as Sirius in several articles published by Britten prior to the second volume in which he is once again Louis. The intellectual content of the Louis tomes has been thoroughly analyzed first by Mathiesen and then by Demarest who is now completing the first complete edition of Ghost Land, to be published in late 2021. My motivation in adding to their labors is to notice elements of the Louis persona that emerge in Book Two that implicate Burton, Wittgenstein, Blavatsky, and in Volume Two, Burgoyne. I will contribute a second introduction to the new edition and welcome any corrections or suggestions regarding the labyrinth of Louis prototypes.
One perplexing issue about the literary alliance between “Zanoni” writing in California in 1889 and “Chevalier Louis” writing in England in 1892 has been geographical motive/opportunity for authorial collaboration. As of 1884 Britten and Burgoyne were this far apart. By contrast Peter Davidson was hundreds of miles from both, suggesting that Burgoyne is more likely to have spent considerable time with the Brittens.
Forres, home of Peter Davidson, is 743 miles from Manchester, home of Emma Hardinge Britten
Pursuant to a formal call, a meeting was held at Kansas City, Mo., on the 12th day of July, 1886, at which three members of the Executive Committee only were present, this number not forming a quorum. The matter of certain charges involving the identity of one T.H. Burgoyne with one T.H. Dalton or T.H. D’Alton, was under consideration in connection with documentary evidence furnished by various persons, and also evidence furnished by Mr. Burgoyne.[1] Mr. Burgoyne was not present but indicated by telegraph his inability to reach Kansas City on the day named. All evidence presented was carefully examined, and the opinion unanimously arrived at was that T.H. Burgoyne, and T.H. Dalton, or D’Alton, was one and the same person.
It was also the unanimous opinion that until these charges shall have been refuted and proven false, it is our duty to advise all to whom this may come to have no further dealings, in any form, with either T.H. Burgoyne (Dalton or D’Alton) or Mr. Peter Davidson.
Thos. M. Johnson
President
St. Louis
September 5, 1886
Meeting of the Central Council of the H.B. of L. convened by T.M. Johnson.
Upon the motion of W.W. Allen, T.H.B. was appointed Secretary pro tem. Present: J.S. McDonald, W.W. Allen, T.M. Johnson and T.H. Burgoyne. Mr. Allen holding a vote by proxy from Mr. Kenyon.
Resolved:
That the president be requested to act as Sec’y. pro tem
Resolved:
That the constitution and by-laws as submitted by the President, and the same are hereby accepted and adopted, Subject to amendment at any regular meeting of the Council. Adopted unanimously.
Resolved:
That the charges against Mr. T.H. Burgoyne are not worthy of further attention on the part of this Council. The vote upon the resolution was as follows: All present voted in favor of T.H. Burgoyn[e]; their opinion being unanimous.
Vote,
For the resolution,
T.M. Johnson,
W.W. Allen,
J.S. McDonald.
––––––––––––
Against the resolution.
W.J.C. Kenyon: This vote was given against T.H.B. by proxy.
Mr W.W. Allen holding the proxy, Took this course as a mere question of honor to respect his proxy.
Ordered:
That W.J.C. Kenyon be appointed Secretary.
Ordered:
That the committee do now adjourn. Bro. E.B. Page was at this time a[d]mitted to the Council Room.
(Signed)
Thos. M. Johnson Thos. H. Burgoyne,
President Central Council Sec’y. Pro Tem.
[1] A copy of Burgoyne’s birth record is in the Johnson papers and may have been the evidence referred to here. A facsimile is provided in this volume.
Dalton photos presented by S.H. Randall to people who personally knew him and could not be misled by faked evidence
I have previously posted the birth certificate obtained by Johnson and his colleagues on the Council. While the earliest allegations against Burgoyne came from hostile sources in the Theosophical Society, Johnson, Randall and colleagues in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor did not trust those sources and launched their own investigation. They were friends, not enemies of Burgoyne as attested by his reinstatement after three months of suspension.
Peter Davidson, on the other hand, is never mentioned again by Johnson or Randall, leaving us to wonder what Burgoyne told them about him.
This presentation was condensed from a talk to the biennial conference of The Church of Light in June 2019 in Albuquerque. It was included the following October as a presentation in absentia to the International Theosophical History Conference in Athens, Greece. In November, it was included as part of my in person talk at the Thomas Moore Johnson centenary symposium at Missouri State University in Springfield. Plans were for both of these conferences to be posted online in full with video of all presentations, and if either materializes I will report it here and share a link. Meanwhile, here is my own small portion.
Just a week after discovering that a Google account allowed automatic creation of a youtube account, I was informed by academia.edu that they now hosted videos of scholarly presentations. This academic platform is more appropriate to my scholarly research than the popular-oriented Youtube and the technical quality of the uploads is better in my experience. Registration is required but is free and there is a great wealth of reliable information on academia from scholars around the globe.
There have been many twists and turns in the research path pursuing the man whose pen name was Thomas H. Burgoyne. We have, in Letters to the Sage, correspondence from Burgoyne written in Monterey, California in the late 1880s, but no evidence of his relocation to Humboldt County where he was later rumored to have died. He did, however, live in Mendocino County and advertised a forthcoming book with a Cummings, Mendocino County mailing address in 1891. The only other evidence found that after departing from Monterey, where he and Grimke had written The Light of Egypt, he lived in Mendocino County are two entries in a hotel register in San Francisco dated 1889. Here is the first:
Russ House hotel arrivals June 29, 1889; Burgoyne fifth line on right column
The Russ House, destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, was on Montgomery Street in the financial district and built in the early 1860s.
Russ House Hotel, 1870, San Francisco Historical Society Collection
When Norman and Genevieve Astley began acquiring property in North Carolina, they were described in a February 1894 Morganton newspaper story which is the only instance I have found that mentions having lived on a California ranch, which he claims to have owned. I went to the Bureau of Land Management records for patents, which are purchases of land directly from the federal government rather than from an individual owner, and learned that in January 1891 160 acres of ranch land in Mendocino County was patented to a John H. Burgoyne.
January 14, 1891 land patent
The patent search feature allows zooming in on the parcel which is highlighted in dark orange. The land is in the northwestern portion of the county, and just twenty miles as the crow flies from Cummings where he was living in 1889 and still receiving mail in 1891; but any driving route takes nearly two hours and sixty miles so the travel time in Burgoyne’s day would have been immense and the route rugged to any post office.
If John H. Burgoyne is another pseudonym, it explains what it meant when as Norman Astley arriving in North Carolina in 1894, he was described as owning California ranch land– for which no evidence exists. He had purchased it not as Astley but as John H. Burgoyne.
February 1894, Morganton NC
Lyman Abbott was a very well-respected mainstream theologian and Congregationalist clergyman, whose friendship with the Astleys is testimony to how well they were regarded in New York intellectual circles. He succeeded Henry Ward Beecher as minister of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn. Abbott’s liberal social gospel views were described as almost Unitarian and were widely disseminated through his periodical and book publications.
Mrs. Norman came into possession of letters from Norman Astley to Jasper Wise as a local historian and descendant of the family that acquired Astley’s land on Paddy Creek. Glimpses of Fonta Flora has among its many photographs a picture of Wise’s home, which became the post office for Longtown when his daughter Maggie was postmistress.
At the 2019 biennial conference of The Church of Light, I mentioned in my closing remarks a strange pattern discernable in the authors associated with the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in America. They wrote about the spiritual and metaphorical transformation of lead to gold, but they actually literally pursued gold mining on the physical plane. Although Peter Davidson’s hopes of discovering gold in the Blue Ridge mountains of north Georgia were derided as fraudulent at the time, the family did indeed discover gold and profit from mining. Henry Wagner, M.D. had a career as a medical doctor but his wealth related to having practiced in Virginia City, Nevada during the Comstock Lode boom, and then moving on to Colorado where he continued to invest in precious metals, now gold more than silver. Since moving to New Mexico, the headquarters of the CofL have been on Gold Avenue, and that seems far more appropriate than the nearby Lead Avenue.
The chain of associations above was engendered not by the wealth of the Wagners or Davidsons but by that of the Astleys. When visiting Burke County, North Carolina, the Blue Ridge location where Norman and Genevieve Astley made large land purchases in the 1890s, I interviewed local historian Helen Norman who pointed towards the gold mining area where the Astleys had invested. My September blog post will feature a book she co-authored about the local community, which includes photographs of homes associated with the Astleys’ associates in the county. The above paragraph from the Morganton Herald, published October 21, 1897, documents their success in finding gold.
As History of the Adepts enters its tenth year, the ongoing investigations that generated most of the posts for nine years have come to a conclusion. The literary partnerships between Thomas Henry Burgoyne and Sarah Stanley Grimke, and between Norman Astley and Genevieve Stebbins, have been my primary interests underlying years of work on the Thomas Moore Johnson correspondence. The one hour presentation I gave to The Church of Light conference in June connecting these two inquiries was condensed into a ten minute video presentation in absentia, shown two weeks ago in Athens, Greece to a Theosophical history conference. Eventually this will be available online giving readers of this site a concise summary of the evidence and my conclusions. Next month I will present a final report in Missouri where the Johnson letters shed so much light on both the early Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the US.
Regarding Burgoyne and Astley, a distinction needs to be made between two kinds of “aliases”– a pseudonym used only for literary purposes under which no person actually lived as shown by any public records, and a name change that left an abundant paper trail. The above documentation of Norman Astley’s US citizenship is the latest of dozens of such pieces of evidence I have gathered of a man living more than fifty years as Norman Astley, leaving traces in five states as well as the UK. Thomas Henry Burgoyne, on the other hand, leaves no such traces, being recorded as name of an author of books and letters but appearing in no public documents except a single ship register of his US arrival in 1886.
Burgoyne was perceived as a complete villain by Theosophists, and an innocent hero by some in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, with the antagonism surrounding him in the 1880s still reverberating among some Hermetic and Theosophical believers today. But my years of research lead me to the conclusion that Burgoyne (meaning the man who wrote as such) was neither heroic nor villainous (or perhaps both) and felt as badly used by Hermetic leaders as by Theosophists.
Beginning in 2020 future posts here will be quarterly, detailed natal chart reports of various significant figures in history mentioned in the Brotherhood of Light lessons or elsewhere by Elbert Benjamine, using the latest astrological software created by Paul Brewer. My historical investigations, no longer to be focused on either the Theosophical Society or the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, will henceforth be reported on academia.edu. This blog will change from a monthly report of a page or less to a quarterly report of several pages, the first of which will be on the April 14, 1855 natal chart of Thomas Henry Burgoyne, which is also the birth date of record for both Thomas Henry d’Alton and Norman Astley.
When Quest of the Spirit was published in 1913, Norman Astley and Genevieve Stebbins had reached the midpoint of their forty-year marriage and of their ten year stay in England which ended in 1917 with a return to the US and Genevieve’s home state of California. Most of the text is similar in style to the earlier works of Stebbins, but several passages stand out as seeming to be in the personal voice of the “Pilgrim of the Way” to whom she attributes authorship. Internal evidence in the book leaves no alternative to her husband as the Pilgrim; my own historical research leaves no doubt that he had previously written under the pseudonyms Zanoni and Thomas H. Burgoyne. Neil Cantwell’s forensic handwriting analysis underscores this as a certainty. But the only literary evidence we have of the evolution of Astley’s ideas post-Burgoyne and post-Zanoni is in his wife’s book. The Editorial Note, Preface, and both Appendices are the most evidential about the Pilgrim and are reproduced below along with several relevant excerpts from the intervening chapters.–KPJ
EDITORIAL NOTE
The manuscript, of which this booklet is an epitome, was placed in my hands to prepare for the press, by one whose friendship I have enjoyed for many years. What is here presented is less than a fourth part of the whole, but omits nothing that is vital to an understanding of the Author’s comprehensive philosophy of life and action. Much that has been omitted would to-day be superfluous, as the contentions and teachings on the subjects discussed have already become demonstrated facts in science, or are accepted as probable by eminent philosophical thinkers. Throughout, the style of the Author has been strictly preserved, and, as the conclusions reached are also the deepest convictions of my soul, in editing the work, I feel that it is the expression of my own thought and aspiration, though voiced by another “pilgrim of the way.” GENEVIEVE STEBBINS.
PREFACE
The basic ideas in the writer’s mind, and the key therefore to the whole trend of his thought, may be briefly summarised thus : I. That all sound speculation of a true philosophy of life must be based upon the metaphysic of experience; and this must include all experience, psychical as well as physical. 2. That this metaphysic is identical with that view of the world and its activities which is expressed in the mind of the educated layman as common sense ; but, as such, is always to be distinguished from those ideas of the uneducated mind which may arise from common ignorance. 3. That common sense, being the synthesis of all past experience, and the dominating attitude of mind by which the sanity of the world is preserved, is, in any final estimate, the only legitimate standard by which to evaluate those speculative ideas which rise beyond the foundation of facts. 4. That abstractions, not being substantial things, must not be accepted or mistaken for reality: must not take the place of facts in laying a foundation of thought. Abstraction piled upon Abstraction forever remains Abstraction. No matter how elaborate, fascinating, and logical the structure, it is only a castle in the air, an unsubstantial bubble of the brain. The pathway to reality does not lie through its portals. 5. That contradiction and strife are inherent in, and, therefore, a part of existence; which itself is the manifestation of opposing movements. The shadows of life are proportionate to the light. 6. That the tragedy and reality of good and evil in the world being a fact of universal experience, its explanation can only be found in the assumption that the ground of existence is alogical-neither moral nor immoral but nonmoral. That the evolutionary movement of life moves on without design-flowing along the lines of least resistance. The ends attained under apparently identical conditions are always different, and never foreseen where life is the factor. 7. Thus grounded in experience, legitimate speculation will be based on truth; and the verification of this truth will be the reality we seek, for REALITY IS THE VERIFICATION OF EXPERIENCE. There is no reality in the universe which cannot appear.
So much for the writer’s part! For the reader, we hope he may escape the illusions of all metaphysical fog, and in voyaging into the unknown, ever keep a good breadth of clear cold water, and the healthy glint of the deep blue sea be· tween himself and the God-forsaken wilderness of “Devil’s Island.” Alchemy of Thought, L. P. Jacks.
EXCERPTS
Thus viewed, the devoted collector may feel that his life-efforts have not been in vain. Nay! he may even think that his reward has been great. This state of mind, however, comes only when the entire field of labour is surveyed as a whole. When we come to look over these possessions separately, our pride begings to diminish. When we begin to examine them under the intellectual microscope critically, we feel humiliated and reduced to our just proportions. When so examined, not one single treasure of thought is seen to be perfect; not one single stone of fact without some tiny flaw, unnoticeable to any but the expert. Deep down in the heart of our most precious gem, there lurks some unknown substance. That erstwhile perfect jewel, “The pearl of great price,” is perfect only in comparison with some greater imperfection. Why is this always the case with human effort– How is it that we are forever brought to a pause with the “Ever not quite”? (p19)
A careful survey of ancient philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to the Summa of St. Thomas of Aquinas, and, (together with the more important recent writers), the modern school from Berkeley to Hegel, convinces us beyond the peradventure of a doubt that a true philosophy of life is the work of the future, in which the great philosophical systems of the past will form but a very subordinate part of the stmcture. We are convinced that the chief foundation-stones will be discovered in the works of Eucken, Bergson, and James.(p32)
Warned therefore by the failures of the past, we shall attempt the building of no system of thought. Admonished by the vagaries of intellectual speculation, when based upon the nonexistent, we shall ever rest upon the foundations of experience. Chastened in mind by the fantastic creations of an unbridled imagination, we shall conjure up no enchanted image of a final solution; but, keeping in view the finiteness of the self, and the infinity of the world, unbiased, enter upon the quest. With a humble and a contrite heart, we begin the journey as pilgrims of “The Way.”(p40)
The survival of the human personality beyond the grave now craves our serious attention. To the writer the question: ” Is it possible for the individual consciousness of the soul, to continue in a super-physical state of being after death” can no longer arise. It was answered in the affirmative many years ago; under circumstances which rendered self-deception, telepathy or fraud upon the part of others utterly impossible. Here we must be personal. This experience came at a time when thoughts and work lay in a wholly different direction: when spirit communion, if it occupied a place in the mind at all, was certainly in the back-most of the back seats of the brain ; for the ” I ” was entirely unconscious of entertaining such ideas. A brief statement of all the necessary facts of the experience will be found in Appendix I ” A case of Spirit Identity.” It is only necessary here to point out, that coming without prejudice, as it did, with no self-seeking wish to father the issue, there was no self-deception. There was no tricky form of mediumship; no dubious clairvoyance describing symbolic images that might have any meaning and be construed to any end. On the contrary a genuine vision was perceived by a normal person in good health. A clearly defined personality appeared almost as objective as any other of the surroundings. I distinctly heard the voice speaking, (or I imagined I did) giving names, dates, and other important items, not necessary to recount here. And the result is a complete verification of every detail. In view of proposition ” 7 ” that Reality is the verification of experience. I accept this and affirm as sincerely as I can affirm any experience in my life that the communication received was a reality ; that the soul of a departed person did appear-hence survived death. What is possible in one instance is possible in others. Since that time scores of instances of identity have crossed the path of my research, but none that stands out so clearly as this. This is the one unique gem in a vast collection. But it has one tiny flaw. It is not perfect when studied from an orthodox religious point-of-view. For purposes unknown to us, some other order of spiritual intelligence may have impersonated the mother. But the absence of any conceivable reason for deception, and the fact that the message was fraught with momentous consequences and formed the turning-point in a career, compels me to reject any idea of deception. The consequences, at any rate, have been nothing but beneficial to those concerned. The possibility of the survival of the human personality beyond the grave, then, is assumed in the chapters which follow; and this tremendous fact makes all the difference in the world to the philosophical attitude of a thinker’s mind. A philosophy of life which neglects to take account of the super-normal facts of psychical research, together with the facts of religious experience, fails most lamentably to justify its name. Ere the close of the present century it will become as obsolete as medieval scholasticism.(pp61-62)
By an effort of the imagination it will not be difficult to bring before the mind’s eye an individual form composed of a finer substance than, so-called, earthly material-a substance that is self-luminous. Imagine an individual personality -a friend. Substituting a phosphorescent-like softness of light for his every outline, including dress, etc., yet, nevertheless, retaining all his distinguishing features as clearly as in life, you will have a very true picture of the reality as it appears to the clairvoyant eye under certain conditions. When the clairvoyant sensation establishes a perfect rapport, this luminous figure becomes almost as objective as any ordinary being; and in so doing loses most of its luminosity. Imagine, again, the same figure merely as outlined in a grey, or misty substance, and you have another lower, but more common form of this super-normal sight. The whole explanation of this is that the external form builds up within itself an interior, more sublimated, form of psycho-plasm. The clothing, being radio-active, like everything else, has its duplicate in a shapeless radiation around it; but when worn by an individual, the shape of the garment is outlined by the radiation from the human body.(pp 84-85)
Just as the plants absorb nutriment from the air, so the super-physical organism absorbs its nourishment from its surroundings-i.e. the psychical environment. The writer has devoted many years to arrive at these facts, and they have been verified by other seekers in all parts of the world. There can be no serious doubt as to their reality in the minds of those who have thoroughly investigated the subject, and who alone are competent to decide. (pp 86-87)
APPENDIX 1-A CASE OF SPIRIT IDENTITY
Only a brief outline of the main and necessary facts are here given to show that a theory of self deception, hallucination, telepathy, or fraud upon the part of others will not explain the facts of the case; each of these being rendered impossible by the peculiar cross-circumstances of the two sides of the case. One night, after a day’s hard study, I was trying to go to sleep, but found sleep impossible, when suddenly, the distinct form of a woman appeared before me. She stood between my bed and the window, and I remember that I could dimly see through the figure. I was not at all afraid. The apparition spoke in a faint but distinct voice, gave me her name, date of her death; together with the name and address of an unknown stranger whom she stated to be her son. Here she related a certain circumstance in her life; then asked me to write to her son and convey this information; adding, that for reasons, which I would know later, it was important for us to know each other. Acting on the spur of the moment I got out of bed and made a note of the facts, promising to write to the son. Not until I had completed the memoranda did the figure speak again. Turning half round, it said “Thank you, my friend,” then the vision disappeared. Now, if I was really asleep before, I was certainly very wide awake when the figure vanished. To say that I regarded the whole thing as a hallucination is scarcely true. I tried to persuade myself that it was a. dream-but there was the writing with the names, etc. I had heard of strange tricks performed by somnambulists, and finally, felt that that must be the explanation. I put the thing out of my mind. The idea. of writing what I considered nonsense to a fictitious stranger appeared to be the height of absurdity. Nearly two years passed by, and the entire circumstance was completely forgotten, when again I had a dream-this time a real one. Upon retiring, I had fallen asleep a.t once. The same woman again appeared in my dream. This time there was no communication whatever-nothing but a. look of profound sorrow. A feeling of remorse came over me. I remembered my former promise; but somehow I felt myself incapable of asking questions. I awoke feeling heartily ashamed of myself. Again, of course, consoling myself with the thought that it was only a. dream. Nevertheless, I could not, do what I would, rid myself of the haunting look of that sorrowful face. I determined to write to the address given to me previously. I did, and quite contrary to my expectation received an answer in due course. Now for the first time I was really astounded. A thorough investigation followed. Every detail of the first vision was confirmed. But a. still greater wonder was to follow. I found that it was no trivial affair but one of the last importance to me, which became, and still is, a dominating influence in my life. Now for the other side of the story which to me, in view of my own experience, appeared the most remarkable : ·· About the same time that the first vision appeared to me, a gentleman residing nearly two thousand miles from where I was staying, received a communication through the mediumship of a woman-friend of unusual psychic gifts. Only her immediate friends were aware of her abnormal power. This communication, purporting to come from his mother, who had been dead many years, stated that before many days he would receive a letter from a stranger who would ask certain questions and state certain things that would convince him of her identity. It is important here to say that he was very sceptical in spiritual matters. Weeks passed away. No letter was received. So he merely looked upon it as one of the ” misses ” of mediumship. About a year and a half afterwards another communication was received through the same source, saying : “Be patient; wait; I shall succeed.” However, he paid no attention to this. After five or six months’ further delay, the unlooked-for letter arrived. I need not add that it was mine. The promise of two years before was fulfilled. The explanations on both sides being compared left no room for doubt in any sensible mind. Only the most confirmed sceptic, who would refuse any testimony against his prejudice, could remain unconvinced.
APPENDIX II-NOTES UPON MAN’S PSYCHICAL CONSTITUTION
N.B.-The following paragraphs have been culled from many lengthy notes and ” communications ” received through what has been called ” automatic writing.” They are here given for what they may be worth as suggestions to other “investigators.” The Aura. The Aura of a person is a purely psychical form of atmosphere seen or felt only by sensitive temperaments. It surrounds all forms from mineral to man. Much that we call instinct in animals is nothing but a sensing of the feelings, passing as currents in the mental strata. of their race. Many times, wild animals have been observed to become suddenly suspicious, nervous, alarmed, when such warnings as scent, sound, or wind were out of the question. Transmitted by some subtle invisible current, a. sense of danger was awakened, their sphere of consciousness received the race alarm which aroused the inherited racial instinct, or memory. Man, to a greater extent than he is aware of, is influenced by this sensitive atmosphere. To the eye of a seer, it is varied in extent and changeable in colour. The planet, apart from the atmosphere of gas, has also a mental envelope, a. psychical atmosphere within the gaseous, and this must not be mistaken for the universal ether of space. Finally, the solar system has its own peculiar, psychical aura, so that planetary intercommunication is at least among the possibilities of the future. Man may be likened unto a musical instrument in his psychical constitution, and the sensitiveness of his auric sphere. He may range, according to race, from the conch, and wooden tom-tom of the savage, to the most exquisite cremona-violin, while the consciousness within the auric sphere rises from the Tasmanian Black to a Buddha, or a Jesus of Nazareth. There is, therefore, a wonderful difference in kind in the transmission and reception of thought-waves, which like light-waves in the ether, travel in their own medium. These thought-waves, producing sensation in the auric-sphere, have to be transmuted into conscious ideas; and an idea entirely foreign to our consciousness will pass without recognition, or at best, be wholly mistranslated. One human instrument will only respond to another in harmony, or sympathy with it, and in whatever sense this sympathy, or harmony is, will be the terms in which the idea will be expressed. To revert to our analogy, every human-being is in accord with some tone, or semi-tone of a musical scale. Minds corresponding to B flat will receive no message from G sharp; though there are some minds, almost neutral in their sphere of sensitiveness, who respond more or less to anything. These currents are transmitted in the psychical atmosphere of the planet. The spheres of human consciousness are but so many wireless-stations for sending or receiving messages. Each station is limited to messages of a certain kind and grade from similar stations. We are now approaching the mystery of the frequent confusion in thought transference. According to its quality of refinement, and its complex relations with the psychic form of consciousness, and the auric sphere, the human brain has every degree of receptive quality, from a clear-receiving of the thought to its reception in broken rays. As light is split up by a prism of glass, such ramifications are lost in the thought of the individual. As musicaI-instruments can be attuned to respond perfectly to each other, by training, two sympathetic persons can become so responsively attuned as to receive and transmit thought clearly, consciously, and without error. To investigate this is the great work for the psychologists of the future.
The program has now been made public for the forthcoming conference in Greece to which I have submitted (and had accepted) a presentation In Search of Zanoni, using the same slides as those presented at The Church of Light conference in June but with a narrative tailored to the interests of European Theosophists and esoteric historians. This is in a sense a sequel to my 2012 presentation in absentia in Greece based on my 2011 presentation in Albuquerque near the beginning of my research on the Zanoni mystery.
Since last summer’s talk by Carrie Streeter in Blowing Rock about Genevieve Stebbins, I have been intending to follow up in Burke County on Genevieve’s husband Norman Astley, who built a modest cabin near Paddy Creek from which he managed lumber and mining investments in the county. Last week I finally visited the current owner of Paddy Creek Campgound which occupies much of what was Astley’s land and is within sight of his cabin, and took these photos. The first shows the Paddy Creek cabin and the second the land a few miles away on Adventist Circle, across the Linville River from the Paddy Creek acreages. Both sites are very near the scenic Lake James State Park.
After being advised that Astley seemed to focus his investments in gold mining areas of the county, I visited the History Museum of Burke County in Morganton and learned of the great abundance of gold and its economic impact in the region, as well as the turn of the century boom in lumber production in which the Astleys also invested.
One pleasure of working with the T.M Johnson correspondence is that the most prolific writers of letters to Johnson– Alexander Wilder, Silas Randall, and Elliott Page– were also the most eloquent and judicious. Wilder, Randall, and Page were sympathetic and cooperative friends in their letters, but only Wilder remained a lifelong friend after the demise of The Platonist in 1888. I have just completed a preliminary step in creating a personal name index for the Wilder letters, and found 248 individuals mentioned therein. Only two are sharply criticized, a Christian clergyman and a high-ranking British Theosophist, for the same offense–unfriendly treatment of Wilder inspired by sectarian fanaticism. The Reverend Holland’s antipathy disrupted Wilder’s enjoyment of the Concord School of Philosophy and the American Akademe of Philosophy. G.R.S. Mead exemplified the rivalry among various Theosophical factions, leading Wilder to conclude:
The fact, I apprehend is that with “Brotherhood” this resembles the Parisians of 1792 when the demand was to be a brother or be killed. I always found Mr. Mead a very instructive writer. Every man has a niche in which he is valuable, and so I thought of him. But with factional bickerings I will have nothing to do.
It was most encouraging to see a review of LTS Volume I in the blog Blavatsky News, in which Mark Casady accurately notes that the heart of the book is the letters from Randall and Page, each of whom provides something of a spiritual autobiography unfolding over a few years of correspondence. Although the review mistakenly classifies Randall as a Theosophist, if this incites Theosophical readers to examine his letters they will not be disappointed; he is very critical of the TS but never mean-spirited in his remarks. Page likewise was invariably civil and engaging in his letters, up to the point where he broke with Johnson and the HBofL around the same time that Randall left the Brotherhood for family reasons.
Mead is an opposite case from Page and Randall in that his epistolary friendship with Johnson developed seven years after his bitter attacks on the HBofL. Casady’s blog post gave a link to Mead’s scathing review of The Light of Egypt, whose primary but not sole author was Thomas H. Burgoyne. Burgoyne and Mead were polar opposites in several dimensions. The former, a “smart, cute adventurer” from working class origins in the North, devoted his pen to writing for the HBofL, while the latter was a well-educated, upper middle class Londoner whose early writings were almost entirely Theosophical in nature. Both were highly partisan against various perceived enemies– based more on the mutual grudges of Emma Hardinge Britten and HPB than on their personal interests. The harsh and unfair quality of Mead’s attack on Burgoyne and associates was a reflection of Burgoyne’s rhetoric against Theosophists. But in 1909 both men repudiated the organizations for which they had gone into battle against eacb other, and never sank to the depths of sectarian propaganda again. (While Burgoyne stopped being Burgoyne in the early 1890s, his subsequent persona entailed a burying of hatchets about which I have much more to say in upcoming posts.) In an effort to understand how Mead changed over time, I acquired a collection of his works with a very informative introduction by Clare Goodrick-Clarke. He was both an employee of the TS and a personal disciple of Blavatsky sworn to obedience, in 1889 when the TLOE review came out. The introduction explains:
In addition to handling all Blavatsky’s correspondence and working daily with her on her books and articles, Mead soon assumed further organizational responsibilities. In 1889 he was appointed, together with Bertram Keightley, joint-secretary of the Esoteric Section (E.S.) of the Theosophical Society, which Blavatsky founded in October 1888 for more advanced students. (p3)
The E.S. was founded at the suggestion of W.Q. Judge, who had recognized that 5 of 7 members of the TS Board of Control were also involved in the HBofL, including Johnson. These prominent American Theosophists were targeted as “the enemy” against whom a rival secret society needed to be created as a bulwark. But the American HBofL dissolved in 1909 and was replaced by a public successor group, the Brotherhood of Light, nine years later. By contrast the E.S. that Judge suggested to unite Blavatsky loyalists against the HBofL renegades became within a few years the means whereby the TS broke up into multiple hostile factions most of which still survive.
What seems most tragic in hindsight is that Mead had more in common with Johnson and Wilder than he did with anyone else in the TS, and yet he targeted them as “enemies of the Faith” while embroiling himself in controversies that were beneath his dignity as a scholar. While in 1889 he had sided with Judge against the HBofL, in the 1890s he was literally inquisitorial in his fury at the TS Vice-President, demanding Judge’s resignation from office, and interrogating him at length for what amounted to a heresy trial. He had formerly issued strong public criticism of Olcott in the Judge affair. He was equally public in his ultimate split with the TS over the autocracy of Annie Besant, but had been devoting his scholarship in Hermetic directions for several years:
From 1898 Mead extended his Theosophical studies to the Hermetic literature, named after its supposed authorship by Hermes Trismegistus or Thrice-Great. Like other currents of Hellenistic spirituality, the Hermetica had its origin in the interaction between Greek and Eastern ideas, and myths and religious beliefs at Alexandria in the first centuries A.D. (p. 16)
In February 1909 Mead resigned from the Theosophical Society…Mead and some seven hundred members of the British Section resigned in protest. While repelled by Leadbeater’s conduct, Mead felt that the case highlighted a more fundamental flaw in the mission and constitution of the Society. Mead particularly objected to the invocation of the Mahatmas’ authority concerning the internal affairs and governance of the society. He prized Theosophy as a quest for divine wisdom and a love of truth, with the aids of study, reason, and gnosis. He could not reconcile this search for divine wisdom with blind obedience to the Mahatmas’ supposed dogmas and directives…He intended this new association to be “genuinely undogmatic, unpretentious, claiming no pseudo-revelations, and truly honest inside and out.”(pp. 20-22)
He was one of the first Theosophists to articulate a Western theosophy rooted in Orphism and Neo-Platonism, which he then related to the Valentinian, Basilidean, and other Gnostic texts, and the Corpus Hermeticum. In this respect his path reflects that of other Theosophists such as Rudolf Steiner, Anna Kingsford, W.B. Yeats, and Dion Fortune, who each embraced Western esoteric sources after an experiment with the Orientalism of modern Theosophy.(p.32)
The evidence suggests to me that Mead and Johnson were excellent role models in their burying of the TS vs. HBofL hatchet by becoming friendly correspondents as each distanced himself from organizational responsibilities in the respective groups. Had Wilder survived a few more years, Mead might well have patched up their relationship and welcomed him as a friend of the Quest Society, an organization that would have appealed to Wilder more than any of the competing Theosophical groups.
Five years ago, I gave a presentation to the biennial Church of Light convention in which I suggested that Norman Astley, who married Genevieve Stebbins in 1892 and with her was a major influence on Elbert Benjamine until her death in 1933, had been born as Thomas Henry D’Alton and then known as Thomas Henry Burgoyne from 1883 until becoming Astley and claiming that Burgoyne had died. We have found no photographs of Astley to compare with those of Burgoyne. But thanks to Ancestry.com, a North Carolina researcher made contact with Marc Demarest, publisher of the Typhon Press and IAPSOP.com, after discovering some letters from Norman Astley written in his time as a landowner in the mountains of Burke and Watauga counties. Having no expertise in forensic handwriting analysis, I am now reading a couple of textbooks to get background on the subject prior to contacting any specialists. When looking at entire letters, the general appearance of the Astley and Burgoyne handwritings seems similar, in terms of slant, size, and writing style, but this can be deceiving in that nineteenth century handwritings are often identifiable as specific styles taught by different penmanship methods. Comparing specific words is the first step I have taken, as the formation of the most common word “the” seems similar in the Astley and Burgoyne handwritings.
More complicated is the similarity of words that I found in Astley’s letters and the same or similar words in Burgoyne’s. The examples I searched for were second, accepted, received, andnumber. As with the examples of “the” the sepia writing is Burgoyne and the black and white is Astley; sometimes I could only find a similar word in Burgoyne. The results are below.
There is momentous news to report soon, but in the meantime I will share a small bit of information that has become available on the Web. It is known that Genevieve Stebbins retired in 1907 from the New York School of Expression. She and her husband Norman Astley had previously owned property in the North Carolina mountains, but by 1913 were living in a small English town, Slindon in West Sussex. Their return to the US was recorded in 1917 when they moved to California.
A brief notice was posted by Astley in 1903 in volume 18 of Recreation, indicating his interests as a naturalist, which were later shared by Elbert Benjamine:
In December 1907, Astley wrote a letter to The Country-Side, the monthly journal of the B.E.N.A., the British Empire Naturalist Association, indicating that he had been residing in Devon since at least April of that year. The letter was published in 1908:
This is the first new information about the Astleys’ move to England that has emerged in several years. It turns out that between their arrival in Devon and their move to Slindon they were recorded as boarders in the 1911 Channel Islands Survey, living in St. Peter’s Port, Guernsey.
Several new books have taken notice of Genevieve Stebbins in the past three years, which I will report in coming months. Although nothing new has come to light about Thomas H. Burgoyne’s reputed demise in 1894, a wealth of new information will soon be published about Burgoyne’s first few years in America. My next blog entry will share the story of an unexpected documentary find and the book that resulted. One brand new find is a record of Burgoyne’s 1887 naturalization– either declaration of intent or actual application for citizenship– in Shawnee County, Kansas. The circumstances of this event are explained in said forthcoming book.
ps– another piece of evidence turned up recently about the Astleys in England. In 1914 they had acquired a lifelong lease in their rented home in Slindon, yet only three years later and before the end of the war the returned to the US.
With the discovery of this and another rare title on archive.org, we now have the entire catalog of Astro-Philosophical Publishing available for online readers. Language of the Stars appeared first in 1892, followed four years later by Celestial Dynamics. There was nothing comparable available to American readers of the time, according to the introduction which stated that “no really reliable practical Manual has ever been issued in America upon this subject…”
A hiking trip I took a week ago inspired some reflections on what constitutes a “sacred place.” One aspect of the Church of Light which distinguishes it from most spiritual groups is the lack of any specific sacred places that are associated with its history. The Coral Street headquarters in Los Angeles was the CofL’s home for several decades, but does not seem to inspire reverence or nostalgia. No places associated with Zain’s early life, or those of his forerunners, are preserved or regarded in ways that typify most groups. Recently I have written about Quaker history, and earlier about Theosophy, Edgar Cayce, Baha’i, and Radhasoami, all of which are marked by “sacred places” having some meaning associated with the movement founders. But my own experience of the sacred is much more intense in natural settings than anything manmade; my hiking trips outnumber visits to churches etc. by more a hundred to one. My last hiking trip to was to a place with an intriguing connection to CofL history.
Attachment to specific places that define group identity seems to be almost crucial to spiritual groups. Adherents of Mormonism, Christian Science, and Adventism have many historic sites associated with Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, or Ellen G. White to visit which document their role in American history. Theosophists in America have several “home” properties which date to the 1920s or earlier. The Association for Research and Enlightenment has its headquarters largely in a 1929 hospital built to put in practice the Edgar Cayce readings. But by contrast the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor leadership seems like a group of spiritual nomads, uninterested in building institutions, and more oriented to appreciation of the natural world. In CofL tradition, T.H. Burgoyne went off into the California mountains to write the Brotherhood lessons in the 1880s and 90s. We know that Elbert Benjamine was leader of the Southern California Nature Club and led wilderness hikes from the 1920s through the 40s. So it struck me as significant that the property owned by Genevieve Stebbins and Norman Astley in the 1890s and until 1904 was perched on a cliff with one of the most impressive mountain views in the Appalachians.
This deed in which the property was sold in December 1904 describes it as adjacent to “to the low edge of the Cliff Rock near the N.W. corner of Miss E.C. Prudden cottage.” The Cliff Rock is what is now known as the Blowing Rock, described on its website as the oldest tourist attraction in North Carolina. It was not developed as such until the 1930s, by which time Miss Prudden had donated a large parcel of land in the Johns River Gorge which includes several waterfalls. The Glen Burney trail, which leads a mile and a half down the gorge and crosses New Year’s Creek several times, is one of the treasures of northwest North Carolina hiking. The Glen Burney and Glen Marie Falls make the ardous climb rewarding. While it is yet impossible to identify the “little cottage” that Norman Astley described owning in Blowing Rock, he did own this scenic building lot which was sold to Emma Reed Stewart for $265, around the same time they were selling holdings in nearby Burke County.
Peter Davidson migrated from the rugged Scottish Highlands to the equally rugged Blue Ridge mountains of north Georgia. Burgoyne, according to tradition, chose mountainous terrain in which to live and write in California. The Ohio-born Wagners moved throughout the mountain West before settling finally in Denver. Although members of the Church of Light have no historic buildings or sites to which we can look with nostalgia, perhaps somehow that is appropriate. The wilderness feels like a spiritual home to me more than any church ever has. Knowing how my own consciousness is uplifted by hiking in mountains with sweeping vistas, I suspect that Stebbins and Astley chose to spend time in Blowing Rock because they needed just such a break from the urban lives.
The State of Things is heard on North Carolina Public Radio on weekdays, and one of the most interesting interviews I’ve heard lately featured Sally Rhine Feather. The Brotherhood of Light lessons focus on validation of ESP via psychical research, aka parapsychology. Neither Spiritualism nor occult tradition are cited with nearly the same confidence. Yet, sixty years after Zain’s death, parapsychology as a discipline seems still to be struggling for legitimacy. Sally Rhine Feather, the daughter of pioneers in the field, gives an intimate view of its development during her childhood and youth. Research for Ghost Land took me last week to Durham, visiting the Perkins Library at Duke University, a place I’d visited faithfully while working on The Masters Revealed. The campus and the subject of my research gave me a sense of deja vu, returning to many of the same characters about whom I was writing twenty years ago. Raleigh has been my research Mecca for the last ten years, the North Carolina State Archives providing most of the material on which my last book Pell Mellers was based. Before that, Virginia Beach was the destination of dozens of research trips while working on Edgar Cayce in Context in the mid-1990s. “Theosophical history,” in terms of the international subject matter and travels pursuing Blavatsky, is starting to be a distant memory.
“North Carolina historian” is far more descriptive of what I’ve been doing for the last decade than “esoteric historian.” The State of Thingsinterviewed me about Melungeons in late July, and it reflects my recent research focus on ethnic, religious, and political minorities of 19th century North Carolina. I have a chapter on Quaker ancestors in the 2010 collection Carolina Genesis, but the focus has been primarily on local places and families rather than the Friends in a broader sense so I can’t claim the mantle of “Quaker historian.”
Most unexpectedly, a North Carolina history emphasis has emerged with my research on Genevieve Stebbins and Norman Astley, who for twelve years (1894-1906) were landowners in the mountains of Burke and Watauga Counties. They seem to have been highly successful with the New York School of Expression from their 1893 marriage through their 1907 retirement. Yet somehow they found the time to manage farms in Burke County and invest in property in a very scenic location in Blowing Rock.
Authors like Gary Lachman and Joscelyn Godwin have devoted years of sustained reseach to the field that is coming to be known as esoteric history. By contrast, I return from a long absence feeling like Rip Van Winkle. But much inspiring work has been done in the last few years, and I share news of ongoing developments in this blog with great appreciation for the creative evolution of scholarship.
Ancestry.com includes this document which indexes a death record for Norman Astley during the months of April–June 1943. We cannot be sure this is the Astley who was married to Genevieve Stebbins, but the age and place seem to point to him.
The presentations at the June 24 history preconference sponsored by the Church of Light were recorded, and a DVD of all proceedings will be available to members. I went into many different avenues not mentioned in this sketch of a narrative, but am sharing it along with the slides to give a basic introduction to the mysteries associated with the authorship of The Light of Egypt.
Presentation for the Church of Light preconference, June 24 2011
PSEUDONYMS
With Marc’s presentation on Emma Hardinge Britten, you have seen the result of many years of research, which brought solutions of several longstanding puzzles. My talk is about ongoing investigations which are far from being resolved. It turns out that The Light of Egypt, the primary doctrinal book of our parent group the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, is just as mysterious in terms of pseudonyms as anything produced by Theosophists, Rosicrucians, or Spiritualists.(screen 1-title) Its authorship presents a yet unsolved literary mystery. The Light of Egypt was published in 1889 under the pseudonym Zanoni. With publication of a second volume in 1900, it was revealed that Zanoni had been the pen name of T.H. Burgoyne, secretary of the HBofL. TLOE has generally been considered Burgoyne’s book , although CofL tradition credits others with assisting him. Burgoyne himself is just as elusive as the book attributed to him.(slide 2, slide 3) The HBofL was remarkable not just for its leaders’ use of pseudonyms, but for the success with which their secrets were kept. Even what HBofL stood for was long concealed, with wrong guesses like “Hindu Brotherhood of Luxor” suggested by critics of the group. Several outsiders, often writing under pseudonyms themselves, came up with wild guesses about the HBofL leadership, and Max Theon, “Grand Master of the Exterior Circle,” inspired the greatest confusion.(4-Theon screen) Although the name was actually a pseudonym of Louis Bimstein, son of a Warsaw rabbi, Theon was confused with two other individuals of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. (slide 5)
BURGOYNE
The name T.H. Burgoyne was itself a pseudonym adopted around the time the HBofL was founded in 1884. But within a short time it was revealed that his real name was Thomas Henry Dalton (sometimes d’Alton), and that he had served six months in prison in England in 1883 for advertising fraud. This news was spread broadcast by Theosophists who saw it as a way to discredit a rival organization. (slide6—arrest—slide7 mug shot—slide8 closeup) It destroyed the HBofL in England, but not in France (where it continued to thrive under Max Theon) nor in America where Dalton arrived as Burgoyne with Peter Davidson and family in 1886. (slide9, ship passenger list) Although he arrived in the US as Burgoyne, the pseudonym had been damaged by the Theosophists and we see no evidence of him using it for the rest of his life, other than a couple of articles published in The Platonist in 1887 and 1888. Burgoyne had been using Zanoni as a pen name ever since the HBofL journal The Occultist was established in 1885. Zanoni was a Rosicrucian themed novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in which the adept teacher of the title character was named Mejnour. Peter Davidson, Provincial Grand Master of the North of the original HBofL, wrote under the latter pen name. Zanoni’s identity was so well concealed that Emma Hardinge Britten was twice accused by Theosophists of authoring The Light of Egypt. (The book drew heavily on her Art Magic which might have contributed to this false accusation.) In response, Emma heaped praise on Burgoyne and scorn on his attackers, and later wrote a glowing review of his book. (slide10, Emma quote) In her introduction to the second volume of The Light of Egypt published in 1900, Belle Wagner attributed the text to Burgoyne who had allegedly died in 1894. But the language used in describing him is so circuitous as to make one wonder why the subject of his death is being treated this evasively. (slide11, slide 12 TLOE II)
SARAH AND THE GRIMKE LITERARY DYNASTY
Sarah Stanley Grimke was credited with coauthorship of The Light of Egypt by her sister, who wrote to Sarah’s daughter after her death. (slide 13 Emma Tolles). This was partially endorsed by Benjamine, and her natal chart appears on our church website.(slide 14) Daughter of an abolitionist clergyman who served in three denominations, Stanley married Archibald Grimke in 1879 and the next year bore their only child, Angelina Weld Grimke. (slide 15, slide 16) Archibald was the biracial son of Henry Grimke, a white slaveowner and Nancy Weston, a black slave. His aunts Sarah and Angelina Grimke were leaders in the abolitionist movement who like Archibald had left their native Charleston and relocated to Massachusetts. After the collapse of their marriage in 1883, Sarah took young Angelina to live with her in Michigan, but in 1887 returned the child to her father in Washington, D.C. due to the discrimination she faced as the mixed-race daughter of a white woman. For the rest of her life Sarah wrote on occultism and mental healing and traveled widely. Whatever the nature of the collaboration, it seems that Grimke played the role that our history has assigned to others– an HBofL member living in California and assisting Burgoyne in his writing. But her stay in California was not long, as in 1888 she went to New Zealand at the invitations of a publisher, and remained there until a heart attack required her return to the US where she initially stayed with her parents in Michigan. Sarah returned to California, still in poor health, and died in San Diego in 1898.
NORMAN AND GENEVIEVE
Another twist in the Light of Egypt story is that CofL tradition features one individual among Burgoyne’s associates whose identity is quite confusing.(slide17) None of the biographical data about Astley in this description, or in a published Stebbins genealogy checks out thus far. (slide18 of Stebbins bio on Astley.) The unconfirmed elements in our history include Astley’s military career, international travels prior to marrying Stebbins, and presence in California in the 19th century before the death of Burgoyne. No Emma Hadden marrying a John Astley can be found, nor any Astley births in Monmouthshire in April 1853. Genevieve Stebbins, unlike her husband, is well documented in genealogical records. Born in San Francisco in 1857, she became an actress in New York in her twenties. There are gaps in the record for Stebbins as well, most crucially in the mid-1880s when she studied in England and France and first encountered the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. By the late 1880s she emerged as a public figure, becoming the most prominent American teacher of the Delsarte method of elocution and acting. She combined Delsarte methods with yogic breathing learned from a swami at Oxford, as well as exercises involving stretches and postures adapted from yoga. With her marriage to Astley in 1893 he became her business manager and they traveled up and down the east coast giving classes and performances. Her approach to life contrasts vividly with that taught by Sarah Grimke. (slide19) Between 1894 and 1906, the Astleys owned considerable property in the North Carolina mountains. (slide 20) After her retirement in 1907, Stebbins traveled with Astley, settling in England for several years before returning to the US in 1917. The first evidence of any California residence since her youth is the 1920 census when she is 62 years old Here is Slindon as it now appears. (slide 21, Slindon today) Norman Astley is far more elusive than his famous wife, and no record prior to their marriage can be solidly linked to him. We find the couple in a boarding house in Asbury Park, NJ in the 1900 census. They are found living in Slindon, England in 1913 and the town was listed as their most recent residence in the 1917 ship passenger list that recorded their return to the US. Some time within the next 18 years Stebbins died, as in this 1935 ship’s list Norman Astley has a younger wife named Nellie.(slide22)
CONCLUSIONS?
Since we find no evidence of Astley’s existence prior to 1893, and no evidence of Burgoyne’s death, I am far from confident that they are two different individuals. Nor, on the other hand, can we be confident that they are the same person. At this point the question must be declared unresolved, which rather complicates the task of revising and correcting our history. That history, by the way, has been repeated in a great many published sources, respectable reference books and scholarly studies included, all of them citing the C of L. For the time being, speculation will be the basis for further investigations… but here are some speculations.(slide24) Norman Astley was a character in a drama written and directed by Genevieve Stebbins, performed by Thomas Dalton. With all that remains unknown, is there anything yet established worth knowing about the mystery? In 1913, Stebbins published a book entitled The Quest of the Spirit, which is allegedly a distillation of many hundreds of manuscript pages given her by a longterm friend. This person is never named, but the book’s dedication to “Fidelio, with thoughts too sacred for words” is a strong indication that it is her husband. Some passages are consistent with that husband being the man formerly known as Burgoyne.–Slide25 book excerpt
I propose that the first portion of the passage refers to Sarah, the second to Genevieve.
Ancestry.com provided us with a great surprise ending for this story, thanks to Marc. He has learned that Thomas Henry Dalton’s first (and only legal) wife Betsy Bella Dalton immigrated to America in 1922 with their daughter Veda, and that their family has descendants alive today in California. –Veda Dalton(slide26) Dalton also had a son who left descendants. While we cannot say with confidence when or where he was born, when or where he died, or who his parents or siblings were, we do know that his daughter and wife arrived in the US in the 1920s, a time their father and husband was living in California.
This book was published in 1913 simultaneously in New York by Edgar S. Werner and in London by Henry J. Glaisher. Genevieve Stebbins is listed as editor and arranger, and in an editorial note writes that the book is less than one quarter of the full manuscript she was given by a longtime friend. Here are passages that struck me as especially interesting:
A careful survey of ancient philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to the Summa of St. Thomas of Aquinas and (together with the more important recent writers), the modern school from Berkeley to Hegel, convinces us beyond the peradventure of a doubt that a true philosophy of life is the work of the future, in which the great philosophical systems of the past will form but a very subordinate part of the structure. We are convinced that the chief foundation-stones will be discovered in the works of Eucken, Bergson, and James. (p. 32)
Warned therefore by the failures of the past, we shall attempt the building of no system of thought. Admonished by the vagaries of intellectual speculation, when based upon the nonexistent, we shall ever rest upon the foundations of experience. Chastened in mind by the fantastic creations of an unbridled imagination, we shall conjure up no enchanted image of a final solution; but, keeping in view the finiteness of the self, and the infinity of the world, unbiased, enter upon the quest. With a humble and contrite heart, we begin the journey as pilgrims of “The Way.”(p. 40)
