Paul Foster Case. His Life and Works. Dr. Paul A. Clark. Fraternity of the Hidden Light. 2013. 309 pages. $22.75.
review by John White

Dr. Paul Clark has done an enormous service for those interested in the developments of the Western mystery traditions in the first half of the 20th century, by offering a book on the life and works of Paul Foster Case. Case’s name appears frequently enough in texts in or about the occult and I suspect that Case’s impact will only increase over time. Nonetheless, since the bulk of Case’s work was written in the form of lessons rather than in book form, his name is perhaps still not as well-known as it deserves. For this reason alone, not to mention others, Clark’s rendering of the life, thought and achievements of Paul Foster Case is an important contribution toward our understanding both of Case and of the development of the occult in the English-speaking world in the 20th century.

The book is appropriately entitled Paul Foster Case. His Life and Works, because the book is both a biography and a sampling of Case’s work. In fact, the biographical part of the book takes up scarcely more than a third of its pages, the rest being appendices mostly associated with Case’s works. The longest section of the book, Appendix Two, is an important “work” of Case, if we can call it that: it purports to be a series of communications from Master R, the elusive and omnipresent Comte de St. Germaine, to some of the leaders of Case’s organization (Builders of the Adytum or BOTA). This latter section of the book is just as interesting as the biographical, even if for different reasons. I will discuss each of these sections in turn.

Turning first to the biographical section, Clark outlines Case’s life more or less chronologically. Clark prefaces his biography by explaining the materials on which the biography is based and how he got them. At a time when BOTA was undergoing a crisis, in the mid-1970s, the leaders of BOTA entrusted to Clark copies of its essential papers and documents, giving him the right to re-found the Order if necessary using said documents. Though Clark himself ended up leaving BOTA some years later and founding a mystery order of his own based on Case’s work (Fraternity of the Hidden Light), Clark decided to offer a summary of the materials in his possession “to those sincere students who, I hope, will benefit” (5)

Among the most compelling elements of Clark’s biography, therefore, is that he can offer not only a number of quotations from Case’s own journals, letters and papers, but supplement them with writings and oral commentary by Case’s associate, Ann Davies and Case’s wife Harriet, both of whom he knew. Clark’s own experience along with the sources at his disposal permit an unusually personal and first-hand account of a number of important events in both Case’s life and in the 20th century history of the occult, much of it in Case’s own words. Among these events we can include Case’s original meeting with Master R, Case’s split with the Alpha et Omega, and Case’s opposition to the dominant form of Enochian magic then being used in the Alpha et Omega. By offering substantial quotations from Case’s correspondence, Clark gives us a robust sense of Case’s thoughts and feelings about each of these issues. We also get a sense for Case the man: his lucid thinking and writing, his astounding work ethic and erudition, as well as his somewhat porous psyche which both permitted him to develop extraordinary occult gifts but also made him highly susceptible to all forms of psychic energy, usually for the better but sometimes for the worse (226). Clark offers a realistic sense of Case’s achievements without a lot of hagiography. Whether Clark gives a sufficient feeling for Case’s foibles is perhaps still an open question.

An example of the interesting material in this book is the many quotations from Case voicing his concern over the use of Enochian magic as it existed in the Alpha et Omega of his time. Case seems to have doubted that the Enochian system, as it was presented by John Dee and Edward Kelley, and resuscitated by MacGregor Mathers, was valid and complete. Part of Case’s claim here is that he knew of and in some cases witnessed the breakdown of people’s lives, which he believed arose from the inadequacies of that system, in particular its lack of “protective methods” (63). In Case’s words,

I have personal knowledge of more than twenty-five instances where the performance of magical operations based upon the Order formulae [of Enochian invocations] led to serious disintegrations of mind and body… Perhaps the most conspicuous examples of the use of these formulas is A.C. [Aleister Crowley] himself, but there are plenty of others that I have personally witnessed, whose personal shipwrecks have been just as complete even though their smaller tonnage, so to say, makes the loss seem less deplorable… [Michael] Whitty’s health failed as a direct result of magical practices based on Order formulae, but sadly deficient in adequate protection. (63)

According to Clark, Master R. confirmed Case’s intuition of the inadequacies of the Enochian system as given in the Alpha et Omega and that Mathers mistakenly assumed that Dee’s manuscripts, housed in the British Library, were those referred to in the Cipher manuscripts. Case claims, in contrast, that Dee’s system was a caricature of an earlier system based on the Qabalah (63). For the BOTA lessons, Case replaced Enochian magic with Qabalistic tablets and formulae, purportedly received from Master R. (89).

The biographical section is interesting, engaging and informative. Nonetheless, the biographical part of the book could have been improved. For one, the book could have used more careful editing: the biographical content is often sketchy and the descriptions can be confusing. For example, Clark tells us that Case is born in Rochester NY but just one page later describes Case’s family as struggling with New England winters: did Case’s family move to New England or does the author mistakenly treat Rochester NY as a part of New England? Also potentially significant events in Case’s life are hinted at but left undeveloped. An example of this last point is a picture in one of the appendices of Case’s ordination to the priesthood in the Old Catholic Church, an event one would presume to be important for understanding Case, but barely discussed in the text. Finally, often one does not know which source or even which kind of source is the basis of the Clark’s narrative, because there are no references. One cannot always be sure, for example, whether Clark is rehearsing some of what he recalls Ann Davies mentioning or if instead he has a textual basis in the written sources for his story (or both). While I don’t mean to suggest that remembrances and oral traditions are without value for a biographical study, it is still important to note the differences among sources and their relative worth from an historical standpoint. Indeed, given the large body of written materials Clark appears to have in his possession, one would think a more detailed history appropriate and possible. It could be that Clark thought a more substantial biography would be too time-consuming or that it would not appeal to a larger audience. Whatever the reason that Clark did not write a more complete and scholarly biographical section, this reader is at least left with the impression that a more detailed and carefully developed biography is possible and still a desideratum. It is to be hoped that the same material to which Clark has access is at some point put into the hands of a dedicated and scholarly biographer, so that a more detailed account of Case’s life and achievements can still be written.

However, the value of this book is not only its biographical section. Early on in his life, Clark tells us, Case heard an inner Voice which, for many years, Case assumed was his own subconscious or unconscious. This Voice would often lead Case’s study, make practical suggestions and even suggest passages of books to look at when he was doing research. Imagine his surprise when, some years later, Case got a phone call and the voice at the other end was the Voice he had been hearing inside all those years. The caller invited Case to meet him at the old Waldorf Astoria hotel and it was then that Case first met Master R. Case spent a three-week period with Master R., receiving instruction and higher levels of initiation, after which time Case returned to his work a new man. This meeting thus both initiated Case into higher magickal grades and established the link between BOTA and the mysterious Third Order. Case himself was surprised at this initiation and evidently felt humbled by it, wondering why he had been chosen for this great work. Case summarized Master R’s response to his wonder as follows: “That while he was not particularly impressed by Paul’s personality, he [i.e. Paul] was absolutely the best they (i.e. The Masters) could find for the job they had in mind. They had to work with what they had at hand!” (62).

Part of the significance of Case’s initiation is illustrated in Appendix Two of this work, where Paul’s abilities are used to receive purported communications from Master R. to Case, Davies and Case’s wife Harriet, given via ouija board, over the span of nearly two years. The stated aim of these communications was to continue the work begun much earlier in the The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom (of 1919), a work on the Tarot and Tree of Life written by Michael Whitty, mediated through Case, and sent originally by Master R. Thus Appendix Two amounts to supplementary lessons on the Tarot and the Tree of Life, given to arguably the leading scholar of each at the time. The value of these communications consists both in their content and in the picture of the elusive Third Order one can glean from them. The specific teachings, so the communications themselves tell us, is from an ancient source and are too complex to describe in a brief review like this, other than to say that they are substantive teachings concerning the Tarot, the Tree of Life and the implicit connections among the Sephiroth and interpretations thereof. The primary theme of these teachings is set out in the third communication (out of fifty), which states the goal to be to “correct the errors which have disrupted so many spiritual movements” (125), in particular the error of thinking that “the aspirant… is doing something to raise himself” (125). In contrast, “The truth is that nothing originates in, or is directed from, the personal level. Right understanding of what really goes on requires this basic realization. Everything in one’s spiritual unfoldment is, so far as personality goes, a tropism, an automatic response to impacts from the level of Ruach in Tiphareth” (125). The teachings themselves are inspiring but also the commentary offered is as well. Single sentences or paragraphs may suddenly appear with pearls of insight or pithy formulations of complex truths, such as “…magic is not something that changes the world or circumstances, though its results often appear to do so. Magic takes you to the heart of life, and gives you the vision of things as they really are. That is all, but that is enough” (166). Perhaps the one theme that most often appears is the significance of the body and its destiny to transmutation through magic. Perhaps the deepest theme that also resonates throughout is that the essence of life is love.

Beyond the content of those teachings, the text also permits one to peek behind the veil, as it were, and form a picture of the mysterious “Third Order” – or at least that part of it associated with Master R. First of all, the communications themselves make clear that those associated with Master R. are real, embodied human beings who, though advanced in magic, nonetheless suffer from the same vicissitudes that we all do from being embodied human beings (163). Further, they appear to be part of a larger body of people, who may disagree amongst themselves about whether humanity is ready for magic or not – those associated with Master R. being among the more optimistic (163-4). There are also implications in the communications that these members of the Third Order can act directly on someone unaware of them, especially to develop their latent occult powers, as is claimed to have been done for Ann Davies (119). On a broader scale, they can also impact humankind as a whole, helping it evolve by aiding people to understand the totality of events in their lives and in the time in which they live. Thus Master R. responds to the question of whether the Third Order impacted the elections of 1948 by saying, “Yes, we helped in the election. Not, by influencing anyone’s decision as to how to vote, for we never work that way, but by sending into the Group Mind of the American people the determination to get the facts and act on them without much reference to radio, advertising, editorials or polls" (277). Furthermore, this work is also accompanied by what we might call a “counter-work” on the part of “Blacks” – a shorthand for “black magicians”. Whether these latter are organized or more anarchic (or perhaps there are both kinds), one cannot tell from these communications, though the few comments made give the impression of a number of black magicians simply out to bring about disorder of whatever kind. Several times these communications are themselves interrupted by black magicians (e.g. 230). Hence Master R. and that part of the Third Order he represents appear in these communications as a force for world order and spiritual evolution but also to be up against substantial spiritual forces against that evolution. The text implies that they are, at the time these communications are given, attempting to bring peace during the crises at the founding of the modern state of Israel, a task which requires both actual diplomacy and spiritual efforts to open the souls of those involved. Indeed, these world events appear to be what motivated the end of these communications. Whether or not one believes in the “Third Order” the picture these communications draws of them alone is already of interest.

The other appendices also include interesting and important material, such as: a copy of the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, copies of correspondence between Case and Israel Regardie, and a Case bibliography. Though the book is not by any means filled with aids for the practical magician, it nonetheless highlights the achievement and status of Case and – at least to this reader – confirmed the high value of those achievements, highlighting therefore what a worthy source Case can be for the practical magician. As a whole, this reader found the book enormously valuable for its illumination of the life of a great occultist and scholar and it doing so from an “inside” point of view. Furthermore, the book is not only of historical interest. Master R. at one point says that “…the time rapidly draws neigh [sic!] which more than three centuries ago we spoke of in the Fama – the time when our trumpet shall resound with full voice and when the teachings should be without the veils of enigmatic expression forced upon us then” (206). Master R. says later on in this passage that that time is now (1948). In our time, especially through the use of electronic media, much that was once hidden is now open for all to see. Any perusal of recent on-line discussions among Golden Dawn based orders would show that central issues treated of in this book are widely discussed currently – ranging over the existence of Master R. and the Third Order (“Secret Chiefs”), the nature of the break between Case and Moina Mathers, Case’s reasons for objecting to the practice of Enochian magic current to the Alpha et Omega of his time, and the development of the links between Qabalah and the Tarot. With this in mind, it seems to me this book should be on the shelf of any serious occultist as well as any serious historian of the occult.