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(Number 440)
Answers about the OAM (Ordo Anno Mundi) Traditional Witchcraft)
Welcome back. I'll write very breifly about the
OAM to answer the
recent question and give the background as best as I can in that
tradition. As you say, in England there has been much talk there
about recognized craft lineages etc, which really are rigorously
defended, sometimes too much so. Anyway, in answering that, the OAM
still remains the oldest "founded" traditional craft, with an
unbroken line, based on a mix of what was handed down to be
eventually blended into the OAM itself.
The Ophidian or Serpent-venerating Traditional Craft has been around
for a very long time. One of its magical texts, the Oera Linda Book
has sections that reportedly date back more than four thousand
years. Every ancient culture recognised a primordial Serpent-deity
associated with wisdom and power, dwelling in the watery Abyss deep
below the Earth's surface.
In more recent centuries this ancient belief was kept alive by
Traveling Folk, (not just gypsies either), especially those who lived
and worked on the sea, on rivers, and (later) on canals. Knowledge of
the World Serpent also persisted in remote country districts all over
Europe.
The Oera Linda Book was compiled over many centuries by the Frisians,
a nation who in historical times lived around the southern coast of
the North Sea. The Frisians believed that their ancestors had
constructed the stone circles and megalithic monuments that are found
all over Europe. They also claimed to be descended from the
inhabitants of the lost island (I'm guessing here they mean Atlantis,
or Atland, as they called it).
The ancient Megalithic Culture existed across the whole of western
and northern Europe, and was the earliest known civilisation on
Earth. The Greek philosopher Plato, and the Oera Linda Book, both
tell us that this vast area was divided into ten autonomous kingdoms,
or kin-groups, spread out over large tracts of the continent.
The remains of the Megalithic Culture can be seen to this day in the
form of cromlechs, dolmens, barrows, and stone circles such as
Stonehenge. The earliest of these crypts, or temples, have been
dated to around 4800 BC, so this gives us a reasonable starting point
for the long and convoluted history of the Ophidian Craft - though
some would say that it is as old as the human race itself.
Today, the Ophidian Traditional Craft is preserved and passed on by
the Ordo Anno Mundi (OAM), which has branches all around the world.
Based originally in Staffordshire, England, the OAM, as a new
formation was officially on 18th March 1985 and traces its initiatory
lineage directly to the Frisian-descended Canal Folk of the English
Midlands, mixed with other traditional practices.
According to Tony Steele, the founder of the OAM and inheritor of the
linage, (also author of many books of traditional craft and water
gypsy magick), the concept of "lineage" is important in Occultism,
and basically means the ability to trace one's Initiatory line back,
without a break, to the universal magical tradition that has existed
since time immemorial.
Tony Steele states emphatically that there are many groups and
individuals around today who have no such lineage, and therefore tend
to play down its importance. These "boot-strappers" (his phrase) are
often devoid of genuine magical knowledge (though a few of them may
have stumbled on some aspect of it by accident).
But even more important than a physical Initiation, the lineage
concept implies that Occult knowledge has been passed down in the
form of training.
He goes on to say that there are far too many people around today who
do indeed possess an Initiatory lineage, but have neglected to do any
of the work involved. These people are even worse than the "boot-
strappers", because they bring the whole concept into disrepute. The
OAM exists to try and reverse this unfortunate trend.
The OAM was founded as an official new formation, as I mentioned, on
18th March 1985 and actually has a main dual Initiatory lineage,
(besdies personal iniatory lineages from our Elders),which is ALL
passed on to all of its Initiates who undergo the training
successfully to the higher Degrees within the OAM.
In chronological order the first of these major lineages is derived
from Alison Bayliss (d. 1984 and the second from Bob Clay-Egerton (d.
1998).
Firstly, I'll describe the The Bayliss Lineage....
Alison Bayliss was a member of the Theosophical Society (B'ham Annie
Besant Lodge) and the Co-Masons (Lodge Loyalty No. 713) - the Co-
Masons are a branch of Freemasonry that allows women to join as well
as men. (You might remember that Gardner was initiaed by similar
traditional groups that belonged to more than one branch of
occultism).
Anyway, Alison Bayliss was also a member of a small group within the
Co-Masons who were heavily into the lore of Atlantis, and who called
themselves the Societas Mundus Sapientia (which means "Society of
Worldly Wisdom"). This had originally been set up in about 1902 by
Annie Besant, who in that year went to France and received Initiation
into the Co-Masons with the intention of setting up a branch of the
order in England.
Annie Besant had been head of the Esoteric (i.e. ritual magic)
Section of the Theosophical Society since 1891 and this latter
organisation, as is well known, has a great deal to say about
Atlantis. Here are excerpts from a speech Mrs Besant gave at a Co-
Masonic meeting in London on 30th October 1919:
"In the earlier days knowledge was kept back from the world and given
only to the `Secret Societies'…Therefore some of this hidden
knowledge will not be given out till the Social Conscience of the
world advances…If we do not improve the Social Conscience, our race
is in danger of the same fate as that which overtook Atlantis."
Clearly, Annie Besant saw the Societas Mundus Sapientia as an inner
core of enlightened souls whose task it was to raise the "Social
Conscience" of the rest of the human race.
Mrs Besant was involved in many `esoteric and traditional magickal
groups' as I mentioned, and as the twentieth century wore on she
spent ever more of her time in India, becoming part of the
independence movement there. She also became overall president of
the Theosophical Society in 1910 and increasingly involved herself in
Indian mysticism.
Leadership of the Societas Mundus Sapientia in England devolved on
Georgina Bewick, who took it over on the death of Annie Besant in
1933.
Georgina Bewick had joined the Co-Masons (Lodge Cymru No. 710,
Cardiff) in 1924 at the age of fifty-five, and at the same time
became part of the Societas Mundus Sapientia. She succeeded Annie
Besant as its leader in 1933 until her own death in 1958, a few weeks
short of her ninetieth birthday. She was also Master of her Masonic
Lodge in 1935. In 1939 she moved from Wales to Bedford, but continued
to attend Welsh meetings on a regular basis. Here are excerpts from
an essay she wrote called The Spirit of Masonry:
"When star crowned trees, and the glint of sunlight on the flowering
waters subdue him like the thought of one much loved and long dead…
When he can look into the wayside puddle and see something beyond mud…
Such a man has found the only real secret of Masonry, and the one
which it is trying to give to all the world."
It seems unlikely that the present United Grand Lodge would agree
with her though!
When Georgina Bewick died in 1958 she was succeeded as leader of the
Societas Mundus Sapientia by Sarah Richards, who had become a member
in 1937 at the same time as joining Lodge Cymru No. 710. She was
Master of this Lodge in 1946 and 1951. In 1970 she moved from Wales
to Birmingham where she joined Lodge Loyalty No. 713 the following
year.
From this point on the centre of activity of the Societas Mundus
Sapientia shifted, with its leader, from Cardiff to Birmingham.
But what did this activity consist of? In its earlier years, under
Annie Besant and Georgina Bewick, the Societas Mundus Sapientia would
have held formal ritual meetings - probably outdoors and also in
members' homes.
These meetings consisted of the various magical and special yogic
exercises that Annie Besant had learnt from her various teachers in
her long Occult career. Gradually, however, active meetings became
less frequent, and by the 1970s they simply consisted of a discussion
in the kitchen of Lodge Loyalty No. 713, held once a month after
Lodge meetings. Sarah Richards died in 1984, and was succeeded as
leader by Alison Bayliss.
We first met Alison in 1981 when Tony, who was already an experienced
Craft man, joined the Theosophical Society, and their mutual interest
in Atlantean lore soon drew us into lengthy conversations. She
sponsored, and helped to conduct, Tony's Initiation into the Co-
Masons in 1983, and he also became part of the Societas Mundus
Sapientia.
By this time Sarah Richards was a very ill old lady, and Alison was
already the effective leader of the group. But also by this time the
group was virtually moribund, and was lucky if it got half a dozen
people at its monthly discussions in the Lodge kitchen. Yet Tony was
fascinated by the extremely specialized and secret magical and yogic
lore that they discussed, and he decided to put myself through some
of the exercises described - which proved very effective in all sorts
of magickal workings and especially Otherworld workings.
It is actually from this source the OAM inherits the various
specialized yogic postures such as the Crux, Isis, and Saxon. It
also inherits the Kultus and its correct environment, the techniques
of magical continence, plus the whole gamut of Atlantean lore and
Star lore, including the Axis Mundi, and the use of the Oera Linda
Book (which Alison held to be of the utmost significance).
Unfortunately, Alison Bayliss died suddenly on the last day of July
1984, a mere twenty-six days after her predecessor Sarah Richards.
She had had no time to stamp her own personality on the Societas
Mundus Sapientia, nor to rescue it from its moribund state (as I am
sure she hoped to do). Neither had she named a successor. The result
was inevitable - the group started to fizzle out, while tony worked
frantically to maintain it all.
The next few months were fairly chaotic for Tony, but in March 1985
he decided to try and get things moving again. He made discrete
enquiries at the Lodge to properly maintain the Order and move it
once again into an active working and research state, but nobody was
really interested. He knew that the link with Co-Masonry had choked
the life out of the real core of it all, especially the magickal
working and the Frisian heritage that Alison had passed down in the
Societas Mundus Sapientia. Actually, the Order should have thrown
open its membership to all genuine seekers, not just their friends in
the Co-Masons.
So, along with four other members, Tony Steele founded a new group
which was to be totally independent of the Co-Masons completely, and
he called it the Ordo Anno Mundi (a term loosely from Atlantean lore
and especially a secret Frisian magickal chant for Wra'da).
The former members of the old group handed over the reins of the old
Order complete, whilst also passing over all of its huge archives,
especially the Clay-Egerton Lineage's, which have a direct line to
the OAM, besides the other traditional groups that had melded with
the Societas Mundus Sapientia over the years and joined the OAM as
the main Order from that date.
The OAM had already been in existence for seven years when it
received another important element in its overall lineage.
In 1989 Tony joined a Witchcraft Coven run by a young woman named
Wendy Sycamore in Erdington, Birmingham. Later, in 1992, Wendy was
Initiated by Bob Clay-Egerton, a famous Occultist then living in
Newcastle.
Wendy closed down her original Coven and formed instead a new group
called `Veils of the Ancient Serpent', for which Tony acted as High
Priest, (and those of us who had decided to join this group underwent
new Initiations to bring us into the tradition as a whole).
The new group used in its workings the special Ophidian (Serpent-
venerating) lore that Wendy and the OAM received from Bob Clay-
Egerton. When this knowledge was firstly passed on to us, Tony was
especially fascinated to see many points of convergence with the
Atlantean and Frisian lore he had known about for years. For
example, the Leviathan of the Ophidians is none other than the World-
Serpent (Wr-alda) described in the Oera Linda Book.
The Pleiades, (which by the way, was the name of my first Wiccan
Coven with a direct line to Gardner. I was initiated into Wicca in a
place called Shropshire, bordering onto Wales in 1967). Anyway, back
to the Pleiades, which is terribly important in both systems, as is
the number Seven by itself. (That is also why the Pleiades and Seven
Sisters has seemed to follow me all my Craft life). I myself
actually had come from a past that brought me up in the Old Ways on
the Isle of Man and just kept going and never looking back).
A lot of the Yogic and Tantric lore from the Ophidian (Serpent-
venerating) lore that Wendy had received from Bob Clay-Egerton was
found to be very similar to what we already had and came as a bit of
a shock. We came to the conclusion that the two systems, Ophidian
and Atlantean, are most probably derived from a common source.
And that by combining the two, it would be possible to fill in a
number of holes that had crept into the transmission. Incidentally,
the main difference between the two traditions is that the Ophidian
tends to use Hebrew in its terminology, whereas the Atlantean/Frisian
uses Greek and other European languages. This difference is purely
superficial though.
The `Veils of the Ancient Serpent' eventually and sadly split up in
1993 when Wendy moved away from Birmingham. From the Ophidian
teachings of Bob Clay-Egerton the OAM inherits the Hebrew-Edomite
(Qabalistic) titles of the Ancient Powers, the Hells and their
correspondences, the emphasis on thought-forms and their myriad
capabilities, and various other trappings of ritual.
Bob Clay-Egerton died on 20th January 1998. In his long Occult
career, spanning more than forty years, he had been initiated into a
vast number of different groups and traditions, of which some were
obviously transmitted and passed to us directly.
One of the earliest of these was a Traditional Witchcraft Coven that
operated in the Cheshire area when he was a teenager. At about this
time he also became part of a magical order called the Wardensi
Aldredsley, or Wardens of Alderley Edge.
He later of course took part in magical workings with Gerald Gardner,
the founder of revised Wicca, and was a close friend of Alex Sanders,
who also taught me in London many moons ago.
He apparently even knew Aleister Crowley, before the old boy
croaked. Among the groups of which he was a direct part can be named
the `Esoteric Order of the Serpent', the `Ordo Templi Orientis', and
the `Order of the Golden Dawn'. Bob Clay-Egerton was truly a
polymath and was connected with just about everything going.
If even a small fragment of his vast knowledge has been inherited by
us (in the OAM, as a direct line to his Orders and him), through his
vast archives and writings, I feel we can truly be proud of this
lineage....
In the 1990s Tony Steele added another missing fragment that came at
a most opportune moment from the magical practices of the Water
Witches, who, like Alison Bayliss, held the Oera Linda Book in great
esteem. After hearing rumours for many years, Tony was finally able
to also inherit and be initiated into the traditions of these
hereditary water travelers of the canals.
Their beliefs and practices turned out to be very closely related,
perhaps even ancestral, to the Atlantean and Ophidian lore Tony had
already been taught and filled in many of the holes that had escaped
over the millenia. He even then wrote a book called WATER WITCHES,
(Capall Bann Publishing, 1998).
Well -that completes a bit of a lengthy discourse and I'll wait until
you digest it all. If you have any more questions, just drop me a
line.
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