Paul Foster Case
Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 1954) was an American occultist, Freemason,[1] and writer of books on occult tarot and Qabalah.
Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism[citation needed] were the lessons he wrote for associate members of Builders of the Adytum or B.O.T.A.
A modern scholar of the occult tarot and Qabalah, Paul Foster Case was born on October 3, 1884, in Fairport, New York.
[2] When he was five years old, his mother began teaching him to play the piano and organ, and later in his youth, Case performed as organist in his family's church.
[6] After pursuing the question in his father's library, Case discovered a link to tarot, called 'The Game of Man'.
His early experiences appear to have caused him some mental and emotional difficulties and left him with a lifelong concern that so called "occult" practice be done with proper guidance and training.
[9] In the summer of 1907, Case read The Secret of Mental Magic by William W. Atkinson (aka Ramacharaka) which led him to correspond with the then popular new thought author.
"Dr. Fludd", a Chicago physician, approached the young Case and greeting him by name, saying he had a message from a "master of wisdom who is my teacher as well as yours.
He could continue with his successful musical career and live comfortably, or he could dedicate himself to "serve humanity" and thereby play a role in the coming age.
[14] In 1918, Case met Michael James Whitty (died December 27, 1920, in Los Angeles, California), who was the editor of Azoth magazine and would become a close friend.
Also during that year he finished a set of articles on the Mystical Rosicrucian Origins of Faust and published by Whitty.
[17] Like his fellow British occultist and later correspondent, Dion Fortune, Case found himself in a controversy with Moina Mathers (1865-1928) in the early 1920s.
Apparently, Case had begun discussing the topics of sexual symbolism and sex magic, which at the time had no official place in the order's curriculum.
Since no knowledge lectures exist on the subject, whether sex practices were ever taught in the Golden Dawn has been a long-standing question.
In his works, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order and The Masonic Letter G, he writes of certain practices involving the redirection of the sexual force to the higher centers of the brain where experience of supersensory states of consciousness becomes possible.
[19] Case confessed the matter to Moina: "The Hierophantria and I were observed to exchange significant glances over the altar during the Mystic Repast... My conscience acquits me... Our relation to each other we submit to no other Judge than that Lord of Love and Justice whom we all adore."
In her July 18 letter, she tells Case, "You evidently have reached a point in your mystical Way where there would appear to exist certain cross-roads.
The artist in you, which I recognize, and with whom I deeply sympathize, would probably choose to learn the Truth through the joy and beauty of physical life."
Furthermore, in many places, the practical working is not provided with adequate safeguards, so that, to the present writer's personal knowledge, an operator working with the Golden Dawn [Enochian] rituals runs very grave risks of breaking down his physical organism, or of obsession by evil entities".[25]Dr.
Paul Clark, in his book on Case, mentions his own examination of the original Cipher manuscripts on which Mathers founded the first order Golden Dawn rituals.
Case later allegedly met Master R. in person at the old Waldorf-Astoria in NYC (Madison and Lexington Avenues at 43rd Street).
It was the Master R. who had come personally to New York for the purpose of preparing Paul Case to begin the next incarnation of the Qabalistic Way of Return.
