MASONIC BIOGRAPHIES FRINGE FREEMASONS FAMOUS FREEMASONS

Gerald Brosseau Gardner June 13, 1884 - February 12, 1964 Author of Book of Shadows ("Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical"), High Magic’s Aid (1949) and Witchcraft Today (1954), Gerald Gardner is widely considered to be the founder of modern Wicca. Shortly before Crowley’s death on December 1, 1947, Gardner purchased from him a charter for an Ordo Templi Orientis camp, which he later unsuccessfully attempted to start. According to Idries Shah, Gardner considered Crowley something of a charletan. The influences of Gardnerian Wicca, derived in part from S.L Mather’s The Key of Solomon the King, and from theories first propounded by Montague Summers, can be seen in most all current manifestations of western occult ritual magic. Gardner is claimed by Idries Shah to have been made a freemason in "Sphinx Lodge 113", Irish Constitution, Colombo, Ceylon. There is no such lodge. Lodge No. 113 is in Killyleagh, County Down, while Sphinx Lodge No. 107, in what is now Sri Lanka, has no record of his membership. Living in Borneo and then in Malaya, there is also no record of Gardner's living in Colombo. Not to be confused with the editor of Bibliotheca Rosicruciana, Frederick Leigh Gardner (1857-1930), who was a freemason. Non-mason Source : Gerald Gardner, Witch, by "Jack L. Bracelin" (Idries Shah) 1970. Also see Philip Heselton, Wiccan Roots and Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration. Note that Irish Lodges are numbered but not necessarily named. The story of his masonic affiliation may be based on his association after 1936 with the Co-masonic "The Fellowship of Crotona", an order affiliated to the Grand Orient of France, or a simple confusion with Frederick Leigh Gardner.

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