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Robert William Felkin FRSE LRCSE LRCP (13 March 1853 – 28 December 1926) was a British medical missionary and explorer, a , member of the S.R.I.A, member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a prolific author on Uganda and Central Africa, and early anthropology, with an interest in hypnotism, ethno-medicine and .
He was the founder in 1903 of the Stella Matutina, a new Order based on the original Order of the Golden Dawn, with its Hermes Temple in Bristol, UK and, later, Whare Ra (or more correctly, the Smaragdum Thallasses Temple) in Havelock North, New Zealand in 1912.
The fullest account of his life is found in A Wayfaring Man, a fictionalised biography written by his second wife Harriot and published in serial form between 1936 and 1949.
In 1881, he returned to Edinburgh when his health deteriorated to complete his medical studies (LRCP, LRCS, Ed, 1884). While still a medical student he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and a corresponding Fellow of the Berlin Anthropological Society.
In 1884, he studied further in Marburg, acquiring his M.D. there in 1885. Following this he practiced as a doctor in Edinburgh for some years, returning to Africa and travelling frequently with his wife in Europe. He was appointed as a senior lecturer in tropical medicine in Edinburgh in 1886. In 1889, Dr Joseph Bell suggested that he investigate hypnotism by reviewing Charles Lloyd Tuckey's Psycho-Therapeutics. This prompted him to visit the Amsterdam Psychotherapeutic Clinic of Frederik van Eeden and Albert van Renterghem in Holland. He reviewed the European literature on hypnotism in a short book called 'Hypnotism or Psycho-Therapeutics', acknowledging Tuckey's contributions in his choice of title and in the foreword. Shamdasani, 'Psychotherapy: the invention of a word' in History of the Human Sciences, 2005,18, 1 He is considered one of the 'New Hypnotists', a small group of English physicians who promoted hypnotism in the era. His work in hypnotism influenced both his medical practice and his esoteric leanings.
He continued to write and publish: he edited (with others) a collection of the letters and journals of Mehmet Emin Pasha, whom he had met (translated by Mary), which appeared in 1888. Following a breakdown from strain and overwork he transferred his practice to London in 1896.
In 1903 Mary died and Robert reinforced his commitment to both Anglican Christianity and occultism. He made a retreat at the monastery of the Mirfield fathers, the Community of the Resurrection, and considered joining the order. Several of the Mirfield fathers had an interest in Rosicrucian and Golden Dawn Christian mysticism, and regarded Felkin as an eminent figure in that tradition. One of these priests, Father Fitzgerald, would later play a key role in bring Felkin to New Zealand.
Also in 1903, a schism occurred within the Order of the Golden Dawn, when Felkin and Brodie-Innes split from A.E. Waite to form the magically inclined Order of the Stella Matutina. The poet W. B. Yeats joined the Stella Matutina and was a member for 20 years. Felkin's main temple in London was called Amoun. History of the Golden Dawn
Another mystical teacher was Sri Parananda, whom Felkin claimed to have first seen materialising out of steam at the Bad Pyrmont baths in Germany. This apparition, described as a dark Eastern man with a beard and large black eyes, wearing a flowing robe and a peculiar conical cap, arranged with Felkin to meet him in exactly one month in the lounge of the Carlton Hotel in London. According to Felkin their subsequent meeting in the flesh was the start of a series of conversations that lasted for several years.
According to R. Ellwood, by the time Felkin first visited New Zealand in 1912 he was already a 32° Freemason, one of the highest to visit the country thus far. But according to K. Edney of the New Zealand SRIA, Felkin's interest in Freemasonry was probably slight; he was never Master of the Lodge nor joined the Holy Royal Arch, and it is unlikely that he joined any higher degrees; his motive for joining Freemasonry and the SRIA seems to have been to gain credibility with continental occultists and contact members of the original Rosicrucian society. Anna Sprengel, a member of this fabled German society of nearly god-like adepts, had allegedly warranted the founding of the Golden Dawn, and Felkin believed that she and her order still existed deep under cover in Germany, along with the tomb of Christian Rosencreutz. In search of this group he and Harriot travelled to Europe in 1906, 1910 and 1914, and on one of these trips he met with Rudolf Steiner and claimed to have contacted other Rosicrucian adepts. Felkin considered Steiner to be an extremely high initiate, and after their meeting incorporated elements of Anthroposophy into his practice, including homeopathy.
During their 1914 trip the Felkins, they became stranded in Germany when Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August. Harriot's fictionalised account of his life suggests that he had been sent there on an urgent mission by the "Sun Master" Ara Ben Shemesh, despite all warnings of impending war. They managed to avoid arrest, and escaped the country via the neutral Netherlands with the help of German Masons.
In 1910, the Mirfield Fathers sent a mission of help to New Zealand, preaching and conducting retreats. Miss McLean, who had met Father Fitzgerald in Britain, arranged for him to meet members of the Havelock prayer group, and he agreed to direct their spiritual work from Britain. He instructed them in an esoteric approach to Christianity, but soon decided they had reached a stage where personal instruction was necessary for further progress, and he recommended Dr. Robert Felkin for the task. Within a week the group had cabled £300 passage, supplied by Maurice Chambers and his father, Mason, and his uncle John, for Felkin, Harriot and Ethelwyn to visit New Zealand for three months. During this visit in 1912 Dr Felkin established the Smaragdum Thallasses Temple of the Stella Matutina. The New Zealand Order became known by the Maori name of Whare Ra or "the House of the Sun". Foundations of the house at Whare Ra were laid down by the architect James Chapman-Taylor, who later became a member of both the Golden Dawn and the Order of the Table Round (Ordo Tabulae Rotundae), a neo-Arthurian mystical and chivalric order also brought to New Zealand by Felkin.
Back in England in 1916, Felkin was appointed Inspector General of colonial colleges for the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, although he seems never to have functioned in this capacity. In that same year he also founded three more daughter-Temples of the Stella Matutina, together with a side-order, and claimed to found the Guild of St. Raphael. He published on the theme of 'Rosicrucian medicine' and, at the height of the German U-boat activity, emigrated permanently with his family to New Zealand, as his health broke down with recurrent malaria and other tropical diseases.
In September 1917, Felkin wrote to William Westcott, one of the two major founders of the Golden Dawn, that the Smaragdum Thallassess Temple had twenty members in the Second Order, thirty-four in the First Order, and ten people waiting to join.
Felkin become involved in the Baháʼí Faith, through his meeting with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in London in 1911 at Lady Blomfield's. Felkin introduced Maurice Chambers to the Faith and presented him with two Baháʼí ring stones that Abdu'l-Baha had given him. Felkin may have had an article on the Baháʼí Faith published in a local newspaper, Arohanui, Introduction by Collis Featherstone. although there had been an earlier article by British Baha'i Alice Buckton published in the Havelock Journal "The Forerunner".
Felkin spent the rest of his life in New Zealand, where he continued to practise as a consulting physician as well as a magician between bouts of ill health. His strong personality and clinical acumen, combined with a kind and generous nature brought him patients from far afield, including Australia. On 28 December 1926, he died at Havelock North, and was buried in the Havelock North cemetery facing the Whare Ra, wearing the cloak, mantle and purple cross of a Knight of the Ordo Tabulae Rotundae.Edney, Ken. Dr. Robert William Felkim and the S.R.I.A.. From the website of the Felkin College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, Napier, New Zealand. Retrieved 2007-03-29. He was survived by his second wife Harriot, his daughter Ethelwyn, and two sons; Harriot and Ethelwyn were later buried with him.
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