Everything about Robert Felkin totally explained
Robert William Felkin was a medical
missionary and explorer, a
ceremonial magician and member of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a prolific author on
Uganda and Central Africa, and early
anthropologist, with an interest in ethno-medicine and
tropical diseases.
He was founder in 1903 of the
Stella Matutina, a splinter lodge of the Golden Dawn, and later founded the
Whare Ra lodge 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 Harriet and published in serial form between 1936 and 1949. His grandfather, William Felkin (1795-1874), son of a
Baptist minister, remains one of the best known names in the Victorian lace industry and was
mayor of Nottingham in 1851, when he exhibited at the
Great Exhibition. But he overreached, and the business failed disastrously in 1864, when Felkin retired to write standard works on the lace and
hosiery trades. His son and partner Robert Felkin Sr settled in
Wolverhampton to take up a position as manager of the home department of
Mander Brothers,
varnish manufacturers. Robert Jr was educated at
Wolverhampton Grammar School, where he met the explorer
David Livingstone, who inspired him to become a medical missionary.
Medical missionary in Africa
He worked for a period in
Chemnitz, Germany, after his schooling, where his uncle Henry Felkin lived, and became fluent in the language. In about 1876 he began studying medicine at the
University of Edinburgh. and also wrote
Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan (1882, with Rev.C.T. Wilson),
Egypt Present and To Come (1885),
Uganda (1886), and other African works. Following a breakdown from strain and overwork he transferred his practice to London in 1896.
The Sun Masters
From the time that Felkin assumed leadership of the Stella Matutina, he came increasingly under the influence of the "Sun Masters", being the fabled
Secret Chiefs of the order and other supposed adepts on the
astral plane. Having these supposed contacts reinforced his position as leader in the order. Around 1908 he also claimed to have contacted an "Arab Teacher" called Ara Ben Shemesh ("Lion Son of the Sun"), one of the "Sons of Fire" inhabiting a Near Eastern "temple in the desert", who had been given special permission to contact and teach Western students. 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., although there had been an earlier article by British Baha'i Alice Buckton published circa 1909 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. He was survived by his second wife Harriet, his daughter Ethelwyn, and two sons;
Harriet and Ethelwyn were later buried with him.
[Further Information]
Get more info on 'Robert Felkin'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://robert_felkin.totallyexplained.com">Robert Felkin Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
