Hargrave Jennings

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Hargrave Jennings (born approx. 1817; died 1890 ) was a British Freemason , Rosicrucian and author of fiction, occult and religious studies .

Life

Jennings began writing and writing Edgar Allan Poe- style stories for Frederick Marryat's Metropolitan Magazine in the 1830s, but this Gothic style became increasingly out of fashion in the 1840s . Jennings later worked for many years as secretary for James Henry Mapleson (1830–1901), opera impresario and manager of the Italian opera in London. Eventually Jennings became increasingly interested in the occult. It is believed that he would have been the model for the character of Ezra Jennings in Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone (1868). In numerous writings he advocated the theory that there was an original religion underlying all religions, the subject of which was the veneration of the penis and vulva, such as in India in the cult of Lingam and Yoni . He believed that he could trace the remains of this cult, which he called phallism and later phallicism , in numerous objects and symbols.

Through his acquaintance with Paschal Beverly Randolph , he exerted a considerable influence on the development of sexual magic in the occult of the 19th and 20th centuries, which is well documented in Theodor Reuss and his Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Reuss ' Lingam-Yoni or the Mysteries of the Sex Cult (1906) is largely a translation of Jennings' Phallism . In the Gnostic Catholic Mass of the OTO Jennings is thought of as a "saint". Jennings had also been elected honorary member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1870 .

On the other hand, his work in the Golden Dawn, and in particular by Arthur Edward Waite, was vehemently rejected, which may be due to both scientific deficiencies in his writings and the objects treated by Jennings, which hurt Victorian sensitivities.

In this regard, Jennings is believed to be the author of several anonymous papers in the Nature Worship and Mystical Series . Sha Rocco has also been suggested to be a pseudonym of Jennings. However, there are ambiguities here, as Abisha S. Hudson (1819–1904) is also a possible author for these thematically related texts.

Fonts

under his own name
Books in the Nature Worship and Mystical Series
  • Phallic Worship. 1880.
  • Phallism: A Description of the Worship of Lingam-Yoni. 1889. Reprinted under the title Phallicism , ca. 1890–91.
  • Ophiolatreia: An Account of the Rites and Mysteries Connected with the Origin, Rise, and Development of Serpent Worship. 1889.
  • Phallic Objects, Monuments, and Remains. 1889.
  • Cultus Arborum: A Descriptive Account of Phallic Tree Worship. 1890.
  • Fishes, Flowers, and Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths and Worship. 1890.
  • Archaic Rock Inscriptions: an Account of the Cup and Ring Marking. 1890.
  • Nature Worship: An Account of Phallic Faiths and Practices. 1891.
  • Phallic Miscellanies: Facts and Phases of Ancient and Modern Sex Worship, as Explained Chiefly in the Religions of India. 1891.
  • Mysteries of the Rosie Cross, or the History of that Curious Sect of the Middle Ages, known as the Rosicrucians. 1891.
Books by Sha Rocco
  • The Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship. AK Butts, New York 1874. Reprinted in Nature Worship and Mystical Series 1890, ( online )
  • Sex Mythology. Private print, London 1898 (published after Jennings' death).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frick: The enlightened. Part 2. Graz 1978, p. 517.
  2. ^ TM Greensill: A history of Rosicrucian thought and of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. 2nd edition Premier Metropolis, 2003, p. 83.
  3. ↑ See the section Byways in Bibliography: About the Authorship of the "Nature Worship and Mystical Series" aka "Phallic and Mystical Series" in the Bibliography by Catherine Yronwode.
personal data
SURNAME Jennings, Hargrave
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Freemason, Rosicrucian and author of literary, occult and religious studies
DATE OF BIRTH around 1817
DATE OF DEATH 1890