Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 1954) was an American occultist of the early 20th Century and author of numerous books on tarot and Qabalah. Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism were the lessons he wrote for associate members of Builders of the Adytum. The Knowledge Lectures given to initiated members of the Chapters of the B.O.T.A. were equally profound, although the limited distribution has made them less well known. is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... -1... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... This article is about a set of cards used for both trick taking games and occult/divinatory purposes. ... The tree of life Kabbalah (קבלה Reception, Standard Hebrew Qabbala, Tiberian Hebrew Qabbālāh; also written variously as Cabala, Cabalah, Cabbala, Cabbalah, Kabala, Kabalah, Kabbala, Qabala, Qabalah) is a religious philosophical system claiming an insight into divine nature. ... B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum), which is registered as a non-profit tax-exempt religious organisation, is a worldwide mystery school based in Los Angeles. ... BOTA (Builders of the Adytum), which is registered as a non_profit tax_exempt religious organisation, is a worldwide mystical college based in Los Angeles promoting the knowledge of Kabbalah and Tarot. ...

Case's early life

A modern scholar of the Tarot and Qabalah, Paul Foster Case was born at 5:28 p.m., October 3, 1884 in Fairport, New York.

His father was the town librarian and a Deacon at the local Congregational church. 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. A talented musician, he embarked on a successful career as a violinist, and orchestra conductor. Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ...

Case was early on attracted to the occult. While still a child he reported experiences that today are called lucid dreaming. He corresponded about these experiences with Rudyard Kipling who encouraged him as to the validity of his paranormal pursuits. Lucid dreams occur during REM sleep after the person becomes conscious and aware of dreaming within the dream. ... This article is about the British author. ...

In the year 1900, Case met the occultist Claude Bragdon while both were performing at a charity performance. Bragdon asked Case what he thought the origin of playing cards was. After pursuing the question in his father's library, Case discovered a link to Tarot, called 'The Game of Man,' thus began what would become Case's lifelong study of the tarot. Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866–1946) was an American architect, writer, and stage designer. ... Some typical modern playing cards. ... This article is about a set of cards used for both trick taking games and occult/divinatory purposes. ...

Between 1905 and 1908 (aged 20-24), Case began practicing yoga, and in particular pranayama, from what published sources were available. 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. For other uses such as Yoga postures, see Yoga (disambiguation) Statue of Shiva performing Yogic meditation Yoga (Sanskrit: योग Yog, IPA: ) is a group of ancient spiritual practices designed for the purpose of cultivating a steady mind. ... Pranayama (Sanskrit: ) is a Sanskrit word often translated as control of the life force (prana). ...

In the summer of 1907, Case read The Secret of Mental Magic, by William W. Atkinson (aka Ramacharacka) which led him to correspond with the then popular new thought author. Many people have speculated that Case and Atkinson were two of the three anonymous authors of The Kybalion, an influential philosophical text. William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932) was an attorney, merchant, author, as well as being an American occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. ... The New Thought movement, a religio-metaphysical healing group, was founded by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby[1](1802-66) of Belfast, Maine, an American mental healer, student of mesmerism, and practitioner of hypnosis, who claimed he could heal by mere suggestion. ... The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy is a book that was authored by three individuals calling themselves The Three Initiates. ...

Case's dilemma: music or the mysteries

Case reported a meeting on the streets of Chicago, in 1909 or 1910, that was to change the course of his life. A "Dr. Fludd," a prominent Chicago physician approached the young Case and greeting him by name, claimed to have a message from a "Master of Wisdom" who, the Doctor said, "is my teacher as well as yours."

The stranger said that Case was being offered a choice. 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.

From that time on, Case began to study and formulate the lessons that served as the core curricula of the Builders of the Adytum, the school of Tarot and Qabalah that Case founded and that continues in operation.

In 1916 Case published a groundbreaking series of articles on the Tarot Keys, titled "The Secret Doctrine of the Tarot," in the popular occult magazine The Word. The articles attracted wide notice in the occult community as organizing and clarifying what had been confusing and scattered threads of occult knowledge as illustrated and illuminated by the Tarot.

Whitty and Alpha et Omega

In 1918, Case met Michael Whitty, who was the editor of the magazine Azoth (and would become a close friend). Whitty was serving as the Cancellarius (Treasurer/Office Manager) for the Thoth-Hermes Lodge of the Alpha et Omega. Alpha et Omega was S. L. MacGregor Mathers' group that formed in 1906 after the demise of the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1903. Whitty invited Case to join Thoth-Hermes, which was the direct American lodge under the A.O. mother lodge in Paris. Case did and quickly moved up initiations in the Rosicrucian Grades (True and Invisable Rosicrucian Order). Case's aspiration name in A.'.O.'. was Perserverantia ( Perseverance, or I Persevere). The Alpha et Omega was an initiatory Order dedicated to the dissemination of the traditional teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn through the process of initiation. ... Samuel Liddel MacGregor Mathers, in Egyptian costume, performs a ritual of Isis in the rites of the Golden Dawn. ... This article is about the historical organization of the late 19th century. ...

Whitty republished Case's attribution of the Tarot keys (with corrections) in Azoth. That same year, Case became Sub-Praemonstrator (Assistant Chief-Instructor) at the Thoth-Hermes Lodge. Also during that year he finished a set of articles on the Mystical Rosicrucian Origins of Faust & published by Whitty. The following year, he began to correspond with Dr. John William Brodie-Innes (Fr. Sub Spe). John William Brodie-Innes (1848-1923) was a leading member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawns Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh. ...

Between 1919 and 1920, Case and Michael Whitty collaborated in the development of the text which would later be published as The Book of Tokens. This book was written as a received text, whether through meditation, automatic writing, or some other means. It later surfaced that Master R. was the source. On May 16, 1920 Case was initiated into Alpha et Omega's Second Order. Three weeks later, according to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's bio-page on Case, he was named Third Adept. This article is about the historical organization of the late 19th century. ...

In December of 1920, Michael Whitty died. Case believed Whitty's health problems were attributable to the dangers that arise or may arise in the practice of Enochian magic. He later corresponded with Israel Regardie about those concerns. Israel Regardie (Francis Israel Regudy) was born on November 17, 1907 in London, England to poor Jewish immigrant parents. ...

The controversy with Moina Mathers

Because of his quick advancement through the Grades of the Order, Case may have sparked some jealousy among the other Adepts. Moreover, others may have thought some of his teachings inappropriate. On July 18, 1921, Moina Mathers wrote Case regarding complaints she had received regarding some of his teachings. Apparently, Case had begun discussing the topic of sex magic, which at the time had no official place in the Order 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 her correspondence with Case, Moina wrote, "I have seen the results of this superficial sex teaching in several Occult Societies as well as in individual cases. I have never met with one happy result."

But to Case, sexuality became an increasingly important subject. In his Book of Tokens, a collection of inspired meditations on the 22 Tarot Keys of the Major Arcana, Case comments on the sex function, "You must wholly alter your conception of sex in order to comprehend the Ancient Wisdom. It is the interior nervous organism, not the external organs, that is always meant in phallic symbolism, and the force that works through these interior centers is the Great Magical Agent, the divine serpent fire." 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.

Some members also complained about a personal relationship between Case and a soror, Lilli Geise. 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 time, Case married Geise, who died a few years later.

Perhaps Moina's correspondence also touched a sensitive area for Case. In her July 18th 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." She continued, "You who have studied the Pantheons, do you know of that enchanting God, the Celtic Angus, the Ever Young? He who is sometimes called Lord of the Land of Heart's Desire?" Angus rescued Etain, the Moon, who had been turned into a golden fly. But Etain had to choose between bodily existence in the land of mortals and everlasting life. She continued still, "The artist in us may have lingered in that land for a moment. But you and I who would be teachers and pioneers in this Purgatorial World must be prepared before all the Gods to be the servants of the greatest of them all... the Osiris, the Christ, the God of the Sacrifice of the Self." Moina then asked Case to resign from his position as Praemonstrator.

Case resigned as Praemonstrator, responding to Moina, "I have no desire to be a 'teacher and pioneer in this Purgatorial World.' Guidance seems to have removed me from the high place to which I have never really aspired. The relief is great."

Apparently Case had already begun work on establishing a Mystery School of his own--the School of Ageless Wisdom, which later became Builders Of The Adytum.

Builders of the Adytum

After Case left Alpha et Omega, he vigorously pursued the organization of his own Mystery School. In the summer of 1922, Case put his first efforts together preparing a comprehensive correspondence course. In one year it covered what the B.O.T.A. presently cover in over five years. He called the course The Ageless Wisdom, and it covered just about the whole of Hermeticism. By 1923 Case formed The School of Ageless Wisdom, probably in Boston.

Within a few years he moved to Los Angeles, abandoning, once and for all, his career as a musician, and established the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.). Still in existence today, B.O.T.A. is an authentic Mystery School. Over the next three decades, Case organized the curriculum of correspondence lessons covering practically the whole corpus of what is called the Western Mystery Tradition: occult tarot, Qabalah, and Alchemy. B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum), which is registered as a non-profit tax-exempt religious organisation, is a worldwide mystery school based in Los Angeles. ... The term Western mystery tradition (also Western Esoteric tradition) refers to the collection of the mystical, esoteric knowledge of the Western world. ... This article is about a set of cards used for both trick taking games and occult/divinatory purposes. ... This article is about traditional Jewish Kabbalah. ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ...

Case's Views on Enochian

In the "Wheel of Life" Magazine, in March 1937, Case described B.O.T.A.'s relationship to the Golden Dawn, and his views on the Golden Dawn's use of Enochian material.

"B.O.T.A. is a direct off-shoot of the Golden Dawn, but its work has been purged of all the dangerous and dubious magic incorporated into the Golden Dawn's curriculum by the late S.L. MacGregor Mathers, who was responsible for the inclusion of the ceremonials based on the skrying of Sir Edward Kelly.

"There is much in these Golden Dawn rituals and ceremonies that is of the greatest value; but from the first grade to the last it is all vitiated by these dangerous elements taken from Dee and Kelly. 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 rituals runs very grave risks of breaking down his physical organism, or of obsession by evil entities."

Case's death

Case died easily while vacationing in Mexico with his second wife, Harriet. His ashes lie in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Gates of Forest Lawn Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a cemetery in Glendale, Los Angeles County, California. ... Nickname: Location of Glendale within Los Angeles County and the State of California. ...

Significant influences in Case's life

Master R.

In the summer of 1921, Case received a phone call from The Master Rococzy, believed in some occult circles to be the Count of St Germain. Case later met The Master R. in person at the Hotel Roosevelt in NYC (Madison and Lexington Avenues at 43rd Street). Count of St Germain by unknown artist The Count of St. ...

The Adytum News described it this way: "One day the phone rang, and much to his surprise the same voice which had been inwardly instructing him in his researches for many years spoke to him on the phone. 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. ... After three weeks of personal instruction with the Master R., Builders of the Adytum was formed."

Lilli Geise

Case's first wife was Lilli Geise, a soror of the Golden Dawn, but the marriage was short lived when she died a few years later (May 9, 1924).

Harriet B. Case (1893-1972)

In 1943 Case married Harriet.

Ann Davies (1912-1975)

In 1943 Case was introduced to Ann Davies. She walked into one of his classes with her sister. Later, Ann and her small daughter Bonnie moved into the Cases' house where they helped by fixing meals, mimeographing lessons, etc. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Liberal Catholic Church

The Liberal Catholic Church was established in England in 1916 out of the failing Old Catholic missionary effort there. The erratic Old Catholic bishop, Arnold Harris Matthew, had filled his clergy ranks with a number of English Theosophists and Golden Dawn Qabalists, all dedicated students of the Ageless Wisdom, which underlies all the world's great religions including Christianity. When Matthew left the movement, he left a valid apostolic succession in the hands of men prepared to teach the Ageless Wisdom and mystical Christianity, and to offer valid Catholic sacraments to all and sundry, but especially to religious non-conformists. Case was ordained a priest by Bishop Charles Hampton in the Liberal Catholic Church in Ojai, California, in 1937, and served parishes throughout the southern California area. The Liberal Catholic Church is a form of Christianity open to theosophical ideas. ...

Masonic Affiliations

According to the membership archives of the Grand Lodge, F. & A.M. of California and an unpublished biography of Case written by the archivist of the Builders of the Adytum.

Fairport Lodge No. 476, Fairport, New York.

• Initiated: March 22, 1926
• Passed: April 12, 1926
• Raised, June 28, 1926

Hollenbeck Lodge No. 319, Los Angeles

• Affiliated: September 5, 1944
• Demitted: June 2, 1953

Eagle Rock Lodge No. 422, Los Angeles

• Affiliated: June 2, 1953

Case's writings

Articles:

1. Article on Tarot in "The Word" (1916)
2. Article on Tarot (revised) in "Azoth Magazine" (1918)

Books:

1. The Kybalion (1912) [with William A. Atkinson]
2. An Introduction to the Study of the Tarot (1920)
3. A Brief Analysis of the Tarot (1927)
4. The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order (1927)
5. Correlations of Sound & Color (1931)
6. The Highlights of Tarot (1931)
7. The Book of Tokens (1934)
8. The Great Seal of the United States (1935)
9. Progressive Ratoscope (1936)
10. The Open Door (1938)
11. The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages (1947)
12. Daniel, Master of Magicians
13. The Masonic Letter G
14. The Name of Names

His legacy

Case left behind extensive published writings on Tarot and Qabalah and even more unpublished writings that are circulated today through the Mystery School he founded.

Some of the wording from "The Book of Tokens" was used in the Tarot-inspired musical episode of Xena: Warrior Princess entitled The Bitter Suite. Xena. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

See also

• Western mystery tradition
• Kabbalah
• Tarot
• Mysticism
• Esotericism
• List of spirituality-related topics

The term Western mystery tradition (also Western Esoteric tradition) refers to the collection of the mystical, esoteric knowledge of the Western world. ... This article is about traditional Jewish Kabbalah. ... This article is about a set of cards used for both trick taking games and occult/divinatory purposes. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Look up Esotericism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This list of topics is related to spirituality, esotericism, mysticism, religion and/or parapsychology. ...

Bibliography

• Research by Lee Moffitt

External History Sites

• From the Golden Dawn
• From a Tarot enthusiast
• From the Esoteric Golden Dawn
• From the Masons
• A Case Enthusiast

External links

Original texts

Writings of Case and his contemporaries

• Fraternity of the Hidden Light PFC Archives
• An Introduction to the Study of Tarot, HTML

Online resources

Online information on Case and his work

• Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.)
• Fraternity of the Hidden Light (F.L.O.)

Online fora discussing Case and his work

• The Paul Foster Case Discussion Forum
• The PFC Book Discussion Forum
• The Achad Discussion Forum for students of B.O.T.A., B.O.T.A. Europe, F.L.O, & Artisans of Light

Online resources reflecting the work of Case or his students

• Divine Paradox The Ageless Wisdom in Action
• Joyous World Examples of the Qabalah and Tarot
• Joseph Nolen Essays The complete set of the Inner Journey Newsletters written by Joseph Nolen, past President of BOTA, 40 year student of Ann Davies and Paul Case, some say a master of Ageless Wisdom.
• The Paul Foster Case Resource Page PFC Resources and materials