Builders of the Adytum: The tarot cards and Qabalah in Naenae

Part 2

Since publishing Part 1 last week, I've had the opportunity to do further investigating into the backgrounds of Paul Foster Case and Ann Davies. Some parts became verifiable facts, while other elements of their lives remained obscured. So, before heading into the kiwi-side of the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) story, let's confirm and correct some of the aspects of their biographies.

Correction: A mis-read on my part, Ann Davies never received any tertiary education, but she did receive an in-house Doctorate from Case and/or BOTA. One website states that Case's The School of Ageless Wisdom, a precursor to BOTA that would eventually become its external administration arm, did confer “degrees”, and that Ann received a Doctorate in Esoteric Science by these means. The same website implies that the practice of conferring degrees was discontinued with BOTA. Another member, Ann Ryan, did have multiple postgraduate degrees.

Confirmed: Case did have a musical career. As a vaudeville performer, he moved from theatre to theatre to work with different companies. Mainly he worked as a musician but, occasionally, he did hit the stage as an actor as well. To note, most of these clippings came via Ancestry.com users, and may require access to a paid account to view.

Interestingly enough: Upon meeting Case, Davies claims that an instantaneous recognition took place, one that would inspire her to take on 14 hour days to meet the administrative needs of Case's business. However, her responsibilities were not solely tied to Case's occult output. As mentioned in Part 1, Case had an interest in stage magic and in their book, A History of the Occult Tarot, Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett claim that this was appealing to Davies as well. By this time, Case belonged to both the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) and the Los Angeles Guild of Prestidigitators, serving as their secretary and chaplain. He and Ann also performed as a duo called Paul and Annie Girl, where their specialty was as illusionists and mentalists. One act that is described by Decker and Dummett has Case asking members of the audience to surrender personal possessions. Ann, blindfolded and on stage, was able to name the objects despite being unable to see them.

Another act, published in a 1946 issue of The Linking Ring, the official journal of the IBM, describes another of Paul and Ann's acts:

In his book, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, Mitch Horowitz makes an interesting point about the possible separation that Case had to put between the two parts of his professional life: being a working stage magician, and hawking modified Golden Dawn teachings. Case appears to have kept a tidy reputation, and there are no records of him explicitly financially scamming people or making egregious claims. Keep in mind, as Horowitz mentions, that Houdini was active in the 1920s exposing mediums, and professional magicians did look down on colleagues who claimed their tricks were due to the supernatural.

Confirmed: Case's involvement with De Landas University

Unconfirmed but unlikely: Some sources claim that Case was married 5 times, twice to the same woman. While Ancestry.com is the best source I can find when it comes to this minutiae, it still has its gaps - and this is one of them. The Ancestry.com account that I accessed the most information from indicated that Case may have been in a ‘theatrical marriage', as per the 1920 census where a Paul Case, who lived in New York and had the same demographic details as Paul Foster Case, was married to a woman named Harret [sic] Case. When this Mrs. Case is included in a family tree on Ancestry.com, she is referred to either as Harriet, Hattie, or Nattie Bains, which contribute to the confusion of whether Case's first wife is the same woman as his last wife, Harriet Bullock Paget. A closer examination of other records indicates that Harriet Bullock was married to her first husband from 1912 to 1934, when she married her second husband.

What is for certain is that Case's marriage to his official second wife, Asta Fleming, might have been a troubled one. Case filed for divorce after seven years of marriage, on the grounds of cruelty. Fleming was justifiably surprised, as she had been running Case's School of Wisdom for two months whilst Case was traveling in the West Indies. It appears he decided to stop in Reno to file en route to home. Six months later, he would marry “third” wife Dorothy Spring.

How BOTA crossed the Pacific Ocean

The establishment of BOTA in New Zealand was preceded by the death throes of another order: Stella Matutina, a successor of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD). Specifically, its New Zealand branch, Smaragdum Thallasses Temple No 49 (STT), which was located in Havelock North and housed in the famous, James Chapman-Taylor designed, Whare Ra.

A more detailed study into the goings on of Havelock North, and Stella Matutina in particular, will be the subject of a future newsletter series, but suffice to say that by the 1970s the group operating out of the Whare Ra was one of the few, if not the only, offshoots from HOGD that could trace back to the original order in only a step or two. One would think that this would make it an attractive prospect for initiates and adepts who desired to practice the HOGD in their original form, as Pat Zalewski claims, and for a while it was indeed a draw.

However, after the death of Robert Felkin and his successors (wife Harriet Felkin, daughter Ethelwyn Felkin, and Reginald Gardiner) things were not so sunny at the Whare Ra, and some of the senior members were searching for a leader to help them overcome personality clashes and disinterest from the younger generation.

In his 1963 letter to Davies, Taylor mentioned that Harriet Felkin made a ‘prophecy' about the attributes of their future leader, but provided no identifying details.

In 1963, Frank Goodey imported a recording of Davies performing a Qabalistic service through his business, Goodey's Bookstore. As the website states, Goodey's specialised in books from the Mind, Body, Spirit genre for decades; it's possible that BOTA followers were present in NZ prior to 1963, as BOTA was designed to be a correspondence course. Purveyors like Frank Goodey may have known of BOTA followers, or at least been aware of persons who would be amenable to the works of Davies, but otherwise there is no evidence of a formal group prior to Wallace hearing this record.

This record Goodey owned was reportedly significant because Davies had allegedly included a clue about her status as the leader, which would be obvious to the adepts of STT. Goodey then introduced the recording to Alastair Oglivie Wallace, who was a member of the Whare Ra group. Thinking Ann was the leader Felkin had prophesied, Wallace initiated a correspondence with Davies and included another senior Whare Ra member, Jack Taylor, into the mix. Taylor would then send the letter mentioned above.

For her part, Ann wrote in the Adytum News-Notes that electromagnetic forces from the poles, with special energies from the equator, were being equalised with the founding of a new BOTA centre in NZ. Davies claimed that Master R itself directly intervened in this matter, because the location of the NZ branch below the equator most closely correlated with the location of the Los Angeles location above the equator. This linkage would apparently help accelerate the evolution of humanity.

This correspondence would lead to Davies visiting New Zealand for the first time in 1963, between August 14th and October 1st, with some of the visit recorded as an “International Tug-of-Love” in cringy posterity in the Adytum News Notes. Davies was sponsored on her visit by Wallace and Richard Hartshorn, who would become the NZ executive secretary.

What is not reported in the Adytum News-Notes is that Ann met with Chiefs of the Smaragdum Thalasses Temple, and that meeting was unsuccessful at best and a public humiliation at worst, depending on which third-hand source you wish to believe. Pat Zalweski claims that Davies put people off by going into a trance and talking in tongues during the meeting, and was asked to leave by Jack Taylor. One respondent to an alt.magick post made in 1998 claimed that Davies was drunk during the meeting, which put the kibosh on any merger between BOTA and Whare Ra. Frank Salt, another STT member, seems to have the most rational recall. Many of the Whare Ra members had gone to BOTA already, but Davies had little knowledge about what STT actually was and was demanding that STT drop a large part of their curriculum.

In 1963, Alastair Wallace was appointed as the head of the NZ chapter of BOTA, then located in Auckland. He would visit Los Angeles on February 6th, 1964 to take part in inner circle activities. His visit was preceded with an equally cringy Adytum News-Notes article. To give the writer the benefit of the doubt, it may have been intended to be humorous, but there is something off putting about adult women being written about as being asked to dress “...as lovable and alluring personalities, either from history, fiction, or sheer imagination…” and that the Sorores have “...an agreement amongst themselves to take turns holding Frater Alastair's hand and gazing soulfully into his eyes”.

In the documentation of this visit, Davies claimed that years prior, the Master of Wisdom told her that she would make an overseas trip to bring back into the fold some English-speaking lost sheep who belonged to the same traditions. At the time, she thought it was England. Wallace then adds further embellishment to the NZ side of the story, although the Golden Dawn are not referenced directly. In Wallace's version, Felkin prophesied that the Order would go into decline and almost stop functioning, only to be brought back to life by a woman from overseas who was a true adept with red hair (there is no evidence that this was in Felkin's original prophecy). Wallace went into meditation in 1962 and was told by the Master of Wisdom that the true root of the Order of the Golden Dawn was still functioning. After writing to several organisations, it was then he received a copy of Davies' A Qabalistic Service which convinced him that Davies was the leader that Whare Ra was looking for.

In 1964, Davies would return to New Zealand for a four or six month stay, which was explained to her followers as a lecture tour to help with the urgent demands of the growing NZ congregation. During this visit, Davies dazzled Sunday News reporter Mollie Elliot by causing water to effervesce after she blessed it. Wallace immediately put random glasses of water around the house they were in, and found that the amount of bubbles in the glass was in proportion to the distance from Davies' aura; a phenomenon that was supposedly witnessed by 150 people. Ann would brush off this event, stating that it was more important for her to project and awaken cosmic love and illumination in others than it was to charge water with an overflow of spiritual vitality. After this, Wallace is referred to once more in the January-March 1965 issue of News-Notes, and visits by other New Zealand visitors are also mentioned only once more. Then all mention of other BOTA branches, including those outside of LA, ceased.

Ann Davies and Alastair Wallace

It is not clear what happened. A rumour posted on alt.magick claimed that at one point, Wallace and Davies were engaged to be married. However, when Davies was back in LA, Chesterman went to Wallace's house and found him with another woman. Chesterman's revelation to Davies led her to end her engagement with Wallace; the heart ache, Davies is said to claim, nearly killed her. Soon after, Wallace died and Chesterman was appointed the head of BOTA NZ. Another poster in the same thread added the far more salacious and on-brand ‘oral tradition' of the incident: Alastair had started to have his own ideas and had rejected Davies both as a teacher and a lover. He was caught mid-act with a senior, female BOTA NZ member in the Auckland temple, and the temple had its warrant suspended. Another BOTA member seized all of the regalia to prevent Alastair from stealing it, requiring Davies to return to NZ to deal with the crisis. Davies then engaged in a magical war with Wallace, where he ended up dead and she was mortally wounded. Allegedly, there are passages in the Auckland Temple's 30 year Jubilee publication that support both versions of this sad tale.

Given that Wallace died in 1968, the true timeframe between the break-up and Wallace's death, if the rumour is true, is unknown. Davies is reportedly to have only visited NZ in 1963, 1964, and 1969.

Post 1968

Ann Davies and Will Chesterman

Regardless of the details, the fact is that after Wallace's death Hutt resident Will Chesterman was installed as the new leader of the NZ branch. According to Robert Ellwood, Chesterman had a close relationship with Whare Ra member and literal architect James Chapman-Taylor. Sources vary on whether he had tried to gain entry into Whare Ra himself, or if he would even have wanted to join, but it was through Chapman-Taylor that Chesterman and wife Catherine Joyce would come to join BOTA.

In 1969, Davies would make her last visit to NZ and spend much of her time with the Chestermans at their Upper Hutt property, which included a civic welcome from then mayor Percy Dowse. In 1973, the Chestermans were able to raise the finances needed to purchase the Naenae temple, where meetings have been held ever since. At one point, it is said he considered purchasing Whare Ra but thought against it, claiming that it would be too difficult for him to cleanse.

In 1975, after Ann Davies' death, Chesterman was asked to put his business and accounting skills to work in Los Angeles to get BOTA's affairs in order. Davies' widower, NASA employee Jake Fuss, briefly served as head of BOTA before resigning with other senior members of BOTA. Chesterman was then elected to take over Ann's role as Prolocutor General of the entire organisation. However it is baptism by fire of sorts, as the members and even non-initiates were pushing their own agendas within the organisation, including BOTA's attorney whose wife had allegedly wanted to be the next Davies. At one point, the fear of BOTA being taken over by non-initiates was so strong that, according to former senior BOTA member Paul Clark, Chesterman had made 3 copies of all archival and initiated material of the order; one of these sets would follow Chesterman to New Zealand.

Chesterman's fears were unfounded, as he remained the head of BOTA until his death in 2003. While BOTA has continued to exist in the 21st century, some argue that Chesterman's devotion to Davies' legacy has kept the organisation in stasis as he prioritised preservation instead of growth. Nick Farrell, former BOTA member, ironically points out that the same favour was not extended to Chesterman himself. After his death, mentions of him were removed from the website and his wife Joyce was expelled and locked out from the very temple she had given her life to. Given the anniversary booklets and the reinstatement of the Chestermans to the BOTA timeline, at least BOTA seems to have no hard feelings.

Final Thoughts

Again, New Zealand has provided a time capsule for another religious group. But rather than time, maybe New Zealand's seismic activity will demand a change in status for the NZ temple. BOTA sold their famous Auckland Temple on Union Street on July 15th, 2016. Reasons behind the sale included a shrinking congregation and the cost of earthquake strengthening.

The Naenae temple remains one of just two temples that BOTA owns worldwide, the other being the original Los Angeles venue. All other groups, including Auckland, meet wherever they can book. While there are online study groups, BOTA remains protective of its members' identities, and does not live stream any services from its temples. The costs are low, although projected completion time of the curriculum is 12-15 years. That being said, former members do comment that it is easy to drop in and out of BOTA when needed, and there are no pressure tactics to rejoin if you stop paying your fees out of the blue.

That being said, having attended a couple of services with fellow skeptic Mark Honeychurch, Nick Farrell's comments about BOTA being frozen are valid. Aside from the sermon given by the Frater, we could have easily played a Qabalistic Service recording and had the same experience as any congregant in the 1960s. That can be reassuring to some people, but as it as with other occult groups, it just means others will split off to join more dynamic groups like the Masons, Rosicucians, or any of the other HOGD offshoots.

What did strike me while I was researching this topic is how well-regarded Paul Foster Case was, and is, as a writer and occultist, while Ann Davies is not taken as seriously and does not have the same amount of ink devoted to her story. Ann had several sisters, an abusive mother, and dreams of being a dancer before malnutrition and illness stopped those plans. No one questions the context of her relationship with Case, or what her non-BOTA life was like. We see pictures of a charismatic woman in fantastic gowns, but Horowitz states that, at least when Case was alive, Paul and Harriet Bullock's finances were precarious at times; Davies clearly hustled with her multitude of recordings and attempts to seal the deal with Whare Ra. While the latter didn't work out, Davies certainly came out on top in the long run, with the establishment of two temples in this country. Davies is remembered fondly, vibrantly even, but she is treated as a student who never quite matched, let alone surpassed, her teacher. Which is unfortunate, because she did achieve what many followers in her place struggle to do when their leader dies, which is actually make their organisation grow and thrive.

### BONUS BOTA

[Michael Baigent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Baigent) was an author born in Nelson, NZ in 1948. He attended Canterbury University, studying religion and philosophy, and he briefly studied teaching in Auckland before going overseas to work as a freelancer. It was likely during this time that [he joined BOTA](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/the-kiwi-trying-to-break-the-code/6ID5VZM5NPS7FQT2KQKCUIARAY/), although the exact timeline was not provided by his family. Later in life, he would join the Freemasons and edit their journal for a couple of years. In the later 1970s, he would meet Richard Leigh. In 1982, with co-author Henry Lincoln, the group published the international bestseller [The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail). The premise of the pseudo-historical book was that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children, and their descendents moved to the South of France where they were the targets of the Catholic Church, who were desperate to prevent the rise of the antipope.

If the plot sounds familiar, that's because it is. Dan Brown (or his wife Blythe depending on which version of the story you believe) was heavily inspired by Baigent's book, and even mentioned it in his own best seller, The Da Vinci Code. This was not lost on Baigent and Leigh, who would sue Brown for copyright infringement for $25 million and lose. [The court's ruling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail#The_Da_Vinci_Code)? That because The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was “history”, it could be freely used in any fictional work.

Baigent published [several more books](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT1aZxL87hY&t=529s&pp=ygUPTWljaGFlbCBiYWlnZW50) along the same themes, but nothing ever quite caught the same attention as Holy Blood. Baigent tragically died in [2013](https://apnews.com/article/7fd84d6c46ec4c61ad8210f6b54faac8) from a brain haemorrhage.