Hargrave Jennings's Biography(Books)

Hargrave Jennings (1817-1890) was a British Freemason,
Cleric, Rosicrucian, author on occultism and esotericism,

Jennings also served as one of the mentors of Peter Davidson
(1842-1916), frontal chief of the Hermetic Brotherhood of

and amateur student of comparative religion. played an
important role in the development of Western interest in sex

Luxor (H.B. of L.) The Hermetic Brotherhood was a mystical
society which surfaced publicly in England in 1884 under the

magic during the Victorian era.

auspices of Max Theon (AKA Louis-Maximilian Bimstein,
1850-1927). the origins of the H.B. of L. are unclear, but

In several voluminous works, Jennings developed the theory
that the origin of all religion is to be sought in phallic

there is some evidence linking it with the Brotherhood of
Luxor, which was involved in the founding of the

worship of the Sun and fire, which he properly called
"phallism."

Theosophical Society; with the 18th century German
Rosicrucian splinter group known as the Fratres Lucis; and

In addition to the works to which he affixed his own name,

with the latter's 19th century English spiritualist
namesake. Born in Poland, Theon travelled widely in his

Jennings is thought by some researchers to have written a
number of anonymous volumes in the privately printed "Nature

Worship and Mystical Series" series, and possibly also to
have written under the pseudonym "Sha Rocco."

England in 1870, where he and Davidson established an "Outer
Circle" of the H.B. of L. They were joined in 1883 by Thomas

As Jennings made clear in several of his books, he used the

H. Burgoyne (AKA Thomas Dalton, 1855-1895), who later wrote
a book summarizing the basic teachings of the H.B. of L.,

word "phallic" in its non-gendered sense, meaning "having to
do with the sexual organs"; thus he included worship of the

titled The Light of Egypt. The function of this "Outer
Circle" of the H.B. of L. was to offer a correspondence

female genitalia under the heading of "phallic." In later
editions he reluctantly acceded to popular (although

incorrect) usage and called his subject "phallicism."

selections from the writings of Hargrave Jennings and P.B.
Randolph.

Jennings seems to have become a member of some branch of the
Rosicrucian Order around 1860 e.v. (possibly at the hand of

Kenneth R. H. McKenzie), and appears to have initiated
Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875) into the same Order.

* "Indian Religions, or Results of the Mysterious

Buddhism" (1858)
* "Curious Things of the Outside World: Last Fire"

Abraham Lincoln, Kenneth R. H. McKenzie, Eliphas Levi,
Napoleon III, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and General Ethan Allen

(1861)
* "The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries" (1870)

Hitchcock. Randolph later founded one of the more well-known
branches of the Rosicrucian Order in America. Randolph's

* "Live Lights and Dead Lights" (1873)
* "One of the Thirty, a Strange History" (1873)

Order claimed descent from the Rosicrucian Order (by charter
of the "Supreme Grand Lodge of France"), and taught

* "The Obelisk: Notices of the Origin, Purpose and
History of Obelisks" (1877)

spiritual healing, western occultism and principals of race
regeneration through the spirtualization of sex. Randolph

* "Childishness and Brutality of the Time" (1883)
* "Phallicism, Celestial and Terrestrial, Heathen and

Christian" (1884)
* "Charon: Sermons from the Styx: a Posthumous Work by