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I came across him also occasionally at various occult gatherings of an informal kind - gatherings of people "interested" and mostly of people agape. One met him afterwards in Miss Bergson's society, and it was understood that they had designed to marry. He was at work on Kabalism about 1885 and subsequently translated some texts of the Zohar from the Latin version of Rosenroth. They appeared under the title of The Kabbalah Unveiled, his introduction to which offered marked testimony to a serious study of the arbitrary part of Kabalism - things like gematria and notaricon - but his rendering from the Latin was criticized at great length and in unsparing terms by a writer in The Theosophist. I believe that he replied by affirming that at just those points of alleged mistranslation he had collated the Latin with the original Chaldee texts. But his acquaintance with these can be judged by the fact that he termed Isaac de Loria's treatise De Revolutionibus Animarum a part of the Zohar. It was written some three hundred years later than the latest date to which the most drastic judgement refers that monumental work. A little earlier than the period of his translation, Mathers had been and remained very active in a certain Rosicrucian Society, which became somewhat too well known afterwards as the Esoteric Order of the G.D. He claimed in a law case long after that he was the chief and head of the Rosicrucian Order; but from the Hermetic Society in question it is known that he was cut off by a large majority vote about 1901. Returning to the earlier period, a time came when Mathers married Miss Bergson, who survives him, and is the sister of Henri Bergson, the now world-famous French philosopher. He was appointed soon after the curator of the Horniman Museum, but the arrangement came to an end in something under two years. A little later Mathers and his wife migrated to Paris, where he continued to live for the most part. Presently he assumed the title of Comte de Glenstrae, affirming that it had been conferred on an ancestor by King James II. At the Arsenal Library in Paris he came upon the French manuscript of a magical ritual by Abramelin the Mage, which purported to be of Hebrew origin, but betrayed itself on every leaf. The attribution was, however, accepted by Mathers, who was of an utterly uncritical mind. He translated it into English and it appeared in a sumptuous form. In addition to this he translated the Clavicula Salomonis (Key of Solomon the King) from originals found in the British Museum, and wrote a booklet on the Tarot. When he translated his ménage to Paris my acquaintance with Mathers came practically to a close, but the tales told concerning him were many and strange. He established a branch of the occult society which I have mentioned and various occult notabilities of France looked in and looked out again. He was a firm believer in the destiny of the Stuart dynasty to regain the throne of England, and rumour accredited him with Young Turkey plottings - conspiracy for the sake of conspiracy, as W. B. Yeats once said about him. I believe that he knew evil days, poor fellow, and tried to retrieve his fortunes in various ways. He had a Temple of Isis at the French Exhibition, and I have even heard of Tarot fortune-telling at Dieppe - to which I hope that he was not really reduced. He had unfortunately no inclination to earn a competency in the ordinary walks of life. Amidst many weaknesses he possessed of course his good points, a certain sincerity in his occultism - amidst several queer devices - and a considerable fund of undigested learning.
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