Moina Mathers - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Moina Mathers, born as Mina Bergson (28 February 1865 - 25 July 1928), was an artist and occultist at the turn of the 20th century. She was the sister of French philosopher Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

, the first man of Jewish descent to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. She is, however, more known for her marriage to the English occultist, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers , born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was one of the most influential figures in modern Occultism...

, one of the founders of the organization Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...

and, after his death in 1918, for being the head of a successor organization, called the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega

Alpha et Omega

The Alpha et Omega was an occult order, initially named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, co-founded in London, England by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1888...

Biography

Moina, then named Mina, or Minna, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to a talented and influential Jewish family of Polish from father's and English and Irish from mother's sides, moving to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, when she was but two years of age. Her father, Michel Bergson, achieved some musical success in composing the operas Louisa de Montfort and Salvator Rosa, he was a native of Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

and member of the influential Bereksohn family. Moina Mathers' grandfather, Jacob Levison (born c. 1799) was a surgeon and a dentist. Her grandmother was Katherine Levison, born in London in c. 1800. Her maternal aunt was Minna Preuss, born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1835, and her mother, Kate, nee Levison, was also born in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. Her eldest brother, Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

, 1859 - 1941, joined the faculty of the College of France and is best known for authoring the philosophical work Creative Evolution
Creative evolution
Creative evolution may refer to:* Theistic evolution* Creative Evolution, a book by Henri Bergson...

. He was also the president of the British Society for Psychical Research.

Moina was a talented artist and joined the Slade School of Art, at the age of fifteen. The Slade was known for encouraging young women in the Arts, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Moina was awarded a scholarship and four merit certificates for drawing at the School. It was at the Slade in 1882, that Moina met her friend Annie Horniman

Annie Horniman

Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman CH was an English theatre patron and manager. She established the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and founded the first regional repertory theatre company in Britain at the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester. She encouraged the work of new writers and playwrights, including...

, who would become the major financial sponsor for the Matherses, as struggling artists and occultists, in backing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...

.

Moina met her husband, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers , born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was one of the most influential figures in modern Occultism...

, in 1887, while studying at the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, where Samuel was a frequent patron. A year later, her future husband founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...

, one of the most influential organizations in the Western Mystery Tradition

Western mystery tradition

Western esotericism or Hermeticism is a broad spectrum of spiritual traditions found in Western society, or refers to the collection of the mystical, esoteric knowledge of the Western world...

. Moina was the first initiate of this Order in March, 1888. Her chosen motto in the Golden Dawn was ‘’Vestigia Nulla Restrorsum’’, meaning “I leave no traces behind.” A year later in 1890, she married S.L. Mathers and Mina Bergson became Moina Mathers. In their occult partnership, her husband was described as the "evoker of spirits" and Moina as the clairvoyant "seeress", who often illustrated, as an artist, what her husband “evoked”. In March of 1899, they performed the rites of the Egyptian goddess Isis

Isis

Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...

, on the stage of the Theatre Bodiniere in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

In 1918, when her husband died, Moina took over the Alpha et Omega

Alpha et Omega

The Alpha et Omega was an occult order, initially named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, co-founded in London, England by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1888...

, a successor organization to the Golden Dawn, as its Imperatrix.

Biography

See also