Satan’s Apostles

During this period (the 1870’s and early 1880’s), the bond between the S.P.R.’s Henry Sidgwick and the bible revisors, Westcott, Hort and Lightfoot, became tighter. His sister Mary married Westcott’s best friend, E.W. Benson (Ghostly Guild). Sidgwick, a man considerably “impressed” with an open Luciferian and himself experimenting with “automatic writing,” was invited by both Westcott and Hort to join two other ‘secret societies’. These societies were so exclusive that they both limited their membership to twelve. The first group, ‘The Apostles’, is listed in the index of The Founders of Psychical Research as “extremely select.” 76 Hort joined in 1851. His son writes:

[I]n June [he] joined the mysterious company of the Apostles…[H]e was mainly responsible for the oath which binds the members to a conspiracy of silence. 77

In a letter to Rev. John Ellenton, Hort himself admits the questionable character of the group. He wrote, “I fear you scarcely tolerate my having joined the ‘Apostles’.” The letter further quips that ‘one of the members does not believe in matter.’ Sidgwick was elected to membership in 1857; The Founders of Psychical Research cite this membership as the cause of his rejection of his Christian upbringing. He describes the intensity of the group as “the strongest corporate bond I have known in my life.”

The spirit of the society gradually came to absorb and dominate Sidgwick completely and to influence the whole direction of his life. 78

Another member, F.D. Maurice, admits ‘the Apostles’ “determined the course of his whole life also.” This ‘course’ caused him to be expelled from his professorship because of “heresy” discovered in written correspondence between him and Hort. 79 (Chapter 38 will explore the Encylopedia of Religion and Ethics’ entry on “Alexandrian esotericism.” It cites Maurice, Hort and Westcott as prime examples of “philosophical mysticism.”)