Yeats’s Occult Papers

Abstract

In August 1969, at the invitation of Senator Michael B. Yeats, Kathleen Raine and I met in Dublin to examine the extensive mass of largely unexplored and unpublished papers of W. B. Yeats classified by Senator Yeats as “ occult” and separated from other papers in his library. After independent examinations and numerous consultations, Miss Raine and I concluded that if properly digested and explained these papers would make clear much that students and critics of Yeats have either distorted or completely misunderstood, and we agreed that we would consider a collaborative effort to organize the material and write a critical book on ’s religion including brief historical sketches of the Golden Dawn and related societies which Yeats belonged to. With the assistance of Senator Yeats I reproduced some of the materials, and Miss Raine prepared a partially descriptive catalogue which enabled us to evaluate at leisure the kind and extent of occult papers. Miss Raine had already examined the extensive materials in the Aleister Crowley collection belonging to Gerald Yorke¹ and had discovered that Ellic Howe was preparing a history of the Golden Dawn.²