What the heck is The Esoteric Fraternity?
The Esoteric Fraternity
Some of you guys send me things to check out, read, and add to my enormous list of people and topics to cover in future podcasts. I do this show on my downtime which there isn't much of which is why I don't post episodes often or keep a schedule. Well, Back when I was doing the episode on E. Clampus Vitus I was messaged about a group called The Esoteric Fraternity, I added it to my list and chose it for one of the stories for this episode.
So... What the heck is The Esoteric Fraternity?
Some would say it was and is some kind of new-age Christian science sex cult. Members of course would argue so let’s dive on in.
There was once a man named Hiram Erastus Butler. He was in the Union army during the Civil War building roads and bridges not for the cause of the North.
He was stationed at a hospital where he met a gal and they got married. As soon as she bore him two children he went to get some milk at the store and must have forgotten that he had 2 kids and a wife because they never saw him again.
He worked at a sawmill for a little while until he lost 3 of his fingers, one for each of the people he deserted I guess.
After this, he went into the woods for 14 years. some records say only 40 days so I'm not sure which. Either way, he appeared in Boston Announcing that he was a prophet of Occult Wisdom and he was now calling himself “The Adhy Apaka The Hellenic Ethnomedon”
He was a student of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and also Pascal Beverly Randolf who taught sex magick rituals for a higher consciousness and spiritual knowledge, which is also what inspired famed occultist Aleister Crowley.
Mr. Butler eventually came to the conclusion that semen retention and celibacy were the way to a heightened consciousness and immortality. Which is interesting because his group initiated women often, which the initiation… well let’s say wasn't very celibate.
The Boston Herald reported in 1889 this...
The full secrets of the "inner circle," as the grade which students reached after a course of study was termed, will probably never be told to the public, and if all that is said about this "ring" is true, a description could not be printed in any newspaper. One married lady of social prominence in this city studied at the "college," believing its theories of occultism to be thoroughly trustworthy. After a course of investigation, she was believed to be worthy of introduction to the inner circle and was told to prepare herself for initiation. She claims that she was compelled to submit to indignities on the part of persons connected with the college, both by physical and psychological power, being told that such work was necessary to free her soul from the bondage of evil passions. The lady finally became so disgusted that she resigned from the college and its inner circle and devoted herself to her home; but a short time afterward her husband's suspicions were aroused in a startling manner, and his discoveries led her into a confession. The husband was almost heartbroken at the statement of his wife's unfaithfulness, and his first thought was to shoot the professor [Butler, who is calling himself Professor Hiram Butler]. Friends however advised him not to do so, as justification would be hard to prove before a jury, and it was thought that the offender could be reached through the court. Two papers were then made out against him; one on a criminal charge of adultery, and the other on a civil suit for alienating the affections of the wife [but the suits were, ultimately, not brought]....One young woman has said that after being prayed over for three or four days she was told to be ready to receive a visit from the Master Om in the astral body, he having journeyed from the Himalaya mountains especially to purify her. She was instructed to perfume her body with scented oils, and wrap herself in a long winding sheet, then pray unceasingly for delivery from passion. Perhaps the first night, she was told, the master would not appear, but on the second a man of extremely venerable appearance would enter her room, and after he should converse and pray with her she was to give herself up to the spirit....It is now reported that Prof. Hiram Erastus Butler has left Boston for parts unknown
The Parts unknown was the Bay area. He was found running some store in Oakland And the story still followed him.
The local Newspaper published this piece.
"a professional hypnotizer who was run out of Boston last year," and a man possessing "an occult influence over weak-minded young men and women, [who] is using his magic powers, under the guise of a species of theosophy, to secure funds with which he promises to build an esoteric college in the Santa Cruz mountains. How well he is succeeding no one knows, but Butler declares he has at least 500 converts in San Francisco."
Famous mystic, Helena Blavatsky said he was no better than a cheap pseudo-spiritual hustler then went on to accuse him of siring astral plane children, whatever the heck that means.
In truth Mr. Butler only had around 12 or so in his circle, He and his group bought a bunch of land over in Applegate, CA to build their self-sufficient monastic community commune.
There they built themselves a nice big 18-room 4-story house, a fruit business, and The Esoteric Publishing Company.
They put out a bunch of books and a magazine.
One of the books, Solar Biology was the most popular and is where we get modern astrology from. Those horoscopes you hear people talking about, what sign they are, and why a particular sign is why they are annoying is based on this guy’s book.
He believed that he was a reincarnation of someone and was one of the chosen to be of The Order of Melchizedek. That 144,000 just like him would bring about the Kingdom of God.
Though he believed or claimed to believe that being celibate would grant immortality and higher consciousness he died at the age of 75.
