William Robert Woodman

William Robert Woodman (* 1828 in Jeevo, England; † December 20, 1891 in London) was an English physician, Freemasons, Rosicrucians and one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Life and work

William Robert Woodman studied medicine in London and earned his doctorate in 1851. After Woodman was a practicing physician in Victoria Villas, Stoke Newington. He became secretary of the Societas Rosicruciana founded in 1868 in Anglia ( Rosicrucian Society). This company was a scholarly and ceremonial association which was only masters of Freemasonry open.

Upon the death of Robert Wentworth Little Woodman in 1878 his successor as "Supreme Magus " of society. As Studied Kabbalah, Egyptology and familiar with the works of the Gnostics, Platonists, Neoplatonists and medieval sciences such as astrology, alchemy and Tarot he gave the company an air of spiritualism, though it was not originally intended as a school for kabbalistic and occult teachings. William Wynn Westcott, and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the two later to become the founder of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn were also members of the Rosicrucian Society.

You were great concerns ritual magic, alchemy and Kabbalah. This deepened her friendship with Woodman and led to a growth of the company. Woodman was for many years a kind of mentor for Westcott, who had met him shortly after he had settled in London.

At the time, as the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn was in its early days, many people were dissatisfied with the esoteric study opportunities which offered themselves to them. For example, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky had founded a group Theosophical Society was called. This moved with her spiritual and intellectual content to many people, although many were repelled because of their oriental influence. Mathers, Westcott and Woodman believed to offer these malcontents who sought hidden knowledge, something better and of a different kind.

It was finally Westcott, Woodman could win it, to participate in the founding of the Golden Dawn. Woodman was much older than Westcott and Mathers. His role in the creation of the Order gave this a hint of devotion and honesty. He retired at this time, from the medicine and its graceful Victorian appearance makes him a perfect leader figure for the Order. His age enticed many people to the erroneous view that the Order was a Altmännerclub. However, this was hardly the case, but the members had four years after the founding of an average age of 20 to 30

Woodman did, however, far from the spotlight. Although he was perhaps the leading spirit of the Order, he participated limited. His advanced age, poor health and the fact that he lived in a suburb quite far away, held him back to a certain degree.

There are relatively few reports of Woodman. This is surprising, as he has written many writings and among other things, co-editor of the Rosicrucian, a journal of the Rosicrucian Society was.

Woodman died on December 20, 1891 after a short illness. He left a letter to Westcott, in which he determined this to be his successor at the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.