Florence Farr
was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1892 and attained a
position of national leadership by 1897. As a successful Golden Dawn initiate
it was to be expected that Farr would become fascinated by Egyptian religion,
considering the large part it played in Golden Dawn ceremonies, as well as
Egypt’s ubiquitous presence in Late Victorian London exhibitions. In addition
to assuming responsibility for the entire order in Britain, Farr composed and
performed complex rituals to Egyptian deities, lectured publicly on
Egyptological subjects, wrote two Egyptianising plays and after resigning from
the Golden Dawn in 1902, was conducting her own ‘Egyptian’ initiations by 1903.
Like MacGregor Mathers, Farr utilised the British Museum as a place for both artistic
inspiration and study. It was while researching material for her book, Egyptian Magic, in the British Museum in
1895 that Farr ‘made contact’ with what she described as ‘an Egyptian Adept’.
The identity of
Farr’s ‘Egyptian Adept’ is contested. On the one hand, friends of hers to whom
she left a wooden ‘shrine’ in which an Egyptian being allegedly dwelt claim
that its name was Nemkheftka whereas on the other hand, eye-witnesses report
that the name of the entity was Mut-em-menu. Either way, this ‘Adept’ was a
long-dead ancient Egyptian that Florence obviously felt perfectly comfortable
about ‘speaking’ with. The idea that one could converse with the dead was a
staple of Victorian Spiritualism and it was a cornerstone of the Hermeticism
that imbued the Golden Dawn that all knowledge is obtained
through revelation, not reason. Ancient
Egyptians had a habit of manifesting themselves to kindred spirits in the 1890s
and even London journalists reviewing Late Victorian exhibits of Egyptian
antiquities were liable to ‘reanimate and evoke the people of the past in a
quasi-psychic way... as if through a medium.’ Consequently it was not at all
unusual for Farr to believe that she could receive information through a
discarnate entity she met in the British Museum.
Both Nemkheftka
and Mut-em-menu were (and are) part of the Egyptian collection in the British
Museum. Nemkheftka – actually Nenkheftka
– is a painted limestone statue of a provincial official from Deshasha,
dating to the 5th Dynasty, around 2400 BCE, at the height of the Old Kingdom.
The statue was acquired by the British Museum in 1897, so ‘Nemkheftka’ could
not have been the ‘personality’ Florence was in contact with in 1895, although
it seems that he did fulfil that role after 1901. ‘Mut-em-menu’, a coffined
mummy acquired by the British Museum in 1835, is a likelier candidate for Farr’s
‘Egyptian Adept’ at this time. Like other museum attendees, Farr would have
been under the impression that Mutemmenu was ‘a lady of the college of the God Amen-Ra at Thebes’, however
we now know that this description is only half correct. While the coffin is
indeed that of Mutemmenu, a Chantress of Amun, dating from the 19th (1295-1186 BCE) or 20th (1186-1069 BCE) Dynasties, the
mummy in the coffin dates from the Roman period (30 BCE – 395 CE) and is actually
that of a man whose wrappings are padded and swathed so as to imitate feminine
features such as breasts and rounded thighs. (According to X-rays taken in the 1960s. The mummy was most
likely paired with this coffin by an Egyptian antiquities dealer, according to
the Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities in
the British Museum. I: Mummies and Human Remains. Warren R. Dawson and
P.H.K Gray, P.H.K. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1968. xii).
It is understandable that in the 1890s this mummy
would be taken at face value to have been female and Farr obviously deemed Mutemmenu a
satisfactory link with the authentic Egyptian past. Fellow Golden Dawn member,
William Butler Yeats, re-created Florence’s British Museum experiences in his
unfinished novel The Speckled Bird
where the hero, Michael Hearne (Yeats), accompanied by Maclagan (Mathers), was
to meet a certain woman at the Britsh Museum who is later discovered meditating
‘with her eyes half closed on a seat close to the Mut-em-menu mummy case.’ She
is not to be disturbed because, according to Maclagan, ‘she is doubtless
conversing with Mut-em-menu’ who was, among other things, describing Farr’s
past incarnations. Florence went to Paris in 1896 to confer with Mathers about
her ‘Egyptian Adept’, a drawing of whom she had previously sent him. Mathers
agreed that because the Egyptian had responded appropriately to signs that
Florence had shown her, she was indeed ‘one of the 8˚=3˚’, making her one of
the ‘Secret Chiefs’. He subsequently gave permission for Farr to form a group
with higher degree members of the Golden Dawn to ‘work with’ the Egyptian.
For further information on Florence Farr, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Egyptology and Mummies see my articles here (which is more recent) and here (dating to several years ago).
Mutemmenu’s Coffin
As
I have mentioned previously on this blog, the online catalogue of the British
Museum shows images of the mummy associated with Mutemmenu’s coffin, but not
the coffin itself.
When
I was in London in 2012, where I had appointments at the British Museum to look
at Cypriot cylinder seals featuring images of tree cult and a Cypriot bronze
cult stand also with images of tree cult, I was fortunately able to view
Mutemmenu’s coffin. I hadn’t actually planned to see this coffin, but whilst
happening to discuss it with one of the curators in the Department of Greek and
Roman Antiquities (which was where the Cypriot material was) the curator suddenly
offered to contact the Department of Egyptian Antiquities for me and see if I
could get an appointment to view the coffin. Usually you’d need to book several
weeks ahead however after a quick phone call I was able to get an appointment
for the end of the week. When the time came I was able to view the coffin in
the fascinating organic material store, the staff there having gotten it out of
its storage shelf and placed it upon folding wooden legs so I could walk all
the way around it as well as look underneath it.
The
Department is happy for what they see as sincere researchers making having
access to the collection, and it is generally not hard to make appointments to
view material in the British Museum’s study rooms. The Egyptian Antiquities curator
I that was dealing with did say however, that they were not too happy when a
girl made an appointment and just came and sat in the store with her eyes
closed, apparently just ‘feeling the vibe’ (maybe she was channeling Florence
Farr?). Perhaps, if you wanted to do such things, it would depend on whether
you explained yourself sufficiently to the Department as to why you needed to
do it in the store (and it sounds like they’d probably say no), or else perhaps
concentrated on the mummies and artefacts that are already on public display.
However, we need to remember that (unfortunately) it’s not the 1890s any more
so you might find yourself being moved along by the guards (unless you were
pretending to draw artefacts… or perhaps got the British Pagan group, Honoring
the Ancient Dead, to organise one of their Pagan access appointments?).
