Initiation · 1900
At the Mathers’, Ahathoor Temple
Address · 87, avenue Mozart, 75016 Paris
Metro · Jasmin (9)
Today · Private, seen from the street
The story
Settled in Paris from 1892 (MacGregor Mathers arrived on 21 May), the Mathers moved several times for lack of money. Their most lasting home, near the Bois de Boulogne, was a villa in the Auteuil district with three entrances and therefore three addresses: 87 avenue Mozart, 43 rue Ribéra and 14 rue de la Source. It was there, according to historians of the order, that the Golden Dawn's Ahathoor Temple No. 7 operated, consecrated on 6 January 1894 in the presence of Annie Horniman; Moina, who taught there, decorated its walls with figures of Egyptian gods painted in oils. Papus (Gérard Encausse) was a member, and W. B. Yeats visited the Mathers in Paris several times between 1897 and 1899 to work with them on Celtic rituals.
Crowley, who had joined the Golden Dawn in London in 1898, was refused entry to the Second Order by the London adepts. He took the night boat to Paris on 15 January 1900 and, the next day, Tuesday 16 January, Mathers initiated him into the grade of Adeptus Minor under the motto Parzival. The London adepts refused to recognise this reception; one history of the order also notes that it does not appear in the records of the Ahathoor Temple, which further fuels the debate.
Crowley returned on 8 April 1900. On the 9th he discussed the revolt of the London temple with MacGregor and Moina and became their representative; on the 12th Mathers gave him instructions and symbols, and he left again on the 13th at 11:50 a.m. On 17 April he tried to take over the Second Order's premises at 36 Blythe Road in London, but the attempt came to nothing and the lawsuit was lost on 28 April. The timeline places these meetings “in Paris” without giving the address; that they took place at the Auteuil villa is therefore likely but not established by the sources.
Towards the end of 1900, the Mathers left Auteuil for Montmartre. The sources do not say what remains of the villa: avenue Mozart, rue Ribéra and rue de la Source now enclose a residential block in the 16th arrondissement, where one can only spot the three street numbers from the street.