R.J. Stewart

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Biographical Information

Stewart recalls: "In the mid-1970’s there were many utopian schemes surfacing in Britain, with people wishing to buy properties and turn them into spiritual centres, influenced by the success of the Findhorn community in Scotland.

"I was invited to join one such quest in 1974, proposed by New Age motivator Michael Riddell, who started a number of inspirational projects at that time. A group, mainly from Bath, began to look at properties that were for sale. These included a Victorian castle owned by the Wills (cigarette) family, St Catherine’s Court outside Bath, now owned by actress Jane Seymour and her husband, and several others. This questing would make a fine spiritual allegory and anecdote in itself, but we cannot explore it here!

"As a result of my minor involvement in this project, I had some pivotal and powerful meetings with Ronald Heaver at Castle House in Keinton Mandeville, near Glastonbury. My visits were witnessed by various friends and associates, including artist and musician Marko Galley, Rollo Maughling, and, of course, Michael Riddell. I later compared some of my experiences with others who had visited Heaver during the same period of the 1970’s, including philosopher and author David Spangler, and Dorothy Maclean, one of the original founders of Findhorn, both being my friends and for a while, near neighbours...

"One of my other teachers in the early 1970’s was William G. Gray, an eccentric and somewhat controversial figure, author, Qabalist, and ritual magician. His books were, and still are, influential in the development of new Hermetic Qabalah, ritual magic, and ancestral magic at ancient sites. One of Gray’s books, The Rollright Ritual, published in the early 1970’s was far ahead of its time, and influenced many wiccans and pagans. But it was in another context altogether that I discovered that W G Gray had also met with Ronald Heaver. This context was, of course, the Order of Melchizadek.

"W G Gray had received teachings and initiation into the inner Order in the 1920’s from his own mentor, in a sacromagical lineage that traced back through France into Russia in the 18th and 19th century and earlier. In the early 1970’s I, in turn, received this initiation from W G Gray...

"At one point in our conversation, I asked him if he had known Dion Fortune, who had lived in Glastonbury and was buried in the town churchyard, and he laughed. “Oh yes, she was involved in ritual magic you know…totally unnecessary”. I was pretty certain, at that time, that ritual magic was, indeed, necessary, but it was difficult to disagree with Ronald Heaver, as he knew intuitively what was passing through your mind, was always several steps and jumps ahead of you, and every statement that he made was a spiritual teaching of some sort, that pulled you up, and made you think on a new level. Ten minutes with Heaver was like ten hours of intense concentration or challenging physical exercise…except it was spiritual. Of course ritual magic is, indeed, no longer necessary once you have worked your way through its disciplines and arts, and emerged on the other side with a highly developed consciousness! That is what he was saying to me, back then in 1974, though I did not understand him at the time. It was certainly not necessary for Ronald Heaver, who transformed all by being present, rather than by doing anything. This is the difference between direct spiritual mediation, and all the many techniques practiced today. Heaver was a direct mediator, not a technician of spiritual methods...

"Not long before he died, Heaver transferred the inner power of the priesthood to me, in a simple direct transmission, without ritual (of course!). This was, essentially, a Melchizadek initiation, similar to one I had received from W G Gray in a ritual lodge context (witnessed by Norman Gibbs) a few years before, but with certain significant differences of inner contact and subtle power. It added something clear and catalyzing to the power that I had received from Gray, and this combined transmission is what I work with in the Consecration ceremonies, from time to time within my own groups...

"For some years Ronald Heaver wrote letters, essays, and pamphlets under the pen-name Zadok, the priest. You can find insights into this theme in the Salomonic tradition of Qabalah."

Books

• The Hidden Adept and the Inner Vision, The Story of Ronald Heaver, Polly Wood and the Sanctuary of Avalon including A.R. Heaver and the Star Temple or Glastonbury Zodiac (2012).

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

• Foundation for Inspirational and Oracular Studies
• Anastacia Nutt