Frederick Hockley

Who was Frederick Hockley?

Frederick Hockley was a British occultist who was a London based Freemason and a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Hockley avidly collected and transcribed over many years a vast library of important occult books, works & texts, including a Rosicrucian manuscript belonging to Sigismond Bacstrom, who was initiated into an occult society in Mauritius in 1794. This text had a great influence on British occultism.

Hockley practiced the art of 'Crystaliomancy' or 'the art of invocating spirits by the crystal' and believed this to be one of the most important forms of spirit communication. He kept notes on many of his experiments and experiences, accumulating a vast amount of information.

It is said that through close knit London circles, his freemasonry connections and SRIA connections, as well as the extensive and vast library he left behind him on his passing that he contributed to the forming and curriculum of the 'The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. It is also alleged that the original cipher manuscript on which the Golden Dawn was formed may well have been written by Frederick Hockley.

Hockley was a close friend of Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie and other British Rosicrucians and occultists of his period. He was purportedly a pupil of Francis Barrett, author of The Magus. Hockley died November 10, 1885.