George Alexander Sullivan

Who was George Alexander Sullivan?

George Alexander Sullivan was the founder of the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship.

Born in 1890 in Liverpool, Sullivan is believed to have organized a group named the Order of Twelve from 1911-1914 and again from 1920. In about 1924 it became known as the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship. As a journalist, playwright and actor George Alexander Sullivan used the name Alex Mathews; in the context of his mystical activities he used the name Frater Aureolis. From 1925-1928 he put out a periodical, The Rosicrucian Gazette. The ROCF operated first from Liverpool area of England and then from the mid-1930s onwards from the Christchurch area.

The group’s headquarters was a wooden building called the Ashrama Hall, completed in 1936 on the grounds of Catherine Chalk’s house on Somerford Road near Christchurch, England. Peter Caddy became one of Sullivan’s disciples in 1936, introduced by his then brother-in-law Cyril “Jim” Barnes. In the light of future developments at the Findhorn Foundation, it’s interesting to note that Sullivan’s disciples began to buy bungalows close by his Ashrama Hall.

With Mabel Besant-Scott, George Alexander Sullivan organized a rosicrucian theatre company.