PUBLICATIONS LIST: EDWARD WILLIAM BERRIDGE (1844-1920)
His time as a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn:
Berridge was initiated in May 1889 and chose the motto Resurgam. In February 1891 he was one of the first members to take the GD’s second initiation, into its newly-constituted inner 2nd Order. He was sub-imperator of the Isis-Urania temple in London from 1892 to March 1896.
In 1900 he, with others, was expelled from the Order. Later in 1900 he helped to found the independent Isis temple which was active in west London until at least 1913.
Sources:
Initiation: : The Golden Dawn Companion by R A Gilbert. Northampton: The Aquarian Press 1986: p141. Offices held: p32. Isis temple: p40.
Expulsion: Freemasons’ Library GD collection call number GD 2/4/3/37, Minutes of the meeting of the 2nd Order of the Isis-Urania temple, 5 May 1900.
Some biographical information:
Edward William Berridge trained as a doctor: MB University of London 1865; hospital experience gained at St Bartholomew’s. He was registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) from 1868. He was not a member of the Royal College of Medicine or of the Royal College of Surgeons. After qualifying in the orthodox manner studying allopathic medicine, he retrained as a homoeopath and went into private practice. I don’t have any direct evidence but I think several members of the GD were patients of his.
Sources:
GMC registers. Berridge was listed from 1868 to 1919.
English Journal of Education issue of 1863 p108 matriculation examinations for the University of London.
Medical Times and Gazette of 6 August 1864 p181; also in The Lancet 1864 volume 2 issue of 6 August 1864 p169.
British Medical Journal issue of 20 May 1865 p525 as the winner of the Hichens Prize.
Medical Times and Gazette 1865 p240 issue of 26 August 1865 p239 as having passed the first MB examinations.
The Medical Press and Circular 1868 p446 issue of 20 May 1868 p446 as having passed the bachelor of surgery exams.
Some hospital work after he qualified: Times Tue 22 January 1878 p11 Inquests with Berridge giving evidence as one of the “house surgeons at the London Hospital, where the deceased died”.
Medical Directory entries:
- 1870 London list p60 in practice at 254 St Paul’s Road Canonbury
- 1873 London list p60 at 4 Highbury New Park
- 1883 London list p76 now at 48 Sussex Gardens Hyde Park which is where he was during the early years of the GD.
- 1904 London list p72 now at 193 Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park.
- 1920 last entry London list p91, address as 1904.
As a homoeopath, having studied in the USA:
Rivista Omiopatica issue 23 1877 p322 Edward William Berridge “di Londra”; on p380 in practice at Claremont Villa, 4 Highbury New Park.
An entry for him at Sue Young’s homoeopathy website including the information that he was in the US in 1875. See www.sueyounghistories.com.
At www.wholehealthnow.com an article on the International Hahnemannian Association reproduced from its entry in the Encyclopedia Homeopathica. The Association was founded in 1880 as a reaction against attempts by some homoeopaths to move away from the principles laid down by homoeopathy’s founder, Dr Hahnemann. Edward William Berridge is in the list of the Association’s founding members.
SUB-HEADINGS for the lists below:
Medical always as Berridge, I think
Occult There’s one publication as ‘berridge’; in an occult journal
As Resurgam his motto in GD – one possible but not likely publication
As Respiro apologist for Thomas Lake Harris and the Brotherhood of the New Life.
THE PUBLICATIONS
MEDICAL always as Edward William Berridge.
MEDICAL: ARTICLES; EDITORIAL
1867 The Hahnemannian Monthly volume 3 1867 p461: Cannabis indica. “Proving by Edward William Berridge MB BS”. Reproduced in Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting issued by the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania. Volumes 1-6 1867 p63. Snippet seen online.
1878-79 ?81
Editor and contributor to The Organon (full details below). The British Library has volumes 1 and 2, 1878 and 1879. That the magazine continued after volume 2 is suggested in volume 2 number 4 October 1879 editorial p389; and that issues continued to be published until 1881 is asserted by Sue Young at her web pages on the history of homoeopathy; see www.sueyounghistories.com
The Organon: A Quarterly Anglo-American Jnl of Homoeopathic Medicine and Progressive Collateral Science. Volumes 1 and 2 both published Liverpool by medical publisher and bookseller Adam Holden of 48 Church Street. On the title page of both volumes the same four editors are listed: Thomas Skinner MD Liverpool; Edward William Berridge MD London; Adolphe Lippe PhD Philadelphia; Samuel Swan MD New York City. None of the editorials were credited.
Berridge’s contributions:
Volume 1 number 1 January 1878;
p29 cerebral paresis cured
p107 sarsaparilla
p112 extracts from homoeopathic literature
Volume 1 number 2 April 1878:
p131 selection of the remedy, illustrated
also p131 3 cases of whitlow
Volume 1 number 3 July 1878:
p281 3 cases of heart disease
also p281 selection of the remedy, illustrated
p347 extracts from homoeopathic literature
also p347 fragmentary notes on lachesis
also p347 rumen in cough
Volume 1 number 4 October 1878:
p362 erythroxylon coca
p418 3 cases of dysmenia
also p418 selection of the remedy, illustrated
p438 digitalis in post scarlatinal dropsy,
Volume 2 number 1 January 1879:
p3-22 and to be continued: Homoeopathy Vindicated, in reply to Dr Kidd’s Laws of Therapeutics.
P63 Ophthalmic Studies; 1st of series. Allium capa
Volume 2 number 2 April 1879:
p145-172 Homoeopathy vindicated part 2. This article was later issued as a stand-alone pamphlet.
P175 Ophthalmic Studies; 2nd of series. Uran.nit (sic)
p258 involuntary proving of ether
Volume 2 number 3 July 1879:
p318 Ophthalmic Studies; 3rd of series. Vespa erabro
p320 Ophthalmic Studies; 3rd of series contd. Tarantula
p331 pneumonia
p353 eczema capitis-graphites
p355 characteristic symptom of cicuta-vir
Volume 2 number 4 October 1879.
p421 secret of Jenichen’s high potencies revealed
p427 Jenichen’s history and true status in Society
p437 Jenichen’s death and Will
p461 Ophthalmic Studies.; 4th and last of series. Syphilinum
MEDICAL: BOOKS
1869 A Repertory to the Materia Medica. Philadelphia: printed by de Armond and Goodrich for the Hahnemannian Monthly.
A review in the Medical Investigator issue of May 1869 accused Berridge’s book of being a “rehash” of a publication issued in 1859 by the Hahnemannian Publishing Society after six years of work by a number of different contributors. The review was reproduced in The Hahnemannian Monthly volume 4 issue of June 1869 pp480-81 as part of that month’s editorial. The editorial didn’t deny the accusation but said that the Monthly had received a number of letters speaking well of the new volume.
There were enough positive responses for a 2nd edition of Berridge’s Repertory:
1873 Complete Repertory to the Homoeopathic Materia Medica. Revised, rearranged and enlarged. London: Alfred Heath.
1878 an advert for the Complete Repertory to the Homoeopathic Materia Medica as a volume 1: Eyes, 2nd edition, enlarged and revised. Obtainable from the compiler/author. Published in the endpages of volume 1 of The Organon: A Quarterly Anglo-American Jnl of Homoeopathic Medicine and Progressive Collateral Science.
1879 Homoeopathy Vindicated. A reply to Dr Joseph Kidd’s laws of therapeutics, by E W Berridge. Published Liverpool: Adam Holden of 48 Church Street. The Wellcome Collection has a copy of this which can be read online. It had previously been published as a two-part article in The Organon… volume 2 (see above).
A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE MEDICAL AND THE OCCULT. As E W Berridge:
1905 Occult Review volume 1 May 1905. Editor Ralph Shirley. Published London: William Rider and Son Ltd: pp238-240: Occult Medicine. It was an introduction to homoeopathy. Occult Review can now be read at iapsop.com.
OCCULT
AS RESURGAM, his GD motto. I couldn’t see anything in the British Library catalogue that I was absolutely sure was Edward William Berridge writing as Resurgam. Looking with worldcat.org I came across this BOOK. I don’t think it’s by Berridge but if it is, it’s published posthumously:
1925 The Larger Hope. Published London: J Bale and Co.
All the occult books and articles written by Berridge as Respiro were undertaken to promote the teachings of the American mystic Thomas Lake Harris (1828-1906). Harris was founder and head of the Brotherhood of the New Life. From his time living in the US if not before, Berridge knew several Brotherhood members. Berridge’s letters to them, especially to Arthur Cuthbert, are part of the sources for Schneider and Lawton’s biography (listed below). Though not all Harris’s followers chose to do so, some went to live on two estates that the Brotherhood owned, at Brocton in New York State and at Fountaingrove near Santa Rosa California. Berridge was part of a loose-knit group of Brotherhood members still living in the UK; which included GD members Charles William Pearce and his wife Isabella, née Duncan.
Tanya Cheadle’s thesis (see below) explains in detail Harris’s ideas on the bisexuality of God and Jesus; and his belief in sexual mysticism – the act of sex between a loving man and woman being a means of reaching transcendent states of consciousness. Sex as an aid to the raising of magical power and the summoning of magical entities was known to GD members, of course; in theory. There’s no evidence, however, that they went as far as putting it into practice. Harris’s ideas were widely misunderstood and condemned as encouraging free love; and Berridge’s advocacy of them amongst GD members caused controversy.
Sources for the section above:
Biography of Thomas Lake Harris: A Prophet and a Pilgrim by Herbert W Schneider and George Lawton. New York: Columbia University Press 1942.
PhD thesis 2014 at the University of Glasgow by Tanya Cheadle: Scotland’s Sexual Progressives 1880-1914. The Pearces are well covered in this. See the thesis at //theses.gla.ac.uk: p6 for a definition of conjugial marriage. The thesis has been published: Sexual Progressives: Reimagining Intimacy in Scotland 1880-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press in its Gender in History series. 2020.
For Thomas Lake Harris’s theories being known in the GD:
W B Yeats and W T Horton: The Record of an Occult Friendship by George Mills Harper. Macmillan Press Ltd 1980: p6, p11, letters from William Thomas Horton to Yeats dated March 1896 and May 1896. Though he and Berridge don’t seem to have known each other before 1896, Horton was a UK-based member of the Brotherhood of the New Life. Yeats recommended Horton to the GD as a suitable initiate in early 1896. Horton met some GD members and investigated what the GD’s magic was about. In a letter written during March 1896 Horton mentions Harris’s theories as being “much discussed in the Order”. However, he declined to join the GD, as he found it was not willing to incorporate Harris’s ideas into its practice: by which he seems to have meant not the sex-as-mysticism necessarily but the equality of the feminine with the masculine.
Berridge’s known publications on the teachings and life of Thomas Lake Harris:
ARTICLES 1894-1895:
The Brotherhood of the New Life. Published in The Unknown World: A Magazine Devoted to the Occult Sciences. Volume 1 numbers 1-6, the only issues that were published; August 1894 to January 1895. Founded and edited by GD member A E Waite. In volume 1:
- number 3 issue of 15 October 1894 pp118-122: The Brotherhood of the New Life. Part 1 of a series, which had been requested by the editor.
- number 4 issue of 15 November 1894 pp168-72: The Brotherhood of the New Life. Part 2: Internal Respiration.
- number 5 issue of 15 December 1894 pp219-25: The Brotherhood of the New Life. Part 2: Internal Respiration continued.
- number 6 issue of 15 January 1895 pp258-64: The Brotherhood of the New Life. Part 3: The Impending World Crisis. At the end of the article it says “to be continued” but this was the last issue of The Unknown World that was published.
Please note that the part numbers and sub-headings used in this set of articles are not the same as the part numbers and sub-headings of books that Berridge as Respiro was publishing – see below for more details of those.
1897-99
Berridge as Respiro had two of his volumes on Thomas Lake Harris published in 1897 (publication details below). From 1897 to 1899 Berridge had items published in Light. They were on a variety of subjects; mostly short letters, signed as Berridge; but there was also one item signed as Resurgam.
Full publication details for Light:
Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult and Mystical Research published for its proprietors at 2 Duke Street Adelphi and then 110 St Martin’s Lane. Volume 17 January-December 1897. Volume 18 January-December 1898. Volume 19 January-December 1899.
A longer article in Light 1898: The Contradictions of Theosophy.
- issue of 19 March 1898 p142
- issue of 2 April 1898 p167
- issue of 9 April 1898 pp175-76.
Responses to the article by Light’s readers were published over the next few months. They included comments from two GD members, Arthur Lovell and Isabel de Steiger.
BOOKS
The series with the overall title The Brotherhood of the New Life; an Epitome of the Works and Teachings of Thomas Lake Harris. I used the list of titles and volume numbers prepared by Herbert W Schneider and George Lawton for their biography of Thomas Lake Harris, A Prophet and a Pilgrim published New York: Columbia University Press 1942 and printed in the bibliography p566.
Schneider and Lawton’s list gives the impression that Berridge/Respiro had an overall plan for the series from the outset: how many volumes there would be and what they would be called. Things didn’t work out like that: time, the need to earn a living, further thought, and the development of new approaches meant that volumes were published out of order; and some volumes were issued several times while others were never published at all, the ideas they would have contained perhaps being incorporated into other volumes.
When looking through the British Library catalogue and on worldcat.org, I found that the publication dates of some of the earliest volumes in Schneider and Lawton’s list were those of second editions. Some copies of what must have been first editions were circulating in the GD in the early 1890s, earlier than any of the ones Schneider and Lawton knew about. The British Library doesn’t have any first editions; nor did worldcat.org came up with any in the public domain. I conclude that the first editions were probably very small print-runs, prepared by Berridge; printed at his expense by a printing firm not a publishing firm; and only available directly from him.
The Pearce Editions:
Charles William Pearce was a long-time advocate for the teachings of Thomas Lake Harris. He was one of the group of members of the Brotherhood of the New Life who lived in the UK; and had at one time considered going to live on the Brotherhood’s estate at Brocton New York State. Thomas Lake Harris and his third wife, Jane Lee Waring, stayed with Charles William and his second wife Isabella in Glasgow in 1903 and one of the results of his visit was the development of a publishing venture to issue works by and about Thomas Lake Harris, to make Harris’s teachings more widely known. The third editions of Berridge’s books were part of this venture.
Charles William Pearce and Isabella née Duncan became members of the GD quite early on: December 1889. Perhaps Berridge had recommended them as suitable candidates for initiation. As they both lived in Glasgow they would have found it difficult to be active in the Order: there was no GD temple in Scotland before 1895. I’m not sure, either, whether the GD’s focus on western hermeticism and magic quite fitted with the Pearces’ involvement in radical social and political campaigns.
Source for the Pearces:
GD initiations: : The Golden Dawn Companion by R A Gilbert. Northampton: The Aquarian Press 1986 p143.
PhD thesis 2014 at the University of Glasgow by Tanya Cheadle: Scotland’s Sexual Progressives 1880-1914. See the thesis at //theses.gla.ac.uk.
Schneider and Lawton’s list. I’ve put Schneider and Lawton’s volume numbers and titles in italics. I’ve added to that information some publication details; and put in some review opinions I’ve found in occult magazines of the time.
1 Internal Respiration. Early 1890s: self-published 1st edition. 1896: 2nd edition published London: E W Allen. 1914: 3rd edition as Internal Respiration, or the Plenary Gift of the Holy Spirit. Published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co.
2 The Impending World Crisis. ?1894: self-published 1st edition. 1897: 2nd edition London: E W Allen.
3 The Divine Incarnation. 1897: London: E W Allen as The Divine Incarnation, or the Supreme Divinity of the Lord Jesus. 1917: published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co.
The 1897 volume was mentioned in Light volume 17 issue of 2 January 1897 P1. The editor had decided to review the book himself but had soon despaired; in the editorial he said, “We have done our best with it, but find ourselves entirely unable to comprehend [its] “queer theatricalism and extraordinary jargon”. Light’s editor suggested that the author “write without affectation” in future.
Full publication details for Light 1897:
Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult and Mystical Research published for its proprietors (the London Spiritualist Alliance) at 2 Duke Street Adelphi. Volume 17 January-December 1897.
4 The Second Advent. 1897: published London: E W Allen. ?1914: The Second Advent, or the Personal Return of the Lord Jesus published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co.
5 The Man, the Seer, the Adept, the Avatar. 1897: 2nd edition published London: E W Allen. Schneider and Lawton noted that the title had been changed at the last minute: pre-publication adverts had called it The Servant of Humanity; or Thomas Lake Harris the Man. I found it reviewed in Light with a different title again: The Man, the Seer, the Adept, the Avatar, or, Thomas Lake Harris the Inspired Messenger of the Cycle.
There’s a copy of the 1897 2nd edition of volume 5 in the Warburg Institute Gerald Yorke Collection; one of the items in the Collection’s catalogue number NS73, letters to Frederick Leigh Gardner. It’s described as revised and enlarged and was available for 1 shilling. Against the printed author’s name ‘Respiro’ someone has added, in pencil, “(Dr Berridge)”.
6 The Lifting of the Veil; or Thomas Lake Harris the Seer. Schneider and Lawton decided that this putative volume 6 was never published. They suggested that its intended contents became part of volume 5.
7 The Adept of the Logos. Schneider and Lawton gave 1911 as a publication date for this volume but I could only find one from 1914 published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co as The Adept of the Logos, or Thomas Lake Harris the Initiate.
8 The Messenger of God; or Thomas Lake Harris the Avatar of the Cycle. As with the intended volume 6, Schneider and Lawton decided that volume 8 was not published, its ideas probably incorporated into volume 5.
9 The Lifting of the Veil; or Thomas Lake Harris the Seer. Was this another volume that never saw the light of day? Schneider and Lawton didn’t give any publication details; it’s not one of those published by C W Pearce and Co; and I didn’t see any copies at the British Library or on worldcat.org.
10 The Evolution of the Cosmos. 1910: published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co; as The Evolution of the Cosmos, or the Manifestation of the Finite from the Infinite. Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co. Pearce and Co issued it as a 3rd edition but when I was searching I didn’t find any earlier ones.
As a 3rd edition, volume 10 was reviewed in The Co-Mason volume 2 April 1910 pp88-90 by the magazine’s regular reviewer “Z”. Unlike most reviews of Berridge’s volumes on Thomas Lake Harris, the review was quite positive, describing the book as meriting “careful study” and as containing “much valuable information in a very attractive form”. Even this review, however, concluded that Respiro “mars his otherwise excellent work by unnecessary vituperations against systems with which he is not in accord”.
11 The Orbs of the Universe. 1908: published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co; as Orbs of the Universe; or Harmonic Life on Unfallen Worlds; an Epitome of the Work and Teaching of Thomas Lake Harris. As with volume 10, Pearce and Co issued this as a 3rd edition but I doubt the existence of editions one and two.
This 3rd edition was also reviewed by “Z” in The Co-Mason volume 2 October 1910 pp202-03. The review noted that in this volume Berridge wrote a section comparing the work of Thomas Lake Harris as a clairvoyant with that of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Swedenborg.
12 The Inspired Word. 1915 and apparently there weren’t any earlier editions of this volume. Published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co as The Inspired Word, or the Revelation of God to Man.
13 The Secret of Satan. I haven’t found any evidence of a first and second edition of this one but a 3rd edition was published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co 1907.
14 Re-Incarnation. Schneider and Lawton thought that this volume was published in 1912 but I couldn’t find it on worldcat.org.
15 Arch-Natural Angelhood. Schneider and Lawton concluded that this too was a volume that was never published. No copy was listed at worldcat.org and there isn’t a copy at the British Library.
16 Counterparts. 1909: published Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co as a 3rd edition and with the title Counterparts or the Marriage of Heaven and Earth for Eternity. Glasgow: C W Pearce and Co.
I saw a reference to this volume online in the bibliography of a biography of Laurence Oliphant.
Though not the last volume of Schneider and Lawton’s series, C W Pearce’s issue of volume 12 in the series was the last to be published, in 1915.
Copyright SALLY DAVIS
27 February 2023
Email me at
Find the web pages of Roger Wright and Sally Davis, including my list of people initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn between 1888 and 1901, at:
***