included spiritualism, theosophy, and Eastern religion. We also know that he attended meetings at a spiritualist camp in Massachusetts, that he joined the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, and that he was one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research.
“All this frenetic activity appears to have come to an end when he discovered the Order of the Labyrinth in 1879. ‘I am very close to finding the answers I seek,’ he wrote Sarah Binder in October of 1880. ‘I have met a remarkable woman, Miss Emily Wethers, who seems to have true occult powers. I have been promised that I will know all when I reach the Tenth Grade of the Order.’
“Oddly, Binder does not mention the OotL in any subsequent letters to his niece. Perhaps he had been told not to divulge the secrets of the Order, or perhaps he had not learned as much as he had hoped he would. Emily Wethers (about whom we know almost nothing) and Mary Frances must have satisfied him in ways that the other groups had not, however, because he remained in the Order until 1910.
“Another member, Lady Dorothy Westingate, joined the Order in 1883. Her husband, Lord Albert Westingate, had died in 1878. As far as we know, Lady Dorothy returned home after his funeral and did not leave again for five years. The first time she ventured outside seems to have been to attend a meeting of the OotL.
“Apparently a medium in the Order, either Mary Frances or Emily Wethers or both, professed to have contacted Lady Dorothy’s dead husband. This marks a departure for the Order; they had never before claimed mediumship among their powers. (See Chapter 5, ‘Ghosts and Guides,’ for a comparison of occult groups which contact the dead and those which receive their wisdom from guides or masters on another plane. Madame Helena Blavatsky, whose masters or ‘mahatmas’ lived in the Himalayas, always spoke of mediums with a great deal of scorn.)
“It is difficult to see this new development within the OotL as anything but a desire for monetary gain. Lord Westingate had left his wife a very wealthy woman, though the precise extent of Lady Dorothy’s fortune is unknown. It must have been considerable, however, because from the years 1878 to 1883 she did little but add to the house she had inherited from her husband. According to her record books she spent over £50,000 on this task.
“A gentleman, it is said, never discusses money. Yet gentlemen have money, a great deal of it, and this money must come from somewhere. Lord Sanderson’s bank records, which were entered into evidence at his trial, show him in financial difficulties in the mid-1880s, though the ultimate cause of these difficulties is unknown. Perhaps he was caught up in the agricultural depression of the 1870s and 1880s, when wheat from the United States, newly strong after their Civil War, poured into England, causing the price of British wheat to drop. Perhaps he had industrial interests which failed when the industries of both Germany and Italy began to rival England’s.
“But after these initial difficulties the fortunes of Lord Sanderson began to rise while those of Lady Westingate fell. At the time of his disappearance in 1910 he owned two houses in London and a majority share in a brewery, a shipping company, and a steelworks. In 1912 Dorothy Westingate, facing an acute shortage of funds, was forced to sell her house.
“Outright accusations of financial impropriety appear in 1910. On August 19 of that year Colonel Binder brought suit against four members of the Order, Mrs. Mary Frances, Lord Harrison Sanderson, Lady Dorothy Westingate, and Miss Emily Wethers, claiming that they had defrauded him of thousands of pounds. Why he waited thirty years before resorting to legal action is unknown.
“In the course of the trial Colonel Binder released several of the Order’s secret documents and rituals, some of which were printed in the Times and other newspapers to widespread amusement and
“All this frenetic activity appears to have come to an end when he discovered the Order of the Labyrinth in 1879. ‘I am very close to finding the answers I seek,’ he wrote Sarah Binder in October of 1880. ‘I have met a remarkable woman, Miss Emily Wethers, who seems to have true occult powers. I have been promised that I will know all when I reach the Tenth Grade of the Order.’
“Oddly, Binder does not mention the OotL in any subsequent letters to his niece. Perhaps he had been told not to divulge the secrets of the Order, or perhaps he had not learned as much as he had hoped he would. Emily Wethers (about whom we know almost nothing) and Mary Frances must have satisfied him in ways that the other groups had not, however, because he remained in the Order until 1910.
“Another member, Lady Dorothy Westingate, joined the Order in 1883. Her husband, Lord Albert Westingate, had died in 1878. As far as we know, Lady Dorothy returned home after his funeral and did not leave again for five years. The first time she ventured outside seems to have been to attend a meeting of the OotL.
“Apparently a medium in the Order, either Mary Frances or Emily Wethers or both, professed to have contacted Lady Dorothy’s dead husband. This marks a departure for the Order; they had never before claimed mediumship among their powers. (See Chapter 5, ‘Ghosts and Guides,’ for a comparison of occult groups which contact the dead and those which receive their wisdom from guides or masters on another plane. Madame Helena Blavatsky, whose masters or ‘mahatmas’ lived in the Himalayas, always spoke of mediums with a great deal of scorn.)
“It is difficult to see this new development within the OotL as anything but a desire for monetary gain. Lord Westingate had left his wife a very wealthy woman, though the precise extent of Lady Dorothy’s fortune is unknown. It must have been considerable, however, because from the years 1878 to 1883 she did little but add to the house she had inherited from her husband. According to her record books she spent over £50,000 on this task.
“A gentleman, it is said, never discusses money. Yet gentlemen have money, a great deal of it, and this money must come from somewhere. Lord Sanderson’s bank records, which were entered into evidence at his trial, show him in financial difficulties in the mid-1880s, though the ultimate cause of these difficulties is unknown. Perhaps he was caught up in the agricultural depression of the 1870s and 1880s, when wheat from the United States, newly strong after their Civil War, poured into England, causing the price of British wheat to drop. Perhaps he had industrial interests which failed when the industries of both Germany and Italy began to rival England’s.
“But after these initial difficulties the fortunes of Lord Sanderson began to rise while those of Lady Westingate fell. At the time of his disappearance in 1910 he owned two houses in London and a majority share in a brewery, a shipping company, and a steelworks. In 1912 Dorothy Westingate, facing an acute shortage of funds, was forced to sell her house.
“Outright accusations of financial impropriety appear in 1910. On August 19 of that year Colonel Binder brought suit against four members of the Order, Mrs. Mary Frances, Lord Harrison Sanderson, Lady Dorothy Westingate, and Miss Emily Wethers, claiming that they had defrauded him of thousands of pounds. Why he waited thirty years before resorting to legal action is unknown.
“In the course of the trial Colonel Binder released several of the Order’s secret documents and rituals, some of which were printed in the Times and other newspapers to widespread amusement and
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