Whare Ra

Whare Ra is the name of the building which housed the New Zealand branch of the magical order the Stella Matutina. It was designed and the construction overseen by one of New Zealand’s most famous architects, and a senior member of the Order, James Walter Chapman-Taylor.

"Whare Ra" was one of the last surviving Temples that could trace its lineage back to the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It was the only Temple to operate in a permanent, purpose-built building.

The foundations for the Order in New Zealand were laid by Reginald Gardiner (1872-1959). Born in New South Wales, Australia, he was the son of an Anglican vicar and brother of the Anglican vicar of St Luke's Church, Havelock North, New Zealand, where he finally settled in 1907. He formed about him an artistic, cultural and spiritual group whose activities became known as the "Havelock Work", and produced a publication called “The Forerunner”. The Havelock Work grew and in time the group became known as the Society of the Southern Cross.

In 1910, Revd. Father J. Fitzgerald travelled to New Zealand on Church business, and was introduced to the group. He was suitably impressed, and prior to his return to Britain, promised to stay in touch and to do what he could to help. One of the last G.H. Chiefs of the Order later recollected:

In due course he wrote that if further progress were to be made, that certain people of his acquaintance would need to come out from England.

In 1912 Dr. Robert Felkin, Chief of the Order of the Stella Matutina arrived, assisted by his appointment as Inspector of the Australasian Colleges of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia by William Wynn Westcott, one of the original Chiefs of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Supreme Magus of the S.R.I.A.

Travelling with his wife and daughter, he initiated a group of twenty-four members into the Order, twelve of whom were advanced to the "Second Order". A sizeable piece of land was donated, and a home for the Order constructed, which they named “Whare Ra”, or House of the Sun. It was in the basement of this house, that the large Temple was built.

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