John Goodchild

Last updated April 12, 2019

John Arthur Goodchild (1851–1914) was a physician, and later author of several works of poetry and mysticism, most famously Light of the West.

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.

Goodchild was an antiquarian influenced by British Israelite ideas and the Golden Dawn esoteric group. He was friends with William Sharp (who wrote as Fiona Macleod), who dedicated his final literary work The Winged Destiny: Studies in the Spiritual History of the Gael to Goodchild.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was an organization devoted to the study and practice of the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as a magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was active in Great Britain and focused its practices on theurgy and spiritual development. Many present-day concepts of ritual and magic that are at the centre of contemporary traditions, such as Wicca and Thelema, were inspired by the Golden Dawn, which became one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.

William Sharp was a Scottish writer, of poetry and literary biography in particular, who from 1893 wrote also as Fiona Macleod, a pseudonym kept almost secret during his lifetime. He was also an editor of the poetry of Ossian, Walter Scott, Matthew Arnold, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Eugene Lee-Hamilton.

He saw Glastonbury, Iona (Scotland) and Devenish Island (Ireland) as being a triune of holy sites in the British Isles.

Glastonbury is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, 23 miles (37 km) south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than 1 mile (2 km) across the River Brue from Street, which is now larger than Glastonbury.

Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaelic monasticism for three centuries and is today known for its relative tranquility and natural environment. It is a tourist destination and a place for spiritual retreats. Its modern Gaelic name means "Iona of (Saint) Columba".

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

Works

Somnia Medici (1884) - poetry
The Sage of Sant' Ampelio (1890) - fiction
A Fairy Godfather (1890) - fairy tale
Tales in Verse (1893) - poetry
Lyrics (1893) - poetry
The Book of Tephi (1897) - poetry
The Light of the West (1898)

In The Light of the West Goodchild advanced the theory that under the influence of the Roman church, the feminine had become neglected in Christianity, and that it was the destiny of a revitalised Celtic church to restore the feminine to due prominence in Christian life and thought.

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Celtic Christianity has been conceived of with differing levels of specificity: some writers have described a distinct Celtic Church uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from the Roman Church, while others classify it as simply a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Varying scholars reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices present in both the Irish and British churches that were not seen in the wider Christian world.

The Blue Bowl

The story is told that, in February 1885, while visiting Bordighera, Italy, Goodchild bought a "bowl and a platter" seen in a tailor's shop. They lay untouched in a cupboard for ten years.^[1] Ten years later he felt "directed" by an intense psychic experience to take the "bowl" or "cup" to Bride's Hill, Glastonbury, Somerset, a place he had never previously visited. Arriving in August 1898 he concealed the "Cup" in a pond or sluice beside a thorn tree near the River Brue. This place was reputedly known as the Women's Quarter, Beckery, and according to legend was linked to St Bride. Then, he waited for the future discovery of the cup "by women" as had appeared to him in a vision. He continued to visit the site every year from 1899 until 1906, except the year 1905.

The River Brue originates in the parish of Brewham in Somerset, England, and reaches the sea some 50 kilometres (31 mi) west at Burnham-on-Sea. It originally took a different route from Glastonbury to the sea, but this was changed by Glastonbury Abbey in the twelfth century. The river provides an important drainage route for water from a low-lying area which is prone to flooding which man has tried to manage through rhynes, canals, artificial rivers and sluices for centuries.

Benham (see refs) claims the cup was then found and became the focus of a Christian group, including Goodchild and Wellesley Tudor Pole, based in Bristol, who believed the vessel to have formerly belonged to Jesus. The object is reported to now be in the possession of the Chalice Well Trust, based in Glastonbury.

Major Wellesley Tudor Pole O.B.E. was a spiritualist and early British Bahá'í.

Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.

The Chalice Well, also known as the Red Spring, is a well situated at the foot of Glastonbury Tor in the county of Somerset, England. The natural spring and surrounding gardens are owned and managed by the Chalice Well Trust, founded by Wellesley Tudor Pole in 1959.

The platter is claimed to have been sent to the "Sons of Garibaldi" which may be a reference to the masonic Rite of Memphis-Misraim, of which Giuseppe Garibaldi was grandmaster for a while.

Notes

↑ Blamires, Steve (2013). The Little Book of the Great Enchantment, p. 195. Skylight Press. Retrieved 28 April 2014.

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References

The Avalonians, Patrick Benham, 1993
'The watching of the Rose', by Alan Royce, Avalon Magazine No. 37, Winter 2007

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[1] Blamires, Steve (2013). The Little Book of the Great Enchantment, p. 195. Skylight Press. Retrieved 28 April 2014.