Lucis Magazine.
1956 Monthly
London, England. Publisher: Pre-Nicene Publishing. Editor: Richard, Duc de Palatine, D.D., 33(o) (Ronald Powell).
1/1, 1956. 32 pp., $3.00/£1 a year.

Powell (1916- ) was an Australian-born Theosophist and former priest in the Liberal Catholic Church. He was consecrated a bishop in the Mariavite Church in 1953 (though he seems to have claimed descent through John Yarker) in the labyrinthine succession tangles of the succession of the O.T.O. and in turn consecrated Stephan Hoeller in California. In the 1950s he was active in the United States as the Prince Chief Adept of the Order of the True Rosy Cross and then started the Brotherhood and Order of the Pleroma. These he explained as follows: "The Brotherhood of the Pleroma deals with the purificatory stage assisted by the philosophical training, the Order of the Pleroma deals with the true religious practices which will manifest as Illumination, and in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light the individuals attains [sic]perfection in the art of the Gnosis of the Soul and God by the scientific application of the two former sections." After successfully completing these stages, "a man will finally become one of the Elect of God and take his place in the Empire of Light." The Brotherhood and Order were intended to be limited to 700 members, each paying $2.00 a month for his teachings, so that, as Powell said, he could personally instruct them. It is unknown whether he ever reached that number but his rates certainly increased over time. He used the journal to promote these organizations and his University of Life that propounded his Gnostic teachings. Whatever Powell's exalted titles, in his daily life he affected, as Nat Freedland, noted the manner of a "professional-looking divorced businessman who enjoys jokes, cigars, and brandy when he's not on the speaker's platform."

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