Masonic Record

John Sebastian Marlow Ward (1885-1949) was an English antiquarian, mystic, occult scholar, and museums' pioneer. Ward's provocative works on Masonic symbolism, secret societies, and spirit communications remain in print, and the innovative social history museum - the Abbey Folk Park - which he founded in New Barnet, north London in the 1930s, was later transplanted to Queensland, Australia, where it continues to flourish. His career demonstrates a remarkable fusion of the esoteric and spiritual pre-occupations of the early 20th century, with the deeper currents of antiquarianism and Christian mysticism. Ward's life of energetic work, spiritual exploration, and public activity presents a compelling narrative. His career moved from Cambridge Freemasonry and Edwardian Britain's occult revival to wartime spirit communications and mystical visions of a Pentecostal apocalypse as World War II approached. His unique and populist history museum fused a passion for Britain's disappearing heritage with his conviction that the collapse of Western civilization was imminent. When Ward was unfairly disgraced in a sensational court case in May 1945, he and his followers departed England for Cyprus in self-imposed exile. Archangels and Archaeology examines Ward's extraordinary life and career, demonstrating how these religious, intellectual, and cultural themes - so often treated in isolation - came together in the turbulent decades of the early 20th century. But, his career also has its own tragic arc: from youthful antiquarian, to the mature scholar, to full-blown mystic and eccentric religious leader, and, finally, to his own fall from public grace, in exile and decline.