To Reveal the Hidden Kingdom of Eld: Andrew Chumbley, the Cultus Sabbati, and Imaginal Space in Cornwall

Abstract

English occultist and magician Andrew Chumbley, founder of the Cultus Sabbati and author of grimoires such as The Azoëtia and One: The Grimoire of the Golden Toad, is well-known for his association with the Essex region. Very few people know of Chumbley’s time in Cornwall, which he visited during the early 2000’s as part of the activities of the Cultus Sabbati and shortly before his death in 2004. For example, Chumbley’s pivotal mystical poem Qutub was written on the train from Essex to Falmouth. Chumbley’s little-known Cornwall period coincided with some of the most elaborate magical operations of the first incarnation of the Cultus Sabbati, as well as Chumbley’s composition of the most imaginative works of his late period. Moreover, Chumbley’s time in Cornwall is associated with the most intensely mystical influences of his work, including his fascination with the direct mystical knowledge promised by the Gnostics. Cornwall’s unique history of magic, as well as the power of its haunted landscapes, converged to reveal new depths in Chumbley’s eclectic aspirations toward a pan-British vision of witchcraft, as expressed in a group of landscape-based rites called the Cucullati workings. In turn, these workings were part of a larger vision of the Trivagantus: three points in the British isles (Wales, Essex, and Cornwall as well as a central point in Glastonbury) with associated native witchcraft traditions. This article will explore the physical sites that Chumbley visited in Cornwall and their relationship to the concealed, superimposed Otherworld of imaginal space, which he referred to in the Dragon Book of Essex as “the hidden kingdom of Eld.” Drawing upon collaboration between a scholar and a practitioner, this article will reveal the currents of traditional witchcraft that converged in Cornwall at a crossroads of art, psychogeography and gnosis to energise some of Chumbley’s most powerful work.