Esotericism, referring to the religious or spiritual beliefs peripheral to a society’s dominant religious culture, has long been an important category in studies of early twentieth-century British and Irish literature and art. Scholars have argued that, far from being mere aesthetic window-dressing, esoteric ideas comprise the thematic content and belief-system of much modernist writing, and consequently recent interdisciplinary work has comprehensively explored Anglophone modernism’s fascination with spirituality, mysticism and occultism (Dutta, 2022; Materer, 1996; Monteith, 2007; Soud, 2016; Surrette, 1993). This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the same is true for British music of this period. A wealth of understudied musicians – Granville Bantock, Arnold Bax, Rutland Boughton, York Bowen, Clara Butt, Erik Chisholm, Rebecca Clarke, Bernard Van Dieren, John Foulds, Eugene Goossens, Cecil Gray, Joseph Holbrooke, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Constant Lambert, Mary Lucas, Maud MacCarthy, Margaret Morris, Helen Perkin, Edmund Rubbra, Cyril Scott, Kaikhosru Sorabji, Evelyn Suart and Peter Warlock – were deeply interested in anthroposophy, astrology, Celtic mythology, eastern mysticism, hermeticism, nature mysticism, numerology, occultism, paganism, spirituality, tarot card readings, the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and theosophy. 

This study sets out to uncover the esoteric networks which existed amongst these musicians, building a holistic picture of this cultural phenomenon and its influence. By examining the key locations at which esotericism and modernism came into contact – The Cave of the Golden Calf, The Boathouse Studio of Mary Lucas, The Offices of the Theosophical Society in London, and The Sackbut music journal’s editorial team and contributors – through the analysis of primary and archival materials, I seek to reveal the cultural context of these esoteric networks and the influence esotericism had on musical modernism in Britain.