An essay on the two temples of 1907 and the statute between them. In Havelock North, the Stella Matutina built Whare Ra — the last purpose-built Golden Dawn temple in the world, its roll including two Anglican bishops and a Governor-General, closed on its own terms in August 1978. In the Urewera, the Tūhoe prophet Rua Kēnana built Hiona at Maungapōhatu; the Tohunga Suppression Act named him as its reason for existing and was never used against him. Fifty-five years, nine convictions, repeal in 1962, and a formal pardon a century after the raid. The essay also follows the wider respectable wave: Conan Doyle's 1920 tour, spiritualism argued out in the newspapers, and a nineteen-year-old Edmund Hillary qualifying as a teacher of Radiant Living.
Two Endings
Whare Ra had everything a tradition can be given — building, charter, patronage — and closed anyway in August 1978. The Act had no temple and no patron, and failed by its own measure: nine convictions in fifty-five years, its named target never prosecuted under it. What survived was never held in a building or a statute at all.
By Alex Vizcroft, author of Fal-e Hafez: The Oracle of Shiraz (Vizcroft Publishing). Books available on Amazon. Read in full on the Writings page.