Alexander Watt

Born: 1890.

Died:  23 January 1961.

Alexander Watt was English by birth, and held a seat on the Toronto stock exchange. John Robert Colombo described him as a ‘local character’, and added that Watt owned a large personal library of occult books, something unusual for that place and time. There was also mention of ‘manuscript material’ and correspondence with Karl Germer (1885-1962, outer head of Ordo Templi Orientis from 1947-62) and Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990), the Canadian esotericist whose massive encyclopedic work The Secret Teachings of All Ages is practically required reading for any serious student of the history of the occult.

John Robert Colombo mentioned that at that time in the mid-1950s he’d been part of a ‘small, ad-hoc’ group of occult students, to which Watt ‘spoke occasionally about Crowleyanity, obliquely about Rosicrucianism, openly about Anthroposophy, and knowingly about Theosophy.’ Some information on him is available via various archived online sources. Watt was a Rosicrucian (among other things), and had an interest in linking the exactly three centuries between the 1604 appearance of the Rosicrucian Manifesto, and the scribing of The Book of the Law in 1904; he knew Crowley, at least via correspondence, as well as Karl Germer. Watt apparently attempted to produce a series of editions of Crowley’s Holy Books, but the production quality was not good. Watt was also an O.T.O. initiate (his initiate name GADA∴ appeared in many of his books). Germer had given him one of twenty copies of a special edition of Aleister Crowley's Olla (1945), his very last published work, as a token of appreciation for Watt's efforts.

There is a fairly extensive mention of Alexander Watt in numerous archived editions of The Canadian Theosophist. For example, in the September 1935 edition (the year before John Robert Colombo was born), he is listed as President of the Kitchener Lodge. He is also listed as president of the same lodge as recent as the 1958 edition, so apparently he held this position for some time, though in certain years he alternated roles with the lodge’s secretary.

Watt’s library of rare books, along with his various letters of correspondence with Crowley, Germer, Hall, and others, as well as his Crowley watercolor, was inherited by his son Hugh, an assembler of electronics products. Hugh held on to the material for a few decades, and then decided, in 1989, to donate the rare books and other material to the library of Queens University of Kingston (which is halfway between Toronto and Montreal). The university accepted the books, but according to Colombo the chief librarian ‘took a pass’ on the cache of correspondence (which included ‘four heavy cartons of unpublished material’ as well as Crowley’s painting), ‘alluding to the ravings of a madman’. Hugh Watt, now in his own senior years and wishing to unburden himself of the cartons, then passed them on to John Robert Colombo reasoning that he was the ‘senior surviving member’ of Alexander Watt’s original ad-hoc group of occult students. Colombo has quietly owned the material since then. And so the passage of the painting was from Crowley, to Karl Germer, to Alexander Watt, to Hugh Watt, to the Queen's University librarian to immediately back to Hugh Watt, to John Robert Colombo (since 1989).

Death came with tragic suddenness to Alexander Watt of Kitchener Lodge in a motor accident on 23 January 1961. Mrs. Watt was severely injured.

Mr. Watt formed the Kitchener Lodge shortly after he moved from London, Ontario, to Kitchener and from that time he was the main support of the Lodge. He was an earnest student of Theosophy and the Kabala and his lectures on these subjects were looked forward to by members of Toronto and Hamilton Lodges as Mr. Watt always presented his material in dynamic and original manner. The last farewells to this active worker were said at a Theosophical funeral service held on Thursday, 26 January at the Toronto Crematorium.