Yarker, John (1833-1913)

British Freemason and occultist, active in Manchester, England. He was initiated as a Mason at the age of 21 in the Lodge of Integrity, Manchester, October 25, 1854, becoming master of this lodge in 1857. He became the first worshipful master of the Fidelity Lodge of Mark Masters. At the age of 23, he was installed a Knight Templar in the Jerusalem Conclave on July 11, 1856. There followed various Masonic honors, and in 1864 he was appointed Masonic Grand Constable of England. He also traveled extensively, visiting the United States, the West Indies, and Cuba. At a time of Masonic renaissance, he revived many rites and promoted a number of rites on his own, probably more for vanity than profit. These included the Rites of Sat B'Hai, Swedenborg, Mizraim, and the Ancient and Primitive Rite. The latter was later associated with magicians Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley.

Yarker was thus associated with the fringe Masonic secret orders that preceded the establishment of the OTO and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The OTO originated in a charter from Yarker to the German occultists Joshua Klein, Franz Hartmann, and Theodore Reuss, licensing them to set up in Berlin a Grand Lodge of the Masonic rite of Mizraim and Memphis. By 1904, occultist Karl Kellner was also involved. The August Order of Light, developed by Maurice Portman, was passed to Yarker circa 1890, who amalgamated it with rituals from his Sat B'Hai Rite.

Yarker published a number of Masonic works and also an abridged translation of Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet 's Magie Magnétique under the title Magnetic Magic (1898). His most well-known work is The Arcane Schools; A Review of Their Origin and Antiquity; with a General History of Freemasonry (1909). He also edited a periodical, The Kneph (1881-95), concerned with Masonic matters. He died on March 30, 1913.