The History of the
White Eagle Lodge

The Early Days                                  

The opening of the White Eagle Lodge took place on 22nd February, 1936, at Pembroke Hall, London. Pembroke Hall was destroyed by bombing in 1940, and new premises were opened at 9 St. Mary Abbots Place, Kensington.

The circumstances surrounding the Lodge's beginnings are complex. White Eagle's medium, Grace Cooke, was a well known speaker on Spiritualism and one of the finest mediums of her day. Grace received a series of remarkable messages believed to be from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, later to be printed in "The Return of Arthur Conan Doyle." These messages along with encouragement from White Eagle and a mysterious group from Paris, the Fraterné des Polaires, provided the basis for Grace and her friends to begin the Lodge.

The Polaires disbanded due to the war, but the Lodge continued to grow and published its first book, "Illumination", in1937.

In 1940, the first daughter lodge was dedicated in Edinburgh.

In 1945, at White Eagle's prompting, Grace and Ivan Cooke purchased a country property in the south of England, called New Lands, which today is the world-wide headquarters known as the Mother Lodge. Groups appeared around England, several of which became daughter lodges.

Small groups had been working abroad from an early stage. A Daughter Lodge was opened in New Jersey in 1947. The first European Lodge was founded in 1965, at Den Haag, Netherlands, and Australia founded its first Lodge in 1969.

The Worldwide Triangle of Temples

In 1967, White Eagle provided a clear outline for a temple to be built at New Lands, but it wasn't until 9 June 1974 that the temple opened. The White Temple opened at Maleny in Queensland, Australia, 2 September 1990, as a centre for the work in Australasia. The Temple of the Golden Rose opened at the Centre for the Americas, in Montgomery, Texas, 25 October 1992. In March 2000 the Centre for the Americas expanded with the addition of the St. Johns Retreat Center.

Grace and Ivan Cooke

Minesta (meaning "mother') was the name given to Grace by White Eagle. She was and still is affectionately known by this name. Her public career lasted forty years from the opening of the Lodge, in addition to the twenty years of work with the Spiritualist Church before that.

She passed in 1979, followed by her husband Ivan in 1981, and both of them still actively support the work from the spiritual planes.

Joan Hodgson and Ylana Hayward became joint Lodge Mothers until Joan's passing in October 1995. Ylana Hayward continues as Spiritual Lodge Mother today,  Jenny Dent as acting Worldwide Lodge Mother assisted by Colum and Jeremy Hayward.