P.L. Travers
P.L. Travers, born Helen Lyndon Goff, was born in Queensland, Australia in 1899. In her early twenties, Travers headed to Ireland, the land where her father was originally from (12). It was in Ireland that Travers met William Butler Yeats, a well-known member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1,12,14,15). Travers was a known follower of such minds as W.B. Yeats, George William Russell (known as AE), and George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1,3,12,14,15). These three men are known for their various beliefs in Zen, the occult, cosmoses and Paganism – helping to form the belief system of P.L. Travers. Travers was a firm believer that a female passes through three stages of life: the nymph, the mother, and finally, the crone (12). Travers herself strived to reach her final stage as crone, saying that it was the ultimate accomplishment for a female (12). These three stages to which Travers refers are the stages of the Great Goddess, or the Triple Goddess in the Pagan faith (13).
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