Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (サミュエル＝リデル＝マクレガー＝メイザース), primarily referred to as Mathers (メイザース), is a posthumous character introduced in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index.

He was a Magician and one of the three founders of the Golden Dawn, and was one of the mentors of Aleister Crowley, whom he personally invited into the cabal. After Aleister sought to destroy all magic, he would become Aleister's enemy and was later struck down by him following the Battle of Blythe Road. Though defeated, Mathers' actions would have a major influence on the events of the Toaru series.

Appearance
Mathers wears a brightly-colored old Scottish military uniform (possibly a cavalry uniform) with a pointed witch's hat, a dark yellow-brown scarf and a thick cloak on top of it. His uniform includes a red tartan kilt, a blue/grey coat with yellow lining, a green tartan sash, a white and blue undercoat, a white and grey waist belt, and a white shoulder belt and buckle. His hat is described as worn-out and it has a decorative silver star, commonly found in the attire of the Golden Dawn's members, dangling from the right side of its brim.

Personality
Described as a charismatic eccentric, Mathers was devoted to magical research and the pursuit of his goals, never holding down a worldly job. Whilst Westcott advocated traditions and the need to compromise, Mathers expressed a desire to progress even if it meant entering areas considered heretical and taboo at the time. Mathers in particular wanted his name to be the one associated with the products of the Golden Dawn's research and the work kit which they hoped to produce, leaving his mark on history. In order to achieve his desire, he made efforts to overwrite the pieces created by the other members with his own.

Despite speaking of the work kit he desired to make as one which master and apprentice could use equally and aiming to break the master-apprentice learning system, Mathers was an authoritarian who looked down on others from a special position reserved only for himself and made use of his apprentices in order to further his own success.

Mathers also styled himself as a and sought to restore the, to an extent which troubled some of his fellow cabal members.

Mathers was described as speaking with an aloof tone, and with hints of a Scottish accent.

Golden Age
In the latter half of the 19th century, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers founded the Golden Dawn together with William Wynn Westcott (whom invited him to help in the founding and was a fellow student of the recently-deceased Anna Kingsford ) and.

With Woodman retiring due to old age, control of the growing cabal was left between Mathers and Westcott. The two had conflicting views on how the cabal and magic should proceed, as the Golden Dawn worked towards the ultimate goal of discovering a unified theory to explain the truths of the world and constructing a magical work kit that brought endless possibilities for magicians. Being of an older age, Westcott advocated tradition and saw a need to compromise, while Mathers wished to see progress, even if it meant going into areas considered taboo and heretical at the time. Mathers in particular wanted his name to be the one associated with the products of the Golden Dawn's research and sought to overwrite the individual pieces the other members had constructed with ones of his own. Eventually, the Golden Dawn eventually came to be divided between them, though neither faction had complete control over the organization as a whole.

Unlike Westcott, who had a job as a coroner with, Mathers never held down a worldly job and was focused on his magical research. He married Mina, a future painter, as part of his efforts to accomplish his goals. He also sought the revival of the House of Stuart.

Mathers eventually scouted Aleister Crowley and brought him into the cabal, intending to use the young man's talents for his own purposes. Westcott was reluctant to have Aleister enter the cabal and others held similar sentiments. Shortly after Aleister entered the cabal, he performed a summoning ceremony in the presence of the two founders, the results of which reinforced their own sentiments.

Downfall
Mathers' downfall began when Aleister learned about the future death of his daughter from Allan Bennett, which would be the result of the 'sparks' from colliding phases. He also learned about how the Golden Dawn's activities contributed to this phenomena and how the founders were aware but continued regardless, believing that Blythe Road's Treasure would protect them from the negative effects. Aleister subsequently decided to destroy the cabal in an attempt to change the fate of his daughter, wielding a curse that would doom its victims to either die or live a life devoid of success.

Aleister launched an attack on Mathers and a magical battle ensued, with both sides being evenly matched. Angered by Aleister's rebellion, Mathers called him a fool for not sticking with him to receive the scraps of his success and argued that Aleister could avoid his daughter's death by simply not having one to begin with. Aleister responded by questioning Mathers' own reasons for marrying Mina and his look enraged Mathers further, leading him to display his authoritarian traits. The battle then ended as Mathers' reinforcements arrived. Aleister retreated, but he had achieved his real objective; obtaining a sample of Mathers' blood.

After the battle, Mathers learned that Aleister had occupied 36 Blythe Road, the Golden Dawn's most important ceremonial ground and armory, supposedly on his orders. Contacting Aleister via Automatic Writing, Mathers was informed that Aleister had used his blood to produce a forged document, in order make to the Westcott faction believe that Mathers ordered Aleister to occupy Blythe Road. Not long afterwards, a furious Westcott confronted Mathers at his headquarters, together with magicians from his faction. Mathers claimed that the document was forged and it was solely Aleister's doing, but couldn't say that the document was forged with the same method which Westcott used to forge a letter from Anna Sprengel, as Westcott was in front of his subordinates and wasn't in a position to openly accept it as doing so would compromise his own position.

A war subsequently broke out between the Mathers and Westcott factions of the Golden Dawn. While battles raged in the darkness of London, Aleister Crowley took advantage to attack members of both sides and plant evidence pointing to the other side. As the war escalated, further opportunities arose and eventually an opening emerged for Aleister to take out the founders. Mathers was present when Westcott was attacked and struck down by Aleister using Blythe Road's Treasure, an arrow made of a severed hand bearing Imagine Breaker. Aleister then turned his attention to Mathers and after Mathers argued that he could have remade his daughter as many times as necessary, threw the arrow at him. Mathers managed to repel the arrow, at the cost of his arm and many of his symbolic weapons, and it was destroyed. However in focusing on protecting himself from the arrow, he made the fatal mistake of not paying attention to his real enemy, Aleister, who struck the self-styled highlander down with a claymore manifested through Spiritual Tripping, and with it brought his curse upon him. Mathers managed to set off a few more explosions but ultimately Aleister was the one left standing.

Legacy
Mathers' desire to have his name attached to the products of the Golden Dawn's research and leave his mark on history was snuffed out before it could be achieved. The Golden Dawn splintered and declined, with all attempts to recreate it ultimately failing, never producing the work kit that Mathers desired. A few years after the cabal's collapse, Aleister compiled theories derived from his contact with Aiwass, which were sensational enough to blow away the foundational theories of the Golden Dawn devised by Westcott and the new theories Mathers hoped to create by hijacking them. Though Mathers' name would likely come up if a random magician was asked to name ten famous people, his name was eclipsed by that of Aleister Crowley, who was judged to have produced most of the modern magic which continued to the present day.

Although Mathers didn't leave the mark on history he had intended, he did leave another hidden legacy behind which would greatly influence the course of events in the century afterwards. Prior to his defeat, he summoned the demon Coronzon and gave it a single command; to pretend to have been summoned by Aleister Crowley and then guide him to ruin. Bound to follow the contract even after the death of its summoner, Coronzon appeared to Aleister during his attempt at crossing the abyss in Africa, pretending to have been summoned by him, breaking through his attempts to bind it but ultimately failing to take his body and being driven off. Coronzon subsequently travelled to England (and claimed to have possessed Aleister's second daughter, Lola - though this was later revealed to be a lie). Taking the name of the Stuart dynasty Mathers hoped to revive for its alias, Coronzon secretly manipulated events, in order to fulfill its contract and free itself from its ties to Mathers, as the Archbishop of Necessarius.

His remains were supposedly buried in the graveyard of Westminster Abbey, though this was actually a decoy and he was actually buried in the graveyard of Edinburgh Castle, concealed by an anonymization barrier. At some point after his death, Mathers was reproduced along with other members of the Golden Dawn by Coronzon, through the application of Tarot-based grimoires, as part of her anti-Crowley countermeasures.

St. Germain Arc
According to Othinus, if one were to ask a random magician to name ten famous people, Mathers's name would come up alongside Rosenkreuz and St. Germain.

World Rejecter Arc
Nephthys mentions that, alongside Yeats and Crowley, Mathers was one of the biggest names of the Golden Dawn cabal.

Aleister Crowley Arc
During Kamijou Touma's ascent through the Windowless Building, he was shown a series of visions detailing Aleister Crowley, which showed the role Mathers played during those events. After Touma's battle with Aleister himself, Mathers' summoning of Coronzon was revealed to Aleister as the demon attacked him to complete its contract and sever its ties to Mathers.

Coronzon Arc
While Coronzon was temporarily sealed in Academy City, Aleister sought Mathers' remains, thought to be buried in the graveyard of Westminster Abbey, in order to utilize his connection to the demon. However when Aleister exhumed the grave, she found that the body inside was not Mathers. Immediately afterwards, she was confronted by the reproduced Mathers, presenting himself as if he were the original and had somehow survived, together with other members of the Golden Dawn. Kamijou Touma and Accelerator briefly fought with Mathers, who easily fended off and endured their respective attacks. Aleister then sent the remaining Crowley's Hazards against Mathers and the Golden Dawn, buying time for the three to narrowly escape.

After the Crowley's Hazards were wiped out, Mathers remained in the graveyard with Edward Berridge and sent the rest of the cabal out into the city to hunt down their enemy. After Aleister slipped from their grasp following a premature bombing of Piccadilly Circus by the Lady of the Masquerade Ball's Taphthartharath, Mathers decided enough time had been spent waiting and headed out to deal with Aleister personally.

Mathers caught up with Aleister at the former Isis-Urania Temple and struck her with Belzébuth. After the two boys narrowly dodged his attacks, Mathers cornered Aleister, forcing her to unlock Academy City's technology and fire an orbital laser at him in order to escape death at his hands. The initial shot didn't harm him but when Accelerator redirected and focused it back at double power, it breached his defenses and start to burn him. However Berridge tackled Mathers out of the path of the laser before major damage could be done and was destroyed as a result, revealing the true nature of the reproduced Golden Dawn as Tarot-based grimoire reconstructions. Countering an attempt by the Qliphah Puzzle 545 to manipulate him with the madness of war, Mathers then excused himself with an act and left to deal with another matter that he deemed more urgent; the British Royal Family were being evacuated to Scotland and if they visited Edinburgh Castle, it would threaten the barrier placed on the real Mathers' grave.

Mathers and the rest of the Golden Dawn shifted their focus to the pursuit of the royal convoy leaving London, with Mathers assigning Westcott, Felkin and Waite to the positions of Imperator, Praemonstrator and Cancellarius in the cabal's high-speed group ceremony. After catching up with the royal carriage, Mathers attacked the defenders, Ange Catacombs and Cutia Virginroad, but was briefly halted by Riméa who brandished the Curtana Lost and challenged him in such a way that he would be effectively denying his claim of being Count of Glenstrae if he struck. He soon resumed his attack on the defenders, when Ange had to save Cutia after Brodie-Innes turned her own attack against her, but his attack was foiled by the arrival of Kamijou Touma.

Mathers then fought Touma on the roof of the carriage, setting up his attacks in order to exploit the negation of his elemental magic by Imagine Breaker and launch a powerful counterattack from the unbalanced elements. At one point, Mathers ordered the cabal members to fire on the two of them, as unlike him Touma would die if he fell from the carriage at their speed, and while Touma was briefly distracted, managed to knock him from the carriage roof. However, Touma was caught by the Anti-Art Attachment, ridden by Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki, and soon returned to the carriage. Shortly after the two resumed their battle, Mathers noticed Aleister, diving in an attack from the sky. Mathers used Belzébuth to intercept Aleister's Babalon-based attack, but at Touma's shout, Aleister transferred his magic to the A.A.A. and fired a second shot at Mathers during the brief opening, launching him away from the road.

Recovering from his wounds, Mathers left the pursuit to the others and went after Aleister, who had crashed nearby. Not long afterwards, he found her at a church, coincidentally the one where Aleister had been married to Rose Kelly many years ago. After a short exchange of words between the two, they used their own methods derived from the Son of God to strengthen their bodies before beginning their inevitable battle, with Mathers choosing to match Aleister's unusual usage of Christian spells, as if to say he'd overcome her with pure skill.

During their duel, they both used various powerful and destructive spells, countering each other's magic before turning to their fists. Eventually, Mathers got the upper hand in their physical battle, given his nature, and felt sure that Aleister couldn't turn things around with the damage she had sustained, but then noticed Aleister's body acquire wounds which he hadn't caused. Aleister then revealed that they were stigmata, acquired as her body synchronized with the Son of God, something which hadn't happened to Mathers as he lacked the vital trigger, and after speaking on the nature of magic, Aleister's body transformed into a mass of light and inundated the surrounding area with enough energy to disrupt the flow of power to the grimoires forming Mathers' body, causing him and the rest of the reproduced Golden Dawn to come apart and revert to cards.

After defeating the recreations and reaching Edinburgh Castle, Aleister attempted to use the real Mathers' corpse to save his daughter from Coronzon, but his group learnt too late that Coronzon's possession of his daughter was actually a deception by the demon. After stabbing Aleister, Coronzon took advantage of the opening and burnt Mathers' corpse so it couldn't be used against her again.

Abilities
As one of the Three Founders of the Golden Dawn, Mathers was an extremely powerful and skilled magician, who made use of the style of magic which would come to be known as the Golden-style. Superior to fellow founder William Wynn Westcott, Mathers's prowess could rival even Aleister Crowley, who would eventually become the most powerful magician in history.

He was naturally well versed in the summoning rites practiced by the Golden Dawn and was capable of summoning the Demon Coronzon and given it the order to bring Aleister Crowley to ruin, a contract which would persist after his death. He was also capable of using Automatic Writing, and Astral Projection. He is also capable of using a communication method resembling astral projection but actually a more primitive echo, intended to locate an individual when they respond.

Mathers was also a talented writer and translator, with great competence in handling original grimoires, having successfully translated and converted various grimoires, whose original forms are incomprehensible and shattered reader's souls with their toxic knowledge, into a simpler form which anyone could read. Among the grimoires he translated were ', ' and , which would lead to a Kabbalah-centric magical culture spreading across Europe. He also created an English translation for (what he claimed was) the magic circle of King Solomon. Aside from grimoires, he was also equally adept at translating non-magical works, such as a French military manual. He was skilled in handling the Tarot, with his reproduction being able to rearrange the numbers of the Major Arcana composing his body with Mathers' own interpretations to escape Coronzon's control. It was said that Mathers's abilities in the field of text exceeded any other magician.

Symbolic Weapons
Mathers' primary weapons are his four Symbolic Weapons representing the four elements; a red wand (Fire), a blue cup (Water), a yellow dagger (Wind) and a green disc (Earth). Floating around Mathers, they allow him to control all things on the material level and denote any aspect of the world through the manipulation of the four basic elements. These Symbolic Weapons are ordinary, fundamental items which any modern magician might carry and use, but they only display their full potential in the hands of someone such as Mathers.

When using an element, Mathers speaks the of the element (Hot (温) or Cold (寒), and Dry (乾) or Wet (湿)), sometimes followed by the phrase "(Element), reveal thy nature before me" (e.g. "Hot and dry. Fire, reveal thy nature before me"). When using two elements together, Mathers states the qualities of the first element then the second (e.g. for a combination of Earth and Water, "Cold and dry then cold and wet." (寒にして乾、続けて寒にして湿).

Mathers' set of Symbolic Weapons fly around him by themselves and automatically change their arrangement depending on his requirements, sometimes clanging together like musical instruments. Mathers sometimes takes one or two of the weapons in hand, such as the fire wand and the water cup.

The Symbolic Weapons confer a degree of automatic protection to Mathers even without being commanded. Their defenses were sufficient to protect the reproduced Mathers from an Academy City orbital laser, though Accelerator reflecting and focusing the beam back at him at double power exceeded its threshold and deflected the dagger away, causing the protection to drop and Mathers to start to take damage from the beam. The defenses provided by the Symbolic Weapons were also capable of withstanding a Liquid Proof Railgun shot, but were breached by the second shot of Aleister's Babalon-based spell fired from the Anti-Art Attachment during a brief opening after Mathers intercepted him mid-dive with Belzébuth.

Effects produced by the reproduced Mathers through his Symbolic Weapons included:

As noted by Kamijou Touma, Mathers' attacks are generally projectiles and ranged attacks.

Belzébuth
One of Mathers' more feared spells is his invocation of Hae no ō (Beruzebyūto), the lord of flies and a high-ranking demon born from decay. Mathers uses the spell through the elements of Earth and Water ("Cold and dry then cold and wet.").

As the blue cup and green disc dance around, there is a chain reaction of small noises, like waves crashing and receding. Small, hard peas are scattered at Mathers' feet. Mathers then speaks the following incantation: "The blessing of the earth becomes decay. Come forth and spread, lord of demons born from the decay of all that is". As he does so, the dried peas quickly grow dark and discolored, wriggling and spitting out sticky strings which connect together. Mathers then unleashes it with the following words: "Thy name is Belzébuth. Purge the insolent ones who stand before me". The scattered peas linked together form a sticky, black, rotting object, then link together the name of wicked power with the name of the sacrifice. A bunch of black strings bursts from the target's chest, looking like a woman's long black hair soaked in a slimy drain. The unclean strings cover the target's heart, arteries, veins and everything inside the ribs, spreading pathogens and contamination from the heart outwards.

It is not meant to kill instantly, but is intended to break a target's spirit with fear before their body succumbs to the contamination. In the time of the Golden Dawn, Mathers used this spell to purge traitors to his faction and the fear of Belzébuth to keep his followers in line. However this fear also contributed to the cabal's downfall, due to infighting in Mathers' faction from blame.

Belzébuth (or Beelzebub) is a demon derived from and in modern times is commonly seen as holding the number two spot among the demons of hell. placed it as the ruler of hell with as something like an opposition leader. Due to this general high rank, Belzébuth has an advantage when intervening against magic involving entities within the same category, demons who stand opposite angels, even ones who are far removed from the common examples (e.g. Satan and Lucifer), such as the.

This curse uses two names; that of the powerful demon lord and that of the target. The black threads form then link the demon's name to the target's name, so in order to stop the curse, they have to be destroyed along with their illusionary foothold before the two names can be connected. If Belzébuth's powerful name is linked to the target, the contamination will reach them.

Mathers can skip the incantation, going straight from the elemental qualities to Belzébuth's name, though it isn't clear what effect this has on the spell.

Other
In reference to the incident involving Madame Horos and Mathers' anger towards her, the name of - (テュポン＝セト) was mentioned alongside Belzébuth as being ineffective in dealing with that case. The effects of Mathers' spell involving this syncretized figure are unknown.

During the reproduced Mathers' final battle with Aleister Crowley, in which both made use of magic derived from Christianity and the Son of God (with Mathers deliberately choosing to match the format used by his opponent, as if to say he'll defeat them with nothing but skill and choosing an identical weapon), Mathers, despite his lack of passion in using the magic, still showed great competency in the improvisation and usage of such spells, capable of performing destructive spells and also countering Aleister's spells, using the following in succession:
 * INRI-based Enhancement: In response to Aleister's method of using the linked to the Son of God to build his body up to a higher level, Mathers came up with his own method off the top of his head, based on  (short in Latin for Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum), the four letters said to be carved into the original cross.
 * Archangel Summoning: Mathers used a spell to manifest the four archangels connected to the elements, based on the Son of God being blessed with oil as well as the ideas that it wasn't unusual to see angels before him and that they would naturally descend to guard him. As he completed an incantation, his Symbolic Weapons came apart and four winged angels appeared - the archangels of fire (Michael), water (Gabriel), wind (Uriel) and earth (Raphael). Similar to the elemental Symbolic Weapons and the four elements they represent, a harmony and connection exists between the four archangels summoned in this way, such that Aleister's banishment of Uriel ended up dragging the others down with it.
 * When Aleister banished Uriel with a spell derived from the angel's excommunication from canon by, dragging the other archangels with it and sending hellfire towards Mathers, he redirected the flames back against Aleister in the form of a pig, based on the where the Son of God exorcised a  from a man and cast them into a herd of swine with a point of his finger. After Mathers used his incantation, the flames of hell were twisted and gathered in the shape of an incandescent bronze pig which then charged at Aleister. When stabbed by her, it burst and spewed flames in all directions, possibly rivaling a nuclear weapon in pure firepower, but it was neutralized through Aleister's usage of the Qliphoth.

Design Evolution
According to Haimura Kiyotaka, Mathers was one of the most difficult characters in the series to design. He was originally planned to feature in an illustration at the end of Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 20, however it was dropped and his design was still in development when the volume was completed and released.

In the final iterations of Mathers' design, Haimura added elements from the Golden Dawn-era designs of Aleister Crowley and Mina Mathers. In his notes accompanying this version of Mathers' design, Haimura remarked on how a cool villain (Vincent Volaju) from the Cowboy Bebop movie wore a similar attire (briefly, a witch's hat with his usual coat) for Halloween.

Trivia

 * The real Mathers co-founded the together with  and . Following Woodman's death in 1891, Mathers became leader of the Golden Dawn but was expelled from the order in April 1900, due to dissatisfaction with his leadership and his developing association with Aleister Crowley, whom he promoted against the London officials' decision. A few years later, he founded the successor organization,, which he led until his death in 1918.
 * In addition to his Symbolic Weapons, Mathers also has the colors associated with the four elements in his attire; a red kilt, blue coat, a dark yellow scarf and green sash.
 * Kamachi Kazuma used the French Belzébuth rather than the more common for Mathers' demonic spell to reflect his, similar to the case with his choice of name for Othinus.