Background
Moina, then named Mina, or Minna, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to a talented and influential Jewish family of Polish from father"s and English and Irish from mother"s sides, moving to Paris, when she was but two years of age.
Moina, then named Mina, or Minna, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to a talented and influential Jewish family of Polish from father"s and English and Irish from mother"s sides, moving to Paris, when she was but two years of age.
She was the sister of French philosopher Henri Bergson, the first man of Jewish descent to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. Moina Mathers" grandfather, Jacob Levison (born c 1799) was a surgeon and a dentist. Her grandmother was Katherine Levison, born in London in c.
1800.
Her eldest brother, Henri Bergson, 1859–1941, joined the faculty of the College of France and is best known for authoring the philosophical work Creative Evolution. He was also the president of the British Society for Psychical Research. Moina was a talented artist and joined the Slade School of Art, at the age of fifteen.
The Slade was known for encouraging young women in the Arts, at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Moina was awarded a scholarship and four merit certificates for drawing at the School. Moina was the first initiate of this Order in March, 1888.
In March 1899, they performed the rites of the Egyptian goddess Isis, on the stage of the Théâtre Louisiana Bodinière in Paris. She died in 1928 in London.