British homeopathic physician who played an important role in the Isis-Urania Temple of the occult society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Berridge is believed to have qualified as a medical doctor in London and as a homoeopathist in the United States. He was influenced by the writings of Thomas Lake Harris and Andrew Jackson Davis, whom he probably encountered during a period in the United States. He returned to England in the 1850s and founded an Adventist organization called the Brotherhood of the New Life, devoted to the "reorganization of the industrial world." He was also interested in psychosexual theories and practices in relation to the occult.
Berridge joined the Golden Dawn in May 1889, taking the magical name "Respiro" and the motto "Resurgam" (I shall rise again). He associated with the London members who supported MacGregor Mathers, including Aleister Crowley, who later ridiculed Berridge with typical malice in his Confessions and under the name "Dr. Balloch" in the novel Moonchild.
Sources:
Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York: Hill and Wang, 1969.
Howe, Ellic. The Magicians of the Golden Dawn. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.
