William G. Gray

William G. Gray (1913–1992), better known to many as Bill Gray, was an English ceremonial magician who published widely on the subject of western esotericism and the occult. Gray is the founder of a magical order known as the Sangreal Sodality.

Born to a working-class family in Harrow, Middlesex, Gray moved around a lot as a child, living in various locations across England, and also in Montreal, Canada, where he took a particular interest in the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Developing an early interest in western esotericism from his mother, who was a professional fortune teller, he met a number of famous occultists in his youth, including Victor Neuburg, Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune. Eventually taking an Austrian named Emile Napoleon Hauenstein to be his magical teacher, he joined the British Army and served for several years, fighting in the Second World War.

Returning to Britain, he befriended and performed rituals with members of many different occult currents in Britain at the time, including Robert Cochrane, and published a number of books on the subject of the esoteric. 1975 saw the publication of The Rollright Ritual, a book about the rituals and alleged spiritual interactions which he had experienced at the Rollright Stones, a Neolithic stone circle in the Cotswolds.

The life and work of Gray is referenced in the works of various occultists and academics studying western esotericism, while in 2003 the authors Alan Richardson and Marcus Claridge published a biography of him, entitled The Old Sod.