Independent wealth gave Bax time to write, and social connections. He had an apartment in Albany, the apartment complex in Piccadilly, London. He was a friend of Gustav Holst, whom he introduced to astrology, the critic James Agate, and Arthur Ransome, among others. He met and played chess with Aleister Crowley in 1904, and kept up an acquaintance with him over the years, later in the 1930s introducing both the artist Frieda Harris and the writer John Symonds to him. An early venture (1908–1914) was "Orpheus", a theosophical magazine he edited. His interest in the esoteric extended to editing works of Jakob Boehme, and helping Allan Bennett, the Buddhist.