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FREEMASONRY AND ESOTERIC MOVEMENTSby Bob Gilbert We all know, of course, what Freemasonry is. The United Grand Lodge of
England, in a leaflet published by the Board of General Purposes in 1984,
defines it as: Now this is fine as far as it goes but we all know - or think that we know - that there is more to it than this. Does not Freemasonry have an esoteric side reserved for the elect?; are there not secret doctrines hidden within the symbolism of the ceremonies?; are not the ceremonies of Initiation, Passing and Raising quintessential rites of passage, with a basic structure having elements in common with similar rituals of other cultures distant in both time and space ? To the last question I would answer yes, but to the others I give a decided 'No'.
Freemasonry is avowedly concerned
with morality. Its symbols are interpreted for the candidate in moral terms
(thus, when the working tools are displayed in the first degree, the candidate
is told that 'we apply these tools to our morals') and its ceremonies are
effectively morality plays, stressing particular virtues. Of course one can
argue that the Third Degree is also a mortality play, in that the candidate is
reminded of his mortality when he is raised - he is not symbolically resurrected from the
dead, any more than Hiram Abiff (whose sterling qualities of courage, integrity
and steadfastness the candidate is taught to emulate) is literally raised from
the dead in the traditional history that is related during the course of the
ceremony. Hiram Abiff is simply decently re-interred with the honour and respect
due to him.
But what of the Tracing Boards ? Are
there not esoteric interpretations of the symbolism in these complex visual
images ? Undoubtedly there are, but they are not Masonic. The explanations given
in the rituals of the three Craft degrees relate solely to the legends of those
degrees and to the symbols that the candidate encounters in the course of the
ceremonies (and here I fully appreciate that I have put my audience in a 'Catch
22' situation; not all of you are masons - or, at least, are not recognised as
such by masons owing allegiance to United Grand Lodge of England - and thus any
mason who dissents from my opinion cannot justify his dissent without breaching
his various Obligations. Of course he can, and probably will, take me up on the
matter in private - but he will still be wrong).
If it is the case that Freemasonry is simply
and solely a system of moral teachings, inculcated in dramatic and catechetical
form, then how has it come to be so firmly linked in the popular mind with true
secret societies, and with the doctrines and practices of the myriad forms of
occultism ? This state of affairs has come about, or so I believe, by
misunderstanding and by historical accident. Let us try to determine how.
That they were all believing,
orthodox Christians seems certain - there is no evidence to the contrary -
although they were probably drawn from the three major divisions of the
Christian faith then to be found in this country: Anglican (or true in both
doctrine and liturgical practice); Roman Catholic (defective in doctrine); and
Dissenting (defective in both doctrine and practice) [You will rightly perceive
that my qualifications reflect my own preference for true Christianity ] Be
that as it may, this proto-Masonry did not include non-Christians: there were no
Jewish brethren before 1721, and it harboured neither pantheists, nor pagans,
nor atheists. And if these men engaged in philosophical speculation, then we
have no record of it. What can be said, and even this is no more than a strong
probability, is that they sought to ensure that England became and remained a
cohesive and relatively tolerant society at peace with itself (that in the early
years of the Premier Grand Lodge there were both Jacobite and loyalist
freemasons tends to support this view). Change came when Speculative Freemasonry
was exported to the continent.
Ramsay maintained that Freemasonry
had descended not from operative stone masons, but from knights returning from
the Crusades - he did not attribute it to the Knights Templar - and he offered
no hint of any esoteric doctrines. He may have hoped that this would make the
Order acceptable to the papacy, but if that was so then he signally failed: in
1738, after the promulgation of the anti-masonic papal Bull, In Eminente, Ramsay's Oration was publicly burned
at Rome. After this event Ramsay disappeared from the masonic scene, valuing
loyalty to his Church above his enthusiasm for the Craft.
Even if it had, its return to prosaic
English society with its traditional, robust form of Freemasonry would have
strangled any tender, esoteric vine it might have contained. What happened on
the continent was another matter. Craft masonry was both widespread and
orthodox, but there was also a proliferation of Hauts Grades, Higher Degrees that owed little to
Masonry and much to esotericism. Should these be categorised as esoteric
movements, and did they then or at a later date exercise an influence upon the
ethos and practice of true Freemasonry?
designed to bring the initiate to an
awareness of the holy and of the timeless state in which it exists, and for him
to gain a secret wisdom which must not be shared with the outside, uninitiated
world (R.A. Gilbert,
Elements of Mysticism, 1991, pp4-5)
Thus defined, Esoteric Movements
could include such diverse institutions as the Cathar Church of the early Middle
Ages, which had doctrines and rituals reserved for its perfecti; the Rosicrucian Fraternity, which may
never have had any outward, objective existence before 1710; the Philadelphian
Society of the late 17th Century, which was not a secret society, but
whose doctrines were secret by virtue of being incomprehensible to the
uninitiated; and the secret, esoteric Order par excellence, the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn. But they could not include Freemasonry.
Such esoteric activity as took place
in England in the 18th Century was discreet and low-key, there were
no obvious equivalents of the Hauts Grades, no organised Rosicrucianism and no
neo-gnostic Societies. Was this because Freemasonry was more congenial to the
English temperament ? Possibly, but Britain was also one United Kingdom, without
the plethora of petty principalities and multiplicity of socially stratified
courtiers. For the most part only those who can afford to spend time on esoteric
pursuits actually take them up and in this country there were simply not enough
educated and financially independent men and women to engage in unorthodox
spiritual paths. As religious, political and social emancipation gradually
progressed in the 19th Century, but much faster than was the case in
Europe, for all that it was gradual, so were true esoteric movements established
in this country.
Not until the dead hand of the Duke
of Sussex was lifted from English Freemasonry could any meaningful attempt be
made to introduce the additional degrees to this country. And when they were
introduced, starting with the Ancient & Accepted Rite in 1845, they remained
firmly in orthodox masonic hands and maintained a strict masonic ethos. Only
with the founding of the masonic Rosicrucian Society, the Societas Rosicruciana
in Anglia, in 1866 was there a serious attempt to unite esotericism and
Freemasonry; or rather there was in 1878 after the death of the Society's
founder, Robert Wentworth Little. The S.R.I.A. derived from a pre-existing
Scottish Society which claimed descent from a still earlier English Society that
apparently flourished in the 1 850s and that demanded no masonic qualification
for membership, but Little had striven to make it an adjunct of a purely masonic
Order, the Red Cross of Rome and Constantine. He had no great personal interest
in occultism in general or Rosicrucianism in particular, any more than did his
co-founder, W.J. Hughan, who was essentially an orthodox masonic historian with
no great enthusiasm for esoteric pursuits although he did contribute papers on
early Rosicrucian texts to the Society's journal, The Rosicrucian, Some early members, notably Kenneth
Mackenzie and F.G. Irwin, did lean more towards occultism than to Freemasonry,
but it was Little's successors in the office of Supreme Magus who brought about
a real change.
In any true ceremony of initiation
most, if not all, of the following elements will be present:
1) The
candidate will enter in darkness so that the unfolding ceremony brings him into
light.
2) He (or she)
will undergo a numerically significant symbolic journey involving tests and
trials; the ritual use of musical sound (usually the unaccompanied human voice);
and the stimulation of the senses of touch (perhaps with a symbolic weapon) and
smell (incense).
3) He will give
an Obligation to keep secret what he has learned and undergone and to accept the
responsibilities of his new situation [he is, of course, unable to divulge the
essence of his inner
experience of the
ceremony as that is, by its very nature, incommunicable to another]
4) He will be
entrusted with secret knowledge (both practical in the form of signs of
recognition; and theoretical as he begins the process of acquiring secret
wisdom).
5) He will be
welcomed into his new peer group in sacramental form (usually by sharing a
sacred meal).
What, then, can be
deduced from this comparison of masonic and esoteric institutions, and quick
gallop through their respective histories ? We must conclude, I maintain, that
they are very different animals. There are indeed, clear parallels and elements
possessed in common: but any organisation must have a hierarchy, if only for the
sake of administration, while the working of ceremonies - irrespective of their
function -requires an established structure and regalia to identify those taking
part. Symbols that convey new or unfamiliar concepts to the candidate in
non-verbal form are the common currency of all ceremonial, whatever the message
that they are designed to convey. The differences between the two are, however,
more pronounced.
There are also
other significant differences. Freemasonry is essentially an 'open' organisation:
it does not hide the fact of its existence or require its members to conceal the
fact of their membership; it openly declares its aims and objects; it makes no
secret of the fact that it works ceremonies of initiation to inculcate and
reinforce its moral message, and it simply keeps private the specific content of
the ceremonies; it has no secret doctrines and its only 'secrets' are the signs
of recognition used in the ceremonial context; it does not intrude upon or seek
to change the belief systems or spiritual practices of its members. To most of
its members Freemasonry is a social club with charitable aims that reinforces
moral precepts with the aid of ritual. In short, it fulfils a different need and
performs a completely different function from that of an esoteric movement.
The question remains, can they mix ?
are they compatible ? Speaking from personal experience, no, they are not. It
would be invidious to identify the bodies concerned, but I can emphasise the
lack of compatibility between masonic Orders and esoteric movements by the
following examples. I have watched one masonic body attempt to engraft esoteric
principles and practices on to its workings, with peculiarly disastrous results:
the problem seems to be compounded by the ritual ineptitude of most of the
officers, but for the candidate (who was not myself) the consequence was to
nullify any psycho-spiritual effect that there might have been. Similarly the
intrusion of bovine 'knife and fork' masons into a truly spiritual rite within
Freemasonry is invariably an unmitigated disaster. I have watched with dismay
the erosion of its true ethos within one masonic body that meets on the European
mainland; it is chivalric in essence, and its purpose is to guide candidates
towards their own spiritual regeneration, but when the numerical balance of
members became weighted towards the 'knife and fork' tendency, regeneration slid
towards degeneration and the rite in question - in this specific instance - has
become a mere shell, devoid of meaning and empty of any spiritual presence. Its
secret word should now be 'Ichabod' (i.e. 'The Glory has departed') |
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