Freemasonry and the
Hermetic Tradition
by R. A.
Gilbert
GNOSIS #6
If, as is
stated categorically by the United Grand Lodge of England,
Freemasonry "is not a Secret Society" and is "not a religion or a substitute for
religion," then what is it? And why should students of the occult be concerned
with the history, symbolism and rituals of this "peculiar system of morality,
veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols," which is defined officially as,
"one of the world's oldest secular fraternal societies . . . a society of men
concerned with spiritual values. Its members are taught its precepts by a series
of ritual dramas, which follow ancient forms and use stonemasons' customs and
tools as allegorical guides. The essential qualification for admission and
continuing membership is a belief in a Supreme Being. Membership is open to men
of any race or religion who can fulfill this essential qualification and are of
good repute"?
Perhaps the occultist, who sees in freemasonry the survival of ancient, pagan
mystery religions, sees something that, like beauty, is in the eye of the
beholder, for what he sees is clearly invisible both to the governing body of
the Craft and to the bulk of its members.
Freemasonry does have a traditional history (around which its
rituals are constructed) that places its origin at the time of the building of
King Solomon's Temple, but in the material world we can trace its history from
1717 A.D. when the first Grand Lodge in the world - the Grand Lodge of England -
was founded at London. From that time on Freemasonry has expanded, undergoing
many vicissitudes along the way - schisms, reconciliations, quarrels over
jurisdiction and quarrels over essential beliefs until today it is firmly
established in most countries of the world (the exceptions being countries of
the Communist bloc, and those countries that suffer under Islamic
fundamentalism).
Regular Freemasonry - which, among other things demands from
its members a belief in God, forbids the discussion of religion and politics in
its lodges, and forbids also the admission of women to membership - is strongest
in the English-speaking world, and it is a curious paradox that England, where
the Craft is most conservative, should have produced not only the foremost
masonic historians, but also the most adventurous (and most widely read)
speculative interpreters of masonic symbolism and philosophy.
These latter have been invariably influenced by the masonic
traditions of continental Europe, where "higher" degrees and exotic Rites have
proliferated since the middle of the eighteenth century. (At this point it would
be well to emphasise that all "higher" or "additional" degrees and grades are
later inventions than the three Craft degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft,
and Master Mason, including "the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch" -
declared in 1813 by the United Grand Lodge of England to be the oniy degrees of
"pure Antient Masonry"; and further, that the governing bodies of the "higher"
degrees have no control whatsoever over the Craft degrees.)
The complex
phenomenon of European Freemasonry was significantly different from its
counterpart in eighteenth century England. The essential masonic tenets of
tolerance and benevolence were overlain from an early date with layers of
metaphysical speculation, while the simple Craft rituals were extended into
elaborate ceremonies for a multiplicity of degrees, grades and Orders, all of
which involved extravagant traditional histories and hierarchical ruling bodies
that became increasingly divorced from reality. To some extent such Rites
represented a way of escape from the political oppression of illiberal regimes
and the spiritual oppression of the Roman Catholic Church, which had been
implacably hostile to Freemasonry from the beginning,
but they inevitably drifted away from "pure Antient Masonry" to become either
politicised or steered into overtly esoteric channels.
Given their nature, it is scarcely surprising that it has
been from these esoteric Rites within and around Masonry - The Elus Cohens, the
Strict Observance, the Illuminati, Cagliostro's Egyptian Masonry, and the
thousand-and-one self-styled Templar Orders and Chivalric degrees - rather than
from Craft Masonry, that occultists and esoterically inclined freemasons alike
have drawn, and continue to draw, their inspiration for Orders of their own, and
their plethora of false notions about the Craft and its origins.
It is unfortunate that there can be no authoritative,
official refutation of these false notions, but there can be no definitive
pronouncement about the origins of Freemasonry for the simple reason that there
is no certainty as to what those origins are. It is undeniable that masonic
ritual, in its essentials, is based upon the presumed customs and the working
tools of medieval stonemasons, but there is little a no evidence to support the
popular theory of a regular progression from operative masonry to the
speculative Craft via a hypothetical "transitional" period during the
seventeenth century, in which non-working members were gradually accepted into
masonic Iodges until they constituted a majority.
A more probable theory of origin - but still, it must be
stressed, only a theory - is that which suggests that Freemasonry arose during
the seventeenth century from the efforts of a group of enthusiasts who sought to
establish tolerance in religion and the general improvement of society in an era
in which intolerance prevailed. They protected themselves by adopting the myth
of the building of King Solomon's Temple as an allegory of their aims and by
utilising the wholly appropriate structure of extant building guilds. An
eminently sensible theory, but for occultists wholly inadequate.
There must be, for their purposes, both a strictly esoteric
content in masonry and an ultimately Gnostic source: tolerance is too prosaic,
and the medieval building guilds unsatisfactory by virtue of their uncomfortably
orthodox profession of Christian faith. Either the Knights Templar or the
Rosicrucians, or both, offer a more satisfying explanation of the emergence of
Freemasonry in its speculative form. That there is no shred of historical
evidence linking the Templars with Masonry, nor any certainty that the
Rosicrucians as an organised body ever existed, does not matter, since for
occultists - and for esoteric freemasons - Freemasonry exists primarily to
perpetuate the teachings of the ancient Mystery Schools, and there is thus
necessarily a definite, if hidden, connection between Freemasonry and its
supposed forerunners.
To the
conclusive demonstration of such links masonic writers of esoteric inclination
have devoted their literary careers, only to have their work rejected as unsound
by more prosaic masonic scholars. "Esoteric" masons, however, have been, and
still are, mightily impressed by the apparent scholarship of authors such as the
Rev. F. de P. Castells, who considered that he had proved beyond doubt the link
with the Rosicrucians, and maintained that "Freemasonry originated with certain
Hebrew mystics associated with the Temple of Jerusalem, and that they are
represented by the Kabbalists of historic times." (Our Ancient Brethren the
Originators of Freemasonry, 1932, p. 24)
Castells wrote during the 1920s and '30s, and although he was
far from being the first masonic "historian" on whom occultists had drawn, he
was among the most impressive, for he united his historical studies with a
critical analysis of masonic rituals and their symbolism. And it is masonic
symbolism that has proven always more irresistible to the occultist even than
masonic history.
The rituals of the Craft degrees represent the progress of
the apprentice towards the mastery of the Craft, illustrated by the building of
the Temple, and accompanied by the inculcation of moral precepts, culminating in
the symbolic reenactment of the death of the architect Hiram Abiff, who
perferred to die rather than betray the secrets of his Order.
In the First Degree the three "Great Lights" (the Volume of
the Sacred Law, the Square and Compasses) and the three "Lesser Lights" (the
Sun, the Moon and the Master of the Lodge) of Masonry are explained to the
candidate in symbolic form, while in each of the three degrees the appropriate
"Working Tools" are similarly explained (the gavel, plumb-rule, level, etc.).
There is also an elaborate emblematic diagram, or Tracing Board, for each
degree, the symbolism of which - variously architectrual, biblical and
numerical, - is explained in detail.
While such a wealth of symbolism has a very specific meaning
within Freemasonry, its very richness has left it vulnerable to the most wild
and extravagant interpretations on the part of occultists and of "esoteric"
masons who ought to know better. Nor is the unreason of such interpretions
lessened by the invariable insistence of the interpreters on seeing the Third
Degree as a rite of death and resurrection - which it is not. It may suit the
purposes of the occultist to see it in this light, but it is simply and solely a
representation of the death of Hiram and his subsequent exhumation for decent
reburial.
Speculation on the meaning of masonic symbols began in the
eighteenth century, but serious attempts to relate those symbols to ancient
resurrection myths and to the mainstream of the Western Hermetic Tradition did
not begin until the Occult Revival of the late nineteenth century. At the same
time, amateur historians of occultism began to seek esoteric origins for
Freemasonry itself. When these two paths of research merged, the results were
curious indeed.
H. P.
Blavatsky, who was effectively the principal architect of the Occult Revival,
had little interest in Freemasonry, but she utilised - and believed - much of
the information amassed by Kenneth Mackenzie in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia
(1877), and thus through her own writing acted as a channel for its
dissemination throughout the Theosophical world and far beyond the confines of
Masonry itself. To what extent Mackenzie (who, surprisingly, did not accept that
Freemasonry had its roots in Rosicrucianism) believed his own statements is
unclear, but he and his colleagues (F.G. Irwin, John Yarker, Dr. Woodman et al)
consciously attempted to emulate the eighteenth century proliferation of
grandiose masonic degrees and esoteric Orders with considerable success, for it
was from this background of exotic Rites that William Wynn Westcott gained the
inspiration for his immortal brain-child, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
That amazing creation, which came into being in 1888, owed its success in part
to the increasing familiarity with masonic symbolism (via the works of Madame
Blavatsky) on the part of both male and female occultists. It is surprising
enough that English Freemasonry should have given rise, however indirectly, to
an androgynous Order; that it should have provided the administrative structure,
the framework of its rituals and no small part of its eclectic symbolism is even
more surprising, given that the proportion of English Freemasons interested in
and informed about occultism was (and is) minute.
Of those Freemasons who were inclined towards occultism at
the close of the last century, the majority were deeply involved in the
Theosophical Society, or at least in the teachings that it propagated; they
absorbed from it the notion of the great antiquity of Eastern religions and the
superiority of Eastern philosophy over Western thought. From their subsequent
mental confusion arose most of the books that have propagated original and
bizarre ideas about the history and meaning of freemasonry But however reliable
their "histories" may be, and however unsound their conclusions, their influence
among fellow occultists has been so widespread and so pervasive that the student
of the Hermetic Tradition and its history cannot ignore them if he wishes to
separate fact from fantasy and to understand how the present syncretistic
structure of occultism has come about.
During his lifetime the most influential of these
"alternative" masonic historians was John Yarker, whose monumental work on the
Arcane Schools (1909) is really a prehistory of Freemasonry, which he saw
progressing from the Egyptian and Greek Mysteries via Mithraism, Gnosticism and
Alchemy, with a brief conclusion on its history in modern times. Yarker
controlled or influenced numerous quasimasonic Rites and through these he
effectively directed the thinking of many of his esoteric contemporaries not
least those who were members of the Co-Masonic Order, whose activities he
supported while wisely refraining from joining.
Univeral Co-Freemasonry (which admits both men and women) was
founded in France in 1893 and spread to England in 1902 by way of the
Theosophical Society, collecting Annie Besant and her coterie en route. Once
Mrs. Besant was established, in 1907, as President of the T. S., her support,
coupled with that of C. W. Leadbeater, led to a rapid expansion of Co-Masonry
among theosophists, taking in even those who had previously been bitter
opponents of Freemasonry.
The Order was, however, susceptible to the wider teachings of Theosophy, as
Leadbeater made clear in his utterly uncritical Glimpses of Masonic History
(1926): "With the advent of Dr. Annie Besant to the leadership of the Order in
the British Empire, the direct link between Masonry and the Great White Lodge
which has ever stood behind it (though all unknown to the majority of the
Brethren) was once again reopened" (p.328).
Other
occultists saw Freemasonry as deriving from sources not quite so far East. For
Max Heindel (who was not a freemason) it was "rooted in hoary antiquity", its
very name was Egyptian (Phree messen = Children of Light), and the progress of
"Mystic Masonry" would ultimately hasten "the Second Advent of Christ" (Freemasonry
and Catholicism, 1931, pp. 86 & 98). This was admittedly an extreme
interpretation: esoteric masons were generally more cautious in their imaginings
- although Manly Palmer Hall could claim that "Masonry came to Northern Africa
and Asia Minor from the lost continent of Atlantis, not under its present name
but rather under the general designation Sun and Fire Worship" (The Secret
Teachings of All Ages, 1936, p. 176).
He further maintained that "within the Freemasonic Mysteries lie hidden the
long-lost arcana sought by all peoples since the genesis of human reason" (ibid
p. 176), and while this is strictly a personal opinion, Hall's arguments are
presented as authoritative, and the influence of his books (which have remained
continuously in print) has been so widespread among American occultists over the
last sixty years that those who read nothing else on Masonry have tended to
treat his opinions as facts.
In England other speculative masons have been equally
influential. J.S.M. Ward saw masonic symbolism in the initiation rites of
virtually every human culture, past and present, and Freemasonry was for him
"the survivor of the ancient mysteries nay, we may go further, and call it the
guardian of the mysteries" (Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, 1926, 2nd
ed., p. 341). Ward's symbolist approach to masonic history ought to have
appealed to occultists, but they are often unaware of him, for his work has been
confined almost exclusively to masonic circles - unlike that of Dr. Westcott for
whom the reverse was true. As befitted the Supreme Magus, or head, of the
masonic Rosicrucian Society, Westcott believed firmly in the development of
Freemasonry out of Rosicrucianism, and he argued forcefully that masonic ritual
was deeply tinged with Kabbalistic ideas. And yet for all the flaws in his
scholarship Westcott appreciated the value of historical research, and he thus
rejected as unfounded the claims of Yarker, Ward and others for a descent of
Freemasonry from Mithraism or from the Essenes (see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
Vols. 1 , 28, 29).
But while Westcott's purely occult works have remained
popular, his masonic writings are virtually unknown, and in attempting to bring
Freemasonry to the notice of the occult world he was less successful than his
younger and more mystical contemporaries, W. L. Wilmshurst and A. E. Waite, both
of whom wrote for a wider audience than a purely masonic one. They presented
their respective visions of Freemasonry as a part only of a more comprehensive
and continuing spiritual tradition: and more importantly, the works of both men
are still available - reaching and influencing an infinitely greater number of
readers than either the works of Westcott or those of their little-known critics
who wrote to protest against their errors of fact (Waite especially was prone to
treating historical data in a very cavalier manner).
And this is the paradox of the hermetic misunderstanding of
Freemasonry. The ideas of its motley crew of apologists are propagated in books
that survive when the lives of their authors (and their opponents) are long
forgotten, for there is a common thread that binds them all together. Credulous
oddities such as Heindel and Leadbeater; earnest, if unsound, scholars like Ward
and Westcott; and such luminous mystics as Wilmshurst and Waite, all shared a
passionate conviction that Freemasonry holds a key indeed, the key - which will
unlock the ancient mysteries, the Secret Tradition, or whatever one chooses to
call that subtle alternative to mundane history and orthodox thought.
In the last analysis, that is what matters. It is of little
consequence whether or not Freemasonry is descended from the mystery religions
of antiquity: the important thing is that influential figures in the recent
history of the Hermetic Tradition believed that it did; and this belief colored
their perception of Hermeticism as a whole and determined the manner in which
they gave those perceptions practical expression. Without an appreciation of
their idea of Freemasonry, however distorted and inaccurate it may have been, we
cannot fully understand their role in the development of the Hermetic Tradition
in the modern era.
Nor is this
all. We must also be aware of the true nature of Freemasonry itself, of its
relationship with esoteric systems of thought during the period of its creation,
and of the more esoteric theories of its origin. It may be that none of these
theories is correct, that the occultists were right, after all, in assuming a
vast antiquity for the Craft; but even if it proves to have been nothing more
than a curious social club, its presence, however passive, lay behind almost all
of the esoteric Orders of the last two centuries - Orders whose creators
believed in Freemasonry as the supreme vehicle for the transmission of a
superior traditional wisdom. Unless we acknowledge the influence of the idea of
Freemasonry and attempt to understand its nature, both as it is and as it was
believed to be, our understanding of Hermeticism will be impoverished. We shall
be like the candidate for Masonic initiation: in a State of Darkness.
R.A. Gilbert is an antiquarian bookseller in Bristol, UK. He
is the author of The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians, and A.E.
Waite: Magician of Many Parts and is currently working with John Hamill, the
librarian of the United Grand Lodge of England, on A World History of
Freemasonry.
FOOTNOTES
1. The U.G.L.E. is the
governing body of English Freemasonry; the quotations are taken from a leaflet
issued by their Board of General Purposes, entitled What is Freemasonry ?
Although I refer throughout the text to English Freemasonry, the arguments hold
for the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite in the U. S. A. and for Regular
Freemasonry throughout the world.
Quoted from
What is Freemasonry?, as reproduced in John Hamill, The Craft: A History of
English Freemasonry, Crucible Books (1986) p. 12.
The first
papal pronouncement against Freemasonry was the Encyclical, In eminente, issued
in 1738.
e.g. F. D.
Harrison of Bardford who became Grand Secretary of Universal Co-Freemasonry in
England, although he had left the Horus Temple of the Golden Dawn because he
disliked its masonic ethos.
This is the title by
which it is commonly known. The correct title is An Encyclopedic Outline of
Masonic, Hermertc, Qabalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
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