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A Basic Historico-Chronological Model of the
Western
Hermetic Tradition
Masonic Initiation in the
English-speaking World
PART III
If you were to ask English-speaking
freemasons what they think is meant by Masonic Initiation most of
them would reply without much hesitation: ‘Oh, that’s the First
Degree!’ However, I want to disabuse you of that mistaken view. It
is too limited and too limiting. I want to establish my own
position immediately by claiming that Masonic Initiation within
the English-speaking tradition, when fully conceptualised as a
‘lived-through’ experience – one that may be Hermetic - is much
more than merely going through the First Degree ceremony and I
would like to make three basic points which I think are important
to grasp before going any further. These points are
inter-related and help to set out the claim that
speculative Freemasonry does have some Hermetic features. They may
not be very obvious, even to the experienced freemasons, for they
are hidden quite discretely. On their basis, however, even though
they are largely neglected now in the English-speaking Lodges, it
may be possible to say that speculative Freemasonry does have a
place in the western Hermetic tradition. My three initial points
are as follows.
- Masonic Initiation involves all of the
participants (including the Candidates) in ceremonial,
ritualistic, highly stylised behaviour that can hardly be called
normal by the standards everyday life and that requires them to
perform certain movements, enunciate certain words, perform and
listen to long speeches that are couched in language which must
seem poetic and/or heightened and even curiously dated – all of
which is hardly the behaviour that they meet and use in the
world outside of the Lodge rooms.
- Masonic Initiation is designed to have a
quickening, vitalising and regenerative effect on
initiates.
- Perhaps more importantly that either of
these points, Masonic Initiation is a process, one that
is prolonged and possibly unending; a ‘lived-through’ evolution
towards eventual enlightenment that requires sustained effort
and commitment on the part of all of its members.
The significance of these three basic points
become clearer if we consider one of the crucial responses which a
newly-made freemason has to give in response to his Master’s
question as a test before he can be passed to the Second Degree.
Interestingly and significantly, it was one of the first pieces of
Craft ritual that freemasons are required to commit to memory. Yet
it is one that most Brethren do not take the trouble to understand
fully because no one takes the trouble to explain it when they
make their first moves into speculative Freemasonry. It is packed
with meaning and I want to deconstruct some of that meaning
now.
The Master enquires of the Candidate for the
Second Degree: ‘What is Freemasonry?’ and the reply he is
expected to give is: ‘A peculiar system of morality, veiled in
allegory and illustrated by symbols’. Each of the component
words was intended to have important resonances but what are we to
make of them?
Peculiar
This word immediately gives a potent clue
that Freemasonry is something special and, therefore, not
of this world. The Candidate is being exposed in the
ceremony to something hitherto unknown to him in his ordinary life
in the profane world outside of the Lodge room; something which,
if he practises it fully and faithfully, will help to separate him
(at least partly) from that life, making him peculiar by taking
him beyond ordinary concerns and beginning something entirely new
for him.
Morality
This word should focus attention immediately
on ‘the grand intent’ of Freemasonry – the inculcation of ethical
principles. I suspect that the original founders in the latter
part of the 17th century and the early part of the
18th were aiming at a general reformation of
humanity by beginning with the moral reformation/regeneration of
individuals who became voluntarily members of the Order. This is
why there are scattered throughout the basic Craft rituals a good
deal of utopian optimism, universal harmony being seen as
something attainable though consistent ‘square conduct, strict
morals and upright intentions’ of individuals.
- Freemasons are taught that in order for a
man to be received into membership of a Masonic Lodge, he must
be ‘a fit and proper person’ to be even considered for
reception.
- They are taught also that in order for be
‘a fit and proper person’, a man must be ‘of mature age, sound
judgement and strict morals’.
Therefore, since a Candidate for admission
must have manifested a high ethical standard already, it follows
that the further instruction which he receives at our hands
within our Lodges after his admission must be
something above and beyond mere ordinary ethical standard which he
had acquired already in the profane world.
Veiled
This word hints at another important idea.
The truths contained within speculative Freemasonry are not
obvious. It may be that they are obscured deliberately and that
Candidates must make strenuous and continuous effort to try to
come to a level of understanding that satisfies them. They
become involved in a metaphorical pilgrimage through such
obscurities in a struggle that educates and, therefore,
improves them spiritually. This theme of veiling is brought
home dramatically, of course, during the Excellent Master’s
Degree, the so-called ‘Passing of the Veils’. This ceremony is
known under various names:
- Excellent Master (as now in Scotland,
Ireland, Bristol, throughout the USA, parts of Canada and in
parts of Australia);
- Super Excellent Master and
- High Excellent Master Mason.
In spite of its strong emphasis on the
interpretation of Old Testament readings, the ritual was probably
of Christian origins and formed an integral part of the Royal Arch
Masonic ceremonies from the late 18th century onwards
throughout England. After 1817, with the founding of the present
Supreme Grand Chapter, the subsequent de-Christianization of that
ritual and a drastic revision of it in 1835, this quaint ceremony
disappeared. Finally, the ‘Veils ceremony’ became extinct in
England by the end of the 19th century. Even in
Bristol, where it is still practised, it is as a recent
revival rather than as an idiosyncratic
survival.
A Lodge of Excellent Masters represents a
body of the old stonemasons assembled at Babylon who were the
descendants of the exiled Israelites. The rite is referred to
throughout as ‘the Degree of Cryus’ in allusion to the King of
Babylon who relented and allowed the captives to return to their
native country to rebuild the destroyed Temple of king Solomon.
The Lodge is presided over by three principal officers and by
three Captains of the Veils. The room is divided into separate
‘compartments’ by four coloured ‘veils’ suspended across the
room’s breadth and ranged in the following sequence from the west:
blue, purple, scarlet and white. The ritual informs the Candidate
later that the blue veil is emblematic of friendship; the purple
one represents union and the scarlet one is the emblem of fervency
and zeal. The white veil, nearest to the eastern end of the room,
is emblematic of purity and it conceals the ‘Grand Sanhedrin’, who
are seated there in silence. Those qualities (friendship, union,
fervency and purity) are presumably all qualities which are to be
desired by freemasons. There is a parallelism (unspoken) between
those colours of the veils and those of the robes worn by the
three presiding officers.
In some of the early versions of this
ceremony (mostly English ones) there were only three veils but in
at least one ancient Jewish source (Josephus’ Antiquities),
the veil of the Temple was composed of four colours: fine
white linen (to signify the earth, from which grew
the flax that produced it); purple (to signify water
because that precious colour was derived from the blood of a rare
shellfish); blue (which signified air) and scarlet (which
signified fire). The ritual of the Excellent Master Degree,
however, gives other interpretations to the Candidate at a later
stage.
Rather than pursue any such alchemical
interpretations, over which a considerable amount of time has been
expended by Masonic ‘scholars’ in the past, I can offer a series
of collective interpretations. Viewed together, as an integrated
part of the whole ceremony, the passage of the Candidate through
the veils can be taken to represent his own gradual enlightenment
as he progresses through Freemasonry. Some many even see these
veils as metaphors for the veil in the Temple that was ‘torn
asunder’ at the moment of Christ’s death – itself the supreme
moment of Man’s enlightenment. Others can see the veils as an
emblem of Christ Himself as He hung of the ‘Altar of the Cross’.
Whichever interpretation is preferred, the crucial thing about the
veils in this Masonic ceremony is that they are intended to have a
profound spiritual meaning for the Candidate as he progresses
forward to the sanctuary of enlightenment.
Each of the first three veils is guarded by
a Captain who carried a standard that is coloured like ‘his’ veil.
Symbolically, these Captains prevent any unqualified person from
passing through towards the final white veil and what it conceals.
The Captains each reveal a different Sign, Grip or Token and Word
in succession. These are entrustings and are preceded by
appropriate readings from the Old Testament. After each Scripture
reading the respective Captain provides his explanatory’ gloss’
which educates the Candidate with the significance of the Sign,
Grip and Word of ‘his’ veil. The Candidate has to remember each
set of instructions for when he comes to the next veil, he has to
prove himself to that Captain in the competence and knowledge that
he has achieved so far. So there are nine items to be
remembered in the correct sequence before he can be entrusted by
the presiding officer with the final Sign, Grip or Token and Word
that will enable him to gain admission into the final part of the
ceremony. In a short ‘Lecture’ that follows he is informed of the
following interpretations:
- the veils allude to those veils in the
Mosaic Tabernacle erected in the desert;
- his passage through them is emblematic of
the Israelites’ wanderings towards their ‘Promised Land’;
- his passage through the veils is also
meant to represent the pilgrimage of a captive Hebrew who
eagerly avails himself of the opportunity presented by Cyrus to
return to his ancestral homeland in order to complete a sacred
task of reconstruction.
Anyway, it is without question that one of
the basic features of all Hermetic traditions is this theme of
‘veiling’; that secrets are carefully hidden – hidden from those
who are not initiates and even from those who are members but who,
as yet, are not properly qualified to share in them. All Hermetic
traditions that I know of are multi-gradal in this sense with
their occult insights being revealed slowly to zealous initiates
as they progress ‘upwards’ through a series of structured
ceremonies towards full enlightenment. This theme of ‘veiling’ is
mirrored also in the blindfolding of initiates which occurs, of
course, in Freemasonry too though then it may also refer to the
Candidate’s own ignorance being subject to darkness (i.e., absence
of light) and the removal of the blindfold is meant to represent
to him the emergence into the ‘light’ of membership, of
belonging.
Allegories
Most people today have not been educated to
think allegorically. In the late 17th century and
through the 18th century, when the foundations of the
ritual that we have inherited were being laid down, young people
were schooled then to make them familiar with many of the
conventional classical myths and with the imagery, of various
levels of complexity, contained therein. The subtleties of this
conceptual framework are seen most easily and comprehensively in
the visual arts of the period. In the early 18th
century the following examples were still in common
currency:
- the image of a laurel bush would be have
been interpreted readily as a reference to the god Apollo or
Helios;
- vines leaves would have been seen as an
allusion to the god Bacchus or Dionysius;
- a lion skin would have meant Hercules or
Heracles;
- the image of a caduceus would have been
taken as a reference to the god Mercury or Hermes;
- porcelain figurines carrying a bunch of
flowers, a sheaf of corn, a bunch of grapes or a flaming brazier
would have been seen as references to the four seasons
respectively Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.
Now the chief allegory with which
speculative Freemasonry is concerned is that of temple-building
and, although many images of actual building operations are
borrowed in the rituals, speculative freemasons are really
concerned with a life-long task of erecting a spiritual
temple ‘not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’. Moreover,
from an individual member’s point of view, each is involved and
committed to the careful preparation of just one stone for its
particular place in that ‘temple’ and that stone is his
personality. Thus the unperfected personality of the new member
(when he first enters our Lodge rooms) is represented by the Rough
Ashlar taken unworked from the quarry. It has all of the obvious
qualities of a rough stone: durability, dependability, permanence,
strength etc., but is of little use to be fitted together with the
other stones destined for the temple. The individual craftsman has
to work, during his Masonic career, in polishing that Rough stone
by knocking off the ‘superfluities’, very much as an apprentice
stonemason would knock off the roughnesses of the ashlars using
his primitive working tools on the building site. The resulting
smooth ashlar is the same stone, but without all of the obvious
defects that would have prevented it being placed exactly against
or along side the other stones thus to form the temple wall. From
something with mere potential he has become rendered by his
own efforts into something that is actually useful.
Thus, the initiate is not really a passive recipient of
‘mysteries’ but is an active agent who is required to interact
with the principles and to make something else from them in the
secret recesses of his own heart.
Symbols
Symbols were attractive to the ritual
compilers of the early 18th century because of their
sheer carrying power. Furthermore, they can operate simultaneously
at many levels and are capable of multiple interpretations. This
may be a quasi-ambiguity and, if so, certainly is one that would
accord with Hermetic traditions where inherent ambiguity smacks of
deliberate obfuscation for, traditionally, Truth must remain
hidden to all who are, as yet, not ‘insightful’. The universality
of symbols must have proved very attractive to the founding
fathers of speculative Freemasonry because of the then prevailing
aim at pan-humanity amelioration and ethical improvement. It was
manifested for them then also in the wide-ranging popular schemes
for universal languages at that time. Moreover, there were plenty
of symbols which were readily available and which provided them
with a ready-made framework of reference. They had no need to
re-invent the wheel. Besides, symbols also encrypt meanings and
this would certainly have appealed to the prevailing fashion for
codes and secrecy which was one of the literary bi-products of the
political and religious turmoil of the Carolingian era.
Certainly the founders of speculative
Freemasonry developed a whole range of symbols and did not
hesitate to extrapolate on their possible practical applications
in ethics. Most of these symbols have pre-eminently practical
applications and that fact is significant in view of the
prevailing pragmatism and experimentation of the age. There are
several groups of such symbols which they found ideally suited to
of their purposes.
- They made a great deal of use of
mathematical symbols (e.g., circles and numbers) which are, of
course, universal and hence present no barriers linguistically.
They deal with concepts of quantification, exactitude and
measurement, which were then conceived as being applicable to
ethics. They hint at a kind of mathematical ‘harmony’ in the
universe and hence to the myth of a ‘Pythagorean’ origin for
speculative Freemasonry. They are also very much in accord with
the then prevailing Newtonianism.
One interesting side-light on this
structural importance accorded to numbers, with their
Kaballistic meanings, is the re-structuring of the Lectures
associated with each of the basic Degrees which took place
after 1813 under the 30-year rule of HRH The Duke of Sussex
(1773-1843) as Grand Master. Sussex was known to have a
sustained interest in the Kaballah and owned several books on
the subject. Prior to this revision the Lectures had been
printed without any subdivisions. It may be significant that in
the new versions the Lecture on the First Degree was to have
seven sections; that for the Second Degree was to have five and
that for the Third Degree had to have three sections. But such
refinements pale into insignificance when the general character
of English Freemasonry during Sussex’s rule became progressively
anti-intellectualist and even anti-Hermetic. This was not due
wholly to Sussex’s influence because there were demographic
factors that militated against any development or even
continuation of any initial Heremetic tendencies. One of these
demographic factors was, of course, that the members came almost
totally from the expanding middle and professional classes with
their inherent bourgeois mentality and a suspicion of anything
that smacked of a philosophical approach to life and
particularly to spare time activities.
- In connection with the use which they
made of mathematical symbols it is worthwhile mentioning the
adoption of one geometrical symbol in particular – the so-called
‘Pythagoras Theorem’ which was incorporated into the design of
the English PM’s jewel. The background to its inclusion is
rather involved. The frontispieces in the 1723 and the 1738
editions of the Constitutions both depict a classical
arcade. In the foreground stand two noble Grand Masters each
accompanied with servants. On the ground between the two
principle figures is shown a diagram of the 47th
proposition with the Greek word ‘Eureka’. Anderson thought at
the time that this was a exclamation by Pythagoras when he
discovered the Proposition and declared it to be ‘the Foundation
of all Masonry, sacred, civil and military’. Actually, of
course, Anderson was wrong on two counts. The Proposition is
more correctly Euclid’s and ‘Eureka’ was Archimedes’ exclamation
in connection with quite a different scientific discovery.
Nevertheless, he reinforced the claim about this Proposition by
adding the following passage in the greatly augmented 1738
edition:
Pythagoras … became not only the Head of
a new religion of Patch Work but likewise of an Academy or
Lodge of good Geoemetricians to whom he communicated a secret,
viz. That amazing Proposition which is the Foundation of all
Masonry, of whatever Materials or Dimensions, called by Masons
his HEUREKA; because They think it was his own
Invention.
This was an assumption which he was to
propose quite explicitly in his Defence of Masonry (1730)
when he wrote:
I am fully convinced that Freemasonry is
very nearly allied to the old Pythagorean Discipline from
whence, I am persuaded, it may in some circumstances very
justly claim a descent.
It is difficult to establish now where
Anderson got this curious idea from because, apart from a single
reference to Pythagoras in the Cooke MS (one of the oldest
surviving ‘Old Charges’ dating from c. 1490), there are no other
references to him in any of the other Old Charges. One can only
assume that because ancient Greece was the home of geometry and
geometry was obviously the basis of all architecture and
freemasons were traditionally assumed then to be the inheritors
of the skills and traditions of the medieval operative
stonemasons, that speculative Freemasonry was taken to be based
on teachings derived from classical mathematicians such as
Pythagoras. This was not a very widely held assumption, however.
For example, Dr Francis Drake MD, FRS (1695-1770), in his speech
to the Grand Lodge of York (1726) only refers to Pythagoras in
connection with Euclid and Archimedes as great proficients in
geometry and not as a founder of Freemasonry. Martin
Clare (d. 1751) does not even mention Pythagoras’ name in his
lecture The Advantages Enjoyed by the Fraternity (1735).
The Discourse Upon Masonry (1742) contains no such
reference either. Rev. Charles Brockwell published his
Lecture on the Connection between Freemasonry and Religion
(1747) and that makes no such reference.
It was only in the early 1750's that
references to Pythagoras as a major figure in the history of
Freemasonry began to appear in the various MS editions of the
Lectures associated with the three Degrees. The idea of
him being a founder gained significance with the publication of
the now infamous forgery, the Locke-Lelande MS, in the
Gentleman’s Magazine in 1753. That spurious ‘medieval’
document claimed that
Peter Gower [i.e., Pythagoras] a Grecian
journeyedde ffor kunnynge yn Egypt and in Syria and in
everyche Londe wherat the Venetians [i.e., Phoenicians] hadde
planntedde Maconrye and wynnynge Entraunce yn al Lodges of
Maconnes, he lerned muche, and retournedde and woned [i.e.,
lived] yn Grecia Magna wachsynge [i.e., growing] and becommyne
a myghtye wyseacre [i.e., philosopher] and gratelyche renouned
and he framed a grate Lodge at Groton [i.e., Crotona in
southern Italy] and maked many Maconnes, some whereoffe dyd
journeye yn Fraunce, and maked manye Maconnes wherefromme, yn
processe of Tyme, the Arte passed yn
Englelonde.
The story was accepted unquestioningly by
most major Masonic writers thereafter but has since been shown
to be an 18th century forgery, the purpose of which
may have been to lend some historical respectability (via
Pythagoras) and academic respectability (via the John Locke
association) to the Masonic phenomenon. Such general acceptance
of the Pythagoras connection within Lodges’ working practices is
shown, for example, by the inclusion of the 47th
Proposition design within some of the early 19th
century Tracing Boards. It was also a measure of its general
acceptance that it was incorporated into the design of the title
pages of semi-official publications like Smith’s Pocket
Companion (from 1735 onwards) and the anonymous Multa
Paucis for Lovers of Secrets (c. 1764).
As far as Past Masters’ jewels in the
18th century were concerned, there was no official
rule for the design. Indeed, the English ‘exposures’ of the
1760's specify other designs. Moreover, there are many portraits
of famous freemasons then who were Past Masters of Lodges which
show them wearing jewels of quite different designs although
they did not have any official approval by the Premier Grand
Lodge. Even within the newly created UGLE there does not appear
to have been any opinion in favour of the use of the symbol. For
instance, the Minutes of the Quarterly Communication held on 2
May 1814 laid down
that the following Masonic clothing and
insignia be worn by the Craft and that no other be permitted
in the Grand Lodge or any subordinate Lodge … Jewels … Past
Masters … The Square within a Quadrant.
And yet within 19 months, on the
publication of the 1815 edition of the Book of
Constitutions (the first to be issued by the UGLE) things
had changed: the ‘Square and Quadrant’ design had been abandoned
and the present 47th Proposition design had been
adopted. No reasons were given and Masonic historians have been
unable to find any. It is possible, however, that when the
‘Square and Quadrant’ design became part of the new jewel for
the Grand Master and Past Grand Masters (a distinction which has
since been extended to other high officers) then something else
had to be found to distinguish less important
Brethren.
Yet why was this geometric ‘Pythagorean’
symbol adopted by the UGLE for the Past Master’s jewel rather
than any other? Possibly Anderson’s assumption was by then
almost 100 years old and had acquired sufficient respectability
as not to be questioned. But if the old operative stonemasons
had used it they did so no more than purely as a pragmatic
solution formulated over generations by similar craftsmen who
need some quick method of checking the existing angles of their
stone buildings rather than as a practical method of setting out
right angles on the sites to start the construction of those
buildings. There was probably nothing esoteric in their use of
the 47th Proposition on the building
sites.
- Builders’ tools – squares, levels,
plumb-rules, compasses – were also adopted by the founders of
speculative Freemasonry. All of these hint at the other potent
myth of the possible origin of Freemasonry in the medieval
operative stonemasons’ yards and hence, for 18th
century minds, at its probable antiquity and hence at its
respectability. Moreover, the builders’ tools allude to the
manipulation of matter (a traditional alchemical process surely)
and, by extension, to ethics - to the structuring of morality on
a grand scale.
- Two kinds of perambulatory symbols were
incorporated subtly and the 18th century progressed
and the Lodges acquired their own rooms. There are circular
movements and movements forward in straight lines.
The movements around the chambers were
devised to represent the peregrination motif, or the quest.
These circular movements are usually, but not always, made in a
clockwise direction. They betoken a Candidate’s wandering in
search of enlightenment. Some of the obvious examples of these
circular movements would be those taken in
- the Royal Arch Exaltation;
- the final ‘pilgrimage’ alone carrying the
skull and lighted candle during the Knights Templar
Installation;
- the August Order of Light
ceremonies;
- the opening part of the Admission into
Royal Order of Scotland (done, interestingly, ‘widdershins’ =
anti-clockwise) and
- the Royal Master Degree around the
symbolic Ark of the Covenant in the cave below the
Temple.
The other movements, or steps forward in
straight lines in various guises, were adopted to indicate
direct or undeviating progress towards of enlightenment. Some of
the obvious examples of these are:
- the steps the steps taken forward towards
the Altar by the Candidate in each of the three basic
Craft Degrees (as he is taught how to
approach the east = source of enlightenment) immediately before
taking his Obligations;
- the steps taken in the Zelator Grade of
the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia up the line of
‘Ancients’ who are seated in a straight line facing east and
each represents one of the four primary elements - earth, water,
air and fire - (the Candidate ascending therefore symbolically
through from the basic (earth) to the highest (fire).
- One clearly Hermetic symbol is
associated with the circular perambulations in the English Royal
Arch ceremony which began to feature in the early decades of the
18th century in England. That is the zodiac, an image
of remarkable potency. Of course, the zodiac still forms a key
component in the Scottish Royal Arch ceremonial (for
example around the architraves of the subterranean vaults of
which there are at least 12 full-sized ones in use even today;
in the design of the two Great Crimson and Green Banners and in
the design of the members’ jewels. Zodiacs are also used in in
the ceiling designs in at least 13 English masonic halls. This
is very much in accordance with the well-documented European
tradition of ceiling decoration in large public and private
buildings dating from classical times. Perhaps its widespread
use in masonic premises indicates a continuing pre-occupation
with the concept of a well-established, harmonious cosmic order
and the cyclic movement of time. There was also a tendency in
the decoration of large public buildings from the Renaissance
onwards towards systematic illustration of a compendious order
manifested between a persistent inter-relationship between
ceilings and floor decorations. Thus, there are many
19th century examples of the zodiacs projected on to
the floors of Masonic temples using the design in specially
woven carpets.
We can see this transfer from ceiling to
floor in the spectacular decoration of the Grand Lodge Hall
itself. The first hall was opened in 1776 roughly near the present
site in Great Queen Street in London. A contemporary freemason,
Capt. George Smith, described it in the following enthusiastic
terms:
The roof of this magnificent Hall is in
all probability the highest finished piece of workmanship in
Europe, having gained universal applause from all beholders, and
has raised the character of the architect (Richard Cox) beyond
expression. In the center (sic) of this roof a most
splendid sun is represented in burnished gold, surrounded by the
twelve signs of the Zodiac with their respective characters …
The emblematic meaning of the sun is well known to the
enlightened and inquisitive Freemason … the scientific
free-mason only knows the reason why the sun is thus placed in
the center of this beautiful Hall.
The second Hall was designed in 1869 and
the zodiacal ceiling was replaced a huge black and white squared
carpet with a central circular design depicting the Square and
Compasses symbol surrounded by the zodiacal sigils in roundels.
The third and present Hall was furbished in the late 1930s and
once again the zodiac sigils were placed around the
ceiling.
This transfer of the zodiacs from ceilings
to floors may have been done not just because it was somewhat
less expensive. The incorporation of the zodiacs into the carpet
design may have helped intentionally to lend essential
significance to the Royal Arch ceremony. The Altars are located
centrally in that rite and therefore within the circular
zodiacal design where those particular carpets are in use. The
Candidates are led around the Altars several times throughout
the ceremony thus tracing a circular route around the zodiac. If
they are engaged symbolically on their quest towards
enlightenment then their actual movements could be interpreted
as their voyaging across the universe (represented by the
zodiacal sigils) towards that light. Certainly, it was this that
the mid-19th century devisers of the rituals of the
obscure August Order of Light had in mind for the Candidates’
circular perambulations which form a distinctive part of those
ceremonies.
The earliest English reference to the
zodiacal sigils in relation to Freemasonry is to be found in the
Minutes of the Quarterly Communication of the Premier Grand Lodge
held on 26 November 1728. On that occasion the Grand Master pro
tem proposed the revival of the custom of having Stewards to
organise the Annual Festivals. The record states:
The Health of the twelve stewards was
proposed and drunk with twelve alluding to the twelve Signes of
the Zodiack as well to their Number …
While there is very little English
evidence that the zodiacal signs were included specifically in
masonic ceremonies, several widely-used publications, dating from
the later half of the 18th century do contain direct
references to them and the zodiac signs were used in De Lintot’s
Rite of Seven Degrees (by the short-lived Lodge of Perfect
Observance under William Preston’s schismatic Grand Lodge South of
the River Trent in the late 1770's). The final Degree of that
series - the Scottish Heredom - used the sigils in a circular
configuration.
In some of the oldest Lodges in North
Carolina take their origins from the Premier Grand Lodge. The
zodiacal symbols still appear in their Third Degree ritual which
has been preserved since the 1770's. At a certain point in the
ceremony a long, broad strip of white canvas cloth is laid on the
floor along the north, west and south sides of the room. These
strips have the 12 signs painted on them and 12 ‘volunteer’
Brethren stand on them, one at each of the signs. Each makes
learned responses in rotation in answer to catechismical questions
addressed by the Master. If the 12 signs collectively represent
the universe and each Brother responding to the interrogation
represents ‘his’ zodiacal sign and the Master represents King
Solomon, then this ritual could be interpreted as enacting the
universe answering Solomon’s quest for wisdom.
A parallel tradition was preserved within
the ‘Wooler’ ritual which was worked in parts of Northumberland
even as late as the 1820's. It contains an extended Zodiacal
Lecture in which each sigil is associated with a corresponding
legend in classical mythology. Its continued use until the third
decade of the 19th century suggests at least a residue
of a former pre-occupation with the zodiac signs among northern
speculative Freemasons.
In France, however, the signs of the zodiac
were used in ritual preserved in a MS that forms part of a
collection of 81 Degrees of ‘Hermetic Masonry’ amassed by Jean
Eustache Peuvert (d. 1800), a member of the Grand Orient de
France. Among the MSS contained in these six quarto volumes
are the texts of 12 zodiacal Degrees that had been worked by the
Metropolitan Chapter of France in Paris during the latter half of
the 18th century before the Revolution.
- The founding fathers of speculative
Freemasonry used the ‘geometry’ of Lodge rooms in several
symbolic ways. Originally Masonic Lodges met in the upper rooms
of taverns and coffee houses. Even the Premier Grand Lodge
itself did not own any permanent premises until 1767. It was
only when the Lodges began to acquire their own premises in the
latter part of the 18th century that they were able
to set out their furniture and equipment more or less
permanently. These private premises certainly helped to
reinforce a key aspect of the Hermetic tradition: separatedness
and exclusivity. Furthermore, the rooms became defining
spaces in which the members were able to enact their espoused
utopianism. In that sense they functioned as working
‘laboratories’ in which the very architectural layout became a
constant symbol.
The rooms were nearly always constructed in
the dramatically simple form of a double cube in allusion to the
altars that were in the Tabernacle and Temple. The principal
officers, Master, Senior and Junior Wardens, were to be seated (as
they are now) in the east, west and south respectively. If a
straight line were to be drawn from the Master, to the Junior
Warden and then extended to the Senior Warden, an exact right
angle would be constructed. That figure represented conveniently a
stonemason’s square, a working implement that was allude
repeatedly in the ritual to the ethical dimensions of a
freemason’s daily conduct (the emphasis being on his practising
‘square’ conduct in all of his dealings with other folk). The fact
that it is the three principal officers of any Lodge which
could construct this basic ethical geometrical figure by their
actual locations in respect to each other within the Lodge rooms
should not be without significance to the ordinary members while
watching the performances of the ceremonies. If a line were to be
drawn to represent the route of the Candidates’ circular
perambulations around the rooms is added to the square and
triangle figures, then the result is surely the traditional
Vitruvian figure. Hence, the square Lodge room, the triangular
location of the principal officers and the Candidates’ circular
perambulations together compose that wonderful Vitruvian ‘glyph’
which represents so much of what Renaissance men conceived as
Man’s place in the universe.
But most of this remains hidden to most
English speculative freemasons because symbols and emblems are
problematic for most modern minds. Most native English-speaking
people tend now not to think or be educated in symbolic and
emblematic thinking so most initiates find the requirement to
conceptualise using abstract symbols somewhat daunting. But that
was not the case when the foundations of speculative Freemasonry
were being laid in the early years of the 18th century
in London. Education people were used to thinking emblematically
and symbolically. For instance, it was assumed that by beginning
of the 18th century the Renaissance tradition of
printing emblem books had begun to decline generally but more
recent research has shown that the printing of them did not die
out post-1700. There were about 150-250 editions and re-issues of
emblem books with English texts printed from 1680 to 1750 and
there were at least 20 different titles in the first two decades
of the 18th century. The fact that there were only 30
or so original titles published in England in the previous 50
years would seem to suggest that there was a sustained public
appetite for emblems and symbols and for the imaginative
interpretation of them.
Modern minds may cope very adequately with
hosts of symbols very day in the profane world (e.g., when
travelling along a road, either as a driver, a passenger or a
pedestrian) but in the present Masonic ceremonies there are many
visual and verbal symbols which the Candidate will have to
understand. He is given some brief instruction during the actual
ceremony and since that instruction is quite properly withheld
from those who are not members of the Lodge (i.e., from those who
might be called ‘the profane’), then it might be called
‘esoteric’. However, interpretation of symbols is not so much a
matter of intellectual study as a matter of life and
applied experience. It is quite possible, therefore, that
in any Lodge meeting during the enactment of one of the Craft
ceremonies, one member has acquired such experience of life that
has given him a better understanding of the particular symbols,
while another sitting next to him lacks both that depth or
intensity of experience and the resultant level of understanding.
The former has acquired knowledge that is truly ‘esoteric’ – not
that it is withheld from the latter but because it is, as yet,
beyond his grasp until he has had comparable experience of life
that will eventually bring a similar enlightenment to him. When an
initiate is informed that ‘there are several Degrees in
Freemasonry, with peculiar secrets restricted to each’, this is
itself a symbol of a hidden truth: that even among Brethren who
have acquired the same Degree, there may be some who have
insightful knowledge while others lack it – not because it has
been withheld from them but simply because it is as yet beyond
their present potential to grasp and understand. They have not yet
had those life experiences that are necessary to quicken their
potential capacity and make it actual.
System
This word was chosen very carefully by the
compilers of the ritual. It hints at the late 17th
century origins of speculative Freemasonry, an era when the
cultural and intellectual life of the nation was dominated by the
all-pervading legacy of Newton.
Much has been made of Newtonism, in
particular of the possible contribution which the Royal Society in
London may have made to the emergence of the Masonic phenomenon.
For example, attention has been drawn from time to time to the
fact that at any one time during the first half of the
18th century at least 25% of the Fellows of the Royal
Society were freemasons. According to the 1723 masonic membership
List, 40 Fellows (i.e., 25% of the total membership of the
Royal Society) belonged to London Lodges. Of these, 23 were
Fellows before their Initiations and 16 were elected to
their Fellowships after their Initiations. Of the former
sub-group, 13 had been elected before the ‘re-founding’ of
the Grand Lodge in June 1717. Examination of the 1723 List
shows that 32 of these 40 Fellows still retained their
membership of their Lodges and it also shows that a further 27 had
been initiated before them. Of this latter ‘intake’, 16 had been
elected to their Fellowships before their Initiations and
11 were elected after that. By 1725, 59 Fellows (i.e., still 25%
of the Society’s total membership!) were freemasons. Examination
of the Lists for 1723, 1725 and 1730 shows that nine
Fellows continued their membership of their various Lodges
throughout the decade. It has also been noted that these Fellows
were members of at least 29 different Lodges that worked mostly in
or around the central London area. Therefore, it has been assumed
that this ‘elite’ membership was not concentrated in just a few
Lodges; nor were they simply responding to the novelty of
belonging to a new institution; nor to the social cachet of
belonging (when it may have been perceived that some important
noblemen had accepted the titular leadership of it in successive
years). The assumption is that there must have been something more
than the mere re-enactment of medieval builders’ ceremonies which
attracted these distinguished men who contributed to the
scientific literature of the nation.
However, before too much weight is placed on
this remarkable incidence of Fellows of the Royal Society as
freemasons, the morphology of Royal Society membership itself. For
instance, it is by no means certain what kind of sample the
membership of the Society provides. While it may be accepted that
the Society did form some kind of English elite in the field of
‘scientific investigation’, it remains unclear even to this date
what precise relationship its membership bore to the contemporary
English scientific community generally and no one has yet been
able to answer the following crucial and related
questions:
- What prompted some scientific enthusiasts
to join the Society while others did not accept
membership?
- To what extent could membership be due to
motives that had nothing to do with an interest/skill in
science?
It is beginning to emerge that less formal
and even accidental factors limited recruitment to the Society and
these produced thereby both positive and negative distortions in
the membership. These distortions are important factors in
assessing the relationship between the Society’s membership and
the general phenomenon of scientific enthusiasm in late Stuart
England. It is now clear that in its early days the Royal Society
was never central to the scientific activities of those many
investigators who were based elsewhere in the provinces.
Furthermore, judging from the elaborate genealogical links
delineated in the data collected assiduously by William Bullock in
the late 1820s, there are many instances when the only apparent
reason for someone joining the Royal Society seems to have been
the candidates’ social and/or family connections with those who
were already members. Many of its aristocratic recruits were
valued as much for the social eminence as for their enthusiasm and
the inclusion of those names in the published membership lists
gave much-needed testimony to the Society’s espousal of the ‘new
science’ as well as lending a certain social eclat. Indeed, there
is every reason now to suspect that these printed sheets were used
deliberately as proselytising propaganda by the Society and that
there may well have been considerable truth in the common
contemporary and repeated complaint that the Fellows came to the
meetings ‘only as to a play to amuse themselves for an hour or
so’. While analysis of the Society’s membership cannot illustrate
fully the social, political or religious affiliations of science,
nevertheless it may provide a partial illustration of the social,
political or religious affiliations of the supporters of the Royal
Society in London – which is something quite different. Moreover,
the same sort of caveat can be made about not attributing too much
significance to the involvement of 25% of the Fellows in
Freemasonry. If a quarter of the Society’s members became
freemasons because they judged that there was something worthwhile
pursing in the Lodges’ activities, what does that say about the
remaining 75% who did not become freemasons?
That said, the Royal Society did have a
sustained interest in Hermeticism in its early decades. Prominent
members then were as much exercised by the underlying mystical
principles and harmonies of the perceived universe as they were
about furthering practical experimentation. In 1667, for example,
the Society issued several alchemical and ‘Hermetic’
questionnaires to foreign correspondents to solicit their views
and accumulate records of their experiences. Lynn Thorndike’s
analysis of the first 20 volumes of the Society’s Philosophical
Transactions revealed that there was a persistent
preoccupation in Hermeticism over several generations in common
with members of other such Societies in Europe and Keith
Hutchinson has shown that there were continuing underlying
Hermetic qualities in the Scientific Revolution. In the Society’s
library there are meticulous MSS copies of geometric drawings
taken directly from Perspectiva Corporum Regulatium, a book
published in 1568 by Wenzel Jamnitzer. He was a distinguished
member of a secretive circle of scholars, the
Rosenkreizern, which flourished in Nurnberg in the early
decades of the 17th century. The same clandestine
association had no less a personage than Gottfried Leibniz
(1646-1716), one of the most original ‘scientific’ thinkers of the
age, as its secretary. Another of its prominent members, Johann
Wulfer, emigrated to London in the latter part of the same century
and became a close associate of four Fellows of the Royal Society:
Boyle, Pell, Oldenberg and Haak. Another Rosicrucian group, called
Aufrichtige Geselleschaft von der Tanne, flourished in
Strasbourg from 1633. One of its leading proponents, Georg Rudolph
Weckherlin (1584-1653), also came to live in London and after 1642
was employed in several key Chancery posts. He became a close
friend of Hartlib and Pell. A third such group, the Collegium
Philosophicum (or Societas Ereunetica) was founded in
Rostock in 1619 by Joachim Junge (1587-1657). He was also a close
associate of Hartlib. Likewise, Comenius, who was connected
closely with Zesen, the founder of the Drei Rosen group in
Hamburg, came to reside is London in 1641 at the express
invitation of Hartlib and his Oxford circle. There were several
other such sustained connections among English ‘scientific
revolutionaries’ with Continental ‘Rosicrucianism’ at that time –
particularly among those various English groups that were not
centred on Oxford and London – and therefore, those Hermetic
doctrines espoused by the Continental sources may have percolated
into early speculative Freemasonry via the Royal
Society.
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