|
A Basic Historico-Chronological Model of the
Western
Hermetic Tradition
Some Evidence of Early
Masonic Involvement in ‘Hermeticism’
PART IV
Something has been said already that there
may be Hermetic traces in the masonic rituals but it is when we
look for any trace of Hermetic involvement in the earliest days of
English speculative Freemasonry that we encounter a familiar
difficulty. The Lodges’ records from the early decades of the
18th century are scrappy – to say the least. Their
secretaries were not always diligent in keeping the records and
even in making the required Annual Returns of their members to the
Premier Grand Lodge. There was a sustained, widespread resentment
of such interference from London. Generally, those Minute Books
that do survive only provide dates, places and rough indications
who attended the meetings and what office (if any) hey took during
the ceremonies. Even the Premier Grand Lodge itself does not seem
to have bothered to keep Minutes of its own proceedings until five
years after its founding and although Scotland has splendid sets
of Lodge records (some of which date from the late 16th
century!), they too very fragmentary in their detail. Even so,
much has been made of the experience of the ancient Lodges in
Kilwinning, Aberdeen and Edinburgh which were attracting
‘gentlemen’ as members even in the middle of the 17th
century. The point which David Stevenson and others have made
recently is that something extraordinary must have been occupying
these Lodges to make these busy educated men want to join and –
what is perhaps more important – to retain their memberships over
several decades and to celebrate that membership - as does that
notable alchemist, Latin scholar and artillery officer Sir Robert
Moray FRS for instance.
With this in mind perhaps something
tentative might be said about what may have been Hermetic features
of the ‘work’ by a few members of some of the earliest English
Lodges. There were possibly some esoteric characteristics but they
were short-lived and fragmentary. Perhaps they indicated the
emergence of a broadly based Hermetic approach but, in the English
cultural climate that was severely pragmatic and sceptical in
outlook, they did not survive for long. The general nature of
those early activities and, by implication, the underlying
Hermetic principles seem to have been lost somehow from
English-speaking Freemasonry since those formative
times.
As indicated above, we have to rely mostly
on evidence that does not come from the Lodges themselves. For
example, the Letter of Verus Commodus (1725), an
anti-masonic pamphlet, refers scornfully to
the August Title of Kabalists … a Knot
of whimsical, delirious Wretches who are caballing together,
to extirpate all manner of Science, Reason and
Religion.
One of the better-known pieces of evidence
is part of an obscure 1715 publication entitled Long
Livers, an English translation of a French book by De
Longeville Harcouet. The translator and editor was one ‘Eugenius
Philalethes FRS’ (= the talented Robert Samber, a prolific
translator and author). It is his ‘Dedicatory Letter’ to Long
Livers that contains some pertinent references to Hermetic
activities that may have been occurring among some early groups of
English freemasons. Samber claims that Freemasonry belongs to ‘an
uninterrupted Tradition’ and that individual freemasons are
‘living stones built [into] a spiritual house’, ‘a chosen
Generation, a royal Priesthood’ as well as ‘imprisoned … exiled
Children …’ and ‘Sons of Science … who are illuminated with the
sublimest Mysteries and profoundest secrets …’. God is
conceptualised as ‘the Centre of all Things, yet [HE] knows no
Circumference’. There were many hermetic books published in a
great variety in European languages in the early decades of the
18th century so Samber was probably well acquainted
with at least the vocabulary. This is shown repeatedly, for
example, in his Treatise of the Plague (1721) which he also
dedicated to the then Grand Master, the Duke of Montague. What is
also interesting to note in this ‘Dedicatory Letter’ is that
Samber mentions that were several levels of masonic
understanding and this was within a mere five years of the
founding of the Premier Grand Lodge. When he addresses his fellow
freemasons, the dedicatees, he draws a clear distinction
between
those of you who are not far
illuminated, who stand in the outward Place and are not yet
worthy to look behind the
Veil
and ‘those who have … greater
Light’.
There is some evidence of Hermetic
involvement in some of the Lodges’ inventories. English Lodges
owned very few books, of course, but one of those titles which
features often in these lists is The Voyages of Cyrus by
the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686-1743). Ramsay had
probably been initiated in c. 1728 in the Old Horn Lodge
(Westminster) shortly after his return to England after a 20-year
sojourn in various European cities. His career and his [in]famous
Oration (1737) have attracted plenty of attention. Apart
from his education connections with the Royal House of Stuart in
exile, he was masonically and culturally the equal of many of the
FRS who joined that Lodge at about the same time. His first work,
however, which dealt in a fictional form with copious learned
excursions into ancient theological and philosophical systems, was
his very popular Voyages de Cyrus (1727). In this and other
writings, Ramsay shows himself to have been the intellectual heir
of the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth (1616-1688), whose
True Intellectual System of the Universe (1st
end.,1678) was hugely influential in the cultural life of the
nation then. It was after his Initiation that Ramsay had his
Voyages de Cyrus translated into English by Bro. Nathaniel
Hooke (d. 1763) and he added a long ‘Discourse upon the Theology
and Mythology of the Ancients’ in which he attempted to support
his narrative with precise if somewhat obscure references to
classical literature, providing extensive quotations in the
original languages and including copies extracts from esoteric
texts such as the Hermetica, the Oracula Chaldaica
and the Orphica. It was an extremely popular venture
which went through 30 English editions, and was even translated in
German, Italian, Spanish and Greek. The fact that the masonic
Lodges purchased copies and loaned them out to members would seem
to suggest a taste of such Hermetic ‘exploration’ then amongst
ordinary freemasons.
Then there are other clues in the following
hitherto unexploited particular sources:
- the records of the Old King’s Arms Lodge,
now no. 28, which still meets in London;
- the mysterious collection of Kaballistic
drawings known as the Byrom Collection and named after their
enigmatic former owner, John Byrom FRS (1691-1763), a Jacobite,
inventor of a primitive form of short-hand writing, freemason
and spy;
- the ritual of the Order of Heredom which
became transmuted eventually into the present day Royal Order of
Scotland and
- the Royal Arch Ceremony.
The Old King’s Arms Lodge began its
long history in 1725. When it began there were only 14 members.
The first extant Minute Book covers the years 1733-1756 after the
Lodge had moved to the King’s Arms Tavern in the Strand. By then
there were 43 new members, none of whom had been among the
original founders. A tradition had been acquired somehow of being
‘entertained’ by lectures on a whole variety of abstruse subjects
at the regular meetings. Within just one decade (6 August 1733 to
4 January 1743) there were 36 lectures/demonstrations that can be
described broadly as ‘Hermetic’ in the broadest sense. It is
worthwhile recalling the subjects of these lectures:
Topic
No. of Lectures
(Human) Physiology, including practical
dissections (!) 7
Scientific phenomena and techniques
7
Ethical concepts 6
Architecture 5
Industrial processes 3
Mechanical inventions and scientific
apparatus 3
Art and aesthetics 2
History (classical) 1
Masonic apparel 1
Mathematics 1
Even though it was only one of about 60
Lodges in and around London at that time, the frequency of these
meetings of the Old King’s Arms Lodge and the fact that they were
continued over a decade would seem to suggest at least something
about the character and intellectual background of the membership
of this particular London Lodge. It hints at what they regarded a
legitimate or proper working of a masonic Lodge (i.e., that it was
not merely a Degree ‘factory’ or a convivial foregathering in a
tavern).
The variety of topics is revealing itself.
It shows the London Enlightenment gentlemen freemason at his
leisure, interested in the practical application of sciences and
in the philosophical bases of ethical concepts, his vision rooted
firmly in this world though hardly limited or inward-looking. His
Freemasonry has not yet become introverted, feeding only on
itself. His was a clearly marked fascination with measuring and
quantification which not only suggests something of the English
Enlightenment mentalite in general but also goes some way
to explaining in particular the frequency of the references to
geometry and practical measuring apparatus which came to
proliferate throughout the English masonic rituals.
Sadly, however, the ‘Hermetic’ exploration
by the members of this Lodge declined in the late 1740s. Even by
the early years of that decade there is some indication in the
Minute Book that the original impetus for papers was abating. On 2
February 1743 there is a reference to fact that
frequent Disappointments had happened by
Brethren not performing their Promises of giving
Lectures
and by the end of the year (7 December 1743)
things had become even more desperate obviously because the
Minutes state
The Master called upon several Brethren
to oblige the Lodge with a Lecture upon any useful subject
which not being compiled with, Sir Robert Lawley was so kind
to offer a further continuance of a lecture in Masonry either
on the next or the succeeding Lodge
night…
In case it may be thought that this approach
to Freemasonry was unique to only one London Lodge in those days,
it may be worthwhile recalling that the practice of having
lectures delivered regularly at Lodge meetings was wide-spread.
According to Francis Drake of York in 1726
… most Lodges in London, and several
other Parts of this Kingdom, [my emphasis] a Lecture on
some Point of Geometry or Architecture is given at every
Meeting …
Bro. William Smith of Gateshead, in the
Preface to his compilation The Book M (1736), wrote that he
recommended to his subscribing readers in their Lodges
the Studys (sic) of Geometry and
Architecture and that there should never pass a Lodge Night
without some Discourse upon those
Heads….
The anonymous author of the
half-exposure/half-apology of Freemasonry, A Word to the
Wise (1795), reported that
from the Minute Books of various lodges
in the earliest dates, it would appear that the Members were
not content with merely proceeding in the usual form of
Masonry, but Lectures were occasionally given by those who
were qualified in the branches of the Arts and
Sciences.
The same author noted that the members of
the Grand Stewards’ Lodge meeting in London
in particular on their public nights
entertained their visitors with a diversity of knowledge …
Natural Philosophy in general, dissertations on the laws and
properties of Nature, the doctrine of fluids etc., were
commented upon and explained. These subjects were
gratifications to the intelligent and which primarily
distinguished this fountain of
honour.
There are traces of ‘Hermetic’ lectures
being delivered to meetings elsewhere. For instance, Desaguliers
delivered such an oration on 24 June 1721 to the Premier Grand
Lodge in Stationers’ Hall in the City of London. Five years later,
referring to an as yet untraced London Lodge of ‘Antediluvian
Masons’ due to meet in the Ship Tavern in Bishopsgate Street on 24
June 1726, a newspaper advertisement mentioned that there would
be
several lectures on Ancient Masonry,
particularly on the Signification of the Letter G … a
particular Description of the Temple of Solomon … [as well as]
an Oration in the Henlean stile
(sic).
Martin Clare, a London schoolmaster,
‘entertained’ the members of the Grand Stewards’ Lodge on 17
November 1735 with
an excellent Discourse containing some
maxims and Advice that concerned the Society in
general.
According to the later ‘testimony’ of
Oliver, Clare’s
grave and quiet method of delivery made
a strong impression on the audience and [his] conclusion was
received with loud
approbation…
Certainly his lecture was considered to be
so good by those present that they asked the Master of the Lodge,
one Sir Robert Lawley – a Kabbalistic associate of Byrom (see
below) – to recommend to the Grand Lodge that they hear it again.
This was done on 11 December 1735 to ‘great Attention and
Applause’. Clare later had the revised text printed in a yet
untraced pamphlet and this version was translated thereafter into
both French and German (1754).
John Byrom’s life and taste for Hermeticism have been described
already by Joy Hancox. His library is revelatory. A catalogue of
his 3,300+ titles and 40+ MSS was printed privately in 1848 and
fortunately most of the collection came to the Chetham Library in
Manchester in 1870. This collection reveals Byrom’s sustained
interest in theology, ecclesiastical history, liturgy,
apologetics, mysticism and ‘the occult’. For instance, there were
26 titles by his close friend, the non-juror mystic William Law
(1636-1761) as well as first editions of Agrippa’s De Occulta
Philosophia (1533) and Porta’s Natural Magick (1591).
There were also books on necromancy and witchcraft together with
copies of Reuchlin’s De Arte Caballistica, The Divine
Pymander and Dee’s Monas Hierogylphica. There were many
of the standard mathematical and geometrical texts, works by
Descartes, books on trigonometry and a wide selection of
alchemical texts, ranging from Bacon to Boyle. There were
contemporary scientific works too, including the standard works of
Newton and the then latest volumes on electricity and
magnetism as well as books on codes, including a rare, valuable
copy of John Falconer’s early work on codes Cryptomenis
Patefacta (1685). Byrom’s interest in physiology and medicine
is reflected in his ownership of texts ranging from Galen and
Paracelsus, Elizabethan herbals and pharmocopeias to the latest
research in inoculation. In addition, his collection contained
Rosicrucian texts by Andrea, Maier and Vaughan.
Byrom’s enthusiasm for Hermetic exploration
is also evidenced in his membership of a discussion group known
only from many references to it in his journal as the ‘Sun Club’.
This group of freemasons met weekly at various London taverns from
the late 1720s, including the Goose and Gridiron tavern in St
Paul’s Churchyard. It included some interesting personalities
some of whom, such as Martin Folkes, George Graham, James
Jurin and Ralph Leycester, were active freemasons. Sadly, there
are no surviving clues as to what these enthusiasts discussed at
their weekly gatherings but we can glean some impression perhaps
by reference to the published records of a comparable provincial
group of which some of them were also members: the Spalding
Gentlemen’s Society. The latter group had a permanent home. This
enabled them to accumulate their own library and museum, a physics
garden and even their own harpsichord (for their frequent musical
recitals). Their lectures, demonstrations and discussions covered
a wide range of literary and scientific topics, including
archaeology, astronomy, biology, engineering, horticulture,
mathematics, medicine and ornithology, and the prestige of the
group might be indicated by the fact that no less a personage than
Newton was a member.
These were the fairly conventional
enthusiasms of leisured middle-class amateurs. The general
features of their interest in literature, history, science and
mathematics, as cultural phenomenon have been very well delineated
and there is nothing much that might be called classically
Hermetic in their discussions. However, Byrom wanted to expand the
range of his inquiries with his companion explorers so, on 9 March
1725, he proposed to the members of the ‘Sun Club’ the formation
of an inner group to be called the ‘Caballah Club’. This
also met regularly but more secretly in London taverns and it is
the activities of this smaller group of Hermeticists, some of whom
at least were freemasons, that is most interesting.
The range of their occult discussions is
shown by the unique Byrom Collection which was found
(accidentally) in 1969. This collection consists of 516 separate
pieces of paper and card, of varying thicknesses, sizes and
shapes. The materials range from thick and mottled coarse card to
fine paper. Some of them (171) can be dated from the mid- to
late-17th century using watermarks which are
well-known. They consist of drawings, done very carefully by hand
and using geometrical precision instruments. Some are coloured
yellow and gold and a few have the telltale press marks which show
that they may have been patterns for printing. There is a variety
of styles of calligraphy, beautifully styled and executed,
displaying a remarkable consistent standard of penmanship over
several generations of scribes. Viewed generally, the drawings
date from the late 1570s to 1732 but the MS comments in margins
are written in English, French, German and Latin in a variety of
cursive styles that were common in the mid-17th and
early-18th centuries. At least some of these drawings
may have been copied from a curious Rosicrucian collection, or
scrapbook, in the British Library that had been compiled
pseudonymously by a ‘Theophilus Schweighardt’ and is entitled
Speculum Sophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum (1618).
There are two crucial considerations to take
into account when assessing the importance and relevance of this
collection. Firstly, it was a collection, kept
secretly in tact among the Byrom family archives. Secondly,
there are several signs that these curious pieces of MSS were
actually working drawings that were referred to and passed around
(perhaps among several people who knew their significance). For
instance, many of them have very old coffee stains and candle wax
marks. Some others have hastily scrawled notes added. Yet others
have pierced holes from the repeated practical use of compasses.
Moreover, the whole sequence, as it was discovered, had been
rearranged by someone so that they do not appear in any logical
sequence. Still others have larger holes at their ‘top’ edges
hinting probably that they were hung up on string in displays.
Others have tiny pencil dots which would imply that at least one
user has been engaged in measuring the dimensions of the figures
therein.
The drawings cover an interesting range of
topics. Lots of them display plans of at least five well-known
London theatres dating from Elizabethan and Jacobean times. These
are based largely on the plans of Roman theatres based on a French
version of Vitruvius and others based on Palladian designs.
Several are drawings of complex timber roofing constructions, such
as the Rhenish Helm format. The drawings are so accurate that it
has been proved possible to reconstruct a three-dimensional scale
model of the Globe Theatre using some of them.
Another group of the drawings are concerned
with ‘sacred’ locations – such as King’s College Chapel,
Cambridge; the Temple in London and Westminster Abbey. Others
depict complex military fortifications from Renaissance Italy.
Another group shows miscellaneous symbols that have Hermetic
significance: the letter Tau, the Swastika, the Hexalpha and the
Hexagon. There is a group of compass cards to be used in
navigation. One card depicts the five Platonic Solids; another
shows the Tree of Life and several show designs for
three-dimensional lectern-shaped sundials and 24-hour clocks such
as those at Lamancha and Haddington in Scotland.
Of especial interest and relevance in the
present connection are the names of men whom the MSS mention and
who are known to have strong Rosicrucian and/or Hermetic
connections: Colet, Riley, Fludd, Dee, Le Bon, Boehme, Meirer and
Khunrath. This is a veritable Who’s Who of the western
Hermetic tradition.
The Order of Heredom originated among
Scots freemasons living mostly in or around London. It was formed
in the early 1730s to correct the abuses which they perceived to
have crept into St John’s Masonry. This so-called ‘Scots (or
Ecossais) Masonry’ was intended to form a superior, more
knowledgeable Freemasonry and its members attributed to themselves
a sort of supervisory, inspectorial role. It was certainly
resented by some of the leading members of the Premier Grand Lodge
because its very raison d’etre was to correct the mistakes
which the latter were alleged to have been introducing into
Freemasonry by, inter alia, abbreviating the ‘Lectures’.
Another reason for it being rejected by the London-based masonic
authorities then could have been its popularity among freemasons
in France, England’s traditional enemy.
The ritual contains distinctively Hermetic
and Kabbalistic themes. Among the most important of these
are:
- mystical perambulations representing
the soul’s pilgrimage in search of a Lost Word;
- an recurring emphasis on numbers (e.g.,
9, 7, 5 and 3);
- references to the Seven Wonders of the
World;
- allusions to men who are said never to
have died (e.g., Enoch transported by fire into
Heaven);
- references to the descent and removal
of the Divine Shekinah;
- escape from the imprisoning confines of
human physicality;
- admission into a ‘Cabinet of
Wisdom’;
- allusions to Kabbalistic dimensions
assigned to the Christian Church and to the generality of the
east-west alignment of all sacred buildings;
- remarkable passages encapsulating an
apocalyptic vision of the Last Judgement.
Part of its regalia is a thistle green
cordon or baldrick and so the Order of Heredom may have been the
so-called ‘green-ribbonned cabal’ which is referred to several
times in some of the contemporary anti-masonic literature.
However, it died out quickly in England probably because of the
determined opposition of the Premier Grand Lodge. After c. 1756 it
was transported to Edinburgh where it became transformed into what
is now called ‘The Royal Order of Scotland’. That Order is still
very active on a world-wide basis, is much cherished and continues
to contribute a distinguished Scottish variety of Hermetic
‘lived-through’ experience in a masonic context for the Brethren
who are privileged to be invited to join its elite
ranks.
With the departure into Scotland of the
Order of Heredom (‘Heredim’ = ‘Princes’ or ‘Rulers’), the English
masonic landscape became even more impoverished as far is any
emergent Hermeticism is concerned. In one way the intensity of the
esoteric vision which it represented was replaced by the Royal
Arch ceremony with its emphasis on the deliberate burial of a
secret ‘Word’ in an underground vault within the Temple precincts
and the accidental discovery of that secret ‘text’ by stonemasons
employed in the reconstruction of the Temple after the return of
the remnant of faithful Jews from their 70 years of captivity in
Babylon. The esoteric features of the Royal Arch ceremony include
the following:
- a subterranean cave;
- concealment of arcaneities (texts and
carved inscriptions) in that vault in order to preserve them
from the profane;
- the legend of the accidental discovery of
those secrets by ordinary workers who could not understand at
first what it was they had found until the significance was
explained to them;
- the rewarding of those
discoverers;
- the revealing of the meaning of that
hitherto hidden Word which is taken to refer to the Supreme
Deity.
The theme of a subterranean vault containing
hidden artefacts and accompanying the discovery of these with
Hermetic instruction is echoed also in the Royal Master Degree –
one of a sequence of four Degrees invented in the
mid—19th century. In that ceremony, the Neophyte is
accompanied by a ‘Magus’ figure on seven circular perambulations
around the precious Ark of the Covenant buried below Solomon’s
Temple. During that journeying, the elder man imparts his
accumulated wisdom to his new disciple in a lengthy oration.
However, the sequence of Degrees, known collectively as the Royal
and select Masters, is not very popular among English-speaking
freemasons and only a tiny minority of brethren ever bother to
join.
Furthermore, what cannot be denied is that
the Royal Arch ceremony was not always accepted officially among
members of the Premier Grand Lodge as part of ‘pure’ Freemasonry,
even though some of them were active members of what they regarded
as a separate masonic Order. Indeed, for several decades in the
early 18th century there was active opposition and
discouragement of Premier Grand Lodge Brethren from taking part in
Royal Arch ceremonies. It found acceptance only slowly and its
popularity increased fitfully throughout the 18th
century. Its ritual is preserved today (more or less) although
some of its zodiacal features were removed in the extensive
revisions in the 1830s. However, the presence today of the Royal
Arch ceremony does not prove that there are surviving Hermetic
elements in speculative Freemasonry that influence the
‘living-through’ experience of English-speaking freemasons
generally. The Royal Arch is still not popular. Only a third of
English freemasons ever bother to join it. In Scotland it is still
regarded officially by that Grand Lodge as no part of ‘ancient’
Freemasonry. Officially, the Grand Lodge of Scotland and the Royal
Arch of Scotland do not recognise each other’s existence even
though, of course, most of the Royal Arch ‘Chapters’ do meet in
premises owned and operated by Craft Lodges and some of the
leading office-bearers of the Scottish Craft have also been
simultaneously the prominent office-bearers in the Royal Arch
Order.
back to top |
