Why Freemasonry Has Enemies
THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic Service Association of the United States
VOL. 27 MAY 1949 NO. 5
author unknown
Say "Anti-Masonry" to the average American Mason and
he will think you speak only of the Morgan affair of 1826. So Many
books have been written on this, so many speeches made about it,
so many study clubs have discussed it, that it is pretty much in
the class with political oratory - interesting once, but as bore
when much repeated!
Anti-Masonry neither began nor ended with the Morgan affair. The
Fraternity has always had its enemies and, unless the world reforms
spiritually, doubtless always will. BUT WHY?
Examine just a few of the exhibitions of anti-Masonry, other than
the Morgan affair - which was a sporadic explosion, not a deep
- rooted and poisonous plant.
Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Stalin could not permit the existence
of a society which is predicated upon the brotherhood of man; they
were, and are, too much committed to a society predicated upon
a police power which knows no mercy and has but one object; the
destruction of people, ideas, and organizations which do not believe
that man is nothing, the State (and its ruler or rulers) everything.
Mussolini's anti-Masonic feeling was expressed in his doctrine
of conflict, which does not even mention the Craft:
"
Humanity is still and always an abstraction of time and space;
men are still not brothers, do not want to be and evidently cannot
be. Peace is hence absurd; or rather it is a pause in war. There
is something that binds man to his destiny of struggling, against
either his fellows or himself. The motives for the struggle may
change indefinitely, they may be economic, religious, political,
sentimental, but the legend of Cain and Abel seems to be the inescapable
reality, while brotherhood is a fable men listen to during the
bivouac and the truce."
General Erich Ludendorff wrote a booklet against Freemasonry of
which more than a hundred thousand copies were sold. Too long to
quote here, the reader may get an idea of its contents from some
of his words.
"Masonry brings its members into conscious subjection to
the Jews...... it trains them to become venal Jews.... German Masonry
is a branch of organized international Masonry the headquarters
of which are in New York.... there also is the seat of Jewish world
power...."
Ludendorff blamed Freemasons for bringing America into the World
War I, helped by the Jesuits, B'nai B'rith and the Grand Lodge
of New York! This, he stated, was done to destroy Austria Hungary,
a Catholic world power. Had it not been for Freemasonry, Germany
would have won the war - Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas lost
their thrones because they were not Freemasons - and so on and
on and on for eighty-two pages of "Annihilation of Freemasonry
Through revelation of its Secrets!"
Not all anti-Masonry has had causes so fundamental, which lie
so deep; small jealousies and little rascals have started anti
- Masonic movements; several religions have fought and, indeed,
now fight the Craft, as sinful and un-godlike. The opposition of
the Catholic Church, based on the Papal Bull of 1738, many times
renewed, expanded, explained and emphasized, is well known. The
Lutheran church as a whole has been unfriendly to the Craft and
certain Synods rabid against it. The Mormon Church has been anti-Masonic
ever since hundreds of Mormons were expelled from Masonry by the
Grand Lodge of Illinois. Even the Gentle Quakers have opposed Freemasonry
and not always gently!
When organized religion has disputed with Freemasonry, it is largely
because of the thought that Masonic teaching of "that natural
religion in which all men agree" might take the place of that
which it espoused; knowing that the Fraternity operated by means
of a secret ritual, obligations, religious beliefs and the doctrine
that all men of whatever faith might worship a Great Architect
of the Universe around a common Altar, Freemasonry became a rival!
Just as science disputes with no religion, so Freemasonry does
not now and never has questioned any man's faith. There has never
been an anti-clerical party composed only of Masons; there have
been anti-Masonic parties in many clerical circles. As late as
1896 an anti-Masonic party convened at Trent. In the BUILDER, April,
1918, George W. Baird, P.G.M. District of Columbia, reports that
the general and particular aims of this council were to wage war
on Masonry as an institution; on Masons as individuals, in all
countries and places where the order exists; to wage war on Masonry
as a body, by collecting supposed documents and facts; assertions
of perjured Masons as evidence and thus bring to light or rather
to coin, by means of the press or special publications, all the
misdeeds of the fatal institution; all the demoralizing influences
it exercises; through obscene or sacrilegious rites, corruption
and occult conspiracies of man and civilization; to wage war on
individual Masons by opposing them in every phase of their existence,
in their homes, in their industries, in their commerce, in their
professional vocations, in all their endeavors to participate in
public life, local or general, etc.
The first anti-Masonic campaign - if it be called that - in the
American Colonies occurred in 1737. According to an account published
in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Benjamin Franklin's paper) an apothecary
duped a young man (Daniel Reese) who had expressed a desire to
be a Freemason, into a false and ridiculous ceremony, ending in
a scene in which the devil was supposed to appear. When the young
man refused to be frightened, the "devil" became angry
and threw a pan of flaming spirits on the candidate, who died of
burns three days later.
Freemasons, though innocent, were blamed and the incident (if
death can be called and incident!) spread far and wide to the serious
but not too lengthy embarrassment of Masons of the City of Brotherly
Love.
There were a few sporadic attacks in the Colonial press against
Freemasonry, including one in Boston in 1751, but no real opposition
of any moment in this nation until the Morgan affair of 1826. (See
Short Talk Bulletin of March 1933 and February 1946.)
But the Colonies were not to escape prejudice, even if unorganized,
for Pritchard's Masonry Dissected (1730) and Jachin and Boaz (1762)
both had wide circulation, the latter pamphlet being reprinted
here more than a dozen times; one edition was printed in Spanish
in Philadelphia as late as 1822.
These "expose's" purporting to print the ritual, ceremonies
and "secrets" of Freemasonry (invaluable now as giving
clues to practices and words otherwise lost in the mist of the
years) were then intended as body blows at the Ancient Craft. In
early days all Freemasonry was kept secret; place of meeting; men
who belonged; candidates proposes, were all considered to be "esoteric".
Hence there was a great curiosity on the part of the public and
a large circulation of pamphlets designed to injure the Fraternity
by "exposing" its charter, ritual and secrets. Today,
few would look at and less would buy such a pamphlet on a newsstand
- then, the public demanded these in quantities.
Like all such, the motive of their publication--whether revenge
for fancied slights or avarice - kept them from being too seriously
considered by the better educated and thinking class.
In England, Pritchard's "Masonry Dissected" raised a
storm when it was published, and was reflected even in the songs
of the day. An actress in 1765 offered the following, as coming
from the anti - Masonic Scald Miserable Masons:
"Next for the secret of their own wise making,
Hiram and Boaz and Grand Master Jachin;
Poker and tongs-the sign-the word-the stroke
'Tis all a nothing and 'tis all a joke!
Nonsense on nonsense! Let them storm and rail
Here's the whole history of the mop and pail*
For 'tis the sense of more than half the town
Their secret is-a bottle at the Crown!" *
An allusion to the tiler's implements with which he erased the
designs drawn upon the lodge floor for he instruction of candidates.
Although inspired by the Morgan affair, the letters of John Quincy
Adams had an anti-Masonic effect long after Morgan was forgotten.
President Adams was never a Freemason; we have his own words as
proof of that. That he was an implacable enemy of the institution
is shown by his "Letters on the Masonic Institution" published
in book form in Boston in 1847. His enmity of the Fraternity sprang
from his belief in the reality of the "murder" of Morgan,
the activities of the anti-Masonic party and his own great credulity
and strong prejudice. His character as a man, his service to his
county, his exhaustless energy made serious his attacks on Freemasonry,
even though he displayed a woeful ignorance of the Order, its principles,
practices, history and accomplishments.
John Quincy Adams is long gathered to his fathers. His "letters" remain
largely unread in libraries and in the minds of historians. He
did the fraternity harm once, but, judged by the perspective of
a century, it was without permanent effect.
These are but the slightest thumb-nail sketches of a few of the
outbreaks against Freemasonry. In all countries since the organization
of the Mother Grand Lodge, there have been these ebullitions of
passions and prejudice; in some lands, tortures and burnings; destructions
of Masonic property, imprisonment of Masons, especially in World
War II.
These persecutions have had a hundred underlying causes; avarice,
jealousy, desire for notoriety, disappointment, envy, the belief
that he climbs high who climbs ruthlessly, the need for a scrape-goat:
the list is endless. But all, in the last analysis, boil down to
one cause. As the greater swallows the less, the large encompasses
the little, the race includes all its blood strains, so the reason
for the enmity of Freemasons and Freemasonry, encompassing all
of many causes, is simple.
There is always a conflict between any two opposing beliefs, doctrines,
dogmas, religions, philosophies, political systems. For hundreds
of years organized religion fought science; the doctrine of the
divine right of kings ran headlong into the doctrine of the equality
of man; today we see democracy and Communism in a cold war to the
death; less spectacular but none the less real has been the split
of Lincoln's famous words, resulting in the opposition of those
who believe in government by the people, to those who believe only
in government of the people, by the governor!
Freemasonry is a philosophy which cannot exist side by side with
certain ideologies. Either the latter must sink or Freemasonry
must be banished. Wherever men have believed that one man or some
men are above the law which applies to the many; wherever as government
is by men and not by law, Freemasonry is anathema, must be persecuted,
thrown out, dispersed, and done away.
Freemasonry stands and has always stood for freedom of political
thought; for freedom of religious thought; for the dignity, importance
and worth of the individual. In Freemasonry there is neither high
nor low-"We meet upon the level". In Freemasonry is no
compulsion; a man must come to it and be of it "of his own
free will and accord." In Freemasonry is no religious sect:
men of all religions or of no religion join hands in kneeling about
a common Altar erected to the Great Architect of the Universe,
by which name each can worship the God he knows.
Such a plan, such a doctrine, such a brotherhood, cannot but be
inimical to the selfish, the crooked, the power-hungry, the dictator,
the religion which opposes any doctrine but its own, the self-seeking,
the envious, the coward, the prejudiced, the passionate and the
dishonest.
The reason for all the attacks on Masonry, no matter how attempted
or by whom accomplished, can be expressed in a word...
The word is FEAR. Fear of what?
OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT!}
The Star of Rosicrucianism is now once more in the ascendant
and our Society has made rapid strides in the past ten years.
It is curious to note that waves of interest in occult and mystical
subjects, seem to sweep over a nation at intervals; periods of
Rosicrucian enlightenment alternate with other periods of materialistic
dogmatism.
We must remember that Rosicrucianism itself was "no new thing" but
only a revival of still earlier forms of Initiation, and was a
lineal descendant of the Philosophies of the Chaldean Magi, of
the Egyptian priests, of the Neo-Platonists, of the Hermetists
of Alexandria of the Jewish Kabalists and of Christian Kabalists
such as Raymond Lully and Pic de Mirandola.
The nominal Founder of our Society--Christian Rosencreuz, did
not invent, at least in our modern sense of the word, the doctrines
he promulgated, and which we should now study. It is narrated that
he journeyed to Arabia, to Palestine, to Egypt and to Spain, and
in the seats of learning in those countries he found and collected
the mystic lore, which was made anew by him into a code of doctrine
and knowledge. On his return from these foreign travels he settled
in Germany, founded a Collegium, selected certain friends and transformed
them into enthusiastic pupils, and giving his new Society his own
name, he laid the foundation of that scheme of Mystical Philosophy,
which we are now here to perpetuate and carry into practice: let
us remember that he died in the year 1484, that is so far back
as the reign of our King Richard the Third.
The fratres of the original Collegium, who met in the "Domus
Sanctus Spiritus," or " House of the Holy Spirit," were
learned men, earnest students and public benefactors. Their rules
were: That none of the members should profess any art except to
relieve the sick and that gratis; each one should wear the ordinary
dress of the country, and should attend on Corpus Christi day at
a general Convocation every year, whenever possible to do so; each
one should seek a suitable pupil to succeed him: that the secret
mark of each one should be C.R. or R.C., and that the Society should
remain secret for 100 years.
As time went on the purposes and duties of the fratres became
altered, the cure of the sick especially was taken over by the
development of the medical profession.
About 1710, one Sigmund Richter, using the motto of "Sincerus
Renatus," published at Breslau his work called "The perfect
and true preparation of the Philosophical Stone according to the
secret of the Brotherhoods of the Golden and Rosy Cross." In
this volume we find a series of 52 rules for the guidance of Rosicrucian
members; these rules are such as were likely to lead to useful
and orderly lives.
Again, about 1785, there was published at Altona in Germany a
most important volume of coloured theosophical plates with eludicatory
words and phrases and several essays on Rosicrucian subjects: its
title was "Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer"; it was
in two portions. An English translation of some part of this work
was published in 1888 by Franz Hartmann, a German Theosophist.
We catch a further glimpse of the purposes of the Rosicrucians
at a later date, from a curious little tract relating to a French
branch of the Society, which relates the Reception of Dr. Sigismund
Bacstrom in the Mauritius--French colony--by the Comte de Chazal
in 1794. I cannot say where the original MS. now is, but our copy
was made by the secretary of the well-known Rosicrucian and crystal-gazer
Frederick Hockley, who died in 1885. Bacstrom signed his pledge
to fourteen promises;--to piety and sobriety, to keep the secrecy
of his admission, to preserve the secret knowledge, to choose suitable
successors, to carry on the great work, to give aid and charity
privately, to share discoveries with his fellows, to avoid politics,
to help strangers, and to show gratitude to those who had led to
his reception, etc..
During a recent visit to East Africa I met in Natal a Mauritius
born doctor whose wife was a Miss de Chazal, a native of Mauritius;
among her ancestors about 1780-90 there was this M. de Chazal who
was an eccentric genius and was considered to possess curious arts;
he also became a notable Swedenborgian and held classes of mystical
philosophy. The name is many times mentioned in a French history
of Mauritius which was lent to me by Dr. Dumat of Durban. At the
time of the French Revolution it would be natural for our count
de Chazal to drop his title, as did many of the French nobility.
The aim of our own Society at the present day is to afford mutual
aid and encouragement in working out the great problems of Life,
and in discovering the Secrets of Nature; to facilitate the study
of the system of Philosophy founded upon the Kabalah and the doctrines
of Hermes Trismegistus, which was inculcated by the original Fratres
Rosae Crucis of Germany, A.D. 1450; and to investigate the meaning
and symbolism of all that now remains of the wisdom, art and literature
of the Ancient World.
The Rosicrucian Societies of Anglia, Scotia and the United States,
alike Masonic bodies, are by no means the only descendants of the
original Collegium, for in Germany, and Austria there are other
Rosicrucian Colleges of more direct descent than our own, which
are not fettered by any of the limitations which Freemasonry has
imposed upon us, and some of these, although not composed of many
members, include students who understand many curious phenomena,
which our Zelators have not studied. The German Rosicrucians keep
their Colleges and membership entirely secret, they print no transactions
nor even any notices, and it is almost impossible to identify any
member.
The German groups of Rosicrucians now existing are much more immersed
in mystic and occult lore than ourselves; they endeavour to extend
the human faculties beyond the material toward the ethereal, astral
and spiritual worlds: at the present time I understand that they
use no formulated Ritual, but German Colleges have experienced
a notable revival and the teachings of Rudolf Steiner are considered
as giving an introduction of their system of occult Theosophy.
Several of Steiner's volumes are now available in English translations,
such we his "Initiation and its Results," "The Gates
of Knowledge," and "Way of Initiation." They are
well worthy of study.
The Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia, as well as the Societas Rosicruciana
in the U.S.A. were branches from the same Rosicrucian source and
sprang from a rejuvenation by Frater Robert Wentworth Little of
that lapsed Rosicrucian College in England which is mentioned by
Godfrey Higgins in his notable work "The Anacalypsis," or "An
attempt to withdraw the Veil of the Isis of Sais," which was
published in 1836; he remarks that he did not join the old College
there referred to.
About fifty years earlier a certain eminent Jew named Falk, or
Dr. Falcon, lived in London (a reference to whom will be found
in the "Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry" by Kenneth Mackenzie)
and was of high repute as a teacher of the kabalah and of other
studies of a Rosicrucian character; he was indeed said to have
magical powers. Falk could not have flatly affiliated to any Rosicrucian
College because he was a strict Jew of the Jews, and the members
of all true Rosicrucian Colleges have always been Christians, but
perhaps not of an orthodox type, for there was a tendency in the
teachings toward Gnostic ideals. Mackenzie classes Dr. Falk among
the Rosicrucians of eminence, and certainly told me he had first
hand evidence of his connection with the Society; many Christian
students adopted a modification of the old Jewish kabalah, so perhaps
some Jews have been allied to the Christian Rosicrucians.
Our own Magus Frater R. W. Little surrounded himself with several
other notable Rosicrucian students, of whom I may mention the late
Supreme Magus in Anglia, Dr. William Robert Woodman, a learned
Kabalist and Hebrew scholar; W.J. Hughan, the great Masonic historian;
William Carpenter, editor of Calmet's "Dictionary of the Bible";
Alphonse Constant, better known as "Eliphaz Levi," who
gave Fratres Little and Kenneth Mackenzie much assistance, and
was in return elected an honorary member of the Metropolitan College
in 1873. Our Society unfortunately lost Frater Little at a very
early age. Frater H. C. Levander, too, a Professor at University
College, London, was a learned member; and took great interest
in the mystic lore of the Society.
The late Lord Lytton, the author of "Zanoni" and "The
Strange Story," who was in 1871 Grand Patron of our Society,
took very great interest in this form of Philosophy, although he
never reached the highest degree of knowledge; for public reasons
he once made a disavowal of his membership of the Rosicrucians,
but he had been admitted as a Frater of the German Rosicrucian
College at Frankfort on the Main; that College was closed after
1850.
Among the Fratres who have recently been ornaments to our Colleges,
I may draw attention to the lately deceased and quaintly cultured
John Yarker of Didsbury; to our late Adept of York, T. B. Whytehead,
who was famous as an antiquarian: to Frater Fendelow of the Newcastle
College, who was the author of a learned and suggestive Rosicrucian
Lecture: to Frater F. F. Schnitger, who made deep researches into
the French and German Rosicrucian Treatises: to Samuel Liddell
Mathers, the translator of portions of the Hebrew "Zohar," and
to Frederick Holland, the author of "The Temple Rebuilt," and "The
Shekinah Revealed." Another deceased Frater of eminence was
Benjamin Cox of Weston-super-Mare, and with him I naturally couple
the greater name of Frater Major F. G. Irwin, who, however has
now also gone to a Temple far away.
Among the learned juniors of our Society, I may name Fratres Dr.
Vaughan Bateson, Thomas Henry Pattinson, the Rev. C. E. Wright,
Sir John A. Cockburn, W. J. Songhurst, Herbert Burrows, A. Cadbury
Jones, W. Wonnacott, Dr. Wm. Hammond, Dr. B. J. Edwards, and Dr.
W. C. Blaker.
Our Colleges need not languish for want of subjects of study;
the narrative of the foundation of our Society is singularly suggestive
of points for future investigation. The German "Fama Fraternitatis" of
1614, in an English translation by Thomas Vaughan of 1652, presents
you with the History of Christian Rosenkreuz: its companion tract
the "Confessio Fraternitatis" gives you a slight insight
into the views of the Rosicrucians of a date a hundred years later.
The "Chymische Hoctizeit" or "Chemical Wedding" by
C.R., and the "Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians' by F. Hartman,
are tractates of Rosicrucian Allegory which will well repay, not
only perusal, but deep study; while the elucidation of the whole
set of Medieval Divinatory Sciences, Astrology, Geomancy, etc,
are suitable themes for lectures in your College. For such as can
understand medieval Latin a most interesting work is the "Oedipus
Aegyptiacus" of Athanasius Kircher. It is desirable that our
students should make themselves acquainted with the Ancient Mysteries
of Egypt, of Greece and of Rome. The basis of the Western occultism
of medieval Europe is the Kabalah of the medieval Hebrew Rabbis,
to which I have published "An Introduction." This philosophy,
although at first sight barbarous and crude, yet will be found,
when one has grown familiar with the nomenclature, to be a concrete,
coherent and far-reaching scheme of Theology, cosmology, ethics
and metaphysics, serving to throw light on many obscure Biblical
passages and to suggest original views of the meaning of most of
the allegorical descriptions found in the Old Testament. A copy
of a very curious old Kabalistic picture from a Syriac Gospel with
a descriptive essay by Dr. Carnegie Dickson, a notable Scotch Rosicrucian
Adept, has just been given to our Library.
The works of the great Rosicrucian Kabalist, Eliphaz Levi, are,
to those who read French with ease, a mine of mystic lore, full
of fine imagery, and replete with magical formulas. His "Histoire
de la Magie" is a storehouse of information relating to the
Secret Sciences and Secret Fraternities of all times and among
many nations, while in English the two volumes of the new edition
of Heckethorn's "Secret Societies" should be read as
an introduction to deeper personal research.
The work of Franz Hartmann, named "Magic, White and Black," I
can recommend to serious enquirers, for it elucidates the real
aims of the Higher Magic, with which alone we are concerned, and
it clears away many misconceptions which exist in the minds of
the uninitiated.
To such as desire to follow more closely the Old Testament religious
element, I should advise a perusal of the commentaries of Dr. Mien
Barnes on "Daniel" and "The Book of Revelation," and
the symbolical descriptions of the book of Ezekiel. On the Christian
aspect I recommend "The Perfect Way," or "The Finding
of Christ," by the late Dr. A. Kingsford; in this volume will
be found worked out the broader scheme of Christian teaching which
is so apt to be obscured by sectarian forms of worship. The tenets
of this work are closely approximate to those of the earliest of
the followers of Christian Rosencreuz, whose name was probably
a mystic title, motto or synonym, and not a family cognomen:- "Christian" referring
to the general theological tendency, and "Rosenkreuz" to
the Cross of Suffering whose explanation and key may need a Rose
or secret explanation.
There is one doctrine for the learned, and a simpler formula for
those who are unable to bear it yet, even as the new testament
itself tells us, of the Great Master who taught his immediate disciples
the true keys, but to others he spake only in parables,--"and
without a parable spake he not unto them."
Such, my Fratres, are suitable subjects for the attention of your
members, but there are many allied topics which might form suitable
centres of interest and instruction, for example the whole range
of church architecture as crystalised symbolism, the dogmas of
the Gnostics, the several systems of philosophy of the Hindoos,
the parallelism between Rosicrucian doctrine and Eastern Theosophy,
for which read Max Heindel's "Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception," and
that enticing subject, the origin and meaning of the 22 Trumps
or symbolic designs of the "Tarocchi" or pack of Tarot
cards, which Eliphaz Levi says form a group of keys which will
unlock every secret of Theology and Cosmology. For such as are
interested in the Alchemy of the past I recommend a perusal of "A
Suggestive Enquiry into the Hermetic Mystery" 1850, by an
anonymous author, and E. A. Hitchcock's "Remarks on Alchemy
and the Alchemists," 1857. And, lastly, we may make researches
into that most interesting problem--Did Speculative Masonry arise
from the Rosicrucians? I am to understand that the German Rosicrucians
say that before the Masonic revival of 1717 these were identical
in Europe.
Let us not forget; that not only as Rosicrucians, but even as
Freemasons, we are pledged, not only to Brotherhood and Benevolence,
but also to look below the surface of things, and to seek and to
search out the hidden secrets of Nature and of Science. Let us
be in mind that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but that
deeper study reveals the roots of knowledge, as well as increases
our store of information. Let us not, with folded arms, float with
the tide of indolence, but ever strive after increase of that true
knowledge which is wisdom and remember that "to labour is
to pray," or as the Latin motto has it, "Laborare est
Orare," for the day.
|
