Book M

into Latin. After three years he went to Egypt, whence he journeyed on to Fez, where "he did get acquaintance with those who are called the Elementary inhabitants, who revealed to him many of their secrets.... Of those of Fez he often did confess that their Magia was not altogether pure and also that their Cabala was defiled with their religion, but notwithstanding he knew how to make good use of the same." After two years Brother C.R. departed the city Fez and sailed away with many costly things into Spain, where he conferred with the learned men and being "ready bountifully to impart all his arts and secrets" showed them amongst other things how "there might be a society in Europe which might have gold, silver, and precious stones sufficient for them to bestow on kings for their necessary uses and lawful purposes...."

Christian Rosenkreutz then returned to Germany, where "there is nowadays no want of learned men, Magicians, Cabalists, Physicians, and Philosophers." Here he "builded himself a fitting and neat habitation in which he ruminated his voyage and philosophy and reduced them together in a true memorial." At the end of five years' meditation there "came again into his mind the wished-for Reformation: accordingly he chose some few adjoyned with him," the Brethren G.V., I.A., and I.O.--the last of whom "was very expert and well learned in Cabala as his book H witnesseth"--to form a circle of initiates. "After this manner began the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross." Five other Brethren were afterwards added, all Germans except I.A., and these eight constituted his new building called Sancti Spiritus. The following agreement was then drawn up:

First, that none of them should profess any other thing than to cure the sick, and that gratis.

Second, none of the posterity should be constrained to wear one certain kind of habit, but therein to follow the custom of the country.

Third, that every year, upon the day C., they should meet together at the house Sancti Spiritus, or write the cause of his absence.

Fourth, every Brother should look about for a worthy person who, after his decease, might succeed him.

Fifth, the word C.R. should be their seal, mark, and character.

Sixth, the Fraternity should remain secret one hundred years.

Finally Brother C.R. died, but where and when, or in what country he was buried, remained a secret. The date, however, is generally given as 1484. In 1604 the Brethren who then constituted the inner circle of the Order discovered a door on which was written in large letters

Post 120 Annos Patebo.

On opening the door a vault was disclosed to view, where beneath a brass tablet the body of Christian Rosenkreutz was found, "whole and unconsumed," with all his "ornaments and attires," and holding in his hand the parchment "I" which "next unto the Bible is our greatest treasure," whilst beside him lay a number of books, amongst others the _Vocabulario_ of Paracelsus, who, however, the _Fama_ observes, earlier "was none of our Fraternity."[248]

The Brethren now knew that after a time there would be "a general reformation both of divine and human things." While declaring their belief in the Christian faith, the _Fama_ goes on to explain that:

Our Philosophy is not a new invention, but as Adam after his fall hath received it and as Moses and Solomon used it, ... wherein Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others did hit the mark and wherein Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, did excel, but especially wherewith that wonderful Book the Bible agreeth.

It will be seen that, according to this Manifesto, Rosicrucianism was a combination of the ancient secret tradition handed down from the patriarchs through the philosophers of Greece and of the first Cabala of the Jews.

The "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism rests, however, on no historical evidence; there is, in fact, not the least reason to suppose that any such person as Christian Rosenkreutz ever existed. The Illuminatus von Knigge in the eighteenth century asserted that:

It is now recognized amongst enlightened men that no real Rosicrucians have existed, but that the whole of what is contained in the _Fama_ and the _Universal Reformation of the World_ [another Rosicrucian pamphlet which appeared in the same year] was only a subtle allegory of Valentine Andrea, of which afterwards partly deceivers (such as the Jesuits) and partly visionaries made use in order to realize this dream.[249]

What, then, was the origin of the name Rose-Cross? According to one Rosicrucian tradition, the word "Rose" does not derive from the flower depicted on the Rosicrucian cross, but from the Latin word _ros_, signifying "dew," which was supposed to be the most powerful solvent of gold, whilst _crux_, the cross, was the chemical hieroglyphic for "light."[250] It is said that the Rosicrucians interpreted the initials on the cross INRI by the sentence "Igne Nitrum Roris Invenitur."[251] Supposing this derivation to be correct, it would be interesting to know whether any connexion could be traced between the first appearance of the word Rosie Cross in the _Fama Fraternitatis_ at the date of 1614 and the cabalistic treatise of the celebrated Rabbi of Prague, Shabbethai Sheftel Horowitz, entitled _Shefa Tal_, that is to say, "The Effusion of Dew," which appeared in 1612.[252] Although this book has often been reprinted, no copy is to be found in the British Museum, so I am unable to pursue this line of enquiry further. A simpler explanation may be that the Rosy Cross derived from the Red Cross of the Templars. Mirabeau, who as a Freemason and an Illuminatus was in a position to discover many facts about the secret societies of Germany during his stay in the country, definitely asserts that "the Rose Croix Masons of the seventeenth century were only the ancient Order of the Templars secretly perpetuated."[253]

Lecouteulx de Canteleu is more explicit:

In France the Knights (Templar) who left the Order, henceforth hidden, and so to speak unknown, formed the Order of the Flaming Star and of the Rose-Croix, which in the fifteenth century spread itself in Bohemia and Silesia. Every Grand officer of these Orders had all his life to wear the Red Cross and to repeat every day the prayer of St. Bernard.[254]

Eckert states that the ritual, symbols, and names of the Rose-Croix were borrowed from the Templars, and that the Order was divided into seven degrees, according to the seven days of creation, at the same time signifying that their "principal aim was that of the mysterious, the investigation of Being and of the forces of nature."[255]

The Rosicrucian Kenneth Mackenzie, in his _Masonic Cyclopædia_, appears to suggest the same possibility of Templar origin. Under the heading of Rosicrucians he refers enigmatically to an invisible fraternity that has existed from very ancient times, as early as the days of the Crusades, "bound by solemn obligations of impenetrable secrecy," and joining together in work for humanity and to "glorify the good." At various periods of history this body has emerged into a sort of temporary light; but its true name has never transpired and is only known to the innermost adepts and rulers of the society. "The Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century finally disappeared and re-entered this invisible fraternity "--from which they had presumably emerged. Whether any such body really existed or whether the above account is simply an attempt at mystification devised to excite curiosity, the incredulous may question. The writer here observes that it would be indiscreet to say more, but elsewhere he throws out a hint that may have some bearing on the matter, for in his article on the Templars he says that after the suppression of the Order it was revived in a more secret form and subsists to the present day. This would exactly accord with Mirabeau's statement that the Rosicrucians were only the Order of the Templars secretly perpetuated. Moreover, as we shall see later, according to a legend preserved by the Royal Order of Scotland, the degree of the Rosy Cross had been instituted by that Order in conjunction with the Templars in 1314, and it would certainly be a remarkable coincidence that a man bearing the name of Rosenkreutz should happen to have inaugurated a society, founded, like the Templars, on Eastern secret doctrines during the course of the same century, without any connexion existing between the two.

I would suggest, then, that Christian Rosenkreutz was a purely mythical personage, and that the whole legend concerning his travels was invented to disguise the real sources whence the Rosicrucians derived their system, which would appear to have been a compound of ancient esoteric doctrines, of Arabian and Syrian magic, and of Jewish Cabalism, partly inherited from the Templars but reinforced by direct contact with Cabalistic Jews in Germany. The Rose-Croix, says Mirabeau, "were a mystical, Cabalistic, theological, and magical sect," and Rosicrucianism thus became in the seventeenth century the generic title by which everything of the nature of Cabalism, Theosophy, Alchemy, Astrology, and Mysticism was designated. For this reason it has been said that they cannot be regarded as the descendants of the Templars. Mr. Waite, in referring to "the alleged connexion between the Templars and the Brethren of the Rosy Cross," observes:

The Templars were not alchemists, they had no scientific pretensions, and their secret, so far as it can be ascertained, was a religious secret of an anti-Christian kind. The Rosicrucians, on the other hand, were pre-eminently a learned society and they were also a Christian sect.[256]

The fact that the Templars do not appear to have practised alchemy is beside the point; it is not pretended that the Rosicrucians followed the Templars in every particular, but that they were the inheritors of a secret tradition passed on to them by the earlier Order. Moreover, that they were a learned society, or even a society at all, is not at all certain, for they would appear to have possessed no organization like the Templars or the Freemasons, but to have consisted rather of isolated occultists bound together by some tie of secret knowledge concerning natural phenomena. This secrecy was no doubt necessary at a period when scientific research was liable to be regarded as sorcery, but whether the Rosicrucians really accomplished anything is extremely doubtful. They are said to have been alchemists; but did they ever succeed in transmuting metals? They are described as learned, yet do the pamphlets emanating from the Fraternity betray any proof of superior knowledge? "The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz," which appeared in 1616, certainly appears to be the purest nonsense--magical imaginings of the most puerile kind; and Mr. Waite himself observes that the publication of the _Fama_ and the _Confessio Fraternitalis_ will not add new lustre to the Rosicrucian reputations:

We are accustomed to regard the adepts of the Rosy Cross as beings of sublime elevation and preternatural physical powers, masters of Nature, monarchs of the intellectual world.... But here in their own acknowledged manifestos they avow themselves a mere theosophical offshoot of the Lutheran heresy, acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of a temporal prince, and calling the Pope anti-Christ.... We find them intemperate in their language, rabid in their religious prejudices, and instead of towering giant-like above the intellectual average of their age, we see them buffeted by the same passions and identified with all opinions of the men by whom they were environed. The voice which addresses us behind the mystical mask of the Rose-Croix does not come from an intellectual throne....

So much for the Rosicrucians as a "learned society."

What, then, of their claim to be a Christian body? The Rosicrucian student of the Cabala, Julius Sperber, in his _Echo of the Divinely Illuminated Fraternity of the Admirable Order of the R.C._ (1615), has indicated the place assigned to Christ by the Rosicrucians. In De Quincey's words:

Having maintained the probability of the Rosicrucian pretensions on the ground that such _magnalia Dei_ had from the creation downwards been confided to the keeping of a few individuals--agreeably to which he affirms that Adam was the first Rosicrucian of the Old Testament and Simeon the last--he goes on to ask whether the Gospel put an end to the secret tradition? By no means, he answers: Christ established a new "college of magic" among His disciples, and the greater mysteries were revealed to St. John and St. Paul.

John Yarker, quoting this passage, adds: "This, Brother Findel points out, was a claim of the Carpocratian Gnostics"; it was also, as we have seen, a part of the Johannite tradition which is said to have been imparted to the Templars. We shall find the same idea of Christ as an "initiate" running all through the secret societies up to the present day.

These doctrines not unnaturally brought on the Rosicrucians the suspicion of being an anti-Christian body. The writer of a contemporary pamphlet published in 1624, declares that "this fraternity is a stratagem of the Jews and Cabalistic Hebrews, in whose philosophy, says Pic de la Mirandole, all things are ... as if hidden in the majesty of truth or as ... in very sacred Mysteries."[257]

Another work, _Examination of the Unknown and Novel Cabala of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross_, agrees with the assertion that the chief of this "execrable college is Satan, that its first rule is denial of God, blasphemy against the most simple and undivided Trinity, trampling on the mysteries of the redemption, spitting in the face of the mother of God and of all the saints." The sect is further accused of compacts with the devil, sacrifices of children, of cherishing toads, making poisonous powders, dancing with fiends, etc.

Now, although all this would appear to be quite incompatible with the character of the Rosicrucians as far as it is known, we have already seen that the practices here described were by no means imaginary; in this same seventeenth century, when the fame of the Rosicrucians was first noised abroad, black magic was still, as in the days of Gilles de Rais, a horrible reality, not only in France but in England, Scotland, and Germany, where sorcerers of both sexes were continually put to death.[258] However much we may deplore the methods employed against these people or question the supernatural origin of their cult, it would be idle to deny that the cult itself existed.

Moreover, towards the end of the century it assumed in France a very tangible form in the series of mysterious dramas known as the "Affaire des Poisons," of which the first act took place in 1666, when the celebrated Marquise de Brinvilliers embarked on her amazing career of crime in collaboration with her lover Sainte-Croix. This extraordinary woman, who for ten years made a hobby of trying the effects of various slow poisons on her nearest relations, thereby causing the death of her father and brothers, might appear to have been merely an isolated criminal of the abnormal type but for the sequel to her exploits in the epidemic of poisoning which followed and during twenty years kept Paris in a state of terror. The investigations of the police finally led to the discovery of a whole band of magicians and alchemists--"a vast ramification of malefactors covering all France"--who specialized in the art of poisoning without fear of detection.

Concerning all these sorcerers, alchemists, compounders of magical powders and philtres, frightful rumours circulated, "pacts with the devil were talked of, sacrifices of new-born babies, incantations, sacrilegious Masses and other practices as disquieting as they were lugubrious."[259] Even the King's mistress, Madame de Montespan, is said to have had recourse to black Masses in order to retain the royal favour through the agency of the celebrated sorceress La Voisin, with whom she was later implicated in an accusation of having attempted the life of the King.

All the extraordinary details of these events have recently been described in the book of Madame Latour, where the intimate connexion between the poisoners and the magicians is shown. In the opinion of contemporaries, these were not isolated individuals:

"Their methods were too certain, their execution of crime too skilful and too easy for them not to have belonged, either directly or indirectly, to a whole organization of criminals who prepared the way, and studied the method of giving to crime the appearance of illness, of forming, in a word, a school."[260]

The author of the work here quoted draws an interesting parallel between this organization and the modern traffic in cocaine, and goes on to describe the three degrees into which it was divided: firstly, the Heads, cultivated and intelligent men, who understood chemistry, physics, and nearly all useful sciences, "invisible counsellors but supreme, without whom the sorcerers and diviners would have been powerless"; secondly, the visible magicians employing mysterious processes, complicated rites and terrifying ceremonies; and thirdly, the crowd of nobles and plebeians who flocked to the doors of the sorcerers and filled their pockets in return for magic potions, philtres, and, in certain cases, insidious poisons. Thus La Voisin must be placed in the second category; "in spite of her luxury, her profits, and her fame," she "is only a subaltern agent in this vast organization of criminals. She depends entirely for her great enterprises on the intellectual chiefs of the corporation...."[261]

Who were these intellectual chiefs? The man who first initiated Madame de Brinvilliers' lover Sainte-Croix into the art of poisoning was an Italian named Exili or Eggidi; but the real initiate from whom Eggidi and another Italian poisoner had learnt their secrets is said to have been Glaser, variously described as a German or a Swiss chemist, who followed the principles of Paracelsus and occupied the post of physician to the King and the Duc d'Orléans.[262] This man, about whose history little is known, might thus have been a kind of Rosicrucian. For since, as has been said, the intellectual chiefs from whom the poisoners derived their inspiration were men versed in chemistry, in science, in physics, and the treatment of diseases, and since, further, they included alchemists and people professing to be in possession of the Philosopher's Stone, their resemblance with the Rosicrucians is at once apparent. Indeed, in turning back to the branches of magic enumerated by the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd, we find not only Natural Magic, "that most occult and secret department of physics by which the mystical properties of natural substances are extracted," but also Venefic Magic, which "is familiar with potions, philtres, and with various preparations of poisons."

The art of poisoning was therefore known to the Rosicrucians, and, although there is no reason to suppose it was ever practised by the heads of the Fraternity, it is possible that the inspirers of the poisoners may have been perverted Rosicrucians, that is to say, students of those portions of the Cabala relating to magic both of the necromantic and venefic varieties, who turned the scientific knowledge which the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross used for healing to a precisely opposite and deadly purpose. This would explain the fact that contemporaries like the author of the _Examination of the Unknown and Novel Cabala of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross_ should identify these brethren with the magicians and believe them to be guilty of practices deriving from the same source as Rosicrucian knowledge--the Cabala of the Jews. Their modern admirers would, of course, declare that they were the poles asunder, the difference being between white and black magic. Huysmans, however, scoffs at this distinction and says the use of the term "white magic" was a ruse of the Rose-Croix.

But of the real doctrines of the Rosicrucians no one can speak with certainty. The whole story of the Fraternity is wrapped in mystery. Mystery was avowedly the essence of their system; their identity, their aims, their doctrines, are said to have been kept a profound secret from the world. Indeed it is said that no real Rosicrucian ever allowed himself to be known as such. As a result of this systematic method of concealment, sceptics on the one hand have declared the Rosicrucians to have been charlatans and impostors or have denied their very existence, whilst on the other hand romancers have exalted them as depositaries of supernatural wisdom. The question is further obscured by the fact that most accounts of the Fraternity--as, for example, those of Eliphas Lévi, Hargrave Jennings, Kenneth Mackenzie, Mr. A.E. Waite, Dr. Wynn Westcott, and Mr. Cadbury Jones--are the work of men claiming or believing themselves to be initiated into Rosicrucianism or other occult systems of a kindred nature and as such in possession of peculiar and exclusive knowledge. This pretension may at once be dismissed as an absurdity; nothing is easier than for anyone to make a compound out of Jewish Cabalism and Eastern theosophy and to label it Rosicrucianism, but no proof whatever exists of any affiliation between the self-styled Rosicrucians of to-day and the seventeenth-century "Brothers of the Rosy Cross."[263]

In spite of Mr. Wake's claim, "The Real History of the Rosicrucians" still remains to be written, at any rate in the English language. The book he has published under this name is merely a superficial study of the question largely composed of reprints of Rosicrucian pamphlets accessible to any student. Mr. Wigston and Mrs. Pott merely echo Mr. Waite. Thus everything that has been published hitherto consists in the repetition of Rosicrucian legends or in unsubstantiated theorizings on their doctrines. What we need are facts. We want to know who were the early Rosicrucians, when the Fraternity originated, and what were its real aims. These researches must be made, not by an occultist weaving his own theories into the subject, but by a historian free from any prejudices for or against the Order, capable of weighing evidence and bringing a judicial mind to bear on the material to be found in the libraries of the Continent--notably the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris. Such a work would be a valuable contribution to the history of secret societies in our country.

But if the Continental Brethren of the Rose-Croix form but a shadowy group of "Invisibles" whose identity yet remains a mystery, the English adepts of the Order stand forth in the light of day as, philosophers well known to their age and country. That Francis Bacon was initiated into Rosicrucianism is now recognized by Freemasons, but a more definite link with the Rosicrucians of the Continent was Robert Fludd, who after travelling for six years in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain--where he formed connexions with Jewish Cabalists[264]--was visited by the German Jew Rosicrucian Michel Maier--doctor to the Emperor Rudolf--by whom he appears to have been initiated into further mysteries.

In 1616 Fludd published his _Tractatus Apologeticus_, defending the Rosicrucians against the charges of "detestable magic and diabolical superstition" brought against them by Libavius. Twelve years later Fludd was attacked by Father Mersenne, to whom a reply was made "by Fludd or a friend of Fludd's" containing a further defence of the Order. "The Book," says Mr. Waite, "treats of the noble art of magic, the foundation and nature of the Cabala, the essence of veritable alchemy, and of the Causa Fratrum Rosae Crucis. It identifies the palace or home of the Rosicrucians with the Scriptural House of Wisdom."

In further works by English writers the Eastern origin of the Fraternity is insisted on. Thus Thomas Vaughan, known as Eugenius Philalethes, writing in praise of the Rosicrucians in 1652, says that "their knowledge at first was not purchased by their own disquisitions, for they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the monument and legacy of the Children of the East. Nor is this at all improbable, for the Eastern countries have been always famous for magical and secret societies."

Another apologist of the Rosicrucians, John Heydon, who travelled in Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, is described by a contemporary as having been in "many strange places among the Rosie Crucians and at their castles, holy houses, temples, sepulchres, sacrifices." Heydon himself, whilst declaring that he is not a Rosicrucian, says that he knows members of the Fraternity and its secrets, that they are sons of Moses, and that "this Rosie Crucian Physick or Medicine, I happily and unexpectedly alight upon in Arabia." These references to castles, temples, sacrifices, encountered in Egypt, Persia, and Arabia inevitably recall memories of both Templars and Ismailis. Is there no connexion between "the Invisible Mountains of the Brethren" referred to elsewhere by Heydon and the Mountains of the Assassins and the Freemasons? between the Scriptural "House of Wisdom" and the Dar-ul-Hikmat or Grand Lodge of Cairo, the model for Western masonic lodges?

It is as the precursors of the crisis which arose in 1717 that the English Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century are of supreme importance. No longer need we concern ourselves with shadowy Brethren laying dubious claim to supernatural wisdom, but with a concrete association of professed Initiates proclaiming their existence to the world under the name of Freemasonry.

5

ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY

"The origin of Freemasonry," says a masonic writer of the eighteenth century, "is known to Freemasons alone."[265] If this was once the case, it is so no longer, for, although the question would certainly appear to be one on which the initiated should be most qualified to speak, the fact is that no official theory on the origin of Freemasonry exists; the great mass of the Freemasons do _not_ know or care to know anything about the history of their Order, whilst Masonic authorities are entirely disagreed on the matter. Dr. Mackey admits that "the origin and source whence first sprang the institution of Freemasonry has given rise to more difference of opinion and discussion among masonic scholars than any other topic in the literature of the institution."[266] Nor is this ignorance maintained merely in books for the general public, since in those specially addressed to the Craft and at discussions in lodges the same diversity of opinion prevails, and no decisive conclusions appear to be reached. Thus Mr. Albert Churchward, a Freemason of the thirtieth degree, who deplores the small amount of interest taken in this matter by Masons in general, observes:

Hitherto there have been so many contradictory opinions and theories in the attempt to supply the origin and the reason whence, where, and why the Brotherhood of Freemasonry came into existence, and all the "different parts" and various rituals of the "different degrees." All that has been written on this has hitherto been _theories_, without any facts for their fundation.[267]

In the absence, therefore, of any origin universally recognized by the Craft, it is surely open to the lay mind to speculate on the matter and to draw conclusions from history as to which of the many explanations put forward seems to supply the key to the mystery.

According to the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, no less than twelve theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Order, namely, that Masonry derived:

"(1) From the patriarchs. (2) From the mysteries of the pagans. (3) From the construction of Solomon's Temple, (4) From the Crusades. (5) From the Knights Templar. (6) From the Roman Collegia of Artificers. (7) From the operative masons of the Middle Ages. (8) From the Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century. (9) From Oliver Cromwell. (10) From Prince Charles Stuart for political purposes. (11) From Sir Christopher Wren, at the building of St. Paul's. (12) From Dr. Desaguliers and his friends in 1717."

This enumeration is, however, misleading, for it implies that in _one_ of these various theories the true origin of Freemasonry may be found. In reality modern Freemasonry is a dual system, a blend of two distinct traditions--of operative masonry, that is to say the actual art of building, and of speculative theory on the great truths of life and death. As a well-known Freemason, the Count Goblet d'Alviella, has expressed it: "Speculative Masonry" (that is to say, the dual system we now know as Freemasonry) "is the legitimate offspring of a fruitful union between the professional guild of mediæval Masons and of a secret group of philosophical Adepts, the first having furnished the form and the second the spirit."[268] In studying the origins of the present system we have therefore (1) to examine separately the history of each of these two traditions, and (2) to discover their point of junction.

Operative Masonry

Beginning with the first of these two traditions, we find that guilds of working masons existed in very ancient times. Without going back as far as ancient Egypt or Greece, which would be beyond the scope of the present work, the course of these associations may be traced throughout the history of Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era. According to certain masonic writers, the Druids originally came from Egypt and brought with them traditions relating to the art of building. The _Culdees_, who later on established schools and colleges in this country for the teaching of arts, sciences, and handicrafts, are said to have derived from the Druids.

But a more probable source of inspiration in the art of building are the Romans, who established the famous collegia of architects referred to in the list of alternative theories given in the _Masonic Cyclopædia_. Advocates of the Roman Collegia origin of Freemasonry might be right as far as operative masonry is concerned, for it is to the period following on the Roman occupation of Britain that our masonic guilds can with the greatest degree of certainty be traced. Owing to the importance the art of building now acquired it is said that many distinguished men, such as St. Alban, King Alfred, King Edwin, and King Athelstan, were numbered amongst its patrons,[269] so that in time the guilds came to occupy the position of privileged bodies and were known as "free corporations"; further that York was the first masonic centre in England, largely under the control of the Culdees, who at the same period exercised much influence over the Masonic Collegia in Scotland, at Kilwinning, Melrose, and Aberdeen.[270]

But it must be remembered that all this is speculation. No documentary evidence has ever been produced to prove the existence of masonic guilds before the famous York charter of A.D. 936, and even the date of this document is doubtful. Only with the period of Gothic architecture do we reach firm ground. That guilds of working masons known in France as "Compagnonnages" and in Germany as "Steinmetzen" did then form close corporations and possibly possess secrets connected with their profession is more than probable. That, in consequence of their skill in building the magnificent cathedrals of this period, they now came to occupy a privileged position seems fairly certain.

The Abbé Grandidier, writing from Strasbourg in 1778, traces the whole system of Freemasonry from these German guilds: "This much-vaunted Society of Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient and useful _confrèrie_ of real masons whose headquarters was formerly at Strasbourg and of which the constitution was confirmed by the Emperor Maximilian in 1498."[271]

As far as it is possible to discover from the scanty documentary evidence the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries provide, the same privileges appear to have been accorded to the guilds of working masons in England and Scotland, which, although presided over by powerful nobles and apparently on occasion admitting members from outside the Craft, remained essentially operative bodies. Nevertheless we find the assemblies of Masons suppressed by Act of Parliament in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI, and later on an armed force sent by Queen Elizabeth to break up the Annual Grand Lodge at York. It is possible that the fraternity merely by the secrecy with which it was surrounded excited the suspicions of authority, for nothing could be more law-abiding than its published statutes. Masons were to be "true men to God and the Holy Church," also to the masters that they served. They were to be honest in their manner of life and "to do no villainy whereby the Craft or the Science may be slandered."[272]

Yet the seventeenth-century writer Plot, in his _Natural History of Staffordshire_, expresses some suspicion with regard to the secrets of Freemasonry. That these could not be merely trade secrets relating to the art of building, but that already some speculative element had been introduced to the lodges, seems the more probable from the fact that by the middle of the seventeenth century not only noble patrons headed the Craft, but ordinary gentlemen entirely unconnected with building were received into the fraternity. The well-known entry in the diary of Elias Ashmole under the date of October 16, 1646, clearly proves this fact: "I was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire with Col. Henry Mainwaring of Karticham [?] in Cheshire. The names of those that were then of the Lodge, Mr. Rich. Penket, Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam and Hugh Brewer."[273] "It is now ascertained," says Yarker, "that the majority of the members present were not operative masons."[274]

Again, in 1682 Ashmole relates that he attended a meeting held at Mason Hall in London, where with a number of other gentlemen he was admitted into "the Fellowship of the Freemasons," that is to say, into the second degree. We have then clear proof that already in the seventeenth century Freemasonry had ceased to be an association composed exclusively of men concerned with building, although eminent architects ranked high in the Order; Inigo Jones is said to have been Grand Master under James I, and Sir Christopher Wren to have occupied the same position from about 1685 to 1702. But it was not until 1703 that the Lodge of St. Paul in London officially announced "that the privileges of Masonry should no longer be restricted to operative Masons, but extended to men of various professions, provided they were regularly approved and initiated into the Order."[275]

This was followed in 1717 by the great _coup d'état_ when Grand Lodge was founded, and Speculative Masonry, which we now know as Freemasonry, was established on a settled basis with a ritual, rules, and constitution drawn up in due form. It is at this important date that the official history of Freemasonry begins.

But before pursuing the course of the Order through what is known as the "Grand Lodge Era," it is necessary to go back and enquire into the origins of the philosophy that was now combined with the system of operative masonry. This is the point on which opinions are divided and to which the various theories summarized in the _Masonic Cyclopcædia_ relate. Let us examine each of these in turn.

Speculative Masonry

According to certain sceptics concerning the mysteries of Freemasonry, the system inaugurated in 1717 had no existence before that date, but "was devised, promulgated, and palmed upon the world by Dr. Desaguliers, Dr. Anderson, and others, who then founded the Grand Lodge of England." Mr. Paton, in an admirable little pamphlet,[276] has shown the futility of this contention and also the injustice of representing the founders of Grand Lodge as perpetrating so gross a deception.

This 1717 theory ascribes to men of the highest character the invention of a system of mere imposture.... It was brought forward with pretensions which its framers knew to be false pretensions of high antiquity; whereas ... it had newly been invented in their studies. Is this likely? Or is it reasonable to ascribe such conduct to honourable men, without even assigning a probable motive for it?

We have indeed only to study masonic ritual--which is open to everyone to read--in order to arrive at the same conclusion, that there could be no motive for this imposture, and further that these two clergymen cannot be supposed to have evolved the whole thing out of their heads. Obviously some movement of a kindred nature must have led up to this crisis. And since Elias Ashmole's diary clearly proves that a ceremony of masonic initiation had existed in the preceding century, it is surely only reasonable to conclude that Drs. Anderson and Desaguliers revised but did not originate the ritual and constitutions drawn up by them.

Now, although the ritual of Freemasonry is couched in modern and by no means classical English, the ideas running through it certainly bear traces of extreme antiquity. The central idea of Freemasonry concerning a loss which has befallen man and the hope of its ultimate recovery is in fact no other than the ancient secret tradition described in the first chapter of this book. Certain masonic writers indeed ascribe to Freemasonry precisely the same genealogy as that of the early Cabala, declaring that it descended from Adam and the first patriarchs of the human race, and thence through groups of Wise Men amongst the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks.[277] Mr. Albert Churchward insists

## particularly on the Egyptian origin of the speculative element in

Freemasonry: "Brother Gould and other Freemasons will never understand the meaning and origin of our sacred tenets till they have studied and unlocked the mysteries of the past." This study will then reveal the fact that "the Druids, the Gymnosophists of India, the Magi of Persia, and the Chaldeans of Assyria had all the same religious rites and ceremonies as practised by their priests who were initiated to their Order, and that these were solemnly sworn to keep the doctrines a profound secret from the rest of mankind. All these flowed from one source--Egypt."[278]

Mr. Churchward further quotes the speech of the Rev. Dr. William Dodd at the opening of a masonic temple in 1794, who traced Freemasonry from "the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece and philosophers of Rome," etc.[279]

But how did these traditions descend to the masons of the West? According to a large body of masonic opinion in this country which recognizes only a single source of inspiration to the system we now know as Freemasonry, the speculative as well as the operative traditions of the Order descended from the building guilds and were imported to England by means of the Roman Collegia. Mr. Churchward, however, strongly dissents from this view:

In the new and revised edition of the Perfect Ceremonies, according to our E. working, a theory is given that Freemasonry originated from certain guilds of workmen which are well known in history as the "Roman College of Artificers." There is no foundation of fact for such a theory. Freemasonry is now, and always was, an Eschatology, as may be proved by the whole of our signs, symbols, and words, and our rituals.[280]

But what Mr. Churchward fails to explain is how this eschatology reached the working masons; moreover why, if as he asserts, it derived from Egypt, Assyria, India, and Persia, Freemasonry no longer bears the stamp of these countries. For although vestiges of Sabeism may be found in the decoration of the lodges, and brief references to the mysteries of Egypt and Phœnicia, to the secret teaching of Pythagoras, to Euclid, and to Plato in the Ritual and instructions of the Craft degrees--nevertheless the form in which the ancient tradition is clothed, the phraseology and pass-words employed, are neither Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, nor Persian, but Judaic. Thus although some portion of the ancient secret tradition may have penetrated to Great Britain through the Druids or the Romans--versed in the lore of Greece and Egypt--another channel for its introduction was clearly the Cabala of the Jews. Certain masonic writers recognize this double tradition, the one descending from Egypt, Chaldea, and Greece, the other from the Israelites, and assert that it is from the latter source their system is derived.[281] For after tracing its origin from Adam, Noah, Enoch, and Abraham, they proceed to show its line of descent through Moses, David, and Solomon[282]--descent from Solomon is in fact officially recognized by the Craft and forms a part of the instructions to candidates for initiation into the first degree. But, as we have already seen, this is the precise genealogy attributed to the Cabala by the Jews. Moreover, modern Freemasonry is entirely built up on the Solomonic, or rather the Hiramic legend. For the sake of readers unfamiliar with the ritual of Freemasonry a brief _résumé_ of this "Grand Legend" must be given here.

Solomon, when building the Temple, employed the services of a certain artificer in brass, named Hiram, the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphthali, who was sent to him by Hiram, King of Tyre. So much we know from the Book of Kings, but the masonic legend goes on to relate that Hiram, the widow's son, referred to as Hiram Abiff, and described as the master-builder, met with an untimely end. For the purpose of preserving order the masons working on the Temple were divided into three classes, Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons, the first two distinguished by different pass-words and grips and paid at different rates of wages, the last consisting only of three persons--Solomon himself, Hiram King of Tyre, who had provided him with wood and precious stones and Hiram Abiff. Now, before the completion of the Temple fifteen of the Fellow Crafts conspired together to find out the secrets of the Master Masons and resolved to waylay Hiram Abiff at the door of the Temple.

At the last moment twelve of the fifteen drew back, but the remaining three carried out the fell design, and after threatening Hiram in vain in order to obtain the secrets, killed him with three blows on the head, delivered by each in turn. They then conveyed the body away and buried it on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Solomon, informed of the disappearance of the master-builder, sent out fifteen Fellow Crafts to seek for him; five of these, having arrived at the mountain, noticed a place where the earth had been disturbed and there discovered the body of Hiram. Leaving a branch of acacia to mark the spot, they returned with their story to Solomon, who ordered them to go and exhume the body--an order that was immediately carried out.

The murder and exhumation, or "raising," of Hiram, accompanied by extraordinary lamentations, form the climax of Craft Masonry; and when it is remembered that in all probability no such, tragedy ever took place, that possibly no one known as Hiram Abiff ever existed,[283] the whole story can only be regarded as the survival of some ancient cult relating not to an actual event, but to an esoteric doctrine. A legend and a ceremony of this kind is indeed to be found in many earlier mythologies; the story of the murder of Hiram had been foreshadowed by the Egyptian legend of the murder of Osiris and the quest for his body by Isis, whilst the lamentations around the tomb of Hiram had a counterpart in the mourning ceremonies for Osiris and Adonis--both, like Hiram, subsequently "raised"--and later on in that which took place around the catafalque of Manes, who, like Hiram, was barbarously put to death and is said to have been known to the Manicheans as "the son of the widow." But in the form given to it by Freemasonry the legend is purely Judaic, and would therefore appear to have derived from the Judaic version of the ancient tradition. The pillars of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz, which play so important a part in Craft Masonry, are symbols which occur in the Jewish Cabala, where they are described as two of the ten Sephiroths.[284] A writer of the eighteenth century, referring to "fyve curiosities" he has discovered in Scotland, describes one as--

The Mason word, which tho' some make a Misterie of it, I will not conceal a little of what I know. It is lyke a Rabbinical Tradition in way of Comment on Jachin and Boaz, the Two Pillars erected in Solomon's Temple with ane Addition delyvered from Hand to Hand, by which they know and become familiar one with another.[285]

This is precisely the system by which the Cabala was handed down amongst the Jews. The _Jewish Encyclopædia_ lends colour to the theory of Cabalistic transmission by suggesting that the story of Hiram "may possibly trace back to the Rabbinic legend concerning the Temple of Solomon," that "while all the workmen were killed so that they should not build another temple devoted to idolatry, Hiram himself was raised to Heaven like Enoch."[286]

How did this Rabbinic legend find its way into Freemasonry? Advocates of the Roman Collegia theory explain it in the following manner.

After the building of the Temple of Solomon the masons who had been engaged in the work were dispersed and a number made their way to Europe, some to Marseilles, some perhaps to Rome, where they may have introduced Judaic legends to the Collegia, which then passed on to the Comacini Masters of the seventh century and from these to the mediæval working guilds of England, France, and Germany. It is said that during the Middle Ages a story concerning the Temple of Solomon was current amongst the _compagnonnages_ of France. In one of these groups, known as "the children of Solomon," the legend of Hiram appears to have existed much in its present form; according to another group the victim of the murder was not Hiram Abiff, but one of his companions named Maître Jacques, who, whilst engaged with Hiram on the construction of the Temple, met his death at the hands of five wicked Fellow Crafts, instigated by a sixth, the Père Soubise.[287]

But the date at which this legend originated is unknown. Clavel thinks that the "Hebraic mysteries" existed as early as the Roman Collegia, which he describes as largely Judaized[288]; Yarker expresses precisely the opposite view: "It is not so difficult to connect Freemasonry with the Collegia; the difficulty lies in attributing Jewish traditions to the Collegia, and we say on the evidence of the oldest charges that such traditions had no existence in Saxon times."[289] Again: "So far as this country is concerned, we know nothing from documents of a Masonry dating from Solomon's Temple until after the Crusades, when the constitution believed to have been sanctioned by King Athelstan gradually underwent a change."[290] In a discussion which took place recently at the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the Hiramic legend could only be traced back--and then without absolute certainty--to the fourteenth century, which would coincide with the date indicated by Yarker.[291]

Up to this period the lore of the masonic guilds appears to have contained only the exoteric doctrines of Egypt and Greece--which may have reached them through the Roman Collegia, whilst the traditions of Masonry are traced from Adam, Jabal, Tubal Cain, from Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, with Hermes and Pythagoras as their more immediate progenitors.[292] These doctrines were evidently in the main geometrical or technical, and in no sense Cabalistic. There is therefore some justification for Eckert's statement that "the Judeo-Christian mysteries were not yet introduced into the masonic corporations; nowhere can we find the least trace of them. Nowhere do we find any classification, not even that of masters, fellow-crafts, and apprentices. We observe no symbol of the Temple of Solomon; all their symbolism relates to masonic labours and to a few philosophical maxims of morality."[293] The date at which Eckert, like Yarker, places the introduction of these Judaic elements is the time of the Crusades.

But whilst recognizing that modern Craft Masonry is largely founded on the Cabala, it is necessary to distinguish between the different Cabalas. For by this date no less than three Cabalas appear to have existed: firstly, the ancient secret tradition of the patriarchs handed down from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and possibly through the Roman Collegia to the Craft Masons of Britain; secondly, the Jewish version of this tradition, the first Cabala of the Jews, in no way incompatible with Christianity, descending from Moses, David and Solomon to the Essenes and the more enlightened Jews; and thirdly, the perverted Cabala, mingled by the Rabbis with magic, barbaric superstitions, and--after the death of Christ--with anti-Christian legends.

Whatever Cabalistic elements were introduced into Craft Masonry at the time of the Crusades appear to have belonged to the second of these traditions, the unperverted Cabala of the Jews, known to the Essenes. There are, in fact, striking resemblances betwen Freemasonry and Essenism--degrees of initiation, oaths of secrecy, the wearing of the apron, and a certain masonic sign; whilst to the Sabeist traditions of the Essenes may perhaps be traced the solar and stellar symbolism of the lodges.[294] The Hiramic legend may have belonged to the same tradition.

The Templar Tradition

If then no documentary evidence can be brought forward to show that either the Solomonic legend or any traces of Judaic symbolism and traditions existed either in the monuments of the period or in the ritual of the masons before the fourteenth century, it is surely reasonable to recognize the plausibility of the contention put forward by a great number of masonic writers--particularly on the Continent--that the Judaic elements penetrated into Masonry by means of the Templars.[295] The Templars, as we have already seen, had taken their name from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. What then more likely than that during the time they had lived there they had learnt the Rabbinical legends connected with the Temple? According to George Sand, who was deeply versed in the history of secret societies, the Hiramic legend was adopted by the Templars as symbolic of the destruction of their Order. "They wept over their impotence in the person of Hiram. The word lost and recovered is their empire...."[296] The Freemason Ragon likewise declares that the catastrophe they lamented was the catastrophe that destroyed their Order.[297] Further, the Grand Master whose fate they deplored was Jacques du Molay. Here then we have two bodies in France at the same period, the Templars and the _compagnonnages_, both possessing a legend concerning the Temple of Solomon and both mourning a Maître Jacques who had been barbarously put to death. If we accept the possibility that the Hiramic legend existed amongst the masons before the Crusades, how are we to explain this extraordinary coincidence? It is certainly easier to believe that the Judaic traditions were introduced to the masons by the Templars and grafted on to the ancient lore that the masonic guilds had inherited from the Roman Collegia.

That some connexion existed between the Templars and the working masons is indicated by the new influence that entered into building at this period. A modern Freemason comparing "the beautifully designed and deep-cut marks of the true Gothic period, say circa 1150-1350," with "the careless and roughly executed marks, many of them mere scratches, of later periods," points out that "the Knights Templars rose and fell with that wonderful development of architecture." The same writer goes on to show that some of the most important masonic symbols, the equilateral triangle and the Mason's square surmounting two pillars, came through from Gothic times.[298] Yarker asserts that the level, the flaming star, and the Tau cross which have since passed into the symbolism of Freemasonry may be traced to the Knights Templar, as also the five-pointed star in Salisbury Cathedral, the double triangle in Westminster Abbey, Jachin and Boaz, the circle and the pentagon in the masonry of the fourteenth century. Yarker cites later, in 1556, the eye and crescent moon, the three stars and the ladder of five steps, as further evidences of Templar influence.[299] "The Templars were large builders, and Jacques du Molay alleged the zeal of his Order in decorating churches in the process against him in 1310; hence the alleged connexion of Templary and Freemasonry is bound to have a substratum of truth."[300]

Moreover, according to a masonic tradition, an alliance definitely took place between the Templars and the masonic guilds at this period. During the proceedings taken against the Order of the Temple in France it is said that Pierre d'Aumont and seven other Knights escaped to Scotland in the guise of working masons and landed in the Island of Mull. On St. John's Day, 1307, they held their first chapter. Robert Bruce then took them under his protection, and seven years later they fought under his standard at Bannockburn against Edward II, who had suppressed their Order in England. After this battle, which took place on St. John the Baptist's Day in summer (June 24), Robert Bruce is said to have instituted the Royal Order of H.R.M. (Heredom) and Knights of the R.S.Y.C.S. (Rosy Cross).[301] These two degrees now constitute the Royal Order of Scotland, and it seems not improbable that in reality they were brought to Scotland by the Templars. Thus, according to one of the early writers on Freemasonry, the degree of the Rose-Croix originated with the Templars in Palestine as early as 1188[302]; whilst the Eastern origin of the word Heredom, supposed to derive from a mythical mountain on an island south of the Hebrides[303] where the Culdees practised their rites, is indicated by another eighteenth-century writer, who traces it to a Jewish source.[304] In this same year of 1314 Robert Bruce is said to have united the Templars and the Royal Order of H.R.M. with the guilds of working masons, who had also fought in his army, at the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, founded in 1286,[305] which now added to its name that of Heredom and became the chief seat of the Order.[306] Scotland was essentially a home of operative masonry, and, in view of the Templar's prowess in the art of building, what more natural than that the two bodies should enter into an alliance? Already in England the Temple is said between 1155 and 1199 to have administered the Craft.[307] It is thus at Heredom of Kilwinning, "the Holy House of Masonry"--"Mother Kilwinning," as it is still known to Freemasons--that a speculative element of a fresh kind may have found its way into the lodges. Is it not here, then, that we may see that "fruitful union between the professional guild of mediæval masons and a secret group of philosophical Adepts" alluded to by Count Goblet d'Aviella and described by Mr. Waite in the following words:

The mystery of the building guilds--whatever it may be held to have been--was that of a simple, unpolished, pious, and utilitarian device; and this daughter of Nature, in the absence of all intention on her own part, underwent, or was coerced into one of the strangest marriages which has been celebrated in occult history. It so happened that her particular form and figure lent itself to such a union, etc.[308]?

Mr. Waite with his usual vagueness does not explain when and where this marriage took place, but the account would certainly apply to the alliance between the Templars and Scottish guilds of working masons, which, as we have seen, is admitted by masonic authorities, and presents exactly the conditions described, the Templars being peculiarly fitted by their initiation into the legend concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon to co-operate with the masons, and the masons being prepared by their partial initiation into ancient mysteries to receive the fresh influx of Eastern tradition from the Templars.

A further indication of the Templar influence in Craft Masonry is the system of degrees and initiations. The names of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason are said to have derived from Scotland,[309] and the analogy between these and the degrees of the Assassins has already been shown. Indeed, the resemblance between the outer organization of Freemasonry and the system of the Ismailis is shown by many writers. Thus Dr. Bussell observes: "No doubt together with some knowledge of geometry regarded as an esoteric trade secret, many symbols to-day current did pass down from very primitive times. But a more certain model was the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo"--that is to say the Dar-ul-Hikmat.[310] Syed Ameer Ali also expresses the opinion that "Makrisi's account of the different degrees of initiation adopted in this lodge forms an invaluable record of Freemasonry. In fact, the lodge at Cairo became the model of all the Lodges created afterwards in Christendom."[311] Mr. Bernard Springett, a Freemason, quoting this passage, adds: "In this last assertion I am myself greatly in agreement."[312]

It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated to Craft Masonry through the Templars, whose connexion with the Assassins--offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat--was a matter of common knowledge.

The question of the Templar succession in Freemasonry forms perhaps the most controversial point in the whole history of the Roman Collegia theory, Continental Masons more generally accepting it, and even glorying in it.[313] Mackey, in his _Lexicon of Freemasonry_, thus sums up the matter:

The connexion between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons has been repeatedly asserted by the enemies of both institutions, and has often been admitted by their friends. Lawrie, on this subject, holds the following language: "We know that the Knights Templar not only possessed the mysteries but performed the ceremonies and inculcated the duties of Freemasons," and he attributes the dissolution of the Order to the discovery of their being Freemasons and their assembling in secret to practise the rites of the Order.[314]

This explains why Freemasons have always shown indulgence to the Templars.

It was above all Freemasonry [says Findel], which--because it falsely held itself to be a daughter of Templarism--took the greatest pains to represent the Order of the Templars as innocent and therefore free from all mystery. For this purpose not only legends and unhistorical facts were brought forward, but manœuvres were also resorted to in order to suppress the truth. The masonic reverers of the Temple Order bought up the whole edition of the _Actes du Procès_ of Moldenhawer, because this showed the guilt of the Order; only a few copies reached the booksellers.... Already several decades before ... the Freemasons in their unhistorical efforts had been guilty of real forgery. Dupuy had published his _History of the Trial of the Templars_ as early as 1654 in Paris, for which he had made use of the original of the _Actes du Procès_, according to which the guilt of the Order leaves no room for doubt.... But when in the middle of the eighteenth century several branches of Freemasonry wished to recall the Templar Order into being, the work of Dupuy was naturally very displeasing. It had already been current amongst the public for a hundred years, so it could no longer be bought; therefore they falsified it.[315]

Accordingly in 1751 a reprint of Dupuy's work appeared with the addition of a number of notes and remarks and mutilated in such a way as to prove not the guilt but the innocence of the Templars.

Now, although British Masonry has played no part in these intrigues, the question of the Templar succession has been very inadequately dealt with by the masonic writers of our country. As a rule they have adopted one of two courses--either they have persistently denied connexion with the Templars or they have represented them as a blameless and cruelly maligned Order. But in reality neither of these expedients is necessary to save the honour of British Masonry, for not even the bitterest enemy of Masonry has ever suggested that British masons have adopted any portion of the Templar heresy. The Knights who fled to Scotland may have been perfectly innocent of the charges brought against their Order; indeed, there is good reason to believe this was the case. Thus the _Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple_ relates the incident in the following manner:

After the death of Jacques du Molay, some Scottish Templars having become apostates, at the instigation of Robert Bruce ranged themselves under the banners of a new Order[316] instituted by this prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order of the Temple. It is there that we must seek the origin of Scottish Masonry and even that of the other masonic rites. The Scottish Templars were excommunicated in 1324 by Larmenius, who declared them to be _Templi desertores_ and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, _Dominiorum Militiæ spoliatores_, placed for ever outside the pale of the Temple: _Extra girum Templi, nunc et in futurum, volo, dico et jubeo._ A similar anathema has since been launched by several Grand Masters against Templars who were rebellious to legitimate authority. From the schism that was introduced into Scotland a number of sects took birth.[317]

This account forms a complete exoneration of the Scottish Templars; as apostates from the bogus Christian Church and the doctrines of Johannism they showed themselves loyal to the true Church and to the Christian faith as formulated in the published statutes of their Order. What they appear, then, to have introduced to Masonry was their manner of reception, that is to say their outer forms and organization, and possibly certain Eastern esoteric doctrines and Judaic legends concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon in no way incompatible with the teaching of Christianity.

It will be noticed, moreover, that in the ban passed by the _Ordre du Temple_ on the Scottish Templars the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem are also included. This is a further tribute to the orthodoxy of the Scottish Knights. For to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem--to whom the Templar property was given--no suspicion of heresy had ever attached. After the suppression of the Order of the Temple in 1312 a number of the Knights joined themselves to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, by whom the Templar system appears to have been purged of its heretical elements. As we shall see later, the same process is said to have been carried out by the Royal Order of Scotland, All this suggests that the Templars had imported a secret doctrine from the East which was capable either of a Christian or an anti-Christian interpretation, that through their connexion with the Royal Order of Scotland and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem this Christian interpretation was preserved, and finally that it was this pure doctrine which passed into Freemasonry. According to early masonic authorities, the adoption of the two St. Johns as the patron saints of Masonry arose, not from Johannism, but from the alliance between the Templars and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.[318]

It is important to remember that the theory of the Templar connexion with Freemasonry was held by the Continental Freemasons of the eighteenth century, who, living at the time the Order was reconstituted on its present basis, were clearly in a better position to know its origins than we who are separated from that date by a distance of two hundred years. But since their testimony first comes to light at the period of the upper degrees, in which the Templar influence is more clearly visible than in Craft Masonry, it must be reserved for a later chapter. Before passing on to this further stage in the history of the Craft, it is necessary to consider one more link in the chain of the masonic tradition--the "Holy Vehm."

The Vehmgerichts[319]

These dread tribunals, said to have been established by Charlemagne in 772[320] in Westphalia, had for their avowed object the establishment of law and order amidst the unsettled and even anarchic conditions that then reigned in Germany. But by degrees the power arrogated to itself by the "Holy Vehm" became so formidable that succeeding emperors were unable to control its workings and found themselves forced to become initiates from motives of self-protection. During the twelfth century the Vehmgerichts, by their continual executions, had created a veritable "Red Terror," so that the East of Germany was known as the Red Land. In 1371, says Lecouteulx de Canteleu, a fresh impetus was given to the "Holy Vehm" by a number of the Knights Templar who, on the dissolution of their Order, had found their way to Germany and now sought admission to the Secret Tribunals.[321] How much of Templar lore passed into the hand of the Vehmgerichts it is impossible to know, but there is certainly a resemblance between the methods of initiation and intimidation employed by the Vehms and those described by certain of the Templars, still more between the ceremony of the Vehms and the ritual of Freemasonry.

Thus the members of the Vehms, known as the _Wissende_ (or Enlightened), were divided into three degrees of initiation: the Free Judges, the veritable Free Judges, and the Holy Judges of the Secret Tribunal. The candidate for initiation was led blindfold before the dread Tribunal, presided over by a _Stuhlherr_ (or master of the chair) or his substitute, a _Freigraf_, with a sword and branch of willow at his side. The initiate was then bound by a terrible oath not to reveal the secrets of the "Holy Vehm," to warn no one of danger threatening them by its decrees, to denounce anyone, whether father, mother, brother, sister, friend, or relation, if such a one had been condemned by the Tribunal. After this he was given the password and grip by which the confederates recognized each other. In the event of his turning traitor or revealing the secrets confided to him his eyes were bandaged, his hands tied behind his back, and his tongue was torn out through the back of his neck, after which he was hanged by the feet till he was dead, with the solemn imprecation that his body should be given as a prey to the birds of the air.

It is difficult to believe that the points of resemblance with modern masonic ritual[322] which may here be discerned can be a mere matter of coincidence, yet it would be equally unreasonable to trace the origins of Freemasonry to the Vehmgerichts. Clearly both derived from a common source, either the old pagan traditions on which the early Vehms were founded or the system of the Templars. The latter seems the more probable for two reasons: firstly, on account of the resemblance between the methods of the Vehmgerichts and the Assassins, which would be explained if the Templars formed the connecting link; and secondly, the fact that in contemporary documents the members of the Secret Tribunals were frequently referred to under the name of Rose-Croix.[323] Now, since, as we have seen, the degree of the Rosy Cross is said to have been brought to Europe by the Templars, this would account for the persistence of the name in the Vehmgerichts as well as in the Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, who are said to have continued the Templar tradition. Thus Templarism and Rosicrucianism appear to have been always closely connected, a fact which is not surprising since both derive from a common source--the traditions of the near East.

This brings us to an alternative theory concerning the channel through which Eastern doctrines, and particularly Cabalism, found their way into Freemasonry. For it must be admitted that one obstacle to the complete acceptance of the theory of the Templar succession exists, namely, that although the Judaic element cannot be traced further back than the Crusades, neither can it with certainty be pronounced to have come into existence during the three centuries that followed after. Indeed, before the publication of Anderson's "Constitutions" in 1723 there is no definite evidence that the Solomonic legend had been incorporated into the ritual of British Masonry. So although the possession of the legend by the _compagnonnages_ of the Middle Ages would tend to prove its antiquity, there is always the possibility that it was introduced by some later body of adepts than the Templars. According to the partisans of a further theory, these adepts were the Rosicrucians.

Rosicrucian Origin

One of the earliest and most eminent precursors of Freemasonry is said to have been Francis Bacon. As we have already seen, Bacon is recognized to have been a Rosicrucian, and that the secret philosophical doctrine he professed was closely akin to Freemasonry is clearly apparent in his _New Atlantis_. The reference to the "Wise Men of the Society of Solomon's House" cannot be a mere coincidence. The choice of Atlantis--the legendary island supposed to have been submerged by the Atlantic Ocean in the remote past--would suggest that Bacon had some knowledge of a secret tradition descending from the earliest patriarchs of the human race, whom, like the modern writer Le Plongeon, he imagined to have inhabited the Western hemisphere and to have been the predecessors of the Egyptian initiates. Le Plongeon, however, places this early seat of the mysteries still further West than the Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Mayax and Yucatan.[324]

Bacon further relates that this tradition was preserved in its pure form by certain of the Jews, who, whilst accepting the Cabala, rejected its anti-Christian tendencies. Thus in this island of Bensalem there are Jews "of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour against the people amongst whom they live; these contrariwise give unto our Saviour many high attributes," but at the same time they believe "that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they now use, and that when the Messiah should come and sit on His throne at Jerusalem, the King of Bensalem should sit at His feet, whereas other kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency even among the best of Jews to turn the former to the advantage of the Messianic dreams.

Mrs. Pott, who in her _Francis Bacon and his Secret Society_ sets out to prove that Bacon was the founder of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, ignores all the previous history of the secret tradition. Bacon was not the originator but the inheritor of the ideas on which both these societies were founded. And the further contention that Bacon was at the same time the author of the greatest dramas in the English language and of _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosengreutz_ is manifestly absurd. Nevertheless, Bacon's influence amongst the Rosicrucians is apparent; Heydon's _Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians_ is in fact a mere plagiarism of Bacon's _New Atlantis_.

Mrs. Pott seems to imagine that by proclaiming Bacon to have been the founder or even a member of the Order of Freemasonry she is revealing a great masonic secret which Freemasons have conspired to keep dark. But why should the Craft desire to disown so illustrious a progenitor or seek to conceal his connexion with the Order if any such existed? Findel, indeed, frankly admits that the _New Atlantis_ contained unmistakable allusions to Freemasonry and that Bacon contributed to its final transformation.[325] This was doubtless brought about largely by the English Rosicrucians who followed after. To suggest then that Freemasonry originated with the Rosicrucians is to ignore the previous history of the secret tradition. Rosicrucianism was not the beginning but a link in the long chain connecting Freemasonry with far earlier secret associations. The resemblance between the two Orders admits of no denial. Thus Yarker writes: "The symbolic tracing of the Rosicrucians was a Square Temple approached by seven steps ... here also we find the two pillars of Hermes, the five-pointed star, sun and moon, compasses, square and triangle." Yarker further observes that "even Wren was more or less a student of Hermeticism, and if we had a full list of Freemasons and Rosicrucians we should probably be surprised at the numbers who belonged to both systems."[326]

Professor Bühle emphatically states that "Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it into England." Chambers, who published his famous _Cyclopædia_ in 1728, observes: "Some who are no friends to Freemasonry, make the present flourishing society of Freemasons a branch of _Rosicrucians_, or rather the Rosicrucians themselves under a new name or relation, viz. as retainers to building. And it is certain there are some Freemasons who have all the characters of Rosicrucians."

The connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism is, however, a question hardly less controversial than that of the connexion between Freemasonry and Templarism.

Dr. Mackey violently disputes the theory. "The Rosicrucians," he writes, "as this brief history indicates, had no connexion whatever with the masonic fraternity. Notwithstanding this fact, Barruel, the most malignant of our revilers, with a characteristic spirit of misrepresentation, attempted to identify the two institutions."[327] But the aforesaid "brief history" indicates nothing of the kind, and the reference to Barruel as a malignant reviler for suggesting a connexion, which, as we have seen, many Freemasons admit, shows on which side this "spirit of misrepresentation" exists. It is interesting, however, to note that in the eyes of certain masonic writers connexion with the Rosicrucians is regarded as highly discreditable; the fraternity would thus appear to have been less blameless than we have been taught to believe. Mr. Waite is equally concerned with proving that there "is no traceable connexion between Masonry and Rosicrucianism," and he goes on to explain that Freemasonry was never a learned society, that it never laid claim to "any transcendental secrets of alchemy and magic, or to any skill in medicine," etc.[328]

The truth may lie between the opposing contentions of Prof. Bühle and his two masonic antagonists. The Freemasons were clearly, for the reasons given by Mr. Waite, not a mere continuation of the Rosicrucians, but more likely borrowed from the Rosicrucians a part of their system and symbols which they adapted to their own purpose. Moreover, the incontrovertible fact is that in the list of English Freemasons and Rosicrucians we find men who belonged to both Orders and amongst these two who contributed largely to the constitutions of English Freemasonry.

The first of these is Robert Fludd, whom Mr. Waite describes as "the central figure of Rosicrucian literature, ... an intellectual giant, ... a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his writings, of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one of the most distinguished disciples of Paracelsus...."[329] Yarker adds this clue: "In 1630 we find Fludd, the chief of the Rosicrucians, using architectural language, and there is proof that his Society was divided into degrees, and from the fact that the Masons' Company of London had a copy of the Masonic Charges 'presented by Mr. fflood' we may suppose that he was a Freemason before 1620."[330]

A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer, and alchemist, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also a Freemason, Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said to have perfected its organization, to have added to it further mystic symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up the ritual of the existing three Craft degrees--Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason--which was adopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For, as Ragon also informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the Rosicrucians held their meeting in the same room at Mason Hall![331]

How, then, can it be said that there was "no traceable connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?" and why should it be the part of a "malignant reviler" to connect them? It is not suggested that Rosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements into Freemasonry, but simply the system and symbols of the Rose-Croix with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forms an important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore undeniable.

The Seventeenth-Century Rabbis

There is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of Freemasonry may have penetrated to the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declared that "there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"[332] and if this statement is applied to the period preceding the institution of Grand Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it is said that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge had been designed by an Amsterdam Jew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo, colleague of Cromwell's friend the Cabalist, Manasseh ben Israel.[333] To quote Jewish authority on this question, Mr. Lucien Wolf writes that Templo "had a monomania for ... everything relating to the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle of the Wilderness. He constructed gigantic models of both these edifices."[334] These he exhibited in London, which he visited in 1675 and earlier, and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that this may have provided a fresh source of inspiration to the Freemasons who framed the masonic ritual some forty years later. At any rate, the masonic coat-of-arms still used by Grand Lodge of England is undoubtedly of Jewish design.

"This coat," says Mr. Lucien Wolf, "is entirely composed of Jewish symbols," and is "an attempt to display heraldically the various forms of the Cherubim pictured to us in the second vision of Ezekiel--an Ox, a Man, a Lion, and an Eagle--and thus belongs to the highest and most mystical domain of Hebrew symbolism."[335]

In other words, this vision, known to the Jews as the "Mercaba,"[336] belongs to the Cabala, where a particular interpretation is placed on each figure so as to provide an esoteric meaning not perceptible to the uninitiated.[337] The masonic coat-of-arms is thus entirely Cabalistic; as is also the seal on the diplomas of Craft Masonry, where another Cabalistic figure, that of a man and woman combined, is reproduced.[338]

Of the Jewish influence in Masonry after 1717 I shall speak later.

To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry are not to be found in one source alone. The twelve alternative sources enumerated in the _Masonic Cyclopædia_ and quoted at the beginning of this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative Masonry may have descended from the Roman Collegia and through the operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonry may have derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala. Whether this penetrated to our country through the Roman Collegia, the _compagnonnages_, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter of speculation. The fact remains that when the ritual and constitutions of Masonry were drawn up in 1717, although certain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic version of the secret tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which to build up their system.

6

THE GRAND LODGE ERA

Whatever were the origins of the Order we now know as Freemasonry, it is clear that during the century preceding its reorganization under Grand Lodge of London the secret system of binding men together for a common purpose, based on Eastern esoteric doctrines, had been anticipated by the Rosicrucians. Was this secret system employed, however by any other body of men? It is certainly easy to imagine how in this momentous seventeenth century, when men of all opinions were coalescing against opposing forces--Lutherans combining against the Papacy, Catholics rallying their forces against invading Protestantism, Republicans plotting in favour of Cromwell, Royalists in their turn plotting to restore the Stuarts, finally Royalists plotting against each other on behalf of rival dynasties--an organization of this kind, enabling one to work secretly for a cause and to set invisibly vast numbers of human beings in motion, might prove invaluable to any party.

Thus, according to certain masonic writers on the Continent, the system used by the Rosicrucians in their fight against "Popery" was also employed by the Jesuits for a directly opposite purpose. In the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is declared that in 1714 the Jesuits used the mysteries of the Rose-Croix. Mirabeau also relates that "the Jesuits profited by the internal troubles of the reign of Charles I to possess themselves of the symbols, the allegories, and the carpets (tapis) of the Rose-Croix masons, who were only the ancient order of the Templars secretly perpetuated. It may be seen by means of what imperceptible innovations they succeeded in substituting their catechism to the instruction of the Templars."[339]

Other Continental writers again assert that Cromwell, the arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, was "a higher initiate of masonic mysteries," and used the system for his own elevation to power[340]; further, that he found himself outdistanced by the Levellers; that this sect, whose name certainly suggests masonic inspiration, adopted for its symbols the square and compass,[341] and in its claim of real equality threatened the supremacy of the usurper. Finally, Elias Ashmole, the Rosicrucian Royalist, is said to have turned the masonic system against Cromwell, so that towards the end of the seventeenth century the Order rallied to the Stuart cause.[342]

But all this is pure speculation resting on no basis of known facts. The accusation that the Jesuits used the system of the Rose-Croix as a cover to political intrigues is referred to by the Rosicrucian Eliphas Lévi as the outcome of ignorance, which "refutes itself." It is significant to notice that it emanates mainly from Germany and from the Illuminati; the Prince of Hesse was a member of the _Stricte Observance_ and Mirabeau an Illuminatus at the time he wrote the passage quoted above. That in the seventeenth century certain Jesuits played the part of political intriguers I suppose their warmest friends will hardly deny, but that they employed any secret or masonic system seems to me perfectly incapable of proof. I shall return to this point later, however, in connexion with the Illuminati.

As to Cromwell, the only circumstance that lends any colour to the possibility of his connexion with Freemasonry is his known friendship for Manasseh ben Israel, the colleague of the Rabbi Templo who designed the coat-of-arms later adopted by Grand Lodge. If, therefore, the Jews of Amsterdam were a source of inspiration to the Freemasons of the seventeenth century, it is not impossible that Cromwell may have been the channel through which this influence first penetrated.

In the matter of the Stuarts we are, however, on firm ground with regard to Freemasonry. That the lodges at the end of the seventeenth century were Royalist is certain, and there seems good reason to believe that, when the revolution of 1688 divided the Royalist cause, the Jacobites who fled to France with James II took Freemasonry with them.[343] With the help of the French they established lodges in which, it is said, masonic rites and symbols were used to promote the cause of the Stuarts. Thus the land of promise signified Great Britain, Jerusalem stood for London, and the murder of Hiram represented the execution of Charles I.[344]

Meanwhile Freemasonry in England did not continue to adhere to the Stuart cause as it had done under the ægis of Elias Ashmole, and by 1717 is said to have become Hanoverian.

From this important date the official history of the present system may be said to begin; hitherto everything rests on stray documents, of which the authenticity is frequently doubtful, and which provide no continuous history of the Order. In 1717 for the first time Freemasonry was established on a settled basis and in the process underwent a fundamental change. So far it would seem to have retained an operative element, but in the transformation that now took place this was entirely eliminated, and the whole Order was transformed into a middle-and upper-class speculative body. This _coup d'état_, already suggested in 1703, took place in 1716, when four London lodges of Freemasons met together at the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden, "and having put into the chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a lodge), they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, _pro tempore_, in due form." On St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24 of the next year, the annual assembly and banquet were held at the Goose and Gridiron in St. Paul's Churchyard, when Mr. Antony Sayer was elected Grand Master and invested with all the badges of office.[345]

It is evident from the above account that already in 1717 the speculative elements must have predominated in the lodges, otherwise we might expect to find the operative masons taking some part in these proceedings and expressing their opinion as to whether their association should pass under the control of men entirely unconnected with the Craft. But no, the leaders of the new movement all appear to have belonged to the middle class, nor from this moment do either masons or architects seem to have played any prominent part in Freemasonry.

But the point that official history does not attempt to elucidate is the reason for this decision. Why should the Freemasons of London--whether they were at this date a speculative or only a semi-speculative association--have suddenly recognized the necessity of establishing a Grand Lodge and drawing up a ritual and "Constitution"? It is evident, then, that some circumstances must have arisen which led them to take this important step. I would suggest that the following may be the solution to the problem.

Freemasonry, as we have seen, was a system that could be employed in any cause and had now come to be used by intriguers of every kind--and not only by intriguers, but by merely convivial bodies, "jolly Brotherhoods of the Bottle," who modelled themselves on masonic associations.[346] But the honest citizens of London who met and feasted at the Goose and Gridiron were clearly not intriguers, they were neither Royalist nor Republican plotters, neither Catholic nor Lutheran fanatics, neither alchemists nor magicians, nor can it be supposed that they were simply revellers. If they were political, they were certainly not supporters of the Stuarts; on the contrary, they were generally reported to have been Hanoverian in their sympathies, indeed Dr. Bussell goes so far as to say that Grand Lodge was instituted to support the Hanoverian dynasty.[347] It would be perhaps nearer the truth to conclude that if they were Hanoverian it was because they were constitutional, and the Hanoverian dynasty having now been established they wished to avoid further changes. In a word, then, they were simply men of peace, anxious to put an end to dissensions, who, seeing the system of Masonry utilized for the purpose of promoting discord, determined to wrest it from the hands of political intriguers and restore it to its original character of brotherhood, though not of brotherhood between working masons only, but between men drawn from all classes and professions. By founding a Grand Lodge in London and drawing up a ritual and "Constitutions," they hoped to prevent the perversion of their signs and symbols and to establish the Order on a settled basis.

According to Nicolai this pacific purpose had already animated English Freemasons under the Grand Mastership of Sir Christopher Wren: "Its principal object from this period was to moderate the religious hatreds so terrible in England during the reign of James II and to try and establish some kind of concord or fraternity, by weakening as far as possible the antagonisms arising from the differences of religions, ranks, and interests." An eighteenth-century manuscript of the Prince of Hesse quoted by Lecouteulx de Canteleu expresses the view that in 1717 "_the mysteries of Freemasonry were reformed and purified in England of all political tendencies_."

In the matter of religion, Craft Masonry adopted an equally non-sectarian attitude. The first "Constitutions" of the Order, drawn up by Dr. Anderson in 1723, contain the following paragraph:

Concerning God and Religion

A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet, 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is to be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes the Centre of Union and the Means of Conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remained at a perpetual Distance.

The phrase "that Religion in which all men agree" has been censured by Catholic writers as advocating a universal religion in the place of Christianity. But this by no means follows. The idea is surely that Masons should be men adhering to that law of right and wrong common to all religious faiths. Craft Masonry may thus be described as Deist in character, but not in the accepted sense of the word which implies the rejection of Christian doctrines. If Freemasonry had been Deist in this sense might we not expect to find some connexion between the founders of Grand Lodge and the school of Deists--Toland, Bolingbroke, Woolston, Hume, and others--which flourished precisely at this period? Might not some analogy be detected between the organization of the Order and the Sodalities described in Toland's _Pantheisticon_, published in 1720? But of this I can find no trace whatever. The principal founders of Grand Lodge were, as we have seen, clergymen, both engaged in preaching Christian doctrines at their respective churches.[348] It is surely therefore reasonable to conclude that Freemasonry at the time of its reorganization in 1717 was Deistic only in so far that it invited men to meet together on the common ground of a belief in God. Moreover, some of the early English rituals contain distinctly Christian elements. Thus both in _Jachin and Boaz_ (1762) and _Hiram or the Grand Master Key to the Door of both Antient and Modern Freemasonry by a Member of the Royal Arch_ (1766) we find prayers in the lodges concluding with the name of Christ. These passages were replaced much later by purely Deistic formulas under the Grand Mastership of the free-thinking Duke of Sussex in 1813.

But in spite of its innocuous character, Freemasonry, merely by reason of its secrecy, soon began to excite alarm in the public mind. As early as 1724 a work entitled _The Grand Mystery of the Freemasons Discovered_ had provoked an angry remonstrance from the Craft[349]; and when the French edict against the Order was passed, a letter signed "Jachin" appeared in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ declaring the "Freemasons who have lately been suppressed not only in France but in Holland" to be "a dangerous Race of Men":

No Government ought to suffer such clandestine Assemblies where Plots against the State may be carried on, under the Pretence of Brotherly Love and good Fellowship.

The writer, evidently unaware of possible Templar traditions, goes on to observe that the sentinel placed at the door of the lodge with a drawn sword in his hand "is not the only mark of their being a military Order"; and suggests that the title of Grand Master is taken in imitation of the Knights of Malta. "Jachin," moreover, scents a Popish plot:

They not only admit Turks, Jews, Infidels, but even Jacobites, non-jurors and Papists themselves ... how can we be sure that those Persons who are known to be well affected, are let into all their Mysteries? They make no scruple to acknowledge that there is a Distinction between Prentices and Master Masons and who knows whether they may not have an higher Order of Cabalists, who keep the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves?[350]

Later on in France, the Abbé Pérau published his satires on Freemasonry, _Le Secret des Francs-Maçons_ (1742), _L'Ordre des Francs-Maçons trahi et le Secret des Mopses révélé_, (1745), and _Les Francs-Maçons écrasés_ (1746)[351] and in about 1761 another English writer said to be a Mason brought down a torrent of invective on his head by the publication of the ritual of the Craft Degrees under the name of _Jachin and Boaz_.[352]

It must be admitted that from all this controversy no party emerges in a very charitable light, Catholics and Protestants alike indulging in sarcasms and reckless accusations against Freemasonry, the Freemasons retorting with far from brotherly forbearance.[353] But, again, one must remember that all these men were of their age--an age which seen through the eyes of Hogarth would certainly not appear to have been distinguished for delicacy. It should be noted, however, when one reads in masonic works of the "persecutions" to which Freemasonry has been subjected, that aggression was not confined only to the one side in the conflict; moreover, that the Freemasons at this period were divided amongst themselves and expressed with regard to opposing groups much the same suspicions that non-Masons expressed with regard to the Order as a whole. For the years following after the suppression of Masonry in France were marked by the most important development in the history of the modern Order--the inauguration of the Additional Degrees.

The Additional Degrees

The origin and inspiration of the additional degrees has provoked hardly less controversy in masonic circles than the origin of Masonry itself. It should be explained that Craft Masonry, or Blue Masonry--that is to say, the first three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason of which I have attempted to trace the history--were the only degrees recognized by Grand Lodge at the time of its foundation in 1717 and still form the basis of all forms of modern Masonry. On this foundation were erected, somewhere between 1740 and 1743, the degree of the Royal Arch and the first of the series of upper degrees now known as the Scottish Rite or as the Ancient and Accepted Rite. The acceptance or rejection of this superstructure has always formed a subject of violent controversy between Masons, one body affirming that Craft Masonry is the only true and genuine Masonry, the other declaring that the real object of Masonry is only to be found in the higher degrees. It was this controversy, centring round the Royal Arch degree, that about the middle of the eighteenth century split Masonry into opposing camps of Ancients and Moderns, the Ancients declaring that the R.A. was "the Root, Heart, and Marrow of Freemasonry,"[354] the Moderns rejecting it. Although worked by the Ancients from 1756 onwards, this degree was definitely repudiated by Grand Lodge in 1792,[355] and only in 1813 was officially received into English Freemasonry.

The R.A. degree, which is said nevertheless to be contained in embryo in the 1723 Book of Constitutions,[356] is purely Judaic--a glorification of Israel and commemorating the building of the second Temple. That it was derived from the Jewish Cabala seems probable, and Yarker, commenting on the phrase in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ quoted above--"Who knows whether they (the Freemasons) have not a higher order of Cabalists, who keep the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves"--observes: "It looks very like an intimation of the Royal Arch degree,"[357] and elsewhere he states that "the Royal Arch degree, when it had the Three Veils, must have been the work, even if by instruction, of a Cabalistic Jew about 1740, and from this time we may expect to find a secret tradition grafted upon Anderson's system."[358]

Precisely in this same year of 1740 Mr. Waite says that "an itinerant pedlar of the Royal Arch degree is said to have propagated it in Ireland, claiming that it was practised at York and London,"[359] and in 1744 a certain Dr. Dassigny wrote that the minds of the Dublin brethren had been lately disturbed about Royal Arch Masonry owing to the

## activities in Dublin of "a number of traders or hucksters in pretended

Masonry," whom the writer connects with "Italians" or the "Italic Order."

A Freemason quoting this passage in a recent discussion on the upper degrees expresses the opinion that these hucksters were "Jacobite emissaries disguised under the form of a pretended Masonry," and that "by Italians and Italian Order he intends a reference to the Court of King James III, i.e. the Old Pretender at Rome, and to the Ecossais (Italic) Order of Masonry."[360] It is much more likely that he had referred to another source of masonic instruction in Italy which I shall indicate in a later chapter.

But precisely at the moment when it is suggested that the Jacobites were intriguing to introduce the Royal Arch degree into Masonry they are also said to have been engaged in elaborating the "Scottish Rite." Let us examine this contention.

Freemasonry in France

The foundation of Grand Lodge in London had been followed by the inauguration of Masonic Lodges on the Continent--in 1721 at Mons, in 1725 in Paris, in 1728 at Madrid, in 1731 at The Hague, in 1733 at Hamburg, etc. Several of these received their warrant from the Grand Lodge of England. But this was not the case with the Grand Lodge of Paris, which did not receive a warrant till 1743.

The men who founded this lodge, far from being non-political, were Jacobite leaders engaged in active schemes for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. The leader of the group, Charles Radcliffe, had been imprisoned with his brother, the ill-fated Lord Derwentwater who was executed on Tower Hill in 1716. Charles had succeeded in escaping from Newgate and made his way to France, where he assumed the title of Lord Derwentwater, although the Earldom had ceased to exist under the bill of attainder against his brother.[361] It was this Lord Derwentwater--afterwards executed for taking part in the 1745 rebellion--who with several other Jacobites is said to have founded the Grand Lodge of Paris in 1725, and himself to have become Grand Master.

The Jacobite character of the Paris lodge is not a matter of dispute. Mr. Gould relates that "the colleagues of Lord Derwentwater are stated to have been a Chevalier Maskeline, a Squire Heguerty, and others, all

## partisans of the Stuarts."[362] But he goes on to contest the theory

that they used Freemasonry in the Stuart cause, which he regards as amounting to a charge of bad faith. This is surely unreasonable. The founders of Grand Lodge in Paris did not derive from Grand Lodge in London, from which they held no warrant,[363] but, as we have seen, took their Freemasonry with them to France before Grand Lodge of London was instituted; they were therefore in no way bound by its regulations. And until the Constitutions of Anderson were published in 1723 no rule had been laid down that the Lodges should be non-political. In the old days Freemasonry had always been Royalist, as we see from the ancient charges that members should be "true liegemen of the King"; and if the adherents of James Edward saw in him their rightful sovereign, they may have conceived that they were using Freemasonry for a lawful purpose in adapting it to his cause. So although we may applaud the decision of the London Freemasons to purge Freemasonry of political tendencies and transform it into a harmonious system of brotherhood, we cannot accuse the Jacobites in France of bad faith in not conforming to a decision in which they had taken no part and in establishing lodges on their own lines.

Unfortunately, however, as too frequently happens when men form secret confederacies for a wholly honourable purpose, their ranks were penetrated by confederates of another kind. It has been said in an earlier chapter that, according to the documents produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the early part of the nineteenth century, the Templars had never ceased to exist in spite of their official suppression in 1312, and that a line of Grand Masters had succeeded each other in unbroken succession from Jacques du Molay to the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who was killed in 1792. The Grand Master appointed in 1705 is stated to have been Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, later the Regent. Mr. Waite has expressed the opinion that all this was an invention of the late eighteenth century, and that the Charter of Larmenius was fabricated at this date though not published until 1811 by the revived _Ordre du Temple_ under the Grand Master, Fabré Palaprat. But evidence points to a contrary conclusion. M. Matter, who, as we have seen, disbelieves the story of the _Ordre du Temple_ and the authenticity of the Charter of Larmenius in so far as it professes to be a genuine fourteenth-century document, nevertheless asserts that the _savants_ who have examined it declare it to date from the early part of the eighteenth century, at which period Matter believes the Gospel of St. John used by the Order to have been arranged so as "to accompany the ceremonies of some masonic or secret society." Now, it was about 1740 that a revival of Templarism took place in France and Germany; we cannot therefore doubt that if Matter is right in this hypothesis, the secret society in question was that of the Templars, whether they existed as lineal descendants of the twelfth-century Order or merely as a revival of that Order. The existence of the German Templars at this date under the name of the _Stricte Observance_ (which we shall deal with in a further chapter) is indeed a fact disputed by no one; but that there was also an _Ordre du Temple_ in France at the very beginning of the eighteenth century must be regarded as highly probable. Dr. Mackey, John Yarker, and Lecouteulx de Canteleu (who, owing to his possession of Templar documents, had exclusive sources of information) all declare this to have been the case and accept the Charter of Larmenius as authentic. "It is quite certain," says Yarker, "that there was at this period in France an _Ordre du Temple_, with a charter from John Mark Larmenius, who claimed appointment from Jacques du Molay. Philippe of Orléans accepted the Grand Mastership in 1705 and signed the Statutes."[364]

Without, however, necessarily accepting the Charter of Larmenius as authentic let us examine the probability of this assertion with regard to the Duc d'Orléans.

Amongst the Jacobites supporting Lord Derwentwater at the Grand Lodge of Paris was a certain Andrew Michael Ramsay, known as Chevalier Ramsay, who was born at Ayr near the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, where the Templars are said to have formed their alliance with the masons in 1314. In 1710 Ramsay was converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Fénelon and in 1724 became tutor to the sons of the Pretender at Rome. Mr. Gould has related that during his stay in France, Ramsay had formed a friendship with the Regent, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who was Grand Master of the _Ordre de Saint-Lazare_, instituted during the Crusades as a body of Hospitallers devoting themselves to the care of the lepers and which in 1608 had been joined to the _Ordre du Mont-Carmel_. It seems probable from all accounts that Ramsay was a Chevalier of this Order, but he cannot have been admitted into it by the Duc d'Orléans, for the Grand Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare was not the Duc d'Orléans but the Marquis de Dangeau, who, on his death in 1720, was succeeded by the son of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres.[365] If, then, Ramsay was admitted to any Order by the Regent, it was surely the _Ordre du Temple_, of which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at this date.

Now, the infamous character of the Duc d'Orléans is a matter of common knowledge; moreover, during the Regency--that period of impiety and moral dissolution hitherto unparalleled in the history of France--the chief of council was the Duc de Bourbon, who later placed his mistress the Marquise de Prie and the financier Paris Duverney at the head of affairs, thus creating a scandal of such magnitude that he was exiled in 1726 through the influence of Cardinal Fleury. This Duc de Bourbon in 1737 is said to have become Grand Master of the Temple. "It was thus," observes de Canteleu, "that these two Grand Masters of the Temple degraded the royal authority and ceaselessly increased hatred against the government."

It would therefore seem strange that a man so upright as Ramsay appears to have been, who had moreover but recently been converted to the Catholic Church, should have formed a friendship with the dissolute Regent of France, unless there had been some bond between them. But here we have a possible explanation--Templarism. Doubtless during Ramsay's youth at Kilwinning many Templar traditions had come to his knowledge, and if in France he found himself befriended by the Grand Master himself, what wonder that he should have entered into an alliance which resulted in his admission to an Order he had been accustomed to revere and which, moreover, was represented to him as the _fons et origo_ of the masonic brotherhood to which he also belonged? It is thus that we find Ramsay in the very year that the Duc de Bourbon is said to have been made Grand Master of the Temple artlessly writing to Cardinal Fleury asking him to extend his protection to the society of Freemasons in Paris and enclosing a copy of the speech which he was to deliver on the following day, March 21, 1737. It is in this famous oration that for the first time we find Freemasonry traced to the Crusades:

At the time of the Crusades in Palestine many princes, lords, and citizens associated themselves, and vowed to restore the Temple of the Christians in the Holy Land, and to employ themselves in bringing back their architecture to its first institution. They agreed upon several ancient signs and symbolic words drawn from the well of religion in order to recognize themselves amongst the heathens and Saracens. These signs and words were only communicated to those who promised solemnly, and even sometimes at the foot of the altar, never to reveal them. This sacred promise was therefore not an execrable oath, as it has been called, but a respectable bond to unite Christians of all nationalities into one confraternity. Some time afterwards our Order formed an intimate union with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. From that time our Lodges took the name of Lodges of St. John.[366]

This speech of Ramsay's has raised a storm of controversy amongst Freemasons because it contains a very decided hint of a connexion between Templarism and Freemasonry. Mr. Tuckett, in the paper referred to above, points out that only the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem are here mentioned,[367] but Ramsay distinctly speaks of "our Order" forming a union with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and we know that the Templars did eventually form such a union. The fact that Ramsay does not mention the Templars by name admits of a very plausible explanation. It must be remembered that, as Mr. Gould has shown, a copy of the oration was enclosed by Ramsay in his letter to Cardinal Fleury appealing for royal protection to be extended to Freemasonry; it is therefore hardly likely that he would have proclaimed a connexion between the Order he was anxious to present in the most favourable light and one which had formerly been suppressed by King and Pope. Moreover, if the Charter of Larmenius is to be believed, the newly elected Grand Master of the Temple was the Duc de Bourbon, who had already incurred the Cardinal's displeasure. Obviously, therefore, Templar influence was kept in the background. This is not to imply bad faith on the part of Ramsay, who doubtless held the Order of Templars to be wholly praiseworthy; but he could not expect the King or Cardinal to share his view, and therefore held it more prudent to refer to the progenitors of Freemasonry under the vague description of a crusading body. Ramsay's well-meant effort met, however, with no success. Whether on account of this unlucky reference by which the Cardinal may have detected Templar influence or for some other reason, the appeal for royal protection was not only refused, but the new Order, which hitherto Catholics had been allowed to enter, was now prohibited by Royal edict. In the following year, 1738, the Pope, Clement XII, issued a bull, _In Eminenti_, banning Freemasonry and excommunicating Catholics who took part in it.

But this prohibition appears to have been without effect, for Freemasonry not only prospered but soon began to manufacture new degrees. And in the masonic literature of the following thirty years the Templar tradition becomes still more clearly apparent. Thus the Chevalier de Bérage in a well-known pamphlet, of which the first edition is said to have appeared in 1747,[368] gives the following account of the origins of Freemasonry:

This Order was instituted by Godefroi de Bouillon in Palestine in 1330,[369] after the decadence of the Christian armies, and was only communicated to the French Masons some time after and to a very small number, as a reward for the obliging services they rendered to several of our English and Scottish Knights, from whom true Masonry is taken. Their Metropolitan Lodge is situated on the Mountain of Heredom where the first Lodge was held in Europe and which exists in all its splendour. The General Council is still held there and it is the seal of the Sovereign Grand Master in office. This mountain is situated between the West and North of Scotland at sixty miles from Edinburgh.

Apart from the historical confusion of the first sentence, this passage is of interest as evidence that the theory of a connexion between certain crusading Knights and the Lodge of Heredom of Kilwinning was current as early as 1747. The Baron Tschoudy in his _Étoile Flamboyante_, which appeared in 1766, says that the crusading origin of Freemasonry is the one officially taught in the lodges, where candidates for initiation are told that several Knights who had set forth to rescue the holy places of Palestine from the Saracens "formed an association under the name of Free Masons, thus indicating that their principal desire was the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon," that, further, they adopted certain signs, grips, and passwords as a defence against the Saracens, and finally that "our Society ... fraternized on the footing of an Order with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, from which it is apparent that the Freemasons borrowed the custom of regarding St. John as the patron of the whole Order in general."[370] After the crusades "the Masons kept their rites and methods and in this way perpetuated the royal art by establishing lodges, first in England, then in Scotland," etc.[371]

In this account, therefore, Freemasonry is represented as having been instituted for the defence of Christian doctrines. De Bérage expresses the same view and explains that the object of these Crusaders in thus binding themselves together was to protect their lives against the Saracens by enveloping their sacred doctrines in a veil of mystery. For this purpose they made use of Jewish symbolism, which they invested with a Christian meaning. Thus the Temple of Solomon was used to denote the Church of Christ, the bough of acacia signified the Cross, the square and the compass the union between the Old and New Testaments, etc. So "the mysteries of Masonry were in their principle, and are still, nothing else than those of the Christian religion."[372]

Baron Tschoudy, however, declares that all this stops short of the truth, that Freemasonry originated long before the Crusades in Palestine, and that the real "ancestors, fathers, authors of the Masons, those illustrious men of whom I will not say the date nor betray the secret," were a "disciplined body" whom Tschoudy describes by the name of "the Knights of the Aurora and Palestine." After "the almost total destruction of the Jewish people" these "Knights" had always hoped to regain possession of the domains of their fathers and to rebuild the Temple, and they carefully preserved their "regulations and particular liturgy," together with a "sublime treatise" which was the object of their continual study and of their philosophical speculations. Tschoudy further relates that they were students of the "occult sciences," of which alchemy formed a part, and that they had "abjured the principles of the Jewish religion in order to follow the lights of the Christian faith." At the time of the Crusades the Knights of Palestine came out from the desert of the Thebaïd, where they had remained hidden, and joined to themselves some of the crusaders who had remained in Jerusalem. Declaring that they were the descendants of the masons who had worked on the Temple of Solomon, they professed to concern themselves with "speculative architecure," which served to disguise a more glorious point of view. From this time they took the name of Free Masons, presented themselves under this title to the crusading armies and assembled under their banners.[373]

It would of course be absurd to regard any of the foregoing accounts as historical facts; the important point is that they tend to prove the fallacy of supposing that the Johannite-Templar theory originated with the revived _Ordre du Temple_, since one corresponding to it so closely was current in the middle of the preceding century. It is true that in these earlier accounts the actual words "Johannite" and "Templar" do not occur, but the resemblance between the sect of Jews professing the Christian faith but possessing a "particular liturgy" and a "sublime treatise"--apparently some early form of the Cabala--dealing with occult science, and the Mandæans or Johannites with their Cabalistic "Book of Adam," their Book of John, and their ritual, is at once apparent. Further, the allusions to the connexion between the Knights who had been indoctrinated in the Holy Land and the Scottish lodges coincides exactly with the Templar tradition, published not only by the _Ordre du Temple_ but handed down in the Royal Order of Scotland.

From all this the following facts stand out: (1) that whilst British Craft Masonry traced its origin to the operative guilds of masons, the Freemasons of France from 1737 onwards placed the origin of the Order in crusading chivalry; (2) that it was amongst these Freemasons that the upper degrees known as the Scottish Rite arose; and (3) that, as we shall now see, these degrees clearly suggest Templar inspiration.

The earliest form of the upper degrees appears to have been the one given by de Bérage, as follows:

1. Parfait Maçon Élu. 2. Élu de Perignan. 3. Élu des Quinze. 4. Petit Architecte. 5. Grand Architecte. 6. Chevalier de l'Épée et de Rose-Croix. 7. Noachite ou Chevalier Prussien.

The first of these to make its appearance is believed to have been the one here assigned to the sixth place. This degree known in modern Masonry as "Prince of the Rose-Croix of Heredom or Knight of the Pelican and Eagle" became the eighteenth and the most important degree in what was later called the Scottish Rite, or at the present time in England the Ancient and Accepted Rite.

Why was this Rite called Scottish? "It cannot be too strongly insisted on," says Mr. Gould, "that all Scottish Masonry has nothing whatever to do with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, nor, with one possible exception--that of the Royal Order of Scotland--did it ever originate in that country."[374] But in the case of the Rose-Croix degree there is surely some justification for the term in legend, if not in proven fact, for, as we have already seen, according to the tradition of the Royal Order of Scotland this degree had been contained in it since the fourteenth century, when the degrees of H.R.M. (Heredom) and R.S.Y.C.S. (Rosy Cross) are said to have been instituted by Robert Bruce in collaboration with the Templars after the battle of Bannockburn. Dr. Mackey is one of the few Masons who admit this probable affiliation, and in referring to the tradition of the Royal Order of Scotland observes: "From that Order it seems to us by no means improbable that the present degree of Rose-Croix de Heredom may have taken its origin."[375]

But the Rose-Croix degree, like the Templar tradition from which it appears to have descended, is capable of a dual interpretation, or rather of a multiple interpretation, for no degree in Masonry has been subject to so many variations. That on the Continent it had descended through the Rosicrucians in an alchemical form seems more than probable. It would certainly be difficult to believe that a degree of R.S.Y.C.S. was imported from the East and incorporated in the Royal Order of Scotland in 1314; that by a mere coincidence a man named Christian Rosenkreutz was--according to the Rosicrucian legend--born in the same century and transmitted a secret doctrine he had discovered in the East to the seventeenth-century Brethren of the Rosy Cross; and finally, that a degree of the Rose-Croix was founded in circ. 1741 without any connexion existing between these succeeding movements. Even if we deny direct affiliation, we must surely admit a common source of inspiration producing, if not a continuation, at any rate a periodic revival of the same ideas. Dr. Oliver indeed admits affiliation between the seventeenth-century fraternity and the eighteenth-century degree, and after pointing out that the first indication of the Rose-Croix degree appears in the _Fama Fraternitatis_ in 1613, goes on to say:

It was known much sooner, although not probably as a degree in Masonry, for it existed as a cabalistic science from the earliest times in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as amongst the Jews and Moors in times more recent, and in our own country the names of Roger Bacon, Fludd, Ashmole, and many others are found in its list of adepts.[376]

Dr. Mackey, quoting this passage, observes that "Oliver confounds the masonic Rose-Croix with the alchemical Rosicrucians," and proceeds to give an account of the Rose-Croix degree as worked in England and America, which he truly describes as "in the strictest sense a Christian degree."[377] But the point Dr. Mackey overlooks is that this is only one version of the degree, which, as we shall see later, has been and still is worked in a very different manner on the Continent.

It is, however, certain that the version of the Rose-Croix degree first adopted by the Freemasons of France in about 1741 was not only so Christian but so Catholic in character as to have given rise to the belief that it was devised by the Jesuits in order to counteract the attacks of which Catholicism was the object.[378] In a paper on the Additional Degrees Mr. J.S. Tuckett writes:

There is undeniable evidence that in their _earliest forms_ the Ecossais or Scots Degrees were Roman Catholic; I have a MS. Ritual in French of what I believe to be the _original_ Chev. de l'Aigle or S∴P∴D∴R∴C∴ (Souverain Prince de Rose-Croix) and in it the New Law is declared to be "la foy Catholique," and the Baron Tschoudy in his _L'Étoile Flamboyante_ of 1766 describes the same Degree as "le Catholicisme mis en grade" (Vol. I. p. 114). I suggest that Ecossais or Scots Masonry was intended to be a Roman Catholic as well as a Stuart form of Freemasonry, in which none but those devoted to both Restorations were to be admitted.[379]

But is it necessary to read this political intention into the degree? If the tradition of the Royal Order of Scotland is to be believed, the idea of the Rose-Croix degree was far older than the Stuart cause, and dated back to Bannockburn, when the degree of Heredom with which it was coupled was instituted in order "to correct the errors and reform the abuses which had crept in among the three degrees of St. John's Masonry," and to provide a "Christianized form of the Third Degree," "purified of the dross of paganism and even of Judaism."[380] Whether the antiquity attributed to these degrees can be proved or not, it certainly appears probable that the legend of the Royal Order of Scotland had some foundation in fact, and therefore that the ideas embodied in the eighteenth-century Rose-Croix degree may have been drawn from the store of that Order and brought by the Jacobites to France. At the same time there is no evidence in support of the statement made by certain Continental writers that Ramsay actually instituted this or any of the upper degrees. On the contrary, in his Oration he expressly states that Freemasonry is composed of the Craft degrees only:

We have amongst us three kinds of brothers: Novices or Apprentices, Fellows or Professed Brothers, Masters or Perfected Brethren. To the first are explained the moral virtues; to the second the heroic virtues; to the last the Christian virtues....

It might be said then that the Rose-Croix degree was here foreshadowed in the Masters' degree, in that the latter definitely inculcated Christianity. This would be perfectly in accord with Ramsay's point of view as set forth in his account of his conversion by Fénelon. When he first met the Archbishop of Cambrai in 1710, Ramsay relates that he had lost faith in all Christian sects and had resolved to "take refuge in a wise Deism limited to respect for the Divinity and for the immutable ideas of pure virtue," but that his conversation with Fénelon led him to accept the Catholic faith. And he goes on to show that "Monsieur de Cambrai turned Atheists into Deists, Deists into Christians, and Christians into Catholics by a sequence of ideas full of enlightenment and feeling."[381]

Might not this be the process which Ramsay aimed at introducing into Freemasonry--the process which in fact does form part of the masonic system in England to-day, where the Atheist must become, at least by profession, a Deist before he can be admitted to the Craft Degrees, whilst the Rose-Croix degree is reserved solely for those who profess the Christian faith? Such was undoubtedly the idea of the men who introduced the Rose-Croix degree into France; and Ragon, who gives an account of this "Ancien Rose-Croix Francais"--which is almost identical with the degree now worked in England, but long since abandoned in France--objects to it on the very score of its Christian character.[382]

In this respect the Rose-Croix amongst all the upper degrees introduced to France in the middle of the eighteenth century stands alone, and it alone can with any probability be attributed to Scottish Jacobite inspiration. It was not, in fact, until three or four years after Lord Derwentwater or his mysterious successor Lord Harnouester[383] had resigned the Grand Mastership in favour of the Duc d'Antin in 1738 that the additional degrees were first heard of, and it was not until eight years after the Stuart cause had received its death-blow at Culloden, that is to say, in 1754, that the Rite of Perfection in which the so-called Scots Degrees were incorporated was drawn up in the following form:

Rite of Perfection

1. Entered Apprentice. 2. Fellow Craft. 3. Master Mason. 4. Secret Master. 5. Perfect Master. 6. Intimate Secretary. 7. Intendant of the Buildings. 8. Provost and Judge. 9. Elect of Nine. 10. Elect of Fifteen. 11. Chief of the Twelve Tribes. 12. Grand Master Architect. 13. Knight of the Ninth Arch. 14. Ancient Grand Elect. 15. Knight of the Sword. 16. Prince of Jerusalem. 17. Knight of the East and West. 18. Rose-Croix Knight. 19. Grand Pontiff. 20. Grand Patriarch. 21. Grand Master of the Key of Masonry. 22. Prince of Libanus or Knight of the Royal Axe. 23. Sovereign Prince Adept. 24. Commander of the Black and White Eagle. 25. Commander of the Royal Secret.[384]

We have only to glance at the nomenclature of the last twenty-two of these degrees to see that on the basis of mere operative Masonry there has been built up a system composed of two elements: crusading chivalry and Judaic tradition. What else is this but Templarism? Even Mr. Gould, usually so reticent on Templar influence, admits it at this period:

In France ... some of the Scots lodges would appear to have very early manufactured new degrees, connecting these very distinguished Scots Masons with the Knights Templar, and thus given rise to the subsequent flood of Templarism. The earliest of all are supposed to have been the Masons of Lyons who invented the Kadosch degree, representing the vengeance of the Templars, in 1741. From that time new rites multiplied in France and Germany, but all those of French origin contain Knightly, and almost all, Templar grades. In every case the connecting link was composed of one or more Scots degrees.[385]

The name Kadosch here mentioned is a Hebrew word signifying "holy" or "consecrated," which in the Cabala is found in conjunction with the Tetragrammaton.[386] The degree is said to have developed from that of Grand Elect,[387] one of the three "degrees of vengeance" celebrating with sanguinary realism the avenging of the murder of Hiram. But in its final form of Knight Kadosch--later to become the thirtieth degree of the "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite"--the Hiramic legend was changed into the history of the Templars with Jacques du Molay as the victim.[388] So the reprobation of attack on authority personified by the master-builder becomes approbation of attack on authority in the person of the King of France.

The introduction of the upper degrees with their political and, later on, anti-Christian tendencies thus marked a complete departure from the fundamental principle of Freemasonry that "nothing concerning the religion or government shall ever be spoken of in the lodge." For this reason they have been assailed not only by anti-masonic writers but by Freemasons themselves.[389] To represent Barruel and Robison as the enemies of Freemasonry is therefore absolutely false; neither of these men denounced Craft Masonry as practised in England, but only the superstructure erected on the Continent. Barruel indeed incurs the reproaches of Mounier for his championship of English Freemasons:

He vaunts their respect for religious opinion and for authority. When he speaks of Freemasons in general they are impious, rebellious successors of the Templars and Albigenses, but _all those of England are innocent_. More than this, all the Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons in all parts of the world are innocent; there are only guilty ones in the higher degrees, which are not essential to the institution and are sought by a small number of people.[390]

In this opinion of Barruel's a great number of Masonic writers concur--Clavel, Ragon, Rebold, Thory, Findel, and others too numerous to mention; all indicate Craft Masonry as the only true kind and the upper degrees as constituting a danger to the Order. Rebold, who gives a list of these writers, quotes a masonic publication, authorized by the Grand Orient and the Supreme Council of France, in which it is said that "from all these rites there result the most foolish conceptions, ... the most absurd legends, ... the most extravagant systems, the most immoral principles, and those the most dangerous for the peace and preservation of States," and that therefore except the first three degrees of Masonry, which are really ancient and universal, everything is "chimera, extravagance, futility, and lies."[391] Did Barruel and Robison ever use stronger language than this?

To attribute the perversion of Masonry to Jacobite influence would be absurd. How could it be supposed that either Ramsay or Lord Derwentwater (who died as a devout Catholic on the scaffold in 1746) could have been concerned in an attempt to undermine the Catholic faith or the monarchy of France? I would suggest, then, that the term "Scots Masonry" became simply a veil for Templarism--Templarism, moreover, of a very different kind to that from which the original degree of the Rose-Croix was derived. It was this so-called Scots Masonry that, after the resignation of Lord Derwentwater, "boldly came forward and claimed to be not merely a part of Masonry but the real Masonry, possessed of superior knowledge and entitled to greater privileges and the right to rule over the ordinary, i.e. Craft Masonry."[392] The Grand Lodge of France seems, however, to have realized the danger of submitting to the domination of the Templar element, and on the death of the Duc d'Antin and his replacement by the Comte de Clermont in 1743, signified its adherence to English Craft Masonry by proclaiming itself Grande Loge _Anglaise_ de France and reissued the "Constitutions" of Anderson, first published in 1723, with the injunction that the Scots Masters should be placed on the same level as the simple Apprentices and Fellow Crafts and allowed to wear no badges of distinction.[393]

Grand Lodge of England appears to have been reassured by this proclamation as to the character of French Freemasonry, for now, in 1743, it at last delivered a warrant to Grand Lodge of France. Yet in reality it was from this moment that French Freemasonry degenerated the most rapidly. The Order was soon invaded by intriguers. This was rendered all the easier by the apathy of the Comte de Clermont, appointed Grand Master in 1743, who seems to have taken little interest in the Order and employed a substitute in the person of a dancing master named Lacorne, a man of low character through whose influence the lodges fell into a state of anarchy. Freemasonry was thus divided into warring factions: Lacorne and the crowd of low-class supporters who had followed him into the lodges founded a Grand Lodge of their own (Grande Loge Lacorne), and in 1756 the original Freemasons again attempted to make Craft Masonry the national Masonry of France by deleting the word "Anglaise" from the appellation of Grand Lodge, and renaming it "Grand Loge Nationale de France." But many lodges still continue to work the additional degrees.

The rivalry between the two groups became so violent that in 1767 the government intervened and closed down Grand Lodge.

The Templar group had, however, formed two separate associations, the "Knights of the East" (1756) and the "Council of the Emperors of the East and West" (1758). In 1761 a Jew named Stephen Morin was sent to America by the "Emperors" armed with a warrant from the Duc de Clermont and Grand Lodge of Paris and bearing the sonorous title of "Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Master," with orders to establish a Lodge in that country. In 1766 he was accused in Grand Lodge of "propagating strange and monstrous doctrines" and his patent of Grand Inspector was withdrawn.[394] Morin, however, had succeeded in establishing the Rite of Perfection. Sixteen Inspectors, nearly all Jews, were now appointed. These included Isaac Iong, Isaac de Costa, Moses Hayes, B. Spitser, Moses Cohen, Abraham Jacobs, and Hyman Long.

Meanwhile in France the closing of Grand Lodge had not prevented meetings of Lacorne's group, which, on the death of the Duc de Clermont in 1772, instituted the "Grand Orient" with the Duc de Chartres--the future "Philippe Égalité"--as Grand Master. The Grand Orient then invited the Grande Loge to revoke the decree of expulsion and unite with it, and this offer being accepted, the revolutionary party inevitably carried all before it, and the Duc de Chartres was declared Grand Master of all the councils, chapters, and Scotch lodges of France.[395] In 1782 the "Council of Emperors" and the "Knights of the East" combined to form the "Grand Chapitre Général de France," which in 1786 joined up with the Grand Orient. The victory of the revolutionary party was then complete.

It is necessary to enter into all these tedious details in order to understand the nature of the factions grouped together under the banner of Masonry at this period. The Martinist Papus attributes the revolutionary influences that now prevailed in the lodges to their invasion by the Templars, and goes on to explain that this was owing to a change that had taken place in the _Ordre du Temple_. Under the Grand Mastership of the Regent and his successor the Duc de Bourbon, the revolutionary elements amongst the Templars had had full play, but from 1741 onwards the Grand Masters of the Order were supporters of the monarchy. When the Revolution came, the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who had been Grand Master since 1776, perished amongst the defenders of the throne. It was thus that by the middle of the century the Order of the Temple ceased to be a revolutionary force, and the discontented elements it had contained, no longer able to find in it a refuge, threw themselves into Freemasonry, and entering the higher degrees turned them to their subversive purpose. According to Papus, Lacorne was a member of the Templar group, and the dissensions that took place were principally a fight between the ex-Templars and the genuine Freemasons which ended in the triumph of the former:

Victorious rebels thus founded the Grand Orient of France. So a contemporary Mason is able to write: "It is not excessive to say that the masonic revolution of 1773 was the prelude and the precursor of the Revolution of 1789." What must be well observed is the secret action of the Brothers of the Templar Rite. It is they who are the real fomentors of revolution, the others are only docile agents.[396]

But all this attributes the baneful influence of Templarism to the French Templars alone, and the existence of such a body rests on no absolutely certain evidence. What is certain and admits of no denial on the part of any historian, is the inauguration of a Templar Order in Germany at the very moment when the so-called Scottish degrees were introduced into French Masonry. We shall now return to 1738 and follow events that were taking place at this important moment beyond the Rhine.

7

GERMAN TEMPLARISM AND FRENCH ILLUMINISM

The year after Ramsay's oration--that is to say in 1738--Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had hitherto derided as "Kinderspiel," and accordingly went through a hasty initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst passing through Brunswick.[397]

The ceremony took place not at a masonic lodge, but at a hotel, in the presence of a deputation summoned by the Graf von Lippe-Bückeburg from Grand Lodge of Hamburg for the occasion. It is evident that something of an unusual kind must have occurred to necessitate these speedy and makeshift arrangements. Carlyle, in his account of the episode, endeavours to pass it off as a "very trifling circumstance"--a reason the more for regarding it as of the highest importance since we know now from facts that have recently come to light how carefully Carlyle was spoon-fed by Potsdam whilst writing his book on Frederick the Great.[398]

But let us follow Frederick's masonic career. In June 1740, after his accession to the throne, his interest in Masonry had clearly not waned, for we find him presiding over a lodge at Charlottenburg, where he received into the Order two of his brothers, his brother-in-law, and Duke Frederick William of Holstein-Beck. At his desire the Baron de Bielfeld and his privy councillor Jordan founded a lodge at Berlin, the "Three Globes," which by 1746 had no less than fourteen lodges under its jurisdiction.

In this same year of 1740 Voltaire, in response to urgent invitations, paid his first visit to Frederick the Great in Germany. Voltaire is usually said not to have yet become a Mason, and the date of his initiation is supposed to have been 1778, when he was received into the _Loge des Neuf Soeurs_ in Paris. But this by no means precludes the possibility that he had belonged to another masonic Order at an earlier date. At any rate, Voltaire's visit to Germany was followed by two remarkable events in the masonic world of France. The first of these was the institution of the additional degrees; the second--perhaps not wholly unconnected with the first--was the arrival in Paris of a masonic delegate from Germany named von Marschall, who brought with him instructions for a new or rather a revived Order of Templarism, in which he attempted to interest Prince Charles Edward and his followers.

Von Marschall was followed about two years later by Baron von Hunt, who had been initiated in 1741 into the three degrees of Craft Masonry in Germany and now came to consecrate a lodge in Paris. According to von Hundt's own account, he was then received into the Order of the Temple by an unknown Knight of the Red Plume, in the presence of Lord Kilmarnock,[399] and was presented as a distinguished Brother to Prince Charles Edward, whom he imagined to be Grand Master of the Order.[400] But all this was afterwards shown to be a pure frabrication, for Prince Charles Edward dened all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in which he was received, but that he was directed from "a hidden centre" and by Unknown Superiors, whose identity he was bound not to reveal.[401] In reality it appears that von Hundt's account was exactly the opposite of the truth,[402] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding von Marschall's effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new German Order by assuring him that he could raise powerful support for the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded--after the defeat of Culloden--in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the _Stricte Observance_, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, "no trace of Jacobite intrigues ever blended with the teaching of the _Stricte Observance_."[404]

The _Order of the Stricte Observance_ was in reality a purely German association composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and aristocratic classes, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the past, known to each other under knightly titles. Thus Prince Charles of Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho, Baron de Wachter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.

But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders, Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred Mountain, were simply figure-heads; the real leaders, known as the "Unknown Superiors," remained in the background, unadorned by titles of chivalry but exercising supreme jurisdiction over the Order. The system had been foreshadowed by the "Invisibles" of seventeenth-century Rosicrucianism; but now, instead of an intangible group whose very existence was only known vaguely to the world, there appeared in the light of day a powerful organization led apparently by men of influence and position yet secretly directed by hidden chiefs.[405] Mirabeau has described the advent of these mysterious directors in the following passage:

In about 1756 there appeared, as if they had come out of the ground, men sent, they said, by unknown superiors, and armed with powers to reform the order [of Freemasonry] and re-establish it in its ancient purity. One of these missionaries, named Johnston, came to Weimar and Jena, where he established himself. He was received in the best way in the world by the brothers [Freemasons], who were lured by the hope of great secrets, of important discoveries which were never made known to them.[406]

Now, in the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is said that this man Johnston, or rather Johnson, who proclaimed himself to be "Grand Prior of the Order," was a Jew named Leicht or Leucht.[407] Gould says that his real name was either Leucht or Becker, but that he professed to be an Englishman, although unable to speak the English language, hence his assumption of the name Johnson.[408] Mr. Gould has described Johnson as a "consummate rogue and an unmitigated vagabond ... of almost repulsive demeanour and of no education, but gifted with boundless impudence and low cunning." Indeed, von Hundt himself, after enlisting Johnson's services, found him too dangerous and declared him to be an adventurer. Johnson was thereupon arrested by von Hundt's friend the councillor von Pritsch, and thrown into the castle of Wartburg, where sudden death ended his career.

It is, however, improbable that Mirabeau could be right in indicating Johnson as one of the "Unknown Superiors," who were doubtless men of vaster conceptions than this adventurer appears to have been. Moreover, the manner of his end clearly proves that he occupied a subordinate position in the _Stricte Observance_.

Here, then, we have a very curious sequence of events which it may be well to recapitulate briefly in order to appreciate their full significance:

1737. Oration of Chevalier Ramsay indicating Templar origin of Freemasonry, but making no mention of upper degrees.

1738. Duc d'Antin becomes Grand Master of French Freemasonry in the place of Lord "Harnouester."

1738. Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.

1740. Voltaire pays his first visit to Frederick, now King.

1741. Baron von Marschall arrives in Paris with a plan for reviving the Templar Order.

Templar degrees first heard of in France under name of "Scots Masonry."

1743. Arrival in France of Baron von Hundt with fresh plans for reviving the Templar Order.

Degree of Knight Kadosch celebrating vengeance of Templars said to have been instituted at Lyons.

1750. Voltaire goes to spend three years with Frederick.

1751. Templar Order of the Stricte Observance founded by von Hundt.

1754. Rite of Perfection (early form of Scottish Rite) founded in France.

1761. Frederick acknowledged head of Scottish Rite.

" Morin sent to found Rite of Perfection in America.

1762. Grand Masonic Constitutions ratified in Berlin.[409]

It will be seen then that what Mr. Gould describes as "the flood of Templarism," which both he and Mr. Tuckett attribute to the so-called Scots Masons,[410] corresponds precisely with the decline of Jacobite and the rise of German influence. Would it not therefore appear probable that, except in the case of the Rose-Croix degree, the authors of the upper degrees were not Scotsmen nor Jacobites, that Scots Masonry was a term used to cover not merely Templarism but more especially German Templarism, and that the real author and inspirer of the movement was Frederick the Great? No, it is significant to find that in the history of the _Ordre du Temple_, published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Frederick the Great is cited as one of the most distinguished members of this Order in the past,[411] and the Abbé Grégoire adds that he was "consecrated" at Remersberg (Rheinsberg?) in 1738, that is to say in the same year that he was initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.[412] There is therefore a definite reason for connecting Frederick with Templarism at this date.

I would suggest, then, that the truth about the Templar succession may be found in one of the two following theories:

1. That the documents produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century, including the Charter of Larmenius, were genuine; that the Order had never ceased to exist since the days of the Crusades; that the Templar heresy was Johannism, but that this was not held by the Templars who escaped to Scotland; that the Rose-Croix degree in its purely Christian form was introduced by the Scottish Templars to Scotland and four hundred years later brought by Ramsay to France; that the Master of the Temple at this date was the Regent, Philippe Duc d'Orléans, as stated in the Charter of Larmenius. Finally, that after this, fresh Templar degrees were introduced from Germany by von Hundt,

## acting on behalf of Frederick the Great.

2. That the documents produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century were, as M. Matter declares, early eighteenth-century fabrications; that although, in view of the tradition preserved in the Royal Order of Scotland, there appears to be good reason to believe the story of the Scottish Templars and the origin of the Rose-Croix degree, the rest of the history of the Templars, including the Charter of Larmenius, was an invention of the "Concealed Superiors" of the _Stricte Observance_ in Germany, and that the most important of these "Concealed Superiors" were Frederick the Great and Voltaire.

I shall not attempt to decide which of these two theories is correct; all that I do maintain is that in either case the preponderating rôle in Templarism at this crisis was played by Frederick the Great, probably with the co-operation of Voltaire, who in his _Essai sur les Mæurs_ championed the cause of the Templars. Let us follow the reasons for arriving at this conclusion.

Ramsay's oration in 1737 connecting Freemasonry with the Templars may well have come to the ears of Frederick and suggested to him the idea of using Masonry as a cover for his intrigues--hence his hasty initiation at Brunswick. But in order to acquire influence in a secret society it is always necessary to establish a claim to superior knowledge, and Templarism seemed to provide a fruitful source of inspiration. For this purpose new light must be thrown on the Order. Now, there was probably no one better qualified than Voltaire, with his knowledge of the ancient and medieval world and hatred of the Catholic Church, to undertake the construction of a historical romance subversive of the Catholic faith--hence the urgent summons to the philosopher to visit Frederick. We can imagine Voltaire delving amongst the records of the past in order to reconstruct the Templar heresy. This was clearly Gnostic, and the Mandæans or Christians of St. John may well have appeared to present the required characteristics. If it could be shown that here in Johannism true "primitive Christianity" was to be found, what a blow for the "infâme"! A skilful forger could easily be found to fabricate the documents said to have been preserved in the secret archives of the Order. Further we find von Marschall arriving in the following year in France to reorganize the Templars, and von Hundt later claiming to be in possession of the true secrets of the Order handed down from the fourteenth century. That some documents bearing on this question were either discovered or fabricated under the direction of Frederick the Great seems the more probable from the existence of a masonic tradition to this effect. Thus Dr. Oliver quotes a Report of the Grand Inspectors-General in the nineteenth century stating that:

During the Crusades, at which 27,000 Masons were present, some masonic MSS. of great importance were discovered among the descendants of the ancient Jews, and that other valuable documents were found at different periods down to the year of Light 5557 (i.e. 1553), at which time a record came to light in Syrian characters, relating to the most remote antiquity, and from which it would appear that the world is many thousand years older than given by the Mosaic account. Few of these characters were translated till the reign of our illustrious and most enlightened Brother Frederick II, King of Prussia, whose well-known zeal for the Craft was the cause of so much improvement in the Society over which he condescended to preside.[413]

I suggest, then, that the documents here referred to and containing the secrets claimed by von Hundt may have been the ones afterwards published by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century, and that if unauthentic they were the work of Voltaire, aided probably by a Jew capable of forging Syriac manuscripts. That Johnson was the Jew in question seems probable, since Findel definitely asserts that the history of the continuation of the Order of Knights Templar was his work.[414] Frederick, as we know, was in the habit of employing Jews to carry out shady transactions, and he may well have used Johnson to forge documents as he used Ephraim to coin false money for him. It would be further quite in keeping with his policy to get rid of the man as soon as he had served his purpose, lest he should betray his secrets.

At any rate, whatever were the methods employed by Frederick the Great for obtaining control over Masonry, the fruitful results of that "very trifling circumstance," his initiation at Brunswick, become more and more apparent as the century advances. Thus when in 1786 the Rite of Perfection was reorganized and rechristened the "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite"--always the same Scottish cover for Prussianism!--it is said to have been Frederick who conducted operations, drew up the new Constitutions of the Order, and rearranged the degrees so as to bring the total number up to thirty-three[415], as follows:

26. Prince of Mercy. 27. Sovereign Commander of the Temple. 28. Knight of the Sun. 29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew. 30. Grand Elect Knight of Kadosch. 31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander. 32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. 33. Sovereign Grand Inspector-General.

In the last four degrees Frederick the Great and Prussia play an important part; in the thirtieth degree of Knight Kadosch, largely modelled on the Vehmgerichts, the Knights wear Teutonic crosses, the throne is surmounted by the double-headed eagle of Prussia, and the President, who is called Thrice Puissant Grand Master, represents Frederick himself; in the thirty-second degree of Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, Frederick is described as the head of Continental Freemasonry; in the thirty-third degree of Sovereign Grand Inspector-General the jewel is again the double-headed eagle, and the Sovereign Grand Commander is Frederick, who at the time this degree was instituted figured with Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, Grand Master of the Grand Orient, as his lieutenant. The most important of these innovations was the thirty-second degree, which was in reality a system rather than a degree for bringing together the Masons of all countries under one head--hence the immense power acquired by Frederick. By 1786 French Masonry was thus entirely Prussianized and Frederick had indeed become the idol of Masonry everywhere. Yet probably no one ever despised Freemasonry more profoundly. As the American Mason Albert Pike shrewdly observed:

There is no doubt that Frederick came to the conclusion that the great pretensions of Masonry in the blue degrees were merely imaginary and deceptive. He ridiculed the Order, and thought its ceremonies mere child's play; and some of his sayings to that effect have been preserved. It does not at all follow that he might not at a later day have found it politic to put himself at the head of an Order that had become a power....[416]

It is not without significance to find that in the year following the official foundation of the _Stricte Observance_, that is to say in 1752, Lord Holdernesse, in a letter to the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Albemarle, headed "Very secret," speaks of "the influence which the King of Prussia has of late obtained over all the French Councils"; and a few weeks later Lord Albemarle refers to "the great influence of the Prussian Court over the French Councils by which they are so blinded as not to be able to judge for themselves."[417]

But it is time to turn to another sphere of activity which Masonry opened out to the ambitions of Frederick.

The making of the _Encyclopédie_, which even those writers the most sceptical with regard to secret influences behind the revolutionary movement admit to have contributed towards the final cataclysm, is a question on which official history has thrown but little light. According to the authorized version of the story--as related, for example, in Lord Morley's work on the Encyclopædists--the plan of translating Ephraim Chambers's _Cyclopædia_, which had appeared in 1728, was suggested to Diderot "some fifteen years later" by a French bookseller named Le Breton. Diderot's "fertile and energetic intelligence transformed the scheme.... It was resolved to make Chambers's work a mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider scope." We then go on to read of the financial difficulties that now beset the publisher, of the embarrassment of Diderot, who "felt himself unequal to the task of arranging and supervising every department of a new book that was to include the whole circle of the sciences," of the fortunate enlisting of d'Alembert as a collaborator, and later of men belonging to all kinds of professions, "all united in a work that was as useful as it was laborious, without any view of interest ... without any common understanding and agreement," further, of the cruel persecutions encountered at the hands of the Jesuits, "who had expected at least to have control of the articles on theology," and finally of the tyrannical suppression of the great work on account of the anti-Christian tendencies these same articles displayed.[418]

Now for a further light on the matter.

In the famous speech of the Chevalier Ramsay already quoted, which was delivered at Grand Lodge of Paris in 1737, the following passage occurs:

The fourth quality required in our Order is the taste for useful sciences and the liberal arts. Thus, the Order exacts of each of you to contribute, by his protection, liberality, or labour, to a vast work for which no academy can suffice, because all these societies being composed of a very small number of men, their work cannot embrace an object so extended. All the Grand Masters in Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere exhort all the learned men and all the artisans of the Fraternity to unite to furnish the materials for a Universal Dictionary of all the liberal arts and useful sciences; excepting only theology and politics. The work has already been commenced in London, and by means of the unions of our brothers it may be carried to a conclusion in a few years.[419]

So after all it was no enterprising bookseller, no brilliantly inspired philosopher, who conceived the idea of the _Encyclopédie_, but a powerful international organization able to employ the services of more men than all the academies could supply, which devised the scheme at least six years before the date at which it is said to have occurred to Diderot. Thus the whole story as usually told to us would appear to be a complete fabrication--struggling publishers, toiling _littérateurs_ carrying out their superhuman task as "independent men of letters" without the patronage of the great--which Lord Morley points out as "one of the most important facts in the history of the Encyclopædia"--writers of all kinds bound together by no "common understanding or agreement," are all seen in reality to have been closely associated as "artisans of the Fraternity" carrying out the orders of their superiors.

The _Encyclopédie_ was therefore essentially a Masonic publication, and Papus, whilst erroneously attributing the famous oration and consequently the plan of the _Encyclopédie_ to the inspiration of the Duc d'Antin, emphasizes the importance of this fact. Thus, he writes:

The Revolution manifests itself by two stages:

1st. _Intellectual revolution_, by the publication of the _Encyclopédie_, due to French Freemasonry under the high inspiration of the Duc d'Antin.

2nd. _Occult revolution_ in the Lodges, due in great part to the members of the Templar Rite and executed by a group of expelled Freemasons afterwards amnestied.[420]

The masonic authorship of the _Encyclopédie_ and the consequent dissemination of revolutionary doctrines has remained no matter of doubt to the Freemasons of France; on the contrary, they glory in the fact. At the congress of the Grand Orient in 1904 the Freemason Bonnet declared:

In the eighteenth century the glorious line of Encyclopædists formed in our temples a fervent audience which was then alone in invoking the radiant device as yet unknown to the crowd: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The revolutionary seed quickly germinated amidst this _élite_. Our illustrious Freemasons d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvétius, d'Holbach, Voltaire, Condorcet, completed the evolution of minds and prepared the new era. And, when the Bastille fell, Freemasonry had the supreme honour of giving to humanity the charter (i.e. the Declaration of the Rights of Man) which it had elaborated with devotion. (_Applause_.)

This charter, the orator went on to say, was the work of the Freemason Lafayette, and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, of which more than 300 members were Freemasons.

But in using the lodges to sow the seeds of revolution, the Encyclopædists betrayed not only the cause of monarchy but of Masonry as well. It will be noticed that, in conformity with true masonic principles, Ramsay in his oration expressly stated that the encyclopædia was to concern itself with the liberal arts and sciences[421] and that theology and politics were to be excluded from the contemplated scheme. How, then, did it come to pass that these were eventually the two subjects to which the Encyclopædists devoted the greatest attention, so that their work became principally an attack on Church and monarchy? If Papus was right in attributing this revolutionary tendency to the _Encyclopédie_ from the time of the famous oration, then Ramsay could only be set down as the profoundest hypocrite or as the mouthpiece of hypocrites professing intentions the very reverse of their real designs. A far more probable explanation seems to be that during the interval between Ramsay's speech and the date when the _Encyclopédie_ was begun in earnest, the scheme underwent a change. It will be noticed that the year of 1746, when Diderot and d'Alembert are said to have embarked on their task, coincided with the decadence of French Freemasonry under the Comte de Clermont and the invasion of the lodges by the subversive elements; thus the project propounded with the best intentions by the Freemasons of 1737 was filched by their revolutionary successors and turned to a diametrically opposite purpose.

But it is not to the dancing-master Lacorne and his middle-class following that we can attribute the efficiency with which not only the _Encyclopédie_ but a host of minor revolutionary publications were circulated all over France. Frederick the Great had seen his opportunity. If I am right in my surmise that Ramsay's speech had reached the ears of Frederick, the prospect of the _Encyclopédie_ contained therein may well have appeared to him a magnificent method for obtaining a footing in the intellectual circles of France; hence then, doubtless, an additional reason for his hasty initiation into Masonry, his summons to Voltaire, and his subsequent overtures to Diderot and d'Alembert, who, by the time the first volume of the _Encyclopédie_ appeared in 1751, had both been made members of the Royal Academy of Prussia. In the following year Frederick offered d'Alembert the presidency of the Academy in place of Maupertuis, an offer which was refused; but in 1755 and again in 1763 d'Alembert visited Frederick in Germany and received his pension regularly from Berlin. It is therefore not surprising that when the _Encyclopédie_ had reached the letter P, it included, in an unsigned article on Prussia, a panegyric on the virtues and the talents of the illustrious monarch who presided over the destinies of that favoured country.

The art of Frederick the Great, as of his successors on the throne of the Hohenzollerns, was to make use of every movement that could further the design of Prussian supremacy. He used the Freemasons as he used the philosophers and as he used the Jews, to carry out his great scheme--the destruction of the French monarchy and of the alliance between France and Austria. Whilst through his representatives at the Court of France he was able to create discord between Versailles and Vienna and bring discredit on Marie Antoinette, through his allies in the masonic lodges and in the secret societies he was able to reach the people of France. The gold and the printing presses of Frederick the Great were added to those of the Orléanistes for the circulation of seditious literature throughout the provinces.[422]

So as the century advanced the association founded by Royalists and Catholics was turned into an engine of destruction by revolutionary intriguers; the rites and symbols were gradually perverted to an end directly opposed to that for which they had been instituted, and the two degrees of Rose-Croix and Knight Kadosch came to symbolize respectively war on religion and war on the monarchy of France.

It is no orthodox Catholic but an occultist and Rosicrucian who thus describes the rôle of Masonry in the Revolution:

Masonry has not only been profaned but it has been served as a cover and pretext for the plots of anarchy, by the occult influence of the avengers of Jacques du Molay and the continuers of the schismatic work of the Temple. Instead of avenging the death of Hiram, they have avenged his assassins. The anarchists have taken the plumb-line, the square, and the mallet and have written on them liberty, equality, fraternity. That is to say, liberty for envyings, equality in degradation, fraternity for destruction. Those are the men whom the Church has justly condemned and that she will always condemn.[423]

But it is time to turn to another masonic power which meanwhile had entered the lists, the Martinistes or French Illuminés.

French Illuminism

Whilst Frederick the Great, the Freemasons, the Encyclopædists, and the Orléanistes were working on the material plane to undermine the Church and monarchy in France, another cult had arisen which by the middle of the century succeeded in insinuating itself into the lodges. This was a recrudescence of the old craze for occultism, which now spread like wildfire all over Europe from Bordeaux to St. Petersburg. During the reign of Anna of Courland (1730-40) the Russian Court was permeated with superstition, and professional magicians and charlatans of every kind were encouraged. The upper classes of Germany in the eighteenth century proved equally susceptible to the attractions of the supernatural, and princes desirous of long life or greater power eagerly pursued the quest of the Philosopher's Stone, the "Elixir of Life," and evoked spirits under the direction of occultists in their service.

In France occultism, reduced to a system, adopted the outer forms of Masonry as a cover to the propagation of its doctrines. It was in 1754 that Martines de Pasqually (or Paschalis), a Rose-Croix Mason,[424] founded his Order of Élus Cohens (Elected Priests), known later as the _Martinistes_ or the French _Illuminés_. Although brought up in the Christian faith, Pasqually has been frequently described as a Jew. The Baron de Gleichen, himself a Martiniste and a member of the Amis Réunis,[425] throws an interesting light on the matter in this passage: "Pasqualis was originally Spanish, perhaps of the Jewish race, since his disciples inherited from him a large number of Jewish manuscripts."[426]

It was "this Cabalistic sect,"[427] the Martinistes, which now became the third great masonic power in France.

The rite of the Martinistes was broadly divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man and in the second his final restoration--a further variation on the masonic theme of a loss and a recovery. After the first three Craft degrees came the Cohen degrees of the same--Apprentice Cohen, Fellow Craft Cohen, and Master Cohen--then those of Grand Architect, Grand Elect of Zerubbabel or Knight of the East: but above these were concealed degrees leading up to the Rose-Croix, which formed the capstone of the edifice.[428] Pasqually first established his rite at Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, then in Paris, and before long Martiniste lodges spread all over France with the centre at Lyons under the direction of Willermoz, a prosperous merchant living there. From this moment other occult Orders sprang up in all directions. In 1760 Dom Pernetti founded his sect of "Illuminés d'Avignon" in that city, declaring himself a high initiate of Freemasonry and teaching the doctrines of Swedenborg. Later a certain Chastanier founded the "Illuminés Théosophes," a modified version of Pernetti's rite; and in 1783 the Marquis de Thomé started a purified variety of Swedenborgianism under the name of "Rite of Swedenborg."

Beneath all these occult sects one common source of inspiration is to be found--the perverted and magical Cabala of the Jews, that conglomeration of wild theosophical imaginings and barbaric superstitions founded on ancient pagan cults and added to throughout seventeen centuries by succeeding generations of Jewish occultists.[429] This influence is

## particularly to be detected in the various forms of the Rose-Croix

degree, which in nearly all these associations forms the highest and most secret degree. The ritual of "the eminent Order of the Knights of the Black Eagle or Sovereigns of the Rose-Croix," a secret and unpublished document of the eighteenth century, which differs entirely from the published rituals, explains that no one can attain to knowledge of the higher sciences without the "Clavicules de Salomon," of which the real secrets were never committed to print and which is said to contain the whole of Cabalistic science.[430] The catechism of this same degree deals mainly with the transmutation of metals, the Philosopher's Stone, etc.

In the Rite of Perfection as worked in France and America this Cabalistic influence is shown in those degrees known under the name of the "Ineffable Degrees," derived from the Jewish belief in the mystery that surrounds the Ineflable Name of God. According to the custom of the Jews, the sacred name Jehovah or Jah-ve, composed of the four letters yod, he, vau, he, which formed the Tetragrammaton, was never to be pronounced by the profane, who were obliged to substitute for it the word "Adonai." The Tetragrammaton might only be uttered once a year on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies amid the sound of trumpets and cymbals, which prevented the people from hearing it. It is said that in consequence of the people thus refraining from its utterance, the true pronunciation of the name was at last lost. The Jews further believed that the Tetragrammaton was possessed of unbounded powers. "He who pronounces it shakes heaven and earth and inspires the very angels with astonishment and terror."[431] The Ineffable Name thus conferred miraculous gifts; it was engraved on the rod of Moses and enabled him to perform wonders, just as, according to the Toledot Yeshu, it conferred the same powers on Christ.

This superstition was clearly a part of Rosicrucian tradition, for the symbol of the Tetragrammaton within a triangle, adopted by the masonic lodges, figures in Fludd's Cabalistic system.[432] In the "Ineffable degrees" it was invested with all the mystic awe by which it is surrounded in Jewish theology, and, according to early American working: "Brothers and Companions of these degrees received the name of God as it was revealed to Enoch and were sworn to pronounce it but once in their lives."

In the alchemical version of the Rose-Croix degree referred to above the Ineffable Name is actually invested with magical powers as in the Jewish Cabala. Ragon, after describing the Jewish ceremony when the word Jehovah was pronounced by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies, goes on to say that "Schem-hamm-phorasch," another term for the Tetragrammaton, forms the sacred word of a Scotch degree, and that this belief in its mystic properties "will be found at the head of the instructions for the third degree of the Knight of the Black Eagle, called Rose-Croix," thus:

Q. What is the most powerful name of God on the pentaculum? A. Adonai. Q. What is its power? A. To move the Universe.

That one of the Knights who had the good fortune to pronounce it cabalistically would have at his disposal the powers that inhabit the four elements and the celestial spirits, and would possess all the virtues possible to man.[433]

That this form of the Rose-Croix was of purely Jewish origin is thus clearly evident. In the address to the candidate for initiation into the Rose-Croix degree at the Lodge of the "Contrat Social" it is stated:

This degree, which includes an Order of Perfect Masons, was brought to light by Brother R., who took it from the Kabbalistic treasure of the Doctor and Rabbi Néamuth, chief of the synagogue of Leyden in Holland, who had preserved its precious secrets and its costume, both of which we shall see in the same order in which he placed them in his mysterious Talmud.[434]

Now, we know that in the eighteenth century a society of Rosicrucian magicians had been instituted in Florence which was believed to date back to the fifteenth century and to have been partly, if not wholly composed of Orientals, as we shall see in the next chapter; but it seems probable that this sect, whilst secretly inspiring the Rose-Croix masons, was itself either nameless or concealed under a disguise. Thus in 1782 an English Freemason writes: "I have found some rather curious MSS. in Algiers in Hebrew relating to the society of the Rosicrucians, which exists at present under another name with the same forms. I hope, moreover to be admitted to their knowledge."[435]

It has frequently been argued that Jews can have played no part in Freemasonry at this period since they themselves were not admitted to the lodges. But this is by no means certain; in the article from _The Gentleman's Magazine_ already quoted it is stated that Jews are admitted; de Luchet further quotes the instance of David Moses Hertz received in a London lodge in 1787; and the author of _Les Franc-Masons écrasés_, published in 1746, states that he has seen three Jews received into a lodge at Amsterdam. In the "Melchisedeck Lodges" of the Continent non-Christians were openly admitted, and here again the Rose-Croix degree occupies the most important place. The highest degrees of this rite were the Initiated Brothers of Asia, the Masters of the Wise, and the Royal Priests, otherwise known as the degree of Melchisedeck or the true Brothers of the Rose-Croix.

This Order, usually described as the _Asiatic Brethren_, of which the centre was in Vienna and the leader a certain Baron von Eckhoffen, is said to have been a continuation of the "Brothers of the Golden and Rosy Cross," a revival of the seventeenth-century Rosicrucians organized in 1710 by a Saxon priest, Samuel Richter, known as Sincerus Renatus. The real origins of the Asiatic Brethren are, however, obscure and little literature on the subject is to be found in this country.[436] Their further title of "the Knights and Brethren of St. John the Evangelist" suggests Johannite inspiration and was clearly an imposture, since they included Jews, Turks, Persians, and Armenians. De Luchet, who as a contemporary was in a position to acquire first-hand information, thus describes the organization of the Order, which, it will be seen, was entirely Judaic. "The superior direction is called the small and constant Sanhedrim of Europe. The names of those employed by which they conceal themselves from their inferiors are Hebrew. The signs of the third principal degree (i.e. the Rose-Croix) are Urim and Thummim.... The Order has the true secrets and the explanations, moral and physical, of the hierogyphics of the very venerable Order of Freemasonry."[437] The initiate had to swear absolute submission and unswerving obedience to the laws of the Order and to follow its laws implicitly to the end of his life, without asking by whom they were given or whence they came.

"Who," asks de Luchet, "gave to the Order these so-called secrets? That is the great and insidious question for the secret societies. But the Initiate who remains, and must remain eternally in the Order, never finds this out, he dare not even ask it, he must promise never to ask it. In this way those who participate in the secrets of the Order remain the Masters."

Again, as in the _Stricte Observance_, the same system of "Concealed Superiors"--the same blind obedience to unknown directors!

Under the guidance of these various sects of Illuminés a wave of occultism swept over France, and lodges everywhere became centres of instruction on the Cabala, magic, divination, alchemy, and theosophy[438]; masonic rites degenerated into ceremonies for the evocation of spirits--women, who were now admitted to these assemblies, screamed, fainted, fell into convulsions, and lent themselves to experiments of the most horrible kind.[439]

By means of these occult practices the _Illuminés_ in time became the third great masonic power in France, and the rival Orders perceived the expediency of joining forces. Accordingly in 1771 an amalgamation of all the masonic groups was effected at the new lodge of the _Amis Réunis_.

The founder of this lodge was Savalette de Langes, Keeper of the Royal Treasury, Grand Officer of the Grand Orient, and a high initiate of Masonry--"versed in all mysteries, in all the lodges, and in all the plots." In order to unite them he made his lodge a mixture of all sophistic, Martiniste, and masonic systems, "and as a bait to the aristocracy organized balls and concerts at which the adepts, male and female, danced and feasted, or sang of the beauties of their liberty and equality, little knowing that above them was a secret committee which was arranging to extend this equality beyond the lodge to rank and fortune, to castles and to cottages, to marquesses and bourgeois" alike.[440]

A further development of the Amis Réunis was the Rite of the _Philalèthes_, compounded by Savalette de Langes in 1773 out of Swedenborgian, Martiniste, and Rosicrucian mysteries, into which the higher initiates of the Amis Réunis--Court de Gebelin, the Prince de Hesse, Condorcet, the Vicomte de Tavannes, Willermoz, and others--were initiated. A modified form of this rite was instituted at Narbonne in 1780 under the name of "Free and Accepted Masons du Rit Primitif," the English nomenclature being adopted (according to Clavel) in order to make it appear that the rite emanated from England. In reality its founder, the Marquis de Chefdebien d'Armisson, a member of the Grand Orient and of the Amis Réunis, drew his inspiration from certain German Freemasons with whom he maintained throughout close relations and who were presumably members of the Stricte Observance, since Chefdebien was a member of this Order, in which he bore the title of "Eques a Capite Galeato." The correspondence that passed between Chefdebien and Salvalette de Langes, recently discovered and published in France, is one of the most illuminating records of the masonic ramifications in existence before the Revolution ever brought to light.[441] To judge by the tone of these letters, the leaders of the Rit Primitif would appear to have been law-abiding and loyal gentlemen devoted to the Catholic religion, yet in their passion for new forms of Masonry and thirst for occult lore ready to associate themselves with every kind of adventurer and charlatan who might be able to initiate them into further mysteries. In the curious notes drawn up by Savalette for the guidance of the Marquis de Chefdebien we catch a glimpse of the power behind the philosophers of the _salons_ and the aristocratic adepts of the lodges--the professional magicians and men of mystery; and behind these again the concealed directors of the secret societies, the _real initiates_.

The Magicians

The part played by magicians during the period preceding the French Revolution is of course a matter of common knowledge and has never been disputed by official history. But like the schools of philosophers this sudden crop of magicians is always represented as a sporadic growth called into being by the idle and curious society of the day. The important point to realize is that just as the philosophers were all Freemasons, the principal magicians were not only Freemasons but members of occult secret societies. It is therefore not as isolated charlatans but as agents of some hidden power that we must regard the men whom we will now pass in a rapid survey.

One of the first to appear in the field was Schroepfer, a coffee-house keeper of Leipzig, who declared that no one could be a true Freemason without practising magic. Accordingly he proclaimed himself the "reformer of Freemasonry," and set up a lodge in his own house with a rite based on the Rose-Croix degree for the purpose of evoking spirits. The meetings took place at dead of night, when by means of carefully arranged lights, magic mirrors, and possibly of electricity, Schroepfer contrived to produce apparitions which his disciples--under the influence of strong punch--took to be visitors from the other world.[442] In the end Schroepfer, driven crazy by his own incantations, blew out his brains in a garden near Leipzig.

According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, it was Schroepfer who indoctrinated the famous "Comte de Saint-Germain"--"The Master" of our modern co-masonic lodges. The identity of this mysterious personage has never been established[443]; by some contemporaries he was said to be a natural son of the King of Portugal, by others the son of a Jew and a Polish Princess. The Duc de Choiseul on being asked whether he knew the origin of Saint-Germain replied: "No doubt we know it, he is the son of a Portuguese Jew who exploits the credulity of the town and Court."[444] In 1780 a rumour went round that his father was a Jew of Bordeaux, but according to the _Souvenirs of the Marquise de Créquy_ the Baron de Breteuil discovered from the archives of his Ministry that the pretended Comte de Saint-Germain was the son of a Jewish doctor of Strasburg, that his real name was Daniel Wolf, and that he was born in 1704.[445] The general opinion thus appears to have been in favour of his Jewish ancestry.

Saint-German seems first to have been heard of in Germany about 1740, where his marvellous powers attracted the attention of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, who, always the ready dupe of charlatans, brought him back with him to the Court of France, where he speedily gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour. The Marquise before long presented him to the King, who granted him an apartment at Chambord and, enchanted by his brilliant wit, frequently spent long evenings in conversation with him in the rooms of Madame de Pompadour. Meanwhile his invention of flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of England raised him still higher in the estimation of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle. In 1761 we hear of him as living in great splendour in Holland and giving out that he had reached the age of seventy-four, though appearing to be only fifty; if this were so, he must have been ninety-seven at the time of his death in 1784 at Schleswig. But this feat of longevity is far from satisfying his modern admirers, who declare that Saint-Germain did not die in 1784, but is still alive to-day in some corner of Eastern Europe. This is in accordance with the theory, said to have been circulated by Saint-Germain himself, that by the eighteenth century he had passed through several incarnations and that the last one had continued for 1,500 years. Barruel, however, explains that Saint-Germain in thus referring to his age spoke in masonic language, in which a man who has taken the first degree is said to be three years old, after the second five, or the third seven, so that by means of the huge increase the higher degrees conferred it might be quite possible for an exalted adept to attain the age of 1,500.

Saint-Germain has been represented by modern writers--not only those who compose his following--as a person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the _salons_ made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this

## book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies.

According to the _Mémoires authentiques pour servir à l'histoire du Comte de Cagliostro_, Saint-Germain was the "Grand Master of Freemasonry,"[446] and it was he who initiated Cagliostro into the mysteries of Egyptian masonry.

Joseph Balsamo, born in 1743, who assumed the name of Comte de Cagliostro, as a magician far eclipsed his master. Like Saint-Germain, he was generally reputed to be a Jew--the son of Pietro Balsamo, a Sicilian tradesman of Jewish origin[447]--and he made no secret of his arden admiration for the Jewish race. After the death of his parents he escaped from the monastery in which he had been placed at Palermo and joined himself to a man known as Altotas, said to have been an Armenian, with whom he travelled to Greece and Egypt[448]. Cagliostro's travels later took him to Poland and Germany, where he was initiated into Freemasonry[449], and finally to France; but it was in England that he himself declared that he elaborated his famous "Egyptian Rite," which he founded officially in 1782. According to his own account, this rite was derived from a manuscript by a certain George Cofton--whose identity has never been discovered--which he bought by chance in London[450]. Yarker, however, expresses the opinion that "the rite of Cagliostro was clearly that of Pasqually," and that if he acquired it from a manuscript in London it would indicate that Pasquilly had disciples in that city. A far more probable explanation is that Cagliostro derived his Egyptian masonry from the same source as that on which Pasqually had drawn for his Order of Martinistes, namely the Cabala, and that it was not from a single manuscript but from an eminent Jewish Cabalist in London that he took his instructions. Who this may have been we shall soon see. At any rate, in a contemporary account of Cagliostro we find him described as "a doctor initiated into Cabalistic art" and a Rose-Croix; but after founding his own rite he acquired the name of Grand Copht, that is to say, Supreme Head of Egyptian Masonry, a new branch that he wished to graft on to old European Freemasonry.[451] We shall return to his further masonic adventures later.

In a superior category to Saint-German and Cagliostro was the famous Swabian doctor Mesmer, who has given his name to an important branch of natural science. In about 1780 Mesmer announced his great discovery of "animal magnetism, the principle of life in all organized beings, the soul of all that breathes." But if to-day Mesmerism has come to be regarded as almost synonymous with hypnotism and in no way a branch of occultism, Mesmer himself--stirring the fluid in his magic bucket, around which his disciples wept, slept, fell into trances or convulsions, raved or prophesied[452]--earned not unnaturally the reputation of a charlatan. The Freemasons, eager to discover the secret of the magic bucket, hastened to enrol him in their Order, and Mesmer was received into the Primitive Rite of Free and Accepted Masons in 1785.[453]

Space forbids a description of the minor magicians who flourished at this period--of _Schroeder_, founder in 1776 of a chapter of "True and Ancient Rose-Croix Masons," practising certain magical, theosophical, and alchemical degrees; of _Gassner_, worker of miracles in the neighbourhood of Ratisbonne; of "the Jew Leon," one of a band of charlatans who made large sums of money with magic mirrors in which the imaginative were able to see their absent friends, and who was finally banished from France by the police,--all these and many others exploited the credulity and curiosity of the upper classes both in France and Germany between the years of 1740 and 1790. De Luchet, writing before the French Revolution, describes the part played in their mysteries by the soul of a Cabalistic Jew named Gablidone who had lived before Christ, and who predicted that "in the year 1800 there will be, on our globe, a very remarkable revolution, and there will be no other religion but that of the patriarchs."[454]

How are we to account for this extraordinary wave of Cabalism in Western Europe? By whom was it inspired? If, as Jewish writers assure us, neither Marlines Pasqually, Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, nor any of the visible occultists or magicians were Jews, the problem only becomes the more insoluble. We cannot believe that Sanhedrims, Hebrew hieroglyphics, the contemplation of the Tetragrammaton, and other Cabalistic rites originated in the brains of French and German aristocrats, philosophers, and Freemasons. Let us turn, then, to events taking place at this moment in the world of Jewry and see whether these may provide some clue.

8

THE JEWISH CABALISTS

It has been shown in the preceding chapters that the Jewish Cabala played an important part in the occult and anti-Christian sects from the very beginning of the Christian era. The time has now come to enquire what part Jewish influence played meanwhile in revolutions. Merely to ask the question is to bring on oneself the accusation of "anti-Semitism," yet the Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has shown the falseness of this charge:

This [he writes] is what must separate the impartial historian from anti-Semitism. The anti-Semite says: "The Jew is the preparer, the machinator, the chief engineer of revolutions"; the impartial historian confines himself to studying the part which the Jew, considering his spirit, his character, the nature of his philosophy, and his religion, may have taken in revolutionary processes and movements.[455]

Lazare himself expresses the opinion, however, that--

The complaint of the anti-Semites seems to be founded: the Jew has the revolutionary spirit; consciously or not he is an agent of revolution. Yet the complaint complicates itself, for anti-Semitism accuses the Jews of being the cause of revolutions. Let us examine what this accusation is worth....[456]

In the light of our present knowledge it would certainly be absurd to ascribe to the Jews the authorship of the conspiracy of Catiline or of the Gracchi, the rising of Jack Straw and Wat Tyler, Jack Cade's rebellion, the _jacqueries_ of France, or the Peasants' Wars in Germany, although historical research may lead in time to the discovery of certain occult influences--not necessarily Jewish--behind the European insurrections here referred to. Moreover, apart from grievances or other causes of rebellion, the revolutionary spirit has always existed independently of the Jews. In all times and in all countries there have been men born to make trouble as the sparks fly upward.

Nevertheless, in modern revolutions the part played by the Jews cannot be ignored, and the influence they have exercised will be seen on examination to have been twofold--financial and occult. Throughout the Middle Ages it is as sorcerers and usurers that they incur the reproaches of the Christian world, and it is still in the same role, under the more modern terms of magicians and loan-mongers, that we detect their presence behind the scenes of revolution from the seventeenth century onward. Wherever money was to be made out of social or political upheavals, wealthy Jews have been found to back the winning side; and wherever the Christian races have turned against their own institutions, Jewish Rabbis, philosophers, professors, and occultists have lent them their support. It was not then necessarily that Jews created these movements, but they knew how to make use of them for their own ends.

It is thus that in the Great Rebellion we find them not amongst the Ironsides of Cromwell or the members of his State Council, but furnishing money and information to the insurgents, acting as army contractors, loan-mongers, and super-spies--or to use the more euphonious term of Mr. Lucien Wolf, as "political intelligencers" of extraordinary efficiency. Thus Mr. Lucien Wolf, in referring to Carvajal, "the great Jew of the Commonwealth," explains that "the wide ramifications of his commercial transactions and his relations with other Crypto-Jews all over the world placed him in an unrivalled position to obtain news of the enemies of the Commonwealth."[457]

It is obvious that a "secret service" of this kind rendered the Jews a formidable hidden power, the more so since their very existence was frequently unknown to the rest of the population around them. This precaution was necessary because Jews were not supposed to exist at that date in England. In 1290 Edward I had expelled them all, and for three and a half centuries they had remained in exile; the Crypto-Jews or Marranos who had come over from Spain contrived, however, to remain in the country by skilfully taking the colour of their surroundings. Mr. Wolf goes on to observe that Jewish services were regularly held in the secret Synagogue, but "in public Carvajal and his friends followed the practice of the secret Jews in Spain and Portugal, passing as Roman Catholics and regularly attending mass in the Spanish Ambassador's chapel."[458] But when war between England and Spain rendered this expedient inadvisable, the Marranos threw off the disguise of Christianity and proclaimed themselves followers of the Jewish faith.

Now, just at this period the Messianic era was generally believed by the Jews to be approaching, and it appears to have occurred to them that Cromwell might be fitted to the part. Consequently emissaries were despatched to search the archives of Cambridge in order to discover whether the Protector could possibly be of Jewish descent.[459] This quest proving fruitless, the Cabalist Rabbi of Amsterdam, Manasseh ben Israel,[460] addressed a petition to Cromwell for the readmission of the Jews to England, in which he adroitly insisted on the retribution that overtakes those who afflict the people of Israel and the rewards that await those who "cherish" them. These arguments were not without effect on Cromwell, who entertained the same superstition, and although he is said to have declined the Jews' offer to buy St. Paul's Cathedral and the Bodleian Library because he considered the £500,000 they offered inadequate,[461] he exerted every effort to obtain their readmission to the country. In this he encountered violent opposition, and it seems that Jews were not permitted to return in large numbers, or at any rate to enjoy full rights and privileges, until after the accession of Charles II, who in his turn had enlisted their financial aid.[462] Later, in 1688, the Jews of Amsterdam helped with their credit the expedition of William of Orange against James II; the former in return brought many Jews with him to England. So a Jewish writer is able to boast that "a Monarch reigned who was indebted to Hebrew gold for his royal diadem."[463]

In all this it is impossible to follow any consecutive political plan; the rôle of the Jews seems to have been to support no cause consistently but to obtain a footing in every camp, to back any venture that offered a chance of profit. Yet mingled with these material designs were still their ancient Messianic dreams. It is curious to note that the same Messianic idea pervaded the Levellers, the rebels of the Commonwealth; such phrases as "Let Israel go free," "Israel's restoration is now beginning," recur frequently in the literature of the sect. Gerard Winstanley, one of the two principal leaders, addressed an epistle to "the Twelve Tribes of Israel that are circumcised in heart and scattered through all the Nations of the Earth," and promised them "David their King that they have been waiting for." The other leader of the movement, by name Everard, in fact declared, when summoned before the Lord Fairfax at Whitehall, that "he was of the race of the Jews."[464] It is true that the Levellers were by profession Christian, but after the manner of the Bavarian Illuminati and of the Christian Socialists two centuries later, claiming Christ as the author of their Communistic and equalitarian doctrines: "For Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all Men, is the greatest, first, and truest Leveller that ever was spoken of in the world." The Levellers are said to have derived originally from the German Anabaptists; but Claudio Jannet, quoting German authorities, shows that there were Jews amongst the Anabaptists. "They were carried away by their hatred of the name of Christian and imagined that their dreams of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel would be realized amidst the conflagration."[465] Whether this was so or not, it is clear that by the middle of the seventeenth century the mystical ideas of Judaism had penetrated into all parts of Europe. Was there then some Cabalistic centre from which they radiated? Let us turn our eyes eastward and we shall see.

Since the sixteenth century the great mass of Jewry had settled in Poland, and a succession of miracle-workers known by the name of Zaddikim or Ba'al Shems had arisen. The latter word, which signifies "Master of the Name," originated with the German Polish Jews and was derived from the Cabalistic belief in the miraculous use of the sacred name of Jehovah, known as the Tetragrammaton.

According to Cabalistic traditions, certain Jews of peculiar sanctity or knowledge were able with impunity to make use of the Divine Name. A Ba'al Shem was therefore one who had acquired this power and employed it in writing amulets, invoking spirits, and prescribing cures for various diseases. Poland and particularly Podolia--which had not yet been ceded to Russia--became thus a centre of Cabalism where a series of extraordinary movements of a mystical kind followed each other. In 1666, when the Messianic era was still believed to be approaching, the whole Jewish world was convulsed by the sudden appearance of Shabbethai Zebi, the son of a poulterer in Smyrna named Mordecai, who proclaimed himself the promised Messiah and rallied to his support a huge following not only amongst the Jews of Palestine, Egypt, and Eastern Europe, but even the hard-headed Jews of the Continental bourses.[466] Samuel Pepys in his Diary refers to the bets made amongst the Jews in London on the chances of "a certain person now in Smyrna" being acclaimed King of the World and the true Messiah.[467]

Shabbethai, who was an expert Cabalist and had the temerity to utter the Ineffable Name Jehovah, was said to be possessed of marvellous powers, his skin exuded exquisite perfume, he indulged perpetually in sea-bathing and lived in a state of chronic ecstasy. The pretensions of Shabbethai, who took the title of "King of the Kings of the Earth," split Jewry in two; many Rabbis launched imprecations against him, and those who had believed in him were bitterly disillusioned when, challenged by the Sultan to prove his claim to be the Messiah by allowing poisoned arrows to be shot at him, he suddenly renounced the Jewish faith and proclaimed himself a Mohammedan. His conversion, however, appeared to be only partial, for "at times he would assume the rôle of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into relations with Jews as one of their own faith."[468] By this means he retained the allegiance both of Moslems and of Jews. But the Rabbis, alarmed for the cause of Judaism, succeeded in obtaining his incarceration by the Sultan in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of colic in 1676.[469]

This prosaic ending to the career of the Messiah did not, however, altogether extinguish the enthusiasm of his followers, and the Shabbethan movement continued into the next century. In Poland Cabalism broke out with renewed energy; fresh Zaddikim and Ba'al Shems arose, the most noted of these being Israel of Podolia, known as Ba'al Shem Tob, or by the initial letters of this name, Besht, who founded his sect of Hasidim in 1740.

Besht, whilst opposing bigoted Rabbinism and claiming the Zohar as his inspiration, did not, however, adhere strictly to the doctrine of the Cabala that the universe was an emanation of God, but evolved a form of Pantheism, declaring that the whole universe was God, that even evil exists in God since evil is not bad in itself but only in its relation to Man; sin therefore has no positive existence.[470] As a result the followers of Besht, calling themselves the "New Saints," and at his death numbering no less than 40,000, threw aside not only the precepts of the Talmud, but all the restraints of morality and even decency.[471]

Another Ba'al Shem of the same period was Heilprin, alias Joel Ben Uri of Satanov, who, like Israel of Podolia, professed to perform miracles by the use of the Divine Name and collected around him many pupils, who, on the death of their master, "formed a band of charlatans and shamelessly exploited the credulity of their contemporaries."[472]

But the most important of these Cabalistic groups was that of the Frankists, who were sometimes known as the Zoharists or the Illuminated,[473] from their adherence to the Zohar or book of Light, or in their birthplace Podolia as the Shabbethan Zebists, from their allegiance to the false Messiah of the preceding century--a heresy that had been "kept alive in secret circles which had something akin to a masonic organization."[474] The founder of this sect was Jacob Frank, a brandy distiller profoundly versed in the doctrines of the Cabala, who in 1755 collected around him a large following in Podolia and lived in a style of oriental magnificence, maintained by vast wealth of which no one ever discovered the source. The persecution to which he was subjected by the Rabbis led the Catholic clergy to champion his cause, whereupon Frank threw himself on the mercy of the Bishop of Kaminick, and publicly burnt the Talmud, declaring that he recognized only the Zohar, which, he alleged, admitted the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus the Zoharists "claimed that they regarded the Messiah-Deliverer as one of the three divinities, but failed to state that by the Messiah they meant Shabbethai Zebi."[475] The Bishop was apparently deceived by this manoeuvre, and in 1759 the Zoharites declared themselves converted to Christianity, and were baptized, including Frank himself, who took the name of Joseph. "The insincerity of the Frankists soon became apparent, however, for they continued to inter-marry only among themselves and held Frank in reverence, calling him 'The Holy Master.'"[476] It soon became evident that, whilst openly embracing the Catholic faith, they had in reality retained their secret Judaism.[477] Moreover, it was discovered that Frank endeavoured to pass as a Mohammedan in Turkey; "he was therefore arrested in Warsaw and delivered to the Church tribunal on the charge of feigned conversion to Christianity and the spreading of a pernicious heresy."[478] Unlike his predecessor in apostasy, Shabbethai Zebi, Frank, however, came to no untimely end, but after his release from prison continued to prey on the credulity of Christians and frequently travelled to Vienna with his daughter, Eve, who succeeded in duping the pious Maria Theresa. But here also "the sectarian plans of Frank were found out,"[479] and he was obliged to leave Austria. Finally he settled at Offenbach and supported by liberal subsidies from the other Jews, he resumed his former splendour[480]

with a retinue of several hundred beautiful Jewish youth of both sexes; carts containing treasure were reported to be perpetually brought in to him, chiefly from Poland--he went out daily in great state to perform his devotions in the open field--he rode in a chariot drawn by noble horses; ten or twelve Hulans in red or green uniform, glittering with gold, by his side, with pikes in their hands and crests on their caps, eagles, or stags, or the sun and moon.... His followers believed him immortal, but in 1791 he died; his burial was as splendid as his mode of living--800 persons followed him to the grave.[481]

Now, it is impossible to study the careers of these magicians in Poland and Germany without being reminded of their counterparts in France. The family likeness between the "Baron von Offenbach," the "Comte de Saint-Germain" and the "Comte de Cagliostro" is at once apparent. All claimed to perform miracles, all lived with extraordinary magnificence on wealth derived from an unknown source, one was certainly a Jew, the other two were believed to be Jews, and all were known to be Cabalists. Moreover, all three spent many years in Germany, and it was whilst Frank was living as Baron von Offenbach close to Frankfurt that Cagliostro was received into the Order of the Stricte Observance in a subterranean chamber a few miles from that city. Earlier in his career he was known to have visited Poland, whence Frank derived. Are we to believe that all these men, so strangely alike in their careers, living at the same time and in the same places, were totally unconnected? It is a mere coincidence that this group of Jewish Cabalist miracle-workers should have existed in Germany and Poland at the precise moment that the Cabalist magicians sprang up in France? Is it again a coincidence that Martines Pasqually founded his "Kabbalistic sect" of Illuminés in 1754 and Jacob Frank his sect of Zoharites (or Illuminated) in 1755?

Moreover, when we know from purely Jewish sources that the Ba'al Shem Heilprin had many pupils "who formed a band of charlatans who shamelessly exploited the credulity of their contemporaries," that the Ba'al Shem Tob and Jacob Frank both had large followings, it is surely here that we may find the origin of those mysterious magicians who spread themselves over Europe at this date.

It will at once be asked: "But what proof is there that any one of these Ba'al Shems or Cabalists was connected with masonic or secret societies?" The answer is that the most important Ba'al Shem of the day, known as "the Chief of all the Jews," is shown by documentary evidence to have been an initiate of Freemasonry and in direct contact with the leaders of the secret societies. If then it is agreed that neither Saint-Germain nor Cagliostro can be proved to have been Jews, here we have a man concerned in the movement, more important than either, whose nationality admits of no doubt whatever.

This extraordinary personage, known as the "Ba'al Shem of London," was a Cabalistic Jew named Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, also called Dr. Falk, Falc, de Falk, or Falkon, born in 1708, probably in Podolia. The further fact that he was regarded by his fellow-Jews as an adherent of the Messiah Shabbethai Zebi clearly shows his connexion with the Podolian Zoharites. Falk was thus not an isolated phenomenon, but a member of one of the groups described in the foregoing pages. The following is a summary of the account given of the Ba'al Shem of London in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_:

Falk claimed to possess thaumaturgic powers and to be able to discover hidden treasure. Archenholz (_England und Italien_, I. 249) recounts certain marvels which he had seen performed by Falk in Brunswick and which he attributes to a special knowledge of chemistry. In Westphalia at one time Falk was sentenced to be burned as a sorcerer, but escaped to England. Here he was received with hospitality and rapidly gained fame as a Cabalist and worker of miracles. Many stories of his powers were current. He would cause a small taper to remain alight for weeks; an incantation would fill his cellar with coal; plate left with a pawnbroker would glide back into his house. When a fire threatened to destroy the Great Synagogue, he averted the disaster by writing four Hebrew letters on the pillars of the door.[482] [Obviously the Tetragrammaton.]

On his arrival in London in 1742 Falk appeared to be without means, but soon after he was seen to be in possession of considerable wealth, living in a comfortable house in Wellclose Square, where he had his private synagogue, whilst gold and silver plate adorned his table. His Journal, still preserved in the library of the United Synagogue, contains references to "mysterious journeyings" to and from Epping Forest, to meetings, a meeting-chamber in the forest, and chests of gold there buried. It was said that on one occasion when he was driving thither along Whitechapel Road, a back wheel of his carriage came off, which alarmed the coachman, but Falk ordered him to drive on and the wheel followed the carriage all the way to the forest.

The stories of Falk's miraculous powers are too numerous to relate here, but a letter written by an enthusiastic Jewish admirer, Sussman Shesnowzi, to his son in Poland will serve to show the reputation he enjoyed:

Hear, my beloved son, of the marvellous gifts entrusted to a son of man, who verily is not a man, a light of the captivity ... a holy light, a saintly man ... who dwells at present in the great city of London. Albeit I could not fully understand him on account of his volubility and his speaking as an inhabitant of Jerusalem.... His chamber is lighted by silver candlesticks on the walls, with a central eight-branched lamp made of pure silver of beaten work. And albeit it contained oil to burn a day and a night it remained enkindled for three weeks. On one occasion he abode in seclusion in his house for six weeks without meat and drink. When at the conclusion of this period ten persons were summoned to enter, they found him seated on a sort of throne, his head covered with a golden turban, a golden chain round his neck with a pendant silver star on which sacred names were inscribed. Verily this man stands alone in his generation by reason of his knowledge of holy mysteries. I cannot recount to you all the wonders he accomplishes. I am grateful, in that I am found worthy to be received among those who dwell within the shadow of his wisdom.... I know that many will believe my words, but others, who do not occupy themselves with mysteries, will laugh thereat. Therefore, my son, be very circumspect, and show this only to wise and discreet men. For here in London this master has not been disclosed to anyone who does not belong to our Brotherhood.

The esteem in which Falk was held by the Jewish community, including the Chief Rabbi and the Rabbi of the new Synagogue, appears to have roused the resentment of his co-religionist Emden, who denounced him as a follower of the false Messiah and an exploiter of Christian credulity.

Falk [he wrote in a letter to Poland] had made his position by his pretence to be an adept in practical Cabala, by which means he professed to be able to discover hidden treasures; by his pretensions he had entrapped a wealthy captain whose fortune he had cheated him out of, so that he was reduced to depending on the Rabbi's charity, and yet, despite this, wealthy Christians spend their money on him, whilst Falk spends his bounty on the men of his Brotherhood so that they may spread his fame.

In general Falk appears to have displayed extreme caution in his relations with Christian seekers after occult knowledge, for the _Jewish Encyclopædia_ goes on to say: "Archenholz mentions a royal prince who applied to Falk in his quest for the philosopher's stone, but was denied admittance." Nevertheless Hayyum Azulai mentions (Ma'gal Tob, p. 13_b_):

That when in Paris in 1778 he was told by the Marchesa de Crona that the Ba'al Shem of London had taught her the Cabala. Falk seems also to have been on intimate terms with that strange adventurer Baron Theodor de Neuhoff.... Falk's principal friends were the London bankers Aaron Goldsmid and his son.[483] Pawnbroking and successful speculation enabled him to acquire a considerable fortune. He left large sums of money to charity, and the overseers of the United Synagogue in London still distribute annually certain payments left by him for the poor.

Nothing of all this would lead one to suppose that Falk could be regarded in the light of a black magician; it is therefore surprising to find Dr. Adler observing that a horrible account of a Jewish Cabalist in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for September 1762 "obviously refers to Dr. Falk, though his name is not mentioned."[484] This man is described as "a christened Jew and the biggest rogue and villain in all the world," who "had been imprisoned everywhere and banished out of all countries in Germany, and also sometimes publicly whipped, so that his back lost all the old skin, and became new again, and yet left never off from his villainies, but grew always worse." The writer goes on to relate that the Cabalist offered to teach him certain mysteries, but explained that before entering on any "experiments of the said godly mysteries, we must first avoid all churches and places of worshipping as unclean"; he then bound his initiate by a very strong oath and proceeded to tell him that he must steal a Hebrew Bible from a Protestant and also procure "one pound of blood out of the veins of an honest Protestant." The initiate thereupon robbed a Protestant of all his effects, but had himself bled of about three-quarters of a pound of blood, which he gave to the magician. He thus describes the ceremony that took place:

Then the next night about 11 o'clock, we both went into the garden of my own, and the cabalist put a cross, tainted with my blood, in each corner of the garden, and in the middle of the garden a threefold circle ... in the first circle were written all the names of God in Hebrew; in the second all the names of the angels; and in the third the first chapter of the holy Gospel of St. John, and it was all written with my blood.

The cruelties then performed by the Cabalist on a he-goat are too loathsome to transcribe. The whole story, indeed, appears a farrago of nonsense and would not be worth quoting but for the fact that it appears to be taken seriously by Dr. Adler as a description of the great Ba'al Shem.

The death of Falk took place on April 17, 1782, and the epitaph on his grave in the cemetery at Globe Road, Mile End, "bears witness to his excellencies and orthodoxy": "Here is interred ... the aged and honourable man, a great personage who came from the East, an accomplished sage, an adept in Cabbalah.... His name was known to the ends of the earth and distant isles," etc.

This then is surely the portrait of a most remarkable personage, a man known for his powers in England, France, and Germany, visited by a royal prince in search of the philosopher's stone, and acclaimed by one of his own race as standing alone in his generation by reason of his knowledge, yet whilst Saint-Germain and Cagliostro figure in every account of eighteenth-century magicians, it is only in exclusively Judaic or masonic works, not intended for the general public, that we shall find any reference to Falk. Have we not here striking evidence of the truth of M. André Baron's dictum: "Remember that the constant rule of the secret societies is that the real authors never show themselves"?

It will now be asked: what proof is there that Falk is connected with any masonic or secret societies? True, in the accounts given by the _Jewish Encyclopædia_, the word Freemasonry is not once mentioned. But in the curious portrait of the great Ba'al Shem appended, we see him holding in his hand the pair of compasses, and before him, on the table at which he is seated, the double triangle or Seal of Solomon known amongst Jews as "the Shield of David," which forms an important emblem in Masonry.

Moreover, it is significant to find in the _Royal Masonic Encyclopædia_ by the Rosicrucian Kenneth Mackenzie that a long and detailed article is devoted to Falk, though again without any reference to his connexion with Freemasonry. May we not conclude that in certain inner masonic circles the importance of Falk is recognized but must not be revealed to the uninitiated? Mr. Gordon Hills, in the above-quoted paper contributed to the _Ars Quatuor Coronatorum_, indulges in some innocent speculation as to the part Falk may have played in the masonic movement. "If," he observes, "Jewish Brethren did introduce Cabalistical learning into the so-called High Degrees, here we have one, who, if a Mason, would have been eminently qualified to do so."

Falk inded was far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate--the supreme oracle to which the secret societies applied for guidance. All this was disclosed a few years ago in the correspondence between Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien referred to in the previous chapter. Thus in the _dossiers_ of the leading occultists supplied by Savalette we find the following note on the Ba'al Shem of London:

This Doctor Falk is known to many Germans. He is a very extraordinary man from every point of view. Some people believe him to be the Chief of all the Jews and attribute to purely political schemes all that is marvellous and singular in his life and conduct. He is referred to in a very curious manner, and as a Rose-Croix in the _Memoirs of the Chevalier de Rampsow_ (i.e. Rentzov). He has had adventures with the Maréchal de Richelieu, great seeker of the Philosophers' Stone. He had a strange history with the Prince de Rohan Guéménée and the Chevalier de Luxembourg relating to Louis XV, whose death he foretold. He is almost inaccessible. In all the sects of savants in secret sciences he passes as a superior man. He is at present in England. The Baron de Gleichen can give good information about him. Try to get more at Frankfurt.[485]

Again, in notes on other personages the name of Falk recurs with the same insistence on his importance as a high initiate:

Leman, pupil of Falk....

The Baron de Gleichen ... intimately connected with Wecter [Waechter] and Wakenfeldt.... He knows Falk....

The Baron de Waldenfels ... is, according to what I know from the Baron de Gleichen, the princes of Daimstadt, ... and others, the most interesting man for you and me to know. If we made his acquaintance, he could give us the best information on all the most interesting objects of instiuction. He knows Falk and Wecter.

Prince Louis d'Haimstadt ... is also a member of the Amis Réunis, 12° and in charge of the Directories. He worked in his youth with a Jew whom he believes to be taught by Falk....[486]

Here, then, behind the organization of the Stricte Observance, of the Amis Réunis, and the Philalèthes, we catch a glimpse at last of one of those _real initiates_ whose identity has been so carefully kept dark. For Falk, as we see in these notes, was not an isolated sage; he had pupils, and to be one of these was to be admitted to the inner mysteries. Was Cagliostro one of these adepts? Is it here we may seek the explanation of the "Egyptian Rite" devised by him in London, and of his chance discovery on a bookstall in that city of a Cabalistic document by the mysterious "George Cofton," whose identity has never been revealed? I would suggest that the whole story of the bookstall was a fable and that it was not from any manuscript, but from Falk, that Cagliostro received his directions. Thus Cagliostro's rite was in reality concealed Cabalism.

That Falk was only one of several Concealed Superiors is further suggested by the intriguing correspondence of Savalette de Langes. "Schroeder," we read, "had for his master an old man of Suabia," by whom the Baron de Waechter was also said to have been instructed in Masonry, and to have become one of the most important initiates of Germany. Accordingly de Waechter was despatched by his Order to Florence in order to make enquiries on further secrets and on certain famous treasures about which Schroepfer, the Baron de Hundt, and others, had heard that Aprosi, the secretary of the Pretender, could give them information. Waechter, however, wrote to say that all they had been told on the latter point was fabulous, but that he had met in Florence certain "Brothers of the Holy Land," who had initiated him into marvellous secrets; one in particular who is described as "a man who is not a European" had "perfectly instructed him." Moreover, de Waechter, who had set forth poor, returned loaded with riches attributed by his fellow-masons to the "Asiatic Brethren" he had frequented in Florence who possessed the art of making gold.[487] I would suggest then that these were the members of the "Italian Order" referred to by Mr. Tuckett, which, like Schroepfer and de Hundt, he imagined to have been connected with the Jacobites.

But all these secret sources of instruction are wrapped in mystery. Whilst Saint-Germain and Cagliostro--who is referred to in this correspondence in terms of light derision--emerge into the limelight, the real initiates remain concealed in the background. Falk "is almost inaccessible!" Yet one more almost forgotten document of the period may throw some light on the important part he played behind the scenes in Masonry.

It may be remembered that Archenholz had spoken of certain marvels he had seen performed by Falk in Brunswick. Now, in 1770 the German poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was made librarian to the Duke of Brunswick in that city. The fame of Falk may then have reached his ears. At any rate in 1771 Lessing, after having mocked at Freemasonry, was initiated in a masonic lodge at Hamburg, and in 1778 he published not only his famous masonic drama _Nathan der Weise_, in which the Jew of Jerusalem is shown in admirable contrast to the Christians and Mohammedans, but he also wrote five dialogues on Freemasonry which he dedicated to the Duke of Brunswick, Grand Master of all the German Lodges, and which he entitled "_Ernst und Falk: Gespräche fur Freimaurer_."[488]

Lessing's friendship with Moses Mendelssohn has led to the popular theory, unsupported however by any real evidence, that the Jewish philosopher of Berlin provided the inspiration for the character of Nathan, but might it not equally have been provided by the miracle-worker of Brunswick? However, in the case of the dialogues less room is left for doubt. Falk is mentioned by name and represented as initiated into the highest mysteries of Freemasonry. This is of course not explained by Lessing's commentators, who give no clue to his identity.[489] It is evident that Lessing committed an enormous blunder in thus letting so important a cat out of the bag, for after the publication of the first three dialogues and whilst the last two were circulating privately in manuscript amongst the Freemasons, an order from the Duke of Brunswick forbade their publication as dangerous. In spite of this prohibition, the rest of the series was printed, however without Lessing's permission, in 1870 with a preface by an unknown person describing himself as a non-mason.

The dialogues between Ernst and Falk throw a curious light on the influences at work behind Freemasonry at this period and gain immensely in interest when the identity of the two men in question is understood. Thus Ernst, by whom Lessing evidently represents himself, is at the beginning not a Freemason, and, whilst sitting with Falk in a wood, questions the high initiate on the aims of the Order. Falk explains that Freemasonry has always existed, but not under this name. Its real purpose has never been revealed. On the surface it appears to be a purely philanthropic association, but in reality philanthropy forms no part of its scheme, its object being to bring about a state of things which will render philanthropy unnecessary. (_Was man gemeinlich gute Thaten zu nennen pflegt entbehrlich zu machen_.) As an illustration Falk points to an ant-heap at the foot of the tree beneath which the two men are seated. "Why," he asks, "should not human beings exist without government like the ants or bees?" Falk then goes on to describe his idea of a Universal State, or rather a federation of States, in which men will no longer be divided by national, social, or religious prejudices, and where greater equality will exist.

At the end of the third dialogue an interval occurs during which Ernst goes away and becomes a Freemason, but on his return expresses his disappointment to Falk at finding many Freemasons engaged in such futilities as alchemy or the evocation of spirits. Others again seek to revive the * * *. Falk replies that although the great secrets of Freemasonry cannot be revealed by any man even if he wished it, one thing, however, has been kept dark which should now be made public, and this is the relationship between the Freemasons and the * * *. "The * * * were in fact the Freemasons of their time." It seems probable from the context and from Falk's references to Sir Christopher Wren as the founder of the modern Order, that the asterisks denote the Rosicrucians.

The most interesting point of these dialogues is, however, the hint continually thrown out by Falk that there is something behind Freemasonry, something far older and far wider in its aims than the Order now known by this name--the modern Freemasons are for the most part only "playing at it." Thus, when Ernst complains that true equality has not been attained in the lodges since Jews are not admitted, Falk observes that he himself does not attend them, that true Freemasonry does not exist in outward forms--"A lodge bears the same relation to Freemasonry as a church to belief." In other words, the real initiates do not appear upon the scene. Here then we see the role of the "Concealed Superiors." What wonder that Lessing's dialogues were considered too dangerous for publication!

Moreover, in Falk's conception of the ideal social order and his indictment of what he calls "bourgeois society" we find the clue to movements of immense importance. Has not the system of the ant-heap or the beehive proved, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the model on which modern Anarchists, from Proudhon onwards, have formed their schemes for the reorganization of human life? Has not the idea of the "World State," "The Universal Republic" become the war-cry of the Internationalist Socialists, the Grand Orient Masons, the Theosophists, and the world-revolutionaries of our own day?

Was Falk, then, a revolutionary? This again will be disputed. Falk may have been a Cabalist, a Freemason, a high initiate, but what proof is there that he had any connexion with the leaders of the French Revolution? Let us turn again to the _Jewish Encyclopædia_:

Falk ... is ... believed to have given the Duc d'Orléans, to ensure his succession to the throne, a talisman consisting of a ring, which Philippe Egalité before mounting the scaffold is said to have sent to a Jewess, Juliet Goudchaux, who passed it on to his son, subsequently Louis Philippe.

The Baron de Gleichen, who "knew Falc," refers to a talisman of lapis-lazuli which the Due d'Orleans had received in England from "the celebrated Falk Scheck, first Rabbi of the Jews," and says that a certain occultist, Madame de la Croix, imagined she had destroyed it by "the power of prayer." But the theory of its survival is further confirmed by the information supplied from Jewish sources to Mr. Gordon Hills, who states that Falk was "in touch with the French Court in the person of 'Prince Emanuel,'[490] whom he describes as a servant of the King of France," and adds that the talismanic ring which he gave to the Due d'Orleans "is still in the possession of the family, having passed to King Louis Philippe and thence to the Comte de Paris."[491]

One fact, then, looms out of the darkness that envelops the secret power behind the Orléanist conspiracy, one fact of supreme importance, and based moreover on purely Jewish evidence: the Duke was in touch with Falk when in London and Falk supported his scheme of usurpation. Thus behind the arch-conspirator of the revolution stood "the Chief of all the Jews." Is it here perhaps, in Falk's "chests of gold," that we might find the source of some of those loans raised in London by the Due d'Orléans to finance the riots of the Revolution, so absurdly described as "l'or de Pitt"?

The direct connexion between the attack on the French monarchy and Jewish circles in London is further shown by the curious sequel to the Gordon Riots. In 1780 the half-witted Lord George Gordon (as a Jewish writer describes him), the head of the so-called "Protestant" mob, marched on the House of Commons to protest against the bill for the relief of Roman Catholic disabilities and then proceeded to carry out his plan of burning down London. During the five days' rioting that ensued, property to the amount of £180,000 was destroyed. After this "the scion of the ducal house of Gordon proved the durability of his love for Protestantism by professing the Hebrew faith," and was received with the highest honours into the Synagogue. The same Jewish writer, who has described him earlier as half-witted, quotes this panegyric on his orthodoxy: "He was very regular in his Jewish observances; every morning he was seen with the philacteries between his eyes, and opposite his heart.... His Saturday's bread was baked according to the manner of the Jews, his wine was Jewish, his meat was Jewish, and he was the best Jew in the congregation of Israel." And it was immediately after his conversion to Judaism that he published in _The Public Advertiser_ the libel against Marie Antoinette which brought about his imprisonment in Newgate.[492]

Now we know that Lord George Gordon met Cagliostro in London in 1786.[493] Is it not probable that the author of the scurrilous pamphlet and the magician concerned in the attack on the Queen's honour through the Affair of the Necklace--one a--Jew by profession, the other said to be a Jew by race--may have had some connexion with Philippe Egalité's Jewish supporter, the miracle worker of Wellclose Square?

But already a vaster genius than Falk or Cagliostro, than Pasqually or Savalette de Langes, had arisen, who, gathering into his hands the threads of all the conspiracies, was able to weave them together into a gigantic scheme for the destruction of France and of the world.

9

The Bavarian Illuminati

The question of the system to which I shall henceforth refer simply as Illuminism is of such immense importance to an understanding of the modern revolutionary movement that, although I have already described it in detail in _World Revolution_, it is necessary to devote a further chapter to it here in order to answer the objections made against my former account of the Order and also to show its connexion with earlier secret societies.

Now, the main contentions of those writers who, either consciously or unconsciously, attempt to mislead the public on the true nature and real existence of Illuminism are:

Firstly, that the case against Illuminism rests solely on the works of Robison, and of Barruel and later Catholic authorities.

Secondly, that all these writers misinterpreted or misquoted the Illuminati, who should be judged only by their own works.

Thirdly, that in reality the Illuminati were perfectly innocuous and even praiseworthy.

Fourthly, that they are of no importance, since they ceased to exist in 1786.

In the present chapter I propose therefore to answer all these contentions in turn and at the same time to make further examination into the origins of the Order.

Origins of the Illuminati

That Weishaupt was not the originator of the system he named Illuminism will be already apparent to every reader of the present work; it has needed, in fact, all the foregoing chapters to trace the source of Weishaupt's doctrines throughout the history of the world. From these it will be evident that men aiming at the overthrow of the existing social order and of all accepted religion had existed from the earliest times, and that in the Cainites, the Carpocratians, the Manichæns, the Batinis, the Fatimites, and the Karmathites many of Weishaupt's ideas had already been foreshadowed. To the Manichæans, in fact, the word "Illuminati" may be traced--"gloriantur Manichæi se de caelo illuminatos."[494]

It is in the sect of Abdullah ibn Maymūn that we must seek the model for Weishaupt's system of organization. Thus de Sacy has described in the following words the manner of enlisting proselytes by the Ismailis:

They proceeded to the admission and initiation of new proselytes only by degrees and with great reserve; for, as the sect had at the same time a political object and ambitions, its interest was above all to have a great number of partisans in all places and in all classes of society. It was necessary therefore to suit themselves to the character, the temperament, and the prejudices of the greater number; what one revealed to some would have revolted others and alienated for ever spirits less bold and consciences more easily alarmed.[495]

This passage exactly describes the methods laid down by Weishaupt for his "Insinuating Brothers"--the necessity of proceeding with caution in the enlisting of adepts, of not revealing to the novice doctrines that might be likely to revolt him, of "speaking sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, so that one's real purpose should remain impenetrable" to members of the inferior grades.

How did these Oriental methods penetrate to the Bavarian professor? According to certain writers, through the Jesuits. The fact that Weishaupt had been brought up by this Order has provided the enemies of the Jesuits with the argument that they were the secret inspirers of the Illuminati. Mr. Gould, indeed, has attributed most of the errors of the latter to this source; Weishaupt, he writes, incurred "the implacable enmity of the Jesuits, to whose intrigues he was incessantly exposed."[496] In reality precisely the opposite was the case, for, as we shall see, it was Weishaupt who perpetually intrigued against the Jesuits. That Weishaupt did, however, draw to a certain extent on Jesuit methods of training is recognized even by Barruel, himself a Jesuit, who, quoting Mirabeau, says that Weishaupt "admired above all those laws, that _régime_ of the Jesuits, which, under one head, made men dispersed over the universe tend towards the same goal; he felt that one could imitate their methods whilst holding views diametrically opposed."[497] And again, on the evidence of Mirabeau, de Luchet, and von Knigge, Barruel says elsewhere: "It is here that Weishaupt appears specially to have wished to assimilate the régime of the sect to that of the religious orders and, above all, that of the Jesuits, by the total abandonment of their own will and judgement which he demands of his adepts ..." But Barruel goes on to show "the enormous difference that is to be found between religious obedience and Illuminist obedience." In every religious order men know that the voice of their conscience and of their God is even more to be obeyed than that of their superiors.

There is not a single one who, in the event that his superiors should order him to do things contrary to the duties of a Christian or of a good man, would not see an exception to be made to the obedience which he has sworn. This exception is often expressed and always clearly announced in all religious institutions; it is above all formal and positively repeated many times in that of the Jesuits. They are ordered to obey their superiors, but it is in the event that they see no sin in obeying, _ubi non cerneretur peccatum (Constitution des Jesuites_,