the masonic career of a. e. waite
by Bro. R. A. Gilbert
INTRODUCTION
In English Freemasonry the
seal of a certain distinction attaches to the name of Arthur Edward Waite, while
it has proved of such appeal in America that an important Grand Lodge has
conferred upon him, causa honoris, one of its highest official
positions. Among his many publications those on the mystical and symbolical
aspects of the Secret Tradition in Christian Times occupy a place apart, being
things unattempted otherwise in the records of research'. So Waite referred to
himself in the prospectus for the revised edition of his book, The Secret
Tradition in Freemasonry,
but it is doubtful if a single masonic scholar of his time - or since -
could be found who would agree that this self-adulation was justified. During
his lifetime Waite was castigated, and with justification, for his peculiarities
of style, for his frequent errors of historical fact and for his cavalier
attitude and contemptuous references to his contemporaries. All this must be
admitted against him, but he was also a highly original thinker who broke
completely new ground with his studies of what he termed the 'Secret Tradition',
while, for the esoteric school of thought within Freemasonry, he has been the
most pervasive and powerful influence of this century. As such, his writings
deserve more careful and objective analysis than they have received to date, and
it is the purpose of this paper to encourage such analysis by demonstrating,
through a study of his masonic career, both Waite's originality and his
continuing influence.
Unlike many of his contemporaries,
Waite was meticulous about recording the minutiae of his life, and he took great
care that all the records of his work and career should be preserved after his
death. These records, now kept in private hands and to which the present writer
has been granted full access, comprise his private diaries from 1909 to 1942, an
extended diary for 1902-1903, the Minute Books of his Rosicrucian Order, working
notes and proofs of many of his published books, and a long series of bound
volumes of his periodical contributions, reviews and masonic ephemera. Waite
was also a prolific letter-writer, and I have been fortunate in being able to
examine his correspondence with the late Bro. Harold van Buren Voorhis of New
Jersey, with the late Bro. W. R. Semken (Supreme Magus, 1956-69 of the
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, and his official correspondence with the
Independent Great Priory of Helvetia. But, while these manuscript sources are
crucial for an understanding of Waite's life and masonic activities, his ideas
and attitudes towards Freemasonry are set out openly and clearly in his
published work. The events of his early life are,
however, obscure and difficult to establish in any detail - almost certainly
because he wished to hide them.
WAITE'S EARLY YEARS AND THE PRELUDE
TO FREEMASONRY
In Waite's autobiography, Shadows
of Life and Thought,
he states that 'The suppressio veri has been minimized so far as
possible, while the suggestio falsi is absent, I hope, throughout' (p.
5), but this is less than the truth. He was born in Brooklyn, New
York, on 2 October 1857-, his father, Charles Waite, a captain in the American
merchant marine, did die at sea; his mother, Emma Lovell, the daughter of
a wealthy London merchant involved in the East India trade, did return to
England shortly afterwards with the two-year-old Arthur and his infant sister
Frederika. What he does not say is that both he and his sister were
illegitimate, for Captain Waite and Emma Lovell were never married,
and that it was not pride but her family's ostracism that forced her to rear her
children in poverty in a succession of unfashionable suburbs in north and west
London. Rejection by her family was almost certainly the cause, too, of her
conversion to the Roman Catholic Church - an event that was to have an even
greater effect upon Waite than his illegitimacy. By virtue of his early life
style Waite turned in upon himself and, being unable to receive a formal
education of any kind,
he simultaneously educated himself and found a way of escape by reading 'penny
dreadfuls' and medieval romances.
After his sister's death in 1874
Waite began to lose his faith in Roman Catholicism, although he retained a great
love for its ceremonial, utilizing a number of elements of the Roman liturgy for
the rituals which he constructed in later life for his various secret Orders.
He turned instead towards Spiritualism but found no spiritual consolation and
moved on to the Theosophical Society, which fascinated him although he disliked
the anti-Christian bias of works of H. P. Blavatsky who was its driving force.
In this way he approached magic in general and Eliphas Levi
in particular, and began to realize where his real dedications lay. He had
already written and published many poems and imitation romances
but was forced to recognize, reluctantly, his shortcomings as a writer of
fiction and entered instead upon his career as a critical expounder of the
history and doctrines of occultism in all its forms. Waite was never happy with
popular occultism and he rejected from the start its follies and pretensions,
for he was an acute, if untrained, critic and recognized the need for historical
textual accuracy if anything of value was to be drawn from his chosen field.
His first essay in occultism was
an anthology of the writings of Eliphas Levi,
which he followed with a study of the Rosicrucian manifestos, written as a
corrective to the lunacies of Hargrave Jennings.
The translations from Levi contained a few incidental references to masonry, but
for his Real History of the Rosicrucians Waite was obliged to consider
the subject more carefully. He rejected the thesis of Buhle that Freemasonry
was derived from Rosicrucianism and set out the differences between the two
brotherhoods: 'Originally an association for the diffusion of natural morality,
it [Freemasonry] is now simply a benefit society. The improvement of mankind
and the encouragement of philanthropy were and are it’s ostensible objects, and
these also were the dream of the Rosicrucian but, on the other, it has never
aimed at a reformation in the arts and sciences, for it was never at any period
a learned society, and a large proportion of its members have been chosen from
illiterate classes. It is free alike from the enthusiasm and the errors of the
elder Order, . . . it been singularly devoid of prejudices and singularly
unaffected by the crazes of the time It preaches a natural morality, and has so
little interest in mysticism that it daily misinterprets and practically
despises its own mystical symbols'.
In such a way Waite clearly exibited his disdainful attitude to the Craft, a
disdain that he extended to the higher degrees for in a careful distinction
between the Rose Croix degree and Rosicrucianism proper, he is most unflattering
to the former: 'when ill-informed persons happen to hear that there are
Sovereign Princes of Rose-Croix," "Princes of Rose-Croix de Heroden", &c, among
the masonic brethren, they naturally identify these splendid inanities of occult
nomenclature with the mysterious and awe-inspiring Rosicrucians. The origin of
the Rose-Cross degree is involved in the most profound mystery. Its foundation
has been attributed to Johann Valentin Andreas, but this is an ignorant
confusion, arising from the alleged connection of the theologican of Wurtemberg
with the society of Christian Rosencreutz'.
Merely impolite references such as
these could have been ignored, but not so his final chapter 'Modern Rosicrucian
Societies', which printed (pp. 416-22) the 'Rules and Ordinances of the
Rosicrucian Society of England' quoted verbatim from The Rosicrucian.
This was followed by an accurate account of the society's history and concluded
by Waite's own sarcastic and unkind critical comments: 'The most notable
circumstance connected with this society is the complete ignorance which seems
to have prevailed amongst its members generally concerning everything connected
with Rosicrucianism. This is conspicuous in the magazine which they published'.
The Fratres of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.) were, not
surprisingly, upset by this and the Secretary-General, Dr. William Wynn
Westcott, wrote to Waite threatening legal action if the 'Rules and Ordinances'
were not immediately withdrawn. In his reply
Waite apologized and offered to omit the offending text from subsequent editions
of the book. Honour was thus satisfied but it is probable that Waite wrote his
apology solely to ensure that there should be no loss of sales to potential
purchasers within the S.R.I.A.; he would have known, as Westcott certainly did,
that The Rosicrucian had never been copyrighted.
Waite returned to the subject of
Freemasonry in 1890 with an article in The British Mail,
a journal that he edited for Horatio Bottomley. In this brief article,
entitled simply 'Freemasonry', Waite's ambivalent attitude to the fraternity is
evident: 'The true object of the masonic fraternity differs from the aims which
have been ascribed to it precisely in that way in which a universal institution
would be expected to differ from the purpose of a fanatical craze. In its
vulgar aspect its object is benevolence and providence; in its esoteric
significance it is an attempt to achieve the moral regeneration of the human
race; by the construction of a pure, unsectarian system of morality, to create
the perfect man'. This secret purpose remains inviolate because 'the vacuous
nature of the great arcanum of allegorical architecture is its permanent
protection'.
His conviction that Freemasonry had lost its way is stressed in The
Occult Sciences,
in which he says: 'From a century of contradictory sources it borrows a
many-splendoured aureole of romance and of esoteric fable, which is eminently
liable to attract the soul-student at the threshold of mystic research ... We
must counsel him to overcome this gravitation of his desires towards Masonry.
There is no light there; there is no secret of the soul enshrined in the
recesses of its suggestive ceremonial; whatever it may have been in the past, at
the present day it neither is, nor claims to be, more than "a beautiful system
of morality veiled in allegories and illustrated by symbols"' (pp. 214-15). Its
true principles, according to Waite, are these: 'The foundation of all
transcendental philosophy is the doctrine of interior regeneration, and its end
is the Perfect Man. This also is the foundation, and such the end, of Masonry'
(p. 213). These principles are now obscured, but can yet be recovered. 'It has
been corrupted by worldly wealth and magnificence; it has turned away its eyes
from its objects ... but the principles are there, and let us hope that within
the ranks of the brotherhood, but without if not within, it will be possible to
inform them with new life' (p. 213). And the reader is left in little doubt
that it is Waite who can and will restore Freemasonry to its lost glory: 'At the
same time, we ask only a tentative faith. In a forthcoming "Esoteric History of
Freemasonry” he will find the entire subject exposed, with the necessary proofs,
documents and available sources of knowledge'(p. 214).
Shortly before The Occult Sciences
was published Waite had joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a
society of would-be magicians founded in 1887 by Westcott, Dr. W. R. Woodman and
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, on the basis of manuscript rituals written in cipher
and produced under highly suspicious circumstances.
These were supplemented by a series of letters - of even more questionable
authenticity - allegedly emanating from a Fraulein Anna Sprengel of Nuremberg
(known within the Order as Soror Sapiens Dominabitur Astris; each member
was obliged to take a pious motto, usually in Latin) who gave Westcott authority
from the German centre of the Order to found a Temple in London, to be known by
the name of Isis Urania. The hierarchical structure of the Golden Dawn
and its system of grades paralleled those of the S.R.I.A. - which was scarcely
to be wondered at, given that all three founders were prominent members of the
S.R.I.A. - and were derived ultimately from the eighteenth-century German Order
of the Golden and Rosy Cross. The grades and their symbolism were far from
secret as they had been printed in 1877 as 'two tables illustrative of
Rosicrucian Philosophy' in Kenneth Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia.
Waite was certainly aware of the
Order's existence, and of its nature, before he joined it in June 1891,
for he had used the motto of Fraulein Sprengel under his own pseudonym of 'Grand
Orient' on the title-page of his Handbook of Cartomancy
in 1889. Whether the pseudonym and motto were intended to irritate
Westcott, by the implication that his German mentor was involved with the Grand
Orient of France, or whether Waite hoped that by using the motto he would
increase sales of the book is unclear, but they do indicate an irreverent
attitude to the Order that he was to maintain for a number of years.
Waite's initial sojourn in the Golden
Dawn was short, apparently because he was unhappy with the activities of some of
his superiors: 'I began to hear things which, in my several positions at the
moment, told me that I should be well out of the whole concern. It was not on
the score of morality, seeing that there were Fratres et Sorores; for on
this ground it is just to say that no breath of scandal ever arose in the G.'.D.'.
during all that period. It was a question of things which had an equivocal
legal aspect and in which leading members of the Order should not have been
concerned, had 1 been informed accurately, as there seems no doubt that I was'.
His scruples were eventually overcome however and, after three years, during
which time he issued a series of alchemical translations and edited an occult
journal entitled The Unknown World, he rejoined the Golden Dawn on 17
February 1896, although he was not to enter the Second Order, the Ordo Rosae
Rubeae et Aureae Crucis,
until March 1899. Waite's account of his return is inaccurate; he states
that he was urged to rejoin by Ralph Palmer-Thomas, an enthusiastic collector of
masonic degrees, who 'assured me that I was missing things that I should value
and of which 1 could have no notion at the stage of my demission. I had been
moderately certain that there was little enough to miss; but his keenness
prevailed in the end, and 1 made an application to rejoin ... and I returned to
the dubious fold by the unanimous voice of the Fellowship'.
But Palmer-Thomas did not join the Golden Dawn until November 1896 and it seems
probable that it was the Second Order that he encouraged Waite to enter, as he
himself had done in April 1898. Waite goes on to say that it was his membership
of the Second Order that led him ultimately to seek initiation into Freemasonry,
but there were other influences at work upon him before this time.
DIANA VAUGHAN AND DEVIL WORSHIP
IN FRANCE
From 1886 onwards French anti-masonic
feeling had been exacerbated by the writings of an apparently reformed
anti-clerical writer, Gabriel Jogand Pages, who wrote under the pseudonym of Leo
Taxil and began to issue a series of outrageous and inflammatory works hostile
to Freemasonry.
Each successive work became more extravagant in its allegations of satanic
practices within Freemasonry, until the publication in 1891 of Y-a-t-il des
Femmes dans la Franc-Maconnerie?, in which 'Leo Taxil' described the
rituals of the 'New and Reformed Palladium', an androgynous and satanic rite
ultimately derived from Albert Pike, one of the most prominent of American
masons. This nonsense was avidly swallowed by the French anti-masonic lobby, as
were the utterly fantastic tales of 'Dr. Bataille' (Dr. Charles Hacks) in
Le Diable au XIX Siecle (1892-4). Further fuel was added to the anti-masonic
fire with the revelations of the supposed head of the 'New and Reformed
Palladium', Miss Diana Vaughan, soi-disant descendant of Thomas Vaughan
the alchemist, and recent convert to Rome. Her Memoires d'une Ex-Palladiste
(1895-7) equals the work of 'Dr. Bataille' in its ridiculous tales of
satanic wonders, but surpasses it in libels upon living English freemasons. She
claimed that 'Le chef actuel des Luciferiens anglais est M. le docteur
William-Wynn Westcott, demeurant d Londres, Camden-Road, No. 396 ...
c'est lui le Supreme Mage de la Rose-Croix socinienne pour
I'Angleterre. Ses adjoints sont: en premier degre, M. John-Lewis Thomas (Senior
Sub-Magus), qui est aussi le tresorier general de la Fraternitie; en second
degre M. MacGregor Mathers (Junior Sub-Magus)'.
This is followed by a list of members of the High Council of the S.R.I.A.,
all described as chiefs of the Third Luciferian Order, and including John Yarker,
who is also correctly described as head of the Rite of Memphis and Misraim. By
this time, and with such allegations, the controversy over Diana Vaughan
had spread to England, where Waite took a leading role in the counter-attacks
upon this suppositious lady freemason. A series of detailed rebuttals of her
claims was published in the correspondence columns of the Spiritualist journal
Light,
and Waite then analysed the whole of the literature about the Palladium in
his book Devil-Worship in France,
demonstrating conclusively the fictitious nature of the whole affair - and
this a year before Jogand-Pages admitted that it had been a hoax designed
to embarrass the French anti-masons.
Waite had described the Diana Vaughan
affair as 'among the most extra-ordinary literary swindles of the present,
perhaps of any, century'
and claimed, with justice, to have 'unveiled the mass of fraud, falsehood
and forgery contained in their depositions, and has placed the position of the
Roman Catholic Church in regard to the whole conspiracy in an unenviable light.
He had also earned the gratitude of both Westcott and Yarker for refuting the
outrageous allegations of their involvement with Satanism, and for giving a far
kinder description of the S.R.I.A. than he had done nine years before in The
Real History of the Rosicrucians.
Yarker, especially, was impressed. In a brief review of Devil- Worship
in France, in The Freemason for 31 October 1896, he
said: 'Mr. Waite's well-written book is as -interesting as a romance, which in
some sort it is, and though a non-mason, the Order has fallen into good hands,
and owes him some gratitude; the book is critical, scholarly and
Dispassionate'. He repeated his praise in an article, 'Freemasonry and
Devil-Worship', in the same journal two weeks later (11 November), describing it
as a 'most interesting book, written in critical and dispassionate style by a
non-mason, the end of which is that Mr. Waite pronounces the charges to be
"lying myths”'. Thus pleased with Waite, Yarker was soon to have further and
more significant contact with him.
Non-masonic reviews of
Devil-Worship in France were generally favourable,"
although they tended to suggest that the author had taken a sledgehammer to
crack a nut, and popular interest in masonic Satanists waned rapidly so that
Waite's sequel, Diana Vaughan and the Question of Modern Palladism,
was never published. It is, nonetheless, worth quoting its conclusion for
it shows a significant change in Waite's attitude to Freemasonry: 'It is a
satisfaction to be able to add that the reception of my book among masons has
not at all justified the common accusation of languid interest shown by the rank
and file of the brethren towards all that concerns the Craft. It is sometimes
said that the fraternity in England possesses no literature because masons fail
to support any enterprise of the kind. Possibly the average brother is not a
more serious personage than the average man anywhere, and I must admit that it
is frequently the members of the higher and so-called spurious grades who take a
literary interest in the Order, but personally I have no cause to complain of
what has resulted from my first attempt to interest and vindicate the
institution'.
This change on Waite's part had
already been perceived by the more rabid of Roman-Catholic anti-masons who saw
him as a prime mover of the satanic conspiracy: 'It is
perfectly apparent that during the last thirty years the
English leading masonic knights, whether in Europe or America, have imbibed more
or less of the magical teachings of the French Magician (Eliphas Levi), and we
do not known anyone who contributed to this result more than Mr. A. E. Waite did
in England', and 'No one has contributed as he did to the propagation of mystico-magic
among the English occultists in or out of Freemasonry'.
Colonel Ratton, in his pseudonymous and rather silly attack upon Freemasonry,
The X-rays in Freemasonry,
went further and claimed that Waite 'professes himself to be both a "mystic"
and a mason' (p. 60) - which claim is manifestly untrue - although he was here
slightly less off the mark than when he claimed that 'Waite is a Rosicrucian,
and cannot be suspected of Catholic leanings' (p. 110). He was evidently
unfamiliar with both Waite's life and his published works.
MARTINISM AND THE ROAD TO THE CRAFT
After the diversions of the Diana
Vaughan affair, Waite returned to his more serious literary pursuits. He was
becoming increasingly interested in the philosophy of Louis Claude de
Saint-Martin, 'The Unknown Philosopher' (1743-1803), and in the newly-created
Martinist Order of the French occultist 'Papus' (Dr. Gerard Encausse,
1865-1916). He wrote to Yarker for advice about joining the Martinist Order;
Yarker was enthusiastic: 'I found an objection in the Masonic branch of
the Order of St. Martin to receive a non-mason, and 1 have no doubt that it
would be found inconvenient both to you and them. However that need not
interfere with my conferring the Order upon you as I had it myself from a
non-mason, the Baron Surdi of Prague. The ritual is properly in four books - I
enclose you the first, and you need only send me a short note that you conform
yourself entirely to carry out the Ob ... You can then proceed on your own
account to form a non-masonic branch, and when you have done something I daresay
you might get a Charter from "Papus" for a London body'.
Waite was delighted at this response
and sent his obligation by return, expressing at the same time his own wish to
promote the Order: 'I thank you most cordially for the honour which you have
done me in conferring upon me the Order of St. Martin. The fact that I am not a
mason makes that honour somewhat exceptional, and I can but value it the more
highly in consequence. I entirely conform to the obligation required of the
candidate, and I hereby pledge myself never to reveal the name of my Initiator
to anybody or to make it public in what manner soever. 1 have read with great
interest and have carefully transcribed the MS. containing the first two books
of the ritual, and 1 return it herewith. I shall look forward to the receipt of
the third. I trust that I shall prove useful, as I shall certainly endeavour to
be active, in the diffusion of the Order among occult students who are not
masons'.
No correspondence with 'Papus'
survives from this period and it is not possible to determine whether or not
Waite applied for a Charter but, in an address to the International Congress (of
Spiritualists) in 1898, 'Papus' referred to the progress of his Order, which had
added two new Martinist 'Formations' in England during 1897.
One of these may well have involved Waite, although in 1902 he broke completely
with 'Papus' when he learned of the bad odour in which the latter was held by
orthodox masonic bodies. However his enthusiasm for the doctrines of
Saint-Martin remained and in 1899 he completed a major study which is still the
only significant English work on Saint-Martin.
The doctrines of Saint-Martin are
diffuse and difficult to elucidate with any clarity but Waite succeeded
admirably in his presentation. It is unnecessary here to expound them except to
record that Waite treated Martinism as 'a body of mystic doctrine, and not a
masonic rite devised by Saint-Martin to replace the Elect Cohens'.
He was also sceptical of 'Papus's' claims as to Saint-Martin's masonic
connections and advised his readers 'to bear in mind that upon historical
questions the criterion of evidence is not invariably so rigorous in France as
it is in England'.
What is most significant about Louis Claude de Saint-Martin is that it
represents a turning-point in Waite's career, for it was effectively the first
of his many books on what he called 'The Secret Tradition' and it was Martinism
rather than the Golden Dawn that brought him into Freemasonry.
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
was published in May 1901 but
review copies had been sent out several months earlier. On 25 May Waite wrote
to 'Papus', advising him that a second copy of the book was on its way from the
publisher, and expressing satisfaction that 'Papus' liked the book: 'I learned
with very sincere satisfaction that you had formed a good opinion of the book.
There is no opinion that I could hold in such high estimation as you have every
means of knowing and have done such admirable work yourself in the same
direction'.
But 'Papus' had offered a more tangible reward than mere praise: 'Please accept
my best thanks for your kind offer to obtain for me
the degree of Doctor from the Ecole Hermetique. I shall value the
distinction highly'.
The degree was quite worthless but Waite did use it on one occasion much later
when he wished to use a pseudonym -'Doctor of Hermetic Science' - to hide his
connection with an anthology of the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis, an early
American spiritualist.
The first copy of the book on Saint-Martin sent to 'Papus' had almost certainly
been forwarded to Edouard Blitz, the head of the Martinist Order in America, who
became a frequent correspondent of Waite and who encouraged him to become a
freemason. Waite refers to Blitz in his autobiography as one 'who had been long
and intimately acquainted with the occult schools of Paris, but was a mason
under an orthodox obedience, probably in the United States'
and adds 'I cannot remember whether I was already a mason when he and I began to
talk of these things in letters, or whether what I learned from him decided me
to seek Initiation'
.
As will be seen, what he learned was
of yet another source of secret rites, and it was unquestionably the continuing
quest for rituals that led Waite to Freemasonry. He was already dissatisfied
with the rituals of the Golden Dawn in both form and content, and he had
determined to reshape them and to divert the course of the Order down mystical
rather than magical paths; in this endeavour he was supported by Marcus Worsley
Blackden, a fellow adept and amateur Egyptologist: 'A day came when Blackden and
I began to think seriously of Freemasonry and to wonder whether a deeper insight
into the meaning and symbolism of Ritual would be gained by joining the most
predominant and world-wide combination of Rites . . . There is no question that
an important side of the tentative consideration was whether, were such a course
adopted, the Order of the Golden Dawn might profit thereby'.
This was not exactly the whole truth for Waite already knew enough of masonic
ceremonial and its symbolism to satisfy the needs of any reconstituted rituals
within the Golden Dawn, and his further statement, 'that I did not fail to
anticipate an extreme probability of meeting in the high grade circles, if not
in Craft and Arch, with at least a few others of our own dedications, to whom
symbolism spoke a language and ritual opened a realm of grace',
gives a wrong emphasis for those few freemasons who were 'of our own
dedications' were already within the confines of the Golden Dawn.
The most probable reason for Waite's
seeking admission to Freemasonry at this time is a growing awareness on his
part, through his correspondence with Blitz, that only by passing through the
Craft degrees and the Holy Royal Arch would he be able to enter those higher
degrees whose rites he so eagerly desired. To this end he sought the help of
Palmer-Thomas, who 'offered high encouragement; and when the time came he
prepared our way and was duly present as a guest when Blackden and I were at
length made masons at Runymede Lodge in the Province of Bucks'.
And so, on 19 September 1901, at the age of 43, Waite was initiated in Runymede
Lodge No. 2430 at Wraysbury in Buckinghamshire.
WAITE AND CRAFT MASONRY
As a courtesy to Runymede Lodge both
Waite and Blackden were raised, on 10 February 1902, in St. Marylebone Lodge No.
1305 and, as neither of them knew anyone in either lodge, it must be
conjectured, in the absence of further information,
that Palmer-Thomas was a personal friend of G. S. Beeching who was then both
Master of Runymede and Secretary of St. Marylebone.
Initiation into Craft Masonry brought
no spiritual enlightenment to Waite: 'For myself it was a curious experience in
more ways than one, and perhaps especially because it was so patent throughout
that I could have told the Worshipful Master all that he was communicating to
me. My Initiation was nothing therefore but a means to an end: I awaited the
Grades beyond'.
He was not enthusiastic about his brother masons: 'I like that phrase "Brother
of the Appearance of Light" applied to the masonic brethren to show that their
attributed illumination is but phantasmal',
nor about the formal management of a lodge: 'The revised Byelaws of the Runymede
Lodge have been sent me. It is not to be expected that they should make for the
Life Eternal and I suppose that they are not more eternally voided of all
importance than other legislative documents framed for lodges and chapters by
"hollow hearts and empty heads".
He also disliked office: 'I had a hideous experience yesterday at the Runymede
Lodge, on the occasion of the installation of a new Master. I took the last
possible train which would have brought me in time for my part of the ceremony
and arrived only in time for the dinner. I was made Steward in my absence and
this caused the dinner itself to be very nearly intolerable and some slight
functions afterwards caused me to lose the last train'.
But despite these inner reservations
he was popular with his fellow-members of Runymede Lodge, who saw him in a dual
role: primarily as the London Manager of Horlick's Food Company (a post he held
from 1900 to 1909) and, less importantly, as an enthusiast for esoteric
subjects. In 1907 G. S. Beeching, an adept at doggerel verse, referred to both
roles when describing the Senior Deacon:
Here am I
- my name is Waite,
Rosicrucian up to date,
One hot
night I had a dream,
Dreamt I
swam in Malted Cream.
Waite, too, produced verse for
Runymede, albeit of a heavier kind, and his 'Ode of Welcome' in 1909 records his
own quests as well as the drinking habits of his fellows:
Give me another glass - who do the
speaking -
I've look'd for Secret Rites from
zone to zone;
High grades and orders answer to my
seeking,
But there's no Warrant and Diploma
Which bears the incense sweetness and
aroma
Of Runymede's - my first, my very
own!
In 1910 Waite was installed as Master
of Runymede Lodge, and during his year of office he celebrated the Winter Dinner
of the lodge, on 1 February 1911, 'by conferring on all brethren present the
Great Mystery of the Vault of the Adepts (under dispensation from the unknown
Superior of the Sodality of the Shades)'.
This was the closest he came to introducing his brethren to the mysteries of the
Golden Dawn, although he had persuaded Bernard Springett,
a member of Runymede from 1901 to 1905, to join the Independent & Rectified Rite
of the Golden Dawn in 1910, and he introduced Percy Bullock, a prominent member
of the Isis Urania Temple, to Freemasonry via Runymede Lodge. Bullock was
initiated on 14 June 1904, but resigned from membership in the following year.
Waite regularly attended meetings of Runymede Lodge until 1920 when he moved
from Ealing in West London to Ramsgate in Kent, after which time his association
with Craft Masonry faded although he remained a member of his mother lodge until
his death.
THE HIGHER DEGREES AND
THE SECRET
TRADITION
As soon as he had been raised, Waite
began his quest for higher degrees in earnest. On 10 April 1902 he and Blackden
were admitted to the grade of Zelator in the S.R.I.A., having been proposed by
Palmer-Thomas and seconded by Westcott - both of whom were keen to have Waite as
a member. The two new Rosicrucians then proceeded to the Holy Royal Arch, being
exalted in Metropolitan Chapter No. 1507 on 1 May 1902, following this one week
later with their Installation as Knights Templar at the Consecration of the King
Edward VII Preceptory. Here they rested, and Waite prepared for a journey to
Switzerland and for reception into the one Rite he craved the most: the
Regime Ecossais et Rectifie and its grade of Chevalier Bienfaisant de la
Cite Sainte (C.B.C.S.).
As a result of his earlier
correspondence with Blitz, Waite had come to see the Rigime Ecossais
et Rectifie as maintaining more than any other rite the essence in ritual
form of that secret tradition that 'tells us not alone that the Soul "cometh
from afar" and that the Soul returns whence it came, but it delineates the Path
of Ascent'.
The theory that all esoteric practices and traditions, whether alchemy, the
Hebrew Kabbalah, the legends of the Holy Grail, Rosicrucianism, Christian
mysticism or Freemasonry, were secret paths to a direct experience of God had
been developed by Waite over many years. He was convinced that the symbolism in
each of these traditions had a common root and a common end, and that their
correct interpretation would lead to a revelation of concealed ways to spiritual
illumination. In his published works it is difficult to find this theory of the
secret tradition clearly expressed, but it is put quite succinctly in The
Secret Tradition in Freemasonry:
'The Secret Tradition contains, firstly, the memorials of a loss which has
befallen humanity; and, secondly, the records of a restitution in respect of
that which was lost ... the keepers of the tradition perpetuated it in secret by
means of Instituted Mysteries and cryptic literature' (vol. I, p. ix).
In itself 'The Secret Tradition is
the immemorial knowledge concerning man's way of return whence he came by a
method of the inward life' (vol. 11, p. 379). Common to all its forms is the
evidence that 'testifies to (a) the aeonian nature of the loss; (b) the
certitude of an ultimate restoration; (c) in respect of that which was lost, the
perpetuity of its existence somewhere in time and the world, although interned
deeply; (d) and more rarely its substantial presence under veils close to the
hands of all' (vol. 1, p. xi). For Freemasonry 'that loss and restoration are
essential . . . the middle term is absence, out of which quest arises. When one
of the triad is wanting, whether implicitly or explicitly, the grade is not
masonic' (vol. 11, p. 379). He further believed that a proper understanding of
the tradition in Freemasonry would enable him to construct rituals of his own
devising, the working of which would lead all those who took part to a spiritual
enlightenment of their own.
It was thus of crucial importance for
Waite to gain access to the Rectified Rite which represented, par excellence,
the secret tradition in practice but, while he prepared the ground for his
visit to Geneva, he was also collecting other rites and planning the moves that
would lead him in 1903 to gain control of the faction-ridden Golden Dawn.
Contrary to appearances, he was not driven by a desire for power; all his eager
gathering of masonic rites was for the dual purpose of bringing together the
various lines of what he saw as a type of 'Masonic Apostolic Succession' and the
subsequent quarrying of their rituals for the benefit of his own projected
Order.
Waite had no intention of encroaching
on the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, Great Priory or Supreme
Council, and sought possession only of rites that were moribund, quasi-masonic
or unrecognized in England. They were to be brought together under the control
of a 'Secret Council of Rites' that had been created by himself with the aid of
Blackden and Palmer-Thomas, at the latter's home on 2 December 1902: 'I proposed
that we should constitute ourselves a Secret Council of Rites which was carried
with great joy, it being further agreed that the news of this Council should
never transpire. We shall be indeed an occult Order of Unknown Philosophers - a
concealed kind'.
At a later meeting the C.B.C.S. was specifically excluded although it was
restored to the Council's control when a Constitution was finally drawn up in
April 1903 (see Appendix D for the whole text of this curious document).
Greater satisfaction was anticipated
by Waite from the C.B.C.S. than he had so far gained from the Knights Templar.
'I attended this evening the meeting of the Templar Preceptory [King Edward VII]
when two installations took place. It is by far the most interesting of all of
the Christian chivalries with the rites of which I am acquainted, though such
gleanings as I can make concerning the Perfect Knights' charges seem to hope for
greater significance therein'.
He was also far from adept when he 'tried to play at toy soldiers',
finding that my feet refused to do anything that was required of them ... By a
curious fatality I always turn the wrong way. I do not know why this should be,
and really it is very confusing. I do not know whether I am proud of my
infirmity like St. Paul or ashamed like the ordinary individual when convinced
of his stupidity'.
His own rituals were to be easier to perform.
As a prelude to his Swiss journey
Waite travelled to Scotland to receive the Early Grand Rite of 47º which he felt
would be of some use to him: 'So far as cyclopaedias and masonic historians are
concerned, this rite is utterly unknown, nor have 1 so much as met with the
sequence of its grades. Obscure or not, 47º means at least 44 rituals which
cannot fail of material for my paper against the time when I shall unsay all
that has till now been said as to the symbolic builders’.
His visit did not begin well: 'My projected journey to Scotland ...took place by the midnight train on
Friday and I reached Kilmarnock in the early morning, as might well have been
expected, amidst drenching rain'.
And it was afternoon before he met his host, Colonel Spence, 'coming from the
station through a sea of mud'. Spence did not impress him 'as being of any
particular attainments or of more than average education', nor did the other
Kilmarnock masons meet his expectations: 'A considerable proportion of them
belonged to the mechanic order while one or two looked as if they were
shepherds'. Waite was also disappointed with the ceremony: 'It was proposed to
confer upon me the 41st Degree called Priestly Order or White Mason. I went
through an almost indescribable initiation, the officiating brethren wearing
white surplices and holding small pieces of tallow candle in their hands. There
was no attempt at reciting the ritual from memory, books being used for the
purpose and the ceremony was simply muddled through ... The Obligation Degree
was administered to me with very curious variations on the part of the Grand
Master so as to enable me to receive anything else which 1 wanted, but it is
quite impossible to make any clear inference from the wording of the pledge. At
the time I took it I understood it to refer only to the degrees of what they are
pleased to term White Masonry, but it was explained to me afterwards that it was
binding also as regards all the forty-seven degrees and I think for Memphis and
Mizraim as well as anything in the way of adoptive Orders and perhaps the Royal
Order of Scotland'.
Worse was to follow: 'After the
meeting I was introduced to my brethren and, a good deal to my dismay, Colonel
Spence then engineered the assembly, still through the pouring rain, back to my
hotel where in a small smoking-room he ordered drinks for all; they then
proceeded to make speeches on the subject of my visit to Scotland, on my
literary labours, etc., and to these I had to reply. The whole experience was
incredibly squalid and yet more curious than I can give an account of in a hasty
description'. But he had obtained the rites he sought in embarrassing
abundance: 'I purchased the rituals of the Early Grand Rite from the 4th to the
44th Degrees and ... found I was also in possession of the Order of the Temple
for Scotland which, having regard to my affiliation with the Grand Priory of
England, was the very last thing I wanted ... in like manner I am in possession
by the most heterodox means possible of the Mark Degrees of Masonry, of a rival
Royal Arch Knight of Malta, Red Cross of Rome and Constantine and even the Royal
Ark Mariners ... If the fact that I had been affiliated should transpire
generally it will no doubt lead to a good deal of trouble'.
His reception in Geneva was to be a
happier affair for his path had been smoothed by Edouard Blitz who, in his
capacity of Great Prior for, America, both introduced Waite to the Rectified
Rite and highly recommended him. In February 1903 Waite received the
preliminary forms of admission and pledge and a series of Questions d'Ordre,
all of which he duly completed, signed and returned - with a curious error;
he gave his year of birth as 1859. In his replies to the questions he stated
his belief 'that there is a Masonry which is behind Masonry and is not commonly
communicated in lodges, though at the right time it is made known to the right
person. But it is requisite that he should come in by the door and should pass
through the preliminary grades to attain the ineffable ends"
and in his covering letter he intimated that he 'was going among the brethren of
Geneva to learn and not to teach'.
He was also 'required to choose (1) a mystic name; (2) a motto, also symbolical;
(3) armorial bearings prior to my being armed as a knight in the secret
conclave. I have chosen therefore as follows: (1) Eques a longe aspiciens;
(2) Sacramentum Regis abscotidere bonum est; (3) argent, a cross sable,
between four roses gules, which is, of course, purely Rosicrucian and is
assigned to me by myself for that reason'.
Thus prepared, he travelled to
Geneva, arriving early on 28 February 1903, to be received by Joseph Leclerc
(1835-1927), Great Prior of the Independent Great Priory of Heivetia. On the
evening of the same day Waite received the two grades of Squire Novice and
Knight Beneficent of the Holy City although, under normal circumstances, a
period of one year was supposed to elapse between receiving the first and the
second. Waite's account of the evening emphasizes his innate snobbery: 'The
gathering from an English point of view was exceedingly mixed, consisting (a) of
respectable tradesmen, as e.g. booksellers; (b) members of the French
parliament; (c) persons who had the appearance of Genevan gentlemen of good
position; (d) an Englishman holding some official appointment under this
government; (e) a few who might have belonged to a class inferior to the
tradesmen so far as their appearance goes; (f) various representatives of the
Genevan government. I had throughout especial marks of kindness and
consideration from all those who were evidently the better placed of the
gathering'.
The ceremonies however greatly impressed him: 'the ceremony throughout was read
or recited, the rituals not being committed to memory as in English Masonry.
The effect was in reality much better, but it is possible that the ritual lends
itself especially to this kind of delivery as it was more narrative and
exhortatory than are the Craft degrees. I wish in any case to record that as
regards both grades the rites could have scarcely been simpler, more impressive
or worked with more smoothness and dignity.'
Later he found the ceremony of
raising to the grade of Knight Beneficent to be 'done very beautifully and very
affectingly' and noticed in the Profession of Faith 'the stress which it laid
upon the doctrine of the Fall of Man and the distinctly Martinistic flavour
which characterized the wording of the doctrine and was apparent also in other
parts of this document'. On the following day he returned to England
well-pleased and anticipating the news that finally reached him early in May:
'The Helvetian Priory in its session of 16 April has agreed to confer upon me
the full powers required for the establishment of the Secret Order in England
and the Colonies and that the necessary papers will be sent to me in due course'.
This had been his real object in going to Geneva, as he had confided to his
diary in the previous October: 'I will not undertake a journey to Geneva ...
merely for affiliation with that rite, much as I desire to possess it. I must
have its custody for England, and it will be something to possess a rite which
requires no reconstitution, as in the case of Martinism ... If I do secure the
Rite of the Holy City, there will be trouble, I suppose, in this case with the
English Council of Rites…But unless some such connection based on a reasonable
modus vivendi should suit my purpose, 1 will frighten the Grand Council
with the rumour of secret associations behind my rite and they shall be glad to
leave it alone'.
His plans for the C.B.C.S. in England
were destined to come to nothing, however, for, although he translated the
rituals into English
and was received in 1907 into the degrees of Profes and Grand Profes - by
correspondence, he did not make a second visit to Geneva.
he made no attempt to work the two grades that had been conferred upon him and
the only dissemination of the rite in England was, according to G. E. W. Bridge,
by 'Waite personally and through his literary references to the Rite'.
Bridge felt, however, that 'this advance has developed itself naturally and
smoothly and I'd let it continue on the same quiet lines'.
They were quiet lines indeed for Waite's sole activity had been to recommend B.
H. Springett, in 1924, and Bridge, in 1929, to the authorities in Geneva. In
the letter recommending Bridge he explained his inactivity: 'There was a time
when I hoped to found the Rigime Ecossais et L'Ordre Interieur in
England…The jealousy of the High Grades here made the scheme impossible, and I
look sometimes with sore regret on the great parchment which is the evidence of
my appointment'.
In the same letter Waite doubted that Bridge 'could do anything of a practical
kind for the furtherance of the Order in this country ... I should have done it
long since, had any path opened'. He was yet pleased when the rite was
re-established in America in 1934 (Blitz's Charter having fallen into abeyance),
for the two brethren concerned, Dr. William Moseley Brown and J. Ray Shute, had
learned of the rite and its significance through Waite's writings.
Waite still believed that he was the
sole authority for disseminating the rite in England but the Independent Great
Priory of Helvetia did not see him in that light and they did not inform him
when, in 1938, fearful of the Axis threat to Masonry in Switzerland, they had
agreed to grant a Charter to the Great Priory of England and Wales for the
C.B.C.S. in England. He learned of the new Charter through a letter from Shute,
and expressed his surprise and annoyance in his reply: 'It should be clearly
understood, in view of other rumours, that I have held for many years, and still
hold, the Warrant of the Helvetian Priory which placed the Rite in my hands .. .
You might tell me further about those 'printed reports that the Templar Great
Priory of England has taken over the C.B.C.S.' in this country. I have heard
nothing about it and cannot imagine what it means, as there is nothing less
likely in the world of Masonry than that it should attempt to work them here'.
With the failure to propagate its most important rite, Waite's 'Secret Council
of Rites' had, masonically speaking, long since come to naught. He had
attempted to resurrect it in 1922 but the attempt came to nothing; there were,
however, other ways to propagate the secret tradition.
Ever since his marriage in 1888 Waite
had officially styled himself as an author, despite his involvements in
publishing and with the Horlick's Food Company, and it was through his books
that he was best known to most of his masonic brethren. His authority in all
matters occult was widely accepted, as was his great knowledge of the esoteric
byways of Freemasonry, and this undoubtedly helped him to gain entrance to the
various lodges, chapters and preceptories he sought to join - all of which
contained potential converts to his ideas. Once converted they tended to seek
admission to the Independent & Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn and to its
successor, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, but it must be stressed that Waite
never actively sought recruits. He did, however, seize every opportunity to
propagate his doctrine of the secret tradition, not only through his lectures but also when speaking informally.
His first masonic venture
into public debate was at a meeting of Quatuor Coronati Lodge on 3 October 1902,
when he commented on E. J. Castle's paper, 'The Reception (Initiation) of a
Knight Templar',
and, with all the authority of a knight of five months' standing (Castle was not
a member of the Order of the Temple), asked a series of questions about Castle's
sources. The paper was unexceptionable and Castle's answers more than adequate,
but Waite was convinced of his own superior knowledge and scornful of the
members of Quatuor Coronati Lodge. He recorded in his diary that the paper was
'ill-conceived, ill-defined and altogether male sonans. These people
know not whither they are going. I asked certain questions at the end but there
was no one to answer them. These are not brethren; they are simulacra - "antic
figures which a juggler dances" '.
Later he referred to the paper again: 'Of course I must not say what I think
really - that it is an incoherent and slovenly paper…I begin to see very clearly
how much a real history of the Templars is wanted in England to set matters
right, so far as they can be set, once and for all. This is of course a scheme
of my own doing for my seminal work on the secret doctrine of religious
societies'.
Waite's strictures on Castle's paper were, of course, quite unjust but his diary
entry is highly significant in that it reveals how his unpublished Esoteric
History of Freemasonry was being transformed into The Secret
Tradition in Freemasonry.
MAGNUM OPUS I
Before this great work was published
Waite had written a series of articles on the origins of Freemasonry and on the
more obscure of the higher degrees, for his own journal, Horlick's
Magazine. These were then published in Studies in Mysticism (1906).
He followed these with a paper on 'The Place of Masonry in the Rites of
Initiation' for the S.R.I.A. and a series of papers on Templar symbolism and
history, delivered between 1908 and 1910 at the Sancta Maria Preceptory, of
which Waite had been a founding member in 1906. All these were, however, but a
foretaste of the glory that was to come. In July 1911 Waite's 'first
contribution to masonic literature' appeared, seeming to him 'in respect of
production - the most beautiful work which has ever been issued in any land or
language on the masonic subject'.
But it was the contents not the covers that mattered. 'As the Mark restored to
Masonry the lost notion of Christhood, so did the Royal Arch bring it back to
Trinitarian Doctrine . . . These were convictions which lay behind my first
contribution to masonic literature'.
It also set out in exhaustive detail his theory of the secret tradition and it
was this that brought him a host of favourable reviews.
The non-masonic press praised the
book while not understanding it,
the occult press enthused over it, and the masonic press approved of it and
commanded it to its readers. W. L. Wilmshurst produced reviews in all three
categories, for The Bookman, The Occult Review and The Freemason,
all being favourable. This can only be presumed in the case of The Occult
Review, for Wilmshurst there achieved the almost impossible feat of
writing in a style at once more verbose and more incomprehensible than Waite at
his worst.
In The Freemason he claimed that the book 'unquestionably exceeds in
importance any that has yet appeared in regard to what may be called the problem
of Freemasonry', praised Waite and added that 'the whole Craft is deeply
obligated to him for presenting it with so admirable a mirror and exegesis of
its own doctrine'. Another favourable review appeared in Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum 25, (pp. 133-5) but it was, perhaps, less than objective, being
written by B. E. J. Edwards, who was a long-standing member of the Golden Dawn.
The only carping note was struck by John Yarker who reviewed the work for
The Co-Mason (vol. 4, pp. 29-32, 1912). He was upset because Waite 'does
not seek to hide his contempt, often expressed in uncourteous language, against
all who differ from him, or otherwise against those degrees from which he could
extract nothing to confirm his theories, and the writer of this review comes in,
with many better men, for a "slating"', and he rightly criticized the factual
errors and condemned Waite for his sneers at 'the thing called Co-Masonry': 'We
may not like Co~Masonry; for one thing, it affords less opportunity for the
gourmandizing proclivities of the ordinary freemason, but the system has come to
stay and we might treat it with civility'.
Most co-masons were, however, quite
happy with Waite. The following issue of their journal contained a second and
highly favourable notice of the book, written by Revd. A. H. E. Lee, who was an
active member of Waite's Golden Dawn but who preferred Co-Masonry to the
legitimate Craft. He also, and quite inexplicably, was among the 'few persons
who attempted to carry on by themselves' when, in 1914, Waite 'put an end to the
Isis-Urania or Mother Temple, owing to internecine feuds on the authenticity of
documents'.
Other co-masons supported Waite and, after he founded his new Order, the
Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, in the following year, he drew more of its members
from Co-Masonry than from Freemasonry proper. The co-masons were also to prove
more friendly when Waite's second magnum opus appeared.
MAGNUM OPUS II
As we have seen, Waite had an
inordinately high opinion of his own scholarship, and a correspondingly low one
of the more usually recognized masonic scholars. 'Brother R. F. Gould, who has
written a rather illiterate, albeit pretentious work on Freemasonry, and writes
also a rather illiterate letter, asks me to suggest some picture or portrait to
illustrate a chapter on Rosicrucianism in some concise history of the fraternity
which he is about to publish',
while 'of the two Masonic cyclopaedias which have appeared in English, one -
that of Woodford - swarms with the mis-statements and ineptitudes of ignorance,
and one - that of Mackenzie - with the misstatements and extravagances of a
lying fancy'.
About his fellow-Rosicrucians he was even more scathing. In 1903 he was
chairman of the S.R.I.A. Study Circle and found that its reports 'are diseased
memorials and the malady from which they suffer requires the continued process
of the cemetery. Such instances of inability to state with any clearness what
the speaker intended to say I have never met with previously'.
At the same time he admitted to himself. 'I have noted that in certain
instances my share in the discussion is open to the same criticism' - such
self-criticism of his literary abilities was rare indeed.
After The Secret Tradition in
Freemasonry had run its course, Waite conceived the idea of compiling a
masonic encyclopaedia that would reflect his own predilections for the higher
degrees and their symbolism. Literary researches and the affairs of the
Fellowship of the Rosy Cross were occupying much of his time, and his
involvement with Craft Masonry had practically ceased, but he found that 'my
activities had increased rapidly in the High Grade circles. It is another way
of recording that I saw more than ever the unexpressed things that lie behind
the rites'.
At the same time, 'I had no wish to include among my writings still another
Encyclopaedia added to those that existed already in the world of English
Masonry. On reflection however, it seemed to me that here was the most
convenient form in which to introduce a multitude of personal views and
standpoints'
. Accordingly, in May 1917 he
went to see Ralph Shirley, who owned the publishing house of Rider & Co., and
'proposed by inspiration a great new masonic encyclopaedia'.
A draft agreement was drawn up in June and by 3 July Waite had assembled 'over
200 pp. of rough materials collected from old MS. sources in three days'.
By Boxing Day his rough notes had risen to 1,000 pages; three months later they
were in rough alphabetical order and, by December 1918, he had completed over
500 pages of his final draft.
Throughout 1919 he was involved in
complicated discussions with Shirley and with the printers, Brendons of
Plymouth, over the layout of the rapidly-expanding book, over its illustrations
and over money. Waite received a series of small sums in advance of royalties,
an agreement to extend the book to two volumes and a new contract. After much
last-minute addition and correction to the text, A New Encyclopaedia of
Freemasonry was finally published in March 1921, Waite's delight at its
appearance being tempered by his expectation that 'the vested authorities and
the diehards of dead Masonry might rise up of course to curse me'.
And so they did.
Volume 11 of the Transactions of
the Manchester Association for Masonic Research contains the text of Waite's
paper 'Robert Fludd and Freemasonry', which he had delivered to the Association
in September 1921; it also contains an anonymous review of A New
Encyclopaedia Of Freemasonry. The reviewer was shocked both by
Waite's cavalier attitude to historical fact and by his contempt for earlier
scholars; 'There are many errors of date and name which students, however, will
readily detect, but it is when men like John Yarker are referred to as
illiterate and other even more gifted writers of the past are almost as
contemptuously alluded to that the value of the compiler's opinions is
discounted' (p. 139). He also disapproved of Waite's views: 'It seems quite out
of place to endeavour to incorporate the view that Freemasonry is part of a
Divine Quest which after all, is only the author's fancy' (p. 139), but finally,
and grudgingly, admitted that it might have some value: 'The book is not likely
to replace former encyclopaedias, although it may find its own place in masonic
literature' (p. 139).
The task of demolishing Waite utterly
was left to AQC 33 (1920) and the two reviewers of the book, W. J.
Songhurst and J. E. S. Tuckett, went to work with a will. Songhurst found that
'the impression left on my mind after reading the work is that Bro. Waite has
merely linked together a series of essays embodying personal opinions, by means
of lists and tabulations for which he has very little respect' (p. 169). He
also attacked Waite's arbitrary and bizarre arrangement of subject matter: 'It
is surely unusual to find an index in a Dictionary or Encyclopaedia, ... That an
index was needed for Bro. Waite's Encyclopaedia seems to show that a faulty
arrangement of the matter has been recognized. True, it is planned on a
alphabetical basis . . . but to find any particular subject one has to resort to
a system of guess-work, the index affording scarcely any help' (p. 169).
Waite's errors of fact and examples of his ignorance of recent scholarship are
listed with glee, as are his abusive and unjust comments on earlier writers,
with the question posed, 'What particular advantage or abilities does Bro. Waite
claim to possess which enable him to take a position superior to that of earlier
writers' (p. 172). Songhurst concluded by criticizing the imaginary picture of
Ramsay in volume 2 and disputing Waite's ascription of an alleged portrait of
James Anderson in Volume 1: 'Can it be that it is so set down in ignorance, or
is it to be understood as yet another deliberate flight into the realms of
fantasy?' (p. 173). His views on the frontispiece to volume 1 - which shows
Waite in the robes of Imperator of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross - he
refrained from printing.
The second review reinforced the
first. Tuckett substantially enlarged the list of factual errors and condemned
Waite for his contemptuous remarks about his fellow masonic writers. He then
reinforced Songhurst's criticisms by tabulating the more glaring inconsistencies
of Waite's apparent alphabetical arrangement and listing examples of Waite's
self advertisement, adding the query, 'would it not have been better to avoid
such direct claims to profound knowledge, leaving the reader to discern it for
himself ?' (p. 175). Unlike Songhurst, 'I'uckett concluded his review with
praise for Waite's position as an authority on 'the doctrine of the Great Quest
in Masonry', but as an encyclopaedia 'the work now under consideration does not
compare favourably with its predecessors, and, as an exposition of the Quest
Theory, it cannot compete with the same author's Secret Tradition' (p.
180).
For Waite such comments were wormwood
and gall, but he could take comfort in the laudatory reviews by Philip Wellby in
The Occult Review (although Wellby was a close personal friend and Waite
had, in any case, helped to write the review),
and by Miss Bothwell-Gosse in The Co-Mason (vol. 13, p. 104, 1921). Even
more satisfying was a detailed and favourable review by Revd. A. Cohen in
The,Jewish Guardian for 3 June 1921. Despite detecting errors of fact Cohen
found that 'there is more to admire than to criticize in these handsome
volumes. The author has earned the gratitude of every mason who is curious to
learn all that the Craft has to teach him'. Even more satisfying for Waite was
Cohen's reference to Waite's claim that, prior to 1717, Freemasonry was
exclusively Christian and 'that the Jew and the Heathen had no part therein',
and his admission that 'the correctness of Mr. Waite's statement seems to me
unquestionable'. But Cohen may have been inclined to be especially lenient as
the Jewish press had been praising Waite earlier in 1921 for his detailed
refutation, in The Occult Review,
of Mrs. Nesta Webster's anti-Semitic and anti-masonic articles in The
Morning Post.
Such reviews undoubtedly helped sales
of the New Encyclopaedia and by 1930 some 7,000 sets had been sold, but
through flaws in his contract Waite lost his rights to the book when it passed
to Virtue & Co. in 1925, and he received little more than £300 in total
royalties. Worse was to follow as, for all his protestations to the contrary,
Waite valued the esteem of masonic scholars and he took the hostile reviews to
heart. He began to revise and correct the text for a projected new edition but,
when the 'New and Revised Edition' of 1923 was issued, Waite was horrified to
find that it was merely an exact reprint of the fault-ridden original. For
himself his proud boast that, by 1938 'no less than nineteen thousand sets of
the costly volumes have been sold',
must have been a hollow one. It was also erroneous, for the maximum sales could
have been little more than half that number.
WAITE AND THE HIGHER DEGREES
By this time he was turning away from
the world of masonic scholarship, although he was still to produce his highly
important study of Rosicrucianism, The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross,
and in 1924 he resigned from the Masonic Study Society which he had helped
to found in 1921, confining such lectures as he still gave to those higher
degree bodies with which he was increasingly involved. He was now a member of
virtually every rite that was worked in England and he played an active role in
many of them. In 1905 he had entered Mark Masonry, which he believed had
'originated to recall Grand Lodge Masonry from the muddled Deism of the Anderson
Constitutions to the Christology and high Catholicism of the Old Charges',
and in 1930 he was still actively promoting the Mark when he became a founder
and first Master of Tower Hamlets Mark Lodge No. 892.
He had long ceased to see the Rose
Croix degree as one of the 'splendid inanities of occult nomenclature' and,
having been perfected in the Orpheus Chapter Rose Croix No. 79 in 1909, he
became its Sovereign in 1915, and from 1918 onwards he was its Recorder. But it
was for the Order of the Temple that he felt the greatest affection and to the
Sancta Maria Preceptory that he gave his greatest support. He had been
Preceptor in 1909 and from 1910 to 1940 acted as its Registrar; his early
speculations on Templar history and symbolism had been first presented as
lectures in the Preceptory and his last, and most important, paper 'The Knights
Templar and their alleged perpetuation in Freemasonry' - had been delivered
therein 1930.
Waite's Rosicrucian activities, in
their masonic context at least, had ceased in 1914 when he resigned from the
S.R.I.A. after failing in his bid to be elected as Celebrant. He had also
quarrelled bitterly with Blackden over the workings of the Isis-Urania Temple of
the Golden Dawn and felt that the same Rosicrucian body could not happily
contain them both.
All his energies in this direction were now bent towards the creation of rituals
for his Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (F.R.C.), an androgynous and avowedly
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