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A Basic Historico-Chronological Model of the
Western
Hermetic Tradition
Future
Prospects
PART VIII
In trying to answer the question ‘What part,
if any, does speculative Freemasonry have within the western
Hermetic tradition’ I have suggested that the model preferred by
the prevailing orthodoxy of the ‘authentic’ school of masonic
historiography may have to be abandoned now. It simply has not
produced the evidence that would connect speculative Freemasonry
up generally with any previous esoteric ventures, that evidence
may well unavailable. Besides, dealing almost exclusively with
texts it regards the masonic experience in a textual way, denies
that it might be Hermetic and ignores the fact that the
experience’s potency lies mainly in its lived-through continuity.
It is no longer any use looking to the past to find a viable
answer to the question.
So I have turned to the present and examined
the different Initiation rituals used in England and on the
Continent. I have tried to show that though there were and are
interesting traces of Hermeticism within the English-speaking
masonic tradition, these became neglected gradually. Demographic
factors, throughout the 19th century influenced the
influx of men with a bourgeois or a military mentality into
English-speaking speculative Freemasonry and this brought about a
laxity. The emergent British middle classes provided the
motivation, the zeal, the opportunities and the personnel for the
agrarian and industrial revolutions and the subsequent burgeoning
economic prosperity in the 18th century. Once
established as the major potent political force within the nation,
they even brought about the acquisition and maintenance of the
British Empire during the 19th century. These were
worthy achievements in their day, of course, but they were centred
on this world and not on any kind of Hermetic experience.
Those men came to speculative Freemasonry in their droves with all
of their cultural expectations, career experiences and training
and their social ambitions and expectations. So, while the
original potentially Hermetic traces remained as symbols within
the texts of their masonic rituals, they became neglected
generally as signposts for the ‘lived-through’ experience within
Lodges.
Besides this, the minimalist and compromise
definition of what is meant by ‘pure and ancient freemasonry’ by
the nascent Union in 1813 meant that the possibility of Hermetic
exploration on a continuous basis in a masonic context became
severely restricted in the early decades of the 19th
century. Those freemasons who wanted to pursue their Hermetic
pilgrimages had to seek for or create opportunities outside of the
restrictions imposed by their membership of the English-speaking
Craft. This was why most of the so-called ‘higher’ degrees took
their rise and flourished only in the latter half of the
19th century as part of that occult revival which was
itself part of a general, spiritualised reaction against the
incipient and rampant materialism of the post-Darwinian age. Since
then, however, most English-speaking freemasons have become
pre-occupied with various kinds of mere externalities; the
Hermetic enterprise – in terms of individual Lodges’ corporate
experience – ground almost to a halt.
But that Hermetic impulse is still preserved
among European speculative freemasons. Their ‘lived-through’
experience is more prolonged, more intense, more cerebral – more
Hermetic – again for historical reasons. So, as far as European
Freemasonry is concerned the answer to the question posed is:
‘Yes, in Europe, speculative Freemasonry does have a secure place
within the western Hermetic tradition’ because it still requires
its members to engage in sustained reflection on the whole purpose
of the phenomenon and the meaning of the symbols it
employs.
What then of the future? What place, if any,
can speculative Freemasonry have in the Hermetic enterprise in the
next millennium?
I want to answer this, not by trying to
guess whether and how Grand Lodges will adjust to the many fierce
exigencies of the new age, but by raising some serious questions
about the whole nature of the more orthodox varieties of
speculative Freemasonry. How can it, as a cultural institution,
claim to have any place in the modern world?
- How can any institution that has secrecy
as one of its key notions continue to be valid in the age of the
every expanding and developing scientific and electronic
communication? I can see the need for preserving secrecy in
financial, military and even political matters where peoples’
lives and livelihoods may be at risk. I can see that the
injunction to keep the masonic ‘secrets’ secret was simply a
convenient psychological ploy, intended to serve as an
exaltation and legitimisation of the revelation in Neophytes’
minds but the insistence now on preserving ‘secrets’ which are
not comparable secrets must seem false in the modern
world.
- Furthermore, is there not an inherent
contradiction between the principles of universal brotherhood
and equality and that same notion of secrecy? Besides, how can
any institution that professes pan-humanic amelioration require
absolute secrecy of its members?
- There is another aspect of this
preference for universality. All of the Hermetic groups that I
have studied have been small, even tiny in membership. Often,
the most important insights have been produced in written form
by individual scholars working largely in isolation. This
diminutive membership size and this seclusion did not deter the
pioneers of the ‘Invisible College’ in the late 17th
century. Perhaps they realised that in order for any Hermetic
group to be lastingly successful it would have to be small and
exclusive. What then can be made of speculative Freemasonry’s
claim to bring about a universal brotherhood?
- How can any institution survive in the
modern world when it demands large sums of money from its
Initiates but refuses to define its basic aims and objectives.
Speculative Freemasonry claims to be involved in the inculcation
of ethical principles but it has yet to attempt a clear,
systematic and thorough definition of all its fundamental
philosophy.
- It is claimed, among English-speaking
speculative freemasons that the basic motivating principles are
brotherly love, relief and truth. How can it survive then when
at least two of these are no longer operative for it? The idea
of a national organisation devoted to providing charity to
deserving cases seemed fine in the 18th century when
there was no welfare state but now it might be argued that in
most modern states at least there is substantial, systematic
provision for the poor. As far as devotion to the truth is
concerned in the English-speaking masonic world, there seems
little evidence now of any searching for truth, especially
Hermetic truths, at an organisational level. Brotherly love
seems to escape quickly out of the nearest window when the
seasons for announcing promotions up the hierarchies come about
and jealousy abounds once again. The rituals proclaim equality
but the practice of awarding ever better ranks, for instance,
proclaims inequality. And that inequality is there for all
members to see.
- How can speculative Freemasonry survive
in the modern world as an organisation when it carries a
hierarchy of at least 28 grades of officers in the various Grand
Lodges in the UK and elsewhere - a hierarchy that is mirrored in
detail at every Provincial level. Such structures become
self-perpetuating and they militate inevitably against Hermetic
exploration. People become obsessed with their place in the
structure, with correct and orderly behaviour and decorum - not
with their spiritual development. Huge, complex organisations
have rarely been sources of profound religious or philosophical
insights that accelerate Man’s progress towards greater
understanding. Besides, in the ordinary, profane world, no
manufacturing or commercial organisation would last if it
continued to develop along such Byzantine lines. Such
hierarchies are not sufficiently flexible in terms of their
administrative hygiene to adapt creatively to external pressures
for change. And after all, even Heaven itself has only nine
orders of angels!
- How can any institution survive if it
refuses to accept the need for continual change? I am not
thinking of mere organisational adjustments but of an acceptance
of basic change as a part of the culture – or social psychology
- of the organisation. In particular, how can speculative
Freemasonry in the English-speaking world survive when it cannot
conceive of the possibility of radical changes being
necessary at some stage to its rituals?
- Speculative Freemasonry, of the so-called
‘regular’ kind, excludes women from membership though there are
no clear, identifiable reasons why this is so. How can any
institution be Hermetic, or continue to exist in the modern
world, when it arbitrarily excludes half the adult population?
If the ‘lived-through’ masonic experience is concerned (at least
in part) with the inculcation of ethical principles and uses the
model of the transition from the Rough Ashlar to the Perfect
Ashlar to represent the ethical progress brought about in
individual members, how can speculative Freemasonry (as an
organisation) say – by implication – that women are not capable
of making that transition, of attaining that moral improvement?
Such an exclusion is not Hermetic and is not in accord with the
modern world and any institution which retains that exclusion in
the next millennium will not continue to attract new members in
sufficient numbers and so the exclusion of women will assist its
inevitable decline.
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