|
A Basic Historico-Chronological Model of the
Western
Hermetic Tradition
The General Hermetic
Features of the Masonic Rituals
PART V
So what can be said of the general
philosophical features of the kind of Freemasonry being practised
in the English Lodges? The masonic rituals which have been left to
us from those years hint at a crucial, underlying concept: that
the universe is a piece of divinely regulated mechanism or
clockwork and Man forms only a small, though significant part of
that ‘machinery’. There are several clues about this
18th century Enlightenment weltanschauung.
Consider the following nine clues about the basic features of
speculative Freemasonry.
- The very nomenclature used invariably
throughout to refer to the Deity – ‘the Great Architect
of the Universe’ and ‘the Grand Geometician of the
Universe’ – puts forward a recurring image of the Deity, not as
the remote Descartian self-contained First Principle, but as an
Sublime Interventionist directing human affairs in accordance
with His own laws.
- There are proliferating images of a
celestial mechanism operating eternally according to
Divinely ordained principles throughout the perceived
cosmos.
- There are proliferating emphases on
measuring and quantification, coupled with what is
almost an obsession with numerical symmetry.
- There is a typically optimistic early
18th century assumption that by observing some simple
moral rules freemasons will create internal as well as
inter-personal harmony so as to mirror eventually the
harmony enjoyed by the remote celestial spheres.
- Morality is conceptualised as a process
for formalising patterns of human existence as
idealisations.
- There is the proliferation throughout of
three philosophical assumptions which David Hume, the most
important Scottish representative of the northern Enlightenment,
and other 18th century writers made popular: the
universality, homogeneity and perfectibility of human
nature.
- Morality is conceived, therefore, as a
kind of celestial mechanics – a state in which human
nature is conceptualised as a kind of passive material that can
be moulded correctly in a process, or chiselled in much the same
way as stones were once carved using templates provided on the
medieval building sites from designs conceived by the
superintending Master Masons.
- There is also the unquestioning
acceptance of that other early 18th century concepts
of universalised beneficence and that of ‘the Good Natured Man’
as a pursuable ideal.
- There is, moreover, a typically Augustan
utopianism of universal Brotherhood coupled with an equally
optimistic assumption that members of Lodges will be enabled to
actually live their espoused utopia via the associationalism of
their Lodges as on-going institutions.
When all of these and similar internal clues
are taken together, the resulting accumulated perspective is that
speculative Freemasonry was a creation of that crucial era in the
philosophical, scientific and theological life of the English
nation when it was dominated by all of those potent forces
simultaneously. Some of these trends and the image of ‘the
spiritualised Temple’ of King Solomon may well have featured as
part of the intellectual landscape before the latter half of the
17th century (e.g., John Bunyan’s Solomon’s Temple
Spiritualis’d and Samuel Lee’s Orbis Miraculum)
but it was only at that particular period that they co-existed
simultaneously. Speculative Freemasonry - as evidenced in the
available texts, all of which have been published and
well-documented - was very much the synthetic creation of a few
Enlightenment English gentlemen probably based in London who
borrowed extensively and imaginatively from a wide variety of
sources then available. What is more important for the present
purposes, however, is that some of these key features are clearly
Hermetic in nature. Viewed from a textual point of view, then,
speculative Freemasonry may well have a legitimate claim to a
secure part in the western Hermetic tradition as defined
above.
Since then there have been some notable
revisions and emendations of the basic Craft rituals from time to
time. For example, in the late 1980s the ‘Gothic’, physical
penalties associated with the Obligations taken by members in each
of the three Degrees were removed by the UGLE because they were
now considered to be too blood-thirsty and definitely not in
accord with the perceived mentality of the late 20th
century. Another notable occasion was when the Royal Arch ceremony
came up recently for some amendment – again due not to doctrinal
persuasion but because some Christian Churches had been
criticising the ritual especially with one of the words used
therein to refer to the Deity. By any standard these were major
changes. The alterations to the Obligations surely presented
splendid opportunities for a thorough, systematic and
philosophical examination of the possible place that speculative
Freemasonry ought to have in the late 20th century
because these changes focused on the need for secrecy and the
means of ensuring that it was maintained. The change made to the
name used to refer to the Deity struck at the very heart of the
religious content of the Royal Arch. This too ought to have been
taken as a chance to re-examine the underlying theology. On both
occasions, however, the debates were very stage-managed and not
many voices were heard. Indeed, not many Brethren bothered to
attend. Such apathy is hardly to be unexpected when, the important
Charge delivered to the initiate, he is encouraged to make his
‘daily advancement in masonic knowledge’ but only as a
last, general recommendation. The Charge goes into
elaborate detail about his religious, legal and social
responsibilities but does not mention until the very end the need
for him to try to come to any deeper understanding of
Freemasonry.
In spite of such changes the English rituals
have remained remarkably the same although the UGLE has studiously
avoided, after the initial work done by the short-lived and
specially commissioned Lodge of Promulgation (1809-1811) and the
similar Lodge of Reconcilation (1813-1816), any attempt to impose
standardisation on the rituals used by its subordinate Lodges. It
might be argued, of course, that this is not a deliberate policy
of doctrinal diffidence due to a philosophical vacuum. It could be
suggested that by being so vague and tentative, this will
encourage Brethren to make their own Hermetic explorations. To do
otherwise by being too prescriptive would stifle individual
initiative. Well, there is not much evidence that the diffidence
has actually facilitated the English freemasons to make their
‘daily advancement’. This was confirmed for me in recent years
when I was responsible for processing the applications from some
very distinguished and experienced English freemasons to join a
foreign masonic Order. They were asked, in accordance with the
constitution of that Order, to produce short essays without
plagiarising on the subject of ‘Spiritual Regeneration’. Most
simply did not have a clue how to start. This was obviously the
first time that they had been asked to set out their own thoughts
about such a topic and yet their decades of exposure to
Freemasonry ought to have prepared them adequately. Clearly it had
not!
back to top |
