From: SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Response from a Freemason
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 08:31:08 EDT
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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Many thanks to Peter Trei for his well-informed response on Freemasonry.
I am happy to stand corrected on Freemasonry and Catholicism; my infor-
mation here is clearly dated (it was acquired from my many masonic rela-
tives ca. 1956 in Berkeley and from the DeMolay chapter which I joined
at that time).  My reference to occult interests on the part of Albert
Pike and his organization was derived from an earlier posting on this net
about Pike's _Morals and Dogma_, which I have not read myself (but we do
have a copy here at Brown, in our Occult collection, so I will be able to
see for myself when time allows).

As to Stevenson's claim for a Scottish origin of speculative masonry ca.
1590, it rests on the copious surviving lodge records from 1598/9 onward,
on a close reading of the Second Schaw Statute of 1599 in the context of
Scottish intellectual culture of its time, when Hermetic and Occult in-
terests were strong, on the demonstrable Scottish origin or ancestry of
the body of texts known as the Masonic Catechisms, on slightly less con-
clusive evidence for the Scottish origin of the rituals for the first 3
masonic degrees, on documentation that English lodges first appear in the
North, near Scotland, and gradually spread southward, at a time when the
masonic lodge is already well established as an institution in Scotland,
on evidence that the first non-operative masons are found (and in rela-
tively large numbers) in Scottish lodges, and on a few lesser points.
Absolute proof is rare in history, as is well known; but arguments as
tight and as well documented as Stevenson's are generally regarded as
convincing -- subject, of course, to correction in the light of further
evidence which may turn up, as is always the case.  I repeat my strong
recommendation of Stevenson's books.

I basically agree with Peter on the lack of an old historical connection
between the Masons and the Templars, despite my guardedly favorable com-
ment on _The Temple and the Lodge_ (which *is* a cut above their earlier,
simply appalling works such as _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_.  I do think, however,
that they have some valid evidence for a Family Tradition about the Templars
within the Seton and Montgomery families, and also for a connection between
these families and whoever initiated von Hund in the 18th century.

There is one point in Peter's response which I would like strongly to
challenge, namely, his brief remarks on what he calls "minor splinter
groups ... not considered regular," which "exist mostly in Europe, but
even there are a small (if vocal) minority."  To me, as an outsider,
this makes as little sense as it would if a Catholic church historian
referred to the Eastern Orthodox churches as minor splinter churches, or
vice versa.  In the case of the churches, a better approach would
clearly be to regard them as two parallel developments of the same
ancestral organization, which went their separate ways after a schism
long ago.  From what I know about the history of speculative masonry --
I admit it is a lot less than what Peter knows -- it seems to me that we
are dealing with something like a schism here.  European Masonry, allied
with the Grand Orient rather than the Grand Lodge, had a simply massive
influence on the course of European history during the 18th and 19th
centuries, every bit as much as the Masonry of Great Britain had on the
history of the English speaking world.  Please correct me, Peter, if
there is evidence that I don't know which would work against such an
approach.

If, however, it is largely a question of what one means by Freemasonry,
then I'm very much disinclined to allow any one of the institutions that
use the term of themselves to claim that it is their proprietary term,
and that other organizations use it illegitimately.  It's the same with,
say, Christian or Wiccan: a scholar, working as a scholar, has no
business arguing that one Church or another is truly Christian, or one
coven or another truly Wiccan.

Robert Mathiesen, Brown University, SL500000@BROWNVM