From: SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Masons/Knights Templar
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 08:15:38 EDT
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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Here are the full references to David Stevenson's books on the origins
of Freemasonry -- a *must read* for anyone interested in hard evidence
rather than myth-making: (1) _The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's
Century, 1590-1710_ Cambridge University Press, 1988 and (2) _The
First Freemasons: Scotland's Early Lodges and their Members Aberdeen
University Press, 1988.  Both are now available as paperbacks 1990,
but the second is beyond the capabilities of many bookstores in the USA,
and may have to be gotten from some mail-order supplier in the UK.
According to Stevenson's research, organized speculative Fremasonry
begins in Scotland ca. 1590, through the efforts of one William Schaw,
Master of Works under James VI of Scotland (= James I of England, he who
wrote the _Demonologia_ and had a strong interest in persecuting
witches).  It absorbed from operative Masonry the lodge organization and
the Old Charges, but recast these in light of the Hermeticism of the
period (see Frances Yates on Giordano Bruno and on the Rosicrucian
enlightenment) and the magical/philosophical interest in the "Art of
Memory" (see Frances Yastes on that subject also).  It is therefore the
"elder sister," so to speak, of Rosicrucianism, which surfaces about 20
years later in the same occult intellectual environment, and also has
weak connections with Scotland and James I's relatives.  Wiccans may be
interested to note that one of the early Masons, Sir Robert Moray, used
a pentagram as his device.  Stevenson also shows beyond any reasonable
doubt that English Freemasonry is derived from Scottish Freemasonry, and
is not a direct outgrowth of English operative masonry (from which,
however, Scottish Freemasonry borrowed the Old Charges -- not a
Speculative document).  --  As to the Templar connection, it seems not to
be much older than the late 18th century (Baron von Hund and the Strict
Observance) on the surface of things.  There is, however, a
semi-scholarly book book on the question by Michael Baignet and Richard
Leigh, _The Temple and the Lodge_ 1989, which argues rather well for a
thin thread of Templar continuity in Scotland, as a kind of Family
Tradition within the Seton and the Montgomery families; and some of
these same Setons and Montgomeries played a role in the early days of
Scottish Freemasonry.  Baignet and Leigh do a rather nice job of
connecting this Family Tradition with the circumstances of von Hund's
initiation into the "Strict Observance."  --  The modern Masonic Order
of DeMolay is a 20th century creation, the work of an American Mason
Frank S. Land, most probably under the influence of ideas from the
Templar Degree of Freemasonry descended from von Hund.  --  As to the
religious affiliations of Freemasons today: in the USA Freemasonry
excludes Atheists (on the grounds that a Freemason must believe in some
Deity/ies) and Roman Catholics (who on their part are forbidden by their
Church to become Freemasons, and hence in Masonic eyes could only apply
for membership in Masonry from a position of disloyalty).  In practice,
most US Masonic lodges have Protestant and Jewish membership.  A group
of Southern lodges, however, at one time were more occult in character
(this is Albert Pike's organization), and may still be so.  In Europe,
Freemasons may be atheists as well, and probably Catholics if they are
willing to risk being discipined by that Church.


Robert Mathiesen
Brown University