Speakers at CMRC

Sir Francis Bacon, Religion & the Secrets of Freemasonry

Francis Bacon, who was a tenant in Canonbury Tower, stated at the end of his life, that religion, being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity… nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity. These conclusions have lost none of their force when considering the successes and failures of the different branches of Freemasonry and religion. The paper will endeavour to mark out some of the religious features that characterise early English Freemasonry, especially those attributed to ‘The Right Worshipful Lodge of the Holy St John’ (provided, inter alia, by the Dumfries Nº4 and Graham MSS). Special attention will be paid to “the knowledge of God contracted in the square”, to which all masons owe allegiance. Similarly, reasons will be adduced as to why so many of our signs and symbols are as they are, in the nature of a marriage between religion and the mason Craft. The talk will finish with some thoughts on the present circumstances of Freemasonry and religion, prompted by Bacon’s essay.

16 February 2005

The Architectural College of the Freemasons of the Church, 1842-1849

2009 Conference

Freemasonry and the Western Mystery Tradition

The origins of Freemasonry are only imperfectly known but appear to have a variety of roots: historical, legendary mythological, and esoteric. In this lecture Professor Algeo explores the esoteric influences on Freemasonry that were generated within the Western Mystery Tradition over the last century.

20 November 2002

A Hermetic Palace near Lisbon

2001 Conference

“Prentice at the Temple Door”

Alchemical Light from the 16th-century Splendor Solis

February 2003

The Secret Garden of the Soul

An Introduction to Kabbalah

The study of Kabbalah is no lightweight undertaking. It is, essentially, a central part of the Mysteries most suited to those souls whose love of the Spirit is greater than their love of the world; indeed, its inner sanctuaries are only accessible to those who are brave enough to give up the world. Much of Kabbalistic doctrine is concerned in one way or another with the nature, experience and destiny of the soul. But whatever the true nature of the soul may be, coming to know and understand it is central to the way of spiritual regeneration known as Kabbalah. Throughout history Kabbalistic exponents of the spiritual life have likened the soul to a garden, a secret garden hidden deep within our being, and their disciplines and teachings have ever been directed towards enabling others to enter that secret garden and to engage with the inner reality of their own being.

15 October 2008

In Search Of A Global Understanding Of Religious Experience

For more than forty years the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre has gathered data on religious experience in Britain. It has collected 6000 contemporary accounts of religious experience. Statistical surveys also show that despite secularisation between a third and a half of us have experienced a “power or presence different from everyday life” But is this Universal or is it the product of life in a Christian or post-Christian culture? To test this we launched our global study. We began with China because this has the most different tradition. Chinese philosophy has been sceptical of spiritual realities for millennia. Whether Confucianism is a religion is hotly debated and Christian missionaries were so puzzled about how to speak of God in Chinese that Protestants and Catholics opted for different words! On top of these historic puzzlements China has been officially atheist since 1949 and during the “cultural revolution” of the 1960s an attempt was made to eliminate religion. Led by Professor Xinzhong Yao, who had formerly taught philosophy at the People’s University in Beijing, and with a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation, we launched a four year study. 110 interviewers collected 3236 lengthy questionnaires covering a wide range of experience and belief. The results exceeded all our expectations and in my talk I will describe what we found. The success of the China project has led scholars in Taiwan, Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and the USA to adapt our Chinese questionnaire for their countries. Fifteen of them reported on their findings at a conference of the British Association for the Study of Religion last September. It seems that religious experience is indeed a universal phenomenon even though its expression is shaped by national cultures and traditions.

21 May 2008

Hermetic thought, Rosicrucian enlightenment and Freemasonry

May 1999

The Sarastro Brothers

Opera & Freemasonry in the 1800s

2003 Conference

The Significance of Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead at the Dawn of the New Millennium

November 2000

Craft and Royal Arch Legends

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16 February 2000

The Philosopher’s Stone

The search of Elias Ashmole

Elias Ashmole is well known as a 17th-century Freemason, an officer of the College of Arms, a diarist and antiquary of note and the founder of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. His activities in the realm of alchemy are less well known and this lecture seeks to redress the balance. It covers his ‘adoption’ by William Backhouse, himself a practitioner of the arts and the legacy of documents now in the Bodleian Library relating to the subject, Ashmole’s own interest in Alchemy and the possible influences of such studies on his lifelong interest in Freemasonry.

April 2002

The Harodim Contribution to the Completion of the Craft

2002 Conference

Mormonism & Freemasonry

A Study in Secrecy

2004 Conference

Two Distinctive 18th-century Yorkshire Forms of Initiation

The Grand Lodge of All England & the St Lawrence Ceremony

2005 Conference

York Mysteries Revealed

In many of the earliest Masonic manuscripts we read of the great influence of York, and a mysterious Prince Edwin, on the history of Freemasonry. Most historians have assumed this a myth. But could these early stories regarding the importance of York be true? Or at least based on true events, confused as they may have become when handed down over centuries? The story told in these pages has never before been fully represented and will change the way we view the origins of Freemasonry in the British Isles forever. Join the Revd Neville Barker Cryer on a historical detective trail through the history of York Masonry, from the 9th to the 19th century. Discover the true origins of the American York Rite and the hidden mysteries of the City of York, read about earlier recorded Speculative Masonic Initiations, and one of the earliest Royal Arch Chapters in the world. What are the real facts behind the Grand Lodge of All England at York and why the Antients called themselves Old York Masons.

6 December 2006

Freemasonry and Freedom of Conscience in the European Enlightenment

June 2000

Human Rights and the Masonic Legacy

2000 Conference

‘The Master of Masters’

The Genius of Goethe & the Manifestation of Freemasonry in his Work

2003 Conference

Freemasonry, Isaac Newton & the Crisis of European Conscience: A French View

2008 Conference

Paris: The City of the Sun

November 2003

“Passed on from the Depths of Ages”

Eighteenth-Century Russian visions of the origins of Freemasonry

2009 Conference

Two Artists of the Parisian Lodge ‘Voltaire’

Juan Gris & Jacques Lipschitz

2001 Conference

Beyond the Craft

Alvin Langdon Coburn, Artist & Photographer, 1882-1966

2001 Conference

Brief History of Quatuor Coronati Lodge

Premier lodge of masonic research UGLE

1999 Conference

Beyond the masonic veil

November 1999

Masonic Collectables & Memorabilia

March 2003

The Swedish Rite

Humanist and Christian

2002 Conference

Aleister Crowley

The Man Behind The Myth

Sixty years after his death, opinions about Aleister Crowley remain polarised – as can be seen from the two million internet references to him – but he was one of the most significant occultists of the twentieth century, and an objective re-appraisal of him, sorting fact from fable, is long overdue. While Crowley’s accomplishments were many, his vices were legendary and he certainly deserved more than a few of the criticisms levelled at him – but others were unfairly laid, and it would be unduly harsh and unjust to condemn him still for these. In this talk Geraldine Beskin, making full use of the letters, diaries and the major biographies of ‘The Great Beast’, aims to unravel the myths and to present the truth.

18 Jun 2008

Consciousness – Scientific & Esoteric Perspectives

2008 Conference

Anderson’s Constitutions 1723

How have they measured up?

May 2000

The Masonic Archbishop of Canterbury — Geoffrey Fisher

2004 Conference

Kabbalistic Influence on the Early Development of the Master Mason Degree of Freemasonry

2004 Conference

Secret Societies and Western Esotericism

2005 Conference

English Freemasonry in Europe

November 1999

The Development of Modern Martinism

Modern Martinism emerged in late 19th century France, and was created, by the French occultist Papus [Gèrard Encausse]. In its essence Martinism reflects the philosophy and esoteric Christian mysticism of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, the disciple of the 18th century freemason and theurgist, Martines de Pasqually. Saint-Martin’s philosophy owed much to Pasqually’s system, which was preserved for posterity by his successor J.B. Willermoz. His blending of Saint-Martin’s thought with High Grade Freemasonry, and with Pasqually’s magico-mystical approach, ensured the survival of Martinist theory and practice into the next century. The genius of Papus lay in his ability to create a new and radically different ceremonial system of three degrees, which laid the foundations of a worldwide movement of speculative Christian esotericism presented in ritual form. Michael Buckley explains the philosophical and ritual structure of modern Martinism, outlines its history, and sets the various Martinist Orders in the context of the French Neo-Gnostic and Cathar Churches.

20 June 2007

Good, Evil & The Soul’s Ascent To The Stars

The belief that the human soul – or psyche – has a direct relationship with the stars was first attested in ancient Egypt; we read in the Pyramid Texts of the Pharaoh’s journey to the stars. The idea was developed by Plato, who believed the rational soul possessed an inherent ability to return to the heavens. This journey could be accomplished through physical space by passing through the nest of spheres along which the planets moved, and which surrounded the earth like the layers of an onion. As the soul rose through the planets, it approached perfection and eventually united with the divine. Such concepts formed the basis of the Hermetic teachings, in which the soul gradually shed its imperfections as it ascended the stars, was the cosmological foundation of the Mithraic mysteries, and stood at the heart of Neoplatonic beliefs that the soul has an innate desire to return to the Good. However, in the hands of the Gnostics, the theory took on a different form. Believing that the material world was essentially evil, the Gnostics recast the planets as representatives of humanity’s oppression, rather than agents of its liberation. They became less a route-map for the soul’s return to the Good, than an agent of Evil in the maintenance of humanity’s alienation from the divine. According to this teaching, salvation was available only through Christ. It may be argued, therefore, that Gnostic teachings are partly responsible for Christianity’s rejection of astrology. The confusion between these two opposing concepts, that the material universe is either inherently Good, or essentially Evil, may therefore be responsible for the tangled web of western esoteric thought, and the widespread, misplaced concept that esotericism is incompatible with Christianity.

19 Mar 2008

The Old Gods and the Craft Traditions in Medieval Ireland

It has often been remarked that a continuing interest on their pre-Christian heritage was a distinctive characteristic of the Monastic scholars of medieval Ireland. It is perhaps not so generally recognised that the links between the old gods and a wide range of skilled professions, including poetry, music, law, medicine, metalworking, carpentry and others, provided a context in which many Irish artisans would have felt themselves to be closely associated with one or another of these pagan divinities, even if they considered themselves to be Christians in other respects. During the lecture John will consider some of these connections, and also certain aspects of the underlying Irish conception of the nature of skill and inspiration.

20 April 2005

Opera as Initiation

The Work of Sir Michael Tippett

2005 Conference

Seeking Enlightenment

Initiation & Ritual of “Oriental” Candidates

2005 Conference

Champions of the Old Charges

2009 Conference

Elias Ashmole, the first Initiate

May 1999

Heretical or Revolutionary?

Anderson’s Constitutions 1723-1738

2004 Conference

The First Rosicrucians

2005 Conference

The Rosicrucian Manifestos (film)

2005 Conference

A Mighty Good Man

Elias Ashmole & The Initiation

Tobias Churton’s rivetting drama-documentary brings the latest researches into the genuine mystery of Masonic origins into exciting and accessible form. Shot on location in the hidden places of the Staffordshire Moorlands, the film features the first ever dramatic reconstruction of 17th-century Masonic workings. Elias Ashmole’s initiation is shown in its entirety, including in the hand-grip, mason’s word, signs and oaths taken from the earliest known ritual records of Free Masonry. Captain Elias Ashmole made the first known personal record of Free Masonic initiation into a lodge anywhere in the world. He founded and gave his name to the first purpose-built public museum in the world — the Ashmolean Museum, in Oxford. Tobias traces Ashmole’s rise from saddler’s son in Eichfield to one of England’s greatest luminaries. This film is both authoritative and imaginative, revealing England at its deepest and most fascinatingly esoteric.

16 November 2005

Freemasonry - A Gnostic Tradition?

The dominant tendency of Craft scholarship in the late 19th and 20th centuries has been to treat with suspicion the idea that Freemasonry’s ritual and self-definition possesses either ancient lineage or notable spiritual import, yet in 1721 Dr William Stukeley FRS, joined a lodge in London in 1721 in the expectation of finding a remnant of the ancient mysteries, an antediluvian knowledge tradition preserved in the ‘Art Mystery’ of Masonry. And while the United Grand Lodge of England emphasises that Freemasonry is not a religion, and that it offers neither salvation nor a particular revealed truth, hostile outsiders argue that Masonry conceals some kind of cult, more fully explored in additional degree systems. It is thus important that the complex question of whether or not Freemasonry is in some sense a ‘gnostic tradition’ is addressed openly and fully, especially as scholars now regard Freemasonry as a vital component of an emerging picture of ‘Gnosis and Western Esotericism’ that has itself become a distinct academic study.

2006 Conference

Broken Masonry

Healing Europe with a dirty joke (Johan Valentin Andrea)

2007 Conference

The Spiritual Alchemy of the Golden Dawn

In his lecture Chic Cicero explored the basic tenets of spiritual alchemy, with particular emphasis on the alchemical metaphors and symbolism, and how this symbolism is used to represent the psychological process of self-realization in the rituals of the Golden Dawn. Carl Jung famously equated the science of alchemy with that of modern psychology, but Israel Regardie went one step further in asserting that ritual initiatory magic, particularly the theurgic (“god-working”) magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, was itself a sub-division of psychology. Regardie argued that the goal of both high ceremonial magic and psychotherapy is the well-being and growth of the individual, on every level: physical, mental, and psycho-spiritual. He felt, however, that secular psychology had neglected the spiritual well-being of the individual, and that this missing element — the spiritual essence of humanity and the divine nature of life — could be found in the theurgic magic of the Golden Dawn.

19 April 2006

The Rosicrucian Vault

A Compendium of the Universal Unity

In 1614, a mysterious document entitled the Fama Fraternitatis was published in the German town of Kassel and ignited a firestorm of interest all over Europe. This document told the story of a secret brotherhood of adepts, the Rosicrucians and their enigmatic founder ‘C.R.C.’, or Christian Rosencreutz. The climax of the story is the rediscovery of C.R.C.’s tomb, buried in a concealed, underground vault of seven sides. Engraved over the tomb were the words (in Latin): “Unto the Glory of the Rose Cross I have constructed this Tomb for myself as a Compendium of the Universal Unity.” This lecture will explore the symbolic structure and spiritual implication of the Rosicrucian Vault, as described in the Fama and as extrapolated in the later teachings of the R.R. et A.C., the Inner Order that lies at the heart of the Golden Dawn. The implications of this Vault are many: it is an emblematic tomb, symbolising both death and spiritual resurrection, as well as an initiation chamber and place of meditation. However, its essential significance is that of the ‘mystical centre’ or ‘inner temple’ of man. This is an internal, God-centred reality, which is inherent in the symbolism of C.R.C.’s ‘Compendium of the Universal Unity.’

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15 November 2006

Burlesquing The Brotherhood:

Elizabethan Drama Follows the Rubrics of a Masonic Initiation

2005 Conference

Smoothing the Russian Ashlar

Masonic influence at the Court of Peter the Great, 1689-1725

2009 Conference

Scottish Operative Freemasonry

May 2000

The Knights Templar in Scotland

Myth & Reality

May 2003

Freemasonry in the Work of Sir Walter Scott

2003 Conference

The Society of Gardeners Initiation Rites 1610

2005 Conference

A Brief Insight into Christian and Islamic Mystical Experience

Gnosticism deals with the belief that by spiritually revealed means one can attain to esoteric, spiritual, occult or mystical knowledge. This paper deals with the latter, the aim and path pursued within Christianity and Islam toward a relationship by a finite subject with the infinite subject. The classic distinguishing characteristics of mysticism, following William James, are first examined. The traditionally accepted path of the Christian mystic, which passes through the three stages known as the Purgative Life, the Illuminative Life and the Unitive life, are examined and commented upon. The Sufi seeks by knowledge to attain illumination through certainty. The illumination is a realisation of knowledge beyond the Divine Law and also union with the Inner Truth by meditation and by calling upon the Divine Name. No two Sufi paths are the same. The Sheikh or Master chose the exact course and timing of the individual path of each disciple. His task was to unveil to his disciples the inner meaning of orthodox Islam, which was necessary to follow the path of love to initiation. Two possible approaches to the Sufi’s quest are detailed. The mystical paths evidenced in both Christianity and Islam can be seen as inward paths of self knowledge endeavouring to eliminate the effects and experiences of this temporal world in an attempt to taste eternity in the here and now. The mystic is unable to either properly explain or prove himself. He does not mind because he is a knower. He has been there. Is this the true Gnostic?

2006 Conference

Death, Freemasonry, the Enlightenment, and the origins of the Garden Cemetery Movement

This paper outlines the detachment of the dead from the living, the separation of the burial-ground from the Church, and the evolution of the garden-cemetery as a means of civilising Death and promoting a new ethos of tenderness towards the dead. It will demonstrate the significance of Freemasonry in this respect, and will pull together Freemasonic, literary, architectural and other themes. Illustrated with numerous slides, the paper will cover a vast conspectus of ideas, allusions and disciplines.

1999 Conference

Egyptomania

The Egyptian Revival — A recurring theme

Professor Curl’s illustrated lecture was based on his book Egyptomania: The Egyptian Revival — A Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, and analyses the influence of Ancient Egypt on art, architecture, design, and religion. Christianity owes much to the Nile, and by a process of syncretism absorbed much of the Ancient Egyptian religion, including the universal Goddess Isis. Professor Curl will demonstrate the survival of Egyptianising motifs in Western European Culture with a range of images dating from the time of the Roman Empire to the twentieth century. It could thus be argued that Egyptian culture has been central, rather than peripheral, to the development of European culture.

June 2002

Martinism and Freemasonry in France since Papus’ Time

At the end of the 19th century, French Freemasonry was deeply involved in political affairs. After the ’48 Revolution, during which the government was mainly composed of freemasons, and the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, ending with the fall of the French Second Empire, the 3rd Republic was finally established. In those times, for many years, French masonry had been the only private society tolerated by the state. It had become the refuge of republicans and radicals in a time when political parties, in the modern sense of theses words, did not exist. Dr Gerard Encausse (1865-1916) — better know under the nomen mysticum of Papus — reviver of ‘occult studies’ after Eliphas Levi (1810-1875) and member of the Theosophical Society, tried but was unable to join a lodge under the Grand Orient or even the Grand Lodge of France. Eventually he decided to create or, according to him, to awaken — a new initiatory society. With his friend Stanislas de Guaita ( 1867-1897), he placed the Order under the spiritual authority of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803), better known as the ‘Unknown Philosopher’. The Martinist Order was designed as a king of ‘counter-masonry’, or more precisely like a ‘super-masonry’, with new symbols and new rites. Since Papus’ time, many other Orders made their appearance in France but also in Belgium, in Switzerland and even in England and overseas, such as the Traditional Martinist Order (TMO) or Martinist Order and Synarchy (MOS). In France, where martinism is still very active, several members of the Order are also freemasons, but the two Orders remain entirely different without any official relations.

2006 Conference

Mesmerism & Freemasonry

Magnetic Madness in Lyons 1784-1785

2008 Conference

The Voice of 18th-Century Freemasonry

Music & Lyrics of the Early Song Collections 1720-1810

2003 Conference

The Essene Revolution

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13 December 2000

Gnosticism and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Among scholars of ancient Judaism and Christianity, it has been the majority view in the last half-century that gnosticism arose as a Christian heresy and only in the second century AD. The existence of Jewish gnosticism has generally been either denied or overlooked — by both Christian and Jewish scholars. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide quite clear evidence that gnostic ideas — possibly a gnostic religious system, even — were developed before the Christian era. These ideas do not appear in all the scrolls, but there is no doubt that they were accompanied and interpreted by certain religious rituals that can be called ‘mystical’. It has been argued by Philip Alexander, the historian of early Judaism, that in the Dead Sea Scrolls we find the origin not only of the entire Jewish mystical tradition but also, possibly, of the Judeo-Christian mystical tradition. This lecture will explain and examine the texts from the Scrolls that permit such a conclusion, and will try to sketch out the ‘gnostic’ system that can be reconstructed from them, including the role of eschatology and astrology. Although these findings are not pursued into later Jewish or Christian gnosticism, the intellectual and religious roots from which the gnosticism of the Scrolls may have grown are considered, and it is demonstrated that no study of the Gnostic tradition should ignore the Scrolls as evidence of the earliest stage of this tradition within the Jewish-Christian tradition.

2006 Conference

Enoch and the Book of Genesis

The book of Genesis mentions the figure of Enoch, though in a tantalizing fashion. It also has some rather curious allusions to myths that are central to the worldview that the books of Enoch present. Conventional wisdom is that the Enoch myths are elaborations of the biblical text. On the contrary, it is much more likely that what we have in the books of Enoch are fuller versions of an original myth that the book of Genesis has drastically revised — and that at the same time the figure of Enoch has been reduced in importance. Behind this phenomenon may lie a clue to the origins of the communities responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

21 February 2007

Francis Bacon and the Beginnings of Modern Freemasonry

March 2000

Francis Bacon & The Society of the Rose

Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban (1561-1626) was the President of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross and first Grand Master of modern English Freemasonry. Peter Dawkins will present some of the evidence for this and explain some of the underlying reasons for Bacon’s association with both the Rosicrucians and Freemasonry, and why this was deliberately veiled. The talk was given at Canonbury Tower, in one of the rooms that Bacon used for his Rosicrucian and Freemasonic meetings, where the ‘Invisible College’ once had its headquarters.

June 2001

The Shakespeare Enigma

Freemasonic and Rosicrucian Codes

Peter examines the enigma concerning the authorship of the Shakespeare plays. This extends not only to the question of who the poet (or poets) might really have been, but also into why the Shakespeare First Folio of plays is designed Masonically and Cabalistically, and contains Rosicrucian signature codes. This lecture will lake a look at these Freemasonic/Rosicrucian matters, which may also be found in the associated 17th- and 18th-century monuments to Shakespeare. The talk will take place at Canonbury Tower, in one of the original rooms that Bacon used for his Rosicrucian and Freemasonic meetings, where the ‘Invisible College’ once had its headquarters.

17 November 2004

Freemasonry and the French Resistance, 1939-1945

2000 Conference

Freemasonry and the French Resistance 1939-1945

This talk examines the involvement of the French Freemasonry movement in the Resistance during the Occupation of France 1939-45, the persecution of Freemasons by the Germans and the Vichy Government, and the effect the ‘Nouvelle Revolution’ had on the lives of individual Masons. The effects of this persecution and the consequences for individuals are elaborated and the contribution of several lodges to the Resistance movement is examined in detail. The sacrifice of many Freemasons for their ideals is emphasised.

21 March 2001

The Secret Orders

Working Men’s Associations

2002 Conference

A Trade Fraternity

The Society of Free-Masons

2009 Conference

On Contemplating the Heavens

Hermetic and Cultural Cosmology

March 2004

The Temples at Jerusalem and their Masonic Connections

May 2004

The Masonic Magician

The Life & Death of Count Cagliostro & his Egyptian Rite

Count Alessandro Cagliostro was a charismatic cult figure in European society during the years before the French Revolution. An alchemist, healer and Freemason, he inspired both wild devotion and savage ridicule – reflected in novels by Alexander Dumas, in Goethe’s play The Great Cophta and in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Cagliostro’s dramatic and controversial Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, and his deeply held belief in magical powers, including the attainment of immortality, won him both fame and enemies. His celebrated travels through the Middle East and the capitals of Europe ended abruptly in Rome in 1789, where he was arrested by the Inquisition and condemned to death for heresy. This lecture is based on the book The Masonic Magician, which does far more than simply tell Cagliostro’s extraordinary story. Drawing on remarkable new documentary evidence, the authors expose the terrible injustice of the Inquisition’s flawed case against Cagliostro and demonstrate that the teachings of this genuine visionary and true champion of Freemasonry have much to reveal to us today. They include also in the book the first full English translation of the Egyptian Rite to be published.

19 November 2008

Count Allesandro Cagliostro

Healer, Alchemist & Freemason in the Age of Enlightenment

2008 Conference

Craft Freemasonry as a School of the Soul

May 2000

Anti-Masonic Art in Francoist Spain

2001 Conference

The religious origins of Freemasonry

2009 Conference

The Influence of the Corpus Hermeticum on Early Modern Occult Philosophy

The Renaissance rediscovery of antiquity not only looked back to the treasures of classical Greece and Rome, but also evinced a fascination for the mysteries of the ancient Hebrews, Chaldaeans and Egyptians. At the same tune as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) was enthusiastically introducing the Christian West to the wonders of Cabala, his slightly older contemporary Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) broke off from preparing a Latin translation of the complete works of Plato to work on a manuscript recently obtained by his patron Cosimo de’ Medici. This was a collection of fourteen texts attributed to the wiseman Hermes Trismegistus, a collection that came to be known as the Corpus Hermeticum and which was to exert a great deal of influence on subsequent occult philosophers, including Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), author of the famous Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), the revolutionary alchemical thinker, Theophrastus Paracelsus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), and the theosophical alchemist, cabalist and magus, Heinrich Khunrath of Leipzig (1560-1605), best-known for his Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom (1609). This latter work includes an engraving of a rock on which is carved the ur-text of alchemists, the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, together with the famous extract describing his dream revelation of “the nature of God and everything” from the hermetic Pimander. Hence we have encapsulated in one image hermetic inspiration for both the purification and perfection of matter in alchemy and a theosophical-theurgic ascent to the divine, both knowledges received ‘enthusiastice’ or ‘theodidaktike’ as the ‘donum dei’ (Gift of God) through both mediate and immediate revelation from the divine. This paper shall introduce several examples of the influence of such ‘hermetic’ philosophy on these thinkers, shall consider one or two instances of the criticism they received for their efforts from the orthodox Lutherans Thomas Erastus (1524-1583), Andreas Libavius (1560-1616) and Daniel Colberg (1659-1698) and show that although the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum are not, strictly speaking, Gnostic works, the ideas they contained led the occult philosophers to be accused of subscribing to heretical gnostic ideas. Cicero: No man becomes great without divine inspiration.

2006 Conference

Campanella’s City of the Sun

2007 Conference

The Tree of Life & The Holy Grail

An Introduction to Rudolph Steiner’s Etheric Science

The legend of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life is a realistic picture of the ‘etheric scientific’ background to early stages in evolution as described in the Book of Genesis. The significance of the Tree of Life was also described by Steiner in relation to the Holy Grail in his extensive lectures on Freemasonry, and this talk will build upon this. We shall take a first step into the application of Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Etheric Science’ to resolving some of the questions which have up to now belonged exclusively to either religion or science, and some of the traditions of the Rosicrucians and of Freemasonry will also be considered in this context.

21 June 2006

Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis

The Matter of Desire & Political Utopia

2007 Conference

Women and Freemasonry

April 1999

Freemasonry and Esoteric Movements

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1 March 2000

The Word Adorned

The Image of Freemasonry in Book Design

2001 Conference

The Golden Dawn

A revisionist view

For more than a hundred years the true nature of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has been hidden behind veils of fantasy and deceit. This illustrated lecture charts the history of the Golden Dawn from its creation to its present day revival, and puts the work of its creators and members in their proper context. It looked at why the Golden Dawn captured the public’s imagination in such an unprecedented and dramatic way, and offered a reassessment of the Order’s significance within the Western Mystery Tradition.

February 2002

The Voice Conventional

Druidic Myths & Freemasonry

2002 Conference

Piracy and Profitable Trade

Transformation Of Masonic Rites Into Esoteric Orders

2002 Conference

The Crucified Rose

The Rosicrucian Diaspora in Europe and America

April 2004

Paranoia & Patience

Freemasonry & the Roman Catholic Church

2004 Conference

Follies of the Wise

Two Centuries of the Western Vision of Gnosticism

To most early Christians, ‘gnostic’ was a term of opprobrium applied to a wide range of perceived heresies, but the more specific term, ‘Gnosticism’ was not introduced until the mid-17th century, and it was rarely used in scholarly discourse for a further 150 years. Since the early 19th century, however, it has come into its own. With ever-changing subtleties of meaning, ‘Gnosticism’, as a label, has been used in both the defence and definition of orthodoxy, and in assaults upon traditional Christianity by occultists, freethinkers, psychologists, literary critics and feminists. Only within the last two decades has there been any serious attempt to provide a precise and meaningful definition of the word, but there is as yet no agreement as to whether such a definition has been, or can be established. R.A. Gilbert surveys the history of the word and its varied applications from the perspective of an historian of ideas rather than from the stance of a specific faith or school of academic opinion.

2006 Conference

Follies of the Wise

Two Centuries of the Western Vision of Gnosticism

To most early Christians, ‘gnostic’ was a term of opprobrium applied to a wide range of perceived heresies, but the more specific term, ‘Gnosticism’ was not introduced until the mid-17th century, and it was rarely used in scholarly discourse for a further 150 years. Since the early 19th century, however, it has come into its own. With ever-changing subtleties of meaning, ‘Gnosticism’, as a label, has been used in both the defence and definition of orthodoxy, and in assaults upon traditional Christianity by occultists, freethinkers, psychologists, literary critics and feminists. Only within the last two decades has there been any serious attempt to provide a precise and meaningful definition of the word, but there is as yet no agreement as to whether such a definition has been, or can be established. R.A. Gilbert surveys the history of the word and its varied applications from the perspective of an historian of ideas rather than from the stance of a specific faith or school of academic opinion.

2006 Conference

Heaven in the New World

Rosicrucian Art & the Shaker ‘Gift’ Drawings

2007 Conference

Celestial Hierarchy

The Angels of Light in Ceremonial

David will begin the evening with a short seasonal meditation. He will talk about the Angels of Light in Ceremonial and will share with us teachings, experience and insights, about working with the Celestial Hosts and why there is an upsurge on interest in them. David will speak about the traditional perceptions of Angels and expound on who and what they are, highlighting the Angels and the higher degrees of Freemasonry, including The Angels of the Rose-Croix degree. He will also speak about the work of the Celestial Hosts at Christmas and Ceremonial, as an authentic way of unfoldment.

7 December 2005

Martinism and the Martinist Tradition

2002 Conference

Blavatsky’s Western Sources of the Ancient Wisdom

Today’s ideas of reincarnation, karma, and Tibetan wisdom owe much to the Russian-born noblewoman and esotericist, Mme Helena Blavatsky (1831- 1891), the co-founder of the Theosophical Society. As a young woman she travelled widely in Asia and the Middle East in search of ancient wisdom and mysterious cults. She was a gifted psychic, who flirted with spiritualism before launching the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. The Theosophy from which the society took its name is an esoteric philosophy based on the revelations of secret Mahatmas in Tibet, who offered divine guidance to humanity. The rapid expansion of the Theosophical Society in Europe and America spurred the modern occult revival, and Mme Blavatsky became a legend in her own time. Blavatsky’s Theosophy combined elements of many aspects of the Western esoteric tradition — Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Freemasonry, and Hellenistic religious thought — with exotic scriptures from Buddhist, Hindu and other oriental sources. The central concepts of her form of Theosophy, notably the idea of an ancient and universal wisdom-tradition, were fully expressed in her two major works, Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), and by 1900 her influence had led to the esoteric tradition entering public consciousness and European culture on a scale not seen since the sixteenth century.

15 February 2006

Masonic Parallels & Symbolism in the Ancient Egyptian Mystery Tradition

June 2004

Towards a Modern Metaphysics

2008 Conference

Christianity & Freemasonry

Connections in Geometry and Arithmetic

This paper presents some features of arithmetic and geometry pertaining to orthodox Christianity, apocryphal Christianity and Freemasonry — with precursors. In addition to differences arising from rival doctrines, the general issue of mathematics influencing faiths is raised.

1999 Conference

Kabbalah workshop

December 1999

The Teaching behind the Story of Solomon’s Temple

March 2000

Spiritual Development through Kabbalistic Astrology

Kabbalah and Astrology are two ancient disciplines that, when combined, give profound insights into the soul, fate and destiny. The basis of this view is that the Microcosm of a human being resonates with the Macrocosm, which is an important element in the Divine Plan of Evolution. Topics to be examined include the origin of humanity, the influences of the cosmos on mankind both at the individual and collective level. The birth chart is looked at from a psychological and spiritual perspective as is personal fate and transpersonal destiny. The character and karma of nations, providence, and freewill are also considered. The principles of the topic will be outlined with birth charts as examples to illustrate the hidden processes of history.

8 December 2004

Freemasonry and Party-Building in Late 19th-Century France

2000 Conference

Thoughts on the Origins of Freemasonry

Although the search for the origins of Freemasonry has been a major topic for Masonic researchers and others for more than 100 years the answer is still elusive. John Hamill’s talk discusses the major theories and questions whether the searching has been misdirected, on the one hand by Masonic political correctness and on the other by the fantasies of the conspiracy theorists.

21 February 2001

Freemasonry & Religion

The English View

2004 Conference

Seeking For That Which Was Never There

The historiography of the origins of Freemasonry

2009 Conference

Another Look at Swedenborg and Freemasonry

2002 Conference

Utopias of the Mind

Reality & Imagination

2007 Conference

From Immortality of the Soul to Symbolism of the Cross

Ritual Reform in the Dutch Order of Freemasons, 1865-1906

2005 Conference

The Genesis of Freemasonry

A historiographical view

2009 Conference

International Co-Freemasonry

full text

September 1999

Masonic scholarship within the order of Le Droit-Humain

1999 Conference

The Tenet of Masonic Truth in the New Millennium

2000 Conference

The Green Man

The foliate figure of folklore

The Green Man appears in early mythology, and in living folk customs, particularly the regeneration of early Spring. The Green Man appears in folklore as the Wild Man or Woodwose, in tales such as those of Robin Hood and the story of the Green Knight, but most of all in the carvings found in mediaeval churches all over Europe. He is there in his thousands, found in every part of the church, and beside all the events of the Christian story. It has been suggested that this image was important to woodcarvers and stonemasons. There are many carvings of the Green Man in the Rosslyn Chapel, a building of special significance to Freemasons.

May 2002

Noland or Neverland? Thomas More’s Utopia

Travel & the Ideal Society

2007 Conference

The History and Nature of Modern Paganism

Professor Hutton’s talk draws on his research for all his books, and on his current work on the history of ancient and modern Druids. The talk commences by noting the remarkable growth of forms of pagan religion in the modern Western world, and in particular, of Wicca and Druidry, and tackles the questions of why this has occurred and where its historical roots lie. It discovers them in a number of traditions that connect the ancient world with the present, of which Freemasonry is one of the most important. These traditions were, however, combined and distilled into a distinctively modern form during the past two centuries to produce the pagans of today. The latter are commonly said to represent the fastest-growing network of religions in contemporary Britain. Perhaps more important to the historian is that one of them, Wicca, can fairly be claimed to be the only complete religion that England has ever given the world.

15 June 2005

Alphonse Mucha, Painter & Freemason, 1860-1939

2001 Conference

Why do the origins of Freemasonry matter?

New approaches to the European Enlightenment

2009 Conference

De-constructing the Rosicrucian Myth

2009 Conference

Ritual Actions & Meaning Among Freemasons

A sociological approach

2005 Conference

Dion Fortune & the Masonic Tradition

Dion Fortune (1890-1946) needs no introduction to the student of the Western Esoteric Tradition as a former initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and founder of a major initiatory school, The Society of the Inner Light, which still exists as a thriving organisation to this day. One of her initial teachers, Dr Theodore Moriarty, who made an enormous impression upon her, was an active Freemason who ran his own co-masonic lodge of which she was a founder member. This profoundly influenced the organisation of her own school when she came to set it up, a fact not readily apparent in her writings but which was reserved to the more private side of her system of practical teaching. In his talk Gareth Knight reveals something of these origins and their development in her hands.

18 October 2006

Masonic Lacquer Ware

18th- & 19th-Century Exports from Deshima, Japan

2001 Conference

Spiritual Compass

The Three Qualities Of Life

In our modern, materialistic world it is easy to separate spirituality from everyday life. But spirituality is not just for saints, neither is it confined to religious services or holy books. It must be a part of our ordinary, everyday existence: it needs to be implicitly present in business, politics, farming, cooking and in our relationships. To illustrate this, Satish Kumar draws on the Indian Ayurvedic tradition which characterises the mind as having three gunas, or primary qualities: sattva (characterized by calmness, clarity and purity), rajas (energy and passion), and tamas (dullness and ignorance). These qualities can be applied to our work and the environment: for example, there are sattvic foods, rajasic foods and tamasic foods. The Ayurvedic aim is to live a life that is simple and close to nature (sattvic), to reduce rajasic tendencies, and to avoid tamasic. When we see ourselves in the light of the three gunas, they can orient us towards the direction in which we wish to go. They can help us to recover the art of living, and lead us towards a peaceful and contented existence. Satish explains that there is no dualism between spirit and matter — all matter is imbued with spirit, and spirit manifests through matter. This integrated worldview forms the core of his new book.

20 Feb 2008

Georg Kloss

Eclecticism Versus Elitism

2002 Conference

Visions of Order, Freemasonry & Geometry

Throughout the 18th Century, at the beginning of which Grand Lodge of England was founded, geometry was the science of great interest to those active in and propagating the ideas of Enlightenment. It was widely seen as the science the knowledge of which should make it possible to recognise the principles upon which both nature and society were built. As such, geometry was an embodiment of the true and good principles, a blueprint for the replication of models upon which social institutions themselves can be erected. the paper shows this concept of geometry was employed by Freemasonry and how it continues to play an important role within its modern structures.

1999 Conference

The Revival of Freemasonry in Russia

The Poet Pushkin at Issue

2003 Conference

Prince M.M. Shcherbatov’s Journey to the Land of Ophir

An 18th-century Russian Utopia

2007 Conference

From the Spiritual to the Natural

The Idea of the New Jerusalem in Swedenborg & Blake

2007 Conference

Paradigm shift and its implications for Freemasonry

December 1999

Freemasonry as an Instrument of Initiation

2005 Conference

Investigating Masonic Science

Masonic science is a complex and apparently contradictory phenomenon, whose study yields interesting methodological problems. The case of masonic scientific production in eighteenth-century Naples has been recently chosen to suggest that it was characterized mainly by its anti-mechanistic and neo-naturalistic aspects. I will suggest a rather different interpretative approach, which is centered on the recognition of a crucial epistemological shift operated by masonic scientists.

1999 Conference

Theology of Craft Masonry as Demonstrated in the Emulation Ritual

2004 Conference

Baptism and Masonic Initiation

Comparisons and Contrasts

2005 Conference

The Quest for Shangri-La

A compelling example of the Utopian Dream

2007 Conference

Freemasonry and the European Avant-garde

Sanda is lecturer at the Southampton Institute, teaching on a range of courses, including the History of Art. She will bring some new and interesting material on the influence masonic lore had on some of the leading artists belonging to the era of the European Avant-garde.

1999 Conference

Conservatives and Revolutionaries

Freemasonry in 18th-Century Ireland

2000 Conference

French masonic history and its historiography

full text

June 1999

Importance of the study of masonic rituals

1999 Conference

The Social Effect of French Freemasonry over Three Centuries

2000 Conference

Russian Archives Shed New Light on the Hauts Grades

2002 Conference

French Utopians & Freemasonry

19th century

2007 Conference

Masonic Cryptanalysis

The Folger Manuscript

full text

September 1999

New Rites in the New World

The High Degrees in America 1730/1830

2002 Conference

“His Prints We Read”

The Masonic Narratives of William Hogarth

2003 Conference

The Pattern of Initiation in Ancient Egypt

This lecture will elucidate the ancient Egyptian pattern of initiatory experience, in the light both of shamanic accounts of initiation and the experiences undergone in the Greek and Hellenistic mysteries.

16 October 2002

The Shamanic Roots of the Egyptian Pyramid Texts

Composed in Old Kingdom Egypt, the Pyramid Texts constitute the most ancient body of religious literature known to us. They were inscribed on the inner walls of certain 5th and 6th dynasty pyramids almost 4,350 years ago. While they are generally regarded as royal funerary texts, concerned with the post-mortem fate of the soul, they can also be understood as mystical texts that speak of the experiences not of the dead but of the living king. Thrust into extreme psychological and existential predicaments, and undergoing perilous encounters with alternate realities, the experiences of the king are remarkably similar to those described in the literature of shamanism. This talk will focus on the texts in the pyramid of Unas, the earliest pyramid to be inscribed, and will show how these texts occupy the same inner territory as that of shamanism.

9 october 2005

The Musical Masons of Freemason’s Hall

The Earl of Kellie (Grand Master of England & Scotland, mid-18th century) and other British composers

2003 Conference

Alchemy & Astrology

The Hidden Tradition of the Rosicrucian Alchemical Text of Atalanta Fugiens 1617

Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens of 1617 is one of the best-known alchemical texts. It contains fifty emblems with epigrams set for three-part fugue, and accompanying discourse. The title refers to Ovid’s account of the race between Atlanta and her suitor Hippomenes, who, in Maier’s interpretation, correspond to the principles of Quicksilver and Sulphur. These principles may also be linked to the planets Mercury and Venus. The sequence of emblems depicts a conjunction of Venus and the Sun and relates the progress of the alchemical work to that of the Sun through the signs of the zodiac. Alchemical and Rosicrucian themes were familiar in mid-Victorian Britain through the fiction of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was admired by Wilkie Collins. Both novelists were close friends of Charles Dickens. Analysis of the detailed chronology of Collins’s novel No Name reveals that he was employing the astronomical schema that underlies Atalanta Fugiens.

16 March 2005

The Esoteric Sources Of Baconian Science & The Controversial Relationship Between Freemasonry & Rosicrucianism

Francis Bacon was an eminent lawyer and statesman, an expert cryptographer, and the chief inaugurator of our scientific age. Was he also an occultist? His writings show him to have been a devout Christian and a sceptical scientist, who warned that mixing faith and science spoils both. But Bacon was deeply interested in the Ancient Wisdom, the powerful science of Egypt that was also known to Moses and the Israelites. His ultimate scientific ambition was to restore the Wisdom of the Ancients, which Bacon believed had been lost. Its retrieval was integral to the eventual creation of a New Atlantis, which was the title of Bacon’s last book, containing his classic utopian outline of an enlightened scientific society. When Francis Bacon’s blueprints for experimental science are reconstructed, an intricate web of symbolism using numbers, letters and emblematic images emerges: a system unlike any described in the classic writings on magic. This talk will demonstrate that Bacon’s use of occult symbolism is rooted in the Bible, especially the Gospel of St John and the Hebrew Prophets. At the same time, it is closely linked to key symbols of the Rosicrucians, and certain Masonic traditions. This talk will outline the fascinating reconstruction that can be made of Bacon’s connection to these spiritual movements, considering the historical evidence for his involvement in an esoteric order, and the controversial relationship between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, in the light of these findings.

16 Apr 2008

Secret Alchemy

The Origins of Baconian Science in the Bible & Hermetic Philosophy

2008 Conference

Masonic Contacts between Swedish and German Elites in Pomerania

2000 Conference

Masonic Songbooks & The Relationship between Music Texts & Ideology

2003 Conference

The Concept of Science in the Imagination of European Freemasonry

2008 Conference

Moses & Akhenaten

The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus

February 2004

Zoroastrians & Freemasonry

2004 Conference

Huguenots in London and their Influence on Freemasonry

October 1999

The Huguenots & Their Influence On Early Freemasonry

The Huguenots were French Protestants following the doctrines of John Calvin, the French Reformer of the early 16th century. After the suppression of religious liberty in France, in 1685, many of the Huguenots sought refuge in England, where they entered fully into the commercial, social and intellectual life of their adopted country – including Freemasonry. This lecture sets out to explain how second-generation Huguenots may have played a significant role in the organization of early Freemasonry. It also considers the possible links between John Calvin’s theological teachings and the effect they may have had on the structure of Freemasonry in those early days.

21 Nov 2007

Controversial Masonic Attitudes to Christianity in the Age of Enlightenment

2004 Conference

The religious origins of English Freemasonry

Christian, Latitudinarian, Deist or Atheist?

2009 Conference

Order of Women Freemasons

June 2000

18th-Century English Masonic Song Repertoire

2003 Conference

Relationship between English Freemasonry and Religion

The Emergence and Development of its Symbolism

This paper looks at the relationship between English Freemasonry and Religion and the emergence and development of its symbolism. The framework for the former was a dissertation for a degree in Comparative Religion at Manchester University. Using sources from the University Library and Freemasons’ Hall, the aim was to address whether Freemasonry could be defined as a religion. The examination included definitions from a number of sources — anthropological, psychological and theological. The study also looked at aspects of Masonic history and ritual which could be deemed religious, and its relationship with formal religion. Sources used included a number of Masonic histories. The content for the latter was a thesis for an MPhil degree at SOAS, University of London. Sources for research into the history and development of Masonic symbolism in period between middle of 17th century to late 18th were taken from the British Library and Library at the Freemasons’ Hall and included early exposés of the ritual and visual examples of symbolism e.g. jewels, certificates and aprons. An analysis and comparison of the collected data determined when particular symbols first appeared and provided an historical context into which they emerged.

1999 Conference

Historiographic Reflections on the study of Freemasonry

Professor Porset will make an analysis of the ways masonic history is written. He will reflect on the development of historiography in masonic scholarship.

1999 Conference

The Scientific Lodge of the Nine Sisters (Les Neuf Soeurs)

2008 Conference

Freemasonry and Native American Indians

An explanation of the attraction of the image of the Indian to American Freemasonry, the social and religious causes of the conflict, and the way it was eventually solved with focus on noteworthy Indians since the colonial period and their experiences as Freemasons will be the theme of this talk. The emphasis will be upon what has connected Masonic rhetoric with the trope of the Indian and how the histories of Masons and Indians have interlined across time. This talk will reveal how, as well as satisfying needs within the dominant culture, Masonry has advanced a multiplicity of Native American objectives and served as an important conduit for cultural exchange.

1999 Conference

Chiswick House — A Masonic Temple in West London?

The 3rd Earl of Burlington’s neo-classical pile at Chiswick is an architectural enigma. Viewed historically as part-folly, part-pavilion, part-art gallery and part-villa, it is a beguiling building in that it was designed as an “architectural manifesto for the new Palladian style”, with no apparent practical use. Indeed, letters from the early Georgian period show that Lord Burlington’s contemporaries found his building equally as bewildering as visitors do today, and therefore this lecture will re-examine Chiswick House through the eyeglass of the latest research, considering the idea that the villa and its gardens may have been conceived, and possibly even functioned, as a ‘Masonic Temple’. In particular, the lecture will focus on the villa’s interior décor, including paintings executed by the artist and designer, William Kent. Remarkably, these paintings are not only suggestive of both hermetic and masonic lore but they may also contain some of the earliest pictorial references to the legend that is of vital importance to modern Freemasonry — the legend of the master mason slain. (with Matthew Scanlan)

18 April 2007

The Spirit of Association

Freemasonry & Early Trade Unions

The connections and parallels between freemasonry and friendly societies are well known, but there was an equally important link between freemasonry and trade unionism in its early stages. One expression of this was the way in which the Combination Act of 1799 passed into law on exactly the same day as the Unlawful Societies Act, which regulated Freemasons lodges. Some early trade unions drew directly on masonic practice; the rituals used by the Tolpuddle Martyrs included masonic components and they organised their union into lodges. Masonic symbols appeared on trade union banners until the First World War. This talk will explore the range and nature of these connections.

May 2001

John Pine, Engraver and Freemason

2001 Conference

A Body Without a Soul?

The philosophical outlook of British Freemasonry 1700-2000

December 2003

The Legendary Histories of the Masonic Old Charges

A neglected literary genre

2003 Conference

Wiliam Rand

Physician, Alchemist & Freemason?

2008 Conference

Approaches to the Old Charges

2009 Conference

The Rosslyn Chapel Museum of Masonic, Templar and Rosicrucian regalia and history (film)

1999 Conference

The Angelic Legacy of Dr John Dee

The importance of Dr John Dee’s skrying work with Edward Kelley, and the subsequent Angelic material received, is now well known. In the late 19th century the Enochian system was revived within the Golden Dawn by its founders Westcott and Mathers who were also prominent members of the Societas Rosicruciania In Anglia. Subsequently this system of working with Angels is now acknowledged to be one of the most important areas of modern esoteric practice. Current research reveals the level of practice of Dee’s Angelic material by magicians throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Dr John Dee’s work, was preserved by such men as Sir Hans Sloane and Elias Ashmole, and expanded further by Dr Thomas Rudd. The role of the Enochian system within the Grimoire tradition of the Renaissance will be considered in detail, as will its continuing influence on the subsequent esoteric traditions that have come into being in more recent times.

18 May 2005

The Magical Legacy of Dr Thomas Rudd

"God is a Spirit Eternal, Infinite in Essence and Goodness, Omniscient, Omnipotent, & of himself necessarily existent; He is a Globe of Light whose Centre is everywhere and Circumference nowhere. Dr Thomas Rudd was effectively the successor of John Dee, the central figure of a group of magicians, and a critical figure in the development of magic in Early Modern Britain — and yet his work has remained largely unknown. Like Dee and other magicians of the time, Rudd was a devout Christian who saw no distinction between his magical practice and his worship of God. He wrote in a remarkably clear manner, defining the role of the Enochian spirits within the celestial hierarchy, and creating what is probably the most effective form of the Goetia or Lesser Key of Solomon. Rudd also wrote the Nine Keys, a manuscript dealing with the summoning of archangels, but his enduring significance is as the magician who synthesised and correlated the threads of angelic magic into a coherent working system, which has been passed down to the present day.

15 March 2006

Spirituality in Freemasonry

full text

October 1999

The rift between Ancients and Moderns in 18th century English Freemasonry

Professor Revauger will base her talk on the book she recently published on the masonic conflict between the Antients and the Moderns in 18th century England. She will explore 1813.

1999 Conference

Freemasonry & Religion in 18th-Century Britain

2004 Conference

The Hidden Mysteries of Nature & Science?

2008 Conference

The Sethian Gnostic Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas, written around the middle of the second century, was mentioned pejoratively by the heresiologists Irenaeus and Epiphanius, for which reason all extant Greek copies were destroyed and the text no longer copied. The only copies to survive were these translated, as were other Christian texts, into the native Egyptian language, Coptic. These texts were not located by heresy-hunters, and so survived to be buried for safekeeping, to be discovered in the dry sands of Egypt over the course of the last century. The most important of these discoveries was the thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices found in December, 1945, which provided the flood of Coptic Gnostic texts that revolutionized the study of Gnosticism, but around 1980 the Codex Tchacos was discovered near El Minya in Central Egypt. This contained a number of texts, among which were previously unknown Gnostic tractates in Coptic translation, including The Gospel of Judas and a Book of Allogenes. The Gospel of Judas is a Sethian Gnostic text, which is the branch of Gnosticism most prevalent in the Nag Hammadi collection. It presents Judas as the only apostle with the hidden Gnostic knowledge of the good God hidden in the realm of light, far above the evil world created by the demiurge, whose own evil nature is obvious from the hell-of-a-mess he created as his world. This same evil God inspired the Bible, which therefore presents his bowing-and-scraping servile worshippers in a positive light and those sent from the hidden good God above as evil. Thus, by wearing Gnostic glasses, one can detect those emissaries from the realm of light by locating those condemned in the Old Testament, such as Cain, Esau, Korah, the inhabitants of Sodom, and, in the New Testament, first of all Judas Iscariot. While the rest of the apostles are more or less literally asleep at the switch on Maundy Thursday, only Judas is there to help Jesus effect his escape from the bondage of the flesh back to the realm of light whence he came. The discovery of The Gospel of Judas, and of the Nag Hammadi codices, has ensured that the study of Gnosticism is no longer based primarily on the invidious and pejorative excerpts chosen by the heresiologists for refutation and ridicule, but on the primary texts themselves, which provide a basis for similar forms of religiosity still today.

2006 Conference

The Secret Life of Richard Cooper Senior, 1696-1764

2001 Conference

Reflections on Utopias & Everyday Life

Utopianism & Communitarianism

2007 Conference

Nicholas Stone, Freemasonry and the mystery of the ‘Acception’

The origins of Freemasonry to this day remain a mystery, which has given rise to a good deal of speculation, myth and legend. The orthodox view of Masonic beginnings is that it emerged in 1717, with the formation of the Grand Lodge in St Paul’s Churchyard, near Sir Christopher Wren’s landmark cathedral. According to this view, not much is known of the craft before this date, except for the initiation of Elias Ashmole in 1646. However, new evidence concerning the early history of the craft and one particular master craftsmen, begins to suggest an altogether different story.

1999 Conference

The Inner Temple of Man

March 2000

John Wilkes, Freemasonry & the Emergence of Popular Radicalism

2000 Conference

Nicholas Stone, Accepted Freemason and his Contemporaries, 1587-1647

2001 Conference

Chiswick House — A Masonic Temple in West London?

The 3rd Earl of Burlington’s neo-classical pile at Chiswick is an architectural enigma. Viewed historically as part-folly, part-pavilion, part-art gallery and part-villa, it is a beguiling building in that it was designed as an “architectural manifesto for the new Palladian style”, with no apparent practical use. Indeed, letters from the early Georgian period show that Lord Burlington’s contemporaries found his building equally as bewildering as visitors do today, and therefore this lecture will re-examine Chiswick House through the eyeglass of the latest research, considering the idea that the villa and its gardens may have been conceived, and possibly even functioned, as a ‘Masonic Temple’. In particular, the lecture will focus on the villa’s interior décor, including paintings executed by the artist and designer, William Kent. Remarkably, these paintings are not only suggestive of both hermetic and masonic lore but they may also contain some of the earliest pictorial references to the legend that is of vital importance to modern Freemasonry — the legend of the master mason slain. (with Ricky Pound)

18 April 2007

Empiricism and Seventeenth-Century Accepted Freemasonry

2009 Conference

C.G. Jung as Visionary and Shaman

Jung defined spirituality as the autonomous creation and manipulation of images. What did he mean by this claim? Drawing upon Jung’s writings on active imagination as well as his account of his own confrontation with the unconscious, Dr Schlamm will examine the nature of his visionary spirituality, focusing on the dynamism and spontaneity of initiatory, numinous, archetypal images, and their relationship to the centre of consciousness, the ego. He will also demonstrate how much Jung’s clinical practice and psychological model of individuation have been influenced by shamanism, introducing the themes of death and rebirth, and the wounded healer.

11 December 2002

C.G. Jung: Gnostic or Kabbalist?

In response to persistent charges by his theological critics that he was a Gnostic, Jung insisted that he was neither a Gnostic nor a metaphysician, neither a theist nor an atheist, neither a mystic nor a materialist, but rather an agnostic empirical scientist, an analytical psychologist. Yet Jung’s enthusiastic engagement with Gnosticism spanned four decades. from his early citations of Mead’s translations of Gnostic and Hermetic writings and his paranormally produced gnostic poem, Seven Sermons to the Dead attributed to Basilides (closely associated with his ‘inner guru’ Philemon), to his systematic treatment of Gnostic materials in Aion in 1951 and the acquisition by the Bollingen Foundation, through the efforts of Gilles Quispel, of the Jung Codex (containing the Gospel of Truth) in 1953. I will begin this presentation by examining the reasons for Jung’s sustained interest in Gnosticism, in particular identifying those Gnostic teachings (reinterpreted psychologically) which he believed anticipated his own work on the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. I will, however, also demonstrate, particularly through his handling of Gnostic materials in Aion, that Jung’s understanding of the individuation process and synchronicity was inconsistent with the anti-cosmic dualism of Gnostic materials available to him in Patristic writings and that, contrary to many of his critics (for example, Martin Buber and Victor White) as well as some of his supporters (for example, Stephan Hoeller), Jung never identified analytical psychology with the soteriological perspective of Gnosticism. In the second half of this presentation I will argue that, given that many symbols and ideas of Gnosticism are shared with later Jewish and Christian Kabbalah (as well as European alchemy influenced by Kabbalah on which Jung drew far more heavily than Gnosticism), Jung’s psychological perspective, particularly after 1945 when he became more familiar with Jewish scholarship on Kabbalah through his association with Gershom Scholem and Zwi Werblowsky, is far closer to Kabbalah than Gnosticism. While Jung no more identified his work with Kabbalah than with Gnosticism, I will demonstrate that there are striking similarities between the thrust of the argument of his essay “Answer to Job” published in 1952 (only a year later than Aion) and the soteriological perspective of Kabbalah, particularly in its Lurianic form, as Jung himself later acknowledged.

2006 Conference

Creating Identity

The origins of Freemasonry as presented in two early Arabic masonic writings

2009 Conference

Ecology and the Sacred

The need for a Responsible Stewardship of Creation has never been more urgent. But unless we develop a deeper reverence for life, a sense of the sacred, and learn to be less materialistic, “our common home”, the planet Earth, may continue to suffer untold damage. The words ecology and economics are derived from the same Greek origin — oikas which means household. Diana looks at how we can put our own earthly household in order by changing our own lifestyles and bringing them back into alignment with spiritual values. She offers Seven Principles of Ecological Sustainability which, if practised together, will help to redress the Earth's imbalances.

March 2001

The Temple as Symbol of the Soul in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures

Some Gnostic authors whose writings, composed in Greek during the 2nd and 3rd centuries have been preserved under a Coptic translation of the 4th century, pay a particular attention to the symbol of the Temple, which is allegorically interpreted with the aim of symbolising the Soul. These trends of interpretation are nourished by Jewish pseudepigrapha, Qumran literature and the speculations of Philo of Alexandria. The lecture focuses on the treatise of the Teaching of Silvanus (Nag Hammadi codex VII, 4) where the Gnostic plays the role of the Great Priest entering the Temple, and on the two opposite visions of the Temple of the Gospel of Judas (Codex Tchacos).

2006 Conference

The Journey Of The Soul through the Egyptian Book of Life

As travelers in eternity we need a map in order to find our way in this lifetime and beyond. Dr Seleem will explore the journey of the soul through the netherworld to spiritual realms, and the roads, gates, hours and the guardians of life and death. The divine knowledge of the Ancient Egyptian teachings in the Book of Life is meant to be read and enacted by the living in this lifetime so they may find their way to the spiritual realm, be saved from the darkness of the Dwat and finally to reach the Garden of Reeds, where true peace envelops the soul. Read children of the future, and learn the secrets of the best, which are so distant to you and yet in reality so near. Ani, Chief Scribe to Seti 1

20 October 2004

The Presence of the Past

Morphic Resonance & Nature’s Memory

Nature is not governed by fixed laws but by evolving habits. According to the hypothesis of formative causation, all self-organizing systems, including crystals, organisms and societies contain an inherent memory, given by a process called morphic resonance from previous similar systems. All human beings draw upon a collective human memory, and in turn contribute to it. Even individual memory depends on morphic resonance rather than on physical memory traces stored within the brain. This hypothesis is testable experimentally, and has many implications, some of which Rupert will explore in this lecture.

3 December 2008

The Earliest Development of Masonic Degrees and Rituals

This paper praises as well as criticises both Hamill and Stevenson, and then moves on to show what we may reconstruct of what happened when we integrate the information provided by both. It is therefore, among other things, a critical evaluation of the historiography and methodology of these two authors.

1999 Conference

The Mystery of the Burkhardt Jewels

2001 Conference

Spelling Sacred Words in some High Degrees

2002 Conference

Sufism

Esoteric Islam

Sufism has been described as the “heart of Islam”, for it represents the inward or mystical dimension. At the end of the Sufi path is to be found nothing less than the uncoloured Truth or, in subjective terms, one’s true selfhood. Jeffrey will talk about the path of Sufism and its many aspects, including its contact with the Knights Templars.

18 April 2001

Ebenezer Sibly: The Masonic Mystical Doctor

2008 Conference

Moranos, masons, and the case of the mislaid text

2009 Conference

Why Was James Boswell a Freemason?

An old question revisited

2003 Conference

Circles and Straight Lines

Compasses and Squares

2009 Conference

Masonic scholarship in research lodges

April 1999

Scottish Masonic Processions as a Metaphor of Social Involvement

2000 Conference

William Hutchinson FSA — 1732-1814

A Study of Northern Spiritual Engagement

2004 Conference

Entering the Courts of Heaven

Rituals of Initiation in Late Antiquity

2005 Conference

The Study of Nineteenth-Century Literary Masonry and the Problem of Masonic Pseudepigraphy

The paper explores the interpretations of some main Masonic narratives in 19th-Century literary texts, both in texts deriving from Masonic circles and in non-Masonic works. It intends to contribute new material and observations to the little-studied area of the interchange of themes and images between literature and Masonic narratives.

1999 Conference

The Cathars

The Mystical and Esoteric Traditions of ‘The Great Heresy’

October 2003

Inter-Relations Between Freemasonry & The Eastern Orthodox Churches

2004 Conference

George Washington’s Masonic Vision for an American Utopia

2007 Conference

Symbols in Masonic Art

An Iconographic Study of Masonic Certificates

2001 Conference

Spiritual Transformation in Ancient Hermetism and Gnosticism

The gnostic sources mostly confine themselves to emphasising the saving nature of Gnosis, but they also concern themselves, although less explicitly with the process of deification. This paper introduces the hermetic and gnostic movements in Antiquity, and then sets in context the two forms of hermetic initiation that are described in the Greek and Coptic gnostic sources. In each of these forms the initiate has an experience of being deified. The characteristics of this divine status are described in terms derived from the Greek philosophical tradition, but the experience is deeply religious and mystic. There is, however, no reason to assume, as some scholars have done, that the descriptions of spiritual transformations in hermetic texts are no more than a literary phenomenon, which did not correspond to actual experiences in real life. On the contrary, the experience of a spiritual transformation with a lasting influence on the receiver’s personality is of all ages, as will be discussed in the last part of the paper.

2006 Conference

Solomon’s Temple

From Villalpando to Stukeley

2001 Conference

Perceiving the Sacred in Scientific Research: The Interplay of Scientific Rationalism & Noetic Intelligence

2008 Conference

Royal Cubits in Architectural Design

2001 Conference

The History of Freemasonry in Ireland and its Future

June 2003

Danish Freemasonry in the 1850s

When Frederik VII came to the throne of Denmark in 1848 he immediately faced both political and masonic problems. He had been a freemason for nine years, but as king he also became the ruler of the Danish Masonic Order, as VSV, or Viseste Salomo Vicarius. Frederick supported the popular wish for a free constitution for Denmark, but resisted the demand for independence of his southern, and German-speaking, province of Schleswig-Holstein. In the subsequent war with Prussia, Denmark was victorious, but the aftermath brought a distaste for all things German, including the German Masonic system of the Rectified Rite which was then prevalent throughout Denmark. As a result many Danish masons sought the introduction of the Swedish Rite — a Christian Rite of ten degrees, founded in the 1780s. In 1852 the brethren of the Lodge Kosmos, at Elsinore, were instrumental in persuading King Frederik to be initiated into the Swedish Rite and to institute it as the official Rite for Danish Freemasonry. This lecture explains the political pressures that brought about this change, and outlines the great difficulties in introducing a strictly Christian Rite to a country where Freemasonry had previously been Universalist.

17 May 2006

The Geography of Consciousness

In the debate about the role of religion Colin Wilson sides with those who maintain that Civilisation cannot survive without a religion, and with Jung, who said: The soul has a religious function. But what is religion? At its simplest level, it is recognition that the universe has meaning, which we are usually too blind and limited to see. Yet we do glimpse it on occasion, and he quotes many contemporary mystics and visionaries who believe they have seen it. His first book, The Outsider, was about men who feel an instinctive hunger for ‘vision’, and a deep dissatisfaction with a life that seems focused on the material level. Many of these 19th-century ‘Outsiders’ were tormented by the sense that life is tragic and meaningless. Yet a few of the greatest — like Nietzsche — glimpsed the truth: that we often collude in our own defeat through pessimism — a pessimism that has become a typical feature of our culture. One of Wilson’s own most important insights came via the work of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, who argued that all healthy people have what he called ‘peak experiences’ — surges of the feeling that Chesterton called ‘absurd good news’. Religious ritual is designed to release this feeling by causing us to ‘open ourselves to meaning’, but it can be released in many other ways. Wilson argues that in order to grasp what is happening in these moments, and how we can learn to repeat it, we need to make a study of what might called ‘the geography of consciousness’, using the method that the philosopher Husserl called phenomenology.

2006 Conference

Cosmic Consciousness

In 1872, a doctor named Richard Maurice Bucke, who had spent an evening reading and discussing poetry with friends, was in a cab on his way home when: ‘All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by… the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterwards there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things… I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal… The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone.’ Bucke came to label his experience ‘cosmic consciousness’, and he wrote a book of that title devoted to people who had had a similar experience. It has become a classic that has been in print since 1901. In the 1970s, the biologist Sir Alister Hardy set up a foundation at Oxford to collect testimonies of similar experiences, and a remarkable selection of these, called Seeing the Invisible, edited by Meg Maxwell and Verena Tschudin, was published in 1990. What I want to do in this talk is to explore many examples of ‘cosmic consciousness’.

23 May 2007

Mystical Body: Cosmic Christ

“What sets Christianity apart from most other religions is the Mystery of the Incarnation: that Jesus was both Man and God, and that His Being, as Corpus Christi, pervades the whole universe.” In a wide ranging talk, Dr Woolger will look at the Gnostic, Platonic and esoteric underpinnings of the Saint John’s teaching that “the Word was made flesh”, and he will draw illuminating parallels from Kaballah’s Adam Kadmon and the Al’am al Insal or Perfect Man of Sufism. Roger believes that only such a truly holistic vision of the Divine Cosmos can challenge the moribund effects of body-mind dualism, Western alienation from the Mother as materia, and our currently fashionable neurology-based psychologies.

5 Dec 2007

Gnostic/Sufi Symbols and Ideas In Turkish & Persian Freemasonry and in Masonic-Inspired Organisations

This paper examines the interactions between Muslim Gnosticism (and Sufism) with Freemasonry, in Turkey and Iran in the 19th and 20th century, considering both the use of Gnostic and Sufi terminology and ideas by the Muslim translators of Masonic rituals into Turkish and Persian, and the question of why in the mind of the Turkish and Persian brethren Freemasonry was equated with their Sufi brotherhoods (tariqa). It will further examine the broader question of whether there was a truly “esoteric freemasonry” in Turkey and Iran, concerned with practices dealing with Gnosticism, mysticism, hermetism, etc. rather than with politic, social and charity.

2006 Conference

Antisemitism and Freemasonry

1999 Conference

Iconography of the Tracing Boards

2001 Conference

The Holy of Holies

Alchemy & the Golden Dawn

For years Robert has been fascinated by the connection between the Holy of Holies, which is a deep qabalistic metaphor, alchemy, and the Golden Dawn. This unique connection between the 0=0 grade and the 1=10 grade of the Golden Dawn will be viewed from almost every possible angle. The experience of initiation, particularly into the 1=10 grade of the Golden Dawn, is designed to provide an alchemical transmutation that is expressed in the ancient Holy of Holies. Students interested in spiritual alchemy, its connection to the early grades of the Golden Dawn, the transmigration of the Israelites out of Egypt and the erection of the Holy of Holies will find this topic of great interest.

17 Oct 2007