FREEMASONRY AND OTHER SECRET RITUALISTIC SOCIETIES: PROBLEMS IN INTER-CULTURAL AND INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Paul Rich

Guillermo De Los Reyes

Professors of International Relations and History

University of the Americas - Puebla, Mexico

1. On Screen at Start: Old Masonic Apron

The history of secret and ritualistic organizations has never received the attention that the subject deserves. Although their influence has been and continues to be considerable, they are seldom considered collectively. College fraternities, affable lodges such as the Elks and Moose, religions such as the Mormons and Black Islam which had part of their beginnings in Freemasonry, sinister organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan: - social history is replete with associations whose members are enjoined to be tight-lipped about the initiations and about the modes of recognition. Despite the manifest differences between the branches of this fascinating group, their culture has a commonality whose consideration has been neglected and the research problems they present for scholars have similarities.

Because the subject is somewhat esoteric, this explanation and overview of some of it's complexities may be useful. As will be seen is especially appropriate in the Phi Beta Delta setting.

As for the resemblances, secrecy and ritualism often go together, alth0ugh for many societies the secrecy is no longer as strong as it once was. However, ritual remains one of their major characteristics, making them distinct from a large number of other groups that may have a few ceremonies such as passing along the chair's gavel or investing new members with lapel pins but which are chiefly issue-oriented. Sometimes it is hard to demarcate between a ritualistic and issue-oriented movement. While the Grange, for example, is certainly an agricultural lobby, it has always had a strong ritualistic side. Rotary or the Lions would seem to be more on the service side, but we have all met members who were as enraptured by the Rotary wheel as anyone ever was by the Masonic square and compass.

2. Ku Klux Klan in Washington

3. Phi Beta Kappa Key, cover of The American Scholar

4. Phi Beta Kappa expose, title page

5. Phi Beta Kappa ritual, from expose

Moreover, there can be a change in emphasis over the years. An example is honor or recognition societies such as Phi Beta Delta, which can trace their origins to Phi Beta Kappa and hence to eighteenth-century Freemasonry, - as of course do the so-called Greeks or social fraternities that are so characteristic of a portion of academia:

In their decision to expand the society, as well as in the development of their ritual, the Phi Beta Kappa leaders were acting at least partially under the influence of Masonry. A Masonic lodge had existed in Williamsburg as early as in the 1750s, and in 1773 it received a charter from the grand lodge in England. In 1778, as citizens of an independent commonwealth, the Masons of Virginia set up their own grand lodge, with authority to charter other lodges within the state. Eventually Masons in other states did the same. John Heath himself [the fifteen-year old founder of Phi Beta Kappa] was not a Mason while a student at William and Mary, but Thomas Smith belonged to the Williamsburg lodge before joining Heath as one of the five Phi Beta Kappa founders. Smith served as the first clerk of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and became its president on May 3, 1777. Nine other members of the society joined the Masonic lodge during the next year. At least a dozen of the fifty men admitted to Phi Beta Kappa during these first four years were associated with both groups at one time or another.

There is little to Phi Beta Kappa's activities today which suggest its ties with Freemasonry. Nor is it a particularly social organization. The honorary fraternities devoted to scholarship, which have done so much to foster intellectual activity on campuses, stand in peculiar contrast to their cousins, the social fraternities. Arguably some of the social fraternities have done as much damage to intellectual life with their Lord of the Flies initiations as the honorary fraternities have done in the way of encouragement.

The social fraternities often have kept their secret rituals, many of which are suggestive of Masonry. Their metamorphsis into social organizations is sometimes blamed on their acquisition of property: "It is tempting to see the arrival of the fraternity chapter house as the closing of the fraternity's intellectual, moral, and cultural 'golden age'. When a fraternity got together only once a week or so for a chapter meeting, the occasion was extraordinary. Gathering in a rented hall or classroom, fraternity brothers could invest their time together with a sense of special purpose. Whether they met to discuss a passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics or Erasmus's Agagia or the Missouri Compromise, they could engage each topic, serious, or not, with undistracted freedom." The rituals also allegedly changed:

Spectacle and mystery, rather than humane learning and ancient wisdom, came to prevail. Primeval myths, powerful in austerity, were distorted into gorgeous but ludicrous pageants. What the Greeks of old may have inspired, latterday vulgarians did their damndest to obscure and confuse. Coffins and hooded robes, burning crosses and stakes, swords and armor, cauldrons and grails, lions and dragons, terrifyiing oaths and incantations, the regalia of crusaders, cavaliers, feudal knights, holy pilgrims and sainted martyrs, stage machinery and special effects - all these were elevated into the mythical means that transformed lowly pledges into bonded brothers. What light and truth may have failed to accomplish, sensation dared to attempt.

6. Skull and Bones Cartoon Strip

Phi Beta Kappa on the other hand was forced to jettison rather than embellish its cryptic ritualistic traditions in the early 1800s. The society's members found themselves being lumped with the Freemasons and the Illuminati as infidels. Some chapters reacted by closing down, but at Harvard the brethren responded: "Animated by a consciousness of right, the noble mind rises superior to opposition. Should it be our fate then to be traduced, let us as individuals boldly profess our attachment to our society: - let us declare to teeth of clamor, that it is not only harmless, but virtuous in its objects, & useful in its effects: - that the circumstances of its origin here [whatever the circumstances of its origin at William and Mary!] indicated, not a design to sow infidelity with sedition, but a benevolent wish to enlarge the heart & improve the mind; & that our initials are only expressive of a submission to true wisdom from a love to true virtue. Should we meet the rude shock of persecution let us stand firm & undaunted, steady in our resolutions, & more energetic in our exertions."

An indication of whether an organization has more than a pro forma interest in ritualism is the proliferation of additional initiations or degree. Phi Beta Kappa never acquired a complex degree system like that of Freemasonry, although such a suggestion was made on at least one occasion. A partisan of giving additional honors wrote, "Why do you suppose that there are 32nd degree Masons? Because the Masonic system is adapted to human nature. Then why not 64th degree Phi Beta Kappas? Why not a scheme of honors for intellectual attainments - so many points for a scholarly book, so many for a course of reading, a task of memory, the points to be awarded by democratically organized graduate chapters?"

Perhaps fortunately, that proposal came to naught, and there are no 64th degree Phi Betas Kappas. However, honor societies patterned on Phi Beta Kappa multiplied. Tau Beta Pi for engineering started in 1885, and Sigma Xi for scientists began in 1886. Depending on whether one counts professional societies which admit students on the basis of interest rather magna grades along with the more academic honor societies, there were at least 100 by the time the tenth edition of Baird's Manual of Greek College Fraternities appeared in 1923. The growth of the honor or recognition Greek societies and their relationship to professional or vocational societies is still another story waiting to be adequately told.

In any event, considering how widespread that secret and ritualistic societies and their progeny became, not just on college campuses but for all kinds of people and in every village and town - recalling, for example, the Odd Fellows, the Pythians, Moose, Eagles, Elks and others - social scientists really should give more attention to this aspect of popular culture. The international aspects of these groups are even more neglected than their domestic effects.

7. Mexican Masonic Cartoon, Explained by De Los Reyes

8. Members of The Lodge Rising Star of Western India, 1905

9. Lottery Stamp, The Lousiana Freemason

10. Clinton at Prince Hall meeting

An explanation as to why general histories of America, or for that matter of most countries, give scant attention to secret and ritualistic societies is that they do not present an open door to inquisitive non-members. The Freemasons are an excellent example of this. They are especially important becase an understanding of their history is necessary to any serious research into secret and ritualistic organizations in general. Yet few public or university libraries take seriously the collecting of material on the Masons, so the serious researcher must get permission to use Masonic archives and libraries. A number date from the nineteenth century and have large holdings. An idea of what they might contain is indicated by the classifications of the Library of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Washington, which dates back to 1888 and even then had more than eight thousand volumes. Categories include philosophy and symbolism, church and state, paraphernalia, glassware, benevolent and educational institutions, hospitals, cemeteries, architecture, poetry and drama, humor and satire, and women in Masonry.

The accessibility of these collections varies enormously. Occasionally, the scholar will be given every courtesy although not a member. In other cases, members themselves do not get a cordial welcome. So the first hurtle, that of getting access to the material, on occasion may be an insurmountable one. This is especially a possibility if details of who belonged or belongs are sought. Prosopographical studies of members of private societies can be extremely difficult, but rewarding.

An equally serious problem is understanding the special language and usages that an organization such as the Masons emploies. The more ritualistic the society, the more arcane will be the terminology found in papers. As an example, a considerable problem for the researcher is the dating system used by different Masonic bodies. Ordinary Craft or blue lodge Masons who have taken the first three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason use the Anno Lucis system, adding 4000 years and giving the year as dated from the Creation. Thus a blue lodge Masonic document of 1995 would be 5995. Royal Arch Masons begin the calendar with the start of work on the Second Temple at Jerusalem in 530 B.C., so that this is the year 2525. Royal and Select Masters number the years from the completion of the original King Solomon's Temple in 1000 B.C. making this the year 2995. Masonic Knights Templar date documents from the founding of the Order in 1118 and hence this is 877.

There are other pitfalls: On occasion the researcher will face documents that have been rendered into cipher or have had critical words removed. He or she will also encounter vast amounts of allegory and metaphor, so that without an advance immersion in the rituals the text will be unintelligible.

11. Masonic Symbols print.

An extract from the nineteenth degree, that of Grand Pontiff, will illustrate this:

Query - What are you?

Answer - I am a Sublime Grand Pontiff.

Query - Where did you receive this degree?

Answer - In a place that wants neither sun nor moon to light it.

Query - Explain this to me?

Answer - As the grand Pontiffs never wanted any artificial lights to light them, in the same manner the faithful and true brothers, the Sublime Grand Pontiffs want neither riches nor titles to be admitted into this sublime Chapter, as they prove themselves in their attachment to masonry, and faithfulness in their obligations and true friendship to their brethren.

Query - What represents... this Chapter?

Answer - A square city of four equal sides, with three gates on each side, in the middle of which is a tree bearing twelve different kinds of fruit; said city is suspended as on clouds, below is a representation of Jerusalem overturned and in ruins. There are twelve gates of pearl, three on each side; a great glory in the center gives it light, beneath the ruins of the city lies a serpent with three heads, bound in chains, on one side of the draft is a high mountain.

Query - Explain this to me?

Answer - The square city represents ancient masonry, under the title of Grand Pontiff, that comes down from Heaven to replace the ancient destruction (say the temple) when the Grand Pontiffs make it appear as 'tis represented by the ruins and the chained serpent with three heads...

Query - What signifies the tree with twelve different kinds of fruit in the center of the city?

Answer - It is the tree of life which is placed there to make us understand where the sweets of life are to be found, and the twelve different kinds of fruit, that we meet every month to instruct ourselves and sustain one another against our enemies.

Query - What signifies the fillet or veil that the candidate is blinded with?

Answer - It procures him entrance into our Chapter as it did procure entrance into the celestial Jerusalem to those that wore it...

Query - What signifies the twelve golden stars on the Fillet?

Answer - They represent the twelve angels who watched the twelve gates of the celestial city of Jerusalem, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve fruits of the tree of life, the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles, the initials of whose names appear upon the gates and foundation of the new city and on the twelve columns of the Chapter.

Query - What signifies the blue hangings of the Chapter and the gold stars thereon?

Answer - The blue is the symbol of Lenity, Fidelity, and Sweetness, which ought to be the character of all faithful and true brothers; and the stars represent those masons who have given proof of their attachment to the statues and rules of the order, which in the end will make them deserving of entering the celestial Jerusalem.

Clearly the symbolism of fraternal orders requires the researcher to be thoroughly prepared before confronting archives. Another difficulty frequently encountered is that both Masons and antimasons have been guilty of fabrications and falsifications to advance their claims. Ambrose Bierce wrote:

An order [sic]...which originating in the reign of Charles II, among the working artisans of London, has now been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until it now embraces all the genrations on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of the Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confuscius, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs, of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids - always by a Freemason.

Ironically, the enemies of secret societies are often willing to accept outlandish claims of their longstanding influence. Pat Robertson of the 700 Club and CBN fame is one of the more recent recruits to the conspiracy theories which make the study of such societies so difficult: his book The New World Order is replete with references to the Illuminati, the Masons, and the

idea that a cabal has been behind the French Revolution and assassination of Lincoln. So emotive is the subject, of secret societies that the literature is often little more than propaganda and sometimes deliberately misleading.

12. Truman in Lodge Meeting

13. Supreme Council Visitation Request Memo

However, having called attention to the difficulties of this sort of research, the surprising variety and amount of materials which are encompassed by this field should be stressed. There is a considerable Masonic press, with publications appearing in many countries. A British observer comments about the American situation that, "There appears to be an entire industry devoted to Masonic literature which ranging from the 'official' journals of the more or less orthodox Craft to a plethora of 'fringe' publications which take in the widest variety of themes and organizations and which seem to have only the vaguest of associations of Masonry as we know it."

An individual lodge or a state or regional archive may possess photograph albums with portraits of its members, or snapshots of outings and ritual teams. Sometimes the brethren appear in regalia, and sometimes they appear in mufti but invoking various secret Masonic signs. Depending on the packrat mentality of individual secretaries, there can be treasure troves of menus, sheet music, visiting cards, membership applications, and of course minutes by the ton.

While Masonry is a prominent example of the potential for scholarship this source represents, like organizations offer equally interesting possibilities. Studies of international relationships within and between such movements are waiting to be done, as well as research into the way in which these movements served specific ethnic and religious groups. Sometimes lodges have served as facilitators of multi-culturalism, helping integrate the community around a pluralistic ideal, and at other times they have been extremely divisive: the contrast would make a splendid book!

As for the honor fraternities, like the one assembled here today, they still retain the Greek and key motifs of their predecessors, but perhaps the line of descent has become tenuous. The profane world has intruded. In the early 1950s the Bates Shoe Company began advertising a line of Phi Bates, but the attorneys for Phi Beta Kappa advised against bringing suit. Upsetting were the Fybate Lecture Notes, a commercial venture of cram outlines that enabled students to pass exams without taking classes. Equally annoying was a line of Phi Beta panties and brassieres that was introduced in 1963. A letter of complaint from Phi Beta Kappa was dismissed with the company's reply that "I am sure you will agree, however, that there was no trade mark infringement involved because of the dissimilarities of the goods and services involved." Max Factor makeup followed with an eye makeup promoted as Eye Beta Kappa and Bloomingdale's opened boutiques in its stores under the name of Phi Beta Caper.

When Capuchino High School in San Bruno, California, started an honor society named Phi Beta Cap, Phi Beta Kappa protests fell on deaf ears. The school's attorneys replied that "In reviewing the law on this matter we have concluded that the letters Phi Beta, being of common usage, are not the sole property of any organization or fraternity...The question then resolves as to whether the terms 'Cap' and 'Kappa' are the same or similar enough to be misleading. In our humble opinion, they are not." So Capuchino High School students still join Phi Beta Cap. Is there honor among honor societies?

14. Grand Master of Massachusetts

Of course the Masons, so far as is known, have never protested over the honor societies filching their format. While Phi Beta Delta is far removed from Freemasons meeting in Virginia taverns in the eighteenth century, it nevertheless is a descendant, and one suspects that on at least some occasions the conviviality might recall those distant forbearers. It is appropriate in these surroundings and to this audience that the problems and rewards of research by internationalists into secret and ritualistic societies be suggested. Thank you

15. Return to No.1 of ancient apron.

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