One of many Spiritualist photographs from the late nineteenth century. Specialties of darkrooms and thrilling to bereaved family members.
THE EARLIEST REFERENCE to freemasonry in English occurs in Anderson’s “Muses Threnody,” 1638:
For we be brethren of the Rosey Cross
We have the Mason Word and second sight
—Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Like flies at dog parks, accusations—or promotions—of occultism have always buzzed around Freemasonry and other fraternal orders.
Many of these accusations have more to do with competitive fears by Catholicism and various fundamentalist sects. They also come care of political enemies such as the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and more recently Muslim regimes in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere.
No doubt the average member of the Elks, Masons, Woodmen of the World, Optimist Club or the Odd Fellows has little interest in ceremonial magic, arcane sexual-mystical rites, or conjuration of demons. But that doesn’t mean that these activities never happen. In fact there are entire Orders devoted to their teaching and practice.
In the nomenclature of the primary Masonic lodges, both domestic and foreign, these Orders are classified as “fringe-masonic,” “irregular” or “clandestine.” That said, there are leaders and scholars in the Grand Lodge and Scottish Rite also devoting themselves to a Hermetic Order on the side. It has happened for centuries.
“The Sephirothal Tree: Together the ten Sephiras represent the emanation and development of the powers and attributes of Deity. Each number is an outward symbol for inner creative forces and processes and their personifications as Archangels or Builders of the universe.” From The Kingdom of the Gods by Geoffrey Hodson, published by The Theosophical Publishing House, India, 1952
Does higher Freemasonry convey occult knowledge? Some of its leaders believe it does. Albert Mackey covered esoteric topics in his Encylopedia. Albert Pike dropped hints about higher degrees endowing esoteric secrets, but in his case, the dream of distributing occult goodies didn’t happen in a clear manner. Anyone in a Blue Lodge, York Rite or Scottish Rite who wanted more knowledge of the occult and esoteric did so largely through their own personal study, or from joining a “fringe Masonic” entity.
Pike was also charted to lead a branch of the Rosicrucian/occult order the S.R.I.A. (Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia) around 1879—which eventually substituted “America” for “Anglia.” Several of its members were tried in court for sex magic rituals. Prominent members included Masonic historian John Yarker (who chartered Aleister Crowley), Paschal Beverly Randolph, author of sex magic ritual books, Dr. Wynn Westcott and S.L. MacGregor Mathers, both heads of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a fountainhead for much of the occult teachings of the next century. Other S.R.I.A. members included Eliphas Lévi (French Magus and catalyst of the European occult revival), Theodor Reuss (head of the Ordo Templi Orientis or O.T.O. and mentor of Crowley), Masonic historian Kenneth Mackenzie, and prolific Masonic author Paul Foster Case, who came to head his own Mystery School, the Builders of the Adytium (BOTA).
If you want to explore and practice occult rituals but bow to just the Grand Lodge, you are able to branch out to any number of Orders like thousands before you. And if you get involved in a scandal (like the S.R.I.A. members and their trials), the Grand Lodge and Scottish Rite will protest loudly that “none of it is regular; don’t look at us.” A judge caught in a sex-magical embrace will never need to tarnish the Lodge. Consider it a plausible denial control for Lodges who have a reputation to uphold in the public eye.
I suppose that if one were to categorize as “occult” anything having to do with the inner life of an individual’s consciousness, or with the use of symbolic “maps” derived from such sources as Kabbalah and alchemy, the term might superficially apply to the Craft... Better to just discard the term…
—Jay Kinney, 32°, The Masonic Myth: Unlocking the Truth About the Symbols, The Secret Rites, and The History of Freemasonry
Some Masons who have read Pike and do not like his conclusions have also attempted to distance themselves from the man who single-handedly revived Scottish Rite in the United States. However, this lack of appreciation of Pike’s erudition, as well as the general ignorance of the many who have achieved their Thirty-second or Thirty-third degree without having read him, is further betrayed by a profound ignorance of the various genuinely occult rites connected with Freemasonry in Europe in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
—Mark Stavish, 32°, Freemasonry: Rituals, Symbols & History of the Secret Society
The Occult Science of the Ancient Magi was concealed under the shadows of the Ancient Mysteries: it was imperfectly revealed or rather disfigured by the Gnostics: it is guessed at under the obscurities that cover the pretended crimes of the Templars; and it is found enveloped in enigmas that seem impenetrable, in the Rites of the Highest Masonry.
—Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
Anton LaVey, the very theatrical leader of The Church of Satan, explains in his Satanic Rituals the rationale for the name of his group and its link to Freemasonry:
The rituals contained herein represent a degree of candor not usually found in a magical curriculum. They all have one thing in common—homage to the elements truly representative of the other side.
The Devil and his works have long assumed many forms. Until recently, to Catholics, Protestants were devils. To Protestants, Catholics were devils. To both, Jews were devils. To the Oriental, the Westerner was a devil. To the American settler of the Old West, the Red Man was a devil. Man’s ugly habit of elevating himself by defaming others is an unfortunate phenomenon, yet apparently necessary to his emotional well-being. Though these precepts are diminishing in power, to virtually everyone some group represents evil incarnate. Yet if a human being ever thinks that someone else considers him wrong, or evil, as expendable to the affairs of the world, that thought is quickly banished. Few wish to carry the stigma of the villain....
Masonic orders have contained the most influential men in many governments, and virtually every occult order has many Masonic roots.
S.L. MacGregor Mathers in Egyptian garb, performing a Golden Dawn ritual
“THE CERNEAU movement became a bête noir for Albert Pike. He had battled the Cerneaus during the early years of his tenure as Grand Commander... Then in 1881 when the Cerneaus once again rose up, Pike opposed them with an amazing zeal and fury. His attacks on the Cerneau Supreme Council seemed to go well beyond what was required to unseat an upstart challenger.”
—Bro. S. Brent Morris, 33° G.C., Why Thirty-Three?
Aleister Crowley
John Yarker has been called a “Very Illustrious Brother,” a degree-monger, a charlatan, the “universal purveyor of fringe Masonic rites,” a Masonic historian, an “eccentric English Mason” who headed “innumerable ‘higher-grade’ Masonic orders that mainly led a paper existence,” and the Provincial Grand Master in Manchester of the Palladium of Satanic Masonry luridly put to paper by Léo Taxil.
John Yarker was born on April 17, 1833; the youthful Englishman became a freemason at the age of 21 in the Lodge of Integrity, No. 189, Manchester, on October 25, 1854, and became a Worshipful Master in 1857. His Masonic life became quite busy—a trend which he would continue and accelerate throughout his life, branching out with occult fervor to lesser-known realms—but at first his path seemed conventional enough. He entered Mark Masonry at Mottram in 1855, took the Ark and Link degrees, and became the first Worshipful Master of the Fidelity Lodge of Mark Masters, No. 31. In 1856 he was exalted to the degree of a Royal Arch Mason in the Industry Chapter, No. 466, and became P.Z. or Past Z (head of a Royal Arch Chapter) of the Chapter of Fidelity in 1858. The ambitious youth occupied the same office in the Industry Chapter for two years during 1861-62. When he was 23 years of age he was Installed a Knight Templar in the Jerusalem Conclave on July 11, 1856.
The energy of Yarker found another outlet in marriage, and on January 4th, 1857, he paused from forming Masonic ties to tie the knot with Miss Eliza Jane Lund, a native of York. He punctuated his esoteric pursuits by fathering six children, all of which he fed and clothed by running a decent business as a bookseller.
Yarker began to collect patents in lodge after lodge, and many of them he began to regard as older and more legitimate than the Ancient and Accepted Rite—the official version of the United Grand Lodge of England, or U.G.L.E. His primary focus became the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, also called Memphis-Mizraim, which he blended from two older rites of a head-spinning ninety-six and ninety degrees. Yarker became the Supreme Grand Master General, and also involved himself with the Cerneau Rite, the competitor to Pike’s Charleston-centered base of operations in the Scottish Rite realm.
His glittering Masonic career brought him into the inevitable turf war with U.G.L.E. Yarker wound up with the short end of the stick and was booted out. Nonetheless Yarker was a scholar, and not easily discounted: he continued with regular contributions to Masonic publications, including Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, the most prestigious journal of them all. But the greatest Masonic footprints of John Yarker undoubtedly lie in his Memphis-Mizraim occult Masonry, his turf wars with Pike, and not least of all his involvement with the famous sex-magician Aleister Crowley.
John Yarker
“Clasp right hands; then pass the left hand round each others’ waist, bringing breast to breast.”
—from the Ritual for the 94° Prince of Memphis, in The Secret High Degree Rituals of the Masonic Rite of Memphis, John Yarker
Predating Yarker’s important involvement, the Rite of Memphis was founded in 1814 by Samuel Honis, an expatriate Frenchman living in Cairo, Egypt. After Napoleon’s demise, Honis returned to France and started up a lodge, “Le Disciples de Memphis,” in Montauban in 1815. Honis had created a dizzying 95 degrees of initiation (with an honorary 96th for the ruling Grand Hierophant). The lodge lasted one year, initiating one Gabriel-Mathieu Marconis de Nègre, whose son Jacques-Etienne jump-started it again in 1838. The younger Marconis had also been a member of the Rite of Mizraim (concocted in Milan in 1805, carrying 90 degrees), was kicked out, joined in a different city under another name, and then ran into trouble in 1841 with the French police who suppressed the Rite of Memphis as a subversive secret society. The Rite had indeed attracted radical members, many of whom also belonged to the Philadelphes, a major revolutionary secret society.
After the revolution of 1848 Marconis was able to launch the Rite one more time. Charters went everywhere: to Egypt, Romania, the United States. By 1862 Marconis handed it off to the Grand Orient, of France, which let it go to seed. That is, until the advent of one John Yarker.
Since both the Memphis and Mizraim Rites claimed ancient Egyptian origins, Yarker’s brainwave was to combine them into one Rite of Memphis and Mizraim, which he called the Antient and Primitive Rite, and which he founded in Manchester in 1872. He lost no time in conferring charters and patents (certificates of initiation) all over the place, and produced a magazine for the rite, The Kneph, a term which can refer to the breath of life, a creator deity, or an “anointed serpent.” The magazine sported occult and Masonic articles, and while the Grand Lodge of England frowned on the whole Memphis-Mizraim business, many European occultists jumped at the chance to join, including the self-styled Great Beast 666 himself: Aleister Crowley.
“... Theodor Reuss... was Grand Master of Germany of the combined Scottish, Memphis and Mizraim Rites of Freemasonry. I remembered that I had been made a Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the 33° and last degree of the Scottish Rite in Mexico ten years before, but I had never bothered my head about it, it being evident that all freemasonry was either vain pretence, tomfoolery, an excuse for drunken rowdiness, or a sinister association for political intrigues and commercial pirates. Reuss... did persuade me that there were a few men who took the matter seriously and believed that the foolish formalism concealed really important magical secrets. This view was confirmed when The Arcane Schools of John Yarker came to me for review. I wrote to the author, who recognized my title to the 33° and conferred on me the grades of 95° Memphis and 90° Mizraim. It seemed as if I had somehow turned a tap.”
—The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
The narrative above, at least in its factual outline, is substantially correct. Theodor Reuss (1855–1923) had indeed been one of the occultists charted by Yarker, and he in turn used the Rite as a basis for his own Ordo Templi Orientis, the famed Order of Oriental Templars or O.T.O., of whom the most famous leader was undoubtedly Crowley himself. And it was Aleister Crowley’s glowing review of Yarker’s 1909 work, The Arcane Schools, that prompted Yarker to contact Crowley. After some correspondence, Yarker bestowed on Crowley high rank in numerous orders, and his description of having “turned a tap” is dead on: Crowley’s list of Masonic honors of one sort or another at this time filled four pages.
After Yarker’s death in 1913 the Rite became yet one more battleground in the lodges, this time between the Theosophical leaders Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, both of whom wanted to tack it on to their gal-friendly Co-Masonry, and on the other hand a band of Yarker loyalists backed up by Aleister Crowley. With a little help from the Great Beast, the Theosophists (many of whom Crowley despised) were beat back. The Rite more or less faded, yet still is boasted as a lineage in the O.T.O. to this day.
1. Royal Grand Commander of the R+C and Kadosh, 1868 to 1874.
2. Scottish Rite of 33 degree (and received certificate dating from 1811), January 27th, 1871.
3. Admitted 33 degree of Cerneau Rite and Honorary member in New York.
4. Installed Grand Master 96 degree in Ancient and Primitive Rite at Freemasons Hall, London, October 8th, 1872.
5. Absolute Sovereign Grand Master, Rite of Mizraim, 90 degree, from 1871 until his death 1913.
6. Received over 12 Patents of 33 degree, of the Supreme Council in various parts of the world.
7. Past Senior Grand Warden of Greece by Patent, July 1st, 1874.
8. Received the “Crown of Kether,” admitting to the 5th degree of the Grand Lamaistique Order of Light. Ninth degree of H.B.L., third degree, third series and of the secret grades of T... M...., higher levels of Kalachakra.
9. In 1882–3, he acted as General Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Grand Chancellor of the Confederated Rites, which he arranged throughout the world.
10. Honorary Grand Master of the Sovereign Grand Council of Iberico, October 5th 1889.
11. Appointed Supreme Grand Master in 1876, of the Swedenborg Rite.
12. Elected Imperial Grand Hierophant, 97 degree, in the Ancient and Primitive Rite November 11th, 1902.
13. Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Germany, 1902–6.
14. Honorary Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Cuba (by Patent), January 5th, 1907.
15. Honorory Grand Master ad vitam of the United Supreme Grand Council of Italy at Firenze, and of the Society Alchemica, 1910–12.
16. Appointed President of the Sat Bhai of Prague, 1871 to 1912.
17. Head of the Rite of Ishmael in England in succession to Dr. Mackenzie and Major F.G. Irwin.
18. Chief of the Red Branch of Eri in succession to Irwin.
19. High Priest of the 7th degree of Knight Templar Priests, Manchester revived from 1868 to 1875.
20. Head of the Ordre Martiniste for England. (Charter from Papus).
In addition he received many civil decorations from foreign countries as a testimony of appreciation for his notable work.
Constantinian Order of St. George, granted 1874 by H.H. Demetrius Rhodocanakis, Hereditary Grand Master and Prince of Rhodes, descendant of the Emperors Constantine and the Paelologi, actual heir of the Byzantine Empire.
Star of Merit from the Rajah of Calcutta.
Honorary Fellow of The Society of Science, Letters and Arts, 1882. Gold medal granted 1887.
Doctor of the Hermetic Sciences, Conferred by Papus, October 10th, 1899.
Order of Glory, founded in one Class by Sultan Mahmoud II, in 1831. Granted by Sultan Abdul Hamid, June 13th, 1905.
Honorory Fellow of the Theosophical Society 1879, presented with a complimentary Jewel of the Society.
(Taken from the website of Memphis-Mizraim in England.)
A serious rival to Albert Pike’s Charleston-based Scottish Rite operation, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite headed by Joseph Cerneau and supported by John Yarker remained a thorn in Pike’s side until he grabbed the Masonic brass ring and was able to put down the Cerneau Rite as “clandestine,” the Masonic approximate equivalent of “heretical,” and consign it to virtual oblivion.
Started by Joseph Cerneau in New York in 1807, the rival Rite had legitimate authority to work the twenty-five Degree Rite of Perfection in Cuba. Joseph Cerneau began to compete, however, with Albert Pike, and after a lodge turf war, Cerneau seemed content to merge into the Northern Supreme Council in 1867. But in 1881 the Cerneau Supreme Council was revived and spread with great success.
The fraternal hatred was so intense that, according to Brent Morris, “In the archives of the Mother Supreme Council is a black leather-bound book prepared by Albert Pike and marked Book of Infamy. The book, mentioned in Carter’s History of the Supreme Council, Vol. III, lists the names of several dozens of members of the Mother Supreme Council who went over to the Cerneau Supreme Council after 1881. The introduction to one section of names is particularly intriguing: Perjurers, Apostates, and Renegades in the City of Baltimore who, disloyal and rebellious because they were not permitted to confine the A and A Scott Rite in Maryland to Knts. Templars, crowned themselves with dishonour and infamy by shameless recreancy and desertion to Cerneauism, April 1884.”
Yarker got involved and supported Cerneau, writing with vigor that Pike’s claims were based on a “a pretended Constitution” which “was forged.” With perhaps a bitter tongue-in-cheek tone, Yarker also described “Albert Pike of Charleston” as “an able mason... undoubtedly a Masonic Pope…” In the Scottish Rite and Grand Lodge dust-up, Yarker wound up like most heretics: outside, but having made enough of a good case to attract a grudging hat-tip from his more honorable opponents. With the passing of time, he has been acknowledged for the sincerity of his esoteric and Masonic pursuits.
Ritual America still lives within the swirling currents initiated in myriad ways by Aleister Crowley, the world-traveled poet, mystery writer, mountain-climber, British intelligence agent, drug addict, sex magician, Freemason and all-around Mack Daddy of modern Satanism who styled himself “The Great Beast 666.” His footprints are seen in places as diverse as Hollywood, Tarot decks, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, modern Wicca, and multiple movie, music and pop culture pop-ups, from the Beatles to Batman to video games. The Beast just won’t lie down.
Edward Alexander Crowley was born on October 12, 1875. In a jab at America, he later claimed he was born on that day to redeem the world from the disasters begun the same day in 1492—when Columbus’s America-interrupted expedition touched land. Crowley’s early years were spent holding his father’s hand and going door to door as his dad preached the Plymouth Brethren gospel to neighbors—the Plymouth Brethren being a fundamentalist sect started in Ireland which felt the Anglican Church had gone the way of the Antichrist, based on the views of John Nelson Darby. Darby’s pro-Israel interpretation of biblical prophecy influenced the Balfour Declaration, an official statement issued on behalf of the British government in 1917 that announced its support of a proposed home for the Jewish people in Palestine, a project which incidentally received support from many Freemasons. The young Crowley was (by his account) abused at his local Brethren school. The combination of a torturous upbringing, combined with his mother Emily’s allusions to him as the “beast,” ignited his rebellious identification with the notorious biblical Beast 666 in the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation, a self-concept which he would amplify through his occult pursuits and headline-grabbing escapades.
Crowley attended Cambridge in 1895 but dropped out, penning the sarcastic poetical work In Residence: The Don’s Guide to Cambridge in which he showed his early literary penchant for exacting published revenge. Around this time he began to travel by “Aleister” in order to allow the kabbalistic number of his name to total 666. Aleister signed his name with a large “A” which resembled a penis and two gonads as a flourish. Crowley also inherited a decent stash of money from his father, who despite his preaching, ran a brewery; Aleister was thus able to devote himself to publishing poetry and swan-diving into the world of the occult. His first inroad came at age 23 through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which he contacted and joined after reading Golden Dawner A.E. Waite’s The Book of Black Magic And Of Pacts and started corresponding. Started by Freemasons, the Golden Dawn served up the foundation of Crowley’s ceremonial magical training, although he eventually ran afoul of the group.
Crowley traveled, climbed the Himalayan peak K2 (setting a record but losing some of his crew, a controversy which dogged him), studied Buddhism and yoga and continued to write. Crowley published fiction, poetry, essays, and in general produced a monumental outpouring in print by anyone’s measure. During both World Wars he worked for British Intelligence and, according to the latest research of Richard Spence, was involved in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, thwarting Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. Crowley’s intelligence work intersected with Agent Ian Fleming, later famous for his James Bond novels. Some biographers later theorized that Crowley’s increasing notoriety and public persona as “The Wickedest Man in the World” was in part a cover for his spying, but on the other hand the voluminous occult works he produced would argue that he was just as serious about conjuring as he was about anything else.
After getting a revelation in Cairo, Egypt, in 1904 and penning Liber Al, or The Book of the Law, Crowley proclaimed himself the Logos of the New Aeon, a new savior for a new gospel which preached the dictum “Do What Thou Wilt,” also dubbed “Thelema” (Greek for “Will”). Crowley’s involvement with various Freemasonic lineages accelerated in 1910 with Memphis-Mizraim charters from John Yarker and a charter from Theodor Reuss, a German spy and founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis or Order of Oriental Templars, the O.T.O.. The O.T.O. claimed to be an “academica masonica” or graduate school for Freemasons, imparting the ultimate secret Eliphas Lévi, Albert Pike and others hinted at: sex magic. Reuss incorporated both sex and conferred “Illuminati” status in his upper degrees, and both were music to the ears of Aleister. In 1912, Reuss made Crowley the British branch of the O.T.O., and Crowley took a major leadership role after the death of Reuss as Outer Head of the Order.
By 1920 Crowley was on a roll, setting up a commune inspired by Rabelais—an Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù, Sicily, and impregnating women. Crowley ran into scandal when an Oxford undergrad died there, and his wife stirred up the press, leading Mussolini to throw Crowley out of the country.
Crowley’s troublesome asthma was given a doctor’s prescription of heroin, and the Beast became an addict, struggling against it unsuccessfully until he died. Crowley also spent time in and out of the British courtroom, grabbing headlines and garnering titles such as “The King of Depravity,” “The Wickedest Man in the World” and “A Man We’d Like To Hang.”
Nonetheless he made his mark in the New World; the O.T.O. spread to the United States with the help of the Canadian Charles Stanfield Jones. Crowley initiated the American Rosicrucian leader Paul Foster Case, and his O.T.O. start-ups included the important Agape Lodge in Pasadena run by John Whiteside Parsons, or Jack Parsons, the founder of Aerojet and co-founder of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL. Parsons and other important leaders contributed to the intersection of the O.T.O. with Hollywood figures and NASA rocket launches and, at least according to the accusations of the disgruntled Brazilian O.T.O. wannabe leader Marcelos Motta, the CIA. Parsons also intersected with L. Ron Hubbard, later founder of the Church of Scientology. An unofficial successor to the Agape Lodge, the Solar Lodge is famous for the involvement of Charles Manson.
The O.T.O. and Crowley’s writings synchronized with the explosion of Golden Dawn papers released by Crowley’s secretary, Israel Regardie, to boost occultism like one of Parsons’ rockets in America no less than in England. Crowley also collaborated with fellow Freemason Gerald Brosseau Gardner to imprint if not create modern Wicca before his death in 1947. Gardnerian Wicca crossed the Atlantic to plant seeds which today have ripened into a pop-craze of pentagrams.
But it was largely after Crowley’s death that a revival of both Crowley and the O.T.O. took off, thanks to the inclusion of his image on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Crowley also was said to inspire the look and work of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, although LaVey was so put off by the Berkeley O.T.O. bunch he encountered that he eventually wrote off the Great Beast as a “druggy poseur.” And speaking of drugs, Timothy Leary regarded Crowley as his neurogenetic predecessor, writing in The Game of Life that Crowley “represents human intelligence at its transition point.”
Crowley continues to resonate, perhaps more than ever. Hollywood hasn’t forgotten him: actor Robert Downey Jr. described his preparation for the Iron Man audition as though he were feeling like Aleister Crowley’s “younger brother.” Meanwhile, Thelemite graphic artist Alan Moore put Crowleyan themes in Promethea and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Crowley has been portrayed as a reincarnated vampire in the comic series Requiem Chevalier Vampire and appears in the Batman comic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth where he plays chess and discusses the Egyptian tarot. The Great Beast even appears as a demonic ghoul in the original PlayStation game Nightmare Creatures. American politicians may talk publicly about how much the country owes to (as it says on the coin) “trust in God” and Christianity, but deep in its subconscious recesses, Ritual America seems much more at home with the Do What Thou Wilt world of Crowleyanity.
“ENGLISH CRAFT masons do not permit religious, political or commercial motives to enter into freemasonry, yet they are in official relationship with certain masonic bodies whose sole raison d’être is anti-clericalism, political intrigue or mutual trade benefit.”
“I HAVE VISITED Craft Lodges and Royal Arch Chapters in Fraternal Accord in England, where the ‘raising’ and ‘exaltation’ were carried out in shirt sleeves, while cigars were smoked and the legs conveniently disposed on other chairs, and only employed to kick the candidate as he went round.”
“AT ONE CEREMONY in America, the officers being 33° masons, recognized by the orthodox Scottish Rite in England, there were two candidates, both Jews. They were hoodwinked and introduced into opposite ends of a tube through which they were instructed to make their way. In the middle of the tube was a live sow.”
“IT IS COMMON to boycott men in trade and business for refusing to give unfair advantages to their fellow masons.”
Sex magick (pronounced mage-ick) is the occult and hidden secret behind many mystic orders, including some known as Illuminati, hermeticists, alchemists, and, in the East, some schools of Buddhism and Taoism. Although a jealously guarded secret for many centuries, allegedly because the powers unleashed are too dangerous to be revealed to all, the technique is simple enough to be revealed in a single sentence: Orgasm should be avoided for as long as possible, by always slowing down or altering position when it seems imminent, and each partner should visualize/idealize the other as some specially meaningful divinity—e.g., in Thelemic magick the male usually identifies the female with Nuit, the sky goddess, and the female usually identifies the male with Pan.
The only problem with this simple description is that you need considerable training in very advanced yoga before you can begin to even approximate the desired result. If you don’t see the “astral” light or some sort of blue-white energy fields, you need more practice.
—Robert Anton Wilson, Everything is Under Control
From Energized Enthusiasm: A Note on Theurgy by Aleister Crowley
Agree then that it does not follow from the fact that wine, woman and song make the sailor’s tavern that these ingredients must necessarily concoct a hell-broth.
There are some people so simple as to think that, when they have proved the religious instinct to be a mere efflorescence of the sex-instinct, they have destroyed religion.
We should rather consider that the sailor’s tavern gives him his only glimpse of heaven, just as the destructive criticism of the phallicists has only proved sex to be a sacrament. Consciousness, says the materialist, axe in hand, is a function of the brain. He has only re-formulated the old saying, “Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.”
Now sex is justly hallowed in this sense, that it is the eternal fire of the race. Huxley admitted that “some of the lower animalculae are in a sense immortal,” because they go on reproducing eternally by fission, and however often you divide “x” by 2 there is always something left. But he never seems to have seen that mankind is immortal in exactly the same sense, and goes on reproducing itself with similar characteristics through the ages, changed by circumstance indeed, but always identical in itself. But the spiritual flower of this process is that at the moment of discharge a physical ecstasy occurs, a spasm analogous to the mental spasm which meditation gives. And further, in the sacramental and ceremonial use of the sexual act, the divine consciousness may be attained.
The sexual act being then a sacrament, it remains to consider in what respect this limits the employment of the organs. First, it is obviously legitimate to employ them for their natural physical purpose. But if it be allowable to use them ceremonially for a religious purpose, we shall find the act hedged about with many restrictions.
For in this case the organs become holy. It matters little to mere propagation that men should be vicious; the most debauched roué might and almost certainly would beget more healthy children than a semi-sexed prude. So the so-called «moral» restraints are not based on reason; thus they are neglected.
But admit its religious function, and one may at once lay down that the act must not be profaned. It must not be undertaken lightly and foolishly without excuse.
It may be undertaken for the direct object of continuing the race.
It may be undertaken in obedience to real passion; for passion, as the name implies, is rather inspired by a force of divine strength and beauty without the will of the individual, often even against it.
It is the casual or habitual—what Christ called “idle”—use or rather abuse of these forces which constitutes their profanation. It will further be obvious that, if the act in itself is to be the sacrament in a religious ceremony, this act must be accomplished solely for the love of God.
All personal considerations must be banished utterly. Just as any priest can perform the miracle of transubstantiation, so can any man, possessing the necessary qualifications, perform this other miracle, whose nature must form the subject of a subsequent discussion.
Personal aims being destroyed, it is «a fortiori» necessary to neglect social and other similar considerations.
Physical strength and beauty are necessary and desirable for aesthetic reasons, the attention of the worshippers being liable to distraction if the celebrants are ugly, deformed, or incompetent.
I need hardly emphasize the necessity for the strictest self-control and concentration on their part. As it would be blasphemy to enjoy the gross taste of the wine of the sacrament, so must the celebrant suppress even the minutest manifestation of animal pleasure.
Of the qualifying tests there is no necessity to speak; it is sufficient to say that the adepts have always known how to secure efficiency.
Needless also to insist on a similar quality in the assistants; the sexual excitement must be suppressed and transformed into its religious equivalent.
Crowley abhorred the Supreme Council, 33°, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction (S.J.), United States of America, the Mother Council of the World, referring to it as the “Pike Fraud,” a prejudice learned from John Yarker who, alluding to its city of origin, called it the “Charleston Fraud.” In exchange for conferring the authority for these degrees, Crowley and Jones would be coroneted 33° members of the Supreme Council of the N.M.J. BAPHOMET was willing to make the necessary revisions in his O.T.O. rituals to eliminate the obvious plagiarisms from the Craft, the Royal Arch and the Scottish Rite. But fraternal good will was not in abundance with Crowley when Masons were concerned. Jones was to make it plain to those they wished to affiliate, especially Illustrious Brother Lodge, 33°, that “even our eighth degree wipes its arse with the thirty third. As you and I need toilet paper, they can give us or sell us their dirty sheep skins.” [Crowley to Jones, March 12, 1919, CSJ Papers]
“Whereas the institution of Free Masonry has fallen to complete and deserved contempt among all men, but especially among true Masons, and whereas the traditional knowledge which it was designed to guard has been lost, degenerated, prostituted, or exploited, and whereas, especially in America, the institution serves as little else but a cloak for the operation of various gangs of swindlers…” [from Crowley, “Preface to the revised rituals of the O.T.O. as presented to Frater Superior Merlin X” in The Equinox 3.
Martin Starr discusses a Detroit-area O.T.O. group that Crowley claimed was a more legitimate Masonic group than the Southern Jurisdiction.
Crowley wrote Jones: “I am more and more convinced that Free Masonry in the States is one of the most evil organizations that has ever existed. Despite individual exceptions and their professed principles, they are selfish, greedy and envious.”[Crowley to Jones, July 25, 1921, CSJ Papers]
—from The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites by Martin Starr, 33°
In his short 37 years, John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons filled at least several different roles in one tormented but glorious life.
By day, Parsons’ unorthodox genius created an explosive rocket fuel that helped the Allies win the war and NASA send spacecraft to the moon. The Aerojet Corporation—which Parsons personally founded—produced solid-fuel rocket boosters for the space shuttle (which just completed its last flight in July, 2011) based on his innovations. A large crater on the dark side of the moon was named after him. Every year, on Halloween, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory holds an open house memorial, complete with mannequins of Jack Parsons and cohorts for what JPL calls “Nativity Day.” In the aerospace community there is a joke that JPL actually stands for “Jack Parsons Lives.”
Though honored on “Nativity Day,” Jack Parsons called himself The Antichrist at night when he practiced Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic rituals to create a new sort of human being that would finally destroy Christianity.
With an early version of his “E-Meter,” Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard tests the engrams of a threatened tomato plant.
In his Pasadena mansion (called “The Parsonage”), the dark, handsome Parsons hosted soirées for science fiction, visited by writers such as Robert Heinlein, Jack Williamson, Anthony Boucher, Ray Bradbury and none other than L. Ron Hubbard. In front of Hubbard, Parsons enacted his dark “Babalon” rituals.
Parsons died in a huge, mysterious explosion that even today cannot be definitively explained.
“MR WAITE [A.E. Waite, the prolific occult and Masonic author] still talks as if his mouth were full of hot potatoes. The length and obscurity of his archaisms renders him almost unintelligible to me, an affectation which I find intolerable.”
—Crowley, Wisdom While You Waite
“HELL is the Secret Centre of the Self.”
—Crowley, The Vision and the Voice
“THE CHRISTIANS to the lions!”—Crowley, The Law Is For All
“SOME OF the most passionate and permanent attachments have begun with rape.”
—Crowley, The Law Is For All
“BLIND ASSES! who pretend that women are naturally chaste!”
—Crowley, The Law Is For All
“THE AVERAGE VOTER is a moron.”
—Crowley, The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government
“THEY THINK we Jews must crouch and cringe;
But—power’s the door itself, and money is the hinge.”
—Shackaback, in Mortadello by Aleister Crowley
Wilhelm Reich
WHEN YOU bring up the subject of sex, immediately you annoy all the people who are in power because nobody who is in power wants people to live to their optimum sexually. They want you to live your minimum sexually because at the minimum you can be enslaved. At the maximum, you are so powerful, you are so intelligent—you are a rock and you cannot be destroyed. Whoever tries to destroy you will be destroyed.
Wilhelm Reich will have a revival because what he was doing was absolutely scientific. No Christianity can prevent it, no government can prevent it. And perhaps... I have so many sannyasins educated in psychology, in psychoanalysis, in analytical psychology and different schools—perhaps a few of my sannyasins will start working on Wilhelm Reich.
Israel Regardie, Reichian practioner and disciple of Aleister Crowley, notorious for publishing the previously secret Golden Dawn papers
The Church of Scientology, a successful phenomenon which has a celebrity public face that includes Tom Cruise, John Travolta and others, has been a lightning rod of controversy. Attacked by Fundamentalists as a cult, the church has a crack legal team that has pursued its detractors in court like hounds of hell.
Scientologists are particularly sensitive to the history of their founder, L. Ron Hubbard, where it intersects with O.T.O. leaders Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley. Yet certain connections are undeniable. Hubbard’s early sci-fi writings are famous, his seminal work Dianetics even more so; but his work co-authored with Parsons, Liber 49—The Book of Babalon, somewhat similar to Crowley’s Book of the Law, is less known—in part thanks to the Church of Scientology, which does not exactly broadcast the fact. Detailed at length in Sex and Rockets by John Carter, the history of Hubbard and Parsons was briefly summarized by professor Richard B. Spence in his work Secret Agent 666:
Another intrigue that wound through Parsons’ last years was his unfortunate relationship with a man he identified to Crowley as “Frater H.” This was a former U.S. Navy officer, L. Ron Hubbard, the future founder of Scientology. Hubbard did have a brief affiliation with the ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence] early in WWII, but his service record indicates nothing of the kind during the time of his acquaintance with Parsons. Soon after the war, Hubbard and Parsons ventured into the Mojave Desert to perform the Babalon Working, a ritual aimed at achieving the Beast’s [Aleister Crowley’s] longtime goal of spawning a Thelemic messiah. Hubbard eventually ended up running off with Parsons’ money and girlfriend. Years later, Hubbard explained his dealings with Parsons as part of his secret work for Naval Intelligence, or the FBI, or the local police (the story varies) to infiltrate a dangerous black magic cult, the O.T.O., which was being used by someone to enlist or compromise scientists.
Jack Parsons, who blew himself up in what some say was a homunculus experiment that went south
The controversies were flamed by a book issued by L. Ron Hubbard’s son and former Scientologist Bent Corydon entitled L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? in which his son alleges that his father extolled Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law as containing the key to his power, and claimed the mantle of “successor” to the Great Beast. The book further alleges that Hubbard lay motionless in weird, emotionless sex rituals atop scared women. The Church of Scientology attacked the book with a dispatch of lawyers but it survived attempts at suppression, which does not prove its allegations.
Hubbard was to reveal some of his occult beliefs to his son in a conversation documented by L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.
“I’ve made the Magick really work,” he (Hubbard, Sr.) says. “No more foolish rituals. I’ve stripped the Magick to basics—access without liability.”
“Sex by will,” he says. “Love by will—no caring and no sharing—no feelings. None. Love reversed. Love isn’t sex. Love is no good; puts you at effect. Sex is the route to power. Scarlet women! They are the secret to the doorway. Use and consume. Feast. Drink the power through them. Waste and discard them.”
“Scarlet?” I (Hubbard, Jr.) ask.
“Yes, Scarlet: the blood of their bodies; the blood of their souls.
“Release your will from bondage. Bend their bodies; bend their minds; bend their wills; beat back the past. The present is all there is. No consequences and no guilt. Nothing is wrong in the present. The will is free—totally free; no feelings; no effort; pure thought—separated. The Will postulating the Will.
“Will, Sex, Love, Blood, Door, Power, Will. Logical.
“The Doorway of Plenty. The Great Door of the Great Beast.”
—L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.
One woman who claimed to have a sexual encounter with Hubbard has publicly described a very strange experience. She was taken to a room in one of the Sea Org buildings in Los Angeles, and describes a man who fits the description of Hubbard:
Sitting on one of the chairs... was a heavy-set older man. He had reddish grey hair, slightly long in the back. He was wearing a white shirt, black pants, black tie, and black shoes, highly polished....
He didn’t say a word and slowly got up, motioned me to follow him into the next room.
I found myself in a lavish bedroom....
Without a word he suddenly began to undress me.
I was repelled by him.
I did not want to sleep with him. Yet, I felt really chilled and cold to the bone at that moment.
I acutely sensed real fear and danger in the room. In an instant I realized the calculated power coming from this person. If I resisted I knew that my punishment would be extreme.
His eyes were so blank, no emotion, no interaction, nothing was there.
I made the decision not to resist no matter what happened. I realized it would be a bad mistake for me to do so. He seemed to be completely divorced from reality. He was so strange that I realized that if I provoked him he could be extremely dangerous.
I let him undress me without resisting.
I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
He lay on top of me.
As far as I can tell he had no erection. However, using his hand in some way he managed to get his penis inside me.
Then for the next hour he did absolutely nothing at all. I mean nothing!
After the first twenty-five minutes I became about as frightened as I have ever been in my life. I felt as if in some perverse way he was telling me that he hated me as a female. I then began to feel that my mind was being ripped away from me by force.
That was the worst of it all. I really felt he coveted an aspect of my personality and he wanted it. This was weird, total control on a level I could not fathom at the time. I had no idea what was happening.
After half an hour I really thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t move my body from underneath him, and I could feel he still had no erection.
He wouldn’t look at me, but instead kept his head averted to the side and just gazed into space.
I had to discipline myself to keep from screaming because I felt I was having a nervous breakdown. Then I got the terrible thought that he was dead. He was hardly breathing. Then I thought he would kill me too. My thoughts became very morbid.
After an hour he got up and walked out.
Odd Rosicrucian order illustration of kabbalistic symbolism
I just lay there for ten minutes. Then mechanically I got dressed. Instantly after that I began crying hysterically. I cried and cried and cried....
I didn’t say a word to anyone.
—from L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. This book has been attacked and denounced as false by the Church of Scientology.
Scientologists, like members of various Brotherhoods, ascend through varies levels, such as “pre-clear” to “Clear,” in which one is free of the influence of “engrams” or unwanted emotions from the past, including past lives.
The next attainment is that of an Operating Thetan, which has numerous levels. In March 2008, the Church of Scientology’s Operating Thetan documents were leaked on Wikileaks. The Church of Scientology claimed their hosting is a copyright violation implying that the collection is Church doctrine. The highest levels are said to carry godlike powers over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time. Similarities with Gnostic myths have been pointed out by critics.
Our secret brotherhood, note, has a specially Judaic basis, our main legend is connected with that greatest Jewish law giver and ruler, Solomon. Our present doctrine is Unitarianism, clothed with the Christian virtues....
I will not wander into the area of discussion which rages around the sole origin of Freemasonry from trade guilds, from Templarism, from the Jewish race, from the Hermeticists, or from the Rosicrucians.
I am content to recognize that all these associations have been concerned in its growth....
Freemasonry, as one special development of a long series of Monotheistic secret associations, being constituted on a basis of masonic operatives, has perhaps necessarily excluded females’ many military and hierarchical mystical societies which have also from their essence consisted of males alone. The very low state of female culture in the ancient world and during the middle ages, also no doubt contributed toward the exclusion of women from mystic rites and from active interference with religious ceremonies; an exclusion which, were we about to constitute a new form of concealed worship, would hardly be tolerated in the present year of grace, and certainly could not be defended in argument.
—Golden Dawn Founder William Wynn Westcott, The Religion of Freemasonry Illuminated by the Kabbalah, published in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. 1 (1886–88). Cited in The Magical Mason: Forgotten Hermetic Writings of William Wynn Westcott, Physician and Magus, edited by R.A. Gilbert
In contrast to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which focused specifically on fusing different elements of the Western esoteric tradition, the Theosophical Society sought to introduce the concept of a universal wisdom tradition which encompassed both Western and Eastern esoteric thought. Founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky, Colonel H.S. Olcott and William Q. Judge, the Theosophical Society soon included the chemist and psychic researcher Sir William Crookes, the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, the astronomer Lord Crawford and the German mystic Rudolf Steiner—who later broke away to establish the Anthroposophical Society. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats was a member of both the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
—Nevill Drury, The History of Magic in the Modern Age
Annie Besant: President of the Theosophical Society and Most Puissant Grand Commander of the International Order of Co-Masonry, Le Droit Humain. Aleister Crowley held her in disdain.
Madame Blavatsky launched a tidal wave of occultism, in founding the Theosophical Society and authoring two tomes to back up her teachings—Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. Many later staple occult teachings of other groups can be traced to her proclamations, including the notion of “Mahatmas,” or Adepts—a Great White Brotherhood of advanced beings with whom she claimed to be in touch. The Golden Dawn also would claim to have authorization from the Secret Chiefs—as would Aleister Crowley.
The esoteric writer René Guénon took exception to her claims:
Mme. Blavatsky was above all a “subject” or instrument in the hands of individuals or occult groups sheltering behind her personality, just as others were in their turn instruments in her hands! This explains her impostures, without excusing them, and those who believe she invented everything herself and on her own initiative are almost as much mistaken as those who, on the contrary, believe in what she said concerning her relations with pretended “Mahatmas.”
—René Guénon, Le Théosophisme
A few facts about the Theosophical Society and the teachings, and sources, of the cigar-smoking Russian occultist—and friend of Albert Pike—can be summarized. Like Pike, she had a thing for the Aryans…
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: The most influential force in the great renaissance of occultism in the late nineteenth century... According to Blavatsky, the society was sponsored and supported by the Brotherhood of Luxor, and American occult secret society.... The publication of Blavatsky’s first book, Isis Unveiled (1877)... transformed the Society into a major player in the western world’s occult scene... Much of the material in it was drawn from the occult literature of the time, especially the writings of Eliphas Lévi and P.B. Randolph....
Finally, and most significantly, she wrote a second vast book, The Secret Doctrine, which was published in 1888…The Secret Doctrine took its inspiration from Hindu traditions and presented an immense vision of a cyclic cosmos in which souls, called monads in Theosophy, descend from cosmic unity to pass through a series of evolutionary journeys through the elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms and beyond. In order to pass through the human level, the souls of humanity must make seven “rounds” or circuits of a sequence of seven “globes” or worlds, while being reincarnated in seven different root races on each world during each sequence. Today’s humanity is on the fourth globe of the fourth round; Europeans, Indians, and other Indo-Europeans are believed to belong to the fifth, or Aryan root race, while other humans belong to the fourth or Atlantean root race....
—John Michael Greer, The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies
Ordained an Anglican priest in 1878, theosophist and associate of Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater was consecrated a bishop in the Liberal Catholic Church in July of 1916. He wrote, among other books, The Science of the Sacraments and Glimpses of Masonic History.
Much controversy is attached to his life. Leadbeater often claimed, for no apparent reason, to have been born on February 17, 1847, yet birth records clearly point to a later date. He was condemned in The Equinox, vol. X, by Aleister Crowley as a “senile sex-maniac.” In 1906 he was forced to resign from the Theosophical Society for teaching masturbation yet, over the objections of some members, he was readmitted in 1909. His books on theosophy continue to receive wide distribution, although his promotion of Jiddu Krishnamurti (May 12, 1895–February 17, 1986) as “the World Teacher” has led to much criticism.
His initiation into International Co-Masonry on June 12, 1915 by James Ingall Wedgewood, his association with many of the “fringe masons” and his subsequent writings on masonic themes have led anti-masons to mistakenly assume he speaks with some masonic authority and often quote, out of context, his writings on theosophy and the occult.
—from the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
An Egyptian leader discovers the Rose Cross. From an AMORC magazine in the ’30s
It has taken over a century for primarily Caucasian Freemasonic orders to acknowledge the authenticity of so-called “Colored” orders, such as Prince Hall.
Conservative and longer-established Freemasonic orders have spent a great deal of time disputing the legitimacy of “spurious” orders, such as ones organized by John Yarker and used by Aleister Crowley. Internecine animosities often ruined and ruled the day of esoteric orders.
Brotherhoods that intimate or outwardly promote sexual ritualism, such as The Golden Dawn, and later, Aleister Crowley’s version of the O.T.O., or the Ordo Templi Orientis, have also been known to engage in psychic fistfights, such as one between Crowley and poet William Butler Yeats for control of The Golden Dawn, when MacGregor Mathers sent Aleister Crowley to repossess Golden Dawn paraphernalia in the so-called “Battle of Blythe Road.” Later, Crowley and his wife Rose fought with Mathers in a psychic battle described in The Confessions of Aleister Crowley:
One of many fascinating AMORC advertisements
We had resumed Magical work, in a desultory way, on finding that Mathers was attacking us. He succeeded in killing most of the dogs. (At this time I kept a pack of bloodhounds and went man-hunting over the moors.) The servants too were constantly being made ill, one in one way, and one in another. We therefore employed the appropriate talismans from The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin against him, evoking Beelzebub and his forty-nine servitors. Rose had suddenly acquired the power of clairvoyance. Her description of these servitors is printed in The Bagh-i-Muattar, pages 39, 40. (I may mention: Nimorup, a stunted dwarf with large head and ears. His lips are greeny bronze and slobbery. Nominon, a large red spongy jellyfish with one greenish luminous spot like a nasty mess. Holastri, an enormous pink bug.) As to this perfume of The Book of the Law, “let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me.” One day, to my amazement, having gone into the bathroom to bathe, I discovered a beetle. As I have said, I take no interest in natural history and know nothing of it.
But this beetle attracted my attention at once. I had never seen anything like it before. It was about an inch and a half long and had a single horn nearly as long as itself. The horn ended in a small sphere suggestive of an eye. From the moment, for about a fortnight, there was an absolute plague of these beetles. They were not merely in the house, they were on the rocks, in the gardens, by the sacred spring, everywhere! But I never saw one outside the estate. I sent a specimen to London and the experts were unable to identify the species.
Masonic lithograph with a particularly occult weight
The Rosicrucian Order founded by Paschal Beverly Randolph
Provocative AMORC advertisement as seen in Popular Mechanics and other blue-collar magazines
Rosicrucian wars came to America in the 1930s when two separate orders battled for legitimacy. R. Swinburne Clymer, Supreme Grand Master of Fraternitas Rosae Crucis (founded by Paschal Beverly Randolph in the mid-nineteenth century) disputed the right of Spencer Lewis’ successful AMORC (Ancient and Mystic Order Rosae Crucis) organization to exist, and who was characterized by Clymer as being “The Baron Munchausen of the Occult.”
Clymer attacked AMORC for being associated with “black magic” when Clymer’s own organization was founded by Paschal Beverly Randolph, known for his books and instructions regarding sex magick.
A two-volume 1935 set, The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America, is Clymer’s expensively produced attack against AMORC’s worthiness and morality.
Suggestions for success by avatars of the New Thought Movement
Founded in 1966 by Anton LaVey and his mate Diane Hegarty, the Church of Satan soon became the subject of a great deal of fascinated press and documentaries which brought on thousands of members, who sent fees in exchange for membership cards. More Active members of the Church of Satan were able to climb a Masonic-like ladder of five degrees.
An involved and active member of the Church of Satan, Michael Aquino, expressed unhappiness with the CoS’ decision to demand payments for degrees, much like any Masonic organization. Aquino’s despair regarding Satanic financial policy resulted in his break from the organization and his founding of the Temple of Set that sees Satan as a more actual than philosophical conceit. Anton LaVey:
“I don’t feel that raising the devil in an anthropomorphic sense is quite as feasible as theologians or metaphysicians would like to think. I have felt his presence but only as an exteriorized extension of my own potential, as an alter-ego or evolved concept that I have been able to exteriorize. With a full awareness, I can communicate with this semblance, this creature, this demon, this personification that I see in the eyes of the symbol of Satan—the goat of Mendes—as I commune with it before the altar. None of these is anything more than a mirror image of that potential I perceive in myself.
“I have this awareness that the objectification is in accord with my own ego. I’m not deluding myself that I’m calling something that is disassociated or exteriorized from myself the godhead. This Force is not a controlling factor that I have no control over. The Satanic principle is that man willfully controls his destiny; if he doesn’t, some other man—a lot smarter than he is—will. Satan is, therefore, an extension of one’s psyche or volitional essence, so that that extension can sometimes converse and give directives through the self in a way that thinking of the self as a single unit cannot. In this way it does help to depict in an externalized way the Devil per se. The purpose is to have something of an idolatrous, objective nature to commune with. However, man has connection, contact, control. This notion of an exteriorized God-Satan is not new.”
—from Jack Fritscher’s Popular Witchcraft (Bowling Green University, 1973)
Example of master occult advertisements from The San Jose Rosicrucian Brotherhood
The following excerpts from letters, from Anton LaVey’s mate Diane Hegarty to Michael Aquino, and his reply, reveal Aquino’s demands for purity on the part of worshipping Satan.
Anton LaVey and mate Diane Hegarty in The Black House, 1970
Letter, Diane Hegarty [LaVey] to Michael Aquino
June 4, X/1975
Dear Mike:
My first question is: Why did you not voice any disagreement the night we sat for several hours discussing the new plans and reading you the essay which is identical to the one we sent for inclusion in the Hoof? Anton said that it was to be printed exact, except perhaps for a word changed here and there to smooth it out. If your objections are as strong as they now appear, it seems inconceivable that they would not have occurred to you during the initial discussion.
Second, why do I get the impression that your latest letter was written, in part, for the eyes and ears of others besides ourselves. On a number of points it raises, you know the facts are not as you have presented them. So I feel your subjective reaction to the bluntness of the original draft for the lead essay has colored your feelings about many things, some of which are totally unrelated. I was tempted to answer your didactic letter with a simple one-line note: “If you can’t stand the heat …” (one of your favorite retorts). But I feel you deserve to know our reaction, considering the kinship the three of us have had over the past six years.
I will comment on each of the issues raised by your letter, but first I want to clarify that you certainly are not the “only one to tell you (Anton) things you don’t want to hear.” I have told him many, many things over the past twelve years that he did not want to hear. (That’s called criticism.) He has often taken my criticism to heart and acted upon it—as he has yours—even when unsolicited. He has also often hotly rejected my criticism and suggestions and done exactly what he thinks best. I respect him for both responses. His willingness to listen, then accept or reject as he sees fit, is indicative of the intelligence and strength that first attracted me to him and makes me continue to love him more each year. I’ve always had an abhorrence for fraidy cats. I have stuck by him, regardless of whether I strongly disagree with him at times, because I respect and believe in him. (That’s called loyalty.) And I am not the only one. We are not “yes men” (or “yes women”), because we do tell him when we disagree, but his word is the final one, like it or not.
How many friends do you think strongly advised him not to form the Church of Satan? Many. Their reasons? Too commercial. What if he had listened to their accusations of “selling out” or “cheapening” the Black Arts? Anton hates hypocrisy—and that, my dear Brother of the Night, is what the essay is geared to eradicate.
The people who will establish the Church of Satan as a great and lasting institution are those who are realists! That—realism—is the philosophy behind Satanism. How do you know the present II° and III° people will feel betrayed? In this case, I don’t think you can cite Lilith’s reaction, since—comment from you or not—she knows you pretty well, and facial expression can say what no words can. We credit them with more sophistication than you do. It is the very intelligence, dedication, and accomplishment (i.e. life experience) which will enable them to comprehend the reasons for the alternate means of attaining higher degrees within the Church. Why not let the II° and III° people speak for themselves?
If a big shot is really a big shot and/or capable of offering the Church a sizable contribution, he has had his fill of fancy dinners, honor guards, and fifteen-word honorary titles. And if our title didn’t mean anything to him, he wouldn’t be willing to pay for it. [The wealthy are notoriously more tight-fisted than those less well endowed financially.]
You know us better than to think we’re going to make some blow-hard moron who doesn’t know a Baphomet from a Mogen David, Third Degree. Chances are we wouldn’t even be placed in a position of talking with anyone like that long enough for the subject to come up. We would feel either indifference or contempt, hence nothing could come of such an encounter. San Francisco tried to sweep Anton LaVey up in its big social scene a couple of years after the Church was formed. She failed. Because he couldn’t stand being in the same room with most of the socialites he met. And he still can’t.
As for prostituting ourselves, we all do it. It’s just a matter of semantics and extent. From what you said about your stint at Merrill Lynch, I would think you would be the first to recognize that prostitution is necessary sometimes, and that it is only when it becomes all-pervading that our lives go sour. We don’t think we’re prostituting ourselves... anymore. When Anton had to pose for Devil-Man pictures and play court jester anytime the press needed something to liven things up a bit, yes. But not any more. If you regard us as such, then perhaps you can console yourself with the old saw, “This too will pass.”
From the very beginning, Anton has placed very little importance on titles. They were created because members demanded them. You know he has more respect for certain I° people than for some III°. He has always been direct with you on this point. Your own title was well earned and stands for exactly what it has been described as standing for. But you should know by now that it is the chemistry between Anton and certain individuals that determines his respect (or lack of it) for them. Call it the roots of a personality cult if you wish, but I think if you consider the matter objectively you will agree that no organization can survive without at least some element of hero-worship. Otherwise the role of leader would be nonexistent in society. Matter of fact, I have correspondence from you about a year ago saying that very thing. It was in reference to the Anton LaVey Fan Club business.
I can’t believe you are as naïve as your statement “People won’t give a cent to a church known to pawn its priesthood and initiatory degrees” makes you appear. What about the Shriners, other branches of Masonry, the Catholic Church and its WASP counterparts? They may not like to admit it to themselves, but deep down they know that, if they don’t have the time or inclination to work for positions of esteem in the organization, they can cast their bread and get it back buttered.
Do you truly understand the “Circus of Dr. LaVey”? You certainly described it well.... We always thought you knew the rigging, but your last letter shows signs of a loosening of the ropes. Apollonius spoke, and you reacted like one of the rubes. We have never misled you. And this latest essay is just the same thing you’ve been hearing all along, with the sham stripped away. Our ideals are no different than they ever were. Methods change from time to time, but the goals remain the same.
Your comment about our living behind a protective fence was ill-timed, considering that just last night I was shot at through the front window at 6114. It was only a pellet gun, but came through the window and shade at a velocity sufficient to embed itself in the ceiling diagonally above me. In measuring the line of fire, had I been seated at my desk (from which I had a split-second before I stood up), I would have been in real trouble. You see, therefore, why this is a particularly touchy subject today, even though the perpetrators were apprehended six blocks away....
Since you find this issue of the Hoof too abrasive to your sensibilities, it will go out from here. Some of your text will be retained, but don’t worry about having to take responsibility for the lead essay. Rex Kincaid’s byline will be on it.
You have made it clear that you find the current elucidation of policy repugnant. Now we will give the others an opportunity to make their feelings known, pro or con. Any reaction the forthcoming Hoof elicits must be spontaneous. Therefore please contain your feelings as you have thus far.
Rege Satanas! /s/ Diane LaVey
Letter from Aquino to Diane Hegarty and Anton LaVey
Dear Diane and Dr. LaVey,
This is in answer to your letter of June fourth.
During our meeting in San Francisco I voiced no objections to your proposed Hoof article for three reasons:
1) It was read to me only once and in excerpts, and I did not have the opportunity to examine the text for myself.
2) I was told it was the gist of an article, and that I would subsequently be able to, as you put it, smooth it out. [That is precisely what I attempted to do in my “Bon Chat” and “Back-scratching” substitute articles, because I did not think that it was your intention to sell the degrees.]
3) I did not come to 6114 expecting to hear that, and I would have doubted my own hearing had I understood it from the conversation.
My letter of May 31 was written for Anton Szandor LaVey alone. If it seems overly formal in tone, it is perhaps because it was extremely painful for me to write. When I bring up issues as serious as those in the letter, I try to be as precise in what I say as possible. As for the contents, the facts were then and are now exactly as I presented them. Had I been able to place any other interpretation on them, I would have done so.
That Hoof article of yours is not geared to eradicate hypocrisy, but rather to institute it as official policy of the Church of Satan....
I am disappointed with you beyond expression. Not because you chose to answer my last appeal to you in a way that was rude and contemptuous. Not even because, under the guise of friendship, you have abused and exploited my trust in you. But because you have now acted to deliberately destroy a great institution that would have revolutionized human philosophy and established the name of Anton LaVey as one of the great men of all time....
I reaffirm my degree as Magister Templi, and I reaffirm the degrees of all those who have won them and honored them according to the standards Satan himself has upheld since the dawn of human civilization. Since you—Satan’s High Priest and High Priestess—have presumed to destroy these standards and replace the true Church of Satan with a “Church of Anton,” the Infernal Mandate is hereby withdrawn from the organization known as the “Church of Satan, Inc.” and you are no longer empowered to execute your offices. The degrees you scorn are no longer yours to administer, but shall be safeguarded according to the Will of Satan. “Whenever, therefore, a lie has built unto itself a throne, let it be assailed without pity and without regret.”
Until this time the Church of Satan has rightly affirmed its legitimacy, and those who contest that will find no ally in me. I shall never forget the greatness of its legacy or the incomparable debt all Satanists owe to its founder. And, personally, I shall never cease to love the two of you as gentle and sensitive people whose only fault, perhaps, was in falling victim to pressures no human being should be expected to endure for long. In time I hope you may understand this, and that then you will not think ill of me for what I now do. For so I am bound by my sacred oath to Satan.
Rege Satanas! /s/ Michael A. Aquino
Magick was not only the province of American (and European) fraternal secret societies; it spilled over and cross-pollinated with a culture ripe with folk traditions of occult lore, spells, incantations, witchcraft, séances, divination, psychic goings-on, and much more. From the Fox Sisters and Spiritism, ectoplasm, and table-rappings, to the Freemason and Prophet Joseph Smith, the Urim and Thummim and the discovery of gold plates through hidden means, America has had its own sub rosa traditions of searching for gnosis and esoteric wisdom or simply gain.
These traditions were often drawn from kabbalistic and occult sources, such as the Black Pullet or “extra” books by Moses which conveyed the legends and the lore which swirled around secret societies.
The lines of demarcation between an Occult Order and a town witch were not always clear. Ritual informed both, and both influenced America.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The Black Pullet (La poule noire) is a grimoire that proposes to teach the “science of magical talismans and rings,” including the art of necromancy and Kabbalah. It is believed to have been written in the 18th century by an anonymous French officer who served in Napoleon’s army. The text takes the form of a narrative centering on the French officer during the Egyptian expedition led by Napoleon (referred to here as the “genius”) when his unit are suddenly attacked by Arab soldiers. The French officer manages to escape the attack, but is the only survivor. An old Turkish man appears suddenly from the pyramids and takes the French officer into a secret apartment within one of the pyramids. He nurses him back to health whilst sharing with him the magical teachings from ancient manuscripts that escaped the “burning of Ptolemy’s library.”
The book itself contains information regarding the creation of certain magical properties, such as talismanic rings, amulets and the Black Pullet itself. The book also teaches the reader how to master the extraordinary powers from these magical properties. Perhaps the most interesting magical property claimed in the book is the power to produce the Black Pullet, otherwise known as the Hen that lays Golden Eggs. The grimoire claims that the person who understands and attains the power to instruct the Black Pullet will gain unlimited wealth. The notion of such a lucrative possession has been reflected throughout history in fables, fairy tales and folklore.
Reverend Ike, a modern-day version of The Black Pullet, The Secret, and the New Thought Movement
From The Black Pullet, or the Hen with the Golden Eggs:
Comprising the Science of Magical Talismans and Rings; the art of Necromancy and the Kabbalah, for conjuring the aerial and infernal spirits, sylphs, undines, and gnomes; for acquiring knowledge of the secret sciences; for discovering treasures, for the gaining of power to command all beings, and for unmasking all evil spells and sorceries,
From the teachings of Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Zoroaster, son of the great Aromasis, and other philosophers whose manuscripts escaped the burning of Ptolemy‘s library, and translated from the language of the Magi and of the Hieroglyphs, by the Doctors Mizzaboula-Jabamia, Danhuzerus, Nehmahmian, Judahim, Eliaeb, and translated into French by A.J.S.D.R.L.G.F. in Egypt 740.
The earth and the heavens are populated, my dear son, with spirits to whom the Supreme Being has confided the administration of the Universe; He has distributed them everywhere nature appears to be animated but principally in those regions which stretch around and above us from the earth up to the sphere of the Moon. It is there where an immense authority is exercised, they dispensing life and death, the good and the bad, light and darkness.
Each nation, each individual finds in these invisible representatives an ardent friend to protect him, an enemy no less ardent to pursue him. They are clothed in an aerial body; their essence holds the middle between Divine Nature and nature; they surpass us in intelligence; some of them are subject to our passions, mostly in the changes which pass them on to a superior rank. Because of their innumerable multitude, spirits are divided into four classes: the first of perfect beings whom the common herd adore and who reside in the stars; the second, those of the spirits properly called and of whom I conversed with you; the third, those beings less perfect who however, render great service to humanity; the fourth, those of our souls, after they have been separated from the bodies which they inhabited. We may discern from the first three the honors which will one day become part of our nature if we cultivate exclusively wisdom and virtue.
To render you more sensible of that which I have put forward to you relative to the spirits, I will give you an account of what befell me with those who are submissive to me. Know also that they only communicate to souls after a long time of preparation in meditation and prayer. The dominion which I have obtained over my spirit is the result of my constancy in the practice of the virtues. In the beginning I saw him only rarely; one day yielding to my repeated entreaties he transported me to the realm of the spirits. Listen, my son, to the story of my voyage.
The moment of departure having arrived, I felt my soul detach itself from the bonds which attached it to the body, and I found myself in the middle of a new world of animated substances, good or malignant, blithe or sad, prudent or careless. We followed them for some time, and I thought I recognized some who were directing the interests of nations and those of individuals, the researches of sages and the opinions of the multitude.
Soon a woman of gigantic stature extended her black veils over the vault of the skies; and having descended slowly to earth, she gave her orders to the cortege which had accompanied her. We glided into several houses. Sleep and its ministers scattered poppies with full hands; and while silence and peace spread gently around virtuous men, remorses and frightful spectres shook the beds of the wicked with violence.
“Dawn and the hours open the barriers of the day,” my guide said to me. “It is time to rise into the air. See the tutelary spirits of Egypt soaring over the different towns and regions which the Nile irrigates. They dispel as much as possible the evils with which they are menaced; nevertheless, their countryside will be devastated because the spirits enveloped in dark clouds are advancing and thundering against us; he then announced to me the arrival of the army of which you formed a part because he had knowledge of its coming.
Occult sigil for The Black Pullet
“Observe now these assiduous agents, who, with a flight as rapid and as restless as the swallow, skim over the earth and cast piercing looks on all sides for greed and avidity; these are the inspectors of human affairs. Some spread their sweet influence over the mortals whom they protect; others launch the relentless Nemesis against grave transgressions. See these mediators, these expounders who rise and descend without cease; they carry your prayers and your offerings to the gods; they bring back to us happy or distressing dreams and the secrets of the future which are then revealed to you by the mouth of the oracles.”
“Oh my protector!” I cried suddenly, “here are beings which in their stature and sinister appearance inspire terror; they come to us.”
“Flee,” he said to me, “they are unhappy, the good fortune of others irritates them, and they spare only those who pass their life in sufferings and in tears.”
Escaping from their fury, we found objects no less afflicting. Discord, the detestable and eternal source of dissentions which torment men, marched proudly above their heads and whispered outrage and vengeance into their hearts. With timid steps and lowered eyes, the prayers trailed on their steps and endeavoured to recall everywhere the calm they had showed themselves. Glory was pursued by envy who tore her own sides; truth changed its face from moment to moment; each virtue by several vices which carried snares or knives.
Fortune appeared suddenly. My guide said to me, “You can speak with her.” I felicitated her on the gifts which she distributed to mortals. She told me in a serious tone that she did not give but took a great interest. While uttering these words, she soaked the flowers and fruits which she held in one hand in a poisoned cup which she held in the other.....
APOSTLE Heber C. Kimball, a Freemason for many years, expressed his view a month after receiving the Mormon endowment in 1842: “we have received some pressious things through the Prophet [Joseph Smith] on the preasthood that would caus your Soul to rejoice [—] I can not give them to you on paper fore they are not to be riten.... thare is a similarity of preast Hood in masonary. Br Joseph ses Masonary was taken from preasthood but has become deg[e]gerated. But menny things are [made] perfect.”
—D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View
“[I]T WAS JOSEPH SMITH who first pointed [“patternism”] out, recalling a common heritage from what he calls the archaic religion, coming down from Adam in such institutions as Freemasonry, and clearly pointing out their defects as time produced its inevitable corruption. What he himself supplied single-handedly is the original article in all its splendor and complexity.”
—Don E. Norton, ed., Temple and Cosmos (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992)
“QUESTION: Where did the Masons get the ceremonies they have today? Did they come from these documents? Answer: Their ceremonies didn’t come from these documents. Nobody had the texts until recently. They do give us an interesting check. The Masonic rites have a lot in common with ours. Of course in part they do have the same source, if you trace them way back. But what a different picture you see. The Masons don’t give any religious meaning to them. They think of them as symbolic, as abstract. They don’t see any particular realities behind them. The rites have nothing to do with salvation, but consist only of broken fragments.... They have been picked up from various times and places, and you can trace them back.”
—Don E. Norton, ed., Temple and Cosmos
GRASS ELF: “The elves are from three to six inches in height. They are little, force-built figures, shining with a green light, and looks as if they were clothed with a single, close-fitting grass-green garment. Their faces are chubby and childlke. The eyes have a somewhat arch expression and they are wholly absorbed in the short, swinging flights with which, alone and in groups, they move about the field.”
—from Kingdom of the Gods
SYLPH: “These sylphs are rather below human height, but quite human in form, though asexual. They are disporting themselves wildly in groups of two and three, traveling at great speed across the sky. There is a certain fierceness in their joy as they call to each other, their cries sounding like the whistling of the wind, reminiscent of the call of the Valkyries in Wagner’s opera of that name.”
—from Kingdom of the Gods
Of all the popular handbooks of magic, The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses (‘6/7 Moses’) is perhaps the most influential. It has become quite important in American folk magic, being extensively used by Pennsylvania Dutch hexmeisters, Hoodoo practitioners, African-American root workers, witches of various sorts, and rural Germans and Swiss, among others. It is also widely used by practitioners of obeah (for magic of the West Indies), as well as West Africa. Gerald Gardner, arguably the founder of modern Wicca, owned a copy of the De Laurence edition (1930).
Why is it so popular? One reason may be its claim of biblical roots. Another is undoubtedly its sinister reputation. Folklorists have collected many reports of its successful use, but frequently these practitioners are claimed to become ensnared by it. A glance through the pages tend to support the view that an evil magic pervades it, with plague spells and the sinister Faustian materials. Dorson noted that it is “constantly alluded to in European popular tradition as diabolical writings.” In American folklore, too, it has the reputation of being powerful but evil: “The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, however, is an evil book. With that book one can do all kinds of evil, if one renounces God and swears allegiance to the devil.” Even touching it is shunned. Others believe this text was meant to “counteract the Black Bible, a Satan-inspired book, and that Moses delivered it to provide power over the hexes of a witch.”
Other reasons for its popularity are the simplicity of its methods (simple amulets and a few words are all that’s needed in most cases), and the availability of low-cost editions (despite the fact that these are almost always cheaply printed on poor quality paper with practically unreadable illustrations).
In spite of its public popularity, and a resurgence of scholarly interest in Jewish magic, it has been scarcely noticed by scholars outside the field of folklore. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that it is a relatively modern compilation albeit with medieval roots.
—from the Foreword to The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses or Moses’ Magical Spirit-Art Known as the Wonderful Arts of the Old Wise Hebrews, Taken from the Mosaic Books of the Kabbalah and the Talmud, for the Good of Mankind. Translated from the German, Word for Word, According to Old Writings. With Numerous Engravings. New Edition, Corrected and Expanded by Joseph H. Peterson. Ibis Press, Lake Worth, FL, 2008.
A lightning rod of controversy in religious circles, the relationship of Freemasonry to Mormonism reflects the intersections of Ritual America. Many authors have discussed the relationship between the Mormon Church and Freemasonry—largely anti-Mormons and anti-Masons. Mormons admit that the founder Joseph Smith and many early leaders of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or Mormon Church were Freemasons; they admit similarities in their Temple rituals and Freemasonic rituals; they admit many symbols, such as the beehive, that are common between Masonic and Mormon temples.
The explanation for theses similarities could not be wider between the two opposing camps: one side sees the Hand of God; the other, the Cloven Hoof of the Devil.
Mormons explain that original truths from Heaven itself were corrupted by mankind and existed as such within Freemasonry—and that the Prophet Joseph Smith restored them, making Mormonism actually the “original” or corrected Freemasonry, something only given pale imitation in the lodges. Anti-Mormons cynically conclude that the Prophet ripped off the Lodge, changed things around a bit, and used Masonic rites and symbols for his own purposes, giving his new church a religious and secretive structure.
Mormons view Joseph Smith as the restorer of true Christianity. Anti-Mormons allege that Joseph Smith actually delved into the occult, perhaps conjuring up the supernatural visitors that appeared to him.
Early Mormonism also seemed to be caught in the crossfire of the controversies surrounding the anti-Masonic movement sweeping the country at the same time. Were the fingers on the triggers of the mob that shot Joseph Smith adorned with Masonic rings? Or were the guns fired by anti-Masons? Were his killers angry Lodge Brothers who considered that Joseph Smith violated his Masonic oaths by stealing rites and secrets for his church? Did he begin to give a “grand hailing sign of distress” from Freemasonry, starting the secret cry, “Oh Lord my God, is there no help for the widow’s son”—as Freemasons are told to do in the direst emergencies? Freemasons are duty-bound to help upon hearing such a cry—unless they were already (allege some) assigned to gun him down as the payment for violating his Masonic oath. Or were his dying words before he was shot a mere, extreme coincidence?
Freemasons, Mormons and occultists continue to wrestle over the meaning of these events. We give a selection below, a window seat on the wrestling match.
The following extracts from an anti-Mormon article contain the accusations of occult practices and Masonic parallels, interpreted from a Fundamentalist religious perspective.
“There is absolutely no question in my mind that the Mormon ceremony which came to be known as the Endowment, introduced by Joseph Smith to Mormon Masons, had an immediate inspiration from Masonry.”
—Dr. Reed Durham, LDS Historian
... Both Joseph Smith and his father were involved in the occult practice known as “money digging.” This involved special rituals and ceremonies which were performed for the purpose of obtaining buried treasure thought to be guarded by evil spirits... Joseph Smith, Jr.’s role in the quest for treasure was especially important since he had a seer stone. Joseph would place this small, special rock in his hat then pull the hat up to his face to block out all light. By doing this he claimed he could see supernaturally, and would help those who were digging by locating the place where the treasure was buried and observing the spirits that were guarding it. Joseph Jr. himself admitted to being a money digger, though he said it was never very profitable for him (History of the Church, V. 3, p. 29)....
It was with the seer stone that he claimed to both find the plates and later produce the Book of Mormon. This was known by early converts but has since been replaced with later accounts of an angelic visitor.... Former BYU professor and historian D. Michael Quinn writes:
During this period from 1827 to 1830, Joseph Smith abandoned the company of his former money-digging associates, but continued to use for religious purposes the brown seer stone he had previously employed in the treasure quest. His most intensive and productive use of the seer stone was in the translation of the Book of Mormon. But he also dictated several revelations to his associates through the stone (Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, D. Michael Quinn, Signature Books, SLC, 1987, p. 143).
... By drawing only on authorized descriptions of the endowment by LDS leaders, I believe it is possible to see within historical context how the Mormon endowment reflected the ancient and occult mysteries far closer than Freemasonry (Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, p. 186).
Quinn outlines the following ten essential characteristics common to both occult rituals and Mormon Temple ceremonies:
They are revealed by God from the beginning,
but distorted through apostasy.
They place an emphasis on the worthiness of initiates.
They include washings and anointings, a new name and garments.
They emphasize vows of non-disclosure.
There are both “lesser” and “greater” rituals.
They feature presentation of the ritual through drama.
They contain an oath of chastity requiring strict purity
and virtue of the participants.
Might this AMORC advertisement suggest sex magick?
They feature prominent use of the sun, moon and stars as key symbols.
The purpose of the ritual is to assist mortals to attain to godhood.
They employ titles and offices of prophets, priests and kings to those in leadership.
John L. Brooke in his book The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844, noted the following in reference to the story of the discovery of the gold plates and the narrative structure of the Book of Mormon:
Freemasonry provides a point of entry into this very complex story. As it had been in Vermont, Masonic fraternity was a dominant feature of the cultural landscape in Joseph Smith’s Ontario County.... The dense network of lodges and chapters helps explain the Masonic symbolism that runs through the story of the discovery of the Golden Plates. Most obviously, the story of their discovery in a stone vault on a hilltop echoed the Enoch myth of Royal Arch Freemasonry, in which the prophet Enoch, instructed by a vision, preserved the Masonic mysteries by carving them on a golden plate that he placed in an arched stone vault marked with pillars, to be rediscovered by Solomon. In the years to come the prophet Enoch would play a central role in Smith’s emerging cosmology. Smith’s stories of his discoveries got more elaborate with time, and in June 1829 he promised Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris that they would see not only the plates but other marvelous artifacts: the Urim and Thummim attached to a priestly breastplate, the ‘sword of Laban,’ and ‘miraculous directors.’ Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith later described three or four small pillars holding up the plates. All of these artifacts had Masonic analogues.
Smith’s sources for these Masonic symbols were close at hand. Most obviously, Oliver Cowdery would have been a source, given that his father and brother were Royal Arch initiates; one Palmyra resident remembered Oliver Cowdery as ‘no church member and a Mason’... A comment by Lucy Mack Smith in her manuscript written in the 1840s, protesting that the family did not abandon all household labor to try ‘to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth-saying,’ suggests a familiarity with Masonic manuals: the ‘faculty of Abrac’ was among the supposed Masonic mysteries (Refiner’s Fire, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 157–158).
Showman Harry Houdini invokes against the mysticism of the magic racket.
Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe stated:
Many of the Saints were Masons, such as Joseph’s brother Hyrum, Heber C. Kimball, Elijah Fordham, Newel K. Whitney, James Adams, and John C. Bennett.... With the acquiescence of the Prophet, members of the Church already Masons petitioned the Grand Master of Illinois for permission to set up a lodge in Nauvoo.... it was March 15, 1842, before authority was given to set up a lodge in Nauvoo and to induct new members. Joseph Smith became a member (Evidences and Reconciliations, 1 volume, pp. 357–358).
Joseph Smith admitted to being a Mason in his History of the Church, volume 4, page 551. Under the date of March 15, 1842, it reads: “In the evening I received the first degree in Free Masonry in the Nauvoo Lodge, assembled in my general business office.” The record for the next day reads, “I was with the Masonic Lodge and rose to the sublime degree” (page 552).
Dr. Durham, who has served as president of the Mormon History Association, provides a number of interesting parallels between the two. He gives these as evidence for Masonry’s clear influence on Mormonism.
I am convinced that in the study of Masonry lies a pivotal key to further understanding Joseph Smith and the Church.... Masonry in the Church had its origin prior to the time Joseph Smith became a Mason.... It commenced in Joseph’s home when his older brother became a Mason. Hyrum received the first three degrees of Masonry in Mount Moriah Lodge No. 112 of Palmyra, New York, at about the same time that Joseph was being initiated into the presence of God... The many parallels found between early Mormonism and the Masonry of that day are substantial…
I have attempted thus far to demonstrate that Masonic influences upon Joseph in the early Church history, preceding his formal membership in Masonry, were significant. However, these same Masonic influences exerted a more dominant character as reflected in the further expansion of the Church subsequent to the Prophet’s Masonic membership. In fact, I believe that there are few significant developments in the Church that occurred after March 15 1842, which did not have some Masonic interdependence. Let me comment on a few of these developments. There is absolutely no question in my mind that the Mormon ceremony which came to be known as the Endowment, introduced by Joseph Smith to Mormon Masons, had an immediate inspiration from Masonry. This is not to suggest that no other source of inspiration could have been involved, but the similarities between the two ceremonies are so apparent and overwhelming that some dependent relationship cannot be denied. They are so similar, in fact, that one writer was led to refer to the Endowment as Celestial Masonry.
The Fox Sisters. From left to right: Margaret, Kate, and Leah.
The Fox Sisters and Mr. Splitfoot
Leah Fox and her sisters Margaret (Maggie) and Kate touched off a spiritualist phenomenon in America in the mid-1800s, kicking off the fascination with table-rappings, mediums, seances, and ectoplasm—although in 1888 Margaret confessed that their spook-rappings had been a hoax. She attempted to recant her confession the next year, but the damage had been done to their reputation. In less than five years they were all dead. Spiritualism continued as if the confessions of the Fox sisters had never happened.
How did it all start exactly, this movement which would claim the attention of Abraham Lincoln (who allegedly attended at least one seance at the White House with Mrs. Lincoln)? In 1848, the two younger sisters—Kate (age 12) and Margaret (age 15)—lived in Hydesville (now part of the township of Arcadia in Wayne County) in a haunted house. Tales began to emerge of knocks and moving furniture.
Masonic altar weathers the apocalyptic storm.
One night Kate challenged the spirit to repeat the snaps of her fingers, which it did. The girls called the spirit “Mr. Splitfoot”—a nickname for the Devil and his “cloven hoof.” Tales developed around the events, with claims that the spirit was a murdered peddler buried in the cellar.
Kate and Margaret were sent to Rochester—but the rap-pings followed them. A radical Quaker couple took them in and helped spread Spiritualism among the Quakers. Soon new linkages were appearing between Spiritualism and abolition, temperance, and equal rights for women.
The 1850 public séances in New York given by the Fox sisters attracted notable people including William Cullen Bryant, George Bancroft, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Horace Greeley, Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison. The show with Splitfoot had quite a draw.
Both Kate and Margaret became well-known mediums—and alcoholics. Margaret became a Catholic, gave up medium-ship, then went back to it, and started alleging that her powers were diabolical.
It got stranger: Margaret came out with a sensational signed confession given to the press and published in New York World, October 21, 1888:
“Mrs. Underhill, my eldest sister, took Katie and me to Rochester. There it was that we discovered a new way to make the raps. My sister Katie was the first to observe that by swishing her fingers she could produce certain noises with her knuckles and joints, and that the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding that we could make raps with our feet - first with one foot and then with both - we practiced until we could do this easily when the room was dark. Like most perplexing things when made clear, it is astonishing how easily it is done. The rapping are simply the result of a perfect control of the muscles of the leg below the knee, which govern the tendons of the foot and allow action of the toe and ankle bones that is not commonly known. Such perfect control is only possible when the child is taken at an early age and carefully and continually taught to practice the muscles, which grow stiffer in later years.... This, then, is the simple explanation of the whole method of the knocks and raps.”
Harry Houdini (a Freemason) made it a passionate pursuit to debunk claims of Spiritualists.
Both Margaret and Katie had this to say:
“That I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too-confiding public, most of you doubtless know. The greatest sorrow in my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!... I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.”
—Margaretta Fox Kane, quoted in A.B. Davenport, The Death-blow to Spiritualism, p. 76
“I regard Spiritualism as one of the greatest curses that the world has ever known.”
—Katie Fox Jencken, New York Herald, October 9, 1888
Margaret recanted her confession in writing in November, 1889, about a year after her toe-cracking exhibition.
