Quest Magazine

Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion

Ed. Antoine Faivre and Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Leuven, Belgium: Peeters (Herndon, VA: Books International), 1998, Paperback, xviii +309 pages.

The study of esotericism has become an academic discipline- not widespread, but intensely pursued by a dedicated group of scholars. The preface and first three papers of this volume consider formal aspects of the discipline. The remaining nine papers treat particular esoteric subjects, including contrasting views of the Otherworld, alchemy, Kabbalah, Illuminism, and an essay by Garry W. Trompf on "Macrohistory in Blavatsky, Steiner and Guenon," examining the cosmology and planetary history set forth by Blavatsky and elaborated or reacted to in various ways by others.

Jan Snoek's paper, "On the Creation of Masonic Degrees: A Method and Its Fruits," can be taken as a sample of what this volume provides. Snoek offers a theory of the origin of "higher" Masonic degrees, that is, degrees other than the three basic ones of Craft Masonry. It uses a "Sherlock Holmes" or detective method of historical research, which seeks to explain a phenomenon by looking for a practical problem that the phenomenon was designed to solve.

Snoek's proposal links three events in early Masonic history: a published "exposure" of Masonic secrets in 1730 (just thirteen years after the London organization of the Grand Lodge); a schism in Masonic organization between a new group calling themselves the "Ancients" and the original Grand Lodge, which the schismatics called the "Moderns"; and the development of new degrees in addition to the original three. The proposal, briefly, is as follows.

The Third Degree ritual involves a dramatic representation of the murder, burial, and raising of the chief architect of King Solomon's Temple, Hiram, with the initiate playing the central role. The 1730 exposure included the following question and answer describing part of that drama:

Where was Hiram inter'd? [Response:] In the Sanctum Sanctorum.

The "Sanctum Sanctorum'' is the Holy of Holies of the Temple- the inmost shrine, where the Arc of the Covenant was kept and where God himself resided. No merely human body could be buried there. Since Hiram was buried there, he must have been God, who was slain and was to be resurrected. That is, the Masonic ritual was a true Mystery drama, the purpose of which was to effect the union of the initiate with the divine, achieved by a symbolic death and resurrection.

The revelation of this secret meaning of the Masonic ritual in the 1730 exposure was a scandal for two reasons. It made public the central mystery of the Freemasonic ritual; and it was heresy in the eyes of the established Church-asserting, as it did, a way to achieve unity with the Godhead-outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As a consequence, the Grand Lodge immediately expurgated the ritual by dropping the explicit burial of Hiram in the Holy of Holies.

The loss of the central clue to the meaning of the Masonic drama created a problem for those Freemasons who honored the esoteric value of their ritual. Some sought to restore the integrity of the Mystery ritual by forming a new Grand Lodge, calling itself "Ancient" because it wanted to preserve the landmark divinizing the initiate, as distinct from its excision by the "Modems." Others began to develop alternative workings that preserved the Grand Secret, possibly beginning as early as 1733 with Scots Master Masons lodges in London and Bath, and later with the development of additional degrees, including the Royal Arch and still later the Christianized Rose Croix degree.

Snoek marshals many details from early Masonic practice that his theory explains. His theory also makes sense out of the curiously mutilated version of the ritual drama in contemporary Masonic practice, which descends from the Grand Lodge's expurgated version. Furthermore, it is interesting because it casts light on the origins of a controversy in present-day Freemasonry, some of whose members see the Craft as devoted to social interests (in either sense of "clubby" or "socially conscientious") whereas others see it as an Esoteric Mystery practice of a transformative nature. There is, as Ecclesiastes says, nothing new under the sun.

The new scholarly study of esotericism, in which Faivre and Hanegraaff are moving figures, has much to offer all who are interested in the subject, either as outside observers or as inside participants.

-MORTON DILKES

January/February 2001

Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions

By Richard Smoley and Jay Kinne
New York: Penguin/Arkana, 1999, Paperback, xxvi + 389 pages.

This book is a travel guide to the realms of contemporary esoteric thought and practice. In twelve chapters it covers the following territories: Jungian psychology; Gnosticism: esoteric Christianity and the Course in Miracles with a brief nod to the Liberal Catholic Church; Kabbalah; magic in the line of Eliphas Levi, the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and Dion Fortune; Wicca, Neopaganism, Voodoo (Santeria or Macumba), and Satanism; shamanism, including Amerindian practice and Carlos Castaneda; Hermetic alchemy and the Tarot; the Gurdjieff Work and the enneagram; Sufism; Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and the Templars, Theosophy, Krishnamurti, and Anthroposophy; and the New Age, Alice Bailey, Edgar Cayce, the human potential movement, and transpersonal psychology.

With such scope, inevitably the tour has about it an if-today-is-Tuesday-this-must be- Belgium quality. Yet, despite the breathless rush past so many metaphysical sites, the authors, who were both editors of the now defunct Gnosis magazine, do a commendable job of outlining the essentials of present-day movements. For many of the movements, they present basic ideas and practices, history, historical antecedents, and current status. Some are given short shrift: Krishnamurti is treated only as a transition from Theosophy to Anthroposophy, and Co-Freemasonry receives only a passing mention and docs not even get into the index although, at least in its Anglo version, it is the most esoteric of Masonic organizations. The editors also have, perhaps not surprisingly, a slight Gnostic bias.

The virtue of the book is that the authors approach their subjects with sympathetic objectivity and factualness. For readers interested in learning something about present-day esoteric movements and their variety, this book is a good place to start.

The Mythic Journey: The Meaning of Myth as a Guide for Life

By Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, Paperback, 288 pages.

Myths are mirrors. They reflect the interests of the person who looks into them, so the same myth means different things to different people. Some ancient peoples thought of myths as accounts of the actual doings of gods and heroes. Others, more literal-and historical-minded, thought of myths as the exaggerated reports of famous human beings (a view called euhemerism after Euhemerus, the fellow who popularized it). Later, others thought that myths were stories allegorizing nature, storms, the agricultural cycle, and other aspects of our environment. Today the favorite interpretation is social-psychological---myths are about what goes on inside us and between one of us and another. This book is a collection of myths from many parts of the world, concisely retold, illustrated with handsome color reproductions of paintings, and interpreted as guidelines for human behavior--understanding ourselves and how we relate to others. There is yet another way of looking at myths, as symbols of the spiritual process that goes on inside us and all around us and connects us with everything. But that's a view for a different book.

By Adam Moledina
Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, n.d. [ca. 1999]. Paperback, xx + 72 pages.

People become vegetarians for a variety of reasons: physical health, spiritual discipline, esthetics, and moral values. This booklet addresses the last motive by graphic and illustrated descriptions of how animals are raised and captured, transported, and slaughtered for food. It is realistic and not for the queasy. But if the Greek philosopher was correct in saying that the unexamined life is not worth living, this booklet can help make life worth living for both the people who read it and the animals whose fate it describes.

-J.A.

January/February 2001