THE BIG STICK









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                                  REVIEWS

THE SECRET TRADITION IN FREEMASONRY.  By A. E. WAITE.  London.
   2 vols, 4to.  1911.  42"s."
   This is a work of over 900 pages, with twenty-eight plates, and numerous interesting head and tail pieces, sumptuously issued by the publishers.  The author may be masonically justified in issuing "ex cathedra," from his study chair, a new and mystic version of our old rites, but such, to be of value, must be grounded upon historic facts, and not upon the nonsense of garbled masonic histories.  In the first volume the author shows an extraordinary lack of knowledge, and hence is unable to fix his theory of an Inner and Secret Tradition upon any solid basis, and the volume, with its inflated diction, and troubled reasoning, is very unsatisfactory.  The second volume is much better, and is really an interesting study.  In both however he does not seek to hide his contempt, often expressed in uncourteous language, against all who are opposed to his views, or otherwise against those degrees from which nothing could be extracted to support his theorizing, and the writer of this review comes in, with many better men, for a slating.
   In September 1910 my attention was called to a Review of my ARCANE SCHOOLS in the London "Equinox," in which I find the following: "It is true he occasionally refers to people like Hargreave Jennings, A. E. Waite, and H. P. Blavatsky as if they were authorities, but whoso fishes with a net of so wide a sweep as brother Yarker's must expect to pull in some worthless fish.  This accounts for Waite's contempt of him.  Imagine Walford Brodie reviewing a medical book which referred to him as an authority on paralysis!"  In spite of this mild castigation he still refers to me with some contempt, and as he has so little regard for the feelings of others, generally, I may be pardoned for following suit.  I fancy, to say the least, that I am quite as able to judge evidence as Bro. Waite is; and I may say that for about sixty-five years I have made a constant study of Freemasonry, in my leisure hours, and I conceive that I have forgotten more of real Masonry than Waite ever knew, or is ever likely to know.
   In the first place, he seems to be utterly ignorant of the Jacobite Ecossaisism of the Chapter of Clermont, yet it is only in their Pre-grand Lodge Harodim {413} that he could find foundation for his theorizing.  My views on this subject occupy about eighty pages, now appearing in "The American Freemason," Salt Lake, Iowa, and to which I must refer my readers.
   He cannot find what he seeks in the Hanoverian G. L. of London, --- 1717; or if he finds anything in the ritual of that body it will be trifling, following the religious training of the two clergymen, Anderson and Desaguliers, who founded it.  On the Craft system he ought to have directed his attention to the old York ritual, and that of the Ancient Masons, which in that of York may date from 1726 (see my "Guild Charges").
   The Royal Arch degree, when it had the "Three Veils" must have been the work, even if by instruction, of a Kabalistic Jew about 1740, and from this time we may expect to find a Secret tradition, grafted upon Anderson's system; the Arch degree was, undoubtedly, developed out the the Knight of the Sword, or Red Cross, by the Harodim Templars of Clermont, and that out of the operative Harodim.
   Any stupid assertion, however historically untenable, but which is
supported by a large majority, is a safe stock in trade for all such writers as Bro. Waite; it pays to tickle the palate of the crowd.  It would take up too much space to carry this further, but I will ask to point out, firsthand, some matters of general interest.
   (I, p. 4).  The A. and A.S. Rite "was not" invented in America, it was known in Geneva several years before 1802, when Charleston found out that it was of 33 Degree, and began to trade upon it.  They had, however, some years before, the "Morinite" Rite of 25 Degree founded at Jamaica in 1767, and not 1761- 2, hence anything referring to that date is false.
   (P. 10).  "Heredom" is a French modification of "Harodim"; even Barruel knew this.  It is a term used by the Comicini builders of London, and is still in use with operative Lodges hailing from Durham.  It was known to the operative Lodges of the Co. of Durham in 1735, when two of them went under the G.L. of Lodon, and may be ages older than that, and identical with the "Quarter Masters" of Kelwinning, etc., under the Schau Statutes of 1598 and with the "Warden Courts" of Scotland and France, existing in 1622, as Laurie points out.  I can provide first-hand light as to the transliteration of the word into Heredomus, or Holy House.  Many years ago, or about 1870, I was in correspondence with Mr. J. W. Papworth on the subject, and he put the question to a very learned friend whom he knew at the British Museum, and who suggested to him the above derivation.  As he requested that his name should not appear I sent it to the "Freemason's Magazine," under the signature of  GR:Delta, and it was at once adopted by Pike; hence the term "Holy House" is about forty years old.  I may mention that the Duke of Leinster's "Prince Mason" of Ireland, {414} which is an amplified version of the London Rosecroix of 1770, but very much older than that, uses the following words in presenting the Jewel of a Pelican, "You are still a Harodim, or Master of the workmen of the Temple," --- a Clermont echo.  It seems to be everywhere kept out of sight that the Pelican feeding its young with its blood was the war banner of James III when England was invaded by him in 1715.
   (P. 40).  Ramsay did no more in 1737, than put his own gloss on what he learned in the Chapter of Clermont.  It is true that in 1754 a change was made in the "Illustrious Knight" (Templar and Sepulchre), and an additional degree then added by an unknown de Bonneville, which may be a Jesuit pseudonym, which in 1758 became the 25th degree, by adding the system of the Knights of the East, etc., and later the 32 Degree, and to which some of Ramsay's views were added; he could not have been a member of the English G.L., but was a Jacobite Scotch Mason, and according to his own statement, made to his friend Gensau in 1741, was born in 1680-1681, and not in 1668 as given by Waite; such of these members as were voted Scotch rank by their Lodges, received the Harodim rank of Clermont.  Thory says that these Scotch Masons in 1736 had four Lodges, and in ten years received 5,600 members.  Personally, I think it likely that the Clermont claims from the Templars (Albigensian) may be just from their own operative Lodges.  Fludd, rather than Ashmole, may have indoctrinated the London Masons, and I have given my reasons for this view in my American papers.
   (P. 295).  Waite is mistaken in supposing that the "Ordre du Temple" was not established in England.  There was a Convent in 1838 at Liverpool, and its members' names are preserved.  The same at London, and Sussex's consent was necessary for Reception; Dr. Robert Bigsby was a member of it, as also of Burnes' revisal of Deuchar's Masonic Knight Templar, which forms the basis of our 1851 ritual, which is not that of Dunckerley who worked the Clermont Templar Kadosh.  There was also a Convent under the Duke of Sussex in India.
   (P. 312).  In reference to Clermont Waite is floating on his own imaginary sea.  Between 1688 and 1753, Clermont had three well-known degrees of Harodim, and in 1754 a fourth was added.  He quotes a garbled extract from Fratre Kristner, who is reliable, and adds a sneer against me.  The Swedish Rite has knowledge that Count Scheffer was received by Derwentwater; Graf von Schmittau; Count Posse, were Received 1737, 1743, 1747.  But Waite claims to be the infallible Pope, who is to judge evidence!!!
   (P. 322).  "Prince Adept" was added to Knight of the Sun at Kingston in 1767, in order that Morin might put in its place, the Prussian "Noachite" to give countenance to his frauds. {415}
   (P. 409).  My view of HRDM-RSYES. is that, as it now stands, it is the French Lectures of Clermont's three grades.  I give my reasons for this in the "American Freemasons" papers.
   (II. p. 1).  This volume, referring as it does, to more recent times, has fewer errors.  It might even be extended, and earlier Hermetic details added.
   (P. 36).  We here read in Waite's words of The thing called "Co-Masonry."  I am not a Co-Mason myself, but I occasionaly send things to the independent private quarterly termed "Co-Mason," they are usually articles unsuited to the taste of mentally deficient Masons, or things that better informed Masons desire to hide.  Again the system comes in for sarcasm owing to a supposed affinity with the Count St. Germain.  We may not like Co-Masonry, for one thing, it affords less opportunity for the convivial Mason, who has no room for the intellectual part; but the system has come to stay, and we may as well treat it with civility.
   (P. 92).  The reduced Rite of Memphis has never been so numerous as to receive respect, and Freemasons are too ignorant to understand it, and to attack it --- as in Co-Masonry --- may prove profitable.  As a matter of fact, some mistake was made in America as to the alleged reduction, but Egypt always held to the revised system of 1862-1866; at this time the Gd. Orient and the Chief of the Rite revised the whole system, mainly on an Hermetic basis, and gave to thirty-three leading ceremonies the power to confer, at intervals, the remaining sixty-two degrees which are generally added verbally in their relative places, and recently I furnished to America the necessary changes in a MS. of 200 pages.  America had the Chapter degrees, 11 Degree - 18 Degree, carefully edited, but the higher section was somewhat chaotic, and in 1872 I did not feel justified in making any great change.  Bro. Waite thrice gives plates of its 90-95 Degree Jewel --- the winged egg --- but without identification.
   (P. 230).  "Rite of Swedenborg."  Of this Kenneth Mackenzie was Grand Secretary from its introduction till his own death.  Bro. Waite is quite mistaken in supposing that he had any hand in compiling the ritual; that and the Charter are in my hands as they came from Canada; the Charter is in the engrossment of Colonel Moore, and carries the following names: Colonel W.J.B.McLeod Moore, Gd. Master of Templars, and 33 Degree; T.D.Harrington, Pt.G.M. of the G.L. of Canada, and 33 Degree; George Canning Longley, 33 Degree; The two first names were 33 Degree Masons of the S.G.C. of Canada, then little esteemed, but founded by the Golden Square body of London; but Longley and myself were of the "Martin-Cerneau" body, though I have several 33 Degree Patents of the "Morinite" Sect.  Founded, as the Rite is, on a version of Ancient Masonry, carried back to a Feast of the Tabernacles, 5873 B.C., it is most interesting, but too lengthy for general use; under these circumstances I might feel inclined to print it for {416} Master Masons, if Freemasonry was an intellectual body, but the needs of English Freemasonry, that in the best and most elaborate of works it is only working for the printer.  The Rite was carried from London to the Americas, by Samuel Beswick, a Swedenborgian Minister, who wrote a book on the subject, and he informed me that they had rejected the matter added by Chastannier, and that what was left was the work of Swedenborg.  Hence Bro. Waite's description of two secret and unnamed degrees, are of interest at this point.
   (P. 368).  Knight or "Priest of Eleusis."  I have this skeleton ritual of the Early Grand; and suppose it may be the old 1838 work of Memphis, of which Dr. Morison de Greenfield was an early member.  As I look upon it the degree is intended to teach that early christianity absorbed the mysteries of Eleusis, and I mention this because I hear from New York that an eminent scholar, learned in Hermetic Greek, is making a translation in which he will prove that the Gospels and Epistles are pure Greek of the Eleusinian cult, and that the Jewish references are added to give a Semitic colouring.  But I must conclude: I could make a decent sized volume in criticising and contesting Bro. Waite's book.
                                            JOHN YARKER, 33 Degree, 90 Degree, 97 Degree.
    WEST DIDSBURY,
      12/12/11.

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THE SECRET TRADITION OF FREEMASONRY.  By A. E. WAITE.

   My previous remark calls for no modification.

                                       MARECHAL DE CAMBRONNE.  {417}