ORIENTAL RITE OF MEMPHIS and MIZRAIM. The Sovereign Sanctuary of Antient and Primitive Masonry, the 33° and last degree for Great Britain have recently issued their permission for subordinate bodies to communicate the secrets and degrees of the original rites of Memphis and Mizraim as the former existed prior to 1862, and as the latter have been recently conferred by the Royal Grand Council of Antient Rites time immemorial. The Rite is a collection of the following:
The Rite of Mizraim was amalgamated with that of Memphis, when Yarker sanctioned the communication of the degrees of Mizraim to members of the Rite of Memphis, the former having no separate governing body in UK. "According to an official statement, reported in every number of The Kneph, 'France having abandoned the Rite, and the Illustrious Grand Hierophant, J. E. Marconis, 33-97, having died in 1868, Egypt took full possession. The Craft GL, our A & P Rite, and the A & A Rite, executed a tripartite treaty to render mutual aid, and restored the Sovereign Grand Mystic Temple, Imperial Council General 96°, presided over by a Grand Hierophant 97°, in 1875."
Alexandria. Two treaties were concluded between the Grand Orient of Egypt and the AASR. By these treaties, which recited that the AASR (in Egypt) was established by a charter from the G. O. of Naples, which in like manner had derived its authority from a Spanish source, and that the Order of Memphis in Egypt held under a charter from Paris, dated 1864, it was agreed: That a Body should be formed like the Grand Council of Rites in Ireland; that the jurisdiction 'of the G. O. of Egypt should be limited to the first three symbolic grades, and that the Rites of Memphis and of the AASR should work the remainder.'
Mackenzie joins the Royal Order of Sikha and the Sat B'hai, the creation of an Indian Army Officer, Captain J. H. Lawrence-Archer.
The Baron Spedalieri proclaims himself a member of the Grand Lodge of the Solitary Brothers of the Mountain, Frater Illuminatus of the Ancient and Restored Order of the Manichaeans and of the Martinists.
January. Irwin to Cox: "The (swastika symbol) shall be given you but twill be a Great favour. I must at any cost keep my word." The "Great favour" was granted in January 1875.
9 January. Benjamin Cox announces his intention of coming to Bristol, bringing with him an old Latin Bible for Obligation. Irwin was in no hurry to confer membership on Mackenzie, perhaps because he feared that he would get drunk at the annual dinner...
18 January. Mackenzie to Irwin: he had "heard of the Rite of Apex and that is all." Eleven days later he asked Irwin for information about the rite for the Cyclopaedia. Irwin referred him to Archer with whom he now began to correspond. He joined the Order early in April and was appointed one of the seven Arch Censors. "I can say no more because I know no more."Then on 22 April "of course you know a great deal more about it than you have chosen to say." On 3 May: He asked Irwin if he had "the Code and Mystery and other things." The Code contained information about the Order's structure and rules. John Yarker published what he described as a revised edition of the Sat B'hai Code in 1886.
24 February. Certificate for the Rite of Memphis granted to M. L. Davies, 33° Manchester, and signed by John Yarker 33°-96°.
Spring. SRIA's affairs were in a state of mild confusion. R. W. Little was threatening to resign and Dr. Woodman was living at Exeter and too far away to be able to intervene effectively. As for Little (According to Mackenzie on 9 April 1875): "...he has so many irons in the fire it is impossible for him to keep them all right. If he would take things more coolly and not waste so much of his time in the Refreshment Room at Freemasons' Hall it would be better."
1 March. Mackenzie: "My mother is a very good writing medium and my wife has the faculty in a lesser degree..."
9 March. The famous letter from "Tuitit Bey" of the Brotherhood of Luxor to H. S. Olcott.
April. Quarrel between Mackenzie and R. W. Little, Supreme Magus of the SRIA. Mackenzie resigns and doesn't attend any of the meetings, even after Little's death in 1878. Early in April 1875 Irwin was already thinking of resigning(the Sat B'hai). Archer's letter to him of 6 April refers to this eventuality.By May he is trying to get away from the Apex scam, afraid that he might get involved in the perpetration of a masonic scam. He also indicated that he would like to get in touch with Archer, but through the mediation of another like Irwin. He wanted to stay away from view. By June he had received a letter from Archer stating that in addition to the Code and the Mystery there is a Ritual.
6 April. Archer to Irwin...contents unknown...Yarker says Archer that his salary as a captain on half pay was only 127 pounds per annum, but he must have had private means. Mackenzie inferred that Archer hoped to make money out of the Sat B'hai.
31 May. Paris. Death of Alphonse Louis Constant(Eliphas Levi). He received the Last Rites of the Church shortly before his death. Before his death in 1875, Eliphas Levi announced that in 1879 a new political and religious "universal kingdom" would be established, and that it would be possessed by 'him who would have the keys of the East." The manuscript containing this prophecy was passed on by Baron Spedalieri to Edward Maitland, who in his turn gave it to a leading member of SRIA by whom it was published in English. (Who? Elsewhere it is said that this prophecy was directly inspired by Levi's preceptor, Hoene-Wronski, who held that the Age of the Holy Ghost was coming, and that a Messiah would be right around the corner, etc. This is probably more of the Frankist and Shabbetean influence. Interesting it is that this seems related to what Vintras and Boullan were working at...)
June. Irwin may have been admitted to the Order of Ishmael in June 1875. Grand Lodge Museum has four Order of Ishmael jewels which once belonged to Irwin. According to the engraved legends he was advanced to Guardian of the Temple IX Degree on 20 June, elevated to Auxiliator 18 Degree on 8 October, and exalted to Providentia 27 degree on 8 November 1875. Finally on 8 January 1879 he was perfected to Chevalier of Darius, Prince of Ishmael 36 Degree.
11 June. Mackenzie reports on Levi(Constant's) death: :"I am sorry to hear Eliphaz Levi has left us but I presume he would not be difficult to find as he was so well known to those who preceded him and his contemporaries. I don't know whether I can get at him through my wife, who is a medium, but I will try."
29 July. Pascal Beverly Randolph dies at Toledo Ohio. It is said, due to suicide. He was succeeded by a Mr. Freeman B Dowd, who continued the work in the Pacific Coast branches and in Eastern Cities. He was succeeded by Dr. Edward H. Brown. Brown in turn was succeeded by R. Swinburne Clymer.
13 August. Mackenzie wrote: "when this book is finished, I shall, very likely, run over to Canada. My father in law Harrison Aydon is carrying all before him and I am in correspondence with my cousin Alexander Mackenzie the Premier of Canada." In August 1875 it occurred to Mackenzie to apply to Cagliostro, Irwin's communicator in 1873. He applied to Cagliostro, through Irwin, for authentic biographic material.
29 August. Mackenzie: "I have a request to make to you which may seem odd, but it is not inappropriate. I have understood that you are in communication with a spirit calling himself Cagliostro. Now I am very anxious in the article I am writing concerning Joseph Balsamo, to bear very much more lightly upon him than Carlyle, the Freemasons generally and the Papalini have done...If your spirit friend would condescend to take an interest in the matter, not as a publicly avowed spiritualistic matter, but simply by way of correction or hints it would be very valuable. I cannot in the present state of my wife's health institute spiritual seances just now." And..."the Ishmaelite degree can only be given personally -- it is impossible for anyone to understand it otherwise -- and it opens a field to all who embrace its sublime teachings -- to me it has ever seemed the highest point and completion of Masonry, altho' it does not start from the same basis."
Autumn. By now a few recruits to the Sat B'hai/Apex had presented themselves.
7 September. New York City. Theosophical Society founded, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steele Olcott, et al. According to René Guénon, "What is very significant....is that Madame Blavatsky in 1875 wrote this: 'I have been sent from Paris to America in order to verify phenomena and their reality and to show the deception of the Spiritualist theory.' Sent by whom? Later she will say: by the 'Mahatmas'; but then there was no question of them, and besides it was in Paris that she received her mission, and not in India or in Thibet." Elsewhere M. Guénon observes that it is very doubtful whether Madame Blavatsky was ever in Tibet at all. These obvious attempts at concealment led M. Guénon to the conclusion that in the background of Theosophy there existed a mysterious centre of direction, that Madame Blavatsky was simply "an instrument in the hands of individuals or occult groups sheltering behind her personality," and that "those who believe she invented everything, that she did everything by herself and on her own initiative, are as much mistaken as those who, on the contrary, believe her affirmations concerning her relations with the pretended Mahatmas." There is some reason to believe that the people under whom Madame Blavatsky was working at this date in Paris were Serapis Bey and Tuitit Bey, who belonged to "the Egyption Brothers." This is to say, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, or as it is also known the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, in Paris, which was the circle of Initiates that Berenger Sauniere would later contact. And, too, perhaps, John Yarker, who granted Blavatsky a patent for the highest degrees of Adoptive Freemasonry within the A&P Rite. So, then, the "Secret Chiefs" which controlled Blavatsky belonged to the same Paris circle that provided the "Secret Chiefs" which controlled Mathers and the Golden Dawn, and later the same "Secret Chiefs" which controlled Crowley. Does such a circle exist today?
20 September. Mackenzie: "I never drink spirits or wine if I can avoid them...only fourpenny ale..."
12 October. Aleister Crowley born, at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, between 11 p.m. and midnight.
19 October. Mackenzie wrote: "Brother Ranking has Joined the Order of Apex, also Colonel Ridgway. Something will have to be done in this soon."
9 November. Hoyerswerda, between Dresden and Cottbus. Adam Alfred Rudolph Glauer is born, the son of a railway engineer. He spent time in Australia, c. 1898-1900 prospecting for gold. 1900-1913 spent in Turkey, working as an estate manager or engineer in the region of Bursa. Became a Turkish citizen in 1911. While in Turkey, became interested in Occultism and Esoterica; probably became acquainted with Sufism and Islamic Mysticism; taught himself astrology from English textbooks. He claimed to have been adopted under Turkish law by Baron Heinrich von Sebottendorff. Upon his return to Germany, he tried to interest the General Staff in a prototype armored vehicle, a kind of tank, invented at Breslau by Frederick Göbel.
21 November. Cox: "I do not think I shall go to London next week -- if I do so it will be to see Mackenzie to receive the Order of Ishmael which he promised to give me if I came to London."
24 November. Mackenzie reported that "Brother Colonel Ridgway is appointed Treasurer General of the Sat B'hai."
7 December. Lyons. Death of Eugene Vintras. After Vintras' death in 1875, Boullan took over the Church of Carmel. A schism ensued, and Boullan and his supporters moved the operation from Paris to Lyons and established their headquarters there. Shortly before Vintras died, Boullan is said to have joined the Church. Shortly before Vintras died, he made the acquaintance of Boullan, an unfrocked priest who had been imprisoned in Rome for heresy (so the story in Francis King has it), and in France for fraud. After his meeting with Vintras, Boullan declared himself a convert to the former's doctrines and, together with his tiny personal following, joined the Church of Carmel; he rose rapidly in the favour of the prophet -- Vintras was never a very good judge of character -- and after Vintras' death proclaimed himself as the new Supreme Pontiff and as the reincarnation of John the Baptist. Most of the members of the Church refused to accept Boullan's claims to supremacy, but a few did so, and they settled with their chief in Lyons, a city that hat retained some reputation for heretical sects going back to the days of Irenaeus.
Boullan held the common 19th century opinion that the sin that had led to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden had been sexual in nature, and that 'as the Fall had been caused by a culpable act of love it is through acts of love accomplished in a religious spirit that the Redemption of Humanity can be achieved.' If humanity engaged in sexual activities with angels and other heavenly beings, said Boullan, it was enabled to more rapidly climb the ladder of spiritual evolution that led to the Divine Union. Similarly, copulation with animals speeded up their spiritual evolution -- and was therefore meritorious.... Rorschach, where are you?
Documents survive showing that Boullan and his followers engaged in copulation with angels, cherubim, seraphim, and the spirits of such historical figures as Cleopatra and Alexander the Great. The techniques used were masturbation, with the operator strongly imagining that he or she was in coitus with the desired angel or spirit, and actual sexual intercourse in which each participant identified the other with the appropriate disembodied being. There is no hard evidence to show that bestiality was practiced, but it is extremely probable that it was indulged in by at least some members of the Church of Carmel. Boullan himself participated in rites that were essentially scatological in nature; he seems to have been fascinated by the human excretory organs and their functions.
Geneva. Baron Emmanuel Rey co-founded the Société de l'Orient Latin (Society of the Latin -- or Frankish -- Middle East). Based on Geneva, this society devoted itself to ambitious archaeological projects. It also published its own magazine, the Revue de l'Orient Latin, which is now one of the primary sources for modern historians like Sir Steven Runciman. The Revue de l'Orient Latin reproduced a number of additional charters of the Prieuré de Sion. Rey's research was typical of a new form of historical scholarship appearing in Europe at the time, most prominently in Germany, which constituted an extremely serious threat to the Church. The dissemination of Darwinian thought and agnosticism had already produced a 'crisis of faith' in the late 19th Century, and the new scholarship magnified the crisis.
Public Health Act of 1875 in England promotes sanitary conditions.
Official government statistics estimate 120,000 Americans addicted to opium. [120 is a Rosicrucian number, after all...]
United States immigration excludes "coolies, convicts and prostitutes" as undesirable aliens.
|[HOME]|[CONTENTS]|[PREVIOUS]|[NEXT]|[MAIL]|
All Original Material (i.e., arrangement and interpretation),Copyright 1998-2001 e.v., Jonathan Sellers. All Rights Reserved.