THE RIGHT ANGLE
---------------
MASONRY
From the Theosophical Writings of
H.P. Blavatsky

compiled by Geoffrey Farthing

These extracts from H.P. Blavatsky's (H.P.B.'s) voluminous works are intended to give some information about Masonry and the flavour of her thinking on the subject as she dealt with it over the period of her writing from 1875 to 1891.

page from French Bible Moralisee (c 1235-1245), British Library, showing Christ as the Great Architect, designing the universe with the compass of the Freemason.

H.P.B. was exposed to Masonry via relatives and friends in her formative years, and later many of her associates were Masons. Among them were some, including Col. Olcott who helped in the founding of the Theosophical Society and became its first President,. At the time of the founding of the Society, however, there had been no public exposition of Theosophy. Later there were intimations of it in Isis Unveiled and in many of H.P.B.'s early writings. The great comprehensive teaching only came out in The Secret Doctrine published in 1888.

The significance of this in the matter of Masonry vis-à-vis Theosophy is that with the publication of the Theosophical teachings some hitherto closely guarded occult secrets were made public for the first time. Against this, as the reader of the extracts will perceive, the really significant secrets of Masonry, relating to the nature and processes of Nature herself, had been lost from early times.

The committing of so much of The Secret Doctrine to writing by H.P.B. under the supervision of the Masters of the Wisdom, was unique in the world's history. It was in effect a direct statement from them. No previous teachers of the Masters' stature, including the founders of religions, had themselves committed their teachings to writing. Even though much of this original material was later largely ignored and even altered, the original is still available to students. The importance and urgency that the Masters attached to the completion of The Secret Doctrine was such that they kept Mme Blavatsky alive for a few years after two otherwise fatal illnesses.

There is no evidence to show that, in spite of her many Masonic associations, H.P.B. was ever formally initiated into the Craft and was ever a regular attender of any Lodge. Her involvement was incidental to her exposition of the teaching and practices of Eastern Occultism (Trans-Himalayan). It was from this, and to an extent directly from her Masters, that she possessed a knowledge of the secrets and usages of Masonry and not so much from any literature which, having been published, could not have contained the real secrets of Occultism. H.P.B. learned her Occultism, the ancient Ageless Wisdom, which included the Masonic secrets, directly from her Master.

It is noteworthy that the bulk of the information about Masonry in the theosophical classical literature is in Isis Unveiled (IU) which, according to Col. Olcott's account of the writing of that book and some of H.P.B.'s own statements, was either written directly or from material otherwise provided by the Masters themselves. There is some more information in the Collected Writings (CW), but only comparatively little in The Secret Doctrine (SD).

If asked how a profane can know it [Masonry] the answer comes, ancient and modern Freemasonry are an obligatory study with every Eastern Occultist. [C.W.XI, 71]

What of truth is there in this Theology [Christian]? Through what sects has it been transmitted? Whence was it primarily derived? To answer, we must trace the history of the World Religions, alike through the secret Christian sects as through those of other great religious subdivisions of the race; for the Secret Doctrine is the Truth, and that religion is nearest divine that has contained it with least adulteration. [I.U.II, 292]

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

This work puts Masonry into an historical setting and against a background of the Ancient Wisdom Religion tradition. The advance guard of the human race, in the course of evolutionary development, has become possessed of the secrets of this Ancient Wisdom, and of the structure and processes of Nature. The occult view of evolution has regard to time scales far beyond those allotted even to the age of our physical Earth.

According to this view, everything is on a long journey of development, first of form, and then spiritually. This vast process is by cycles, measured by the duration of entities comprising them, for example the kingdoms of Nature, wherein every single thing has a finite life span. Groups of such lives constitute by aggregation larger entities higher in the evolutionary scale. This applies right up to the human stage, where there are also aggregates in families, tribes, nations and races. In these groups man's progress is by waves, cycles of ebb and flow like the oceanic tides.

At any time on the Earth there are primitive men occupying lowly places in the scale of human evolution. On the other hand there are advanced human beings who have nearly finished their journey as physical beings. Their faculties of perception and understanding have reached the stage where they seem as gods of wisdom and power to men lower down the scale. These advanced men - by the process of many reincarnations - have discovered the secrets of Nature's operations and have become possessed of some of her powers.

To those of their companions fitted to receive it they have imparted some of this knowledge, but under vows of strictest secrecy. This constituted the 'knowledge' of the Initiates of the Mystery Schools. These 'Schools' constituted an enduring chain of teaching and training from time immemorial right up to the present day. The mainstream teaching spawned a number of movements, more or less public, but all shadowing in their degree something of the original and enduring Ancient Wisdom.

These schools and their evolutionary process are of interest to the present day students of Theosophy, for whom this work is principally written. It may, however, be of wider interest and start a process in other readers leading on to ever-widening horizons. Theosophy paints a broad picture, from universals down to the smallest details, and all in between. It covers both the cosmic structure and process. The structure is according to the cosmic planes, and the processes involve universal dynamism. This dynamism, manifesting throughout the whole of Cosmos, is synonymous with 'life'. The structure has two principal aspects, an upper one, the Universal Spiritual Essence, relating to what are called the formless worlds; the other to the worlds of form and objective manifestation. Man's total constitution has two corresponding aspects: an upper one referred to as his Ego or Individuality, comprising three immortal spiritual principles, and a lower one, his psychic and physical principles, which when combined during earth life comprise his Personality.

The cosmic process proceeds by cycles and alternation. Things of all magnitutudes come and go everlastingly. During the genesis period of a cosmic cycle Spiritual Essence is descending into matter, becoming more and more immersed in it until at the bottom of the cycle it, as an operating principle, is almost totally eclipsed by its material counterpart. After this nadir the process reverses and matter becomes more and more spiritualised, regenerated, so that the potentialities of spirit manifest more fully as the ascent proceeds.

By the law of analogy this process applies to everything, including man who has his spiritual principles, immortal, invisible, and his objective physical body. The latter, however, is animated by the invisible energies of Nature and these manifest in the inner worlds as his faculties of mind and emotion; when considered together with their vehicles of expression in the inner levels of being they are referred to as his psyche, soul, which is mortal as opposed to his immortal Ego.

As in the case of everything else, necessarily a living entity, there is a point in its descending arc, as a spiritual entity, when it is virtually totally immersed in matter. It is then largely motivated by selfish animalistic urges and very little influenced by its upper spiritual nature. The universal process, however, demands that by the mechanisms of evolution it must and will ascend through innumerable, increasingly spiritual experiences during many 'incarnations' until, at the end of its very long evolutionary journey, it becomes redeemed. It then manifests its full spiritual nature. In man it has acquired immense knowledge and experience. When this process is really complete he is ready to pass on into superhuman kingdoms as a developed post-human spiritual entity.

This process has been known from time immemorial. During ages past some aspirants after knowledge have made the necessary efforts and sacrifices and have achieved these high states of spiritual development. Historically there have been very few of them but, it is said, the world has never been without their guidance. They have achieved the heights of spirituality, knowledge and power, and remained in contact with the physical and psychic realms to help their less developed brothers along the long road to spiritual maturity.

There have been institutions, centres or schools where some of the mysteries of life and being have been imparted to students to guide them in their evolutionary development up to a point where they too have become possessed of some of the knowledge of Nature's inner secrets and powers. The teaching in these schools constitutes what has become known as the Ancient Wisdom tradition. In relatively recent times, apart from what may have gone on in the 'Ashrams' of competent teachers in the East, some of these teachings has been reflected in the West into the religious institutions in ancient Egypt, Persia, the Chaldees, and eventually Greece and Rome. There were the Mystery schools, all transmitting the common thread of knowledge of the secrets of Nature to their neophytes and Initiates. This knowledge has had many presentations; the chief of these is the Kabala, which is referred to as "the root of Masonry". More recently there have been other presentations in Rosicrucianism, Alchemy, Hermeticism, Astrology, and Masonry.

With time all these various presentations lost their purity. The Hierophants or Initiates died and were not replaced; gradually their secrets were lost and the schools virtually disappeared.

In some cases, however, remnants of them persisted and continued to impart the knowledge insofar as it had been preserved. Personal training, often in the form of ceremonial, was undertaken. This latter was particularly the case with Masonry but other movements also possessed their ceremonial. The object was, and is, the regeneration of man by aiding or hastening the long evolutionary process, which would otherwise involve many reincarnations. For any aspiring individual a start has to be made at a lowly level which will depend entirely on the Karma of the individual concerned, i.e., his present state of spiritual development.

Except for the Preface, Introduction and some explanatory editorial matter at the start of each chapter, no attempt has been made to produce a running narrative. The extracts are directly from the literature; they are not connected with each other which makes for a disjointed text, even though some rough grouping by subject has been attempted, in the chapters. It is important therefore to mark the content of each extract carefully. A story then emerges which becomes more and more significant. An attempt to draw some of the numerous threads together has been made in the Summary.

Something of the story as it relates particularly to Masonry is given us by H.P. Blavatsky in her voluminous writings, extracts from which constitute the bulk of the content of this work.

Because of the importance of its material to students in the matter of Masonry, the information about the Kabala given by H.P. Blavatsky has been extracted from her extensive literature. The compilation forms a companion work to this one.

ANCIENT ORIGINS

Any kind of precise chronology of the history of Masonry is not discoverable from the information we have in the theosophical literature of H.P. Blavatsky (H.P.B.) and her Masters.

One reference takes us back to the third Root Race. Another reference is to the Atlanteans. It is, however, difficult to know what is being referred to. Masonry was obviously the Ageless Ancient Wisdom, constituting "The Mysteries".

According to H.P.B., from the first ages of man the fundamental truths of the nature and workings of Cosmos were in the safe keeping of the Adepts of the Sanctuary, bonded together by "a universal Freemasonry". Here, however, the word "Freemasonry" may be used in a general rather than a specific way. Nevertheless, it does appear that in some form or another what is now Freemasonry or just Masonry has been known and practised from the remotest ages. H.P.B. says:

Modern Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult Masonry of the teaching of those Divine Masons who established the Mysteries of prehistoric and prediluvian Temples of Initiation, raised by truly superhuman Builders.

According to the Belgian Mason, Ragon, a Francmaçon (not maçon-libre) was initiated into the ancient Mysteries. In English maçon is translated into Mason.

The following extracts speak for themselves and require no further comment.

ESTABLISHMENT OF A DOCTRINE

In his Orthodoxie Maçonnique, rightly or wrongly, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, reproaches the English Masons with having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of Freemasonry and Free Masons. The mistake is due, he says, to those who connect Masonry with the building of Solomon's Temple, deriving its origin from it. He derides the idea, and says:

The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of francmaçon [which is not maçon-libre, or freemasonry], that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that of being initiated into the ancient Mysteries veiled under the name of Francmaçonnerie, which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient mysteries; he was to become a mason after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do we not know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the foundation of a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, the god of reasoning, and Apollo, the god of the hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him to build the city of Troy - that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion. [S.D.II, 795-6]

MYSTERIES - ATLANTEANS

The Mysteries were carried into South and Central America, Northern Mexico and Peru by the Atlanteans in those days when A pedestrian from the North [of what was once upon a time also India] might have reached - hardly wetting his feet - the Alaskan Peninsula, through Manchooria, across the future Gulf of Tartary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; when another traveller furnished with a canoe and starting from the South, could have walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged into any part of the continent of South America.

They continued to exist down to the day of the Spanish invaders. These destroyed the Mexican and Peruvian records, but were prevented from laying their desecrating hands upon the many Pyramids -- the lodges of an ancient Initiation -- whose ruins are scattered over Puente Nacional, Cholula, and Teotihuacan. The ruins of Palenque, of Ococimgo in Chiapas, and others in Central America are known to all. If the pyramids and temples of Guiengola and Mitla ever betray their secrets, the present Doctrine will then be shown to have been a forerunner of the grandest truths in Nature. Meanwhile, they have all a claim to be called Mitla, "the place of sadness" and "the abode of the (desecrated) dead." [C.W.XIV, 279-80]

GNOSTICISM AND ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY

Masonry was, in its origin, simply archaic Gnosticism, or early esoteric Christianity; Church Ritualism was, and is, exoteric paganism, pure and simple - remodelled, we do not say reformed. Read the works of Ragon, a Mason who forgot more than the Masons of today know. Study, collating them together, the casual but numerous statements made by Greek and Latin writers, many of whom were Initiates, most learned Neophytes and partakers of the Mysteries. Read finally the elaborate and venomous slanders of the Church Fathers against the Gnostics, the Mysteries and their Initiates - and you may end by unravelling the truth. It is a few philosophers who, driven by the political evens of the day, tracked and persecuted by the fanatical Bishops of early Christianity - who had yet neither fixed ritual nor dogmas nor Church - it is these Pagans who founded the latter. Blending most ingeniously the truths of the Wisdom-religion with the exoteric fictions so dear to the ignorant mobs, it is they who laid the first foundations of ritualistic Churches and of the Lodges of modern Masonry. The latter fact was demonstrated by Ragon in his ANTE-OMNIAE of the modern Liturgy compared with the ancient Mysteries, and showing the rituals conducted by the early Masons; the former may be ascertained by a like comparison of the Church canonicals, the sacred vessels, and the festivals of the Latin and other Churches and Masonry have widely diverged since the days when both were one. If asked how a profane can know it, the answer comes: ancient and modern Freemasonry are an obligatory study with every Eastern Occultist. [C.W.XI, 71]

KABALA

... Ten ciphers, 22 alphabetical letters, one triangle, a square and a circle. Such are the elements of the Cabala, from whose mysterious bosom sprang all the religions of the past and present; which endowed all the Free Masonic associations with their symbols and secrets, which alone can reconcile human reason with God and Faith, Power with Freedom, Science with Mystery, and which has alone the keys of the present, past and future.
[C.W.I, 130-1]

GUARDIANS, PRIMITIVE DIVINE REVELATION

Yet, if the students of the dead languages know anything, they ought to know that the method of extreme necessitarianism was practised in ancient as well as in modern Philosophy: that from the first ages of man, the fundamental truths of all that we are permitted to know on earth were in the safe keeping of the Adepts of the sanctuary; that the difference in creeds and religious practice was only external; and that those guardians of the primitive divine revelation, who had solved every problem that is within the grasp of human intellect, were bound together by a universal freemasonry of science and philosophy, which formed one unbroken chain around the globe. It is for philology and the Orientalists to endeavour to find the end of the thread. But if they will persist in seeking it in one direction only, and that the wrong one, truth and fact will never be discovered. It thus remains the duty of psychology and Theosophy to help the world to arrive at them. [C.W.XIII, 264]

PRIMITIVE ORAL RECORDS

The Secret Doctrine teaches us that the arts, sciences, theology, and especially the philosophy of every nation which preceded the last universally known, but not universal Deluge, has been recorded ideographically from the primitive oral records of the Fourth Race, and that these were the inheritance of the latter from the early Third Root-Race before the allegorical Fall. Hence, also, the Egyptian pillars, the tablets and even the "white Oriental porphyry stone" of the Masonic legend - which Enoch, fearing that the real and precious secrets would be lost, concealed before the Deluge in the bowels of the Earth - were simply the more or less symbolical and allegorical copies from the primitive Records. [S.D.II, 530]

FOUNDATION BY CYCLOPS (INITIATORS)

They [the Cyclops] are called "Builders", and Occultism calls them the INITIATORS, who, initiating some Pelasgians, thus laid the foundation stone of true MASONRY. [S.D.II, 345 fn]

KABALA - ITS BASIS

... the substance of the Kabalah is the basis upon which masonry is built, since modern Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult Masonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the Mysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples of Initiation, raised by truly superhuman Builders. [C.W.XIV, 168]

MODERN ORIGINS

Modern is taken here to mean roughly from the time approaching and into the present Christian era (A.D.)

H.P.B. gives us some interesting information about early 'modern' Masonry. She associates it closely with Greek and Latin writers, some Initiates. She says that these Pagans, according to her, founded the rituals and dogmas of early Christianity, laying the foundation of ritualistic Churches and of the Lodges of modern Masonry. But she adds that the Churches and Masonry have widely diverged since the days when both were one. In another place H.P.B. refers to the "lost word" and says it was possessed by Paracelsus.

We are given a specific date, 1646, when Ashmole was admitted "to the freedom of the Operative Masons' Company in London. She says that at that time Masonry was a true secret organization.

Later she speaks of the connection of Freemasonry with other speculative rites of antiquity including the purity of the old English Templar-Rite of seven degrees.

In the same paragraph she refers to the eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry. Then significantly she says, "There are no longer any secrets left unpublished."

Then there was the great Masonic Revolution of 1717 and the Constitution of 1723 and 1738 when the first Grand Lodge was founded. The "ceremonies and passwords" of Masonry are travestied copies of pure Paganism and of New Platonism. Lastly we have the categorical statement that modern Masonry was born on the 24th June 1717 in Covent Garden, London.

The extracts which follow indicate periods, some dates even, of events in the development of Masonry.

WHO WAS FIRST OPERATIVE MASON?

Who was, in fact, the first operative Mason of any consequence? Elias Ashmole, the last of the Rosicrucians and alchemists. Admitted to the freedom of the Operative Masons' company in London, in 1646, he died in 1692. At that time Masonry was not what it became later; it was neither a political nor a Christian institution, but a true secret organization, which admitted into the ties of fellowship all men anxious to obtain the priceless boon of liberty of conscience, and avoid clerical persecution. [I.U.349]

TEMPLAR-RITE

We think we have sufficiently established the fact of the connection of Freemasonry with other speculative rites of antiquity, as well as the antiquity and purity of the old English Templar-Rite of seven degrees, and the spurious derivation of many of the other rites therefrom". Such high Masons need not be told, though Craftsmen in general do, that the time has come to remodel Masonry, and restore those ancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities (Fellowship fraternity), which the eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have incorporated in the fraternity. There are no longer any secrets left unpublished; the Order is degenerating into a convenience for selfish men to use, and bad men to debase. [I.U.II, 377]

OTHER SPECULATIVE RITES

The entrance of such men as Elias Ashmole into the Operative Fraternity paved the way for the great 'Masonic Revolution of 1717', when SPECULATIVE Masonry came into existence. The Constitutions of 1723 and 1738, by the Masonic impostor Anderson, were written up for the newly-fledged and first Grand Lodge of 'Free and Accepted Masons' of England, from which body all others over the world hail today. [I.U.II, 389]

EPOPTEIA - MASTER MASON

In the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called epopteia, or revelation, reception into the secrets....

The word epopteia is a compound one,... - "upon", and ... - "to look" or be an overseer, an inspector - also used for a master-builder. The title of master-mason in Freemasonry, is derived from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries.
[C.W.XIV, 123]

FIRST FOUNDATION STONE, CHRISTIANITY

It is the former [the Epoptae], the "set apart,"who have preserved the true secrets; it is the Mystae, those who knew them only superficially, who laid the first foundation stone of modern Masonry; and it is from this half-pagan, half-converted primitive fraternity of Masons that Christian ritualism and most of dogmas were born. [C.W.XI, 88]

HEBREW MS (AD 1106)

No Hebrew MS is known to be older than Kennicott's No. 154, which belongs to A.D.1106 (Donaldson). "The Masorah (explanatory notes on the scrolls of the Old Testament and ancient Hebrew mss.) was committed to writing in 506 A.D." [C.W.III, 453]

FREEMASONRY AND CHURCH DESCENDED FROM GNOSTICS & NEO-PLATONISTS

It may thus be shown that both modern Freemasonry and Church ritualism descended in direct line from initiated Gnostics, Neo-Platonists and renegade Hierophants of the Pagan Mysteries, the secrets of which they have lost, but which have been nevertheless preserved by those who could not compromise. If both Church and Masons are willing to forget the history of their true origin, the theosophists are not. They repeat: Masonry and the three great Christian religions are all inherited goods. The "ceremonies and passwords" of the former, and the prayers, dogmas, and rites of the latter, are travestied copies of pure Paganism (copied and borrowed as diligently by the Jews), and of Neo-Platonic Theosophy. [C.W.XI, 75]

BUILDERS OF HIGHER TEMPLE

We yield willingly to the modern Fraternity of Masons the title of "Builders of the higher Temple", as the a priori superiority of the comparative adjective is as illusionary as the blaze of the burning bush of Moses itself in the Templars' Lodges. [C.W.XI, 89]

COMPROMISE - CHRISTIANITY AND GNOSTICISM

In Masonic Lodges the Tyler demands the sacramental words (or precepts) from the apprentice or candidate, thus repeating the ancient formulae. As Ragon, following the occult tradition, has well proved, Masonry was a forced product of the Gnostic mysteries, born of a compromise between Political Christianity and Gnosticism. [C.W.XIII, 8]

START - 1717 - IN LONDON

Not until about thirty years after his [Elias Ashmole's] death did what is now termed modern Freemasonry see the light. It was born on the 24th day of June, 1717, in the Apple-tree Tavern, Charles Street, Covent Garden, London. And it was then, as we are told in Anderson's Constitutions, that the only four lodges in the south of England elected Anthony Sayer first Grand Master of Masons. Notwithstanding its great youth, this grand lodge has ever claimed the acknowledgment of its supremacy by the whole body of the fraternity throughout the whole world, as the Latin inscription on the plate put beneath the cornerstone of Freemasons' Hall, London, in 1775, would tell to those who could see it. [I.U.350]

COMMUNICATION WITH "BROTHERS"

But we will return to these Lectures of Robertson and his charges against Masonry. The greatest accusation brought against the latter is that Masons reject a personal God (this on the authority of Barruel and Robison), and that they claim to be in possession of a "secret to make men better and happier than Christ, his apostles and his Church have made them". Were the latter accusation but half true, it might yet allow the consoling hope that they had really found that secret by breaking off entirely from the mythical Christ of the Church and the official Jehovah. But both the accusations are simply as malicious as they are absurd and untrue; as we shall presently see. [I.U.II, 375]

PROTESTANT AND R.C. MASONRY

Since the origin of Masonry, the split between the British and American Masons and the French "Grand Orient" of the "Widow's Sons" is the first one that has ever occurred. It bids fair to make of these two sections of Masonry a Masonic Protestant and a Roman Catholic Church, as far as regards ritualism and brotherly love, at all events. [C.W.XI, 72fn]

ATTEMPT TO IDENTIFY ENOCH WITH THOTH

Some of the writers interested in the subject - especially Masons - have tried to identify Enoch with Thoth of Memphis, the Greek Hermes, and even with the Latin Mercury. [S.D.II, 529]

(Chapters 4-11 are not currently published as Internet pages.)

SUMMARY

In reading of the ancient origins of Masonry we are puzzled to find references to the Third Root Race. This takes us back millions of years. Then there are the references to a deluge during the Fourth Race, then to Atlanteans, but in the form of the Mysteries. Then came Ancient Egypt, the Cyclops, etc. All these are creating a setting in time - but what form did Masonry then take?

Running like a thread through all these epochs to our present time is the tradition of an Archaic Wisdom-Religion - original, based on a knowledge of the processes of nature of which much was kept secret. Only the Hierophants and high-degree Initiates knew of the essential inner Truths.

There were institutions - for one the Mystery Schools - where this knowledge was studied. Proficiency in it conferred power, notably the psychic ones, but major Adepts became co-workers with nature and able to work so-called miracles. Whereas this knowledge obviously related to Nature universally, the centre for this learning was in the East.

From the time of Plato (and others) it spread to the West, again via the Mysteries, e.g. Eleusinian, but other expressions of the Wisdom sprang up, as for example the Kabalah, the Rosicrucians, the Alchemists, the Hermeticists and latterly Masonry as we know it today. There are two specific dates mentioned: one 1646 when the Operative Masons were functioning in London, and the other 1717 when Speculative Masonry came into existence, presumably in its present form.

What form Masonry took in ancient times we do not know but there is the indicating that every Centre or Lodge was itself a Brotherhood, the movement itself constituting a wider Brotherhood.

We have several statements that Masonry is rooted in the Kabalah. This is also a systematic representation of the nature and processes of Nature herself, starting from the highest conceivable notions of Deity (excluding the "absolute" of Theosophy) down through intermediate realms to our mundane physical earth. Until about the beginning of the Christian era the Kabalah had not been written down. This occurred in about the first century A.D. This was a massive work requiring virtually the life time of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, and then later of his son and his secretary. It is said, however, that Shimon retained the most important secrets unwritten.

Most of this previous pristine literature was lost. An attempt was made in the 13th century to reconstruct it from what could be found by Moses de Léon.

By this time, however, the Roman Church had become very powerful and they recognized that many basic concepts of the Kabalah (and later of Masonry) were inimical to Church doctrine, particularly that relating to "God". As will be seen from the extracts, the Jesuits were successful in introducing into Masonry a belief in a personal God, which did not accord with its "occult" origins.

H.P.B. has some interesting material on Hiram Abiff, Solomon and his Temple. They were both mythical figures and in spite of dates being widely attached to them, did not exist as living men. The Temple itself was also a myth, with no establishable historic existence.

It is not difficult, however, to discern an allegory in the story where Solomon is the Wisdom, and the Temple its magnificent and perfect vehicle on earth (Know ye not ye are the temple of God? - Cor.3.16)

Our story of Masonry indicates clearly the continuing tradition of the Ancient Wisdom from the remotest times up to the present day which constituted a main stream of thought with many tributaries, each of which has been an individual representation of the main ideas. These representations have always in time suffered various fortunes but the purity of the original teachings has either become lost or delayed. The knowledge has been replaced by belief and as that belief has not been based on scripture it has been superstitious. Truth has gradually been lost.

One of the tributary movements was that of the Templars who began their existence as an Order a thousand years into the Christian era. They were initially possessed of the prime truths. By the time of their foundation Christianity had become a powerful force. They escaped infiltration by establishing close cadres of secrecy while at the same time parading in public as conformers to the Jesuitical dogmas. They were, however, a link in the chain leading up to modern Masonry.

We have used specific dates for the start of modern Masonry, one in the 17th and the other in the 18th centuries, but H.P.B. gives several indications that Masonry as such, particularly in its close relationship to the Mysteries, is of very ancient origin. For instance, she says, "The ritualism of Christianity sprang from ancient Masonry". This leads us to conjecture that, like the teachings, the ritualism has also been spoiled. In the light of what H.P.B. says in The Key to Theosophy, this spoilation could have been by way of the introduction of a personal God, by the idea of supplicatory prayer, and the forgiveness of sins by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We can only guess what the ritualism was like before these ideas were added to it.

In her general remarks about Masonry H.P.B. does indicate that the true teachings of the Ancient Wisdom have been preserved right up to the present day in the Mysteries kept strictly secret and divulged only to those who had proved themselves worthy and who had otherwise been trained to receive them.

She instances Cagliostro, commonly regarded as an impostor, as one who knew the true Eastern Philosophy. Perhaps her defence of Cagliosto ought to be taken more seriously.

Elsewhere we have said that the Knights Templar were precursors of the Masons and H.P.B. specifically supports this view.

In her general remarks about Masonry she reiterates the view that there is no 'personal God'.
H.P.B. several times refers to the gradual secularisation of Masonry, leading to the eventual oblivion of its true nature founded in the Mysteries.

In her dissertation on symbols, degrees and orders, she makes some statements to the effect that 'real' Masonry is still alive, adding that this is the case amongst some Rosicrucians. Again in a number of places she tells us that the real Ancient Wisdom, the Secret Doctrine, on which all the Mysteries and the later movements which led up to Masonry are based, is still in the possession of the Eastern Adepts in Arcane Science.

Although H.P.B. in her passages on Masonry mentions the importance of numbers, she does not enlarge on the subject. She does, however, considerably enlarge on it in The Secret Doctrine. In Chapter VIII she mentions the relationship between the form and measurements of the tabernacle built by Moses and the dimensions of Solomon's Temple and the Great Pyramid.

In one paragraph she specifically refers to the archaic Masonry of the Temples and the claims that speculative Kabala and Masonry try vainly to link themselves with it. She says that they cannot do this because all their claims are shown to be inaccurate from an archaeological standpoint.

She also makes a very significant statement that, "All Symbolism of the ancient Initiations came to the west with the light of the eastern sun". Later she says that Freemasonry derives her rites from the east. She adds too that "The knowledge of the members of Masonry now about the full signification of their symbols is nil".

She makes reference to the cyphers given in Isis Unveiled, saying that one of them used by the Jesuits had been elaborated to include commas, diphthongs, accents, dots, etc. The cyphers have not been reproduced here but can be see on pp 395-7 of the second volume. The purpose of printing them was to show that these secret cyphers were known to the Adept Brotherhoods of the east.

Our story of modern masonry indicates clearly that, via the Kabala, it had its origins in the east where the Initiates of the Mysteries are possessed of the secrets of the Ancient Wisdom. As the story progresses we see how these secrets were not only lost to Masonry but to the other tributaries of the Ancient Wisdom. There are, however, clear statements that the Eastern Initiates are still in possession of these secrets. The inference that we can draw from this is that in the massive literature produced by H.P.B. at the end of the 19th century, some of the secrets of this Ancient Wisdom were made known by those Initiates.

Whereas such information could only have been available to Initiates into the Mysteries, it was now publicly available, at least to the extent that it had been given out. Importantly, however, this literature is first hand from the Masters of the Wisdom. No literature emanating from the teachings of World Teachers had up till then been written down during the lifetime of those teachers. It had therefore been subject to many defects and deficiencies of those who undertook to commit it to writing. Not only would there have been mistakes but deliberate alterations. Such cannot happen with the theosophical literature as given by H.P.B. and some of her Teachers because the original versions of this literature are extant in many copies. Even so, significant changes were made as soon as she was dead. This reaction is in line with what has happened in every case when some of the truths of existence have been made public before.

The books by H.P. Blavatsky from which passages have been extracted are:-

ISIS UNVEILED (I.U.), Vols I and II
THE SECRET DOCTRINE (S.D.), Vols I and II
THE SECRET DOCTRINE (S.D.), Vol. III, only in the 1897 edition (this material is in C.W.XII)
THE COLLECTED WRITINGS (C.W.), Vols I to XIV