Category Archives: Review

I’m sure you know about the seven degrees of the French Rite, right? Perhaps you even know that these seven degrees have been in use since the publication of the Régulateur du Maçon (‘Regulator of the Mason’) for the “symbolic”, “blue”, “craft” degrees and the Régulateur des Maçons Chevalier (‘Regulator of the Knight Masons’) for the following four “orders” in 1786. There is actually an interesting story behind these Régulateurs.

When work was done to found the new French Masonic umbrella the Grand Orient de France, between 1771 and 1773, the aim was to create order in the chaos of the French Masonic landscape of the time. There were a great many different degrees, which also differed from each other. These degrees were worked in lodges from different organisations. You get the idea, a bit of a mess.

Another Westphalia Press review. In this book you will find the lectures spoken at a colloquium in Paris in June 2022. It covers a wide variety of texts about the French Rite and its relation to “Enlightenment Culture”.

Authors (speakers) include Margaret Jacob, the compiler of the book Cécile Révauger, Roger Dachez, Pierre Mollier and many others. In total there are 21 texts filling a book of just under 200 pages.

The book clearly shows how French (style) Freemasonry differs from Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry. There is much more focus on societal developments, modernization, humanism, citizenship and indeed secularism.

Contrary to how other Freemasons describe French Freemasonry, French Freemasonry isn’t “atheistic” by definition, nor political. Religious references aren’t removed because French Freemasonry is against religion or wants to recruit only atheists, but because it does not want to exclude people without a religion. The idea is “complete freedom of conscience” of its (prospective) members, not an agenda.

The same with politics. The subject of the French Revolution appears in more than one text. There is no place for party politics in the lodges, but developments in society can certainly be talked about. Just as with any other subject, not to convince other members that a certain viewpoint is correct, but to allow everybody to compare different ideas.

The book will also teach you a few things about the development of French Freemasonry. How around 1780 out of a variety of different ways of working the “Regulator of Masons” was created (and how the Hiram story differs.) How the “Chamber of Degrees” compressed 81 degrees to the four “orders” (‘high degrees’) of the French Rite. How the French Rite fared abroad, etc.

Hence, a scholarly introduction into French (style) Freemasonry in English.

It is interesting to see that there is a growing interest in the Masonic history of France, also from American “regular” Freemasons. Arturo de Hoyos and Joseph Wäges are both members of the “Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Texas” and both renowned authors on Masonic history. Productive too!

Even though this book is basically about the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the authors follow the Frenchman Étienne Morin (1717-1771), an adventurous type. Both in his working life and as a Freemason. Morin lived in France in the time that all kinds of ‘high degrees’ were developed. He appears to have had a big interest in them. He travelled around the globe, especially to the Caribbean. He arranged patents of both the Grand Lodge of France and the Grand Lodge of England to start lodges of ‘high degrees’ wherever he went, but needless to say this also brought him problems as the two Grand Lodges did not like to be played out against each other.

In any case, Morin was the one who started lodges, grand lodges even, but most famously, he was the one from whom the collector of Masonic rituals Henry Andrew Francken (Hendrick Andriese Franken) (1720-1795) got the rituals that would eventually grow into the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

Of course these rituals/degrees did not grow out of a vacuum and De Hoyos and Wäges look into the rituals that Morin must have known and/or used. After a history, they present translations of the following rituals:

• “Complete Corpus of Masonry, Adopted by the Respectable Grand Lodge of France (1774)” (three degrees);
• “The Regulator of the Mason (1801)”, the famous codification of the Grand Orient of France of the first three degrees Régulateur du Maçon;
• “The Regulator of the Knight Masons (1801)”. These are the following four “orders” (degrees) of the seven degree French system, Régulateur des Maçons Chevalier. This ‘high degree regulator’ has been hard to get, so this is a much needed publication;
• “Rit Écossais Rituals (1788)”, ‘blue’ Scottish Rite degrees;
• “Scottish Masons Guide”, also ‘blue’ Scottish Rite degrees.

The follow appendices with correspondence, lodge lists, etc.

The massive book is in A4 format and has over 440 pages.

Also see the other titles of the publishing house Westphalia Press.

I somehow expected to be the phrase “humanistic Freemasonry” to be akin to “continental Freemasonry”. This did not prove to be entirely true. Then again, it is not entire untrue either.

In the beginning of the book the author says (in my translation):

The humanism of modern Freemasonry for me is a secular, worldly humanism.

And:

Humanistic Freemasonry is open for people of all faiths and religions and also for people without faith or religion.

“Continental Freemasonry”, right? Not entirely, because in the Freemasonry of the author there is still room for a Grand Architect and a Bible. The “humanist” German tradition within Freemasonry is not exactly the same as the secular tradition in for example France.

The author appears to be a member of a men-only organisation, but he also mentions women and “Freimaurerinnen”. I guess we can place him in a ‘modern German direction’, but not as ‘radical’ as Belgium and France where references to ‘religion’ have been entirely removed.

In basis the book is about the investigation of Masonic ritualism in which the author is not so much interested in the history of the symbols or the esoteric explanation of them, but rather in the “individual psychological and group dynamic aspects of masonic ritual”.

An alright read, if you can read German, about an approach to Freemasonry that I think falls within the scope of this website, but still differs in some ways.

2016 Salier Verlag, isbn 9783943539424

Available from Amazon in paperback and for Kindle.

As you can see on this website, there is a rough divide in the world of Freemasonry. “Regular” versus “Irregular”, “Conservative” versus “Progressive”, “Anglo-Saxon” versus “Continental”, there is different descriptions for both ‘camps’. There is a lot of talking about the ‘other camp’ which usually is merely the display of simplifications. It is not like there are two homogenous camps. Neither is it like these camps are diametrically opposed. There is shared history, mutual influencing, but most of all, the differences may not be as big as you think.

French (or “continental”) Freemasonry is pretty ‘scholarly’, but the publications and conferences do not usually appear in English. Therefor it is a good idea that the author Roger Bachez and Alain Bauer decided to publish a book in English. It is but a little book (134 pages) which in the general parts is quite … general, but also the “French view” of things are highlighted and ‘French elements’ are put into context. You may be surprised how things ‘really’ are.

The book starts with a history of Freemasonry. It mostly debunks myths, such as “the operative myth”, “the Templar myth” and “the Rosicrucian and Alchemical myth”. Then we briefly go to Britain and rapidly to France, because in France Freemasonry would develop independently from Britain. In that early history of French Freemasonry you can already see traces of what is to come. Social/political tendencies, repression by the Church and the development of anti-clericalism, but also systems of high degrees that quickly started to be developed in France. The picture painted is interesting, nuanced and not without critical notes.

A big point is that in France symbolism has always been more important than moralism and esotericism more so than religion. It is not so much an “atheist” development that France made, but more one of complete freedom of consciousness in which esotericism proved to be a more fitting approach than a religious one.

But as we know, France is also the country to differing opinions, so you will also learn a thing or two how it comes that Freemasonry splintered, how these different “obediences” relate to each other, how organisation for “high degrees” relate to those of the “blue” lodges (‘craft’).

“Secular spirituality” instead of “atheism”, “Masonic humanism”, “Masonic esotericism” (I was quite surprised to see René Guénon quoted, not an author that an “atheist” would quickly turn to), “the path of initiation”.

The book is written in descent English. There are a few amusing details that prove that the book was not written by a native English-speaking Freemason, such as when the “First” and “Second” Warden are mentioned. There are more such English versions of fairly typically ‘continental’ Masonic expressions.

Whatever you think of this “French” / ‘continental’ of Freemasonry, it has been there since the early days and indeed, it is different. Maybe not as different as some people like to make you think it is. All in all, the book makes fairly light, but interesting read, showing the interested reader the “French view” of the history and practice of Freemasonry. Recommended.

Available from Amazon. It is even a cheap book, so no reason not to have a look.

This book was initially published in Spanish late last year by the productive and relatively young Brazilian Freemason Gustavo Vernaschi Patuto (1980-). Patuto is part of a group of Southern American Masonic investigators into what they call the “Modern Rite”.

The book uses the word “Modern” in three ways which sometimes appear to be used as synonyms. First there is “Modern” as the Freemasonry after 1717, the foundation of the first Grand Lodge. Then there is “Modern” as the counterpart of the “Antients” who founded their own Grand Lodge in 1751 because of innovations made by the premier Grand Lodge. Then there is the European continental development into secular Freemasonry after 1872 towards the “French” or “Modern” Rite.

The book starts with a general history of Freemasonry. Here and there the author seems to be somewhat firmer on some ideas than other investigators. You can read about the transition from operative to speculative Freemasonry, the development of the third degree, the Antients and the Moderns and then of course the secular French development. Then we move to Brazil to follow the development of Freemasonry there and how the study of Brazil’s Masonic history has taken a flight.

The book is either translated by an automatic translator and/or by a non-native-speaker. This results in strange sentences and odd word-choices such as “Old” for “Antient”, “great lodge” for “grand lodge”, “tomes” for “volume” or “Union Centre” for “Centre of Union”. Also the names of organisations are sometimes (partly) translated.
David Harrison wrote one of the forewords, he may have proofread the manuscript as well.

The concept of the “Modern Rite” may need a bit more explanation too. Towards the end there is a list of “Modern” lodges and the lodges of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands is listed together with those of the Grand Orient of France and Belgium. The Grand Orient of the Netherlands rituals may have French influences (but also German), but the rituals of this “regular” Grand Orient” are not “secular”. It may be an idea to be clearer what “Modern Rite” actually refers to.

In any case, it will help the English version if a native speaker made some suggestions. For the book in general the author might ask around to improve some information. For a starter, though, the book makes a great introduction into Brazilian Freemasonry for the non-Spanish or Portuguese reader. There is a massive list of lodges, there is history, there is a history of the Brazilian Hipólito José da Costa Pereira Furtado de Mendonça and his role in the foundation of early Freemasonry, so the English reader will certainly get new information.

Then there is also a sketch of Brazilian Masonic scholarship, tips on how to lead a lodge, so in spite of needed improvements, the book makes a worthy read.

Available from Amazon.