Spiritism and Freemasonry

Note. – In this session, thanks were offered to the Spirit Gutenberg, with the request that he take part in our conversations whenever he should deem it suitable.

In the same session, the presence of several foreign dignitaries of the Masonic Order gave rise to the following question: What support can Spiritism find in Freemasonry?

Several dissertations were obtained on the subject.

I.

Mr. President, I thank you for your kind invitation. It is the first time that one of my communications has been read at the Spiritist Society of Paris, and, I hope, it will not be the last.

Perhaps you found in my reflections, somewhat lengthy, on the press, a few thoughts that you do not entirely approve. But, reflecting on the difficulty we feel in placing ourselves in relation with the mediums and in using their faculties, you will pass lightly over certain expressions or turns of phrase that we do not always master. Later, electricity will work its mediumistic revolution, and as everything will be changed in the manner of reproducing the Spirit's thought, you will no longer find those lacunae that are at times regrettable, especially when the communications are read in front of strangers. You spoke of Freemasonry, and you are right to expect to find good elements in it. What is asked of every initiated Mason? To believe in the immortality of the soul, in the Divine Architect, and to be benefactors, devoted, sociable, worthy, and humble. There equality is practiced on the broadest scale. There is, then, in those societies an affinity with Spiritism so evident that it leaps to the eye.

The question of Spiritism was placed on the agenda in several lodges, and here is the result: they read voluminous and very complicated reports in this regard, but they did not study it in depth, which meant that in this, as in many other things, they discussed a theme they did not know, judging by hearsay more than by reality. Meanwhile, many Masons are Spiritists and work a great deal in propagating this belief. All listen, and if habit says: No, reason says: Yes.

Wait, then, for time is an enticer without equal; through it impressions are modified, and, necessarily, in the vast field of studies opened in the lodges, the Spiritist study will enter as a complement; this is already in the air. They laughed, they talked; they laugh no more, they meditate.

Thus, you will have a Spiritist seminary in those essentially liberal societies. Through them you will enter fully into this second period, which is to prepare the promised paths. The intelligent men of Masonry will bless you in their turn, for the morality of the Spirits will give a body to this sect so compromised, so feared, but which has done more good than is thought.

Everything has a laborious birth, a mysterious affinity; and if this is so for that which disturbs the social strata, it is much truer for that which leads the moral progress of the peoples.

Gutenberg. n (Medium: Mr. Leymarie.)

II.

My dear brother in doctrine (the Spirit addresses one of the Spiritist Freemasons present at the session), I come with joy to answer the benevolent appeal you make to the Spirits who loved and founded the Masonic institutions. To consolidate that generous institution, twice I shed my blood; twice the public squares of this city were stained with the blood of poor Jacques Molay. Dear brothers, would it be necessary to give it a third time? I will say with satisfaction: no. It has already been told to you: The more blood, the more despotism, the more executioners! A society of brothers, of friends, of men full of good will, who desire but one thing: to know the truth in order to do good! I had not yet communicated in this assembly. While you spoke of Spiritist science, of Spiritist philosophy, I yielded my place to the Spirits who are more apt to give you counsel on these various points, and I waited patiently, knowing that my turn would come. There is a time for everything, as there is a moment for each one. Thus, I believe the hour has struck and it is the opportune moment. I can, then, give you my opinion regarding Spiritism and Freemasonry. The Masonic institutions were for society a path toward happiness. In an age when every liberal idea was considered a crime, men needed a force that, though entirely submissive to the laws, was nonetheless emancipated by its beliefs, by its institutions, and by the unity of its teaching. In that age religion was still, not a consoling mother, but a despotic force that, through the voice of its ministers, commanded, wounded, made everything bow to its will; it was a matter of dread for whoever wished, as a free-thinker, to act and to give to suffering men some courage and, in misfortune, some moral consolation. United by the heart, by fortune, and by charity, our temples were the only altars where the true God had not been disregarded, where man could still call himself a man, where the child could hope to find, later, a protector, and the abandoned, friends. Several centuries passed and each one added a few flowers to the Masonic crown. There were martyrs, men of letters, legislators, who increased its glory, becoming its defenders and conservators. In the nineteenth century comes Spiritism, with its luminous torch, to give its hand to the commanders, to the Rosicrucians, and with a thundering voice cries out to them: Come, my brothers; I am truly the voice that makes itself heard in the East and to which the West replies, saying: Glory, honor, victory to the children of men! A few more days and Spiritism will have crossed the wall that separates the greater part from the precinct of the temple of secrets; and, on that day, society will see flourish in its bosom the most beautiful Spiritist flower which, letting its petals fall, will give a seed regenerative of true liberty. Spiritism has made progress, but on the day when it shall have given its hand to Freemasonry, all difficulties will be overcome, every obstacle removed, the truth will shine through and greater moral progress will be realized; it will have crossed the first steps of the throne, where it must soon reign. To you, fraternal greeting and friendship.

Jacques Molay. n (Medium: Miss Béguet.)

III.

I was most pleased to join in the discussions of this center so profoundly spiritualist, and I come to it drawn by Gutenberg, as the other day I had been by Jacquard. [see Jacquard and Vaucanson.]

The greater part of the great typographer's dissertation treated the question from the point of view of the loom, and he saw in that beautiful invention only the practical, material, utilitarian side. Let us broaden the debate and place the question higher.

It would be an error to believe that the press came to replace architecture, for the latter will remain to continue its historiographic role, by means of monuments characteristic, marked by the spirit of each century, of each generation, of each humanitarian revolution. No, we say it aloud, the press came to overthrow nothing; it came to complete, by its special work, great and emancipating. It arrived at the right hour, like all the discoveries that providentially spring forth here. A contemporary of the monk who invented gunpowder and who, by that, revolutionized the old art of battles, Gutenberg brought a new lever to the expansion of ideas. Let us not forget it: the press could not have had its legitimate reason for being except through the emancipation of the masses and the intellectual development of individuals. Without that need to satisfy, without that nourishment, that spiritual manna to distribute, for a long time the press would still have struggled in the void and would have been considered only the dream of a madman, or a utopia without reach. Is it not thus that the first inventors were treated, or rather, the first who discovered and verified the properties of steam? Have Gutenberg born in the Andaman Islands and the press aborts fatally. [See Gutenberg's communication: The press.]

The idea, therefore, is the primordial lever that must be considered. Without the idea, without the fruitful labor of thinkers, of philosophers, of ideologues and, even, of the dreaming monks of the Middle Ages, the press would have remained a dead letter. Gutenberg can, then, light more than one candle in honor of the dialecticians of the school, who made the idea germinate and polished the intelligences. The feverish idea, which takes on a plastic form in the human brain, is and will always be the greatest motor of discoveries and inventions. To create a new need in the midst of modern societies is to open a new path to the perpetually innovating idea; it is to impel intelligent man to the search for what may satisfy that new need of Humanity. This is why, everywhere where the idea is sovereign, where it is welcomed with respect, in short, where thinkers are honored, progress toward God is guaranteed. Freemasonry, against which so much outcry was raised, against which the Roman Church was prodigal in anathemas, nonetheless did not cease to survive, throwing wide open the doors of its temples to the emancipating cult of the idea. In its bosom all the gravest questions were treated and, before Spiritism had appeared, the venerables and the grand masters knew and professed that the soul is immortal and that the visible and invisible worlds communicate with one another. It is there, in those sanctuaries where the profane were not admitted, that the Swedenborgs, the Pasqualis, the Saint-Martins obtained striking results; it is there where that great Sophia, that ethereal inspirer, came to teach the firstborn of Humanity the emancipating dogmas, where 1789 drew its fruitful and generous principles; it is there where, long before your contemporary mediums, precursors of your mediumship, great unknown ones had evoked and caused to appear the sages of antiquity and of the first centuries of this era; it is there… But I stop. The restricted frame of your sessions, the time that runs out, do not permit me to dwell, as I would like, on this interesting subject. We shall return to it later. All that I will say is that Spiritism will find in the bosom of the Masonic lodges a numerous and compact phalanx of believers, not ephemeral believers, but serious, resolute, and unshakable in their faith. Spiritism realizes all the generous and beneficent aspirations of Freemasonry; it sanctions the beliefs that the latter professes, giving irrefutable proofs of the immortality of the soul; it leads Humanity to the goal it sets for itself: union, peace, universal fraternity, through faith in God and in the future. Do not the sincere Spiritists of all nations, of all creeds, and of all social strata look upon one another as brothers? Is there not among them a true Freemasonry, with the sole difference that, instead of being secret, it is practiced in the sight of all? Enlightened men, such as those it possesses, who place their lights above the prejudices of cliques and castes, cannot look with indifference upon the movement that this new doctrine, essentially emancipating, produces in the world. To repel so powerful an element of moral progress would be to abjure their principles and to lower themselves to the level of retrograde men. No; I am certain that they will not let themselves be turned aside, for I see that, under our influence, they are going to take up this grave question. Spiritism is an irresistible current of ideas, which must win over the whole world: it is only a question of time. Now, it would be to misunderstand the character of the Masonic institution to believe that it could annihilate itself and play a negative role in the midst of the movement that impels Humanity forward; to believe, above all, that it would extinguish the torch, as though it feared the light.

Let it be quite clear that here I speak of high Freemasonry, and not of those lodges made for illusion, where people gather more to eat and drink, or to laugh at the perplexities that innocent experiments cause to the neophytes, than to discuss questions of morality and philosophy. It was even necessary, in order that Freemasonry might continue its vast mission without hindrance, that there should be, at intervals, from radius to radius, from meridian to meridian, temples outside the temple, profane places outside the sacred places, false tabernacles outside the ark. It is in those centers that, in vain, the adepts of Spiritism have tried to make themselves understood. In short, Freemasonry taught the dogma precursor of yours and, in secret, professed what you proclaim from the rooftops. As I said, I will return to these questions, should the great Spirits who preside over your labors permit it. For now, I affirm that the Spiritist Doctrine can perfectly unite with that of the great lodges of the East. Now, glory to the Great Architect!

An old Freemason, Vaucanson. n (medium: Mr. d'Ambel.)

[1]

[see Gutenberg.]

[2] [see Jacques Molay.]

[3] [see Vaucanson.]