Freemasonry:
Quest for Immortality
Christopher Earnshaw PhD 33
Written to commemorate the 300 th
anniversary of the founding of the fraternity of Freemasonry in London, 1717
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the Brethren worldwide for their devotion to the labour of spreading Light.
Copyright 2019 by Christopher Earnshaw
All rights reserved. No part of this book, nor any portion thereof, may be reproduced, copied or used in any manner whatsoever, without the express written permission of the author - except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2019 R2-5-15
ISBN: 9781673308129
- The main category of the book: Freemasonry
Social History 17 th and 18 th centuries - Freemasonry Alchemy Enlightenment
- Title: Freemasonry: Quest for Immortality
- Author: Christopher Earnshaw PhD
- Publisher: Authors Proof, Tokyo
Images used in this publication are copyright-free, used under C-BY-SA 3.0
Cover image: A General View of the City of London, next the River Thames. engraved by T. Bowles, 1751
www.YouTube.com/c/SpiritualFreemasonry
www.chris-earnshaw.com
Contents
Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity
The Sanction
WHEREAS Worshipful Brother Christopher Earnshaw has compiled a Book entitled FREEMASONRY: Quest for Immortality,
and has requested our Sanction
for the publication thereof: we having perused the said Book, and finding it to correspond with the Antient practices of this Society, so recommend the same.
Donald K. Smith, Past Grand Master
Grand Lodge of Japan
Prologos
The Motivations of the First Three Grand Masters
A fter the Premier Grand Lodge was established in 1717, which later became the Grand Lodge of England, the first three Grand Masters were urged on by a moral imperative to rewrite and expand the existing two degrees of Operative Masons, and then add another, the Third Degree. However, their reasons have, until now, remained obscure, for example:
How does the Hiramic Tragedy relate to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and why?
What important aspects suggest that Sir Francis Bacons New Atlantis might have been a template for Freemasonry?
Why did George Washingtons apron have a skull and crossed-bones depicted inside the Square and Compasses?
Were medieval mystery plays, that had been performed by guilds, the origin of Freemasonrys Third Degree?
What does the Scarlet Pimpernel have to do with the Masonic emblem of the forget-me-not?
Why did Masons despise atheists, though Catholics were welcome in Lodge, whereas in England generally at the time it was the Catholics that were reviled, not atheists.
What we discover is that the Freemasons Monitor, the book that contains all the rituals and ceremonies, is in fact a puzzle. It has been purposely written to hide some secrets that indicate a far richer and more important lesson. Each of the three degrees that were created is based on a unique type of alchemy, which leads the Brother to understand the ultimate lesson - that of immortality. However, a Brother would not discover this information without a key to the puzzle. This book gives the key to understanding the puzzle, and the reason why it was thought necessary to go to such great lengths to hide the secret teachings in the first place.
The first three Grand Masters had changed the existing Operative Masons rituals in some way, and the only way to find out what those changes were was to compare the current ritual to the bits of ritual that exist prior to the establishment of the Premier Grand Lodge in 1717, the event Masonic scholar Albert Pike calls the Revival. The allure of researching the early days of Freemasonry is that we can learn about the objectives of the first three Grand Masters, and thus answer some or all of the above questions.
First, I review in broad strokes (Ch.1) the four hundred years prior to the era of the Stuart monarchy, and the important events that changed England forever that ultimately prepared the ground for the Stuart dynasty.
Next, I scrutinize the one hundred years of the Stuarts in detail (Ch.2~3), the plots and revolutions, the religious wars and catastrophes, and the events that eventually brought down the Stuart monarchy. I also examine the religious issues (Ch.4) that had such a strong influence on the three Grand Masters who rewrote the rituals. Then, I investigate the use of the Tree of Life in the Hiramic Legend (Ch. 5) and finally the Quest for Immortality (Ch.6) and the building of a New Jerusalem in the Epilogos.
I like to tell new Masons that Freemasonry is not about the destination, its about the journey, though Masons seem fixated on becoming Master of a Lodge or even on Grand Honours. For me, this book has been a wonderful journey, and though before I set out, I already knew my premise was strong, along the way, like a forensic historian, I found so many other interesting details, that the book was in danger of becoming an encyclopaedia!
I also heeded the warning from the introduction to the 1738 Constitutions by James Anderson:
But the History here chiefly concerns Masonry, without Meddling with other Transactions, more than what only serves to connect the History of Masonry, the strict Subject of this Book. It is good to know WHAT NOT TO SAY!
The Third Degree, Religion and Superstition
The Third Degree was added by the first three Grand Masters sometime around 1725, for two main reasons. The first reason was that it completed the alchemical requirement of a three-step process of transformation. The second reason for its inclusion was to counter a growing challenge to Christian theology. To understand the importance of this challenge, it is important to look at the history of that time and how it influenced the first three Grand Masters to rewrite the degrees.
The Stuart era was a time of witch hunts and superstition, which church authorities railed against. Several times King Jamess own physician was called upon to investigate reports of magic being used. The king even believed that a coven of witches had once tried to drown him in a storm that they had conjured up. In 1605, when the Catholic King James VI of Scotland became the king of Protestant England, it started a series of problems for the country. English Catholics tried to kill the king with several plots, even though the king had tried to make things easier for Catholics in England. His son, Charles I, was executed for treason. Following this, there was the Interregnum, when Cromwell abolished the monarchy and set up a commonwealth. At the same time, he gave various freedoms to non-Anglican Protestants, the Dissenters, who flourished in the new atmosphere of religious freedom.
One of the unforeseen outcomes of this freedom was that established Christian dogma was challenged, such as the validity of the Trinity, reincarnation, predestination and immortality or, more accurately, what happen to a believer after death. This controversy included not just the ecclesiastic authorities, but also the intelligentsia of the day. The argument became so vociferous that, because of the censorship laws of the day, parliament was called on to debate the issues.
With this background of religious turmoil, the first three Grand Masters decided to make a statement concerning immortality, and they used the Third Degree to do it. At the same time, they used the Third Degree to complete the alchemical process of the transformation of the perfect Mason.
