Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00271)

The excitement generated by the "revelation" that HPB was the recipient of
charters or diplomas or memberships from John Yarker seems to arise out of
ignorance of Yarker's activities. Few of the (numerous) mystical or
quasi-Masonic orders headed and/or controlled by Yarker seem to have
actually operated in the traditional Masonic manner - i.e. with meetings,
ritual initiations and such. Yarker seems to have commonly despatched
documents conferring membership, status and other rights by mail - in the
Masonic sense he was conferring degrees "on sight", a right usually
accepted as that of Grand Masters and other such luminaries. I have seen
nothing to suggest that HPB did more than receive documents for, e.g., Sat
B'hai. I have seen numbers of equivalent documents issued by Yarker to
people who had never physically met him, let alone undergone any form of
ritual with him. Indeed, some of the impressive documents were
unsolicited.

In the strange world of "fringe Masonry", conferring numerous degrees by
equally numerous rituals in lodges with real members present would seem to
be relatively uncommon.

It is almost certain that when Yarker conferred the vast array of degrees
of the Rites of Memphis and Misraim, etc., on James Wedgwood he did not
put Wedgwood through a couple of hundred rituals!

Dr Gregory Tillett