Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00662)

Carl,
You may think whatever you want about Masonry, but H. P. B.'s writings are most clear.  
 
She says that the Jesuits have destroyed the occult dimension in Masonry. 
My own opinions or sentences are of no great importance, in my view. 
 
 After quoting Ragon and showing with his words that the masonic 
allegory of Hiram and its corresponding rite are based on a solar 
myth, H.P.Blavatsky writes: 
 
 "And here again, our friends the Jesuits have to be mentioned, for 
the above rite is of their making. To give one instance of their 
success in throwing dust into the eyes of ordinary individuals to 
prevent their seeing the truths of Occultism, we will point out 
what they did in what is now called Freemasonry." 
 
 And the Old Lady goes on: 
 
 "This Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the 
symbolism, formulae, and ritual of Occultism, handed down from time 
immemorial from the primeval Initiations. To render this Brotherhood 
a merely harmless negation, the Jesuits sent some of their most able 
emissaries into the Order, who first made the simple brethren 
believe that the true secret was lost with Hiram Abiff; and then 
induced them to put this belief into their formularies. They then 
invented specious but spurious higher degrees, pretending to give 
further light upon this lost secret, to lead the candidate on and 
amuse him with forms borrowed from the real thing but containing no 
substance, and all artfully contrived to lead the aspiring 
Neophyte to nowhere. And yet men of good sense and abilities, in 
other respects, will meet at intervals, and with solemn face, zeal 
and earnestness, go through the mockery of revealing `substituted 
secrets' instead of the real things." (1) 
 
 A mockery indeed.
 
Why should the authentic theosophical movement have anything to 
do, then, with masonry or ritualism? It would not make sense, 
unless it was also infiltrated and had ceased to be authentic. 
 
 Once the theosophical movement is distorted, though, its pseudo-
leaders can always "amuse people with forms borrowed from the real 
thing but containing no substance" – to use HPB's precise words 
above. 
 
 Best regards, Carlos Cardoso Aveline, from Brazil. 
 
 
 NOTE:
 
 (1) "The Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky", TPH, 
Adyar/Wheaton/London, volume XIV, 1985, 734 pp., see pp. 264-265. 
 


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