From 25 to 27 May 2007, the Grand Lodge of Scotland in Edinburgh will stage the first major academic conference to be held on Freemasonry in the British Isles. Hosting more than seventy speakers, the conference is being organised in cooperation with specialist centres from the University of Sheffield, the University of Bordeaux, the CNRS/Sorbonne, Paris, and the Free University of Brussels. And one of the conference’s five key-note speakers will be Dr. Jan Snoek, a specialist in religion and rituals based at the University of Heidelberg; it therefore seemed an opportune time to talk to him about his work.
    I began by asking Dr Snoek how he first became interested in Freemasonry.
    ‘I was raised within a liberal Christian household and my formative years left me with an enduring interest in different faiths. Both my parents were brought up in a Calvinist environment, although they gradually became dissatisfied and started to follow different paths. Although they retained their Christian beliefs, they joined the Theosophical Society, which was then led by Annie Besant, as well as Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Order of the Star, and the Sufimovement of Hazrat Anayat Khan.’
    Dr Snoek had initially been content with his church, but as time progressed, he began to ‘seek out spiritual nourishment’.
    While studying Biology at Leiden University he started reading books which introduced him to the ancient Greek mysteries performed at Eleusis. Intrigued, he asked a friend if such mystery schools still existed. His friend replied, ‘Well, not exactly that, but something similar can be provided’. And, in due course, he was proposed and initiated into the Leiden Lodge, La Vertu, No. 7.

A SCHOLASTIC MENTOR

From this time onwards, he was mentored by fellow mason and Professor, Piet Pott, who was also one of a group of masonic researchers who pursued a scholarly approach to the study of Freemasonry in The Netherlands. ‘Pott made me enthusiastic, not only about participating in Freemasonry, but also about studying it’, he recalls ‘I learned an immense amount from him. From my first years as a mason, the Dutch order repeatedly discussed one subject which caught my attention: Was it correct to speak about the degrees of Freemasonry as initiations? My reaction to this debate was, it would first be necessary to know exactly what an initiation is, and that such a study should be undertaken completely independent of Freemasonry.’
    He has been able to study the rituals of Freemasonry with a far more objective and scientific eye. ‘Although Freemasonry is not a religion, there can be no doubt that its rituals are religious. Therefore, I am of the opinion that they should be studied from that perspective’.
    He was twice guest lecturer at the Dutch University of Tilburg, and he subsequently became guest lecturer at Leiden University teaching ‘Western esotericism and Freemasonry’. In 2000 he was appointed deputy leader of a project examining Zoroastrianism at the German University of Heidelberg, where he now resides. This project culminated in October 2006 with the production of Theorizing Rituals – the first of two volumes to result from this major study.

ZOROASTRIANS

One subject that is of special interest to Dr Snoek is the Parsees – Zoroastrians who migrated to India from Persia (Iran) after the Islamisation of their homeland. He explained that, after the 1840s, many Parsees became Freemasons, and in so doing, they became the first religious denomination to join Freemasonry that did not have a connection with Solomon’s Temple in their religion. Apparently, Parsee lodges in India even replaced certain biblical quotations with texts from the Avesta – the sacred book of the Zoroastrian faith. ‘I therefore decided to investigate how masonic rituals were changed in the colonial era by members of such religions, and to what extent, if at all, such changes also influenced those practised in the respective mother countries. However, I have not, as yet, had the opportunity to research this project fully.’
    Alongside this, Dr. Snoek is also currently working on a major project examining ‘Ritual Dynamics’, and his particular focus concerns the transfer of masonic rituals to both mixed sex and female orders. As he pointed out, the transfer of masonic rituals from male to mixed and female orders is strongly related to the changing roles of women in respective societies, and therefore it is a project that has special relevance for the study of the history of feminism. In a similar vein, he is also interested in The Mechanics, an order that originated in Lancashire in 1757, which primarily catered for free Blacks and Irish day labourers, ‘in other words, people who in England at that time were considered lower-lower class and who therefore had no chance to become “normal” Freemasons.’

MASONIC RESEARCH

I then enquired about the current state of masonic research in continental Europe. ‘The situation differs from country to country. The leading country in this respect is, undoubtedly, France, and today, the pioneering masonic authors such as René le Forestier and Pierre Chevallier have been succeeded by a whole new generation of younger ones. Probably the most important periodical on the subject worldwide is the French journal, Renaissance Traditionelle, and the sheer number of excellent books published every year on Freemasonry [in France] is really quite incredible.’
    As he explained, there is a huge quantity of archival material in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Two of the largest French Grand Lodges, the Grand Orient de France and the Grande Loge de France, also have good collections and both are open to the public. I asked if he felt that Freemasonry has a role to play in the modern world. ‘Yes, I most certainly think that Freemasonry has got something to offer both present and future generations. However, certain forms available in our tradition are better suited for our modern times than others.
    Freemasonry has not only developed slowly over a long period of time, but it has also been dramatically changed more than once, adapting itself to new circumstances. For example, when in 1782 the Strict Observance – then the largest masonic Order in the world – was abolished in Germany, a completely new form of Freemasonry was created, based on the last publications by Lessing. This author had been “made” a mason at the home of a Master of a lodge, but never ever visited a lodge meeting. His “design” for a “useful” Freemasonry, therefore, was not based on the masonic tradition, but on Lessing’s Enlightenment ideas.
    That, combined with the emergence of the Romantic movement, resulted in a completely new form of Freemasonry, which in its turn seems to have influenced late eighteenth-century English Freemasonry, paving the way for the new rituals of the United Grand Lodge of England of 1816. These were a dramatic simplification and romanticisation of the older traditions, anticipating the Victorian moralistic culture. These proto-Victorian moralistic rituals turned out not to be adequate for the twentieth century, which resulted in a diminishing membership.
    Actually, I am convinced that the much more mystical and intellectual rituals of the eighteenth century are far more attractive to modern candidates.’
    © John Terry, 2007