On Jul 15, 2007, at 11:12 AM, Rory Goff wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Jul 14, 2007, at 8:56 PM, off_world_beings wrote: > > > This is the tip of the iceberg of the strange history of > > Freemasonry. I am not interested in this as a conspiracy theory, but > > it is some fascinating history. > > > Fortunately, from the POV of Masonic scholarship--which Europe has > several endowed chairs for Masonic research at major universities-- > the presentation and arrangements of facts are far from the real > truth of the matter, which is much less fanciful, but the truth > (being better than fiction) is IMO much more interesting. > > For authentic input on the broader Masonic phenomenon going on back > then, check out the work of late great scholar Dame Frances Yates > like The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, The Rosicrucian > Enlightenment--and if you really want to grasp the origins, The Art > of Memory (which is on the ancient art of ars memoria). If you'd like > to grasp that such sciences existed in medieval Scotland, read > Scottish professor emeritus David Stevenson's The Origins of > Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710. These are all modern > classics. > > If you want to grok how Freemasonry helped put an end to the feudal > system, check out Born In Blood by Robinson. It also goes on to show > how the same principle of universal freedom exemplified by the craft > in Europe, was brought to the US. > > The great operative (as opposed to speculative) Freemasonic > monuments, many became the first universities of the western world > which gave rise to the idea of the arts liberale and free education > for all. YES -- I greatly enjoyed Robinson's book, as well as everything Frances Yates wrote -- including, also, Theatre of the World, Shakespeare's Last Plays: A New Approach, and Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Haven't read Stevenson yet; thanks for the recommendation :-)
Stevenson's scholarship is the one that actually connected ars memoria to Scottish Freemasonry by finding passing reference to it in the early Schaw Statutes--but he also sees (thanks to Dame Yates) the connection to the neoplatonic hierarchies of Iamblichus' De Mysteriis. That mixture, along with a Christian and a Jewish Kabbalah, was what was to become Europe's divine theurgy: ceremonial magick.
