‘Philalethes to host Hamilton at Masonic Week’

    

Belated Happy 96th Anniversary wishes to the Philalethes Society, which reached that milestone Sunday.

Speaking of Masonic Week (see post below), the Society has two events among the February festivities on the calendar. On Friday the seventh at 7 p.m., it’ll be time for the annual banquet. The after dinner speaker will be Bro. Billy Hamilton of Texas, who will present “The Victorian Innovators.” From the publicity:

Bro. Hamilton will focus on Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie and his influential correspondence circle, including Major Frances George Irwin, John Yarker, and William Wynn Westcott. The title is inspired by J. Ray Shute and his own circle of innovators, who would later play a similar role in American Freemasonry. We will examine their friendships, alliances, and conflicts in their own words through their personal correspondence. He will also discuss the diverse degrees and rites they worked on, from those accepted in mainstream Masonry today, such as SRIA, the Red Branch of Eri, and the Red Cross of Constantine, to those now considered clandestine, including the Primitive Rite and Sat B’Hai.

The banquet is open to all Masonic Week attendees and their guests. Tickets are $60 and must be reserved at the Masonic Week 2025 website.

The following morning, at 10:30, the 97th Annual Meeting will open. Publicity again:

The Annual Assembly of the Philalethes Society will be held on Saturday, February 8 at 10:30 a.m. The meeting agenda includes annual reports from the Officers and the consideration of all matters which may lawfully come before it. The meeting is open to every Masonic Week attendee. All members of the Philalethes Society in good standing (dues current for 2025) are considered voting members.

In the meantime, this latest issue of the quarterly journal is fantastic, thanks in part to Marsha Keith Schuchard’s piece “Gershom Scholem and Marsha Keith Schuchard: A Most Unlikely Correspondence, 1975-1980.” Excerpted (and apologies for the lack of context):

The allusions to Jews and magicians in Swedenborg’s diaries present a difficulty to the historian, because they are couched in a peculiar, symbolic language. Moreover, Swedenborg confounds actual, identifiable people with anonymous “spirits,” though he later explained to the Queen of Sweden that all his spirit-conversations were based on actual acquaintances, whether from personal experience or from “reading.” Two Masonic scholars, Gabriele Rossetti (father of the painter) and Ethan Allen Hitchcock (military adviser to Abraham Lincoln) claimed that Swedenborg’s cryptic language and veiled allusions were a deliberate usage of Masonic terminology, which would be comprehensible to initiates but not to outsiders... . My own theory is that many of the characters were actual people and that others function like Luzzatto’s maggid, i.e., psychological projections of Kabbalistic instructors or exteriorization of mental images gained through Kabbalistic meditations.

It’s a dizzying paper, to say the least, but if you are part of, or at least interested in, quirky European systems of Freemasonry, this is for you. And if you’ve followed Schuchard’s singular field of research, this illustrates how she got there. It is a fascinating—and amusing in the academic milieu— conversation. Enjoy.

In addition, and also concerning The ALR as with the post below, the lodge’s WM aims to revive Knickerbocker Chapter, the Philalethes’ New York City group, for dining and education. Interested brethren should contact the Master.

     

‘Of Philalethes and fairy elves’

    

The upcoming issue of The Philalethes, the quarterly journal of the Philalethes Society, was emailed to members last week as a PDF in advance of the print version. As usual, there are many interesting points within.

I won’t take you page by page, but if you, like me, are curious about “The Fairy Elves Song,” as printed in Cole’s Constitutions of 1728, then W. Bro. Nathan St. Pierre, of Lodge of Nine Muses 1776 in Washington, has what you seek—and then some.

In his “Whilst We Enchant All Ears with Musick of the Spheres: The Esoteric Significance of ‘The New Fairies: Or, The Fellow-Craft’s Song,’” St. Pierre takes us back several centuries to gain an appreciation of the Masonic dinner song. Maybe you know Matthew Birkhead, but there is much more to early eighteenth century Masonic music than what appears in Anderson’s Constitutions.

A few bars of St. Pierre:

Fairies are complex preternatural creatures appearing in poetry, trial documents, popular pamphlet stories, and demonologies across northern Europe in the early modern period. While often associated with Celtic beliefs and folklore, fairies also appear in Germanic, Nordic, and Eastern European tales. They are sometimes used interchangeably with ‘elves’ and are related to creatures such as goblins, hobgoblins, ouphs, and urchins. Fairies could be seen as magical helpers in healing and finding lost goods or as familiar spirits of witches. The reclassification of fairies as demonic entities became more common after the 1563 Witchcraft Act. Shakespeare’s fairies, particularly in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, exhibit these characteristics, operating both benign and malevolent magic and interacting authoritatively with the human world.

Elves are creatures similar to fairies, or interchangeable with them, forming part of a wider realm of northern European preternatural beings. In Old English, an ælf was a spirit associated with a particular environment or element, such as water. Elves could cause sickness in humans and animals, leading to the need for charms to ward them off.

And:

The first time “The New Fairies: Or, The Fellow-Craft’s Song” is presented in its entirety is in A Curious Collection of The Most Celebrated Songs in Honour of Masonry, published for Benjamin Creake in collaboration with Benjamin Cole. In that publication, the song is indicated, “as sung at the Lodge in Carmarthen South-Wales.” This very likely refers to the constitution of Naggshead and Starr Lodge in Carmarthen, South Wales on the 9th of June in 1726. The pillar officers installed that day were Master, Emanuel Bowen; and Wardens, Edward Oakley and Rice Davis. Brother Oakley would soon take this song to London where it would capture the attention of the Masonic world.

Edward Oakley, initially recorded in 1721, was actively involved in the foundation and operation of Masonic lodges both in Carmarthen and London. By 1724 or 1725, he co-founded the Naggshead and Starr Lodge in Carmarthen and served as its Senior Warden in 1726. He later became a prominent member of the Three Compasses Lodge in Silver Street, London, where he served as Senior Warden in 1725 and as Master. On December 31, 1728, Oakley delivered a significant speech outlining the qualifications and duties of Masonic members, emphasizing the importance of spreading architectural knowledge through lectures and books. This speech was published in Benjamin Cole’s edition of The Ancient Constitutions of the Free and Accepted Masons (1728), thus reaching a wide audience.

Much more information and context awaits you in this deep paper, but I zeroed in on what attracted me.

Click here for membership information.

     

‘Back in the Philalethes Society again’

    

The Masters Craft

Philalethes Society membership jewel.
New York’s colors: orange and blue!

I rejoined the Philalethes Society—again. I had been a member in the nineties and into the early years of this century, but quit because the leadership back then deserved Moe Howard nose-pulls and foot-stomps.

I rejoined several years ago, when Rashied was president (and when I was president of the Masonic Society), but that lapsed when I wasn’t paying attention. But I’m back again and just received the electronic version of Volume 76, Number 4 of The Philalethes, the final issue under President Ben Williams’ tenure. His President’s Message mentions the launch of a Philalethes chapter in Texas. If you know the history of Texas and the Philalethes Society, you appreciate how times have changed!

Anyway, when I rejoined two months ago, I volunteered to revive Knickerbocker Chapter, New York City’s Philalethes chapter, so if you are a member of the Society who resides in or near the city, you’ll hear from me eventually to ascertain your interest in getting together for pastrami, fellowship, and Masonic learning.

Knickerbocker Chapter has been dormant for a number of years, at least since Bill Thomas relocated to Florida, but applying the defibrillator shouldn’t be too difficult. I received a list of Philalethes members who reside in New York and environs, and I will contact everyone in the New York City area to enquire into their willingness to reform the chapter. According to The Rules, we’ll need four officers to complete a modicum of paperwork; a membership to do the eating, drinking, (smoking, hopefully), and supplying of the Masonic learning; and a place to meet.

Officers are asked to sport the Society’s membership jewel; members are encouraged to do likewise (and I ordered mine yesterday). Everyone shall be Master Masons. Chapter officers will be Philalethes members, and everyone else will be shown how to join.

It’s simple. Click here. And look for my email inviting you to get involved.

     

‘News from the Philalethes Society’

    

Great news from the Philalethes Society during Masonic Week:

✓ Adam Kendall is President for the two-year term.

✓ Chris Ruli is the new Third Vice-President.

✓ Michael Poll, made a Fellow in 2003, has been chosen Dean of the Fellows of the Society.

Steve McCall, owner of Macoy Masonic Supply Co., was the keynote speaker at the luncheon yesterday, discussing the history of his company in “175 Years of Serving the Craft: Publishing, Regalia, and Masonic Supplies.”

The Philalethes Society was founded in 1928 to serve as a nexus for serious thinking and a source for real scholarship on Masonic subjects. Grand lodges were not places to find research and education, so brethren motivated to fill that void organized independent bodies to publish enlightening papers and articles for the fraternity’s advancement in Masonic knowledge. The Philalethes Society was neither the first nor the only such group from that era, but it is the one still breathing at the close of the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

Congratulations all!

Okay, okay. I’ll rejoin. Stop browbeating me.

(Hey guys, how about updating the website, yeah?)

I wonder if I can revive Knickerbocker Chapter.

     

‘The reign of error’

     
All bad things must come to an end, and King Nelson is retiring as editor of “The Philalethes,” the bi-monthly journal of unctuous opinion that suffered long and needlessly under His Highness’ rule.

This is the first necessary step that the Philalethes Society must take if it is to regain whatever credibility is possible. (Actually, it has been explained to me that Nelson hasn’t truly been the editor for a number of years, and that there is someone on the payroll who does the work of a managing editor, but still it is necessary to separate his name from the voice of the society.)

My advice, which I admit is worth zero, is for the society to lose its tired, exaggerated sense of self-importance, to economize financially (and they know what I mean here), to find a new voice and a solid purpose, and to meet the expectations of the 21st century Freemason in North America. I don’t envy Terry Tilton, the current president, and I wish him lots of luck. He needs it.