Mémogrammes Editeur Libre et Rebelle

 Een zeer interessant uitgeverij op het gebied van de vrijmetselarij in het Franstalig landsgedeelte

Mémomgrammes

Voorbeelden

Histoire du dédoublement de la loge Les Amis Philanthropes à l’Orient de Bruxelles (1894–1897)

Etude historique.

Auteurs : Quatuor Coronati Bruxellenses, sous la direction de George LAURENT. Préface de Marc MENSCHAERT, Ancien Grand Maître du Grand Orient de Belgique et président du Musée Belge de la Franc-Maçonnerie.

 Vénérable Maître d’une des plus anciennes loges maçonniques du pays, Les Amis Philanthropes, Eugène Goblet d’Alviella est à l’origine du dédoublement de son atelier. Il nous a laissé un témoignage dactylographié à ce sujet, totalement inédit, intitulé Histoire du dédoublement de la Respectable Loge Les Amis Philanthropes à l’Orient de Bruxelles, un processus qui a abouti en 1894 à la création de la loge Les Amis Philanthropes n° 2. Véritable travail d’historien, son récit des causes de la séparation de son atelier et des origines de la loge Les Amis Philanthropes n°2 mêle petits et grands moments de l’histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie en particulier et de l’histoire politique de la Belgique en général, tout au long du 19e siècle.

 Dans un second volume, les membres de l’atelier d’agrégés Quatuor Coronati Bruxellenses ont éclairé ces  événements maçonniques d’un ensemble de commentaires critiques et de contributions originales s’appuyant sur les archives des deux loges concernées : au fil des ordres du jour, des discussions et des votes exprimés en atelier, ces sources éclairent tant le contexte historique du dédoublement que ses modalités pratiques. Ces débats sont révélateurs de l’ambiance maçonnique au sein d’un atelier du 19e siècle en plein bouillonnement d’idées. Des notices biographiques relatives aux personnages impliqués dans le processus de séparation, tous issus de milieux professionnels, politiques et sociaux d’une grande diversité, complètent ce second volume, constituant une galerie de portraits maçonniques inédite et éclectique.

Edition de poche B6 en librairie à partir de fin octobre 2020

Volume 1 – édition du texte – ISBN 978-2-930698-76-2 EAN 9782930698762

Volume 2 – Commentaires critiques sur le texte – ISBN 978-2-930698-77-9 EAN 9782930698779

Prix : 35 € les deux volumes (lesquels ne peuvent être vendus séparément et sont présentés conjointement sous blister, avec un ISBN commun aux 2 volumes 978-2-930698-79-3 ).

Horizon – Regards sur la pensée maçonnique d’Eugène Goblet d’Alviella

Essai.

Auteur : René LECLERCQ.

Préface de Guy DONNAY, Conservateur honoraire du Musée Royal de Mariemont et Professeur émérite à l’ULB.

Par ses recherches et son engagement au sein de la Franc-Maçonnerie en Belgique au tournant des 19e et 20e siècles, Eugène Goblet d’Alviella a marqué la conscience des hommes de bonne volonté prônant la défense des libertés d’expression et de pensée. Il sut imposer très tôt dans le milieu maçonnique le principe absolu du Vrai et du Beau. Son implication dans la révision des rituels des Hauts Grades, pour lesquels de nombreux Chapitres et Aréopages lui sont toujours redevables, démontre son profond intérêt pour le Rite Écossais Ancien et Accepté. Les différents chapitres de cet essai constituent le plus souvent des digressions qui, sans s’écarter de l’œuvre maçonnique d’Eugène Goblet d’Alviella, tentent d’élargir l’horizon de cette dernière dans une démarche pluridisciplinaire. L’auteur s’attache à démontrer combien cette œuvre réformatrice trouve son accomplissement dans le message du monument funéraire érigé dans le cimetière de Court-Saint-Étienne dans le Brabant wallon. Il y retrouve à travers son syncrétisme symbolique une volonté cohérente et rationnelle d’exprimer dans un même phénomène religieux universel la loi du progrès dont l’horizon est toujours à découvrir.

 Ouvrage de 240 pages au format B5 – ISBN 978-2-930698-76-8 – 25,00 € – Disponible en librairie à partir de fin octobre 2020

THOMSON, Ian, The Magic Flute Libretto: More Literary, Religious and Historical Sources and their Interpretation

 THOMSON, Ian, The Magic Flute Libretto: More Literary, Religious and Historical Sources

and their Interpretation (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2014), xvi + 439 pp.,

including illustrative plates (some colour), £140, Hbk, ISBN: 9780773400597.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of illustrations
Other artworks mentioned in the text
A calendar of relevant events
A summary of the onstage drama
References to Acts and Scenes
Translation notes
Introduction
Chapter 1: Viennese origins
Chapter 2: A commentary on critical opinion to date
Chapter 3: A new approach
Chapter 4: The underworld drama and Tamino’s virtue
Chapter 5: The significance of Papageno and Papagena
Chapter 6: Tamino’s alignment with the Christ-figure
Chapter 7; The Implication of chivalric sources
Chapter 8: The basis of conflict between Sarastro and the Queen
Chapter 9: The roman à clef: necessary background
Chapter 10: Part A: The Queen
Part B: Pamina and Tamino
Part C: Sarastro
Part D: Monostatos
Part E: Papageno and Papagena
Chapter 11: The alchemic process in the roman à clef
Chapter 12: The opera’s republican purpose
Chapter 13: The librettists and the development of the libretto
Chapter 14: Some implications
Epilogue
Annex A: An English translation of the Playbill for the first performance
Bibliography
Name Index
General Index
Illustrations

 

 Reviewed by: Andrew Pink, Independent Scholar, London, UK.

 Email: agpink01@gmail.com

The opera Die Zauberflöte (‘The Magic Flute’) was composed in 1791 by Wolfgang

Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) for Vienna’s relatively short-lived Theater auf der Wieden.

It was Mozart’s last composition for the opera stage. The theatre’s raison d’être was

to appeal to a broad public by staging entertaining musical repertoire with a heavy

reliance on spectacle, lavishly combining substantial musicalresources with dramatic

mise-en-scène such as flying machines, trapdoors, thunder, spectacular lighting,

fires and waterfalls. The staging of The Magic Flute made full use of such resources

and the opera was an immediate success, not only in Vienna but also across Europe.

By 1800 it had already been performed in 58 cities in nine European countries. In

the original word-book it was mischievously described as a grand opera suggesting

a serious dramatic work without spoken dialogue, when in fact it was firmly fixed

in the German-language tradition of ‘Singspiel’, in which spoken dialogue is mixed

with sung text and instrumental music, often with more than a hint of comedy and

pantomime.

The origin of The Magic Flute was a request to Mozart by the Theater auf der

Wieden’s energetic owner and impresario Johann Joseph (Emmanuel) Schikaneder

(1751–1812), a friend of the Mozart family, a freemason like Mozart and the opera’s

librettist. The now well-known love-story plot is set in a fantasy world, following a

bewildering series of twists and turns filled with magical and supernatural events

that involve a feuding magus and maga, Egyptian-inspired rites, physical trials, and

bodily transformations. Its inspiration has seemed to successive commentators to

come from a bewildering variety of sources, including: freemasonry, Orphic legends,

fairy tales, Enlightenment philosophy and ongoing political and religious debates.

As such The Magic Flute can be set alongside a number of other German-language

musical stage works on fantastical/magical/supernatural themes that were produced

at this time but that are now long fallen into obscurity. In the case of The Magic Flute

it is the appeal of the work’s music by Mozart that has ensured its survival. Even so,

meaningful discussion of Mozart’s music is studiously sidestepped throughout this

book, as too a meaningful discussion of freemasonry.

Schikaneder’s disjointed plot has none of the literary sophistication and cohesion

of other operatic texts set by Mozart, and this has led generations of commentators

to ask “What is going on here?” That is, how are we to understand this seemingly

transient, gimmick-filled stage-work of Schikaneder that was given immortality by

the genius of Mozart? For 200 years writers have used much ink and paper in seeking

to provide answers but without any real consensus being achieved. This is hardly

surprising since there is no known primary evidence such as letters or diaries to

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© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2017.

explain Mozart and Schikaneder’s creative inspiration. Thus, without new archival

discoveries any discussion of the work’s genesis inevitably offers the opportunity for

little more than earnest and occasionally informed speculation; this book sits within

that tradition.

The author,Ian Thomson’s imaginative endeavour has brought together a complex

and wide-ranging array of historical, philosophical, and esoteric sources to illustrate

what he likes to think gave impetus to Schikaneder’s libretto. Here Thomson variously

introduces us to an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of sources, drawing on the travails of

medieval Grail Knights, the religious and magical intrigues of the courts of Frederick

V and Elizabeth of Bohemia and of the early Stuarts in England, the myth of Orpheus,

the tales developed by monks of Glastonbury, of an imagined Ethiopia and so on.

All are interpreted with some impressive leaps of imagination presented with great

conviction and—in Thomson’s own terms—coherently knitted together to illustrate

what he believes were the starting points of the opera. The conclusions drawn are

original and it is perhaps in these imaginatively argued and original conclusions

that we can envisage the book earning its keep as a theatre director’s sourcebook of

ideas for a staging of The Magic Flute: set in medieval times, full of chivalric Christian

fervour (qua Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin); set as a retelling of the classical Orpheus

myth (qua Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo); set as a late Renaissance masque peopled

by supernatural figures bringing order to chaos (qua Samuel Daniel’s Vision of the

Twelve Goddesses).

The book is well organized, and we easily follow Thomson’s lively and wideranging train(s) of thought chapter by chapter: 1.Viennese origins; 2. A commentary

on critical opinion to date; 3.A new approach; 4. The underworld drama and Tamino’s

virtue; 5. The significance of Papageno and Papagena; 6. Tamino’s alignment with the

Christ figure; 7. The implication of chivalric sources; 8. The basis of conflict between

Saratro and the Queen; 9. The roman à clef: necessary background; 10. a/The Queen,

b/Pamina and Tamino, c/Sarastro, d/Papageno and Papagena; 11. The alchemic

process in the roman à clef; The opera’s republican purpose; 13. The librettists and

the development of the libretto; 14. Some implications; Epilogue.

Throughout the book the style is polished, engaging and thought-provoking, not

least in the range and diversity of ground covered. But in all this, let us be clear,

there is no means to link any of this material in any meaningful way to whatever

were the plot-drivers used by Mozart and Schikaneder to create The Magic Flute.

Ultimately the book has not much of a contribution to make except, perhaps, on the

shelf marked Dramaturgy.

The work seems to be only available in hardback and the price-tag may deter

a casual reader from buying it. However, the work can be read on-line for free

in its original state as a PhD thesis (2003)—awarded by the now defunct Music

Department of the University of East Anglia, UK—via the British Library’s eThos

website, as: Thomson, I. Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte: an Analysis of the Historical and

Literary Sources of the Libretto

KENNEY, J. Scott, Brought to Light: Contemporary Freemasonry, Meaning, and Society

 KENNEY, J. Scott, Brought to Light: Contemporary Freemasonry, Meaning, and Society

(Waterloo, Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016), pp. xiv +294,

£29.99, Pbk, ISBN 978-1-77112-194-1.

 Reviewed by: Daniel Weinbren, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University, UK.

 Why is it that by the 1990s, some countervailing tendencies apart, there was

within freemasonry, ‘over-institutionalization, bureaucratization and aging and

declining membership’ and, perhaps worse, ‘indifference’ (pp. 4, 250)? Scott

Kenney’s informative and thoughtful analysis addresses these concerns through a

close examination of current practices of ritual as mediated through the personal

testimony of participants and contextualized through his nuanced engagement with

a range of scholarly traditions. The result is a text which deepens understandings

of ‘a traditionally masculine form of emotion management’ (p. 259) as experienced

within the ‘dramaturgically organized institution’ which is freemasonry (p. 13).

While freemasonry, ‘an organization struggling to find itself (p. 250) and

‘notoriously resistant to change’ (p. 247) may be ‘headed in the direction of a

traditionalist subculture’ (p. 247) it is not too late for ideas about integration with

‘broader social developments’ (p. 243) to be considered. Kenney advises that ‘lodges

need to be nimble, adaptive and better able to balance necessary traditions with

a rapidly changing society’ (p. 216). He suggests that the ideal lodge will mentor

and encourage learning through engagement in activities and that its members will

perceive the lodge as ‘providing moral and ethical benefits (p. 212) and be focused

on freemasonry, rather than other commitments. Long-term retention within a lodge

correlates with efficient, tactful, organization, the existence of close ties between

members and a sense of good fellowship and support. The ‘fit’ between, social

background and ability to engage is ‘key’ (p. 118). One of Kenney’s respondents

noted that masonry crossed ‘back and forth with the skills and lessons I’ve learned in

12-step organizations’ (p. 221) some of the conclusions regarding the decline in civic,

‘volunteer participation’ (p. 117) might be applicable to other charitable, fraternal

and voluntary sector bodies.

The bulk of the book is an analysis of the data which Kenney collated in order

to reach these conclusions; the personal testimony of a sample consisting largely

of ‘White, middle-class Christian men in their sixties and seventies … of local

origin … many with post-secondary education’ (pp. 29–30, 245) in Nova Scotia and

Newfoundland. He has also overtly drawn on his own observations and experiences

as a freemason. He notes the differences of his sample from wider society and

concludes that, as it was in many ways representative of the all freemasonry, this does

not ‘bode well for a broadly meaningful interface between the Craft and society at

large’ (p. 245). Testimony is utilized to indicate the perceived benefits of membership

and that which ‘respondents find meaningful’ (p. 241). Respondents said that being a

mason, adds ‘richness and meaning’ (p. 218), expands one’s ‘circle of acquaintances’

282 Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018.

(p. 219) and provides ‘friends all over’ (p. 224). Membership helped to ‘keep me on the

straight and narrow’ (p. 221) and it ‘made me better as a man, better with my family’

(p. 226). It was also said that ‘I got over my shyness’ (p. 234) and that it encouraged

‘lifelong learning’ (p. 237), tolerance and charity (pp. 231, 232). Kenney also explored

what makes joining unattractive, noting the range of alternative activities, familial,

spousal and religious opposition (though some respondents reported support from

religious leaders) and the poor image of freemasonry within wider society. He

placed such claims within the context of a shift in freemasonry from an interest in

ritual and self-improvement to a focus on coordinating philanthropy. While Kenney

favours freemasonry, he has some criticisms and his insider status and academic

training make this a sophisticated analysis of survey data.

Within his assessment of the literature and methods, Kenney has recourse to a

diverse range of theories about symbolism which he derives from (among others)

the works of philosopher George Herbert Mead and the sociologist Erving Goffman.

He also builds on historical accounts of the significance of gender, on notions from

the sociology of emotions, on ideas about multiple versions of reality associated

with Norman Denzin’s approach to phenomenology and as this is a study made at

the level at which masonic practices are enacted, on ethnomethodology. Much use

is made of Weber’s notion of an ‘ideal type’ but his work assessing the benefits of

bureaucracy is marginalized as, for Kenney, when ritual is ‘drained of meaning […]

bureaucracy forms the organizational structures of meaninglessness’ (p. 252).

The continuous prose is broken up by indented anonymous quotes. Sometimes

the testimony is categorized as representative (e.g. ‘eight respondents commented’

(p. 219) followed by a quote). Sometimes an individual is categorized, for example

one interviewee defined himself as a ‘grease monkey’ (p. 235). The impact is that

it feels as if the author is exploring one of his themes ’the social interplay between

secrecy and curiosity’ (p. 44). We do not see the whole man, just the disaggregated

parts which appearin chapters about joining, taking degrees, members’ involvement,

structures and impacts.

Recollections of, and reflections on, the initiation ceremony, including the

teasing and sometimes supportive comments by those already initiated, are used to

illustrate some of the perceived attractions of membership. Kenney also scrutinized

the Second and Third Degree ceremonies, the rites of passage which lead to a man

becoming a Master Mason and often gaining, or strengthening, his sense of identity.

Aimed at ‘academic and lay readers’ (p. 39) Kenney highlights which chapters

are likely to be of interest to those categories of readers. While some masons may

feel that a glossary of sociological terms might also have been useful (there is one of

masonic terms) the index and tables, italics and lists help to ensure that the specialist

language is not too impenetrable. Indeed, the academic framing is to be valued for

it illuminates the study of current practices within freemasonry which is at the heart

of this book.

ÖNNERFORS, Andreas, Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction

 ÖNNERFORS, Andreas, Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), xxix + 139 pp, £7.99, Pbk, ISBN: 978019876275.

Reviewed by: Diane Clements, Director, The Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, UK.

As the author points out in the last 15 years or so research into freemasonry has

increased through academic and masonic collaboration assisted by the great

availability of traditional sources via electronic catalogues and of new digital

resources. One of the barriers to new researchers has been a dearth of reliable basic

information about freemasonry. Recent publications by Brill and Routledge have

helped to fill the void but their volumes are priced for the academic library market,

Önnerfors’ contribution to Oxford University Press’ excellent Very Short Introductions

series is set at a much more accessible price – and it is pocket sized as well.

The book begins with what Önnerfors calls ‘two very opposed but representative

images of freemasonry’, Pierre Bezukhov’s idealistic encounter with freemasonry in

Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the distrust towards freemasonry encompassed by the

British ‘Secret Societies’ Act of 1799, and the British Home Affairs Select Committee

Reports in the late 1990s. This geographically and chronologically wide ranging

approach is followed throughout the book. This can often be thought provoking but

it can lead to juxtapositions which may not always be clear to the new reader in

this subject and more knowledgeable readers might question whether the examples

chosen are the most appropriate.

Following informative chapters on the development of freemasonry and the

medieval influences, Önnerfors includes an excellent chapter on the ideas translated

into James Anderson’s Constitutions of the Free Masons of 1723 set in the context of

its time. He addresses the dichotomy between freemasonry as a training ground

for liberal, proto-democratic ideas and its proclivity for secrecy from a sociological

perspective. His next chapter considering ritual on both a historical and theoretical

basis should be essential reading for any scholar working on any aspect of

freemasonry and wanting to understand the nature of what actually happens in a

lodge meeting.

The publicity material for this book and its flyleaf makes much of inclusion of

material on the participation of women in freemasonry, an approach that certainly

reflects both contemporary questions, historiographical interest in gender history

and the relative lack of other accessible published material on the subject. Önnerfors’

chapter focuses on the 18th century and particularly on female adoption ritual.

Whilst this is of interest it has been covered in depth in Snoek’s recent work and the

page limits of this particular format mean that as a result the formation of modern

female freemasonry, following the establishment of the International Order of

Freemasonry Le Droit Humain, in 1893, is limited to less than a page. It consequently

ignores the links between women freemasons, suffrage and women’s rights, and

Clements Book Review 289

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018.

any developments outside of Western Europe, particularly North America. It also

seriously misdates the establishment in Britain of the Order of Women Freemasons

to 1953. The Order had seceded from Le Droit Humain in 1908 to form what was

originally called the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry, the later date

representing merely a change of name.

Another topic of continuing interest is freemasonry’s relationship with religious

and secular authorities which Önnerfors discusses in a chapter titled Perceptions,

Prejudices and Persecutions. The author’s explanations and often very pertinent

examples are somewhat undermined by the rather muddled structuring of this

chapter which seems to go backwards and forwards between the issues, their

historical development and suggested explanations. As this chapter also includes

the author’s concluding remarks, it is disappointing that he was not able to return to

his two representative images of freemasonry at the end of the book and it loses its

idealized version amidst a brief discussion of freemasonry and 21st century religions.

Without wishing to undermine the author’s achievement, there are a couple of

specific comments which might be made. A short publication – which can be read

in one sitting – inevitably highlights inconsistencies. Of particular note are the

references to the British Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 (39 Geo.III, c.79). It would

have been preferable to be consistent in references to this legislation and not refer

to it as the ‘Secret Societies Act’ as on page 4. More significantly it did not ‘control

the activities of masonic lodges in Britain’ (p. 4) nor place them ‘under government

control’ (p. 114) or regulate them in any way. The Act required masonic lodges

in Britain to make an annual return of members to the local (not national) civic

authority. There is no evidence that the authorities, national or local, ever used this

information in any systematic way.

The author is, however, to be heartedly congratulated on working within the

demands of this series format to produce such a readable and comprehensive

introduction to fre