(The following article contains many
pictures and digrams which we cannot
reproduce here. therefore, only text
is included.   Hiram's Oasis)

The Mystery Of The Ancients

by David Cameron

The author of the following paper is not
a Freemason; he is a graduate student in
the Centre for Religious Studies at the
University of Toronto, and submitted the
paper as part of his course requirements.
In it he discusses four early non-operative
Masons who joined the Craft between
1641 and 1730, and attempts to under-
stand why they joined. Mr. Cameron
wishes to express his gratitude to the
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of the
Unzversity of Toronto, the Library of the
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance
Studies of Victona University, Toronto,
and the Library of the Grand Lodge of
Canada in the Provznce of Ontario,
Hamilton, as well as to the Interlibrary
Loan Service of the John P. Robarts
Research Library of the University of
Toronto. -- W. McLeod

One of the many mysteries scattered
throughout history is that of the origin
of speculative Masonry. The subject has
frequently received attention, and such
interest is not at all unfounded. When
some of the leading members of England's
intelligentsia begin to participate in the
initiation ceremonies of what had origi-
nally been a labouring class worker's
guild, it is certainly a curious matter.
One noted author on such arcane mat-
ters has commented, "Despite much re-
search by Masonic historians we still
know virtually nothing concrete about
the change, thought to have taken place
in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth
century, from operative to speculative
Masonry and why it occurred."' This
paper will make some suggestion as to
the intentions which may have motiva-
ted four of the most celebrated of the
early speculative Masons to accept
membership in the order, and attempt
to demonstrate a common denominator
of interest in these four men. They are,
by name, William Stukeley, Elias Ash-
mole, Robert Moray, and the Chevalier
Ramsay.

William Stukeley (1687-1765) was
kind enough to explicitly state his pur-
poses in seeking membership in the
Lodge. In his autobiography of 1753 an
oft-quoted notation for May, 1720 re-
marks that Stukeley's "curiosity led him
to be initiated into the mysteries of
Masonry, suspecting it to be the remains
of the mysteries of the antients."
Stukeley had been fascinated with Brit-
ish antiquities almost all his life, espe-
cially the great circles at Stonehenge
and Avebury, at which sites he com-
pleted field notes which would be un-
paralleled for the next century .  In
time, he came to believe that these
structures had been the work of the an-
cient Druids. Initially, Stukeley believed
that the Druids received their instruc-
tion in architecture from the "Aegyp-
tians," speculating that their teacher
had been none other than the shadowy
Egyptian sage Hermes "the Thrice-
Greatest," explaining,~

tis probable hermes trismegistus
made his first temples of stones and
obiliscs like ours before arts in the
settled kingdom of Egypt rose to a
considerable height and particularly
that of architecture, so our druids
followed still the most simple man-
ner learnt from their master.

But Stukeley's thought took a more
remarkable turn in later years. In 1729
Stukeley was ordained a Deacon by
William Wake, who had assumed the
position of Primate of all England four
years earlier. In a letter of June 10,
1729, the Archbishop remarks to
Stukeley,

Never was there a time in which
we wanted all the assistance we can
get against the prevailing infidelity
of the present wicked age; and as
our adversaries are men pretending
to reason superior to others, so
nothing can more abate their pride,
and stop their prevalence, than to
see Christianity defended by those
who are in all respects as eminent
in naturall knowledge, and philo-
sophical enquiries, as they can pre-
tend to be.

As Stukeley came to believe the
"Druids to be the inheritors of the true
patriarchal religion, with which 'the
christian, is but one and the same,'"
Stukeley's field notes from Stonehenge
and Avebury could become just the
apologetic material the Bishop had re-
quested. In the preface to his monu-
mental work Stonehenge, a Temple
restor'd to the Britzsh Druids, as it was
first published in 1740, Stukeley com-
mented that his purpose was to promote
"the knowledge and practice of ancient
and true Religion," which worship "is
no where upon earth done, in my judge-
ment, better than in the Church of
England."  Interestingly, Stukeley
significantly altered the information
from his original field notes so that the
ceremonies of the Druids could be made
to appear as little more than a curious
alteration of the rites of Jews and Chris-
tians, a penchant which apparently
becomes even more pronounced with
the following publication of Abury, a
Temple of the Britzsh Druids in 1743.
Stukeley's fascination with the Druids as
the stepchildren of "the practice of an-
cient and true Religion" did not dimin-
ish, but rather came to eclipse all his
other work.

If Stukeley indeed believed that the
arts of the Druids could be traced to the
ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, this
conviction alone might have led him to
join the Masons in the hopes of learning
the "mysterys of the antients." In the
"Old Charges," those histories kept by
the Lodges which detailed the mythical
origins of Freemasonry and were fea-
tured prominently in the ritual installa-
tion of new members, both the ancient
Egyptians and patriarchs of the Old
Testament figure prominently as the
fathers of the Masonic arts and
sciences.  But there were at this time
even more specific connections made
between the Druids and the Freema-
sons. In 1766, the philologist and novel-
ist John Cleland (who was also the author
of the scandalous Fanny Hill in 1750)
published a tract entitled, The Way To
Things by Words, and To Words by
Things; Being A Sketch Of An Attempt
at the Retrieval Of The Antient Celtic,
Or, Primitive language of Europe. Cle-
land thought little of those Masons who
would trace the origin of their art to the
foundation of the "Temple of Jerusa-
lem," but rather saw the precursors of
the Masons to be none other than the
Druids. Cleland asked his reader to con-
sider, "Considering too, that the May
(May-pole) was eminently the great sign
of Druidism, as the Cross was of Christi-
anity, is there any thing forced or far
fetched in the conjecture that the adher-
ents to Druidism should take the name of
Men of the May, or May'sons?''   From
this followed an explanation for origin
of the name of Hiram Abiff, depicted in
many of the "Old Charges" as the myth-
ical founder of Masonry; Hiram "signi-
fies precisely the high pole, or holy
bough."    In Cleland's mind, to demon-
strate a Druidic origin to Freemasonry
did much to explain the nature of the
phenomenon, since on the last page of
his pamphlet he remarks that it "also
appears clearly the reason why the socie-
ty of the May s-ons, or adherents to the
Religion of the Grove, should be more
peculiarly national to Britain than to
any other part of the world."

Whatever his reasons for accepting
membership in the Masonic Lodge,
Stukeley's interest in the order diminish-
ed considerably later in his life. Many
reasons for this change might be sugges-
ted, but one of the most reasonable may
be the "possibility...that he did not find
in Masonry the historical knowledge or
'hidden mysteries' that he had anticipa-
ted."    Curiously, Stukeley's conviction
that the Druids had been the ancient
priests of Britain, and that their temples
had been the works of Stonehenge and
Avebury, has been indelibly impressed
upon the popular imagination concern-
ing Druidism to this day, much to the
consternation of members of the Celtic
academic community.

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) is often
noted as one of the earliest of the
brethren admitted to the Lodge who
was not by trade an operative Mason. A
frequently cited entry from his journal is
that for October 16, 1646, which states
simply, "I was made a Free Mason at
Warrington in Lancashire, with Col.
Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in
Cheshire.:    The event has found a
deeply chiselled niche in Masonic histo-
ry; interestingly, it seems evident that
an edition of the "Old Charges," is now
known as Sloane MS 3848, was prepared
especially for this occasion.

It has been suggested that Ashmole's
intentions for becoming a Freemason
may have been essentially the same as
those of Stukeley, that is, to gain access
to the "mysteries of the ancients."
Ashmole was well steeped in the study of
astrology and alchemy,    and like many
of his contemporaries, believed that the
greatest knowledge that these sciences
had to offer had already been realized
by the ancients, and either deliberately
concealed or simply mislaid over the sub-
sequent centuries. This belief was es-
poused by no less a luminary than Isaac
Newton, who attempted to demonstrate
that many of his own hypotheses were
merely reclamations of earlier discoveries
by Biblical and classical authorities:

The ancient Egyptians, he believ-
ed, had taught the Copernican
system; the ancients had had a
knowledge of the atomic structure
of matter and its moving by gravity
through space...[and] Pythagoras
had discovered experimentally an
inverse-square relation in the vibra-
tion of strings and had extended it
to weights and the distances of the
planets from the sun.

Ashmole's own words in the "Prolego-
mena" to his 1652 alchemical compen-
dium Theatrum Chemicum Britanni-
cum strike a similar chord. In an ad-
dress to "All Ingeniously Elaborate Stu-
dents," Ashmole alluded to the past dis-
coveries of "Experienc'd Antiquity,"
and commented that.

Past Ages have like Rivers con-
veied downe to us, (upon the floate,)
the more light, and Sopisticall
pieces of Learning, but what were
Profound and Misterious, the
weight and solidity thereof, sunke
to the Bottome; Whence every one
who attempts to dive, cannot easily
fetch them up...

Ashmole's mentor in many alchemi-
cal matters was William Backhouse,
from the manor of Swallowfield; it is
evident that Backhouse contributed to
the Theatrum.    Backhouse had encour-
aged Ashmole to call him "Father,"  ap-
parently as a gesture of alchemical ap-
prenticeship, as on June 10, 1651,
Ashmole noted that "Mr. Backhouse
told me I must now needes be his Son,
because he had comnicated soe many
Secrets to me."   On May 13, 1653,
Backhouse believed himself to be near
death, and Ashmole recorded in his
journal.

My father Backhouse Iying sick in
Fleetestreete over against St.
Dunstans Church, & not knowing
whether he should live or dye,
about eleven a clock, told me in
Silables the true Matter of the
Philosophers Stone: which he be-
queathed to me as a Legacy.

The details of this exchange may
never be entirely known,   but certainly
it is apparent that these were very
weighty matters to Ashmole. As the
Masonic Lodges also claimed to be
custodians of knowledge gleaned from
the ancients, it is not at all improbable
that a man with such an intense interest
in the Hemletic arts would seek out
what ancient wisdom such an organiza-
tion might have to offer.

Sir Robert Moray (also Murray or
Murrey) (1608?-1673) was one of Ash-
mole's associates in the Royal Society of
London; on his passing Ashmole de-
scribed him in his diary as "The learned
& ingenious Sir Rob Murrey."   It
would be quite the understatement to
describe Moray's interests as eclectic;
matters that he brought to the attention
of the Royal Society during its fomlative
years included his own invention of a
hearing aid, echoes, the moons of Jupi-
ter, the brewing of ale and beer, "a new
method to heal cut nerves by sewing
them together," fertilizer, and "a new
use to be made of themlometers, viz., to
know by their help the degrees of heat in
a man's body in fevers, etc."   Like
Ashmole, Moray may have been attrac-
ted to Freemasonry by the claim that
the Lodges possessed "secrets of ancient
wisdom: "

when the search for the sesrets of
the ancients was regarded as being
of as much (or more) importance in
the advancement of scientific knowl-
edge as new discoveries, men with
scientific interests might well be in-
trigued by the Masons' hints that
they possessed "Egyptian" secrets.

Whatever his motivation, the "Right
Honerabell Mr Robert Moray" was ad-
mitted to the Masonic Lodge on May
20, 1641.

Moray's enchantment with the an-
cients might be best illustrated by his
use of a pentacle, which he grafted onto
the last name of his signature in cor-
respondance. Moray identified this de-
vice as a "Masonic" sign.   The pentacle
came to serve a practical service for
Moray during his brief experience with
espionage for the Earl of Lauderdale in
1667, as the sign was used as an indica-
tion of a message in invisible ink. In a
letter for July 1 of that year, Moray
discreetly reminds the Earl of the code
and indicates that a clandestine com-
munication is forthcoming, writing,
"Wher you see my Mason mark you will
remember what it meanes. . . I think
will play the Mason in my next."

But in a letter to Alexander Bruce,
the Earl of Kincardine, Moray makes
use of the pentacle as an encapsulation
of his own philosophy:

This character or Hyeroglyphick,
which I call a starre, is famous
amongst the Egyptians and Gre-
cians...The Greekes accounted it
the symbol of health and tranquility
of body and mind, as being com-
posed of capitall letters that make
up the word [Hygieia], and I have
applied five other letters to it that
are the initials of 5 words that
make up the summe of Christian
Religion, aswell as stoick
philosophy. . .

These five words Moray lists as
Agapa, Gnothi, Anecho, Pisteuei, and
Apecho, which words he may have in-
tended to signify to mean, "Love,"
"Know" (or, "Know Thyself'), "Endure,"
"Trust," and "Abstain."   Moray had
discovered the highest of principles in
ancient writers, and apparently had
hoped to instill these same principles in
his own life. ~

Moray was also described as "a great
patron of the Rosie-Crucians,"   and he
had extended his support to the Rosi-
crucian apologist Thomas Vaughan.
At Vaughan's death, his papers were be-
queathed to Moray.   Similarly, Ash-
mole is often associated with the Rosi-
crucians, as a letter among his papers
had been thought to be his own applica-
tion to the order,   (though more re-
cently it has been identified as only a
copy and not a piece of correspondence
composed by Ashmole himself).   The
Rosicrucians made their first appear-
ance by means of a series of anonymous-
ly issued pamphlets, which told of a
secret fraternity founded by one Chris-
tian Rosenkreuz. The first tract to ap-
pear was published in Germany in 1614
(though manuscript copies had been
available earlier), entitled Fama Frater-
nitatzs, des Loblichen Ordens des Ros-
enkreutzes (The Declaration of the
Worthy Order of the Rosy Cross).
Thomas Vaughan translated the Fama
into English in 1652, under the title The
Fame and Confession of the Fraternity.
Understandably, these works which de-
scribed an invisible organization of
wonder-workers aroused considerable
The similarities between the Rosicru-
cians and Freemasons have often been
commented upon,   though attempts to
demonstrate that Freemasonry origi-
nated with Rosicrucianism have been less
than convincing.   This is understand-
able, since it appears that many scholars
now believe that there may not have been
an actual organiaation, and the pamph-
lets were initially nothing more than a
"literary artifice."   Even a contem-
porary such as Isaac Newton described
the movement as an "imposture."   But
the impact of the pamphlets themselves
must be appreciated as possibly encour-
aging interest in an ancient wisdom of
which the Freemasons also claimed to be
the custodians. The Fama asserted that
the Rosicrucian philosophy was "not a
new invention," but began with Father
Adam. "And wherein Plato, Aristotle,
Pythagoras and others did hit the mark,
and wherein Enoch, Abraham, Moses,
[and] Solomon did excel...[a]ll that same
concurreth together."   Although it may
have proved impossible to acquire mem-
bership among the Rosicrucians, individ-
uals may have sought the experience of
these same mysteries among the Masons.

The Chevalier Ramsay (1686-1743)
represents one of the most colourful per-
sonalities in Masonic history. Born in
Scotland under the name Andrew Ram-
say, he spent the better part of his life in
Paris. His title he received by petition,
in order to insure tutorial positions
among prominent families, just as he
"added a middle name, Michael, as an
added proof of gentility."   In March of
1730, the Chevalier was received into
the Masonic Lodge during a visit to
England.   His reasons for joining the
Lodge may also have arisen from the
Masons' claim that they were the in-
heritors of an ancient wisdom.

Ramsay was enchanted with the "an-
cient mysteries;" a fantastic novel he
had first published in 1727, called the
Travels of Cyrus, detailed the adven-
tures of the Persian prince and his audi-
ences with the great minds of history.
The work was something of an apologet-
ic for Ramsay, and by his own admis-
sion in an appendix he wrote that one of
his purposes had been to demonstrate
"that the most celebrated Philosophers
of all ages, and all countries, have had
the notion of a supreme Deity."   Al-
though he was criticized for a work
which was perceived to be an irresponsi-
ble representation of classical scholar-
ship,   the Travels sold remarkably well,
passing through over thirty editions in
French and English.

In an address which he gave on sever-
al occasions, (the most celebrated set-
ting being a gathering of the Grand
Lodge at Paris in March, I737)   Ram-
say exercised a similar argument on
authority by declaring that the ancient
mysteries were the precursors of the Ma-
sonic rituals. He stated,

Yes, gentlemen, the famous
festivals of Ceres at Eleusis of which
Homer speaks, also those of Miner-
va at Athens and of Isis in Egypt,
were nothing else but Lodges of our
brethren in which were celebrated
our mysteries...

But Ramsay went even further, and an-
nounced, "Our Science is as ancient as
the human race," and that "Noah
Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses,
Solomon and Cyrus were the early
Grand Masters."   In a history which
was in part patterned after the "Old
Charges," but which contained much of
his own invention, Ramsay stated that
after the death of Hiram, "Grand
Master of Tyre," "King Solomon wrote
in hieroglyphic characters, our statutes,
our maxims and our mysteries." This
record had been lost during the assault
of the Emperor Titus, but a portion had
been recovered by Crusaders serving in
Jerusalem, and that consequently, "our
ancient order was revived."

Although his interest appeared to be
more in the ritual, than antiquarian or
alchemical, Ramsay does seem to repre-
sent yet another personality who would
have been attracted to Freemasonry by
the claim that there would be imparted
solely to initiates certain mysteries
descended from ancient times. Ironical-
ly, this is a position denied in contempo-
rary Masonic literature, which presents
the Masonic Lodge as purely an early
modern invention.   But this historical
model was intensely embraced several
centuries ago, and is a mode of thought
which may even have contributed to the
formation of Freemasonry as it stands
today. The emergence of speculative
Masonry remains a mystery, to be sure,
but perhaps there has been presented
here one suggestion which has shed
some light on the matter.

