Readings
What the texts say when they are read side by side. These analyses are ours; they rest on the texts quoted in each test.
Nine texts, nine doors
| Text | Length of the trial | Property and money | Secrecy | Who decides | Who is kept out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pythagoras (Iamblichus, c. 300) | Three years ignored, then five years silent | Held in common; returned twofold on failure | Five years of silence | Pythagoras, after examination | The “slow” |
| Saint Benedict (c. 530) | Four or five days at the door, then twelve months | Give everything, keep nothing | None | The candidate, to whom the Rule is read three times | No one |
| Arbatel (1575) | None | Nothing is asked | “Faith and taciturnity” | No one: the reader judges himself | Whoever is not “born to Magick” |
| Fama (1614) | None: a printed letter | Cure gratis; contempt for gold | A hundred years | The brethren, who do not answer | The greedy |
| Anderson (1723) | None in the text | Nothing is asked | An instruction “peculiar to this Fraternity” | The lodge | Bondmen, women, “immoral or scandalous men” |
| Myriam (Kremmerz, 1896) | Not stated in what we read | An order living on gifts | A condition of entry | The initiator, the only link to the order | No “honest person” |
| Cagliostro (1780s) | An hour alone in a chamber | Lay aside all metals | An oath over a flame | The master, after the brethren’s objections | Anyone not already a Master Mason |
| Golden Dawn (1888, printed 1909) | None in the ceremony | Nothing in the ceremony | An oath, on pain of being “blasted” | The chiefs of the Second Order | No one: “Fratres and Sorores” |
| Magus degrees (1863) | None: birth | Nothing | None | A calculation | Eight people in nine |
1. Three ways of testing: time, conduct, birth
The two oldest texts test by time. Pythagoras makes the candidate wait eight years, Benedict one, and neither asks him to know anything: staying is enough. The modern texts test by conduct. The Arbatel, Anderson and Kremmerz describe a character — honest, discreet, useful to others — and set no length of time. The degree calendar stands alone: it looks only at birth, and nothing done afterwards changes it. The Arbatel is the one text that holds both ends: six preparations depend on effort, the fourth requires being “born to Magick”.
2. None of these texts charges for entry
Three ask the opposite, that the candidate strip himself: Pythagoras pools the property, Benedict has it given away, Kremmerz founds an order living on gifts. The Fama goes further and makes money the ground for exclusion: its brethren cure “gratis”, and whoever is “onely greedy of riches” brings himself “to utter ruine”. The Pythagorean school even hands the rejected candidate twice what he brought. In the texts we read, an entrance fee appears nowhere.
3. Secrecy is not where one expects it
The Rule of Saint Benedict asks for none. Anderson’s Charges, the founding text of Freemasonry, hardly mention it: they describe manners, and point to an oral instruction. The longest secret is that of the Rosicrucians of 1614 — a hundred years — which is to say that of the one fraternity on the list of which no member was ever found. The only one backed by a penalty is the Golden Dawn’s, where the neophyte accepts being “blasted” by the will of his chiefs if he speaks.
4. Only one text lets the candidate decide
With Pythagoras, the master judges; in a lodge, the lodge; with Kremmerz, the initiator; with Cagliostro, the candidate even swears to “blindly obey”. Benedict does the reverse: he has the Rule read to the novice three times and says each time, “if thou canst observe it, enter; but if thou canst not, depart freely”. It is also the only text that requires the candidate to be told in advance “all the harshness and roughness” of what awaits him.
5. What the most closed order left behind
Of the Egyptian Order of Naples a single article of statutes is cited, and it says nothing of doctrine: it forbids neophytes to know one another. That is how a secret order shows in the archives: what remains is not a teaching but a partition.
The calendar in numbers
We counted the 360 images and the 360 meanings of the 1488 text, in its English edition of 1879.
| What the images show | Degrees |
|---|---|
| One or more men | 203 |
| One or more women | 65 |
| An animal | 112 |
| A weapon | 25 |
| What the meanings foretell | Degrees |
|---|---|
| Wicked, thief, envious, murderer | 32 |
| Laborious | 31 |
| Idle, lazy, vagabond | 29 |
| Powerful, noble, fit to rule | 26 |
| Quarrelsome, litigious, warlike | 23 |
| Merry, sociable | 19 |
| Wise, learned, studious | 17 |
| Weak, sorrowful, unfortunate | 17 |
| Immodest | 13 |
| Unstable | 13 |
| Rich, merchant | 11 |
| Religious | 9 |
A calendar that blames more than it promises
116 degrees foretell a fault or a misfortune, 81 a quality or a success. To be born “wise” is rare: 17 degrees in 360, hardly more than “immodest”. The trade most often foretold is neither magician nor king: it is labourer.
The women of the calendar
Women appear in 65 images, men in 203. And they are not doing the same thing: 15 of those 65 images show a woman “standing idle”, against 13 of the 203 images of men. The calendar of 1488 is a document about its century as much as about the sky.
What this says about the Magus degrees
In this text, the degree that foretells “a sooth sayer, or conjurer” is the 11th of Gemini, the eagle with her three young. Christian made nothing of it: he chose to set his two Magi elsewhere. The two editions compared, degree by degree.