building a mystery (for sarah)
Music: Marvin Gaye: What's Goin' On (1971) Still writing, reading, and thinking about Freemasonry for my essay. I re-read Habermas on the public sphere and all that stuff he says about the Freemasons (as the nascent public sphere which required the protection of secrecy). Interesting stuff. Also, I finally got around to ordering Jodi Dean's well-received Publicity's Secret, which is apparently a pretty savvy confrontation with "the secret" as publicity's limit. It came about around the time I was finishing up my own book on secrets, so (as I told Jodi in an email) I was waiting to get my book off to the press because I worried that she was making the same argument, and probably much better. I think we're making very similar arguments (she is more concerned with publics, whereas my book is concerned with epistemic shifts and rhetoric's movement from surface/depth to surface-surface). Anyhoo, I'm anxious to read it because I have another writing project I've promised for a book on publics in the fall, and I have to come up with an idea to write about. I'm thinking that an essay that takes up mysteries and secrecy again as a foundational component of publics and counterpublics . . .. the idea would be something like all this caterwauling about the decline in civic engagement fails to take into account the foundational significance of "I know something you don't know" for engagement in a public. To wit: basically, my book's argument shifted from occultism to the language of my political rhetoric colleagues: republicanism, civic engagement, etc., and so on, blah blah blah.
[3:53 p.m. edit: Oh, shit. I read a book reivew of Dean's Publicity's Secret today and, guess what: she argues what I was thinking of arguing. Dammit Jodi Dean--you're too smart. At least I didn't write my dissertation on aliens--which WAS tempting. I hope she's not writing book on ghosts now . . . anyone want to wager???]
Okie, I need lunch. So, here's the third installment (with transitional paragraph) of the essay on Freemasonry. Sorry, no time to code italicization and endnotes . . . . but enjoy! More secrets ahead:
As civic republicanism was eventually--and violently--instituted in the United States, the stress on the clandestine nature of the fraternity's governance and teachings has gradually weakened. The characteristically tight-lipped grandfather or uncle who refused to say anything about Masonry to family members and friends is partly a consequence of the dynamics revolutionary America, but is also simply a misunderstanding about what Masons are allowed to say about themselves to non-Masons.1 In fact, most of the so-called secrets of the Craft are well known and widely published, such as its ceremonies and the over-loaded significations of many of its symbols (about which more below). The actual secrets of the Craft concern certain parts and aspects of the ceremonies, and a number of secret "words" (such as the "Master Mason's word"), passwords, and handshakes.2 These secrets, however, are also not difficult to find in a number of books and by a simple Google search of the Internet. Today, the primary reason Masons do not talk about these not-so-secret secrets is that it, well, spoils the fun for new Masons receiving their degrees; learning a "secret handshake" is much less enjoyable, perhaps even boring, when you already know what it is. Aside from its remarkable ability to raise money for charity,3 the real secret of Masonry has always been in plain sight: if one starts looking for the principal symbol of Freemasonry in one's community, which is the square and compasses encircling a capital "G" (see fig. 2), she will start to notice it is everywhere--on buildings, on car bumpers, in books and frequently in films, on rings and jewelry, and so on. The secret of Masonry lies in the effects of this symbol on the viewer, not the meaning it signifies. The function of secrecy in Masonry concerns this symbol's seemingly recalcitrant strangeness, its enthymematic mystery, which is thought to provoke curiosity in the viewer.4 Masonry purports to have a route to Enlightenment, moral uplift, and spiritual awareness that is rooted in the mystery-effects of odd or strange language and symbols. In other words, Masonry claims to have a privileged practice and teaching that I would characterize as a Platonic rhetorical theory, or an occult rhetoric.
It is by Rhetoric that the art of speaking eloquently is acquired. To be an eloquent speaker, in the proper sense of the word, is far from being either a common or easy attainment; it is the art of being persuasive and commanding, the art, not only of pleasing fancy, but of speaking both to the understanding and to the heart. --Lecture on "The Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences" to the Fellowcraft candidate5
Although "Rhetoric" has fallen from institutional prominence in colleges and universities, because Masonic ritual and symbolism is hundreds of years old, one can understand why the Masons continue to "lecture" candidates on rhetoric. The ritual, liturgy, and catechism of the Blue Lodge have changed very little in the past 250 years. If we understand the domain of rhetoric as having grown since the eighteenth century to include the broad study of persuasive (conscious) and suasvie (unconscious) processes in culture, however, one can characterize the whole of Masonic teaching, or what Masons term their "philosophy," as a particular kind or type of rhetoric that has a deep affinity with the occult rhetoric of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.6
Masonic Rhetoric as Occultism
In his book length study of occult rhetoric, Joshua Gunn argues that we can define the occult as the study of secrets, and more specifically, as the study of secrets as they pertain to magic and mysticism.7 Central to all occult rhetoric is the pride of place established for secrets and their telling, as well as the characteristically Platonic emphasis on spiritual truths that cannot be communicated in human language or representation.8 Occult practices that attempt to change the world or reality by supernatural means concern magic (often of the ceremonial variety), whereas those concerned with contemplation, reflection, and the intuition of trans-symbolic truths are understood as coming from the traditions of hermeticism and mysticism. Freemasonry is in the second, hermetic camp and, protests to the contrary by contemporary by some Masonic apologists (most are simply silent on the matter), the fraternity is unquestionably an occult organization.
Central to most modern occult practices is a genre of rhetoric that obscures spiritual teachings in strange and often deliberately ironic prose and symbols. The rationale behind using deliberately recalcitrant prose and symbols was both social and spiritual. First, as Gunn argues, difficult language is discriminatory, marking off insiders and outsiders, and, as the Masons help to illustrate, this contributes to a sense of belonging for the insiders.9 Yet, it can often lead to dismissal or persecution by outsiders. In fact, the discriminatory function of occult rhetoric parallels the function of irony in discourse generally, which many rhetorical theorists since antiquity have noted can bond an audience as well as alienate one--and often at the same time.10 Second, although speaking an occult language can invite persecution, it can also (ironically) help to protect a group of like-minded people from persecution, as was the case, for example, with the alchemists.
Understood as both the proto-scientific quest to turn baser metals into gold, as well as a spiritual quest to improve one's soul, alchemy was practiced since antiquity well into the eighteenth century.11 For fear of persecution by religious and state authorities, alchemists recorded their studies and teachings in the "language of the birds" or the "green language," a difficult cipher of symbolism, character, and codes. For example, Charles Walker reports that
The thirteenth-century occultist Michael Scot once insisted that honey falls from the air into flowers, whence it is collected by the bees. To us, the idea is fanciful, yet Scot was versed in the secret arts, and he knew that the bee is an ancient symbol for the human soul, while honey is the thing which [sic] feeds the soul.12
Yet there is also a certain poetic element to Scot's writing of bees and flowers and honey that is not merely cipher; there is a sense in which the symbolism of bees is mysterious because, when one first confronts it, she is not quite certain what it means. In this respect, secrecy is about more than protecting one's thought from persecution or discriminating between insiders and outsiders; it is about the third function of occult rhetoric, the fetish character and mystery-effects of occult symbols.
Gunn suggests that within the modern occult tradition, evocative, exotic, or otherwise bizarre representations functioned enthymetatically to encourage the aspirant or "reader" into higher states of spiritual consciousness and intuition.13 Masons encourage this practice because of their professed faith in the ability of symbolism, coupled with an individual's reason, to intuit spiritual knowledge beyond the realm of signification. In her study of contemporary ceremonial magic, T.M. Luhrman explains the enthymematic function of occult language and symbol is premised consciously on a understanding of the contingency and limits of language:
Magicians are explicitly told [by mentors] of the ambiguity of language, and different magicians use different words and images in different ways to characterize the same event. In discussion of magical ideas, and descriptions of magical practice, the specific words seem almost irrelevant: it is as if the word-value dwindles to its phatic importance, so that magicians use their descriptions of the ritual to signal a sense of involvement and commitment instead of as a means to convey information.14
Although Freemasonry does not claim supernatural forces are at work during their rituals, Masons nevertheless use Masonic language and symbols similarly. There are large numbers of encyclopedias and dictionaries devoted to explaining the etymologies and complex meanings of the thousands upon thousands of occult symbols and strange words; only a handful of extremely learned Masons could specify the multiple meanings of all the words and Masonic symbols used or referred to in a given degree.
Looking into one of the most celebrated Masonic encyclopedias provides a good example of the mystery-function of the fraternity's symbolism. Owing to its occult roots, it is not surprising that we find bees and the beehive are important symbols to Masons:
On old jewels . . . lodge furniture, banners, summonses, certificates, et., the beehive with its flying bees is often a prominent symbol, and in at least one case is to be found in a lodge seal. Carved models of beehives, a few inches high, have a place in one or two old lodges. As far back as 1724-27, a Masonic pamphlet, often attributed to Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), speaks at length of the bee and the beehive as a symbol, and apparently our seventeenth century brethren were taught that the beehive is 'an emblem of industry recommending the practice of that virtue to all created things, from the highest seraph in heaven to the lowest reptile in the dust.15
For the Masonic candidate, the meaning of the beehive as symbolic of the human soul as well as the industry and the product of its labor (honey), is not "revealed" until the Master Mason's degree--if at all. Henry Wilson Coil reports that mention of the beehive is omitted in the lectures of the degree today, although it's the symbol is ubiquitous in Masonic literature and in the decorations, furniture, and architecture of lodges across the United States (see fig 3). What is important about the beehive, however, is not its basic meaning to Masons as "industry." What is important is what the aspirant himself makes of it, or how the image causes him to reflect on the mysteries of Masonry; or the complexities of human industry and social organization; or the role of the feminine (e.g., the queen) in structuring society; or the division of labor in contemporary basic arrangements in society; or the mysteries of an ordered universe and its relation to his own spirituality; and so on. In short: the symbol of the beehive is a kind of ruse. Another way to put this is that the true secret of Freemasonry is that there are no secrets!
That the beehive is a symbol that is decreasing in the ritual and discussions of contemporary Masons points us the fourth function of difficult language: catalyzing curiosity by means of mystery. Unlike Lurhman's magicians, the "specific words" and symbols of Masonic ritual are nevertheless very important to a number of Masons because piques curiosity and encourages further study. Termed "symbolism" or "symbology" in Masonic philosophy, the study of the symbolic relationships and meanings of Masonry's accrual of all things occult and religious in the past 250 years is often touted as a central, scholarly component of its philosophy. In many Masonic lodges, and especially those that are designated "research" lodges, it is common to have a member or guest speaker "give a talk" on his interpretation of a Masonic symbol, such as the beehive, or on a particular aspect of Masonic history, and so on (sometimes these orations are collected into books, which are then repackaged as scholarly examinations or reflections on the Craft; many of the most cherished books of Masonic philosophy were originally orations and speeches given at a lodge meeting).16 Such study combines with the enthythematic, performative, and phatic, function of difficult rhetoric to encourage further spiritual insight, or "more light," by the student Mason. The Masonic scholar Rex R. Hutches explains that in Freemasonry, symbols are thought to be instructive. They
may clothe instruction for several reasons: first, the ideas taught cannot be expressed readily in ordinary language, such as descriptions of Deity; second, symbols can provide metaphorical garment by which ideas are presented on several levels . . . third, symbols provide ready mnemonics by which instruction may be remembered. . . . To study a symbol is to reflect on and explore it in the context of its history, allowing our minds to be led beyond the grasp of reason.17
Although Freemasonry is not a religion, an attention to the way Masons speak about symbolism indicates the fraternity is an occult organization dedicated to both charity and spiritual contemplation, civic action as well as the scholarly study and mystical contemplation.
Masonic Rhetoric and The Mysteries
When understood in relation to the ceremonial and ritual performance that occurs in Masonic lodges, the four functions of occult rhetoric exemplified by Masonry are unquestionably Platonic, and by extension, mark Freemasonry as the modern counterpart to the Ancient Mysteries. In the Cratylus, the Phaedrus, and the Republic, Plato argued that language taken literally could not express universal, spiritual truths. Only indirect allegory (mythoi) and dialectical speech--in other words, talking aloud to others back-and-forth indirectly through myth--could ever inspire one to intuit ultimately reality (and even then, only partially).18 From this perspective, the speech-only "esoteric work" of memorization to learn the Masonic catechism of each degree is not only a device for secrecy, but wedded to a faith in the spirituality of presentism.19
The Platonic belief that speech presences thought and is therefore closer to spiritual truth is also related to the centrality of drama, or the physical interaction of people in a staged ritual or performance (e.g., going to church or synagogue). For these reasons, many prominent Masons have argued that the teachings of the Craft are based on "The Mysteries," which are either a descendant of Platonism or at least originally based on the same ideas Plato harbored about the divine and our access to it.20 Hutchens explains that The Ancient Mysteries were secret ceremonies which used drama, symbolism, and mythology to transmit religious and philosophical knowledge to selected initiates. . . . The parallels between Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries are evidenced by their similar objectives and methods. Through symbolism, mythology and drama, the Mysteries taught that man's soul was immortal and that virtue, not vice, provides the hope of immortality.21
Whether or not one can trace Freemasonry as a direct descendent of The Mysteries is not as important as reckoning with their common cause in the important function of secrecy as a route to spiritual knowledge. In one of the largest and most difficult works of Masonic philosophy, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which is a collection of "lectures" about both the Blue Lodge and Scottish Rite degrees, Albert Pike stresses the function of secrecy in The Mysteries was to create spiritual and intellectual curiosity, as well as respect for the teachings of the organizations:
Curiosity was excited by secrecy, by the difficulty experienced in gaining admission, and by the test to be undergone. The candidate was amused by the variety of the scenery, the pomp and decorations . . . . Respect was inspired by the gravity and dignity of the actors and the majesty of the ceremonial; and fear and hope, sadness and delight, were in turns excited.22
In rewriting the Scottish Rite degrees--and by literally moving a number of them the theatre stage--Pike yoked secrecy to the spiritual import of drama, a point Kenneth Burke repeatedly stressed was foundational to understanding rhetoric. Pike and Burke's views on ritual drama as both a reflection of social order as well as a reaction to the recalcitrance of brute reality and the mysteries of the universe are remarkably similar. "We propose to take ritual drama as the Ur-from, the 'hub'" of a rhetorical theory of drama, says Burke,
with all other aspects of human action treated as spokes radiating from this hub. That is, the social sphere is considered in terms of situations and acts, in contrast with the physical sphere, which is considered in mechanistic terms . . . . Ritual drama is considered as the culminating from, from this point of view, and any other form is to be considered as the 'efficient' overstressing of one or another of the ingredients found in ritual drama. An essayistic treatise of scientific cast, for instance, would be viewed as a kind of Hamletic soliloquy, its rhythm slowed down to a snail's pace . . . and the dramatic situation of which it is part usually being unmentioned.23
Pike's refiguring of the Scottish Rite degrees, which are presently taught, studied, and practiced, are masterful illustration of Burke's social theory of "dramatism" (and it should be said Burke's thinking here is very much in sympathy with the mysteries; if he is not an occultist proper, there is no question he was an alchemist).
Finally, Pike's belief that the structure of the Mysteries that informed Masonic degree work inspired "respect" is in keeping with Burke's observation that "once a believer is brought to accept mysteries, he will be better minded to take orders without question from those persons whom he considers authoritative."24 Such is the relation between teacher and pupil, preacher and parishioner, Master Mason and Apprentice. Like Pike, Burke suggests that "mystery is inescapable" because "symbol-systems are necessarily inadequate for the ab intra description of the non-symbolic."25 Pike, however, failed to reckon with the point that Burke's dialectical thinking on the drama of mystery quickly led him to, a point that a number of Masons throughout history have had difficulty estimating: inasmuch as mystery can command respect and curiosity, it can also inspire distrust and a fear of subjection. Mystery can inspire, in other words, fantasies of conspiracy that only intensify scrutiny when coupled with publicity is added to the drama.
Up next: Leland Griffin on the Antimasonic movement(s), Habermas and Dean on Secrecy, and the dumb-headed rhetoric of some Masonic leaders today . . . .
Notes
1 See Hodapp, Dummies, 17-18. 2 See Hodapp, Dummies, 17-18. 3 One secret of Masonry is really no secret at all: they are fundamentally a charitable organization, frequently raising money for children in need, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Based on figures compiled by the Masonic Service Association of North America, in 1995 Masons contributed $750 million dollars to charity. See S. Brent Morris, Masonic Philanthropies: A Tradition of Caring (Lexington, MA: The Supreme Council, 33, 1997), esp. 18-21. 4 Welcome, curious reader, to that subterranean textuality wherein at least half of the occultic--and therefore political--work of the academy is done: the footnotes. You didn't think I would tease the more curious of you and then not say something of the meaning of this symbol, did you? I like readers like you (I scour the footnotes too). First, as I will make clearer below, the meaning of these strange symbols is actually secondary to their primary function as mystery-creating or fetishizing agents; there is usually a basic meaning to a Masonic symbol, but in part Masonic mysticism involves making your own, idiosyncratic meaning of symbol. Nevertheless, histories of this symbol are numerous and many Masons have speculated about its meaning. The most basic meaning that is communicated to beginning Masons is that the compasses serve as a reminder to "circumscribe" one's desires and to "keep one's passions in due bounds"; the square is a reminder to Masons to always square their behavior by the "square of virtue." In the nineteenth century, the "G" started appearing in the symbol and was said to represent both "geometry," that "magical" science the ancient masons relied on to build and "God," who is the measure of all things (all that are, that they are, and all that are not, that they are not). Also see Pike, Symbolism, 93-106. 5 Louisiana Masonic Monitor, 102. 6 For an overview of this rhetoric, see Joshua Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the United States (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005). 7 See Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric, xxii. 8 See Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric, 35-52; and Joshua Gunn, "An Occult Poetics, or, the Secret Rhetoric of Religion." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 34 (2004): 29-54. 9 Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric, 143-171. 10 Irony is, I agree with C. Jan Swearingen, the occult core of the rhetorical tradition. See C. Jan Swearingen, Rhetoric and Irony: Western Literacy and Western Lies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Or as Kenneth Burke once put it, irony always requires the fool--a figure of immense significance in the modern occult tradition. See Kenneth Burke, "Four Master Tropes," in his A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 503-517. Also see Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (New York: Routledge, 1995). 11 For a lucid account of the spiritual project of alchemy, see C. J. Jung, Jung on Alchemy, edited by Nathan Schwartz-Salant (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), esp. Schartz-Salant's excellent introduction. 12 Charles Walker, The Encyclopedia of the Occult (New York: Crescent Books, 1995), 7. 13 Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric, 75; also see see T. M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witches Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), esp. 214-220. 14 Luhrmann, Persuasions, 215. 15 Benard E. Jones, Freemason's Guide and Compendium (London: Eric Dobby Publishing, 2003), 408; also see Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, sv. "Beehive." 16 See for example Thomas D. Worrel, "The Symbolism of the Beehive and the Bee," Mill Valley Masonic Lodge Website; available http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/worrel/beehive.htm accessed 8 August 2006. 17 Rex R. Hutchens, Pillars of Wisdom: The Writings of Albert Pike (Washington, DC: The Supreme Council, 33°), 57. 18 Plato, Cratylus, translated by D. D. C. Reeve, in Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), sec. 439; Plato, The Republic of Plato, edited and translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), secs. 514-21; Plato, Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII, edited and translated by Walter Hamilton (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), secs. 244-258. 19 Jacques Derrida had a lot to say about this, of course, an assumption that he termed "logocentrism," a faith in speech that presumed a "metaphysics of presence." See Jacques Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy," translated by Barbara Johnson. A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, edited by Peggy Kamuf, 114-39. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. 20 This is thesis of perhaps the most famous work of Masonic scholarship in the world: Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Charlston: Supreme Council, 33°, 1871). Unfortunately space limits any discussion, but W. Kirk MacNulty has offered a persuasive, well-researched psychoanalytic account of Masonic ritual as a Mystery rite. See W. Kirk MacNulty, The Way of the Craftsman (London: Central Regalia Ltd., 2002) 21 Hutchens, Pillars of Wisdom, 102. 22 Pike, Morals and Dogma, 383. 23 Kenneth Burke, Philosophy of Literary Form, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 103. 24 Kenneth Burke, Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 307. 25 Burke, Rhetoric of Religion, 308. Burke's imagined dialogue between "The Lord" and "Satan" on the topic of mystery is fascinating, as it resembles in many respects a Masonic catechism.