Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

A good friend of mine, Robert L. Barrows, now sadly deceased, used to use a phrase which delighted me: “Once Masons were mad, bad and dangerous to know. Nowadays we have become ‘fluffy’.If we want to be taken seriously on the world stage again, we need to rediscover our roots.”

When I first started to give talks, a number of older Masons asked me why I taught all this symbolic and esoteric
‘nonsense’. Why did I project things onto what was, after all, nothing more than a fraternal society founded to provide mutual support and fellowship, and have a little fun?

Well, I have news for those Masons who think the Craft is little more than a society of charitable donations and clam bakes!

Meet Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, a prominent French Mason in pre-revolution France. We will encounter him many times on these pages. For now, let us be content with the fact that he was a prominent businessman and Freemason living in Lyons in the latter years of the 18th Century, who wrote many rituals and developed many Masonic systems based around the early Scottish Rite. In his well-researched book on the history of the Scottish Rite, A. C. F. Jackson tells us that Willermoz was responsible for the Rose Croix, or 18th Degree of the present-day Scottish Rite system. But let us consider for a moment another of his rituals.
Firstly, let us remember that, while the only inconvenience faced nowadays by a Candidate in the Preparation Room prior to receiving his First Degree is the injunction to turn off his smart phone and change into slightly creased and dirty clothing; in those days the prospect of handing over one’s sword to a complete stranger and to wait in a room without any means of defense was terrifying to a person who might face death from robbers every time he simply had to walk down an alley. Now imagine this scenario, from the Knight of the Black Eagle Rose Croix, which you can see below written in Willermoz’ own hand:

 

Wow!