THEODOR REUSS

Irregular Freemasonry in Germany, 1900-23

DISCUSSION

The Acting Master, Bro.  Will Read, said: 

Brethren, it gives me much pleasure to propose a Vote of Thanks to the reader of the paper, Bro.  Ellic Howe, our Senior Warden. 

He has given us a paper which in many ways is unusual, not least because of the amount of detail in its masonic content and its revealing biographical information.   Such thoroughness was of course to be expected of Bro.  Howe, not only because he is by profession an author of historical works but also from our experience of the papers he has already given to this Lodge. 

Bro.  Howe has a decided instinct for finding the unusual and sometimes questionable characters - ambitious ones at that – who found their metier in so-called 'Fringe Masonry', and each time he does so he regales us with interesting and illuminating facts of which we were not previously aware.    

The names of some of these brethren (those who had been 'made' in the three established grades of our Order), e.g. Yarker, Wynn Westcott, Crowley, Waite and, of course, Reuss, crop up in this and other papers by Bro.  Howe as also do the names of the several 'higher degrees' with which they were associated; there almost always appears to have been some connection or association of these brethren with eg., the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.), the Brethren of the Light, the Order of Light, the Golden Dawn, which Orders were also in some way related to each other. 

As I read the paper I kept asking myself what was the medium by which these brethren became interrelated, or by which they came together?-, even though some went off at a tangent to pursue their own psychology or psychomancy. Was it the S.R.I.A., for they  all appear to have been members of that Society? Or was it this very lodge, the Quatuor Coronate Lodge, for some of its early and post-Consecration members were certainly members of the S.R.I.A. which had been founded some twenty years, earlier? 

Bro.  Howe is, unfortunately, suffering from a throat infection and at his request Bro.  Haunch has read the paper for him.  We are grateful to Bro.  Haunch for having done this so clearly and so well, and at such short notice.  But our sincere thanks go to Bro.  Howe for his most interesting and informative paper and this, brethren, it gives me much pleasure to propose.  

Brother Frederick Smyth, Junior Warden, said: 

With great pleasure and without reservation, I second your Vote of Thanks, Worshipful Master. 

This paper well demonstrates the very great advantages of membership of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge and its Corrcspondence Circle for, we have here enjoyed the benefit of research by Brother Ellic Howe and his collaborator, Professor Helmut Moller of Gottingen, among resources not easily available (if at all) to most of us.  Moreover, I suspect that the ability to read and discuss fluently in the German language is a talent denied to the vast majority of English-speaking freemasons. 

The authors have both entertained and enlightened us.  There is a special element of entertainment in being told about the 'baddies'.  In the early years of my generation we were shielded by our parents from the knowledge of real, dyed-in-the-wool villainy.  The first moral tales that I can recall were nothing more horrific than Eric, or Little by Little and two other stories by Dean Farrar.  It was a year or two more into the growing-up process before I first experienced that delicious, spine-chilling frisson which came with reading about something really naughty! 

So it is, in a way, with our Freemasonry.  We are somewhat sheltered - and rightly so - by our Grand Lodge's insistence that we have nothing to do with irregular or clandestine masonic or quasi-masonic bodies.  Thus the moral tale of Theodor Reuss entertains us with its under-and over-tones of money-making, occultism, Yoga and Yarker.  It is cautionary, and timely, for there is little reason to suppose that 'Grand Masters-at-large' are less likely still to be operating from private addresses than are the Bishops at Large about whom Peter Anson has written so effectively. (That remarkable book is mentioned by the authors in a footnote to their paper.) I know of one self-styled Archbishop whose 'cathedral' is in a suburban sitting-room not far from my own home; it would not surprise me in the least to find that there are self-styled 'Most Worshipful Grand Masters' holding Quarterly Communications in their suburban sitting-rooms and persuading correspondents that they control large numbers of well-established daughter lodges in many countries.    

That this is not fanciful is evidenced by the existence of a 'Book of Constitutions' (I have a copy) for the 'Masonic Order of Ancient Mysteries', dated 1930 but giving no headquarters location.  Enquiries in England and Scotland have failed to disclose any further information about this Order.  It seems more than possible that it lived and died within the pages of its Constitutions, but some people were obviously eccentric enough and rich enough to have the book printed. 

So our Brother Senior Warden and his collaborator have performed a valuable service by reminding us yet again that there have been (and undoubtedly still are) people on the fringes of Freemasonry who do, with or without deliberate intent, provide traps for the regular mason to fall into.  They have also, with painstaking and well-documented research, made available to the English-speaking Craft a fascinating piece of history and I firmly express the hope that there may be more to come from the same authors.    

The very nature of their work disarms criticism of the text.  If the question is put, 'was their work really necessary and worthwhile?', I would reply with a resounding 'yes!'.  

Bro.  Hamill said: 

I too would like to associate myself with the Vote of Thanks to the authors of this evening's paper.  Those of us who know Bro.  Howe well have come to expect and then to enjoy papers dealing with the murkier aspects of the fringe areas of  Freemasonry and we have not been disappointed this evening! The validity and usefulness of such studies is often questioned but I would maintain, with Bro. Howe, that the examination of such grey areas often leads to an explanation of what would otherwise seem odd actions and reactions on the part of the governing bodies of regular Freemasonry. 

In dealing with Reuss's attempts to 'regularize' his so-called 'high grade Freemasonry' the authors comment on his dealings with Westcott and Yarker and their activities in England.  The question of degrees other than those of the Craft and Royal Arch had been discussed at great length in Grand Lodge during 1871 and 1872 but, whilst the earlier introduction (by French members) of the Rites of Memphis and Misraim in the 1850s had been roundly condemned by Grand Lodge for working the Craft degrees, no action was taken against Yorker's multiplicity of Orders in which he carefully avoided both Craft and Royal Arch.  However the writers are being kind to Yarker in describing the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Rite's reaction to his Cerneau Scottish Rite and the Antient and Primitive Rite as regarding them as 'unwelcome abberations' for that body promptly expelled Yarker, who was a member of the 18th degree.  A copy of the printed memorandum issued by the Supreme Council on 30 November 1870 is preserved in the Grand Lodge Library 'Yarker File' and states quite blandly: 'John Yarker.  Expelled.  By order of the Supreme Council on recommendation of a Sovereign Tribunal held at Manchester, 18 November 1870.'  Yarker attempted to gain the support of the Grand Secretary to raise the matter with the Board of General Purposes in an attempt to have the expulsion rescinded but was promptly and firmly informed that the matter was outside the interest or jurisdiction of the Board. 

When the O.T.O. settled in Switzerland during the First World War, Reuss wrote to the then Grand Lodge Librarian, Dr. William Hammond, in I9I7 introducing himself as an English Master Mason and a 'loyal son of the United Grand Lodge' (!) and informing him that the 'O.T.O. Grand Lodge Mystica Verita' had held a meeting on 24 June 1917 in celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the founding of the Grand Lodge of England, that a resolution had been passed sending their congratulations on the event and that he (Reuss) had been charged with forwarding the resolution to Hammond for communication to the United Grand Lodge.  Hammond had apparently shown interest in the Anti-National Conference to be held at Monte Verita in August 1917 for Reuss's Secretary, J. Adderley, had sent him copies of the programme and the O.T.O. Manifesto.  Reuss wrote to Hammond in the hope that the United Grand Lodge would send two official delegates but Hammond appears to have been dubious about both Reuss and the conference for Reuss wrote to him again detailing his English Masonic connection, stating that since 1880 he had been a member of numerous lodges and that since 1908 he had been a member of 'the French Craft Lodge Humanidad No. 240 at Paris'.  Needless to say that lodge exists neither on the contemporary printed lists of either the Grand Orient or the Grande Loge de France.  He reminded Hammond that they had met on several occasions in Great Queen Street in 1913/1914 and that he had presented Hammond with copies of the Oriflamme and Crowley's Equinox detailing the work of the O.T.O., which volumes are still in the Grand Lodge Library.   The letters, etc, referred to are in the Grand Lodge Library file concerning the O.T.O. which was unknown to Bro. Howe when making his research for the paper.  The file also includes a rather old photograph of a patent of appointment signed by Reuss and 'Baphomet' (i.e. Crowley) commissioning James Thomas Windram 'member of the National Grandlodge (sic] of the O.T.O. in Great Britain and Ireland' as General Grand Representative and General Grand Inspector 33 degree of the United States of South Africa on 19 March 1913. 

I look forward to reading the work for which this is the preliminary study and have much pleasure in joining in this Vote of Thanks. 

Bro.  H. H. Solf said: 

With reference to footnote 27, I would like to point out that the original Rite of Memphis and Mismaim - not the Yarker version - is quite alive in France and in South and Central America.  The actual head of this rite is Bro. Robert Ambelain in Paris who would be only too willing to give information to anyone interested. 

Bro.  Howe says that the Humanitas Lodge in Neuhausel cannot traced. This lodge was in fact founded on 9 March 1871 under the constitution of the Grand Lodge og Hungary. The lodge is now in Vienna under the Austrian constitution and Bro. Robert Pohl is the present Worshipful Master.  

Brother Draffen writes: 

As a masonic charlatan who presumably used Freemasonry for his own ends and made a living from the gullible, Theodor Reuss seems to have been more successful than Matthew Thomson whose charlatanism ended with a fine of $5,000 with costs and a residence of two years in the Federal Prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.    

Brother Howe says that 'It is unlikely that a single regular freemason was present'. Present, of course, at the Congress of the International

Masonic Federation.  According to Evans's The Thomson Masonic  Fraud,  pp. 145-6, those present at this congress and the bodies they represented were: 

What a gathering, and what a delightful example of trying to lift one's self by one's own bootstraps! I am a little puzzled as to why Reuss should have the initial 'W' in this list of Thomson's - had he more than one prenom? 

Of the collection of rogues attending this conference, John Anderson was a clerk in a solicitor's office in Ayr, Scotland, and was an expelled Scottish mason.  T. or W. Reuss is the subject of this most interesting paper.   M. McB.  Thomson was a twice expelled mason - once by the Grand Lodge of Scotland and once by the Grand Lodge of Idaho [in which he held the office of Grand Orator in 1901].   Born in Ayr on 9 January 1854, he died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 13 September 1932.  He was by profession a house-painter.  The full story of his machinations is to be found in The Thomson Masonic Fraud by Isaac Blair Evans, Salt Lake City, 1922.  Evans was the Chief Prosecutor on behalf of the Federal Government. 

As a matter of interest I enclose one of the 'Bonds' issued by Thomson as a means of raising money - a step which Reuss never seems to have needed to take. 

Bro.  Robert Gold writes: 

I have just compared your note on Theodor Reuss's membership of the Pilgrim Lodge with the Lodge Registers and see that your reference to Heinrich Klein appears to be misconceived.    

According to the Register, Klein joined in 1872, was DC in 1872/3 and resigned on 14 October 1874.  It is therefore unlikely that he was the proposer of Reuss, who was initiatd only in November 1876. 

Bro. C. I. Kapralik writes: 

Age and health now prevent me from attending meetings of Quatuor Coronati Lodge. I have, however, received from a brother of the Pilgrim Lodge the advance proof of the paper on Theodor Reuss.  May I congratulate the authors on the wealth or research undertaken and on the gripping presentation of the subject matter. 

I am able to add some information on the Lodge Humanitas in which Dr Kellner is recorded as having been initiated. It certainly did exist. It was the first and most respected of the so-called Grenz-Logen established  after 1870 in Austria. I would direct  attention  to  a  paper read by Bro.   Frank Bernhart nearly twenty years ago on the history of Freemasonry in Austria, AQC 76, pp.  1-7, and also to 200 Jahre Freimaurerei in Oesterreich (1959) by a former Grand Master and Grand Librarian of the Grand Lodge of Austria (pp. 161 ff). 

I suspect that the place at which Dr Kellner was initiated was not Neuhausl but Neudorfl. I have not myself heard of Kellner but, as the Humanitas Lodge's membership was found from the intellectually elite, I am inclined to believe that he had obtained a Doctor's degree.  The archives to search for evidence would be those of the Grand Lodge of Austria, of the Universities of Vienna or Prague and - possibly - of the Technische Hochschule of Vienna.  Lodge Humanitas can scarcely have been involved in any of Dr Kellner's unorthodox activities.    

The memory of the lodge, which for some reason - probably because there were very few survivors from it after 1945 - was not revived after the war and the liberation of Austria, has been preserved in the names of the Humanitas Lodge No. 1123 under the Grand Lodge of New York and the Humanitas Lodge No. 840 under the Grand Lodge of Victoria at Melbourne.    

My mother-lodge, Mozart No. 6997 of London, honoured the memory of the Austrian Humanitas Lodge by making the Masters for the time being of the New York and Melbourne lodges permanent 'Honoured Guests'. 

Bro.  Ellic Howe replies: 

Professor Moller and I are grateful for the friendly reception accorded to our paper. 

Bro. Will Read asked 'what was the medium by which these brethren [Yarker, Wynn Westcott, Crowley, Waite, Reuss and others] became inter-related', i.e. with a common membership of foundations on the fringe of conventional Freemasonry.  Any attempt at an answer will require far more space than is now available, but Professor Moller and I will offer a number of conclusions in a book-length study of Reuss and related areas which is now in progress.    

Bro.  Frederick Smyth mentioned Peter Anson's book Bishops at Large (1964) which contains a lively and detailed account of the goings-on of gnostic or 'irregular' bishops.  Anson did not mention Reuss's name but referred briefly to jean Bricaud.   We now infer that it was Bricaud who appointed Reuss as 'gnostic legate for Switzerland' at a synod held at Lyons on 18 September 1919 (see Bricaud's Annales Initiatiques, Lyons, 1920, 1, i, p. 5).  There is no evidence that Reuss 'consecrated' further bishops in Switzerland or Germany.   

Brother Draffen provided a list of those present at the Congress of the International Masonic Federation at Zurich in July 1920.  The account of the proceedings in Annales Initiatiques, I, iv, pp. 37-42, supplements the information published in McBlain Thomson's The Universal Freemason, September 1920.    

Bro.  John Hamill discovered the material (in Grand Lodge library) relating to Reuss's 'Antional' Congress at Ascona in August 1917 too late for us to be able to use it.  With the kind assistance of Bro.  Terry Haunch, Grand Lodge Librarian, we were able to send photographs of the documents to Dr Harald Szeemann, the designer of the important 'Monte Verita' exhibition which was staged at Ascona during August and September 1978.  There they were described as being in a Private Collection in London.   Some of them are reproduced in Monte Verita, Berg der Wahrheit: Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrag zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topographie, edited by Harald Szeemann, Electa Editrice, Milan, 1978.   They will be found in Walter Schonenberger's chapter on 'Monte Verita und die Theosophischen Ideen'.    

We are grateful to Bro. Robert Gold for pointing out that Heinrich Klein had already resigned from the Pilgrim Lodge when Reuss was initiated in it in November 1876, also to Bro. Charles Kapralnik for the suggestion that Kellner must have been initiated in the Humanitas Lodge at Neudorfl and not at Neuhausl. We had, in fact, been misled by an error made by Reuss in Oriflamme. Bro. Kapralnik gives Kellner the benefit of the doubt and supposes that he must have been a 'Herr Doktor'. However, Professor Moller's careful enquiries in Austria suggest that it is unlikely.    

We also record our thanks to Bro. H.-H.. Solf for information about the Humanitas Lodge at Neuhausl. Bro. Solf suggested that a meeting with M. Robert Ambelain, the Grand Master of the (irregular) Rite Ancien et Primitif de Memphis-Misraim, might produce useful historical information.  For this gentleman's connection with the Gnostic Catholic Church, the Martinist Order and the Ancient and Primitive Rite see Bro. Gastone Ventura, I Riti di Misraim e Memphis, Editrice Antanor, Rome, 1975: