Alexandra Heidle, Jan A. M. Snoek - Womens Agency and Rituals in Mixed and Female Masonic

Women’s Agency and Rituals
in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders
Aries Book Series
Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism
Editor
Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Editorial Board
Jean-Pierre Brach
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Advisory Board
Roland Edighoffer – Antoine Faivre
Olav Hammer – Andreas Kilcher
Arthur McCalla – Monika Neugebauer-Wölk
Marco Pasi – Mark Sedgwick – Jan Snoek
Michael Stausberg – Kocku von Stuckrad
György Szo˝nyi – Garry Trompf
VOLUME 8
Women’s Agency and Rituals
in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders
Edited by
Alexandra Heidle
Jan A.M. Snoek
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
Cover illustration: Annie Besant in Adjar (see the article by Andrew Prescott). Picture by photo
studio ‘Wiele & Klein’ in Madras (Courtesy Völkerkundemuseum of the Von Portheim-Stiftung
in Heidelberg, Germany).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women’s agency and rituals in mixed and female Masonic orders / edited by Alexandra
Heidle, Jan A.M. Snoek.
p. cm. — (Aries book series; 8)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17239-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Women and freemasonry.
2. Freemasonry—Rituals. I. Heidle, Alexandra. II. Snoek, Joannes Augustinus Maria, 1946-
HS499.W65 2008
366’.10820973
2008035726
ISSN 1871-1405
ISBN 978 90 04 17239 5
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,
222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Preface ............................................................................................... vii
Abbreviations .................................................................................... xii
List of Illustrations ........................................................................... xiii
Addresses of the Editors and Authors ............................................... xv
Introduction ......................................................................................... 1
Jan A.M. Snoek
The Relationships of Androgynous Secret Orders with Freemasonry;
Documents on the Ordre des Hermites de bonne humeur in Sachsen-
Gotha (1739-1758) ............................................................................ 21
Bärbel Raschke
The Grand Lodge of Adoption, La Loge de Juste, The Hague, 1751: A
Short-lived Experiment in Mixed Freemasonry or a Victim of Elegant
Exploitation? ..................................................................................... 51
Malcolm Davies
Maçonnerie des Dames: The Plans of the Strict Observance to Estab-
lish a Female Branch ......................................................................... 89
Andreas Önnerfors
Freemason Feminists: Masonic Reform and the Women’s Movement
in France, 1840-1914 ....................................................................... 219
James Smith Allen
The ‘Women’s Question’. The Discussion, Especially in the Nine-
teenth Century, About Opening Membership of the Dutch Grand
Lodge to Women ............................................................................. 235
Anton van de Sande
Women and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Nineteenth
Century Occultist Initiation from a Gender Perspective …………. 245
Henrik Bogdan
vi
Stretton’s ‘Operative’ Masonry: Legacy or Forgery? ……............. 265
Bernard Dat
Freemasonry and Suffrage: The Manifestation of Social Conscience
…………………………………………………………………….. 341
Ann Pilcher Dayton
‘Builders of the Temple of the New Civilisation’: Annie Besant and
Freemasonry .................................................................................... 359
Andrew Prescott
Diversity In Unity? Background and History of the Different Masonic
Traditions Within the Craft Lodges of the Dutch Federation of the
International Order of Mixed Freemasonry ‘Le Droit Humain’ ..... 393
Anne van Marion-Weijer
Index of Orders and Lodges ............................................................ 425
Index of Names ............................................................................... 429
PREFACE
Much has changed since in 1986 John Hamill
1
showed that the hith-
erto generally accepted theory about the origin and early history of
Freemasonry, first formulated by such scholars as Gould in the 1880s,
could not be maintained when the facts available were analysed anew
from a modern scholarly perspective. Since then, scholars have redis-
covered the archives and found many documents which had...