Secret Sects Of Syria And The Lebanon

This book offers insights into the creeds, beliefs, and practices of secret sects active today who are involved in the politics of the region.

SECRET SECTS OF SYRIA AND THE LEBANON SECRET SECTS OF SYRIA AND THE LEBANON A CONSIDERATION OF THEIR ORIGIN, CREEDS AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES, AND THEIR CONNECTION WITH AND IN FLUENCE UPON MODERN FREEMASONRY By BERNARD H. SPRINGETT, P. M., P. Z. LONDON GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, INTRODUCTION A SURPRISING amount of scorn and ridicule has been the reception accorded by Freemasons, both in Great Britain and in America, to previous attempts to place on record some very plain proofs that we are justified in saying in our Masonic Ritual that we came from the East and proceeded to the West 1 The plain fact that much of what we now look upon almost entirely as Freemasonry has been practised as part and parcel of the religions of the Middle East for many thousands of years, lies open for anyone who cares to stop and read, instead of running by. But it is frequently and scornfully rejected by the average Masonic student, and this seems to betoken an unwillingness to credit Masonry with an existence of more than two or three hundred years at most. It is painful to those who, like myself, take a justifiable pride in the antiquity of Masonry, far exceeding that of any other religion in the world known to mankind, to hear it so frequently condemned as completely legendary. In the following pages I have attempted to bring together, from a very large number of sources, reliable evidence as to the prevalence amongst the inhabitants, ancient and modern, of Syria in general and the mountains of the Lebanon in particular, of various ceremonial rites, manners and customs. These, with the accompanying initiations, signs, pass-words and grips, together with the allegorical andsymbolical language employed, seem to me to point to an extremely remote origin, and I hope some of my readers, at least, may be equally convinced. So far, as some writers would like us to believe, from the Templars who took part in the Crusades leaving behind them among the Arabian and Syrian tribes they came in contact with some traces of Masonry, we can see, plainly enough, that they, on the contrary, found 6 SECRET SECTS OF SYRIA own Masonic knowledge strengthened considerably by what they came in touch with in the East. Thus, on their return to their native land, a natural result would be some develop ment of the extremely ancient ritual of the Druids, remnants of that Stellar Cult which seems to be the true source of Freemasonry, which extended by the influencing visits of Phoenician merchants, had been carefully preserved and added to by the loving care of Alfred and Athelstan, as proved by reliable documents in the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. Still further revised and modernized, altered in certain attributes of the symbolism, altered, very materially of course, in language, Freemasonry in its present form has preserved for us unchanged, as being unchangeable, the Ancient Landmarks, for some of which Enoch might even have been responsible, as claimed by our traditions. The late Mr. A. L. Rawson, the American artist who illustrated several books on classical mythology for J. W. Bouton, the New York publisher of Isis Unveiled wrote for Madam Blavatsky a long description, which will be found further on in this present work, of his initiation into the Druse sect, which gave me my first incentive to research into Syrian Masonry. Mr. Rawson was very enthusiastic indeed onthe resemblances he found in the Druse system with that of Freemasonry, but his views met with such ridicule among American Masons that he considered it would be a thankless and hopeless task to publish anything further on the subject with a view to educating them. The Rev. Haskett Smith, when reading a similarly interesting and carefully prepared paper before the learned Ars Quatuor Coronatorum met with equal coldness...