Greetings from Lodge Zetland 608 EC in South Africa

Greetings Brethren all,

I was initiated, passed and raised in Surrey in the UK in 2003. Having returned to the land of my birth and infant nurture, I have most recently joined Zetland Lodge 608 EC, the 3rd oldest lodge in South Africa. It is located in a small town called Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape province of SA, the same town that Nelson Mandela received his high school education, at Healdtown College.

I live as an off-grid homesteader in the nearby mountain village known as Hogsback, supposedly the inspiration for JR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The whole area was known as the Frontier, and is where the 1820 British Settlers clashed with the local tribes of Xhosa inhabitants. Zetland (named after the GM of UGLE at the time) was originally a military lodge, as many early lodges were of course. I believe it was Lord Carnarvon who believed in sending in the Freemasons after the military, in order to setup social structures etc.

I have studied widely across the esoteric and historical aspects of the Craft and have written a book "Ordo Ab Chao" which documents ancestral links between Flemish Templars fleeing to Scotland and meeting the Lords of the Isles and Robert de Brus. Initially the St. Clairs were pro-English and testified against the excommunicated Scottish Templars in 1307/08, but they came around to de Brus' side by the time of Bannockburn in 1314. It then shows how the Catholic Setons and St. Clairs carried the torch for Templarism in Scotland, up until the emergence of the Protestant Murrays (Moray) and Hamiltons. Of course we all then know how Robert Moray went on to help found Gresham College and the Royal Society, and how influential the Dukes of Atholl were in the Antient Lodge. Then everyone moves to London, being the centre of all the action at the time, and from 1717 the rest as they say is history.

It's also fascinating (to me at least) that George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt (my personal hero) are also directly descended from the same prominent Flemish Templar families as I am (and probably you are too), as are most of the Royal family today, via the 1st Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt. HM The Queen is of course the current Duke of Lancaster. Rumours are going around that Sussex (Prince Harry) may eventually become the next GM of English Freemasonry. That would indeed keep the proud tradition of military involvement flying high.

Having recently undergone my 30th degree, I am now also researching into the more speculative philosophical aspects of the craft. I can't definitively link the Egyptian Hermetic legends yet but the aspects around Pythagorus are particularly interesting and I'm drawn to Thales as well. Both were definitely onto something...

Apologies for the long winded introduction. I would be very happy to send anyone a pdf copy of my book for half the Amazon price if you message me your details. I hope this doesn't come across as spam, but more an offer of daily Masonic light.

Finally, as I abhor the bureaucracy and obsession with rank that has crept into our Ancient Craft, I leave you with the words of my favourite verse from Bro. Robbie Burns' Final Toast, ....

"We Masons prize that noble truth, the Scottish peasant told,
That rank is but a guinea stamp: The man himself the gold.
We meet the rich and poor alike, the equal rights maintain,
Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again."

Yours, fraternally
Bevan

Bro Bevan Greetings from Houston Texas USA, have only heard the last line of the toast, thank you very much for the rest. At our lodge, JH Reagan # 1037 AFAM GLoTexas, our musician is originally from Glasgow and his instrument is the pipes (they look smaller than what I've seen elsewhere at Scottish Festivals) and wears his kilt and Scottish dress to our meetings.
Best my brother Bevan


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Greetings and welcome to the forum Brother. VERY interesting intro!

Many thanks, I look forward to contributing and to learning.

Bevan Jones said:

Bro. Robbie Burns' Final Toast, ....

"We Masons prize that noble truth, the Scottish peasant told,
That rank is but a guinea stamp: The man himself the gold.
We meet the rich and poor alike, the equal rights maintain,
Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again."

Yours, fraternally
Bevan

Click to expand...

We use the words as our Tyler's Toast at the end of the night.

Greetings and Welcome.

(and I wonder, how heavily footnoted is your book)

Bloke said:

We use the words as our Tyler's Toast at the end of the night.

Greetings and Welcome.

(and I wonder, how heavily footnoted is your book)

Click to expand...

Thanks, the book is speculative and I readily admit that. However, I found direct genealogical links between key Templars and the later emergence of Scots Freemasonry. It repeats some of the obvious well-known historical facts and fills in the blanks from my own research.

For example, everyone knows that the initial rebellion leading up to Magna Carta was led by Robert FitzWalter who commandeered London and Temple Church after Runnymede. Less well known is the fact that one of the English Templars most important holdings was their Essex headquarters at Cressing Temple, within FitzWalter’s Little Dunmow estate. Or that almost all of the signatories were later directly related to Robert de Brus in some way or another. As was William Marshall himself, being de Brus' 2nd great grandfather (and my 23rd although that's less interesting). Also interesting is that Otto de Grandson was Edward "Longshanks" best Templar friend. When Edward died, it helped clear the path for Philip "the Fair" to ban the Templars (amongst several other reasons of course). Otto moved back to Switzerland, and Swiss expertise in banking emerges shortly afterward via the Carthusian Charterhouses, Otto's favoured charity.

There are plenty of known facts such as these in the book, which when considered against the events and relations of the times, shed a new and interesting light. For instance, most speculators look at William St. Clair (the one that built Rosslyn Chapel) and his male line descendants for some Masonic link, forgetting that his eldest son was in fact disinherited. William's daughter went on to marry the 1st Earl of Atholl (my 14th great grandfather) and their grandchildren produced King James I of England, along with the Tullibardine Murrays, one of which married the last Protestant Hospitaller prior in Scotland, Lord Torpichen. It's interesting how he was forced to give that up to the Catholic Queen on the advice of the Setons. Other direct Murray descendants were of course Robert Moray and the later Dukes of Atholl, so prominent in leading the Antient (Atholl) Grand Lodge.

A favoured trick of sceptics wanting to disprove that the Templars fought alongside de Brus at the Battle of Bannockburn was to say that Henry St. Clair (William's grandfather) testified against the Templars. Well of course he would have. That was given circa 1308 and the English were camping on his doorstep. Even de Brus had earlier been waivering on the side of the English until the Oath of the Swans and Monthermer's Spurs. Several years later i.e. quite a while, as de Brus grows in power, Henry comes around to his side and fights with him at Bannockburn. As does the Lord of the Isles, the MacDonald clan chief, whose lands Icolmkill (Iona) is situated in. Royal Order of Scotland ritual refers to Icolmkill as the 2nd place where Masonry was established, after Mount Moriah and before Kilwinning. Anyone also notice that the MacDonald clan badge has a cross, crosslet fitchee in it? Used by Templars before battle...

Oh, the guy who funded Kilwinning Abbey (Richard de Morville) and employed the Tironensians (tiro being apprentice), was the grandfather of Walter Bissett, the Templar prior at Maryculter.... Of course the Abbey is not the Mother Lodge, but the stone with the exact same Masonic style square and compass engraving, found in a nearby wall, could only have come from the Abbey... I could go on and on but I won't. No new discoveries were ever made by footnotes. But of course, as we are all speculative Masons you need to do your own work, or not, footnotes or not.

P.S. Most western colonial descendants are also descended from some of these older nobility lines. However, unless you can find that link in your family tree it is going to be hard to trace all the earlier links. The Geni website does however allow one to find the relationship between any two known profiles, even if you're not related. I was lucky and it still took me some two years to find everything.

Bevan Jones said:

...No new discoveries were ever made by footnotes. But of course, as we are all speculative Masons you need to do your own work, or not, footnotes or not.

Click to expand...

Appreciating the work is speculative, yet I must disagree on footnotes. I also have spent a lot of time researching certain historical aspects of Freemasonry (people) and the footnotes are Gold. A very well known book here has five footnotes for a claim, and all the footnotes are bunk, I know, because I have looked at the same sources (except 1 which is in private papers) and the author made the same mistake I did several years ago. Further, footnotes often at as bread crumbs leading to new discoveries.

Be all that as it may, it sounds like you have done a lot of work in your area of research, well done

Welcome aboard.

Welcome Brother Bevan, from West Tennessee USA.