Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017
The female adoption ritual
Brotherhood challenged
One of the famous Jagiellonian Renaissance tapestries at Wawel Castle in Krakow, Poland, displays the construction of the Ark of Noah. Strikingly, not only are Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japhet portrayed working on the elaborate carpentry of the Ark, but also his daughters-in-law. Although their names are not mentioned in the Bible, these female carpenters were generally revered as the mothers of the post-diluvian human race; in some extra-biblical traditions, they were associated with female prophets and oracles. The Ark of Noah plays a central role in the female adoption ritual in freemasonry.
Anderson’s The Constitutions claims that ’the GREAT ARK, […] tho’ of Wood, was certainly fabricated by GEOMETRY, and according to the Rules of MASONRY’. One of the first versions of the masonic third degree legend, the so-called Graham manuscript of 1726, replaces the Temple architect with Noah. It is therefore not far-fetched to talk about a Noachite tradition in freemasonry, in which the transmission of knowledge from ante- to post-diluvian humankind plays a central role. Carpentry, along with its biblical symbolism, was also transformed into a ritual motif in masonic-like fraternities such as that of the Order of Carpenters, allegedly founded in 16th-century England, which, since its later inception in 1761 in Sweden, is still flourishing today.
Female freemasonry was divided into three degrees: Apprentice, Fellow, and Master. Higher degrees were also developed. The ritual of the first degree unfolds in principle as it does in male freemasonry and is subsequently described in a typical late-18th-century variety. The candidate is prepared outside the lodge room and introduced blindfolded into the lodge. A tracing board displays Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and a ladder with five rungs (the number five occupies a central symbolic role in female freemasonry). After walking around the room, the blindfold is released. The candidate catches sight of a ’terrifying brother’, the ’Frère Terrible’ with a flaming sword, symbolizing the Angel in Paradise. The candidate takes an oath of fidelity, receives the tokens of an apprentice, and is instructed in the teachings of her degree. The ceremony is concluded with a catechism in which, among many questions and answers, the central symbols of the degree are explained as follows:
Q: What does the Tower of Babel represent?
A: The arrogance of the children of this world, which one cannot sympathise with unless you have a selfish heart, and to cure it accordingly becomes the right token of a Freemason and a female Freemason.
Q: What does Jacob’s Ladder signify?
A: This Ladder is full of secrets. Both sides of the Ladder represent the love for God and the love for the neighbour. And in between those sides, there are the virtues that originate from a noble soul.
Q: What does Noah’s Ark signify?
A: The heart of the human being, which is carried and driven by its passions like the Ark by the water of the Flood.
The second degree, the Companion degree, revolves around the Garden of Eden, the stigmatization of Eve’s eating of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and the subsequent expulsion from Paradise. The candidate is identified with Eve, but in a crucial scene of the ritual, she is told:
Here is the bite in the apple by the first human, there the death of the descendants; to diminish and mitigate this punishment, freemasonry is a necessary remedy: as the practice of every moral virtue teaches us to face this fatal moment with fortitude.
Then the candidate is brought ’from death to life’ and is shown an eight-pointed burning star; she is told:
Do you see, my Sister, this Eastern Star is the enlightenment of reason and the right light of masonry from which we do not depart because it is by [the star] we are led to true felicity.
The candidate then takes an oath for the second degree, performs the symbolic eating of the apple and sealing of her lips (with almond paste), and is dressed with new tokens of companionship. Two elements of the second degree catechism deserve particular attention. The companion is examined as follows:
Q: What do you think when you hear the difficult word Eve?
A: It leads me back to my origin and shows me what I am and what I should be, in remembrance of the highest felicity.
When asked about the word of the degree, the sister replies:
Belba! Which means peace and unity, which—through the bringing down of the [Babylonian] Tower of disorder—has been restored among Brethren and Sisters as the prophecy of the Sibyls foretells.
The tracing board of the supreme degree of Mistress displays no less than nine scenes from the Old Testament: a rainbow, the sacrifice of Noah, and that of Abraham, Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat, the Babylonian tower, the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, the transformation of Lot’s wife into a salt pillar, the dream of Joseph, and finally Joseph in the well. Once the sister companion is brought in blindfolded, she is asked to climb a real ’mysterious Ladder’ (mentioned in the first degree catechism). Supported by a sister, she finally arrives at the fifth and ’highest step of felicity […] which many thousands strive to attain’. Thereafter, she takes an oath and is brought to work: the symbolic centrepiece of the third degree ritual.
The candidate is asked to give five blows with different tools upon a wooden box. A secret mechanism opens the lid, and an illuminated heart rises up from the box. The master of the lodge asks the freemasons present: ’What has the sister brought forth?’ and receives the reply, ’Worshipful Master, a heart has been brought out of it.’ The ceremony is explained as freemasonry giving dominion over the heart and teaching how to make the ’most compassionate and tender out of the hardest and most relentless’. The catechism basically explains the tracing board and repeats the idea that the Ark symbolizes the ’human heart driven by passions’. To ’bring down the Tower of disorder’ is yet another central aspect that is explained extensively:
Q: What other lessons does it teach us?
A: That without unity and understanding between one another, the love and friendship of the Society cannot last.
Q: How is understanding restored?
A: Through the peace and unity that can be seen to reign among Brethren and Sisters.
The ritual of adoption allows various possible interpretations. From a purely misogynistic understanding, it is all about reinforcing female guilt for the original sin. However, a more careful reading provides clues to a separate ritual identity being established, one that is intended to restore original innocence: ’the myth of Eden is confronted and the story reworked’, as Margaret C. Jacob has convincingly argued. The candidate of the second degree is identified with Eve, yet her freemasonry has the potential to ease the burden placed on women. Her initiation offers a way out of mortality: the female companion is integrated into the ’enlightenment of reason’ through illumination by the Eastern Star (which may have a Christian connotation, and may thus symbolize the initiate being embraced by divine grace). Independently contemplating her origin, the female companion is empowered to develop a positive vision of herself for the future: the Babylonian confusion can be overcome, and peace and harmony can be restored, ’as the prophecy of the Sibyls foretells’.
The only clue given in the ritual that Noah’s daughters-in-law appear in adoption masonry is in the Sibylline Oracles, a collection of classical, Christian, and esoteric writings in verse from the 6th or 7th century, where these women’s names are given, and one of them (the ’Babylonian Sibyl’) is identified as the mother of the Greek oracles.
Finally, by climbing a ’Ladder of Felicity’, the female freemason reaches towards mastery. This is ultimately achieved by knocking on the mechanical chest, which displays a heart. The question is, what does this chest actually symbolize? Reading the catechisms of the degrees together makes it obvious that Noah’s Ark is not only understood in its biblical sense, it also symbolizes the human heart carried away by its passions. Hidden inside this heart (represented by the chest), however, drifting randomly on the ocean of God’s punishment, is yet another heart: the pure heart of compassion and tenderness. This second heart can only be released by an autonomous and conscious act, using the tools of masonry. On a symbolic level, the ritual suggests that in this way, not only can the Babylonian confusion be overcome, but also, potentially, the inequality between the sexes, since understanding is restored through peace and unity among brethren and sisters.
Compared with male freemasonry, the adoption ritual is no less performative or symbolic, and is therefore not a simplified version of the male equivalent. Its motifs are derived and fleshed out from direct and alternative readings of biblical stories. Some elements hint at the influence of higher degrees in male freemasonry; for instance, the candidate receives a wristband with the motto ’Silence and Virtue’, an element that is also practised in the rituals of the Royal Order of Scotland of Heredom and Kilwinning. The mysterious ladder has a parallel to the second degree tracing board in male freemasonry (although that ladder has seven steps and symbolizes Jacob’s Ladder), but more importantly it parallels the so-called ’Rosecroix of Heredom’ (the eighteenth degree in AASR), a degree in which the Scottish master and the Royal Arch are about to find and restore the lost Word. At first sight, the rituals appear to be a ’feminized’ version of the male ritual, however, theoretically, they could have been used independently as separate higher degrees.
It is tempting to speculate on the impact the adoption ritual had upon women of the 18th and 19th centuries. What happened when they learned that original sin could be overcome (or at least mitigated) and that they as sisters could share illumination by reason on equal terms with their masonic brothers? Jan Snoek, who has researched rituals of adoption extensively, interprets the rituals from the perspective of ’felix culpa’ (’happy guilt’). In these rituals, Eve can be likened to Christ. By taking the burden of sin upon herself, Eve opens the door to the experience of felicity during our lifetimes, enabling us to choose what is right and virtuous, in our new knowledge of alternatives.
As in the male masonic third degree, the candidate in the second degree of the adoption ritual is thus identified with a deity. According to the ritual, true felicity is achieved when this identification is done in community, establishing an understanding between men and women in the elective affinity between sisters and brothers in freemasonry. Although only embraced by a relatively small number of women, adoption freemasonry has been seen as a form of early feminism, a ’female rite of passage into the culture of the Enlightenment’.