The Secret Freemasonry of a Priest in the Temple of Nature with Bro. Josef Wages

Bro. Josef Wages returns to the show to discuss The Secret Freemasonry of a Priest in the Temple of Nature, an eighteenth century Rosicrucian Masonic system recorded by Johann Samuel Mund. The manuscript predates the Golden Rosy Cross by three years, and until Bro. Wages and his research partners transcribed, translated, and published it, no one had ever studied the system at all. The book appeared in a limited run of only 500 copies, and the last of them are disappearing fast.

The conversation ranges across the wild landscape of continental high degree Masonry: the Chevalier de Beauchêne peddling degrees from a wagon behind the French army at Frankfurt, the patents of Bouchère de Lennoncourt, and how the trail leads directly to Étienne Morin and the Kadosh degree. Along the way, Bro. Wages makes his case for why primary sources matter, why the era was far more organized than the old assumption of institutional chaos suggests, and why researchers who rely on Gould and Mackey are recycling secondary sources.

The episode closes with a frank discussion of stasis in English speaking Freemasonry since the middle of the nineteenth century, and the growing appetite for variety: French Rite and Rectified Scottish Rite craft lodges are now at work in the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, and brethren with ideas are finding brothers who are open to them.

Books mentioned in this episode:

• The Secret Freemasonry of a Priest in the Temple of Nature by Johann Samuel Mund, transcribed, translated, and edited by Bro. Josef Wages and his research partners. A bilingual German and English limited edition of 500 copies.

• The Lost Ritual, the Bonseigneur Rituals retranslated by Bro. Josef Wages, coming from Cornerstone Book Publishers on August 21st.

• Étienne Morin: From the French Rite to the Scottish Rite by Bro. Arturo de Hoyos and Bro. Josef Wages.

• The Green Book of the Élus Coëns: A Treasury of Coën Texts, two volumes, edited by Bro. Josef Wages, translated and annotated by Bro. Stewart Clelland.

• The Master's Voice: The Rituals and Letters of Martinés de Pasqually.

• The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati, edited by Bro. Josef Wages and Reinhard Markner.

• The Correspondence of the Illuminati Order, Volume 2, edited by Reinhard Markner.

• The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson.

• Espionage, Diplomacy and the Lodge by Bro. Ric Berman.

• The Genesis of American Freemasonry by Bro. Ric Berman, discussed in our previous episode.

• Bernhard Beyer's 1925 German study of the Golden Rosy Cross, Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer.

Also mentioned as forthcoming from Bro. Wages: the Élu Parfait volume drawn from the Morin manuscript, a collection of the Jacobite high degrees, and an edition of the Golden Rosy Cross rituals of 1763 and 1777 with its ninth degree.

Bro. Wages' next book, The Lost Ritual, arrives from Cornerstone Book Publishers on August 21st, and copies will be at the book table at the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference in Seattle on Saturday, September 19th, where Bro. Wages is slated to present. Tickets are available at esotericmasonry.com.