Still Running Off at the Keyboard

SUFISM, FREEMASONRY, AND SEBOTTENDORFF

The Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon has an article on its website that shows a relationship between Freemasonry and Sufism through the efforts of Rudolf Glandeck von Sebottendorff. From the website:

Sebottendorff's real association with Freemasonry is difficult to determine, although it appears that he was initiated into an irregular body of the Rite of Memphis under the Grand Orient of France.5 From his own writings it is clear that his version of Freemasonry incorporated aspects of Islamic Sufi mysticism, alchemy, astrology and Rosicrucianism. In his autobiographical novel Der Talisman des Rosenkreuzers (The Rosicrucian Talisman), he made a clear distinction between Turkish Freemasonry and regular Freemasonry:

"It must be shown that Oriental Freemasonry still retains faithfully even today the ancient teachings of wisdom forgotten by modern Freemasonry, whose Constitution of 1717 was a departure from the true way." "We look at our world as a product of the people. The Freemason looks at it as a product of conditions..."6

Sebottendorff believed that the esoteric tradition of Sufism was the purest stream of wisdom and that it had nourished European occultism through astrologists, Rosicrucians and authentic freemasons of the Middle Ages. He claimed:

"No one can accuse me of profanation, nor of sacrilege in uncovering the course of these mysteries...It is the means that the communities of dervishes traditionally use in order to acquire special strength by means of unusual techniques. They are, for the most part, men who aspire to the highest rite, that from which come those who have been prepared for their missions as spiritual leaders of Islam... This high rite is the practical basis of Freemasonry, and it inspired in times past the work of the alchemists and of the Rosicrucians...But to reply to the accusation of my being guilty of some kind of treachery: I say to you plainly that this book has been written on the instructions of the leaders of the Order." 7

Seems to be a clear indication from the Masonic end that Sufism and Freemasonry are linked, as the Sufis claim themselves.


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Traditionalism, in its various spellings, is a word that appears on some Grand Orient websites.

Here, for instance.

Here is a webpage devoted to Tradition which seems to reference Freemasonry:

SOBRE RENE GUENON. TRADUCCIONES DE SU OBRA.

and you will also find a reference to "Gnosis" at the top of the website. ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY is also mentioned at this website. The URL is there for the Rene Guenon Lodge as well. If you click Zenit on that website, you will get a lot of material on Traditionalism.


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Lots of interesting stuff here.