New working paper on Japanese freemasonry

The working paper, Miss Pauline Vera Chakmakjian’s The Fiftieth Anniversary of The Grand Lodge of Japan (1957-2007), is now available on the website of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism.

Japan is a country about which relatively little is known as regards masonic participation, and this paper provides an overview of the activities of The Grand Lodge of Japan, which was formed in 1957. The paper not only emphasises and expands on key points from an earlier paper by the same author, ‘Seeking Enlightenment: Initiation and Ritual of Oriental Candidates’, delivered at the 2005 Canonbury Conference (printed in The Canonbury Papers: Volume 4. London, 2007), but also brings to light the more recent involvement of Freemasonry with one of the chief aims and objectives of the fraternity – charity.

I had the pleasure of hearing Miss Chakmakjian speak on Japanese indigenisation of Masonic ritual at this years International Conference on the History of Freemasonry in Edinburgh. Her research deals with complex and often challenging issues, and I would strongly suggest to anyone who is interested in masonry to follow her work.

Julius Evola’s Path of Cinnabar

This June Integral Tradition Publishing will release the first English translation of Julius Evola’s autobiography The Path of Cinnabar

Julius Evola is a renowned Dadaist artist, Idealist philosopher, theoretician of politics and Fascism (although not himself a Fascist), ‘mystic,’ anti-modernist, and scholar of world religions…. Much more than an autobiography, The Cinnabar Path in describing the course of Evola’s life illuminates how the traditionally-oriented individual might avoid the many pitfalls awaiting him in the modern world. More a record of Evola’s thought process than a recitation of biographical facts, one will here find the distilled essence of a lifetime spent in pursuit of wisdom, in what is surely one of his most important works.

(via Mark Sedgwick)

Deciphering the Cosmic Number

New Scientist has an interesting interview with Arthur I. Miller about his new book, Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung

In his latest book, Deciphering the Cosmic Number, historian of science Arthur I Miller investigates the bizarre friendship between quantum physics pioneer Wolfgang Pauli and famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Together, the two great thinkers delved into mysticism, numerology and alchemy in their quest to understand the universe and themselves.

New book from Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism

Freemasonry and Fraternalism in the Middle East, the first volume in the Sheffield Lectures on the History of Freemasonry and Fraternalism series, is now available. For details of how to purchase the book please visit the Centre’s website.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction : Andreas Önnerfors
• List of Contributors
• French Pre-Masonic Fraternities, Freemasonry and Dervish Orders in the Muslim World : Thierry Zarcone
• Early Freemasonry in Late Ottoman Syria from the Nineteenth Century Onwards – The First Masonic Lodges in the Beirut Area : Dorothe Sommer
• The Star in the East: Occultist Perceptions of the Mystical Orient : Isaac Lubelsky
• Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905-1911 : Mangol Bayat
• Ottoman Freemasonry and Laicity : Paul Dumont
• Postlude : Andreas Önnerfors