1921 Publicity Press

Finally my patience has been rewarded. I have found the 1921 Sydney rituals!

The National Library of Australia has “Papers of Ruby Rich” (MS 7493) which have been made available in digital form. Three folders or boxes are about co-Masonry and they have just been scanned entirely in three documents. These documents contain personal notes, letters, administration, issues of the Australian co-Mason and also a few ritual books. There is a 1925 Mark ritual, the 1916 book with the three degrees and two rituals that didn’t look familiar. All the way in the back there was the answer:

These are the booklets that are listed in the catalogue of the Dutch Masonic museum!

Just as there is no third degree at the Dutch museum, the Ruby Rich papers also has no third degree.

The ritual

Let’s have a look at the ritual.

The plan of the lodge is the same as in the 1916 edition (also printed in Sydney), but is printed on the inside of the cover. After this immediately follows the “introcessional”. This is quite different from 1916. That version has a title page, notes to the fourth and third editions, a table of contents, extra information concerning the plan of the lodge, a few more blank pages, “preliminary ceremonies” (the “there should be a very soft subdued light” is not there in 1921), a procession, and an “introcessional” that is much different.

It turns out that the “introcessional” of 1921 starts halfway that of the 1916 edition. Page 1 of the 1921 print is 20 in the 1916 edition! 1916 Let the lodges choose “one, or both, of the following canticles”, 1921 only printed the second.

But where 1916 then has a “ceremony of censing” and an elaborate one for “lightning the candles”, 1921 just drops in with: “As the R.W.M. lights his candle he says”, etc. In 1916 the officers carry their lights, in 1921 this is not spelled out. The rest of the opening is roughly the same in both versions, but in 1921 less text is used to describe it. Text that is printed, is the same. The texts at the beginning of the initiation does differ, but the: “We invoke your blessing, O ye Ministers of the T.G.A.O.T.U.” is in both, just as the singing after the journeys.

1916 and the Australian prints are somewhat alike, but the Australian version is much shorter. What is most remarkable, is that the incense ceremony is skipped. For that reason I think it is highly unlikely that this Australian version is from the hands of Leadbeater and Wedgwood as I doubt they would already skip the recently introduced incense ceremony.

Is the this ritual called “Sydney“?

I have my doubts! As I said before, I the archives of the Dutch federation of Le Droit Humain contains a document entitled “a fairly complete translation of the Sydney-ritual”. The text begins with the “very soft subdued light” that is missing in the 1921 Australian print. It is much closer to the 1916 edition (also printed in Sydney) than to the 1921 edition.

How about “Verulam“?

As we saw earlier, “Verulam” (at least since 1922) is a cleaner, shorter version of 1916. Both the Australian 1921 and “Verulam” begin with the lighting of candles. 1921 First has a “canticle”, “Verulam” simply says that the: “the Officers enter in procession” and “D.C. incenses the Lodge.” After this, the three versions that I have mentioned so far, are very much alike, but there are also differences. For example:

• 1916 “W.J.W., how many principal officers are there in a Lodge?”
• 1921 “W.J.W., how many principal officers are there in a Lodge?”
• 1922 “Br. S.W., how many officers constitute a lodge of Free masons?”

It is starting to look like it that both 1921 and “Verulam” are both simpler versions of 1916, but created independent from each other.

“Lauderdale” then?

I only have a 2013 edition of “Lauderdale”, but assuming that it hasn’t changed much in the last century (these Theosophical rituals seldom do), it is more like 1916 than like the other two.

Conclusion?

We have two editions printed in Sydney, one “privately printed” that was also in use in England (1916) and which is an ‘official’ version of the ritual (the fourth edition) and a “publicity press” edition that is on some ways similar to, but other ways different from, that 1916 edition. The Dutch text that claims to be a translation of “the Sydney-ritual” is much closer to 1916 than to 1921.

Contrary to “Verulam” and “Lauderdale” I know no official ritual that has the name “Sydney” printed on the cover. Until such a book turns up, we must assume that “Sydney ritual” was never an official name. Also, by the look of it, the ritual that was called “Sydney ritual” is more likely to be the 1916, fourth edition, printed in Sydney, than the (apparently) unofficial 1921 printing.

One somewhat interesting fact remains. The Grand Orient of the Netherlands has copies of the first and second degrees (it seems there never was a third) of the 1921 rituals. These rituals are not in the quite complete archives of the Dutch federation of Le Droit Humain! The rituals must have been known in the Netherlands, how else would copies have come in possession of the Grand Orient? Even so, these are not the rituals that the typewriter translation of “the Sydney-ritual” had as basis.