20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
By Bro Michael Howard
Captain Nemo ...was a mason? One hundred and fifty years ago, Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel, Vingt mille lieuses sous les mers burst upon the world stage. Originally run in serial form in the biweekly publication, Magasin d’éducation et de récréation, the novel recounts the adventures of marine biologist Professor Aronnax and two colleagues who, thrown overboard by a collision at sea, are rescued by a travelling lodge of Freemasons.
T
hey are furnished with clothing provided by the Worshipful Master, repeatedly brought from darkness to light, and eventually returned to the outer world after glimpsing and in some cases, embracing, not only monitorial truths, but strong hints on the more esoteric lessons of Freemasonry.
Not quite the way you remember the storyline? Not too surprising, considering that the seminal English translation by the Reverend Lewis Page Mercier in 1873 as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was fatally flawed. Was Jules Verne a Freemason? Author Michael Larny explores Jules Verne’s
‘Connexions to the prominent secret societies of his time’ in The Secrets of Jules Verne – Decoding His Masonic, Rosicrucian and Occult Writings, but offers no proof that Verne was ever initiated, passed, or raised to the sublime mysteries of Freemasonry. No French lodge, or any other lodge, claims him as a member.
The Nautilus prowls the sea floor – but is Nemo’s infamous submarine an allegorical masonic lodge?
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June 2022
Humility – Kindness – Generosity
Freemason
