A Master Criminal And A Mason

If your friend is interested in Freemasonry and asks you to propose him to a Lodge, be careful before you decide. If you refuse, you may find yourself portrayed as an arch-criminal; in fact, the world’s most evil character.

By Dr Alan A Cooper

This happened to a Freemason called Moriarty, by reports, a wild Irishman interested in the occult, but no criminal. He was turned into that master-criminal who in fact was supposed to have killed off the world’s master detective, Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London.

The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan-Doyle, is said to have been interested in joining Freemasonry and also an occult group called the Golden Dawn, to which Moriarty belonged. Moriarty refused to sponsor him. Perhaps Conan Doyle chose the name of his friend not merely out of pique, but to identify the arch-criminal who was to kill Sherlock Holmes in his novels about Holmes and his faithful ally, Dr Watson.

Conan-Doyle had been trapped, as it were, by his own creation in his many popular stories, written for the Strand Magazine of the early 1900s, and felt he should go on to new creativeness. So Moriarty was born. And what a criminal!

But the real Moriarty lived until 1923. Born Theodore William Carte Moriarty in Ireland in 1872, he ran away to sea as a boy and eventually arrived in South Africa to join the civil service as a customs officer. In that occupation, he joined St Blaize Lodge, Mossel Bay No. 1938, and was initiated on 28 July 1903, passed on 25 August 1903 and raised on 29 September 1903. He resigned from the Lodge on 31 December 1907 for what cause is not known. He must have moved to Port Elizabeth before then for he was the founder Master of the Irish Lodge Patricia No. 406 in 1906.

Of some erudition, he collaborated with a leading English Mason, known to us in the Western Division as our District Grand Master for many years, T.N. Cranstoun-Day, in writing a small booklet on ‘Masonic Etiquette’. The booklet was published with permission from both English and Irish District and Provincial Grand Masters and privately printed by H.W. Ware of Port Elizabeth in 1908. A copy of the booklet exists in the South African Library, Cape Town. It gives hints on Masonic behaviour in and out of Lodge.

Patricia Lodge was the last Masonic Lodge with which Moriarty was connected. He moved to England about 1911. It is not known whether he took back with him his wife whom he married in South Africa about 1905. It is said that Moriarty claimed a doctorate from Heidelberg University, but never went there.

On his return to England, he began to dabble in the occult. He fell into that area overlapped by Masonry, Theosophy and the Order of the Golden Dawn. He favoured what is known as Atlantean Christianity – mystical Christianity with overtones of Atlantean origin. He also claimed he was a Rosicrucian. He put these beliefs into profitable use by forming “the Science, Arts and Crafts Society”, a front for his mystical Christianity. His pupils – some 40 – had to buy and read his one and only work, “Aphorisms of Creation”, and believed presumably his claim he was in psychic touch with long-dead sages.

It would appear that the real and the fictional Moriarty were strange characters. Conan Doyle must have been very perceptive.

Sincere and Best Wishes for a memorable Masonic Spring Ball Event From the Worshipful Master and Brethren of Lodge De Goede Hoop (No. 1 GLSA)

We are about to celebrate 250 years of the existence of Lodge De Goede Hoop, which was founded on 2 May 1772, and is steeped in history, with its existence having stood the test of time, since its inception. Its members reflect key figures in South African Freemasonry and in South African Society itself.

As a member and indeed the presiding Master of Lodge De Goede Hoop, it is always with reverence that I read the names on the name boards in the historic temple, who laboured before me at Lodge De Goede Hoop and who gave the lodge its rich character making up the 250 year milestone that we have almost reached.

When 2020 arrived and ushered in Covid-19, a pandemic that has brought the world and Freemasonry activities to a virtual standstill, I wondered how and whether the lodge could survive and that in fact this must be an event that no other Master had faced to date in the 250 years.

As presiding Master of Lodge De Goede Hoop, prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, at a festive board, a member of the Scottish Constitution gave me a gift, being a book on the history of Lodge De Goede Hoop from 1772 until 1972, which was published in 1972, on the occasion of the bi-centenary of its Foundation in 1772.

Having had the Spanish flu of 1918 compared with the Covid-19 virus, I paged to the recorded minutes of the Lodge in 1918 to determine whether the then Master was facing similar obstacles. When I reached the minutes it was recorded that the lodge had lost members of the lodge in the First World War, particularly the battle of the Somme. In October of 1918 , 102 years to the month , the minutes of the lodge record: “The reception meeting in October had to be abandoned because of the epidemic which raged so furiously during that month and led to letters of condolence being written to fifteen Brethren.”

My earlier assumption had been incorrect. There was indeed a Master of Lodge De Goede Hoop, who as going through a pandemic and First World War and the lodge survived, standing testimony to the resilience and dedication of its members. With the arrival of Covid-19, we saw member’s resilience and dedication, by taking to holding meetings via Zoom and expanding contact throughout the world to other lodges overseas and our lodge members who live overseas.

Our members have risen to the challenge to the extent our lodge has had greater reach around the world than ever before. This dedication and commitment by our members has left me in no doubt that our lodge will continue for a further 250 years and beyond, and that no future acting Master should be concerned, as the members of Lodge De Goede Hoop will ensure its existence and prosperity into the future.