From the book
Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry
R. Swinburne Clymer · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordArchives and manuscripts are repositories and written witnesses through which the book represents the preservation of secret teaching and institutional memory.
- In Ancient Mystic Oriental MasonryAbdemon’s manuscript begins a journey toward Egyptian instruction.
- In this editionArchive words retain their ordinary documentary sense.
- A place to readD.7: … “giving into the hands of King Solomon a Manuscript that had been given to him in” …
Meaning
Archives and manuscripts are repositories and written witnesses through which the book represents the preservation of secret teaching and institutional memory.
Use in the book
Abdemon’s manuscript begins a journey toward Egyptian instruction. The African Brothers’ collections are described as treasures, while the regulations require lodge records and secret documents to be kept under central authority. Written evidence is thus both a warrant for continuity and something access to which may be restricted. The author’s repeated appeal to such materials strengthens the rhetoric of inherited knowledge.
Places to read
- Degrees of the Mystic Oriental Rite · Block 7… “giving into the hands of King Solomon a Manuscript that had been given to him in a wonderful and mysterious manner by an Egyptian during the time he was held in” …
- Foundations of Mystic Masonry · Block 40“89. Their library and their archives obtained through the protection of the King and of persons of distinction, among others the Prince von Lichtenstein, at Vienna, some real treasures of manuscripts” …
- Foundations of Mystic Masonry · Block 157“192. "Down to 1118, the Mysteries and the hierarchical order of the Egyptian Initiation, transmitted to the Jews through Moses and afterwards to the Christians through Jesus Christ, were religiously preserved” …
- Rules and Regulations · Block 28… “Such books must be kept in the Secret Archives of the Order, together with all such other Secret Manuscripts and documents as may come into the possession of the Supreme Grand” …
In this edition
Archive words retain their ordinary documentary sense. No shelfmarks or present repositories have been invented for unidentified materials.
Reading the argument
A manuscript mentioned in a narrative is not the same as an identified surviving manuscript available for examination. Ask whether a passage names a document, reproduces it, dates it, or merely asserts its existence. The distinction is essential to evaluating the historical argument.
archives
“archives” — 2 occurrences in 2 text blocks: F.40; R.28.
manuscript
“manuscript” — 7 occurrences in 6 text blocks: D.1, 7; F.32, 107–108, 111.
manuscripts
“manuscripts” — 2 occurrences in 2 text blocks: F.40; R.28.
documents
“documents” — 6 occurrences in 6 text blocks: I.15; F.40, 49, 132; R.28; N.88.