Mystic Masonry: Or, The Symbols of Freemasonry and the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity

Freshly typeset edition 

Troy Books is proud to present a newly typeset, finely crafted edition, first published in the closing years of the nineteenth century, Mystic Masonry is J. D. Buck’s bold attempt to restore Freemasonry to its place as a true School of the Mysteries. Rather than tracing lodge histories and quarrels over constitutions, Buck asks what the Craft is really for: what its symbols, rituals and legends reveal about the origin of the soul, the purpose of human life and the “higher evolution of man”.

Drawing on the Ancient Mysteries and the emerging occult philosophy of his day, Buck reads Masonic symbolism as a universal language of initiation. The rough and perfect ashlars, the broken columns and lost Word, the five-pointed star and temple-architecture all become keys to an inner work by which the candidate learns that “man is not man as yet”, and that real initiation is an at-one-ment between the higher self and the unseen source from which intuition and spiritual power arise. Education, for Buck, is not mere intellectual polish but the awakening of latent faculties of the soul – a process mirrored, degree by degree, in the work of the Lodge.

Across chapters on education and ethics, the “genius” of Freemasonry, the Secret Doctrine, science and religion, the septenary nature of man, the Great Lodge and the outline of Masonic symbolism, Mystic Masonry uncovers a profound esoteric philosophy within the Craft. It presents Masonry as heir to the Egyptian and Greek Mysteries and as a living custodian of the “Great Secret” preserved in their initiations: a working hypothesis for the psychical and spiritual life of humanity.

For practising Freemasons with an occult bent, Mystic Masonry illuminates the inner side of familiar ceremonies and working tools, revealing the Craft as a path of genuine spiritual transformation rather than mere conviviality. For witches, magical practitioners and students of esoterica, it offers a compelling bridge into Masonic thought, showing how lodge symbolism, ancient Mystery-traditions and the modern occult revival interweave into a single, initiatory tapestry.