Christopher Earnshaw

Christopher Earnshaw

is a distinguished Mason, serving as Past Grand Historian (Grand Lodge of Japan, 2002) and Past Master of the Research Lodge (2007-2010). He holds the 33° IGH in the Scottish Rite and was Past-Chairman of the Education Committee (2020). He received the Order of Merit (Grand Lodge of Japan, 2010) for his educational efforts. He was also Past Master of Sinim Lodge (Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1998) and has been a life member of Star in the East #640 (Grand Lodge of Scotland) since 1995.

With a BA in Japanese and Chinese from SOAS, London University, and a PhD in neuroscience, he is the CEO of a medical device manufacturer in Tokyo. He lectures at the School of Social Sciences, Waseda University, and previously taught Asian Studies at Daito Bunka University. Additionally, he enjoys playing the cello as an amateur.

Freemasonry: Initiation by Light    

Modern Speculative Freemasonry was born at a Lodge meeting at the Rummer and Grapes Tavern, later moving to the Horn Tavern. The first three Grand Masters had somehow changed the existing Operative Mason’s rituals. The only way to find out what those changes were, was to compare the current ritual to the bits of ritual that existed prior to the establishment of the Premier Grand Lodge in 1717, the event Masonic scholar Albert Pike calls the “Revival.”  The allure of researching the early days of Freemasonry is that we can learn about the objectives of the first three Grand Masters, and thus answer some or all of the following questions:

• Why the Lodge at the Horn Tavern was so different from the other three Lodges whose “Constitution is Immemorial.”

• What was the secret scroll owned by a librarian at the University of Oxford that might hold the formula for alchemy’s ultimate prize, the Philosophers’ Stone?

• Why valuable documents were destroyed during the early days of the Grand Lodge of England.

• How did the son of the only “black” queen of England become Freemasonry’s first royal Grand Master?

• Why the Bishop of London treated Pocahontas as “visiting royalty,” and what became of her?

• Who was the Chinese Mandarin, who may hold the secret to one of the degrees?

• Why a rival “Chinese” secret society tried to bring down Freemasonry.

Finally, this book compares the First Degree ritual to the Daoist initiation ritual, given that in the eighteenth century there was a craze in London for things Chinese.