Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Shrine
The
Imperial Council of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine,
better known as the Shriners, was founded in 1871 in New York City as a
“fun” side degree of the Freemasons. It is open to Master Masons of the 32nd
degree, or Knights Templar. There were 720,000 members in 1995.
The
“Shriners” are the archetypal “fun” auxiliary to a well-established
secret society. They are also archetypically American; the Grand Lodge of
England has in the past threatened English Masons with expulsion if they join
the organization, believing that the Shrine brings Freemasonry into disrepute
with childish antics, funny clothes, and ritual some find offensive. On the
positive side, however, the Shriners raises a tremendous amount of money for a
wide range of worthy causes, especially where children are concerned. The
hospitals it funds for crippled and for badly burned children are
state-of-the-art facilities and free to those in need.
Like a
number of other secret societies, the Shrine was originally little more than a
drinking club. In the United States, where teetotalism has always been popular,
Masonic lodges are “dry.” The Shrine was set up by a group of 13 Master
Masons who had already been meeting for some time at a weekly luncheon club; the
leading lights were a medical man, Dr. Walter M. Fleming, and a stage comedian
named Billy Florence. The fact that there were 13 founding members commemorates
the short-lived “13 craze” of 1870. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the
craze was a (mostly Northern) attempt to deny superstition and bad luck. For
example, 13 people for lunch or dinner was considered witty, invitations were
issued for 13 minutes past the hour, and a number of short-lived games were
invented wherein the winner acquired 13 points.
Florence
and Fleming restricted membership to those who had attained the 32nd Degree or
were (Masonic) Knights Templar. The lodge is known as a Temple, and the officers
have such names as Most Illustrious Grand Potentate, Illustrious Grand Chief
Rabban, and Illustrious Grand High Priest and Prophet. Ornaments in-dude both a
Christian Bible and al-Quran; a foot-square Black Stone or Holy Stone (after the
Qaaba in Mecca); a gavel and scimitar; crossed swords; an Altar of Incense; and
a bier and coffin. The gaudy clothes and ornaments affected by Shriners are
familiar to many, and as early as 1887 some Shriners were wearing fezzes
decorated with gold and tiger claws — and valued at $1,000.
The rituals
are a loose parody of Islam and are offensive to followers of the religion. Like
other Middle Eastern parody rituals, this ritual claims remote antiquity,
supposedly dating back to the foundation of the Shriners by the son-in-law of
the Prophet Mohammad, the Caliph Ali, in A.D. 644. In the 1890s, controversy
raged within the organization as to its historical foundation, and many people
argued that it was indeed the legitimate descendant of an Arabic vigilante
organization.
Although the Shriners have only one degree, there are some apendant bodies open
to only Shriners, like the Royal Order of Jesters
and the Order of Quetzalcoatl.
The
Shriners traditionally reveled in various pranks and ritualistic shenanigans,
together with a great deal of drinking. This cast the Shrine into such disrepute
by the 1910s, that some American Masonic Grand Lodges seriously considered
following the course of the Grand Lodge of England and suspending any Mason who
became a Shriner. Accordingly, at the 1920 convention, it was proposed that the
Shrine organization divert some of its energies into good works — specifically,
to financing a children’s hospital that would be open to crippled children
tinder 14, of any race or creed, whose parents could not afford to pay for
medical care. (Somewhat improbably, die first chairman of the hospital committee
was a christian Scientist, who, however, proved to be an excellent choice.)
The
emphasis was still on fun rather than charity, and die exploits of Shriners at
conventions became legendary. Traffic was stopped, citizens were annoyed, and
the peace was disturbed. Yet, because the hooligans were well-to-do citizens,
the police routinely turned a blind eye to what was deemed harmless fun. The
Shriners’ tenuous image of respectability was reinforced in the 1950s, when
the order enthusiastically joined in the near-hysterical denunciations of
communism that swept the United States. On October 17, 1958, J. Edgar Hoover
wrote an official laudatory letter headed “Shrine Versus Communism”.
The
wilder excesses both of anticommunism and Bibulous conventioneering have
declined, and the Shrine is now recognized at least as much for its network of
children’s hospitals as for its riotous merrymaking. Shrine drill motorcycle
units are also a regular feature of many civic parades. And it is undeniable
that the organization has had many prominent members, including several U.S.
presidents (among them Harding, Roosevelt, and Truman); J. Edgar Hoover; Thomas
E. Dewey; Barry Goldwater; Chief Justice Earl Warren; and such noted comedians
as Harold Lloyd (a sometime Imperial Potentate) and Red Skelton.
Between 1988 and 1995 there was a temple in the Netherlands, but it was dissolved, due to a lack on interest. Since the early 2000s there are signs that this temple is again functioning.
We have published more rituals and other texts on our CD-Rom Freemasonry and Fraternal Organizations.