Isaac Newton's Freemasonry: The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism

A book worth reading. A book worth owning.

This disappointing book by Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France, Alain Bauer reads more like a slightly extended after dinner speech. The actual meat of the text is just 80 pages long, culled from other (better) books. It is padded with additional, and almost totally unrelated, material, including a timeline of the development of French Freemasonry, for no apparent reason. Unfortunately a bad case of misleading packaging.

This book was translated into English from French, and many of the references are French sources. The author was Grand Master of the Grand Orient masonry, but the book is pathetically inadequate, an almost worthless introduction to the subject, only for someone who has no knowledge about the subject at all, a very brief summary of an unproven hypothesis, not worthy of receiving a passing grade for a college paper. The author summarizes references to entire books by a mere single sentences, many of the references being books written in French. There is very little discussion of alchemy or mysticism, and the evidence for Newton being a Freemason is only a very small amount of merely circumstantial evidence. The author conceals, rather than reveals, which is typical for a Freemason, and typical for Freemasonry which requires bloody oaths of secrecy from its membership. A pathetic example of Masonic so-called scholarship. At most, this book might provide a few bibliography references for deeper research.

A huge disappointment. No light to be found here.The title suggests that the subjects of alchemy, science, and mysticism will be explored through the mind and actions of Isaac Newton. But the text fails to deliver.

The Grand Orient of France ignores some very important rules of Freemasonry and therefore are not recogized by other Grand Lodges, leaving them clandestine. I'm not saying that this fellow cannot do research, but if your views are already skewed by clandestine masonry then who is to say your research isn't as well?

I have always read Newton was a Christian. He was not. He was an Alchemist, and a mystic also tied to the Freemasons. The theory of gravity is still a THEORY. It was created to reinforce a heliocentric cosmos and Evolution. If you are a Christian you can't go along with this world view unless you believe a speck in space blew up and created everything and that you are related to pond scum!!

The first thing to state about this book is that it is very short so the question is: is it worth the money? Absolutely not which gets me to the second point: the title. The title of the book assumes a deep discussion about Isaac Newton and freemasonry. There is no such thing in this book. There's a very short passage about Isaac Newton full of platitudes but nothing of substance here. The book proposes a rewritting of the origins of freemasonry. Having read several books on the topic and still in the process of reading more, I find this attempt at an introduction of reason and logic into the origins of this secret society to be perhaps yet another masonic subterfuge. My general impression concerning masons having read other books is that they are a confused people lead by people like perhaps this author intent on obfuscation. Whether that is the critics of masonry or proponents as this author, whatever they think their craft is, they often miss the point, fail to do in-depth research and often arrive at misleading conclusions and I say all of this as a person in possession of a very detailed and deep knowledge of very ancient archeology and esotericism who likes to perform checks on assertions made by each author. My advice? Save your money, there are much better books about the origins of masonry by authors who have performed much more detailed and convincing research than this one.

I read about half of this, before I got distracted even though it was not a large work.Written by a Freemason, it is not necessarily balanced. It simply states Newton was a Freemason without providing much evidence.And it seems to be written for other Masons, not the general public or the sceptical scholars, who would I imagine, dismiss this kind of work.However I found it useful as a source, as it covers the ground that Newton scholars leave out.One suggestion is that since the Royal Society was itself a Masonic construct, its members, would also have been Masons.My feeling is that what Bauer says here is probably true, Newton's obsession with the temple in Jerusalem and its size and dimensions is very typical of Masonic concerns.

This is a book that no doubt has been long sought after by Research Lodges everywhere in that it is an attempt at a sort of missing intellectual link in the bridge between medieval and modern Masonry. Bauer uses the two poles of spirituality and science and the yawning gap between them throughout history, then introduces Newton, the bridge, with his notoriety in the worlds of mysticism and alchemy. I thought it quite interesting to compare the microcosm of Newton's own metamorphosis from mystic to scientist to the actual world-metamorphosis from spirituality to science. I thought it too bad that a book on this subject be so short and simple. Perhaps volumes would do the topic more justice. But as this one of the few books on the subject, I consider it a must for any Masonic researcher.

Just as described. An excellent and interesting book.

Excellent book has opened my eyes about certain aspects of Freemasonary and wetted my appetite for more of the same.Oil