![]() ![]() Aside from this, the black pennant seems to imply the Nautilus (a “traveling lodge” if there ever was one, traveling 20,000 leagues) was a Lodge of Vengeance and Retribution. To be one, Aronnax, Land, or Conseil would have had to ask to join. Chevalier- Elect and Chevalier Kadosh are likewise Degrees involving Vengeance.Īssuming Captain Nemo and his crew were Masons, would Professor Aronnax, Ned Land, and/ or Conseil (the “guests” on Nemo’s submarine) ever have been asked to join Nemo’s fraternity? No, as almost all Masonic bodies forbid soliciting membership. Black is also symbolic in the Elect of Fifteen, a Degree of the Dagger associated with sorrow, retribution, and blood. Yet in Master-Elect of Nine (“protect the oppressed from the oppressor”), black sprinkled with red is a Degree of Vengeance. Black was similarly used in the Secret Master and Intimate Secretary degrees. In the French Ancient and Accepted Rite, a Master’s Degree Lodge is draped in black strewed with tears in mourning, commemorating the death and loss of the Builder. In Masonry, black is the symbol of grief or sorrow. Mobilis in Mobile and the letter N in gold, planted on the South Pole and again used as a battle flag during the final encounter with the European dreadnaught, is significant. Yet Russia and Poland also had long Masonic traditions-Grand Lodges and Orients-chartered and, after being purged by sequential regal decrees, rechartered by the Grand Orient of France. Most English regiments had their own military lodge, and hybrid lodges existed that allowed Muslims and Hindus access. Masonic Lodges were not unknown in India. The Mysterious Island reveals Nemo to be Indian rather than Polish, likely because nineteenth-century India was not a major market for French books.* Verne’s publisher feared losing the profitable Russian book market and prevailed upon Verne to obscure Nemo’s nationality. Jules Verne initially conceived his vengeful Captain Nemo as a Polish aristocrat victimized by Russian despots, but this was not revealed until the companion novel The Mysterious Island appeared five years later. The producers may have surmised correctly the Captain’s Masonic affiliation, but the issue of Nemo’s nationality is more complex. The 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (where Captain Nemo is a hero rather than a villain) depicts Nemo as a wealthy Indian aristocrat (Prince Dakar), and the visually stunning interiors of his Nautilus submarine are replete with Masonic imagery (square and compasses, various working tools, and lodge furniture). Hollywood has a long tradition of assigning Masonic symbols to fanciful villains. The lodge members are clad in innovative diving suits, and the underwater illumination is provided by Ruhmkorff light generators, cutting-edge technology in Verne’s time and early precursors to today’s florescent lights and electronic camera flash units. ![]() This scene also takes place under 300 meters of water, in 1867, in Jules Verne’s pioneering novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It is a scene any Freemason would recognize, the event evoking universal elements of the ancient Fraternity paying last respects. The grave sealed, the mourners stand and approach the mound, sink again on bended knee, and extend their hands in a sign of final farewell. The body is interred, and the Master, arms crossed over his chest, kneels in a posture of prayer, followed by those assembled. ![]() Their leader calls a halt, the mourners form a semicircle around him and, at his signal, one of the men prepares the grave. Twelve mourners, four serving as pall bearers carrying their sorrowful burden upon their shoulders, march behind their Master to the middle of a clearing, in the center of which stands a pedestal of rough blocks surmounted by a rosy cross. Description of a Funeral on the Ocean Floor, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1916 translation published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York) “In the midst of the glade, on a pedestal of rocks roughly piled up, stood a cross of coral, that extended its long arms that one might have thought were made of petrified blood.” Scottish Rite - March/April 2022 Jules Verne, Master Nemo, And The Nautilus: A Clandestine Travel Lodge? ![]()
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