Canonbury Masonic Research Centre 2008 Conference. London,25-26 Oct.

06.09.2008

Freemasonry and The Sciences
Natural & Supernatural
The Tenth International Conference

Saturday & Sunday 25-26 October 2008

Canonbury Academy, 6 Canonbury Place, London N1 2NQ

When freemasons pass through the Second Degree they are urged to study the ?Liberal Arts and Sciences?. The medieval Masonic text known as the Cooke manuscript declared that geometry was the first of the liberal sciences. Members of the Royal Society, such as Sir Robert Moray, John Desaguliers and Martin Folkes, played a significant part in the early development of Freemasonry, and the link between Freemasonry and the wider development of science in Europe and America during the Enlightenment is widely recognised, with the Parisian Loge des Neuf Soeurs counting among its members Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire and the astronomer Lalande. Prominent scientists have continued to be active as Freemasons. In the last century, such Nobel prizewinners as Edward Appleton, Alexander Fleming, Albert Michelson and Wilhelm Ostwald were all freemasons. 

And just as that link has not been limited by time, place or masonic obedience, it also has not been restricted to the recognised empirical sciences, but has included the more esoteric, secret sciences: Elias Ashmole was an alchemist, Ebenezer Sibly was an astrologer, and Charles Richet, another Nobel Prize winner, was a psychical researcher, while Mesmer, Hahnemann, and Still ? all pioneers of major branches of complementary medicine ? were also freemasons. 

To what extent did masonic ideals and practices influence these men? Did their researches into science, natural and supernatural, enrich Freemasonry itself, or alter public perceptions of the Craft? What has been the role of Freemasonry in advancing scientific understanding, and how has science, in its broadest sense, affected the history and progress of Masonry? 

The aim of this conference is to examine the interplay of science and Freemasonry, and to address a broad spectrum of the issues that such an examination raises. 

Saturday 25 October 

9.15 Registration & coffee 

9.50 Opening: CMRC Trustees
Introduction: Carole McGilvery CIPR
CMRC Conference Organiser
Chair: Dr Andrew Prescott
Librarian, University of Wales 

10.00 Dr Roger Dachez
Lecturer, University of Paris
President, Institut Ma篮nique de France
Mesmerism & Freemasonry:
Magnetic Madness in Lyons 1784-1785 

10.40 Alain Bauer
Criminologist, Sorbonne University, Paris
Past Grand Master Orient of France
Freemasonry, Isaac Newton & the Crisis of European Conscience:
A French View 

11.20 Morning coffee 

11.45 Professor Susan Mitchell Sommers
Department of History, Saint Vincent College, USA
Ebenezer Sibly: The Masonic Mystical Doctor 

12.25 Speakers panel ? questions and discussion

 
1.00 Lunch 

2.30 Dr Edi Bilimoria DPhil, FRI, FIMechE, FEI, CEng
Universities of Oxford, London & Sussex
Chairman of the Theosophical World Trust for Education and Research
Consciousness ? Scientific & Esoteric Perspectives 

3.10 Dr Andreas ֮nerfors
Director, Centre for Research into Freemasonry, University of Sheffield
The Concept of Science in the Imagination of European Freemasonry 

3.50 Afternoon tea 

4.20 John Gordon MA, FRICS
University of Exeter
Towards a Modern Metaphysics 

5.00 Speakers panel ? questions and discussion

 
5.30 Close 

Sunday 26 October 

9.15 Coffee 

9.50 Welcome & introduction: Carole McGilvery
Chair: Dr Andrew Prescott
Librarian, University of Wales 

10.00 Dr Fabio Venzi
Grand Master, Regular Grand Lodge of Italy
Perceiving the Sacred in Scientific Research:
The Interplay of Scientific Rationalism & Noetic Intelligence 

10.40 Dr Andrew Prescott
Librarian, University of Wales
William Rand: Physician, Alchemist & Freemason? 

11.20 Morning coffee 

11.45 James North MA
The Warburg Institute, University of London
Editor, Baconia
Secret Alchemy: The Origins of Baconian Science in the Bible & Hermetic Philosophy 

12.25 Speakers panel ? questions and discussion 

1.00 Lunch 

2.30 Professor Charles Porset
Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris IV, Sorbonne
The Scientific Lodge of the Nine Sisters (Les Neuf Soeurs) 

3.10 Philippa Faulks Author
Count Allesandro Cagliostro:
Healer, Alchemist & Freemason in the Age of Enlightenment 

3.50 Gerald Riley BA (Hons), FInstSMM
The Hidden Mysteries of Nature & Science?

 
4.30 Speakers panel ? questions and discussion 

5.00 Afternoon tea 

5.30 Close 

Registration form
Weekend Conference fee ?78 (Lunch optional at ?8.50 per day)
For further information, tickets, accommodation, meals and travel contact: 

Carole McGilvery on 020 7226 6256 or mcgilvery@canonbury.ac.uk