The word 'Egyptian'  as used in our Egyptian Masonry must not cause confusion.

There are some who have asked if we are a continuation of the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt; the unbroken line of a surviving cultus of the Mystery Religions.

The answer to this is both 'yes' and 'no'.

Let us first consider our 'no' (without wishing to appear equivocal!).

The history of Europe and the Mediterranean, with their many battles, political turmoil and religious persecution, has made it very difficult for any sacred culture to preserve itself in situ, without any admixture, variation or erosion due to the aforementioned struggles. There are exceptions, traces, and survivals in part, usually in family traditions, folk culture, or the practices of isolated peoples. But even these have absorbed or been affected by commixture and change, both ancient and modern. Purity really is a myth, if applied to the material world.

Before a certain period in the fifteenth century when the 'Old Charges' were written, there was no practice which we could reliably call 'Freemasonry', even if former rituals and orders might have existed from which many of our practices are drawn (and we are sure they did exist).

Freemasonry is properly a child of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment period, when the practical but mysterious rites of the Operatives began to admit Speculative Masons, who did not work in stone, but applied the philosophy developed in the Operative Masonic Rites to themselves and their morals. There was a public revival of interest in the classical religions, traditions and philosophies of the ancient past. The Speculative Masons saw, in the mysterious Geometry and symbolic interpretations of Architecture, a manner of philosophical conveyance; a tradition of encoding meaning for a curious populus, many of whom were illiterate. They also found survivals of earlier cultural and hermetic practices which had been preserved from the Medieval period, under the works of Alchemy, Astrology, Pansophy, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and the mystical Christian tradition which we now called Rosicrucianism. The early Grand Masters collated this, and Masonry as we know it was born.

The history since those times - the Ancients versus the Moderns, the exclusion or inclusion of Higher Degrees, the formation of Grand Lodges, the divisions across borders and languages, etc. - has been complex and colourful, and not a little contentious.

Make no mistake - Freemasonry is certainly a philosophical-spiritual practice, and was intended to be so from its very earliest origins. It is only the eroding effect of religious bias, Modernism/Post-Modernism and incipient 'scientism' and 'logical positivism' which have distanced some Masons from the heart and soul of the system and its Ineffable Symbols. In the EMO UK, we adhere to the original spirit and intention of the Degrees, and see Masonry as a School of Ethics, Philosophy, and Esoteric Spirituality.

However, the answer to the first question is also 'yes'. There is a continuity of IDEAS, of PRACTICES, and of SYMBOLISM, which continues to survive even when the originators of those symbols and ideas are long-dead. The preservation of the many texts and manuscripts of the Classical, Antique and Medieval periods has allowed the Ancient Knowledge to remain perennial. With the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the mysteries of the hieroglyphs were finally revealed after many centuries, and the sudden enthusiasm for Egyptology and Ancient Egyptian culture swept Europe and influenced many Masons in their development of the rituals.

Egyptian references have always appeared in the Rite of Mizraim from the early eighteenth century, especially the mention of the trilogy of Isis, Osiris and Horus. The reason for this is probably the survival of knowledge of these deities in the classical references perpetuated in Naples, from which the Rite originates. Elements of Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism have also entered the Rite through the same influences. There is also a strain of Indo-European culture which was brought into the Higher Degrees via the Rite of Memphis, which connects the philosophy of Brahminism and Zoroastrianism with that of Greek Philosophy, Norse Religion and Celtic Tradition as a continuity of a more ancient Source of Wisdom. Some writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have used this to promote a misguided form of anthroposophical Aryanism, but this is not really the intent behind our Rite's Universality. ALL spiritual faiths and traditions may be (and indeed should be) included in the many Degrees of Memphis-Mizraim, demonstrating the underlying TRUTH - the universal MASONRY - which is found in all examples of true spirituality, faith and philosophy, regardless of the nation in which it has flowered.

Ideas can never be killed; they can only evolve. Spiritual experience is perennial and consistent, because it is True.

In this sense, the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim is most certainly a spiritual, philosophical and aethetic continuation of the Ancient Rites of Amenhotep, Manetho, Zozimus, Iamblichus and Orpheus. It is a mighty and unstoppable River fed by these Silver Streams of Archaic Genius.

We hope to sustain this Order and its Mansions so that all Genuine Seekers may drink therefrom.

T.'.F.'.E.'.