The Life and Death of John Yarker
DAVID HARRISON
St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, UK: Lewis Masonic, 2025. xiv + 331 pp., paper, $22.99.
John Yarker, Jr. (1833‒1913), the intriguing British collector and purveyor of “high grade” Masonic degrees and rites, was one of the more enigmatic participants in the occult revival of the late nineteenth century. This recent biography is the first full-length study of his life, as well as a guide to his extensive research, writings, and esoteric activities.
The book’s author, David Harrison, is one of the most prolific Masonic historians at work today. In that specialized field, he stands out as someone who seeks out down-to-earth facts rather than engaging in imaginative theories and flights of fancy. Since Harrison’s subject here—Yarker—was given to chasing attractive myths and legends, Harrison’s sober approach provides a good balance to the proceedings.
The occult revival that captured John Yarker’s imagination was marked by the overlapping popularity among the British intelligentsia of spiritualism, ceremonial magick, psychic practices such as clairvoyance and skrying, and interests in “oriental” mysticism and Masters, as well as the belief that secret knowledge of these subjects was encoded within gnostic teachings, Masonic traditions, and even folk beliefs. Ancient wisdom was to be sought because it preserved the insights of earlier sages, whose traditions and consciousness were assumed to be purer and more insightful than what mankind was left with after the destruction of the library of Alexandria.
To ponder the motivations and insights of seekers such as Yarker, H.P. Blavatsky, or Annie Besant—all of whom were participants in the occult revival—is to wrestle with the choices they made in presenting themselves as privy to, and guardians of, secret knowledge.
In Yarker’s case, he concluded early on that speculative Freemasonry was a link in the chain of ancient wisdom preserved down to the present. (He was initiated into a Masonic lodge in 1854, when he was only twenty-one years old.) Because Masonic initiations were structured in a numbered progression, with each initiation presented as an advance in symbolic or intuitive knowledge, he came to believe that the higher one’s degree (of which there were ninety-six in the case of his Antient [sic] and Primitive Rite), the higher one’s attainment. This assumption lay behind almost all of the higher-degree Masonic orders that he propagated and preserved. It also seemed to motivate many of the spiritual teachers and seekers that Yarker communicated with.
I hope it will shatter no one’s fondest dreams to suggest that spiritual growth doesn’t work that way. As we know from today’s dysfunctional public school systems, just because one has graduated from the twelfth grade doesn’t mean that one is well versed in the subjects one has studied (or is even literate). In the case of spiritual growth, undergoing a ritual may or may not have a discernible effect, and no result is guaranteed.
As Harrison takes his readers through Yarker’s championing of various rites such as the Order of Elijah, the Sat Bhai, the Fratres Lucis, or the Hermetic Brothers of Egypt, one can see that sometimes much was promised, but little delivered. For many, a series of initiations into spiritual lineages or lofty brotherhoods amounted to another badge to wear on one’s chest or another framed certificate to hang on one’s wall. (At the same time, I can affirm that the conferral of a Masonic degree, such as the Royal Arch, when done skillfully and sincerely, can be a memorable and inspiring experience.)
Delving into the varieties of esoteric rituals and honors, Harrison devotes the final section of his book to the permutations and impact of Yarker’s lineages and organizations after his death. This explores the flourishing of apostolic lineages of independent “Catholic” and “Gnostic” bishops from Yarker’s time on up to the present. Unsurprisingly, many of the same individuals who sought out advanced Masonic degrees and rites were also interested in ordinations as priests and consecration as bishops in select orders and churches with metaphysical and mystical orientation.
Harrison describes the baroque power struggles that arose upon Yarker’s death in 1913 over who would be his successor to the leadership of his Antient and Primitive Rite and various other rites and lineages within his “collection.” Connoisseurs of the absurd may be entertained by the twists and turns of this fracas, with none other than the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley smack-dab in the middle of things, throwing accusations of improprieties committed by other rivals for the prize, including James Ingall Wedgwood, a Co-Mason and later presiding bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church. It is a shame that Gilbert and Sullivan had already passed on by 1913; otherwise they might have conjured up a splendid comic opera enacting the proceedings.
The Life and Death of John Yarker is not for everyone. If you have little interest in the vagaries of Masonic history (or of occult history, for that matter), you will likely find this book of little value. However, if you are someone with a keen interest in the curious pastimes of the esoterically disposed (both the ridiculous and the sublime), this book may well be your cup of tea.
Harrison is obviously fond of John Yarker and feels a kinship with him, not only because they share an April 17 birthday and both hailed from northwest England, but because “we both had a deep interest in the esoteric nature of Freemasonry and the Occult,” as Harrison puts it. One charming feature of the book is the many color photos that Harrison took of the historic towns and homes of his subjects, including gravesites and local pubs. Lewis Masonic is to be commended for publishing such a unique work.
Jay Kinney
The author’s most recent appearance in Quest was an interview in the fall 2024 issue on Freemasonry. His 2009 book, The Masonic Myth, especially in its illustrated ebook edition, remains a popular overview of the Masonic Craft.