Pug Order

Admission ritual into the Pug Order

The Pug Order was a Masonic Society in the 18th century that was founded by Roman Catholics .

history

There is no reliable information about the origins of the Pug Order. It is believed that it was founded in France around 1740. From there it spread to the Netherlands and Germany, where a lodge is said to have existed in Bayreuth.

Allegedly, the founder is said to have been Clemens August (Duke of Bavaria) in 1740 , who with it the ban bull In eminenti apostolatus specula (1738) of Pope Clemens XII. wanted to subvert. This forbade membership of Freemasonry under the penalty of excommunication .

The internal constitution of the Pug Order also allowed women, provided they were Catholic. The pug was in these circles as a symbol of loyalty , reliability and stability.

Functionaries

The members of the lodges called themselves pugs . Each lodge had a female and a male lodge master, who called themselves big boobs and took turns in the lodge management every six months. Other functions, such as secretaries and overseers, were also androgynously filled. Only the male grandmaster did not have a female branch .

Admission ritual

The admission ritual was a kind of parody of corresponding rituals in Freemasonry. Novices first had to answer blindfolded if they were afraid of the devil. Then they were asked, as a test of courage, whether they were willing to kiss the pug's butt (in other versions of the devil) or that of the grandmaster. Then the initiator had to kiss the anus of the symbolic porcelain pug as an expression of total devotion. Then the hand of those willing to accept was placed by the master on a sword for a man and on a mirror for a woman and a vow was requested. Finally he was asked if he would like to see the light, whereupon the blindfold was removed. The members of the order stood around him, holding out a sword or mirror with one hand and a pug with the other. In the late Rococo, the newcomer had to endure the ceremonial handing over of hand signals and passwords.

The members of the order wore (hidden) a silver pug as a medallion .

In Amsterdam in 1745 a so-called "traitor's pamphlet " L'ordre des Franc-Maçons trahi et le Secret des Mopses révélé was published. It shows the ritual of the order and two graphics.

At the University of Göttingen , the order had existed since 1747 in the form of a purely student Lodge Louise of the venerable Pug Order with 55 members mainly from the families of the Hanoverian nobility and the so-called Pretty Families . The founder and first lodge master was the Lübeck stud. Sebastian Dan. Gercken. In 1748 the order was banned by the university authorities because of the admission fee charged and the internal jurisdiction over the members of the lodge, and it was finally extinguished. The files of the lodge came into the hands of the university in the course of the official investigations. In the literature, it is assumed that the Göttingen Lodge could contain a circumvention of the rigid ban on country teams issued by the university in 1747 .

literature

Bärbel Raschke: Androgynous Arcane Societies and Freemasonry. Development and relationship problems from the perspective of noble women, in: Joachim Berger / Klaus-Jürgen Grün (eds.), Geheime Gesellschaft. Weimar and German Freemasonry . Hanser, Munich 2002, pp. 153–159. ISBN 3-446-20255-2

Abbé Larudan: The shattered Freymäurer, or continuation of the betrayed order of the Freymäurer . Edition Cagliostro, Rotterdam 1984 (repr. Of the edition Frankfurt / M. 1746)

Gabriel L. Pérau: The betrayed order of the Freymäurer and revealed secret of the pug society . George, Habichtswald 2000, ISBN 3-934752-00-4 (repr. Of the Leipzig edition, 1745)

Circle, year 56, No. 4 to Wilhelmine von Bayreuth , the sister of Frederick the Great

Michael Kuper (Hrsg.): Great Pug Clemens August and a secret from Schloss Clemenswerth . edition extra, Meppen 2007, limited special edition

Roland Martin Hanke: Pug and bricklayer. Reflections on the history of the pug society . Verlag Deutscher Freimaurer GmbH, Bayreuth 2009. ISBN 978-3-941720-00-8

Web links

Commons : Pug Order - Collection of images, videos and audio files

State Library Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch: About the Pug Order in Meklenburg . Schwerin, 1874

Individual evidence

^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; P. 244.
^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; Pp. 244-245.
^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; Pp. 245-246.
^ Franz Stadtmüller: History of the Corps Hannovera zu Göttingen, p. 10 ff.

[1] Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; P. 244.

[2] Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; Pp. 244-245.

[3] Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; Pp. 245-246.

[4] Franz Stadtmüller: History of the Corps Hannovera zu Göttingen, p. 10 ff.