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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