Initiation · 1904
Grande Loge de France (1903–1911)
Address · 42, rue Rochechouart, 75009 Paris
Metro · Anvers (2)
Today · Private, seen from the street
The story
The Grande Loge de France, formed in 1894 from the unification of the lodges of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, received full administration of the first three degrees from the Supreme Council in 1904. It had about 3,000 members at its founding and 8,400 in 1912. From 1903 its headquarters and temples were at 42 rue Rochechouart, in the 9th arrondissement. The premises soon became too cramped, and in July 1911 the obedience bought a former Franciscan convent to move into.
Among its lodges was the Anglo-Saxon Lodge No. 343, constituted in 1899 by the Grande Loge de France; according to Crowley, initiations there followed the English ritual. Wikipedia lists it among the lodges of the period devoted to the study of symbolism. It was not recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England; it later joined the Grande Loge nationale française.
On 29 June 1904, Crowley submitted his application for membership there under the name Aleister St. Edward Crowley, profession “poet”; the petition was countersigned by the secretary, the Reverend James Lyon Bowley, and by the Worshipful Master Edward-Philip Denny. He was initiated on 8 October 1904 and raised to Master Mason on 17 December of the same year. These were the months following the reception of The Book of the Law in Cairo that spring.
In 1913, Crowley sought to have his Masonic standing recognised in England. In a letter of 27 June to Sir Edward Letchworth, Grand Secretary at Freemasons' Hall, he recalled his raising in Lodge 343 and announced that he saw no other course than to resign, having learned that the Grande Loge de France tolerated, or even recognised, co-Masonry, which he attacked violently. Only a draft of this correspondence survives, and the English reply is not known.
The rue Rochechouart headquarters was occupied only from 1903 to 1911. The sources describe neither the later history of the building nor any traces of its Masonic past; from the street one sees only an ordinary façade of the neighbourhood, with no plaque reported.