This article is taken from the August 2022 issue of Fraternal Review titled, “Subculture”.
The chorus to “Square Hammer,” by Swedish heavy Metal band Ghost, reads “Are you on the square?/Are you on the level?/ Are you ready to swear right here, right now—/ Before the devil.” Association of Masonic initiation with anything having to do with “the devil” is, of course, a red flag indicating all sorts of dangerous nonsense ahead (see the May 2022 “Taxil Hoax” issue of Fraternal Review), but “Square Hammer” cannot be ignored. The song was a huge hit, eventually reaching the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart— apparently, the first time a Swedish band has had this distinction.
The lead vocalist and frontman of Ghost, Tobias Forge, took some heat not too long ago for his apparent status as an initiate of the Swedish Rite of Masonry. It was claimed that his membership caused him to be unfairly favored by the judge in a lawsuit filed by former band members. Whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of this particular accusation, it is a fair reflection of the prestige in which that Rite is held by traditional and old establishment members of society in Sweden. It is also an indication that there may be more to the Metal subculture than some superficial sociological stereotypes.
Notably, the emergence of self-consciously “meaningful,” mystical and/or esoterically-infused heavy or progressive rock music, in the period between 1965 and 1975, coincided with a decline in Freemasonry’s appeal to young men. However, it was also a time in which the Lord of the Rings and elements of epic fantasy and its mythical motifs were intensifying subcultures within the Englishspeaking world and starting to percolate up through popular culture.
The LOTR Mythos caused a passionate subset of Anglo-American culture to follow a different path inwardly than was being exemplified to them, either by the post-war bourgeois culture that was then in crisis, or the “hippy” alternative visions that were current in the late 60s and early 70s. This sparked an impulse toward the exaltation of mythos in music that collided with the punk and high-speed raw rock music of the crisis-conscious late 70s to produce the era of “true heavy Metal” as we now know it; and from which the culture continued to develop until the present day.
Before discussing where the cultures of Masonry and Metal may intersect and interpenetrate, we should first acknowledge the clear contrasts. The Metal music culture, which has existed in some overtly recognizable form for at least 50 years, is known for its embrace of extremes: edgy, disruptive and intense experiences: an almost feral form of ecstatic display. It is also known to glorify rebellion and confrontation as a manifestation of that polarized aesthetic. It displays a uniquely 20-century tendency to fuse the archaic with the technologically futuristic.
In his concept of “Mythological Metal,” János Fejes claims that there are two essential modalities of expression in Metal music: the Dionysian and the Chaotic, the former including earthly pleasures such as drug consumption and sex, and the latter incorporating everything else. Mythological Metal could be perceived—and appreciated—as a form of escapism. However, it defines the road that Metal takes in defying what is perceived as “conventional middle-class values” and uplifting honor, steadfast loyalty, and willingness to sacrifice without compromise in taking the path of truth.
So, while Masonic culture and Metal culture may be on very different wavelengths in one sense—the former embracing the Golden Mean, the primacy of reason and the need to keep our passions circumscribed and within due bounds, the latter exalting primordial passions and sometimes even anti-civilizational impulses—they are bound by certain key values in common: a sense of the value of honor; the embrace of a kind of brotherhood that holds together against an unsympathetic mundane world; the quest for hidden knowledge; a fascination with liminal states; and the view of death, darkness, and ordeal as necessary purifying passages to inner light.
Masonry and Metal are connected through the (mostly masculine) primordial initiatory experience itself. Masonry shares certain fundamental elements with the oldest tribal and warrior societies, while Metal, embodying an epic sensibility, exists as a kind of atavistic resurgence of the values and archetypes of primal men’s fraternities (or männerbünde).
Perhaps the band Manowar represents the starkest and most blatant example of this phenomenon. Founded in upstate New York, Manowar stepped into the cultural and psychological space that was forming within the more teenage male-oriented genres of sword and sorcery fantasy via Heavy Metal magazine (founded in 1977). This aesthetic—and an implicit value system associated with it—included elements of biker culture as well, and the grand heroic “sword and sorcery” component reached its momentous wider breakthrough via the 1982 release of the film Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The music of Manowar entirely adhered to this vision, and still does today. Most prominent among their themes are those of honor, loyalty, glory-seeking, and the brotherhood of those who uphold the “true values” of the culture. Especially replete with these themes are the early albums Battle Hymns, Hail to England, and Sign of the Hammer. Songs such as “Each Dawn I Die” on Hail to England and the “The Oath” on Sign of the Hammer allude to intense initiatory experiences.
Seeing the attraction of these themes to certain types of men, and the reputation of the lifestyle of Metal musicians generally being what has been called “men’s men,” perhaps it is not that surprising that a number of men who have devoted their lives to Metal have also pledged themselves to the Craft. Dez Fafara, frontman of the popular band Devil Driver, and himself a Mason, has said that “You’d be surprised how many Freemasons are in Metal bands.” He describes his own experience in a 2020 interview with Kerrang, saying that Freemasonry “grows you as a man. A brother helps a brother no matter what circumstance you’re in.”
Danny Carey, the percussionist for the band Tool, was introduced to the esoteric by his father, a Freemason who would leave Masonic books around the house. Discussing Tool’s pivotal album Aenima (1996), frontman Maynard Keenan told Revolver magazine in 2008 that he “did a lot of esoteric, spiritual, and religious research.” Beyond the frequent psychedelic vision-quest themes, or generic references to alchemical processes throughout their music, Tool’s song “Lateralus” has a number of direct and specific allusions to the initiatory process, as well as to key elements of sacred geometry.
Moving a bit back closer to the territory of what might be called “true” Metal by diehard purists, we encounter the progressive Metal band Dream Theater, which also began its rise in this period. The band’s song “Rite of Passage” (2009) explicitly glorifies Masonic initiation and the Rosicrucian tradition. Hence, we hear such lyrics as “And lay the cornerstone/A rite of passage” and “Bound by oath and honour/Like the rose and cross.”
Lastly, we should mention Iron Maiden and its frontman, Bruce Dickinson. Not only does almost every Maiden album have at least one song each touching on themes of initiation or brotherhood, but Dickinson’s solo album of 1998 was titled Chemical Wedding, alluding to the Rosicrucian manifesto, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616). Perhaps unsurprisingly, his possible membership in the Masonic Fraternity has been the subject of much speculation; but, contributing to his mystique, Dickinson has a reputation as a Renaissance man. Physically fit, he is an accomplished fencer and pilot whose frequent evocation of Anglo-American values and history (and of the Western Tradition generally) is at variance with contemporary trends.
The phenomenon of Metal as a total culture can be observed by anyone deeply involved in the scene, and is exemplified in the cultural motifs and behaviors observed at its major festivals, especially the Wacken festival in Germany, which in a normal year draws upwards of 100,000 people from around the world. Themes of boldness, resilience, chivalry, and the honoring of a mythic past joyfully permeate these events.
The revitalization of our Craft is advanced by learning from, and adapting manifestations of, primordial initiation and fraternal honor as they inevitably re-manifest through their innate force, bursting through the seams of an often soulless post-modern world. In the deeper exploration of Metal, for those who find a taste for it, those of our Brethren who make that dive will find that there are pearls of wisdom and power to be harvested in the abyss.
Works Cited:
Christopher Wayne Stanley, 32°, “Spiraling Out: The Masonic Words of TOOL ,”
János Fejes, “Strangers of Popular Culture: The Verbal and Pictorial Aesthetics of Mythological Metal Music”. De Gruyter Open, Volume 4, 2017.
Bio:
Frater ANM∴ (“Amoritur”), an adept of the Western Mystery Tradition, was initiated, passed and raised in 2007 in a lodge under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, and is a Companion of the Holy Royal Arch. He can be reached at amoritur@protonmail.com.