e conclusion that there are three
Freemasonries one above the other: (i) Blue Masonry (i.e. the three
Craft Degrees), in which none of the real secrets are revealed to the
members and which serves merely as a sorting-ground for selecting likely
subjects; (2) the Upper Degrees, in which most of the members, whilst
imagining themselves to have been initiated into the whole secret of the
Order and "bursting with importance" over their imaginary role of
leaders, are only admitted to a partial knowledge of the goal to which
they are tending; and (3) the inner circle, "the true masters," those
who conceal themselves behind high-grade Masonry. Admission to this
inner circle may be, moreover, not a matter of degrees. "Whilst in the
lower Masonries the adepts are obliged to pass through all the degrees
of the established hierarchy, the upper and invisible Freemasonry is
certainly recruited not only amongst the thirty-three degrees but in all
the groups of upper-degree Masonry, and perhaps even in certain
exceptional cases outside these."[678] This inner and invisible
Freemasonry is to a large extent _international_.

The most illuminating passage in the whole of M. Copin Albancelli's book
is where he describes an experience that befell him after he had taken
the degree of Rose-Croix. It was then that one of his superiors took him
aside and addressed him in the following terms:

"You realize the power which Freemasonry has at its disposal. We
can say that we hold France. It is not because of our numbers,
since there are only 25,000 Freemasons in this country [this was in
1889]. Nor is it because we are the brains, for you have been able
to judge of the intellectual mediocrity of the greater number of
these 25,000 Freemasons. We hold France because we are organized
and the only people who are organized. But above all, we hold
France because we have an aim, this aim is unknown; as it is
unknown, no obstacle can be put in its way; and finally, as no
obstacle is put up, the way is wide open before us. This is
logical, is it not?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. But what would you say of an association which instead of
consisting of 25,000 nonentities as in Freemasonry, were composed
of, say, only a thousand individuals, but a thousand individuals
recruited in the manner that I will tell you."

And the Freemason went on to explain the way in which such individ