Millar is a UK born American who is an esotericist, martial artist, Freemason and prolific writer. He wrote a couple of interesting book and had a bunch of websites (alone or in cooperation). Online Millar had some ‘masculinity’ topics, but these website(s) seem to be gone.
A while ago a new book was announced and I could pre-purchase a Kindle edition. Earlier than I expected, it appeared on my Kindle so I curiously started to read Millar’s latest.
“The Path” is a much different book from earlier titles. Also online Millar seems to be moving from esotericism to self-help with more focus on his hypnosis practice.
The book is mostly a self-help book focussed on the male. You will run into “positive thinking, visualization, and self-talk” and quite a bit of Karl Jung.
Millar proves to be a thinker and reader with a ‘hands on’ approach to self-development. In painting his subjects he goes from old and recent literature to art to Masonic symbolism and Eastern mysticism, Muslim thinkers and critics of the modern world. The latter sentiment is fairly strong throughout the work, but not very ‘Traditionalistic’.
Millar’s latest book is not a boring read, but I highly prefer his previous works. I especially do not feel much for the meditation, auto-suggestion exercises, etc. I do support his aim to call for self-improvement and not shun masculinity, but it seems that Millar develops in directions away from my personal preferences.
The latest Millar is published by Inner Traditions, known for English publications of Evola, but the publisher has also published books from Joscelyn Godwin, Stephen Flowers, Henri Corbin, but also more new-agey books.
Millar has made a name in Masonic circles with a book on Lewis Masonic and many lectures, but he is not afraid to connect his name to smaller imprints such as Manticore Press and now a publisher with ‘controversial’ publications.
This also shows Millar’s own varried interests and that variety is clearly portrayed in his latest book. Where he earlier published books specifically about Freemasonry, he slowly shifted towards “Freemasonry+” and now we go from Freemasonry (a little bit) to ceremonial magic and from Islamic esotericism to Aleister Crowley.
As you can expect with the subtitle “craftsman, warrior, magician”, there is an influence of Georges Dumézil (though he is seldom mentioned) and his division of three “functions”. Millar also refer to Mircea Eliade, René Guénon, Julius Evola and a few other Traditionalists.
It had been a bit too long since I read any comparitive mythology and comparitive religion, but alongside Dumézil’s three “functions”, Millar oftentimes refers to the four “ages” (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron) found in many myths and religions and in the writings of Traditionalists.
It may not be new that he poses that within all three “functions” there are initiatic paths, but Millar suggests his readers to practice all three, more in the sense of functions than (what is more often the explanation) classes (“castes”).
Something similar Millar does with the ages. They are not so much successive time-periods, but more like ‘levels’, so an initiate (or more generally, a spiritual person) may ‘reach’ for the Golden Age. That age is more like the goal or endpoint of spiritual development and not so much a time that lays in the distant past.
And so we Millar guides his readers through different forms of spirituality, different paths of initiations, making cross-references and comparisons. Surely interesting!
I do not always follow the author’s assumptions. I would -for example- not place ceremonial magic in Dumézil’s third “function” and I see little in the references to Carl Jung, but different ideas from my own are always good to ponder about. It is nice to see that Millar does not shy to name Guénon together with Blavatsky, Freemasonry together with sex magic and martial arts with Gnosticism. He may bring some uncommon ideas to readers of his previous works.
Ultimately, the Craftman, Warrior and Magician – like the mind, body, and spirit – are not separate but connect and overlap in different ways. […]
Yet today society emhasizes the intellect and promotes specialization in education and employment. As a result, we produce technicians and dogmatics, and we revere the sickly intellectual who, enstranged from the physical, attacks both beauty and strength. (p. 206/7)
A call for a more spiritual life and since Millar writes about so many different approaches, not afraid to be critical here and there, the book has a potential wider audience than his previous works.
It is good to see that more and more serious books about Freemasonry and esotericism see the light of day. Here we even have a book with partly a Traditionalistic approach. Very much so in the first essays even. Angel Millar opens with a text about René Guénon and Traditionalism. The most interesting article is Richard Smoley’s text about the Traditionalistic view on initiation. This text may raise a few eyebrows I think. As we go along, the essays become ‘lighter’ in one way, but ‘darker’ in another. From the personal story of Joscelyn Godwin to the ceremonial magic of Donald Tyson. Other authors are Mark Booth, Herbi Brennan, Richard Kaczynski, Chuck Dunning, Greg Kaminsky, Jeffey Kupperman, Adam Kendall, Timothy Scott and my biggest surprise, Susanna Åkerman whom I know for her work on Rosicrucian history, but who here presents an interesting text about women in early Scandinavian Freemasonry.
Not every text is as interesting as the next (to me), but this not too expensive book touches upon a few subjects that deserve more notoriety in Freemasonry, so it is good that this book was actually published by the famed Masonic publishing house Lewis Masonic from the UK, so it will probably be mostly Freemasons buying the book. The book is available from the publisher or Amazon UK (click cover). It would be nice if the other Amazon stores would list it too.
This is Millar’s third (and currently last) book. For me, since it was the second one he published. Also it is the least easy to get. Salamandar and Sons sell their books themselves and through a handfull of bookshops that do not list this title on their websites. Getting the book to Europe, makes it quite expensive too. The publisher is a nice one to have a further look at though, especially when you have an interest in alchemy.
Millar’s first book is a nice, but nothing really new, history of Freemasonry, mostly in America. His other two books are also about Freemasonry, but about aspects written about less. Freemasonry and its influence in the Middle East in The Crescent and the Compass and Freemasonry and it relation to esoteric and occult societies in the current title.
Now of course there have been many spectacular books written about occultism and Freemasonry, but Millar’s book is more serious and leaves aside all the conspiracy theories and speculations. It certainly makes a nice read. Millar writes about the foundation and development of some of the High Grades, semi- and para-Masonic organisations and of course how things such as Alchemy and Kabbalah krept into Masonic symbolism in its developing days.
Millar is a Freemason himself, but he does not make value judgements on irregular branches of the Masonic family and treats them like their regular brother-organisations. The same with groups and people about whom a lot of nonsense has been written such as William Wynn Westcott and Samuel MacGregor Mathers and their Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientes and Gerard Gardner and the Wicca movement.
The book is hardly 170 pages (plus bibliography and index) and this includes two appendices with etchings (on unnumbered pages) of Hejonagogerus Nugir with explanations and some images referred to in the book. The chapters are about subjects such as Alchemy Cabala and Magic, Roman Catholic Mysticism, Rosicrucians (like the Gold- und Rosenkreuzer and SRIA), Golden Dawn, O.T.O., Wicca and a short chapter about Freemasonry and Northern European paganism (which was one of the reasons to write an article about this subject).
Millar managed to get some structure in the mess of early Masonic, semi- and para-Masonic organisations, Rites, grades and people who were involved in several of those. His unbiased writing style makes this a highly recommended book for people who are interested in the named organisations and in this lively time of early Freemasonry. Several of the subjects could use some more depth, so hopefully the author has not finished his investigations of those yet.
Subtitled: “Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism and Revolution in the Modern Age”, the description even promises Traditionalism. A promising combination!
“The Crescent And The Compass” makes a much more interesting read than Millar’s recently reviewed “Freemasonry, a history”. This is not the least because in the current book, the author walks new paths. According to himself, noone so far has investigated the influence of Freemasonry on Near-Eastern cultures and vice versa.
The first half of the book is with quite a distance the most interesting part to me. Millar opens with a chapter about “Gnosis in Shi’ism and Sufism” speaking about initiations and the various kinds of the two named branches of Islam. Chapter two continues with a similar approach to Freemasonry and quickly runs up to the connections between Freemasonry and Islam, how Sufis became Freemasons and how ‘ideologically’ mixed orders were founded. Then Millar says a thing or two on how (Near-)Eastern religion influenced Freemasonry when Freemasons opened their eyes to exotic religions of the East. The strongest influences can be found in what Millar calls “Fringe Freemasonry”, orders that work similarly to Freemasonry, but are not recognised by Masonic bodies. Chapter two is informative and entertaining.
Then we move to a Sufi Freemason that launched a revolution within the Islamic world to get rid of the colonists, but this revolution would eventually backfire and “Freemasonry” became synonymous with Western decadence in the eyes of many Muslims. In the meantime we learn about the first Muslim convert in the UK, about René Guénon and about anti-Freemasonry, a (to me) new look on the Ayatollah Khomeini and we swiftly roll into Jewish/Masonic conspiracies that followed the publication of the Protocolls of the Elders of Sion.
The start of “Prince Hall” (‘black’) Freemasonry followed by black nationalism in the USA is followed by Anders Breivik and Prince Charles in three very different chapters.
In his conclusion, and especially his afterword, Millar calls to us to develop new ways of looking at the world, especially the religion of Islam and its role therein.
I mostly enjoyed the historical parts about Freemasonry in Muslim countries, but in general this little book (some 180 pages to read) touches upon subjects close to my heart. Numen Books has added an interesting title to their roster and seeing how much attention this book gets on Facebook, the publisher might reach quite an audience with this title and the author most likely a different audience from his less innovatory title of a decade earlier.
Numen Books announced a book of Angel Millar about Islam, Freemasonry and Traditionalism. A promising combination! When I set out to order this book, I noticed that the author also published the title currently under review. Would that be a history of Freemasonry from a Traditionalistic perspective? “Freemasonry” was easier to get and cheaper too, even within my own country. The other title arrived on the day that I finished this “history”, nice timing.
“Freemasonry – a history” the title says it all. The book is luxerously presented, large, heavy paper, with many colour plates (mostly aprons), a bit like the popular books about the subject. This is no picturebook though and actually the luxery format makes it a somewhat uncomfortable read. The book is too big and heavy for common reading.
Millar has been a Freemason since 2001, so he was rather quick in getting this history out. The book starts with the history/histories of Freemasonry, speaks a lot about what was there before 1717 (when the current United Grand Lodge of England was founded) and the influences on the early organisations. Millar uses the term “neo-Freemasonry” a lot, especially for later Rites and side degrees. Is everything after the original lodges “neo” to him? The book is a fairly common history of Freemasonry. It tends to focus on the USA (where the author lives), but there are also sidesteps to Europe. Not too much stress is lain on the “adogmatic” sort of Freemasonry. There are a few interesting details and here and there the author presents a not too usual angle, but I do not think I read anything really new. But, the book does give the general idea about different rites, kindred organisations, a bit of the symbology (though often much in sum). I am not sure if this book adds much to your collection if you have similar titles in your personal library. On the other hand, a history of Freemasonry written by a Freemason would be my preference, so…
A small endnote. Millar ends with three pages (an appendix) about women and Freemasonry. I know his history of Le Droit Humain is not very accurate, to say the least. I hope the same does not go for the parts of the book I am less familiar with.