International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 9, Issue 2 2026 42
The biblical Hiram Abif was a master craftsman who
worked in metals and other media and created the brass
furnishings and vessels for King Solomon’s temple (1
Kings 7:13–14 2 Chronicles 2:13–14). However, in
Freemasonry, his role is elevated to that of chief architect
or master builder of Solomon’s temple, and the legend of
his death is a main focus. The legend begins before the
temple is completed. The workers had been promised
that if they completed the work successfully, they would
be elevated in status to that of Master Mason and given
the accompanying secret word of recognition. But three
craftsmen conspire to extort this privilege prematurely
from Hiram Abif, using threats of violence. When he
refuses, the three traitors murder him with three blows
to the body and head. The men then bury his body in
a shallow grave, and later it is found in a putrefied state
by King Solomon’s men, who decently bury it. In the
enactment, the initiate takes the role of Hiram Abif in
a theatrical depiction of the murder. This is followed
by the ‘raising’ of the initiate when one of the Masons
whispers the secret or Lost Word into the initiate’s ear.
Its symbolism can be read on many levels, among them
as a death and rebirth scenario or the development of
the soul through earthly trials (Axelrod, 1997 Duncan,
1866 Hahn, 2008).
The Hiramic legend could also be interpreted as a
symbolic representation of betrayal trauma, which,
as Jennifer Freyd (1996) tells us, is the type of trauma
that is most likely to be forgotten, a phenomenon most
relevant to children abused by close relatives. The
three blows to Hiram Abif may be seen as symbolising
the impact of repeated trauma on the psyche again,
one of the characteristics of ritual abuse is causing
amnesia, where the children are repeatedly subjected
to terrifying experiences. The initial burial in the
shallow grave might then be seen as the burial of
the memories just below the level of consciousness,
with the reference to its putrefied state signifying the
debilitating psychological damage that such buried
memories can produce. The raising of the initiate, on
the other hand, and whispering the Lost Word into the
initiate’s ear, could signify the restoration of the ability
to put into the words these traumatic memories—lost
and now found. The following case studies will look
at how five leading creative thinkers might have been
aesthetically expressing their own partially buried
traumatic experiences.
Matthew Barney (b. 1967)
The project began in 1999 within the author’s discipline
of art history and in the context of contemporary art
practice. In the 1990s, themes of trauma and memory
were being explored in attempts to make sense of
the burgeoning examples of contemporary artists
portraying disturbing themes and traumatic content
in their work (Antze &Lambek, 1996 Terdiman,
1993). The most striking examples were taking place
in the field of performance art, where the artists were
depicting ritual themes and committing acts of violence
and destruction, often to their own bodies, that hinted
at underlying trauma (Stiles, 1998). One suggestion
was that this type of art could be examined forensically,
as evidence and traces of a crime (Rugoff, 1997, p. 17).
In the 1970s, the presence of scatological acts, such as
the ingestion of urine and faeces, along with intensely
misogynistic themes in performance art, prompted the
Italian art historian Leah Vergine (2000) to ask whether
they might have been related to cult practices. But she
did not pursue this concept, and by the 1990s, neither
had any other art historians or theorists. This author’s
doctoral thesis was to investigate this possibility
(Brunet, 2007).
The first case study was of the work of Matthew Barney,
a leading filmmaker, sculptor, and performance artist
from New York who emerged with a blockbuster
exhibition of The Cremaster Cycle at the Guggenheim
Museum in 2003. The work comprises five films
produced over seven years it contains multiple
references to bodily trauma, including rape, and
depicts the artist’s own version of Masonic rites. It is a
complex, layered and obscure work containing eclectic
references to mythology and to the theme of initiation.
It includes references to the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite, a system of 33 degrees that is very popular
in the United States.
Barney has been described as an artist ‘who thinks
through his body’ (Tomkins, 2003, p. 50), and acts
of extreme physicality permeate his work. In his early
work, the anus was depicted as a significant bodily site,
and the title of the work at the Guggenheim refers to
the Cremaster muscle, which raises and lowers the
testicles. His signature medium in the film cycle is
Vaseline, which was flung aggressively at the museum’s
walls. The film Cremaster 4 (1995) is set on the Isle

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Lynn Brunet |Ripping back the veil on Masonic abuse
of Man, a site famous for its history of Celtic/Druidic
practices and fairy folklore. Here, Barney is dressed as
the Loughton Candidate, a human–animal hybrid, and
is accompanied by three transgender, muscle-bound
‘faeries’. The artist then begins an excruciating journey
of rebirth by crawling through a long tunnel lined with
Vaseline, emerging as an abject figure entirely covered
with the substance.
As Victor Turner (1987 1992) notes, the liminal stage of
initiation is often represented by long tunnels and can
be accompanied by surreal contexts, birth symbolism,
human–animal hybrids, and gender fluidity. These
elements all appear in Cremaster 4 and suggest that
the artist might have been attempting to connect
disturbing bodily sensations to the practices of the
ancient Druids. In an earlier work, Drawing Restraint 7
(1993), he enacts a scene in the rear of a limousine that
was driving around New York. This time, he is dressed
as a young satyr and is engaged in a struggle with an
older one, referring to the initiation of rites of boys in
ancient Greece and Rome that were associated with
myths of bestial rape (Robson, 1997). Now, though, he
is placing it within a contemporary context, prompting
questions about the practice of initiatory rape.
Cremaster 3 (2002) is the last of the five films he created
and introduces Masonic themes specifically. It is set
during the construction of the Chrysler Building in New
York in 1930 and draws together themes of organised
crime, Freemasonry and the Irish labour unions
(Spector, 2002). In the film, Barney’s Masons wear
aprons designed by the artist that feature the double-
headed eagle, a symbol of the Scottish Rite. They are
portrayed as a group of thugs, a syndicate of organised
crime that operated during the Great Depression.
Many visual references in the film represent the Order
as not being ‘on the level’.
One particular scene captures one of the most
disturbing aspects of the whole Cremaster Cycle. Five
boys, aged between six and fifteen, carry the rotted
corpse of a young woman up several flights of stairs in
the Chrysler Building and place her in the back seat of
a vehicle, a 1938 Chrysler Imperial. In trauma terms,
and in reference to Barney’s earlier Drawing Restraint 7,
the female corpse could be seen to represent an aspect
of rape, where a boy may be made to feel as if he is a girl
and annihilated in the act. The various ages of the boys
carrying her may indicate aspects of ritual abuse: the
repetition of initiatory ordeals throughout childhood
and the enforced exposure to seeing or even handling
corpses (real or fake) to make them feel as if they are
complicit in some terrible crime (Fraser, 1997).
Further scenes include the ritual demolition of the
1938 vehicle by five 1967 Chrysler Imperials in the
Chrysler Building lobby, which circle the older vehicle
and smash into it. Spector (2002) suggests that they
might represent a rage-filled father–son conflict based
on the birth ages of Barney and his father. Dressed as a
builder’s apprentice, the artist trowels cement over the
cars’ shining bodies and later pours cement into the lift
of the pristine Art Deco lobby, implying that his rage is
also being directed at the corporate/Masonic world. As
a consequence of his crimes, three Freemasons decide
his fate. Now the artist is dressed as a Masonic Entered
Apprentice, in dishevelled clothing with one trouser
leg rolled up and one side of his chest exposed. He is
lying on a dentist’s chair and is surrounded by Masons
who knock out his teeth, forcing him to symbolically
swallow his rage. The teeth are then excreted anally and
morph into a smooth phallic shape. The Apprentice’s
ability to dissociate from the pain, illustrated in his
calm submission to the ordeal, is mirrored in the cool
demeanour of his torturers and metaphorically implies
the successful socialisation of boy to man, where the
initiate forgets the source of his rage.
Barney’s Cremaster Cycle contains many more
complex scenes involving trauma and Freemasonry,
prompting the author to make a number of attempts
to discuss this theme with the artist. But he chose
not to respond, neither confirming nor denying this
interpretation. In interviews, he tends to focus on the
technical and conceptual aspects of the work rather
than on psychological interpretations. To produce
these elaborate films, Barney needed to appeal for
corporate sponsorship, and his overt and cryptic
references to Freemasonry could be seen as a homage
to the Order (Brunet, 2009b). However, the whole film
cycle, especially Cremaster 3, is more of an indictment,
seeming to reveal the profoundly damaging impact of
deviant Freemasonry through a highly sophisticated
aesthetic.