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Lynn Brunet |Ripping back the veil on Masonic abuse
initiation similar to those of Mithraism (Burkert,
1987, p. 41 Hutton, 1999, p. 59 Pike, 1871). In the
late-nineteenth century, it was believed that the god
Mithras was crucified like Christ, a concept that has
since been debunked (Burkert, 1987). In one of Jung’s
fantasies, he is accompanied by Elijah and Salome,
and he describes a torturous bodily sensation in which
he assumes the position of the crucified Christ, with
a serpent coiled around his body and his face taking
on the countenance of a lion, blending Christian and
Mithraic symbolism. Salome tells him, ‘You are Christ’,
and then the serpent squeezes his body and his blood
spills down the mountainside (Jung, 2020, vol. 2, p.
195). In writing this down, though, Jung realised that
hypnosis through crystal gazing was at play.
The Black Books contain much material that Jung did
not include in The Red Book, which is explored in this
author’s second study (Brunet, 2024). These additions
include conversations with many different inner
characters, and extensive ones with his soul that begin
amicably but then develop into something like an
ongoing domestic argument. This inner multiplicity,
which Jung (2001) later realised, is one of the
psychological sequelae commonly found in survivors
of ritual abuse. Woven through the journals are his
concerns over his affair with Toni Wolff, and this,
too, seems to have its basis in one of the mystery plays
where he is told by a figure dressed as a Turk that he
is a sick child and that women can bring him healing.
Then, for three years, he struggles with the problem
of dark magic in these fantasies, eventually realising
that it was all meaningless and of no use to him. He
also grapples with vanity, ambition and the question
of whether to become a cult leader, and it transpires
that the creation of The Red Book was not only for his
own healing but was also to become a holy book for a
new religion. However, he rejects this role and decides
not to publish it. By Black Book 6, Jung presses his soul
to provide a glimpse into what all of this is about. She
answers with a series of questions: ‘Temples in deserts?
Secret societies? Ceremonies? Rituals? Colorful robes?
Golden images of Gods of terrible aspect?’ (Jung, 2020,
vol. 6, p. 268). This answer, along with many other
details, helps to corroborate the thesis that Jung’s active
imagination is closely associated with the rituals of the
secret societies.
William Golding (1911–1993)
This author’s current study focuses on the work of
the English novelist William Golding, author of
the internationally taught text Lord of the Flies. He
wrote twelve novels in total, but while the story lines
are fascinating, there are often many unfathomable
elements within them (Barker, 2022). Golding is
another famous author who had inexplicable and
terrifying childhood experiences. These experiences
related to the old cellars in his family home at 29 The
Green, Marlborough, in England.
Frightened by spiders and other crawling things, the
dark and anything supernatural, he was left with panic
attacks, phobias and dreadful nightmares that plagued
him into old age. To control the fear, he drank (Carey,
2012). As stated earlier, reports of children undergoing
frightening ordeals in spaces like cellars or basements
appear in the literature of ritual abuse. For example,
Australian medical doctor Cathy Kezelman (2010)
recounted her terrifying childhood experiences in her
grandmother’s cellar, where adults in robes, whom
she called The Cloaks, performed strange rituals. A
recent report on ritual abuse in the United Kingdom
acknowledges that these practices have been a reality
within British culture and are often perpetrated within
family networks (Hanson, 2025).
The maternal side of Golding’s family came from
Cornwall, an area of England known for its folk
beliefs, witchcraft and magic practices (Carey, 2012).
His mother, Mildred Golding née Curnoe, passed on
these beliefs to him through ghost stories and other
frightening tales. Golding was born in Newquay and
spent his first years in his grandmother’s house she was
Mary Curnoe, and he described her as ‘fierce, mean
and dangerous’ (Carey 2012, p. 4). His grandfather,
Thomas Curnoe, died before he was born, although he
was of most interest to Golding. He was a Freemason,
but from all accounts, a wild and immoral man
(Golding, 2012, p. 53). This set of grandparents had
a reputation for domestic violence, so much so that it
was said that they would have murdered each other
had they lived too long together. His grandfather was a
mining engineer, and his solution to this domestication
situation was to follow the gold rush trail around the
globe (Carey, 2012).

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Like Beckett, Golding said he did not always know
where his books had come from. His first three novels,
‘leapt onto the paper...Almost...as if somebody else
had written them’ (Golding, 2011, p. 195), just as
Jim Davies describes.4
1
However, his fourth novel,
Free Fall (1959), is a clear self-portrait in which the
protagonist, Sammy Mountjoy, shares many episodes
from Golding’s younger life, along with a sense of self-
loathing. The author seems to be searching through
his conscious memories for answers, asking: ‘Is it a
pattern I am looking for?’ (Golding, 2013, p. 3). Like
Jung’s shock of having to eat a dead child’s liver, he
says ‘I could be a cannibal’ as in Beckett’s novel, The
Unnamable, he describes Sammy Mountjoy as ‘the
unnameable, unfathomable darkness that sits at the
centre of him’, perhaps describing Golding’s own inner
state (Golding, 2013, p. 3, 4). Sprinkled through this
novel are references to fraternities, like the Freemasons,
the Odd Fellows and the Elks. ‘There had been trouble
with a society, he said, and I inferred a secret society at
once’ (Golding, 2013, p. 79). There are also scenes of
torture in this novel. It seems as if Golding is allowing
his character, Sammy Mountjoy, to tell him where to
look for this pattern.
In his fifth novel, The Spire (1964), he seems to have
found an answer, as the book is laden with references
to Masonic rites, particularly the Holy Royal Arch.
Strangely, there has been no mention of Freemasonry
in this novel by any literary critics to date. It is set in the
Middle Ages and involves the construction of a 400-foot
spire atop an existing cathedral, alluding to the history
of Freemasonry in Britain, originally based on the signs
and building secrets of the early cathedral builders. In
the first scene, a memory is mentioned as coming to the
surface. In this scene, Dean Jocelin holds an eighteen-
inch model of the spire in his hand. This appears to be
a direct reference to a small wooden column, eighteen
inches long, that appears in the Third or Master Mason
degree, which is set in an upright position when the
workmen are called ‘from labour to refreshment’ at
‘high twelve’ (noon) and is laid on its side when they are
to return to work (Duncan, 1866, p. 100–101). In this
degree, ‘high twelve’ is the time when Hiram Abif was
murdered. The master builder in the novel is named
Roger Mason. At one point in the novel, the Dean goes
around to the cloisters, lifting up curtain after curtain
4 These three novels were: Lord of the Flies (1954), The Inheritors
(1955), and Pincher Martin (1956).
until he reaches the West End of the cathedral, alluding
to the Passing of the Veils ceremony in the Royal
Arch rite. Another character, Pangall, lives within the
cathedral grounds, but the entrance to his dwelling is
cluttered with building materials, leaving little room to
get to his door. Later, this character is whipped, kicked
and sexually tormented by the workers, calling to mind
the Rugged Road. Eventually, we learn that Pangall
has been killed and his body is lying under the pavers
in a crouched pagan burial position, ‘with a sliver of
mistletoe between his ribs’ (Golding, 1965, p. 212).
Towards the end of the novel, the Dean begins to think
he has been bewitched and that his aunt, Lady Alison,
is somehow involved, raising the possibility that
Golding might be thinking about family connections.
In the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall,
there is an exhibit stating that the Royal Arch is one
of the Masonic rituals that shares symbols and ritual
practices with modern Wicca, including an instruction
to ‘lift up the veil’ (Nabarz, 2015). While Wicca was
largely a phenomenon of the 1950s, decades after
Golding was a child, its founder, Gerald Gardner
(1884–1964), was, according to Aleister Crowley, a
Royal Arch Companion (Nabarz, 2015, p. 58).5
1
Talking
about one of his childhood hobbies, Golding (2013)
stated: ‘I loved incantation, whether it meant anything
or not. Soon I had a store of detached lines and phrases
which I treasured like seashells or fossils or stamps’ (p.
55).
There are many more elements directly related to these
Masonic rituals throughout this novel, raising the
question of whether Golding might have been initiated
into the Order at some point. A passage in the novel
spoken by the protagonist states: ‘I was initiated into
their secret language, so plain, so visible for all men who
can see, to see’ (Golding, 1965, p. 193). Golding was a
naval officer during World War II, and naval officers
were often expected to join the Masons. The British
Navy has its own Lodge and practices the York Rite,
which includes the Royal Arch degree (Duncan, 1866).
However, approaching his daughter, Judy Golding,
provided no answers, as she had no memory of him
being involved with the Order, although she was born
at the very end of the war (personal communication,
June 19, 2025).
5 Nabarz notes that while Gardner was a Freemason, there has been
debate about whether he reached the high grade of Royal Arch (2015, p. 58,
notes 55, 56).