YARKER, JOHN
English occultist and Freemason, 1833–1913. Born in the Westmoreland village of Swindale, he moved with his parents to Lancashire in 1840 and nine years later settled in Manchester, where he would spend most of his life. At the age of 21 he became a Mason, but his interest in rare Masonic rites got him into trouble with the officials of the United Grand Lodge of England, and in 1862 he left regular Masonry behind for the less structured realms of irregular Masonic rites. He married in 1857 and led a quiet life, supporting his family as a bookseller.
Yarker has been well described as “the universal purveyor of fringe Masonic rites” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From his office in Manchester, charters and patents of initiation flowed out to the four quarters of the world. During and after his life he was accused of making a living by selling degrees, but even critical historians nowadays admit that his main motivation was a passion for the higher degrees of Freemasonry and a desire to see them survive. The most important of the Masonic systems he operated was the Rite of Memphis and Misraim, which he created from the older Rite of Memphis and Rite of Misraim in 1871, but he was involved in one way or another with nearly every alternative Masonic rite in Britain, and corresponded with Masonic groups overseas.
SEE ALSO:
- Freemasonry
- High Degrees
- Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO)
- Rite of Memphis
- Rite of Memphis and Misraim
- Rite of Misraim
SOURCE:
The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies : the ultimate a-z of ancient mysteries, lost civilizations and forgotten wisdom written by John Michael Greer – © John Michael Greer 2006