Orientalist soldiers: Theosophy and Freemasonry in North Africa during Second Spanish Republic

Abstract

The link between Freemasonry and Theosophy has been the subject of different analysis by the historiography, especially because many Spanish masons belonged to different theosophical movements and associations, expanded and established throughout the country since the late Nineteenth Century. However, in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, most of the members and supporters of the Theosophical Society were not only masons and theosophists, but also militaries with different ranks. The purpose of this work is precisely to approach the relationship between Freemasonry, Theosophy and militarism, based on the ideological analysis of the practices and discourses of the members of this association. Without forgetting, on the one hand, how this ideological interplay was structured and defined in the republican and colonial context for military purposes, and on the other hand, how it influenced the socio-political processes that Spain lived in the years before the Civil War.