The Sabato Room of the Book Fair was packed with people for the presentation of “Domingo Sarmiento, José Hernández and Leopoldo Lugones: Masonic writers and masters.” It was an event by the writer Antonio Las Heras, and organized by the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE), on Friday, May 13. The author of historical books, such as “Las Heras. The military man, the man” and “Belgrano and Freemasonry”, referred to the literary, political and Masonic profile of Argentine personalities at the end of the 19th century.
The meeting coincided with the launch of his latest book, “Brechas del espacio-tiempo”, edited by Grupo Argentinidad. In this text, he recounts the various supernatural experiences he had more than forty years ago, contemplating another aspect of the author: his fascination with psychoanalysis and parapsychology, which he disclosed in previous publications such as “Sigmund Freud-Psychoanalysis and parapsychology” and “Jungian Psychology, a journey through the life and work of the creator of the collective unconscious”.
Investigator of paranormal phenomena and member of the Argentine Scientific Society, the multifaceted writer devoted himself, in recent times, to the study of Freemasonry and its link with national heroes. It is a different and biographical look at the most legendary of secret societies, and its relationship with Argentine writing, hand in hand with the most emblematic pens in the country. An approach on the fraternity of the “compas and the squad” that continues to generate attraction in the public.
News: What is Freemasonry and what influence did it have on Argentine literature?
Antonio Las Heras: We have to contextualize Freemasonry from what era, in what culture or in what socio-cultural environment. European Freemasonry of the 18th century is not the same as current Freemasonry. Today’s society is no longer a secret society. It is, in any case, as the Masons say, a discreet society. Today we have in Argentina even the “Grand Lodge of Argentina of Free and Accepted Masons” that is registered in the registry of legal status. In other words, it is on the same level as a social club or a football club. The hidden part has disappeared. Freemasonry at the end of the 18th century or the end of the 19th century in what is now Argentina was made up of a number of lodges that maintained secrecy because the King of Spain had decreed the persecution and arrest of Freemasons in colonial territories. . It must be taken into account that all those who carried out the May Revolution, except Azcuénaga, were Master Masons. This is what I talked about in my conference, for example, in the case of Sarmiento, whom I call “a thorough Mason.” When one asks a Master Mason, or someone who has already reached that degree, why Masonry is entered with the degree of apprentice, according to evolution, companion, and, finally, Master Mason; What characterizes a Master Mason? The answer is that Masons are free thinkers. It’s interesting, the free thinker is not do what I want, free thinker is a person who uses rational, deductive and reflective thinking to make decisions. If there is someone who has been a teacher, Freemason and writer, who has entered perfectly into this line, that is Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and the other is Leopoldo Lugones. The case of José Hernández is different because what he bequeathed to us was the Martín Fierro. From the reading of Martin Fierro, many aspects of Masonic wisdom are inferred. For example, one that I pointed out is that the Mason relies on his personal ability and his willpower. He remembered the verses in which he says “more than the saber and the spear, the confidence that man has in himself must serve.”
News: In what aspect do Sarmiento, Hernández and Lugones agree regarding their relationship with Freemasonry?
Antonio Las Heras: In terms of coincidences, they did what we call the proactive work. In Freemasonry, an interesting analysis is usually made between the active and the proactive. A slave who carries out the master’s orders well is an active person, he did what he was ordered to do well. The proactive creates his own story. In these three examples, the first thing we notice is that they are three people who made their own history. Especially Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, it is one thing to have been born in Paris or Buenos Aires, and because of a comfortable economic situation, his parents send him to study at the University of Salamanca; and another thing is to have been born in a small town in San Juan, and to have been born with all those faults to transcend in life. However, Sarmiento succeeded. He was very ironic and humorous, already in his exile in Paraguay, a journalist told him: “You, having started from a humble family, became a general, became a doctor, became President. You can’t be more ambitious” and Sarmiento ironically answers: “I had two things left that I couldn’t be: porteño and bishop”. There is a characteristic of all three: they are proactive lives. They are people who have built themselves.
News: In the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, how did Freemasonry, politics and writing coexist?
Antonio Las Heras: There is a detail that I usually say that it is the village that was Buenos Aires. Because if not, it occurs to us, as Borges said, that Buenos Aires always existed. Buenos Aires, at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, was a village. That village allowed several things, which we have to analyze with the perspective of that time. First, mainly, that there was time because there were few things to do. Second, those who had a certain role, merchants or soldiers, knew how to read and write, they were people who had time, some trip to Europe they had made to be aware of new ideas. So dedicating yourself to writing was like being on social networks today, otherwise they don’t identify you. At that time, the only way to transmit information was by writing. That is why certain societies were set up in Buenos Aires in 1810 and later as well. Absolutely understandable, that the same ones who had a military, academic or commercial training; they knew how to read and write, and also did politics. They were the first interested in making the necessary changes so that life in Buenos Aires would have certain characteristics. There is a detail that I like to point out from the Masonic, Many historians point out that the idea of making this part of America independent of the Spanish crown is an idea that arises in 1810, when Napoleon takes Spain and puts his brother. That is not true. In the village of Buenos Aires, in 1795, there was a lodge that bore the name of “Independence Lodge”. It means that in 1795, influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution and the ideas that prevailed in Europe, there was already a group of people who were already thinking of becoming independent from the Spanish crown.
News: What legacy stands out from Sarmiento, Hernández and Lugones?
Antonio Las Heras: They had to live through difficult times and they did not remain in the complaint, in tears or in melancholy. The three said I’m going to act, I’m going to be the protagonist. The most wonderful legacy that the three leave us is that they decided to be the protagonist of their lives, of society, of the people around them, contaminating the germ of proactivity. It is a magnificent legacy in the 21st century, especially in Argentina, that we have a culture of complaining and we hope that someone else comes along with a fatherly attitude and solves it. These three made themselves. They gave the battle that had to be given, they had very bad moments and other better ones. Always protagonists of their own lives, I understand that it is the best legacy, beyond writing or others. They are forms of writing that are no longer used, it is still possible to read any of the three very well. We write differently, with other terms, but the legacy I find is this attitude towards life.
News: Is there a curiosity in people about Freemasonry?
Antonio Las Heras: For Freemasonry yes, because it is an open institution. On the Night of the Museums of the City of Buenos Aires, several Masonic lodges open their doors to the public and there is a guide who explains. They are no longer secret societies, but discreet with a public activity. It has the appeal of the mysterious and, more or less, of the secret, which continues. In Argentina there are many lodges, there are lodges for men only, lodges for women only, and mixed lodges for men and women. Obviously, with concerns that are no longer those of other times.
*Gustavo Winkler is a student at the Profile School of Communication.
by Gustavo Winkler*
