Freemasonry in the Haitian Imaginary – Leah Gordon and Katherine Smith (Theion Press)

Description

Freemasonry in the Haitian Imaginary is a groundbreaking collaboration between scholar Katherine Smith (ed.) and photographer Leah Gordon, unveiling one of Haiti’s most intricate symbolic worlds. Bringing together rigorous research and revelatory imagery, the book shows how Freemasonry became woven into Haiti’s revolutionary origins, political imagination, and spiritual life — not as a European import but as both a universal brotherhood and a tradition transformed and made distinctly Haitian.

Smith’s introduction traces how Enlightenment ideals traveled through the Caribbean and were reshaped by free people of color, political leaders, and ritual practitioners. She shows how Masonic symbols — columns, compasses, the all-seeing eye — became signs of belonging, aspiration, and spiritual potency. Gordon’s photographs deepen this understanding, revealing a living symbolic ecology: temple doors, embroidered aprons, carved emblems, and vernacular architecture where Masonic imagery appears in forms both familiar and wholly reimagined.

Additional contributions by Dr. Henrik Bogdan, Dr. Gaétan Mentor (introducing the concept of the “Black Janus”), and Smith’s intimate conversations with artist and Freemason Ernst Dominique expand the journey into the realms of history, Vodou, political struggle, visionary experience, and the craft of sacred objects.

Presented in an elegant, large 24 × 30 cm format, this volume stands as both a major scholarly contribution and a striking aesthetic object — essential for readers seeking to understand Haiti beyond familiar narratives, through the powerful symbols that continue to shape its community, history, and spirit.

Freemasonry in the Haitian Imaginary is published in two limited editions.

Bibliographic Details

320 pages, measuring 240 x 300 mm.
Printed on premium 150gsm wood-free silk glossy paper for excellent photo reproduction.
Features Peyer Surbalin endpapers, headbands and a ribbon marker.
Includes more than 155 full-page color and black/white photographs and illustrations.