The Charter of Harrowmere

We, the undersigned, being men and women who have each for many years sought the Light within the several bodies of the Western Mystery Tradition, and who have found in our several seekings one truth under many veils, do hereby, of our own free will and in the presence of one another, constitute ourselves and those who shall hereafter be received according to this Charter into a fraternity, to be called the Order of the Grail, and in the Latin tongue Ordo Gradalis; and we declare its purpose, its Rule and its government as follows.

1. The purpose of the Order is twofold. Inwardly, it is to guide each of its members, one by one and each according to his or her capacity, toward the reintegration of the soul with its Source, by the means that the Tradition has handed down. Outwardly, it is to serve humanity by example and by deed, and in particular to extend courtesy, protection and help to the stranger, the poor and the wronged.
2. The Order receives the three streams of the Tradition, which are the Rosicrucian, the Martinist and the Hermetic, as the three Wardens have received them, and holds them to be tributaries of one river. It shall teach them as one, and it shall add to them nothing of its own invention, saving only the arrangement of the teaching and the Rule by which it is kept.
3. The Rule of the Order is the Twelve Articles of Chivalry annexed to this Charter. Every member shall be examined upon the Articles before reception and shall renew them yearly. The Articles may be interpreted by the Grand Council but may not be altered save by the consent of two parts in three of the Knights and Dames of the Order assembled in Convocation.
4. The Order shall be open to men and women alike, upon equal terms, who are of full age and of good character, who acknowledge a Supreme Principle under whatever name, and who are willing to keep the Rule. The Order shall make no distinction of race, nation, faith or station, and shall require of no person membership of any other body.
5. The Order shall confer three degrees in its Outer Court, which are Page, Squire, and Knight or Dame of the Grail, each after a period of study, practice and service, and each by ceremony within a Commandery. No degree shall be conferred for payment, for favour or by ceremony alone. The Grand Council may constitute an Inner Court for the deeper work, which shall have no authority in the government of the Order.
6. The Order shall be governed by a Grand Council of nine, elected by the Knights and Dames in Convocation for terms of three years, three to be elected yearly. The Grand Council shall appoint from among its members a Grand Master, a Grand Chancellor, a Grand Prior, a Warden of Studies, a Keeper of the Library and a Treasurer, and shall render account of its stewardship to the Convocation yearly.
7. The Order shall meet locally in Commanderies, each of not fewer than nine Knights and Dames and each chartered by the Grand Council, and in Oratories of not fewer than three members under the sponsorship of a Commandery. Each Commandery shall elect its own Commander and shall govern its own affairs within the Charter and the Articles.
8. The Order shall not advertise, shall not solicit members, shall not charge for instruction, shall not sell its degrees, shall not make its membership a means of worldly advantage, and shall not permit its members to boast of it. Those who come to it shall come by reading, by introduction or by the leading of the Light.
9. The Order is sovereign and independent. It shall be subordinate to no other order, lodge, church, society or jurisdiction, and it shall enter into no concordat that compromises its Rule. It claims no lineage from any order of knighthood of former ages, and its chivalry is a chivalry of the soul.
10. The Order shall hold its property in trust for the purposes of this Charter and for no other. Should the Order be dissolved, its property shall pass to such charitable purpose as the last Convocation shall determine, and to no member.
11. This Charter may be amended by the consent of two parts in three of the Knights and Dames assembled in Convocation, saving the first, second, fourth, eighth and ninth articles, which shall not be amended while the Order endures.
12. In witness whereof we have set our hands at Harrowmere on the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels in the year of our common reckoning nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, being twelve in number, and have lit a lamp which we charge those who come after us to keep burning.

Signed by the three Wardens and nine companions, whose names are kept in the Rolls of the Order.