Jan Thierens

In one of his 1953 books, Farwerck thanked E.J.F. Thierens for his help. Thierens was Farwerck’s successor as Grand Commander of Le Droit Humain when Farwerck left to join the National Socialist Movement. Apparently, over two decades along the line, the two were still in contact. So who was this E.J.F. Thierens?

Thierens’ full names are Elie Johannes François, Jan in short. He was born in 1882, so he was a little older than Farwerck. Thierens died in 1967.

Thierens followed technical education and became a fairly famous engineer. He worked himself up high in civil and public functions, even high up at the Royal Steelworks. Also he was professor at the Technical Highschool in Delft.

Most information is about his working life. He advised local government, wrote books, wrote in specialized periodicals, traveled through North America to see how far developed the USA were.

I found a vague reference that connects him to Theosophy, but what is certain that he joined the same mixed gender Masonic organisation as Farwerck.

In her history of a century of Dutch co-Masonry in the Netherlands, Ank Engel writes that Thierens was advised to join Freemasonry by his brother, but he didn’t want to unless his wife could join too. Also he was bound to move to the India for work. When he returned to the Netherlands in 1917 he heard that mixed gender Freemasonry was doing well and he contacted Farwerck. Thierens was initiated on March 11th 1917, a month before Willy Farwerck in the same lodge Christiaan Rosenkreuz that I think Franz Farwerck was Worshipful Master of at the time. Thierens’ wife “followed some time later”.

When Thierens moved to Den Haag (The Hague) he also moved lodges. Georges Martin I became his lodge. He went through the 33 degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and as we saw, he followed Farwerck as Sovereign Grand Commander in 1934.

Thierens was one of the editors of the Bouwsteenen periodical in which Farwerck published too. Other than running into him a few times mentioning function in lodges, I haven’t found much about Thierens’ Masonic career.

There is something odd. When looking for Thierens and Theosophy or Freemasonry, I keep running into a namesake: Adolph Ernestus Thierens who lived from 1875 to 1941, so the two were contemporaries. Not brothers though. Both Jan and Adolph Thierens have Adolph’s in their lineage, but I haven’t found the link. They’re not connected within just a few generations it seems.

In any case, Adolph Thierens appears to have been a Freemason and Theosophist and he wrote for Swastika the periodical that proceeded Bouwsteenen!

That said, it appears that Jan Thierens was a contact of Farwerck that survived Farwerck’s switch to National Socialism.