There are four "official" legends of Templar survival. François de Beaujeu, initiated by Jacques de Molay, would have been entrusted by the grand master with the spiritual transmission of the Order.
For others, it would be Jean Marc Larménius who would have ensured this secret mission, until the resurgence of the Temple in 1808 under the leadership of Fabre Pallaprat. Geoffroy de Gonneville, preceptor of Aquitaine, whose confessions shed light on part of the mystery, would have taken up the torch of the Temple in Cyprus, then would have carried the message to Central Asia. Finally Pierre d'Aumont, tutor of Auvergne after having collected the ashes of Jacques de Molay, would have reached Scotland where he would have hidden the Order among the operative masons, founding the Heredom lodge and Scottish Freemasonry. He is said to have helped Robert Bruce, King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329 in his fight against the English.
In fact, it was from the 18th century, within the very new Freemasonry (officially founded in London in 1717) that all of the neo-Templar societies flourished. We cannot completely rule out the idea of ​​René Guénon when he affirms, in his Insights on initiation, that freemasonry and companionship, the only ones to convey in the West an authentic and historically founded tradition, can appear as heir. presumptive of the Temple. Just like the other orders which helped to cover Europe with a white cloak of cathedrals and churches (Benedictines, Cistercians, Hospitallers) the Templars maintained close relations with the brotherhoods of builders. Their mission of protecting roads and sheltering pilgrims created a special link with these trades and many operatives wore the red cross on their clothes. The Templars had the right to grant franchises and within the grounds of the properties of the Temple, the Freemasons (free) could freely practice their art and travel from site to site. The same air of freedom, as much in the circulation of people and ideas as in spiritual research, presided over the work of the building workers as well as of the knight monks. The ritual of medieval masons much more elaborate than that of other trades, was it given to them by the Templars?
This remains a hypothesis that strong links also existed with the Hospitallers, as shown in an engraving of the siege of Malta by the Turks in 1565.
It is not absurd to see operating lodges as refuges for freedom of thought. After the great era of cathedrals, they were the receptacle of men in love with spirituality and who sought in God what unites men, as the Templars had done. We know that Freemasonry is the heir to a triple tradition: Operative (visible in its rituals), Chivalrous (see the speech of the Chevalier de Ramsay, one of the founders of speculative masonry, who reread it to the Crusades and the knight monks) and kabbalist (through the Christian Kabbalists of the Renaissance and the Rose-Croix alchemists of the 17th century).
Freemasonry can hardly claim that the spiritual heritage of the Templars, but from it will be born almost all the esoteric movements of the West. Thus in Germany, in 1751, Baron de Hund created a new Masonic obedience: the Strict Observance Templar. The goal is to reconstitute a chivalrous order in the image of the Templars.
Source: La France des Templiers.