Freemasonry
'A peculiar system or morality,
veiled in allegory
and illustrated by symbols'
For those
un-initiated this is a description of Freemasonry given by the candidate
in answer to a question from the Worshipful Master during the course of
one of the ceremonies. Whilst it might at first appear simplistic, if
you consider the true meanings of the statement then it will become
clear exactly what Freemasonry is about.
Let us
look at the above statement carefully
Contents:
'Veiled in
allegory'
This
refers to the methods by which Freemasons are taught their system of
morality. For hundreds of years allegory has been an accepted method of
teaching. Today we still communicate by means of allegory. It is often
used to convey abstract ideas or concepts that normal language has
difficulty in describing or which would take some considerable time to
communicate by normal means.
The
teaching of morals by allegory is a time-honoured technique still
relevant, though members new to the Craft may not be familiar with it.
Allegory is a story that can be read on two levels, firstly as a surface
narrative and secondly at a deeper level which is moralistic. It is the
embodiment of a train of thought in a visible form by means of images
and thus involves a transfer of meaning with a number of correspondences
with the real world. For example, the whole of the third degree is
allegorical for behind the story of the central character lies the
foundation of the philosophy of Freemasonry.
The signs
used in Freemasonry are derived from the allegory and are used as a
method of recognition. The signs and the symbolic instructions are the
only secrets of Freemasonry.
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'Illustrated by symbols'
A symbol
is used to assist in understanding an idea or a concept. It is not
necessary to use a symbol to describe something like a house or a garden
as ordinary language, together with their own knowledge, can do that
readily enough for most people but trying to describe abstract concepts,
ideas and beliefs in plain language could fail. Symbols, therefore, can
help one person to understand another's explanation of something
nebulous. Freemasonry explores an enormous range of intangible notions,
and so symbols are used as 'visual aids' which, in a similar way,
religions also use for the same purpose.
The
symbols used derive from the distant past when the wisdom of the ancient
peoples was largely symbolic. It was in the early seventeenth century
that speculative Masons adopted symbolism. The symbol is an image which
hides an inner meaning. The meaning is usually hidden behind a form
which most people think they can understand immediately. The Masonic
Lodge itself is a symbol and the interior abounds with them. For
example, the three lesser lights. Light in Masonry has a symbolic
meaning. Light is opposed to darkness and suggests many opposites such
as right and wrong amongst many others. Symbols illustrate the principal
tenets of Freemasonry. These are brotherly love, relief, and
truth.
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Brotherly Love
Every
true Freemason shows tolerance and respect for the opinions of others
and behaves with kindness, patience and understanding towards his fellow
creatures. In fact Freemasons are not permitted to discuss in open lodge
topics that may cause differences of opinion, such as religion and
politics.
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Relief
A
Freemason is taught to practice charity and to care for their own
families and Brethren but also for the community as a whole. This
charity can take the form of both charitable giving and by voluntary
efforts and works as individuals within the community.
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Truth
A
Freemason strives for truth continually. This requires high moral
standards and a desire to achieve them in their own lives inside and
outside the confines of the lodge room.
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Freemasonry
Teachings
and practices of the secret fraternal order
officially known as the Free and Accepted Masons, or
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
Organizational Structure
There
are approximately 5 million members worldwide,
mostly in the United States and other
English-speaking countries. With adherents in almost
every nation where Freemasonry is not officially
banned, it forms the largest secret society in the
world. There is no central Masonic authority;
jurisdiction is divided among autonomous national
authorities, called grand lodges, and many
concordant organizations of higher-degree Masons. In
the United Kingdom, the highest authority rests with
the United Grand Lodge of England and Provincial
Grand Lodges. Custom is the supreme authority of the
order, and there are elaborate symbolic rites and
ceremonies, most of which utilize the instruments of
the stonemason—the plumb, the square, the level, and
compasses—and apocryphal events concerning the
building of King Solomon's Temple for allegorical
purposes.
The
principles of Freemasonry have traditionally been
liberal and democratic. Anderson's Constitutions
(1723), the bylaws of the Grand Lodge of England,
which is Freemasonry's oldest extant lodge, cites
religious toleration, loyalty to local government,
and political compromise as basic to the Masonic
ideal. Masons are expected to believe in a Supreme
Being, use a holy book appropriate to the religion
of the lodge's members, and maintain a vow of
secrecy concerning the order's ceremonies.
The
basic unit of Freemasonry is the local Blue lodge,
generally housed in a Masonic temple. The lodge
consists of three Craft, Symbolic, or Blue Degrees:
Entered Apprentice (First Degree), Fellow Craft
(Second Degree), and Master Mason (Third Degree).
These gradations are meant to correspond to the
three levels—apprentice, journeyman, and master—of
the medieval stonemasons' guilds.
The
average Mason does not rise above Master Mason.
If he
does, however, he has the choice of advancing
through about 100 different rites, encompassing some
1,000 higher degrees, throughout the world.
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Development of the Order
The
order is thought to have arisen from the English and
Scottish fraternities of practicing stonemasons and
cathedral builders in the early Middle Ages; traces
of the society have been found as early as the 14th
cent. Because, however, some documents of the order
trace the sciences of masonry and geometry from
Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine to England and France,
some historians of Masonry claim that the order has
roots in antiquity.
The
formation of the English Grand Lodge in London
(1717) was the beginning of the widespread
dissemination of speculative Freemasonry, the
present-day fraternal order, whose membership is not
limited to working stonemasons. The six lodges in
England in 1700 grew to about 30 by 1723. There was
a parallel development in Scotland and Ireland,
although some lodges remained unaffiliated and open
only to practicing masons. By the end of the 18th
cent. there were Masonic lodges in all European
countries and in many other parts of the world as
well.
The
first lodge in the United States was founded in
Philadelphia (1730); Benjamin Franklin was a member.
Many of the leaders of the American Revolution,
including John Hancock and Paul Revere, were members
of St. Andrew's Lodge in Boston. George Washington
became a Mason in 1752. At the time of the
Revolution most of the American lodges broke away
from their English and Scottish antecedents.
Freemasonry has continued to be important in
politics; 13 Presidents have been Masons, and at any
given time quite a large number of the members of
Congress have belonged to Masonic lodges. Notable
European Masons included Voltaire, Giuseppe Mazzini,
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johann von
Goethe, Johann von Schiller, and many leaders of
Russia's Decembrist revolt (1825).
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Opposition to Freemasonry
Because
of its identification with 19th-century bourgeois
liberalism, there has been much opposition to
Freemasonry. The most violent in the United States
was that of the Anti-Masonic party. Freemasonry's
anticlerical attitude has also led to strong
opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which
first expressed its anti-Masonic attitude in a bull
of Pope Clement XII (1738). The Catholic Church
still discourages its members from joining the
order. Totalitarian states have always suppressed
Freemasonry; the lodges in Italy, Austria, and
Germany were forcibly eradicated under fascism and
Nazism, and there are now no lodges in China.
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Bibliography
See R.
F. Gould, History of Freemasonry throughout the
World (rev. ed., 6 vol., 1936); A. G. Mackey,
Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (rev. ed., 3 vol.,
1946); F. L. Pick and G. N. Knight, The Pocket
History of Freemasonry (4th ed. 1963); C.
Kephart, Concise History of Freemasonry (2d
ed. 1964); E. Bebe, The Landmarks of Free Masonry
(1980); J. Ankerberg and J. Weldon, The Facts on
the Masonic Lodge (1988).
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A BRIEF HISTORY
OF FREEMASONRY
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.
The Earth was without form, and void. And darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved across the
waters, and God said: 'Let There Be Light', and there was
Light". This quote from Genesis 1: 1-3 is powerful, and it
is also ironic that it is also read, to every Masonic
candidate, during one of the Masonic ceremonies. It is
suiting to a Fraternity, like Freemasonry, to have the new
member start his path of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth,
with the word of God.
The exact beginning of the society of Freemasons is not
known, but many historians, Masonic and Non-Masonic, have
many theories. Some place the origins to the days of Noah's
Ark, others may believe it began with the building of King
Soloman's Temple, while some feel it originated with the
building of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and others trace it
to King Athelston, of England in 930 ad.
These are highly unlikely, but I will admit, they do make
for a very colorful history. However, the most widely
supported, and accepted, theory places the origin of the
Fraternity to the building trade guilds of the Middle Ages.
The possibility for this theory is because these skilled
craftsmen were allowed to travel from city to city, to build
the huge Cathedrals and beautiful Castles, which now dot the
European landscape. Because of their incredible skills,
these workmen; painters, carpenters, stonemasons, etc., were
given the freedom to travel from job site to job site, they
were not owned like the serfs and other residents of the
kingdoms. It is believed this is where the term free-mason
comes from.
The humble stone mason, with his common tools: the chisel,
the hammer, the square, the plumb-line, and the compasses,
were all he needed to create and build the magnificent
edifices which have stood for centuries, and are admired by
people to this day.
The place where these operative craftsmen ate, slept and
drew up the plans for their construction projects, was
called a "lodge". And, each town, or village, that had
construction crews, had these lodges of masons, carpenters,
painters, etc. This term has stayed in our vocabulary to
this day, what was once called a lodge of Free-Masons, is
now called a Masonic Lodge.
The friendship and brotherly love these men, and their
families developed was an incredibly strong bond. One which
was evident by the support of their fellow masons in
distress, their widows and orphans. But, as the saying
goes... all good things must come to an end, and there began
an eventual "phasing out" of these massive construction
projects. As this downsizing progressed, all the labor
guilds began to lose members, and eventually discontinue all
operations. However, these lodges of free masons, which had
insisted on the high moral and ethical standards of its
members, continued to survive.
The most accepted theory, for the continuation of these
groups of "Operative" Masons and their Lodges is that they
started to admit new members, men who were not operative
stone masons. Doctors, Farmers, Sailors, Merchants and other
men, from all walks of life were allowed to join. These men,
who did not really work with stones and bricks, were called
"Speculative" Masons. When these Speculative members joined
the Masonic Lodges, Freemasonry became more of a club or
Fraternity, than a labor guild. These new members, the
SpeculativeMasons, became accepted as equals with the
Operative Masons, in a spirit of Fraternal Brotherhood,
hence the "Accepted" in Free and Accepted Masons. Although,
this colorful beginning of Freemasonry in not necessarily
factual, nor is it provable, it only serves to lend an "air"
of antiquity to the origins of this Fraternity, as there
were several hundred years between the operative and
speculative lodges. For instance, there are no records of
operative masonic lodges in England, after 1560, nor are
there any records of operative lodges in Scotland, after
1580. So for any person to say there is an actual documented
connecting lineage between the two has yet to be proven to
any History Scholar, Masonic or Non- Masonic.
While this is the most "popular" theory, there is also some
profound research which would trace the origins of
Freemasonry to the original Knights Templar, who were
founded in 1117. The original name of what we know as the
Knights Templar was "The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and
the Temple of Soloman in Jerusalem". This is obviously a
long name to be called when people are referring to this
group, over time the name was modified to "The Knights of
the Temple", later it was modified even more, to the
"Knights Templar". The name with which we are so familiar
with today.
The Knights Templar, like the Freemasons, also had three
"classes" of membership in its structure. The lowest being
that of Sergeant-Foot Soldier, then the highest was that of
a full Brother-Knight, the third classification was that of
a Cleric- Chaplain-Secretary. The job assigned to each on
was well known, and the orders were given by one Grand
Master of the Knights Templar who answered directly to the
Pope.
According to this theory, Pope Clement V, supported by
Philip IV, King of France, issued an order to arrest and
execute all of these Knights Templar. The date of this order
is possibly significant in more than one way. Friday October
13th, 1307, was the date the Pope chose to start the
systematic arrest and execution of these Christian Knights.
This action by the Pope caused the Knights themselves to go
"underground". These Knights were suddenly despised by the
very people who had instituted their foundation. Which was a
very confusing situation for these men to be in, the painful
question of "WHY" would be one which became all too clear as
time went on. All the wealth that the Knights accumulated
became the object of desire in the eyes of the King. France
was financially strapped, and the only way King Philip IV
apparently felt he could continue the war against England
was to convince the Pope to turn over much of the
accumulated wealth these Knights possessed.
Where could these Knights flee to that would give them safe
harbor ? The most reliable sources trace the travels of
these Knights Templar to Scotland. Apparently Robert Bruce,
the King of Scotland, in his desire to keep his country free
from outside rule, decided he did not need to read the Papal
Bull ordering the arrest and execution of the Knights.
Besides, if the
Knights Templar wished to relocate to
Scotland, they might prove useful in the battles with
England, either way both groups win. The Knights Templar
find safe refuge and the Scots gained a new ally.
Of course in order to further conceal their identity from
spys who worked for the Pope and the King of France the
Knights would need to come up with new identities. The
Knights Templar apparently devised a "cover-name", that of
free mason, to use as the new name under which they would
know themselves. Keep in mind that not all of the
Knights
Templar made it to Scotland, many were hiding out in other
countries, and needed to find a way to regroup and to
communicate with the other members. The Knights used these
allegorical stories as not only to prevent their identity
from being found out, but it also served as lessons in
morality. The humbleness of the name of free-masons served
as kind of a
Knights Templar "witness relocation program",
and helped to spare the lives of these humble Soldiers of
Christ, the Knights of the Temple. If this theory is
accurate, then it would most certainly explain the
occasional references made, prior to 1717, of the Society of
Freemasons.
Some of the earliest writings, which allude specifically to
Masonry, are the Regis Manuscript, dated in 1390, and the
Cooke Manuscript, written in 1400. According to the research
Lodge, Quatuor Coronati, of England, the earliest records of
non-operative Masons being admitted to the Masonic Lodges
took place in June of 1600. The Laird of Auchinleck, John
Boswell is registered to the Lodge in Edinburgh. In 1643,
there were other names added to this list. They include Lord
Alexander, Sir Anthony Alexander and Sir Alexander Strachan.
In 1640, General Robert Moray is entered on the roster and
in 1641 General Alexander Hamilton is added. Elias Ashmole
and Randle Holme were both added in 1646 and the Earl of
Cassillis was registered in 1672. According to the
Phililethes Society, the first native born American to be
made a Mason was Jonathan Belcher, in 1704, who was then the
governor of Massachusetts.
Whether or not these records are proof of an earlier
beginning of Fraternal Freemasonry has yet to be documented,
but their being admitted to the "Society of Freemasons"
sounds a lot like a Lodge of Freemasons. However, the date
of June, 24th, 1717 is given as the "historically official"
beginning of the Masonic Fraternity, as we know it today.
This is when the United Grand Lodge of England was formed,
and from which all regular Masonic Lodges, in every country,
can be traced to.
It wasn't until 1731 the first American Grand Lodge received
its Constitution. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania was
Constituted in 1731, making it the first Grand Lodge in
America. I have included a listing of the Grand Lodges in
the U.S., the year they were Constituted, the number of
Lodges in that State, and the approximate total membership
of that State, you will find it in Appendix A. The first
duly Constituted Lodge in America was Chartered July 30th,
1733, in Boston, Massachusetts.
As European trade routes expanded, these Lodges of
Freemasons also spread. Eventually Lodges were set up in
India, China, Africa, and many other Countries. You will
find a listing of recognized Grand Lodges of the world in
Appendix B.
You will see from the listing, the universal Brotherhood of
Freemasonry truly extends into every far flung corner of the
world. Yes, even into some of the communist and other less
democratically run countries. Unfortunately, Freemasonry and
membership in this Fraternity is "secret" in these places.
Only because the governments are run with an iron fist. The
leaders of these countries do no believe in having a country
run by its citizens, like we are fortunate enough to have
here in America.
One of the reasons that Freemasonry is such an important
organization is because it promotes a Government of the
people, with the elected citizens serving as their own
leaders and lawmakers. Without the freedom to accomplish
this, the citizens are the ones who suffer at the hands of
the tyrannical leaders.
For an example, the former Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza
Pahlevi, a Mason, stated that he regretted allowing the
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return to Iran. The
Ayatollah, who is not a Mason, upon seizing power,
systematically destroyed Masonic Lodges, arrested,
interrogated and imprisoned Masons, and even executed those
who did not turn over the names of other Masons. This kind
of brutal action leads me to ask... what was the Ayatollah
afraid of anyway ? Could it be Democracy, and a peace
filled country.
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Has there ever been a woman in Freemasonry?
According to Masonic Tradition the first
woman to be made a Freemason was the Hon.
Mrs Aldworth of New Market, County Cork.
Born in 1713, she was the youngest child and
only daughter of the Right Honorable Arthur
St Ledger created Viscount Doncraile June 28
1708. Her father and brother were members of
Lodge 44, an aristocratic elite lodge. In
1732, before the lady married, her brother
Lord Doncraile became W.M. of Lodge 44 and
was installed at a meeting held at the
family home. The Hon. Miss St Ledger was a
curious young teenager and she wanted to
know what her brother got up to. At
subsequent regular meetings of the lodge she
is reported to have removed two bricks from
the wall of an adjacent room and observed
the first two degrees. She became so excited
that she stumbled against a chair and was
overheard by the Brethren of Lodge 44.
For two hours she was held under the guard
of the Tyler while the lodge debated her
fate. She was offered the choice of death or
initiation. She accepted initiation. She
continued as a member of the lodge until her
death at the age of 95 years.
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