The candidate for entered apprentice stands behind the door waiting to be summoned he’s blindfolded and there’s a noose around his neck with a length of rope trailing behind his chest is exposed at the left breast and his left pant leg rolled up the door keeper wraps three times and announces
That the candidate desires to enter and obtain the privileges of freemasonry with that the candidate is escorted into the lodge by the inner guard the guard holds the tip of a dagger against the candidate’s bare chest and asks if he feels anything next the candidate kneels before the head of the lodge the
Worshipful master and they engage in a ritual question and answer he’s led by the rope or cable toe to an altar with a bible or other holy book standing with his heels together to form a square the candidate now kneels he places his right hand on the bible and with his left
Presses the point of a compass against his chest he swears to forever conceal and never reveal any of the secret arts parts or points of the hidden mysteries of freemasonry if he breaks that promise he binds himself to having my throat cut across my tongue torn out my body buried in the
Sands of the sea at low tide the assembled brothers rise and give the sign of the entered apprentice right hand held palm down beneath the chin with the elbows straight out the master asked the candidate what he seeks he replies the light the master strikes his gavel
And the hood is removed now the candidate is shown three sacred objects the holy book the square and the compass the master reminds him that he faces terrible retribution should he ever betray the organization’s secrets next comes instruction in the secret hand sign or grip and the secret word boaz the candidate
Receives his masonic badge and the symbolic tools a gavel and a ruler the candidate leaves to change clothes and returns to receive the final charges he is instructed that he must understand the importance of god must be law abiding must abstain from political or religious discussion in the lodge
And must obey the master and other officers he’s again warned he must never reveal any secrets of the brotherhood secrecy if you haven’t noticed is a big deal the new brother has entered the first grade of freemasonry above it are two more fellow craft and master mason
Each has its ritual oath of secrecy and prescribed horrible punishments in regular or blue lodge masonry that’s all there is to it but let’s take a closer look at the brotherhood arguably the most successful secret society in history we’ll examine how it grew into a worldwide presence and how freemasonry inspired and influenced
Many other societies many freemasons object to their order being called a secret society after all they don’t hide their existence they openly advertise as evident from the signs outside almost every american town instead masons prefer to be called a society with secrets but our definition of secret societies selective recruitment
Promise of special knowledge or status and oaths of loyalty and secrecy fits freemasonry perfectly remember it’s what goes on inside the organization that’s secret the initiation’s repeated demands of secrecy make that abundantly clear and that raises the question of how i a non-mason obtained those details very simple
I just looked they’ve long been accessible to anybody who bothered the illusion of secrecy is more important than the reality it’s a common enough phenomenon that freemasonry even has a name for nosy outsiders cowans cowan once met a man who practiced the trade without proper accreditation but it came to signify someone who
Sought to learn the secrets of freemasonry without being admitted to the fraternity you might have gone through the initiation described or one similar there are many variations that’s because there’s never been just one freemasonry no one owns the rights to the name there are many variations and they don’t
Play by the same rules most masonic lodges don’t admit women but some do the usual age for admission is 21 but it can be 25 or 18. here’s another example american masonic lodges are mostly split between two grand lodges or jurisdictions the ancient free and accepted masons af and am
And the free and accepted masons f and am one controls the grand lodges in 24 states the latter in 25 states there are two exceptions south carolina which is under its own ancient freemasons afm and the district of columbia which has the free and accepted masons f-a-a-m they mutually recognize
Each other as regular but different details yet all trace their origin to the grand lodge of england so how do you get four jurisdictions out of one grand lodge hang on we’ll come back to that but you can see why i call freemasonry a house of many rooms another important point
Is that the origins of freemasonry are lost in time that gives free reign to speculation while a lodge may consider itself regular and another irregular that’s just a matter of opinion ask the average mason what the lodge is about and the common answer will be fellowship formally freemasonry is a system of morality
Veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols consider again the initiation i described a few moments ago the candidate entered the lodge through the western door and proceeded towards the worshipable master at the eastern end that represents the masonic myth that wisdom the light comes from the east and those in search of it
Symbolically travel from west to east the candidate was blindfolded to symbolize his ignorance before the light was received his breast was exposed to prove he wasn’t a woman his left pant leg was rolled up as evidence that he was able-bodied of course a single exposed limb proves little it’s the symbolism that counts
Similarly the gavel square and apron the new mason receives are based on actual stone mason gear but none of them will be used to do real work with rare exception no one in the lodge is actually a mason they’re all just pretending to be why then there are those terms
Free and accepted free originally meant a man who wasn’t a slave or a bond servant and so who was able to travel from one place to another later it acquired the additional meaning of someone unencumbered by any obligations that might conflict with masonic ones an operative mason is someone who
Actually knows and works in the trade a real mason accepted also called speculative masons are men admitted to lodges without any intention of actually laying bricks or stones they’re symbolic masons the widely accepted belief is that for some inexplicable reason stone mason guilds began accepting non-working members over time the accepted brethren
Mostly wealthy aristocrats or tradesmen became dominant and the real masons dropped out the problem with this scenario is that no one can really say how when or why it happened why would rich guys want to pretend to be common workmen and why would guilds admit a bunch of dilettantes
Freemasonry also has been called a course of moral instruction aimed at building character and making better men out of good men i.e a course in self-improvement this sounds similar to the late 18th century bavarian illuminati’s objective to make men free and happy by making them good it’s even reminiscent of the
Mystical notion that man is god in the making according to the american esoteric scholar and 33rd degree mason manley p hall freemasonry is a fraternity within a fraternity an outer organization concealing an inner brotherhood of the elect that certainly sounds a little illuminati-ish hall adds that the visible society is a splendid
Camaraderie of free and accepted men enjoined to devote themselves to ethical educational fraternal patriotic and humanitarian concerns the invisible society is a secret and most august fraternity whose members are dedicated to the service of a mysterious arcanum arcanorum the secret of secrets was that the same secretive secrets that alchemists sought
Yet another masonic scholar the 19th century american albert pike pronounced masonry a search for the light that led back to the occult mysteries of the ancient jewish tradition of kabbalah in turn the kabbalah connected freemasonry to hermeticism alchemy and the anti-papal thinkers of the middle ages did he include among those anti-papal
Thinkers the notorious knights templar and the heretical cathars pike argued that all divine intelligences gods angels and the like were divided into two principles of good and evil light and darkness to pike freemasonry was the successor or revival of the ancient mystery cults but he viewed regular blue lodge freemasonry as merely
The entrance to the temple pike’s esoteric ideas weren’t intended for ordinary masons most brethren are probably unaware of them indeed nothing in his book morals and dogma was sacramental or obligatory it was merely pike’s learned opinion still as commander of the supreme council of the masonic scottish rite pike wasn’t without influence the
Mention of the scottish rite raises the sticky matter of masonic higher degrees no mason is required to go any further than freemasonry’s three craft or blue degrees entered apprentice fellow craft and master higher degrees are bestowed by so-called rites they’re mostly regarded as purely honorary or ornamental if you imagine the craft degrees
As cub scout boy scout and eagle scout then the higher degrees are like merit badges and eagle scout urns to distinguish himself other terms for the rights and their higher degrees are speculative or esoteric masonry this is where the mystical and occult doctrines pike mentions really come into play
Over time there have been about 20 masonic rites the best known are the scottish rite and the york right others include the egyptian rites of memphis and mizrahim there are or were french mexican and swedenborgian rights among the things they have in common is that they’re open only to master that
Is third degree masons but the rights aren’t under any authority or any grand lodge thus the higher rights can pretty much do and believe whatever they want the number of additional degrees offered by the rights varies widely the scottish rite for example goes up to 33 degrees oddly the scottish rite has no
Documentable link to scotland its origins actually traced back to france it also had close if hard to pin down connections to the so-called rite of strict observance and from that to the raw secretions the york rite is really a combination of three separate masonic bodies royal arch masonry cryptic masons
And the commandery of the knights templar the memphis and mizrahim right wright outdid all others by awarding a whopping 99 degrees these included intriguing names such as knight of the rose cross knight hermetic philosopher patriarch of isis and pontiff of the mystic city the question of course is was this mumbo
Jumbo taken seriously or was it just for show the answer certainly is that it all depended on the initiate the history of modern freemasonry begins in 1717 in london it started with the creation of the grand lodge of england this grew out of four existing lodges and steadily expanded in england and abroad
By 1800 more than 300 affiliated lodges existed in england alone separate grand lodges appeared in ireland and scotland a franchise was born but in the 1730s the grand lodge was hit with schism a dispute broke out between factions dubbed the ancients and the moderns at issue was the importance of rituals and associated
Mystical traditions the moderns influenced by the rationalism of the enlightenment wanted to chuck ritualism the ancient purists were determined to preserve it the underlying question was whether freemasonry was to be a social i.e political and philosophical order or a mystical religious one the same schism hit american colonial lodges
That explains their division into free and accepted i.e modern and ancient free and accepted or ancient camps the ancient and modern rift finally healed in 1813. the moderns yielded on the rituals and the ancients became more tolerant of politics even earlier in 1799 they were forced to work together to avoid being
Banned under the british parliament’s new unlawful societies act fearing that secret societies were being used to spread french revolutionary ideas and shelter spies the british government proposed to quash all societies requiring a secret oath groups like the pro-revolutionary london corresponding society and the united irishmen were banned but the freemasons received an exemption
So long as they maintained records of their members that says a lot about the prestige and influence they detained though it isn’t surprising considering that members of the royal family were initiates indeed freemasonry had become the secret society of choice for the aristocracy and rising middle class the cost of lodge membership including
The elaborate regalia kept out the riffraff if freemasonry went public in 1717 it certainly didn’t start then speculative freemasonry had been slowly evolving for at least 300 years the 18th century grand lodges grew out of older ones supposedly meeting from time immemorial for instance in scotland there was the kill-winning
Mother lodge it claimed to have been around since the 12th century in york the independent grand lodge of all england traced its origins to 926 and a legendary convention of stonemasons summoned by anglo-saxon king athelstan the 18th century lodges based their rituals and rules on a collection of documents called the
Old charges most of which dated to the 15th century the oldest the so-called regius or hallowell manuscript may go back to 1390 it mentions the athelstan legend but also invokes the greco-egyptian mathematician euclid who lived around 300 bc euclid the story goes counterfeited geometry and thereby invented freemasonry
Of course how or why euclid did that or what counterfeit geometry was is left a mystery one of the earliest known masonic documents is the cook manuscript from 1450. it also mentions euclid but brings in king solomon and pushes things all the way back to adam the dowling manuscript from the mid-1500s
Elaborates the connection to solomon’s temple and its legendary master mason hiram abif abif’s death at the hands of three unworthy apprentices became a centerpiece in masonic mythology clearly no one had any real idea when and how freemasonry began the blank canvas made it possible to paint in almost anything
So why not the knights templars of the crusades era while a freemason templar connection became widely accepted there’s no documentation to back it up the possible exception is the 15th century kirkwall scroll from scotland it’s an illustrated tapestry in which some claim to see templar and gnostic symbols well maybe
Or maybe it’s a later forgery but lack of evidence didn’t stop american masons in 1919 they named their youth auxiliary the demolays in honor of jacques demille the last templar grand master who was burned at the stake in 1314. the historian john robinson argues for a genuine link between
Templars and freemasons in his 1989 book born in blood robinson focuses on the 1381 peasants revolt in england robinson believes a shadowy great society behind the revolt was a conspiracy hatched by clandestine templars aimed at revenge against church and crown robinson’s evidence is intriguing but ultimately thin he does raise some interesting points
For instance while we picture medieval mason guilds as a kind of trade union they were really no such thing really they were employer associations run by master masons who treated their lesser brethren as common laborers and indentured servants thus robinson speculates the crypto templars didn’t take over genuine guilds
But formed their own pseudo-masonic guilds as a cover that he argues explains their obsession with secrecy something not typical among ordinary masons interestingly the knights templar had their own internal sect of brother masons i.e an internal masonic guild since most of the templar organizations survived the suppression unscathed presumably the brother masons
Did as well there are other examples of political conspiracy disguised as labor association one is the revolutionary carbonari or charcoal burners of early 19th century italy and france there were charcoal burner brotherhoods but the carbonari many of them freemasons co-opted the name and terminology as a cover for their revolutionary conspiracies
Among other things it gave you a plausible reason to be meeting in the woods at night still the freemason templar connection remains mostly conjecture british freemasonry would go on to become the secret society of the establishment in england 300 lodges grew to a thousand by the 1860s
2000 by the 1880s and 3000 by the start of the 20th century hundreds more sprouted throughout the empire the poet laureate of british imperialism rudyard kipling a mason popularized the brotherhood in his writing look at his the man who would be king yet the estimated 250 000 british freemasons in 1900
Were a small fraction of a population of almost 40 million and downright insignificant in a larger imperial population of 400 million of course membership was heavily concentrated at the upper end of society men who already enjoyed some wealth and power for some however freemasonry wasn’t exclusive or serious enough one such man was
Arch imperialist cecil rhodes the guiding hand behind the creation of british south africa the de beers diamond cartel and the boer war rhodes joined a masonic lodge in the 1870s because he said he saw the wealth and power they possess and the influence they hold but rhodes became disillusioned with
What he referred to as the lodge’s most ridiculous and absurd rights and thought the order was without an object and without an end rhodes grand idea was to bring the whole uncivilized world under british rule recover the united states and make the anglo-saxon race one empire so along with plotting the british
Conquest of south africa’s gold and diamonds rhodes formed his own secret organization dubbed the society of the elect into it he selectively recruited statesmen financiers and industrialists part of his scheme not incidentally was the rhodes scholarship designed to turn worthy americans into right-thinking englishmen freemasonry gave rhodes his starting point
Model and inspiration yet while kipling and rhodes epitomized masonic loyalty to the british empire not all british freemasons were so inclined remember that house of many rooms the grand lodge of england was always picky about who and what it regarded as legitimate masonic bodies like the scottish rite were branded irregular or clandestine
Irregular freemasonry tended to attract dissidents both moral and political there’s no finer example than the occultist aleister crowley who was once branded the wickedest man in the world the grand lodge denied any association with crowley even that he was a freemason at all but crowley boasted a bevy of masonic
Degrees from french mexican and other lodges the esoteric organizations crowley was associated with like the hermetic order of the golden dawn and the ordo templi orientis or oto all had masonic roots the oto for instance was initially envisioned as a masonic academy that would unify masonic rights with mystical orders
To create a unified occult freemasonry another clandestine branch was co-masonry it initiated men and women alike the practice originally started in some 18th century french lodges it resurfaced in 1893 with the founding of the parisian lodge la doat uman or human right co-masonry was later hijacked by english occultists connected to the mystical
Theosophical society theosophy sought to combine western and eastern mysticism into a universal occult doctrine it would inspire much of what we now call the new age movement along with a thirst for spiritual enlightenment some theosophists nurtured political ambitions one of these was the english woman annie bassant who was largely responsible for turning
Co-masonry into an appendage of theosophy besance politics were definitely radical she was a socialist a militant proponent of indian nationalism and later flirted with communism her freemasonry definitely wasn’t the same as rudyard kipling’s while politics was officially forbidden within the lodge it was practically impossible to keep out
Masonic lodges remember were selective a single dissenting vote could blackball a candidate the frequent result was a lodge full of men sharing more or less common views and all sworn to secrecy connections formed inside the lodge could take on a different dimension outside of it simply put masonic lodges
Were like petri dishes for political conspiracy this was most obvious in french freemasonry and the continental lodges it spawned and influenced interestingly even french freemasonry was of english origin the first lodges were set up by british merchants in dunkirk in 1721. in 1733 a grand lodge de france was formed
It too was mostly english speaking and an extension of the london grand lodge forty years later however the french masons formed a new grand lodge the grand orient de france it was strongly influenced by the radical ideas of the enlightenment while english freemasonry became the mainstay of the social order
The grand orient became an incubator of revolutionary sentiments it passed this radical flavor on to lodges in italy germany turkey and russia it’s no coincidence that the motto of the grand orient liberty equality and fraternity became one of the mottos of the french revolution nowhere was this radical streak stronger
Than in the parisian nine sisters lodge formed in 1776 the same year as the bavarian illuminati and the beginning of the american revolution american revolutionary benjamin franklin was an initiate of the nine sisters so too was his friend and anti-religious french philosopher voltaire and many other men destined to play a part in
France’s coming up evil fears that freemasonry nurtured and encouraged dangerous ideas while exaggerated weren’t baseless and no one looked on the freemasons with greater displeasure than the papacy in 1738 pope clement xii issued the first edict against freemasonry he said that it had caused the greatest suspicion in the mind of the faithful
And that all prudent and upright men had judged them depraved and perverted he condemned and prohibited freemasonry now and forever as clement saw it the freemason’s obsession with secrecy condemned them for if they were not doing evil he reasoned they would not have so great a hatred of the light the catholic church
Also figured in an anti-masonic brouhaha that infected france in the 1890s this was the so-called taxal hoax a journalist ex-freemason and sometimes pornographer named josef jorgan paget decided to exploit public anxiety over freemasonry and satanism by combining the two writing under the names leo taksil and dr battai
He churned out sensational books such as the mysteries of freemasonry and the devil in the 19th century his pot boiler story was that freemasonry was run by a satanic cult the palladians based in who’d have guessed it charleston south carolina and the head devil worshiper was no less than american freemason
Albert pike jogan paget even conjured a masonic high priestess diana vaughn who spun lurid tales of black masses and child sacrifice for good measure she was supposed to be the descendant of the 17th century british alchemist in rosicrucian thomas vaughn in 1897 jogan paget further shocked everyone especially the vatican
Would he reveal that the whole thing was a hoax and diana vaughn a figment of his imagination nevertheless that didn’t and hasn’t stopped some from insisting this story was true the most important thing to take away is that freemasonry isn’t one thing but many and it always has been
What was true in your granddad’s lodge isn’t necessarily true for others much of this vagueness and variety stems from the fact that freemason’s origins are lost in time so what wasn’t known was invented as ever people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe You
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