Origins of the Society
_______________
"You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."
"You take the red pill and you
stay in Wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
"There is but one thing in the world really worth pursuing - the knowledge of God."
Robert H. Benson
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The Old Charges of Freemasonry
(1) The Operative Craft
"There exists
a collection of documents which has been called up as evidence both
for the operative and non-operative origins of Freemasonry. Described
by Anderson as the Gothic Constitutions, and now known collectively as
the Old Charges, some 127 versions have been traced
of which 113 are still in existence....All have a common form:
a. an opening prayer
b. a legendary history of the mason craft tracing it from
biblical origins to its establishment in England
c. a code of regulations for Masters, Fellows and Apprentices
covering both craft practices and morals
d. arrangement for large-scale 'territorial' assemblies at which
attendance was obligatory
e. procedures for the trial and punishment of offenders
f. admission procedures 'for new men that were never charged
before', including an oath of fidelity."
"Historically, the Old Charges fall into three groups. The first
comprises the two earliest versions, the Regius MS of c.1390 and the
Cook MS of c.1420...The second, and largest, group begins with the
Grand Lodge No. 1 MS, dated 25 December 1583, and covers all the
versions datable before the formation of the premier Grand Lodge in
1717. The third group comprises manuscript and printed versions
produced after 1717, the majority of which appear to have been
produced as antiquarian curiosities."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
The Wood
manuscript, written in 1610 "traces the history of the Order from
two pillars that were found after Noah's
Flood, none made of a marble that would not burn with fire, the other
made of a substance known in Masonic legends as Laterus, which would
not dissolve, sink or drown in any water. One of these pillars was
found and upon it were inscribed the secrets of the sciences from
which the Sumerians developed a moral code that passed to the
Egyptians through the Sumerian Abraham and his wife Sarah. The script
goes on to describe Euclid teaching geometry to the Egyptians, from
whom the Israelites took it to Jerusalem, which resulted in the
building of King Solomon's Temple."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"A record of the society written in the reign of Edward IV, said to have been in the possession of the famous Elias Ashmole, founder of the Museum at Oxford, and which was unfortunately destroyed, with other papers on the subject of Masonry, at the Revolution, gives the following account of the state of Masonry at this period:
"That though the
ancient records of the brotherhood in England were many of them
destroyed, or lost, in the wars of the Saxons and Danes, yet king
Athelitane, (the grandson of King Alfred the Great, a mighty
architect,) the first anointed king of England, and who translated the
Holy Bible into the Saxon tongue, (AD 930) when he had brought the
land into rest and peace, built many great works, and encouraged many
Mason from France, who were appointed overseers thereof, and brought
with them the charges and regulations of the lodges, preserved since
the Roman times; who also prevailed with the king to improve the
constitution of the English lodges according to the foreign model, and
to increase the wages of working Masons."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
Preston's accounts of the history of Masonry in England, beginning with the Druids and Romans, are based on the mythical history included in Anderson's Constitutions (1773) and his own 1776 Appendix.
"In the west
of England there is a magnificent chain of cathedrals without parallel
elsewhere: Exeter, Wells, Gloucester, Worcestershire and Hereford, as
well asmany abbeys and castles, on which building was carried out
almost continuously during the five centuries before A.D. 1500."
The Regius MS and the Cooke MS, based on a lost 1360 manuscript, are
the only pre-Reformation versions of the Old Charges still extant.
Both "say that Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great gave charges to
masons for he was the King of Wessex before he became King of All
England [c.895-939], and he is reputed to have been the founder in 932
of the monastic house which was the fore-runner of the cathedral at
Exeter."
According to the Cooke MS, Athalstan's youngest son "'loved well the
science of Geometry' and he became a mason himself. He, in turn, gave
charges to masons 'as it is now in England'. Moreover he obtained a
patent from the king that they should 'make assembly when they saw
reasonable time to come together'."
- Bro. J. R. Clarke, "The Old Charges (A New Look at the Oldest
of Them)"
"During the
reign of Henry II, the Grand Master of the
Knights Templars superintended the Masons,
and employed them in building their Temple in Fleet-street, A.D. 1155.
Masonry continued under the patronage of this Order till the year
1199, when John succeeded his brother Richard in the crown of
England."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"The term
freemason appears as early as 1375 in the records of the
city of London. It referred to working masons who were permitted to
travel the country at a time when the feudal system shackled most
peasants closely to the land. Unlike the members of other crafts of
the time - smiths or tanners for example - the masons gathered in
large groups to work on majestic, glorious projects, moving from one
finished castle or cathedral to the planning and building of the next.
For mutual protection, education, and training, the masons bound
themselves together into a local lodge - the building, put up at a
construction site, where workmen could eat and rest. Eventually, a
lodge came to signify a group of masons based in a particular
locality."
- "Freemasons; Mortar and Mysticism", Ancient Wisdom and
Secret Sects
"At the
beginning of the reign of Henry VI, in 1425, a ban was placed on
holding them [annual assemblies of masons] on the ground that they
contravened the Statutes of Labourers. The masons protested that they
were as loyal and law-abiding as other trades and objected to being
singled out for attack. Condor (The Hole Craft and Fellowship of
Masons, p.77) observes that 'we do not hear of this Act being put
into force' and he gives high legal opinion that it was repealed in
1562. It may be a coincidence but it was about this time that the
earliest extant post-reformation versions of the Old Charges
appeared."
- Bro. J. R. Clarke, "The Old Charges (A New Look at the Oldest
of Them)"
"A record in the reign of Edward IV runs thus:
"The company of
Masons, being otherwise termed Free-Masons, of auntient staunding and
good reckonings, by means of affable and kind meetyngs dyverse tymes,
and as a lovinge brotherhode use to doe, did frequent this mutual
assembly in the tyme of Henry VI in the twelfth yeare of his most
gracious reign, A.D. 1434'."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"It has been
demonstrated that freemason - in an operative context - is a
contraction of 'freestone mason'....The earliest printed use so far
traced comes in The Pilgrimage of Perfection - usually
attributed to William Bonde - printed in 1536 by Wynkyn de Worde."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
"The freemason
setteth his pretyss first long tyme to learn to hewe stones and whan
he can do that perfectly he admytteth him to be a freemason and
choseth hym as a conynge man to be master of the Craft."
- The Pilgrimage of Perfection
"Guilds of
mason were common, and can be found emerging in Scotland (where guilds
were generally known as incorporations) in the late Middle Ages."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
"...The
Masons were countenanced and protected in Scotland by King James I.
After his return from captivity, he became the patron of the learned,
and a zealous encourager of Masonry. The Scottish records relate, that
he honored the lodges with his royal presence; that he settled a
yearly revenue of four pounds Scots, (an English noble,) to be paid by
every Master-Mason in Scotland, to a Grand Master, chosen by the Grand
Lodge, and approved by the crown, one nobly born, or an eminent
clergyman, who had his deputies in cities and counties, and every new
brother at entrance paid him also a fee. His office empowered him to
regulate in the fraternity what should not come under the cognizance
of law-courts."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"In Scotland
such lodges [established for long-term site building activity], under
burgh control, can be traced in Aberdeen and Dundee in the late
fifteenth and early sixteen centuries. But they appear to have
declined or disappeared entirely shortly before or after the
Reformation of 1560 brought a new protestant church to Scotland."
"The legacy of the Medieval masons obviously contains much that is
later found in freemasonry; the mythical history of the craft, the
identification of masonry with mathematics; organization in 'lodges';
secret signs and words; and rituals of initiation."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
(2) A Brother to Pirates and Corsairs
Concerning
stonemasons in the Middle Ages, "their vocabulary and most likely
their ability for abstract thought must have been very limited indeed.
Travel for all but the most highly skilled master masons was a rare
event so secret signs, grips and passwords would not be of much value;
end even if they did travel from one building construction to another
why would they need secret means of recognition?"
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"A final
check at Oxford's Bodleian, one of the great libraries of the world,
and I finally felt absolutely secure in stating that Freemasonry did
not evolve from the medieval guilds of stonemasons in Britain because
it would appear that there were no medieval guilds of stonemasons in
Britain."
"The French-language roots of the lost words of Masonry indicate the
strong possibility that the society was in existence in the first half
of the fourteenth century..."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
Masonic expressions that Robinson said were derived from French language roots include:
Tyler:
tailleur, "one who cuts"
Cowan: couenne, "ignoramus" or
"bumpkins"
"From the affair of Jephthah, an Ephraimite was termed a cowan. In
Egypt, cohen was the title of a priest or prince, and a
term of honor. Bryant, speaking of the harpies, says, they were
priests of the sun; and, as cohen was the name of a dog
as well as a priest, they are termed by
Apollonius 'the dogs of Jove'. Now, St. John
cautions the Christian brethren, that 'without are dogs', cowans or
listeners (Rev. 22:15), and St. Paul exhorts the Christians to 'beware
of dogs, because they are evil workers' (Phil. 3:2). Now, a dog, or
evil worker, is the masonic cowan."
- Historical Landmarks, Vol 1. p. 349
Due guard (ID sign): geste du garde, "a
protective gesture"
Lewis (son of a Mason): levees,
"sprouts" or "scions"
Abiff: biffer, "to strike out or
eliminate"
(Hiram
a Biffe, "Hiram who was eliminated")
Jube: jube, "rood screen" - a place of
penance or punishment
(venir a Jube, "to get one's just desserts)
Intrant (Entered Apprentice): entrant
The surviving members of the Knights Templars in England would have had to flee or hide to escape persecution and death.
"...We can
find no fourteenth century precedent for any organization that
consistently referred to fellow members as brothers [frere Macon],
except for the various religious orders, which, of course, included
the
Knights of the Temple."
"An old charge of Masonry says that if a brother comes to you, give
him 'work' for two weeks, then give him some money and direct him to
the next lodge. Why the assumption that he will need money? Because he
is running, and hiding. What he got was not the allegorical 'work',
but actual lodging."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
"To all poor and
distressed Masons, wherever dispersed over the face of Earth and
Water, wishing them a speedy relief from all their sufferings, and a
safe return to their native country; should they so desire it."
- "The Tyler's Toast"
"All through
the oaths and the Old Charges we see emerging a mutual aid and
protection society, protecting men who could die if caught."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
"You have come
to us bound, half-naked, and defenseless. You have no money with which
to feed and lodge yourself, no armor to ward off the blows of your
enemies, no weapons with which to defend yourself.
"Take comfort from the fact that all of your brothers are sworn to
help you. If you are naked, we will clothe you. If you are hungry, we
will feed you. We will shelter and protect you from your enemies. We
will keep your secrets. Your call for help will never go unanswered."
- Masonic initiation
Another Old
Charge "says that a visitor brother is not to go 'into the town'
unless accompanied by a local brother who can 'witness' for him (i.e.,
vouch for him to the local authorities, who had the right to arrest
strangers of unknown business in the town)."
"...In the initiation of the Master Mason of the third degree...he
asks that his body be cut in two and his bowels burned to ashes should
he break his oath of secrecy. Such a penalty would seen totally out of
line for a broken oath taken by a stone cutting guild member, but
would not have seemed to much to a man whose betrayal would mean days
and weeks of torment with whips and chains and red-hot irons, with the
ultimate risk of being burned alive at the stake."
"In the lecture that sums up the initiation of a new Master Mason, the
newly admitted candidate is told that this degree 'will make you a
brother to pirates and corsairs.' That statement makes no sense
whatever in the context of a society descended from medieval
stonemasons."
"When the Templars processed around their circular churches they had
only one way to move: in a circle, just as today's Masons process in
their 'circumambulation' of the lodge."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
"We can now
be certain, without any shadow of doubt, that the staring place for
Freemasonry was the construction of
Rosslyn Chapel in the mid-fifteenth century;
later historical developments confirm this view because the St Clair
family of Rosslyn became the hereditary Grand Masters of the Crafts
and Guilds and Orders of Scotland, and later held the post of the
Master of Masons of Scotland until the late 1700s."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
William St Clair designed and built Rosslyn Chapel using the plans of Solomon's Temple, and incorporating many Templar and Masonic motifs. Knight and Lomas speculate that the Chapel also contained a copy of the vaults at Solomon's Temple and its hidden treasure.
"William St
Clair had an obvious problem with security; the masons building his
scroll shrine had to know the layout of the underground vault network
and they knew that this strange building was to house something of
great value.
"William St Clair was a brilliant and talented man and we believe that
he devised the First Degree of Craft Masonry and the Mark Mason Degree
to give his operative masons a code of conduct and an involvement in
the secret, without telling them the great secret of living
resurrection which was reserved for speculative Masons. It is a matter
of record that he had two grades of stonemason on site; the 10
pounds-a-year standard masons (or apprentices) and the 40
pounds-a-year 'mark masons' who were honored by the possession of a
personal mark in the continental fashion."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
Origins of Modern Freemasonry
(1) The Acception
"King James
VI of Scotland (also later James I of England) was the only child of
Mary Queen of Scots and the first king to rule both England and
Scotland. He was also the first king known to be a Freemason, being
initiated into the Lodge of Scots and Perth in 1601 at the age of
thirty five."
"He made a leading Mason by the name of William Schaw his General
Warden of the Craft and instructed him to improve the entire structure
of Masonry. Schaw started this major project on 28 December 1598 when
he issued 'The statues and ordinances to be observed by all the master
maissouns within this realme,' signing himself as 'the General Warden
of the said craft'."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"The man who
more than anyone else deserves the title of creator of modern
Feemasonry was William Schaw. The younger son of a
laird (landowner) with close connections with the court, Schaw
developed a strong interest in architecture and in 1583 was appointed
master of works by King James VI of Scotland."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
"Schaw
started this major project on 28 December 1598 when he issued 'The
statues and ordinances to be observed by all the master maissouns
within this realme,' signing himself as 'the General Warden of the
said craft'."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"As general
warden and master of works Schaw issued two codes of statutes, in 1598
and 1599. In these he laid down regulations for the organization and
practice of the mason craft through a system of 'lodges'."
"At first sight is might seem that his statutes are solely concerned
with the organization and regulation of the working lives of
stonemasons....He was doing much more, reviving and developing
Medieval masonic mythology and rituals in a Renaissance atmosphere."
"Scotland's
early freemasons, it would appear, probably kept specific religious
practices out of their lodges as to do otherwise would have been to
confront the church with an attack on its monopoly of religion but as
a later date the morality without religious worship of the lodges made
freemasonry attractive to those developing tolerant or deistic
attitudes."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
Sir Francis
Bacon, who became Solicitor-General under fellow Freemason James I of
England, was a champion of inductive reasoning and has been described
as "the father of modern science".
"It is highly likely that Brother Bacon was the driving force behind
the styling of the new second degree introduced by his close colleague
William Schaw."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"In Scotland
there is a wealth of evidence for the existence of operative lodges
organized on a geographical basis and backed up by statue law. From
the early 1600s there are also many documented examples of the
introduction of non-operatives into Scottish operative lodges. There
is not, however, any evidence that these non-operative members in any
way altered the nature or workings of Scottish operative lodges until
very late in the seventeenth century, by which time accepted Masonry
was well established in England. All the evidence suggests that
accepted Masonry emerged in England and spread from
there to Scotland."
"The legend of the Commacine Masters...stated that the
masons of the Como area of Northern Italy were so renowned and had
such recondite secrets to impart to their operatives that they were
formed into an Order by a -non-existent- Papal Bull and ordered to
travel Europe sharing their skills and 'mystery'. Evidence of their
actual existence is singularly lacking. The traditions and records of
the German Steinmezen and French Compagnonage
were diligently searched for traces of a speculative element, but none
was found. The evidence comes back all the time to the appearance of
non-operative masonry in England in the seventeenth century."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
"By the
seventeenth century, as the number and stature of masons grew, some
lodges had begun to admit honorary members who were not stoneworkers.
The London Masons' Company founded the Acception, a
parallel organization for that purpose, in 1619. It took in as
'accepted Masons' men who did not belong to the company but who were
willing to pay double the initiation fee."
- "Freemasons; Mortar and Mysticism", Ancient Wisdom and Secret
Sects
"...Elias
Ashmole was one of the first recorded inductees into the Freemasons,
but the actual first recorded induction was Dr. Robert Moray in
Edinburgh in 1641. Both Ashmole and Moray were founding members of the
British Royal Society."
- Gerry Rose ,"The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation
of Freemasonry"
Ashmole was an admirer of the Knights Templars. Even after their trial, the Templars were
" a noble Order,
no less famous for martial achievements in the east, than their
wealthy possessions in the west...Which gave occasion to many sober
men to judge, that their wealth was their greatest crime."
- Elias Ashmole, Institutions, Laws and Ceremonies of the
most noble Order of the Garter (1672)
"Masonry
became so fashionable that as the seventeenth century progressed the
'acceptance' (the collective term for non-stonemasons) became the
majority in the masonic Lodges. For example, in 1670, the Aberdeen
Lodge had thirty-nine 'accepted' members while only ten remained
'operative' masons."
In England, "one thing united a majority of politically conscious
people at this time: the need to preserve the gain of the Civil War of
1642-51 - the limitation of the power of the King."
"Much was eaten much was drunk, and much was discussed in the privacy
of masonic meeting placed (usually taverns) after the rather dry
formal doings in Lodge were over. The 'better' the Lodge - in the
sense of social class - the 'better' the conversation and the more
lavish and expensive the entertainment....The sights of its prime
movers were already set on a movement underpinning a type of society
admirably suited to its purposes: a stable society with limited social
mobility in which a secret inner 'Old Boy' association could provide
an environment where considerable benefit could be gained by members
who knew how to 'play the masonic organ'"
- Stephen Knight, The Brotherhood
"A Mason's
life's the life for me,
With joy we meet each other,
We pass our time with mirth and glee,
And hail each friendly brother:
In lodge no party-feuds are seen,
But careful we in this agree,
To banish care or spleen.
The Master's call, we one and all
With pleasure soon obey;
With heart and hand we ready stand,
Our duty still to pay.
But when the glass goes round,
Then mirth and glee about,
We're all happy to a man;
We laugh a little, we drink a little,
We work a little, we play a little."
....
"Th' Almighty said, 'Let there be light,'
Effulgent rays appearing.
Dispell'd the gloom, the glory bright
To this new world was cheering;
But unto Masonry alone,
Another light, so clear and bright,
In mystic rays then shone;
From east to west it spread so fast,
That, Faith and Hope unfurl'd,
We hail with joy sweet Charity,
The darling of the world.
Then while the toast goes round,
Then mirth and glee about,
Let's be happy to a man;
We'll laugh a little, we'll drink a little,
We'll work a little, and play a little."
- from J. Bisset, "Song XXX" in William Preston's Illustrations of
Masonry (1804)
(2) The Invisible College
"We can be
sure that the Royal society germinated from the hothouse of thinking
that was released by
Bacon's definition of the Second Degree of
Freemasonry well before people such as
Ashmole and Wilkins pierced it all back
together after the traumas of the Civil War."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"We date the formation [of the British Royal Society] earlier than was previously thought. There was a series of meetings in England in 1640. This is an important year because it was the beginning of the Long Parliament. Comenius and Samuel Hartlib were involved. Comenius was originally from Bohemia, and was in the Palatinate during the fateful Rosecrucian years, along with the Englishman Samuel Hartlib, with whom he was in close contact. With the defeat of the Palatinate they both, through different routes, end up in England. When the Long Parliament started, there was another outburst of ecstatic literature [following the dissemination of Rosecrucian pamphlets]. One piece written by Hartlib in 1640, "A Description of the Famous Kingdom of Macaria," is a utopian work addressed to the attention of the Long Parliament. A year later, Comenius wrote 'The Way of Light'. They call for an 'Invisible College', which is a Rosicrucian code name."
"Now the plot
thickens. In 1645, a meeting takes place for a discussion of the
natural sciences. Present at the meeting are Mr. Theodore Haak from
the Palatinate and Dr. John Wilkins, who at the time was the chaplain
to the elector of Palatine. Wilkins was the man behind the Oxford
meetings which become, in 1660, the British Royal Society. Another
founder of the Royal Society was
Robert Boyle, who in letters in 1646, refers
to, again, an invisible college. John Wilkins writes a book in 1648
called Mathematical Magic, in which he explicitly mentions
the Rosy Cross and pays homage to occultists
Robert Fludd and
John Dee.
"The key to the actual Rosicrucian tradition in the British Royal
Society is Elias Ashmole. He was unabashedly a Rosicrucian and in 1654
wrote a letter to ask the 'Rosicrucians to allow him to join their
fraternity'. His scientific works were a defense of John Dee's work,
in particular Dee's Monas Hieroglyphicas, and the
Theatrum Chemicum Britanicum of 1652. This is a compilation of
all the alchemical writings by English authors. In the opening of this
work he praises a mythical event in which a brother of the Rosy Cross
cures the Earl of Norfolk of leprosy.
"Ashmole was one of the official founding members of the British Royal
Society. The other major, explicitly Rosicrucian figure was
Isaac Newton. He had copies of both the 'Fama'
and the 'Confessio'' in his possession, and the book compiled by
Ashmole, The Theatrum, was Newton's bible. Also...Newton had
a series of papers on the book of Daniel calculating the end times."
"Historian Frances Yates, in her book The Rosicrucian
Enlightenment, in a chapter entitled 'Rosicrucianism and
Freemasonry', quotes one De Quincey, who states, 'Freemasonry is
neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who
transplanted it in England, whence it was re-exported to the other
countries of Europe'. De Quincey states that Robert Fludd was the
person most responsible for bringing Rosicrucianism to England and
giving it its new name. What is fascinating is that Elias Ashmole was
one of the first recorded inductees into the Freemasons, but the
actual first recorded induction was Dr. Robert Moray in Edinburgh in
1641. Both Ashmole and Moray were founding members of the
British Royal Society."
- Gerry Rose, "The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation
of Freemasonry"
"Men of
science in London, Oxford, and Cambridge met in secret in what has
been termed an 'invisible college', which now appears to have existed
in secret Masonic lodges in those areas. Their first secret meeting
was held in 1645, just three years after the death of Galileo. By
1660, the group felt secure enough in the apparently Protestant reign
of Charles II to petition the crown for a royal charter, which was
granted in 1662. The name they chose was The Royal Society of London
for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge..."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
"While there
are many stories about the ancient origins of the Freemasons, here is
an announcement for one of their meetings in 1676: 'To give notice
that the Modern Green-ribboned Cabal, together with the ancient
brotherhood of the Rosy Cross: the Hermetic Adepti and the company of
Accepted Masons....' It is interesting to note how clear the tradition
is."
- Gerry Rose, "The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation
of Freemasonry"
"When
Freemasonry came public in 1717...it appeared that the Royal Society
was virtually a Masonic subsidiary, with almost every member and every
founding member of the Royal Society a Freemason."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
(3) The New Grand Lodge System
"The new
Grand Lodge system established at the Goose and Gridiron Alehouse in
1717 consisted at first of only one level (degree) of initiation.
Within five years of the Lodge's founding, two additional degrees were
added so that the system consisted of three steps: Entered
Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master
Mason. These steps are commonly called the 'Blue
Degrees' because the color blue is symbolically important in
them."
- William Bramley, The Gods of Eden
Like the
cords worn by the Templars, "each Masonic
Blue Lodge initiation requires the use of a cord, or rather a 'cabletow'."
- Forrest Jackson, "The Baphomet in History and Symbolism"
For a descripton of the initiation rites into the three degrees, click here.
"We believe
that the current content of the three degrees of Craft Freemasonry was
already present in just two degrees prior to Schaw's reorganization
that inserted an extra level of speculative masonry in between Entered
Apprentice and Master Mason (which was originally known as the
Master's Part). This new degree was introduced and designated the
Fellow Craft, derived we think from the fact that these masons were
not workers in stone but workers in the 'fellow craft' of speculative
masonry. We are now sure that this degree was a development of the
Mark Mason degree (and not the other way around as most Masons
believe)."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
The "Scottish
operative lodges began in the seventeenth century to admit
non-operative members as accepted or gentleman
masons and that by the early eighteenth century in some lodges the
accepted or gentleman masons had gained the ascendancy: those lodges
became, in turn speculative lodges, whilst others continued their
purely operative nature. The speculative lodges eventually combined to
form the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
"The 'craft'
of Freemasonry was one of the more extraordinary manifestations of the
Age of Reason, typical of its time not only because it stood for
rationalism, deism, and benevolence, but also because of the ambiguity
which turned one side of its affairs from rationality to mystery. It
was in one way an emanation of that most British of institutions, the
club. It took shape during the first three decades of the eighteenth
century, and reflected the tolerance and the confidence of Hanoverian
England. Its ideology, founded on the metaphors of the architecture of
the universe and the building of the Temple, was deist and
non-confessional. The Freemason obliged himself to submit to the civil
power, whose benevolent nature was assumed; this optimism was typical
of British Whig self-assurance. The Mason asserted a non-clerical
ethos, and a middlebrow and commonsensical attitude to life. He
claimed to be instructed and enlightened, but he did not set up to be
learned; this distinguished his society from those of the contemporary
'academies'."
- Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians
"Toward the
end of the 1730s, there were lodges in Belgium, Russia, Italy,
Germany, and Switzerland. But it seemed to have a special appeal in
France, partly because of the rage then current there for all things
British. In 1735, there five Masonic lodges in Paris; by 1742, the
number was twenty-two. Some forty-five years later, on the eve of the
French Revolution, there were perhaps 100,000 Masons in France."
- Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects
"By 1730 when
the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk was installed (prior to the first
papal condemnation of Freemasonry in 1738), there had been nine Grand
Masters, six of them nobles. The first royal Grand Master was the Duke
of Cumberland, younger son of George II, who was installed in 1782,
with an Acting Grand Master, the Earl of Effingham as his proxy. In
1787 both the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) and his brother
William (the future William IV) were initiated. The patronage by the
Royal Family of the new secret society was thenceforth assured. Queen
Elizabeth II is the present Grand Patroness."
- Stephen Knight, The Brotherhood
"Remember that
you are the Salt of the Earth, the Light of the World, and the Fire of
the Universe. You are living Stones, built up a Spiritual House, who
believe and rely on the chief Lapis Angularis which the refractory and
disobedient Builders disallowed. You are called from Darkness to
Light; you are a chosen Generation, a royal Priesthood. This makes
you, my dear Brethren, fit Companions for the greatest Kings; and no
wonder, since the King of Kings hath condescended to make you so to
himself, compared to whom the mightiest and most haughty Princes of
the Earth are but as Worms, and that not so much as we are all Sons of
the same One Eternal Father, by whom all Things were made; but
inasmuch as we do the Will of his and our Father which is in Heaven.
You see now your high Dignity; you see what you are; act accordingly,
and show yourselves (what you are) MEN, and walk worthy the high
Profession to which you are called.... Remember, then, what the great
End we all aim at is: Is it not to be happy here and hereafter?
For they both depend on each other. The Seeds of that eternal Peace
and Tranquillity and everlasting Repose must be sown in this Life; and
he that would glorify and enjoy the Sovereign Good then must learn to
do it now, and from contemplating the Creature gradually ascend to
adore the Creator."
- Eugenius Philalethes, Long-Livers (1772), preface
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