The Mystery of Masonry
by Thomas E. Weir, FPS
We take Freemasonry very much for
granted. We know what the Fraternity
does and what it stands for. However, we
judge mostly by our own experience and
what we have heard from our immediate
predecessors. What do we really know
about our Fraternity and the heritage
from which it springs? What great forces
were at work to shape both Masonry and
other social institutions of eighteenth
century England? What vestiges are
there in custom and usage of those early
Lodges? The Mystery of Masonry is how
and why the forms, uniforms and symbols of an ancient Craft became, in a few
\short years, a social force of widespread
appeal and considerable impact. The ritual of Freemasonry gives
valuable clues, although differences in ritual
are apparent. Those who travel from one
American jurisdiction to another see
many incidental differences in ways
Lodges are opened and closed and degrees conferred. The sojourning Mason
finds that the modern American version
of Masonry is very much the same in
spirit and practice from coast to coast,
even though details differ. The typical
American Lodge opens at 7:30, closes
when the Worshipful Master and Brethren see fit and serves non-alcoholic refreshments after Lodge is closed. Are all
Lodges alike?
For a different sort of Lodge, go to
London. Attending a Lodge in London
is relatively easy, and the welcome is
most cordial. Before leaving home, obtain a letter of introduction from the
Grand Secretary of your Grand Lodge.
It is also courteous to ask one's Grand
Secretary to write ahead to advise the
Grand Secretary of the United Grand
Lodge of England of your intended visit.
Visitors to London Lodges are expected
to bring aprons and gloves and to wear
dark suits and black ties. Visitors who
wish to participate in the dinner following the tiled meeting will, of course, be
responsible for the cost of the meal. Call at the Grand Secretary's office at
the Grand Lodge building in Great
Queen Street, near the Strand. The staff
will advise names, locations and pro-
grams of Lodges meeting that evening. I
was fortunate enough to be invited in by
a Lodge that conferred both the first and
second degrees on two separate candidates. Instead of the 7:30 opening usual
for most American Lodges, the Lodge
opened at 4:30 in the afternoon in one of
the many Lodge rooms in the Grand
Lodge building and closed, having conferred both degrees, about 6:00. We
passed through an arch into the Con-
naught buildings, a complex of dining
rooms adjacent to Grand Lodge. Wine
was served with dinner, another difference from American practice. The
Lodge dinner continued until 10:00
o' clock .
A second London Lodge, composed of
Scout leaders and other youth workers
and of which a close friend was Master
proceeded in much the same manner.
The Lodge met in the headquarters
building of the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, then went to the nearby Overseas League for dinner. If the form of meetings of Lodges here
and in London differ so much today,
what were Lodges and Masonry itself
like at the beginning? What are the roots
from which we have grown? We may
have mythical beginnings in King Solomon's Temple, but we, as a social rather
than a professional body, have perceptible roots not much earlier than the
formation of the Premier Grand Lodge
in London in 1717 . Accounts of the de-
liberations of the early Grand Lodge do
not indicate an interest in operative Masonry. The forces that shaped the institution of social Freemasonry must have
lain beyond the community of operative
Masonry. In 1717, when the Premier Grand
Lodge was founded, the Scottish Bishop's Wars, the English Civil War and the
Glorious Revolution which brought William & Mary to the throne were well
past. King George, a German reputed
not to speak English, had survived the
"Fifteen," a primarily Scottish revolt in
1715, intended to return a Roman Catholic to the throne. "Bonnie Prince
Charlie, " the romantic hero of the " Forty-five," had not yet been born. The
Duke of Marlborough and British troops
were regularly beating the French. Optimism was surging. Private fortunes were
blossoming, mansions were being built
by many on a scale never before
equalled. The economy was booming.
On the other hand, the ordinary London
citizen was menaced by rampant poverty, drunkenness (whiskey was eight cents
a quart; gin was cheaper), prostitution
and crime. For much of the population,
life was regularly threatened by a mixture of depravity and horror. The Church of England was the
Established Church. After the religious civil
wars of the seventeenth century, other
Christian denominations were tolerated,
but Roman Catholics and Jews were disenfranchised. Deism was the socially and
intellectually acceptable form of Christianity. Deism has been explained by de-
scribing the relationship of God and the
universe as similar to that of a watch-
maker and a watch. A watchmaker
makes a watch according to established
principles, winds it and lets it go. Thereafter, if the watch is well-made, he need
not take any interest in the watch except
a paternal satisfaction. The contention
was that God had fashioned the complexities of the universe according to His
immutable laws, then wished it well. For
those who benefitted from the expanding
economy and the dawning of the Agricultural Revolution, this was a comforting theology. In Deism, God was more
or less the god of the comfortable. John Wesley, an Oxford Don who could
have withdrawn into academic isolation,
felt, as the result of his ministry to miners
and other laborers, that a God not involved in the lives of mortals is too distant to be of practical value to ordinary
human beings. The Established Church
of his day was described in The Spectator
as, "The Conservative Party at worship." Wesley felt that self-satisfaction
was not the goal of Christianity. Thus Methodism and Masonry are
certainly the product of the same socio-economic ferment and can be said to have
been generated by the same religious and
social concern. Wesley, not intending to
leave the Church of England, organized
societies of Methodists within the Established Church. Masonry cast a wider
net, adapting the concept of the club, an
idea flourishing at that time in London,
to serve the ends of friendship, truth,
morality, brotherly love and relief. Man must have had clubs from his
earliest days. Certainly, cavemen had
clubs. The ancient Greeks had clubs
[hetaireia]. In ancient Greece, the most
common clubs were probably religious
groups organized for the worship of obscure gods not recognized by the
government. There were also political, commercial and athletic clubs, as well as
social dining clubs [symposia] whose
members met to eat and debate. The
meeting and the conversation of one of
these clubs is immortalized in Plato's
essay, "The Symposium." Instead of being like modern clubs, these groups were
simply haphazard fellowships of like-
minded persons, meeting without schedule at the call of a leader. The Romans imitated the Greeks in
this as in other matters, then the Dark
Ages succeeded the Roman Empire and
clubs fell into disuse. In the Middle Ages,
the English were unique in that they
organized what amounted to fairly complicated clubs designed to meet the needs
of members. In spite of the opinions of
most historians, who feel that the common people of the Middle Ages were too
limited in ability and opportunity or intimidated to organize for any purpose,
the English yeomanry organized groups
called parish guilds which cared for the
sick, buried the dead, provided opportunities to win and exercise leadership,
attend special church services and help
support the local church. Clergymen
were usually forbidden membership and
the Nobility were tolerated, but only as
ordinary members. There was no national organization. Although the gilds
were popular and kings patronized
them, the parish guilds were finally
wiped out by Henry VIII in 1535. After
the destruction of the parish gilds, their
structure was perpetuated by the craft
gilds of major cities, particularly Lon-
don. The idea of the club persisted.
Within a hundred years of the dissolution of the parish gilds, clubs began to be
popular again in England. In fact, the earliest known English club
was le Court de Bone Compagnie, a dining
club which flourished in the early 1400's
in the time of Henry IV, meeting in a
house near the Temple Church. In the
late 1500's, the Friday Street or Bread
Street Club met in the Mermaid Tavern
and is thought to have been founded by
Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1616, the Apollo
Club was founded by Ben Johnson. Al-
though exclusively male, it admitted
women on special occasions. These early
English clubs tended to be ad hoc organizations, in which a leader and his followers met to enjoy each other's
company. In the mid 1600's, coffeehouses became
popular in the London that replaced
Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector,
with King Charles II. Coffee houses
made it convenient for clubs to have
regular (stated) meetings at a fixed location. The landlord usually set aside a
special room for the club. Usually, the
price of the food and drink covered the
rental of the room. One may imagine the
proceedings of a Club during the reign
of Charles II to be similar to the proceedings of the dinners enjoyed today by
modern London Masonic Lodges.
Early clubs were often political, like
their Greek predecessors, emphasizing
the association of people who thought
alike. There were also purely social
clubs. In one of these, the Wednesday
Club, founded by William Patterson at
the Dog and Whistle Tavern, members
drew up the scheme that resulted in the
founding of the Bank of England. During the reign of Charles II, a
pre-eminent club was formed: The Royal
Society, or The Royal Society of London
for Improving Natural Knowledge. Virtually every distinguished British scientist of the seventeenth century belonged
to the Royal Society or its predecessor,
The Philosophical Society. Qualification
for membership was rigorous. Regular
membership was limited to those noble-
men with the rank of baron or greater.
Medical doctors and science professors
at "the two universities" (Oxford and
Cambridge) could apply for supernumerary membership. The success of the
Royal Society was assured not only by
the landmark scientific achievements of
its members, such as Sir Isaac Newton,
but also by the King's application for
membership a year after its chartering.
The popularity of the Royal Society pro-
vided the spur for the organization of
further societies for purposes other than
entertainment. The proliferation of
clubs in the eighteenth century was not
altogether beneficial. The Hell Fire Club
included many of the leading men of the
early 1700's, including an early ducal
Grand Master, and specialized in outrageous conduct. The Mohock Club terrorized the London natives by behavior
little short of barbarism. Perhaps the unconscious model for the
best British clubs was the King and his
court. The court, under the leadership of
the sovereign, had rituals, ceremonies,
degrees to be conferred, offices, honors,
banquets, revelry and fellowship, as well
as charity to be bestowed. Is it not logical
to model the ideal club after the royal
court, with all the attributes described
above. The presiding officer would rep-
resent a king! However, in the social and
philosophical ferment which were to produce the Wesleyan revival and Paine's
RIGHTS OF MAN, an assembly of
king and courtiers was not enough. A
club that caught the excitement and dynamics of the Enlightenment and ex-
pressed a conviction of the inherent dignity of man, created in the image of God,
must recognize the brotherhood and
equality of all men by having as its key-
stone the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man. Membership
should be based not on social rank,
wealth or possessions, but on the moral
worth of the individual. As at court,
charity would be an important concern
in such a club. Imagine then, a group of
men, as concerned as John Wesley about
the moral and social welfare of the country, as dedicated to the inherent brother-
hood of men as Thomas Paine and as
reverently conscious of the Fatherhood of
God as the established church. Was it possible to organize a "club"
with a set of values such that the members would daily " increase in faith, hope
and charity?" Could they devise a sys-
tem whereby the prerequisite for membership would be moral integrity rather
than social position or wealth? Could
they devise a strategy whereby such an
organization could be passed from generation to generation rather than perish
with the founders? By chance or pre-
destination, there was such a group of
men, Londoners who were "accepted"
members of four Lodges of Free (operative) and Accepted (speculative) Ma-
sons, named after the taverns where they
met: the Goose & Gridiron (in St. Paul's
Church-yard), The Crown (in Parker's
Lane near Drury Lane), The Apple Tree
(in Charles Street, Covent Garden) and
the Rummer and Grapes in (Channel-
Row, Westminster) . In 1717, they met to
form a Grand Lodge. Why choose Masonry as the pattern for
the perfect club? Certainly, the inspiration did not come from London's Worshipful Company of Masons. For all
practical purposes, the gilds of masons to
be found in every major town were not
essentially different from the other gilds
of that town. Why not form a Lodge or
guild of operative and speculative mercers, grocers or goldsmiths? The important factor was the distinction between
"itinerant" Masonry and the masons'
guilds was critical to the formation of the
first Grand Lodge. Itinerant Masonry
built the great ecclesiastical and civil
buildings of the Middle Ages with Ma
sons who were free to go from job to job.
They had developed a brotherhood and
means of recognition which offered to
every Mason a job where workmen were
needed or hospitality and a day's wages
if there were no jobs. In the sixteenth century, there was a
tendency for Masonic Lodges to settle
down in a particular location. In the seventeenth century, Masons had opened
the doors of their Lodges to men who had
formed a good opinion of the order, but
had no intention of putting one stone
upon another. Masonry provided the
framework upon which the ideal club
could be built. The Worshipful Master
sat in the East, representing a king. Officers and honors, with splendid regalia,
were available to those who could earn
them. Degrees and rituals rivalled the
impressiveness of those practiced by the
Court. Ceremonies were elaborate and
inspiring. The fellowship enjoyed by
Masons at banquets and other gatherings were sometimes spontaneous and
sometimes formal, but always designed
for the enjoyment of all participants.
Revelry, if we may judge by the accounts
of witnesses within and outwith the eighteenth century Craft, got out of hand and
had to be restrained. Charity was regularly practiced within the Craft and the
potential for charity to all in need was
unlimited. Other advantages of Masonry included the attractiveness of the
"mystery" which surrounded it and
gave the members a feeling of election in
an almost theology sense, its demonstrated ability to survive for centuries and a
system for perpetuating leadership and
ritual . London was unable to confine the
ideals and practice of Freemasonry.
Quickly, the Fraternity spread into the
English countryside, across national
boundaries until it spread everywhere
under the canopy of heaven. Our Founders, asserting the brotherhood and
equality of men and avowing our dependence upon God, established the Grand
Lodge system of Masonry and provided
the materials and the tools for satisfying
our social and achievement needs, and
have passed on those tools and materials
to us. We face a world different from
theirs with new values, new opportunities and new challenges. Let us build
today a structure for tomorrow, worthy
of the trust they have placed in us.
This file is copyright (c) 1997 The Philalethes Society.
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