Freemason
From Philosopedia
FREEMASONRY
The Masonic Square and Compasses
The Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, a fraternal order with almost three million members in the United States and six million worldwide, has been described as the largest secret society in the world.
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Beginnings
Freemasonry started among the cathedral-building guilds of 16th-century Europe, and its member masons showed their secularism by decorating the religious with gargoyles, flora and fauna, and some scenes which bordered on the grotesque.
Early Lodges
In recent times, Its membership has dropped, for example from 350,000 in the 1950s to fewer than 100,000 today in New York State. Anderson’s Constitutions (1723), the bylaws of the oldest extant lodge, the Grand Lodge of England, cite religious toleration, loyalty to local government, and political compromise as being basic to the Masonic ideal.
The first Grand Lodge in the Americas was one in Philadelphia (1730), of which Benjamin Franklin was a member. John Hancock, Paul Revere, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Voltaire, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann von Goethe, William Hogarth, Johann von Schiller, Rudyard Kipling, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Pike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Irving Berlin, and a number of world leaders have been members.
Some of the British Masons are the current patron, Prince Michael of Kent; the occasional celebrity like Arthur Conan Doyle or Peter Sellers; and various past Princes of Wales. The current Prince, Charles, turned down an invitation to join, and his father, Prince Philip, is a member but never participates.
Opponents
In 1738, Pope Clement XII issued a bull which expressed the Catholic Church’s disapproval of Masonry. Totalitarian states–most recently, Nazis and fascists in Italy, Austria, and Germany as well as right-wing politicians in the former Soviet Union and Communist China–have consistently opposed the lodge’s existence.
Fundamentalist Christians are anti-Masonry, declaring that the Masonic symbols - the square and compass - are satanic devices. By 1764, the Empress of Austria, Maria Theresa, suppressed the Masonic order, after Pope Clement XIII issued a bull In Eminenti, threatening Masons with excommunication.
According to the late Dr. William B. Ober, “The stated position of the Roman Catholic Church is that it holds that the beliefs and observances of Freemasonry constitute it a deistic or pagan religion and that the Masonic oath and secrecy imposed are canonically unlawful.”
In a 1991 best-selling book, The New World Order, religionist Pat Robertson linked Jews and Freemasons. He suggested they are co-conspirators in a “grand design” to eliminate private property, national governments, and traditional Judeo-Christian theism. Specifically, he wrote about “the world designs of a well-known but secret fraternal order,” reviving the discredited Christian right arguments of the 1920s and 1930s which were made by William Dudley Pelley and Gerald B. Winrod. William L. Fox, archivist of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern District, has accused them of believing “that Jewish capitalists and radicals, assisted by remnants of the Bavarian Illuminati, who had in their minds infiltrated European Freemasonry, were cooperating to destroy Christian civilization.” Fox denies all such charges, saying that the purpose of Freemasonry “is to provide opportunity for men of diverse backgrounds to gather in neutral territory for fellowship and charitable undertakings.”
Deism
Masonry rested on a deistic outlook. Rather than being theists, who hold that God created the universe and continues to interfere in the universe by such methods as miracles and special revelations, Masons were deistic in their elaborate symbolic rites and ceremonies.
A Great Architect of the Universe, one of the terms preferred to using the word “God,” had created the universe, but that architect does not interfere in the universe. Further, petitionary prayers to the Creator, who has moved on to other places, are unnecessary and futile.
Although few philosophers in the 20th century call themselves deists, inasmuch as more specialized philosophic choices are available, deism made a profound impact particularly during the 18th century.
In 1877, the Grand Orient of France cut out references to the “Grand Architect” and required no belief in God or immortality.
Membership Requirements
Masonry is found in some Catholic countries, for a Mason can be of any or no organized religion so long as he professes belief in the Supreme Architect of the Universe, however the individual defines the term. The Catholic Church, however, objects to Freemasonry because it is a secret fraternity which practices a “natural religion,” one which lumps the Gospel with other religions and other philosophies.
The two views, Masons hold, are not incompatible. A 1985 report to the Catholic Bishops Conference quotes the oath taken by Master Masons, or Third Degree Masons as follows:
- The swearer binds himself to upholding his duties under no less penalty than that of having my body severed in two, my bowels taken from thence and burned to ashes, the ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven. . . .
Female Masons
The first of her gender to become a Mason was Maria Deraismes, a freethinker who was invited by the Masonic Lodge of Le Pecq, near Paris, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Order of the Eastern Star, which is limited to Master Masons and their female relatives, is a subsidiary lodge. Two organizations for girls are Job’s Daughters and Rainbow Girls.
Lodges and Chapters
The organization for boys is DeMolay, named after Jacques DeMolay (who some allege was gay).
The civil and philanthropic efforts of the Masons are well-known, and the Shriners - famous for their antics at parades - are noted for their contributions to hospitals.
Secrets of Freemasonry
For more than 350 years, Masons have tried to conceal their secret rituals. Each who becomes a member takes an oath stating that if he (females are not allowed to join in the United States) reveals secrets of Freemasonry, he will have his throat cut, his tongue torn from his mouth, and his bowels burned to ashes.
However, secrets of Freemasonry have become published. For example, Warren Hoge in The New York Times (29 March 1998) revealed the following:
- To become a Freemason, for instance, a man must present himself outside the closed door of a lodge in shirtsleeves with the left breast bared, a blindfold across his eyes, a hangman’s noose draped around his neck, a shoe on one foot, a slipper on the other and one trouser leg rolled up. Upon entry, he is confronted with a dagger pointed at his bare nipple and the chanting of men in blue goatskin aprons with wands in their hands and ornamental chains draped across their chests. Even the notorious secret handshake is no longer unknown to outsiders, referred to as “profanes” in Freemason-speak. It is accomplished by pressing a thumb on the space between the knuckles, with the exact position depending upon one’s level - apprentice, fellow of the craft or master Mason - and then gripping.
Freethinkers
Fred Whitehead, in Freethought History (#24, 1997), has a scholarly article, “The Freemasonry Connection,” about Freethought and Freemasonry.
He highlights the importance of Dutch publishers in issuing Deist and dissenting books during Freemasonry’s early period, points out that Jefferson was not a Freemason but partook of the general culture of Enlightenment that prevailed in the early Republic, and notes that both the Freemasons and the Freethinkers presently suffer from declining memberships.
