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Freemasonry is not a religion. It is a fraternal order, although many Christian ideas and ideals are important to the Masons and are incorporated in their rituals. To become a Mason one must ask a friend in the Lodge to recommend him, sign a petition stating name, age, occupation, and place of residence, and all the members must vote unanimously on the acceptance. The requirement for membership is a belief in one non-specific Supreme Being. Freemasonry's basic tenets are: These basic tenets, when followed, should achieve a higher standard of life for the Masons. Masons build character by contact with the company and shared morals of their "Brothers" (fellow members). Masonry is said to take good men and make them better. It has religious undertones because of this stress on morality. Since Freemasonry is a fraternity, it also stresses the fellowship and enjoyable company of its brothers in social activities such as dinners, picnics, card/chess matches, lectures on Masonic history, etc. Masons are restricted from talking about religion or politics in the Lodges because these are controversial topics known to divide men (Dumenil, 22). Having a religion is encouraged, although there is no specific one recommended. Christianity, however, seems to prevail in the US. There is a set hierarchy of Lodges. In the United States there is a Grand Lodge in every state that has jurisdiction over all of the Lodges in the state. The jurisdiction of a Lodge determines its exact beliefs and rules. There is no higher authority than the Grand Lodge of a state. Lodges have monthly meetings called "Business Meetings" for the Master Masons. There are three levels that joining Masons must advance through by memorizing a small amount of material that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The levels are called degrees. The first degree is Entered Apprentice, the second, Fellow Craft, and the third is Master Mason. The head of the Lodge is called the Worshipful Master. Becoming a Master Mason usually takes a few months in the United States, but a mandatory three years in England. Medieval tools of Masons are still used today to symbolize important ideas of the Masons and as important parts of Masonic Ritual. An example is the level. All Brothers meet on the same level, and are equals. Other symbols can be traced to pagan and Christian religons. There is also much symbolism in the degrees of masonry. The three degrees represent a three story temple. When initiating a member, the Lodge is supposed to represent the ground floor of King Solomon's temple. The ground floor symbolizes the initiate's psychological connection with the material world. He is told that there are upper floors of the temple that symbolize his unconscious and as he advances in degrees he will advance psychologically in the understanding of his unconscious. The second Degree ceremony is held, figuratively in the middle chamber of the temple, symbolizing the soul. The third degree ceremony meets in the entrance of the Holy of Holies which has connection with the Spirit. Freemasonry is known for its ornate rituals. One of the most interesting is the ceremony in which an initiate becomes a Master Mason. In the first phase of the ceremony the initiate must swear to many things including allegiance to God and his fellow Masons. When he thinks he has completed the ceremony and become a Master Mason, his real initiation begins. He is blindfolded and has to act out the part of Hiram Abiff, the murdered master in a legend of the building of King Solomon's temple. There is much action wherein the initiate must refuse to divulge the secrets of the Masons (as Hiram did) and is murdered (hit down) and wrapped in a sheet. At the end, the five points of fellowship are explained to him, along with many Masonic symbols. The Masons are said to have secrets and are even called a secret society by many sources. Much controversy from anti-Masonic groups circles around these secrets. In the Middle Ages stonemasons had secrets about their trade that they jealously guarded. These, however, do not seem to be the secrets of Masons today. Freemasons themselves claim not to be a secret society, because membership is not a secret and their constitution, rules, aims, and principles are not secret. The secrets seem to be the mysticism that Freemasonry includes in its tradition. These include upholding the debunked sciences such as alchemy and astrology that were important to the fraternity in medieval times. Although they are understood as false today, they are very significant parts of history, and Masons realize this and keep the mysticism alive. Much of the mystical secrets of Masonry are not understood by its members today; they have not joined for partaking in these secrets, but for fraternity (Spence, 175). The secrets are supposed to be revealed to an individual Mason as he starts to probe his unconscious and understand it. There are many off-shoots of and groups associated with Blue Lodge Masonry. Some are very similar to Masonry, and some are groups for family members of Masons, including women. The Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (AASR) is actually accepted as a Masonic group, enabling members to go extra degrees, four through thirty-two, to become a Master Mason. A man must be a Master Mason (gone through the third degree) before joining the Scottish Rite. A thirty-third degree also exists and is bestowed on outstanding Masons. (Pick and Knight, 286). Similarly, the York Rite, is made up of four Masonic groups, the Craft, Royal Arch, Royal and Select Master, and the Knights Templar and consists of nine more possible degrees than Craft Masonry. The top degrees of the York Rite are the Temple degrees which require the member to swear a specifically Christian oath. In some Lodges, this does not mean that the member must be a Christian, he must just be willing to swear a Christian oath (defending the right to any religion in general, although people of other religions may understandably not want to do this) (Pick and Knight, 282-285). The Shrine is not a real Masonic body, although their complete title, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles the Mystic Shrine for North America, is an anagram for "A MASON." It was founded in 1872 and has an Arabic theme. They are known to be pleasure seekers but are still moral, and also emphasize philanthropy (Pick and Knight, 287-288). The Eastern Star was founded in 1850 and is a group for Master Masons or people properly related to Master Masons, including women. The relation can be wife, widow, sister, daughter, mother, granddaughter, step-mother, step-daughter, step-sister, half sister, and recently, nieces, daughters-in-law, and grandmothers. There are eighteen offices in each chapter, some filled by men, but mostly by women. The presiding officer is the Worthy Matron. The requirement for membership is a belief in a Supreme Being, although the New and Old Testaments are both part of the five degrees. This makes the Eastern Star a particularly Christian group (Pick and Knight, 288-289). DeMolay is a group for young men ages thirteen to twenty-one and is sponsored by Masonic Lodges. They are similar to Masons and teach seven cardinal virtues of filial love, reverence for sacred things, courtesy, comradeship, fidelity, cleanliness, and patriotism. DeMolay's are supposed to apply these virtues to their everyday lives (Pick and Knight, 289). Rainbow is a group for girls eleven to twenty, similar to DeMolay. Unlike Job's Daughters, Rainbow girls are not required to have relative who is a member in order to join (http://www.iorg.org). There are two levels to pass through (Pick and Knight, 289). Job's Daughters is a group founded in 1920 comprising descendants of Master Masons ages eleven to twenty 1. Their lessons concentrate on the book of Job with particular attention to the forty-second chapter, fifteenth verse (Pick and Knight, 289). Prince Hall Masonry was founded by a free black man, Prince Hall, during the American Revolution. A few black men were originally part of Army Lodge #441, and later applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a charter. They received it and were called African Lodge #459. They were not invited to join with other Massachusetts lodges when they combined, so in 1827 they renamed themselves African Grand Lodge #1. Many Lodges today trace their origin to this Lodge. Their beliefs are similar to that of the Freemasons (Pick and Knight, 291-292). Some other groups that are off-shoots of the Freemasons are Acacia, Order of Amaranth, Daughters of Mokanna, Daughters of the Nile, Desoms, Grotto, High Twelve International, The Ladies' Oriental Shrine of North America, National Sojourners, Inc., Philalethes, Royal Order of Scotland, Tall Cedars of Lebanon, and White Shrine of Jerusalem. There are also two Grand Lodges of Co-Masonry in the United States. These Lodges admit women as well as men and function similarly to regular Masonic Lodges with some extra degrees. III. Contemporary Issues/Controversies There are many controversies surrounding the history of the Freemasons. Much of this controversy stems from the secretive nature of the Masons. Many prominent figures including founding fathers and presidents have been Masons, and in some cases Freemasons have been accused of giving other Masons unfair advantages in job promotion, and also controlling decisions in government by being a sort of underground government themselves. And people today sometimes join the Freemasons in order to advance in their jobs (Dumenil, 23). One of the most controversial times in Masonic history in the United States was the 1820's. In 1826 Captain William Morgan, a Mason, was going to publish a book of Masonic secrets. The printers shop was set on fire by local Masons and Morgan disappeared, allegedly captured by them and put to death. Many different versions of this story are circulating. The Masons say that it is untrue that Morgan was murdered, and that he fled to Canada. Anti-Masonic groups say that his body was found a year later in a harbor and identified by his wife and dentist. Other accounts say that his body was never found. Whatever the truth, this scene caused a lot of anti-Masonic sentiment. There was even an anti-Masonic presidential candidate in the 1820's (Mackey and McClenachen, 508). Masons are blamed for scores of things. President John Quincy Adams blamed the Masons when he was not re-elected and Mason Andrew Jackson was. There are writings linking the Freemasons to President Lincoln's assassination, beliefs of Nazi Germany, the murder of Pope John Paul I, establishing the Ku Klux Klan, the Jack the Ripper Murders in England, the JFK assassination conspiracy, and many others. Most of these accounts do not seem to have much well supported evidence. There has also been much controversy surrounding the bloody language of Masonic oaths. The penalties for telling Masonic secrets include tearing one's tongue out by the roots, plucking one's heart from its breast, and having one's body cut in two with the entrails burned to ashes. This language has spawned much anti-Masonic sentiment. Some Christian groups, especially Catholics and Methodists, are historically opposed to Masonry. The bloody oaths and secrets caused the Roman Catholics to ban membership to Freemasonry and the Methodists to denounce it. Christians have also been very disturbed by Masonry's mixing of pagan and Christian beliefs. The compass and square which, along with the Christian Bible, form the Three Great Lights of Masonry, represent pagan solar gods. There are many other possible examples of mixing religions, which disturbs some members of Evangelical Christian churches (Cambell, 75-76). A recent controversy involves the history of the Freemasons. A few sources say that Freemasons did not develop out of Medieval stonemason unions, but emerged from the Knights of the Templar, a privileged class of soldier monks in Medieval Europe. The Knights were attacked by many authorities for their knowledge of the Muslim and Jewish religions, and in 1307, King Philippe IV of France ordered their arrest and a raid of their preceptories. They supposedly escaped to Scotland with all of their treasures and these scholars say that Freemasonry evolved from the Knights Templar traditions. These ideas are offered instead of the stonemason history that the Freemasons claim (Baigent). IV. Links to Freemason Web Sites A Page About Freemasonry What
is Freemasonry? e-m@son
Masonic
Civilization Famous
Freemasons How
to Become a Mason Page
of Reason The
Relationship to Other Religons Books
on Freemasonry Answering
Chompsky's Challenge The Question of
Freemasonry International Order of Rainbow
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