France. The French Revolution came close on the heels of the American Revolution and was both fired and inspired by it, but unlike the American Revolution it was brought to a dead stop when only half completed. Ever since, there have been two Frances, one of them royalistic, aristocratic, with a hierarchy of generals, Cardinals, bankers and great landlords leading it, the other one (Civil France) republican, bourgeoise with farmers in it, functionaries, small tradesmen, etc. The two Frances have been at war with each other ever since, at a few periods they have been in a civil war with each other, but they did not fall completely apart until World War II when aristocratic France openly sided with the Germans at Vichy, and republican France went underground as the Resistance.
The history of Freemasonry in France since the establishment of the first Lodges in 1725-1730 A.D. has been the story of the Fraternity's attempt to overcome within itself this national division; it has never wholly succeeded. The first Lodges were warranted by the Grand Lodge of England and were therefore regular and duly constituted according to the Landmarks and therefore recognized no social castes, and the Degrees used were inherited from the Operative Masons, but in a few years French aristocrats began to refuse to sit in Lodge with farmers, tradesmen, and artisans, and to avoid this meeting on the level they began to design 'lodges' of a new kind, and broke away not only from the Ancient Landmarks but from Masonic history. They invented the legend that Freemasonry had not been founded by Medieval workmen but by Medieval Knights, especially by the Knights Templar, and that the earliest leaders had not been Masters of Masons but Emperors, Kings, and Princes, and to accomplish their purpose they fabricated many new degrees. Until the Revolution (about 1770 A.D.) the French Masonry was predominantly aristocratic. But immediately they had won half freedom in the Revolution "the rank and file of ordinary men" (by which were meant non-aristocrats) began to set up Lodges of their own, and which were as close to the Ancient Landmarks as they could make them; their purpose was to be democratic, tolerant, non Roman Catholic, and they worked for public schools, free speech, free thought. This internal rivalry between the so-called "French Masonry" of the aristocrats, and equalitarian "republican Masonry," complicated by political invasions from without, as by the jacobites and the Fascists, could not be grasped by the American Mason even in a work of three volumes in which each detail was explained because so much of it involves questions which have always remained outside his ken. But Freemasonry does not pertmit itself to be dismembered to suit political diversions, and no Grand Lodge is "foreign" to another; French Masons might be Masons in France but that fact was of secondary importance; the fact of primary importance was that they belonged first of all to the one family of World Masonry. It is intolerable for one national government to interfere with another national government; but one Grand Lodges are not national governments, and if the Grand Lodge joins in some form of work with another it is not interfering. During the 1920's and 1930's British and American Grand Lodges were assisting French Lodges to overcome their division, and to restore themselves to the Ancient Landmarks and to Masonic history; World War II halted that work, but it will be resumed, and in due time it will succeed.
Italy. Lodges deriving their authority from the Mother Grand Lodge in London were constituted in Italy in the 1730's the decade of world-wide expansion - and would have flourished quietly and have multiplied prosperously had not the Pope issued his Bull of Excommunication in 1738 A.D. From that time on, the history of the Fraternity in Italy may be summarized by saving that it continued, but continued now under round and now above ground. Italy is the home of the Vatican; the Vatican is Italian to the bone and the large majority of Popes and Cardinals have been Italian, yet the Vatican has also always been international, and it has always been able to use the full force of its great political and financial power against its foes at home: that force took the form of religious and educational monopoly, restraint, restriction, censorship, suppression, the denial of the right of free association, the use of excommunication. The Italian has always been as likely to disbelieve the Vatican's creed as any other man he is not born a Roman Catholic; no man is; and he is as certain to resent repression, despotism, the loss of freedom, as any other man.
Britain and northern Europe. In Britain and northern Europe the rebellion against the Vatican took the form of Protestantism and set up a new theology to replace the old; in Italy the rebellion took first the form of the Renaissance, in which free men exercised their freedom in thought and in art, and second (in the Nineteenth Century) it took a political form. But since until the middle of the Nineteenth Century Italy was cut up into fifteen or sixteen separate nations, opposition to the Vatican was always divided. And since for a long time the Vatican could call in French military power to crush opposition in Italy, and at a later period could call in Austrian military power (and often did), Italian opponents of the Vatican could set up neither an army nor a church but had to work by means of conspiracy. Conspiracy works in secrecy; its typical form of organization is a secret society (such as the Carbonari); such a society often preserved its secrecy by camouflaging itself as something else and by calling itself by a name belonging to other societies. In consequence there came a time when there were many political conspirational groups which called themselves Masonic Lodges but were not, and there were Grand Bodies which professed to be doing Masonic work but were in reality doing political work. In Italy as in France regular Grand Lodges from outside came to the assistance of regular Masons inside Italy to clear away the confusion; by the 1920's they were beginning to succeed; but they were cut short by Mussolini who ordered Freemasonry obliterated.
Germany. In Germany early Freemasonry took its cue not from the Mother Grand Lodge in England but from France, and especially from the French "High Grades," the resounding and glittering mysticism of which appealed lo the dukes and princes and electors and kings who ruled the fifty or sixty tiny German states. But where the French aristocracy was social the German aristocracy tended to be religious, and for a number of generations religion was a keyword of German Masonry; even the long refusal to accept Jews into membership was more theological than racial. But here also, by the 1920's, a powerful movement began lo draw an increasing number of Lodges back into the Ancient Landmarks, and it is possible to estimate that by the time Hitler ordered Freemasonry abolished the number of regular Lodges almost equalled the number who still refused lo accept the Old Charges.
Scandinavian countries. Freemasonry in Scandinavian countries has always gone a way of its own unlike that of any other. Behind it has always been the religion of Lutheranism in the form of a state church, but the determining factor in it has always been the king, who in most instances in Denmark and Sweden has been Grand Master by virtue of being king. But Scandinavian monarchy has always been in principle almost the opposite of monarchy in France, Italy, and Germany, for where in the latter countries the monarch has always represented the greatest possible distance between the ruler and the people ruled, in Scandinavia it has always represented the closest possible union between the ruler and the people; it is as if the people ruled themselves by means of a king instead of by means of a parliament. Scandinavian Freemasonry has followed the same pattern; al the head of it stands royally, but the body of membership is as democratic as American membership.
Britain is the homeland of Freemasonry. There was always as much Operative Freemasonry in Europe as there, but Freemasonry as a Fraternity of Speculative Masons began in London, and from that center spread around the world. But the Mother Grand Lodge of 1717 A.D. was never a Masonic Vatican; it claimed no supreme authority; from the beginning it was but one among other Grand Lodges. The fact that Operative Freemasonry began in England did not make it English nor did English Masons ever claim Freemasonry to be their private property. As soon as any regular Grand Lodge was erected anywhere in the world it instantly had the same sovereignty as the Mother Grand Lodge. English Freemasonry has therefore always been characterized by a double feeling: "England is the homeland of Speculative Freemasonry, and we are very proud that it is. But we are humble enough to know that it is not our private or our national property." Freemasonry is in Britain, but it is not "British Freemasonry."
Italian Lodges have always been confronted by the Vatican itself they must look the Pope in the eye. French Lodges and Spanish Lodges have always been confronted by the Catholic Hierarchy; their conflict has been with Cardinals and Bishops, and these latter have been backed and supported by the great landlords.
Latin America. In the Latin Countries of Mexico, Central America, and South America Lodges have always been confronted by the priesthood. The cornerstone of Latin-American priestcraft, as the priests themselves understand clearly, is their hold on the woman, and through her, on the children; the man will be drawn in, according to this polity, by using his marriage to the woman as a cable tow, and by using his fatherhood of the children as a threat. Nevertheless the Latin-American man is no more a Roman Catholic "naturally" than any other man, and he often rebels against it the great Mexican Revolution under Juarez was a men's rebellion against priests, and secondarily against the landlords of whom the priests were the servants. In consequence of this history Latin Masonry has always been full of inner self-contradictions and paradoxes; it flourishes, and yet it languishes; it is powerful as a tide, and yet as weak as water; it now flies off to the extremes of Masonic orthodoxy, and then to the opposite extremes, and even sets up Lodges full of women. It is because the Fraternity represents the schisms and unbalance inside the family; the most religiously and political revolutionary of men arc likely to have a wife in love with priestcraft, and she holds the children as hostages for his good behavior. The great universal in Latin countries is neither the church nor the state but a polished and perfected etiquette, which holds together what would otherwise fly into pieces, and smooths over what would otherwise be too rough to walk upon. If our American Grand Lodges were to find a common ground in this realm of courtesies, and stay on it, and let other things stand, they would cease to deal with our Latin Brethren with such ineptitude, and would be less guilty of what Latin America takes to be our gaucheries, and would find a via media along which we and they could walk together.
Asia Minor - Middle East. The Grand characteristic of Freemasonry in the Levant, in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Arabia, Palestine, and Egypt is that it is Town Masonry, because you cannot set up Lodges on the desert, nor erect temples among the millions who live in tents; the grand characteristic of Near Eastern towns is their extraordinarily polyglot population, and since that is true a Lodge in such a town will have in it a polyglot membership. Among its forty members, if it have that many, will be twenty races, nations, colors, languages; it is a mosaic in which no two pieces are the same in shape or color. A New York Grand Master who visited a Lodge in Syria found seven languages being spoken in it; a Kentucky Grand Master who visited a Grand Lodge in Cairo found five different volumes of the Sacred Law on its altar. The note of it is therefore Masonic universality, not in its geographic sense but in its cultural and social sense. The ends of the earth meet in it, and not only meet but mingle, and Freemasonry's great significance in those strife-torn lands is this proof that they who were born foes can be born again as friends.
Asia - Far East. Asiatic Masonry, including the vast populations of India, Burma, China, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Malaya, the Philippines, Indos-China, Siam, and the East Indies (threes-quarters of the world's population) is two hundred years old. The determining factor in it, the key to it, has been colonization the planting of colonies of population, of commerce, of religion, of armies, of education. The majority of Lodges have been set up in such colonies; they have therefore begun as a foreign importation; in their early history their membership has consisted of colonizers; and since these colonizers almost always drew a hard line between themselves and the "natives" (a disgraceful word!), the Lodges remained on the White, or European, side of the line. But not even a Britisher or an American can draw up a line against "natives" and make it stick for ever, and therefore the great Masonic movement in Asia since about 1900 A.D. has been a steady increase in the number of regular Lodges with members drawn from the local population; it is as yet in its first, faint beginnings, but the movement will grow, and as the centuries pass will grow to vast proportions; we ourselves contributed all that we are able to when we made it possible for Filipinos to have Lodges and Grand Lodges of their own, free from any control by ourselves; they have already established many regular Lodges in China for Chinese members.
It is, however, in the English-speaking
countries of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa,
Australia and New Zealand that Speculative Freemasonry has had
its longest and most remarkable history, and reached the highest
pitch of power and of membership; nor is it a mystery why it has
done so because the explanation can he stated in one sentence:
Churches and Governments in English-speaking countries have left
Freemasonry alone. If those governments which are anti-Masonic,
such as Soviet Russia and Phalangist Spain, and those governments
which are afraid of it, such as Portugal and the Argentine, only
understood the Fraternity better, they would know that it cannot,
and therefore would not, interfere with or embarrass any government
which gave it the freedom to exist. It could not, because of its
own nature. For the same Freemasonry which is self-constituting
and therefore brings itself into existence, is also, and by the
same token, self-regulating; and the same Fraternity which will
not tolerate interference by churches, governments, or their agencies
will not tolerate interference with churches or governments by
its own members. What do churches and governments have to do with
it? Nothing. If it is left at peace, if it is left free, if it
is left to do its own work and in its own way, it can be itself
and do its own work in any country in the world without disturbing
that country's religion, government, or society.
Back to More About Masonry [ Next ] [ Previous ]
