Every Mason has noted that when Freemasonry is mentioned in general conversation it is almost every time discussed as if it consisted of a number of beliefs or doctrines or ideas. This is an extraordinarily interesting fact; it is extraordinary because it is wholly mistaken, it is interesting because it shows how little Freemasonry is understood among non-Masons. For some four centuries its members were Operative Masons; for about two centuries the majority of them were; during those six or more centuries it was a good thing that it did not consist of theories, beliefs, and doctrines because theories, beliefs, and doctrines could never have erected so much as one building. Builders are men, not ideas. And this is the first fact to be stated in any description or explanation of a Masonic Lodge; it is composed of flesh-and-blood men, they meet in material rooms and buildings, their work could be observed and photographed. Theories, beliefs, and doctrines can be propagated by speeches, by print, and by that osmosis of talk and rumor which carries ideas from one coast to another, but Freemasonry cannot be propagated by any such means. It exists as a group of actual men, in actual buildings, or it does not exist at all.
A Lodge is Freemasonry as it is present, and as it works in any given community. Wherever such a Lodge exists the whole of Freemasonry exists in it. To it applies the principle of all or nothing. It must have a Charter, a forum of members, a full complement of officers, it must confer three Degrees, it must have the means to carry out the Masonic Purposes, it must act according to the full number of Landmarks. Lodges cannot have one-half of Freemasonry in one community, two-thirds of it in another, three-fourths of it in another, and the whole of it in still another. If a man is made a Mason in any regular Lodge he is as much a Mason as any man made in any other Lodge.
Freemasonry is self-contained. It is uniquely itself. Members of a Lodge are not permitted to do any work except Masonic work, and would have no means to do other work even if they were permitted. If a Lodge is composed of men, they are selected men; if these men carry on a work it is a prescribed work, designed long ago, and controlled and governed according to the Craft's own rules and regulations. A Masonic Lodge is therefore a Masonic Lodge. It cannot be described as if it belonged to a class of similar bodies, but must be described in terms of itself. It would be useless for a member to arise in Lodge and say: "Other fraternities are thus and thus, therefore our Lodge should be; other societies do so and so therefore we should do it" because he would be out of order. Freemasonry is absolutely dogmatic about its own Lodges; either they are exclusively, wholly, completely Masonic or it abolishes them.
Where is the origin of any given Lodge? It is everywhere in the whole Masonic Fraternity, and it is nowhere. There is something in that origin which appears to be mysterious, something in it which appears to be miraculous. A Lodge brings itself into existence. A Grand Lodge cannot create a Lodge; it can only permit it, recognize it, and officially approve and accept it. Lodges are not manufactured, or made to order; Lodges do not mechanically multiply themselves. Then, there was no Lodge; now there is a Lodge; but no member in it can put his finger on any man, or any moment, or any place and say, "It was in him, or it was there, or it was at that moment that our Lodge began to be." The origin of a Lodge is one of the most subtle, and complex, and elusive events in Freemasonry, and because there are so few of those events the idea of it is difficult to grasp.
If a certain number of Master Masons who are in good standing, and regardless of where their Lodges are, find themselves living near each other, in a community without a Lodge, or with no convenient Lodge, they may decide among themselves, God willing, to set up a new Lodge. They begin by becoming acquainted among themselves, and by many discussions of aims and ideas and ideals and ways and means. If they find themselves of one mind they can petition a Grand Lodge for official permission. If they are in a region over which one Grand Lodge exercises exclusive territorial jurisdiction they petition it; if two Grand Lodges divide the region in which they live they can petition the Grand Lodge of their choice, or they can let the Grand Lodges decide between them which is to receive the petition; if they are in "open territory," and no Grand Lodge exercises any degree of jurisdiction over them, they can petition any regular Grand Lodge anywhere in the world - and it may be added as a digression that if any regular Grand Lodge anywhere in the world refuses to listen to their petition there is something wrong with that Grand Lodge, because it is one of the Landmarks of each regular Grand Lodge to entertain such a petition.
If the petitioners prove to the Grand Lodge that their petition is just and wise the Grand Master of that Grand Lodge will grant them a Dispensation, the authority of which is limited to a fixed time. In the United States such a Lodge is said to be Under Dispensation (U. D.); it is also described as an Inchoate Lodge, which means incomplete. Like a Candidate for the Degrees such a Lodge must petition, must possess certain qualifications, and must pass through a period of apprenticeship.
If the Lodge Under Dispensation proves itself deserving of Lodgehood it receives a Charter. In this it is given its official name, and (except in only a few Grand jurisdictions where chartered by Grand Lodge) an official number; also its jurisdiction is named. The Lodge is then consecrated, by which is meant that everything in it is set apart for Masonic uses and at the same time is officially accepted for those uses; its room or building is dedicated, by which it is publicly declared that the premises are to be used for Masonic purposes only; its Officers are installed, which means that they are officially established in their places, and are given oaths which bind them to discharge certain duties. Such a Lodge is organized, articulated, structuralized (there is a choice of terms) from top to bottom; nothing is left hanging loose, nothing is fluid, nowhere is there any uncertainty as to what there is to do. It is often said in the outside world that Freemasonry is something mysterious, or dark, or secret, or occult, and the impression left on the mind by these words is that it is mystical and vague; the largest mystery in that statement is the mystery of why anybody ever says it, because nothing could be less vague or mystical than a Lodge's form of organization; its Dispensation and its Charter are written prescriptions; every detail of it is fixed and defined; any member in it, even the newest member, can see the whole of it stand before him as definite and as plain and as understandable as a building.
In his Jurisprudence of Freemasonry (which has been more often used by American Grand Lodges than any other Masonic book) Dr. Albert G. Mackey lists "the rights and powers of a Lodge" under fourteen heads. They are reproduced here in the form of brief, running commentaries:
A Lodge has the right to retain the possession of its own Charter. If a Lodge cannot hold a Communication unless its Charter is present, if it cannot confer a Degree or accept a member or be represented in Grand Lodge without the authority inherent in the Charter, then the Lodge cannot exist without it. But according to the same rule a Lodge cannot be dispossessed of its Charter if it is lawfully held; the Grand Lodge cannot recall or suspend it except for cause after due hearing, and with due process of law; neither a clique nor a schism can alienate it, no other Lodge can take it away. The power which compels a Lodge to have a Charter confers on it the inalienable right to keep it. Furthermore a Charter protects a Lodge against un-Masonic or anti-Masonic practices among its own members, and against alien, or unwarranted or offensive interference from outside, the last being true because the authority of a Lodge Charter is recognized by the civil law.
It is axiomatic that a Lodge is a Masonic body solely and exclusively; in addition, it carries on the work of Ancient Craft Masonry solely and exclusively. It has neither authority nor duties in bodies of the Capitular, Cryptic, Templar, and Scottish Rites, and they in turn have neither authorities nor duties in it.
It is legally authorized to carry on all the work of a regular and duly constituted Lodge. It never needs to ask permission to carry on any of the work or duties of such a Lodge because it possesses ample authority within itself; for special or emergent work, or for work which may be called in question, it must ask advice, decision, or permission from the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge, but never for its regular duties.
A Lodge's relations to its Grand Lodge are (as modern logicians would describe it) multiordinal, and therefore cannot be stated in a sentence. In the first instance a Grand Lodge is constituted by three or more regular Lodges, and those Lodges therefore have prior sovereignty (though even so they never had any Grand Lodge sovereignty); in the second instance the moment a Grand Lodge comes into existence it brings with it its sovereign power, anti the Lodges which constituted it are from that moment subordinate to it. In the third instance Lodges are constitutive of the Grand Lodge because it is only as they are members of it that a Grand Lodge exists, and as Constituent Lodges they have the indefeasible right to be represented in it by their Worshipful Masters, and often by one or both of their Wardens also.
If a Lodge were a separate and independent body, free to go its own way, and were in a hurly-burly of competition or a struggle for existence, a foe could stifle it by cutting off its supply of new members. A Lodge is protected against this destruction of having its supplies cut off either by enemies or circumstances by possessing the perpetual and inalienable right of admitting new members by initiation or by affiliation. (The Mother Grand Lodge of 1717 A. D. once attempted an innovation of their Landmarks by adopting a rule that Masons could be "made" in Grand Lodge only, but the rule was very quickly rescinded.)
A Lodge has the right to choose out of its own membership its elective Officers; the elective Officer or Officers have the right to choose the appointive Officers. This is one of the cornerstones of the Masonic system because it is a plain and unequivocal proof that a Lodge has the same absolute sovereignty within itself and over its own jurisdiction that a Grand Lodge has over its jurisdiction. The body of members is a legislative body within a restricted area, but it is the Worshipful Master who rules and governs; he is assisted by his Wardens and helped by the Deacons and Stewards; the Secretary, Treasurer, and Tiler have no governmental functions. No Lodge is ever ruled and governed by either the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge; if a Grand Master were to usurp the function of Lodge Officers the aggrieved Lodge could cite him for Masonic trial before Grand Lodge; if a Grand Lodge usurped them other Grand Lodges would withdraw their recognition from it; a Lodge rules and governs itself; it does not do so, however, by direct action of its members but by means of its Officers.
A Lodge has the right to Install its own Officers. The Ceremony of Installation means that the place or station, duties, rights, and prerogatives of each office are in the Landmarks, and are fixed and defined by law; they cannot be amended by discussion or altered by vote of the members, nor are they revised or altered by the officers themselves. An Officer is an incumbent; he has complete authority to discharge the duties of his office but no authority to decide what those duties are; and his oath is to his office. Each Officer occupies his office continually during his term, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the Lodge jurisdiction; he is not therefore one who was installed but is in continual installation, and therefore is called an Installed Officer.
A Lodge makes its own By-laws. These have the same absolute and final authority within their own field (or jurisdiction) that the constitutional and general laws of the Grand Lodge have in theirs. A Grand Lodge may prescribe a form, in order to have uniform practices among its Lodges, and it may name the heads to be covered by a Lodge's By-laws, but no Grand Lodge can write By-laws for any Lodge (tho uniform by-laws may be suggested and recommended). A Lodge can have provisions in its own By-laws peculiar to itself because no two Lodges work under the same circumstances, but the provisions must not violate the Landmarks, and must be consistent with Grand Lodge laws.
Dr. Mackey states that a Lodge has the right "to levy a tax upon its members." Jurisconsults have since disagreed with Dr. Mackey in his use of the word "tax" because they hold that there is very little similarity between dues collected by a Lodge and taxes levied by a state. A tax is a charge on its citizens imposed by the government; dues are a Lodge member's pro-rated share in the year's expense of running the Lodge. When members decide by ballot what expenses are to be incurred they decide in so doing, and to that extent, what their dues shall be. Taxes are levied against funds and properties of fixed value; dues are levied against no funds or properties; their basis is not in units of fixed value but in decisions made by the Lodge. It is a Landmark that a Lodge member must pay his own equal share of his own Lodge's expenditures, and he can be suspended or expelled if he refuses to do so.
If when acting within their rights and prerogatives the body of members vote to have the Lodge act in a certain way, and if what is voted entails action by the Master, the Master must take that action, and can make no appeal from his own members, but when he acts to carry out the duties inherent in his office no appeal can be taken from his act to the floor of the Lodge. If a Master is guilty of malfeasance, if he neglects his office, if he so acts as to endanger the existence or good name of his Lodge, the members can appeal from his decisions or actions to the Grand Lodge. Subject to the approval of the Grand Lodge, a Lodge has the right to select its own name (if not a duplicate of an operating Lodge's name). A number is given to it by Grand Lodge. It can designate or change the time and place of its meetings as provided in the by-laws. It has complete penal jurisdiction over its own members, and it has summary penal jurisdiction over members of other Lodges who are residing or visiting in its jurisdiction.
Any organized body of men which works under constitutional and general laws, by-laws, rules and regulations, which are fixed or permanent, always finds that new occasions arise, unpredictable events, unforeseen emergencies, which require action or decision but are not covered by laws and rules; and so is it with a Lodge. No more interesting question can be asked of the jurisprudence of any organized body than that as to how it provides for these contingencies. In some organizations such questions go to some final body or committee which is in principle a supreme court, or a court of last appeal; in others they go to some officer. A large number of methods are in use, and among themselves they are unlike each other not only in form but in principle. In Soviet Russia a question not already covered by law is referred to one authority after another of wider and higher jurisdiction until it may be decided finally by the action of the whole organized nation of two hundred million citizens; in the polity of the Roman Church a similar question travels in an opposite direction and may be referred to bodies of men of ever-decreasing number until it is at last decided by one man - the Pope.
Freemasonry's method for deciding a question
not included in already-existing laws and rules is to put the
whole Fraternity at the questioner's disposal, and then to let
him decide it according to his own wisdom and intelligence. The
means at a Lodge's disposal for making a decision on unclassifiable
or unprecedented questions almost are numberless, as is shown
by a typical but partial list of them: A Master can use his own
judgment; the officers can confer among themselves; it can possibly
be discussed and decided on the floor; the Master may confer with
Past Masters or his most experienced members (their role in a
Lodge is larger than it may appear to be); the Grand Master, or
other Grand Officers may be consulted; it may be carried into
Grand Lodge; the Lodge may seek for light in Masonic literature;
the question may be answered by pure reasoning; it may be answered
temporarily, tentatively, experimentally; etc. No Lodge is ever
brought to a dead stop because it has run out of laws and rules;
in the last resort it can always entrust itself to the intelligence,
wisdom, and character of its own members.
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