Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017

From darkness to light

Live performance of ritual constitutes the centrepiece of activities in freemasonry and is one of the defining features that distinguish it from the majority of other associations. The rituals of freemasonry developed during the 18th and 19th centuries and have since remained unchanged in their general design. Masonic rituals take place inside (and partly outside) the lodge according to a more or less predefined script (the ritual text) as a dramatizing performance in ritual and real time—much like a musical score and a concert, or a play and its performance. Rituals fulfil three major functions: initiation (establishing a demarcation between the internal and external worlds), the transmission of further knowledge at higher or deeper levels in the insider’s community of knowledge (performing the emblematic function), and investiture in a particular office or status. The initiate or candidate and his experience is at the centre of ritual performance. In a Western context, ceremonies in freemasonry are one of the rare secular instances that involve the practice of rituals of initiation.

Ritual is an integral feature of human cultures across the globe. The most common understanding of ritual in cultural studies is that rituals are celebrated at the passing through or transition between significant stages in individual or collective life biographies, such as adolescence, marriage, and death. These rituals follow a common structure: in the first phase, the previous life stage or position is left behind (separation); in the second phase, a state of transition between the old and new states is established (liminal); and in the third and final phase, the integration into a new state (incorporation) as a form of re-birth is accomplished. In the liminal phase, the rules of ’normality’ do not apply; the candidate—often in an altered state of consciousness—frequently encounters a surreal world that is turned upside down and in which his character is supposed to change.

However, a strong non-Western bias has existed in cultural studies, in that rituals of initiation (Figure 5) have long been associated with ’traditional’ cultures. It is only comparatively recently that scholars have directed their attention towards Western esotericism and thus freemasonry and other initiatory societies. In short, Western esotericism circles around the individual effort to gain spiritual knowledge, confronting the individual with divine aspects of existence.

5. Initiation: the apprentice receives the light (end of 19th century).

As derived from medieval guild practices, freemasons originally only practised rather straightforward rituals related to admission, fellowship (which often included travelling for a specific period of time), and mastery, with huge variation in rituals between different countries. By 1725, however, an elaborate three-degree system of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason was in place in England. From around 1730, and certainly from 1740 onwards, additional higher degrees were added. Historically, particular sets of degree structures have been organized into specific ’rites’, which serve as defining features that distinguish between different masonic bodies.

Masonic rituals are placed within a symbolic narrative framework pointing progressively forward through the degree structure. In the lodge room, the ritual is framed by opening and closing rites, marking the start and end of the ritual ceremony. The purpose of these rites is to establish a secret and sacred space that is delimited from the outside world, and a symbolic time (different from real time) in which the ritual unfolds. The interior of the lodge must be arranged with special furniture and symbolic items; thus, a three-dimensional virtual space—an ’other world’—is created for the performance of ritual. The ritual, in turn, is impossible without the interaction of several freemasons dressed in special regalia, along with the most important among them, the officers of the lodge. Their lines and words in the ritual (which frequently take the format of an exchange of questions and answers), and when and how these are spoken, bring the ritual play to life (transforming space and time), along with symbolic gestures and movements performed inside the lodge. Apart from the officers of the lodge, who hold a direct ritual function, the attending freemasons are integrated into the ritual play but generally remain third-party spectators.

Rituals are primarily enacted for the individual initiate or candidate (or sometimes a group of them) and his (or their) experience (see Figure 5). Self-initiation is impossible. The ritual has a preparatory phase outside the lodge, followed by a ritual entrance into the lodge, with further events then occurring inside. The candidate receives tokens related to his new status and is instructed about the symbolism of the degree or (as in the case with The Constitutions) on some moral or mythological aspect of freemasonry. As a rule, lodge meetings are followed by a meal, which is also more or less ritualized. Rituals for the transfer of new knowledge at a deeper level or of investiture follow the same general pattern.

Within this basic performative structure (see Box 1), the variety of content for different degrees is in theory unlimited. As such, masonic rituals resemble other typical form-bound expressions of baroque culture, such as the classical symphony with its relatively fixed arrangement of consecutive movements. Since the 18th century, a plethora of fraternal orders have copied the ritual pattern of freemasonry and filled it with arbitrary—even ironic or mocking—content.

Box 1 Structure of masonic rituals of initiation

1. Opening of the lodge (without the initiate present).

2. Preparation of candidates for initiation (outside the lodge).

3. Entry into the lodge (after candidates have responded to questions).

4. Circumambulations around the lodge (during which the candidates are put to the test).

5. Taking an oath of secrecy and fidelity (with penalties spelled out).

6. Formal admission to the degree (acceptance into the community).

7. Instruction in the secrets/teaching of the degree (questions and answers, oration).

8. Receiving visible tokens, a symbolical name or motto of the degree (marking internal hierarchy).

9. Closing of the lodge (with initiates present).

10. ’Table lodge’ (formal dinner).

Comment: Although a table lodge almost always is a feature of masonic lodge meetings, it is disputable whether it is a part of the ritual or not; however, on the level of formal sociability, it certainly is.

(Adapted from Henrik Bogdan, Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation 2007, Table 2.1.)

Another way of understanding masonic ritual is to consider the rhetoric and emblematic tradition of freemasonry, which, as has been discussed, is derived from the Renaissance revival of antiquity. Depending on which authors or schools of rhetoric it comes from, the development and performance of a piece of oration is divided into different parts, such as: invention, the disposition, and the division of arguments (i.e. the opening, in which a statement of the case is made; the proof of the case through examples; recapitulation; and a final statement), and style and delivery.

The candidate and what he is exposed to can thus be likened to the argumentation of an orator: the candidate (i.e. the subject of the oration, which is expounded in a pre-planned schedule of arguments) serves as a living example of the statement that is being made. If this idea of the ritual as a piece of rhetoric is united with the emblematic component of the ritual, the lodge room then functions as a physical backdrop within which emblematic situations are three-dimensionally staged. That said, it is obvious that the bodily experience of ritual is of paramount importance in the process. In performance theory, this has been called an ’engrammatic effect’. Theatre scholar Kristiane Hasselmann argues that the repeated physical experience of the masonic ritual drama is inscribed into the body and accustoms the candidate to certain behaviour in society—a so-called ’habitus’.