Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017

Striking a balance
Two approaches to freemasonry

I have deliberately set out this book with two very opposed but representative images of freemasonry. One image, as in Tolstoy’s story, idealizes the fraternity and its values, their impact upon introverted personal development and extroverted charity. The other, as found in popular perception and governmental policies, takes a critical view of secrecy and sees it as a threat to society and transparency in government. These views are typical representations of common and polarized perceptions, depending on the angle from which the topic of freemasonry is approached. Some people arrive at the subject through the kind of idealization we can read in Pierre’s life-changing encounter with the brotherhood, others search on the Internet, where among the tens of thousands of search results, the negative image of conspiracy overwhelmingly prevails. Some images, as perceived by practising freemasons, are shaped by the positive experience of internally communicated knowledge; others, as perceived by outsiders, are the result of a more critical stance.

This book will, in contrast with both of these positions, explore freemasonry from a less biased position, drawing on a growing body of research that has been produced over the course of the last two decades. Pioneered by academics in Europe and the USA and with a new availability of historical sources, major progress has been achieved in the academic study of freemasonry. And only solid facts can help to strike a balance between idealization and distrust. A basic chronology will be provided to enable the reader to place the themes of subsequent chapters within time and space. Furthermore, I will outline which religious and philosophical ideas in the Western tradition have shaped the worldview of freemasonry. Closely related to the ideas circulating in freemasonry, the experience of ritual and initiation forms the distinctive methodological centrepiece of masonic education. Freemasonry as a voluntary association also developed a specific organizational culture that will be explained. Although in principle freemasonry promotes tolerance, openness, and inclusion, from its inception issues of exclusion based upon gender, race, and religion have collided with its pretensions towards universality. Female freemasonry, rarely touched upon in general overviews, will be treated extensively. Finally, the relationship of freemasonry with the outside world will be explored, which, as we have seen, moves between fictionalization in works of art and literature to claims of idealization, distrust, and conspiracy.

A striking (and, to some, surprising) feature of freemasonry as a historical phenomenon is the rich abundance of sources, both in print and in material culture such as the use of symbolism in furniture and tools, artwork, badges, seals and insignia, as well as interior design and architecture. There is also a wealth of lavishly embellished objects for fraternal conviviality, such as plates, bowls, and glasses. As a phenomenon of well-organized sociability for 300 years, freemasonry has furthermore amassed minute books, membership lists, correspondence, economic accounts, and ritual texts for performance that have been filed in private and public archives and collections across the globe. Visitors to masonic museums, collections, and libraries such as those in London, Washington DC, Paris, or Bayreuth face the difficult task of making sense of the objects exhibited (which often reflect a male obsession with collecting and detail). Fortunately they are supported in their endeavour by a growing group of competent curators, archivists, and librarians who make an outstanding job of elucidating the subject in tours and specialized exhibitions.

The history of freemasonry is filled with names of notable lodges, grand lodges, and individual characters with their intriguing and often conflict-ridden interrelationships. Freemasonry has also produced a sizeable number of internal historical accounts, which challenge an unbiased understanding. To this literature must be added the great quantity of external treatments of freemasonry, starting with the 18th-century press and leading up to the present-day Internet, with both scholarly and sensationalist writings. Any balanced account of freemasonry has to consider this situation carefully. It is easy to get lost in the maze of fascinating yet elaborate internal history and historiography (charged with intramural significance) and lose sight of larger societal historical developments.