Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017
Freemasonry and the press—topics and trends
Perceptions, prejudices, and persecutions
From the very moment modern freemasonry entered the associational world of early 18th-century London, it featured in the urban press. No less than 12,000 references relating to freemasonry were found in the British press between 1709 and 1813. The sheer number of press references shows just how visible and public freemasonry actually was during that period: with that level of notoriety, freemasonry could hardly be called secret.
Nonetheless, the issue of secrets and secrecy in freemasonry was (and is) among the most prominent in relation to the fraternity that have been addressed in the press. Secret signs, words, places, modes of recognition, and rituals fire the imagination of those in the media, and their audience, the former clearly prospering from the topic. Negative focus has also been on the concept of members taking the masonic oath. Aside from religious objections, it has been argued that taking an oath in a private association undermines one’s loyalty to the State authorities. Criticism of the masonic oath only deepened with the revelation of the penalties attached by the fraternity to breaking this oath—torture and capital punishment—even when freemasons assured the public that these penalties were only to be understood on a symbolic level.
The exclusion of women flamed suspicion that freemasons were engaged in sodomy. Masonic conviviality was denounced as a bacchanalian excess of intemperance and gluttony, and membership was denigrated as fraudulent and immoral moneymaking on behalf of the lodges. The fraternity’s social exclusivity as well as their bridging of different social strata were also questioned, particularly during the 18th century when social equality was an issue. Despite its fraternal egalitarianism on the level of ideas, freemasonry retained an aura of elite sociability, which nurtured the perception of there being a close affiliation between the fraternity and other influential groups in society that were in positions of political or economic power.
On a positive note, freemasons were seen to be openly engaged in cultural life, regularly visiting theatre performances and readings of various masonic prologues or poems. Masonic processions publicly displayed both their members and their symbols. Charitable projects in the wider community, which were often of a novel and ground-breaking character, were reported on extensively. Masonic sociability was publicized in different ways and thus promoted the success of the fraternity as a visible feature of British mainstream culture. The press and the fraternity developed a mutually beneficial relationship since reporting on freemasonry led to enhanced circulation of media publications while expanding advertising revenue. However, as discussed earlier, despite these public appearances that promoted a sense of transparency, freemasonry was not exempt from criticism and ridicule. In 1741—2, a mock masonic procession called the ’Scald Miserable Masons’ was enacted in London and images of it were disseminated in print. Hogarth captured the anti-masonic irony of the period in some of his prints, most notably ’Night’ and ’The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormogons’.
The ’Gormogons’ was the first anti-masonic fraternity (among several to follow); it was established in the 1720s by disillusioned masons, imitating and mocking the form and content of freemasonry. The presumed antiquity of the craft and its mysteries were frequently derided. Throughout the history of freemasonry, schisms or the formation of pseudo-masonic bodies—from the Gormogons to the secret Italian lodge, Propaganda Due—have generated publicity and attention, circulating sensational revelations in all forms of media. Starting with the printing of parts of the masonic catechism in the press and with Masonry Dissected (1730), the first full-text publication of the ritual (with at least thirty editions up to 1800 and translations into most other European languages), exposure literature became an integral feature of media coverage.
The most momentous association, however, was that between freemasonry and politics. The tone of The Constitutions and the patronage and membership of 18th-century English freemasonry already placed it close to the new Hanoverian dynasty. The press expanded its coverage of freemasonry, especially after the first governmental oppressions in European cities such as Florence, The Hague, Bern, and Paris, culminating with the first papal condemnation of freemasonry in 1738. A steady stream of vindications of freemasonry appeared in print in the period immediately after the papal condemnation. By the end of the 1730s, freemasonry had emerged as a transnational media topic in the periodical press in Europe and beyond. Yet another peak of transnational media coverage then occurred in the aftermath of the exposure, L’Ordre des Franc-maçons trahi (1745), a publication that was immediately translated into a number of languages. L’Ordre also marked the start of a dynamic period of print outlets such as handbooks, pocket companions, almanacs, anthologies of orations, songbooks, and so on, primarily produced for a masonic target audience. In many cases, a significant reason for these publications was a bid to counterbalance false rumours and negative publicity; however, it is clear that the growing (and rather privileged) membership of masonic lodges across Europe was creating a demand for specialized reading as well as news coverage.
The first major journals entirely dedicated to a masonic reading public were the Journal für Freymaurer, appearing in no fewer than twelve volumes between 1784 and 1786 in Vienna, and the Freemasons’ Magazine, published in London between 1793 and 1799. The Journal was issued in 1,000 copies and distributed across the vast territory of the Habsburg Empire. The establishment of the Journal must be seen against the backdrop of almost unprecedented news coverage of freemasonry in the German press during the 1780s and 1790s. More than 100 articles on this topic, totalling more than 1,200 pages of print, appeared in German periodicals of the Enlightenment period, with a clear peak in readership during the immediate pre-Revolution era. The Freemasons’ Magazine appeared in eleven volumes between 1793 and 1798 (slightly preceded by the Sentimental and Masonic Magazine, published in Dublin between 1792 and 1795). In 1797, it was renamed the Scientific Magazine.
This magazine can be regarded as an archetype of later masonic periodicals, which further evolved into a veritable masonic press by the middle of the 19th century; and some of these periodicals survived well into the 20th century. During the first century of their existence, masonic periodicals took part in the on-going debates and controversies surrounding freemasonry in the culture and society of their time; however, in due course they turned their focus more on purely internal issues, attempting little connection with the outside world.
Ramsay’s ’Discours’ linked freemasonry to the chivalric orders of the Crusades, which predominantly influenced the internal development of freemasonry between 1740 and 1780. In the 1780s, however, in connection with the collapse of the Knights Templar rite of the ’Strict Observance’ (1782) and the discovery and prohibition of the Bavarian ’Illuminati’ (1785), anti-masonic arguments assumed a considerably more ideological character. A sinister twist was introduced into the anti-masonic narrative, focusing on presumed plots by secret forces, either in support of radical Enlightenment groups or its irrational opponents. The subject was complex and contradictory. In some cases, the Templar element was used as an indication of secret Jesuit machinations, explaining why these forms of freemasonry were branded as ’crypto-Catholic’. In other cases, the Templar myth was assigned a political meaning, since the French Revolution could be interpreted as a ’revenge’ against the French monarchy and Church. Illuminati infiltration of masonic lodges (whether true or imagined) provided so-called proof that freemasonry was not immune to exploitation for political purposes, and that an initiated hierarchy of ’unknown superiors’ was secretly pulling the strings of other members who had been kept in a state of ignorance.
The American Declaration of Independence (1776) was generally met with enthusiasm or at least with compassion by members of the educated European elites. Nevertheless, the events of the French Revolution—the execution of the royal couple, the introduction of uncompromising secular republicanism paired with a universal declaration of human rights, and, finally, the reign of terror—challenged the tolerance of the general public and profoundly alarmed sovereigns across the continent. In the fevered search for culprits that followed the Revolution, it was only a matter of time before intense focus was directed on secret societies in general and on freemasonry in particular. The bottom line of the conspiracy argument was that freemasonry represented one of the radical Enlightenment forces that undermined traditional authority—both secular and sacred.