Welcome back to our journey into the intriguing world of Freemasonry! In our last episode, we traced its early roots. Today, we’re continuing that journey from the 18th century to the present day.

We’ll explore how Freemasonry spread across Europe, giving rise to distinct Masonic Rites. We’ll delve into significant shifts, like the initiation of women and the introduction of Egyptian Masonry. Navigating through the 18^th, and the tumultuous 19th and 20th centuries, we’ll see how Freemasonry mirrored societal changes, faced anti-Masonry movements, and embraced diversity.

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Hello symposiast, I’m Dr Angela Puca – Religious Studies PhD and this is your online resource for the academic study of magic, esotericism, Paganism, shamanism and all things occult – including Freemasonry.

In the early 18th century, around 1730, Freemasonry began taking root. The first Masonic knightly Order, known as the ‘Ordre Sublime des Chevaliers Élus,’ was founded in France. During the same period, England saw the establishment of the first ‘Scotts Masons Lodge.’

One such lodge, the Union Lodge in London, initiated Italian painter Jacopo Fabris. In 1742, Fabris founded the Scotts Masters lodge ‘L’Union’ in Berlin, and this ignited the spread of the Scots Master degree across the continent. This was a significant development in Freemasonry, leading to the creation of new degrees that were practised in distinct bodies such as Scotts lodges and Chapters. These bodies, or lodges, were the foundation of what would later be known as a Rite, an organised system of degrees.

Several Rites emerged during this period, including the ‘Strict Observance’, the Swedish Rite, the Bavarian ‘Illuminati’, the ‘Rectified Scottish Rite’, the ‘French’ or ‘Modern Rite’, the York Rite, and the ‘Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite’. Each of these Rites offered a unique interpretation and practice of Masonic teachings.

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to have a video on each of these specific ones or one in particular.

A significant shift occurred around 1744 when some lodges began to initiate women. This led to the creation of a new trigradal system, the Adoption Rite. However, it was not until the last quarter of the 19th century that women were initiated into lodges operating in the continental tradition of the ‘Moderns’. This marked the formation of the mixed Order ‘Le Droit Humain’ in France.

In the latter half of the 18th century, a new form of Freemasonry emerged: Egyptian Freemasonry. This form suggested that the origins of Freemasonry were not tied to the medieval Crusades as previously believed but to ancient Egypt. Key contributors to Egyptian Masonry included Karl Friedrich von Köppen, who founded the Order of the (Afrikanische Bauherren) African Building Masters in 1767, and Allesandro di Cagliostro (Giuseppe Balsamo), who established Cagliostro’s Egyptian Rite in Naples in 1777.

Masonic Rites with an esoteric focus also emerged during this time, including L’Ordre des Élus Coëns, the Rite Ecossais philosophique, and the Rosicrucian Rites. The first of these was founded by the theosophist and Kabbalist Martines de Pasqually in the 1760s. Its teachings were centred around a unique form of theurgy mixed with the philosophy and theosophy of its founder.

The Rite Ecossais philosophique emerged as a successor to the Rite Hermétique d’Avignon, which was founded in 1774. It is often attributed to Dom Antoine Joseph Pernety, though this claim has been disputed by modern scholars.

Today, Freemasonry is diverse and inclusive, with male, mixed, and female Masonic Orders. Some purely female Orders were established primarily after the Second World War. The evolution of Freemasonry, from its origins through the 18th century to its present state, shows a rich history of adaptation, inclusion, and a persistent search for deeper understanding and enlightenment.

19^th CENTURY

During the second half of the 18th century, Freemasonry grew globally but faced upheaval during the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon. Rituals changed to reflect a shift from an aristocratic to a middle-class worldview, focusing more on moral behaviour than mystical experiences. These changes were reflected in different rituals such as the ‘Schröder’ rituals in Germany and the ‘Craft’ degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Paris.

The 19th century saw Freemasonry expand into colonial territories. It began to include Jews and Muslims, who were familiar with the central Masonic symbol of Solomon’s Temple from their own scriptures. The first non-Judeo-Christian initiate was a Parsee from India in the 1840s, and the first Hindus were admitted in the 1870s. Freemasonry was used both as a tool of colonial assimilation and as an emancipation tool for non-Christian members seeking recognition from the dominant culture.

However, this period also saw the rise of anti-Masonry. In the US, the ‘Morgan affair‘ led to a significant anti-Masonic movement. In Italy, the Pope issued Bulls against Freemasonry as leaders of the nationalist movement were Freemasons. This led to a misunderstanding with French Freemasons, who were predominantly Catholic, resulting in a series of anti-Masonic Bulls that continued even after the integration of the Church-State into Italy in 1870.

The Papal Bulls against Freemasonry included allegations of plotting against the Church and State, ‘indifferentism’ – accepting members of any Christian religion rather than insisting on conversion to Roman Catholicism, and advocacy for separation of Church and State, which would undermine the Pope’s worldly power and the Church’s monopoly over education.

20^th CENTURY

The late 19th and 20th centuries marked a significant evolution in the landscape of Freemasonry, particularly in relation to gender and the interplay with feminist movements.

After 1870, as feminism gained momentum, women started to be initiated into the traditionally male world of masonic lodges. This was a notable shift seen across various countries, including Hungary and Spain, with prominent women such as Countess Ilona Hadik-Barkóczy and Countess Julia Apraxin-Batthyany being initiated.

As we move forward to the end of the 19th century, we find an interesting interplay of feminism and Freemasonry in France. Here, feminist leader Maria Deraismes was initiated, setting the stage for the formation of Le Droit Humain (LDH), a mixed masonic order, in 1893. LDH adopted rituals for both male and female members, reflecting the growing presence of women in the movement.

In the early 20th century, we see the infusion of other ideological currents into Freemasonry. Annie Besant, a feminist leader and a prominent figure in the Theosophical Society, was initiated into LDH. She played a key role in imbuing masonic rituals with Theosophical symbolism, a move that resonated strongly with the cultural zeitgeist and led to a significant growth of LDH.

However, the 20th century was not only a time of growth and integration for Freemasonry. It also saw a rise in anti-masonry, which frequently dovetailed with anti-Semitism. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text purporting to reveal a global conspiracy, was used extensively in Nazi propaganda and, later, in anti-Zionist Muslim rhetoric.

Interestingly, this period also marked a softening of the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on Freemasonry. Following the Vatican II in the 1960s, conversations began between the Church and Freemasonry, lessening official opposition to the organization.

In 1985, British Freemasonry faced opposition from the Methodist Church, which was resolved without any lasting damage to the Masonic reputation. Around the same time, the anti-clerical stance of the Grand Orient de France led to its expulsion from the United Grand Lodge of England or UGLE, the largest masonic organization in France.

UGLE later laid down the “Basic Principles for Grand Lodge Recognition” in 1929, creating a criterion to determine the ‘regularity’ of a Grand Lodge. This led to a division between ‘regular’ and ‘liberal’ lodges, but recent years have seen efforts to reconcile these two groups.

In the 20th century, the first female-only Grand Lodge, the Order of Women Freemasons, was established. Following World War II, other female Grand Lodges were created globally.

Lastly, with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, male, mixed, and female masonic lodges and Grand Lodges began to emerge in most of the countries which once belonged to it, marking a new chapter in the history of Freemasonry.

Thank you for joining us on this exploration of Freemasonry’s journey through the 19th and 20^th centuries. If you haven’t watched the first episode where I cover the movement’s early history, I’d highly recommend you catch it up.

If you watched the video up until this point leave me a stone emoji in the comments and please let me know what aspects or indeed rituals or Freemasonry you’d like me to dive deeper into in future videos.

Any other comments or thoughts are also appreciated. I look forward to reading everything you have to say.

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REFERENCE

Bogdan, H. and Snoek, J. A. M. (2014) ‘The History of Freemasonry’, in Bogdan, H. and Snoek, J. A. M. (eds), Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill, pp. 13–30 [Online]. Available at https://brill.com/display/title/15580 (Accessed 15 May 2023).