‘Cole’s Constitutions?’

    

Donald-Kern paper

Benjamin Cole’s Constitutions actually was printed in 1729, but was ‘prepared in advance of Lord Kingston’s installation as Grand Master in December 1728,’ according to Ian Donald’s and Marshall Kern’s paper. (Interestingly, Kingston would become Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland a few years later.)

I learned of something Sunday night during a Zoom meeting of the Masonic Library and Museum Association. It arose from a side comment during a discussion about, of all things, insurance.

My own role during the meeting was to reveal the embryonic flatplan of the newsletter I’ll start producing for the association this month. That took two minutes and then we continued through the agenda. It was during a conversation about having valuables professionally appraised and insured that this unexpected gift materialized.

Bro. Ian Donald, Grand Librarian of the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario, mentioned how his library could not arrange insurance on irreplaceable treasures, such as its copy of Cole’s Constitutions.

My senses heightened—as whenever I suddenly detect the aroma of a Cavendish pipe mixture.

Cole’s Constitutions?

An interrupting question about it would have been untimely, so I jotted the name in my notes to look it up later. One item we find through a simple Google search is the paper “Benjamin Cole’s 1728 Constitutions: a footnote to Masonic history” written by the same Ian Donald and Ontario Grand Historian Marshall Kern (also in the Zoom meeting), with additional material by Ric Berman.

Find that here on Quatuor Coronati 2076’s Inventing the Future website.

Donald-Kern paper

“Benjamin Cole is relatively well known,” say the authors. “He was almost certainly born in Oxford, and lived and worked in Oxford and London. He was the first of three generations of the Cole family to work not only as engravers and printers, but also as official engravers to the Grand Lodge of England.”

“Cole’s 1728/9 Constitutions were reprinted in 1731 but the book failed to achieve widespread acceptance,” they also report. “It is relatively easy to understand why. Cole’s Constitutions harks back to the medieval Old Charges, including a duty ‘to be true to the King and the Lord that they serve,’ and a recital of principally operative obligations. It is in many respects at some distance from the Enlightenment principles and enjoinments expounded by Desaguliers, Payne, and Anderson in the 1723 Constitutions, and almost a regression towards the past rather than a pivot on which Freemasonry turned to the future.”

Donald-Kern paper

I want to see the book if for no other reason than to have ‘The Fairy Elves Song.’

A terrific paper about what sounds like an absorbing oddity. Check it out and maybe win a drink in a bet at the bar after a meeting sometime.

My thanks to Bro. Ian for mentioning it the other night.

     

‘Berman to return as Prestonian Lecturer’

    

Bro. Ric Berman, of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076 among others, will serve again as Prestonian Lecturer in the New Year.

Every year, the United Grand Lodge of England selects one scholar to travel around the jurisdiction and present his research at the invitation of lodges. Typically a charity is made beneficiary of whatever proceeds from the sales of the book of the lecture, and sometimes the lecturer travels abroad too.

Bro. Ric has come in this way and manner before; he was Prestonian Lecturer in 2016. Next year, his subject will be “The Second Grand Lodge: the Grand Lodge of Ireland, the London Irish, and Antients Freemasonry.”

Yes!

(The Marshal of my lodge called me a nerd yesterday, intending it in a most complimentary way, because I do get excited over these things.)

The book is available via Amazon already. Ten bucks!

The last time he had the job, he visited America for a short tour during which I was able to book him for a stop at New Jersey’s research lodge. Hopefully he’ll come this way again.

I’m a big fan of the Prestonian Lecture tradition, but I’m not an expert in its history so I can’t name another lecturer who has been appointed a second time. Bro. George Boys-Stones recently had two consecutive years, but that was because the pandemic ruined his intended tenure.

I wonder about the Prestonian’s future. The current honoree is an American—Bro. Akram Elias, Past Grand Master of the District of Columbia. Is English Freemasonry running short on scholars? I’m active in three research lodges and I can see hardly anyone is interested in researching and writing about Freemasonry, and going on tour to present the work. It’s a rarely considered aspect of the shrinking of the Masonic fraternity.

     

‘Esotericism and Masonic Connections’

     

The Ninth International Conference of Freemasonry is scheduled for Saturday, April 10.

The day-long affair will begin at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Titled “Hidden Meanings: Esotericism and Masonic Connections,” it will be a webcast bringing together top scholars you’ve been following for many years.

Register here.

Ric Berman, John Cooper, Shawn Eyer, Adam Kendall, and Will Moore will be among the presenters—and there’ll be more heavy hitters during those eight hours.

     

‘UCLA’s Esotericism and Masonic Connections’

     

Next April will see the ninth annual International Conference on Freemasonry at UCLA, this time with the theme “Hidden Meanings: Esotericism and Masonic Connections.”

The theme is important, because the conference is moving forward without the political content that characterized previous events there, and now is organized under official California Masonic auspices.

From the publicity:

Hidden Meanings: Esotericism

and Masonic Connections

UCLA International Conference

on Freemasonry

Saturday, April 18, 2020

9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

UCLA: 330 De Neve Drive

Covell Commons, Grand Horizon Room

Los Angeles

Tickets here

Freemasonry offers everyone a pathway to self-improvement, fellowship, and community. For the committed few, it holds the promise of even more.

For more than 300 years, Masonic teachings and symbolism have attracted those in search of deeper, secret meanings about the natural and even supernatural world. These esoteric pursuits, shrouded in mystery and mysticism, have endured through the centuries and even today continue to fascinate seekers around the world.

On April 18, 2020, experts and scholars on Freemasonry will meet on the campus of UCLA to discuss the eternal quest for esoteric knowledge and its broader relationship to the craft. The ninth annual UCLA International Conference on Freemasonry is a rare chance for Masons and non-Masons to dive deep on metaphysics, antiquity, and the occult.

Freemasonry and the Esoteric:

Elitism, Insecurity, and

Unenlightened Self-Interest

Ric Berman, author of several books

on Freemasonry, including Espionage, Diplomacy & the Lodge

Although Masonic esotericism hints at ancient secrets, it was in fact not widely introduced into the craft until the 1730s—a means of appealing to an elite aristocratic and mostly French audience. The success of that marriage in the eighteenth century led to Freemasonry’s systematic introduction into the United States, a consequence not of politics or spirituality but economic self-interest.

The Esotericism of the Esoteric

School of Masonic Research

Henrik Bogdan, professor of Religious Studies, University of Gothenburg

The founding of London’s Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1884 gave birth to a new school of Masonic history and research, based on legitimate texts and study rather than the subjective or “inspired” Masonic writers of the past. However among this new school were a subset of scholars approaching research from what historian R.A. Gilbert called the “Esoteric School of Masonic Research”—part of a broader milieu of fin-de-siecle occultism.

Hidden and Visible:

Mormon Garments in Community

Nancy Ross, assistant professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences,

Dixie State University

Weighted with meaning, sacred (and secret) undergarments have long been a highly important, though seldom discussed, part of the Mormon church. Indeed, across religions, sacred garments like these have presented profound dilemmas and indicated deeper meanings for wearers and their broader communities.

Freemasonry and Neoplatanism

Jan Snoek, historian of religions,

Institute of Religious Studies,

University of Heidelberg

Several philosophers, expanding on the teachings of Plato, developed theories without which Freemasonry could never have found its form. From Abbot Suger’s construction of the church of St. Denis—Europe’s first gothic cathedral, dedicated to light and beauty—to the third-century parable of the sculptor who must perfect himself, meet the thinkers who paved the way for modern Masonry.

Stephen Freeman

on Antigua and London:

A Respectable Rosicrucian

Susan Mitchell Sommers, professor

of history, Saint Vincent College

The recent discovery of a single surviving pamphlet by a quack doctor, Stephen Freeman, living in Antigua in the late 18th century offers a rare glimpse into not only the thinking of a fringe medical professional, but also paints a stunning portrait of the lives of striving middle-class emigrants in the West Indies struggling for respectability. Largely by leaning on connections through societies including the Freemasons and esoteric Rosicrucians, those like Freeman hoped to improve their lot in society and find deeper meaning—in both cases, often unsuccessfully.

The UCLA International Conference is sponsored by the California Masonic Foundation and the Grand Lodge of California.
     

‘Masonic Knowledge on March 17’

     
Don’t forget the Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge next month. I’m going. Ric Berman and Adam Kendall will be the presenters at the spring session. I haven’t seen Ric in two years, and I cannot even remember the last time I met up with Adam. From the publicity:

Pennsylvania Academy

of Masonic Knowledge

Saturday, March 17 at 9:30 a.m.

Freemasons Cultural Center

Masonic Village

1 Masonic Drive, Elizabethtown

Register here

Bro. Richard (Ric) Berman was the 2016 Prestonian Lecturer of the United Grand Lodge of England. Berman is the author of Foundations of Modern Freemasonry now in its second edition; Schism, which examines the conflict between the Moderns and Antients; Loyalists & Malcontents, a history of colonial Freemasonry in the American Deep South; and Espionage, Diplomacy & the Lodge. Bro. Berman, a Freemason for forty years, holds Senior London and Provincial Grand Rank. He is a Past Master of the Marquis of Dalhousie Lodge 1159 (EC); Treasurer of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076 (EC), England’s premier research lodge; and a PM of the Temple of Athene Lodge 9541 (EC), the research lodge of the Province of Middlesex.

Foundations: New Light

on the Formation and Early Years

of the Grand Lodge of England

2016 Prestonian Lecture

The lecture explores the evolution of Freemasonry, queries long-standing myths, and explains the step change that occurred with the creation of the first Grand Lodge of England in 1717. Ric outlines the connections between Freemasonry and the British establishment in the eighteenth century, and how and why its leaders positioned Grand Lodge as a bastion of support for the government.


Bro. Adam G. Kendall is the editor of The Plumbline for the Scottish Rite Research Society and a member of its governing board. He is a Past President of the Masonic Library & Museum Association, and the former Collections Manager and Curator of Exhibits for the Henry W. Coil Library and Museum at the Grand Lodge of California.

For more than a decade, he has presented at several international symposia—most notably, the World Conference on Freemasonry & Fraternalism at the National Library of France; the British Association for American Studies at Exeter University (BAAS); the International Conference on the History of Freemasonry (ICHF) in Edinburgh; the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH); The Quarry Project, University of California Los Angeles; and the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts. In addition to his public presentations, documentaries, and exhibits, he has published several essays and reviews in notable publications such as the European Journal of American Culture, Western Museums Association, The Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, The Journal of the Philalethes Society, Heredom, and Ahiman: A Review of Masonic Culture and Tradition.

Bro. Kendall is a Past Master of Phoenix Lodge 144 in San Francisco, and a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076 in London.

The Geometry of Mystery:

Ancient Egypt, Freemasonry,

and Secret Societies

The opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 set off a world-wide craze for all things Egyptian-inspired, but it was by no means the first wave of “Egyptomania.” Ancient Egypt has been a land of mystery and wonder for the West for three thousand years. It has influenced art, architecture, mathematics, literature, and religion. This presentation is an examination of the real and imaged cultural legacy of Ancient Egypt, the history of the romanticism of this venerable civilization, and how its powerfully influential tradition of exotic and esoteric wisdom claimed by secret societies and mystical fraternities is only loosely based upon historical reality.

Please recognize that a cost is incurred to the program for your registration. If you pre-register and subsequently determine that you will be unable to attend, please have the Masonic courtesy to cancel your reservation by the same method and providing the same information.

Registration will open at 8:30 a.m. with the program beginning at 9:30 a.m.

A lunch (requested contribution of $10) will be served at noon, and the program will be completed by 3 p.m. All Masons are welcome to attend. Dress is coat and tie.
     

‘Ric Berman to return to New Jersey’

     
Thank you all for reading The Magpie Mason. With this post, we begin our tenth year together.

The first post on this website, on this date nine years ago, told of a lecture presented that evening by a Past (2004) Prestonian Lecturer in New Jersey. This post tells of another Past (2016) Prestonian Lecturer who will visit New Jersey in a few months for a speaking engagement.

Bro. Richard Berman

New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 hosted Bro. Ric Berman in January of last year for a terrific dinner-lecture. He tells me he will return to New Jersey in January of next year for another event, this one hosted by a different group.

When those details are confirmed, I’ll share them here.
     

‘Prestonian Lecturer visits LORE’

     
Five weeks have passed already, so before that becomes five years, let me share a little about the visit of the 2016 Prestonian Lecturer to New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786. We hosted a dinner in Scotch Plains January 14 to welcome Bro. Richard “Ric” Berman of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Berman visited our beloved research lodge to present his historical lecture. Forty-five Masons from all over New Jersey, plus Pennsylvania, New York, and the Czech Republic(!) gathered at the Stage House Tavern to be among the first in the world to hear Bro. Ric’s lecture, titled “Foundations: New Light on the Formation and Early Years of the Grand Lodge of England.”

Courtesy Martin Bogardus

Prestonian Lecturer Ric Berman and David Tucker, Master
of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786.

Magpie file photo

I keep seeing this photo all over the web.

The Prestonian Lecture is an English Masonic tradition that dates to 1822. It is named for William Preston, the author and printer and ritualist whose book Illustrations of Masonry provides the basis of the ritual used in New Jersey and most of the English-speaking Masonic world to this day. He died in 1822 and bequeathed the sum of £300 to the United Grand Lodge of England for the purpose of endowing a lecture of Masonic education that would be presented to the brethren every year. This endured to the 1860s, when it fell into abeyance, but the tradition was revived in 1924 and—except for the years of World War II—has continued to the present day, with the UGLE’s Board of General Purposes selecting a Prestonian Lecturer annually.

In 2016, the honoree is an authority on 18th century Freemasonry, having published three books on those early decades of the Craft. Ric holds a doctorate in history from the University of Exeter, and a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge. (In a previous life, before becoming the academic researcher and author who joined us that night, Ric had a career in international finance.) He was a Senior Visiting Researcher at Oxford’s Modern European History Research Center, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He has been a Freemason since the late 1970s, and currently serves as Treasurer of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, the first lodge of Masonic research and education, and he is a past master of the research lodge in Middlesex, England.

Available from Amazon, etc.

The lecture is available in book form for purchase—with proceeds benefitting the Library and Museum of Freemasonry at UGLE’s headquarters—from on-line retailers, like Amazon, so I won’t recapitulate its content in detail, much less divulge spoilers. “Foundations” guides us from medieval times to the 17th century and Freemasonry’s embryonic years, to the first decades of the Grand Lodge of England. We all know about the Antients versus the Moderns in competition for Masonic hegemony, and of the Jacobites’ battles against the Hanoverians for control of the state, but the intrigues also extended into Parliament. Tories and Whigs who were Freemasons organized themselves into factions that set the Craft very far apart from all other clubs and societies in England.

“The Grand Lodge of England was the creation of an inner circle at the Duke of Richmond’s Masonic lodge in Westminster,” said Ric, explaining some of the politics. “Its members included aristocrats and politicians alongside senior public officials, such as an undersecretary of state and the government’s anti-Jacobite spymaster, and William Cowper, a leading magistrate and the clerk to the Parliaments, the highest ranking administrator at the House of Commons and House of Lords.”

“The magistracy and the government’s association with Freemasonry gave the organization a judicial and political imprimatur that was reinforced by many instances of de facto official endorsement,” he added. “Prominent examples include the raising of the Duke of Lorraine and the initiation of the Duke of Newcastle, and the initiation of other senior figures, including Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and numerous members of both Court and Parliament.”

Ric spoke for about forty minutes, and the Q&A went another half an hour, and still the brethren crowded around Ric for private conversation for long after that, but I had to steal him away to return him to the hotel so he could get some rest before his trip to Virginia the next morning. (No one knows this until now, but Ric had been functioning on almost no sleep or food for the twenty-four hours previous to our dinner-meeting.) This Prestonian tour took Ric from North Carolina, where he spoke at four events in four nights, to Des Moines, to our event, and finally to Virginia before returning to England. He indicated he would like to return to the United States later in the year.

Courtesy Martin Bogardus

Martin Bogardus and Prestonian Lecturer Ric Berman.

New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 especially gives warm fraternal thanks to the brethren of Inspiratus Lodge No. 357 for providing our guests copies of the “Foundations” book, which made for a perfect souvenir of the evening. Also given away freely that night were petitions for joining our lodge, which hopefully will result in a larger L.O.R.E. family.

It was a memorable night of savory food, great company, and brilliant Masonic Light—actually, a number of the brethren told me how much they loved the meal—and while our lodge had budgeted a thousand dollars to pull it off, the whole thing cost us less than fifty bucks. I say we should do it every year!
     

‘2016 Prestonian Lecture in New Jersey’

     

New Jersey Lodge of Masonic

Research and Education No. 1786

Proudly Presents

The 2016 Prestonian Lecture

Foundations:

New Light on the Formation and

Early Years of the Grand Lodge

of England

Presented by Bro. Richard Berman

United Grand Lodge of England

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Stage House Tavern

366 Park Avenue

Scotch Plains

$49 Per Person

Reservation

by Advance Payment

ONLY

PayPal $51 (includes transaction fee)
to: masonicrsvp@gmail.com

Or bring your $49 check, payable to NJLORE 1786,

to our December 12 meeting.

Be among the first in the world

to hear the 2016 Prestonian Lecture!

Deadline for reservations: Thursday, January 7

     

‘Presenting the 2016 Prestonian Lecture’

     
New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 is immensely proud—we can hardly sit still!—to present Bro. Richard Berman, the 2016 Prestonian Lecturer, who will deliver his lecture titled Foundations, on Thursday, January 14, 2016.

The location, dining fee, and other necessary details are not worked out yet, but they will be publicized here and throughout social media soon. For now, please save the date.

From the publicity:

The 2016 Prestonian Lecture

Foundations: New Light on the Formation

and Early Years of the Grand Lodge of England

The 2016 Prestonian Lecture explores the evolution of Freemasonry, queries long-standing myths, and explains the factors that gave rise to the step change that occurred with the creation of the first English Grand Lodge in 1717.

Ric Berman outlines the connections between Freemasonry and the British establishment in the eighteenth century, and how and why its leaders positioned Grand Lodge as a bastion of support for the government. He also touches on how Freemasonry was used to advance Britain’s diplomatic objectives and for espionage.

The Lecture marks the upcoming 300th anniversary of the formation of the first Grand Lodge, and sets a context for 2017’s celebration.

The Prestonian Lecturer is appointed by the United Grand Lodge of England. This year’s lecturer, Ric Berman, is the author of Foundations of Modern Freemasonry, first published in 2011 and now in its second edition; Schism (2013), which discusses the conflict between Moderns and Antients Freemasonry; and Loyalists & Malcontents (2015), a history of colonial and post-colonial Freemasonry in the American South.

Richard Berman

Dr. Berman has been a Freemason for almost 40 years. He is a Past Master of the Marquis of Dalhousie Lodge No. 1159 (EC); Treasurer of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 (EC), England’s oldest research lodge; and a PM of the Temple of Athene Lodge No. 9541 (EC), the research lodge of the Province of Middlesex. He holds London and Provincial Grand Rank.

An extended version of the lecture is available for purchase via Amazon. The proceeds are donated to charity. Ric Berman’s Amazon page is here.


TAKE NOTE: Bro. Ric will NOT have copies of his lecture available for sale at this event. Please make your purchase from Amazon, and bring the book with you for inscribing.

Bro. Ric’s tour of the United States includes:

January 7 to 9 – American Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia: Chairing the session “Freemasonry – The First Global Society,” and giving the paper “Antients or Moderns? Reflections on the Genesis of American Freemasonry.”

Prestonian Lecture presentations:

January 9 to 10 – Greensboro, North Carolina

January 11 to 12 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina

January 13 – Des Moines, Iowa

January 14 – New Jersey (location TBD)

January 15 – Washington, DC

Of course January is early in the year, and it is not impossible Bro. Ric could return to the United States later in 2016 for more appearances.

     

‘Freemasonry: The World’s First Global Social Network’

     
As reported here yesterday, Bro. Richard Berman, the 2016 Prestonian Lecturer, will chair a session titled “Freemasonry: The World’s First Global Social Network” at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta in January, and will present a paper then also. The meeting will run from January 7 through 10, and this period on Freemasonry is scheduled for January 8, from 10:30 a.m. to noon.

To attend, register here.

From the publicity:

In the 1700s, Masonic lodges and Freemasons could be found from the East Indies to the West Indies, to Indian country of the North American frontier, all across Europe, and throughout the farthest flung colonial possessions of the British, French, and Dutch empires. By the end of the century it had become an important organizing tool and intellectual force in the African Atlantic diaspora as well.

Freemasonry was an emergent, self-created social movement of the 18th century Enlightenment that boasted its own faux history, republican ideology, international diplomacy, meta-economy, and extensive organizational structures. Within a few decades of the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717 there were Masonic lodges and grand lodges throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, India and in some parts of Africa. Ideologically and socially, Freemasonry connected men across political, ethnic, racial, religious, and class borders. It served as a vital fraternal link in the lives of Atlantic seafarers, soldiers, planters, and craftsmen, and formed a vast network of overlapping networks that greatly impacted social and commercial relations both within and between far-flung communities in every corner of the globe where European culture had penetrated.

This panel will seek to explore the role of Freemasonry as an international phenomenon, elucidating the nature and implications of the overlapping social, commercial, and intellectual networks created by Freemasons, white and black, on both sides of the Atlantic.


The presenters:

Hans Schwartz

Clark University

Navigating the Republic of Masonry:

Print Culture in Masonic Communication

and Connection

in the 18th Century Atlantic and Beyond

Within a few decades of the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717, the Masonic fraternity could be found from the East to the West Indies to American Indian country and was a major social movement of the Enlightenment throughout Europe and the European colonial world. In a speech before Paris’ Lodge of Nine Muses, Benjamin Franklin referred to this international brotherhood as “The Republic of Masonry.” One of the most fascinating and little understood elements of Freemasonry’s successful spread is the manner in which Masons, often merchants or sea captains, were able to arrive in ports of call from Batavia to Boston and beyond and easily locate the meetings of this “secret” society. This investigation demonstrates how various types of print culture were created or adapted to the purposes of Masonic. Specifically, this presentation will focus on Masonic almanacs and lists of lodges printed and distributed by Grand Lodges in Europe and reprinted in a wide variety of pamphlets and books; the use of colonial newspapers, particularly in Boston, the most prominent hub of British Masonry in the Americas to circulate Masonic news and contact information; and the highly detailed Tableaux of the French Caribbean Masonic network centered in Saint Domingue. This will include the use of print culture in the early republic to promote black Freemasonry emanating from Boston. All of these sources were circulated, exchanged, and reprinted in a manner that linked the widespread Masonic networks of Bostonian merchants, French Creole planters, and European seafarers.

Richard Berman

Oxford Brookes University

Ancients or Moderns?

Reflections on the Genesis

of American Freemasonry

American Freemasonry was created in the mould of the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster, later the Grand Lodge of England, and initially reflected the pro-establishment mores of its founders, providing its affluent upper middling members with an exclusive blend of “ancient” ritual, fraternal association and drinking and dining. But from the late 1750s and 1760s, the organization split, a division not based more on social differences than political differences: loyalist against patriot.

Dr. Richard Berman

Dr. Berman’s paper traces the debt American fraternalism owes to the more egalitarian and inclusive Irish form of Freemasonry, pushed not only by the Grand Lodge of Ireland but by the more aggressive Antients Grand Lodge, formed in London in 1751 and shaped by London’s Irish diaspora, especially Laurence Dermott, its pioneering and long-serving Grand Secretary and later Deputy Grand Master.

Antients Freemasonry became a locus for the aspirational lower middling rather than the incumbent social and political elites, and developed a powerful social and economic function, providing mutual financial assistance and an accessible social infrastructure for those seeking self-betterment. It extended formal sociability beyond the elites to create one of the first modern friendly societies and, in an American context, took over the mantle of revolutionary Enlightenment politics in the upswing to the War of Independence.

Eoghan Craig

Caliban and the Widow’s Sons:

Some Aspects of the Intersections and Interactions

between Freemasonry

and Afro-Caribbean Religious Praxis

After Freemasonry spread across Europe in the 18th century, it was inevitable that its influence should reach the Caribbean. Masonic lodges were founded in France’s colony of Saint Domingue as early as 1738. It was not long before men of African descent entered the fraternity. Some of these men went on to hold leadership positions in the Haitian Revolution. It was inevitable, given the wide distribution of African inspired religious practice in the Caribbean, that Freemasonry would interact with African religions. Elements of Masonic symbolism reflect back from the graphic systems employed in Haitian Vodou and Afro-Cuban Palo, a religion of Congo origin. Hand gestures and ritual movements in the Asson tradition of Haitian Vodou have been credited with Masonic influence, and significant elements clearly identifiable as being of Masonic origin, comprise parts of the intiation rituals of Quimbisa, a religion of Central African origin in Cuba. Such exchanges do not reflect a single direction. Recently a Grand Commander General was appointed to the Scottish Rite for Cuba, who is a practicing member of the Abakuá, a tradition originating in the Cross River area of Nigeria, and also one of the founding Babalawo’s of Cuba’s internationally recognized Yoruba annual divination committee, which is viewed as religious guidance on three continents. In Haiti, a Masonic Rite was founded which invokes certain Lwa or spirits of Haitian Vodou, which are recognized throughout the international community of Vodou religious praxis as Masonic spirits. One of Vodou’s most iconographic spirits, Baron Samedi, the lord over the dead, unmistakably combines Masonic regalia with the iconic skull used in the initiatic Chamber of Reflection. Even in Brazil, the temples of Umbanda, a modern Afro-Brazilian faith, are replete with Masonic elements, and it is not uncommon for Freemasons in Brazil to also be initiates in Umbanda.