BOOK REVIEW: 'The Genesis of Freemasonry'
To Understand American Freemasonry, It's Important to Explore Its Origins in England, Scotland
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
English historian David Harrison, PhD, explores the origins of Freemasonry in a scholarly but very readable book "The Genesis of Freemasonry" (Lewis Masonic, an imprint of Ian Allan Publishing Ltd., Hersham, Surrey, England, 244 pages, $31.95, available on Amazon.com and other online booksellers).
Harrison sent me a review copy of his book after reading my reviews of books on Freemasonry on this site. He suggested that it would be useful to understand the intellectual underpinnings of Freemasonry via a scholarly book like his. As I write this review, I'm watching a program on American Freemasonry on the History Channel, which has an endless fascination with the subject, along with the Illuminati and the Knights Templar.
Masonry has been described as a "society of secrets" as well as a "secret society." Historian Harrison is a lecturer in history at the University of Liverpool, where he earned his doctorate. He reconstructs the hidden history of the movement, tracing its roots through a mixture of medieval guild societies, alchemy and necromancy.
He examines the earliest known Freemasons and their obsessions with Solomon's Temple, alchemy, and prophecy, to the formation of the Grand Lodge in London in 1717, which in turn led to rebellions within the Craft throughout England.
Harrison also analyzes the role of French immigrant, Dr Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, a Protestant refugee from Roman Catholic persecution, in the development of English Freemasonry, focusing on his involvement with the formation of the mysterious modern Masonic ritual. All Freemasons and more general readers will find much of interest in this fascinating exploration of the very beginnings of Freemasonry, still one of the most mysterious brotherhoods in the world, he says.
Freemasonry had its origins in the guilds of "operative" masons -- actual stoneworkers -- who attracted the attention of "speculative" masons, mostly gentlemen and members of mercantile and aristocratic classes in the United Kingdom. It soon became fashionable for intellectuals and scientists and architects to become masons, where, Harrison says they could leave their religious and political differences at the door to the lodge, often a tavern or pub. It afforded like-minded men of all classes in the heavily class conscious UK to get together and eat and drink -- lots of drink -- Harrison says, and discuss intellectual and philosophic and scientific ideas.
Harrison discusses the differences between the "Antients" and the "Moderns" in Freemasonry -- differences which led to rebellions and schisms in the "craft", as Masons call their system of belief. Originally, speculative Freemasonry had only three degrees, as compared to the 33 of today's "supersized" Freemasonry. Initiates of the First Degree were called "Entered Apprentices," while Second Degree masons were called "Fellow Craft." Those attaining the highest degree, the Third Degree, were called "Master Masons." Before the 1720s, there were only two degrees, Harrison says: "These were extended into three degrees by the leaders of the 'Moderns.'"
I was startled, to say the least, to find in Harrison's books descriptions of licentious clubs called Hell Fire Clubs, organized by prominent Freemasons, where the men dressed like monks and the invited women, including local talent, dressed like nuns, engaging in orgiastic ceremonies.
I queried the good doctor by e-mail and he confirmed my interpretation: "Yes, you are absolutely right, the Duke of Wharton and later, Sir Francis Dashwood (both Freemasons) used the Hell Fire Clubs as a pseudo Masonic orgy on their country estates; the mix of secrecy, ritual and sex being an attractive way to spend the time with their close circle of influential friends, very much like [Stanley] Kubrick's [1999] film 'Eyes Wide Shut'".
Read Harrison's fascinating book to expand your knowledge of Freemasonry, including its attraction to men of letters like Alexander Pope, Byron, Ben Jonson and James Boswell, along with scientists like Sir Isaac Newton and architects like Sir Christopher Wren, Inigo Jones and Nicholas Stone.
Publisher's web site: lewis.masonic.com