The origins of “Revolutionary Freemasonry” (original) (raw)
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In the late 18th century, during a key moment of the Enlightenment and the consolidation of nation-states and their respective civil societies, Western Europe underwent a process of intellectual and political transformation. Therefore, my thesis demonstrates how Freemasonry played a particular role in this and how it foreshadowed the role that it would have on the political life of the next century (19th), especially in Catholic countries in Europe and Latin America. We can see the role of Freemasonry in the adoption of secular reforms visible in the political and intellectual history of European Freemasonry since the 1770’s. This research serves as an example of the analysis of change in Freemasonry towards a proposal to concrete actions in search of the transformation of the state. Some of the works used to create this thesis include works from Gotthold Lessing, the Comte de Mirabeau, Herder, Frederick Schlegel, Lord Ramsay, and the cases of the national organizations of grand lodges in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and the United States.
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Francesco Angioni On the myth-history of Freemasonry 1
2020
The historical continuity between Roman and Medieval guilds and Masonic Lodges, fantasy or reality? The Masonic collective imagination is based on two compelling illustrations of the origin of Masonic lodges: the first is a sort of millenarianism that assigns a rift between religious and secular culture, the so-called "secularization", which would explain the birth of Masonic lodges as a pollution of the secularization of European island and continental society; the second is that the same lodges are the product of the medieval Universitas (Corporations or Guilds) which in turn would be a direct historical continuation of the Roman Collegia ( corporations). There are two levels of interpretation on the similarity between these three distinct phenomena. One level of interpretation, frequent in the Masonic sphere, is that all three have the common characteristics of religiosity and occultism, therefore of a spiritualism both in a general-generic and esoteric-initiatic sense; the other level of interpretation that would justify the first is a sort of historical continuity of them, as if they were intertwined by linear cause-effect relations. The attribution of the generic term spirituality or spiritualism does not allow for an examination of the dynamics of this characteristic and is therefore not examined here. The case of mystical-religious and magical-esoteric characters attributed to corporations and lodges is different. To this range of interpretations is added a thesis of a wider dimension which is the so-called socio-cultural phenomenon of "secularization". This denomination has provoked and still provokes many discussions in the historicalistic field, assigning different definitions and methods of analysis. The thesis of certain Authors in the Masonic sphere is that the establishment and development of modern lodges from the 17th century onwards would be the effect of a slow process of secularization that would differentiate the Middle Ages, understood as an era of high spirituality, from the post-Renaissance period characterized by ever higher levels of secularization. The author proposes as an alternative the concept of " laicalization", a socio-cultural process that reveals the subdivision of culture and society between the secular world and religiosity and also spirituality, in a general sense, that are not dissolved by the new lay reality.The analysis of the three phenomena shows that the Roman Colleges were lay associations that presented elements of religiosity, as in all societies with characteristics of "theological absolutism", equally the medieval corporations and guilds. For these two forms of associationism there are no documents that attest the presence of initiatory and esoteric-mysterological modalities. With regard to the Masonic Lodges, properly called, which appeared in the seventeenth century and became official in the first twenty years of the eighteenth century, there are no documents proving their initiatory and esoteric character, an aspect that has been consolidated, with a rich publicity and a proliferation of rituals, only since the thirties of the eighteenth century.
Róbert Péter (general editor), Cécile Révauger (volume editor). Jan A. M. Snoek (volume editor), British Freemasonry, 1717-1813, 5 vols. (New York: Routledge, 2016), 2606 pages, 5967 editorial notes. volume 1: Institutions (C. Révauger) volume 2: Rituals I – English, Irish and Scottish Craft Rituals (J. A. M. Snoek) volume 3: Rituals II – Harodim Material and Higher Degrees (J. A. M. Snoek) volume 4: Debates (R. Péter) volume 5: Representations (R. Péter) More information about the edition is available at: https://www.routledge.com/British-Freemasonry-1717-1813/Peter- Revauger-Snoek/p/book/9781848933774 The attached copyright material was provided by the Routledge division of Taylor and Francis on 20 October, 2016. The purpose of this 5-volume edition is to collate diverse rare print and manuscript materials that provide a broad spectrum of insights into the history and culture of Freemasonry in the British Isles between 1717 and 1813. This collection is the result of extensive archival research and transcription and highlights the most significant themes associated with British and Irish Freemasonry during the period in question. The volumes draw on a wide range of documents, including an engraved list of lodges, rituals (some originally written in cipher), rules and regulations, by-laws, funeral services, lectures, charges, sermons, orations, certificates, theatrical prologues and epilogues, pamphlets, newspaper and magazine articles and letters. A special emphasis is placed on documents that enhance our present understanding of the role that British and Irish Freemasons played in the formation of eighteenth-century society and associational culture. Analysis of these documents will hopefully foster scholarly debate and offer new perspectives on wider historical, cultural, social and religious themes. Many of the texts included in these volumes remain very difficult to consult outside masonic archives. Such institutions store many rare eighteenth-century items, which are not recorded in the English Short Title Catalogue and are thus excluded from digital collections. For example, the Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London has not previously given permission to fully reproduce rituals of the so-called higher degrees. Hence, the rituals ncluded in this edition are published here for the first time in their entirety and with annotations. Furthermore, this edition reproduces texts that seem to have been knowingly overlooked by masonic historians in their publications.