WWII influx and its affect on Freemasonry. (Not another 'numbers' thread)

[Brother_Steve]

I see discussions on how WWI and WWII flooded Freemasonry because men returning from Europe and Asia wanted to belong to an organization that promoted fellowship or nostalgia of comradery they experienced while serving.

We discuss Masonry and what we want from it. Too many times I have been to Lodge and gone home "empty handed" because all we did was run down the checklist. Some would consider it a "good night" because we only missed a few words here and there in the opening and closing.

Did the influx water Masonry down to what we have now? Did those that came before us fail to hand down that experience we're looking for today?

What did Freemasonry look like before the great wars?

I guess the answers lay hidden in the archives of Lodge Minutes and historical logs. Has anyone here sat down and read the minutes and/or the historical records of a high profile lodge from before the spike? What were they like?

How can we set aside 70 years of Masonry to get a clean sample and then compare it to today? Can it be done within reason? If so, where do we start?

Here is the bigger question. Is this the point of Masonry to begin with? To keep us always looking for this answer? My questions seem to fit the interaction between the Worshipful Master and the Senior Warden ... I guess for now I will have to accept the substitute...

 

[cemab4y]

I find Masonic history fascinating, and I have often thought about exactly this same topic. Imagine my joy, when I found an old volume of Kentucky Masonic history, and looked up the lodge records from 1921, and I found my grandfather's name. I was in Fort Wayne, IN back in 2007, and I attended a planning session for a committee that is going to set up a repository of Masonic documents, and scan them into magnetic data for storage.

Masonry has "evolved" over the centuries, I am certain. Prior to the "spike", Masonry was a "different breed of cat", to be sure. WW2 had a huge effect on our whole society. Women went to work in the factories and offices, for example.

I too, would like to get a "feel" of what Masonry was like, during the interwar years.

 

[cemab4y]

Your posting makes me feel like you should investigate "Traditional Observance" Masonry. Have you done so?

 

[Companion Joe]

If you go back before 1717, then you are going into operative masonry instead of speculative Freemasonry. Unless you want to learn how to build cathedrals, there is no before 1717.

 

[Companion Joe]

That is certainly the view put by the 4 lodges that broke away to form their own Grand Lodge. Those lodges however were all fairly new - one was only 3 years old. From where did they get their charters? Or were they clandestine lodges?

They are known as "time immemorial" lodges because they didn't receive their charters from a Grand Lodge because there was no such thing until they got together, formed one, and set up the rules.

I don't know whether or not actual operative lodges had charters as we think of them. Don't let the romantic Masonic lore penned by Mackey, Pike, and Anderson take the place of historical reality.

 

[Companion Joe]

"Time Immemorial" simply refers to those four lodges - only three of them remain today - who came together to form the first Grand Lodge. They could not have charters from a GL because they were the ones who gave birth to the GL.

 

[Bill Lins]

That is certainly the view put by the 4 lodges that broke away to form their own Grand Lodge.

"Broke away" from what? If no Grand Lodges were in existence at that time, what had those Lodges broken away from?