My Freemasonry | Freemason Information and Discussion Forum

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Can someone confirm these statements?

hanzosbm

Premium Member
@coachn , forgive me for not quoting your response, but I could easily see this turning into a 14 page 'quotes within quotes'.

It sounds like (and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong) that we're talking about a matter of degrees (no pun intended). We know that early operative Masons were interested in and had knowledge of some pretty deep, non-Christian philosophy. What we don't know is what role that knowledge played. Early operative Masons looked at these philosophies as their predecessors (whether they were or not is irrelevant) so I think it's safe to say they were speculative, though whether they practiced anything even remotely close to speculative Masonry is unknown and there is no evidence of it early on. In terms of what, if any, progression there was from the philosophical teachings that were known by early operative Masons to what we have now is anyone's guess. We know that these obscure philosophical works were known to early operative masons, that they considered them their origins, that symbolism was assigned by operative masons to their working tools, and that some of that symbolism survives to today, but it comes back to the question; if what we have now is 5% from early operative masons and 95% enlightenment era external philosophies, what is the true origin?
 

CLewey44

Registered User
My apologies. Bare with me momentarily to gather citations. I may not have time today. There's more than one set of records out there, but most of the info lies in the records of the time immemorial lodges of Scotland and the registers of the guilds of Edinburgh circa 1400-1600s. They express, imply, and in some instances explicitly state that speculative masonry derived from a decline in building during the mid 1630s, and that they began taking in non-operatives to keep the doors open. Quatuor Coronati Lodge has several papers that support as well. It's been a very long time since I've examined them, so please bare with me in assembling the references. I made this discovery while researching the Scottish Rite Lodges of England and reading available records of the operative lodges of Scotland about two years ago.

Sounds familiar, sort of how we often take in non-speculatives to keep doors open lol.
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
Sounds familiar, sort of how we often take in non-speculatives to keep doors open lol.
And that's the rub... non-speculative members are all that Freemasonry has been taking in for the last 300 years.
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
@coachn , forgive me for not quoting your response, but I could easily see this turning into a 14 page 'quotes within quotes'.
LOL! Yep. Been doing this for over a decade or so. Not a problem here!
It sounds like (and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong) that we're talking about a matter of degrees (no pun intended).
More like the absolute fuzziness in the words being used in an attempt to better understand how the Freemasonic organization came into being. It's not an operative-speculative issue. It's an issue of looking honestly at what stonecraft masons actually did VERSUS what Freemasonic members actually DO. There is absolutely nothing that overlaps between the two groups other than the fact that the lexicon and lore appear to be the same. However, what the two practice are not even metaphorically similar. The progression is not the same. The education is not the same. The ends are not the same. If Freemasonry was intended to preserve stonecraft "whatever", it has yet to prove that it has done so.

What it has preserved it a role-playing theatrical society with a moral purpose.
We know that early operative Masons were interested in and had knowledge of some pretty deep, non-Christian philosophy.
What makes you so absolutely sure about this? What exactly is "early" in your mind?
What we don't know is what role that knowledge played.
This is assuming once again that there was any actual knowledge at all.
Early operative Masons looked at these philosophies as their predecessors (whether they were or not is irrelevant) ...
That's the point. Their lore is just that, lore! It's not history. And that point is relevant!
...so I think it's safe to say they were speculative, though whether they practiced anything even remotely close to speculative Masonry is unknown and there is no evidence of it early on.
But it's not safe to say they were speculative. That's conjecture. It must be defined based upon facts for it to be safe to say.

Furthermore, if you define "Speculative Masonry" as what we have today, then the words we use to define ourselves are not justifiably used by evidence of our own practices.
In terms of what, if any, progression there was from the philosophical teachings that were known by early operative Masons to what we have now is anyone's guess.
It's safe to say that modern members of the fraternity have more access to that watershed of teachings than any gavel lugging stonecrafter ever did.
We know that these obscure philosophical works were known to early operative masons,
Do we? Really? It's a romantic view, but how is this knowing substantiated in facts? A parchment copy of a copy of a lodge secretary's notes only lends to further conjecture at best.
...that they considered them their origins,
The lore has a lot of allusions, true. But how much of this is an actual representation of the Craft as a whole, rather than that of one or two romantic literate writers poetically musing about something that didn't characterize the Craft as a whole?
...that symbolism was assigned by operative masons to their working tools,
See previous statements.
...and that some of that symbolism survives to today,
It survives because of the clever pens of playwrights who took these manuscripts and used them as backdrops for our society. And they did this masterfully!
...but it comes back to the question; if what we have now is 5% from early operative masons and 95% enlightenment era external philosophies, what is the true origin?
Origin of what? You have a whole bunch of possibilities in your question, all predicated with an "if".

Seriously Bro., this society has far more fertile writings driving member's imaginations than stone solid foundations by which they build upon.
 

hanzosbm

Premium Member
Well, to start off at the beginning (and we can build from there if we so choose), my claims about early operative Masons having knowledge of and professing their origins in ancient, pre-Christian philosophy:

The Regius Manuscript talks in depth about Masonry descending from Euclid. Now, in addition to being one of the most celebrated philosophers, Euclid was also well known for his mathematical and geometrical genius, so on the earliest Masonic documents, I'll concede that this is inconclusive at best.

The Matthew Cooke Manuscript on the other hand, talks about a number of early figures in the fictional history of Masonry. A large number of them are Biblical (not surprising given the Christian society they lived in as well as the church's teachings of creation that they'd go back through the Bible) which goes no where in terms of my premise. All it's really doing is trying to trace the science of geometry down through the ages, which makes total sense. The first non-Biblical person in the Matthew Cooke Manuscript listed is Pythagoras; another great philosopher. But, like Euclid, he was also a significant contributor to geometry, so again, this is inconclusive to my point. However, the next name is Hermes.

"And after this flood many
years, as the chronicle telleth,
these 2 pillars were found,
and as the Pilicronicon saith, that
a great clerk that [was] called Pythag/oras
found that one, and Hermes, the
philosopher,
found that other, and
they taught forth the sciences that
they found therein written." (bolding is mine)

The Matthew Cooke Manuscript has been dated to 1450. Hermeticism is a pretty deep system of philosophies a group of medieval stone masons. Now, as I said, we don't know what role that knowledge played or how deep of an understanding they had, but we can see that they were at least aware of Hermeticism and had connected it with the knowledge they claimed to have held. If nothing else, we can at least see that there was an interest in those philosophies.

Now, as we all know, the history of Masonry as laid down in these documents is fiction. But, the fact that they held a knowledge of these early philosophies and at the time they were written felt that there was some connection to themselves as operative masons, suggests that they had some speculative elements. (and by that, I mean that they were speculating on philosophical ideas, not necessarily that those ideas have anything to do with our current fraternity, though I do think there was some early symbolism that has survived till today)
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
Well, to start off at the beginning (and we can build from there if we so choose),
That works!
...my claims about early operative Masons having knowledge of and professing their origins in ancient, pre-Christian philosophy:

The Regius Manuscript talks in depth about Masonry descending from Euclid. Now, in addition to being one of the most celebrated philosophers, Euclid was also well known for his mathematical and geometrical genius, so on the earliest Masonic documents, I'll concede that this is inconclusive at best.
So noted.
The Matthew Cooke Manuscript on the other hand, talks about a number of early figures in the fictional history of Masonry. A large number of them are Biblical (not surprising given the Christian society they lived in as well as the church's teachings of creation that they'd go back through the Bible) which goes no where in terms of my premise. All it's really doing is trying to trace the science of geometry down through the ages, which makes total sense. The first non-Biblical person in the Matthew Cooke Manuscript listed is Pythagoras; another great philosopher. But, like Euclid, he was also a significant contributor to geometry, so again, this is inconclusive to my point.
So noted.
However, the next name is Hermes.

"And after this flood many
years, as the chronicle telleth,
these 2 pillars were found,
and as the Pilicronicon saith, that
a great clerk that [was] called Pythag/oras
found that one, and Hermes, the
philosopher,
found that other, and
they taught forth the sciences that
they found therein written." (bolding is mine)

The Matthew Cooke Manuscript has been dated to 1450. Hermeticism is a pretty deep system of philosophies a group of medieval stone masons. Now, as I said, we don't know what role that knowledge played or how deep of an understanding they had, but we can see that they were at least aware of Hermeticism and had connected it with the knowledge they claimed to have held. If nothing else, we can at least see that there was an interest in those philosophies.

Now, as we all know, the history of Masonry as laid down in these documents is fiction.
Agreed!
But, the fact that they held a knowledge of these early philosophies and at the time they were written felt that there was some connection to themselves as operative masons, suggests that they had some speculative elements.
All the BOLD, ITALIC UNDERLINED words above support the following logical fallacy:
This is evidenced by early Freemasonic writings also. The earliest Freemasonic writers (post 1717) did their best to support the illusions of connectedness brought forth by the creation of their role-playing ventures. Their efforts created a deluge of interconnected documents all supporting that illusion, even when there were no legitimate connections at all. Unknowing generations later assume these documents were valid and historically accurate. There are a lot of members emotionally invested in validating the stonecraft connection in more ways than the use of their lexicon and lore.

(and by that, I mean that they were speculating on philosophical ideas, not necessarily that those ideas have anything to do with our current fraternity, though I do think there was some early symbolism that has survived till today)
I attribute this, the current Craft philosophy, to the genius of the Freemasonic lecture writers. They interwove much philosophy into these presentations and it is to their credit we have such overwhelmingly awesome results.
 

hanzosbm

Premium Member
Well, on the one hand, I agree that simply because this document shows a speculative interest doesn't indicate that every single operative stone mason held those same interests. Nor do I believe that the speculative aspect was a primary goal for any operative masons. Were 1% of operative Masons interested in speculative ventures? 10%, 90%? We have no way of knowing. But it was apparently important enough to enough Masons make it into this manuscript. Naturally, that doesn't speak to every mason, but then again, nothing can. As brother @CLewey44 (either comically or tragically depending on your point of view) pointed out, even today, not all brethren are speculative. Does that mean that modern Freemasonry is not speculative?

The point I'm trying to make is that while we can't speak to the depth of breadth of it, we can see that there was a speculative aspect for at least some operative masons in the late middle ages.
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
Well, on the one hand, I agree that simply because this document shows a speculative interest doesn't indicate that every single operative stone mason held those same interests. Nor do I believe that the speculative aspect was a primary goal for any operative masons.
I'm with ya on this!
Were 1% of operative Masons interested in speculative ventures? 10%, 90%? We have no way of knowing. But it was apparently important enough to enough Masons make it into this manuscript.
Additionally.... how do we know that it was not someone outside the masonic circle writing romantically about stonecraft?
Naturally, that doesn't speak to every mason, but then again, nothing can. As brother @CLewey44 (either comically or tragically depending on your point of view) pointed out, even today, not all brethren are speculative. Does that mean that modern Freemasonry is not speculative?
No. It doesn't mean this from the evidence presented in a manuscript. However, from the evidence of our operation, our collective organizations truly don't support speculation, as it would be practiced by those carrying on a speculative form of stonecraft. It talks about it. But that's all it does.
The point I'm trying to make is that while we can't speak to the depth of breadth of it, we can see that there was a speculative aspect for at least some operative masons in the late middle ages.
Agreed! When defining speculation involves referring to those assumed to be involved in philosophical pursuits.
 

hanzosbm

Premium Member
So, I guess we could say that question is really to what degree was philosophical pursuits institutionalized in early operative masonry. While I see your point that it could be the invention of someone outside of Masonry, those early manuscripts seem to be (no proof) created at the behest of operative masons. If for no other reason that it is filled with 'I', 'we', 'our', etc. In addition, due to the cost associated with producing such a manuscript, it seems unlikely that it was done without funding and approval of some organization that seemed fit to have this written in the first person.
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
So, I guess we could say that question is really to what degree was philosophical pursuits institutionalized in early operative masonry. While I see your point that it could be the invention of someone outside of Masonry, those early manuscripts seem to be (no proof) created at the behest of operative masons. If for no other reason that it is filled with 'I', 'we', 'our', etc. In addition, due to the cost associated with producing such a manuscript, it seems unlikely that it was done without funding and approval of some organization that seemed fit to have this written in the first person.
I want so much to connect those dots and come to these same conclusions Bro. All that you write makes sense. Money was typically involved in the making of manuscripts.

My forensics have been focusing upon the craft as it existed from about 1717 onward. The behavior of the craft from that time till now appears to be nothing like that behavior claimed to be its origins. As much as I like reading about glory days, it continually comes back to: The Craft ain't what it professes.

Nothing nefarious mind you. Just simply the words don't match the actions and the trail.
 

hanzosbm

Premium Member
My forensics have been focusing upon the craft as it existed from about 1717 onward. The behavior of the craft from that time till now appears to be nothing like that behavior claimed to be its origins. As much as I like reading about glory days, it continually comes back to: The Craft ain't what it professes.

You're preaching to the choir here.

But, I would offer up this idea (of which I have no proof nor even evidence of);

Today, 90+% of Masons either have no interest in the speculative aspect, or if they do, have taken about 3 steps down that long path and declared that it's far enough. Meanwhile, nearly 100% of Masons claim to be speculative, regardless of their behavior. Might not the "glory days" have been identical in that regard to current times?

We have a scant few documents of early masonry (in whatever form it may have been). Imagine archaeologists 500 years from now finding a copy of Morals and Dogma and an organization professing to be speculative, next to a bewildering stack of meeting minutes and by-laws of jurisprudence. "Were the Freemasons of the 21st century speculative or not?" Yes and no. Which answer is more correct? I guess that depends on how one chooses to measure the two. And I think the same holds true for early masons (though who knows if they were more or less speculative than masons of today).

I think it was brother PointWithinACircle who offered up the expression "Rituals exists so that those who don't understand it can pass it on long enough for it to reach someone who can" (that wasn't the exact quote, but it was to that effect). Maybe that same general premise has been going on for hundreds of years.

Now we just need to organize some pancake breakfasts to raise enough money for a time machine to go back and find out for sure.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
Today, 90+% of Masons either have no interest in the speculative aspect, or if they do, have taken about 3 steps down that long path and declared that it's far enough. Meanwhile, nearly 100% of Masons claim to be speculative, regardless of their behavior. Might not the "glory days" have been identical in that regard to current times?

Sturgeon's Law says ninety percent of everything is crud. The ancient philosopher Anaxamander said diggers after gold must dig through much dirt.

It's very elitist to admit that those statements apply to human endeavors a well as to materials.

If we are supposed to make good men better, the mystical stuff is only one way to do that. It can be and is there for the few who are interested. For outsiders it's just one more shiney object we have that they might want. But like so many shiney objects, fewer are interested in having it than in wanting it.

When it comes to the mystical, the glory days are encountering one other Brother with a notebook full of notes on the topic. I think it's always been like that.

In parlor magic we ask you to watch the hand up front, while we do the work with the other hand. That other hand is our various social ways we help each other be better men. The distracting hand up front is topics like mysticism, civic projects and such that a few do but most don't.

Watch this hand where I talk about the Great Seal of the United States! Ignore this hand that does fellowship hanging out with Brothers before the meeting slowly building friendships across many years. Same deal perhaps.
 

hanzosbm

Premium Member
Perhaps so. Then again, for me personally, the mystical stuff (for lack of a better term) and my reflection on it, has helped me to become a better man. I can't say that it works that way for everyone.

It's funny that you mention that the mystical stuff is only one way of doing it. I had a prospect ask me once if Masonry held the "truth". I told him that there were absolutely no lessons taught within Masonry that can't be found in another form in another place. At the time, he seemed a little disappointed by that. To me, I take comfort in it. If everyone is teaching the same thing, just in different ways, that must mean that there's really something to it, right?
 

David612

Registered User
Perhaps so. Then again, for me personally, the mystical stuff (for lack of a better term) and my reflection on it, has helped me to become a better man. I can't say that it works that way for everyone.

It's funny that you mention that the mystical stuff is only one way of doing it. I had a prospect ask me once if Masonry held the "truth". I told him that there were absolutely no lessons taught within Masonry that can't be found in another form in another place. At the time, he seemed a little disappointed by that. To me, I take comfort in it. If everyone is teaching the same thing, just in different ways, that must mean that there's really something to it, right?
Hmmm depends, people have a way of arguing about the same thing taught in different ways.
I don’t know that masonry teaches the “truth” but rather teaches ways to discover it of your own accord, simply being a mason isn’t enough.
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
You're preaching to the choir here.
LOL! Yep.
But, I would offer up this idea (of which I have no proof nor even evidence of);

Today, 90+% of Masons either have no interest in the speculative aspect, or if they do, have taken about 3 steps down that long path and declared that it's far enough. Meanwhile, nearly 100% of Masons claim to be speculative, regardless of their behavior. Might not the "glory days" have been identical in that regard to current times?
MIGHT?!?! I believe it is highly probable.
We have a scant few documents of early masonry (in whatever form it may have been). Imagine archaeologists 500 years from now finding a copy of Morals and Dogma and an organization professing to be speculative, next to a bewildering stack of meeting minutes and by-laws of jurisprudence. "Were the Freemasons of the 21st century speculative or not?" Yes and no. Which answer is more correct? I guess that depends on how one chooses to measure the two. And I think the same holds true for early masons (though who knows if they were more or less speculative than masons of today).
I'm leaning toward this view more and more.
I think it was brother PointWithinACircle who offered up the expression "Rituals exists so that those who don't understand it can pass it on long enough for it to reach someone who can" (that wasn't the exact quote, but it was to that effect). Maybe that same general premise has been going on for hundreds of years.

Now we just need to organize some pancake breakfasts to raise enough money for a time machine to go back and find out for sure.
LOL! And fish fries! Gotta have fish fries!
 

coachn

Coach John S. Nagy
Premium Member
Sturgeon's Law says ninety percent of everything is crud. The ancient philosopher Anaxamander said diggers after gold must dig through much dirt.

It's very elitist to admit that those statements apply to human endeavors a well as to materials.

If we are supposed to make good men better, the mystical stuff is only one way to do that. It can be and is there for the few who are interested. For outsiders it's just one more shiney object we have that they might want. But like so many shiney objects, fewer are interested in having it than in wanting it.

When it comes to the mystical, the glory days are encountering one other Brother with a notebook full of notes on the topic. I think it's always been like that.

In parlor magic we ask you to watch the hand up front, while we do the work with the other hand. That other hand is our various social ways we help each other be better men. The distracting hand up front is topics like mysticism, civic projects and such that a few do but most don't.

Watch this hand where I talk about the Great Seal of the United States! Ignore this hand that does fellowship hanging out with Brothers before the meeting slowly building friendships across many years. Same deal perhaps.
Lovin' It!
 

Luigi Visentin

Registered User
The matter about the presence of "speculative brothers" has an answer directly in the Cooke Manuscript, where it tells about Athelstan's son:

And after that was a worthy king in England that was called Athelstan, and his youngest son loved well the science of geometry, and he wist well that hand-craft had the practice of the science of geometry so well as masons, wherefore he drew him to council and learned [the] practice of that science to his speculative, for of speculative he was a master, and he loved well masonry and masons. And he became a mason himself, and he gave them charges and names as it is now used in England, and in other countries..

In other words one of the main important characters of the Legend was a "master of speculation", and speculative part was already part of the Mansonry.
I do not believe, however, that speculative part was about ancient rites or philosophies, with the only exception of Christian hermetism and some oddments of Mithraism, but it has to be seen in more wide way of "thinking and reasoning about how to make the work better". Which work? Not the real stonemason work for sure. The Legend of the Craft has been written from literate persons for literate persons, or at least with a certain level of instruction who could understand the historical characters hidden below the biblical characters used in the text of the Legend. Real stonemason were mostly illiterate and had no basically the time and the money to get an higher education.

The ancient Masons instead were literate even if, likely, not everyone had a high education level (considering the mistakes in the names existing in the transmission of the Legend from version to version) but enough to read, write and count and also to perform some studies, otherway it would not have been possible to them to perfect themselves in the Art of Masonic Geometry.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
Perhaps so. Then again, for me personally, the mystical stuff (for lack of a better term) and my reflection on it, has helped me to become a better man. I can't say that it works that way for everyone.

I have met some people who seem to define mysticism as the stuff that does not work. It's not a useful definition so I reject it, but there are enough who use it that why. I prefer some other meanings. The stuff that works but we don't know why so it working is not predictable enough to be called a craft. The system of organizing all knowledge, both correct and incorrect. As such I take mysticism as the parent of philosophy. A process of reason looking for formality, were philosophy is a formal process of reason.

Note that one of the highest forms of mysticism is mathematics. Folks who work mysticism types like hermeticism get puzzled by that.

It's funny that you mention that the mystical stuff is only one way of doing it. I had a prospect ask me once if Masonry held the "truth". I told him that there were absolutely no lessons taught within Masonry that can't be found in another form in another place. At the time, he seemed a little disappointed by that. To me, I take comfort in it. If everyone is teaching the same thing, just in different ways, that must mean that there's really something to it, right?

Asking for THE truth is a topic for epistemology. That's a branch of philosophy. Among the seven I suggest it's what we intend by logic. Or once one has learned logic it's the broader field beyond the basic study of logic. Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn.
 

Bloke

Premium Member
....Note that one of the highest forms of mysticism is mathematics. Folks who work mysticism types like hermeticism get puzzled by that..., .

I tend to agree, I'm not sure its the math itself, but what it represents, mysterious, abstract and large yet vaguely tangible concepts put into order.. I often think Freemasons miss that in our focus of the Royal Art - Geometry..
 
Top