Empire Craft: Freemasonry and the Foundations of Global Government

Technology – be it a system, a behavior, or an object – is something made by man to suit a purpose. Most people probably picture a computer or a smart phone or some futuristic habblemanjer when they think of “technology,” but, if you think about it, the term suits the wheel, the tamed fire, the printed page, and the state, just as well. This is because all of these things are tools; they were either conceived of and created (by rearranging one’s environment) based on need, greed, or desire, or were discovered accidentally but quickly taken advantage of based on need, greed, or desire. They are often, directly or indirectly, the retrospectively obvious offspring of previous technologies, and they always throw their parent species for a loop. [1]

In this article, I’d like to look at one technology in particular. It’s not something people would usually think of as a technology, but it is one nonetheless. Before the telegraph, it facilitated the communication of men thousands of miles apart. Before the railroad, it moved men from nation to nation, and home again. It was called Freemasonry, and it was integral to the expansion of the largest empire in history. [2]

Obscure Origins

Despite the huge number of books and articles written about its origins, the beginnings of Freemasonry remain shrouded in mystery. So much has been said (and so little has been proven) that trying to really dig into the issue here would be fruitless; besides, coming to know precisely how Freemasonry came to be is not necessarily crucial at this point. But, context is important nonetheless, so I will provide just a brief overview of what is known about Freemasonic history up to the early 18th century, when the first Grand Lodge was founded in London. [3]

Whether Freemasonry developed out of Medieval stonemasons’ guilds, or if it had originally been organized troupes of non-guild masons, or if it had started as a society of mutual aid and protection for fugitive Knights Templar, [4] one thing is abundantly clear: It’s old. Before the (dare I say) “official doctrine” of Masonry was laid down by Dr. James Anderson in his 1723 Constitutions for the Grand Lodge of England, we find a series of documents now referred to as the “Old Charges” written by and for fraternities of stonemasons, the oldest of which are dated back to around the turn of the 15th century. Again, nothing in this origin story is clear-cut, and nobody that I’ve encountered is really sure why groups of operative stone-workers soon transformed into fraternities of noblemen who concerned themselves with the sacred art and science of Geometry; “Symbolic Masonry.” [5]

Whatever happened and why aside, by the time the first Grand Lodge appeared in London in 1717, this “Symbolic Masonry” had spread throughout the British Isles, and had particularly played a role in the royal house of Scotland. [6] The rules for entry were plain and simple: You must be a free man, and you must believe in a supreme being. This opened up potential membership status to Jews, Muslims, the various Christian denominations, and – eventually – even the polytheistic Hindus. With this came an ideology of “cosmopolitanism”: The belief that all humanity was of one, universal community. [7] According to the first “charge” (like “commandment,” if I may) of Anderson’s Constitutions, the Mason is bound “to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and true.” [8] While in Lodge, the Masons were to transcend religion and politics. [9]

The Spread

Much has been written on the role Freemasonry played in colonizing India. From my research this seems to be the go-to example for those who argue that the Craft was instrumental in exporting imperial British culture. This is in part because Freemasonry arrived so quickly in India, just thirteen years after the founding of the English Grand Lodge. [10] For about one hundred years at that point the British East India Company had been operative in India, thus the rapid appearance of Masonic Lodges on the subcontinent is not much of a surprise. [11] The majority of Masons at this time were merchants and military-men, both of which traveled far and often. It is primarily because of these “fellow-travelers” that the vast network of Lodges arose throughout the Empire; so that no matter where a Mason went, his brothers were there.

Despite Masonry’s cosmopolitan ideal of universal brotherhood, no Indian was allowed membership in a Lodge until 1775; this means that for forty-five years a fraternity of foreign merchants and soldiers was operating in India with no native involvement whatsoever. [12] Yet the Freemasons maintained a very public presence in their conquered land, currying favor with local communities and extolling the virtues of cosmopolitan brotherhood, if not actually practicing them. Masonry implanted itself in India with an exclusively British membership, solidifying an imperial network; only after it had been firmly established were the natives granted entry. By doing this, members of the Craft in India normalized the presence of a British administrative class, effectively making Freemasonry a system of socio-cultural conditioning. That is to say that, as a technology, the network of Lodges and men called Freemasonry facilitated the imperial management of India by certain accepted individuals. How exactly did this work?

I’ve already mentioned cosmopolitanism. This was key to Masonry’s integration into foreign communities. Though they didn’t let these foreigners into their club at first, eventually they did, and it began to seem as though the realization of “universal brotherhood” was fast approaching. However, this synthetic fraternalism was not without its hierarchies. Many British Masons were of the persuasion that their colonial “brothers” needed to be lifted up out of their state of cultural inferiority, and naturally only an inundation of British culture could accomplish that. [13] Its ideals aside, Freemasonry was not entirely immune to the usual imperial attitudes toward colonies: That the conquered peoples are like children, or animals. Yet the ideal served a purpose, in that it appealed to natives, and drew many of them willingly into the imperial web.

The structure of Masonry itself guaranteed its proliferation. There are three basic “types” or “tiers” of Freemasonic Lodge: Grand Lodge, Provincial Grand Lodge, and Local Lodge. One might think of these as being analogous to the three levels of government: National, regional, and municipal. In effect, the Provincial Grand Lodge (for example, the aforementioned Indian Lodge established in 1730), served as an intermediary between the Grand and Local Lodges. [14] Within this system, no Local Lodge risked isolation from the center, while it still maintained a practical degree of regional autonomy and, therefore, adaptability.

An important variant of the Local Lodge was the military or “Regimental” Lodge. Around the year 1800, every British army regiment had a mobile Lodge of its own. [15] This allowed active Masons to disseminate the Craft abroad, as they inevitably left behind permanent Local Lodges for in-coming troops and tourists alike. As these British brothers came and went, they could carry important information to the next Lodge on their journey, be it in the colonies or back home. Imagine organized secret clubs of colonizers spread throughout your country by their invading military. It is hard not to see Freemasonry as a tool of the Empire.

The Impact

On the other hand, one might counter that Freemasonry is a subversive force, pointing to perhaps the American Revolution. As in the case of India, Freemasonry quickly arrived in the American colonies and established itself strongly. [16] As with India, this facilitated British imperialism on that continent by setting up the same transportation and communication networks. Yet, at the very center of the American Revolution – which resulted in what was ostensibly the Empire’s greatest loss – was a small cadre of Freemasons. [17] If the Craft truly was some imperial technology, how is it that some of its adherents were responsible for creating such a rift in the Empire?

First, I would say that just because a tool might have certain intended uses doesn’t mean that people won’t ever use it differently. [18] As Neil Postman argues in his 1992 book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, nobody can ever predict exactly what effects a new technology will have on individuals and societies. Second, I would argue that the ideals of the American Revolution more closely reflected the doctrines of Freemasonry than the British government did: Namely the freedom of religious expression and cosmopolitanism (Thomas Paine argued in Common Sense that “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind”). [19] Third and finally I would point out that the impact of Freemasonry as an institution on the American Revolution has been greatly exaggerated by Masons and anti-Masons alike, and that the actions of certain individuals do not necessarily reflect on the groups they are or were at some point associated with. We are looking at Masonry as a technology, and as far as I can tell based on the evidence I’ve seen, it had a much larger and clearer role in colonizing America than it did in freeing America.

In this short article, I have so far hopefully interested the reader in looking into Freemasonry for him or herself. Whatever deep, dark, occulted, and mystical secrets it may or may not hold, the Craft did, for a period in history, act as a tool of imperial control. I want to emphasize here and now that Masonry in our day does not necessarily serve the same purpose. As I’ve repeated again and again throughout this, I’m interested in Freemasonry as a technology, and technologies must be studied within the context of their environment. The Masonry of today is not the Masonry of 1776, any more than a rotary phone is as important today as it was in 1921. Today, the rotary phone is a collector’s piece; its relevance is historical in nature, in that it occupies a place on a time-line somewhere between the telegraph and the push-button telephone. It is the nature of technology to evolve, or more accurately, it is the nature of humankind to continually improve on the functionality of its inventions. 

Freemasonry served its purposes well, but nothing reigns forever. The sun even set upon the British Empire, though many rough-and-tumble mustachioed men now long dead may have refused to believe it. But it is so. The technology of control, that sort of communicative network Masonry had so perfected in its day, was improved upon. As its membership inflated, most Lodges became not much more than drinking clubs for complicit albeit largely innocent groups of men. Sure, they were still incarnations of “British manliness” – archetypes of paternalism – but they were (and are) hardly representatives of societies’ real ruling classes.

Through the history of Masonry, one finds a couple of purists; men who saw what the technological structure of Freemasonry was capable of, and also saw that it had become, in their estimations, diluted. The first is perhaps the best known: That is none other than Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the legendary Bavarian Illuminati. The second is probably the more important: Mr. Cecil John Rhodes. Both of these men, but particularly Rhodes, were able to utilize the functional formula of Freemasonry while improving upon it, creating a more effective tool for reaching the ultimate goal of carefully managed cosmopolitanism: Global Empire masked as “universal brotherhood.” [20]

Freemasonry set the precedent for classes of those “in-the-know” – initiates – serving as the administrators of society. Men like Weishaupt and Rhodes only made these classes smaller and more concentrated. Rhodes especially used this to influence events even after his death, and in so doing played no small role in shaping the world in which we live today. [21] So, while we might read some “conspiracy theory” about how the Masons are going to take over the world in the name of Satan and dismiss it out of hand, knowing that the average Freemason is essentially an adult boyscout, we must remember the Craft’s history. Most importantly, we must ask what socio-cultural management technologies – what networks – evolved from it, to fulfill its role in a more modern and sophisticated way than it did.

Perhaps the reader might find use in the following quote by Jacques Ellul, author of The Technological Society, as I wrap up what is sure to be the first of many glances at Freemasonry and its dubious offshoots:

The tool enables man to conquer. But, man, dost thou know there is no more victory which is thy victory? The victory of our days belongs to the tool.

– The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul, p. 146

References:

1. See the Oxford English Dictionary Online for the definition of “Technology.”
2. “The 10 Greatest Empires in the History of the World” from Business Insider compares and contrasts history’s empires, concluding (as is standard) that the British Empire far out-stripped them all by various criteria.
3. See the United Grand Lodge of England Website as well as its Wikipedia page for more. Initially called the “Grand Lodge of London and Westminster” or the “Premier Grand Lodge of England” this organization was formed when four extant Freemasonic Lodges agreed to join together on St. John the Baptist’s Day, 1717. Established in the wake of the rise of the Hanoverian dynasty, the end of the first Jacobite Rising (though these would continue), and the unification of England, Scotland, and Wales, Grand Lodge Masonry was born as a new era of British history dawned.
4. These are the three theories of Freemasonic origins that I have encountered, the former two being the most commonly accepted. The last theory – that of Templar origins – has been claimed for a great many years, sometimes by anti-Masons trying to tie the Craft to shady Medieval orders, and at other times by Masons themselves, romanticizing their history. Perhaps the most notable book positing this theory is Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson. A full .PDF of the book can be freely found here, and though I remain mostly unconvinced of the author’s thesis, I do highly recommend the book for its compelling historical narrative and the exercise in critical thinking.
5. See “The Old Charges” Website for some source material. Though there are texts pertaining to the conduct of stonemasons predating the turn of the 15th century, the first Free-masonic texts are placed in this period. The difference, apparently, is that around this time Masonic fraternities began to undergo a membership shift. Working, or “Operative” Masons (actual stone-cutters) were being gradually replaced by these honorary, symbolic, or “Speculative” Masons. The Old Charges, beginning with the Regius Manuscript of circa 1390, mystically re-write human history, emphasizing the role of initiates into the ancient and sacred Craft of “Geometry” in shaping the course of the world. Of course, the principles of this “Geometry” are traced all the way back to Adam in Eden, it having been “written on his heart,” as Anderson says on page seven of his Constitutions. Past Grand Masters of the holy and ancient Craft include Pythagoras, Plato, Moses, and of course the legendary builder of Solomon’s Temple, Hiram Abiff. They also include Masonic codes of conduct; a veritable system of ethics to be followed by all brothers all the time. By the time the Grand Lodge got started in England, Freemasonry was virtually composed of only Speculative Masons.
6. For more on this, see “The Influence of Kings on Craft Freemasonry with Especial Reference to Great Britain” by David Barrett, “History of Freemasonry: The Origins” by Jack Buta, and “Stuart Masonry” in Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.
7. See the Oxford English Dictionary Online definition of “Cosmopolitanism.”
8. Anderson, 48.
9. Anderson, 53.
10. This would be the Provincial Grand Lodge of Calcutta, established by Masonic officers of the British East India Company. I have a few links I’d like to supply here for further reading:
    1. “Freemasonry in India,” an extract from World of Freemasonry by Bob Nairn. Despite the typos, this document does a decent job of looking at the presence of Freemasonry within the context of already extant Indian culture (though by no means is this a definitive work). 
    2. Simon Deschamps’ “From Britain to India: Freemasonry as a Connective Force of Empire.” This article provides some of the nuts-and-bolts of Masonic functionality in the colonies. Names, dates, Lodges; if you are interested in pursuing the study of Masonry as a technology of empire I would suggest you begin with this article. I wish I had.
    3. “All in the Family: Freemasonry and the British Empire in the Mid-Nineteenth Century” by Jessica Harland-Jacobs. Anybody can access this thirty-five page article by creating a free JSTOR Account. They limit each account to six document viewings a month, I believe, but all you need to create a new account is an email address. Jessica Harland-Jacobs is the author of Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717-1927. In it, she points out that, astonishingly, Freemasonry is hardly ever considered in academic histories of globalization, and shows in vivid detail how crucial a role it played in that history.
11. Later on, the structure of Freemasonry would help the East India Company further cement itself in the Indian colony. See the above noted article by Simon Deschamps for examples of East India Company agents hastily joining the brotherhood before striking out on their long journeys, knowing that it would encourage their travels.
12. Incredible as this may be, consider also that the second Indian Mason was not accepted until 1812 – almost forty years later. After another thirty-one years, in 1843, a Lodge was founded specifically for native Indian Masons. However, all of these admitted Indians were Muslim. No Hindu was allowed to join the Craft until 1857 – 127 years after Freemasonry arrived in India. Hindus were so long forbidden on the grounds that a Mason had to believe in a supreme being; one sublime Grand Architect of the Universe. Yet the Hindus had a multitude of gods, and for many British conquerors that was a deal breaker. Also, Hinduism’s caste laws had contradicted Masonry’s code of fraternalism: The Hindu way was that there may be no inter-caste mingling, yet Freemasonry insisted that all members equally be called “brother.” But, by the end of the century, Hindu membership had become relatively commonplace, as Masonry became further entrenched in Indian culture. For more on this, see the previously cited article by Bob Nairn, as well as this archived article called “Freemasonry Comes to India.”
13. One such British Mason, Cecil Rhodes, would infamously write in his “Confession of Faith”: “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.” 
14. In a video entitled “A Vast Chain Extending Round the Whole Globe,” Jessica Harland-Jacobs describes Privincial Grand Lodges as “coordinated regional nodes.”
15. Refer to the above linked video, Harland-Jacobs’ book Builders of Empire, and “From Britain to India” by Simon Deschamps cited in note 10.
16. Again I refer to both the video and the book by Jessica Harland-Jacobs. The first American Lodge was established in New Jersey in the early 1730’s, around the same time as in India. Before the American Revolution, the Provincial Grand Lodge of Massachusetts had founded some fifty Local Lodges.
17. Of the fifty-six signatories of the Declaration of Independence, eight were Masons. Of the thirty-nine men who signed the American Constitution, thirteen were Masons. Freemason Benjamin Franklin was the first person to publish the Masonic Constitutions in the New World in 1734. For more on this, see the following articles:
    1. “Masonic Topics”: A short list of questions about Freemasonry during the Revolutionary period, published by MIT.
    2. A piece on the Freemasonry of George Washington, presented by the Mount Vernon website.
    3. This from a website called Freemason Information, an article entitled “Illustrious Brother Ben Franklin and Freemasonry,” celebrated this particular founding father’s singular prominence within the Craft.
18. An example of this is found in the history of Masonry itself. Jessica Harland-Jacobs points out in her Builders of Empire how the cosmopolitan communication networks of Freemasonry not only played a role in establishing the Empire, but how, when the time came, it also provided the tools necessary for decolonization.
19. Found on the first page of this free .PDF of Common Sense, the full quote is: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the Author.”
20. Specifically, Rhodes writes in his letter titled “Confessions of Faith” (cited in note 14) that “At the present day I become a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end. … Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire [sic].” For even more on Rhodes’ philosophy of Empire – and his means for attaining it – see The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes and The Anglo-American Establishment by Carroll Quigley.
21. Once more, I’d like to reference three pieces of media here to provide more context for my point:
    1. “The Peace Revolution Podcast” episode 84: An audio production over ten hours long, this tour de force takes a long look at how small groups are able to consolidate power. Cecil Rhodes features prominently in this presentation.
    2. In “Professor Carroll Quigley and the Article that Said too Little,” Kevin Cole details how the secret societies influenced by Rhodes and his ilk continued on well into the twentieth century. In this work he looks at an old interview with the late Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University, who intimately studied these various groups. The professor expresses fear throughout the interview, repeatedly cautioning the reporter to be discreet and to turn off his tape recorder. The article written about Quigley back in 1975 can be found here, while the full recorded interview can be found here.
    3. In Part 1 of his “WWI Conspiracy,” James Corbett shows how the followers of Rhodes willingly, actively, and with careful deliberation, fanned the flames of the First World War, that catastrophe to which virtually all subsequent catastrophes can be traced.