DRAFT

American Culture Association and Popular Culture Association

San Antonio, Texas - Saturday, March 29, 1997

Marriott River Center Hotel - Panel 438 12:30 pm

The Evolution of the Masonic Temple:

Architecture of Cabalism and Community

Paul Rich and Guillermo De Los Reyes

University of the Americas-Puebla, Mexico

For information rich@hoover.stanford.edu

See web pages for cvs and articles:

Secret ritualistic societies place enormous importance on the arrangements of their meeting rooms, relying on architecture to help impart the appropriate solemnity during the initiation ceremonies. The Odd Fellows, Elks, Moose, Eagles, Pythians, and Knights of Columbus all have architectural requirements for their ceremonies. But none of these organizations gives as much attention to architecture as does does Freemasonry, which conveys its interest in the building arts through a large special vocabulary. (Sometimes authors take up the relationship between Freemasonry and the stone masons, as is the case in this paper, and this discussion of Masons and masons becomes confusing without the use of capitals for the speculative or non-operative Masons.)

Masonry in fact uses a number of different architectural motifs: the Shrine relies on Islamic designs, the Knights Templar use medieval architecture. Most people here would be familiar with some of the other groups which constitute the Masonic family, such as DeMolay, Job's Daughters, the Eastern Star, the Grotto, the Scottish Rite, and so on. A generation ago many of us would have had family members who belonged to one or another of these orders. All of them have architectural requirements. A Scottish Rite cathedral would never be confused with a Shrine Mosque or a Templar sanctuary.

No American town was complete without its lodge halls, and many thousands still exist. Since there are well over 1000 Masonic degrees or plays that have been worked or staged at one time or another, the magnitude of the architectural backdrops required becomes apparent. When one adds to that the permutations created by national and regional usages, black or Prince Hall Freemasonry, women's Freemasonry, and groups influenced by the Masons such as the Mormons, Black Muslims, the Orange Order, and the Ku Klux Klan, it is evident that as far as secret ritualistic architecture is concerned that an enormous amount of territory can be explored.

In Freemasonry, which its members often talk about as the Royal Art or simply the Craft, architecture is used for a wide variety of ritualistic purposes: differentiation, identification, honor, empowerment. For example, the officers are invariably enthroned, placed on a dias in a manner which only kings normally occupy. In short, Masonry make extensive use of architecture to mystify and impress its initiates.

Research on this theme has been limited. Along with the obvious problems of getting details about a movement which regards its activities as extremely confidential, there are the problems once any material is finally obtained that go with dealing with the meanings. The Masonic movement over the centuries has jealously preserved its secrets. Investigation of the architecture of the fraternity's temples for anyone who is not a member is a mighty task.

Masonry is not a nineteenth-century creation like so many of the fraternal orders, and therefore its architecture has a particular antiquarian interest. Other fraternal orders claim a parentage which is dubious, but there is no question but that Masonry's origins are ancient. They are also controversial, partly because some Masons are fond of embroidering the society's quite long history and extending its genealogy further, back to King Alfred or even Adam.

Another source of constant confusion is the supposition that Masonry is one cohesive movement. That is untrue even within countries, let alone between them. Its building needs vary according to the particualr rite involved. Probably it is more accurate to speak of Masonries in the plural, for the differences are large and while in some places the Masons are conspiratorial and clandestine, elsewhere they are benign and charitable. If they were so terribly secret, they would not have built so many imposing and attention-grabbing temples.

In fairness to Freemasonry in the United States, it should be noted that it is not as secret or political as Freemasonry is in some other countries. In small town America, where the Rainbow Girls put on a pancake breakfast or the local High Twelve club has a joint meeting with the Knights of Columbus, the darker side of the movement is not apparent. Freemasonry in the United States is indeed "discreet" about its activities, but there are (if one may pun) degrees of secrecy. In contrast, in parts of Europe and in Latin America, Freemasonry is extremely political, often virulently anticlerical, and highly sensitive to disclosure of its rituals. So one observation about American Masonic architecture is that it is much more conspicuous than Masonic architecture in many other lands.

There is nevertheless a commonality to Masonic architecture wherever found. Regardless of the national and regional differences, the movement everywhere needs a series of rooms, including a preparation room, because it is extremely ritualistic and gives primary importance to conferring degrees. The degrees can be likened to plays in which the candidate plays a principal part and undergoes numerous trials before gaining full membership. This continuing stress on ritualism marks the organization off from other groups which in additon to ritual have pursued mutual insurance (such as the case with Odd Fellows and the Knights of Columbus) or family recreation (as is now the case with the Moose and Elks). Contrary to public opinion, Masonic rituals are serious business. The rites are not comparable to college fraternity hijinks.

Because of the emphasis that members place on the value of the antiquity of the order and on the necessity of preserving the rituals unchanged, the architecture has in effect been sealed in amber and a seventeenth or eighteenth-century lodge room has many resemblances to modern lodge rooms.

Because of the secrecy, another generalization that can be made about American lodges is that they were usually on the second story, and most often when in small towns with a commercial property on the first floor that brought in rents. The ritual secrets are used by members to identify each other and repeated at each meeting, usually in a dialogue between officers or officers and members. Therefore there was always a need for an architecture which would exclude eavesdroppers.

Protecting the secrecy of the ceremonies is as important as protecting one's bank code number. So Masonic chambers normally lack windows. A corollary is that the researcher faces considerable hurtles in obtaining the evidence necessary for carrying out investigations. That possibly accounts for the lack of reference to the subject in mainstream academic journals. Fortunately therefore for scholars who wish to explore Freemasonry and study its use of names, defectors have many times "exposed" the secrets and published them. These exposes are a major source of knowledge for the Masons themselves when it comes to the history of Freemasonry in previous centuries, and also are a useful crib for Masonic officers when they are learning the degrees. There is of course an irony to a secret organization which threatens to murder any hapless member who reveals its activities but depending on spies and enemies in order to reconstruct its past. The exposes are all the more useful because much early Masonic material appears in cipher and pictograph, which is not that easily understandable.

Because of the insistence on ritual purity, the architecture utilized remains remarkably the same and the exposes that can be found in any reasonably large public library which depict lodge rooms are reliable. Mozart, Frederick the Great, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin would find the Masonic lodge room of today strikingly similar to that where they took their degrees. Jesuits, Christian evangelicals, the political right and the political left, and muckraking journalists have produced and continue to produce accurate accounts of the dramas and the temple interiors.

The most important story or legend of Masonry is itself about an architect and builder, and is contained in the third degree, which is absolutely central to Freemasonry. The legend is that of is that Hiram Abiff, who we are told is in charge the construction of the temple at Jerusalem in the time of King Solomon. He is accosted by three of the workmen, who are named Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum. They wish to have the secret passes which would enable them to get more work and to identify themselves as skilled stonemasons and builders. Hiram refuses, saying that when the temple is finished he will give them the passes as a reward, but not until then, - and at any rate he cannot convey the information without the consent of Solomon and of Hiram the King of Tyre - the other two principals involved in the project. The three ruffians kill him, are eventually found out, and executed at Solomon's order. Hiram, who is played by the candidate being initiated, is raised from the grave by the master of the lodge, who takes the part of Solomon and uses for the raising the most secret of Masonic grips, the so-called Lion's Paw. All of this adventure takes place within Solomon's Temple, which the lodge room represents.

Whether the Hiramic legend was part of the folklore of the operative stonemasons who worked on the medieval cathedrals is unestablished. There are those who think it was invented from the whole cloth in the eighteenth century. Perhaps on the other hand what we have in the story is a genuinely medieval cautionary tale given to new apprentices who might be too anxious to acquire titles and prestige without work. If so, it is one of architecture's oldest operative legends, still in use. In any event, there can be few places where architecture is considered more seriously than in Freemasonry, and for that reason the study of Masonic temples is clearly of great interest.

Paul Rich and Guillermo De Los Reyes are Professors at the University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico, and associated with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

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