The Freemasons : a history of the world's most powerful secret society
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 318-332) and index.

The freemasons are a subject of endless fascination. To the layman, they are a mysterious brotherhood of profound if uncertain influence, a secret society purported, in some popular histories, to have its roots in the fabled order of the Knights Templar or in the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids. They evoke fears of world domination by a select few who enjoy privileged access to wealth and the levers of power. The secrecy of their rites suggests the taint of sacrilege, and their hidden loyalties are sometimes accused of undermining the workings of justice and the integrity of nations. In this reassessment, Jasper Ridley offers a work that traces Freemasonry from its origins to the present day. Ridley recounts the developments of Freemasonry from the guilds of free stone masons, the master builders of the Middle Ages, into societies of 'gentlemen masons' and 'speculative masons' in the seventeenth century, culminating in the formation of the Grand Lodge in London in 1717. Delineating the spread of the brotherhood to Europe, the New World, and the East, he weighs the role of freemasonry is supposed to have played in the American Revolution, where many of the Founding Fathers were among the ranks. Not a mason himself, he refutes many of the allegations made against freemasonry, while at the same time acknowledging the mason's shortcomings: their clannishness, misogyny, obsession with secrecy, and devotion to arcane ritual.