by Bro. Gerald Reilly

Freemasonry: an initiatic system of self-knowledge?

Pietre-Stones February 2008 Poll of members made the intriguing assertion that "Freemasonry is an initiatic system of self-knowledge" and then asked, "Have the majority of the brethren really a lifestyle noticeably different from the cowans?" A not overly significant majority provided a positive response.
"...received into an organisation and entrusted with knowledge and experience..."
Whilst the question, inviting an evaluation of experience, might not be overly challenging, the assertion, might be considered to be more so. The assertion might be profound; perhaps it is profoundly meaningless. However, if as Freemasons we believe that we have been initiated it therefore it behoves us to understand what this might denote and if there are any outcomes that could be expected to flow there from.
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The first-known use of the word Freemasons - in the form Free Masons - occurs in City of London Letter-book H of 9 August 1376, though the word is in fact deleted in favour of Mason.
Masons and Freemasons were interchangeable during the 15th and 16th centuries and Freemasons were generally meant to denote hewers or setters of freestone, Masons being used to embrace all stoneworkers.
Ashmole in his diary wrote that he was made a Free Mason and referred in 1686 to the "Fellowship of Free Masons". James Anderson when writing his 1723 Constitutions did not use the single word - Freemasons - once.
Whatever the reasons, the 1723 Constitutions contain approximately 126 references to Masons, 12 to Free Masons, 10 to Free and Accepted Masons, 9 to Free-Masons, one to Accepted Free Masons and none to Freemasons.
And such is the tenacity of tradition that to this day the most of the Constitutions are addressed to Free and Accepted Masons and not to Accepted Freemasons.
The earliest-known anti-masonic leaflet, of 1698, warns the public against "those called Free Masons" - almost certainly what we now know as speculative Freemasons.