Page 95 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

RiTES AND CEREmONiES

REMEMBER WHEN I was first made a Mason, thirsting for knowledge, I had
the opportunity to visit a Lodge working under another jurisdiction. To my great
sur
I prise, I found that their work and ceremonies differed greatly from ours. I had
thought all our work and procedures, their explanation and Charges, were the same
everywhere. I believed that they were of great antiquity derived from the days of King
Solomon, who had conferred degrees at Jerusalem 3,000 years ago! Subsequently, I
discovered that even our signs, tokens and words had not always been the same the world
over. I found that there had not always been three degrees. Even the lesser lights and the
altar occupied different positions in different Lodges and in Constitutions not recognised
by us the V.O.S.L. had been done away with.
We must remember that in days gone by, nothing whatever was allowed to be written
down and one had to learn by heart from mouth to ear. This made it inevitable that there
would be differences in words and ceremony. For example, we know that the Irish ritual
began from the same source as our own, but its evolution differed. They now have a
more or less standard ritual and a Conductor takes the Candidate through this, explaining
everything that is done in his own words as he goes along. The Prayers and Charges are
read out from their Book of Laws and Constitutions at the appropriate points. Finally, they
have a Grand Lodge of Instruction which certain Provincial Officers have to attend and
in the same way Provincial Lodges of Instruction for certain Officers of each individual
Lodge. No printed books of ritual are permitted. However the fundamentals are the
same for us all and the same basic truths do not vary between those Constitutions which
recognise each other as Regular. There are some who would tinker with the ritual of our
fathers, but would they be improved thereby?
How then is it that the procedures in Lodges under our English Constitution have not
varied more than they do? At the start this was achieved through certain printed exposures
which, being sufficiently near to the truth, were used as ‘Cribs’. This is proved when we
find that a printed public exposure had gone through several editions during the course of
many years, and that we possess today several well thumbed copies of it.
The first of these exposures used in this way was Prichard’s “Masonry Dissected”, first
printed in 1730. It went through many editions and was translated into several languages.