With the 300^th anniversary of freemasonary this year, Freemasons are breaking with tradition and going public about their organisation. Weekly speaks to Graeme Mackenzie, assistant district Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge of South Africa North and Freemason board member about the mystery surrounding freemasonary and the common perceptions held.

When we hear freemasonry, images of all sorts of mysterious activities begin scrolling up in our minds because you have been systematically refusing to tell us what goes on inside your lodges.  Why are you opening up now?

If you go back in time, freemasonry is the oldest social institution in existence. Until the Second World War, it was a relatively open institution and did not go underground until during the war for a number of different reasons and didn’t really come back above ground until many years later.

Why did it go underground and why come above ground now?

I don’t think that freemasonry is suddenly bursting to tell everybody everything. It’s a process that’s evolved all over the world over the last 15 years or so. English freemasonry is managed through the United Grand Lodge in London. A few years ago, London took the view that there was very little, given what is available on the internet and social media etc., that is genuinely secret about freemasonry. It is not a secret society.

Isn’t it?

(Pointing to his colleagues) I can’t think of too many secret societies that have members sitting with the press and admitting that they are members of a secret society.

This is the first time I have had the honour of having so many Freemasons in my office at any one time. Until recently, we had no idea who the Freemasons were in this country. We still don’t.

Let me just address the ‘why now?’ bit. Over the last 10 years, freemasonry has become more public about its presence in society and its members. I am an open member of the society; I don’t shy away from telling people that I am a member of the Freemasons. It’s not the first thing I would say when I am shaking someone’s hand but it is hardly different to membership in a golf club. In Mauritius, we are using the opportunity of the 300^th anniversary to become more open and visible and tell more people about our existence. We want to demystify freemasonry and get rid of misconceptions of it being a secret society.

There is a lot for you to demystify…

(Laughs) You start and I’ll try.

Don’t tell me that Freemasons now openly admit to being members of a particular lodge.

They should do that. They haven’t.

Why? What is there to hide in the first place?

There is nothing to hide. Freemasonry revolves around three basic principles: brotherly love, relief and truth. In modern language, it would be something like integrity, honesty, charity etc. And love thy neighbour, if you like. The other underlying principle is making good men better. So we use a series of allegorical plays, of which there are three, to make men into an institution which then seeks to define the boundaries of what is right and wrong.

What are the rituals are involved?

There are no rituals. In modern freemasonry, a man will ask to join.

Even if you don’t want to call them rituals, to outsiders like ourselves, that’s what they are. Why are they physical and why do they involve pain?

They don’t involve any pain.

Suppose I wanted to join a lodge tomorrow. What kind of rituals would I have to go through?

In the three degrees of freemasonry, the most pain you would suffer is being blindfolded for the first 15 minutes of the first ceremony.

What would you do to me in those 15 minutes?

I would take you around the room and introduce you to everybody and talk about the application of some of the tools that were used in the building of King Solomon’s temple. All of this while you have a cable-toe around your neck, which is like a hangman’s noose, to illustrate that if you try to run away from your responsibilities, you will strangle yourself. Nobody pulls the noose; it’s all symbolic. To your left breast is pointed a dagger; it’s not presented in an aggressive way, but to show that if you rush forward to attack somebody, you might kill yourself. You are taken around the lodge and introduced to certain officers in the lodge who tell you how the Temple of Jerusalem was built. When you have done that, you’re done.

You make it sound like a harmless social club.

Anybody can join. It’s classless and there is no religion in freemasonry.

Why should I join?

You have some fun.

I can have fun anywhere.

Yes, you can, but maybe you want to mingle with everybody from the plumber to the president in a local society. Also, it’s a way to grow yourself. You will have someone to guide you – a little bit like an antiquated life coach. We don’t preach: we think we know what’s right and what’s wrong. Life is not a lonely journey, but here we have a more inclusive way to demonstrate to people that we are open, honest and people of integrity.

If there is no preaching, how do I improve? Just by having fun with you guys?

There is no theology. You don’t become a Freemason for salvation. It’s a non-religious organisation. One of the requirements is that you believe in a superior being. Who that is, or how they manifest themselves in your life is entirely up to you.

Can’t I be an atheist and join?

No.

Why not?

You need to believe in somebody up there greater than you. At certain points in the ceremony, you reaffirm your commitments in a sort of prayer depending on your theological environment. So we can have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews in the same lodge. And in each of these lodges, their holy book is open. We don’t quote from it, but it’s open as an affirmation of a collective commitment to live your life more honestly.

Does honesty have to be related to religion?

There is no relation in my view. You cannot be a Freemason if you have a criminal record. If you have a motoring offence, that’s okay, I have quite a few too. But if you have a serious criminal record then you cannot become a Freemason anywhere in the world.

That I can understand, but it’s the discrimination against people who have no religion that’s harder to understand. It’s almost as if you are saying that if you don’t believe in some God, you are dishonest and we don’t want you here.

That’s not what we are saying at all. I mean if we want to make some kind of serious commitment. In my world, I am a Christian, so I would swear to God in my world. So that would bind me to those principles. And everybody else does the same, based on their own individual belief.

So how do I become a better person by joining your organisation?

By working your way through the ceremonies. The lodge is quite a hierarchical organisation and, at the top of each lodge, is what we would term the Worshipful Master or, more commonly, the president of the lodge. He serves the office for a 12 month period. Working for him are a team of officers in the lodge who hold different ranks and take on a different function in each of the ceremonies. So there are different allegorical tales portrayed in the lodge, and different officers will play different roles in guiding you through that. Some officers will help you through the first degree, a slightly different team with your second and a different team might help with your third. A typical lodge meets between five and 10 times a year, so when you are in, you then help other people coming through. You’ve learnt part of the ceremony, part of the ritual and the allegorical plays, and we have a little blue book with each of the three plays. So in helping others through that same process, you help yourself and it’s all about affirming that.

What makes you different from a sect?

Most sects have a belief. For example, that the world will end on a certain day. We are a classless society; anybody who meets the criteria of not having a criminal record and of having a belief in a higher power is eligible to become a member.

It’s not really as classless as all that, is it?

I think it is. One of the biggest growing areas is a scheme that was introduced seven or eight years ago that’s called the university scheme. What the university scheme does is it seeks to attract students. These are by definition, amongst the poorest members of society.

Only momentarily. Therefore, the scheme is a good investment.

(Laughs) Students are used to boiling a bag of pasta and making it last a week. Students like to join to be around other students and the esoteric nature of freemasonry and what it suggests and the ancient linkage that it goes back to pre-Christian times. And what freemasonry does is accommodating those students.

How many non-professionals and poor freemasons are there in Mauritius?

There are about 2,200 members in the district. Across that, I am going to suggest to you plumbers, builders, blue-collar workers… I think probably in Mauritius, there would be more professionals than artisans, but that’s because of the way that lodges have grown here over time. Each Grand Master gives to his lodge its own identity. I went to a lodge in Mauritius yesterday that just got a member. And he is 81 years old! He just joined! It’s wonderful and he’s loving it.

How does one decide to become a Freemason? I’ve never had somebody come up to me and ask whether I would like to become a Freemason.

That’s changed for a number of reasons. I would be the first to admit, as somebody who has been in control of this for some time, that freemasonry has been very bad at selling itself. Only in the last 10 years has it started to emerge and communicate more. Freemasonry has realised over time that it’s a different world today than it was 100 years ago. And the workforce is more transient now than it’s ever been. We are not necessarily looking to recruit, but to make people aware of what it is that we do. We are not doing this because we are desperate for members, but because we think that freemasonry has a part to play in society and that people need to understand what it’s all about.

The impression we get is that there is a strong solidarity amongst members and that it’s almost unhealthy to the rest of society.

There are two different levels of support. One is emotional support: if somebody’s relative passes away, you would be there for them. So there is a support, no question but that’s where things stop. I have been a Freemason for 30 years, I have never received nor given preference to a Freemason in a commercial context.

What about the others? Have you ever heard of Freemasons who have benefited from their membership or helped someone benefit?

I have heard of them and it will happen. If I need my roof fixed and somebody in my lodge is a roofer, I am going to ask them to give me a quote.

That is your own personal money, but in other situations where it’s not your money but you are in a position of authority and decision making, would you not favour a Freemason who you know and trust as opposed to somebody else who you don’t know that well?

I mean as an individual, I reserve the right to spend my money where I want to spend it. The lodges themselves don’t really spend…

Let’s say you are in government and have a contract to allocate, wouldn’t you be tempted to give it to a fellow Freemason?

I think it would be frowned upon to award a contract to a Freemason without abiding by the rules. And no Freemason would expect to have to give it, receive it or see it. Not if you abide by the principles of freemasonry.

So are you saying that we have the wrong impression, and that what we think of applies to just a few bad eggs that don’t follow the freemasonry principles?

Has freemasonry admitted people that it shouldn’t have? Sure. Is freemasonry guilty of having a small percentage of people in the past and in the future going against the grain? Of course. But when you are interviewed, one of the questions you are asked is whether you are joining for personal gain. If you are joining for personal gain, actually we don’t want you.

How many people say yes to that?

(Laughs) Nobody says yes to that but if the person has lied, it becomes clear within the lodge environment. If it’s clear that Fred has joined the lodge and is going around trying to sell his greenhouses, life insurance policies or lawnmowers, he will be asked to stop or be told to leave. And you can be excluded. During the admissions process, if somebody has some concerns about the individual, you can stop them coming in. The famous black ball that you put in a ballot box can stop a potential member from coming in. So yes, it has happened and I am honest about that, but that’s happened in any society and in any other organisation. I have no more allegiance to the life insurance salesman at my lodge than I do to the life insurance salesman that shows up at the pub where I drink occasionally. So those kind of things are policed now.

Everybody who has admitted to being a Freemason to me has whispered it and immediately followed it by “Please don’t tell anyone!” Why?

Some people prefer to keep it private because they want to see it as something more exclusive than belonging to other charitable types of institutions. Some people also have tried to suppress what freemasonry is about. Last year in the UK, Freemasons gave £33 million to charity! That’s second only to the national lottery in terms of charitable donations in the country. In the district, it’s more modest: over the last 20 years, we have given Rs68 million in donations to charities across the district. But we have been dreadful. We go and interview the beneficiary really rigorously, but then we go and slip the money under the door really quietly. And then we go away.

Why? False modesty?

It’s not false modesty. It’s nice to give money and not tell anybody but there comes a point where you have to start taking credit for it. Lodges work hard to raise money and then give it away in a whisper. In our district, we have become much more vocal about what we contribute. The 300^th anniversary is a great excuse for us to say we think we have something to say, and we are saying it and that there is no need for secrecy.

Good! Since there are no secrets between us, is the prime minister or the former prime minister a member of your lodge?

It’s up to the member to choose whether to divulge that or not. It’s like a doctor, if you ask a doctor what’s wrong with his patient, he won’t tell you. If you put the question to the prime minister, he will tell you of his own free will whether or not he is a member. We have to respect that privacy. We have a website and the members who want to disclose their membership are free to do so but we also respect the privacy of those who don’t.

How influential is your society? Is it as influential as we think it is?

Not as influential as people think. Was it more influential in the past? Sure. You just have to look at the construction of Washington DC to see the influence that Freemasons had on the landscape. In years gone past, I have no doubt, it has influenced politics. As society has moved on, freemasonry has seen its influence diminish. We have had famous politicians like Winston Churchill for example. But freemasonry has never campaigned on a political agenda or sought to influence politics.

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