What has been the effect of Freemasonry on society? Why have men joined Freemasonry? What sort of men have joined? Have their masonic beliefs been translated into action? The social impact of Freemasonry is very hard to quantify. This is one of the reasons that masonic historians have, in the main, spent their time on biography or research into masonic origins; the sociology and anthropology has generally been avoided.
    In line with its aim to bring together masonic and non-masonic academic scholarship, the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre held its fourth annual conference centred upon the so-called "Higher Degree" phenomenon.
    Fruitful research is continuing into how the masonic perspective influenced the creation of other societies, how the masonic organisational or philosophical template was admired and copied. An example of this process was revealed by Professor Andrew Prescott in his paper, The Voice Conventional – Druidic Myths and Freemasonry, which began the conference.
    In Wales the Druidic eisteddfod is the major focus of Welsh nationhood and has performed an important and fundamental role in preserving the Welsh-speaking culture. This musical and literary competition is managed by the "Assembly of the Bards of the Island of Britain", the gorsedd, which has, as members, the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
    While the eisteddfod can be traced back to at least 1176, the gorsedd has a rather more recent origin. It was created by a stonemason, Edward Williams (who took the Bardic name of Iolo Morganwg); the first public ceremony was performed at Primrose Hill, London, in 1792.
    The head of the gorsedd is called the Archdruid and there are three orders within it: the highest, the druids, are distinguished by their white robes. Their meetings during the eisteddfod are very ritualised and take place within a circle of twelve stone pillars. Where did the idea of the rituals come from? It has been suggested that Iolo was a Freemason. He consistently denied it. The truth is rather more complicated.
    Early Freemasons saw their origin in the Druidic mysteries and put their theories into print. Thus Freemasonry, unofficially, helped shape the popular image of the ancient Druids. Then in 1781 the Ancient Order of Druids was founded: its own traditions state that the founders were Freemasons although this cannot now be documented. Nevertheless, the earliest surviving rituals for the Order are a mixture of masonic ritual with Druidic aspects rather clumsily inserted. This Order, the first example of Druidic revivalism, became very popular and would almost certainly have influenced Iolo. For one thing, the title of Archdruid appears to derive from the Ancient Order of Druids. Thus, Freemasonry, unofficially, produced a perspective from which Iolo drew in the course of creating what is now a major modern social phenomenon.
    Another example of unofficial and indirect masonic influence was discussed by Andy Durr, former Course Leader for Postgraduate History at the University of Brighton, now Mayor of Brighton and Hove. His interest is in the early formation of Working Men’s Associations which eventually led to the formation of the Labour Unions. It was recognised in the late nineteenth century that these associations were patterned after Freemasonry. Yet, this significant influence of Freemasonry, albeit indirect, has never been recognised within the social, intellectual and cultural history of England.
    Social aspirations of Freemasons formed the central part of Evert Kwaadgras’s paper. He is a classicist with an MA from Leyden University, Holland, and since 1990 has been the archivist, librarian and curator, at the Grand East of the Netherlands, The Hague.
    In Continental Europe, Freemasons tended to be drawn from the nobility or higher classes and there was a strong bias towards "knightly" degrees. To be a humble mason was not thought fitting for men of such self-importance. He criticised the chivalric "Strict Observance" system founded by Freiherr von Hund, explaining that its notion of a ruling "unknown superior" fed directly into the more sinister movement of the Illuminati. In 1777 the founder of the Illuminati joined a Munich Lodge in order to infiltrate and use Freemasonry for his own purposes. The Bavarian king banned both the Illuminati and Freemasonry and this served as "proof" that Freemasonry harboured dangerous agents. Thus, for Kwaadgras, the "Higher Degrees" fuelled a paranoia which is still with us today: that an unknown and secret leader of World Freemasonry exists, pulling international political strings.
    Robert Gilbert, BA, of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research, looked at the rise of chivalric Orders in Freemasonry in England: there was a revival after the death of the Grand Master, The Duke of Sussex, in 1843. He asked, what did Freemasons find in these Degrees? He noted that in largely Protestant nineteenth century England there had been a revival of interest in Church ritual with the Oxford Movement in 1833. But this faction formed a small part of society. Nevertheless, people felt a need for ritual and since it had been ejected from the Church where was it to be found? What appeared in its place was masonic ceremonial – there are great similarities between the layout of a masonic Lodge and that of the Low Anglican Church! This was a socially acceptable type of ceremonial otherwise denied to the Victorian English and furthermore, it was devoid of any dogmatic structure.
    The two days of the conference were filled with other thought-provoking papers: The Revd. Neville Barker Cryer, MA, spoke on the eighteenth century Rite of Harodim which continued to promote Christian Freemasonry long after it had been officially removed. He showed too how much mystical early Freemasonry was ejected to reappear in the Degrees which lie beyond the three Craft Degrees. Pierre Mollier, MA in Political Science, now Head of the Museum, Archives, and Library of the Grand Orient, Paris, spoke on the discoveries drawn from the return from Russia of the masonic archives stolen by the Nazis in 1940. He revealed evidence of a chivalric "Scottish Masters" Lodge in Berlin, in 1742; their Minute Book was found in the archives. Dr. S. Brent Morris, Membership Director for the Supreme Council 33º, Washington, spoke on the growth of the "Higher Degrees" in the United States and the early role played by travelling lecturers (and initiators) in their dissemination. Dr. Jan Snoek of Heidelberg University described how the particular passwords of Freemasonry are intimately connected with the true pronunciation of the name of God: that the knowledge of the vowels of the names of the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, is the knowledge of the vowels of the Tetragrammaton. Tom Bergroth, Phil.Liz., Grand Marshal of The Swedish Order of Freemasons and former curator of their museum, spoke on the history of the Swedish Rite and hinted at the gradual revelation of meaning through its ten stages; Dr. Roger Dachez spoke on the Martinist Orders and Matthew Scanlan, MA, on the "Acception" in seventeenth century English Freemasonry.
    All in all, much to digest and much to draw into future articles for Freemasonry Today.