Who talks to who in Freemasonry?

The idea of Freemasonry as one organisation is confounded by the thorny and often confusing issue of “recognition”. In order to make sure that Masons were not put in vulnerable positions or left at risk of being conned, early Masonic groups agreed that their members would only be allowed to take part in another Lodge’s meetings if the other Lodge was recognised as Regular. That way, the Grand Lodges could ensure that their members weren’t going to get sucked into some quasi-masonic cult, or what have you. The principle of recognition was quickly adopted as a Landmark.

However, whether or not any given Lodge is judged regular or not is, like everything else regarding Masonry, at the sole discretion of each Grand Lodge individually. There are a set of criteria used to judge regularity, including adherence to the Landmarks, the precise minutiae of the Lodge’s original creation, membership requirements and dues, benefits of membership, and so on. Naturally, no two Grand Lodges have the exactly same set of criteria.

The issue does have some notable practical ramifications. A Freemason is, naturally, allowed to fraternise – associate as a Mason – with any other Mason associated with the same Grand Lodge. In order to preserve Masonry’s ideals of fellowship, members are also allowed to fraternise with members associated with any other regular Grand Lodge. Although there may be some differences in ritual, it is accepted that a Master Mason can take part in all the Lodge proceedings of any regular Lodge – with an invitation, anyway. However, it is a serious breach of protocol to take part in any Masonic meeting of a Lodge which has been judged irregular – it will usually result in the member’s expulsion for misconduct.

While it’s very unlikely that you would get into trouble visiting other Lodges in your local area, the international field is an entirely different matter. In any foreign area, Masons are always strongly encouraged to make sure that they have established whether or not the local Grand Lodge is considered regular back home.

The House of the Temple in Washington DC by NCinDC

There is no easy way to guess regarding regularity. There is no common ground. Certifying regularity normally takes an extensive investigation into the Grand Lodge in question – one that each other Grand Lodge has to undertake in its own time and at its own expense. In some cases, questions about the status of just one individual local Lodge may be enough to get an entire Grand Lodge ruled as irregular. It depends on the investigators. Certain forms of ritual may be acceptable to some Grand Lodges but not to others; the same goes for admissions policies, historical precedents, or the issue might be decided for reasons of political expedience. There is no requirement (or even specific trend) to automatically recognise a Grand Lodge that recognises you.

Historical issues can further cloud matters. In a few cases, old slights and rivalries may be carried through as refusal to grant recognition. The opposite can happen too, of course; a Grand Lodge may feel obliged to recognise a group with normally fatal incompatibilities just because of local issues of solidarity. Situations where A mutually recognises B and B mutually recognises C but A and C do not recognise each other are common; even so, if Masons from both A and C are visiting B at the same time, the visitors could both find themselves in trouble when they go home. Despite this potential, Grand Lodges accept that other bodies sometimes have to come to expedient arrangements, and it is uncommon for D to refuse to recognise B because B accepts C.

Some Masonic researchers have tried to draw up a world-wide recognition map, but the scale of the job is so huge – and the exact details are forever changing, anyway – that it has not so far proven possible. Most Grand Lodges draw the line at maintaining a list of other Grand Lodges that they consider regular. Some go a little further, and also note the main decisions made by those other regular Grand Lodges, but almost none waste members’ money on investigating what irregular (and therefore forbidden) institutions are up to.

Incidentally, the issue of visiting and regularity is what lies behind the common mistaken impression that Freemasonry is for men only. There are indeed male-only jurisdictions, but there are also female-only jurisdictions, and mixed sex jurisdictions as well. Because granting recognition includes granting access to Lodge meetings, it is not possible for the single-sex Grand Lodges to grant recognition to their opposing numbers, or to the mixed-sex groups. If they did so, they would be breaking the single-sex requirement – which was originally put in place, like the bar on religion and politics, to try to head off internal division and competition. Freemasonry is no more sexist than the school education system, which also includes single-sex male, single-sex female and mixed-sex institutions.