| St. Johns Masonic Lodge No 788 Cairncastle. (Province of Antrim) |
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| Although we cannot be precise in determining the starting date or period of Freemasonry, we can with confidence point to the early seventeenth century as the most probable period during which it had its beginnings; and with some speculation, but based on expert studies and interpretation of hundreds of MSS and Trade and Town Records, we can summarise the probable development of the Craft ..... 1.... The formation of simple trade, craft fellowships, fraternities or guilds, back into the thirteenth century, or earlier. 2.... The evolution of Operative masons lodges, in places where there were no other trade organisations, at lonely building sites, in the country and in small towns. 3.... Growth of Operative lodges in larger towns, where other organisations did exist but did not meet the special needs of the masons' trade; in some instances these lodges were large enough to be classified as guilds by the local authorities. 4.... The admission, i.e. `Acceptance' into Operative lodges of members of the nobility, local gentry, landowners and important merchants etc., who were not masons, possibly for reasons of curiosity, or social and convivial purposes, or to add wealth or stature to the lodges. 5.... The general transition of such lodges from Operative, to non-Operative or 'Speculative', possibly for reasons of diminishing power as `trade' bodies, followed by increasing admission of `Accepted' Masons. 6.... Emergence of completely non-Operative lodges, sometimes having no origins or connections with the Operative lodges or trade. The ceremonies and rituals for admission of members were often carried over, the use of special words and signs for recognition, whilst preserving secrecy, and often the adoption of the Antient Masons' Charges as their own Rules was a common feature of these Speculative lodges. These developments occurred over a period of some five hundred years, during which great changes took place, and it is in the sum total of these changes that the transition took place from Operative to Speculative Masonry, not as the inspired actions of some learned body or society of men at a particular moment in time. |
| "HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?" |
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