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Working Paper Series CRFF Working Paper Series: Editorial Andreas OnnerforsOne of the main ambitions of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism is to extend the limits of research. Currently, we lack a format of publication for a free exchange of scholarly ideas on freemasonry and fraternalism that is neither too rigid nor too noncommittal...A History of British Freemasonry 1425-2000 Andrew PrescottLet me begin with a confession. I trained as a historian, but I am not sure that I ever really was a historian. My career is defined by libraries and archives. As a postgraduate, in studying the records of the rising of 1381 at the National Archives...Researching Freemasonry: Where Are We? J.A.M. SnoekOver the last ten years or so, the number of scholarly conferences on Freemasonry has increased dramatically. Almost all of them were cautious enough to limit themselves to a particular aspect of this huge phenomenon...."Men Are Not To Be Essentially Distinguished...": Cosmopolitan Foundations of Freemasonry Andreas OnnerforsThis paper is an attempt to identify ideas on world citizenship in a series of fundamental texts related to freemasonry. It is a sketch rather than a final product, one typical characteristic of a working paper, it is a rough stone as compared to...Masonic Societies of Ideas and their Social Representation in Costa Rica 1865-1899 Ricardo Martinez EsquivelFreemasonry, from its very beginnings, due to its secret character and participation in different social and, most importantly, political proc-esses, inspired multiple myths. Many reforms of secularization in the world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were led by members of this organisation, which is one of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church's disapproval ...The Fiftieth Anniversary of The Grand Lodge of Japan (1957-2007) Japan is a country about which relatively little is known as regards masonic participation, and this paper provides an overview of the activities of The Grand Lodge of Japan, which was formed in 1957. The paper not only emphasises and expands on key points from an earlier paper by the same author, ‘Seeking Enlightenment: Initiation and Ritual of Oriental Candidates’, delivered at the 2005 Canonbury Conference (printed in The Canonbury Papers: Volume 4. London, 2007), but also brings to light the more recent involvement of Freemasonry with one of the chief aims and objectives of the fraternity – charity. The Masonic Collection of the University Library in Poznan The activity of Freemasonry was appropriately matched and accom-panied by a significant development of Masonic writings. The grow-ing number of publications was recorded by and reflected in basic bibliographies of Freemasonry . This literature constituted the core of the collections in libraries of Masonic lodges. According to the esti-mates given by the German Museum of Freemasonry in Bayreuth, round about the year 1930, all Masonic collection in Germany put together amounted to 200,000 library units . The steady development of these libraries was abruptly changed and put to and end by Hitler’s coming to power. Lodges were either closed or forced to close, and their property was confiscated. Libraries of some of lodges, like that, for example, at Altenburg, were burned down by triumphant SA-men. The bulk of the collections was taken over by the Gestapo, and the books were handed over to the Professional Library of the SS [...] |