SHORT TALK BULLETIN -  Vol.XII January. 1934  No. 1

RITUAL DIFFERENCES

by: Unknown

An experience in freemasonry usually upsetting to the newly-raised 
brother is his first visit to a lodge in another jurisdiction than his 
own.	Having carefully been taught a certain ritual, in all probability 
with positive emphasis upon the necessity of being “letter perfect,” he 
learns with a distinct shock that the ritual in other States differs 
from his own, and these differ each from the other.
If he converses with those “well informed brethren who will always be as 
ready to give as you will be to receive instruction” he is more than apt 
to be met with a puzzled, “I don’t know, I’m sure, just why they are 
different from us, but of course. ours is correct.”
The riddle becomes much plainer as the neophyte studies Masonic history 
- but, alas, many never open a Masonic book!  Yet divergences in ritual 
cannot be understood without some historical background.  It is 
necessary to understand, for instance, that Freemasonry came to this 
country, some time prior to 1731, at a time when English ritual was in a 
process of formation.  We did not receive our Masonry from one central 
source. but from several; nor did we obtain it as a whole.  Several 
different localities, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia) received 
Freemasonry from across the sea and from them our forms and ceremonies 
radiated to other sections.  The schism in the first Grand Lodge in 
England (1753) resulted in two Grand Lodges; the “Ancients” (the 
younger, schismatic body) and the “Moderns”” (the older. original Grand 
Lodge).  Each had its own ritual; our rituals sometimes lean to one, 
sometimes to the other, and often to both.  Literal ritualism is 
comparatively a modern matter; and “mouth to ear” in the early days 
meant nothing more than giving of information, not transmitting it in a 
set form of words.  Most of our Grand Lodges have been formed by a union 
of particular Lodges, many of which received each its ritual from a 
different source, with the result that the ritual finally adopted is a 
combination of several.  And finally, Grand Lodges have not infrequently 
changed, added to and taken from their own rituals, either as matter of 
legislation or by the easier course (in early days) of adopting with 
little or no question the variations suggested by positive minded 
ritualists, Grand Lecturers, Custodians of the Work, ritual committees 
and so on.  Some of these, unfortunately, had little or no Masonic 
background, and changed and altered, added and subtracted with no better 
reason than “this seems much better to us!”
Certain fundamentalists are to all intents and purposes the same in 
every one of our forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions.  All American Lodges 
have a Master and two Wardens, a Secretary and Treasurer, an Alter with 
the V.S.L. and the other Great Lights, three degrees; unanimous ballot 
required; make Masons only of men; have the same Substitute Word given 
in the same way; are tiled; have a ceremony of opening and closing.  To 
some extent all dramatize and exemplify the Master’s Degree, although 
the amount of drama and exemplification differs widely.
But beyond these and a few other simple essentials are wide variations. 
 Aprons are worn one way in one degree in one Jurisdiction and another 
way in the same degree in another.  Some Jurisdictions have more 
officers in a Lodge than others.  In some Jurisdictions Lodges  open and 
close on the Master Mason’s degree; others on the First degree; others 
only in the degree which it to be “worked.”  Lesser Lights are grouped 
closely about the Altar, in the stations of the Master and Wardens.  In 
some Lodges the I.P.M. (immediate Past Master) plays an important part, 
as in England.  Other Lodges know him not  Some Lodges have Inner Guards 
and two Masters of Ceremonies - others will have none of these.  
Dividing, lettering, syllabling are almost as various in practice as the 
Jurisdictions.  Obligations show certain close similarities in some 
requirements; but what is a part of the obligation in one jurisdiction 
may be merely an admonition in another, and “vice versa.”
Discovering all this (and much more) the thoughtful initiate is apt to 
wonder why it is deemed so important that he memorize his own particular 
“work” so closely; when he travels he finds that what he knows as 
familiar words and forms and phrases are strange to the Lodges he 
visits.  Not is this the place to ague for purity of the ritual as 
taught.  There are good and sufficient reasons why we should hand on to 
our sons and their sons the ritual as we received it - if only to 
preserve without further alteration and change that which was formed by 
the fathers.  Suffice it that while uniformity in work within a 
Jurisdiction is fairly well established as good American Masonic 
practice, it is not universal. there are several “workings” for 
instance, permitted in English Lodges, and even in some American 
Jurisdictions (“vide” Connecticut) not all Lodges use the same ritual.
The reasons for all this are so involved, complex, and cover such a long 
period; that a complete understanding is difficult even for the student 
willing to read the enormous amount of history and authority which may 
make it plain.  Briefly, and in general, the matter becomes clearer if 
we visualize our sources of ritual.
We received our Masonry from:

The Mother Grand Lodge of England			1717-1753

The Grand Lodge of the “Ancients”			1753-1813

The Grand Lodge of the “Moderns”			1753-1813

The United Grand Lodge					1813 and on -

The Grand Lodge of Ireland				1724- and on -

The Grand Lodge of Scotland				1736 and on -

and From the Pre-Grand Lodge era of Lodges of England, Ireland and (or) 
Scotland.	

Unfortunately for the historian, this list does not signify six or seven 
different but “pure” forms.  The ritual of the original Grand Lodge 
changed as it flowed, through many years after 1717.  The Grand Lodges 
of “Ancients” and “Moderns both made alterations in ritual so that rival 
members of each body found it impossible to make themselves known 
Masonically in the other.  Ireland and Scotland were, and are, as 
different as Pennsylvania and California.  From pre-Grand Lodges members 
came to this country to form themselves into Lodges without Warrant or 
Charter (as was the custom in early days).  A dozen men, bringing “what 
they remembered of the” ritual they heard when “made,” to form a Lodge, 
would naturally include in their ritual a little of one original source, 
some phrases from another beginning, a paragraph from a third 
wellspring, and so on.
The Mother Grand Lodge ritual (1717 to 1753) was not the ritual of the 
United Grand Lodge which came into existence in 1813, when the two parts 
of the original Mother Grand Lodge (“Ancients” and “Moderns”) again came 
together.  The United Grand Lodge, or Grand Lodge of Reconciliation, 
formed its ritual from the best of the divergent rituals of the 
“Ancients” and the “Moderns.”
Thus, Lodges in this country which received ritual, in any and all 
states of purity or impurity, from either of these several sources, 
would differ decidedly each from the other.
Come we now to the spread of Masonry in the thirteen colonies, and 
later, through the forty-eight states, territories, and the District of 
Columbia.  To write even one paragraph of Masonic history of ritual in 
so many subdivisions would make this Bulletin unreadably long.  But a 
few high lights may be noted.
From our primary American sources of ritual, in one way or another all 
other American Grand Jurisdictions, in part at least, received their 
“work;” Massachusetts, which at first sent forth what must have been at 
least an approximation of the work of the original Mother Grand Lodge, 
though her ritual today is derived from both “Moderns” and “Ancients;” 
Pennsylvania and Virginia, both giving forth individual variants of a 
combination of “Modern” and “Ancient,” and North Carolina, almost purely 
“Modern.”
In 1915 Dean Roscoe Pound showed how various were the next groups of 
States which received their rituals from the first four American 
sources.  He developed that Maine derived from Massachusetts since the 
fusion; Vermont derived from the Grand Lodge of “Ancients” in 
Massachusetts before the fusion; Ohio derived from Massachusetts, from 
Connecticut, a strictly “Modern” Jurisdiction, and from Pennsylvania; 
Indiana derived from Ohio and Kentucky, which later represents Virginia 
after the fusion, Michigan derived from the “Ancient” Grand Lodge of 
Canada and from New York, which since the Revolution was a Strictly 
“Ancient” Jurisdiction; Kentucky derived from Virginia; Tennessee 
derived from North Carolina, a purely “Modern” Jurisdiction; Alabama 
derived from  North Carolina, from South Carolina and from Tennessee, 
thus representing Virginia and North Carolina; Louisiana derived from 
South Carolina, from Pennsylvania and from France;  Florida derived from 
Georgia and from South Carolina; Missouri derived from Pennsylvania and 
from Tennessee, representing therefore, the fusion in Pennsylvania and 
the “Modern Masonry” of North Carolina; Illinois derived from Kentucky 
and so represents Virginia; and the District of Columbia derived 
Maryland (a fusion of “Modern Masonry from Massachusetts and from 
England direct, with the “Ancient Masonry” from Pennsylvania), and from 
Virginia.
The further west we go, the more we find a mixture of sources, 
complicated rather than simplified by such matters as the splitting of 
the Grand Lodge of Dakota into the Grand Lodge the of South Dakota and 
North Dakota, when these two States were formed, and the formation of 
the Grand Lodge of California, which drew its work from many different 
sources.  California Lodge No.13, of the District of Columbia, was 
formed for the purpose of carrying Masonry to the Golden Gate at the 
time of the gold rush.  That Lodge is now No.1 on the California Grand 
Lodge Register.  But California’s ritual is not more similar to the 
District of Columbia working than that of any other State, since the 
District Lodge was but one of several which formed the Grand Lodge of 
California.
There have been certain unifying influences; the Baltimore Convention of 
1843, the conclusions of which were adopted in whole or in part by 
several American Grand Jurisdictions, and the work of Bob Morris and his 
conservators, which, despite its chilly reception by many Grand 
Jurisdictions, undoubtedly left its impression on American ritual.  A 
third unifying influence has been the tremendous impress made on almost 
all American Jurisdictions by Thomas Smith Webb, and Jeremy Cross, 
plainly evident in the exoteric paragraphs printed in many State 
Monitors or Manuals.  A fourth has been the honest desire and strenuous 
efforts of many Grand Lodges through District Deputies, Grand Lecturers, 
Schools of Instruction and similar machinery, to preserve what 
they have in its supposedly ancient perfection.  But by the time these 
latter were in operation, ritual was more or less fixed.  Because of the 
reverence of the average Mason for what he is taught, and his fierce 
resentment of any material change in that which he learns, rituals and 
degree forms, ceremonies and practices, usages and customs continue to 
be what he believes them to have been “from time immemorial” even when 
sober fact shows that they have an antiquity of (in all probability) 
less than two hundred years.
For the benefit of those Masons to whom divergence of ritual is not the 
less distressing thing, but that it is understandable, it may be said 
that most authorities agree that it is really not a matter of great 
moment.  All over the world Freemasonry teaches the same truths, offers 
the same spiritual comfort, creates and continues the same fraternal 
bond.  In “non essentials, variety; in essentials, unity” might have 
been written of Masonry.  It matters little how we wear the apron in a 
given degree - so be it that it is worn with honor.  The method of 
giving a sign or a pass matters much less than that what we do is done 
with understanding.
While Freemasonry continues to observe and revere those few Landmarks 
which are undisputed everywhere - those which Joseph Fort Newton says 
are “The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the hope of Life 
Everlasting,” it becomes of less moment that different men, in different 
times, in different localities, have found more than one way to phrase 
and to teach the ancient verities of the old, old Craft.
 



 

 


