# Freemasonry · The Canon · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/canon/freemasonry/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en The same words a person sees on this page, nothing more and nothing hidden. Our own words are free to use under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), naming the Congregation of Tomorrow. Words of others keep their own terms. Every page of the site, listed: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/ai/pages.json · the whole site in one file: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/llms-full.txt ← The Canon: all 125 The Canon · No. 079 Freemasonry The Craft 1717 CE – present · Esoteric / Occult · Living · Worldwide VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800 ### How many ### Who began it ### What it is for ### What it worships ### What it holds ### What it does ### After death ### Its texts ### Its branches ### Of note ### Its timeline - c.1390 CE The Regius Poem, the oldest Masonic document. - 1598–1599 CE The Schaw Statutes organise Scottish lodges. - 1717 CE Premier Grand Lodge of England. - 1723 CE Anderson's Constitutions. - 1738 CE Pope Clement XII issues In Eminenti, forbidding Catholics to join on pain of excommunication. The Catholic prohibition has been reaffirmed repeatedly, most recently in 1983 and 2023. - 1730s–1790s CE Spread across Europe and the American colonies; Washington, Franklin, Lafayette and Mozart are members. The Magic Flute (1791) is saturated with Masonic symbolism. - 1826 CE The Morgan affair — a New York man disappears after threatening to publish the rituals. The resulting outrage produces the Anti-Masonic Party, the first third party in American politics. - 1775 CE Prince Hall founds African Lodge No. 1 in Boston; Prince Hall Freemasonry becomes a central institution of Black American civil society during a century in which mainstream American lodges excluded Black men. - 1877 CE The Grand Orient de France drops the requirement of belief in a Supreme Being; Anglo-American Masonry withdraws recognition, a split that persists. - 1935–45 CE Freemasons persecuted and killed under Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Franco's Spain. - 1950s–present Steep membership decline in the West; the fraternity becomes the standard furniture of conspiracy literature. ### Sources Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source. The Atlas The Door