The 1723 Constitutions (often referred to as Andersons Constitutions) quite frankly transformed Freemasonry. “Ric Berman’s history of the origins of the 1723 Constitutions explains the Enlightenment principles embedded in the Constitutions, the political and social context, and the Masonic protagonists.”

 

Although Ric will no longer be with us, he has provided an extra video presentation explaining some more of the constitutions.

 

Ric's book can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here 

  

2023 marked the tercentenary of the publication in London of The Constitutions of the Freemasons – the ‘1723 Constitutions’ – a book whose Enlightenment principles provide the philosophical foundations of Modern Freemasonry. Many Masonic histories have been concerned with ‘when’ and ‘what’.

 

Inventing the Future examines the context, the contents and the consequences of the 1723 Constitutions, and seeks to explain ‘why’.

 

The 1723 Constitutions is constructed on Enlightenment values that lie at the core of modern Freemasonry both in England and internationally. But the 1723 Constitutions and modern Freemasonry were not simply a product of the Enlightenment. They also impacted upon it, acting as a vector for the transmission of Freemasonry’s philosophical principles nationally and internationally.

 

This book sets out those principles, considers the people involved and explores the framework within which their ideas were formed. And it discusses how the Constitutions evolved. In 1730 it was taken by the Grand Lodge of Ireland as the model for the Irish Constitutions; the book was re-printed virtually verbatim by Benjamin Franklin in 1734 for use in America; it was translated and circulated widely throughout Europe in the 1730s and 1740s; and in the 1750s it was indirectly the basis for Ahiman Rezon, the Constitutions of the Ancients Grand Lodge and, after the War of Independence, of the State Grand Lodges in the United States of America. Understanding the context and content of the 1723 Constitutions explains the origins of modern Freemasonry and the relationship between Freemasonry and Society today.