Why would a man who didn't work in stone want to be made a Mason? Cyril Richard S. E. Sandbach proposed an unusual possibility: Masonic recognition may once have functioned almost like a passport.
In Episode 230 of Masonic Muscle: The Origin War, we examine Sandbach's Darwinian Concept, summarized by Roeinton Khambatta from Sandbach's 1995 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum paper, Origin of Species—The Freemason.
Sandbach considers whether Masonic recognition secrets could once have provided practical advantages—trust, safe lodging and protection while traveling—and whether those benefits might help explain why non-operative men wanted to be “made” Masons.
But the Passport Theory is only part of Sandbach's argument.
He also asks whether the emergence of speculative Freemasonry should be understood through social evolution: changing religious, social and environmental conditions gradually altering Masonry rather than one person or organization deliberately creating it. Khambatta summarizes Sandbach as examining the “How, when, where, who, why” of the origin problem and specifically connects his approach with changing social and environmental circumstances. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Theorie…
This episode establishes Sandbach's theory and adds another piece to the foundation we're building before comparing these competing explanations later in the Origin War.
And after our three-part Autumnal Equinox mini-series, I also take a moment to appreciate the changing season as I head to Oktoberfest weekend in Big Bear, California.
Next: Episode 231 — John Spurr and the Age of Enlightenment Theory.
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Strengthening the Craft—one degree, one lift at a time.
