Alain Bernheim: My Approach to Masonic History

Square and Compasses

As a French citizen who was successively a member of the Grand Orient of France – ‘that irregular body’ –, then of the Grande Loge Nationale Française – a regular one –, then of the United Grand Lodges of Germany and, for the past ten years, of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina, Alan presents his approach to Masonic history

Freemasonry and its Role in Civil Society

Shakespeare, Library,Curator, Julian Harrison, British Library

We would offer as a starting point a commonly held view that the arrangements with major impact on human existence are those of the state, family and market with a fourth “civil society” being the totality of other institutions. These groupings are not fixed. Rather, they should be understood as tectonic plates vitalised by human energy, continuously shaping and forming themselves, and similarly reshaping and re-forming each other.It is to “civil society” that we must turn to find Freemasonry