The Use and Abuse of Freemasonry

About this book

An eighteenth-century Mason defends the principles of his fraternity while asking how its influence might be used well or badly. Captain George Smith writes as an insider who cares about the organisation's public reputation.

The Use and Abuse of Freemasonry covers lodge customs, charity, secrecy, history and ceremonial symbolism. It also carries the gender assumptions and institutional loyalties of its day, including a discussion of women's exclusion. The book is valuable for the practical details it preserves about a living fraternal culture, even where its historical claims invite correction.