From the booklet – “PENETRATING THE VEIL”
– by David C. Bradley–Grand Master–1989-1990
This month’s issue is titled –
“THE EXPOSURES.”
(As the presentations in this website are available to all readers, items involving the Second and Third Degrees will be excluded.)
During the eighteenth century some disgruntled masons and others felt the need to vent their spleen and disclose what were allegedly the private secrets of masonry. These publications are known as ‘exposures’. They show that the ritual of today bears a rough similarity to that of the period before 1813. Samuel Prichard’s exposure of October, 1730 called Masonry Dissected claims in its title page to give an impartial account of “… the whole Three Degrees of Masonry, viz., I Enter’d Prentice. II Fellow Craft, III Master …”. It is the most significant exposure and seems to have influenced the French exposures that became available from 1740 onwards; it is in the form of a catechism. Many of its questions are interesting, e.g.,”Q. How did he bring you: A. Neither naked nor clothed, bare-foot nor shod deprived of all metal and in a right moving Posture. Q. How did he (the Master) make you a Mason? A. With my bare-bended Knee and body within the Square, the Compass extended to my naked Left Beast, my naked Right Hand on the Holy Bible; there I took the Obligation of a Mason”.
R.W. Bro. Robert South