The Australian Centre for Fraternalism, Secret Societies &
Mateship Inc is a non-profit organisation.

WHY this site?
Three major Reasons -
A because of previous neglect; 
B because of the central importance of
   fraternal societies to all 'European'
   history;
C  because of the need for a new
   fraternal history.

Please Note: The use of 'fraternal' does not exclude women - see ANY QUESTIONS for further explanation.
I identify fraternal societies through their past or present use of coded regalia, secret passwords, ritual and signs, and by their use of a philosophy of brotherhood/sisterhood, which is itself a mix of self-help and mutual aid.
I group them into four categories, or strands: the first three being Freemasonry, trade-oriented, and friendly (or benefit) societies. The fourth group involves all those societies which meet the definition but which don't fit into the first three categories, eg, the Loyal Orange Lodges, the Buffaloes, the Sons and Daughters of Temperance, and so on.
Neither the practices of fraternal societies nor the actions of individual members have always been in line with the avowed theory.
Fraternal societies, set up to be support vehicles for the life journeys of their members, were often curtailed through human foibles and failings, or through the impact of larger outside forces.

The first tasks have been to document the existence of the mostly invisible societies, while protecting the surviving evidence.
The next tasks have been to understand why 'the old history' has been written the way it has,
to work out what 'a new history' needed to contain,
and then to write that 'new history' in non-academic language.
The last task has been to reach and change the minds of decision-makers brought up on the 'old history.'
Although the interim text, They Call Each Other Brother is now available,
none of these tasks has been satisfactorily completed in January, 2012:
entrenched attitudes remain strong, and
the many books of the 'old history' continue to be accepted as 'truth'.
Neglect of fraternalism in what passes for our 'history' is similar to past neglect by our historians of women and of indigenous populations.
A new fraternal history needs to encompass
        * the organisational journeys of specific societies.
        * the philosophic/spiritual journies of ideas, and symbols.
        * the physical 'paraphenalia' - regalia, ceremonial, buildings, photos and other sorts of records.
        * personal journeys.
Political, economic, religious and social history are all involved.

Dr Bob James
is a retired schoolteacher, hippy farmer and Public Servant. He completed his PhD in Australian History  in 2004. He is Convenor of the Australian Centre for Secret Societies, Fraternalism and Mateship.
He is an initiate of the UAOD,two Orders of Odd Fellow and of Freemasonry.
More than any other word, he rejoices in the adjective 'sceptical'.
Alchemy
Rosy Cross
THE CONTEXT -

        By 'benefit societies', in general terms, is meant societies which collect membership contributions into a central fund, and make payments out of that fund to members at times of hardship or distress. They were therefore mutual aid societies
        By 'fraternal societies' is meant societies which have or have had rites and regalia, initiation oaths, secret passwords and signs, a degree structure, and a philosophy of mutual aid, ie, concern for ones 'brothers'.
        These two groups once overlapped to a very large extent, less so today. It is possible, today, to find fraternalism without the benefit structures, eg, Speculative Freemasons, and benefit societies without the secret lodge workings, eg trade unions, but historically, the origins of both kinds of societies are in the mediaeval gild (sometimes 'guild').
        In recent times, the societies closest to the gild model have been the Affiliated Friendly Societies. They have been both fraternal and benefit societies. Today, while continuing to be disguised as member-oriented 'benefit societies' they are largely indistinguisable from private companies.
        Fraternal societies, whether benefit societies or not, were run by their members in their own interest, eg, to safeguard trade secrets, to ensure employment for members, as a social 'club', as a kind of secular place of spiritual warmth. 'Benefit societies' were run specifically by members for their own benefit, to ensure sickness, accident, funeral, strike, etc payments. Both were therefore examples of self-help and mutual aid at the same time. They were also often in a position to assist non-members, and did so as part of their community-building ethos.
        Some societies known as 'friendly societies', 'benefit societies', and the like, were run by better-off people for the benefit of poorer people, and were therefore charities, not 'mutuals'. These show none of the 'fraternal' characteristics. Co-operatives were neither 'benefit societies' nor 'fraternal societies', but were more like member-run welfare agencies. They often had a strong community-building ethos and advocated grass-roots solidarity.
          Credit unions and building societies are neither fraternal nor benefit societies but may be mutuals with a strong comunity-oriented ethos.
        There are a number of important fraternal societies which are not, or have not been a Friendly Society, a Trade Union or 'Masonic'. Examples are the Loyal Orange Institutions, the Ku-Klux Klan, the Boy Scouts, the Theosophical Society and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. There have been many others, often dismissed simply as 'secret societies.' An example is the Order of the Golden Dawn, with which Aleister Crowley, Maude Gonne and WB Yeats were briefly involved. Another would be the Rosicrucians.

First up - the gilds:

        The gild had 5 aspects:
                conviviality......celebration/community/parades
                trade defense.....secrets/oaths/politics
                fraternity........solidarity/discipline/brotherhood
                welfare...........benefits/charity/health funds
                religion..........truth & light/morality/symbolism
        In other words, the gild was, simultaneously, a drinking society, a trade union, a benefit society, a secret society and a religious society, but without 'modern' forms or concepts which now attach to these terms. (Co-operatives were not intended to be any of these.) The gild's great strength, if it attained strength, resulted from these functions being inter-connected and indivisible. These aspects ientify the gild's successors but, as time has gone on, in increasingly unhealthy forms. The historical treatment of benefit or fraternal societies most often 'explains' the industrial society forms they have taken, but rarely how they have evolved, or why.
        Each of these 5 distinct functions depended on and helped to shape all the others, and while the trade-defense aspect made possible the others, each of the functions was important to the overall structural integrity.
        The gild came about as a means of defending the standards and the working conditions of a certain trade or occupation. Members had to swear an oath to keep secret, practices within a trade and within lodge which protected the various levels of skill and therefore made possible a hierarchy of expertise and status within the trade.
        The insistence on being first an apprentice and learning the trade properly with a registered 'master', before becoming oneself a 'Craftsman' or 'Journeyman', and then a 'Master' were the keys to protecting the trade from shoddy workers, to limiting the numbers of artisans in the trade and therefore wages and working conditions, and to protecting society generally against cheap and nasty imports or dangerous shortcuts, or simply against 'forrins'.
        The gild was male-oriented only because society was male-oriented. There were female traders and artisans, and there were repeated struggles to remove them or keep them out, as part of the endless and every-day rounds of power struggles. The gild member was 'his' family's representative, whether married and having children or not, and in certain circumstances his community's representative.
        The degree structure, reflecting the achievement of a level of skill and as preparation of an ambitious worker for the next, was visible in 'his' dress, in the arrangement of furniture within the space where teaching, testing and practicing of the skills took place, often called 'the lodge', and was manifest in individual rights and responsibilities within the gild and within the community. The term 'masterpiece' derives from this time, as do terms such as 'Tour de France'. It is not accidental that many terms we use today, such as 'trade secrets', 'trades hall', 'secret men's business', 'art-isan', 'crafts-man' or 'journey-man', 'chapel', 'arch-bishop' or 'temples of labour' have both work and religious or symbolic significance. They all have fraternal significance.
        A 'Master' had specific non-work-related roles, in dispute-resolution, in elections, and local skirmishes and in 'foreign relations'. The apprentice, equally, had 'his' roles. It was not a game, or a charade, fraternalism was the very stuff of every-day life and death.
        Each trade had its special 'Days' and at least once a year celebrated its religious responsibilities, distributed charity, elected its new 'officers' and settled trade-disputes. Within the gild representing each trade, or each local 'lodge', every 'brotheren or sisteren' was expected to learn the duties and responsibilities attached to 'his' particular level of attainment. This is akin to the members of a sporting team, today, say a five-eight, goal attack or centre forward, but the values taught 'in lodge' and which surrounded all physical labour were moral/religious/spiritual - honesty, tolerance, and acting fairly or 'on the square.' A person's reliability, strength of character and a willingness to accept responsibility were what was emphasised. On the other hand it was also theoretically expected that opportunities to advance would be available to all. The historical facts rarely accorded with theory, of course.
        Each trade had periods of high and low employment since part of the daily reality was attempts to at least influence the politico-economic climate. Providing a bed, some food and enough money to bide a travelling workman over until the next job, were the marks of a well-run, financially-strong organisation. Tramping-networks later became the basis of national organisation and the target of government suspicion since the unemployed 'tramps' could easily be carrying anti-government or anti-the status quo messages, and they often were. Codes, cyphers and 'intelligencers' all come into this story.

Second - the industrial revolution:

        The most-obvious time of social upheaval for us is the Industrial Revolution. The three major types of 'benefit societies' with their origins in the gild, 'Friendly Societies', Speculative Freemasonry and 'Trade Unions' date their 'official' histories from events in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whether one accepts the gild-based history or not, the implications of a common 18th century heritage would seem to be unavoidable. All three 'strands', today, quite happily see themselves as having begun as 'clubs', where men (sometimes women) gathered (usually in a tavern, later in their own Hall or lodge room), to socialise, collect and distribute money, share news and to initiate candidates.
        This is the time when the societies began to be reported as separate or distinct 'strands' and it is not surprising that the major forces that we associate with industrialisation are reflected in these societies. I'm thinking especially of:
        nation-wide organisation, using a
        representative democracy form of government, often in a federated form;
        an emphasis on scientific rationalism, usually poorly-understood,
        an emphasis on life-styles, personal health and welfare.
        Neither is it surprising that benefit societies should be caught up in the struggles between opposing claims of social and personal 'improvement' deriving from these forces - such as Catholicism vs Protestantism; religion vs secularism; socialism vs capitalism; and community vs the individual.
        Industrialisation has eroded the social context and separated communities into individual 'atoms', so that the practical reasons for the 5 gild aspects have been largely lost. Advocates of 'modernism', rationalism and secularism have derided the rites, in particular, as quaint anachronisms or superstitious nonsense. It is not accepted that conviviality has a community-strengthening aspect, while secret oaths, handshakes and passwords have been outlawed, and so on.

Third - the treatment of benefit societies:

        Few 'official' histories of 'Friendly Societies', (Speculative) Freemasonry and 'Trade Unions/ism' provide reliable accounts of either their ostensible subject or their broader context. Most are selective, narrowly-focused and usually written by 'insiders', ie, authors whose profession or intention is to boost the claims of the one type of fraternal society over that of the others, quite often by ignoring the others, or by portraying 'their' strand of fraternal society as unique and deserving of attention on its own - it is, they say, a special type, which is necessarily best understood, as a theoretical abstraction, out of its historical context.
        The Freemasons have based their claims of uniqueness on the replacement, around 1717 in London, of operative stonemasons' practices with symbolic rites derived from the stonemasons trade. This 'creation myth' is happily increasingly under de-constructionist pressure.
        Trade Unions have based their claims to uniqueness on the necessity for workers to fight back against the threats to their livlihood posed by capitalist work practices denying long-standing work customs, such as the need for apprentices to learn their skills over xx years before being employed and perhaps taking the place, and therefore the bread, of a qualified craftsman. And, of course, women are not of equivalent value.
        Friendly Societies have based their claims to uniqueness on the 'grass roots view of history, that 'ordinary' working people were forced together to work out day-to-day survival strategies in the face of neglect by 'big business', 'big government' and 'big unions'.
        Historically, insisting on one's uniqueness and mentioning the others only in stereotype was a strategic response to the situation. It was a necessary part of the:
                competition for resources, including members,
                the struggle for community dominance, and
                for political leverage and thus 'special interest' protection.
        That we today see these 'strands' as unique and as carrying out distinct and different functions is one result of this strategy. The general invisibility of fraternal societies, even within the societies themselves, is another.
        Competition within strands for ideological dominance, control of resources, or for 'special treatment' by the authorities has blunted the movement's understanding of its own broader context and of the significance, strengths and weaknesses of each of the strands. Trade unions and Freemasons each have a flawed, heroic understanding of themselves, while friendly society members know almost nothing of their own heritage. Communication between the 'chiefs', even practitioners of the strands is virtually non-existent.
        The competition between strands has produced anti-literature (anti-masonic, anti-trade union, anti-friendly society) alongside the very partisan literature. This literature has, at times, played a key historical role, that is, the literature, itself, is part of the history. The ways in which this has happened are sometimes the most difficult parts of the whole dynamic to see.
        Fraternal memorabilia has been neglected or deliberately destroyed because of the perceived associations which have changed over time. Individual memories are, therefore, extremely problematic guides to historical accuracy.
        In the short-term, just bringing the strands together, conceptually or physically can have a great therapeutic as well as educational role. There remains great pressure from vested interests, including many who claim to already know 'the truth', eg, museum custodians of the past.

Fourth - A guide to practice:

        Once the common elements are known the profusion of regalia, of weirdnesses, can be seen as variations on a single theme. Some 'fraternals' were totally local, and some have spread around the world. Some have lasted hundreds of years, while some expired at birth. Some were Catholic, some Jewish, Islamic, or Protestant, some were radical socially and politically and some were deliberately patriotic, exclusive and conservative. Some were female-only, some were mixed, and many have been fiercely male.
        Internally, 'lodge' behaviour and member's carrying out of duties were once closely scrutinised. The personal backgrounds of intending candidates were explored and could result in their being 'black-balled', ie prevented from joining by a current member placing a black rather than a white ball in the ballot box. Such results, the internal fines system and expulsions from lodge altogether were methods designed, in theory, to prevent inappropriate behaviour and prevent discussion of religion and/or political subjects. Lodge Rules were and are extensive. They are indicators of the inevitable conflicts, often personal.
        Friendly Societies have been least well known, Trade Unions have probably been the most vigorous in seeking public attention, Freemasons probably the least obvious, the most 'under ground.' All 'strands' have been deeply involved in controversial Australian politics and have received abuse and praise at different times. All have suffered severe declines in numbers, resources and influence in recent years, but all have had their obituaries read prematurely in past eras.
        Because of their common heritage, all have had similar approaches to regalia, degree-structures, and language, including their visual language which have a number of common, key 'biblical' symbols:
        the EYE of Providence (God/the supreme Architect of the Universe/the Creator);
        angels, heavenly light or fire indicative of a Supreme Being, usually located at the apex of the symbolic hierarchy;
        symbolic and concrete temples, most particularly columns topped with a triangular shape;
        dove, heart in hand, cornucopia, bee hive, ark, symbols of time or death such as 'skull & cross bones';
        square and compass;
        woman as nurturer, often presented bare-breasted, in long, flowing garments.
        These symbols appear in the creation myths of each organisation, and in whatever artefacts were produced including banners, ceremonial items, members' cards, certificates, lodge furniture and decorations. Each lodge required a Charter or Dispensation to legitimate its activities. Honour Boards incorporating this document are now often the only sign of a lodge's existence. Where Minute Books and other paper records survive, these provide insights into business practicalities, sociability and ritual.
        Masonic authors, and some outsiders, have claimed fraternal similarities are a result of the primacy of Freemasonry, from whom all others have 'borrowed'. I've seen no credible evidence of such borrowings, there is credible evidence of non-Masonic brotherhoods insisting that 'they' had borrowed nothing. However, as the Masonic recruitment strategies gathered momentum, most particularly in the later-19th century, it is very possible, especially in the United States, that a number of 'brotherhoods' took inspiration from what they knew of Freemasonry. The label 'masonic' or 'pseudo-masonic' has been applied by outsiders with only a surface understanding. The pressence of known initiated Masons at the foundation of new 'brotherhood' is insufficient evidence of a borrowing.' Other, unacknowledged influences would also appear to have been taken up, and research remains necessary into the possibilitiy of at least three distinct lines of fraternal evolution. For brevity's sake I refer to these as:
        the operative line,
        the cabalistic line, and
        the real-politik line.


        Dr Bob James, 90 Henry St, Tighes Hill, 2297. Revised January, 2012.