Today I Learned: The Role of Masons During the Age of Revolution

When the term Freemasonry is often hurled out of nowhere, the image that it exudes, partially due to its secrecy and its seedy reputation, is that of pure malevolence. Hence, it is among the aspects of global history that gets intentionally downplayed or buried, despite its pervasive influence on the symbols, the motif, and even the networks that produced the schools of thought, knowledge, and action that we take for granted as conveniences of the present world. Thus, to poke on anything related to the Masons, the Rosicrucians, anything adjacent to the occult, is both a gift and curse: a gift since it opens up new doors, and a curse since it veers off from the hagiography of how we process phenomena, which usually amounts to ideas and materials falling out of the coconut tree.

Before we delve any deeper, let’s address the elephant in the room first.

To this day, the origins of Freemasonry are still shrouded, for better or worse. A popular hypothesis suggests that they are descendants or an offshoot of the dissolved Knights Templar. The Knights Templar did not simply fight in the Crusades, they were the first in the West at least, to run what is essentially a savings and an investments bank. As their responsibilities grew, the Templars even began extending credit to the very kingdoms they were supposed to be partnering with, exploiting a loophole in the Church's prohibition against usury and operating under the official sanction of the Vatican.

Long story short, Philip IV of France got into a dispute with them over the Templar’s alleged influence on the Parisian court. Not only that, the dynasty is heavily at the mercy of the Templar creditors. The most commonsensical, albeit a diabolical move, is to accuse them of heresy, get a letter from the Pope, and purge the rank and file and leadership. The Templar angle suggests that after their extermination in 1314, surviving chapters or affiliates of the Templars shifted allegiances and got low key (Coil, 1967).

A more plausible origin story of the Masons, while not denying their obscure background, is that it grew out of existing guilds of master craftsmen, which incidentally includes masons, or those who work with hammers for a living. The guilds of the medieval economy are not simply there for apprenticeships. They are run like businesses as well, granted royal monopolies and tend to be autonomous from the Crown. It is not that surprising if such a leeway would allow the development of the Masons across several realms. After all, the craftsmen, alongside Europe’s merchants and lawyers—whose bread and butter are contracts between the higher and lower orders, and who mediate disputes, breaches, and infractions—embody what it means to be a city dweller, or burgher: the bourgeoisie in short.

By requirement, they also have to be literate in the written word, which removed whatever remains and traces of Christendom’s aura in their bones, despite its role in fostering Biblical literacy early on, which is the impetus of the Protestant Reformation itself. As the religious wars faded from memory, the inhabitants of the urban areas, the apex of commerce, industry and finance, are simply biding their time until the engine crashes, in need of an override (Habermas, 2003).

Due to various technological advancements and refinements induced by colonial expansions, new forms of wealth creation and military strife, Masonic lodges function in what is equivalent to today’s Google Drive, Zoom application, a Facebook group chat, and a decentralized espionage cell. It is assumed that to be a Mason, you must have a modicum of clout, social standing and abilities to be qualified as a part of the tribe. It is in simple language, the Tor network, but for the 1700s.

The stereotype that Masons are subversive and radical in certain aspects is still correct. First, many Masons in Europe and the Americas are plugged into the so-called Republic of Letters, aka a pipeline of contraband and dissident intellectuals, be they Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith and so on. Many of them are patrons of the coffeeshops and teahouses, where gossip, stock exchange portfolios and debates flow smoothly as a cup of cinnamon or a pint of ale. It is also not that far-fetched that fellow Masons will endorse other Masons for the Grand Tour, which was once a rite of passage commonly reserved for nobles, though as restrictions loosened, you see more affluent commoners doing it themselves (Israel, 2001). 

These contacts will prove crucial from 1776 onwards. While not all Masons are revolutionaries, a lot of revolutionaries are Masons. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, just to name a few, were from the same lodges. The Jacobin Club of the French Revolution was practically a side gig of the Parisian Masons such as Danton and Robespierre in the 1790s. Masons provided guns, letters, excuses, and pretenses to help each other. And since the state apparatuses of the day were still in their infancy, Masons could slip away, often using their status to do so.

The Italian Carbonari of the 1820s and 1830s had a lot of members from the Italian lodges. Philippe Buonarroti was a known agitator of his day, and is what can be referred as a contemporary black operative for this faction of the Masonry. His History of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of Equals (1828), referring to the Equalist coup attempt of 1797, became a quintessential text for the radicalized youths of the 1800s, inspiring as Louis Auguste Blanqui and Karl Marx. He proposed a mutualist strategy that would revolutionize society by stages, starting from monarchy to liberalism, then to radicalism, and finally to communism.

It is why all organs of the law in many monarchies, and republics later on, are suspicious of their activities (Anderson, 2014). Within the Masons themselves, the opinions are split. A lot are from the establishment, who would naturally be on its side. Yet a good chunk is animated by the belief that the new world has come of age, and to block its maturity is to be an enemy of progress. The history of Europe, the Americas and later of Asia and Africa, as they became tethered into a global supply chain, can thus be interpreted in this lens.

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Manila’s role in these shifting winds is multifaceted. On the ground, there is rural unrest and discontent in the new middle class, whose scions comprised the ilustrados. On top is the establishment of satellite branches of Madrid’s very own Gran Oriente Espanol. 

Marcelo del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini, Andres Bonifacio, Antonio Luna, Lopez Jaena, and Emilio Aguinaldo were among its members. The Gran Oriente is always surveilled by the authorities and the friars, and while joining it will bring you severe consequences, many still did, for the food, the company and the ideas that burned from Europe, which is hilariously not that too different when you join a Discord group.

As you see, it is only in the Philippines where the friars are able to maintain their grip by the middle of the 1800s. They were already kicked out of the monasteries even in Spain itself, compelling some to immigrate. For the Masons, the friars are dregs, since they are parasites in their view, refusing to bring about the adjustments and arrangements already enjoyed in Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona.

The Los Hijos del Pais of Luis Rodriguez Varela, the Filipino Association of the wealthy accused of spearheading the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, the La Liga Filipina of Jose Rizal, which is also partially based on the anarchist sketches of Pierre Proudhon, and the Katipunan, are for all intents and purposes, offshoots of the Gran Oriente, even if they remained unacknowledged. These groups unsurprisingly, in various iterations, will be the ones who will pull the trigger (Ricafrente, 2022).

The Masonic imprints are not only evident in the genealogy of certain formations or gatherings. They are also widely embodied in the aesthetics of the day. Mariano Llanera’s black flag, featuring a skull, is from a ritual that the Katipunan initiates partook in, modeled after Freemasonic themes, most notably the Chamber of Reflection, a procedure that forces a recruit to confront their own mortality before achieving Nirvana, and becoming a part of the cause. If one suspects that certain elements from it are derived from Oriental or Eastern premises, they will be spot on. 

The Buddhist equivalent of Enlightenment is known as bodhi. During the generation of GOMBURZA, a massive hunt for the origins of the languages of Asia and Europe was sponsored by the East India Company. They unearthed Vedic texts, Indo-European scripts, monographs that describe whatever Tantra is, other pieces of literature that will be indispensable to Theosophy, which in itself is a more spiritual offshoot of Freemasonry, and is usually described as the past time of the spoiled, bored aristocrats of the Victorian Era.  

The sun in the original flag of the Philippines had a face. It is not only an homage after Uruguay and Argentina; it also signifies rebirth, associated with the month of May. The sun is warm, hot and an object that radiates light. The light does not only symbolize freedom from foreign occupation. It is also in many ways the expression of the Promethean fire, the willingness to steal it from the Gods and finally having the last laugh. 

It will also not be that strange if further connections between the revolutions in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba will be stitched by official documents. There has been already circumstantial evidence, be it with Rizal’s true intention on why he chose Cuba and the role of Ramon Betances on providing assistance and funds to none other than Michele Angiolillo, the person responsible of bringing down Spain’s Bismarck, Antonio Canovas del Castillo, and is cited during his trial, that one of the reasons why he shot the former Prime Minister, is none other than to avenge Rizal and bring an end to the slaughter in Havana and Manila, and by striking down a hated figure, he will finally force their hand (Ojeda, 2001). 

Is he a Mason? Betances was. Rizal was. Until there is no final master archive, such accounts will always run wild as they should be. Why so?

This action is the reason why in certain circles, Jose Rizal has acquired the epithet as the destroyer of the Spanish Empire, despite his explicit ambiguity and despair toward it, right until his execution.

In many cases, the facts (or the truth itself) are even stranger than fiction.

References: 

Anderson, B. (2014). The Age of Globalization: Anarchists And The Anti-Colonial Imagination. Verso. 

Coil, H. (1967). Freemasonry Through Six Centuries. Macoy Publ. Co.

Habermas, J. (2003). A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics. Polity Press.

Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750. Oxford University Press.

Ojeda, F. (2001). El Desterrado de París: Biografía del Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances (1827–1898). Ediciones Puerto.

Ricafrente, N. (2022). From Barcelona to Manila, 1889-1896. Philippine Center for Masonic Studies.