Did you know? (Part 2)

(...continued from yesterday)

The order is administered by the Supreme Council, which has its headquarters in Paris. Within the International Constitution, however, member Federations have the freedom of self-governance. International Co-Freemasonry was founded in France in the late nineteenth century, during a period of strong feminist and women's suffrage campaigning. It is the only true international Masonic Order and has members from over 60 countries worldwide.

French Masonry had long attempted to include women, the Grand Orient de France having allowed Rites of Adoption as early as 1774 by which Lodges could "adopt" sisters, wives, and daughters of Freemasons, imparting to them the mysteries of several degrees. In 1879, following differences among members of the Supreme Council of France, twelve lodges withdrew from the Grand Orient de France and founded the Grande Loge Symbolique de France. One of these Lodges, Les Libres Penseurs (The Free Thinkers) in Pecq, reserved in its charter the right to initiate women as Freemasons, proclaiming the essential equality of man and woman.

On January 14, 1882, Maria Deraismes, a well-known humanitarian, feminist author, lecturer and politician, was initiated into Les Libres Penseurs. The Right Worshipful Master, bro. Houbron, 18*, justified this act as having the highest interests of humanity at heart, and as being a perfectly logical application of the principle of 'A Free Mason in a Free Lodge.' The Lodge was soon suspended for this "impropriety."

In 1890 the Lodge La Jerusalem Ecossaise, also of the Grande Loge Symbolique de France, petitioned other Lodges for the establishment of a new order of Freemasonry that would accept both men and women. This time La Jerusalem Lodge did not propose to initiate women itself, but to create a new order working in parallel. The main proponent of this was Dr. Georges Martin, a French senator, advocate of equal rights for women, and also a member of Les Libres Penseurs.

On March 14, 1893, Deraismes, Martin and several other male Freemasons founded La Respectable Loge, Le Droit Humain, Maconnerie Mixte (Worshipful Lodge, Human Rights, Co-Masonry) in Paris. They initiated, passed and raised sixteen prominent French women. Shortly after, on April 4 of the same year, the first Grand Lodge of Co-Freemasonry was established, the Grande Loge Symbolilque Ecossaise Mixte de France (Grand Lodge of Mixed Scottish Rite Freemasonry of France), which would later become known as the International Order of Co-Freemasonry "Le Droit Humain."

This was a radical departure from most other forms of Freemasonry, for not only did the new order not require belief in a Supreme Being (the Grand Orient de France had discarded this requirement in 1877) - it opened its doors to all of humanity who were "...just upright and free, of mature age, sound judgment and strict morals."

The Eastern Federation Several prominent members of the Theosophical Society joined Co-Freemasonry, including Annie Besant, George Arundale, Charles W. Leadbeater, C. Jinarajadasa and Henry Steele Olcott. Henceforth, wherever they took Theosophy, they also introduced Co-Freemasonry.

Stay tuned for more....in Part 3.