I see that Council has decided to accept a donation from the Freemason's Grand Charity. This was discussed at our Faculty Board; I expressed some reservations, and I understand there was considerable debate in Council before the decision was taken. Several colleagues have said that their initial instinct was to reject the offer; I feel bound to observe that, on the occasions when my instinct has said one thing and my head another, the head has usually been wrong!
My reservations about freemasonry stem from knowledge gained through conversations with patients who are masons, and from belonging to a healing community within the Church of England. I've read various publications, written by people who either have been freemasons themselves, or who have studied the organisation in some depth. My understanding is that it is an organ-isation with secrets, it has a layered structure, and members in the lower layers are generally ignorant of what goes on higher up. The vast majority of freemasons regard it as an enjoyable social club, that does a lot of good work raising money for charities — and so it does. Unfortunately, the argument does not end there. It is undoubtedly a quasi-religious organisation, though it welcomes members from any religion. That's fine, and at every lodge meeting there's an open Bible. However, the meetings profess to worship not only God as those attending recognise Him, but also entities such as Jabulon and others. This is a departure from worship as the rest of us know it — who or what is Jabulon? There is a mystical initiation ceremony, and a solemn oath is sworn, that the initiate's heart be cut out if he betrays the organisation's secrets — hence exposing the left breast. It may sound melodramatic, but many within the established Church are deeply concerned — hence the move recently to render priesthood and freemasonry mutually incompatible.
In our Faculty Board debate, we agreed that the College shouldn't accept money from, say, a drug baron. We feel uneasy about accepting it from pharmaceutical companies, though we do. We probably wouldn't accept it from Hare Krishna, or the Scientology movement. In defence of the argument in favour of accepting, I understand that the Grand Charity runs independently from the masonic lodges, and that there are no strings attached as to how it is spent. And the amount of money on offer is considerable. Nevertheless, the phrase ‘wolf in sheep's clothing’ niggles at the back of my mind, so I may reconsider whether to continue as a Fellow of this College, but that's my personal decision.
If I am in a small minority with these concerns, that's fine, but I would appreciate their being made available to more of our membership, so that the College can have a more informed debate.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2004.
