Freemasonry and femininity were normally two incompatible things. Or so most of us believe.
And the truth is that their relationship was thorny and complicated until the advent of the 20th century, knowing several phases of war or noble coexistence on the contrary.
However, there were no tangible and proven relationships in time, despite the fact that we know that there were a handful of women who joined the mystical order before the 18th century.
Because then the statutory map of its Grand Lodge Britain, signed June 24, 1717, explicitly and forever forbade women from the battalion?
Even French Freemasonry, which spread to mainland Europe in the second half of the 18th century, allowed the inclusion of female relatives in a parallel hierarchy, but not in the order itself.
The French Lodges disappeared in the 19th century and reappeared in the 20th, and now there were exclusively female Lodges among them. Which gradually acquired the status and status of men and until 1950 operated several French women's Lodges.
In the English Lodges of the 19th century, however, and their American branches, women remained exterminated. It was the USA who have been innovating here since the end of the century, allowing for mixed galleries and joint action in rituals. But again they worked hard to ensure the difference between the common ritual and the real, authentic masculinity of men.
These, of course, belong to the occult history of an organization shady enough to be sure of how and why. But we still know something today, because that is how they chose it…
Despite the fact that women freemasons have been concentrating in England for 100 years, only recently (2017) did they allow with the BBC to gain access to their ceremonies.
"What is Freemasonry?" Asks the Reverend of the Venerable Brotherhood of Ancient Masons? "A peculiar system of ethics that is revealed through allegory and appears through symbols," replies the initiated member to ascend to the ranks of the "second degree".
The "first degree" is equivalent to the virgin initiation into the order, a ritual that includes the "right hand, left chest and knee", at the same time as a noose is passed around the neck. Elements with a purely symbolic function, the neo-enlightened person hastens to clarify.
In the "third degree", in fact, "you experience death in order to be reborn", is confessed sybilically, a ritual that represents "the end of life and the beginning of another". It is the ceremony to become a real Mason, without of course explaining exactly what is included in mysticism.
The BBC could not ask for further clarification as it is a luxury and located there. Where most people do not even know that there are female Masonic orders.
From his journalistic research we learned that the two female Masonic battalions of England, the Lodges Honorable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons and Order of Women Freemasons, split in the early 20th century and now have just under 5.000 members. Too many to say to remain so hidden.
They dress in white, meet in galleries and temples along the length and breadth of Britain and decorate their costumes with various emblems to mark their rank in the hierarchy.
What the BBC has recorded is similar to what we have seen from time to time from traditional Masonic ceremonies. The throne where the Grand Master sits and the prayers that resemble religious practices, although the ritualist Zuzanka Penn is quick to stress that this is not a religious sect.
"To become a Mason, you have to believe in a higher being," he clarifies, but it can be "of any faith." He also wants to clarify the dark myth that accompanies Freemasonry and the proverbial mutual support of Freemasons.
"I have been a Mason for over 40 years and they have never done me any favors, nor have I done them to anyone. You hear these stories, but I have not met them in Freemasonry "…
It was in 1997 that Jack Straw, the Home Secretary of the Tony Blair government, called on government officials and judges to come out voluntarily and declare their involvement in Freemasonry. Soon, of course, he would withdraw the appeal when the Masons threatened to send the government to court.
Christine Chapman, the leader of the Honorary Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons fraternity, once admitted that "while we hold some high-ranking positions, I did not see anyone being helped." British publications, of course, have at times accused the secret fraternity of corruption and illegal relations with the English judiciary.
According to available data, the 4.700 female Masons in England are just a drop in the ocean compared to the 200.000 male Masons in the country. The most famous British Masons, according to the BBC, were the Winston Churchill, the ser Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde and Peter Sellers.
"We are not trying to understand the world, contrary to what all these conspiracy theorists are saying on the Internet, and we are not trying to overthrow the government or anything like that. We try to maintain a degree of secrecy simply because it makes us special. "
As for the famous Masonic handshake, "yes, of course we have it," reveals Zuzanka Penn, head of the Order of Women Freemasons. Of course refusing to present her on the channel. "It is a secret. "You have to be initiated and then I will tell you everything about her", he says jokingly.
The British "Telegraph" did its own research in 2015 and stumbled again on Zuzanka Penn, the ninth consecutive Grand Master of the Order of Women Freemasons. A 69-year-old woman today who spends most of her day as a chartered accountant and then wears the masonry apron.
Her own battalion is a distinct branch of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), an occult organization for more than three centuries that only accepted men into its ranks. Something he continued to do until the beginning of the 20th century, when mixed Freemasonry was born, from which sprang in 1908 the all-female Order of Women Freemasons.
Shares buildings and practices with the male Freemasonry, the relationship stops there however. Or so Penn claims. True Freemasonry does not officially accept them in its ranks and all it has done is to indifferently acknowledge their existence in 1999.
Whether they are involved and how in the backstage consultations of Freemasonry, the big question obviously remains unknown.
However, the revelation made by the Ancestry website by publishing a package of Masonic registers from Britain showed the involvement of the order in a number of the biggest decisions of the country during the last two centuries.
Among them proved their involvement even in the deterioration of the research for the sinking of the Titanic. Penn rejects such dark actions for the women of Freemasonry, but admitted to the newspaper that some wrong texts really existed in Freemasonry in the past.