My research on this topic began in the context of discussions between the representatives of The Conference Centre of the Parish Institute of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church and the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Finland during the years 1985-1986. My first research report on the topic was prepared in 1986 on the basis of these meetings.
The main sections of this study touch on the ethics religiosity of Finnish Freemasonry and its relations to the Christian Faith and the Lutheran Church.
I have concentrated on the Masonic degree systems of Finnish-language Freemasonry represented by the Grand Lodge of Finland and the additional degree system accepted by it. Besides that, some attention has been paid to the Scandinavian Freemasonry represented by the Grand Lodge of Sweden. This degree system occurs in Finland among the Swedish-speaking population only.
I have had at my disposal all the ritual texts used by the Finnish-speaking Masonic degree systems in Finland. As far as I know this was the first time anybody in Finland has been able to obtain such an amount of written Masonic source material without being a Freemason himself.
In the spring of 1993 I had, moreover, the opportunity to carry out an empirical survey of religiosity, ethics and values among Free- masons. The sample consisted of 1,200 Freemasons, and acceptable replies were received from 848, i.e. 71%.
The purpose of this study is first and foremost to provide answers to the following questions:
It is obvious that the ideals and values of the members of a given organization can never fully correspond to the values and norms set by the organization: the point that one should focus on is the degree of correspondence or divergence. The treatment of each topic will therefore begin with a presentation of the ideals of the organization as they emerge from a content analysis of internal sources. These findings will then be compared with the results of an empirical analysis of the views held by the members of the organization.
To facilitate accurate comparisons between Freemasons and other Finnish men with regard to values, norms, and religiosity, the questions selected for the questionnaire were mainly ones that had been put to a representative sample of the whole population of Finland in 1993, or as recently as possible before that date.
Of those who replied, 29% regarded Freemasonry as a very important element of their personal lives, with 50% regarding it as fairly important. For one in five (18%) it was of minor personal importance, and one or two percent characterized it as insigni- ficant. Thirty-nine percent felt that Freemasonry had met their expectations very well; forty-two percent felt that their expec- tations had been met fairly well. One in five (18%) felt that their expectations had been partly fulfilled, while the replies of two percent of the respondents suggested relative disappointment.
Figure 2.
The figure itself will come soon...
Freemasons survey (N=848): the respondents' assessments
of how important Freemasonry is to them personally.
The proportion of those who felt that their expectations had been fulfilled was particularly high among those respondents who had been Freemasons for a relatively long period; and satisfaction levels rose with the number of additional degree systems to which the respondent belonged. Thus, 58% of the Knights Templar and Knights of Malta were very satisfied, while the corresponding figure for those who were not members of any additional degree system was only 20%.