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Main article: Freemasonry

This article deals with organization in Craft or Blue Lodge Freemasonry. See the appropriate article for information on organization in appendant Masonic bodies such as York Rite and Scottish Rite.

Regularity is the process by which individual Grand Lodges recognise one another for the purposes of allowing formal interaction at the Grand Lodge level and visitation by members of other jurisdictions.

Contents 1 Regularity and its origins 2 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 3 France 4 United States 5 References 6 External links

There are a number of groupings of Masonic jurisdictions which consider themselves regular, and recognise others as regular, yet consider others to be irregular. There is no globally centralised Masonic organisational system, and therefore the criteria for regularity are not fixed across all Grand Lodges.

The largest collection of mutually recognised Grand Lodges derives its regularity from the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) based on the following criteria as used by the Home Grand Lodges (UGLE, Grand Lodge of Scotland and Grand Lodge of Ireland) and articulated on 4 September 1929:

• Regularity of origin is established by a duly recognised Grand Lodge or three or more regularly constituted Lodges.
• A belief in the Great Architect of the Universe and his revealed will shall be an essential qualification for membership.
• That all Initiates shall take their Obligation on or in full view of the open Volume of the Sacred Law, by which is meant the revelation from above which is binding on the conscience of the particular individual who is being initiated.
• That the membership of the Grand Lodge and individual Lodges shall be composed entirely of men; and that each Grand Lodge shall have no Masonic intercourse of any kind with mixed Lodges or bodies which admit women to membership.
• That the Grand Lodge shall have sovereign jurisdiction over Lodges under its control, i.e. that it shall be a responsible, independent, self-governing organisation, with sole and undisputed authority over the Craft or Symbolic degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason) within its Jurisdiction; and shall not in any way be subject to, or divide such authority with, a Supreme Council or any other power claiming any control or supervision over those degrees.
• That the three Great Lights of Freemasonry (namely, the Volume of the Sacred Law, the Square, and the Compasses) shall always be exhibited when the Grand Lodge or its subordinate Lodges are at work, the chief of these being the Volume of the Sacred Law.
• That the discussion of religion and politics within the Lodge shall be strictly prohibited.
• That the principles of the Antient Landmarks, customs and usages of the Craft be strictly observed.^[1]

The first attempt to codify the governance of Masonry was by James Anderson in his Constitutions, published in 1723, and which contain a number of basic principles. This was later built on by Dr. Albert Mackey in 1856, when he identified 25 Landmarks or characteristics of Masonry.

Other bodies predicate their assessment of regularity on the 8th decree of Anderson's Constitution; a Lodge is regular if it works in conformity to the rules of its granted constitutional patent. Grand Lodges certify regularity to their recognized Member Lodges and Grand Lodges with patents.

"Regular Freemasonry", when this term is not further defined, usually refers to the United Grand Lodge of England and its recognized jurisdictions. Since UGLE is considered to be not only the oldest, but also the largest grouping of lodges, UGLE recognition (or the lack thereof) is generally the barometer by which a jurisdiction is deemed regular. UGLE provides a list of recognised Grand Lodges on its website.^[2]

There are no less than 12 national Grand Lodges operating in France.

The Grande Loge Nationale Francaise (GLNF)^[3] is currently the only French Grand Lodge that is recognised as regular by UGLE and its concordant jurisdictions.

The Grand Orient de France (GOdF) was recognised by most Grand Lodges in the world until the middle of the 19th Century, when the GOdF recognised an irregular and "unrecognised" Masonic organisation in Louisiana.^[4] This caused several US Grand Lodges to withdraw recognition from the GOdF. The final breaking point, however, came about due to a decision by the GOdF in 1877 to remove the requirement for Masons to have a belief in a Supreme Being. UGLE and most other Anglo-Saxon Grand Lodges suspended all relations with and recognition of the Grand Orient de France as a result.

In the United States, each state has a Grand Lodge that is sovereign and independent within its jurisdiction. There also may be irregular Grand Lodges operating within the state. All regular Grand Lodges in the US are in mutual amity with UGLE.

Most US Grand Lodges and their Prince Hall counterparts recognize each other. The exceptions are in the former Confederate states (except Virginia and Texas)^[5], where the mainstream Grand Lodges do not yet recognize their Prince Hall counterparts. Prince Hall Grand Lodges recognize each other.

• Regularity and Recognition by Tony Pope, editor of the Australian & New Zealand Masonic Research Council's publications.