12. What is the origin of Freemasonry?
    The exact origins of Freemasonry are now lost in history. It seems, however, as though a craft organization of stone workers in the Renaissance attracted the participation of some gentle folk who were interested in building, both as a practical craft and for its symbolic associations. Over time, the symbolic aspects became more pronounced and the “speculative” members interested in the symbols became more numerous than the “operative” members who were actual stonemasons. This may have happened first in Scotland, but it was in London in 1717 that a number of such “speculative” Lodges banded together to form a Grand Lodge and the beginning of organized Freemasonry as we know it.