The historical origins of Freemasonry are still a central question for many historians... it's the same for the origins of its rite which raises many interrogations. Qualified as "masonic yoga" for some or ritual "excessively" religious for others: Emulation work doesn't let any Freemason indifferent.
To give us a representation, Roger Dachez invites us to go bask to the creation of the first English lodges.
At first, the rite was the action element, the gesture which constituted the masonic world. Then, the necessity to give a meaning to the rite thanks to many degrees led to a sequencing following a progression scale. The establishment of the first masonic rituals won't go without a quarrel between "the ancients" (depositary of the masonic orthodoxy) and "the moderns" (nickname which "the ancients" gave to those who didn't think their way).
This quarrel lasted sixty years and died down in 1813. It gave birth to the United Grand Lodge of England then in 1823 to the creation of the "Emulation Lodge Of Improvement" which aim was to fix the ritual of the union and to transmit to all British lodges. Hundreds of demonstrations are set in all England to be repeated, to commit, the ceremonies. Fearing disclosures, the ritual always transmitted orally and the different officiants had to learn this text by heart... tradition which is still alive today.
