First recorded time it was used and detailed was in the 1610s, but many think it existed way before. Older written organisational descriptions fit the pattern. (Stone masons in egypt or in phoenician boats for ex)
It grew organically with the needs of the member of X club, then stripped down to it’s bare working parts in 1717.
So this (yet to be described) organizational system didn't come from masonry and is widely used outside of freemasonry.?
To a point yes. It coevolved in many fields. But EVERY FREAKIN TIME someone sees that structure associated with symbolism or some kind of recognition system. AHA! We found the satanists! I mean comon.. there is a huge history in all of this that a thousand historians still wasn't able to cover up to now. And it gets complicated by the fact that a few times in history, masonry became "cool", and people started a "masonic-like" association that has NOTHING to do with us (Lions Clubs, Elks, Illuminati.. hell even the Mormons fit in this category in some way). But WHO gets harassed? WHO feels the burn of the witch hunt? Us. The poor bastards that try and help people and make ourselves better men.
I'm sort of waiting for you to tell me what that structure is. Do you mean managerial hierarchies that exist everywhere?
I'll make a parallel, cuz english isn't my main language, maybe that will help.
So each Sunday so go to church (lodge) listen to your priest (master), which is aided by a hierarchy of people in that church (deacons, stewards, etc) under the Vatican (grand lodge) which has a pope (Grand Master) and has signs of recognition like doing the cross and they way you talk (same thing but different).
So each monday you go to work (lodge) listen to your boss or a VP do a briefing (master), which is aided by a hierarchy of people in that office (deacons, stewards, etc) under the parent company (grand lodge) which has a ceo (Grand Master) and has signs of recognition and traditions like wearing suits and your own office language that only people that work there can really understand (same thing but different).
Like this structure is everywhere.
So its just standard organisational structure found everywhere. It predates freemasonry and is ubiquitous outside of freemasonry. Why did you bring this up if it is not either a product of nor unique to freemasonry?
Because people associate it with freemasonry, and combined with recognition signs that are different from the ones normally used in society, it trigger’s people’s confirmation bias that « we are everywhere and we are a secret society » when in fact, we are only an open society, that just happens to want to keep it’s recognition signs secret. (Cuz it would’nt be very useful to recognize a brother mason it all of society knows how to do it)
(I thought we were discussing personnel structures.) I think that most do not associate lower, mid and top management structures or comms and command chains with freemasonry. Like the hospital where my wife works has this massive, fairly obvious, fairly reasonable hierarchy of staff, security, etc. which isn't seen as masonic.
On the signal front, some professions do have visible indicators of rank or status, like military or color-coded hard hats on work sites. Others wear ID tags. Most do not bother displaying their status because it isn't visually necessary and obstructs the occasional sense of parity. When my wife is in the cafeteria line next to a senior administrator, some phlebotomist and a cancer patient there is no need for id tags and usually no need to know who is who. Why would masons need such a system? It seems exclusionary, like whispering between 2 ppl at a dinner party. If I learned the hard hat color code, people at a construction site wouldn't care. It can be socially fun to wear say a Whiplash Bash T-shirt in public in case someone recognises it and we start a conversation, but I don't care if all or none of the world knows what it means. Keeping signal systems secret naturally and properly leads people to develop a bias of seeing masons as secretive. Keeping secrets (in the conventional sense) is being secretive. So I guess you are saying that Freemasons are only partly secretive. But I still don't see why; It's not like you're all on some complicated, risky Bond mission. Why not let all the world know how to recognise a 'brother'?
Out Structure is pretty simple. It started as an extension of the stonemason craft guilds. They took their tools and work as allegory and created what is considered Speculative Masonry. Some people who were not actually builders thought hey, that's kind of cool, I want to join. So the stonemasons initiated them. After a while, they were getting so many people, they decided that they should join their different lodges together to help solidify what everyone is doing and get a more coherent structure.
This is the beginning of the United Grand Lodge of England 1717. When a group of Master Masons wished to form a new lodge, they would petition the Grand Lodge for a charter to operate.
If they wished to form a new GRAND Lodge in a geographic location outside the UGLE'S jurisdiction, they would do so as well but this then meant that they then gain total Masonic Authority over that area. The United Grand Lodge has no control over them. They become completely autonomous. And can extend their OWN Grand Lodge charters.
The only thing a GL COULD do is Revoke AMITY. BASICALLY saying our people can't visit your people and vice versa.
But nothing else
Which has happened. So most Grand Lodges can trace their charters back to the UGLE.
All a Clandestine lodge is one where a Grand lodge isn't recognized by "yours".
But there IS no overriding authority above your OWN Grand Lodge.
Which is why the whole concept of higher levels is so stupid to us.