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- Title
"That Grand Primeval and Fundamental Religion": The Transformation of Freemasonry into a British Imperial Cult.
- Authors
FOZDAR, VAHID
- Abstract
In light of recent research on the role of Protestant Christianity in the British Empire, this article explores the possibility that the British actually carried to India a "religion" besides Protestantism, something that mimicked a religion so closely that it could virtually serve as an alternative to Christianity for purposes of imperial consolidation—namely, Freemasonry. The article posits that British Freemasonry, although it emerged from a Christian environment, progressively de-Christianized itself in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and increasingly espoused a religious universalism, which in turn allowed it to serve as an institutionalized, quasi-official, and de facto "civil religion" for the British Empire in India.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; INDIA; ASIA; FREEMASONRY -- History; UNIVERSALISM (Theology); CULTS; CIVIL religion; FREEMASONS; HINDUISM -- Relations; BRITISH colonies; HISTORY of India -- 18th century; HISTORY of India -- 19th century
- Publication
Journal of World History, 2011, Vol 22, Issue 3, p493
- ISSN
1045-6007
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/jwh.2011.0080