Alasdair Donald Keith

Alasdair Donald Keith

Originally from Elgin, Dr Alasdair D. Keith was initiated and passed in Lodge St. David (University Lodge) No. 36 in 2014, as the first inductee under the Grand Lodge of Scotland’s pilot university scheme. He was then raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason in the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) No.1, where he thereafter received his Mark. After moving to England to complete his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, he joined Isaac Newton University Lodge No. 859. 

He now resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where he does postdoctoral research at Emory University. He is actively involved with Atlanta-Peachtree Lodge No. 59, the Scottish Rite Valley of Atlanta, Georgia College SRICF and Yaarab Shrine.

The Craft and Witchcraft: The Origin of Anti-Masonry & Persecution by the Church in Mid-17th Century Scotland

Having a deep interest in genealogy, the author was looking through old parish records from the National Library of Scotland when he alighted upon a source from 1649 discussing the Mason Word. Its mention appears within a list of occult practices, such as witchcraft, that the church wished to suppress.

The author contends in the paper that this mention is the first time freemasonry was explicitly linked to occult practices by detractors. To present his case, the author weaves together three subjects: The Origins of Freemasonry; The Rise of Witchcraft Trials; and The Religious and Political Situation in Mid-17th Century Scotland. Taking all the evidence together, the paper then makes the claim that the origin of anti-masonry stretches very nearly back to the beginning of speculative freemasonry itself, that it was conflated with witchcraft and sorcery almost from its inception, and that this paper identifies, for the first time, the original documented case of religious anti-masonry.