Grand Lodge Alpina of Switzerland
These include a belief in a Supreme Being, the presence of a sacred book on the lodge altar; no brother may promote his personal opinions on religion or politics.
GLAS offers a broad spiritual approach and an initiatic pedagogy which retains a stance of privacy to its rituals, even if all the information on the arcane and the functioning of Freemasonry is easily accessible on the web and in specialized books.
After the Congress of Vienna, the French influence having ebbed away, lodges of French-speaking Switzerland created in 1811 a first umbrella structure, the Grand Orient Helvétique Romand.
Jonas Furrer, born on 3rd March 1805 in Winterthur and died on 25th July 1861 in Bad Ragaz, was the first president of the Swiss Confederation in 1848 and the first GLAS Great Speaker in 1844.
Later, in the 1880s, the Vaud mason Louis Ruchonnet, born on 28th April 1834 in Lausanne and died on 14th September 1893 in Berne, Federal Councillor and President of the Confederation, who, by taking the economy into account in his vision, retained this social engagement.
The proof is the Genevan pacifist activist and 1902 Nobel Peace Prize winner Élie Ducommun, born on 19 February 1833 in Geneva and died on 7 December 1906 in Bern, former Grand Master of the GLSA from 1890 to 1895.
It also endeavoured, from 1921, in the same spirit of universal brotherhood for peace, inspired by Swiss neutrality, to build bridges between the world's Grand Lodges by the creation of a light ad hoc body, the International Masonic Association (IMA) : whose head office was in Switzerland.
The economic crisis (the Wall Street Crash of 1929) at the end of the 1920s affected the financial resources of the members, and the rise of fascism was accompanied by virulent anti-Masonicism; there was mention of a "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy", and Freemasons were accused of all the evils.
This movement had a more moderate impact in Switzerland, via the extreme right-wing factions in the country, which were financed underhandedly by Benito Mussolini and the Nazis.
From 1945 onwards, GLAS became more active and Masonic life resumed, with modest but steady growth, until the pre-war membership was restored and even slightly exceeded.
Nevertheless, like all societies, it now had to fight against the decline of voluntary associations and make its added value better known by making its values of the training of a upright human being, activity in society, with a spiritual underpinning rooted in tolerance, as a long-term task... To strengthen its links with so-called universal Freemasonry (which respects the landmarks of the Old Charges), often referred to as regular Freemasonry, GLAS distanced itself from other French-speaking Grand Lodges, which led a few brethren of French-speaking Switzerland to create the Grand Orient de Suisse, a so-called liberal obedience, closer to the Grand Orient de France, in 1959.
Shortly before, the International Masonic Association, which had somewhat resumed its activity, was dissolved, GLAS noting that an attempt to bring the different currents of Freemasonry closer together had become illusory.
On 6 June 2009, at its General Assembly, following the policy of the United Grand Lodge of England, GLAS adopted a declaration concerning its relations with women's freemasonry in Switzerland, which recognises the judicious activity of the latter.
Those working in English (6.7%) and Italian (6.3%) are in the minority, although there are new English-speaking lodges in the Lake Geneva area, as well as in Basel and Zurich, probably because of the high level of immigration of skilled workers to Switzerland over the last 15 years.
The phrase that characterizes the GLAS's spirit of Masonic perfection can be formulated in the following terms: the Freemason must perfect himself, without waiting for an external initiative, but beyond his life here below, a horizon opens up to him that gives him a glimpse of the Love of the True, of the Good and of the Beautiful, a mode of action and ideal close to ancient philosophy, represented in a sense by the Great Architect of the Universe.
They are grouped into Masonic rites each with its own specific values, references and rituals: The Masonic Temple, in which the Brethren activity takes place, is a location outside secular time, symbolically situated on the construction site of the first Temple of Jerusalem of King Solomon, son of David, where Hebrews and Gentiles worked together, seen here as a first sign of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood.
