Some of the most architectonically beautiful buildings that man ever designed were erected by our ancestors, the Operative Freemasons. They built them using unsophisticated technology and with rough working tools, yet even now we are filled with a great sense of admiration whenever we look at them! How did the Operatives accomplish it? They did … Continue reading Pythagoras’s Theorem – The Operative Mason’s secret
One of the first things that we are taught in Freemasonry is that it is “a peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols”. One can therefore only understand the real meaning of Freemasonry by investigating its allegorical meaning. A most obvious example of an allegory in Freemasonry is the question of … Continue reading Allegory and Symbolism in Freemasonry – A little inkling
One of the first things that we are taught in Freemasonry is that it is “a peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols”. One can therefore only understand the real meaning of Freemasonry by investigating its allegorical meaning. A most obvious example of an allegory in Freemasonry is the question of … Continue reading Allegory and Symbolism in Freemasonry – A little inkling
In an article that Freemasonry.com published last month , a Brother from the United States of America writes about the issue of diminishing masonic membership in his Country. Why should we in England be concerned ? Because unless measures are taken that go beyond a soft recruitment campaign , even Freemasonry on this side of … Continue reading Freemasonry and membership retention
In Freemasonry the term lodge has at least three meanings. It can be a room or a building in which Freemasons meet , the society of Freemasons that meets or it may be the actual gathering of that body of Freemasons. In the days of the operative masons, our ancestors, the lodge was a structure … Continue reading The Masonic Lodge
The 18th century was an age of wars and social changes. In Europe in particular it was also the time that marked the birth of the Enlightenment – or “Age of Reason” – which inspired the drama of the French Revolution. To that bloody upheaval there followed a revolution of a different kind and one … Continue reading The Chevalier D’Eon , the first transgender Freemason
The use of allegory and symbolism is a method of teaching that is still applied in Freemasonry today. The allegory is a figure of speech that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically of a moral nature and symbolism, in the words of Albert Pyke [1] is: “(…) the soul of Masonry. Every … Continue reading The pointed cubic stone in Freemasonry
Among the interesting characters that populated Georgian England and spiced it with many anecdotes is the Rev. Dr. William Dodd [1] ; a clergyman with a very unmistakable nickname whose weakness in money matters sent him to the gallows for the crime of forgery on 27th June 1777. His life history resembles a middle-class melodrama … Continue reading The curious case of the “Macarone” Freemason
Masonic research can be divided into two main groups: the mainstream one that prefers a strict academic approach that considers 1717 as the official beginning of Freemasonry; and that which is mystical and prefers a spiritual approach, connecting Freemasonry with the Ancient Mysteries, Egypt, the Templars, Gnosticism, Alchemy and other spiritual and initiatic traditions. Two … Continue reading Spiritual Freemasonry
(This is an extract from “Historical Consideration of the Origin and Development of Freemasonry” by Arthur Edwards Waite published in its entirety in 1923) Less than forty years after the foundation of Grand Lodge , Knightly Orders begun to develop with titles , in some cases , being borrowed from the old institutions of Christian … Continue reading The Templar Orders in Freemasonry
