Promoting the Fraternity across the World
Dive into the heart of the Renaissance with Raphael’s The School of Athens, a fresco that celebrates ancient philosophy and showcases the era’s intellectual giants. Discover the symbolism behind the figures of Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries, and learn how this masterpiece reflects the Renaissance spirit of learning, inquiry, and admiration for classical antiquity.
It is often said that symbolism is carried too far and this is difficult to deny when I think of Freud and other psychiatrists and psychologists who seem able to find strange and often erotic meanings in all they see. The meanings given to every image based on repetition makes the lay-person feel at a serious disadvantage when they wish to contradict anything that is given a meaning by such “Specialists.” The symbolic object, which is dredged up by the mind, seems to have no great pattern of consistency in the case of psychiatric symbol definition.
Since 1717, this has been a subject of passionate concern to almost every Freemason. There remain a mass of competing views and theories, and this question has dominated research into Freemasonry.
The address to the Immediate Past Master and the depiction on his jewel refer to the 47Th proposition of Euclid. It also refers to “our brother Pythagoras”. The Master’s jewel is the square, two sides 90 degrees apart which will form the base needed for the 47th problem (in many jurisdictions the square has the … Read more
When I first went through the 2nd degree and heard these words from the W. Master “..you are now permitted to extend your researches into the hidden mysteries of Nature and Science” I was struck by the absurdity of it. Here I am, a medical doctor, whose very profession required the study of the hidden mysteries of Nature and Science being told I am now permitted to do so
