Promoting the Fraternity across the World
William Hogarth, an artist deeply entrenched in the Masonic tradition, utilized his art to create a secret tapestry of Freemasonry’s rituals, symbols, and internal dynamics. Hogarth’s engravings are not mere art; they are cryptic archives, requiring an astute key to unveil the clandestine messages hidden within. His work subtly satirizes Masonic rituals, political undertones, and … Read more
One of the most obscure symbols in Masonic iconography is the “Point within a Circle” appearing in the Tracing Board of the First Degree. The traditional explanation, is that it represents “the point from which a Master Mason cannot err”, bounded by the two straight lines to the north and south representing either the two … Read more
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
there has been very little agreement among our scholars either as to its (the letter ‘G’) origin or to its meaning. Usually, we can hit upon the manner in which a symbol was introduced into the Ritual by studying the records of the early eighteenth century in England, at which time and place the Ritual was cast in its modern form, but such a study cannot help us here because the eighteenth century Masons were themselves confused about the matter
Much has been made of the symbolic significance of the angle, or distance between the points, of the compasses in masonic iconography, both by freemasons looking for deeper meanings, and anti-masons looking for further “proof” of occult association.
