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…
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
As Masons, we are all introduced during our ritual lectures to the Masonic symbol of the Point Within a Circle, and instructed in its’ allusion. The most interesting thing to me during my own such introduction was that the figure representing this symbol contained not only a point within a circle, but also two straight vertical lines touching the sides of the circle. It was explained during the ensuing lecture that these lines represented the two Holy Saints John, namely John the Baptist, and John the Evangelist. This struck me as peculiar to say the least, and I have been trying to figure out this peculiarity ever since.
Golden Ratio The golden section Although not naming it the Golden Ratio, around 300 BCE Euclid of Alexandria defined the proportion: “A straight line is…
Presented November 20, 1998, at the Vancouver Lodge of Education and Research. In mid September, when the Worshipful Master originally asked me to present…
Containing more real food for thought, and impressing on the receptive mind a greater truth than any other of the emblems in the lecture of the Sublime Degree, the 47th problem of Euclid generally gets less attention, and certainly less than all the rest. Just why this grand exception should receive so little explanation in our lecture; just how it has happened, that, although the Fellowcrafts degree makes so much of Geometry, Geometrys right hand should be so cavalierly treated, is not for the present inquiry to settle
