A Stroll Through The Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences

This article explores the crucial role of the liberal arts and sciences within Freemasonry, particularly highlighted during the Fellowcraft Degree's Winding Stair lecture.

Throughout our lives, we have heard of the liberal arts and sciences. But until we were presented with them in The Winding Stair lecture, most of us had only a vague notion of what they consisted. The Fellowcraft Degree commends Freemasons to study the Liberal Arts and Sciences, which are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. When we study the historical background for this list, we will uncover layers of Masonic meanings for us in each of the seven areas of knowledge.

Esoteric Freemasonry A Growing Trend

pic Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (1595)

The body of Freemasonry is comprised of many types of individuals whose Masonic pursuits vary according to that individual’s personality and interests. Freemasonry has been very aptly been compared to a complex tapestry composed of many colourful overlapping individual threads which taken as a whole form a larger picture.

Pythagoras: One of the Greatest Minds of His Time

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Pythagoras was one of the greatest minds and philosophers of his time and his unquestionable influence can be felt even today in mathematics. It is believed that he was the first man who referred to himself as a “philosopher.” He was the founder of Pythagoreanism, a religious and political movement that appeared mainly in the big cities of Magna Grecia (today southern Italy).