The French Rite: Enlightenment Culture

This book, focused on the French Rite, covers the founding principles of the Enlightenment and their influence on the birth of modern Freemasonry as we know it today. The authors revisit the fundamental values of the Enlightenment, from a rational approach to religious tolerance and…

The Perfect Elect: A Transatlantic Adventure the ‘Sharp’ Documents, Volume 1 & 2

The Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite in 33 degrees is the most widespread system of masonic higher degrees worldwide. It was developed in the 18th century, drawing on the most diverse well springs of esoteric traditions and philosophical currents. It is represented wherever Freemasonry is active.

Brethren: Behold Your Supreme Council: Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary of the SGIG and Deputies of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A

Brethren: Behold Your Supreme Council is a reference volume about the Leadership of the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States from its inception on May 31, 1801, to present time. During these 222 years, 565 Deputies and Sovereign Grand Inspectors General passed…

A Study in American Freemasonry

Arthur Preuss (1871-1934) was a German-American Catholic journalist, editor, and writer. He is best known for his significant contributions to Catholic journalism in the United States and his work as an apologist for the Catholic Church. Preuss was born in Germany and immigrated to the…

ESOTERIKA by Albert Pike: The Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry 

Many of the Freemasonry symbols of our rituals are hidden from everyone in the Order. The symbolic degrees are a vault in which secrets and esoteric teachings are enclosed, whose origin and meaning were transmitted orally in antiquity, many of which today have been lost in…

Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry: The Collected Writings of Jewel P. Lightfoot

Jewel P. Lightfoot. Former Attorney General of the State of Texas. Past Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas. From humble beginnings in rural Arkansas, he worked to become an educated man who excelled in law and Freemasonry. He was a gentleman of…

Essay on The Mysteries and the True Object of The Brotherhood of Freemasons: Considerably expanded and corrected from the original in 1776

There is a need for a third edition of Essai sur les mystères. The first English translation (W.H. Reece, 1862) is long out of print and contains errors that may hinder readers’ comprehension of the anonymous 1771 letter it contains. This version, discovered in the Biblioteca…

James Hoban’s Secret Society

James Hoban’s Secret Society is a pocket guide to Hoban’s fraternal legacy. This concise history delineates the opportunity and rise of a skilled immigrant craftsman in colonial America. Hoban’s family-centric approach to his work helped establish a tight-knit group of professional woodworkers who stayed with…

Female Emancipation and Masonic Membership: An Essential Collection

Female Emancipation and Masonic Membership: An Essential Combination is a collection of essays on Freemasonry and gender that promotes a transatlantic discussion of the study of the history of women and Freemasonry and their contribution in different countries such as Cuba, Chile, France, Mexico, Spain,…

The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions and Answers

Rosicrucianism emerged in Europe possibly as early as the 1500s. It had numerous influences. As Michael Maier, a Rosicrucian described it, “Our origins are Egyptian, Brahminic, derived from the mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace, the Magi of Persia, the Pythagoreans, and the Arabs.” During the…

The Spirit Of Masonry

The author, William Hutchinson, F.A.S., passed away on 7th of April, 1814, at the age of 82, after a long career as an attorney, and as an author and devoted Freemason. He penned such works as A History of the County of Durham, A View…

Freemasonry, Heir to the Enlightenment

Modern Freemasonry may have mythical roots in Solomon’s time but is really the heir to the Enlightenment. Ever since the early eighteenth century freemasons have endeavored to convey the values of the Enlightenment in the cultural, political and religious fields, in Europe, the American colonies…

Grand Crosses of the Court of Honour: Concise Scottish Rite Biographical Dictionary

The Grand Crosses of the Court of Honour: Concise Scottish Rite Biographical Dictionary is a commemorative reference volume that provides a brief description about each Scottish Rite Brother awarded the highest honor bestowed by the Supreme Council, 33°.

Masonic Myths and Legends

Freemasonry is one of the few organizations whose teaching method is still based on symbols. It presents these symbols by inserting them into legends that are told to its members in initiation ceremonies. But its history itself has also given rise to a whole mythology.…

A Radical In The East

The papers presented here represent over twenty-five years of publications by S. Brent Morris. They explore his many questions about Freemasonry, usually dealing with origins of the Craft.

Brought to Light: The Mysterious George Washington Masonic Cave

Purchase in greyscale | Purchase in color by Jason Williams MD  The George Washington Masonic Cave near Charles Town, West Virginia, contains a signature carving of George Washington dated 1748. Although this inscription appears authentic, it has yet to be verified by historical accounts or…

Washington and His Masonic Compeers

by Sidney Hayden Purchase As Sidney Hayden wrote of this work on George Washington and his Masonic pasts, “Biographies of Washington, and the most eminent of our countrymen who were contemporary with him, have been often written so far as relates to their public acts,…

Storia del Grande Oriente d’Italia (Italian Edition)

by Emanuela Locci Purchase Questo volume è la traduzione italiana di un libro precedente nato con l’intento di colmare una lacuna bibliografica, infatti, fino alla sua pubblicazione non era presente nella letteratura massonica un libro che trattasse in maniera organica la storia della massoneria in…

Worlds of Print: The Moral Imagination of an Informed Citizenry, 1734 to 1839

by John Slifko Purchase Plato, Aristotle, Baron Montesquieu, and Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that you could never have a democracy bigger than the geographic size, intimate oral habits, and embodied rituals of face-to-face communication, and walking distance of a Greek city-state, French town, or small…

Masonry and Protestantism

by Susanna Hopkins Mason Purchase Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that even…

Annals of the Hobby Club of New York City, 1912-1920

by New York Hobby Club Purchase In 1908, the Hobby Club was established as a gentlemen’s club. Planned to be a space for people to showcase their special interests, the “object of the Club shall be to encourage the collection of literary, artistic and scientific…

Proceedings of the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star at its Fourth Stated Meeting, August 17-23, 1883

by General Grand Chapter Purchase Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that even…

An Address Delivered Before the Members of the Anti-Masonic State Convention: Assembled at Augusta, Maine, July 4, 1832

by Moses Thacher Purchase Moses Thacher was born on November 14, 795 in Princeton, Worcester County, Massachusetts. He was frustrated with the growing number of people involved with Freemasonry in his religious community. He felt the oats one swore as part of Masonic ritual were…

History of Saint John’s Lodge of Boston

by Saint John’s Lodge Freemasons Purchase Saint John’s is the oldest lodge in the United States and its social history when fully written will be a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. Fraternal organizations like Saint John’s have impacted…

History of the Grand Orient of Italy

Emanuela Locci, Editor Purchase The initiative to write this volume comes from the need to fill a bibliographic gap: no book in Masonic literature upon the history of Italian Freemasonry has been edited in English up to now. Thus, it aims to cover this lack…

Ritual for Local Camps: Royal Neighbors of America, Auxiliary of the Modern Woodman of America

by Royal Neighbors of America Purchase The early members of the Society were ahead of their time. In addition to providing life insurance for women, they stood firmly behind the women’s suffrage movement. Royal Neighbors was also one of the first fraternal societies to insure…

History of the Fraternal Order of Eagles

by J. Fanning O’Reilly Purchase The Fraternal Order of Eagles is an international fraternal organization that was founded on February 6, 1898 in Seattle, Washington by a group of six theater owners. It was initially composed of those who worked within the performing arts. The…

Why Thirty-Three?: Searching for Masonic Origins

by S. Brent Morris, PhD, Introduction by Wallace E. Boston, Jr. Purchase The papers presented here represent over twenty-five years of publications by S. Brent Morris. They explore his many questions about Freemasonry, usually dealing with origins of the Craft. What “high degrees” were in…

Pioneering in Masonry: The Life and Times of Rob Morris, Masonic Poet Laureate, Together with the Story of Clara Barton and the Eastern Star

by Lucien V. Rule Purchase through Amazon  Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

The Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry: As Connected with Ancient Norse Guilds, and the Oriental and Mediæval Building Fraternities

by George F. Fort Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

Foreign Freemasonry: Its Position vis-a-vis of Christianity and of Catholicity

by D. Moncrieff O’Connor Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

The Masonic Genius of Robert Burns: An Address Delivered in Lodge “Quatuor Coronati,” 2076, 4th March, 1892

by Bro. Benjamin Ward Richardson Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of…

Melodies for the Craft, or Songs for Freemasons Suitable for Every Occasion

by R. Fellow Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that even…

History of Freemasonry in England from 1567 to 1813

by Leon Hyneman Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that…

A Place in the Lodge: Dr. Rob Morris, Freemasonry and the Order of the Eastern Star

by Nancy Stearns Theiss PhD Purchase through Amazon  UPDATED EDITION Ridiculed as “petticoat masonry,” critics of the Order of the Eastern Star did not deter Rob Morris’ goal to establish a Masonic organization that included women as members. As Rob Morris (1818-1888) came “into the…

The Great Transformation: Scottish Freemasonry 1725-1810

by Dr. Mark C. Wallace Purchase through Amazon  Modern Freemasonry emerged in Britain after 1700 as a prominent fixture in both British communal and social life. It combined earlier stonemason customs and methods of organization with the popular passion for clubs and societies. Some mocked…

The 33 Principles Every Mason Should Live By: The True Meaning of Being a Mason

by C. Fred Kleinknecht Jr. Purchase through Amazon  In 1947 Fred took a job at the House of the Temple, literally learning the Scottish Rite from the ground floor to eventually becoming Grand Commander. He was Grand Commander from October 23, 1985 to October 7, 2003.…

Swiss Freemasonry: A Historical Sketch with Organization, Principles and Constitution

by Dr. Bernard Perrelet Purchase through Amazon  Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

The History of the Order of the Eastern Star Among Colored People

by Mrs. S. Joe Brown Purchase through Amazon  Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of…

Freemasonry, Politics and Rijeka (Fiume) (1785-1944)

by Ljubinka Toseva Karpowicz Purchase through Amazon  LJUBINKA TOŠEVA KARPOWICZ studied sociology and later political science at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade. She received her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in 1987. She…

Masonic Regularity and Recognition: A Global Issue

Roger Dachez, Introduction by Alain Bauer Purchase through Amazon  “The issue of regularity and recognition in Freemasonry is examined here from a mainly French point of view, because France is essentially the only major Masonic country in the world where this debate is so complicated.…

Invasions of the Gulf: Radicalism, Ritualism and the Shaikhs

by Paul Rich Purchase through Amazon  The Gulf was ruled for a good part of the 19th and 20th centuries from India, and those who served there constituted a unique, small foreign service of their own. Their public (private boarding in American usage) school backgrounds…

Masonic Regularity

by Alain Bernheim Purchase through Amazon  Alain Bernheim was born in Paris on May 23, 1931. At twelve he was interned in Drancy under Occupied France. After World War II was over, Bernheim studied at the National Music Conservatory of Paris, and became the first…

Getting the Third Degree: Fraternalism, Freemasonry and History

Editors: Guillermo De Los Reyes and Paul Rich Purchase through Amazon Possibly the most international and diverse scholarly conference on fraternalism and freemasonry is the one held in Paris in the spring every two years at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and hosted by Westphalia…

Dudley Wright: Writer, Truthseeker & Freemason

by John Belton Purchase through Amazon  Dudley Wright (1868-1950) was an Englishman who took a universalist approach to the various great Truths of Life, he travelled though many religions in his life and wrote about them all, but was probably most at home with Islam.…

An Introduction to the Formation of Freemasonry in the United States of America: The Constellation of the Brotherhood

by Larissa P. Watkins Purchase through Amazon  The Constellation of the Brotherhood is another stellar reference resource by bibliographer Larissa Watkins. It encompasses the developmental history of the Grand Masonic Bodies in the United States for each state… It will be a boon to researchers,…

A General Register of all the Lodges and Grand Lodges of Freemasons: in North America

by J. Fletcher Brennan Purchase through Amazon  Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

A Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies

by Arthur Preuss Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that…

A Historical Account of Columbian Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Boston

by John T. Heard Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials…

The Unparalleled Sufferings of John Coustos: The Cruel Tortures to Extract the Secrets of Freemasonry

by John Coustos Purchase through Amazon Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars. It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s, but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that…

History of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers of the City of London: Otherwise the Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass

by Charles Henry Ashdown Purchase through Amazon Despite the name, The City of London is only a small part of metropolitan London, and is further unique in that it boasts of its own government. This centers on the ancient companies, or guilds, which in the…

Freemasonry: A French View

by Roger Dachez and Alain Bauer Purchase through Amazon Perhaps one should speak not of Freemasonry but of Freemasonries in the plural. In each country Masonic historiography has developed uniqueness, but it is safe to say that one of the highest levels of scholarship has been…

Freemasonry in the Holy Land, or, Handmarks of Hiram’s Builders

by Robert Morris, LLD. Purchase through Amazon  In 1868, Robert Morris (1818-1888), a sometime grand master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky and founder of the Order of the Eastern Star, gathered a group of Masons for Secret Monitor ceremonies in a cave in King…

Manual of the Eastern Star: Containing the Symbols, Scriptural Illustrations, Lectures, etc. Adapted to the System of Speculative Masonry

by Robert Macoy Purchase through Amazon  The secret cyphers and ritual books of the Eastern Star as well as of other fraternal societies inevitably make their way to the shelves of antiquarian book dealers. Efforts to get families to return documents and regalia when a…

Elixir of Empire: The English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism

by P. J. Rich Purchase through Amazon A companion volume, Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Cabalism Historical Causality, and Imperial Clubdom, is the second in P. J. Rich’s trilogy about schooling as a political force. Explored are the ways in which the history…

Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Children, Historical Causality, and Imperial Clubdom

by P. J. Rich Purchase through Amazon The British Empire’s and the English public schools’ peculiar system of rituals and rewards had more in common than has been realized. In Chains of Empire, Paul Rich related this to controversies about historical causality, morphic resonance, chaos,…

Masonic Poems

by Masonic Service Association US Purchase through Amazon Masonic poems can be maudlin or marvelous, but critics must concede that Rudyard Kipling and Robert Burns cannot be accused of being amateurs. In short, the poetry of Freemasonry is a very mixed bag. It often is…

Plain Thoughts on Secret Societies

by John Lawrence Purchase through Amazon John Lawrence (1824-1899) was a historian of the United Brethren churches and an abolitionist. When he wrote Plain Thoughts there was a clear consensus among his fellow believers that Freemasonry was insidious and diabolical. But in 1889 the United…

Freemasonry’s Research Agenda

by Margaret C. Jacob, Preface by Paul J. Rich Purchase in Print   Perhaps it should not be surprising that a secret society remains something of a secret. A telling comment made on several occasions by Pierre Mollier, the librarian of the Grand Orient or…

The Symbolic Tradition of Freemasonry

Edited by Pierre Mollier Purchase This volume, full of significant work on Freemasonry and kindred subjects, is the result of a bold effort to make the best in articles about fraternalism appearing in tonguesother than English available to the English-speaking scholarly world. The productivity and…

Challenges Facing Freemasonry

by John L.L. Cooper III, Preface by Paul J. Rich Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Secrecy and ritualism often go together, although for many societies the secrecy is no longer as strong as it once was. However, ritual remains one of their major…

Stories for the American Freemason’s Fireside

by C. W. Towle Purchase through Amazon This is a collection of stories intended to be morality tales for Masons and their admirers. Numerous nineteenth century writers saw a market for fiction whose intention was to inculcate the values of a popular, redefined Freemasonry. The result…

Ritual and Secrecy Confront Reality

Edited by by Pierre Mollier, Daniel Kerjan, Yves Hilvert-Messeca, and Carter Charles Purchase through Amazon This special issue of Ritual, Secrecy and Civil Society, among other things, questions explores the ways in which the secret initiatory societies interface with political and social history. It would be…

Fiat Lux: Full Score, Parts Included

Composed by by Gregory Thomas Woolford Martin Purchase on Amazon (Fiat Lux: Full Score, Parts Included)  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Purchase on Amazon (Fiat Lux: Piano & Vocal Score)  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Gregory Thomas Woolford Martin has composed for small and large ensembles, electronica, choir,…

Between Conflict and Conformity: Freemasonry During the Weimar Republic and the “Third Reich”

Authored by Ralf Melzer Translated by Glenys A. Waldman Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase through CreateSpace Freemasonry during the Weimar Republic and the ‘Third Reich’…One might ask, “Is that a chapter of forgotten persecution or a legend of persecution?” After extensive research in archives in…

Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia – 1898

by John P. Sheiry Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase through CreateSpace The Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia is not the grand lodge for the United States, but at times because of its site it has national importance. The election of Brother William McKinley as…

Hymns to the Gods & Other Poems

by Gen. Albert Pike Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Albert Pike (1809-1891) began writing as a youth, and “Hymns to the Gods” was his first published poem when he was only 23. He subsequently became a contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine after his…

Freemasonry in Inverness

by Alexander Ross Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Alexander Ross (1834-1925) was educated at Inverness Royal Academy and became an architect like his father. He joined St. John’s Masonic Lodge in 1833 and eventually was its Master. Ross traveled throughout Scotland as public education…

Lodge “Himalayan Brotherhood” No. 459 E.C.: Minute Books and Correspondence

by G. Reeves-Brown Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace The famous Himalyan Brotherhood lodge owes its origins to a Masonic lodge established in Calcutta in 1773. Members of descendant lodges organized Himalyan Brotherhood in 1838 in the Indian hill station of Simla, where British rulers spent…

The Story of the City Companies

by P.H. Ditchfield Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace As this volume shows, the guilds or livery companies of London started as medieval associations of tradesmen: haberdashers, skinners, goldsmiths, and ironmongers. They became charity foundations, trustees of schools and hospitals, custodians of art treasures and…

Philippine Masonic Directory ~ 1918

by Chas. M. Colton Purchase on Amazon |  Purchase on CreateSpace Originally limited to the Spanish occupiers, Freemasonry attracted leaders of the Philippine independence movement and has played an important role in the history of the islands. The great leader Joseph Rizal was an active member,…

Gems of Song for Eastern Star Chapters

compiled by Pitkin & Mathews Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Although the Order of the Eastern Star at one time claimed ties to orders in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Swedish royal court, the consensus is that it was largely invented as a…

Hints on Masonic Etiquette

by R. H. Gaynor Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Freemasonry not only has myriad complex ceremonies for initiating and advancing candidates, but also preserves a code for every social occasion, including requirements for addressing others during meetings, offering banquet toasts, opening and closing…

Manual of Knights Templar

by Edward J. Newman Purchase on Amazon |  Purchase on CreateSpace Partly because of novelists and Hollywood, the Masonic Knights Templar have enjoyed an enormous amount of recent attention, and are the subject of extravagant claims about their antiquity. The truth is that the present Templars,…

History of the Knights of Pythias

by Jos. D. Weeks Purchase on Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Although a secret society, the Pythians sought to aid reconciliation after the Civil War and gave rise to other movements, including the Dramatic Order Knights of Khorassan, Princes of Syracuse, Knights of Omar, and Order…

Lyrics & Love Songs

by Albert Pike, with a new introduction by Paul Rich Purchase on Amazon  Albert Pike was a Harvard dropout, Confederate general, lawyer for Native American causes, celebrated Masonic leader, and lifelong writer of poems. Erudite in many languages and expert on folklore and mythology, his work…

Meeting Minutes of Naval Lodge No. 4 F.A.A.M. 1813

Purchase through Amazon   Edited and Introduced by Isaiah Akin This book contains the Meeting minutes of Naval Lodge No. 4 F.A.A.M. of Washington DC from 1813, along with articles about the people mentioned and the Washington Navy Yard where many of them worked, and gives…

Ivanhoe Masonic Quartettes

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Selected and arranged by Thomas C. Pollack with a new preface by Sion M. Honea The numerous initiatory degrees which are staged by Masonic organizations are generally plays in which the candidate is a principal actor. Music has…

President John Quincy Adams’ Quarrel with the Freemasons

Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes Such was the revulsion in the United States over the purported murder of William Morgan, an upstate New Yorker who in 1826 disappeared after threatening to expose Masonic secrets, that political groups campaigned to drive Masons out…

Royal Arch Masonry in Pennsylvania

by William J. Paterson The Royal Arch is a Masonic degree as well as a rite of several degrees that are close companions of the initial three Masonic degrees. Many Freemasons consider it the logical conclusion of the Masonic initiation. It was conferred in America…

Freemasonry in All Ages

by Rev. M.F. Carey The tension in Freemasonry over its legendary and real origins and with its Enlightenment ethos in contrast with Christian views is apparent in this work by an Irish Episcopalian priest who came to American in the later part of the nineteenth…

The Lodge of Washington and His Neighbors

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase from CreateSpace By Charles H. Calahan In 1928, the Masonic lodge that George Washington had presided over as Worshipful Master gathered anecdote about his connections with Alexandria, Virginia, and commissioned photographs of relics and places that provide unusual insights into his…

Freemasonry in Canada

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace By Sheppard Osborne Since its appearance in 1915, Freemasonry in Canada has been a starting point for any serious discussion of Canadian lodge history. It was remarkable in its time for covering not only developments in the Canadian…

Ancient Masonic Mysteries: John Perry’s The Freemason’s Gift

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase through CreateSpace Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The antiquity of Freemasonry is much debated. As a philosophical and ritualistic society, rather than a group of stonemasons, it certainly existed in the seventeenth century. But its beginnings are…

The Wisdom of Thomas Starr King: Thomas Starr King’s Substance and Show

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase through CreateSpace Two peaks, one in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and one in Yosemite National Park, are named after Thomas Starr King. He left a brilliant career in Boston to go to San Francisco in 1860, where his convincing oratory…

Young Freemasons?: Frank S. Land’s Order of DeMolay

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The Order of DeMolay is a puzzle.  It originated in the United States but is widespread, with chapters in Italy and Japan and Germany as well as Latin America and…

New Sources on Women and Freemasonry

 Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase on CreateSpace Edited and Introduced by Pierre Mollier There has been a great lack in international scholarship concerned with ritual and secrecy because so much of the good work is being done in languages that the mono-lingual English-speaking world has…

Masonic Secret Signs and Passwords: The 1856 Edition of Jeremy L. Cross’s The True Masonic Chart 

Purchase through Amazon Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes Contrary to what people think about Masonic secrecy, over the centuries a number of books have revealed much about what goes on in lodges.  Certainly Jeremy Cross was relied on as a crib for…

How Washington Lost His Birthday and Other Masonic Essays: Gaston Lichtenstein’s How George Washington Lost His Birthday

Purchase through Amazon Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes This book by Gaston Lichtenstein is an antiquarian’s pleasure. An antiquarian is an enthusiast for things historical, and historians sometime regard being called an antiquarian as an insult, as a slur on their scholarship.…

Meeting Minutes of Naval Lodge No. 4 F.A.A.M. 1812

Purchase through Amazon Edited and Introduced by Isaiah Akin This book contains the Meeting minutes of Naval Lodge No. 4 F.A.A.M. of Washington DC from 1812, along with articles about the people mentioned and the Washington Navy Yard where many of them worked, and gives…

Anti-Masonry and the Murder of Morgan: Lee S. Tillotson’s Ancient Craft Masonry in Vermont

Purchase through Amazon  |  Purchase through CreateSpace Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The anti-Masonic movement during the 1820s and 1830s is sometimes related by scholars to the development of the American party system.  Certainly individuals migrated to the Know Nothing and Whig…

Earl Warren’s Masonic Lodge: Herbert Phillips’ Fifty Year History of Sequoia Lodge

Purchase through Amazon  Long before Earl Warren was a famous governor of California and then an important Chief Justice of the United States, he was forging a career in Freemasonry. Starting as an officer and eventually master of a local lodge whose history is recounted…

L’Enfant and the Freemasons: H. Paul Caemmer’s The Life of Pierre Charles L’Enfant

Purchase through Amazon  Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The papers of Hans Paul Caemmerer (1922-1954) are deposited in the National Archives and include considerable correspondence concerning this book about Pierre Charles L’Enfant (1754–1825). It was Caemmerer who dispelled the belief that L’Enfant was…

Masonic Tombstones and Masonic Secrets: Dora C. Jett’s Minor Sketches of Major Folk

Purchase through Amazon Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich Freemasonry carries its secrets beyond death. Masonic funeral ceremonies, the placing of the apron and sprig of acacia in the coffin, and internment rites at burial are part of Craft’s rituals. The carvings on tombstones of…

Freemasonry in Old Buffalo: James Leroy Nixon’s History of Buffalo Consistory

Purchase through Amazon   Buffalo had a reputation for being the “last city in the East” in terms of social mores, and in its heyday supported clubs and societies that had much in common with those in New York and Philadelphia. Some of these still survive,…

The Genius of Freemasonry: William B. Clarke’s Leaves From Georgia Masonry

Purchase through Amazon  The reader with a curiosity about the secrets of Freemasonry is confronted with a vast and eccentric literature, much of which is highly fanciful and often completely fictional. Finding books that have their feet on the ground, so to speak, is not easy. This…

The Thomas Starr King Dispute: Acceptance and Unveiling of the Statues of Junipero Serra and Thomas Starr King

Purchase through Amazon  The Reverend Thomas Starr King left the amenities of bookish and comfortable Boston, where he was lionized as a charismatic and courageous preacher, to take a struggling Unitarian pulpit in a San Francisco that in the 1850s was hardly the sophisticated city…

The Pope and the Freemasons: The Letter “Humanum Genus” of the Pope, Leo, XIII against Free-Masonry and the Spirit of the Age

Purchase through Amazon   By Pope Leo XIII Popes have never been enthusiastic about Freemasonry. Clement XII condemned the order in 1738, as did Benedict XIV in 1751. This was followed by interdicts by Pius VII in 1821, Leo XII in 1826, Pius VIII in 1829,…