For too long, London Freemasons had kept rather quiet about their record of success at charitable giving. How so? The truthful answer is more complicated than I would like. London Freemasons are a large body of likeminded men when it comes to charitable giving. London is the largest single masonic organisational unit in the UK […]
Freemasons are discouraged from discussing religion or politics in lodge meetings. The basic idea behind the rule is to reduce possibilities of divisive arguments. Secondly, the rule is intended to put “roadblocks” in the way of Freemasonry somehow morphing into a quasi-religious or political organisation. Yet, if Lodge members are not able to communicate freely […]
There is little doubt that Freemasonry has come a long way in the last 20 years. From an inward-looking anachronistic organisation happy in its own isolation; now, it is becoming outward looking, more public than ever and, in the process, enjoying significantly more public support. Freemasonry has begun to drop its veil of secrecy and […]
At our Lodge meeting two years ago, we enjoyed a lecture on the topic of the early recorded history of UK Freemasonry. Here is a precis with some additions of my own. It seems Freemasonry dates its origins to medieval times when stonemasons travelled the country over the course of their lives from one construction […]
Over the last five years or so, a great deal of navel gazing has been done within Freemasonry. Prompted by a sense of failure to connect properly with society as a whole, declining membership and an unsettling distrust of Freemasonry amongst the general public, clearly something had to be done to understand the problem and […]