In March of 2020, I gave my first online lecture. This lecture was based on my Art of Memory lectures. You can purchase a copy of the video at this link, or find a link to the YouTube livestream of the lecture for free.

In April of 2020, the Worshipful Master of Research Lodge of Oregon №198 asked me to present a lecture on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Watch that lecture here!

In addition, the outline for this talk was used as the basis of a podcast episode on the subject. Listen to that episode here. That episode also has extensive show notes.

Most Masonic historians, authors, and lecturers are independent scholars, meaning that they do not belong to an academic institution, are frequently unaccredited, and are almost entirely self-supported or supported by donations from those who enjoy their work.

The best way to support continued, high quality Masonic research is by joining and supporting leading research organizations such as The Philalethes Society, The Phylaxis Society, and The Masonic Society. However, you can also help by supporting individual independent scholars like me.

Here are a few different ways you can help support my ongoing work and research.

The new Entered Apprentice faces an overwhelming amount of information about Freemasonry, and unfortunately a lot of it is bad. We have centuries of legendary histories, dumb mythology, and wishful thinking that completely buries the legitimate, real Freemasonry. I feel that it is helpful for a new EA to get a grounding in the basics of Freemasonry and its history while remembering to focus on the Candidate's Lecture and vital memory work.

The Fellowcraft should hopefully have a good foundation in the symbolism and history of the Craft, because beginning in this degree, that knowledge is put to use. The FC degree encourages its candidates to begin practicing Freemasonry, both in exploring the world around them and in improving their own minds and spirits.

The depths of the fountain of knowledge are made available to the Master Mason. By the third degree, the initiate should be ready to tackle broader subjects and explore the rich inner world he has glimpsed in his degrees. These books sometimes explore the guts of Freemasonry, and sometimes stretch beyond it, but always they work to enrich the mind of the seeker.

King Macbeth of Scotland was killed in the year 1057 by the man who would then be crowned Malcolm III. This new king, later that year, granted a charter to the Mason's Company of Glasgow. In contrast, the Masons' Livery Company in London may have come into existence as late as 1220. This company would have overseen operative stoneworking, or work by actual masons practicing real architecture, and not the speculative form that Freemasonry has taken today. We are still discovering how, when, and where the transition from operative to speculative masonry occurred.

There are multiple theories regarding the origins of modern Freemasonry. Records prior to the organization of the first English grand lodge in 1717 are incomplete, so many authors have taken it upon themselves to invent fantastical histories to describe our past. Unfortunately, most of those theories are not supported by the existing evidence, and only in recent years have historians uncovered solid clues to the roots of our ancient fraternity. Though for years it was assumed that Freemasonry was originally an English institution, it now appears that it was actually Scottish. A set of rules and guidelines resembling the modern form fraternity were rediscovered in the Schaw Statutes, two documents issued by the Master of Works in Scotland in 1598 and 1599.

These statutes are significant to Freemasonry for a number of reasons. To begin with, both were issued on December 28th of their respective years, which indicates that the statutes were probably drafted and approved on December 27th. Most Masons will recognize this as being the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, one of the patrons of our fraternity. In addition, the statutes lay out rules for wardens and fellow crafts and place restrictions on Masons interacting with cowans, or non-Masons. Peculiarly, there is an emphasis on the importance of the Art of Memory in the Schaw Statutes, which some historians theorize is directly tied to the influential Renaissance occult mnemonic system.

Historian David Stevenson, upon whose work most of this article is based, asserts that the following Masonic elements originated in Scotland:

• Earliest use of the word "lodge" in a Masonic sense,
• Earliest attempt to organize lodges on a national level,
• Earliest examples of "non-operative" men joining lodges,
• Earliest evidence linking lodge Masonry with ethical issues through the use of symbols,
• Earliest references to the Mason Word,
• Earliest appearance of the terms "entered apprentice" and "fellow craft" as the names of the first two degrees, and
• Earliest evidence of a third degree being conferred.

While the Schaw Statutes strongly indicate that Freemasonry began in operative lodges of stonemasons, the gradual inclusion of "accepted" or non-practicing Masons is an historical phenomenon we are still trying to unravel. Currently, the first known "gentleman mason" is John Boswell of Auchinleck, who was a member of the Lodge of Edinburgh in 1600. A few isolated groups of accepted Masons joined Scottish lodges during the 17th century, but it doesn't seem to be until about 1700 that non-operatives began to be initiated in large numbers.

While it may be disappointing to some that the origins of Freemasonry cannot be reliably tied to such fantastic sources as Atlantis, ancient Egypt, or the Knights Templar, many fascinating stories still manage to emerge from our past. By exploring the books listed below, one will discover much about Freemasonry's common past with Renaissance paganism, Rosicrucianism, and the fathers of modern thought. Many of these influences first intermingled with Freemasonry in its ancient Scottish homelands.

Not all references cited below are directly used in this article; some were mentioned in the lecture, however.

• Coil, Henry W. "Culdees." Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia. Macoy Pub & Masonic Supply Co (1996). http://www.librarything.com/work/477366/book/96259926.
• "Culdees." 2013. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Culdees&oldid=541135673.
• Kinney, Jay. The Masonic Myth: Unlocking the Truth About the Symbols, the Secret Rites, and the History of Freemasonry. HarperOne (2009). http://www.librarything.com/work/8921098/book/73796213.
• Leadbeater, C. W. 1998. Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites. Gramercy (1998). http://www.librarything.com/work/307562/book/62386735.
• Ridley, Jasper. The Freemasons: A History of the World’s Most Powerful Secret Society. Arcade Publishing (2002). http://www.librarything.com/work/964/book/62386417.
• Robinson, John J. Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. M. Evans & Company (1989). http://www.librarything.com/work/143804/book/96439960.
• Stevenson, David. The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590 to 1710. Cambridge University Press (1990). http://www.librarything.com/work/328632/book/62386227.
• Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. University Of Chicago Press (2001). http://www.librarything.com/work/21081/book/62386018.
• Yates, Frances A. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. Barnes & Noble (1996). http://www.librarything.com/work/21305/62386016.

Masonic lodges in the United States are dedicated to Saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist. Their feast days, on December 27th and June 24th, respectively, are often celebrated by lodges, with John the Evangelist's being the most important, as it marks the point at which the leadership of the lodge passes to the next year's officers. Washington Lodge recently celebrated the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist, and to mark this, we will look at this important figure in the history of Freemasonry.

The association between Freemasonry and these two saints is so strong that before the 19th century, it was common to refer to Craft lodges as "St. John lodges" to differentiate them from lodges which practiced the hautes grades. In fact, almost every jurisdiction or grand lodge descended from English Freemasonry has at least one lodge named St. John. At one point, Connecticut had five lodges named St. John, and even tiny Rhode Island had two of them. The association is so strong, in fact, that there are more Scottish lodges named after the Sts. John than there are after St. Andrew.

John the Evangelist as a Biblical character was the author of the Gospel of John. In addition, he has long been associated with the "beloved disciple" mentioned throughout the gospels, and was probably the author of the Epistles of John. He is not, however, to be confused with the John who wrote Revelations, who is usually distinguished with the toponym John of Patmos. The Gospel of John distinguishes itself as being the only non-synoptic canonical gospel, which means that it comes from completely different sources than the other three gospels. It is also the only gospel commonly identified by Biblical scholars as being probably authored by its claimed author.

According to Biblical accounts, John was the son of Zebedee and Salome and the brother of James the Greater. As the "most beloved of disciples," he sat closest to Jesus during the Last Supper, was with Simon Peter at the discovery that Jesus's tomb was open, and was with several other disciples at the Sea of Tiberias during one of Jesus's post-resurrection appearances. He was instrumental in founding the Christian Church, and supposedly cared for Mary in her old age. Along with Judas, he is one of the only two disciples who was not martyred. Instead, he died of old age in Ephesus during the 2nd century.

There has been quite a bit written about the curious connection between Freemasonry and the Saints John. Neither of them are associated with building or construction. However, the Craft's connection to these luminaries stretches back to its birth, and it is difficult to separate Freemasonry in the United States from the influence and importance of the Saints John.

Coil, Henry W. Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia. Macoy Pub & Masonic Supply Co (1996). http://www.librarything.com/work/477366/book/96259926.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford Companions). Oxford University Press, USA (1993). http://www.librarything.com/work/156066/book/62386625.

The New American Bible. World Publishing, Catholic World Press (1997). http://www.librarything.com/work/318628/book/96259980.

Jay Kinney has a talent for navigating through the fog surrounding Freemasonry. In The Masonic Myth: Unlocking the Truth About the Symbols, the Secret Rites, and the History of Freemasonry (HarperOne, 2009, ISBN 0-060-82256-2) he presents a view of the Craft that is low on jargon and nonsense. The book addresses many rumors and legends and compares them to what we really know about Masonic history. After a summary of the evolution of the Premier and Antient Grand Lodges, he takes us through the connections between Freemasonry and the Knights Templar, a history of Continental Freemasonry, and its possible links to Jacobites, political revolution, and the Enlightenment.

Kinney describes the role of Freemasonry in the modern world as one that provides a rite-of-passage into adulthood and "graduation from perpetual adolescence." He examines the human desire for ritual, the possible meaning and obsolescence of the notorious Masonic secrecy, and other difficult topics.

Kinney's approach to explaining the confusing jumble of Masonic side-degrees, appendant bodies, and concordant organizations is amazingly lucid. As a Freemason, it is hard for me to know if his explanation is clear enough for the non-Mason. But I cannot imagine a better way to explain the tangle, and I would love to produce his book for the next person to inquire of me on the subject and say, "Read this."

In addition to discussing the history and structure of both the York and Scottish Rites, Kinney discusses a few lesser-known rites and also describes the evolution of hautes grades in European or Continental Freemasonry. He tries to explain, and I think he does it well, the concept of Grand Lodges and the various authorities they have over different rituals, a confusing subject for non-Masons.

"The world of conspiracy theories and theorists is a peculiar place," Kinney writes. "Most of its inhabitants live under a permanent Red Alert, certain that our destinies are being shaped by hidden forces behind the scenes." He is ruthless in his dissection of the legion of fringe theories revolving around the Craft, and spares neither the romantic legendary history of the fraternity nor the Illuminati-soaked paranoia of the anti-Masons. Subjects ranging from Léo Taxil to the Great Seal of the United States are discussed.

Kinney discusses the small rise and rapid fall of the Bavarian Illuminati before reaching one of those centrist conclusions for which I so admire him. "However, this does not mean that conspiracy theorists and Illuminati hunters are barking up the right tree," he warns. Kinney's argument is that there are few issues involving Freemasonry that are so black-and-white. Neither the anti-Masons' blind paranoia nor Freemasonry's whitewashed self-image are entirely correct, though perhaps the former deserves more skepticism than the latter.

There is a small number of Freemasons who are interested in the hidden, spiritual aspect of Masonic symbolism. The jungle of symbols in the dozens of mainstream degrees in American Freemasonry can be traced back to a wide variety of origins, including Jewish Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, esoteric Christianity, and even Sufism. Kinney dives into this subject with gusto.

Such mysterious figures as Aleister Crowley, Theodor Reuss, and Manley Palmer Hall are examined. Kinney explores Theosophical influences and even the ideas of once-prominent Freemasons such as Albert Pike before reaching excellent conclusions of his own. Conclusions, in fact, that seem obvious once he has stated them.

Perhaps the most sobering part of the book is Kinney's honest assessment of the state of modern Freemasonry. He shares his theories on the causes of the Craft's decrepid state and discusses frankly the sharp drop in membership. Unfortunately, like the rest of Freemasonry, he has no easy fixes.

Kinney sees a glimmer of hope in the future, but is unwilling to commit to entirely abandon his pessimism about the Craft's future. It is difficult to fault him. The state of Freemasonry today is dire indeed.

There are just a few books on Freemasonry that are both written for the non-Mason and easy to understand. Kinney's The Masonic Myth proudly belongs in that category. For the newly-made Mason, for the Mason who has not paid a great deal of attention to the Craft for years, or for the Cowan in a Mason's life with a lot of difficult questions, this book is a great resource.

Kinney is more honest about the fraternity than most Masonic writers. His voice is a refreshing break from the standard Masonic party line with its blind enthusiasm and confusing optimism.

There is a surfeit of badly researched, untruthful information on Freemasonry available on the Internet. Sometimes it is located on otherwise excellent websites, and recently I came across an article titled "The Many Hidden Messages in Masonic Rings" by Darren Hoye. ^{1 , 2} That article contains a number of strange claims, some of which this article shall address directly, and others which it shall address indirectly by performing its own examination of the symbolism of Masonic rings.

One of the problems with Hoye's article is the lack of attributions. The reader does not know what his sources are when he makes the claim that "Historically speaking, a Freemason could be executed if he allowed his identity to be revealed." One can only assume that he is discussing execution by lynch mobs or government mandate, though this is not made clear. This is a problem that has existed only in certain historical authoritarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, but what has it to do with rings?

Again, later on, he states, "Historically speaking, Masonic rings were meant to be shown only in privacy of a Masonic lodge." But without telling the reader where he learned of this, it is impossible to understand what he is talking about. When and where was it the custom for rings to be worn only in lodge? And if that was the case, then what was the purpose of the rings?

Hoye's understanding of Masonic symbolism is also lacking, as he lists a number of common symbols of the fraternity and either misrepresents or misinterprets them. For example, Euclid's 47th Problem is described as "three squares on some Masonic rings", ³ and the Volume of the Sacred Law is described as "open book imagery" that is "symbolic of the quest for knowledge". Though Hoye may occasionally come close to the accepted meaning in some of his descriptions, a quick Google search reveals the imprecision in his hazy definitions.

For those interested in a primer on Masonic symbolism, Bro∴ Allen Robert's The Craft and Its Symbols ⁴ is a great introduction. It is frequently the book recommended to newly-made Freemasons and has been, in fact, part of the introductory package distributed by the Southern California Research Lodge.

The remainder of this article will deal exclusively with the symbols seen on Masonic rings in the United States. Freemasonry is remarkably diverse worldwide, and a comprehensive survey would require a great deal more research.

Hoye is correct in stating that there are a large number of symbols to be seen on Masonic rings. The first three degrees in Freemasonry are knows as the Blue Lodge and contain an incredible wealth of symbolism. Among the most common are the square and compasses, typically the most prominent symbols on a Masonic ring and seen as representative of the Masonic fraternity as a whole.

Most rings featuring the square and compasses will also feature a "G" in their center. However, in modern times it has again become popular to replace the "G" with the All-Seeing Eye (or Eye of Providence). Both of these represent Deity. Some are packed with a large number of additional symbols, sometimes too small to make out. Usually these are taken from the Blue Lodge rituals and will include the plumb, level, beehive, and Volume of the Sacred Law.

Examining the symbolism of Masonic rings is not exactly an easy task, but by becoming familiar with the symbolism of Freemasonry, most will become plainly evident. Acquiring such a familiarity is quite simple: most of the symbols in Masonic jewelry are common and well-known to Masons, and have been written about in dozens of books. A trip to the public library might provide a wealth of information, as would a simple phone call to a local Masonic lodge.