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It appears that our site has fulfilled it’s destiny.
As of Sept 1st, we’ll be closing the Victoria Masonic Site. Many other Masonic sites around the world have come to pass over the years. We get little traffic here and no traffic on the discussion board. We’ve become a small side channel from the main Masonic information highway since 1994.
We want to thank all those who passed by and contributed over the years to the Victoria Masonic Web site.
Ron
Freemasonry is governed with an executive that is forever changing. Whether they’re running lodges or at grand lodge, major change agents are never in their positions longer for 1 year. The plus side of this organization structure is that long term ritual and methods are not easily changed. The down side is that no one is in chairs long enough to make required real change.
There are 2 people that carry significant experience and weight in every lodge. The secretary and Master of Ceremonies. Some say the true governance of any lodge is actually in their hands. Obvious, if you’re serious about chance, knowing and cultivating these two brethren would be important in any successful venture.
More often in the past decade there has been considerable pressure to make changes. How does one go about creating change within an organization deliberately created to make change difficult? read more…
Many Masonic Temple Associations have come upon hard times. Hamstrung by traditions, rules of the past, double digit cost increases and dwindling membership, Temple Associations are finding it impossible to maintain and run older historical Masonic Temples in todays world.
Often by the time the “Keepers” of the temple become aware of the situation, it’s almost too late. Often it takes years to get multi Lodge Temples to agree on by-law changes that will allow Temple Associations to put in place revenue generating opportunities.
It all starts when you begin to here statement like; “It’s a beautiful building. We’d hate to lose it or go anywhere else.”
read more…
Some rituals are well guarded, revealed only to those who have accomplished prescribed measures of enlightenment.
“We have to keep some things secret because otherwise it will diminish the effect on the candidate,” said Michael Molloy, who as a 33rd degree Master Mason is one of a small band of highly revered brothers at the top of the scale.
“It’s all a surprise. The ceremony is a way of enlightening and teaching the candidate by using ancient ritual and symbolisms of history. We try not to ruin it for them by letting them know what will happen in advance.” read more…
British FREEMASONS are boosting armed forces’ morale in Afghanistan with personal gift packs.
Members of Albert Edward Lodge, at Greenhead, are posting parcels of goodies to servicemen posted in Afghanistan where morale has taken a battering after Tuesday’s atrocity which left five British soldiers dead.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of five the British soldiers by a rogue Afghan policeman.
The servicemen – three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police – died when the Afghan police officer turned his gun on them at a checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand Province on Tuesday.
Another six British soldiers and two Afghan policemen were wounded in the shooting, which sent shock-waves through the coalition mission in Afghanistan.
The masons’ gift packages, which contain everything from sweets to cosmetics to books, are sent in masonic Buddy Boxes, which have been co-ordinated by the British Ministry of Defence.
What a great Idea!! Hopefully many other lodges across Canada & the US will consider similar programs.
The Real Secret of Freemasonry -
British Gov’t announces prospective judges will no longer have to declare if they are Freemasons.
For the past 11 years, anyone applying to be a judge or a magistrate for the first time had to declare on an application form whether they belong to the Freemasonry.
But Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said that as a review had shown no evidence of impropriety or malpractice as a result of a judge being a Freemason it would be “disproportionate” to continue with the practice, introduced in 1998.
There were “existing safeguards that help support the proper performance of judicial functions”, including the judicial oath and an official complaints procedure, Straw said. read more…
In many Masonic jurisdictions, the letter ‘G’ in the Square & Compass is taken to mean God, the Supreme Being, and while it is an interpretation held by many Freemasons it is not a universal view.
There are some religious faiths which have an aversion to depicting the Supreme Being in any physical form whatsoever. For such individuals the Letter ‘G’ simply cannot stand for the God of their faith. Yet as the birth of modern Freemasonry is generally considered to have taken place on June, 24th, 1717 in the back of a Tavern in London. Considering the Freemasons who met on that date were probably of Christian faith and spoke English, “G” for God seems right.
Scottish Freemasonry does not impose the meaning of symbols (which would smack of dogma) on members, each individual is free to interpret them according to their own views.
Some take the Letter ‘G’ to represent GOODNESS, the essential goodness of Freemasonry and of humankind. Others argue that the letter ‘G’ stands for GEOMETRY the basis of the operative craft that gave birth to modern Freemasonry.
There is one Scottish Rosslyn Templar who argues vociferously that the Letter ‘G’ indicates GREEGRIMENT, an old Scots word meaning harmony or concord. There are other interpretations but these are, as far as we are aware, the three main ones, four if one includes the latter opinion. There are some countries, notably England, that no longer use the Letter ‘G’
So .. How do you interpret the “G” within the S&C? Lets hear your comments.
Raymond S. J. Daniels’ distinguished grey moustache and beard, receded hairline and gentlemanly manner lend him an air of majesty.
His ceremonial dress includes white gloves and tie, black tails and the Masonic all-seeing deity’s eye in a pyramid, hung from his auspicious gold chain.
He heads a fraternal order that traces its origins at least as far back as the 14th-century English stone Masons and adopts their symbols and religious pillars.
He is Ontario Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of Canada, and he looks like he just stepped out of a storybook. read more…
A half-century ago, when more Americans participated in civic groups, 4.1 million men regularly spent evenings at Masonic lodges around the US. That period, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, would be the peak of Freemasonry membership.
Each year since, membership has declined, in line with those of other service organizations. The current membership? 1.4 million.
Now, though, the group’s leaders are hoping that the publication of novelist Dan Brown’s latest thriller, “The Last Symbol,” whose plot is tied to Masons, will revive interest in the group. This past Saturday, most of the 129 Masonic lodges across New Jersey held open houses to answer questions from aspiring members. read more…