‘The Meaning of Masonry in the Reading Room’

   

It’s been a long time since I visited W.L. Wilmshurst’s The Meaning of Masonry, but I’ll have to take it up again this month because the Reading Room at Craftsmen Online has Chapter V slated for a conversation in three weeks. From the publicity:

The Reading Room

The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter V

by W.L. Wilmshurst

Thursday, June 29 at 7 p.m.

Our panel for the evening will be RW Clifford T. Jacobs, Bro. Jason W. Short, RW Bill Edwards, and VW Michael LaRocco. This meeting is open to the public, as all persons with an interest in the Craft are welcome.

The Reading Room is sponsored by RW Steven Adam Rubin, Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York.

For reading material, click here. The Reading Room is here.

While this widely read classic is not for everyone, it is, in my view, essential reading. The thinking Mason ought to have a familiarity with The Meaning of Masonry and its author. As is always the case with speculative explorations of Freemasonry, the reader should remember how the text is just one man’s opinion, but anyone can receive pleasure and profit from these pages.

W.L. Wilmshurst

Walter Leslie Wilmshurst (1867-1939) was an English Mason who wrote beautifully and prolifically on the spiritual aspects of Craft ritual and symbol. He was made a Mason at Huddersfield Lodge 290, having been raised in 1890; he later affiliated with Lodge of Harmony 275, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1909. Better known is his being inaugural Master of Lodge of Living Stones in 1928. And he held grand rank, as Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies in UGLE, in 1929.

Even if The Meaning of Masonry isn’t meaningful to you, I encourage reading his other titles, particularly the inspiring The Ceremony of Initiation (1932) and The Ceremony of Passing (1933). The various times I’ve started book clubs, I have put these brief texts in the curriculum to the brethren’s praise.