Tuesday, December 30, 2008

History and Facts About Masonic Rings

If you're looking to purchase Masonic rings it probably means you're a member of the Freemasons. A group that can trace itself historically back to June 24th, 1717 when four London lodges met to establish the Grand Lodge of England, but some state that the masons have ties going all the way back to Ancient Egypt.

The tools represented in the Masons symbol are working tools (the square, level, plumb, etc.) which remind members of the tenets of the craft. Members today are said to be of the 'craft.' Freemasonry exists in many parts of the globe as a basically social club with many levels of status for the members to work their way through. When a member has reached a higher degree there is a ceremony to officially confer the new ranking.

Stonemason's tools represented in the Masonic symbol are used to stand for basic virtues. The three overriding Masonic principles are brotherly love, relief, and truth. Most will wear rings bearing the symbol of the Masons with other certain attributes like background colors to indicate that they are a Mason and come from a specific lodge or that you have attained a specific degree of status within the Masons.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Masonic Ritual

The first known Masonic rituals in the world are Scottish in origin. The earliest is dated 1696 and is known as the Edinburgh Register House manuscript (ERH MS) after the place in which it was discovered. Other MS rituals, or more accurately - catechisms, are the Airlie and Chetwode Crawley MSS dated 1705 and c.1710 respectively. Unfortunately, for the Masonic historian, these MSS are scattered across the country and are not easily accessible. For this reason many historians have tended to concentrate their studies on the earliest printed rituals from 1730 onwards.