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If you
owned an art gallery full of beautiful paintings you would want people to see them. You
would expect some people to have different tastes from you, and even for different people
to see different things in a painting. For example a work from Picasso's
blue period. Some would see the slender anatomy, others the unusual colouring, yet others
the unordinary scenes of circuses &c. Well it is the same with Freemasonry.
There are the historical aspects of Masonry, and the related societies (what are called
the appendant bodies), because Masonry has, over 250 years, grown many roots and branches
that have given it a global and metaphysical diversity not seen in any other fraternity.
There is also the metaphysical symbolism that connects philosophies and belief systems
around the world.
We are always
being asked “what is Freemasonry”
to which we have created a
standard reply; “it is a peculiar system of morals veiled in allegory and
explained by signs and symbols”.
But it is
simply doing good things for folks who are not as well off as ourselves, with a group of
friendly and interesting people. The famous symbolic lectures ‘the rituals’ give
us something to think about, concerning our values, and the meaning of life and death
&c
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What Is Freemasonry?
Here is a good definition from the Missouri Grand Lodge
where former President Harry Truman was Grand Master: "It is organized as a
fellowship of men, a system of morals, a philosophy taught by degrees through the use of
symbol, story, legend, pictures, and drama. It has served as a center of union
among differing backgrounds, cultures, and countries. It serves as the means of
conciliating true friendship among persons, who, because of differences, must have
otherwise remained at a perpetual distance."
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