RITE OF MEMPHIS
One of the many systems on the fringes of regular Masonry that emerged in the nineteenth century, the Rite of Memphis was one of the…
Category: Freemasonry
RAMSAY, ANDREW MICHAEL
Scottish Freemason and Jacobite, 1686–1743. The son of a baker in the Scottish town of Ayr, Ramsay attended Edinburgh University, then worked as a tutor…
PRINCE HALL MASONRY
Prince Hall was a black minister of West Indian origin who emigrated to Boston in 1765 and became the pastor of a Methodist church in…
PIKE, ALBERT
American soldier, author, occultist and Freemason, 1809–91. Born in Massachusetts to a working-class family, Pike showed intellectual promise from an early age and mastered Latin,…
ORDER OF THE EASTERN STAR [OES]
The largest American Masonic organization for women, the Order of the Eastern Star was the brainchild of Robert Morris, an influential American Freemason. Morris was…
ORDER OF THE AMARANTH
One of several American orders drawing their membership from Master Masons and their female relatives, the Order of the Amaranth was originally founded in 1860…
ORDER OF MOPSES
When Pope Clement XII formally condemned Freemasonry in 1738, many Catholic members of the Craft in Germany, France, and Austria had to renounce Masonic membership.…
MORGAN ABDUCTION
On the evening of September 12, 1826, three months before the publication of his book revealing the secrets of the first three degrees of Freemasonry,…
LOST WORD
According to Masonic legend, the true password of a Master Mason was lost when Hiram Abiff, the master architect of King Solomon’s Temple, was murdered…
HIRAM ABIFF
The central character of the legend at the core of Freemasonry, Hiram Abiff appears in the Old Testament (I Kings 7:13–40) as a master brass-worker…