African Freemasonry

African Freemasonry African Freemasonry was created to disseminate knowledge to those individuals seeking the Light of Freemasonry in Africa.

02/03/2023

The spectre of death looms large over every creative work of humanity. It is the great motivator, the unknown end against which we all strive for remembrance. But is it also our greatest liberator?

01/24/2023

"He who desires to rise to the heights of his own being must first crush and crucify his own lower nature and inclinations; he must perforce tread what elsewhere is described as the way of the Cross; and that Cross is indicated by the conjunction of those working tools (which when united form a cross); and that "way" is involved in the scrupulous performance of all that we know those working tools signify. By perfecting his conduct, by struggles against his own natural propensities, the candidate is working the rough ashlar of his own nature into the perfect cube, and I would ask you to observe also that the cube itself contains a secret, for unfolded, it itself denotes and takes the form of the cross."

~W.L. Wilmhurst

01/12/2023

"Self-realization is a process of permanent auto-creation, an elaboration of the new man at the expense of the old."

Nikolai Berdyaev

01/10/2023

Freemasonry embodies the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It also represents mankind's move towards science, reason and social reform.

Freemasonry contains, therefore, in its rituals, customs and outlook the philosophical and cultural ideas of the Ancient Graeco-Roman civilizations, the philosophical and cultural aspirations of the Age of Reason whilst, simultaneously, entertaining some of the Cabbalistic and Hermetic interests of the Renaissance.

Science and mysticism meet in the lodge. Progress and Tradition co-exist in Freemasonry and are most definitely not at odds, paradoxical and illogical as this might seem.

05/03/2022

SAINT ANTHONY

An Order taking its rise from the life and habits of Saint Anthony, the hermit, who died about 357. His disciples, called Anchorites, near Ethiopia, lived in austerity and solitariness in the desert, until John, Emperor of Ethiopia, in 370, created them a religious order of knighthood, and bestowed privileges upon them under the title of Saint Anthony, who was made patron of the empire. They established monasteries, adopted a black habit, and wore a blue cross in the shape of a Tau. The vow of the Order embraced chastity, defense of the Christian faith, to guard the empire, obey their superiors, and go to war when and wheresoever commanded. Marriage required a license. There were two classes—combatants and non-combatants— the second class being composed of those too old for military duty. yet ere they retired they were required to serve three years against Arabian pirates, three against the Turks, and three against the Moors.

The ancient monastery is in the deserts of Thebais, surrounded by an oval wall five hundred paces in circumference and forty feet in height. It is entered by ropes let down from the watch-house, the crane being turned by monks. By age, the cells, which are four by five by seven feet, have been reduced from three hundred to forty. Advantage had been taken of one of nature's curiosities in obtaining abundant water from a riven rock, which is reached through a subterraneous passage of fifty paces, extending beyond the walls. In France, Italy, and Spain there are ecclesiastical and military organizations styled Knights of Saint Anthony, who wear a plain cross, the principals a double cross. The chief seat is at Vienna. In the Abbey rest the remains of Saint Anthony.

~Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

04/26/2022

EAGLE, DOUBLE-HEADED

The Eagle Displayed, that is, with extended wings, as if in the act of dying, has always, from the majestic character of the bird, been deemed an emblem of imperial power. Marius, the consul, first consecrated the eagle, about eight years before the Christian era, to be the sole Roman standard at the head of every legion, and hence it became the standard of the Roman Empire ever afterward.

As the single-headed Eagle was thus adopted as the symbol of imperial power, the double-headed Eagle naturally became the representative of a double empire; and on the division of the Roman dominions into the eastern and western empire, which were afterward consolidated by the Carlovingian race into what was ever after called the Holy Roman Empire, the double-headed Eagle was assumed as the emblem of this double empire; one head looking, as it were, to the West, or Rome, and the other to the East, or Byzantium.

Hence the escutcheons of many persons now living, the descendants of the princes and counts of the Holy Roman Empire, are placed upon the breast of a double-headed Eagle Upon the dissolution of that empire, the emperors of Germany, who claimed their empire to be the representative of ancient Rome, assumed the double-headed Eagle as their symbol, and placed it in their arms, which were blazoned thus: or, an Eagle displayed sable, having two heads, each enclosed within an amulet, or beaked and armed Jules, holding in his right claw a sword and scepter or, and in his left the imperial mound. Russia also bears the double-headed eagle, having added, says Brewer, that of Poland to her own, and thus denoting a double empire. It is, however, probable that the double-headed eagle of Russia is to be traced to some assumed representation of the Holy Roman Empire based upon the claim of Russia to Byzantium; for Constantine, the Byzantine emperor, is said to have been the first who assumed this device to intimate the division of the empire into East and West.

Commenting on this suggestion by Doctor Mackey, Brother David E. W. Williamson writes that: There is no historical question whatever as to the time and occasion of the adoption of the double-headed eagle by Russia. It was taken as his device by Ivan III on his marriage with Zoe Palaeologa (Sophia), daughter of Thomas of Morea claimant to the imperial throne of Byzantium, and the date was 1469. It was probably because he claimed to be the successor of the Eastern Emperors. As to the adoption of the device in the West. I have no original authorities, but it is stated that it is first seen in the Holy Roman arms in 1345 and it is a fact that it first appears on the seals of the Holy Roman Empire in 1414. The legend of how it came to be adopted by the Emperors at Constantinople may or may not be true, but it is certainly not correct to say that the Seljuk Turks adopted it from the ruins of Euyuk, for Tatar coins antedating the occupation of the Asia Minor country by the Seljuks have been found. As to the device at Euyuk, it is not the most ancient representation of the double-headed eagle by any means if the figure of a comb, No. 10, plate XXIX, in Petriess Prehistoric Egypt, be, as I think it is, an attempt to carve it.

The statement of Millington (Heraldry in History, Poetry, and Romance, page 290) is doubtful that the doubleheaded eagle of the Austrian and Russian empires was first assumed during the Second Crusade and typified the great alliance formed by the Christian sovereigns of Greece and Germany against the enemy of their common faith, and it is retained by Russia and Austria as representations of those empires." The theory is more probable as well as more generally accepted which connects the symbol with the eastern and western empires of Rome. It is, however, agreed by all that while the single-headed eagle denotes imperial dignity the extension and multiplication of that dignity is symbolized by the two heads.

The double-headed eagle was probably first introduced as a symbol into Freemasonry in the year 1758. In that year the Body calling itself the Council of Emperors of the East and West was established in Paris. The double-headed eagle as likely to have been assumed by this Council in reference to the double Jurisdiction which it claimed, and which is represented so distinctly in its title.

The jewel of the Thirty-third Degree, or Sovereign Grand Inspector-General of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is a double-headed eagle (which was originally black. but is now generally of silver), a golden crown resting on both heady wings displayed, beak and claws of gold, his talons grasping a wavy sword, the emblem of cherubic fire, the hilt held by one talon, the blade by the other. The banner of the Order is also a double-headed eagle crowned. A captivating account of the curious progress of the double-headed eagle from a remote antiquity was prepared by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, pages 214, volume xxiv, 1911). This essay in part runs as follows:

The most ornamental, not to say the most ostentatious feature of the insignia of the Supreme Council, 33 , of the Ancient and Accepted (Scottish) Rite, is the double-headed eagle, surmounted by an imperial crown. This device seems to have been adopted some time after 175S by the grade known as the Emperors of the East and West; a sufficiently pretentious title. This seems to have been its first appearance in connection with Freemasonry, but history of the high grades has been subjected to such distortion that it is difficult to accept unreservedly any assertion put forward regarding them. From this imperial grade, the double-headed eagle came to the "Sovereign Prince Masons" of the Rite of Perfection. The Rite of Perfection with its twenty-five Degrees was amplified in 1801, at Charleston, United States of America, into the Ancient and Accepted Rite of 33 , with the double-headed eagle for its most distinctive emblem. When this emblem was first adopted by the high grades it had been in use as a symbol of power for 5000 years, or so. No heraldic bearing, no emblematic device anywhere today can boast such antiquity. It was in use a thousand years before the Exodus from Egypt, and more than 2000 years before the building of King Solomon's Temple.

The story of our Eagle has been told by the eminent Assyriologist, M. Thureau Dangin, in the volume of Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 1904. Among the most important discoveries for which we are indebted to the late M. de Sarzec, were two large terra cotta cylinders covered with many hundred lines of archaic cuneiform characters These cylinders were found in the brick mounds of Tello, which has been identified with certainty as the City of Lagash, the dominant center of Southern Babylonian ere Babylon had imposed its name and rule on the country.

The cylinders are now in the Louvre and have been deciphered by M. Thureau Dangin, who displays to our wondering eyes the emblem of power that was already centuries old when Babylon gave its name to Babylonia. The cylinder in question is a foundation record deposited by one Gudea, Ruler of the City of Lagash, to mark the building of the temple, about the year 3000 B.C., as nearly as the date could be fixed. The foundation record was deposited just as our medals, coins and metallic plates are deposited today, when the corner stone is laid with Masonic honors. It must be born in mind that in this ease, the word cornerstone may be employed only in a conventional sense, for in Babylonia all edifices, temples, palaces, and towers alike, were built of brick. But the custom of laying foundation deposits was general, whatever the building material might be, and we shall presently see what functions are attributed, by another eminent scholar, to the foundation chamber of King Solomon's Temple.

The contents of this inscription are of the utmost value to the oriental scholar, but may be briefly dismissed for our present purpose. Suffice it to say, that the King begins by reciting that a great drought had fallen upon the land. " The waters of the Tigris," he says, " fell low and the store of provender ran short in this my city," saying that he feared it was 3 visitation from the gods, to whom he determined to submit his evil ease and that of his people. The reader familiar with Babylonian methods that pervade the Books of the Captivity, will not be surprised to learn that the King dreamed a dream, in which the will of the gods was revealed by direct personal intervention and interlocution. In the dream there came unto the King " a Divine Man, whose stature reached from earth to heaven, and whose head was crowned with the crown of a god, surmounted by the Storm Bird that extended its wings over Lazash, the land thereof." This Storm Bird, no other than our double-headed eagle, was the totem as ethnologists and anthropologists are fain to call it, of the mighty Sumerian City of Lagash, and stood proudly forth the visible emblem of its power and domination. This double-headed eagle of Lagash is the oldest Royal Crest in the world.

As time rolled on, it passed from the Sumerians to the men of Akhad. From the men of Akhad to the Hittites , from the denizens of Asia Minor to the Seliukian Sultans, from whom it was brought by Crusaders to the Emperors of the East and West, whose successors today are the Hapsburgs and Romanoffs, as well as to the Masonic Emperors of the East and West, whose successors today are the Supreme Council, 33 , that have inherited the insignia of the Site of Perfection.

~Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

03/24/2022

FORTY-SEVENTH PROBLEM

The forty-seventh problem of Euclid's first book, which has been adopted as a symbol in the Master's Degree, is thus enunciated: "In any right-angled triangle, the square which is described upon the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares described upon the sides which contain the right angle." Thus, in a triangle whose perpendicular is three feet, the square of which is nine, and whose base is four feet, the square of which is sixteen, the hypothenuse, or subtending side, will be five feet, the square of which will be twenty-five, which is the sum of nine and sixteen. This interesting problem, on account of its great utility in making calculations and drawing plans for buildings, is sometimes called the Carpenter's Theorem.

For the demonstration of this problem the world is indebted to Pythagoras, who, it is said, was so elated after making the discovery, that he made an offering of a hecatomb, or a sacrifice of a hundred oxen, to the gods. The devotion to learning which this religious act indicated in the mind of the ancient philosopher has induced Freemasons to adopt the problem as a memento, instructing them to be lovers of the arts and sciences.

The triangle, whose base is four parts, whose perpendicular is three, and whose hypothenuse is five, and which would exactly serve for a demonstration of this problem, was, according to Plutarch, a symbol frequently employed by the Egyptian priests, and hence it is called by M. Jomard, in his Exposition du Systeme Métrique des Amperes Egyptians, Exposition of the Ancient Egyptians System of Measurements, the Egyptian triangle. It was, with the Egyptians, the symbol of universal nature, the base representing Osiris, or the male principle; the perpendicular, Isis, or the female principle; and the hypothenuse, Horus, their son, or the produce of the two principles. They added that three was the first perfect odd number, that four was the square of two, the first even number, and that five was the result of three and two. But the Egyptians made a still more important use of this triangle. It was the standard of all their measures of extent, and was applied by them to the building of the pyramids. The researches of M. Jomard, on the Egyptian system of measures, published in the magnificent work of the French savants on Egypt, has placed us completely in possession of the uses made by the Egyptians of this forty-seventh problem of Euclid, and of the triangle which formed the diagram by which it was demonstrated.

If we inscribe within a circle a triangle, whose perpendicular shall be 300 parts, whose base shall be 400 parts, and whose hypotenuse shall be 500 parts, which, of course, bear the same proportion to each other as three, four, and five; then if we let a perpendicular fall from the angle of the perpendicular and base to the hypothenuse, and extend it through the hypothenuse to the circumference of the circle, this chord or lane will be equal to 480 parts, and the two segments of the hypothenuse, on each side of it, will be found equal, respectively, to 180 and 320. From the point where this chord intersects the hypothenuse let another lane fall perpendicularly to the shortest side of the triangle, and this line will be equal to 144 parts, while the shorter segment, formed by its junction with the perpendicular side of the triangle, will be equal to 108 parts. Hence, we may derive the following measures from the diagram: 500, 480, 400, 320, 180, 144, and 108, and all these without the slightest fraction. Supposing, then, the 500 to be cubits, we have the measure of the base of the great pyramid of Memphis. In the 400 cubits of the base of the triangle we have the exact length of the Egyptian stadium.

The 320 gives us the exact number of Egyptian cubits contained in the Hcbrew and Babylonian stadium. The stadium of Ptolemy is represented by the 480 cubits, or length of the line falling from the right angle to the circumference of the circle, through the hypothenuse. The number 180, which expresses the smaller segment of the hypothenuse being doubled, will give 360 cubits, which will be the stadum of Cleomedes. By doubling the 144, the result will be 288 cubits, or the length of the stadium of Archamedes; and by doublang the 108, we produce 216 cubits, or the precise value of the lesser Egyptian stadium.

Thus we get all the length measures used by the Egyptians; and since this triangle, whose sides are equal to three, four, and five, was the very one that most naturally would be used in demonstrating the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; and since by these three sides the Egyptians symbolized Osiris, Isis, and Horus, or the two producers and the product, the very principle, expressed in symbolic language, which constitutes the terms of the problem as enunciated by Pythagoras, that the sum of the squares of the two sides will produce the square of the third, we have no reason to doubt that the forty-seventh problem was well known to the Egyptian Priests, and by them communicated to Pythagoras.

Doctor Lardner, in his edition of Euclid, says:
Whether we consider the forty-seventh proposition with reference to the peculiar and beautiful relation established in it, or to its innumerable uses in every department of mathematical science, or to its fertility in the consequences derivable from it, it must certainly be esteemed the most celebrated and important in the whole of the elements, if not in the whole range, of mathematical science. It is by the influence of this proposition, and that which establishes the similitude of equiangular triangles, in the sixth book, that geometry has been brought under the dominion of algebra, and it is upon the same principles that the whole science of trigonometry is founded. The thirty-second and forty-seventh propositions are said to have been discovered by Pythagoras, and extraordinary accounts are given of his exultation upon his first perception of their truth. It is however, supposed by some that Pythagoras acquired a knowledge of them in Egypt, and was the first to make them known in Greece.

~Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

03/21/2022

Is Society Polarized?

A question that many of us have been asking ourselves over the past years. From political turbulence to global instability, is society dividing itself into opposite camps? Are we becoming less cooperative and more unwilling to compromise and build?

Join the Masonic Philosophical Society this evening as we discuss this question at one of our pilot panel discussions. 6 members of Universal Co-Masonry will debate and discuss this evenings question with time at the end of this evening's webinar for public questions and comment.

Please join us online today, Monday, March 21, at 7:00 pm (EDT), at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87449306739

03/21/2022

DIONYSIAN ARCHITECTS

The priests of Bacchus, or, as the Greeks called him, Dionysus, having devoted themselves to architectural pursuits, established about 1000 years before the Christian era a society or fraternity of builders in Asia Minor, which is styled by the ancient writers the Fraternity of Dionysian Architects, and to this society was exclusively confined the privilege of erecting temples and other public buildings.

The members of the Fraternity of Dionysian Architects were linked together by the secret ties of the Dionysian mysteries, into which they had all been initiated. Thus constituted, the Fraternity was distinguished by many peculiarities that strikingly assimilate it to our Order. In the exercise of charity, the more opulent were sacredly bound to provide for the exigencies of the poorer brethren." For the facilities of labor and government, they were divided into communities called ouvoud each of which was governed by a Master and Wardens.

They held a general assembly or grand festival once a year, which was solemnized with great pomp and splendor. They employed in their ceremonial observances many of the implements which are still to be found among Freemasons, and used, like them, a universal language, by which one Brother could distinguish another in the dark as well as in the light, and which served to unite the members scattered over India, Persia, and Syria, into one common brotherhood.

The existence of this Order in Tyre, at the time of the building of the Temple, is universally admitted; and Hiram, the widow's son, to whom Solomon entrusted the superintendence of the workmen, as an inhabitant of Tyre, and as a skillful architect and cunning and curious workman, was, very probably, one of its members. Hence, we may legitimately suppose that the Dionysians were sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to assist King Solomon in the construction of the house he was about to dedicate to Jehovah, and that they communicated to their Jewish fellow-laborers a knowledge of the advantages of their Fraternity, and invited them to a participation in its mysteries and privileges. In this union, however, the apocryphal legend of the Dionysians would naturally give way to the true legend of the Freemasons, which was unhappily furnished by a melancholy incident that occurred at the time.

The latter part of this statement is, it is admitted, a mere speculation, but one that has met the approval of Lawrie, Oliver, and our best writers; and although this connection between the Dionysian Architects and the builders of King Solomon may not be supported by documentary evidence, the traditional theory is at least plausible, and offers nothing which is either absurd or impossible. If accepted, it supplies the necessary link which connects the Pagan with the Jewish mysteries.

The history of this association subsequent to the Solomonic era has been detailed by Masonic writers, who have derived their information sometimes from conjectural and sometimes from historical authority. About 300 B.C., they were incorporated by the kings of Pergamos at Teos, which was assigned to them as a settlement, and where they continued for centuries as an exclusive society engaged in the er****on of works of art and the celebration of their mysteries. Notwithstanding the edict of the Emperor Theodosius which abolished all mystical associations, they are said to have continued their existence down to the time of the Crusades, and during the constant communication which was kept up between the two continents passed over from Asia to Europe, where they became known as the Traveling Freemasons of the Middle Ages, into whose future history they thus became merged.

~Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

03/16/2022

Published in 1923, this article from The Builder, a Masonic magazine edited by Bro... Joseph F. Newton, was a response to an inquiry received by the magazine - a common feature of the publication. In it. Bro... Newton describes the history and origins of the term "Free an Accepted Mason" and sheds...

03/14/2022

ELEMENTS

It was the doctrine of the old philosophers, sustained by the authority of Aristotle that there were four principles of matter—fire, air, earth, and water—which they called elements. Modern science has shown the fallacy of the theory. But it was also taught by the Cabalists, and afterward by the Rosicrucians, who, according to the Abbé de Pillars, sometimes known as Le Comte de Gabalis, peopled them with supernatural beings called, in the fire, Salamanders; in the air, Sylphs; in the earth, Gnomes; and in the water, Undines. From the Rosicrucians and the Cabalists, the doctrine passed over into some of the advanced Degrees of Freemasonry, and is especially referred to in the Ecossais or Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew, which has so often been claimed as an invention of the Chevalier Ramsay. In this Degree we find the four angels of the four elements described as Andarel, the angel of fire; Casmaran, of air; Talliad, of water; and Furlac, of earth; and the signs refer to the same elements.

- Mackey's Encyclopedia

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The Future is Africa

Universal Freemasonry asserts that the future of Freemasonry is to return once again, like an Ouroboros, to its origins in the East. For this reason, Universal Freemasonry has dedicated itself to the dissemination of information, wisdom, and light to Africa through a multi-pronged approached. This page is but a single part of that larger effort, but one that we hope will assist in helping Africa to take its rightful place in the annuals of Freemasonry - past, present, and future.

“La franc-maçonnerie Universelle affirme que l’avenir de la franc-maçonnerie est de revenir comme un Ouroboros, à ses origines en Orient . C’est pourquoi la franc-maçonnerie universelle s’est dévoué à la diffusion de l’information, de la sagesse et de la lumière en Afrique à travers une approche multidimensionnelle. Cette page Facebook n’est qu’une partie de cet effort plus vaste, mais nous espérons qu’elle aidera l’Afrique à prendre la place qui lui revient dans les annuelles de la franc-maçonnerie - passé, présent et future. “