Do Grand Orient Lodges use a Bible during meetings and rituals?
No. Most Grand Orient lodges use a “White Book” (a book with blank pages), symbolizing freedom of conscience so that members may interpret the meaning of “Sacred Law” in accordance with their own worldviews. Some Grand Orient lodges choose to use the Constitutions of the Grand Orient of the United States, Anderson’s Constitutions, or some other well-known ethical text (e.g., Aristotle’s Ethics). The reason for not requiring religious scripture as a source of morality in a lodge also traces to the natural philosophy and Enlightenment roots of Modern Freemasonry, which imply that morality need not be based on religion, but on reason and humanistic principles.
