Masonry is a secret society. What can be told and what cannot?
Masonry is not “a secret society” but “a society with secrets.” A secret society is one of which the membership, aims and ideals are unknown. There is no secret about who is, and who is not, a Freemason. Lodges publish their rosters. Many Grand Lodges publish the names of their members in annual Proceedings. The world at large knows that the aims and ideals of Freemasonry are religious, charitable, friendly, fraternal. What is secret in Freemasonry is well phrased in the Ninth Landmark as adopted by the Grand Lodge of New Jersey: “The legend of the third degree; the means of recognition; the methods of conferring degrees; the obligations of those degrees and the ballot of every brother are, and must continue to be, inviolably secret.
Masonry is not “a secret society” but “a society with secrets.” A secret society is one of which the membership, aims and ideals are unknown. There is no secret about who is, and who is not, a Free-mason. Lodges publish their rosters. Many Grand Lodges publish the names of their members in annual Proceedings. The world at large knows that the aims and ideals of Freemasonry are religious, charitable, friendly, fraternal. What is secret in Freemasonry is well phrased in the Ninth Landmark as adopted by the Grand Lodge of New Jersey: The legend of the third degree; the means of recognition; the methods of conferring degrees; the obligations of those degrees and the ballot of every brother are, and must continue to be, inviolably secret.
asonry is not “a secret society” but a “society with secrets.” A secret society is one of which the membership, aims and ideals are unknown. There is no secret about who is, and who is not, Freemason. Lodges publish their rosters. Many Grand Lodges publish the names of their members in annual Proceedings. The world at large knows that the aims and ideals of Freemasonry are charitable, friendly, fraternal.
