About Freemasonry
Freemasonry is the world’s largest and oldest fraternity. We are a community of individuals who have come together to ponder the mysteries of life and to care for one another inside and outside of the lodge.
We promote democratic ideals in our communities as well as freedom of thought, speech, and religion. Freemasons believe that each is entitled to his or her own truth. As Brother Pike once said, “No human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that he is surely in possession of it.”
Freemasonry is also a philanthropic organization. We donate millions of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer labor everyday to countless charitable organizations all over the world, but what really sets Freemasonry apart from other fraternal and charitable organizations is education.
Freemasonry is, at its heart, an initiatic school of philosophy with a unique system of symbols and allegorical mythologies that have been handed down from mouth to ear for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.
Some may wonder, “Why become a Mason, when the study of philosophy can be practiced in any number of settings?” It’s true. It is not necessary to become a Freemason in order to study philosophical ideas, and becoming a Mason most certainly does not automatically result in the acquisition of increased philosophical insight. We do, however, offer a great many wise truths through the study of Masonic philosophy. Chief among them is the importance of simply choosing to set out on a path of self-discovery in the first place.
The astute Mason, with a receptive heart and an attentive ear, quickly realizes that the completion of the degrees of Craft Masonry is merely the first step on a lifelong journey to greater understanding of himself and of the world around him, the true secrets of which lie on the far horizon of a life well spent.
Bro. W.L. Wilmshurst said of Masonry, “The most one can hope to do is to offer a few hints or clues, which those who so desire may develop for themselves in the privacy of their own thought. For in the last resource – no one can communicate the deeper things in Masonry to another. Every man must discover and learn them for himself.”