Routine Masonic lodge meetings are broadly similar to a rotary club or parish council - a register is called, minutes are taken, and updates on charitable and social events are shared and discussed.
However, it is the society’s mysterious ceremonies that have captured the public imagination for centuries.
Members are initiated as an “entered apprentice”, eventually passing to “Fellowcraft”, before finally acquiring the experience and knowledge of the society’s dogma and rituals to be named a “Master Mason”.
According to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, a “series of ritual dramas” is used to teach members the precepts of freemasonry, which include an allegorical founding myth linking the order to the biblical Great Temple.
“You come into life with absolutely nothing, and that is what the initiation is about,” senior Mason Nigel Brown told The Daily Telegraph. “The second play is about living a good life and the third is about preparing for the end of your life.”
Masonic rituals also feature symbols depicting masonry tools such as the square, compass and apron, as well as the famous all-seeing eye symbol, widely associated with freemasonry
