Book Review – What Just Happened?

Entered Apprentice

An ordinary day at the office, that was not! You have just experienced the first of several stages in being a Freemason and becoming knowledgeable about Freemasonry, an enlightened view of the world about you in a fresh light and aspects of yourself which perhaps you wouldn’t otherwise be fully aware. If you think that’s a bit rich and that you haven’t discovered anything at all, that’s because it takes time to come to certain realisations and is why several steps are required.

This booklet will attempt to describe in plain terms what was involved in conferring this first degree, a little of its historical and traditional basis, as well as the ideas presented to you for your contemplation now and in the future.

In this small volume, you will not find anything fanciful but rather authoritative explanations backed by footnote references to highly respected sources allowing you to understand the historical context and original intended meaning of every aspect of the ritual. This short guide covers everything you experienced including the working tools tracing boards and different sections of the ritual.

Fellowcraft

So you have just taken your second step in Freemasonry! The Second or Fellow Craft Degree is arguably, and certainly historically, the most interesting of all because it embraces in a symbolic way the active part of your adult life. In some ways it is similar to your First Degree but why is it so short?

In the early days of speculative Freemasonry, in the seventeenth century, there was just one degree, that of making a mason. In the next, eighteenth, century as the order became more widespread, something was wanted to distinguish the very new member from the more experienced. So the Entered Apprentice Degree was created using parts of the making and the truncated remains becoming the Fellow Craft Degree (also called Masters and Fellow-Craft). Lodge records, however, often show both degrees were still conferred one after the other at the same meeting.

In this small volume, you will not find anything fanciful but rather authoritative explanations backed by footnote references to highly respected sources allowing you to understand the historical context and original intended meaning of every aspect of the ritual. This short guide covers everything you experienced including the working tools tracing boards and different sections of the ritual.

Master Mason

Congratulations! You have completed the final step in the three degrees of Craft Freemasonry – but, as you will soon realise, there is more, much more!

In the second of these booklets we discovered that not only has the Entered Apprentice Degree borrowed from the Fellow Craft Degree but so also parts of the Third. Recent research strongly indicates the degree of the Master Mason being compiled by early grandees, and one in particular, during the early 1720s.

In this booklet, what, how and why that happened will be revealed to you along with several other aspects. For now, it is sufficient to say that this separated ‘Hiramic’ degree came into being sometime before 1730, although there is evidence of aspects being known among speculative Freemasons long before.

In this small volume, you will not find anything fanciful but rather authoritative explanations backed by footnote references to highly respected sources allowing you to understand the historical context and original intended meaning of every aspect of the ritual. This short guide covers everything you experienced including the working tools tracing boards and different sections of the ritual.