Why Are Masonic Rituals Not The Same In All Countries

Freemasonry have several different sources (England, Ireland, Scotland) and its spread westward formed Grand Lodges from lodges which sprang from the thirteen Original colonies. These admixtures of rituals produced variations which were occasionally increased by actions of Grand Lodges acting on recommendations of Grand Lecturers and Ritual Committees. In the early days of Freemasonry in the United States many "travelling lecturers" brought their own conceptions of "the true Masonic work" to far areas and taught these.

All rituals are "correct." What a Grand Lodge approves as its ritual is "correct" for its lodges. No rituals in the United States contradict each other; they vary in words and details, not in essentials.

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Some Deeper Aspects Of Masonic Symbolism

Book: Some Deeper Aspects Of Masonic Symbolism by Arthur Edward Waite

THE subject which I am about to approach is one having certain obvious difficulties, because it is outside the usual horizon of Masonic literature, and requires, therefore, to be put with considerable care, as well as with reasonable prudence. Moreover, it is not easy to do it full justice within the limits of a single lecture. I must ask my Brethren to make allowance beforehand for the fact that I am speaking in good faith, and where the evidence for what I shall affirm does not appear in its fullness, and sometimes scarcely at all, they must believe that I can produce it at need, should the opportunity occur. As a matter of fact, some part of it has appeared in my published writings.

I will introduce the question in hand by a citation which is familiar to us all, as it so happens that it forms a good point of departure:- "But as we are not all operative Masons, but rather Free and Accepted or speculative, we apply these tools to our morals." With certain variations, these words occur in each of the Craft Degrees, and their analogies are to be found in a few subsidiary Degrees which may be said to arise out of the Craft- as, for example, the Honorable Degree of Mark Master Mason. That which is applied more specially to the working implements of Masonry belongs to our entire building symbolism, whether it is concerned with the erection by the Candidate in his own personality of an edifice or "superstructure perfect in its parts and honorable to the builder," or, in the Mark Degree, with a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, or again with Solomon's Temple spiritualized in the Legend of the Master Degree.

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