Freemasonry and the Goddess

This talk examines the lost feminine within masculine Freemasonry. Three columns are still displayed on the English Master Mason’s certificate today, but some eighteenth and early nineteenth century certificates featured instead ‘goddesses’, Faith, Hope and Charity. Other early Masonic certificates sometimes featured Fame as a winged bare-breasted woman. In Masonic art one can find the Goddess of Architecture, and older masonic art sometimes features female personifications of Liberty and Truth. This lively illustrated lecture looks at these divine female beings, considering what they mean, when they appeared in freemasonic art and, finally, when they passed out of use.

Dr David Harrison is a UK based Masonic historian who writes on the history of English Freemasonry. He is author of eleven books, and this talk is based on material in his Lost Rites and Rituals. His many articles have appeared journals including the AQC, Philalethes Journal, the UK based Freemasonry Today, MQ Magazine, The Square, the US based Knight Templar Magazine and the Masonic Journal.