Freemasonry has rightly been called a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. But it can also be seen as an approach to God. It is not a religion, yet it is religious in nature. This is because it validates the spiritual nature of Man - the reality underlying all religions. It links ideals of brotherhood and benevolence with the search for wisdom, because it regards ignorance as the source of all divisions and enmities within humankind.

During the late 17th and 18th centuries, this movement was in the vanguard of progressive thought in Europe, and included some of the founders of our tradition of organised science. Newton, Hooke, Boyle, Ashmole and other members of the original Royal Society were Freemasons.

So were many composers of that period - including Beethoven, Haydn and most notably Mozart, who wrote songs and ceremonial music for use in lodges. His opera Die Zauberflöte was a collaboration with the former Mason Emanuel Schikaneder and makes witty (but never mocking) use of Masonic symbolism.

  * O Heiliges Band K.148   The hallowed bond of friendship.

  * Zerfließet heut’, geliebte Brüder K.483 Augustin von Schittlerberg’s verse for the opening of a lodge

  * Ihr unsre neuen Leiter K.484 For the closing of a lodge

  * Gesellenreise K.468   Franz Ratschky’s verse on the journey to greater knowledge.

  * Maurerische Trauermusik K.477   A funeral march for two of Mozart’s brother Masons.

  * Die ihr des unermeßlichen Weltalls Schöpfer ehrt K.619 The text by Franz Zeigenhagen includes some lines for our time:

    Reach out the brotherly hand of lasting friendship
    Which only delusion - never truth - has so long withheld.
    Break the bonds of this delusion
    Tear aside the veil of prejudice
    Strip away the disguises that divide mankind.
    Hammer into ploughshares the iron that erstwhile spilt our brothers’ blood,
    And as for the gunpowder that oft fired lethal lead into their hearts -
    Just use it to blow up rocks!

  *

    From Die Zauberflöte, K.620

      o Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn   In which the hero is admonished to be steadfast, tolerant and discreet.

      o Wenn Tugend und Gerechtigkeit   “When virtue and justice spread the path of the great with fame..”

Because Freemasonry originated within Christendom, its founders conceived the great architect of the universe in terms of the Christian God and had no need to consider its compatability with other religions. But many Masons of later generations and around the world have found that men of other faiths and cultures ‘met upon the level, and parted on the square’.