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Masonic Encyclopedia

m

The Hebrew is pronounced, Mem, which signifies water in motion, having for its hieroglyph a waving line, referring to the surface of the water. As a numeral, M stands for 1000. In Hebrew its numeric...

maacha

In the Tenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite we are instructed that certain traitors fled to "Maacha, King of Cheth," by whom they were delivered up to King Solomon on his s...

mac

Masonic writers have generally given to this word the meaning of "is smitten," deriving it probably from the Hebrew verb macha, to smite. Others, again, think it is the word mak, rottenness,...

macaulay's theory of masonry

Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote a distort of England which has been read more often than any other English history, and in the United States has enjoyed a double fame: first, as a text book or as requ...

macbenac

This word is capable of at least two interpretations. 1. A significant word in the Third Degree according to the French Rite and some other Rituals (see Mac). 2. In the Order of the Beneficent Knights...

maccabees

A heroic family, whose patriotism and valor form bright pictures in the Jewish annals. The name is generally supposed to be derived from the letters M. C. B. I. which were inscribed upon their banners...

maccalla, clifford p.

Initiated in Concordia Lodge No. 67 at Philadelphia, 1869; was Worshipful Master in 1874; accepted position of Secretary in 1876 and served twelve years. Brother MacCalla was elected Junior Grand Ward...

macerio

Du Cange (in his Glossarium) gives this as one of the Middle Age Latin words for orison, deriving it from maceria, a wail The word is now never employed.

mackenzie, kenneth r. h.

His favorite pen name was Cryptonymus, a Latin word meaning One whose name is hidden. Editor of The Royal Masonic Cyclopedia of History, Rites, Symbolism, and Biography, published in London in 1877, b...

mackey's history of freemasonry

In his bibliography of the principal works of Dr. Albert G. Mackey on page 608 Bro. Robert I. Clegg inadvertently omitted the work which Mackey himself would have placed at the head of the list, his s...

mackey, albert gallatin

The American Masonic historian. He was born at Charleston, South Carolina, March 12, 1807. This scholarly Brother lived to the age of seventy-four years. He died at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, June 20,...

macoy's cyclopedia

"A General History, Cyclopedia, and Dictionary of Freemasonry," containing some 300 engravings, by Robert Macoy, 33 , published in New York, which has passed through a number of editions. It...

macoy, robert

Robert Macoy was born in Ireland, October 4, 1816, but from the time he was four years old lived in New York City, where, at an early age, he apprenticed himself in the printing and publishing busines...

macrocosm

Greek, she great world. The visible system of worlds; the outer world or universe. It is opposed to Microcosm, the little world, as in man. It has been used as the Macric soul in opposition to the Mic...

madagascar

L'Action Rpublicaine Lodge, from June 25,1913, at Diego Suarez, and La France Australe, from July 20, 1903, at Tananarivo, are subject both to the Grand Orient of France. Three others, La Fratern...

made

A technical word signifying initiated into Freemasonry (see Make).

madman

Madmen are specially designated in the oral law as disqualified for initiation (see Qualifications).

madras

A presidency of British India. The first Lodge in Southern India was established at Madras. Others were opened in 1765 and in the following year Captain Edmond Pascal was appointed Provincial Grand Ma...

mafia

Sometimes spelled Maffia, a name for a Sicilian secret society active early in the nineteenth century, perhaps more usually the title is employed to mean the persons impatient and contemptuous of cons...

magazine, masonic

The earliest Masonic magazine was published at Leipsic in 1738 and named Der Freimaurer. The second, in 1742, was Der bedachtiae Frei7naurer, at Hamburg, and then the Aufmerksamn Freimaurer, 1743, at ...

magi

The ancient Greek historians so term the hereditary priests among the Persians and Medians. The word is derived from mog or amp, signifying Priest in the Pehlevi language. The Illuminati first introdu...

magi, the three

The "Wise Men of the East" who came to Jerusalem, bringing gifts to the infant Jesus. The traditional names of the three are Melchior, an old man, with a long beard, offering gold; Jasper, a...

magian society

Founded in New York City on September 29, 1913, by Brother Frank C. Higgins, for the study of Masonic symbolism (see American Freemason, November, 1913, and Miscellanea Latomorum, volume i, pages 63 a...

magic

The idea that any connection exists between Freemasonry and magic is to be attributed to the French writers, especially to Ragon, who gives many pages of his Masonic Orthodozy to the subject of Masoni...

magic squares

A magic square is a series of numbers arranged in an equal number of cells constituting a square figure, the enumeration of all of whose columns, vertically, horizontally and diagonally, wilt give the...

magicians, society of the

A society founded at Florence, which became a division of the Brothers of Rose Croix. They wore in their Chapters the habit of members of the Inquisition. This must not be confused with a society of t...

magister caementariorum

A title applied in the Middle Ages to one who presided over the building of edifices, and means Master of the Masons.

magister lapidum

Du Cange (Glossiarum) defines this as Master Meson; and he cites the statutes of Marseilles as saying: "Tres Magistros Lapidis bonos et legates, " that is, three good and lawful Master Mason...

magister militiae christi

Latin, meaning Master of the Chivalry or Knight of Christ which see under this title.

magister perrerius

A name given in the Middle Ages to a Mason; literally, a Master of Stones, from the French pierre, a stone.

magna est veritas et praevalebit

Istin, meaning The Truth is mighty, and will prevail. The motto of the Red Cross Degree, or Knights of the Red Cross.

magnan, b. p.

A Marshal of France, nominated by Napoleon III, Emperor, as Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, in 1862, and, though not a member of the great Fraternity at the time, was initiated and install...

magnanimous

The title applied in modern usage to the Order of Knights Templar. Well does John Ruskin say (sesame and Lilies, 1865, page 65), "Mighty of heart, mighty of mind -magnanimous to be this, is indee...

magnetic freemasonry

This is a form of Freemasonry which, although long ago practiced by Cagliostro as a species of charlatanism, in the opinion of Brother Mackey was first introduced to notice as a philosophic system by ...

magus

This word has at least two important references. 1. The Fourteenth Degree, and the first of the Greater Mysteries of the system of Illuminism. 2. The Ninth and last Degree of the German Rosicrucians....

mah

The Hebrew interrogative pronoun me, signifying What? It is a component part of a significant word in Freemasonry. The combination Mahhah, literally "Thatt the," is equivalent, according to ...

mahabharata

A Sanskrit poem, recounting the rivalries of the descendants of King Bharata, and occupying a place among the Masters of the Hindus. It contains many thousand verses, written at various unknown period...

mahadeva

Meaning the great god. one of the common names by which the Hindu god Siva is called. His consort, Durga, is similarly styled MahAdevi, the great goddess. In Buddhistic history, Mahadeva, who lived tw...

mahakasyapa

The renowned disciple of Buddha Sakyamuni, who arranged the metaphysical portion of the sacred writings called Abhidharma.

maher-shalal-hash-baz

Hebrew. Four Hebrew words which the prophet Isaiah was ordered to write upon a tablet, and which were afterward to be the name of his son. They signify, "make haste to the prey, fall upon the spo...

maier, michael

A celebrated Rosicrucian and interpreter and defender of Rosicrueianism. He was born at Resinsburg, in Holstein, in 1568, and died at Magdeburg in 1620, Spence says 1622 (EncycZopsedia of Occultism, 1...

maine

Jeremy Gridley, Provincial Grand Master for Massachusetts, granted authority to Alexander Ross to constitute the first Lodge in Maine at Falmouth, afterwards Portland. Ross died November 24, 1768, and...

mainwaring, colonel

Initiated into Freeze masonry at Warrington, 1646, with his brother-inlaw, Elias Ashmole.

maistre, joseph de

Born at Chamberg, France, April 1, 1754; died February 2Gr 1821. Diplomat and man of letters. A Roman Catholic of orthodox extremes against the Revolution in France and supporting the infallibility of...

maitre

The French word meaning Master and freely used as a part of many names of Degrees (see Master) .

maitre maon

The name of the Third Degree in French

maitresse agissante

French, meaning Ading Mistress. The title of the presiding officer of a female Lodge in the Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro.

maitresse maon

The Third Degree of the French Rite of Adoption. We have no equivalent word in English. It signifies a Mistress in Freemasonry.

major

The Sixth Degree of the German Rose Croix.

major illuminate

The Latin term is Illuminatus Major. The Eighth Degree of the Illuminati of Bavaria.

majority

Elections in Masonic Bodies are as a general rule decided by a majority of the votes cast A plurality vote is not admissible unless it has been provided for by a special by-law.

make

"To make Masons" is a very ancient term; used in the oldest Charges extant as synonymous with the verb to initiate or receive into the Fraternity. It is found in the Larzsdowree Manuscript, ...

malach

Hebrew word, meaning an angel. A significant word in the advanced Degrees. Lenning gives it as Melek or Melech.

malachi or malachias

The last of the prophets. A significant word in the Thirty-second Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

malay peninsula

The most southern part of continental Asia. The Grand Lodges of England and Scotland have each chartered several Lodges in this district, and Freemasonry flourishes in Singapore, Selangor, Penang, Ipo...

malcolm iii

King of Scotland. Reported to have chartered the Lodge of Saint John of Glasgow in the year 1051.

mallet

One of the Working-Tools of a Mark Master, having the same emblematic meaning as the Common Gavel in the Entered Apprentice's Degree. It teaches us to correct the irregularities of temper, and, ...

malta

Anciently known as Melita (see Acts xxviii, 1). A small island in the Mediterranean Sea, which, although occupying only about 91 square miles, possessed for several centuries a greater degree of celeb...

man

Among the several significance of word are the following: 1. Man has been called the Microcosm, or little world, in contradistinction to the Macrocosm, or great world, by some fanciful writers on met...

man or perfected creation

The symbol representing perfected creation, which is very common on ancient Hindu monuments in China," embraces so many of the Masonic emblems, and so directly refers to several of the elementary...

mandate

From the Latin, meaning That which is commanded. The Benedictine editors of Du Cange define mandatum as "Breve aut Edictum Regium," that is, a Royal Brief or Edict, and mandamentum as "...

mango

The branches of this tree are a prominent feature in all Eastern religious ceremonies. The mango is the apple-tree of India, with which man, in Indian tale, tempted Eve.

mangourit, michelange bernard de

A distinguished member of the Grand Orient of France. He founded in 1776, at Rennes, the Rite of Sublimes Elus de la Vrit, or Sublime Elects of Truth, and at Paris the androgynous, both sexes, society...

manichaeans

Also termed Gnostics. A sect taking its rise in the middle of the third century, whose belief was in two eternal principles of good and evil. They derived their name from Manes, a philosopher of Persi...

manicheens, les freres

A secret Italian Society, founded, according to Thory (Acta Latomorum i, 325), and Clavel (Histoire Pittoresque, page 407) in the eighteenth century, at which the doctrines of Manes were set forth in ...

manitoba

Northern Light Lodge was granted a Dispensation in 1864 by Brother A. T. Pierson, then Grand Master in Minnesota. The new Lodge was organized at Fort Garry (Winnipeg) with Brother Dr. John Schultz as ...

mann, der

German, meaning the Man, the second grade of the Deutsche Union.

manna, pot of

Among the articles laid up in the Ark of the Covenant by Aaron was a Pot of Manna. In the Substitute Ark, commemorated in the Royal Arch Degree, there was, of course, a representation of it. Manna has...

manningham, thomas

Dr. Thomas Manningham was a physician, of London, of much repute in the eighteenth century. He took an active interest in the concerns of Freemasonry, being Deputy Grand Master of England, 1752-6. Acc...

mantle

A dress placed over all the others. It is of very ancient date, being a part of the costume of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Among the Anglo-Saxons it was the decisive mark of military rank, being ...

mantle of honor

The mantle worn by a knight was called the Mantle of donor. This mantle was presented to a knight whenever he was made by the king.

manu

By reference to the Book of the Dead, it will be found that this word covers an ideal space corresponding to the word West, in whose bosom is received the setting sun (see Truth).

manual

Relating to the hand, from the Latin manus, a hand. see the Masonic use of the word in the next two articles.

manual point of entrance

Freemasons are, in a peculiar manner, reminded, by the hand, of the necessity of a prudent and careful observance of all their pledges and duties, and hence this organ suggests certain symbolic instru...

manual sign

In the early English lectures this term is applied to what is now called the Manual Point of Entrance.

manuscripts

Anderson tells us, in the second edition of his Constitutions, that in the year 1717 Grand Master Payne "desired any Brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge any old writings and records concerning M...

manuscripts, apocryphal

There are certain documents that at various times have been accepted as genuine, but which are now rejected, and considered to be fabrications, by most, if not by all, critical Masonic writers. The qu...

manuscripts, old

The following is a list, arranged as far as possible in sequence of age, of the old Masonic Manuscripts, now usually known as the Old Charges. They generally consist of three parts-- first, an opening...

maon dans la voie droite

French, meaning The Mason in the Right Way. The second grade of the Hermetic system of Montpellier (Thory, ActaLatomorum i, page 321).

maon du secret

French, meaning The Mason of the Secret. The sixth grade of the reformed Rite of Baron Tschoudy, and the seventh in the reformed rite of Saint Martin (Thory, ActaLatomorum i, page 321).

maon, ecossais, maitre

These French words are explained under their English equivalents (see Mason, Scottish Master).

maonetus

Low Latin, signifying a Mason, and found in documents of the fourteenth century.

maonne

A French word signifying a Female Mason, that is to say, a woman who has received the Degrees of the Rite of Adoption. It is a very convenient word. The formation of the English language might permit ...

maonne egyptienne

The Third Degree in Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite of Adoption.

maonne maitresse

Third grade of the Maonnerie d' Adoption.

maonner

Du Cange gives citations from documents of the fourteenth century, where this word is used as signifying to build.

maonnerie rouge

French for Red Freemasonry. The designation of the four advanced grades of the French Rite. Bazot says that the name comes from the color worn in the fourth grade.

maonnieke societeiten

Dutch Masonic Clubs, somewhat like unto the English Lodges of Instruction with more, perhaps, of the character of a Club. Renning's Cyclopedia says "there were about nineteen of these associ...

marcheshvan

The second month of the Jewish civil year. It begins w ith the new moon in November, and corresponds, therefore, to a part of that month and of December.

marconis, gabriel mathieu

more frequently known as De Negre, from his dark complexion, was the founder and first Grand Master and Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis, brought by Sam'l Honis, a native of Cairo, from Eg...

marconis, jacques etienne marconis de ngre jacques - etienne

Born at Montauban, January 3, 1795; died at Paris, November 21, 1868 (see the preceding article, also Memphis, Rite of).

marduk

A victorious warrior-god, described on one of the Assyrian clay tablets of the British Museum, who was said to have engaged the monster Tiamat in a cosmogonic struggle. He was armed with a namzar, gra...

mares of the craft

In former times, Operative Masons, the Steinmetzen, or Stone Cutters, of Germany, were accustomed to place some mark or sign of their own invention, which, like the monogram of the painters, would see...

maria order

A Norwegian secret society exclusively for women. The avowed purpose is to bind the members in a strong faithful body, to improve the consciousness of self, and to use familiar symbols for the further...

maria theresa

Empress of Austria, who showed great hostility to Freemasonry, presumably from religious leanings and advisers. Her husband was Francis I, elected Emperor of Germany in 1745. He was a zealous Freemaso...

mark

The appropriate jewel of a Mark Master. It is made of gold or silver, usually of the former metal, and must be in the form of a keystone. On the obverse or front surface, the device or Mark selected b...

mark man

According to Masonic tradition, the Mark Men were the Wardens, as the Mark; Masters were the Masters of the Fellow Craft Lodges, at the building of the Temple. They distributed the marks to the workme...

mark master

The Fourth Degree of the American Rite. The traditions of the Degree make it of great historical importance, since by them we are informed that by its influence each Operative Mason at the building of...

mark master's wages

Companion George W. Warvelle commented thus upon the longestablished custom of a penny a day paid as the wages of a Mark Master: This ridiculously low wage scale seems to have been the work of the ea...

mark of the craft, regular

In the Mark Degree there is a certain stone which is said, in the instructions, not to have upon it the regular mark of the Craft. This expression is derived from the following tradition of the Degree...

mark twain

The pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, famous American humorist, born November 30, 1835, at Florida, Missouri. He petitioned Polar Star Lodge No. 79 of St. Louis under date of December 26, 1860, as...

markham, edwin (entry a)

Poet, born at Oregon City, Oregon, April 23, 1852, initiated, passed and raised in Acacia Lodge, No. 92, at Coloma, California, was in 1924 nominated in the Grand Lodge of Oregon for the position of P...

markham, edwin (entry b)

Edwin Markham was born in Oregon but went soon to California. He was made a Mason in Acacia Lodge, No. 92, Coloma, Calif. When he published his "Man With a Hoe," President Theodore Roosevelt...

marrow in the bone

An absurd corruption of a Jewish word, and still more absurdly said to be its translation. It has no appropriate signification in the place to which it is applied, but was once religiously believed in...

marseilles, mother lodge of

A Lodge was established in 1748, at Marseilles, in France, Thory says, by a traveling Freemason, under the name of Saint Jean d'Ecosse. It afterward assumed the name of Mother Lodge of Marseilles...

marshal

An officer common to several Masonic Bodies, whose duty is to regulate processions and other public solemnities. In Grand Bodies he is called a Grand Marshal. In the American Royal Arch System, the Ca...

marshall, john

Born in Virginia, September 24, 1755; died July 6, 1835. Secretary of State, 1800, then first Chief Justice of the United States, serving for thirty-four years, and had been an officer, lieutenant and...

martel

Charles Martel, or Charles the Hammer, born in 688, died in 741, although not actually King, was the ruler and reigned over France under the title of Mayor of the Palace. He was a notable soldier, def...

martha

The Fourth Degree of the Eastern Star; a Rite of American Adoptive Freemasonry.

martinism (entry a)

The Rite of Martinism, called also the Rectified Rite, was instituted at Lyons, by the Marquis de Saint Martin, a disciple of Martinez Paschalis, of whose Rite it was pretended to be a reform. Martini...

martinism (entry b)

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin was born in Amboise, France, January 18, 1743; he was therefore fifty-six years of age in the Revolution year of 1799; and since he was in ill health much of the time he w...

martyr

A title bestowed by the Templars on their last Grand Master, James de Molay. If, as Du Cange says, the Church sometimes gives the title of martyr to men of illustrious sanctity, who have suffered deat...

martyrs, masonic

If Freemasonry had a Foxe to write for it its own Book of Martyrs the larger number of Brethren would be horrified to find that men had been tortured, blinded, mutilated, hanged & burned, sent to the ...

maryland

There are no known records from the earliest Lodge in Maryland but a reference to it among the documents of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts states that it was chartered by Thomas Oxnard, Provincial G...

mason crowned

The French expression is Maon Couronne. A Degree in the nomenclature of Fustier.

mason hermetic

The French is Maon Hermetique. A Degree in the Archives of the Mother Lodge of the Eclectic Philosophic Rite.

mason, derivation of the word

The search for the etymology or derivation of the word Mason has given rise to numerous theories, some of them ingenious, but many of them very absurd. Thus, a writer in the European Magazine for Febr...

masonic archeological institute

This was the title of a Society founded in England about 1871. Brother Walter Besant was the Secretary though he was not an original member of the Society which was probably founded by Brother William...

masonic cipher message

At Cawnpore, India, in July, 1857, occurred the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children. Of this butchery there is a pathetic record in the message of a Masonic character that was written on t...

masonic homes of the united states and canada (entry a)

The reader in this connection may look over the allied items dealing with Charity, Orphans, Masonic Relief Association of the United States and Canada, Children's Exchange Bureau, Shrine Hospital...

masonic homes of the united states and canada (entry b)

Alabama Arizona. Arkansas. California. Colorado. Connecticut. Delaware. District of Columbia. Florida. Georgia. Idaho. Illinois. Indiana. Iowa. Kansas. Kentucky. Louisiana. Maine. Massachusetts. Michi...

masonic purposes

It is in each and every Grand Jurisdiction an unwritten law, and in a number of them is a written law, that Lodge or other Masonic funds are to be expended for Masonic purposes" only. This is a L...

masonic service association

Bro. Robert I. Clegg's paragraph on the formation of the Masonic Service Association on page 648 had to go to press before the full facts had become available to him, therefore his account calls ...

masonry

Used in the Strassburg Constitutions, and other German works of the Middle Ages, as equivalent to the modern Freemasonry. Kloss translates it by Masonhood. Lessing derives it from mosa, Anglo Saxon, a...

masons' marks

What are now called Masons' Marks were in the centuries of Operative Masonry most often called Bench, or Banker Marks, because after a stone or some other piece of work was completed and signed, ...

masters' lodges

The Minutes of the oldest Speculative Lodges consist of very brief memoranda, often of little more than a note to the effect that the Lodge had met on 3 certain date, and with the names of the Master ...

matrise

This expressive word wants an equivalent in English, Preeman's Right and Mastership come nearest. The French use La Matrise to designate the Third or Master's Degree.

mayas, the, and masonry

At a time when little or nothing was known about the Mayas, and to take advantage of that general ignorance while he could, LePlongeon wrote a book to prove that the Mayas (or Quiches) had invented Fr...

mcgregor, david

Bro. David McGregor holds for the second quarter of this Century in the United States a record for the brilliancy of his coups in Masonic research, two or three of them of fundamental importance. He w...

medals, masonic, in u. s. mint

Among the medals preserved in the old United States mint in Philadelphia are six of Masonic subjects, or struck to commemorate Masonic events. Two of these are of George Washington. For data about the...

meekeren and bress.

Bro. R. J. Meekren, Stanstead, Quebec, and A. L. Kress, McKeesport, Pa., contributed to The Builder, of which Bro. Meekren was editor at the time, a series of articles between May, 1928 and October, 1...

membership, in masonic jurisprudence

Ancient Craft Masonry ("Blue Lodge"), the Royal Arch, Cryptic Rite, Knight Templarism, and the Scottish Rite have each one its own laws, rules, and regulations,|written and unwritten; the wh...

memphis, rite of

In 1839, two French Freemasons, named respectively Marconis and Moullet, of whom the former was undoubtedly the leader, instituted, first at Paris, then at Marseilles, and afterward at Brussels, a new...

men's house, the

Anthropologists have been impressed with the similarity between a Lodge, composed of men only, admitting members by initiation and as apprentices, with ceremonies of their own, and the Men's Hous...

menatzchim

In Second Chronicles in, 18, it is said that at the building of the Temple there were "three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people work." The word translated "overseers&q...

mental reservation

When the secret intention wilfully disagrees with the spoken promise, we call that sort of dishonesty, an equivocation, or mental reservation. To purposely mislead by one's deceitful statement is...

menu

In the Indian mythology, Menu is the son of Brahma, and the founder of the Hindu religion. Thirteen other Menus are said to exist, seven of whom have already reigned on earth. But it is the first one ...

mer-sker

The space in which the sun moves, as an Egyptian personification, signifying, the habitation of Horus.

mercy

The point of a Knight Templar's sword is said to be characterized by the quality of "mercy unrestrained" which reminds us of the Shakespearian expression--"the quality of mercy is ...

mercy-seat

The lid or cover of the Ark of the Covenant was called the Mercy-seat or the Propitiatory, because on the day of the atonement the High Priest poured on it the blood of the sacrifice for the sins of t...

meridian sun

The sun in the South is represented in Freemasonry by the Junior Warden, for this reason: when the sun has arrived at the zenith, at which time he is in the South, the splendor of his beams entitles h...

merit

The Old Charges say, "all preferment among Masons is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only; that so the Lords Man be well served, the Brethren not put to shame, nor the Royal Craft des...

merzdorf, j. l. t.

A learned German Freemason, born in 1812. Initiated in Apollo Lodge, at Leipsic ad in 1834. He resuscitated the Lodge Zum goldenen Hirsch (Golden Stag), Oldenburg, and was for years Deputy Master. He ...

meshia, meshiane

Corresponding to Adam and Eve, in accordance with Persian cosmogony.

mesmer, friederich anton

A German physician who was born in Suabia, in 1734, and, after a long life, a part of which was passed in notoriety and the closing years in obscurity, died in 1815. He was the founder of the doctrine...

mesmeric freemasonry

In the year 1782 Mesmer established in Paris a Society which he called the Order of Universal Harmony. It was based on the principles of animal magnetism or mesmerism, and had a form of initiation by ...

mesopolyte

The Fourth Degree of the German Union of XXII.

mesouraneo

A Greek word, signifying, I am in the center of heaven. Hutchinson fancifully derives from it the word Masonry, which he says is a corruption of the Greek and refers to the constellation Magaroth ment...

metal tools

We are told in Scripture that the Temple was "built of stone made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it ...

metals

In the divestiture of metals as a preliminary to initiation, we are symbolically taught that Freemasonry regards no man on account of his wealth. The Talmudical treatise Beracorh, with a like spirit o...

metropolitan chapter of france

There existed in France, toward the end of the last century, a Body calling itself the Grand Chapter General of France. It was formed out of the dbris of the Council of Emperors of the East and latest...

metusael

The name given to the Hebrew Quarryman, who is represented in some legends as one of the assassins, Fanor and Amru being the other two.

mexico

The first recorded Masonic Lodge in Mexico was probably Architecture Moral which met in Mexico City as early as 1806. The Scottish Rite was introduced about four years later and in l813 a Grand Lodge ...

mezuza

The third fundamental principle of Judaism, or the Sign upon the Door-post. The precept is founded upon the command, "And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates"...

michael

The Hebrew word, meaning Who is like unto God. The chief of the seven archangels. He is the leader of the celestial host, as Lucifer is of the infernal spirits, and the especial protector of Israel. H...

michigan

Zion Lodge was established by Warrant, dated April 27, 1764, from Provincial Grand Master George Harrison of New York. It was numbered 448 on the Register of England and No. 1 of Detroit. On September...

middle ages

These are supposed by the best historians to extend from the time Theodoric liberated Rome, 493, to the end of the fifteenth century, the important events being the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the...

middle chamber

There were three stories of side chambers built around the Temple on three sixths; what, therefore, is called in the authorized aversion a middle Clamber was really the middle story of those three. Th...

middle chamber lecture

Preston's Illustrations of Freemasonry refers with an excellent choice of language to the beauties of nature and the more important truths of morality. The second section of this Monitor provides...

miles

This word has two references of interest to us. 1. In pure Latin, miles means a soldier; but in Medieval Latin the word was used to designate the military knights whose institution began at that perio...

military lodges (entry a)

R. F. Gould's Military Lodges, published in 1899, was the first full size book on the subject of Lodges warranted expressly for the uses of soldiers and for men in the navy. It was not an interes...

military lodges (entry b)

Lodges established in an army. They are of an early date, having long existed in the British army. The earliest Warrant creating a Traveling or Movable Lodge was issued in 1732 by the Grand Lodge of I...

minoan civilization

The most epoch making of archeologic finds since the discovery of the site of Troy was the wholly unexpected uncovering of the ruins of a great and very advanced civilization which had its center in t...

mitchell's history

The short biographical sketch of Bro. J. W. S. Mitchell on page 671 was inadvertently so worded as to convey a misleading impression of Bro. Mitchell both as a man and as a scholar, a fact which is re...

mitchell, john

In what Charles Sumner Lobingier described as "the first direct step toward the formation of the Mother Supreme Council" of the Scottish Rite, John Mitchell received a patent from Barend Mos...

mithraism

When the article on Mithras, page 671, was first composed no sources of information w ere available except passages here and there in Greek and Roman writings and in the polemical writings of early Ch...

montesquieu, a mason

Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Breda et de Montesquieu, was born near Bordeaux, France, in 1689; died 1755. He published his Lettres persanes in 1721; in 1748 he published his L'Esprit de...

morals & dogma

During a number of private conversations, the late Mrs. Lillian Pike Roome, of Boston, a daughter of Albert Pike (her home was a Pike Museum), described her father as she had seen him day by day until...

moray, sir robert

The paragraph on page 680 is of especial interest because Moray was made a Mason in 1641, which was five years before the Initiation of Ashmole at Warrington. Bro. William J. Hughan very properly call...

moriah, mount

An eminence situated in the southeastern part of Jerusalem. In the time of David it must have been cultivated, for it is called "the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite," from whom that mon...

morin, j. p. h. von

Grand Master of Haiti, 1863

morin, stephen

The founder of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in America. On the 27th of August, 1761, the "Deputies General of the Royal Art, Grand Wardens, and officers of the Grand Severin Lodge of Sa...

morison, charles

Soldier and surgeon, born in 1780, at Greenfield, Scotland. He was the owner of a valuable Masonic library which, after his death in 1848, was given by his widow to the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

moritz, carl philipp

A Privy Councillor, Professor, and Member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, was born at Hameln on the 15th of September, 1757, and died the 26th of June, 1793. Gadicke says that he was one of the ...

mormonism and masonry

In 1839 the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, the author of their Book of Mormon, purchased land in Illinois at the village of Commerce, and re- christened it Diauvo...

morocco

This country is at the northwest extremity of Africa with an area of about 300,000 square miles and since the World War has been under a protectorate of the French Republic. Five Lodges have been put ...

morphey

The name of one of the twelve Inspectors in the Eleventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This name, like the others in the same catalogue, bids defiance to any Hebraic derivation. Th...

morris, rob

Born August 31, 1818. Was first brought to Masonic light March 5, 1846, in Oxford Lodge, at a place of the same name in Mississippi. The life of Brother Morris was so active and untiring for the benef...

morris, robert

A signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Freemason who devoted his entire personal fortune to the furthering of the cause of the Colonists, as well as borrowing large sums from France which w...

mortality, symbol of

The ancient Egyptians introduced a skeleton at their feasts, to impress the idea of the evanescence of all earthly enjoyments; but the skeletons or deaths' heads did not make their appearance in ...

mosaic pavement

Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Ital...

mosaic symbolism

In the religion of Moses, more than in any other which preceded or followed it, is symbolism the predominating idea. From the tabernacle, which may be considered as the central point of the whole syst...

moses

The Hebrew word Urn, which means drawn out; but the true derivation is from two Egyptian words, po, me, and ouxe, oushes, signifying saved from the water. The lawgiver of the Jews, and referred to in ...

mossdorf, friedrich

An eminent German Freemason, who was born March 2, 1757, at Eckartsberge, and died about 1830. He resided in Dresden, and took an active part in the affairs of Freemasonry. He was a warm supporter of ...

most excellent

The title given to a Royal Arch Chapter, and to its presiding officer, the High Priest; also to the presiding officer of a Lodge of Most Excellent Masters.

most excellent master

The Sixth Degree in the York or American Rite. Its history refers to the dedication of the Temple by King Solomon, who is represented by its presiding officer under the title of Most Excellent. Its of...

most puissant

The title of the presiding officer of a Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters.

most worshipful

The title usually given to a Grand Lodge and to its presiding officer, the Grand Master. However, the title of Grand Master of Pennsylvania is Right Worshipful.

mot de semestre

A French expression, meaning Half yearly word. Every six months the Grand Orient of France sends to each of the Lodges of its obedience a password, to be used by its members as an additional means of ...

mote

From an old Anglo-Saxon word motan meaning "to be allowed," as in the phrase so mote if be, meaning so may it be.

mother council of the world

The Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, which was organized in 1801, at Charleston, is called the Mother Council qf...

mother lodge

In the eighteenth century certain Lodges in France and Germany assumed an independent position, and issued Charters for the constitution of Daughter Lodges, claiming the prerogatives of Grand Lodges. ...

motion

A motion when made by a member cannot be brought before the Lodge for deliberation unless it is seconded by another member. Motions are of two kinds, principal and subsidiary; a principal motion is on...

motto

In imitation of the sentences appended to the Coats of Arms and seals of the Gilds and other societies, the Freemasons have for the different branches of their Order mottoes, which are placed on their...

mound builders

Early inhabitants in the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers who seem to have had a civilization more enlightened than that of the aborigines first met by the white settlers. The mounds built b...

mount caf

In the Mohammedan mythology, a fabulous mountain which encircles the earth. The home of the giants and fairies, and rests upon the sacred stone Sakhral, of which a single grain gives miraculous powers...

mouth to ear

The Freemason is taught by an expressive symbol, to whisper good counsel in his Brother's ear, and to warn him of approaching danger. "It is a rare thing," says Bacon, "except it b...

mozart, johann carysostomus wolfgang amadeus

A celebrated German composer and musician, born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, and died December 5, 1791, in Vienna. Mozart's father, Leopold, was a violinist of repute and gave his son early and...

ms. illustrations

The original of the hundred or so copies of the Old Charges (Old MSS, Old Constitutions, etc.) must have been written in the Fourteenth Century, perhaps about 1350 A.D. Each and every Masonic studen...

mudge, r. c.

Wrote Masonic poems and songs, 1819

mueller, friederich von

German poet; friend of Brother Goethe; and member of Lodge Amalia, at Weimar, where he was initiated in 1809, becoming its Orator and Deputy Master. He composed some poetry and delivered the oration i...

muenter, friederich

Born in 1761, and died in 1830. He was Professor of Theology in the University of Copenhagen, and afterward Bishop of Seeland. He was the author of a treatise on the Symbols and Art Representations of...

multa paucis

Latin for much but Veto, a concise history of Freemasonry brought down to 1763 and published in England, probably in 1764, but without date or author's name with the title of The Complete Freemas...

munkhouse, d. d., rev. richard

The author of A Discourse in Praise of Freemasonny, London, 1805; An Exhortation to the Practice of those Specific Virtues which ought to prevail in the Masonic Character, with Historical Notes, octav...

murat, joachim

Born in 1771, executed in 1815. The great cavalry general of Napoleon, and titular King of Naples. In 1803, he was appointed Senior Grand Warden in the Grand Orient of France. When the fifth Supreme C...

murr, christoph gottlieb von

A distingtushed historical and archeological writer, who was born at Nuremberg, in 1733, and died April 8, 1811. In 1760 he published an Essay on the History of the Greek Tragic Poets, in 1777-82, six...

muscus domus.

In the early lectures of the eighteenth century, the tradition is given, that certain Fellow Crafts, while pursuing their search, discovered a grave covered with green moss and turf, when they exclaim...

music

One of the seven liberal arts and sciences, whose beauties are inculcated in the Fellow Craft's Degree. Music is recommended to the attention of Freemasons, because as the "concord of sweet ...

musical instruments, ancient

As in the Fellow Craft's Degree, music is dilated upon as one of the liberal arts, the sweet and harmonious sounds being the representative of that harmony which should ever exist among the Breth...

mustard seed, order of

The Gerrnan title is Der Orden vom Senfkorn. This Association, whose members also called themselves "The Fraternity of Moravian Brothers of the Order of Religious Freemasons," was one of the...

muta

The Roman goddess of silence.

muttra or mathura

The birthplace of the Hindu Redeemer, Erishna The capital of a district in the Northwest Provinces of British India.

my hope is in god

In Latin, Spes Mea in Deo est. Motto of the Thirty-second Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

myrrh

A resinous gum of a tree growing in Arabia, valued from the most ancient times (Genesis xxxvii, 25). It was among the presents Jacob sent to Egypt, and those brought to the infant Jesus bv the wise me...

myrtle

The sacred plant of the Eleusinian mysteries, and analogous in its symbolism to the Acacia of the Freemasons.

mystagogue

The one who presided at the Ancient Mysteries, and explained the sacred things to the candidate. He was also called the hierophant. The word, which is Greek, signifies literally one who makes or condu...

mysteries, ancient

Each of the Pagan gods, says Warburton (Divine Legation I, u, 4), had, besides the public and open, a secret worship paid to him, to which none were admitted but those who had been selected by prepara...

mysteries, mexican

Instituted among the Mexicans, Aztecs, and mere of a sacred nature. The adherents adopted the worship of some special deity Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Savior, under secret rites, and rendered themselve...

mystery

From the Greek compound word meaning an initiate and a secret, something to be concealed. The Gilds or Companies of the Middle Ages, out of which we trace the Masonic organization, were called mystene...

mystes

From the Greek to shut the eyes. One who had been initiated into the Lesser Mysteries of Paganism. He was now blind; but when he was initiated into the Greater Mysteries, he was called an Epopt, or on...

mystic crown, knights and companions of the

A Society formed by the ad herents of Mesmer, in August, 1787, of a beneficent, nonpolitical. and nonsectarian nature, to which Master Masons only were admitted.

mystic tie

That sacred and inviolable bond which unites men of the most discordant opinions into one band of brothers, which gives but one language to men of all nations and one altar to men of all religions, is...

mystical

A word applied to any language, symbol, or ritual which is understood only by the initiated. The word was first used by the priests to describe their mysterious rites, and then borrowed by the philoso...

mysticism

A word applied in religious phraseology to any views or tendencies which aspire to more direct communication between God and man by the inward perception of the mind than can be obtained through revel...

myth

The word myth, from the Greek a story, in its original acceptation, signified simply a statement or narrative of an event, without any necessary implication of truth or falsehood; but, as the word is ...

myth, historical

A historical myth is a myth that has a known and recognized foundation in historical truth, but with the admixture of a preponderating amount of fiction in the introduction of personages and circumsta...

myth, philosophical

This is a myth or legend that is almost wholly unhistorical, and which has been invented only for the purpose of enunciating and illustrating a particular thought or dogma. The Legend of Euclid in the...

mythical history

A myth or legend, in which the historical and truthful greatly preponderate over the inventions of fiction, may be called a mythical history. Certain portions of the Legend of the Third Degree have su...

mythology

Literally, this word means the science of myths; and this is a very appropriate definition, for mythology is the science which treats of the religion of the ancient Pagans, which was almost altogether...
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