The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“Allied with no external religious system itself, Masonry is yet a synthesis, a concordat, for men of every race, of every creed, of every sect, and its foundation principles being common to them all, admit of no variation.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “To state things briefly, Masonry offers us, in dramatic form and by means of dramatic ceremonial a philosophy of the spiritual life of man and a diagram of the process of regeneration.”
  2. “Remember that you first wore it with the flap raised, it being thus a five-cornered badge, indicating the five senses, by means of which we enter into relations with the material world around us (our ‘five points of fellowship’ with the material world), but indicating also by the triangular portion above, in conjunction with the quadrangular portion below, that man’s nature is a combination of soul and body”
  3. “What then was the purpose the framers of our Masonic system had in view when they compiled it? To this question you will find no satisfying answer in ordinary Masonic books.”
  4. “Anyone, of course, can understand the simpler meaning of our symbols, especially with the help of the explanatory lectures; but he may still miss the meaning of the scheme as a vital whole.”
  5. “It has always been the custom for Trade Guilds, and even for modern Friendly Societies, to spiritualize their trades, and to make the tools of their trade point some simple moral. No trade, perhaps, lends itself more readily to such treatment than the builder’s trade; but wherever a great industry has flourished, there you will find traces of that industry becoming allegorized, and of the allegory being employed for the simple moral instruction of those who were operative members of the industry.”