Video: A living tradition of self improvement and service

Through self-improvement, support, leadership development and philanthropy, we help influence lives for the better. 

Freemasonry has always welcomed adult men of all ages, colours and cultures as equals in our organisation. In Queensland we have nearly 300 Lodges (independent groups with their own meeting places) around the state. Despite many misapprehensions, we are not a religion, a cult or a conspiracy. Nor do we have any sinister motives or practices. Our values are non-denominational, ethical and based on deep respect for every human being.

The Eastern Order of International Co-Freemasonry is a worldwide body of both men and women Freemasons, who together work the traditional rites of Freemasonry with a conscious awareness of their spiritual content. It regards Freemasonry as a modern form of the ancient Mysteries, which pointed their initiates toward the Path of self-discovery and of service to all living beings.

Freemasonry requires loyalty to the laws of one’s land and belief in a divine intelligence governing the universe, but it has no political or religious affiliations or programs, leaving such matters to the conscience of individual Freemasons.

Freemasonry as we know it today, has been in existence since the early eighteenth century, when four Masonic lodges in London united to form a Grand Lodge to charter new groups and coordinate their activities.

The system practiced by those lodges is called Speculative Masonry as opposed to Operative Masonry, the craft of stonemasons. Freemasonry combines concepts from the building trade with a myth based on King Solomon’s building of the holy temple in Jerusalem. It is thus a “system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” Freemasonry is not a religion but includes persons of all religious traditions, as well as those who have no religious affiliation.

Freemasonry looks farther back, however, through the Rosicrucians of the Renaissance, the guilds of cathedral builders in the Middle Ages, along with the Trou­badours, Albigensians, and Templars, to the ancient Mysteries of Orpheus, Isis, and Eleusis. It has symbolic links with other similar initiatory orders throughout human history, being the chief modern form of the ancient Mysteries.

In its outer form, Freemasonry is an organization of persons for study, for charitable and social cooperation and betterment, and for mutual support. In its inner form, however, it seeks, through the working of ancient rituals, to develop and integrate the individual Freemason in a balanced way, to bring about an inner realization of the link we each have with the Life force of the universe, to form a working unit for the evolution of humanity as a whole, and generally to serve the wellbeing of the planet and our fellows.

Freemasonry has no doctrine. It is a system of symbols with implications for a way of living that leads to self-improvement through service to the world. As such, it is compatible with a variety of worldviews and religious or philosophical traditions, without being itself limited to any one of them.