About Co-Freemasonry

About Freemasonry

A fraternity designed to teach morality and ethics, intellectual freedom and self-control, Freemasonry helps those who participate lead lives of service to their families, their brethren and their communities. It promotes personal integrity, reflection and growth in a world which sorely needs strong emphasis on ethics and honour.

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Freemasonry is not a religion, but it teaches its members to be active in their chosen faith. Freemasonry has no politics, but it teaches its members to be active in civic concerns. Freemasonry is not a charity; although it promotes charity in its members.

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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 world-views and religious or philosophical traditions, without being itself limited to any one of them.

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The Nature of Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a design for living which, when followed, leads its initiates to a knowledge of their own inner divine nature and of their harmonious linkage with all life on the planet. It gives Freemasons a training that can eventually bring them to a gateway, opening upon the Path that all human beings can walk to self-knowledge and to mutual support and cooperation.

 

Freemasonry has its spiritual roots in the Ancient Mystery Schools and is today the modern form of those Mysteries. Throughout the ages, Freemasonry has preserved the Ancient Wisdom of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth, which might otherwise have been lost to humanity during periods of darkness. The symbols by which that Ancient Wisdom is expressed have varied with time and place, as civilizations have come and gone, but the fundamental design of the work and its great truths have remained unchanged.

 

Some Freemasons are unaware of the depth of their heritage and of the spiritual power inherent in their ceremonies. They are satisfied with the ideal of brotherhood and the ethics and charitable work of Freemasonry.

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Co-Freemasonry affirms in accordance with the ancient declarations of Freemasonry the existence of a creative Principle, under the title of “The Great Architect of the Universe”. Its Lodges work to the glory of the G.A.O.T.U. and for the Perfection of Humanity. It maintains the open Volumes of the Sacred Lore in every Lodge when duly formed for Masonic purposes. It maintains the Ancient Landmarks of Freemasonry and withholds recognition from all irregular and clandestine meetings, or Lodges not holding proper charter.

Co-Freemasonry is open to all men and women of all races and religions. It is founded on the principles of ‘Liberty of Thought, Unity, Morality, Charity, Justice and Brotherhood of Mankind’.

It is therefore open to men and women who are free, of good report, and strict morals. It imposes no restrictions on the free search for truth and expects tolerance from all its members.

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It pledges members to obedience to the laws of the country, loyalty to the supreme legislature, silence with regard to Masonic secrets, and demands a high standard of honour and a ceaseless endeavour to promote the welfare of humanity.

Every Co-Freemason belonging to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is bound faithfully to observe the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Eastern Order of International Co-Freemasonry to which he/she owes allegiance, and pledges obedience to the New Zealand Administration.

 

About Co-Freemasonry

Co-Freemasonry started in France in the late nineteenth century to correct a flaw in the interpretation of the traditional “landmarks,” which are the fundamental principles, of Freemasonry. That flaw was the exclusion of women from the order. Although women have long been admitted to Masonic practices in various ways, Co-Freemasonry is dedicated to complete equality between the sexes, as well as among all races and religions.

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In the early 1880s a French lodge of masculine Freemasons determined to carry out Masonic principles of equality with consistency, and therefore initiated a woman. As a result of that act of conscience, a few years later a new lodge was formed in Paris, from which eventually developed several Orders of Freemasonry that admit men and women equally as well as several all-women Orders.

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The Eastern Order of International Co-Freemasonry is a twenty-first-century reform that practices traditional Masonry, but with a conscious realization of its inner, esoteric, psychological and spiritual significance as a contemporary expression of the Ancient Mystery Schools. It admits into its fellowship all properly prepared persons on equal footing, without distinction of race, religion, or sex.

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Women in Freemasonry

Co-Freemasonry adds two salient strengths to those shared by all Freemasonry. First, it is international, linking together people of various cultures in the shared task of building the spiritual temple of human unity. Second, it restores full Masonic privileges to women, and has thus taken an important step to restoring the spiritual splendor of the ancient Mysteries, in which the participation of both men and women was an essential factor.

 

The term “Co-Freemasonry” or “Co-Masonry” was adopted to distinguish the Order from exclusively masculine or feminine groups and to indicate that both men and women are admitted to membership on equal footing. These strengths of universality and equality are essential elements for all Masonic work.

 

The term “Eastern” in the name of the Eastern Order of International Co-Freemasonry name refers to the symbolic East, the place of rising Light, rather than to a geographical direction.

 

The participation of women in Freemasonic work is not an innovation; it is simply the restoration of an ancient landmark or essential of Freemasonry. In the Ancient Mystery Schools of Egypt and Greece, women and men worked together on an equal footing. Only in comparatively recent centuries were women excluded from the mysteries and privileges of the ancient rites that have been reincarnated in modern times as Freemasonry.