Author Description

Unique Elements • Historical Context • Detailed Nineteenth-Century Historical Timeline A Classic Work on Organizational Allegory and Symbolism by Albert G. Mackey The Symbolism of Freemasonry by American author Albert G. Mackey is a book of nonfiction first published in 1882 in the United States. As an educator, journalist and Secretary General of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, Albert Mackey was perfectly suited to authoring this work. A Union sympathizer during the Civil War, he was narrowly defeated in a race to represent South Carolina in the US Senate in 1868. The Symbolism of Freemasonry is one of several reference works on Freemasonry by Mackey collected and published both during and after his lifetime. Sneak Peak ‘There is no symbol more interesting to the masonic student than the Sprig of Acacia, not only on account of its own peculiar import, but also because it introduces us to an extensive and delightful field of research; that, namely, which embraces the symbolism of sacred plants. In all the ancient systems of religion, and Mysteries of initiation, there was always some one plant consecrated, in the minds of the worshippers and participants, by a peculiar symbolism, and therefore held in extraordinary veneration as a sacred emblem. Thus the ivy was used in the Mysteries of Dionysus, the myrtle in those of Ceres, the erica in the Osirian, and the lettuce in the Adonisian. But to this subject I shall have occasion to refer more fully in a subsequent part of the present investigation.’ Synopsis A "Beautiful and profound system of morality, cloaked in allegories and depicted by symbols," is how Freemasonry is characterized in its own ritual. The Masonic lodge is filled with Freemasonry symbolism and many of the tools used by a stonemason in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Through lectures and metaphoric plays, the entire system is commu