This week’s video is an anonymous talk from August 1953, Curious Masonic Words looks at some of the strange terms used in our ceremonials and identifies their origin, meaning and provenance. The talk is clearly American, but my copy has no authorial attribution beyond the date.
Interesting video, especially as there is no definitive consensus on some of the meanings. One explanation I have heard for the use of similar words together in our ritual, such as hele and conceal, which virtually mean the same, is that one word is from the ritual of the the ‘Antients’ and the other is from that of the ‘Moderns’. This is from the period of the so-called schism in English Freemasonry, which ended with the formation of the the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813, under the Grand Mastership of the Duke of Sussex. When the ritual for the new UGLE was being promulgated, it is theorized that where agreement on certain words could not be reached, they simply used both, one after the other. Incidentally some years ago the visiting ANZMRC lecturer was a former Grand Secretary of UGLE called James Daniels. As Preceptor of the WHJ Mayers Lodge of Research in Cairns I had to introduce him before his lecture. I rather flippantly said that Brother Daniels may tell you that UGLE is the oldest Grand Lodge in the world, but in fact it was only formed in1813, whereas the Grand Lodge of Ireland has existed continually under that name since 1725, making it technically the oldest. Well, Brother Daniels lived up to the reputation of Englishmen having no sense of humour. I thought he was going to explode and he then spent the first five minutes of his lecture berating me about my comment! Did I mention that my mother lodge is under the GL of Ireland!
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And I have just been installed as Junior Warden of Lodge Geraldton No.3544 under the United Grand Lodge of England. So my comment about the English sense of humour, or lack of it, was of course also flippant (trying to dig myself out of the hole I dug for myself!!)
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From the Quarries 
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