The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

Everyone and their sisters and brothers are waiting for the release of Dan Brown’s next book – December 2006, if we can believe the rumors – but we do know that it’s going to be called The Solomon Key, referring to Kryptos Sculpture at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and that it deals with the Freemasons – or, more formally, the Free and Accepted Masons: a secret society with about five million members, mainly in the U.S. and the English-speaking world. American freemasonry is older than this country, and many of the Founding Fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and George Washington were masons – and eager readers are already picturing Robert Langdon racing against the clock again, this time in the streets of our nation’s capital rather than Paris. Quick – anyone know anything about the Masons? Are they really as evil as some people say?

In The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Freemasonry, an expert author reveals the truths and dispels the myths that have surrounded the Freemasons for hundreds of years:

v Were the first masons 14th-century stone masons and cathedral builders, or can Freemasonry really be traced back as far as Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine?

v The Masonic insistence on the belief in a Supreme Being

v The Masons and the Knights Templar

v True or false: the Masons coordinated the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.

v How are Masons initiated, and exactly what goes on in a Masonic lodge?

v What’s the difference between the York Rite and the Scottish Rite, and are there women and African American Freemasons?

v The Masons in the streets of Washington, DC: a tour

Scottish Rite Journal of the Supreme Council, 33°, S.J. He retired after 25 years as a mathematician with the federal government, has been invited to lecture at over 100 universities, has taught at Duke and Johns Hopkins Universities, and is currently on the graduate faculty at George Washington University.

In addition, he is

-- a Master Mason since 1971,

-- Past Master of Patmos Lodge No. 70, Ellicott City, Maryland,

-- the only American among the 40 members of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, London, the premier Masonic research lodge,

-- the founder of the Scottish Rite Research Society and Editor of Heredom, its annual transactions,

-- one of 50 living recipients of the Grand Cross of the Court of Honour of the Supreme Council, 33°, S.J.,

-- one of the forty Fellows of the Philalethes Society, the world’s oldest and largest Masonic research society,

-- an honorary Fellow of the Phylaxis Society, the Prince Hall Masonic research society,

-- Grand Abbot of the Society of Blue Friars, a society of Masonic authors (selecting only one new member per year)

He is author of Masonic Philanthropies: A Tradition of Caring, Cornerstones of Freedom: A Masonic Tradition,

The Folger Manuscript: The Cryptanalysis and Interpretation of an American Masonic Manuscript; co-author with Arturo de Hoyos of Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry?; and co-editor (with Arturo de Hoyos) of Freemasonry in Context: History, Ritual, and Controversy and (with R. William Weisberger and Wallace McLeod) of Freemasonry on Both Sides of the Atlantic.

Morris is a member of the Shriners, the York Rite, the Red Cross of Constantine, the Royal Order of Scotland, and the Allied Masonic Degrees. And on top of all of this he’s active in Bible study at his church and enjoys Sherlockian studies, sleight of hand, Gilbert & Sullivan, and wine tasting.