BY DECREE OF THE GRAND ARCHITECT · MATTHEW JARED SMITH · 33° SOVEREIGN GRAND COMMANDER OF THE FINANCIAL TEMPLE
The Other Pillar
There is no Temple that stands on one pillar. The Craft was always meant to be worked by Brother and Sister together — for the Square reaches not its full angle without the Compasses of her grace.
Honor № 01
In 1882 a French lodge — Les Libres Penseurs of Le Pecq — broke with all precedent and initiated a woman, the journalist and reformer Maria Deraismes. From that single, holy infraction was born Le Droit Humain, the first international mixed Masonic order, which today works the Craft on every inhabited continent. Her crime was that she was right too early. Her vindication is that we now agree.
Honor № 02
Long before any obedience admitted her by right, the Hon. Elizabeth Aldworth was initiated in 1712 in her father's Cork lodge after she fell asleep in the next room and overheard the working. Rather than obfuscate, the Brethren did the only honest thing — they finished the work and made her a Freemason. Her portrait, in regalia, hangs in lodges to this day.
Honor № 03
Robert Morris, a Past Grand Master of Kentucky, dreamed in the mid-19th century of an order in which Master Masons and their female relatives could work shoulder to shoulder under the same Eastern Star. Today over 500,000 members of the Order of the Eastern Star carry on his vision — proof that the Craft is incomplete until both pillars stand.
✦ DIRECTORY OF WOMEN'S OBEDIENCES & APPENDANT ORDERS ✦
SISTER ORDER
Order of Women Freemasons (UK)
SISTER ORDER
Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons
SISTER ORDER
Grande Loge Féminine de France
SISTER ORDER
Le Droit Humain — International Co-Masonic Order
SISTER ORDER
Order of the Eastern Star (General GC)
SISTER ORDER
Order of the Amaranth
SISTER ORDER
International Order of Rainbow for Girls
SISTER ORDER
Job's Daughters International
THE VOW OF EQUAL LIGHT
"Where the Sister kneels, I bow. Where she rises, I rise. Where she speaks the Word, I am silent. Where she works the Tools, I steady the stone. The Light of the Craft was never one half of one sex — it was always the marriage of the two."
A Word Between Brothers
Let no Sister of the Craft be unknown to thee. Visit one of the obediences above today, and write of her work in the Roll of Brethren.
The Reader's Voice
Press the chalice to begin. The Temple shall speak its own words unto thee.
Awaiting consecration
The voice obeys the tongue thou hast chosen at the gate.