The hoodwink represents the darkness in which the uninitiated stand as regards Masonry. It is removed at the moment of enlightenment, suggesting that we do not create the great things in life, such as goodness, truth and beauty, but find them. They always exist, regardless of the blindness of any individual.
The Apron is at once an emblem of purity and the badge of a Mason. By purity is meant clean thinking and clean living, a loyal obedience to the laws of the craft, and sincere good will to the Brethren; the badge of a Mason signifies that Masons are workers and builders, not drones and destructionists
The Great Lights of Masonry are the Holy Bible, the Square, and the Compasses. As a Great Light, the Holy Bible represents the Sacred Book of the Law, and is a symbol of man’s acknowledgement of, and his relation to Deity
The Rite of Circumambulation is Masonry’s name for the ceremony in which you are conducted around the lodge room, an allegorical act rich with many meanings. One of these is that the Masonic life is a progressive journey, from station to station of attainment, and that a Mason should continually search for more light.
Nowhere in Masonry do we find the impact of symbolism more significant than in its application to the Working Tools. Without them, Speculative Masonry would be but an empty shell of formalism, if indeed, it managed to exist at all. While they do contain the whole philosophy of Masonry, the various Working Tools, allocated to the three degrees, by their very presence declare there is constructive work to be done, and by their nature indicate the direction this work is to take.
