When a candidate is presented for initiation, the first question he is asked by the Master is, "are you a free man". Unless the Master and Brethren are satisfied on this point the initiation cannot proceed. What then is this freedom?
    It plainly requires that the candidate is not in thrall to any authority which might limit his actions. And it means more: in the context of the masonic degrees it refers to that freedom which allows him to progress on his own journey from darkness to light. But in the world beyond the Temple doors, what constitutes freedom?
    The appalling events of September 11th have, I believe, changed our world. We have seen, live on television, in tragic immediacy, proof that our freedom must have limits. No one can have the freedom to fly an airliner into a skyscraper.
    Where then, and what, are the limits of our freedom? Does that freedom involve a right to annoy one’s neighbours, ignore those in trouble, to publish offensive material or to sell anything, to anybody, at anytime? In other words, are unrestricted, even predatory, civic, media, business and banking practices also justified by our demand for Freedom? Must we destroy cultures and environments so that we can have thirty different varieties of yoghurt? Or timber? Or plastic toothbrushes? The singer Bruce Springsteen made a pertinent comment in an interview: "You can mistake endless choice for freedom".
    It does seem to me that we have forgotten something important: freedom is not licence; freedom involves a morality and a discipline. This morality and this discipline are freely chosen and freely maintained during life. They can be maintained because this morality and this discipline comes from the very heart of life itself. They are life-enhancing and life-embracing; their focus is upon that which all humanity shares in common at the very deepest level.
    The first charge required of a Freemason explains that "masonry is the centre of union between good men and true, and the happy means of conciliating friendship amongst those who must otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance". There is no distance more "perpetual" than that fostered by hatred and ignorance.
    Freemasonry, perhaps uniquely, is an organisation which brings together men and, of course, women of all religions, all cultures, and almost all nationalities. The events of September 11th demonstrate how Freemasonry can make a true and important contribution to human culture in the 21st century. For Freemasonry has, over (at least) the last 285 years, shown how social discipline, morality and non-sectarian spirituality, can be freely embraced and freely lived. The world needs Freemasonry; it needs those who can learn of, and live by, its principles.
    In our News pages we have an illustration of the Statue of Liberty standing amongst the debris cloud from the collapsed World Trade Centre. That statue was given by Freemasons to celebrate freedom. Freemasons who well knew the distinction between freedom and licence. And now, so do we.
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    In the last issue I announced an Egyptian Cruise that we have arranged for readers of Freemasonry Today, together with their family and friends. We have had many enquiries about it. The recent events have caused many to ask whether the trip will still go ahead. Indeed it will, but so long as the situation remains fluid we must keep in the mind the possibility of postponing it until later in the year. When you contact our travel company for a place on the cruise, they will pass on the latest information.
    A senior mason wrote to me recently to mention his visit to a lodge in which the subject of a "daily advancement in masonic knowledge" came up. He was informed that it was the lodge custom to give each new Master Mason, upon attaining his Third Degree, a year’s subscription to Freemasonry Today. "Now", I thought, "that is a very good idea…"
    Michael Baigent MA – Editor

ADVICE FOR CONTRIBUTORS
Could contributors to the News section please send me either photographs taken with film not exceeding 100 asa in speed, or on a digital camera set at 600 dpi, the image to be posted to me on a disc. The photographs themselves I prefer to be of the end-use of the charitable funds raised, not of a large cheque obscuring all else. Let’s see the equipment purchased, or the hospice supported.