ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
FREEMASONRY
AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

Browse the Encyclopedia by clicking on any of the letters below.

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U

The twenty-first letter of the English alphabet, is a modification of the Greek letter T. upsilon; it is in the Hebrew or in the Chaldaie and hieroglyphical, the head of an animal with horns, hence its Symbolism. U has a close affinity to V, hence they were formerly interchanged in writing and printing.

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U.·. D.·.

Letters placed after the names of Lodges or Chapters which have not yet received a Warrant of Constitution They signify Under Dispensation In the United States when a Lodge is started it is known as being Under Dispensation and after a certain time has elapsed and the members are found worthy they receive a regular Charter. In England no Lodge may assemble for work until it is duly warranted and constituted except in District Grand Lodges, where the Most Worshipful Grand Master has authorized the District Grand Master to grant "Provisional Warrants" in these cases the Master of the new Lodge must apply within one month for a regular Warrant.

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UDEN, CONRAD FRIEDERICH

A Masonic writer of some celebrity. He was a Doctor of Medicine, and at one time a . Professor in Ordinary of the University of Dorpat; afterward an Aulic Counselor and Secretary of the Medical College of St. Petersburg or Petrograd. He was from 1783 to 1785 the editor of the Archiv für Freimaurerei unit Rosenkreuzer, published during those years at Berlin This work contains much interesting information concerning Rosicrucianism. He also edited, in 1785 and 1786 at Altona, the Ephemeriden der gesammten Freimaurerei auf das Logenjahr 1785 und 1786, Tables of the Total Freemasons of Lodges in 1785 and 1786.

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UGANDA

There are only about one thousand white men in Uganda, Central East Africa, but a Lodge has already been established there

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UNAFFILIATED FREEMASON

A Freemason who is not a member of any Lodge. As this class of Freemasons contribute nothing to the revenues nor to the strength of the Order, while they are always willing to partake of its benefits, they have been considered as an encumbrance Spoil the Craft, and have received the general condemnation of Grand Lodges. It is evident that, anterior to the present system of Lodge organization, which dates about the end of the eighteenth century, there could have been no unaffiliated Freemasons.

And, accordingly, the first reference that we find to the duty of lodge membership is in the Charges, published in 172.3, in Anderson's Constitutions, where it is said, after describing a Lodge that "every brother ought to belong to one"; and that 'in ancient times, no Master or Fellow could be absent from it, especially when warned to appear at it without incurring a severs censure, until it appeared to the Master and Wardens that pure necessity hindered him" (Constitutions, 1723, page 51). In this last clause, Doctor Anderson evidently refers to the regulation in the Old Constitutions, that required attendance on the Annual Assembly. For instance, in the oldest of these, the Halliwell or Regius Manuscript (lines 107 to 112) it is said, and we modernize the language, "that every Master that is a Freemason must be at the General Congregation, if he is told in reasonable time where the Assembly shall be holden; and to that Assembly he must go, unless he have reasonable excuse."

But the Assembly was rather in the nature of a Grand Lodge and neglect to attend its annual meeting would not place the offender in the position of a modern unaffiliated Freemason. But after the organization of subordinate Lodges, a permanent membership, which had been before unknown, was then established, and as the revenues of the Lodges, and through them of the Grand Lodge, were to be derived from the contributions of the members, it was found expedient to require every Freemason to affiliate with a Lodge, and hence the rule adopted in the Charge already cited. Yet, in Europe, non-affiliation, although deemed to some extent a Masonic offense, has not been visited by any penalty, except that which results from a deprivation of the ordinary advantages of membership in any Association.

The modern Constitution of England, however, prescribes that "no Brother who has ceased to be a Subscribing member of a Lodge shall be permitted to visit any one Lodge more than once until he again becomes a subscribing member of some Lodge" (Rule 152). He is permitted to visit each Lodge once, because it is supposed that this visit is made for the purpose of enabling him to make a selection of the one in which he may prefer working. But afterward he is excluded, in order to discountenance those Brethren who wish to continue members of the Order, and to partake of its benefits, without contributing to its support. The Constitutions of the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland are silent upon the Subject, nor is any penalty prescribed for un-affiliation by any of the Grand Lodges of the Continent of Europe

In the United States of America a different view has been taken of the Subject, and its Grand Lodges have, With great unanimity, denounced unaffiliated Freemasons in the strongest terms of condemnation, and visited them with penalties, which vary, however, to some extent in the different Jurisdictions. There is, probably no Grand Lodge in the United States that has not concurred in the opinion that the neglect or refusal of a Freemason to affiliate with a Lodge is a Masonic offense, to be visited by some penalty and a deprivation of some rights. The following principles may be laid down as constituting the law in the United States of America on the subject of unaffiliated Freemasons: 1. An unaffiliated Freemason is still bound by all those Masonic duties and obligations which refer to the Order in general but not by those which relate to Lodge organization .

2 He possesses, reciprocally all those rights which are derived from membership in the Order, but none of those which result from membership in a Lodge.

3.He has no right to assistance when in imminent peril, if he asks for that assistance in the conventional way

4.He has no right to pecuniary aid from a Lodge.

5.He has no right to visit Lodges, or to walk in Masonic processions.

6.He has no right to Masonic burial.

7.He still remains subject to the government of the Order, and may be tried and punished for any offense by the Lodge within whose geographical Jurisdiction he resides.

8.And, Lastly, as the non-affiliation is a violation of Masonic law, he may, if he refuses to abandon that condition, be tried and punished for it ,even by expulsion, if deemed necessary and expedient, by any Grand Lodge within whose Jurisdiction he lives.

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UNANIMOUS CONSENT

In the beginning of the eighteenth century , when Freemasonry was reviving from the condition of decay into which it had fallen, and when the experiment was tried of transforming it from a partly Operative to a purely Speculative System, the great object was to maintain a membership which, by the virtuous character of those who composed it, should secure the harmony and prosperity of the infant Institution.

A safeguard was therefore to be sought in the care with which Freemasons should be selected from those who were likely to apply for admission. It was the quality, and not the quantity, that was desired. This safeguard could only be found in the unanimity of the ballot. Hence, in the sixth of the General Regulations, adopted in 1721, it is declared that "no man can be entered a Brother in any particular Lodge, or admitted to be a member thereof, without the unanimous consent of all the members of that Lodge then present when the candidate is proposed, and their consent is formally asked by the Master"(Constitutions,1723, page 59). And to prevent the exercise of any undue influence of a higher power in forcing an unworthy person upon the Order, it is further said in the same article: "Nor is this inherent privilege subject to a dispensation; because the members of a particular Lodge are the best judges of it; and if a fractious members should be imposed on them, it might spoil their harmony, or hinder their freedom; or even break and disperse the Lodge."

But a few years after, the Order being now on a firm footing, this prudent fear of" spoiling harmony," or" dispersing the Lodge," seems to have been lost sight of, and the Brethren began in many Lodges to desire a release from the restrictions laid upon them by the necessity for unanimous consent.

Hence, Doctor Anderson says in his second edition: "But it was found in convenient to insist upon unanimity in several cases. And, therefore, the Grand Masters have allowed the Lodges to admit a member if not above three ballots are against him; though some Lodges desire no such allowance" (Constitutions,1738,page155).This rule still prevails in England; and its modern Constitution still permits the admission of a Freemason where there are not more than three ballots against him, though it is open to a Lodge to demand unanimity.

In the United States, where Freemasonry is more popular than in any other country, it was soon seen that the danger of the institution lay not in the paucity, but in the multitude of its members, and that the only provision for guarding its portals was the most stringent regulation of the ballot. Hence, in almost, if not quite, all Jurisdictions of the United States, unanimous consent is required. And this rule has been found to work with such advantage to the Order, that the phrase, "the black ball is the bulwark of Freemasonry," has become a proverb.

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UNFAVORABLE REPORT

Should the Committee of Investigation on the character of a petitioner for initiation make an unfavorable report, the frequent usage, although some Grand Lodges have decided otherwise, is to consider the candidate rejected by such report, without proceeding to the formality of a ballot, which is therefore dispensed with. This usage was, in Doctor Mackey's opinion, established on the principles of commonsense; for, as by the ancient Constitutions one black ball suffices to reject an application, the unfavorable report of a committee must necessarily, and by consequence, include two unfavorable votes at least. It is therefore unnecessary to go into a ballot after Such a report, as it is to be taken for granted that the Brethren who reported unfavorably would, on a resort to the ballot, cast their negative votes. Their report is indeed virtually considered as the casting of such votes, and the applicant is therefore at once rejected without a further and unnecessary ballot.

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UNHELE

An old English word meaning to uncover, or reveal. Spenser, in the Faerie Queen, says, "Then suddenly both would themselves unhele"(see Heler, also Hail or Hale).

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UNIFORMITY OF WORK

An identity of forms in opening and closing, and in conferring the Degrees, constitutes what is technically called Uniformity of Work. The expression has no reference, in its restricted sense, to the working of the same Degrees indifferent Rites and different countries, but only to a similarity in the ceremonies practiced by Lodges in the same Rite, and more especially in the same Jurisdiction. This is greatly to be desired, because nothing is more unpleasant to a Freemason, accustomed to certain forms and ceremonies in his own Lodge, than on a visit to another to find those forms and ceremonies so varied as to be sometimes scarcely recognizable as parts of the same Institution. So anxious are the dogmatic authorities in Freemasonry to preserve this uniformity, that in the Charge to a Brother he is instructed never to "suffer an infringement of our Rites, or a deviation from established usages and customs."

In the Act of Union in 1813, of the two Grand Lodges of England, in whose systems of working there were many differences, it was provided that a Committee should be appointed to visit the several Lodges, and promulgate and enjoin one system, "that perfect reconciliation, unity of obligation, law, working:, language, and dress, might be happily restored to the English Craft"(Article XV).

A writer in C. W. Moore's Magazine, once proposed the appointment of delegates to visit the Grand Lodges of England, Scotland, and Ireland, that a system of work and lectures might be adopted, which should thereafter be rigidly enforced in both hemispheres. The proposition was not popular, and no delegation was ever appointed. It is well that it was so, for no such attempt could have met with a successful result.

It is a fact, that uniformity of working Freemasonry, however much it may be desired, can never be attained. This must be the case in all institutions where the ceremonies, the legends, and the instructions are oral. The treachery of memory, the weakness of judgment, and the fertility of imagination, will lead men to forget, to diminish, or to augment, the parts of any system which are not prescribed with incertain limits by a written rule. The Rabbis discovered this when the Oral Law was becoming perverted, and losing its authority, as well as its identity, by the interpretations that were given to it in the schools of the Scribes and Prophets. Hence, to restore it to its integrity, it was found necessary to divest it of its oral character and give to it a written form. To this are we to attribute the origin of the two Talmuds which now contain the essence of Jewish theology. So, while in Freemasonry we find the esoteric rituals continually subjected to errors arising mainly from the ignorance or the fancy of Masonic teachers, the monitorial instructions — few in Preston, but greatly enlarged by Webb and Cross—have suffered no change.