What are the ancient landmarks of Freemasonary

Ancient landmarks are the immemorial usages, time-honored customs, and fundamental principles of the Craft that define its essential identity and cannot be altered or repealed without changing the nature of Freemasonry itself 1. At every Installation in the Craft, the Worshipful Master solemnly asserts that it is not in the power of any man or body of men to make innovations in the Body of Freemasonry 1. Despite universal reverence for these ancient usages, Masonic jurists and Grand Lodges express widely divergent opinions regarding their precise definition and number, and no single catalog has ever been adopted universally 1.

Albert C. Mackey published an influential list of twenty-five landmarks in 1877, which was adopted by roughly half of American Grand Lodges, though heavily criticized by scholars such as Theodore Sutton Parvin who advocated reducing the list to five or six core principles 1. Individual Grand Lodges often adopted distinct lists; for instance, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts specified landmarks including Monotheism, belief in immortality, the Volume of the Sacred Law as indispensable furniture of a lodge, the legend of the Third Degree, secrecy, operative symbolism, and the requirement that candidates be adult males 1.

Core features frequently identified as landmarks in the Craft include a belief in God 1, belief in a resurrection to a future life 1, the government of a lodge by a Master and two Wardens 1, the requirement that every lodge be duly tiled against cowans and eavesdroppers 1, the right of visitation 1, and the principle that Freemasonry works nowhere except as a lodge 1. Candidate qualifications also stem from landmarks, historically requiring candidates to be freeborn men of mature age 1. Following the Emancipation Act, the Grand Lodge of England adjusted its requirement in 1847 from "freeborn" to "free man" 1.

Historical research published by Quatuor Coronati Lodge highlights that the Moderns Grand Lodge resolved in 1809 to revert to the ancient landmarks of the Society, that Laurence Dermott emphasized keeping these landmarks in view, and that Masonic theory treats the rule that none but the free may be initiated as a landmark. Present-day practice under the Grand Lodge of India frequently reminds Masons of these ancient landmarks from initiation onward, used the phrase during its consecration, and includes a Craft lodge named Ancient Landmarks No. 130 in Lucknow.