The Blazing Star, situated in the East of the lodge, is historically associated with the Egyptian symbol of Anubis or the dog-star Sirius, whose rising foretold the overflowing of the Nile 1. In ancient Egyptian imagery, Sirius marked a crucial seasonal turning point and the return of fertility, providing an astronomical lesson that writers on Masonic symbolism incorporated into their readings of the lodge's ornaments 1.
Traditional Masonic commentators sometimes connect Sirius to the Blazing Star as an emblem of ancient astronomical veneration or the first fruits of the resurrection, as an article on The Square Magazine's website notes. Anti-Masonic writers have alleged that the five-pointed star or Blazing Star secretly represents Sirius as a satanic figure, though no historical or ritual evidence supports these claims, as the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon's website notes. Outside Craft Masonry, the Antient and Primitive Rite instituted the "Grand Star of Sirius, or Wisdom" as an Order of Merit decoration for literary and other contributions, though this designation belongs to that specific rite rather than the Blue Lodge, as the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon's website also records.
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Preston and Mackey, in Knoop and Jones on the mediaeval mason, in Claudy
for the newly made Mason, in Pike for the Scottish Rite, and in papers read
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A labour of love by Bro. J Arasu Shankher of Chennai. Thoughts, corrections
and suggestions are all welcome —
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