why is a craft lodge situated due east and west

Regardless of a building's physical orientation, a lodge is always considered internally to be situated due east and west, with the Master's station placed in the east 1.

Historically, this arrangement derives from Christian church architecture, which borrowed and adapted the older tradition of revering the place of the rising sun 1. Within the symbolism of the Craft, the east is recognized as the place of light, both physical and moral, making it the most honorable part of the lodge room 1.

Walter Leslie Wilmshurst interprets the east-west axis as a symbolic representation of human existence 2. In his view, the mystical East is the eternal source of all light and life from which the soul originates, while the West represents the material world 2. A candidate enters the lodge in darkness in the West, symbolizing entry into mortal life, and moves symbolically toward the light of the East 2. Entrance into the lodge facing the light thus serves as an emblem of mental illumination and spiritual progress 1.

The rule that a lodge is oriented due east and west is an internal and symbolic convention rather than an architectural requirement for physical lodge buildings 1.

This usage was derived historically from ecclesiastical architecture, where church buildings were required to be laid out along an east-west axis 1. As recorded in *The Fardle of Facions* (1555), when constructing a church, the bishop was called to hallow the first corner stone and direct it "juste easte and west" before the masons were permitted to set to work 1. Operative masons were thus bound by religious and architectural rule to orient churches in this manner 1.

Regarding the physical structures or meeting places of the masons themselves, whatever their actual external alignment to the points of the compass, internal symbolic orientation treats the Master's station as the east and the lodge as situated due east and west 1.

Albert C. Mackey's *Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences* sets forth the explanation that the Masonic usage of orienting lodges due east and west was derived from ecclesiastical architecture 1. In treating orientation, Mackey states that lodges were originally built along an east-west axis because churches were constructed in that manner 1.

To demonstrate the historical church requirement from which the Masonic usage was derived, Mackey cites *The Fardle of Facions* (originally printed in 1555), as quoted in John M. Neale and Benjamin Webb's 1906 volume *Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments* 1. That 1555 work records that a bishop was required to hallow a church's first corner stone and direct it "juste easte and west" before masons could begin construction 1. The supplied library sources do not record an earlier printed Masonic text containing this specific derivation 1.