The Northeast Corner of the Lodge

      When you were first made a Freemason, you were invested with your clothes and. in due time, returned to the Northeast Corner of the Lodge for further instruction.  Why there?  If the Worshipful Master was going to give you further instruction, why not in front of him?  Actually, you stood in a very special place being on the very first step in Freemasonry.  It was really your first chance to have a look at the Lodge, your brothers, and how everything was arranged.  You were now much more comfortable and a little more at ease.  You were like a sponge, ready to absorb any information given you and your senses were all open and ready to receive knowledge.

   Although you did not yet understand it, you were there to lay the cornerstone of your own building, your house not made with hands that would be eternal in the heavens.  It has long been the custom of Freemasons to lay building cornerstones.  A cornerstone is a cube (three-dimensional square) that is placed on the exact corner of a new building that establishes the true horizontal and vertical alignment for walls and floors.  Before a stone is passed as acceptable for use as a cornerstone, it must prove to have perfectly square sides as measured by the square.  All other stones put in place must be in plumb and level with the cornerstone.  This being true, the building will be built strong and will last a long time.

      The cornerstone is placed in the Northeast Corner of the new building.  This is a tradition that has been passed down from antiquity.  In the early times it was learned by observation that the sun rose in the east and set in the west making a trek across the sky by way of the south.  In this manner it was concluded that light came from the east went away in the west and traveled by the south.  The north was a place of darkness.  Over the years this was make to represent the growth of knowledge.  New ideas came from the east (as given to us by God) and progress was made by advancing toward the west via the south.  The cornerstone of a building is placed in the northeast corner of a building where a side faces north and a side faces east (the other sides will face internally to the building and will not be seen.) 

      You, as a new Freemason, were placed in the Northeast Corner of the Lodge so that you faced East and your back faced toward North.  This was to inform you that you were coming from the darkness of the world to the light of knowledge in the East. 

This article first appeared in The Missouri Freemason magazine in 2010.