Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

44 ALASKA
ALDWORTH
necessity of defense or protection . And this
is precisely the Masonic signification of the
word .
Alaska . Masonry in regular form was introduced
into Alaska by the establishment of
Gastineaux Lodge, No . 124, at Douglass, late
in 1904, under a warrant from the Grand
Lodge of Washington . This was followed by
Anvil Lodge, No . 140, at Nome ; Mount Tuneau,
No . 147, at Tuneau ; Tanan, No . 162,
at Fairbanks ; Valdez, No . 168, at Valdez ; and
Mount McKinley, No . 183, at Cordova ; all
under warrants from the same Grand Lodge .
[W . J . A.]
Alban, St . (See Saint Alban .)
Alberta (Canada) . This Grand Lodge was
established in 1905, and in 1910 had 34
Lodges and 2,380 brethren under its jurisdiction.
Albertus Magnus . A scholastic philosopher
of the Middle Ages, of great erudition,
but who had among the vulgar the reputation
of being a magician . He was born at Lauingen,
in Swabia, in 1205, of an illustrious family,
his subtitle being that of Count of Bollstadt .
He studied at Padua, and in 1223 entered
the Order of the Dominicans. In 1249, he
became head-master of the school at Cologne
. In 1260, Pope Alexander VI . conferred
upon him the bishopric of Ratisbon .
In 1262, he resigned the episcopate and returned
to Cologne, and, devoting himself to
philosophic pursuits for the remainder of his
life, died there in 1280 . His writings were very
voluminous, the edition published at Lyons,
in 1651, amounting to twenty-one large folio
volumes . Albertus has been connected with
the Operative Masonry of the Middle Ages
because he has been supposed by many to have
been the real inventor of the German Gothic
style of architecture . Heideloff, in his Bauhiitte
des Mittelalters, says that " he recalled
into life the symbolic language of the ancients,
which had so long lain dormant, and adapted
it to suit architectural forms ." The Masons
accepted his instructions, and adopted in consequence
that system of symbols which was
secretly communicated only to the members of
their own body, and served even as a medium
of intercommunication . He is asserted to
have designed the plan for the construction of
the Cathedral of Cologne, and to have altered
the Constitution of the Masons, and to have
given to them a new set of laws .
Albrecht, Heinrich Christoph . A German
author, who published at Hamburg, in
1792, the first and only part of a work entitled
Materialen zu einer critischen Geschichte der
Freimaurerei, i . e ., Collections towards a Critical
History of Freemasonry. Moss says that
this was one of the first attempts at a clear and
rational history of the Order . Unfortunately,
the author never completed his task, and only
the first part of the work ever appeared . Albrecht
was the author also of another work
entitled GeheimeGeschichte eines Rosenkreuzers,
or Secret History of a Rosicrucian, and of a
series of papers which appeared in the Berlin
Archiv . der Zeit, containing " Notices of Free-
masonry In the first half of the Sixteenth
Century." Albrecht adopted the theory
first advanced by the Abbe Grandidier, that
Freemasonry owes its origin to the Steinmetzen
of Germany.
Alchemy. The Neo-Platonicians introduced
at an early period of the Christian era
an apparently new science, which they called
Mar-414n fhpd,. or the Sacred Science, which
materially influenced the subsequent condition
of the arts and sciences . In the fifth century
arose, as the name of the science, alchemia,
derived from the Arabic definite article al
being added to chemia, a Greek word used in
Diocletian's decree against Egyptian works
treating of the X,tgta or transmutation of
metals ; the word seems simply to mean " the
Egyptian Art," Xngta, or the land of black earth
being the Egyptian name for Egypt, and
Julius Firmicius, in a work On the Influence of
the Stars upon the Fate of Man, uses the phrase
" scientia alchemiae ." From this time the
study of alchemy was openly followed . In
the Middle Ages, and up to the end of the seventeenth
century, it was an important science,
studied by some of the most distinguished philosophers,
such as Avicenna, Albertus Magnus,
Raymond Lulli, Roger Bacon, Elias Ashmole,
and many others .
Alchemy-called also the Hermetic Philosophy,
because it is said to have been first
taught in Egypt by Hermes Trismegistus .
Freemasonry and alchemy have sought the
same results (the lesson of Divine Truth and
the doctrine of immortal life), and they have
both sought it by the same method of symbolism.
It is not, therefore, strange that in
the eighteenth century, and perhaps before,
we find an incorporation of much of the science
of alchemy into that of Freemasonry . Hermetic
rites and Hermetic degrees were common,
and their relics are still to be found existing
in degrees which do not absolutely trace
their origin to alchemy, but which show some of
its traces in their rituals . The Twenty-eighth
Degree of the Scottish Rite, or the Knight of
the Sun, is entirely a Hermetic degree, and
claims its parentage in the title of " Adept of
Masonry," by which it is sometimes known .
Aldworth, the Hon . Mrs . This lady;
who is well known as " the Lady Freemason,'
was the Hon . Elizabeth St . Leger, daughter
of Lord Doneraile of Doneraile Court, Co .
Cork, Ireland . She was born in 1693, and married
in 1713 to Richard Aldworth, Esq., of
Newmarket Court, Co . Cork . There appears
to be no doubt that while a girl she received
the First and Second degrees of Freemasonry
in Ireland, but of the actual circ um stances of
her initiation several different accounts have
been given .
Of these the most authentic appears to be
one issued at Cork, with the authority of the
family, in 1811, and afterward republished in
London .
From this it appears that her father, Viscount
Doneraile, together with his sons and
a few friends, was accustomed to open a Lodge
and carry on the ordinary ceremonies at Don-