1858
The list of the Landmarks of Freemasonry drawn up by Albert G. Mackey, the most widely cited statement of the ancient and unchangeable rules of the Craft.
Text from Mackey’s Manual of the Lodge, 1868 printing. Source: en.wikisource.org.
About this text
The Twenty-five Landmarks are the list of the unchangeable rules of Freemasonry drawn up in 1858 by Albert G. Mackey, an American Masonic writer. Mackey named as Landmarks the usages he judged to be ancient and beyond the power of any Grand Lodge to alter, among them the modes of recognition, the three degrees, the legend of the third degree, the government of the fraternity by a Grand Master, and the requirement of a belief in God and of the Volume of the Sacred Law. The list is the most widely cited statement of the Landmarks, though Grand Lodges differ about their number. The Grand Lodge of Kazakhstan adheres to the Ancient Landmarks, as its Constitution states.
APPENDIX.
I.
THE TWENTY-FIVE LANDMARKS OF FREEMASONRY.*
[I. T]HE modes of recognition.
II. The division of symbolic Masonry into three degrees.
III. The legend of the third degree.
IV. The government of the fraternity by a presiding officer called a Grand Master, who is elected from the body of the craft.
V. The prerogative of the Grand Master to preside over every assembly of the craft, wheresoever and whensoever held.
VI. The prerogative of the Grand Master to grant dispensations for conferring degrees at irregular times.
VII. The prerogative of the Grand Master to grant dispensations for opening and holding Lodges.
VIII. The prerogative of the Grand Master to make Masons at sight.
IX. The necessity for Masons to congregate in Lodges.
X. The government of every Lodge by a Master and two Wardens.
XI. The necessity that every Lodge, when congregated, should be duly tiled.
XII. The right of every Mason to be represented in all general meetings of the craft, and to instruct his representatives.
XIII. The right of every Mason to appeal from the decision of his brethren in Lodge convened to the Grand Lodge or General Assembly of Masons.
XIV. The right of every Mason to visit and sit in every regular Lodge.
XV. That no visitor, not known to some brother present as a Mason, can enter a Lodge without undergoing an examination.
XVI. That no Lodge can interfere in the business or labor of another Lodge.
XVII. That every Freemason is amenable to the laws and regulations of the Masonic jurisdiction in which he resides.
XVIII. That every candidate for initiation must be a man, free born and of lawful age.
XIX. That every Mason must believe in the existence of God as the Grand Architect of the Universe.
XX. That every Mason must believe in a resurrection to a future life.
XXI. That a book of the law of God must constitute an indispensable part of the furniture of every Lodge.
XXII. That all men in the sight of God are equal, and meet in the Lodge on one common level.
XXIII. That Freemasonry is a secret society, in possession of secrets that can not be divulged.
XXIV. That Freemasonry consists of a speculative science founded on an operative art.
XXV. That the Landmarks of Masonry can never be changed.
These constitute the Landmarks, or, as they have sometimes been called, "the body of Masonry," in which it is not in the power of any man, or body of men, to make the least innovation.
* A full explanation of and commentary on these Landmarks will be found in Mackey's "Text-Book of Masonic Jurisprudence," pp. 17–39
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