The Winding Stairs
A flight of stairs of three, five and seven steps leading to the middle chamber of the Temple, used in the Fellowcraft lecture to teach the value of learning.
What it means
The Fellowcraft lecture in the American monitors takes the candidate up a winding stair toward the middle chamber, where the Fellowcrafts were said to receive their wages. The groups of steps carry a sequence of lessons in print: the three principal officers of the Lodge, the five orders of architecture and the five senses, and the seven liberal arts and sciences.
The point is that knowledge is climbed to, a step at a time. It is the most explicitly educational image in the Craft degrees.
In context: The Three Degrees of Blue Lodge Masonry
Frequently asked questions
What does the Winding Stairs mean in Freemasonry?
A flight of stairs of three, five and seven steps leading to the middle chamber of the Temple, used in the Fellowcraft lecture to teach the value of learning.
Who can wear the Winding Stairs?
This is a lesson rather than a badge. It turns up on Lodge charts, prints and gifts, and owning or displaying one says nothing about rank. On a lapel most people will read it as Masonic.
Sources
Drawn from the published monitors and from what the bodies concerned publish about themselves. Nothing here comes from, or goes beyond, any obligated material.
- Thomas Smith Webb, The Freemason's Monitor; or, Illustrations of Masonry (1797)
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1772)