The Scottish Key DVD

*PLEASE NOTE - this DVD is UK PAL format which may not be compatible with all dvd players*

Discover for the first time the true genesis of Freemasonry. This audiovisual documentary unveils the birth of this movement.

Who created it? Why did men invent this mysterious club? This investigation plunges us into an exciting adventure. As of yet unrevealed documents, and astonishing testimonies, shed new light on a little known history.

The Scottish Key An Investigation into the Origins of Freemasonry:

An enigmatic and mysterious topic, subject to allegations and fantasies of all sorts. Spread across the globe, this discrete and mysterious association has been a source of curiosity, fascination and suspicion for over 300 years. Today Freemasonry gathers several millions of people throughout the world.

Protected from the outside world, from which they isolate themselves for the length of an evening, freemasons meet in lodges and there develop a peculiar spirituality. How was this movement born? Are its origins veiled in secrecy? Even amidst its own members, few know the actual beginnings of Freemasonry. The lodges themselves have forgotten from whence they came.

For the first time, based on the most recent findings, a critical documentary investigates the question of the origins of Freemasonry. What are its links with the Knights Templar? Are they the descendants of stone masons from the Middle Ages? How did the first lodges come to be? Take an esoteric road of unsolved mysteries, starting in England in the 18th century.

Discover the events that led to the creation of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717. Ascertain the true ambitions of the men who launched this incredible adventure, and how the most intriguing fraternal society of modern times was born. Explore the centuries old stone mason lodges and their ties to the birth of Freemasonry in London.

See how these men were inspired by their secular rites such as the mason’s word and the art of memory. Find out the roots of Freemasonry in Scotland, and the real influence of the Middle Ages.

Discover the Scottish Key.

"The Scottish Key" has been fortunate to have several people accept to contribute their expertise. They are.

Andrew Prescott was appointed as first Director of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry in the University of Sheffield in 2000. Andrew studied history at the University of London, where his Ph. D. thesis was a study of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Andrew was a curator in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library from 1979-2000. Among the many jobs he undertook in the British Library was the planning and supervision of the move of the Manuscript Collections from the British Museum building to the Library's new premises at St Pancras. Andrew has lectured and published widely on the history of freemasonry since the establishment of the Centre in 2001.

Keith Moore is Head of the Library and the Archives of the Royal Society. The Royal Society is a learned society of science that was founded in 1660 and claims to be the oldest such society still in existence.

Roger Dachez doctor and university professor, has devoted himself for the last twenty years to the study of the history of Freemasonry. Director, since 1992, of the review for masonic studies, “Renaissance Traditionelle”, and author of over fifty articles and contributions to symposiums, Roger Dachez has published a “Histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie Française” [PUF, 2003] and participated to the documentary “Voyage en Franc-Maçonnerie” [directed by Georges Combe] in 2003. He is currently president of the “Institut Maçonnique de France”.

Jessica Harland-Jacobs Assistant Professor received her PhD in 2000 in modern British and imperial history from Duke University and her BA in 1992 from Cornell University. She joined the University of Florida Department of History in 2000. Her first book is entitled Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717-1927 (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), and she has published articles in The Journal of British Studies and The Geographical Review. She is currently researching the question of how the British Empire approached and managed religious pluralism between the 1760s and the 1820s. A forthcoming article in Atlantic Studies explores the Orange Order from an Atlantic perspective. Professor Harland-Jacobs teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire, Ireland, imperialism, and the Atlantic world. She recently received Teacher-of-the-Year Awards from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the University of Florida.

David Stevenson has published many books, mainly on Scottish history, including in recent years 'The Beggar's Benison. The Sex Clubs of Enlightenment Scotland' and 'The Hunt for Rob Roy.' He was the first professional historian to study the records of the early lodges of freemasonry in Scotland, publishing 'The Origins of Freemasonry. Scotland's Century, 1590-1710' in 1988.

Ewan Rutherford was Venerable Master Mason at the Mary Chapel Lodge in Edinburgh [Scotland], one of the oldest in the world. John Hamill is Director of Communications for the United Grand Lodge of England. He is in charge, under the Grand Secretary, of dealing with the public relations challenges faced by the UGLE in the capacity of an official spokesman (involving, since 1984, over 350 radio and 50 TV programmes). He is a past Grand Lodge Librarian and Curator (1993-1999), and a Past Master of the research lodge, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 (1995). The books and many article he has written, reflect his deep understanding and interest in the origins of Freemasonry and the development of the Royal Arch.

Robert L. D. Cooper has been the Curator of the Grand Lodge of Antient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland for 14 years. He lectures widely (in the UK and in many other countries) on Scottish Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, Rosslyn Chapel and associated subjects. He completed a three month round the world lecture tour in 2005. He is the author of: The Rosslyn Hoax?, Cracking the Freemason's Code, Freemasons, Templars and Gardeners (to name a few) as well as numerous articles published in newspapers, magazines and journals. He regularly appears on television an expert on Freemasonry and has featured on a number of radio programmes. Robert is a member of numerous Masonic bodies and research societies (including Quatuor Coronati Lodge - the oldest Lodge of Research in the world). He is married and lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.