about
Julian Rees was born in 1936, the son of an Anglo-Catholic priest and a libertarian American mother, into a household where languages were debated at the dinner table, books lined every wall, and the life of the mind was simply what one did. He grew up through wartime Dorset, postwar London, and a stint in the British Army in Berlin, gathering the kind of formation that cannot be taught in lodges but that lodges, eventually, know how to use.
​
He was initiated into Freemasonry in Kirby Lodge No. 2818, under the United Grand Lodge of England, in London in 1968, serving as its Master in 1976/77 and again at the Lodge's centenary in 1999/2000. He was also Master of the German-speaking Pilgrim Lodge No. 238 in 1978/79. From the outset, the ritual fascinated him not as performance but as portal. The symbols demanded interpretation. The words, he felt, meant something, and he was not content until he understood what.
Julian Rees is a holder of the Silver Matchbox Award of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, where he also served on the Precepting Committee, and was appointed Junior Grand Deacon of the United Grand Lodge of England in 2007. In 2003 he delivered the prestigious Wendel K Walker Memorial Lecture in New York, entitled Through Ritual to Enlightenment. He was one of the founding members of the Cornerstone Society, serving as Secretary for a number of years, and has given lectures and presentations to lodges across England, the United States, continental Europe, and Africa. He has been honoured by the Institut Maçonnique de France with the Ordre Maçonnique de Lafayette.
​
A regular contributor to the quarterly magazine Freemasonry Today since its founding in 1997, Julian Rees served as its Deputy and News Editor from 2003 to 2007. He has more recently written for The Square, England's independent Masonic journal, and serves as Editor of the Le Droit Humain publication for the UK, The Freemason. When the United Grand Lodge of England could no longer contain his convictions, he found a more congenial home in co-masonry, joining the International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women, Le Droit Humain, in 2011, where the pathway he had always sought was openly valued and women were welcome to walk it beside him.
​
His books have been translated into several languages and recognised internationally, most recently with the Arcana Veritas Distinction Award, presented by the Grand Master Mason Elect, Brother Alexander Moncrieff, at Freemasons' Hall, Edinburgh, on 26 November 2025.
​
​
​
​
​
​
A life in many colours, as he calls it. Warps and wefts of different textures, good influences and contrary ones, all of them, in the end, forming the man. He is still at work.
​
Making Light: A Handbook for Freemasons
The Stairway of Freemasonry: 30 Short Talks and Questions
So You Want to Be a Freemason?
The Tracing Boards of the Three Degrees in Craft Freemasonry Explained
Ornaments, Furniture and Jewels
More Light: Today's Freemasonry for Men and Women
Freemasonry for the Heart and Mind: Sketches from an Esoteric Notebook
Here Comes the Light!: Short Masonic Essays for Lodges
Les Rituels de la Franc-Maçonnerie Anglaise expliqués aux Français (Cépadès)
Franc-maçonnerie: le cœur et l'esprit (Cépadès)
A Life in Many Colours: A Masonic Memoir (forthcoming)
​
Julian Rees is currently a member of the International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women Le Droit Humain, in London.​​​
​
Image courtesy of the Grand Lodge of Scotland (@scotsmasons)
