Contrary to what people think about Masonic secrecy, over the centuries a number of books have revealed much about what goes on in lodges. Certainly Jeremy Cross was relied on as a crib for nervous officers when they put on degrees, and his readers were not just the curious, but the Freemasons themselves who wanted to improve their ritual work. Important as a source for Masonic activity in the mid nineteenth century, this volume makes a scarce title available to scholars. Despite very little education, Jeremy L. Cross rose to preeminence in Freemasonry in the early 1800s. He wrote this particular book in 1819 after witnessing "improper classification" of Masonic symbols at degree lectures. The book became a best seller and Cross became one of America's leading Masonic lecturers. Guillermo De Los Reyes is associate professor at the University of Houston and widely published on the influence of secret societies. Professor De Los Reyes is the author of Herencias Secretas, a history of Freemasonry in Mexico that will be forthcoming in an English edition. He is world president of Phi Beta Delta, the honor society for international scholarship.