The House of the Temple, the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, is an impressive and dignified edifice on Washington's 16th Street.

But about those crumbs. Besides editing the Scottish Rite magazine, Brent is the author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry." He was inspired to write it after "The Da Vinci Code" came ...

a Masonic historian, editor of the Scottish Rite Journal, and a 33rd degree Freemason. "This is an organization of believers," he said. "When it was started on a formal basis in 1717, many ...