This Statement, approved by Grand Lodge on 4th August 1949, is read aloud at the Annual Installation of Office Bearers Meeting of every Lodge holding of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

In August 1938 the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland each agreed upon and issued a statement identical in terms except that the name of the issuing Grand Lodge appeared throughout. This statement, which was entitled "Aims and Relationships of the Craft", was in the following terms:- 

1. From time to time the Grand Lodge of Scotland has deemed it desirable to set forth in precise form the aims of Freemasonry as consistently practised under its jurisdiction since it came into being as an organised body in 1736, and also to define the principles governing its relations with those other Grand Lodges with which it is in fraternal accord. 

2. In view of representations which have been received, and of statements recently issued which have distorted or obscured the true objects of Freemasonry, it is once again considered necessary to emphasise certain fundamental principles of the Order.

3. The first condition of admission into, and membership of, the Order is a belief in the Supreme Being. This is essential and admits of no compromise.  

4. The Bible, referred to by Freemasons as the Volume of the Sacred Law, is always open in the Lodges. Every candidate is required to take his obligation on that Book, or on the Volume which is held by his particular Creed to impart sanctity to an oath or promise taken upon it.  

5. Everyone who enters Freemasonry is, at the outset, strictly forbidden to countenance