Facilitating Purpose in Freemasonry

Some men were born to be Freemasons. A subset of them actually become Freemasons. A subset of those remain Freemasons. Why is that?

We all know men whom we know would make great Freemasons, and would enjoy the fraternity and craft on a deep and satisfying level, and yet they have no interest in joining. Some have never heard of Freemasonry. Some vaguely recollect that such a thing exists, but it has never registered to them as something worth considering. Some know what it is, but have not met a Freemason whom they'd like to be like (and the Fraternity usually ends up molding men into certain forms, the deeper they commit themselves to the moral and symbolic practice of the Craft). Some know Freemasons whom they admire and whom they know to be Freemasons, but have not overcome the inertia that comes with starting a new endeavor. Some want very much to be Freemasons someday, but not yet.

Some men become Freemasons, but never find any kinship within their lodge, and eventually stop attending, and later stop paying dues. Some men dive in deep, volunteer for everything, join every appendant and concordant body they discover, and burn themselves out. Some rise up the chairs, and do the duties of each office with great integrity, and discover a deficit between what other brothers' commitments are and their own, and grow resentful, and leave. Some run smack into a wall.

Sometimes that wall is a lodge's resistance to changing structures that might not be working effectively anymore. Sometimes that wall is a cabal of grumpy Past Masters who refuse to relinquish control even when they are no longer serving the lodge well. Sometimes that wall is a series of procedures and protocols that seem to exist to impose arbitrary authority rather than to help men practice Freemasonry.

I was born to do mathematics, and yet I dropped out of my Ph.D. program. Why?

I was an ace in mathematics in high school, and majored in math during my freshman year of college, but my math department was too small, and they couldn't teach me the kind of math I wanted to learn, so I dropped out of school. When I went back to college, it was as an English major because I know I could find the kinds of teachers I wanted in English.

Years later, I went to graduate school to get a teaching certificate. On the first day of school, the administrators told me that the schools were glutted with English teachers, but had a bad shortage of math teachers, and if I were willing to change my subject matter, they would give me financial aid incentives. I switched to math, and started taking math classes on the side. One math teacher told me that with my aptitude for math, I should consider doing work in mathematics. I took all the classes required for a major in pure mathematics in five quarters, and then entered a Master's degree program in math.

In my Master's program, I had brilliant, inspiring teachers who helped me reach a significant level of mathematical maturity. When I entered my Ph.D. program, I ran smack into a wall.

I was 32. Everyone else in the first year of my program was 22, and had come directly from a Bachelor's program. My school had no idea how to teach me math, and had no idea how to allow me to do math on my own. There were a series of comprehensive exams on various subjects, with exam questions that were very, very difficult but not always very relevant to the kind of math we were actually going to do. The entire focus of the first two years was to get the students through those comprehensive exams.

I was treated as if I didn't know any mathematics except what my professors taught me at that school. My intellectual curiosity was irrelevant. My previous experiences were irrelevant. My purpose for studying mathematics was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was passing the exams.

Also, socially, the 22-year-olds I encountered had never had any social interactions with people not their own age. I would have conversations with classmates, and in the middle of the conversation realize that they were flailing because they didn't know how to talk to a grownup. The age gap of ten years, while irrelevant to me, was a big deal to most of them, a gap they couldn't really cross.

I got lonely and frustrated and deeply depressed. Although I had a profound aptitude for doing mathematics, I never felt I belonged the whole time I was working on my Ph.D. I was in the strange situation of having the stated purpose, doing mathematics, which I felt and still feel I was born to do, be irrelevant to my survival at the school. Once that divorce became too explicit, I dropped out.

Freemasonry should be about doing Freemasonry. Freemasonry is a powerful psychological and spiritual system that uses symbolism, memorization, ritual and introspection to transform men's lives for the better. It inculcates true brotherhood, a profound reverence for Deity, a feeling of charity, and makes good men better by its technique. But it is a hazard of the fraternity that extenuating circumstances that have nothing to do with doing Freemasonry often drive men out of the Fraternity.

This can happen at the lodge level, at the Grand Lodge level, or even through an appendant or concordant body. Conversely, any one of these bodies can bring a Mason back to the practice of Freemasonry, and remind him why he joined.

I read about Grand Lodges piling up edicts, rulings, requirements, and prohibitions that really have nothing to do with doing Freemasonry. I see lodges where men are more obsessed with minutiae than with character or brotherhood. We all know lodges where the inclusion of a new 25-year-old Mason would change the culture of the lodge too dramatically. I see lodges where one corrupt Master or secretary chokes the life out of the lodge, and makes each meeting about knuckling under to them rather than doing Freemasonry. We all know men who have been Masons for decades without ever doing any Freemasonry.

Lightfoot rightly warned us that lodges often make it impossible to do Freemasonry within the lodge. We have other structures, like research lodges and lodges of instruction or exemplification, wherein it might be harder to do Freemasonry. We have rules and requirements that might on paper look like they are helping, but in practice alienate men from the actual Craft of Freemasonry. If men feel bullied or pressured or coerced into attendance or participation, why would they continue to volunteer? If you squeeze the Freemasonry out of their Freemasonry, what have you given them?

If you don't give brothers sufficient opportunities to do Freemasonry, you will alienate them and they will leave.

Often with a broken heart, because they were born to do Freemasonry.

Jewel P. Lightfoot's Manual of the Lodge.

Jewel P. Lightfoot was Grand Master of Masons of Texas in 1915. In 1934, he was asked by the Grand Lodge to prepare a manual about Freemasonry to go with the ritual monitor then being distributed in the Grand Lodge of Texas. The result was so outstanding that four decades of Texas Freemasons received the Manual of the Lodge when they were raised as Master Masons, and the profound effect of this remarkable book continues to resonate to this day. As far as I am aware, the last printing was in 1972. The full title of the book is Lightfoot's Manual of the Lodge: With Ancient Ceremonies and Commentaries. I bought my copy on Amazon.com, but your Grand Lodge library should have a copy.

Lightfoot begins with a ritual monitor, which includes the ritual for constituting and consecrating a new lodge, a corner-stone laying ceremony, a masonic burial service (including the graveside ceremony), and the installation ceremony both for Grand Lodge and for subordinate lodges. The second half of the book are assorted commentaries about the symbols of Freemasonry. Here is where we see Lightfoot shine as a Masonic author and orator. The commentaries begin with the following diagram:

I want to share with you an extended quote that Lightfoot shares with the reader in the section about The Temple. This is from an address he gave before a session of the Grand Lodge of Texas, when he was Grand Orator, in 1911.

"But stately and magnificent as [The Temple of Solomon] was, it but symbolized a grander and more wondrous Temple—the Temple of the Human Soul—a sublimer creation than ever arose on earth—a higher expression of creative skill, not only than the Temple of Solomon, but also than the temple of the material universe.

The soul possesses more resources of design; more intricate and wonderful harmonies are displayed in it, than in the inter-play of suns and systems. Orion, sculptured in light on the black walls of space, fades into a mere firefly pageant when compared to this matchless Temple which sprung from the Soul of the Infinite, is robed with His Own Beauty and Majesty, and endowed with His Own Immortality.

Not only is this Temple grander in structure and sublimer in outline than the Temple built by Solomon, but it transcends it in its nature. The Temple of Solomon had to stand as he built it. It could not enlarge itself; it could not enhance the stately ornamentation with which he had beautified it; it could not lift its mighty roof to the sky, and when its massive walls and polished pillars began to yield to the touch of time, it could not repair its wastes, or fill in its losses; but the living Temple of the soul does all this. It enlarges its sweep and sway, and even builds the imperfect work of the past into statelier achievements of the future.

But do you think we have yet seen its highest achievements and its qualities robed in their brightest glory?

Why, we have just began to mount the steps of the portico of this Temple and to catch dim visions of the transcendent glories within.

Language is of far too small a compass to voice its divinest harmonies, and only when transported from the imperfections of earth, we shall stand amid the circumstances and scenery, potent to awaken its latent susceptibilities, shall we ever know the slumbering, yet wondrous powers and capacities of the human soul."

Very inspiring.

Becoming a Mason: What's the Worst That Could Happen?

I originally wrote this in 2009, and at the time I was not willing to publish it for fear that I would offend my brothers. I posted a different version of this on another website in 2010, but after reworking it, I decided to publish it here. In the interests of full disclosure, I belong to three Blue Lodges, a Royal Arch Chapter, a Council of Allied Masonic Degrees, two Scottish Rite Valleys, a Shrine Temple, and two scholarly societies, and none of these organizations is as bad as the fictitious lodge in this essay. Different bodies in Freemasonry are functioning on different levels, and I am lucky enough to belong to some truly outstanding Masonic organizations. The mediocre experiences I have had only strengthen my appreciation of the stellar experiences I have had, and strengthen my resolve to improve those organizations in which I can make a difference.

You study Freemasonry as an outsider, and read about Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Mozart, George Washington, Paul Revere, and other great masonic heroes. You read about Masonic Presidents and Supreme Court Justices, and about masonic scholarship. You read Wilmshurst, Mackey, Pike and others, and learn our beautiful masonic philosophy. You visit your Grand Lodge, and see the beautiful building with glorious rooms in it. You learn that your favorite great-uncle, since deceased, was a mason. You work up the courage to visit your local masonic lodge.

Either a friend brings you by to meet the Worshipful Master, or you cold-call the lodge secretary, or you visit the lodge on Square and Compasses Day. In an event, you make first contact. The mysterious facade has been penetrated, and now you find yourself looking around the lodge room on a guided tour, or sitting at a table with an application in front of you, and a mason explaining to you some of the basics he thinks you need to hear before he’ll accept your petition.

Let’s say the room hasn't been dusted in a while. Behind the man talking to you is a shelf with masonic regalia, plaques, trophies and such, aged through disuse, the most recent piece of which is from the 1970s or 1980s. The man talking to you tells you a few facts that seem to contradict what you read in Freemasonry For Dummies, or The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry, or what you read on this or other websites. Maybe you ask to talk to other brethren, and they take a really long time to call you back, or don’t return your calls at all. You are astonished at how slack everything seems.

Months go by, and the lodge writes you a letter to tell you that the lodge voted you a candidate, and gives you the date for your Entered Apprentice degree, and tells you to put on a suit and tie. You show up early for your degree, and the officers are scrambling to get everything ready. Some of the brethren are in t-shirts and jeans, and others are wearing polo shirts and khakis, but only a few non-officers are wearing ties. One officer asks you some formal questions, but gets the words wrong, grabs a little book, and reads you the questions out of the book. You are put through the degree work, and you hear the officers stumble with the ritual. A few times you are suddenly halted and jerked in another direction. You can hear giggling, talking, and even hear a cell phone ring and get answered during the degree. Most of the lectures are delivered haltingly, with another voice giving verbal hints when the lines get flubbed. The first part of the degree work ends, and you all shuffle to another room where there is cold pizza and warm Mr. Pibb waiting for you on folding tables and chairs for your dinner. You are fighting back a wave of disappointment.

You go back for the second half of the degree, and it’s even worse. The focus of the room is scattered: not on the degree being done, not on the Worshipful Master, and not on anything in particular. Someone on the sidelines openly mocks an officer’s delivery of one of the lectures, and nobody stops him from doing so. Mercifully, it ends after a while, and one of the officers introduces himself as your degree coach. You are given stuff to memorize with his help, and everyone leaves in a hurry. The brothers clamor into their cars, causing a traffic jam in the parking lot for 20 minutes before you get home to your wife, asking you how it went.

You meet once with your degree coach, who doesn't actually know the stuff you have to memorize, and confidentially tells you that “it’s all BS, anyway.” As much as you want to learn the lecture, nobody really helps, but nobody really cares how badly you do. As sure as clockwork, you are given the next two degrees, and before you know it, you are a Master Mason (even though you don’t feel like you know anything, or deserve the honor), and a member of this lodge. Brothers pull you aside and warn you not to listen to other brethren in the lodge “who don’t really get it.” You wonder where the Brotherly Love is.

You get handed a partially filled-out application each from the local Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, the local Shrine Temple, and the local Scottish Rite valley, with brethren bickering in front of you over who gets to sponsor you. In attempting to persuade you, one of the brethren tells you that blue lodge is stupid anyway, and that the real action happens in his appendant body. And a group of guys with gold thingies dangling from their breast pockets ask you to be Junior Warden next year, and you’re not really sure what that is, and whether or not you should.

The first meeting you attend with no degree work has a number of officers' chairs empty, and maybe 2-3 other brethren present. The minutes get read, there is a business meeting where venomous bickering erupts over whether to pay for needed repairs for the building, and then the lodge is closed. Many of the brethren go to a local bar afterwards, but you are not invited. Standing alone in the parking lot of the lodge, you wonder why you bothered.

You want to visit another lodge, even though you are terrified that the Tyler there will discover how little you know, and turn you away at the door. You visit another lodge, either out-of-state, or elsewhere in your state or district and find that these brothers are doing something altogether different from your mother lodge. You present your valid dues card and in this case are fortunate enough to gain entry that way without stricter examination. The lodge room building is clean without being sterile. You are greeted right away, and introduced to the officers and brethren. The brothers behave as if they genuinely like each other, and socialize outside of lodge. The ritual is crisp and solemn without being pedantic. A lecturer gives a fascinating talk that keeps the brethren engaged throughout, and the discussion over dinner reveals that the brethren are well-read about masonic subjects. The festive board is generous and lighthearted, and things look a lot more like how you pictured the fraternity when you first joined. You go back to your mother lodge and relate your experiences, and are immediately told that there is no way that your mother lodge is ever going to make any serious changes. “This is the way this has always been done here.” You realize that none of the brethren of your mother lodge have visited another lodge in a long time, and have no interest in how other masons do masonry.

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This is clearly a worst-case scenario, and no lodge I know of is this bad. I am not describing any particular lodge here, and certainly not describing any particular person. Most of these horrors come one by one from discussions on internet forums, descriptions of lodges since gone dark, and isolated events. Truth be told, if this description were my experience of masonry, I would not still be a mason. Still, there are individual things I have described above that would be enough to persuade a new mason, should he experience them, to demit from his mother lodge.

Why, then, do I paint this ugly caricature? Because if you think your entry into Freemasonry is going to be absolutely perfect, you might be disappointed. We are all rough ashlars, striving to be perfect ashlars, but not every mason, nor every lodge, strives with equal facility. You will come across institutionalized shortcomings in some lodges. We don’t all have this process perfect yet. Most of you will not have to face any of these things, but I want those who do to know that it’s not the end of the world for you as a mason.

The amazing thing is that a lodge can be as bad as I describe, and be turned around and made great. Really. Masons want to be good masons, they really do, as long as you don’t paint them as bad masons first. A WM can deliver sloppy ritual and still be a great leader, or be an impeccable ritualist and be a terrible leader. A lodge can be sloppy and still have true brotherhood and camaraderie. A mason can behave boorishly in a tyled lodge and still give you the shirt off his back when you are in distress, and conversely, a mason can be elegant, solemn and proper, and not lift a finger to save you when you are in trouble. Both are subadequate masons, but a mason is obliged to cultivate a lot of different high qualities, and while few manage to cultivate them all, far fewer still fail to cultivate any.

If you are new, you don’t know what troubles your lodge has faced in the past. Your lodge may be broke. A few years beforehand, your lodge may have had a feud that made half the lodge demit. Your lodge might have butted heads with the DDGM or Grand Master, and come out much the worse for the conflict. Your lodge may have a small group of brothers doing everything they can to keep the lodge from going dark, and have been doing so for decades, and are now totally burned out. But the lodge has survived, and now that you are a mason, has at least a puff of new life breathed into it.

If your lodge is not initiating many candidates (and it won’t if it’s a mess), you will be more important as one of the few new bloods. If you can get your friends to join, with eyes wide open as to what they are going to find, some of you will join the officer’s line in short time, and you can make sure to do your roles properly, to greet the brethren warmly as they enter, to prepare better meals, to keep the lodge regalia in better condition. You can learn your lectures cold and offer to teach them to new candidates. You can help set the mood of the lodge with your enthusiasm.

If the guys currently in line are eager to get out, they will hand their chairs to whoever really wants them. If you collectively hold lodge meetings that would attract interesting people, the interesting people will come to lodge. I have learned that nearly every mason is hungry for good masonic education. Point out something interesting about a line in the lecture he may have never considered before, and you will awaken in him why he first knocked on the West Gate. If he sees your new wonder about our ritual, often it will rekindle his own enthusiasm for it.

The right new man sitting in the East can invigorate the lodge, at least for the year or two that he has the Oriental Chair. If he wants the enthusiasm to continue, it’s up to his Wardens to continue the changes, and the Deacons and Stewards to keep the new spirit going.

If you demonstrate that you care about the lodge, warts and all, others will step aside to allow you to act upon your enthusiasm. If you love to cook, offer to cook the communal meal. If you love events, offer to organize an event for your lodge. If you love ritual, you can make your part excellent, and if an officer, you can ensure that those beneath you in line do their parts well. With enough work, with enough passionate brethren you help to bring in and instruct, you can turn the lodge around. And by so doing, you are demonstrating your true worthiness to assume the leadership of the lodge. As glorious as it is to join a top-notch lodge, it is far more glorious to help transform a mediocre lodge into an awesome lodge.

Talking to Massachusetts masons, I've heard of or seen half a dozen lodges undergo this transformation, and noticed that the ones that don’t undergo this transformation, and remain sub-exceptional, go dark or merge with better lodges. Mediocrity is a tar-pit—either the lodge pulls itself out, or gets sucked under. It is a mason’s duty to do what he can to improve his mother lodge before he asks for a demit. No lodge is perfect, and making your mother lodge better is every mason’s job as long as he remains a member. If you, after due trial, lose a firm conviction that your lodge will ever be suitable for you, find a lodge you like, demit from your mother lodge and join theirs. It happens all the time. Don’t judge our whole fraternity based on one lodge at one point in time.

The absolute worst case scenario a candidate can find himself in is to get initiated an EA only to find that nobody at the lodge knows the EA lecture. He can’t take the FC degree, and doesn’t know how to demit and join another lodge (and some Grand Lodges won’t let him do that before MM), so he’s in EA limbo until he quits in disgust. A lodge that avoids this predicament by letting the EA fudge the lecture is hardly better. Fortunately, very few lodges in the USA are this bad, and if you fear that the lodge you visit might be this bad, I strongly suggest that you knock elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with asking the lodge during the application process if they can guarantee that there are enough degree coaches who know the lectures to get you through to MM. Unless you submit an application somewhere, you can visit as many lodges as you like before you apply. Shop around and find one that suits you.

Fat Freemasons

I went to the doctor's office today, and I am heavier than I have ever been before. My Body Mass Index (BMI) is above 42. When I became a mason, it was 34. I'm not blaming Freemasonry. I've been as high as 41 previously, before I was a mason, and I've been as low as 26 (when I was doing martial arts training 3-5 days a week in preparation for my aikido brown belt test). But today, it's dangerously high. Coupled with morbid obesity is hypertension, depression, compound obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver, erectile dysfunction, knee problems, circulation problems, pre-diabetic symptoms, and a guarantee that years of living this way will lead to diabetes, heart disease, risk of colon cancer, risk of stroke or aneurysm, dramatic shortening of life.

I look around, and I see a lot of fat masons. It's often said that you will gain 10-20 pounds in your year in the East, and it's equally often said that being District Deputy Grand Master will cause you to gain 25 pounds. We like dinners. We like banquets. When other people are at the gym, we are at Chapter, or Scottish Rite rehearsal, or at a Shrine unit meeting, or at a hall association meeting, or some other masonic event. We look around, and we see other fat masons, and we feel at home. Every year, a few of us succumb to heart disease, renal failure, colon cancer, or a stroke, and the rest of us shrug it off.

We are a fraternity. We are a band of brothers. Some of us are living unhealthy lifestyles, and because so many of us are, we don't seem to mind, or even notice. We regard any suggestion that we are being unhealthy as intrusive. We regard the fraternity as a refuge from scolding, a shelter from real-world concerns, and yet the Black Camel is waiting for each of us. Our ritual is scattered with so many symbols of memento mori that we really ought to prick up our ears and take notice.

If there existed an exclusive appendant body (say, the Knights of the Gazelle) that required a mason to keep a BMI under 30, a lot of masons would scramble to lose weight. If you could not become a Warden or Master if your BMI was over 35, you'd have a lot of dieting masons. If you could never become a District Deputy Grand Master if your blood pressure was above 140/100, all ambitious masons would diet and exercise and take blood pressure medication.

We know what motivates the men in our fraternity. Titles, decorations, accolades, exclusive organizations with limited membership, peer confirmation; all of these drive men to exert themselves.

We also know that peer group weight loss structures, like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, also work better than dieting alone.

So I am throwing down the gauntlet. I hereby declare my intention to form the Knights of the Gazelle (I'll take a better name if offered). Provided that I get Grand Lodge permission if required, it will be open to any masons who want to lose weight. Once it gets up and running, we can discuss opening up the Ladies of the Gazelle (for women in the Masonic family) and Squires of the Gazelle (for children in the Masonic family). We will base the content on Weight Watchers (or something better if better technology exists), have confidential meetings backed by Masonic secrecy. and progress reports. Chapters will collectively record BMI points lost, and different chapters can compete to see which chapters can lose the most BMI points. We can consult with lodge cooks to ensure that healthy options are provided at lodge meals for Knights of the Gazelle. Nobody would be required to join us, but if they do, we will welcome them, encourage them, and help them get to a healthy BMI.

Let's use the power of fraternalism to save our lives, and improve the quality of our lives, and to ensure healthier outcomes for us. Let's use existing masonic structures to help us stave off the Black Camel. After all, dead masons pay no dues. It's in everyone's interest to keep us around and keep us healthy.

Please feel free to steal this idea, provided you use it for good.

The Necessity of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic

No Masonic lodge would allow an Entered Apprentice to become a Master Mason without passing to the degree of Fellowcraft first. It would be unimaginable to proceed otherwise. One of the Working Tools of an Entered Apprentice is the Common Gavel, which we use to divest our hearts and consciences of the vices and superfluities of life; thereby fitting our minds, as living stones, for that spiritual building, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There is a suitable proficiency in the use of this tool which is required of us before we can be passed, and our conductor vouches for us that we have that suitable proficiency.

In the Fellowcraft degree, we are taught about the seven liberal arts and sciences, that we should engage with in constant study. There is a certain peril in making the transition from Operative Masonry to Speculative Masonry. Stones can be tried objectively by the square, but men cannot always be so tried, even though the candidate lecture of the Fellowcraft invites us to do so. In making the transition from Operative to Speculative Masonry, we still try each living stone, only with the Working Tools of a Fellowcraft in their speculative usages, rather than their operative usages. No mason should be offended at being tried, as he has been ever tried, never denied, and ready to be tried again.

An Operative Freemason works in stone. A Speculative Freemason works on himself. At the Entered Apprentice level, he works on the guttural, pectoral, manual, and pedal levels. At the Fellowcraft level, he works on the verbal and intellectual levels. At the Master Mason level, he works on the spiritual level. If he fails to work on the guttural, pectoral, manual and pedal levels, he cannot be a fit subject for the lessons of the Fellowcraft. Similarly, if he fails to work on the verbal and intellectual levels, he cannot be a fit subject for the lessons of the Master Mason. This science is progressive, and indeed must be so.

The seven liberal arts and sciences are divided into the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The Trivium is a prerequisite for the Quadrivium. A man who fails to master the Trivium cannot be a Fellowcraft, let alone a Master Mason.

Grammar is the study of the structure of language, and the way that language conveys meaning. Without a serious study of grammar, we cannot assume that we are capable of conveying meaning through language. Language is complicated, ambiguous, frustrating, challenging. That is why it takes a lifetime of study. Language is a powerful tool, and as Masons, we insist that our brethren master the use of their tools. Words have meaning, whether we want them to or not. Syntax conveys meaning, whether we want it to or not. Human beings have the option of vomiting out strings of words (or things they wish were words) artlessly without any care as to how they are received and understood. But Masons do not have that option, not if they want to remain fellows of the Craft.

That leads to rhetoric, or the art of fashioning language to convey meaning, of moving the hearts and minds of those who receive our language, and ultimately, persuading them that we have something valid to convey. Men, and especially Masons, have strong opinions because we are intelligent men brought in close proximity with other intelligent men of very diverse backgrounds, faiths, political opinions, and educations. It is natural that, as much as we use the trowel to best agree, we sometimes will not agree. Rhetoric teaches us how to make our cases as Masons, and not as bullies nor as petulant children.

Rhetoric is neutral. It can be used for good, or it can be used for evil, as any propagandist knows. But Masons are committed to truth, and logic is the study of how to test our ideas for their truth value. Rhetorical logic (I would consider mathematical logic to be a different subject, better covered under arithmetic in the scheme of the seven liberal arts and sciences) is the study of how to fail to convey the truth verbally, by studying logical fallacies. Because a Mason values the truth above all else, when confronted with a fallacy, he divests his heart and conscience of it, as the dross he needs to leave behind in order to be a living stone fit for the Master's use.

A Mason who eschews these lessons is as contemptible as one who eschews our other virtues, make no mistake. A bus driver who does not know whether or not he cannot safely operate his bus but drives it anyway is a menace. A Mason who does not know whether or not his words have meaning cannot be responsible for his words, and words have launched wars, shaped nations, saved or damned souls, and have erected new sciences. A Mason who cannot sway the hearts and minds of others through his words will forever be thought a fool, and we should not be at the making of a Mason of a fool. A Mason who does not know whether or not his ideas are true, and declines to test them for their truth value, and yet persists in those ideas is a man who cannot value truth. This puts him in spiritual peril, and demonstrates that he eschews our other virtues—virtues more immediately obviously moral in nature.

To try a Fellowcraft is not to insult him but to honor him. You will not be the first, nor the last, to do so. If he is also a Master Mason, then his brethren have vouched for his proficiency. It makes liars of us all if he claims honors in the Craft that he has not yet earned.

I am adamant about this. A Mason who makes simple grammatical errors shows his contempt towards Freemasonry by doing so. A Mason who does not rise above cliché and uttered banalities he repeats from others shows his contempt towards Freemasonry by doing so. A mason who persists in ideas and sentiments that are logically false shows his contempt towards Freemasonry for doing so. We are all rough ashlars striving to perfect ourselves. But a Mason who does not strive to perfect himself stops being a Mason, and this includes every part of the Masonic curriculum, including the seven liberal arts and sciences. Not every Mason has studied atonal counterpoint or gravitational redshift, even though we strive to learn music and astronomy. But a Mason who defends his ignorance shows his contempt for Masonry by doing so.

We can try a Fellowcraft by his attitude towards what he does not yet know. The necessity of a virtuous education is stressed throughout our ritual. This education did not end when we left our respective schools; it continues as long as we remain conscious.

Some of us were educated men before we ever became Masons. Some of us never received a basic education and are called upon to learn now what we never learned before. Masons meet on the level; but not because we insist on a baseline mediocrity in our members. We meet on the level because we each strive to be worthy of our brothers, with zeal and humility. William Preston was an orphan who taught himself, and yet he became the framer of our Craft Degrees. Benjamin Franklin came from similarly humble circumstances. Freemasonry demands daily improvement, no matter what our starting points are, and the results of daily improvement are notable, whereas the results of inertia discredit our Craft.

Each of us is a walking advertisement for the Craft. A Masonic communication riddled with spelling and grammatical errors embarrasses the Fraternity as a whole, not merely because it reveals us as ignorant men; but because it reveals us as men who profess to value the very arts we demonstrate that we do not value.

Response to 2B1ASK1

There seems to be a yet another advertising pitch that tells the potential candidate for the privileges of Masonry: "All you have to do is ask." Last night, a friend from the UK had a banner posted on Facebook with such a sentiment. I gently pointed out that asking is necessary but not sufficient. A clear ballot and suitable proficiency in the degrees carries one into sufficiency. A profane friend of his snarkily pointed out that I had burst my friend and brother's bubble, and shown the Mason's "true colors", that while my friend had a vague, friendly and encouraging sentiment, I showed that we were actually something less friendly. My friend's response was to remove the banner and all comments from his page before I could post the first paragraph below as a response. I decided to post it here, along with some further observations.

In Masonry, all worthy men are welcome. This worthiness is not based on class, race, particular religion, political inclination, profession, or any other extenuating factor, but on the quality of a man's character. We don't want evil men in the Craft. We also don't want good men who want to be in the Craft to sit around waiting for decades for someone to recruit them. Freemasonry was never intended to be for all men, regardless of how awful they are. Black cubes exist for a reason. Knaves are unwelcome. Intolerance of knavery shows our true colors. Accepting all good God-fearing men as Brothers under a common Father shows our true colors. Any advertising campaign in Masonry is predicated on the fact that good men want to find us, and in every age have found us, and found each other through us.

Evil men occasionally get in, and can cause a lot of damage before they are removed. That's why the application and the investigation and the ballot are crucial.

It is no criticism to call us exclusive or elitist or not welcoming of all men. The Craft of Freemasonry can do nothing for those souls too damaged to engage in decent social intercourse with other men. Our system only works on men who seek to be good, and have some measure of goodness already. It was not built to redeem the fallen, but to hone and sharpen the goodness of those good men who earnestly seek to improve. Dante populates Limbo with those souls who never did anything good or evil enough in life to merit paradise nor damnation. The Fraternity can do nothing with those souls destined for Limbo. And yet the Limbo-bound seem the most vocal about our exclusivity and perceived elitism.

Men who are Freemasons are quite capable of sin and error, and Freemasonry will not save us from our mistakes. The moral lessons of our Craft are useless if ignored, misapplied or forgotten, and not every Mason is capable of heeding the particular moral lesson he needs the most in a given moment. We make no claims towards salvation, but leave such questions to a man's individual faith. We do strive to present a peer group of men among whom each of us has to work hard to be worthy of being with, and yet each of us strives this way. It is reciprocal, and iron sharpens iron.

Anyone who thinks that every man should be a Master Mason would do well to notice, next time he attends lodge, the man standing outside the lodge door armed with a sword. He should run his hands through a ballot box and notice that the black cubes sit there with the white balls. He should ask himself why he was investigated before being balloted upon.

And the so-called Mason who is ashamed of the Tyler, who apologizes to the profane world for the Tyler and his crucial job, without which the lodge could not exist, is not a Mason in his heart. It will never be necessary for the profane world to understand why the Tyler stands outside the lodge room with a naked sword. He exists for us, not them.

Another Visit to the Scottish Rite Valley of Guthrie

I am a member of the Scottish Rite. I knew I wanted to be a Scottish Rite Mason before I became a Mason. The reputation of the Scottish Rite as the University of Freemasonry extends into the profane world, and a person who might know nothing else about Freemasonry knows what the 33° represents, and that a man who has earned the 33° is worthy of respect. When my father heard that I had earned the 32° six months after I took my Entered Apprentice degree, he told me that the Fraternity must have been profoundly impressed with me to have given me such a high honor so quickly. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I took a one-day class, and had only taken six of the 29 degrees under the Scottish Rite's jurisdiction.

I joined the Scottish Rite in the Valley of Boston, Massachusetts. I took the 4° (Secret Master), 14° (Grand Elect Mason), 16° (Prince of Jerusalem), 18° (Knight Rose-Croix), 21° (Prussian Knight), and 32° (Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret) in a full day. The Scottish Rite degrees are theatrical, and I was not an exemplar in any of them. They are performed in a theater, by actors on a stage, and in many of the degrees, a candidate, called an exemplar, is selected from the class of candidates and brought onto the stage to be part of the drama. I was given a passport with a page for each of the 29 degrees, and the six degrees I observed were stamped and dated in my passport. Years later, I still have not filled more than half of the pages in my passport. Many degrees are difficult to perform, and the rituals of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction change often, so it is difficult to observe all the degrees without years of hunting down the more obscure degrees. Boston will perform the 17° (Knight of the East and West) degree for the first time in many years this April, and we anticipate a very large turnout to see this rare degree.

In the Southern Jurisdiction, the degrees are arranged in story arcs, sometimes forming a single narrative, but more often in thematic blocs. The choice of the arrangement of the degrees is very deliberate, and is designed to initiate and instruct the candidate in a particular way, revealing many subtle concepts in a precise order to maximize the effect it has on the candidate. So the Southern Jurisdiction degrees, which come from Albert Pike, the most influential Sovereign Grand Commander in their history. He intended the degrees to form a complete system, and they do.

Because of this, the Scottish Rite Masons in the Southern Jurisdiction study their degrees long after they have first taken them, in order to sound the depths of what they have experienced. Because the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction degrees are more individuated, and change often, fewer people study their degrees, and it is harder to do so even if more people did. Books on the degrees would be obsoleted very quickly, and so the South is at an advantage when it comes to Scottish Rite Masonic education.

Learning this, I became a student of the Southern Jurisdiction degrees, even though my mother Jurisdiction is Northern. I took a correspondence course through the House of the Temple, called the Master Craftsman program, and completed it six months later. I then took a course through the Valley of Guthrie, Oklahoma, called the College of the Consistory, which is far more in depth. There is a 1500 word essay required for each of the 29 degrees, with a minimum completion time of five years, although I am not aware that anyone has yet completed the course in its entirety.

It was as a student of the College of the Consistory that I was invited by my instructors to visit Guthrie, Oklahoma, and see the all of the degrees performed over a three-day weekend. I talked a few friends into joining me, and last year, we arrived and observed all 29 degrees in a marathon session over several days. Very few Valleys perform all the degrees, and still fewer do so every year. It is an astonishingly difficult task. Over four hundred men work on the degrees, including actors, costumers, make-up artists, set designers, musicians, and set crew. There are innkeepers who manage the hundreds of beds where the brethren stay, there are men managing the shops that sell books, regalia, gifts, and a snack bar, there are service groups that manage the registration of the hundreds of Scottish Rite Masons who visit, educators who instruct the candidates, and many more people who work very hard to put on 29 excellent performances over the three-day weekend.

Guthrie has become the Alexandria of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, and Scottish Rite Masons from all over the USA visit every Spring, along with some foreign Scottish Rite Masons as well. It is not unusual to meet in Guthrie men who have seen all the degrees in succession a dozen times or more. The level of Masonic knowledge, scholarship, understanding and wisdom is unparalleled anywhere else. It was my great honor after my first visit to be made a member of the Valley of Guthrie, and I wear my membership badge with deep pride. I say this with all due love and respect for the Valley of Boston, but the two organizations are providing different experiences, and neither would presume to deliver what the other one does so well.

This year, I brought five new brothers from the Valley of Boston with me so that they could experience the degrees for themselves. Brethren attended from 19 different US States, 24 arriving from the Valley of Pasadena, California alone. I made such good friends on my last visit, and we have stayed in touch via phone, email and Facebook, so it was very easy to pick things up where we left off last year, and my friends from Boston found it just as easy to make friends as I did, and we made a lot of new friends this year as well.

In the basement of the Scottish Rite Temple at Guthrie is a smoking room, and on a given evening after the degree work is done, it is not unusual to see a group of brethren, in leather chairs and sofas, with cigars in hand, discussing together some subtle point in William Preston's ritual, or in the writings of Albert Pike, or in the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, or the theology of Origen. Or telling a hilarious story of something funny that happened to them over the last year. There is a lot of philosophy and a lot of laughter in the smoking room. Things I discussed last year gnawed at me all year, and I was very pleased to have, in a year of study since, some answers to the questions generated by last year's conversations. And it is ironic that I came home last night with an entirely new set of questions to ponder for another year.

This year, there were roughly fifty candidates. The candidates are required to attend every one of the 29 degrees offered, and attendance is taken before every degree. The result is a marathon experience that they never forget. There was candidate education, member education, and meditation classes in the mornings and during the lunch breaks and in the evenings. The most venerable and distinguished scholars in the Valley stayed around after the degree work each night to take questions from the brethren about anything in the degree work, and whatever could be gleaned about their deeper meanings.

Leaving the Temple after the degree work has ended is like the last day of summer camp. Brothers exchange contact information and stay in touch over the year, eager to be re-united the following Spring.

Men have sold all their possessions, and journeyed to the remotest parts of Tibet or Samarkand or Timbuktu in search of knowledge and wisdom. They have devoted years of study and meditation in remote monasteries and ashrams, or in universities. Pythagoras traveled to Asia, Africa, and Europe, and was initiated into several orders of priesthood. How much simpler it is to persuade one's employers to let him take Thursday and Friday off and travel to Oklahoma (and if he is truly wise, the following Monday to decompress). There is a renaissance in Freemasonry, and there are places where the Craft zings and hums with zeal and fervency and penetrating Masonic light. It is only fitting that we travel to where the light shines brightest, and bring home with us what light we can bear and convey.

Installed in the East

Last night, I was installed as Worshipful Master of Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge in Medford, MA. Two weeks ago, I attended a Lodge of Qualification, and took the Chair Degree. This degree is very old: there are records of it being performed going back to the 1730s. It stands in a grey area in Freemasonry in that Blue Lodge Freemasonry comprises three degrees, and this is not one of the three, and yet it is required for anyone who would be Worshipful Master of a Masonic Lodge. William Preston, in his Order of Harodim (his idealized versions of the Blue Lodge degree), offers five degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow of the Craft, Master Mason, Past Master, and Holy Royal Arch. In its earliest days, the Holy Royal Arch degree had as a prerequisite that the candidate be an Installed Master (either a sitting Worshipful Master or a Past Master). As the appeal of the Holy Royal Arch spread, lodges were installing Worshipful Masters merely as a bureaucratic measure before Exalting them in the Royal Arch degree. Some lodges in the 18th century were reprimanded for installing six or more Worshipful Masters in a night.

To mitigate this, a Virtual Past Master degree was designed as a substitute for the Chair degree, and this solution is the way the contemporary York Rite handles the requirement in the Royal Arch degree. While I have been elected to Cambridge Royal Arch Chapter in Cambridge, MA, I have yet to take any degrees, so I say this without any direct knowledge, but I have been told there is some overlap between the Chair degree and the Virtual Past Master degree. I made a conscious decision not to take the Virtual Past Master degree until after I had taken the Chair degree. Readers of this blog know that I am extremely active in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, both in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction and the Southern Jurisdiction in the United States. I actually joined Freemasonry intending to be a Scottish Rite Freemason. When I first learned of the York Rite, I was disinclined to join due to the Christian requirement in the Knights Templar order. (To be honest, there are many Jews who have become Knights Templar. The obligation requires a Sir Knight to lift a sword in the defense of Christianity. I know many brothers who regard the Order of the Temple degree as the single most beautiful and inspiring and impressive degree in all of Freemasonry. That being said, and with all due love and respect to my Templar brothers, I am disinclined to become a Templar for many reasons I would be happy to expound in a future post should my readers desire for me to do so).

I later learned that the degrees of the Royal Arch Chapter are pretty much essential to Freemasonry, and, previous to having taken them, I would regard the Royal Arch degree as the repository of knowledge essential to becoming a fully-informed Freemason. Albert Pike understood this, and created his own version of this degree, spread out in the 13th and 14th degrees of the Scottish Rite, the Royal Arch of Solomon and Perfect Elu degrees. Having attended these degrees, I understand that they tell a Royal Arch story, but probably not the same, nor in the same depth as the Royal Arch Chapter does.

In the USA, due to a truce between the Scottish Rite and the York Rite, we regard the three degrees of Blue Lodge Freemasonry as the whole Masonic curriculum, with the higher degrees regarded as Concordant rather than central. I am of the opinion that the Blue Lodge is merely the first book of Freemasonry, with the Chapter degrees (or their equivalents in the Lodge of Perfection in the Scottish Rite, or the Lodge of St. Andreas in the Swedish Rite, or other analogues in other rites of Freemasonry) being the second book, the Council degrees (or their equivalents in the other rites of Freemasonry) being the third book, and some version of the Chivalric degrees being the fourth book. The Scottish Rite adds a fifth book with the Consistory degrees in the Southern Jurisdiction, but since the other rites do not, I will not comment on how central they are to Freemasonry as a whole, regardless of how clearly essential they are to the Scottish Rite.

So I have taken the Chair degree, and in February, I will take the Mark Master degree, and start my York Rite journey, taking the Virtual Past Master degree as an Installed Master. Long story short, I avoided the York Rite originally because I thought erroneously that I was ineligible, and then waited until I was an Installed Master as not to spoil the Chair degree by learning too much about it in the Virtual Past Master degree.

Last night was very special. The District Deputy Grand Master attended, and I had an installing suite of officers consisting of good friends and mentors to me in my Masonic career. Many cherished friends and brothers attended, some of whom were at my Raising. I catered the dinner, and stayed around to clean up the lodge room afterwards. My friends at Amicable Lodge offered me a new pair of gloves and an inscribed gavel with my name, the name of the lodge, and the Square and Compasses on it.

I have made a two year commitment to be Worshipful Master at Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge (assuming my brothers re-elect me). I understand that being Worshipful Master is not about having people call me "Worshipful", or parading around in a top hat. As much as the Chair degree and the Installation are impressive rituals designed to impress upon the incoming Master the seriousness of his office (and provide esoteric knowledge designed to aid him in his tasks), the job of Worshipful Master really begins the first time the cell phone rings and there is a crisis on the other end of the phone.

Vayeitzei: Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.

Fearing for his life from his brother Esau, Jacob flees from his parents' home in Beer-sheba, hoping for sanctuary (and a possible future bride (or two)) from his maternal uncle Laban. Jacob has been fighting his brother since they were in their mother's womb; indeed, although Esau was born first, Jacob was born clinging to his brother's ankle. This archetype of feuding twin brothers exists in many legends in many cultures. Rome was founded by one of two feuding twin brothers. Gilgamesh and Enkidu were twins in the Sumerian epic, as were Ahriman and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. In this case, Jacob has extorted Esau's birthright and has stolen his blessing from their father through fraud, and his mother warns him that Esau will kill him unless Jacob flees the country, so he flees.

After the end of last week's Torah portion, the reader must be wondering how ethical and how spiritual this scoundrel could possibly be. It doesn't take long before the sun sets and Jacob is forced to find a place to sleep. Fetching a stone for a pillow, he lays down in a familiar place (The King James Version calls it "a certain place" [Genesis 28: 11], but from the Hebrew, it seems the place is familiar to Jacob). Although his life to come, for decades, will be in a foreign land surrounded by people he cannot trust, for his first night away from home, he can sleep in a familiar place, even if in the wilderness.

In his sleep, he has a vision in his dreams. In the Jewish tradition, very few prophets behold God while awake. Most behold God or have visions in their dreams. The rabbis of the Talmud therefore regard Divine visions in dreams as being less definitive than Divine visions had while awake. Nonetheless, Jacob's vision has entered our collective psyche, and has had great influence on Kabbalah, as well as Freemasonry.

In the vision in the dream, a ladder is standing on the ground, and the top of the ladder reaches up to heaven. As he watches, God's angels (malachey Elohim) are ascending and descending the ladder. Suddenly he notices that God (YHVH) is standing over him. God introduces Himself as the God of his father and grandfather, and tells him that He will give Jacob's descendants the land he is lying upon, and they will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. They will spread forth in the four cardinal directions, and all the tribes of the earth (kol-mishpechot ha'adamah) will be blessed through Jacob and his descendants. God tells Jacob that he is under His protection through his journeys and until he returns to his homeland.

This image of a ladder to heaven cannot fail to catch hold in the psyche, and many traditions have been fascinated with this metaphor. In the Kabbalah, there is a diagram of the Tree of Life, with ten steps going from the material world (in Malkut, or the Kingdom) to the highest reality distinguished from non-reality (Keter, or the Crown). I have blogged about this diagram many time previously. There is a tradition that suggests that ascent up or descent down the Tree is the same as the angels ascending and descending the ladder, showing us how to do it.

Interesting then that Freemasonry has two differing traditions about Jacob's ladder, one of which has three rungs and one of which has seven rungs (7 + 3 = 10).

In the York Rite Entered Apprentice degree, the candidate is told that Heaven is accessible by Jacob's ladder, and that it has three rungs, called Faith, Hope and Charity, the three Theological Virtues from 1 Corinthians 13. Much of the description of these virtues is taken from Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. I regard this chapter as having some of the most beautiful language of the New Testament. It is important to note that Charity refers to caritas, rather than the modern conception of charity. The parallel Hebrew concept is chesed (חסד). The parallel Greek concept is agápē (ἀγάπη). It can be translated as lovingkindness. The Kabbalists regard chesed as the highest intellectual consciousness, acting without any cause except love.

In Preston's original lectures, and also in the Emulation ritual, the ladder rests on the Volume of Sacred Law sitting on the altar, rather than on the ground. Thus the Mason has access to the ladder only through the study of scripture, or through attendance in a tyled lodge with the Volume of Sacred Law open.

In the 30th degree (Knight Kadosh) of the Scottish Rite, in Albert Pike's version of the degree, the candidate is shown a ladder with seven rungs, one for each of the three Theological Virtues, and one for each of the four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. He gives them Hebrew names:

1. צדקה, (tsedakah) a word that means charity (in the modern sense), but also truth, justice and righteousness.
2. שוה לבנה, (shavah lavanah) literally, "merit the white", which Pike translates as "Pure or perfect Equity".
3. מתוק, (matok) pleasantness or amiability.
4. אמונה, (emunah) faith, or as Pike translates, "Good Faith".
5. עמל שגיא, (amal saggi) a lofty effort, or as Pike translates, "Much Labour or Exertion".
6. סבל, (sabbal) a word meaning a bearer of burdens, or as Pike translates, "Patience or Endurance".
7. Three words: גמול, and בינה, and תבונה. (gemul, binah, tevunah) The first is deed or action, which Pike translates as "Elaboration". The second is wisdom or insight, which Pike translates as "Prudence". The third is understanding, which Pike translates as "Discrimination" [Thanks to my friend Shawn Eyer for these translations from Tom Worrell's excellent article in Ahiman, Vol. 1: A Spiritual Vision of the Liberal Arts and Sciences].

Pike also associates these seven rungs with the Seven Liberal Arts, in descending order.

1. Astronomy
2. Music
3. Geometry
4. Arithmetic
5. Logic
6. Rhetoric
7. Grammar.

Since the three Theological Virtues are in both the three-rung and the seven-rung versions, I don't think the Masonic rungs added together correlate with the Tree of Life in any simple manner.

When Jacob wakes from his dream, he exclaims, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." This to me is the most meaningful line in the whole Torah portion. God is everywhere. We say that so glibly but we rarely sense the full extent of this. Jacob is suddenly aware of the full extent of this. Genesis 28: 17 tells us that Jacob was afraid, but the Hebrew uses the word יירה, (yirah) which means both fear and awe. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi describes this word not as the fear one feels when his life is threatened, but rather the fear that comes when you think you are alone, and you suddenly realize that someone else is in the room with you. This is the fear in Psalm 110: 10 (Psalms 111 in the Christian reckoning): "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." In the Hebrew, it is Yirah YHVH. Rather than being afraid that God is going to harm you, it is the sudden awareness that the Ineffable One is in your presence, and you in His. This is what Jacob feels when he wakes from his dream. He says, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." [Genesis 28: 17].

The gate of heaven (sha'ar hashamayim) appears a lot in Kabbalistic literature. There are great books called "Sha'arei Or" (the gates of light), and "Shaarei Tzedek" (the gates of righteousness), and "Sha'arei Emunah" (the gates of faith). Indeed, by the word "gate", the Kabbalist refers to a sudden transition to another state of consciousness or an alternate reality. This concept of gates reminds me of the famous quote of William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience:

One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite discarded. How to regard them is the question—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes, though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region, though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.

Here is a gospel choir singing Psalm 118: 19: Pitchu li sha'arei tsedek, avo vom odeh Yah. Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord.

Freemasonry is not a team

I'm fairly active on Facebook, and at last count, over 300 of my Facebook friends are active Freemasons, from all over the USA and all over the world. For a while, my operating procedure was to accept the friend invitation of anyone with the square and compasses on their identifying picture, or who had 50+ shared friends with me, all of whom were Masons. No longer.

The truth is that when men surround themselves with the visual emblems of Freemasonry the same way another person might surround themselves with the visual emblems of their favorite professional or college sports team, it is reasonable to wonder if their commitment to practicing the Royal Craft might be the same as their commitment to practicing the skills necessary to perform a professional sport. How many people wearing a Red Sox hat, scarf, jacket, keychain, wristbands, shoelaces, lanyard, and who have Red Sox bumper stickers on their car are capable of hitting a ball from home plate at the Fenway over the Green Monster? How many can collect a bunted ball and get it to first base before the batter reaches the base? How many know which pitcher to play and which to let rest for another game?

It takes no character whatsoever to cheer on Freemasonry as a fan. The Royal Craft and Sublime Art takes daily improvement. It is difficult; so difficult that most men are unsuitable for the task, and we never ask a man to engage in such a strenuous path, and if a man petitions us for the privilege, we investigate his character thoroughly, read his name aloud in lodge; and only after every lodge member knows the name of the petitioner do we have a ballot that must be unanimous to accept him. All lodges that actually practice the Craft educate their candidates in the workings of the Craft, that moral and intellectual discipline that makes us better men and Masons. Such Masons know their obligations and live by them.

Our history shows us that in a Masonic lodge, Protestants and Catholics who outside the lodge room were engaged in bloody, acrimonious, sectarian warfare, sat together as Brothers. Tories and Patriots, Federals and Confederates, slave-owners and abolitionists, cavalrymen and Native Americans, all sat together as Brothers. They understood that within the tyled lodge, different rules applied to them than in the profane world. They understood the Mystic Tie that binds us all together as Brothers, that they were Living Stones for that spiritual building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

But is a friend list of 100+ Masons, and a profile decked with squares and compasses, sufficient to vouch for a man's progress in this Craft, enough to forego due trial, strict examination, or lawful information? Does it demonstrate the smoothness of his Ashlar?

Two recent incidents come to mind:

1. I saw the status message of a Mason who had recently friended me (whom I did not otherwise know), and I was troubled by the sentiment. I don't remember the quote exactly, but it was something like "I wish that all men were Master Masons, under a common Father." I commented that black cubes exist for a reason; that there are men unsuited to our Craft, and they are met at the door by a man with a sword. His surprise and outrage astonished me. Had he been raised a Master Mason without anyone teaching him how our Craft works? We are an elitist organization, however meritocratic. We cannot accept the morally inferior, or Freemasonry is ruined. Anyone on earth can become a fan of the Boston Red Sox, but not every man can be a Mason, even if he earnestly desires to be. That should be obvious.
2. On a thread I started, there was a political discussion involving several Masons I only know from Facebook. I noticed that the discussion was getting heated, and even though I thought I was right, I realized that I was offending other Masons, so I wrote the following: "My blood is up and I've gotten very passionate on this thread. I'm going to use the compasses to keep my passions within due bounds, especially with you gentlemen." After which, I no longer participated in the discussion. Instead of backing down, one of the other Masons responded with "you just don't get it," and after continuing to argue his point with several comments over the next few hours, defriended me. Charitably, I can imagine that, chagrined by his excessive passion, he defriended me so that he would defend a fellow Brother from his possibly intemperate tongue knowing that we had many points of disagreement, but I'm not sure my theory is correct. I was taught that, no matter what our political and religious differences are, we are still bound by the Mystic Tie, and that bond is stronger than our passions. That is basic to any practitioner of our Craft, and if not, no amount of gold and purple can make it so.

Where were you first prepared to be made a Mason? If you know the answer to that question, you know the unfortunate truth that men can be balloted upon, entered, passed and raised without ever being prepared to be made a Mason. A Freemason has been taught a secret set of techniques for moral, intellectual and spiritual improvement, for which he should have been carefully screened for his suitability towards their use, and he should be admonished to make daily progress in this skill set required to master them. Reading our great authors, like Preston, Oliver, Mackey, Pike, Wilmshurst, Pound, MacNulty and others, we learn that while many of us truly earn the privilege of the EA degree, very few of us ever really become Fellows of the Craft, and a true Master Mason comes along very, very rarely.

UPDATE: I received the following warning on Facebook about a scammer friending Masons and inviting them to join the Royal Owl Society:

To anyone who was added to the Royal Owl Society, please note, they are a money making operation. This is from one of their posts in the group: "We buy into $5000 Internet Marketing Training courses, and train members, but we never promote a specific business opportunity. Its strictly for educational purposes."

From William Preston's lectures for the Entered Apprentice Degree (Section III, Clause 7), 1772.

The injunctions that are laid upon every Mason after his initiation are three in number.

    First, that he shall regularly attend the duties of the order.

    Second, that he shall pay homage and respect to the rulers of the Lodge.

    Third, that he shall diligently apply to his work in Masonry.

What these injunctions exemplify is this, three important points of distinguished excellence.

    The first, zeal and attachment, in obedience to signs and summonses.

    The second, humility and submission in propriety of conduct.

    The third, a wish to improve, by industry and application.

These injunctions are mitigated by three kind admonititions.

    1. That we do not neglect useful employments in life.

    2. That we never suffer zeal to exceed the bounds of discretion.

    3. That we must never enter into disputes with those who may be inclined to ridicule our system.

This will produce three pleasing effects.

    1. We shall live creditably in the world.

    2. We shall live comfortably in ourselves.

    3. We shall live peaceably with all men.

To supply the loss that may be sustained by the non-observance of these injunctions and admonitions, a succedaneum is provided, which enforces adherence to three important points.

    1. That we shall study the liberal arts at leisure.

    2. That we shall trace sciences in the works of eminent masters.

    3. That we shall apply to the well-informed for instruction, who will always be as ready to give it, as we can be to receive it.

The result will be three beneficial consequences.

    1. That we shall gain knowledge by our diligence.

    2. That we shall improve that knowledge by our experience.

    3. That we shall extend that knowledge by our excellence.

The Grand Ultimatum is, that having gained true wisdom, we shall be found useful in every station, and aim to acquire real happiness.

10 Things Done in 18th Century I Wish Were Done in 21st Century Freemasonry

Speaking as an individual mason, subject to the usual caveats that this does not represent the official stance of any lodge, Grand Lodge, Concordant nor Appendant body of Freemasonry, I'd like to see these ten things return. I understand that some of the things on this list are simply not done in regular Freemasonry today in the United States, and I would not enact any of the unconstitutional items on the list before they became constitutional.

1. Met in taverns.
2. Put membership ceilings of 35, or 50, or 60 members of any particular lodge, with the understanding that if the lodge got too big, it would generate new lodges to accomodate new brethren.
3. Fined brethren for not attending a stated communication of their lodge (except in cases of sickness, absence from town, or urgent business), and fined officers more harshly than the brethren (with the Master and Wardens being fined about 150% more than the regular members). Prolonged absences without excuse, or refusal to pay fines would result in reprimand, suspension or expulsion.
4. Made degree candidates exemplify the degree catechisms after a thorough education in the meanings of the three degrees (I know some lodges still do this).
5. Gave Stewards liberty of the floor in order to refill the glasses, tankards, and pipes of the brethren.
6. Allowed for the tyler to be a profane, and paid the man for his service to the lodge.
7. Performed the Royal Arch degree in blue lodge, under the authority of the Grand Chapter of their particular jurisdiction.
8. Were well-represented in the local media, announcing individual stated communications in the newspaper, as well as processionals, church visits, banquets and lodges of table instruction, and Grand communications.
9. Voted after each degree to decide if the candidate was worthy of the next degree.
10. Had an officer, called an Almoner, to collect sufficient funds from the brethren of the lodge to liberally come to the relief of distressed brethren of the lodge, their widows and orphans. They would not consider giving any funds to any charities for profanes while their own brethren were in want. No mason could leave a stated communication without giving the Almoner money (this is still the case in Norway).

Great William Preston Quote from 1772

"If the privileges of masonry are so valuable, as to intitle their possessors to respect and esteem, by promoting virtue and rewarding merit; why are not their good effects more conspicuous, and why are they not publicly exposed for the general advantage of mankind?—If our privileges were common, and indiscriminately bestowed, the design of the institution would not only be subverted, but being familiar, like some other important matters, it would lose its value, and sink into disregard.—It is a weakness in human nature, that men are generally more charmed with novelty, than the real worth or intrinsic value of things. This is not confined to masonry; even the operations of nature, though beautiful, magnificent and useful, are overlooked because common and familiar. The sun rises and sets, the sea flows and reflows, rivers glide along their channels, trees and plants vegetate, men and beasts act, and all these, ever present to our eyes, yet remain unnoticed, and excite not one single emotion, either in admiration of the great cause, or of gratitude for the blessings conferred. Even virtue itself is not exempted from this unhappy bias in the constitution of mankind. Novelty influences all our actions, all our determinations. Every thing that is new or difficult in the acquisition, however trifling or insignificant, readily captivates the imagination and ensures a temporary admiration; while what is familiar, or easily attained, however noble, or eminent for utility, is sure to be disregarded by the giddy and the unthinking.

"It is a truth too obvious to be concealed, that the privileges of masonry have been too common. Hence we may assign a reason why their good effects are not more conspicuous.—Several persons enrol their names in our records merely to oblige their friends; and reflect not on the consequences of such a measure, nor enquire into the nature of their particular engagements. Not a few are prompted by motives of interest; and many are introduced with no better view than to please as good companions. A general odium, or at least a careless indifference, is the result of such conduct.—But here the evil stops not.—These persons, ignorant of our noble principles, probably without any real defect in their own morals, are led to recommend others of the same cast with themselves for the same purpose. Thus, behold the end! The most sacred part of masonry is turned into scoff and ridicule, and the superficial practices of a luxurious age bury in oblivion principles which have dignified princes and the most exalted characters.

"Many have been deluded by the vague supposition that the mysteries of masonry were merely nominal, that the practices established among us were slight and superficial, and that our ceremonies were of such trifling import, as to be adopted or waved at pleasure. Having passed through the useful formalities, they have accepted offices, and assumed the government of Lodges, equally unacquainted with the duties of the trusts reposed in them, and the design of the society they pretended to govern. The consequence is obvious; anarchy and confusion ensue, and the substance is lost in the shadow.—Thus men eminent for ability, for rank and fortune, view with indifference the distinguished honours of masonry, and either accept offices with reluctance, or reject them with disdain.

"Such are the disadvantages under which masonry has long laboured. Every zealous friend to the society must earnestly wish for a reformation of these abuses."

From an oration given by William Preston on 21 May 1772, at the occasion of the first demonstration before the Grand Master (Moderns) of Preston's degree system.

Preparing for the East

This is my first post in four months. A lot has happened. I'm working at a software-as-a-service medical IT company that makes a diagnostic tool for clinical oncologists. The job involves computer programming, data integration, and project management. It's been fascinating thus far.

I stepped out of the officer's line at my mother lodge in order to finish my term as Senior Warden in another lodge and prepare to be installed as Worshipful Master in December. Assuming I am elected, of course, but I am the only brother eligible who is not an installed Master, and none of the installed Masters are running.

This lodge is a fascinating experiment. In the town of Medford, Massachusetts, in the 1980s, there were four Masonic lodges, a Royal Arch chapter, a Council of Royal and Select Masters, and a Commandery of Knights Templar. They met at the Armory, a large building in the center of town. Medford was originally settled in 1630, as part of Charlestown. When the British burned Charlestown down in 1775, much of what had been Charlestown was unincorporated and sparsely inhabited afterwards. Medford was not incorporated as a town until 1892. Union General Samuel Crocker Lawrence was the first mayor, in 1895. General Lawrence was later Grand Master of Masons of Massachusetts, and afterwards Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. General Lawrence was a formidable scholar. When the Grand Lodge building in Boston burned to the ground, General Lawrence donated his Masonic book collection to the Grand Lodge as the seed for the new library, which today is called the Samuel Crocker Lawrence Library, and has 70,000 volumes.

When General Lawrence was mayor, the Armory was used as an armory. General Lawrence arranged that, if the Armory stopped being an armory, it would be given to use by the Masons of Medford, and after World War I, after General Lawrence died, it was given to the Masons of Medford, and outfitted with lodge rooms. The Masons of Medford met there until the late 1980s.

The story is not altogether clear, but someone sold the building to the town of Medford at that time, for far less than its property value, and all of the Masonic groups that met there were evicted. Not long after, every group had either merged with other groups, or went dark. The oldest lodge in Medford was named Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge. General Lawrence's widow donated his Bible for the altar. When the building was sold, it merged with Russell Lodge, which later merged with Mystic Valley Lodge in Arlington.

A few years ago, a bunch of Medford Masons noticed that there were no lodges in Medford, and petitioned the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to start one. The Grand Master at the time recommended that the charter of Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge be revived, and with his assistance, it was. The original charter was lost. It had been kept in a safe deposit box in a bank in Medford, and the Winter Hill Gang (Whitey Bulger's mob) robbed the bank and took the charter. It was never recovered. The Grand Master helped write another charter, and a team formed to create the newly revived lodge.

I got involved very late in the game, even though I live in Somerville within sight of the Medford border. A line of officers had been formed, missing a Senior Warden and a Junior Steward. I was persuaded to take the Senior Warden position of the newly revived lodge, with the understanding that I would be willing to take the Oriental Chair the following year, should I be found worthy of the honor. I stepped out of line at my mother lodge to devote all my attention to this newly revived lodge.

In most Masonic lodges, most Masons are members of that lodge and that lodge alone. At Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge, most of the officers is an officer at at least one other lodge or chapter or council or commandery or Scottish Rite body or Shrine divan. That makes things challenging, as our officers often have multiple commitments to juggle. We have raised one brother since we opened, and he is the only member who is a member of this lodge and this lodge alone.

It is a fascinating challenge to keep a new lodge alive, and it is taking a lot of my energies to maintain what the first new Master has generated. It's very much a reality check. I am a member of two other blue lodges, a research lodge, two bodies in one Scottish Rite Valley, a member of another Scottish Rite Valley in the Southern Jurisdiction, and I'm a candidate for degrees in a Royal Arch chapter. I'm involved with three different Masonic publications on top of it, and I'm a student in Master Craftsman II and the College of the Consistory. I've left every other office except the one at Samuel Crocker Lawrence Lodge, but I still have fingers in a lot of pies. And my other officers all have fingers in other pies.

So there's some chance this will be a rocky year (or however long it takes to hand the Oriental chair to another brother). And yet, I'm thrilled. As tough as it might become, I see so much potential coming from this enterprise. I have the power to sustain Masonic light in a town that has not had it for years. Tufts University is in Medford. Charles Tufts was the secretary of Amicable Lodge, of which I am a member. Its first president was Hosea Ballou II, a member of Amicable Lodge, and a formidable Masonic author like his namesake uncle, Hosea Ballou. There is Freemasonry in the soil in Medford, from its Masonic sons who lifted rifles in 1775 in the Battle of Menotomy, to the university builders of Tufts University, to the great General who incorporated the town of Medford, to the present day. The soil calls out for a continued Masonic presence, for further light. It is my honor and privilege, should I be voted into the chair, to exert myself to the utmost to that end.

My Masonic Giving

My gentle readers are aware that I very rarely endorse a product, unless I am convinced that it is of value to them. Not only do I believe that this is of value to my readers, I believe it to be of value to Freemasonry in general. This may become the next MORI, in a sense.

MyMasonicGiving.com allows its members to select various Masonic causes and create a page where donors can donate to them. What makes this method unique is that members can choose one cause, or many causes. If many causes are chosen, the donor has the option of donating to the page, in which case the money is distributed evenly among the causes (unless the donor chooses one in particular).

For example, if you visit my giving page, you will see that I have selected five Masonic causes:

1. Masonic Educational and Charitable Trust, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts
2. Masonic Angel Foundation
3. Masonic Service Association
4. Overlook Masonic Health Center
5. Shriners' Hospital For Children

Visitors have the option of donating to each, or can donate to the page and their donation will go to all of these causes.

I encourage my readers to create their own page, and find their own causes to endorse. If a cause is not currently listed, they can be added by contacting MyMasonicGiving.com and having them add new causes.

You can also create a progress meter and encourage people to match your goals, which can either be monetary, or in terms of the number of participants.

$

You can create a link anywhere to allow people to donate to your cause.

Masonic Educational and Charitable Trust	$
Masonic Angel Foundation	$
Masonic Service Association	$
Overlook Masonic Health Center	$
Shriners Hospitals for Children	$

Or you can create a link that allows your readers to choose their own cause to which they can donate.

They are happy to add your lodge, or your building association, to their list of causes. If the donation is not tax-deductible, the donor will be notified.

I think this makes Masonic charity donation so simple and available, that it cannot help but advance these causes. Please consider using this tool to promote the causes you care about.

A Note About Masonic Ritual and Memory

From the Hyperlexicon:

A bunch of parrots in a jungle overhear an explorer telling a joke. The parrots pass the joke on to the next generation of parrots, who pass it on to the next... but of course, none of the parrots ever actually understand the joke. It keeps on getting passed along from parrot to parrot until another explorer comes through, hears a parrot tell it, and has a good laugh.
The original explorer would be delighted to learn that his joke had provided a laugh to a kindred spirit so many years later, but to the parrots, the laughter is just disruptive: We're trying to teach this creature the sacred sequence of sounds passed down to us by our foreparrots, and instead of repeating the sounds back to us properly, it's making strange hyena noises... perhaps it has a learning disability.

Even though we memorize ritual, it is crucial that we memorize it as explorers and not as parrots. The genius of the structure of Freemasonry is that, in a worst-case scenario, a lodge of parrots can preserve the mysteries of Freemasonry until an explorer knocks at the West Gate. Indeed, sadly, that is often how we have survived. A good parrot is considerably superior to a bad parrot in this regard. But the light of Freemasonry is for the explorers alone. Masonic transmission happens by a process that is a superset of parroting. The ritual must be memorized, and memorized accurately. But if it crackles and sparkles with Masonic light, because the ritualist understands the ritual as an explorer and not as a parrot, then true Initiation can take place. Even still, it is up to the candidate to choose to receive the light as an explorer and not as a parrot.

Before I found Freemasonry (or before it found me), I was an uchi deshi (live-in student) of an aikido master, and trained with him through black belt. My sensei was a good friend before I trained with him, and remains a good friend after I no longer train with him. He lives in Berkeley, California, and teaches at Aikido Shusekai in Berkeley. He is working on a Ph.D. in Transformative Studies at California Institute of Integral Studies.

When he was an undergraduate there, he wrote Hyperlexicon as an assignment. This is a hyperlinked essay written in HTML that covers many topics in Kabbalah (it has the best description of the concept of Qlippoth I have seen) and mysticism. It can be played as a game, or read for its intrinsic value.

A few months ago, he alerted me to a sequel he has written, called the Veiled Oasis. I have spent many hours today exploring it, and I've been very moved by what I have found there. It is advisable to explore "Hyperlexicon" thoroughly before exploring "The Veiled Oasis", but not required.

Neither of these are linear narratives, and it may take some time to find what you are looking for, but I feel they are both worth exploring.

Masonic Pride Day: An Observation

I’m somewhat ambivalent about Masonic Pride Day—it smacks too much of the sort of pernicious identity politics so much in vogue these days, where every group that can muster an identity around it gets its own parade, school assembly presentation, and political lobby. But I strongly agree that we Masons in our current incarnation are letting the anti-Masons dictate the terms in which we are received by the world-at-large, and we must do something to define ourselves based on who we are, where we came from, what we have done, and what we continue to do for ourselves, for our communities, for our nations, and for human consciousness in general. This we must do, not in a political manner, not by engaging in a debate with our enemies, and certainly not with an arrogant tone of triumphalism.

I had a train journey to visit relatives this holiday season. To prepare for the train journey, I visited my Grand Lodge library (as every good Mason should do from time to time), and selected Masonry in Texas: Background, History, and Influence to 1846, by James David Carter (1955), as my reading material on the train.

This might seem like a strange choice, since I am not a Texas Mason. Someday, I would like to write a Masonic Western, and this seemed like good research material for a future book. I was expecting the book to be very narrow in its focus, and of limited interest except to someone well-versed in Texas history. I was wrong; the book was extremely entertaining, and well worth reading by any North American Mason.

Carter begins with a history of Freemasonry, and its early days in Britain, France and Spain. Then he gives the history of Freemasonry in Colonial America. What follows is a detailed examination of the role of Freemasonry in the American Revolution, showing the Masons on both sides of that struggle, and the role of Freemasonry in establishing the government of the United States. He then shows something similar taking place in Mexico, but different due to the undue influence of politics in the Mexican version of Freemasonry.

Two hundred pages into the book, he begins to write about Texas, showing the influence of Freemasonry on the original Anglo-Amerrican colonization of Texas, how the Anglo-American Texas Masons interacted with the Mexican Freemasons, and ultimately what led to Texas’ revolution against the newly-independent Mexican state. He finishes with an analysis of Masonry’s contribution to the Republic of Texas, and how Masons led the delicate process of annexation with the USA.

I am going to offer a long quote from the conclusion of the book, as evidence of an author who takes a deep pride in Freemasonry, and wants very much to give our Fraternity its due as a contributor to living history. As you read this quote, try to imagine any Masonic author of the present day using language like this:

The data accumulated in the foregoing chapters seem to justify the following statements:

Among other definitions, Freemasonry is a corporate school of liberal philosophy erected upon the ruins of craft guild masonry from which it drew its principal thesis that the individual was of supreme worth and capable of perfectibility.

As a broad philosophy, Freemasonry qualifies as a vital sociological force and its lodges provide the essential conditions for the formation of a type that can be relied upon to translate Masonic philosophy into conduct in society.

Freemasonry was the only organized philosophic institution common to all the British colonies in North America which became the United States.

The character of the people in the British North American colonies; the environment of the region; the lack of the ability of English authorities to control thought and action in the New World provided a fertile field for the development of liberal thought as taught by Masonic lodges.

Masonry drew the leading citizens of scores of colonial towns and villages into the bonds of unity and brotherhood thereby establishing the mutual trust and confidence that helped to make colonial cooperation possible in a common cause.

Masons provided the leadership for the events that brought about the conflict between England and America.

Masons led the propaganda campaign which nurtured widespread disorder into revolution.

Masons led in the overthrow of royal government in the colonies and erected revolutionary governments.

Masons led in the erection of a loose confederation of the states for united action in the war.

Masons led the army, navy, and marine corps in the battles of the American Revolution.

Foreign aid for the revolutionary efforts was secured partially through the efforts of Masons.

All of the chief leaders of the French forces and the more important foreign officers in the American Revolution were Masons.

Masonry provided a philosophic basis for the justification of the Revolution, not only in America and in France but also in Britain where Masons influenced the government to accept peace terms more favorable to the Americans than the events of the war would seem to justify.

Many of the most important leaders in the development of a federal union—the organization form of Freemasonry—were Masons.

Many of the men who influenced the writing and who wrote the Constitution of the United States were Masons well informed in Masonic philosophy, practice, and organization.

The fundamental principles laid down for the government of the Masonic fraternity in its oldest surviving documents are found to be present in the Constitution of the United States.

Many Masons fostered the formation of a public free school system supported by the state in the United States.

The policy of admitting new states to the union on a basis of complete equality with the old is a policy parallel to that practiced in the creation of new Masonic lodges.

Masons occupied many influential offices in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the United States government in the period of its greatest plasticity.

Freemasonry was one of the earliest institutions to find lodgement on the successive frontiers as the Anglo-Americans moved westward across North America.

Masons were frequently the first to establish churches, schools, newspapers, and other institutions of public service and convenience in the territories opened to settlement by soldier Masons.

No United States territorial or state government was established in the areas considered in this study without the support and participation of Masons and often they were the prime movers.

Masonry was a civilizing force in the raw, half-wild population that contributed a substantial proportion of the Anglo-American colonists of Texas before 1846, as well as a cultural force in the more highly developed areas of the United States that contributed the additional portion.

Though Masonry was introduced into Mexico and contributed to the revolution which established the liberal Constitution of 1824, it failed to secure enough support to insure the permanent overthrow of privileged oligarchy by 1835.

Anglo-American colonization of Texas was permitted and encouraged by a Mexican government in which Masons occupied influential positions.

The Anglo-American colonists of Texas were led by Masons and Texas became a liberal stronghold in the Mexican nation.

There is no credible evidence that Masons entered Texas for the purpose of dismembering Mexico.

Masons led the conservative forces in Texas that sought to maintain the Constitution of 1824 as the basis of the government of Mexico and were supported by a number of Mexican liberals whose most prominent leaders were Masons.

The reactionary Centralist Party in Mexico was led by men who had seized control of the Mexican government through the prostitution of Masonic lodges into nuclei of political parties and then destroyed the lodges to prevent a resurgence of liberalism through Masonry.

The Texas Revolution was an ideological war—a struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism—caused by the failure of the primary liberal revolution in Mexico.

There was little difference in the physical equipment of the peoples of Spanish and English descent for the development of Texas but they were dominated by diametrically opposing philosophies. Those of Spanish descent failed to make material progress in Texas in over one hundred years of possession while Anglo-Americans, with a strong Masonic heritage, made marked progress in the development of the province in fifteen years.

Of the twelve battles and skirmishes of the Texas Revolution treated in this study, ten were won by the Texans. The percentage of Masons in these winning forces ranged from 6.6 to 27.5 per cent. In the two battles lost, the Alamo and Coleto, the percentage of Masons was 3.1 and 2.5 per cent. In all of the battles, Masons constituted a higher percentage of the Texan force involved than their percentage in the population.

Masons constituted a stabilizing and directing force in the confused condition of Texas following the Revolution.

Masons consistently occupied the most important government offices under the Republic of Texas.

Masons were consistent in defending Texas from Mexican incursions and depredations by the Indians.

Masons were prominent leaders in efforts to establish a public free school system supported by the state in Texas.

Masons supported a complete separation of church and state in Texas.

Masonic lodges exercised a degree of social control which strengthened the rule of law and order in Texas.

These factors in the development of American life were not all exclusive to Masonry. Some existed in one institution and some in another. Many forces, economic, social, environmental, intellectual, hereditary, and others, have made their contribution to the sum total of American culture. It appears, however, that historians and political theorists have overlooked a major influence in American history and government. With due regard for the molding influences heretofore identified by scholars of American history, it is submitted that Freemasonry is one of the most powerful intellectual forces that contributed to the shaping of the history of the United States and Texas between 1750 and 1845.

This book is a great read, if you can get your hands on it. We should all give Freemasonry the credit it deserves in building the USA, Canada and Mexico, and elsewhere around the world where it continues to shine a light of freedom and equality, brotherhood and truth. It should be noted that by liberal, the author is using the word in its 18-19th century meaning, and not in its contemporary meaning.