Disillusionment with Freemasonry

The following outlook of Freemasonry was shared with me with much trepidation and concern over its reaction. Permission to publish it was granted if the author could remain Anonymous.

I’ve heard these same words from others in recent months, and it struck me that they were not isolated or merely dissident voices in the wilderness — rather that they were a real malaise that is overtaking the once previously engaged. Disenchantment, disenfranchisement, disappointment, no matter what bucket you quantify it into, I am hearing about these feelings more and more.

Always looking for the silver lining, this would be a good jump off point to explore the sentiment as we proceed to get at its roots. Do you share this same feeling?

Disillusionment with Freemasonry

Understanding the allegories of Freemasonry

After serving the fraternity for over ten years now, I’ve stopped to look back as to what I accomplished and how Freemasonry has changed.  I’ve been through the chairs and served my Lodge faithfully, participating in several work parties, fund raisers, and other events. I’ve been found proficient in degree work and recognized for work in Masonic Education.  I have also participated in several district and state level functions. Thanks to the Internet, I have corresponded with Masons from around the world, listening to their problems as well as their advice. Whenever a Brother asked for help, whether near or far, I leant a helping hand. My Masonic knowledge and experience led me into a position where I was frequently consulted for advice and leadership. It also led me into petty politics where I was confronted by those jealous of my notoriety and stubbornly undermined any effort to upgrade the Lodge and fraternity.  I now look back and ask, “Did I make a difference? Is the fraternity or Lodge better off than when I was first initiated?”

I have slowly come to the realization that the answer is “No.”

I think the reason for this is because I suffered from a false perception of what Freemasonry was all about. As I entered the fraternity, I was under the impression that a True Mason was a man of character, integrity, honor, who possessed an intellectual curiosity about life, a person whose word is his bond. In other words, I perceived Masons as the bedrock of society.

Unfortunately, this is not what I discovered. I have traveled around quite a bit and met many Masons, most of whom are not of this stereotype. In fact, I would estimate less than 1% of our total membership can be characterized in this manner. And therein is where the bubble burst for me.

Read: Ghosts in Lodge

With the exception of those Brothers attempting to establish Traditional Observance (TO) Lodges, I have learned the vast majority of Masons are not serious people. They are more concerned with slapping backs as opposed to doing anything of substance. A lot of Masons will scratch and claw just to get their next apron or title. I tend to believe this is because they never did anything noteworthy in their professional careers and crave attention. In other words, they are trying to build their self-esteem at the cost of their Lodge, a sort of “While Nero fiddled Rome burned” phenomenon. I guess this is why I find it amusing to hear conspiracy theorists try to warn the public of how Freemasonry is trying to dominate the world. Too funny.

The fraternity is dying and nobody is doing anything about it, least of all at the Grand Lodge level. Freemasonry is an institution who stubbornly clings to the past and resists any attempts to change and modernize. It’s decaying before our eyes.

Disillusionment comes when expectations are not met, when beliefs are not realized. Disillusionment leads to frustration which often leads to anger. At some point though, you have to deal with it. As I see it, there are only a few options available:

  1. Stay and passively accept the status quo — representing total surrender.
  2. Stay and continue to try and change the system internally — impossible due to the political stranglehold Grand Lodges hold over the fraternity.
  3. Take a leave of absence — whereby the problems will still be waiting for you when you return.
  4. Resign and start a new strain of Freemasonry — which is very tempting but difficult to do on a large scale.
  5. Resign, lick your wounds and move along with your life.

This last option, unfortunately, is what many men opt to do as opposed to fighting the powers that be.

US Masonic membership

Consider for example our free-falling decline in membership.  Aside from death and transfers, think about those members suspended for nonpayment of dues which in some grand jurisdictions is on the rise. One cannot help but ask why this is occurring. Because of the economy? Perhaps. More likely they are not getting anything meaningful out of Freemasonry.  Even when Grand Masters offer amnesty programs to encourage members to return to the flock, very few do.

Those men who would normally take an active role in Masonry are being driven away in droves due to complacency, apathy, and politics, three ugly words that unfortunately characterize Freemasonry today and causes disillusionment.

Freemasonry has become more of a philanthropy than a fraternity, a political playhouse as opposed to a true brotherhood. It is sad to see a once noble institution crumble before our eyes into an irrelevant institution.

What do you think?  Leave your thoughts below.

The Perfect Handshake

handshake
The perfect handshake

From NPR’s Marketplace News – Researchers from the University of Manchester have distilled the components of a perfect handshake down to a science, literally, and it looks like:

PH = √(e2 + ve2)(d2) + (cg + dr)2 + p{(4< s >2)(4< p >2)}2 + (vi + t + te)2 + {(4< c >2 )(4< du >2)}2

The values are on a 1-5 scale:

(e): eye contact (1=none; 5=direct) — 5
(ve): verbal greeting (1=totally inappropriate; 5=totally appropriate) — 5
(d): Duchenne smile — smiling in eyes and mouth, plus symmetry on both sides of face, and slower offset (1=totally non-Duchenne smile (false smile); 5=totally Duchenne) — 5
(cg): completeness of grip (1=very incomplete; 5=full) — 5
(dr): dryness of hand (1=damp; 5=dry) — 4
(s): strength (1= weak; 5=strong) — 3
(p): position of hand(1=back towards own body; 5=other person’s bodily zone) — 3
(vi): vigor (1=too low/too high; 5=mid) — 3
(t): temperature of hands (1=too cold/too hot; 5=mid) — 3
(te): texture of hands (1=too rough/too smooth; 5=mid) — 3
(c): control (1=low; 5=high) — 3
(du): duration (1= brief; 5=long) — 3

I wonder if there is a way to add a component for a proper Masonic Handshake?

Read: The Masonic Handshake

So What? The Dynamic of Masonic Membership.

Logo of Freemason Information.

The following was originally published in 2007. It is one of several essays in the book Masonic Traveler, where you can find a more refined and extended version of this missive.

Since this original publication in 2007, the dialog increased only to taper off again to a quiet whisper, if heard anywhere at all. In 2008/9 Stephen Dafoe produced a rebuttal of sorts, not in the context – but in the meaning of the numbers. His conclusions can be found in the article There’s a Hole in our Bucket, but I recommend that you read it after this piece so as to put all the information into context.

Changing Masonic Membership

The question above has been an institutional answer (yes, I said answer) that has plagued Masonry for the last 50 years. When I first heard it’s asking, I wasn’t sure what to think about it. I wasn’t even sure if I should talk about as it seemed like an internal problem, and not the fodder for the rank and file (you and me) to ponder. It wasn’t until my own realization that it was the rank and file that was ultimately the cause and effect of the question AND answer when its implications became clear.

As the adage goes, if you don’t talk about it, how do you fix it? And in such a large fraternity I felt that we absolutely needed to talk about it, NOW.

In doing some research, I found myself at the website for the MSANA, which is the Masonic Service Association of North America which is a national clearinghouse for all things Masonic in North America, but specifically an informational collection agency that gathers data and publishes literature for the overall benefit of the craft.

One of the items I found there were statistics on membership (now in archive) from 1925 to 2005.

The statistics are the national numbers of membership in the United States from 1930-2000 not graphed, but in a pretty uninteresting grid of data.

From a surface analysis what it showed was an early high figure, a dip, a huge growth period, and then a dramatic down trend in membership, specifically from a period of 1960 to close to present day. The graph below was created from this data.

Graph showing the change in masonic lodge membership numbers from 1930 to 2000.

What it charts is the membership numbers from 1925 to 2005.

For a comparison, this graph is the US population in the same period.

U.S. population growth between 1930 and 2000.

Obviously, the numbers are dramatically different – Freemasonry at one to four million and the US population at 100 to almost 300 million, but what it illustrates by contrast is the dramatic rise in US population (about half of which are male +/- 51/49%) and the dramatic decrease to male membership.

What I want to illustrate here is that while the US population has steadily increased, the population of Freemasonry has steadily decreased, substantially.

So to the question, so what?

Most who have been members for a significant time know that the membership of Freemasonry is changing. Lodge rooms are seating fewer and fewer members, old buildings bought and built in the boom era are being sold off as membership roles shrink and charters evaporate. We know that already, this isn’t new information. Every Masonic publication has said this at some point or another – “our numbers are retracting, that we felt a boom with the returning vets of WWII and Korea, and that their numbers swelled our ranks to their record numbers, topping at a height of 4,103,161 in 1959” -the glory days of the ancient and honorable.

But since that high water mark we have been in a steady decline in membership.

Again the question, so what?

The decline of the 1960’s and 70’s is often blamed on the selfish attitudes of the “tuned out” generation, the hippy turned Baby-Boomer, with widespread distrust of past paternal institutions, and a growth in a personal individuality, no one wanted to join, even when they later came of age the attitude of “Forget doing what Daddy did” and “why do I want to be a part of a secret institution of good old boys” prevailed. But was that really the problem?

I’m sure if analyzed in an academic fashion, we could explore the “why Freemasonry changed” notion in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, but I wonder if it would be enough to give us a real answer.

Some have suggested it was the institutional change towards fraternalism. Others suggest that it picked up and patriotic flavor of Americanism with the high number of veterans that came to its ranks. Trying to associate the increase to any one reason is difficult at best.

What the numbers do tell us is that in 10 year intervals, from 1960 to 2005, membership dropped by an average of 560,152 members. On the graph, you can see the decline to 2005. Distilling the numbers, it comes out to an average of a 20% decrease in membership per 10-year period.

By the years it breaks out to:

  • 1959, membership at its height was at 4,103,161
  • 1960 – 1970 there was a loss of 336,006 a decrease of 8.19%
  • 1970 – 1980 there was a loss of 511,685 a decrease of 13.597%
  • 1980 – 1990 there was a loss of 719,885 a decrease of 22.14%
  • 1990 – 2000 there was a loss of 690,474 a decrease of 27.274%
  • 2000 – 2010* there was a loss of 542,714 a decrease of 29.477% (*Calculated by doubling the loss from 2000 to 2005)

Updated numbers at bottom.

The average loss, per year, was 20% (20.2%)

Again the question “so what”, we already know this, these numbers are not secret. They are published in an open forum for the public to see.

The overall calculation led to an extrapolation, if the fraternity lost on average 560,152 members, per decade – from 2010 to 2020, our national number of members would be under 1 million members at 738,303. In ten more years 2020 to 2030 our national member base would be 178,151.

That number again is one hundred and seventy eight thousand one hundred and fifty one TOTAL Freemason’s in North America by 2030, which led me to speculate that the last American Freemason would probably be somewhere in about 2034 or so.

Ok, so this is a worst-case scenario, this is an assumption that we will continue to lose the same 560,000 members a year, due to attrition, brothers passing, or low community interest. The overall numbers tell me that the loss % per year is INCREASING; not decreasing, but maybe the trend is just that, a trend. It should be said that at present, 2005 numbers show our fraternity at numbers lower than the 1925 watermark, when the US population was less than half of what it is today. What appears to be happening is not just a “correction”, that it is not simply the Fraternity going back to the “way things were” at the turn of the 20th century, rather that it is something much worse at play and further outside the scope of our control.

Taken from another angle, we can say that over the same 50-year period, we did average out to a 20% loss per year. These numbers are far less frightening and show a slower descent over the next one hundred years. In 2030, where the first model takes us to extinction in the percentage model we sit at just over 800,000 members. It isn’t until 2130 that we get to fewer than 100,000. But again, that is at a steady 20% decrease no ups, no downs, steady. The trend in the last 50-year cycle has been one of a steady increase in percentage loss, 8.9%, 13.59%, 22.14%, 27.27%, and 29.47%. This model, though more positive, seems less likely.

At the other end of the spectrum, some locations so seem to indicate an upward trend in membership. In areas that lost 4000 members, they took in 2000, diminishing the overall drop, but even these anecdotal statistics only suggest a change in trend without much ability to forecast realistically where the descent will level off.

Again the question, so what?

With those of us left, we become the inheritors of Freemasonry here in America, and need to address the question of what we are going to do about it. I have read a Laudable Pursuit as I am sure many other masons have, I attend meetings, pay my dues, and heed the length of my cable tow, but is that enough?

Are dynamic meetings, meaningful Masonic education, Traditional Observance Lodges, Festive Boards, or low cost spaghetti or fish fry dinners the answer? Are even the boldest Grand Lodge programs such as the Massachusetts Is there Greatness in you? Marketing Campaign or the California Masonic Formation movement, enough? What generated interest in the past?

To answer this question we need to ask what Freemasonry has lost — what component of our fraternity did we lose in the transition of the 1950’s into the 1990’s that closed us off from the moral imagination of society? What changed?

  • Was it the success of the offshoot “clubs” whose focus on charity or drama plays, rather than esoteric transference, took prominence?
  • Did we, institutionally, become afraid of what our own metaphysical/spiritual fraternity represented?
  • Were we marginalized as an increasingly religious America took over, forcing out interfaith institution?
  • Did American Freemasonry fall out of progressive step with the evolving landscape of American women’s issues, and racial equality taking the forefront but still at odds in the fraternity dedicated to the moral high ground?

It was in the periods of transition from the 19th to the 20th century that many esoteric or occult works were created that seem to evoke the spirit of the coming age of Masonry. Did their promise grow silent on the lips of those who took the reins of leadership?

Just a small (yet significant) marker I can point to that symbolically illustrates the transition was the name change of the monthly Scottish Rite Magazine formerly known as the New Age Magazine in 1989.

Its true that in the mid century a degree of quackery took hold of the metaphysical giving birth to an explosion of Self Help and “Occult” practices. Did Masonry’s hasty retreat from all things esoteric help steer the fraternity towards the rocks of fraternal obscurity? Did we become afraid of our own esoteric shadow marginalizing our own traditions effectively doing this to ourselves?

The one thing that so many outsiders look to Freemasonry to provide is a degree of esoteric wisdom and education, yet we can barely articulate to the answer to the simple question of “what does Freemasonry represent”? Our tradition is betwixt pointing one way with progressive learning, equality of faiths, and metaphorical death and members pointing another with social fraternalism, overt patriotism, and faux civic engagement – is it a social club or a path to self enlightenment?

As the numbers continue to descend, some possible scenarios to consider is the separation of the Shrine from the craft lodge system. With the success that the Shrine has enjoyed in this last century, why would they keep the requirement of the Blue Lodge membership, if the blue lodge can barely support itself let alone its drive for localized charity. Especially now in the face of diminished revenue and potential loss of its charitable hospitals. In its present configuration, can it afford to not take in now blue lodge members?

Another scenario is the separation of the Scottish Rite to become its own degree imparting body. What is to keep them from offering the degrees as more Craft lodges start to close? Maybe it makes more sense to pool the resources and go with the bigger temples that the Scottish Rite inhabits. The easy answer is, of course not, but as the feeder blue lodge membership continues to plummet, at what point will desperation take hold and other options become more enticing? Are the American Rites prepared to cease operations if memberships diminish to an unsustainable level?

So what? So what can we do about this?

The most effectual answer I can come up with, individually, to the “SO WHAT” question is nothing.

Masonic advertising on a billboard.

We can, at this point in time do nothing to turn this trend around. No matter how many open houses, public lectures, marketing campaigns, sports sponsorships, television commercials, radio spots, billboards, or finite programs promoted by individual lodges or Grand Lodges will stem the hemorrhage. Even if the blue lodge started giving away memberships, it’s doubtful that we could find enough people who even remembered who the Freemasons are, and even fewer who would want to become one. The damage is already done, and we are now in a free fall that threatens to erase the remains of North American Freemasonry. This means the closure and roll back of individual state Grand Lodges. This will mean the selling of more Masonic properties and assets, and the selling or divesting publicly of our privately funded billion dollar institutions.

This means the end of Freemasonry as we know it today.

But all is not lost and that there are things that we , individually, can do now to start to effect change. The greatest challenge will come in our re-shaping the perception of what the fraternity represents and that its history, both real and imagined, becomes a part of who we are. And by understanding that, we can embrace it and celebrate that diversity and begin to explore those ideas that we left off from a century ago. As a body we can pause and consider out institution and how it relates to its broader impact on civil society. Is OUR venerable institution living up to the promises that our very Rites espouse? Do we treat ALL people equally, no matter of Race, Gender, Religion, or Preference? Are we striving to make social progress?

In the next 30 years the landscape of what we call Regular Freemasonry will be radically different than what we see today. The sooner we come to see that NOW, to talk about it, and confront it head on – the sooner we can start planning on what we want to do about it. Burying our heads in the sand is not the answer and if we continue to insist on doing nothing about it WE will only further hasten OUR demise.

Our generation, RIGHT NOW, is the unwilling inheritor of the future of Freemasonry – what we do NOW dictates how our sons will come to know this ancient institution. If we ignore the problem, there won’t be any institution left.

And, of you who say “So What”, I ask that you look at the numbers for yourself and then draw your own conclusions,

Once you’ve seen them you’ll see that they speak for themselves.

Update – May 21, 2017

  • Period of 2010 – 2015 15.45%.
  • Period of 2005 – 2015 26.02% (calculated).
  • Doubling the loss from 2010-2015 (424,400) to calculate potential loss = 31% change.
  • New estimate at 2020, 949,093 members.

Rick Ross’s Free Mason = Fraternal Shark Jump?

The new song from Rick Ross featuring Jay-Z off the Teflon Don Album.

I’ll let the song and lyrics speak for themselves.

Free Mason.

I get that Free masonry is deep in the pocket of material culture, and that it has a variety of meanings all around, but rapper Rick Ross has adapted Freemasonry’s other spelling, Free Mason, to make it his own in the new song Free Mason on his Teflon Don album.

The onetime correctional officer from Florida turned rapper seems at home using the fraternity in his lyrics, but based on what I’ve seen so far, he’s not using it as a member of the fraternity, but rather using the idea of it to illustrate his point in the song.

From the lyrics:

like gifts of gold
I embark on life,
My path is all math
I understand the codes
these hackers can’t crack

Free Mason, Freelance,
Free Agents, We faster

Personally, I have mixed thoughts on the song.  No one likes their sacred cows trampled, but in context, the song isn’t a terrible message.  It has flow, and I think the heart was behind it in the right way.  What sticks more is the use of the term Free Mason without understanding the work, knowledge, or philosophy that goes into it.

On the reverse side of that coin, have the Masons made that wisdom known in recent years so using their name in a song like this would of commanded more respect?

You be the judge, how do you feel good/bad indifferent?  Is this a good representation of the ancient and honorable fraternity that you belong to?  Or is this a good reference point to mark as when Masonry jumped the shark in its institutional memory in society?

Bundled off with Freemasons-Athiests & Masons to Summit in Brussels

From the EU Observer:

Brussels is to hold an EU summit with atheists and Freemasons in the autumn, inviting them to a political dialogue parallel to the annual summit the bloc holds with Europe’s religious leaders.

It seems that in the push to make religious and non religious policy balance, following a meeting of Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muftis, the European Union is holding a mirror image summit for Atheists and Humanists. Included in the second meeting is the “non-religious” but spiritual group of Freemasons.

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David Pollock of the European Humanist Federation says of ther inclusion:

“I find it rather odd,Some of the Grand Lodges are secularist organisations, and strongly for separation of church and state, but they also retain all sorts of gobbledygook and myths such as the Great Architect of the Universe.”

Now, having lost their battle to omit a religious clause in the EU Constitutional and Lisbon Treaty, Pollock concedes that their organization has “lost that battle” saying “with the atheist summit, at least we’re being treated equally, although I’d rather if we were there along with the churches. Instead we’re being bundled off with the Freemasons.”

According to the EU Commission‘s spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein, Brussels views the Freemasons as a “community of conscience interconnected throughout Europe,” and “a form of humanist organisation.”

Its this last part that raises an interesting consideration as to the interactivity of Freemasonry and the participation (and shaping) of Civil Society by just such participation.

My guess is that American Freemasonry would rather say it has no position than to profess that its system of moral philosophy is not religious specific and characteristically more Humanistic (by definition), and therefore truly dedicated to the balance of all faiths as equal in standing, putting human rights above dogma.

It leads to an interesting question, does American Freemasonry find itself in greater leaning with the practice of the church (ecumenically speaking), or with the idea of a Humanist deism, putting the plight of mankind over and above his point of view in deity.

Is that possible in this day in age, or has the fabric of Masonry in North America changed?

Belgium has 3 major Grand Lodges including: Grand Lodge of Belgium, Regular Grand Lodge of Belgium, and the Women’s Grand Lodge of Belgium with mutual recogniton between them.

The EUObserver article makes for a good read, and if I were in Brussels, I think this would be a dynamic event to attend.

If anyone wants to send an American Mason….

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The Re-dedication of the Structure with Soul and Stability

History, then and now, in the making, and your chance to help make it a reality for the Canton Viaduct Masonic Memorial. From the Milestone Public Flyer.

The Canton Viaduct

Canton Viaduct, Canton, Massachusetts, is the oldest railroad bridge of its kind in the world and it was the tallest and longest railroad bridge in the world when it was built in 1835.

Background:

Neponset River flowing under the Canton Viaduct

Neponset River flowing under the Canton Viaduct

The Canton Viaduct is the longest and oldest stone viaduct in the Western Hemisphere. The foundation stone was laid in 1834, and it was completed in 1835 by operative stonemasons, many of whom were also Freemasons from area towns and Lodges.

To commemorate the viaduct’s 175th anniversary and the Freemasons who were involved in the construction of this historic structure, it is being proposed that a granite stone obelisk be erected in or near the Canton Viaduct Park next to the waterfall on the west side of the structure near the Neponset Street opening. It is very likely that all of the Towns in the area at that time had Freemasons who worked on the Canton Viaduct.

Masons Marks on the original arch of the Canton Viaduct

Masons Marks on the original arch of the Canton Viaduct

This summer or fall, a celebration commemorating the 175th anniversary of this National Historic Monument is expected to be held in Canton at the site of the structure. It is anticipated that numerous dignitaries, both Masonic and non-Masonic, will be in attendance.

The Vision:

It is hoped that this Monument and Milestone would remind all of the contributions of the Freemasons to the development of industry in America. The obelisk would be 8 feet tall in addition to a buried concrete, four foot deep foundation base on which it would stand. There would be a cavity to hold a small Time Capsule to be opened at the 300th anniversary of the construction of the Viaduct (A.D. 2135), have a number of Masonic
symbols carved into it, alluding to the industrial importance of the viaduct since it was so instrumental in jump-starting industry not only in this area, but in all of greater Boston, as well as the distance to Boston and the distance to the Massachusetts Grand Lodge in Boston.

Canton Viaduct Foundation Stone

The Freemason Square and Compasses carved in the Foundation Stone with the date of April 20, 1834.

Site work (hopefully this would be done by volunteers) would consist of laying cobblestones around the monument in a design such that the obelisk also served as a sun dial. If there is enough interest in funding this project, a Rough Ashlar and a Finished Ashlar would be placed on either side of the monument near the base. Ideally, an interpretive bronze plaque would have listed all the Lodges and donors who participated in the project and possibly donors who participated in Memorial’s construction.

Canton Viaduct cornerstone inscription

Canton Viaduct cornerstone back inscription reads: “FOUNDATION STONE LAID APRIL 20, 1834.” The Operative or Craft Freemasons’ calendar year was 5834 A.L. (Anno Lucis – In the Year of Light).

This could be an excellent public relations tool for the local Freemasonry in general as well as local businesses who contribute in the area. The Time Capsule would also contain the names of donors and all those involved in the project to be remembered when it was opened 125 years from now.

Cost:

The obelisk with all the carvings would cost approximately $6, 450. The Ashlars would be $125 to $150 each. Site work would be an additional $200 or so to cover the cost of cobble stones and other materials. The work is anticipated to be voluntary. Add another $200 for the cost of the base and time capsule. The upper estimate of cost for this project would be approximately $7,150, though that price could vary depending on several factors.

This grand project cannot happen without the cooperation and generous donations of Masons, local businesses, and individuals who would like to help ensure the construction of this highly visible icon to America’s Freemasons and their place in the history of building America. The Obelisk would essentially look like the diagram below.

Reserve a Space in the Time Capsule:

Donors who contribute $1,000 or more will be entitled to place an 8 inch X 11inch photo or document into the Time Capsule with whatever subject matter they choose. Those contributing $100 will be entitled to place a 2 inch X 3 inch photo or document of their choice into the Capsule. Please note, of course, that space is limited. The anticipated date of the opening of the Time Capsule is 2,135 AD, which is 300 years after the completion
of the Canton Viaduct.

Contact:

For more information about this project please contact John Ciccotelli, Master of Blue Hill Lodge at: hirams_beehive@yahoo.com or you can call (508) 636-5253. If you would like to contribute to the success of this historic project, your tax deductible donations may be made out and sent to Blue Hill Lodge, A.F. & A. M., c/o Ralph Staples, Secretary, 28 Wardwell Road, Canton, MA 02021. Be sure to put Canton Viaduct Masonic Memorial on the Note at the bottom of the check. Donations can also be made through PayPal.

To do this, go to the PayPal website, type in the amount you want to donate, enter the email address: bluehillhiram@yahoo.com and click submit. You willr eceive a verification of your donation from Blue Hill Lodge for your tax records.

The Freemason Square and Compasses carved in the Foundation Stone with the date of April 20, 1834. The foundation stone was laid on Sunday, April 20, 1834 with a Masonic foundation stone ceremony to give the structure a “soul” and ensure it’s stability. This day may have been chosen to coincide with Paul Revere’s Copper Mill founding in 1801 or the election of Jacques De Molay in 1292, the last Grand Master of the Knight’s Templar.

The majority of the B & P’s Board of Directors were Freemasons, including President Thomas B. Wales and Joseph W. Revere. President Wales was very involved in Freemasonry and gave three of his clipper ships Masonic names: Morning Star, Hesperus (Evening Star), and Templar. According to Masonic tradition, foundation stones are located in the northeast corner of structures with inscriptions such as the Masonic emblem (square and compasses) and the date, which would most likely contain a time capsule. Freemasons use Fibonacci numbers in their structures and there are examples of these “golden ration” numbers in the Canton Viaduct:

  • The inscription on the back of the cornerstone is recessed into an elongated octagon.
  • The original roadway portal was built through the eighth cavity from the south end.
  • There are 13 voussoirs in each river portal.
  • There are 21 voussoirs in each deck arch.
  • There are 21 deck arches on each side of the bridge.
  • There are 21 cavities in the bridge

Canton Viaduct cornerstone back inscription reads: “FOUNDATION STONE
LAID APRIL 20, 1834.” The Operative or Craft Freemasons’ calendar year was5834 A.L. (Anno Lucis – In the Year of Light).

Operative Freemasons laid the cornerstone (the final stone in the structure) in the south end of the west parapet. According to Masonic tradition this location was selected to it being the farthest distance from the foundation stone located in the northeast corner. There are no Masons marks on the front, back or sides of the cornerstone but there may be some on the other surfaces.

Masons give $100,000 to UCO Foundation

More in the news on the re-emirgance of Masonry and academia:

“The University of Central Oklahoma Foundation received a $100,000 gift July 14 from The Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma. The gift will establish the Masonic Endowment for Transformative Learning, which will support a project that fosters transformative learning experiences for Central students, helping them become productive, creative, ethical and engaged citizens and leaders.

“This generous gift from the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma will allow us to incorporate the transformative learning process that places students at the center of their own active and reflective learning experiences,” said UCO President Roger Webb.

Read more in The Edmond Sun

Well done brothers.

Masonic Education vs. Practicing Freemasonry

I’ve been in recent mental debate over the place of Freemasonry in academia (more here) and the practice of Freemasonry in the real world.

More specifically, how Masonry is perceived in the academic sphere in a past and present light, vs. the contemporary practice of Freemasonry itself, what the fraternity is doing as a whole in creating or generating ideas and philosophy.

One of the limiting aspects of studying the Fraternity is that it has to focus on specific elements: i.e. lodges, meetings, minutes, attendance, composition of lodges in a particular area and the correspondence to and from the lodge. What it doesn’t take into account is what ritual that particular lodge is practicing, which I would suggest, dictates the ideology that is coming out of a particular area.

This becomes less of a concern as you enter into the North American Freemasonry that puts its practice squarely under the United Grand Lodge of England. With a homogenized ritual (Webb-Preston) and a stuff Grand Lodge leadership, innovation is virtually wiped clean from unique practice developing lodge to lodge. Yes, the ritual does vary state to state to some degree, but there is little change to its core metrics. As standardization goes, this is a boon for inter-recognition, but a bust ti innovating new rituals, new philosophy, and new creativity.

How I see this as relating to academia is that as more and more scholarly institutions start to come on line to study Freemasonry, what they may see is the early contribution to civil society (see Bullocks’s Revolutionary Brotherhood Jacob’s Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe, and Harlan-Jacob’s Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism) but little by way of the need to innovate in a tamed and civilized world. Rather, what will be evident is the process by which the different groups (lodges and grand lodges) work to form a network of laws (jurisprudence) to say who is and who isn’t in the main. I see this as a corporation making contractual deals to say who they “recognize” and who they “do not recognize” which is less about philosophical development, and more about partnerships and networks.

(This is a good explanation of what civil society is and how it relates to Freemasonry from the University of Antwerp)

Yet, perhaps these types of partnerships are in fact the foundation of how Freemasonry set about to (inadvertently) shape society. Imagine just such a an agreement today between a masculine Grand Lodge and feminine Grand Lodge, recognition not on principals, but on necessity, which in turn creates a new principal.

Of greater interest to me, however, is the variation of ritual which preceded the dominance of Grand Lodge Masonry (still at play in European Masonry in the milieu of Grand Lodges and Masonic Confederations like Clipsas and Lithos), where the diversity of ideas, practice, and culture become the foundation stones of the fraternity rather than a bane to it.

In many ways, I see this as the practice of Freemasonry in that it exceeds the idea of a lodge business meeting and puts it into an amplified mode of constructive operation.

I hope that academia will be able to pick up on that subtly and explore the internal mechanisms that generate its ability to make such a contribution to the creation of civil society.

In short, the question that comes to mind is as much rich history there is from the past, what is being created today that will be studied by academia tomorrow.  How is Freemasonry contributing to the creation of civil society now?

Fred Milliken,Freemason Information,The Beehive

Meet Red Mitchell of The MWPHGL of Massachusetts

Brother Red Mitchell of Norton Massachusetts was a prime mover on the committee to erect the monument to Prince Hall on the Cambridge common. His hard work and perseverance to see the project completed was noticed by the Sun Chronicle who wrote this article titled,  “Rediscovering A Hero”,  about him and that auspicious occasion.

Norton man’s efforts help honor Prince Hall

Prince Hall was an American patriot, entrepreneur and civil rights activist whose name is considerably less well known than his contemporaries John Hancock and George Washington.

But thanks in part to the efforts of a Norton resident, the life and deeds of the African-American Masonic and educational leader may one day be recounted with the same reverence as those of Martin Luther King and Booker T. Washington.

Cambridge officials unveiled a monument to Hall Saturday on the city common, the same spot where George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775.

Red T. Mitchell, a Mason and Norton resident, helped promote the idea of a memorial to a man he calls one of America’s civil rights leaders.

A series of five granite slabs quarried in Africa that form the monument are inscribed with some of Hall’s writings and the biography of the man who agitated against slavery and created the first school for black children in Boston. Mitchell says Hall is also symbolic of African Americans’ role in American independence, which has long been shrouded in history.

Read the entire article at the Sun Chronicle.

Many who have recently delved deeply into the history of Prince Hall, the man, see this African American, not only as the leader of Colonial Black Freemasonry in America but also as A FOUNDING FATHER OF THIS NATION.

Recently Brother Mitchell penned an essay further exemplifying his thoughts on the impact of Prince Hall.

Reflections after watching a Documentary about Jackie Robinson

Red Mitchell July 9, 2010 Norton MA.

Great men and moments in history are not always immediately recognized. Such is the story of Jackie Robinson. Upon reflection of his first game as a major league Baseball player, the tremendous impact it had on race relations led to the comment that, “he is second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in being the most important black man to have lived in America”.  This may be true in the memory of those who are alive at this time. The personal attacks which each endured were sacrificial as if paying the price for a greater opportunity for their people.

I beg you to consider these quotes. “Your Honors need not to be informed that a Life of Slavery, like that of your petitioners, deprived of every social privilege, of every thing requisite to render Life even tolerable, is far worse than non-existence”. And then this, “Patience, I say, for were we not possess’d of a great measure of it you could not bear up under the daily insults you meet with in the streets of Boston”.

These quotes are on the Memorial honoring the Black Patriots of the revolutionary period of our nation erected on the Cambridge Common.  They are the words of Prince Hall, the principal character of the monument, representing all those unknown and forgotten African-Americans who participated and contributed to the founding of our nation.

Emancipation, or the abolition of slavery in America, is often associated with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil war. We must know that prior to the Revolutionary war, each of the original thirteen colonies had legal slavery. During the eight-year period of the Revolutionary war, slavery as a legal entity in the northern colonies was essentially abolished.

This first “emancipation” was greatly influenced by the many Americans of African ancestry participating in the war, (July 1781 at White Plains NY, twenty-five percent of the American Army were Negroes.) Prince Hall, called the “First black organizer in American History” and “Boston’s most prominent black in the era of the Revolution” was described in this way. ”Prince Hall, an African, and a person of great influence upon his Colour in Boston, being the Master of the African Lodge, and a person to whom they refer with confidence their principal affairs”.

PS: Didn’t Boston have the “first shot” in acquiring Jackie Robinson as a baseball player?

 

Ref::

PBS Television

Forgotten Patriots African Americans and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War. Daughters of the American Revolution

The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution 1770-1800, Sidney Kaplan

Prince Hall Life and Legacy, Charles H. Wesley

freemasonry, masonic, freemasons, information

Rosewood Masonic Lodge Discovered

The events and depiction of the 1997 film Rosewood are cinematic but unlike most of what Hollywood produces, the events that fateful town actually happened.

Recently, the remains of the historic Rosewood Masonic lodge has been discovered amidst items during exploratory dig at site of 1923 massacre.

Marvin Dunn, a retired Florida International University professor and Florida historian, and three others took part in a day of exploratory dig finding the evidence just below the surface.

From the Ocala:

“After some digging, they uncovered pieces of, what they believe to be, a ceremonial sword and a knife from the Rosewood Masonic Lodge, also known as Magnolia Lodge. One of the men helping Dunn was a Mason, and “he knew immediately what they were.” Dunn said finding the artifacts finally gives researchers an idea of the location of the pivotal building.”

From Wikipedia on the Rosewood Masacre:

Rosewood was a quiet, primarily black, self-sufficient whistle stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Spurred by unsupported accusations that a white woman in nearby Sumner had been beaten and possibly raped by a black drifter, white men from nearby towns lynched a Rosewood resident. When black citizens defended themselves against further attack, several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for black people, and burned almost every structure in Rosewood. Survivors hid for several days in nearby swamps and were evacuated by train and car to larger towns. Although state and local authorities were aware of the violence, they made no arrests for the activities in Rosewood. The town was abandoned by black residents during the attacks. None ever returned.

As depicted in the film, the Masonic lodge was the central building in the community that served many functions. Its also believed that many of the men living in the Rosewood community were Masons, making the find an exciting one on several levels.