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.

The Repression of Freemasonry in Spain

If you happen to be near the Iberian Peninsula, this sounds like an excellent event to attend.

From the Gibraltar Chronicle (from the Wayback Archive)…

Talks on the history of Freemasonry in Spain will be held at the John Mackintosh Hall on 28th June at 7pm. The talks will be delivered by Professor Dr. Jose Antonio Ferrer Benimeli and Professor Dr. Juan Jose Morales Ruiz. They are experts on the history of Freemasonry in Spain. Professor Ferrer Benimeli and Professor Morales Ruiz are not Freemasons.

Prior to his retirement, Jose Antonio Ferrer Benimeli was professor of Contemporary History at the Universidad de Zaragoza. Professor Ferrer Benimeli is an internationally renowned authority on the history of Freemasonry, especially that of Spain and Latin America. He has participated in some 300 international conferences and has delivered over 500 talks in Europe and America. Professor Ferrer Benimeli is the founder member of the ‘Centro de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Española’ and was its president from 1983 to 2009. At present, he is honorary president. He was also vice-president of the ‘Centro de Estudios del Siglo XVIII Español’ for a period of ten years. Professor Ferrer Benimeli has published more than five hundred monographs and forty six books.

Professor Juan Jose Morales Ruiz received a doctorate in Information Science from the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. He also has a Degree in journalism from the School of Journalism in Madrid. Professor Morales Ruiz currently works at the ‘Centro de Estudios Históricos’ of the Universidad de Zaragoza, where his research includes the history of Freemasonry in Spain. Professor Morales Ruiz is the author of a number of books and research papers on the subject of Spanish Freemasonry, with a particular emphasis on its role during the Spanish Civil War and its subsequent suppression under the regime of Francisco Franco.

Professor Ferrer Benimeli will talk on ‘La Historia de la Masonería Española’ and Professor Morales Ruiz will talk on ‘La represión de los masones durante la Guerra Civil (1936-1939), Franco y la Masonería’. The talks will be in Spanish. The general public is invited to attend. Admission is free. The talks promises to be of great interest to the general public as well as to Freemasons.

The talks are sponsored by the District Grand Lodge of Gibraltar, English Constitution.

About the Spanish Repression of Freemasonry – from Wikipedia:

It is claimed that the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera ordered the abolition of Freemasonry in Spain. In September 1928, one of the two Grand Lodges in Spain was closed and approximately two-hundred masons, most notably the Grand Master of the Grand Orient, were imprisoned for allegedly plotting against the government. It is certainly true that Masonic lodges provided a convenient forum for those critical of the dictator, regardless of their political persuasion.

Following the military coup of 1936, many Freemasons trapped in areas under Nationalist control were arrested and summarily killed, along with members of left wing parties and trade unionists. It was reported that Masons were shot, tortured and murdered by organized death squads in every town in Spain. At this time one of the most rabid opponents of Freemasonry, Father Jean Tusquets, began to work for the Nationalists with the task of exposing masons. One of his close associates was Franco’s personal chaplain, and over the next two years, these two men assembled a huge index of 80,000 suspected masons, even though there were little more than 5,000 masons in Spain. The results were horrific. Among other countless crimes, the lodge building in Cordoba was burnt, the masonic temple in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, was confiscated and transformed into the headquarters of the Falange, and another was shelled by artillery. In Salamanca thirty members of one lodge were shot, including a priest. Similar atrocities occurred across the country: fifteen masons were shot in Logrono, seventeen in Ceuta, thirty-three in Algeciras, and thirty in Valladolid, among them the Civil Governor. Few towns escaped the carnage as Freemasons in Lugo, Zamora, Cadiz and Granada were brutally rounded up and shot, and in Seville, the entire membership of several lodges were butchered. The slightest suspicion of being a mason was often enough to earn a place in a firing squad, and the blood-letting was so fierce that, reportedly, some masons were even hurled into working engines of steam trains. By 16 December 1937, according to the annual masonic assembly held in Madrid, all masons that had not escaped from the areas under nationalist control had been murdered.

After the victory of dictator General Francisco Franco, Freemasonry was officially outlawed in Spain on 2 March 1940. Being a mason was automatically punishable by a minimum jail term of 12 years. Masons of the 18º and above were deemed guilty of ‘Aggravated Circumstances’, and usually faced the death penalty.

According to Francoists, the Republican Regime which Franco overthrew had a strong Masonic presence. In reality Spanish Masons were present in all sectors of politics and the armed forces. At least four of the Generals who supported Franco’s rebellion were Masons, although many lodges contained fervent but generally conservative Republicans. Freemasonry was formally outlawed in the Law for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism. After Franco’s decree outlawing masonry, Franco’s supporters were given two months to resign from any lodge they might be a member of. Many masons chose to go into exile instead, including prominent monarchists who had whole-heartedly supported the Nationalist rebellion in 1936. The common components in Spanish Masonry seems to have been upper or middle class conservative liberalism and strong anti-clericism.

The Law for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism was not abrogated until 1963. References to a “Judeo-Masonic plot” are a standard component of Francoist speeches and propaganda and reveal the intense and paranoid obsession of the dictator with masonry. Franco produced at least 49 pseudonymous anti-masonic magazine articles and an anti-masonic book during his lifetime. According to Franco:

“The whole secret of the campaigns unleashed against Spain can be explained in two words: masonry and communism… we have to extirpate these two evils from our land.”

How Bill Gates Redefines Charity

Charity has existed for as long as man has had enough to share. Compassion is our basic drive to give for those less fortunate than ourselves.  Be it alms coins to the poor from the church in the 1500’s or Bill Gates giving 50 Billion dollar checks to foundations to give in his name.  The idea of what charity is has just been turned on its ear.

This is important because one of the more important elements of Freemasonry is its outlook towards Charity (faith and hope too).

How it came to be is likely a jumble of one time benefit societies, widows of workman, and an endearment towards mankind, especially as those of affluence looked towards those who were without.

It was an alms to the poor, the act of compassion, of love. Love in the sense of a divine love, not an expression of passion , rather a fraternal love. In a sense, the way the great Architect looks down upon you and I.

Over time, that Charitas, Charity, has evolved. Still the giving of alms, but instead of throwing gold coins to the masses, charity is now and endowment towards an institution. Think of the proverb that says instead of giving a man a fish, you teach him how to catch one.

Now, at the pinnacle of the pyramid of giving, Bill Gates has upped the anti. Rather than give his fortune to his children, instead he’s opted to give it back to the world.

Dust to dust, money to money….

But Gates with his friend and philanthropic colleague Warren Buffet are together asking other American Billionaires to donate half of their fortunes too.

It is an epic undertaking to imagine – so much accumulated wealth spread out to so many organizations. Gates and Buffett in asking other billionaires who make a pledge to do so publicly, with a letter explaining their decision.

“The pledge is a moral commitment to give, not a legal contract. It does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations,” they explain in a written statement about the project.

With such monumental giving, it makes me wonder if at the end of the day, those that need the help most will receive it, or if the distribution of money will just go to make other rich.

Read: Whence came the Moral Law in Freemasonry?

An alternative might be something like a kiva.com giving micro loans to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world recipients to establish a business or materials to make an income.

Or, give it in a manner like Percy Ross who said of giving and the results of it

“He who gives while he lives also knows where it goes. . . . I’m having a ball, the time of my life.”

Why not give to those in need instead of funding new businesses to distribute the wealth?

But, Ross was considered gawdy and vulgar for his self promotion, and Gates,  rather than allow himself to be portrayed the happy vulgar giver, instead operates on the down low and letting others be the decision makers to how his money is spent.

Either way, charity has a new face in 2010 and it seems like Gates and the Billionaire Club are leading the way for giving.

With such epic giving as they do, is our lesser run of the mill giving any less valuable?

Secret Order of the Cephalopod Lodge

Some how, I don’t think Sponge Bob is the first thing you think about when you think Secret Society.

But Squidward, well, he’s just the type of cephalopod I’d expect to be into that kind of thing…

The Auto play was a bit annoying, You can watch the clip here:
http://spongebob.nick.com/videos/play/cephalopod-lodge-clip/

You can find an interesting analysis on why this episode is related to Freemasonry here.  Not very revealing, but a fun exercise in chasing your conspiracy tail.

eye of god, providence, triangle eye

The Vast Indifference of Heaven

We contemplate eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven.” -Warren Zevon

My favorite songwriter of all time is the late Warren Zevon.

Warren was incredibly adept at vocalizing the reality of his emotions through the medium of music. One of his works that has become a favorite of mine is his song “Indifference of Heaven.” To me, the song tackles an issue that most humans are afraid of addressing: does God really play an active role in the human existence?

Most people that I have met refuse to even consider this question and with good reason. The idea of an almighty being that doesn’t influence world events or care about our day-to-day existence is unnerving. We naturally want to believe that God is on “our side,” that God wants what is best for us, and that God will protect us. The desire to be one of God’s chosen people has been instilled in us through many different religions. It is a perfectly natural desire and it seems like a logical assumption. If God cared enough to create us, then he would care enough to make sure that everything turns out well for us, right?

all seeing eyeOne spiritual ideology that separates itself from this belief is Deism. Deism is a belief that came out of the Enlightenment Age of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is the belief that the Supreme Architect of the Universe created the universe and all things therein contained, but is not involved in man’s existence. It rejects the idea of divine miracles, revelations, or prophets. However, Deists do believe that all of the universe’s natural processes were put in place by the Almighty Creator and that God does desire for us to act morally.

Deism doesn’t necessarily declare that God is indifferent, but depending on one’s view of this theological ideal Deism could imply that indifference is one of God’s characteristics. Frankly, I think that the idea of an indifferent God can be comforting at times. Consider an event like the Holocaust. It is much more difficult to understand how a God that interferes with human actions would allow such a tragedy to occur. What about those times when a crime is committed and the victim is an innocent law-abiding and God-fearing citizen? How can we accept that a proactive Deity allows these things to happen? Yet, we find ways to rationalize God’s inaction and decide that tragedies are all part of God’s plan.

Maybe there is another way of looking at the vast indifference of heaven. Maybe we don’t have to accept that God is indifferent or that he does direct the course of human action and allows bad things to happen for a reason. Like many people, I like to think of God as a father figure. A good father knows that he cannot run the lives of his children, because if he doesn’t allow them to realize the consequences of their own actions they may become dependent on his guidance and will suffer in the long run because they are not capable of making responsible decisions. He may well know that his child intends on going to a party on the weekend which may result in his child making a wrong decision. So he raises his child by giving them a good example of proper conduct and trusts that they will make the correct decision when it is necessary. Perhaps God works in the same way. He has given us his guidance through various religious texts and trusts that we act in an upright manner, but he also realizes that we must suffer the consequences of our own mistakes.

The truth is that while we exist in this world, we may never know the real characteristics of God. He may be interested in our lives, indifferent, or like a loving father, gently guiding us to follow the right path. But one thing that will not change is that we will all–at one time or another–feel like we are “contemplating eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven.”

Tyranny and Diety – their place in Freemasonry

If Freemasonry had a specific dogma Albert Pike would of been one of its most profound Prophets.  As it stands, he sits in a pantheon of others such as Mackey, Wilmshurst, Webb, and Preston, just to name a few.

The reason I mention Pike in this way, is that for many years his work Morals and Dogma was the field manual given to all Scottish Rite masons for years, so much so that the deep red tomes still frequently show up in used book stores and on Ebay fetching a fair price for such an old body of work.

But the reason I mention Pike and M&D is that amongst the strum und drang of what some states (read Grand Lodges) are doing to some of its members or the shock and surprise that one state picked up a former (read expelled) member of another, Pike talked about these very things in his commentary to the Rite’s degrees.  Essentially, had we (Freemasonry) done our homework or applied the degrees so judicially bestowed upon us, that maybe we could see through the smoke that we ourselves are generating over these epic events.

Truthfully, I was surprised in coming across the passage while doing my work for the Guthrie Scottish Rite College of the Consistory.  Surprised because his wide spread distribution in the past and the little regard given to him today.

Let me just say that Pike was talking about the very things we face in adversity today more than 100 years before it was ever an issue in the 50+ jurisdictions of Grand Lodges.  So say what you want about Pike, personally I’m finding much in his ideas on how masonry should govern itself.

What I found was a small passage in the 10th degree that speaks to how a Freemason should see other faiths, that

“No man is entitled positively to assert that he is right, where other men, equally intelligent and equally well-informed, hold directly the opposite opinion.”

In that passage, Pike is asserting his idea of toleration to the aspect of religion, that no individual can assert that another individuals outlook of the divine spark is any more right than their own, asking the impossible to answer question “What is truth?”

Asking that question make me wonder if the same question can be extrapolated up to establish the definition of what truth means.

In the degree, Pike says (again about religious toleration):

Real knowledge never permitted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration. Whoso dreads these may well tremble; for he may be well assured that their day is at length come, and must put to speedy flight the evil spirits of tyranny and persecution, which haunted the long night now gone down the sky. And it is to be hoped that the time will soon arrive, when, as men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfolded in ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary coincidence of their opinions.

Whenever we come to treat with entire respect those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical effect of a difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance on one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it be theirs; ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational beings,–the agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest discussion.

What stands out to me, especially in this instance with so much hand wringing and heated exchanges, is the second paragraph, even more specifically:

Whenever we come to treat with entire respect those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical effect of a difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance on one side or the other.

The key here seems to be the idea of treating with respect those who differ from ourselves, which applies to all sides in this discussion.

Pike in his conclusion cites a Roman quote saying:

Men in no respect so nearly approach to the Deity, as when they confer benefits on men. To serve and do good to as many as possible, there is nothing greater in your fortune than that you should be able, and nothing finer in your nature, than that you should be desirous to do this.

Which is, after all, the reason for being a Mason, right?

Side Note:
I’ll be publishing more in the days to come, but the book Masonic Traveler is available now at MasonicTraveler.com – look for more soon!

The First Year of the Euphrates e-Book is Now Available!

ebook, Banks of the Euphrates, Freemasonry

The Banks of the Euphrates–The First Year e-Book is now available!

It is finally here! I have finished putting together the free e-book that I promised to create which celebrates the first year of the Banks of the Euphrates on Freemason Information Magazine.  This book features the best of the articles which were featured on the Euphrates over the past year. I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing the articles and selecting some of my favorites for this e-book and I hope that you will enjoy revisiting some of the moments from the past twelve months as well.

The Banks of the Euphrates-The First Year

The book is available for download in .pdf form by clicking on the link above. Thanks for reading and I hope that there are many more years of articles to come!

Like what you are reading at the Euphrates? Email the author at euphratesblog@gmail.com to join the Banks of the Euphrates mailing list.

Facebook Freemasonry

facebook freemasonryOnce upon a time, organizations like Freemasonry were one of the most common forms of entertainment. Fraternities and community organizations offered a getaway from the daily routine and a chance to network with individuals that a person might not typically meet. Regardless of how much Freemasons talk about the necessity of education in our lodges—which is an issue that I regularly address—the truth is that the success of Freemasonry and other organizations is largely attributed to the fact that men are social creatures.

It seems that every time I attempt to answer the question “Why are you a Freemason?” I try to answer it by talking about my desire to seek self improvement through Freemasonry’s philosophy and allegorical lessons. But after stumbling through a long dissertation on that particular subject, I almost always come back to an easier reply: “Because Freemasonry has given me the opportunity to meet and associate with men of the finest character.”

Since I have become a Freemason, the constant focus of the Masonic organizations that I have been involved with has been how to attract new men to the fraternity and bring Brothers that don’t attend lodge back to our meetings. Many Brothers blame the fact that there are many other forms of entertainment available in today’s society. There is a lot of truth in this assumption because the way that people socialize has changed with technology. There was a time when a man would have to join an organization like Freemasonry in order to have a place to go and converse with other men sharing the same interests. Now, people can get home from work and plop down in front of the computer to spend an evening on Facebook.

I have heard a lot of my Brothers claim that the people who would rather spend time on Facebook or any other form of social media than come to a lodge meeting don’t know what they are missing. But what are they missing? Let’s take a look at what Facebook offers. There are no awkward introductions with Facebook, if you want to add someone as a friend you simply have to click your mouse. Anyone that has filled out a petition for Masonry knows that it can be intimidating to be the “new guy” and many seasoned Freemasons have to admit that visiting an unfamiliar lodge can make you feel like you don’t fit in. When you lose contact with a friend on Facebook, it is simple to write a brief message on their wall or check their status. If you lose contact with your Masonic lodge, it can sometimes be difficult to stay up to date with all of the lodge’s events. Finally, Facebook offers each person the ability to proudly show off their individuality. A person can proclaim everything about themselves on Facebook and show who they are as an individual. Unfortunately, our lodges don’t always offer this same opportunity to our Brothers. We show up, conduct our meeting, and leave without giving us a chance to show who we are or learn about the lives of our Brethren.

So when a man must make a decision between spending an evening on-line checking up on all of his Facebook friends or going to lodge only to make awkward conversation with somebody he doesn’t know very well and be just another Mason sitting through another lodge meeting, which one will he choose?

Maybe our lodges should be a little more like Facebook. Maybe we should spend a little less time having meetings and a little more time socializing. We should spend more time getting to know who our Brothers are, what they do for a living, and what they do for fun. The more we learn about our Brothers, the more likely it is that we will find that we have something in common. When we have something in common, we might just find that we can have a more interesting evening at the lodge than spending an evening on Facebook.

Let’s make sure that our lodges are reading and writing on the figurative Facebook wall of our Brothers’ lives. Let’s make fellowship and social networking a focus in our fraternity.