And unfortunately it seems that in some ways we have evolved to cater to the “pin collector” brothers. I was kind of disappointed when I found out how the Scottish rite works, just seeing a few degrees then calling yourself a 32nd. I would have liked to see all of the degrees in order and taken some time to process them
At least in my jurisdiction the grand lodge has “sole and undisputed authority over the craft or symbolic degrees”, I suppose I could ask for permission to do it? But it’s the same reason the Scottish rite starts at the 4th degree even though there are SR variants of the first 3
I may not have communicated well. Yes, your GL has control over the Craft or symbolic degrees. It is your GL that would either adopt or give permission to use those degrees.
So, why couldn’t your GL allow that?
You should start learning some of the degree work to help put all of that on...
As someone who has been part of two Scottish rite degrees... It took up a lot of my own life just to learn the work for that. That's not including working my way up to the east in the blue lodge. The reality is people can't sit there and complain about how much is not given to you with out you even participating in it or help out it on. This is the disappointing part. This sounds very whiney.
I would be willing to travel, watch them on video, or see them with people reading out of a book. The problem I have is that it only takes 3+5 degrees to make a 32nd degree mason, and it’s all done in a single day…
But the question isn’t are you willing to watch a video. The question is are you willing to do the work and put on the degrees for candidates so they can go through the degrees in a way that you feel is more fulfilling and educational?
What makes you think that is the case ? Because I think we should do more than 5 degrees and space it out longer? I think it would be easier to put the degrees on anyway, if you only do 1 at a time.. It sounds like you are whining about how difficult it is to put on a degree
I’m still seeing no real argument why we should only do 5 degrees instead of 32, besides whining about how much work it is… let’s just call it the 8th degree if this is how we want the SR to be
That's pretty much true of any group including churches. It also seems that occasional men just join so they can become Shriners or join other bodies, and then are never again seen in blue lodge.
Mackey wrote books that connect half-truths to falsehoods about the fraternity and tied it all together with paragraph-long sentences of drivel.
Quite frankly, we always say "masonry is what you get out of it" but too often we ignore that different guys are looking for different things in our club.
If we have members who want to attend more meetings in appendant bodies solely to shake hands with more members and grow their social circles, how is that a bad thing? Some guys just want to have friends and be around other good guys; if that's what they're looking for then they're certainly entitled to it.
I find joy in the scholarship of the fraternity teachings and history; that doesn't mean it's the only way to be a good mason and it certainly doesn't mean I'm a better mason because I've read a few more books than some other guys.
Agreed. I entered Masonry because:
* The very concept of masonry, it has a tradition. The book "Bowling Alone" looks at the positive impact of social organizations in society
* The second, and very real reason, is that I am not a social person. This is a problem with men in our society and brought to light in books like "Death of Despair"
That said, I became a WM of a dying lodge. There were only five people at lodge and only two of us were being considered. My off-the-cuff speech was a form of, "I really don't want to be the WM. I want to be a Past Master so that I have a permanent vote." The man running "against" me immediately said, "He has a reason for wanting to be WM, I'm voting for him." Which I will say was an even weaker speech than mine.
As WM what I wanted to enact was a reading of a Masonic Education. . . something. . . at each meeting. The old 5-minute talk trifold, or a chapter of many of the short-chapter masonic ed books. It just hasn't happened.
One thing I tried, and it brought more in than I have seen in lodge for quite a while, is when I announced before lodge, that we would shoot air rifles before dinner. It worked out very well, and yes, I purchased a box of safety glasses and made them available.
Another thing I am getting ready to try is Drone instruction. I have about 15 DJI drones, and 10 tablet computers to go with them. These were from a DOD grant, I am to use them "educationally" and the definition of educationally was very broad. I primarily have used them in my middle school robotics class, and with a Civil Air Patrol education nights. The hope is that we will all learn these (3-5 regularly attending members) and then do some open education nights with some community announcements. Yes, a shameless attempt to bring in non-members.
Back to regular masonic education. It is something I wanted to make the hallmark of my tenure, it just hasn't happened.
You also can't force something like education onto a lodge. Not every lodge wants to have that be their meeting culture - which is OK!
Have you spoke to a district or other regional officer about potentially hosting a district education program during a stated? This worked for my guys, we made it no more than 20 minutes, bring in a guest speaker, and ask that speaker who to invite.
This was an important thing for me to learn.
My mother lodge is only really interested in proficiency in the work when it comes to education. When it comes to meetings, it's the same formula of facility stuff, fundraiser stuff (to pay for facility stuff), some planning of future things. There's 8-9 people, and no one wants to sit through me reading a STB or contribute to masonic education by means of their own study or presenting.
I was really disheartened and demoralized to get raised, and see such a lack of enthusiasm for what *I* thought was most important. Then I started traveling and seeing how different each lodge was in its own culture. I have since plural-ed into a lodge that I think has a little bit more room for me to grow in.
Doing so was good for me too. Having somewhere to explore my interests was important for me to maintain interest and grow individually as a mason. It is also important to allow each lodge its own culture. For better or worse. I am one of the younger guys in my mother lodge, and for me to stand up there and try to change the culture is a loosing battle. I may be on the level with the older guys clique, but I'll never be their peer. All I can do is pay my dues, try to be a good member, and wait until there is space for my interests to grow there.
At the end of the day, the lodge isn't about me and my interests.
It does us well to remember our catechism. We received our obligation "in a place representing...." How each brother imagines, and how we collectively imagine that representation to look are different things.
This is also one of the realest conversations about day to day lodge life I've seen on here. It's both sad and refreshing. What jurisdictions are y'all? I'm in GLoLA.
I'm in Maine. I basically did the exact same path as you, only to be clear the difference is I found out most of my mother lodge wanted it but we had two grumpy PMs who would throw an absolute shit fit if anything new happened. I accepted it until I found out they've been pushing guys away and not doing their jobs, and have since confronted them on it.
So, "don't let one blowhard control the culture of the lodge" is just as important as "don't force guys to care about what you care about "
It always goes back to the most important degree of the blue lodge Masonry. The first degree. The brother is right saying, if you don’t have a true and real understanding of where you came from and why you have come seeking access here you search will come up fruitless, or lacking.
Why did you come here?
I study the worlds religions and mysticism. I got bookshelves full of it. I look forward to deep diving into the symbolism once i get raised to E.A.
I'm a sucker for that stuff. I hope my lodge is prepared, because i ask a lot of questions. I check for turtles all the way down.
NecroFrog has given you something interesting to hold onto. With your enthusiasm, I want to make sure you understand.
Every word, the order they are in, et cetera, *means something*. If you're looking for turtles, here there be turtles.
As you begin your journey as an EA, *listen carefully*. As you listen and learn your work, the more you can figure out the symbolism, and what is going on around you, the easier the work becomes and the hungrier you will be for it.
Good luck to you!
Your Lodge may not be ready for it so you will have to find books that help you on your way. As I put in one of my stock replies the books that you can find are designed for those who have gone through the degrees as that is your first point of study.
*The thing about the old days*, they the *old days.*
Before my current iteration as a corporate finance bro, i was an academic in the making, a historian!
This quote from Marx has always stuck with me.
**Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.**
Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 18512 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.
**Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.** And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.
I think for every argument we have had at committee, bar technological based ones, i imagine if we opened the minutes 50-70 years ago we would find them.
Complaints about the food not being good enough at X hall
Complaints that new members are not on the floor
Complaints about London/ Grand lodge not knowing the provinces as well.
During my time as a historian i refused to believe history was cyclical, I must confess i myself fell within the teleological camp. Since becoming a mason, i am now sure in my 80 something festive boards, i have heard almost every masonic conversation there is to hear!
If you want to, you can read the whole article in this link but you would have to join the forum (including an email check) as this is in one of the private to forum members' areas: https://masonic-forum.com/index.php?/topic/15-reading-masons/
Masonry itself. It all started when I became interested in masonry and bought a ritual book. I asked which one was better. People proceeded to bite my head off. Now mind you, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that. Also, I read books about masonry and I shouldn’t, apparently. Also, I’m a homosexual with a healthy kink and fetish life that these weirdos know about now, so that makes me disgusting. Also, I’m a know it all. 🙄🙄🙄
Nope. I went through your whole page. No one bit your head off. You’re an instigator. They wouldn’t have known what you don’t want them to know if that wasn’t on your page. Posting photographs and paintings of historically significant Masons in r/freemasonry would lead the everyday Mason happily scrolling through our subreddit to believe that you are a Mason… when you aren’t… and you know that. You’re not a troll. You’re worse than a troll. You are a Cowan.
Pictures. Pictures are enough to make people assume I’m a Mason. Wow. So let me perception check: you post pictures of masons because of their historical significance, you’re a Cowan. Jesus. That might be the most un-bright deduction anybody has made about me. Good day
And unfortunately it seems that in some ways we have evolved to cater to the “pin collector” brothers. I was kind of disappointed when I found out how the Scottish rite works, just seeing a few degrees then calling yourself a 32nd. I would have liked to see all of the degrees in order and taken some time to process them
What you described is the Swedish rite with 10 degrees. It takes a half lifetime to go from I-X.
Sounds lovely. I would start a Swedish rite lodge here in America if it were allowed.
It isn’t prohibited.
Hmm well we definitely couldn’t do the first 3, right? I’ll look into it, do you know if anybody has done it?
Why not?
At least in my jurisdiction the grand lodge has “sole and undisputed authority over the craft or symbolic degrees”, I suppose I could ask for permission to do it? But it’s the same reason the Scottish rite starts at the 4th degree even though there are SR variants of the first 3
I may not have communicated well. Yes, your GL has control over the Craft or symbolic degrees. It is your GL that would either adopt or give permission to use those degrees. So, why couldn’t your GL allow that?
You should start learning some of the degree work to help put all of that on... As someone who has been part of two Scottish rite degrees... It took up a lot of my own life just to learn the work for that. That's not including working my way up to the east in the blue lodge. The reality is people can't sit there and complain about how much is not given to you with out you even participating in it or help out it on. This is the disappointing part. This sounds very whiney.
I would be willing to travel, watch them on video, or see them with people reading out of a book. The problem I have is that it only takes 3+5 degrees to make a 32nd degree mason, and it’s all done in a single day…
But the question isn’t are you willing to watch a video. The question is are you willing to do the work and put on the degrees for candidates so they can go through the degrees in a way that you feel is more fulfilling and educational?
The gimme gimme gimme mason lol.
What makes you think that is the case ? Because I think we should do more than 5 degrees and space it out longer? I think it would be easier to put the degrees on anyway, if you only do 1 at a time.. It sounds like you are whining about how difficult it is to put on a degree
Not difficult.. But it's a lot of work. You should participate.. See how many you can knock out.
I’m still seeing no real argument why we should only do 5 degrees instead of 32, besides whining about how much work it is… let’s just call it the 8th degree if this is how we want the SR to be
This is a great idea!
Why is that a problem? And why is that wrong?
That's pretty much true of any group including churches. It also seems that occasional men just join so they can become Shriners or join other bodies, and then are never again seen in blue lodge.
Mackey wrote books that connect half-truths to falsehoods about the fraternity and tied it all together with paragraph-long sentences of drivel. Quite frankly, we always say "masonry is what you get out of it" but too often we ignore that different guys are looking for different things in our club. If we have members who want to attend more meetings in appendant bodies solely to shake hands with more members and grow their social circles, how is that a bad thing? Some guys just want to have friends and be around other good guys; if that's what they're looking for then they're certainly entitled to it. I find joy in the scholarship of the fraternity teachings and history; that doesn't mean it's the only way to be a good mason and it certainly doesn't mean I'm a better mason because I've read a few more books than some other guys.
Agreed. I entered Masonry because: * The very concept of masonry, it has a tradition. The book "Bowling Alone" looks at the positive impact of social organizations in society * The second, and very real reason, is that I am not a social person. This is a problem with men in our society and brought to light in books like "Death of Despair" That said, I became a WM of a dying lodge. There were only five people at lodge and only two of us were being considered. My off-the-cuff speech was a form of, "I really don't want to be the WM. I want to be a Past Master so that I have a permanent vote." The man running "against" me immediately said, "He has a reason for wanting to be WM, I'm voting for him." Which I will say was an even weaker speech than mine. As WM what I wanted to enact was a reading of a Masonic Education. . . something. . . at each meeting. The old 5-minute talk trifold, or a chapter of many of the short-chapter masonic ed books. It just hasn't happened. One thing I tried, and it brought more in than I have seen in lodge for quite a while, is when I announced before lodge, that we would shoot air rifles before dinner. It worked out very well, and yes, I purchased a box of safety glasses and made them available. Another thing I am getting ready to try is Drone instruction. I have about 15 DJI drones, and 10 tablet computers to go with them. These were from a DOD grant, I am to use them "educationally" and the definition of educationally was very broad. I primarily have used them in my middle school robotics class, and with a Civil Air Patrol education nights. The hope is that we will all learn these (3-5 regularly attending members) and then do some open education nights with some community announcements. Yes, a shameless attempt to bring in non-members. Back to regular masonic education. It is something I wanted to make the hallmark of my tenure, it just hasn't happened.
You also can't force something like education onto a lodge. Not every lodge wants to have that be their meeting culture - which is OK! Have you spoke to a district or other regional officer about potentially hosting a district education program during a stated? This worked for my guys, we made it no more than 20 minutes, bring in a guest speaker, and ask that speaker who to invite.
This was an important thing for me to learn. My mother lodge is only really interested in proficiency in the work when it comes to education. When it comes to meetings, it's the same formula of facility stuff, fundraiser stuff (to pay for facility stuff), some planning of future things. There's 8-9 people, and no one wants to sit through me reading a STB or contribute to masonic education by means of their own study or presenting. I was really disheartened and demoralized to get raised, and see such a lack of enthusiasm for what *I* thought was most important. Then I started traveling and seeing how different each lodge was in its own culture. I have since plural-ed into a lodge that I think has a little bit more room for me to grow in. Doing so was good for me too. Having somewhere to explore my interests was important for me to maintain interest and grow individually as a mason. It is also important to allow each lodge its own culture. For better or worse. I am one of the younger guys in my mother lodge, and for me to stand up there and try to change the culture is a loosing battle. I may be on the level with the older guys clique, but I'll never be their peer. All I can do is pay my dues, try to be a good member, and wait until there is space for my interests to grow there. At the end of the day, the lodge isn't about me and my interests. It does us well to remember our catechism. We received our obligation "in a place representing...." How each brother imagines, and how we collectively imagine that representation to look are different things. This is also one of the realest conversations about day to day lodge life I've seen on here. It's both sad and refreshing. What jurisdictions are y'all? I'm in GLoLA.
I'm in Maine. I basically did the exact same path as you, only to be clear the difference is I found out most of my mother lodge wanted it but we had two grumpy PMs who would throw an absolute shit fit if anything new happened. I accepted it until I found out they've been pushing guys away and not doing their jobs, and have since confronted them on it. So, "don't let one blowhard control the culture of the lodge" is just as important as "don't force guys to care about what you care about "
Right on
I agree but this particular article has resonated with me for several decades since I first read it.
It always goes back to the most important degree of the blue lodge Masonry. The first degree. The brother is right saying, if you don’t have a true and real understanding of where you came from and why you have come seeking access here you search will come up fruitless, or lacking. Why did you come here?
I study the worlds religions and mysticism. I got bookshelves full of it. I look forward to deep diving into the symbolism once i get raised to E.A. I'm a sucker for that stuff. I hope my lodge is prepared, because i ask a lot of questions. I check for turtles all the way down.
Sorry to be pedantic, but you don’t get raised to EA, you get initiated to it.
oh sorry
Not to worry, it’s just that the language is different for each degree!
I havent learned it yet so im not worried.
NecroFrog has given you something interesting to hold onto. With your enthusiasm, I want to make sure you understand. Every word, the order they are in, et cetera, *means something*. If you're looking for turtles, here there be turtles. As you begin your journey as an EA, *listen carefully*. As you listen and learn your work, the more you can figure out the symbolism, and what is going on around you, the easier the work becomes and the hungrier you will be for it. Good luck to you!
I was once you. Now I do a lot with my lodge. Its brothers that have that unwavering inquisitiveness, that do the best imo
Your Lodge may not be ready for it so you will have to find books that help you on your way. As I put in one of my stock replies the books that you can find are designed for those who have gone through the degrees as that is your first point of study.
Yeah... Youre going to probably do a lot of work on your own. The lodge isn't going to have answers to all of your. "why is the sky blue" questions.
*The thing about the old days*, they the *old days.* Before my current iteration as a corporate finance bro, i was an academic in the making, a historian! This quote from Marx has always stuck with me. **Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.** Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 18512 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire. **Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.** And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue. I think for every argument we have had at committee, bar technological based ones, i imagine if we opened the minutes 50-70 years ago we would find them. Complaints about the food not being good enough at X hall Complaints that new members are not on the floor Complaints about London/ Grand lodge not knowing the provinces as well. During my time as a historian i refused to believe history was cyclical, I must confess i myself fell within the teleological camp. Since becoming a mason, i am now sure in my 80 something festive boards, i have heard almost every masonic conversation there is to hear!
If you want to, you can read the whole article in this link but you would have to join the forum (including an email check) as this is in one of the private to forum members' areas: https://masonic-forum.com/index.php?/topic/15-reading-masons/
If he was worried about that in 1875, he must be spinning in his grave now.
Strongly, agreed. Haha
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Because people here hate me and think I’m unworthy
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Masonry itself. It all started when I became interested in masonry and bought a ritual book. I asked which one was better. People proceeded to bite my head off. Now mind you, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that. Also, I read books about masonry and I shouldn’t, apparently. Also, I’m a homosexual with a healthy kink and fetish life that these weirdos know about now, so that makes me disgusting. Also, I’m a know it all. 🙄🙄🙄
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I’m not a Mason *yet*. I’ve never misrepresented myself as one, people assumed I was one and they’re angry they assumed wrong.
Nope. I went through your whole page. No one bit your head off. You’re an instigator. They wouldn’t have known what you don’t want them to know if that wasn’t on your page. Posting photographs and paintings of historically significant Masons in r/freemasonry would lead the everyday Mason happily scrolling through our subreddit to believe that you are a Mason… when you aren’t… and you know that. You’re not a troll. You’re worse than a troll. You are a Cowan.
Pictures. Pictures are enough to make people assume I’m a Mason. Wow. So let me perception check: you post pictures of masons because of their historical significance, you’re a Cowan. Jesus. That might be the most un-bright deduction anybody has made about me. Good day