‘Justice.’

    

Masonic Exchange Store

“Justice, the boundary of right, constitutes the cement of civil society. This virtue, in a great measure, constitutes real goodness and is therefore represented as the perpetual study of the accomplished Mason. Without the exercise of justice, universal confusion would ensue, lawless force might overcome the principles of equity, and social intercourse no longer exist.”

William Preston

Illustrations of Masonry

Eighth Edition, 1792

Page 55

“The law of Justice is as universal a one as the law of Attraction; though we are very far from being able to reconcile all the phenomena of Nature with it. The lark has the same right, in our view, to live, to sing, to dart at pleasure through the ambient atmosphere, as the hawk has to ply his strong wings in the Summer sunshine, and yet the hawk pounces on and devours the harmless lark, as it devours the worm, and as the worm devours the animalcule; and, so far as we know, there is nowhere, in any future state of animal existence, any compensation for this apparent injustice.”

Albert Pike

Morals and Dogma

“Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander”

Page 829

“Justice as between man and man, and as between man and the animals below him, is that which, under and according to the God-created relations existing between them, and the whole aggregate of circumstances surrounding them, is fit and right and proper to be done, with a view to the general as well as to the individual interest.”

Ibid., Page 831

“A sense of justice belongs to human nature, and is a part of it. Men find a deep, permanent, and instinctive delight in justice, not only in the outward effects, but in the inward cause, and by their nature love this law of right, this reasonable rule of conduct, this justice, with a deep and abiding love. Justice is the object of the conscience, and fits it as light fits the eye and truth the mind.”

Ibid., Page 833

“The selfish, the grasping, the inhuman, the fraudulently unjust, the ungenerous employer, and the cruel master, are detested by the great popular heart; while the kind master, the liberal employer, the generous, the humane, and the just have the good opinion of all men, and even envy is a tribute to their virtues. Men honor all who stand up for truth and right, and never shrink.”

Ibid., Page 836

     

‘M&D’s Apprentice up for discussion in the Reading Room’

    

Masonry should be an energy, finding its aim and effect in the amelioration of mankind. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius; in other words, bring forth from the man of enjoyments the man of wisdom. Masonry should not be a mere watchtower, built upon mystery, from which to gaze at ease upon the world, with no other result than to be a convenience for the curious. To hold the full cup of thought to the thirsty lips of men; to give to all the true ideas of Deity; to harmonize conscience and science, are the province of Philosophy. Morality is Faith in full bloom. Contemplation should lead to action, and the absolute be practical; the ideal be made air, food, and drink to the human mind. Wisdom is a sacred communion. It is only on that condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of Science, and becomes the one and supreme method by which to unite Humanity and arouse it to concerted action. Then Philosophy becomes Religion.

You didn’t get that in your EA Degree, didja?

Those sentences are a snippet of the first chapter, titled “Apprentice,” of Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike. This chapter is the material for the January 31 meeting in the Reading Room, hosted by Craftsmen Online. Click here for the text.

Sponsored by Deputy Grand Master Steven A. Rubin, the Reading Room is a hybrid meeting space with an in-person panel for discussion that the rest of us may join via Zoom. Hosts Bill Edwards and Michael LaRocco will welcome Cliff Jacobs and Walter Cook at seven o’clock to delve into this opening chapter of M&D.

All Master Masons in good standing are welcome to attend. (If you miss it, catch it later on YouTube.) For more information, visit Craftsmen Online here.

     

‘Chess: Geometry is the key’

 

Magpie file photo

Remnants of Albert Pike’s chess set are displayed in the House of the Temple. They look to predate the standardization of chess pieces in the nineteenth century by chess master Howard Staunton.

Of course every day is a chess day, but today is International Chess Day. Have a great, or Magnus, day!

The closing paragraph of the “An Analysis of the Tarot Cards” chapter in Manly Palmer Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Page CXXXII) reads:

In its symbolism chess is the most significant of all games. It has been called “the royal game”—the pastime of kings. Like the Tarot cards, the chessmen represent the elements of life and philosophy. The game was played in India and China long before its introduction into Europe. East Indian princes were wont to sit on the balconies of their palaces and play chess with living men standing upon a checkerboard pavement of black and white marble in the courtyard below. It is popularly believed that the Egyptian Pharaohs played chess, but an examination of their sculpture and illuminations has led to the conclusion that the Egyptian game was a form of draughts. In China, chessmen are often carved to represent warring dynasties, as the Manchu and the Ming. The chessboard consists of 64 squares alternately black and white and symbolizes the floor of the House of the Mysteries. Upon this field of existence or thought move a number of strangely carved figures, each according to fixed law. The white king is Ormuzd; the black king, Ahriman; and upon the plains of Cosmos the great war between Light and Darkness is fought through all the ages. Of the philosophical constitution of man, the kings represent the spirit; the queens the mind; the bishops the emotions; the knights the vitality; the castles, or rooks, the physical body. The pieces upon the king’s side are positive; those upon the queen’s side, negative. The pawns are sensory impulses and perceptive faculties—the eight parts of the soul. The white king and his suite symbolize the Self and its vehicles; the black king and his retinue, the not-self—the false Ego and its legion. The game of chess thus sets forth the eternal struggle of each part of man’s compound nature against the shadow of itself. The nature of each of the chessmen is revealed by the way in which it moves; geometry is the key to their interpretation. For example: The castle (the body) moves on the square; the bishop (the emotions) moves on the slant; the king, being the spirit, cannot become captured, but loses the battle when so surrounded that it cannot escape.

If I win the lottery, I’m going to open a chess retail and playing parlor on Thompson, between West Third and Bleecker, and name it The Pawn Shop. In the meantime, “Make Evans Great Again!”

THIS JUST IN: Grand Master Magnus Carlsen announced on his podcast today that he will not compete next year to defend his world championship, which he has held since 2013. While not retiring from chess, he says he has no motivation to continue playing at the FIDE top stratum. The end of an era.

     

‘NBC News: Trump requests return of Pike statue’

     

Courtesy Washington Post

NBC News reported the other day that President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to restore the historic statue of Albert Pike to Judiciary Square in the nation’s capital.

The self-described news network did not provide any attribution to its claim, and it did say the White House did not “provide a comment” on the subject, so who really knows if this is rooted in even a whiff of reality? But, reviewing the first half of 2020, I can see anything is possible.

As you may know, this statue, donated by Scottish Rite Freemasons and erected in 1901, was pulled down, defaced, and burned last week.

▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼

Days ago, I was accused in social media by Rev. Lovejoy, a Brother Mason and Methodist Minister in Iowa, of opposing the removal of “Confederate statues.” I am not. I find nothing wrong with removing memorials to historical persons’ seditious and otherwise anti-American misdeeds. (This Pike statue is no such thing.) There just has to be a legal process first.
     

‘DC’s Albert Pike statue is felled, burned’

     

Courtesy NBC4-Washington

The soul hath its senses, like the body, that may be cultivated, enlarged, refined, as itself grows in stature and proportion; and he who cannot appreciate a fine painting or statue, a noble poem, a sweet harmony, a heroic thought, or a disinterested action, or to whom the wisdom of philosophy is but foolishness and babble, and the loftiest truths of less importance than the price of stocks or cotton, or the elevation of baseness to office, merely lives on the level of commonplace, and fitly prides himself upon that inferiority of the soul’s senses, which is the inferiority and imperfect development of the soul itself.

Albert Pike
Morals and Dogma


The above is excerpted from Albert Pike’s lecture in Morals and Dogma for the 5° of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry: the Perfect Master Degree. By “perfect,” this lecture intends another Masonic lesson in achieving equilibrium for the self and harmony in the world.

The adjective “perfect” that we use in the English language derives from the French word for “flawless” and “complete.” It is a coinage as apt for use by those engaged in the good work, square work of operative masonry as it is for those in the speculative art. Otto Jespersen, one of the great linguists, said:


The difference between the Preterit and the Perfect is in English observed more strictly than in the other languages possessing corresponding tenses. The Preterit refers to some time in the past without telling anything about the connection with the present moment, while the Perfect is a retrospective present, which connects a past occurrence with the present time, either as continued up to the present moment (inclusive time) or as having results or consequences bearing on the present moment.


Perfect, as in connecting past to the current moment.

Courtesy Shelton Herald

Albert Pike was a complicated man. Yes, he served in the Confederate army for several months during the Civil War. He was, in fact, a general, until he resigned. Because of this brief military background the “news media” keep referring to his statue in Washington, DC as a Confederate statue. It was not. It was a monument erected by Scottish Rite Masons to honor Albert Pike the Freemason.

In Freemasonry, it was Albert Pike who provided Scottish Rite rituals to Prince Hall brethren so that they too could have Scottish Rite Masonry. It was he who eliminated the medieval religious bar in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite so that Masons who are not Christian may advance to the Rose Croix Degree and beyond—and he did that about a century before the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction got around to emulating that example.

You will see all over the internet today libels about how Pike was a member—or even the founder—of the Klan. He was no such thing. You also will see the accusation that he owned slaves. I have no idea about that, but Pike was a lawyer who moved about the country; he was not a farmer on a plantation.

The mobs in the streets will not be appeased. They are not going to stop destroying historical symbols until there is no more memory of Fill in the Blank. Unchecked by civil authorities, the mobs will continue rampaging. Today’s violence may be against figures, real or imagined, of the Confederacy, but tomorrow it surely will be against the Founders of the United States and many, many, many others who contributed to the complex, but magnificent, history of this unparalleled society.

You destroy a people by obliterating their history. Religious community mocked and marginalized? Check! The family unit discredited and dispersed? Check! Symbols and traditions of common identity rejected and renounced? Double Check! Education crimped to stunt the human mind? Triple Check! And the mobs will continue erasing the historical record itself until people won’t have a past they could protest. “Who controls the past controls the future,” George Orwell instructed in 1984, and “who controls the present controls the past.” Oh, that reminds me: They will defeat and erase language also.

Courtesy WTOP

The destruction of this statue in the middle of the nation’s capital while the police watched speaks to the impotence of Freemasonry in the United States today. The Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction had years of opportunity to retake possession of and relocate the monument. I appreciate how just maintaining the House of the Temple requires so much in precious resources, but an effort to raise funds and devise a plan toward that goal could have been possible had they cared—but they didn’t. So now what’s left of this historic likeness of the man who all but singlehandedly ensured that the Southern Jurisdiction would endure into the twentieth century and beyond will be trucked to some government graveyard where the remains of the mob’s Two Minute Hates will be dumped. He’ll be in good company with Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and many, many, many others.

Some history, from three years ago, here.
     

‘Be an almoner of God’s bounties’

     
Q: What is the seventh great Truth in Masonry?

A: The immutable law of God requires, that besides respecting the absolute rights of others, and being merely just, we should do good, be charitable, and obey the dictates of the generous and noble sentiments of the soul. Charity is a law, because our conscience is not satisfied nor at ease if we have not relieved the suffering, the distressed, and the destitute…. We are the Almoners of God’s bounties.

Albert Pike
Prince of Mercy Degree (26º)
Morals and Dogma


This is a request for charity in its material form, inspired by charity in its spiritual form: sincere fraternal regard and kindness.

A lodge brother has set up a Go Fund Me page to help, aid, and assist a Mason in need. Click here to contribute to a veteran of our nation’s armed forces (ten years in not one, but two airborne divisions) and a career school teacher sidelined by medical challenges. I know him to be a virtuous being who deserves far better than what the unkind vagaries of fate have dealt him recently.

His lodge, the lodge’s district, and the grand lodge have done what they can, and hopefully Magpie readers could keep the energy moving.

Click here. To donate, click the orange Donate Now button at top right. Thank you.
     

‘To remove the statue forthwith’

     
It seems the Scottish Rite has joined the growing consensus advocating the removal from public space in Washington of the Albert Pike statue at Judiciary Square, if the reporting of the Washington Post is to be believed—not something I recommend typically.

Nevertheless, a story published Monday quotes Ronald Seale writing in agreement on removing the 116-year-old giant bronze and marble rendering of his historic predecessor. The Post also claims Seale was party to an aborted scheme to “whisk away the statue at midnight,” meaning he almost linked himself to the ilk that recently damaged statues of Christopher Columbus, Theodore Roosevelt, and other figures historically essential to American society in the name of constant revolution. Fortunately, reason prevailed after it was realized how federal authority is required to move the monument lawfully.

The story never quotes Seale directly, but cites a letter he allegedly sent in August to a DC councilman saying the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction “will support an action by the District of Columbia to remove the statue forthwith so that it should not serve as a source of contention or strife for the residents of our community.”

Sounds good to me, as I said in the previous Magpie post on this subject, if the statue can be relocated to a Masonic property where, presumably, private property still can be kept safe from mobocracy. However, “contention or strife” are among the principal nutrients for a certain segment of American society that is insatiable for perpetual insurrection, replete with violence against people and property, so they will be back.

It is asked often, including in this Post story, why a Confederate Army general is memorialized in the capital city of the United States. Of course it is a fact that this statue of Pike celebrates Albert Pike the Freemason, and has nothing to do with his brief and undistinguished tenure as a CSA military officer, but perhaps Abraham Lincoln broaches this subject in his second inaugural address, delivered only weeks before he was murdered:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
     

‘Albert Pike in bronze: A statue of limitations?’

     
UPDATE: On the eve of the opening of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction’s Biennial Session, vandals splashed red paint onto the Albert Pike statue. WRC-TV, the Washington NBC affiliate, reports:

Demonstrators and some D.C. leaders have said Pike was a racist and supported slavery. Friday morning, a banner was draped against the statue with the message

“#ModernConfederates John Kelly. Gary Cohn. Rex Tillerson.”

Courtesy WRC-TV

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said she plans to meet with the National Park Service to discuss removing the statue. “He certainly has no claim whatsoever to be memorialized in the nation’s capital,” Norton said in a statement.

Following the weekend of violence at the University of Virginia initially sparked by anger over the disposition of a statue of Robert E. Lee, dormant calls for the removal of the statue of Albert Pike in Washington, DC have been revivified by local politicians.

Courtesy dcist.com

Today dcist.com reports rallies Sunday and Monday nights at the statue, located at the corner of Third and D streets NW in the Federal City, brought together activists and city officials to renew calls from a generation ago for the removal of the monument because it memorializes a general in the army of the Confederate States of America during the U.S. Civil War. It is the only statue in Washington dedicated to a Confederate figure, but it is Pike the Freemason, not Pike the general, that is commemorated by the 11-foot bronze.

Sculptor Gaetano Trentanove executed the work, creating what National Parks Service records say is Albert Pike:

“...in civilian dress and presented as a Masonic leader rather than a military man. Pike stands 11 feet tall upon a high granite pedestal. Below his feet about halfway down the west face of the pedestal, sitting on a ledge, is the allegorical Goddess of Masonry, holding the banner of the Scottish Rite. The figure is in Greek dress and posed as looking down. Pike holds a book in his left hand, perhaps his popular Morals and Dogma of Scottish Rite Masonry.”

The statue is situated on federal land, so the calls of the local pols are not an eviction notice; the matter will have to be decided by the NPS. I suppose there may come a day when the House of the Temple will become the statue’s next home. The Southern Jurisdiction’s Biennial Session will convene on Saturday. The leadership may want to empanel a committee to prepare for that possibility. It would not be the statue’s first move, but relocating it to private property may be the best thing. While it was the U.S. Congress that authorized the pedestrian statue, it was the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite that raised the $15,000 to create and install the bronze Pike, dedicating it October 23, 1901.

Letter, dated today, from DC officials to the Acting Director of NPS:

Click to enlarge.

     

‘Journal 37 is a gem’

     

It’s been out for several weeks actually. The Journal of the Masonic Society No. 37 for Summer 2017 hit members’ mailboxes right around the Summer Solstice, so I’m late in catching up on The Magpie.

With a gorgeous shot of the East of Norman Hall in the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia on the front cover—that building never takes a bad photo—and a close-up of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania’s George Washington Apron on the back, these bookends enclose more than half a dozen explorations of the meaning of Masonry.

To join The Masonic Society, click here. Members receive four issues of The Journal per year, and enjoy full access to the superlative Masonic on-line discussion forum (if you can pull yourself away from Facebook) of international reach. In addition, our famous parchment patent with hand-pressed red wax seal memorializes your member status in a way you’ll want framed and hung on your wall. And those are just the material benefits of being with us. Learning more about your Craft in the company of like-minded Freemasons is the true point of it all.

In his President’s Message, Ken Davis imparts Part II of his advice on how to conduct Masonic research. I won’t give it all away, but one point I think is key is—his words— “Build a crap-detector.” (I call it a bullshit detector, but this is a family blog.)

When reading about Freemasonry, or anything really, consider the author’s credentials and qualifications. Look into the publisher. What other titles has it released? Is this material recent enough to be valuable currently? Scrutinize the sources. Are they reliable? Beware of academia. Sometimes reliable sources can be biased too. And, most importantly to me, distinguish between myth and history. I don’t know how many sensible and educated men in this fraternity believe the medieval Knights Templar were this merry band of mystic archaeologists who evolved into Freemasonry, but that’s a lecture for another day.

In every issue, we welcome the new members of the Society. Thirty-five are listed this time, including Brer Josh Heller of Pennsylvania! Josh is co-founder of Masonic Light, which marked its 17th anniversary exactly two months ago. I forgot to write about that. Amazingly, Josh and I have never met. I’m going to have to sneak up on him at one of his gigs one night. He plays the guitar in a rock and roll band. Welcome to TMS, Josh!

In his editorial, Editor in Chief Michael Poll tells of “The Domino Effect” that occurs when Masons labor together. The results can be the desired positive effect or can be unwanted negativity. It depends. Read his thoughtful—and I would say Rosicrucian-inspired—message on Page 10.

Turn the page and find a timely piece by Brent Morris titled “Albert Pike and the Ku Klux Klan.” In just a couple of hundred words, Morris challenges the highly flawed old sources that have been recycled over the decades to claim Pike was a member or even senior officer of the Klan.

I call this timely because it was only a month ago, on June 6, that National Review stupidly published an article by Edward Condon titled “The KKK Is Not the Christian ISIS: The Klan’s Hateful Theatrics and Symbolism Are Rooted Not in Christianity but in Freemasonry.” In this, Condon repeats the libel and goes even further, saying:

Pike was not recruited for his military savvy, however. He came into the Klan through his position as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’s southern jurisdiction. Pike’s 800-page Masonic catechism, Morals and Dogma, and his time as Grand Commander were major factors in setting the ritual and philosophical tone for the higher degrees of American Freemasonry; it was this experience and authority that had the Klan knocking at his door as they looked to give their ragbag insurgency some ritualistic credibility and intimidating theatrics.

(I used to be a longtime subscriber to this magazine. I’m glad I’m not any longer, and not just for this reason. Fortunately, Art de Hoyos responded immediately with an informative and correcting letter to the editor, but I don’t know if it had any effect.)

Meanwhile here on planet Earth, Brent Morris explains there are but two published claims of Pike being with the Klan. Both are from the early 20th century (as in after Pike’s death, when he could not reply to them) and both are unsubstantiated and so shaky that no reputable historian should rely on them.

Clay Anderson of St. Paul Lodge 3 in Minnesota gives us “Mozart, Masonry and the Magic Flute” which contextualizes the history of the Austrian world outside the temple at the time Mozart composed his Masonic opera, and also explains the Continental way of Masonic initiation that the composer experienced. If you wonder what is so Masonic about this piece of music, read this article.

Mike Poll is back, this time on Page 22, with an interview of Art de Hoyos, Bob Davis, and Shane Harshbarger of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction. Here all four collaborate on explaining why a Master Mason should consider the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for his future. (To be clear, it is the Southern Jurisdiction being discussed, and not the other jurisdiction.) Excerpted:

Arturo de Hoyos: “The Scottish Rite, perhaps more than any other Masonic system in the United States, presents a wider tapestry of Masonic philosophy… As I studied it, I realized that the Rite was not just pomp, not empty ceremonial, but a system which labors to fill the promise to provide ‘more light in Masonry.’ Many people don’t realize that the Scottish Rite is the most popular form of Masonry on the planet. Its Craft degrees are conferred in more countries of the world than any other version. Being a Scottish Rite Mason also gives me the opportunity to teach Masons about Masonry. If the Blue Lodge is like an undergraduate degree, the Scottish Rite is like a post-graduate degree. We simply learn more—and the stuff is pretty cool.”

Robert Davis: “The value of the Rite’s teachings is wholly embedded in the rituals of the degrees. And that value exponentially increases in proportion to the number of degrees which are presented to its members. Taken as a whole, the instruction of the Rite carries out six major historical themes in Freemasonry, along with four essential quests of the journey to mature masculinity. These themes and quests have to do with awakening consciousness within oneself. This is one of the most difficult challenges for most men. Yet, it is what makes Freemasonry a transformative art. For men, life needs to be seen as a journey. The Scottish Rite is built on the clear understanding that men need to be engaged in their own quest for self-improvement. The greatest value of the Scottish Rite is that it facilitates this fundamental psychological need in men.”

Shane Harshbarger: “Scottish Rite and Craft Masonry are so intertwined and linked that to speak of one without the other isn’t possible. In a general sense, I see Scottish Rite and Freemasonry continuing to decline in membership as a percentage of total population. Yet, I am not convinced that we need to fear this. We simply need to plan for the challenges that come with this reality. Conversely, I believe Freemasonry and Scottish Rite will always exist. There is no possibility of it dying out or disappearing. There will always be men who are looking for what Masonry and Scottish Rite offer. It is our job to ensure that when a man joins, he receives the experience that we promise to him. Masons need to do Masonry and be Masons… The future of Scottish Rite for me rests on Valleys that have social functions, perform and utilize all 29 degrees, and have continuing Scottish Rite education. There is more Scottish Rite than any Valley can do in a year, five years, or ten years, but we must be organic.”

There is a great deal more to this three-way interview. Get The Journal.

In book reviews, the great Chuck Dunning’s new Contemplative Masonry (that has yet another photo from the Philadelphia Masonic Temple on its cover!) is defined by reviewer Christian M. Christensen as “an extremely important and useful book for the brothers seeking to either get started or deepen their contemplative practices.” Meanwhile Tyler Anderson explains why The Ten Books of Architecture (actually a single volume summary of it) by Vitruvius is important to Freemasons and Masonic ritual.

In the back of the book, we have Brett Laird Doyle, a Full Member of Texas Lodge of Research, with “Captain Peter F. Tumlinson: Texas Ranger, San Jacinto Hero and Freemason.” This is a sterling example of why Masonic researchers today ought to concentrate on the Masonic history/biography in their own backyards. Your local research lodge, wherever you are, does not need more “papers” that deliver shallow understandings of broad historical topics that have been defined expertly by the authors we read already. Follow Doyle’s lead here, and bring to light the life of a brother Mason. Or a lodge history. Something significant to your locality.

John Hairston returns to The Journal with more remarkable details from the story of Prince Hall Freemasonry, this time with previously overlooked proof of the existence of Mark and Past Master degrees as conferred by African Lodge in the early 19th century. He’s not lost in arcana here. This is really cool research that shows how old archives can yield new understandings of the way we were.

There is much more to this issue of The Journal, but I’m at 1,600 words already and I doubt anyone is still reading. Join The Masonic Society now and improve your life immeasurably!
     

‘Journal 29 is out’

     

The Journal of the Masonic Society No. 29 has been reaching Society members these past weeks. Dubbed “The Review Issue,” this Journal offers opinions on a variety of goods marketed to Freemasons—from books to clothing to regalia, and beyond—in addition to feature articles, Masonic studies, analysis of the state of the Craft, plus the Journal’s regular features.

The Journal is the primary, but not only, benefit to members of The Masonic Society—the best $39 you’ll spend in Freemasonry. Membership is open to regular Freemasons from recognized grand lodges. Click here for more membership information.

Patrick C. Carr, the Right Worshipful Grand Senior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, treats us to his “In Search of the Genuine Æthelstan,” in which he reviews the known history and biography of the early English king who figures so prominently in Freemasonry’s embryonic literature. Carr reasons “While we cannot ever know exactly what impact King Athelstan and his rule did directly for the Craft, we can agree that King Athelstan and his actions provided the world with a laudable set of values in which we should meet, act, and part. Whether or not it directly impacted the creation of the fraternity is irrelevant. What it did manage to do was place the beliefs of the king strictly into the rituals and the belief systems that Freemasonry still teaches today.”

Always a popular topic of conversation is Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, the dense collection of lectures the early Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) intended to accompany the 32 degrees, as worked by A&ASR bodies for many decades. Giovanni A. Villegas, of Jacobo Zobel Memorial Lodge 202 in the Philippines, bravely offers his “Unabashed Literary Book Review” outlining the problems he perceives in the text. “The true test of understanding Morals and Dogma is finding the honesty to first admit that one does not fully understand it,” he says, “or at least not immediately.” He continues, explaining how factors such as the period style of the writing, Pike’s lifting of text from earlier sources, and Pike’s personal interpretations of mystical subjects conspire to leave readers in 2015 vexed. He concedes M&D is “essential reading” for the Scottish Rite Mason who can weather it, but also recommends the casual reader seek out more recent texts, including Rex Hutchens’ A Bridge to Light, and, of course, Arturo de Hoyos’ Annotated Edition, which provides tons of clarifications, corrections, references, and other useful guides to those who want the full Morals and Dogma experience.

Yasha Berensiner’s regular feature “Masonic Collectibles” treats us to a look at William Hogarth, the eighteenth century (today is his 318th birthday) English artist and satirist—and brother Mason—whose “comic histories” paintings chronicled London life, and didn’t spare the Masonic fraternity his lampooning. Perhaps you are acquainted with his Times of the Day prints but, if not, seek it out, and get an eyeful of the one titled “Night.”

Under “Thoughts on the Craft,” Stephen J. Ponzillo, III, a Past Grand Master of Maryland, visits the touchy topic of lodge dues and other expenses in his “The Cost of Belonging: Is it Enough?” In the early years of this century, when the Knights of the North and the Masonic Restoration Foundation were advancing the simple view that lodges must collect in dues the revenue they need to function properly and survive into the future, it was so inflammatory to the establishment that a mere whisper of responsibly addressing lodge financing would prompt anger and panic. Today, younger and wiser heads are prevailing in lodges all over the country, and appreciation for the cost of living these days affects how forward-thinking lodges plan their financial futures. In his article, inspired by a recent discussion on the Masonic Society’s Facebook page, he scores several points structured around his comparing and contrasting cost of living figures of 1957 and 2014. It’s actually not simply a matter of inflation; Ponzillo illustrates the more significant facts of what Freemasonry asked men to pay for initiation and dues during those two periods. It’s about the percentage of a man’s annual income. In 1957, for example, a lodge that collected a $75 initiation fee from a man who earned $5,000 for that year was taking 1.5 percent of that income. In 2014, a man making just less than $70,000, and paying a $250 initiation fee, gave about a third of 1 percent of his annual pay to join a lodge. Is it enough? Indeed.

In his President’s Message, Jim Dillman humorously bemoans his efforts to meet his deadline, but in all seriousness, he writes on “Uncovering Freemasonry’s History,” urging us to look at what is right in front of us—as in lodge records, ephemera, books, etc. stored away in lodge closets and corners. “I’m going to challenge each of you to take a day, a week, or a month off from social media or your time-waster of choice, and devote the time you would have spent to some sort of Masonic research. Go back and read the minutes of your lodge from 50 or 100 years ago,” he says. “Dig through some of those old boxes lying around.” I know we all want to uncover the mysteries of Masonic secrets, but a curious and diligent brother can do his lodge great good simply by bringing to life local Masonic history for his own lodge.

There is a lot more to Issue 29: “The Masonic Baseball Game,” current news from around the globe, the detailed calendar of Masonic events through next May, and a great “Guide to Masonic Encyclopedias” by Tyler Anderson of New Mexico, among other attractions.

In other Masonic Society news, the Board of Directors and Officers gathered in St. Louis over the weekend to give shape to some serious plans for the Society’s future. We’ll meet again at Masonic Week to finalize some of these designs upon the trestleboard, and when you find out about them, your eyes will pop. Stay tuned to The Magpie Mind in February for those details.

The Masonic Society Board of Directors’ marathon planning session over the weekend at the St. Louis Airport Hilton just happened to coincide with the annual meeting of something named St. Matthew’s Grand Lodge. In fact, when I arrived at the hotel Friday afternoon, I found the lobby crowded with their members and Eastern Star ladies having a grand time. This photo partially shows the schedule of Saturday events posted in the lobby. Unfortunately, I couldn’t undertake my usual membership development efforts, as St. Matthew’s exists outside the mainstream of the Masonic fraternity. (Click here for membership guidelines.) I wonder what they thought of us!

And speaking of Masonic Week 2016, the registration information should be posted this week, I’m told, and you’ll see the Masonic Society’s banquet has been moved from the Friday night to Saturday, making us the only official dining choice for that evening. President Dillman will announce the choice of keynote speaker shortly, and I hope those of you who will attend Masonic Week will elect to be with us that night. We will have a number of big announcements.

See you there.

This blurry photo shows the left arm of the guy in front of me on line to board the plane back to New York. That tattoo is an attempt (it doesn’t have it quite right) to ink the Hand of Fatima, or the Khamsa, an ancient symbol from the Middle East that is significant to both Jews and Muslims. ‘The eye in its palm wards off the evil eye,’ according to The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols. In modern times, it is a kind of peace symbol, showing how the two great faiths share much in common, the book also says.

     

‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’

     

Prise de la Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël. Watercolor, 1789.

Today is French National Day, known colloquially as Bastille Day, the commemoration of the most celebrated event of the French Revolution: the seizing of the Bastille, the notorious prison-fortress, on this date in 1789.

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” the French national motto, was coined with the spirit of the revolution. It echoes throughout the degrees of Freemasonry, particularly in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, itself a descendant of a French system of Masonic degrees.

Of the 32º (Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret), Albert Pike writes:

“...that Equilibrium between Authority and Individual Action which constitutes Free Government by settling on immutable foundations Liberty, with Obedience to Law; Equality, with Subjection to Authority; and Fraternity, with Subordination to the Wisest and Best [is representative of] the True Word of a Master Mason, the true Royal Secret, which makes possible, and shall at length make real, the Holy Empire of the true Masonic Brotherhood.”

The Magpie Mason sends best wishes to the French brethren and lodges wherever so dispersed over the face of the Earth and water, regardless of jurisdiction and status of recognition.
    

'The Last Degree'

  

This shot is an ECU of part of the stained glass window outside the library
at the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's headquarters in Lexington, Massachusetts.

I regret not being in Chicago with my brethren and friends today. Right about now they, and many others, are behind closed doors, having the Thirty-Third and Last Degree of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry conferred upon them. In fact, I'd guess right at this minute the candidates are having their rings placed on their fingers.

One can find all kinds of Masonic rings for sale all over the place, but the Scottish Rite has only two rings that are part of The Work: those of the 14th and 33rd degrees. Of a different context, Albert Pike writes "...a ring was given to him as a symbol of the Divine Protection, and also as an emblem of Perfection." If there are two Masons who deserve the Divine Protection, they're Piers and Chris! God bless you both and all the brethren.

In addition, let me send Magpie congratulations to Matt Dupee of Pennsylvania, who has been elected to receive the 33rd Degree, and will be coroneted next August in Cleveland. Bravo Matt! (More names surely will be added here, as additional good news gets around.)
  
I'll close on a musical note - not Howie Damron! - but Mr. Frank Sinatra.

  

'210 in 2011'

  
Brethren, be sure to raise your glasses at some point today. (No time like the present!) On this date in 1801, the Mother Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third Degree was formed in Charleston, South Carolina.

And this year marks the 20th year of the Scottish Rite Research Society's labors. What better way to celebrate both milestones than to enroll in the SRRS?

Members of the SRRS who were
in good standing in 2010, are now
receiving both Volume 18
of Heredom, and Albert Pike's
Masonic Formulas and Rituals.

Grand Archivist and Grand Historian Ill. Arturo de Hoyos has published the fruits of his recent years of research and editing. Titled Albert Pike's Masonic Formulas and Rituals, this beautifully bound and hefty work of scholarship is a time capsule that transports us to the era before Albert Pike revised the Scottish Rite's rituals, creating the fraternity we know today. In its pages, we see what Pike and his contemporaries knew as their corpus of rituals, although we enjoy the benefits of modern publishing.

In addition, and in yet another instance of the SRRS serving the Craft at large, this book reveals the three lodge degrees (and more) of what was Adonhiramite Masonry, affording us a look into a French Masonic order of the 1780s wherein Adoniram was the architect and builder of King Solomon's Temple. This is almost archeological in perspective, considering the bloodbath of revolution that nearly would eradicate Freemasonry in France several years hence.

And that's not all! (Are ya following me, camera guy?)

There are early versions of York Rite degrees and orders, and the four degrees of the True Masonry of Adoption. Championed by some of the same French elites behind the Adonhiramite rite, this system of degrees brought women to see the light by which Masons work.

I don't claim to have read all of this already; I received my copy only a week ago. Whenever I receive a tome of this scope, my first action is to turn to the Rose Croix chapters (pun!) and see what's going on there, and then I try to begin at the beginning. I'll be gnawing on this for a number of months, so if you see me clutching this to my chest, it may be best to just wave hello from a distance. In the meantime, join the Scottish Rite Research Society.
  

‘On the Magic Square’

    
Last night was the long-awaited appearance of Bro. Steve Burkle at Atlas-Pythagoras Lodge, where he spoke on “The 47th Problem of Euclid and the Magic Squares,” an exploration of historic and esoteric aspects of the Pythagorean Theorem. Steve is a prolific writer and presenter of research work, keeping busy in a variety of venues, including the AMD. His lecture was the last in the lodge’s “Enlightening the Temple” series, that brought to the podium seven guest speakers during the year, including Rashied Bey, Trevor Stewart, and Tim Wallace-Murphy.

On the historical side, Steve explained the known origins – mathematical and historical – of the Theorem, and explained away the clumsy manner in which it is explained in the lecture of the Third Degree. In the process, he told us about John Dee and a curiosity named Plimpton 322. The former, of course, was the 16th century English esotericist and mathematician. The latter is an ancient Babylonian cuneiform, numbered 322 among the G.A. Plimpton Collection at Columbia University, and might be the best known artifact to show mathematics in archeological history. It dates to 1900-1600 BCE, and it reveals the most advanced mathematics known previous to ancient Greece because it teaches how to form right triangles akin to the Pythagorean way.

The 47th Problem of Euclid is key to Freemasonry because it is elemental to the design of the universe. In short:

In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

Often written as the equation:

a² + b² = c²

With the number 3 being a common denominator of deity, there are many ways the triad speaks to divinity. Plato’s three-fold principle has Thought (father/generative power), Primitive Matter (mother/passive principle), and Kosmos (offspring/product). Plutarch, writing of Isis and Osiris, continues along this thinking and explains that within this right triangle the perpendicular is the masculine; the base is the feminine; and their offspring (Horus) is the hypotenuse. (Read the Master Mason chapter in Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma for a smarter rendering of this. Regardless of how much or how little one might meditate on geometrical theorems, this particular one can be appreciated as part of the “DNA” of the universe.)

Bro. Steve later explored numerology and gematria, linking the Pythagorean Theorem to what is called the Magic Square. A Magic Square is a matrix of rows and columns containing numbers that all agree on the same sum, no matter which direction is taken to add those numbers. To wit:

I think what I like most about Powerpoint presentations is how I can
photograph the images, instead of frantically taking notes!

Then, combining the geometry of the Pythagorean triangle with the numerology of the Magic Square and the cosmic implications of Kaballah, Steve illustrated his theory of a kind of code that defines the universe.

Read more about Steve’s presentation here. He explains Masonic symbolism very poetically and cogently, especially regarding the place occupied by the initiate upon taking his oath and obligation.

The Worshipful Master thanks Bro. Steve for the lecture.

Worshipful Master Mohamad Yatim deserves hearty praise for his work this year, a term during which he not only successfully governed the lodge’s traditional operations while setting attendance records with his lecture series, but also remained on top of the ever increasing mandates of the grand lodge. I am proud to know him, and am very excited to be working with him in 2011 at the Valley of Northern New Jersey, where we will be part of a group that revives a long-dormant Masonic education program. More on that later this fall.