‘A Deeper Dive’

     

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The Grand Lodge of Connecticut’s Committee on Masonic Education will host its second Symposium on Esoteric Freemasonry next month.

A Deeper Dive

A more in depth look at the mysteries of Freemasonry

Saturday, July 27 at 9 a.m.

W. Bro. Cliff Porter, author, lecturer, and founding member of Enlightenment Lodge No. 198 in Colorado, will be guest speaker.

Topics for three break-out sessions to include:

• The Mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone
  
• The Magnum Opus
  
• Rosicrucians
  
• The Symbolism of the Tarot and its Meditative Use for Masons

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You decide which sessions to attend. Lunch to be served in the Ashlar Village dining room.

$20 per person includes WB Porter’s presentation, choice of three break-out sessions, lunch, and the unique brotherhood found among those who seek.

Make your check payable to Grand Lodge of Connecticut, and mail to:

Ben Isaacson

108 Wellington Heights Rd.

Avon, CT 06001

Seating is limited. To secure your ticket, contact any of these Masons:

Andrew Warren at arbiter(at)cox.net

Roger Cole at rogejoan(at)comcast.net

Ben Isaacson at bisaacson(at)ctfreemasons.net

     

‘Have you heard the good news?’

     

Like I mentioned in a post somewhere below, there are some good things happening in New Jersey Freemasonry these days, some beginning at the top, but others rising from the grass roots.

Every year, our grand lodge hosts what it calls a leadership conference at the Elizabethtown campus of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. I don’t know what goes on there – when I used to bother asking about it, brethren either would just stare at their shoes or start gushing wildly about brotherhood, and frankly I don’t perceive a statewide improvement in leadership – so I can’t describe it to you in any detail, but it is several days of classroom-type instruction and break-out sessions, and the like. This year it will take place at the end of October.

Anyway, and don’t ask me how this has come to be, but Cliff Porter will be the guest lecturer this year!

W. Bro. Cliff is a Past Master of Enlightenment Lodge No. 198 in Colorado. He is the author of several books: The Secret Psychology of Freemasonry and Masonic Baptism among them. In addition, he is one of the guiding lights behind the Sanctum Sanctorum Education Foundation, and Living Stones Magazine.

Undoubtedly one of the sharpest thinkers on the Masonic scene today, and I’m sure he’ll be great at the leadership conference.

In other good news, and this one strikes close to home because it concerns publishing, is the complete change of direction given to New Jersey Freemason magazine, the official periodical of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey. When I was a young Master Mason, this publication was produced on newsprint, in tabloid shape if I recall correctly. Through the foresight and toil of the editors then, it made the transition to magazine format on glossy paper about 10 or 12 years ago. The problem through all that time to the present has been the content of the magazine, which ran the gamut from uninspired to unnecessary. Actually it has been very typical of grand lodge magazines: big on posed “grip & grin” photos, charity work, necrology, and bureaucratic odds and ends, but bereft of anything Masonic. I guess they did the best they could, but now the magazine is under the direction of W. Bro. Cory Sigler, editor and publisher of The Working Tools e-zine. Cory reached out to New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 to tap into its talent, and otherwise has made a strong effort to build a staff of writers to provide solid Masonic education pieces, current events reportage, and other content that thinking Masons actually will want to read. I haven’t seen the finished product yet, but it’s in the mail somewhere.

The first printed issue of The Working Tools.

In addition, let me congratulate Cory on his first hard copy publication of The Working Tools. After 51 issues over the course of six years, he has just gone to press with an actual magazine magazine. (Cory, forgive me, but except for your first issue, I’ve never really read The Working Tools before. I can’t read magazines on-line. I need the physical book in my hands. It catches my cigar ash, you see.)

And last but not least in the Good News Department is the launch of a book club in northern New Jersey. The brethren of the Second Masonic District, chiefly at Fidelity Lodge, but also drawing Masons from other lodges, recognized a need to discuss real ideas in Freemasonry, and thus this book club and discussion group.

You know they mean business and are hungry for reform when the first text they choose is Laudable Pursuit, the biggest plum among the fruits of the labors of the Knights of the North. Truth be told, it mainly is the work of Chris Hodapp, but it was published anonymously at the time (around 2005) for reasons I hope we’ve all forgotten by now.

I found out about the book club’s first meeting by accident, but then was contacted by the organizers. I said sure I’ll come! I thought they’d get a kick out of having a KOTN alum present, and I did get a few minutes to speak and share some inside baseball.

For better or worse, the topics confronted by LP stimulated the group to the extent that conversation was hard to organize, and we realized a second meeting to discuss LP was necessary. I missed that one. But what was really cool was the group itself: about 30 Masons, varying from a newly raised Master Mason to the District Deputy Grand Master.

The group will meet next on Monday the 21st at Nutley Lodge No. 25, and another KOTN alum will be there: none other than Hodapp himself, who will be in New Jersey for a few days to co-star in our 2012 Scottish Rite Symposium, with Bob Davis and Brent Morris. Click here for info on that! Thanks to the size of the auditorium, we actually have some seats remaining. Only $50 per person, which covers breakfast, lunch, and souvenirs.

There are other good things in the works here, and I look forward to telling you about them when the time is right or as they develop.
    

‘A King in New York’

     
Thirty-two years ago, the Magpie Mason was the Magpie Elementary School Student, and I was lucky to have gone on a class trip to New York City to view treasures discovered in 1922 inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun. The exhibit left a big impression in my mind, and for many years I re-read the catalogue sold by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, trying to discern what message, if any, from a 3,300-year-old pharaoh might be of value today. I still do not know the answer to that, but Freemasonry has taught me, if nothing else, to observe symbols. So the iconic image of this pharaoh’s coffin, with enigmatic crook and flail, gained a new meaning for me as a Freemason.

Left: The Canopic Coffin of Tutankhamun was one of four miniature coffins that contained the young pharaoh’s internal organs – his heart and vitals, if you will. Tutankhamun, who died at age 18, ruled during the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Right: The 18° of the AASR is signified by a posture noticeably similar to the coffin’s design. (Watercolor of Knight Rose Croix courtesy of Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction.)

Last July, it was W. Bro. Tim Hogan of Enlightenment Lodge No. 198 in Colorado who showed me the connection. In a thread in the discussion forum of The Masonic Society, he explained how a sign used in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite very closely resembles the placement of hands shown in depictions of pharaohs, like the bejeweled, golden likenesses of King Tutankhamun.

The crook and flail are explained by Dr. I.E.S. Edwards (1909-96), former keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, who authored the catalogue Treasures of Tutankhamun (1976) that documented the Tutankhamun artifacts, the historic tour of which was organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He writes:

“Although the crook and the flail were most often represented as emblems of the god Osiris, they were also carried on some ceremonial occasions, besides the coronation, by the reigning pharaoh. Very occasionally the crook was held by viceroys of Nubia and also by viziers. A painted scene of tribute from Asia in the tomb of Tutankhamun’s viceroy of Nubia, Huy, shows the king holding both the crook and flail in his left hand and the sign for ‘life’ (ankh) in his right, while the viceroy holds a crook, but no flail, in his left hand and a single ostrich plume in his right. Only rarely is the flail shown in the hands of priests or officials and such instances are limited to scenes of royal jubilee festivals. Notwithstanding these sporadic exceptions, the crook and the flail were essentially Osirian emblems, though possibly not so in origin. Osiris is believed to have acquired them from Andjeti, the local god of a town in the Delta named Djedu, who was represented in human form with two feathers on his head and holding the crook and flail in his hands. At a very early date in Egyptian history Osiris absorbed Andjeti and adopted his insignia. Osiris, however, was regarded not only as a god, but also as a deified deceased king and consequently his insignia, particularly the crook and flail, were treated as symbols of royalty.

It is not difficult to imagine how a shepherd’s crook could have acquired the symbolical significance of rulership. Its name in Egyptian is heqat and the most common word for ‘ruler’ is heqa. Not unnaturally it has been compared with the crosier, the Christian pastoral staff. A flail (called nekhakha), however, seems out of character for a kindly and beneficent god like Osiris, and for this reason some authorities prefer to regard it as a ladanisterion, a flail-like instrument used until the present day by shepherds in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere for collecting ladanum, a gummy substance excreted from the leaves of the cistus plant. According to classical writers, it was used in the preparation of incense and unguents. This suggestion, proposed by the late Professor P.E. Newberry who helped in the clearance of Tutankhamun’s tomb, is plausible, but, as yet, there is no clear evidence that the cistus plant grew in Egypt in pharaonic times.”

For its part, the ritual motion affected during the 18° also has significance from symbolic shepherding in antiquity. It is defined in Isaiah: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.” (40:11, King James Version).

Anyway, I point this out now because Tutankhamun’s treasures will return to New York in April for a 36-week exhibition at Discovery Times Square Exposition. I plan to visit, and I recommend it to you too. In fact, discounts on tickets are available to groups, so organize your Chapter of Rose Croix and get over there. Tickets go on sale next month. The exhibit will close January 2, 2011.

Hanging in the Hall of Scottish Rite Regalia inside the House of the Temple in Washington are 36 oil paintings by Robert H. White, 32°. Shown here is 18th Degree: Knight of Rose Croix which depicts the apron, collar, and jewel of the degree. Read about its symbology here.