‘Remember the great objects of our association’

    

Chuck Dunning imparted something via Facebook last week that inspires me to share here. (Plus, it’s easier than writing something myself.) Enjoy.

Friends and Brothers,

Chuck Dunning

Here’s a traditional opening charge for Blue Lodges in the Preston-Webb tradition. It’s now rarely a mandatory part of ritual in many jurisdictions, and some no longer even include it as optional. I regard it as highly instructive and inspiring, and it would be wonderful if more lodges included it.

Charge at Opening

The ways of virtue are beautiful. Knowledge is attained by degrees. Wisdom dwells with contemplation: there we must seek her. Let us then, brethren, apply ourselves with becoming zeal to the practice of the excellent principles inculcated by our Order.

Let us ever remember that the great objects of our association are the restraint of improper desires and passions; the cultivation of an active benevolence; and the promotion of a correct knowledge of the duties we owe to God, our neighbor and ourselves.

Let us be united, and practise with assiduity the sacred tenets of our Order. Let all private animosities, if any unhappily exist, give place to affection and brotherly love. It is a useless parade to talk of the subjection of irregular passions within the walls of the lodge if we permit them to triumph in our intercourse with each other.

Uniting in the grand design, let us be happy ourselves and endeavor to promote the happiness of others. Let us cultivate the great moral virtues which are laid down on our Masonic trestleboard, and improve in every thing that is good, amiable, and useful.

Let the benign Genius of the Mystic Art preside over our councils, and under her sway let us act with a dignity becoming the high moral character of our venerable Institution.

     

‘Memo to the Grand Masters’

    

Complete and utter bullshit. A subliterate mission statement, a bogus phone number, updates posted around the clock every day consisting of platitudinous memes without any real Florida information. These are all over Facebook. Grand Masters, you can fight this, and you should.

The next meeting of the Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America will convene the weekend of February 17 in Seattle, and I have a suggestion, if I may be so forward. (My Grand Master is chairman, so I’m making an effort to be respectful here.)

Amid all the planning of brilliant, forward-thinking initiatives, put together a system in which all Conference members pay into a fund that will be used to retain one law firm that will contact the social media companies that allow frauds to impersonate our grand lodges and other legitimate Masonic groups.

You have rights. And responsibilities! “To preserve the reputation of the fraternity unsullied must be your constant care.”

Real grand lodges in this country all—I’m assuming—are incorporated in their respective states. You don’t have to accept some clod(s) operating Facebook accounts in your members’ names.

My social media activity is very limited, but even I can see on Facebook the increasing number of bogus accounts purporting to be legit Masonic bodies. The most prolific as of tonight, it seems to me, are those claiming to be the grand lodges of Texas and North Carolina.

13,000 followers?!

The “Texas” contact info includes a phone number with area code 518. That’s the Albany, New York area. The Grand Lodge of New York doesn’t maintain an office in Albany, so don’t ask me what the Texans supposedly are doing up there. And I think the WhatsApp button is an Illuminati Brotherhood dead giveaway.

MW Bill Sardone, a frequent victim of impersonation, used to get phone calls at his Masonic Hall office from hapless naifs asking when they should report in person to begin their Masonic journeys.

The perpetrators’ motivations? To extract money and identity information.

Complaining to Facebook via Facebook as a Facebook user will get you nowhere. They’ll tell you to block the impostor, as if that will solve anything. Facebook will, however, take seriously a letter from your attorney. But you need the attorney. Not your sister-in-law who botches real estate closings; not the personal injury guy you know from Scottish Rite; and never anyone from the grand lodge in New Jersey. No, hire social media law specialists.

It won’t be expensive because you’ll never go to court. A demand letter for each instance really should suffice, which means you need only the resolve to combat this fraud.

The frauds could be from one perpetrator, judging from the same photos cross-posted at practically the same times. Probably a kid too.

This is feasible. It’s even easy. It’s the kind of accomplishment you can talk about every year when racking up more successes and brag about when you return home.

The next problem is why the impostors are more determined than the grand lodges to leverage social media. (The Conference’s Facebook page hasn’t seen an update since February 21.) Listen, I don’t have all the answers.

UPDATE: DECEMBER 14–“Samuel Jacob” of Nigeria has merch!

     

‘Ritual: script or oral history?’

     

Title page of Grand Lodge’s current book.

A Past Master in Kansas, a DDGM actually, regularly offers his views on things Masonic, kind of in blog format, on Faceypage. He posts in “A Past Master’s Thoughts” almost daily. About a month ago, in reflection on a lodge experience the day before, he wrote:

The topic of ritual came up. It seems there is a lodge that requires ‘word perfect’ ritual. Let me say I get that, but even Grand Lecturers stumble… It was brought up the difference between perfect and proficient. There is a difference. 

Do you know the work? Does it resonate with you? Ritual is energy. Can it be felt, or are we just spewing words? 

For those who say they cannot learn ritual, I have a few questions: Do you know your address without looking it up? Your phone number? If your favorite song came on the radio, but the volume turned off, could you sing it? If you said yes to any of those, you can be proficient, at least, in ritual.

At issue is rote memorization which, whatever your method might be, has been essential to preserving how we do things and passing it to our posterity. I believe that emphasis on letter perfect ritual has two origins:

1) The process of education, training, maturation, etc. in operative building involved the apprentice learning from the master mason without deviation. I can’t imagine there could have been interpretation by the pupil of the teacher’s instruction. Failure to learn The Way of Doing Things would terminate the apprenticeship in failure.

2) About a century ago, our grand lodges in the United States began publishing their own ritual books, resulting in a fundamentalism in which the memorization and flawless recitation of ritual became paramount.

From ‘A Past Master’s Thoughts.’

How many inept leaders have you seen win high office for no other reason than their demonstrated ritual skill? When the fraternity was larger (if you don’t know, the number of regular Master Masons in this country has returned to nineteenth century levels), obviously there was more talent to provide the ritual experts needed for continuity of the work. And having the book isn’t enough; we need the “actors” to bring the written word to life. This isn’t as easy today, thanks to changes in how the young are schooled. The rote memorization, aided by mnemonics, that older people, like myself, relied on appears to have been retired. (I don’t know if something else has replaced it.) So the task of studying, learning, and recalling Masonic oratory, which never was easy for most, looks today like an unduly difficult and outdated method to a thirty-year-old. Generally speaking. I always see exceptions.

But—finally arriving at my point—would it help to rethink ritual, changing our concept of it from a script to our oral history? This isn’t to allow any encroaching changes to the words—although our ancestors did okay without official ritual texts—but rather to dilute the intimidating pressure to memorize the printed page.

I consider myself an amateur historian. Part of the mental gymnastics in my own labors to learn ritual is my knowledge of ritual history. I don’t claim an all encompassing knowledge, but realizing how there have been huge and numerous changes in what we do, and being familiar with a number of the specifics, has proven very helpful to me. That knowledge demystifies what some may call the unapproachable, and with that barrier breached, one can take possession of the words. They become digestible facts.

The phrases, dialogues, etc. have evolved over the centuries and they likely will change in the future because they are written by men, so there is no reason to hesitate in studying and learning them. Our Past Master in Kansas likens the dynamic to knowing song lyrics but, for our purposes, maybe embracing Masonic ritual as oral history (there still are jurisdictions that employ the mouth-to-ear method) will change a chore into the enriching challenge it should be. I just envision greater intimacy this way.

The Oral History Association defines oral history as “a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern, initiated with tape recorders in the 1940s and now using 21st-century digital technologies.”

While ritual isn’t cited specifically, everything we do in life derives from custom, habit, observance, practice, procedure, etc. Change the Ritual Committee name to Oral History Teachers.

Speaking of ritual, tomorrow is the 200th anniversary of England’s Emulation Lodge of Improvement, and I hope to find time to delve into that then.

     

‘Not just a tagline. Truth.’

     

‘Antiquior Montibus Est Veritas’ is the Grand Lodge of Vermont’s motto, and appears on its seal. It translates to ‘Truth Is Older Than the Mountains,’ perfect for the Green Mountain State.

Being at labor in a lodge named Publicity, I take notice of the various advertising gambits undertaken here and there in this fraternity. The most active is the United Grand Lodge of England, which employs young media professionals to shape messaging, keep social media buzzing, and deliver rebuttal to adverse claims against Freemasonry. Their needs are more difficult than ours in America, where achieving basic public awareness is the primary challenge.

The splashiest effort these past five years has been the “Scottish Rite” NMJ’s “Not Just a Man. a Mason.” campaign by Cercone Brown Company. I’ve never been in advertising, so I can’t render a professional critique of it, but I don’t think the tagline says anything, and I was put off by the initial ad which shows a slightly demented looking guy sporting four days of growth on his face and attired in an undershirt. I’m told that’s what the NMJ leadership thinks is cool or contemporary, which it very well might be, but if this guy arrived at my lodge, where I’m tiler, looking like that, I’d advise him to return another night when he is feeling better. I found their follow-up ads vague and timid. But enough about them.

The Grand Lodge of Vermont is the latest to attempt promotional media, having launched its “Truth Is Older Than the Mountains” campaign last month. I like it. It leans toward the erudite and profound, and it is tied to local heritage. That was the approach I pushed for when promulgating a media/public relations handbook for “New Jersey Freemasonry” twenty-something years ago. (They weren’t interested, but somehow New York’s PR chairman obtained a copy, and put his name on it.) Again, I’m not an expert, but that is the direction I still would chart now if spending money and staking reputation on the effort.

The Green Mountain State is sparsely populated, at about 645,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are between 18 and 65 years of age, and half of those are male. So they’re aiming for a market of 129,000 men. And their ads are running on Facebook, which I take to indicate they are not pursuing 18-year-olds, and instead prefer the 40+ set.

Last week they launched a podcast. Episode 1 features Chris Murphy discussing the history of Freemasonry in Vermont. “Freemasonry and Vermont have a lot in common,” says Murphy, referring to the character of citizens and of Masons as people who cherish their individual liberty yet remain bonded by all they share in common. Unlike the majority of Masons’ podcasts I’ve sampled, this shows professionalism and is pleasant to hear.

It seems to me the Grand Lodge is appealing to a specific demographic, rather than seeing which feint might trick the most men into a mass initiation.

The Grand Lodge of Vermont is comprised of maybe approximately 4,000 Masons now. I really think the second quarter of the twenty-first century will see the sunsetting of the smaller grand lodges. There always will be Freemasonry, but I bet Vermont will see lodges regroup into smaller federations or perhaps receive warrants from New York or Massachusetts. Or maybe Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont will consolidate. But until then I wish them great success with this effort. It’s an uphill—or up mountain—labor, but I appreciate they have drawn designs upon the trestleboard for how they present themselves to a receptive segment of the population.

     

‘Rose Circle on Facebook’

     
It made me realize it has been—amazingly—nine years since the Rose Circle Research Foundation’s first conference, but today the official Facebook page for Rose Circle went live. Facebook users click here.

I don’t write about Rose Circle much because it’s been more than four years since the last event—and I remember now that I never even got around to telling you about that—but if you don’t know, the Rose Circle Research Foundation is an independent educational non-profit group that unites many of the top thinkers in the field of Western Mystery Traditions. Rosicrucianism, Spiritual Alchemy, Freemasonry, Tarot (not the fortune-telling nonsense), and other studies are investigated by world renowned researchers and authors who speak from the podium at Rose Circle’s very well attended conferences in the New York City area. An announcement of a new event is expected next month.

That first event took place April 29, 2006 at the Bayonne Masonic Temple in New Jersey, the home of my Olde Mother Lodge. That one day brought together Michael Buckley, Chic Cicero, Sean Graystone, Trevor Stewart, Piers Vaughan, and others for an incredible and unforgettable celebration of enlightening the mind and invigorating the heart. To see these people, plus Robert Davis, Ron Cappello, Aaron Shoemaker, Thurman Pace, and more still seated in my Masonic lodge was a big thrill. (See below for the summary I shared with the Masonic Light group a few days later.)

Later gatherings, in 2008 and 2011, featured Steve Burkle, Chic and Tabatha Cicero, R.A. Gilbert, Christopher McIntosh, and many others, who I won’t embarrass by including them among the Pantheon, but all have dazzled with their esoteric understandings, historic findings, and other weighty stimuli. Just incredible events.

And here is that report from the first Rose Circle conference of nine years ago. Please read this patiently. The facts and concepts expressed here were almost totally foreign to me in 2006, and are only slightly familiar today. All errors and omissions are attributable to me, and not to the speakers. Sorry to say I have no photos of this event. I sat in the Senior Warden’s station with my old Minolta SLR and dutifully shot several rolls of film—that’s right: rolls of film!—and the prints are long gone. Anyway, happy anniversary, Rose Circle.


On Saturday, the newly blossomed Rose Circle Committee hosted its premier symposium on matters concerning and relating to the Craft. The Western Mystery Schools in Modern Masonry Conference met at the Bayonne Masonic Temple in New Jersey and was attended by approximately 100 men and women of all ages. No fewer than seven scholars presented multimedia programs on their fields of interest.

Bro. Aaron Shoemaker of Missouri, whose introductory address focused on the crucial need for mainstream Freemasonry to provide the secret teachings that many young Masons and prospective Masons are seeking. His insightful remarks definitely set the tone for the day; we in the audience had no doubt that the “thinking Mason” would be celebrated that day.

These Masons have “interest in pursuing the various rites and degrees, and not in collecting more aprons, titles and pins,” he said. He then charged us with the tasks of writing papers for our lodges and publications and to serve in leadership and committees for the very “survival of the fraternity.”

He concluded his remarks with words from Manly Hall’s The Lost Keys of Freemasonry:

“Masonry is eternal truth, personified, idealized, and yet made simple. Eternal truth alone can serve it. Virtue is its priest, patience its warden, illumination its master. The world cannot know this, however, save when Masons in their daily life prove that it is so. Its truth is divine, and is not to be desecrated or defamed by the thoughtlessness of its keepers. Its temple is a holy place, to be entered in reverence. Material thoughts and material dissensions must be left without its gate. They may not enter. Only the pure of heart, regenerated and transmuted, may pass the sanctity of its veil. The schemer has no place in its ranks, nor the materialist in its shrine; for Masons walk on hallowed ground, sanctified by the veneration of ages. Let the tongue be stilled, let the heart be stilled, let the mind be stilled. In reverence and in the silence, stillness shall speak: the voice of stillness is the voice of the Creator. Show your light and your power to men, but before God what have you to offer, save in humility? Your robes, your tinsel, and your jewels mean naught to Him, until your own body and soul, gleaming with the radiance of perfection, become the living ornaments of your Lodge.”

Next, Bro. Sean Graystone, 33° of New Mexico and a Board member of the Scottish Rite Research Society spoke on “Kabbalistic Symbolism in Freemasonry.”

He explained that the Kabbala of Western Hermetic thought is not identical to the classic Hebrew Kabbala, but is a “fabricated language of mysteries” drawing from Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He addressed gematria, a “highly sophisticated cyphering method,” that has enormous implications for esoteric Freemasonry. Taking the first word of Genesis, Graystone explained that this word in Hebrew (Bereshith) is an acronym for “In the beginning the Elohim saw that Israel would accept the law.”

Looking at the Hebrew word for “stone,” he explained that it is spelled with the Hebrew letters Ab (meaning “father”) and Ben (meaning “son”). Turning to Psalm 118, he said that the gematria of “the stone rejected by the builders” = 274, which equals that of the name Hiram Abiff.

Next, Bro. Chic Cicero, Grand Standard Bearer of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar of Florida, delivered a dramatic talk on the “History and Modern Manifestations of Rosicrucianism.” Explaining that Rosicrucianism is a three-fold mix of alchemy, psychology and mysticism, Cicero spoke at length on the power of the number 3 as a symbol to aid seekers in their quest for spiritual awareness. “The goal of alchemy,” he said, “is to bring humanity to its pre-ordained state of perfection” through the uncovering of inner wisdom that will carry “man’s lower nature to a higher attainment.”

Rosicrucian labor was shown to consist of a “dissolve and coagulate” method in which heat is applied to cause separation and solvents are used to attain purification before recombination is achieved.

Making parallels between psychology and faith, Cicero maintained that “the psyche is as real as the body is real,” and explained that events in the New Testament (Christ’s descent into Hell, for example) illustrate how confrontation is a step that need be taken toward reaching self-awareness.

Bro. Cicero does not mince words. At his conclusion he stated without hesitation that atheists and hedonists can never attain what the “true mystic” can because of their inability to suppress the ego.

It must be noted that there actually was an eighth speaker during the memorable day. VW Bro. Piers Vaughan of St. John’s Lodge No. 1, AYM, serving as emcee, took to the podium after each presentation to draw the conclusions that helped the rapt audience segue into each upcoming lecture. I think his job was the most difficult because the seven lecturers (for the most part) had their prepared texts and PowerPoint files, but Vaughan had to speak extemporaneously and with authority on each of these diverse topics, while establishing commonality among them all. To cite just one example, after Shoemaker’s introductory lecture on the allure of esoteric symbolism and before Graystone’s talk on Kabbala (and during the retooling of the audio/video equipment), Vaughan spoke convincingly of the urgent need for grand lodges to stop buying billboard space to tell the world that Masonry has no secrets. It’s not the meals and the charity that draw people to Masonry and the societies that surround it, he explained, but it is the religious (but not dogmatic) themes and the esoteric meaning of their rituals that are rooted in ancient Israel.

Bro. Michael Buckley addressed the conference on the subject of “Martinism and the Way of the Heart,” a topic perfect for him, as he is Grand Master of both the Martinist Order of Unknown Philosophers and the Hermetic Order of Martinists.

I won’t get too detailed here, as Buckley spoke of Martinism’s history, degree structure and other facts that are likely on the web. If I understood him though, the philosophy of Martinism can be likened to the ideals of Voltaire and the politics of Rousseau.

And I will say that I’m sorry to have missed ML’s very own Bro. Ron Blaisdell, Past Provincial Grand Recorder/Chancellor, who said he was coming from Florida. Ron, I don’t know if you made it to Bayonne, but if so, I am sorry I didn’t find you! Unfortunately I had to leave before the start of the panel discussion to help a brother catch a train at the Hoboken terminal and I couldn’t make it back to Bayonne because of heavy traffic. I did get to shake hands again with Ill. Robert Davis of Oklahoma, who I hear will return to New Jersey June 3 to speak at our Scottish Rite Council of Deliberation. Bob, I’ll have some cigars for you.

Bro. Gregory White, of Circle of Friends Chapter in California (I don’t know what this is a chapter of), gave us all “An Introduction to Tarot, Book ‘T’ of the Rosicrucian Manifesto.”

“The tarot deck,” said Bro. White, “is a map that moves us through the world” and “keeps the mind from wandering and helps redirect our thinking away from anger.” It is said that when the perfectly preserved corpse of Christian Rosenkreutz was discovered, in his hands was Book T, which, it was explained here, is the tarot deck. White mentioned that there are several very common tarot decks, but that the one appearing in his PowerPoint slides was “very Masonic.” And as regards spirituality, he borrowed from author David Hawkins’ “Spheres of Influences,” which charts the progression from Mundane to Astral to Spirit, a journey that I think is undertaken by prayer, followed by theurgy (ritualized prayer), followed by meditation, followed by use of the tarot cards.

And how are the cards employed? White showed one set of placement. Imagine four blackjack players and a dealer. The four are abreast of each other and the dealer is alone. The four settings are Past, Action, Result and Future, and the dealer is Present. White said (I think) the order of the five actually doesn’t matter because the cards will find their rightful places. (I’m sure someone here can make sense of this because I probably misunderstood.) He also showed the 22 trump cards and explained some of their archetypal natures. The Fool always means potential, he said, so there may be hope for me yet.

The sole speaker to receive a standing ovation was New Jersey’s own Bro. Taras Chubenko, who I’m privileged to know through my York Rite activities. He is protopresbyter of New Jersey’s largest Orthodox congregation and I know him as a very inspirational and thoughtful man who has made an enormous difference in the lives of two people I care about. His topic was “The Rectified Current of Christian Masonry and Mysticism in the Chivalric Orders,” which took him entirely by surprise. He digressed and spoke without notes on how our everyday concerns and activities can conspire to occlude Light from reaching us and reflecting off us. “We circumvent faith and want to see everything on paper,” he observed, “but there is nothing holy about the Bible (as an object). It is the CONTENT that can be holy to those who ‘see’ holiness.... There is an aura around each of us. Your ‘third eye’ can see it.”

On chivalry, he suggested its purest definition calls men to be true in the “embracing of the other sex” and be “accepting of women.” Yet another instance of this conference’s seeming mirroring of ML.

In conclusion, and perhaps provoking the aforementioned ‘standing O,’ Chubenko left the audience with this thought: “Heaven isn’t ‘up there’ and Hell isn’t ‘down there,’ but Heaven is right in front of you.”

Continuing on the theme of tolerance, VW Vaughan reminded us of how KST had many different groups of workers all doing their own tasks but working as one, united toward achieving a common goal. He repeated a call for which he is known: that Freemasonry’s fundraising experts, ritualists, dinner planners and scholars need to support each other’s endeavors because each represents an important facet of the Craft.

And last, but not least, and returning to New Jersey for the first time since his appearance as Prestonian Lecturer in 2004, Bro. Trevor Stewart of Quatuor Coronati opened all our eyes to Joséphin Péladan and his Salons de la Rose-Croix. Unfortunately time did not allow for more enjoyment of the dozens of PowerPoint slides showing off the truly stunning “symbolic art” paintings produced in Paris from 1892 to 1897 for these exhibitions. There’s truly nothing I can say to describe any of them. They must be viewed intently and joyfully, and perhaps accompanied by Holst’s work “The Planets.”

There were six Salons de la Rose Croix in this period, each dedicated to a Babylonian deity. The following is the list matching deity with planet and with (mythological) attribute.

The stated purpose of the Salon de la Rose Croix was “to ruin realism, reform Latin taste and create a school of idealist art.” This invitational Order was flawed, said Stewart, in that its purpose was defined not in terms of what the salon was, but in terms of what it was not, quite possibly resulting in the absence of France’s leading artists of the day. For example a lengthy list of prohibitive rules excluded the following subjects: history painting; patriotic and military painting; representations of contemporary life; portraits; rustic scenes; landscapes; seascapes and sailors; all humorous things; “merely picturesque Orientalism;” all domestic animals and those relating to sport; flowers, fruit, still lifes “and other exercises that painters ordinarily have the effrontery to exhibition.”

The list of acceptable themes was much shorter, but covered many media. Of architecture: “since this art was killed in 1789, only restorations or projects for fairly tale palaces are acceptable.”(!)

The results briefly glimpsed via PowerPoint were shocking in their daring originality. Even the posters made to advertise the events were stunning, including one depicting Perseus clutching Zola’s decapitated head.

“When the simple is ambiguous, what does it mean?” asked Stewart on behalf of M. Péladan. “Symbolic art is subjective. It appeals to the irrational and the variable.”

Despite having missed the panel discussion on “Esoteric Orders Today,” to which the audience was encouraged to submit written questions, this conference meant so much to me I can’t even articulate it. [Sorry, Magpie readers, but I have to omit several sentences here.] And then along came Piers Vaughan and the Rose Circle Committee and their outstanding symposium, bringing together experts and seekers from across two continents... and all under my own roof, to boot. It was hugely inspirational to look around my lodge room and see Trevor Stewart and see Robert Davis and Taras Chubenko and all the diverse, eclectic personalities in the audience... sitting at the edge of their seats.

It’s my understanding that other Rose Circle conferences are to come. I recommend keeping an eye on this and buying your tickets early.
     

‘Masonic Book Club’

     
If you’ve been wondering what has been going on with the Masonic Book Club, an announcement from the Illinois Lodge of Research tonight on Facebook clarifies things:

“In response to several inquiries, the Masonic Book Club of Illinois is no longer in operation and was formally dissolved on June 14, 2013.”

Courtesy Princeton Antiques & Books

It has been about five years since the MBC published a book, so this is not quite shocking news, but it still is a notable loss. The club reprinted rare, historic, and odd out-of-print titles from the vast corpus of Masonic literature. Reading these unique books was rewarding, but waiting to see which curiosity would arrive in the mail was the fun of it.

I think it was around eight years ago when Secretary Robin Carr stepped aside, and I knew then the MBC would not endure for long. Many projects in Freemasonry cease when their sole organizers retire or pass away. The MBC website remains on-line, another predictable example of confusion among the workmen, but I wish I knew the disposition of the inventory of books.
     

‘Rosicrucian Digest: Martinism’

     

The new issue of Rosicrucian Digest, the periodical of the Rosicrucian Order, is devoted entirely to the subject of Martinism. It is the sixteenth such thematic issue expounding on aspects of the Rosicrucian tradition. The Rosicrucian Order’s sister society is named the Traditional Martinist Order.

As always, the Digest is available on-line, and there even are occasional on-line discussions on Facebook for further learning. 


The contents:

The Traditional Martinist Order—Introduction

Martinism: History of a Traditional Order

Take Back My Will by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

Martinist Lessons

Aurora: Jacob Boehme

Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings by Martinès de Pasqually

Of Errors and Truth by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

What Becomes of the Dead by Papus

Traditional Martinist Order Discourse: Kabbalah

Ieschouah, Grand Architect of the Universe

The Cloak

Martinism: The Way of the Heart

The Holy Spirit


Supplementary web articles also:

The Judeo-Christian Aspect of Martinism

Jakob Boehme: The Spiritual Awakening of the Teutonic Philosopher

The ‘Stage Set’ for the Agent of Omneity

The Traditionalist Martinist Order and Sacred Scriptures

On Equilibration: The Rose Cross Martinist at the Still Center

The Kabbalah: Secret Tradition of the West

The Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix


I’m guessing there will be lectures and other programs on Martinism coming soon to the Rosicrucian Cultural Center, and I’ll pass along that information as it come.
     

‘See an introductory message on Martinism’

     
The Traditional Martinist Order has produced a four-minute video that briefly explains the thinking behind Martinism.



Also, there is a Facebook page where one might gain more insight into the Order. Click here.

(Once I would have been worried about mixing Martinism with social media, but you know what? Martinist concepts are not sacred and secret. They are man-made, and they’ve been out there in several forms for many centuries. It is a code of uplifting, high-minded principles, for sure, so dull minds and small hearts wouldn’t know what to do with it, and that is safeguard enough.)
     

‘Deism defined in its time’

     
The good people at 18th Century Bibles, through their Facebook page, today posted several definitions of "deist" and "deism" as published in The Encyclopedia Britannica in 1770 and An Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1761.

From The Encyclopedia Britannica:

"Deists, in the modern sense of the word, are those persons in Christian countries, who, acknowledging all the obligations and duties of natural religion, disbelieve the Christian scheme, or revealed religion. They are so called from their belief in God alone, in opposition to Christians. The learned Dr Clarke taking the denomination in the most extensive signification, distinguishes deists into four sorts.

Courtesy 18th Century Bibles

1. Such as pretend to believe the existence of an eternal, infinite, independent, intelligent Being: and who teach, that this supreme Being made the world, though they fancy he does not at all concern himself in the management of it.

2. Those who believe not only the being, but also the providence of God with suspect to the natural world; but who, not allowing any difference between moral good and evil, deny actions of men; these things depending, as they imagine, on the arbitrary constitutions of human laws.

3. Those who having right apprehensions of God, and his all governing providence, and some notion of his moral perfections also; being prejudiced against the notion of the immortality of the human soul, believe that men perish entirely at death, and that one generation shall perpetually succeed another, without any future restoration or renovation of things.

4. Such as believe the existence of a supreme Being, together with his providence in the government of the world, as also the obligations of natural religion; but so far only as these things are discoverable by the light of nature alone, without believing any divine revelation. These last are the only true deists; but as the principles of these men would naturally lead them to embrace the Christian revelation, the learned author concludes there is now no consistent scheme of deism in the world."

From An Universal Etymological English Dictionary:

"Deism... is the Belief of those, who, denying all Revealed Religion, acknowledged only the Natural, viz. the Existence of one God, his Providence, Virtue, and Vice, the Immortality of the Soul, and Rewards and Punishments after Death."

Courtesy 18th Century Bibles

     

‘Gnosis from an old memory, literally’

     
A group photo of Brother Masons found its way to my Facebook wall. A posed shot obviously following a joyous and joyful church service.

It provokes mixed feelings. Of course on the one hand it’s great to see a bunch of friends enjoying what makes them happy and lively, and in second place is the lonely feeling that comes from being reminded of some Masonic orders’ artificial membership restrictions based on religious tests. Thirdly, I am simply kind of befuddled and indifferent. And so I want to concentrate and reconcile the competing sentiments so that understanding prevails. That ain’t gonna happen in the half hour I’ll devote to this blog post, because for as long as I’ve had ideas on the matter, I have viewed the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as a bridge that ought to unite Jews and Christians to a degree, instead of separating them irreconcilably. Jesus was Jewish. The New Testament is, arguably, and except several texts, a Jewish document. This is what enabled me physically, mentally, spiritually, and ethically to work my way East in the local Chapter of Rose Croix years ago. So I am stymied on those occasions when I consider these Christian-only fraternities within Freemasonry. They convene, sometimes in church, and close the doors, and what do they do – assuming they’re not just dinner clubs for the VIPs? They delve into Jewish mysticism, pretending it’s not proprietary to Judaism because all religions supposedly have some identical mystic path. I guess all religions speak Hebrew as well.

Magpie edit: Muskrat, stop bugging me about this.

Anyway, the photo jogged my memory sufficiently to send me directly to this one specific issue of Bro. Jay Kinney’s long missed Gnosis magazine. For anyone or anything to focus my mind so keenly as to allow me to step adroitly into my library (the floor is covered with piles of books needing to be filed away) and nimbly locate this one particular magazine is something quite powerful indeed. (By contrast, after thirteen years of carrying a cell phone every day, I still am capable of forgetting it somewhere.) But there it is: Issue No. 30 from the winter of 1994. Its theme is Sufism, Islam’s mystical branch, itself divided into numerous schools. Hardly my field of expertise, and yet I’m not utterly lost thanks to one of my favorite courses in my university days.

“…know that Sufis prefer the knowledge that comes by inspiration, to the exclusion of that acquired by study,” writes F.E. Peters, a professor of mine many years ago. “Again, they desire neither to study such learning nor to learn anything of what authors have written on the subject; to inspect neither their teachings nor their arguments. They maintain on the contrary that the ‘way’ consists in preferring spiritual combat, in getting rid of one’s faults, in breaking one’s ties and approaching God Most High through a single-minded spiritual effort. And every time those conditions are fulfilled, God for His part turns toward the heart of His servant and guarantees him an illumination by the lights of understanding.”

The Sufism issue of Gnosis delivers diverse articles on Sufi traditions, including that which popped into my head by way of that photo on Facebook. Written by Ya’quh ibn Yusuf, then a doctoral candidate studying Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, it includes a few paragraphs that can rattle some people. Like me.

I’d love to provide you the entire article. I want to hand you the magazine. You should have your lodge purchase the entire collection of back issues. I’ll share only that which I remembered, boldfacing the specifics. Do not be distracted by the mentions of Sufism. Or perhaps you should, mentally replacing the word Sufi with the word Masonry.

“…most of us in the West are already Christians or Jews. And while I believe it may be a mistake to narrowly identify with the religion of one’s ancestors, there is also a price to be paid for ignoring one’s own ancestral heritage. Our religious background is very much a kind of ‘local material’ out of which we are constructed. If we seek to follow Sufi teachings and develop our connection with God by digging deeply within ourselves, our own religion provides us with tools and a place in which to do some digging.

“Let me offer some examples of how I have seen these issues working themselves out among friends of mine. In Israel most Jews generally identify themselves as either ‘religious’ or ‘secular.’ It takes some courage and initiative to venture beyond these identifications and pursue one’s own spiritual search. I have observed that as they rise to the kind of challenge that Sufi teaching represents, secular seekers typically need to heal their rejection of Jewish tradition, while religious seekers need to overcome a general reflex of defending Jewish tradition as well as their specific allergy to Jesus… [This is] a matter of opening blocked channels to elements of religion which, it turns out, have a life within as well as outside the individual…

“All religions can be viewed not as ends in themselves, but as outer forms of belief and behavior that exist to facilitate inner work. The problem is that each religion also exists as a corporate entity that seeks to promote its own working set of tools and beliefs, and, like religions and sects, every spiritual group has a kind of collective ego that is fed by new adherents. All this should come as no surprise. What I believe we should bear in mind, however, is that too much of a focus on the particular form we are employing – whatever form that might be – serves to keep us stuck on the surface of appearances and prevents the work from moving more deeply within. This is why, as I understand it, Sufi teaching emphasizes ‘completion, not conversion.’

“Thus I have met observant Jews who have a personal relationship with Jesus, but choose not to convert to Christianity, and Christians who admit that their primary relationship is with God the Father. Certainly I know many Sufis who share the essential perspectives of the Prophet Muhammad but choose not to embrace Islam. In each of these cases there is an understandable reluctance to let an institutional mentality appropriate what properly belongs to the greater glory of God…

“Our task, as I understand it, is not to get rid of form on the social and religious levels any more than on the physical level. It is to appreciate the reflections of divinity to be found within form, to make of the forms in which we are involved a vehicle for the Divine. However we may choose to affiliate ourselves, whatever working basis we may choose to embrace, we do well to remember that the work of transformation does not depend on our concepts and categories, but on our actual cooperation with the grace of God.

Rarely am I at a loss for words when writing – fact is, I feel like I’m cheating here – but the above explains my thinking so well that I do not mind relying on it. In the “Great Work,” to borrow a phrase, there is room for Masons of most faith traditions to labor side by side if they want to. I do avoid saying “all” traditions, because somewhere there must be something that cannot fit, and because “all” connotes an absolutism that I sensed from that Facebook photo in the first place.

I am happy for my friends in the photograph. Almost all are smiling, their countenances revealing the satisfaction bubbling from within.

Having read a little about Freemasonry over the years, to me it seems the history of Freemasonry essentially is the story of Masons segregating themselves from other Masons. Try it for yourself: Start with Saint John Baptist Day 1717 when four lodges did you know what, and look at every group that either arose or splintered from another, each claiming to offer the whole Truth and nothing but. In the Christian-only fraternities within Freemasonry, I believe we see not only the promise of a sectarian truth – the “concepts and categories” mentioned by our magazine writer – but also the rejection of Enlightenment thinking (e.g. Anderson’s Constitutions’ Charge Concerning God and Religion) which is the guiding philosophy that enabled Freemasonry to spread throughout the world and endure the centuries so strongly... that it has been able to come into the lives of the very men in the photo.

That’s all I got. I desire neither to change nor intrude into what is, and I hope never to discuss this on The Magpie again. No calls please.