‘The Low Vale Degree’

    

Click to enlarge.

I have too many Masonic Saturdays next month, so I’m on the fence—a stretch of Virginia Worm, if you will—about attending this outdoor degree, but it sounds like a terrific night.

Good Samaritan 336 is the lodge right on Lincoln Square in Gettysburg I keep telling you about. In addition to regular doings, the brethren host dinners with period menus, attire, and re-enactors to celebrate their famous town’s heritage. I don’t believe their Low Vale Degree is an annual event, but they have hosted these previously.

Historic Daniel Lady Farm is a local attraction, having served as the headquarters of Confederate Major General Edward “Allegheny” Johnson, who commanded a division that failed to take Culp’s Hill from the U.S. Army. (Read his report here.) Inevitably, it became a hospital for the rebels. They say blood stains are still visible.

Historic Daniel Lady Farm

This weekend, Lady Farm is hosting its Civil War Scout Immersion, two days of workshops on military drill, battle formations, and tactics, culminating in a battle re-enactment.

And the Fellow Craft Degree? If you are not aware, the rituals of Pennsylvania Freemasonry are different from whatever yours may be. They’re not bizarre; you will have no difficulty understanding what unfolds because the ritual elements are consistent, but that Grand Lodge’s work is unique in the country. My research over the years caused me to read that Pennsylvania ritual is akin to one found in northern England, but I have no firsthand experience out there to corroborate. Yet.

Obviously, Apprentices would not be admitted to this Second Degree of Freemasonry.

Historic Daniel Lady Farm

The lodge will be opened and closed with cannon fire. I mean artillery, not Vivat! drinking. The meal will be catered by Blue and Gray Bar & Grill, which is another reason to attend. If you choose not to join the group for dinner, the ticket price will be $30.

This May 30 event does not land on Memorial Day Weekend, if that conflict might deter you. The holiday weekend will be the previous week.

     

‘Going to Nutley Lodge next month’

    

It’s official: The Magpie Mason will return to Nutley Lodge 25 in New Jersey for a speaking engagement—first time in ten years, as a matter of fact. I guess that’s how long it takes for everyone to forget the reasons not to invite me over and speak.

On Monday, May 4, I will be dining out yet again on my talk: “It’s Just Common Sense: Thomas Reid and the Fellow Craft Degree.” This is an explanation of how a very influential Scottish Enlightenment treatise came to provide part of the Middle Chamber Lecture, with context on what the Second Degree looked like before this lecture was devised, and other admissible evidence.

Lodge tyles at 7:30. 175 Chestnut Street in Nutley, really only a short ride outside of Manhattan.

My own lodge’s meetings coincide with Nutley’s, but not on this date due to the Grand Lodge of New York’s Annual Communication that day.

     

‘1730 Fellow-Craft’s Degree’

     

Thank you for reading The Magpie Mason. Today, we begin our fifteenth year together.

Publicity Lodge 1000 returned from its Summer Refreshment on Monday the twelfth, beginning a new year of Masonic labor. The Magpie Mason was scheduled to present a discussion of Masonic educational value, so, with a Ceremony of Passing on the trestleboard for an upcoming meeting, I chose the Fellow Craft Degree as that topic of conversation. And not just any second degree, but the one printed in 1730 by one Samuel Prichard in his essential ritual exposure Masonry Dissected, newly published by the Masonic Book Club. Masonic rituals, Masonic lodges, Masonic grand lodges, Masonic everythings were very different 300 years ago. All of it was very basic compared to what we have today.

I explained how when Masons think of lodges, we understandably envision the modern lodge room, with its varied furniture, seating arrangement, equipment, décor, etc., but things were primitive in the early eighteenth century when lodges met in tavern dining rooms or in private homes. There were no tall pillars flanking the Inner Door (there was no Inner Door!), and instead the brethren spoke ritually of J and B, explaining their purposes and describing their looks, using language similar enough to what we know today.

I told the lodge I was going to read the ritual of the degree. Read the ritual?! That could take hours! Yet the ritual of that period was very basic as well, consisting of a call-and-response dialog among the Worshipful Master and the brethren (not unlike our current Opening and Closing rituals) that spans only five pages of the MBC edition. The Fellow Craft Degree of 1730 included no elaborate floor work, no lengthy monolog lecture or other ceremonious orations, no hoodwink, nor other elements we today expect. Some of those features already were revealed to the candidate during the “Enter’d ’Prentice’s Degree,” and so went forsaken in the second degree. Anyway, reading the entire “Fellow-Craft’s Degree” ritual required only a couple of minutes. I won’t transcribe it all here, but do recommend to you the new book from the MBC. They will have more copies for sale after the subscription sales have been satisfied. (I saw Lewis Masonic had it listed for sale the other day, but it seems to be gone from their website now.)

Unsurprisingly, the letter G is very significant to the degree. I’ll share this brief passage. It rhymes and is in question-and-answer form. The dialog is between the Master and different brethren in the lodge (not the candidate, who wouldn’t be capable of answering), so you really had to know your ritual because you wouldn’t know which answers you’d be expected to recite on any given evening.

Q. Can you repeat the letter G?

A. I’ll do my endeavor. In the midst of Solomon’s Temple there stands a G, a letter fair to all to read and see, but few there be that understands what means that letter G.

Q. My friend, if you pretend to be of this fraternity, you can forthwith and rightly tell what means that letter G.

A. By sciences are brought to light bodies of various kinds, which do appear to perfect sight, but none but males shall know my mind.

Q. The Right shall.

A. If Worshipful.

Q. Both Right and Worshipful I am, to hail you I have command, that you do forthwith let me know, as I you may understand.

A. By Letters Four [the Word of EA] and Science Five [the fifth science, Geometry] this G aright does stand, in a due art and proportion, you have your answer, friend.

Q. My friend, you answer well, if Right and Free Principles you discover, I’ll change your name from friend, and henceforth call you Brother.

A. The Sciences are well composed of noble structure’s verse, a Point, a Line, and an Outside, but a Solid is the last.

Q. God’s good greeting be to this our happy meeting.

A. And all the Right Worshipful Brothers and Fellows.

Q. Of the Right Worshipful and Holy Lodge of St. John’s.

A. From whence I came.

Q. Greet you, greet you, greet you thrice, heartily well, craving your name.

A. (Candidate gives his name.)

Q. Welcome, Brother, by the grace of God.