‘House of the Temple vandalized’

    

Two years to the day after the House of the Temple was spray painted with graffiti during days of violence around Washington, DC, the two sphinxes outside the landmark were just damaged in another attack, according to Arturo de Hoyos, who shared the news via social media this afternoon.

“Vandals severely damaged the two symbolic sphinxes which grace the sides of our front outer steps,” he said. “They not only broke pieces from their faces, but smeared them with filth.”

Master sculptor Adolph Weinman created the pieces on site. He also is known for his work with the U.S. Mint, having designed both the Mercury dime and the Walking Liberty half dollar, Art also said.

     

‘House of the Temple film made available’

    

On October 18, 1915, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite dedicated its headquarters located in Washington, DC. A masterpiece by architect John Russell Pope, the House of the Temple remains as active today as it was a century ago—but you know that.

What you may not have known is that film footage of the dedication ceremony was found in recent years, and it was released yesterday via YouTube for your enjoyment.

Host Maynard Edwards is joined by Chris Ruli to introduce the film and explain all the history involved.

     

     

‘Demystifying the House of the Temple’

    

The Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite shares videos on a YouTube channel to educate its members, other Freemasons, and the public alike. New content is uploaded almost weekly, and one recent video gives viewers a tour of the House of the Temple, the jurisdiction’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Check out the channel, and check back often.

     

‘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.

     

‘Next Saturday: Celebrating the Craft’

     

If it’s May, it must be time for Celebrating the Craft, the fun fundraiser hosted by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in the United States that highlights the entertaining talents of its members. Your tax-deductible gifts will support the efforts to maintain and preserve the indispensible House of the Temple and the RiteCare charity, which aids children coping with speech and language disorders.

The performers next week will include mostly musicians and singers, but also one “carnival act.” Hmmm.

It’s always a good time, and it will be webcast here. Dust off your credit card, and send some money.

Click here to see two Scottish Rite Masons, Brent and Art — I dunno, must be new—with an urgent message.
     

‘Enter the Secret World of the Freemasons’

     
Another exciting crosspost with American Creation:


It’s an exciting day for Freemasons in the United States, thanks to a long-awaited Mo Rocca package broadcast on the CBS News program Sunday Morning several hours ago. The point of the segment is to dispel the untruths, malicious and benign, with the simple, calming facts that make the fraternity much easier to comprehend.

It is fun seeing a number of friends on television, but I bring this to American Creation because it is quickly, but clearly, stated by UCLA history professor Margaret Jacob, an author of several books on Freemasonry and a favorite on the fraternity’s lecture circuit, that Masonry was not the engine driving the American Revolution. Yes, plenty of individually famous Freemasons were involved—from Continental Congress to conflict to Constitution—but the Masonic Order as an organized body of men was not where policy was debated nor pamphlets printed nor battle plans formulated.

The segment, which takes us inside the Grand Lodge of New York and Saint John’s Lodge No. 1 in New York City; and the House of the Temple and Colonial Lodge in Washington, DC; and sites elsewhere, runs eight minutes, is here:



The text of the segment can be read here, and “9 Things You Didn’t Know About Freemasonry,” also from Sunday Morning, can be read here. (And for Rocca’s humorous self-promotion of the piece, see his Twitter feed here.)

     

‘Art on H.O.T.’

    
This news just in from Sister Janet:

The Maryland Masonic Research Society will host its annual festive board Monday, August 20, when it will welcome to the podium Ill. Arturo de Hoyos, 33°, Grand Archivist of the A&ASR Southern Jurisdiction, who will discuss “the symbolism in the art and architecture of the House of the Temple.” This will take place at Café de Paris (owned by a Brother Mason) in Columbia, Maryland.

Of the House of the Temple, Janet says “If you’ve visited there, you already know what a fantastic building it is. Come find out what’s really going on!” And I second the motion.

Your meal will cost $39, which also covers tax, gratuity, and wine. A cash bar also will be available.

Of the Maryland Masonic Research Society, Janet explains “The MMRS is open to everybody – Masons, spouses of Masons, friends of the Craft, and prospective joiners. The late Jim Harding set it up that way with approval from the Grand Lodge of Maryland.”

I won’t post Janet’s e-mail address, so if you would like to see the menu choices and make reservations, leave me a note in the comments section. I won’t publish your comment, but leave me your e-mail address and I’ll get back to you. It sounds like a terrific night out, and if it wasn’t 240 miles away, I’d meet you there.
    

‘Landmarks here and there’

  
The Second Masonic District Book Club and Discussion Group has its summertime plans lined up.

Saturday at 1 p.m., the brethren will host a barbecue to complement the already meaty discussion subject of the Ancient Landmarks of Freemasonry. This will take place at Alpine Tilden Tenakill Lodge No. 77, located at 404 Tenafly Road in Tenafly. (That’s in New Jersey, for those of you checking in from Riyadh and Dakar.) Cost per person: only $10.

Reservations are requested. Simply e-mail to 2mdbookclub (at) gmail.com

Next month, the group will partner with Fidelity Lodge No. 113 for a trip to Virginia to enjoy other landmarks.

I love photographing this place.

Thursday, August 9 – a trip to the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, and a visitation to Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, which meets within the Memorial. There will be a special speaker in lodge that evening, and a Festive Board of course. Cost per person for dinner: $5.

Friday, August 10 – a daytrip to Washington, D.C. to visit the House of the Temple. The headquarters of the Mother Council of the World has been benefitting from renovations in recent years, with more improvements to come as the centenary of this John Russell Pope masterpiece nears.

Also on the itinerary is a stop at Mount Vernon. Known formally as George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, Museum and Gardens, this indeed is the residence of Martha and George Washington. It has been a good friend to Freemasonry in recent years. I think it is safe to say that as a repository of Washington’s effects, Mt. Vernon was excruciatingly slow to acknowledge Freemasonry’s role in the man’s life, and vice versa, but an exhibit was installed several years ago that highlighted Washington the Freemason. More recently, the newly celebrated Mt. Nebo Lodge apron was displayed there. Even the gift shop seems to offer some interesting Masonry-related items.

Simply e-mail to 2mdbookclub (at) gmail.com to get involved.
  

'Burns Night'

     

Robert Burns upon composing a poem to his love, Mary.

It is the 253rd birthday of Robert Burns, Poet Laureate of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge. Hope you had a great time at your Burns Suppers!

He is depicted here, sitting on a tree stump, along Literary Walk on the east side of Central Park. The massive bronze was created by Sir John Steell in 1880, and it was a gift to the city from New Yorkers proud of their Scottish heritage. (As you can tell from the leaves on the trees, this is not a recent photo. I shot this last August.)

Did you know the House of the Temple is home to the second largest collection of Burns literature in the world? I shot this photo three years ago. It shows only about a quarter of the entire collection.

Part of the Robert Burns collection at the House of the Temple
in Washington, DC.

According to Supreme Council:

During his lifetime, Bro. William R. Smith, 32°, former Director of the National Botanical Gardens in Washington, D.C., assembled one of the most complete collections of published works by and about Scottish poet Robert Burns. Recognized as one of the finest of all Burns collections, second only to the Burns Collection in Glasgow, Scotland, it was cataloged by Mr. William Thomson of the Public Library of Edinburgh, Scotland. The industrialist Andrew Carnegie, trustee of Mr. Smith’s estate, decided that because Robert Burns had been an ardent Freemason, it would be appropriate to place the Burns collection in the library of the Supreme Council, with the condition that it be housed in a special room available to the public and community of scholars.

One of my favorite grocers in Manhattan is Myers of Keswick on Hudson Street. I discovered this during my university days, thanks to an article in one of our literary publications, and I've been hooked since. Anyway, if you ever need a reliable source of genuine haggis, this is your place.
     

Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge

The Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge will meet Saturday, March 20 at Freemasons Cultural Campus in Elizabethtown. Two speakers are scheduled:

Bro. C. DeForrest Trexler of Pennsylvania will discuss “Degree Rituals of the Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.”

Bro. Sean Graystone, Superintendent of the House of the Temple, will speak on “Esoteric Freemasonry.”

(With any luck, he’ll talk to Trexler about Esoteric Freemasonry in the Rituals of the Scottish Rite!)



Trexler is particularly well qualified to address his topic, as he is the Grand Secretary General of the NMJ, and is the man behind many of the changes made to the NMJ’s rituals in recent years. I am only assuming, but this may be similar to his remarks at the recent Royal Order of Scotland meeting.

Graystone is a favorite among Masonic and Rosicrucian esotericists. He was among those who spoke at the first Rose Circle conference. (Has it been four years already?!)

It’s been a year and a half since the Magpie Mason attended the Academy. Gotta make the effort this time.

Registration at 8:30 a.m., program to begin at 9:30. Lunch at noon, and the day will end by 3 p.m.

If you go to the Academy, you will pass this owl on your way upstairs. If I’m not mistaken, this and other architectural treasures were rescued from buildings the fraternity gave up over the years, and were installed here.

Born on this date: Albert Pike

Today is the bicentennial of the birth of Albert Pike.

This man enjoyed a long, illustrious life with careers in law, the military, journalism, and of course, Freemasonry. Pike served as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry from 1859 until his death in 1891. A more controvertible personality in Masonic history I cannot name.

His most famous (but I suspect least read, and most misunderstood) book is Morals and Dogma, an anthology of lectures explanatory of the entire corpus of degrees of the A&ASR, which themselves were penned or otherwise crafted by Pike. Some of his other writings that, frankly, I find a lot more useful include:

Magnum Opus, his first revision of the degrees of the Scottish Rite;

The Porch and the Middle Chamber: The Book of the Lodge, his interpretation of the ritual and symbols of the three Craft degrees;

Esoterika, a longer discussion of the Craft degrees, including details, some humorous, of his own experiences in Masonry; and

various Legenda and other shorter works, all intended to promote clear understanding of the many lessons imparted by Freemasonry.

Above and Below: Some of Albert Pike’s Scottish Rite regalia displayed in the Albert Pike Room at the House of the Temple in Washington, DC.

Above: Several of Pike’s pipes. Below: A miniature replica of the statue of Pike located in Judiciary Square in Washington. Pike is the only Confederate Army general depicted in statuary in the American capital.

Heather Calloway

‘Vivat!’ – The wait staff at Bloomfield Steak and Seafood House didn’t know what to make of this party of 25 and its seven ritualistic toasts, but the food kept coming: platters of stuffed mushrooms, pasta, calamari, clams, mussels; bowls of salad; plates of steak, salmon, chicken; pitchers of Sam Adams Winter Lager; bottles of wine; trays of desserts; pots of coffee.... We’ll get used to them, if they get used to us.

Another Worshipful Master in New Jersey who is exiting office on a high note is W. Bro. Franklin Suco at Nutley Lodge No. 25. Franklin is a Mason who works hard to broaden the horizons of his brethren by shedding light on ritual and symbol to communicate the meaning of Masonry. And he isn’t afraid of borrowing from other Masonic rites to enhance these lessons. His year in the East included about ten lecturers, the last of whom was Heather K. Calloway, Director of Special Programs for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, at the House of the Temple in Washington.

Heather, with laptop and projector at hand, screened her Powerpoint presentation titled “The Masonic Traveler,” taking us on a busy tour of significant Masonic sites and sights from Britain to Bluefield, West Virginia. (With good humor, her first photo showed... Nutley Lodge. This dinner-lecture was a fundraiser for the lodge’s building fund.) These unique locations vary in their reasons for importance – architecture, history, collections of artifacts and archives, je ne sais quoi, etc. – yet are equals, like dots just waiting to be connected in the travelogue of... well, a Masonic traveler. And travel broadens one’s horizons, ergo her presence.

Our tour included a pint or three at Freemason’s Arms, coincidentally located across the street from the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England in Covent Garden. I wonder if the brethren go there.

Some of the brethren are still bending their elbows at the restaurant as this late night edition of The Magpie Mason goes to press, but your correspondent is dutifully at the keyboard, not even meekly curious about the Two Large he invested this afternoon in Miguel Cotto’s unstoppable career!

It was a great night. Calloway took us to the grand lodges of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, since these three are the first logical destinations of Masons in this area. But we soon found ourselves in New Mexico (her native state) at the grand lodge, and also in Taos for a quick tour of Bent Lodge No. 42. This lodge room has a beautiful Southwestern décor, making the room simultaneously look otherworldly but still as instantly recognizable as any lodge appointed in a federal style. This was Kit Carson’s lodge, and a sizable collection of Carson memorabilia is on hand here.

Heather’s Masonic journey began during her childhood in New Mexico. Her grandfather was a Mason, and her dad was Grand Master in 1991 and serves as Grand Secretary now, instilling an interest in the Masonic Order that she brought to college, adding the study of Freemasonry to her theology course load. And conversely, her various university degrees, including a Master’s in Library Science, make her ideally suited for her career at the House of the Temple where, in true non-profit fashion, she fills multiple roles that have nothing in common except that somebody has to do them. (Exactly the kind of opportunity The Magpie Mason covets, except I know they’d never let me smoke in there.)

We’re still in New Mexico, now at the Scottish Rite Valley of Santa Fe (Sean Graystone’s Valley), where Heather’s wedding was held. Pretty cool. Next, it’s the Valley of Denver, then on to Guthrie, Oklahoma where she once abandoned her father during a visit, so enthralled was she by the endless sights to see at the Valley famous for conferring 29 A&ASR degrees in exhausting four-day marathons.

Junior Warden Dave, left, and Senior Warden Dalton debate the architectural style of the pillars lining the Valley of Guthrie. ‘They’re Ironic, I tells ya.’ ‘No, you murgatroyd, dey’re Adoric!’

Then we’re in El Paso, followed by the Grand Lodge of California in San Francisco. Suddenly we’re on Great Queen Street in London before heading north to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Turns out there’s a little Masonic lodge just down the road from the Sinclairs’ famous enigma. Then, it’s on to Hibbing, Minnesota; and New Orleans; and Coos Bay, Oregon. Before we could even think of unpacking, we had arrived at the House of the Temple, John Russell Pope’s recreation of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

A Past Most Wise Master myself, I had to shoot a photo of this Rose Croix apron Heather showed us from the House of the Temple collections. Below: an apron from the 1790s, one of the oldest on hand at H.O.T. (That’s Thurman in the foreground.)

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is undertaking a $70 million fundraising campaign to finance massive renovations and modernizations to the House of the Temple. Individuals, lodges, valleys, foundations – everyone – can make gifts in support of this urgent effort to ensure this priceless landmark and national treasure will be inherited by generations yet to be born. Bequests are great, but the funds are needed now so please make a timely impact.

Pythagoras taught that standing to drink and sitting to eat allowed for proper digestion, a practice adopted at Nutley Lodge...

...although I am at a loss to explain why Tiler Clarence is standing on his chair.

Right: Past Master Anthony demonstrates correct chair usage, sometimes called ‘The Secrets of the Chair.’

‘Why, I oughtta...’ – Heather fields another question from Dave.

Utterly ignoring The Magpie Mason’s staff photographer, Franklin presents Heather a recognition award in thanks for her hard work tonight.

Franklin, congratulations on a wonderful year! Heather it was great seeing you in New Jersey and having a chance to chat. Cannot wait for Masonic Week!

American Lodge of Research

     

The elected officers of American Lodge of Research for 2009.

It was another fine meeting of American Lodge of Research Thursday night, with brethren elected to membership, officers elected to their 2010 stations, and a very useful paper delivered. ALR meets three nights per year, in March, October, and December. It is the oldest lodge of Masonic research and education in the United States, receiving its warrant from the Grand Lodge of New York in 1931.

The secretary’s desk was a busy sight. It was announced that the new book of transactions, with research papers presented in 2007, was published recently, and that copies have been mailed to the members. The next book will cover both 2008 and 2009, and will be out next year.

In the new members department, two worthy brethren were elected to Active Membership, which is achieved by those who do the work of the lodge: writing and presenting papers. W. Bro. Philippe of Heritage Lodge No. 371, and W. Bro. Gilbert Ferrer, Master of Shakespeare Lodge No. 750 have been immortalized! And a good thing too, because Gil was to be the speaker for the evening.

Among those elected to Corresponding Membership was Bro. Luther from Cornerstone Lodge No. 37, who might actually learn about this good news by reading The Magpie Mason. Surprise!

And, as always, there were plenty of familiar and friendly faces. Aside from WM Bill Thomas and his officers, there were John Simon-Ash, Mark Koltko-Rivera, and John Mauk Hilliard, one of the deans of Masonic education in the United States, who dutifully took the vacant Senior Master of Ceremonies chair. And also Bro. Alessandro (with short hair!), and Bro. Frank, and about 35 others.

One cannot attend lodge at 23rd Street without being dazzled by the diversity of regalia on display. My unofficial Magpie Apron Award for the evening goes to the young Mason who was sporting a most elegant apron from a Scottish Constitution lodge he joined in Belgium while serving in the U.S. Army attached to NATO.

But on to the paper for the evening. W. Bro. Ferrer, an attorney by profession, employed his expertise in both logic and rhetoric to illustrate the illogic and incoherence of anti-Masons, particularly the fundamentalist Christian sort indigenous to the United States who appear on the John Ankerberg Show.

If you’re familiar with fundamentalist Christian anti-Masons, then you know how they operate:

They present themselves as the experts on Masonry; and since they all are in agreement on their opinions, then those opinions are facts; and therefore it is up to Masonry to defend itself. And of course there are numerous instances of jerking quotations out of context, and of citing obscure writings as popularly accepted texts for Masonic education purposes.

For example, the characters studied by Ferrer had mailed questionnaires to 50 grand lodges in the United States. Half replied to the questionnaire. Of those 25, a total of four stated that Albert Pike’s widely distributed (but frankly, rarely read) tome Morals and Dogma was a valid source of Masonic information. Therefore, they cite M&D as a kind of Masonic bible and, naturally, they use its index to find all kinds of scary ideas to misquote or otherwise abuse to alarm their legions of the dangers of Freemasonry.

Yes, these people still exist in 2009. In the United States.

Here is one quotation from M&D that especially frightens the antis:

Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalim, must needs leave it to each of its initiates to look for the foundation of his faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own religion. For itself it finds those truths definite enough, which are written by the finger of God upon the heart of man and on the pages of the book of nature. Views of religion and duty, wrought out by the meditations of the studious, confirmed by the allegiance of the good and wise, stamped as sterling by the response they find in every uncorrupted mind, commend themselves to Masons of every creed, and may well be accepted by all.

In the Temple Room at the House of the Temple in Washington stands this massive altar of black and gold marble. (It’s bigger than my car.) Upon it rest copies of the volumes of sacred law of the world’s major religions.

W. Ferrer performed an expert job of demolishing not only the thoughtless opinions held by this particular strain of anti-Mason, but also the very methods it employs to form those opinions. These antis seize a similarity Masonry might share with, say, sun worship, to draw the conclusion that Masonry is sun worship. They rely on non-sequiturs to connect dots that otherwise never could be connected to claim that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity. They cite the fate of William Morgan in 1826, an aberration in Masonic history, to paint Freemasonry as a secret society that threatens the very existence of America in 2009.

The paper sparked a lively discussion afterward, with the brethren sharing many ideas varying from suggested readings to articulate replies to this form of anti-Masonry. It was Bro. Alessandro of Mariners Lodge No. 67 who simply pointed out that the question is not “Is Freemasonry compatible with Christianity?” (it certainly is), but “Is this form of Christianity compatible with Freemasonry?” (it certainly is not).

WM Bill Thomas called on brethren around the room who had raised their hands waiting to speak, and the conversation shifted from how one benighted group views Freemasonry to how Freemasons view Freemasonry. It is a great debate within Freemasonry about its own identity: Is Masonry nothing more than a host of spaghetti dinner fundraisers or is it a private society of exceptional men exploring the great mysteries of human existence?

W. Bro. Sam from Mariners suggested that Masonry is not a “secret society” because a secret is learned but once, whereas a mystery is gradually explored through continuous search. Bro. Mark Koltko-Rivera, who appeared on television this afternoon on the Discovery Channel’s Hunting the Lost Symbol, asserted “we really do have secrets. Secrets are forbidden to be spoken; they are ineffable. We hold our rituals in confidentiality, and no one has the right – in the United States of America – to criticize us for it!”

The next Regular Communication of American Lodge of Research will be Monday, December 28 when the newly elected officers will be installed. The inaugural paper of the new Worshipful Master, Bro. P.F. De Ravel D’esclapon, is titled “The History of French Lodges in New York City, 1760 to 1800.”

(I’m looking forward to hearing this paper. The francophone side of the Grand Lodge of New York, such as L’Union Française Lodge No. 17 – are there others? – is of particular interest to The Magpie Mason. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the goal of introducing these lodges to La Maison Française at NYU. French House maintains a limitless schedule of literary readings, fine arts exhibits, symposia, and other cultural happenings in support of French culture, and I hope to bring the subject of Freemasonry to its attention. French Freemasonry’s past, present, and future offer a lot to talk about! The arts, politics, faith, and other subjects could be starting points toward innumerable discussions. I’m digressing myself a bit too much here.)

Brethren, make an evening of it. Before the meeting be sure to duck into the Limerick House next door for dinner. After the meeting, the brethren take their time saying good night, preferring to mingle in the lodge room and hallway to chat. The stalwarts head out for cocktails.

And there is more to ALR than its meetings. WM Thomas has taken the lodge “on the road” somewhat this year, hosting the sojourning Prestonian Lecturers and taking them to Albany. And he was a recent guest lecturer at Nutley Lodge No. 25 in New Jersey. And don’t forget the occasional social function at the Cigar Inn!
     

Heather Calloway to speak

The terrific series of lectures hosted by Nutley Lodge No. 25 continues next month with Heather Calloway visiting to speak on Buildings of Masonic Significance in the United States. Appropriately, the lecture will take place at a dinner-fundraiser to benefit the lodge’s effort to make capital improvements to its own home. Calloway is director of Special Programs at the House of the Temple, the headquarters of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. She has been published in the Scottish Rite Journal and Heredom and elsewhere I’m sure.



The announcement above speaks for itself. See you there.

‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!’

     
By the way, have you heard Dan Brown has a new novel out? The Lost Symbol is setting sales records and, naturally, has the Masonic world wondering what its impact on the fraternity will be. Early concerns remembered the treatment Opus Dei received in Brown’s previous mega-seller, The DaVinci Code, which portrayed the Roman Catholic lay organization as practically a murder cult, and wondered if Freemasonry was in for a similar ride.

Truly, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the problem posed by The Lost Symbol is that Freemasonry is presented with too much idealism. Dan Brown’s Freemasonry consists of the most powerful men in Washington – the Senate Majority Leader, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Homeland Security, et al. – not united in a conspiracy to oppress and exploit, but banded together to preserve ancient wisdom until the time is right to reintroduce humanity to these mysteries.

Establishing parallels between, to borrow a title, the Secret Teachings of All Ages and noetic science, which in the story is explored by a lone scientist toiling inside a secret lab on the campus of the Smithsonian Institution, our author echoes a stirring message imparted by none other than Robert Davis and Jim Tresner, two of the leading educators of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Incidentally (or maybe not merely incidentally), the Scottish Rite is the specific form of Freemasonry the novel explores.

At the 2004 session of New Jersey Council of Deliberation, Bob and Jim were flown in from Oklahoma to speak on the potential Scottish Rite Masonry has to stir within its brethren the desire to help mankind recognize a new phase of collective awakening. The talk was so well received that Ill. Davis was brought back in 2006, when he presented his paper titled “The Purpose of the Scottish Rite and the Spiritual Awakening of the New Millennium: an Unworldly Partnership.”

Excerpted:

My Brethren, in the history of the world, there have been two periods when a spiritual awakening has taken place across every culture at the same time; where a striking transformation of consciousness occurred in unison across every major population group – all independently of one another – and which resulted in a re-definition of religion and a global awakening of man’s understanding of things spiritual and religious. These have been called Axial Periods because they gave birth to everything which, since then, man has been able to be. It was during these periods that we meet with the most deepcut spiritual dividing lines in history.

The first, and most profound period, occurred in a 500-year span from 800 B.C. to 300 B.C. It was during this time that China saw its two great teachers, Confucious and Lao-tze, from whose wisdom emerged the schools of Chinese philosophy. In India, the Hinduism of the Vedas was transformed by the Upanishads, which changed Hinduism from a polytheistic to a monotheistic religion; where Buddha, the “Awakened One” and Mahavira ushered in two new religious traditions – Buddhism and Janism. The concept of individual enlightenment came from this tradition. In the eastern Mediterranean region, the transformative prophets – Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, called forth from their people a new moral awareness which took Judaism to a higher level based on individual moral responsibility and where the idea of a messiah came into being. In Greece, Western philosophy was born. From Phales and Socrates to Plato and Aristotle, a new rational explanation of the universe was conceived; where moral consciousness was awakened and new metaphysical systems were born. “Know Thyself” became the watchword.

It was an extraordinary global transformation. Although the leaders who effected this change were philosophers and religious teachers, the change was so radical that it affected all aspects of culture because it transformed consciousness itself. It was, in fact, within the horizons of this form of consciousness that the great civilizations of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe developed. It was this form of consciousness that spread to other regions and became dominant worldwide. It was a consciousness that was self-reflective, analytical, and which could be applied to nature in the form of scientific theories, to society in the form of social critique, to knowledge in the form of philosophy; to religion in the form of mapping an individual spiritual journey. To this day, regardless of where we have been born, we live in the structure of consciousness that was shaped in this 500 year period. And it was within this structure that the intellectual and spiritual substance of Freemasonry was born....

Western civilization as we know it today is the product of four great movements that occurred over another 400-year period, all tied to the structure of consciousness which came out of the first Axial Period. These four movements were the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Industrial/Social Revolution....

It is time that we create an identity for the Scottish Rite that is uniquely ours in the family of Freemasonry – one which focuses on this original intent of our enlightened society of men....

We are moving into a new Axial Period.... We are on the cutting edge of something bigger than we know and, like the first Axial Period, the new one will redefine traditional paths of spirituality and shape the horizon of consciousness for future centuries. It too will have a great significance for world religions; and it will be driven by both an individual consciousness and a global one. And since this development will be global and connected with new forms of technology, religious futurists are suggesting that we can expect to see a convergence of cultures and religions this time, rather than a division as occurred in the first Axial Period. This has enormous implications for the Scottish Rite.

Seekers of Truth will search each other out and meet in conditions and atmospheres of mutual trust and understanding, with an eagerness to alter misconceptions about each other and prepared to appreciate the values of the other. Dr. Ewert Cousins, Professor of Religious Studies at Fordham University, forecasts that “the partners of this new conscious-raising enterprise will be mutually enriched by passing over into the consciousness of the other and discovering the synthesis of the greater and higher goal of their collective awakening.” In Masonry, we have long defined this as the search for the Lost Word....

I would love to give you all 4,262 words, but you get the idea. (To read more about Robert’s talk, click here, scroll down to the August 2006 issue of The Northern Light magazine, open the PDF, and turn to page 7.) For his part, Dan Brown crafts his protagonists as like-minded strategic thinkers. Brown, the optimist – maybe even the gnostic – wants his readers to view humanity as a brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of god, a global family poised to receive the wisdom of the ages, cleansed of obfuscatory dogma and stunting superstition. The message is delivered obliquely by the mystics of Masonry (not revealing too much to the uninitiated), but bluntly by the scientist. From page 504:

Katherine propped herself on her elbow. “And I promise, if we as humans can honestly grasp this one simple truth, the world will change overnight. I should preface this,” she said, “by reminding you of the Masonic mantras to ‘gather what is scattered,’ to bring ‘order from chaos,’ to find ‘at-one-ment.’ We have scientifically proven that the power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought.”

Langdon remain silent, wondering where she was going with this idea.

“What I’m saying is this. Two heads are better than one, and yet two heads are not twice better, they are many, many times better. Multiple minds working in unison magnify a thought’s effect exponentially. This is the inherent power of prayer groups, healing circles, singing in unison, and worshipping en masse. The idea of universal consciousness is no ethereal New Age concept. It’s a hard-core scientific reality, and harnessing it has the potential to transform our world. This is the underlying discovery of Noetic Science. What’s more, it’s happening right now. You can feel it all around you. Technology is linking us in ways we never imagined possible: Twitter, Google, Wikipedia, The Magpie Mason, and others all blend to create a web of interconnected minds.” She laughed. “And I guarantee you, as soon as I publish my work, the Twitterati will all be sending tweets that say ‘learning about Noetics,’ and interest in this science will explode exponentially.”

Okay, I added the Magpie part.

...Langdon shut his eyes. In the darkness of his mind, he found himself thinking about universal consciousness, about Plato’s writings on “the mind of the world” and “gathering God,” [and] Jung’s “collective unconscious.” The notion was as simple as it was startling.

God is found in the collection of Many, rather than in the One....

Langdon’s thoughts were spiraling now – dreams, memories, hopes, fears, revelations – all swirling above him in the Rotunda dome. As his eyes began to close again, he found himself staring at three words in Latin, painted with the Apotheosis.

E pluribus unum.

“Out of many, one,” he thought, slipping off into sleep.

The Lost Symbol is divided into 133 chapters, which I do not think is arbitrary, because it ought to remind us of Psalm 133, the timeless verse of Scripture that begins: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” This has been a narration of Western initiatic ceremonies for at least 1,500 years, when St. Benedict wrote it into his Rule for monastic life.



Knowing that many of you intend to read this novel, I won’t reveal plot twists and specific devices that concern Freemasonry, nor will I decode the puzzle above. However, I must say that what Ill. Bro. Davis says above about the Lost Word is heard in this story. Mr. Brown beat the copyright infringement suit brought against him in Britain by the co-authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but I do suspect he owes Bob Davis a mention on the acknowledgments page of The Lost Symbol, at the very least.

I will say that I remain doubtful of Mr. Brown’s abilities as a novelist. The Lost Symbol is meant to be a thriller, yet it is notably unthrilling. Its plot takes place in a 24-hour period during which the heroes suffer unspeakable physical and psychological punishments, but carry on with a stoicism that would make the Black Knight look like a pansy. There are other problems, but you’ll discover them yourselves.

Read it if you must, but would someone please tell me where to find the big parking lot that Brown claims is behind the House of the Temple?