‘Mark Tabbert in Jersey next month’

     
Mark Tabbert will visit a Masonic lodge in New Jersey in a couple of weeks to present some of his recent research into George Washington’s Masonic life. This flier has all the details:

Click to enlarge.

‘13 points within Ben Franklin Circles’

     
On this date in 1706 was born Benjamin Franklin in Boston. Philosopher, statesman, scientist, inventor, business innovator, publisher, post master, Masonic grand master, and so much more, Franklin was a colossus who very much remains with us in the 21st century.

In fact, if your Masonic lodge or your dearest friends or your general social life lacks a practical approach to philosophy—that is, a proper application of good ideas toward improving your attitude and behavior—then a new movement aiming to “transform your world” might be for you. Launched about a year ago, the Ben Franklin Circles are local groups that unite the intellectually curious who wish to make positive changes in their individual lives and in the world around them. Franklin is the namesake because the participants in these groups are united in discussion of Franklin’s “13 Virtues” for the noble purpose of self-improvement.

Ben Franklin Circles comprise a free-standing organization, and if this kind of socialization appeals to you, I recommend either joining an existing circle or organizing a new one, particularly for Freemasons. If your lodge is vexed in trying to retain those new Masons who are not content with the frivolous antics and service club missions that have taken the place of Freemasonry in so many lodges, then this concept can help. Or even if your lodge knows its business (e.g. an Observant lodge) but could benefit from a new way of approaching Masonic Light, look into this.

In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, published posthumously in 1791, Franklin defined his 13 Virtues. His list began in his thinking at age 20 as a system of moral building he actually tracked in a journal, keeping daily record of whether he applied the virtues to his personal conduct. (Didn’t we all do that kind of thing at age 20?) His 13 Virtues are:

• Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
• Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
• Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
• Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
• Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
• Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
• Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
• Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
• Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
• Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
• Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
• Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
• Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Freemasons should have no difficulty recognizing these 13 concepts from their internal work. One also might see a connection to the Rules of Civility that George Washington would internalize during his youth.

In Ben Franklin Circles, these are your topics of discussion. It’s not like Freemasonry, where merely memorizing and reciting Enlightenment prose is the goal (without reinforcement to aid in the comprehension of what’s being said); in the Circles, these giant ideas form a basis for fixing flaws in character within, with the added goal of putting that refined character to work in repairing the world without. It’s a very Masonic way of thinking that your lodge could claim for its own by forming a new Circle.
     

‘The tools of civility’

     
You have heard of The Rules of Civility, now the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York connects its fraternal members to the tools of civility.

Magpie file photo

“There is a growing attention across our grand jurisdictions to civility projects, and bringing attention to the way we deal with each other,” said Grand Master William J. Thomas in his St. John’s Weekend address at Utica in June. “In its broadest sense, civility is just good manners.”

“Our Grand Lodge is taking a leadership posture,” he added. “We have established a working relationship with the Civility Task Force of the North American Conference of Grand Masters, and appointed a Special Committee on Civility. I ask that you encourage your Lodges and Districts to give attention to this project, with an objective of leading by example. If we act courteously and civility among ourselves and in our profane lives, perhaps it will influence others to behave likewise.”

The tools of civility include:

• Pay Attention and Listen. Listen intently when others are speaking. Inhibit the “inner voice” from interrupting with comments such as “The problem is…” or “We’ve always done it this way.”
• Be Inclusive. Civility knows no ethnicity, no level of leadership, no forum, no religion, no generation, and no bounds. Being inclusive includes everyone. It is about leading and serving for the betterment of mankind.
• No Gossiping. Gossiping is one of the most hurtful behaviors and accomplishes nothing.
• Be Respectful. Respect has nothing to do with liking or disliking someone. Respect means you can disagree without being disagreeable. Civility is respectful behavior. Respect is honorable behavior.
• Build Relationships. Leadership is about building relationships. Therefore, being civil is especially helpful in this process.
• Use Constructive Language. Be mindful of the words you use, when you use them, and also of the words you speak through your non-verbal communications.
• Take Responsibility. Don’t shift responsibility or place blame on other people. Hold yourself accountable, accept your own faults, speak positively, and respect everyone.
• You be the example. Be the example, so that others will say, “I want to be like him.”

If you haven’t seen “What Would George Washington Do?,” the June 2015 Short Talk Bulletin penned by Grand Master Thomas, click here. In it, Thomas cites the seventeenth century moral text that Washington as a youth made his own, transcribing its teachings into a personal journal for his own right thinking and right acting that is in print and available to this day. In fact, a free copy can be had, courtesy of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, by clicking here.

Other tools being harnessed by the Grand Lodge of New York are:

The Civility Center

Civility in the Craft: Points for Discussion

April 2014 Short Talk Bulletin titled “Civility” by then Deputy Grand Master of California Russ Charvonia.

Seven Stages of Civility

Civility and Respect: A Behavioral Spectrum


“Freemasonry is a progressive science,” as we say in our Craft ritual. I think part of what that means is the tenets of the fraternity do not deal in corrective measures—there isn’t talk of sin and redemption—because it is entirely a proactive teaching. Live your Masonry, and you’ll never err. I have been blessed to be among Freemasons who exude civility; I have been with those who could profit from these lessons; and I think myself and most of us land somewhere in the vast middle. Civility is present throughout Masonic imagination. Those who have ears will hear. A ritual part of the lodge closing that had been absent from our New York work for too long, but restored just a few months ago, leaves us with these words: “Every human being has a claim upon your kind offices. Do good unto all.”

SMIB.
     

‘Rules of Civility, gratis’

     
Civility: Without it, there can be no society worth inhabiting, no human interaction in peace, and certainly no life in a private square of friends like Freemasonry. The urgency of civility in the Masonic lodge is emphasized by Grand Master Bill Thomas, speaking from the East in his travels about New York. Civility is at the root of civilization—and not just etymologically speaking either.

Around the time I was initiated into Freemasonry in 1997, I was attracted to a book by Richard Brookhiser, biographer of Washington, Hamilton, the Adamses, Madison, and other giants of U.S. history. He created a slim hardcover text titled Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace that consisted of lessons in ethical and sophisticated behavior George Washington gleaned from a 17th century book intended to advise young men on mature attitudes and conduct. Today, those very lessons—all timeless, relevant, and in dire need in 2015—are available free of charge to you, courtesy of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Virginia. From the publicity:

Our Gift to You:

George Washington’s Rules of Civility

George Washington’s many virtues have, for centuries, led Masons to regard him as a true exemplar of the dignity and morality that our Craft espouses. He was twenty years old when be was initiated into Freemasonry and became exposed to the beautiful values taught in our degrees. But we know that Washington was already thinking about values and decorum about four years prior to that. Francis Hawkins’ 1661 book, Youth’s Behavior, Or, Decencie in Conversation Among Men, was a popular volume used in the education of young people in Washington’s day. At some point during Washington’s adolescence, he had occasion to make a copy of a section of this book.

The section is titled, “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” and Washington’s manuscript of it still survives in the Library of Congress. It is a manual of behavior comprising 110 guidelines for maintaining friendly and respectful relations among people. They show young Washington’s concern for civil behavior in public, in private, in business, and in all other realms of life. While some of the rules seem antiquated to us now, most are as useful today as they ever were. They provide important reminders for civil discourse and offer a fascinating window into the values that shaped George Washington from his very youth.

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association has published George Washington’s Rules of Civility as a 36-page booklet, and we are proud to make it available to you free of charge (North America only). Simply click here to request your copy today!
     

W. Trevor Stewart at Cincinnati Lodge No. 3

     
"Let me start with some heresy," said W. Bro. Trevor Stewart, beginning his lecture at Cincinnati Lodge No. 3 in Morristown, New Jersey earlier this evening. "I am not a heretic, but I am on the side of heretics. They live more interesting lives... and have more interesting deaths!"

The topic of Trevor's heresy this time is the Pillars in Masonic ritual, in a lecture that is the abridgment of a published and more technical work of research, but still covering highly useful points including: the names Jachin and Boaz; the casting of the Pillars; their use as archives for Masonry; the placement of globes atop them; and their ritual use in the modern lodge.

"King Solomon's Temple may well have not existed," said Trevor, defining his heretical speculation directly. "There is no archaeological evidence of such a large and magnificent structure, as described in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles."

These books of the Bible "were written 500 years after the events they try to describe by a priestly class" that had an educational need "to make Solomon's Temple the cultic center" of society.

And there is no trace of KST in the ancient records of the neighboring nations – Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Greece – he added. All are "curiously silent" on King Solomon's activities, and there is no external record of Nebuchadnezzar destroying it. "The Wailing Wall is supposed to have Phoenician inscriptions, but they have not been deciphered or dated.

"Assuming it did or could have existed, there are aspects that interest Freemasons," he continued. "But they are problematic. There are problems here if you take (1 Kings and 2 Chronicles) literally as presented. But it is symbolic Freemasonry we are engaged in.

"Pillars have fascinated men since the beginning of civilization," Trevor explained. "In their view of the cosmology, they believed the heavens were supported by pillars. There is hardly any kind of ancient civilization that had no pillars, and not necessarily with religious buildings only, but with secular ones as well.

"There are about 400 words in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles that tell the story of Solomon's Temple. It was meant to house the Ark of the Covenant. It was to be a stone copy of the Tabernacle, an idealized copy, carved out almost in the same kind of dimensions, but the Tabernacle itself did not have pillars. The two pillars didn't figure into the Second Temple of Zerubbabel. The vision of the Second Temple in Ezekiel – a dream description, not a factual description – indicates that pillars were not important."

Instead, Trevor explained, meanings were communicated in single pillars with special names. There was Beth El ("the House of God") and Mizpah ("a pillar in the wilderness"). But why Jachin? Why Boaz? "The two pillars assumed a huge significance in the 18th century" when Masonic ritual took the form we know today. "Josephus didn't ascribe much significance to those names, nor did early Church figures like Bede. So why were they chosen? Is there Kabbalistic significance?"

Evidently it was during the late 17th century when a fascination of KST gripped educated people. In 1691, "a Scottish minister wrote that the Mason's Word is like a rabbinical teaching on Jachin and Boaz, with the addition of some secret signs." Books like "Orbis Miraculum" (1659) by Samuel Lee, and "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized" (1688) by John Bunyan reflected a curiosity of KST in that age when Freemasonry began to take its modern shape. It was a change of focus from the antediluvian pillars of the children of Lamech, which concerned the operative masons of previous centuries, as noted in the Regius and Cooke manuscripts. The shift progressed by 1723 upon the publication of Anderson's Constitutions, which gives a description of KST, but without naming the two Pillars. But then, the 1738 revision of the Constitutions reverts to the antediluvian pillars!

"From 1696 to 1726 we have 16 manuscripts that give us clues," Trevor said. "There is a gradual progression of Solomonic Pillars entering the lodge room." First, we see the names of the two Pillars were used in the instruction of candidates. Then there were "crude illustrations of the Pillars on tracing boards." Then there were the miniature columns at the Wardens' stations. "And finally, at the end of the 18th century, there are the full grown, or scale, pillars in the lodge room. The lodge takes on the form of a sacred space, laid East to West, like a temple, with the Pillars."

"Ancient Hebrew is a difficult language to master," he added. "There are 22 consonants with a system of vowels to help in pronunciation, but it is highly conjugated – with many tenses and moods – and no spaces between written words and sentences. And modern Hebrew is not much help.

"The Bible is inconsistent in assigning meanings to the names of the Pillars, and does not support our ritual. Dumfries Manuscript No. 4 (circa 1710), was the first time Masons tried to work out the meanings of the names, hinting at the power of God.

But there is no obvious reason why they were chosen to establish some special significance, he continued. "And why only two pillars when the numbers three, five and seven are so important? Is it an ancient principle of duality" or because there were only two degrees at that time?

At this point Trevor realized time was growing short, and he progressed quickly to the other subtopics he wanted to cover before the hour grew too late.

"Where were the Pillars cast?" he asked. "2 Chronicles tells us in the clay grounds between Succoth and Zeredathah, but there is no archeological evidence of copper refining there. There is no evidence they had sufficient quantity of copper to make the Pillars, as described, but there is some evidence of importing copper ingots from Turkey at about 1,200 BC," not too long before the time of KST. "But it is highly unlikely that ancient peoples knew how to cast brass."

Addressing the ritual description of the Pillars as repositories of archives, Trevor asks why anyone would seal vital information inside hollow pillars where there would be no access. "I found it a ridiculous explanation as a young Mason from practical terms," he recalled. "But what you have is this: a confusion of the children of Lamech pillars with the Solomonic pillars.

"There was a huge industry in Egypt-mania in the 18th century, which explains why the composers of our ritual made the Pillars the containers of archives." Egyptian hieroglyphics, in the time before the Rosetta Stone made sense of them, were appropriated for Craft ritual purposes and projected upon the two Pillars as records of ancient wisdom.

And supposing that ritual was written by committee, "and that committee not leaving well enough alone, added globes" to the tops of the Pillars.

"The globes are an English invention," Trevor said. "This was the Age of Discovery" when images necessary to navigation were important. By contrast, the French did not use globes, but "went in a totally different direction," using bowls instead, as "containers or vessels."

So why do we use our two Pillars?

"If we are Speculative Masons, we want to use symbols for our purposes. Why do we have the Pillars? Because the candidate enters between them," and that they are always in the West "is not an accident. It is a statement about Kabbalah.

"The 10 sephiroth is the Tree of Life. There are three parallel columns ranging from severity to mercy as ways of looking at 10 emanations of God, to depict the impossible.

"The third is the middle column: the balance between severity and mercy. It is possible that by placing the candidate between the Pillars, he is supposed to be that balance. Aren't we supposed to be balanced men? Happy, useful men in society? It is possible that by placing the candidate between them, we are making a statement.

"I offer it for your criticism and analysis. The Pillars are not there by accident, but we don't think about them enough.

"We have this tradition in England called 'Lodges of Instruction,' " he continued. "At first I thought 'Great! I'm going to be instructed in this!' but they really are lodges of rehearsal.

"A special plea, if I may: This basic symbol of when we first come into the lodge? Make it useful in some class of instruction."

It was getting late, but there was time for a question-and-answer session.

One brother asked if anything connected Sir Isaac Newton to Masonic ritual.

"Yes," Trevor replied. "He was obsessed with Solomon's Temple, and his disciples were Masons and Fellows of the Royal Society. He was an alchemist in physics, but he was working on a manuscript for 50 years... right up until 14 days before he died because he wanted to establish the measure of the cubit as a means to measure the earth and determine the longitude and latitude."

Another asked about the use of two pillars in alchemical symbology, and if that figures into the evolution of Masonic identity.

"I've been to 36 libraries owned by 36 Freemasons of the 18th century," Trevor said. "They all had the same alchemical texts. They had magpie minds."

Your correspondent couldn't resist teasing the guest speaker a bit. "Trevor, the timing of your 'heresy' is impeccable," said I. "We're now a few hours into the Jewish New Year!"

The Worshipful Master's presentations to Trevor included two books. Cincinnati Lodge, chartered in 1803, is named for the Society of the Cincinnati, the organization founded in 1783 by American and French officers of the American Revolution to perpetuate lasting contact among these veterans. Its first president was George Washington, who made Morristown a vital strategic base of operations during the Revolution. One of the books given was "Private Yankee Doodle," the memoirs of Joseph Plumb Martin, who served there under Washington. The other was "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior," which is commonly attributed to Washington, but actually is an older guide to gentlemanly conduct introduced to Washington at a young age.




Bro. Stewart is employed in a speaking tour of the area, and other parts of the country, through the next two weeks, appearing in numerous Masonic, Martinist and Rosicrucian venues. The companion, or concluding, lecture to Monday night's presentation will be delivered Wednesday, Oct. 8 at historic Alpha Lodge No. 116 in East Orange.