‘Midnight’s Light Paranormal lodge’

     

Courtesy Midnight’s Light Paranormal

A random comment I just saw on Twitter from an English Freemason prompted me to look up something on the web, which led me to this curious item.

Evidently, for three years there has been a program titled Midnight’s Light Paranormal that airs occasionally on YouTube. There have been nine episodes, the most recent of which was from April 3. (It was filmed in February.) The producers say:

We are a paranormal investigation team located out of southwestern Ohio. Midnight’s Light Paranormal strives to provide its viewers with 100 percent real paranormal evidence, as well as a source of entertainment. We love helping people with paranormal related issues and making people’s voices heard. Through our investigation episodes, we display our professionalism and explain how it adds to the experience. If you have had an interesting paranormal experience or know of any haunted locations that you would like us to investigate, do not hesitate to contact us. Check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Follow us into the darkness guided only by Midnight’s Light.

Courtesy Second Masonic District, GLO

The April 3 episode, titled “King Hiram Masonic Lodge,” is described thusly: “As the team heads back to West Alexandria, they have their eyes set on the mysterious King Hiram Masonic Lodge. This investigation is personal to many members of the team and the evidence that is captured is stunningly relevant. Watch as the paranormal and Freemasonry intertwine in another exciting episode.”

This lodge is King Hiram 88 in Ohio. From that description, I’ll guess one or more of the cast is a Mason. I’m going to watch it later tonight.

I know there are Masonic ghost hunters out there. When New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education met at the Trenton Temple, we were told several times of visits from brethren who, let’s say, are from The Lodge on High. It was explained that spirits are attracted to Masonic lodges where they had been members in life, because, yes, they are places the people loved, and also because the workings of rituals—the comfortable habits of repetition—render these spaces hospitable to the spirits. Nutley Lodge 25 also was said to have these visits.
     

‘Second Circle is ON’

     

'Oh, it is so on.'

“The dead have no existence

other than that which

the living imagine for them.”

Jean-Claude Schmitt

Ghosts in the Middle Ages:

The Living and the Dead
in Medieval Society

The New Jersey Second Circle of The Masonic Society will meet again next week for its second annual Feast of Saint Andrew.

Wednesday, November 30

7 p.m.

Bloomfield Steak and Seafood House

409 Franklin Street in Bloomfield

Cost: $41 per person.

Your message here (optional):

Professor Breandán Mac Suibhne will present The Freemasons and the Fannet Ghost: An Episode in Irish Cultural History, 1786–1822. This will be a reprise of his lecture to the International Conference on the History of Freemasonry in Virginia this May. It is part ghost story, and part political history, but it is a tale you won’t forget.

Breandán Mac Suibhne, Assistant Professor of History at Centenary College, is a historian of society and culture in Ireland. He has published on para-militarism and the construction of Irish identity in the 1780s, republican rebellion and its suppression in the 1790s, and agrarian “improvement” and social and political unrest in the 1800s.

One of the founding editors of Field Day Review, an interdisciplinary journal of Irish politics and culture past and present, he also is editor of John Gamble’s Society and Manners in Early Nineteenth-Century Ireland, and, with David Dickson, he edited Hugh Dorian’s The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal, the most extensive account of Ireland’s Great Famine. He is completing a monograph on northwest Ulster, c. 1786–1822.

Let’s get together for drinks at 6:30, and we’ll retire to our room at 7 p.m.

It is NOT necessary to be a member of The Masonic Society to attend. All Masons are welcome, as are our ladies, family, and friends.

If you were there last year, you noticed it’s a small space. Seating IS limited to 30. Reservations are required and, as always, must be made in advance by transmitting your payment, via PayPal. See the "button" above.

For entrées we’ll have broiled salmon, chicken marsala, and prime rib, plus red roasted potatoes, all served as buffet. Plus there will be copious appetizers, the house salad, soft drinks, and coffee & dessert. Of course the bar will be open for your individual patronage.

(And of course the famous Masonic Society gift bag awaits you at the end of the evening.)

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at that address as well, and I will get right back to you.

Swingers image courtesy Independent Pictures (II).