‘2024 Magpie speaking tour’

    

Royal Arch apron on display at the GWMNM.

The Magpie Mason’s calendar of speaking engagements is filling up fast with two dates packed into the 366-day leap year that is 2024!

The Royal Arch companions at Eureka Chapter 7 in beautiful Orlando, Florida want to fly me down for their next convocation for some reason. Actually, their next meeting will be tonight, but after that the next meeting will be Thursday, March 14.

Eureka meets in Eola Lodge 207’s building, located at 3200 East Grant Street. (Happy 100th anniversary!) There I will reprise my talk on Kabbalah and Royal Arch Masonry. I changed the title so it don’t look like the same lecture I’ve been delivering for ten years, so now it is “Mystical Interpretations of Royal Arch Symbols.”

Leave it to me to visit Florida after winter. Wear something red, and I’ll see you there. 7:30 p.m.

In May, on a date to be determined, I’ll join the brethren at Audubon-Parkside Lodge 218 (another A-P Lodge!) in New Jersey. We had a date picked, but it seems the lodge is relocating, and therefore its schedule is changing, but we’ll work it out.

This talk will cover two broad topics: choosing best practices for lodge life (I’m avoiding “The O Word” because it makes some people crazy), and finding the right subscription memberships for further Light in Masonry.

I’m exhausted just talking about these.

     

‘Bonhams auctions antique Masonic punchbowl’

    

Bonhams

Bonhams, the London-based auction house founded in 1793, placed under the gavel yesterday one of those beautiful Chinese-made punchbowls you see in many Masonic museums.

Dating to the Qianlong period (c. 1780), the porcelain piece sold for $12,750 at the dealer’s New York location on Madison Avenue.

Bonhams

It depicts the checkered pavement, pillars, G, sun & moon and Pleiades, and the S&C of the Second Degree. And you’ll see a lewis, and a few things that I thought didn’t exist in our degrees until the Thomas Smith Webb era. My brain is going soft. I’ll have to hit the books and look into it.

Bonhams

Anyway, my bid of $357, plus a Shriner belt buckle, didn’t prevail.

     

‘Hear about the Master’s Emblem’

    

The Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library’s monthly lecture series continues with an exploration of a symbol we know—but maybe haven’t contemplated much.

Very Worshipful Bro. Marshall Kern, of Victoria Lodge 56 in Ontario, will tell us about “The Master’s Emblem” in his presentation on Thursday, August 26 at 7 p.m. He is the new Grand Historian of that jurisdiction.

This will be an online event. Register here. From the publicity:

In many jurisdictions around the world, there is an emblem affixed to the apron of the Worshipful Master of a lodge to distinguish him. The emblem continues to be used on his apron as a Past Master, or if he achieves additional rank in grand lodge. The origin of the emblem can be traced to a Tuesday night in February 1814 at a tavern in London. VW Bro. Marshall Kern had traced the origin of the Master’s emblem, and explains the connection to geometry, Scripture, and Masonic ritual.

The emblem in question is not seen commonly in New York Freemasonry. The Grand Master’s apron displays it. Some lodges that deliberately choose English-style regalia have it. Nationwide, we find it in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Maybe a few other states.

     

‘Flag waving at Nutley Lodge’

     
Being that it’s been a month and a half since this event, I’d better stop procrastinating and get to it before my memory is old enough to qualify for a Flashback Friday post, but I had a great time at Nutley Masonic Lodge No. 25 in New Jersey on June 20. Having been invited to speak by Worshipful Master Joel (I think I’ve appeared at Nutley as a guest speaker more often than at anywhere else) in proximity to Flag Day, I presented a review of the symbolism displayed in a number of U.S. state flags. Not all 50, but about 20 of the most interesting. Needless to say several of these flags are most conspicuous to the initiated eye.

There is no reasonable claim of Freemasonry influencing these flag designs in any way, but I hoped to illustrate how instructive images Masons use are found in major and official public symbols also. I didn’t prepare much in formal remarks, so what follows are simply some notes concerning each flag.

Bro. Dave, Master of the local Rose Croix Chapter and a member of Nutley Lodge, was instrumental in bringing me back to the lectern, so of course I was sure to begin with this flag: Louisiana.

One of the alternate names of the Rose Croix Degree is Knight of the Eagle and Pelican, and one of the key symbols of the degree shows the pelican in her piety, a metaphor for love and sacrifice. For the purposes of Louisiana, the flag’s symbolism is Roman Catholic, but if you’ve read Manly Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages you probably recall the above illustration, a full-page, by Augustus Knapp, showing the full Rose Croix imagery.

Utah – The Beehive is one of my favorite Masonic symbols, and it is not uniquely Masonic. It is widely understood as a symbol of industry, but considering Freemasonry’s significance to Mormonism, which begat the State of Utah, it is an apt choice for the flag.

Alabama – St. Andrew’s Cross: St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scottish Freemasonry. This X-shape is the cross on which Andrew was crucified.

Alaska – Astronomy: the North Star and the Big Dipper.

Arizona – “As the sun rises in the East,” or sets in the West as the case may be. Thirteen rays = the original states. The colors are from the flag of Spain. The star symbolizes the copper mining industry.

Maine – We see the North Star again. “Dirigo” means “I lead.” For the Masonic eye, we have the anchor at right. The symbol of Hope.

New Jersey! – Liberty holds a staff topped with the red cap. This hat was presented to freed Roman slaves, and it appears in several state flags. The shield shows three plows to symbolize the agriculture of the Garden State. At right is the ancient goddess Ceres (grain) holding none other than the cornucopia.

New Mexico – Sometimes simple is best. What we have here is another sun symbol. There are four angles of a square. Four parts of a circle. This is a sacred symbol of the Zia tribe of Native Americans. Four is the sacred number denoting the circle of life; the four cardinal directions; four seasons; four elements.

New York – Another radiant sun. Justice stands at right with the scales—another Scottish Rite symbol. There’s that Roman slave cap again at left. The body of water is the mighty Hudson River.

Oklahoma – I included this because it has a smoking pipe. Lots of Native American symbolism built into this. That’s an olive branch.

Rhode Island – The anchor of Hope most prominently.

Virginia – Left breast bared! This is Virtus, goddess of virtue. Sic Semper Tyrannis means Thus Always to Tyrants—what John Wilkes Booth shouted after shooting President Lincoln. This was designed by George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but not a Freemason.

Washington, DC – Taken from the coat of arms of the Washington family–not just George Washington, but his ancestors dating to the 12th century. Benjamin Franklin said this emblem partially inspired the look of the U.S. flag. It also appears on the Purple Heart.

Magpie file photo

Washington State – Kind of speaks for itself. This Grand Lodge of New York apron is worn by RW Bro. Bill Mauer, a noted historian and trustee of DeWint House, the Washington Headquarters in Tappan.

West Virginia – The Latin motto means “Mountaineers are always free.” On top of the crossed rifles is that slave’s red cap again. To the left we see an ear of corn and also a bushel of wheat. June 20 is today: the anniversary of the state’s admission to the Union.

Wisconsin – Masonic symbols: the anchor, the cornucopia, the spade & pickaxe, as in Royal Arch Masonry.


Flag images courtesy united-states-flag.com
     

‘Brand new Masonic tarot deck’

     

The pollination of Masonic symbolism to tarot cards has intrigued me for a number of years. Both systems of symbols have venerable histories, coming into their own at approximately the same time (eighteenth century), and sharing in common influential personalities (Waite, Levi). When an artist marries the two traditions, the results can be noteworthy.

Before continuing, let me restate that for Magpie purposes, tarot cards are not for fortune-telling, but their symbols are useful for meditative and contemplative purposes—and not necessarily only when the cards bear Freemasonry’s symbols.

It’s certainly okay if you’re an experienced and well traveled Freemason who doesn’t know much about tarot cards. I’m no expert. But it is a quirky topic that I promise will engage you if you study it, as tarot definitely is “a peculiar system…illustrated with symbols.” Tarot decks of the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith variety, that do not even speak directly to Freemasons, nonetheless offer many images recognizable to the initiated eye.

Tarot decks that deliberately do consist of Masonic symbolism on the major arcana cards have been around for a while. Actually, you can find tarot cards with just about any theme depicted. There is a brand new Masonic deck published just this month by Lo Scarabeo in Torino, Italy.

Artist Patricio Diaz Silva of Chile has created 3x5 cards that put images from the Masonic lodge into the tarot milieu, and they’re beautiful. Seventy-eight cards, with the minor arcana cards being unillustrated. I think his concept of Masonic life is formed by what one generally might term “Continental Masonry,” meaning there are Scottish Rite and Templar images, plus women wearing aprons.

The following photos are copyright © Patricio Diaz Silva 2016, and are found on the web. The deck is available via Amazon and other on-line retailers.

 

‘Two interlaced deltas enclosing a protractor’

     

I searched through The Magpie photo archives hoping to find a shot of an Assistant Grand Lecturer wearing the apron of his office to illustrate this excerpt from the new issue of The Empire State Mason Magazine, and found Yves! Anyway, in the back of the book, Bro. Richard Kessler, the Right Worshipful Grand Lecturer, has a regular column titled, appropriately, “From the Grand Lecturer,” where this time he addresses three common questions. The first is: “Does the insignia on the Assistant Grand Lecturer apron have any significance in our ritual?”

Before I transcribe his answer, let me try to explain the design of the apron of the Very Worshipful brethren who wear it: No purple or gold, but a blue trim around a white background upon which lie a black equilateral triangle interlaced with a white equilateral triangle, forming a six-point star, within which is a protractor with its straight edge horizontal and its curved side above. Got it?

RW Kessler’s reply:

It does. The following is the symbology which has been used by Grand Lecturers in our jurisdiction: The Seal of Solomon or Shield of David is a hexagonal figure consisting of two interlaced triangles. The creates a six-pointed star. Upon it was inscribed one of the sacred names of God, from which inscription it was to derive its talismanic powers. These powers were reputed to be very extensive. It was called the Sacred Delta by the Ancients and was known as the symbol of the Great Architect of the Universe and also as the element of important ceremonies.

Magpie file photo

VW Bro. Yves Etienne
at Shakespeare 750
on September 2, 2010.

The interlocking triangles, or deltas, enclosing the protractor designate the Grand Lecturer or Assistant Grand Lecturer and are explained as follows: The two triangles, one white and the other black, interlacing, exemplify the mingling of opposing forces in nature: darkness and light, falsehood and truth, ignorance and wisdom, evil and good. They also are symbolic of the union of the body and soul. The protractor in the center of the two triangles is a symbol of wisdom and truth, and is emblematic of precision and perfection, which we hope for, both in our ritual and our lives. The emblem symbolizes one endowed with knowledge, who strives to overcome ignorance with wisdom, speak truth, and bring Masonic Light to the Craft.


If I’m not mistaken, this apron design and the office of Very Worshipful Assistant Grand Lecturer were devised in the 1990s with the goal of imparting to the brethren not only ritual instruction, but also the meanings of ritual elements and symbols. In 2015 the focus has been the Entered Apprentice Degree, and the results are conversations about the meaning of Masonry. Imagine that. The first time I saw one of these aprons, I assumed it was the apron of some crazy lodge at Masonic Hall that provided its brethren Masonic instruction with alchemical or other esoteric influences. You see all kinds of aprons at Masonic Hall.
     

‘A Royal Arch and Kabbalah lecture’

     
It’s been more than four years since I have presented any kind of educational talk on the subject of Royal Arch Masonry, but I’ll try it again next month in my Chapter.

I delivered this lecture last in Pennsylvania, and I think it went well. I still have not written it, but this essentially is a discussion of how key elements of Royal Arch ceremony and symbolism are defined by Masonic ritual, by the Hebrew Bible, and by that giant body of Kabbalist literature named The Zohar.

Dinner will be served at 7:15 (only seven bucks!), and reservations are required by e-mailing the Secretary at scottchapter4nj(at)gmail.com no later than Wednesday, May 6.

Attendance, naturally, is only for Royal Arch Masons. Hope to see you there.
     

‘Remembering the cold cheap masonry’

     
I couldn’t let today’s silver anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall pass without comment. Something I had thought wouldn’t happen in my lifetime was made real as I watched in suspicious disbelief as it occurred on this date in 1989. An amazing turning point in human history that, amazingly, is nearly forgotten already in the United States.

The lessons for Freemasonry are stark. Speculative builders who work in virtue and morality, in brotherly love and truth, “create societies out of freedom,” as one Mason (a total stranger) I met before my initiation phrased it. (“A lodge cannot deprive a brother of his civil rights…” Constitution and Laws, 29-27, Grand Lodge of New Jersey, F&AM.) What was wrought in the “Democratic Republic of Germany” in 1961 was an immoral and hateful masonry: cheap concrete that surely would have crumbled by now, leaving only the rebar and rocks that went into the cement. When masons are free, they can build temples and churches of resources gifted by nature and handcrafted into masterpieces. When they are not, they’ll throw up slabs of shitty cement to imprison a city. Freemasons should never forget the symbolic working tools found on the flag of the DDR: The hammer of industry and the compass of science should serve to remind us all of the versatility of any tool. What matters is the hand that wields it, or as German filmmaker Fritz Lang put it in his Weimar era masterpiece Metropolis: “The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart.”

My own mementos of the Berlin Wall acquired during a visit in 1990 include

several shards of the Wall and a few East German military and political medals.

     

‘Masonry as Mystery School’

     
Aurora Grata-Day Star Lodge No. 647 cordially invites all Master Masons to hear VW Bro. Piers Vaughan present his lecture titled “Symbolism, and Freemasonry as a Mystery School” next week.

Wednesday, May 23 at 7 p.m.

American Room, 19th Floor
Masonic Hall
71 W. 23rd Street in Manhattan

Light collation to follow. RSVP to grsolberg(at)verizon.net
    

‘No. 11’

    

(I admit it. I’m trailing the Dummies blog.)

The new issue, No. 11, of The Journal of the Masonic Society is in the mail to our more than 1,200 members now.

What I’m most excited about is the appearance of the first piece by New Jersey’s own Bro. Ben Hoff, the Right Worshipful Grand Historian. Ben is a kind of forensic historian of Masonic ritual, in that he consults, compares, and contrasts the original source documents (ritual exposures, ciphers, monitors, jurisprudence, et al.) to determine the origins and changes of many ritual elements.

A favorite refrain in Masonry is “We’ve always done it that way,” but Ben’s research belies that simplistic belief, showing that no, we haven’t necessarily always done that, either that way or another way. His paper in this issue of The Journal explains the origins and evolution of how initiates are clothed, received, and conducted. There is much more to it all than you might guess.

His writings are taking the shape of a book, and we at The Masonic Society are proud to serialize his work, chapter by chapter. Believe me, no one else in Masonry is doing the kind of research that Ben does. As I write this, Ben is putting the finishing touches on his next installment, in which he explains a peculiar manuscript’s influence on the Master Mason, Past Master, and Royal Arch degrees. A must read!

Other attractions in this issue include Bro. Shai Afsai’s story about his lodge – Redwood Lodge No. 35 in Rhode Island – and a question of symbolism and conscience. Bro. Peter Knatt on an intersection of British military history and Freemasonry. And a lot more, including editorials, columns, photography, and other features.

I cannot be unbiased, but I can say accurately and respectfully that this is the finest Masonic periodical in North America. And it is only one of the benefits of joining The Masonic Society. We also offer an exclusive (as in, no bogus Mason silliness) on-line forum abuzz with thousands of conversations, discounts on books and other necessities, and tokens of membership like no other – like our stunning patent, on parchment with hand-stamped was seal. For 39 bucks a year! Click here to get involved.
    

‘Compass and Compassion’

     
For 28 years, a barrier made of cheap concrete mixed with rocks stood as a dividing line between West and East. You see, while nobody wanted to travel from West to East, everybody wanted to travel from East to West. But traveling, whether to receive wages or anything else, was not to be where stood the Berlin Wall.

All I really want to say on this 20th anniversary of the breaching of that prison fence is 1) Thank God! and 2) Let Freemasons everywhere consider the Compasses as a symbol.

The national emblem of the German Democratic Republic includes the hammer and compass, a variation of the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle. Germany was a much more advanced society than backward Russia, so the compass of science made more sense as a national symbol than the obsolete agricultural hand tool.

Of course Freemasonry has Compasses too. Ritually they remind us to circumscribe our passions and to practice secrecy; the Senior Deacon conveys this message to the aspirant, getting to the point right away. One employs the Compasses to draw the circle wherein one stands at its center, never to materially err. As one of the Three Great Lights of Masonry, the Compasses join the Square and the VSL to illumine our world. The legs of the Compasses are elevated with each progressively heightened state of consciousness from First Degree to Third. And so, in the hands of Masonic man, the Compasses embody freedom of thought, freedom of association, morality, and our God-centered psychology with its Light to which we draw nearer.

The Short Talk Bulletin of May 1924 says:

How to use the Compasses is one of the finest of all arts, asking for the highest skill of a Master Mason. If he is properly instructed, he will rest one point in the innermost center of his being, and with the other draw a circle beyond which he will not go, until he is ready and able to go farther. Against the littleness of his knowledge he will set the depth of his desire to know, against the brevity of his earthly life the reach of his spiritual hope. Within a wise limit he will live and labor and grow, and when he reaches the outer rim of the circle he will draw another, and attain to a full-orbed life, balance, beautiful, and finely poised. No wise man dare forget the maxim “In nothing too much,” for there are situations where a word too much, a step too far, means disaster. If he has a quick tongue, a hot temper, a dark mood, he will apply the Compasses, shut his weakness within the circle of his strength, and control it.

In the hands of the communists of East Germany however, the compass represented authoritarian control, the forceful contorting of the human will to gratify the tyrant’s designs for society.

In the hands of the totalitarian commissars of East Berlin, the compass was a tool to brutally crush freedom, brotherhood, equality, truth, science, philosophy, and humanity in the name of constructing a world devoid of Faith and Hope and Charity.

In the hands of the East German Communists, the only masonry possible with their compass was that ghostly, ghastly gray concrete wall that divided Berlin.

Light shines from the West.

It was twenty years ago today that Light breached that wall. As we say in the Chapter of Rose Croix: “May we commit ourselves anew to the high task of building a nobler world of freedom and justice for God and humanity. ‘As you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them.’ So may the Light that never fails, the Love that never forgets, and the Life that never ends, illumine our world.”
     

‘Sightseeing’

I finally got tired of repeatedly visiting DC and environs without ever budgeting any time for sightseeing. So, on Thursday, Bro. Jim from Logan Lodge No. 575 in Indianapolis and I set out to the House of the Temple and then to the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

I shot more than 100 photos at the House of the Temple. More on that later.



Since it was Feb. 12, the bicentennial of President Lincoln’s birth, we visited the Lincoln Memorial. This year also is the centennial of the debut of the Lincoln penny and the golden anniversary of the change of that coin’s reverse to the Memorial design. I can still remember the delight as a very young numismatist of obtaining a near Mint condition penny, and upon close examination discovering that the Lincoln statue was visible inside the tiny Memorial on the back.



Note the two fasces beneath his hands. An ancient symbol of authority, the fasces depict bundles of rods. It is employed repeatedly in American symbolism. Take a look at the reverse of a dime, or examine the seal of the U.S. Senate. It was a symbol long before Mussolini’s fascists got hold of it.

The penny, long at risk of being discontinued, receives more changes upon this bicentennial celebration. As has been done with quarter dollars in recent years, the penny will be struck with different reverses.

(But we, as Free and Accepted Masons, should ever remember the original design of Victor D. Brenner: the so-called “Wheat Penny.” Wheat of course is partially what is meant when “corn” is cited in the rituals.)

Anyway, I didn’t mean to write about coins.



On the walls inside the Memorial are numerous symbols rendered in paint and stone.



Two murals at the top represent freedom, justice, unity, brotherhood and charity.






The weather all week was beautiful. Some rain had been forecast, but never arrived. Each day was sunny and clear, with temperatures reaching into the high 50s.