‘Masonic Research District meeting’

    

Sunday afternoon brought the long-anticipated Zoom meeting of the Grand Lodge of Virginia’s Masonic Research District hosted by District Deputy Grand Master Shelby Chandler.

Virginia has five lodges of Masonic research (with a sixth on the way), and they were grouped into one district several years ago rather than each remaining an oddball within its geographical district. The purpose of this meeting, very prudently, was to allow the District Deputy to present his DDGM program once to all these lodges to avoid taking time away from their chosen presentations during his individual Official Visits. (My lodge, Civil War Lodge of Research 1865, will receive RW Chandler at our July 13 meeting at Jackson Lodge 19 in Delaware, likely the only lodge meeting I’ll be able to attend this year.)

The Grand Master’s Official Visit to the Masonic Research District will be February 3 at George Washington Lodge of Research 1732 at Fredericksburg.

Chandler’s discussion yesterday consisted of a detailed introduction of MW Jack Kayle Lewis, the new (and 178th) Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, including his very impressive resume of academic and professional achievements, plus his family life and other notable points, including his ambitious plans for his term. If you were wondering about the police badge design of Lewis’ Grand Master pin, it is inspired by his many decades in law enforcement.

Then came the designs upon Chandler’s trestleboard. I won’t cover it all, but here are some of the slides he displayed during his talk:

Click to enlarge.

Sorry for the blur.

I am starting to see the wisdom of us New Yorkers having our own DDGM for our four research lodges. (There is interest in starting a fifth in the Hudson Valley.) It is wise to have an ombudsman representing the research lodges to the Grand Lodge, bringing assistance when needed.

Of course we have our own festivities planned for New York, but if you’re in Virginia, get to this one.

I know it’s far off, but add to your calendars the Grand Lodge of Virginia’s Lafayette Bicentennial Gala on October 5.

     

‘New year, new Grotto’

    

Azim Grotto, “The Handsomest Grotto in the Realm,” has new officers and a new schedule of social events for 2024.

Monarch Brian

Officers were elected three weeks ago, at which time Brian Donlon was cajoled into the Monarch’s chair. Congratulations! He has the support of a veritable dream team of Mystic Prophets in the officer stations.

But the bigger news is the Lucky 7 Club, a yearlong schedule of social gatherings around New York City on the seventh of each month. Why seven? Azim is the seventh Grotto to have been chartered, which happened way back in 1893.

As today is January 7, this first Lucky 7 event will take place from noon to four o’clock at Down the Hatch on West Fourth Street (between Sixth and Seventh) in the Village. The details:

Bottomless Brunch Menu

Noon to four

$35 per person

All drafts and mimosas

with eight wings or french toast sticks

w/sausage links and choice

of waffle fries, tots or onion rings

Standard Menu

Noon to Close

$6 shots of Tullamore Dew Green Tea

and Tullamore Dew

$5 all cans and bottles

(High Noon excluded) 

Monarch Brian, he say:

In an attempt to make Grottoing fun again, we are going to make it more convenient as well. This year we will be starting the Lucky 7’s Club. A movable feast of Grotto, if you will. On the seventh of every month, we will meet at a different dive bar or event space throughout the five boroughs, regardless of what day it lands on or who can attend. Whether it’s two Prophets or twenty in attendance, the idea is to bring Grotto closer to each of our homes throughout the boroughs and make it as convenient as possible to come and hang out more often—if within the length of your leather whip… I mean cabletow.

The very first Lucky 7’s Club meeting will be January 7, and as many of you know, the day before, our very own Past Monarch Anthony Ruffini will be installed as Potentate of Mecca Shriners. Many of us will be in attendance and it will be a very beautiful ceremony followed by a lot of celebrating. So the theme of our very first “Club meeting” will be recovery.

We will meet at Down the Hatch in Greenwhich Village for bottomless brunch. I’m sure many of you know the area is known for college/dive bars, and Down the Hatch is no exception. So bring your fez (or don’t) and come join Azim.

Sadly, the Magpie Mason will be unavailable for this one, but I promise to be a Seventh Day Eventist in the future. (Actually, I think I know this place, but in my day it had a different name.) Enjoy, Prophets! Brunch is the most important meal between breakfast and lunch!

    

‘Millar returns to library lecture series’

    

The Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge of New York will resume its lecture series this month, hosting Bro. Angel Millar for a return engagement. From the publicity:

Freemasonry, Fringe Masonry,

and Ritual Magic!

By Angel Millar

Thursday, January 25

7:30 p.m.

RSVP here.

Angel Millar

The most influential occult orders of the modern age were either founded by Freemasons or influenced by Masonic ritual, but was this due to a deep insight into the true meaning of the Craft? A subversion of its symbolism and history? A simple misunderstanding? Angel Millar explores Freemasonry and related traditions such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis, Wicca, Angular Magic, and Chaos Magic.

He is the author of The Three Stages of Initiatic Spirituality and Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition, among other books. He is also the editor-in-chief of Fraternal Review and is a Fellow of the Philalethes Society.

Remember: Photo ID is required to enter Masonic Hall, which is located at 71 West 23rd Street in Manhattan. The French Ionic Room is on the tenth floor.

     

‘The Freemason’s Creed’

     

What follows was published in the August 5, 1916 edition of The Freemason, one of the wonderful English Masonic periodicals printed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As best I can tell, the editor culled this from either the New Age Magazine issue of March 1915 or from Masonic Tidings, a publication in Knoxville, Tennessee. (That’s what publishing was like back then. People borrowed from each other.)

Enjoy. And Happy New Year!

The Freemason’s Creed.

The following declaration of Masonic belief was presented by Bro. Sidney Gilbreath, a member of the Thirty-Second Degree, at a meeting held recently at Johnson City, Tennessee, U.S.A.:

1. The Mason believes in God, and in the Supreme Ruler are securely founded faiths and hopes. In the God of our Rite are united all the perfected virtues of humanity and presided over by a supreme intelligence and perfect wisdom. His justice and mercy are in equilibrium and absolute harmony. We adore, revere, and love Him because He is worthy of adoration, reverence, and love, and our highest privilege is to honor Him by practicing the virtues.

2. The Mason believes that his soul is immortal, and that, escaping from its material dwelling, it shall, in perfect freedom and with unending opportunities, continue throughout eternity the worthy tasks commenced in life, and begin others not revealed in earth’s visions. We believe the immortal soul begins its life at our birth, and that we must do nothing to degrade it, to dwarf its growth, or weaken its hopes and aspirations while its habitation is human.

3. The Mason believes in religion—in the positive religion that finds its highest expression in doing good, not merely because it is a duty, but because it gives joy; a religion that not only accepts right, but wars against wrong; a religion that acknowledges the Fatherhood of God in the practice of Human Brotherhood.

4. The Mason believes in human friendships, and his Brother is his second self, whose welfare he guards as he protects and guards his own. Through misfortune no estrangement comes, and adversity only strengthens the bonds of affection. The memory of his friend is sacred, and he guards its honor as jealously as he protects the good name of the living.

5. The Mason strives earnestly toward the mastery of his passions, but has forgiveness and charity for the error of others. He dare not indulge in any excesses that would degrade his body, weaken his intellect, or deform his soul. He lends a helping hand to a weaker Brother, and points him to firmer foundations.

6. The Mason hears much, speaks little, and acts well. For a good deed his memory reaches through eternity, for a wrong or weakness forgetfulness comes with the sunset. The good name of a Brother is sacred, and within his own bosom are enfortressed the human frailties of the weak. For evil good is rendered, and strength and superiority are captive to a neighbor’s needs.

7. The Mason is a workman. He avoids idleness. He would become a master of industry and production. The world—material, intellectual, social, spiritual—is the forge where Nature is shaped, the factory where minds are fashioned, the fields where the relationships of men are nurtured, the studio where souls are polished, and in them all the Mason labors seeking the perfect man.

8. The Mason believes in purity of life; he protects virtue and guards the home. To the sacredness of fatherhood and motherhood his truest allegiance is given, and the cry of the orphan and widow to him makes the deepest appeal. To him the home, with all its joys or its griefs, its richness or its needs, its fulness or its emptiness, is ever present with supreme claims. 

9. The Mason is a champion of freedom—freedom in the national life, guaranteed by justice; freedom in work, guarded by the good angels of temperance; freedom in thought and speech, under the banners of prudence; freedom in conscience, with fortitude to meet the judgment of eternity.

10. The Mason believes in the absolute supremacy of the moral forces, and that from their arbitration there can be no appeal. He believes that the three greatest of all the moral forces in the universe are Faith, which is the only true Wisdom, and which is the very foundation of all government; Hope, which is strength, and which ensures against failure in all the worthy ambitions of life; and Charity, which is beauty, and which alone makes possible the animated united effort of men in building with their fellow men the temples of a more perfect life.

With just a little poking around, I see that Bro. Sidney Gordon Gilbreath (April 13, 1869 - January 6, 1961) was both the first president and head of the Department of Education at East Tennessee State Normal School (now East Tennessee State University), founded in 1911 for the purpose of training school teachers for Tennessee, including for what then was called the Masonic Institute.

    

‘Grand Lodge of Israel to host open discussion on the war’

    

The Grand Lodge of Israel invites us to a Zoom meeting for information on Hamas and the war with Israel it started October 7. From the publicity:

The Grand Master, the MW Ilan Segev, and all the brethren of the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel invite you to a conference on December 28. 

The events of October 7 were dramatic! You are invited to hear what really happened with a complete analytical approach, all in the defense of freedom of expression and thought, and the understanding of differing cultures.

The main speaker will be Dr. Edy Cohen, Ph.D., a researcher, consultant, intelligence analyst, and Arabic media analyst from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He was born in Beirut and lived there more than thirty years. The history and culture are well instilled in him. This talk and his analysis will not be political.

You are all welcome to participate in the discussion. The lecture is open to an open audience interested in learning the truth.

Join this Zoom meeting here.

Meeting ID: 763 778 5246

Passcode: 001

That will be 2 p.m. Eastern.

That’s it for me for 2023. I wish you all a Happy New Year, and thank you for reading The Magpie Mason. (There’s no way there would have been 200 posts without you reading them.) See you next year.

     

‘A look inside the Masonic Building in Boston’

    

Magpie coverage of the Boston Tea Party anniversary celebration last weekend continues belatedly with a quick tour of the Masonic Building, headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in Boston. The following photos were shot both during a formal guided tour and while I was exploring on my own. Some items are permanently displayed; others were exhibited for the special weekend. Descriptions are mostly the official histories, but some also have my editorializing, which you’ll be able to discern. Enjoy.

The seal of the Grand Lodge greets you upon entering the side door. Not a typical mosaic, but each tile is a stone shaft of (I think) two inches bored into the floor by artisans from Italy who labored several years throughout the building in the early twentieth century. A shame everyone trods across, but evidently it can take it. You might recognize ‘Follow Reason,’ which also is the motto of St. John’s Lodge 1 in New York. A tour guide was unsure where the motto originates, but it may come from the coat of arms of the Duke of Montague, sixth Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England. Those are beavers flanking the shield; a nineteenth century study by Grand Lodge said they were lizards! (Don’t tell David Icke.) The tour guide didn’t know what to make of the left side, saying the castles may have something to do with Henry Knox, but of course that comes from the arms of the first Grand Lodge of England, and is still used on the UGLE’s arms.

I was told this portrait of Bro. George Washington was painted by Gilbert Stuart, which is not impossible, I suppose, considering the artist’s Athenaeum Portrait is displayed in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The brother also mentioned it had undergone very extensive restoration in recent years.

The Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, (1767-1842) first Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

Christmastime is a good time to visit Boston.

The immortal Warren!
That such men lived is miraculous.

A sample of the Boston Tea Party tea! Said to have come out of the boots of one of the participants, and donated to the Grand Lodge by W. Bro. Paul F. Dudley of Milton Lodge.

Read the description below.

Click to enlarge.

A copy of the very rare first edition of Ahiman Rezon, Pennsylvania’s Masonic constitutions, dedicated to George Washington.

Joseph Warren’s King James Bible, printed 1614.

Until modern scholarship, which I’ll get to in the next edition of The Magpie Mason, this eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party by George Hewes is the most reliable source. (I was told on Faceypage last week that the Tea Party was a revolt against the Stamp Act. ‘Tea tax,’ I reminded the brother. He told me to read the lodge secretary’s minutes. Ooh boy.)

Certificate of Rising States Lodge, Boston, signed by Paul Revere, September 3, 1800.

You know St. Andrew’s Lodge was the Scottish lodge that met in the Green Dragon Tavern, but you might not have known that the tavern got its name on account of the oxidized copper dragon employed as signage above the door. It turned green over time. And this is it! The actual green dragon!

Note the dragon above the entrance.

Detail.

Henry Price. The reason Massachusetts claims to have the first grand lodge in the Western Hemisphere is because Provincial Grand Master Henry Price constituted the original grand lodge there. Knowledge of the original Grand Lodge of England’s way of doing things is needed, I think, because while we today might assume provincial grand lodges were akin to our current Masonic districts, the truth is the Premier Grand Lodge considered provincial grand lodges to be local sovereign authorities.

Henry Price’s headstone. At some point, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts obtained permission from Price’s family to take possession of this headstone and move it to the Masonic Building to prevent damage caused by time and weather. It now is installed in a wall upstairs. In exchange, the brethren commissioned a massive monument for their founder.

MW John T. Heard, Grand Master 1856-58, was said to have weighed more than 400 pounds...

…consequently, this eight-legged chair was made for him.

Click to enlarge to read the card.

Franklin + Pallas Athena = Wisdom. Corinthian Hall.

And finally, a portrait of Ned Flanders. No inscription accompanies his portrait because he was not a grand master, but his picture hangs in respect for (I think) a massive donation he made to the Grand Lodge. Remind me to tell Tabbert there’s a Ned Flanders!

I shot many more photos, but these are the most interesting. Thanks for looking.

     

‘Tommaso Crudeli: Masonic martyr’

    

The plaque reads:

TOMMASO CRUDELI
(1702-1745) Florence, Italy
FIRST MARTYR OF
UNIVERSAL FREEMASONRY
Presented by the President
of HSTCI of America
MWGM KENNETH S. WYVILL Jr of GL of MD
MMXV

I wish I could have copyedited that.

Born on this date* in 1702 was Bro. Tommaso Crudeli.

That’s a new name to me, having learned of him only last weekend. Taking in the many sights inside the Boston Masonic Building, home to the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, on Saturday, I was drawn to this bust. The plaque on its pedestal is not the most informative inscription, but I shot a photo and looked up Bro. Crudeli later. There’s an amazing story.

From the Institute of Historical Studies Tommaso Crudeli:

Tommaso Baldasarre Crudeli (December 21, 1702-March 27, 1745) was a Tuscan free-thinker who was imprisoned by the Roman Inquisition in Florence. He was a poet, lawyer, champion of free thought, and is remembered as the First Martyr of Universal Freemasonry.... Tommaso was the seventh [Crudeli generation] to graduate from the University of Pisa [both canon and civil law, 1726]. His mentor was Bernardo Tanucci (Premier of Naples and Sicily Kingdom) during the preparation of studies and university years; in Pisa he had strong relationships with teachers and colleagues for cultural affinities Lucretian and above the nascent Enlightenment.

Tommaso moved to Venice at the family of the Counts Contarini and then he returned to Florence as professor of Italian for English Colony. For his lively intellect and his boldness, Tommaso was brought into the English Lodge, first Masonic Lodge in Italy and dependant from Grand Lodge of England, in which he was initiated on May 5, 1735. He became secretary, but also a scapegoat for a strong conflict between the Vatican and English Freemasonry, who began in Florence at the end of the long dynasty of the Medici trying to establish the Lorraine, titled dynastically, to change the political destiny of the Grand Duchy.

 

He was arrested for suspicion of heresy, or worse, to be the bearer of heresies, and was left in prison in total darkness and without air for three months. He was interrogated for days on “francmassonery,” but he did not cooperate and he would not sign the papers falsely noted his guilt so he was incarcerated again for another four months in inhumane conditions.

 

Questioned again about the aims of Freemasonry in Florence, members’ names, and Masonic rituals, he would not comply. He was sent back to jail even though his body was tried and he was vomiting blood. Meanwhile his father, Atto Crudeli, pleading the liberty for his child, sadly died of a broken heart for sorrow. Before Christmas, his brother Antonio clumsily attempted to free Tommaso, with a daring plan that ended before it was started. The Inquisitor interpreted the plan as proof of guilt and was convinced even more the need to pursue the prisoner. After another four months in prison, still in the darkness with sealed windows for fear of escape, he was questioned and charged with sins against religion whose list was irrelevant but that eventually concluded “and other serious facts known only to us.”

 

Subsequently, the inquisitors carried him, near death, to the prison at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence where he spent three months. In August 1740, in a church parade in black, they did ask him to recant, accepting his gasp as explicit consent. After the sentence came the partial grace that provided the compulsory residence in his home until the end of his life with a series of religious obligations that Tommaso never fulfilled.

 

CORRECTION: Apparently, I saw a copy of the bust at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial during a visit in November 2022.

Meanwhile all of Florence was in turmoil and especially the Governor, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and brothers of the lodge. Even the Grand Lodge of England mobilized, giving the King these facts, among others, that touched British interests in the dynastic succession in Europe. The Grand Duke of Tuscany (also a Mason) asked for a report from Tommaso. Because he had some bed rest, but was still sick and dying, Tommaso was able to dictate a detailed report which was why Francis Stephen of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa of Austria in 1742 closed the Inquisition Tribunal forever (next to the Basilica of Santa Croce), and after five years had it demolished.

 

Meanwhile Tommaso died in his bed because of the after-effects of imprisonment on March 27, 1745. He did have the satisfaction of seeing the Inquisition abolished by the secular power, the first in the Catholic world. The “Antica Condanna” which in fact was the first conviction by the Papal Bull of April 1738, was heard for many decades in which the writings and poems of Tommaso Crudeli were scattered, as it was altered many times [and] on the basis of which the Grand Duke did close the Inquisition Tribunal.

A brief video from 2008 when the Grand Lodge of New York memorialized Bro. Tommaso Crudeli.

*They used another calendar back then, so just play along.

     

‘St. John’s Lodge installation’

    

Look to the West!
Ionic Hall, Masonic Building, Boston.

There’s something infectious about the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts’ claim to be the oldest in the New World (and third eldest in the world, after England and Ireland) when you are inside the Masonic Building in Boston, the Grand Lodge’s headquarters. Yes, Pennsylvania Masons say something about that claim—and, as far as I’m concerned, the current English grand lodge dates only to 1813!—but when the Massachusetts Grand Master says it inside Ionic Hall on the occasion of the 154th installation of officers of St. John’s Lodge… it’s just extremely persuasive!

The original grapes!

Furthermore, this lodge dates to July 30, 1733, when it began meeting at the Bunch of Grapes tavern, prompting the claim that it is “the oldest Masonic lodge in the Western Hemisphere.” Again, the Philadelphians harrumph, and there even is local confusion thanks to some accounts pointing to some lodge holding meetings in King’s Chapel in Boston in the 1720s(!), but this edition of The Magpie Mason is the first in a series on the past weekend’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, which united Masons and other groups in proud remembrance. The photo at right shows the original grapes that hung outside the tavern in the 1700s! Straightforward advertising signage in a time of near universal illiteracy. They are displayed in the East for special occasions.

St. John’s is an amalgamation of First Lodge, Second Lodge, and Third Lodge, the originals of that period, if I understand correctly.

I had to disable my IroniMeter2000™️ because what passes for government in Boston and Massachusetts today seems an impossible fate to befall the land of the Boston Massacre, Tea Party, Shot Heard ’Round the World, Bunker Hill, and so much more in the birth of this nation.

Worshipful Master Mark and his officers.

Anyway, preceding St. John’s installation, there was the Historic Tavern Tour, originally a six-stop pub crawl until Democracy Brewing backed out at the last minute for some reason. But the brethren persevered and marched from Elephant & Castle to Sam Adams Tap Room to Union Oyster House to Bell in Hand Tavern to, at last, the Green Dragon Tavern.

I had signed up for this, but reconsidered. It was to begin at three o’clock; the installation was set for 6 p.m. I figured all the walking, the waiting for drink (and food) orders, and the drinking and eating would not be possible in that timeframe. I really wanted to attend this installation. And I don’t take alcohol before lodge meetings anyway. Someday I will get back up there when I have more time, and I’ll visit those esteemed establishments—especially the Green Dragon!

MWGM Hamilton, center, with his retinue.

But the installation was pretty quick, open to families and friends, and elegant. W. Bro. Mark is the new Worshipful Master. Huzzah! (There was a lot of that during the weekend.) Grand Master George F. Hamilton presided in the East. I didn’t know a soul in the room except for Bro. Rob, who traveled from the South to the West; and Bro. Rich, the new Grand Historian in New Jersey, on the sidelines.

The Three Great Lights.

They had an official photographer, who gradually is sharing his work on Faceypage, but these are authentic Magpie photos. Yet again, I regret not bringing a real camera.

I’d had a really long Friday, rising at about 3 a.m. so, by the time the lodge closed, I was happy to return to the hotel and collapse.

I always check out regalia,
especially in historic lodges.

One thing in particular said by MW Hamilton really caught my ear. He mentioned how Fourth Estate Lodge had consolidated with St. John’s Lodge. Fourth Estate consisted of newspaper journalists and, it is said, every paper in the city was represented in its membership. I have read a little about this lodge in my research of my own lodge, Publicity 1000. Publicity was instituted October 30, 1922, and Fourth Estate was constituted October 2, 1923. I don’t know if there ever was any interaction, visitation, etc. between the two. Fourth Estate consolidated with St. John’s on May 23, 1985. Hugo Tatsch was a member in the thirties! We got Haywood from Iowa, and they got Tatsch from Iowa.

Once upon a time, the Masonic Building had DC power and these handles controlled the electricity in Ionic Hall. Kelitrol Stage Switchboard, installed by Clark & Mills Electric Co.

Congratulations and happy 290th anniversary to St. John’s Lodge! It felt like a warm and welcoming place.

MW Melvin M. Johnson, Grand Master, 1914-16.

     

‘Five Great Sources for Masonic Research’

    

Chris Ruli and Maynard Edwards.

The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, SJ-USA YouTube channel posted a new podcast episode Tuesday in which host Maynard Edwards welcomes Chris Ruli to discuss research techniques.

This ain’t the whole thing! Watch the video.

The video runs less than twelve minutes, and it concludes with a most useful pointer.

     

‘Discover the Lost Word in the Reading Room’

    

Next in Craftsmen Online’s Reading Room is a chapter of Albert Mackey’s The Symbolism of Freemasonry. From the publicity:

The Reading Room will open on Tuesday, January 30 at 7 p.m. Eastern. Our panel for the evening will be R∴W∴ Clifford T. Jacobs, Bro. Jason W. Short, R∴W∴ Bill Edwards, and V∴W∴ Michael LaRocco. This meeting is open to the public, as all persons with an interest in the Ancient and Gentle Craft of Freemasonry are welcome.

Our reading selection is from Mackey’s The Symbolism of Freemasonry. We will focus on Chapter 31: “The Lost Word” (pages 300-311). This will allow us to have a lively philosophical discussion without getting into any of the ritual work in a non-tiled setting.

Click here to download your free copy of this material. Click here to enter the Reading Room.

     

‘Memo to the Grand Masters’

    

Complete and utter bullshit. A subliterate mission statement, a bogus phone number, updates posted around the clock every day consisting of platitudinous memes without any real Florida information. These are all over Facebook. Grand Masters, you can fight this, and you should.

The next meeting of the Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America will convene the weekend of February 17 in Seattle, and I have a suggestion, if I may be so forward. (My Grand Master is chairman, so I’m making an effort to be respectful here.)

Amid all the planning of brilliant, forward-thinking initiatives, put together a system in which all Conference members pay into a fund that will be used to retain one law firm that will contact the social media companies that allow frauds to impersonate our grand lodges and other legitimate Masonic groups.

You have rights. And responsibilities! “To preserve the reputation of the fraternity unsullied must be your constant care.”

Real grand lodges in this country all—I’m assuming—are incorporated in their respective states. You don’t have to accept some clod(s) operating Facebook accounts in your members’ names.

My social media activity is very limited, but even I can see on Facebook the increasing number of bogus accounts purporting to be legit Masonic bodies. The most prolific as of tonight, it seems to me, are those claiming to be the grand lodges of Texas and North Carolina.

13,000 followers?!

The “Texas” contact info includes a phone number with area code 518. That’s the Albany, New York area. The Grand Lodge of New York doesn’t maintain an office in Albany, so don’t ask me what the Texans supposedly are doing up there. And I think the WhatsApp button is an Illuminati Brotherhood dead giveaway.

MW Bill Sardone, a frequent victim of impersonation, used to get phone calls at his Masonic Hall office from hapless naifs asking when they should report in person to begin their Masonic journeys.

The perpetrators’ motivations? To extract money and identity information.

Complaining to Facebook via Facebook as a Facebook user will get you nowhere. They’ll tell you to block the impostor, as if that will solve anything. Facebook will, however, take seriously a letter from your attorney. But you need the attorney. Not your sister-in-law who botches real estate closings; not the personal injury guy you know from Scottish Rite; and never anyone from the grand lodge in New Jersey. No, hire social media law specialists.

It won’t be expensive because you’ll never go to court. A demand letter for each instance really should suffice, which means you need only the resolve to combat this fraud.

The frauds could be from one perpetrator, judging from the same photos cross-posted at practically the same times. Probably a kid too.

This is feasible. It’s even easy. It’s the kind of accomplishment you can talk about every year when racking up more successes and brag about when you return home.

The next problem is why the impostors are more determined than the grand lodges to leverage social media. (The Conference’s Facebook page hasn’t seen an update since February 21.) Listen, I don’t have all the answers.

UPDATE: DECEMBER 14–“Samuel Jacob” of Nigeria has merch!