‘Cyrus Cylinder at the Met’

  
As reported a number of months ago in The Journal of The Masonic Society, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will exhibit the ancient “Cyrus Cylinder,” on loan from The British Museum for a tour of the United States with other artifacts of ancient Persia, beginning tomorrow.

From June 20 through August 4, The Met will show The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: Charting a New Empire. New York City is the third stop on the tour; the artifacts will go to San Francisco in August and Los Angeles in October before being brought back to Britain.

Courtesy The British Museum

The Cyrus Cylinder, the clay cuneiform artifact excavated in Iraq in 1879, dates to the reign of King Cyrus the Great in the Sixth Century BCE. The text includes the royal decree that allowed deported peoples to return to their homelands.

The Cyrus Cylinder often is called “the first charter of human rights,” to lend it a meaning that we in 2013 can appreciate comfortably. (It’s similar to how the First Charge of Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723, which calls on Freemasons “to obey the moral Law” and to keep their religious opinions to themselves, is believed by many Masons today to represent the dawn of an ecumenical—or even multicultural—Freemasonry, when its reality was the far more practical goal of facilitating friendships among brethren of the various Christian denominations in 1720s London.) Scholars of the ancient Near East today recognize that rulers in that time and place began their reigns with proclamations and edicts to set a tone, and Cyrus continued a governing tradition we now know was more than a thousand years old.

And this is where Freemasonry ought to show its interest. Cyrus and his edict figure dramatically in the High Degrees of the Scottish and York rites of Freemasonry, and elsewhere, such as the Irish degrees of Knight Masonry. Different Masonic ritual tellings of the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, loosely based on verses of the Hebrew Bible, explain how Zerubbabel was permitted to lead his people out of the Babylonian Captivity to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and continue life in freedom, as decreed by Cyrus. Again, reality showers some cold water on Masonry’s romantic tales; Jews were not mentioned with any specificity by King Cyrus, who actually had established a general religious freedom to benefit a number of peoples who had lived in captivity in the empire.

Regardless, you Scottish Rite and York Rite Masons should charter some buses and visit The Met this summer. The Cylinder and the other pieces in this exhibit lack the fantastic resplendence of, say, the Tutankhamun dig (also exhibited by The Met, 35 years ago), but what will open tomorrow unquestionably possesses the greater spiritual and philosophical heft.

Additional programming is scheduled for June 20, June 25, June 28, and July 11.
    

‘Birthday: W.B. Yeats’

  
“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”
- William Butler Yeats

Courtesy The Paris Review

Thoor Ballylee in County Galloway, once the home of William Butler Yeats.

On this date in 1865 was the birth of William Butler Yeats, of great poetry and proud Irishman fame. He also was co-founder, in his youth at art school, of the Dublin Hermetic Society, at which time he also became a passionate student of Irish mythology and folk stories, which would become evident in his poetry later.

In esoteric circles, he perhaps is best remembered—that is, aside from his occult poetry—as a co-author of the rituals of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn. Prior to that, he had been a known member of the Theosophical Society, where study and synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science is pursued; Yeats proceeded into the Society’s then new Esoteric Section, which was devoted to concepts and practices of magic. Unsatisfied by the fruitless experimentation of that work, Yeats’ search for spiritual work continued. One brief biography on-line says:

William Butler Yeats

The Golden Dawn satisfied Yeats’ need to dig into his very core, and unleash what has been buried for so long. As Yeats soon discovered, the Golden Dawn incorporated traditional European cabalistic magic and astrology, as opposed to the wisdom of the East. In addition, the Golden Dawn encouraged exploration and wielding of power (over the material universe, unlike [Theosophical Society founder Helena] Blavatsky who constantly warned students against the practice of phenomena and oftentimes discouraged it altogether.) This highly pleased Yeats, and allowed him to open his magical aspirations to as high as he would go.

It was ninety years ago when Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his award ceremony speech, Per Hallström, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, said of the poet:

The soul of nature was to him no empty phrase, for Celtic pantheism, the belief in the existence of living, personal powers behind the world of phenomena, which most of the people had retained, seized hold of Yeats’ imagination and fed his innate and strong religious needs. When he came nearest to the scientific spirit of his time, in zealous observations of the life of nature, he characteristically concentrated on the sequence of various bird notes at daybreak and the flight of moths as the stars of twilight were kindled. The boy got so far in his intimacy with the rhythm of the solar day that he could determine the time quite exactly by such natural signs. From this intimate communion with the sounds of morning and nighttime, his poetry later received many of its most captivating traits.

There isn’t much on the record to support any claim of Masonic membership for Yeats. He certainly kept company with Freemasons, MacGregor Mathers may be the best known. Researcher and author Marsha Keith Schuchard, speaking in 2010 at the Livingston Library, says:

When the Yeatses resided in Oxford in 1921, they may even have attended a Masonic lodge. If so, it would be an Écossais or Rose Croix rite, which admitted women. In 1987, when my husband and I were living in Oxford, the eminent Yeats scholar Richard Ellmann confided to me that he had discovered a note in which George Yeats mentioned their Masonic attendance. Unfortunately, Ellmann became terminally ill and could not locate the note among his voluminous papers. He wanted me to examine her note, because I had been helping him with information on Oscar Wilde’s earlier initiation into a Rose Croix lodge in Oxford.

In his poem Meditations in Time of Civil War, Yeats seemingly writes to tantalize the Masonic ear. Excerpted:

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,

A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,

An acre of stony ground,

Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,

Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,

The sound of the rain or sound

Of every wind that blows;

The stilted water-hen

Crossing Stream again

Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,

A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,

A candle and written page.

Il Penseroso’s Platonist toiled on

In some like chamber, shadowing forth

How the daemonic rage

Imagined everything.

Benighted travellers

From markets and from fairs

Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.

And later:

I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,

A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,

Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon

That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,

A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind

And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.

Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;

Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind’s eye.

‘Vengeance upon the murderers,’ the cry goes up,

‘Vengeance for Jacques Molay.’ In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,

The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,

Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,

Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide

For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray

Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried

For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.

“Soon after writing these lines,” Schuchard says, “Yeats learned in November 1923 that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
  

‘ALR Festive Board’

    
The American Lodge of Research will hold its 358th Communication Friday, June 28, the Annual Communication and Festive Board of Research for 2013.

VW Piers Vaughan, Past Master of St. John's Lodge No. 1, AYM, will present:

A New View on the Use of the St. John's Bible at George Washington's Inauguration, and Possible Masonic Influence on the Events Surrounding It.

Magpie file photo.

I gather this will be an expanded version of Piers' remarks on the CBS program Sunday Morning, when he and other St. John's brethren appeared January 20 as part of the program's coverage of the pending presidential inauguration.

The link seems out of order at the moment, but to see that broadcast, maybe, click here. To learn more about the St. John's Bible at George Washington's first presidential inauguration, click here.

The Communication, with installation of officers, will open at 7:30 p.m. in the American Room, on the 19th floor at Masonic Hall, located at 71 West 23rd Street in Manhattan.

The Festive Board with Piers' lecture will follow at 9 p.m., just around the corner at Sagaponack, located at 4 West 22nd Street.

The price per person for the Festive Board is $65.

One's reservation is secured only by remitting payment. Either use PayPal here or mail your check, payable to The American Lodge of Research, to:

The American Lodge of Research
Masonic Hall, Box M2
71 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10010

Attire: Black Tie.

Menu consists of three courses, and the entree choices are:

Filet au Poivre with brandy cream peppercorn sauce, roasted cauliflower, butternut squash and fingerling potatoes; or

Pan Seared Medallion of Chicken with artichokes and olives; or

Pan roasted Asian Sea Bass with edamame beans, corn and tomato succotash, and Israeli couscous.

Beer and wine included.
    

‘Storage Wars: The Shrining’

  

Courtesy A&E

The May 14 episode of Storage Wars (the original, in California) features the Shriners of El Bekal in Anaheim, who host bickering bidders Brandi and Jarrod, who are trying to learn the values of several pieces.

Nothing much to see here, but the kids donate the Shriner memorabilia, consisting of a set of four goblets—possibly antiques, possibly with gold trim—to an upcoming Shrine auction fundraiser. The other piece was a Shriner bobblehead which Jarrod damaged. Value: nada.

‘Historians and America’s First Secret Societies’

  
There are plenty of blogs out there devoted to Freemasonry, but it can be more fun reading blogs from outside the fraternity that occasionally focus on Masonry from their perspectives. It’s usually history.

From the Stacks, the blog of the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, features a post today written by Mr. Kevin Butterfield titled Historians and America’s First Secret Societies. Butterfield is a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at N-YHS this year. His research here stems from his doctoral dissertation.

Courtesy New-York Historical Society 

Click here to read the piece and see the accompanying art, including this image of the Masonic Hall, located on Broadway near Pearl Street, c.1831. Pretty churchly architecture, eh? Click the image to enlarge.
  

‘The 2013 Ingathering’

  
I don’t know if we’re still calling it the Harold V.B. Voorhis Ingathering anymore, but this year’s will take place on Saturday, July 20, and will be hosted by none other than Harold V.B. Voorhis Council No. 260, it was announced by our Grand Superintendent, today.

The Ingathering will take place at the Scottish Rite Valley of Central Jersey, located at 103 Dunns Mill Road in Bordentown (Exit 7 off the New Jersey Turnpike). Meeting to open at 9:30 a.m. and should conclude at about 3:30.

Guest of Honor: Most Venerable Matthew D. Dupee, Sovereign Grand Master of the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees of the USA.

This one will be very different from previous Ingatherings in that three councils from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania will take turns conferring three degrees: Architect, Grand Architect, and Superintendent.

Advance registration is required. Make your $35 check payable to NJ AMD INGATHERING, and remit to the Grand Superintendent. Leave me a note (not for publication) with your name, e-mail address, and council name in the comments section, and I will get back to you with the mailing address.
  

‘Serious times for The Players’

    

Trevor Stewart delivering the Wendell K. Walker
Lecture, March 24, 2011 at The Players

Declining membership, financial debt, personnel controversies, and enough existential uncertainty to worry its members, neighbors, and admirers are dogging The Players, the venerable private club at Gramercy Park that is a beloved destination of several lodges and other Masonic groups in New York City.

The club even has resorted to selling and pawning its Sargents to pay for capital improvements.

DNAinfo.com-New York has been reporting the sad story, with numerous heart-breaking details, for more than three weeks. Read all about it here. I know this will interest many of the brethren, ergo this edition of The Magpie Mason.
    

‘Isaac Newton and King Solomon’s Temple’

  
Two rules of thumb: 1) If you’re a regular reader of this website, you’re a guy who has nothing to do on a Friday night; and b) Bro. Lenny Lubitz is our kind of Freemason. Combine these two factoids and you have plans for tonight.

I don’t know Lenny well, but he’s one of the Masons who “gets it.” I keep bumping into him here and there. The book club up in Bergen County. The research lodge in New York City. ICHF.

Lenny is a Past Master of Abravanel Lodge No. 1116 in New York, and tonight at Atlas-Pythagoras he will discuss “Isaac Newton and King Solomon’s Temple.” The lecture is open to Apprentices and Fellows. Lodge opens at 7:30.
  

‘Pennsylvania Lodge of Research’

  

Founding Members jewel.

I’m just on my way out the door to attend the Wendell K. Walker Lecture tonight, but not before I spread the news of the next meeting of Pennsylvania Lodge of Research on Saturday, June 29 at Lehigh Lodge in Macungie.

Pennsylvania Lodge of Research will meet Saturday, June 29 at Lehigh Lodge No. 326 in Macungie.

I’ve never been able to catch one of these meetings. The lodge is to meet twice each year, with additional meetings at the discretion of the Master, and I think there always is one meeting in eastern Pennsylvania, but somehow I’ve never made it there. This will be a busy weekend. The American Lodge of Research will meet the night before in Manhattan, and Bro. Piers is hosting his annual barbecue on Sunday. (If you haven’t heard, he graciously moved it from Saturday to Sunday in appreciation of all the Masonic goings on scheduled for Saturday.)

Looking forward to it all... and then to a quiet summer punctuated only by the AMD Ingathering (more to come on that ambitious project!) and maybe the MRF conference in New Hampshire too, but I’m undecided on that one.

Officers apron.

One thing at a time, as we try to explain to the youngest Entered Apprentice. Pennsylvania Lodge of Research will open at 10 a.m. that day. Lehigh Lodge is located at 2120 Route 100 in Macungie, which is not prohibitively far into the Keystone State for us New Jersey guys. It’s only about 90 miles from the headquarters of Magpie Industries, which is notably nearer than Philly, so I got that going for me.
  

‘Wendell K. Walker Lecture 2013’

  
If it’s spring, it must be time for the annual Wendell K. Walker Lecture hosted by Independent Royal Arch Lodge No. 2 – “Old Number 2” – of the First Manhattan District. It’s this Thursday!

Courtesy Rome Sentinel

RW Bro. Bruce Renner will speak on “The Outermost Order: Freemasonry and the Western Esoteric Tradition.” Bro. Renner is a Past Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of New York, and is the president of the board of trustees of the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library. In the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Bro. Renner holds memberships in several Valleys in upstate New York; he holds the 33°, and he currently is working on a comprehensive history of the AASR in New York from the Union of 1867 to the present. In the York Rite, he is a Past Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of New York, and holds both the KYCH and the Order of the Purple Cross. (I have never heard of the latter.) His lecture Thursday night will define what is meant by “esoterica” in the Craft, and will explain various paths an esoterically inclined Mason might wish to pursue, acknowledging however that not all the brethren are so motivated.

Once again, the lecture and the dinner will take place in separate venues, and reservations are required. Leave me a note with your name and e-mail address (not for publication) in the Magpie comments section, and I’ll put you in touch with Bro. George, the Junior Warden of the lodge. The lecture will be hosted in the Empire Room on the twelfth floor of Masonic Hall (71 West 23rd Street in Manhattan) at 7:30 p.m. Afterward, the brethren will retire to dinner at Aleo, located at 7 West 20th Street. The fixed price menu, at $50 per person, includes wine and beer, and gratuity. A cocktail cash bar will be available.

See you there!
  

‘Town Hall’

RW William J. Thomas

    
Come one, come all to the Town Hall... uh, meeting.

Brethren of the First, Fifth, Seventh, and part of the Ninth Manhattan Districts are welcome to attend a program hosted by RW Bill Thomas, Deputy Grand Master, and other grand staff on protocol and etiquette, to be followed by questions and answers.

Wednesday, April 10, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Masonic Hall, Jacobean Room on the eighth floor. Attire: suit and tie or grand staff uniform, but no regalia.
    

‘Join the club’

     

Craft apron, probably European, I shot at the House
of the Temple a few years ago.

Bro. Bil Vassily of New York announces the formation last week of The Traditional Observance Club at Liverpool. Any Master Mason from a lodge under the Grand Lodge of New York or from a lodge within a grand jurisdiction in amity with GLNY is eligible to apply for membership. Just contact Bil at bilgeo(at)twcny.rr.com

For more information on the Traditional Observance movement in Freemasonry in the United States, visit the Masonic Restoration Foundation here, and don’t forget about the MRF’s annual symposium in August.

    

‘Spring 2013 Truman Lecture’

    

This just in from Bro. Aaron: The Spring 2013 Truman Lecture, hosted by Missouri Lodge of Research, will take place Saturday, May 4 at noon at the Grand Lodge of Missouri headquarters in Columbia. Bro. Alton Roundtree will speak on the history and development of Prince Hall Freemasonry, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Brethren, their ladies, and guests are welcome.

Tickets, at $20 each for lunch and the lecture, are available here. This is far outside the Magpie Mason’s regular orbit, so unfortunately I won’t see you there, but having heard Bro. Alton speak on this subject before, I promise it is worth your time. The history of Prince Hall Masonry can be vexing, so it is best to have a guide like Bro. Roundtree.
    

‘2013 College of Freemasonry’

    
The flier below speaks for itself. This part of New York is too far north for this Magpie, but if you are in the area, you would do well to attend this event. To have all of these speakers together for a single day very well may be too much, but it is a good kind of too much.

Click to enlarge.

     

‘Bro. Lyn Beyer: Friar of the Briar’

    
While the Craftsmen’s Calumet Club, by far the pre-eminent society for pipe smoking Freemasons in New Jersey, is off to a start, with three gatherings held since January 22, we’re always on the lookout for persons, places, or things that connect the Craft to the art of setting gentle flame to fragrant leaf. That is where the Spring 2013 issue of Pipes and Tobaccos magazine comes in, with its illustrated four-page feature article on Bro. Lyn Beyer, Grand Senior Deacon of the Grand Lodge of Kansas. (The grand lodge is only days away from its annual communication, and I do not know whether Beyer will remain/advance in the line.)

Courtesy Pipes and Tobaccos magazine.

In the cozy (read: shrinking under pressure) culture of tobacco enjoyment, Bro. Beyer is a giant in his home state. Writer H. Lee Murphy provides a biographical sketch of his subject, chronicling Beyer’s professional and personal love of pipes and tobaccos. Beyer (pronounced Buy-er) is proprietor of Cigar & Tabac, Ltd., “one of the heartland’s best retail shops,” located in Overland Park, Kansas. Beyer also is a co-founder and (naturally) sponsor of “one of the best clubs anywhere,” the Greater Kansas City Pipe Club, with about 50 members gathering in the store to greet guest speakers and enjoy tobacco samplings. (The store’s smoking lounge seats more than two dozen.)

The Grand Senior Deacon also is a craftsman; he carves briar pipes, makes repairs for his customers, and devises his own blends of tobaccos “with assistance from McClelland Tobacco Co., which is headquartered a short drive away.”

It’s enough to make me want to leave the New York City area to settle in Manhattan, Kansas.

Courtesy Pipes and Tobaccos magazine.

And there is a second shop, Town & Country Tobacco, located in Town and Country, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.

Amid all the words devoted to Bro. Beyer’s personal and professional histories, there is a quick and unexpected mention of our Craft. “Lyn now spends more time with one of his abiding passions, the Masonic Lodge. He’s a 32nd Degree Mason, is in the grand lodge line in Kansas, and is devoted to various fundraising projects…” These two sentences’ appearance pose a non-sequitur, so I gather their inclusion by the writer is to make the point of showing Freemasonry’s importance to his subject.

Read an excerpt of the article here.

I recommend subscribing to Pipes and Tobaccos to all pipe smokers. It is a quality publication on heavy, glossy paper with content devoted to its eponymous subjects that often is contextualized to reveal a bit more about the pipe world than one might expect, as is the case with this feature on Lyn Beyer. Reading this magazine is an excellent way to learn about the people who manufacture our pipes, blend our tobaccos, and bring them to market; and there are informed reviews of tobaccos, and lots more useful information written in engaging and thoughtful style. (The tobacco review feature is titled “Trial by Fire,” which might bring to mind a certain ritual element of esoteric initiation.) Regrettable is the reduced pipe events listings, which I suppose indicates a decline in the number of pipe clubs and their happenings and the preference for on-line advertising by many of the clubs still extant, but that is a sign of the times. Because practically every aspect of pipe commerce concerns small businesses, even the advertisements in the magazine can be counted on for helpful information and direction. Subscribe here.