‘The Pipe of Reconciliation’

     
One essential periodical that is as healthy as ever is Parabola. I make a point of not publishing others’ articles in their entirety, but when I do, it usually is from Parabola. This one is an oldie from 1989, but the editors linked to it on Facebook several weeks ago, and I’m glad they did. Being a believer in the varied benefits of pipe smoking, I share it here with you.

The following is copyright © 1989, 2015 Parabola.

The Pipe of Reconciliation

by Joseph Epes Brown

Click to enlarge.

Dr. Joseph K. Dixon, A Native American sends smoke signals in Montana, June 1909, National Geographic Creative.

The sacred pipe of the Native Americans is a potent symbol of relationship. Through it the human breath sends to all the six directions the purifying smoke that connects the person to the divine and is the link between all forms of life: mitakuye oyasin, we are all relatives.

In the foreword to The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (recorded and edited by Joseph Epes Brown. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953), Black Elk is quoted saying:

“Most people call it a ‘peace pipe,’ yet now there is no peace on earth or even between neighbors, and I have been told that it has been a long time since there has been peace in the world. There is much talk of peace among the Christians, yet this is just talk. Perhaps it may be, and this is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, an understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually.”

On a recent visit to Joseph Epes Brown, we were shown a beautiful pipe and a braid of sweet grass, and he told us the following:

This is the pipe that was given to me by an old Assiniboin when I was traveling west to find old man Black Elk. I found out where he was, in Nebraska, and walked into his tent with this pipe, and I prepared it and lit it and puffed on it and passed it to him. And he puffed on it and passed it back. I was getting a little bit uneasy, and he looked at me and said, “I’ve been expecting you. Why did it take you so long to get here?”

The sweet grass is mostly to add some fragrance, like incense. Back in Maine when I was a boy, I made friends with some of the Abenaki people there. They used to hunt on our land, and they would give me these braids of sweet grass.

Once the pipe is lit, it is very important to keep it going. They pass it around the sacred circle where the Sun Dance takes place, and they use it to smoke people with, too—they smoke the dancers, as part of the ceremony. There’s a lot of smoke, believe me.
I remember how much Black Elk used to smoke. He smoked violently. He would actually disappear in the smoke: smoke would seem to be coming out of his ears and eyes.

The pipe is always associated with the center. It is pointed to all four directions in ceremonies like the Sun Dance, then pointed above and below as well. It ties them together— the horizontal and the vertical. That’s very important. The symbolism is very rich. For the Indians, the smoking of the pipe is the same as taking the Eucharist to a Christian.

The bowl of the pipe is essentially the place of the heart, and the stem is the breath passage. There’s also the foot, on which the pipe rests.

They associate the pipe with the human person: it’s anthropomorphic symbolism. Like a pipe, a person has a mouth and windpipe, he has a heart, and he has a foot. And his heart is where the fire is. In the pipe it is the point of interception, where the tobacco burns. In the ceremony, they designate each pinch of tobacco: this one for the winged of the air, for example, this one for the horned beasts, this one for the fishes. They do the same with all the beings of creation. And then the smoke contains all that which has been made sacred by the fire.

The pipe also represents the relationship between the people who are participating. The ceremony is a communal thing; it is one pipe that is passed to everyone. It speaks of who we are, in a sacred sense—that we are all relatives. It’s the idea of the joining of all peoples—which is certainly a very real kind of reconciliation, on a very high level.


Joseph Epes Brown on the Native American symbol of relationship, Parabola, Winter 1989, “Triad.” This issue is available here.
     

‘The end of a Tradition’

     
I was sorry to see the announcement earlier this week from the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition of its demise.

There is a grave shortage of resources and knowing writers in the English-speaking world of Western hidden wisdom, and this closure is as apt an example as any of what this deficiency produces.

The announcement on Monday from the publisher:

For a second cycle now, we have not had enough material to put together an issue of the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition. So, after 15 years, the Journal is coming to an end. Archives of the Journal will, at least for the time being, remain online.

LVX et PAX
Jeffrey Kupperman
Publisher
     

‘Cults and Secret Societies in Brooklyn’

     
Sorry, I had meant to post this earlier, but on Wednesday night, Morbid Anatomy Museum will host author Julie Tibbott for a lecture on “Cults and Secret Societies: A to Z, an Illustrated Lecture” beginning at eight o’clock. The author will return Wednesday the 23rd for a second lecture titled “Secret New York Exposed.”

Morbid Anatomy is located at 424A Third Avenue in Brooklyn. The cost of admission is $8 for Wednesday, or $13 for both lectures, and can be purchased here.

From the publicity:

Join Julie Tibbott, author of the book Members Only: Secret Societies, Sects, and Cults Exposed, for a strange storybook journey through the world of cults, secret societies, and other exclusive groups. In this slideshow presentation, stylized to mimic a twisted alphabet book for grown-ups, A is for All-Seeing Eye, B is for Brainwashing, C is for Costumes…and so on! We’ll visit exotic locales, from the spiritualist hamlet of Lily Dale, New York, to the Jonestown commune deep in the jungle of Guyana; encounter larger-than-life personalities, such as Patty Hearst and Aleister Crowley; learn about secret initiation rites, magical rituals, reptilian humanoids, and much, much more! It’s a lighthearted look at some of the darker corners of history, sure to spark the imagination and make you feel like a curious kid who just found some very creepy reading material.

The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and book signing. It is part of the “Secret Societies, Sects, and Cults Exposed” lecture series with Julie Tibbott. “Secret New York Exposed” will be presented on the 23rd of September.


I guess we’re not talking Rose Circle caliber revelation here, but it sounds like fun. You can’t go wrong for eight bucks. You can’t even see a movie in Brooklyn for eight bucks.
     

‘Stumble down life’s checkered street’

     
Poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets, offers this today:


Brotherhood

Come, brothers all!
Shall we not wend
The blind-way of our prison-world
By sympathy entwined?
Shall we not make
The bleak way for each other’s sake
Less rugged and unkind?
O let each throbbing heart repeat
The faint note of another’s beat
To lift a chanson for the feet
That stumble down life’s checkered street.

- Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1880. A member of the Harlem Renaissance, her collections of poetry include The Heart of a Woman (The Cornhill Company, 1918) and Share My World (Halfway House, 1962). She died in 1966.
     

‘Boston University Lodge AF&AM’

     
The marriage of colleges and universities to Freemasonry is a subject dear to me, not for the penchant for making more Masons, but for the proximity to education and culture. It’s a natural partnership that we do not see nearly enough. My own dream is to found Perstare et Praestare Lodge (to perservere and to excel) No. 1831 to meet in one of those beautiful townhouses along Washington Square North, but I digress.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, Boston University Lodge has two events upcoming that you should know about, one this month, and the latter next spring. From the publicity:

Tales from the Vault:

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Masonic Aprons

Thursday, September 24 at 6 p.m.

Open to the public

Boston University Lodge AF&AM

186 Tremont Street

Boston, Massachusetts

As part of the Alumni Weekend events, we have asked Aimee Newell, Director of Collections at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, to give a presentation. The event is open to the public. A social period will follow the presentation.

Called “the badge of a Freemason” in Masonic ritual, the fraternity’s apron was adapted from the protective aprons worn by working stonemasons during the 1600s and 1700s. Still worn by members today, the apron remains one of the iconic symbols of Freemasonry. The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library has more than 400 aprons in its collection, dating from the mid-1700s to the present; and made in the United States, England, China, and other countries. Aimee Newell will share examples of aprons from the Museum’s collection, telling stories about their manufacture and use and highlighting new discoveries uncovered in her research for The Badge of a Freemason: Masonic Aprons from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library (published in 2015). A book-signing will follow the talk. Books will be available for $42.45 (tax included).

Aimee E. Newell previously worked as the Curator of Collections at the Nantucket Historical Association and as the Curator of Textiles and Fine Arts at Old Sturbridge Village. She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Amherst College, a M.A. in History from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the lead author of Curiosities of the Craft: Treasures from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Collection (2013), and the author of The Badge of a Freemason: Masonic Aprons from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library (2015). Newell writes and lectures frequently on American Masonic and fraternal history.

It’s a no-brainer. If you are in or near Boston, get there.

Next year, the lodge will endeavor something novel and massive: the academic conference. Details will be forthcoming, but save the dates March 31 through April 3, 2016 at the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for the North American Masonic Academic Convocation. (Yeah, let that phrase sink in for a minute: North American Masonic Academic Convocation.)

Thursday, March 31—Kick-off lecture on Boston University campus.

Friday, April 1—Social outing.

Saturday, April 2—Convocation, break-out sessions, and dinner.

Sunday, April 3—To be determined.

Details are promised to come soon.

The lodge’s 90th anniversary will arrive October 8. Many happy returns, brethren! Many happy returns!
     

‘News from Masonic Hall’

     
With the resumption of Masonic labors after a (particularly glorious) summer refreshment, news of some changes at Masonic Hall, the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of New York, is getting around.

Courtesy GLNY

First, the air conditioning! As reported here last year, the scheme to bring central air conditioning to our 100+ year-old home has been tackled. When you have serious trustees who are supported by the Grand Lodge, big jobs get done. This doesn’t happen everywhere, believe me.

“We have started up the air conditioning for the 11 lodge rooms, including the collation rooms on the eighth and tenth floors today,” said Bro. Paul Reitz, Trustee of the Masonic Hall and Home. “I am sure we will have some minor kinks in the system, but we are pleased that the air handling units are very quiet. You can hardly feel the air-flow, and we have matched, as closely as possible, the diffusers to the colors in the lodge rooms.”

Facts we need to know:

• The chiller is clock-operated. It will be turned on weekdays at 5 p.m., and Saturdays at two o’clock.
• The lodge rooms and the dining rooms will have their cooling settings turned on by building staff at 5:30, and they will remain set for six hours.
• Do not touch the thermostats. The people who know how they work have set them for us already. And don’t touch the controls in the locker rooms either.

Bro. Reitz will make sure the complete rules of operation are posted in the lodge rooms and locker rooms.

Thank you, Trustees!

At the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library, new hours of operation have been announced:

Monday through Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

No evening hours. No weekend or holiday hours.

Inquiries: 212.337.6620.
    

‘Exciting program at the Pennsylvania Academy next month’

     
The Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge never disappoints. Its program for the October 17 session features two knowledgeable speakers you will not want to miss. To be clear, Masons from outside Pennsylvania are welcome—I’ve been attending for a number of years—just follow the simple registration, dining, and attire instructions. From the publicity:

The 2015 Fall Session of the Academy of Masonic Knowledge will be held on Saturday, October 17, in the Deike Auditorium of the Freemasons Cultural Center on the campus of the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Registration will open at 8:30 a.m., with the program beginning at 9:30. A lunch (requested contribution of $10) will be served at noon, and the program will be completed by 3 p.m. All Masons are welcome to attend. Dress is coat and tie.

The program for the day includes:

Professor Kenneth Loiselle will speak on topics from his research and his recently published book Brotherly Love: Freemasonry and Male Friendship in Enlightenment France in a lecture titled “From Enlightenment to Revolution: Masonic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century France.”

Courtesy CUP

Kenneth Loiselle, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history and international studies at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Loiselle’s research focuses on the relationship between the Enlightenment and the political revolutions that unfolded during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the history of friendship and private life, and French colonialism in the Americas. He now is conducting research on a book with Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire on “Old Regime Freemasonry.”

Karen Kidd will speak on “Co-Freemasonry in North America: Its Beginnings in Pennsylvania, History and Contemporary Practice, and its Relationship to Male-Craft and Female-Craft Freemasonry.”

Magpie file photo

Karen Kidd at ICHF 2011.

Karen Kidd is Right Worshipful Master of Shemesh Lodge No. 13 under the Honorable Order of American Co-Masonry, and is an internationally recognized author on the history of Co-Freemasonry in America. Her published works include On Holy Ground: A History of the Honorable Order of American Co-Masonry and Haunted Chambers: The Lives of Early Women Freemasons. She also has published papers in Heredom, the Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society.

The great objective in Freemasonry is to gain useful knowledge, and the Academy provides a great opportunity for the Brethren to learn and to understand more about the significance of the Craft. Plan to attend and bring a Brother or two along with you.

Pre-registration is required. Please send your name, address, lodge number, and telephone number by e-mail here. If you do not have access to e-mail, please make your reservation through your lodge secretary.

Please recognize that a cost is incurred to the program for your registration. If you pre-register and subsequently determine that you will be unable to attend, please have the Masonic courtesy to cancel your reservation by the same method and providing the same information.

We look forward to seeing you on October 17.

Click to enlarge.

I am a big fan of the Academy, and I salute its governing committee for this choice of speakers, especially Karen, for the obvious reasons. See you there.
     

‘That elevated science’

     

Magpie file photo

Bro. Erik Carlson at St. John’s Lodge No. 1 AYM, October 2012.

A Brother Freemason, from my own lodge actually—Publicity 1000 in the Fourth Manhattan—will perform an organ recital later this month at a church in Nutley, New Jersey. From the publicity:

Erik Carlson Organ Recital

Sunday, September 13 at 5 p.m.

Vincent United Methodist Church

100 Vincent Place

Nutley, New Jersey

Repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach,

Léon Boëllmann,

and Johann Pachelbel

Erik Carlson graduated magna cum laude from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, where he completed dual degrees in keyboard performance and music theory. Carlson is a former adult chorister in the Schola Cantorum of Saint Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. He has accompanied choral Evensong at the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Chagford, Devon, UK.

He has conducted at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City and at the College of Preachers in Washington, DC. Most recently, Carlson had the opportunity to play the 1895 organ at L’église Notre-Dame de Dijon, France where Léon Boëllmann’s “Gothic Suite” premiered in 1895.

Carlson today is music director and organist at Saint Philip’s Episcopal Church, New York City. He grew up in Nutley and graduated from Nutley High School.


I have had the pleasure of enjoying Bro. Erik’s music at Masonic Hall, where he serves as sit-in organist occasionally, and I’m looking forward to hearing him perform here.

     

‘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.
     

‘MRF 2016 Symposium’

     

I am in Philadelphia now, enjoying the Masonic Restoration Foundation’s Sixth Annual Symposium, where it was announced just now that next year’s event will be hosted in Asheville, North Carolina, August 19-21.

Both the grand master and the deputy grand master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina are in attendance, displaying a level of commitment to the cause of the MRF that I do not believe I’ve ever seen from top ranking officials from anywhere. The two lodges that will share hosting duties next year are Sophia Lodge No. 767 in Salisbury, the jurisdiction’s first Observant lodge; and Veritas Lodge U.D. in Asheville, which I suppose will be the second such lodge in the Tar Heel State. And I must mention how MRF President Andrew Hammer is Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina as well.

Oh! And the MRF will meet in Vancouver, B.C. in 2017!

Full Magpie coverage of this weekend’s wonderful activities to come in a few days.
     

‘Music: The Rose and the Cross’

     

Among the symphony orchestras performing in New York City, the American Symphony Orchestra is the experimental, eccentric one. That is its reason for being, as it aims to give life to music of diverse sources and inspirations that otherwise linger in silence. Based at Carnegie Hall, the ASO will launch its 53rd season soon; included on the calendar this fall will be the New York debut of an obscure Russian work that I suspect would be of interest to the initiated ear.

From the publicity:

Russia’s Jewish Composers

American Symphony Orchestra

Thursday, December 17

7 p.m. Conductor’s Notes Q&A

8 p.m. Concert

Carnegie Hall

Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage

881 Seventh Avenue

Manhattan

Program:

Aleksandr Krein:

The Rose and the Cross (N.Y. Premiere)

Anton Rubinstein:

Cello Concerto No. 2

Mikhail Gnesin:

From Shelley (U.S. Premiere)

Maximilian Steinberg:

Symphony No. 1 (U.S. Premiere)

I know nothing of any of these pieces of music, but of course this edition of The Magpie Mind concerns the Krein composition. ASO says: “Krein was one of the leading Russian modernist composers of the early 20th century. This work was inspired by settings from Aleksandr Blok’s last play, The Rose and the Cross.” Nor do I know Blok’s last play—and, frankly, Russian modernist music is not my thing—but I do know Rosicrucianism has a long history in Russia. Paradoxically perhaps, but it has been there for centuries.

In his The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (essential reading!), scholar Christopher McIntosh traces Russian Rosicrucian origins to the 1780s, when Germany’s Rite of Strict Observance fell into decline in Russia, and Rosicrucians there recognized an opportunity to attract spiritually inclined Freemasons. McIntosh writes:

“At his home in Moscow, [Freemason Johann Georg] Schwarz held a series of Sunday lectures, whose theosophical tenor places him firmly in the Rosicrucian tradition of thought. The doctrines conveyed by Schwarz included…the notion of the creation of the world through a series of emanations from God, and the idea of an invisible hierarchy of spirits…. From this standpoint, Schwarz attacked the French philosophes and helped to swell the reaction against the influence of French rationalism in Russia.”

The author continues with a timeline that shows an influential Rosicrucian publishing house, their creation of a hospital and pharmacy that served the poor, Rosicrucian-organized relief for the victims of the 1787 famine, and ultimately the government oppression of the movement.

But back to the music.

The ASO assembles this December 17 program thusly: “These Russian Jews exploded ethnic stereotypes by refusing to be known only as Jewish composers. These works identified them more with their homeland than their ethnicity.”

Krein composed The Rose and the Cross in 1917 for a large orchestra. The piece runs 20 minutes, and is constructed in five movements. It incorporates plenty of woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, harp, keyboard, “other plucked strings,” voice(s) treated as instruments, and—and I’m eager to hear what this means—“electronic tape.” Its alternate title is “Symphonic Fragments for Symphony Orchestra after Aleksandr Blok.”

Aleksandr Krein

Aleksandr Krein (1883-1951) was born into a family of klezmer musicians. (Seven of the ten children in this family became professional musicians.) At age 13, Aleksandr entered the Moscow conservatory to study cello, and he began to compose music to accompany Russian and French symbolist poetry. He would embark on a career in music that made him pivotal to Jewish music in Russia (and later the Soviet Union). His Zagmuk, a story of the Jewish revolt in Babylon, would be the first Russian opera staged at the Bolshoi, and his Second Symphony is his musical expression of Jewish suffering from ancient times through the Holocaust, so I don’t get ASO’s downplay of his Jewish life. His career also included politically reliable work (e.g. a funerary ode for Lenin), as communist orthodoxies tolerates nothing else, and he was made an Honored Artist of the Soviet Union in 1934.

Aleksandr Blok’s drama The Rose and the Cross, the literary inspiration of Krein’s musical composition, was published in 1913, but it never has been staged, even after hundreds of rehearsals in Moscow. It is written in verse. The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama says it is “one of the finest plays of the symbolist era.” In Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement, Simon Alexander Morrison writes:

“It constitutes the most elaborate product of a short-lived endeavor among the ‘mystic’ Symbolist poets to write opera libretti, song texts, and plays calling for incidental music. The basic theme of this drama is the heterogeneity of human existence, the idea that there exist two realities, one cognitively graspable by the mind, the other intuitively graspable. The plot brings together dissimilar characters, settings, images, and events: a grief-stricken lady and a dejected knight, a dilapidated castle and a windswept beach, the bells of a sunken city and a ghost in a dungeon, a peasant dance around a decorated tree and a song contest in a flowering dale. The spring that sets the plot in motion is a song so provocative that it haunts the dramatis personae for years after they hear it performed by an itinerant troubadour. The troubadour reappears at the drama’s end for an encore performance…the song’s pastoral text identifies joy and suffering as equivalent emotional states. Its music was intended to mesmerize its listeners—both those on and off the stage.”

Tickets ($29-$54) for the ASO’s December 17 concert will go on sale September 8. Click here. Audio and video clips of the other three pieces to be performed can be heard here.

Let’s get together and check out this concert! Rosicrucians, Rose Croix Masons who get it, Martinists—come one, come all! Maybe meet a few doors down at the Russian Tea Room for dinner first?
     

‘To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance’

     
On yesterday’s date 225 years ago, there took place one of those singular moments in history when a moving event during the American Founding intersected with a cherished moment in the story of Freemasonry. On August 17, 1790, President George Washington visited Newport, Rhode Island during a nationwide public relations tour of the new country to confirm the bonds among the newly united states, and to show off its first president who, for all his exploits as commanding general during the Revolution, really had not seen most of the country.

The visit is memorialized in ways that include two exchanges of letters with Washington. The first was between the small congregation of Jewish residents of Newport; the second was between the Freemasons of the town. Both pairs of letters communicated messages of good will and brotherhood, and both would be remembered by posterity for their significance to the new nation’s fledgling commitment to guaranteeing religious liberty.

Mr. Moses Seixas, one of the leaders of the synagogue, representing approximately 300 Jews in Newport, writes:


Sir:

Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits, and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to NewPort.

With pleasure we reflect on those days—those days of difficulty, and danger, when the God of Israel, who delivered David from the peril of the sword—shielded Your head in the day of battle, and we rejoice to think, that the same Spirit, who rested in the Bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel enabling him to preside over the Provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and ever will rest, upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous duties of Chief Magistrate in these States.

Courtesy Library of Congress

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People—a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship—deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine. This so ample and extensive Federal Union whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual confidence and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.

For all these Blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men, beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised Land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life. And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.

Done and Signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in NewPort, Rhode Island,
August 17th 1790.
Moses Seixas, Warden


President Washington replies:


Gentlemen,

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess a like liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington


It is “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” that is most remembered from these letters, partially because it is communicated by both writers, but I think mostly because it powerfully summarizes what is at stake. The Jews of Newport were denied citizenship. The First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty still was in its embryonic stage in the summer of 1790, as the Bill of Rights would not be ratified for another sixteen months. But what is more significant to me is what Washington writes additionally: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.” Again, before the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the first president assures a tiny and disenfranchised religious minority that the right of conscience is not a political option to be elected or rejected by a majority, but is part of what makes the new United States distinct among nations. And I believe there is within it an echo of the first Masonic grand lodge’s book of jurisprudence—Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723—that enjoins Freemasons from concerning themselves with each others’ religious convictions, instead urging all Masons to build on the common ground of a shared faith in deity, regardless of how various specific theologies can differ beyond that primary spark of belief.

(Thomas Jefferson’s letter of January 1, 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut arguably is the more famous presidential assurance to a religious congregation of their right to worship. It is here that Jefferson writes of “building a wall of separation between Church and State”—an idea that goes beyond the First Amendment’s prohibitions of a U.S. government-founded church and government interference with religious practices, and that colors many citizens’ understanding of religious freedom to this day.)

Returning to Freemasonry, it was on August 17, 1790 that King David’s Lodge—originally a lodge of Jewish Masons founded in New York City on February 17, 1769—sent a welcoming note to President Washington, the fraternity’s most famous and beloved brother. Moses Seixas, Warden of the Hebrew Congregation in NewPort, was Worshipful Master of King David’s Lodge also, and it is he from whom we hear again:


We the Master, Wardens, and Brethren, of King David’s Lodge, in Newport, Rhode Island with Joyful hearts embrace this Opportunity, to greet you as a Brother and to hail you welcome to Rhode Island. We exult in the thought that as Masonry has always been patronised by the wise, the good, and the great; so hath it stood and ever will stand as its fixtures are on the immutable pillars of faith, hope, and Charity.

With unspeakable pleasure we Gratulate you as filling the Presidential Chair with the applause of a numerous and enlightened people, whilst, at the same time, we felicitate ourselves in the honour done the Brotherhood by your many exemplary Virtues and emanations of Goodness proceeding from a heart worthy of possessing the Antient Mysteries of our craft; being persuaded that the wisdom and Grace with which heaven has endowed you, will ever square all your thoughts, words, and actions by the eternal Laws of honour, equity, and truth, so as to promote the advancement of all good works; your own happiness, and that of mankind.

Permit us then Illustrious Brother cordially to Salute you with Three times Three and to add your fervent supplications that the Sovereign Architect of the Universe may always encompass you with his holy protection.


Mentions of Masonic thought and practice abound in this brief note, which should surprise no one, but what catches my eye is the writer’s seamless blending of Masonic phrasing with concern for civic integrity. Washington was not the president of Freemasonry; he was chief executive of the new federal government. (An attempt years earlier to elect him Grand Master of Masons for the entire country was unsuccessful, Masonic governance thought best to be kept local, not unlike the Federal system of civil government formed later by the U.S. Constitution.) Again:

Virtues and emanations of Goodness proceeding from a heart worthy of possessing the Antient Mysteries of our craft; being persuaded that the wisdom and Grace with which heaven has endowed you, will ever square all your thoughts, words, and actions by the eternal Laws of honour, equity, and truth, so as to promote the advancement of all good works; your own happiness, and that of mankind.

Reading this in 2015, the heart pines.

The Masonic Brother’s reply to the lodge bears the same date, suggesting the two notes were delivered by messenger:


Gentlemen,

I receive the welcome which you give me to Rhode-Island with pleasure—and I acknowledge my obligations for the flattering expressions of regard contained in your address with grateful sincerity.

Being persuaded that a just application of the principles, on which the masonic fraternity is founded, must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interests of the Society, and to be considered by them a deserving Brother.

My best wishes, Gentlemen, are offered for your individual happiness.

Go. Washington
     

‘MLMA to meet next month’

     
The Masonic Library and Museum Association will hold its annual meeting September 17 at the Masonic Library and Museum of Indiana (and The Quarry Project will follow September 18-20 at the Grand Lodge of Indiana).

I strongly encourage membership in the MLMA. In addition to Masonic libraries, museums, other such institutions, and the people who manage them all, members of the MLMA include many individual Freemasons who appreciate the importance of there being Masonic centers of learning. It’s not just a matter of Masons wanting to preserve places that serve as repositories of Masonic culture for our own edification and enjoyment, but it also is important that all people have access to the stacks, the exhibits, and the knowledgeable professionals and volunteers who staff these treasured destinations. The MLMA provides mutual support in all manner of needs facing librarians, archivists, curators, and others engaged in the labors of preserving and making available the material riches of the Masonic Order. What is a museum but a place of the muses? You, as an individual, may enlist in membership; so can your local Masonic library or museum, your research lodge, book club, and, I suppose, anything else you can think of.

If you are a thinking Freemason—and you must be if you’re reading The Magpie!—click here for MLMA membership information. (Yes, I understand that for many it is yet another Masonic membership, but this one is for a larger good that, frankly, is a lot more important than some of those frivolous clubs with the goofy hats that some of us patronize.)
     

‘A True Story of Murder and Resurrection’

     
I don’t mind if Chris scoops me on Indianapolis news, but when he beats me to the blog on New York City Masonic news, I know I’m being outclassed. Anyway, Bro. Mark Koltko-Rivera of St. John’s Lodge No. 1 and The American Lodge of Research, among others, will present what I’m certain will be an enlightening talk on Masonic history later this month in Soho.

(You know Freemasonry in your locale is vibrant within and relevant without when brethren are booked to speak on Masonic topics in public venues. That’s New York Masonry!)

From the publicity:

Freemasonry in 19th Century New York:

A True Story of Murder and Resurrection

Sunday, August 23

4 p.m.

Hosted by New York 19th Century Society

at the Museum of Interesting Things

and Secret Speakeasy

177 Prince Street, Third Floor

Manhattan

Tickets available here.

The world’s oldest and largest fraternal organization, the Freemasons, entered the world of nineteenth century New York as a respected group that claimed many civic, religious, and political leaders among its numbers. By the late 1820s, Freemasonry was in tatters, under accusations of having committed ritual murder in an upstate community, it became the focus of the first single-issue political party in American history: the Anti-Masonic Party.

Hounded almost to extinction, Masons regrouped in the 1840s, and began a rise to national prominence resulting in the Age of Fraternalism later in the century when thousands of Masons marched publicly on the streets of Manhattan at regular intervals, and Masons publicly dedicated the Statue of Liberty and Cleopatra’s Needle. Yet, by the end of the century, the seeds had been sown for the rumors that plague Freemasonry to this day—accusations of devil worship and attempts at world domination.

Dr. Koltko-Rivera will go behind the events to explain the forces behind Masonry’s expansion, persecution, and triumph in 19th century New York.

Mark Koltko-Rivera holds a doctoral degree in psychology from NYU. The author of Freemasonry: An Introduction (Tarcher/Penguin, 2011), he is a 32º Scottish Rite Freemason, and a Masonic Knight Templar. He has appeared as an authority about Freemasonry on such television shows as Hunting the Lost Symbol, America’s Book of Secrets, Brad Melzer’s Decoded, and Ancient Aliens.

Listen, Mark is a good man and Mason, and a more than capable educator on things Masonic, so don’t hold the TV gigs against him. (I’d do them too if they asked!) And I also would attend this event if I could, but the MRF symposium ends Sunday, and I don’t know if I’d be willing or able to race up to Manhattan to arrive on time. Break a leg, Mark!