‘NPR asks What is the point?’

      

On October 16, National Public Radio’s Christianna Silva contacted the Masonic Society in researching how Freemasonry is coping with the pandemic, and what the Craft’s role in society today is.

An hour ago, NPR went live with its story. Click here. You’ll recognize a few names from TMS.

(The reporter is the daughter and granddaughter of Masons.)

     

‘James Wasserman (1948-2020)’

      

The Wasserman family announced today on social media that James Wasserman had died November 18 after a long illness. Funeral arrangements are being made.

While I know nothing of O.T.O. nor of his writings on that subject, Wasserman also wrote books of interest to Freemasons, and he was a friend to the Livingston Library, and was an engaging speaker to Masonic audiences. I do not know if he was a Brother Mason. R.I.P.

     

‘CoinWeek explores the Mark Penny’

      

Courtesy CoinWeek

CoinWeek, an online periodical devoted to numismatics, occasionally addresses topics orbiting Freemasonry in articles about Masonic persons, places, and things commemorated on U.S. money. Last Friday though, it ran a piece not on coins or cash, but on a facet of exonumia well known to Mark Masons: the Mark Penny.

I recommend the article for the art that accompanies the text, because most of Tyler Rossi’s reporting is annoyingly bad. We can pardon the outsider’s nescience with our jargon, but it also sounds like he wants to misrepresent, such as when he claims the Craft has “a vitriolic opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.” He does cite sources, listing seven references in a bibliography, but he could have done better.

The value of this article is based mostly on the research delivered in Masonic Chapter Pennies (Vols. 1&2) by Dr. B.P. Wright from 1903 (a reprint from the July 1901 edition of The Numismatist). From there, I suppose, it is impossible to materially err.

Anyway, the article shares some exotic variations on the Mark Penny. Great, because if you’re like me, you know only the commonplace coinage from catalogs.

I’m rambling when I need only provide the link. Read all about it here.

Courtesy CoinWeek

Courtesy CoinWeek

‘Philly Temple closed’

      

The Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, has been ordered closed through the end of the year by the city government.

At a press conference Monday, Mayor Jim Kenney and Health Commissioner Thomas Farley announced a list of precautionary measures for managing the pandemic, including a city-wide ban on indoor gatherings and events, whether public or private. The order was made effective to January 1 to permit time for desired benefits of the lockdown to materialize, because a vaccine will not be available until January, and because it is thought the spread of the virus will not abate until winter arrives. It is possible the ban on gatherings may be extended.

The list of varying prohibitions also affects businesses, schools, religious sites, museums, libraries, and other destinations.

The Grand Lodge announced the closure through its social media accounts after the mayor’s press conference.

     

‘Congratulations, Grand Master!’

      

I’ve never been, but I figure Oklahoma must be a special place since its flag depicts a smoking pipe among its symbolism. Now I know the Grand Lodge there imparts a special Freemasonry to the world, because yesterday Bro. Robert G. Davis was installed Most Worshipful Grand Master of Masons.

Congratulations, Bob!

Actually, congratulations to the brethren of Oklahoma! It is not common for a brother who you want to ascend to the top to do so. The kind of Mason who authors essential books and who lectures thoughtfully on the meaning of Masonry typically does not seek high profile office, but that is what happened here.

Who says 2020 is a bust?

I wish you a productive year unhindered by quarantine, inclemencies, smoking bans, or other troubles.

I first “met” Bob about 20 years ago in the Masonic Light group, and met him for real at the 2002 AMD Weekend in the Hotel Washington in DC. Ah, you could smoke at the lobby bar then. I noticed Bob enjoyed Hoyo Excalibur IIIs, a preferred cigar of mine as well. (I don’t know why I keep bringing up smoking. It’s just past noon here, so it’s time for a pipe.)

Bob, God bless! I’m sorry Masonic Week won’t happen in February, but I look forward to shaking your hand again soon.

     

‘Civil War meeting’

     

On this date in 1995, the Grand Lodge of Virginia issued a warrant to a lodge of Masonic research named Civil War Lodge of Research 1865, which has the unique mission of exploring historical facts of Freemasonry intersecting in the U.S. Civil War. Happy Silver Anniversary, brethren!

This morning they hosted a meeting via Zoom, and the lodge is scheduled to meet in person for a called communication in three weeks on December 5.

That will take place at Spurmont Lodge 98 in Strasburg. The custom weekend schedule is on, with dinner Friday night, lodge meeting and museum tour Saturday, and dinner that evening. Reservations are required. Click here for all the details.

     

Sankey Lecture on Sunday

     

I just learned the 2020 Sankey Lecture, postponed in March, is rescheduled for...Sunday! Free and online.

Professor Cécile Révauger, University of Bordeaux, on “Enlightenment, Gender and Race: Personal Reflections on Leading Issues in Masonic Studies.”

‘Cryptic Festival next May’

     

UPDATE: This event has been rescheduled to Saturday, October 9, 2021.

The Cryptic Rite companions of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts will gather for a day of degrees next spring on the Hudson. From the publicity:

Tri-State

Cryptic Festival

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Saugerties Masonic Temple

Royal Master Degree by Connecticut.

Select Master by Massachusetts.

Super Excellent Master by New York.

I haven’t seen Super Excellent since I received it 20 years ago. Looking forward to this!

To paraphrase Churchill, who was opining on something completely unrelated, “I would let the clever Masons learn Royal Arch as an honor, and Cryptic as a treat.”

     

‘Kirk MacNulty, R.I.P.’

      

W. Kirk MacNulty, the renowned Masonic author, died Sunday, according to Shawn Eyer, who disclosed the sad news on Facebook. He was 88.

To read his books is to cherish them: The Way of the Craftsman (1988), Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol (1991), and Freemasonry: Symbols, Secrets, Significance (2006).

MacNulty was made a Mason in 1961 in Carson Valley Lodge in Nevada, and subsequently affiliated with lodges in England, Hawaii, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, DC. He served in the East of Lodge of Living Stones 4957 in England three times, and was the Charter Master of Lodge of Nine Muses 1776 in DC in 1997.

“Few brothers have done more for the speculative mission of the Craft in recent times,” Eyer writes. “When he wrote The Way of the Craftsman in the 1980s, he helped midwife the renaissance in Masonic philosophy that we are all now enjoying.”

Alas, my brother.

     

‘The jewel of the Master’

     

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial’s 2020 Commemorative Ornament is available for pre-ordering. Click here for The Square.

     

‘Live from New York, it’s Craftsmen Online!’

     

An online magazine devoted to Freemasons in New York went live Wednesday night. Craftsmen Online is an independent labor coordinated by Bro. Steven Rubin (he is the Right Worshipful Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge as well). Rubin says:

I am extremely excited to introduce Craftsmen Online, a website started by New York Brothers for New York Brothers. This is not an official Grand Lodge site, but simply a means to connect Brothers, and to champion everything that is special about Freemasonry in New York.

For those wishing to locate my “Buildings and Lodges 101” series, those recordings and material for each program will be posted on this site.

 

We also will post other lectures and blogs of interest to members of the Craft. Within the site, we will highlight New York Brothers who are Craftsmen—Craftsmen who are craftsmen—in our monthly spotlight on operative Brothers, their businesses, crafts and Masonic connections.

 

We will further explore the many historic Masonic locations and places within the State of New York.

 

Within our segment titled Masonic Ink, every month we will profile a new Brother to learn how Masonic symbols become works of modern art.

 

This is only the beginning, and I am asking for your help. If you want to be involved in this new venture, we are looking for storytellers, connectors within our Lodges, and Brothers with talents from photography to graphic design. Or if you simply know a Brother, person, place, or event whose story should be told, we value that contribution as well.

 

 

Under Masonic Education, the first issue gives us W. Bro. Galen Kaback, Master of Service Mizpah Lodge 586, who discusses special meanings embedded in the lodge opening and closing rituals. The Masonic History page offers insight into how the Utica Temple’s museum came about.

 

The Craftsmen feature tells the story of W. Bro. Nathan Davis of Cobleskill 394, who makes briar pipes for our smoking pleasure, and he also is a distributor of Kaywoodies.

 

Masonic Ink introduces us to W. Bro. Jason Chaplin of Mount Zion Lodge 311 in Troy, who sports a variety of tattoos you’ll want to see. He truly is the illustrated Mason!

 

This well written and designed website has a lot more thus far. Check it out. It is dedicated to “Connecting New York Freemasons,” as it reads on the homepage. New York is a huge, bustling, and growing Masonic jurisdiction, and I think we all benefit from having a variety of media sources—and the more independent, the better—to find each other. The Editor-in-Chief is Bro. Michael Arce. Bro. Anthony Dicarro is another editor. I congratulate them and whoever else is on the team. Keep up the great work, and thank you!

   

‘Grand Lodge interested in former Buffalo seminary land’

     

New York Freemasonry was among the parties interested in real estate previously used as a Roman Catholic seminary, before the diocese withdrew the property from the market while it works on its bankruptcy filing, according to a story published this morning in The Buffalo News.

 

Specifically, it’s the Masonic Hall and Asylum Fund, the Grand Lodge of New York’s corporation that owns and operates the fraternity’s real properties, including the Masonic Care Community of New York, the 320-bed health care residence in Utica.

 

Masonic representatives expressed interest in the 117-acre Christ the King Seminary property, located in Aurora, in August.

It was last November when the Masonic Hall and Asylum Fund, purchased the 16 acres of the former College of New Rochelle, at a cost of $32 million, to expand the health care services provided at the Utica campus to the New York City area.

‘Masonic Week 2021 to be canceled’

      

A formal decision and an announcement will be forthcoming in about a week, but I think it is safe to say that Masonic Week 2021 will not take place in person. Some of the host groups may conduct their constitutional annual meetings online.
     

‘Stream The Magic Flute on Thursday’

     

The Met is closed until (at least) next September, so the annual Christmastime staging of Mozart’s Masonic opera is “on refreshment” but, on Thursday, you may stay home, leave the tuxedo in the closet, and enjoy The Magic Flute on your streaming device.

Stars Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, Christian Van Horn, and René Pape. Conducted by James Levine. Originally transmitted live on October 14, 2017.

They actually are showing Mozart’s seven key operas all this week. Click here to check them out. These recorded performances will begin at 7:30 p.m., and can be seen through 6:30 the next afternoon.

Without box office sales, the Met would appreciate and benefit from donations. Click here.

     

‘Freemasonry as a Way of Awakening’

News from Rose Circle today concerns a new book! Piers Vaughan explains:

I am excited to announce the publication of the English translation of Rémi Boyer’s book Freemasonry as a Way of Awakening, expertly rendered into English by Michael Sanborn. Rémi is very well-known on the French esoteric and Masonic scene, and this is the first of a series of books examining Freemasonry, Martinism, the Rose Croix and the Scottish Rectified Rite, or CBCS.

Masonry has long been troubled by the fact that, as with most organizations, the concept looks perfect on paper, but then you have to populate it with people, who bring to it all their petty aspirations, politics and pre-conceptions; and the problems begin! Throughout history Masonry has been a two-way struggle. On the one side are those who see it as a social club where people can get together, have nice meal, give some money to charity to feel good, and occasionally put on a funny little play to bring in more dues-paying members. Then there are the esotericists who believe that Masonry contains Truths (with a capital T), and spend their lives meditating, studying, and analyzing every word of the ritual. For them, the things which attract the former kind of Mason mean nothing to them. The Ritual is all.

There is no doubting Boyer’s focus is on the second kind of Mason, as he devotes his book to seeking out the spiritual side of the Order. He dedicates the book to “all the free masons who know how to escape forms to recognize the liberatory essence of the quest.”

But as well as discussing the theoretical side of this approach, examining what initiation is and what purpose ritual serves, the book is filled with practical advice and insights which can be used in a real Lodge. The type of Masonry discussed is Egyptian (read Memphis), but the lessons can be applied to any form of Masonry. That makes the book particularly useful to practitioners of so-called Observant Masonry, where great emphasis is placed on meaningful ritual and sound education.

This is an important book. It approaches Masonry in a practical manner, yet for once its purpose is not to teach us how to attract more members, extract more money out of them, or plan nice banquets This book teaches us how to approach the very heart of Freemasonry, to undertake the purpose of initiation, as well as its practical steps, discussing the overall approach, the context in which the process takes place, the process itself, the notion of the “three persons” in the process (the secular person, the sacred person, and the witness). It also considers what can go wrong in the process, and suggests steps to remedy these.

For those seeking a completely new way of looking at the Craft, I highly recommend this book.

     

'A point within a city'

     

The Nat Sherman Townhouse closed permanently this afternoon at 3:45, just one act in the tragedy of the near complete dissolution of the 90-year-old institution. Only the luxury cigarette line will remain. No more cigars, and certainly no more pipe mixtures. And no more Townhouse, the venerable retailer’s fourth Manhattan location since Jimmy Walker was mayor, and Prohibition was the law of the land.

I don’t know how we’re supposed to have a New York City without Nat Sherman.

Nor have I any idea whether anyone in the Sherman family (they sold the business to Altria about four years ago) ever had any connection to the Masonic fraternity, but I personally drew something of a parallel.

On the night of my first admission into the worshipful lodge, on a steamy June evening in 1997, a symbol was revealed to me that, in my irreverence, instantly reminded me of the Nat Sherman logo.

If you care to retrieve your copy of the Fall 2014 issue of Pipes & Tobaccos magazine, you can read my feature article on the Townhouse.

     

'Masonic Book Club is back!'

     
Art de Hoyos just shared this on Faceybook:

The Masonic Book Club (MBC)was formed in 1970 by two Illinois Masons, Alphonse Cerza and Louis Williams. The MBC primarily reprinted out-of-print Masonic books with a scholarly introduction; occasionally they would print original texts. (See “Past Publications” tab.) After some 40 years of service to the Craft, the directors in 2010 decided to dissolve the MBC. The club originally was limited to 333 members, but the number eventually expanded to nearly 2,000, with 1,083 members when it dissolved in 2010.

In 2017 MW Barry Weer, 33°, the last president of the MBC, transferred the MBC name and assets to the Supreme Council, 33°, SJ USA. The revived Masonic Book Club has the goals of publishing classic Masonic books and of supporting Scottish Rite SJ USA Philanthropies. Membership is open to anyone 18 years or older who is interested in the history of Freemasonry and allows you to purchase MBC editions at a pre-publication discount.

The new MBC will have a different business model than the old. Most significantly, there will be no dues; being a member entitles you to purchase books at a pre-publication discount. Check out the FAQ section below for more details. For specific questions, write to mbc@scottishrite.org.

---

‘Freemasonry and self-actualization’

     

The Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge of New York continues its lecture series on Zoom. On Tuesday night, W. Bro. Michael LaRocco, Master of Lynbrook-Massapequa Lodge 822, will present “Freemasonry: The Craft of Self-Actualization, A Western Path to Enlightenment.” From the publicity:

Tuesday, September 15

7 p.m.

Register here

Freemasonry is an enigmatic fraternity whose origins are lost in antiquity. Its purpose, however, is something each generation must decide.

W. Michael LaRocco will attempt to challenge us to perceive how the esoteric and exoteric symbols of Freemasonry lead us to self-actualization, and also to how our toleration for religions, traditions, and cultures aids us in dissolving prejudice, which removes obstacles to enlightenment.

Michael LaRocco

Utterly fascinated with the fraternity, Michael is a Scottish Rite and York Rite Mason. In the Scottish Rite, he is the founder and presiding officer of the Magus Guild of the Valley of Rockville Centre whose mission is to increase the esoteric experience.

Michael’s goal is to discover the essence of Masonry and its connection to mysticism, magic, and personal development, thereby inspiring his brethren to create the best versions of themselves.
     

‘The First Hermetic International Film Festival’

     

The what?

The First Hermetic International Film Festival.

What?

The. First. Herm.Etic. Inter.Nation.Al. Film. Festi.Val.

Really?

I guess so. Click here. “First” doesn’t mean premier. It’s actually in its third year. The “first” refers to it being the original film festival of its kind.

The festival is available on Occultrama. It began last Thursday, and continues through Wednesday. Twenty euros admission.

I don’t know anything about any of these movies, but look at this list of festival awards:


Best Picture – Mercure Award
Best Feature Film – Caduceus Award
Best Short Film – Sulphur Award
Best Feature Documentary – Paracelsus Award
Best Documentary (Short) – Pelican Award
Best Foreign Documentary – Rosenkreuz Award
Best Animation Film – Apuleio Award
Best Web Serie – Black Lion Award
Best Experimental Film – Vitriol Award
Best Music Video – Kenneth Award
Best Director – Agrippa Award
Best Editing – Ficino Award
Best Cinematography – Fludd Award
Best Music – Atalanta Award
Best Storytelling – Cagliostro Award
Best Topic – Jodorowsky Award
Best Research – Eco Award
Best Sound Design – Theremin Award
Best Performance – Sabbath Award
Best Protagonist – Wormwood Star Award
Best Production Design – Ritual Room Award


New York Film Academy is among the official partners.
     

‘The new Royal Arch learning center’

     
Okay, so maybe the General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry can be of useful service to the Masonic world.

The GGCRAMI disclosed last week that it has a website in development—a “computer website,” as it charmingly calls it—that will be an “interactive site, which provides educational opportunities supporting advanced knowledge and training in various aspects of Capitular Masonry.”

The announcement continues:

“It provides certifications for individuals who want to improve their knowledge of the respective offices, and responsibilities of those positions, in the local chapter. Such certification attests to their qualifications for those interested in advancing in the various stations of the chapter or grand chapter.

“Additionally, there are a number of educational areas that deal with explanations pertaining to the symbolism and esoteric nature found within the different degrees. Programs dealing with the historical aspects of the degrees are also on the website which expand a clearer understanding of the times and nature of the degrees.”

You have to start somewhere. (Next, if they could stop infantilizing with phrases like “King’s Komments,” “Scribe’s Scribbles,” and God knows what else, that would be really great.) (Really great.)

The General Grand Chapter presents this in the present tense because there also happens to be a beta test version of this website up now. Click here.


Meanwhile, closer to home, yours truly will be speaking at Scott Chapter 4 in North Brunswick, New Jersey this Friday night. The chapter will open at eight o’clock. I’ll lead a discussion on “The Habits of Successful Chapters.”

Royal Arch Masonry in these parts is in dreadful decline—and there’s no reason for it. I’ll explain on Friday.