‘Washington Masonic bio is out’

    

On the day George Washington was born, the date was February 11, but today is Washington’s birthday because of the change in 1752 from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. That’s a long story involving Astronomy, Arithmetic, Logic, and a pope, but what better occasion than this to buy Mark Tabbert’s new book?

A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry is available at last. It is published by University of Virginia Press (released today) and can be had from your favorite booksellers.

From the publicity:

Like several of America’s Founding Fathers, George Washington was a Freemason, yet Washington’s ties to the fraternity and the role it played in his life have never been widely researched or understood. In A Deserving Brother, Mark Tabbert presents a complete story of Washington’s known association with Freemasonry.

Much more than a conventional history, this book has curated an exhibition of artifacts and episodes to fully contextualize our first president’s Masonic life and experiences. Consulting the Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, the Boston Athenaeum, and numerous private Masonic lodges, libraries, and museums, Tabbert chronicles all known instances of Washington’s association with Freemasons, confirming some existing knowledge, adding new insights, and debunking unsubstantiated myths. The record of Washington’s masonic ties is presented through contextualizing descriptions and color illustrations, ranging from lodge minute books recording Washington’s attendance to his Masonic aprons, from the tools used at the U.S. Capitol cornerstone ceremony to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts’ gold urn, made by Paul Revere, containing a lock of Washington’s hair.

A Deserving Brother documents the significance of Freemasonry in Washington’s life and career in a way that separates fact from fiction, and will satisfy both historians and general readers, including today’s Freemasons.

Mark A. Tabbert is Director of Archives and Exhibits at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, and is author of American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities.

     

‘The very cement and support of society’

    

It’s not often a lodge thinks to tender a formal statement of contemporary social importance. Of course that’s not easy to do. Government intrudes into our lives so often and so directly, it’s nearly impossible to form a civic-minded opinion that doesn’t trespass into partisan politics. Like sectarian religious views, political opinions are forbidden in our lodges. That is a key ingredient that makes our essential harmony possible, but it also has stifled much potential discussion of ideas. We seem to have filled the silence with less provocative conversations, and the fraternity expects its lodges and their members to act, and make Masonic charity evident in their activities.

Late last year, one of the cofounders of Columbia Lodge 1190, part of Grand Lodge’s academic lodge program, contacted me for an opinion on a statement the lodge crafted. Columbia Lodge should be commended simply for thinking and speaking on what’s happening outside the Temple today. And, since today is World Day of Social Justice, I hereby share with you Columbia Lodge’s recent proclamation:

Freemasonry, at its core and throughout its ritual, promotes the principles of Social Justice. By meeting “on the level,” we are summoned to recognize all with whom we stand as Brothers without regard for any differences that may, in the profane world, serve as pretexts for exclusion, prejudice, intolerance, or hatred. Columbia Lodge 1190 affirms and embraces the principles of Social Justice so eloquently expressed within our ritual, and strives to become a beacon of inclusion and Brotherhood within the Craft.

Columbia Lodge was constituted for Masons with a connection to the Ivy League university uptown in Morningside Heights: alumni, students, faculty, etc. The lodge has no affiliation with the university.

I am flattered my opinion was sought. I am neither a member of the lodge nor connected to the university. (I graduated from the downtown behemoth private university.)

What first comes to mind is Freemasonry’s teaching of Justice. It is a Cardinal Virtue in Freemasonry, just as it was to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. As we reveal in the Entered Apprentice Degree:

Justice is that standard which enables us to render to every man his due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with Divine and human law, but is the very cement and support of society; and, as justice, in a great measure, distinguishes the good man, so should it be your practice to be just.

Unlike Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, which are inner qualities, this fourth Cardinal Virtue is exhibited outward. Justice is social, so, to my mind, “Social Justice” is a redundancy.

More problematic is a modifier prefixed to Justice. Any qualification limits the meaning of the subject. For instance, today also is International Pipe Smoking Day. Without that second word, we have a general image of stressed addicts huffing their drug and littering the world with discarded butts, but with the modifier “Pipe” in place, we may envision serene hobbyists sweetening the air with gentle Cavendish in hand-carved briars, perhaps whilst reading Tolkien or playing chess in the study.

Words matter, and prefixing “Social” to “Justice” crimps the universality of justice. Lesson in Grammar and Rhetoric.

Then of course there is the politically combustible usage of the term in today’s hyper-partisan society. “Social Justice” is the all-inclusive excuse for everything from the “decarceration” that makes public spaces dangerous to the spectacle of grown men putting their hair in pigtails to steal the championships and scholarships of women’s sports. Most of the people outside who would use the term probably would have no love for Freemasonry. Read Columbia University’s thoughts.

About a year and a half ago, I reproduced the then current message from the then president of the Masonic Society, which dubs Freemasons the “Enlightenment Social Justice Warriors” but invokes the Cardinal Virtues because all we have to do is uphold the meaning of Masonry with its familiar anodyne language.

     

‘Masonic Week 2022’

    

I meant to post this a week ago, but it’s been busy and, frankly, social media renders Magpie coverage of Masonic Week redundant. I mean, during last Saturday’s AMD Grand Council Annual Communication, Barry was tweeting and I was Faceypaging progress of the meeting in real time. And then came tons of everyone’s photos. So this edition of The Magpie Mason is brief—I attended only several events anyway—and it is light on photography. There were No Photography signs posted around the meeting room but, unknown to me, they referred to the degree conferrals and not to the business meetings. So I inadvertently denied you my customary lens work, capturing the scenes of the same ten guys appointing each other to the officer lines.

My first Masonic Week (called AMD Weekend back then) was 2002, and this weekend, like that one, was blessed with unseasonably warm weather for the dead of winter. I wistfully recall sitting at the bar in the Hotel Washington’s lobby, enjoying a pint and a cigar, writing postcards to the brethren back at lodge, and noticing the tourists outside were wearing shorts and T-shirts. The temperature reached as high as 61 degrees this time. But no smoking anything anywhere in any hotel these days, just to illustrate how far our society has collapsed in only two decades.

I reminisced with Rashied for a few minutes about those old times and about all the friends who we don’t see anymore. Janet, who organized the annual luncheon at Old Ebbitt Grill; Scott, who played his bagpipes; and so many more Masonic Light members, some who have passed on, or no longer make the trip.

Heather Calloway was there, allegedly. I’m told she was representing Indiana University’s Center for Fraternal Collections and Research, supposedly. I’m doubtful because I staggered around the atrium, where stood everybody’s display tables, repeatedly, but didn’t see her. I probably need some kind of cognitive testing.

I didn’t even get a chance to shake Mark Tabbert’s hand. Just a fast wave. Mark’s book, A Deserving Brother, is due out this month. But I did get to meet Scott Schwartzberg after all these years.

It was a great Masonic Week thanks, in part, to the absence of a few of the usual groups that still were skittish over the pandemic. No offense, but without Athelstan and Knight Templar Priests, there was room on the schedule for degree work open to AMD brethren. What a concept.

The Masonic Society

Attendance this Masonic Week reached an all time high (at least as records and memories go), with about 430 registered. So it was exciting to see a record high 112 signed up for the anchor event of the weekend: the Masonic Society’s annual dinner. Because the pandemic pre-empted last year’s Masonic Week, this was our thirteenth, instead of fourteenth, meeting, and it felt good to be back.

Having been awake for twenty-two hours by the time we entered the banquet room, an endodontic job, sans anesthesia, would have been fine by me, but this was a true pleasure and a high note on which to conclude my term as president.

The new leadership team:

President Oscar Alleyne

First Vice President Greg Knott

Second Vice President Mark Robbins

Our seven-member Board of Directors has been reorganized with Mark joining the officers and John Bizzack retiring (he’s a new VP at Philalethes now). We have added Kevin Wardally of the MW Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New York, and Mason Russell of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Coincidentally, both are grand treasurers of their respective grand lodges.

And I also had the honor of announcing two new Masonic Society Fellows: William Maurer and Michael Moran. Bill has been published in the pages of The Journal of the Masonic Society, is a valued historian of early America, and is a long-serving trustee of the Livingston Library here in New York. Mike is the book reviews editor of The Journal. He also is central to Masonic education at home in the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. We’re lucky to have so much talent in the family.

After a savory meal of roast beef and winter vegetables, it was time for our speaker. Chris Ruli was the grand historian and librarian of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia (on sabbatical now to work on another project) who has been studying Freemasonry’s historic activities in the Federal City for many years. He presented us “Masonic Myth of Our Nation’s Capital,” a discussion of some of his research that is intended to dispel the frivolous tales we sometimes hear about the Craft’s role in building Washington, D.C.

Chris told us of the persons, places, and things involved in how the District took shape with Masons participating, from the placement of the Boundary Stones that marked the city’s borders in 1791, to the construction of the Executive Mansion in 1792, to the cornerstone ceremony at the Capitol in 1793, with a lot more around town and into the next century too, including recovery from the arson of the War of 1812, and up to the Lincoln years. (I resisted the temptation to say that very day, February 11, was the anniversary of the start of the surveying process in 1791 that established the District’s boundaries.)

He exhibited not only command of his subject, but also command of his audience. You had to see it! I’m not enthusiastic about video recording our doings, but I’m sorry we didn’t preserve this lecture. It was a performance, and it was praised throughout the weekend at the hotel and for days after on social media. Chris has an uncommon gift for oratory, engaging listeners with humor to make a fascinating story doubly memorable. Not having the speaking skill or that confidence myself, I am really impressed and am in agreement with all who said this was one of the top Masonic talks I’ve seen.

The Q&A took us beyond the hour we were entitled to have the room, so we broke it up reluctantly. I really had to get some sleep anyway. But before our Friday night dinner, I attended the Blue Friars and the Nine Muses.

The Society

of Blue Friars

The Society of Blue Friars is a small Masonic institution that honors authors with membership in its select ranks. This year Adam Kendall of California became Blue Friar 111. He is a member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076 and is editor of The Plumbline. Adam presented his “The Scandals and Secret Rites of Benjamin Hyam,” found in QC2076’s Freemasonry on the Frontier anthology. It’s a story as wild as the Wild West and as confounding as any you’ll find in Masonic history.

Adam, Balvin, and David.

I encourage you to seek the several videos on YouTube of Adam’s previous tellings of the tale.

Council of Nine Muses 13

Then, at the meeting of the Allied Masonic Degrees’ Council of Nine Muses 13, James Winzenreid of West Virginia was seated, becoming both the fiftieth member in the elite council’s history and the warm body needed that afternoon to achieve a quorum. He succeeds Tom Jackson of Pennsylvania who died last year.

Tom’s death added another dimension to Masonic Week; he was eulogized repeatedly and extensively in multiple meetings. To hear different summations of his eighty-seven years is to wonder where one’s own life is going. His too numerous feats in Freemasonry comprise only a subplot in a life that couldn’t have been more productive without elongating the weeks and adding more months. Successes followed successes in his personal, professional, academic, and civic lives. Did you know he was a weightlifting champion as a young man in his early twenties?

Grand College of Rites

After about ten hours of deep sleep, it was time for the Grand College of Rites. I haven’t attended one of our meetings in several years, mostly because of repeated schedule changes. I think Saturday morning is a good time for it.

A lot of news from this meeting. Our new Grand Chancellor is David Kussman of California. If the name rings a bell, he is the Knight Templar who was illegally removed from his elected office as deputy grand master of the KT Grand Encampment by the grand master of the Grand Encampment—and is that guy gonna get his comeuppance next month! Read the Dummies blog for that story.

Joining the officer line as the grand seneschal is Clyde Schoolfield of Oklahoma. Clyde is grand secretary of the AMD. Jerry Klein retired as our grand registrar, and has been succeeded by Christopher Gamblin of Indiana. Duane Vaught exited the grand chancellor’s chair and took over as grand treasurer.

Arturo de Hoyos, grand archivist, was absent, tending to family needs, so there was no report on the upcoming edition of Collectanea, but we know it will be a continuation of the 1807 Cerneau Scottish Rite rituals. In the meantime, however, a bonus Collectanea has been mailed to the membership. Forget what I said about the Masonic Book Club possibly publishing Burlesque Degrees. The text of humorous, if hokey, rituals from the Golden Age of Fraternalism now is among the GCR bibliography.

Ark and Dove Degree

Somewhere in the weekend I, and maybe about a hundred others, received the Ark and Dove Degree. I have to hit the books and learn about this one; I’m not sure I’ve even heard of it before. From its name you’d connect it with Royal Ark Mariner, but it is different. Whether it’s derivative of, or adjunct to, R.A.M. I don’t know. It imparts a lesson in temperance, particularly with food and drink. I can’t decide if that message is ironic for Masonic Week, or if it is especially needed there, but it is a thoughtful brief degree. The ritualists performed well, and it was appreciatively received.

(You ever notice the word “peradventure” is used in a couple of our degrees?)

Grand Council

of Allied Masonic Degrees

And speaking of the AMD, Grand Master Mohamad Yatim enjoyed a dynamic year in office. The poor man was installed in quarantine conditions and via Zoom last February, but that humble start sparked a ceaseless tornado of activity that improved AMD at home and was felt abroad from the Philippines to the Congo. The accomplishments literally are too numerous to list here, so I’ll have to refer AMD members to the first four issues of the Allied Times newsletter. I will point out though how Prince Hall brethren now are able to be invited into AMD councils.

The Marvin E. Fowler Award was presented to Moises Gomez in thanks for his expert stewardship of the planning and execution of Masonic Week each year. To be clear, there is a committee. Its members get us attendees signed in, paid up, credentialed, inspected, injected, detected, and rejected—but it is Moises who is the omnipresent force in the hotel before we arrive, while we run amok, and after we’re gone. He checks the meetings to ensure the hotel is performing correctly. He provides his personal equipment so Chris Ruli can screen his slides during his presentation. He visits the brother who became ill and needed to be hospitalized. Moises is the Indispensable Man.

Aaron Shoemaker of Missouri is our new grand master. I think it’s reasonable to expect a similarly productive year for him. One of his first acts was to make Moises the grand superintendent for New Jersey.

So this, the 130th Annual Communication of the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees, was the final meeting of the last Masonic Week I plan to attend, and even I was part of the ceremonies. My thanks to Mohamad for recognizing my work on the newsletter with a handsome plaque. Editing Allied Times last year was the least I could do—and let it never be said I don’t do the least I can do!

     

‘At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’

    

Moises Gomez photo

Without yet being present, I’ll begin coverage of Masonic Week 2022 with word from the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees. Yesterday, MVS Grand Master Mohamad Yatim, accompanied by Grand Council officers, visited Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

While this solemn activity has become especially important in Masonic circles in recent years, the fraternity paying respect at the Tomb is a tradition. For instance, on October 19, 1925, the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) visited the Tomb, taking a break from its deliberations at the House of the Temple.

In 1922, just several months after the Tomb’s installation, New York’s RW Bro. Solomon Holzer, Past Master of Daniel Carpenter Lodge 643, wrote to Grand Secretary Robert Kenworthy, saying he thought our Grand Lodge ought to encourage the Masonic Service Association to “place a suitably inscribed bronze tablet” on the Tomb, and should the MSA not succeed, the Grand Lodge itself ought to do it with the goal of holding a ceremony on November 4, the Masonic birthday of George Washington. I don’t think the idea went anywhere.

I expect to arrive at our hotel this afternoon, just in time to witness Adam Kendall take his place among the Society of Blue Friars. See you there.

     

‘Was there more to Morgan?’

    

This month’s online lecture from the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library will offer an alternative understanding of one of American Freemasonry’s most examined episodes. RW Bro. Mark D. Issacs will look beyond the legal findings surrounding the dubitable fate of William Morgan nearly two centuries ago, and will focus on the feuding among factions allied with the era’s leading national political figures.

This will be streamed in two weeks, on February 24, from 7 p.m. The library asks for reservations here, and the lecture will be seen on YouTube here.

Magpie coverage of Masonic Week 2022 will begin Friday.

     

‘Key to Masonic theory’

    

Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice.

What do Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, and you share in common? The Four Cardinal Virtues.

Just a public quick word of thanks to Worshipful Master Diego, for allowing me to present another “piece of architecture” before our lodge, and to everyone who joined in via Zoom several hours ago. (We’ll be together in lodge again in three weeks for a Ritual of Initiation.)

The Four Cardinal Virtues are key to Masonic theory. It is not enough to be disposed toward the Virtues; we must regard Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice as skills to be honed for we good men to better ourselves.

I will explore Justice specifically in some Masonic detail on Sunday, February 20–World Day of Social Justice—thanks to inspiration from Columbia Lodge 1190, so be sure to check this space then.

     

‘Rules for better living’

    

The Philosophical Research Society has published anew another Manly P. Hall text in its Signature Editions series. Practical Philosophy: Ten Basic Rules for Better Living is “written in an accessible and direct style for clear application to daily life,” says the PRS website. “This book will guide you through most of life’s quandaries by drawing upon ancient wisdom and applying it to the unique challenges of contemporary life.”

     

‘Fraternal Review’s new editor’

    

Fraternal Review, the almost monthly periodical from Southern California Research Lodge, has a new interim editor in chief. Angel Millar, noted author and speaker (and Senior Warden of The ALR) on the vanguard of Masonic thought today, is taking the desk for a time yet to be specified.

“Fraternal Review dares to be different,” says Millar in a video announcement I can’t figure how to link to. “Unlike publications of other research lodges, Fraternal Review really presents readers with bite-sized articles on a range of issues, many of which have never been covered elsewhere—and not only Masonic education and the history of the fraternity, but also contemporary culture and where Masonry fits in.”

SCRL meets in South Pasadena on the third Mondays of January, April, July, and October. Membership by affiliation is possible only for California Master Masons, unfortunately for the rest of us. But we are free to subscribe to this magazine, which I haven’t until now, upon Angel’s preferment.

Subscriptions are available for the print and/or digital versions; lodges may subscribe too, and receive three copies. What this lodge has going on is dazzling. In addition to its Stated Meetings, it regularly hosts other gatherings for guided meditations, study groups, lectures, and other educational offerings. There is a podcast, accessible via Spotify, Apple, Google, and other hosts; there is a blog too.

Click here for the new podcast, an interview with Millar.

I have no desire to live in the Golden State, but I’ll admit this turns my head. Congratulations to all.

     

‘Bro. Bloom’s anniversary’

    

Nineteen twenty-two was an axial year for English-language literature, and much of the credit belongs to James Joyce for his Ulysses, published in full for the first time on this date a century ago.

For both its style and content, the novel follows the West’s transition into the modern era of world war, global pandemic, broadcast communication, human flight, assembly lines, and other revolutions. To my knowledge, there hadn’t been a story comparable to Ulysses published before. Of course there was Homer’s Odyssey, which inspired Joyce’s overall story arc, but the stories and the styles in which they’re told are as different as the centuries from which they come. I can’t delve into the author’s style here, and I will be selective about his story’s content. I’ll just get to the point: Leopold Bloom, the hero (if that’s the right word) of Ulysses, is said to be a Freemason.

Within the 700 or so pages, there isn’t a passage in the plot or a hint in the character development that puts Bloom on the Square. Rather there are things said about him to juxtapose his otherness (a Jewish man in Dublin) with an alleged social connectivity. To wit:

Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He winked. He’s in the craft, he said.

Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.

Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He’s an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I was told that by a—well, I won’t say who.

Is that a fact?

O, it’s a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you’re down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they’re as close as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.

Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one: Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!

There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint Legers of Doneraile.

The story takes place on June 16, 1904, known to us today as Bloomsday, and it is that date that I really consider to be Bro. Bloom’s anniversary. In addition to today being the centenary of the publication of Ulysses, it is the 140th birthday of its author, the daring Mr. Joyce. Vivat!

     

‘Lodge of Amity update’

    

One silver lining in the ashen remains of the Zanesville Masonic Temple is the recovery of a time capsule secreted in the building’s southwest(!) corner.

Built in 1902-03, the six-story Renaissance Revival home of Ohio’s Lodge of Amity 5 and other Masonic groups was destroyed by fire last month. The time capsule was deposited during a St. John the Baptist Day 1902 cornerstone ceremony led by Grand Master Ike Robinson. (I’ll say it’s strange how the Grand Lodge of Ohio 1902 Book of Proceedings is nearly silent on this event, one of only two Masonic temple cornerstone-layings that year.)

The time capsule will be opened on a date to be announced, local media say, citing a statement from Mayor Don Mason, himself a Past Master of the lodge.

In a social media post last week, the lodge brethren say: “Though the fire may have taken our building and relics spanning the last 217 years, it did not take our spirit. The Lodge of Amity No. 5 would like for everyone to know that we are still here and will continue to be part of the Zanesville community. While we continue to recover from this loss and evaluate our future, we will meet at LaFayette Lodge No. 79…. Our meetings will continue to be at 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month.”

     

‘The story of Prince Hall’

    

If you’re in the area in two weeks, pay a visit to Odenton Lodge 209 in Odenton, Maryland. Judging from its website, the lodge bustles with Masonic activity. I’m very curious to hear this presentation on Bro. Prince Hall, but it’s too far from home.

     

‘Masonic Myth of Our Nation’s Capital’

    

February already? It’s hard to believe, but that means my tenure as President of the Masonic Society is in its final days. As always, there will be a peaceful transfer of power, and that will take place next Friday in Virginia, when Bro. Oscar Alleyne will become our eighth President. Our after dinner speaker will be Bro. Chris Ruli, Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, on “Masonic Myth of Our Nation’s Capital.”

Masonic Society

Annual Meeting

Friday, February 11

7 p.m.

Masonic Week

Arlington, Virginia

$55 per person

Reserve here

We have 85 guests booked as of yesterday and there’s still room if you haven’t added us to your itinerary. And, of course, if you are a local Mason inexperienced with Masonic Week, you are more than welcome too! This event is open to all Masons and friends of Freemasonry.

      

‘Chagall and Hesse contests’

   

Please pardon my sloppy cross-outs.

Were this the work of any other District of Manhattan lodges, I would be shocked, but being as it comes from the Tenth Manhattan, I am approvingly delighted and want to report on it despite never having written here previously about any youth contest. But the Tenth Manhattan is a special grouping of lodges.

Well, we’re all special. The First Manhattan, for instance, has some of the oldest lodges in New York (and North America). The Fourth is home to lodges organized by profession. My lodge, Publicity 1000, for media people; St. Cecile 568 for show business entertainers; Kane 454 for intrepid Arctic explorers; et al. The Tenth Manhattan is comprised of foreign language and otherwise exotic and ethnic lodges: Garibaldi 542, l’Union Francaise 17, and eleven others of French, Greek, Italian, Sephardic, Spanish, et al. identities. “Cosmopolitan” is a word used, in certain contexts, to describe Freemasonry, and I’d employ it here.

So, we have a writing contest named for Hermann Hesse, and a drawing competition named after Marc Chagall!

Chagall (1887-1985) was a native of Russia who emigrated to France to pursue his destiny in the fine arts. He was made a Mason in Paris. Grand Orient, I think, but don’t quote me. (I like to imagine he, Juan Gris, and others were of the same lodge, but I have no idea.) Hesse (1877-1962), as far as I know, was not a Freemason. Of course, his interest was in Eastern thought, but the two are not mutually exclusive.

When I was Master of my earlier lodge in 2005, my final “From the East” message to the brethren was not something I wrote, but was a few excerpted sentences from The Journey to the East, Hesse’s post-World War I novella that every Freemason ought to know:

For our goal was not only the East, or rather the East was not only a country and something geographical, but it was the home and youth of the soul, it was everywhere and nowhere, it was the union of all times. Yet I was only aware of this for a moment, and therein lay the reason for my great happiness at that time. Later, when I had lost this happiness again, I clearly understood these connections without deriving the slightest benefit or comfort from them. When something precious and irretrievable is lost, we have the feeling of having awakened from a dream. In my case this feeling is strangely correct, for my happiness did indeed arise from the same secret as the happiness in dreams; it arose from the freedom to experience everything imaginable simultaneously, to exchange outward and inward easily, to move Time and Space about like scenes in a theatre. And as we League brothers travelled throughout the world without motorcars or ships, as we conquered the war-shattered world by our faith and transformed it into Paradise, we creatively brought the past, the future and the fictitious into the present moment.

It was from this story, which I first read at age fifteen, that I learned the master is a servant—wise counsel I’ve offered to many an advancing Senior Warden. I recall reading this book the first time I heard the Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger” on the radio. Serendipity, if you know the lyrics.

     

‘A language of delightful sensations’

    

Ally Retberg

That part of the lecture describing the Liberal Arts, as we in New York have it, says music is “a language of delightful sensations far more eloquent than words.” In the wide diversity of rituals known throughout English lodges, there probably is similar phrasing in a Second Degree, but the recent news I’m telling you about this morning concerns live musical performance at Freemasons’ Hall.

The London headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, erected on land where Freemasons have been meeting since 1775, features the Cafe and Bar. Simple foods and ample beverages, and, now, live entertainment. Ally Retberg, a singer and actress known for the musical Friendsical—yes, based on the television program—will perform jazz standards (Sinatra, Ella, Nat King Cole) next Thursday night in the debut of live music in the venue, which is open to the public.

I know I’ve been writing a lot about the English lately, and this is largely because of the energy unleashed by the UGLE’s leadership and professional team. From a distance, it seems the creative initiatives that engage Freemasons, the public, and the media alike are recasting the once elusive fraternity as a lively cultural player. I don’t see much of that sort of enterprise evident in the United States. Here in New York City, I can’t say there is demand for another bar with live music (whereas I can say the corrupt city and state governments make such business models nearly impossible), but other sizable Masonic venues elsewhere may recognize a chance to learn something from Great Queen Street.

(I’ve been meaning to tell you about the classical and pop music concerts—by candlelight!—at the Philadelphia Masonic Temple, and hopefully they are successful and will be continued.)

So congratulations to UGLE’s business departments, and good luck to Miss Retberg!

     

‘Garibaldi EA Degree’

   

If you still, somehow, have not witnessed Garibaldi Lodge’s famous Entered Apprentice Degree yet, your next opportunity will come this spring.

This is the very dramatic French Rite First Degree, delivered in Italian, inside the Grand Lodge Room of Masonic Hall in Manhattan. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself among a thousand or more brethren from around the world. (One time, the Fire Department ordered bus loads of Pennsylvanians out of the room because the attendees exceeded the room’s legal maximum capacity.)

So, arrive at six o’clock; bring photo ID to enter the building; have Masonic ID, apron, and knowledge to work your way into a tiled meeting; and be prepared to sit tight for a number of hours, because this is a real Masonic initiation, and not a performance in a theater.

But it is highly theatrical. This ritual is far different from what you probably know from your lodge. It is very dramatic and expressive, being how it is full of Alchemical and Rosicrucian symbolism. Seven petitioners are expected, so this will be a longer night than we’ve seen in many years.

     

‘This mighty Secret’

    

The Masonic Book Club announced today how its second offering to subscribers will be Masonry Dissected, that early ritual exposure from 1730 that gives us the first evidence of a Master’s Degree.

To recap: The MBC is no longer organized for dues-paying members, but instead now publishes books in limited runs predicated on advance sales. Pre-paid orders, at $30 per copy, are being accepted now through February 28. We can expect to receive our books in the mail in June. Those who decline to purchase in advance are to be pitied, and therefore will have a slight chance of obtaining the book at $40 a copy. Don’t be one of those guys.

Samuel Prichard is unknown to history save for the publication of this book, the full title of which is:

Masonry Dissected; being a Universal and Genuine Description Of all its Branches from the Original to this Present Time. As it is deliver’d in the Constituted, Regular Lodges, Both in the City and Country, According to the Several Degrees of Admission; Giving an Impartial Account of their Regular Proceedings in Initiating their New Members in the whole Three Degrees of Masonry, viz. I. Entered ’Prentice; II. Fellow Craft; III. Master. To which is added, The Author’s Vindication of himself. By Samuel Prichard, late member of a Constituted Lodge. London; Printed for J. Wilford, at the Three Flower-de-Luces behind the Chapter-house near St. Paul’s. 1730 (price 6 d).

And that vindication?

If all the Impositions that have appear’d amongst Mankind, none are so ridiculous as the Mystery of Masonry, which has amus’d the World, and caused various Constructions and these Pretences of Secrecy, invalid, has (tho’ not perfectly) been revealed, and the grand Article, viz. the Obligation, has several Times been printed in the Publick Papers, but is entirely genuine in the Daily Journal of Saturday, Aug. 22, 1730, which agrees in its Veracity with that deliver’d in this Pamphlet; and consequently when the Obligation of Secrecy is abrogated, the aforesaid Secret becomes of no Effect, and must be quite extinct; for some Operative Masons (but according to the polite way of Expression, Accepted Masons) made a Visitation from the first and oldest constituted Lodge (according to the Lodge Book in London) to a noted Lodge in this City, and was denied Admittance, because their old Lodge was removed to another House, which, tho’ contradictory to this great Mystery, requires another Constitution, at no less Expense than two Guineas, with an elegant Entertainment, under the Denomination of being put to Charitable uses, which if justly applied, will give great Encomiums to so worthy an Undertaking, but it is very much doubted, and most remarkable to think it will be expended towards the forming another System of Masonry, the old Fabric being so ruinous, that unless repair’d by some occult Mystery, will soon be annihilated.

I was induced to publish this mighty Secret for the public Good at the Request of several Masons, and it will, I hope, give entire Satisfaction, and have its desired Effect in preventing so many credulous Persons being drawn into so pernicious a Society.

Cazart! That guy needed an editor. We today are lucky to have Brent Morris and Arturo de Hoyos, who are reprinting the MBC’s earlier imprint of Masonry Dissected, and augmenting Harry Carr’s commentary.

I’ve always wondered somewhat if the author truly intended to harm the Craft, because what actually happened was our ancient brethren were able to obtain a ritual book for use as a guide. Grand lodges wouldn’t publish such books officially for about another 200 years, so I figure it’s possible that Prichard deserves some credit for promulgating and proliferating the Third Degree. In addition to being reprinted twenty-one times up to 1787, Masonry Dissected also was translated into Dutch, French, and German in the 1730s, when Freemasonry took root across Europe. Unintended consequences? Coincidences? I wonder.

     

‘Georgia grand lodges to sign treaty’

    

Masonic Messenger

I normally do not report all the successes made in establishing relations between coexisting grand lodges in the United States, but the news of Ralph McNeal’s passing (see post below) practically demands this: The MW Grand Lodge of Georgia and the MW Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Georgia will sign what is being called a “treaty” on April 9.

I don’t know what the terms of the agreement will say. UPDATE: no visitations, nor dual memberships.

And then there will be four—four states where fraternal accords perhaps are still being worked on.

     

‘Ralph McNeal, Jr., R.I.P.’

    

Ralph McNeal, Jr.
1959-2022

Bro. Ralph McNeal, Jr., as forceful a voice as any for integrity in Freemasonry, died yesterday. He was 62.

When I “met” him twenty years ago in Masonic Light and other Yahoo! Groups, Ralph, exhibiting the patience of Job, assisted so many of us who were trying to grasp the myriad intricacies inherent in understanding Prince Hall Affiliation Masonry and the maddening slowness of the larger Masonic populace to meet our PHA brethren on the Level. All of us, particularly those who rose to ranks senior enough to make reforms, are indebted profoundly.

Ralph was a very proud veteran of the U.S. Air Force who was stationed for a time in Italy, and there he was made a Mason in San Vito Lodge 37, a military lodge in PHA Masonry, in 1986. Also proud of his Newark, New Jersey roots, Ralph returned home and continued his Masonic labors. Relocating to Arizona years later, he affiliated with Martin Luther King, Jr. Lodge 29, which got its start in the seventies as a lodge for Air Force servicemen, and was Master there. I don’t doubt Ralph was a treasured Mason in all those localities, but I think it was the Phylaxis Society that allowed him to radiate the Light that benefited brethren within the PHA world and without.

It is an encyclopedic subject that requires a near Talmudic degree of penetration to tell the story, but the bogus “black grand lodges” across the country (there are dozens here in New York City alone) bedevil Prince Hall Affiliation Masons simply by existing. Personally, I think some of these are innocent fraternities just living outside the PHAmily, but of course others are scams or even cults. Regardless, Ralph was head of the Phylaxis Commission on Bogus Masonic Practices when many of us met him in eMasonry all those years ago. He made it his business to abate so many misconceptions about PHA Masonry and all the phonies that I have to believe Ralph deserves much credit for sowing the seeds that blossom today. (In 2001, Phylaxis awarded him its Lewis Medal of Excellence.)

When he was made a Mason in 1986, zero “mainstream” grand lodges had fraternal recognition of their Prince Hall neighbors; now, all but five of those jurisdictions have varying forms of relations with our PHA brethren—and I believe progress will be realized in the final five states sooner than later. (UPDATE: 1/23/22–I’ve just been informed the Georgia grand lodges will sign an agreement on April 9.) It’s just heartbreaking that Ralph didn’t live to see it happen.

Please remember Ralph’s widow, Shermain, and their sons Ralph, Corey, and Gibran in your devotions.

“Alas, my Brother.”

     

‘40th Brotherhood Night’

    

New England Brotherhood Night is on for 2022!

On Saturday, March 19, Masons from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut will gather at a resort in the Green Mountain State for an evening of fellowship and food. Click here for accommodations, dining fee, and other details.

Anyone know if they still host the Hill Degree up there?

     

‘Archaeological architecture from Solomon’s time’

    

A study published this month in Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology calls ashlar stone masonry “an elite style of architecture” that reveals clues into the time of David and Solomon.

“Royal Architecture in the Iron Age Levant,” by Madeleine Mumcuoglu and Yosef Garfinkel, identifies “six prominent characteristics of the royal style.” The stone masonry is counted with:

• volute capitals;
• decorated bases;
• rectangular roof beams;
• recessed openings of doors and windows; and
• window balustrades

The researchers, both from Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, credit finds at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an ancient fortress twenty miles south of Jerusalem, for catalyzing this particular focus, but they discuss evidence from around the Levant.

“In the Kingdom of Israel, large and splendid architectural complexes associated with especially fine buildings with ashlar masonry were uncovered at Samaria, Megiddo, Dan, and Hazor, royal centers dating from the 9th-8th centuries BCE,” the study reports.

“The beginning of royal architecture took place very early in Judah, much earlier than any of the other political units known in the Levant,” it says in conclusion. “This early appearance in the Kingdom of Judah may surprise some scholars, but such royal architecture is mentioned in the biblical tradition in relation to David’s palace, Solomon’s palace, and Solomon’s temple.”

Read the paper here.