‘Call for papers: The Scottish Enlightenment’

    

A productive and eventful meeting of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786 yesterday morning. I can’t even complain about the commute, which passed without much aggravation—a singular occurrence! Two very engaging papers were presented, both of which successfully threaded the needle of speculative theses supported by research.

Before all that, though, was a lengthy conversation in support of an initiative unique to New Jersey Freemasonry. For several years, brethren of the research lodge, acting independently, have been memorializing John Skene, the seventeenth century Scottish Mason from the lodge in Aberdeen, who emigrated to West Jersey in 1682, becoming the first Mason in the New World. (Click here to learn about the first such event in 2022.)

Last year, the Skene celebration matured into an academic conference (click here). This year, the conference will continue, and the call for papers went out just days ago. From the publicity:

Conference Theme: The Scottish Enlightenment

Date: Saturday, August 24

Location: Crescent Shriners, 700 Highland Dr., Westampton, New Jersey

Submission via email: click here

Subject Fields: American History/Studies; Atlantic History/Studies; British History/Studies; Cultural History/Studies; Humanities; Immigration & Migration History/Studies; Intellectual History; Philosophy; Religious Studies and Theology; Social History/Studies

Call for Papers: John Skene, the conference’s namesake and first known Freemason in the New World, arrived at a time of great intellectual change. The 2024 John Skene Masonic Conference theme is “The Scottish Enlightenment” and seeks to investigate the links between the Scottish Enlightenment, the Atlantic World, the American Revolution, and the Enlightenment more broadly. With the 1707 Acts of Union, Scottish elites followed the power to London, leaving space for the emerging middle class to take the cultural, political, and social reins. The intellectual movement that resulted included key concepts that would come to have an underappreciated impact on the modern world. Key to understanding this is the concurrent growth of Freemasonry, emerging in 1717 as English Freemasons established the first Grand Lodge.

Deadline: Friday, May 3.

Our annual conference seeks to explore the ways in which the Enlightenment in Scotland brought new ideas to the forefront and expanded the movement more broadly. Freemasonry’s concurrent expansion provided a network that shared a common cultural and intellectual lineage. How did these two movements interact? How did the Enlightenment in Scotland spread during the Scottish diaspora? And how did Freemasonry draw from Scottish intellectual roots to become a center of cosmopolitan colonial life in British North America?

Specifically we are looking for proposals that will fit into panels on:

▸ The Scottish Enlightenment

▸ The Scottish Enlightenment in America

▸ The Enlightenment in America

Magpie file photo

With this broad theme we hope to explore the connections between the Enlightenment and Freemasonry, and the Scottish Enlightenment as a specific movement spread by the Scottish diaspora. While papers dealing directly with Freemasonry are encouraged, the committee is seeking out speakers on broad topics of the Enlightenment in these contexts, particularly if the papers touch on prominent Masons/Masonic Lodges/networks.

Papers may be published in a possible joint volume of conference transactions.

The committee is looking for broad/introductory research on the following areas: Scottish Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment in America, New Jersey and the Enlightenment.

Conference Mission: The John Skene Masonic Conference is an annual event crossover conversation between Masons and those who study our gentle craft. Held in commemoration of John Skene, the first known Freemason in the New World, who settled in West Jersey at the end of the seventeenth century. Along with a memorial held at Peachfield, his plantation home outside Burlington, New Jersey, the conference aims to serve as an annual venue for research and conversation on the broader historical role Freemasonry has played within the New Jersey, colonial, American, and Atlantic contexts.

Regarding publication of the papers presented, part of the long conversation at our meeting yesterday culminated in the agreement to share these papers in the lodge’s book of transactions. In fact, the research lodge will serve as a sponsor of the August 24 event to help clear the legal, financial, etc. hurdles of organizing a complicated day. Of course, The Magpie Mason will keep you updated, including a notice when tickets go on sale.

But about the research lodge meeting: Bro. Glenn presented The Meaning of the Three Ruffians, which explored psychological, etymological, and other facets of the identities of You Know Who. Bro. Howard returned to the lectern in his usual style with Who Was the Widow’s Son? A Discourse on Confusion, which also delved into word origins, plus Biblical and ancient histories, excursions to Greece and Graceland, and even a mention of Groucho Marx. Well done!

      

‘Salon de la Rose + Croix returns’

    

The Salon de la Rose + Croix will return to the Livingston Library later this month for the lecture series. From the publicity:

Livingston Library

Live Lecture Series

March 27 at 7:30 p.m.

The Salon de la Rose + Croix

From Darkness to Light:

The Orphic and Rosicrucian

Path to Divine Unity

A philosophical and spiritual exploration through the Orphic mystery tradition and Rosicrucian thought, and the quest for divine unity. This lecture shares invaluable insights from ancient Greek culture and discusses hermetic and alchemical symbols, and artistic expressions that guide the soul from darkness to enlightenment and beyond.

The presenters are Tony Crisos and Ian Pedigo. 71 West 23rd Street, Manhattan. Tenth floor, French Ionic Room.

Tony Crisos

Tony Crisos is a versatile composer, guitarist, lyre player, philosopher, writer, and lecturer, holding a BA in Music Performance from Berklee College of Music and an MA in Music Education from Boston University. Deeply engaged with ancient Greek philosophy and religion, he founded the modern Salon De La Rose + Croix tradition at the Grand Lodge of New York. As a Hellenic priest in the initiatic lineage of Orpheus, he represents Spyridon Nagos’s lineage on ancient Greek tradition in the U.S. Tony has published extensively, notably revitalizing the Orphic tradition and the Pythagorean Harmony of the Spheres doctrine, and currently contributes as an independent researcher to the Interdisciplinary Society for Quantitative Research in Music and Medicine.

Ian Pedigo

Ian Pedigo has been a practicing visual artist for the past 25 years. He has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas. Since that time, he has made work and exhibited at galleries and museums both nationally and internationally, with shows in nine countries. His work has been written about in the New York Times and The New Yorker, among other publications, as well as a monograph of his work published in 2011.

     

‘Daily Masonic Progress starts now’

    

This morning begins the collaboration of Craftsmen Online and RW Bro. Darren Allatt of Australia, blogger and podcaster extraordinaire. He has been guiding his own audience through his production, “Daily Masonic Progress,” and now he joins Craftsmen Online’s podcast team. His segments will appear on Thursdays.

Craftsmen Online, while based in New York, is not an official voice of the Grand Lodge of New York, although that august authority endorses the independent platform. It was launched about four years ago, during the pandemic, by RW Steve Rubin, now our Deputy Grand Master, and W. Bro. Michael Arce, a veteran broadcaster of many years experience.

Darren Allatt is a Past Master of The Leichhardt Lodge 133, and is a Past Junior Grand Warden of the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales & Australian Capital Territory. He has been writing brilliantly on Substack for almost a year. I recommend his blog without any hesitation, mental reservation, etc.

With all that out of the way, you should listen to two episodes of the Craftsmen Online podcast unveiled this morning. Click here to enjoy a 27-minute Arce-Allatt interview. Click here to make your Daily Masonic Progress with the 10-minute debut.

    

‘Cole’s Constitutions?’

    

Donald-Kern paper

Benjamin Cole’s Constitutions actually was printed in 1729, but was ‘prepared in advance of Lord Kingston’s installation as Grand Master in December 1728,’ according to Ian Donald’s and Marshall Kern’s paper. (Interestingly, Kingston would become Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland a few years later.)

I learned of something Sunday night during a Zoom meeting of the Masonic Library and Museum Association. It arose from a side comment during a discussion about, of all things, insurance.

My own role during the meeting was to reveal the embryonic flatplan of the newsletter I’ll start producing for the association this month. That took two minutes and then we continued through the agenda. It was during a conversation about having valuables professionally appraised and insured that this unexpected gift materialized.

Bro. Ian Donald, Grand Librarian of the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario, mentioned how his library could not arrange insurance on irreplaceable treasures, such as its copy of Cole’s Constitutions.

My senses heightened—as whenever I suddenly detect the aroma of a Cavendish pipe mixture.

Cole’s Constitutions?

An interrupting question about it would have been untimely, so I jotted the name in my notes to look it up later. One item we find through a simple Google search is the paper “Benjamin Cole’s 1728 Constitutions: a footnote to Masonic history” written by the same Ian Donald and Ontario Grand Historian Marshall Kern (also in the Zoom meeting), with additional material by Ric Berman.

Find that here on Quatuor Coronati 2076’s Inventing the Future website.

Donald-Kern paper

“Benjamin Cole is relatively well known,” say the authors. “He was almost certainly born in Oxford, and lived and worked in Oxford and London. He was the first of three generations of the Cole family to work not only as engravers and printers, but also as official engravers to the Grand Lodge of England.”

“Cole’s 1728/9 Constitutions were reprinted in 1731 but the book failed to achieve widespread acceptance,” they also report. “It is relatively easy to understand why. Cole’s Constitutions harks back to the medieval Old Charges, including a duty ‘to be true to the King and the Lord that they serve,’ and a recital of principally operative obligations. It is in many respects at some distance from the Enlightenment principles and enjoinments expounded by Desaguliers, Payne, and Anderson in the 1723 Constitutions, and almost a regression towards the past rather than a pivot on which Freemasonry turned to the future.”

Donald-Kern paper

I want to see the book if for no other reason than to have ‘The Fairy Elves Song.’

A terrific paper about what sounds like an absorbing oddity. Check it out and maybe win a drink in a bet at the bar after a meeting sometime.

My thanks to Bro. Ian for mentioning it the other night.

     

‘Try a Lodge of Discussion’

    

T. Maccarone photo

Last Monday at Connetquot 838.

You’ve heard of “lodge of instruction” and “lodge of improvement” and “lodge of research” and maybe others, but a new term came my way last week: “lodge of discussion.”

That is what took place last Monday at Connetquot Lodge 838 on Long Island. I wasn’t there—wish I had been—and know only what was mentioned very briefly on social media by Deputy Grand Master Steven Rubin:

Members of the lodge engaged in a thoughtful conversation on the culture of their lodge and members’ expectations.

I’d bet that summarizes it succinctly, and I wouldn’t share the details of that conversation anyway. I just think it’s a marvelous idea for a night at lodge. I’m from a lodge founded by advertising professionals, so the activity strikes me as market research. Maybe trying this would help you. Give it a shot. We’re supposed to be mindful of membership retention. Talking over member expectations and lodge identity may prevent the loss of a brother.

     

‘Mecca marks a magician’s birth’

    

Mecca Shrine chose McSorley’s
for its premier First Friday bash.

The nobles of Mecca Shrine, the mother shrine of the entire Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine world, gathered at McSorley’s Friday night to commemorate the birth of one of their own.

As you’ll see on his Mecca petition, Houdini
called himself an author, lecturer, and mystifier.

Harry Houdini, one of the most famous celebrities of the early twentieth century, was a magician, illusionist, and escape artist whose exploits drew thousands who came to watch in an age when mass media meant newspapers.

History says Houdini’s birthdate was March 24,
but Houdini, on his Mecca petition, said April 6.

The 150th anniversary of Houdini’s birth will be March 24 April 6, but Mecca has a new inspiration to get together and party: First Fridays.

Just launched, on the first Friday of the month, the nobles and their ladies will convene somewhere for food and drinks, not unlike the Lucky 7 plan at Azim Grotto, when the prophets do likewise on the seventh day of the month (this Thursday, in fact, at the Trailer Park down the street from Masonic Hall).

Houdini was a Master Mason at St. Cecile Lodge 568.

I haven’t been there since before the pandemic.
Good to see it hasn’t changed!

I guess Thom ordered his ale off the kids menu.

Mecca says they donated an antique fez
to McSorley’s museum.

The photos speak for themselves. Good to see Deputy Grand Master Steve Rubin getting out of the house for once!

(The Magpie Mason is not a Shriner. I had been with Salaam many years ago. What happened was the Knights of the North had a demit contest and—just to get on the scoreboard, y’understand—I gave up the Shrine and Sciots.)

All photos courtesy Mecca Shrine 1.

     

‘Show & Tell at research lodge’

    

Looks like a fun idea for a research lodge meeting next Saturday: an exhibition of pieces from a brother’s own Masonic treasures. From the publicity:

Western New York

Lodge of Research

Show and Tell:

A Personal Masonic Collection

by RW Dan DiNatale

Saturday, March 9 at 10 a.m.

Valley of Buffalo

Cheektowaga, New York

and Zoom (click here)

This research lodge maintains a busy schedule. While it tiles two Communications per year (in May and November), it holds monthly meetings with speakers addressing a variety of subjects. Visit its website for the specifics.

Sign up and join. Dues cost fifteen bucks!

     

‘Lady Mason story optioned for TV’

    

Great news from the world of books: Doneraile Court, Kathleen Aldworth Foster’s novel based on the life of “The Lady Mason,” Elizabeth St. Leger, has been optioned for adaptation for television.

It’s an entertaining story that bridges, however improbably, Masonic history and the Young Adult genre of fiction. (I have a review of the book somewhere in the stack at The Journal of the Masonic Society, if we ever get to publishing again.) From the publicity:

Lady Freemason Book

Optioned for TV Series

CORK, IRELAND - Great Island Productions, a TV production company based in Cork, Ireland has announced a major deal with author Kathleen Aldworth Foster to adapt her historical fiction novel Doneraile Court: The Story of The Lady Freemason into a TV series.

The book option agreement marks an exciting new chapter for the riveting, 300-year-old tale of Elizabeth St. Leger Aldworth, who was known as The Lady Freemason. “This is not just another story we’re bringing to life,” said Mark Kenny, CEO of Great Island Productions. “This is a captivating narrative about a trailblazing Irish woman that’s a thriller, mystery, and love story set against the backdrop of Doneraile Court in County Cork.”

Foster’s novel centers around an incident that took place in the home in 1712. Elizabeth, the daughter of 1st Viscount Doneraile Arthur St. Leger, was caught one night spying on Freemasons during a ritual. The gripping tale leads to unexpected twists and turns as the men are forced to make a life-or-death decision. Spoiler alert: The real Elizabeth was spared and later married her savior, Richard Aldworth of Newmarket.

Kathleen Aldworth Foster

“I wanted to delve deeper into the mystery of this courageous woman and her highly unusual involvement with the ever-secretive Freemasons, which is still primarily an all-male fraternity,” said Kathleen Aldworth Foster, an American of Irish heritage. “The story has captivated me ever since my first visit to Ireland in 2006 while tracing my own Aldworth family roots in County Cork.”

The Georgian mansion, Doneraile Court, is the centerpiece of Doneraile Estate and Wildlife Park, which is owned and operated by Ireland’s Office of Public Works. The park and house are top attractions in County Cork. The house is open for tours in the summer after extensive renovations in recent years.

“Our partnership with Kathleen underscores our shared passion for engaging storytelling and historical intrigue,” says Great Island CFO/CTO Jim Robinson, who is also an actor. “As plans unfold for adapting The Story of The Lady Freemason into a TV series, audiences can look forward to experiencing a unique blend of drama and history that also addresses issues of gender and inequality still relatable today.”

Great Island Productions is committed to bringing original content from Cork and Munster to global audiences through innovative storytelling across various genres.

     

‘The Grand Master is a Chap’

    

Click here.

Prince Michael of Kent is the subject of Wednesday night’s Chap’s Guide video.

This study of His Royal Highness’ sartorial triumphs—look at those ties!—makes no mention of his Masonic life, but you know he is one of two members of the royal family affiliated with Freemasonry. HRH Prince Michael is the M.W. Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of England and Wales. If I’m not mistaken, the video misstates details of his ancestry and the HRH style, but here it’s the clothes that make the man.

(In real life, it’s a bad week for Prince Michael. His son-in-law, Thomas Kingston, died Sunday.)

This video is the second in two weeks to mention Freemasons. On February 14, host Ash Jones critiqued the dressing style of a Bro. Ryan in Australia. (Click here and forward to the ten-minute mark.)

Click here.

As I understand it, if there’s a third video highlighting a Mason, Jones himself will have to be initiated.

     

‘Lawyer advocates for Masonic remedy for loneliness’

    

Dall-e/attorneyatwork.com

Last August, columnist Bull Garlington wrote a piece for Medium that expresses his alarm at the isolation and loneliness confronting the young people of Generation Z—and that prescribes membership in Freemasonry as a fix. He published a modified version of this essay yesterday in Attorney at Work, where he also is on the masthead, and this version has been circulating on social media, which is how I found it.

Bro. Bull Garlington

“I was talking to my therapist about how I worry that my adult kids are so isolated,” he begins yesterday’s column. “I told him that all of them—my nieces and nephews too, that whole generation—are the loneliest people I’ve ever seen. Turns out I’m late to the party. Or total lack of a party.”

He links to a few studies that illustrate his point before revealing how joining an unidentified Masonic lodge “saved my lonely ass.” In brief, there came a point in life when he left the workforce to raise the children while Mrs. Garlington became a lawyer and the family’s provider, and they relocated to a different part of the country. Losing his social circle, Bull was at risk of going “completely bonkers.”

He phoned an uncle to talk about the crisis of having no friends or family nearby; Uncle said “You need to get the hell out of the house. Find a lodge.”

I’ll stop here and leave it to you to read the familiar description that you probably could write yourselves. Click here for yesterday’s column. Click here for the August 2023 original.

     

‘Ten questions for Freemasons’

    

William O. Ware Lodge of Research in Kentucky is circulating another questionnaire—the eighth—in its continuing Voices of Freemasonry study of Freemasons and our priorities for the Craft’s future.

Bro. Dan Kemble, who I had the good luck to meet when the Masonic Society held a weekend conference in Lexington in 2017, sent the link Thursday to The American Lodge of Research, which recently elected Dan to Active Membership, and Dan gives me permission to share it.

So click here.

(To read the previous seven surveys, click here.)

     

‘Freemason-Vatican dialog begins’

    

Life Site News

“Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.”

Winston Churchill

1954

Masonic and Vatican sources announced last week how a recent conference in Milan at the Ambrosianeum Cultural Foundation has led to a “mutual understanding” that may lead to future talks.

The February 16 meeting, organized by the Socio-Religious Research and Information Group, was attended by the grand masters of the Grand Orient of Italy, the Grand Lodge of Italy, and the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy; and by Vatican officials.

It was last November when the Vatican reaffirmed its centuries-long prohibition on Roman Catholics being Freemasons, prompted by queries from clergy in the Republic of the Philippines. That news made more headlines than this event, which was closed to journalists, and most of what’s available online so far is in Italian, but there are websites of varying tolerance to Freemasonry reporting it.

National Catholic Register offers what impresses me as a fair description.

Addressing the Milan meeting on the theme “The Catholic Church and Freemasonry,” Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmiero, 85, reportedly said he believed ‘an evolution in mutual understanding’ had taken place between Masonry and the Church over the past 50 years. ‘Things have moved on, and I hope these meetings don’t stop there,’ said the retired Italian prelate, according to Il Messaggero, quoting sources present at the meeting.

La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana which, fortunately, offers some of its content in English as the Daily Compass, gives the headline:

Freemasonry wants a ‘mea culpa,’

Catholic Church commits

examination of conscience

The story, by Editor in Chief Riccardo Cascioli, says our Masonic brethren “all defended the compatibility of Freemasonry with the Catholic faith: Bisi recounted how his growth in the Catholic sphere led him to join the Grand Orient; Romoli ranged from Sant’Anselmo to Cardinal Zuppi; Venzi stressed how English rituals have been Christian since their origins.”

About the other side of the table, Cascioli reports:

“In the face of these clear and well-considered presentations, the Catholic counterpart was disconcerting. In the collaborative atmosphere of the meeting, the intervention of poor Father Sucheki, who had prepared a learned report on the Church’s pronouncements against Freemasonry, appeared only as a due act, moreover also somewhat snubbed by Bishop Staglianò, who appeared intolerant of the reminders of doctrine. Archbishop Delpini, who, after imposing the date, time, and conditions of the meeting, showed up 45 minutes late. And Cardinal Coccopalmerio pretended to know nothing about Freemasonry, but in different words they said the same things, two in particular: satisfaction for this ‘meeting between people’ and not between opposing acronyms, and the need to continue and intensify these meetings, perhaps with a ‘permanent table,’ as Coccopalmerio pointed out.”

Part of the Masonic presentation entailed asking why Pope Francis’ famous “Who am I to judge?” statement in 2013, a conciliation to gay people and divorcees, could not have extended to Freemasons.

Bishop Antonio Staglianò is quoted in the Daily Compass(!) saying: “we need a healthy sapiential theology—a theology capable of thinking critically about everything, of responding also to the critical instances of universal reason, because we live in a world where if you do not dialogue you risk being absolutely out of the world. Sapiential means that it knows how to unite science and wisdom of life.”

“Isn’t that clear?,” Cascioli writes in conclusion. “It doesn’t matter, what one must understand is that in the end on the ‘wisdom of life,’ one can also collaborate with Freemasons, in good works and for the common good. Mercy rains down on everyone anyway.”

     

‘Visit Cleopatra’s Needle on Tuesday’

    

The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts’ 26th District will host a lodge of instruction next Tuesday that will be open to the public (sort of) for a discussion by a New Jersey Freemason on the subject of an ancient Egyptian monument that is on display in New York City. From the publicity, courtesy of Bro. Dagoberto:

Grand Lodge of Massachusetts

26th District Lodge of Instruction

Tuesday, February 27 at 7 p.m.

Register here for the Zoom

Prepare to embark on an enlightening journey through time and symbolism with our program on the enigmatic Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, New York City.

Join us as we delve into the mystical symbolism of this ancient artifact, exploring its Masonic connections in its winding journey from the sun-drenched temples of Egypt to the bustling streets of New York.

Worshipful Brother Victor Moschella of Republican Lodge was entered, passed, and raised in Wilkins-Eureka-Continental Lodge 37 in New Jersey in 2003. He has presided in the East in all three York Rite bodies as well as his AMD council, and has received national recognition for distinguished service to the Craft in several of the York Rite bodies. He is a Past Most Excellent President of the Grand Convention of Anointed High Priests for the State of New Jersey, and is a member of the Silver Trowel and KYCH.

     

‘Bro. Norton and Masonry’s universality’

    

Click here to register.

Late afternoon on a Thursday might not be the most attractive timing for an online presentation, but our speaker is domiciled in Budapest where it’ll be 10 p.m. If he can do it, you can too.

Peter Lanchidi is an art historian who has found his way into the study of Masonic history via, as I understand it, a Judaic prism, writing in the academic world about Kabbalistic art and, maybe unusually, the challenge of practicing religious tolerance in the fraternity.

I’m told the story of Jacob Norton, a Massachusetts Mason in the nineteenth century, is well known about the apartments of the Temple in the Bay State, so the rest of us can profit from this upcoming discussion. From the publicity:

Jews, Freemasons,

and a Nineteenth Century

Debate on Universality

Thursday, March 14

4 p.m. Eastern

Presented by Dr. Peter Lanchidi

There is a notable history of American Jewish engagement with the Freemasons. In this talk, Dr. Peter Lanchidi will shed light on the meaning and relevance of Freemasonry for American Jewry, and share the story of Jacob Norton, a Jewish Mason in Boston, and a debate he found himself at the center of when he presented a petition to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1851 concerning the role of religion within the Masonic brotherhood. Dr. Lanchidi will address the skirmish that followed, pitting universalist Jewish (and non-Jewish) brethren against conservative Christian Masons, as well as the broader context regarding the appeal of Freemasonry for American Jews.

Click here to register.

Peter Lanchidi is a tenured Assistant Professor in the Institute of Art History at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. As an Azrieli Fellow, he earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva. With background in art history and aesthetics (BA) from Budapest and Jewish studies (MA) from Stockholm and Heidelberg, his research focuses on the interface between Freemasonry and Kabbalah in visual material in the nineteenth century and its historical and cultural contexts.  

     

‘Exploring Plato’s Cave’

    

thoughtco

Maryland Masonic Research Society just announced a change of format for its meetings. Starting next month, the speaker-at-a-lectern program will be replaced with group discussion. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” will be examined. From the publicity:

Maryland Masonic

Research Society

Saturday, March 16 at 11 a.m.

Silver Spring Lodge 215

RSVP here

As we start our 45th year, we are changing our meeting format. In discussion with others, it was mentioned that a lot of Masonic events focus on a presentation but were light on discussion. This year, we will meet as a “book club” or “study group.”

There will be a reading, or selection of readings, of Masonic interest with a discussion leader. The goal is to have full participation with a group of knowledge-seekers discussing Masonic topics.

Our first meeting will focus on Plato and be led by Ed Johnson, Past President of MMRS. Suggested reading: Plato’s Republic, Book VII. Topic: “Allegory of the Cave.”

On occasion, this allegory has been said to be analogous to the three degrees of Freemasonry.  

     

‘The Story of Prince Hall—Told by Prince Hall’

    

Bro. Prince Hall will return to Odenton Lodge 209 in Maryland this spring. Not the real Prince Hall of course, but RW Stanley Conyer re-enacting “In Search of Light.”

     

‘Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?’

    

Click to enlarge.

Lunch is on me if you are able to research, write, and present an essay on the Brother Freemason mentioned in the newspaper story above.

This offer is open to members in good standing of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786, and the offer expires December 31 of this year. Expected is a biographical accounting of Rev. Sheville within and without Freemasonry. Original writing, thousand words minimum, proper citations as endnotes.

The newspaper clipping comes from the Thursday, August 13, 1873 edition of the Lawrence Daily Journal in Kansas.

After our meetings, we retire to a steak house around the corner for lunch, so a steak meal is on me. If you’re a vegetarian, have chicken or something. I don’t know.

     

‘Table Lodge: Freemasonry in Finland’

    

Finland Embassy

The American Lodge of Research is reviving our tradition of hosting a table lodge annually, so plan to join us Tuesday, March 26 as we begin New York’s hundredth anniversary celebration of the Grand Lodge of Finland.

Richard T. Schulz

Come to Masonic Hall’s French Ionic Room at 7:30 p.m. Right Worshipful Richard T. Schulz, Grand Secretary, will deliver the keynote, discussing Grand Lodge’s role in re-establishing Freemasonry in Finland after that nation secured its independence from Russia following World War I because. . .

March 26 will be the hundredth anniversary of the request by New York’s lodges in Finland for permission to organize their own sovereign grand lodge.

The dining fee is only $60 per person. Click here to book your seats.

Click here.

The Grand Lodge of New York will celebrate the centenary of the Grand Lodge of Finland mightily this year, including with a lengthy trip to The Land of the Thousand Lakes in September. I like to think of this ALR table lodge as the kick-off of New York’s salute to Finland.

I’ll bring the aquavit (and, no, you can’t mix it with anything).

     

‘MAGI is here!’

    

They’d been teasing it for an interminable three weeks but, several hours ago, Bob Cooper and Mark Tabbert finally gave us the gift of M.A.G.I.

A podcast, Masonic Authors’ Guild International is “for educational purposes and perhaps entertainment.” I’ll just share the publicity:

Welcome to the Masonic Authors’ Guild International (MAGI), where each week two historians review and critique books and other productions focused on Freemasonry, as well as discuss broader issues in historical research. Our mission is to promote the highest professional and academic standards in Masonic research, education, and publications. These podcasts begin the Guild’s mission by reviewing those that do, or do not, uphold high academic standards, and explain why they do, or do not.

The Guild members are Robert Cooper, Curator Emeritus of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, who lives in Edinburgh; and Mark Tabbert, former Curator at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia, who lives in Iowa. Both have published significant academic historical research, and have contributed to Masonic journals and magazines. Together they have more than 65 years as Freemasons, and are members of numerous Masonic research societies and Masonic lodges in Europe and North America.

For this launch, they very wisely uploaded five episodes of the podcast for our enlightenment, including examinations of David Stevenson of Scotland and Joseph Fort Newton of Iowa.

Click here and share the link with your brethren.

(Jesus wept. I hope they don’t critique this blog.)

     

‘Justice.’

    

Masonic Exchange Store

“Justice, the boundary of right, constitutes the cement of civil society. This virtue, in a great measure, constitutes real goodness and is therefore represented as the perpetual study of the accomplished Mason. Without the exercise of justice, universal confusion would ensue, lawless force might overcome the principles of equity, and social intercourse no longer exist.”

William Preston

Illustrations of Masonry

Eighth Edition, 1792

Page 55

“The law of Justice is as universal a one as the law of Attraction; though we are very far from being able to reconcile all the phenomena of Nature with it. The lark has the same right, in our view, to live, to sing, to dart at pleasure through the ambient atmosphere, as the hawk has to ply his strong wings in the Summer sunshine, and yet the hawk pounces on and devours the harmless lark, as it devours the worm, and as the worm devours the animalcule; and, so far as we know, there is nowhere, in any future state of animal existence, any compensation for this apparent injustice.”

Albert Pike

Morals and Dogma

“Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander”

Page 829

“Justice as between man and man, and as between man and the animals below him, is that which, under and according to the God-created relations existing between them, and the whole aggregate of circumstances surrounding them, is fit and right and proper to be done, with a view to the general as well as to the individual interest.”

Ibid., Page 831

“A sense of justice belongs to human nature, and is a part of it. Men find a deep, permanent, and instinctive delight in justice, not only in the outward effects, but in the inward cause, and by their nature love this law of right, this reasonable rule of conduct, this justice, with a deep and abiding love. Justice is the object of the conscience, and fits it as light fits the eye and truth the mind.”

Ibid., Page 833

“The selfish, the grasping, the inhuman, the fraudulently unjust, the ungenerous employer, and the cruel master, are detested by the great popular heart; while the kind master, the liberal employer, the generous, the humane, and the just have the good opinion of all men, and even envy is a tribute to their virtues. Men honor all who stand up for truth and right, and never shrink.”

Ibid., Page 836