dly Apathy Michael R. Poll
The Journal
have ently I ank while d that it enough ged when ounted next day, the floor severed at the n to the hospital the doctors gave grene had set into that if he had not he would have d that if he had ove the arm, it The poison would y and nothing then man’s life was took action, but
all read or heard stories of individuals who have taken drastic steps to save their own lives read of a man who was doing some repair work on his water heater. He needed to reach fa lying on his back. While working in that position, his arm became wedged in the tank and was impossible to remove it. He screamed for help, but was alone in the house and no one outside to hear his cries. The man had spent several days trapped with his arm hopelessly he noticed a disturbing smell coming from inside the tank and around his arm. The man la that instinct must have taken over. He managed to reach a saw and began to cut off his arm several family members – concerned at not being able to reach him – found him unconsci in a pool of blood, elbow. The man w where he recovered him a sobering rep his arm, and he wa removed it when h died. The doctors a waited any longer t would have been to have spread throug would have saved h saved not just beca when he took actio
ined Masonry in number of my Masons, I knew osophy or history ew was that it was ok my joining to nt. Such ignorance masonry prior e of the exception y of the young dy know much read the popular, Freemasonry. of the Lodge derful, mysterious, p of seekers. They part of such an is not exactly what join.
the mid-’70s. Whil family members ha next to nothing of t of Freemasonry. Al a “good” organizat find out what “goo of the philosophy o to joining is becom than the rule today. men who join Mas of its philosophy. T new and exciting b They arrive at the with an awareness moral and enlighte want to share in an organization. But, s they always find w
Of The Masonic Society
numbers of demits, NPD, and participation are growing at an alarm The new reports paint a dismal pictu new members are coming fast, and sometimes in very good numbers, but we seem to be having trouble keeping them. So, why i ening and what do we do? 2011 Summer Issue 13
t seems to be happening is the young men come to Freemasonry with an idea of what it should be and find that it is something v rent. Many come with the hopes of finding enlightening discussions, intellectual programs designed to lift us to new heights and arn more of ourselves and our world. Yet, sometimes all they find is “good ole boys” seeking to add another title, gain a bit more
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Summer 2011
12
OF THE
The Babylonean Temptation: Perils of Masonic Research
MASONIC SOCIETY WWW.THEMASONICSOCIETY.COM
by Michael Halleran
ISSN 2155-4145
Editor in Chief Christopher L. Hodapp Phone: 317-842-1103 editor@themasonicsociety.com
17
Freemasonry’s African Image Problem
1427 W. 86th Street, Suite 248 Indianapolis IN 46260-2103
By Christopher L. Hodapp, fms
Editorial Committee Jay Hochberg - Submissions Editor Randy Williams - Assistant Editor
21
The Symbolism of Journeys
Submit articles by email to: articles@themasonicsociety.com
by Leon Zeldis, fms
Officers Michael R. Poll, President John R. Cline, 1st Vice President James R. Dillman, 2nd Vice President Nathan C. Brindle, Secretary/Treasurer Christopher L. Hodapp, Editor-in-Chief
These guidelines apply to the reuse of articles, figures, charts and photos in the Journal of The Masonic Society. Authors need NOT contact the Journal to obtain rights to reuse their own material. They are automatically granted permission to do the following: Reuse the article in print collections of their own writing; Present a work orally in its entirety; Use an article in a thesis and/or dissertation; Reuse a figure, photo and/or table in future commercial and noncommercial works; Post a copy of the article electronically. Please note that Authors must include the following citation when using material that appeared in the Journal: “This article was originally published in The Journal of The Masonic Society. Author(s). Title. Journal Name. Year; Issue:pp-pp. © the Journal of The Masonic Society.” Apart from Author’s use, no material appearing in the Journal of The Masonic Society may be reprinted or electronically distributed without the written permission of the Editor. Published quarterly by The Masonic Society Inc. 1427 W. 86th Street, Suite 248, Indianapolis IN 46260-2103. Full membership for Master Masons in good standing of a lodge chartered by a grand lodge that is a member of the Conference of Grand Masters of Masons of North America (CGMMNA), or recognized by a CGMMNA member grand lodge. (includes Prince Hall Grand Lodges recognized by their counterpart CGMMNA state Grand Lodge): $39/ yr., ($49 outside US/Canada). Subscription for nonmembers: $39/yr., ($49 outside US/Canada). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Journal of The Masonic Society, 1427 W. 86th Street, Suite 248, Indianapolis IN 46260-2103 © 2011 by The Masonic Society, Inc. All rights reserved. The MS circle and quill logo, and the name “The Masonic Society” are trademarks of The Masonic Society, Inc. and all rights are reserved.
Issue 13
FEATURES
THE JOURNAL
Directors Ronald Blaisdell Kenneth W. Davis Andrew Hammer Jay Hochberg James W. Hogg Mark Tabbert Randy Williams
22 St. Edmund’s Masonic Church
by Philip Coppens, photos by Andy Marshall 22
26
Masonic Ethics By Bob Weed, mms
29
2011 List of Masonic research Lodges
SECTIONS 4 President’s Message 6 News of the Society
MASONIC TREASURES 36 WWI’s Masonic headquarters
7 Conferences, Speeches,
36 Symposia & Gatherings
8 Masonic News 31 Books, Arts, Styles & Manners 35 From the Editor
COVER: This issue’s cover features original artwork by Brother John Bridegroom.
SUMMER 2011 • 3
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Two Centuries in Louisiana by Michael R. Poll, FMS
This past June the Scottish Rite Orient of Louisiana celebrated the 200th anniversary of the creation of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana with 4 days of extraordinary lectures and historic meetings. The main lectures were held at the Royal Sonesta hotel in the heart of the French Quarter, but lectures and tours were also held at the celebrated Cabildo, the Valley of New Orleans and Etoile Polaire Lodge #1. Scottish Rite lectures were given by Bros. Jean Jacques Zambrowski, Marc Conrad, Michael R. Poll, Daniel Castoriano, Pete Normand, Wayne E. Sirmon, Timothy Roberts, S. Brent Morris, Ion Lazar and Michael Carpenter. The public event also featured addresses given on Masonic related subjects by non-Masonic scholars such as noted author Michael Tisserand and McNeese State University Proffessor Philippe R. Girard.
BILL MOLLERE, TIM ROBERTS AND CHIP BORNE of Louisiana be converted into a statutory consistory of the Valley of New Orleans. I outlined the required procedure and our Grand Secretary General processed the necessary papers. Grand Consistories were inagurated when communications over long distances were difficult. Later they were found to be impediment to effective administration so became outmoded. All except Louisiana had been converted into statutory consistories. There is no longer any sanction under our Statues for a Grand Consistory. “ The Grand Consistory of Louisiana was created in 1811 by three SGIG’s under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of Kingston, Jamaica. The first 50 years of its existence were extraordinarily active. During that time the Grand Consistory passed under the jurisdiction of an amazing five different Supreme Councils. In 1842, the Grand Consistory passed under the jurisdiction of the newly created Supreme Council of Louisiana (created in 1839). This was a time of great division in Louisiana Masonry in both the York as well as Scottish Rites. It was during this period that negotiations began between half of the Supreme Council of Louisiana and the Supreme Council, SJUSA. In 1855, a Concordat was entered into between this half of the Louisiana Supreme Council and the Southern Jurisdiction. The remaining half of the Louisiana Supreme Council refused to
S. BRENT MORRIS But, what is the world is a “Grand Consistory”?? In the early days of the Scottish Rite, a Grand Consistory was a supervisory body of the AASR in areas which might be considered “far away.” They were not quite a Supreme Council, but higher in rank than a Consistory – or, a body of 32nd degree Scottish Rite Masons. The Grand Consistory of Louisiana was the Southern Jurisdiction’s last (and oldest) Grand Consistory. In the 1973 Transactions of the Supreme Council, 33º for the Southern Jurisdiction, USA (page 46), Sovereign Grand Commander Henry C. Clausen, wrote: “For multiple reasons, I directed that the Grand Consistory 4 • SUMMER 2011
LAURA AND PETE NORMAND
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participate and continued their existence as a Supreme Council. Fraternal Relations between the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and the Supreme Council of Louisiana were severed and the few history books speaking of the Supreme Council of Louisiana suggest that they died off sometime in the late 1800’s. History books are not always correct, and while most believed that the Supreme Council of Louisiana died, they did continue to work, survive and practice Scottish rite Masonry. Their “rediscovery” a few years back made clear that we have much to learn about Masonic history. Back when The Masonic Society was just being formed, the SJ’s SGIG for Louisiana, Bill Mollere, decided that a celebration for the birthday of Louisiana famed Grand Consistory was in order. He named MWBro. Clayton J. Borne, III, PGM (and TMS Founding Fellow) as the Chairman of the Committee to organize the celebration. Yours truly was invited to serve on this committee along with another TMS Founding Fellow, Marc Conrad. We felt that a historic symposium with quality lectures and a meaningful venue was in order. MICHAEL R. POLL The Committee would like to invite you and members of your Council to participate, attend and present information, papers and reports on any activities, events and material that will allow better understanding of the rich Scottish Rite heritage in New Orleans during the June 2011 celebration. We all look forward to open communication with you on this, and certainly to your involvement and participation in the celebration. Sincerely and fraternally yours, William J. Mollere, 33º, Sovereign Grand Inspector General”
JEAN JACQUES ZAMBROWSKI But, who would be invited? The idea was to celebrate the development of early Scottish Rite Masonry in Louisiana. We knew who should be invited, but would that happen? When the subject of the Supreme Council of Louisiana was given to Bill Mollere, he jumped on it immediately saying that they “had” to addend. On April 18, 2010, Ill. William J. Mollere, 33º, SGIG in Louisiana wrote a letter of invitation to Ill. Philip Washington, Sr., 33º Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana to attend the Bicentennial Symposium. I had the honor of hand delivering that letter. The letter read in part:
The Bicentennial Symposium was a hands down success by every measure of “success.” In attendance were representatives of 5 different Supreme Councils (SJ, NMJ, Louisiana, France & Honduras). For the first time in history, members of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, the Supreme Council, SJUSA and the Supreme Council of Louisiana met together in any sort of setting. It was a magical experience. The level of brotherhood (while not a tiled event) could be felt by all. TMS Robert Blackburn wrote of the event: “The recent conference on Scottish Rite Masonry in Louisiana was more than a gathering on a single topic or theme; it was an opportunity to be immersed in a particularly rich and complex Masonic heritage which only a city like New Orleans could produce. “ Enough credit can not be given to MWBro. Chip Borne for the outstanding, and extremely tiring, job he did to bring the event together and make it such a huge success. The Masonic Society was a proud co-sponsor of this event. The educational value and brotherhood that was created by this special symposium was treasured by all.
“According to letters and correspondence in the files at the Scottish Rites’ Washington, DC headquarters, the Supreme Council of Louisiana had been connected to Scottish Rite history and tradition in New Orleans many years ago. However, communications seems to have ceased in the early 1900’s. Our Bicentennial Committee feels a great deal of Scottish Rite Masonry’s shared history and traditions have since been lost. SUMMER 2011 • 5
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
News of the Society ith great pride and appreciation, The Masonic Society welcomes the following brethren as our esteemed new members from April 1st through June 30th, 2011. Matthew J. Appel Michael Atha Daniel R. Bennett Dennis W. Berry E. N. Blue William Brotherson John Michael Burch Germán Cardona Müller Carey B. Carter Adrian M Castro Kevin J Catanzaro Scot A. Cooler James T Dean Jr. W. Joel Derrick Allan F Derrington Shawn D’Ignazio Grant Dixon Garry RH Dryburgh
Lawrence K. Fielden Jonathan D Foster Terrell V Goertz Donald R. Goolsby Jamie H Gorton Max Gregory Robert M Hames Charles A. Hartley Michael C Hendrick Mark D High Jeffrey Hollembeak Aaron R Horner Timmy Ivey Brenden D Jackson Michael Scott Jenkins Jamie J Juteau Matthew Thomas King A. I. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong
Peter Alan Lake Christopher Michael Leary John E. Leide Thomas E. Lorente III Stuart MacDonald Maurice J. Marshall Jeffrey Davis Maynor Harold T McCormick III Robert E. McGill Walter William Melnyk Maurice A Mitchell Jeffrey Paul Modzelewski David Forrest Mowrey Eric T Nelson Gene T. Nelson Thomas Nesbit Randy D Newberry Terry W Newell
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on’t forget to check our calendar and announcements page on the Masonic Society website at www.themasonicsociety.com. And please remember to submit your events to the link found on the website so we can continue to keep the Masonic world up to date with what’s happening in your neck of the woods. •
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he U.K. Ireland Symposium scheduled for July 1-3, 2011 has been canceled due to lack of advance reservations. We hope to reschedule this event. •
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he Editor apologizes for the tardiness of this issue as the entire editorial board has been stricken with health or personal challenges this summer. Issue 14 will be back on schedule in early Fall.
Renew your membership now online at www.themasonicsociety.com
6 • SUMMER 2011
Timothy Scott Nicely Alfred Stinard Larry Nunez Michael St-Laurent Dennis N Oakland Dr. Bojan Milorad Stricevic David Oliver Robert J Tallon Martin Ortiz Jules S. Tepper David J Perry James T Terry Douglas A. Price Frank William Thewes Scott Riebel Terry W Thomas David Alan Roberts Steven Kent Vedra Charles Robert Rogers Justin Matthew Vermillion Alan Brian Rothenberg Tim Ward Raul Salcedo Leston Watson Dr. Leonard G Seymour Ph.D. Bryant A. Wellman Dr. Stanley W. Shapiro Kirk Cloyde White Charles D Simmons Rares Iulian Simu Nathan D Smithson Steven Mitchell Stein
IN MEMORIAM
R
ichard Marion Luther was born May 7, 1926, on his grandfathers homestead farm south of Baxter, Iowa, to Richard E. and Arnetta G. (Orr) Luther. He attended Independence No. 6 country school, and graduated from Newton High School. He served in the U.S. Air Force from June 1945 until December 1946. He received his bachelors and masters degrees from SDSU and his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. Richard worked as a wool handler for the Iowa Sheep and Wool Growers Association and then became the Shepherd at SDSU. His work at SDSU involved teaching and research in the Animal Science department. After 32 years of service he retired as Professor of Animal Science in 1987, and was named Professor Emeritus. Richard had a wide variety of interests including gardening, photography, genealogy, antiques, and collecting carpentry and blacksmithing tools. He was a member of the American Legion, Ascension Lutheran Church and Rotary International for over 43 years. He served as president of the Brookings and South Dakota Genealogical Society. Richard was a dedicated member of Masonic organizations for over 60 years. He joined Newton Lodge No. 59 in Newton, Iowa, in 1947, served as Master of Brookings Lodge No. 24 in 1969 and as Grand Master of Masons in South Dakota in 1995. He took leadership roles in the York Rite bodies in South Dakota, and many other Masonic organizations including the South Dakota Lodge of Masonic Research, the Midwest Conference on Masonic Education, Philatheles Society, Knights of the York Cross of Honor, York Rite College, Red Cross of Constantine, Scottish Rite, the Order of the Eastern Star, Jobs Daughters, and Shriners. He joined the Masonic Society in June 2009. Survivors include three children: Linda (Charles) Bies of Andover, Minnesota, Carol (David) Swisher of Brookings, and Eric (Karla) Luther of Marshall, Minnesota; and seven grandchildren: Philip Bies, Tyler Bies, Nicholas Swisher, James Swisher, Austin Luther, Jackson Luther, and Regan Luther. He was preceded in death by two infant brothers and a sister, Mary Perry. RIP.
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Conferences, Speeches, Symposia & Gatherings July 14, 2011 Scottish Rite Research Guild, Valley of South Bend, Indiana. Kevin Townley will speak on “Restoration of Masonic Geometry and Symbolry,” the recently reprinted classic text authored by Henry P.H. Bromwell. 8 p.m. July 14-16, 2011 Rocky Mountain Masonic Conference Speakers: David Heathcote, Brent Morris, Cliff Porter. Salt Lake City, UT See website for details: http://www. utahgrandlodge.org/RMMC2011/ July 14-15, 2011 The Masonic Society Semi-Annual Meeting Salt Lake Masonic Temple, 650 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers include Pete Normand, Glen Cook, Dr. Jay Williams, Dr. Kenneth Davis, and GM John Liley Jr. $75, includes banquet and conference events. Both members of the Society and non-members are welcome to register and attend. July 17-18, 2011 Maine Masonic College Second Annual Convocation, Hollywood Slots, Bangor. “Our Quest For Vision: A Dialog with Ritual” Featuring Bro. John Nagy, Life Coach and author of Building Hiram, Building Boaz, Building Athens, and Building Janus. With Bro. Richard Curtis, Retired Editor, The Northern Light and many more! August 11, 2011 Maine Masonic College. “Vitruvius” - Walter M. Macdougall, PGM - Bangor Masonic Center. 6:30pm to 9:30pm. http://www.MaineMasonicCollege.com/
September 28-2, 2011 The Masonic Library + Museum Association Meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Hosted by the Grand Lodge of Manitoba. Information at http://www.masoniclibraries.org October 1, 2011 Civil War Lodge of Research No. 1865, Saltville, Virginia Location and time TBA. October 1, 2011 Boynton Lodge Esoteric Research Group. “Building Builders” Masonic Seminar featuring guest speaker Dr. John S. Nagy. This is a Master Mason Only Event -- dues card and ID will be required for entry. For more information and to purchase tickets, please see http://nagy.eventbrite.com/ . October 1, 2011 Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research, U.D. Quarterly meeting of Indiana’s Lodge of Research. . For more information see http://indianalodgeofresearch. com October 8, 2011 Scottish Rite Research Guild, Valley of South Bend, Indiana Bro. Michael Halleran will speak on “Freemasonry in the Civil War”. Lunch will follow lecture then the exemplification of the 26th degree will commence. ** Degree can only be witnessed by current or petitioned Scottish Rite Masons. ** Please see the website for further information. Website: http://www.southbendscottishrite.org/events. php
August 19-21, 2011 Masonic Restoration Foundation Symposium The 2nd Annual Symposium of the Masonic Restoration Foundation will be held in Alexandria, Virginia, under the auspices of Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, located at the George Washington Masonic Memorial. Keynote: Julian Rees, UGLE. Speakers: Robert G. Davis, Shawn Eyer, Andrew Hammer, Pierre G. Normand, Cliff Porter, Paul Jacob Roberts, Mark Tabbert, Douglas Wood. Info: http://aw22.org/mrf
October 15, 2011 Valley of the Hudson, AASR-NMJ, Poughkeepsie, NY Lodge of Perfection Reunion, with all 11 degrees to be conferred with the assistance of other Valleys in the area.
August 20, 2011 The 40th Eblin’s Cave Degree, Kingston, TN. A California MM Degree will be conferred by Pleasanton Lodge No. 321. http://www.union38.org
August 28-30, 2011 Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction Supreme Council Annual Session, Chicago, IL
October 16-18, 2011 Centennial Cornerstone Ceremony, House of the Temple, Washington DC. $100 for Scottish Rite Masons and their family, $200 for non-members. October 16th17th events are limited to just 200 attendees. Oct 18th Reenactment is open to the public. Oct 16: Guided tours. 10/17: Cornerstone symposium Thomas Luebke, Sec of US Commission on Fine Arts; Hartman Cox Architects on John Russell Pope’s significance; Arturo de Hoyos on Masonic Symbolism of the House of the Temple; Sean Graystone on Renovating the Temple for a New Century. 10/18: Re-enactment of Conerstone ceremony with the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. Register by calling 866-448-3773
September 8, 2011 Scottish Rite Research Guild, Valley of South Bend, Indiana Founding Fellow Mark Tabbert to speak on “Why did John, George, Paul, and Ben join the Craft?” Open to the public. www.southbendscottishrite.org/events.php
October 21-23, 2011 Grand Lodge of Arizona Masonic Education Academy Speakers: WB Shawn Eyer, editor of The Philalethes Magazine and Ahiman journal; WB Thomas D. Worrel, Past Master of Mill Valley Lodge in California; and John Nichols.
September 10, 2011 New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 Meets at Trenton Masonic Temple. 100 Barrack St., Trenton. 10 a.m.
October 29, 2011 Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge Freemason Cultural Center, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Program TBA.
August 27, 2011 Philalethes Society/Phylaxis Society Joint Symposium, San Francisco, CA “The Initiatic Experience in Freemasonry Today” San Francisco Scottish Rite Center.
September 10, 2011 Walking Tour of Lower Manhattan The Brother Moses Montefiore Masonic Study Association has organized a Masonic walking tour of Lower Manhattan, on Saturday, September 10, 2011, at 10:00AM (rain or shine). They will gather at St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street. September 17-18, 2011 Texas Lodge of Research Host: H. A. McFarland Lodge No. 1388, Odessa. Joint meeting with New Mexico Lodge of Research. Website http://www.texaslodgeofresearch.org/ .
October 15, 2011 New England Masonic Open House Day Lodges all across New England will participate in a Masonic Open House Day in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
brethren. Lunch will be served. Tickets are $25.00 per person Contact Larry Acala 843-412-2622 or 843-556-9167. December 3, 2011 International Conference on American & Latin American Freemasonry: A new past & A new future December 3, 2011, UCLA Faculty Center, 480 Charles Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA 90095 Guest Speakers: Margaret Jacob, UCLA; José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli, Universidad de Zaragoza; Miguel Guzmán-Stein, Universidad de Costa Rica; Ricardo Martínez Esquivel, Universidad de Costa Rica; María Eugenia Vázquez Semadeni, UCLA; Guillermo de los Reyes Heredia, University of Houston. Sponsored by The Grand Lodge of F. & A.M. of California’s Institute for Masonic Studies & University of California, Los Angeles Contact the Grand Lodge of California, Adam Kendall at 415/292-9137 or email at akendall@freemason.org. December 4, 2011 NYC’s 92nd St. Y: Authors Alice Von Kannon and TMS Journal editor Christopher Hodapp will be speak at the 92nd Street Y at at 92nd and Lexington Ave. in New York City as part of their Sunday Symposium series. Topic: “Great Secret Societies Demystified.” Von Kannon will speak on the Knights Templar and Hodapp will speak on Freemasonry. Tickets are $35. Tickets online at http://www.92y.org December 10, 2011 New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education No. 1786 Meets at Trenton Masonic Temple. 100 Barrack St., Trenton. 10 a.m. January 20-21, 2012 Texas Lodge of Research Host: Tyler Lodge No. 1233, Tyler. Website http://www.texaslodgeofresearch.org/ . E-mail inquiries to the Secretary at texaslodgeofresearch@ yahoo.com February 8-12, 2012 Masonic Week, Hilton Mark Center Hotel Alexandria, VA February 19-21, 2012 2012 Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia http://www.cgmna.org/Conference.htm March 16-17, 2012 Texas Lodge of Research Host: Fredericksburg Lodge No. 794, Fredericksburg. Website http://www.texaslodgeofresearch.org/ . E-mail inquiries to the Secretary at texaslodgeofresearch@ yahoo.com April 27-29, 2012 Midwest Conference for Masonic Education Toledo, Ohio February 17-19, 2013 2013 Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America. Hyatt Crown Center Hotel, Kansas City, MO
October 29, 2011 The American Lodge of Research Masonic Hall, French Ionic Room, 71 W. 23rd St., NYC, 8 p.m. October 29, 2011 Solomon Lodge #1, Charleston, SC, 275th Anniversary 1285 Orange Grove Road, Charleston, SC. A Special Communication will be held 10:00 AM Saturday October 29, 2011 (Ladies included) to observe the 275th Anniversary of the founding of Freemasonry In the Provence of Carolina. Solomon’s Lodge will open in Due Form. A commemorative plaque will be placed, and a one act play, entitled “A Lodge Is Born”, written in 1937, will be performed. Solomon’s Lodge “One Day Honorary Membership Certificates” will be presented to attending
Please send notices of your event to Jay Hochberg at articles@themasonicsociety.com SUMMER 2011 • 7
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Masonic News
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former Secretary of two York Rite bodies in Boston, Massachusetts was arraigned in court on Tuesday on charges that he made off with $1.25 million from their treasuries over an 8 year period. From the Boston Business Journal: From 1999 until September, 2007, Vincent Paul Reed Jr. was the elected treasurer of two Masons chapters that meet at the Masons’ lodge on Tremont Street in Boston’s Theater District — the Boston Council of Royal Select Master Masons and the St. Paul’s Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons — according to the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. Reed, of Shapleigh, Me., was arraigned today on charges he embezzled $1.25 million from the two organizations during that time, spending the money on travel, utilities, pets, collectibles and personal credit cards. According to Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, Reed’s embezzlement scheme siphoned money from investment accounts held by the two Freemason chapters with UBS Painewebber into accounts at Bank of America, where both organizations held operating funds. Reed then allegedly spent the money illicitly via a debit card that the Masons did not know existed, and checks. In 2005, former Bay State Freemason Brad Bleidt was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for swindling millions from financial investors, including about $2 million from the Masons. •
• By the end of June, some thirteen mainstream, regular grand lodges around the world have suspended fraternal relations with the Grande Lodge Nationale Française over its internal problems. The United Grand Lodge of England has urged all of its members to stay out of all lodges in France until the current situation involving Grand Master François Stifani are resolved. Grand Lodges withdrawing recognition include the Regular Grand Lodge of Belgium, the United Grand Lodges of Germany, the National Grand Lodge of Poland, the Grand Lodge of Luxembourg, the Grand Lodge ALPINA of Switzerland, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. •
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uthorities in Asheville, North Carolina have arrested a 70-yearold man and charged him with a series of hotel robberies. Jack Meredith Martin is suspected of stealing $100,000 worth of jewelry in April from a room at a local Holiday Inn Express, along with a string of other hotel robberies in which he allegedly used forged key cards to break into rooms. Martin was tried and convicted of murder in the murder of one man and wounding of another in 2005, but was acquitted in a retrial and released after spending 56 months in prison. He had represented himself in the first trial, but lawyered up for the appeal. So why did Martin claim he was originally convicted in the murder trial? He claimed there was a “Masonic conspiracy” to convict him, Motions in his second trial sought to keep Masons from being jurors.
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n October 15th, 2011, Masonic lodges all across New England will open their doors to the public in one massive, coordinated event. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut “will participate and open our doors, display our minutes -- some from the founding of this country-- and invite any who wish to visit into the lodge rooms and antechambers, rooms of reflection and such. Welcome all and mark upon the skein of time our intention for light.”
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n Saturday, April 30th, Oso Naval Lodge No. 1282 in Corpus Christi, Texas conferred the Master Mason degree aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington CV-16. This is the first time a Masonic degree has been performed on board the ship since she was permanently docked in 1992. The degree was presented in the onboard three-story tall Mega-theater, built in the original forward aircraft elevator, which has seating for 193.
The Lexington was commissioned February 17, 1943, serving the United States longer and setting more records than any other aircraft carrier in the history of naval aviation. The Japanese erroneously reported Lexington sunk on four different occasions during WWII, leading Tokyo Rose to nickname her “The Blue Ghost.” Lexington was the oldest working carrier in the U.S. Navy when decommissioned in 1991. 8 • SUMMER 2011
Several years ago, the United Grand Lodge of England held a nationwide open house week, during which every lodge was encouraged to have some kind of a public event—tours, dinners, speeches, programs, fund raisers, blood drives, or any other occasion to invite the public in, to hear about Freemasonry, or to see Masons in action in some way. There is no national governing body in the U.S., but such an event would be a significant goal to pursue, and something the Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America or the Masonic Service Association might well consider promoting.
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r. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has over the years made egregious allegations about Masonry. He declared in 2002 that Freemasonry was “incompatible” with Christianity, and perhaps even Satanic—a statement he backpeddled on in 2003, after somewhat sheepishly admitting his own father was a member. His subsequent letter of apology to Britain’s Masons made it clear that his remarks were, in fact, intended to just be private, and that he was very, very sorry anyone actually found out he’d made them. As Bishop of Monmouth, he had blocked the appointment of Freemasons to senior positions, a practice he has apparently continued as head of the Church of England, until now. In May, Williams named the Reverend Jonathan Baker as the
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Masonic News next Bishop of Ebbsfleet, in spite of Baker’s active Masonic membership. Baker joined Apollo University Lodge in Oxford while he was a student, and he recently served as an assistant Grand Chaplain to the UGLE. Subsequent back channel griping within the Church grew vexatious enough that Williams and Brother Baker felt compelled to come clean. And now, Brother Baker has decided to demit from the fraternity after 20 years. The appointment, and now Baker’s decision to demit, have only made the situation more troublesome, because if there isn’t anything wrong with the fraternity (described with suitably sinister spookiness in the UK press), and if the historically anti-Masonic Archbishop really didn’t have a public problem with Baker’s membership, why should he resign? The row is turning into just one more punch in the face to the thousands of devout members of the CofE flock who are also Freemasons.
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exas Freemasons now have their own specialized license plates. The Texas Department of Motor vehicles has posted an order form online, and allows motorists to request up to a five letter customized plate.
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he 2nd Masonic Restoration Foundation Symposium will take place from August 19-21, at the George Washington Masonic Memorial. This year the Symposium will be hosted under the auspices of Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, one of the most historic lodges in the nation, and a proponent of excellence in Masonic observance. Meetings will be held at the Memorial in the AlexandriaWashington Lodge Room and the Memorial Theater. The event will begin with a special Festive Board held in the Grand Masonic Hall on Friday evening, featuring Keynote Speaker, Julian Rees, Julian Rees, Past Junior Grand Deacon, UGLE, and Contributing Editor of Freemasonry Today magazine. Featured speakers will include: Robert G. Davis, Shawn Eyer, Andrew Hammer, Pierre G. Normand, Cliff Porter, Paul Jacob Roberts, Mark Tabbert, and Douglas Wood. Registration for the Symposium is $50.00. Bear in mind there are limited searts available, and last year’s event in Colorado was quickly sold out. The official hotel is the Hilton Alexandria Old Town. The Masonic Restoration Foundation is a non-profit, tax exempt 501c(3) educational organization that provides news, research, and analysis relating to the rich heritage in Freemasonry and current trends in the American fraternal experience.
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n May, a tornado struck the community of Joplin, Missouri, killing at least than 139 people, injuring 900, with over 100 still missing. It was the deadliest single tornado in America since modern
record-keeping began over 60 years ago. The Scottish Rite Temple was not damaged and the Joplin Valley provided 600 meals a day and sleeping quarters to volunteers and the community during the weeks of cleanup following the storm. If you would like to make a donation, you may send a check payable to the Scottish Rite Valley of Joplin, Attention - Richard Lowrey; 505 S. Byers; Joplin, MO 64801. Please notate that the check is for “Tornado Disaster Relief.”
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llus. Bro. Arturo de Hoyos has long spoken of his own ongoing “Magnum Opus,” his annotated version of Morals & Dogma, Albert Pike’s ponderous tome about the Scottish Rite degrees and the symbolism and philosophy contained in them. It has long been understood that Pike compiled M&D from many sources, without bothering with pesky footnotes or references (stealing from one source is plagiarism, but from ten sources it’s research). That’s not to detract from Pike’s enormous talent—his other writings, as well as his translations of books from several foreign languages are testaments to his incredible mind. The conventional wisdom is that much of M&D came from Eliphas Levi’s French work, Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, published in 1855-56. But Pike drew from many, many other sources, and Art has spent twenty years chasing down Pike’s original research. Art’s goal has been to go through M&D line by line and determine where and what Pike took from other works, as well as providing footnotes, essays, illustrations, translations, and a wealth of other supporting material. He has not changed Pike’s text—but he has almost doubled the size of the work with new supporting material. The book will be ready “soon,” and the galleys are being proofed now. Art is uniquely positioned for this job. He is the Grand Archivist in the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction headquarters, the House of the Temple, which contains Pike’s personal library. And he can read and translate at least seven languages, along with possessing what most enviously regard as the kind of thoroughly annoying mind which has allowed him to almost commit much of M&D to memory. Also working with Art has been Illus. Bro. Rex Hutchens, author of “A Bridge to Light.” The Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction has made an incredible commitment to educating their members and providing reference material on ritual, symbolism, history and philosophy. From the Master Craftsman education program and the Scottish Rite Research Society, to the publication of incredible books like this and the Scottish Rite Ritual and Monitor, they have toiled diligently in an ongoing effort to provide a rich and rewarding, ongoing system of quality instruction to 32° members eager to learn more about their degrees.
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he Masonic Book Club started in 1970, and reprints hard to find Masonic volumes in limited hardback editions for its members. In April, they shipped the 2010 title, Evolutions of Freemasonry by Delmar Duane Darrah, PGM of Illinois, a collection of articles on Freemasonry written in the 1920s. SUMMER 2011 • 9
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Masonic News According to the Club newsletter, “Delmar Duane Darrah was a Professor of English and Public Speaking at Illinois Wesleyan University. He served Illinois as Grand Master in 1910-11, Grand Commandery’s Grand Recorder in the early 1920’s. He was an Active Member of the Supreme Council and Deputy for Illinois in 1932, serving as Grand Lieutenant Commander of the Supreme Council, N.M.J., A.A.S.R. He was a Masonic publisher, an author and a lecturer of wide renown. He was also a key mentor of Louis L. Williams who was one of the founders of the Masonic Book Club.” The Club lost its printer of four decades this past year, but now has a new supplier, and they are now offering on-line payments for annual dues and book sales via Paypal. Past editions are for sale, and the Club is partnered with the Illinois Lodge of Research Library, which is administering their book inventory. Annual dues are $20 US & Canada, and $25 for members in other countries. See www. masonicbookclub.org
On June 10, 2011, Richard Dreyfuss was made a Master Mason “at sight” by the Grand Master of Masons of the District of Columbia at the Washington DC Scottish Rite building, as well as a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason. That evening he spoke at a banquet celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, about the Dreyfuss Initiative, a Research Society promoting civics and enlightenment values to be headquarterd in Charleston, WV. •
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ongratulations to the brethren of Connecticut’s newest Masonic lodge! On April 4th at its annual communication, the Grand Lodge of Connecticut AF&AM granted a dispensation form Quinta Essentia Lodge U.D., a “European Concept” lodge. The lodge will be limited in membership size to just 35, and will meet six times a year. Meetings and festive boards will be held in private dining rooms of restaurants, not lodge rooms, and each gathering will have a cocktail hour and dinner, with either a presentation or an open discussion topic. Masonic introductions will be kept to a minimum. The lodge will have a dress code, requiring either a tuxedo or dark suit, and lodge dues will be higher than most blue lodges in the state. And officers will not necessarily progress through the line. Huzzahs to R:.W:. Brother Brandley K. Cooney, Quinta Essentia’s first Worshipful Master, and to all of the charter members of the lodge. •
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nion Creek Lodge No. 220 in Austin, Texas recently suffered its fourth vandalism incident in the past year and a half. Its signage has been destroyed, at least two break-in attempts were made, windows have been broken, and the American flag in the front yard was turned upside down. Most recently, at the end of March, a Molotov cocktail was hurled through a window of the dining hall. Fortunately, the bottle didn’t break, and the flames did not spread, but some fire damage did occur, including to a piano. It could have been far worse. There have also been reports of other Austin-area lodges, as well as some across Tarrant County (the Ft. Worth area) having anti-Masonic material taped to their doors. Because of the previous repeated attacks, the Austin Fire Department installed motion activated cameras and the images are being studied to see if faces and vehicles can be identified. The arson attempt raises the acts from vandalism to a 2nd class felony. Onion Creek Lodge is an historic building—it’s the oldest lodge building in Texas still in use today, along with being one of the oldest public school houses in the state. It is a state-designated historic site. • 10 • SUMMER 2011
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rand Master of the Wost Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts F&AM, M:.W:. Frederick B. Summer, has made Shaquille O’Neal a Prince Hall Mason “at sight” on Saturday, June 11th, 2011. Brother O’Neal is now a member of Widow’s Son Lodge No. 28 in Boston. His legendary status in basketball is well known. Since 1992, he has played for six NBA teams: the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Boston Celtics.
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he scene amidst which C
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AUTUMN 2010 • 11 SUMMER 2011 • 11
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
RESEARCH
The Babylonian Temptation
& Other Perils of Masonic Research by Michael A. Halleran
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n 1873, the Masonic savant Albert G. Mackey (1807 – 1881) wrote “[i]f Freemasonry was not at one time patronized by the learned, it was because the depths of its symbolic science and philosophy had not been sounded. If it is now becoming elevated and popular in the estimation of scholars, it owes that elevation and that popularity to the labors of those who have studied its intellectual system and given the result of their studies to the world.”1 By this Mackey surely referred to the great spread of Masonic thought during his lifetime, a flowering of Masonic belles-lettres on every conceivable tangent of the fraternal experience expressed through poetry, prose, opinion, bombast, and in some cases, actual scholarship. The fraternity is the beneficiary of that great period of productivity, which to some extent continues today, but it is also hamstrung by it. Much of the “labors” to which Mackey refers are writer’s musings on Masonry, which as opinions, are as valid or invalid
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in their youth, at the destruction of the Temple, and afterward became Masons in Babylon; but as we before intimated, there are no good reasons to doubt their having taken the degrees before they left their native land.3 That Mitchell provides us with no supporting evidence to buttress this extraordinary claim was not viewed as problematic at the time. In fact, Mitchell’s History received a glowing reviewing from Mackey himself who wrote “Bro. M dates the origins of Freemasonry where our traditions place it, viz., at the building of Solomon’s Temple, and traces its progress throughout the civilized world… and its progress in the United States down to 1858. This is the first complete history of Freemasonry ever written; and if his work contained nothing more, we cannot see how any brother could consent to be without a copy.”4 And no doubt they sold like hot cakes. But Mitchell was by no means alone in succumbing to the
he Masonic reflex for self-aggrandizement is a serious problem for the scholar who encounters literally thousands of undocumented, shoddily researched stories purporting to illustrate the benefits of Masonic membership which are either untrue or unproven.”
as their reader’s own notions.2 These are readily identified by the discerning reader who stumbles over the endless Masonic catchphrases and the liberally sprinkled So Mote It Be’s every few paragraphs. But these do not concern us, for although tedious to read, they do not perpetuate trouble for the Order. However, those works that purport to classify or arrange Masonic history are a different matter. Some, if not most of these, cannot be considered scholarship although in many quarters the fraternity has depended on them as such. Spurious or unproven statements that Adam left Eve every third Thursday to attend lodge, or that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon hosted an outdoor degree team, has relegated the real study of Freemasonry to the academic back-burner for over a century. A few examples illustrate this. In his 1859 History of Freemasonry the well-known Masonic commentator John W.S. Mitchell asserted that Freemasonry was actively practiced in the Bronze-Age Near East. In one passage, he asserts that Masonic lodges – as we understand them today – met during the Babylonian captivity. [O]ur traditions represent that the captive Jews continued secretly to hold Lodges in Babylon, and the worthy individuals to whom we refer may have been present,
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Babylonian temptation, that is, trying to date Freemasonry back to the dawn of civilization, or indeed to the Jurassic. Another example – among reams of pseudo-academic hyperbole may be found in 1918 by Charles H. Merz, who confidently wrote that Freemasonry was commonly practiced in antiquity, not just in the Near East, but globally: Operative Free Masons Guilds exist at the present time in China, India and Persia, each having proof of an existence of upwards of 5,000 years. When the Romans came over to Britain in the year 55, they brought with them Free Masons who assisted in building bridges, forts, city walls, and the great Roman roads, similar to the ones in Babylon. The Roman Masons were formed into Guilds and one of the earliest Free Masons Guilds were established in England near Ullsthorpe. These Guild Masons, who were Romans, Danes, Jews and Normans, worked together in harmony, and carried out the Masonic system brought from Jerusalem.5 To be fair, it is very likely that Mitchell, Merz, and their contemporaries wrote of lodges or associations of operative Masons who possessed characteristics that would be recognizable to the
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love, respect and support of speculative Masons of the day. every philanthropist – when But this is by no means clear its artistic and intellectual from their writing. These writers, beauties are comprehended – of whom Mitchell and Merz are when its principles, objects, merely singled out as long- dead and designs for the good and (and hence not easily offended) happiness of the whole human examples, succumb to the family are clearly seen and Babylonian temptation by linking faithfully exemplified in the the ancient operative Masons full blaze of Masonic light, it with the evolution, in Scotland, will receive the approbation of of speculative lodges centuries all good men – the nations of later merely on speculation.6 the earth will rise up and call Untrammeled by fact or analysis, it blessed.8 these writers contend that ancient quarrymen somehow form an unbroken chain of tradition from If the writer’s object was the Mesopotamian stonecutter to elicit a hearty So Mote it Be! to the Memphis Shriner, and from the reader, we might judge this is simply absurd. Yet, as with the endeavor a success. Taken Mitchell, fraternal commentators The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse) by the as history, however, there is little French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault unquestionably commended Merz, (1791–1824). An icon of French Romanticism, the painting utility here despite the tantalizing endorsing, and in some cases illustrates the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate incidents the author references in agreeing with, his unsupported Méduse, which ran aground off what is now Mauritania in 1816. the bulk of his article. Researchers assertions without a second commonly encounter not only this thought.7 Fraternal reviewers remain kind to the Babylonian school defensive tone but the penchant for grandiosity in Masonic writing particularly from the nineteenth century, and this is surely a legacy of Masonic research even today. Self-aggrandizement—prac-tically the Fourth Great Light of from Anti-Masonry. But, curiously, this style of writing is still in Masonry—has resulted in keeping the professionals away. They are evidence today when the fortunes of the Anti-Masons have sharply reluctant to take the field while the amateurs are still playing. Those declined. few academics who have explored Freemasonry have been rewarded, however. Non-Masonic scholars such as Margaret Jacobs, Stephen Bullock, and Jessica Harland-Jacobs (to name a few), contribute substantially to our understanding of the fraternal experience, and members of the Order (e.g. Morris, Tabbert, and Bernheim, among others) have made a concerted effort to professionalize internal Masonic history by providing scholarship of real merit. But the perpetuation of the frivolous antecedents of Masonry, the insistence on spurious historical connections, the overt and maudlin sentimentality, and the lack of valid historical method, has ensured that the bulk of Masonic-told history remain unsatisfactory.
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hatever their faults, we cannot accuse the Masonic writers of the last two hundred years of being dilatory. They realized that if Masons didn’t tell their own story, others would step in and gladly fill in the blanks. Thus armed, they told their story not by practicing history, but by loudly proclaiming the power and scope of the fraternity, often with little regard for facts. The result: puffery. An account of Masonic interventions in battle from 1859—nearly twenty-five years after the demise of the Anti-Masonic Party—contains this stirring passage: In view of these few historic facts, out of thousands that are recorded, let the opposers of our time-honored institution pause, and consider what and who they are opposing. Has any other system ever been devised by man, that has the power over the human mind in the whole range of its passions, that Masonry has so often, so beneficially, so magically, so instantaneously exerted? No other can be named. Were this the only good resulting from the system, it should command the
Le Radeau de la Méduse This exaggeration of Masonic purpose, taken by itself is perhaps harmless. Combined with historical carelessness, however, it trivializes the Order and complicates the task of the historian. An example of this perilous combination may be seen in the story of the raft of the Medusa. Nearly a year to the day after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the Bourbon successors to Bonaparte’s empire sent a fleet to reclaim the former French colony of Senegal from British occupation. On 5 July 1816, the flagship of the French fleet, the frigate Medusa (Méduse) ran aground off the coast of what is now Mauritania in West Africa. The ship’s company and passengers took to the Medusa’s longboats. These quickly filled to capacity, leaving 149 men and one woman9 to a hastily constructed raft with no means of navigation and with virtually no supplies. Still, they went; some even preferred the larger raft to the cramped boats, and they were assured that the boats would tow them to shore some sixty miles away. Shortly thereafter, though, the boats abandoned the raft, by most accounts deliberately. Its fate was not a happy one.10 After two days under the fiery West African sun, the raft floundered on the swells loaded with the dead and the dying. Among the dispirited survivors were a company of soldiers and many of them were drunk – wine was only liquid aboard. As their desperation deepened, they attacked the other survivors during the night.11 Alexandre Correard, a geographical engineer attached to the colonial mission, and Henri Savigny, a surgeon, survived the mutinous attack. “[A]t length daylight came,” they wrote, “and disclosed all the horrors of the scene. A great number had, in their delirium, thrown themselves into the sea: we found that between sixty and sixty-five men had perished during the night; we calculated that, at least, a fourth part had drowned themselves in despair.”12 The worst was yet to come. By the fourth day at sea, the survivors resorted to cannibalism, by the eighth, in an effort to SUMMER 2011• 13
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conserve resources, the injured and dying were thrown overboard, leaving just fifteen alive. They survived another five days until their rescue by the French brig Argus-- a scene later immortalized in oil as Le Radeau de la Méduse (The Raft of the Medusa) by the artist Théodore Géricault. Five of these survivors died shortly afterwards in St Louis, the colonial capital of Senegal, resulting in only ten survivors of the original group.13 These ten were placed in the English hospital in St. Louis. It is at this point that the Masonic thread begins. Among the peculiar circumstances attending the dreadful wreck of the French vessel, the Medusa, on the Coast of Africa, the following is not among the least worthy of being recorded. After passing thirteen days on a raft, subject to every privation, and exposed to a parching heat which produced madness in all its hideous forms; they at length were relieved from this perilous situation, having lost one hundred and thirty-five out of one hundred and fifty men. On shore they were crowded into an hospital where medicaments, and even the common necessaries of life were wanting. An English merchant, who does good by stealth and would blush to find it fame, went to see them. One of the poor, unhappy wretches made the signal of a Freemason in distress; it was understood and the Englishman instantly said, “My brother, you must come to my house, and make it your home.” The Frenchman
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issue or the date. We may be confident that the story struck just the right Masonic chord making it simply irresistible, because the article was then picked up by no less than five other periodicals over the next forty years. In the Masonic press, it appeared in the American Masonic Register and Literary Companion (1840), Freemason’s Monthly Magazine (1842), and the National Freemason (1863), before going dormant only to be resurrected in Walter Baxendale’s Dictionary of Anecdote, in 1888, sub verbo “Misfortune, Kindness in.” It is noteworthy that each of the stories in the various publications are reprinted verbatim from Pratt. In addition, the editors of the subsequent publications apparently shared Pratt’s sense of journalistic integrity as none of the stories bothered to mention Pratt or his magazine. By this pathway, the contagion of Masonic inaccuracies are spread.15 “The most naïve policeman in the world,” wrote the French historian Marc Bloch, “knows that a witness should not always be taken at his word, even if he does not always take full advantage of this theoretical knowledge.”16 Bloch gives sage advice, but unfortunately it is seldom heeded in Masonic writing as our enthusiastic brethren seize upon any crumb depicting Masonry in a favorable light, before charging off and publishing it with nary a second thought. We cannot blame Pratt, except perhaps for pilfering from the original publication. Newspaper reporting in the nineteenth century was a haphazard affair and the journalistic standards of today (such that they are) were unknown and unheard-of in 1822. We can, however, insist that we do not perpetuate the inaccuracies
ot only does this deplorable practice complicate the genuine researcher’s task, but it cheapens the history of the fraternity and encourages the public and the academic community to view it with a jaundiced eye.”
nobly replied, “My brother, I thank you, but I cannot leave my companions in misfortune.” “Bring them with you,” was the answer; and the hospitable Englishman maintained them all until he could place them beyond the reach of misfortune. M. Correard, bookseller of Paris, was one of the objects of this gentleman’s noble hospitality. 14
A classic tale of Masonic mercy, this passage was published by Luther Pratt in The American Masonic Register in 1821, but the headline of the story indicates that he lifted it from the English periodical Athenaeum although Pratt does not trouble to record the
of the past. Even though this is a compelling tale, intellectual honesty and integrity requires that we clarify the facts before repeating the tale. Sometimes diligent scholarship allows this, at other times, we are unable to corroborate the story. For our purposes here, we shall attempt to render this story fit for history. The process begins with the only survivor mentioned, “Correard, bookseller of Paris.” Fortunately, even the most cursory research into the Medusa yields the information that Alexandre Correard was aboard the raft and that together with Henri Savigny, another survivor, he wrote a book about the ordeal, Naufrage de la frégate la Méduse published in Paris in 1817,17 which was translated and published in England the following year as Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816. Correard’s account was immensely popular, similar to the Titanic story nearly a century later, prompting public exhibitions in England of Géricault’s painting as well as other reenactments and spectacles.18 In his book, Correard writes that he was befriended by an Englishman, so far so good. Perhaps this is the Mason we seek. But as we delve further we learn that his benefactor was no merchant; he was a British officer, Major John Peddie of the Twelfth Regiment of Foot.19 Along with another officer – variously identified as either a Captain or Major Campbell20, the English officers brought provisions to the survivors and invited their officers to dine with them. It seemed that Peddie was particularly moved to offer assistance to the stricken Frenchmen and he assured Correard that in his campaigns against the French in Spain and the Antilles “that
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he himself and many of his comrades had received similar assistance from Frenchmen; and that their countrymen ought to allow him the honour of discharging, if it were possible, his debt to their nation for the generous treatment which he had received from them.”21 For the Masonic historian hot on the trail of anecdote, this is heady stuff. But where to begin? It could well be that some merchant somewhere aided Correard and his comrades, but there is no mention of any Masonic incident in Correard’s account, nor does he describe any English merchant. The trail becomes more perilous. What then of Peddie? Did some Masonic correspondent mistake him for a merchant? Although Correard himself relates a good deal of information about Peddie, no Masonic interaction is even hinted at. Still, perhaps the author is reluctant to put such details into print where they might be observed by the profane. With blind alleys in front, we turn to a side street. If we might ascertain with certainty that Peddie was a member of the Order, the case could be made that it was more probable than not that Peddie was Correard’s Masonic benefactor. It doesn’t rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it is more than we have at present. In this case, it is worthwhile to investigate military lodges as Peddie was an officer in the Twelfth Foot, and that regiment had a Masonic lodge under a Scottish contstitution. The lodge of the Twelfth Foot, sometimes styled “Military Lodge No. 58,” and sometimes “The Lodge of the Duke of Norfolk’s Regiment” was chartered in 1747 and it ceased operations in 1809. Although, it remains possible that Peddie was a member, the records of the lodge are not on file with the Grand Lodge of Scotland and no evidence has been found to corroborate his membership. The lodge was posted around the world with its parent regiment, but it was not active in Senegal. Any association Peddie may have had with Masonry then, must have occurred before he reached Africa, as he never left the continent alive. 22 This leaves us with only one other avenue of inquiry: the official membership records by the Grand Lodges, and here we may consult two, UGLE and Grand Lodge Scotland. Unfortunately, there is no record that Peddie was a member in any English lodge, nor does he appear in the records of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.23 We have now exhausted our resources. Thus, while it remains distinctly possible that Peddie was a Mason, we may not claim with any assurance that he was, nor may we repeat with assurance the veracity of the tale of the Medusa survivors, whether about Peddie or the unknown merchant, and any such assertion must be considered unproven (if not false) until the labor of a diligent scholar establishes the truth of it. But all is not lost. What we have done here is arrange the table. We have set out the initial sources and documented them to the best of our ability. It is true that we did not achieve our goal, but the search was not entirely fruitless. The scantlings we have gathered will rest here until picked up again, as they surely will be, by someone else armed with greater skill, more information, or both. Perpetuating Inaccuracy The anecdote of the raft of the Medusa provides an example of the greatest peril of Masonic research – the false lead. Although there are undoubtedly other perils, the Masonic reflex for selfaggrandizement is a serious problem for the scholar who encounters literally thousands of undocumented, shoddily researched stories
purporting to illustrate the benefits of Masonic membership which are either untrue or unproven. Seemingly self-replicating, as the degree of plagiarism in l’affaire Méduse attests, stories such as these have shown up in the British and American Masonic press from the eighteenth century until the present time. Clearly many of these are written by amateurs with no scholarly training or inclination. One cannot readily find fault with these writers, except in cases of deliberate falsehood. However, we can blame Masonic publishers who through sheer gullibility, suspension of disbelief, or lack of professionalism perpetuate playing fast and loose with the facts, printing unsupported or unsupportable assertions as fact. Not only does this deplorable practice complicate the genuine researcher’s task, but it cheapens the history of the fraternity and encourages the public and the academic community to view it with a jaundiced eye. But all is not dark. History written by Masons is on the upswing. In the last ten years, Masonic titles have proliferated, not just among the mystic circle, but among the public as well. Many of our members have produced commendable history, avoiding the manifold perils of the past while they improve our knowledge of Masonic history, and underscore the merits of history versus hyperbole. These writers – and their works are head and shoulders above the Masonic storytellers of the past – are readily distinguished by the methodology. Just as the journalist is trained to write about who, what, when, where, and why, so too the New Masonic Historian. We encounter now with regularity that rara avis of Masonic writing: the footnote. Because just as the journalist is trained to supply his readers with sources, the historian is also obliged to provide a basis for his assertions – references – all else being merely opinion. These writers are also reaching beyond the hackneyed Masonic catchphrases of the past.“What religious historian would be satisfied by examining a few theological tracts of hymnals?” asks Bloch. “He knows full well that the painting and sculpture of sanctuary walls and the arrangement and furnishings of tombs have at least as much to tell him.”24 A ready gauge of how successful these writers have been is by the reputation of their publishers. Heretofore, Masonic writers were published by Masonic publishers. Now, Freemasons are as apt to be published by a commercial or an academic press as any other writer – clear evidence that their writing and their methodology is not written for an internal audience. However, we can do more to improve the quality of Masonic scholarship provided we recognize and be mindful of the perils of scholarship. Perhaps Mackey was premature when he wrote about Freemasonry “becoming elevated and popular in the estimation of scholars.” But there is no reason on earth why we cannot now take him at his word. So mote it be.
NOTES 1 Albert G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, rev. ed., New York: Masonic History Co., 1921, iii. 2 E.g. Norman Frederick De Clifford. Egypt, the Cradle of Ancient MaSUMMER 2011 • 15
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sonry, vol. 2, New York: Macoy Publishing, 1907, 398, in which the author asserts without factual support that “[i]t is my sincere conviction that all the incidents and allegories pertaining to Blue Masonry, or the Symbolic degrees, are true relics of Ancient Egyptian Astronomy, and are permeated with a far more profound meaning that is generally understood by a great majority of the craft today.” 3 James W.S. Mitchell, History of Freemasonry and Masonic Digest, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger (reprint), 2003, 102. 4 Albert G. Mackey, ed., The American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences, vol. 2, New York: Macoy, 1859, 149. 5 Charles H. Merz, Guild Masonry in the Making, Whitefish: MT: Kessinger (reprint), 2006, 109. 6 See David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590 – 1710, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 5-6; See also Margaret Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, 34. 7 E.g. “Guild Masonry in the Making,” Masonic Libraries and Literature, Masonic Service Association, 1923, 45; Charles Comstock, “Operative vs. Speculative Freemasonry,” New Age Magazine, 37 (1929), 477-9. 8 L. Carroll Judson, The Masonic Advocate, Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Son, 1859, 162. 9 Accounts vary between 146 – 150 people who went aboard the raft. 10 J.B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard, Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816, London: Henry Colburn, 1818, 63-6. See also Jonathan Miles. The Wreck of the Medusa, New York: Grove Press, 2007, 63-4. 11 “Shipwreck of the Meduse French Frigate,” London Times (September 17, 1816), 2. 12 Savigny and Correard, 104. 13 Christine Riding, “Staging The Raft of the Medusa,” Visual Culture in Britain. 5:2 (Winter, 2004), 1:26, n.1. 14 Luther Pratt. “From the Athenaeum: Wreck of the Medusa,” The American Masonic Register and Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Magazine, vol. 1, New York: Benedict Bolmore, 1821, 192. 15 “Wreck of the Medusa,” Spirit of the English Magazines, 9:6 (June 15, 1821), L. G. Hoffman’s “Anecdote of the Wreck of the Medusa,” American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, 1: 28 (March 14, 1840); Charles Whitlock Moore’s “Masonic Anecdote,” Freemason’s Monthly Magazine, vol. 1, Boston: Tuttle & Dennett, 1842, 269; Thomas Byerley and Joseph C. Robertson’s “Wreck of the Medusa” The Percy Anecdotes, vol. 1, New York: Harper, 1843, 166; “The Shipwrecked Mason,” National Freemason, 1:4 (September, 1863), “Wreck of the Medusa”228, and Walter Baxendale’s Dictionary of Anecdote, New York: Thos. Whittaker, 1888, 393, s.v. “Misfortune, Kindness in.” 16 Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester University Press, 1992, 66. 17 Jean Baptiste Henri Savigny and Alexandre Corréard Naufrage de la frégate la Méduse, Paris, 1817. 18 Riding, 1. 19 Jonathan Miles. The Wreck of the Medusa, New York: Grove Press, 2007, 160. Although Miles does not identify Peddie by regiment, Peddie is without doubt the same officer who died in 1817 while leading an expedition (following the failure of Mungo Park’s preceding venture) to discover the source of the Niger river. Although technically 16 • SUMMER 2011
only a captain, Peddie held the brevet rank of major “on the continent of Africa only” from 10 August 1815. From accounts of the Niger expedition, he is clearly identified in history as a member of the Twelfth Foot, later known as the East Suffolk regiment following the Cardwell reforms. 20 Miles refers to him as a major at 147, but Savigny and Correard identify him as a captain, at 238, as does the definitive account by Gray and Dochard at xix. This officer is unquestionably Capt. Thomas Campbell of the Royal Staff Corps who accompanied (and similarly perished along with) Peddie on the Gambia expedition. See also Bruce L. Mouser, The Forgotten Peddie/Campbell Expedition into Funta Jaloo, West Africa, 1815-17 , Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2007, 5-28, and “Continuing British Interest In Coastal Guinea-Conakry and Fuuta Jaloo Highlands (1750 To 1850),” Cahiers d’études africaines, 172 (2003-4), 761:790, 772; Edmund Burke, ed., The Annual Register 1816, London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1817, 42. 21 Savigny and Correard, 225. 22 For details of the Peddie expedition, including his death in 1817, refer to the only contemporaneously published report of it in William Gray and Duncan Dochard, Travels in Western Africa, London: John Murray, 1825 (chaps 3-13). Concerning the lodge of the Twelfth Foot, according to Vrooman and Roberts, the lodge was styled “Military Lodge No. 58” by the Grand Lodge of Scotland on its formation in 1747. John B. Vrooman and Allen E. Roberts, Sword and Trowel: The Story of Traveling Military Lodges, Ovid Bell Press, 1965, 14. See also Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717 -1927, UNC Press Books, 2007, 34. In 1762 it was sometimes referred to as the “Military Lodge of the Duke of Norfolk.” Robert Freke Gould, Military Lodges 1732-1899, London: Gale & Polden, Ltd., 1899, 126. Readers will note that the by-laws of the lodge of the Twelfth Foot may be found, by pure chance apparently, in William James Hughan, “By-Laws of a Military Lodge,” in Charles H. Titus and Sereno D. Nickerson, eds., The New England Freemason, vol. 1, Boston: Frank Wood, 1874, 134-7. 23 Peddie’s name does not appear in the Wonnacott Index, an index of eighteenth and early nineteenth century English membership registers, nor may he be found in the Grand Lodge minute books and lodge histories held by the UGLE or the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Information courtesy Martin Cherry, Librarian, Museum of Freemasonry, London and Robert Cooper, Curator, Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum. 24 Bloch, 56.
Michael Halleran
was born in Boston but was raised – in both senses of the word – in Kansas. The Grand Junior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Kansas, he has lectured on military Freemasonry in both the United States and Great Britain; in addition, he is the editor of the journal of Hiram Brother, a nineteenth century Mason from Kansas City, the first installment of which will be published by Macoy Publishing in 2012. His first book, The Better Angels of Our Nature; Freemasonry in the American Civil War (University of Alabama Press: 2010) is available in bookstores nationwide.
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
CULTURE
Freemasonry’s African Image problem by Christopher L. Hodapp, fms (This article originally appeared in the November 2010 Issue of the Phylaxis Magazine)
I
n 2009, I was surprised to see that the book Freemasons For Dummies had caused trouble in the African press for Mr. Macky Sall, former Prime Minister of Sénégal, when he was caught reading a copy of it on an airplane.1 The president of Sénégal, Abdoulaye Wade, was also criticized in print and on the Internet because of his brief Masonic membership in the 1950s, while attending university in France.2 Masonry was dragged through the press as a pejorative, and Wade’s political enemies called for his resignation. Sénégal is dominated by Muslim fundamentalists who have no love for Freemasonry, so I figured it was just standard Masonophobic hysteria. But the image problem of Freemasonry in Africa among its leaders goes far deeper and is much more troubled than the rest of the Masonic world may know.
There seems to be a profound cultural attitude among Africa’s former French colonies that regard Freemasonry as a requirement for government service and advancement. It is so prevalent that French political watchers have started referring to the maçonnisation of Africa.3 The Grand Masters of the three principal grand lodges at work in France from which French-speaking African Freemasonry descended—the Grand Orient de France (GOdF), the Grande Loge National Française (GLNF), and the Grande Loge de France (GLdF)—are in blatant competition for the hearts and souls of African Freemasons, and most especially African political figures. They are not unaware of the frontpage political and legal scandals involving many African leaders who proudly declare their Masonic membership. Ambassador Fernand Wibaux, former French President Jacques Chirac’s personal adviser on African affairs, is a member of the Grand Orient, and is well versed in the political turmoil in which high-profile Masons have been involved on the African continent. In 2010, there is a pitched battle raging in the GLNF (the only French obedience that English and mainstream North American grand lodges recognize). GLNF’s Grand Master Francois Stifani has a fullblown insurrection on his hands, with 650 French Masons signing an open letter demanding his resignation, and what is being referred to as a “mutiny” in France’s Loire Valley. One of the topmost grievances is the GLNF’s open-armed embrace of brutal or corrupt African dictators who are Masons. The other two French obediences have turned a blind eye to the issue, as well. Freemasonry that descended out of Britain does not engage in politics, but French Freemasonry has, since before their Revolution. The Grand Orient de France is publicly left-wing. It issues position papers and public statements on French government, policies, and laws, as well as on religious subjects. In recent years, for example, the GOdF was one of the strongest voices in favor of French laws that banned the wearing of Muslim headscarves and Christian religious symbols. GOdF grand masters have long been proud of the influence they have over the presidents of France, representing its 50,000 members. It is the largest Masonic obedience in France. They do not require members to have a belief in a Supreme Being, the Bible or other Volume of Sacred Law is not required on their altars, and in 2010, their grand session approved the initiation of women. While Masons throughout history have been presidents, prime ministers, princes and kings, not all have been benevolent, or even
honest, and some have had plenty of blood on their hands. For three centuries, the European powers carved up Africa into colonies, and Freemasonry came along with them. Governors, explorers, military men, industrialists, and bureaucrats who took part in the colonization and subsequent exploitation of Africa were often Freemasons, frequently bloody and brutal, who rarely thought of the “brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God” as they snatched up the continent’s riches and land, and routed indigenous people. During the colonial period, grand lodges from England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany created provincial grand lodges in their African colonies, largely for the membership of foreigners. On May 9th, 1781, the first French Masonic lodge in Africa was chartered, Respectable Loge Saint-Jacques, at Saint-Louis in Sénégal. More followed as the French colonized Africa in Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, Guinea, and Congo. English Freemasonry grew in the colonies of Britain, as well, frequently spread by white colonial governments, but most especially by Irish regimental military lodges. However, the United Grand Lodge of England did not enjoy the kind of widespread expansion that the Grand Orient de France and the competing Grande Loge de France did in the French territories. Freemasonry first came to South Africa in 1772 with Dutch skippers and agents of the Dutch East India Company.4 During South Africa’s notorious apartheid years, Freemasonry took steps to break the color barrier. Prince Hall Freemasonry in South Africa began in 1902, with fledgling lodges founded by African Methodist Episcopal Church bishop Levi Coppin. But apartheid rules forbade black South Africans from joining Masonic lodges of any kind. In the 1950s, two lodges were again chartered by the MWPHGL of Pennsylvania. In 1970, more than forty members of two PHA lodges—St. Patrick’s Lodge and Southern Cross Lodge, both in Cape Town—sought to join the white Grand Lodge of South Africa (which was formed in 1961). 5 While the Grand Lodge of South Africa agreed to charter two new “coloured” lodges by 1973, due to strict laws in the country concerning social interaction between blacks and whites, doing so would first require permission by the white minority government. It took another four years to gain government approval, and legal permission was only granted after Freemasons within the government at last were able to pressure the white, non-Mason Prime Minister, John Vorster, into action. In November 1977, the former PHA Masons were initiated, passed and raised, and two new lodges of black South Africans were consecrated: Lodge Perseverance in Cape Town, and Lodge Phoenix in Kimberley. In doing so, black South African Masons were legally allowed to visit their 4,500 white brethren in any GLofSA lodge in the country, along with 50,000 Masons from sister constitutions of SUMMER 2011 • 17
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England, Scotland and Ireland also at work in South Africa. In doing so, Freemasonry became the first legal organization in South Africa to allow regular social contact between that country’s black and white population. Apartheid would not fall as a policy of systematic segregation until 1994, with the election of Nelson Mandela.6 Mandela was made a Prince Hall Mason that same year. Outside of South Africa and Ghana, Nigeria has more chartered Masonic lodges than any other African nation.7 Yet, at points in its modern history, Freemasons in Nigeria have been forced to publicly declare their membership, and denied positions in government and the churches. In the 1970s, the Yakubu Gowon military government issued a decree banning Freemasonry, at the urging of Baptist, Catholic and Islamic leaders. While the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland have chartered many lodges across Nigeria, the fraternity does not currently prosper. It may be that, because Masonry in that country is not used as a stepping-stone to government position and advancement, as has been the case in other African nations, it has not grown.8 It has been a very different situation in former French colonies. Freemasons were commonly found in French colonial administrations. After the Second World War, French Freemasonry spread throughout Africa, and became a substantial force within the ranks of those seeking the independence of African nations. Grand lodges actively recruited black Africans living in France, especially students.9 As the African colonies were granted independence in the 20 century, the new African-born governments took on the trappings of what the European powers left behind, as they assumed control of their own nations. Freemasonry was one of those reinments of power. In many instances, symbolism and philosophy of the fraternity took a back seat to the importance of membership in an inner circle of influential brethren who held offices of authority, and the cable-tow sometimes became an abusive object of power. th
Depending on the country these days, Freemasonry is often vilified for its shady influence and connections in government. In the U.S., we generally don’t see these stories, much less understand the hysteria. But there are reasons for such concerns elsewhere today. Much of it has to do with the delicate back room political deals and dances between the French government, French corporations, France’s former African colonies, and the cozy relationship Freemasonry enjoys. One of the strongest attacks on African Freemasons occurred in Côte d’Ivoire, in 1963. The country had declared independence in 1960, under the leadership of president Félix (“Papa”) HouphouëtBoigny. Houphouët-Boigny had served in the French parliament for many years, and was considered one of the chief architects of African independence, dating back to the 1940s. Committed to a strong, ongoing relationship with France (a policy that came to be known as Françafrique), along with being a stalwart opponent of the rapidly expanding Communist influences in Africa, Houphouët-Boigny had his share of political enemies. In 1963, he had the leaders of the left wing of Côte d’Ivoire’s sole political party at that time, the Democratic Party, arrested. Grand Orient Freemasons dominated the leadership of the Democratic Party, and the fraternity was outlawed in the country. It has long been alleged that imprisoned Masons were humiliated, beaten and tortured in the presence of Houphouët-Boigny. 10 Houphouët-Boigny’s died in 1993. After a series of coups and power struggles, his former chief of the army, Freemason Robert Guéï, illegally seized power in 1999, ousting then-President Henri Konan Bedie. Guéï ruled less than one year before he was forced out of office by massive demonstrations. He was murdered in his home in 2002. In the former Republic of Congo, now called Congo-Brazzaville, former president Pascal Lissouba was overthrown in a civil war in 1992 and just tried in 2009 in absentia for corruption and treason. The 18 • SUMMER 2011
man who overthrew him, Denis Sassou Nguesso, has been personally implicated in the 1999 disappearance of 353 Congolese refugees, an embezzlement scheme to buy real estate in France, and accepting hundreds of millions in Euros for the French oil company, Elf. Both men are Masons. Ironically, Nguesso’s paper read at the Conference of Grand Lodges in Gabon in 2009 was on the subject of promoting “peace and brotherly love throughout the world by effectively using the Masonic teachings we have at our disposal.”11 Gabon’s recently deceased leader Omar Bongo Ondimba, and his son Ali, who succeeded him as president, are prominent figures in African Freemasonry. Gabon has the world’s fifth largest supply of uranium, along with massive oil and mineral deposits, and has been in the hip pocket of France since declaring its independence in 1960. A U.S. investigation in the 1990s estimated that Omar was one of the wealthiest heads of state in the world—an estimated personal worth of between US$2 to $4 billion—with most of his fortune coming from personal deals with oil companies (again, mostly from French oil company Elf, which paid Omar almost US$80 million a year through a Swiss bank account). It was common for him to arrive in New York hauling suitcases of cash. In 2008, he owned 33 properties in France, including a US$30 million mansion in Paris. Gabon’s oil reserves also allowed him to spend lavishly at the official level, with an US$800 million presidential palace back home in Gabon. In addition to the presidency he inherited from his father, Ali succeeded Omar as Grand Master, paradoxically, of both the Grand Lodge of Gabon (GLB) and the Grand Equatorial Rite (GER), the two predominant Masonic orders in Gabon. (The GLB is affiliated with the right-wing Grande Loge Nationale Française, and the GER is allied with the more left-wing, and largely unrecognized, Grand Orient de France). Ali was installed in these positions by both Francois Stifani, the Grand Master of the Grande Loge Nationale Française, the French grand lodge recognized by most English-speaking Freemasonry, and Alain Bauer, Past Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France, and special adviser for terrorism and crime in the French presidential cabinet. Most of the Gabonese ruling political class belong to one Masonic obedience or the other. According to an article in Afrik.com from November 2009: Having gone through a difficult election, the neophyte President (Ali Bongo) needs the “fraternal” networking machine to help consolidate his authority. The strategy was developed and successfully applied by his father, the late Omar Bongo. Omar established the Masonic order as an ante-chamber to serve as a recruitment unit for his key allies, and also as an infallible source of allegiance to consolidate his power.12 Ali Bongo Ondimba and Gabon were spotlighted in the Masonic world in November 2009, when the nation hosted the 10th World Conference of Grand Lodges. Representatives from 46 grand lodges around the world were treated as dignitaries, ate in the Presidential Palace, and were chauffeured in limousines, while rubbing shoulders with many African grand masters who were heads of state in their home nations. François Bozizé seized power in 2003 in the Central African Republic, after several coup attempts going back to 1991. He has served as president, but has also held the office of Minister of National Defense ever since coming to power. Idriss Déby, the president of Chad, has also been under scrutiny for years. In October 2006, Chad topped Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s most corrupt nations for “what may turn out to be the single most piggish use of philanthropic funds”.13 Proceeds from a project to build an oil pipeline through Chad and Cameroon, funded in part by the World Bank, were supposed to have been set aside by Déby’s government to assist and feed “the desperately poor people of these nations.” Instead, some US$30 million was diverted to buy arms to keep Déby’s government in power.
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Both Bozizé and Déby made their names and came to power in tribal wars, perpetrating massacres and destruction. They are two of at least twelve current African leaders who are Freemasons. The following are believed to be recent African heads of state who are, or were, Freemasons:14 • François Bozizé of Central African Republic (former French colony of French Congo) • Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of Gabon (former French colony) [both GOdF and GLNF] • Paul Biya, president colony) [GLNF]
of
Cameroon
(former
British
• Blaise Campaore, president of Burkina Faso (former French colony of Upper Volta) [GLNF] • Idris Deby, president of Chad (former French colony) [GLNF] • Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo [GLNF] • Robert Guéï, former head of Côte d’Ivoire (former French colony), murdered in 2002. • John Kuffuor, former president of Ghana (former Dutch, then British colony) [UGLE] • Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa (made a Prince Hall Mason by the MWPHGL of North Carolina in 1994) • Denis Sassou Nguesso, president of Congo Brazaville, Grand Master of Congo [GLNF] (as was his predecessor, Pascal Lissouba [GOdF]) (former French colony) • Mamadou Tanja, president of Niger (former French colony) [GLNF] • Jean Ping, Gabonese diplomat, President of the U,N, general Assembly in 2004, and current chairman of the African Union Commission. [GLdF]15 There have been criticisms voiced that point to the competition between French grand lodges at work in Africa as just one more inflammatory influence that can cause violence between factions seeking to rule in these countries.16 Like tribal and family-tie divisions that can erupt into full-scale bloodbaths, fraternal divisions may be similar fuel for the fire in an unstable political environment. All of this begs the important question: how can it be that a fraternity that prides itself in Enlightenment principles, democracy, honesty and fairness has become so twisted in African nations, while the excesses and misdeeds of such well-placed members there go ignored by international Freemasonry? The March/April 2010 issue of the French language Franc Maçonnerie Magazine featured an article by Helene Cuny (“Ces dictateurs qui ont piégé la franc-maçonnerie”) that explored the dichotomy between Freemasonry’s teachings and African heads of state who have distinguished themselves through tribal wars, massacres, or staggering corruption, yet proudly proclaim their Masonic membership. In addition, the magazine featured a pointed editorial by its editor Nicholas George, “De l’incompatibilité à être franc-maçon” (Incompatibility to be a Freemason): Today, battered by wars and armed conflicts, some African countries condemn Freemasonry. And Denis Sassou Nguesso, Omar and Ali Bongo, to name a few, are notorious for their atrocious dictatorship and their Masonic membership. This is a very bad image and a sad fate for an institution that wants to be humanist and progressive. Why should Denis Sassou Nguesso and Ali Bongo still be considered Freemasons? That is the question we pose to French persuasions who do not
FREEMASONRY AND LIBERIA The nation of Liberia was created in 1822 as a resettlement nation by the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, which sought to create a new African homeland for freed American slaves. The organization, first made up of mostly Quakers, believed that blacks would have a freer life away from strict U.S. laws and the still-flourishing slave trade. Later more simply known as the American Colonization Society, the society became split between sincere abolitionists, nervous Northerners who saw free blacks as a threat to jobs and property, and Southern slave owners who sought to get potential “trouble-making” free blacks out of the U.S. Nevertheless, thousands of blacks went to Liberia in search of a new life, and the colony agreed to take in captives freed from slave ships and the West Indies, as well. In its formative years, Liberia was governed by white members of the Society, but in 1842, Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first non-white governor of the colony. In 1847, the colony declared its independence as a new, self-governing nation, and by 1867, some 13,000 had been resettled there from the U.S. The Grand Lodge of Liberia was founded by Prince Hall Masons that same year. From the beginning, Liberian society quickly developed into three classes: settlers with European-African lineage, who came to be known as Americo-Liberians; freed slaves from slave ships and the West Indies; and indigenous native people from the existing tribes already living in the territory. Liberia was dominated by a single political party for over 130 years, the True Whig Party, based in large part on the American Whigs, the precursor to the Republican Party in the years after the American Revolution and before the Civil War. The Liberian Whigs were almost entirely Americo-Liberians, and top government officials were uniformly Freemasons. By the 1970s, there were seventeen lodges at work in the country, with approximately 1,000 members, and the longstanding sentiment was that decisions about the nation were all made secretly behind their closed doors. In 1980, tribal rebels led by Sergeant Samuel Doe from the Liberian Army, staged a coup and took control of the country, after 70 people were shot by government troops during a riot over rice prices. President William R. Tolbert Jr., who was also Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Liberia, was murdered and disemboweled in his bed, and thirteen members of the Cabinet, almost all Freemasons, were executed three days later. The fraternity was banned by the Doe regime, and it was open season on Freemasons. Many were executed, and hundreds more were imprisoned or fled the country. The descendants of the free black settlers from America were seen as a hated, elite minority, and the indigenous majority ruled the country for the first time in over 130 years. In 1985, there was talk of restarting Freemasonry in Liberia, and a special Prince Hall meeting was held in 1987 in New Orleans for the purpose of installing a new Grand Master. A Grand Convocation was held the next year in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, and gradually Freemasonry was reestablished. The once majestic grand lodge building had been ravaged by squatters over the years, but there have been hopeful plans floated occasionally to restore it. 18
Since then, Liberia has been torn by repeated coups and civil wars, and Freemasonry in the country has continued to be persecuted. Former President Charles Taylor, one of a series of revolutionaries who held control of the country until he was ousted in 1990, was tried in 2009 for war crimes. During his trial, he made light of allowing troops to post human heads and skulls of enemies at checkpoints, saying it was no worse than the display of skulls in “Western fraternal organizations.”19 Civil wars have killed an estimated 250,000 Liberians out of a population of 3 million. So far. SUMMER 2011 • 19
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hesitate to go there to recognize “as such” leaders who seem free of Masonic values. Unless there are some other personal links which unite the grand masters of them, these are friendships that are difficult to justify in the eyes of the people massacred.17 There are those in the fraternity who desperately desire to chalk up Masonic heads of state as a victory for the fraternity, regardless of their crimes. There will always be bad men sitting in our lodges, just as they sit in the front pew of their churches on Sunday. And there are some Masons who have their had their heads turned by the dazzle of being treated as a Masonic brother while dining in a presidential palace. It would be simplistic to attempt to equate Masonic membership of African leaders with something nefarious, and the overwhelming majority of Freemasons in Africa uphold the tenets of the institution and live by their obligations. And there is no question that there are numerous high-profile Masons in leadership positions who never set foot in a lodge after their degrees. I certainly don’t look the other way at the excesses of Cecil Rhodes, Lord Kitchener, and the numerous other players in the Great Grab of Africa who were Masons. There were plenty of Freemasons who engaged in thoroughly reprehensible behavior during the colonial period. That past cannot be changed. But we can change how we regard present day dictators, criminals and assorted ne’er do wells currently in the fraternity, and we can start by not feting them as Masonic heroes while they are busy being investigated by international panels or riding into office on the bloody wave of a coup. Our West Gate must be tended at all times, no matter whose limousine drives up. In the meantime, France’s Masonic leaders need to become less concerned with filling their membership rolls with big name leaders at the expense of the reputation of the fraternity.
from http://www.ufctogo.com/L-Afrique-des-presidents-francs-094.html. Internet: accessed 6 June 2010. 10 Wauthier , Claude. “A Strange Inheritance.” Le Monde Diplomatique September 1997. 11 Foley, Teko. “Grand Lodge of Gabon Hosts 10th World Conference of Masonic Grand Lodges” The Voice of Freemasonry, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2010. 12 Dassié, René. “Afrik News.” Freemason Presidents in Africa: Ali Bongo ordained Grand Master of Gabon. Available from http://www.afrik-news.com/ article16445.html. Internet: accessed 4 August 2010. 13 “Forbes” The Most Corrupt Countries, 1/24/2006. Available from http://www.forbes.com/2006/01/24/06caphosp_corrupt_slide_6. html?thisSpeed=6000. Internet: accessed 3 May 2010. 14 Fadjri, ibid. 15 “Jeuneafrique.com” Des maçons bien discrets 6/2/2010. Available from http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Articles/Dossier/ARTJAJA2576p026-035. xml5/france-diplomatie-denis-sassou-nguesso-nicolas-sarkozydes-macons-bien-discrets.html&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhgewphhxR OUyWTGFE4_Q_GPGYkDlw. Internet: accessed 3 June 2010. 16 “Afrikara” La Franc-Maçonnerie a t-elle un plan de Vassalisation de l’Afrique ? 5/26/2004. Available from http://www.afrikara.com/index. php?page=contenu&art=359. Internet: accessed 30 May 2010. 17 Cuny, Helene. “Ces dictateurs qui ont piégé la franc-maçonnerie.” Franc Maçonnerie, March/April 2010. 18 “Liberia Freemasons in the line of fire.” Freemasonry Today, Autumn 2003, Issue 26.
Endnotes 1 Nesta, G. “Walfadjri l’Aurore.” Macky Sall: ‘Je ne serai jamais un franc-maçon’. Available at: http://www.walf.sn/politique/suite.php?rub=2&id_art=53062. Internet: accessed 18 February 2009. 2 Tidiane, Hamadou. “Daily Nation” Senegalese president admits he was a Freemason and causes controversy. Available at: http://www.nation.co.ke/ News/africa/-/1066/530006/-/13rbrm1z/-/index.html. Internet: accessed 15 February 2009.
19 Le Roux, Mariette. “AFP, July 16, 2009.” Liberia’s Taylor saw ‘nothing wrong’ with displaying skulls. Available from http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hHLtXIipR3zCbXlUsZVsHTb6P4BA. Accessed 30 May, 2010. Bibliography Badila, Joseph. La Franc-Maconnerie en Afrique noire: Un si long chemin vers la liberté, l’égalité, la fraternité. Paris: Editions Detrad, 2004.
3 Vauthier, Claude. “L’essor de la franc-maçonnerie africaine”, Geopolitique Africaine No. 10 Spring, April 2003.
Badila, Joseph and Béresniak, Daniel. Les Francs-Maçons et L’Afrique, une recontre fraternelle. Paris: Editions Detrad, 2008.
4 Lodge de Goede Hoop was chartered September 1, 1772 by the Grand East of the Netherlands.
CHRISTOPHER L. HODAPP, IS THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY AND THE AUTHOR OF FREEMASONS FOR DUMMIES. HE IS A PAST MASTER OF BROAD RIPPLE LODGE NO. 643, AND LODGE VITRUVIAN NO. 767, OF THE GRAND LODGE OF INDIANA F&AM, IN INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA. HE IS AN HONORARY MEMBER OF AFRICAN LODGE NO. 459 IN BOSTON. HE RESIDES IN INDIANAPOLIS.
5 Henderson, Kent and Pope, Tony. Freemasonry Universal Volume 2—Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceana. Williamstwon, Victoria, Australia: Global Masonic Publications, 2000. p. 73 6 Lemmon-Warde, Desmond. “Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry.” Freemasonry – Uniting Men Even During Apartheid. Available from http:// www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/freemasons_apartheid.html Internet: accessed 4 August 2010. 7 The United Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and the Grand Lodge of Ireland, between them, had 125 lodges chartered in Nigeria in 2000. Henderson and Pope, op. cit., p. 47 8 Okoafor, Chris Aniche. “Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry.” Stand To Be Recognized: Why Freemasonry in Nigeria suffers so great troubles. Available from http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/okorafor.html. Internet: accessed 4 August 2010. 9 Fadjri, Wal. “UFC Togo.” L’Afrique des presidents francs-maçons. Available 20 • SUMMER 2011
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
SYMBOLISM
The Symbolism of Journeys by Leon Zeldis, fms
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n various Masonic degrees, the ceremony leading to the reception of a new degree includes symbolic travel, whether called as such in the ritual, as in the case of the Initiation ceremony in the Ancient and Accepted Rite, or restricted to one or several circumambulations around the altar which, in fact, represent journeys. From ancient times, journeys have been intimately connected with discovery – either of the outside world; as in journeys of exploration or adventure, or inward – where the symbolic journey stands for a rite of evolution, maturation and transformation, all these linked to the archetypical cycle of death and rebirth. Heroes of legend always perform a journey, whether in search of a treasure (cf. the lost word), as in the case of Jason and the Golden Fleece, or the search for the Holy Grail; or in order to return to one’s starting point, as in the case of Ulysses in his arduous journey home. Jung asserts that travelling is an image of aspiration, of an unsatisfied longing that never finds its goal. 1 Dante is in the middle of a journey when he enters the dark forest, meets Virgil and starts his descent into the inferno. Don Quixote sets out on a journey to right wrongs, while the Spanish Conquistadores went in search of gold. Alexander travels to conquer the world, while Abraham abandons Ur to reach the Promised Land. THE INITIATION CEREMONY IN THE ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED RITE
As has often been noted, the AASR is heavily infused with alchemical and esoteric symbolism, mostly absent in other workings current in the English-speaking world. The candidate’s first stage of preparation for the ceremony is his introduction to the Chamber of Reflection, the small, somber room where he meets symbols of death, the three elements of alchemical work (sulfur, mercury, salt) and the legend VITRIOL, the acronym of a Latin legend: Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Invenies Occultam Lapidem. That is: Visit the interior of the earth and by purification you will find the hidden stone. Some authors consider the stone to be the philosophical stone of the alchemist, the key to transmute base metal into gold, or to transform man’s animal nature to reveal its divine form. Others think that the stone is the true soul of the initiate, the solid foundation on which to build his new personality, after seeing the light. In the course of the ceremony, once inside the lodge room, the candidate is led out and made to follow an erratic course, before being reintroduced into the lodge, to signify the uncertainty of life in the profane world. This message is repeated in the first of the three symbolic journeys he will make, being led around the lodge while experiencing purification by air, water and fire. The connection between travel and purification is made clearer in the case of pilgrimages. Whether to visit a holy site (Jerusalem, Rome, Mecca) or the tomb of a saint, the travel itself represents a process of evolution, reaching a higher stage of spiritual development. The significance of walking as a necessary element of the pilgrimage
is exemplified by the case of Compostela. Thousands of pilgrims follow every year “El Camino de Santiago” (the Way to St. James), walking hundreds of kilometers to reach Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. Labyrinths are also linked to travel, or more specifically to pilgrimages. In some churches, walking the path of the labyrinth to the center was considered equivalent to making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the Holy land. 2 THE RITE OF CIRCUMAMBULATION
Closely related with the symbolism of travel is the rite of circumambulation, walking around an object or a defined area as an expression of reverence or purification. The movement always follows the route of the sun, that is, like the hands of the clock, dextrorsum. In the lodge, circumambulation is made keeping the right hand towards the altar. 3 Although this rite is connected with sun worship in ancient times, this is not so in the lodge, where moving to the right and keeping your hand towards the altar signify our reliance on the three great lights of Freemasonry which should always be on hand. The dextrorsum movement is traditionally the positive direction, while the opposite one, widdershins or sinistrorsum, as the name makes it clear, is negative. Likewise, within the Masonic context circumambulation is a form of purification, or lustration, which connects it with the symbolic purification travels of the candidate during the Initiation ceremony. In rituals where the altar holding the VSL stands in the center of the checkerboard floor, “squaring the lodge” is performed by keeping the altar always to the right while walking. OTHER SYMBOLIC TRAVELS IN THE AASR
In the ceremony of passing to the second degree, the apprentice makes again symbolic travels around the altar, holding different tools in each circuit. Here the symbolism is not of purification, but of discovery, learning to use the symbolic tools in order to perfect the work of polishing the rough stone. More important, however, is the ritual of the 18th Degree, which is largely based on the search for the lost Word. During the ceremony, the candidate is led more than once on symbolic journeys, learning the way to find what was lost. In general terms, we can consider the whole Masonic experience as a prolonged journey of purification and discovery, comprising many stages, leading to a more perfect personality, with less rough edges, and with an intellect better disposed to accept new ideas and face life’s new challenges with the support of firm ethical principles. ENDNOTES
1 Symbols of Transformation, quoted by J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, Dorset Press, New York 1991, p. 164. 2 Cf. “The Labyrinth”, The Philalethes, Vol. LIII, N° 6, December 2000. 3 Albert G. Mackey, The Symbolism of Freemasonry, 1882, XXI-The Rite of Circumambulation. www.gutenberg/files/11937/11937h/11937-h.htm. Consulted 12.3.2011. LEON ZELDIS WAS INITIATED IN AMÉRICA LODGE NO. 86 IN SANTIAGO, CHILE IN 1959. HE MOVED TO ISRAEL IN 1962, AND IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF LA FRATERNIDAD LODGE NO. 62 IN TEL AVIV—THE FIRST SPANISH-LANGUAGE LODGE IN ISRAEL. IN 1995 HE WAS NAMED HONORARY ASSISTANT GRAND MASTER IN THE GRAND LODGE OF ISRAEL. HE IS A FOUNDING FELLOW OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY.
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ARCHITECTURE
St. Edmund’s Masonic Church by Philip Coppens, with photos by Andy Marshall input from Albert Hudson Royds, sponsor and Freemason, and the fist incumbent, E.W. Gilbert, artist and Freemason. The church has been described as “probably James Medland Taylor’s finest work.” The foundation stone was laid in 1870, in the northeast corner of the building – as Masonic ritual stipulates. The lewis bolt with which the stone was suspended and the working tools with which it was proved, were subsequently handed over to St Chad’s Lodge, No. 1129, in Rochdale. The church was opened on May 7, 1873, with various Masonic ceremonies held. The cost of its construction is known to have been at least £28,000, whereas the cost of a “normal church” in those days was roughly £4000. No wonder therefore that Sir Nikolaus Pevsner catalogues the church as “Rochdale’s temple to Freemasonry, a total concept as exotic as Roslin Chapel in Scotland.”
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t. Edmund’s Church, off Falinge Road in Rochdale, England – now largely seen as a suburb of Manchester – might lay claim to being Britain’s greatest Masonic secret. Though Rosslyn Chapel, the star of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, is often seen as a Masonic church, in truth, only certain modifications from the late 19th century contain some references to the Craft. St Edmund’s,
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Pevsner added that “Almost every fitting and feature has reference to the Lore of masonry.” The Masonic design of this church begins with its placement within the landscape. It stands on a diamondshaped churchyard, the focus of four streets, at the highest point of the town. Like King Solomon’s Temple on the top of Mount Moriah, so St Edmund’s dominates the skyline of Rochdale. But apart from Masonic planning, the church was also built with intervisibility between the church and Mount Falinge (the Royds family home nearby) in mind. Mount Falinge, of which only the windowless facade exists today, is
abelled by experts as a “temple to Freemasonry” and “a total concept as exotic as Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland”, St Edmund’s Church in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) is one of England’s hidden gems. So much so, that it is almost totally unknown.
however, really was built by Freemasons, and apparently for Masons, not so much as a church, but as a Temple of Solomon. Many Rochdale churches from the 19th century have Masonic symbolism, such as Christchurch in Healey, but none can compare to St Edmund’s. The church was designed by James Medland Taylor, with
now alas neglected. Alas, so is St Edmund’s. St Edmund’s Church is the brain and/or lovechild of Albert Hudson Royds, a most prominent and wealthy Mason. The earliest traces of the Royds family are to be found at Soyland, then a small town approximately five miles south-west of Halifax, and can be traced back to one John del Rode, who died in 1334. The Royds family remained in the Halifax area until approximately 1500, when they relocated to Rochdale, roughly twenty miles away from their home. Wool apparently made the family rich and in 1786, James Royds of Falinge purchased land at Brownhill and later, in the same area, built Mount Falinge, which was built in a commanding position on sloping land between Cronkeyshaw and Falinge Road. Albert Hudson was born on September 11, 1811 and was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Rochdale. His family had now largely moved into banking and he took his seat in the family bank in 1827 when he was 16. His brother, William Edward, who was six years younger, joined him some time later. Both men soon became active partners in the firm and, by the 1840s, had became responsible for its general management, replacing their father, Clement, who by this time had become almost wholly involved with public life and a political career. St Edmund’s wasn’t the first church Albert Hudson Royd constructed. Following his father’s death, he opted for a complete change of life and in 1855 purchased an estate of 382 acres, mainly in Rush-
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a pentagram has Satanist connotations, having a church crowned by one, might have posed some questions. These doubts might not have gone away when people saw how the stone finials on the gables were crowned by even more pentagrams and other enigmatic designs: the five pointed emblem of the Craft is there; the six pointed star of the Royal Arch; the square crosses of the Christian degrees, etc. All of them leave the casual passer-by with the distinct impression that this church is unlike most – if any other. On the gable end, there is the motto “Semper paratus”, “Always Ready”, a motto that is used by many organisations. It was the slogan of the Royds family, but for Masons might be a reminder of how they are supposed to always be vigilant, in keeping the secrets secret.
wick, near Worcester, called Crow Nest or Crown East. He rebuilt the house, renamed it Crown East Court, erected new outbuildings and stables, cottages and a church. Soon afterwards, he sold the estate and bought Ellerslie in Great Malvern and moved there in 1869. He remained there until May 22, 1878, when he moved back to Rochdale, first to Falinge Lawn and later to Brownhill, where he had lived before his father’s death.
Around the actual entrance are several depictions of the vesica piscis. The design is linked with divine proportions and architecture and its presence here must be an indication for the visitor that the building he is about to enter, is indeed a sacred design. The tympanum has a pentagram, inside of which are water lilies and the side panels with oak leaves and acorns. For Freemasons, it is seen as an expression of the need to give a password before being able to enter and its presence above the entrance is therefore perfectly chosen.
From the window of Mount Falinge it would have been possible to look out on St Clement’s Church, Spotland, dedicated to that saint out of compliment to his father. From this vantage point it would also have been possible to see Christ Church, Healey, where so many members of the family lie buried; finally, he would be able to see St Edmund’s, the construction of which he had begun in 1870, and saw completed in 1873. St Edmund’s position was similar to King’s Solomon Temple, but the church’s dimensions were equally based on a temple that would inspire Freemasonry. It is four square in plan and is built on mathematically symbolic principals. Raised on a roughly hewn plinth, the overall dimensions are proportional to those of King Solomon’s Temple; its length is three times and its height one and a half times its breadth. The interior volume is of six cubes, one for each arm and two for the nave, plus that of the crossing. The lantern was the seventh cube, but the lantern tower was ceiled off in 1887 (some reports mention 1911), on the advice of J. Murgatroyd, in response to complaints about downdraughts. It means that the centre was deprived of a flood of light, but also that the sacred dimensions of the building were mutilated. Approaching from the south up Clement Royds Street, the building rises up out of the ground. First to appear was the pentagonal bronze star of the weathervane that left no doubt at all that this was an unusual church. Presently, the star has been removed. Noting that for many,
In many so-called “enigmatic churches” (read: Rosslyn Chapel and like), the stained glass windows are often later additions and hence shed little light into the mind of the original builders. Here, because the church is relatively modern, all are original, except for those of the south transept, which are missing. Originally a Te Deum, they were exhibited in Vienna in 1887 – but apparently never returned, or at least never reinstated. The scheme on display in the windows was developed by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake. It is fascinating to know that Henry Holiday (who was behind the frieze at Rochdale Town Hall) also designed for them. In the nave, as one enters to our left, the story that the windows tell appropriately begins with Genesis, and Adam and Eve. In the North transept is a Jesse Tree, with Jesse stretched out over two lights. This design, less exposed to direct sunlight, is able to reveal some of the original magnificence of these windows. However, the western rose window does make one wonder whether we might not be in Chartres or some other French medieval cathedral. What theme went into which window was not done haphazardly. Analysis reveals that on the south side, the theme is building – a favourite for Masons, of course – and we find depictions of Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel. On the north, the theme is sacrifice, with Abraham and Isaac, and the Last Supper. In the west: creation, fall and redemption. SUMMER 2011 • 23
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Building has connotations with Freemasonry, but the Masonic interest is openly depicted in the East Window, situated in the Royds Chapel. It is a marvellous example of Masonic symbolism in its architectural design, and is appropriately filled with pictorial representations of the designing, building and decoration of the Temple at Jerusalem. In the centre light the three Grand Masters are shown with the plan of the Temple, or what purports to be the plan. There is also the figure of Hiram Abif, wearing a Master Mason’s cap, preserving the lineaments of Albert Hudson Royds. The right hand light shows the workmen busy with the masonry, while the left hand light shows the priests and populous celebrating the completion of the building. In the central pentagon of each pentalpha are, from left to right, the emblems of the Craft, the Ancient and Accepted Rite and The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders. Albert Hudson’s Masonic path began on December 8, 1847, when, at the age of 36, he was initiated into the Lodge of Benevolence No. 273 (later No. 226) at the Red Lion Hotel, Littleborough, near Rochdale. It marked the start of a life in which he would join and rise in several – if not most – Masonic rites. He held office in the Provincial Grand Lodge of East Lancashire from 1850 to 1856 as Provincial Grand Junior Warden and from 1856 to 1866 as the Deputy Provincial Grand Master. In 1860, Albert Hudson Royds was one of the petitioners for the foundation of his “own” lodge, The Royds Lodge No. 816, which was consecrated on October 3, 1864, still several years before he would begin the construction of his own Masonic oeuvre. It was not the only lodge that would carry his name. On December 30, 1867, the Provincial Grand Lodge met at Townsend House, Great Malvern, for the consecration of The Royds Lodge No. 1204. At the consecration, Albert Hudson’s son, Edmund Albert Nuttall, was appointed as Junior Warden. He also is known to have joined both Royal Arch and Mark Masonry, as well as being a founder member of the St Dunstan Chapter of the Scottish Rite. On April 8, 1862 he was elected a member of The Supreme Council – also known as the 33rd degree – and appointed Grand Captain General from 1869 to 1872, the time when St Edmund’s was built. The specific spark that initiated St Edmund’s might have come when on August 10, 1869, the Provincial Grand Lodge convened in the Chapter House of Worcester Cathedral to march in procession to the Cathedral where the Provincial Grand Master unveiled the new Masonic window that had been built in the north transept. On this occasion, Royds proclaimed: “I ask you to accept this gift from the brethren of our ancient Craft and sometimes, when you look upon its mellowed light, may you be 24 • SUMMER 2011
induced to say, ‘O, wonderful Masons!’” The cost of the windows, nowadays more often referred to as The Twelve Apostles Window, was £530. After the completion of St Edmund’s, Royds, on May 24, 1875, presided to lay the foundation stone of St Luke’s Church in Dudley. Alas, in December, he lost the use of his legs which, together with the loss of his daughter, at first made him unable to attend, and then compelled him to resign from office on March 7, 1878. St Edmund’s is a Temple of Solomon masking as a church. Built roughly at the same time when the enigmatic Bérenger Saunière constructed his enigmatic church in Rennes-le-Château, Saunière’s church supposedly contains “hidden clues” either to the location of a treasure or to the nature of the secret as to how he became so extraordinarily rich. But what detail is significant and might mean what precisely, is a matter of great controversy – and subjectivity. In the case of St Edmund’s, the Masonic references are sometimes underhand, but always clear to the Mason – quite often, they are straight in your face. There is, in short, no doubt that this church is Masonic in design. On the East wall, a reredos by Rev. E.W. Gilbert, is integrated with the stone of the building. At first sight, it appears to be nothing more as if they are cement leaves; on closer inspection, they are meant to grow out of the wall, and are actually vine leaves; inside them, you can read the words “I AM THE”. For those “on the level”, this is supposed to be read as “I am the vine” – the vine not written, but portrayed. It is a reference to John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” It appears to be a straightforward Christian message, but only Masons will know that this is actually a Masonic prayer, and a famous one at that: Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon and a Mason, used it during a private moment on the Moon – leaving non-Mason Neil Armstrong apparently somewhat perplexed as to what his colleague was doing. Looking up, we find the stone bond and the timber close boarding to the roof in enigmatic patterns, almost like a Masonic board. It is indeed accepted that it is to remind of the woodwork of King Solomon’s Temple, which was carved with knoops and open flowers, having a variety of geometrical designs. If there is any doubt about this interpretation, the Masonic connection of the lectern is so obvious, it is actually often referred to as the Masonic lectern. Indeed, the lectern has been described as “the symbolic climax of the whole scheme”. On an imperfect block of black marble stands a perfect white cube of ashlar marble. The
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example, the crypt – even though the Royds never designed or saw it as being used as a burial place. First of all, the crypt runs along the entire length and width of the church. It does not seem to have a real purpose and must have come at an extra cost. Entry to it is by a flight of stairs, as well as two trapdoors. In the third degree of Freemasonry, a crypt is a functional aspect, where the initiate is “raised” after being lowered in a crypt and reborn. In most lodges today, a tarp is laid out in the middle of the lodge temple, but could it be that the Church’s Masonic architects rendered it more spectacularly in St Edmund’s? Even if he intended to use it for Masonic ceremonies, Royds never much could enjoy his Great Work. In December 1875, as mentioned, he lost the use of his legs. He walked again in 1879, but moved to Lytham in 1881, to return to Rochdale six years later. He died on January 17, 1890 and was buried at Christ Church, Healey. cube, of course, is already significant within the Craft. Upon that are three columns of brass: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, representing Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. However, engraved upon their bases are the symbolic tools of the Craft, specifically the jewels of the Master and the Senior and Junior Wardens – the three degrees of Masonry. On top is a horizontal brass tray, fretted with pomegranates, lilies and intertwined snakes (a variation on the ouroboros, but within a Masonic context symbolising unity), with a horizontal design that represents the Blazing Star or glory, and finally, to carry the Volume of Sacred Law, a pyramid formed out of square and compasses – making an obvious – Masonic – statement the congregation was impossible to miss. As mentioned, further straightforward Masonic imagery is present in the Royds Chapel and its stained glass windows. But there are more hidden messages. The chapel – structurally – carries one of the massive buttresses which really carry the tower, which is made out of ashlar stones. The mastery that went into the construction of this buttress – this pillar – is extraordinary. The Royds Chapel is divided from the chancel by a screen of granite columns, their overscale capitals representing fig, passion flower and fern – continuing a “leafy theme” that this part of the church shares with Rosslyn Chapel. Direct references to the Craft are also present in the iron gates of Royds Chapel, which have square and compasses and a Seal of Solomon. For Freemasons, there is – again – a secondary level of reading this chapel. First of all, Royds chapel occupies the position in the church where the finished craftsman is placed after his passing. In the windows, of course, Royds has depicted himself as a Master Mason; and if he attended mass, he would hence sit in the position of Master Mason – inside the Royds Chapel. Furthermore, in the opinion of Rod. H. Baxter, two pillars between the chancel and the chapel are meant to represent Jachin and Boaz, though he admitted that they were placed in an unusual position if they were meant to represent them. He noted that the donor of the church would have had to look out from his sanctuary between these two pillars to contemplate the altar – and hence that they are the best candidates for this honour. Indeed, though the giant pillars near the lantern at first sight seem obvious candidates for the role of Jachin and Boaz, there are four of them – alas, two too many.
On February 12, 1985, the church became a Grade Two* listed building. For a church familiar with Masonic Degrees, it must have been a somewhat familiar step to be raised to the level of Fellowcraft. But Masonic initiations are all about conquering death, and alas, that is currently the challenge the church is facing. In 2006, the Rev. David Finney, vicar at both St Edmund’s and St Mary’s, was informed by the diocese that the church would close. Several services were being held without a congregation. In February 2008, the church was therefore finally closed to the public, but being a Grade Two listed building, it cannot be demolished. The Victorian Society identified the building as “unusual and extraordinary” but also critically endangered. St Edmund’s heritage status was upgraded to a Grade I listing in 2010 in recognition of its unique Masonic architecture and exceptional architectural interest. Its future is therefore uncertain, though other denominations have expressed a potential interest in securing at least the short to medium-term future of the building. What might therefore be seen by some as the end of this church, might, of course, only be a sleep, or rebirth. Rosslyn Chapel too had numerous episodes when it was unused, derelict and even close to collapse. Equally so, the Temple of Jerusalem had – and continues to have – a controversial history. In the end, it will be a question of whether the Great Architect of the Universe is willing… I would like to thank Andy Marshall for his extraordinary efforts in photographing the church, as well as guiding me to and through it. I would also like to thank Charlie Watson and the Royds Lodges for cataloguing their history and the history of their founder, as well as Andrew Gough, for providing me with several Masonic insights, or confirmations. All photographs copyright Andy Marshall. www.fotofacade.com Reprinted by permission.
Whether the church was ever meant to be used as a lodge is open for interpretation. And between intent and execution, is another major chasm. But it is clear that the church could have been used for Masonic rituals – or at least was designed with these rituals in mind. Take, for SUMMER 2011 • 25
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PHILOSOPHY
Masonic Ethics By Bob Weed, mms
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ome years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, “What does ethics mean to you?” Among their replies were the following:
“Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong.” “Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs.” “Being ethical is doing what the law requires.” “Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts.” “I don’t know what the word means.” These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of “ethics” is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky. Like Baumhart’s first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one’s feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical. Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion. Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical. Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing “whatever society accepts.” In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society. Moreover, if being ethical were doing “whatever society accepts,” then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist. What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. 26 • SUMMER 2011
Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one’s ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one’s standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, the noble and the ignoble, right, wrong, justice, and virtue. The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Let me touch on just the first subject area. ( If you are interested in pursuing the study further, there is a monograph at the end of this paper that gives an overview of all three branches of Ethics.) Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. There are people who not only specialize in Metaehtics in college but spend their entire careers arguing over the concepts. We are taught morals by our parents or in church. These lessons help us to develop a moral identity. The bans against lying, cheating and stealing are moral lessons that all major religions agree on and are considered to be universal truths. Some religious sects demand specific behaviors. They are instructed to abstain from certain things that their particular faith tells them would be a sin. (Mormons = Coffee, alcohol, smoking; Muslims = alcohol, pork ; Jews = keeping kosher) In English, we use the phrase “That is not Kosher” meaning that there is something wrong with it. (One of the best examples of this is the Hebrew National commercial for their hotdogs) The big question is are these requirements moral standards? We’ve watched all things personal undergo very public makeovers on reality TV--our noses, our houses, our cars and jobs and spouses. But something more fundamental may have quietly fallen victim to a makeover as well: our moral identities. Moral identity is how you view and describe yourself in ethical terms--honest, caring, opposed to cheating, committed to doing the right thing, etc. But two business researchers say people
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with a strong sense of moral awareness can actually become the biggest failures in the face of moral challenges. In a study reported by LiveScience.com and originally published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the researchers asked a group of people if they considered themselves moral, and if they would cheat on a test. The people who said they would never cheat described themselves as very moral--no surprise. But the people who said they would indeed cheat also described themselves as very moral. The study deduced that when a person with a strong moral identity is faced with a moral decision, they choose their fate—for good or bad—and then pursue it until the extreme end, driven by their extreme moral identity. In other words, they rationalize cheating as a means to a moral end, as in this example given by one of the researchers: “If I cheat, then I’ll get into get into graduate school. And if I get into graduate school, then I can become a doctor. And think about all the people I’m going to help when I’m a doctor.” Every time we rationalize in this way, doing the wrong thing for expediencies sake, we weaken our own moral identity. Is doing the wrong thing--but claiming it’s for the right reasons--ever really right? “Why have a Code of Ethics? •
to define accepted/acceptable behaviors;
•
to promote high standards of practice;
• to provide a benchmark for members to use for self evaluation; • to establish responsibilities;
a
framework
for
•
as a vehicle for occupational identity;
•
as a mark of occupational maturity;”
behavior
and
(from the website of Life Skills Coaches Association of BC) So, does Freemasonry have a code of ethics? Are they clearly defined ? Yes we do and yes they are. Our code of ethics are clearly defined and explained in each of the three blue lodge degrees. The first degree teaches a number of important lessons that are built upon in the next two degrees. These lessons are the basis of the Masonic Code of Ethics. The first thing the new candidate is taught is trust in the fidelity of a brother. Then he is taught the primary lesson of this degree, the necessity for secrecy. In the lecture of the degree, he is introduced to the concept of Faith, Hope and Charity, taught the principal tenets of Freemasonry ( Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth) and the four Cardinal virtues (Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice). These lessons become the building blocks of our code of ethics. The second degree teaches lessons about the responsibilities men have as they mature. This degree emphasizes that it is virtuous to work and that work is an ennobling experience. There is an emphasis placed on the working tools to re-enforce the lessons taught. A man is to walk uprightly before God and man, squaring his actions with the square of virtue. He is taught the value of education and continuing to learn. He is also taught to aid and assist each other and to never cheat, wrong or defraud anyone out of the value of anything , knowingly or intentionally. In the third degree the newly made Master Mason is told that he is to use all of the working tools of a Mason indiscriminately but to pay special attention to the trowel. He is then told that the trowel is used to spread the cement of Brotherly Love and Affection.
These lessons serve to remind him of that which he has already been informed of. Then he is taught the lessons of integrity and honor. All of these lessons become the basis of The Masonic code of ethics. They are taught in a traditional manner by allegories and symbols. When we reflect upon the lessons and lectures of the three degrees, we can easily identify those things that are important to the Craft. In some American Jurisdictions a certificate of proficiency in the degree already attained is essential before the member can advance to a higher degree. But there is a set purpose in that demand, and it is not that the candidates may prove that they are diligent disciples of memorization. It is in order that they may translate their intellectual knowledge into practical application that the demand is made. The strength of Freemasonry, like that of any organization built up on fraternal lines, lies not in its numerical power, but to the extent to which its tenets are put into practice. Our focus must remain upon men and principles, rather than upon numbers. Our guiding principles of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth and the Cardinal virtues of Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice really constitute the ethics of Freemasonry. We teach that Masons do the right thing because it is the right thing. There is not supposed to be a debate (internal or external) about “what is in it for me”. For us to be ethical Masons we need to do: 1 – Learn the lessons of the ritual. Learn the meaning of the various parts. Anybody can memorize, it is much harder to understand the lessons being taught. 2 – Practice the tenets of Brotherly love, relief and Truth. That is not as easy as it seems. I still have those moments when I wish the individual I have to deal with would just go away and make my life easier. Part of Brotherly love is developing the tolerance to deal with unpleasant people. 3 – Strive to live the Cardinal virtues. Temperance and Fortitude are the dynamic ones. We make a choice in our behavior to overindulge or to show restraint. Fortitude can be as simple in our daily life as getting up and going to work when we are in pain or not feeling well. Fortitude is what makes us do the things that are necessary even when they are painful. Prudence and Justice are much more intellectual pursuits. We determine whether something is prudent in our lives. Of course we have all made bad decisions. But with maturity comes wisdom (sometimes). We can determine what is prudentially in our best interests based on our life experiences and also our level of knowledge. Justice is that virtue which is most commonly associated with ethics. At least in a Masonic sense. We teach that justice enables to give unto every man his just due without distinction. We therefor do what is right because it is the right thing to do. When a man petitions the Lodge , he is seeking to become a member of our great fraternity. Considering the applicant not just as a candidate for our home Lodge but as a candidate for world-wide Masonry, it is incumbent upon us to at least inform him of the duties and responsibilities associated with his admission into Masonry. I believe that one of the things we should do prior to his admission, possibly as part of the investigation process, is to inform him of our Masonic ethics. This will show him what we believe and strive for and will also inform him what we expect from him. This is going to result in the candidate having the opportunity to consider his petition from a deeper perspective. What is the objective of the candidate for initiation in seeking admission into the Lodge? Is it to further his career or form alliances which will give him an advantage over his peers? We hope that his petition is from a desire to join a fraternity of like minded men and to improve himself personally and spiritually. We want men who can conform SUMMER 2011 • 27
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
to our ethical code and use it to improve themselves and those around them. Do the impressions the initiate receives during the ceremonies of the degrees and after reviewing the various incidents and lectures connected with the ritual encourage him to think that his objectives will be realized? Are we truly educating him and showing him what our ethical beliefs and demands are? Do we actually educate any of our members about our ethics? If not, we are doing a disservice to our beloved Masonry. If Freemasonry has a mission, the goal of making good men better, it must not content itself with merely a beautiful ritual faultlessly rendered. If the exalted teachings of the Craft are to end with dramatic and spectacular exhibitions in lodges, there is little room or use for our Fraternity in the affairs of men. Until the tenets of the Craft are demonstrated in the daily life, we are but ritualists only and not real Masons. We are only honorary or passive members instead of honorable and active workers in the most noble Craft that adorned the annals of history. Ethics Moral Definition Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, the noble and the ignoble, right and wrong, justice, and virtue. Legal Definition: n. (eth”iks) [Cf. F. éthique. See Ethic.] The science of human duty; the body of rules of duty drawn from this science; a particular system of principles and rules concerning duty, whether true or false; rules of practice in respect to a single class of human actions; as, political or social ethics; medical ethics. The completeness and consistency of its morality is the
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28 • SUMMER 2011
peculiar praise of the ethics which the Bible has taught. The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war. By using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues. The lines of distinction between metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, “where do rights come from?” and “what kind of beings have rights?”
BOB WEED IS THE WORSHIPFUL MASTER OF ARIZONA RESEARCH LODGE #5
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
RESOURCES
2011 List of Masonic Research Lodges Alabama Confederate Military Lodge of Research 588 14th Street West Alexander City, AL 35010 www.home.earthlink. net/~comilor/data/
Delaware Delaware Lodge of Research 818 N. Market St. Wilmington, DE 19801-3077 www.masonsindelaware. org/blue/research.htm
Arizona Arizona Research Lodge No. 1 345 W. Monroe St. Phoenix, AZ 85003-1684 www.arizonamasonry.org/ R1/Research.htm
of
Southern Arizona Research Lodge No 2 2945 N. Bear Canyon Rd. Tucson, AZ www.sarl2.org Colman-Holley Lodge No. 3 153 S. 2nd Ave Yuma, AZ
Research
California El Camino Research Lodge 2500 Masonic Drive San Jose, CA 95125 http://www.calodges.org/ecrl/ Golden State Chapter of Research (RAM) 34400 Mission Blvd. Union City, CA 94587-3604 www.goldenstatechapter. org Northern California Research Lodge 2810 19th Avenue San Francisco CA 94132-1602 www.calodges.org/ncrl Southern California Research Lodge 2097 Smokewood Ave Fullerton CA 92831-1035 www.calodges.org/scrl Connecticut Masonic Lodge of Research 285 Whitney Avenue New Haven, CT Mail: 46 Elder St., Milford, CT 06460 w w w . masoniclodgeresearch.org Philosophic Lodge of Research 324 Main Street Cromwell, CT Mail: PO Box 207, Rocky Hill, CT 06067-0207 w w w . philosophiclodgeresearch. org
District of Columbia Pythagoras Lodge Research
Florida Florida Lodge of Research P.O. Box 4088 Tallahassee, FL 32315-4088 w w w . floridalodgeofresearch.com Georgia Georgia Lodge of Research 3752 Thornbrooke Place Duluth, GA 30097 glrsec@bellsouth.net Lodge of Savannah
Research
#1,
Lodge of Research #2 of Columbus Lodge of Research #4 of Macon Idaho Idaho Lodge of Research No. 1965 Boise, ID Illinois Illinois Lodge of Research 2002 Berrywood Bloomington, IL 61704 ronblue33@msn.com Indiana Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research www.indianalodgeofresearch. com/index.shtml Iowa Iowa Research Lodge No. 2 P.O. Box 13048 Des Moines, IA 50310 http://www.yorkrite.com/ia/ lodge2/ Kansas Kansas Lodge of Research Robert L. Tomlinson, Jr., Secretary Grand Lodge of Kansas AF&AM Masonic Temple 320 SW 8th Avenue P.O. Box 1217 Topeka, Kansas 66601
Minnesota Kentucky Ted Adams Lodge Research Ernest R. Brown, Secy 2015 Booth Quillen Rd Ashland KY 41102
of
William O. Ware Lodge of Research #999 Alton L. Cummins, Secy 2472 Venetian Way Burlington KY 41005 Louisiana Louisiana Lodge of Research Marc H. Conrad, P.M., Secretary/Treasurer PO Box 10667 New Orleans, LA 70181-0667 w w w . louisianalodgeofresearch. com/ Maine Maine Lodge of Research Richard L. Bowden, PM, Secy 32 Clewleyville Road Eddington, ME 04428-3024 bowdenrl@aol.com www.mainemason.org/mlr Maryland Maryland Masonic Research Society John Maclay, Secretary P.O. Box 16253 Baltimore, MD 21210 www.md-mrs.com Further Light Research Group 6110 Croom Station Rd. Upper Marlboro, MD 20772 www.furtherlight.us Massachusetts Massachusetts Chapter of Research (RAM) Manuel Ferreira III, Secy 117 Dr.Braley Road East Freetown, Ma. 027171816 grandmasterhiram@verizon. net www.gracma.org/gracrsrch. htm Michigan Michigan Lodge of Research #1 w w w . michiganlodgeofresearch.org/ index.html
Educational Lodge #1002 200 East Plato Boulevard Saint Paul, Minnesota 55107 w w w. m n - m a s o n s . o r g / page924.aspx Missouri Missouri Lodge of Research Ronald D. Miller, Sec./Treas. 6033 Masonic Drive, Suite B Columbia, MO 65202 rmiller@momason.org www.momason.org/ LodgeofResearch/default.asp Montana Nebraska Saints John Lodge of Education No. 331 www.minerland.net/ lodgeofedu.htm Roscoe Pound Lodge of Research Nevada Nevada Lodge of Research #1 Carson City, NV Nevada Lodge of Research #2 Masonic Memorial Temple 2200 West Mesquite Avenue Las Vegas NV 89106 www.nvlr2.org New Hampshire Anniversary Lodge of Research #175 Mark E. Furber, Secy 11 Elwyn Avenue Portsmouth, NH 03801-4417 w e b m a s t e r @ anniversarylodge.org www.anniversarylodge.org New Jersey New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research & Education #1786 Matthew Korang, Secy mkorang@comcast.net www.njlore1786.org New Jersey (PHA) Masonic Research and Education Lodge No. 2006 Woodlin Lodge No. 30 19 Park Street Bordentown, NJ 08505 Charles Singleton, Secy csing11009@msn.com www.mwphglnj.org/ SUMMER 2011 • 29
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
lore2006.html
www.researchlodge.org
lodge ... earch.html
New Mexico
Oregon
New Mexico Lodge of Research c/o The Grand Lodge of New Mexico 1638 University Blvd. Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 www.nmlodgeofresearch.org/ web/
Research Lodge of Oregon #198 Scottish Rite Center 1525 SW Yamhill St Portland, OR 97205 www.masonry.dhs.org
New York Justice Robert H. Jackson Lodge of Research www.wnymason.org/JUST1. HTM American Lodge of Research Ronald Goldwyn, Secy www.nymasons.org/cms/ALR Western New York Lodge of Research http://masonicresearch. wordpress.com/ Infinity Lodge for Study & Research Utica, NY Third Millenium Research
Lodge
of
Thomas Smith Webb Chapter for Royal Arch Research C/O Mark Adler 7501 16th Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11214-1000 www.thomaswebb.org North Carolina Masonic Research and Historical Society of North Carolina www.grandlodge-nc.org/nclor/ North Dakota Ohio Ohio Lodge of Research Norman G. Lincoln, Secy P.O. Box 454 Eaton, Ohio 45320 http://olr.freemason.com/ http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/OLR-CC/ Ohio Chapter of Research http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/OCR-CC/ Ohio Council of Research and Development http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ Council_o ... velopment/ Dr. Charles H. Wesley Masonic Research Society (PHA) http://www.hariam.org/CHWR/ Oklahoma Oklahoma Lodge of Research www.geocities.com/oklahoma_ 30 • SUMMER 2011
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Lodge of Research http://www.pagrandlodge.org/ Rhode Island South Carolina South Carolina Research Society www.scmrs.org
Masonic
South Dakota South Dakota Lodge of Masonic Research Richard M. Luther, Secy 124 Gilley Avenue South Brookings, SD 57006. w w w. m a s t e r m a s o n . c o m / sdresearchlodge/ Frontier Army Lodge of Masonic Research #1875 Tennessee Tennessee Lodge of Research George Ladd, Secy 4521 Turkey Creek Road Williamsport, Tennessee 38487 www.tnlor.org Texas Texas Lodge of Research James G. “Jim” Dougherty, Secy P. O. Box 1192 Austin, Texas 78767-1192 http://pentium2.gower.net/ Community/tlr/ Utah
James Noah Hillman Research Lodge #1883 James Ernest Glovier - Secretary dutch@mounet.com w w w. m a s t e r m a s o n . c o m / jnh1883 A. Douglas Smith, Jr., Lodge of Research #1949 George Washington Masonic National Memorial Alexandria, VA Edwin R. Carpenter, PM, Secy 4030 Walters Ct Fairfax, VA 22030 ecarp@erols.com http://www.adsmithlor1949. org/ Civil War Lodge of Research #1865 Stephen M. Whitaker, PM, Secy PO Box 357 1855 E. Main St., Suite 14 Spartanburg SC 29307 swhita9864@aol.com www.bessel.org/cwlr/ Virginia Research Royal Arch Chapter No. 1753 Leonard M. Kilian, Secy 308 Gibson Drive Chesapeake, VA 23320-4818 lkilian1@cox.net www.vamason.org/ra1753/ Washington Walter F. Meier Lodge Research #281 Steven H. Ellis, Secy Greenwood Masonic Center 7910 Greenwood Ave. N. Seattle, WA 98103 www.wfm281.org
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Eastern Washington Lodge of Research #310 West Virginia Wisconsin Silas H. Shepherd Lodge of Research #1843
Vancouver Lodge of Education and Research Vancouver British Columbia Victoria Lodge of Education and Research 650 Fisgard St: Victoria BC Email: stonemason@shaw.ca http://www3.telus.net/ freemason/vler/ Vancouver Lodge of Education and Research www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/ lodges/education_van.html Alberta Fiat Lux Lodge of Research #1980 w w w. c a s c a d e 5 . o r g / 2 0 1 0 / fiatlux.htm Aurora Borealis Research #1999
Lodge
of
Internet Lodge of Research U.D. www.internetlodge.ab.ca/ Saskatchewan Solomon Lodge of Research #5986 Other Research Lodges & Groups in the U.S. Grand College of Rites Gary D. Hermann, Grand Registrar P.O. Box 1044 Tremont, IL 61568 www.grandcollegeofrites.org/ Masonic Library & Museum Association www.masoniclibraries.org Masonic Restoration Foundation www.traditionalobservance. com
Utah Masonic Research Lodge Salt Lake Masonic Temple 650 E South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84102
Wyoming Canada
The Philalethes Society www.freemasonry.org/psoc
Vermont
Ontario
Vermont Lodge of Research F&AM #110 10 Cushing Drive Essex Junction, VT 05452-4419 w w w . vermontlodgeofresearch.com
The Heritage Lodge No. 730 Kenneth E. Campbell, Secy R.R.#1, Milford, Ontario K0K 2P0 Email: kec238ec@xplornet.com www.grandlodge.on.ca/ heritage/
The Phylaxis Society www.thephylaxis.org/phylaxis
Virginia Virginia Research Lodge #1777 Babcock Masonic Temple Highland Autumns, VA
Toronto Society for Masonic Research Email: tsmreig@tsmr.org www.tsmr.org
Midwest Conference on Masonic Education
Scottish Rite Research Society www.srmason-sj.org/council/ resrch1.htm
THE JOURNAL OF THE MASONIC SOCIETY
THE GENTLEMAN MASON
Books, Arts, Styles & Manners BOOKS This Old Church By Ion Grumeza Paperback: 131 pages Publisher: Resource Publications ISBN:978-1-60899-180-8 Reviewed by Christopher Hodapp, FMS
A
nyone who finds himself on a building committee faces the ultimate test of his Masonic career, especially if the building is an older one. Brother Cletus is a contractor who’s always done right by the lodge. Brother Frank has a cousin with a new electrical business. Three brethren have had new roofs put on their homes recently and know their own favorite roofing guys. Brother Shemp wants to question every single expenditure, wondering, “Can’t we just throw a little paint or tar on the problem and pass it along for another ten years?” Or worse, pitch it all overboard and build a new pole barn in a cornfield. And seemingly everybody in lodge wants their favorite handyman to bid on the job. Many a friendship has been lost from building committee arguments.
woodwork, windows, weatherproofing, roofing, and much more. It is an incredibly exhaustive guide to identifying building materials and how to properly restore and care for them. The section on restoring historic plaster alone is worth the whole volume. Other notable sections cover restoring and maintaining ceramic mosaic tile floors, plaster and wood composite ornamentation, dealing with limestone and brick spalling, making historic buildings handicapped accessible, and even removing graffiti from masonry walls. If you are on a building committee, this is the book that will get you up to speed on every conceivable aspect of building details. It also spends a great deal of pages discussing what is and is not architecturally appropriate when making new additions to old buildings, or finding modern materials to substitute for historic details like columns, cornices and windows. It is helpful whether you are undertaking a major renovation project, or simply taking on a small maintenance project.
THE GOOD LIFE The Master’s Blend Coffee Zazzy’Z Coffee Available in regular and decaf 12oz. $8.99 Direct from zazzyzroast@gmail.com
While This Old Church is written for religious buildings, the underlying advice is equally applicable for Masonic lodges and their restoration problems. It is not a detailed, how-to manual, but a small volume that walks you through the basics of choosing a contractor, formulating short and long range plans, fund raising, staying open while construction goes on, handling unfortunate surprises during the job, and almost as important, dealing with the psychology of membership groups and building committees. Grumeza has renovated many old churches and understands the challenges involved, both from the personality side, as well as the care needed to restore older, historical buildings, and the responsibility to respect the architecture and the craftsmanship of what our predecessors built. It is a simple, introductory book, and while it is by no means the last one you should pick up on this subject, it’s probably the first you should sit down with before dipping your toe into a major lodge renovation.
The Preservation of Historic Architecture By U.S. Department of the Interior Paperback: 532 pages Lyons Press ISBN: 978-1-60899-180-8 Reviewed by Christopher Hodapp, FMS
I
n contrast to the previously reviewed book, this might be the last book you need to pick up for a major or minor lodge renovation project. The U.S. Department of the Interior has assembled this massive volume to cover every conceivable aspect of historic renovation of buildings of every age, size and description. It has detailed information on painting, stonework and masonry, plasterwork,
W
e’ve all had it: that stainless steel pot of generic tar-like material that is supposed to be coffee, heated to a molten stage and belching smoke like the forges of Isengard. Nearly every lodge features this terrible concoction that has no business being labeled as suitable for human consumption. It isn’t even good for washing down green beans or cold spaghetti. Comes now Zazzy’Z new Master’s Blend coffee, billed as “medium blended coffee, with light acidity and a sweet finish.” The label does not exaggerate. It is a mild coffee, blended of Malawi “AAA” and Indian Plantation, perfect if you aren’t the sort who demands a weapons’ grade morning brew. Best of all, it’s available as both a regular and decaf. (The decaf is Sumatra Lingtong.) I highly recommend both. Slip it in to the lodge pot and see if it doesn’t become the new crowd pleaser. As an added bonus, the label is beautifully designed and festooned with symbolism, and makes an suitable small gift for any Mason. Both are available in 12 ounce bags for $8.99 plus shipping directly from Brother Oliver Craughwell’s Zazzy’Z Coffee in Virginia, at zazzyzroast@gmail.com
SUMMER 2011 • 31
Letters to the Editor Dear Brother Editor: I would like to point out what appears to be an error in the most recent issue of The Journal Of The Masonic Society. On pager 18, Figure 3, The Tree of Life has the word Kether spelled incorrectly in Hebrew. It appears that the first letter is a Bet and not a Kaph. Thus, the word is “Bether” and not “Kether.” Sometimes, in different fonts those two letters may be confused, but I think they are different enough in this font to see the distinction. You will note that the word Binah is spelled correctly with a Bet. Please correct me if I am wrong. I would also like to mention that the article was most interesting, if a bit convoluted. Sincerely and fraternally yours, Leon I. Gilner, M.D., F.A.A.N.S., F.A.C.S. Staff Neurosurgeon, Walter Reed Army Medical Center Washington, D.C. Member Aztlan Lodge #1, Prescott, AZ 32o Scottish Rite Mason, Valley of Phoenix, Orient of Arizona Leader of Religious Services, North Valley Jewish Community Association, Anthem, AZ ligilner@gmail.com
32 • SUMMER 2011
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FROM THE EDITOR
Steampunk Freemasonry? by Christopher L. Hodapp, fms
“We were making the future,” he said, “and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making. And here it is!” H.G. Welles, When The Sleeper Wakes (1899)
S
everal years ago, Greg Stewart, on his FreemasonInformation. com blog, wrote a brief article musing on the notion that perhaps part of the Traditional Observance movement in Freemasonry might be analogous to Steampunk. If you don’t know what Steampunk is, have a look at The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers. The term itself was coined back in 1987 by writer K. W. Jeter, and over the last thirty years it has developed into a full-blown obsessive hobby and lifestyle for a growing segment of society. The T.O. lodge concept is just about the same age. Most of the early objections to the movement have faded away, and perhaps now is a good time to look back and assess its influence. Steampunk is an offshoot of the science fiction world, combined with an alternative history that reimagines the past. It combines mad scientists, 150-year-old technology, clockwork mechanisms, steampowered airships, and a Victorian or Edwardian mindset applied to just about everything from clothes and artwork to submarines and ray guns. The Disney version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and its 1860s Nautilus submarine is the classic image. It is as though the Industrial Revolution became frozen in a narrow sliver of time. Modern mad scientist and artist Jake Van Slatt is considered a major figure in the Steampunk world, and his “Steampunk Manifesto” sums up the way the movement’s biggest fans feel about the modern world: “What sort of future were you promised? When I was young, they told me I’d have robotic servants to tend to my every need, cars that would drive themselves while I read the newspaper, and vacations in orbiting space hotels. . . But by the time I had reached high school, they had stopped promising the future . . . Magazines that used to attempt to show us how we would be living in fifty or one hundred years, now only speculate over the new surround-sound standard for your home theater or whether next year’s luxury sedan will have Bluetooth as standard equipment. What do you do when you are promised no future beyond the next Steve Jobs keynote address or summer blockbuster movie?” He’s right on many levels. The “big ideas” of a bold new future are gone from the covers of Popular Science magazine these days. (Where’s my flying car? We were ALL promised flying cars by now.) So, Van Slatt’s answer is to take a step sideways. “A step into a world of adventure and romance where we seek out our own futures on our own terms without having to wait for it to go on sale. A step sideways into a past that never was and a future that still could be.” In many ways, isn’t that what Freemasonry does? We revel in the ritual and symbolism that we say has existed since “time immemorial” when in reality much of it was reimagined in the late 1700s and early 1800s when Preston and Webb codified it. We lionize our founders and the noted members of the past, into almost as mythic characters. While plenty of lodges have dressed down to jeans and golf shirts, many others insist on tuxedos, top hats and formal dress from another
era. Not unlike the Steampunks. Interestingly, Brazil has a group of “Steampunk Lodges”—not Masonic, but organized in local social groups calling themselves lodges. (Have a look at www.rj.steampunk. com.br) Greg Stewart’s analogy about the Traditional Observance movement is also applicable. The truth is there is no American “tradition” that existed in some imaginary golden age of Freemasonry that it seeks to emulate now. It is a fanciful fantasy of traditions amalgamated from English and Continental lodges, mixed into a pastiche that was filtered through Australia by way of Texas in the early 1990s, and refined through online conversations on the old Compuserve Masonic discussion board, with a healthy dose of French influence. Consider that Freemasonry also clings to our magnificent temples from an earlier era. Many have a very Steampunk feel to them, inside and out. Our jewels are from a more fanciful time. And it’s hard to get more Steampunk than the clockwork beauty of a Dudley pocket watch. Time travel is a big theme in Steampunk literature—consider how laden our ritual is with references to Time, whether it’s the 24inch gauge, “traveling upon the level of time,” the hourglass, Father Time, the Ages of Man, or the Bible reading of the Master Mason degree. Freemasonry has always adapted to suit the society in which it has resided, and the Freemasonry of 1717 was very different by 1776, even moreso by 1813, turned inside out by the 1850s, and so on. Traditional Observance (or “Best Practices” as Pete Normand prefers to call them) lodges are simply a new way to try to reimagine our past and capture a snapshot of it. Not unlike Steampunk hobbyists with their iMac computers modified to look like “futuristic” brass and walnut Underwood typewriters. Traditional Observance lodges, and the subtle influences they are exerting on other lodges around North America, spread by the Internet, are helping to adapt Freemasonry again, just as Masonry has always done. Certainly it goes far deeper than just an outward appearance of dressing up, eating better, toasting “properly,” and having a more contemplative feel to lodge meetings. Lodges that don’t fully adopt the T.O. model are still being influenced by them, and a sea change may be in the wind that will take decades to be fully felt. And when brethren look back at us from 2050, they will be amazed at the differences. Van Slatt’s summation in his manifesto is not a bad analogy to Freemasonry and the way most of us feel deep in our hearts: “Steampunks want to buy something once and then pass it along to our children. Even better, we want to make something once, something that we will use every day for the rest of our lives. Something that will remind us each time we use it that we have skill and ability. Something that no one else in the world has.” Substitute “Freemasons” for “Steampunks” and you have a pretty decent vision for us all.
SUMMER 2011 • 35
The Masonic Society 1427 W. 86th Street, Ste. 248 Indianapolis, IN 46260-2103
Masonic Treasures In the aftermath of World War I as so many American troops waited to return home, a small island of Masonic civilization appeared just off the etoille of the L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The American Masonic Headquarters opened at 10 Av. Victor Hugo III, was maintained by the Ancient Accapted Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction as a place for U.S. Masons to meet, play and relax. The facility was the brainchild of Brother Maj. Charles W. Connery (1893-1938) of Ft. Worth, Texas. Between January 1819 and 1821, the H.Q. became the regular meeting place of several preexisting Masonic clubs for Americans overseas, and its doors were thrown open wide to any Masonic groups desiring a home away from home. At the time, between 300-900 U.S. troops arrived in Paris every day on leave. The H.Q. had lounges, card tables, pool tables, meeting spaces, and provided an island of fraternal bonding far from home. It didn’t last long, mostly out of practicality. Once the war ended, troops were moved stateside quickly, and the Scottish Rite saw no further financial reason to support it after just two years. After it closed, Bro. Connery toured Europe as a representative of American Masonry. For the rest of his life, he was active In hospital visitation work for Masons who were ill, and became affectionately known as the “Sunshlne Doctor.” Nothing remains today to give passersby any clue as to its former home. The building has been modified numerous times, and it’s now clothing shop. CLH