Contents
From the Editor's Quarries
Notes and Queries
The Northeast Corner
The Masonic Conspiracy
So You Want to Be A Writer
Not in Twenty-Four Hours
Was George
Washington A Sun Tzu Strategist
Medieval Operative Masonry
Is Freemasonry Still Viable
The Measure of a Mason
Quotable Quotes
Masonry's Missionaries
In Memoriam
William Ray Denslow, FPS 1916-1993
In Defense of Masonic Absurdity
the philalethes
The Journal of Masonic Research and Letters
Charles S. Guthrie, FPS Editor
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LIVING PAST PRESIDENTS
Philalethes Society
Robert V. Osborne, FPS
Robert L Dillard Jr. FPS
Bruce H. Hunt, FPS
Allen E. Roberts, FPS
John Mauk Hilliard, FPS
Wallace MacLeod, FPS
CONTENTS
From the Editor's Quarries Notes and Queries
The Northeast Corner
The Masonic Conspiracy
Not in Twenty-Four Hours
Was George Washington A
Sun Tzu Strategist?
Speculative Characteristics of Medieval Operative Masonry
Is Freemasonry Still Viable?
The Measure of a Mason
Masonry's Missionaries
In Memoriam
William Ray Denslow, FPS
In Defense of Masonic Absurdity
Through Masonic Windows
ON THE COVER
The west side of the Knights' Templar Chapel on the eighth level in the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. The stained glass window depicts Mary surrounded by the twelve disciples of Christ.
Courtesy of the GWMNM Association. Photo by Arthur W. Pierson.
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I recently read a book entitled Texe Marrs Book of New Age Cults & Religions, published by Living Truth Publishers of Austin, Texas. Mr. Marrs thus defines "New Age" (p. 35): as a " . . . a religious system composed of a large variety of cults, groups, organizations, and other entities, whether or not that group admits that it is in fact New Age. " Not a very specific definition, but one that leaves you wondering what "New Age" really means. In another place (p. 31) the goal of the New Age movement is described as the extinction of biblical Christianity.
You guessed it! Freemasonry (pp. 198-203) is included among the 101 groups discussed, and is described as being unchristian and unholy. The book follows the usual antiMasonic line, giving three key characteristics one should know concerning the status of Freemasonry:
1. Although Freemasonry claims to be Christian, it is not; Freemasonry is a religion, although it denies it; and Freemasonry is Luciferan (whatever that may mean).
Quotations from Albert Pike, Henry C. Clausen, Albert G. Mackey, Henry Wilson Coil, Fred Kleinknecht, and Manly P. Hall are all wrested from context in "proof" of Mr. Marrs' attack on Freemasonry.
Bahai, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unitarian-Universalist Church, Swedenborgianism, and the Worldwide Church of God are among the other 100 organizations condemned. One wonders whether the book is any more accurate about them than about our gentle Craft.
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The opinions expressed in the items in this column are not necessarily those of the Philalethes Society or of the Editor. They are solely the thoughts and opinions of the writers. Please give your name, complete address, and telephone number when submitting items for this column. Indicate whether you are a member or fellow of the Philalethes Society. All letters are subject to editing and may be excerpted.
Can Masons Practice What We Preach?
Can Masons practice what we preach? I, for one am beginning to have serious doubts about it. Even while we have the unreasoning criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention calling Freemasonry a cult, we are doing ourselves greater harm by being narrow-minded and bigoted.
While Masonry teaches and preaches toleration of diverse views, religions, philosophies, races, etc., we do not practice these things in our daily lives. The Scottish Rite, thought to be one of the most open-minded and ecumenical branches of Masonry, confers its highest honors upon some of the most narrow-minded and bigoted men in our history, including J. Edgar Hoover and Jesse Helms. Given the teachings of the Order, it seems self-contradictory.
I recently attended a luncheon meeting of the local clan of the Royal Order of Scotland (a Christian offshoot of the ecumenical Scottish Rite). When the time came for the traditional toasts to the President of the United States and the Queen of England, no one responded appropriately or even politely to the toast to the President. One slightly inebriated wag shouted something about " slick Willy" (and that was one of the few printable derogations). The brethren and ladies enthusiastically pronounced, "To the Queen!" on the next toast.
I learned, during the Nixon administration, that Americans should have respect for the office of the Presidency even when we do not respect the man occupying it. Most of our Scottish Rite brethren cannot seem to respect anyone who is not a conservative Republican. I have spent the entire span of my membership trying to convince some of them that liberal Democrats are just as patriotic and law-abiding citizens as the conservatives. To many it is still a foreign concept. I have also defended the organization to the uninitiated who wonder how I can possibly fit into such an ultra-conservative organization by telling them that the organization was not designed to be ultraconservative, but that the vast majority of the current membership just happens to be that way. If we are not concerned about our public image, perhaps we should be.
Our chauvinistic treatment of our ladies has turned many of them against participation in the activities of various Masonic organizations. Many of the brethren, especially of the so-called "younger generation" (anyone under sixty in my experience), find themselves attending important Masonic functions "stag" because their ladies have been offended by various actions that the older brethren think are "traditional."
On the other hand, the Eastern Star ladies have done their share to make people feel unwelcome. I attended a Rainbow installation at the Temple of my Symbolic Lodge and was grilled about my presence there by an old biddy who treated me as if I were some sort of drooling pervert, there to molest young ladies. (I was only forty-three years old at the time, but probably looked like a teenager to the majority of the people there.) I was then pleased to inform my inquisitor that I happened to be the Master of the lodge in which they were holding their installation. After that, I was escorted to the East to be introduced and recognized as the presiding officer of the sponsoring body. Quite a reversal of attitude.
Anti-youth sentiment is, unfortunately, prevalent among members of my Blue Lodge and many of the most outspoken ones on the subject are past masters. It does not set much of an example for our youth when our lodge is sponsoring a DeMolay Chapter and a Rainbow Assembly, while cringing at thoughts of possible abuse and destruction of temple property.
Finally, when are we going to stop being so hypocritical as to deny the existence of Prince Hall Masonry as a legitimate branch of the same brotherhood and welcome those brethren into our lodges? When will our old sideliners stop whispering the "nigger jokes" that they seem to enjoy so much and practice the brotherhood of man that we have been taught?
Each spring at my Symbolic Lodge, the principal of a local junior high school is the guest speaker at our public schools tribute. Many of us have wished that he would petition our lodge, but he is AfroAmerican and probably realizes the embarrassment that he and the brethren would suffer at the hands of the "rednecks" who would drop black cubes in the ballot box.
If Freemasonry falls, the catalyst will not be anything like the Southern Baptist Convention. Our demise will be by our own hand.
Terence O. Tennis, MPS
6425 Stoneman Drive
North Highlands, CA 95660-4139
Dr. Charles F. Gosnell Memorial Fund
I am sure you are saddened .... by the news of the passing of M.’. W.’. Dr Charles F. Gosnell.... In recognition of Dr. Gosnell's many long years of service . . . the Trustees of the Livingston Masonic Library have set up an endowment in his memory.... The interest on the Gosnell Memorial Fund will be used to maintain and support the collections of Livingston Masonic Library while the capital of the fund will remain forever intact.
Donations to the Gosnell Memorial Fund may be made through Masonic Brotherhood Fund .... Make checks payable to the Masonic Brotherhood fund and earmark them for the Livingston Masonic Library Gosnell Memorial Fund. For further information, contact me or William D. Moore, Director, Livingston Masonic Library at the address and telephone number below.
Albert L. Ehinger, President
Board of Trustees
Livingston Masonic Library
71 West 23rd Street New York, NY
10010 (212) 741-4505
Be a Part
The different organizations within Masonry are called bodies, I believe, for a very good reason. They are not unlike the human body, made up of so many vital and necessary organs all with a specific task to perform to keep the body healthy and functioning properly. Imagine, if you will, a specific organ just not being there to do its job. Just one part not functioning properly could very well mean the end of existence for the body.
The members of the Masonic bodies are the vital parts of that organization and all must function and do their share to keep the body running properly. Imagine not being able to stretch forth a helping hand to raise a fallen brother because the 'hands stayed home that night; or not being able to hear the cry for assistance from a distressed worthy brother because the ears were not at the meeting; or perhaps as you were about to start your travels over a rough and rugged road you did not know which direction to take because the "eyes" were watching something else that evening. All of this may sound foolish but its true. All the members of the various Masonic bodies are needed and are equally vital and important for the survival of that Masonic body. Be the "eyes, the ears and one of the helping hands " in order to help Masonry grow and prosper in your community. When you do, you will know in your heart one of the true feelings of being a part of Masonry.
Herbert L. Wentworth MM
1039 Despina Drive
Ukiah. CA 95482
Editor's Note
The Article "Thomas Paine 1737-1809," printed in the August, 1993 issue, appeared without the author's name. I take full responsibility for this error. I do not remember the author's name and whether MPS or FPS, and no longer seem to have the original paper. If the brother who wrote "Thomas Paine 1737-1809" will get in touch with me, I will be glad to give him credit in a future issue. Meanwhile, give me a blow with a paper setting-maul. --Charlie.
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by S. Brent Morris, FPS
Editor's Note: This is chapter 7 of Brother Morris's Book, Cornerstones of Freedom, to be published by the Supreme Council, 33d, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, and is copyrighted by Brother Morris and used by permission.
"It is Customary at the erection of all stately and superb edifices, to lay the first or foundation stone at the northeast corner of the building; you, being newly initiated into Freemasonry are placed at the Northeast corner of the Lodge, figuratively to represent that stone."
The Standard Ceremonies of Craft Masonry, Stability Lodge of Instruction.
The Problem
Suppose someone were to ask about any building, say the White House, the J.S. Capitol, or the Washington National Cathedral, "Where would I find its cornerstone?" A Freemason's answer would be immediate, "In the northeast corner. " So well established is this idea in Masonic ritual that few Masons think to question it. The northeast is most often suggested as the location for the "lost" cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol because of the Masonic ceremonies surrounding its laying. Many, no doubt, even believe that the first stones of Egyptian pyramids were laid in the northeast corner. If only reality followed Masonic symbolism so nicely!
A check with almost any Masonic author produces an uneasy agreement on the symbolism of the northeast corner. Each Brother's explanation is usually a bit strained.
When the candidate is made to stand in the Northeast Corner of the lodge as the youngest Entered Apprentice, both the position in which he stands and posture of his body have reference to such laws of "new life" in Masonry as are deserving of careful consideration .... If we recall that the North is the place of darkness, the symbol of the profane and unregenerated world, and that the East is the place of Light, the symbol of all perfection in the Masonic life, you will see that it is fitting that an Apprentice be made to find his station there ....
Meanwhile we may be reminded that the Northeast Corner is also the place, at least ideally, of the laying of the Cornerstone, a ceremony as ancient as it is significant. (1)
The custom of placing the foundation stone in the northeast corner must have been originally adopted for some good reason; for we have a right to suppose that it was not an arbitrary selection. (2)
The selection does seem to have been arbitrary, however, evolving from a simple symmetric arrangement of Lodge members. The symbolism of the northeast corner is deeply fixed in modern Masonic ceremonies, but its historical roots are rather shallow.
Just as everyone "knows" that George Washington threw a dollar across the Potomac River, so Masons also "know" that the symbolism of the northeast corner is an ancient usage. It has been widely assumed that the preference for the northeast comer came into the modern Masonic fraternity through the medieval building guilds. Bernard E. Jones nicely summarized the historical position. "There may, of course, be a long lost symbolism to account for the preference, but the records of stone-laying ceremonies relating to notable medieval buildings do not support any such idea . . . ." Neither, in fact, do the earliest records of Masonic ritual. (3)
Medieval Records
Professors Douglas Knoop and G. P. Jones of the University of Sheffield, England, published A Note on the Position and the Number of Foundation Stones, in which they listed some of the medieval references to cornerstones they had found in the course of other research. Their research on operative stone masons is the most detailed and scholarly published. The year, building, and location of the stone are summarized below from their list.
1. 1277, Vale Royal Abbey Delamere Forest Cheshire, first stone, "in the place where the great altar was to be built. "
2. 1441, Old Court of King's College, Cambridge, first stone, "in the right or southern turret of the gate towards Clare Hall. "
3. 1446, Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, first stone, "at the altar. "
4. 1447/8, Eton College Chapel, first stone "in the middle of the High Altar. "
5. 1448, Queens' College, Cambridge, foundation stone, "at the South East corner of the Chapel.
6. 1473, Magdalen College, Oxford, foundation stone, "in the middle of the high altar. "
7. 1565, New Court of Conville and Caius College, Cambridge, foundation stone, "in the middle of the West Wall. "
8. 1632, Gateway of the Botanic Garden, Oxford, first stone, location unspecified (4)
This register is not exhaustive, but it is suggestive of practices of that period. Certainly there was no special importance associated with the northeast corners of the building listed. The "old charges" or " gothic constitutions" of the operative masons are also quite silent on this issue. Wallace McLeod's reconstructed "Standard Original" of the old charges from 1520-83 discusses the liberal arts and sciences, the two pillars, King Solomon and many more topics familiar to speculative Masonry, but there is nothing about the northeast. (5) One must look beyond the operative masons for the origins of this custom.
Early Masonic Catechisms
There are a small number of surviving manuscript catechisms which presumably reflect authentic Lodge practices of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and there are several unofficial and possibly disreputable printed exposures of Masonic ritual from the same period. These documents were reprinted by Professors Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones and Douglas Hamer in The Early Masonic Catechisms, and they carefully examined the authenticity of the printed catechisms.(6) The comments that follow rely heavily on the pioneering research of Knoop, Jones, and Hamer and trace the gradual and irregular association of compass points with officers of the Lodge to the firm association of the northeast corner with Apprentices and cornerstones .
The Edinburgh Register House Manuscript of 1696 gives one of the earliest instances of associating compass directions with the positions of officers.
Q. Are there any lights in your lodge?
A. Yes, three. The northeast, s[outh] w[est], and eastern passage. The one denotes the master mason, the other the warden, the third the setter croft [a misrepresentation of the word fellow craft].(7)
Coming shortly after this in time is the Chetwode Crawley Manuscript of ca. 1700. The question and answer are almost the same as in Edinburgh, but it appears that one of the authors confused warden for words. The Kevan Manuscript of ca. 1714-1720 agrees with the Chetwode Crawley Manuscript.(8)
Q. Are there lights in your Lodge?
A. Three, the Northeast, the Southwest, and the eastern passage. The one denotes the Master mason, the other the Words and the Third the Fellow-Craft. (9)
From these three early catechisms, one can see that a light (probably a candle) denoting the Master is in the northeast (or perhaps the northeast passage, depending on how the sentence is read). It is not clear from these three passages if the Master is in the northeast or just his light.
The Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript of ca. 1710 clearly positions the Master within the Lodge. More importantly it locates the cornerstone of King Solomon's Temple in the southeast. (This was also the location for the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol, 1793, and the cornerstone of the University of North Carolina, 1798. The placement of these two cornerstones could indicate adherence to an ancient custom, or the state of Masonic symbolism, or, most likely, the architectural requirements of the buildings in question.) If the northeast corner were truly an ancient Masonic symbol, then shouldn't these old catechisms have the Temple's cornerstone located there?
Q How many lights is in [that] lodge?
A. 3.
Q. [Which] way stands yee lights?
A. Ye is one in ye East & one in west & one in ye midle.
Q. What is for ye one [in] ye East?
A. Tis for the master & ye west is for the fellow craftsmen & ye middle is for ye warden.
Q. Who was master masson at ye buillding of ye temple?
A. Hiram of Tyre.
Q. Who laid the first stone in ye foundation of ye temple?
A. Ye above said Hiram.
Q. What place did he layye first stone?
A. In ye south east corner of ye Temple. (10)
The first known printed exposure of Masonic ritual was appended to an anonymous letter published in The Flying Post or Post Master, No. 4712, April 11-13, 1723. It is a short collection of questions and answers with a brief description of the ceremonies. The catechism carefully places Master, Wardens, and Fellow Crafts in the Lodge, but not consistently with the earlier works cited. It places both the Master and his "Mark on the Work in the southeast, and thus supports the Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript as to the importance of that location. If Hiram laid the first stone of Solomon's Temple in the southeast corner, then it could be said he placed his mark on the work in that place.
Q. How do Masons take their place in Work? A. The Master S.E. the Wardens N.E. and the Fellows Eastern Passage.
Q. Where does the Master place his Mark on the Work?
A. Upon the S. E. Corner. (11)
The placement of the Master in the southeast is reinforced in A Mason' s Confession of ca. 1727, printed in The Scots Magazine, March 1755/56. The text can be interpreted, however, as placing the Entered Apprentices in either the northeast or southwest, depending on whether the line of Masons extends from the southeast to the northeast or from the southeast to the southwest.
To be particular in shewing how the master-masons stands in the south-east corner of the lodge, and fellow crafts next to him, and next to them the wardens and next the entered prentices . . (12)
Prichard's Masonry Dissected
Samuel Prichard's Masonry Dissected of 1730 was the most influential and successful of the early exposures. The first edition was advertised for sale on October 20, and by November 2 the third edition was in print. In between, the pamphlet was reprinted in Read's Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, another newspaper version was published in two issues of the Northampton Mercury, and a pirated edition was published--six versions printed within fourteen days! As further indication of the popularity of Prichard's book, another fourteen editions were published by 1760, and nine more before the end of the century. (13)
A great deal of the popularity of Masonry Dissected can be attributed to Masons who eagerly bought the book for instruction or inspiration in conducting lodge business. Prichard presents the earliest version of the Hiramic legend and the first explicit working of the third or Master Mason's Degree.
His influence on the evolution of Masonic ritual was immense, and his procedures seem to have dominated Masonic ceremonies until the 1760s. Masonry Dissected, regardless of the private reasons that had prompted its publication, provided an accessible, soundly based, and reasonably accurate working which would enable the Lodges to achieve some sort of standard, incomparably superior to any that had appeared in all the earlier texts, whether in manuscript or print. (14)
Prichard gave the first hint of a procedure that ceremonially brings the Entered Apprentice to the northeast, though at the beginning rather than at the end of his initiation. Prichard firmly established the east for the Master, and the west for the Junior and Senior Wardens. (It was not until some thirty years later that exposures showed the Junior Warden moved from the west to the south, in Three Distinct Knocks, 1760, Jachin and Boaz, 1762, and Shibboleth, 1765.) Prichard also positioned the Senior and Junior Entered Apprentices, but the latter made it only to the north, not all the way to the northeast.
Q. How did [the Junior Warden] dispose of you?
A. He carried me up to the Northeast Part of the Lodge and brought me back again to the West and deliver'd me to the Senior Warden.
Q. Where stands your Master?
A. In the East.
Q. Why So?
A. As the sun rises in the East and opens the Day, so the Master stands in the East [with his Right Hand upon his Left Breast being a sign, and the Square about his Neck] to open the Lodge and to set his men at work.
Q. Where stands your Wardens?
A. In the West.
Q. What's their business?
A. As the sun sets in the West to close the Day so the Wardens stand in the West [with their Right Hands upon their Left Breasts being a sign, and the Level and Plumb-Rule about their necks] to close the Lodge and dismiss the men from Labour, paying their Wages.
Q. Where stands the Senior Entered Apprentice?
A. In the South.
Q. What is his business?
A. To hear and receive Instructions and welcome strange Brothers.
Q. Where stands the Junior Enter'd 'Prentice?
A. In the North.
Q. What is his business?
A. To keep off all Cowans and Evesdroppers. (15)
What Prichard seemed to have done is symmetrically distribute the principal officers. The master opens the Lodge from the east as the sun opens the day, and the Junior and Senior Wardens close the Lodge from the west, as the sun closes the day. The Junior and Senior Entered Apprentices, offices unknown in modern Lodges, are placed in the north and south respectively, but their positions and duties are given no solar counterparts. The best explanation is that Prichard (or the Lodges whose work he described) sought symmetry in placing the officers, and this idea of a balanced arrangement seems to have inspired all ritualists that followed (or copied) Prichard. There is no evidence of any particular symbolic importance in 1730 of the placement of the Junior Entered Apprentice, nor is there any apparent connection of the cornerstone with the youngest Apprentice and the northeast corner.
The Roving Apprentice
After Masonry Dissected in 1730 until 1760, the exposures keep the Master and both Wardens in the east and west respectively. There was no agreement, however, on the placement of the other officers or the Apprentices and Fellow Crafts. For the period from 1730 to 1750, it is necessary to turn to French exposures to track the evolution of Masonic ritual, as there were no significant English exposures during that time.(16)
It should be noted that continental Masonic ritual has evolved differently from Anglo-American ritualistic forms, and so differences found in French exposures may reflect different ritual sources, rather than deviations from "standard practice" (whatever that may have meant during that turbulent time). The exposures summarized here, always have the Master in the east and the Wardens in the west; Apprentices fairly consistently are placed in the north, indicating some sort of convergence to an accepted position.
Only L'Ordre des Franc-Macons Trahi, 1745, provides any sort of explanation for the placement of Apprentices similar to the Master and Wardens imitating the rising and setting of the sun. The Masonic association of the north with darkness is standard today, but 1745 looks to be the earliest such association. It seems as if Masonic ritualists wanted a symmetric placement of officers and members around the Lodge as well as an explanation for the placement that matched the association of the Master in the east with the rising sun.
Q Where stand the Apprentices?
A. In the North, except the last received [apprentice].
Q. Why?
A. Because they are still in darkness; and so that being in the North, which is the dark side, they examine the work of Fellows. (17)
By 1760 Masonic ritual was becoming more solidified, but ritual changes still can be followed through the exposures. Three Distinct Knocks, 1760, and Jachin and Boaz, 1762, showed the Master and Wardens in the east, west, and south as they are today in England and America. The position for the new Apprentice settled down to the northern part of the Lodge, though his final resting place did not yet seem to be fixed. The following questions from the Apprentice catechism in Three Distinct Knocks are almost identical to those in Jachin and Boaz.
Q. After you was invested of what you had been divested of, what was done to you?
A. I was brought back to the Northwest Corner of the Lodge, in order to return Thanks.
Q. How did you return thanks?
A. I stood in the North-west Corner of the Lodge, and with the instruction of a Brother, I said; Master, senior and junior Wardens, senior and junior Deacons, and the rest of the Brethren of this Lodge, I return you Thanks for the Honour you have done me, in making me a Mason, and admitting me a Member of this worthy Society.
Q. What was said to you then?
A. The Master call'd me up to the North-East Corner of the Lodge, or at his Right Hand.
Q. Did he present you with any Thing?
A. He presented me with an Apron, which he put on me; he told me that it was a Badge of Innocency, more antient than the Golden Fleece or the Roman Eagle; more honour'd than the Star and Garter, or any other Order under the Sun, that could be confer'd upon me at that Time or any Time hereafter.
Q. What were the next Things that were shewn to you?
A. I was set down by the Master's Righthand, and he shew'd me the working tools of an enter'd Apprentice. (18)
Official Masonic Ceremony
The year 1772 saw a significant change in the promulgation of Masonic ritual when William Preston published his famous Illustrations of Masonry. This book brought order out of ritualistic chaos by presenting an official version of the lectures, forms, and ceremonies of the Lodge. Lodges no longer were forced to rely on the memory of their members, unsanctioned manuscripts, or unreliable exposures. Illustrations of Masonry was officially sanctioned by the Grand Master of England, Lord Petre, who wrote, "we having perused the said Book, and finding it to correspond with the ancient practices of this Society, do recommend the same." (19)
While Preston presented official Masonic ritual, he published nothing esoteric nor anything like the early exposures' clearly delineated speaking parts and occasional explanations of movements. Preston has no mention of any special position for new Apprentices, nor the positions of the Master and Wardens for that matter. Perhaps this information about Apprentices was considered esoteric, or more likely there was so little uniformity among the Lodges that no one official form was yet possible. In any event, Preston did not publish any information about the movements and positions in the Lodge. He did, however, give "The Ceremony observed at laying the Foundation Stones of Public Structures."
Preston's ceremony gives instructions for dress, music, the order of the procession, odes, anthems, prayers, and the setting of the stone, but there is not a word about the the location of the cornerstone. In the midst of all this detail, the absence of information about the place for the cornerstone must indicate there was no significance to its position. Confirming no early preference for the northeast is what is perhaps the earliest cornerstone laying by the premier Grand Lodge, described by Rev. James Anderson in his 1723 book, The Constitutions of the Free-Masons. According to Anderson, the Bishop of Salisbury laid the cornerstone of the Church of St. Martin's in the Fields "on the South East Corner." The southeast corner in fact conforms with the location of the cornerstone of King Solomon's Temple given in the Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript.(20)
Summary of the Placement of Apprentices and Fellows
From French Exposures
| Newest Apprentice | Apprentice | Fellows | |
| Le Reception Mysterieuse, 1730 | north | south | …. |
| Le Secret des Frances-Macons, 1744 | Master’s side | north | south |
| Le Sceau Rompeau, 1745 | … | north | south |
| L’Ordre des Frances-Macons Trahi, 1745 | Not north | north | all round |
| Le Macon Demawque, 1751 | …. | North | allsides |
The Northeast Corner
Preston's 1772 Illustrations of Masonry provided a solid foundation on which future Masonic ceremony was built, but even Preston's pioneering work didn't resolve all ritual questions. In 1772 there were two rival Grand Lodges in England, the Ancients and the Moderns with differing ideas of ceremonial propriety, not to mention scores of local Lodges, each with its own idea. The two Grand Lodges vied for control of the Craft until 1813 when they merged to found the United Grand Lodge of England. At the same time Masonic ritual was somewhat independently evolving in the United States and the continent, greatly influenced by England, Scotland, and Ireland, but subject to local pressures.
By 1829 there is evidence the peripatetic new Apprentice had settled in the northeast corner with an explanation that clearly tied him to the symbolism of the cornerstone. The source is another exposure, Light on Masonry, published in 1829 during the American anti-Masonic period. It is not known where this final refinement of the cornerstone symbolism originated, but it must have been in the period 1772-1829.
Q. After you returned, how was you disposed of?
A. I was conducted to the north east corner of the lodge, and there caused to stand upright like a man, my feet forming a square, and received a solemn injunction, ever to walk and act uprightly before God and man ....
Q. Why was you conducted to the north east corner of the lodge . . . ?
A. The first stone, in every Masonic edifice, is, or ought to be placed at the northeast corner; that being the place where an Entered Apprentice Mason receives his first instructions to build his future Masonic edifice upon. (21)
Albert G. Mackey provided a visual clue to the northeast corner ceremony in A Manual of the Lodge, 1862 when an illustration clearly showed the footprints of the newest Apprentice in the northeast corner. Perhaps by this time the ceremony was considered well enough known that such an obvious symbol could be openly published. The illustration accompanied by the text leaves little guessing as to the candidate's position.
The candidate receives those first instructions whereon to erect his future moral and Masonic edifice in a particular part of the Lodge .... he should begin in the labor of erecting a spiritual temple just as the operative mason would commence the construction of his material temple, by first laying the cornerstone on which the future edifice is to arise. His first instructions constitute that cornerstone, and on it, when laid in its proper place, he constructs the moral and Masonic temple of his life. (22)
Summary
Despite pronouncements to the contrary by most authors on Masonic symbolism, the northeast corner has a relatively recent association with the newest Entered Apprentice and a quite modern connection with cornerstones. The placement of members in the Lodge began with the Master, who opens the Lodge and dispenses "light" from the east as the sun opens the day.
This idea of placing the Master in the east was first recorded in the Dumfries No. 14 Manuscript in ca. 1710. Some twenty years later Prichard's Masonry Dissected matched the Master in the east to open the Lodge with two wardens in the west to dose it.
Succeeding ritualists placed officers and the newest Apprentice arbitrarily symmetrically around the Lodge. By 1760 Jachin and Boaz had the newest Apprentice in the northeast to receive his apron from the Master. He remained here in future rituals for a presentation to the Master, but by 1829 the presentation had become "those first instruction[s] whereon to erect his future moral and Masonic edifice. " At about the same time, these instructions were justified in being in the northeast corner by explaining this was the site from which buildings traditionally were erected. This satisfying symbolism continues today, but with little appreciation of it as an innovation on the body of Masonry.
Notes
1. H.L. Haywood, Symbolical Masonry (Kingsport TN: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1923) 152-53.
2. Robert Ingham Clegg, reviser, Mackey 's Symbolism of Freemasonry (New York: Masonic History Co., 1921), 164.
3. Bernard E. Jones, Freemason's Guide and Compendium, new and revised ed. London: Harrap, Ltd., 1988), 328.
4. Quoted in Ray Baker Harris, The Laying of Cornerstones (Washington, D.C.: Supreme Council, 33d 1961), 10, 13.
5. Wallace McLeod, The Old Charges (Toronto: privately printed, 1986), 39-50.
6. Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones, and Douglas Hamer, eds., Thc Early Masonic Catechisms, 2nd ed., ed. Harry Carr (London: Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1975), 9-18.
7. Ibid., 32.
8. Ibid., 43.
9. Ibid., 37.
10. Ibid., 63, 66.
11. Ibid., 74.
12. Ibid., 104.
13. Samuel Prichard, Masonry Dissected (London 1730); rept. with Analysis and Commentary by Harry Carr (Bloomington, IL: Masonic Book Club, 1977), 3-6.
14. Carr, in Prichard, 43.
15. Prichard, 11, 15-16.
16. Harry Carr, ed. The Early French Exposures (London: Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1971), 24. 75, 220-21, 263-64, 46364.
17. Carr, 263-64.
18. A. C. F. Jackson, ed. English Masonic Exposures, 1760-69 (Shepperton, England: Lewis Masonic, 1986), 72-73.
19. William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, 2nd ed. (London: 1775; rept. Bloomington, IL: Masonic Book Club, 1975), v, ix.
20. Ibid., 42.
21. David Bernard, Light on Masonry (Utica, NY: William Williams, 1829), 35, 38.
22. Albert G. Mackey, A Manual of the Lodge, new and revised edition (New York: Clark & Maynard, 1870), 41.
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by E. Scott Ryan, MM
Before I became a Mason, I had heard rumors about a Masonic Conspiracy, so I decided to become a Freemason in order to find out for myself if there were any truth to it. Knowing that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I played it safe by going through all the rites and degrees of Masonry. In other words, I learned all that I could in leaving no secret unexamined.
Although some of the secrets and mysteries of the Craft are conceived to be religious, Freemasonry is neither secret nor a religion; and while I do not intend to reveal everything, I will reveal the sublime secret that says everything about Masonry that is, indeed, a conspiracy.
I was the first member of my Roman Catholic family to become a Mason, the reason being that I was cautioned as a child that some Masons were secretive, anti-Catholic Protestants . Later as an adult, I learned that some Catholics were openly anti-Masonic and that Catholics had been prohibited from becoming Masons by pre-Vatican II Catholicism rather than Masonry.
What I relish most as a Freemason, today, is looking back at such an unfortunate lack of freedom in my own and others' religious divisions, while looking forward with my Protestant and Catholic Masonic brothers to a day when "Protestant" and "Catholic" mean less to each than God means to both. For good reasons, religion and politics are not discussed at lodge meetings, lest the divisions of the past and present interfere with God's plans for unity in the future.
I would hope that other religious divisions such as the present-day Southern Baptist faction devoted more to preaching against Masonry than preaching for God, would become free enough to allow their members the freedom to make their own individual choices about Freemasonry. After all, from the Judaic concept of a chosen people, to the Christian choice for God in Jesus, and to the Islamic choice of the Prophet, choice is what God asks of everyone.
In exercising their freedom of choice, Freemasons not only freely choose God, but they have acted upon their faith by donating two million dollars a day to charity in the United States alone. While Martin Luther taught the truth of salvation by faith alone and condemned a faith in good works alone, a faith without good works condemns itself; and while one cannot work one's way to God's gift of faith, one must work out one's faith with God's gifts. Both Jesus Christ and Martin Luther would approve of what Masons do in responding to human need in the name of their faith in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
Masonry may not be for everyone - certainly not for the ethno- and religiocentric. No one is asked to join. In fact, in order to join, one must ask rather than be asked. Further, Masons ask no questions as to a family's religious affiliation or resources in meeting every medical need of a child crippled by burns, bone disease, or multiple sclerosis, or other illnesses .
So why then do some, religious and secular alike, attack us, as Masons, for conspiring against them when we conspire against no one?
Masons have a long history of being on the receiving end of hate, although we advocate tolerance and brotherhood under God. We have chosen the monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the religious foundation of our spiritual fraternity. Unlike religion, we exclude no Muslim, Christian, or Jew as less chosen before God. We respect the Jewish Temple of Solomon, the Christian Cross of Jesus, and the Islamic surrender to Allah's will--in denying no one, in affirming the one in all and the all in one of one universal God.
Historically, the case can be made that second only to the Jews, Masons have been the continuing subject of conspirational calumny from both religious and secular sources. Ironically, those who have been most vociferous have displayed the same attributes that they have attributed to Masonry: a conspiracy to control others through religion and ideology. Whether it be the Hitlerites of the past or chauvinistic nationalists of the present, they love to hate the Masons who hate no one.
For example, Pamyat (meaning memory), the extreme nationalist group in Russia, regularly associates Masonry and Zionism as co-conspirators, with secret Masonic rituals of the nature of Zionist protocols. This memory is tragically hateful when it proceeds from those who have fought both failed communism and the failures of capitalism in failing to understand that Masonry is an enemy to no one except to those who love to hate.
In response to those who abuse free speech in attacking us or any other victims of hateful expression, the correct defense is not the politically-expensive offense of a further abuse of free speech by politically correct censorship or hate laws. It is, rather, more correctness in truth and less in politics--by more uncensored truth (be it politically correct or incorrect) and less censored freedom of speech and expression. Whether it be anti-Masonic, antiSemitic, antiblack, anti-white, anti-Catholic, or anti-whatever group, more free speech rather than less freedom of speech is called for.
Accordingly, as a new Mason who recently became a 32d member of the Scottish Rite and a Knight Templar in the York Rite along with the Shrine and Grotto, I decided on my own to reveal the real conspiracy of Masonry, the sublime secret by telling the greatest truth of Freemasonry, that of the Divine.
The primary requirement of becoming a speculative Free and Accepted Mason--in contrast to the earlier operative Masons who built cathedrals with physical materials--is personal belief in one God, the Grand Architect of the Universe, as Masons describe the Almighty. The second belief and duty corollary to the first, is that of spiritually building the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. To those with a monotheistic background--be it Jewish, Christian, or Muslim--our belief may sound pleasantly familiar. To others-atheists and secular humanists--it may sound too familiar in the well-founded suspicion that such descriptions about religious truth obscure what has been less than wonderful in religious practice.
This suspicion of the very idea of God in any man's religion is one that Masonry understands without rejecting the reality of God that some men rejected in their practice of religion, even more than in the secular denial of it.
In reference to our belief in spiritual brotherhood, we know that the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--as great as they are in their beliefs, have often been less than great in the practice of that belief. All three have at one time or another persecuted not only each other, but themselves in intra-religious holy wars even more unholy in their ungodliness than the inhumanity of inter-religious crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, jihads, and "God gave your land to me" religious and ethnic cleansings.
We understand why many have turned away from God in the belief that more of God has brought less to man; therefore, less of God should bring more to Man. We understand this secular belief in religious non-belief without agreeing with it, for there exists a fatal flaw in the secular humanistic critique of God and Man. This flaw lies neither in humanism nor in God, but in man's proclivity of secular belief in man as God, when he rejects the religious belief in a God for all men.
The Enlightenment philosophy in the West was quite different from Buddhist enlightenment in the East. In freeing Western man from a transcendent God, it left him with a transcendent belief without a belief in the Transcendent, a transcendence without the Transcendent, in a belief in any belief--culminating in laissez faire (lousy faire) capitalism, international socialism (Communism), national socialism (Nazism), and more recently, national communism (in the newly free escape from freedom in many former communist lands).
Nazism, in particular, was a logical development rather than an aberration in the land of Goethe, of a secular humanist enlightenment that defined what was good for oneself and one's group without reference to any universal God as the basis of brotherhood. That humanism-in all its human perfection--could become perfectly inhumane was a paradox, but not a contradiction. Such a development is quite logical when man transcends himself without the Transcendent. The fact that the religious history of man acting in the name of his one God was often quite ungodly, only became even more godless when man secularly transcended himself by putting himself in God's place.
Both the religious ungodliness and secular godlessness of man proceeded neither from God nor from man alone, but from disassociation of the correct relation of God and man.
Therefore, a correct belief in God is more than a matter of personal faith in the intellectual assent of one's will to one's religion. The correct association between God and men involves the collective will to perfect one's religious faith in being perfected in one God for all men, rather than being perfect in one's faith for oneself or one's group.
The disassociation of God and Man in either believing in one God for oneself instead of for all men as brothers, or in denying God by acting like a god, with the secular dogmas of human predestination according to evolution, class, economics or ethnicity, explains the greatest human irony of all: good and evil become one and the same with the greatest good justifying the greatest evil. Whether it be religious or secular totalitarianism, what is totally good becomes totally bad, with the best virtue justifying the worst vice. The ultimate vice of this religious or secular virtue proceeds from the incorrect association of oneness with God by defining one's own God or good in terms of what is good for oneself in one's group.
The Hitlerian refrain of "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer" (one people, one realm, one leader) is the ultimate secular version of ethnic cleansing that proceeded from the secular version of chosenness: a religious cleansing wherein the religious concept of a Chosen People became that of a "Chosin" * People--a people of Sin--when a new Chosen People, the Master Race, appropriated chosenness to themselves in eliminating Jews and others as "chosin. "
Whether man denies himself in the name of God or denies God in the name of man, men have disassociated themselves from God in the death of Man rather than death of God. Mankind's unkind history of religiously and secularly appropriating oneness with the one true God to himself, alone, or to his group, to the exclusion of others, has been a persistent human lie in opposition to the everlasting truth of a universal, inclusive God.
The Masonic conspiracy is to conspire for God in a fraternal brotherhood of those who believe in one god for everyone over one's God for oneself or one's group. We respect religion as God meant it to be rather than as man has made it to be. The sublime secret of Freemasonry is that God is no secret, although God has been kept secret by those who do evil in the name of good by putting their belief in their God, or in their secular substitute for God for themselves, in the place of one God for everyone.
The Masonic conspiracy is a quirk of faith in being unique in being universal, in being existentially free, in being essentially bound in the spiritual foundation of the Judaic, Christian, and Islamic faith in God. The conspiracy is to be the same and to be different in having the same faith as others in their religious faith in God without rejecting others according to religion. The conspiratorial mystery of our Craft is in this religious quirk of faith that goes beyond religion without rejecting religion, in attempting to build what has yet to be built and house what has yet to be housed in the spiritual architecture of a religious Fatherhood of God in addition to the Fatherhood in religion, and in building a Brotherhood in one God to supplement any one brotherhood in religion.
When you see the Letter G displayed on Masonic artifacts, it displays the fact that Masonry is God's architecture of choice, such that all men are chosen as brothers under the Fatherhood of God, such that no person or people are "chosin" (in being sinfully regarded as less), when all people are chosen in choosing God. Were there to be less of a place for Masonry, the "never again" refrain to man's inhumanity to man will be religiously deaf and secularly dumb in an "ever again" echo of man's religious and secular disassociations of God and Man in the misappropriation of God and disappropriation of men.
Whether you be Protestant or Catholic Jew or Muslim, if you believe in one God, in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, then consider becoming a Mason--better yet, a Master Mason defined by the mastery of self for others, rather than over them. There are mysteries of the Craft in crafting the mystery of God and Man; and there are secrets, just as an army has battle secrets with which to achieve victory. However, our battle is for a peaceful victory, for the peace of God that surpasses human understanding, that, in its passing, can be understood by every human being.
The Freemasonic conspiracy is to bring men together as God intended in a free choice beyond one's God to one God for all men in the spiritual fraternity of every man's being chosen in God such that what still remains as the "ever again" of human destructiveness can some day be stilled and "never again," that day being the day when no man or group is " chosin" (in the sinful choice of perceiving others as less chosen than themselves, when God is chosen by and for all men.
* My term to express self-serving chosin-ness as distinct from universal spiritual chosenness.
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It was reported that the great American author Sinclair Lewis was once asked to give a lecture on writing to a group of college students:
:Looking out at this gathering," he said to the assembled students, "makes me want to know how many of you really and truly wish to become writers.
Every hand in the room went up. Lewis looked at them for a moment and then folded his notes and put them away.
"If that’s true," he said, "then the best adivse I can give you is to go home and write."
And he left the room.
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by Roger M. Firestone, MPS
Most of the statements in the many Masonic degrees are accurate in the scientific sense, at least as far as the knowledge of the day extended when they were written. With today's insights, we can find errors of various sorts in the works of most of the nineteenth-century Masonic authors, but we should hardly fault them for this. After all, Pike and others sought to illuminate philosophical principles by drawing on material from natural philosophy, as science was known until only century ago.
However, there is one striking inaccuracy in a degree that is familiar to us all. That error is the statement, " . . . the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours." It does not! Moreover, the fact that it does not must have been known to mariners from the most ancient of times, since the difference is easily measurable. Today, however, most of us have so little involvement with the maritime world that we do not give the phrase a second thought when we hear the degree conferred. An examination of this Masonic error is a useful topic for instruction in some of the seven liberal arts and sciences familiar to Fellow Crafts, notably those of astronomy and mathematics (arithmetic and geometry).
Most people are aware, at least to some limited extent, that the moon is responsible for the oceanic tides. This is an oversimplification. The moon is the cause of both tides in the ocean in a corresponding, but far smaller, rise and fall in the elevation of land masses as well. Both land and water are subject equally to the acceleration of gravity; it is just that water is more able to move under its influence.
However, the sun is also responsible for considerable tidal effects. The moon is some 387.5 times closer to the earth, on the average, than the sun. The force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, which means that the a factor 387.72 = 150,156.25 reduces the effects of the sun's mass relative to the moon in terms of gravity. But tidal effects are determined, not by the force of gravity, but by the local difference in the force of gravity. This means that the cube, not the square of the distance is the determining factor. For the sun vs. the moon, the actual reduction factor is 58,185,546.88. This enormous factor would appear to reduce the influence of the sun to insignificance. But we have not reckoned in the relative masses of the two bodies. In fact, the sun is so much more massive than the moon, that the factor of almost 60 million is just about cancelled out. In everyday terms, the moon is responsible for about 55 % of the effects of tides observed, and the sun produces 45%.
As the moon orbits the earth, its position with respect to the sun changes constantly. Twice a month, at new moon and full moon, the moon, earth, and sun are nearly in a straight line. (When they are in a truly straight line, we get an eclipse. This happens about two months a year, when the moon is at a node of its orbit. Otherwise the moon lies above or below the plane of the earth' s orbit around the sun--the ecliptic--and the shadows do not line up for an eclipse.) Whether the moon and sun are in the same direction or pulling in opposite directions, the effect on the tides is the same: the size of the tides is larger. See Figure 1. These tides are known as spring tides.
When the moon is at first or last quarter, its pull is at right angles to that of the sun, and the tides are correspondingly smaller. See Figure 2. These tides are known as neap tides. The distances from the earth to the sun and moon also vary somewhat, and these have a lesser effect on the heights of the tides on annual and monthly bases, respectively. Local geography also affects the height of the tides; in some locations, the variation is but a few inches, while in others it is substantial. Canada's Bay of Fundy is famous for tides in excess of fifty feet.
Because the tidal shape produced by the sun and moon has two high points and two low points, a given location on the earth will experience two high and two low tides during approximately one revolution--but not exactly one revolution.
To see why, we will visit an old paradox due to the Stoic philosopher Zeno of ancient Greece. To his disciples, Zeno once propounded the problem of a race between Achilles and a tortoise. The legendary hero could outrun ordinary human beings--how much more so a lowly tortoise. So Zeno proposed to give the tortoise a head start. Let us say that the tortoise began 100 yards ahead of Achilles, and let us also assume that Achilles is ten times faster than his torpid competitor. The starter gives a signal and our contestants begin to race. Achilles covers the 100 yards of the head start in only a few seconds. But the tortoise has not been idle; while Achilles was rushing forward, the tortoise has also stuck his neck out and covered ten yards in the same time. Now Achilles runs ten yards, but in the same time, the tortoise moves ahead one yard. Achilles covers the one yard, but the tortoise, determined to maintain the dignity of the reptile race, advances one-tenth yard. And so it goes. No matter how much distance Achilles travels, the tortoise seems always to be ahead of him. Yet we know that any of us, not just demigods of Greek myth, can outdistance a tortoise. What is wrong with Zeno's reasoning?
In fact, solving Zeno's paradox requires knowledge of branches of mathematics that was well beyond what the Greeks had developed. The Greeks had mastered arithmetic and geometry well enough, but this problem requires knowledge of infinite series or at least decimal fractions, and those did not become common knowledge until modern times.
For this simple case, we may look at the various distances that Achilles travels in the description above. First he covers 100 yards, then 10, then 1, then 0.1, then 0.01 + . . . and if we sum up quite a number of these, we get a result like 111.11111 .... The part to the right of the decimal point looks a great deal like the decimal expansion of 1/9. This guess is exactly correct. Achilles will pass the tortoise after running 111 1/9 yards, when the tortoise has covered just 11 1/9 yards. It is clear that the difference between these two distances is exactly the 100-yard head start that Zeno gave Achilles.
This problem is a special case of the summation of a particular infinite series. Summing an infinite series in general may not be possible for the most brilliant mathematician, but some such series are quite easy to deal with. The series we are examining here is the simple one 1 +x +x2 +x3 +x4 +
Although there are a number of ways to sum this series in mathematics, one of the simplest is to assume that it has a sum, which we will call L. We may then observe that S = 1 +(1 +x +x2 +x3 +x4 + ....) = 1 +xS. This is an equation we can solve by algebra, and it is not hard to see that the value of S is 1/1-x. Advanced mathematics tells us this is true only if x lies between the values of -1 and + 1. For Zeno's race, x has the value of 0.1 (and we have to multiply S by the amount of the head start). The value of S is then 1/1-0.1 = 1-1/9, just as we have seen before.
The result can be applied to other problems. For example, how many times does the minute hand of a clock pass the hour hand in 12 hours? The answer is not 12. (if you have a digital watch, I don't want to know about it!) The two hands are performing a constant version of Zeno's race, in fact. Start at noon, or high twelve, since this is a Masonic article. An hour later, the minute hand points to 12 again, but the hour hand has moved to the 1. By the time the minute hand reaches the 1, the hour hand has advanced 1/12 of the way to the 2 and so on. which is another way of saying 1/11 hours elapse between two times when the minute hand has passes the hour hand. Dividing the 12 hours by this time, we see that the minute hand passes the hour hand only 11 times in 12 hours.
Now we can solve the problem of the tides. Relative to the sun, the moon revolves around the earth in 29 1/2 days. (Relative to the fixed stars, the time is shorter, but it is the motion with respect to the sun that matters for the tides.) This is very much like the motion of two hands of the watch, except that the ratio of the speeds is different. Instead of one going 12 times faster, the earth spins 29.5 times faster than the moon moves around it. But the principle is the same. We have to plug in only the value 1/29.5 in for x in the formula and see what it gives us.
The answer is 1.035, approximately. This is the interval in days between the times when the moon appears, let us say, due south. The actual times of high and low tides has much to do with the shape of land surfaces and so on, but this interval is the period that encompasses a complete cycle of two high and two low tides. If we multiply 1.035 by 24 hours, we get a period of 24 hours and 50.5 minutes. In other words, "the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-five hours, not the number we are used to hearing.
If this simple phrase can lead us into an exploration of astronomy and higher mathematics, how much else of wisdom can we find in the Masonic degrees? And can we also learn the lesson of not taking the simplest and most obvious facts for granted. The progressiveness of the science of Masonry is here illustrated by the need for the learning of the Fellow Craft to be applied to the incomplete or simplified instruction given to an entered Apprentice.
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Was George Washington A Sun Tzu Strategist ?
by Jack Soroka, MPS
General George Washington was an ardent Freemason who exemplified the type of hero who declined supreme power and wished to command only to serve. His associates referred to him in his pre-Presidential trek as "the General." As a military genius he presents an absorbing subject for study. Where he acquired his knowledge of strategy and tactics, the skill with which he planned his battles, his uncanny foreknowledge of the enemy's movements, has long been a puzzling question to militarists and historians alike. It is improbable that "the General" read "The Art of War," 400-320 B.C., by the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu.
Sun Tzu Ping-Fa's Art of War remains one of the most quoted works on strategy read today. The book has timeless applications for military commanders, computer-strategy game players and Fortune 500 executives alike.
Twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinese philosopher general Sun Tzu (or Master Sun) wrote, "Rapidity is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, employ spies, attack unguarded spots, emphasize secrecy, intelligence, and deception. "
Did Washington, the man the British called "a paltry colonel of militia" measure up as a military tactician to Sun Tzu's aphorisms of warfare? The answer is a resounding Yes. General Washington was a strategist and had been schooled in the rugged campaigns of the French and Indian War. His early military training and experience prepared him for his subsequent leadership as commander in chief of the Revolutionary Army.
Worshipful Brother Washington's tactics are replete with examples of utilizing Sun Tzu's maxims of fighting smart. Washington's Six Rules of War reveal some of the military methods used by Sun Tzu. They are:
1. Never attack a position in front which you can gain by turning.
2.Charges of cavalry should be made, if possible, on the flanks of infantry.
3.The first qualification of a soldier is fortitude under fatigue and privation; courage is only the second. Hardship, poverty and actual want are the soldier's best schools.
4. Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command.
5. Never do what the enemy wishes you to do.
6. A general of ordinary talent, occupying a bad position and surprised by a superior force, seeks safety in retreat but a great captain supplies all deficiencies by his courage, and marches boldly to meet the attack.
It is said that Napoleon adopted these rules in his own campaigns. On February 22nd, we celebrated the 257th anniversary of the birth of Washington. His success did not depend upon book-learning, military or otherwise. He relied rather, upon his expert knowledge of topography; his ability to read men and their motives what the Rosicrucians call "psychic intuition;" his unfailing attention to detail, which took account of every requirement, however small, and overlooked nothing; his punctilious exaction of obedience from his subordinates.
Washington was essentially a man of action. He planned his campaigns in hours of deep reflection, upon which no intrusion was permitted. He was not a talker; he gave confidences to few; but mentally he rehearsed every part of his strategy and everyone's part in it until every possible movement, with all that it might entail, stood out in bold relief in the background of his mind. Contingencies were provided for: accidents considered; the unexpected especially guarded against .
He was affectionately called "The Old Hoss" by the Continental soldiers. It is a truism that "the General" had plenty of horse sense in his make-up. It was Lord Cornwallis who originally nicknamed Washington "The Old Fox; " but eventually the rank and file of the British Army followed his example.
Surprise was one of the favorite words in Washington's military vocabulary. Because the Redcoats expected surprise attacks at dawn, he recommended midnight. "A dark night and even a rainy one, will contribute to your success," said the Old Fox to his staff at councils of intelligence director. He proved himself a master of the game, running as many as a half dozen spy rings in Philadelphia and New York, and constantly urged his general to follow suit. More than once he permitted British spies to rummage among his private papers which had been carefully "doctored" for the occasion; with the result of directing the enemy attention to quarters where it would be least likely to interfere with Washington's projects. At Valley Forge, he manufactured documents in his own handwriting, full of returns from imaginary infantry and cavalry regiments.
The strategic patterns employed by Washington appear to be based on the writings of the itinerant military Chinese philosopher-soldier who lived 2,500 years ago. At first glance this seems to be true. However, it is more plausible to remember that Washington was, to all intents and purposes, self-taught and self-trained. He had learned life-lessons in the hard school of Experience.
General Washington had a meager military library during the War of Independence. Realistically, the treatise of Sun Tzu was not among his military references. However, the work of Sun Tzu and the philosophy of warfighting waged by "the General" are inseparable.
In the final analysis, it is only fitting and proper, for modern strategists and historians to judge General Washington as a tactical genius since his military skills were far more complex than guerrilla warfare. He conceived winning strategies and devised tactics to execute them. A recurring theme of Sun Tzu's aphorisms are apparent when one studies Brother Washington' s military operations.
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Speculative Characteristics of Medieval Operative Masonry
by Jack Brooksbank, MPS
The article (The Philalethes, February, 1993, p. 10) by Fred Lamar Pearson, FPS, entitled "Masonic History--PreGrand Lodge to the Union, " was an interesting and timely, reflection on our medieval roots. Brother Pearson wrote in part, "We like to say our ancient brethren worked as both operative and speculative or philosophical Masons . . . a more accurate assessment is that our beginnings started in operative or practical Masonry alone," and "operative Masons declined. At the same time there were increasing numbers of influential members who men who wanted to join in the fellowship and camaraderie of this elite group of builders. Consequently we have the beginning of speculative or philosophical Masonry. " The second of these quotations, relating to influential men who wanted to join the fellowship raises a very interesting question: Why or for what reasons were philosophical and influential men attracted to these assemblies of operative stonemasons, masons who had their origin in the medieval period?
We can postulate that this attraction was a progressive combination of three factors, complementary and supportive themes that also motivated the fathers of the subsequent accepted or speculative masonry:
1 ) The achievements and heritage of medieval operative masons resulted in a desire of philosophical and influential men to be associated with the heritage, traditions, and outstanding achievement of operative masons who had created many superb examples of Gothic buildings still evident in all parts of Europe.
To quote from Member Fred, "The beauty, the strength, the solemnity of the cathedrals gave the most eloquent of testimony to the skills of the builders. They built for the future .... "
ii) The excellences of character and attributes of medieval operative masons also led to philosophical and influential men to pursue and study the various intriguing aspects of the arts and sciences of operative masons progressively, including the work ethic. Masons, of all the crafts, were mainly devoted to the creative art of building structures worthy of the Creator. The creative art of the operative masons, of necessity, required men who combined various qualities and characteristics devoted to excellence.
iii) Late operative lodges' acceptance of philosophical moral and ethical emphasis gave an opportunity for philosophical and influential men to become the sponsors of the operative masons' assemblies, and to perceive the challenge of combining the outstanding 500-year heritage and achievements of the operative mason and his excellence of character, into a more philosophical perception and emphasis on moral and ethical precepts.
This brings us to the focus of this article, which attempts to reflect specifically on the "Speculative Characteristics of Medieval Operative Masons, postulated in (ii) above. The outstanding accomplishments of the medieval operative masons during 500 years of Gothic building required the adoption of personal attributes and characteristics, which resulted in an outstanding code or pattern of work ethics which will probably never be equalled. From the author's research into the medieval period of operative stonemasons came a realization that the work ethics, and specifically the personal attributes and characteristics of operative masons of the time, are a worthwhile subject for study and evaluation. Again, on reflection, this does not seem to be a subject that has been given any critical evaluation or particular emphasis in published Masonic history.
We can, however, speculate that these perceived excellences of character of the medieval operative mason may have been very relevant to the fathers of accepted and speculative masonry.
The author would venture to suggest that some of the perceived attributes or characteristics making up the work ethic of medieval masons were:
(A) To be honorable in their craft calling and lifestyle.
(B) To be Loyal to lodge, fraternity and king, and to believe in God.
(C) To be Dedicated to quality standards of work and performance.
(D) To be Secretive in terms of the art of building and fraternal codes.
(E) To be Committed to systematic training, learning, qualification, and achievement.
(F) To be Self-reliant, individualistic, and confident in skills.
(G) To be Cooperative to contribute as a member of creative building teams.
(H) To be Trustworthy to render good effort for benefits received.
(I) To be Charitable and philanthropic to other masons and families.
Now we need some supportive evidence or discourse to validate this issue. In trying to determine the prevailing work ethic of the medieval operative masons, with particular reference to adopted and developed characteristics or attributes, we can consider some medieval documented manuscripts and illustrations which display or make reference to operative stonemasons, their craft, lifestyle, church associations, lodges, guilds, training, and outstanding achievements. The author's research into medieval resources resulted in the selection of forty illustrations to provide the basis for a " Medieval Builders' Craft Presentation." Of these forty illustrations, nine were associated with specific attributes or characteristics of medieval operative masons. These characteristics are commented upon in the order in which they have been listed above.
A. To be Honorable in their craft calling and life-style. An illustration that seems to project the image of a an operative mason in an honorable calling of the likeness of Master of Masons Anton Pilgrim, of 1523, which still looks down from the organ console in a church in Vienna. He is dressed in a fur-trimmed coat and hat, holding a square in his left hand and what appears to be compasses in his right. To be allowed to include the likeness of the master of masons in the stone fabric of a medieval structure would have been an indication of the distinction and honorable standing of the master of masons, recognizing the creative endeavors of the builders.
B: To be Loyal to lodge, fraternity and King, and to believe in God. An illustration that gives emphasis to operative masons' being loyal and true is a copy of an old charge reportedly in the handwriting of King Henry VI of England [see illustration B]. This charge stressed that masons should be true men of God, and true and loyal liege men without treason. They were to be true to their master, to call themselves fellows or brethren, not to resort to villainy or slander, and always to pay for their meat and drink. All of these were charges to be held by masters and fellows.
C. To be Dedicated to quality standards [see illustration C]. An illustration that gives particular stress to an operative masons's dedication is a representation of a fifteenth-century manuscript, showing the master of a masons' guild, appropriately seated and dressed in an ermine fur-trimmed gown of office, and supported by his warden. Both are observing a fellow undertaking his "masterpiece" to achieve his recognition as a master mason. The slow and progressive steps from apprentice to fellow to master mason required an ongoing dedication to his craft and purpose.
D. To be Secretive in terms of the art of building and fraternal codes. An illustration that gives an example of just one of many structural elements of the art of building, that operative masons were required not to disclose, shows some thirty comparative styles or arches, each with its own geometric form and character, being just one facet of many mysteries of masons' craft. At a time when medieval operative masons moved from site to site, another requirement to be secretive was the progressive learning of the mysteries (art of building) and the means of identifying masons at various levels of qualification.
E. To be committed to systematic training, learning, qualification, and achievement. An illustration that gives an indication of outstanding achievements of operative masons is a view of the exquisite stone vaulted roofing of the chapel of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey in London. The stone vaulted roofing is one of the finest achievements of stone-mason artisans, achievements that resulted from a commitment to systematic training, learning, and qualification.
F. To be Self-Reliant, individualistic, and confident in skills. An illustration that shows the individuality and self-reliance of the operative mason, confident in his skills and determined to be "free" from bound or tied labor, and equally free from church authority and rule, is a medieval illuminated manuscript that shows two situations of operative masons. The top shows masons destroying their work, viewed by concerned monks. The lower shows masons working in harmony after their resolution of differences, with the bishop and his monks looking on. Operative masons freed themselves, by a united refusal to be bound laborers under domination of church authority and rule, in France in 1250 A.D.
G. To be co-operative to contribute as a member of creative building teams. This illustration showing the operative masons as co-operative and creative is a fifteenth-century representation of the building of the biblical Tower of Babel of 2300 B.C. This illustration is very interesting in that it shows various building operations and personalities. Two men on the right may represent a warden with visitors and suppliers. Masons in variously colored and styled dress are shown working on the structure. In the background a masons' lodge is shown. Co-operation on the building site and in the site lodge would have been essential.
H. To be Trustworthy, to render good effort for the benefits received. An illustration that combines the charitable inter-dependence of operative masons working on medieval building sites--sites that often lasted for a working lifetime--is the medieval drawing by Matthew Paris (1200-1259 A.D.) of St. Albans depicting masons at work building the monastery. The operative masons had, of necessity, to adopt a philanthropic approach to group living and survival on building sites. This attribute also extended to operative masons traveling from site to site in search of appropriate work.
[The editor regrets that not all illustrations discussed could be reproduced.]
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by Allen E. Roberts, FPS
[Note: What follows has been written in answer to this question asked by a non-Mason who appeared to be interested in the Craft. A condensed form was given in a meeting open to the general public in the District of Columbia on February 15, 1993.]
Is Freemasonry still viable in this age of "Hurrah for me--to heck with you"?
A simple question but indeed difficult to answer simply.
Of course the simple answer is "Yes!" But I fear there are few, even within the Craft who would accept that truism without a more comprehensive explanation.
Let me emphasize, as I always try to do, that anything I have to say is my opinion--no more, no less. No one man, no matter what his rank in Freemasonry or station in life is, or can be, a sole spokesman for this organization. And to this question one can receive as many explanations as spokesmen. Let me ask a couple of questions: Is God in His Heaven? Does Truth still exist? Is Truth something we should continually seek? Is being a patriot--having a love of our country-still acceptable? Are children still taught to love their parents, and parents still to love, protect, clothe, feed, and educate their children? Is justice still practiced? Do we still help the unfortunate?
If we can answer "Yes" to these questions, then Freemasonry the fraternity of men that believes in the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God--is indeed still viable.
There will be attempts by self-centered, self-seeking, self-glorifying, selfish, egotistical men to destroy Freemasonry-the oldest, largest and finest fraternal organization ever to exist. Their attempts have hurt Masonry for a time, but as with anything supported by God, it will not die.
Strange, isn't it? Freemasonry isn't a charity, yet it contributes daily more money for the unfortunate than any other private organization. Masonry is not a religion, yet its teachings are acceptable to men of any and all religions. It asks not what a man believes about God, only that he believe in God. As its ritual states, it thereby can help all men meet about one altar to express their religious beliefs as they profess.
So it unites men of every country, sect, and opinion.
This Freemasonry that is called a secret by its enemies and critics is far from secret. More books have been written about it than about any other fraternity. Its members proudly wear pins, rings, jewelry of all sorts, clothing, and anything else you can dream up proclaiming they are Freemasons, or members of one of the bodies which depends on the Symbolic Lodge for its existence. Principal among these is the Shrine whose members call themselves "Nobles" or " Shriners. "
Freemasonry is viable because it is different. How?
It doesn't seek new members. There was a time when a man had to request a petition to seek membership in a Lodge. This is still true, but to a lesser extent. In most places, a Freemason may openly discuss the benefits a man will find in Freemasonry. We can even discuss the attributes found in Freemasonry: Relief, Justice, the Search for Truth, and perhaps most important of all--Brotherhood, which in a manner of speaking is the love of man for his God.
You will note we speak of his God. Unlike those who profess love of certain religions, we never claim any particular religious belief is an absolute necessity to attaining a place in the hereafter with God. Freemasonry welcomes good men of every country, sect, and opinion.
It's different because it teaches its lessons in much the same manner as did the Master Teacher of all--Jesus Christ. He made extensive use of parables--a form of ritual. So does Masonry. His ritual and that of Freemasonry imprint wise and serious truths on the minds of their adherents. Few, if any other fraternal or service organizations do this.
Do you know that unlike the Mason-haters who claim to be Christians, Freemasonry teaches exactly what Jesus taught?
And what did the Man from Galilee teach? Exactly what Freemasonry has taught for centuries--and still teaches today--love of man for his fellowman.
Witness the Pharisees who continually tried to entrap Jesus (just as do the anti-Masons of today). Jesus parried their traps in every case. "Haha!" said one who was a lawyer. "I've got him!" He turned to the Carpenter and asked: "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?"
Jesus looked at him and answered: "Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. "
Now, please note, the Master Teacher didn't say "my God" or " my neighbor. " He said "Thy God and thy Neighbor." There's no qualification there. Unlike the hypocrites who claim they speak for God and that their version of religion is the only religion that will get one to Heaven.
But it's Christ's answer to Peter that I find most interesting of all. "Lord," said Peter, "how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times seven?" No, sir! "Jesus saith unto him. 'I say not unto thee, Until seven times seven; but, Until seventy times seven! "' Wow! what saith the con artists in much of the electronic church who continuously plead for money to support their high-living life-styles?
An anti-Masonic charlatan attempted for months to get me on his television program. I finally told him I'd appear on it provided (1) it be a live one-time telecast, or (2) I be given editorial control over the tape. Being a film producer, I know well how editing a film can make those appearing in it look good or foolish. Neither was acceptable to the charlatan or his cohorts. But he continued haunting me to appear. I finally stopped the calls. How? I suggested he and his inquisitors re-read (if they ever have read) the Sermon on the Mount. Never again did I hear from them.
Is Freemasonry still viable? The answer is a resounding YES. And as it has always been--it's as modern in its concept as is tomorrow.
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by Mervin B. Hogan, FPS
Berea College of Berea, Kentucky, has stated that its philosophy, dream, and hope for the future are summed up by the statement:
If your plan is for one year, plant rice; for ten years, plant trees; for a hundred years, educate men.
Freemasonry is the sublimated essence of the ages and, always looking to the future, has never viewed time other than a parameter to which it conforms and with which it patiently, wisely, and constructively works. Never, at any time, is it crowded or panicked into expediency by the unenlightened, injudicious error that time is imminent and impending. Nevertheless, time as viewed from the standpoint of history of the race is quite a distinctly different commodity when observed and weighed by the individual from the perspective of the frighteningly short flicker of life span. Between these two extreme concepts of time, Masonry must accomplish its mission of educating men and working for the uplift of the human race.
While the fraternity moves ever onward, unruffled and undisturbed by time, it must yet accomplish its objectives through the integrated and dedicated efforts of individual Masons. And, these members, each fully realizing his life is extremely finite in its length and potential, must weigh well and judiciously how they will distribute and apply their time, that precious element which constitutes life.
In the growth and development of Freemasonry, there has evolved an image or scale by which a Mason's status, accomplishment, or significance as a member is appraised by his brother Masons in particular and by the public in general. In this country at least, this stature of position has become identified almost entirely in terms of the number of Masonic administrative offices he has held. You will note the use of the term "administrative offices" rather than "leadership," since there is a significant difference between the two.
To many people, both within and without Freemasonry, one's stature in the fraternity is gauged almost solely by his activity in " going through the chairs" of the various bodies. One reason why this has come about is the obvious aspect that such tenure of office is a readily identifiable and specific factor to which one may easily refer and the listener as readily identify and understand. If you were to state to someone that Richard Roe is a distinguished Mason because he is a "Past So and So," listing the several titles one after the other, each title is effortlessly tabulated and the list counted. A judicious and discriminating listener might not agree with your set of values, but there would be no question in his mind as to what you were saying.
On the other hand, if you were to observe that Barry Blackacre was an outstanding Mason because by his strength of character, capability, and disinterested service he had impressed his ideals, convictions, and basic values upon his lodge, associates, and neighborhood, many would not understand you in the least. It would doubtless require considerable further amplification and explanation before the concept you had in mind would take on explicit meaning in the mind of your listener.
This rather disconcerting circumstance would seem to merit some objective attention and consideration. It appears to present a very real and sizeable stumbling block squarely in the path of Freemasonry's progress, advancement, and achievement. Hopefully, Freemasonry should be able to fill its administrative offices with men possessing marked administrative and leadership talents, and not be restricted or limited to a choice of men having no stronger or significant recommendation to those posts of authority, responsibility, and preferment than simply individual willingness and availability, or personal ambition.
No one should disparage ambition when it is judiciously controlled and appropriately directed. Ambition is an attitude, motivation, and drive which is basic and vital to the advancement and accomplishment of every endeavor of mankind. However, injudicious or uncontrolled ambition can prove disastrous to the individual personally and mankind generally. Ambition, to be effective and successful, must be augmented, supplemented, and implemented by individual talent and capability. Without such personal qualities ambition quite generally results in negative rather than positive accomplishment.
Placing value on the appraisal of Masonic distinction by the tabulation of offices held too frequently leads to the Mason' s becoming so overloaded and overworked administratively that he actually executes no office even well, let alone with distinction or creative contribution. He is so busy straining himself to sustain himself on the treadmill of routine meeting attendance, perfunctory dispatch of the regular business (with the assistance of the secretary), and has no time or strength to study, observe, inspect, and evaluate the welfare and status of any body he is presiding over. Besides, his obligation of actively earning an income for his family and himself, his reputation as a worker, or his professional standing and reputation may be seriously jeopardized or affected.
For the future welfare and advancement of Freemasonry, it is imperative that we de-define and re-orient our thinking, concepts, and values as to what constitutes the successful Mason or Mason of achievement.
As every past-presiding officer has learned from experience, the choice and selection of obviously able and gifted men for appointment to the line presents no difficulty whatever. The problem arises immediately, however, when the chosen prospective appointee is approached and asked to accept the proffered appointment. Then, the polite, tactful, and discreet, but inexact and oblique excuses are voiced as the appointment is "regretfully" declined. After having tired or worn himself out in fruitlessly and unsuccessfully going down his list, one by one, of selected potential officers, he is finally forced to start considering the personal possibilities of the individuals who have made it plainly evident they are willing and available.
The one pronounced reason readily ascertained from those selected individuals who declined appointment, is the fact that each couldn't see his way clear to spend the required number of years in succession in the line before he would attain the position of principal responsibility or the opportunity to preside.
As a corollary to the scale of values based on the number of presiding offices held, the Fraternity has naturally and inevitably drifted into an implied system of established "apostolic" succession. This has had the appeal and attraction of assuring the man of limited and even mediocre ability that he will not be dropped from the line or lose his place in the line but, rather, that he is virtually certain to be retained until his routine election and installation in the East.
It is no new thought in the fraternity that this situation is precluding and stifling imaginative, energetic, and vigorous leadership in many of our highest and basic offices. One imperative aspect of the answer to the need for dynamic and creative leadership is to revamp our practices and habits and introduce the prospective top officer much nearer to that position than at the bottom of the line.
It is well that this situation be squarely faced in a consistory whose commander-in-chief serves two years. The adherence to the established tradition of assured succession subsequent to appointment as guard, through master of ceremony, second lieutenant-commander, first lieutenant-commander, and then commander-in-chief obviously requires eight years before election and installation for the final two presiding and executive years.
Many men can't so control their personal lives, under today's restless and mobile economic conditions, as to justify their acceptance of the initial step in this time-consuming progression with much hope, let alone assurance, that they will be in the vicinity or valley some eight years later. Obviously it would also detract markedly from the stature, significance, and recognition of the 33rd degree if it were to be conferred primarily for being a survivor in an endurance contest.
A realistic source of unusually well-qualified leadership skill and experience may frequently be found among the retired brethren. This fount of prospective officers has to be utilized judiciously, however, or the aspiring younger members are apt to feel eliminated and discouraged, and start referring to the organization as an "old men's club."
Having scanned some of the facets relating to the common, everyday appraisal of Masonic distinction, it is well to consider other bases for evaluating the measure of a Mason. Actually, there are so many ways in which a Mason may act to enhance the prestige and image of Masonry, by activity and service both within and without the Fraternity.
In the presence of limited or uninspired vision as to how to contribute and serve, it is obvious that all the customary committees require, in addition to leadership, those to assist in the execution of proposed plans and policies. This caliber of activity and participation may not be so easily described to the non-Mason as the office-holding type, but within the bodies of the Craft such service and its quality will not go unobserved, unappreciated, or unrecognized. In these organizational areas of basic activity, innovation, new ideas, new programs, and inspired concepts are always direly needed and eagerly anticipated by the membership.
The Mason with a modicum of ability or talent above the run-of-the-mill level will readily endeavor to assess the needs of the Craft and then devise a correlation between his potential as a possible contributor and those evident needs. He will then take positive action and proceed to make the contribution called for by the situation.
By disinterested service in the community, in his profession, or in areas related to his business, a Mason may attain recognition and distinction which always redounds to the credit of the Craft and simultaneously elevates his stature therein. It is well to always remember that a so-called honor is of little consequence if it elevates the individual and he anticipates its bestowal from that standpoint. An honor has genuine stature and significance only when the recipient is of such distinguished attainment himself that he enhances and elevates the conferred recognition.
In any discussion of the state of the Craft and its future welfare, most of the thoughts sketched here are bound to arise and be part of the interchange of ideas. As would be expected of an institution hoary with age, such as Freemasonry, change comes slowly and almost imperceptibly. The salient point is that we recognize our problems and continuously work toward their solution. It may help to keep in mind the admonition:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
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Some have a talent for working themselves, while others have a talent for setting others to work.
Which is more valuable?.. I think a man ought to have both. If he can’t, I think he ought to be able to work himself. The ability to work hard is, perhaps the valuable aid to success.
- Brother Theodore Roosevelt
Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.
- Alexander Graham Bell
Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.
- W. Clement Stone.
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by Jack Soroka, KTCH
Military men were Masonry's missionaries, and to grasp the full role of the Military Lodge, now all but extinct, one must recognize and appreciate early British Freemasonry. Of course the first and older Grand Lodge was the Premier London organization formed at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House in St. Paul's church yard on St. John the Baptist Day 24 June 1717. This original group, an English invention, helped to erect and then recognized the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland in 1725 and 1736 respectively.
The early Grand Lodge years were not without turmoil (1), and many operative Free Masons were not in accord with the speculative Masons--much less with a Grand Lodge concept. Over-zealous speculatives tended to establish Freemasonry as an exclusive English society-gentry oriented--and not shared with other regular Freemasons possessing less than lofty lineage. This early and serious innovation presented itself as the justifiable reason for the formation, in 1751, in London of the rival ancient (sometimes referred to as Antient) Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. This rival Grand Lodge, always in harmony with the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, widely appealed to regular work-a-day Freemasons. It was led by Laurance Dermott, an Irish Freemason of extraordinary intellect and wit, who successfully and permanently dubbed his movement "antient" while labeling the first and older Premier Grand Lodge with its following "modern." The older Premier group in turn declared the so-called rival Ancient group to schismatic; however, the moderns and antients ultimately merged themselves into the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813, thus harmonizing the craft and providing the mecca for modern speculative Freemasonry.
The eighteenth century found England, France and sometimes Germany, as colonial powers, engaged in a struggle for world domination. The struggle for supremacy, by the time of Masonry's Great Union of 1813, had been won by Great Britain under English leadership. Great Britain of course was the name for the British Empire where principals were England, Scotland and Ireland along with England's supporting colonial structure. England having gained naval superiority after the 1598 defeat of the Spanish Armada, was ruled by Kings George I, II, & III. The Kings (2), during their reigns, 1714-1820, raised, trained, and deployed, where necessary through the world, a huge army consisting of more than 100 regiments. These regiments were trained and encamped in Ireland.
Society at this time was led and dominated by the English who in turn existed under the George Kings--with tendencies toward tyranny. Private clubs, stray secular religious groups and spurious societies were kept under close surveillance to detect disloyalty to the crown. Such societal conditions had a great influence upon the development of Masonic ritual and regulations; thus the reason for the many clear and pointed statements of loyalty found in the several Masonic charges. Masonry's use and development during this period proved to be quite remarkable; for, on the one hand, it became an invaluable instrument for the crown to maintain loyalty amongst the army "Regulars," while on the other hand, it stirred up great interest amongst the "Craft." An Army Craft who occupied their minds with such time-consuming activities were not lost to long hours of boredom while their regiment was in cantonment; moreover, the Craft in turn were looked upon by their superiors as individuals possessed of high integrity. (Cantonment in this case being that period of regimental encampment between duty assignments).
Military lodges on a much smaller scale existed in France, Sweden, Poland, Prussia, Germany, the low-countries and the Balkans; however, it was within the British Empire, including North America, where they flourished. Military lodges reached their zenith by the 1813 union of the two English Grand Lodges, numbering in excess of 250; furthermore over 200 had received their warrants from Grand Lodges in Great Britain (3) (--135 of which had been issued by the Irish Grand Lodge alone. The number of Lodges commenced to dwindle to a great extent in the 19th century, and by 1886 there were only 16 Lodges open and working in the British army. At the time of the outbreak of World War II, Military Lodges had become practically extinct.
The nineteenth century ushered in many great changes in government and Masonic concepts, and it was a time of the development for United States of America, replete with its many institutions of constitutional government.
Therefore, a corresponding proliferation of Grand Lodges occurred, based upon territorial jurisdiction--an ideal (3a) firmly implanted in the minds of the colonial craft. As said by Josiah H. Drummond "PGM" of Maine, "Independence in civil government naturally suggested independence in Masonic Government." Furthermore, independence had impressed upon the colonists that since the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed, then why should not a territorial Grand Lodge derive its authority from the territorial Lodges? When a territorial government for a new state had functioned to a point of operating under its own approved constitution and the necessary legislative, executive and judicial bodies, it was ready for statehood. Usually at that moment, a convention of territorial Masonic Lodges was called to form, erect and institute a Grand Lodge for the newly emerging state. Thus, the stage for Masonry's migration from east to west between north and south was simply and satisfactorily set. At the close of the 19th century there were forty nine (4) separate and autonomous Grand Lodges in the United States of America--one for each of the forty-eight states plus one for the District of Columbia.
Why did Military Lodge Masonry, which contributed so much to the establishment of Freemasonry throughout the world, particularly in America, become obsolete and finally all but extinct by 1900? Primarily, it was because of the unwritten American law of territorial jurisdiction. As territories were formed which later became states, frontiers were diminished. Frontiers were the wilderness areas yet unsettled and under the control of the military In the early part of the century, America was a vast and fierce wilderness; however, at the end, the frontiers were all tamed and settled into states, and the need for military protection no longer existed. Except for the sad American Civil War experience. The use of Military Lodges all but evaporated in the United States. Lodge warrants were on occasion turned back to the issuing authority, sometimes they were absorbed in the formation of a Grand Lodge and then re-issued to a stationary Lodge in a new state and sometimes they were kept by mustering out personnel and for all intents and purposes lost to posterity.
America's great Civil War descended like a blight upon the new nation in 1861. Too many newly formed Grand Jurisdictions, particularly of the Middle West and the deep South, in a rush of patriotism issued dispensations on a wholesale basis--practically to anyone for the asking. As a consequence more than 200 Lodges existed for the duration with little or no supervision or regulation. Despite the fact that the Civil War was one of the bloodiest hand-to-hand conflicts in the long history of man, soldier Masons sometimes in blue and grey, as Brothers together, met upon the level, acted by the plumb, and parted upon the square. The fraternal courtesies (5) exchanged between the Craft in these two armies sometimes extended beyond the field lodge room to conditions upon the battlefield. On the occasion, when a distressed soldier brother gave the Masonic sign of distress, it is a known fact that an opposing soldier brother would rush to the rescue to save the distressed brother and spare him to the prison guard for captivity. Some Grand Lodges and Grand Masters felt that Civil War Military Lodge Masonry was deplorable and that it was practiced in a capricious and arbitrary manner, that scoundrels were made Masons, and that no records were kept: the notoriety of such actions has in the main never been substantiated. At the moment, when one thinks of the recent military action called "Desert Storm," one notices that America's young military men--yet unstained--represented, as a whole, a very high caliber of person, possessed of good morals and high integrity--probably much the same as their Civil War grandfathers of 130 years ago. Certainly as a group their conduct, their morals and their integrity were equal to, if not above, some of our Grand Lodge men. We need not look too far to find some who have been suspended or expelled for their convictions of civil or moral offenses. Though the chapter of Civil War Army Lodge Masonry may be somewhat dismal, it happened only for the reason that the warrant-dispensing Grand Lodges failed to provide a satisfactory method for supervision.
The contributions of Military Lodge Masonry to the good of the order have been many, varied and substantial and they are too numerous for enclosure in this treatise. Prior to the narration of a select few exemplary contributions, one can't help but marvel at the success of the simple British system. It was never smitten with jurisdictional complications, with slipshod lodge room performance and with voluminous records. The British system, uncomplicated and yet effective, granted the warrant to an officer of the regiment or the naval vessel who was satisfactory to the Grand Lodge. If the trust in the officer was not misplaced, there was no problem. Usually, the C.O. served as the first Worshipful Master, and he decided when, where and if Lodge was held; also, besides the investigating committee, he passed on candidates for the degrees. If the C.O. was replaced, the Lodge was permanently closed until a new C.O. who was a Masonic Brother took over. Sometimes this meant that a regiment or ship, with a non-Masonic C.O., was without a Lodge for quite awhile. In effect the officer was an acting British Grand Lodge officer when there was an open working Lodge within and under his command. Furthermore, the warrant issued to a British regiment, subject to recall, was for the life of the command, and it was for authorization, (6) except in the case of the modern English Grand Lodge, to confer all three symbolic degrees, as well as that of the Royal Arch and the Knight Templar. Most British regiments existed for a half-century or more, and a few for over a century. In terms of military life, some of these warrants were quite aged upon retirement. The History of Freemasonry by Robert Freke Gould shows in systematic detail the sea and field Lodges aboard British naval vessels and attached to army regiments. There, regimental names, classifications, Lodge warrants and dispensation dates appear.
Of some particular interest and significance to Americans is His Majesty's 62nd Loyal American Regiment, (7) redesignated in 1757 as the 60th "Royal Americans." Masonic annals show some unusual personnel coincidences even though this regiment was raised in America. John Young, Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, was the senior of four battalion majors while the Earl of Loudoun, 1736 Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, was the Colonel-in-chief of this regiment--yet designated the 62nd. Since the regiment was neither raised nor trained in Ireland, its Lodge warrants were obtained while carrying out field assignments. Though John Young was promoted to the full rank of colonel and appointed Provincial Grand Master over all Scottish Lodges in America and the West Indies, the Lodges No. 3 and No. 5 in the Second and Third Battalions respectively of the 60th were warranted out of Quebec, (8) Canada, 27 December 1759 immediately after the Quebec conquest. The second and third battalions of the Royal Americans were attached to the nine or ten brigaded regiments of General Wolfe's victorious army on the Plains of Abraham.
On 28 November 1759, as soon as practicable after the surrender of Quebec and as the British were wont where several regimental field Lodges were in cantonment, the Masters and Wardens met and collectively concluded by consensus that, of the Brethren present, one possessed of the greatest skill and merit should take upon himself the name of Grand Master by authority of the eight or nine Lodges present. Consequently, Mr. John Price Guinnett, Lieutenant, in His Majesty's 47th Regiment was unanimously proclaimed as such. The new Grand Master, installed in due form, appointed Bro. Thomas A. Span, Captain, 28th Regiment, his deputy, and Brothers Huntingford and Prentice Senior and Junior Wardens and Brother Paxton, Sergeant, 47th Regiment, Grand Secretary. Huntingford was a private in the 28th Regiment while Prentice, an Irishman, was a non-com in the 43rd Regiment. Though the initial proceedings raised a few eyebrows, nevertheless, Freemasonry was firmly planted and established-again via Military Masonry, and this time in Canada. Many prominent Masons were present in General Wolfe's army but not listed in the proceedings; however, their extensive experience with Grand Lodge procedure must have been eminently available. Prominently present were Col. John Young, commanding the Royal Americans, Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and Provincial Grand Master over all Scottish Lodges in America and the West Indies; Col. Richard Gridley, Grand Senior Warden of the Provincial (Modern) Grand Lodge, Boston; Captain Robert Ross, 48th Regiment later Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, 1786; and Brother Thomas Dunckerly, gunnersmate on H.M.S. Vanguard. Dunckerly was in 1760 patented by the (Modern) Grand Lodge England to regulate "Masonic" affairs in the newly acquired Canadian Provinces. At the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, 27 December 1759, the new Grand Lodge of Quebec met in due form and issued several warrants for new Lodges. Battalions two and three received warrants No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, to hold lodges in the 60th Regiment, Royal Americans. The principal duty assignments of this regiment were in skirmishes with the Indiana, in major engagements with the French at Louisberg, Champlain Valley, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Quebec, and later in the capture of Detroit and in colonial South Carolina. While the regiment was a part of the British conquest and occupation of Detroit, a Charter was granted in 1764 by George Harrison, Provincial (Modern) Grand Lodge of New York, for a Lodge in Detroit. The Lodge, listed no. 448 on the English register, was named "Zion Lodge" by its members. Some say that since the charter for the Lodge was not in the form of a Military Warrant, and that it was definitely located in Detroit, it, therefore, was a Stationary Lodge. A Lodge which only happened to have a lieutenant from the 60th Regiment as its master. Probably, this was the reason why the Lodge was left behind when the British withdrew in 1796 in favor of the Americans. The Lodge fluctuated in its allegiance between Canadian and New York Jurisdictions until 1826 when it united to form the Michigan Grand Lodge, being Zion No. 1 on that register. The romance of this regiment is captured by Hervey Allen in his historical novel entitled Bedford Village published by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., New York and Toronto, 1944.
His Majesty's staid old First Regiment of Foot, the royal regiment now called "The Royal Scots", has turned in one of the most impressive Military Lodge performances of all. In this regiment were two Lodges of Irish constitution and registry, No 11-1732, the first and oldest; and No. 74-1737, issued to the First and Second Battalions respectively. After 1800, Masonic allegiance (9) became divided: the First Battalion continued to hold Warrant No. 11 (Irish) 1732, the Fourth Battalion held Warrant No. 289 (Scottish, "The Royal Thistle "), 1808-both battalions then stationed at Quebec; while the Second Battalion, now in India, held Warrant No. 574 (English, "Unity, Peace and Concord"), 1808.
The Seven Years War, 1756-1763, between Britain and France was called the French and Indian War on the North American continent. This is the earliest period of Regimental Lodges in large numbers being present with armies in the field. According to Lieut. T.R. Henderson in his essay entitled "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots" (The Royal Regiment) page 14:
"It appears that many of the Lodges in British Regiments during this war worked side by side with continental Lodges working under the Rite, or System, called the Strict Observance. During the fighting, many prisoners were made on both sides, and the Masons among them fraternized in each case with their captors. In the British Isles especially, wherever there were depots of prisoners-of-war, Lodges composed of such detenus invariably sprang into existence. Consequently, the British Military Lodges became familiar with the Rite of Strict Observance, which pervaded all continental Europe at this time. "This Rite of Strict Observance was based upon the tradition that at the time of the destruction of the Templars during the fourteenth century, some Knights took refuge in Scotland and there preserved the Due Succession of the Order. These Knights are said to have joined the guilds of Masons in that kingdom and so originated the Society of Freemasons.
Becoming thus acquainted with this rite, the British Military Lodges took a great interest in the Knight Templar degrees that were then being worked by such bodies as the Grand Encampment of Ireland, the probable forerunners of the present Templar organizations of the British Isles and the United States of America. They started to work them in large numbers, and in doing so contributed greatly towards their dissemination through-out Britain and America.
These Knight Templar degrees appear to have been worked in the Military Lodges at first on the authority of their craft warrants alone, as was the custom in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For example, it is known that the Irish Lodge No. 11, attached to the 1st Battalion 1st foot, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century only possessed one warrant, namely its Blue Warrant, yet it worked Royal Arch, Knight Templar and Knight of Malta Degrees under its authority. But later, separate warrants seem to have been issued to authorize Lodges to work these "higher" degrees. For instance, it is on record that on leaving Madras in 1831 the Masons of the 2nd Battalion 1st Foot 'did travel to the city of Madras, and there in due and antient form did hand over...Blue (i.e., Craft), Red (i.e., Royal Arch) and Black (i.e., Knight Templar) Warrants to the Provincial Grand Master' .
Though the Revolutionary War concluded in America's favor, the influences of previous British customs and traditions remained strong and indelible amongst the citizenry of the new nation--The United States of America. About five years after the formation of Lodge No. 11 in the 1st Battalion, the Grand Lodge of Ireland on 26 October 1737 granted Warrant No. 7410 to "2nd Battalion--Royal Regiment of Foot" and as further stated by Lieut. Henderson, page 34:
Proceeding to North America in 1757 with the battalion to which it was attached, this Lodge was present at the siege of Louisburg in 1758. At the beginning of August the same year Lodge No. 74 was moved into the garrison of Albany, New York, where it remained for the best part of a year.
It appears that the officers of the Second Battalion who were members of Lodge No. 74 were 'scholars and gentlemen', and on taking up duty in the Albany garrison 'brought with them, and kept up, a large and valuable library of rare books' which they left to the city when the battalion was ordered away in 1759. This would seem to be the first instance recorded of an Army Lodge forming a study circle, and is a curious sidelight on the tastes of the early regimental Masons. Some of the volumes belonging to this collection are still preserved in the Library of the Albany Female Academy.
During its stay at Albany the Lodge seems to have initiated some of the local gentry, for on leaving that place in 1759 its members gave the local Brethren, in accordance with what appears to have been an unauthorized custom, a copy of the Warrant of the Lodge with the following endorsement thereon, to enable the Brethren of Albany to continue their Masonic meetings. Copy of Endorsement:
We, the Master, Warden; and brethren of a Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, No. 74, registry of Ireland, held in the Second Battalion Royal, adorned with all-the honors and assembled in due form, do hereby declare, certify and attest, that whereas, our body is very numerous by the addition of many new members, merchants and inhabitants of the city of Albany, they having earnestly requested and besought us to enable them to hold a Lodge during our absence from them, and knowing them to be men of undoubted reputation and men of skill and ability in Masonry, and desirous to promote the welfare of the Craft; we have, therefore, by unanimous consent and agreement, given them an exact and true copy of our Warrant as above, and have properly installed Mr. Richard Cartwright, Mr. Henry Bostwick and Mr. Wm. Furguson, as Assistant Master and Wardens of our Lodge, allowing them to set and act during our absence, or until they, by our assistance, can procure a separate Warrant for themselves from the Grand Lodge in Ireland.
Given under our hands and seal of our Lodge in the city of Albany, the eleventh day of April, in the year of Masonry 5759, and in the year of our Lord God 1759.
SIGNED
John Steadman, Secretary. No. 74 of Ireland. Anias Sutherland, Master. Charles Calder, Senior Warden. Thos. Parker, Junior Warden.
After a number of years, and beyond the term of the Third Provincial Grand Master, Francis Goelet--the old substitute Warrant of No. 74 was confirmed by the Fourth Provincial Grand Master, George Harrison, February 21st, 1765; and while naming the same Master, Richard Cartwright, to preside; William Benson, Senior Warden; and John Visscher, Junior Warden; designated the Lodge as Union Lodge, No. 1
Thus, Irish Freemasonry was firmly planted and recognized in the North American colony--the Commonwealth of New York.
When the 1st Battalion was assigned to Gibraltar in 1839, its Lodge No. 11 was unable to continue to work and its Dormant Warrant was sent home to Ireland to a few of the surviving members with the depot companies at Templemore. Because of various political secret societies with an avowed purpose to overthrow the government, chief of which was the "Orange Society," Parliament passed an act outlawing same. Military authorities, being uncertain of what political or other movement might be fostered behind the locked doors of the Military Lodges, suppressed them equally with all other secret societies. Subsequent thereto " the last entry in the records of the Lodge closes with the remark "Warrant given up April, 1847 by order of Colonel Maunsell' (11). " Thus was 115 years of most impressive Military Lodge Masonry brought to a close.
Inadvertently and yet unsettled, a great Masonic controversy was introduced when Army Lodge No. 441 initiated Prince Hall and fourteen others (Negroes) on 6 March 1775 in Boston. Lodge No. 441 (Irish) was attached to the 38th Regiment of Foot--a part of General Gages army quartered in Boston at the time. The Master of the Lodge was Bro. J.B. Batt. (11A) Prince Hall and his associates did have some semblance of Masonic Right, though subject to limitations, for there is a record that "African" Lodge No. 1 at Boston celebrated St. John's Day 27 December 1782, and John Rowe, Provincial Grand Master of the Modern Grand Lodge of Boston, allowed the Negroes (11b) certain latitude which was expressed by Prince Hall himself as being permitted "to walk on St. John's Day and bury our dead in forme. " On 27 September 1784, the Modern Grand Lodge of England granted a Warrant for "African Lodge" No. 459. The Warrant was not received in Boston until 29 April 1787. Probably this was the last Warrant issued by the Grand Lodge, which erased the same for lack of returns in 1813 when the English (Modern and Antient) Grand Lodges merged. If intolerance, bigotry, and racism could absent themselves from this controversy, Prince Hall Masonry would most likely be as Regular as any of the other Masonry erected by Military Masonic Missionaries.
The last successful era for ambulatory Military Masonry occurred during America's separation from Great Britain via the Revolutionary War. At this time, there were approximately seventy-five active Warrants for Traveling Lodges in the conflicting forces, ten of which were in the colonists' Continental Army Lodges in the beginning were mostly for enlisted personnel, and Masonry spread upward from there to the commissioned officer ranks. In general, the well-being of Military Masonry seems to have been mainly dependent upon the enthusiasm and assiduity (12) of a few non-commissioned officers until the latter part of the eighteenth century. During Revolutionary War days, at least in the Continental Army, the Army Lodges were primarily for officers. So far as is known, American Union Lodge (13) --with extant records, and the most famous of the period, was entirely made up of commissioned officers of every rank and station. This Lodge, in effect, served as a glorified and confidential officers' club. This group, Warranted 15 February 1776 by the (Modern) Provincial Grand Lodge, Boston New England, was attached to the Connecticut line of the Continental Army, and it became America's great promoter, as well as, conservator of Freemasonry for the new republic. Whenever the Connecticut army line was in cantonment, "American Union" was at work: it conferred the degrees of Masonry upon many who later became well known for their political and military feats, it preserved and perpetuated the fine tradition of Table Lodge--Feasting, and it kept up the customs and usages of Speculative Masonry via its long-time Worshipful Master--Jonathan Heart who in his own special manner presided for the edification of the Craft. Heart became the First Grand Lecturer in what at a later date, 1789, became the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, a testimony to his proficiency and prominence as a Mason. When the war concluded in America's favor and the army forces were mustered out of service, American Union on 23 April 1783 "closed and to stand closed until called again by the Worshipful Master. " (14) This occurred 28 June 1790 at the newly built town of Marietta, Ohio, the seat of government for the new Northwest Territory. Jonathan Heart, again an army captain serving in Fort Harmar just across the river from Marietta, instituted the Lodge with himself as Worshipful Master, Benjamin Tupper and Rufus Putnam as Wardens, and leaving there with them the old Warrant which he kept in his personal effects after the war's end. Thus was preserved for westward migration Regular Freemasonry--eighteen years before ever there was a Grand Lodge of Ohio.
Army Lodges Warranted By American
Provincial Grand Lodges
(See chart below)Except for the extant records of American Union Military Lodge kept by Jonathan Heart, hardly any information exists concerning the other Army Lodges in the American Continental Army. Such brief accounts as may be seen are available in The Old Lodges of Pennsylvania 1730-1800, Volumes I & II by Julius F. Sachse, Litt. D., and these usually relate the request and the circumstances for granting the warrant.
Army Lodges Warranted By American Provincial Grand Lodges
(Antient Except as Footnoted)
| Lodge | Army Outfit | Date | Warranted By |
| Unity No.18 | HMS 17th Reg. Foot | 1777-1778 | PA* |
| St. John's Reg. | U.S. Battalion | 7-24-1775 | NY* |
| American Lodge No.1 | Conn. Line | 2-15-1776 | MASS * |
| Washington No.10 | Mass. Line | 10-6-1779 | MASS |
| No.19 | Penn. Artillery | 5-18-1779 | PA |
| No. 20 | N.C. Line | 10-4-1779 | PA |
| No. 27 | Maryland Line | 4-4-1780 | PA |
| No. 28 | Penn. Line | 1780 | PA |
| No. 29 | Penn. Line | 7-27-1780 | PA |
| No. 30 | Hiram Del. Reg. | PA | |
| No. 36 | N.J. Line | 3-26-1781 | PA |
* Penn. Prov. Grand Lodge under Tory control 1777-78
**Prov. Grand Lodge at the time-Modern.
After a rather extensive study and review of the subject matter which treats of ambulatory Traveling Military Masonic Lodges, the author has concluded that the preponderance of good the Army Lodges have done for the betterment of the institution of Masonry far, far, and away outweighs the minor infraction of rules conjured-up by stifling Grand Lodges bent on regulating every initiative of the Craft. The study reveals that the percentage of rogues and scoundrels admitted and, therefore, the percentage of suspensions and expulsions from the Order remain about the same today as they were two hundred and more years ago when military type Masonry was at its peak.
Although Ireland did not contribute much to the genesis (14A) of Freemasonry, it did by its conservatism preserve many old customs which otherwise might have been lost. From 1732 onwards, the Irish system of Ambulatory Warrants granted to Military Lodges did more that anything else to sow the seeds of Freemasonry throughout the world.
As the British Army established outposts in various places in the world in the eighteenth century, so its attached Army Lodges disseminated Freemasonry in adjacent communities. Irish Lodge No. 128 in the 39th Regiment of Foot made the first Mason in India in 1757 and it later erected many Lodges throughout that country. In America in 1759 Irish Lodge No. 74, in the 1st regiment of Foot, instituted Masonry in Albany, New York, by leaving an exact and true copy of its warrant with an accompanying endorsement, as well as, installing its first set of Lodge officers.
On 28 November 1759 six Army Lodges, five with Irish Warrants and one with an American, met and formed the Grand Lodge of Quebec, thus planting Masonry in Canada. The Irish Warrants present at that proceeding were Nos. 192, 218, 245,136,195. The lone American was " Louisburg Lodge No. 1 (Modern) 13 November 1758, Provincial Grand Lodge--Boston." Of interest to some Americans, is the first meeting of the Quebec Grand Lodge. There, the 60th Royal American Regiment of Foot was granted warrants No. 3 and No. 5 to hold Lodge in battalions two and three respectively. Probably this is one of the better examples of Traveling Warrants having been granted with little or no record of what happened in and to the Lodges; especially in light of the fact that the colonel in command was Mr. John Young, the Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and the Provincial Grand Master of Scottish Masons in North America and the West Indies.
Three Stationary Colonial Lodges and six British Army Lodges in 1782 (again demonstrating that Masonry transcended the vicissitudes of war) inaugurated the Transition Grand Lodge of New York. It received a warrant from the "Antient" Grand Lodge of England; however, in 1784 Robert R. Livingston, "A Modern," became Grand Master and the Lodge then became the Grand Lodge of New York as it is known today. The six British Lodges were No. 52 En213 English Ancient--4th Battalion Royal Artillery; No. 215 English Ancient--Regiment Auspachbeyreuth; No. 441 Irish--38th regiment; Lion's Lodge--57th Regiment.
Lodge No. 218 Irish--48th Regiment foot made many Australian (15) Masons, and on 6 January 1820 instituted "The Mother Lodge of Australia, " No. 260-Irish registry, now No. 1 under the Grand Lodge of New South Wales. Masonry came to Japan via " Sphinx Lodge" No. 263 Irish--20th Regiment Foot. When it had initiated a goodly number of Yokohama citizens, it established a Lodge there which enabled Masonry to continue after the regiment departed in 1866.
The so-called Higher Degrees of Masonry, namely the Royal Arch, the Knights Templar, and the Knights of Malta, had great appeal to regimental army officers. The Degrees were discovered in Europe in the system called the Rite of the Strict Observance. (16) During the Seven Years War (1756-1763) as it was called in Europe, several British Army Lodges became thoroughly acquainted and imbued with the Order, and disseminated the Degrees (under their craft Warrants only) in Ireland, England and, somewhat later, in America. The Irish Grand Encampment, having taken under its wings these so-called Higher Degrees, seems to be the forerunner of the English and American Grand Encampments. Even though the first written record of these Higher Degree Conferrals, including the Knights Templar, exists at present at St. Andrews Lodge (Scottish) Boston, dated 28 August 1769, the High Degree germs seem to have been carried and spread by the British Army Lodges with English (Antient) Warrant No. 58 and Irish Warrant No. 322 in the 14th and 29th Regiments of Foot, respectively. These regiments were on station in Boston from 1766 for several years. A thorough study of British Army Regiments with attached Military Lodges serving in continental Europe between 1745 and 1765 quite possibly would reveal the sought-after answers to questions about the genesis of the so-called High Degrees of Royal Arch, Knights Templar and Knights of Malta Masonry; especially should the relationship of the Army Lodges with the system or the Rite of the Strict Observance, be closely looked into.
Traveling Lodges at first existed in the British Army for enlisted personnel only. It later spread from the non-com to the commissioned officer ranks, and it was used as a means to fight boredom during times of regimental cantonment. As has been already noted, the Wardens and the Secretary for the first Grand Lodge of Quebec, erected 28 November 1759, were enlisted men. In Lodge No. 11, the oldest Army Lodge of all, while on station in the West Indies, developed a period of dormancy between 1801 and 1808 when every member, except a sergeant, was either killed or dead. He kept the Warrant and began registering Masonic replacements who joined the battalion. In 1808 when he had forty or more new members, he opened and set the revived Lodge back to work.
One of the most famous of all Army Lodges, at least from an American point of view, was American Union Lodge attached to the Connecticut line of the Continental Army. It was granted a warrant from the Provincial (Modern) Grand Lodge of Boston on 15 February 1776. This, the only American Lodge, with extant records, was and remained under the auspices and direct personal control of Jonathan Heart the most prominent Mason of the Revolutionary War Period. He was the longtime Secretary and Worshipful M aster who kept the Warrant among his personal possessions after the war. The Military Lodge was closed 23 April 1783 and to stand closed until called by the Worshipful Master.
Many famous American army officers of high rank attended American Union Lodge either as visitors or members. For example, among the visitors were such Brethren as George Washington, Israel Putnam, and Arthur St. Clair, while amongst the membership were such generals as Brothers Joel Clark, Samuel H. Parsons and Rufus Putnam. Joel Clark was Charter Master, while Jonathan Heart, ensign, was Secretary at the time. At General (Mad Anthony) Wayne's capture of Stony Point in 1779, a chest of Lodge utensils and a Warrant were taken by the Americans (from Unity Lodge No. 18--17th Regiment of Foot) Subsequently, for disposition, these were turned over to Brother Samuel Holden Parsons, a short-term Worshipful Master of American Union Lodge. General Parsons returned these benign articles with a salutation, under a flag of truce. The GREETING in brief said:
When the ambition of monarchs or jarring interests of states call forth their subjects of war, as Masons we are disarmed of that resentment which stimulates to undistinguished desolation; and however our political sentiments may impel us in the public dispute, we are still Brethren and our professional duty apart ought to promote the happiness and advance the weal of each other.
Aside from Knight Templary's Acts of Charity and Deeds of Pure Beneficence, this majestic act of courtesy ranks as one of Masonry's finest moments of chivalry.
Infantry Captain Jonathan Heart, stationed at Fort Harmar at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, called American Union Lodge at Marietta in Campus Martius on 28 June 1790. He reconstituted American Union as a Stationary Lodge operating under the authority of the old original Warrant which he left there on deposit. The reinstituted Lodge, with former Revolutionary War Generals Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper as Wardens and himself as Worshipful Master, received the official recognition of the Grand Lodges of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The colorful old Lodge, finally, took its place at the head of the westward migration in the new nation--The United States of America. Although it is to Britain and her simple system of Regimental Army Lodges that all Masons in General are indebted for most of their priceless Masonic heritage; still it is to American Union Lodge--The Great Promoter, the Great Conservator--that American Freemasons in particular owe a much larger debt.
Footnotes
1. Dean N. Goranson, Freemasonry, A Remarkable Technique (1981), P.20
2. Encyclopedia Britannica, Xl.
3. T.R. Henderson, Lieut., the Royal Scots "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment) (1934)", pp. 8-9.
3A. Robert Freke Gould, The History of Freemasonry (New York Cincinnati & Chicago, 1889), IV, pp. 301-302
4. H.L. Haywood, Well-Springs of American Freemasonry.
5. Clarence R. Martin, Grand Master of Indiana, "Traveling Military Lodges," reprint article-Conference of Grand Masters in the United States (Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 24, 1943) pp. 45-46.
6. T.R. Henderson, Lieut., "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots, p. 115
7. Charles T. McClanachan, History of The Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity Free and Accepted Masons New York from the Earliest Dates (1888), pp. 425-426.
8. A.J.B. Milbourne P.D.D.G.M., G.L.Q. "Freemasonry in the Province of Quebec 1759-1959 (1960), pp. 2-8.
9. Lieut. T.R. Henderson, "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots," p. 9.
10. Lieut. T.R. Henderson, "Freemasonry in the royal scots," pp. 34-35.
11. Lieut. T.R. Henderson, "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots," p. 28.
11A. Harry E . Davis, A History of Freemasonry Among Negroes in America (United Supreme Council AASR, NJ, PHA, (1946), 29.
11B. Coils Masonic Encyclopedia (Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, Inc., New York, 1961), pp. 437-438.
12. Lieut. T.R. Henderson, "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots," p. 15.
13. "Connecticut Freemasonry and the American Revolution," Masonic Papers for the Bicentennial, Vol. I ,1975, Philosophic Lodge of Research A.F. & A.M. (Hartford, Conn.), p. 8.
14. Lewis C. Wes Cook, ed., "American Union Lodge 1776-83 " Colonial Freemasonry, Missouri Lodge of Research, Chpt. XVII, Vol. 30, ( 197374), pp 194-205.
14A. Douglas Knoop, M.A., Hon. 'A.R.I.B.A. and G.P. Jones M.A. Litt. D., The Genesis of Freemasonry (Q.C. Correspondence Circle, Ltd., 1978, Manchester Univ. Press, 1947), pp. 319320.
15. Lieut. T.R. Henderson, "Freemasonry in the Royal Scots, " p. 17 .
16. Ibid, pp. 14, 15, 27.
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In Memoriam William Ray Denslow, FPS 1916-1993
by Bruce H. Hunt, FPS
William Ray Denslow, or "Bill," as he preferred to be called by his many friends around the world, was born on May 2, 1916, the only child of Ray V. Denslow and Clara Alice (Merrifield) Denslow.
He went to public school in St. Louis and Kansas City; he was extremely active in the Boy Scouts, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout (as did his son "Denny" a generation later). After graduating from Trenton High School in 1933, he spent the next two years in Kemper Military Academy, Boonville, Missouri. Then he attended summer school at the Universidad National de Mexico in 1934, and went on to the University of Missouri in 1936-38, from which he received his A.B. in 1937 and his Bachelor of Journalism in 1938. After graduation he worked as a bank clerk, as a cattle buyer for Swift and Company, and as a news writer and assistant to the station manager for Radio Station WGN in Chicago. During the second World War Bill Denslow was in the armed forces for one year and ten months, most of it with the 745th Tank Battalion. He served in the 1st Infantry Division as a Captain (A.U.S.), and was in the initial waves that assaulted Omaha "Red" Beach in Normandy on "D-Day. " He was a charter member of the Missouri Archaeological Society, and a Trustee and Past President of the Missouri Historical Society. He was listed in Who's Who in the Midwest and World Who's Who in Commerce and Industry. He was a long-time supporter and Trustee of Wesley Methodist Church in Trenton, Missouri.
Bill Denslow became a Mason in Trenton Lodge No. 111, in Trenton, Missouri, in 1937, the fourth generation of his family to belong; he served as Master in 1955. He received many Masonic honors, including the responsibilities of Grand Master of Masons in Missouri (1967), and Grand High Priest of Royal Arch Masons in Missouri (1961). Bill and his father are the fourth father and son combination to hold these two offices in Missouri. He was a member of C.B.C.S., 32d K.C.C.H. of Scottish Rite, a member of the Red Cross of Constantine, K.Y.C.H., Moila Temple of the Shrine, and almost every group that meets in Washington, D.C. in February each year; in 1948 he was a charter member of Kilwinning Council No. 19, A.M.D., Kansas City.
He was a serious student of Freemasonry, and a skilled practitioner of the written word. He served as editor of the Royal Arch Magazine (which had been founded by his father), and as well produced many papers, and several books which are widely used. His Freemasonry and the American Indian (1956) reports on many of the ceremonies used by the Original Americans, and in a sense helps to disprove the theory that some Indian tribes possessed a form of Freemasonry. His four-volume set, 10,000 Famous Freemasons (1957-60) is still an indispensable source for the lives of many of our famous brethren. In recognition of these achievements, he was named a Fellow of the Philalethes Society on August 31, 1961, and served as its President in 1967. He was proclaimed a member of the Society of Blue Friars (Masonic authors) in 1962, and at the time of his death was the senior living member.
Bill Denslow loved the outdoors. The past few summers he spent at his island cabin on Lake Saganaga, which this writer helped him build in 1955. He was called to higher service on June 20, 1993. He is survived by his wife, the former Juanita Margaret Daly (Whom he married on June 20, 1939), and by two children, William Ray, Jr. and Judith (Denslow) Ericson. The wilderness, the fraternity, and the public have lost a good friend.
The Editor acknowledges the assistance of President Wallace MacLeod, FPS in editing Brother Hunt's tribute.
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In Defense of Masonic Absurdity
by Howard R. Stewart, MPS
The discussion of Masonic origins has produced more argument than any other topic in Masonic literature. A portion of the product from this argument has been theories which stretch the imaginative senses to the breaking point. This is especially true of those theories concocted prior to 1850 in a time that witnessed a rebirth of romanticism in art and literature, and a revival of medieval forms that subordinated intellect to emotion and reason to imagination. Although some theories were considered absurd and were abandoned long ago, all are recorded for posterity and are available to all masons. One critic has stated that the more extravagant claims as to Masonry's antiquity failed to clarify in what sense the Order was ancient, and, though containing truths about the nature of mankind, were illustrated by the wildest and most absurd legends. (1)
Some of the old stories are-armor plated; i.e., they occupy prominent niches in the Masonic ritual. How did this come about? Dr. Joseph Fort Newton divided Masonic knowledge into three parts--prophecy, history, and interpretation. Prophecy has to do with hints of Masonry in the early traditions, mythology, and symbolism of mankind, finding its foundations in the nature and need of man. History is the story of the Order, showing how the stones wrought by time and struggle were brought from afar to the making of Masonry as a society. The third part, interpretation, is self-explanatory. It was in the writing of the history that imaginations sometimes ran unchecked. (2)
To ridicule the old theories would be to tread upon the toes of more than a few distinguished Masonic scholars. However, some had no fear of this as seen in this definition of Masonry published in 1971:
An order . . . which, originating in the reign of Charles II [1660-1685] among the working artisans of London, has now been joined successively by the dead of past centuries . . . until it now embraces all the generations on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational habitants of the Formless Void. (3)
Such cynicism undoubtedly arose from claims of Masonic existence before the world, in God and with Adam in Paradise; from stories of Noah building his Ark with his three sons acting as Deputy and Wardens; from stories of Masonry being in vogue among the builders of the pyramids and Solomon's Temple, etc.
Reference to Noah's participation in Masonry, found in Anderson's Constitutions of 1723 and 1738, was accepted and authorized by the Grand Lodge of England for over 150 years. Whether this reflected Anderson's own view is debatable since he had done only what he had been instructed to do, i.e., to bring together all the legends contained the Old Charges. The belief that Masonry dated from the creation of the universe was held by Dr. George Oliver, a most distinguished English Mason who lived from 1782 to 1867. Oliver also believed that Masonic knowledge was passed down through Seth, the son of Adam, and his descendants to the patriarchs and King Solomon and thence onward. He called this line of passage Pure or Primitive Freemasonry, and to that portion portrayed in the pagan mysteries, he gave the name of Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity. (4)
Flights of imagination persisted well into the twentieth century, not only in the literature but also in Masonic orations. In an oration before the Grand Lodge of Montana in 1915, it was announced that before the earth, the sound of the Mason's labor disturbed the quiet of the wilderness. That Masonry was the sole witness when God made his covenant with Abraham was claimed by the Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina in 1917. And, in 1918, a Past Grand Master of Masons in Indiana said that in the morning of time, Masonry became the guardian of light and truth.
A probably unanswerable question comes to mind. Did seventeenth and eighteenth-century Masonic scholars actually believe that Masonry had always existed as an institution, or have they been misinterpreted? William Hutchinson (1732-1814) once stated that our society's foundations in the postdiluvian world were derived from Ham, but in the same lecture he also said this:
When we speak of Masons under the denomination of a society, we mean Masons as embodied in lodges . . . Our antiquity is in our principles, maxims, languages, learning, and religion; these we derive from Eden, from the Patriarchs, and from the sages of the East . . . (6)
Albert Mackey was another scholar criticized for his earlier views; but in his own defense, he later said that Masonry's body came out of the Middle Ages, but its spirit could be traced to a more remote period. (7)
Other stories of origin have taken pieces of history and fitted them together like patch-work quilts. For the most part, the pieces of history are correct; it is the connecting cloth that is suspect.
In summary, when modern standards are applied, many of the older theories of Masonic origin teeter on the brink of absurdity. But, great measures have been taken to retain certain of the old concepts regarding antiquity. Modern Masonic rituals are laced with statements that are simply not true. Are these present in order to emphasize, to teach, or to make the ritual more attractive and therefore more interesting? The answer is: probably all three, with emphasis on the last, as seen in this from Henry W. Coil:
. . . in formulating the rituals of the degrees in the early eighteenth century, much had to be added to the simple, crude rituals of the prior period. Where was it to be found? Just where all ritual makers go, to ancient times and eastern lands, to the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians the Arabs, and particularly to that unfailing companion of all ritual makers, the Holy Scriptures. (8)
It should be kept in mind that the old legends link Masonry with the earliest thoughts and faith of the human race. They furnish the connection with antiquity that affords our rich heritage. The designation of ancient does not mean that Masonry has been an organized society since Day One. If the preservation of myths, symbols, and allegories derived from the ancient Temples of Initiation was meant to strengthen the fraternity and give it a reason to endure, then it is safe to conclude that the objective has been achieved. And, there is no absurdity in that.
Notes
1. Joseph Fort Newton, The Builders (Richmond VA: Macoy, 1951), xxii.
2. Ibid., xxv.
3. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, quoted by Christopher Haffner, in "What do Freemasons Inherit?" Transactions of the Texas Lodge of Research, 26: 131-44.
4. Mackey 's Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1966), 2:735. Cited below as Mackey.
5. Henry W. Coil, Conversations on Freemasonry (Richmond, VA: Macoy, 1976), 7.
6. William Hutchinson, The Spirit of Masonry (New York: Bell, 1982), 208-9.
7. Mackey, 1:87-8.
8. Coil, 197.
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by Allen E. Roberts, FPS
Leon Zeldis, MPS, Editor of The Israel Freemason, informs us that Freemasonry in Israel is "doing a wonderful, albeit unrecognized, work of promoting human understanding between Arabs and Jews in this troubled part of the world. " He attended a joint meeting of Lodges composed of Jews and Arabs, followed by a joint social evening with their ladies. The result? Inter-visitations of the homes of both have multiplied "leading to better personal links and the strengthening of our fraternal feelings. Instead of cursing the darkness, we are lighting one small candle. Hopefully, it will some day become a great light." Wonderful! AND you can be part of this brotherhood in action. You can affiliate with the Lodge of the Holy Land No. 50. The joining fee is $50 (U.S.). This will bring you the diploma and jewel of the Lodge, plus all Lodge and Grand Lodge publications. Yearly dues thereafter will be $30.
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John A. Rose,, Administrator of the Masonic Homes of California, shared a heart-wrenching story, that turned into a heart-warming epic, with members of the Masonic Forum on CompuServe. While sitting around a camp fire a 16-year old boy had a seizure. As he fell toward the fire a Houseparent kept him from falling into it. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital where he had another seizure. Various tests followed. Later the Young man said: "I'm glad it happened to me and not an old person. Old people bruise easily and they couldn't take all these needles. " Rose's comment: "To think that our boy was thinking of others at this traumatic and threatening time in his life is one of the most unselfish, brave and heroic things I have ever heard from the mouth of one of our babes. " Proof, indeed, that our Masonic Homes are teaching the right values. It's good to know the young man is now doing fine.
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Grand Master Carl J. Wussow, MPS writing in The Wisconsin Masonic Journal, says: "If we are to 'preserve Masonry for the future,' we need to do some hard work. It will take time and planning but there will be rewards!...each Mason needs to do those things today that will ensure the Masonry will be available to those who benefit from our Fraternity in the future. " Well said.
And from the same journal we learn that the Grand Master presented his Meritorious Service Award to the actor/TV personality/Freemason Ernest Borgnine. This was done in the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.
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What follows is a message from CompuServe by Corbett Price, MPS a Junior Warden: "I recently became a member of the Philalethes Society. I used to think I know something about Freemasonry! I have read the several copies I obtained from you (I especially like your 'Through Masonic Windows'). I highly recommend membership in the Philalethes Society to every member of our Fraternity! While I have always been a stickler for procedure, and ritual, that is not all that is important. We must all be more familiar with where we came from to know where we are going. The MSA and Philalethes Society are (in my opinion) the two foremost means of Masonic Education (excluding your written works, of course Grin). Thank you for revealing this well kept secret to me! Hopefully it won't be a secret much longer." An unsolicited testimonial we appreciate. I've been fortunate to have been a member of the Masonic Forum on CompuServe since it started almost a year ago. Today there are over 4,000 members of this forum throughout the world. Anyone can participate in this Worldwide Freemasonry: Through the Telephone Wire by calling CompuServe at 800/524-3388; ask for representative 378. Tell her/him you are a Mason and want a trial membership for the service. (In the next issue we'll publish a list of the Masonic Bulletin Boards throughout the world. It's amazing how far we've come in a short time!)
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A news release from the Supreme Council, NMJ, notes that Robert O. Ralston of Cincinnati, Ohio, is the new Sovereign Grand Commander of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. Alfred E. Rice, also of Cincinnati, is the Grand Lieutenant Commander. Francis G. Paul, who served for eight years, remains a director. Congratulations to all concerned.
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Did you know...? This is a phrase we seldom ask, but in this case it's necessary. The General Grand Council of Cryptic Masons International has had a film (it's also available on video tapes for $20 postpaid) for over a year. It's titled The Connecting Link. It has been mentioned infrequently, but we think it's worth seeing. It may be ordered from Bruce H. Hunt, General Grand Recorder, Box 188, Kirksville, MO 63501.
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A question: Distortions concerning many historical aspects of Freemasonry are still running rampant. Not too long ago I mentioned some that were perpetuated in an honorable publication. I thought I was doing it, and the Craft, a service. Golly! Was I wrong! I was thoroughly condemned. Now for the question: Should those of us who find Freemasons originating, or recycling, falsehoods about the Craft report the truth? Examples: Thomas Jefferson was NOT a Freemason, neither was Patrick Henry, yet we read over and over again that they were; the Masonic signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the role of Freemasonry in the formation of this country, all are frequently exaggerated. Should we bring down the wrath of the exaggerators by correcting these errors? Please let me hear from you. And thanks.