Seven years in only one day!

Back when lodges were operational, it may have taken a candidate seven years to move from an Entered Apprentice to Fellowcraft, and some never reached the status of Master or beyond.

Today, things (usually) move much quicker. For one, the candidate no longer needs to know how to actually build things out of stone. But, sometimes we might go a little too fast. How fast is too fast?

Below I have included some clips from Danny Kaye's 'The Court Jester' for your enjoyment.



What is the purpose of the 'tests' or other requirements that the candidate presented with? While we might not want to wait seven years before receiving our second degree, is a few minutes, or even an hour enough time to reflect on something that really only happens once?

2B1ASK1 taken to a different plane

What if the masonic practice of refusing to ask anyone to be a mason, whether friend, neighbor or passing stranger was applied to other areas of life?

On my other blog, I wrote a lengthy musing on the topic of the right of a child to be able to choose their path for life without pressure from parents to be just like they are.

What if as a parent, you could not even hint at requesting or expecting your child to belong to the same church or other organizations that you do? I wish I knew the answer to that. I personally think less of your children would do what you do, but they would be more dedicated to it. Perhaps about the same as the sons of masons who join the lodge.

What would happen if it were switched around, and your children were all 'forced' to join DeMolay and Job's Daughters? And then when they were older, they were mightily expected to join the Lodge / Eastern Star. What would that do to the Lodge? Is it similar to how your church is currently running?

These are all interesting questions.

oh ... just for the record, I think the 2B1ASK1 thing is dorky :-)

Pseudo Hebrew

I was looking at the coin of this year's Grand What-cha-ma-call-it of Royal Arch, and thought .. huh, this would make a great post.

Perhaps I'll get a photo of the coin up sometime, until then, you all can use your imagination. In the center of the coin, was an Ark of the Covenant, and inscribed on it were some squiggles. I think they were supposed to be the hebrew letters for the name of God, or YHVH. Well, even if you don't know how to read the hebrew alphabet, you would be able to tell that they were really just squiggles in the general shape of the letters.

This phenomenon is fairly widespread in Freemasonry, below is an example from a Knights Kadosh Hieroglyph and the emblem for the 25th degree.





Generally, the Scottish Rite regalia isn't as divergent as the K.K. hieroglyph. But unfortunately, the hieroglyphic example is a much better representation of what the hebrew letters turn into after a few renditions. Here's a comparison between a line in the hieroglyph and what they were copying:



To give you a better idea of what I am talking about, following example is of my name written in a style typical of hebrew (or other) characters written by someone who does not know and use the alphabet.



And, this is the equivalent of what was written on the Grand Archer's coin:



As you can see, if you really squint and strain your eyes, you can tell that the last example says Sophia, but probably not at first glance.

Now, before all you gentlemen are saddened or offended (I hope not!) that I am insulting those who founded modern masonry because they had little knowledge in the forming of hebrew characters: let me assure you, they were hardly alone! Judaism, along with the Greeks and other ancient civilizations have been quite the fad with the type of people who would form masonry off and on throughout the centuries.

The Alchemists, the whole of renaissance magic, Masonry, Mormonism, 19th century Protestants and so on. They all created artifacts with hebrew characters on them with more or less accuracy (usually less).

Discrepancies creep in when one person copies genuine characters, and another copies that and another copies that until the text is unreadable.

My point though is this, If the craft is to be preserved, fidelity to the meaning must be maintained. You are using words and symbols which were (hopefully) carefully chosen for their symbolic meaning. If, over the years you allow these words to become distorted, then what will there be for the younger generation to learn? The secrets of many ancient cultures were lost this way, through the slow corruption of well meaning adherents who did not understand what they had, or what they stood for.

The Ashlar's Wife

As a follow up to the Broken Ashlar post, what do you do if the wife of a mason, otherwise a great man happens to be ... less than desirable?

Perhaps you all know of a woman who came in and cheated, stole, lied and generally killed off all of the appendant bodies that she was allowed into? If you do not, let me inform you, they do exist!

I would like to exhort all of the existing members of appendant bodies to examine and inquire into the morality and character of the wives of masons (or children) before letting them join. I fear that these organizations are so starved for members that they are willing to lower their standards in order to fill the ranks.

Of course, I have my own opinion on that! I believe that these groups should be open to all woman, girls and boys of good moral standing, regardless of the random chance that they would be related to a mason. If the Lodge is suffering from a lack of new members, these other bodies are doubly so, as they have a much smaller pool to dip from. Many wonderful candidates are being left out in the cold only because of the chance of birth. This seems to be contrary to the stated ideals of universal brotherhood.

Woman Fellowcrafts

Renaissance Adventures recently posed a question about the gender of a couple fellowcrafts [here]. I answered it, and it was reposted on the said blog.

Check it out!

Psst .. So who are YOU going to vote for?

I was at a get-together tonight, and someone I didn't know started talking to me, and they asked me who I was going to vote for - when I told them I didn't like their favorite candidate, and that I would rather vote for _(insert candidate from opposite partisan group here)_, their friendly demeanor turned icy in a heart-beat, and they were off to talk to someone else in less than two seconds. Well! If that's the way they want to be! That got me thinking .. huh, I bet this is why there's that rule about not talking about politics in lodge.

I'm sure the person I was talking to (however briefly) and I would have gotten along quite well enough, but the wedge of politics was driven between us before we could start a decent conversation. Does it really matter who we are going to vote for? Very few people share all the views of any political candidate, and so who they choose to vote for is merely a matter of their impressions and what they have read and what party they belong to. But, even in the party *I* belong to, I totally disagree with some of the candidates (like the one this person was advocating), as well as agree with a few of the candidates in the other camps.

Instead of focusing on dividing ourselves into different groups and viewpoints, we should get together and talk about what should be done to fix our problems. We all agree that there ARE problems, we just disagree about how to fix them. Just remember, no matter what any of the candidates SAY, the only way to change things is through each community.

I always think, when looking through the news during a major election... "wow, I wonder what kind of amazing things could be done with x amount of million dollars that is just being wasted... parks, schools, jobs ..."

Masonry is one place where this community service can start. Of course, anything of that sort needs to involve the whole community before it can really make a difference. Keeping the instant divisions that politics tend to create out of the lodge allows its members to ACT! where none of the political parties will never succeed.

So, next time someone asks you - So who are you voting for? think twice before answering.

A Broken Ashlar

One of the symbols of freemasonry is that of the rough and perfect ashlar. These represent the unfinished state of both stone and man. After smoothing out rough edges, the stone becomes square and usable for building the temple..

When building the temple, what should be done with stones, whether rough or perfect that crack? They have been broken, they cannot be used for the temple. With operative masonry, that stone would either be thrown to the slag-pile (along with any funny-shaped stones they might find) or be cut into two separate stones, salvaging what may be salvaged.

In the lodge, there is no slag-heap for masons who were admitted, appearing to be suitable stones, and yet crack under pressure, or over time. Yet, what should be done with these men? How do you tell them that they cannot join the line-up because they are bordering on insane, and no one had noticed when they were brought into the fraternity (possibly because everyone had been so excited to finally get a candidate).

This is a very real question, and one that doesn't have a good answer. Of course, candidates should be checked thoroughly before being admitted! The investigative committee should do their job, and the other members should ALL try and meet the incoming member before they are initiated, otherwise, on what grounds are you voting?

But, once that mistake is made (and, it may be made even but the most scrutinizing of committees), what is the course to take? I have seen the problem ignored - the offending brother shuttled from one unimportant position to another to keep him from advancing to a point where he would have been voted on. This brother caused many of the new apprentices to think twice before returning, and drove others away with threats and gossip among other things. Something should have been done, and eventually was in a very messy manner which alienated many more members of this particular lodge.

Unfortunately, I am only pointing out a problem, rather than offering a solution to the problem. But, I feel that once it is recognized that a brother can break, it is possible to address the issue, rather than side-step it.

As I was looking for a good picture for this post, I found these photographs of the process of working with large stones, enjoy!

Acquiring and cutting of the stone
Rough Cutting of the Sculpture
Filling in the details