Ed King and MasonicInfo.com

Every author, no matter what they may say to the contrary, is always jittery until they read the first outside review of their book. They peek into Amazon and lurk around discussion boards and make random searches of Google until two or three weeks after it's released when they finally hit one.

Brother Ed King, the tireless author of the MasonicInfo.com website snuck the first review of Solomon's Builders in on me last week, and I am humbled by his kind remarks.

In the acknowledgments of the book, I listed websites like the Grand Lodge of British Columbia, Phoenixmasonry, and Paul M. Bessel's extensive site as indispensable sources of arcane Masonic information that no other researchers dig up, and that Masonic students, authors and the rest of us would be lost without. The one I left out - and I don't know how I did it - was Ed King's MasonicInfo.com. I assure Ed and everyone else that it was not intentional, and this is no post-script suck-up for a kind review, either. Ed has some of the most extensive and up to date information available on fakes, myths, conspiracy theories and Masonic scam artists available anywhere.

One of the charges made to a new Freemason says, "Neither are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it." It has unfortunately been that admonition that has kept Masons from responding to the attacks of anti-Masonic authors, ministers, comic-book artists and other slanderous peddlers of conspiracies and hate-laden "literature." Ed King has almost single-handedly taken them on and exposed them with the facts - along with his own strong opinions. Is he "unbiased?" Nope, and proud of it. Which is what makes his website such a guilty pleasure to read through. He is truly one of the unsung heroes of the fraternity, and has labored long without the recognition he deserves.

Thanks, Ed. For all that you do.