MAGI: Robert Cooper and Mark Tabbert Launch Masonic Book Review Podcast

by Christopher Hodapp

Masonic authors and historians Mark Tabbert and Scotland's Robert Cooper have recently embarked on a new joint podcast, a unique book review program called MAGI Reviews: The Masonic Authors' Guild International.  Mark and Robert started their podcast a couple of months ago, and they've done 16 episodes so far. 

Mark Tabbert

Both of these knowledgeable Brothers have held unique positions over the last couple of decades, and as Masonic authors and researchers, neither of them could be considered to be a slouch. Mark Tabbert is a past president of the Masonic Library & Museum Association, a former curator for the Scottish Rite NMJ's museum in Lexington, Massachusetts, and most recently, curator at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial's museum in Alexandria, Virginia. He's the author of American Freemasonry: Three Centuries of Building Communities and most recently, A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry

Robert L.D. Cooper

Robert L.D. Cooper served for almost 30 years as the curator for the Grand Lodge of Scotland's Library & Museum in Edinburgh. He the author of The Red Triangle, an indispensable work about the history of anti-Masonic movements and persecutions; the outstanding Rosslyn Hoax, that examines the many legends and theories about the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, and the enigmatic Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Both of these brethren are members of the Society of Blue Friars, an honorary organization of  Masonic authors.

Because they are academic historians and not just a couple of aged, obsessive Masons with a warm glow in their hearts for dusty old Masonic books (not that there's anything wrong with that), they approach their reviews by discussing the pedagogical, academic value of the works themselves. Are they well-researched and well documented? Are they truthful? Are they backed up by useful, in-depth footnotes and references? Are their premises serious, looney, or just plain wishful thinking? Are they really thought-provoking, or are they so far off the rails that you'd be better off using them to prop up a rocky table leg? And what makes a more useful and more trustworthy Masonic book, from an academic point of view, anyway?

Consequently, there's been a good mix on the podcast so far – Masonic classics like Joseph Fort Newton's The Builders and David Stephenson's excellent Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century; academic works like Mark C. Carnes’ Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America and Steven C. Bullock's indispensable Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840. Over in the deep end of the pool are the more... let's call them speculative books, like Stephen Knight's paranoid fairy tale book The Brotherhood: Secret World of the Freemasons (the completely unsubstantiated book of nonsense that launched England into a three-decade anti-Masonic fervor) and David Ovason's inexplicably popular astrological Secret Architecture of our Nation’s Capital: The Masons and the Building of Washington, DC. 

So imagine my surprise when Mark and Robert featured my second book:  Season 1, Episode 16 reviewed Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington, D.C., which was written some 14 years ago. After all this time, and despite the panicked circumstances under which it was written, I was pleasantly surprised that they felt it still was of value today.

Let me explain.

Back in the early 2000s when the world was young and dinosaurs ruled the Earth, the entire publishing industry was attempting to cash in on novelist Dan Brown's as yet-unreleased sequel to The DaVinci Code, rumored at that time to be entitled The Solomon Key (eventually The Lost Symbol). By 2003, Da Vinci Code was already the 6th most popular book in the history of the English language, and readers all over the world were breathlessly awaiting the next entry in his series of stories featuring Harvard University 'symbologist' (whatever that is), Robert Langdon. While speaking off the record at a small gathering of local citizens in his New Hampshire hometown, he let it slip that the title of his next book would likely be The Solomon Key and be about Freemasons in Washington D.C. That bit of seemingly innocuous news turned into an international headline, and the feeding frenzy began. 

Stacks of books about the Masons were hurled out by the mainstream press; History Channel shows began talking about the Masons; everyone from National Geographic to the stuffy US News & World Report published expensive, glossy, full-color specialty magazines about Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, old cathedrals, the Illuminati, Bohemian Grove, and anything else they could possibly heave into the mix that sounded ancient, mysterious, spooky, and secret society-ish. Then, Disney rushed the Masonic-themed movie National Treasure into production, and it was released in November 2004. National Treasure would never have been made if not for Dan Brown's tardiness in delivering his sequel manuscript; and my own Freemasons For Dummies would never have been published if National Treasure hadn't been the #1 box office hit of 2004. In fact, Bob Cooper's own book, Cracking the Freemasons Code, was released during this same period for much the same reason – to get a jump on what Masons everywhere feared might be bad fictional treatment by Brown's book.

So. In 2005 I was contacted by Ulysses Press, a small, independent publisher located in Berkeley, California, and asked to write a book that would attempt to second-guess Brown's still as-yet unknown story points, debunk any sort of Masonic claims that he might include in his sequel, and explain his as-yet unseen storyline—whatever that might be—from the standpoint of the Masonic fraternity. And I was given a whopping four months to deliver the manuscript (a month longer than Wiley gave me to write Freemasons For Dummies). 

It hit on the Masonic membership and activities of several of America's founding fathers, talked about possible Masonic influences on the Constitution, and explored the run-up to the Enlightenment period in England and how the Freemasons sprung from it. It detailed the Masonic cornerstone ceremonies for the White House, the U.S. Capitol building, the Washington Monument and more. Chapters debunked some of the most common fantasies about the Masons – Albert Pike, All-Seeing Eyes, the 'Masonic' symbols on the dollar bill and why they aren't actually 'Masonic', and, of course, the nonsense about the supposed 'Masonic' patterns in the streets of America's federal city. The back half of the book was a Masonic travel guide to Washington D.C., listing the many Masonic halls around the city, current and former grand lodge locations, Alexandria's George Washington Masonic National Memorial, the Scottish Rite SJ's House of the Temple, the city's original 'cornerstone', plus other noteworthy landmarks, buildings and monuments with both real and imaginary Masonic connections. 

Solomon's Builders still holds up pretty well 18 years after it was published, if I do say so myself.  When I wrote it, I tried to keep the specific Brown-related mentions to a minimum so it wouldn't become obsolete. I'm gratified that it still remains in print today, because so many other really excellent books that were released about the same time by respected Masonic authors have gone out of print and vanished into the anonymity of Half-Price Books metaphysical section. 

Masonic/Dan Brown mania had a big die-back after his The Lost Symbol  was finally published in 2009 – fortunately for us, the Masons actually turned out to be the good guys in the book, and not the evil, bald-headed, cat-stroking supervillains most of us feared. And the fraternity did have a momentary uptick in men joining lodges who were inspired either by Brown's novel or by one of the myriad Masonic books that came out at the time. But that faded after a couple of years.

Yet, Solomon's Builders remains a decent, handy Masonic guide to D.C. today. Albert Pike's statue in Judiciary Square did get yanked down in the fevered summer of George Floyd riot-related statue toppling. And the city of Alexandria and the parks department put some decent money into sprucing up the area around the first boundary marker for the District of Columbia that was installed and dedicated by Freemasons. And a few other changes have happened throughout the city. But most of the information is still valid today. So, many thanks to Mark and Bob for hitting it with a spotlight again. I'm honored just by the mere mention.

Paul Revere, Freemason

By sheer accident, I'm in Massachusetts this week, south of Boston in Middleboro. And this happens to be the 244th anniversary of the famous ride of Brother Paul Revere.

In popular culture and what passes for history these days, Paul Revere’s role in the American Revolution has been reduced to a town crier on horseback, albeit a romantic one. Paul Revere, a well-known silversmith, would become immortalized for his nighttime ride as the messenger proclaiming the approach of British troops at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, when he and fellow Freemason William Dawes succeeded in warning the local militias.

Longfellow's legendary telling aside, author David Hackett Fischer’s 1994 book Paul Revere’s Ride has gone a long way to place him in a much more important position than just Brown Beauty’s screaming jockey. He was a large, burly man, and hardly had the appearance of an artisan skilled in silversmithing and engraving. 

Paul Revere first came to the attention of British authorities and the general public back in 1765 when he began to engrave and publish pro-dissident political drawings and cartoons.  In 1770, he created a notorious (and largely fictitious) engraving dramatizing the so-called 'Boston Massacre' that demonized British troops as murderers of Boston citizens, and proudly signed his name to the work. The famous work cemented the image of English tyranny in the minds of colonists.

Revere was a central figure in all of the many pro-revolutionary groups that met at the Green Dragon Tavern, famed meeting place of Boston's Lodge of St. Andrews. In 1773, Revere was one of the ringleaders of the Boston Tea Party, along with Dr. Charles Warren, as members of the North End caucus. He would serve the lodge as its Worshipful Master in 1770-71, 1777-79 and again for 1780-82. 

In 1775, Paul Revere was the Senior Grand Deacon in the St. Andrew’s Grand Lodge officer’s line and Dr. Joseph Warren’s right-hand man. When the word came in from all over Boston that the British troops were assembling a small fleet of longboats on April 18, 1775, Warren, the Sons of Liberty and the St. Andrew’s members all knew British General Gage’s troops would be on the move.

The events of April 18th and 19th are the shared folklore of America. Revere and fellow Mason William Dawes were dispatched to alert Lexington and Concord to the impending arrival of the British regulars, and to warn Brother Mason John Hancock, Sam Adams, and other members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress that they were being hunted. The “one if by land” lantern that was hung in the steeple of the Old North Church was placed there by church sexton Robert Newman, who would go on to join Boston's St. John’s Lodge in 1783 and then St. Andrew’s Royal Arch Chapter in 1794.

The long-attributed claim that Revere hollered "The British are coming!" is inaccurate, since technically at the time the Massachusetts colonists were mostly British. His warning was more accurately that "The Regulars are coming out!"

Revere's mission took him through Charlestown and across the Charles River, then onward toward Lexington dodging British army patrols and alerting patriots all along the route.
At Lexington, Revere and Dawes met up with Dr. Samuel Prescott, and headed out to warn Concord, where patriots were storing a large cache of weapons and gunpowder. 

At Medford, Revere was briefly captured by a patrol of British soldiers. Some say he talked his way out of being arrested or shot, but Masonic folklore claims that he gave a Masonic sign and was released by soldiers who were brethren. Revere managed to make it to Woburn, but Dawes was also detained. Prescott managed to get all the way to Concord and completed the mission. Adams and Hancock were successfully warned and hid out in Burlington, escaping arrest.

April 19th brought "the shot heard round the world" and the official beginning of the American Revolution, which is another story for another time.

Paul Revere would serve the Patriot cause throughout the war, and tried his hand as a military commander. After the British evacuated Boston, a regiment of artillery was raised, of which Paul Revere was made Major. Among other things, he restored the cannon to usefulness which the British had put out of commission. Later, in 1776, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel and remained in service throughout the war with mixed results.

Later in the war, he would be the artillery commander at the humiliating Penobscot Expedition, which would go down in history as the greatest naval disaster in American history until Pearl Harbor. But he would continue to serve as a cannon maker and gunpowder manufacturer until the war’s end and even made anchors, spikes, sheathing and pumps for warships like the U.S.S. Constitution. He survived the war, and he fittingly engraved the first Great Seal of the United States. 

Massachusetts' Masonic grand lodge history before and after the Revolution is more hectic than most American states. When the Massachusetts Grand Lodge was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1769, with Dr. Joseph Warren as its Grand Master, the independently established Lodge of St. Andrew was a part of it. Paul Revere served as Junior Grand Warden 1777-79, Senior Grand Warden 1780-83, and Deputy Grand Master 1784-85 and 1791-92.

When a union of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge and the Saint John's Grand Lodge was agreed to, forming the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts in 1792, Revere was its second Grand Master from 1795-97.

As Grand Master, he laid the cornerstone of the Massachusetts statehouse in Boston, with Masonic ceremonies. One of the greatest treasures of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Massachusetts is small golden urn created by Revere that holds a lock of George Washington's hair (photo).

The Revere Charge

While serving as Grand Master, MW Paul Revere chartered 23 new lodges during his tenure, and installed many Worshipful Masters. In that capacity, he wrote a unique charge for Masters that he delivered at those installations. It is every bit as applicable today as it was 225 years ago:

"Worshipful Master:

"This W. Lodge, having chosen you for their Master and Representative, it is now incumbent upon you, diligently and upon every proper occasion, to enquire into the knowledge of your fellows, and to find them dayly imployment, that the Art which they profess may not be forgotten or neglected: you must avoid partiality, giving praise where it is due, and imploying those ln the most honorable part of the work who have made the greatest advancement, for the encouragement of the Art. You must preserve union, and judge in all causes amicably and mildly, preferring peace.

"That the Society may prosper, you must preserve the dignity of your office, requiring submission from the perverse and refractory, always acting and being guided by the principles on which your authority is founded. You must, to the extent of your power, pay a constant attendance on your Lodge, that you may see how your work flourishes, and your instructions are obeyed: You must take care that neither your words or actions shall render your authority to be less regarded, but that your prudent and careful behavior may set an example, and give a sanction to your power.

"And as brotherly love is the cement of our Society, so cherish and encourage it that the Brethren may be more willing to obey the dictates of Masons, than you have occasion to command.

"And you, the Officers of this Worshipful Lodge, must carefully assist the Master in the discharge and execution of his office; diffusing light and imparting knowledge to all the fellows under your care, keeping the Brethren in just order and decorum, that nothing may disturb the peaceable serenity or obstruct the glorious effects of Harmony and Concord; and that this may be the better preserved, you must carefully inquire into the character of all candidates to this honorable Society, and recommend none to the Master who in your opinion are unworthy of the privileges and advantages of Masonry, keeping the Cynic far from the Ancient Fraternity, where Harmony is obstructed by the superstitious and morose. You must discharge the Lodge quietly, encouraging the Brethren assembled to work cheerfully, that none when dismissed may go away dissatisfied.

"And you, Brethren of this Worshipful Lodge, learn to follow the advice and instruction of your officers, submitting cheerfully to their amicable decisions, throwing by all resentments and prejudices towards each other; let your chief care be to the advancement of the Society you have the honor to be members of; let there be a modest and friendly emulation among you in do ing good to each other; let complacency and benevolency flourish among you; let your actions be squared by the Rules of Masonry; let friendship be cherished, and all advantages of that title by which we distinguish each other, that we may be Brothers, not only in name, but in the full import, extent and latitude of so glorious an appellation.

"Finally, my Brethren, as this association has been carried on with so much unanimity and concord (in which we greatly rejoice), so may it continue to the latest ages. May your love be reciprocal and harmonious. While these principles are uniformly supported, this Lodge will be an Honor to Masonry, an example to the world, and therefore a blessing to mankind.

"From this happy prospect I rest assured of your steady perseverance, and conclude with wishing you all, my Brethren, joy of your Master, Wardens, and other officers, and of your Constitutional union as Brethren.

"Brother Grand Secretary,— It is my will and pleasure that you register this Lodge in the Grand Lodge Book, in the order of Constitutions, and that you notify the same to the several Lodges."

Partially adapted from Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers, and the Secrets of Washington DC by Christopher L. Hodapp.

For more Masonic information about Paul Revere, see the extensive Masonic genealogy page HERE.

Solomon's Builders

Get a jump on the history behind Dan Brown's upcoming book, "The Lost Symbol."

"Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C." by Christopher L. Hodapp, author of "Freemasons For Dummies."

Available from Amazon.com

New US Capitol Visitor's Center Opens

When I was in Washington last month, both the White House and the Capitol were swarming with workers building the temporary viewing stands for inauguration day in January. As a member of the US Capitol Historical Society, I've been hearing for years about the new US Capitol Visitor's Center being constructed below ground level. The facility has been needed for decades, because there's never been an adequate gathering place for tours (and I can attest from an embarrassing and unsuccessful attempt to painfully argue my way in to the Rayburn House Office Building after WAY too much coffee on a bitter cold morning, no public restrooms anywhere in the area). The Architect of the Capitol estimates the number of visitors to the building has risen from 1 million annually in 1970 to 3 million today.

Well, the new Visitor's Center opened today. Naturally, anything having to do with Congress costs nine or ten times what it it's estimated, and this is no exception. The $71 million project rose to $621 million before finally being completed. According to a press release from Citizens Against Government Waste,

Like the federal budget itself, Congress used the CVC as a warehouse for tens of millions of dollars in extravagant bells and whistles for itself. Even more reprehensible, members of Congress seeking to add special features for themselves used security concerns surrounding the September 11 attacks to justify their extravagant add-ons and constant change orders.”

Original plans called for more than half of the CVC space to be left as unfinished “shell space”, available to be outfitted for future needs. Instead, in 2001 Congress began implementing its wish list for the unfinished spaces. The House side got a two-story hearing room and the Senate grafted on a collection of small hearing rooms and a television and radio studio with adjoining makeup facilities so that senators could cut spots for their constituents back home. Those two efforts alone added $85 million to the cost of the CVC. The CVC will also have a 450-seat dining area, two orientation theaters (one for each chamber), a large auditorium, and an exhibition hall.

Not to play partisan politics here, but Senate Majority leader Harry Reid today made it clear how he feels about the taxpayers he ostensibly works for. In his remarks at the center's opening today he said,

"My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true. Well, that is no longer going to be necessary."

Please do tell your colleagues the feeling is mutual.