Pennsylvania Grand Master Reacts to Fox Nation's Freemason Program

by Christopher Hodapp

The Right Worshipful Grand Master of Pennsylvania, Jeffrey M. Wonderling, has posted a message on Facebook following the airing of the Fox Nation streaming network's program, Freemasons: A Society of Secrets with Tom Shillue. The show premiered this week, featuring interviews with Grand Master Wonderling, Pennsylvania Mason Salmon Sheikh, and Scottish Rite SJ's Grand Archivist, Arturo De Hoyos.

(NOTE: Many Masons have been commenting online without actually having seen the whole program, and several have seen only a 2- or 5-minute promo for it that's laden with all the conspiratorial comments they could manage to squeeze in. The complete 25-minute show can ONLY be seen with a subscription to FoxNation.)

It's enormously frustrating to sit and talk on camera for an hour or more with an interviewer, only to have a total of two or three minutes appear in the show – if that. From the tenor of his note below, it would appear that this was the GM's first experience with a media interview, and he was less than enthused with the result:

Foxnation is airing a piece on Freemasonry. I was interviewed at the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia in June and the 25 minute piece was released yesterday. I understand it was on Fox News nationally this morning. The piece Tom Sillhue and their crew put together is the same old, same old, talking about the “conspiracy theories”, “new world order” and “cultism”. My friends, if were (sic) any of the above were true and we were in control, the World would mirror our integrity and values, and be a much better place. Tom didn’t mention that we kneel before GOD and stand for the flag. He didn’t mention that you must be able to be trusted with our wives, sisters, daughters, mothers, and wallets to gain admission into our organization. He didn’t mention the 2 million dollars PER DAY we contribute various charities in the USA that in no way benefits our organization. He didn’t mention that you must have a servant’s heart to gain admission.

Can you guess why?

BECAUSE THE TRUTH DOESN’T SELL SOAP.

It may also be important to note that a member of the production crew who saw the 90% of the interview you didn’t see asked for direction on petitioning a Long Island NY Lodge.

Respectfully submitted,
Jeff

After having been in more than a few of these types of programs over the last two decades or so, I sympathize with the Grand Master. 

Permit me an illustrative anecdote. The very first History Channel show I was in was about the so-called 'secrets of the founding fathers.' At one point, the offscreen interviewer asked me an offhanded question about the history of England's infamous Hellfire Club in the 1700s, a topic I was totally unprepared to discuss at the time. He wanted to know if I knew anything about Ben Franklin being a member, but I really didn't. And I told him so.

"Wow, the Hellfire Club. I actually don't know that much detail about them, apart from the basics. You know, Sir Francis Dashwood and his buddies, dressing up like monks, getting blasted on weekends, and running a creepy sex club down in some cave under his mansion..." 

And that was the end of it.

When the show aired six months later, the Hellfire Club part of the show began with creepy lettering, creepy photos, creepy music, and a creepy announcer giving creepy narration. Suddenly out of nowhere, they cut to a shot of me saying just three words: 

"Creepy sex club."

Not even a full sentence. A sentence fragment. I wasn't entirely surprised, because I'd been a film editor for much of my adult life. I even try very hard with these interviews to talk in short, complete sentences instead of the usual pause-filled, comma-laden, run-on sentences that end in a different zip code which normally characterize my conversations. (Rambling answers are deadly in video and audio interviews.) But even that didn't protect me from the editor.

Creepy sex club? Three words? Seriously?

Unfortunately, the reaction of lots of Masons online today immediately took on the usual reflexive partisan venom that characterizes so much of anti-social media conversations these days on Twitbook, Facegram and Instatwit: "Whaddya expect from Fox News? Only an idiot would talk to those clowns! They're in cahoots with the far-right conspiracy mongers!" Etcetera, etcetera, et.al. They hate the messenger, so there's no reason to actually watch it, because it must be trash.

Balderdash. 

Rest assured: History, AHC, Discovery, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC – every one of them has done the very same thing. And the print world is no better. The NY Times and the Wall Street Journal have reduced hour-long interviews with me to a single sentence in superficial Masonic stories (and I promise, we're not special). By the way, just to answer a point that several brethren have tried to bring up, no news organization is ever likely to let you see the final edit of a program before it airs, and NO ONE is going to let you have final approval of their edit.

Admittedly, one possible lapse in judgement was in not being familiar with the interviewer's past work – Tom Shillue thinks he's a laugh riot, so all of his interviews have an air of sarcasm to them, not serious curiosity or even a desire to inform. It's kind of like watching a bad Catskills comic giggle while telling his own jokes because he knows the punch lines and just can't contain himself.

But in fairness to the program itself, Art DeHoyos actually did get the $2 million a day figure into the show, and the Grand Master is being much too hard on himself. Overall, the show did no harm, the three brethren onscreen were perfectly fine spokesmen for the fraternity. The GM's remark that "Masons stand for the flag and kneel before God" was an incredibly succinct way to diffuse allegations that we are somehow secret traitors and Satan worshipers. Brother Sheikh talking about being a Muslim Mason was ultimately an effective shorthand for explaining our religious diversity in a positive way. Art proved that a Catholic rosary wouldn't burst into flames if a Mason held it in his hand. And Tom Shillue clearly demonstrated why he can't get a better gig than an occasional, obscure Fox Nation assignment that few will actually watch.

There are lots of Masons who criticize brethren who appear in TV and print interviews, saying the world was a better place back in the days when Masons shut the hell up in public and kept the whole fraternity mysterious. But the reason why Masons like Art, Brent Morris, Akram Elias, myself and others agree to be on these programs is because if we don't, the producers will find someone else who may not be as enthusiastic or truthful about the fraternity. The world has enough disgruntled, and downright angry, former Masons with a bone to pick against their former brethren, or who nurse a desire to present us in the worst possible light. Notorious conspiracy peddler Alex Jones has spent two decades making up absurdities about Freemasonry, and he got plenty of air time for a long while dishing nonsense until producers finally figured out his lucrative motives. (You might have seen him several years back manage to get cast members of Brad Meltzer's Decoded arrested on camera after sneaking them onto the property of the Bohemian Grove, then fleeing before cops could collar him.)

Dr. David Staples served as the CEO, Grand Secretary, and chief spokesman for the United Grand Lodge of England for several years, and he was quite forceful about demanding fair and honest coverage of the fraternity by the media, answering every critical story immediately, and doing his level best to take back control of the narrative. You might recall his '#Enough Is Enough' campaign in the light of a wave of anti-Masonic stories in the press.

The truth today is that we are now almost three generations away from when a typical man's father or grandfather was a Freemason. The combination of time, smaller and smaller families, fatherless households, the generational loss of respect for longstanding institutions, the plunging rates of believers in organized religious traditions, unstable adult careers, and the growing isolation of men working in an online environment with little or no personal contact – all of this and more has broken the traditional ways Freemasonry was historically passed from one generation to the next. We're not special — all voluntary associative organizations have taken a painful spear to the gut in a straight-line decline now for 60+ years. So when the media gives us a chance to beat on the coffin lid and let the world know who and what we are, we have got to seize that opportunity when we can, and communicate our story within the confines of their storytelling. Or make our own.

So, kudos to the Brethren who appeared in the Fox Nation program for answering the call and presenting us in a positive light on camera. If it piques the interest of even a single man in every state enough to knock on the door of a lodge, it was a resounding success.

Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon Installing Cutting Edge Historical Markers

by Christopher Hodapp

In the 1960s and 70s, our Grand Lodge in Indiana installed about thirty aluminum historical markers at various important Masonic sites around the state. Almost sixty years later, they're all still in place, and nearly all of them are in remarkably good condition with no maintenance. They have quite literally withstood the test of time. It's tough to find any product with that kind of track record, and seen in that light, they are a remarkably inexpensive way to promote interest in the fraternity, once you consider the amortized cost over 5 or 6 decades. 

We used Sewah Studios out of Marietta, Ohio to manufacture ours, and since 1927, they have been the favorite supplier for nearly every state in the union for these types of roadside historical markers.

Now, brethren in Canada have hit upon a new wrinkle in historical markers. The Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon is in the midst of celebrating its 150th anniversary. But instead of creating plaques with tons of small, hard to read type, their new commemorative markers include a scannable QR code that links to a website with more information than could ever possibly fit on the marker itself.

The first of a projected 45 markers to be installed was at Prince David Masonic Hall in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. It was dedicated on Saturday by the grand officers of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon.

From a story on Saturday by Colleen Flanagan on the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows website:

The cast bronze plaque is mounted on the front steps of Prince David Masonic Hall and features a QR code that can be scanned using a phone that will connect immediately to websites, photos, videos, and information about the hall’s history and its role in shaping the past 150 years of the Freemasons in the province.

By scanning the QR code, visitors will also be able to take a virtual tour of lodge halls throughout B.C. and the Yukon and learn about how they shaped the west coast of Canada before the formation of a provincial Grand Lodge in 1871.

This is the first of 45 dedications of plaques across the province and territory.

Most Worshipful Grand Master Don MacKenzie, head of Freemasonry in B.C. and Yukon, attends the hall in Maple Ridge. He was joined for the unveiling by Freemasons from across the jurisdiction and the officers of his Grand Line.

“Freemasonry has been an active but relatively quiet part of B.C. communities for 150 years,” MacKenzie explained.

“People see our buildings but don’t know what goes on inside. So, this an invitation to get to know us,” he said.

Maple Ridge was chosen for the first plaque unveiling because of MacKenzie’s connection to the city.

“Freemasonry stands on the threshold looking back on 150 years of success, and forward to the next 150 years of fraternity, charity and community,” he said.

As new markers are erected, they will be added to a searchable map on the masonicmarkers.com website. Hitting the QR code on the marker takes you to a history of the site, event or lodge building. The website also lets you check in and log your travels every time you scan another marker along the grand lodge's Masonic trail. 

It’s a cool idea, as long as the QR technology is properly supported and maintained. Like all technology, I fear rapid obsolescence. QR codes will go the way of the 8-track tape player, and probably faster than you can say, "What's an 8-track tape player?" — unlike our markers erected more than a half century ago that continue to tell their story to this day. I also wonder about the durability of the QR image as well, after it's subjected to years of outdoor weather conditions. 

But that's as may be. Bravo to the grand lodge for bringing their history to the public.

NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, for over a decade now, I have served as the Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon Near Indiana.

More Lights in Masonry - Masons Decorate for Holidays

by Christopher Hodapp

Our annual road trip caravan to Southern California to visit family is in full holiday mode this week, as you might guess from our aluminum yuletide decor. In perusing Reddit today, I came across a couple of Masonic halls festooned with festive holiday decor. It’s a relatively inexpensive (and annually reusable) way to call attention to your temple.

Mount Ararat Lodge in Bel Air, Maryland (above) claims to have 50,000 twinkling Christmas lights decorating their building, more than Rockefeller Center’s tree in New York, and more than twice as many as Clark W. Griswald’s house.

Trinity Lodge 163 in Newport, Kentucky, posted by u/ratebigrob 

Back in 2017, historic St. John’s Lodge No. 1 in Mountain Lakes, NJ participated in the local Christmas Home Tour. If your Masonic hall is even remotely historic, architecturally significant, or just plain situated in a neighborhood with these types of tour events, tie in an open house so that the community has the opportunity to come in and find out just what it is we do and what we stand for. Perhaps offer coffee, hot cider, and hot chocolate to the public and give them a rest from wandering your town in the cold.

Masonic Park and Youth Camp in Tampa, Florida (photo above) sets up an annual drive-through holiday light display. And many state Masonic retirement homes decorate their campuses with nighttime lighting displays.

Meanwhile, my sister and brother-in-law live near Newport Beach in Orange County, California, which is home to one of the oldest and largest Christmas ‘boat parades’ in America. Waterfront houses around the harbor are decorated with lights, along with scores of boats large and small. Everything from two-person launches up to huge yachts and even a massive ferry are covered in lights and process in a line up and down the twisting shore. Some are owned by individuals or  sailing clubs, while others are commercial/corporate vessels. A few local community groups were sponsors or participants in the illuminated flotilla. This would be a golden opportunity for a Masonic district  or group of lodges to band together and create their own floating entry.

Is your lodge or Masonic hall doing anything special for the Christmas holiday season? Pass it along and I’ll update this post. Send to hodapp@aol.com

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Updated 12/21/21 4:31AM

RW David Catten, Past Master of Dewitt Clinton Lodge in Sandwich, Massachusetts, reports that their lodge, a former Methodist church built in 1847, shines for the season. It has been the lodge’s home since 1913.

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Truman: "None will look askance and say, 'Where was Freemasonry in this hour of need?'"

by Christopher Hodapp

Last year I was researching information about Masonic communities activities during World War II and the creation of a national network of U.S.O.-like service clubs by grand lodges and the Masonic Service Association. By the war's end there were 90 Army-Navy Masonic Service Centers located in major Masonic halls all across the country that provided meals, recreation, transportation, letter-writing material and services, and free long-distance phone calls to military personnel.

Now the Truman Presidential Library in Missouri has just posted this Youtube video of a later radio and newsreel address by Harry Truman about those very Masonic Service Centers. It was his second such message widely disseminated to the public about how Freemasonry served the military at the time.

(If it doesn't play above, visit the link HERE.)

The program was the brainchild of the MSA's director Carl H. Claudy and Missouri Past Grand Master, Senator Harry S Truman. In July 1941, Senator Truman gave a national radio address entitled “Masonry Serves the Armed Forces” in which he outlined programs being proposed by the Masonic Service Association to help, aid and assist servicemen in the event of war, and he exhorted brethren across the country to get busy immediately putting them into practice. It was clear that war in Europe and Asia was coming to the American soldier sooner than later, and Truman’s radio message was the official call to action for the nation’s Freemasons. Truman’s encouragement would become even more influential to Masons and the public in general, as he would soon be named as Roosevelt’s vice presidential running mate. 

The video above is actually a follow up message reporting on the activities of the Centers a year into the program.

Between 1941 and 1945, more than 16 million American men and women would eventually serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, and another 3.5 million worked as federal civilian employees during the war. Those are all sobering statistics today in an age when just one half of one percent of Americans are in uniform. Never before would so many Americans be uprooted from the familiar surroundings of their homes, families and communities, and moved to so many unfamiliar regions of the nation and the world with so little preparation and support.

The more than two and a half million U.S. Freemasons across the country had a major stake in the lives of military personnel. By 1944 during the height of the war, the MSA would estimate that 25% of all servicemen and women were either Masons, or from the families of Masons.

Years before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II, the national Masonic Service Association had done a national survey of Masonic halls and military bases. It was determined that they already had ideal social facilities sitting in nearly every American city and town, large and small, in the form of existing Masonic temples. The post-WWI building boom of the 1920s meant the Masons had plenty of big, centrally located buildings that would could accommodate visiting soldiers in large numbers. 

With a little bit of work, combined with their own dedicated volunteers from within the wider Masonic family of organizations, the Masonic Service Centers were born. The first center was officially opened in 1941 in the large Masonic temple in Columbus, South Carolina. By the war’s end, there were about 90 centers nationwide.

The Masonic Service Centers were designed to address the huge morale problem of hundreds of thousands of young soldiers far from home for the first time in their lives, suddenly finding themselves in strange towns without friends or relatives. The Centers received no funding from the USO or any other federal agency. Many religious groups also sponsored their own similar sorts of social centers for soldiers, but in public notices about the Masonic centers it was stressed that they were open to all service personnel regardless of race, creed, color or Masonic affiliation. That made them different from other church-related centers across the country, or private membership clubs that often had racial or religious restrictions, which were so common to the period. 

In my own state, just between January 1944 and the official end of the war in August of 1945, Indiana’s Masons hosted more than 80,000 service personnel at its two Service Centers. Agents, hostesses and Cadettes wrote thousands of letters and made hundreds of phone calls on behalf of soldiers unable to contact home on their own, and even communicated with lodges in other jurisdictions to report on the status of their military members while in the state. Throughout the course of the war, an average of 100 soldiers a day came through each of our centers.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. After the conclusion of the war, President Truman and Carl Claudy still saw an ongoing purpose for the fraternity and the MSA’s national leadership in helping the military. At Truman’s encouragement, the Masonic volunteerism of the Service Centers was converted into the MSA’s hospital visitation program in 1947, which continues to this very day. 

There may be a very simple motivating factor that drove men to join the ranks of our fraternity during and after the war. Truman's messages went nationwide, on radio and in movie houses. In this one he says something that may have resonated with a bigger cross-section of the American public than you might imagine today when most of us don't hear common messages from influencers and newsmakers anymore. He says, 

"At this very moment, in foxholes and on shipboard, beneath the sea and in the air, countless hands are being clasped in fraternal recognition as brothers find one another in the darkness as well as in the daylight. And countless fathers bravely wishing 'Godspeed' to their departing sons are saying, "Boy, when your hour of darkness and loneliness comes, find a Freemason, and tell him you are the son of a Freemason, and you'll find a friend..."

Stop and think for a moment about the power that message must have had, coming from the man who would soon be Vice-President and then President himself, and the tens of thousands who remembered it and took it to heart, both during and after the war. Fourteen years after the end of the war, American Masonry hit its membership record of more than 4 million members.

It's no wonder they joined in droves.

Your Ribald Victorian Poem For the Day: 'The Lady Freemason'

No, this isn't about Lady Elizabeth Aldworth. Nor is it about wimmin in lodge.

If I am surpassed in my love for the arcane, obscure and peculiar things in history, it is only by my wife Alice (who is not herself peculiar, and only occasionally obscure). Since we're both writers, our combined reference libraries are swollen with material that the average reader wouldn't pick up on a bet, but that we both cherish. A random traipse through our 240 linear feet worth of bookshelves is but a mere glimpse of the chaotic nature of our various interests. Mostly because we never know what we'll be writing about in future, and we've learned the hard way to never ever throw a book away. Ever.

Right about here is where I need to advise that Alice's new historical novel, Heart's Blood by Alice Von Kannon, will officially be released on April 21st, and we're in full promotion and publicity mode around Hodapphaüs this month. The story starts in Algiers and moves to Salem, Massachusetts in 1803 during the Age of Sail, when the little town once known only for its notorious witch trials had briefly become the richest and most cosmopolitan city in America. Her research material for this novel alone fills an entire wall of bookcases.

I'd be remiss if I didn't say it's available in paperback for pre-sale on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To hell with E-books. It's not a real book unless there are a thousand copies blocking the fire exits in an Amazon warehouse in Lexington, Kentucky awaiting orders. At a paltry $8.99, you and your significant other need multiple copies for yourselves and everyone in your extended families. Buy extras in case you get quarantined for the Cornonavirus so you and your fellow medical detainees can start a book club.

'But', in the immortal words of the late Illus. Jim Tresner, 'I digress.'

Buried deep in the cobwebs of Alice's side of our research library is a 1970s reprint of a charmingly torrid Victorian publication called The Pearl: A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading. The Pearl was a collection of erotic tales, cartoons, rhymes, limericks, songs and parodies published in London between 1879-81. It says everything about the Victorian period that teenage boys would go so far as to pore through Freud's latest journal publications desperately in search of new erotic vocabulary words, and hopefully a smoldering sexual fantasy description or three that didn't involve Oedipus. So The Pearl rose to that very occasion in its brief lifespan. It was a classic of its time, reveling in naughty stories about naughty schoolgirls, naughty college dons, naughty housewives, naughty vicars, naughty nuns and novices, naughty butlers, naughty maids (overwhelmingly French, saucy, and suitably attired), and other randomly naughty nobs and toffs, almost uniformly involving lots of spanking, just for, you know, being naughty. 

The editor of The Pearl explained that he ruminated over what to call his new magazine for quite some time, and finally settled upon its present name, "in the hope that when it comes under the snouts of the moral and hypocritical swine of the world, they may not trample it underfoot, and feel disposed to rend the publisher, but that a few will become subscribers on the quiet."

The magazine was shut down by the English authorities after just eighteen issues for publishing rude and obscene literature during the infamous age of Victoria, when even the shapely, well-turned calf of a piano leg was allegedly deemed too arousing to the unbridled male libido to remain in the parlor unmolested if left un-sheathed. From all the nattering about such things, one irresistibly wonders if weary Victorian pianos everywhere might have enthusiastically welcomed a #metoo movement of their own. Naturally, after its shuttering, The Pearl became all the more popular as a prurient collectable over the decades, and then as a charmingly risqué example of Victoriana—especially since each issue was originally restricted to just 150 expensive subscription copies when it was published.

The poem The Lady Freemason first appeared in the 8th volume of The Pearl, and it had everything its subscribers, skin-flinty borrowers, furtive teenagers, naughty college dons and other fans of left-handed literature could want—smutty sounding stuff, imaginary smut, giggly allusion to really smutty stuff, and parody of Masonic ritual. It was fun for Masons and non-Masons alike. Non-members wondered what went on in lodges, and actual Masons DID know and were in on the jokes and the Masonic vocabulary. Which they probably found funnier than the smutty stuff.

It was tame enough for the Victorian Age, and yet inexplicably in the 21st century, it's probably not safe for work. Go figure.

In any case, with all of its puerile and snickersome Victorian sniggery intact, I present The Lady Freemason by Anon., forthwith.

Strictly Private, except to Brothers, BY ORDER, THE LADY FREEMASON.

As a brother of old, from his lodge was returning,
He called on his sweetheart, with love he was burning,
He wanted some favours, says she,
"Not so free," Unless you reveal your famed secrets to me."

"Agreed - 'tis a bargain - you must be prepared,
Your legs well exposed, your bosom all bared."
Then hoodwinked and silent, says she, "I'll be mum,
In despite of the poker you'll clap on my bum."

To a chamber convenient his fair charge he bore,
Placed her in due form, having closed tight the door,
Then presented the point of his sharp Instrumentis,
And the Lady was soon made an "Entered Apprentice."

His working tools next to her gaze he presented,
To improve by them seriously she then consented,
And handled his jewels his gavel and shaft,
That she in a jiffy was passed "Fellow Craft."

She next wanted raising, says he, "There's no urgency,"
She pleaded that this was a case of emergency,
His Column looked to her in no way particular,
But she very soon made it assume perpendicular.

He used all his efforts to raise the young elf,
But found he required much raising himself;
The task was beyond him. Oh! shame and disaster,
He broke down in his charge, and she became Master.

Exhausted and faint, still no rest could betide him,
For she like a glutton soon mounted astride him,
"From refreshment to labour," says she, "let us march.
Says he, "You're exalted - you are now Royal Arch."

In her zeal for true knowledge, no labour, no shirking,
His jewels and furniture constantly working,
By night and by day, in the light or the dark,
With pleasure her lover she guides to the Mark.

New 'Be A Freemason' Website Rolled Out

Over the last two years, the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's comprehensive "Not Just A Man. A Mason." advertising campaign for Craft Freemasonry has been enthusiastically adopted all across the U.S. and elsewhere by grateful grand lodges and individual lodges alike. Not content to rest on their laurels, the campaign has just rolled out an entire website dedicated to explaining just who and what Freemasons are, what we stand for, and how to join in your state or community. 

It was just debuted at the annual Conference of Grand Masters of Masons in North America (COGMNA) held in Louisville this week.

The new website www.beafreemason.org is co-sponsored by the Northern and Southern Jurisdictions of the Scottish Rite, as well as Shriners International, and it builds off of the Not Just A Man, A Mason campaign. The new site is tasteful, well written, well conceived, and beautifully executed. It is deliberately generic enough so that any grand lodge jurisdiction, local lodge, or even appendant body can confidently direct the public to it to effectively explain and promote the fraternity, and provide a way to seek more information about joining a lodge

Quite literally any Masonic organization can link directly to it, and it is an entirely standalone website designed not to conflict with any jurisdiction's existing internet or advertising material. It includes a form that will forward new member inquiries to each U.S. grand lodge jurisdiction based on the potential applicant's home address.  

Like the entire Not Just A Man campaign, this is a huge boon to the entire fraternity and is provided by the Scottish Rite NMJ free of charge. I can't stress what an excellent tool and gift they have provided to us all.

Just remember: a campaign like this – at best – can only nudge a man to give the fraternity a look, and possibly take the step of petitioning. Grand lodges can send those men to our lodges, and when the stars are aligned, they can occasionally send them in large numbers. It is, however, only the local lodges and the Masons in them who do or do not live up to our own past reputation and expectations. When new members fail to return, that's on you and I because we failed to do our part to truly make them Masons and to help them become part of our worldwide Brotherhood.

Because we're all in this together, Brethren.

Visit the Be A Freemason website HERE.

For more about customizing or using the other material in the campaign, visit the Not Just A Man website HERE.

Knightfall: Mark Hamill Joins Templar Series

Despite receiving fairly rotten critical reviews, the History™ Knight Templar miniseries Knightfall turned out to be fabulously successful for the channel, proving once again that there remains an unwavering public interest in timeless notions of brotherhood, chivalry, honor and bravery (along with a little secrecy and slow motion blood spurts from battle wounds). Audiences often tend to confound critics. 

March 18th, 2019 marks the 705th anniversary of the death of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon – better known to history as the Knights Templar. So, Season 2 of the show is set to premiere on Monday March 25th, 2019, the week of De Molay's death, at 10PM EST. 

At least somebody at A&E/History isn't entirely asleep.

Now that the Templars have been accused by Philip and Boniface of heresy in Season 1, perhaps some of the silliness of those early episodes will be blunted. (The Holy Slide Projector, complete with secret Grail clues? Really? How blatantly third-section degree lecture could you get?). Plus, there's a new executive producer on hand. Aaron Helbing of "The Flash" and "Spartacus" has replaced last season's original show runner, Dominic Minghella. Eight new episodes have been produced. Still, the historical spoiler is that there are two more popes before the Templars get their expiration notice via special delivery. So I suspect there's more soap opera to sit through before we get to October the 13th of 1307.

The returning cast includes Tom Cullen as Landry; Ed Stoppard (“The Crown”) as King Philip IV of France; Pádraic Delaney (The Wind That Shakes the Barley, “The Tudors”) as Gawain; Simon Merrells (“Spartacus”, “Dominion”) as Tancrede; Julian Ovenden (“Downton Abbey”) as William DeNogaret; and Jim Carter (“Downton Abbey”) as Pope Boniface VIII.

The big news is that Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, now strides in as Talus, Landry's new "initiate master," to aid in his reformation and redemption from last season's fall from grace. According to press releases, Talus is "a battle-hardened Knight Templar veteran of the Crusades, who survived captivity for 10 years in the Holy Land and is tasked with training the new initiates to the Order." Sure, he's disguised under even more fulsome beardishness than he was in the last Star Wars episode, and he's using his very best wisened, sagely, pseudo-Britishy, vaguely unidentifiable continental accent. But there's something undeniably full circle to have witnessed Hamill grow up onscreen from callow galactic teenager, to Jedi Knight and Master, and now as an hirsute elder among the very grandaddy of all of history's chivalric knightly orders. Such is the curious effect of pop culture on perceptions.

Have a look at the newest string of teasers and trailers.

Also joining the cast are Genevieve Gaunt (“The Royals”) as Princess Isabella, the daughter of King Philip who history would eventually call “the she-wolf of France”; Tom Forbes (“The Bastard Executioner”) as Prince Louis, the violent and unpredictable son of King Philip and heir to the throne; and Clementine Nicholson (“Underworld: Blood Wars”) as Margaret, Princess of Burgundy and wife of Prince Louis of France.

Bear in mind that this is entertainment, not actual history. As long as everybody keeps it in proper perspective, Knightfall is worth another look. Frankly, I enjoy seeing the recreation of medieval Paris, sites like the then relatively new chapel of Ste. Chappelle, and the Paris Temple, the Templar's stronghold and headquarters there that was eventually demolished by Napoleon. There's nothing left of it today besides the neighborhood name of Temple that appears on the Metro station and a couple of streets.

Meanwhile, Masons, along with members and officers of both the Masonic appendant order of Knights Templar and the Order of DeMolay for boys and young men, need to be aware that we all may be living through culturally-driven upticks right now. We are all receiving new interest from shows like Knightfall, AMC's Lodge 49, Netflix's streaming of the five-part series Inside the Freemasons created for the UGLE's 300th anniversary last year, and other spotlights being turned on us. 

By the way, Lodge 49 has also been renewed for a second season.

Gather ye interest while ye may, Brethren.

GL of Scotland: A Different Kind of Grand Lodge Video

Have a look at the video on the website of the Grand Lodge of Scotland's website about the origin of Scottish Freemasonry. Beautifully done, and a great example of thinking outside the box when creating these types of programs. 

Of course, they have a major advantage because, you know... it's Scotland. 

Scottish hills. History. Tradition. Music. Robert Burns. Rosslyn Chapel. Edinburgh High Street.

And a brogue that everybody else thinks they can imitate.

Watch it HERE.

Frontier Masonic Advertising

The annual Feast of the Hunter’s Moon event in West Lafayette, Indiana is one of the largest 18th century festivals in the country. It recreates the period between 1717-1791 around the French Fort Ouiatenon and its trading post along the banks of the Wabash River.  The first European settlement in Indiana, Fort Ouiatenon was the crossroads for numerous peoples and cultures that built our state and the nation.  

Thousands of skilled interpreters, Native Americans, plus French, English and other colonial and military reenactors, musicians, and artisans all converge here each year to share the music, food, cultures, and crafts of the past.  For fifty-one years, tens of thousands people come from across the country and around the world to take part. 

As a regular part of this event, Dayton Lodge 103 and their volunteers annually offer authentic rabbit stew to the crowd at its tent site adjacent to the Fort’s blockhouse.  

Their cook fire area features an enormous, frontier-appropriate square and compass made from tree branches that proudly proclaims their Masonic heritage to the thousands of visitors. 

This year’s Feast was October 6th and 7th.

Brethren on the Wireless

Even though morning radio's Mancow referred to the Masons during my brief stint with him yesterday as "a bunch of irrelevant, old salesmen," the rest of the radio and TV media has been eagerly hunting down Masons to interview for the last couple of days.

Trevor McKeown on CBC-TV
Most of you have at one time or another accessed the incredible Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. You may not have known it was the handiwork of Vancouver's Brother Trevor McKeown. He is one of the great unsung heros of Freemasonry on the Internet, and while the BCY site is frequently referenced, cited and ripped off, few know who has done the hard work behind the scenes. Trevor is interviewed briefly by the CBC, in case you've never seen him before. Thanks to Justa Mason for the heads up.

Brent Morris and Jay Kinney on NPR
National Public radio did an interview with Dan Brown, and then followed up aith a story featuring Brent Morris at the House of the Temple, and Jay Kinney, the publisher of the now-defunct Gnosis Magazine, and author of the newly released The Masonic Myth. Have a listen at Secrets of the Masons: It's Not So Secret.

I understand the George Washington Masonic Memorial made the NBC Nightly News Wednesday evening, but haven't found a link to it that worked.

Out of the 23 radio interviews I did yesterday, Doug Miles at WSLR Radio in Tampa/Sarasota sent me a link to our segment, here. Thanks, Doug.

I was bummed I couldn't hang around and hear Mancow's interview after me with Alex Jones.

Well, no I wasn't really.