France: Membership of the Largest Masonic Jurisdictions

by Christopher Hodapp

NOTE: This story has been updated 5/25/26. See update note below.

For those interested, the always informative (and lively) French-language Masonic news site Hiram.be  (actually based in Belgium) has a recent article with current membership statistics from the eight largest Masonic obediences in France. (See the pie chart above.)

The original article is at: Les effectifs des obédiences françaises en 2026

I'll freely admit to a long interest in what goes on concerning Freemasonry in other countries, with a particularly soft spot in my brain for French Masonry. I've often quipped that if you lock three French Freemasons in a closet and wait for an hour, they'll bust out and angrily form at least six new grand lodges. Over the course of my 27 years in the fraternity, I've been variously told that France has at least a dozen – and likely more – very different grand lodges of any appreciable size at work, even though our US grand lodges only recognize one. They have grand lodges (or grand orients) requiring a belief in Deity, and some that welcome non-believers (often referred to as a doctrine of 'freedom of conscience'); some that are centuries old, and some younger than a decade; some for men only, women only, or both; some that were started merely because of an internal schism over personalities, over philosophical issues, or both. And there are combinations of all of these. Which is why you have to burst out in hysterical laughter whenever conspiracy mongers in France rail against 'The Freemasons™' there. There's no way to classify them in a monolithic sense, apart from, perhaps, wearing aprons in meetings.

The reason I bring it up is to show the layout of the French Masonic landscape and how it differs from what we mostly encounter in the U.S. The article concerns the eight biggest, and "most effective" grand governing bodies in that country.

Out of a total of 171,914 Masonic members nationwide, the breakdown is interesting:

• Grand Orient de France (GOdF): 54,448 (32%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Grand Loge Nationale de Française (GLNF): 33,889 (20%) [male; faith required]
• Grande Loge de France (GLDF): 30,446 (18%) [male; faith required]
• Federation Française du Droit Humain (DH): 14,500 (8%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Grande Loge de l'Alliance Masonnique Française (GL-AMF) (a recent breakaway from the GLNF): 14,495 (8%) [male; faith required]
• Grand Loge Feminine de France (GLFF): 13,027 (8%) [female/no faith required]
• Grande Loge Mixde de France (GLMF): 4,845 (3%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Traditionnelle et Symbolique Opéra Grand Loge (GLTSO): 4,600 (3%) [male; faith required]

In case you're keeping score, it works out that about 51% of French Masons are not required to have a belief in deity. That doesn't make all 86,000 of them atheists, it just means acknowledging a personal belief in a Supreme Being is not a requirement. Which seems curious concerning a fraternity that bases its rituals around the Old Testament story of constructing the most sacred temple on Earth which housed the revealed Word of God. But it takes all kinds to make a world. France is a very different country with a VERY different history than us mere upstarts over here. (When Chinese Premiere Zou Enlai was asked by Richard Nixon in 1972 what he thought of the French Revolution, he answered, "It's too soon to tell.")

Also, 15% of French Masons are females, which is a pretty sizable percentage for any country. By contrast, female Masonic lodges are as rare as unicorns in the U.S. That's not meant as a swipe to anyone, just a simple fact. Female and co-Masonic lodges have never gained traction in the U.S. at any point in history (likely due to the popularity of the Order of the Eastern Star between the end of the Civil War until the late 20th century).

UPDATE 5/25/2026, 1:30PM: I received a message from Gérard Plumecocq, (who posts as Géplu), the present editor of the Hiram.be website, clarifying a couple of things: It reads, in part:

A small clarification: Hiram.be is not "based in Belgium," but is, in fact, French. Hiram.be was founded in Belgium by a Belgian journalist (Jiri Pragman) in 2004; however, I took it over in 2014, and I am a (retired) French journalist who has been a member of the Grand Orient de France since 1986. I didn't change the blog's name when I took the helm because it had already established a reputation under that name. But that isn't terribly important; ultimately, it is "Francophone."

For an American like yourself—who is accustomed to knowing only a single form of Freemasonry—France, with its many different obediences, may seem like a curiosity; for us, however, it represents a source of richness. In my article, I cite the eight most significant obediences—which together account for between 80% and 90% of French Freemasonry—but there are also about a dozen other smaller, reputable obediences (ranging from 500 to 1,000 members), as well as numerous small groups (ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred members) that style themselves as Masonic, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness and credibility. As you point out, about half of French Freemasons are "adogmatic"—that is to say, they are members of obediences that do not impose a specific belief (what you refer to as "a faith"). In doing so, they base their stance on Anderson's text: "But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good and true Men, Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish'd." At the Grand Orient de France, for instance, young initiates are told that "among us, everyone is free to believe or not to believe" (in a God). The GODF and its "French Rite" claim to be the heirs of the Freemasonry of 1717, rather than the more religious versions of 1751 and 1813.

Just a quick note: there are two minor errors in your comments regarding the obediences. At the GLDF, faith is not a mandatory requirement. The situation is more nuanced: the GLDF regards the Great Architect of the Universe (the GADLU) as a "creative principle," while leaving its members the freedom to interpret this principle according to their own sensibilities. Furthermore, the GLTSO is not a mixed-gender obedience (open to both men and women), but is exclusively male.

I very much appreciate the corrections. CH

Amity to Publish 'List of Lodges Masonic'

by Christopher Hodapp

As reported here last week, Pantagraph Publishing and Stationery has announced that they will not publish a new edition of the List of Lodges, Masonic for 2021. After many decades of printing the List, Pantagraph is finally calling it quits. 

But there is good news to be reported. For several years now, Pantagraph has been working with the brethren who created the Amity smartphone app, knowing this day would come, sooner or later. While the timing of Pantagraph's decision this month came as a surprise, Amity has just announced that they will soon be offering a print-on-demand, up to date book version of the List of Lodges, Masonic. They are expected to start calling for orders in December.

Many rank and file Masons may not know about this indispensable book created annually to identify regular, recognized lodges and grand lodges, but it is used by grand lodge offices and lodge secretaries everywhere as a quick reference. More than 180 grand lodge jurisdictions all over the world are listed, along with the names, numbers and locations of more than 30,000 lodges around the world. It's especially handy to verify lodge names and affiliations when out of state visitors show up for a meeting. It also has included reference charts to check various aspects of membership requirements, certain rules, customs and requirements that can vary from place to place. If you've never seen one, ask your lodge Secretary - he doubtless has a copy.

Amity had already created a new website for Pantagraph to sell the book at www.listoflodgesmasonic.com, as well as an Internet portal to make it simpler for grand lodge secretaries to upload their annual information and any changes. (There are a limited number of 2020 editions of the List still available from that site.)

With this new change and the cooperation of Pantagraph, all of this is a net plus to the fraternity. The old List had info from 180 jurisdictions. The new edition will now contain almost twice as many grand lodges from all over the world and 40,000 lodges, with the up to date information about regularity, recognition and amity included for each one. That makes it of enormous value, not just to traveling Masons and lodge Tylers, but to Masonic researchers everywhere. And of course, all of that information is also included in the Amity smartphone app. 

Amity is available for smartphones at no charge from both the Apple and Android app stores, and there are no subscription fees of any kind.

And one great aspect of the on demand version is that it can be updated instantly as new, revised information comes in from the grand lodges. Each book can reflect the newest info when the print button gets pushed.

As with the old editions, anyone can purchase the List - you don't have to be a secretary to order it. In my more energetic traveling days, my apron case copy would be pretty battered and torn by the shank of the year. I have a second one on my desk at all times, and consult it at least twice a week.

The projected single copy price of the book is expected to be $27. Because of the nature of any print-on-demand book, that single copy price is higher than a mass-produced book of the same size.That $27 single price can be reduced if a larger number of copies is ordered at one time. And remember, this new version has almost twice as many listings now.

One final note to grand lodge secretaries: Because Pantagraph has given its blessing to Amity with this plan, the Amity folks need your help to make the new version of the List as accurate as possible.  Please make use of their online administrative portal to provide Amity with your latest information, just as you would have with Pantagraph each year. As with the old list, it can only be as correct as the information you provide for your jurisdiction.

Michael and Jeremy at Amity sent out an announcement last week with some added details. So I reprint it below.

Dear Brother,

By now you've surely heard the news: Pantagraph Publishing and Stationery will not publish a new edition of the List of Lodges, Masonic for 2021.

I'm happy to share some great news with you, though: Amity will print up-to-date books for any Grand Lodge -- and any Freemason -- that is interested.

Why Amity?
You already know Amity as the world's only digital complement to the List of Lodges. You may not know, however, that we've worked closely with Pantagraph for several years. For example, we operate ListOfLodgesMasonic.com on their behalf, where individual books can be purchased online.

We've also developed Push to Pantagraph, the only way to send updates to Pantagraph electronically. We've disabled this feature based on the recent news, but we'll use the same technology to let you send in your updates for the 2021 book.

A Strong Step Forward
For those who enjoy having a book on their desk to reference -- and for all of the Grand Secretaries who make the book happen -- our 2021 edition has a few features that we know you'll like:

• 65% More Grand Lodges

Amity's book will cover 306 Regular Grand Lodges around the world... 122 more than found in the List of Lodges.

• Last Minute Updates

Our advanced technology allows you to submit updates as late as January! Our 2021 edition will be the most current book ever printed.

• No More Paper!

For many Grand Lodges, information is updated automatically. For others, keeping Amity up-to-date is as simple as the click of a mouse. Get started today at our administrative portal.

Change is never easy. We're working hard to make this seamless, though, and we look forward to providing the same high caliber of service that you've come to expect from our friends at Pantagraph.

 

What's Next?
We'll send another email in December, when it's time to place your order. For now, all you need to do is take a look at our portal, where you can update your recognition status with any other Grand Lodge in the world, and see all of the information that we have in our system.

Change is never easy. We're working hard to make this seamless, though, and we look forward to providing the same high caliber of service that you've come to expect from our friends at Pantagraph.

 

SRRS Plumbline: The Future of Freemasonry

The Winter 2019 issue of The Plumbline arrived today from the Scottish Rite Research Society, and if you're a member and you missed opening it up, I highly recommend rescuing this one from under your stack of window replacement ads, political PAC begging letters and sweater catalogues. The latest issue features a long essay by Brother Angel Millar: The Future of Freemasonry: Who We Are and What We Have To Offer.

In six pages, Brother Millar encapsulates a whole raft of topics and articles I've been posting about for three years now concerning the current social, economic and emotional issues facing men in American (and Western) society, and the generational changes over the last decades that are all having a transformative effect on our fraternity. 

We don't exist in a vacuum, and what happens in the world around us has good and bad transformational effects on our lodges and the men in them. The longstanding bonds that passed the traditions of Freemasonry from one generation to the next have almost all been shattered in the last 50 years. Diminishing male role models, single mother households, fewer (if any) siblings, the decline of religious worship and its related group activities, and the rise of the nebulous "I'm spiritual, not religious" mindset are all having measurable repercussions for us. Angel covers a lot of ground in this essay, and especially cites recent, vital survey results by Jon Ruark about attitudes of our members.

For two decades I've been weary with Masons who only want to proclaim, "Ya know what's WRONG with this fraternity...?" Those types of articles and speeches have little more value than the average barstool philosopher. That's not what this is. Angel is not trying to do an autopsy on a dead organization. The rest of the article discusses the new wave of bottom-up changes being made in local lodges that are reinvigorating — and redefining — Masonic education, and driving the evolution of the fraternity at the grassroots level. He spends time especially discussing the MasoniCon concept pioneered by Ezekiel Bates Lodge in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and notes its growing numbers of imitators. He also discusses a New York program, 'Brothers For Brothers,' that teaches the basic life skills to new generations who haven't otherwise had the opportunity to learn them before: communication, public speaking, personal grooming and sartorial care, professional development — all are confidence-building skills that used to be passed from father to son, but rarely are anymore. 

Freemasonry started out as a fraternity of gentleman with the aim of educating and improving a growing class of rough and rugged middle-class men - making those good men into better ones by example and education. We have that very same mission today, and society needs us just as much as it did in London in 1717, or western Kentucky in 1800, or California in 1849.

If you are a lodge officer, a grand lodge officer, or are on a grand lodge committee in your jurisdiction, this article needs to be at the top of your reading list. In fact, I highly recommend that all SRRS members make copies of the entire issue and circulate it to every grand lodge officer you can find.  You might even consider asking permission to reprint it in your state's Masonic magazine.

Yes, it's that important.


If you're not a member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, the Plumbline is their excellent quarterly publication of papers and articles, edited by Adam Kendall. This is in addition to the annual collection of Heredom, AND their annual bonus book or publication. It's truly the greatest value in the entire Masonic research world.

---

Additional reading from this site on these topics:

• The Decline of Men, and What Freemasons Need To Do About it
• How the 1960s Really Killed American Freemasonry's Future
• A 'Masculinity Crisis' and the McGuffey Readers
• Civil Society and Freemasonry
• '41 Million Men' - A New Must-Have Book About Millennials and Masonry
• "Public Servants Wanted: Joiners and Theists Need Not Apply"
• Are Women Fed Up With Men Who Have No Friends?
• Make Your Masonic Hall The Center of Your Community — Again
• GM Edict Bans 'Exterior' Slovenliness: 'Interior' Masons Go Berserk
• Nebraska Raises the Bar, and Masons Need to Pay Attention

External articles

• Why So Many Men Are Friendless
• Alienated, Alone And Angry: What The Digital Revolution Really Did To Us
• Americans are lonelier than ever — but 'Gen Z' may be the loneliest
• How Many Friends Do I Have?

Robert Putnam's seminal study of the decline in social capital since the 1950s that is cited in countless articles, Bowling Alone, was released twenty years ago, yet it seems that frustrated Masonic leaders just keep freshly discovering it year after year. 

Putnam is releasing a new, updated edition of the book in June of this year: Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 

It is available for pre-order now.

Two good starting references for recent examinations of the post-Bowling Alone era breakdown in social capital and the current results on U.S. society are Charles Murray's Coming Apart, and Timothy Carney's Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. There are many more, but these are good beginnings.

And every Masonic leader needs to be conversant with the General Social Survey, taken since 1972, which is the baseline study for almost anyone with an interest in studying the attitudes and activities of Americans.

http://gss.norc.org

Western World Raises Most Boring Generation In Over Two Centuries

Oy! Kids these days!

Grand Lodge officers like to fret over the coming generations of young men who will (or will not) be knocking on doors of Masonic lodges in the coming years. Admittedly, most Masonic leaders tend to not recognize generational differences until at least ten years too late to actually respond to the issue. Some of us like to joke that we want to be in a Masonic lodge if the Apocalypse happens because everything happens in lodge ten years later. The current too-late obsession is about 'Millennials' and how they behave like a different species than 'Baby Boomers' and 'Viet Nam guys,' who were likewise a different collective animal than the WWII generation. 

The truth is that if you want to get the jump on how this fraternity will adapt itself by 2038, you need to look at the under-20's right now who will begin to knock on the West Gate in greatest waves in their 40s. And when you look at studies being done throughout the entire Western world from which we will continue to draw most of our members, you'll find that the children born around 2000 at the dawn of the new Millennium (when we were agitated over the Y2K Catastrophe) are turning out to be... boring.

A good cross-section of global surveys being done with teenagers today can be found in The Economist from January 2018 in an article called 'Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic nowadays':

Young people are indeed behaving and thinking differently from previous cohorts at the same age. These shifts can be seen in almost every rich country, from America to the Netherlands to South Korea. Some have been under way for many years, but they have accelerated in the past few. Not all of them are benign... 

To cut to the chase, here are some takeaways from this and other sources. They drink less and later in life, and are far less likely to take up drug habits. They tend not to fight and are already showing less inclination to wind up in jail. Teenagers report that it's easier to have a heart to heart discussion with their fathers than earlier generations. All of that seems to be good news. They're also dating and having sex much less frequently and later in life - if at all. And that's where some sociologists are sounding an alarm bell. 

These are the first children raised with a smart phone in their pockets 24 hours a day, and they seem to have already lost what has long been supposed to be the natural inclination of teenagers to 'rebel,' when they learn the parameters of their own abilities and limitations. They live at home with their parents longer than ever before. They don't want to get drivers licenses. They don't go out and get minimum wage jobs, or ANY summer jobs. They socialize less - almost an alarming rate. They communicate by text, not face to face. 

They're more emotionally and physically isolated than any other previous generation, and that means they don't develop close personal bonds with other people or understand the nuances and basic skills of interpersonal communication. As families have become smaller and single-child households are more common, that means they have no siblings to learn the very essential skills of constant interaction with peers. They are even losing the ability to interpret facial expressions in others. They're exceedingly and almost painfully polite in an effort not to hurt feelings or inadvertently offend - what Charles Murray calls 'ecumenical niceness' - which makes them timid when dealing with others. They consider themselves lonely in a crowd in greater numbers than ever before.

From the Economist:

Whether it is a consequence of phones, intrusive parenting, an obsessive focus on future job prospects or something else entirely, teenagers seem lonelier than in the past. The OECD’s PISA surveys show that the share of 15-year-olds who say they make friends easily at school has dropped in almost every country (see chart 2). Some Western countries are beginning to look like Japan and South Korea, which struggle with a more extreme kind of social isolation in which young people become virtual hermits.

Perhaps they will get round to close friendships in time. One way of thinking about the differences between the youth of today and yesterday is that today’s lot are taking it slow. They are slow to drink, have sex and earn money. They will also probably be slow to leave home, get married and have children. What looks to older generations like indolence and a reluctance to grow up might be, at least in part, a response to medical developments. Babies born today in a rich country can expect to live for at least 80 years. Goodness knows at what age they will be entitled to state pensions. Today’s young people have all the time in the world.

Predicting the future is always a fool's errand. Face it - we still don't have those flying cars and robots making breakfast they told us about at the 1964 World's Fair. Mentioned in the Economist article is UCLA's Jean Twenge, and her book iGen is a good look at what some of this new research into teenager behavior is looking like.

Freemasonry has always adapted to the society in which it resides, and it will adapt to this generation by the 2030s. But the questions naturally arise: what changes will this next generation trigger when they begin arriving at Masonic lodges? Will the traditions shucked off by the Baby Boomers like proficiency skills, memorization, strong leadership expectations, and especially personal mentorship bonding make a comeback to teach these Masons the skills that they missed growing up? Or will they become even more isolated than so many of our current members seem to be today who pay dues and never attend lodge functions or communicate with their brethren?

An equal question is whether Freemasonry will again become the sort of organization that high achievers and natural leaders like captains of industry, government standouts, artists, writers, military heroes and other respected 'great men' will gravitate to, as they did back in the days when Denslow wrote 10,000 Famous Freemasons.

Freemasonry in the Age of Woke

There's a disappointingly superficial piece on the Washington Post website today by feature writer Sadie Dingfelder about the George Washington National Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. As I read it, I was immediately struck by a picture it paints of a growing number of Americans these days and how Freemasonry is seen by them. 

Here are some excerpts from Dingfelder's article, 'Unlock the secrets of the Freemasons - or at least gawk at their strange costumes':

“Is it usually pretty quiet here?” I asked the person checking me in, who later turned out to be my tour guide.

“It can get pretty busy in the summer,” he replied. In warm months, busloads of Masons visit the memorial, he said.

“I must admit, I don’t know much about Freemasons,” I said, which prompted my guide to launch into a short history of the group.

“It’s basically a fraternal organization,” he concluded. “They do a lot of service and charity work.”

“Oh, so it’s like the Rotary Club, but with costumes and secret handshakes,” I said...

[snip]

The memorial also houses a museum of Masonic history, and we’d just arrived on a floor devoted to that when a muffled voice emanated from my guide’s walkie-talkie. He rushed off to fetch a late-arriving tourist, leaving me alone in a room full of creepy mannequins attired in the costumes of various Freemason subgroups and affiliated societies, including Shriners’ fezzes, Arabic-looking turbans, militaristic uniforms and one costume with a jeweled breastplate, an imitation of vestments worn by ancient Israelite priests.

I found this to be a fascinating glimpse into a less-woke era, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t find any explanatory text about why these groups of (I imagine) white men wore Middle Eastern-ish garb, and whether similar costumes are still used today.

Some of the Freemason costumes on display struck this reviewer as Orientalist,
militaristic or just plain strange.

Scattered around the mannequins were displays of random club ephemera — plus a few inexplicable objects, including a jaunty bobblehead doll of the controversial Christian figure Jacques de Molay, a monk who fought in the Crusades and was later sentenced to death. De Molay’s medieval order, the Knights Templar, inspired the modern-day Knights Templar — a Christian-focused subgroup of Freemasons, my guide explained after returning with a mysterious man in a trench coat...

[snip]

If I’m right, he’s an increasingly rare breed. Freemason membership has been in decline since the 1960s, according to a chart on display in the museum’s basement. “Civic life declined as people spent more time alone in front of a television or computer screen,” the accompanying text explains. Fair enough, but I’m betting that the Masons’ fraught racial history and continued exclusion of women have also contributed to their diminishing relevance.

I mention this because the Masonic memorial may be on its way to becoming just that: a memorial to a bygone organization, where powerful men once gathered to socialize, plan charitable work and wear Orientalist costumes. Perhaps a lot of this is best left in the past, but it seems to me — a person who spends way too much time alone, in front of a computer — that there’s something here worth bringing into the future.

The benefit of resources like LinkedIn is that you can go and find out about the background of people whom you otherwise don't know at all, and Sadie's profile yields a few items worth noting. She's not a teenager or a college student — she graduated in 2001, so she's in her mid- or even late-30s. Sadie's a graduate of Smith College (a private liberal arts college for women only in their undergrad program), and she's been working as a writer for the Post in the Washington D.C. area in various capacities for ten years. She lives and works in the very city that a lot of Masons (and even non-Masons) regard as one heavily influenced by Freemasons from the past, and (if you believe in such things) filled with Masonic symbolism even in the street map. TV producers of programs about Freemasonry are obsessed with the idea. So it surprised me a bit to see just how little knowledge or awareness of Freemasonry she seemed to have when she walked into the Memorial — and apparently, how little she had actually learned by the time she left. After touring the place, she declared that Freemasonry is little more than a bygone organization.

This isn't a hit on Ms. Dingfelder, not at all. It's a comment on how diminished we have become in the collective American psyche. I thought we had reached rock bottom in that regard back before novelist Dan Brown put Freemasonry back on the map in the early 2000s. Since those dark days, cable television has had loads of programs about Masonry. Stacks of factual, intelligent, and truthful books (including mine and Brent Morris') got poured onto the market. Freemasonry worked its way into pop culture references like movies, music and TV shows. I had thought we had even turned a tiny corner and tipped the scales slightly back into our favor, at least as far as a basic awareness of Freemasonry was concerned.

Indeed, the Scottish Rite NMJ did a survey two years ago and discovered that a full 81% of respondents had at least heard of Freemasonry, even if they didn't know what it was. But as I think back over the last five or six years now, and reflect on my own contacts with the public about it, I fear more people are even less aware of what Freemasonry actually is than in the 1990s. In that same survey, less than 30% actually knew what the values of Freemasonry were. And the most common question I get asked by non-Masons under 35 these days once I get my basic elevator speech out of the way is, "But just what is it that you guys DO? What's the point?"

That shouldn't be a shock, since we are about one generation removed from the 1990s. The adults in 1990 were having children at that moment in time, and we are now encountering those former infants as adults today. Already by 1990, Freemasonry had been waning, along with a raft of other social changes taking place then. By 1990, the fraternity was already down in membership by more than 30% from its 1958 height. It was blatant that the Baby Boomers had steered clear of Freemasonry, just as they had so many other so-called "Establishment" ideals of their parents. Organized religious attendance was decreasing. Divorce rates had skyrocketed. Childbirths were down substantially, and most concerning, single parent households (usually single moms) were taking a major upswing. It was into this period that today's current Millennial adults now in their late-20s and 30s were born.

According to the Pew Research Center, fewer than half (46%) of American kids under 18 years of age are living in a home in 2018 with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage - what is quaintly called a traditional family household. This is a huge change from 1960, when 73% of children fit this description, and 1980 when 61% did. At less than 50% today, it's certainly a dwindling tradition.

One of the most enormous shifts in family structure is this one: 34% of American children today are living with an unmarried parent—up from just 9% in 1960, and 19% in 1980. In most cases, these unmarried parents are single, without a live-in partner of any kind to help raise and educate the children. And by far, the largest number are single mothers.

When I wrote Freemasons For Dummies in 2004, there was still a reasonable chance that enough grandfathers had been Freemasons in sufficient numbers that their grandchildren had at least encountered the fraternity in their lives. But that percentage has done nothing but drop since then.

Fewer children today have full-time fathers than ever before in recorded history, and even fewer of them have a grandfather to pass along older traditions like Freemasonry and numerous other important values. 

(Interestingly, 5% of children are not living with either parent at all. In most of these cases, they are living with a grandparent—a phenomenon that has become much more prevalent since the recent economic recession.)

When you take into consideration all of this stew of statistics, it's clear that Freemasonry as a subject for observation by children has a pretty paltry chance of being passed along to the current and future generations by many fathers, grandfathers, siblings, uncles or other influential men in their lives. 

In other words, there's no statistically significant reason why Sadie Dingfelder would have encountered Freemasons in her family. She doesn't mention any sort of family connection to the fraternity, so the only way she knows anything at all about us is from what she picked up by cultural references she has encountered as a teenager and adult. Like going to the Memorial, poking around on the Internet, or catching a rerun on A&E or the History Channel. I suspect she may not have a single family member, friend or acquaintance who is a Mason, or was in recent memory.

Mull that over. And if she has children of her own today, what chance will they have as adults to inherit any sort of collective, cultural knowledge of Masonry in another 20 years?

Note her comments about Masonry being from a "less-woke era" (a colossally imbecilic adjective if ever there was one) and her pronouncement that our "fraught racial history and continued exclusion of women have also contributed to their diminishing relevance." Whether you believe that or not, that is one narrative being circulated about us today in this hyper-heightened period of describing every single subject on the face of the Earth in terms of gender, race, offense, privilege  and oppression. Young people are being taught a dramatically different (and arguably damaging) version of Western and American history now than older generations, and the values, traditions and institutions of the Founders and prior important historical figures are being derided or ignored altogether. The images of George Washington and Ben Franklin as Freemasons don't carry the sort of influence and impact they had even 20 years ago – some today would even argue that they are a negative.  And let's not even venture into the demographics regarding religious beliefs among Americans in 2018, or how religious Americans are almost uniformly portrayed in a negative light by the pop culture. 

None of this is an indictment of anyone, because there's no single villain we can isolate and counter, argue with, or shoot out behind the barn. These are simply the current circumstances we find ourselves struggling in. That's what we're facing going forward as we try to craft messages for the profane world, design our museums, and sit for interviews with the press. Once again, the culture has shifted under our feet, and this time, we find ourselves potentially tap-dancing on a minefield.

As bleak as all of this may seem, at its core, Freemasonry is and will remain important and relevant and needed as time marches on, but it's up to each of us to do our part to ensure its future by not hiding what's left of our light under a bushel and permitting ourselves to be ignored to death. Remember that even Sadie recognizes this, and concluded her essay with this thought: "Perhaps a lot of this is best left in the past, but it seems to me — a person who spends way too much time alone, in front of a computer — that there’s something here worth bringing into the future."

There is indeed.

Why He Left, and Why We Need To Care - A Lot

L-R: Bro. Salman S. Sheikh, GM S. Eugene Herritt and Bro. Mohammed AlJumaili

Fred Milliken over on the Freemason Information blog site posted an article yesterday that every Freemason needs to read. And then read it again. And read it in your next stated meeting. And go back and read it again at least once a year. 

Grand masters and grand lodges—at least in the Anglo-American Masonic world—are continually obsessing over bringing new members into our lodges. Year after year, they nervously await the latest figures on membership statistics, and go out and try to put on a positive face when it drops another 5%, leaving the U.S. fraternity at levels we had prior to World War I. 

If I see one more editorial about "Appealing to Millennials," I'm going to start drinking again.

The truth that no one wants to face in Freemasonry is that we get plenty of new members every year. Plenty. But an enormous percentage of these fresh, eager new Freemasons are initiated, passed and raised, attend our business meetings, mingle with our members, see a couple of more degrees, maybe read a handful of books... and then they leave, in less than two years, on average. That is failure at the local lodge level. No grand master or grand lodge drives away new Masons by the barrel-full. Individual Masons and lodges do that all on their own. Why do they leave in such huge numbers? We apparently don't seem to give a particular damn as an institution, since we almost never ask them.

We have no business bringing another man into this fraternity until our own existing members learn to love it and live its teachings so much that new Masons won't leave as fast as they joined. 

Case in point: Fred put up a long essay by a young man who joined a lodge, believing what we claim about ourselves. Brother Salman S. Sheikh is a young Sufi Muslim man, and he joined a lodge at age 24, eagerly wanting to learn all he could about our philosophy and our symbolism, and wanting to truly be a part of that legendary brotherhood we like to call ourselves. He bought into all of the lofty pronouncements of Masonry being about meeting "on the level," about tolerance and brotherhood, about our mission to enlighten our own members, about the constant search for "more light in Masonry." He didn't make anything up in his head, he simply believed what Freemasons say about ourselves.

And he left after two years. He demitted because he encountered "bigotry, ignorance, and the total opposite of what a Mason really is."

Brother Sheikh tells his own story in his own words, so I won't paraphrase him. Please read his whole essay, "Why I Left Freemasonry: The First And Last In My Family To Do So." And then take a good, hard look at your lodge, your own words, and your own behavior, in real life, and especially online in what has become anti-social media these days. If you or the members of your lodge are actively engaging in un-Masonic conduct, in person or online, there are consequences for that. When you discourage excited Masons who are eager to study and explore the more esoteric teachings of the fraternity, there are consequences for that.

When Masons leave, the worst thing we can do is to not ask them why, and at least see if we can change conditions to prevent it in future. Brother Sheikh did us a favor by explaining his reasons in print, and offering up his own conclusions about it:

"My last advice to the Freemasons is that if you want this to continue to survive in a future where the young ones are keen with artificial intelligence and info at the palm of their hands, then you need to offer them something new that hasn’t been shown to them before. The practice of memorizing sacred texts, being on a chair/committee, contributing to charity is something that can be found in every church, synagogue and mosque throughout America. The real question is, what are you willing to help them realize in an environment where relationships, family, jobs, spirituality is on a totally different playing field then our previous generations? Once this question is addressed along with letting in clean hearted quality people, then we won’t hear the same tune every month of why the same 6-7 guys are showing in a lodge with 4-500 members. It’s a simple solution which if followed can be beneficial to the organization along with not showing them the same stuff every meeting and not letting Past Masters run their lodges. Give the new guys a chance, otherwise they will just see it as another boy’s club and move on with other adventures in life that could benefit them more. It’s a shame for me to say this but I learned more on my own and with likeminded spiritual people I had met before I even became a Mason than I have ever learned in a lodge or appendant body. That should not be the case."

I was engaged in a heated discussion last week with a Brother online. When I brought up the scary statistic of the number of new Masons who depart the fraternity in under two years, he actually responded, "Who needs a bunch of half hearted seekers of knowledge? Let them leave!" Brother Sheikh wasn't half-hearted. He truly WAS seeking knowledge - he hunted it, he begged for it, just as he had wanted real brotherhood. He tried to study it, research it, talk about it. He was excited. Instead, he found a hollow shell of what he was promised. And he encountered a clot of Masons who ignored their obligations and went right on publicly engaging in boorish behavior that was deliberately insulting, repugnant, and un-Masonic. 

Why would he have stayed?

Brother Sheikh hadn't joined some isolated rural lodge, or in a jurisdiction that some have looked down on as backward. He was in suburban Philadelphia, right in the East Coast region that likes to tout itself as more 'cosmopolitan' than the residents of flyover country, or the rural South, or the cornfield states that begin with "I." No, this problem is endemic, and we're lying as long as we point our fingers somewhere else and claim "It's those OTHER guys." And the Internet only makes the problem worse, because what a Mason says or does five states or a half a continent away still pops up every day online. After two years, Brother Sheikh decided that looking for another lodge wasn't the answer, because the un-Masonic behavior was too widespread. 

That's a broad brush, I know. But it is also reality, if enough people believe it.

Last year the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts did video interviews of several men who had joined a lodge and had demitted relatively quickly. Massachusetts did what almost no other jurisdiction has ever bothered to do: They asked WHY. And recorded the answers. If you are a grand officer or a district deputy or a membership committee member in another jurisdiction, do yourself a favor and contact Massachusetts to see a copy of it. And actually listen to what these men are saying about the fraternity they joined with such eagerness, and then left. Almost all of them regarded their decision to leave as a sad and tragic situation—they had been eager to join, and left only reluctantly. You all need to know why, and get your lodges to make some serious course corrections. Or encourage the creation of new lodges that understand.

Brother Sheikh's message makes it clear that he is looking for - and finding - what he sought in other places now. He sums up by saying:

"In conclusion, I am thankful for these last 2 years for what they were worth to make a difference in the organization of Freemasons in my state, country, and other nations to teach them the forgotten values of a true Mason and the true nature of one who listens to his heart and walks the path of God. I departed at age 26 in good standing and still have a lifetime ahead of me to do great things for other groups that are meant to cross my path. I am thankful to be the first in GL of PA’s history to do a program on Sufism and make the effort to bring Masonic understanding and unity while others are just worried about their legacies. My greatest legacy will be that I will remain in the hearts and minds of the Freemasons forever and that means I also live forever which is more important than statues or my name appearing in Grand Lodge digest decisions. Please continue to love each other in and out of lodge and practice what you preach because God’s all-seeing eye will hold us all accountable one day for all our seen and unseen actions. Before your meetings start, do a hand in hand meditation so even the brother who feels left out can feel a part of his brotherhood instead of looking bored or playing on his phone. I want you all to think about all these things I have addressed in my final message and I leave that burden on your shoulders from this point on with the mission of how you will carry this fraternity forward for future generations and not be in a desperate situation to keep numbers up. When your heart, mission, members, teachings, online image, etc. is all pure and designed to empower somebody then worrying about numbers should be the least of your worries because at the end 'My Faith is in God and God is my right.'"

There's an old saying that "You are someone's image of Freemasonry." Every one of us needs to take that to heart.  I wish I had gotten the opportunity to meet Brother Sheikh before he demitted, because he understood that. 

As long we as have members who say of our own Brethren who depart, "Let them leave," we will continue to shrink and fade. 

And that is a fate that the fraternity has earned all by itself.

The letter and Fred Milliken's commentary on it can be found HERE: "Masonic Anti-Intellectualism A Crying Shame"

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UPDATE 11/12/2018: 

And then there's the flip side. 

A very good friend and Past Grand Master is very fond of quoting Cassius speaking to Brutus in Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves..."

Yesterday Fred posted a follow up story to this one, and I urge everyone to read it as well. It's by a Brother who also decided to leave, because he too felt let down by the fraternity and what he saw as its shortcomings. And then he realized that perhaps the problem was really his own expectations when he joined.

And then he came back.

It was this shift in my perspective that lead me to realize that Freemasonry still had a great deal to offer, but only if I was willing to seize it. I was fortunate in the fact that I came to this realization on my own. I fear that few brothers in my shoes will do the same. Therefore, it is up to us to ensure that it never gets to that point in the first place...

See Bait & Switch, I Quit or Why I Left - Part 2 HERE.

Masonic Membership Stats for 2010 Released by MSA

The Masonic Service Association of North America has released the list of U.S. and Canadian Masonic membership statistics.

The total Masonic membership of North American continues to decline, and the numbers for 2010 were 1,373,453 (lowest since they began compiling stats in 1924). For Canada it is 86,210, a decline of 2,489 from 2009. However, the rate of decline is slowing, slowly.

The grand lodges of the District of Columbia, Utah, Alabama, Hawaii, New Mexico and Newfoundland/Labrador all show gains for 2010.

H/T to Ed King.