Oldest Masonic Manuscripts All In One Place

French Masonic author and researcher Guy Chassagnard has recently put up an extensive website featuring 33 of the earliest known manuscripts and exposures of operative and speculative Freemasonry, dating all the way from 1248 up through "Masonry Dissected" in 1730. They come from Italian, French, English, Scottish, and German sources. 

Go here: www.theoldcharges.com 

I believe this is actually an English translation of Brother Chassagnard's book, Les Anciens Devoirs: Maçons opératifs et maçons acceptés.

Previously, hunting down these manuscripts from various sites was a tedious task.  So, to have them collected all in one place is a godsend to researchers. Many thanks to Brother Guy for posting this!

One word of warning: when you first click on the site, there's a music track that blares out at you at full volume. Hit the pause button under the square and compass image on the right side of the page to shut it off.

The Hidden World of London's Templars

The BBC website on Friday posted a pictorial tour of the Temple area of London that once belonged to the Knights Templar. Yes, the famous round Temple Church is there with its stone effigies of several Knights. But there is much more to this secluded area that lies hidden away in the heart of the City.

Read it HERE.

NOTE: One thing to bear in mind if you intend to go to the Church itself is that it is still a functioning church, and NOT a museum. As such, its hours and programs and services can vary. Even before you buy your airline tickets, if such a visit is going to be a centerpiece to your trip, be sure to check the Temple Church website HERE for hours and days of operation.

Bay City, MI Lodge Welcomes Public To Their "New" Home

The new lodge room for Joppa 315.

Brethren of Joppa Lodge 315 in Bay City, Michigan are proud to show off their remodeled new home this weekend with an open house. They sold their former large temple building in 2005, and spent the last eleven years sharing space in other Masonic facilities. But in January of last year, they purchased a smaller (but still historic) facility that retains a very old feel in a new location.

Joppa's "new" location

From an article from the Bay City Times:

The Masons are hosting an open-house at noon on Saturday, May 14, following months of renovations to the building. 

The Masons previously operated out of the Masonic Temple located at the corner of Sixth Street and Madison Avenue. It was an ideal lodge for the group when membership numbers were in the several hundreds. As membership dropped in the 2000s, leaders realized it wasn't a viable option. 

The Masons purchased the former dinner theater in 2015 for $115,000. The neoclassical Greek building, which formerly housed the Church of Christ Scientist, was built in 1911.

By way of comparison, this is the lodge's former home in Bay City. 

The current membership has shrunk to 180 members, making the old temple too much for them to support. One estimate in 2005 for repairs was $3 million. Fortunately, they held out for a new location that still feels very traditional and befitting the fraternity, instead of just erecting a steel shed in a suburban cornfield. Well done, Brethren.

Speaking in New Jersey and New York June 13-14

I'm traveling to areas outside of New York City in June. 

First, I will be speaking on Monday evening, June 13th at Cincinnati Lodge No. 3, located at 39 Maple Ave., Morristown, NJ. 

Lodge will open at 7:30 PM, and buffet dinner will follow. 

A limited number of 75 tickets are available, and are $20. 

To RSVP, contact Brother Brian Mandel at bkmandel@optonline.net

The next evening, I will be speaking at New York's 

Alcyone Lodge No. 695 on Tuesday, June 14th 2016.

The lodge is located at 162 Main St, Northport (on Long Island), New York 11768

Dinner starts at 7 PM

Dinner $25 donation

Lodge opens for work at 8 PM promptly, and will be open to Entered Apprentices.

For more information/reservations call:
Walter: 1-347-489-6185
Izzy: 1-516-305-7413

Or email: AlcyoneLodgeNo695@gmail.com

GL of NY Issues Statement About GA and TN

A discussion was held the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of New York last week on the question of how to proceed with the situation in Georgia and Tennessee. It was decided that  their new Grand Master, MW Jeffrey M. Williamson, would first issue a statement concerning the sexual orientation rules of those states before making determination concerning  possible withdrawal of Masonic amity. The statement was issued today. Click the image above to enlarge it.

It reads in part:

While we respect the sovereignty of all other Grand Lodges, the Grand Lodge of New York believes Freemasonry is a universal fraternity comprised of men from every corner of the world; from every religion and ethnicity; from every creed and color; from every shape, size and sexual orientation. 

Masons have learned long ago, that what truly matters is the content of the heart, and the quality of the soul. Our members practice the  tenants [sic] of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, and our requirements for those seeking membership is a belief in a Supreme Being, the immortality of the soul, being a man, freeborn, well recommended and of lawful age.

Furthermore, it is decided that any Grand Lodge who digresses or impedes upon these universally accepted qualifications for candidacy into this honored institution, may risk the good standing  and recognition they currently enjoy with this Grand Lodge.

(For complete links to all of the stories on this site relating to the ongoing situation with the grand lodges of Georgia and Tennessee, CLICK HERE for the updated page.)

Neighbors Startled By Lodge Decor

Apparently, some of the neighbors of Australia's  Collaroy Masonic Temple in Collaroy, New South Wales, don't care for the lodge's new paint job. 

Last week, it went from this:

To this:

Collarory resident Glenda Cathersides labelled it an “eyesore”.

According to the local news, "The NSW and ACT Freemasons were called but declined to comment, and calls made to the hall were not returned."

I'm sure the hearts of the Brethren were in the right place. And it's the internal, not the external qualifications that Masonry regards. And I'm all for better visibility of Masonic buildings. But a good rule of thumb is to ask your wife - or somebody else's wife - before you commit to a color scheme that can be spotted from low Earth orbit.

Indiana Lodges Google Map

Attention all Indiana brethren and those wishing to visit a lodge here. 

Jacob Šavlik has created a Google map of all of the current lodges of the Grand Lodge of Indiana F&AM. 

CLICK HERE and then zoom in.

I don't know if other jurisdictions have been similarly catalogued. Let me know if yours has.

(Please stop writing to me to say your Indiana lodge isn't on it. I believe they are all in the dropdown list on the left side of the page. Click the name and its spot on the map is highlighted. The map was generated off of a Grand Lodge list from two years ago. If you discover errors, please contact Jacob Šavlik via Facebook)

AASR Valley of Joplin Finishes Restoring Its Cathedral

The billiards room at the Joplin Valley of the SR. Photo by Roger Noman.

It's a happy headline to read these days. The members of the Scottish Rite in Joplin, Missouri have carefully tended their magnificent building over the last few decades, and have restored it to its original beauty. There was just one room left that hadn't been touched. 

Reporter Debbie Woodin in the Joplin Globe on Saturday wrote a very long and detailed account of the Rite's finishing touches on its billiard room.

Considered by local historians as one of Joplin's architectural jewels, the Scottish Rite Cathedral has put the shine back on the last room that needed renovation to return the interior of the historic building to its original look of the 1920s. 

Five months of work went into restoring the billiard room, located on the south side of the auditorium on the main floor. The area's barons of mining and commerce gathered there over cigars and Scotch nearly a century ago under the brotherly banner of Masonry. The cathedral today is still home to 1,800 members of the Scottish Rite. It is the regional gathering place for local Masonic Lodges 

There were myriad versions of pool and billiard games in its heyday as a gentleman's pursuit, and "we have some balls and other equipment for these tables that no one alive knows how to play anymore," said Scottish Rite member Chris Nickle. 

Jeff Neal of The Neal Group, contractor for the project, said he and his workers stripped away the grime of generations of activity and garish past redecorating jobs to find the room appointed wood panels inset with wallpaper and hand-painted stencil work. 

"The woodwork is 100-year-old English oak that has this beautiful grain in it, and it looked like the pine you'd buy today because it was painted over with peach latex," Neal said. "We were able to use a restoration stripper on it that took the latex paint off. In some areas we were able to get it to a point where we had it back to the original color and then we applied an evening stain on it, and then we just came back with a coat a polyurethane on it, and it came out really nice." 

The wall's insets between the oak panels had been covered over with wallpaper and later paint. A low, drop ceiling had been installed that was discolored with tobacco smoke. 

"Basically the rest of the building had been cleaned or restored; it's just nobody had gotten to this one yet," said Nickle of the billiard room. "So everything that was in here was kind of a cheap remodel circa 1960." 

That paid off by uncovering a number of architectural features. 

"We took down the drop ceilings and there were wood beams (on the original ceiling)," Neal said. The beams and the ceilings were dirty, but once cleaned and with a few repairs, raised the room to a new height. 

Some pieces of the original oak wall trim had been removed over the years for alterations. Neal used salvaged wood from hidden spaces such as a utility closet that had to be stripped of paint, but were refinished to complete the room's original dimensions. 

"Really the only thing different in this room from 1923 to today is the modern duct work and the light fixtures," Nickle said. The room's original light fixtures were missing, but Neal replaced them with some pendant chandeliers that resemble the style used elsewhere in the building. 

Neal had old photos of the room to use as reference for the restoration project. His work took about two months. 

When they pulled the wallpaper off the insets between the wood trim, images of the original stencils were imprinted on the back on the wallpaper. 

"That's how we were able to come up with the image" that gave an artist hired by Neal the detail to paint new wall stencils.  

 Stencil detail. Photo by Roger Noman.

Brenda Sageng, a local artist, reproduced the stencils. "She was here for five months painting," said Nickle, "and she recreated those stencils by hand. And they are absolutely 100 percent copies of the originals that were here." 

Pieces of the old wallpaper with the reverse image of the original stencils were saved. Stenciled medallions in the insets feature an ear of corn, which is a Masonic symbolic for nutrition, said Richard Lowery, executive secretary of the Valley of Joplin Scottish Rite. 

"This room was intended for refreshment, which could mean food, could mean drink," Lowery said.

[snip]

It is a beaux-arts style building noted for, among other things, its original second-story theater and stage furnished with more than 100 hand-painted and original backdrops and curtains, and a pipe organ with 21,000 pipes. 

Most of the building was cleaned thoroughly or restored in the 1980s and 1990s. 

"They found a stained glass ceiling upstairs that nobody knew was here until they cleaned the dirt off of it," said Nickle. "They found all kinds of details in this building after they cleaned all the dirt and smoke and soot off these walls." 

This latest project, restoration of the billiard room, cost $45,000. The money was raised from donations by Masonic members. 

"The challenge of maintaining this 1920 showcase in the state in which the Scottish Rite has is a real tribute to the Scottish Rite members," said Neal. "It's a huge daily labor, and they cover part of that cost by allowing others to come and use it as an events center for weddings, awards ceremonies and trade shows and other things." 

The article is much longer. Read the whole piece HERE. 

BTW, it's not in the article because everybody in Joplin drives past it all the time, but here's a photo of the exterior.

A Little Help For Those Who Squint At This Page

This isn't a post about Masonry, but I wanted to address an issue that several folks have complained about, especially in recent years. Some readers apparently have trouble viewing posts on this blog because of the white type on a black background. 

I understand.

In all fairness, I made this formatting decision back when a lot of people felt that a darker background with lighter type was easier on the eyes. Alice still uses the ancient blue background/white type screen option on Microsoft Word because white screens with dark type give her migraines, and even set off old epilepsy symptoms. However, many others seem to disagree. (Just as a casual observation, the mobile application of the Internet Movie Database uses almost my same exact color formatting choices, so not everybody thinks white backgrounds are the 'bomb.')

I know that loads of blog authors have moved off of Google's free Blogger platform to Wordpress. I have looked into it, but I have to admit to being a little confused by Wordpress' CSS and PHP formatting details. Blogger is old style HTML, and I just haven't kept up with the technology - mostly because I just don't do anything else on a regular basis that deals with CSS and PHP. But I do still understand HTML, and I can actually fix code when it breaks things. I intensely dislike the era in which we live where software interfaces require just fumbling around like a drunk hunting his car keys until you finally stumble on a solution or a hidden menu item, instead of just making it intuitive, labeling things, or - God forbid - actually writing documentation. (Try to navigate Google+ sometime. Best of luck on that expedition.) Sorry, but that's just bad design.

The much bigger problem is that with over 2,500 posts across a 10 year span, the decision I made way back in 2006 about the blog's formatting has now totally hamstrung me. When I exerpt clips from some online news articles these days, they don't format correctly and I'm forced to change the type background to black and the letters to white just to make them look right here. The unfortunate result is now a massive backlog of posts that can't easily be fixed if I change to black type on white by exporting all of this buried formatting code to a new platform. 

In addition, I can move the blog articles over to Wordpress if I absolutely have to, but there's no way to take the comments that people have posted over the decade with them. Unfortunately, I have spoken with too many other blog authors who have done this, only to discover the comments had vanished.  I really don't want to lose them, because there is often lots of good followup information within them. 

So, I'm kind of stuck with this, at least until Google makes the corporate decision to toss Blogger in the bin entirely and forces me to confront the problem more seriously.

In the meantime, if your eyes just can't take this kind of high contrast page design, Brother John Ruark has a simple suggestion. Subscribe to this page using an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed reader, such as Feedly.com. There are others, but Feedly is pretty simple to use. Create a new account, then once you do, enter the URL for this page - http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com . When the small preview box opens, click the green plus sign to subscribe my posts to your Feedly page. That way, when you view the blog through the Feedly site from now on, the articles will be black type on a white background, and the photos will be there properly. You can also click the photos within the articles to enlarge them, just as you can here on my page. And if you find a story that you need to print, it will work much better there than trying to print from this page. Think of all the black ink you'll save. (The only downside to an RSS reader like Feedly is, again, the comments don't export. So if you want to read the followups, you have to come back here.)

If you are a happy Apple owner who uses Safari as your MacOS desktop or laptop web browser, you already have an instant solution anyway. Click the headline of any of the stories to open any post by itself. Then go up to the left hand edge of the address bar and click the four little horizontal lines icon. You'll know it when you see it, and the address line changes to say 'Show Reader View.' That will instantly switch the post over to black type on white in a decent sized font that's eminently readable, any photos will appear, and links will work properly, as well.

If you have an iPhone or iPad, the iOS version of Safari has this feature as well. Click on a story headline on this blogsite, and when the article loads, the same little hash lines are up in the address lines. Hit that and it converts the article. Unfortunately, the comments don't appear with either the MacOS or iOS version, but you can't have everything I suppose. The upside of the Safari Reader View is that it also strips out any online advertising from stories (you won't find any here, but it's nice elsewhere), and it even seems to get past some sites' full screen paywall blocking notices so you can still read a story. Don't look for Google Chrome to offer that anytime soon, since they have no intention of deliberately blocking anybody's advertising easily.

Hopefully, this will assist those of you who get a headache reading the blog (the actual content of the stories, notwithstanding). I apologize, but hope this helps. 

I looked at the stats a few days ago, and at some point this year I noticed that the page has been viewed over 6 million times since Blogger started keeping track in 2010. That's astonishing to me. To everyone who reads the site on a regular basis, please accept my deepest gratitude. I appreciate your ongoing patronage. Many, many thanks.

Grand Lodge of France Computer Files Hacked and Posted Online

I'm a little late in reporting this, but my French is not so good and it's taken a little time to sort out what is authentic from some wild claims. Apparently on April 2nd, a hacker infiltrated the online cloud storage files of the Grande Loge de France (GLdF) and released some 6,000 files from the organization. (The Grande Loge de France is the second largest obedience in that country, and is not the one currently recognized by the U.S., Canadian, and UK grand lodges.)

On April 10th, the anonymously authored French language conspiracy website, Stop Mensonges (Stop Lies), posted private internal correspondence, meeting minutes dating back to 2005, accounting documents (and according to one site, some petitions that included CVs, cover letters, criminal records and copies of ID cards) - all under the banner, "Franc-maçons Papers." However, according the L'Express website, the GLdF's private records of their 34,000 members were not hacked or leaked. The website has since been shut down. 

On April 26th, the Paris public prosecutor's office launched a criminal investigation for fraudulent access, data mining, and disclosure of personal data.

According to L'Express, the owner of Stop Mensonges goes by the online name of Lawrence Freeman, but his real identity is André Pierre Laurent Gouyneau, age 43, who apparently lives in Los Angeles. Before the site was taken down, it featured stories about Holocaust denial, UFO sightings, 9/11 conspiracies, and other similar idiocy.

Now may be the time everybody should change their passwords...

Alabama Lodge Breaks State's Masonic Color Barrier

A quietly historic event occurred this evening at Shades Valley Lodge No. 829 in Birmingham, Alabama. Brother Ronald King was raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason. 

No big deal, except perhaps for him, right? Happens every night in a lodge somewhere in the world.

Except that Brother King is the first man of color to be actually be initiated, passed, and raised in a lodge holden under the Grand Lodge of Alabama F&AM.

According to the Shades Valley website, "The lodge was founded in September of 1921 and granted a charter December 1921.  Since its inception, Shades Valley Lodge has been home to many of Birmingham, Alabama’s great men." 

Those great men now include the current members and officers of that lodge for finally breaking the color barrier in one more grand lodge of the Old Confederacy. Shades Valley Lodge was already integrated, with several African American members who already held previous membership in other jurisdictions. But Brother King was the first to be IPR'd. Appropriately, the evening's visitors included Brother Victor Marshall and other members of Atlanta, Georgia's Gate City Lodge No. 2. 

In this day and age it seems bizarrely anachronistic to announce events such as this, but Masonically, these brethren have indeed made an important step forward and shown others that the Earth did not stop turning on its axis, nor was the Moral Law broken in any way. 

Congratulations to Brother King and his lodge brothers.

(H/T to Oscar Alleyne)

Salt Lake City Temple Open House Saturday 5/7

The Salt Lake City, Utah Masonic Temple is again holding an open house this Saturday to welcome members of the public. From Thursday's Salt Lake Tribune:

Built in 1927, the building is considered the state's best example of Egyptian Revival architecture, a style popularized by the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. 

Inside there are several lounges, great and lesser halls, a banquet room and four lodge rooms. The latter are used by various masonic fraternal organizations along the Wasatch Front, including the Masons, their youth and women's auxiliaries, the Scottish Rite Masons and El Kalah Shrine. The lodge rooms are structurally identical with steps, spiral staircases, pillars and seating areas — as well as historical symbols relating to math and science — but each room has a different decorative theme, from Egyptian to Colonial and Gothic to Moorish Spain. 

The auditorium, the largest room in the building, seats 900 and has an "atmospheric" domed ceiling. The dome has inlaid lights arranged as the major constellations, which allows it to mimic sunrise, sunset, twilight and the night sky. 

The stage has dozens of decorative backdrop scenes, believed to be the work of Thomas Moses (1856-1934), one of America's leading scenic artists for the theater at the turn of the 20th century. 

Artwork and artifacts found in the building are valued at more than $450,000 and include works by Leon Cogniet (French, 1794-1890), Henry L.A. Culmer (British, 1854-1914), Richard Murray (American, 1948-) and other renowned artists. 

The Masonic Temple has been used as a set for numerous movies and television shows, including "Avenging Angel," starring Charlton Heston as Brigham Young; Disney's "Halloween Town"; and "Touched by an Angel," said John C. Liley, a past grandmaster.

The Temple will be open from 10AM until 2PM. Volunteers will be on hand to answer questions about the architecture, the history and Freemasonry. Visitors are encouraged to bring canned and nonperishable items for the Utah Food Bank. 

Gifted Brother Paints Lodge Mural

Wamponamon Lodge #437. Photo by Anthony Lombardo for the East Hampton Star

The brethren of Wamponamon Lodge #437 in Sag Harbor, New York have a beautiful new addition to their historic lodge, thanks to their very gifted member, Brother John Capello. 

From the East Hampton Star website today:

In 1858, when the the Wamponamon Masonic Lodge No. 437 was established in  Sag Harbor, a comet streaked across the sky, the first comet ever to be photographed. 

That event is now immortalized in a recently completed mural on the walls of the historic building at 200 Main Street, which, even after the lower floor became the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, remained home, on its upper floor, to the Masons, an organization members describe as “the oldest and most honorable fraternity known to man.”  

On a hot day last July, John Capello, an artist and member of the Masonic brotherhood, clambered down from a web of scaffolding to greet Patrick McErlean, the lodge’s head, or Worshipful Master, and a visitor. For more than a month he had been perched high up, painting Masonic symbols and celestial imagery on the walls and domed ceiling over the Masonic temple’s dais, adding colorful new sections to a mural he had originally installed in 2014. 

[snip] 

One goal of the most recent work, which took about two months all told, was “to show the dimension of the universe,” Mr. Capello said. For inspiration, on his painting table next to brushes of all sizes, sketches, and rainbow-colored pots of paint, was an open book of photographs taken by the Hubble telescope — multihued, ethereal images of galaxies, planets, and stars. He painted Jupiter and Uranus into the mural, and constellations, too, including Pegasus the winged horse in iridescent paint. 

A self-taught artist and sculptor who works in a variety of mediums and teaches a painting course at Stony Brook Southampton, Mr. Capello has done outdoor murals at locations throughout the New York City boroughs, beginning in the 1970s, when buildings were often covered with graffiti. He would approach their owners with a different idea. 

He has learned, he said, to make only a rough sketch before he begins. “I create as I go,” he said. “It’s only paint, so I can change as I go. I usually put in four, maybe five hours a day; half of that is spent looking.” 

The inclusion of the comet grew out of a talk with Lou Grignon, Mr. McErlean’s predecessor as lodge master. “He said, let’s find out what was happening in the sky” when the lodge was founded.  

“This is my legacy to Sag Harbor,” the artist said. 

The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by a prominent 19th-century architect, Minard LeFever, and constructed in 1845 as a residence for Benjamin Huntting II, a leading Sag Harbor citizen and whaling ship owner. Its design includes detailed plaster ceilings, carved wooden doorframes, and ornate Corinthian columns outside. It was purchased, after Huntting’s death in 1867, by Mrs. Russell Sage, a well-known philanthropist who used it as a summer cottage, and was deeded to the historical museum in 1945, according to museum records, with the Masons guaranteed use of the upstairs in perpetuity...

Read the whole article HERE. There are many photos of the mural in progress, as well. Reporter Joanne Pilgrim did a good job with actually researching the lodge and the Craft, (only a few errors, like the Declaration signers and the Boy Scout founders) and posted a story that deals with us in a reasoned way. Quite a pleasant surprise these days, I'm sorry to say.

The lodge will hold an open house on June 4th between  10AM and 4PM.

GLNY Permits EAs and FCs in Meetings and Lowers Petitioning Age

A resolution was passed at the Grand Lodge of New York's 2016 annual communication this week now allowing Entered Apprentices and Fellow Crafts to sit in lodge meetings in that state.  The decision is left up to the discretion of the WM of each lodge, and the lodge must still open and close on the MM degree. But the EAs and FCs may be admitted to the meeting once that requirement is satisfied, and leave again prior to the close. 

To admit the EAs and FCs the rule requires that the lodge must first open on the MM, then open a lodge of EAs (or FCs) - which must then be closed again, prior to then closing on the MM. 

During the meeting, ritual, signs and other details of the MM degree may not be discussed or revealed with EAs and FCs present.

According to my records, New York now becomes the 27th U.S. grand lodge to permit this (along with the overwhelming majority of regular GLs around the world outside of the U.S.).

I was told of this legislation at the GLNY , but the actual wording of it is:

"RESOLVED, that any and all business and work be permitted in Lodges working in any of the three Degrees of Masonry and in the presence of such Entered Apprentices and/or Fellowcraft as the Worshipful Master in his discretion may admit within, so long as the same shall not reveal the secrets, esoteric materials, emblems and lessons of a higher Degree."

Additionally, the GLNY also lowered the age of petitioners to 18.

1st Missouri AMD Ingathering 5/21

The Missouri chapters of the Allied Masonic Degrees cordially invite all Master Masons to attend the first Missouri AMD Ingathering, on Saturday, May 21st. This inaugural event will be held at the Stoney Creek Hotel and Convention Center in Independence, Missouri.

There will be six Masonic speakers at this all day event, and you can review their professional and Masonic credentials by clicking the appropriate names below:

Reese L. Harrison, Jr. BIO

Malcolm Morris BIO

Orville R. Armstrong BIO

Bryce B. Hildreth BIO

John A. Bridegroom BIO

C. Brent Stewart BIO

Tickets MUST be purchased before the event via the EventBrite website HERE. Prices are $150 for the entire day's festivities, $100 for the sessions only, and $50 for the evening banquet only. 

New Book: "Millennial Apprentices" by Samuel Friedman

On my flight to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to read a book that had found its way to me by a circuitous route. The author had sent a copy to my lodge back in November (kind of odd, since my contact information is all over the web and I'm really easy to find). I retrieved it from my lodge Secretary, placed it in my apron case the night of our Past Master Degree, and then promptly forgot it was there until April when I was packing for Las Vegas.

So, my deepest public apologies go out to Brother Samuel Friedman, the author of Millennial Apprentice: The Next Revolution in Freemasonry (2015). Brother Friedman is a New York Mason who joined at the age of 21 - just three years ago - and represents three generations of Freemasonry in his family. (His father, Richard Friedman, is currently the Chairman of the Custodians of the Work of the Grand Lodge of New York.)

Brother Samuel has written a book that answers many of the questions that some older Masons are now asking within the fraternity about the generation of men who will succeed them in passing on our traditions. Now normally, I don't care for works that attempt to make broad generalizations about artificial categories of population cohorts. As a "baby boomer" myself, I realized there were huge differences between the men in my so-called generation who were born in 1946 versus those born in 1964. I wasn't part of the group, for instance, who were drafted and did military service in Southeast Asia - I didn't even have to register for Selective Service. I also spent every weekend of my formative teenage years volunteering at a railroad museum, where all of my friends were in their 40s and 50s. So, despite the stereotyped "anti-establishment" mindset that was often ascribed to "boomers," I was extremely conservative in my social, political, and economic views before I could even drive a car. That kind of breaks the generalized mold of what boomers are supposed to be like.

So, I have much the same skepticism when people start discussing "the millennials," who were born between the mid-1980s up to about 2000. In fact, there's nothing quite so disheartening as a room full of Masons in their 70s making organizational plans based on "what young people want." Hell, I'M too old to know myself! So, it's difficult when I speak somewhere and Masons start asking me these kinds of questions. All I can do is make a few guesses and pretend I know.

Brother Samuel Friedman doesn't just guess. He's living through it right now, at the age of 24, with a long and active Masonic family history behind him. More important, he has taken an approach few have done in this fraternity - he's actually researched a stack of independent polls to get a clearer understanding of the philosophical, religious, social, and economic habits of his own age group. Yes, they are of course generalizations, but they are far more useful to us than mere anecdotes and guesses. 

I think his book is important enough to provide more than just a cursory blurb about it, so forgive me if I go on for a while about its contents here (and please don't let this long preview dissuade you from actually investing in the book and reading the whole thing).

First, Samuel is very fond of the "observant lodge" concept. This kind of lodge, promoted by the Masonic Restoration Foundation and thoroughly explored in Andrew Hammer's book, Observing the Craft, is growing in popularity in the U.S. and Canada. There are currently 44 of these lodges at work in 23 states, and their number is growing. While they are not all alike in design or practice, they are usually hallmarked by excellence in ritual, formal attire and white gloves, higher dues, Masonic education at every meeting, and a festive board at a fine local restaurant. They often require longer waiting periods between degrees, and some expect candidates to write a paper about what they have learned before proceeding. They often hold their meetings by candlelight. Some play contemplative music between orders of business. Some place their EA candidates in a Chamber of Reflection before his degree (originally derived from the European Scottish Rite tradition - and in jurisdictions where it is not permitted as part of the ritual, it is simply done before the lodge officially opens). And once a man is raised, he is not immediately pressured into then joining an appendant body, and another, and another. He is instead encouraged to first fully participate in the Blue Lodge and what it has to offer, because he has a lifetime to go join another body if that is his choice. None of these practices are especially shocking or even innovative - and yet, there remain some states that prohibit observant lodges from being chartered (or existing lodges converted) in their jurisdictions. That is short-sighted.

It is Brother Friedman''s contention that these lodges will continue to grow in popularity, especially among millennials. As a group, they tend to have more interest in esoteric subjects like philosophy and symbolism than do many of their older brethren. They expect a high quality lodge experience, and they understand that such a lodge must be paid for. They don't especially look forward to cold spaghetti on paper plates. And they expect the attainment of Masonic degrees to require work beyond simply parroting back memorized questions and answers, or showing up for an "all the way in one day" group event. They expect initiation to be an individual transformative experience, and they don't mind waiting for it. And they fully recognize that lodges that are run this way may not be for everyone's taste.

(On a personal note, I am a member of an observant lodge myself, and while we are successful with close to a 85% participation rate at our quarterly meetings, I don't see them becoming the dominant style of lodges in the future. Rather, I see them as giving visiting Masons individual ideas to take back to their lodges and adopting the features they like.)

In another chapter, Brother Friedman digs into various studies concerning the social fabric of America as it exists today. Right off the bat, he points out that the baby boomers literally changed everything in society from the 1960s forward, in part simply because of their enormous population numbers (over 75 million). From the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, the rebelliousness as a generational force, to music, economics, technology, and much more, the boomers redefined society in ways that shocked the generation that came before them. But what few people realize is that the millennial generation is currently the same size - also 75 million. They currently make up more than 25% of the U.S. population. By 2020, according to Samuel's notes, millennials will make up 50% of the nation's labor force, and they are already having a huge influence on social change, just as the boomers had before them.

Samuel cites several studies and sources (mostly not Masonic ones) to establish broad trends for the generation, and several of them are quite surprising. For instance, while boomers had little respect for the older generation, 8 out of 10 millennials tend to believe that older generations have "higher morals," and 60% of them say they consult their parents for advice about adulthood. But he finds that while younger men do not despair that their lodges have many older members than young ones, they do resent being excluded by them from leadership positions and decisions. They dislike it when a lodge or grand lodge is run like a "good ol' boy's club."

Millennials are also the most diverse generation in U.S. history, by race, faith, and sexual orientation. Some 40% of them are racial minorities; 43% are religious minorities; and 70% believe in the legality of gay marriage. As a result, they do not expect their lodges to be overwhelmingly white and Christian, and they absolutely find discrimination to be abhorrent. They are the most highly educated generation the country has ever had, with almost 50% of them between ages 25 and 34 holding a college degree. Just 11% are interested in Masonic history. Only 12% are interested in a lodge or grand lodge's charitable programs. And yet, they are not cheap or uncharitable - a massive 87% say they give $100 or more a year to charity. While the vast majority of them do not attend regular religious services, almost half of them say they pray at least once a week, and 75% describe themselves as "spiritual."  Some 46% of millennial Masons say they joined because they were searching for personal of spiritual knowledge.  All of these results and more give a more well-rounded view of the millennial generation than perhaps many of us have had, and I urge you to seek out this book, if only for this very extensive chapter alone.

Two other chapters of the book are also worth mentioning. In one, Friedman (who is Jewish) describes the highly unusual circumstances of Freemasonry as it is practiced in the troubled nation of Lebanon. He delves deeply into the tumultuous history of that country, and explores its remarkably diverse ethnic and religious society, along with the highly secretive nature of belonging to a Masonic lodge in the nation that is the legendary home of major figures in our ritual. The other chapter is Samuel's personal vision of his utopian Masonic lodge. While not everyone will agree with his ultimate wish list, he certainly provides a different way of looking at lodge practices that might be considered. The U.S. has literally thousands of individual Masonic laboratories for us to experiment in, as long as we stay within the boundaries of our rules and rituals. So, read it with an open mind. You might find something worth trying in your own lodge.

His book is not long - just 135 pages - and you can easily finish it in a couple of hours. But especially if you are in a position of lodge or grand lodge leadership, I highly encourage you to read it. You may agree with some of his observations and vision of Masonry's future, or you may strongly disagree, but I urge you not to simply dismiss it out of hand. The millennials have been joining our lodges for the last several years, and many, many more are on the way. We ignore their opinions and desires at our peril. If lodges fail to adapt to their social and philosophical attitudes, these men will either charter new ones, or simply walk away. As leaders, the choice is ours.

Illuminati Day

Today marks the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati on May 1st, 1776. It lasted less than eight years, and its membership was very, very small. Many other groups followed, even to the present day, claiming the mantle of the original Illuminati, or having that moniker stuck on them without their having asked for it. In fact, in the alternate universe of the Internet, accusations about the “vast influence” of this little-known secret society get thrown around constantly.

Click here for my (possibly a little outdated) story on the very real Illuminati.

That's for all you fear mongers out there. Happy Birthday, Illuminati!

SRRS Releases Index For All "Heredom" Volumes

In March, the Scottish Rite Research Society issued a complete index to Volumes 1 through 23 (1992-2015) of Heredom, the transactions of the Society. The .pdf includes the tables of contents for each individual volume, followed by an index for the complete set.

CLICK HERE for the index.

This will be an invaluable tool for researchers who no longer have to laboriously search through every individual book in search of a long forgotten paper. Many thanks to Illus. S. Brent Morris 33° for this monumental undertaking.

If you are not a member of the SRRS, consider joining (even if you don't belong to the AASR). Members receive an annual hardback copy of Heredom, a quarterly publication called The Plumbline, and a bonus hardback book, each year. Plus, you also get 10% off of purchases from the House of the Temple store.

Membership is just $55 a year. For information, CLICK HERE.