Josef Wäges Named Newest Blue Friar For 2018

The Society of Blue Friars was formed back in 1932 to specifically recognize the excellence of Masonic authors, and their annual meeting is held each year in February during AMD/Masonic Week in the Washington D.C. area. It is arguably the smallest of Masonic organizations, and possibly the oddest, since it has no ritual and few rules. The Grand Abbott chooses the new Friar, and it is usually a closely guarded secret until its announcement. Each new Friar, upon the announcement, is required to give a short paper to the audience and fellow Friars. 

This morning in Arlington, Virginia, the 74th Consistory of the Society was convened by Grand Abbott, S. Brent Morris, who named Brother Josef Wäges of Fate, Texas as the 108th Blue Friar. 

Josef is the co-author of The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Ritual and Doctrines of the Illuminati (2015), and he is a dedicated and careful scholar and researcher.

His presentation today was on Etienne (Stephen) Morin and an obscure 1764 manuscript of ritual from Santo Domingo, known in some circles as the Baylot Manuscript. Morin was a French dignitary in the Caribbean who was responsible for the early spread of Masonic degrees of the Order of the Royal Secret (later the Rite of Perfection) between 1763 and 1771. These would become the foundation of what we know today as the Scottish Rite. The rough and hard to read Santo Domingo Manuscript comes from the French Masonic archives of Jean Baylot in Paris' Bibliothèque Nationale, and predates the far more famous Francken Manuscript by almost twenty years.

Congratulations to Josef for this honor and recognition of his scholarship and talents. I'm looking forward to his rumored new project later this year.

Following the presentation, the fellow Friars who are in attendance always gather for lunch. To my great bewilderment, I was accorded the honor of being named Friar No. 101 in 2012. I was unable to attend Masonic Week again this year, but Brother Shawn Eyer (Friar No. 102) posted a photo on his Facebook page of the assembled authors today.

LtoR: Robert G. Davis (103), S. Brent Morris (83), Arturo De Hoyos (88), Mark A. Tabbert (95), 

Richard E. Fletcher (81), Thomas Jackson (93), Josef Wäges (108), Shawn Eyer (102).

 

UGLE Responds To Attacks In 'The Guardian'

(Please see updates at the end of this post, as they are ongoing.)

On Sunday and Monday of this week, The Guardian in England published a total of FIVE inflammatory and discriminatory articles taking swipes or downright smearing Freemasonry with a variety of false or inaccurate articles and editorials. I recapped them HERE.

Fortunately, attitudes about these kinds of press attacks have taken a dramatic change over at Great Queen Street in London. Dr. David Staples, the recently named Chief Operating Officer for the United Grand Lodge of England, has been extremely proactive in answering these types of hit pieces. And whether the news outlet prints them or not, he's posting them on the UGLE's website as well, so they can be searched and accessed in their entirety. His most recent letter to the Guardian can be seen HERE.

It reads in part:

The existence of the two lodges in question is not secret, they don't operate at Westminster and they don't have MPs or journalists in their respective memberships.
ln particular: 

1. The article claimed that "Two Freemasons' lodges set up for members of parliament and political journalists are continuing to operate secretly at Westminster". This is inaccurate. The Lodges do not operate at Westminster and only meet in Camden at Freemasons' Hall. 
2. The article stated "Exclusive: Lodges for MPs and journalists are so covert even lobby reporters do not know members". The Lodges in the article do not have any MPs or journalists as members. 
3. The Lodges are not secret. Their meeting place is open to the public all year and their meeting dates are published in the United Grand Lodge of Englanddirectory of Lodges and Chapters available for the public to buy from most Masonic retailers. Details of the founding of the New Welcome Lodge were published in the press including in the Daily Telegraph. The New Welcome Lodge and Gallery Lodge are referred to in Hansard and have had Wikipedia pages for 12 years. Both Lodges feature in publicly available academic articles (on Researchgate, among other resources) and press. A detailed history of Gallery Lodge, together with its past and present members, was published in 1968. lt is wilfully misleading for the Guardian to state that the Lodges operate secretly or to imply that their existence is "secret" or "covert". 
4. The article claimed that "The New Welcome Lodge has about 30 to 40 members ... only about four of the current members are MPs". This is fictitious, as anybody connected with the Lodge would know. New Welcome Lodge only has 22 members. There are no current MPs who are members of New Welcome Lodge. 

We provided extensive information and quotes to Ian Cobain in answer to his questions about Freemasonry and he used this information in other contemporaneous articles about Freemasonry. He chose not to ask us about New Welcome Lodge and appears to have ignored all of the widely published and available information about it and Gallery Lodge. He did not provide us with any opportunity to correct the errors in his article. Instead, inaccurate information has been published to create a misleading impression of Freemasonry. The reader is deliberately left to infer that journalists and MPs meet in secret at Westminster as Freemasons, which is untrue and which the author must have known or suspected to be untrue. There is no evidence for, or truth in, these inferences in the article about Freemasonry. 

By publishing inaccuracies which foster and promote popular prejudices against Freemasonry concerning corruption, power and control, the article damaged the reputation of the United Grand Lodge of England as a membership organisation and encouraged further discrimination against individual Freemasons.
We request that you publish a retraction of the article in an agreed form which confirms that journalists and MPs don't meet in secret at Westminster as Freemasons. We also request that you publish an apology to Freemasons for misleading the public about the nature of Freemasonry. 

Yours faithfully,
Dr David Staples
CEO
For and on behalf of
The United Grand Lodge of England

While something tells me The Guardian has zero intention of printing it, retracting their stories, or issuing apologies or corrections, it is long past time that damaging and idiotic articles like these this week be called out for the deliberate hit pieces they are. Bravo to Dr. Staples for taking the bull by the horns at long last and confronting them.

---

UPDATE 2/8/2018:

Obviously knowing full well that any news outlet would do no more than selectively quote any letter or press release, the UGLE followed up their letter to the Guardian and other news outlets with full page advertisements in the Telegraph, the Times and other major papers in England, declaring 'Enough Is Enough.' That got enough attention to then create its own news, and the Guardian, the Telegraph, BBC, and others have all been covering it today. Of course, après nous le déluge: the nutters poured out of the woodwork on any site that permitted comments, and the anonymous anecdotes of "my old man was passed over for a job by the bloody Masons until he faked the handshake" have been running non-stop, along with the usual allegations of Satan worship, snippets of ritual, false connections with the P2 crap, et al. I suspect it's all getting more coverage than the 300th anniversary did over there. 

Of course, no one doing all of this anti-Masonic pontificating and accusing has any idea what they're talking about (Editorialist Dawn Foster in her Guardian piece sneeringly asked “Masons, tell me this: if you truly huddle in secret to no malign end and with no professed benefit unavailable elsewhere, what is the point?”). They don't know because they've never bothered to actually speak to a Freemason or read anything that wasn't an accusatory hit job. 

They don't seem to understand how or why anyone on this Earth would want a private sanctuary away from the shrill shrieks and endless caterwaul of the outside world, where members can share their experiences, anecdotes, triumphs, failures, and everything else among their brothers who will pass no judgement upon them and will treat a complete stranger from the other side of the world as a lifelong friend, simply because of what they share in common. 

Nor do our detractors ever seem to understand that Masonic "secrecy" is nothing more than a symbol, just like everything else we do in the lodge. A symbol of something sorely lacking in the world anymore: honor.

*sigh*

I have this book...

Click the image to enlarge:

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UPDATE 2/8/2010:

Guardian's Dawn Foster and UGLE's David Staples squared off this morning on 'BBC Breakfast.' If you have UK access to the BBC iPlayer, you can see it HERE. It begins at about 1:37:45. If you are on Facebook, the isolated segment can be seen HERE.

He appeared again this afternoon on BBC's 'Afternoon Live' in a balanced interview.

Robert Lomas (author of The Hiram Key and many other books about the fraternity) weighed in with a lengthy and generally well written response on The Telegraph website (apart from a few questionable historical claims). See 'I’m a Freemason, and the discrimination against us has to stop.'

And in the spirit of the age in which we live, Masons in England have been circulating the hashtag #EnoughIsEnough with the following Tweet:

Today we say #EnoughisEnough. We've taken out full-page adverts in @guardian, @Telegraph & @thetimes to address recent disgraceful & misleading articles in The Guardian. Read the full advert here → https://t.co/EZyT7mcbUR & share your support by retweeting us 🔄 #Freemasons pic.twitter.com/Z3yTnn91Ft

— UGLE – Grand Lodge (@UGLE_GrandLodge) February 8, 2018

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UPDATE 2/9/2018

SkyNews interview debate from Thursday with The Guardian's Dawn H. Foster and Dr. David Staples:

Take special notice of how obsessed both the interviewer and Foster are over attempting to goad Staples into revealing "the handshake." It's a thread that runs through English journalism whenever Freemasonry comes up as a topic. It's a pathetic demonstration of just how foreign the concept is in society anymore of something that used to be the most important thing a man could be known for: his honor. If a man can't be trusted to keep his word about something as insignificant as a grip or a sign or a password, then he's just plain and simple not a trustworthy man. Period. 

Honor means that, even if all of those 'secrets' are available online, or in books, or in The Guardian, a Mason will simply say, "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you, because I gave my word." A man's word used to mean something, and in this fraternity it still does—at least, if you're doing it right. Masonic secrecy is a lesson, nothing more.

Note also the other obsession, that of demanding the grand lodge turn over it's membership lists and making them public. The tone deafness is astonishing, because the justification for that demand is so that the press and the public can run anyone out of their job based upon that very membership in Masonry. "Tell us who they are," goes the chant, "because members of what we consider to be a secret society shouldn't be in a position of power!" Obviously Ms. Foster doesn't remember the bloody history of persecution in England against members of her own church for being "secret papists." So there's no reason why she should know that the Freemasons were the first social organization in England that specifically did not discriminate against religious faiths among their members.

As Dr. Staples quite rightly said, "The trouble about Freemasonry is that, if you want a medical opinion, you go and ask a doctor. If you want to know about how to build a building, you go and ask an architect. But if you want to know about Freemasonry, you ask absolutely everybody but a Freemason."

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UPDATE 2/10/2018

Following The Guardian's publication of their anti-Masonic stories last Sunday, a digested version of the article, "Two Freemasons Lodges Operating Secretly at Westminster" began making the rounds of other news sites via a syndication service called Press Association (similar to the Associated Press here). The story was picked up by an increasing number of papers and websites throughout England, the wider United Kingdom, and even outside of the Commonwealth. I even had it pop up on a small town Ohio newspaper site in mid-week.

Continuing its campaign to finally fight back against spurious claims, the UGLE's communicatons office subsequently filed an official grievance with the Complaints Committee of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). IPSO is a self-governing editorial body within England comprised of both major and minor news outlets, and anyone may lodge a complaint over inaccuracies found in news stories. All of their members voluntarily subscribe to the IPSO Editorial Code, and if the investigators discover that inaccuracies have indeed been published by one of their papers or sites, or discovers a breach of the Code, the publication is expected to remove the story, print a correction or retraction or clarification, or issue a public or private letter of apology. Further, the IPSO committee can demand the exact placement and type of correction or apology, if it comes to that.

As a result of the filing, England's Mirror.co.uk (also known as The Daily Mirror) removed their online version of the Press Association article on Friday. The Guardian and other sites circulating the story have not yet responded, but the UGLE issued a statement thanking the Mirror for their quick action. It's a strange turn of events when a tabloid like The Mirror has higher standards than The Guardian. or maybe it's not.

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UPDATE 2/12/2018:

This morning, the Belfast Telegraph's editorial regular, Ruth Dudley Edwards, weighed in on the furor ginned up down in London. She had a very, very different take on Freemasons than The Guardian's Dawn Foster. In fact, she was well acquainted with Ms. Foster from a prior confrontation. Needless to say, Edwards was not impressed. 

From "Freemasons do a lot of good and no harm... why can't the 'progressives' let them be?"

The obsessively progressive Guardian newspaper has it in for the Freemasons. The most recent assault was precipitated by shock-horror revelations - as discussed by deeply concerned columnist Dawn Foster - "of two lodges within the Palace of Westminster: one incorporating members of parliament and staff in the Commons and Lords, and the second comprising political journalists".

This was, of course, all about power and the "stench of privilege". 

I wasn't surprised Ms Foster was both hostile and ill-informed. 

I was on Sky TV with her last year to discuss the DUP and she seemed to know nothing positive about the party; her major contribution was to say it was "backward".

In her list of things that she thought wrong with the masons, one was that she was unlikely to be let into the organisation as her Catholicism would be unacceptable to most lodges.
If she had bothered to spend two minutes Googling, she'd know that the Freemasons admit anyone who believes in a supreme being, including Catholics, Jews, Hindus and Muslims.
She did at least admit that there were a small number of female Freemasons while grumbling that there were so few and they were in separate lodges.

But men and women often bond in very different ways.

Whatever they did, it was clear that, to Ms Foster, the masons were clearly up to no good, so she suggested that unless they made their membership lists public they should be banned from public service.

For, as she concluded: "If you truly huddle in secret to no malign end and with no professed benefit unavailable elsewhere, what is the point?"

Growing up in Dublin I was exposed to various mad stories about the world being ruled by a secret conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons led by Prince Philip and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.

Being intellectually inclined to believe in the cock-up rather the conspiracy theory of history, I was sceptical.

But of course secrecy is intriguing.

When I worked in the Civil Service I had a colleague who one day mentioned that he was off to a masonic meeting. I plied him with questions, and he was most obliging.

[snip]

With the masons having had 200,000 murdered by the Nazis, and being subject to a great deal of ill-informed prejudice, while most are open about it, some fear that their careers will suffer if they declare themselves. 

Which is presumably why it turns out that the sinister Westminster lodges (which have websites and meet in Camden) contain neither MPs nor journalists. 

Both male and female masonic organisations have cooperated with behind-the-scenes documentaries, but they hold back on describing every aspect of the ritual.
Why shouldn't they?

Look, like the loyal orders, the masons are egalitarian, mainly attract decent people who like socialising privately with people of the same gender and enjoy the little bit of magic that comes from ceremonies, rituals and what others think are funny clothes. They are encouraged to be good and useful: last year the United Grand Lodge of England contributed £33 million to charity.

I value the right of people to gather freely and am sick and tired of hectoring feminists condemning what they don't understand. 

Rituals do nothing for me, so I'd never become a mason. 

But I'd rather spend an evening with them any time than with the self-righteous, consciously "progressive" bigots who are destroying feminism.

And then there is this letter in The Telegraph from Christine Chapman, the female Grand Master of the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons. It seems that Ms. Foster just keeps stepping in where she's not wanted.

Christopher W. Kimmel, Requiescat In Pace

"How can I help?" asked the voice at the other end of the phone that particular evening. 

It was my longtime friend and Brother, Chris Kimmel, phoning from down in Vincennes. I had just posted a Facebook message expressing terror over the onrushing deadline for the new book. I had saved the creation of a vital, yet annoying, massive appendix of reference tables as my very last task after two years. But time was running out, and I had no idea how to do it myself. As usual, I had shot off my mouth and pretended I could do it all myself before I realized just how daunting a task it would be. Worse, the manuscript was going to be sent off to the printer in such a hurry that there was no time for a final edit by a disinterested, independent reader. The deadline was carved in stone, it couldn't be missed, and I was screwed.

Chris listened as I ranted in my usual, amped-up, 'catastrophe' voice reserved for these last-minute, self-inflicted...well...catastrophes. 

"Just send me all your files. It's handled," he said calmly. 

And sure enough, it was. Chris created the lists for me in a matter of days. Then he speed-read the rest of the manuscript, and sent along corrections or notations throughout the day and night as he finished each chapter. Because that's what Chris Kimmel did. He always asked, "How can I help," and then he just handled things calmly, quietly. Chris contributed, participated, volunteered, followed, led, organized, or just plain showed up for the entire time I've known him. 

Chris died on Saturday. He was just 52. His incredible wife Toni posted a simple announcement on Facebook a few hours after he passed away. 

And I don't know what the hell all of us will do without him now, because men like Chris don't come along very often.

His obituary appeared Sunday evening, and I reprint it here, just so you can get an inkling of what he accomplished in his lifetime:

Christopher W. Kimmel, 52, of Vincennes, passed away February 3, 2018, at Good Samaritan Hospital.

Chris was a member of Vincennes Masonic Lodge #1, and the First United Methodist Church. A former president of the Vincennes Jaycees Club, he had received a national Jaycees award for his work as vice-president. He was a Red Cross volunteer. Chris was a Phi Betta Kappa graduate of Ball State University, and was close to receiving his master’s degree there. A 1984 graduate of Lincoln High School, he also graduated from Vincennes University. He was currently working as a video research specialist, and had worked in several areas related to computer science.

Chris was Past Grand Director General of the Yeomen of York, a Past Master of Vincennes Lodge No. 1; of Oaktown Lodge before it merged into Vincennes Lodge; and of the Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research UD. He received the Order of Service to Masonry, primarily for his masterful work chairing the planning of the 2009 bicentennial celebration of the chartering of Vincennes Lodge No. 1, was active in the Masonic Library and Museum of Indiana, and was a frequent contributor to the Indiana Freemason. He also chaired the Grand Lodge Masonic Education Committee.

A member of Vincennes York Rite bodies, Kimmel was a Knight of the York Cross of Honor, was a past governor of Banks of the Wabash York Rite College in Terre Haute and held the Order of the Purple Cross, and was a member of St. Cyril Conclave, Red Cross of Constantine, in Evansville, and a Past Director General of Terre Haute Preceptory No. 6, Yeomen of York. He was also an Eagle Scout, was a Brotherhood member of the Order of the Arrow, Scouting’s national honor society, and had completed the Wood Badge, Boy Scouting’s paramount adult leadership course.

Kimmel was also a past Sovereign Master of Edward C. Echison Council No. 326 Allied Masonic Degrees and had acted for years as its Director of Work. It was he who changed the council’s annual degree day from the straight portrayal of one of AMD’s antique degrees to an ongoing analysis of the degree and of the Masonic world and the world in general in which the degree was written.

Born January 21, 1966, in Olney, IL, he was the son of Wayne and Pam (Stover) Kimmel. Surviving is his wife, Toni (Eagleson) Kimmel; his mother, Pam Corrona and her husband, John, of Vincennes; his father, Wayne Kimmel and his wife, Bridget of Vincennes; his step-sister, Dina Madden and her husband, Mark, of Seymour, IN; his step-brother, Phil Corrona and his wife, Suzanne, of Vincennes; his father and mother-in-law, Joe and Judy Eagleson of Vincennes; and his nieces and nephews. A brother, Gregory Eric Kimmel, preceded Chris.

Friends may visit with Chris’s family from 3:00 – 8:00 on Tuesday, and from 9:30 – 10:30 on Wednesday, at Goodwin Funeral Home, 524 Broadway Street, Vincennes, Indiana. A Masonic Memorial Service will be held at 7:00 PM on Tuesday. The funeral service will be conducted at 10:30 Wednesday at the funeral home. Interment will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery.

Donations may be made to Vincennes Masonic Lodge #1 or to the Vincennes area Boy Scouts.

The Masonic service is Tuesday night, and his funeral will be Wednesday.

The part left out of that obituary is the part Chris never talked about. If you knew him and Toni in person, you didn't have to ask. But if you only were acquainted with him online, there's no reason you would have known.

Chris had been confined to a wheelchair ever since a tragic accident paralyzed him as a teenager. His range of mobility was extraordinarily limited; he could type using a mouth stick, and he could use the toggle control for his power wheelchair. A handshake was more of a knuckle bump than a clasp. He was a terrific ritualist because he understood the meaning behind words, even if he was only speaking softly, which was usual for him (unless he was shouting from across the Cathedral at Grand Lodge, "Grand Master! Point of order!" or tearing apart some legislation's inexactitude). He was brilliant, funny, intuitive, insightful. And prolific with just that damned mouth stick. He could even turn out a set of detailed organizational by-laws for you in no time flat.

Yet, even though I knew he suffered tremendous chronic pain, I never heard him complain in public. Even privately, he despised talking about his health—to the point that he never wanted anyone to know when he was hospitalized, unless it was to explain his absence from an event. But with Toni by his side—or several close, trusted Brethren who helped when Toni couldn't be there—he accomplished so much that the rest of us should be humbled. Probably even ashamed of ourselves. Because that list up there, and everything else he did that doesn't appear on it, reads more like the work of several people.

When Chris petitioned to join Vincennes Lodge No. 1 back in 2000, they requested the help of our unique Bartimaeus Lodge U.D. here in Indiana. That special purpose lodge, which was started way back in 1961, was created specifically to assist candidates who are handicapped to experience the degrees of Masonry as closely and as properly as their abilities will permit. The lodge is named after the blind beggar whose sight was restored by Jesus on the road to Jericho, as told in the Book of the Apostle Mark. Chris' passing this weekend reminds me to tell the story of that lodge more fully, sooner rather than later. I'll do that this week. 

But the problem for Chris was that Bartimaeus Lodge was taking too long between his degrees, in Chris' estimation. He was driven to experience, and advance, and excel, even before he was a full member of the fraternity. Consequently (just as I did myself), he pressed to be sent to a one-day class for his Fellow Craft and Master Mason degrees, "even though I hate the idea of them." That was Chris, and he was always frustrated when others couldn't keep up with him. He was always a fighter for higher, better standards in everything, because he met those standards for himself first. And he was always, always a stickler for attention to detail. Because of that, he was the world's best fact-checker, and he was a dogged researcher who wanted to know more.

My heart goes out to Toni, who has spent so much of her life devoted to caring for Chris and making so much of what he was able to do possible in the first place. She saw him through so much adversity and triumph, and everything in between that no one else could even know. More than a few brethren only half-joked that Toni should have been named as an honorary Mason so she could have been Chris' Senior Warden for those years he served as Master of Vincennes, Oaktown, and then Dwight L. Smith lodges. Or maybe Secretary, since we all know that Secretaries really run any lodge. 

And Chris' parents still survive him. That obituary doesn't tell that story in full either, but no parents should ever have to bury their own children. Yet, Pam and Wayne have lost both of their sons now. I can't even imagine that.

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote, "I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death." I don't know if Chris ever encountered that quote in his lifetime, but he certainly lived by that credo.

There are photos of Chris posing with brethren over the years that others have taken, and he was an avid Facebook poster, too. But he didn't post pictures of himself. In fact, the usual image he used as his onscreen persona was his old high school graduation photograph. So, despite the photos I have of him with the Indiana Order of Service to Masonry around his neck, or his Master's jewel, or in other fraternal settings we've all known him from, I'm using the one he seemed to prefer. The hair was longer back then, a bit curlier, too. Maybe darker.

But that's Chris.

His column has long been broken, but it has fallen to the ground at last. And his brethren mourn.

Shocked! 'Guardian' Discovers Freemasons In The Pressrooms... Just Not Theirs

Not one, not two, but THREE articles were posted on the UK-based Guardian website Sunday obsessing about Freemasonry. Just as you'd guess they would, they managed to jam in a reference to handshakes AND "rolled up trouser legs," along with rattling Roberto Calvi's mouldering bones from 36 years ago as part of their very deep background. Even the aging Martin Short got dragged out of retirement as the late anti-Masonic wingnut Stephen Knight's intrepid standard-bearer once again. 

It was like a trip down memory lane, analagous to listening to a radio station replaying nothing but old Peter Noone singles—the journalism equivalent of the brain cell-destroying guitar riff in 'Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter.' It would merely be tiresome if it weren't for the insidious repetitiveness of it.

No surprise, really, as all three pieces were authored by the same Guardian reporter, Ian Cobain. Here's a sampling, but follow the links for the full effect.

The first was a heart attack-inducing, stop-the-presses revelation that there are affinity lodges in London that MIGHT have Westminster politicians and (unbelievably) fellow news reporters "handshaking" each other as members:

Two Freemasons' lodges operating secretly at Westminster

Two Freemasons’ lodges set up for members of parliament and political journalists are continuing to operate secretly at Westminster, the Guardian has learned.

New Welcome Lodge, which recruits MPs, peers and parliamentary staff, and Gallery Lodge, established for members of the political press corps known as the lobby, both remain active, according to Freemasonry records.

A third lodge called the Alfred Robbins Lodge, which was also set up for journalists, also continues to meet regularly in London.

The identities of the members of these three lodges remain unknown outside the world of Freemasonry, however, and so discreet are the members of Gallery Lodge that few journalists working in the lobby appear to be aware of its existence...

[snip]

The Guardian understands past members of Gallery Lodge have included former journalists at the Times, the Daily Express, the Scotsman, and several Hansard reporters...

One gets the very peculiar feeling that what really irked Cobain was that there weren't any Guardian members he could discover as members of those lodges (or who would admit it to him, at least, because why would they?). It reads like the unfilmed introduction to the old Monty Python 'Architect' sketch. ("And your bleeding Masonic handshakes! You wouldn't let me join would you, ya black-balling bastards?!...Oh please, if you could put in a word for me, I'd love to be a Freemason!...I've got a second-hand apron...I nearly got in at Hendon..."). 

I don't know myself, but perhaps it's just because that particular lodge's members who are journalists don't regard The Guardian as journalism. But I digress.

But don't miss the billboarded "Guardian Graphic" illustration of the "secret handshake." This keeps poor anti-Masons up all night long in cold sweats just contemplating it, so they take opportunities just like this to "expose the secret" with the same sort of childlike glee a three year old has when he discovers he can make a fart noise with his tongue to annoy the adults.

Then there's this next gem:

Integrity or influence? Inside the world of modern Freemasons

The secret society is still pretty secret, and recent claims have reawakened long-held suspicions over its influence in public life.

[snip] 

The often-repeated message has been that Freemasonry in the 21st century should not be seen as a mysterious and clandestine affair. The unspoken message has been that the wider public has nothing to fear.

Then on New Year’s Eve, the outgoing chair of the Police Federation, Steve White, tossed a hand grenade into this carefully crafted reputation management operation, with an allegation that Freemasons were blocking reforms in policing and thwarting the progress of women and officers from black and minority ethnic communities.

“The people who blocked progress at the Police Federation were all masons,” he said. “And they were all a pain in the arse.”

On reading the interview with White, many people who had not given Freemasonry a moment’s thought for many years immediately recalled the enormous suspicion surrounding the organisation during the 80s and 90s...

Only because bird cage liner rag sheets like The Guardian made sure to remind them of paranoid, unproved ALLEGATIONS from 30 or more years ago that countless expensive investigations failed to substantiate in any way. And that the FORMER head of the Police Federation on his way out the door this year decided to blame "secret" Freemasons, of all things, in his own organization's ranks for giving him the Order of the Boot. And certainly not through any failure on his own part.

Finally, there was this third little entry that is apparently intended as a very brief guide.

Freemasonry explained: a guide to the secretive society

During some periods of history, Freemasons have been persecuted – by the Nazis, for example – and have needed to go underground to survive. But there are persistent suspicions that Freemasons also remain secretive in order to conceal the way in which they can assist each other in business and the workplace.

Is there any substance to these claims?

Such rumours are very rarely substantiated, and masons are expected to swear an oath that they will not be involved in “any act that may have a tendency to subvert the peace and good order of society, by paying due obedience to the laws of any state”. But parliament’s home affairs select committee heard that in 1995, the Lancashire police authority was obliged to pay £70,000 to a father and son who were assaulted and then arrested and prosecuted after stumbling on a masonic dinner being hosted by a lodge dominated by police officers. The committee heard that a police officer who investigated the fracas was a mason, as was the manager of the hotel where the dinner took place...

No details, or even a link to that story from 23 years ago, of course. No explanations as to why the two men were assaulted or arrested, what did or did not transpire, and no certainly acknowledgement that ANY organization can have jackasses in it, regardless of its lofty stated goals. 

Why, even a news organization can be susceptible.

It's been standard procedure in the UK press for three decades now to gleefully tout when a miscreant, misbehaver, or criminal happens to be a Freemason, that becomes the headline. Not whether he's a Manchester United fan, or a stamp collector, or a front pew-sitter in the local Anglican church, or a member of the Communist Party of England. No, it's only someone's Masonic membership that gets trotted out and brandished like a clap-trap reprise in a bad music hall act.

Longtime UGLE Director of Communications John Hamill wrote a very long description of the post-1984 open attacks against Freemasonry back in 2000 (read it HERE), and details the sort of discrimination against the hiring of Masons that went on back then. This is exactly the sort of thing that The Guardian and many others seem to want to return to once again.

A decade of Mason hunting by the Home Secretary Jack Straw went down in flames in 2009 when the European Court of Human Rights declared the singling out of Freemasonry for public excoriation without proof to be in violation of EU laws. England was forced to finally drop their regulations that demanded all members of the police and judiciary publicly reveal their Masonic memberships simply because of the PERCEPTION of POTENTIAL wrongdoing. The Guardian knows this, since they themselves printed the story.

For as long as I've been reading stories like this there has been a strange dichotomy in the anti-Masonic tactics used by the English press. On the one hand, the Freemasons are continually brayed about as being dangerous, "dodgy," too influential, too "secretive," and in general, constantly covering up for members' bad behavior. Of course, you would be damned secretive too, if the hostile and sensationalistic press had turned public opinion so deliberately against you that just acknowledging your membership could endanger your job, your friendships, or your public reputation simply because of the imaginary horrors outsiders have created. Yet on the other hand, the press there goes on and on about how anachronistic, archaic, un-prestigious, useless, and downright silly the fraternity is these days, and how much membership in England has plummeted (a situation the press has openly helped to stoke themselves).

They can't have it both ways. Either we're all-powerful and nefarious, or we're useless and impotent. Which is it?  Because the simple truth—that Freemasonry is exactly what it has always claimed to be all along—just doesn't sell newspapers or even make good click-bait.

In other European news, the Italians are ramping up their anti-Masonic auto-da-fé hearings, once again trotting out their own favorite claim, that Masonic lodges are really just safe-spaces for Mafiosi. 

There must be an election coming soon. 

But that's another post for another day.

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UPDATE

Oh come now. A FOURTH sniping Masonic article in the Guardian in just two days?

Is there a secret Freemasons' lodge in your workplace? Quiz

They're seriously taking on the characteristics of a teenaged stalker at this point. I just hope no one took actual money for this last one. That would be theft.

And meanwhile, in classic circular-citing fashion, The Independent, Vice.com, and SputnikNews.com are now reporting what The Guardian is reporting about the Freemasons...

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UPDATE 2/6/2018

Aaaaaand a FIFTH one on the second day, this one an editorial. And a damned ignorant and ill-informed one, by a female and a Catholic to boot, who quite openly declares that she therefore has TWO major chips on her shoulder. 

Secret Freemasons should have no place in public life by Dawn Foster

Because 'freedom of association' for everyone but not for the bloody Masons, apparently. (By the way, she seems to think that being a Catholic would be an immediate disqualifier for lodge membership. The lodge would be unlikely to blackball a Catholic petitioner. She has things 180° backwards, I'm afraid. It is her own Church that would object to Masonic membership, NOT the other way round. Pesky details, I know. Who cares when a juicy accusation is at stake?)

Once again, dragging up ancient allegations and hearsay from decades ago when the UGLE had 350,000 members and nearly 10,000 lodges. They were inflated INCREDIBLY out of proportion ("Well, the fellow's whole body language changed after I gave him the handshake...") and made sensational and even scandalous in their time by the press, and now get dusted off as fresh fodder for these retreads. 

The Guardian has decided to go all in on Mason bashing this week. And no wonder—they've started opening up articles on their websites for comments recently, and the Mason-related ones in the last two days have gotten hundreds of posted comments in response. Of course, the UGLE's millions and millions of pounds raised for public charities never come up in these hit pieces, unless as a casual aside (and usually immediately followed by a "But critics say...") then the smacks continue.

Fortunately, attitudes about these kinds of press attacks have taken a dramatic change over at Great Queen Street. Dr. David Staples, the recently named Chief Operating Officer for the United Grand Lodge of England has been extremely proactive in answering these stories. And whether the news outlet prints them or not, he's posting them on the UGLE's website as well, so they can be searched and accessed in their entirety. His most recent letter to the Guardian can be seen HERE.

Secretary Of Historic Alabama Lodge Arrested For Arson And Theft

Freemasonry first came officially into the state of Alabama just as it did in Indiana - with a lodge chartered by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, in 1811—one of what would eventually be nine states that Kentucky established lodges in as the country expanded westward. That first Alabama lodge (prior to statehood) was Kentucky's Madison Lodge 11 in Twickenham, a settlement that would eventually grow and turn into Huntsville. After statehood was granted to Alabama in 1819, Madison Lodge and two more lodges previously chartered by Tennessee all combined to become Huntsville's Helion Lodge No. 1 under the new Grand Lodge of Alabama. 

Helion Lodge still thrives today, just shy of its 200th anniversary, in their historic 1917 temple building, Eunomia Hall. Today, it is home to York Rite bodies and youth groups. Or it was until about a month ago.

Early this year, Eunomia Hall had a very close call. On January 6th, a fire was discovered burning in the office of the building. Fortunately, a Rainbow International event was scheduled for the afternoon, and one of their advisors entered the building. She smelled smoke and immediately called firefighters, who rescued books and records from the office and put out the flames before they could spread to the rest of the irreplaceable building. Eunomia Hall was saved, but is heavily smoke and fire damaged, and they are currently holding their meetings at another local lodge while repairs are being carried out.

Investigators quickly determined that the fire was no accident and had been deliberately set. The biggest clue in the case had to do with where the fire started and what was burned: the recent paper financial records and receipts of the lodge. 

Subsequently, Chad Evers Rodriguez, 39, was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree arson and theft by deception (stolen property, wire fraud). Rodriguez had been the lodge Secretary since 2015, and a substantial amount of the lodge's financial assets are missing and unaccounted for. Lodge members had been questioning Rodriguez about unusually expensive invoices in recent weeks, and the fire would have destroyed any financial trail.

As John Wooden once wrote, “The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.” The overwhelming majority of us who have been elected as Secretaries and Treasurers would rather take a harpoon to the gut than cheat, wrong, or defraud the members of the organizations that trust us with their treasuries. But proper lodge management can be time consuming and tedious. It is sometimes tempting to cut corners when it comes to accurate record keeping between the Secretary and Treasurer — I know, I've been guilty of some of it myself over the years. 

Pre-signing two-signature checks, or just letting the Secretary handle opening and paying the bills, or scanning over a list of warrant totals instead of the actual invoices for a few seconds while a stated meeting is being opened, or never seeing anything besides a Quicken monthly recapitulation or summary, and much more can so easily become "the usual way we do it here." The age of debit cards, online bill paying, paperless invoicing, and all of those time saving things that vendors and suppliers and banks want us to eagerly sign up for make modern lodge management even more fraught with potential sloppiness. And every once in a great while, sloppiness can lead to temptation for someone with less than pure motives, or with personal issues. 

That's why it's our job to be our Brother's keeper, to take an interest in every one of our members, to pay attention to what's happening in his life, and help him before a problem becomes too big for him to handle. Or becomes a lodge problem.

Proper oversight of lodge finances by our own membership should be welcomed and encouraged at all times. Every Secretary and Treasurer should make it a reflex action to conclude their monthly reports with the phrase, "As always, my books and records are available at any time for complete inspection, should anyone wish to do so." They shouldn't be offended when somebody actually takes them up on that pledge, either. And every lodge needs to have a serious, annual, line-item audit of its financial records, by either qualified members of the lodge (and not the same faces every year), or better still, by an outside, independent accountant. A lodge needs to be run every bit as responsibly as any business, and rank and file members are the best check and balance against error. Or temptation. That's also why we have TWO officers through whom lodge finances pass, instead of just a combined Secretary/Treasurer.

A crusty Secretary or Treasurer who's been doing things the same way for 10 years might at first take offense at suddenly having his methods questioned. That's human nature. But use your best sense of tactfulness and explain that you're asking because you are trying to take an active interest in the well-being of the lodge. Explain it's as much for HIS protection as anything else, especially since the whiz-bang internet world of bill paying keeps demanding less and less oversight and care every year.

Meanwhile, when a Brother is having problems at home or in his business or is suddenly doing something unusual that seems out of character, take an immediate interest. That's what this whole tree fort is supposed to be about in the first place.

Lodge photos by Steve McGlocklin

'Masonic Illuminati' Charade Backfires on Rihanna in Senegal

Back in 2009, my book inadvertently caused some trouble for the then Prime Minister of the African nation of Senegal, Mackey Sall. Senegal is overwhelmingly an Islamic nation (about 90% of the population), and it seems some sharp-eyed squealer caught Sall on a flight home from Europe actually reading a copy of the French version of Freemasons For Dummies (La Franc-maçonnerie pour les Nuls). It was hard to hide with that yellow cover with the big square and compass on it, and apparently he didn't get the memo cautioning him to rip the cover off to avoid public embarrassment. Apparently, when he got home, the press swarmed him and accused him of secretly being a Freemason. I guess things got uncomfortable for a while over it (see "'Freemasons For Dummies' Creates Trouble For Senegal's Prime Minister"). 

At about that same time, anti-Masonic feeling was running particularly high in that nation (or perhaps it doesn't ever really ebb there), as there was also a brief firestorm when the country's then president Abdoulaye Wade was outed by Paris' l'Express magazine as a former Mason. Apparently it was one of those awkward "it was just that one time, you know, in college" moments, and he assured the population that he had resigned his Masonic membership way back in 1959, after failing to find "intellectual exchanges of a high level."

Have another pancake, Brother. Or crepe, as the case may have been.

Well, nine years later, Senegal still isn't over its obsessive dislike and distrust of Freemasons and Freemasonry. Or at least, there's a noisy clot of anti-Masons there still intent on keeping it an issue worth bleating about. Even if the subject of their ire has absolutely zero to do with the fraternity. 

There's been no shortage in recent years of some pop music stars and celebrity showboaters who have openly paraded Masonic symbols as jewelry, as imagery on their albums, their videos, or allusions in their lyrics. In conjunction with that, they frequently schmear Masonry and some imaginary modern day "Illuminati" together into one, big mélange of generic occult spookiness. The lingering image they try to project is that they might just be secret members of the shadowy Illuminati™ themselves, but it's a REALLY BIG secret, since everybody knows it. Alternately, other such celebs are just fine if they themselves don't create the rumors, but conspiracists or fans do instead, which lets them reap the rewards of association with creepy, all-powerful spookiness, without the bothersome trappings of actually keeping up the act themselves. And naturally, Freemasonry gets dragged into it all because it's an easy conscription of the brand.

Not long ago, the Beliefnet.com website listed "7 Celebrities Supposedly In the Illuminati," and Rihanna was last on their list (Jay Z and Beyonce seemed to be the first ones to glom on to this phenomenon, but they just led the pack):

Pop star, Rihanna is recognized by Illuminati conspirary theorists to be “The Illuminati Princess” pushing the Satanic agenda by actively promoting satantic and occult ideas and imagery in her music and videos since her musical career took off with ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’. As a protégé of Jay Z, it may not be surprising that people would see an even bigger connection with the Illuminati, given she didn’t get much traction until she switched her look up and began embracing these symbols.

Well, depending on the part of the world they're in, that little scheme of gleeful myth-making can occasionally backfire on such a public figure. This story appeared in yesterday's online version of The Guardian (which has had its own share of anti-Masonic jitters over the years). I post it here in its entirety, just so you can have the full effect:

Religious collective reheats conspiracy theories about Illuminati and Barbadian singer, who is due to visit on Friday
by Ruth Maclean in Dakar

Rihanna has been declared persona non grata by a group of religious organisations in Senegal, who accused the singer of intending to promote homosexuality in collusion with the Freemasons.

The Barbadian pop star is scheduled to attend a conference on eduction in the west African country on Friday alongside the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in her role as an ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education.
But an association of about 30 Islamic associations called 'No to Freemasonry and Homosexuality' have asked the government to cancel her visit.

“Rihanna doesn’t hide it: she’s part of the Illuminati, a branch of Freemasons,” Cheikh Oumar Diagne, a spokesman, told Jeune Afrique, seeming to have picked up on online conspiracy theories about Rihanna’s beliefs.

The singer, Diagne said, was secretly attending a Freemasons’ conference that had been planned for exactly the same dates as the education [sic] one but was subsequently cancelled.

Religious organisations are powerful in Senegal, which is over 90% Muslim but is well known for being a tolerant country, where Muslims and Christians celebrate their festivals together.

The Global Partnership for Education is trying to raise funds for the education of the poorest, most vulnerable children in 65 countries. The GPE has an ambition to reach $2bn a year by 2020 and replicate the successes achieved in global health.

“We’re hoping that the conference marks the moment that momentum shifts globally on education and education financing,” Julia Gillard, the chair of the GPE board and Australia’s former prime minister, said before the meeting. “Over the last few years, there’s been growing global interest in education, particularly girls’ education, but financing hasn’t as yet followed. We need a step change.”

The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, is hosting the conference along with Macron, for whom the trip will be the sixth to Africa of his nine-month presidency. The interior minister, Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, told Jeune Afrique he would ensure the safety of all conference attendees.

Just as a footnote, notice that the aforementioned Mr. Sall has moved from his old job as Prime Minister and is the president of Senegal today. One wonders if he still has that old dogeared copy of La Franc-maçonnerie pour les Nuls tucked in the back of his closet. 

Hey, Bro. Throw up a sign.