Fifteen Years Ago

This is a difficult day for friends all over the country, but especially those who were in New York City and Washington D.C. now seemingly a lifetime ago. Some are sharing their own stories of where they were or who they lost. I have no story to share. Just another American who was driving alone in my company truck up a highway on my way to a job when the entire world suddenly changed at 8:46 AM on a Tuesday morning halfway across the country.

I have never forgotten a piece Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal a year after the Twin Towers were destroyed. It was called The Fall After Sept. 11, and her words have haunted me every year this terrible day rolls around:

"The other day I walked by Saint Vincent's Hospital in downtown Manhattan and thought, as I always do when I walk by: This is where they waited for the wounded. The interns and nurses waited outside right here with gurneys for patients who didn't come. Because so few people were "wounded." The three thousand were dead. What happened to them? They were exploded into air. They became a cloud. We breathed them in."

The stories today will all repeat the same dull statistic: "nearly 3000" died in all of the attacks that day, in New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville. The numbers were tallied, concentrating on New York, mostly because it was all so very televised, so endlessly replayable. Times of impact: 8:46 AM and 9:02 AM. Time the burning towers stood: 56 minutes and 102 minutes. Time they took to fall: 12 seconds. 2819 dead from 115 different nations. 343 Fireman/paramedics, 23 NYPD, 37 Port Authority officers. Official estimates of how many people leapt from the buildings vary from 50 to 200. That's just New York.

Numbers.

They weren't "nearly 3000."  Not numbers. They were 2,977 of our citizens and neighbors and friends and families, who got up on a boring Tuesday morning, got dressed and went to work, who were murdered by 19 methodical madmen. They all have names, and faces, and stories, and lives they touched in life and in death.

One of the most famous and horrific photos taken that day was of a man who jumped out of a window of the North Tower. An AP photographer captured forever his last moment as he hung suspended in mid-air, now for eternity. It's come to be called "The Falling Man." He was anonymous for many years, until the image was finally identified as being of Jonathon Briley, a 43-year-old man who worked in the Windows On the World restaurant at the top of the building. His sister Gwendolyn was interviewed after being told that the iconic image was of her brother. She said,

"I never thought of the Falling Man as Jonathan. I thought of him as a man that just took his life in his hands for just one second.

"Did that person have so much faith that he knew that God would catch him - or was he so afraid to experience the end?"

In 2010, Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife Jill spoke in New York City at Zuccotti Park. He read portions of the poem "The Builders" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

Amsterdam, NY Lodge Damaged By Car

Back in July, a Masonic lodge in South Carolina had an unwelcome visitor who installed a drive-thru entrance in their wall the hard way by crashing his car into their building following a high speed police chase.

Saturday afternoon, the brethren of the Amsterdam Masonic Center in Amsterdam, New York had a similar experience. albeit without the police chase.

From an article on the TimesUnion.com website:

An elderly woman lost control of her vehicle going down a hill the city on Saturday afternoon and it crashed into the Masonic Temple near Market and Division streets, police said. She was not seriously injured, officers said. 

The vehicle left a "huge hole" in the building, according to Sgt. Carl Rust. He said that the woman said she had lost control of her brakes. Pieces of the vehicle, including the bumper, were strewn along the path it took before hitting the building and the collision left it totaled.

Amsterdam Lodge No. 84 today is the result of consolidation of the former Artisian Lodge No. 84  and Welcome Lodge No. 829. The history of both earlier lodges can be found on Amsterdam No. 84's home page.

The End of 'The Living Stones'

In June of 2011, Brother Robert Herd and a handful of brethren embarked on a truly ambitious undertaking - the publication of a major, high quality, full color magazine dedicated to the subject of Freemasonry, and filled with original articles, photography and artwork - all amazingly published on a monthly basis. Outside of perhaps a handful of state and local, largely 'grip and grin' organs, and the notable exception of the Grand Commandary's Knight Templar Magazine, there is no other such major publication in the U.S. Even the Scottish Rite Journal and the NMJ's Northern Light do not attempt such a daunting schedule. And those three have tens of thousands of members supporting them. Robert's has been a private enterprise.

Sadly, the following message has just been posted on the Living Stones magazine website today:

Closing Our Doors 

Thank you to everyone who supported us for nearly 6 years as we strived to provide the best Masonic Magazine we could.  In the end we learned a lot of great Masonic education from so many around the world. 

We are no longer offering subscriptions or purchases. As we are closing our doors, we are only creating the few remaining issues to cover our obligation to current subsribers.  

Masonic history is littered with the fallen bodies of noble publications, some lasting only a few issues, others longer lived. Very, very few have survived for multiple decades (most notably The Philalethes magazine, and the MSA's much tinier but regular as clockwork Short Talk Bulletin in the U.S., and Quatuor Coronati's annual Ars Quatuor Coronatorum in the U.K. come to mind). Even the lionized National Masonic Research Society's The Builder lasted just fifteen years. Few have actually prospered, let alone retained a high standard of quality. 

It is a sad truth that the overwhelming majority of rank and file Freemasons just simply do not support them. 

In 1875, the prolific Albert Mackey opined in an essay,

The Mason, who reads, however little, if only the pages of the monthly magazine to which he subscribes, will entertain higher views of the Institution and enjoy new delights in the possession of these views. The Masons who do not read will know nothing of the interior beauties of Speculative Masonry, but will be content to suppose it to be something like Odd Fellowship, or the Order of the Knights of Pythias - only, perhaps, a little older. Such a Mason must be an indifferent one. He has laid no foundation for zeal.

If this indifference, instead of being checked, becomes more widely spread, the result is too apparent. Freemasonry must step down from the elevated position which she has been struggling, through the efforts of her scholars, to maintain, and our lodges, instead of becoming resorts for speculative and philosophical thought, will deteriorate into social clubs or mere benefit societies. With so many rivals in that field, her struggle for a prosperous life will be a hard one.

The ultimate success of Masonry depends on the intelligence of her disciples.

Now, it's entirely possible that Mackey was just simply bitching because no one bought his latest doorstop of a book. Masons certainly have snapped up works like Born In Blood, The Lost Symbol, The Hiram Key, and books labeled for Dummies and Complete Idiots. But Freemasonry has never required its members to be lettered scholars. The most unread book in Masonic history, Pike's Morals and Dogma, was given out for free by the Scottish Rite for over a century, and remained largely unviewed by its own members. Millions of our most talented, dedicated, brotherly, and competent leaders and workers in our quarries never picked up a Masonic book in their entire lifetimes. But there is nevertheless truth in what Mackey said. 

No one gets rich publishing Masonic works. The regular production of an independent Masonic publication of any kind must be a true labor of personal dedication and commitment, because it is usually doomed to struggle without the backing of a large, well financed organization like a grand lodge or national appendant body. This is true even with quarterly and annual ones, much less the harrowing task of achieving monthly status. Back when we started the Masonic Society in 2008, we knew that the principal and most high-visibility accomplishment would have to be the Journal, and just getting enough high quality submissions for a quarterly periodical - along with attracting enough members to support it - was going to be a supreme challenge from the start.

What Brother Herd and his regular and occasional authors and artists achieved has been nothing short of amazing. Just putting together a stack of original printed material on a monthly basis that was interesting, thought-provoking, and useful to Freemasons would have been enough of an accomplishment, and even a lousy magazine that looks professional and has its monthly pages filled still takes days of work just to assemble. But Robert's has been a beautiful product since the beginning, and always contained something original and compelling. His was indeed a noble effort and a laudable pursuit.

The header above the announcement seems to indicate that they will publish through June 2017 to satisfy the commitment to subscribers. It will be missed.


Requiescat In Pace

Freemasons, the Internet, and "Customer Service"

Be thankful for Masons who complain. You still have the opportunity to make them happy.

Brother Kyle Wahlquist is a Past Master of Hillcrest Lodge  No. 1318 in Dallas, Texas. He recently gave a presentation to the city-wide Masters, Wardens and Secretaries Association that was focused on promoting lodges online, and more important, why it is important to do so.

In 1998, I went looking for a lodge to join. None of my friends were Masons then (that I knew of at the time), and no one in my family had been one, either. On my wife's side, my father-in-law had been a 50+ year member, but he lived halfway across the country, and he had passed away. In fact, it was because of his funeral service by Dallas Masons that I made the decision to join.

I did it, in part, because the Grand Lodge of Indiana had an early website.

That was almost 20 years ago, and they were among the first grand lodges to do so. My situation has been repeated by hundreds of thousands of Masons now, all over the world. As far more men who have no actual family connection to the fraternity come looking for a lodge to join, yours is invisible to them without an effective, active, and updated website and social media presence. Even if they drive past your temple building twice a day, every day of their lives, the truth is that for almost everyone now, if it's not online, it just doesn't exist.

So, WBro. Wahlquist has created a PowerPoint presentation on the subject to drive home some nuts and bolts figures and ideas about business-related topics that absolutely correspond to Masonic lodges. No, Freemasonry isn't a business, a church, a charity, or a building: in point of fact, it's actually ALL of those together, mixed in with a philosophical, symbolic, spiritual, and moral fraternity. We're far more than just a treehouse with aprons. So, messages about concepts like "customer service" absolutely transfer directly into how potential and existing members are treated by our lodges. 

When Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, says, “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company,” he might just as well be talking about Freemasons and our lodges. 

Likewise, take note of the sobering figure from a 2014 study of customer service in businesses that stated, “65% of consumers surveyed said they’ve cut ties with a brand over a single poor customer service experience.”  Translate that into the way a new member is treated at the most important meeting in his entire Masonic career - the 4th one. It's the first meeting after he is raised as a Master Mason. If he has a bad experience, whatever the cause, you might very well have just created a man who will go out into the world and, for the rest of his life, tell anyone who asks him about joining the Masons, "Don't bother."

Take your truth where you can find it.

Have a look at WBro. Wahlquist's presentation HERE.

More Antics Out Of Arkansas

Many years ago, I came across the official stance of the United Grand Lodge of England  that cautioned their members while visiting other jurisdictions. While they certainly encouraged traveling, they expected their members not to actually sit in a lodge meeting or degree conferral with Masons they did not recognize, if possible. They observed that if a UGLE member found himself in a meeting with someone who he knew to be unrecognized by UGLE, he was to not make a fuss, but simply "tactfully withdraw."

Other grand lodges make similar requests of their members, and some are more insistent about it than others. And there are plenty of other grand lodges that are just silent or laissez-faire on the subject and, on a practical basis, follow the "when in Rome" philosophy. Namely, if you are in someone else's jurisdiction, who they let into their meetings is their business, so you should simply sit back and not make yourself a showboat by departing over it.

All of this brings me in a circular way to the Grand Lodge of Arkansas. It's one of the stricter GLs that prohibits its members from sitting in, for instance, other jurisdictions' annual communication sessions if there is, in particular, a Prince Hall Mason in attendance. 

Because, you see, those guys are just plain easier to spot from across the room.

In a question and answer session in 2010, the Grand Master of Arkansas at that time, MW Martin "Gene" Warren, went so far as to say that Arkansas Masons were not to so much as sit in a lodge in any jurisdiction that recognizes Prince Hall Masonry, unless they first get up and address the lodge, or check with the Worshipful Master, just to be sure there are no Prince Hall Masons actually present in the room. So, they are not to simply be discrete and "tactfully withdraw" if they suspect a PHA member might be there. Arkansas Masons are  expected to actually go into a foreign jurisdiction's lodge where he is a guest, stand up and make a spectacle of himself - along with humiliating other brethren - and demand to know if any might be lurking in the room (presumably because any black Mason MUST be a Prince Hall member, along with the fact that white guys like Fred Milliken are PHA members too, and they could just be hiding in plain sight).

Ever since 2012 and the situation involving the Shrine (and even before), there have been Arkansas Masons who have looked outside of their borders for a safe haven for their membership. The ongoing Shrine saga has put brothers there in a particularly terrible dilemma, forcing them to choose between the Shrine or Masonry - membership in both is no longer permitted in Arkansas. So, nearby Oklahoma has been quietly allowing Arkansas Masons to affiliate or completely transfer their membership to Oklahoma lodges without actually residing there. I understand that Missouri and Texas have been doing this, as well.

Unfortunately, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, MW Robert Jackson, has refused to issue many Arkansas Masons a "letter of good standing" for attempting to affiliate or move into some other U.S. jurisdictions - even if they completely relocate for business, family, or military commitments.  But his particular concentration has been focussed on Oklahoma.

What's the reason?

Prince Hall recognition.

While the policy is not officially written down or part of the Arkansas code, the de facto stance of the Grand Secretary's office is that because Arkansas does not recognize PHA GLs and, say, Oklahoma does, then in the eyes of Grand Secretary Jackson at least, Oklahoma is therefore "clandestine." As are apparently all of the 42 U.S. GL jurisdictions, UGLE, and any other regular, recognized jurisdictions that recognize PHA GLs.

Now, in Missouri a while back,  Arkansas Masons simply were asked to retake their three degrees since their GL wouldn't issue a letter of good standing.  Other states are handling it differently. But several burning questions come to mind. At what point does an "unwritten rule" by a Grand Secretary become an official practice? And if Oklahoma and the rest of the GLs that have recognized PHA jurisdictions stick to their guns, shouldn't the Grand Lodge of Arkansas act on its collective conscience and withdraw amity with them all?

But more to the point, if the GL of Arkansas is going to deny issuing proper transfer and affiliation documents to those jurisdictions over their own sovereign amity with PHA and/or the Shrine issue, perhaps the time has finally come for the rest of the world to pull up a chair and stick Arkansas in the Masonic corner for a while. When will Oklahoma come to the conclusion that enough is enough? Or Missouri, or Texas? Or frankly, the rest of the 42 US jurisdictions who have recognized our Prince Hall brethren?

I'm not usually a big one for squealing about yanking recognition of sovereign jurisdictions who are certainly free to follow any ill-considered internal policy they want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else. But I think the time has finally come to call out Arkansas in particular for its practices that are disrupting the greater Masonic community outside of their own borders. If Arkansas wants to hold its breath until it turns blue over PHA, that's their choice.  But refusing to engage in the most basic proper protocol for membership transfers and affiliations, along with expecting their members to disrupt meetings in other jurisdictions just to sniff out sneaky PHA visitors, is just plain un-Masonic behavior. And they can cloak themselves in proclamations of sovereignty and Mackey's jurisprudence book all they like. Most of the rest of the Masonic world tends to regard it the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart felt about pornography.

We know it when we see it.

Meanwhile, the Summonses continue to gush out of Little Rock with little sign of slowing.

---

UPDATE 9/5/2016

Just as a point of reference, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas plummeted from 12,026 members to 9,078 between the reported years of 2014 and 2015. A loss of just shy of 1/4 of its membership in one year. Moreover, between  the 13 years of 2002 through 2015, the average loss of membership across the board among all U.S. grand lodges is 32.8%. Arkansas, however, leads the list with a combined membership loss of 56.3%. *

No other state even comes close to that.

One wonders if Little Rock has noted the change. Or ponders why.


(For more background on the current situation, CLICK HERE.)

*Many, many thanks to Paul M. Bessel.

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UPDATE 9/8/2016

From the Grand Secretary of Arkansas' web page concerning email communications:

"The issue of electronic communications was addressed by the Delegates during the Annual Communications in February of 2010. The language that was adopted states: “Any form of electronic communication pertaining to matters of Masonic business are prohibited when used as a forum to debate Masonic Law or issues and will subject the member to un-Masonic conduct.” This language is found in § 4.0.242 of our Digest of Laws. It is important that you know and understand this language to ensure that you remain in compliance with the Law. If you are unhappy with policy or the Law or whatever, come and see me: do not take to fussing on email (or the internet, or social media, etc.)."

(BTW, many thanks to the anonymous Brother who sent me a copy of the Arkansas Digest of their Masonic constitutions and laws. I have no way of contacting him. 

Fascinating reading. I've never seen so much minutiae concerning what is deemed un-Masonic behavior in one place in my life. What AR needs is a Masonic Constitutional Convention.) 

Winston-Salem, NC Brethren Show Off New Masonic Center

The Brethren in Winston-Salem, NC sold their 1950s-era building in 2013, which was home to several lodges and  appendant bodies. They were then faced with the dilemma so many others have dealt with over the years - whether to buy and refurbish an existing structure that was never designed with the peculiar needs of Masonry in mind, or to start from scratch. 

They chose to commit their resources to a whole new facility, that has both Freemasonry and the general public in mind.

From an article by Fran Daniel in the Winston-Salem Journal this morning:

Members of the Masonic Center of Winston-Salem are ready to show off their new building on Country Club Road.

The center’s first public event will be an open house reception on Sept. 15 and the grand opening celebration will be Oct. 23. For the grand opening, the Masons’ Grand Master will be present for a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony.

The new 16,500-square-foot facility at 4537 Country Club Road replaced the former Masonic Temple on Miller Street. Members moved out of the former Masonic building on Miller Street in July 2013 after it was sold to Publix.

“We’ve got a catch phrase that we’ve incorporated with the new building,” said George Kalamaras, president of the Masonic board. “New building, new beginning.”

He called the building the new face of Masonry.

“With this new building, we hope to get new members,” Kalamaras said. “It’s beyond anybody’s imagination what it was going to be. It’s just a beautiful facility. We’ve tried to think of everything possible to make it the finest Masonic building in the state of North Carolina.”

Kalamaras said that times have changed, that people in the past didn’t consider running a business out of a Masonic facility as they plan to now do.

Built as the fraternal home to about 1,200 Freemasons in the Triad, the new Masonic Center is also a venue for meetings and events.

“When we’re not using it, we want to make it available to other people,” said Joey Transou, secretary of the Masonic board.

Rooms include the Wachovia Room, the Blue Lodge, the Fourth & Trade Dining Room, meeting rooms and a full commercial kitchen with large cookers.

Transou said the old building had two, big rooms but did not have a traditional Blue Lodge meeting room.

But the new building’s Blue Lodge “is laid out as a traditional Masonic lodge with the indented tessel in the floor and the blazing star underneath the altar,” he said.

The Blue Lodge consists of degrees 1, 2 and 3 of Freemasonry.

The Masonic Center also has “The Pitt” area, called the man cave by some members, for outdoor cooking.

[snip] 

The center also has the latest in multimedia technology, including high-speed wireless internet, theater-style lighting, large screens, laser projectors and a professional sound system.

This new technology was something that was not available at the old Masonic building.

While a new cornerstone was placed in the actual northeast corner of the building, the old cornerstone used in the 1906 Masonic Temple in downtown Winston-Salem and then in the 1954 building on Miller Street was set in the northeast corner of the back entrance to the new building.

The article also features a video tour of the building.

The new Center will be home to Salem Lodge No. 289 A.F. & A.M., Winston Lodge No. 167, Piedmont-Pioneer No. 685, Forsyth Lodge No. 707, Winston-Salem Scottish Rite Bodies and Winston-Salem York Rite Bodies.  

The home page for the new Masonic Center is HERE.

Southern Cal Research Lodge's Top Masonic Book List

It was great to receive a copy of the newly formatted Fraternal Review, the monthly publication of the Southern California Research Lodge. The new magazine is a beautifully designed publication, now edited by Brothers C. Douglas Russell and Dago Rodriguez, and art directed by Johnny Arias.

Back when I first joined the SCRL 15 years ago, the monthly mailing was a stack of Xeroxed pages, jammed with Masonic news, articles, and papers collected from all over the country. What it lacked in style, it more than made up for in content. It was a labor of love, packed up each month by volunteers, and fondly put together by the indefatigable Brothers Ralph Herbold and Norm Leeper. Sadly, Ralph passed away in 2009.

Ralph became a good friend over the years, and was an early admirer of Freemasons For Dummies, reviewing it shortly after it was first published in 2005.  He became a true champion of the book, and would always call me or drop me a letter or email to excitedly tell me every time the SCRL sold another thousand copies. Shortly afterwards, the Grand Lodge of California put it on their recommended reading list for new Masons, and it remains one of just three books listed in their Entered Apprentice Candidate Guide. The quick reception of the book by those brethren was extraordinarily humbling and gratifying, and I have never forgotten their kind support. 

So, it was equally gratifying to discover that the September  2016 issue of Fraternal Review features a list of the "Top Masonic Books," as voted by the actual membership of the SCRL, and that the #2 book on the list of 25 is, in fact, Freemasons For Dummies.  

Here is the complete list:

1. Born in Blood by John J. Robinson
2. Freemasons For Dummies by Christopher L. Hodapp
3. Morals & Dogma by Albert Pike, annotated by Arturo De Hoyos
4. The Craft and Its Symbols by Allen E. Roberts
5. Observing the Craft by Andrew Hammer
6. The Builders by Joseph Fort Newton
7. The Meaning of Masonry by Walter L. Wilmshurst
8. A Pilgrim's Path by John J. Robinson
9. The Mason's Words by Robert G. Davis
10. The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century by David Stevenson
11. A Bridge To Light by Rex R. Hutchens
12. American Freemasons by Mark A. Tabbert
13. Esoterika by Albert Pike
14. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Michael Halleran
15. The Lost Keys of Freemasonry by Manly P. Hall
16. Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia by Henry Wilson Coil
17. Dungeon, Fire, and Sword by John J. Robinson
18. The Complete Idiot's Guide To Freemasonry by S. Brent Morris
19. The Freemasons by Jasper Ridley
20. Sworn In Secret: Freemasonry and the Knights Templar by Sanford Holst
21. Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol by W. Kirk McNulty
22. Freemasons Guide and Compendium by Bernard Jones
23. The Temple and the Lodge by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
24. The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manley P. Hall
25. The Way of the Craftsman by W. Kirk McNulty

While it is tantalizing to be so close to the top of the list, I certainly can't argue with Born In Blood being #1. Sure, Robinson's theory of the Templars morphing into the Freemasons has been mostly disparaged and debunked by scholars. Bob Cooper's The Rosslyn Hoax pretty much dismantles the whole Templar origin theory from top to bottom. And when he was asked why his books didn't contain footnotes, references, or bibliographies, Robinson replied, "I'm not a historian, I'm just an old Kentucky storyteller." 

But despite all of that, his was the first book of any length I read about the fraternity before I joined, and that experience has been repeated by tens of thousands of men ever since its original publication.  Robinson certainly spun a good yarn and made a lot of intriguing observations that have captivated an awful lot of brethren, myself included. The only two other books he wrote in his life are also on the SCRL list, which attests to his talents and insights. So, I can't really be too disappointed by being beaten out by it. 

In truth, there's no disappointment anyway, because being included on such an august list at all is an honor, more especially because it was made by Masons themselves. So, many, many thanks to all those members who voted in the survey who continue to find my book worthwhile.

One of the biggest perks of membership in the Southern California Research Lodge is their program that provides deep, deep discounts on Masonic books. For information on how to join the SCRL, visit their website HERE.

H/T Nathan Brindle

The Caboose Lodge?

I was reading the Reddit Freemasonry comments this morning and came across an entry that may be the most unusual lodge location I've heard of in a while. Hermann Lodge No. 123 in Hermann, Missouri apparently meets in a retired Missouri Pacific Railroad caboose at the corner of 1st and Gutenburg Streets. 

Just an observation, but the Tyler must get mighty chilly on a wintery evening.

According to the sign on the door anyway, they meet on the 4th Thursday at 7:30PM.

I can find almost no online references to it, no website, no Facebook page. Does anyone have any photos of the interior or information about this lodge?

H/T: Kcatc

Harry Truman's Grandson Speaking in NJ: 10/22/16

The New Jersey Scottish Rite Research Guild will host their first presentation by Brother Clifton Truman Daniel: "Harry S Truman - The Character of a Freemason" on Saturday, October 22nd at the Valley of Central New Jersey.

The event is open to all Freemasons, friends and family. It will be hald at the Valley of Central NJ, 103 Dunns Mill Road, Bordentown, NJ. The cost is $35, and includes breakfast and the program. 

Brother Clifton Truman Daniel is an author, lecturer, and the oldest grandson of President and Past Grand Master Harry S Truman. (His father was Clifton Daniel, former Managing Editor of the New York Times, and his mother was Margaret Truman, the President's daughter, who became a popular mystery novelist.)  Brother Daniel is a member of Oriental Lodge No. 33 in Chicago. 

Brother Clifton was made a Mason "at sight" in 2011 after receiving the full Master Mason degree by then Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois, MW Terry L. Seward,  at a special joint ceremony in Joliet, Illinois, with the assistance of the GM of Missouri, MW John W. Hess.

The $35 per person admission is payable by check in advance  to "AASR-COD", sent to Valley of Southern NJ, 315 White Horse Pike, Collingswood, NJ 08107 (NOTE: This address is different from the actual site of the event.)

For more information or questions, contact Moises Gomez, Mohammed Yatim, or Raymond Ortiz II.

The mission of the Scottish Rite Research Guild (SRRG) is to provide a premier forum for education, research and complete Masonic Enlightenment. The SRRG also provides a platform for enriching its members and allows them to build a fundamental basis for exemplifying the Scottish Rite core values in support of their blue lodges, valleys and other Masonic affiliations. They aim to assist the Scottish Rite in increasing its membership by recognizing scholarly potential and achievement.

Speaking in Indiana Lodges in September

I will have the honor of speaking at the stated meeting of Plymouth-Kilwinning Lodge No. 149 in Plymouth, Indiana tomorrow night,  Thursday, September 1st. Dinner will be at 6:30PM, and lodge will open at 7:30PM. Many thanks to WM Steve Troyer for his kind invitation. 

I haven't visited them since March 2007 after the release of Solomon's Builders, back when RW Jim Barkdull was Grand Master. I understand from WB Steve that they are doing great things there.

The lodge is located at 109 Water Street in Plymouth.

---

Then next week, I will go right up the road from home to speak to the brethren of Hamilton Lodge No. 533 in Fishers, Indiana on Tuesday, September 6th.

My talk will be the influence of the symbolism and architecture of Egypt on modern speculative Freemasonry. Thanks to WM Jeff Jordan and JW Craig Witt for their kind invitation.

The lodge is located just east of I-69 off of Exit 205 - 116th Street. The address is 11466 Oak Dr, Fishers, IN

Once-Hidden Masonic Library Emerges in Spain

Freemasonry had come to Spain in the late 1720s, but its growth was limited. Because it was a Catholic country, Spain's monarchs enforced the early Papal encyclicals and bulls issued against the fraternity, and the Spanish Inquisition brought terrible suffering to anyone accused of Masonic membership. With the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833, the resulting chaos that followed throughout the 19th century finally brought an end to the Catholic influence on government policies, along with the official persecution of Freemasons. But the eventual result was a quiet growth of competing grand lodges, grand orients, and supreme councils. By the 1870s, there were four different grand lodges at work in the country. 

According to researchers Kent Henderson and Tony Pope, it is estimated that some 10,000 Spanish citizens were executed solely for their purported Masonic membership under Franco's rule. 

When General Francisco Franco established his fascist dictatorship in 1939 after the end of the Spanish Civil War, the fraternity was among the first institutions to be suppressed. Because of the chaotic competition among the Masonic bodies, Spanish Masons were in no condition to resist this new era of persecution. Lodges that had operated openly and were easily identifiable were literally obliterated.

Franco stayed in power for four decades, and he frequently railed against "the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy" right up until his death in 1975. Only then could Masonry slowly begin to rebuild itself again in Spain. But precious few traces of the earlier days of the Craft there survive today. One has just reemerged in Barcelona.

From an article on the Atlas Obscura website today:

During the 19th century, the fraternal order of Freemasons had lodges in practically every European-influenced country. Spain was no different, though the traces of the Freemasons are mostly hidden now—apart from this once-secret library.

Barcelona, much like London, Paris, Buenos Aires, or Washington D.C., has an extraordinary artistic and architectural heritage based in Freemasonry. Masonic symbols like pyramids and the all-seeing eye can be found in cemeteries, libraries, sculptures, even government buildings. Passeig Sant Joan ("Saint John Avenue") is devoted to Saint John, the chosen patron of Christian Freemasons. Ildefons Cerda, the urban planner who designed Barcelona's layout, was a member, and imagined a utopian city based on Masonic principles. At the turn of the century, there were nearly 170 Freemason lodges in Spain alone.

Rossend Arús was an influential journalist and playwright of the 1800s who used his Freemason associations for republican political favor. Along with his fellow Masons, Arús had control of the city from behind the scenes. He began to host meetings in his home in 1888, and it soon became an official Masonic Temple. After his death in 1891, the house was turned into library dedicated to Freemasonry. 

During Franco's regime, almost every Freemason building was torn down and the Masons were prohibited from meeting. Like many fascist leaders, Franco feared uprising from independent organizations, as well as having misplaced antisemitic beliefs about the Freemasons' purposes. Some in power sympathized with the Freemasons though, and the Rossend Arús library was shut down and hidden from view during the Franco years. After the dictator's death and the end of his regime, Freemasonry slowly but surely crept its way back into Spain. 

After timidly growing less and less private and secretive, the Freemasons of Barcelona have opened Biblioteca Publica Rossend Arús to the public in Passeig Sant Joan. The luxurious reading rooms, golden frames, and precious marble of the 19th century still impress visitors. The collection includes important Masonic texts, as well as anarchist collections and rare magazines and literature. The third original version of the Statue of Liberty also resides in the main entrance. Today, the Rossend Arús is the best library for studying the working class history and Freemasonry in Catalonia. Public hours: 3-7PM 

After Franco's death, it took another four years before the courts declared anti-Masonic laws to be unconstitutional. Masonry returned, largely with the assistance of the three largest French grand lodges, and as a result, there are again competing Masonic bodies at work there today.

The Grand Lodge of Spain was formed in 1982 in Madrid, and is the obedience that is recognized by the U.S., UGLE, and the bulk of the regular Masonic world. They currently have 2,500 members and 179 lodges.

Fall Session of Academy of Masonic Knowledge 10/15

The Fall session of Pennsylvania's Academy of Masonic Knowledge will be held October 15, 2016, in the Deike Auditorium of the Freemasons Cultural Center on the campus of the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. 

Registration will open at 8:30 a.m. with the program beginning at 9:30 a.m. 

Announced speakers for this session are:

John Hairston is a member of Harmony Lodge No. 2 under the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Washington, and is the author of the new groundbreaking book, Landmarks of Our Fathers: The Critical Analysis of the Start and Origin of African Lodge No. 1.

Heather Calloway is Archivist & Special Collections Librarian and an Assistant Professor at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. She served at the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite - Southern Jurisdiction as Director of Programming, Museum Curator, and Digital Media Director at the House of the Temple in Washington, DC.

Christopher Murphy is the Charter Junior Warden of Fibonacci Lodge No. 112, the first Observant Lodge chartered by the Grand Lodge of Vermont. He is a member of Vermont Lodge of Research No. 110, and of the Philalethes Society. He will present his paper, “The Tavern Myth." 

A lunch (requested contribution of $10) will be served at noon and the program will be completed by 3:00 p.m. All Masons are welcome to attend. Dress is coat and tie.

Pre-registration is required.

To pre-register, please send your name, address, Lodge number and telephone by e-mail to: AMKSecretary@pagrandlodge.org

January Milwaukee Masonic Terror Plotter Update

On January 27th, a Milwaukee, WI man was arrested for plotting with two others (who turned out to be FBI informants) to launch a terrorist attack on the Humphrey Masonic Center in Milwaukee, hoping to kill at least 30 Freemasons inside. The case against Samy Mohamed Hamzeh is now slowly winding its way through the court system.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning:

A man suspected of plotting to attack a Masonic center in Milwaukee remains behind bars as his attorney pores over the government's evidence against him, including several hundred hours of conversations between him and informants who were working with the FBI.

In federal court Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Kanter said he has turned over 116 CDs of evidence to the defense and will be preparing an order to protect classified information that is included in the evidence against Samy Mohamed Hamzeh.

Defense attorney Craig Albee asked for eight weeks to further review the evidence and prepare pretrial motions, including a bail motion. Albee has held off on making an argument for why Hamzeh should be let out on bail until he reviews the months of recordings that were translated from Arabic to English.

Hamzeh was in court Friday but was not asked any questions and did not speak. His next hearing was set for Oct. 28 by Magistrate Judge William Duffin.

Hamzeh, 24, was charged in January with five counts of illegally possessing two machine guns and a silencer, which he bought from undercover FBI agents. He is not facing terrorism-related counts, which experts said is not unusual.

Hamzeh plotted to launch the attack on a Masonic center in downtown Milwaukee, the criminal complaint says. In preparation, Hamzeh toured the Masonic center, practiced shooting at a range and spoke extensively about how the attack would unfold.

He said the attack was to defend Islam by going after Masons, "who are the ones who need to be killed," and he hoped to kill at least 30 people.

For more background on this story see HERE and HERE and HERE.