tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41625010732281684982024-02-06T20:37:09.775-08:00The Lodge RoomUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-58358495129691326272015-10-28T13:32:00.001-07:002015-10-28T13:32:41.493-07:00Taking A Moment to Say Good Bye To Lodges Past<h1 style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #111111; font-family: ProximaNova, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 2.666em; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 1; margin: 0.25em 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; word-wrap: break-word;">
Longreach Freemasons disband after more than 120 years due to falling membership</h1>
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By <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/ash-moore/6655942" style="color: #310099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_self" title="">Ash Moore</a></div>
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Posted <span class="timestamp" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" ts="October 20, 2015 12:32:55"><span class="noprint" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">19 Oct 2015, 9:32pm</span><span class="print" style="left: -32768px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -32768px; visibility: hidden; word-wrap: break-word;"></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-20/img_0080.jpg/6868586" style="color: #310099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="The Masonic Lodge in Longreach in western Queensland" src="http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/6546220-3x2-700x467.jpg" height="266" style="border: none; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" title="The Masonic Lodge in Longreach in western Queensland" width="400" /></a><a class="inline-caption" href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-20/img_0080.jpg/6868586" style="color: #310099; display: block; margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="color: black; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; word-wrap: break-word;">PHOTO:</strong> The Masonic Lodge in Longreach was sold in June. <span class="source" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: nowrap; word-wrap: break-word;">(ABC: Blythe Moore)</span></a></div>
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<a class="inline-caption" href="http://www.google.com/maps/place/Longreach%204730/@-23.4445,144.2475,5z" style="color: #310099; display: block; margin: 0px 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="color: black; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; word-wrap: break-word;">MAP: </strong>Longreach 4730</a><a class="toggle" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" style="bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="abc-icon abc-icon-chevron-circle-down" style="display: inline-block; height: 16px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; width: 16px; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Expand"><svg><use xlink:href="#sheet-default-icon-chevron-circle-down" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"></use></svg></span></a></div>
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Freemasonry in the western Queensland town of Longreach has come to an end after more than 120 years.</div>
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The Masons disbanded over the weekend because of a fall in membership and expensive running costs.</div>
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The group sold its historic lodge in June.</div>
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Former master Ian Merritt said the Masons would continue on in Blackall and Barcaldine but it was a sad day for Longreach.</div>
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<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-20/inside-the-masonic-lodge-28ash-moore29.jpg/6868588" style="color: #310099; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="Inside of Masonic Lodge in Longreach" src="http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/6546290-3x2-340x227.jpg" height="227" style="border: none; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Inside of Masonic Lodge in Longreach" width="340" /></a><a class="inline-caption" href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-20/inside-the-masonic-lodge-28ash-moore29.jpg/6868588" style="color: #310099; display: block; margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="color: black; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; word-wrap: break-word;">PHOTO:</strong> The inside of the Masonic Lodge in Longreach in central western Queensland.<span class="source" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: nowrap; word-wrap: break-word;">(ABC: Ash Moore)</span></a></div>
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"The lodge in Longreach has been going since 1894 in a couple of different venues, the current venue having been [there] since 1929, and many, many members have been through.</div>
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"I think it's something like 581 members over the lifetime of the lodge, so it was a very sad day."</div>
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He said many would remember the Longreach Meteor Lodge fondly.</div>
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"It's the history as much as anything else," he said.</div>
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"The building that has just recently been sold was a major social gathering place for wedding receptions and parties and things like that over the years and that's what the town's going to miss the most.</div>
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"Even though it hasn't be used that way for quite a while, it's something that a lot of people in Longreach will remember."</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-36952530614475097832015-06-01T13:37:00.000-07:002015-10-28T13:46:59.753-07:00Sensationalizing Freemasonry: a UK Media Staple.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal </div>
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justice system, according to a bombshell Metropolitan Police report leaked to The Independent <span class="copyright" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Getty</span></div>
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Revealed: How gangs used the Freemasons to corrupt police</h1>
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<span style="font-family: Fira Sans;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Gangsters able to recruit police officers through secret society, says investigation for Scotland Yard</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">
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<span style="background-color: white;">Secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal justice system, according to a bombshell Metropolitan Police report leaked to The Independent.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Operation Tiberius, written in 2002, found underworld syndicates used their contacts in the controversial brotherhood to “recruit corrupted officers” inside Scotland Yard, and concluded it was one of “the most difficult aspects of organised crime corruption to proof against”.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The report – marked “Secret” – found serving officers in East Ham east London who were members of the Freemasons attempted to find out which detectives were suspected of links to organised crime from other police sources who were also members of the society.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Famous for its secret handshakes, Freemasonry has long been suspected of having members who work in the criminal justice system – notably the judiciary and the police.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The political establishment and much of the media often dismiss such ideas as the work of conspiracy theorists. However, Operation Tiberius is the second secret police report revealed by The Independent in the last six months to highlight the possible issue.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project Riverside, a 2008 report on the rogue private investigations industry by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, also claimed criminals attempt to corrupt police officers through Freemason members in a bid to further their interests.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Concerns over the influence of freemasons on the criminal justice system in 1998 led former Home Secretary Jack Straw to order that all police officers and judges should declare membership of the organisation.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, ten of Britain’s 43 police forces refused to take part and the policy was dropped under threat of legal action. In England and Wales, the Grand Master of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Freemasons is Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. The United Grand Lodge of England declined to comment last night.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Independent revealed last week that Operation Tiberius found that organised crime syndicates such as the Adams family and the gang led by David Hunt were able to infiltrate the Met “at will”.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Asked to comment on the Tiberius report, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “The Metropolitan Police Service will not tolerate any behaviour by our officers and staff which could damage the trust placed in police by the public.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We are determined to pursue corruption in all its forms and with all possible vigour.”</span></div>
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</header>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-8193354930846394432014-11-21T03:08:00.002-08:002014-11-23T23:57:13.284-08:00France: Jaques Attali Addresses Freemasons in Paris at GO Quarterly Assembly<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: #555454; font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">Link: <a href="http://www.africaintelligence.com/LCE/power-players/2014/10/22/attali-to-address-freemasons,108043861-BRE" style="color: #555454; line-height: 24px;">Attali Addresses Freemasons in Paris</a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://www.africaintelligence.com/LCE/power-players/2014/10/22/attali-to-address-freemasons,108043861-BRE" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Talk in Paris at the Grand Orient assembly focuses on France and its Future in Africa</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Attali">Jacques Attali</a></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"> is, with </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard-Henri_L%C3%A9vy">Bernard Henri-Lévy</a></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard-Henri_L%C3%A9vy"> </a>(BHL) and </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gis_Debray#Current_political_views">Régis Debray</a></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">, Freemasons all though of differing viewpoints, among the last specimens of the 19th-Century French controversial intellectual types,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"> unafraid to tackle phenomena and events of their times. A polymath and futurologist, Attali is a university professor who has authored more than 40 books. An honorary advisor to the French government, he was President François Mitterrand’s special advisor from 1981 to 1991. <br /><br />An economist, Attali was the founder and first president of the London-based </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> from 1991 to 1993. He’s currently the president of </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">PlaNet Finance</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">. This year, he presented in English on the French international news and current events channel </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">France24</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> fifteen </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Lessons for the Future</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> on the history of capitalism based on his book </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">A Brief History of the Future</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"> (available at Barnes and Noble)</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Attali blogs on the website of the French newsmagazine </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">L’Express</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> and his blog is called</span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">“Conversation with Jacques Attali.”</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> A provocative thinker who crafts scenarios in </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">futurology</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">, his latest blog post (November 24) is entitled </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">"Here comes the time of the Pacific War" </i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">("pacific," in this instance, is a translation of the French adjective "peaceful" as this game is also being played on the Pacific Rim). In that post, Attali claims that the enduring configuration of the post-Cold War world will be in the 21st century the G2 (USA-China, the famous </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">"<b>Chimerica</b>"</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> coined by Niall Ferguson):</span></span><br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.3em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"For the time being, the masters of the 'peaceful war' are setting up the conditions of their joint management of the world: a G2, masquerading as G20 made of hugs and low blows, is little by little replacing the American-Soviet duopoly of the 'Cold War.' </i><i>Naturally, Europe is absent from all this [play]." </i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">The following is my translation of part of Attali's post of November 18 (excerpted from an earlier book) entitled </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><i></i></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"><i>“Africa, our future” </i>dealing with a topic that Attali will touch upon in his address to the Masonic assembly.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">According to statisticians, Africa has just crossed the threshold of 1 billion inhabitants: it shelters henceforth one human being out of 7, whereas it only had 1 out of 10 in 1950, and will host 1 in 5 in 2050 — that is, 2 billion people. This is only one of the signs that turn Africa, main crucible of misery, into a source of growth and the matrix of our future. </span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Indeed Africa is foremost the location of all the sufferings in the world: a lifespan of less than fifteen years than the world average, an infant mortality rate 20 times higher than in western Europe, the world’s highest rate of rural flight—with expansion of slums and infrastructure decay. Half of its territory, where half of the population lives, is desert; there, famine is permanent and, just like water scarcity, will exacerbate with climate change that will trigger massive population movements.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Africa is also the ecological lung of the planet: on its forests, which cover about 22% of the continent (and even 45% of Central Africa, in particular with the Congo Basin, the world’s second tropical forest), depend the control of greenhouse gases, the protection of biodiversity, soil stabilization, and freshwater quality and runoff.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Africa is one of the engines of the world’s economic growth, since its growth, for many years, has been greater than the world’s average, and is still greater than 2% in 2009, as against 5% before, which is not enough to prevent millions of Africans to slide into extreme poverty.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">Africa is finally the location of all the promises of the world. It’s the richest continent in natural resources (oil, minerals, agricultural products). It’s also the world’s youngest continent: 43% of Sub-Saharan Africans are under the age of 15 and, in Nigeria alone, more babies are born each year than in the entire European Union. Uganda is even the youngest country in the world, with 56% of the population under the age of 15. </span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">There’s an explosion of schooling rate; the birth rate is better and better controlled, especially in Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, South Africa and Kenya; and life expectancy has increased by sixteen years since 1950. Financial markets are opening everywhere, their universities are improving, internet connections have dramatically changed with the implementation of two submarine cables. Finally, mindsets are changing incredibly fast and governance is improving, despite the persistence of nepotism and corruption. </span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;">That’s why in Europe, especially in France, we should consider Africa as a formidable potential, very much closer to us than the other giants that fascinate us. If we know how to develop natural resources on the African continent, instead of abandoning them to the Chinese and the Americans, once more against Europeans. If we know how to complement the [monetary] zone franc with other cooperation institutions, thus stabilizing commodity prices and promoting the fabulous creative capacities of the continent. If we thus know how, beyond altruism, from which nothing can be expected, to prepare our future by clinging to this exceptional locomotive.<br />.......<br /><br />Also see: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://thelodgeroom.blogspot.com/2012/04/linkedin-v-freemasons-its-not-either-or.html" style="color: #4c4848;">LinkedIn v Freemasons: It's not either-or.</a> (Economist)</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://thelodgeroom.blogspot.com/2013/03/france-where-freemasons-are-still.html">France, Where Masons are Still Feared</a> (Bloomberg)</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<a href="http://thelodgeroom.blogspot.com/2010/06/freemasonry-and-british-imperialism.html" style="color: #4c4848;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Freemasonry and British Imperialism, A Book Review</span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-86661772097214583552014-09-10T22:53:00.000-07:002014-11-20T22:54:00.193-08:00Freemasonry and the Origins of an Independent Cuba<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ariel Glaria </span> </strong></div>
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<a href="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Masonic-Temple-Building.jpg" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Masonic Temple Building in Havana. Foto: cubasbsolutely.com" class="size-full wp-image-106911" height="183" src="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Masonic-Temple-Building.jpg" style="border: 0px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); margin: 0px; padding: 1px;" width="275" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="font-size: 10px; line-height: 11px; padding: 0px 4px 5px 5px;">
Masonic Lodge Building in Havana. Foto: cubasbsolutely.com</div>
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HAVANA TIMES —The ups and downs of history and ill intentions of individuals have made us forget the history – today incomplete – of an institution we could well call the mother of the Cuban nation: freemasonry.</div>
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However we know more about freemasonry in the United States, whose symbols adorn cities and dollar bills, than about its significance to our own history, elegantly illustrated by Emilio Roig:</div>
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<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“To fully express what freemasonry represents for us in a few words, suffice to say that, without mentioning it once, twice and perhaps a thousand times, one cannot write the history of Cuban culture or Cuba’s struggle for freedom.”</em></div>
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Introduced into the country by the British in 1762, when, according to a Mason historian, “the light of freemasonry shone in Cuba for the first time”, it became deeply rooted in the culture and expanded until the beginning of the 19th century, when émigrés, coupled with agricultural, industrial and market innovations, brought about a revolution in the field of ideas.</div>
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As we will see below, the first independence plot was hatched at a masonic lodge. Our first attempt at drafting a political constitution for a future Cuban nation was also made by freemasons in 1810. Its author was the venerable Joaquin Infante.</div>
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<a href="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/bandera.png" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="The most eloquent testimony of freemasonry’s historical significance for Cuba is to be found in our loftiest symbol, the Cuban flag, where the masonic ideal is concretely expressed in the red, masonic triangle placed over the three blue and two white bands." class="size-full wp-image-106912" height="159" src="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/bandera.png" style="border: 0px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); margin: 0px; padding: 1px;" width="318" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="font-size: 10px; line-height: 11px; padding: 0px 4px 5px 5px;">
The most eloquent testimony of freemasonry’s historical significance for Cuba is to be found in our loftiest symbol, the Cuban flag, where the masonic ideal is concretely expressed in the red, masonic triangle placed over the three blue and two white bands.</div>
</div>
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The most eloquent testimony of freemasonry’s historical significance for Cuba is to be found in our loftiest symbol, the Cuban flag, where the masonic ideal is concretely expressed in the red, masonic triangle placed over the three blue and two white bands, a symbol that sealed the intimate connection between Cuban independence and freemasonry for eternity. Less striking evidence for this connection is to be found in the names of some streets in Havana, such as <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Amistad, Concordia</em> and<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Virtudes</em>.</div>
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Such lofty figures as Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, Ignacio Agramonte, Perucho Figueredo, Calixto Garcia, Antonio Maceo and Jose Marti were freemasons.</div>
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The uprising of 1810, known as the “Great Masonic Conspiracy”, was organized at a lodge in Havana. Those implicated included Roman de la Luz, uncle of the renowned Jose de la Luz y Caballero, and Luis Bassave Cardenas, who actually called on different popular sectors, such as the mixed race residents of the neighborhoods of Belen, Jesus Maria, Los Barracones, El Manglar and others, to take part in the rebellion.</div>
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<a href="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Jose_Antonio_Aponte-227x300.jpg" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Jose Antonio Aponte" class=" wp-image-106913" height="252" src="http://cdn.havanatimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Jose_Antonio_Aponte-227x300.jpg" style="border: 0px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); margin: 0px; padding: 1px;" width="191" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="font-size: 10px; line-height: 11px; padding: 0px 4px 5px 5px;">
Jose Antonio Aponte</div>
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A white criollo and the son of a colonel, Bassave Cardenas worked closely with the freeman Jose Antonio Aponte. The latter, having evaded official investigations and not involved himself directly in the preparations of the plot, would set in motion a conspiracy two years later.</div>
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Some sources point out that the street where Aponte lived, located in what is today Centro Habana, owes the name “Jesus Peregrino” to an altar with that image that Aponte had in the living room of his home.</div>
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Though Aponte’s conspiracy isn’t directly linked to the great masonic conspiracy, its scope, development and outcome are the result of many points of coincidence.</div>
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Aponte was not subjected to any trial. The island’s Captain General and two other crown officials agreed to sentence Aponte and his 7 followers to death.</div>
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On April 9, 1812, they died at the gallows. The head of the leader, the criollo and free man of color Jose Antonio Aponte, was exhibited in an iron cage at the current intersection of Belascoain and Carlos III, where, more than a century later, Cuba’s Great Masonic Lodge would be built.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-26184273650429658142014-07-02T00:29:00.002-07:002014-11-15T17:30:27.860-08:00Communities Vs. Networks: To Which Do You Belong? (Forthcoming: How to Have an Organization with Both)<h2 style="line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: 20.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Communities Vs. Networks: To
Which Do You Belong?</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
In making
his newest documentary, <a href="http://korengalthemovie.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Korengal</span></a>,
author and filmmaker Sebastian Junger wanted to explore the answer to the
question of why — despite its dangers and deprivations — men actually miss war
when their tour of duty is over. A large part of the answer is the intense
camaraderie created in combat — a brotherhood that they lack when they return
home. In a recent <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ibcfv9/sebastian-junger"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">interview</span></a>,
Junger posits that this absence of camaraderie is often at the root of why
soldiers sometimes struggle so acutely to adjust to life after deployment. They
come home, Junger says, and realize for the first time what an “alienated
society” they truly live in. What they need, he argues, is a country that
“operates in more of a community way.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
He then
adds: “But frankly, that’s what we need.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Unfortunately,
true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and
civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This
transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the
increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and <a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/21/the-bucket-list-generation-in-the-age-of-anomie/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">anomie</span></a> that
many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and
yet so isolated at the same time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
While
networks often borrow from the language of community, the two models of
sociality are not the same. In an essay included in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0097CYWW4/ref%3Das_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0097CYWW4&linkCode=as2&tag=stucosuccess-20&linkId=DPJ5I2UNCKCN7UBV"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dumbing Us
Down</span></a>, author John Gatto sharply elucidates the differences, and
argues that if we truly want to experience “the Good Life” and develop fully as
human beings, we need to spend more time in communities and less time in
networks.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Today I will share some of Gatto’s key points, explore
the way networks emptily ape communities, and touch on a few things we can
all do to create a greater sense of community in our lives.</div>
<h3 style="margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></h3>
<h3 style="margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks vs. Communities</h3>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks Are Large and Anonymous; Communities Are
Small and Intimate</h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
With networks, the bigger they are the better. As
Gatto notes, “’More’ may not be ‘better,’ but ‘more’ is always more profitable
for the people who make a living out of networking.” Continually increasing in
size may even be necessary for a network’s very survival. For example, as a
platform like Facebook increases its number of employees, the cost of its
servers, and its obligation to please shareholders, it has to keep on
accumulating more and more users to stay afloat.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Because
networks are so large, anonymity reigns. Members do not meet face-to-face, do
not know if the people they interact with digitally are even who they say they
are, and may have no idea who also belongs to the network. Because of the lack
of physical intimacy, <a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/10/01/manly-honor-part-i-what-is-honor/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">a culture of
honor and shame</span></a> cannot function, necessitating the erection of
numerous rules and regulations to check and control members’ behavior.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
In
contrast, communities have inherent limits on size. Unlike networks, if
communities don’t stop growing, they’ll die. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dunbar’s Number</span></a>, most
humans can’t maintain more than around 150 meaningful relationships.
Anthropologists have found that hunter-gatherer societies hover around 150
members before they split. In Western military history, the size of a military
company — the smallest autonomous and fully functioning unit — has been around
150 members.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
If a community gets too big, people get
overlooked. And because members no longer face the social scrutiny of their
peers, they can opt out of contributing without shame or consequence. Once that
disengagement happens, community life slowly begins to crumble.</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks Are Artificial; Communities Are
Organic</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks are typically artificial; they rarely
form organically. And they’re invariably created, and then governed, in a
top-down fashion. Policies and regulations are decreed from on high with no discussion with or explanation to the people who make up the network. When those at the top are so removed physically and psychologically from those at
the bottom, the solutions ultimately proffered are often out of touch and
highly ineffective. Here’s a perfect example: The other day I was at a big-box
retailer and mentioned to a cashier how warm it felt inside. She told me that
the store’s thermostat was controlled from the corporate headquarters…in New
Jersey. “They obviously don’t know how hot it gets here in Oklahoma,” she said
with a sigh.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Even when the powers that be in a network ask for
input from its lower-level members, the request for feedback is usually a token
gesture lacking in any efficacy. For example, corporations sometimes survey
their employees about their satisfaction with their job, but don’t make any
changes after reviewing the results. Similarly, the White House has created the
“We the People” petitioning system where, if 100,000 people sign a petition
within 30 days, an official from the administration will offer a response; no
action is taken beyond this token acknowledgement. When networks solicit
feedback, the aim is to pacify members with the illusion, and only the
illusion, of their having a voice and influence.</div>
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<br />
Communities, on the other hand, are organic and
autonomous. They’re made up of a collection of real families that are bound
together by geography and shared values. When facing a problem, individuals
within a community band together to come up with a solution that will work for
them. Because the people trying to address problems within the community —
including its leaders — are familiar with the group’s unique needs, the
solutions that are generated are typically more effective.</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks Encourage Passivity and Consumption;
Communities Require Action and Contribution</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2eozpq8N35f6aHqHU9ruWOsvH_fNGyd_wMIAM5MS2vY-XLQDXrMIuqwkvcQ3hqDclGCVFsK-hOfg5-tVZqNZqLOrJxMbLmNHCqZq__JsWwKukloHCFaSla-3VPHDarDmW93pGqi-UYZP/s1600/rockwell+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2eozpq8N35f6aHqHU9ruWOsvH_fNGyd_wMIAM5MS2vY-XLQDXrMIuqwkvcQ3hqDclGCVFsK-hOfg5-tVZqNZqLOrJxMbLmNHCqZq__JsWwKukloHCFaSla-3VPHDarDmW93pGqi-UYZP/s1600/rockwell+1.jpg" height="196" width="320" /></a></div>
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Because there are so many people in a network,
members assume someone else will take care of problems that arise. But because
that’s what everyone else is thinking, nothing gets done. People will step
around someone in distress on the street in a big city, or pass the collection
plate at a giant church, figuring other people will help. The anonymity of the
crowd allows the passive bystander to escape shame.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Networks
not only breed passivity, but encourage consumption. They’re all about what you
canget, rather than what you must give. Oftentimes you can buy your way
into networks, and because you’re paying for the service, you don’t feel
obligated to offer any other form of contribution. The network doesn’t ask for
anything either. It’s a business transaction. When you join a gym, for
instance, once you pay your monthly dues your part of the deal is done —
nothing else is expected of you. In a network, the members provide the money,
and the network provides the experience. You are wholly consumer, rather than creator.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Even when contributions are mildly encouraged,
because networks are large and anonymous, people can get away with taking from
the pot but not adding to it. For example, you can join an online forum, and
post some questions in order to pick the brains of other members. While it
would be nice to offer advice in return, you’re certainly not obligated to do
so. You can come in to a network, get what you need, and leave.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
In
contrast, in communities you get and you give; you can take from the
collective pot, but you’re required to add to it too. There’s a sense of duty
and obligation on this point. In a community, the group is small enough that
people know who is and who isn’t being taken care of, and who is and who isn’t
stepping in to help. If you don’t pull your weight and you’re perfectly capable
of doing so, you face social repercussions.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks Can Be Location
Independent; Communities Are Attached to a Place(s) </h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
With networks, you don’t actually have to be
physically in the presence of the other members of the network to participate
in the group. You can work from home for a corporation whose headquarters are
halfway around the world or take part in online discussions about starting your
own business while you’re vacationing in Thailand.</div>
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<br />
Communities, on the other hand, are attached to a
physical place. They require you to be geographically close to your fellow
community members. By necessitating physical presence, and face-to-face
interactions, communities force individuals to be accountable to one another.</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Networks Divide a Person Into Parts; Communities
Nurture the Whole Person</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7DL2AD4i6bv9dldqQUko_0Qg-tAEmw0xb4kbcWekj9jYVskbNNdIu72HaXu6WKUj9_BoBDd6A9d1WdhWCVeYRx4xSddycTN-ykdjY8eOJSPvKYq8qfJV6zngntaDuaYvpwrB9YRQa9aN/s1600/rockwell+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7DL2AD4i6bv9dldqQUko_0Qg-tAEmw0xb4kbcWekj9jYVskbNNdIu72HaXu6WKUj9_BoBDd6A9d1WdhWCVeYRx4xSddycTN-ykdjY8eOJSPvKYq8qfJV6zngntaDuaYvpwrB9YRQa9aN/s1600/rockwell+2.jpg" height="320" width="294" /></a></div>
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Networks only ask for the part of a person that’s
pertinent to that particular network’s limited and specialized aim. When we go
to work, we don’t talk much about our politics or our religious beliefs (in
fact, asking people about those things can get employers and co-workers in
trouble with the law); when we attend PTA meetings, we don’t bring up our work;
when we go to our CrossFit class, we talk burpees but not about burping babies.
The offering of only one narrow slice of ourselves is especially pernicious on
social networks like Facebook and Instagram, where we show others a glowing
highlight reel of our lives, but hide the not-so-pretty behind-the-scenes
parts.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
By splitting the person up, the network promises
efficiency. But according to Gatto, “this is, in fact, a devil’s bargain, since
on the promise of some future gain one must surrender the wholeness of one’s
present humanity. If you enter into too many of these bargains, you will split
yourself into many specialized pieces, none of them completely human.” Because
we divide ourselves between so many different networks, “no time is available
to reintegrate” the different pieces of our personality. “This, ironically, is
the destiny of many successful networkers and doubtless generates much business
for divorce courts and therapists of a variety of persuasions.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Communities, on the other hand, nurture the whole
person. A community, as Gatto puts it, “is a place in which people face each
other over time in all their human variety: good parts, bad parts, and all the
rest.” There’s no identity splintering in a community. Yes, you may have the
role of town barber, but people don’t treat you merely as a barber in one-off
transactions. They treat you as Bill — husband to a wife with terminal cancer;
father of three beautiful children; cantankerous man who’s capable of immense
kindness; devout and dedicated deacon in his church who also happens to be a
free-thinker. Oh, and you cut men’s hair for a living.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
When a person suffers a crisis in a community (say
for instance a debilitating accident), the community comes to help the whole
person. Food is brought over; yard work is done; rooms are cleaned; hats are
passed around; spiritual and emotional comfort is given. The same person
steeped in network living would have to depend on paying strangers specialized
in different areas to get the same sort of help: a cook, a house cleaner, a
yard worker, and a therapist.</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Is This Group I’m Part of a Network or a
Community?</h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Ever since I learned about the network/community
distinction, I’m continually analyzing whether the groups I belong to are one
or the other.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
In our
modern age, intimate, face-to-face communities are hard to come by; while
exceptions exist, networks have almost completely taken over how Americans
socially organize themselves. So in evaluating the groups you belong to, it’s
perhaps better to ask if they aremore like a network, or more like
a community. The following questions can help you think through where your
group falls on the spectrum:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Do
I know the names of most if not every person in my group and interact with them?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Does
my group have a meeting place or arrangement?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->If
I left the group, would anyone know I was gone? Would there be any
repercussions for doing so?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->If
I got sick, or needed a favor, how many members of my group could I count on
for visits or assistance?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Am
I required to contribute to the communal pot, or can I utilize the benefits of
the group without making any contributions beyond dues/fees/tithes?</b></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Beware of Networks Wearing Community’s
Clothing!</h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
For most of human history we ran in small,
intimate tribes. We’re social animals, and our brains are evolved for life in
close groups. We crave the bonds and sense of belonging and stability that
communities provide. In the modern age, these vital communities have
disappeared, so we have turned to networks to fulfill our social needs.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
But networks can never be a fully satisfying
replacement for communities. They’re not designed for social intimacy and
fulfillment — they’re designed for efficiency and growth.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
And yet we continue to hold out hope that networks
can perform a function for which they are fundamentally unsuited. And this hope
is so tempting to buy into because many networks attempt to provide what Gatto
calls “cartoon simulations of communities.” In other words, networks like to
dress themselves up in the clothing of community.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
For
example, the idea of a “global community” has been much ballyhooed in our time
(see <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000U913GG/ref%3Das_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000U913GG&linkCode=as2&tag=stucosuccess-20&linkId=DPJ5I2UNCKCN7UBV"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The World Is
Flat</span></a>), but running it through the above requirements quickly reveals
the idea to be an utter farce. If your only obligation to helping other members
involves texting a $10 donation to aid tsunami victims every now and again,
what you’re part of is a network, not a community.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Another perfect example of networks masquerading
as communities is when giant corporations claim that they consider their
employees and customers to be “family.” Except in the corporate version of
“family,” members are charged for basic services and can be fired if another
“brother” or “sister” will work more cheaply from India.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Marketers
perpetrate what is perhaps the most insidious form of networks pretending to be
communities. Taking a cue from religion — a strong source of community identity
for tens of thousands of years — marketers have turned commercial brands into
counterfeit communities. In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKRWY/ref%3Das_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000FCKRWY&linkCode=as2&tag=stucosuccess-20&linkId=DPJ5I2UNCKCN7UBV"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Primalbranding</span></a>,
marketing expert Patrick Hanlon shows how businesses can turn their customers
into cultish zealots by taking advantage of humanity’s innate desire to
believe in something higher than themselves and to belong to a group. According
to Hanlon, successful brands should mimic religious faiths by having a creation
story, creeds, icons (logos), rituals, a charismatic leader, sacred words, and
non-believers who the believers can use as a foil to buttress their identity.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Apple is perhaps the most successful of these
pseudo-religious brands. We all know Apple’s creation story, we know their
creed (Think Different), their ubiquitous half-eaten apple icon, their
charismatic leader (Steve Jobs), and who the non-believers are (those
philistine PC users). Apple even has their holy sanctuaries (the Apple Store).
People who use Macs feel a connection to one another. Like they’re part of a
community. Except they’re not.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
The growing fitness industry is another example of
the way in which businesses have done an excellent job of gilding what are
really networks with the polish of community life. Enterprises like Crossfit
and Tough Mudder have managed to make lots of money, while elevating their
businesses into “movements” of loyal, zealous followers.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Online entrepreneurs have become especially adept
at creating networks that have the veneer of community. Thanks to Seth Godin,
many websites and blogs will have a big square in their sidebar saying
something like “Join My Tribe! Sign up for my email newsletter!” But the idea
of an online tribe completely contradicts what an actual tribe is. Members of
true tribes live and work together on a daily basis, see each other
face-to-face, are expected to contribute to the well-being of the tribe, and
are rooted to a physical place. In online “tribes,” however, you’ll likely
never see your fellow “tribesmen” in the flesh, you can drop out anytime, and
your only interaction with other members will be about the specific topic that
that particular online community is dedicated to, be it fitness or
entrepreneurship.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
The façade of community quickly disappears when
emergency strikes in your life and you really need somebody. Is the Apple
community going to rally behind you and help you out? Of course not. Your
fellow online “tribe” members might raise some money for you if they even know
about your problem, but they won’t come visit you or provide actual
human-to-human services. The fact that the only thing online communities can
really do for their members is raise money is a telltale sign that they’re
actually just networks and not communities. Community contributions should “pinch”
— they should feel like a sacrifice. Lots of people are willing to click on a
link to Paypal, but how many will come over to clean out your bedpan? As Gatto
puts it, “when people in networks suffer, they suffer alone.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
The lack of genuine care from people in network
life isn’t malicious. They are more than likely very caring people. The problem
is they’re part of the network, and networks artificially divide us from each
other. “I really would like to visit Jim, but you know, we’ve never hung out
outside work, so it might be weird if I came by.” The unfortunate result of
networked life is that it makes us feel lonely even when we’re surrounded by
masses of people. Gatto describes the sad, shallow nature of networked life:</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“With a network,
what you get at the beginning is all you ever get. Networks don’t get better or
worse; their limited purpose keeps them pretty much the same all the time, as
there just isn’t much development possible. The pathological state which
eventually develops out of these constant repetitions of thin human contact is
a feeling that your “friends” and “colleagues” don’t really care about you
beyond what you can do for them, that they have no curiosity about the way you
manage your life, no curiosity about your hopes, fears, victories, defeats. The
real truth is that the “friends” falsely mourned for their indifference were
never friends, just fellow networkers from whom in fairness little should be
expected beyond attention to the common interest.”</blockquote>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
So beware of false tribes, which come to you in
community’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening networks.</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
Learning How to Live in a Community Again</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYjePijG29qb5amUw1bu_ZJZYOLPASfOUJYHbFvpcOMpQESsia3An_jN7tPshez-FD-C8uhM4UOkCCD9nWLfacx2xtiXibtBnDlV3LAznjGS_O8szjbFa3pFOX3JNejzh510WyS_zGlgE/s1600/rockwell+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYjePijG29qb5amUw1bu_ZJZYOLPASfOUJYHbFvpcOMpQESsia3An_jN7tPshez-FD-C8uhM4UOkCCD9nWLfacx2xtiXibtBnDlV3LAznjGS_O8szjbFa3pFOX3JNejzh510WyS_zGlgE/s1600/rockwell+3.jpg" height="320" width="296" /></a></div>
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<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
While I’ve
certainly put the idea of networks through the ringer in this post, I don’t
want folks to get the idea that they’re evil. They can serve a good purpose.
They’re good for moving ahead in business, sharing information, raising money,
and even meeting acquaintances that later turn into deeper relationships.
They’re just not a replacement for true communities. Unfortunately we
treat them as such. The result is a world where it is as if people eat only
junk food, and don’t understand why their bodies are wasting away. Communities
provide us with vital physical “nutrients” that we all need to thrive and be
happy.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
While it’s
difficult to find “pure” tribe-like communities in our modern age, it is
definitely possible to cultivate a greater community ethos in the groups you
already participate in. As mentioned above, it’s better to not think of
communities vs. networks as an either/or proposition, but rather as a spectrum.
Churches, neighborhoods, schools, gyms, clubs, and so on can be more like
networks or more like communities. Here are a few suggestions to move
the ticker towards the latter:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Shoot for
small. We’re made to run in tribes of around 150 people. When looking to
join a church, deciding what school to send your kids to, or even joining a
gym, keep that number in mind. Join groups where you’re able to know every
other member by name.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Break
larger groups into smaller ones. Belonging to a larger network isn’t a bad
thing, if you can find a way to create smaller, more intimate groups within it.
Megachurches, for example, often encourage members to join one of their many
small groups in order to establish more close-knit bonds than are possible
during their huge Sunday worship services.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Create you
own tribes. Don’t just be a joiner. The best way to find a community is to
start your own tribe. And when you do, don’t take the easy way out of borrowing
a preformed, predefined structure; create your group’s culture from the ground
up. People often ask me to start an official Art of Manliness men’s group. I
have no plans to, because the result would be a top-down network, not a true
community. It’s the latter that men need. You don’t need me to show you how to
make your own fraternity of men — figure it out together with your brothers.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Get
involved. The more passive people are, the more a potential community
devolves into a network. For example, many people today treat public schools as
a consumer transaction; I’ve paid my taxes, and once I drop my kid off at the
curb, my part of the deal is done. Instead, you could volunteer and get
involved with the school, get to know the teachers and the other families, and
boost the school’s feeling of community. Same thing with your neighborhood —<a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/11/13/how-to-be-a-good-neighbor-9-old-fashioned-tips-for-getting-to-know-the-folks-next-door/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">start
actively finding ways to get to know the people on your block</span></a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Meet
physically. There are churches out there that offer online “services”
where you watch the sermon online, give money online, and even pray and chat
with other members online. The intention is good — bringing the bread of life
to those who otherwise might not get it at all. But such a set-up only feeds
one part of the soul; their need for community will remain famished. Online
interactions can be fun and convenient — a supplement to our lives —
but they can’tsubstitute for in-person meetings.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Share your
whole self. The more your group encourages people to bring their whole
self, rather than just a slice of it, the more the group feels like a
community. For example, many corporate globo-gyms are soulless networks, but
small powerlifting gyms often feel like communities, as the members not only
know each other’s workout habits, but about their families and jobs, too.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Be prepared
to sacrifice. Oftentimes people lament that they want to be part of
communities, but what they really mean is that they want to enjoy the benefits
of communities without having to deal with any of their responsibilities and
hassles. They want to get, but not give. Being part of a community means not
only taking from the pot, but putting into it; if you’re not willing to help
out fellow members when they’re in need, and deal with the annoyances inherent
to any close-knit group, you’ll never move beyond existing in a network.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Live
by family. These final two suggestions will likely be controversial,
but I would argue that they truly represent the best ways to be part of a
community.</div>
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<br />
The heart of community is family; not just the
nuclear family, but extended family. For centuries people lived near their
parents and grandparents, along with their uncles, aunts, and cousins. They
were your go-to, tight-knit support group. In our present age, one’s parents
and siblings are strung out all across the country. You see them once a year at
Christmas, and keep track of each other through your Facebook updates. Family
has become just another network.</div>
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<br />
I have long struggled with the fact that while I’d
like to live somewhere that allowed more opportunities for outdoor recreation,
like Colorado or Vermont, both Kate and my parents and siblings are here in
Oklahoma. I have long pondered which is better: living in a place you love, or
living by family? While I still pine for the mountains, for now, family wins
hands down. Our kids adore their grandparents (and vice versa!), and they’ll
get to romp around with their cousins throughout their youth. They’ll get to
feel like part of a familial community, rather than nodes in a disconnected
network.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Some people relish being far from their families,
because then they don’t have to participate in the inevitable hassle of
familial drama. But that hassle is part and parcel of our humanity.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
Don’t move
very frequently. In order to form a community, you need to live and
interact with the same people for a long time — to go through a myriad of ups
and downs together. People will never know your whole self if you trade them in
for new friends every two years. Community requires being rooted in a single
place for an extended period of time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
The likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another
state has fallen 40% since the 1980s. Various reasons for why young people are
staying put have been floated: some posit that the trauma of the recession has
made them risk-averse, that Facebook has made them less adventurous, or that
they’re just plain unambitious. As such, my fellow Millennials have been
derided as the “Go-Nowhere Generation.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br />
I’d venture to say there’s another reason for the
trend that everyone else seems to have missed: my generation, having grown up
socially famished in the vacuous network, now rightly craves the nourishment of
true community.</div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-28505339121468081372013-11-11T16:43:00.000-08:002014-07-02T17:01:21.303-07:00Book explores connection between Freemasonry and Mormonism<h1 class="text-center" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.2rem 0px 0.5rem; padding: 0px; text-align: center !important; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Book explores connection between Freemasonry and Mormonism</span></div>
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<a href="https://img1.etsystatic.com/025/0/8009541/il_340x270.588132681_kerg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://img1.etsystatic.com/025/0/8009541/il_340x270.588132681_kerg.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">DANA RIMINGTON</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Standard-Examiner correspondent</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">There are historians who believe there is a complex
historical connection between Freemasonry, an organization with origins to
local fraternities of Freemasons, and Mormonism, a popular name given to The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Michael Homer, an award-winning author who has published
numerous articles in the fields of law and Mormonism, delves into the
historical parallels in his recently published book, “Joseph’s Temples: The
dynamic relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism” (University of Utah
Press, $34.95).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br />Homer said the connections between the two may be
challenging and controversial, but are worthy of further consideration even in
the 21st century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">"For many years, there has been a gap in scholarship on
the relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism,“ said Homer. ”In fact, the
subject was almost verboten. But in recognizing the historical importance of
this topic, both Mormon and non-Mormon historians have encouraged me to pursue
this book-length survey and I am excited to share the results.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The focus of the book looks at the rituals performed in
Latter-day Saint temples, with more than 140 temples in the Americas, Europe,
Asia, Australia, and Africa, and traces many of their origins back to the
rituals performed in Masonic Lodges, the basic organizational unit of
Freemasonry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Homer begins by recounting how Joseph Smith, Brigham Young,
and other early church leaders were Masons at one time, but recognizes that
modern Mormon church prophets and leaders have attempted to downplay the
parallels between Mormon ritual and doctrine with that of Freemasonry in the
early nineteenth century, saying that Joseph Smith received the temple
endowments before he became a Freemason.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Homer explains the history behind the ceremonies used in
both Freemasonry Lodges and Mormon Church temples. “Many nineteenth-century
Mormons who were serious students of Freemasonry believed that the endowment
was a restoration of the ritual introduced in Solomon’s temple that had been
partially preserved by the Craft (of Freemasonry),” said Homer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Several church leaders, including apostle Melvin Ballard and
E. Cecil McGavin, an instructor in the LDS Church education system in the
1930s, are quoted in Homer’s book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">In their statements, they explain that Joseph Smith received
revelation for the temple endowment ceremony long before he joined Freemasonry,
doing so “to fraternize with the prominent leaders in the political and
religious world, and that he had a complete knowledge of the temple ceremony
before he became affiliated with the Masons,” said McGavin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">However, Homer points out that some LDS church leaders feel
differently, such as Reed Durham Jr., director of the LDS Institute of Religion
at the University of Utah, who concluded in 1974 that the Mormon temple
endowment “had an immediate inspiration from Masonry,” and that “most of the
things which were developed in the church at Nauvoo were inextricably
interwoven with Masonry.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Homer states that Durham then said that the connections
between Masonic rituals and the endowment were “so apparent and overwhelming
that some dependent relationship cannot be denied,” with connections between
the signs, tokens, obligations and penalties of the two rituals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">In several sections of his book, Homer notes that Smith
taught church members that the most important lessons they needed to learn was
the Masonic skill of keeping a secret, including the Mormon Church’s early
practice of plural marriage, which has since been abolished.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Homer also points out that the murder of Joseph Smith may
have been led by discord between the Mormon Church and Freemasons, who accused
Smith of plagiarizing their rituals. The mob that killed Smith on June 27,
1844, included Freemasons, who were criticized for not heeding their fellow
Masons in distress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">On July 15, 1844, the local newspaper published an editorial
confirming that both Joseph and Hyrum were Masons in good standing, according
to Homer’s research. The editorial continued on, saying “they were shot to
death, while, with uplifted hands they gave such signs of distress … and that
Joseph’s last exclamation was ‘O Lord my God!’, which is the first few words of
the Masonic distress call.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">As Homer concludes his book, he declares: “While Joseph’s
temples were not a literal restoration of Solomon’s Temple, they are also not a
mere pirated copy of Masonic rites. But the first Mormon prophet did use and
adapt a Masonic formula and extrapolated some of Masonry’s teachings that were
developed during the previous one hundred years in England, France, and
America.”</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-58900980146975742552013-06-24T15:26:00.001-07:002013-06-25T10:35:19.285-07:00Many Want the Brotherhood We Have. Value it. <div class="headline_area">
<h1 class="entry-title">
How to Create a Lifelong Brotherhood<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/18/how-to-create-a-lifelong-brotherhood/">This article is adapted from the Art of Manliness, a website we often promote. </a></span></span></h1>
<div class="headline_meta">
by <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">A Manly Guest Contributor</span></span> on <abbr class="published" title="2013-06-18">June 18, 2013</abbr> </div>
</div>
<img alt="men" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-34064" data-lazy-loaded="true" height="395" src="http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads//2013/06/men.jpg" style="display: block;" width="500" /><br />
<i>Editor’s Note: This a guest post from <a href="http://www.paidtoexist.com/" target="_blank">Jonathan Mead</a></i>.<br />
<br />
The responses from my closest male friends surprised me when I asked
them this question: “What’s the one thing you feel was or is missing
that’s held you back from becoming a man?”<br />
<br />
I assumed for most men it would be “lack of direction” or “knowing my
purpose.” But the common thread in every reply caught me completely
off-guard.<br />
<br />
Nearly all the responses had to do with a painful absence of brotherhood or mentorship in their lives.<br />
I know that pain deeply.<br />
<br />
For at least the last decade, I’ve felt the void of brotherhood and
have wondered if I’ll ever have what childhood friends and old men
sitting around barbershop stools have.<br />
<br />
I’m not talking about just “bros” you shoot the breeze with, but
quality, salt-of-the-earth men you know have your back through thick and
thin. I’ve felt a pull to build a brotherhood of men I can count on to
meet up without hesitance and have real camaraderie with, not just guys
that want to get wasted and chase women.<br />
<br />
And it’s painfully clear to me that most men are starving for a brotherhood that goes beyond beer slugging and fantasy football.<br />
<br />
I got tired of passively complaining and decided to do something
about it. You can choose, like I did, to actively create what you want,
or wallow in your despair.<br />
<br />
But first things first…<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>The Lost Art of Intentional Brotherhoods</b></h3>
Brotherhood used to be built into tribes and nomadic cultures. Lionel Tiger, who literally <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765805987/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0765805987&linkCode=as2&tag=stucosuccess-20">wrote the book</a>
on male bonding, had this to say: ”Male bonding is a process with
biological roots to the establishment of alliances necessary for group
defense and hunting.”<br />
<br />
The question, then, becomes, have we lost the integral existence of
male groups because our modern lives don’t make them a necessity?<br />
<br />
Because of their lack of survival obligation, modern brotherhood is
becoming more of a lost art relegated to secret societies and dying
traditions. The few remaining forms of these brotherhoods are
fraternities, Boy Scouts, and church groups. You might also have boyhood
friendships that has lasted through adulthood, or built-in brotherhood
through close brothers, uncles, or perhaps your father.<br />
<br />
That is, if you’re lucky. Not so with me.<br />
<br />
I was an only boy of four sisters, so I was out of luck in the
“built-in brotherhood” department. And while I loved Boy Scouts, it’s an
adventure that ends at adulthood.<br />
<br />
If we don’t have brotherhood built-in, perhaps we must create it.<br />
<br />
It’s no wonder why movies like <i>Fight Club </i>and <i>300</i> are so popular. They stir within us an unquenched desire to belong to our own tribe of men that we can call brothers.<br />
<br />
But can we learn to just deal with surface-level interaction and solitude as men? I don’t think so.<br />
<br />
There are three reasons we need brotherhoods now more than ever:<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Critical Reason #1: We Need Brotherhoods to Become Better Men</b></h3>
Interestingly, men, not women, are the likeliest to form gender-based
groups, and have the highest percentage of groups that meet in secret
(“secret societies”).<br />
<br />
While most of these groups have traditionally had a specific agenda —
religious, political, or otherwise — it’s through organized groups that
men come together to compete, insult, berate, and grow together.<br />
<br />
This is a male-specific form of bonding and growth. Men for thousands
of years have come together in intentional groups to sharpen each other
in different ways. It’s through challenges from other men that we grow.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Critical Reason #2: Bonding with Other Men Is How We Best Learn </b></h3>
David Deida, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591792576/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1591792576&linkCode=as2&tag=stucosuccess-20"><i>Way of the Superior Man</i></a>,
eloquently states the defining characteristic of the male sex: “Life as
a man is like a constant error correction. Making a mistake, and
correcting, then making another mistake and correcting.”<br />
<br />
This is distinct from the way women interact and bond with each
other. Men tend to be more binary: “This is right and that is wrong, and
I learn by discovering what is most right.” Whereas women tend to be
more intuitive: “This is how I feel, and I’m going to feel out what I
want to do next based on everything I’m taking in.”<br />
<br />
As men, we need this kind of feedback and guidance from other men to
help us error correct, to help us learn what it means to be a man. We’re
not good at feeling our way through it. We need to see “correct”
behavior in order to find our own most appropriate path.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Critical Reason #3: Brotherhoods May Be the Antidote for Fatherlessness and Depression</b></h3>
While more women than men attempt suicide overall, men account for 3/4 of all <i>completed</i> suicides. And suicide <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/health/suicide-rate-rises-sharply-in-us.html?_r=0">rates for men overall have been climbing sharply</a>
over this past decade; among middle-age men, suicide now accounts for
almost 30 out of every 100,000 deaths –3X that of their female peers.
Rates of suicide for men in their 50s has increased an astonishing 50%.
What accounts for this jump? One of the reasons researchers cite is <i>isolation</i>.<br />
<br />
Perhaps women are often better at maintaining friendships, seeking out help,
and discussing their thoughts, challenges, fears and aspirations. Why are men so bad at this? Is it
because we’re missing the brotherhood and camaraderie that makes us feel
safe to express ourselves as men? Is it the lack of strong male role
models that have left us lost in a world where we don’t know how to be <a href="http://sexloveliberation.com/the-lie-of-masculinity/">strong, sensitive, and courageous men</a>?<br />
<br />
We also need more men to step up and lead other men.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>How Brotherhood Finally Helped Me Become a Man</b></h3>
I didn’t feel like I was truly a man until I left my cubicle behind,
struck out on my own, and started working for myself. Once my wife and I
were 100% reliant on my ability to hustle and make ends meet, I felt
like I had gone through a rite of passage that transformed me into a
man.<br />
<br />
Maybe it was that I felt like I could control the course and
direction of my own destiny. I had become truly self-reliant for the
first time in my life.<br />
<br />
But the reason I was able to succeed was not simply because of my own
independent will. It was because I had a brotherhood that was also
working to create their own vocations on their own terms. These men
helped lift me up, believe in me, and made me stronger than I was
standing alone.<br />
<br />
And while online connections are great, I realized I was yearning for
something offline and more personal. I wanted to be able to call the
guys to a pickup game of basketball in the park or go on a hike in the
woods without planning it out a month in advance.<br />
<br />
I wanted real brotherhood, so I decided to do something about it.<br />
<br />
There’s an old saying that goes, “When you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, you’ll finally do something about it.”<br />
<br />
I got sick and tired of complaining about a lack of brotherhood when there were so many awesome men around me.<br />
<br />
So I gathered the email addresses of nine local guys and asked them a simple question:<br />
<br />
“Would you be interested in meeting up with other awesome men once a month to do cool things?”<br />
<br />
The overwhelming response was, “Hell yes.” I guess I wasn’t the only one that needed something like this.<br />
<br />
So far we’ve played glow-in-the-dark miniature golf, sat and drank
mind-expanding tea (yes, tea can get you high, believe it or not), and
have conquered fears together. We use our gatherings as an excuse to
bond and do fun, bucket-list type stuff together.<br />
<br />
You don’t need blood-brother rituals, matching tattoos, or secret
handshakes to create a brotherhood (not that any of those things aren’t
cool).<br />
<br />
All you need is initiative and the right men.<br />
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b>How to Create Your Own Brotherhood</b></h3>
<br />
<b>The first and most critical step is to define your intention and purpose:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>What do you want in a brotherhood and why do you want it?</li>
<li>What do you hope to gain from and give to it?</li>
<li>Is your intention to have fun, bond, and do interesting things, or
do you care more about having a forum for expressing your challenges and
issues as a man to work through them?</li>
</ul>
Answering these questions will help you get clear on your purpose for the group.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>How to find the right men for your brotherhood:</b><br />
<br />
This is probably the hardest part, and why most men will never do the work necessary to create an organized men’s group.<br />
<br />
You have a few choices:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Find an existing men’s group or meetup that’s firmly established.</b>
If you just want a forum for expressing yourself and exploring your
masculinity, this might be the best fit for you. This is the easiest
choice if you can find a good group that’s already established.</li>
<li><b>Create a group locally.</b> This will give you the most
intentional control and freedom as you won’t have to work within the
bounds of an established group and “fit in” to their intentions. This is
a bit harder, but worth it if you want to determine the direction of
the group.</li>
<li><b>Move somewhere where there’s an existing group.</b>
This is obviously the most difficult option. However, if you are already
looking to move somewhere where there is a culture much more resonant
with who you are, this change might be exactly what you need.</li>
<li><b>Create a group virtually.</b> Obviously, this is the
most limited variation, but it might be good enough if you can’t find or
create a local group. Instead, you might meet on Skype or Google
Hangout. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Recruiting and enlisting the right men:</b><br />
<br />
Who and how you’ll recruit depends on your intention for the group.
If you want a group of guys that meets every month as an excuse to go on
exciting adventures, you will have different criteria for the men you
enlist than if you’re wanting a weekly men’s group that meets to discuss
and challenge each other to grow as men.<br />
<br />
You don’t have to limit yourself to either of these group types, but
deciding your intention for the group will help you identify the right
candidates.<br />
<br />
Here are some tips I’ve found helpful for finding good men:<br />
<ul>
<li>Try to look for guys that are interested in personal growth,
fitness, and pushing past personal limitations. Where do these men hang
out? Conferences, seminars, blogs, forums, and events related to
personal growth, of course.</li>
<li>Look for men that you wouldn’t mind hanging out with for an entire
weekend. If someone is going to get on your nerves quickly, they’re
probably not a great fit.</li>
<li>Determine the size of the group and demographics you want. I find
that 6-10 guys is a great size and keeps things fairly simple. Most of
the men in our group are in the age range of 25-50. All of us are
health-conscious and live active lifestyles so it makes it easy for us
to do physical things.</li>
<li>Look within your network first. Approach peers, coworkers, friends,
and family that you would love to connect with more deeply. Post
something on Facebook telling people you’re considering starting a group
and ask for interest. Email the people you’re considering including
directly with a casual invitation.</li>
<li>If you’re having trouble enlisting in your established network,
utilize tools like Craigslist (in their Strictly Platonic section) and
Meetup.com.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Creating the right space and intention:</b><br />
<br />
Our men’s group meets on the last Saturday of every month. Each month
we take nominations for what we’re going to do next, and then we vote
on what we’ll do.<br />
<br />
We use this as an excuse to do adventurous things and conquer
personal challenges. Some of them are things that have been on one of
our bucket lists for a long time. Some are things one of us has always
wanted to learn or try. Sometimes it’s just something random and fun.<br />
<br />
If you want to be more formal, you can organize a weekly group with a
set agenda. A quick start guide on creating a formal men’s group can be
found <a href="http://www.jaysongaddis.com/2009/07/how-to-start-a-mens-group/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next, decide what the rules will be, if any. For our group we have two rules:</b><br />
<ol>
<li><i><b>It’s not all about business.</b></i> If we didn’t have
this rule it would be easy for us to default to conversations and
activities centered around work. This helps us stay focused on what matters to us: connection about but also beyond
work.</li>
<li><i><b>If you miss more than two meetups in a row you’ll stop getting invited.</b> </i>We
want members that are committed and in this for the long haul. If
you’re not committed, well, it wasn’t meant to be, and we’re not going
to try to convince you otherwise.</li>
</ol>
We might change this in the future, but this works for us right now.<br />
<br />
<b>The final, never-ending step — cultivating the brotherhood:</b><br />
<br />
Starting is obviously the hardest step. But you can’t end there.<br />
<br />
Creating a lasting, lifelong brotherhood takes time, energy, and
continual investment. You have to “show up” for your brothers on a
regular basis. You need to hold space for them to become who they’re
meant to be. You need to encourage them, challenge them, and push each
other to reach new heights.<br />
<br />
More than anything, you just need to show up.<br />
<br />
Here are some ways you can do that:<br />
<ul>
<li>Take an active interest in the desires, dreams, and goals of the men
in your group. How can you tailor discussions, events, and adventures
that help your friends achieve their dreams?</li>
<li>Regularly brief the group. What’s coming up next? What was something
fun and memorable that happened the last time you all hung out?</li>
<li>Share the spotlight and encourage others (especially more withdrawn
and introverted members) to share their voice and take a leadership
role. Consider rotating coordination and leadership of meetings and
events.</li>
<li>Teach via example. The more you show up in your fully alive,
embodied masculinity, the more you will inspire others to do the same.</li>
<li>Make it damn near unmissable. Cultivate an experience and a group that no one wants to miss.</li>
</ul>
The primary key is to show up and give courageously to your fellow men.<br />
<br />
The world needs more brotherhood. Will you create it?<br />
<br />
Don’t wait until you’ve got it all figured out as a man. Don’t wait
until you’re the perfect leader. <br />
<br />
Don’t wait until you have the perfect
group of men. A ragtag group of misfits will do.<br />
<br />
The world needs more courageous men banding together to challenge each other, to grow together. Wouldn’t you agree?<br />
<br />
<b>So here’s my challenge to you: Do one thing today to cultivate more brotherhood in your life.</b><br />
<br />
<b><i>Now, over to you: Have you ever felt a lack of brotherhood in your life? What are you going to do about it?</i></b><br />
___________________Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-24617267283316924702013-06-05T15:19:00.000-07:002013-06-24T15:20:20.130-07:00A False Premise: light on mysterious order<br />
Some still believe that by denuding fraternal orders of their mystery, spirituality, character and exclusiveness that they will make themselves more popular. Just the opposite is true. This article from the Guardian:<br />
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Freemasonry exhibition throws light on mysterious order</h1>
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Carlisle museum looks at the symbolism and history of freemasonry in England over the last 300 years</div>
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George IV's freemason's throne.</div>
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Frequently the subject of criticism or bewilderment because of
the secrecy of some members, Freemasonry is for most of us an alluring
mystery.<br />
<br />
But an exhibition at Carlisle's <a href="http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/light-story-freemasonry-carlisle">Tullie House</a>
– probably the most extensive public gallery exhibition ever devoted to
the subject – attempts to nail down some facts amid the murk.<br />
<br />
The exhibition's title, <em>Into the Light</em>,
alludes both to the attempt to throw light on the "order" and to a
stage of initiation when a new mason's blindfold is removed.<br />
<br />
In a
voxpop video at the entrance to the exhibition, Edna Croft attempts to
sum-up freemasonry: "It used to be rather sinister and secretive, but
they've made desperate attempts to prove they're just a charity."<br />
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<img alt="Masonic costumes " height="190" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/5/1370412969542/Masonic-costumes--001.jpg" width="220" />
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Masonic costumes.
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<br />
Sandy McKay said people in public office should declare their
membership. From 1998 it was compulsory for judges and magistrates to
register membership, but Jack Straw, as home secretary, abolished that
rule in 2009.<br />
<br />
The origins of freemasonry are obscure. Although a
1730 book traced the organisation back to ancient Egypt, it is now
thought most likely that it derives from 17th century guilds of master
masons, which later became open to all professions.<br />
<br />
The symbolism
of the stonemason is still widespread in freemasonry, with set square
and compasses frequently appearing on aprons and other ornaments, often
with the addition of an "all-seeing" eye.<br />
<br />
There are some 250,000 members of lodges affiliated to the <a href="http://www.ugle.org.uk/">United Grand Lodge</a> of England. In Carlisle alone there are 14 lodges, typically with around 50 members.<br />
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<img alt="A dress with masonic symbolism by John Galliano " height="297" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/5/1370413056698/A-dress-with-masonic-symb-001.jpg" width="220" />
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A dress with masonic symbolism by John Galliano.
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In England there are three orders of membership, who all wear
different colours to signify their rank – so lodge stewards wear red,
grand officers dark blue and gold and ordinary members sky blue.<br />
<br />In
Scotland there are 33 different orders of membership, so if they too
have to wear different colours, lodge meetings in Scotland must be
somewhat polychromatic.<br />
<br />
The list of notable freemasons includes
some surprising names, from Wellington and Walter Scott to Simon Bolivar
and Mozart. Mozart's <em>The Magic Flute</em>, with libretto written by
fellow freemason Emanuel Shikanader, has several overtly Masonic
themes. Other Masonic works by Mozart include some Masonic funeral music
and a choral cantata, <em>The Mason's Joy</em>.<br />
<br />
It is possible for <em>men of good character who are over 21 and believe in a Supreme Being</em>
to become members. Women need not apply in England or Wales - although
there are a four all women and mixed lodges, they are not officially
recognised by the United Grand Lodge, for reasons that are not
explained.<br />
<br />
Among the displays are Donald Campbell's apron, Winston
Churchill's leather apron pouch, a frock with masonic motifs by John
Galiano, as well as a lodge banner dating from 1796.<br />
<br />
Most
impressive, perhaps, are the seats borrowed from the United Grand Lodge
in London's Covent Garden. These are huge throne-like chairs of gilded
lime wood, made in 1791 at a cost of 150 guineas.<br />
<br />
The largest central
throne was made for the then Prince of Wales, later George IV. Even for
the notoriously over-weight prince with his capacious backside, the
throne must have been more than roomy.<br />
<br />
• <strong>Into the Light: the Story of Freemasonry</strong> is on at Tullie House, Carlisle, until 7 July.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-53203424355953535212013-05-07T10:55:00.001-07:002013-06-26T03:14:27.254-07:00How Social Networks Drive Unemployment by Ethnicity, Race<br />
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How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment <br />
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By NANCY DITOMASO</address>
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New York Times: The Great Divide is a series about inequality.</div>
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Affirmative Action, Blacks, Hiring and Promotion, Labor and Jobs, Nepotism, Race and Ethnicity, Unemployment</div>
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It’s easy to believe the worst is over in the economic downturn. But
for African-Americans, the pain continues — over 13 percent of black
workers are unemployed, nearly twice the national average. And that’s
not a new development: regardless of the economy, job prospects for
African-Americans have long been significantly worse than for the
country as a whole.<br />
<br />
The most obvious explanation for this entrenched disparity is racial
discrimination. But in my research I have found a somewhat different
culprit: favoritism. Getting an inside edge by using help from family
and friends is a powerful, hidden force driving inequality in the United
States.<br />
<br />
Such favoritism has a strong racial component. Through such seemingly
innocuous networking, white Americans tend to help other whites,
because social resources are concentrated among whites. If
African-Americans are not part of the same networks, they will have a
harder time finding decent jobs.<br />
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<img alt="Jobseekers stand in line to attend the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Career Fair in New York on April 12, 2012." height="277" id="100000002207057" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/03/opinion/great-divide-social/great-divide-social-blog427.jpg" width="427" /><span class="credit">Lucas Jackson/Reuters</span> <span class="caption">Jobseekers stand in line to attend the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Career Fair in New York on April 12, 2012.</span></div>
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The mechanism that reproduces inequality, in other words, may be
inclusion more than exclusion. And while exclusion or discrimination is
illegal, inclusion or favoritism is not — meaning it can be more
insidious and largely immune to legal challenges.<br />
<br />
Favoritism is almost universal in today’s job market. In interviews
with hundreds of people on this topic, I found that all but a handful
used the help of family and friends to find 70 percent of the jobs they
held over their lifetimes; they all used personal networks and insider
information if it was available to them.<br />
<br />
In this context of widespread networking, the idea that there is a
job “market” based solely on skills, qualifications and merit is false.
Whenever possible, Americans seeking jobs try to avoid market
competition: they look for unequal rather than equal opportunity. In
fact, the last thing job seekers want to face is equal opportunity; they
want an advantage. They want to find ways to cut in line and get ahead.<br />
<br />
You don’t usually need a strong social network to land a low-wage job
at a fast-food restaurant or retail store. But trying to land a coveted
position that offers a good salary and benefits is a different story.
To gain an edge, job seekers actively work connections with friends and
family members in pursuit of these opportunities.<br />
<br />
Help is not given to just anyone, nor is it available from everyone.
Inequality reproduces itself because help is typically reserved for
people who are “like me”: the people who live in my neighborhood, those
who attend my church or school or those with whom I have worked in the
past. It is only natural that when there are jobs to be had, people who
know about them will tell the people who are close to them, those with
whom they identify, and those who at some point can reciprocate the
favor.<br />
<br />
Because we still live largely segregated lives, such networking
fosters categorical inequality: whites help other whites, especially
when unemployment is high. Although people from every background may try
to help their own, whites are more likely to hold the sorts of jobs
that are protected from market competition, that pay a living wage and
that have the potential to teach skills and allow for job training and
advancement. So, just as opportunities are unequally distributed, they
are also unequally redistributed.<br />
<br />
All of this may make sense intuitively, but most people are unaware of the way racial ties affect their job prospects.<br />
<br />
When I asked my interviewees what most contributed to their level of
career success, they usually discussed how hard they had worked and how
uncertain were the outcomes — not the help they had received throughout
their lives to gain most of their jobs. In fact, only 14 percent
mentioned that they had received help of any kind from others. Seeing
contemporary labor-market politics through the lens of favoritism,
rather than discrimination alone, is revealing. It explains, for
example, why even though the majority of all Americans, including
whites, support civil rights in principle, there is widespread
opposition on the part of many whites to affirmative action policies —
despite complaints about “reverse discrimination,” my research
demonstrated that the real complaint is that affirmative action
undermines long-established patterns of favoritism.<br />
<br />
The interviewees in my study who were most angry about affirmative
action were those who had relatively fewer marketable skills — and were
therefore most dependent on getting an inside edge for the best jobs.
Whites who felt entitled to these positions believed that affirmative
action was unfair because it blocked their own privileged access.<br />
<br />
But interviewees’ feelings about such policies betrayed the reality
of their experience of them. I found these attitudes evident among my
interviewees — even though, among the 1,463 jobs they discussed with me,
there were only two cases in which someone might have been passed over
for a job because of affirmative action policies benefiting
African-Americans. These data are consistent with other research on
affirmative action.<br />
<br />
There’s no question that discrimination is still a problem in the
American economy. But whites helping other whites is not the same as
discrimination, and it is not illegal. Yet it may have a powerful effect
on the access that African-Americans and other minorities have to good
jobs, or even to the job market itself.<br />
<hr />
<i>Nancy DiTomaso, the vice dean for faculty and research and a
professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School,
is the author of “The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without
Racism.”<br /></i><br />
<span class="userContent">This is an excellent article. It really gets
to the point of negative and positive social capital and competition.
The myth of individual merit is just that, people compete as all sorts
of groups. This is not just a black and white issu<span class="text_exposed_show">e
but definitely ethnicity is a primary grouping, perhaps the primary
grouping if one looks at history or current disparities. (Today the
most socially downward mobile group are White Christians for instance,
which is an interesting shift historically, while Jewish and Asian
Americans are the most upwardly mobile and affluent sectors of our
society; and Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans remain mired at the
bottom of this ethnic ladder.)<br /> <br />
The problem is that groups are not on an equal footing, they don't have
equal resources and sophistication nor do they operate with the same
amount of cooperation or cohesiveness, for a myriad of reasons. One has
to be able to build capital (of all types) within communities while
also "bridging" to capital of all types across communities. Bridging is
difficult and comes with a lot of potential pitfalls and resistance; it
also requires a level of political sophistication that eludes less
politically astute communities. A negative form of bridging is seen all
the time, where the more powerful bridge to other communities in one
direction, taking or utilizing resources and power.<br /> <br /> That is one
of the ironies, that competition means a calculated attempt to have
what is yours and what is someone else's as amoral or immoral as that
may seem to many of us. <br /> <br /> It would seem like their should be
some mode of living where we have a less predatory or just division and
allotment (or at least some reset) but that isn't really happening in
today's world, and that is becoming more and more apparent. In many
ways we see social policies that exacerbate unfairness and injustice,
often labeled with Orwellian doublespeak such as "multi-culturalism". <br /> <br />
Failure to locate remedies for injustice or systemic inequality also
persists because people seek justice or some reset first from government
as if government wasn't one of the key vehicles for injustice or
unfairness in the allotment of resources and capital among various
communities. </span></span><br />
<br />
<i>Also, see <a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-933607.html">WASP ROT.</a></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-89247962254652161212013-04-29T13:20:00.000-07:002014-07-02T09:48:57.360-07:00The Freemasons Who Allow Women to Join (News item with our comments following)<div id="header">
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The Freemasons Who Allow Women to Join</h1>
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The Guardian,
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Nikki Roberts, 31, followed her grandfather into the Co-Freemasons. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian<br />
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On a leafy street in the London suburb of Surbiton, a big white
sign welcomes visitors to a masonic lodge for "men and women". The lodge
is an imposing Edwardian mansion, down the stairs of which comes a
white-haired man offering his hand to shake, which is a bit hurried on a
cold, wintry morning, but not particularly funny.<br />
<br />
Julian Rees is a member of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry and he is keen to disprove the sense that it is a secret men-only society. The visit to Surbiton was arranged by a press officer after I <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/nov/20/church-of-england-women-bishops" title="">called the rules on allowing women to join "complicated"</a>.
Offering to carry my bag before he proffers a cup of tea, Rees explains
that his order has welcomed women since its formation by feminist and
socialist <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/besant_annie.shtml" title="">Annie Besant</a> in 1892. Women now make up more than half of the Co-Freemasons estimated in the UK today.<br />
<br />
Yet,
as we climb the hexagonal staircase of the British HQ, filled with
symbols and pictures of elaborately dressed masons, the presence of
women doesn't detract from some of the bigger questions about the
freemasonry, such as why a publicist is arranging meetings with a
society best known for its secrecy. The answer lies in the fact that
freemasonry in this country is in something of a crisis.<br />
<br />
Apart
from the important difference of the inclusion of women, the
International Order of Co-Freemasonry, with talk of rituals, symbols and
"the Craft", is identical to the better-known United Grand Lodge of
England (UGLE) to the unitiated eye. And both are suffering from a
declining and ageing membership base.<br />
<br />
Although official numbers
are hard to come by, most estimates suggest that there are some 6
million freemasons in the world and just over 300,000 in the UK. In
comparison, 300 men and women belong to the UK arm of the Co-Freemasons.
At its peak in the 1950s, there were five times as many Co-Freemasons, a
rate of decline that many believe is echoed in the main branch.<br />
<br />
At
its postwar peak, membership of a fraternity that began as a sort of
union for medieval stonemasons was boosted by returning armed service
personnel as well as some of the most powerful men in the land. George
VI, who died in 1952, the last British king, is listed on the
official <a href="http://www.ugle.org.uk/what-is-masonry/famous-masons/" title="">UGLE website</a>,
which also includes Winston Churchill, an Archbishop of Canterbury and a
surprisingly long list of celebrities from Nat King Cole to Peter
Sellers. The royal connection continues today with the <a href="http://www.ugle.org.uk/about-ugle/whos-who/" title="">Duke of Kent, </a>who is the current grand master of the UGLE.<br />
<br />
Freemasons
have long denied suggestions that it is a pernicious old boys' network,
arguing that it is a sort of gentleman's club, concerned with moral and
spiritual growth. Although in the UK the sense that freemasons are no
longer the force they once were has given rise to jokes about suburban
middle managers prone to rolling up their trouser legs and doing funny
handshakes, there are signs elsewhere that membership confers
preferment. The collapse of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due" title="">Propaganda Due or P2</a>,
an order that linked Silvio Berlusconi to the Italian central bank and
the heads of all three secret services until it was closed down in the
1980s, did little to end suspicions.<br />
<br />
Given this double whammy of conspiracy and mockery, it is no surprise that all parts of the fraternity are looking for a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17357150" title="">rebrand</a>.
Or the fact that Co-Freemasons want to disassociate themselves from the
main branch, employ a PR company and launch a "recruitment drive"
specifically aimed at attracting younger women.<br />
<br />
Brian Roberts, a
retired businessman who works "eight days a week" as the British grand
commander, says that, by meeting the requirements of the Equalities Act
at least, Co-Freemasonry "fits with the current age". With membership
fees of £90 a year it is also "cheaper than most golf clubs". But
everyone knows why you join golf clubs. Why would anyone want to become a
freemason?<br />
<br />
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<span class="inline wide"><span class="caption" style="width: 460px;">Nikki, Julian and Sandra are all Co-Freemasons. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
</span>
</span>
<br />
A morning spent talking to four master masons makes an organisation
that members still call a fraternity sound like church without the
hymns. But Rees says, "It's dangerous to associate it with religion. We
accept people with any or no religion. We follow a religious path
outside religion." Some masons are atheists, he says, although they have
to sign up to meetings which pray to a spiritual being, which seems a
bit odd.<br />
<br />
There has been a long and often bitter history of
mistrust between organised religion and freemasonry.<br />
<br />
At its most benign
it led to a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1427978/Rowan-Williams-apologises-to-Freemasons.html" title="">spat</a>
between freemasons and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan
Williams, when he suggested their beliefs were incompatible with
Christianity. He then got into trouble for <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8514169/Archbishop-allows-freemason-to-be-bishop.html" title="">appointing a freemason </a>to be bishop, thereby proving many avenues are open to freemasons but still closed to women.<br />
<br />
But
there are obvious similarities in the way adherents speak about their
beliefs. Nikki Roberts, Brian's 31-year-old granddaughter, is held up as
an example of the new kind of freemason with her Facebook page and
media-friendly ways. Having dabbled in Buddhism, she gave up her job in
the City before finding "stability" in Co-Freemasonry. She says the
order adds "greater meaning" to her life.<br />
<br />
But what about the signs
and funny handshakes? These are apparently only used "if you need to
prove yourself and you don't have your passport", says Rees. A passport?
Disappointingly, it looks just like an aged travelcard with weird
stamps inside.<br />
<br />
In trying to explain freemasonry, Sandra Clarke, a
businesswoman who comes up for the lodge's eight annual meetings from
her home in the Cotswolds, says: "At the lowest individual level it's
about practising the essentials of freemasonry every day. In that way
freemasonry is no different from any other organisation with the added
initiatory aspect and spiritual context." This secret initiation – of
which little is known apart from the fact that new members are
blindfolded – tends to arouse suspicions among outsiders. "It's not
about hiding the location," says Rees. "It's so that he can look
inward."<br />
<br />
If somewhat vague on why people become freemasons, those I
spoke to are clear on why they shouldn't. "If anybody wants to join to
use it to gain preferential treatment in business they have completely
the wrong idea," says Roberts. "It is a total myth." Clarke adds, "We
would turn away people looking for personal material gain of some kind."<br />
<br />
Turning people away seems to conflict with the idea of a recruitment drive that is drumming up business with a <a href="http://www.droit-humain.org/uk/" title="">website, Facebook and Twitter </a>accounts. Basically, anyone over the age of 18 can join, but not everyone is accepted. Why?<br />
<br />
"Trust
us, a lot of people do come along whom we subsequently find not to be
suitable," says Roberts.<br />
"They have the wrong perspective, the wrong
idea about who we are."<br />
<br />
What makes someone "suitable"? Clarke says
"It's not necessarily one particular thing, it's more we don't resonate
with each other. They may have other ethos and values. They might be
better off in a church, say. Or a business network." The others talk of
making an "emotional, moral commitment" by commiting to the standards
expected of freemasons, whatever they are. "We don't think we're better
than other people," says Clarke, "but we do think we can make ourselves
better."<br />
<br />
Many freemasons such as Nikki grew up with family members
in the fraternity, which also underlines the sense of freemasonry being
an all-white club. Rees protests, describing "half" his central London
lodge as "non-Caucasian".<br />
<br />
Rees, who defected from the all-male
side because of an argument over its lack of "spirituality", is also
keen to stress that the differences go much further than the fact that
the bigger male-only arm also has a much grander HQ in London's West
End.<br />
<br />
"The male order, much as they may deny it, is all about
wearing more and more elaborate regalia and advancing to a higher rank.
Male masonry is peopled by old grey beards, the aristocracy, major
generals of the army, and they're nearly all male chauvinists."<br />
<br />
Perhaps
this differentiation is working. Since the recruitment drive launched
last November the freemasons report growing interest in membership –
mostly from women.<br />
<br />
With the website and Facebook pages,
freemasonry no longer seems as secret as it did. But why anyone – male
or female – would want to join is still unclear. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">end</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Comments from the Lodge Room:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> </b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="userContent">Brother Julian Rees misses a point- that
having a separate space for males (or anyone else) does not mean all
spaces should be separate. That point aside, I approve of co-Masonry and
for that matter I approve of all-women Masonic orders, as long as it is not forced upon everyone. <span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> <br />
There is the argument that having a new iteration of an order that does
not acknowledge a key precept of the original (if we acknowledge that
solely male membership is a key precept) makes it a different thing even
if it is same in name. On these grounds many deny female Freemasons are
Freemasons at all. <br /> <br /> What weakens that argument is that
(speculative) Freemasonry itself has changed and evolved so greatly from
its origins. Freemasonry was once Christian in nature for instance,
and the rituals have changed profoundly over time. The argument can be
and has been made that Freemasonry as practiced in many of the largest
obediences or orders is not Freemasonry. <br /> <br /> For good or bad,
Freemasonry did not originally rise from nor is it maintained with a
centralized hierarchy or leadership, like the for example, the Catholic
Church. Instead it has been messy, even before the arrogation by those
meeting to form a grand lodge in 1717. Extension of new lodges grew
from many directions with or without central authority and following
that new self-styled central authorities or grand lodges. Drawing and
redrawing rituals and practices became a cottage industry. The only
legitimacy exists in whatever extent mutual recognition exists and that
is highly fractured. Even though major branches homogenized, precepts
and practices still vary greatly in the Masonic world. Interestingly
some of the larger and more homogenized orders are the ones that are
failing the most. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">Perhaps it is, as the authors of the piece suggest, because Freemasons do not know why they join nor can they tell anyone else why to. Let's set aside the attire, the rooms and titles because they are not Freemasonry and have little real value and can be found elsewhere; and let's remember that today people don't need a past time, there is too much pulling at us now. In the internet age one can pursue philosophical inquiry with relative ease. Why then, do we exist? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">I would suggest that individual lodges should be give a chance to try to answer that question, and not be so quick to run away from those things that really draw people, such deeper philosophical discussions, shared social space with like people, personal relationships that can translate into our worldly affairs, concern with mutual benefit and assistance and so forth.</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> Variety may produce more competition and
some new lodges may strike upon a formula that fits what people desire
today. Calcifying dysfunction and failure is no way forward. Quality
of membership, usefulness, depth of inquiry, relevancy, shared identity
might be some directions that new lodges move toward and in these ways
they may be returning to Freemasonry's more distinguished past.</span></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-85162997747293698582013-03-19T20:54:00.000-07:002013-05-07T09:13:32.443-07:00France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared<div class="column_container clearfix">
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<span style="font-size: large;">
France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared<br /><i>Bloomberg Businessweek Lifestyle</i></span></h1>
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<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/france-where-freemasons-are-still-feared"><img alt="France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared" height="266" src="http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2012-04-19/0419_lifestyle_freemason_630x420.jpg" title="France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared" width="400" /></a><br />
<h1>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> By Joshua Levine on March<span style="font-size: small;"> 19, 2012</span></span></span></h1>
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Magazines and newspapers all have stories they run in one form or
another, year in, year out. The details may differ, but the stories are
largely the same everywhere, striking universal chords of sex, health,
and money. A few of these perennials, however, don’t travel. They drill
deep into one country’s psyche while everyone else scratches their head
and says, “Huh?”<br />
<br />
In France, the story that keeps coming back is about Freemasons. It’s
everywhere. Most big French magazines run at least one big Freemason
cover a year. Books dissect the “state within a state,” to borrow from a
recent title. Blogs abound.<br />
<br />
“France has several of these <i>marronniers</i>—chestnuts,” says
Alain Bauer, former grand master of France’s Grand Orient lodge and
president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Masonic liaison. “There’s real estate prices
and there’s how to cure headaches, and then there’s Freemasons. The
ultimate French magazine story is a Freemason with a headache who’s
moving. We don’t like these stories, but at the same time, we love them,
because they make us feel like we’re still important.”<br />
<br />
Huh? Yes, Freemasons: the old fraternal order known in the U.S. for
the Masonic lodges that dot American cities, musty reminders of an era
when Masonry stirred the American melting pot. Or for the arcane Masonic
symbols engraved on every dollar bill. Or on a sillier note, for the
Shriners in their red fezzes. (The Shriners were founded in the 1870s to
add a little levity to regular Freemasonry. Mission accomplished.)<br />
<br />
In France, though, there’s nothing funny about Freemasons. The way
the French see it, Masons are a fifth column at the heart of French
society, a cabal of powerful politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals
with a hidden agenda that is difficult to pin down because it’s, well,
hidden. Nobody knows quite what the Masons are up to, but everybody
suspects they’re up to something.<br />
<br />
“Freemasons—How they manipulate the candidates,” ran the cover line on the Jan. 10, 2012 issue of <i>L’Express</i>,
one of France’s three big newsweeklies. Even Francois Koch,
its author, admits that the headline is “exaggerated.” <i>Le Point</i>, the second big newsweekly, followed in its Jan. 26 issue with “Freemasons—the infiltrators.” The third weekly news magazine, <i>Le Nouvel Observateur</i>, got ahead of the game this election cycle: They ran their Masons-and-politics cover last August.<br />
<br />
“The subject never fails to generate interest,” says Koch. “It’s the
mystery of it that attracts attention.” Koch’s cover story sold 80,000
copies on the newsstand, almost 10 percent more than <i>L’Express</i>’s
average of 73,000 copies. “We always get at least average sales, and
sometimes sales that are really big. It’s always a gamble worth taking.”
Two years ago, Koch, who normally covers criminal justice, launched a
blog devoted to Masonic matters.<br />
<br />
To understand how French Masons ended up under the national
magnifying glass requires a brief side trip through history. Nobody
knows precisely where the Freemasons came from, but experts mostly agree
their origins lie in the medieval English guilds that laid the stones
of the great cathedrals. Modern Masonry dates perhaps to the founding of the
first Grand Lodge in London in 1717, and today’s United Grand Lodge of
England is still a kind of Masonic mothership.<br />
<br />
Those first English Masons laid down the loose precepts that govern
most Masonic practice. Masons meet regularly to improve themselves
morally and spiritually, and to practice brotherly love and mutual
assistance. They’re enjoined to believe in a supreme being and to stay
out of politics. And no women are allowed. Solidarity is reinforced by
an elaborate web of shared mumbo jumbo—signs, symbols, secret
handshakes, and code words that are either sexy, absurd, or sinister,
depending on who’s looking at them.<br />
<br />
Masonry fanned out from England just when the Enlightenment was
making the world safe for such values as anti-clericalism
and scientific enquiry. The world’s best and brightest joined in a
stampede. Voltaire, John Locke, and Goethe all signed up. In the New
World, Benjamin Franklin became America’s favorite Mason and George Washington laid the cornerstone at the White House in a Masonic ceremony.<br />
<br />
The early Masons made enemies on all sides. At one point the Catholic church branded them
anti-Christians, the established political order branded them
revolutionaries, and a lot of other people just found them elitist and
creepy. This might have been expected. Any international brotherhood
with secret handshakes and symbolic jewelry is begging to put its name
on a conspiracy theory. The Masons have provoked many, right up to the
Nazis, to decimate Masonry on the European continent.<br />
<br />
In the U.S., those prejudices coalesced in 1825. A turncoat Mason
from New York named Morgan disappeared after threatening to expose his
brethren and their rituals. The Masons said they paid him $500 and
"escorted" him to the Canadian border, but he was never seen or heard from again.<br />
<br />
The “Morgan Affair” sparked an anti-Mason furor that lasted 25 years,
during which 100 anti-Mason newspapers were published and some lodges
were looted. The Anti-Masonic Party even ran a candidate for president
in 1831—the first third-party movement in U.S. history. Masonic
membership dropped from 100,000 to fewer than 40,000. Over time,
American Masonry managed to rebuild itself, but it came back as a less
secret, less scrappy institution. Today, America’s 1 million Masons are
as likely to meet one another at a Masonic barbecue as a Masonic temple.
Masons in other countries followed a similar path.<br />
<br />
Not the French. In many ways, French Masonry has struck out on its
own, ignoring the basic precepts of its Anglo-Saxon brethren and
positioning itself as a counterweight to the deeply conservative
Catholic and monarchist strains of French society. “Freemasonry has
always had a political role in France,” says Pierre Mollier, director of
archives at the Grand Orient de France, the country’s largest and most
important lodge. <br />
<br />
From 1880 to 1905, the Grand Orient battled the Catholic Church for
the soul of France, and still considers the Third Republic its
stepchild. “The Republican party took its support from the Freemasons—a
third of the deputies were Masons,” says Mollier. “All of the Third
Republic’s progressive legislation comes from here,” he says, pointing
around him at the Grand Orient’s headquarters on the Rue Cadet. “The
current presidential candidates all knocked on our door, giving speeches and appealing to our members in private audience this year.<br />
<br />
For
an English or an American Freemason, that’s just horrible!”<br />
<br />
Adding insult to injury, in 1880 the Grand Orient removed all
references to the divinity. Freemasons insist on a
belief in what Masonic jargon calls the Grand Architect of the Universe,
however each member may define it. Phooey, said most of the French grand lodges. That’s just
religion through the back door.<br />
<br />
All this has helped make France’s 160,000 Masons pariahs in much of the Anglophone Masonic world. The United Grand Lodge of England doesn’t
recognize two of the three big French lodges, the Grand Orient and the
Grande Loge de France. It recently suspended recognition of the third
big lodge, the Grande Loge Nationale Française, but mostly because of politics between them and that French grand lodge's
internal bickering.<br />
<br />
“The French take a rather fluid attitude towards what we do,” says
John Hamill, director of special projects for the United Grand Lodge of
England. Responds Pierre Millier of the Grand Orient: “Do Protestants
care if they’re recognized by the Pope? We just turn the other cheek.”<br />
<br />
Jean-Claude Zambelli is a French government employee who has lived in
the U.S. for 30 years. He first joined an American Masonic lodge in San
Francisco. In 1996 he helped re-found the George Washington Union, a
lodge patterned after and recognized by the Grand Orient. It is very
French. God: no. Women members: yes. Several grand lodges of France permit its constituent lodges to practice "co-Masonry", that is to have male and female members if they so choose. <br />
<br />
“When we explain this to American Masons, they sometimes recoil
physically,” says Zambelli. “It’s just not the same Masonry. They do
more charitable work, like the big Shriner hospital in San Francisco. We
do a lot more work on ourselves. We’re not a social club. We’re here to
progress spiritually. Otherwise, what good is all this? The Americans
are proud to be Masons and show you their Mason rings. We find that
shocking.”<br />
<br />
The French do indeed play their membership cards closer to the vest
than other Masons. The heightened intrigue does much to keep them on
magazine covers. It also convinces people that the Masons must have
something to hide.<br />
<br />
Occasionally, they do. Their shadowy networks, no-questions-asked
eagerness to help brother Masons, and code of silence has made the
lodges a breeding ground for shady business dealing—what the French call
<i>affairisme</i>. Membership in French lodges has quadrupled in the
past 40 years—an astonishing increase. Recent growth has been fueled by
unseemly recruitment drives, principally by the discredited Grande Loge
Nationale Française as it battled the Grand Orient for influence. French
Masonry was a chicken coop with a sign reading: “Welcome, foxes.”<br />
<br />
“We have a hard time defending ourselves against the <i>affairistes</i>,
says Jean-Claude Zambelli. “It’s very difficult to show bad faith
toward a brother Mason. That has helped various mafia outfits hide
behind Masonic networks.”<br />
<br />
Sophie Coignard covers the Mason beat at <i>Le Point</i> magazine and wrote the book <i>A State Within A State</i>.
“Most of the Masons I know are hyper-honest,” says Coignard. “But it’s
also fair to say that in most of the big financial-political scandals of
the past 20 years, you’ll find Freemasons.”<br />
<br />
Coignard ticks off the Elf-Aquitaine African bribery scandal, the
Paris housing projects scandal in the 1990s, and now the Carlton
affair—an ongoing investigation of a prostitution ring in Lille.
“They’re mostly all Masons,” says Coignard of the Carlton’s ringleaders
(Dominique Strauss-Kahn, also embroiled in the Carlton affair, is not a
Mason.)<br />
<br />
The solution, says journalist and author Eric Giacometti, is for
French Masons to come out of the closet. It would help them clean house,
and it would take the fun out of trying to peek through the closet
keyhole. Giacometti isn’t a Mason, but his fictional creation, detective
Christian Marcas, is, and he’s proud to say so. Marcas has appeared in
seven detective novels with combined sales of a million copies since
2005. That makes Giacometti and co-author Jacques Ravenne the
third-best-selling mystery writers in France.<br />
<br />
“We decided to go straight against everything you read in the media
when we chose to make Marcas a Freemason,” says Giacometti. “That’s the
success of the series. Francois Koch of <i>L’Express</i> says we’re
just giving the Freemasons free advertising, but we don’t care. I would
tell the Freemasons, ‘Be proud of who you are—there were some
extraordinary Freemasons.’ Nobody knows that story!”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the French presses continue to churn. Sophie Coignard says
she’s sniffing around another financial scandal with Masons at its
heart. “When it comes to the Masons,” says Coignard, “I’m never at a
loss for inspiration.”<br />
<h1>
<span style="font-size: small;">http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/france-where-freemasons-are-still-feared </span></h1>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-14502245261374464532012-12-09T20:53:00.005-08:002012-12-11T20:46:18.870-08:00Freemasons Look to the Youth <a href="http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/" id="publicationLogo">
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<a href="http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/" id="publicationLogo">
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Freemasons look to the youth
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<a class="imageWrapper" href="http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/local-news/freemasons-look-to-the-youth-1-4456695#resize-image"><img alt="Gordon Robertson, leaders of Bucks Freemasons" class="editorialSectionImg" src="http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/webimage/1.4456694.1352379310%21image/3957625175.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_595/3957625175.jpg" style="display: block; height: 419.5px; width: 297.5px;" /><span class="resizeIcon"></span></a>
Gordon Robertson, leaders of Bucks Freemasons</div>
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<br />
Published on <b class="pubDate">Saturday 10 November 2012 12:53</b><br />
<b class="pubDate"> </b>
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The past year has sped by for Gordon Robertson since he was appointed the head of Aylesbury and Buckinghamshire Freemasons.<br />
<br />
<div class="KonaBody">
Much of the time has been spent talking directly to members of the 12 <span style="color: #446688; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #446688 !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;">lodges</span></span> and six chapters at the Masonic Hall in Ripon Street, Aylesbury, to see how they plan the organisation to develop.<br />
<br />
He
says: “My approach has always been to cultivate ideas from the ordinary
members. I have to be accountable to them in many ways, not least
because of the large amounts of money they donate to charity every
year.”<br />
<br />
Gordon, 58, who runs a West London electrical contracting
business, joined the craft, as it is known among its volunteers, in
1981. <br />
<br />
“I originally became a member because I enjoy meeting
people. My wife, Fran, liked going to social events organised by the
freemasons and getting involved in supporting charities. <br />
<br />
“Only later did I start to understand the symbolism of the ceremonies that freemasons perform in their <span style="color: #446688; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #446688 !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;">lodges</span></span>.<br />
<br />
“ It’s so uplifting, and engaging – for many of us, a lifetime’s work.<br />
<br />
“It’s
similar to joining the scouts, or the armed forces, or getting your
university degree. A celebration, but also a formal undertaking to act
appropriately. You agree to uphold the values of the organisation –
friendship, decency, and charity – and to promise to help your
community.”<br />
<br />
“We have given more than £1 million over the past 20
years through the Bucks Masonic Centenary Fund, with donations to the
Bucks and Milton Keynes Community Foundations and many other charity
groups.<br />
<br />
“I am very proud of that achievement, as virtually every penny we raise comes from the back pockets of our members.”<br />
<br />
Around 60 of them are based at Buckingham Lodge, the oldest Masonic unit in the county, which began at the White Hart <span style="color: #446688; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #446688 !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;">Hotel </span><span class="kLink" style="color: #446688 !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; position: static;">in</span></span>
Aylesbury in May 1852. It has since moved to Ripon Street and, from
that start, 119 lodges now exist throughout Buckinghamshire.<br />
<br />
Aylesbury
Freemasons also devote much time to community activities. One example
is the iHelp contest, which provides £14,000 every year to encourage
teens into voluntary work.<br />
<br />
“Whether (the young men) choose
to join freemasonry when they are older... The important thing is that
they are living our masonic values – of friendship, decency, and charity
– every day. They are the future of Aylesbury. And I am proud that we
have given them a lead early on in their lives, to encourage them to
serve their community. <br />
<br />
“That essentially is what freemasonry is about.”<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-55496303985047187922012-10-09T20:14:00.000-07:002012-11-11T21:53:42.380-08:00Missing the Mark: Why Didn't They Come Back?<div align="center">
<b>WHY DIDN'T THEY ADVANCE?</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<a href="http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Die_William_Tell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Die_William_Tell.jpg" width="200" /></a>Why do candidates fail to advance
after becoming Entered Apprentices? Answers
to this question can provide much information
which helps to understand the problems of declining
membership and lack of interest in the activities
of a Masonic lodge.</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
The question has been frequently
answered by guess work or snap judgments. Recently,
however, the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin undertook
a serious study to find factual answers to the
question. A Research Committee headed
by Past Grand Master Edward W. Stegner sent
out a questionnaire to 729 "defaulted Entered
Apprentices" to learn the reasons for their
failure to advance.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="left">
To the concerned
Mason, there is much food for thought in this
report.</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
The questionnaire was sent to
each individual with a letter over the Grand
Master's signature, with a stamped, self-addressed
envelope for the reply. Of the 729 men contacted,
204, 28%, returned the questionnaire - a surprisingly
large response for such an inquiry. Even more
significant is the fact the 190 responders signed
the questionnaire, although that was optional.
155, or 77%, made personal comments or suggestions,
which indicates that one out of five of the
defaulted Apprentices still had considerable
interest in the fraternal organization he had
become a part of if briefly.</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
Do you feel you had sufficient
direct personal contact with members of the
Lodge prior to the acceptance of your petition?</div>
<div align="left">
(80% ) -sufficient</div>
<div align="left">
<b>(14%) -insufficient</b></div>
<div align="left">
(21/2 %<b>)</b> - made comments</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
Do you feel you had sufficient
direct personal contact with members of the
Lodge between your acceptance and initiation?</div>
<div align="left">
(83 % ) - sufficient 24 <br />
<b>(12
% ) - insufficient</b></div>
<div align="left">
(1 % ) - made comments</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
What was the attitude of the
Masonic Brethren to you?</div>
<div align="left">
(83 %) generally positive
and accepting</div>
<div align="left">
<b>(2 %) generally neutral</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>( 8.3 %) generally negative</b></div>
<div align="left">
1 - made a comment</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
Were you able to identify with
the Masonic Fraternity?</div>
<div align="left">
(40%) - Yes, enthusiastically</div>
<div align="left">
<b>(42%) - Yes, generally</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(15%) -No strong feeling</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(3%) - Negative</b></div>
<div align="left">
(1% ) - Made comments</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
What were your feelings about
the teachings of Freemasonry?</div>
<div align="left">
(70% ) - generally understood </div>
<div align="left">
<b>(22 % ) -generally vague </b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(4% ) - no strong
feeling </b></div>
<div align="left">
(2 % ) -made comments</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
What problems did you encounter
in completing the degree work? (Number in order
of importance. Add any in unmarked spaces.)
(The following numbers indicate the frequency
with which the problems were ranked first. )</div>
<div align="left">
<b>(55%) -time involved</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(30 % ) -memorization</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(14%) - other activities</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(12%) - business or profession</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(7 1/4 % ) - personal attitude</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>(5 % ) - family</b></div>
<br />
<div align="left">
(Other problems added to the list)</div>
<div align="left">
14- "lost interest</div>
<div align="left">
<b>1O - mentioned "work."
Same as business?</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>3 - entered the Armed Forces</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>9 - objected to the "posting" (choice of lodge)</b></div>
<div align="left">
<b>7 - mentioned "health"</b></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
Do you hold membership in other
civic or fraternal organizations?</div>
<div align="left">
12 (6 %) were Elks</div>
<div align="left">
9 (4<b> </b>1/2 %) American Legion</div>
<div align="left">
6 (3 %) Lions</div>
<div align="left">
4 were members of the Junior Chamber
of Commerce; </div>
<div align="left">
3, of the V.F.W.; 2, were Moose;
and I each of the Eagles or Knights of Pythias.</div>
<div align="left">
<b>(Over 20%)</b></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<i>In summary what is reflected is that it only takes a small amount of negative contact and lack of communication to lose members at this stage. Fifteen percent of people feeling that there was a negative or cold reception, fifteen percent more who feel that there was a negative or cold follow up and lines of communication outside of the lodge... These quickly add up to loss of members. </i></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<i>What is also obvious is that people have competing requirements on their time, effort and resources in their lives. Most seem to feel that Freemasonry was irrelevant to their work, their daily associations and their family.</i></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<i>Many expressed that they were posted with people whom they had no affinity with. Freemasonry was once built around lodges of people with shared affinity, friendships and business relationships outside of the lodge. The new lodge culture, subsidiaries of <b>Grand Lodge Incorporated</b>, a top down structure, seems to be exactly the opposite of the old lodges with affinities and overlapping relationships and relevance to all facets of life, and this new lodge structure obviously turns people off and turns them away.</i></div>
<div align="left">
<i></i></div>
<div align="left">
<i><br />A very large number of people did not see the "point" of Freemasonry or were vague at best and many also did not see or accept the point of rote memorization. Those who did understand seemed to feel that Freemasonry as it was presented was irrelevant to them and their lives. This is a huge point since Freemasonry is essentially very personal and also very much molded by the experience and culture of the lodge. </i><br />
<br />
<i>Many new men did not see that they had either personal affinity or a place in the lodge nor did were they presented with something in the wide world of Masonic thought and interests that could be personally attractive or interesting to them.</i></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<i>The largest loss even then is the matter of TIME. Freemasons have often countered that the problem with the Craft is that it is not as time intensive as it once was. Everything that people seem to say is that the BIGGEST PROBLEM is just the opposite- it is too time intensive and is seem as delivering nothing relevant to the rest of the life and priorities of the individual. Pointless ritualized business meetings is not a good investment of time.</i><br />
<br />
<i><b>Intelligent men with full lives are not going to pay and spend valuable time to be part of something that they feel they do not understand, and they see as offering them nothing in their internal, social, professional or familial lives. If they do only a few will even dream of coming back and giving it another try at cost. </b>This is perfectly understandable. This is why only one of five of the obviously good willed and responders gave their advice for a change in the Craft and expressed their feelings but ultimately said, "No thanks." </i></div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<i>Many of these men were fraternal and community involved men by disposition and activity so the idea that the men were the problem is simply not true. Nor is the problem our times or the alignment of the stars or any other thing outside of our control. After 400 years we know that Freemasonry cannot be the problem, inasmuch as it is the same that it once was (and there is every indication that it is not). The Craft has changed but has not responded to the needs and concerns of people today. The true problem lies within those of us who now mold the Craft.</i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-62770156706609010892012-03-26T00:30:00.002-07:002014-11-21T04:01:27.614-08:00LinkedIn v Freemasons: It's not either-or.<h2 class="fly-title">
<img src="https://www.economistsubscriptions.com/gfx/droot/lp/droota_logo.jpg" /> </h2>
<h2 class="fly-title">
LinkedIn v Freemasons</h2>
<h3 class="headline">
<span style="font-size: large;">Joining the club</span></h3>
<h1 class="rubric">
<span style="font-size: large;">Networking websites are booming, but they have not supplanted more traditional business networks </span></h1>
<div class="ec-article-content clear">
<div class="content-image-full">
<img alt=" " src="http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/2609WB1.jpg" /><span class="credit"> </span></div>
<div class="content-image-full">
<span class="credit">Eyevine</span></div>
<br />
FRANÇOIS PÉROL, the adviser whom Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, controversially appointed in February to head two merging mutual banks, is not known as a champion of transparency. But Mr Pérol has let it be known that he intends to reduce the influence of freemasons at Caisse d’Epargne and Banque Populaire. He has refused an invitation to a <i>tenue blanche ouverte</i>, a masonic meeting that non-freemasons may attend. And he does not want senior posts shared among the banks’ various rival lodges.<br />
<br />
French business may be particularly full of networks, but every country has its cliques, whether based on education, social background or spiritual beliefs. In Spain, Italy and Latin America as well as France, businesspeople speak of the influence of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic lay order which supports a number of business schools. America has its Ivy League alumni groups and Rotary clubs. Chinese businesspeople often rely on <i>guanxi</i>, or personal connections. <br />
<br />
At the same time online professional networks such as LinkedIn, headquartered in California, Viadeo, a French-owned website, and Xing, a site with a strong presence in German-speaking countries (formerly called OPEN Business Club), are surging in popularity, thanks in part to fear of lay-offs amid the recession. A year ago it took LinkedIn over a month to win 1m new members; it now takes about 15 days and the site has 42m members around the world. Online networks, in contrast to the old kind, are open to all and easy to join.<br />
<br />
Old-style networks, however, are usually stronger than online ones, and the trust between their members facilitates transactions of all sorts. They can be particularly helpful for young companies in emerging markets. A study of entrepreneurship in China by Yusheng Peng of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, for instance, showed how kinship networks helped firms protect their property, obtain reliable information and identify opportunities. Social networks can also be speedier than formal systems: in July 2002, for example, when Vivendi, a French conglomerate, was weighed down with debt and needed to raise €3 billion (then $3 billion) in three days, its chief executive at the time, Jean-René Fourtou, turned to a group of bosses who were fellow rugby fans, including Claude Bébéar, then the chairman of the AXA Group, an insurance firm, and the money was secured. <br />
<br />
Some old-style networks aim to bring an ethical dimension to business. Not all students at IESE, a leading business school with campuses in Barcelona and Madrid, are aware that it is “an initiative” of Opus Dei. But many of them, particularly those of Spanish origin, are invited to join the order, says one graduate who was approached during his time there. IESE has a network of 15 business schools in developing countries, some of which explicitly state a goal of bringing a Christian perspective to business. Combining family with work, for instance, is the special subject of Nuria Chinchilla, a professor at IESE. <br />
<br />
But networks can also have baleful effects. They sometimes abet crimes. At French firms there is often pressure to hire or promote people based on their connections, businesspeople say. A study by Francis Kramarz and David Thesmar published in 2006 by the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn looked at three French business networks: former civil servants who graduated from the École Nationale d’Administration, former civil servants who graduated from the École Polytechnique and École Polytechnique graduates who went straight into business. These two elite schools, which produce 500 or so French graduates a year, dominate the boards of France’s biggest companies. The study showed that firms run by former civil servants who maintained their links to government markedly underperformed those run by executives with purely private-sector backgrounds. <br />
<br />
Competition suffers, too. Nicolas Véron of Bruegel, a think-tank, says networks make it hard for new firms to emerge in France, since established ones are conservative about whom they do business with. As a result, he says, “you often see that successful young firms are business-to-consumer rather than business-to-business.”<br />
<br />
On the face of it, networks are less important in more meritocratic America. Only 11% of bosses at big American firms received their undergraduate degrees from an Ivy League college, according to a survey last year by Spencer Stuart, an executive search firm. That suggests that performance matters more than the old school tie. But a 2007 study of mutual funds by Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy of Harvard University and Andrea Frazzini of the University of Chicago found that American fund managers invested more money in firms run by people who attended the same university as them. Moreover, membership of Rotary “service” clubs, which started in Chicago in 1905 and have since spread across the world, is by invitation only, and women were not admitted until the late 1980s. The Lions Club International, also based near Chicago, may be the most global offline business network, with 1.3m members in more than 200 countries. A third business network is the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, members of which must be Christians. <br />
<br />
Will technology and globalisation undermine old networks? Swiss banks’ hierarchies, for instance, used to bear a resemblance to those of the country’s army, with strong connections between the two. But the network has largely disappeared, thanks to globalisation and a decline in the army’s role in society, says a Swiss banker. <i>Guanxi</i> are different from Western networks: they are much more personal, informal and subtle. <br />
<br />
“An active, open online network is far more competitive in today’s globalised business environment than local, closed networks such as alumni groups or freemasonry,” argues Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. Online networks’ most compelling advantage, in addition to openness and efficiency, is the chance they offer to connect across borders and among different sorts of people. Traditional networks, by contrast, tend to be strongest in domestic industries, such as construction. About two-fifths of LinkedIn’s members are female, whereas offline networks are usually dominated by men. And online networks include more entrepreneurs than traditional groups: they make up 30% of Viadeo’s subscribers, according to Dan Serfaty, the website’s co-founder. <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the old structures will not fall away soon. Indeed, Mr Serfaty argues that online networks can reinforce offline ones. A graduate of HEC (École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris) might use the school’s own website to look for any alumni working at, say, Google, he says. But using Viadeo’s tools, he can also do a broader search for anyone who attended HEC and knows someone working at Google, so the network becomes more powerful. Online networks make it easier to gather information on firms and their employees, argues Jean-Michel Caye, a specialist in human resources for the Boston Consulting Group in Paris. But if you want to influence a big decision or secure a job, he says, “it’s still the old networks that really count.”</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-72413125749867339362012-02-27T05:06:00.011-08:002012-02-27T21:01:29.122-08:00Taking Liberty: Restoring Freemasonry by Returning to it a Virtue it Once Gave Us<b>In the <a href="http://www.masonicdictionary.com/kakistocracy.html">Masonic Dictionary article</a> 'Kakistocracy' Brother Dale Sabin presented a summary of the problems that beset Freemasonry, with the withering but undeniably true verdict that Freemasonry has become a kakistocracy. We propose that it become, or rather return to what it once was, an organization that gave us the template for <i>Liberty</i>, reinvigorating the Craft by doing so.</b><br />
<br />
<i><b>Kakistocracy</b> definition: government by the least qualified, from the Greek kakistos; worst, superlative of kakos; bad. (American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition.)</i><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://reason.com/assets/mc/_ATTIC/worldturnedupsidedown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://reason.com/assets/mc/_ATTIC/worldturnedupsidedown.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As it is, Freemasonry is turned upside down. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Post- WW II Freemasonry has seen a de-evolution of the Fraternity from a grand Philosophical Order, to a pseudo- mystical public charity, under the management of men who not only misunderstand the philosophical and esoteric aspects of the Craft, but attempt to correct their irrelevance by increasing membership of like- minded individuals, and boosting public support by concentrating their efforts into charitable fundraising, which it does poorly.<br />
<br />
To the young Candidate, we promise Philosophy; what we actually deliver is politics, bad food, incredibly boring business meetings, and badly done Ritual. The new Mason, disappointed by this subterfuge, either fades into the background, quietly and individually studying and practicing Masonry as it was meant to be, or simply becomes inactive, if he doesn't actually demit. The latter will never be seen again, the former makes himself a Master through his individual effort and study, but will never ask, or be asked, to serve in a managerial capacity. <br />
<br />
Why? Like calls to like; incompetence breeds incompetence. In business we refer to this, usually with a chuckle, as "The Peter Principle:" an individual rises to his own level of incompetence. In Masonry, we refer to this, in all seriousness, as "advancement." The only Mason who will be tapped to serve in a Grand Lodge capacity, or would even desire to do so, under these circumstances, is the Mason who probably shouldn't have passed through our West Gate in the first place. <br />
<br />
Of this type of Mason, Manly P. Hall says: "They can never do any harm to Freemasonry by joining, because they cannot get in ... Watch fobs, lapel badges, and other insignia do not make Masons; neither does the ritual ordain them. Masons are evolved through the self- conscious effort to live up to the highest ideals within themselves ..."<br />
<br />
Brother Hall, usually a fairly accurate and insightful commentator on Masonry, is dead wrong in this, at least as it applies to the physical body of Freemasonry in the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. <i><b> They have done nothing but harm.</b></i><br />
<br />
There is yet a second problem contributing to our current poor leadership: lack of education. This can take a potentially good Mason, and make him worse, through no fault of his own. A Brother once said "today's inept DDGM is tomorrows incompetent Grand Master."<br />
<br />
I would add: today's uneducated Master Mason is tomorrows inept DDGM. <br />
<br />
Fortunately, the cure for this incompetence at the top is largely the same cure as for the rest of the problems in our Fraternity.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: large;">§</span> </div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-kPU_ITkvryShPakGQ9wSt14bAVT0PDyxA19y4ICEzCACIDT9i31D2EPjpikX5OA7NFSoVPOrDRnvoPTAWlVWdL3rRJYTbrxU1Obk1__0qCE2_ggQJtRL06drt_-TSPDBz7PNH72NOFE/s1600/n1128736669_30055949_2631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-kPU_ITkvryShPakGQ9wSt14bAVT0PDyxA19y4ICEzCACIDT9i31D2EPjpikX5OA7NFSoVPOrDRnvoPTAWlVWdL3rRJYTbrxU1Obk1__0qCE2_ggQJtRL06drt_-TSPDBz7PNH72NOFE/s320/n1128736669_30055949_2631.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We resurrect liberty or we shall have death.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Without outlining them, the solutions that were presented in Brother's Sabin's article* are of limited use to reduce the problems in the Craft. They have worth for individual lodges. Indeed any of the familiar prescriptions as a remedy for all lodges, to be instituted by mighty Grand lodge authorities are bound to produce failure.<br />
<br />
I suggest something else, a thoroughly Masonic (and American) idea: <i><b>Liberty</b></i>.<br />
<br />
We should free the Craft from onerous and suffocating top-down authority. Let Freemasonry return to what it was, i.e. individual lodges, sovereign, with connections to communities and built by a groups of men who are true fellows. Give them freedom to look within the rich traditions of Freemasonry to build lodges with characteristics that suit them. <br />
<br />
Let the moribund lodges that have failed pass and new lodges rise or take up retired charters. Supporting decay and failure only helps rot the Craft and place undue burden.<br />
<br />
Encourage Freemasonry to reach out to the professionals, universities and men from groups who are given to share fellowship. Right now lodges and grand lodges collude to keep these men from the doors of Freemasonry. Step aside and let these men in. This again is a question of removing the shackles from Freemasonry. <br />
<br />
Facilitate membership or let the folks start a new lodge. Facilitate those new lodges, find a Past Master to help get them started.<br />
<br />
Let lodges acquire a character that they choose. In these days we are apt to speak about diversity, though not achieve it, at least in Masonry. There are so many ways to be diverse that all lodges will not be able to accomplish it but one place to start is a diversity of lodges! <br />
<br />
Let the lodges develop activities of their own devising that responds to the interest of their membership. Rather than trying to determine ways to restrict Masons or to dictate a calendar beside their essential meetings for rituals, why not leave the Masons to see how often they need to meet and what else they want to put on the calendar. <br />
<br />
Lodges could consider becoming centers of activity in the community again- coming out dances, baby showers, talks, memorial services, etc. Lodges should not be forbidding and distant from the community. That was not the character of Freemasonry during its zenith. <br />
<br />
Let charity return to being the work of the lodge, and let charity exist within the lodge and in endeavors of its choice.<br />
<br />
Let Masonic education become something Masons in the lodge take upon themselves. If you want people who will pursue Masonic education, urge lodges to select educated men!<br />
<br />
Masonry is a system of allegory expressed in ritual and symbols, not a system for employing the underemployed or jobless at the grand lodge to act as incompetent teachers usurping one the most crucial Masonic process, i.e. the individual's processing and interpretation of the ritual and symbols! The Mason is given resources, he is guided to where he might FREELY make his own pursuit or inquiries, he is not "taught"! <br />
<br />
If you want to get rid of politics don't force divided lodges to turn on themselves. Let them part amicably and multiply! If one group's ideas were better for lodge growth and quality we are sure to find out this way.<br />
<br />
Grand lodges, make yourself useful! Serve Freemasons and lodges, don't try to make Freemasons and lodges serve you. Put materials online so Masons can read them, learn about the Craft, history, constitutions and the business conducted in their name. To share the wonderful experiments of lodge types such as European Concept, Traditional Observance, various historic rituals, etc. make information available. To see exemplary ritual work, put it on! <br />
<br />
Let us recall that Freemasonry is thus named because it was made of FREE men, Masters, in a time when much of society was bound in servitude. It is therefore important for the Grand lodge and Freemasonry in general to refrain from claims of ownership and control of men.<br />
<br />
What Thomas Jefferson said about government applies to Masonic governance as well, the government that is best governs least<span class="st"><i></i>; Grand lodges should be afraid of failing its constituents and the constituents should never be afraid of governance. Don't forget that it was the failure of the British colonial authorities to heed these words that caused the people to wage a revolution and start anew. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="st">---</span><br />
<span class="st">*For the full article cited please see the <a href="http://www.masonicdictionary.com/kakistocracy.html">Masonic Dictionary article</a>. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-64726822444397872632012-01-09T23:03:00.000-08:002012-01-11T03:49:28.142-08:00Something for the Ages and the Connaught<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_xhojxPhfgSJFuG4gXEykhqyKDfYELC1PP-c8XCwzLMa2k9t6MTBm0j2_a5m9YGnp4CUTQLmRkHoxlTCiupP7UsmE88oWmFsi_lThE_jEDmGVu6d3t3oOkFVzLZ4JAow-tMIGzbUrEc/s400/wellington_430x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_xhojxPhfgSJFuG4gXEykhqyKDfYELC1PP-c8XCwzLMa2k9t6MTBm0j2_a5m9YGnp4CUTQLmRkHoxlTCiupP7UsmE88oWmFsi_lThE_jEDmGVu6d3t3oOkFVzLZ4JAow-tMIGzbUrEc/s200/wellington_430x300.jpg" width="200" /></a>Those active with the Level Club are aware that the Club, while in reduced strength, focused on drawing a base of younger men to ensure its future as an initial measure in a larger design. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What is a young Mason? In the U.S. the average age of an active Mason is over 60. So is "young" in this context less 60 years of age?</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What is a young for a person who is interested in Freemasonry but has yet to become a Mason? The average man today tends to be much older than in the past when contemplating and eventually approaching a lodge for membership. Should young relative to Masonic interest be seen as anyone below 50?</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is an important consideration regarding this youth movement. Fraternalism benefits from having those with different and complementing experiences, concerns and energies come together and share of themselves. With continuity such an environment happens. In recent decades fraternalism, and Freemasonry in particular has not had this continuity of either participation or frankly speaking, of quality of participants. The youth movement itself is excellent in terms of addressing issues of revitalization and reorientation toward healthy brotherhood and away from some of the damning problems that typified the nadir of the past several decades. One would hope that though that a wider range of recruitment and continuity would lead to the beneficial state described. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But do young men need subset events or clubs within the larger organization to make Freemasonry more relevant to them by catering to say, men 35 and under exclusively? The lodges of the UK which have been successful in revitalizing the Craft through specialized programs for young men and reemphasizing affinity lodges, including school (and university) lodges. They have also</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">struck up a club for young Masons. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This club, the Connaught serves primarily those professionals of the London area, no small number of whom were active in their university scheme. It is worth noting that the successful Connaught Club has given rise to an associated revitalized lodge, <a href="http://www.connaught-club.org.uk/lodge/">Burgoyne 902</a>, which is not thankfully, age exclusive. </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Unlike the Level Club, the Connaught Club is open only to those who are already Masons though we are told there are events where members are encouraged to bring guests. </span><span style="font-size: small;">It also should be noted that the Connaught has occasions on their calendar that may be of interest to the traveling brother and its members' lodges encourage visiting Masons. </span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>From the Connaught: </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">ABOUT THE CONNAUGHT CLUB</span></b></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The principle of the <a href="http://www.connaught-club.org.uk/about-us/">Connaught Club </a>originated in June 2007 when the Metropolitan Grand Lodge held a reception for Freemasons under the age of 35. The evening, hosted by the Deputy Metropolitan Grand Master, was deemed a unanimous success. Owing to the reception’s enjoyment, further events were planned and the Connaught Club was born. In its first two years of activity, the Connaught Club has grown to become the focal point and central meeting place for young Freemasons living in and around London. In the last few months, the Club has seen exciting new developments as membership continues to rise and further events hosted. The Club now has its own dedicated lodge with all the principal offices being filled by brethren under the 35 year old threshold.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Connaught Club Objective</b> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">From the onset, the purpose of the Connaught Club has been to give young Freemasons in London a means to socialise with like-minded people of similar ages within Masonry; whilst bridging the large geographic area and diversity of London’s many lodges.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Aside from social functions, the Club acts as a representative body for the views of the younger generation of Freemasons. Theses views and further suggestions from brethren within the club are then referred to Metropolitan Grand Lodge through the appropriate channels.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">We endeavor to encourage and support participation in our lodges and in Freemasonry. We promote openness and pride in our membership of the Craft and stress the contemporary role Freemasonry plays in modern society, with particular emphasis placed on its relation to the younger generations.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-13411814649341166772011-12-15T05:22:00.000-08:002011-12-30T19:55:03.759-08:00A Freemason's Christmas Wish<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MroAxg01d9aR3ziWvurCMVYUVmIfkKyI3MlLZz9tp28y1tVGImgaIKawhJaCTolRX8_9bBycYc0rK8PL-Kds8p30h7-_TABCLPxKl8ooCo_NQ6g73p0oP5QMU74IkX2wVt0wl1LHlqQ/s320/christmas07.jpg" width="320" /><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A Freemason's Christmas Wish </b> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Bro. Andrew Bradley <br />
<br />
It is the time of year when the Brethren rejoice, <br />
and sing carols of praise in resounding voice. <br />
Days of merriment and long nights of cheer, <br />
as we all await the "Happy New Year!". <br />
It is a time of family and life long friends, <br />
a time of happiness and to make amends. <br />
Roast turkey and baubles and the Nutcracker Suite, <br />
we each have our own way to make Christmas complete. <br />
<br />
As we stroll through this happy month of December <br />
find time to pause and take time to remember <br />
that distinguishing sign of a Freemason's heart - <br />
those acts of Charity. How great they are. <br />
As your family gathers 'round your Christmas tree, <br />
and the children play with giggles of glee, <br />
spare a thought for the poor, the man with no shoes, <br />
whose money for food is less than your dues. <br />
<br />
Remember also the Grand Lodge above, <br />
and the Supreme Great Architect's act of love. <br />
And practise those virtues we hold so true. <br />
Have some fun! But let Temperance chasten you. <br />
And during this season of peace and joy <br />
look well to our future - the girl and boy. <br />
Then wonder what lessons you may them teach, <br />
and with your guidance what heights they may reach. <br />
<br />
So, to all of my Brethren from far and wide, <br />
whether your Christmas be snow, or hot and dry, <br />
may the Architect grant his celestial boon <br />
and keep your good health 'til we meet again soon. <br />
Take care of yourself and those you find dear. <br />
Keep this festive spirit throughout the next year. <br />
Look toward your next date with our happy band. <br />
'Til our next merry meeting. Apron, heart, and hand.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-67384440850180533562011-12-02T08:27:00.000-08:002011-12-07T02:55:02.815-08:00Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction by Stewart W. Miner, PGM, GLDC<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/29498007?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/29498007"></a><a href="http://vimeo.com/weofm"></a> <a href="http://vimeo.com/"></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">A Presentation on Masonic Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) by RW Stewart W. Miner, PGM of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. Mr Miner notes that far from being rooted in the Constitutions or landmarks or even customary practices of Freemasonry from the Grand Lodge of England, that the practice is instead one based on pragmatic policies and politics in the American Masonic landscape. Here in America the speaker notes, ETJ has never been uniformly practiced historically nor is it in modern times, and that such practices have come both with and without the approval of various grand lodges. Mr Minor also expresses in an amusing personal anecdote that (prior to his research) he too, as Grand Secretary of the District of Columbia was upset to find that his grand lodge's "territory had been invaded". </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">For those interested in further information we recommend <a href="http://bessel.org/exclartl.htm">this piece by noted Masonic scholar Paul Bessel</a>. You will also find the <a href="http://bessel.org/excminer.htm">text to Mr Miner's speech above here</a>.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-9992332734241794562011-11-30T05:45:00.003-08:002012-03-06T02:08:51.547-08:00Simplicity of Being a Mason Among Masons<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">“What’s that you are reading? So I see you are studying to be a Mason. What is that all about?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://thetanuepsilon.org/03HistSoc/Hist09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://thetanuepsilon.org/03HistSoc/Hist09.jpg" width="200" /></a>"Give me a break; I'm just trying to figure out if this thing is for me at all." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">As time passed and as I had more experience living as a Brother, it seemed as if just being a Mason was truly putting to ease this restless heart of mine. I was fortunate to have an experience of a well formed lodge that had maintained tradition and emphasized quality of membership but could Freemasonry be that simple? In a word, yes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It was not so much about the study, rewarding though that was. The Brotherhood of Freemasonry <i>done well</i> was rather simple. I became less worried about the arcane and more focused on simply being… being a Brother. In fact the words "simplicity" and "availability" in our Lodge credo struck me very deeply. That is what resonated in my heart! That is what I love about this Masonic life at its best! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Simplicity:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Simply love Masonic principles written in the rituals, exemplified in the work, lived in our daily lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Simply love being among good men believing in Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God, basic yet inspiring.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Simply love fraternity, the sentiment of good will with those in my Lodge. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">Simply love the joy of hearing the fellows call me "Brother" and the joy of calling them "Brother".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Simplicity; God's gift to me-simply to be a brother.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Availability:</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">In an age where people find it hard to sit still and stay put, I desire to be available. To commit to being a Mason means keeping in touch in various ways with a set of men through my movement and travels. Even on the seldom occasions I cannot make it to an Lodge meeting or event they are a touchstone, a reason for communication. I also find that when attending Lodge even if one doesn't say much, the presence says much more. Whatever Brothers do: whether it is efforts of friendship- finding out about our brothers and what is going on in their lives, sincerely wishing them well, lending a hand when possible, and giving the best of ourselves; or the work of the Lodge- setting up and taking down the lodge room, the chores of office, sending communications and publishing newsletters and updates, giving phone calls and emails, tiling the door, opening the meeting, etc.; there is also the work for the Lodge outside the Lodge itself- setting up for a group events, finding a caterer, making reservations, coordinating supportive and charitable efforts, offering advice and a listening ear, having fun while attending an event, etc. - it is all really relevant. A Brother's main job is to be a Brother, to be available.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-12422413940170747612011-11-29T23:14:00.001-08:002011-12-02T23:16:08.986-08:00Shriners Declared "Clandestine" by the Grand Lodge of Michigan<span style="font-size: small;">This from what I have always found to be the atrociously titled though well intentioned "Freemasonry for Dummies" <a href="http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com/">blog</a> and a comment (written in purple, followed by our commentary in black):</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Grand Master of Michigan, MW Frederick E. Kaiser, Jr., has withdrawn official recognition of the Shrine there, and it has been declared clandestine and illegal. Michigan Masons may not attend tyled Shrine meetings in that state.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The problem stems from a Mason who was expelled by the Grand Master in July allegedly for pleading guilty to a crime punishable by incarceration of one or more years, and per Michigan's Masonic rules. Unfortunately, the Elf Khurafeh Shrine and the Imperial Shrine (Shriners International) in Tampa didn't agree and kept the suspended Mason as a full member of the Shrine. A slight complication: he's the current Potentate. He had pled guilty to possessing and operating gambling devices, and probably won't be sentenced until February. However, since he did plead guilty, the GM expelled him. The Shrine did not...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">From the GM's letter of November 23rd:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">The expelled Mason, by action of Elf Khurafeh Shrine, headquartered in Saginaw, Michigan continues to be a member and Potentate of that Shrine. Elf Khurafeh’s action to retain him was subsequently upheld by the Imperial Potentate. This situation exists despite the reputed requirement that a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of<br />
the Mystic Shrine (Shriner’s International) must also be a Mason in good standing.<br />
<br />
Discussion was initiated with the Imperial Potentate, and counsel for the Imperial Shrine. The Grand Lodge of Michigan explained its position, and requested that the Imperial Potentate reconsider his decision, given information previously unavailable to him. Unfortunately for all concerned and with heavy heart, I must state that no modification of<br />
his position, nor of Elf Khurafeh Shrine’s, has occurred.<br />
<br />
Elf Khurafeh Shrine and the Imperial Potentate have failed to adhere to their own Shrine law, by retaining a non-Mason in their ranks. They have also failed to honor their obligations under Michigan Masonic Law. Therefore, acting under §3.10.2.2 of Michigan Masonic Law, the Grand Lodge of Michigan hereby withdraws formal recognition of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (Shriner’s International) as a Masonic organization in the State of Michigan. The relevant sections of Michigan Masonic Law are as follows:<br />
<br />
§3.8.2: Any and all organizations, associations, or persons within the State of Michigan, professing to have<br />
any authority, power or privileges in Ancient Craft Masonry, not fraternally recognized by this Grand Lodge, are<br />
declared to be clandestine and illegal, and all Masonic intercourse with any of them is prohibited.<br />
<br />
§8.1.2.9: All Master Masons under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Michigan who hold membership in<br />
Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine are forbidden to attend tiled Shrine meetings when there is in<br />
attendance a suspended or expelled Mason.<br />
<br />
It is therefore my order that no Mason who holds membership in a Michigan Lodge, or in a Lodge chartered by a recognized Grand Lodge who resides or sojourns in Michigan, may (1) attend any nonpublic function of any Shrine in Michigan or (2) have any Masonic interaction of any kind with any Shrine organization in Michigan. Furthermore, no Shrine function or activity will be afforded a special privilege not afforded any other unrelated organization that is allowed to use a building dedicated to Masonic purposes, or on the grounds of a building so dedicated.<br />
<br />
Violation of these provisions by a Mason under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Michigan is punishable by charges of un-Masonic conduct.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"> And then we have this from a commenter: </span><span class="commentBody" data-jsid="text" style="font-size: small;">"The GM had the intestinal fortitude to make an unpopular decision to assert the sovereignty of the Grand Lodge over all things Masonic. Unfortunately, some bodies forget that."</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I respectfully though intensely disagree with the course of action and the commenter. Being a Mason does not stop your freedom of association. The </span><span style="font-size: small;">the A.A.O.N.M.S (known more popularly as the Shrine and its members Shriners)</span><span style="font-size: small;"> is not a Masonic organization in that Lodge functions occur; it is simply an association that limits itself to Masons. (At least most of the time; Shriners have regularly admit on an "honorary" basis any number of individuals who are not nor have ever been Masons.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">These are independent Masons not conducting Masonic affairs. When anyone starts to dictate to Masons what they can do independent of Freemasonry and outside the lodge then we run dead against the values that Freemasonry is supposed to be championing and imparting and the rights that Masons depend on the practice the Craft (see the Constitution and the notion of freedom of association and assembly).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">(As a related aside, I often find it funny that an organization that promotes its history as a model of democratic principles often brings out the lurking authoritarianism in its members. Human nature...)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I entirely agree, for instance with the Grand Lodge of Kentucky's long held decision to not recognize the Shrine. If anything I do not think that the grand lodges who govern the "blue lodges" should be in the business of conferring the favor of recognition or not to external organizations that do not deal in blue lodges just as we expect for the most part (in this country anyway) for the York Rite, Scottish Rite, Shrine, Cedars, etc. to not get into conferring the degrees of the blue lodge. Fortunately, this tends to be the case, i.e., grand lodges do not attempt to restrict among its members outside degrees that are separate and different from the work of the Lodge. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">"Sovereignty of the Grand Lodge over all things Masonic" is a very big statement that while grandiloquent is not true, for reasons of practice and principles of Freemasonry itself); the gentleman also seem to infer "Sovereignty of all people Masonic" as well which to any Mason should be alarming on the very face of it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This not only takes things as far as restricting the freedoms of Masons in ways heretofore unknown and unwarranted, but also takes the additional step of determining that the grand lodge of a state has the right to dictate the terms of operation to an independent body, and one that happens not to even be headquartered in the state (not that this is the crux of he issue.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">While not a Shriner I admire their good work and I believe that since it is being done by Masons it is a credit to Freemasonry because the members are Masons. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I also believe that this may be a product of ongoing issues, one being the dispute between the idea of whether grand lodges serve Freemasonry or whether Freemasonry serves the grand lodges. With such a declining state of membership there seems to be a lot of tension and politics inside Freemasonry and between Freemasonry and organizations of Freemasons. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Brethren are examining not just the laws/ rules and practices and their basis and history. Sometimes we see where politics and practice may not be valid. Things may be rapidly becoming a case of "reform (and splinter) or die" but I think we are much better served if everyone comes to their senses and perhaps the sides step back from creating unnecessary conflict. Perhaps it is true, that "he who rules less rules best".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">R.M. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-33338991001611046652011-10-15T09:42:00.000-07:002012-12-17T14:35:05.827-08:00Development of a New Lodge: A Template Based on What We Have Learned<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">THe MISSION, GOALS AND ORGANIZATION OF Lodge #--- OF THE --- gRAND lODGE OF fREE anD ACCEPTED MASONS</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5zMTmBgX7bjb3UZZQtcl42BFamlYOoiMrVJP_Rw6g4qy9tks2ZOHVKV2QsOiggmmSIAl4gAw8lO8mmn-HbuDVeowpC7GDU5E9qY1t6HhliZJ9XMSHO36eaueAN2GyNnQivPbvXABav8/s1600/GWTools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5zMTmBgX7bjb3UZZQtcl42BFamlYOoiMrVJP_Rw6g4qy9tks2ZOHVKV2QsOiggmmSIAl4gAw8lO8mmn-HbuDVeowpC7GDU5E9qY1t6HhliZJ9XMSHO36eaueAN2GyNnQivPbvXABav8/s200/GWTools.jpg" width="200" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Lodge #---</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> aspires to emulate the best practices and principles as follows: Traditional American Freemasonry (including much expressed by RW John Mauk Hilliard); Anglo-Latin or “European Concept” practices (as outlined by RW Kent Anderson, UGLA); and something of the initiatic focus of Traditional Observance (promoted by the Masonic Restoration Foundation); organizing along the principles of Affinity (including those espoused by RW Oliver Lodge UGLE and RW William A. Hill); reintroduction of Anglo-Saxon traditional Masonry in a focus on wide ranging intellectual inquiry (as urged by WB Julian Rees PJGD, UGLE); </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">avoidance of the petty and perfunctory including officialdom, kakistocracy, obsession with promotion, rank and lengthy procedure and time wasting (as shared by RW Dwight Smith and RW George Braatz and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">immediate involvement in areas of lodge function beyond simply occupying “chairs”, (also shared by Smith and Braatz)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The core principles for us INCLUDE:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Distinct and sole focus on Initiatic function of Lodge meetings; Programs of Regular Indoctrination into the intellectual, spiritual teaching and social applications of the Fraternity and the Lodge; Bringing the Lodge into intimate fellowship and personal communication; Charity first among the Brethren and also in the immediate community; Mutual Support in Advancement of Brothers; Refined and elevated Environment in behavior and presentation in all aspects of Lodge functions; Limiting the number of Lodge meetings held to the absolute minimal needed for degrees and votes to maintain the initiatic focus; Selectivity, Exclusivity and Continuity with a thorough, independent program for identifying new members; Compatibility among membership, formulating and continuing a distinct character and Affinities of the Lodge: a relationship with a formal or informal society, club or other organization for mundane affairs such as charitable endeavors, social events, membership development, debate and other opportunities ; Warm relations with and support of the governance of the Grand Lodge ; Relationships with other Lodges; Relationships with spiritual organizations and other civic and social organizations in keeping with the interests and characteristics of the Lodge; Required commitment to the Lodge and its supporting structures that assures at least minimal level of involvement and support of the Lodge and its members (and the rancourless disassociation of members who cannot meet this requirement).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Mission and Goals of the Lodge:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">To Benefit our constituency in the Lodge, the institution and the community in that order. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lodge would be as a group of brothers, dedicated to mutual support, well being and development of each Brother, emphasizing the values of the Lodge and Freemasonry through our actions toward each other in ways tangible as well as intangible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Every Brother would know that the most Masonic duty of Charity would be engaged in first and unfailingly within our Lodge membership.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Every Mason in the Lodge would be able to point to the manifest benefit of being in the Lodge and why he attends. No brother would need to use platitudes and idealization to explain his reasons for membership in the Lodge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The continuation and establishment of traditions and customs that reinforce the Masonic spirit and ethos within our lodge in service to our members, the institution and the community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Organization and Operation of the Lodge:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Our Lodge meetings will have a clear agenda of dealing with vetting candidates, organizing and carrying out degree work and engaging in education befitting those of substantial intellectual development and educational attainment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Engage in the "European Concept" model of education where new candidates would share some research or information about Masonry rather than focusing on memorization from rote, and the pursuit of members that </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">show evidence of taking the exhortations to learning in the liberal arts and sciences seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Be influenced by Traditional Observance scheduling and focus of formal meetings, to wit, Lodges being held only for review of candidates and giving degrees, work being done in ancient manner to the degree allowed by the jurisdiction. (An atmosphere of solemnity including use of a contemplation room; brevity and austerity rather than “dramatic flair”, affectations and camp in ritual performance). Formulation of a Lodge specific Credo as a touchstone to communicate and retain the character desired.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Hold informal round table business meetings, with clear agendas either on some Lodge meeting nights (or on weekends or Friday when possible). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Short term and long term goals, tasks, time-lines and calendar, point people and committees. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Nights for guests and for inter - lodge visitation (usually when degrees are held). The opportunity will be taken to offer our assistance and request assistance from other Lodges in the Work. Otherwise we would encourage privacy and exclusivity to build the bonds and maintain the distinct character within the Lodge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Organization and Operation of the Club:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The club would work independently in support of our Masonic work, having the similar duties reflective of the goals of our Lodge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The social and intellectual development, charity (in and out of the Lodge) and our development of the club's financial wherewithal would occur through its calendar of events and programs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Club will permit social and intellectual discussion and member participation broader than the Lodge. There will not be compulsory membership as to respect the independence of the Lodge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">While independently assessed and managed fees will be assessed from the Lodge to cover the basic work of Charity, Agape, and Membership Development (including investigation), other fundraising will be pursued by the Club independently to support Club and Lodge activities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Communication:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">We would support both the Lodge and club with an integrated (social networking) internet forum, online journal and email and text message group. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">We would all have some biographical information to the degree that none of us would be strangers. We would all know the names and something about our fellows in the Lodge- what they are doing, what they are thinking and what their situation is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-transform: uppercase;">Recruitment:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Club will be at the service of the Lodge and do thorough outreach to yield a steady stream of good, solid and well-vetted men coming in. The Club’s services will enable the Lodge to avoid soliciting membership (per Masonic regulations) and other limitations and problems often experienced in the selection process, allowing the Lodge itself to maintain an unmarred character and attention to its initiatic focus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">According to the principles of traditional Lodges, we will employ selectivity and the strictest attention to compatibility with membership. The Club will be mindful of this Lodge’s tradition, interests, mission, credo and themes; relationships will be considered along with the careful and independent assessment of potential candidates.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lodge will welcome candidates with the wherewithal to assist in ensuring that our Lodge is viable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lodge will welcome individuals with a genuine interest in esoteric and spiritual meaning of the Craft and capacity to understand these aspects of the Craft. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A graduated dues system similar to clubs (taking into account age, proximity and retirement, university enrollment, clergy, commissioned officers and educators.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Consideration of Masons with ties to healthy Lodges while generally avoiding cross membership to the degree that the Lodge suffers from significantly split attentions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Men who are likely to be in full amity and fellowship with the character of membership we have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br />
<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">Culture and Programs:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Traditional Observance Rituals (candles, contemplation room) focused on the ancient ritual and brevity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Preferably two annual table Lodges. Festive board (mixer) open for Masons and guests.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Guest degree teams (such as Colonial Degree, “Kilties” and the Badge and Square); opportunities to travel to participate in degrees in exceptional environments such as the outdoors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">When available, to take part in Grand Master Classes, degrees at other lodges and to invite guests to assist in our work so that the initiation is not just into our lodge but into Freemasonry as a whole, and a chance for the candidate to be welcomed into a wide Freemasonic circle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> Appropriateness of dress in Lodge and appropriate Club events (tuxedos or business attire / jackets); Fine regalia including personal aprons, ribbon jewels for Table Lodges and Festive board occasions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Lodge meetings and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Agape </i>scheduled and held according to European Concept. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Twinning programs with lodges that nationally and internationally that have been successful and that would be easy to visit, for instance: Twinning program University Scheme Lodge in Britain; Twinning program with the nearest and best suited University Scheme Lodge; Twinning program with Swedish Rite Lodge in Scandinavia or Germany to encourage familiarity with those recognized but somewhat distinct jurisdictions; Twinning with Lodges of similar character in cities where Brothers show a pattern of relocating in order to ensure Brothers stay involved with the Craft. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Development of a credo, motto, seal and other distinctive statements and indicators as a appropriate to the new lodge.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">fin</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-4220626573461954602011-09-24T20:14:00.000-07:002012-11-20T08:59:32.905-08:00Hello there! Tell me about yourself... Seeking Brotherhood?Good to see the young men at Emerson involving themselves (Br Tyler Cameron Sanborn) and also good to see the efforts by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts (particularly the work of Br Robert Huke, Communications and Development Director.) <br /><br />Huke and other Brethren in the Bay State have gotten out into the <a href="http://www.bostonworldpartnerships.com/2011/02/08/bwp-open-mixer-battery-park-bar-longue/">student and professional community</a>, and very appropriately yet energetically presented the benefits of membership to promising and accomplished men interested in brotherhood, connecting them with lodges of like fellows in lodges that share things in common in terms of background, interests and disposition. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m9NWGCLPiIM" width="420"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-33468162679578889742011-07-24T18:53:00.000-07:002011-11-18T11:00:39.574-08:00Supporting What is Good and Remembering Our Limits<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">What follows is an interesting essay, especially the bit on the Rite of the Rose of Cross Gold. Perhaps oddly named, the organization is seemingly a very positive development of the type that one would hope would be supported by grand lodges. If not supported or encouraged, one would expect that such a thing would have to be ignored and it would operate freely with no interference or commentary. No grand lodge has any imaginable jurisdiction over such organizations or the involvement in such by its membership, and it would be un-Masonic and absurd for any to claim any jurisdiction. It should be stressed that WE are not at all acquainted with the details and not sure that the Grand Lodge of Georgia was not in fact either supportive or non-interfering. Our reprinting is not about the particulars of this situation but problems arising from grand lodges' leadership that perhaps have mistaken their roles and purview and the purpose of Freemasonry. If that is the case we can hope that all involved will rediscover their right course.</span></h3><div class="post-header"></div><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1837/1485/1600/masonic003.gif"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1837/1485/320/masonic003.gif" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0 10px 10px 0;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">The following essay is by Brother Griffin, a Master Mason from Texas, and is reprinted from his website The Griffin's Lair.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Masons are naturally predisposed to give their loyalty and the benefit of their doubts to those who have ascended to leadership positions. But these virtues, coupled with complacency and a lack of information, make the fraternity a fertile field for men whose intentions are not to serve the ideals and spirit of Masonic Light, but rather to serve narrow-mindedness... and an anti-intellectual shallowness.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Masons everywhere ought to be outraged at the foolish indignities and blatant tyranny fostered in the name of Masonry by Grand Lodges across the United States. What follows is an accounting of reprehensible events and trends in Masonry that are becoming all too common.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">A number of Grand Lodges continue to refuse recognition to Prince Hall Freemasonry on the flimsiest grounds of traditional rules of regularity. Somehow the men of power in those Grand Lodges believe this course of action is more virtuous than extending a fraternal hand to generations of good men who have sworn before God to uphold the same honorable obligations. No matter what the true intentions may be for this continued segregation of Masonry, to the general public, and especially to many who might otherwise join the fraternity, it is nothing short of racism.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Some Grand Lodges are taking steps to eliminate the right of Masons to freely express their own opinions about our fraternity. There have been edicts and rulings that Grand Lodge censors must approve personal Masonic websites, or their owners can face expulsion. In other words, these Grand Lodges no longer respect a Mason's ability, much less his right, to speak about Masonry in accord with his own conscience and his understanding of the obligations. If in speaking a Mason violates an obligation, then let him suffer the consequences. But it is nothing less than tyranny to eliminate the actual liberties of all in order to prevent the potential offenses of a few.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The freedom of association is also under attack. A number of Grand Lodges already have regulations forbidding Masons from joining, supporting or organizing Masonic bodies not already on a sanctioned list. So long as an organization is not claiming to make Masons, so long as it is not in violation of the Ancient Landmarks, and so long as it does not seek to usurp the authority of the regional Grand Lodge, then it is absurd for a Grand Lodge to assume any lawful authority to interfere with the business of that organization...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Think carefully about these infringements on free speech and association. It means that in some jurisdictions Masons have less freedom with regard to their organization than members of political parties, churches or schools do with theirs. Is this consistent with an order that has long prided itself on being an instrument of liberty?</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">As a general rule in most jurisdictions, Masons who seek a deeper philosophical, psychological and spiritual experience and understanding of Masonry are scoffed or shunned as "fringe Masons." Discussions of Masonry as a system of mythical initiation and philosophical enlightenment are too often discouraged in lodge meetings. The message is that the language of Masonic ritual is not to be taken seriously, and that Masons with such interests had best keep quiet. It is another tactic of totalitarian regimes to keep their people uneducated, and to silence and ridicule the most learned.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">There is also a bitter generation gap emerging in the fraternity. Many Masons of the World War II and Baby Boomer generations do not understand the needs and wants of Generation-X Masons and the Millenials that are now coming of age for candidacy. In searching for excuses for Masonry's membership ills, older Masons in influential positions have publicly accused young American males of being lazy, stupid, immoral and heathenistic. Of course, this accusation is also used as a justification for throwing out pieces of ritual and symbolism that are no longer understood and valued by the very same men who claim to be the defenders of tradition. These attitudes and circumstances coupled with unprecedented membership campaigns clearly communicate to the men of younger generations that their only value to the fraternity is as sources of income and labor. The meaning of Masonic membership is delivered as "Show up, pay up and shut up."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Masons at large must start consistently confronting such injustices, or what is left of the fraternity will be nothing but a pretentious farce. Already it is too often an insult to the great bygone defenders of enlightenment and liberty that we now publicly advertise as exemplars of Masonry.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even now, the Grand Lodge of Georgia is moving toward setting a precedent for the expulsion of young, hardworking Masons with good intentions. The Rite of the Rose Cross of Gold (RRCG) was created by a group of well educated professionals, some of them holding Masonic offices, who wanted a place within the fraternity that lives up to its promises of brotherly love and assistance in the quest for further Masonic Light. These regularly initiated and loyal brothers had grown weary of the ridicule and resistance they had suffered from brethren who want their fraternity to be little more than a dinner club for grumpy old men. To their credit, the RRCG website has drawn an impressive amount of attention, and Masons across the country and in other nations have shown enthusiastic interest in what the RRCG is offering.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The young men of the RRCG asked no more than to be allowed a corner under the umbrella of the Grand Lodge of Georgia where they and future like-minded brothers could pursue their legitimate Masonic interests without ruffling the feathers of others. They were not seeking any status beyond that held by such organizations as the Shrine, the Scottish Rite, the Allied Masonic Degrees or the Masonic Rosicrucians. They publicly and privately attested that they were not going into the business of making Masons, and that they would not admit anyone to their ranks who was not already a "regular" Master Mason in good standing. To demonstrate their desire to operate in the good graces of the Grand Lodge, they were scrupulous in providing the RRCG's financial records, founding documents and rituals. Not only did they provide access, they requested critique and guidance from the Grand Lodge on anything they might need to amend in order to operate in amity with the Grand Lodge.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The Grand Lodge of Georgia did not respond to the RRCG with any critique or guidance. Instead they are now responding with the threat to expel these honorable brothers if they do not renounce their affiliation with the RRCG and denounce it as "clandestine". In preparation for this move, the Grand Master had to issue an edict that effectively ignored the traditional Masonic meaning of clandestine and actually redefined it to suit his desires. When the RRCG leaders requested clarification on whether or not the edict applied to their organization, they received no response.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The intention of the edict has only now become clear after being sneaked through the Grand Lodge, hidden within a package of other proposals and left undiscussed. Now the officers of Georgia lodges are going to be pressured to bring charges against friends and brothers with whom they have no quarrel, most of them active members and leaders in their lodges and other Masonic organizations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">This state of affairs is organizational insanity, if not outright megalomania. It is asinine that the Grand Lodge of Georgia would take such actions while simultaneously complaining about declining membership. If the Grand Lodge doesn't want the kind of men in the RRCG, then what kind does it want? It is sickening to realize that the Grand Lodge is not above allowing convicted felons and known child molesters to retain and even regain membership, but they find it impossible to tolerate the presence of good men who only want to enrich Masonry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The situation(s listed are) repulsive, but all of these points ought to raise red flags in the minds of every good Mason...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It isn't everyone's calling to publicly battle injustice on the front lines, but it is time for every conscientious Mason to do something. In some places and situations, Masonic reform requires public conflict, even legal action, for that is the only way that justice can be served. Already there are brothers leaving the mainstream jurisdictiions to join "irregular" and more enlightened Grand Lodges. Some brothers may find the best way to serve Masonic reform is by quietly creating change from within the existing power structures. In the more progressive mainstream jurisdictions, Masons ought to be expressing their concerns about such things to their own Grand Lodges, for sometimes the scrutiny of other Grand Lodges is the most effective means of encouraging change. Other Masons may wish to simply join in Internet discussions of these problems as a way of helping to ensure that they do not continue to be swept under the rug.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">There is one form of service that all can perform in this cause, and that is prayer. Masonry claims to be dedicated to the Glory of God, and we are taught to seek the blessings of the Great Architect of the Universe upon all great and noble labors. We are now in a time when the greatest and most noble labor we can perform is to return the fraternity to its calling as a school of moral virtue, philosophical enlightenment and spiritual illumination...</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-22253490195918127582011-05-02T17:31:00.000-07:002011-05-02T17:49:45.555-07:00Anderson's Constitutions of 1723, Lionel Vilbert, 35 p., 1923<h1><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Anderson's Constitutions of 1723</i> by Lionel Vibert</b></span><span class="notranslate" style="font-size: large;"><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 2623px; word-spacing: 14px;"> </span></span><span class="notranslate"><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 2623px; word-spacing: 14px;"> </span></span></h1><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="notranslate"><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 2623px; word-spacing: 14px;">Having devoted his attention for several</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 2824px; word-spacing: 2px;"> years to pre-Grand Lodge Masonry, Bro. Lionel Vibert </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 3026px; word-spacing: 28px;">(Past Master of Quator Coronati 2076, UGLE) specialized on the Grand Lodge era the records of </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 3227px; word-spacing: 4px;">which are still so confused or incomplete that, in spite </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 3428px; word-spacing: 4px;">of the great amount of work accomplished by scholars </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 3629px; word-spacing: 22px;">in the past, work</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 3831px; word-spacing: 9px;"> remains yet to be done. The paper below is</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 4032px;"> critical and often cited with much of our current understanding owing to judgment and scholarship. It was one of the author's first published studies of the Grand</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 4233px; word-spacing: 22px;"> Lodge era. To us American Masons </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 4434px; word-spacing: 11px;">to whom Masonic</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 4636px; word-spacing: 24px;"> jurisprudence is an almost necessary preoccupation, such a work offers crucial </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 4837px; word-spacing: 24px;">light on that formative period, </span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 5038px; word-spacing: 1px;">and especially on Dr. Anderson whose Constitutions and our understanding of their context, references and validity are</span><span class="a" style="left: 836px; top: 5239px; word-spacing: 1px;"> groundwork for our laws. <b><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/52579576/Andersons-Constitutions-of-1723-l-Vibert">CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ESSAY</a></b></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162501073228168498.post-1297700536947186612011-03-01T00:32:00.001-08:002012-03-06T02:05:53.804-08:00Overlooked Reform: The Grand Lodges<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglctRyKNpywWrx1cXBOhl60aLURVDARYPOVxGLziXbzmYpLl2SxDdm06ZXMVKMqELbCMIdYUUOiwWhPNff0eMQ28YYMbNbXzXKRYAVk6QPOEr9ibI1J55Sbm2zxlKQpGzmultIYSYk0l12/s1600/Grand+Lodge%252C+the+way+it+is.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglctRyKNpywWrx1cXBOhl60aLURVDARYPOVxGLziXbzmYpLl2SxDdm06ZXMVKMqELbCMIdYUUOiwWhPNff0eMQ28YYMbNbXzXKRYAVk6QPOEr9ibI1J55Sbm2zxlKQpGzmultIYSYk0l12/s640/Grand+Lodge%252C+the+way+it+is.jpg" width="500" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">^The Way Things Are ^</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhol62qAJhR_NS9Zm_61TFAobY48wuyYjMXBjB9AN20yCUyTDssGeYyzJG9L7p1qf4Vxek3K799TxRUAsyIebyLQ1LHyB-STmhRq9hdonwIa0BhrrPI437ZnW5kizXQHnPLFsUVqFGR5VWE/s1600/Grand+Lodge+the+way+it+should+be.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="660" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhol62qAJhR_NS9Zm_61TFAobY48wuyYjMXBjB9AN20yCUyTDssGeYyzJG9L7p1qf4Vxek3K799TxRUAsyIebyLQ1LHyB-STmhRq9hdonwIa0BhrrPI437ZnW5kizXQHnPLFsUVqFGR5VWE/s640/Grand+Lodge+the+way+it+should+be.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> ^The Way Things Should Be ^</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">With all the wonderful things going on in Freemasonry to better local or individual lodges (Traditional observance, affinity, European concept, etc.) and bring them out of these <i>challenging</i> times there is unfortunately little effort made to reform the grand lodges and to make them once again administrations in service to the ultimate and supreme body: the individual lodge. <br />
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Grand lodges today are living on the legacy (including the financial legacy) of what was left by hundreds of years of Masons. With this legacy in hand grand lodges oversee a much reduced membership and base of activities; yet they are more thoroughly taxing and burdening constituent lodges and claiming greater authority than ever before.<br />
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Many areas of ownership and management, including property, funds and investments that might have otherwise been stewarded by attentive local lodges at a scale manageable at their level of expertise became centralized and mismanaged. <br />
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In the future, grand lodges will have few assets left to liquidate or mismanage. Even at the end of liquidation of considerable assets, the state of finances in most grand lodges at this point proves that grand lodges should never be managers of assets that might otherwise be in the purview of the local lodge. They are not equipped to do so and officers are not selected on the basis of their competence in such matters. This again goes to problematic idea of organizational stratification, with grand lodges at the top of a pyramid.<br />
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Many grand lodges have all but tossed aside the notion of equality. They have become homes for political players, even for men frustrated in the real world of open competition and qualification. Titles of honor of doing service has became reason for usurpation of authority. Owing to this error- plagued state of things, the lodges themselves become distracted from the work of being healthy lodges.<br />
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Rather lodge leaders undertake to become subordinate in all things, as they believe that ingratiating oneself with the grand lodge officers, eventually becoming grand officers is a progressive degree system in itself. In this topsy-turvy state, levels of officers in the grand lodges, and their involvement and authority have become more meaningful than the lodges themselves. <br />
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This unintended hierarchy by its very nature gives itself to corruption, cronyism and many other vices that strangle constituent lodges. The most glaringly results of this self generated bureaucracy are to drive away new blood and to shut the doors to new ideas. As such, conditions have been created only to sustain the oldest members and ultimately, keep a lesser quality of membership that cannot provide a challenge to authority- in essence a kakistocracy. Practically speaking, authority over policies that would rectify these problems have been left to these same grand lodge officers who have no motivation to do so.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By putting such important matters into the hands of grand lodges we are not simply leaving them to fail but to fail for all of us. This is obviously not the only or even its primary area of failure. Grand lodges are failing in almost every way conceivable and because of it the Craft is indisputably in free-fall.<br />
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In the present, it can be supposed that the grand lodges are why proven reforms and approaches, such as affinity lodges, traditional observance and European concept lodges are not more prevalent. As grand lodges resist changes and continue to support failed and dysfunctional models and policies (often for the political ends of grand officers) lodges languish and die. Indeed, the bureaucratic model of the powerful grand lodge saves and protects the sick lodge while driving away the healthy. <br />
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One is left to ask a question: "Besides issues of recognition and some physical facilities, why would anyone deal with many of the grand lodges of today?" <br />
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Historically, grand lodges were initiated to support individual, independent Masonic lodges which existed from time immemorial. Today this has become the other way around. We have accorded to the grand lodge roles which they did not rightfully have, nor should they have. It should be of little surprise then, when we accord the grand lodge bureaucracies the role and powers of the lodge and give them monopolies that Freemasonry has failed both at the level of the lodge and the grand lodge level.<br />
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We need only to look back into the long history of Freemasonry to see that lodges that were more self reliant, rooted in communities or constituencies and responsible for their meeting spaces, furnishings, regalia etc., were much healthier. The reasons are obvious- their membership was responsible, avoided waste and engaged in the care and generosity that come with such a conditions. <br />
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What is often considered the first grand lodge (UGLE) did not form either with a real or imagined authority to usurp lodges or assume jurisdictional control. The first four lodges that met at the Goose and Gridiron did not start Freemasonry and consisted of a tiny fraction of Freemasons and lodges. (And indeed so did the five "Ancient" lodges that shortly after formed a competing grand lodge.) The UGLE knew they could not make extravagant claims since only a few lodges took part in the UGLE, while many older lodges existed (and lodges exist to this day, in amity in overlapping jurisdiction.) <br />
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In America, our grand lodges have taken on more authority and made greater claims than the UGLE when our own lodges sprang from their own authority, abandoning* their European mother lodges which gave authority to operate, if they ever had such authority (and many did not). The "Lodge at Fredricksburg" in which our nation's first president, Bro. George Washington notes he was initiated had no warrant or charter until many years after Washington was made a Mason.<br />
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This leads us to search for the basis of authority, by law or established custom that current conditions in American Freemasonry rest. <br />
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The authority and responsibilities of the grand lodges as they now exist do not find grounding in <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/52579576/Andersons-Constitutions-of-1723-l-Vibert">Anderson's</a> recounting of the constitution and even less grounding in the constitutions and descriptions of Freemasonry of others before him. The frequent splits, schisms, competition, etc., in and among grand lodges probably owe to this. <br />
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The argument about the historical role is clear. To trace American grand lodges is to trace exercises in independence, and perhaps usurpation and arrogation from those mother lodges of England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France and so forth. Legitimacy in the transfer or external awarding of authority then, is not a valid issue. Features of recognition or amity have not shown themselves to be hard and fast rules and in most cases the actual yardstick for recognition (race, politics, financial gain) have been at best pragmatic and often deplorable.<br />
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American values of diversity, checks and balances, freedom, adaptation and localized authority came after the first grand lodge was introduced in Britain. Freemasonry helped introduce these ideas even before they became popular or were implemented in larger society. In America we took these ideas further both in our lodges and our larger society. We Freemasons in America seemed to have gone backward though, even from the earliest times when Freemasonry toiled under monarchy but still held its lodges as independent. We have unintentionally re-instituted in some cases inequality and even tyranny and this has, predictably a state of decline. <br />
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The real discussion is about the practical work of reforming the grand lodges to be a supportive substructure, in service to lodges. The grand lodge is not Freemasonry, it is support of Freemasonry and to that position it must return for the well being of the Craft. No solutions or alternatives should be off the table as we look to how to achieve this.<br />
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I submit that we should look at making use of alternative grand lodges that operate in different jurisdictions. We as Americans know and history shows us that without competition deterioration, and corruption generally sets in.<br />
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Among the grand lodges we have just such deterioration- this is undeniable. Most of that which is today lain at the feet of the lodge- the plummeting numbers, failing lodges, lack of adaptation, repeated stories of mismanagement, and the overall perilous condition of the Craft in America are mostly issues that find their roots not in the lodge but the grand lodges.<br />
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The grand lodges should not be blamed. It was the lodges that turned over their responsibilities and authority to grand lodges and their centralized bureaucracy, and that had predictable consequences. <br />
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Our hope should be to reform the grand lodges where reform is needed. (It should be noted that not all grand lodges are in equal need of reform.) But this begs two questions: If there is no competition and these grand lodges have not reformed themselves to the present date even with the present state of Freemasonry, what hope is there? And what are are alternatives? <br />
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One alternative is to look for new grand grand lodges. Continental style (used here to cover "grand orient" lodges that may or may not require faith in deity) lodges under various jurisdictions have a long history in the U.S. In recent years with the growth of immigrants from countries that have Continental style Masonry, Continental style lodges have become a growing but low profile feature in the American Masonic landscape. It is unclear what type of authority is exercised and what are the practices of these Continental style lodges in the U.S.<br />
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Among some Continental Masonic practice, the issue of religion is entirely at the discretion of individual. This has been used as an excuse for certain other grand lodges not to recognize Continental grand lodges but in truth, Anglo-American Freemasonry's denial of recognition of much of Continental Freemasonry has a long history rooted in jurisdictional competition rather than religion. <br />
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Regardless of the reason, most Continental style lodges in the U.S. suffer from a lack of recognition by Anglo American Freemasonry. It is natural that for many Americans Masons Anglo-American amity (and amity within established lodges in the Anglophone world) as it exists is something worth maintaining. This is likely to be the most significant factor retarding the growth of Continental Freemasonry in the U.S. One would assume that with time rifts would heal, particularly if American Masonry working (at least initially) under Continental jurisdiction were to assume the more conservative American practices particularly regarding religion.<br />
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Anglo-American amity however is not a goal that requires working within the present "single grand lodge per jurisdiction" system; there are options for healthy competition. <br />
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In much of the country we see Prince Hall Affiliated (PHA) grand lodges flourishing and doing so in a fashion that most grand lodges can only look at longingly. In some cases race has been an issue. Even with the growth of Whites and Hispanics in Prince Hall grand lodges, not enough people have been willing to join Prince Hall lodges who are not Black to create the sort of healthy, competitive alternative that Prince Hall grand lodges offer. I have spoken to PHA grand lodge leaders and have found them more than amenable to various arrangements that would result in growth without jeopardizing their own character or that of new lodges. Apparently there is a history of PHA grand lodges doing just with Grand Orient (Continental style) lodges and lodges of exile from the Arab world, Latin America, Asia and Africa. PHA then has chiefly as a draw back the persistence of racism in American perspectives that would impede it acting as a vehicle for healthy growth of Freemasonry in the U.S.<br />
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Further afield, there has been a practice by other major grand lodges throughout the world to abstain from chartering lodges in the U.S. Yet many grand lodges such as the Grande Loge Nationale Française, the Grand Lodge of Scotland or some of Nordic and Scandinavian (distinctly Christian in nature) and Latin American Lodges are in amity with the UGLE and American grand lodges They also have lodges abroad, often sharing jurisdictions with other grand lodges they mutually recognize (and some they do not.) Usually I hear the same answer when speaking to these international grand lodges: they are more than willing to charter lodges in the U.S. but the key issues are that no one has petitioned them, or their are logistic problems particularly with language and translation (seemingly easy to overcome but few apparently attempt to do so.)<br />
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There is another alternative which is the growth of the "nationally based" constituent lodge. By that I mean lodges that operate in one jurisdiction pulling many of their members from other jurisdictions. These lodges usually do their "work" geographically within and under a certain jurisdiction but not otherwise hindered from the brotherly actions that occur among Masons of the same lodge and they are free to visit other lodges as well. (Examples might be those affinity lodges based in some nationally important locale such Washington D.C., operating under that jurisdiction with Masons from throughout the country. Such nationally based lodges have have a long history and have grown as organizations with Masonic origins have rediscovered their roots and opened affinity lodges.<br />
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At times there have been policies of grand lodges requiring "releases" from territorial jurisdictions. I cannot imagine that this impediment would not quickly fall out of use if it was actually rigorously enforced. Most Americans would find either the practice itself (including providing such information to trigger this policy) to be insulting and repugnant to the very basic notions of American and Masonic values. Theoretically it would put a person in the <i><b>ownership</b></i> of a particular jurisdiction like chattel or unwitting inhabitants of territorial divisions devised by con artists and hucksters. <br />
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Then there is option of the formulation of new grand lodges. This obviously is not unheard of; new grand lodges spring forth every few years, some failing, and others succeeding. The success of these new lodges in achieving Masonic goals are seldom assessed or challenged by established American lodges. Instead (because of political and financial interests of), established grand lodges usually dismiss and denounce these efforts. At a time when Freemasonry is in unprecedented decline any new grand lodge that survives probably should be commended. There are visible weaknesses however. Since the real benefits that grand lodges provide in this day and age are, as mentioned, facilities and recognition, the two essential benefits of new or "independent" grand lodges do not exist. A third benefit which would be the shared values of the lodge might run into the fact that those most animated by the existence of a new grand lodge may have liberal or innovative ideas that fall outside of the acceptable notions of most unhappy Masons or those practices that would be mainstream enough to eventually garner recognition (or at least respect). <br />
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New grand lodges in the U.S. often look elsewhere, particularly to Continental lodges for amity where they are more likely to find it if they prove themselves worthy of the same. A valid criticism is that if these lodges were to instead look at the earlier mentioned option of associating themselves under existing grand lodges, they would bring their spirit of reform and the success of their lodges and quality of their work would be easier for other lodges to ascertain.<br />
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Whatever the best options may be to remedy the problems- reform movements, increased competition from grand lodges, grand lodges working with Masons who reside in various jurisdictions, new grand lodges, it is time to implement something for the sake of saving Freemasonry. <br />
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American values reject what we often see in our grand lodges: excess and ostentation, cronyism, obsession with rank, centralized power, regalism, rule by decree, monopoly. One of the greatest reforms that can be made is to return the authority of the lodge to the lodge. This would go a log way to rescuing the Craft from its declining state. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*<i>The original Prince Hall Lodge seemed to have been forgotten by their mother lodge rather than the other way round, thus legitimately inheriting authority rather than usurping it, but this article focuses on "mainstream" American grand lodges. It does call to mind the hypocrisy that many American grand lodges with less legitimate historical claim have refused to recognize Prince Hall lodges.</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1