Which Public Image Do We Claim?

By: Robert G. Davis, 33*, Grand Cross

I was visiting with a fellow Mason not long ago who was expressing how difficult it is for Freemasonry to articulate a public image which adequately describes our organization and is believable to the general public. This is indeed a remarkable challenge because we are bombarded with so many different perceptions about the fraternity. It seems there are many non-Masons willing to represent to the world what we are; without really knowing. The growing popularity of television documentaries, movies, and books about Freemasonry are filled with half truths, templar plots, inferred hostilities toward established religions; alleged infiltrations into the world’s most influential circles of government and elite centers of power. If this were not enough, the web is also filled with discussions asserting Masons to be extreme freethinkers unconstrained by civil authority or law.

The bane of being of the secret society tradition is that Freemasonry is constantly subjected to fanciful illusions of those who like to tell a good tale. And there are plenty of folk who are naïve enough to believe almost anything they hear.

The fact is that there are many public images regarding Freemasonry. It all depends on who you are reading and how you are reading it. There are those who choose to see a hostility between Freemasonry and religion; yet we live in a world with a huge and growing un-churched population. Many in this group perceive Freemasonry as an institution one can trust to openly and objectively discuss the tenets of all belief systems. There are those who see separation of church and state as hostile toward religion; but there are far more who agree with Freemasonry's position regarding the necessity of teaching a society to be watchful that the zealotry of faith does not restrict personal freedoms. There are those who see Freemasons as libertines; yet there are far more who see Masons as seekers of enlightenment within the historical norms of reason and judgment. There are those who call us conspirators against moral and civil authority; but far more who see, in Masons, community men with solid moral and ethical values. There are those who believe our secret society has sinister motives; but far more who are curious about our hidden treasure, our mystery, and the quest we make for that which is unknown except to an enlightened few.

We have something else that everyone respects, yet goes unnoticed by many who have nothing good to say about Freemasonry. We have family heritage. It can be suggested that more men have come into Masonry because someone in their family was a Mason than any other reason for joining. We remember the heroes in our life. And we want to be like them. For men everywhere, that is a far more powerful reason to belong than any web-discussion, tel-evangelizing, or idle commentary of the blind catering to the ignorant is a reason for not belonging.

Surveys have shown that 10% of the population dearly loves us; 10% hate us; and the other 80% have no opinion about us at all. Methinks this puts us in the driver's seat in terms of our opportunity to have an impact or "spin" on our own image.

I have never for a moment had any second thoughts about the value and rightness of Freemasonry. But I have struggled agonizingly long over our institution's inertness to collectively put into practice what it teaches. The biggest weakness of our Order is that we have no way of organizing our strengths to collectively improve society in the name of Masonry. Perhaps this is why we have become more of a charitable organization than a fraternity, even to ourselves. It is easy to get behind a good cause. But we are not so sure how to be a highly valued moral voice for our society.

I’m not sure myself how we position the world’s oldest fraternity to be seen as one of the most respected voices of good judgment and right thinking. But I know image building starts with the example we each individually set for those who know us. And if we wish to project right example onto the corporate name of Freemasonry, our collective acts out in the world must at least match the instruction we receive within our lodges.

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To Be The Heroes We are Supposed to Be

By: Robert G. Davis, 33*, Grand Cross

Like the archetypal hero, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

                     Horatius Cocles, a 1586 engraving by Hendrick Goltzius

One of the powerful icons of antiquity is displayed in a section of a votive relief at the Louvre in Paris. From the Hellenistic period, 1st century, B.C., the sculpture is titled "Offering to the Dioscuri." It represents Castor and Pollux, the most famous twins, dioscuri, of Greek mythology, riding magnificent steeds across the heavens. According to the myth, one of the twins is mortal, the other immortal. One represents the divine principle within us; the other signifies the energy in life which we must eternally encounter and transform. As the story goes, the twins spend alternative nights in the heavens and in the netherworld seeking, through their experiences, the light of tomorrow.

We commonly think of them as the zodiac sign Gemini. In astronomy, they are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini.

                              "Offering to the Dioscuri" - louvre Puseum, Paris

Contemplating the imagery of this myth, we can see the twins as heaven and earth, day and night, past and future. Also, they represent the tension of opposites within ourselves at the very point of our transition from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. Thus, this relief carving offers a pictorial description of the classic journey of the hero—the journey each of us is to make in life. It is an uncertain, often dreadful, and always dangerous night journey into the deepest reaches of ourselves. But through this journey, this confrontation with ourselves and our experience, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

Only a hero, which we all can be, can wage such a battle. For it is only when we have an unrelenting resolve to overcome our deepest fears that we are enabled to know ourselves and fulfill our true potential. We labor and strive and learn in this world so that we may hope to live perfect in the dawn of eternity. That is the quest of the hero.

Of course, the symbolic meaning of the "Offering to the Dioscuri" is the same as depicted in Masonic ritual by the young Fellowcraft as he passes between the pillars of the Middle Chamber. At that moment in his life, he begins his journey into the greater mysteries which will enable him to become transformed into his better, truer self.

In contemporary Masonic symbolism, the Fellowcraft is the exemplar of the Gemini twins. His spirit is integrated by the dual nature of the pillars. Everything which represents the opposites in his life—passion and reason, aggression and cooperation, weakness and strength, anger and compassion, selfishness and charity—he takes with him on his subsequent quest toward self-improvement. Every emotion, experience, and lesson he learns on his own life journey, represented by the winding stairs, he integrates into his being.

He has only to make this hero's journey—this path of initiation, separation, and return—to see the Light of Lights and understand why Masonry is itself a timeless Truth, like the myth frozen in a piece of stone from two millennia past.

In the Scottish Rite (the college course in Freemasonry), our hero's journey is reinforced time and again. In the 13°, the candidate makes the descent into the cavern of his own life to discover the Lost Word. In the 18°, he finds, from his own journey through darkness, the light of the world. And in the 30°, he becomes the Dioscuri yet again, this time in the symbol and form of the black and white double-headed eagle.

Thus, when he becomes a Master of the Royal Secret, if he has taken seriously the path of the Rite, he is enabled to look back to the pillars of symbolic Masonry with new eyes—the eyes of a hero—and marvel at what Joseph Campbell has called the "song of the soul's high adventure," the path of his own self-meaning.

Perhaps it is really not so hard to be a hero. Maybe we need only to dream of a magnificent steed that will carry us aloft to a castle that knows no East nor West, but reveals the treasure of our soul's deepest longing.

Or, as Freemasons maybe we need only to know in what we are engaged--to be the heroes we are all supposed to be.

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The View from the Master's Chair

By: Wor. Jason E. Marshall

(Published in the January 2014 edition of Living Stones Magazine)

In 2014 I was truly blessed and honored to have served as the 5th Worshipful Master of Lodge Veritas No. 556, in Norman, Oklahoma. I, like almost every current or past master that I’ve ever spoken to, had mixed emotions about the position after my installation. On one hand, there was a sense of satisfaction, in that I felt as if I had accomplished a goal, or finally reached a summit that I had been working towards, especially given the fact that I had been a blue lodge officer for the entirety of my Masonic career. I began the chairs at my mother lodge, before leaving my mother lodge to focus exclusively on Lodge Veritas when it was created in 2009. There was also a sense of urgency given that unless I served a second term, I only had one year to accomplish the agenda and goals that I had been putting together for the previous three years. Finally, there was also a since of isolation, given that in a very real way the Worshipful Master is on an island in the east, and all eyes symbolically and literally look to him for direction. Above all though, there was a feeling of duty and responsibility that I owed to not only my lodge, but the fraternity as a whole.

My first meeting as Worshipful Master was surreal in many ways. First, my lodge performs a fairly unique entrance (at least for my state), where the entire lodge and visitors enter the lodge together by performing clockwise circumambulations. There are several reasons for this, which include: ceremonially cleansing the sacred space, establishing a sense of group intention regarding the work at hand (Egregore), and on a practical level it is convenient to have all of the brethren come in at the same time in order to make sure that all cellphones are off, everyone is properly clothed, everyone is actually ready to start, signal an end to casual conversations, etc. During our circumambulations all members and guests make the first circumambulation together, then the non-officers and guests fall off after passing the Tyler's doors, then non-dais officers fall off on the second circumambulation, and then finally during the third full circumambulation the dais officers (J.W., S.W., and W.M.) take their stations. During our circumambulations the Worshipful Master is always part of the group, that is until the S.W. takes his position in the west, which then leaves the Worshipful Master to finish the journey eastward to his seat all alone. It was a very surreal feeling to be the person who not only travels the furthest in the circumambulations, but it was poignant that the journey is completed alone.

In talking with brethren, I have jokingly called this last stage of the Master’s circumambulation the “checkered mile”, given that our lodge room has checkered tile; however, upon reflection I’m not so sure that was just a joke. Looking back on my Masonic career I’ve accomplished a lot of things, some with the aid of others, and some on my own where I have had to travel a solitary path. I am pleased to say that I have done a lot of things right, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve also made mistakes, and I still carry the emotional scars from several big mistakes. Therefore, the checkered pavement, and the last checkered mile that I walked towards my station in the East really reflected the usual symbolism that the checkered pavement represents the foundational level of Masonic work and the good and evil (Light and Dark) elements of life. In the journey towards M.L. we are each traveling Eastward, and along that path there will be ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies; however, we each have the choice to decide whether the checkered pavement will make us bitter, or if we will use it to make us better. We will also face times in our journey, where we must push forward on our journey alone, if even for a short period of time.

Upon taking my seat, I was struck by the dramatic view of the altar which was dimly lit by the candlelight of the lodge room, and framed by the smoke rising from the pot of incense in front of it. While I had a similar view in the west, there was a very different feeling viewing it from the oriental chair. I think the difference in feeling was in large part due to the Master’s position of being the spiritual heart of the Lodge, as well as the center of manifested power within the lodge. As a Senior Warden, I had to react to the will of the Worshipful Master, while as the Worshipful Master the other officers, and brethren as a whole, had to react to my will and pleasure. I don’t say this in an egomaniacal way, because there is a great deal of responsibility that comes with the power instilled in a Worshipful Master. The Worshipful Master’s position represents the sun, Light, wisdom, and King Solomon himself. Therefore, the Master is not only in charge of the organizational aspects of the lodge, but he is the transmitter and facilitator of Light within the lodge, and as such he has a tremendous responsibility.

The power of the Worshipful Master isn’t absolute, because he must still rely on the other officers to perform the work of the lodge. First, the power to open and close the lodge flows from the Master to the Senior Warden, who then communicates the Master’s order (Transmits the power) to the Junior Warden, who then transmits the order to the craft. This is similar to how the Tree of Life works in the Kabbalistic tradition. Each Kabbalistic world contains ten sephirot, which are arraigned in the familiar Kabbalistic Tree of Life pattern. The Tree of Life acts like a circuit board of spiritual energy. The power begins at the top sephirot Keter, which then flows from one sephirot to another until finally ending in the lowest sephirot Malkuth, which then manifests its energy into the world in which it resides. The sephirot act like switches and relays on an electric circuit board that react in specific ways as energy moves through them. In the same way, the duties of officers and members manifest as the orders (power) of the Master travels through the lodge.

In order for there to be an orderly lodge, the pillars of wisdom, strength and beauty must also be present, and once again the Master must rely on others for these to manifest. The Worshipful Master represents the pillar of wisdom, yet he must still rely on the Senior Warden (strength) and the Junior Warden (beauty). Basically, when you have wisdom to contrive and strength to support, then you will have beauty to adorn, and if even one of the pillars is absent, incomplete, or disharmonious, the other three will surely fail. Therefore, the Master must take care to ensure harmony and unity of purpose among all of the officers and brethren, especially between himself and the Wardens.

Finally, after the closing charges, my lodge meets at the altar for a chain of union, which is followed by our lodge song, and then finally we circumambulate counter-clockwise out of the lodge room to close the sacred space. The chain of union is a reminder for me of the bonds that unite us into a sacred band of brothers, this bond can be strong or weak, depending on the commitment and work that formed and maintains those bonds.

The counter-clockwise circumambulation that I led out of the lodge room was a reminder for me that as the Worshipful Master I was the representative of the lodge 24/7 during my tenure, even if I was outside of the tyled lodge. Therefore, anything that I did, whether good or ill, would reflect back on the Lodge. I think this was the most important and unnerving thing as Master, because while running the meeting was relatively simple, and with planning relatively drama free, it was a bit unnerving to realize that my every action inside or outside of a tyled lodge was a reflection of my lodge as a whole. Accordingly if I took an unpopular stance my entire lodge, whether they liked it or agreed with it, would be ostensibly taking the same stance. Therefore, as Master I had to take special care to utilize and reflect the teachings of our fraternity in all aspects of my life, so that I not only reflected positively on my lodge, but the fraternity as a whole, which has blessed my life in so many ways, and which granted me the opportunity to lead my beloved Lodge.

_______________________________________

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