As any electrician can tell you, when a circuit is closed, the current flows. Switch a light on, and you close a circuit, making electrical current flow and power on the light bulb. Switch it off and you open the circuit, breaking the flow of electricity.
The following story is true, in so far as the events it relates really did occur. All of the witnesses are young and healthy. Two of them are in their 20s, the oldest is 55, two of them hold Ph.D.s. and, like much of Seattle’s population, two of them are, high-tech experts and who understand circuitry quite well. You get the idea… We all have given due consideration to the event we witnessed, yet remain open minded to reasonable skepticism. You, our reader, may or may not agree with our interpretation: but if you don’t, mere skepticism is insufficient to justify dismissing the testimony of the eye witnesses out-of-hand.
By way of introduction, just as you must believe that Jacob Marley was dead in order to appreciate Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you must understand this basic fact about electricity in order to appreciate what five witnesses regard as a possible instance of paranormal activity at 1608 Fourth Avenue West – the location of Queen Anne Masonic Lodge, founded in 1921. The witnesses’ story emerges as much from the facts about the event we are about to relate as it depends upon the value and relevance of such biographical information as remains about our Charter Members.
Queen Anne Masonic Lodge #242 was chartered in the twilight years of the Edwardian era, between the two Great Wars and before the Great Depression, when Seattle was still riding the wave of prosperity of the Alaskan Gold Rush and was more important and prosperous than Los Angeles.
Judging from his photograph, Bro. George R. Milstead had appeared to be a robust, bald young man with calm, yet penetrating blue eyes. He would be the first Junior Warden, but no one could have known that he would not live to serve his term as W:.M:. when his photograph as W:.M:. was taken. Bro. George R. Milstead passed away before his installation. He would live only long enough to be pleased at his election and to have a photograph taken in September of 1923 to record that he was about to fill that distinguished and honored office for the 1923-1924 year Thus, for the previous year, in sure anticipation of assuming the chair of honor in the East, Bro. Milstead had served as our Senior Warden. As all Masons know, this is a position whose chair is in the West of the lodge room. In the case of Queen Anne Masonic Lodge, this also is the place in which the lighting for the entire room is controlled from a console at the Senior Warden’s podium.
Now our story – or perhaps Bro. Milstead’s own – can be told. If it is Bro. Milstead’s story, may it give him rest. You decide.
On the night of Wednesday, February 16, 2011 (A:.L:.6011), five Master Masons, including the current Worshipful Master (in his second term in the East), another twice Past Master, and three other Master Masons, were in the Lodge Room rehearsing Masonic ritual, in preparation for the following night, when another worthy man would be initiated in our Mysteries. During this rehearsal, an odd event occurred – yet not without some precedent, as you’ll soon discover.
A sixth Master Mason was downstairs and did not witness the event. His role also is significant, as you’ll appreciate presently.
At one particularly challenging point in the rehearsal, while all five of the Master Masons present in the Lodge Room were standing at least five paces from the station of the Senior Warden in the West, from which all the lights in the Lodge Room are controlled, the current Worshipful Master finished a line – and all the lights in the Lodge Room were extinguished immediately after the W:.M:.’s line: so that it seemed as though the outage had occured on cue.
The elder Past Master ran to the door of the Lodge Room and bounded down the stairs to ask the sixth Master Mason, an expert building maintenance man, to investigate the source of the outage. He was in the kitchen on the phone with his young son at the time of the incident and throughout most of the aftermath. This brother had been far from the fuse box during the event, and well-away from the instrument which our Past Master had gone down to inspect. Hearing this, the Past Master went back upstairs only to find the lights back on. But how?
The current Worshipful Master informed the returning twice-Past Master (with all present as witnesses) that after he had run downstairs, the W:.M:. had, to prevent himself from stumbling on the steps at the Senior Warden’s station, inched his own way through near-darkness to the lighting console. Mysteriously, when his hand was still inches from the console and before he could so much as touch the switch – and without any other brother upstairs or downstairs near any electrical controls – the lights suddenly came back on. Still more mysteriously, once the lights had come back on, he could see that the switch had been in the on-position the whole time: an inexplicable contradiction of how electric circuitry works.
The rehearsal resumed uneventfully and culminated in an excellent initiation the following night. Nothing like this has ever happened at 1608 Fourth Avenue West, to our knowledge. As for precedent, various socially unrelated individuals, Masons and non-Masons alike, none of whom knew of Bro. Milstead, have reported to the twice-Past Master that when they stood near at or near Bro. Milstead’s last Station in the Lodge, his Station in the West as Senior Warden, they felt an odd chill within a certain radius of that station. These individuals revealed their impressions in an off-the-cuff manner, independently and without prompting. They all reported the sensation that they were being watched or watched-over.
The most severe critics of Freemasonry who also believe in a personal, post-mortem conscious existence, and who would seriously entertain the idea that Bro. Milstead was present, will undoubtedly be inclined to suggest that our deceased Bro. Milstead (or some other spiritual entity righteous in their eyes) had been manifesting his disapproval of Freemasonry by shutting out “Masonic light” during our rehearsal. Yet the following night, no such “disapproving” interruption took place. On the contrary; it was a night of ritual virtually devoid of errors and well performed by all.
It would appear that if it was our Bro. Milstead who disrupted affairs the night before, he did so to manifest his role as member of a very special category of sideliners to our degree work. We welcome, nay, we would solicit Bro. Milstead’s continued assistance and invite our readers to decide whether what happened was an inexplicable event in electrical circuitry or an unverifiable visit, as the late Rod Serling would have concluded… from The Twilight Zone.
Now our story – or perhaps Bro. Milstead’s own – can be told. If it is Bro. Milstead’s story, may it give him rest. You decide.
On the night of Wednesday, February 16, 2011 (A:.L:.6011), five Master Masons, including the current Worshipful Master (in his second term in the East), another twice Past Master, and three other Master Masons, were in the Lodge Room rehearsing Masonic ritual, in preparation for the following night, when another worthy man would be initiated in our Mysteries. During this rehearsal, an odd event occurred – yet not without some precedent, as you’ll soon discover.
A sixth Master Mason was downstairs and did not witness the event. His role also is significant, as you’ll appreciate presently.
At one particularly challenging point in the rehearsal, while all five of the Master Masons present in the Lodge Room were standing at least five paces from the station of the Senior Warden in the West, from which all the lights in the Lodge Room are controlled, the current Worshipful Master finished a line – and all the lights in the Lodge Room were extinguished immediately after the W:.M:.’s line: so that it seemed as though the outage had occured on cue.
The elder Past Master ran to the door of the Lodge Room and bounded down the stairs to ask the sixth Master Mason, an expert building maintenance man, to investigate the source of the outage. He was in the kitchen on the phone with his young son at the time of the incident and throughout most of the aftermath. This brother had been far from the fuse box during the event, and well-away from the instrument which our Past Master had gone down to inspect. Hearing this, the Past Master went back upstairs only to find the lights back on. But how?
The current Worshipful Master informed the returning twice-Past Master (with all present as witnesses) that after he had run downstairs, the W:.M:. had, to prevent himself from stumbling on the steps at the Senior Warden’s station, inched his own way through near-darkness to the lighting console. Mysteriously, when his hand was still inches from the console and before he could so much as touch the switch – and without any other brother upstairs or downstairs near any electrical controls – the lights suddenly came back on. Still more mysteriously, once the lights had come back on, he could see that the switch had been in the on-position the whole time: an inexplicable contradiction of how electric circuitry works.
The rehearsal resumed uneventfully and culminated in an excellent initiation the following night. Nothing like this has ever happened at 1608 Fourth Avenue West, to our knowledge. As for precedent, various socially unrelated individuals, Masons and non-Masons alike, none of whom knew of Bro. Milstead, have reported to the twice-Past Master that when they stood near at or near Bro. Milstead’s last Station in the Lodge, his Station in the West as Senior Warden, they felt an odd chill within a certain radius of that station. These individuals revealed their impressions in an off-the-cuff manner, independently and without prompting. They all reported the sensation that they were being watched or watched-over.
The most severe critics of Freemasonry who also believe in a personal, post-mortem conscious existence, and who would seriously entertain the idea that Bro. Milstead was present, will undoubtedly be inclined to suggest that our deceased Bro. Milstead (or some other spiritual entity righteous in their eyes) had been manifesting his disapproval of Freemasonry by shutting out “Masonic light” during our rehearsal. Yet the following night, no such “disapproving” interruption took place. On the contrary; it was a night of ritual virtually devoid of errors and well performed by all.
It would appear that if it was our Bro. Milstead who disrupted affairs the night before, he did so to manifest his role as member of a very special category of sideliners to our degree work. We welcome, nay, we would solicit Bro. Milstead’s continued assistance and invite our readers to decide whether what happened was an inexplicable event in electrical circuitry or an unverifiable visit, as the late Rod Serling would have concluded… from The Twilight Zone.
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