A Seattle Masonic Ghost Story? Reader, You Decide.

Submitted for your consideration… – Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.

     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.

      One of the Charter Members of Queen Anne Masonic Lodge #242 was Bro. George R. Milstead, who met with the other Charter Members in the Queen Anne Branch of the Seattle Public Library early in the year 1921 to draft our bylaws and begin the process of forming the lodge. Our Charter was granted in June of 1921, amid much public ceremony recorded in the Queen Anne News.

     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.

Masonic Scholarship -- Advice for Researchers

In a previous blog posting, I revealed that as a young man, I entered a very quaint "used, rare and antique bookstore" in Columbia, Missouri and asked the owner where the books about Masonic history were -- because I wanted to know "all about it." If you're familiar with any aspect of Masonic history, legend, lore, symbolism or ritual, you'll recognize how naïvely eager I was.

But here I am more years later than I like to think of, and I have read thousands of pages... of very uneven quality and perspectives on nearly every aspect of Freemasonry. And I've done it in sources available to me in two languages. I've published articles of relevance to my guild and to Freemasonry in mainstream academic, peer-reviewed journals.

My conclusion is that it is still one of the more fascinating and least understood areas of Western -- even universal -- culture. I've also given a few talks to my Masonic brothers who have invited me to help them with what they need to know in order to be responsible scholars. If these speaking engagements mean anything, they are proof of goodwill, brotherhood and humility in one stroke.

This blog is intended to help those who would like to learn about Freemasonry, whether they intend to write about it or not. These audiences are easily subdivided at first glance into Masons and non-Masons. Further subdivisions are perhaps less apparent, for there are, in both of these groups, those who are prepared to do academic research. By this I refer primarily, and almost exclusively to those who hold Ph.Ds. Why?


Because, even though once in a while a truly talented person without a Ph.D. comes along with an instinct for the "rules of evidence" and who has excellent writing skills, understands how to proceed in the "literature search" and sift reliable sources from unreliable ones, who knows how to cite sources properly, organize their writing and so forth, serious scholarship is usually only learned under close tutelage. Its methods and conventions are the results of centuries of refinement and are now pretty much universal. While I see major signs of decay around me in the US, particularly in the Humanities, there still are standards and they are upheld at what are known as R1 institutions (where "Research is #1"). Guild standards are recognized and understood by scholars internationally. While most Ph.Ds in all accredited institutions of higher learning do revere, understand and follow their guilds' standards, they are not always closely followed by faculty or valued by administrators in institutions more focused on teaching.


It would seem proper to let educated Freemasons speak about the Craft to the general public, insofar as they are at liberty by their obligations to do so. That is why I created this blog. But the truth is that there are few Masons in higher education nowadays, and the few who are there might just be out to make a sensational buck, despite all they know. The general public is always drooling for something sensational. The more mysterious or scandalous, the better. And of course, no one speaks for Freemasonry. There is no one central defining authority about its meaning or purpose. Odd, isn't it? This fact makes Freemasonry vulnerable to stupid and bigoted attacks. The insiders' view, known as the "emic" perspective, is tainted in the public eye for their being, well, insiders.


The well intentioned non-Masonic Ph.D. is at a disadvantage for obvious reasons as well. The outsiders' view, known as the "etic" perspective, is tainted from the point of view of insiders for being, obviously, outsiders, absent from the culture of Freemasonry, no matter what he or she may have read in documents purporting to "expose all." This disadvantage is heightened somewhat in the case of a woman scholar, since traditional, regular Freemasonry is a fraternity and does not admit women. Nevertheless, there have been and are great scholars in this latter group, men and women, such as Dame Frances A. Yates, Steven C. Bullock, Mark Tabbert, Margaret C. Jacob, David Stevenson and Alexander Piatigorsky.


The difficulty for the serious Mason who has a Ph.D. is that he may be perceived, rightly or wrongly, by his peers in the academy. They might whisper about him. He fears questions like these going through people's minds: "Is that scholarship?"; "There he goes, trying to recruit people!"; "Another weirdo, grinding his axe!" or, more subtle responses such as: "He's writing about what no one else among us here are able to do -- no fair! How can we judge this work when we don't know anything about it?"

Worse still, in our day and age of hyperbolic and agonizing political correctness (a form of McCarthyism aimed from the left or aimed from the last frustrated seethings of feminism amid a post-feminist culture), Freemasons in the academy might be fearful of being viewed as misogynists, especially if they are more successful than their potential critics as scholars in their guilds, never mind that many such men give a lot of scholarship money to females, are happily married and have -- oh, my, daughters!


Finally, there is another group comprised of Masons and non-Masons whom I generally place in the "Masonic ghetto." Both of these groups are usually sans Ph.D. and both are, or can be, dangerous to Freemasonry. The former often deliberately; the latter because of his best intentions to defend or represent it without adequate academic preparation or guidance. My remaining comments are primarily directed at this latter group.


Remember what you learned in high school and college about good writing. Get a copy of the Harbrace College Handbook of English -- a book unhappily no longer required of most freshmen. Become familiar with responsible and irresponsible books about Freemasonry. Review what a thesis statement is. Learn how to cite sources properly and how to quote them. Beware of too many editorial digressions and sermonizing. It's tough to do and I don't know if I always succeed in my blog postings! Outline your argument. In short, besides citing reliable sources to shore up your argument, remember: Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Symbology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word symbology came into the English language in 1840 as a shortened form of symbolology, which makes much more etymological sense, but evidently was a bit awkward to pronounce for some. Dan Brown's novels, featuring the character known as "the Harvard Symbologist Robert Langford," has made symbology a household word.

In the real academic world, symbology is seldom used to describe those of us who engage in the scholarship of discovery and interpretation in the areas of literary and artistic criticism (not to be confused with book reviews). The term most apt to describe what Langdon does (usually in a puerile way, however) is semiotics. While one does encounter the word symbology in reference works such as we'll examine below, the difference between the two words is itself symbolic of the vast chasm that separates the superficial fictional world of Dan Brown and the real, less glamorous and relatively inaccessible world of serious scholarship. To sum it up, the word symbology does not show up in job descriptions or job announcements.

This blog post is intended to help shed some light on what real symbology entails and to encourage the intellectually inclined fans of Dan Brown to explore genuine sources of information which Dan Br0wn often alludes to or enumerates, but seldom seems to have digested. I shall in a moment offer some titles that will set you on the path to a lifetime of delightful discoveries that will, I hope, lead you far above and beyond what Dan Brown's novels have inspired you to explore.

The most succinct definition of semiotics I can offer is this:

Semiotics studies how humans create, interprete and transmit meaning and even what it means to mean something. The objects of its study are -- anything and everything to which meaning is, or can be, ascribed.

The champion of semiotics is Umberto Ecco, whose academic work A Theory of Semiotics was first published in 1976. However, an excellent primer is Daniel Chandler's more recent work Semiotics: The Basics. Ecco is best known to the public as the author of The Name of the Rose which became a very popular movie starring Sean Connery. He later wrote Foucault's Pendulum -- the latter being the most intriguing fiction dealing with esoterica I have ever encountered, with The Shadow of the Wind coming in close behind.

However, in order to begin to understand or engage in semiotics in an educated way, one needs to acquire the tools.
I suggest beginning with the collection of essays known as Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl Jung. It is a collection of five major essays and a concluding chapter by different authors (only the first chapter is by Jung). One quote alone suffices to show its value as a primer for the study of symbols:

"It is not easy for modern man to grasp the significance of the symbols that come down to us from the past or that appear in our dreams. Nor is is easy to see how the ancient conflict between symbols of containment and liberation relates to our own predicament. Yet it becomes easier when we realize it is only the specific forms of these archaic patterns that change, not their psychic meaning" (p. 156).

In addition to this classic primer, I suggest reputable dictionaries of symbols. They really do exist. I do not refer to those entertaining but sketchy Victorian inventories about what this-or-that means in one's dreams.

Let's look at two serious dictionaries and one encyclopedia. The first is Jean E. Cirlot's work with the straightforward title: A Dictionary of Symbols. It contains enough material for a lifetime of study, particularly if one extends his reading to the works he cites in his bibliography. Imagine finding a citation dealing with the meaning of mirrors only to discover their connection with memory, water, the moon...

The next offering is more an encyclopedia than a dictionary and is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of color plates -- and it isn't expensive. It was authored by Alexander Roob and published by The Hermetic Museum as Alchemy and Mysticism. Jungian in its approach, it includes a responsible treatment of the symbolic system of Freemasonry and has a useful index and bibliography.

Finally, I recommend a dictionary by Penguin called simply Dictionary of Symbols. It is the work of two authors, a fact that gives it advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage is that that quality of information is uneven since there seems to have been no one, controlling editorial mind to mediate between them; at times this results in entries whose information is a bit off the mark (judging from references about subjects I am more familiar with). Ironically, the advantages are also a result of its dual authorship since many of the entries on related subjects complement each other and round out the perspective of the reader.

Even though all these recommendations, except for Jung's work, are reference works, they make for enjoyable and profitable reading. I often spend hours reading entries on related subjects, going from one to another reference work, noting other books to read as I examine the bibliographies.

Finally, don't forget to follow this blog -- or at least post a comment or ask a question.

How to Become a Freemason

First, why would a Freemason write an article about how to become a Freemason if we don't solicit membership?


This blog posting is intended to clear up a few issues that a man might have about how to join, if he already is inclined to do so. No question about it, we prefer to dissuade men from joining rather than swell the ranks with men who stay for awhile and then, having satisfied their profane and idle curiosity, leave the fraternity. 


If you are reading this blog post and especially if you have been following it, the thought of joining has probably entered your mind. If so, and you aren't quite sure what to do next, you have come to the right place.


You may have already seen some bumper-sticker slogan with a Masonic Square & Compass that reads "2BE1ASK1." While that pretty much sums it up, I don't like "thinking" that is only as deep as a bumper-sticker is thick, so let's put a little substance into that statement.


Let's assume you've done some reading, including some on the internet, which is often highly inflamatory or sensational. If you already know someone who is a Mason and he's approachable, all you have to do is tell him you're interested in joining. Ask him for a "petition" and tell him you'd like to meet the men in his lodge. It's always interesting to us to learn why a man is interested in joining and as you move closer to that moment, you'll be asked that a lot. In many ways, we are "testing" you to see whether you're joining for the right reasons.


Your Mason friend will probably let you know when his lodge has dinner before its meeting and invite you to come by and join them. They may have some other thing going on besides dinner. Each lodge has its own "culture" -- or chemistry. Some are more social than others, some have a lot of sports fans, or hunters, fishermen... and then there's demographics about age and profession, education, and so on. At any rate, let him know that you understand that you can't stay after dinner or whatever the even is because Masonic meetings are strictly closed to all but members. By telling him that, you'll spare him the anxiousness some men feel when they have to tell a non-Mason friend that they can't come upstairs.


Depending on how well you know each other, he may ask you if you believe in a Supreme Being and an afterlife. These are not questions that require lengthy answers and it is highly unlikely that he will probe any further than to find out that you do.


Atheists cannot be Masons. That said, you don't have to be a church-goer or belong to any particular church or have any particular religion. So relax about that, so long as you can honestly answer that you believe in a Supreme Being -- no matter what your conception of that Being might be. One of our goals is to bring men together who might have otherwise never associated with one another -- because religion is a topic that often divides the world in bitter ways.


I remember when I was asked that question. The fellow was an elderly Jewish man, a retired Chicago police officer. When I started to launch into my personal religious autobiography, he cut me off politely and said that for Masons, those details are a person's private business.


The same goes for politics. Sure, we talk politics and religion -- outside lodge meetings. Inside, those two topics are strictly forbidden. It's a divisive subject.


You'll get a petition to fill out with some basic information about yourself. You'll have to pay the initiation fee -- which varies from lodge to lodge, even within the same Grand Lodge. Local lodges in each state in the US are under the oversight of a Grand Lodge.


Once you've filled out the petition, paid your fee (refundable if for some reason you're not approved for membership), your petition will be read in lodge and a committee assigned to meet you. Sometimes they want to meet your wife, to be sure she understands a little more about your involvement and knows about the time commitment. This is typically one or two nights each month, but often lodges have events and dinners for the whole family.


The committee members sometimes meet with you one at a time, depending on local custom or just realities of schedules. They will almost always want to know what you know, or think you know about Freemasonry, how you came to be interested, what you are looking for. They'll let you ask questions. Masons love to talk about the fraternity to people who are respectfully interested, so be sure to make some time and find a place where he can talk more openly.


As you move toward a decision about the organization, it is only fitting that you should seek out reliable books, such as W. Kirk MacNulty's Freemasonry: A Journey through Ritual Symbol. It has beautiful pictures and an educated, well informed narrative that explores many aspects of the ritual, without revealing what cannot be revealed.


The committee makes its report and the lodge ballots or votes on your petition. The approval must be unanimous. When we consider a man for membership, we always ask ourselves whether the fraternity and the man are a good match for each other and whether he will make a positive contribution to the group's dynamics and to the organization as a whole.


I've met a few men whom I have referred to other lodges -- I'll be honest here -- one I recall was a vegetarian and a total non-drinker. That's fine, but we eat a lot of steaks in our lodge and drink wine. I liked the guy. He was talented, but I realized he would be more comfortable in a lodge where I happened to know there were several veggans, so I was honest with him and introduced him to a man from that other lodge.


Once you're approved, you are no longer a petitioner, but a candidate for the degrees of Masonry. You'll be contacted and a date will be set for you to be initiated as an Entered Apprentice, the first of the three degrees of Ancient Craft Freemasonry.


It takes about three to five months to do become a Master Mason and the procedure for preparing for the next degree varies from lodge to lodge. There is always some measure of "memory work" -- material that has to be well learned. I saw a photocopy of George Washington's Masonic record. He was initiated in November, passed to Fellow Craft in December and raised as a Master Mason in January. It made an impression on me because those were the same months in which I had made those same steps.


Perhaps you're interested in joining but apprehensive about joining something that you can't really find out much about until you join -- commit to, in fact. That can be disconcerting, but it need not be. Freemasonry does not ask or require that you forsake your commitments to family, religion or your country. In fact, it encourages you to keep them.


I hope this posting has helped you if you have been sitting on the fence. Either way it pushed you is fine. We want strong, committed members who want to make friends and connections that last a lifetime. I can say without hesitation that my experience in this fraternity has been, next to my family, the most rewarding of associations.

In Search of the Mystic Stream

When I was in my early 20s, prior to going to graduate school where I eventually earned a Ph.D., specializing in Baroque Spanish Drama & Poetry, I went into used bookstore -- Ninth Street Books, if I remember correctly -- in Columbia, Missouri, in search of books about Freemasonry. If I weren't charitable toward youthful and exuberant naïvité, I'd be embarrassed to tell how I approached the owner and told him that I wanted to know "all about" the history of Freemasonry.

From my youthful perspective, his reply was filled with crusty cynicism. Pointing vaguely toward an area on a shelf toward the back of the store, all he said was: "Good luck with that one."

The study of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque cultural artifacts involves a lot of reading and subsequent pondering about the transmission of culture and the nature of that transmission. It is a rough and rugged road indeed, one fraught with the equal dangers of jumping to conclusions as well as missing details. Often, both errors are due to the difficulty of removing the cultural filters through which we read and interpret the past. Imagine a world lit by fire and recorded by the quill...

The adventure into the past involves the risk of being wrong and so responsible scholars, among whom I like to number myself, will include caveats and disclaimers along with their balanced use of source material. Consider my caveat already expressed and allow me to offer a trail through which we might find the origins of modern Freemasonry, that is, prior to 1717 when the first Grand Lodge was formed in London. Let's work backward from that moment and examine a list of names who seem to suggest linkage in terms of personal relationships, as well as intellectual, spiritual and (to our modern way of thinking) occult, interests.

Dr. David Stevenson, a Scottish historian (a non-Mason), offers a glimpse of the birth of modern Freemasonry through his scholarly examination of the oldest extant minutes from Kilwinning Lodge, dating from the 1590s. The first name that stands out as an educated man associated with the Craft guild is Robert Moray (d. 1602), "master of works" for King James. It is suggested that Moray's esoteric (read "scientific") interests influenced the development of Freemasonry.

Stevenson's account of the origins of Freemasonry in Scotland are not univesally accepted. Prior to his work, Dame Frances Yates postulated that the influential Rosicrucian-related writings and activities of John Dee on the Continent had made their way back to the court of Elizabeth and there exerted an influence that gave birth to Freemasonry. Stevenson does not agree and the problem is probably unsolvable, unless one considers the possibility -- a likely one in my opinion -- that these two points of view only are mutually exclusive if one is looking for "the" birthplace of Freemasonry.

Under Elizabeth I, the name of John Dee stands out as one who also excelled in his knowledge of astrology and the occult. He was her court astrologer, so able, it is said that he predicted the precise date, time and manner of the death of Sir Phillip Sydney.

Chronologically, Dee precedes Moray somewhat, but their careers and influence in the upper reaches of society in England and Scotland definitely overlapped. The question is whether they mingled and if so, where, how and in what context.

The cultural waters of the Baroque are murky enough without asking questions so arcane as those that concern themselves with Freemasonry. But one recent source that dares to venture into those waters and does so with success is John Churton's The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians and the First Freemasons. Churton is thoroughly familiar with Stevenson's and Yates' works as well as with those of Margaret Jacobs, who has published extensively about Freemasonry for the past thirty years. One of her more significant is The Origins of Freemasonry, now in its second edition. 

Next, considering the generation after Dee and Moray, also with sufficient overlap for cultural transmission in England, we find Sir Francis Bacon. His eerily modern work The New Atlantis (1626), coincides with the birth of empirical science and foreshadows the fanciful works of Jules Verne (also a Freemason). The New Atlantis is noteworthy in the context of conjectures about Masonic history due Bacon's use of "Saloman's House" -- a place of learning which his narrator explains thus:

"It was the erection and institution of an order, or society, which we call Saloman's House, the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solomon's House. But the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate of the King of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no strangers to us; for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost; namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall; and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our King finding himself to symbolize, in many things, with that King of the Hebrews, which lived many years before him, honored him with the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records, this order or society is sometimes called Solomon's House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days' Works, whereby I am satisfied that our excellent King had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world and all that therein is within six days: and therefore he instituted that house, for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruit in their use of them, did give it also that second name."

For the complete, online text of The New Atlantis, prepared by William Uzgalis at the University of Oregon, click here.

Bacon's career in turn overlaps neatly with that of Elias Ashmole who is often referred to as the first Freemason of record, since he noted his initiation in his diary. He was also one of the charter members of the Royal Society, along with Sir Isaac Newton and Christopher Wren, who was the architect of the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire in 1666. Wren is often said to have been the first Grand Master, although that seems implausible and unlikely, since there was no Grand Lodge for him to be Grand Master of prior to 1717. Still, the period from 1717 to 1721 is poorly documented and, since he died in 1723, it is at least possible but unprovable.

Once we pass the time of the founding of the Royal Society, we have only to sort out the details of the four years following the formation of the first Grand Lodge. After that, we are in the "historical" period of Freemasonry.

What may we make out of earlier times, prior to even the 1580s? There surely is some gold amid the dross, but there has been so fodder for Masonic publishing ghettoes that the general public will probably remain perplexed and, with reason, annoyed at the lack of any clear picture as to the history of Freemasonry. One day, I may even publish my own private opinions on the matter... in the meantime, feel free to ask!

Liberal Arts Education: A Masonic Tradition

One of the most beautiful portions of Freemasonic ritual involves a lengthy, memorized discourse about the Seven Liberal Arts: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. It is a delight to deliver it and always a pleasure to hear it delivered "trippingly on the tongue."

This posting is meant to be a primer to all those who are interested in their historical transmission and who are interested in the future of the studies of the liberal arts, whether Mason or not.

These subjects were known collectively as the Liberal Arts to distinguish them from the Mechanical Arts -- and also because they were associated with "free" men as opposed to serfs or slaves. During the Middle Ages, the first three of the Seven Liberal Arts were dubbed the Trivium and were associated with the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity; the other four were known as the Quadrivium and were associated with both the four cardinal virtues of Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence and Justice as well as with the four rivers of Paradise. Masons will especially appreciate some of these associations and see immediately the hand of Medieval Masons in the language of our ritual work.

Certainly, Freemasonry is not the source of these disciplines, but from ancient times in fact, the study of these traditional Seven Liberal Arts has been closely associated with, championed and advocated by the building craft, beginning with the explicit admonitions about the education of an architect made by the famous architect of Caesar Augustus, Vitruvius. His Ten Books on Architecture were never "lost" during the Middle Ages. He spends considerable time outlining the ideal education of an architect, and specifically refers to the Seven Liberal Arts. Copies of this treatise had travelled with the Legions to all parts of the Empire, so that fortresses, bridges, aqueducts and so forth could be constructed. From this work by Vitruvius, the architect who "found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble," we know that the Roman Empire had well organized guilds of Masons -- schools that passed on the art and craft of building. These guilds survived in various parts of the Empire long after the Fall of Rome -- and in the period when Christianity had also infused itself into every nook and cranny of public life. It isn't difficult for an attentive and studious Mason to identify a few details in our work that suggest that a Christian cultural veneer was applied over a pre-Christian guild ritual. The most telling is the seemingly arbitrary use of the Holy Saints John... about whom Sir James Fraser had much to say in his monumental work The Golden Bough.

During the Middle Ages, most education was under Church control. The monasteries preserved and copied manuscripts -- and Vitruvius' work was one of the more often copied, since monasteries needed to be built -- and built to last. Eventually, as universities were established in the 1200s at Paris, Bologna, Salamanca and Oxford, the Liberal Arts model was naturally adopted, and over time, adapted for the development of curricula. As one might expect, with time, experience and new discoveries, other subjects naturally were added to what constituted the fundamental education of a university educated person. I am endebted to a colleague of mine, Dr. William Purcell, for the recommendations I am about to make. One very important treatise about the Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages is David L. Wagner's The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages. For an example of an actual medieval treatment of the Seven Liberal Arts, in typical, medieval allegorical form, is that of Martianus Capella.

The link between the ancient study of the Seven Liberal Arts and the medieval guilds of stone masons, which over time became modern Freemasonry, may be found in a document known as the Halliwell Poem or the Regius Manuscript, from about 1390 (although the language dates it to about 1290).

Turning to an examination of sources for the study of each of the Seven Liberal Arts, two great resources for studying the Grammar of English is Analyzing English Grammar, by Thomas P. Klammer and Analyzing the Grammar of English, by Richard V. Teschner and Eston Evans. You can also read a brief, but very informative treatise about Grammar's role in the ancient world by a professor of Classics, Dr. Owen Ewald, here.

Another work that casts a great deal of light on the subject of the English language in particular is Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, by an ingenius fellow, John McWhorter. It makes a lively read whose well documented arguments challenge many cherished but apparently incorrect ideas about the development of the English language and even reach far back into antiquity.

If you are interested in the more general area of the use of language and of course, of its potential for misuse, the great classic by S. I. Hiyakawa ought not be ignored by any person of refinement! His monumental work, Language in Thought and Action, will help you to fight the on-going battle with ignorance among those who "confuse the map with the territory."

Moving on to the subject of Rhetoric, the place to start is, no surprise, Aristotle's Rhetoric. I have a couple of recommendations. One is George Kennedy's Aristotle's Rhetoric and Friedrich Solmsen's edition of The Rhetoric & Poetics of Aristotle. The Poetics is also a fascinating work. It does not deal exclusively with what we now narrowly define as poetry. In one of the chapters, using anger as a model for his acute analysis, Aristotle examines human emotions. This chapter could be considered a primer for the study of psychology.

The study of Logic teaches critical reasoning skills to enable a person who has mastered language and the poetic devices employed by skilled speakers to get his point across with sound arguments. Nowadays, this skill is often taught by symbolic logic. One of the greatest book written on the subject in the twentieth century was Irving Copi's Logic. As a sidebar, I had the honor of being a student of his at the University of Hawaii in the 1970 when he was teaching there. Maybe I'm just enthusiastic, because Dr. Steve Layman, a colleague of mine who is author of a logic text informs me that even more popular than Copi's book is Patrick Hurley's Logic is also available with CD ROM.

As for Arithmetic, and Mathematics generally, there are a number of books available that are very readable and educational for even the non-specialists or the math-phobic. One is Matthew Watkins' Useful Mathematical & Physical Formulae.
Another, which I am reading now, is the classic from the 1970s, The History of Pi, by Petr Beckmann.












Of the seven liberal arts, the one most associated and relevant to the ancient craft of building is GEOMETRY.

There are a number of books I recommend. First, I want to encourage Masons to take seriously the admonition that they should study geometry.

There are a number of online sources -- just google "Euclidean Geometry" and you'll find a lot of valuable resources. But for those who, like me, enjoy a "real" book, I recommend a book that is probably out of print but which can be found online: Plane Geometry for College Students by William Stone, from 1958!

Other books that will dazzle you with amazing facts about the geometry in the world around us include A Little Book of Coincidence by John Martineau, Sacred Geometry, by Miranda Lundy, The Power of Limits, by Gyorgy Doczi and Sacred Architecture, by AT Mann.

Despite the fact that I've been co-author of five volumes of previously unknown Baroque music, I am not a musician, but love Music, the sixth of the Seven Liberal Arts.

I recommend Barret Tagliarino's Music Theory because it is well written and can give even the average person a great appreciation for music and its relationship to geometry.
Finally, the queen of the Seven Liberal Arts is Astronomy. Even if you are not mathematically inclinced, you will love Robin Heath's Sun, Moon & Earth -- a good place to start for anyone interested in the heavenly bodies.

Finally, remember that the Seven Liberal Arts are the foundation of all learning. If you are a parent, insist on their conscious and deliberate inclusion in your child's education, public or private. You might not win that battle, so be proactive and give your child the wonderful roadmap to becoming a life-long learner, ever curious about the world and how it works.

If you're Mason, by all means, dig in and drink deeply from these and other books. Finally, no matter who you are or where you're starting from, never cease to learn and never cease encouraging others to do so.

Enjoy!

Masonic Secrets

If you poke around even a little on the internet or prowl about certain sections of your local bookstore in search of Masonic secrets, you've probably run into pictures, drawings, even video clips that at first makes your heart race but leaves you disappointed. I will reveal only what I am not bound to not reveal, neither confirming nor denying what you think you have found.

Even if all you have seen and heard were true and you memorized and practiced them, you would not be able to gain admission into a tyled Masonic lodge meeting. Why? Because without actually having experienced the conferral of the degrees and considerable practice, a person will not understand the context or how to actually use the passwords, signs and so forth. To put it like a theatre director might: There are performance subtleties that elude print, picture and modes of transmission other than person to person.

Even Dan Brown, an author quite sympathetic to Freemasonry, makes some big mistakes in The Lost Symbol. One mistake in particular may have been deliberate. He used an elaborate, ghoulish ritual scene that never has had any part in regular Freemasonry. But he's not in the business as a novelist to tell the truth, but rather to spin a good yard.

What are Masonic secrets? Speaking for myself, I will say that there are three categories of Masonic Secrets. First, there are the rituals and conferrals of the various degrees. Think of these secrets as form, formatting or packaging. What is actually packaged, the content, is not anything you can't learn somewhere else, except for the second type of Masonic Secrets. They are the most obvious and most misunderstood and consist solely of the modes of recognition, about which so many anti-Masons seem to know so much. Yet the greatest secrets of all are the insights gained over time from the personal experience of participating in the degrees, studying and learning its symbolism and meeting the many friends you always had but didn't know.

If you're reading this, it's because you're curious about Freemasonry. I have a deal for you: I'm curious as to why so many people visit my blogs and yet never leave a comment or better yet, a question. So, again, I invite your respectful, genuine participation and you'll get an answer.