Kena Shriners (Hiram's Oasis)
"Helping Kids Defy the Odds"
In the Oasis of Fairfax, Desert of Virginia

This story came to me from somewhere recently. Believe it!!  I was

here during those days and I remember them well.

I even recall a dream that I had as a youngster. We were visiting the

Lincon Memorial and Honest Abe leaned over and patted me on the back

and said "Preston, you have been a good boy, keep it up".

The Lincon Memorial was completed some 10 years before I was born in

1927.

A Mason-Dixon Memory

Dondre Green glanced uneasily at the civic leaders and sports figures

filling the hotel ballroom in Cleveland. They had come from across the

nation to attend a fund-raiser for the National Minority College Golf

Scholarship Foundation. I was the banquet's featured entertainer.

Dondre, an 18-year-old high school senior from Monroe, Louisiana, was

the evening's honored guest.

"Nervous?" I asked the handsome young man in his starched white shirt

and rented tuxedo.

"A little," he whispered, grinning.

One month earlier, Dondre had been just one more black student

attending

a predominately white school. Although most of his friends and

classmates were white, Dondre's race was never an issue. Then, on

April 17, l991, Dondre's black skin provoked an incident that made

nationwide news.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the emcee said, "our special guest, Dondre

Green."

As the audience stood applauding, Dondre walked to the microphone and

began his story. "I love golf," he said quietly. "For the past two

years, I've been a member of the St. Frederick High School golf team.

And though I was the only black member, I've always felt at home

playing at mostly white country clubs across Louisiana."

The audience leaned forward; even the waiters and busboys stopped to

listen. As I listened, a memory buried in my heart since childhood

fought its way to life.

"Our team had driven from Monroe," Dondre continued. "When we arrived at

the Caldwell Parish Country Club in Columbia, we walked to the putting

green."

Dondre and his teammates were too absorbed to notice the conversation

between a man and St. Frederick athletic director James Murphy. After

disappearing into the clubhouse, Murphy returned to his players.

"I want to see the seniors," he said. "On the double!" His face seemed

strained as he gathered the four students, including Dondre.

"I don't know how to tell you this," he said, "but the Caldwell Parish

Country Club is reserved for whites only." Murphy paused and looked at

Dondre. His teammates glanced at each other in disbelief.

"I want you seniors to decide what our response should be," Murphy

continued. "If we leave, we forfeit this tournament. If we stay,

Dondre can't play."

As I listened, my own childhood memory from 32 years ago broke free.

In 1959, I was 13 years old, a poor black kid living with my mother

and stepfather in a small black ghetto on Long Island, New York. My

mother worked nights in a hospital, and my stepfather drove a coal

truck. Needless to say, our standard of living was somewhat short of

the American dream.

Nevertheless, when my eighth-grade teacher announced a graduation trip

to Washington, D.C., it never crossed my mind that I would be left

behind. Besides a complete tour of the nation's capital, we would

visit Glen Echo Amusement Park in Maryland. In my imagination, Glen

Echo was Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and Magic Mountain rolled into

one.

My heart beating wildly, I raced home to deliver the mimeographed

letter

describing the journey. But when my mother saw how much the trip cost,

she just shook her head. We couldn't afford it.

After feeling sad for 10 seconds, I decided to try to fund the trip

myself. For the next eight weeks, I sold candy bars door-to-door,

delivered newspapers and mowed lawns, Three days before the deadline,

I'd made just barely enough. I was going!

The day of the trip, trembling with excitement, I climbed onto the

train. I was the only nonwhite in our section.

Our hotel was not far from the White House. My roommate was Frank

Miller, the son of a businessman. Leaning together out of our window

and dropping water balloons on tourists quickly cemented our new

friendship.

Every morning, almost a hundred of us loaded noisily onto our bus for

another adventure. We sang our school fight song dozens of times, en

route to Arlington National Cemetery and even on an afternoon cruise

down the Potomac River.

We visited the Lincoln Memorial twice, once in daylight, the second

time at dusk. My classmates and I fell silent as we walked in the

shadows of those 36 marble columns, one for every state in the Union

that Lincoln labored to preserve. I stood next to Frank at the base of

the 19-foot seated statue. Spotlights made the white Georgian marble

glow. Together, we read those famous words from Lincoln's speech at

Gettysburg remembering the most bloody battle in the War between the

States: "...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died

in vain - that this nation, under God shall have a new birth of

freedom..."

As Frank motioned me into place to take my picture, I took one last

look at Lincoln's face. He seemed alive and so terribly sad.

The next morning, I understood a little better why he wasn't smiling.

"Clifton," a chaperone said, "could I see you for a moment?"

The other guys at my table, especially Frank, turned pale. We had been

joking about the previous night's direct water-balloon hit on a fat

lady and her poodle. It was a stupid, dangerous act, but luckily

nobody got hurt. We were celebrating our escape from punishment when

the chaperone asked to see me.

"Clifton," she began, "do you know about the Mason-Dixon line?"

"No," I said, wondering what this had to do with drenching fat ladies.

"Before the Civil War," she explained, "the Mason-Dixon line was

originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania - the

dividing line between the slave and free states." Having escaped one

disaster, I could feel another brewing. I noticed that her eyes were

damp and her hands were shaking.

"Today," she continued, "the Mason-Dixon line is a kind of invisible

border between the North and the South. When you cross that invisible

line out of Washington, D.C., into Maryland, things change."

There was an ominous drift to this conversation, but I wasn't

following it. Why did she look and sound so nervous?

"Glen Echo Amusement Park is in Maryland," she said at last, "and the

management doesn't allow Negroes inside." She stared at me in silence.

I was still grinning and nodding when the meaning finally sank in.

"You mean I can't go to the park," I stuttered, "because I'm a Negro?"

She nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Clifton," she said, taking my hand.

"You'll have to stay in the hotel tonight. Why don't you and I watch a

movie on television?"

I walked to the elevators feeling confusion, disbelief, anger and a deep

sadness. "What happened, Clifton?" Frank said when I got back to the

room. "Did the fat lady tell on us?"

Without saying a word, I walked over to my bed, lay down and cried.

Frank was stunned into silence. Junior-high boys didn't cry, at least

not in front of each other.

It wasn't just missing the class adventure that made me feel so sad.

For the first time in my life, I learned what it felt like to be a

"nigger."

Of course there was discrimination in the North, but the color of my

skin had never officially kept me out of a coffee shop, a church - or

an amusement park.

"Clifton," Frank whispered, "what is the matter?"

"They won't let me to go Glen Echo Park tonight," I sobbed.

"Because of the water balloon?" he asked.

"No, I answered, "because I'm a Negro."

"Well, that's a relief!" Frank said, and then he laughed, obviously

relieved to have escaped punishment for our caper with the balloons.

"I thought it was serious."

Wiping away the tears with my sleeve, I stared at him. "It is serious.

They don't let Negroes into the park. I can't go with you!" I shouted.

"That's pretty damn serious to me."

I was about to wipe the silly grin off Frank's face with a blow to his

jaw when I heard him say, "Then I won't go either."

For an instant we just froze. Then Frank grinned. I will never forget

that moment. Frank was just a kid. He wanted to go to that amusement

park as much as I did, but there was something even more important than

the class night out. Still, he didn't explain or expand.

The next thing I knew, the room was filled with kids listening to

Frank.

"They don't allow Negroes in the park," he said, "so I'm staying with

Clifton."

"Me, too," a second boy said.

"Those jerks," a third muttered. "I'm with you, Clifton." My heart

raced. Suddenly, I was not alone. A pint-sized revolution had been

born.

The "water-balloon brigade," 11 white boys from Long Island, had made

its decision: "We won't go." And as I sat on my bed in the center of

it all, I felt grateful. But, above all, I was filled with pride.

Dondre Green's story brought that childhood memory back to life. His

golfing teammates, like my childhood friends, faced an important

decision. If they stood by their friend it would cost them dearly. But

when it came time to decide, no one hesitated.

"Let's get out of here," one of them whispered.

"They just turned and walked toward the van," Dondre told us. "They

didn't debate it. And the younger players joined us without looking

back."

Dondre was astounded by the response of his friends - and the people

of Louisiana. The whole state was outraged and tried to make it right.

The Louisiana House of Representatives proclaimed a Dondre Green Day

and passed legislation permitting lawsuits for damages, attorneys'

fees and court costs against any private facility that invites a team,

then bars any member because of race.

As Dondre concluded, his eyes glistened with tears. "I love my coach and

my teammates for sticking by me," he said. "It goes to show that there

always good people who will not give in to bigotry. The kind of love

they showed me that day will conquer hatred every time."

My friends, too, had shown that kind of love. As we sat in the hotel,

a chaperone came in waving an envelope. "Boys!" he shouted. "I've just

bought 13 tickets to the Senators-Tigers game. Anybody want to go?"

The room erupted in cheers. Not one of us had ever been to a

professional baseball game in a real baseball park.

On the way to the stadium, we grew silent as our driver paused before

the Lincoln Memorial. For one long moment, I stared through the marble

pillars at Mr. Lincoln, bathed in that warm, yellow light. There was

still no smile and no sign of hope in his sad and tired eyes.

"...We here highly resolve...that this nation, under God, shall have a

new birth of freedom..."

In his words and in his life, Lincoln made it clear, that freedom is

not free. Every time the color of a person's skin keeps him out of an

amusement park or off a country-club fairway, the war for freedom

begins again. Sometimes the battle is fought with fists and guns, but

more often the most effective weapon is a simple act of love and

courage.

Whenever I hear those words from Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, I

remember my 11 white friends, and I feel hope once again. I like to

imagine that when we paused that night at the foot of his great

monument, Mr. Lincoln smiled at last.

By Clifton Davis

from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul

___________________________________________________________________

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OBLIGATIONS AND OATHS

THE BUILDER FEBRUARY 1921

BY BRO. H.R. PARTLOW, ARKANSAS

THE MASONIC obligation has always been to the writer a subject of

considerable interest, especially on account of the various

positions assumed by the obliger at the time of taking the

obligation, and the formalities incident to it which, in my

opinion, bespeak for the obligation a greater antiquity than

usually accorded it by historians and writers.

Even a cursory view of the subject of entering into a contractual

relation from ancient times shows that the obligations assumed to

be binding were entered into in accordance to the ceremonial form

of that age, and if entered into in that way were considered by the

ancients inviolate.  History abounds with many instances evidencing

this, but for numerous cases we have only to go into the field of

religious and legal literature.  Biblical and judicial records are

the deposits left by the receding waters of time and an examination

of the laws and customs of these remote ages shows a general

unfolding and development of civilization. True it is that the data

found are not separately and clearly set forth, but may be compared

to the residue of the seashore, scattered and wholly without order,

some buried in sand and foreign matter, while others are entirely

concealed except to the keen vision of the delving student who by

patience and skill will exhume them, thereby revealing them to the

superficial observer.

The writer is fully aware that the average Mason has but little

interest in such matters, but a close study of the customs of the

ancients will shed much light upon certain customs now used in our

ritual or floor work in conferring degrees.  If by any means we can

determine the inception of these early formalities, the basal ideas

leading up to them, and the possible psychological functioning

which produced them they will, in my opinion, be invaluable. These

rudimentary ideas are to the Masonic student what the primary

crusts of the earth are to the geologist.  They contain all the

forms which society has subsequently exhibited.

In the matter of ascertaining the fountain head of the jural

conception of an oath, obligation, or contract, one may become lost

in the impenetrable night of antiquity.  Mr. Holmes, in his

admirable work on Common Law, says: "To explain how mankind first

learned to promise, we must go to metaphysics and find out how it

came to frame a future tense." Law, like religion, is co-eval with

intelligence and so soon as man was capable of continuity of

thought, so soon as he found intelligible speech, he questioned

himself concerning his relationship to other sentient beings. 

Therefore, by way of a premise, it may be said that whenever and

wherever we have found man we find exhibition of certain

characteristics which are common to other peoples in the same stage

of development.

The force and effect of an oath or obligation in ancient days was

much greater than it is today, for the reason that the Higher Power

was presumed to be present and to participate in the transaction as

a third party.  This was especially so in making of covenants which

were accompanied by a sacrifice and other solemn formalities in

addition to the oath calling upon the ever present Deity to

witness.

In the procedure of entering into obligations or of taking oaths

one is impressed first with the universal use of the light hand. It

is a singular coincidence that so many people are right handed, and

we shall now consider the use of the right hand in entering into

various obligations and draw some conclusions regarding its almost

universal use.

The right hand has been held forever sacred.  The origin of such

belief is a profound mystery.  Much importance was attached to it

in worship as well as in entering into various contractual

relations.

A study of the formal contract in early English law rewards the

student for the pains of his investigation; and for the purpose of

giving to the reader the benefit of this we quote at some length

from Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law:

"In many countries of Western Europe and in this part of the world

also, we find the mutual grasp of the hand as a form which binds a

bargain.  It is possible to regard this as a relic of a more

elaborate ceremony by which some material was passed from hand to

hand; but the mutuality of the hand grip seems to make against this

explanation.  We think it more likely that the promisor proffered

his name of himself and for the purpose of devoting himself to the

god or goddess, if he broke faith. Expanded in words, the

underlying idea would be of this kind, 'As I here deliver myself to

you by my right hand, so I deliver myself to the wrath of Fides, or

Jupiter acting by the ministry of Fides, if I break faith in this

thing.'

"Whether the Germans have borrowed this symbolic act from the Roman

provincials and have thus taken over a Roman practice along with

Fides, or whether it has an independent root in their own heathen

religion we will not dare to decide.  However, the grasp of the

hand appears among them at an early date as a mode of contracting

solemn, if not legally binding, obligations."

In the Code of Justinian the formality of raising the right hand

was necessary in taking an oath.  Then we find from the two great

sources of law, Roman and English, that more importance is attached

to the right hand than to the left.

Among primitive races, such as the Dacotah, the Winebagoes and

other Western tribes, the right hand as a symbol has been observed

by more than one person.  As a symbol of fidelity and virtue the

right hand is repeatedly referred to in Hebrew lore.

Abraham said to the King of Salem: "I have lifted up my hand unto

the Lord, the most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

that I will not take anything that is thine." The expression,

"lifted up my hand unto the Lord," doubtless proves the custom of

the ancient Hebrews in placing the right hand upon the object of

veneration in entering into a contract or binding obligations, and

if such object could not be touched, the right hand was extended

toward the thing of reverence with hand open and fingers extended. 

The right hand of fellowship is spoken of by St. Paul in

Gallatioans (Gallatian 2, chap. 9).  In Psalms, 94th chapter, the

right hand is spoken of as "the right hand of falsehood."

The manner of using the right hand is a symbol of fidelity, imposed

in primitive times the loss of that member in cases of breaches of

faith.  Pollack and Maitland, in their work on English Law, in

speaking of the German people say, "Germanic law is fond of

characteristic punishment.  It likes to take the tongue of the

false accuser and the perjurer's right hand."

Fort in his Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry, says:

"Oaths were also attested by water, fountains and streams, by

rocks, cliffs and stones - the latter sometimes white, but the most

sacred and binding obligations were made upon a blue stone altar. 

Ancient Norsemen swore upon Thor's hammer. It was no unusual thing

for a person to formerly attest an oath by the beard, hair, and

eyes, or with the hand upon vestments.  A judicial obligation was

administered by touching the judge's staff of office, and by some

reason warriors swore by the sword; also, other people, in less

exciting spheres of domestic life, used household furniture.  For

examples travellers grasped the wagon wheel, and horsemen their

stirrups; sailors rested the hand upon the ship's railing. 

Operative Masons, or stonecutters of the Middle Ages perpetuated

the Scandinavian custom of swearing upon common utensils and used

their tools in the solemn formality of an obligation - a usage

adhered to by the modern craft.

"The right hand was considered indispensable in medieval oaths, to

seize or to touch the consecrated objects.  Frequently the hand was

upraised in order to bring it in contact with the material object

sworn by, and at the same time kneeling, divested of hat and

weapon, was an essential element in the ceremony of assuming an

oath."

Why was it necessary to touch or to be in contact with some sacred

object? This is a pertinent question. The possible explanation may

be found in the doctrine of deodands in ancient English Common Law. 

This doctrine generally recognized that in case of an injury

inflicted by an inanimate object, such as a wagon wheel, tree or

other object of similar kind, a portion of the punishment or damage

was to award the injured with the object, the cause of the injury. 

Man from the remotest times has attributed life, spirit or being to

inanimate objects, therefore, swearing upon these inanimate objects

is doubtless for no other purpose than to call upon some object to

be a witness to this obligation.  From the fact that man has

attributed life to inanimate objects, creating and vesting them

with certain characteristics common to mankind, naturally thought

about the necessity of giving them sex.  Hence it is probable that

this is the explanation why in most languages we find masculine and

feminine gender indiscriminately applied to inanimate objects.  The

explanation is to be found in the doctrine of animism and not in

poetic license as is often given by grammarians.

The frequent use of the right hand - and one can cite instance

after instance of its use of entering into obligations, such as in

marriage contracts, uplifted right hand in the taking of an oath -

naturally arouses one's enthusiasm to investigate the probable

cause. Brother Mackey cites instance after instance of its use in

worship, such as keeping the right side to the altar in going

around the altar.  Sir Walter Scott gives an instance in his novel,

The Pirate, of the young people who assembled in far off Norseland

and joined right hands through a circular aperture at the base of

an upright rock and plighted their faiths to the god Odin.  G.

Stanley Hall makes some interesting remarks when he says:

"There are many facts which seem to suggest that in adolescence the

right hand precedes the left, and is not usually quite overtaken,

so that the predominance is greater after puberty.  If this be so

the relation of the two hands in man is somewhat analogous to the

relation between the male and female body in muscular development."

Scientists say the grip of the right hand exceeds in strength by

one-sixth to one-eighth that of the left hand.  Smedley has

observed that there is an analogy between unidexterity and the

development of the voice.

Here let us pause and ask two questions: First, Are we right-handed

because of the long continued use of the right hand in worship and

in assuming obligations thereby creating a physiological condition

or anatomical condition as a result of constant exercise or

precedence of the right hand? Second, Is the preference given to

the right hand due to the disparity in development between the two

hands as is pointed out by the scientist in the preceding

paragraphs?

The delivery of possession of a piece of land was performed, says

Digby, in the following manner:

"Speaking generally it must be the delivery of something, such as

a clod, earth or twig on the land in the name of whole.  Great

importance was attached to the notoriety of the transaction. That

all the neighbours might know that A was tenant to B from the fact

that open livery of seisen had been made to him.  This would enable

him to assert his rights in case of disputes to the title of

lands."

Another instance may be cited from Littleton Coke's translation:

"When a freeholder does fealty to his lord he shall hold his right

hand on a book and shall say this: 'Know ye this, my lord, that I

shall be faithful and true unto you and faith to you shall bear for

the lands which I claim to hold of you and that I shall lawfully do

to you the custom and service while I ought to do, at the terms

assigned, so help me God and his Saints.  And he shall kiss the

book."

In further substantiation of formalities in assuming obligations we

wish here to refer to some peculiar marriage customs.  One of the

most peculiar of these customs was known as "Smock-marriages" or

"Marriage in Shift." Under the common law the husband became at

marriage liable for the antenuptial debts of his wife as well as

the successor to her property rights.  One counteracted the other. 

Now the theory that the husband could escape the liability of the

antenuptial debts of his wife possibly created or brought about

smock-marriages.

A smock-marriage was one where the debtor bride came to the wedding

dressed in a smock or shift, which was a public declaration to her

creditors that she took no property to her husband as a basis of

charging him with her debts.  A number of instances are reported in

the New England States where the bride was secluded in a closet and

joined right hands, through an aperture of the door with the

bridegroom until the ceremony was said, and later appeared well

dressed.  Alice Morse Earle, in her Customs of Old New England,

refers frequently to this unique custom.

In ancient days trial by battle was attended by the usual formality

of joining right hands before the trial of strength, a custom still

preserved in the prize fight. 

Numerous examples might be cited from the Bible but this is not

deemed necessary here as it would simply expand this article and

add nothing to its value or proof.

The Prince of Wales in taking his coronation oath lays his right

hand upon the Bible, for it is the object of veneration or

sacredness.

The formality of removing the shoes is one of the oldest customs

and doubtless had its origin among the people of the Far East,

especially the Hebrews.  We find Moses upon his approach to the

burning bush removed his shoes for the reason that the ground on

which he stood was sacred. It is a custom of the people of the East

upon approaching a sacred place to remove the shoes or to uncover

the feet, but among the Western people the head is uncovered.  The

fact of discalceation proves beyond doubt that the person taking

the oath regards the Deity as present and participating as a third

party to the ceremony.  Among the Jewish people it was considered

a sign of renunciation of dominion or authority to remove the

shoes.

Under the Mosaic law the brother of a childless man was bound to

marry his widow and until he renounced his right, she could not

marry another.  If refused the woman was obliged to loose his shoes

from off his feet and spit before his face as an assertion of

complete her complete independence.

Edward J. White in his Legal Antiquities says:

"That this custom was later used by the early Christians would seem

to be confirmed by the story connected with the proposal of the

Emperor Vladimir to the daughter of Raguald, for when asked if she

would not marry the Emperor she replied: 'I will not take off my

shoes to the son of a slave."'

In the early Saxon days when marriage was completed the father of

the bride took off her shoes and handed them to the bridegroom.

Wood's Wedding Day in All Ages says that Martin Luther, the great

reformer, used the shoe in his ceremony.

Bending the knee has in all ages of the world's history been

considered as an act of humility and reverence. Pliny, the Roman

naturalist, observes that a certain degree of religious reverence

is attributed to the knee of man.  Solomon prayed upon bended knee

at the consecration of the temple.

These customs show beyond doubt that in taking the obligation the

candidate is assumed to be in the presence of the Deity and that

his obligation is entered into with that ever present Being.

The last point we desire to make is that an obligation once assumed

was by ancient peoples considered inviolable, and could not be set

aside or held for naught.  One reason for this was because every

act of the promisor contemplated the presence of the Deity and

according to the customs of that age due preparations had been made

looking to the entering into of the obligations.

It would be a great blessing in this modern age if more of the

initiates in entering into the obligation could or would consider

it more as the ancients did, a solemn and binding obligation, - one

taken in the presence of Him who can search the inner recesses of

the heart and knows our purposes and designs.  If that were true we

would have better Masons.

It is a matter of regret to every man practising law how easily men

extend their right hand toward their Creator and perjure

themselves.  This is done because many of them regard an oath as an

empty string of words with no binding effect whatsoever.  Let us as

Masons make more of our obligations and try to impress upon the

initiate the fact that a broken pledge with the brethren is

attended with serious consequences and is looked upon with

displeasure by Him who takes notice of the falling of the sparrow.

"Old Tiler Talks" by Carl Claudy -1924

ON KNOWING NAMES

"I've been watching you for half an hour and you haven't missed

calling a brother by name," said the New Brother to the Old

Tiler. "How do you do it?"

"Remembering names is my business. As Tiler I am supposed to know

all the brethren of this lodge. I get paid for being a Tiler. If

I didn't know my job I would be taking money under false

pretenses."

"How did you learn names? I have been a member of this lodge for

nearly a year. And I don't know more than a dozen men by name.

How do you do it?"

"How do you not do it?" countered the Old Tiler. "Don't you ever

know anyone by name in any organization you belong to?"

"Well, er- I- "

"I visited in one lodge once," interrupted the Old Tiler, "where

they used the scheme developed in so many luncheon clubs. The

Master started an automatic roll call, in which each brother

stood, gave his name, address and business and sat down. It

smacked a little of the commercial to me. To hear a chap say, 'My

name is Bill Jones, agent for the Speedemup car, in business at

1567 Main Street,' may be very informing to the brother who

doesn't know it, but it seems like advertising. I presume the

scheme worked; everyone in that lodge got to know everyone else

by name in time.

"In another lodge every brother wears a big, round celluloid name

plate with his name printed on it in big letters. The Tiler, poor

chap, has charge of a rack and is supposed to see that every

brother entering the room has his button on and that none wears

it home! This scheme works; you can read a brother's name and

call him by it, and probably remember it next time.

"Ready-made brotherhood is the dream of the professional Mason;

ready-made acquaintance is the thing he strives for with his

announcements and his celluloid buttons.

"I don't regard the use of a name as essential. It is pleasant to

be called by name, and nice to be able to remember them. But a

name, after all, is an artificial distinction, conferred on us by

our parents as a matter of convenience. A rose smells just as

sweet if you call it a sunflower, and a man is the same whether

you call him Jim or Jones. Not very long ago a man said to me: 'I

don't know your name but you are Tiler of my lodge. My uncle in

the country has just sent me a crate of strawberries. I can't se

'em all and I'd like to give you some. Will you write your name

and address on a card so I can send them?'

If he had known my name he could have sent them without asking

for the card. But would they have tasted any better? I had a warm

feeling at my heart; my brother had remembered my face and who I

was, and wanted me to share his good luck. That he didn't know my

name didn't seem to matter. He knew me.

"It's friendly to call a man by his name. We are all more or less

egocentric. (Doc Palmer tells me that the word means that we

revolve about ourselves!) When people remember our names we think

we have made an impression. It tickles our vanity. Half a dozen

members in this lodge come only once a year. When I call them by

name they swell up like poisoned pups. But they wouldn't if they

knew my system. One of them has prominent ears; so has a jackass.

A jackass eats thistles. This man's name is Nettleton. Another

chap has a nose that looks as if it grew on a Brobdingnagian

face. His name is Beekman. It's no trick to remember them,

because of the impression they make of ugliness. I remember your

name as an earnest young brother trying to learn. I remember the

Past Masters by remembering their services,. I know John and Jim

and George and Elly and Harry and Joe and Frank and the rest

because I know the men, know what they do, how they do it, what

they stand for in the lodge and in Masonry; in other words, it's

the brother I know first, and in my mind I tack a name to him. To

remember a name and tack a face to it is the trick accomplished

by the celluloid button, the automatic roll call, by all schemes

to make men know each other's names with the idea that the name

and not the man is important.

"You have been here nearly a year and know a dozen men by name.

If you know a hundred by sight to speak to, you have accomplished

something more important than filling your memory with names. But

if you know only your dozen by sight and name, and no others

either by sight or name, then there is something the matter with

your idea of fellowship.

"In lodge, brothers learn to know each other; if they learn each

other's names in the process, well and good. But if they learn to

know each other as human beings with friendly faces, it does make

little difference whether they have good or poor memories for

names.

"Our Master is a fine, lovable man. Every dog he meets on the

street wags its tail and speaks to him, and he speaks to them

all. I doubt if he knows their names. He has a poor memory for

names, yet he never forgets a face. I know names and faces

because it's my job, but I'd make a poor Master."

"I'm not so sure about your being a poor Master!"

"Well, I am! Don't confuse a good memory, a good Mason and a good

Master. I try to have the first and be the second!"

Before the short goodie, I have compiled a lot of messages from many

sources from 1995 into text files. If I compress them all, the ZIP file is

just over 1MB, which will take about 10 minutes to transfer by e-mail

attachment.  These files are about 2.6MB uncompressed.  As an example, the

King James version of the bible is less than 2mb compressed, so you can

see there is a lot of stuff here. I will send the ZIP to anyone who

requests it--NOT to everyone!!

For more information, ask.

Also I have a ZIP file of all of the goodies that I have sent out

since starting this list. The ZIP is about 100k, so it will move

fast. If you want either or both, ask.  If you don't have a ZIP

utility, I have PK260W32.EXE which is a windows ZIP utility I can

send to you, ask.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

now for today's goodie

OUT OF THE PAST--THE NEW AGE - OCTOBER 1961   (From Hiram's Oasis)

The Speech of Count T---.

At the Initiation of His Son into Masonry

I Congratulate you on your admission into the most ancient and

perhaps the most respectable Society in the universe. To you the

mysteries of Masonry are about to be revealed, and so bright a sun

never shed its lustre on your eyes. In this awful moment, when

prostrate at this holy altar, do you not shudder at every crime,

and have you not confidence in every virtue? May this reflection

inspire you with the noble sentiments; may you be penetrated with a

religious abhorrence of every vice that degrades the dignity of

human nature; and may you feel the elevation of the soul which

scorns a dishonourable action, and ever invites to the practice of

piety and virtue!

These are the wishes of a father and a brother conjoined. Of you

the greatest hopes are raised, let not our expectations be

deceived. You are the son of a Mason who glories in the profession;

and for your zeal and attachment, your silence and good conduct,

your father has already pledged his honour.

You are now, as a member of this Illustrious Order, introduced a

subject of a new country, whose extent is boundless. Pictures are

open to your view, wherein true patriotism is exemplified in

glaring colours, and a series of transactions recorded, which the

rude hand of time can ever erase. The obligations which influenced

the first Brutus and Manlius to sacrifice their children to the

love of their country, are not more sacred than those which bind me

to support the honour and reputation of this venerable Order.

This moment, my son, you owe to me a second birth; should your

conduct in life correspond with the principles of Masonry, my

remaining years will pass away with pleasure and satisfaction.

Observe the great example of our ancient masters, peruse our

history and our constitutions. The best, the most humane, the

bravest, and most civilized of men have been our patrons. Though

the vulgar are strangers to our words, the greatest geniuses have

sprung from our Order. The most illustrious characters on earth

have laid the foundation of their most amiable qualities in

Masonry. The wisest of Princes planned our Institution, at raising

a Temple to the eternal and Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

Swear, my son, that you will be a true and faithful Mason. Know

from this moment that I centre the affection of a parent in the

name of a brother and a friend. May your heart be susceptible of

love and esteem, and may you burn with the same zeal your father

possesses. Convince the world by your new alliance you are

deserving our favours, and never forget the ties which bind you to

honour and to justice. View not with indifference the extensive

connections you have formed, but let universal Benevolence regulate

your conduct. Exert your abilities in the service of your King

and your Country, and deem the knowledge you have this day attained

the happiest acquisition of your life.

Recall to memory the ceremony of your initiation; learn to bridle

your tongue, and to govern your passions; and ere long you will

have occasion to say "In becoming a Mason I truly became the Man;

and while I breathe will never disgrace a jewel that kings may

prize."

If I live, my son, to reap the fruits of this day's labour, my

happiness will be complete. I will meet death without terror, close

my eyes in peace, and expire, without a groan, in the arms of a

virtuous and a worthy Freemason.

          "Old Tiler Talks" by Carl Claudy -1924

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES

"We are coming to a pretty pass in our Masonry!" announced the

New Brother, disgustedly.

"That has a familiar ring! No times like the old times, no days

like the old days, everything going to the demnition bow-wows.

They uncovered inscriptions like that in King Tut's tomb!"

grinned the Old Tiler. "What's wrong our Masonry now?"

"All these extras in the lodge. First, we have a choir; that's

all right, since music adds to the solemnity and beauty of the

degrees. Now we are forming a lodge glee club. There is to be a

saxophone quartet and there is talk of a lodge band. A brother in

lodge long enough to know better is organizing a dramatic

society. If he has any dramatic instinct he should put it into

the degrees. The Master is interesting some brethren in forming a

Masonic club, and a lot of brethren are talking of a camping

club, for summer fishing! This scattering of effort is a shame.

We ought to put it into the work of the lodge; don't you agree

with me?"

"I sure do; I think all our effort Masonic should be Masonic

effort!" answered the Old Tiler.

"That's the first time I ever started a discussion with you and

found you were on my side!" laughed the New Brother,

triumphantly.

"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as to say I was on your side this time.

Our efforts ought to be Masonic, but I don't see un-Masonic

effort in a glee club, saxophone quartet, camping association,

dramatic club, and so on. What's wrong with them as Masonic

work?"

"Why, Masonic work is putting on the degrees well, and making an

impression on the candidate, and charity, and... and..."

"Go on, son, you are doing fine!"

"Oh, you know what I mean! Masonic work isn't going camping or

playing a saxophone!"

"Isn't it?" asked the Old Tiler, interestedly. "Now, that's a

plain statement about which I can argue until tomorrow morning!

But explain why playing a saxophone in a lodge for the pleasure

of the lodge isn't Masonic."

"Oh, the time spent could be better spent in- in listening to the

degrees."

"Granted, if there were degrees to listen to. But you wouldn't

put on a degree without reason? If the lodge neglects its degree

work to listen to a quartet, the quartet does harm. But if the

quartet brings down brethren who like music, and to whom we can

them give Masonic instruction, why isn't it good Masonic work?"

"How about the dramatic club and the fishing association?"

"They are the same in intent. The dramatic club will gather

together brethren interested in plays. It will develop histrionic

talent which now doesn't exist. It will train men for sincere and

well-managed degree work. But if it never led a single man into

our degree teams, it would still be a bond of union between men

who would thus get better acquainted; the better members know

each other the more united the lodge.

"Fishing is an innocent and delightful sport. When Masons

congregate to enjoy it and prefer the company of each other to

others, it speaks highly of the bonds of brotherhood. If I can

afford it I will surely join. I'd much rather tell a fish that he

has passed the other anglers, but me he cannot pass, in the

presence of my brethren, than have to keep my thoughts to myself

before strangers!"

"You think these extra growths on the body of the lodge don't sap

its strength?"

"I don't think they are growths on the body of the lodge at all!"

growled the Old Tiler. "Brethren who do these things are not

taking strength from the lodge! Banding together to sing, play

musical instruments, fish, act in plays together, shows a real

feeling of brotherhood. The more such activities, the more united

we will be.

"All work and no play makes a Mason a stay-at-home. Our ancient

brethren specified the usages of refreshment. They understood

that playing was as necessary as working. If part of us can play

together for our own pleasure, well and good. If, at the same

time, we can give pleasure to others, and benefit the lodge by

increasing its unity, why, well and best of all!"

"You sure are a salesman!" cried the New Brother. "I ought not to

afford it, but..."

"What have I sold you?" asked the Old Tiler, interestedly.

"Memberships in the glee club, the Masonic club, and the fishing

club!" grinned the New Brother.

Fraternally,

Carl Johnson, 32'

Burlington Masonic Lodge #254

Grand Lodge of Washington, Free & Accepted Masons

Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, Valley of Bellingham

Orient of Washington

Today we bring you something a bit different.  It's a bit long. We

think you might enjoy reading it in spite of it's length.   Enjoy

This is a copyrighted article from ARIADNE'S WEB, a spiritual

magazine. you can contact them it at   www.ariadnes-web.com

           A MASONIC PERSPECTIVE,

Any Masonic Perspective can only be that of the individual Freemason,

according to the light that he himself has discovered.

              MASONIC LANGUAGE

Like all other initiatory systems, which are concerned to impart and

to develop techniques for spiritual unfoldment, Freemasonry has its

own special language derived from the ancient tool of allegory and the

universal language of symbolism. In general, the search for spiritual

evolution and illumination can be termed a pathway to light. Light,

for Freemasons, signifies knowledge. Darkness signifies Ignorance.

                  The Pathway to LIGHT

              By NORMAN PEARSON, PH.D., D.B.A

Long before our society embraced the concept of lifelong learning,

Freemasons had posited one of the basic human tasks to be an endless

quest for knowledge: light, and still more light, as all the readily

available literature on Freemasonry will attest. Masons are required

to make a daily advancement, no matter how small, in this struggle for

the light. On this pathway, Masonry uses three main personal

techniques at the outset, and they continue throughout a Mason's

individual development, supplemented by other techniques. These are:

1 - Admonition

2 - Incident

3 - Symbol

FIRST TECHNIQUES FOR THE INDIVIDUAL

These first techniques of admonition, incident and symbol are

deceptively simple. They are also very powerful. They point to Masonry

as a discipline, not a religion. Freemasonry has been held to contain

those spiritual principles on which all good men can agree, whatever

their history, their culture, their origin, their religion or their

mores. That has been the root of its universal appeal.

On Masonic altars the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the holy Vedic

books of India, the teachings of Zoroaster, the Mormon books and those

of the Bahai and others sit side by side in peace and harmony.

Members are forbidden to discuss such divisive matters as politics and

dogma, and are expected to meet in peace and brotherhood. Because of

the vital significance of this spiritual work, in many jurisdictions

Masonic meeting-places are termed Temples, used in the sense of a holy

place of spiritual searching; of a temple of learning about light; and

as a reminder of a fundamental principle that the body is the temple

of the soul; buildings dedicated to the basic Cosmic force and

ultimate mysterious principle which we term God, and as places of

fellowship and harmony where the concerned seekers can work together

in their search, both individually and collectively.

        ADMONITION, INCIDENT & SYMBOL

The Masonic discipline at every meeting and in the Mason's private

life, uses all three techniques of admonition, incident and symbol.

Admonitions abound - in plain and forthright language. This technique

is simple and direct. For example, the cardinal virtues of temperance,

fortitude, prudence and justice are stated, explained, and the need

for their use in daily life is made very plain. Any book of published

material on Freemasonry clearly indicates this as a basic starting

point. The intent is towards basic honesty and integrity, to make our

inner code of honor apply directly to our external actions as a matter

of habit.

A series of incidents constitute the second teaching, technique. These

are not abstract moral lessons, but simple and practical

demonstrations: indications of the importance of duty as a compass

bearing on our progress in life; friendship as a key element, showing

that we are all totally dependent on friendship and on mutual

cooperation to make society work at all, and particularly to overcome

peril; loyalty is sought, along with demonstrable fidelity to certain

key principles already evident in the admonitions; full personal

responsibility for our actions is required, including self-discipline

to ensure harmonious working together, to ensure responsibility for

our words and deeds and their consequences: fidelity is evident,

including the need for positive action to actually oppose evil, even

at great risk, to put these principles into action in the great arena

of life.

... there are emblems of mortality and immortality: to remind us that

life is short in this present school of Earth, and that such time must

be used well; and to remind us that the Divine spark within is one

with the great universe, transcends time and space, and lives for

ever.

The third method uses the universal and ancient language of symbols.

It takes time to learn this forgotten language, but it gradually

becomes clear that the symbols fall into various groups: some relate

to regulating our conduct; some deal with building our character;

still others speak to our purpose in life; others emphasize the need

for a balanced life. Finally, there are emblems of mortality and

immortality: to remind us that life is short in this present school of

Earth, and that such time must be used well; and to

remind us that the Divine spark within is one with the great universe,

transcends time and space, and lives for ever. Then having

contemplated infinity, there are symbols to remind us of the various

aspects of the universal moral law which should guide our lives.

So we have the commitment to lifelong learning and the three methods of

admonition, incident and symbols as the obvious techniques and

starting point. But what precedes this is also vital: the process of

initiation in stages.

        The universe is viewed as one huge coherent structure,, run,

        by universal law, which owes its existence to the Great

        Architect of the Universe. Man is not lost in space.

     INITIATION & ARCHITECTURE AS A METAPHOR

Many Masonic writers have noted that there are many in the order who

are unchanged by the solemn ceremonies of initiation. They frequently

remind us of Tolstoy's character Pierre, in 'War and Peace", who

classified his lodge members as (1) those who were few, but genuinely

affected by initiation and who made profound efforts at spiritual

development; (2) those who, like himself, sought to improve their

character but wavered and fell by the wayside periodically; (3) those

fascinated by minute detail of ritual, ceremony, history and

symbolism, demanding conformity and strict observance; (4) the

unchanged (often called in English works "bread-and-butter Masons")

who were not at all affected by any event, and saw in the whole

thing simply a social occasion. It seems evident that those in the

first category are likely very few in number, but as Tolstoy said,

they are the lifeblood of Freemasonry.

Hammond (1939) alluded to these Masons when he spoke of the fourfold

allusions to the metaphor of architecture in Freemasonry as techniques

for spiritual unfoldment:

1. The universe is viewed as one huge coherent structure, run by

universal law, which owes its existence to the Great Architect of the

Universe. Man is not lost in space.

2. Man is a builder, charged with the construction of personal

character. He is reminded that the universe within is as vast and

limitless as the universe without, as the ancient symbol of infinity

indicates. For this task of building a fitting temple for the soul,

man is given abundant material, noble models and patterns, and

explicit instructions.

3. Man is commissioned to build an ideal social structure, globally,

person by person. Since the nature of this slowly-evolving structure

depends on the quality of the individuals involved and their

relationship to each other, then each Mason must qualify as a "living

stone" of society to contribute to its betterment, following universal

law.

4. Finally, Masons are engaged in creating "that house not made with

hands eternal in the heaven", the idea that after transition we have

passed through the earthly chambers of birth, youth, manhood, old age

and death, into the eternal. This sequence envisages a process which

this author sees as an indication of re-incarnation in some sense,

until the soul has learned all it needs to know. Oliver Wendell Holmes

states this well:

"Build thee more stately mansions, O, my soul, As the swift seasons

roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the

last. Shut thee from heaven within a dome more vast Till thou at

length are free, Leaving shine outgrown shell by life's unresting

sea!"

THE CHILDREN AND THE CHESSBOARD

So the whole direction of the dominant architectural metaphor in

Freemasonry is toward this major task of spiritual unfoldment. We

must, therefore, look beyond admonitions, incidents, symbolism and

metaphors and allegories to a more fundamental level.

Where did all this come from? Yet here, the great mystic Manly Hall,

who had profound admiration for the essentials of Freemasonry and

eventually became a Mason later in life, stated that most modern

Freemasons were like children playing innocently and quite ignorantly

with a chessboard and chess pieces, seeing them as toys, and with no

idea of their real significance. To those who are concerned with

spiritual development, what does this mean?

What Hall meant was that Freemasonry is a modern form of spiritual

development and unfoldment descended from, and worthy of being set

alongside some very ancient systems, and that it has also very ancient

roots going back to Mankind's earliest attempts to reconcile the

evident materiality of an external infinite universe and an internal

spiritual cosmos. This refers, of course, to what many Masonic

historians have termed the "Credibility Gap" in Masonic evolution.

What this means is that the pioneer English Grand Lodge dates from

1717, that Grand Lodge history is totally silent on any antecedents,

and that in some way Masons are cut off from the rich legends and

mythology of their origins.

That pre-history is not only cloaked in symbolism and allegory, it is

silent and a virtual blank: hence the recent spate of literature

challenging the venerated idea of a transition from Operative

cathedral builders to a more universal Speculative Freemasonry, and

suggesting evolution from the Knights Templar, from the Order of

Enoch, or (as Hall said) from Atlantis (which modern authors even

suggest may have been Antarctica before the ice-caps covered it; the

progenitor of a universal high-technology civilization of which

Freemasony was a practical-tool for universal peace among diverse

peoples!) It is not our purpose here to debate these ideas, but rather

to look further at the chessboard and the pieces.

Internally, Masonic ritual is replete with references to antecedents

such as Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Mysteries of Dionysus and Eleusis,

the Pythogoreans, the Order of Melchizedek, the Order of Enoch, and

Ancient India

The great de-bunkers of the 19th century did much to destroy all

reliance on such sources, thereby denigrating the spiritual aspects of

Freemasonry by literal interpretations of that which by its very

nature is esoteric: messages hidden in ritual envelopes wrapped inside

packages.

But real history confirms much of this. When King Henry VI (1421-1471)

of England asked about the origin of English Freemasonry, he was told

it originated with the Phoenicians, and that one Peter Gower of Groton

learned of this, spread it to France and then to England. This clearly

is an Anglicized pronunciation of Pythagoras of Crotona as he was

described in ancient French. The King also learned it developed in the

East, then in Greece, Egypt and Syria and thence to France and from

there to England. This in turn links Freemasonry to the Dionysian

Architects, who had (1000 BC) a structure like modern Masonry, and who

were, legend tells us, used to build King Solomon's Temple (which is

largely featured in Masonic degrees). They were also used in the great

Christian cathedrals. The early Christian Church had a system of

degrees, like Craft Masonry. As Charles Heckthorn has stated, by

syncretic evolution, we therefore find in modern Freemasonry its roots

in ancient India, Egypt, Jewish and Christian ideas and ideas, of the

Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Such is the chessboard and the

pieces in it. They are meaningful.

         Initiation is found in all of the antecedents of Freemasonry,

         and it is the crucial experience to modern Freemasonry. In

         its simplest form, the word means revelation of the basic

         principles, by means of rituals.

SPIRITUAL SECRETS

Those who have developed spiritually in Freemasonry suggest that the

idea of the chessboard and the pieces is a reference to a secret

teaching aimed at the effort to measure and to estimate

philosophically all the parts and proportions of the microcosm, and

that such knowledge could then be applied to the creation of the

perfect man.

Hall believed that Freemasonry was the vehicle by which the

all-inclusive old nature religions of the symbols of the Sun and Fire,

and the Ancient Mysteries, survived the advance of Christianity.

He argues that these old mysteries simply assumed all the trappings

and symbols of the new faith, and then went underground in the face of

the orthodoxy promulgated by the Council of Nicea (325 AD) which led

to the destruction of all ancient Schools and all their written

documents and symbols that could be found. Interpretations of the

recently rediscovered records of the Essenes seem to confirm this, as

do records of Rosicrucianism and even of Freemasonry itself. What is

clear now is that within and behind the Mysteries of Freemasonry "lie

hidden the long-lost arcane sought by all peoples since the genesis of

human reason", as Hall suggested. Pike was correct in seeing in modern

Freemasonry the ruins of a former gigantic global system for spiritual

unfoldment, there for all who can dig beneath the rubbish of the ages

and discern true meanings.

In a letter to Robert Gould, Pike wrote: "It began to shape itself to

my intellectual vision into something more imposing and majestic,

solemnly mysterious and grand. It seemed to me like the pyramids in

their loneliness, in whose yet undiscovered chambers may be hidden,

for the enlightenment of coming generations, the sacred books of the

Egyptians, so long lost to the world; like the Sphinx half buried in

the desert. In its symbolism, as in its spirit of brotherhood and its

essence, Freemasonry is more ancient than any of the world's living

religions. It has the symbols and doctrines which, older than himself,

Zarathrusta inculcated; and it seemed to me a spectacle sublime, yet

pitiful - the ancient Faith of our ancestors holding out to the world

its symbols once so eloquent, and mutely and in vain asking for an

interpreter And so I came at last to see that the greatness and

majesty of Freemasonry consist in its proprietorship of these and its

other symbols; and that its symbolism is its soul. "

This is a far cry from the literalists and the de-bunkers and those

whose history begins only in 1717. While the Ancient Egyptian temples

are now broken and deserted, the spirit of their philosophy is alive

in Freemasonry. So is the philosophy of numbers developed by

Pythagoras, along with the ceremonies of Ancient Greece. So too are

the values of the Vedas though their sanctuaries are in ruins.

Zoroaster speaks to us, and so do the echoes of many initiatory bodies

including the Templars and the Rosicrucians. Even the prototype of

Masonry, in the order of the Red Branch of Eri from Ireland from 1600

BC, is present. Such is the strength of Freemasonry that these ancient

guides are still with us and still able to influence us.

          Perhaps the most powerful symbols are those of the rebuilding

          of the earthly Temple after great disasters, and the

          unfinished spiritual Temple upon which we all labor.

THE TECHNIQUES OF INITIATION

Just as we have seen the techniques which an individual Mason is

expected to use in the self-development which is required, the daily

advancement of Masonic knowledge, so too there are other techniques

for spiritual unfoldment. Some are revealed so as to re-inforce that

individual development. Some are special techniques of initiation, and

some are the techniques of the Lodges, which lie at the heart of the

Masonic experience.

Initiation is found in all of the antecedents of Freemasonry, and it

is the crucial experience to modern Freemasonry. In its simplest form,

the word means revelation of the basic principles, by means of

rituals. As with all such bodies, solemn oaths are required so that

the esoteric knowledge is protected and reserved for those who are

deemed worthy, and those who demonstrate by their lives and actions

that they value the various steps, which are termed "degrees".

Those who balk at the secrecy which surrounds these ceremonies should

remember that the perspective of Freemasonry covers the total human

experience of spiritual unfoldment, and that it has learned by bitter

and sad experience to be able to survive all manner of disasters in

order to preserve essential truths needed by questing mankind. That

perspective covers such catastrophes as the Flood, Rome's defeat of

Ancient Greece, the collapse of Ancient Egypt, the extirpations caused

by the Council of Nicea, the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark

Ages, the destruction of the Knights Templar, and in more recent

times, the Fascist, National Socialist and Communist revolutions.

In each age, somewhere in the world, and sometimes in the whole of the

known world, dark forces seek to destroy bodies such as Freemasonry,

to remove enlightenment from mankind. Freemasonry has taught what it

is to be a man, and the meaning of freedom and self-direction. The

oaths of secrecy are not idly required, but guarantees of continuity.

What is here described then breaches no oaths, but records that which

is widely and readily available in published material for the

discerning. The basic Craft Lodges, colloquially known as "Blue

Lodges", have three degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and

Master Mason) based on initiatory experience related to enlightenment.

These solemn and noble ceremonies guide men through the great cycles

of youth, maturity and death, and here the initiate finds echoes of

the Egyptian "Book of the Dead", which is really concerned with

bringing forth by day that which is normally realized too late, if at

all, when man is overtaken by transition. This is a generic experience

of ritual rebirth into a new state. It is a very old technique to have

the candidate re-enact the experience of a great hierophant, to awaken

the soul and transform the individual so that the true self speaks and

is nourished. There are many other aspects to these rituals, which use

the individual techniques already described.

A key element is the Temple of Solomon, whose name signifies light,

glory and truth. He is presented as an archetype of universal wisdom,

and his Temple as "the House of Everlasting Light", which introduces

the discerning Mason to the hierarchical orders of the architectural

metaphor, previously noted.

The most conspicuous symbols of Freemasonry at this stage are the

seven liberal arts and sciences, once the realm of universities and

now scattered and dismembered into separate departments, which rarely

speak to each other.

Those are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and

astronomy. Even if a Mason does no more, this education will equip him

to cope with virtually all of life's problems, relying on the other

tools of individual self- development already inculcated. Perhaps the

most powerful symbols are those of the rebuilding of the earthly

Temple after great disasters, and the unfinished spiritual Temple upon

which we all labor.

Solomon inspires the Mason to mental, spiritual, moral and physical

Illumination. This unleashes in the thoughtful Mason a lifelong

process to that end.

       The great symbolic Masonic hero Hiram Abif, the architect of

       the Temple, killed by three ruffians for refusing to divulge

       the secrets of the Craft, is the symbol of universal action.

       Together they are the basic triad of concept, causation, and

       manifestation, which ancient philosophers called the Triune

       Foundation of the Universe.

THE TECHNIQUES OF THE LODGE

The initiated man is entered as a Fellow Craft and in due course

becomes privy to the tasks of the Master Mason. In this process and

thereafter, the Freemason becomes aware of the techniques of the Lodge

in the task of spiritual unfoldment.

First, there is the task of working together in harmony with many

diverse persons, seen as brothers; the pursuit of the basic ideals of

developing brotherly love; the practical relief of human suffering

including compassion to the widows and orphans and all the

unfortunate; and the lifelong challenge to search honestly for the

truth. Kipling, in his eloquent stories and poetry about the British

Raj in India, for example, makes it plain that the Masonic Lodge was

the only place where a man could meet and transcend the divisions of

race, caste, religion, social order, and all that divides men in the

outer world.

It soon dawns on the Mason that the Lodge is precisely, as it is said

in the published rituals, a working miniature of the Universe. As men

work in the processes of the Lodge and as they progress through the

various offices they realize that the whole structure focuses around

the centrality of the Creator, termed the Great Architect of the

Universe. The whole Lodge system becomes an eloquent philosophical

statement about the redemption of the human soul, which is of great

assistance to each Mason in the spiritual unfoldment which he desires.

Using the analogy of the three Grand Masters of the Lodge of Jerusalem

while building a Temple, there is a black-and-white chequered pavement

to signify the vagaries of life. The Worshipful Master (King Solomon)

represents the eternal and unchanging principle of the Great Architect

of the Universe. Hiram, King of Tyre, who helped to build the Temple,

represents that energy and those resources from the world of cause and

effect. The great symbolic Masonic hero Hiram Abif, the architect of

the Temple, killed by three ruffians for refusing to divulge the

secrets of the Craft, is the symbol of universal action. Together they

are the basic triad of concept, causation, and manifestation, which

ancient philosophers called the Triune Foundation of the Universe. The

ritual, the hammers or gavels, speak of the divine power over all

aspects of creation.

The joint working in the Lodge takes place in the framework of the

cardinal points. Light streams in from the east, south and west, but

the north is universally symbolic of the ignorance and chaos which

plague mankind: the place of darkness. But in the Lodge the initiated

sit on all sides, spreading light, and we are reminded of the

universality of the principles which guide us. The ruffians who killed

Hiram Abif represent the forces of the twine principles of the

inferior world, forever seeking to destroy the operation of the

dimensionless and limitless force of the Spirit which the Great

Architect sent to shape creation into the intended habitat of

everlasting life. In all, the total reminds us we are tied to what the

Vedas call the Wheel of Life, or the Wheel of Existence. Such,

according to thinkers such as Hall, Pike and Waite, is the spiritual

technology embodied in the operations of the Craft Lodge. Beyond this

lie the further lessons of the additional degrees.

       This is the meaningful aim of the spiritual techniques: to

       merge the human with the Divine Consciousness and being able to

       know as God knows. The illustrative prototypes in all the great

       Mystery Schools have been shown as exemplars to indicate this

       process.

LIGHT BEYOND THE CRAFT

Beyond the "Blue Lodges", there opens up to the searcher for more

light an immense structure of additional degrees, with two basic

branches. One branch is the York Rite, which is a series of

historically independent orders and Rites (Royal Arch Masons, Allied

Masonic Degrees and the Sovereign Great Priory of Knights Templar)

which are basically either initiatory or dependent on prior

achievements. They either explore further the Temple theme, or explore

the Enoch legend, or explore a wide range of historic degrees.

Here the attention is individual, and the techniques for spiritual

unfoldment are applied both individually and in the Lodge setting.

These experiences, which are intended to be sequential, culminate in

the Masonic versions of the tests and vigils of the Templars. From

published material these are perhaps the most moving and spiritually

significant of the whole York Rite group.

The second branch is that of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite

(which is really French and European in origin). By contrast to the

York Rite, it is a gigantic coherent structure in three interlocked

bodies (Lodges of Perfection, Chapters of Rose Croix, and the

Consistory) giving an addition 29 degrees. These are more in the

nature of guided classes, like an on-going university structure, which

explore the further implications of the Temple motif, then pursue the

Rosicrucian tradition, and beyond that trace virtually the whole

history of human experience with esoteric matters right down to the

present day! The rituals again use the same pattern of techniques, to

give appreciation of the vast structure of syncretism and distilled

experience, which constitutes Freemasonry, and the history of mystery

schools.

In addition, there are other bodies which explore the chivalric

traditions (Tabernacles of Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests, the

Conclaves of the Red Cross of Constantine, the Order of the Secret

Monitor, and the Royal Order of Scotland) mainly invitational and in

certain cases such as the last, decidedly mystical. There are also

bodies such as the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia which use valuable

old rituals from the German Rosicrucians. The Royal Order of Scotland,

also embodying the ancient Order of the Thistle, is apparently a

direct continuation of the Scottish Templars, about 1320. All have

valuable insights and commentaries on the basic themes enunciated in

the Craft Lodges.

      "Get knowledge; get wisdom; but with all thy gettings, get

       understanding". That gift depends on Spiritual Light, and that

       in its turn depends on the ardour of those who deserve it: and

       their knowledge and use of the ancient techniques to good

       effect.

SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT

As Wilmhurst (1980) so wisely said: "It is a fallacy to suppose that

the multiplying of degrees will result in the discovery of important

arcane secrets which one has failed to find in the rites of the Craft.

. . "

At various points in the various rituals certain Masonic secrets are

hinted at, the search is encouraged, and certain substitute meanings

are presented.

Very soon, the diligent spiritual explorer realizes that the only

secrets worth the bother are those which must be experienced and which

cannot be communicated, but which discover themselves in the

fundamental personal consciousness of the earnest seeker, who is able

to see beyond the curtain of impressive ceremonial, -and to translate

spiritual experience. The basic degrees in fact present all the four

stages of human spiritual regeneration.

This is what was meant by "squaring the circle". In other words, a

metaphor for the transmutation by spiritual unfoldment of all parts

and faculties of the candidates being and organism into a new quality

of life and a higher and better order of life than prior to the

experiences of Masonic life. The first three degrees lead up to the

necessity of "mystical death" (to 'come forth by day' as the Ancient

Egyptian texts have it), and the Royal Arch continues that, to present

the apotheosis which can result: a new and more intense and meaningful

life, and the higher degree of consciousness which can result. This is

the meaningful aim of the spiritual techniques: to merge the human

with the Divine Consciousness and being able to know as God knows. The

illustrative prototypes in all the great Mystery Schools have been

shown as exemplars to indicate this process. We think of Osiris,

Bacchus, Baldur, Mithra and Hiram Abif.

In essence, Freemasonry has preserved, through sixteen centuries,

those spiritual techniques which were ignored by the organized

churches as they departed from their true realm to become first an

impersonal state religion, and then a world temporal power and then by

stages disintegrative, and then displaying only the husk of the

heritage while the kernel was preserved elsewhere against centuries of

cruelty, intellectual tyranny and the oppression of the light. The

Mason argues for "The Path of Light" (Via Lucis) as opposed to "The

Path of Crucifixion" (Via Crucis). He is expected to demonstrate his

principles in life, in action, not sitting in a cell.

And so writers such as Hammond, Hall, Pike and Wilmshurst have argued

that the evident techniques in the Masonic discipline for the

divinization of Man are no accident. They come with authentic

historical credentials. They are essential to mankind. The literalists

and conformists may yet win, but if so, it will be a hollow victory.

As Wilmshurst said: "It remains with the Craft itself whether it shall

enter upon its own heritage as a lineal successor of the Ancient

Mysteries and Wisdom teaching, or whether, by failing to do so, it will

undergo the inevitable fate of everything that is but a form from

which its native spirit has departed. "

Should this occur, the stream will simply go underground to re-emerge

with renewed vigor to help mankind. Hopefully, Freemasons are wise

enough to continue the task which they have honestly inherited. The

techniques it uses for spiritual unfoldment are tested, tried and

true: and they derive from the oldest traditions of the Ancient

Mysteries known to mankind.

         "Get knowledge; get wisdom, but with all thy gettings, get

         understanding". That gift depends on Spiritual Light, and

         that in its turn depends on the ardour of those who deserve

         it: and their knowledge and use of the ancient techniques to

         good effect.

References

Hall, Manly, P.(1977): THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES: The Philosophical

Society: San Francisco

Hall, Manly, P. (1984): LECTURES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. The Philalethes

Society: San Francisco

Hammond,William, E.(1939): WHAT MASONRY MEANS: Macoy: Richmond, Va.

Pearson, Norman (Editor) and Pearson, N. et. al (Contributors) (1997):

LIGHT BEYOND THE CRAFT IN CANADA:

Lux Quaro

Chapter, The Philalethes Society: London, Ontario, Canada

Pike, Albert (1877): MORALS & DOGMA. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish

Rite: Charleston, South Carolina

Tolstoy, Alexei: WAR & PEACE Wilmshurst, Walter Leslie (1927): THE MEANING

OF MASONRY. London: Crown

Publishing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                   Journey of the Soul

                     BY PAMELA BARNES

In the Beginning there was ONE. Why the Separation came .... I know

not. From where came the belief of Good and Evil... I know not. Who

told us we were naked and should feel shame... I know not.

Suddenly, we were each alone... looking at ourselves and our brothers

in Fear. The burden of that fear became very heavy, and over time I

began to surround my soul, the very essence of my true self, with

armor. Each sheet was painstakingly put in place to insulate against

the arrows of pain and the spears of sorrow that I could not tolerate

in my isolation.

In the darkness of the night my soul cried out to the Source, and in a

dream state I saw the brilliance of the Grail shining in the distance

with a winding path leading to it. The signpost on the path said: The

Path of Self Knowledge. This is the path I must take .... there is no

turning back once one has glimpsed the Grail. The way is hard. But as

I pass through the fierceness of the storms of my mind and peer into

the blackness of the cavern of my heart, a golden spark is emitted

from one of the facets of the Grail. It pierces the armor surrounding

my soul, and from this tiny crack a spark of golden light, just as

brilliant as the Grail itself, comes forth! It gives me the desire and

the power to keep searching the deep valleys and the narrow paths of

self. As I do, the armor crumbles away, bit by bit, and the light

becomes brighter and more powerful. Suddenly, I KNOW ... I AM THE

GRAIL. The path, which had seemed to twist and turn, is just a

circular path back to the beginning from which I came. The only

separation that has occurred has been from the armor of my own making.

Each day as I continue to tear down the walls around my soul and

rejoice in who I really am, the Fear is replaced with Love for myself

and for my brothers. FOR WE HAVE NEVER REALLY WALKED ALONE .... WE ARE

ONE.

"Where the Threads of Science, Tradition and Spirituality
Converge in Total Health and Wellbeing"

 

A Masonic Perspective

 

THE REAL MILLENNIAL PROBLEM:

NEW PARADIGMS, OLD ROADBLOCKS

 

by

 

Norman Pearson, Ph.D., DBA

 

THE MILLENNIUM COMPUTER PROBLEM

While there is undoubtedly a computer 'Millennium bug' problem of gigantic and disturbing proportions, the real millennial problem is nothing less than a clash between new paradigms and old roadblocks. Certainly the computer is impressive, and the problem is of low technology. Edward Yardeni of Deutsche Morgan Grenfall, Inc. points out that, while we like to think software programming is high technology, it is really low technology: millions of lines of code with no footprints to follow. Many computers will read 2000 as 1900. Massive malfunctioning is forecast, and if any link to the date in the larger system is not corrected, the whole system is in peril. Nuclear reactors, fortunately, are safe, because their functions are analog, not digital. But their inventory systems and safety systems are not. So there will be blackouts in grid systems worldwide, with problems and corrupted information in satellites, telecommunications and traffic control systems, aircraft, missiles and defense installations. Banking, accounting and marketing will also cause problems for small businesses. Asian banks will be very vulnerable because they use an out-dated IBM system bearing the chilling title of 'iron safe.' The testing time will be September 9, 1999, because 9999 is a familiar computer code for shut-down. Yardeni argues that there is therefore a 60% chance of a 1973-scale recession, in the year 2000.

But there are more significant millennial issues. In the first place, the year 2000 computer problem is symbolic of the short-term thinking, particularly in engineering and finance, which believes that major issues which are easily handled now, at a price, can be left to the wisdom of unknown Posterity, which unfortunately may not have either the lead time or the resources to resolve it in due course. They may even decide that what was easily resolved at a price 40 years ago is a completely unmanageable problem now and that, in some instances, cannot be solved at any price, because time has run out. Procrastination is both the thief of time and the repository of lost opportunities. When the ancient mystics said "Do it now! Leave not to the morrow what this day can accomplish," they spoke a fundamental truth and a truly valuable insight.

MILLENNIAL IRRATIONALITY

Added to this is the characteristic, basic irrationality of millennial change. This is a peculiarly Western fixation. There having been no year zero, the real millennium is 2001, but that will not deter deranged religious lunatics from repeating the manias that affected Western Europe from the year 1000 to the year 1033. However, large tracts of the world will look on in amazement and wonder what all the fuss is about. For example to the Chinese, changes in the century are more important and a lot easier to pronounce than the millennium; and in any case, 2000 is an auspicious year: the year of the Dragon. Similarly, Japan is unmoved by millennial mania. South-East Asia is much more concerned about economic survival. The Philippines only celebrate the year as the 100th Anniversary of their freedom from Spain. Thailand, in fact, already celebrated its second millennium in 1954 - 1955. In the world of Islam it is the year 1420, and, apart from the annual Ramadan, has no other significance. In the Jewish calendar, it is the 58th century, and the bad news was announced by the prophets thousands of years ago. The real anomaly is Russia, spanning 11 time zones; and being partly on the Julian calendar and partly on the Gregorian calendar; it also has the custom of two stiff toasts to the new year, thus offering 22 occasions for New Year in one day, which virtually guarantees an alcoholic haze while all the main frames of central planning finally shut down, and Russia awakens to total disaster and rebuilding from ground zero.

As the Hale-Bopp suicides and various cults indicate, the irrationality, particularly as amplified by the media, in conjunction with computer nightmares, will reach new heights of bad taste and even worse television. With nerves of steel and a strong stomach we can no doubt survive the madder aspects of' apocalyptic irrationality. For those who wish to tackle the unenviable task of answering back (which should be avoided), look at Chapter 20 of the Book of Revelations, where two 1000-year spans are foreseen. One will be turbulent and dark, the other, should you believe in the Messiah, will, after the second coming, be blessed and happy. After 50 years in the planning profession, I recognize that in all these visions the precise dates are best kept vague and hidden, while the symphony of light and dark plays on.

DEAD IDEOLOGIES

The 2000 computer problem will also expedite the trash heap of dead ideologies. It is an indication of a more basic shift from the centralized main frame to the decentralized lap top computer, and new network organizations, and the emergence of the age of the sovereign individual, where people have a chance to reach their full potentiality. It is a symbol of the death-throes of the bankrupt ideology which Americans call 'liberalism' and the rest of the world calls 'The English Disease.' The French writer, Bastiat, called the welfare state "...that great fiction by which each man believes he has the right to live at his neighbor's expense with no adverse consequences to himself..." There is a very basic shift, driven by the ideals of the American Revolution, as well as by American technology and economics, away from the centralized, collectivist and statist vision of society epitomized by Marxism, Maoism, Fascism and George Orwell's book '1984,' and toward the freedom of the Internet - the new decentralized information network - and the emergence of the age of individuation.

TRANSITIONAL RUTHLESSNESS

The old roadblocks and enemies of mankind's progress are still there: intolerance fanaticism, envy, prejudice and injustice. In this transitional period, a new enemy has arisen: total ruthlessness, or what the poet called 'man's inhumanity to man.' Corporate and social networks are slashed, cruel indifference becomes the order of the day, compassion and charity are forgotten, and finally the poor and unfortunate are blamed simply for being poor and unfortunate. But this time there is no Western Frontier, no Australia to which to send them: they remain. In an increasingly polarized society, the rich enjoy getting richer and many withdraw into a cocooned life of walled communities, self-congratulatory ideologies, and the pretense that really there are no problems; meanwhile, the welfare state collapses and the bureaucracies are hollowed out. Such attitudes guarantee unrest and upheaval.

Many of these are persons who do not like to interact with people and rely too heavily on computers. There is increasing evidence of computer 'bloat' - too many unused functions on the everyday machines. There is also ample evidence of the consequences of this reliance. A 1996 survey of 360 companies by the research group, Standish Group International, Inc. found that 42% of corporate information technology projects were abandoned before completion. The bigger projects failed more often and more spectacularly. Since the USA spends some $250 billion a year on these projects, this is a waste of about $105 billion annually. Obviously, in what is euphemistically called the interface (i.e. dealing with actual people) there is a great future for the human service providers who combine 'high-tech' and 'high-touch.' Indeed, this new trend is now called 'de-engineering' as the surprising discovery is made that people are, after all, people.

THE REAL MILLENNIAL PROBLEMS

The real millennial problems, however, are not these obvious ones. They transcend all sectors, and will transform: education, human services, communications, organization and management. The task is a challenging one for the scholar-practitioner, because it is nothing less than the re-conceptualization and then the subsequent re-organization of practically everything. Nor are the answers known. We face nothing less than the increasing obsolescence of the industrial age models, and the creation of new models for the age of information and knowledge. The real millennial problem is the search for new and workable paradigms.

These real problems can be quite readily listed:

• (1) Privacy, human dignity, freedom, equality before the law, and gender equality;
• (2) Water shortages, soil degradation, and environmental mismanagement;
• (3) The race between Asian deflation and the potential for the greatest economic boom mankind has ever seen;
• (4) The intellectual struggle to produce new models for a New Era in time to be useful;
• (5) Individual management of lives and wealth, as jobs vanish and autonomy and free exchange become dominant: each person as a business;
• (6) The continuing revolution as computers move from the business-development phase to the consumer-use phase;
• (7) The rapid emergence of the network organizational model, and massive resistance to change;
• (8) Leadership, self-actualization and the right-brain revolution;
• (9) Scattering populations and the challenges to Suburbia and metropolis.

 

THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN VALUES

The most fundamental challenge will be that of securing the rights of privacy, human dignity, freedom, equality before the law, and gender equality. Huge sections of the world are virtually slave-camps. Many powerful cultures degrade women. Non-objective law is everywhere. America is the key to this global problem. Most of America's failures in these areas are simply due to a profound honesty: at least the issues are on the table here, and being worked on.

It is fashionable today in America to decry the great intellectual and moral foundations which led colonial Englishmen to liberate themselves and to become Americans. I am, as an Englishman and a Canadian, not a destroyer. America is an idea which is implicit; it is an idea which is still unfolding. It will yet survive the moral and cultural nihilists in the universities, and the popular culture and the media who seek to destroy the foundations, and start again from the ground up. America is about becoming; and that may be the key to the emerging paradigm shifts.

Social Science argues that my profound admiration and respect for the generic roots of America are simply conditioned. Some of my ancestors, 500 years ago, were Sephardim who fled from the Spanish Inquisition and became ardently English. I was educated at the Oliver Cromwell Durham University where we understood regicide and republicanism, as well as the key documents of America. I also know precisely how and when I became a North American by two transformational moments in my life: both were during the time of the Korean War when I was training as a crewman with the Royal Air Force. One was traveling through the endless perspective of the rolling hills of Wyoming, going seemingly to infinity, and subsequently following the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City. The other was in the same year in Washington, D.C. standing at the Capitol Rotunda viewing the key documents at the fountain-head of freedom, from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, and wondering why tears were streaming from my eyes. But I do not think it was any kind of conditioned relativism. It was, and has been, the appreciation of what America is and can be. That appreciation is, at root, a grasp of what constitutes the philosophical, ethical, and moral foundations of the paradoxical freedoms we enjoy here. Those foundations are not taught today, setting the stage for what Tom Wolfe called "The Great Re-Learning."

THE GREAT RE-LEARNING

In essence, this has been the century of the totalitarians who wanted to throw out everything and begin again. What Dostoyevsky called "The Horrible Simplifiers" - the Fascists, the Marxists, the Maoists - they have also had their intellectual allies in our educational system. They have produced young people who get along with each other, who are decent, who are good-hearted, fair-minded, and compassionate: but they wander around in a haze of illiteracy and total moral confusion, ignorant of the Western Tradition and its history. This is the fog of cognitive moral confusion; it is a disaster.

It raises the need for "The Great Re-Learning." Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, a philosopher from Clark University, argues that we live in a moral Stone Age, and we need a paradigm shift to bring back the great books and the great ideas, and to be unafraid to transmit our noble cultural and political heritage, and to teach youth to value, respect, understand and protect the institutions which gave us the huge potential of our free and democratic society. That is a major paradigm shift directed squarely at our educational system: it is the basis for all else. There is no nobler calling than that of such a teacher. We must stop the folly of starting again from the Stone Age. My generation fought for these values: they are crucial to the next millennium. We do not need a new self-induced barbarism, or the collapse of America internally, and we must fight it. The unspoken foundation block which many young people do not accept, is Kant's 'Principle of Humanity': the unique dignity and of each human being and each human life. I hope to see the day when we no longer use euphemisms calling killers and thieves 'morally challenged,' calling looters 'non-traditional shoppers', calling mass-murderers 'ethnic cleansers;' and where such foundation codes as the Ten Commandments, or their equivalent in other cultures, are not referred to as 'ten highly-tentative preferences and purely optional suggestions.' This is a much-needed and highly beneficial paradigm shift for the next millennium, and it is most certainly not what radical chic calls 'politically correct' - which is a Marxist term for trendy dictatorial conformity and the destruction of language as a tool for thinking and solving real problems by the use of the mind.

TOWARDS NEW FOUNDATIONS

That kind of paradigm shift will be hard fought and it will transform our educational system back into a coherent system for the transmission of these cultural imperatives and into a new shape and form. Allied with this will be a re-affirmation of the family, whether traditional or surrogate, nuclear or extended, individual or co-operative. Some of my graduate students over the years have outlined that, in every major advanced society, several hundred pieces of social legislation and policies aimed at the diabolical task of destroying family and related institutions have been enacted, thus leaving people as separated social atoms dependent on the state. Parental duty and responsibility have been shifted to the educational system and to the manifold Institutions of these States. Small wonder then, that in the central cities, the main effective institutions are criminal, and that in the suburbs, nice children shoot people they do not like. Some critics have argued that inevitably this has led to certain professions - particularly in human services - cleaning-up the mess of low self-esteem, broken lives, health systems that subsidize disease, food banks, welfare systems, and volunteer organizations facing impossible odds. We will need: to rebuild parental, biological, social, and cultural duties; to help reconstruct battered or absent community institutions; and to change policing from a para-military model into a model of safeguarding citizens, communities, and societies with public support - and social isolation for the pathological criminality which now makes up what Lord Rees-Mogg called: "the imperial culture of the slums".

The restoration of social foundations, and the encouragement of self-management in upward mobility will liberate the human services and helping professions from the increasing definition of everybody as being in need of care, to a role based on individual needs. The best analogy is the transformation of the health system from industrial-age batch processing of people in doctors' offices and centralized hospitals, into an individually and family-oriented set of services more on the model of the almoner - the family and personal friend and visitor, and the wellness-hotel, providing a wide array of alternative aids to long life, well-being, health and happiness.

Such are some of the fundamental paradigm shifts.

THE MILLENNIAL CHALLENGES

On the foundation of human values we will need all our wits to deal with the real challenges of the millennium.

Obviously, with the eventual stabilization of global population lying well into the next century, and the parallel development of Asia and Africa into the industrial age, while the advanced nations move into the computer age, there will be huge issues of water shortages, pressures on wild lands and wildlife for food production, environmental degradation and general mismanagement. The water issue is really critical. I feel this because Canada has one-third of all the fresh water on the globe, and the USA wants it. I also feel it strongly because in 1953 I accepted a post as regional planner for the Jordan Valley Authority, modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority, and I am still awaiting my first pay check 45 years later. The great intellectual challenge is to learn how to do responsible environmental management before the environmental wars erupt.

Allied to this is the race between deflation, which is affecting Asia, or about 35% of the global economy, and what Kondratieff and Harry Dent have called the '80-year cycle,' which brings with it the potential, in the first decade of the new century, for the greatest economic boom in human history. As we have seen, it might be preceded by the computer-generated recession. Either way, it will be a surprise. We are not prepared for either. There are no plans for the boom. We have no capacity to repeat the Keynesian experiments if there is a depression. I do however, have one client who is planning for the next 360 years; they may be ready.

Behind this all is the real challenge to the scholar-practitioner: to produce the conceptual model of the New Era in time to be useful. Japan, Inc. perfected the industrial age model - just when it was no longer needed. Most of our management textbooks are useless.

There is also a huge educational challenge. Each person is going to have to take charge of their own life and become a business. There could be a permanent shift to individual wealth on a grand scale as people learn how to handle personal investment, and leverage the potential of the New Era.

A new era of business integrity and honesty is possible as the market becomes all-pervasive. How we live and work is about to change fundamentally, more than at any other time in human history: computer power will vastly expand; the mass of the computer will diminish; computers will evolve into simple, cheap, reliable, user-friendly and quality products; there will be a vast expansion of the Internet's bandwidth and computer literacy. This will be the real increase in productivity and decrease in cost that has been forecast for so long.

The new network model of organization will develop more rapidly than its theoretical base. This will generate a great need for futures-oriented research, as well as for well-trained theoreticians. Organizations will have leaders in central management, highly specialized and expert back-up professionals, local front-line support, and skilled front-line generalists corresponding to field sales and services. This is so far the only means we have for combining cost efficiencies, craftsmanship and quality, and personalized service. The corollary is that everyone will need to re-evaluate their lives and to re-invent themselves.

In that process there will be a very dramatic shift from the left-brain mechanical processes of the to the assembly-line to the right-brain's creativity, synthesis, and on-going learning, with multiple careers. Computers will handle most of the linear, left-brain functions. Right-brain skills will now be added on top of left-brain human skills, for whole-brain development. The real promise of democracy and human freedom will then begin to unfold.

Finally, people will in due time be able to live where they want to live, at least in North America. This will be the next great migration: a kind of organized scattering of the population into 'exurbia.' People will know themselves and their infinite variety of needs better, and apply a list of criteria to judge where they want to live. Suburban conformity and metropolitan jungles will give way to new communities with big-city incomes in small-town environments. Ugliness will not be tolerated. There will be customized life-style communities; housing designs that combine the chance for privacy with the possibility of maximum human interaction; abundant open space; flexibility in home-design; planning for safety; key shared facilities; a strong infrastructure of communications; and prevalent beauty.

THE GREAT INSTAURATION

Francis Bacon saw America as a vision of what he called 'The Great Instauration,' and two centuries after the Revolution, it appears to me that gradually these renewed foundations will be rebuilt in the Third Millennium. As an example, America solved the conceptual problems of the great issues of gender, equality before the law, and the workings of the warlike propensities of the nation state at enormous costs, and in travails which are still working themselves out. It was Elizabeth Cady Stanton who amended the Declaration of Independence so that 'all men' became 'all men and women.' It took Lincoln and a bloody civil war to establish the conceptual issue that all individuals, whatever their pigmentation or origin, fall within Kant's 'principle of humanity.' It was the same conceptual journey from the Revolution via the Federalist papers to the War between the States which established that America was not going to be another patchwork of warring nation states like Europe. As we know from Africa, Russia, the Middle East, South-East Asia and the Balkans, these great lesson are not yet accepted universally. Nor are such values as free speech, religious tolerance, the principle of presumed innocence in courts, the rule of law, and equality before the law. It will be a further struggle to get beyond the idea of the individual as a chattel or as an asset of the state, to outgrow the nation state, to overcome the barriers of stereotypes and prejudice about gender, race and culture. From its newly secured foundations, it will be America's task, along with like-minded societies, to transform the basic human values into global values. This indeed will be the Great Transition, and Bacon's noble vision may yet become a world reality in the Third Millennium.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davidson, Mike: (1998) THE TRANSFORMATION 0F MANAGEMENT: Butterworth Heinemann: Boston.
Dembo, Ronald S. and Andrew Freeman (1998) SEEING TOMORROW: McClelland and Stewart: Toronto
Dent, Harry S. :(1998) THE ROARING 2000's: Simon and Schuster: New York
Edvinsson, Leif and Michael S. Malone (1997)s. INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL: Harper Business: New York
Fisher, James R. (Jr.): (1995): THE WORKER ALONE: GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN: The Delta Group: Tampa, FL
Gibson, Rowan (Ed.) (1997): RETHINKING THE FUTURE : Nicholas Brealey Publishing : London.
Gilster, Paul: DIGITAL LITERACY : John Wiley and Sons, Inc. : New York
Hesselbein, Francis, Marshall Goldsmith & Richard Backhard: (1997) THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FUTURE: Jossey-Bass: New York
Martin, James (1985): THE GREAT TRANSITION: Amacon: New York
Tapscott, Ron (1996): THE DIGITAL ECONOMY: McGraw-Hill: New York

© copyright 1998. ARIADNE'S WEB TM, ISSN #1090-0328, is published by Rayeson Enterprises, Inc., 4287-A Beltline Road, #330, DALLAS, TX 75244, U.S.A. All rights reserved by Rayeson Enterprises, Inc.

 

"Old Tiler Talks" by Carl Claudy -1924

PROMOTION

The New Brother's face showed a bad case of peeve, and his voice reflected

it as he greeted the Old Tiler in the anteroom.

"S'matter, son?" inquired the Old Tiler. "You look like a cross between a

thunder cloud and the Black Hole of Calcutta!"

"Politics!" snapped the New Brother. "I thought it was bad form,

undignified, un-Masonic to electioneer for officers. It's bad enough any

time, but when they electioneer for one who isn't in line for promotion and

to throw out one who has served years in the chairs, I think it's terrible!"

"Yes, yes, go on," encouraged the Old Tiler. "Get it all out of your system."

"Tonight they elected Bill Jones Junior Warden. He doesn't attend

regularly, does he? And Smith, who was in line for promotion, was dropped.

Smith never missed a night last year and did his best as Senior Deacon.

Jones is more popular than Smith, and may make a better officer, but the

point is that Smith worked and Jones never has. So I'm peeved!"

"Wiser heads than yours have been peeved at politics in a lodge," answered

the Old Tiler. "It's a difficult question. By Masonic usage any

electioneering is taboo. The unwritten law and the theory contend for a

free choice of officers by unbiased votes. But men are men first and Masons

afterwards, and politics always have been played. I know of no way to stop

a brother from telling another brother how he ought to vote!"

"That doesn't dispose of the injustice of Smith," answered the New Brother.

"It isn't right."

"The majority thought it was right," countered the Old Tiler. "Now that

Jones has the job, I'll tell you that I knew Smith wouldn't get it. He has

been faithful to his work, never missed a night, done his best. But his

best just wasn't good enough. You speak of Jones being more popular than

Smith. There must be a reason, and if he is better liked he'll make a

better officer."

"But it is still an injustice." The New Brother was stubborn.

"You argue from the standpoint of the man who believes that a man elected

or appointed to be Junior Steward has a neck-hold on the job ahead of him,"

answered the Old tiler. "According to your idea any Junior Steward who

attends lodge and does his work ought to be elected to the succeeding

position each year as a reward of merit. Actually the job, not the man, is

important. The good of the lodge is more important than the reward for the

man.

"You don't realize that Masonry is bigger than the individual, that the

lodge is bigger than its officers, that the positions in line are greater

than the men who fill them.

"A Master may make or mar a lodge. If he is a good Master, well-liked,

popular, able, attentive to his duties and enthusiastic in his work, the

lodge goes forward. If only enthusiasm and faithfulness recommend him and

he lacks ability, and the respect and liking of his fellows, and he has not

the equipment to rule, the lodge will go backwards. Smith is a nice fellow,

faithful, enthusiastic. But he has more from the neck down than from the

ears up. Jones hasn't attended lodge much, but he is a brainy man,

accustomed to preside, knows men and affairs, and, if he bears out the

judgement of the brethren, will carry this lodge to new heights.

"Smith was given his chance for four years. In that time he could not

demonstrate to the satisfaction of his brethren that he would make a good

Master. It was a kindness to drop him now and not let him serve two more

years. It is hard to be told 'we don't want you,' but the lodge showed

wisdom in choosing as Junior Warden a man in whom it believes, rather than

merely rewarding faithful effort.

"I am sure the Master made a nice speech to Smith and thanked him for his

work. His brethren will show him they like him as a brother if not as a

Junior Warden. Smith will not be as peevish about it as are you. He has

been a  Mason long enough to know that the majority rule is the only rule

on which a Masonic lodge can be conducted. He won't understand his own

limitations, or believe he couldn't be as good an officer as Jones, but he

will bow to the decision of his fellows and keep on doing the best he can.

That is Masonry at its best. Politics is often Masonry at its worst, but in

the long run the right men get chosen to do the right work. Sometimes it is

a bit hard on the man, but the good Mason is willing to suffer for the love

he bears his mother lodge."

"As a peeve-remover you are a wonder!" smiled the New Brother. "But I

wonder how you'd like to be supplanted by another Tiler?"

"When the lodge can find a better servant, I shall be glad to go," answered

the Old Tiler simply. "I try to be a Mason first, and an Old Tiler

afterwards!"

Fraternally,

Carl Johnson, 32'

Burlington Masonic Lodge #254

GL of Washington F&AM

A&ASR, Valley of Bellingham

Orient of Washington

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us, what we have done for

others and the world remains and is immortal. -Albert Pike

The Masonic Mailing list of Washington.

http://www.telebyte.com/masons/masons.html

                Southern California Research Lodge F&A.M.

                            FRATERNAL REVIEW

Editor - Ralph A. Herbold      (5-1-99)               No. 798

PROTOCOL From Ask Your Grand Lecturer (Craig S. Campbell) in the

January 1999 Wisconsin Masonic Journal:

To cross or not to cross -- Those of us who attended the annual

communication in June may remember a few fight moments when, on

several occasions, brethren approached the microphones by crossing the

floor between the altar and the Grand Master, and were resoundingly

razzed for doing so.

This raises the question -- why is it that brethren supposedly are not

to cross between the altar and the Master?

This is one of those long-standing "unwritten" rules. And although it

is an unwritten rule, it has flexibility, such as in the balloting

procedure, purging the lodge and portions of the ritual (e.g.

circumambulation).

'Me Masonic Service Association refers to a February, 1938 Short Talk

Bulletin that considers this tradition one of the ancient established

usages and customs of the Craft, and reason that Masons practice this

tradition because the Master is supposed to have the Great Lights

constantly in view. They further state that, in theory at least, he

draws inspiration from the altar to preside over the lodge and must

not, therefore, be prevented from seeing it at any time.

I believe that our adherence to that practice stems more from the

traditions and mandates emanating from the practices of medieval

religious customs, where lay-people were prevented from approaching

the presiding clergy, whose connection with the religious altar was

deemed sacred and holy, and should not be interrupted.

A similar situation developed as the custom enforced within the

operating kingdoms of medieval western Europe, where subordinates were

disallowed from approaching the king directly. This may have been more

for the king's safety than any religious inspiration, but quickly

became the norm of behavior while in the king's presence.

Since Freemasonry dates its earliest known existence in the later

stages of the Middle Ages, it is entirely possible that the practicing

Masons at that time carried forth the tradition of not crossing

between the altar and its presiding officer, the Worshipful Master. As

it is, we still carry on that tradition today.

As always, your questions and comments are always welcome.

LOGIC Gladstone had this to say about logic: Men are apt to mistake

the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The

heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

"Rays of Masonry" by Dewey Wollstein -1953

FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR YOUNG MASONS

Often we hear criticism of a Mason, the recital of some act on

the part of a brother, which reflects upon the Craft as a whole.

For the most part, it seems to this writer that we are

over-critical of our brothers, but perhaps in this way we have

maintained a standard of moral excellence which is respected by

almost the entire world, with the exception of those who bow to

the dictates of tyrannical leaders, political or religious, and

are not permitted to see any good in the Mason or Masonry. In

these cases the critic does not own his own soul, so there is

little that can be done except to offer pity.

However, many times, the young Mason will talk with a non-Mason,

who is always willing to go to great effort to explain "why he

will not become a Mason." His purpose is to confuse the

candidate, or young Mason.

But note carefully. Generally, the person who makes such an

effort to discuss a subject of which he knows nothing, is one who

cannot enter the portals of our Institution. Many times he is the

fellow who judges according to standards which he cann