The Design of Freemasonry

A talk by Jay Cole Simser

(given at Specialis Procer Lodge June 28, 2013)
“the design of the Masonic Institution, is to make its votaries wiser, better and consequently happier.”  Masonic Ritual

‎"The true spirit and design of Freemasonry demand an education above and beyond the mere conferring of degrees."—M.W. Bro. John W. Vrooman, Past Grand Master of Masons in New York

The great comedian Alan Sherman once used a joke in his “Peter and the Commissar” which has stuck with me ever since the first time I heard it.

He said,  “We all have heard the saying, which is true as well as witty, that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.”

Now I actually think the camel is a superior beast.  It is able to store up fluid and go for many days without food or water over pretty unfriendly terrain.  Camels, if well treated, are more inquisitive, affectionate, and attention seeking. However, they are a little more "emotional" than horses and less consistent in their reactions. In other words, they are less predictable than horses. They also seem to need the company of other members of their own species more than horses. Camels also seem smarter than horses about getting themselves out of a precarious situation

However, we did not come here to debate the merits of Camels or horses tonight I am going to talk about Freemasonry. Where it came from and what was it designed to do.

A fragment of lower jaw recovered from a Serbian cave has now been dated as the oldest hominin ancestor found in this part of Europe. The fossil was dated to between 397,000 and 525,000 years old, a time when distinctly Neanderthal traits began to appear in Europe. These ancestors met in Lodges and were responsible for all of the ancient temples, pyramids and other buildings.  They built Stonehenge using marvelous anti-magnetic sleds to move the largest stones  -- right?  If you believe all of that I have a bridge (now in Arizona) I can sell you.  You can believe the first part of the paragraph.  That is provable.  

Modern man may have Neanderthal DNA - We have been around a very long time. However there were no Masonic Lodges at that time no matter what some may claim today.  

My friend Jerry Marsengill once wrote that “Masonic myths and would-be historians who write their Masonic histories as they think they should be written started with the imaginative Dr. Anderson, who made a list of all the men throughout history whom he would have liked to identify as members of the Masonic fraternity, beginning with Adam and ending with the founding of the Grand Lodge in 1717.

In this history he lists such names as Euclid, Abraham, Moses. Charlemagne, etc. and presents a regular succession of Grand Masters from the beginning of the world down to his own time.”  We have these types with us today.  In fact I remember one talk at SP 678 that would fit into that grouping.

Humans first climbed out of forests and found other places to live. Some adapted caves as homes, either temporary or more permanent.  Decorated caves show us that magical rites were performed in them to insure a good hunt so that there would be food on the table.  These were probably the first “churches” or religious centers where humans petitioned the deity or deities as the case may be. A class of priests developed who were able to perform rites and ceremonies to invoke their gods. These caves became sacred sites. In more recent times we have rediscovered them, and we marvel at the artistic sophistication of early humans.”

There is a Masonic extended trowel lecture which speaks of how other creatures also were builders but it states that

“…in man there was a vital spark that the bird, the beaver,
the wasp or the spider never knew; inspiration, not instinct,
guided his budding soul, a divine discontent with his habitation
seized him; the hole in the rocks no longer satisfied his cravings
and he began to build out in God's glorious sunshine; feeble
were his efforts, few his tools and mean his creations, but he was
growing.

Crude shelters took the place of dank and dingy dens; a roof
sheltered him, the embryonic pillars supported the crossbars, and
as the years waxed and waned he built better and better until his
aspirations attained their highest form in the completion of the
magnificent cathedrals of Europe, the masterpieces of his mind
and soul.

You see,

Someone, somewhere at some time came out of the cave, …. Someone, somewhere at sometime figured out a method for passing on …information from one generation to the next – each generation adding on to that knowledge and understanding,

Many of the ancient buildings were designed to facilitate the observation of the skies and the heavenly movements. From these observations grew knowledge of the geometric nature of the universe and the understanding of patterns, which they were then able to put to practical use in building the ancient wonders of the world and eventually the great cathedrals of Europe.

These great gothic cathedrals take some of their design from the branching of the trees in a forest.  When you walk into one of them you are reminded by the great soaring arches of the branches that come together overhead as you walk in the forest.  In fact in the recent royal wedding in Great Britain Catherine had actual trees on each side of the aisle. Their natural extension was the stone arches above.

The evolution of their design culminates in the magnificent Sagrada Família a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926).

Construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in1882, Described as the most complex building ever made. 'The most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages'  - Entire families have given their time, talent and lives to its design and construction, It remains unfinished to this day.

In the same way Masons of the Middle Ages who built the Cathedrals of Europe also gave their time, talent and lives to the design and construction of the Cathedrals.

“These builders were Masonry's progenitors, at first an operative
science, it reached it's fruition as such, mounted yet higher and
became a speculative art. (Its end aim the building of a perfect
character, the realization of the designs on the trestle board of
the Great Architect of the Universe.)”

There are two schools of thought as to the Origins of Freemasonry.  One school - the “romantic” school points to many possible origins i.e. Solomon’s Temple, medieval Knights Templar, Rosicrucian, Essenes, and ancient Egyptians.  The other school, the one that I subscribe to (unless I am engaging in flights of fancy about “Secret Princes of the Hidden Temple) is the “authentic school described in the extended trowel lecture quoted previously.

Historical evidence and research suggests the transition from operative Masons of Scotland (first) and (later) England to the speculative society we have today. It took a great many men to work together to build them and the apprentice system was designed to bring youngsters into the work and train them in the builder’s art. At the age of 14 or 15 a young man would be apprenticed to a Master who would be responsible for training him and working with him so that eventually he would be a Master.  It was a system of education. Designed to train the next generation of builders and pass on the knowledge of the builder’s art.  And designed to keep that knowledge only in the hands of those who were members of the craft.  Initiation ceremonies and binding oaths were developed to transmit knowledge and keep it out of the hands of the profane - the uninitiated.

In the days of the operative Masons they met in a place called a lodge, which was a temporary structure near the operative mason’s building site.  Here the Mason could rest and refresh himself from the day’s labor.  Here also Entered Apprentice masons could become Fellows of the Craft and were given certain “secrets” enabling them to travel and work as “Free” Masons.  At that time there were only two designations.  The Entered Apprentice and the Fellow of the Craft.  What we know of as the Master Mason degree was developed later. Masters were simply senior Fellow Crafts.

Wikipedia says that Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system

if you think about it the apprentice system was designed as a system of education.  Not just the masons used it but children were apprenticed in all sorts of professions.     They did not have a general education system as we do today where children would go to a school and learn a general education and at some point graduate wondering what they wanted to do in life.

 It was a system of learning a craft or trade from one who is engaged in it and of paying for the instruction by a given number of years of work. The practice was known in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome... Typically, in medieval Europe, a master craftsman agreed to instruct a young man, to give him shelter, food, and clothing, and to care for him during illness. The apprentice would bind himself to work for the master for a given time. After that time he would become a journeyman, working for a master for wages, or he set up as a master himself. The medieval guilds supervised the relation of master and apprentice and decided the number of apprentices in a given guild.

The move to a Speculative Fraternity began in Scotland with the admission of non-masons into a lodge. “The starting point however, for the direct line to the modern fraternity lies in England.  

By the 1640s high ranking members of the community (not stonemasons) were initiated and became non-operative “masons”  - this initiation and the conferral of the Mason Word gave us the beginnings of our Masonic Institution of today.  It is absolutely essential to the “design” of Freemasonry

It remained for England to adapt this Masonry for non-operative Masonry into the Gentle Craft that we know today. The myth of its origin is an allegory that hides the true beginnings of Speculative Freemasonry and what it was designed to accomplish.

As noted earlier Masons had some sort of ceremony or ritual to mark the initiation of new members of the craft.  The English masons were different in that they included the history contained in the “Old Charges,” an emphasis on morality, identification of the mason craft with geometry, and the importance of Solomon’s Temple.  All of these, combined with other ingredients, took place in the years around 1600. It is in this late Renaissance phase that modern freemasonry was created.  And I maintain that it was designed for a purpose.  

It was designed to create an institution that reflected the progressive spirit of the age, with ideals of brotherhood, equality, toleration and reason.   It provided an institutional framework for almost any religious or political belief. The lodge system combined with secrecy, ideals of loyalty and secret modes of recognition created an ideal organizational framework into which the members could put their own values and could adapt for their own uses.  The development of Masonry was designed as a place where men could meet together and bond in a way that provided for initiation - a place where a man is given the inner authority to own his own life, to own his own experience, to own his own responsibility.

My friend Robert Davis expresses it best when he says - “Freemasonry exists first and foremost to transform men. And that transformation takes place because one is initiated into a fellowship of men. It is within that fellowship that he is introduced to his own path to self-improvement—the journey that enables him to harmonize his individual need for fulfillment with a collective well-being. This pathway is nothing less than the road to mature masculinity.

The corporate task of freemasonry is to not only erect this path, but to make sure that its members are on it themselves; and those who come after them will also be on it.

The inherent role of any morally based male-only organization is to take on the virtues of manliness, to enhance and extend the male tradition; and to embrace that tradition irrespective of how formidable the demands any present society may place upon it.

Freemasonry’s strength lies in the fact that it offers the right model by which men can grow and achieve balance in their human and spiritual lives. It tenders a medium for collective dialogue in the ways of virtue and ethics. It offers the role of patriarchy to men—male role modeling, if you will—which guides younger men from a sort of boyish impetuosity to mature and manly judgment. It does this by leading them back to timeless, ethical, and spiritual traditions, which facilitate their own transformation and rebirth into manhood.

And it has done this for every generation of men for more than 400 years.”

Specialis Procer Lodge was designed as an example of what I feel a lodge should be.  It was not designed merely to confer degrees.  It was also designed so that the Brothers could grow in knowledge, could increase in wisdom and bond in fraternity.  

Degrees and initiation are important to us and we desire to have rituals that are deeper and with more meaning than just memorized words and pathways traced around the lodge room.  When a man is initiated into our lodge it is important to us that he take time in the Chamber of Reflection to ponder his mortality and what he believes and stands for.  The conclusions he reaches are between him and his God but they should be with him when he enters the lodge room.  

There is no roughhouse or play in our initiation. Not for us the jocular yelling and screaming as the craftsmen look for the missing Hiram Abaft. No rough house in the degree but rather an attempt to make the meaning of the degree for the initiate the most profound experience he has ever had.

It is important to us that the winding stair and it pathway showing the Liberal Arts and Sciences be taken literally not figuratively.  We expect our members to become students of Freemasonry and to study and share that study with us.

We have festive boards such as this one where papers are presented to increase our knowledge and as eating together is one of the most profound ways to build our brotherhood we eat together often, and not just cake and coffee but rather a fine meal accompanied by conversation and fellowship.

This lodge is unlike any other I have ever attended.  It was designed that way.  There is an Egregore present - In metaphysical terms; an egregore is the general character that binds a group entity. It may be viewed as the combination of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energies generated by people working together towards the same goal; being a by-product of our personal and collective creative processes.  An egregore is that atmosphere or personality that develops among groups independent of any of its members. It is the feeling or impression you get when walking into a neighborhood that has an ambience distinct from others, or that you may experience visiting a club or association that has been around for a long time. It is a "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. It is with us when we meet.  I can physically feel its presence....but perhaps I am a bit of a woooo woooo person.  

As sure as I am sitting here giving this paper I am certain that the Masonic fraternity was designed for this to happen.  We were not supposed to be islands alone in the stream but rather a part of a great collective that grows together and advances our own interests as well as the interests of all mankind.

The degrees of Freemasonry were not designed to be given in a hurried, perfunctory or arbitrary manner.  The very act of petitioning and being accepted by all of the members in a unanimous ballot was not designed for any other reason than to show the candidate that he is joining by unanimous consent a fellowship which will be with him for the rest of his life if he will accept it.  As such the Wardens and the Master should convey that acceptance and welcome by the tone of their voice.  All too often that is not the case because it is not understood as such.

Masonry advanced across our country with the advance of the flag. “Three forces for good...the little school, the little church and the little masonic lodge helped shape our nation.  Tens of thousands of men became Masons. Lodge meetings were important to them and they would travel many miles to attend Lodge and sit with their brothers.

Men may be morally qualified to become Masons, and yet fail utterly to improve themselves in the art of Masonry. The failures are those who believe that the ultimate attainment of some degree of spiritual improvement is not worth the steady application that is required to achieve it. For some the collection of pins to wear on a lapel or on a ribbon around a neck is being a successful Mason.  For others the gaining of long and important titles signifying that they wore a “big necklace” for a brief period makes them believe that they are Masons.

Alain Bauer writing in Isaac Newton’s Freemasonry states: “We have long believed the age of information to be liberating. Our society has become one of entertainment and spectacles: the emptiness of primetime television…Freemasonry was created in order to understand complexity, to accept differences, to gather and pose questions, while at the same time to provide, here and there, solutions or tools useful for those who are willing to use them.”

If there is a failure in our modern Freemasonry it is that we have lost sight of what the lodge was designed to do.  It is not there for social advancement or fellowship and “good times” or demonstrating proficiency in a long memorized lecture, although those are all a part of what happens in a successful lodge. No its real purpose is something else. As Joseph Fort Newton says “it is a center of moral and spiritual power, and its power is used, not only to protect the widow and orphan, but also, and still more important, to remove the cause of their woe and need by making men just, gentle, and generous to all their fellow mortals.

Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them, leaving each man free to think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth. All its emphasis rests upon two extremely simple and profound principles—love of God and love of man. Therefore, all through the ages it has been, and is today, a meeting place of differing minds, and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.”

It is essentially necessary that our officers make a thorough study of Masonry in order to keep before the members the real purpose of the Institution. The initiation ceremonies must be done with solemnity and understanding of the symbolism behind every step that the candidate or Brother takes. The proper discharge of the duty of the Worshipful Master to see that the lodge is set to labor under good and wholesome instruction largely determines the success of a lodge. The success can never be computed in numbers, in degrees, or in proficiency in the ritualistic work.

Again Joseph Fort Newton, to my mind has written the best explanation of the design of Freemasonry when he says:
“God works for man through man and seldom, if at all, in any other way. He asks for our voices to speak His truth, for our hands to do His work here below—sweet voices and clean hands to make liberty and love prevail over injustice and hate. Not all of us can be learned or famous, but each of us can be loyal and true of heart, undefiled by evil, undaunted by error, faithful and helpful to our fellow souls. Life is a capacity for the highest things. Let us make it a pursuit of the highest—an eager, incessant quest of truth; a noble utility, a lofty honor, a wise freedom, a genuine service—that through us the Spirit of Masonry may grow and be glorified.
…

He asks, “When is a man a Mason?” and then answers - “When he can look out over the rivers, the hills, and the far horizon with a profound sense of his own littleness in the vast scheme of things, and yet have faith, hope, and courage—which is the root of every virtue. When he knows that down in his heart every man is as noble, as vile, as divine, as diabolic, and as lonely as himself, and seeks to know, to forgive, and to love his fellow man. When he knows how to sympathize with men in their sorrows, yea, even in their sins—knowing that each man fights a hard fight against many odds. When he has learned how to make friends and to keep them, and above all how to keep friends with himself. When he loves flowers, can hunt the birds without a gun, and feels the thrill of an old forgotten joy when he hears the laugh of a little child. When he can be happy and high-minded amid the meaner drudgeries of life. When star-crowned trees, and the glint of sunlight on flowing waters, subdue him like the thought of one much loved and long dead. When no voice of distress reaches his ears in vain, and no hand seeks his aid without response. When he finds good in every faith that helps any man to lay hold of divine things and sees majestic meanings in life, whatever the name of that faith may be. When he can look into a wayside puddle and see something beyond mud, and into the face of the most forlorn fellow mortal and see something beyond sin. When he knows how to pray, how to love, how to hope. When he has kept faith with himself, with his fellow man, with his God; in his hand a sword for evil, in his heart a bit of a song—glad to live, but not afraid to die! Such a man has found the only real secret of Masonry, and the one which it is trying to give to all the world.


If Freemasonry and a Masonic Lodge can help a man to become the Mason described by Newton then indeed it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was designed.


References

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2013/serbian-cave-produces-oldest-human-ancestor-in-this-part-of-europe)

Light on Masonry -  The History and Rituals of America’s Most Important Masonic Expose’  by Arturo de Hoyos

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Apprenticeship+system

http://masonicthought.blogspot.com/2012/06/imho.html

The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590 0 1710 by David Stevenson

http://robertgdavis.blogspot.com/2007/09/in-defense-of-fraternity.html


Masonic Misinformation - Jerry Marsengill

The Builders - Joseph Fort Newton

http://hedgemason.blogspot.com/2013/03/egregore-of-freemasons.html

Isaac Newton’s Freemasonry – The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism – Alain Bauer

IMHO - 1/14/2013

I was on Facebook the other day and I saw a friend's posting that suggested that perhaps because George Washington and other famous men were Masons that "You should be one also."

A more comprehensive list may be found on Wikipedia here.

It is nice to remember those who have gone before who were Masons. When I joined the Masons I knew nothing about them.  My mother had suggested that "You might enjoy the Masons."  Little did she know.  Over the last almost 50 years (I joined in the spring of 1966) I have found it a great place to participate with others in a fraternal manner.  I have made many friends that I would never have had if not for the Masons.

There are myriads of men who have become Freemasons since the fraternity was founded in Scotland. Most of those men were good Masons and their names are not known outside the Lodge. They are just as important or even more important than the few famous men who are touted by those impressed with fame.  They are the men who have preserved the fraternity for hundreds of years and passed it on from one generation to the next.

 I suggest those who are interested in the beginnings of the fraternity read David Stevenson's to me The Origins of Freemasonry - Scotland's century 1590-1710.


You can find out more about Freemasonry at the Grand Lodge of Iowa Web Site.  And there is a connected site to give you more reasons to join and suggestions about Who, What, Why, How and Where to answer questions about becoming a member.

I read something this morning by Richard Rohr -

"most children saw their mother in a different way. She was not a creator, a fixer, or a defender, but rather a transformer. Once a woman has carried her baby inside of her body for nine months and brought it forth, through the pain of childbirth, into the world, she knows the mystery of transformation at a cellular level. She knows it intuitively, yet she usually cannot verbalize it, nor does she need to.  She just holds it at a deeper level of consciousness. She knows something about mystery, about miracles, and about transformation that men will never know (which is why males had to be initiated!)."

THAT INTRIGUED ME. I had to find out a little more.  After all so much of what we as Masons do have to do with initiation. Every step in our Masonic journey has to do with an initiation.  I used the Google and found that he has a four part series of talks on why men need initiation.  This struck a note with me.

"Initiation is not a psychological paradigm at all.  It's not about therapy.  It's not about solving your problems with your father or your mother or how you were hurt. In fact, it sort of leaps over those. Initiation is not a psychology.  It is a cosmology.

I'm going to use the word ownerships. What a man must be given is the inner authority to own his own life, to own his own experience, to own his own responsibility. When you don't have that, you have this victim hood of blaming other people. It is always somebody elses fault.  We are a massively uninitiated culture. Basically, if you read the papers, its mostly a blame game. Somebody else is always the cause of all the evil in the world."

My friend and Brother Tim Bonney described Freemasonry as "a society of obligated brothers." A major part of the initiation  is the obligation - the centerpiece of the ceremony. When you take the obligation we say that it "makes you a Mason."  I disagree with that.  A Mason is not really "made."  A man is either a Mason or he is not.  He is either a person who builds or one who tears down. Joining a fraternity does not make him a Mason.  However if a person is led to ask (and you must ask) to join the Lodge he begins his experience of initiation where he will be given the inner authority mentioned above.

Joseph Fort Newton speaks of this initiation in "The Men's House" where primitive boys were taken from their mothers at a certain age and taken to the Men's House to undergo certain ceremonies after which they were accepted as men.  Jewish boy's undergo study and a religious ceremony of a Bar Mitzvah as their ceremony of initiation whereby they become men.

In many ways to me that is what the Masonic Fraternity is all about. We use ceremonies of initiation to give men the inner authority they might not have without it.  Yes, there are good men who are not members but some of us call them "natural Masons" and there are others who join the fraternity who do it for reasons which are not of the highest nature they will never learn the lessons our fraternity has to offer.

Masons use the working tools of the builder to teach moral lessons and the Three Great Lights of Freemasonry rest upon our Altars no matter where in the world it is found.

Masonry is a world wide fraternal association.  It flourished where there is freedom of thought and association. Dictators close lodges and persecute members.  The ceremonies of initiation are there for men, good men, who wish to associate with one another and to do good work in the world. By standing together for the principles (Brotherly love, relief and truth) of Freemasonry they have preserved something beautiful in the world. That, to me, is the real reason for wanting to be a Mason.  To stand with my Brethren to make the world a better place.

Recommended Reading 7/16/11

Freemasonry and the Tarot -    A talk by Worshipful Brother Ken Davis given at the Masonic Society Semi-Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City July 16, 2011 and published on his blog Prospero's Books.

Whence Camest Thou. A talk by Jay Cole Simser 5/13/11

Arcadia Lodge Table Lodge

Whence Camest Thou.   A talk by Jay Cole Simser

Click on picture to enlarge.

Humans first climbed out of forests and found other places to live. Some adapted caves as homes, either temporary or more permanent.  Decorated caves show us that magical rites were performed in them to insure a good hunt so that there would be

food on the table.  These were probably the first “churches” or religious centers where humans petitioned the deity or deities as the case may be. A class of priests developed who would have more power because they were able to perform rites and ceremonies to invole their gods. These caves became sacred sites. In more recent times we have rediscovered them, and marvel at the artistic sophistication of early humans.”

Someone, somewhere at some time came out of that cave, someone, somewhere at some time began to look at the sky and noticed certain things. They noticed that at certain times the sun rose at this spot and then it shifted.  They noticed that the moon was a big ball of light some of the time and a tiny sliver at other times. Someone, somewhere at some time began a process of dedicated observation. Someone, somewhere at some time began to notice more and more details. Someone, somewhere at sometime noticed that they could predict movements in the heavens from these observations. Someone, somewhere at sometime figured out a method for passing on that information from one generation to the next – each generation adding on to that knowledge and understanding,  From these observations grew knowledge of the geometric nature of the universe and the understanding of patterns which they were then able to  put to practical use in building the ancient wonders of the world and eventually the great cathedrals of Europe.¹

Fremasonry is the inheritor of that tradition.  In Freemasonry knowledge is accumulated and passed down from one generation to another.

 “Primitive humans gathered together in an attempt to gain favor from God.  While there is no direct connection between this fundamental inclination and the more recent Freemasonry, nonetheless the basic need to band together for things other than the mundane underlie both primitive human instinct and Freemasonry.  In more primitive societies, then as now, men were regularly segregated from women,  and slept in a “Men’s House” where boys were trained in the art of becoming men.  Joseph Fort Newton and, more recently, Robert Davis have both suggested that the Masonic Fraternity is the “men’s house” of today.  In brief, it is a place where men can gather together apart from women to learn how to become men.”

There are two kinds of Masonry, Operative and Speculative.  There are two kinds of Masonic History, Actual and Fantastical.

Masonic History of the Fantastical sort would have Masonry descended from Ancient Egypt or brought to us by beings from another planet. Freemasons built all the pyramids as well as King Solomon’s Temple.  The Pyramid builders wore aprons and chiseled their Masonic signatures or marks on ancient monuments. 

Another scenario put forth is that the Knights Templar when dispersed escaped to Scotland where they secretly transformed themselves into builders and built the Roslyn Chapel and thus started the Masonic Fraternity. Masons are secretly plotting for world domination so that they can avenge the murder of the Templars.

In fact, there is no definitive history of the beginnings of the Masonic Fraternity. 

Either of these tales may be the answer or neither of them.  What we do know is that Masons met. They developed rituals and speculated on  morality.  Their activities were described in the Regis and Cooke Manuscripts dated 1390 and1450. Both include King AEthelstan who some claim was the first King of All England. Both are about Masonry.                           

Brother Bill Yungclas gives an extended Trowel lecture in my Lodge.  It says in part:

…in man there was a vital spark that in the bird, the beaver,

the wasp or the spider never knew; inspiration, not instinct,

guided his budding soul, a divine discontent with his habitation

seized him; the hole in the rocks no longer satisfied his cravings

and he began to build out in God's glorious sunshine; feeble

were his efforts, few his tools and mean his creations, but he was

growing.

Crude shelters took the place of dank and dingy dens; a roof

sheltered him, the embryonic pillars supported the crossbars, and

as the years waxed and waned he built better and better until his

aspirations attained their highest form in the completion of the

magnificent cathedrals of Europe, the masterpieces of his mind

and soul.

These builders were Masonry's progenitors, at first an operative

science, it reached it's fruition as such, mounted yet higher and

became a speculative art. (Its end aim the building of a perfect

character, the realization of the designs on the trestle board of

the Great Architect of the Universe.)

I love this lecture because it reminds me of the true origin of Masonry and of how it became a Speculative Art. The Builders who met in secret to pass on their skill and move us out of the caves…because of that vital spark that attained its highest form in the magnificent cathedrals of Europe and went on to higher form in the Speculative Art, applying the principles of building to life and how to live.

To me that is where we can trace our fraternal origin.  No amount of guesswork is necessary.  Masonry as an Operative Science began there.  These men were the First Freemasons. They were “free” from the serfdom that bound people to one set place.  They were allowed to travel to foreign countries to work on the buildings.  And they would meet, eat, and shelter outside working hours in a Lodge on the southern side of a building site, where the sun warms the stones during the day.

They met to share their building trade and the secrets of their art and you could consider them a school of sorts. Once this began the fraternity transformed from merely an operative to a speculative organization. Slowly gentry and local “movers and shakers”  were admited into their ranks.Over time the nature of the Fraternity had changed.. I would imagine that as men do today they also loved to imagine things.  They loved to sit around and speculate on the nature of life and their place in the universe.  They might have begun by assigning meanings to the tools they used, meanings which have an esoteric definition.  The trowel became more than just an instrument to spread mortar but also a way of spreading brotherly love. They drew designs on the floor called “tracing Boards” to use in illustrating their teaching lectures as aides to their memory and for use in instruction. These were not permanant drawings on the floor but were redrawn and then destroyed so that the profane would not be able to obtain the secrets from them.

Gradually with the development of dedicated places for Masons to meet these Tracing Boards became permanant fixture and the symbolism was on display for all to see.  I am going to editorialize here momentarily to just state that personally I find the modern trend to have white walls and plain carpet rather unsatisfying.  If you have ever been in one of the old Masonic buildings such as the Grand Lodge building in Philadelphia you will notice that there is much masonic symbolism carved into the wood and painted on the walls. These can also be found in some of the older lodges in Iowa.  You can spend hours studying these works of art.

This practice has lost favor as Masons placed emphasis on the ritual (words only) and no longer studied the rich meanings behind the fraternity, in fact we put so much emphasis on getting the words exactly correct that we forget the depths of meaning behind them. In the third section of the first degree there is much explanation of the symbolism of the craft but sadly, this is not much given in this day and age.  Perhaps things will change as more and more Traditional Observance Lodges are being formed around the country.

Masons who ate, worked and talked together built a bond with one another and eventually developed lectures and ceremonies which taught these lessons and the nature of the association changed, as did their meeting places. Rituals developed with many levels of meaning and once the rituals were over the Festive Board would consume the rest of the evening.

The Festive Board (or Social Board) part of the meeting is sometimes called the South. Remember they met in a Lodge on the southern side of a building site, where the sun warms the stones during the day.

 It is no coincidence that the Junior Warden who sits in the South of the Lodge is in charge of refreshments.  There is nothing in Freemasonry of today which has not been thought about and which does not have more than one meaning.

Early Lodges often met in a tavern or any other convenient fixed place with a private room. This was for convenience and for ease of obtaining refreshments.  The Festive Board was an important part of the Lodge activity.  These social parts of the meeting were informal, yet they were governed by a set of rules.  The ritual of the lodge spilled over into the Festive Boards and the decorum was ordered and had its own ritual.  Certain activities, toasts and lectures would be made or given and these were spaced so that the Brethren would have time to visit, socialize and speculate on a wide range of topics. 

Four English Lodges meeting in London Taverns joined together and founded the Grand Lodge of London (now known as the United Grand Lodge of England). They had held meetings, respectively, at the Cheshire Cheese Tavern, the Apple-Tree Tavern, the Crown Ale-House near Drury Lane, the Goose and Gridiron in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Westminster.  Taverns were not just alehouses.  They were not the “beer joints” that we may think of today when we hear the term “tavern”

 They were private establishments that were significant meeting places for groups and organizations.

Tun Tavern in Philadelphia was the host for St. John's No. 1 Lodge of the Grand Lodge in its first meetings in 1732.  It was also where the first Marines were recruited when formed by the Continental Congress. Other early Masonic meeting places in Philadelphia were Indian King Tavern and Royal Standard Tavern.

The first lodge in Boston was constituted July 30, 1733, at the house of Edward Lutwych, an inn at the Sign of the Bunch of Grapes in King Street. In 1786, 33 representatives from

 lodges met at the White Hall Tavern in New Brunswick with the purpose of forming a Grand Lodge for New Jersey.

Very quickly Masonic lodges spread throughout the colonies and established themselves as accepted adjuncts of civic responsibility.

A history of Masonry in Williamsburg has this account:

Because there were very few Masonic Halls built until around the mid-eighteenth century, like their English brethren, early Masons in Williamsburg met in taverns.  The first Masonic records of the Williamsburg Lodge that have survived to this day indicate that the revived lodge in Williamsburg was certainly active and meeting in the Crown Tavern in 1762.  …  Meetings were convivial affairs, and were often combined with eating and drinking, which gave rise to formal "Table Lodges," a rather formal feast which incorporated Masonic ritual, eating a lavish dinner, toasts offered between meal courses, some business being conducted, songs being sung, and general brotherly fun and fellowship.  The tradition of conducting "Table Lodges" fell out of favor for well over a century, but is being revived again by many lodges today.

The Williamsburg Masonic Lodge continued to meet at the Crown Tavern for several years before re-locating to the Market Square Tavern in 1773

Toasts and responses to toasts are customary at Festive Boards. For many years the Brothers of Arcadia Lodge were lead in our Masonic Table Lodge by Brother Bob Allen who brought us the rather regimented Table Lodge of the military.  The Des Moines Scottish Rite Bodies have a different type of Table Lodge with a more relaxed form of toasting but however it is done the experience of making the toasts is a very special one and goes back in antiquity further than the history of Freemasonry.

As early as the 6th Century B.C., the Greeks were toasting to the health of their friend's for a highly practical reason — to assure them that the wine they were about to drink wasn't poisoned. To spike the wine with poison, had become an all too common means of dealing with social problems — disposing of an enemy, silencing the competition, preventing a messy divorce, and the like. It thus became a symbol of friendship for the host to pour wine from a common pitcher, drink it before his guests, and satisfied that it was a good experience, raise his glass to his friends to do likewise.

The Romans, impressed by the Greeks in general, tended to handle their interpersonal problems similarly. It's no surprise then, that the practice of toasting was popular at Roman get-togethers as well. The term toast comes from the Roman practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into the wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines the Romans sometimes had to drink. (Much later, even Falstaff said, "put toast in't" when he was requesting a jug of wine in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.) The charcoal actually reduces the acidity of slightly off wines making them more palatable. In time, the Latin tostus meaning roasted or parched, came to refer to the drink itself. In the 1700's, partygoers even liked to toast to the health of people not present — usually celebrities and especially beautiful women. A women who became the object of many such toasts, came to be known as the "toast of the town."

By the 1800's, toasting was the proper thing to do. Charles Panati reported that a "British duke wrote in 1803 that 'every glass during dinner had to be dedicated to someone,' and that to refrain from toasting was consideredsottish and rude, as if no one present was worth dr ' inking to.' One way to effectively insult a dinner guest was to omit toasting him or her; it was, as the duke wrote, 'a piece of direct contempt'."

The enjoyment of good food, convivial company, and toasts with alcoholic beverages are a part of the Masonic experience.  In fact the dining together should be a major part of Masonic life and fellowship for such strengthens our bonds and makes us Brothers at the table and in our lives.

I enjoyed researching the material for this talk.  I think it may have been longer than the Brethren wanted because no one bothered to give me any feedback, nor was I thanked for preparing the speech.  Therefore I shall probably not participate in this event in the future..