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