Fake Experiences?

How does a desire for pretend impact Freemasonry?

Far more often than I would like, I hear some Mason make a remark like:

“Freemasonry doesn’t have any secrets. You can find everything with Google.”

Nonsense.

Freemasonry holds secrets. Profound secrets. Important secrets.

But, let’s be clear. Freemasonry’s secrets aren’t the Words, or Grips, or Signs, or Obligations, or Penalties, or any of that stuff. We say that such things are secrets, but we all know that it’s true, they can all be found with Google.

And it’s been that way since the very beginning of public Masonry. The only difference between now and centuries ago is that before one had to buy an ‘exposure’ book or follow an ‘exposure’ in the newspaper. Now five minutes with a search engine will tell one everything he wants to know about these supposed secrets.

Those things aren’t the secrets of Masonry.

Freemasonry’s real secrets aren’t secret because no one tells them, or ‘exposes’ them. They are secret because they are impossible to truly describe with language. They are secret because they can’t be properly communicated with words.

The secrets of Freemasonry are those things experienced internally by a Candidate as the Degrees are Conferred upon him, and as he reflects upon those Degrees, consciously and subconsciously.

These are secret because we can’t explain them.

Reading the ritual for the Master Mason Degree, word for word, action by action, will not communicate what it is actually like to receive that Degree.

Now, it must be pointed out that not every man who goes through the Degrees actually receives these secrets. He doesn’t have the intended experience. This can happen for a number of reasons. I imagine that the most common reasons why a Degree doesn’t take are:

-The Lodge did a poor job Conferring the Degree. It wasn’t done well enough to allow the Candidate the ability to enter a headspace needed for the Degree to have the impact upon him that it was designed to have.

-The Candidate isn’t open to the process. He doesn’t allow the Degree to truly impact him, no matter how well it was Conferred.

We do well to remember that some men are profoundly changed by their Degree experience. Other men are not.

Some truly received that experience, that ineffable meaning or secrets, others did not. Only we can know the impact our Degrees had upon us.

But the whole thing comes down to experience. Our own personal experience.

And if we are smart, as Masons, we’ll take heed of a societal trend.

Over the past number of years, innumerable articles have been written making the claim that the young men of today find much more value in experiences than in stuff.

That makes a great deal of sense to me. As our material comfort continues to grow, things become less important. That elevates the importance of experiences.

We all might like to complain but things have certainly grown more comfortable.

A little over a century ago, the richest and most powerful person in the world, Queen Victoria was pooping in a chamber pot. Today, even the humblest home has a toilet.

When I was a young man backpacking, the gear I had to carry for a handful of days was about 50 pounds. Today’s modern materials and designs allow backpackers to do it with about 20 pounds. Last night, on a whim, I looked up my old backpack. It’s still made. And the cost, in inflation adjusted dollars is very significantly less than what I paid for it in the mid 1980’s.

So yeah, things are more comfortable. And if we are honest with ourselves, the necessities (with the notable exception of housing) are cheaper or more reliable, or both.

As our comfort grows, we may well really value those experiences that are outside of our comfort zone.

That’s what I think we are seeing today when young people claim to more highly value experience than stuff.

And that is a tremendous advantage for Freemasonry as our Craft moves forward into a bright future.

We don’t offer stuff. We offer experience.

And when everything goes right, and the magic happens, we offer truly profound experience.

How cool is that?

That’s a powerful draw for young men, if we can position ourselves properly.

My 24 year old hat. Worn throughout North America, from the cold of Alaska to the Jungles of Mexico.

But we have to offer a real experience.

We can’t fall into the trap of going the easy way and offering a fake experience.

We’ve got to Guard the West Gate to ensure that the men we Confer our Degrees upon are truly open to that ineffable experience. And we’ve got to do a solid enough job with our Degrees to ensure that the man has an opportunity to have that ineffable experience.

If we don’t do these two things, we are offering a fake, rather than a real experience.

And fake is tempting as hell. For Lodges, and for the man who would be a Mason.

The hat pictured above is 24 years old, and in those 24 years it has been my constant companion.

It was, when I purchased it in 2002, the very finest hat of its kind in all the world. So claimed the man who made it, and while he was in charge I’ve got no doubt but that it was true. (Now that he’s no longer with us, I don’t imagine that’s still the case.)

The thing is so well made that in my view it has only recently truly begun to show some character. There’s some discoloration, some bunching, some misshapenness. The brass is corroded. It’s starting to show its miles. But there are still no pulled threads or tears. Functionally it’s just as solid today as it was in 2002. In fact, with so many rainstorms and washings I think the weave has grown even tighter, making it a more protective hat today than when it was new.

It’s the real deal. It’s been on adventures all over this continent, and throughout daily life.

And it’s showing those experiences.

There’s another hat out there of the same shape and style. Made by a different manufacturer, with a much different ethos.

That hat, when purchased brand spankin’ new comes already beat to hell and back. It’s made out of recycled canvas tarps that were used to cover truck loads of goods as they were transported through and around the Amazon. The company buys these old, no longer functional for their primary purpose tarps, cuts them up and makes hats out of them.

Their most popular hats are the ones that are really trashed looking. With patches covering rips, frayed spots, dangling threads, ink markings, stains, and everything else imaginable.

I don’t know, maybe with ten more years of wear my hat will look like that. But if it does, it’ll look that way because of the miles I put on it. Because of the experiences I had while wearing it. Not because I intentionally mangled it.

But lots and lots of people buy that already beat to hell and back when brand new hat in droves. It’s been worn by stars in movies, and successfully sold for decades. A hat that makes its owner look as if he’s experienced some things, when in fact the depth of that experience was clicking a few buttons on a computer.

I’ve never understood why some people are drawn to buy clothing that is made to look as if it is worn out, but they do. It’s not just hats, there are lots of torn up jeans for sale out there too.

I think that similarly, sometimes, our Degrees just won’t have an impact on a man because he wasn’t looking for an actually impactful experience. He was just looking for a fake experience, perhaps an opportunity to wear a Masonic ring, much like some will apparently look to wear a hat that makes them appear to have walked their way through the Amazon.