Is Freemasonry Brain Dead?

An Address

Last week I gave this address on two occasions. The first at a Lodge on the east side of my State, the second on the west side. Both at Table Lodges. That done, I publish it here for your consideration.

Photo by Ilyass SEDDOUG on Unsplash

Is Freemasonry Brain Dead?

Considering this question, I have to conclude that no, our Ancient Craft isn’t quite Brain Dead. But, it is really close. We’re laying there in the hospital, hooked up to the machines, and our brain waves are barely registering on the monitor. If we aren’t careful, we’re going to step over that line and lose our ability to think.

Recently The Masonic Society closed its virtual doors forever, ensuring that the excellent Masonic Journal will never be published again.

If a Mason has an important message for our Craft, some insight that he finds valuable and that he has a burning desire to get out to everyone, he can, as men have always done, publish a book.

What does that look like in the Masonic world in 2025?

He can use a Print On Demand Publisher, which will price him out of the market, ensuring that he will sells no books.

Or he can take his manuscript to a book production company, and order enough copies to ensure that his final sales price is in keeping with the market. Say 1000 copies.

If he works hard, and is lucky, he’ll sell 100 copies. Leaving 900 copies to slowly rot in boxes in his garage, and leaving him with a large financial loss.

Is it any wonder then that so few new books about Freemasonry are published each year?

Is it any wonder then that real publishing companies won’t touch a book about Freemasonry with the proverbial ten foot pole?

Yet Freemasonry has around one million members in the United States.

How is it that a market of one million men won’t support the sales of one thousand books?

Why do we value knowledge so low?

If a Masonic book was ever to sell five thousand copies, it would be considered a bestseller. Five thousand copies sold to a market of one million men should not be out of the realm of possibility. But, in reality, we’ve never seen one of our books on the New York Times Bestseller list, and unless something radically changes in the Masonic world, we never will.

So is it any wonder that the only Masonic books published today are those published by institutions, like the Scottish Rite, or a tiny handful of men who are willing to subsidize, with large sums of their own money, their book projects?

Masonic book publishing is bad for writers. Really bad. Masonic periodicals, magazines and the like are even worse. Institutions can’t even keep them going, as shown by The Masonic Society and its fine Journal.

It is often said that Freemasonry takes a good man and helps him become an even better man.

Yet aren’t we missing one of the best and finest ways to effect that transformation if we have no means to compensate Masonic writers for their efforts?

For whatever reason, a reason that remains a complete mystery to me, the overwhelming number of Freemasons absolutely refuse to spend a nickel advancing knowledge within our Craft.

But we do generally spend money, a lot of money, on material things. Aprons, and rings, and watches, and shirts, and hats, and jackets, and pins, and coins, good lord we will buy things!

But the vast majority of us won’t buy a book, or subscribe to a periodical. We would, I guess, prefer to keep Freemasonry on life support, its brain waves barely detectable.

Interestingly to me, this isn’t a failing of our generation of Freemasons, nor is it, as one young man suggested to me, a failure of advertising what is available. It has always been this way within the Craft here in the United States.

In 1875, one of the greatest American Masonic scholars of all time, Albert Mackey, wrote his famous essay:

Reading Masons And Masons Who Do Not Read

I would like to share a few of his words:

“I suppose there are more Masons who are ignorant of all the principles of freemasonry than there are men of any other class who are chargeable with the like ignorance of their own profession. There is not a watchmaker who does not know something about the elements of horology, nor is there a blacksmith who is altogether unacquainted with the properties of red-hot iron. Ascending to the higher walks of science, we would be much astonished to meet with a lawyer who was ignorant of the elements of jurisprudence, or a physician who had never read a treatise on pathology, or a clergyman who knew nothing whatever of theology. Nevertheless, nothing is more common than to encounter Freemasons who are in utter darkness as to every thing that relates to Freemasonry.

They are ignorant of its history — they know not whether it is a mushroom production of today, or whether it goes back to remote ages for its origin. They have no comprehension of the esoteric meaning of its symbols or its ceremonies.”

And

“They have supposed that initiation was all that was requisite to make them Masons, and that any further study was entirely unnecessary. Hence, they never read a Masonic book. Bring to their notice the productions of the most celebrated Masonic authors, and their remark is that they have no time to read-the claims of business are overwhelming. Show them a Masonic journal of recognized reputation, and ask them to subscribe. Their answer is, that they cannot afford it, the times are hard and money is scarce.

And yet, there is no want of Masonic ambition in many of these men. But their ambition is not in the right direction. They have no thirst for knowledge, but they have a very great thirst for office or for degrees. They cannot afford money or time for the purchase or perusal of Masonic books, but they have enough of both to expend on the acquisition of Masonic degrees.”

And

“Such Masons are distinguished not by the amount of knowledge that they possess, but by the number of the jewels that they wear. They will give fifty dollars for a decoration, but not fifty cents for a book.”

And

“These men do great injury to Masonry. They have been called its drones. But they are more than that. They are the wasps, the deadly enemy of the industrious bees. They set a bad example to the younger Masons - they discourage the growth of Masonic literature — they drive intellectual men, who would be willing to cultivate Masonic science, into other fields of labor — they depress the energies of our writers — and they debase the character of Speculative Masonry as a branch of mental and moral philosophy.”

And

“A few years ago while editing a Masonic periodical, I received a letter from the Grand Lecturer of a certain Grand Lodge who had been a subscriber, but who desired to discontinue his subscription. In assigning his reason, he said (a copy of the letter is now before me), "although the work contains much valuable information, I shall have no time to read, as I shall devote the whole of the present year to teaching." I cannot but imagine what a teacher such a man must have been, and what pupils he must have instructed.”

And

“…because there are so few Masons that read, Masonic books hardly do more than pay the publishers the expense of printing, while the authors get nothing; and Masonic journals are being year after year carried off into the literary Academia, where the corpses of defunct periodicals are deposited; and, worst of all. Masonry endures depressing blows.

The Mason who reads, however little, be it only the pages of the monthly magazine to which he subscribes, will entertain higher views of the Institution and enjoy new delights in the possession of these views.

The Masons who do not read will know nothing of the interior beauties of Speculative Masonry, but will be content to suppose it to be something like Odd Fellowship, or the Order of the Knights of Pythias - only, perhaps, a little older. Such a Mason must be an indifferent one. He has laid no foundation for zeal.

If this indifference, instead of being checked, becomes more widely spread, the result is too apparent. Freemasonry must step down from the elevated position which she has been struggling, through the efforts of her scholars, to maintain, and our lodges, instead of becoming resorts for speculative and philosophical thought, will deteriorate into social clubs or mere benefit societies.

With so many rivals in that field, her struggle for a prosperous life will be a hard one.”

As Masons we refused to read in 1875, and we continue to refuse to read in 2025.

The question, ‘Is Freemasonry Brain Dead? Certainly seems appropriate to ask.

But, it isn’t just books.

Every year, in Seattle, Brothers from our Jurisdiction and the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and the Yukon put together a really superb conference on Masonic Esotericism. It’s generally a three day event.

As memory serves, a ticket costs around one hundred dollars. In the past that hundred has included a really fine meal and some drinks as social lubricant. The meal alone is worth the hundred, all of the speakers, flown in from around the country are just the cherry on top of this tremendously good value.

But, they generally manage to partly fill half of a Lodge Room.

Brothers work, hard, for months to create a truly exceptional educational event, they spend significant sums of money (I fear quite often subsidizing things out of their own pockets) and only half a Lodge Room is willing to show up to support it.

I might be a little odd, but in addition to Freemasonry, I’m also a great lover of the Tarot.

Each year, around the same time as the Esoteric Conference in Seattle, there is a very similar Tarot Conference in Portland.

Just like in Seattle, speakers from around the country come to present to the group.

Tickets are right at four hundred and fifty dollars. They include absolutely nothing but the speakers. Four and a half times more than the Esoteric Conference, but the Tarot Conference will fill a large meeting room.

It’s the same with books. Books about Tarot sell well enough that they are published by real publishers, not by scholars struggling to figure out how to pay to get their words out in the world. And as a result, a flood of them are published each and every year.

Podcasts and new media are largely the same.

Consider my friend, who has spent years traveling throughout his own Country, the United States, and beyond, attending Masonic events, and interviewing Masonic leaders. He podcasts those interviews on Youtube. He has under twenty-five hundred subscribers. His latest video, interviewing a Freemason from Brazil has ten likes.

Why is this?

For a few years now I’ve followed a Tarot podcaster. She has over sixty-one thousand subscribers on YouTube, and her latest Tarot video, teaching people how to shuffle a deck of cards with a matte instead of a slick finish has over two hundred and fifty likes.

How is it that more Tarot people are looking for advice on shuffling cards than Freemasons are in learning about Freemasonry within the nation of Brazil?

Freemasonry has a very bright future.

But only if we are willing to change what we support, and what we spend money on.

We need to spend less money on bling, and more money on books.

So that we can actually learn about our Ancient Craft, and how it can help us to improve our lives.

If we aren’t willing to do that, if we aren’t willing to learn about Freemasonry, then what are we doing here?

Our Masonic scholars, and our budding Masonic scholars will lead us into a bright future, just as scholars in the west have always done.

But they can only do that if we are willing to support their efforts.

I hope that we can all, at some point, agree to do so. That we will take the nearly brain dead patient by the hand and raise him back to vital and thriving life.

Thank you.