In my time as a Mason, I have seen two men become Masons who were far too excited.
One became a Master Mason then very promptly petitioned for plural membership in eight or ten Lodges and joined a Concordant body or two. I didn’t know why, and still don’t know why all these Lodges wouldn’t have found that strange enough to reject his petitions for membership, but they didn’t. And then over time he worked his way into positions of leadership in each of these Lodges. But, this lack of focus on any particular Lodge resulted in his inability to properly perform in any role he was given. Through the course of time he ended up being Worshipful Master of perhaps a half a dozen Lodges, Secretary of perhaps three. And he did real and lasting harm to every Lodge that made the mistake of electing him.
I asked him once why he was doing this. He referred me back to our 24 Inch Gauge and its admonishment that there were eight hours in a day for Service. I tried to explain to him that the Working Tool was symbolic, not to be understood literally. He didn’t get it.
In addition to the damage he did to the Lodges he touched, he destroyed his personal life in the process. Self employed, he no longer sought much work, instead devoting all of his time and energy to Freemasonry. Ultimately he ended up virtually homeless and remains so today.
What was particularly sad to me, watching this happen over the course of years, is that he did think deeply about Freemasonry. He occasionally had the greatest of insights into our Craft. Had he not done what he did, Freemasonry could have been exceptionally good for him, and he good for it.
Eventually a Grand Master removed him from the Craft.
The second man’s story is quite similar. It happened a bit further away from me, so I don’t know the details quite as well, but it was the same thing. He immediately got involved in a bunch of Lodges, jumped into every leadership position he could, and did far more harm than good. I am also aware that his over involvement in Freemasonry had a serious negative impact on his financial stability.
He too was eventually removed from the Craft by a Grand Master.
The odd thing was that both of these men actually believed that they were saving Lodges. That they were somehow saving Freemasonry. That without their involvement, these Lodges that they were involved with would collapse.
To my mind though, I’ve never actually believed that what happened in these two cases was entirely the fault of these two men.
I put a lot of fault on the Lodges involved.
Why would a Lodge accept a petition for plural membership from a fellow who is a brand new Master Mason and turning in such petitions to six or ten Lodges all at once?
Why would a Lodge, seeing the damage done to a neighboring Lodge through these men’s leadership then turn around and elect them to office?
Why did no Lodge ever pump the brakes?
I don’t believe that either of these men ever had a shred of ill intent. I think the problem was that they weren’t shown the limits that most men simply understand.
These questions come to mind today because I am witnessing these same behaviors in a new Entered Apprentice. He’s visiting Lodge after Lodge after Lodge, to the point that I think he must be at a Lodge more nights of the week than not, leaving his wife at home. He is pushing to be given responsibility for things in his home Lodge, before having any opportunity to build an understanding about how the Lodge actually works, or the Codes it operates under.
He has talked about his desire for leadership positions in Lodges other than his own, in order to help Lodges that might need it. And he has hinted about a desire to be appointed to a Grand Lodge position.
On top of these red flags, he has recently tried to convince a Worshipful Master from out of the area to come to his home Lodge and institute a Lodge program, without ever asking his Lodge, or the Officers of his Lodge if they would like to see their Lodge offer that program.
These are the exact same sort of behaviors that should have served as red flags with the two men who were eventually removed from Freemasonry.
In far too many cases, our Lodges fail to inspire excitement in our Candidates, and that is something I know we all want to see improved.
But, once in a very great while we do get a candidate who is so excited that he tries to drown himself in Freemasonry, ultimately harming both himself and the Craft by spreading himself far too thin.
When it encounters this, how best can a Lodge ‘pump the brakes’ without doing too much damage to the man’s excitement?
My home Grand Lodge has a simple policy to prevent this happening and your article let me understand the rule after over 30 years in the Craft… one can only join two Lodges in the Grand Lodge.
And I believe that our counterpart here, the MWPHGL of Washington and Jurisdiction continues to only allow membership in a single Lodge.
Ultimately I don't have a problem with Plural Memberships as a concept, but, I think that a Mason should be fully committed to any Lodge that he joins. And that means, to my mind, that we have to question, when a Petition for Plural Membership comes in, why the Mason is seeking that.
Is there some good reason behind it? Will he be an asset to our Lodge? Or does he just want to be able to tell people that he has been Worshipful Master in five different Lodges, or WM in three different Masonic Districts.
Grand Lodge need not have rules, if Lodges act rationally.
I’ve had to pump the brakes on my own life. I learned I can’t do all the things, so I say no more often.
Sometimes though a yes is important.
Another Brother has organized a few beer nights at a pub. I go not just for the beer and the cheer, but because at the last we had Masons representing four local Lodges attend.
*That* is how we discuss issues affecting multiple Lodges.
Gossip evaporates, issues are identified, Brothers step up, laughs are good and loud, and we return to our Lodges better informed and maybe better organized.
I know some other places that do something similar, it seems like a superb idea that yields really positive results for the Lodges with members who are involved. I'm glad to know that it has started up in your corner of our Jurisdiction!
I know brothers that are heavily involved as you describe, but they are able to handle it just fine (as far as I can tell). I also have known Masons that only belonged to one lodge and managed to destroy it all by themselves.
I don't really think it's a matter of too much, it's their intentions, although the damage can be far greater when their intentions cross multiple areas.
Evil people don't think they are evil. Their own reasons my appear evil to the outside, but from their point of view, they are only doing something to protect what is theirs and to further their own aims, or to do what they think is right. Anyone can justify to themselves anything, even if they know it's wrong, if they think their intentions are good.
I too have seen a single man destroy the good work of years in a Lodge. Unfortunately, I don't think that can be avoided entirely. It is ultimately impossible to know how a man will perform as Worshipful Master until he is Worshipful Master.
But, in cases like that, the damage is limited to one Lodge. In cases where a harmful Brother works his way into important positions in multiple Lodges, the damage can impact Freemasonry in an entire area.
Ultimately, I think we would do very well if we started looking at Petitions for Plural Membership just as carefully as we look at Petitions for the Degrees. A man should have a real commitment to a Lodge that he is seeking to join. Not just looking to add another notch to his belt.
There are multiple places in our rituals that remind us of the proper priorities in our lives: Family, Country, God, and Fraternity in that order. Those men who forsake the first three are headed for grief.
Agreed. For a small number of years I was out, visiting Lodges all the time. Spending as many nights in a Lodge as at home more weeks than not. But, my wife was committed to the project, she was generally able to go with me and hang out with other wives while I was in the Lodge, and, importantly, it had an end date. A date certain when I would be a PGM.
So, it didn't destroy our marriage.
But for a Mason to be out at Lodge, more nights than not, without his wife, for years and years and years certainly would destroy a marriage. And that's wrong.
And, that doesn't include the financial costs or damage.
Single, independently able to handle it financially, that's a whole different thing. But for the man with family obligations, those must, as you rightly point out, come first.
Freemasonry exists to enhance the lives of Masons, and the people around them. It doesn't exist to fill some big unrecognized hole within an individual man.
In this case, I think it's a matter of steering the enthusiasm in the correct direction. I think we'd all agree that we'd rather have Masons in the craft that are wildly successful in a few things rather than mediocre to ineffective at a ton of things.
As a candidate going through the degrees, that person should be focused on proving up and enjoying their first experiences in Lodge. Getting to know their Lodge Brothers on a deeper level, and starting to figure out the etiquette of Freemasonry.
I don't 100% know what I'd do in the situation described, but my initial thought (as previously mentioned) would be to attempt to steer that candidate's enthusiasm. I'd consider looking at what the Lodge needs, and I'd put that candidate in charge of it. Form a committee and give a clear list of guidelines and expectations. I imagine you would gather some pretty good data in this exercise, because it's possible that the candidate may not 'complete' the tasks, or perhaps only complete some initial piece of the project and move on. I think at that point you can easily re-focus. I deal with this often in my professional life. Sometimes you have employees who are good at hiding a lack of focus, and it has them jumping from project to project without getting any of them 'done'. There's a fear involved in 'slowing down'. They feel that if they slow down to do a better job on one project, that their velocity will be perceived as less successful which is not actually the case.
I hope to be able to do just what you suggest. Help our new Brother to focus his energy on things that matter so that he can find great success. Instead of scattering in so many directions that no success can ever be found.
But, of course, I want to be able to do so in a way that doesn't dampen his energy and enthusiasm. And I fear that the wrong approach could end up doing that.
"We are now about to quit this sacred retreat..." Certainly does communicate a separation between the sacred world of the Lodge and the profane world in which we spend most of our lives. Perhaps I can use that to remind the Brother in question that there is a time for Freemasonry, and a time for all the other responsibilities of life.
I'm guilty of this. I'm a member of 3 lodges, holding positions of responsibility in 2. For 1 year, it's manageable, but it doesn't have the long term sustainability needed. My wife has been supportive, as have my kids but they deserve me here to. next year, I'll be cutting back to focus on 1 blue lodge, while supporting the Scottish Rite and Jobs Daughters.
Alot of brothers join lodges to "save them" but this doesn't really save it. It just allows it to simply exist for a longer period of time.
Yes, you have it exactly right. It is possible because it is time limited. To one year. You know that, and your family knows that. Much the same when I was in the Grand Line, there was a date certain when that would end. My wife could know when we would be done, and our grown kids could know when their mother would be home most of the time again. With a limitation on time, it can work. Year after year with no end in sight, I don't think it can, a real family bond can't survive it.
You are also exactly right on your second point. All three of these men discussed/discuss their need to somehow save Freemasonry and save Lodges a lot. Maybe that's it, some kind of savior complex?
In any event, it is of course nuts. A man can not save a Lodge. A committed group of men can. A man can't save Freemasonry. A massive and diverse group of men from everywhere can. We can't do a darn thing good and lasting for our Craft all on our own, we can only succeed when we have men beside us, pulling just as hard as us. There's no such thing as a Lodge of One.
I've seen this in its various permutations as well. One size doesn't fit all as far as advice how soon or how many things to join, but it really can be too much. I have to watch myself as well -- my business (self-employed) declined dramatically when I was Worshipful Master. I've also seen people fresh out of DeMolay who think they know everything and want to dictate what the Lodge needs to do before they sit in the East or even finish their Degrees.
But COVID helped me most -- it made me realize I was chasing an attendance reward that didn't exist. I missed some things and not others. I needed to value my time more, and that of my family.
These days I go where I have specific responsibilities or will really enjoy the program or fellowship. I purposely skip the rest whenever I can. And I try to stagger my long-term plans as far as presiding officer duties in multiple bodies, etc..
>>>I have to watch myself as well -- my business (self-employed) declined dramatically when I >>>was Worshipful Master.
This reflected my experience as well. We only have so much time and energy, when we are devoting more to Freemasonry, we have less to devote to other endeavors. I knew that would be the case going in, so went in with open eyes, but it is something that we do well to remember. Indeed my business now remains much smaller than before my terms in the Grand Line, it will recover in time, but it takes a lot of time.
This is all of course OK, and rational. But only if we don't live in denial about it.
Because they are probably "dying" the slow death of lack of members that are engaged and interested. If I had to guess, their West Gate is probably wide open to new Masons as well.
Our immediate Past Master had a Shrink the Lodge conversation last year titled "Can one man make a difference" and it was an excellent discussion about the positive and ultimately negative impacts a single person can have on a Lodge.
I regularly ask Lodge members of ours and other Lodges to answer these three questions;
Undoubtedly, you are right. The West Gate wasn't guarded. Probably most especially as they were Plural Petitions. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think that we need to be just as careful with Plural Petitions as we are Petitioners for the Degrees.
As you point out though, we unfortunately don't properly guard the gate against anyone in too many Lodges. We've got to get to know a man before we allow him to Petition, we've got to do proper investigations, and we've got to get comfortable with the black cube.
Hi there! Not a freemason, but I do have a question. Is it possible that this was allowed to happen to demonstrate a greater lesson? If I am not mistaken, certain qualities must be cultivated within a person before they are capable of understanding certain esoteric laws/truths (hence the first mentioned individual having no understanding that something was not meant to be taken literally).
I'd imagine the over-excitedness in itself, even without the actions taken, would be a red flag in that case, upon entering any mystery school or "brotherhood". If that is how they acted, I imagine red flags signaling an unprepared constitution / character were visible before any of this happened.
If that is the case, is it possible it was a reminder/lesson to other masons, and is it possible it was a lessons to the two former masons themselves? Not saying they'd understand it, but possibly, by way of real-world consequence of losing something you are greatly attached to, for the sole reason that you attached yourself to it in the first place, could have only been delivered that way? I imagine if someone approached them and said "no, you can't do that" or "hey, slow down" - someone under a spell of what sounds like mania status/knowledge/purpose would have only found a way around it to cause havoc, doesn't sound like they would have listened.
Obviously I could be wrong, I am not a freemason and I am not there in your lodges to gauge the competency of those running them. I guess I'd LIKE to think that people in those positions aren't that reckless or dumb to have had this happen on accidentally. So, I figured I would ask.
This is an interesting perspective on the situation, and I appreciate you providing it here.
But, I don't think that in either case it was allowed to happen in order to teach a lesson, either to the men involved or the men around them. It is a pretty rare thing to happen, and in these cases, I don't think that the men of the Lodges recognized that it was happening until it was too late.
One fault of Masonry, in my experience, is that Masons in general are quite reticent about calling out their Brothers when they err. We are called to do this, but generally the environment is extremely supportive, and people don't want to harm that harmony. So, in these cases, even once it was recognized, it wasn't stopped quickly enough.
So, I think that is what it was. A lack of recognition at the start, and then delayed effective action hoping that softer methods would work.
As with all human organizations, competency of leadership varies from Lodge to Lodge, leader to leader. In a way, Freemasonry acts as a leadership development program, ideally with slowly increasing leadership demands on a man (who seeks leadership) over the course of quite a few years. But of course some men are more suited to leadership than others.
Thank you for your response and thank you for sharing. It’s very interesting on the outside looking in of course. I’ve known some who have become masons - but it is a brotherhood so I only take in what I read or maybe hear, but of course it’s not the same as being there. Glad to have found your substack!
I have very little information about them because our Grand Lodges don't recognize them, but there are both female and mixed gender Lodges. Droit Humain is one of the oldest with a presence in Europe and North America, probably beyond:
Back before I even petitioned, I once said I'd love to be a Secretary some day, not because I want the position of authority but because I like the tedium of the position as it had been described to me. That aside, as a young Master Mason (nearing the second anniversary of my raising) and the first anniversary of receiving my 32nd degree in the Scottish Rite, I have very pointedly NOT joined a ton of extra lodges or sought leadership roles outside of my mother lodge (nor inside, though I am an officer because I was asked to serve) because I'm all too aware of what spreading myself too thin looks like as I have done it via other avenues more than once over the course of my nearly 45 years and now I just want to enjoy life without stressing out as much as possible. :)
I don't think that I was a particularly good Lodge Secretary, but I didn't mind the job. It was interesting. But, an excellent Secretary can have a hugely positive influence on a Lodge. I think that going above and beyond in the position can really serve to make a Lodge successful.
But yes, it is best to not stretch ourselves too thin, particularly when it comes to Freemasonry, because it doesn't serve us or the Craft if it starts to feel like a chore.
My home Grand Lodge has a simple policy to prevent this happening and your article let me understand the rule after over 30 years in the Craft… one can only join two Lodges in the Grand Lodge.
I think my Grand Lodge would do well to adopt a similar policy.
They did, for most of the 20th Century.
50 years ago, a Washington Freemason could be a member of two Lodges. The exception for a third Lodge was if that Lodge was a Research Lodge.
I am uncertain when they opened it up to Plural Membership.
And I believe that our counterpart here, the MWPHGL of Washington and Jurisdiction continues to only allow membership in a single Lodge.
Ultimately I don't have a problem with Plural Memberships as a concept, but, I think that a Mason should be fully committed to any Lodge that he joins. And that means, to my mind, that we have to question, when a Petition for Plural Membership comes in, why the Mason is seeking that.
Is there some good reason behind it? Will he be an asset to our Lodge? Or does he just want to be able to tell people that he has been Worshipful Master in five different Lodges, or WM in three different Masonic Districts.
Grand Lodge need not have rules, if Lodges act rationally.
I’ve had to pump the brakes on my own life. I learned I can’t do all the things, so I say no more often.
Sometimes though a yes is important.
Another Brother has organized a few beer nights at a pub. I go not just for the beer and the cheer, but because at the last we had Masons representing four local Lodges attend.
*That* is how we discuss issues affecting multiple Lodges.
Gossip evaporates, issues are identified, Brothers step up, laughs are good and loud, and we return to our Lodges better informed and maybe better organized.
It worked in 1717 and it works now!
I know some other places that do something similar, it seems like a superb idea that yields really positive results for the Lodges with members who are involved. I'm glad to know that it has started up in your corner of our Jurisdiction!
I know brothers that are heavily involved as you describe, but they are able to handle it just fine (as far as I can tell). I also have known Masons that only belonged to one lodge and managed to destroy it all by themselves.
I don't really think it's a matter of too much, it's their intentions, although the damage can be far greater when their intentions cross multiple areas.
Evil people don't think they are evil. Their own reasons my appear evil to the outside, but from their point of view, they are only doing something to protect what is theirs and to further their own aims, or to do what they think is right. Anyone can justify to themselves anything, even if they know it's wrong, if they think their intentions are good.
I too have seen a single man destroy the good work of years in a Lodge. Unfortunately, I don't think that can be avoided entirely. It is ultimately impossible to know how a man will perform as Worshipful Master until he is Worshipful Master.
But, in cases like that, the damage is limited to one Lodge. In cases where a harmful Brother works his way into important positions in multiple Lodges, the damage can impact Freemasonry in an entire area.
Ultimately, I think we would do very well if we started looking at Petitions for Plural Membership just as carefully as we look at Petitions for the Degrees. A man should have a real commitment to a Lodge that he is seeking to join. Not just looking to add another notch to his belt.
There are multiple places in our rituals that remind us of the proper priorities in our lives: Family, Country, God, and Fraternity in that order. Those men who forsake the first three are headed for grief.
Agreed. For a small number of years I was out, visiting Lodges all the time. Spending as many nights in a Lodge as at home more weeks than not. But, my wife was committed to the project, she was generally able to go with me and hang out with other wives while I was in the Lodge, and, importantly, it had an end date. A date certain when I would be a PGM.
So, it didn't destroy our marriage.
But for a Mason to be out at Lodge, more nights than not, without his wife, for years and years and years certainly would destroy a marriage. And that's wrong.
And, that doesn't include the financial costs or damage.
Single, independently able to handle it financially, that's a whole different thing. But for the man with family obligations, those must, as you rightly point out, come first.
Freemasonry exists to enhance the lives of Masons, and the people around them. It doesn't exist to fill some big unrecognized hole within an individual man.
In this case, I think it's a matter of steering the enthusiasm in the correct direction. I think we'd all agree that we'd rather have Masons in the craft that are wildly successful in a few things rather than mediocre to ineffective at a ton of things.
As a candidate going through the degrees, that person should be focused on proving up and enjoying their first experiences in Lodge. Getting to know their Lodge Brothers on a deeper level, and starting to figure out the etiquette of Freemasonry.
I don't 100% know what I'd do in the situation described, but my initial thought (as previously mentioned) would be to attempt to steer that candidate's enthusiasm. I'd consider looking at what the Lodge needs, and I'd put that candidate in charge of it. Form a committee and give a clear list of guidelines and expectations. I imagine you would gather some pretty good data in this exercise, because it's possible that the candidate may not 'complete' the tasks, or perhaps only complete some initial piece of the project and move on. I think at that point you can easily re-focus. I deal with this often in my professional life. Sometimes you have employees who are good at hiding a lack of focus, and it has them jumping from project to project without getting any of them 'done'. There's a fear involved in 'slowing down'. They feel that if they slow down to do a better job on one project, that their velocity will be perceived as less successful which is not actually the case.
I hope to be able to do just what you suggest. Help our new Brother to focus his energy on things that matter so that he can find great success. Instead of scattering in so many directions that no success can ever be found.
But, of course, I want to be able to do so in a way that doesn't dampen his energy and enthusiasm. And I fear that the wrong approach could end up doing that.
The Closing Charge
"We are now about to quit this sacred retreat..." Certainly does communicate a separation between the sacred world of the Lodge and the profane world in which we spend most of our lives. Perhaps I can use that to remind the Brother in question that there is a time for Freemasonry, and a time for all the other responsibilities of life.
I'm guilty of this. I'm a member of 3 lodges, holding positions of responsibility in 2. For 1 year, it's manageable, but it doesn't have the long term sustainability needed. My wife has been supportive, as have my kids but they deserve me here to. next year, I'll be cutting back to focus on 1 blue lodge, while supporting the Scottish Rite and Jobs Daughters.
Alot of brothers join lodges to "save them" but this doesn't really save it. It just allows it to simply exist for a longer period of time.
Yes, you have it exactly right. It is possible because it is time limited. To one year. You know that, and your family knows that. Much the same when I was in the Grand Line, there was a date certain when that would end. My wife could know when we would be done, and our grown kids could know when their mother would be home most of the time again. With a limitation on time, it can work. Year after year with no end in sight, I don't think it can, a real family bond can't survive it.
You are also exactly right on your second point. All three of these men discussed/discuss their need to somehow save Freemasonry and save Lodges a lot. Maybe that's it, some kind of savior complex?
In any event, it is of course nuts. A man can not save a Lodge. A committed group of men can. A man can't save Freemasonry. A massive and diverse group of men from everywhere can. We can't do a darn thing good and lasting for our Craft all on our own, we can only succeed when we have men beside us, pulling just as hard as us. There's no such thing as a Lodge of One.
Agreed.......
I've seen this in its various permutations as well. One size doesn't fit all as far as advice how soon or how many things to join, but it really can be too much. I have to watch myself as well -- my business (self-employed) declined dramatically when I was Worshipful Master. I've also seen people fresh out of DeMolay who think they know everything and want to dictate what the Lodge needs to do before they sit in the East or even finish their Degrees.
But COVID helped me most -- it made me realize I was chasing an attendance reward that didn't exist. I missed some things and not others. I needed to value my time more, and that of my family.
These days I go where I have specific responsibilities or will really enjoy the program or fellowship. I purposely skip the rest whenever I can. And I try to stagger my long-term plans as far as presiding officer duties in multiple bodies, etc..
>>>I have to watch myself as well -- my business (self-employed) declined dramatically when I >>>was Worshipful Master.
This reflected my experience as well. We only have so much time and energy, when we are devoting more to Freemasonry, we have less to devote to other endeavors. I knew that would be the case going in, so went in with open eyes, but it is something that we do well to remember. Indeed my business now remains much smaller than before my terms in the Grand Line, it will recover in time, but it takes a lot of time.
This is all of course OK, and rational. But only if we don't live in denial about it.
Why did the Lodges allow them join?
Because they are probably "dying" the slow death of lack of members that are engaged and interested. If I had to guess, their West Gate is probably wide open to new Masons as well.
Our immediate Past Master had a Shrink the Lodge conversation last year titled "Can one man make a difference" and it was an excellent discussion about the positive and ultimately negative impacts a single person can have on a Lodge.
I regularly ask Lodge members of ours and other Lodges to answer these three questions;
1. Why did you become a Mason?
2. Why do you stay a Mason?
3. What work are you doing as a Mason?
Undoubtedly, you are right. The West Gate wasn't guarded. Probably most especially as they were Plural Petitions. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think that we need to be just as careful with Plural Petitions as we are Petitioners for the Degrees.
As you point out though, we unfortunately don't properly guard the gate against anyone in too many Lodges. We've got to get to know a man before we allow him to Petition, we've got to do proper investigations, and we've got to get comfortable with the black cube.
Hi there! Not a freemason, but I do have a question. Is it possible that this was allowed to happen to demonstrate a greater lesson? If I am not mistaken, certain qualities must be cultivated within a person before they are capable of understanding certain esoteric laws/truths (hence the first mentioned individual having no understanding that something was not meant to be taken literally).
I'd imagine the over-excitedness in itself, even without the actions taken, would be a red flag in that case, upon entering any mystery school or "brotherhood". If that is how they acted, I imagine red flags signaling an unprepared constitution / character were visible before any of this happened.
If that is the case, is it possible it was a reminder/lesson to other masons, and is it possible it was a lessons to the two former masons themselves? Not saying they'd understand it, but possibly, by way of real-world consequence of losing something you are greatly attached to, for the sole reason that you attached yourself to it in the first place, could have only been delivered that way? I imagine if someone approached them and said "no, you can't do that" or "hey, slow down" - someone under a spell of what sounds like mania status/knowledge/purpose would have only found a way around it to cause havoc, doesn't sound like they would have listened.
Obviously I could be wrong, I am not a freemason and I am not there in your lodges to gauge the competency of those running them. I guess I'd LIKE to think that people in those positions aren't that reckless or dumb to have had this happen on accidentally. So, I figured I would ask.
This is an interesting perspective on the situation, and I appreciate you providing it here.
But, I don't think that in either case it was allowed to happen in order to teach a lesson, either to the men involved or the men around them. It is a pretty rare thing to happen, and in these cases, I don't think that the men of the Lodges recognized that it was happening until it was too late.
One fault of Masonry, in my experience, is that Masons in general are quite reticent about calling out their Brothers when they err. We are called to do this, but generally the environment is extremely supportive, and people don't want to harm that harmony. So, in these cases, even once it was recognized, it wasn't stopped quickly enough.
So, I think that is what it was. A lack of recognition at the start, and then delayed effective action hoping that softer methods would work.
As with all human organizations, competency of leadership varies from Lodge to Lodge, leader to leader. In a way, Freemasonry acts as a leadership development program, ideally with slowly increasing leadership demands on a man (who seeks leadership) over the course of quite a few years. But of course some men are more suited to leadership than others.
Thank you for your response and thank you for sharing. It’s very interesting on the outside looking in of course. I’ve known some who have become masons - but it is a brotherhood so I only take in what I read or maybe hear, but of course it’s not the same as being there. Glad to have found your substack!
Thank you, I'm glad that you are enjoying Emeth!
I have very little information about them because our Grand Lodges don't recognize them, but there are both female and mixed gender Lodges. Droit Humain is one of the oldest with a presence in Europe and North America, probably beyond:
https://www.freemasonryformenandwomen.org/
Back before I even petitioned, I once said I'd love to be a Secretary some day, not because I want the position of authority but because I like the tedium of the position as it had been described to me. That aside, as a young Master Mason (nearing the second anniversary of my raising) and the first anniversary of receiving my 32nd degree in the Scottish Rite, I have very pointedly NOT joined a ton of extra lodges or sought leadership roles outside of my mother lodge (nor inside, though I am an officer because I was asked to serve) because I'm all too aware of what spreading myself too thin looks like as I have done it via other avenues more than once over the course of my nearly 45 years and now I just want to enjoy life without stressing out as much as possible. :)
I don't think that I was a particularly good Lodge Secretary, but I didn't mind the job. It was interesting. But, an excellent Secretary can have a hugely positive influence on a Lodge. I think that going above and beyond in the position can really serve to make a Lodge successful.
But yes, it is best to not stretch ourselves too thin, particularly when it comes to Freemasonry, because it doesn't serve us or the Craft if it starts to feel like a chore.