It's actually growing . The newer generation I see are mature men who have served in the military who want the same kind of bonding that they had in the military. They are our future leadership and want active roles. More esoteric curiosity than previous generation. I have no doubt we'll survive, no doubt....
>>>More esoteric curiosity than previous generation.
I've noticed this too. Quite a lot actually. I think we do very well to ensure that our Lodges ensure that we are able to provide the esoteric content they are seeking. Or at the very least, be able to point them to the right path.
>>>I have no doubt we'll survive, no doubt....
Agreed. 100%. I firmly believe that the sun is rising.
Quality of quantity. Freemasonry today is more important today than ever. The Freemason today is more open to the differences that make us up right men and Masons. A generation or more ago we struggled within ourselves when it came to religions and race. We said that we allowed all Free Men but that was not the case. In many jurisdictions they were living a lie. The 'hold outs' of closed minded jurisdictions are ending and we as a Fraternity are growing. Quality or quantity. My 2c.
>>>The 'hold outs' of closed minded jurisdictions are ending
Yes indeed. Only a small handful left, and it will be a very bright day when the last one changes to finally embrace the Masonic promise of universal brotherhood among all good men.
It Depends. Lodges that offer true freemasonry (A special way of life and masonic education will survive and perhaps grow. Those that are only interested in fraternity will not
It all depends on how lodges meet the expectations of new members.
Also I think we need to come out of the cupboard. Masonry was once a visible aand active part of the community. Now it seems to hide as if it was ashamed.
>>>It all depends on how lodges meet the expectations of new members.
Over the past decades our membership loss curve was much steeper than our Lodge loss curve, resulting, in my Jurisdiction at least, in too many Lodges for the number of Masons in the Jurisdiction.
Based on that, I think that we will continue to lose Lodges, even while our membership rebounds.
And I think that you are certainly correct. Lodges that actually provide Freemasonry to their members will thrive into a bright future. Those that do not will be the Lodges that fail. Ultimately the success of each of our Lodges rests on our own shoulders.
As was relayed at the lodge leadership retreat last year, in examining the data, if we simply retain 50% of the brothers that quit masonry, we would be fine.
For years we’ve been told that advancing age and poor admissions are the reason for our declining numbers. While it is true that the average age of members is quite high, we’re actually gaining new members at a faster rate than brothers passing on. Younger men, willing and eager to explore the hidden mysteries we’ve been promising they would receive.
Eventually, however, those young men discover they have been sold a bill of goods that isn’t being delivered. So they quit. They just stop coming to lodge, and drop NPD, demit, or move on.
The fraternity can recover. The question is, are lodges willing to do what is necessary for that to happen? Time will tell.
Some of our Lodges do not, or can not, meet the needs of the younger men they Initiate, and as you say, those young men leave the fraternity. And you are of course right that Lodges have a moral obligation to fulfill the promises we make to those asking about membership, but in too many cases fail in that obligation.
I think it then falls on each of us, as individual Masons to get these younger men pointed in a better direction than that of going NPD.
We have such diversity in our Lodges that we have a Lodge to fit every younger Initiate. The trick is I think, when we realize that the Lodge a young man has joined isn't meeting his needs, we need to get him into contact with a Lodge that will meet his needs.
I hate to have to say it, but I've had to do this with my own Lodge, pointing a younger Mason to a Lodge that will better meet his needs. It is a loss for my Lodge, but we would have lost the man to NPD anyway. This way, the Craft as a whole retains him, and he is able to find that which he joined us looking for.
Ultimately, it will be survival of the fittest. Lodges that are willing to do the work to consistently create great Masonic experiences are going to thrive into a bright future. Those that aren't willing will close.
One silver lining of the covid shutdown is that I got to participate in zoom meetings and presentations. There’s a lot going on in WA to rejuvenate Masonry.
The almost universal embrace of virtual communications by Masonry during Covid has certainly proven to be a boon. Never has the provision of interesting Masonic education been easier. And yes indeed, things are headed the right way in Washington!
I would say the sun is setting on the Craft the way it has been for the last few decades. Business meetings, the acquistion of degrees for the degree's sake and the lapel pin, the pure social club....that sort of Craft is dying. I would also say there is hope of a sunrise, in the sincere seeker of the esoteric, the true initiation, and the desire for authenticity that i have seen in newer brothers. I also see hope of a sunrise in the need of a moral and ethical grounding, free of the specific dogma of a particular religon, but grounded in the mystical traditions of the West. The sunset of the old guard, i think, is now inevitable, the hope of the sunrise is real and tangible, but by no means certain.
>>>Business meetings, the acquisition of degrees for the degree's sake and the lapel pin... that sort >>>of Craft is dying
I think you are correct on both of these points. Tonight I spent 2.5 or 3 hours at a Temple Board meeting. I look around, and I don't see much interest from many younger Masons in doing that.
But, when your Lodge owns the second largest building in a City, and it is a historic structure, and it has major commercial tenants, it is necessary.
So that begs the question in my mind:
Will Masonry have to simplify its business in order to meet the needs and desires of the men to come?
It isn't lost on me that a very significant percentage of the best Lodges in this Jurisdiction do not own their own buildings. In fact, it is in my view the overwhelming percentage. I often worry that our Real Estate holdings destroy Lodges. There are of course notable exceptions.
As for your second point, I can't argue it either. One of our Rites has devoted tremendous human and financial assets into building amazing Masonic educational programs, and it seems to be thriving. The other has not, and it seems to be dying. In this Jurisdiction anyway.
>>>I would also say there is hope of a sunrise, in the sincere seeker of the esoteric, the true initiation
Men have sought meaningful Initiation throughout human history, and I would agree that the fundamental drive will remain. Yet everyone seems so into solo experiences now, and I can't help but read a lot about 'self Initiation.' I'm not sure that self Initiation can truly be an Initiation, but others clearly do. I wonder how much impact that will have on our craft in the future.
>>>I also see hope of a sunrise in the need of a moral and ethical grounding, free of the specific >>>dogma of a particular religion, but grounded in the mystical traditions of the West.
Agreed. 100%. I think that there are times in history when this is needed much more than others, and that this is just such a time.
As far as building ownership, it depends. If the lodge or lodges own the building outright, and have successfully gained tax exempt status from the state, then other than maintenance, it’s not too bad. It’s when the lodge can’t, or won’t do the legwork for that property tax exemption is when things get hard. Then there is neglect and mismanagement of the property itself.
Just in my local area are very great examples of both.
Also, lodges that benefit from prior work building nest eggs to help keep the building running are in far better shape than others. Merging lodges and selling off duplicate property can be a godsend to the fraternity, although some folks might not see it that way.
I've been continually perplexed why our Lodges, so long ago, decided to build the buildings that they did, but not create endowments at the same time in order to ensure their continued maintenance. Perhaps they believed that the Craft would continue growing forever, but with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see the error of that choice.
I do agree that property tax exemptions can help a great deal, but I worry about the burden they shift. I'll post about that tomorrow.
I think there are a few answers that come to mind. I don’t have a lot of personal knowledge or experience on this subject, only speculation on my part.
Property taxes weren’t as onerous as they are now.
Lodges tended to do their own maintenance which saved them bushels of cash. Today men, generally, don’t have the skills as men a generation or older had. Also, technology has complicated modern systems.
My last lodge was a bit fortunate that back in the 70s a few men spent a lot of time raising money for the lodge. The biggest cash cow was bingo. They only quit when the state banned indoor smoking, which oddly, killed off the bingo crowd. But when I joined the lodge 10 years ago, they had over 100k cash invested, all thanks to those men that spent the time and effort to work for the lodges future.
Lodges are tightwads. They hate spending money and look for any shortcuts, which sometimes follows the old axiom you get what you pay for.
But yes, there are a ton of examples of lodge edifices that are vastly larger than needed, built at a time of rapid expansion by men thinking it’s only going to get bigger and better. It is only in hindsight we ask, what we’re they thinking?
I think you are certainly right about practical building skills. My Grandfather (not a construction guy by trade) built the house he died in a couple of years ago back in the late 1940's. I would not have the skills to do the same today. So yeah, a few decades back, they probably could do all that work themselves.
And yes, you are certainly right about governmental costs too. It costs more to get the permits to just get permission to build a structure now than the structure itself may have cost a few decades ago. That has certainly been a major contributor (ignored contributor) to the homelessness we see now, and of course it trickles down to our Lodges when they are required to go through those processes for major repairs or maintenance.
>>>So that begs the question in my mind: Will Masonry have to simplify its business in order to meet the needs and desires of the men to come? It isn't lost on me that a very significant percentage of the best Lodges in this Jurisdiction do not own their own buildings. In fact, it is in my view the overwhelming percentage. I often worry that our Real Estate holdings destroy Lodges. There are of course notable exceptions.<<< Many great insitutions, particularly religous and spiritual, have fallen victim to there own material success. Grand temples as an expression of the value of the path are powerful symbols, and can help sustain that organization, BUT you rightly point out that they can become anchors. I don't think there is an easy global way to address this, except to say if your temple is causing more problems than solving, then sell it and rent.
>>>Yet everyone seems so into solo experiences now, and I can't help but read a lot about 'self Initiation.' I'm not sure that self Initiation can truly be an Initiation, but others clearly do. I wonder how much impact that will have on our craft in the future.<<< Again i tend to agree, self iinitiation is a questionable path. I know it can work, but there are dangers. For example, as always, with spiritual development one of the biggest traps is ego inflation. If you self initiate, you alone decide if you are ready, and that is dangerous. Then again, many initiating institutions have abused the power that comes wiith initiation, and that is a good argument for solo work. There is also the issue of finding a qualified initiator, if they are in the phone book you should be suspicious! It is my opinion that if we offer real initiation, with real training and education, and live the lessons of those initiations then we would not have to worry about the impact of the self-initiating trend.
>>>Grand temples as an expression of the value of the path are powerful symbols, and can help >>>sustain that organization, BUT you rightly point out that they can become anchors. I don't think >>>there is an easy global way to address this, except to say if your temple is causing more >>>problems than solving, then sell it and rent.
Don't get me wrong, I do love our great buildings, from the ones everyone knows, to the more humble ones like the one in my hometown. But I worry a lot about the amount of time and energy it takes to keep up on them. I think that professional management is likely the answer in some cases, and I think that professional management can pay for itself through increased rentals, but I see Masons as a whole as extremely reluctant to take that step.
But you are right, there is no global solution, the answer will be different from Lodge to Lodge, building to building.
>>>It is my opinion that if we offer real initiation, with real training and education, and live the >>>lessons of those initiations then we would not have to worry about the impact of the self->>>initiating trend.
Looking at the Craft as a whole, I think we are moving towards that state, very slowly as with everything in Masonry, but a tiny bit more with each passing day.
It's actually growing . The newer generation I see are mature men who have served in the military who want the same kind of bonding that they had in the military. They are our future leadership and want active roles. More esoteric curiosity than previous generation. I have no doubt we'll survive, no doubt....
>>>More esoteric curiosity than previous generation.
I've noticed this too. Quite a lot actually. I think we do very well to ensure that our Lodges ensure that we are able to provide the esoteric content they are seeking. Or at the very least, be able to point them to the right path.
>>>I have no doubt we'll survive, no doubt....
Agreed. 100%. I firmly believe that the sun is rising.
Quality of quantity. Freemasonry today is more important today than ever. The Freemason today is more open to the differences that make us up right men and Masons. A generation or more ago we struggled within ourselves when it came to religions and race. We said that we allowed all Free Men but that was not the case. In many jurisdictions they were living a lie. The 'hold outs' of closed minded jurisdictions are ending and we as a Fraternity are growing. Quality or quantity. My 2c.
>>>The 'hold outs' of closed minded jurisdictions are ending
Yes indeed. Only a small handful left, and it will be a very bright day when the last one changes to finally embrace the Masonic promise of universal brotherhood among all good men.
It Depends. Lodges that offer true freemasonry (A special way of life and masonic education will survive and perhaps grow. Those that are only interested in fraternity will not
It all depends on how lodges meet the expectations of new members.
Also I think we need to come out of the cupboard. Masonry was once a visible aand active part of the community. Now it seems to hide as if it was ashamed.
>>>It all depends on how lodges meet the expectations of new members.
Over the past decades our membership loss curve was much steeper than our Lodge loss curve, resulting, in my Jurisdiction at least, in too many Lodges for the number of Masons in the Jurisdiction.
Based on that, I think that we will continue to lose Lodges, even while our membership rebounds.
And I think that you are certainly correct. Lodges that actually provide Freemasonry to their members will thrive into a bright future. Those that do not will be the Lodges that fail. Ultimately the success of each of our Lodges rests on our own shoulders.
As was relayed at the lodge leadership retreat last year, in examining the data, if we simply retain 50% of the brothers that quit masonry, we would be fine.
For years we’ve been told that advancing age and poor admissions are the reason for our declining numbers. While it is true that the average age of members is quite high, we’re actually gaining new members at a faster rate than brothers passing on. Younger men, willing and eager to explore the hidden mysteries we’ve been promising they would receive.
Eventually, however, those young men discover they have been sold a bill of goods that isn’t being delivered. So they quit. They just stop coming to lodge, and drop NPD, demit, or move on.
The fraternity can recover. The question is, are lodges willing to do what is necessary for that to happen? Time will tell.
Your point is well taken.
Some of our Lodges do not, or can not, meet the needs of the younger men they Initiate, and as you say, those young men leave the fraternity. And you are of course right that Lodges have a moral obligation to fulfill the promises we make to those asking about membership, but in too many cases fail in that obligation.
I think it then falls on each of us, as individual Masons to get these younger men pointed in a better direction than that of going NPD.
We have such diversity in our Lodges that we have a Lodge to fit every younger Initiate. The trick is I think, when we realize that the Lodge a young man has joined isn't meeting his needs, we need to get him into contact with a Lodge that will meet his needs.
I hate to have to say it, but I've had to do this with my own Lodge, pointing a younger Mason to a Lodge that will better meet his needs. It is a loss for my Lodge, but we would have lost the man to NPD anyway. This way, the Craft as a whole retains him, and he is able to find that which he joined us looking for.
Ultimately, it will be survival of the fittest. Lodges that are willing to do the work to consistently create great Masonic experiences are going to thrive into a bright future. Those that aren't willing will close.
I say rising.
One silver lining of the covid shutdown is that I got to participate in zoom meetings and presentations. There’s a lot going on in WA to rejuvenate Masonry.
The almost universal embrace of virtual communications by Masonry during Covid has certainly proven to be a boon. Never has the provision of interesting Masonic education been easier. And yes indeed, things are headed the right way in Washington!
I would say the sun is setting on the Craft the way it has been for the last few decades. Business meetings, the acquistion of degrees for the degree's sake and the lapel pin, the pure social club....that sort of Craft is dying. I would also say there is hope of a sunrise, in the sincere seeker of the esoteric, the true initiation, and the desire for authenticity that i have seen in newer brothers. I also see hope of a sunrise in the need of a moral and ethical grounding, free of the specific dogma of a particular religon, but grounded in the mystical traditions of the West. The sunset of the old guard, i think, is now inevitable, the hope of the sunrise is real and tangible, but by no means certain.
>>>Business meetings, the acquisition of degrees for the degree's sake and the lapel pin... that sort >>>of Craft is dying
I think you are correct on both of these points. Tonight I spent 2.5 or 3 hours at a Temple Board meeting. I look around, and I don't see much interest from many younger Masons in doing that.
But, when your Lodge owns the second largest building in a City, and it is a historic structure, and it has major commercial tenants, it is necessary.
So that begs the question in my mind:
Will Masonry have to simplify its business in order to meet the needs and desires of the men to come?
It isn't lost on me that a very significant percentage of the best Lodges in this Jurisdiction do not own their own buildings. In fact, it is in my view the overwhelming percentage. I often worry that our Real Estate holdings destroy Lodges. There are of course notable exceptions.
As for your second point, I can't argue it either. One of our Rites has devoted tremendous human and financial assets into building amazing Masonic educational programs, and it seems to be thriving. The other has not, and it seems to be dying. In this Jurisdiction anyway.
>>>I would also say there is hope of a sunrise, in the sincere seeker of the esoteric, the true initiation
Men have sought meaningful Initiation throughout human history, and I would agree that the fundamental drive will remain. Yet everyone seems so into solo experiences now, and I can't help but read a lot about 'self Initiation.' I'm not sure that self Initiation can truly be an Initiation, but others clearly do. I wonder how much impact that will have on our craft in the future.
>>>I also see hope of a sunrise in the need of a moral and ethical grounding, free of the specific >>>dogma of a particular religion, but grounded in the mystical traditions of the West.
Agreed. 100%. I think that there are times in history when this is needed much more than others, and that this is just such a time.
As far as building ownership, it depends. If the lodge or lodges own the building outright, and have successfully gained tax exempt status from the state, then other than maintenance, it’s not too bad. It’s when the lodge can’t, or won’t do the legwork for that property tax exemption is when things get hard. Then there is neglect and mismanagement of the property itself.
Just in my local area are very great examples of both.
Also, lodges that benefit from prior work building nest eggs to help keep the building running are in far better shape than others. Merging lodges and selling off duplicate property can be a godsend to the fraternity, although some folks might not see it that way.
I've been continually perplexed why our Lodges, so long ago, decided to build the buildings that they did, but not create endowments at the same time in order to ensure their continued maintenance. Perhaps they believed that the Craft would continue growing forever, but with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see the error of that choice.
I do agree that property tax exemptions can help a great deal, but I worry about the burden they shift. I'll post about that tomorrow.
I think there are a few answers that come to mind. I don’t have a lot of personal knowledge or experience on this subject, only speculation on my part.
Property taxes weren’t as onerous as they are now.
Lodges tended to do their own maintenance which saved them bushels of cash. Today men, generally, don’t have the skills as men a generation or older had. Also, technology has complicated modern systems.
My last lodge was a bit fortunate that back in the 70s a few men spent a lot of time raising money for the lodge. The biggest cash cow was bingo. They only quit when the state banned indoor smoking, which oddly, killed off the bingo crowd. But when I joined the lodge 10 years ago, they had over 100k cash invested, all thanks to those men that spent the time and effort to work for the lodges future.
Lodges are tightwads. They hate spending money and look for any shortcuts, which sometimes follows the old axiom you get what you pay for.
But yes, there are a ton of examples of lodge edifices that are vastly larger than needed, built at a time of rapid expansion by men thinking it’s only going to get bigger and better. It is only in hindsight we ask, what we’re they thinking?
I think you are certainly right about practical building skills. My Grandfather (not a construction guy by trade) built the house he died in a couple of years ago back in the late 1940's. I would not have the skills to do the same today. So yeah, a few decades back, they probably could do all that work themselves.
And yes, you are certainly right about governmental costs too. It costs more to get the permits to just get permission to build a structure now than the structure itself may have cost a few decades ago. That has certainly been a major contributor (ignored contributor) to the homelessness we see now, and of course it trickles down to our Lodges when they are required to go through those processes for major repairs or maintenance.
>>>So that begs the question in my mind: Will Masonry have to simplify its business in order to meet the needs and desires of the men to come? It isn't lost on me that a very significant percentage of the best Lodges in this Jurisdiction do not own their own buildings. In fact, it is in my view the overwhelming percentage. I often worry that our Real Estate holdings destroy Lodges. There are of course notable exceptions.<<< Many great insitutions, particularly religous and spiritual, have fallen victim to there own material success. Grand temples as an expression of the value of the path are powerful symbols, and can help sustain that organization, BUT you rightly point out that they can become anchors. I don't think there is an easy global way to address this, except to say if your temple is causing more problems than solving, then sell it and rent.
>>>Yet everyone seems so into solo experiences now, and I can't help but read a lot about 'self Initiation.' I'm not sure that self Initiation can truly be an Initiation, but others clearly do. I wonder how much impact that will have on our craft in the future.<<< Again i tend to agree, self iinitiation is a questionable path. I know it can work, but there are dangers. For example, as always, with spiritual development one of the biggest traps is ego inflation. If you self initiate, you alone decide if you are ready, and that is dangerous. Then again, many initiating institutions have abused the power that comes wiith initiation, and that is a good argument for solo work. There is also the issue of finding a qualified initiator, if they are in the phone book you should be suspicious! It is my opinion that if we offer real initiation, with real training and education, and live the lessons of those initiations then we would not have to worry about the impact of the self-initiating trend.
>>>Grand temples as an expression of the value of the path are powerful symbols, and can help >>>sustain that organization, BUT you rightly point out that they can become anchors. I don't think >>>there is an easy global way to address this, except to say if your temple is causing more >>>problems than solving, then sell it and rent.
Don't get me wrong, I do love our great buildings, from the ones everyone knows, to the more humble ones like the one in my hometown. But I worry a lot about the amount of time and energy it takes to keep up on them. I think that professional management is likely the answer in some cases, and I think that professional management can pay for itself through increased rentals, but I see Masons as a whole as extremely reluctant to take that step.
But you are right, there is no global solution, the answer will be different from Lodge to Lodge, building to building.
>>>It is my opinion that if we offer real initiation, with real training and education, and live the >>>lessons of those initiations then we would not have to worry about the impact of the self->>>initiating trend.
Looking at the Craft as a whole, I think we are moving towards that state, very slowly as with everything in Masonry, but a tiny bit more with each passing day.