The following question was asked on social media recently:
“In the vast history of Freemasonry, if you could go back in time and stop something what would that be?”
MW Robert Davis, The Grand Master of Oklahoma gave the following answer:
“I think it may be the vast influx of members during and after WWII. That generation never looked back at the history of our Order and how the fraternity tried to adapt to meet the needs of men in every prior generation before them. They experienced only the ritual; and the ritual became our only interest. They never embraced the philosophy, or Masonry as a transformative art.”
Someone sought clarification, so Most Worshipful Davis continued:
“…there were many great Mason’s from that era. They lived the tenets of Masonry in their heart. But there was little or no regular discussion about the meanings behind the ritual words. There were no philosophical discussions in lodge. They knew little of the meaning of the allegories. They were taught that the language delivered in the degrees was all there was. And it was a rare man who delved into the history of our past. They were simply happy with the fellowship of men.
If all this sounds familiar in today’s time, it is because that is what they passed down to us. We have not moved beyond the way they practiced Masonry. And it is one reason our participation rate is so low. They gave Freemasonry only one interest group to copy; the small group that meets every other week, opens, pays the bills, and closes lodge. They didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t entirely their fault. Nobody taught them anything but the words.”
If you enjoy Emeth, will you consider forwarding this email to your Brothers?
It currently goes out to 224 Masons each morning. I would like to see if we can get that up to 250 by the time Sunday’s essay goes out. If you’ll forward it to a few of your Lodge friends, we can get there.
The more subscribers we have, the more participation we will have in our discussions, and I think that the greater number of voices participating, the better each discussion will become. That of course results in better Masonic knowledge for us all, improving ourselves, and in turn, improving our Lodges.
I think the above observations are accurate, but incomplete. For example. when that large cohort of men came home from WWII and sought out Masonry our numbers soared, and in many cases we built big Lodges to accommodate the numbers, and when new member numbers slumped in the 60s those big temples became expensive and have weighed down some of our Lodges ever since. Today as our numbers continue to drop we have a lot of Lodges that are barely hanging on, and it's understandable that the stresses of survival distract the brethren in those Lodges. I would also suggest that the pressure to bring in dues paying members to support the big Lodge buildings might have relaxed our requirements of new members.
I also think you can't view the experience of our Lodges without doing so in the context of our larger society. I think it's safe to say that short of being conquered or devastated by natural disaster no society has seen the magnitude of change that our society has in the last 100 years, and there have been oscillations in attitudes concerning the spiritual and esoteric. It seems the effect on this flux in attitudes about the esoteric has influenced us into a safe, nonthreatening place of flatness. During the 60s and 70s, among many young men I think Masonry was viewed as an old man's supper club, and some of the great minds we might have attracted went elsewhere. There are many options today to explore the esoteric and spiritual in a group setting, and I think we need to understand that if that is what a man is looking for, and he sees business meeting after business meeting he will move on to another option.
So, yeah I agree with the statement above, but I think in studying that data point we will discover many important lessons.
Affecting change within the lodge will take a massive amount of time and effort, but probably less and less effort as time goes on. The immovable object of the crusty old PM is the rock under the wheels of progress. The younger generations joining the lodges will eventually be running things, and can make those needed changes we all recognize need to be made.
Questions we should be asking in lodge:
Do you think that memorizing the ritual is the ultimate goal of being a freemason?
Do you think that the masons in the 18th century held their meetings the same way as we do today? This is sort of rhetorical, as no one can say with a straight face that they did).
If not, then what was their meetings like?
Do you think that is more closely aligned with freemasonry than what we're experiencing today?
I think the above observations are accurate, but incomplete. For example. when that large cohort of men came home from WWII and sought out Masonry our numbers soared, and in many cases we built big Lodges to accommodate the numbers, and when new member numbers slumped in the 60s those big temples became expensive and have weighed down some of our Lodges ever since. Today as our numbers continue to drop we have a lot of Lodges that are barely hanging on, and it's understandable that the stresses of survival distract the brethren in those Lodges. I would also suggest that the pressure to bring in dues paying members to support the big Lodge buildings might have relaxed our requirements of new members.
I also think you can't view the experience of our Lodges without doing so in the context of our larger society. I think it's safe to say that short of being conquered or devastated by natural disaster no society has seen the magnitude of change that our society has in the last 100 years, and there have been oscillations in attitudes concerning the spiritual and esoteric. It seems the effect on this flux in attitudes about the esoteric has influenced us into a safe, nonthreatening place of flatness. During the 60s and 70s, among many young men I think Masonry was viewed as an old man's supper club, and some of the great minds we might have attracted went elsewhere. There are many options today to explore the esoteric and spiritual in a group setting, and I think we need to understand that if that is what a man is looking for, and he sees business meeting after business meeting he will move on to another option.
So, yeah I agree with the statement above, but I think in studying that data point we will discover many important lessons.
Affecting change within the lodge will take a massive amount of time and effort, but probably less and less effort as time goes on. The immovable object of the crusty old PM is the rock under the wheels of progress. The younger generations joining the lodges will eventually be running things, and can make those needed changes we all recognize need to be made.
Questions we should be asking in lodge:
Do you think that memorizing the ritual is the ultimate goal of being a freemason?
Do you think that the masons in the 18th century held their meetings the same way as we do today? This is sort of rhetorical, as no one can say with a straight face that they did).
If not, then what was their meetings like?
Do you think that is more closely aligned with freemasonry than what we're experiencing today?
If so, then why aren't we doing that?