What
is a Mason ?
What
is Masonry ?
How
did Masonry get to America ?
What is
a Masonic Lodge ?
What
goes on in a Lodge ?
What
does Masonry do in the World ?
What
does Masonry do to the individual Mason ?
Why
do Masons enjoy each others company ?
What
is a Degree ?
Why
is Masonry so secretive ?
Is
Masonry a religion ?
What
is the Masonic bible ?
Why
do we use rituals ?
Why
does Masonry use symbols ?
Is
Masonry a education ?
What
does Masonry teach ?
What
are the requirements for membership ?
How
does a man become a Mason ?
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What
Is a Mason
That's not a surprising question.
Even though Masons
(Freemasons) are members of the
largest and oldest fraternity in the
world, and even though almost everyone has a father or
grandfather or uncle who was a
Mason, many people aren't
quite certain
just who Masons are.
The answer is simple. A Mason
(or Freemason) is a member of a fraternity known as Masonry (or Freemasonry).
A fraternity is a group of men
(just as a sorority is a group of women) who join together because:
There are things they want to do in the world.
There are things they want to do "inside their own minds."
They enjoy being together with men they like and respect.
(We'll look at some of these things later.)
Masonry (or Freemasonry) is
the oldest fraternity in the world. No
one knows just how old it is because the actual origins havebeen lost in
time. Probably, it arose from the guilds of stonemasons
who built the castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages.
Possibly, they were influenced by the Knights Templar, agroup of Christian
warrior monks formed in 1118 to help protect pilgrims
making trips to the Holy Land. In 1717, Masonry created
a formal organization in England when the first Grand Lodge
was formed. A Grand Lodge is the administrative body in charge
of Masonry in some geographical area. In the UnitedStates, there
is a Grand Lodge in each state. In Canada, there
is a Grand Lodge in each province.
Local organizations of
Masons are called lodges.
There are lodges in most towns, and large
cities usually have several. There are about 13,200
lodges in the United States.
If
Masonry started in Great Britain,
how did it get to America?
In a time when travel was by horseback and sailing ship, Masonry spread with amazing speed. By 1731, when Benjamin Franklin joined the fraternity, there were already several lodges in the Colonies, and Masonry spread rapidly as America expanded west. In addition to Franklin, many of the Founding Fathers -- men such as George Washington, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, and John Hancock -- were Masons. Masons and Masonry played an important part in the Revolutionary War and an even more important part in the Constitutional Convention and the debates surrounding the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Many of those debates were held in Masonic lodges.
The word "lodge" means both a group of Masons meeting in some place and the room or building in which they meet. Masonic buildings are also sometimes called "temples" because much of the symbolism Masonry uses to teach its lessons comes from the building of King Solomon's Temple in the Holy Land. The term "lodge" itself comes from the structures which the stonemasons built against the sides of the cathedrals during construction. In winter, when building had to stop, they lived in these lodges and worked at carving stone.
Since Masonry came to America from
England, we still use the English
floor plan and English titles for the officers. The
Worshipful Master of the Lodge
sits in the East ("Worshipful" is an
English term of respect which means the same thing as
"Honorable.") He is called
the Master of the lodge for the same reason
that the leader of an orchestra is called the "Concert Master."
It's simply an older term for "Leader." In other organizations,
he would be called "President." The Senior and Junior
Wardens are the First and Second Vice-Presidents. TheDeacons are
messengers and the Stewards have charge of refreshments.
Every lodge has an altar holding a "Volume of the Sacred
Law." In the United States and Canada, that is almostalways a Bible.
This is a good place to repeat
what we said earlier about why
men become Masons: There
are things they want to do in the
world. There are things they
want to do "inside their own
minds." They enjoy being
together with men they like and
respect. The Lodge is the
center of those activities.
Masonry teaches that each
person has a responsibility to make things
better in the world. Most individuals won't be the ones
to find a cure for cancer, or eliminate
poverty, or help create
world peace, but every man and
woman and child can do something to help others and to make things a little
better. Masonry is deeply involved with helping people -- it spends
more than $1.4 million dollars every day in the United States, just to
make life a little easier. And the great majority of that help goes
to people who are not Masons. Some of these charities are vast projects,
like the Crippled Children's Hospitals and Burns Institutes built by the
Shriners. Also, Scottish Rite Masons maintain a nationwide network
of over 100 Childhood Language Disorders Clinics, Centers, and Programs.
Each helps children afflicted by such conditions as aphasia, dyslexia,
stuttering, and related learning or speech disorders. Some services
are less noticeable, like helping a widow pay her electric bill or buying
coats and shoes for disadvantaged children. And there's just about
anything you can think of in-between. But withprojects large or small,
the Masons of a lodge try to help make the world a better place.
The lodge gives them a way to combine with others to do even more good.
"Grow or die" is a great law
of all nature. Most people feel a
need for continued growth and development
as individuals. They feel they are not as honest or as charitable
or as compassionate or as loving or as trusting as they ought to be.
Masonry reminds its members over and over again of the importance of these
qualities. It lets men associate with other men of honor and integrity
who believe that things like honesty and compassion and love and trust
are important. In some ways, Masonry is a support group for men who
are trying to make the right decisions. It's easier to practice these
virtues when you know that those around you think they are important, too,
and won't laugh at you. That's a major reason that Masons enjoy being
together.
It's good to spend time with
people you can trust completely,
and most Masons find that in their
lodge. While much of lodge activity
is spent in works of charity or in lessons in
self-development, much is also
spent in fellowship. Lodges have picnics, camping trips, and many
events for the whole family. Simply put, a lodge is a place to spend time
with friends.
For members only, two basic kinds
of meetings take place in a
lodge. The most common is
a simple business meeting. To open and close the meeting, there is
a ceremony whose purpose is to remind us of the virtues by which we are
supposed to live. Then there is a reading of the minutes; voting
on petitions (applications
of men who want to join the fraternity); planning for
charitable functions, family events, and other lodge activities;
and sharing information about members (called "Brothers,"
as in most fraternities) who are ill or have some sort
of need. The other kind of meeting is one in which peoplejoin the
fraternity -- one at which the "degrees" are performed.
But every lodge serves more than its own members. Frequently, there are meetings open to the public. Examples are Ladies'Nights, public installations of officers, Cornerstone Laying ceremonies, and other special meetings supporting community events and dealing with topics of local interest.
A degree is a stage or level of
membership. It's also the
ceremony by which a man attains
that level of membership. Thereare three, called Entered Apprentice,
Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. As you can see, the names are taken
from the craft guilds. In the Middle Ages, when
a person wanted to join a craft,
such as the gold smiths or the carpenters or the
stonemasons, he was first apprenticed.
As an apprentice, he
learned the tools and skills of
the trade. When he had proved
his skills, he became a "Fellow
of the Craft" (today we would
say "Journeyman"), and when he
had exceptional ability, he was known
as a Master of the Craft.
The degrees are plays in which the candidate participates. Each degree uses symbols to teach, just as plays did in the Middle Ages and as many theatrical productions do today. (We'll talkabout symbols a little later.)
The Masonic degrees teach the great
lessons of life -- the
importance of honor and integrity,
of being a person on whom
others can rely, of being both
trusting and trustworthy, of
realizing that you have a spiritual
nature as well as a physical
or animal nature, of the importance
of self-control, of knowing how
to love and be loved, of knowing how to keep confidentialwhat others tell
you so that they can "open up" without fear.
It really isn't "secretive,"
although it sometimes has that
reputation. Masons certainly
don't make a secret of the fact
that they are members of the fraternity.
We wear rings, lapel
pins and tie tacks with Masonic
emblems like the Square and
Compasses, the best known of Masonic
signs which, logically,
recalls the fraternity's roots
in stonemasonry. Masonic
buildings are clearly marked, and
are usually listed in the
phone book. Lodge activities
are not secret; picnics and other
events are even listed in the newspapers,
especially in smaller
towns. Many lodges have answering
machines which give the
upcoming lodge activities.
But there are some Masonic secrets, and
they fall into two categories.
The first are the ways in which
a man can identify himself as a
Mason--grips and passwords.
We keep those private for obvious reasons. It
is not at all unknown for unscrupulous people to try
to pass themselves off as Masons in order to get assistance under
false pretenses.
The second group is harder to describe,
but they are the ones
Masons usually mean if we talk
about "Masonic secrets." They are
secrets because they literally can't be talked about, can'tbe put into
words. They are the changes that happen to a man when
he really accepts responsibility for his own life and, atthe same time,
truly decides that his real happiness is in
helping others.
It's a wonderful feeling, but it's
something you simply can't
explain to another person.
That's why we sometimes say that
Masonic secrets cannot ( rather
than "may not") be told. Try
telling someone exactly what you
feel when you see a beautiful sunset,
or when you hear music, like the national anthem, which suddenly
stirs old memories, and you'll understand what we mean.
"Secret societies" became very popular
in America in the late
1800s and early 1900s. There
were literally hundreds of them, and
most people belonged to two or three. Many of them weremodeled on
Masonry, and made a great point of having many "secrets."
And Masonry got ranked with them. But if Masonry is a
secret society, it's the worst-kept secret in town.
The answer to that question is simple. No. We do use ritual in the meetings, and because there is always an altar or table withthe Volume of the Sacred Law open if a lodge is meeting, some people have confused Masonry with a religion, but it is not. That does not mean that religion plays no part in Masonry -- it plays a very important part. A person who wants to become a Mason must have a belief in God. No atheist can ever become aMason. Meetings open with prayer, and a Mason is taught, as one of the first lessons of Masonry, that one should pray for divine counsel and guidance before starting an important undertaking. But that does not make Masonry a "religion."
Sometimes people confuse Masonry with a religion because we call some Masonic buildings "temples." But we use the word in the same sense that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Supreme Court a "Temple of Justice" and because a Masonic lodge is a symbol of the Temple of Solomon. Neither Masonry nor the Supreme Court is a religion just because its members meet in a "temple."
In some ways, the relationship between
Masonry and religion is like
the relationship between the Parent-Teacher Association
(the P.T.A.) and education.
Members of the P.T.A. believe in
the importance of education.
They support it. They assert that no
man or woman can be a complete and whole individual or live up
to his or her full potential without education. They
encourage students to stay in school
and parents to be involved with
the education of their children. They may give
scholarships. They encourage
their members to get involved with and support their
individual schools.
But there are some things P.T.A.s
do not do. They don't teach. They
don't tell people which school to attend. They don't try
to tell people what they should
study or what their major should be.
In much the same way, Masons believe
in the importance of
religion. Masonry encourages
every Mason to be active in the
religion and church of his own
choice. Masonry teaches that,
without religion, a man is alone
and lost, and that without
religion, he can never reach his
full potential.
But Freemasonry does not tell a
person which religion he should practice
or how he should practice it. That is between the individual
and God. That is the function of his house of
worship, not his fraternity.
And Masonry is a fraternity, not a
religion.
Bibles are popular gifts among Masons, frequently given to a man when he joins the lodge or at other special events. A Masonic Bible is the same book anyone thinks of as a Bible (it's usually the King James translation) with a special page in the front on which to write the name of the person who is receiving it and the occasion on which it is given. Sometimes there is a specialindex or information section which shows the person where in the Bible to find the passages which are quoted in the Masonic ritual.
Many of us may think of religion
when we think of ritual, but
ritual is used in every aspect
of life. It's so much a part of
us that we just don't notice it.
Ritual simply means that some
things are done more or less the
same way each time.
Almost all school assemblies, for
example, start with the
principal or some other official
calling for the attention of
the group. Then the group
is led in the Pledge of Allegiance.
A school choir or the entire group
may sing the school song.
That's a ritual.
Almost all business meetings of
every sort call the group to
order, have a reading of the minutes
of the last meeting, deal
with old business, then with new
business. That's a ritual.
Most groups use Robert's Rules
of Order to conduct a meeting. That's
probably the best-known book of ritual in the world.
There are social rituals which tell
us how to meet people (we
shake hands), how to join a conversation
(we wait for a pause,
and then speak), how to buy tickets
to a concert (we wait in
line and don't push in ahead of
those who were there first).
There are literally hundreds of
examples, and they are all
rituals.
Masonry uses a ritual because it's
an effective way to teach
important ideas-- the values we've
talked about earlier. And it
reminds us where we are, just as
the ritual of a business
meeting reminds people where they
are and what they are supposed to be doing.
Masonry's ritual is very rich because
it is so old. It has
developed over centuries to contain
some beautiful language and ideas expressed in symbols.
But there's nothing unusual in
using ritual. All of us do
it every day.
Everyone uses symbols every day, just as we do ritual. We use them because they communicate quickly. When you see a stop sign, you know what it means, even if you can't read the word"stop." The circle and line mean "don't" or "not allowed." In fact, using symbols is probably the oldest way of communication and the oldest way of teaching.
Masonry uses symbols for the same
reason. Some form of the
"Square and Compasses" is the most
widely used and known symbol of Masonry. In
one way, this symbol is a kind of trademark for the
fraternity, as the "golden arches" are for McDonald's. Whenyou see
the Square and Compasses on a building, you know that Masons
meet there.
And like all symbols, they have a meaning.
The Square symbolizes things of
the earth, and it also
symbolizes honor, integrity, truthfulness,
and the other ways we should
relate to this world and the people in it. The Compassessymbolize things
of the spirit, and the importance of a well-developed
spiritual life, and also the importance of
self-control -- of keeping ourselves
within bounds. The G stands for Geometry, the science
which the ancients believed most revealed
the glory of God and His works in the heavens, and it also
stands for God, Who must be at the center of all our thoughts
and of all our efforts.
The meanings of most of the other
Masonic symbols are obvious. The gavel teaches the
importance of self-control and
self-discipline. The hourglass
teaches us that time is always
passing, and we should not put
off important decisions.
Yes. In a very real sense, education
is at the center of
Masonry. We have stressed
its importance for a very long time. Back
in the Middle Ages, schools were held in the lodges of stonemasons.
You have to know a lot to build a cathedral -- geometry,
and structural engineering, and mathematics, just for a
start. And that education was not very widely available. All
the formal schools and colleges trained
people for careers in the
church, or in law or medicine. And you had to be a memberof the social
upper classes to go to those schools. Stonemasons did
not come from the aristocracy. And so the lodges had toteach the
necessary skills and information. Freemasonry's dedication
to education started there.
It has continued. Masons started
some of the first public
schools in both Europe and America.
We supported legislation to make education universal.
In the 1800s Masons as a group lobbied
for the establishment of state supported education and federal
land grant colleges. Today we give millions of dollarsin scholarships
each year. We encourage our members to give volunteer
time to their local schools, buy classroom supplies for
teachers, help with literacy programs, and do everythingthey can to help
assure that each person, adult or child, has the
best educational opportunities possible. And Masonrysupports continuing
education and intellectual growth for its members,
insisting that learning more about many things is important
for anyone who wants to keep mentally alert and young.
Masonry teaches some important principles. There's nothing very surprising in the list. Masonry teaches that:
Since God is the Creator, all men
and women are the children of God.
Because of that, all men and women are brothers and
sisters, entitled to dignity, respect
for their opinions, and
consideration of their feelings.
Each person must take responsibility
for his/her own life and
actions. Neither wealth nor
poverty, education nor ignorance,
health nor sickness excuses any
person from doing the best he
or she can
do or being the best person possible under the
circumstances.
No one has the right to tell another
person what he or she must think
or believe. Each man and woman has an absolute right tointellectual,
spiritual, economic, and political freedom. This
is a right given by God, not by
man. All tyranny, in every
form, is illegitimate.
Each person must learn and practice
self-control. Each person
must make sure his spiritual nature
triumphs over his animal
nature. Another way to say
the same thing is that even when we are
tempted to anger, we must not be violent. Even when we aretempted
to selfishness, we must be charitable. Even when wewant to "write
someone off," we must remember that he or she is a
human and entitled to our respect. Even when we want to giveup, we
must go on. Even when we are hated, we must return love, or,
at a minimum, we must not hate back. It isn't easy!
Faith must be in the center of our
lives. We find that faith in
our houses of worship, not in Freemasonry,
but Masonry
constantly teaches that a person's
faith, whatever it may be, is
central to a good life.
Each person has a responsibly to
be a good citizen, obeying the law.
That doesn't mean we can't try to change things, but
change must take place in legal
ways.
It is important to work to
make this world better for all who
live in it. Masonry teaches
the importance of doing good, not
because it assures a person's entrance
into heaven -- that's a
question for a religion, not a
fraternity -- but because we have
a duty to all other men and women
to make their lives as
fulfilling as they can be.
Honor and integrity are essential
to life. Life, without honor
and integrity, is without meaning.
The person who wants to join Masonry
must be a man (it's a
fraternity), sound in body and
mind, who believes in God, is at
least the minimum age required
by Masonry in his state, and has a
good reputation. (Incidentally, the "sound in body"
requirement -- which comes from
the stonemasons of the Middle Ages -- doesn't mean
that a physically challenged man cannot be a
Mason; many are).
Those are the only "formal" requirements.
But there are others, not
so formal. He should believe in helping others. He should
believe there is more to life than
pleasure and money. He should
be willing to respect the opinions of others. And he
should want to grow and develop
as a human being.
Some men are surprised that no one has ever asked them to become a Mason. They may even feel that the Masons in their town don't think they are "good enough" to join. But it doesn't work that way. For hundreds of years, Masons have been forbidden to ask others to join the fraternity. We can talk to friends about Masonry, we can tell them about what Masonry does. We can tell them why we enjoy it. But we can't ask, much less pressureanyone to join.
There's a good reason for that.
It isn't that we're trying to
be exclusive. But becoming
a Mason is a very serious thing.
Joining Masonry is making a permanent
life commitment to live in certain ways. We've
listed most of them above -- to live with honor
and integrity, to be willing to share and care about
others, to trust each other, and
to place ultimate trust in God.
No one should be "talked
into" making such a decision.
So, when a man decides he wants
to be a Mason, he asks a Mason for a petition or application.
He fills it out and gives it to the
Mason, and that Mason takes it to the local lodge. The
Master of the lodge will appoint
a committee to visit with the
man and his family, find out a
little about him and why he wants to
be a Mason, tell him and his family about Masonry, and answer their
questions. The committee reports to the lodge, and the lodge
votes on the petition. If the vote is affirmative -- and
it usually is -- the lodge will contact
the man to set the date
for the Entered Apprentice Degree. When the person has
completed all three degrees, he is
a Master Mason and a full member
of the fraternity.
(Adapted from
an on-line version of a pamphlet "What's a Mason?",
by the Masonic Service Association)