I seriously can’t tell the difference. Fun all around.
Breaking the Silence
Dear Unknown Friend,
More than a year has passed since imposed my year and one day of silence. 
Today I break that silence. I’ve not come to any solid ideas on how or whether to continue using this forum. It has benefits, it has (the ability to expose my) risks.
In either case, I upgraded to the latest version of wordpress, and behold I’ll have to pull content out of archives to restore it here. I do apologize to any of you who hold an interest in my – how was it termed – bloviations.
Today I found myself thinking about an old observation of mine – the language of Grand Lodge Codes. I don’t purport any expertise in evaluating language or Grand Lodge Codes. However, I do have a concern about the language in some Grand Lodge codes – Negative focus.
By definition a Code communicates a set of moral and ethical expectations, and discloses the retribution for violations there of.
I invite you to review your Grand Lodge’s Code, and count the number of offenses it takes to loose a Lodge charter. Now count the number of ways to obtain a charter. Compare those numbers. I think you’ll find the number of ways to loose a charter greatly out numbers the ways to obtain one.
My point, I suspect you’ll find more effort is spent in the Code describing the ways to offend our common sense of morality than is spent on ways to support it.
My concern is the psychological impact of a governing document which focuses disproportionately on offenses to a moral code. What sort of world view is fostered by a society whose governance originates from a position that guides one to avoid offenses, instead of satisfying the expectation?
Just an observation, no conclusions or calls to action.
Marks, Masters, and Marrow Filled Bones
Mysteries upon Mysteries within the Mark Master Degree.
Dear Unknown Friend,
This was my presentation at the recent Mark Master Degree of Utah Chapter No. 1 RAM. Posted by request.
J.
Companions,
When you arrived this evening, as Master Masons you stood at the threshold of the higher mysteries of Masonry. Having now been advanced to the Degree of Mark Master, you have crossed that threshold. I do not say this casually, for in partaking in this Degree, you have entered into a matter that has invigorated and hounded the Craft since 1717. As Brother Lawrence Dermotts recollects it (and I am quoting here from F. P. de Castells Origin the Masonic Degrees – Page 86):
some joyous companions (not the difference, not Brothers) having passed through the Craft Degrees, though very rusty, resolved in 1717 to set up a new Masonic organization, and for this endeavor by conversation to recollect what had formerly been dictated to them; and failing such recollection to substitute something new, which might for the future pass for Masonry and it was resolved that the deficiency should be made up, with a new composition utilizing what fragments of the old order could still be found among them.Â
As a Master Mason, you have only been told a small part of the story. We all know the story of Hiramic Legend and the building of the Temple; but the second part, some five hundred years later in the narrative under different Masters during the rebuilding, and the joyous discoveries there found was largely forgotten. Our predecessors could not recall what happened next, and with the records of English Lodges lost to the Great Fire, there was no way to reclaim Masonry and through contrivance you have been left at the door of the Lodge, with nothing more than a substitute.
You see my companions, the Master Mason degree as organized by PGL was incomplete. The mysteries of Accepted Masons were not known to them some even speculate that Anderson purposely destroyed them at St. Paul’s Lodge. But whether by accident or will, our predecessors had no way to reclaim the later legend, and therefore no way to pass it down to you. It wasn’t until some renegade Irish Lodges set about to share what was lost, that the door could be opened.
Following that, we are here today, ushering you across that threshold into a current of Masonry from which the Blue Lodge takes its origin, its cues, and its composition in all forms, and yet of which it is utterly ignorant. Thus my Brothers, you have crossed into the higher mysteries of Masonry.
Schawe’s Statutes makes mention of a Masons Mark, so we know that our operative Brethren made use of a mark, at least as far back as 1598 in Scotland. The statute reads
“that no Master or Fellowcraft is to be received or admitted, except in presence 6 Masters and 2 Entered Apprentices, the Warden of the Lodge being one of the sic, the date thereof being orderly book, and his name and mark insertedâ€Â.
These are a few but among a vast number of references to the practice of the Mark, and its use prior to the Master Mason degree known to us today. And so to the mysteries lost to our esteemed processors I welcome.
But there is another mystery, one concerned not with the practice of the Mark, but encapsulated within the legend of the degree itself. The use of a Masons Mark is very old, a practicing dating back well into hallowed antiquity. But the point when Accepted Masons entered into the equation makes for us a new point of inquiry into this degree, and the higher mysteries. The Mark book of Aberdeen Lodge (1670) is where we start this journey. In it find the first Accepted – non-operative – Masons receiving the Mark. It records 49 names, the bulk of which aren’t operative. 45 of which affixed marks.
The mysteries of Accepted Masonry, and I would point out that Accepted Masonry has no secrets: secrets are only facts/procedures/practices or doctrines kept privately for personal motive since these facts/procedures/practices/doctrines are able to be understood and put into practice by anyone. A mystery is a spiritual event, comparable to birth and death. It is a change of ones entire spiritual, emotional, mental, and religious motivations, it prompts a change in perception.Â
As I was saying… The mysteries of Accepted Masonry, are started upon with this Degree. The journey wherein you explore, change or affirm your entire spiritual, emotional, and mental motivations. My companions compare the tools of this Degree with the mystery, to the meaning of a mystery: the Engraver’s Chisel and the Mallet used to make a long and lasting impression on your future life and conduct: a mystery, a change to your spiritual, emotional, mental, and religious future.
The legend of the drama of this degree puts you upon a path our operative Brothers knew nothing of. The stone that the builders rejected is at once the beginning and end of this journey, and permeates throughout the story
This is no accident. The triune nature of the legend (alpha-substances-omega), the stone that the builders rejected itself, the movement from square work to circular work, all this speaks of a greater mystery – the mystery our joyous companions find five hundred years advanced from the narrative we have demonstrated for you tonight.  And it is at that point that we hope to one day find you, exalted.
In closing, I would like to thank all of you for attending tonight – new companions, and the cast. To our new companions however, I would like to especially say that it is a joy to meet you all here at the beginning, and I wish you all well on your Masonic journey.
Â
J.
Bling Goggles
To me, the most important title is the first one you receive, Brother. This small word  reveals the analogy by which Masonry, esoteric or exoteric,  operates and achieves magnanimity.
During my first meeting sitting in the East, I tried to stress no one is Worshipful Master. No one is a Warden. No one is any office whatsoever. Each of us are but temporary custodians of these Offices, and if, in our execution we come to closely emulate the principles of the Office, and our Brothers choose to call us this or that title, then we are lucky.
But I received further instruction into bling from a phone call today
Bro) How’s it going?
Me) Just a little stress. Brothers not talking to each other.
Bro) There is a lot of that going around.
Me) More than you know.
Bro) It has to do with bling.
Me) You are so right. Brothers without bling, refuse to talk to anyone they think might have bling; and when the bling comes off, the Brothers without it, sustain the illusion that the bling is on.
Bro) Well, I don’t know anything about that.
This call illustrates the point that Masons are Bling-Goggled, but what I had not previously understood is this works bidirectionally.
Without a doubt there are Masons who seek titles and bling, just to hold it it over everyone else.
This I expect. It comes with any territory, and while I do not condone it, it is human nature, and therefore it can be expected. That it is expected means, it is not without a measure of control.
However, I never expected the number of Brothers who make assuming bling equals corruption; and that all Officers, even a Steward, are evil, corrupt, agenda driven, and incapable of Brotherhood.
I see this a underhanded. A Brother is called to serve. Does so. And is hated for their service, by the very Brothers who called him to serve.
So the conclusion is this, I guess: Some Brothers choose to condemn others because of a perception of bling. Some Brothers seek bling, and condemn those who don’t have it.
By this logic, everyone is corrupt and condemned, so can we just admit that everyone has violated their Oaths, rebuild bridges, and get on with the business at hand? Are we capable of admitting that the source of our heartbreak is within our own shortcomings, and not those of someone else?
Related Reading
Masonry and Alchemy
Dear Unknown Friend,
Some thoughts, as I poke around a copy of the Register House Manuscript (1696) – documents from the 17th and 18th century clearly establish that many Speculative (perhaps even Accepted) Masons in Scotland (and the UK), believed a connection between Masonry with Rosicrucianism.
Rosicrucianism is a peculiarly protestant (and German) vein of hermeticism, itself being an amalgam of Olympic/alchemical/enochian/kabbalistic practices/philosophies, holding a particular reverence for alchemy. Alchemy has as its chief – and as of yet unattainable – aim the crafting of a stone, which possesses the power to transmute metals.
We as Masons, style ourselves workers in stone, having placed as the chief Craftsman of all time (note the participation in a Trinity), a mythic character whose work, was not primarily stone, but in alloys (transmuted metals): homogeneous mixtures of two elements, resulting in a substance with different properties from those of its components. Not unlike the rebis (two of one things).
The parallels are intriguing, if nothing else.
Recommend Reading:
Freemasonry: A History, Angel Millar.
The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590 to 1710, David Stevenson
PoTS
J.