Freemasonry what for by Martin ster brought to you by Masonic audiobook Library a question which always comes up when a Mason talks to another Mason or a non-m mason or a mason or vice versa is about what good is masonry and what its members can do that is useful
Interesting or both because if it was neither useful nor interesting it would be much better to look for something else why be a Mason rather than a member of a perfectly respectable organization such as the Red Cross the Lions Club the rotary a poiter a political party or
Finally the most widespread type of organization in the world with Branch offices at practically every street corner sounding board of public opinion the neighborhood bar let’s give the matter a good look but before being a able to outline the beginning of a reply to this question it would seem necessary
To have a rather clear and accurate idea of what Freemasonry really is this is not too simple because our craft you see which is quite widespread throughout the world while not at all Universal as many people think has taken many varied guises one should not imagine a monolithic masonry a gigantic crowd
Marching In step we are very far from being that and that’s a good thing each country has its masonry more or less multiform and even in France it is made of half a dozen independent bodies with their own concerns their own methods their own methods their own ideas and
Often their own ideologies this is why a simple definition of Freemasonry is not easily stated and why we will mostly deal today for simplification with the Grand Lodge of France it’s a good choice after all because the Grand Lodge is the largest regular Masonic body in Continental Europe it thus happens to be
Extremely well suited to serve as the subject of this paper whatever I will say about it here will however remain applicable at least in part to other Grand lodges than ours among them konic and women’s jurisdictions we will avoid the difficulty presented by the Masonic diversity in France and in the world by
Starting with a brief description of what modern masonry was at its Beginnings that we will set in the 20 odd years preceding and following 1717 everyone knows that not withstanding this arbitrary date its ancient r Roots thrust deeply into the history of the operative guilds and
Possibly go back through it as far as the first century BC but the operative guilds knew with the decline of gothic art a strong decline too the new architectural fashion coming from Italy did no longer require the arched Airy light and luminous structures that only skilled Craftsmen in command of all the
Secrets of their art knew how to build it was so much easier to build the long angular Stone Barracks of the Palaces of the Renaissance and of the styles that followed it with their low long straight Stone bulks pierced by rectangular Windows having no great problems of balance and then hide their repetitious
Monotony by covering then with sculptures and statue anyway Renaissance architecture is made for the Sun the play of light and Shadow and the blue skies of Italy it is not made like our Gothic Cathedrals for the rain and drizzle the low and gray skies of our rather more septentrional countries
There were of course Strokes of genius and a few rare exceptions were built like the Dome of Florence OR Saint Peters of Rome all the other buildings notably the least accomm lished were clothed in beautiful gardens but look at it as you may medieval architecture was over the last Gothic buildings were
Erected in England at the beginning of the 17th century and it could be that the operative Masons thinking themselves condemned to rapidly disappear and believing their species endangered worried about the conservation of their old and Priceless Secrets apprentices becoming rare and lodges disappearing one after another they begun to accept people who
While no Craftsman had the intellectual abilities and often the social weight capable of compensating this serious lack the English were the first and came to it quite readily we know well they have always loved old things traditions and closed clubs effectively the operatives did disappeared in England in
The beginning of the 18th century fortunately they survived in France to regain strength in Vigor two centuries later and erect again prestigious buildings among them the Eiffel Tower but the English and many French did not know it and anyway that’s another story to be told another day Masonic lodges
That’s the way these Lodges of intellectuals and Craftsmen called themselves adopted the rituals traditions and customs of the ancient Builders Masons and Carpenters but in a certain way that project for saving the operatives failed because soon there was not a single operative Craftsman in the English Masonic loges their tradition
Was finally saved and propagated through the French operatives and masonry became a separate entity increasingly different from its supposed ancestors to give themselves more efficient administrative structures Masonic lodges began to Federate themselves into Grand lodges and Grand orients the first Federation of this kind was constituted in
1717 in the back room of an inn called the goose and the grid iron near sa Paul’s Cathedral in London the first post Gothic cathedral in England recently completed under the super vision of Sir Christopher Ren a sign of the times four lodges Federated themselves that day into the Grand Lodge
Of London and Westminster which was going to become nearly a century later the United Grand Lodge of England like the United Grand Lodge of England and all other jurisdictions the Grand Lodge of France is a Federation of lodges you might wish to know that the essential difference between a grand lodge and a
Grand Orient is that a grand L’s Works in principle a single right the ancient and accepted Scottish right in our case while a grand Orient is not only a Federation of lodges but also a Federation of lodges but also a Federation of Rights and works as many
As half a dozen and even more the grand logic of France currently counts in its ranks some 29,000 active brethren in about 650 lodges an average of 45 active Brethren per Lodge though the actual headcount may vary between 20 and 150 as was the case for the British Empire the
Sun never sets over the Grand Lodge of France since there are lodges belonging to it not only everywhere in this country but also in most continents and in both hemispheres northern and southern what does one do in Lodge I cannot tell too much and you have surely heard about Masonic secrecy or rather
Discretion but there are nevertheless quite a few things that may be told we get together in temples of a size adequate to the size of the lodge and you remember that the average Lodge has about 40 members we open our meetings with an ancient immutable deeply symbolic ritual the ancient and wise
Words of this ritual allow us to forget for a few hours the turmoil and unrest of the outside world for these few hours we create a different time and space sacred I would say in the Latin meaning of the word that is pure separate A Spacetime where the worries of d life
Are temporarily set aside within this SpaceTime we listen every time we meet and for half an hour to an hour another one of us speak on a philosophical ritual moral spiritual historical sometimes scientific or artistic subject then we discuss it in a disciplined and passionless manner speaking each in turn
To comment what was said as well as to add new new ideas viewpoints and details with a bearing on the subject of the lecture once the subject usefully understood and the discussion finished we close the lodge ritually too we leave the temple and get together around the table to share a pleasant
Meal as Brethren and Friends masonry what for the real question is masonry to do what various reasons impel and Propel the candidates knocking at our door the need for Fraternity togetherness friendship is doubtlessly the main motivation notably for those more and more numerous which are or at least feel alone
Intellectual curiosity is the moving Force for many other candidates personally I came to Masonry more than 20 years ago in the belief that I would be taught magic Witchcraft and Alchemy though I actually have a scientific background I have always asked myself if there was not something else beyond the
Cold world of numbers and matter and energy and I have always looked for in the end no one taught me magic nor witchcraft nor Alchemy which allowed me on one hand to learn and understand quite a bit on my own and on the other hand to find out that these were not
Essential not even important elements of our Masonic tradition just means tools a kind of General background sometimes useful for practicing the art of symbolism there are other motives too people younger than I notice that they never got with their diplomas much General background and that outside of their trade profession or specialty they
Know nothing others less young notice after years of Labor that they have existed but not live they feel the need to launch themselves into a fresh Adventure that of the intellect and of the spirit some apply while thinking that they will be ennobled that they will become Knights of this and of that
Malta St Andrew what do I know yes they might even become that someday but not in the way they imagine some apply with little conviction pushed by a relative or a friend next to them are those who apply by mistake thinking they are joining a very exclusive club or even a religious
Organization hoping to find what they hadn’t sufficiently looked for in the faith of their childhood there are finally those who come thinking that Freemasonry is Rich and Powerful that it’s good for business for making money maybe for promoting contacts useful for one’s career and advancement no none of
These motivations is wholly bad no one joins Freemasonry with a clear knowledge of what he’s going to find what matters is to have the courage the tarity to apply thereafter Freemasonry will prove itself to be a very very efficient crusher of childish Illusions and delusions a Sorter and a builder of men
A tracer of plans she will know in most cases to deafly replace false or poor motives with valid and realistic ones and if she succeeds not it’s far easier to leave than to get in I’m often asked if it’s true I’m also often told peremptorily that Mason
Is a sect of course we all know it isn’t and any moderately intelligent person has long known it isn’t I sometimes explain to those who still doubt that among the countless and often essential differences there is a major wholly insurmountable one between Freemasonry and a sect such a difference that it has
Touchstone value in free masonry it is difficult to get in and easy to get out in so far as a sect is concerned you will notice that if it is very easy to get in it is very difficult to get out difficult to get in was I saying is not
Easy to be accepted in a masonic lodge because there is a selection of candidates that is tough but we believe just you will encounter implicit and explicit elements ments of this selection process all along this paper as well as the qualities we look for and
The failings we hope not to find in our candidate the criteria that we apply and the qualities that we look for are intimately related to what we are doing in Freemasonry and that is why I will not treat them separately do we never air in our meticulous selection work of course
We do and the big problem which sometimes gives us sleepless nights is not so much bringing in someone who doesn’t deserve it but rejecting someone who could have become a good Mason you know those who are accepted and do not find their place leave usually by themselves even if it
Sometimes takes years yes we sometimes ER because of an excess of tolerance or charity I hope you know maybe that we sometimes call a man who is very close to our Masonic ideals but who isn’t a member of the craft a Mason without an apron I sometimes call mentally only and
With a bit of Sorrow a man who was admitted through excessive kindness and who would be far better off elsewhere an apron without a Mason with all these selections and all these criteria does Freemasonry constitute an elite yes and not only because of them which sometimes
One manages to dodge it is an elite in as much as from the first instant one must have the courage the irrational tarity of launching oneself in the absolute unknown this is not within everyone’s reach what does one really know about Freemasonry outside nothing less than nothing if one really
Knew something this great variety of reasons and motivations would have no reason to exist one could read dozens of books interrogate dozens of Masons one would still know nothing before a selection automatically happens from the very beginning between those who dare take this first step into the unknown
And those who do not and only take take it timidly backwards back into the safety of what they know and understand other tests will follow but this one to which every one of us has silently and alone submitted himself is the first and possibly the most difficult because it
Happens at a time when we don’t yet have the war and friendly support of our Brethren only two in a thousand of the population of France have had this courage not all have been admitted by the way one does not come by chance or by accident to this kind of
Conference one comes because one has a Mason friend to understand what makes him the way he is or because of pure curiosity to understand what masonry is all about or because one wants to become a Mason there are other reasons too a allow me in this perspective to talk a
Moment about shrimps you know those little pink or gray things full of legs and feelers which Scamper around the bottom of the sea shrimps are no more concerned by the water around them then we are concerned about the air which fills every crevice of the world we live
In in both cases it’s for the same reason water can only transmit a narrow band of electromagnetic frequencies the shrimp’s eyes have evolved and specialized over hundreds of millions of years to preferentially see those frequencies where the water is the most transparent and no others that great transparency of water in the perception
Of the shrimps rendered it of course practically invisible to their eyes we too who carry on 7 miles deep at the very bottom of our ocean of air have evolved so as to preferentially see a narrow band of electromagnetic energy going from red to Violet this renders
The air we breathe transparent to our eyes we call this narrow band of energy which lets us see light since the beginning since well before the shrimps and US came into being since when there was no animal life yet but only plants light and life have been narrowly
Associated because it is light that supplies the energy required by photosynthesis a little later animals came to be and light allowed them to find their food light allowed them to find their prey light allowed them to find each other and thus perpetuate their countless species time went by one
Way beings who were not yet men stood up and thus were able to lift their heads and watch the Stars they began to think and Leah wrote the word light with a capital l and the light was still life in the ancient and accepted Scottish right that we
Work The Lodges are called Lodges of St John the work in Lodge always starts with reading the first verses of the Gospel of Saint John which go thus in a grandiose paraphrase of Genesis in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same
Was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness and the Darkness comprehended it not you will notice that it’s all still about
Light and life the search for light in life the search for life in light one of the main purpose of masonry is to give men a framework a structure within which they could each one of them look for and find their own light all this of course
Is very pretty on condition that we know what we are talking talking about what is this light that we are looking for you can buy in various shops very nice hogen light fixtures which give a lot of light too much even to the point that one begins to see the cracks in the
Ceiling and the dust accumulated since the last coat of paint the light we are looking for is different while having nevertheless some points in common with the H hallogen lighting fixtures you can find in store how come seeing n looking just like hearing and listening are among the main things we learn in
Freemasonry another of the main purposes of Freemasonry and one of the main differences between it and various clubs neighborhood cafes political parties philosophies and religions is this knowledge this understanding of others and of ourselves it gives us a chance to acquire we think that the main obstacle
Between us and the accomplishment of our real capabilities between us and harmony with our fellow men access to Inner and outwards peace is the Deep ignorance we have of our real selves the idea is not new the phrase Nai suon no thyself was already cut into the frontus piece of Apollo’s Temple at
Delos this understanding of ourselves lets us see the cracks of our personalities and those of the world the dust which the years have allowed to settle on the dreams the imagination the enthusiasm of our childhood and youth it allows us if we want and if we are able
To dust ourselves off and to wake up it gives us the light required to do the job and be alive again it does not do it for us that remains our own responsibility just like that H hallogen light fixture will not fix the cracks and paint the ceiling but will let us
Uncover the problem and give us the required lighting to find and apply the solution how does one attain self- knowledge and self- understanding in many ways as many as there are individuals essentially by learning to like Silence by taking the time to discover to identify and know better our
Real objectives in life by learning to speak to better make ourselves understood by our fellow Men by learning to listen to better know and understand the others because our fellow men are our ours the cuz our fellow men many mirrors showing us our True Image by learning to hear and trying to
Understand opinions radically different from Ours by questioning ourselves by questioning our brother in this wonderful equality and freedom of speech the Masonic fraternity gives us because you see Freemasonry is also a school without really being one it is certainly not a school with classes schoolyards teachers a program a timable if
Freemasonry is a school it teaches in a way much closer to the one used by our operative Brethren that is through personal example the oper narratives say that apprentices if they want to learn their trade must steal the skill of their masters by attentively watching them in their workshop
source
