Hello welcome back to the Masonic Round Table a weekly program where masons from around the world get together to talk about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner as a reminder the thoughts and opinions expressed here are solely the opinions of the participants and do not represent any
Grand statements or positions make sure you keep your conversations open for the public and on the level to interact with us we love seeing you live every Thursday night so hello Facebook and YouTube land the chats are always fun love seeing you there lots of good
Things we can’t even get to them all it’s just so it’s just so much awesome but remember that your chats may also show up on the show so keep that in check and if you can’t catch us live catch us on the replay or your favorite
Podcasting app so you know me my name is John ruar I’m a past Master of the patri L number 1957 in Fairfax Virginia next up for his introduction brother Jason Richards how’s it going hello hello hello my name is Jason Richards I’m a past Master vacation LGE number 16 in Clinton
Virginia member of the colonial lodge number 1821 in Washington DC and Lafayette lodge number 79 in Zanesville Ohio glad to be here you almost did that without taking a breath good on you and there there’s the challenge of the week and and still worful Master Joe Martinez one more day but
Who’s cting one I’m not counting one more day absolutely Joe Martinez worshipful master of Manassa LOD number 182 in Manasses Virginia member of Benjamin B French Lodge Number 15 in the District of Columbia and member of many many other things and as always damn glad to be here one more day
Life master imp perpetuity one more day one more day awesome awesome awesome so good luck good luck on everything good luck on the stated good luck on the elections and good luck on the installations oh speaking of stated good luck to our uh the fourth member of our little minivan
Of fun the fourth Beetle yeah where is he he’s getting installed as worshipful master of his lodge yeah so not 24 hours of overlap so cheers to Robert salude salude best of luck in your upcoming three years and he’s secretary for life and all his other bodies so he’s of course of
Course so that’s where Robert is tonight so best of luck if you’re watching and if you’re watching you shouldn’t be you should be paying attention to your Lodge that’s right let’s uh give a special shout out to the patrons who support the show you guys are awesome The Rocker
Sucks love you we love you uh almost 10 years now oh man that’s yeah crazy that’s crazy stuff so um if you want to support Masonic education head to patreon.com thee Masonic Roundtable and chip in a few bucks and join our Super Secret Squirrel Facebook group where you
Can chat with you about all sorts of fun things and as many of our patrons know there’s all the the fun stuff the spreadsheets and the behind the scenes and the uh reseearch that we give you started with spreadsheets are you kidding me who doesn’t who doesn’t want
Masonic spreadsheets you get all the Masonic spread no not you you get all the Masonic spreadsheets if I don’t want them too yeah start with spreadsheets golly day never be in sales so you get skulls you get all the skulls if you head over to patreon.com theic table
More skulls cool with that okay that’s we’ll work on that and spreadsheets there’s a perk okay uh uh what else do we have coming up Jason what do we got here uh let’s see tinyurl.com capital T capital m capital r gift lowercase gift so if you know TMR and
You’ve been following us for a while you know one of our favorite things in the entire world is to facilitate a completely voluntary and on your honor Secret Santa gift exchange and so this year we’re pleased to announce number four our fourth annual secret Masonic Santa gift swap super exciting go and
Sign up if you’d like to participate tinyurl.com DMR gift DMR needs to be capitalized gift is all lowercase because it is case sensitive um so go and sign up you can sign up until Monday December 11th and and then you have until the 22nd to get your gifts to your assignes
Now look this is on the honor System okay TMR is not liable for you shipping someone out an amazing gift and then your person not shipping you anything haven’t had that happen yet knock on wood We’re Not Gonna We’re Not Gonna because we’re all awesome this is
Not a gift exchange that is open only to Masons that is true so friends of TMR friends of TMR um so go in put some cool stuff on your wish list um and get ready for for just something that’s really fun and a chance to learn about somebody new and
Browse other people’s wish lists there’s some really good ideas I’ve stolen from Joe’s and Jason’s list likewise yeah so get your list up sign up today get your lists up by tomorrow so I have an idea of what I’m getting for Christmas I’m not going to lie that’s that’s more fun
Just browsing with other people but you know I mean that’s I you guys are just ripping off my list I know but I started doing the gift exchange before I even came on the show and I got you get to meet such awesome people right you know when you’re exchanging
Gifts and you get an insight into their mind and what they’re asking for for Christmas it’s super interesting yeah knowing got yeah I got in um I think it was last year or the year before I got a great gift from Brother Chad and he included a couple like really
Interesting pictures and I learned a little bit of history about the West Virginia Congress and like it was just really really super cool um so the other thing too is that um none of the TMR hosts are eligible to give gifts to each other through this gift exchange by
Design By Design so I’ve done drawing restrictions for for all the TMR hosts so we are all going to be giving gifts to people who are not hosts on the show that’s right so sign up and maybe you’ll get something awesome from one of us indeed maybe it’s lot of fun tinyurl.com
Tmrg sign up see you there be there and be square next up love it ter tarot card of the week Terra cart of the week we got to get a song I can’t keep doing that every week yes I think Robert put one together for the audio podcast he did he did he
Did and it was absolutely amazing so delicious this week we’ve got hot off the kickstarters my brand new Legend of Zelda handdrawn Tarot deck it’s freaking phenomenal and let’s see what we have here for tonight’s show it is oh the eight of Pentacles those are Pentacles okay well they’re rupes
They’re rubies yeah they’re not rubies rupes rupes it’s Indian and so this is this is the uh this is the Builder he is making a whole bunch of money he’s talented he’s skilled yeah high quality he has the skills literally to pay the bills good work ethic yes yes yes what
You’ll need to contribute to the secret santa yes this he’s from Grayson’s construction I believe oh yeah yeah and he shows up in breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom yeah wow that’s going way back on the zeldor that I I need to catch up
On yeah so so in the rer weight deck of course it’s the the young man sitting down at the table putting the the Pentacles together mhm awesome yeah industrious as we all be as good so we are we are industrious and we can pay our bills which is also
Great because of our patrons with rupes with rupees yes we accept rupes all right next up today’s topics this is an interesting one that I found and we’re going to talk about a scientific study it’s not going to be Masonic spreadsheets I promise you I promise you it will not be Masonic
Spreadsheets um tonight the topic is called attire that inspires or crab roasts or CRA roast uh the concept of enclothe cognition so what is enclothed cognition um first off this is a study that was run in 2012 this is actually a set of experiments do clothes make the Mason
We’ll find out where hajo Adam and Adam D galinsky uh ran a series of experiments I’m going to walk through with you um to hypothesize that what the wearer wears affects his or her psychological processes so before I do before I get into the details I have one thing I need
To do real quick so let me get uh step over here for a second you’re wearing pants right yeah he is okay good all right we do without the sex noises this is entertaining radio I know all right first I have to get and the breathing what’s going on there all right it’s
It’s for the it’s for the audio only portion of the show it’s as ASMR all right there we go especially for audio listeners who can’t see like all right so John who needs a pocket protector for his lab coat I probably do have somewhere okay so uh I that doesn’t
Surprise me at all I just put on a lab coat uh to describe the set of experiments so let’s go let’s see what these guys did back in 2012 uh there were three experiments run and again their their goal was to see does wearing a certain type of clothing
Affect how we process or pay attention to certain things so the first experiment that was run was they asked some roughly College Aid students um to they they put these into a different groups they randomly assigned them which is good for for trials they randomly
Either gave them a lab coat like the one I’m wearing to wear or not and they gave them a test so what test did they give them they actually started off with a a test called the Stroop test so you may have seen this pop up before where you try to um read
The color of the word or read the word but it’s going to be distracting Because the actual color of the font is different than the name of the word as you can see on on the screen here and so the goal was to see how fast they could
Read these words depending on whe they were whether they were wearing a lab Cod or not and then see what the results were after running this experiment the results were that those who were wearing the lab coat made half of the mistakes as people wearing regular clothes in a randomized
Trial I mean that’s that’s amazing in itself that’s that’s really fascinating if you think about it um so just by the mere fact of putting on a lab coat they were they actually made half of the cognitive mistakes Jason it depends on what the overall number of mistakes were like if people
Usually only made four mistakes the people in lab coats made two true what they people people made you know a thousand mistakes and the lab coat folks made 500 that’s a bigger deal that could be yes yeah that obviously the sample size want to see the sample
Size yes yes obviously the end number is important yeah I I had a question akin to that did they were they completely separate people that they tested lap code first non laap coat it was random and separate yeah so no one person however once without a lap coat and once
With a Lap coat however they did also run a separate experiment um with with lab coat or nots of of just a regular cognition test not one that you really had to pay attention to and there was no difference in the results so they actually had a little bit of a
Control while they they actually had the the more harder Stroop test that the colored font test uh to to to base it on so that was just experiment one they said hm how can we improve or learn more about this type of of wearing clothes and its psychological condition let’s do another experiment
Let’s change another variable and do it again okay so what they were wondering was what if their hypothesis this time was is it wearing the lab coat and having a symbolic meaning is necess NE for improved improved abilities okay and so they were wondering if having this this piece of
Clothing to actually have some assigned meaning gave it some of its superpowers so what they did was they had a whole bunch of coats and in this time instead of doing random coat or no coat they added a third option they did they randomly gave people either a lab
Coat said here’s your lab coat they either gave him the same coat but they called it a painters coat painter coat or for the third choice they randomly got assigned to walk by a room with lab coats hanging on on the wall you just just hanging on
Hangers okay being in the presence of lab coats did that did that have some sort of like glow effect to them okay so this time they ran a little bit different test so they had these people going these three different groups and this test they ran was kind of this spot
The Spot the Difference between the pictures right can you look at two pictures and find these minute details between them okay I did these at the doctor’s office as a kid that’s right you Circle it in Highlights magazine yeah there’s a throwback you Millennials all right so what was the result the result
Was on experiment two that people that were wearing the lab coats had longer sustained attention than either the painter coat wearers or the people that just observe lab coats on hangers so they do have superpowers so they do if they know it’s the difference between a lab coat or a painter’s coat
So now they’re giving they’re signing meaning and it it’s not just any old clothes it’s not just any old coat it’s a lab coat Vice a painter scope it’s an almost an unconscious bias manifestation mhm I I wear therefore I am oh okay but wait a minute they still
Had one more variable they wanted to test so what they wanted to do for the third experiment they said well we’re still not really sure if the the lab coats hanging on the hangers had any sort of magic juice on them right Highlights magazine yes um so they
Actually had they ran a third experiment specifically to test is there a connection between the coat and the wearer so we’ve assigned meaning we know that there’s a meaning now uh calling it a lab coat Vice a painters coat but what about the actual wearing of it with
Meaning do you need both of those pieces to have uh you know a a known bias towards Improvement so let’s test it so in this last case they had three different random options so when the when the participants came in they were either told to wear a lab
Coat they were told to either wear that or a painter’s coat same thing but this third option instead of them hanging on the wall they actually had the participants sit down for a minute before they did their their test and write about how they felt about a lab
Coat they had to like sit down and contemplate the meaning of what what lab coats meant to them momento labory right so we’re actually trying to see is it the concept of a lab coat or or wearing the lab coat okay and here’s where so what they did
Was they they had those three groups lab coat wears paint coat wears and labcoat writers lab coat authors people that were actually sitting contemplating what the uh the status symbol of of a lab coat contains and they went back and they did that second test again the spot the
Picture and what they found was fascinating I see two pictures I see two pictures yes you did good job Jason there’s a difference between them they’re probably six yeah the the results were that the people with the best performance were the lab coat wearers follow followed by the lab coat
Writers and then in last place were those who wore the paint coat so it was the mere fact of having this meaning behind a lab coat still gave you more performance than just paint paint coat wears so so we’re actually having people wear things and we’re having them assign
Meaning to them doubling down on that and so through these series of Trials what the uh basically the the summary was is that those second and third experiments displayed strong evidence I’m going to quote here from Wikipedia that enclothed cognition as they called it significantly depends both on wearing
And the symbolic meaning of a piece of clothing sustained attention only increased when participants were told they were wearing a doctor’s coat therefore Adam and galinsky concluded that the principle of enclothed cognition relies on the co-occurrence of two independent variables physically wearing the clothing and its symbolic
Meaning so any thought any questions on on how the experiment was run or anything like that before we we deviate these are just the facts I was going to deviate so I will shut up you are a deviant well let’s deviate let’s go so that’s the experiment question question so what
Does having something and then applying a symbolic meaning to it have anything to do with Freemasonry oh I don’t know I just want to talk about it gonna find something else to talk about this week I was gonna say just go back to Sir Robert Mor he’s the first one who did
It it’s true boom well I mean it’s really interesting when when you apply it to a masonic context right first thing I thought of yeah yeah absolutely what did you think of Joe so I mean you know when I read the stuff that you made me read for this week’s
Show um I not cognition before didn’t know you could read I can’t I have things read to me until tomorrow um but uh no I found it super fascinating when when we relate it to Freemason read better in a lab coat yes wear lab Cod tomorrow but um no I think
That um super interesting because there’s been this underlying current of discussion for years and years and years about Freemasonry right uh where you have one Camp that’s like okay well you got to dress in your best to go to Lodge versus I can go in flipflops and Hawaiian shorts and still
Be a mason so and they’re very polarizing sides of the field right you know you got all with some some valid points absolutely you know and then you’ve got you’ve got the people that kind of acquest to both right it’s like well I’d rather have you there than care
About what you wear versus I want to go to a lodge and have an experience that is different than me going to you know a restaurant or going to you know uh the VFW or something like that you know it’s it’s you’re trying to create an experience but then you want the people
To show up so it’s really dichotomous and and going on for years and years right exactly yeah do clothes make the man or do or does the man make the man it’s the dichotomus hippopotamus indeed like The Hip Hop amamus I think from Hip Hop Anonymous
Hip Hop Anonymous love that movie um yes make my kids spell it that way uhing it the first time um but I mean the whole symbolic significance part that’s super duper important when it comes to masonry right because we have regalia we have things that we wear when we go to Lodge
We have aprons we we have jewels we have um you know some places have sashes some places have caps right um caps and mantel um you know the ostrich feather hats you know they all are you know are we playing dress up or are we ascribing an important meaning to it exactly right
So one would pause it let’s just talk purely regalia right now so no matter what you’re wearing underneath we have regalia in a masonic setting that we prescribe a lot of symbol ISM on and meaning on and we’re told what those are right so really most most men can’t
Claim ignorance of to why they’re wearing a collar or why they’re wearing an apron in a lotas right so as part of our ritual of part of our inner workings of our lodge Administration we do wear articles of clothing like you said it’s it’s not necessarily just you know the clothes
All in your body but but the jewelry the aprons with the stabs like they things that you touch and hold and we go into great detail and even jurisdictions expand further detail what this Rod means and you know how many steps this means and all that so we we assign
Meeting very clearly so it’s not just any Rod it is a Deacon’s rod that’s used to do these things right so that’s just like we do it’s not just any lab code it’s not just a painter’s coat we actually assign meaning to this jewel is for this office and this is what it
Represents or the wearing of a hat in Lodge it has a very specific purpose and it’s only done by certain people and yeah you know but it’s their prerogative Joe yeah well or or to that point like if you know if you listen to you know
For the non-masons you can go try to find on YouTube lots of um uh public installation ceremonies you can find my public installation ceremony on this channel that’s true where where a lot of this regalia is explained in beautiful detail about what the meaning is and so
Again that’s something that you know we we’re deliberate about the the things that we’re we’re asking our members to wear so that alone would would hopefully give us a little bit more gravitas as to our actions inside the LOD room just by that fact alone because we’re wearing it and
It has meaning yeah and and I think that um you know outside of the the symbolic aspect of it it does bring a sense of identity to the people who wear it and you know understand the meaning behind it right so for for Masons putting on
The regalia um you has the capability to reinforce a sense of this is why I’m here and this is what my purpose is and this is why I come um being part of something bigger than yourself you know belonging to the fraternity um so I
Think that that has a lot to do with enclothed cognition right because you’re delving into the the reasons why you’re putting something on as opposed to just the random acts of of doing it and I’m sure there’s lots of Masons out there that just put their crap on and don’t
Give a thought and well and that that’s that’s an interesting angle to right CU you could lose the understanding of what that meaning is and therefore the effect is is wearing off right because you’ll see guys we’ve all seen them not going to call on any names Joe where they have an apron
That’s all stained has coffee stains on them hasn’t been washed in like 40 years right it’s all frayed at the bottom it’s that it’s that one apron they always just grab and just leave in the back of their car until they they go to a lodge right guilty we know we know somebody
Somebody that might have no it’s it’s a different Joe oh okay yes yes Joe mama and so you could again for the exoteric Mason it might not have the same psychological effect as those who truly um just breathe in the effect of what the meanings of of these different uh
Types of regalia are even something as simple as a white apron well I mean I mean I think that to your point you say something really important when you talk about the exoteric masing because that’s another struggle that we we argue about at nauseum when it comes
To you know masons in general um when it comes to the Dress Factor right you know you’ve got one camp that says you know you want you know if you care about the inside you’re going to care about the outside as well right and and that is reflected in your um your cleanliness
And your uh sense of dress and your import that you place when you get dressed before you go to Lodge um but again you’ve got that other Camp it’s like well it’s really about the intern J only so what does it matter what I wear
When I go to Lodge so it’s kind of tough to really find one having you know more more import than the other you know well so question I have is can can someone be you know wearing God forbid shorts and a t-shirt but still have that same enclothed cognition enhancement
When they put on on their officer Jewel o so actually does it have to be both right it’s interesting that that you bring that up because the first experiment they actually compared it to people who were just wearing their regular clothes right so um it’s the addition of the lab coat
Over top of the regular clothes that made it special and so one could argue in that case that it is that additional meaning and the wearing together so you pull out that lamb skin or white leather apron you wear it in shorts but it has deep meaning to you through your degree
System I don’t like it but I agree with it it’s possible the logic’s there it’s possible you got me thinking that is a fantastic question so n asked would you wear shorts and a bright yellow shirt to a funeral with flipflops with flip flops never but well it
Depends depends on whose funeral it a beach funeral and if if you’re in Miami or not um yeah but uh no it’s it’s you know this is stepping outside the bounds of of enclothed cognition a little bit I think right because we’re no they don’t um you know we’re talking about the
Going back to what Jason said the psychological impact of wearing the regalia and wearing the apron does it overstep the fact that you look like a complete schub underneath it you know yeah yeah and so I mean just to be that that really triggered me too n because
I’ve been to a couple funerals in the past couple years where not everyone made an effort to dress up um it it was noticeable and it was more than just one person uh uh that literally made no effort but they were there so I can’t judge you know what
Their intent was what their relationship was and all that them being there hey you know that’s that’s between them and and they’re paying their respects I wouldn’t do it but to that point I also know that I you know just back to the the original debate like we I feel better about
Myself when I’m dressing up to go to Lodge you know when I put on a sport coat right when I put on a tie um when I make that extra bit of effort even if I’m tired even if I don’t want to I I do feel better when I do
It I mean some head nods there yeah no I think I I think ultimately it it really does I think the manner and care with which we dress I feel like I’m taking a side in the whole dress nice for LOD thing but I’m not but we’re going to go
Back to the enclothed cognition thing yeah um you know enclothed cognition does suggest that what we wear actually affects our Behavior right so you know going back to your your funeral example um you know dressing a certain way for a certain type of event will absolutely affect your behavior you know if we
Believe what this study shows so when it comes to the context of masonic attire wearing the regalia um doing the ritual and going to the meetings and taking that care does enhance the seriousness and solemnity with which the people doing it approach all these events right like let’s take
This to a degree you know what if you were being initiated and passed or raised and the hood wi comes off and you see a bunch of dudes and flipflops um that is going to affect you psychologically but I I guess you know my question is
For us to actually talk about for us to actually talk about this comparing to Apples to Apples like we would need a study that would have what everybody else is wearing as an independent variable and we just don’t have that well first thing we need to do is create
A masonic spreadsheet and we’ll actually document damn it who’s wearing what on what dates on what degrees and then track the experience so John you are literally putting me to sleep so here’s another thought what if the Sonic G chart be right back um yes h2040 all Based on data
So the other thing that came to mind too is okay so we talk about the regalia we talk about our own personal clothing that we wear in Lodge settings the other thought that um you may not have thought about is like Scottish Wright degrees right several valleys do full costume
They don’t have to but they do these full costume degrees and you’ll see gentlemen dressed up you know in Middle Eastern attire and just make make a whole a whole theatrical show of this so you can’t you know you could argue that there is also this um you know I’m filling this role
And you know we’re going to go into the whole like Chad kinsky you know like actors type of of bringing that actor a theatrical presence into that as well um there’s one thing to act as something there’s also one one thing to wear the costume and be part of that stage
Presence as well so I I would I would add that to it it’s certainly not the original intent of the enclo cognition study but it kind ofi no it kind of is because if if you’re looking at the study and what they were trying to prove you know it
Does psychologically impact your sense of understanding of what you’re doing your sense of tradition and your sense of respect for what it is you’re doing so again going back to the hey I’m doing a degree and I’m wearing uh a costume that’s appropriate for that time and place that that we’re enacting as
Opposed to wearing a polo shirt with my belly button hanging out um you know it’s a different vibe and it it creates a different atmosphere so it is okay so lab coats and Lodge that’s what I that’s what I I got out of this this conversation needs more lab
Coats I I need you to spreadsheet this out for me because it’s not not drawing the dots together only if it’s one of those spreadsheets where uh you know it has a macro built into it so it’s like the airplane fly game oh those are fun yes yeah with
Tables yes pivot pivot tables oh pivot tables pivot my heart Little V look up there you’re a bunch of nerds I swear I can’t stand you guys I was the one making the friends references I don’t feel like that’s yes but the real question is apron over or under the lab code it
Is in Virginia depends on the jurisdiction Virginia is under unless you’re a public ceremony outside and it hi your tummy so two votes for that yep ah funny stuff okay so in conclusion um we can apply this tested psychological phenomenon by wearing regalia better clothes costumes and
Assigning meaning to them so that we can increase our psychological awareness our tenderness and our commitment to the craft so pretty neat it’s pretty cool pretty cool study I like it yep so yeah just you know as Joe said immediately when I read that read about that study um first thing I
Thought of was was Freemasonry and how we could use that to to better the craft better ourselves better our craft right so Sun card brings up a good point what are we all going to be a to Lodge now because of this John actually the term is called
Observant now you know and we know he’s he’s he’s uh you know thank you for the for the comment I I think it’s a I think we’ve hinted at it a little bit tonight right because it did it did start a movement in Freemasonry right um you know the whole observant movement that
Was a big thing give a crap about what you wear and we your best regardless of what it is which is again the whole point of the meaningness that’s a uh that is that is assigned in this experiment right so I would equate the term observant as Andrew
Hammer you know tries to posit in here with you know the the assignment of the meaning to the lab code that as long as you are assigning meaning to your Freemasonry do that yeah and whether it’s been through the mrf the Masonic restoration Foundation uh or Andrew
Hammer himself you know they are very often you know to correct everyone to say it’s not about elitism it’s about just do masonry well like do it prescribed according to your jurisdiction but do it well and do it with intention and do it with purpose that’s what we’re trying to get back
To Bo I’m all for that boom boom cool all right let’s um let’s shift gears here and while I dis robe um I’m gonna let uh didn’t realize it was that kind of show it’s a TMR after dark look at this while uh Joe what what have we got
Here they really found an angry dude to R that’s angry angry Paul N or Paul Rubin yes RIP um yes so we’re gonna briefly talk about the new but not new because it’s over three centuries old reaffirmation of the ban uh to join or be in Freemasonry by
Roman Catholics wow yes so that has showed up its face in the news again um the pope just issued um or the the I feel like I want to throw out like a 1984 comment here you know like the department of uh you know not allowed to do anything um in Rome basically
Reaffirmed the ban and the pope did uh you know issue a letter saying that Catholics are not allowed to become or remain Freemasons um and the reason why you know the tldr is um the bishop or Archbishop I believe he was in the Philippines um was very concerned by the
Growing growing growing numbers um you don’t have a spreadsheet for that but you need that John uh the growing number of free users no oh no we’re not yeah yeah yeah no we’re talking not we’re not talking about the the real problems with the church okay no we’re talking about
Freemasonry got it many many many people in the Philippines are joining Freemasonry um they are definitely not on the same curve as many lodges in the United States they’re growing by Leaps and Bounds which is awesome um I’d say 95% that’s probably a good estimate if
Not 98% or more of the country is Roman Catholic as well right um so we can thank uh Spanish Conquest for that uh South America and the Philippines so um yeah so they are uh the clergy and the Philippines are very concerned that all these people who are all Roman Catholics
Are joining Freemasonry um so he wrote to the pope and ask for some help so basically we got a letter back again reaffirming the band this is nothing new uh it’s been around since the 1700s I know we had one article here Chris hoap wrote a fantastic article on it going
Into the history and the details of it and things but it’s basically just a reaffirmation of the same damn thing that um you are not allowed to be Catholic not allowed to receive the Eucharist uh if you you are a Roman Catholic Freemason 1884 was the uh humanum genus by Pope
Leo the 13th there was an earlier one there was an earlier one so what was the 198 like three decision then so it was uh so the 1738 uh decision was made by clamont I 12 and that was the earliest denunciation of Freemasonry all right so that did not answer your
Question though it did not um so so to clarification question like so Steve says why are Catholics banned no no no Catholics are not banned from Freemasonry it’s the other way around Freemasonry is banned to be a Catholic that you should not be a member of freem that was not
English by the way yes Catholics are not allowed to be Freemasons right right so does that mean don’t care if Freemasons are Catholics right we don’t ask we don’t ask we don’t ask we don’t care well we don’t but it shouldn’t be asked right so yeah I think what this is fascinating too
Because you know first off that it had to come to a point where it had to be clarified and had to be kind of just put back into the you know the the current status quo just just bring up back you Bubble Up these old these old thoughts and and
Ideas and just reaffirm the The Stance of the church and so you know first thing first thought I had to come to mind is like I don’t I haven’t seen or heard of any like ground swell of Catholic Freemasons that are like well since that came out I
Guess I have to go turn in my du’s card which is fascinating because uh back in 2015 when I did the Freemasonry survey I did ask what religion do you adhere to or feel like you know you are a member of and it was something like 17 to 20% of the Freemason surveyed
Answered Catholic awesome love to have you guys love to have all our Catholic Brothers MH and so they’re still members of The Craft I would assume so like are are is that 20% of those respondents just going to like not show up anymore well I I think well so going
You know going back to your um your research from back then um which I remember I I took that survey um well thank you I did too I did I did um it’s interesting because we as Americans don’t have that same in general making a very general statement sure don’t have
That same sense of influence from Rome that many other countries have as well you know let’s look at South America um predominantly Roman Catholic um any you know Philippines is another one predominantly Roman Catholic um very very Roman Catholic so you know we don’t have the
Same and we’re just here we’re just a Melting Pot of all different faiths and beliefs and and systems and things um so we don’t have that that boot that’s riding us all day long right because yeah 98 of the people in the same room as you are not Roman Catholic right so
It’s it’s a bit different um that’s fair outcome that you would see here versus other parts of the world so so there’s that and the other thing that that I’ve been thinking of when I when I heard about this is and I’m only applying it to my own condition because I you know
I I I’m probably more religious than than the average person I’m I’m a little bit more you know I try to think about what my theology is and and what are the rules based off of the uh uh the flavor that I prescribe to and
If I were a devout Catholic I would have a really existential conversation with myself to say well even if it was gray before it’s certainly black and white now that uh it’s basically listed as a grave sin to be a member of the fraternity which means you cannot take the
Eucharist and you know to be denied that Sacrament that’s that’s that’s a critical yeah like that is a critical spiritual ritual in the faith and and I would have a real hard time if if that were my my faith structure I’m not a Catholic but
It’s if if I were I would have a lot of deep contemplation deep deep thoughts about what do I do how do I wrestle with this knowing that the fraternity is not as bad as the Catholic Church makes it out to be right um there’s no know that
We are not a high enough degree that’s true that’s true right there’s there’s always that level higher that you don’t know about but yeah like there there’s really no conflict of Faith there but if I’m being told by my elders that I should stop I’d have to think really long and
Hard about what I would do in that situation I don’t know what I would do yeah I mean and I wish uh you know I I joke to everybody that that knows me that I’m a I’m a recovering Catholic um you know I I grew up Roman Catholic I
Went to Catholic School from kindergarten to 12th grade um you know I didn’t know what Christianity you know non-catholic Christianity was until I left New York um because it didn’t exist in my area so it’s it’s it’s really interesting to hear about this as something new you know what I
Mean because this has been around for 300 years so nothing has changed whether you’re a Roman Catholic who a Freemason who just joined last week or you’ve been in for 20 years it’s been the same thing nothing has changed right it’s just you know it’s hitting your feet on Facebook
Now um and getting so so I wanna I want to bring up this great question by Scott said are we are we bad at all like is there some Merit to Catholicism are we the baddies no it’s everyone else who is wrong and what I’d like to do is I’d
Like to actually read from the humanum genus um from the 1800s and um starting at at passage 13 in those matters which uh in those matters which regard religion let it be seeing how the sect of Freemasons acts especially where it is more free to act without restraint
And then let anyone judge whether in fact it does not wish to carry out the policy of the naturists naturalists this is the wrong section I was trying to talk about the separation of church and state well I was well so while you’re looking for that I was going to comment
On the humanum genus so that was a very specific document that was specifically created to combat the secularization of things in certain parts of Europe yes right so the humanum genus came out when you started to let’s let’s pick France for example great example you started seeing these
Masonic organizations crop up that did not require you to have a belief in a Supreme Being right so they started to take the EXA the requirement for deity out of Freemasonry in that area at that time absolutely so you know the humanum genius was a response to things that
Were happening like that where you had many many Freemasons in France another P predominantly Roman Catholic country um and half of the Masonic gene pool was you know still recognize quote unquote you know where they believed in a supreme deity where you had a growing Bunch that were like no screw that you
Know we’re just an organization we don’t need um you can be an atheist and join so those were the ones that were targeted but like with all things in Freemasonry one bad example becomes the beacon for you know someone to Rally behind you know yeah
Exactly so as going to read is um by a long and preserving labor they Endeavor to bring bring about this result namely the teaching that the office and authority of the church may become of no account in the Civil State and for this reason they declar to the people and
Contend that the church and state ought to be altoe disunited H I feel like that was kind of a foundational core principle of America’s founding but Freemasonry but America Freemasonry America wasn’t founded by Roman Catholics oh tou so we’re all a bunch of Sinners here got it yes yeah so you know
Ultimately you know is there Merit to catholicism’s criticism of Freemasonry in a lot of ways yes you know we advocate for religious toleration we advocate for separation of church and state we advocate for you know secular prayer secular prayer rationalism right it’s it’s the idea that Freemasonry is a Brotherhood of Man
Under the fatherhood of God not the fatherhood of God and the trinitarian Christian view of under the direction of the Pope right right exactly yeah and that’s one of the beautiful things about Freemasonry is it’s acumenical nature yep all right well we’re at that time uh I’m sure we could talk all night
About this topic but we wanted to at least address it because it is fresh in the news again after 400 years so um on the topic of enclosed Catholicism Jason what’s say you C better be in clothed I feel like when you keep your clothes on in the church it probably goes better
For everybody indeed I I will second that ESP distracting yes might be distracting see what I did there when I play drums for my Methodist Church I typically keep my clothes on typically I yes it’s a plus double plus Yeah final thoughts that was my final thought I
Think he just gave you his final thought you said en cloth Catholicism I said yes keep your clothes on all right absolutely absolutely yes so um very cool episode uh thank you John for um oh Sun card I’m not even going to say that um for the audio folks you got have to
Watch on YouTube um yeah I I think awesome episode and I’m really glad that you brought this topic up because I knew little about it and I think it really lends itself to be something that Freemasons should look into and research and maybe apply to their Freemasonry
Right um it definitely gives you a different look into why we do the things we do and why we dress the way we dress and why we ascribe symbolism to it so I think it’s phenomenally awesome um I’m going to take a personal second um to
Say thank you to tomorrow is my last stated meeting as master I’m super excited and uh I want to thank a ton of people I want to thank uh everybody at Manassa Lodge for putting up with me for two years um it has been a really hard
But really fun and gratifying two years I want to thank all of you um um who came out at least year one and supported me not knowing we were going to have a year two but to John and Jason and uh Robert and everybody else um thank you
So much for all your support and your words of wisdom and your your counsel and your shoulders to cry on it’s it’s been awesome so uh all the times you left me outside the damn door I and you know what and I thank you for for being
Patient with me and uh yeah I had two years to to get that right so um yeah man it’s been blast and I’m looking forward to tomorrow and uh yeah I just want to say thank you to all of you for for taking that ride with me it’s been a
Blast we’re excited for you Joe and and well deserved awesome yes okay uh let’s see over to me and we got to turn off that Banner please do we’re gonna leave that on forever um yeah so this is an interesting topic um I think yes we we need more Masonic spreadsheets and um
Yeah take away let’s uh let’s try to be more meaningful about what we wear at a lodge in whatever fashion that looks like so that we can enhance our experience and be better men that’s what we’re all about so um if we should always be looking at any sort of tips
And tricks that can improve our Human Condition improve ourselves as men and Masons and improve ourselves in the world so with that I want to thank you all very much for watching have a good night and keep searching for more light have a good one Wow
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