Grand
York Rite
of Freemasonry
of the State of Missouri
The
Challenges of Masonic Leadership
With the All-Seeing Eye of the General Public Upon Us
Presented To the Missouri Lodge of Research
Saturday, May 20, 2006
At the Grand York Rite Session
Right Worshipful Brother Larry, Right Worshipful Brother Ron, distinguished Companions and Sir Knights, and brethren all. It is a pleasure to be here and thank you for inviting me to speak to you this morning—albeit it at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Ron may not admit it, but I suspect I was the only one on Ron’s list who was willing and foolish enough to say “yes”.
Ron tells me that I’m supposed to try to impart some bit of Masonic light to you this morning and he suggested that I speak to you on the topic of the Challenges of Masonic Leadership. In thinking about what to say, it occurred to me that this often is a topic at Masonic forums—you know the usual fare: declining membership numbers; the need to try something new rather than somehow expecting different results when repeating the same old thing over and over; the qualities of a successful leader versus the qualities of a bad one; social demographics in today’s society versus the social demographics present in the heyday of Masonry after World War II; the need to make Masonry more “family friendly”; the inherent difficulty in trying to herd cats; and on and on.
Well, I don’t know about you, and not to detract from the value of such topics, but I just don’t want to talk about that this morning and would much rather talk about something else. Accordingly, I’ve shifted my focus and re-titled my talk: The Challenges of Masonic Leadership With the All-Seeing Eye of the General Public Upon Us.
Take a sip of coffee and let me tell you what I mean. I can think of no other period in history, save perhaps during the unfortunate and disastrous period of the Morgan affair and the rise of the Anti-Masonic Party, when Freemasonry has attracted so much attention from the general public—some favorable, some not so favorable, some simply outlandish.
You might remember a few years ago, when a televangelist, John Ankerberg from Tennessee, started running anti-Masonic segments and selling anti-Masonic books and tapes on his cable television show on Pat Robertson’s cable network. Shortly thereafter, the Southern Baptist Convention undertook an investigation to see if Freemasonry was compatible with Christianity, spurred on by a minority of anti-Masons headed up by a self-described guardian of the faith out of Texas. At about that same time, televangelist and one-time Presidential candidate Pat Robertson described Freemasonry as a cult, and a devil-worshiping cult at that.
Of course, Ankerberg’s book sales eventually dropped; the Southern Baptist Convention ultimately rejected the call for the expulsion of freemasons from its ranks—with the head of that investigation eventually becoming a mason himself; and Pat Robertson’s political fortunes, fortunately, waned.
And yet, Freemasonry was not allowed to fade back into what had been for it for so many years a relative and somewhat comfortable public obscurity. Next came the publication of the bestselling The Holy Blood/Holy Grail, followed by myriad lesser known but still widely read “Masonic Conspiracy” books such as The Hiram Key, followed by the publication of the bestselling The Da Vinci Code and the release, just this week, of the movie.
Last year, and amidst this backdrop of the conspiracy books and just prior to the meeting of the Missouri Grand Lodge, US News and World Report ran a very lengthy and yet quite favorable series of articles on Freemasonry that coincided with the movie, National Treasure, which itself portrayed Freemasonry in a positive, if somewhat exaggerated light. For those who saw the movie, you might remember that the FBI agent was revealed at the end of the movie to be a Freemason and one of the “good guys”.
Last month, ABC’s Good Morning America ran segments on the Knights Templar and Freemasonry, portions of which were filmed in the Scottish Rite’s House of the Temple in Washington, D.C. For the last few weeks, there have been numerous documentaries on cable television dealing not only with The Da Vinci Code, but also specifically with the Knights Templar and the Freemasons. Just this very week the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel have run programs on the Templars, the Freemasons, and the Roman Catholic Order known as Opus Dei. All part of what their investigation into what they call “secret societies” and “conspiracy theories”.
Secret societies. Secret conspiracies. The general public must be eating all this up otherwise there would not continue to be so much hype. In fact, Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code supposedly has a new book coming out that purportedly reveals a Masonic conspiracy in first constructing, and later running, Washington D.C. The common call, repeated over and over again in all this public hype and attention, and despite the reasoned protests from Freemasons themselves and even non-mason scholars, is that: 1) Freemasonry is a secret society; and 2) Freemasonry is involved in secret conspiracies, up to an including actually running the entire world.
A secret society involved in secret conspiracies—even the so-called objective programs repeatedly use this language—after all, that’s what seems to sell when the actual truth may be much less interesting to a general public with a very short attention span and which thrives on sensationalism. All in all, it seems to me that more misinformation and wild supposition is being conveyed than there is actual and true information.
As to the latter, conspiracies, I loved what Brother Brent Morris said in one of the recent cable television documentaries: he questioned whether a group of men who couldn’t agree on whether to serve ham or tuna fish sandwiches after their meetings would possibly have the wherewithal to conspire to run much of anything that well, let alone the entire world. His statement frankly reminded me of the ongoing disputes we have in Columbia with Brother Kevin Sample about whether to serve “Masonic Green Beans” at our dinners.
We must be a very special group of conspiracists indeed to have members fight on both sides of the revolutionary and civil wars, and count among our membership ranks such politically diverse politicians as Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, Bob Dole, and Congressman Roy Blunt on the one hand, and FDR, Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, Mel Carnahan, and Roger Wilson on the other. Instead of assuming a secret cabal of the powerful, why can’t folks simply understand how fortunate it is that Freemasonry has wisely prohibited the divisiveness of political—and for that matter sectarian religious—discussions from around its altar since the time of Anderson’s Constitutions?
As to the former, that of being a secret society, I have received a considerable number of Masonic degrees, I have served in leadership positions in various Masonic bodies, and I have yet to find where any of our so-called secret rituals could not also be somewhere found published in books or available on the internet.
Of course, far be it from me to think that I am in full possession of all the secrets of our fraternity.
One secret, which I still wish someone would explain to me, is why, when I play the second ruffian with two fellow attorney ruffians in the third degree, the brothers in the audience always seems to applaud—almost cheer—when we three are taken out on the orders of King Solomon and executed according to our several imprecations. That part of the ritual always seems to be unusually popular. What’s up with that?
While I may never learn that particular secret, with each passing day I do discover more Masonic secrets, both from inside and outside the fraternity. Just Thursday night, while we were putting on our costumes in preparation to perform The Capitivity play, I learned directly but quite privately from the lips of our Most Eminent Grand Commander himself the true, hidden and secret meaning of his nickname, “Big Sword”—I am of course bound not to reveal that to you although the cryptologists among you may well figure it out on your own if you take another sip of coffee.
In terms of new secrets coming to me from outside the fraternity, after watching all the recent documentaries, I must admit I was shocked to learn the following Masonic secrets:
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Did you know that in our rituals we worship the ancient Greek Goddess Sophia, Sophia being the Goddess of Wisdom, and also being part and parcel of the hidden Templar Code that venerates the “sacred feminine” concept from Egyptian times, as revealed only to the discerning eye in Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper? I didn’t know that.
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Did you know that the Knights Templar discovered under Solomon’s Temple ancient rituals from the Jewish sect of the Essenes and later gave them to the Freemasons, where we incorporated those rituals into our own, presumably in such a way as they do not conflict with the ancient Greek Sophia rituals we also are using. As I recall, the Essenes were supposedly a celibate sect of men that didn’t permit women members—celibate men, no women members—maybe they got it half right (think about it).
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Did you know that we also are alchemists who practice forms of divination when we aren’t covering up for Jack the Ripper or transporting and hiding the long lost Ark of the Covenant? I didn’t know that.
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Did you know that we planned were single-handedly were responsible for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution?
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Did you know that the Freemasons, led by George Washington, superimposed along with the square and compasses the astronomical constellation of Virgo as well as a satanic pentagram on the physical layout of Washington, D.C., as part of an age-old secret plan for world domination? I wasn’t aware of that either.
You would think that after all the degrees I have received, and after all the meetings (and meetings, and meetings) that I have attended over the years that I would have discovered such important things about our fraternity without having to watch cable television. Perhaps these additional secrets will be revealed to me if I am deemed worthy, and have the dues money, to become a member of yet some other appendant Masonic body that I haven’t already joined.
Be that as it may, all this new and fascinating information has piqued my insatiable curiosity, so much so that I’ve started my own investigation in preparation of possibly writing a book of my own. Being related to the Stewart and St. Clair families of Scotland, I no doubt have inherited both the hereditary right and ability to correctly interpret the secret symbols and understand the mysteries I may yet discover. If only I could remember those secret words and clues my grandfather Stewart passed onto me when I was a child—oh well, they may come to me eventually as I continue my investigation.
Take another sip of coffee and let me give you a rough outline so far of my new book. It starts innocently and simply enough, when I was asked by RW Brother Ron Miller to help move some boxes. In the process of moving boxes from the basement of the old Grand Lodge building to its new location north of Columbia, I discovered some old dusty documents, hidden behind a stack of pictures of our past Grand Masters. These documents were written in a coded cipher, which after several hours of work and comparison with other secret Masonic documents I had in my possession—since I am the Columbia Personal Representative of the Sovereign Grand Inspector General after all--I concluded that they were written, and perhaps even hidden, by none other than Past Grand Master Earl Dille, who, as a search of the public records shows, also is a member of a very exclusive and secret society of Masonic Adepts, who are headquartered in Washington D.C., not far from the White House, in what is known as The House of the Temple of Solomon.
But even with the contents of these deciphered documents, the puzzle still was not complete. I needed more, and that led me to the York Rite. Through a careful, painstaking review of the roster of Past Grand High Priests of the Grand Chapter of the State of Missouri along with other secret documents--which I cleverly was able to obtain from the archives of the Grand Secretary/Recorder from his wife when he was out playing golf with his son-----
I finally have been able to piece together and announce to you--and to the world—that:
I have traced the movements of the long lost Ark of the Covenant from its once hidden location in Montgomery City, carefully buried under Past Grand High Priest Calvin Schroff’s garden shed next to an old trombone—
--to what I believe must be its present hidden location, in or near Shelbina---
--although, more recent information brought to my attention just late this week at the Grand York Rite session leads me to believe that it once again will be moved. I’ll need to check out the platted layout and city maps of the City of St. Louis for hidden signs of the zodiac before I can be certain and will let you know—perhaps I’ll have the making of a second book, or even a movie!
In all seriousness, I actually do have a point here.
Brethren, we have not only the All-Seeing Eye, but today also the “All-Seeing Eye of the General Public” now upon us.
This can be a good thing--to the extent that it generates more interest in our fraternity and gives us a new opportunity to recruit good and qualified men into our ranks. I emphasize good and qualified men, not just curiosity seekers; we do ourselves and the future of our fraternity a great disservice if we put quantity over quality in recruiting new masons.
Or, all this new-found attention on the fraternity can be a bad thing--especially if we allow, without adequate and appropriate response, the enemies of Freemasonry to belittle what they cannot or refuse to understand and to make false and wild accusations about us.
While we can’t stop them from trying, today we as Freemasons cannot let others outside of our fraternity define who we are, what we are, and what we do.
In the practice of the law, definitions are extremely important and can mean the outcome of the entire case. The same holds true here with respect to how our fraternity is defined, and I offer the following as a possible starting point:
The true secrets of Freemasonry are those that are unable to be physically communicated and which are felt in the heart and soul of every true brother as he grows and progresses through his life’s Masonic journey. How can you possibly describe the feeling we get when we bring a new brother into the fraternity, work with him over the years in various Masonic endeavors, make other new Masonic friends who you probably would not have ever otherwise met, and then perhaps even be called upon to bury a friend and a brother “in the custom of Freemasons”? The lessons I’ve learned, the friendships I’ve made, and the joy I’ve found in Masonry are, taken together, simply ineffable and beyond mere words and I suspect they are for each of you as well.
Trying to first improve ourselves so that we may then seek to improve the world in which we live through our contact with others is not a conspiracy, but is instead a necessary recognition of our human frailties and a commandment from above if we are to truly be what the Great Architect of the Universe intends us to be.
Seeking truth and wisdom in our daily lives as individual Freemasons is not the same as, nor even remotely close to ritualistically worshiping some Greek goddess named Sophia, despite our detractors’ tortured logic and etymological gymnastics where they repeatedly confuse the symbol for what is being symbolized.
Respecting the personal religious convictions of others, and promoting the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God, is dangerous only to those who would deny the inalienable right of every man to worship God as his conscience dictates—and dangerous only to those who would instead attempt to impose a spiritual tyranny on mankind, especially thru an unholy and improper alliance of temporal and spiritual authority.
Brethren, let us resolve to together show the world the truth about Freemasonry in all our individual words and actions, and if we can perhaps agree on the fundamentals in spite of disagreeing on the menu for the evening, to stand firm and speak together with one loud voice as a fraternity.
Thank you again for inviting me to speak this morning and look for my new book coming soon to a newsstand near you.
--end--
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