Meanderings on A Theme: Freemasonry In Decline

The Essential Freemason

Freemasonry makes an assumption that we come to the order in ignorance and through the process of masonry, if followed faithfully, enlightenment may be achieved. It is undeniable that a lodge begins connecting with each applicant even before he gives the necessary affirmation of belief in a higher power. Why do so few masons understand the meaning.

We need only a general sense of good character. Usually, we do not reveal the amount of time and financial commitment needed to maintain a lodge and support charitable acts. Not nearly enough is said and most often, not at all.

Unless educated in the craft, a member of the investigating committee has only a superficial sense of the craft and likely does not himself know how to describe freemasonry except by a few empty slogans. It’s a little like open casting for a play. Every has an opportunity but few making to the real stage. However, there are no qualifiers for an examining committee but rank and that perpetuates a problem; the lost opportunity to teach. Self improvement? To make a good man better? Quasi-Religious movement? A service club without the expectation of work or donating?

We ride on the coat-tails of a reputation that has become tarnished; a reputation of excellence, or brilliance and innovation, including the liberal arts and sciences.

The nucleus of freemasonry is self-improvement but the way we are going is is breeding apathy.

Moral development, within freemasonry is not like canon law. We are not told what to do and we are not motivated by a veiled threat of damnation, pergatory or guilt. Masonry is an simply an opportunity, outlined by landmarks, symbols and allegory, requiring free will to qualify and self determination to probe deeper insights. It is all difficult and for most men, impossible to acheive those insights, because that takes perserverence and desire. Perhaps more could and should be done in some lodges to encourage this type of effort.

The fundamentals are taught by catechism. Gradually, as the overwhelming experience of initiation, passing and raising subsides, a man is ready to be instructed about a new alphabet of hieroglyphs, new manners and learning his role within the larger order. Students need to be prepared by those who are qualified to instruct while challenging their curiousity.

A program of discussion and mentoring is an old-world form of learning/teaching .
Core topics:

Myth/Legend/Allegory
a) Birth & Death: The Lifespan of a Man
b) Darkness to Light: Understanding vs Superstition

Symbolic vs Literal Meaning
a) Philosophers, Scientists and Stone Workers

History of the Order
a) Early records
b) 17th Century: Social Development Scotland, Ireland and England
c) Freemasonry in Canada

I Am That I Am
a) Ineffable Name and Man

The Nature of Precaution with Politics and Religion
a) The consequence

Philosophy Applied
a) Participation in Masonic Function

The Masonic Way
a) Judgement in the Highest Order: What Albert Pike Did to Prejudice and


Mia culpa. Compared to a time long gone, the standards of freemasonry have eroded. We have let in those who have failed to join the mainstream of masonic philosophy. Have we done this in order to be a democratic movement?

Political correctness requires that I disavow we are an organization of men and a group of uncommon men by intent. I am not allowed to admit there are many, many men, who are not suitable. I am also not allowed to admit there are those among us who benefit from membership but make no contribution. Am I being a harsh, unfair judge or confessing a frustration? Is this why I want tests of achievement and the demonstration of effort to qualify for offices? Yes.

We seem to agree that this is a sensitive problem but lowered standards are a product of our own lack of preparation. How can I blame the new man for poor work when the master who trains him is incomplete?

Drilling down into the problem we may realize what this phenomena can teach us. First, are we letting anyone into the order? There is a sense that lodges are desparate and willing to ignore standards. Anyone can become a mason.

I have suggested, those who ignored standards in the past were unaware of the long term or cumulative consequences. Symptoms of that include low proportions of participation; indifference to masonic education; generations of officers of all stripes, who are unprepared mixed in with a core of dutiful men who struggle to hold the order together.

German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, defined enlightenment this way: “Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority. Minority is the incapacity of using one understands without the direction of another. This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”

The enemy of Freemasonry is ennui; fighting complacency in the face of our problems is the challenge.

Dale