Disappointment, Burnout, and Knowing When to Walk Away

by Midnight Freemason Contributor
Bro. Erik Geehern



This past Wednesday, as I read WB Lahner's “Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes” post, it resonated with me on so many levels.  Specifically, this; “However, the job of being the Blog's editor is time-consuming, thankless, and sometimes frustrating.”

Two months into my year in the East I sat down and wrote down my thoughts, mostly as a way for me to vent.  I was frustrated and disappointed in the participation levels in my Lodge at the time. As a new Master, I was trying to invigorate our small country Lodge and do things differently than they had been done before. In my eagerness to revitalize our Lodge, I might have set my expectations too high, hoping to see a surge of engagement and renewed enthusiasm.  

I ended that written rant with this; “It may be time to humbly admit that my expectations might have been overly ambitious, and I am dedicated to working alongside all my Brothers to create an atmosphere of unity and purpose within our Lodge.”

It is now about seven months later, and sadly nothing has really changed.  We all know Masonry is a volunteer organization, one that takes a back seat to family, faith, or work commitments.  I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment and have put things ahead of my attending a meeting or rehearsal many times myself.  Still, I must admit that I find myself feeling disappointed in some of my Brothers.  

Recently I called for a meeting to discuss our Lodges finances as well as a few other items I think could use a revision in our bylaws.  It snowed the morning of the meeting and several Brothers reached out stating we should cancel due to the weather and the road conditions, even though the snow had stopped by 1 pm and the roads were perfectly clear well before our 6:30 pm meeting.  In the interest of ensuring we had maximum participation, I postponed the meeting. 

Several Brothers then reached out complaining about the postponement… To ensure we didn’t have a repeat I decided we would make the meeting virtual, that way if the weather interfered again, it would not be an issue.  Not surprisingly several Brothers reached out to complain they are incapable of joining virtually.  So, I made the meeting hybrid, I would meet at the Lodge and set it up on our big screen, everyone can come in person or attend online, whatever works for them. Including myself, seven Brothers participated. One of the Brothers who reached out to me three times to complain in one fashion or another about this meeting did not come.

Seven months ago, I wrote about how we had a toy drive to benefit the Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.  This is something that our Lodge has done for about three years now. We have one toy drive in July for the Centurion “Christmas in July” event and another in December for the holidays.  We have one Brother who takes all our donations down personally each year and supplies us with pictures for our newsletter.  I’m not sure if it is even worth including in our next issue, we had two or three Brothers contribute, and that’s it.  In total those few Brothers donated about ten full grocery bags filled with toys, so we should be proud that we were able to contribute to a very worthy cause.  Our December toy drive fared even worse.  I just can’t shake the knowledge that we could have and should have, done much more.

We had three worthy Entered Apprentices we were preparing a Fellow Craft Degree for.  In our Lodge, the Senior Warden leads that effort and sits in the East for the Degree.  We had about six rehearsals in total, no more than three or four Brothers were able to attend any given rehearsal night for various reasons.  Pretty hard to rehearse for a degree without the officers that have important roles.  Eventually, we made a difficult decision to have our Brothers be passed in a Fellow Craft Degree at a neighboring Lodge, as we felt it was unfair to hold these Brothers back in their Masonic progress.  We still have one EA we need to prepare a Degree for as he was unable to attend.  I think it looks likely we will be asking for another Lodge’s assistance once again.

In my usual vocation, I have managed small and large teams.  I have had up to ninety direct reports and at one time was responsible for approximately seven hundred employees.  I understand the struggles of motivation in the workforce.  My usual tactics will not work in the Lodge, it's not like I can increase wages for increased performance or offer bonuses to top-performing units.  Every member of our Lodge joined for the same core reasons, to be a part of something bigger than themselves, to become better men, to learn and grow.  Why then is every Brother not giving it his all and holding himself to higher expectations?

But as I reflect on this, I am compelled to question whether my expectations are indeed too high. After all, Freemasonry is built upon the foundation of unity, friendship, and mutual support, and each Brother contributes according to his abilities and circumstances.

I remember early in my career being so frustrated with some of my employees and the condition in which they would leave the store at night.  I would come in and have to re-sweep and mop the floors, clean the glass, empty trash, etc.  Eventually, I learned it was completely unrealistic to expect some team members to care as much about the store as I did.  I was a salaried manager, there fifty-plus hours a week, and ultimately, I was responsible for every aspect of the store.  Why would a high school student, making minimum wage work ten or fifteen hours a week because he needs gas money care as much as I do about the condition of the store?  On average, they won’t, and I really can’t blame them.

I guess Masonry has some of the same dichotomies.  Not every Mason is willing or able to make Masonry a full-time commitment.  My two children are a bit older and largely can take care of themselves.  I highly doubt if I had an infant or a toddler, I would be able to participate at the level I do now.  I’m sure when I am older and have grandchildren if I get a last-minute call on a meeting night to come watch the kids I would jump at that opportunity.  I am sure some Brothers are in very different financial positions than I am, and simply may not be able to contribute to the myriad of fundraisers and donation requests that are put forth throughout the year.  

I have no doubt that anyone who has sat in the East can relate to the feeling of frustration when you put so much effort into something and those efforts simply are not reciprocated, or even appreciated.  I often discuss with one very close Brother, who participates in everything our Lodge does, the ongoing frustration I feel.  Sometimes just being able to vent helps.  Maybe it’s a bit of seasonal affective disorder, but I have thought maybe it is time to affiliate with a more active Lodge and move on.  My Masonic District has thirteen Lodges.  Most are in similar situations as my own, some better, some worse.  A few stand out as active, growing in membership, and generally on the rise.  However, our small Lodge is in a position where the loss of even one active Brother would be devastating. There is no way I can allow our Lodge which has existed and served our community for almost 170 years to fail. 

If seven Brothers could start this Lodge in 1855, surely seven can help get it back on track in 2024.  So, am I disappointed? Yes.  Am I burnt out? A little.  Am I ready to walk away? Not a chance.


~EG

Bro. Erik M. Geehern is currently Master of Goshen Masonic Lodge #365 in Goshen, NY under the Grand Lodge of New York. He was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in October of 2019 and since then has served in various progressive chairs along the road to the east. He writes and curates a newsletter for his Lodge quarterly which disseminates education, history, and esoterics. He is also a member of the Grand College of Rites, the American Lodge of Research, and the Kansas Lodge of Research. He works in restaurant operations & consulting, and when not engaged in his usual vocation, or laboring in the Craft, he loves spending time with his wife and two children.

Warily Unaware

by Midnight Freemason Guest Contributor
Bro.Steve Leapman


Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has given us the mind and heart to distinguish between night and day!  - taken from pp. 18-19 The Complete Artscroll Siddur, Mesorah Publications, 1984 / 2001 & with this writer’s adaptation


O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!  Such a power or ability would save us a lot of bother and foolish notions; … from “To a Louse by Brother Robert Burns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Louse


Sometimes we don’t realize the force of a moment until it is passed. I place my ego on the sidelines and acknowledge this happens far more often than I wish to admit. Yet, I also believe Masonry’s practices and principles hone my awareness. Through Masonry, I may live a life of response, not reaction. Each moment and every day awaits us as Masons for we actively attend those 24 hours. We honor them in our very first Degree through the Common Gauge. We are not to be workmen whose greatest load is the annual dues card carried in our wallets. 

The rough ashlar is an ample allusion in assisting our cultivation of skills for the journey from novice to artisan. An actively aware Mason studies his progress from Initiate to Mason; wakefulness of your years is not to trifle with your feelings but to fortify you for purpose with perspective. This acuity does not arise from a life devoid of curiosity. “Actively aware Masonry” is but a synonym for willful dedication. The actively aware Mason cannot evade a keen sense of duty which compels him to act to heal a fractured world. The obtuse life is not well suited to an actively aware Mason. 

The stone that needs shaping is a sufficient metaphor for those traits we polish to adorn character. I wish to speak on this gift of “awareness.” The well-honored passage by Brother Burns bespeaks the blessed knowledge of how we are seen. The ancient rabbinic petition praises God for gifts of intellect and soul allowing each of us to make distinctions in the natural domain and amidst those timeless realms of sanctity and morality. 

One is justified to assert Freemasonry’s call to Character mandates Duty. Such is the Faithful Breast obedient to the Attentive Ear. To hear the Word is to convert Speculative awareness to Life’s redemptive Labor. Inner qualifications now recommend external quantifications. Actively aware Masons acquire merits. They apply the Soul’s insights realized through action. 

Neither “intentions” nor “preoccupations” fit the bill. Masonry is after all a Craft. Each Brother daily turns to his Trestle-Board in search of that day’s revealed hence required service. “Required?” Really? Certainly so!

There are certainties beyond our minds and opinions. Masonry enthusiastically welcomes each man’s explorations. Neither Operative nor Speculative Masons can build without absolutes and standards.

This has ramifications Mason's risk at grave peril. When or where, why, or how Masonry concedes God is limited to human “suggestions” or what we “feel” “comfortable with” a question arises to confront the intellectually honest Mason. Can such an Architect be “Grand?” If so, what of we who invoke such Grandeur? 

No! To abandon absolutes is to abandon Geometry itself let alone The Grand Geometrician honored in the Opening Prayer for the Fellowcraft Lodge. Contemporary Masons have no right to remove Deity from the Trestle-Board to which we turn if we evict a Deity why retain obligations? Eroding The Presence is the cost of such concessions. It is why many never return once Raised. They have not been aroused by Awe! They are bereft of Reverence. 

As each labors in community and toils in the care of kin we evolve within as men humbly but confidently aware of the Fatherhood of God. Granted, our semantics vary as they should in a Free Society. Our theology is personal. Our faith must be well-founded. No policy nor marketing scheme can promise this.

A Freemasonry that deserves to endure as our lasting legacy is not about giving away this shiny pin, that ribbon, a badge, a hat, or a title. Imagine explaining to a Medieval Stone Mason, whose grandchildren might see a Cathedral begun by a great-grandparent, that in four or five centuries you only need to spend one day to become a Master Mason and pick up Scottish Rite to boot, breakfast and lunch included! Actively aware Masons are not first and foremost charity workers or case managers. We are not here to gather numbers but to gain the Numinous. The reward of truly Masonic Life is to live in Masonic Light. 

We dare not waste precious moments or material demeaning ourselves and our spirits amidst one-day classes. Our Operative Ancients honed the patience of centuries as they assembled Sanctuaries still inspirational today. Neither Wisdom nor Strength nor Beauty are overnighted to our doorsteps by Amazon Prime! Authentically aware Masonic workmanship exhibits an attention to detail we meagerly comprehend in our age of Internet and Instant Messages.  

Just as the fires of a well-tended domestic hearth comfort all therein, the glow of Divine Glory within man’s sacred privacies fosters healing. Thus, as actively aware Masons, we display resolve when Honor is called to step forward. An authentic Mason is a man aware of who he is and more so Whose he is! A man who is Masonically aware, is one whose behaviors are dignified and dignifying. 

One may know our ceremonies and esoteric forms letter, syllable, and word yet conduct himself so shamefully, belittle other men and Masons so shamelessly as to nullify all the nuances of our beautiful rituals and inspirational rites. Titles shall not hide truths daily demeanor depicts beyond doubt. Are we aware there must be little if any gap between word and deed? Our character marks our figure beyond equivocation or mental evasion. 

 A man must emulate that refined awareness of self and centeredness of soul Grand Master Hiram Abiff displayed. On the day he gave fully of himself he faced danger without warning nor hesitation. Those clarities which crisis coalesced in his soul were beyond doubt. GMHA would neither suffer degradation nor diminishment when conscience called out. 

No conscientious Mason sets to his labors in a frenzy. To do this would present a case study in passions run amok. Had our ancient Operative Brethren done so they would not have found ready steady employment. The Cathedrals we cherish today would have collapsed long ago. Lethargy nor shoddiness allow us to cement Living Stones. 

The Compasses serve to circumscribe zeal as they focus on productive ambition. Indeed, man's passions unrestrained breed destruction. Forceful barbarism would never have been able to destroy what could never been built had idleness forestalled Solomon’s plans and deterred King David’s dream. A life without purposeful awareness is the grip and word for entropy.

It is the astutely aware Speculative worker whose edifices we enjoy and cherish. Once the heat of effect cools we find time, space, and place for the Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic intrinsic to the Fellowcraft Degree, its mindset, and our way of life.  We must abandon the woeful immaturity that St. Paul recognized as an encumbrance of growth. 

Those possessing such silliness are not sufficient to pass through our West Gate. Real men of worth, merit, nobility, and character disdain being “marketed!” One cannot sheep-steal souls! Those easily distracted or eventually disinterested will wander in and soon off. Talk about “off or from!” Watch for it! Wait for it! Masons and Masonry must be honest with and within ourselves. When we are unaware of our proximity to Truth we endanger this Grand Fraternity.  

Let us choose otherwise. Let us choose wisely. Let us be actively aware. As Masons we ask, seek, and knock to be molded and guided, taught and inspired by men of dignity, centeredness, and at peace with themselves for they are at peace with their God. As Traveling Men, we tread lightly yet confidently beyond denomination or dogma, unconcerned with political positions and polling. 

What then are our labors? Better question: How then, can we determine what tasks should earn our energy. As Masons, who are actively aware, we see our task beyond doubt is to focus on the soul’s maturity cut, squared, and valued over time. This is why men finally vocalize to a trusted friend or relative, “I think that I’d like to be a Mason! What do I do? Who do I talk to?” 

It is this passion, which we form as the clay from which each individually worthy and well-qualified Brother journeys towards his East. This is the work and worth of an actively aware Mason. We are not some puerile “frat” best suited to an adolescent’s nonage. Rather, Masons await a man’s nascent adulthood as acuity sharpens. As adolescence recedes Moral Geometry guides the emerging adult. The Speculative Astronomy of the Fellowcraft Degree presents stars to steer by. “Active awareness” expands. We navigate by the “G” not by impulsivity.  

Not everyone should seek that vaunted recommendation. As we have bemoaned a lack of readiness at Life’s earliest days, so too one impaired by an aged psyche, experiencing a dotage far less of years than of yearnings. Complacency has constricted one’s morality. The pulse of Life has slowed. Hearts and mentality harden. 

Such souls emulate Exodus’ Pharoah or the unfairly indicted “Pharisees!” No, these were hollow men who lost their mission. Such capitulations to compromise or kings besmirch every ethnicity, era, culture, and cause. It is fallacious anti-Semitism to assign this trait to any singular tribe, certainly not my own. Masonry will demean no man’s religion, dictate no man’s religiosity, and certainly not belittle any man’s faith. Actively aware Masons are Geometrically Correct. 

These “authorities” in truth were far less than valid nor reliable. They were far less sages than stultified minions of institutions collapsed by their betrayals of original intent. We see them vibrant and repugnant today as then! Pray God one’s own soul does not imitate their folly.

Freemasonry’s enterprise is the development of a man’s finest essence. Freemasonry will not surrender to social correctness for we are neither primarily nor preferentially “social.” Masonry is about the man, the citizen, the adult member of his country and culture.

Unaware and toting vices and superfluities of an image, business connections, pins, garlands, lapels, and letterheads, we might balloon numbers. However, these men are soon gone with the winds of disciplined commitment, vital proficiencies, Floor Schools, individual study, and personal prayer. Is this nothing other than a denial of Godliness if not God of which our teachings warn? One seeks Masonry as it appeals, promises profits, and promotes sales! How sorrowful. How blindly empty. How fatal a plague.

The refusal to recognize or revere Our Creator deludes one. He anoints himself as the measure and maker of individual Destiny. Intentional? Probably not! Yet it is detrimental. This is to live as a libertine. Lusts seize tightly the helm aboard the ship of soul. One lives unaware moving hither and thither, helter-skelter through darkness derived the Light Masons revere to illuminate our travels.  Such an unaware soul paves no trail. He stumbles upon it. 

Well, if “awareness” is crucial state it plainly! Did “awareness” as a virtue and trait get lost in the turmoil during those closing moments of Hiram’s life? Maybe! It was a heinous murder! Though wretched chaos was rampant Solomon ruled. Actively aware Masons buttress the narrative of our Grand Master’s death. As we study Masonry we are not literalists. Our search for Wise Awareness depicts a laudable pursuit. Hiram was a servant of his awareness. He told the assailants, “Better my mortality than your morality!” 

“Active awareness” redeems the atrocity of Hiram’s last moments. Did it tumble away dropped due to a “nerveless grasp? Where is “awareness” listed amongst our Tools? Why doesn’t it appear in the “Furniture of the Lodge?” Can a Mason be authentically Masonic lacking attention to detail, dull to curiosity, or decision-making? Can one be an evolved Mason when only reactive to circumstances? Our charges envision an educated, reflective, involved, and decisively participatory citizen. Such is one aware! Masonry fosters this!

The Masons we wish to find and refine, retain, and become make “active awareness” a prized “internal qualification” one-day programs cannot guarantee. We must advance our capacity to do what our Lodge Secretary accomplishes when he makes a “correct record of all things proper to be written,” as he will “carefully observe the proceedings of the Lodge.”  (Texas Monitor 2023, page 160). 

Post-Script: Now it applies to me and my duty to see! 

Two fine men and exemplary Masons have shown and taught me the impeccable wisdom of The Fellowcraft Lecture. PM Dave Wood of South Bend IN’s Council Oak #745 and JW Kirk Otto of San Antonio’s Perfect Union # 10 are these teachers. Though they have never met their passion for our Craft compels me. In their honor, I learned the Texas Fellowcraft Lecture. I gave it one evening at Triune # 15 here in San Antonio. 

Texas ritual places the delivery of that exquisite prose in the East. The Brother rendering this Lecture is expected to duly use and properly deploy The Gavel. At the point where the WM gathers The Lodge to rise to glorify Deity, I did my duty. I never until this moment “gaveled the Lodge up” as we say here in Southern Texas. So eager to enact the ritual respectfully I was obtuse to my own experience. 

An entire day passed before I realized I had never stood in the East in this fashion. I needed a few days for my ego to surrender to my mind and then onward to my soul. The significance those moments held for me linked me to my father and a man whose years in this life have passed yet his legacy reaches into my days and decisions.  

Once home I pondered the gavel owned and used by Dad’s best friend PM Jack Lawson who in 1977 stood in the East at Abraham C. Treichler # 682 in Elizabethtown, PA. This gavel now rests with esteem in my home. Brother Lawson and his Blue Lodge line are photographed as another heirloom preserved on the wall of the room where I type these words. 

Dad was a local merchant. Decades after Dad and PM Lawson entered the Celestial Lodge I learned a secret. It was my Dad who supplied and engraved the gavels many years ago for Abraham C. Treichler # 682 of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. 

I thank God for the gift of awareness. I thank God for a dawning sense of my ability to contribute. I thank God for how awareness evolves for our Masonry provides implements as metaphors to instruct our expansion of perception.  

I am observant of my time to serve. I am aware of Whom I ultimately serve. It may be in The East, yet I must be in The Lodge we each necessarily build daily. I humbly ponder the photo of Brother Jack. I consider the lessons of word and work he imparted to his officers, Dad, and me. 

Masonry helps me pay my finest attention. To “pay” is to render one’s due share. Masonry beckons me: Cultivate the best man I hope to be. Perhaps I will honor my father and PM Jack as they blessed me. Jack would not reveal any secrets but once he tried to share the Craft he loved so well and loyally! He smiled at me saying fondly, “Stevie, there’s a lot of the Bible in Masonry!”

~SC

Steven M. Leapman was raised in 1996 at what was then Blackmer # 442 in San Diego, CA when serving as a Navy Chaplain. He sees himself as a “returned Mason” come home to active participation in Masonry through MW John R. Heisner Lodge #442. He joined Council Oak Lodge # 745 in South Bend, IN serving as Junior Warden when in 2021 he and his wife moved to San Antonio, TX. There he was warmly welcomed into the Masonic community once again and has become a member of Davy Crockett # 1225 where he serves as Lodge Chaplain. He also serves as Senior Deacon at Antonio’s Triune # 15. He is a member of Northern Masonic Jurisdiction and Southern Masonic Jurisdiction as a 32d Degree Mason. As a member of the San Antonio Scottish Rite community has served as Degree Master for Prince of The Tabernacle 24th Degree and supports the presentation of other degrees during Reunions. He actively attends monthly Continuing Masonic Education Zoom sessions and hopes to write deserving reflections on our beloved Craft. Brother Steve attended American University in Washington, DC in 1981 and 1984 earning degrees in Literature. He attended Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion where in 1990 he graduated with a Master’s in Hebrew Letters (MHL) and was ordained a Rabbi in Cincinnati, OH in 1991. Brother Steve served in the US Navy/ USMC Chaplaincy from 1993-2000. Later he returned to the military community as a mental health professional with the Veterans Administration in Indiana and Texas. He graduated from Indiana University South Bend in 2008. He has been involved with Civilian and Military/Veterans’ Care since then.

Lightning Strike, or How Symbols Play Tricks on Us - Part 3 of a series

by Midnight Freemason Contributor
Patrick Dey


Very often in esoteric Masonic research papers and books, we will find instances of Masons relating Freemasonry back to some ancient mystery cult or another. They will take the few artifacts and written accounts if there are any, of these cults and spin them into something that resembles Freemasonry. Such writings were barely acceptable in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but this really is no longer acceptable, at least academically. Their agenda appears to be that they want Freemasonry to be the inheritors of an ancient lineage of initiation rites. Albert Pike does this. Albert Mackey does this. Manly P. Hall does this. It would be nauseating to survey every Masonic author who is guilty of such parallelomania — the phenomenon of someone seeing similarities between two or more religions or cultures, in which they begin to force more similarities than are really there, sometimes completely fabricating information to push their agenda of making these things appear similar.


In many instances, they suggest that all the ancient mystery cults were the same thing, with only minor variations from region to region. Such was presumed before World War I and II, and during the time of the Great Wars, universities were largely concerned with the sciences to support the war effort. However, after World War II, many academics and funding was opened back up for research into these ancient cults. What we now understand about these cults is less certain than previously presented, and that they are all very different from each other. We call them “mystery cults” because it is a mystery what went on in their rites. It is a mystery, hence, a “mystery cult.” That is why we call them that, and there is nothing deeper than that. We know a great deal more about these groups today than we did a century ago, and what we know from archaeology has yielded many things that do appear to resemble something like Freemasonry, but just as much is totally different.


I think of Nietzsche’s example of a “lightning strike” (On the Genealogy of Morals, §13). It is two words, but one thing. Nietzsche uses this to illustrate how language plays tricks on us. We take the two words of “lightning strike” to presume that the “doer” does the “doing,” but really a lightning strike is simply one thing: an action, a doing, and we let our language trick us into viewing this term otherwise.


This sort of trick that language plays on us, I think, is being played on us when we use the term “religion.” Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Roman paganism, indigenous American religions, Satanism, et al, are all examples of what we call “religion.” But are they? They are very different things, and there is no solid definition of “religion” that totally encapsulates these “religions.” Satanists do not believe in God. Daoism does not necessarily believe in the personification of Deity, but more of an all-pervading energy or animus that endows the nature of all things. Is belief in a god or gods necessary to be a religion? Buddhists do not necessarily believe this world is real, but an illusion we have created for ourselves and that we must escape by extinguishing our being (nirvana). What even is religion? It is complicated, and the more we truly survey the different examples of religion, the more we may begin to ask ourselves: are these all examples of “religion”? or are they all different things that we only have one word to describe them?


This is what Nietzsche is saying with “lightning strike.” Do not let language play tricks on you. “Our who science is still, in spite of all its coldness, of all its freedom from passion, a dupe of the tricks of language…” thus spake Nietzsche.


Mystery cults, their artifacts, symbols, and the vague descriptions that survive of their rites, et al, makes this problem so much worse, because herein we have entered the same problem of language tricking us, but the language is not a simple signified-signifier relationship, but something much more vague and open to interpretation: symbols, allegory, myth, and legend. “Lightning” is a signifier for a very specific idea (the signified idea of lightning), and “strike” is another signifier for another very specific idea (that of striking). But introduce a symbol like a point within a circle, and we open up a world of complex and interrelating and differing ideas represented in an image that acknowledges that these ideas cannot be fully expressed in a single sign.


Let us quickly recap the conceptions of symbols as being used here and previously explored in the first post of this series, “What Even are Symbols?” published on this blog on December 20, 2023. I believe Jean Baudrillard best understood the use and conception of symbols, namely that they are a system of signs and signifiers, but that they deny that the complete totality of all it expresses can be represented in an image. This is unlike a simulacrum, a copy of something, such as a portrait of a person. We know it is not that person, but a good representation of their likeness. A symbol, on the other hand, essentially denies that the entire reality of something can be fully represented, and thus denies reality and creates a sign to stand in for a reality that cannot be represented.


If that seems vague, you are on the right page, because symbols are vague and multifaceted. They are not as simple as a nice portrait of a famous person. You do not look at a portrait of George Washington and say to yourself, “Well, the complexity of his life and beliefs are so grand and magnanimous that this cannot be a portrait of George Washington.” But if you show the image of a point within a circle, and someone says, “That is the symbol for the sun!” they will be immediately met by numerous voices declaring other things, like the duad, the image of unity, the first principle of Euclidean geometry, et al. Symbols tend to be so vague and multifaceted that they become much more open to interpretation and speculation than, say, what the words “lightning strike” mean.


There is the notion of “omnism” or “religious pluralism,” or that all religions are essentially true and can be respected. Yet, we know that Hinduism and Daoism and Christianity and Islam et al are not the same thing. Personally, I believe that God speaks more than one language, and therefore speaks more than one religion. Yet, these “religions” are not inherently the same thing, and they differ greatly, sometimes not resembling each other in any way whatsoever. In fact, some religions are so different, it is hard to comprehend how they can essentially be the same thing.


Thus, why would we expect anything different in the ancient world? The Cult of Isis was a Greco-Roman cult that appropriated an Egyptian goddess into a Roman cult via Greece. The Cult at Samothrace is a Chthonic religious cult, similar to the Cult at Lemnos, but essentially different, and probably both rooted in some neo-Hittite cult. These differ from the numerous cults of Mithras, a vast number of different civic associations of Roman soldiers that worshipped the Romanization of a minor Persian god, Mithras. These differ still from the various cults of Jesus Christ. When talking about the different forms of Christianity in the early centuries, we will call unorthodox cults as being “heresy,” coming from the Latin haeresis, literally meaning “choice [of belief].” These Christian cults can be very wild, such as the various “gnostic” sects, which were not a singular Christian movement, but rather a catch-all category of Christian heretics.


Let us clear something up before proceeding. When I say “cult,” I do not mean it in its current derogatory conception, but rather the sociological conception of a religious group that is very new, in which the vast majority of its members were not born into this religious group. The group is usually formed in protest of a particular institutional religion, and then as more members join it, it becomes a cult, and as more people are born into this cult, it becomes a denomination of an institutional religion. (See the work of Howard P. Becker).


Understanding how cults arise, how different religions can be, and questioning whether or not these are all religions or if we have no other word to describe all these different spiritual movements, we return to how Masons can presume all these different cults can be the same thing, of which Freemasonry is an inheritor thereof.


When dealing with the complex and vague language of symbols, which do not establish a particular reality, but rather deny reality, we can read whatever we want into them. This is why we can find anything from any mystery cult of the ancient world and point to it, saying, “That’s Masonic!” But is it?


I believe the cults of Mithras are the best case study for this phenomenon. The reason is that the Mithraic cults are the mystery cults of the ancient world that we know the most about. St. Jerome, Porphyry, Origen, and others write about this cult. We have graffiti and sculptural representations of their rites and myth cycle. Of all the ancient mystery cults, the cults of Mithras are the ones that we know the most about. Contrast this to the Cult at Eleusis, in which the best we can describe their rites is that there were “things done,” “things shown,” and “things said.” That is, like, super duper clear. Thanks, archaeologists!


The great central image of the Mithraic cults, the Tauroctony, is probably one of the best examples. This image depicts Mithras slaying the bull. Here Mithras represents the sun conquering the dark (the bull’s crescent horns being associated with the moon). Flanking each side of this scene are two figures, Cautes and Cautopates, the former with a raised torch and the other with a lower torch, representing the winter and summer solstices, respectively. They represent the extremes of the sun, being low and cold, and being high and hot. But Mithras is in the middle, representing a balance between the extremes (for more on the astrological interpretation of this image, I recommend the works of the Mithraic scholar Roger Beck). If an interpretation of that image sounds familiar to something in Masonry, you are on the right page: this is the interpretation of the circumpunct bounded by two perpendicular parallel lines. The point within the circle is the classic symbol of the sun, while the parallel lines represent the Holy Saints John, who represent the extremes of the summer and winter solstices, and that we should seek a balance between.


So, do we presume the Mithraic cults are a precursor to Freemasonry? I do not see how we could. The cults of Mithras were stomped out by Theodosius I in the 4th century. The European economy would not become sophisticated enough to support the guild system until the 9th and 10th centuries, and even then, we do not see the earliest stonemason guilds until the 11th century. How could there be a connection over a seven-hundred-year gap? Esoteric speculations of these groups hiding out in secret are more on brand for conspiracy theorists than anything academically tenable. But the similarity of the symbols of the Tauroctony and the circumpunct is quite strong — and I will admit that they are strikingly similar, if not astoundingly similar in conception and interpretation. However, we are letting the language of symbols cloud our judgment when we presume that just because two different groups thought up the same thing, then they must be linked, when in fact there is no solid (or even flimsy) evidence to support such.


Years ago I gave a lecture at a Masonic symposium on the subject of the similarities between the cults of Mithras and Freemasonry, and I prefaced the talk with the firm assertion that there is no link between the two. They have a lot of similarities, but just as many differences. To illustrate my point of how two cultures can have something very similar and be so remote in time and geography that there is no way to connect the two, I used the example of Yggdrasil and the contemporary Navajo sandpainting “The Healing Way,” both of which have striking similarities. They have three roots, three levels, three branches or ears of corn, a rainbow bridge, and a bird on top. However, the Norse could not have had any contact with the Navajo. That is preposterous. Yet several Masons in the room started speculating how Vikings could have come across the Atlantic and transmitted across indigenous American tribes to eventually get to the American Southwest. And I just put my face in my hands. I was just trying to illustrate how crazy it would be to presume that there could be a link between the two groups, and here you all are trying to connect them!


If even simple language can deceive us, then symbols are like a trickster god. Symbols as a language are the chief deceivers of esoteric exploration. When we find two or more similar symbols, we are compelled to find links, even making up links, to try and force a connection that is not there. It is fun to explore such things, and even enjoyable to speculate, but at the end of the day, we need to reel ourselves back in and consider the reality of a reasonable connection or just wishful thinking.


Seeker beware.


~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

by Midnight Freemason Managing Editor
WB Darin A. Lahners

SEND MORE ARTICLES!!!!!!!!

I have recently been faced with a dilemma. As the managing editor of the Midnight Freemasons blog for the past several years, I have been trying to keep the blog afloat by either recycling old material, writing my own material for the blog, or begging for contributions.  When Todd Creason started the blog on October 7, 2009, I don't think he knew that it would grow into what it is today, which is a blog that gets over 40000 hits a month (not that numbers matter), and has served as one of, if not the premier Masonic blogs on the internet.  However, the job of being the Blog's editor is time-consuming, thankless, and sometimes frustrating. Todd did this job for a long time, Robert Johnson took over from Todd and served as well, and I came on as an assistant editor, and then graduated to become the Managing Editor. 

However, a blog is only as good as the material it is providing. I had tried to keep the blog on a regular schedule of its Monday/Wednesday/Friday publication.  However, unfortunately, contributions to the blog started to dry up, so I started to recycle old material on the blog.  I switched to publishing on Wednesday, thinking that would help keep the blog fresh and that I wouldn't encounter the issue the blog is currently facing, which is, a lack of contributions.   I began to think that it was time to say goodbye, and maybe it still is, I don't know.  What I do know is that I sent an email to Todd basically saying that we're not getting new material and we should probably just stop the whole thing.  Something happened shortly after I sent the email to Todd. 

I was at Villa Grove High School in Villa Grove, Illinois to support Heritage High School's Scholastic Bowl team in the Masonic Academic Bowl when I was introduced to a Mason from Tuscola, Illinois who asked if I was the guy who wrote for the Midnight Freemasons blog.  I  said that I was, and he commented about how much he liked the blog. So, I took it as a sign from the Great Architect that I still needed to labor in the quarry of this blog.   However, I also need to make better use of my 24-inch gauge.  

I recognize that the blog is a repository of great articles, all of which can be used for Masonic Education.  However, I also recognize that the blog isn't getting contributors to contribute like it once did.  I don't want to be forever known as the guy who killed the Midnight Freemasons blog, but I also have to recognize that the blog doesn't need to have an article every week to still serve its purpose as a repository for Masonic Educational material.  So, henceforth, when I have a new contribution, we will publish it. I don't know when that will be.  But if something happens in the world of Freemasonry and spurs articles, we will be here.  

To help make the dissemination of information on the blog easier, I will be trying to find a new theme that will allow better search or indexing, so please be patient as you may see the blog look different in the coming days as I look into this.  To quote one of the articles here: "We're not dying, we're refining".   

I'd like to thank all of the men and women who have contributed to the blog up to this point. I'd also like to thank the readers. If you are interested in helping refine the blog, please submit your material to: editormidnightfreemasons@gmail.com