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Freemasonry

I just completed my Fellowcraft on the 22nd of January.  The odd thing is, Jaydub (who did his FC on the 25th) and I go way back....

I won't delve further on a public forum, but for those familiar with Vancouver's Masonic history, my great-grandfather was a very prominent, popular and influential Mason in Vancouver...he even has a room named after him in the Grand Lodge.  My great uncles, one on the Island and one in Aldergrove, were also quite well known.  Needless to say, considering my family background, I was made to feel very welcome at my Lodge.

I'm set to do my Master Mason degree at the end of March.
 
A military freemason group has started at the following facebook addy

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2256993407&ref=mf
 
Just did my MM tonight and it went really well.  It was also a Past Masters night!  The District Deputy GM was there, as was a former Grand Master of New Brunswick.

My passing-up is scheduled for June, just before my Lodge goes dark.
 
PigPen: I'll have to join that site when I get a facebook account.

PTE (R) B: Congrats on your MM.  I'm doing mine in May.  I hope to come visit your lodge in June maybe.
 
Ooo...maybe you can see me do my next (and final) step!

The MM is...interesting.  You'll enjoy it.
 
Pte (R) B said:
Ooo...maybe you can see me do my next (and final) step!

The MM is...interesting.  You'll enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Sounds good.

What's everyone's Lodge doing , if anything, for St. Georges Day?  We're having a potluck dinner.  I'm going to make a beef stew.  I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm not really used to cooking on such a large scale.  I hope it turns out okay.
 
Bretheren, and those that are interested in the craft.

Please open the invite tour the third meet of the Dragon's Slayer's Club.

Fun night had by all.

Contact me with any questions.

dileas

tess
 
I completed my MM on the 24th.  In a way, my journey has only just begun.

Are there any brethren in the Halifax area?  I'm going out east on course, and I'm looking to visit lodges.
 
Certainly the MM is only just the beginning.  And there's only an end if you want there to be one....
 
Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.


It's hard these days to be a Freemason

Craig Offman, National Post
Published: Saturday, September 29, 2007

On the University of Toronto campus last Saturday night, a cadre of six or so angry anti-Masons armed themselves with video cameras, so-called "9/11 Truth" pamphlets and a lot of aggressive questions.

Swarming near the entrance of the George Ignatieff Theatre, they were poised to intercept the Freemasons who hoped to join a meeting that would address their relevance to the modern world. Or perhaps, how they can take it over.

When I arrived at the doors, the protesters were browbeating an attendee who had stuck his head out to see what the protest was about. "Have you ever read this book?" a protester asked, waving a copy of Morals and Dogma in his face. "Do you obey it?"


Written by Southern mason and confederate-army general Albert Pike, the book is a putative tell-all about the Scottish Rite of Masonry, a classic of the conspiratorial canon.

Some members of the group -- otherwise known as the Craft -- will just tell you it's grossly misquoted, utterly antiquated or totally ignored.

"I haven't," the Mason said and walked away.

"He just isn't high up enough to know the truth," one of them said to his back.

Detractors call them a secret society. Freemasons call themselves a society with secrets.

For three centuries, Freemasons have held their secret meetings, worn their aprons, exchanged their grips --or knuckle-to-knuckle hand greetings -- and built a mystical life philosophy on the constructs of architecture.

Part of the mystique is the august membership, a staggering list that almost seems to sum up the march of modern history: numerous Canadian and British prime ministers, many U.S. presidents and senators. Jazz legends Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson. Explorers such as Sir Richard Burton and Sir Ernest Shackleton. Food-chain king Colonel Saunders and Tim Horton.

Then there's infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, repentant segregationist George Wallace and the controversial Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard. Killer Paul Bernardo is a long-rumoured brother.

In recent years, however, the 2.5 million Masons worldwide have faced the typical men's club quandaries: marriage, for one. What with all the responsibilities men have at home these days, they can't be out planning their conspiracies every night. (One seminar held last weekend was entitled, "How to tell your wife you're a Freemason. Free hint: include her in your Masonic studies!)

Retention is also a problem. In Ontario alone, 20,000 people join each year, the organizers say, but 20,000 leave. What is it about the Lodge that drives them away?

And with the drop in numbers, there is the other existential question: Do you let the ladies in?

David Sheen, a traditionalist kind of Mason who sits on a governing body called the board of general purposes, said the Masons shouldn't worry about relevance.

"No organization can be everything to anybody," said Mr. Sheen, the divisional chief for the Toronto Fire Services. "It has less validity if it bends and changes to whichever way the wind blows."

But all these problems might seem quaint next year, when one of the world's most commercially successful authors, Dan Brown, publishes the Solomon Key.

His previous novel, The Da Vinci Code, whose 60 million-plus copies sold made it one of the best-selling books of all time, is notorious for demonizing the powerful Catholic lay order Opus Dei.

Now he is training his sights on the Freemasons.

The novel's title is a reference to the Key of Solomon, a medieval book of occult practices erroneously attributed to King Solomon, and though its publishing date hasn't been confirmed, a cottage industry of conjecture has already sprung into action.

Two years ago, Greg Taylor published The Guide to Dan Brown's the Solomon Key and has been trailing clues left by Mr. Brown in the media. Accordingly, he predicts the novel will involve Masonry, take place in Washington, D.C., and will involve the murder of politicians in the capital.

Mr. Brown's art-historian and slick sleuth, Robert Langdon, will be the protagonist.

"Other aspects of the plot may involve the Masonic-like Skull and Bones society," Mr. Taylor wrote in an email. "Brown enjoys pointing out amazing conspiratorial facts, and one of the biggest from last year was that the opposing candidates for the Presidential election were part of the same secret society (Bush and Kerry)."

Mr. Sheen, the Toronto Mason, doesn't rue the inevitable bonanza of scrutiny that is bound to accompany the upcoming novel.

"I think it will be good for us," he said, echoing others at the meeting who support the any-publicity-is-good-publicity notion, keen to generate new interest in the organization.

Still, weathering the Dan Brown effect was not an easy challenge for Opus Dei, a conservative movement in the church that was largely unknown to the general public until the Da Vinci Code. The novel portrayed the membership as a cult-like, conniving and homicidal cabal.

Monsignor Frederick Dolan, Opus Dei's Vicar in Canada, said that at first, it wasn't easy being under the magnifying glass, and defending one's beliefs. But he learned to relax.

"In hindsight, it was a blast. I learned how to make lemonade out of lemons."

Before I was allowed to enter the theatre and find out about the plight of the Freemasons, the protestors asked me if I knew that George H.W. Bush was a Freemason and his son was a member of Yale University's secret society Skull & Bones.

Soon came the inevitable insights about 9/11: Guess who really planned it?

"Why are you here?" I finally asked. "What do you want out of this?"

"We're here to free the masons."

As I passed, I was handed a pamphlet that asked if Freemasons worshipped Satan, which had this caveat: "Most Masons do not worship Satan. But in the higher initiation degrees they all must participate in rituals such as drinking wine from a human skull whilst kneeling at a black altar with serpents in it."

While that particular rite was curiously absent, this gathering was a rare event. Hosted by the Toronto Society for Masonic Research, it permitted public participation; Master masons, the highest-ranking brothers, sat on the stage with uninitiated panelists, which is typically a no-no. Freemasons like to keep to themselves.

"It's not a scientific fact or anything, but I think this was unprecedented," said organizer Peter Renzland, a reform-minded member. During the discussions, Mr. Renzland was frustrated with the group's inability to answer the woman question head-on.

The 45-minute question period was tense and sombre. The 30-odd greying attendees couldn't agree on much.

At the end of the panel, I asked Mr. Sheen about the whole drinking-from-the-skull business.

"In all my years as a Freemason, I have never heard of such a thing."

And he said it with a straight face.




© National Post 2007

Article Link


Very interesting.  With the information regarding the Knights Templars being exonerated, Dan Brown's new Book The Solomon Key, and Vision TV's Enigma series Fremasons Revealed should make interesting times for all within the Fraternal Order.

dileas

tess
 
I'm looking forward to it all. I'm always amazed at what I know vice what outsiders, with no practical education in these matters, tell me I don't. ;)
 
I know many lodges encourage CF members to wear their DEUs at lodge, and my lodge has told me they wouldn't mind it.  However, as I am in a Highland unit, what is acceptable dress?  Rememberance Day dress or do I go all out with spats and white belt?  Does it depend on the occasion of the lodge meeting?

More importantly, does CF dress regs allow me to wear DEUs to an occasion such as lodge?
 
I was thinking of going to a lodge (here in Edmonton) to see what freemasonry is about, I have been quite interested for a long time. Other than the meetings and charity work what else happens at the lodges? What goes on at meetings? I know you cannot tell me everything, but if anyone could pm me and maybe pass me some insight, it would be greatly appreciated! I am trying to make myself more self aware before I approach a lodge.
 
HEre are some great places to start, and get a feel.

http://www.freemasons.ab.ca/nuke/

http://www.freemasons.ab.ca/nuke/modules.php?name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2&categories=

THe links give you an idea what Masonry is about, as for what goes on in the lodge...... :-X

dileas

tess



 
CanadianTire said:
I know many lodges encourage CF members to wear their DEUs at lodge, and my lodge has told me they wouldn't mind it.  However, as I am in a Highland unit, what is acceptable dress?  Rememberance Day dress or do I go all out with spats and white belt?  Does it depend on the occasion of the lodge meeting?

More importantly, does CF dress regs allow me to wear DEUs to an occasion such as lodge?
Click to expand...

In fact, the CF encourages it. See the folowing CANFORGEN...

http://vcds.dwan.dnd.ca/vcds-exec/pubs/canforgen/2007/117-07_e.asp

In case you haqve no DWAN access, it reads....

"CANFORGEN 117/07 VCDS 015/07 050731Z JUL 07
WEARING OF SERVICE DRESS AT CIVILIAN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
UNCLASSIFIED



IN THE SPIRIT OF OP CONNECTION, I ENCOURAGE CF MEMBERS TO WEAR THEIR NO. 3 DUTY ORDER WHEN ATTENDING A CIVILIAN SPONSORED SOCIAL ACTIVITY WHERE CIVILIAN BUSINESS ATTIRE (BUSINESS SUIT) IS THE EXPECTED STANDARD OF DRESS VCDS SENDS"
 
For the information of any Masons who might be heading to A-Stan there is a lodge in KAF. Widows Son Military Lodge #202.
 
That's a neat coin.


Oddly enough, I think this is the first time I've found a thread about Freemasonry.

Looks like I'm going to be reading quite a bit, since I'm very intrested in the idea of becoming a Freemason.


Cheers
Deadpan
 
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