What an ocean of blood we have seen over the last millennia, spilled in the name of religion. In this context, the tradition of religious toleration among Masons may be centuries old, but at the same time it is downright radical.
Defining Freemasonry[¹]
by Mark A. Tabbert
The preceding essays conveyed the reaction of two learned Masons to The Lost Symbol. We now turn to Mark Tabbert of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, for an explanation of the Masonic movement as a whole.
In American Freemasons, Tabbert’s authoritative history of Freemasonry, he traces the movement’s evolving role in American society from the Founding Fathers through today. And along the way he emphasizes that although Masonic rituals may be secret, the benefits of Masonry to individual growth and the many examples of Masons’ good deeds are highly visible and very beneficial to society as a whole. In service of that point, he quotes one of America’s most famous Masons, Benjamin Franklin: “[T]he Freemasons, . . . are in general a very harmless sort of People, and have no principles or practices that are inconsistent with religion and good manners.”
Here, Tabbert attempts to define just what it is that makes Masonry—the symbolism, the rituals, the secrecy, or the philosophy of helping a fellow man—and how Masonry has been perceived by others over the past three hundred years.
By speculative Masonry we learn to subdue the passions, act upon the square, keep a tongue of good report, maintain secrecy, and practise charity.
—William Preston, 1772
Freemasonry’s rituals, symbols, and constitutions have led many Masons and non-Masons to attempt to define the craft. To the extent that it is a unique institution, it is not easily defined. Traditionally, Masons have defined the fraternity as “a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” While this is essentially true, it is more than a system. Freemasonry is an institution and a collection of distinct communities of men, and as such, it exists only when men voluntarily come together. The definition, therefore, has varied from Mason to Mason and lodge to lodge over the course of American history.
One basic way to view Freemasonry is to see it as a voluntary association akin to the Elks, Rotary, Boy Scouts, or other community club. Unlike these clubs, a prospective member cannot even attend a lodge meeting before seeking admission. Furthermore, he does not become a member until he takes upon himself various obligations. The importance of maintaining the obligations are emphasized by references to severe “ancient” penalties. He must first pass through a series of three initiation rituals before he is a full member. And in many jurisdictions, a man must prove he has memorized and understood the lessons and symbols of one degree before receiving the next.
Before the 1920s, Freemasonry was often called a “secret society.” Since that time, this terminology has increasingly assumed sinister connotations, and Masons’ new attempt to counter this definition and the conspiratorial image it conveys by referring to the fraternity as “a society with secrets.” In fact, the society has not had secrets to hide since the 1720s, when its rituals were first exposed in London newspapers. As Benjamin Franklin, himself a leading Freemason in Philadelphia, commented in the 1730s, “Their grand secret is that they have no secret at all.” The craft’s origin, symbolism, purposes, and rituals still strike some people as “weird” and “spooky,” despite the fact that there are lodges in nearly every town, tens of thousands of published books on the craft, millions of members, and a growing number of Internet sites. The feelings are largely due to a lack of response from the fraternity in the face of the overactive imagination of conspiracy theorists, the sensationalism of modern journalists, and the rigid views of certain well-meaning, but ill-informed, religiously minded individuals.
When scholars attempt to make sense of the fraternity, some dismiss Freemasonry as a patriarchal cult or “old boys” club, where hypocrisy and ambition overrule true fraternity or equality. Its rituals and symbolism are often mistakenly equated to the sophomoric pranks of college fraternities, and its membership is erroneously identified through such television characters as The Honeymooners’ Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton. Other academics who have given the fraternity serious attention have discovered in Freemasonry sources for American gender, class, ethnicity, race, and intergenerational phenomena. Still others have sought ways to understand the genuine love and pride generations of American men have felt when they “meet upon the level, act upon the plumb, and part upon the square”—whether in the lodge or on the street. While these scholars have much to say about Freemasonry that is valuable, most of them are not members, have never attended a meeting, and have not actually witnessed the rituals performed. This limits their ability to fully understand the craft.
Since the 1730s, the Roman Catholic Church and certain Protestant denominations have, at various times, labeled Freemasonry dangerous. The craft’s combination of prayer, initiation rituals, obligations, symbolism, morality, and charity has caused the Church to see the fraternity as a rival, parallel, or false religion. Some believe Freemasonry is a religion, because lodge meetings begin and end with a prayer, a holy book (in America most frequently the Bible) is open in the center of the lodge room during meetings, and a man swears to be good to his word by placing his hand on the holy book he holds sacred.
When challenged by these positions, Freemasonry replies that its use of the nonsectarian title “Grand Architecture of the Universe,” for example, allows those of different faiths to come together in harmony. While each Mason must profess a belief in God, Freemasonry also believes that the relationship between the individual and God is personal, private, and sacred. Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723 charges members to “leave their particular opinions [on religion] to themselves” so that they will not have to suffer religious zealots or “stupid atheists.” Masons stress that the fraternity only encourages men to be more devout in their chosen faith. These explanations do not diminish the spiritual dimensions of the fraternity nor do they prevent some men from professing that attending lodge meetings fulfills their spiritual needs.
American politicians, especially after the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic era, began to suspect and accuse the fraternity of conspiratorial tendencies. These attacks reached their most violent stage during the anti-Masonic hysteria of the 1820s and 1830s. Ever since, the idea of private groups of men bound together by rituals and oaths has troubled certain Americans and political leaders. Freemasonry has endeavored to rebut such attacks by pointing to not only the constitutional right of peaceable assembly but also Anderson’s Constitutions, which forbids the discussion of politics in the lodge and charges brothers to be “peaceable subjects to the civil powers.”
The fact that Freemasonry means different things to so many different people has been one of its greatest strengths. Its definitional elusiveness continues to attract new members while remaining the source of inspiration for its varied detractors and critics. Its supporters and critics notwithstanding, Freemasonry is an important part of many lives, entire families, and communities.
In the course of one lodge meeting, Freemasonry is a spiritual organization where the chaplain leads the brethren in prayer and asks for the blessing of deity. It is a guild when the master of the lodge teaches the new Mason the symbolic uses of stonemasons’ tools. It becomes a school of instruction when the new brother learns about the importance of the seven liberal arts and sciences. At other moments, it is an amateur theater company when the ritual is performed. The lodge becomes a men’s social club when meeting for dinner and fellowship. It becomes a charitable group when relief is provided to distressed brothers, their families, or the local community. It is also a business association when members with similar interests share ideas. The lodge resembles a family when fathers and sons, strangers and friends, bond as “brothers,” and it is a community league when volunteers are needed for a
project.
Yet at other times Freemasonry’s constitutions, tenets, and symbolism have emanated from the lodge as Masons have carried the principles into their communities. Just as Robert’s Rules of Order caused the birth of infinite committees, so Freemasonry sparked the creation of thousands of American voluntary organizations. Masons and non-Masons have adapted Masonic rituals and symbols to create new fraternities. These groups teach morality and inspire “brotherly love” within diverse communities, such as the B’nai B’rith did among Jewish-Americans, the Order of AHEPA did among Greek-Americans, and the Knights of Columbus did among the country’s Roman Catholics. Other Masons used Masonic relief to develop mutual benefit associations and life insurance companies or to build hospitals, orphanages, and retirement homes, such as the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. Still others, dropping the rituals and symbols, formed social, business, educational, and community service clubs, such as Lions International.
All these things cannot adequately explain why Freemasonry has spread around the world and found especially fertile soil in American society. But it does reveal the great desire of men like Harry Truman who join a Masonic lodge to improve themselves, care for one another, and build their communities. From an obscure past, a fraternity of millions of men has given billions of dollars and untold hours establishing, building, and adorning their lodges for the betterment of an unknown future.
Freemasonry is a symbol of man’s search for wisdom, brotherhood, and charity. This universal search is ancient and is renewed every time a lodge of Masons initiates a new brother. Through rituals, symbols, and obligations, a volunteer becomes a part of a community as he begins his own individual search. Freemasonry refers to this as a journey in search of light.
Albert Pike: The Ghost in The Lost Symbol Machine?
by Warren Getler
Dan Brown loves to tease . . . with mysteries, puzzles, codes, ciphers, and all things esoteric. In The Lost Symbol, his big tease is about hidden Masonic treasure in America (and more specifically in Washington, D.C.). The implication throughout TLS’s five-hundred-plus pages is that this treasure is linked to Freemasonry, and, in particular, to the branch of Freemasonry known as the Scottish Rite. As readers of TLS know, Brown’s indefatigable protagonist, Robert Langdon, discovers that the “treasure” is more allegorical, figurative, and spiritual than it is concealed monetary riches, such as gold, silver, and diamonds. This may have come as a disappointment to some who expected a bigger payoff.
As with Brown’s approach in his previous works, things are not always as they appear. Could the author have been hinting at something tangible—real treasure tied to the Masons and secreted for some ill-defined larger purpose, perhaps spiritual? Such themes surface in no uncertain terms in the Disney National Treasure film series, with the second film, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, specifically linking the long-serving head of the Scottish Rite, Albert Pike, to the rumored treasure ultimately discovered out West by the film’s lead character, Nicolas Cage’s Benjamin Gates.
In The Lost Symbol, Albert Pike curiously gets but passing mention (his bust is noted as a feature in the Scottish Rite House of the Temple on Sixteenth Street, where Pike is interred and where much of the action in TLS takes place). Much of the book’s girth revolves around the Scottish Rite—with its elaborate thirty-three degrees of initiation—yet there are very few words about the group’s Sovereign Grand Commander who led it from 1859 to the time of his death in 1891.
This in itself is a bit of a mystery, since at the time Dan Brown and I met (in New York City in 2003 at an early Da Vinci Code event), he explicitly said that his next book would be about the former Scottish Rite leader. Brown mentioned that he was aware of my nonfiction book, Rebel Gold, which had just been published. When I mentioned Pike in conversation, he was a bit shocked and said, “I’m not sure I should read your book right now; my next book will be about Albert Pike.” In many ways, he was true to his word. Pike, who singlehandedly brought the Scottish Rite into national and international prominence, looms in the background of much of The Lost Symbol, yet his name barely appears. It’s the equivalent of writing a book about the Founding Fathers and not going into any details about George Washington other than to mention that he’s buried at Mount Vernon. Brown notes as an aside that two bodies are buried inside the walls of the Scottish Rite House of the Temple . . . one of them, of course, being Albert Pike. To be sure, Albert Pike is deeply embedded in the House of the Temple. There’s a whole, shrinelike museum room in honor of him, exhibiting his enormous library, his smoking pipes, and other fascinating memorabilia.
So why did Dan Brown choose to make this immensely mysterious and controversial historical figure, Albert Pike, little more than a footnote in TLS? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Pike presents an inconvenient truth. Pike is just that: controversial. The Lost Symbol praises Freemasonry for its inclusiveness, particularly in the religious realm, but in the social realm, Pike, in his own words, and as head of the Scottish Rite, was not always inclusive. Or, perhaps it is simpler: maybe Dan Brown didn’t want to cover territory already highlighted in the National Treasure films.
Although he did not turn out to be a major character in TLS, Pike is a major character in the history of Freemasonry. An imposing six-foot-three, three-hundred-pound bear of a man, Pike is a fascinating and, at the same time, divisive character for Masons and non-Masons alike.
A brilliant scholar, linguist, and lawyer, Pike was also a Confederate general and—according to recent research—may have led a subversive Confederate underground group, the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC). Research I have been involved with over the last decade suggests that the KGC had direct ties to the Scottish Rite’s Southern Jurisdiction, led by Pike during and after the Civil War. The research, put forward in the 2003 book I coauthored with Bob Brewer, Rebel Gold: One Man’s Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster) points to the Knights of the Golden Circle as having buried large amounts of gold, silver, and weapons during and after the Civil War in the South and Southwest in a very sophisticated, geometric underground depository system. The initial reason for the burial of the riches was to fund the revival of the Confederacy in the event of the South’s defeat. But later, this treasure grid morphed into something else, with generations of sentinel families asked to guard the hidden wealth and keep its locations secret.
As Bob Brewer and I suggested in Rebel Gold, the KGC systematically buried the treasure “under a masterful grid likely devised by Pike and others. The system employed complex ciphers, precision surveyor’s techniques, cryptic Masonic-linked inscriptions on trees and rock faces, and a handful of bewilderingly coded maps.” Our research revealed that the notorious bank and train robber of the post–Civil War era, Jesse James, a Mason, was the field commander of the Knights of the Golden Circle and may have controlled the KGC underground depository network in the American South and Southwest. But was it also true for Albert Pike, with his arcane knowledge of the Knights Templar/Rosicrucian sacred geometry, his extensive ties to the American South and West, and his behind-the-scenes influence in the corridors of power? Was he the dark genius behind what would have been a treasonous enterprise? Some anti-Masonic critics of Pike say that the former Confederate officer went on to become the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. This charge has dogged Pike for the last century, but there is little specific, concrete evidence that has emerged to support the claim.
Perhaps because he was swept up in the lingering “unreconstructed” prejudicial sentiments of the times, Pike felt moved to write these words in 1868, three years after the South’s surrender, in a newspaper editorial appearing in the Memphis Daily Appeal:
The disenfranchised people of the South can find no protection for property or life except in secret association. We should unite every white man in the South, who is opposed to Negro suffrage, into one great Order of Southern Bro
therhood with an organization . . . in which a few should execute the concentrated will of all, and whose very existence should be concealed from all its members.
When visitors come to Washington, D.C., to explore the key Masonic sites portrayed in TLS—places like the Scottish Rite House of the Temple and the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in nearby Alexandria, Virginia—they will now have a knowledge-based compass, thanks to Dan Brown, to navigate by. But author Brown, while generally treating the Scottish Rite Freemasons much better than other organizations that have been prominent in his prior books, left the road map itself full of mystery and ambiguity. Just as he wanted it, no doubt. Albert Pike, whose looming presence floats in the background of Robert Langdon’s twelve-hour jaunt through D.C., once said: “The simplest thing in the universe involves the ultimate mystery of all.” Now what might that be?
Mozart and Ellington, Tolstoy and Kipling
Inside the Brotherhood of Famous Masons
by David D. Burstein
In the mid-twentieth century, when Masons in America claimed several times as many members as today (in a population half the size), they were arguably much less exotic and more widely known and understood than they are today. Moreover, the ideals and philosophy of Masonic movements over the years have attracted a disproportionate share of artists and creative minds. Put these two facets together, and you begin to see why there is such a body of Masonic lore running through our culture. We asked David D. Burstein, a twenty-one-year-old filmmaker and student of politics and new media, to look into Masonry’s impact on our culture. Below is his report.
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