"UPROXX" Style Masonry

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

WB. Robert H. Johnson

In the tradition of social media articles that appear in our news feeds, those sensational pieces with tag lines like “10 things you didn't know George Lucas said about Harrison Ford”, send our fingers racing to tap the story and read something mind blowing. I thought it was time to give the Midnight Freemasons one of these articles. Below you'll find three things that will blow your mind about Freemasonry and the legends attached to the craft. And for you scholars out there, I’ll even give you references ;) Get ready…

1. According to the Talmud and the sources listed below, upon the completion of the temple, King Solomon ordered all the craftsman killed so they would not be able to build another temple to any false God or build anything else in their lives with more splendor than what they had just completed. Hiram was not in fact killed, but called to Heaven, like Enoch. 

Reference : Jewish Encyclopedia - Art  - Freemasonry; New Age Magazine Vol 22-23 : Supreme Council, 33; Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite of Freemasonry, Southern jurisdiction, U.S. A., 1915

2. The North in the lodge is a place of darkness, but not because of the light being unable to reach it. During the early inspection of the temple, Hiram is inspecting the North Gate construction, he is in a state of carelessness due to some personal matters. In his folly, he dislodges a stone and the stone falls. The stone strikes a worker named Cavelum who is kin to King Solomon. Cavelum is killed. Hiram, fraught with grief orders the North Gate sealed up and to be a place of mourning and grief. Now ask yourself these two questions; 1. Is a place of grief and sadness also a place of "darkness"? And 2, If Hiram had not walled up the North Gate, would he have survived his encounter? Does this mean that in a round about way, Hiram was his own assassin due to his carelessness?

References : Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Albert G. Mackey,

 Rev. Hawkins and Hughan

3. The Queen of Sheba and Hiram Abiff's forbidden love. According to some lore, Hiram Abiff is killed not by ruffians, but by hired assassins hired by none other than King Solomon. In this story and there a few different versions. When The Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon for whatever reason, take your pick, she demands to meet the architect of the temple. When she finally meets Hiram Abiff, they fall in love at sight and King Solomon can see this is very apparent. In order to “fix the situation", King Solomon hires three Fellowcrafts to "take care" of Hiram Abiff. One night while Hiram and the Queen are trying to steal away, he is attacked. He throws his jewel into a pit and tries to escape but not before meeting his untimely end.

References : Solomon and Sheba. Faye Levine. Richard Marek Publishers, New York, 1980; Colliers Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia Americana; Great People of the Bible and How They Lived. Reader’s Digest Assoc., Inc. Pleasantville, NY, 1979; Deceptions and Myths of the Bible; International standard Bible Encyclopedia; The Geography of the Bible. Denis Ably. Harper and Rowe, New York 1974; King Solomon. Fredric Thinne. East and West Library, New York, 1947; The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries. Charles William Heckthorn; The First Book of Kings. J. Robinson. Cambridge at the University Press 1972 ; Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version; The story of the Queen of Sheba is recorded in the Old Testament in I Kings 10:1-13; a similar version also appears in II Chronicles 9:1-12. Other references to the Queen of Sheba are: Psalms lxxii, 15, and in the New Testament, Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31; The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek: the Kebra Nagast. Budge, Sir Ernest A. Wallis, translator. Oxford University Press, London, 1932; Solomon and Solomonic Literature. Conway, Moncure Daniel. Haskell House, NY, 1973, pp.59-65 ; All of the Women of the Bible. Dean, Edith. Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1955; The Lore of the Old Testament. Gaer, Joseph. Little-Brown, Boston, 1951, pp. 242-44; Legends of the Bible. Ginzberg, Louis. Simon and Schuster, NY, 1956, pp. 560-64

All info is pulled from the source Old Legends of Hiram Abiff - A short Talk Bulletin and is compiled here for the reader. 

~RHJ

Bro. Robert Johnson, 32° is the Managing Editor of the Midnight Freemasons blog. He is a Freemason out of the First North-East District of Illinois. He is the Master of Waukegan Lodge No. 78 and Education officer for the 1st N.E. District of Illinois. He is also a member of the York Rite bodies Royal Arch, Cryptic Council, Knights Templar, AMD, The Illinois Lodge of Research and a member of the Scottish Rite Valley of Chicago as well as a charter member of the Society of King Solomon, a charity organization run by the Grand Lodge of Illinois. Brother Johnson currently produces and hosts weekly Podcasts (internet radio programs) Whence Came You? & Masonic Radio Theatre which focus on topics relating to Freemasonry. In addition, he produces video shorts focusing on driving interest in the Fraternity and writes original Masonic papers from time to time. He is also a cohost of The Masonic Roundtable, a Masonic talk show. He is a husband and father of three. He works full time in the safety industry and is also a photographer on the side as well as an avid home brewer. He is currently working on a book of Masonic essays.

Daylight Lodges

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Ken JP Stuczynski

In my jurisdiction (Grand Lodge of the State of New York), there are only two Lodges that meet during the day. One of them is in New York City, the home to Brothers who are actors and musicians that are by the nature of their profession unavailable most evenings. The other meets on a Saturday, apparently an accommodation for Brothers who came from a closed Lodge that also met mornings due to its members working second or third shifts.

Frankly, I find it hard to understand why we do not have more daytime Lodge meetings. The days when nine-to-five jobs were the ubiquitous standard are long gone. There are many night jobs and other shifts, stay-at-home dads, and on the other end, retirees who don't like (or can't) drive at night. This means ample opportunity for new Charters, and to get more use out of our Temples. I would even suggest that anywhere you can find more than two or three Lodges in an area, you could add another one to accommodate candidates and existing members who just can't be involved in an evening. For what it's worth, here are my suggestions to take advantage of, or at least acknowledge the situation.

If you have an active Lodge but find that many members cannot make meetings due to business and family commitments, add a few daytime meetings to your Trestle Board. Make sure they are well communicated and advertised. Heck, you may even find Brothers from other nearby Lodges start to attend.

Another option is to sponsor the creation of a new Lodge. This can increase the tenancy and use of existing Masonic buildings. You can work together as closely or separately as you like. The only issue with this approach is pushback from those concerned about existing Lodges losing members. But who are they going to lose except those who cannot participate anyway? And do we care about our brothers and the Craft, or just our individual Lodge? We would need to overcome our scarcity mindset. Besides, some members would want to retain their membership in the mother Lodge.

By the way, I'm not talking about weekend Lodges. Even people working evenings or overnight may want their family time on a Saturday or Sunday. I would even go so far as to make a point of never meeting or rarely holding events on Friday through Sunday to avoid conflict with the holy days of various faiths. In the GLNY, we just passed a change in the Constitutions allowing Masonic work on a Sunday, so as to alleviate the need to have it on the Jewish Sabbath. I myself experienced a pleading to have a communications conference on a Sunday instead of a Saturday for exactly this reason.

It must be discerned as to what choices and details ought to be implemented in any particular locale and circumstance. But the days of smaller Lodges with better participation and serving specific niches are upon us. I can easily imagine, for example, a monthly meeting on a weekday morning followed by going out to lunch. (There are already several Masonic lunchtime gatherings in my area, which should be an indicator of the potential I'm talking about here.)

Look around you. Is there a place for Masons to go during the week, earlier in the day? If not, there may be a real need for our Brothers -- and a line of candidates that have been turned away. But you won't know until you seek, ask, and knock on the door of this possible future of our Fraternity.

~JP

Bro. Ken JP Stuczynski is a member of West Seneca Lodge No.1111 and recently served as Master of Ken-Ton Lodge No.1186. As webmaster for NYMasons.Org he is on the Communications and Technology Committees for the Grand Lodge of the State of New York. He is also a Royal Arch Mason and 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason, serving his second term as Sovereign Prince of Palmoni Council in the Valley of Buffalo, NMJ. He also coordinates a Downtown Square Club monthly lunch in Buffalo, NY. He and his wife served as Patron and Matron of Pond Chapter No.853 Order of the Eastern Star and considered himself a “Masonic Feminist”.

From The Midnight Freemasons Archives: The Masonic Conspiracy Behind Rolling Rock Beer

by Midnight Freemasons Founder

Todd E. Creason, 33°

 

"Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy."

~Benjamin Franklin

There has always been speculation that there is some connection between Latrobe's Rolling Rock Beer and the Freemasons--I mean, it's obvious, there's a '33' right on the bottle!  And the 33rd degree is the highest degree that can be attained by Freemasons.  Is it possible the Latrobe's were Freemasons?

It's one of those great beer controversies--where did the '33' come from?  Everyone seems to have a theory, and nobody has the definitive answer. 

And there are many theories:

-One common theory is that it was to celebrate the repeal of prohibition in 1933.  That was an important year for brewers and beer drinkers alike!

-Another legend is that the Rolling Rock brewery was started with money won at the horse track. The winning bet was placed on #33, "Old Latrobe," and that is why there is a horse and the '33' on the bottle.

-Another has it that brewers in those early days belonged to the local union #33.

-Another claims the reservoir the brewery got its water from was fed by 33 streams.

And the theories go on and on and on . . .

Sadly, the most likely version is the least exciting.  It may have simply been a printers mistake in the beginning.  This version of the story comes from a very reliable source--the former CEO of the company.  He was also very interested in where that '33' had come from--his name was James Tito.  What he discovered is actually very simple.

The slogan on the back of the bottle read originally:

"Rolling Rock – From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe, we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you."

That's 33 words.  There were a number of different versions of the slogan in the beginning, but the Latrobe family finally settled on the shortest one--the one that ran only 33 words.  Somebody noted that in the margin, and when it went to the printers, the printers didn't realize that the 33 wasn't part of the text and included it. The mistake wasn't discovered until a large batch of bottles had been produced, and back in those days, the labels were painted right onto the bottles, and those bottles were reused, which explains why the mistake wasn't immediately corrected

And just maybe it wasn't corrected later because of the stir it had created when those bottles reached the public.  Everyone talking about and debating what that '33' meant and speculating about where it had come from.  Perhaps Latrobe saw that controversy as a good thing.  Here it is more than seventy years later, and people are still talking about it.  I guess you'd call that 'beer buzz'.

So that's the big Masonic conspiracy behind Rolling Rock Beer.  It doesn't have anything to do with the Freemasons at all.

Not to propagate a myth, but I can tell you, I do have it on good authority that at least one 33rd Degree Freemason enthusiastically approves of the product--he finds it crisp and refreshing with a easy-to-drink flavor. 

In fact, I think I'll go have one now . . . 

~TEC

I couldn't even guess when I wrote the original version of this piece.  Probably in 2007.  I rewrote it and expanded it after 2011 and again after 2015.  I added the Ben Franklin quote to this version.  Let's just say it's made the rounds over the years.  I like it because it's one of those weird conspiracy theories attributed to the Masons that people like to talk about--like the imagery on the the back of the Grand Seal of the United States that everyone claims is Masonic.  I thought I'd post it again--I saw a discussion on the topic in one of the Masonic social media groups.  They were both wrong as it turns out . . .  Enjoy!

Todd E. Creason, 33° is the Founder of the Midnight Freemasons blog, and an award winning author of several books and novels, including the Famous American Freemasons series. Todd started the Midnight Freemason blog in 2006, and in 2012 he opened it up as a contributor blog The Midnight Freemasons (plural). Todd has written more than 1,000 pieces for the blog since it began. He is a Past Master of Homer Lodge No. 199 and Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL) where he currently serves as Secretary. He is a Past Sovereign Master of the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a Fellow at the Missouri Lodge of Research (FMLR). He is a charter member of the a new Illinois Royal Arch Chapter, Admiration Chapter No. 282 and currently serves as EHP. You can contact him at: webmaster@toddcreason.org

How Will They Know If You Don’t Tell Them?

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Randy Sanders

I always run late and miss the interfaith service on the morning of the Grand Master’s Breakfast.  I don’t know why, but it seems to be a tradition now.  I may just keep that tradition and skip the Sunday service although I hear it’s nice.  The breakfast and fellowship never disappoint, and I seem to find my way to the St. Louis Moolah Shrine Temple about the time the service ends each year just in time to shake some hands and be seated at my lodge’s table. 

This year being no exception, it was a nice cool, rainy break from a run of near or over 100-degree days as I pulled into the mostly full large parking lot.  I knew I would see some of my favorite Brethren from all over the state, and sure enough, they drove sometimes hours and hours to gather for the event.  This year all three youth organizations banded together for the first time to assist in serving the breakfast, and it was nice to see all three orgs working together seamlessly.  The Shriners were fantastic as always and very welcoming in opening up the large hall for the breakfast.  I have the utmost respect and appreciation for the Shriners even though it doesn’t seem to be my path in Masonry.  I encourage all Masons to do a deeper investigation into the Shrine to see if it fits with their path.  The programming was good and moved quickly through many introductions to the speaker and then closing remarks, and a few of us retired to a local cigar lounge for additional fellowship and lofty conversation over beverages of choice. 

Seems fairly pedestrian, right?  Most of us experience some form of Masonic event across regional or even state boundaries, right?  Well, no, and I hope to make this point:  Many don’t know all Masons are welcome and encouraged to attend these functions.  I know many Masons that have never visited even a neighboring Lodge, and that makes me a little sad.  We must communicate and encourage others to attend these events and especially attend events like our Grand Lodge communications.  I often hear those events are for “apron chasers” who belong to all the organizations, or that these events are for officers and those “chasing gold” by wanting to be appointed to higher offices.  Believe me when I say that’s not the case.  Yeah, I suppose we do have a fair number of Brothers who do chase the gold, but that’s no different than any organization, right?  It took me a few years to get past my preconceptions to understand attendance to Grand Lodge functions helps demonstrate your voice, and your voice is important.  Your voice is certainly as important as mine, and probably more so!  

I also had to come to my own realization about those chasing the gold as I used to think the same thing.  I admit I had a jaded view of organizational management when I joined the Craft, and that initial bias carried over to sarcasm and even some dismissive views toward Grand Lodge at the regional and state levels.  After all, what and who were these people to me?  I found out differently as I met and spoke with these fine gentlemen who give up so much time with family and friends in order to serve the Fraternity.  Yeah, we may occasionally get a Grand Master here and there in some jurisdictions that may not be the best, but I found that to be a rarity.  We in Missouri are very fortunate to have a very strong Grand Line both past and present, and I am excited for the future of the Craft.  If you will take the time to talk to your Grand Line officers, your Masonic experience will be enriched.  Taking the time to engage and work with your Grand line officers, or simply showing up at functions to show support makes a difference.  

My Grand Line officers know I’m not chasing aprons nor interested in ever becoming a Grand Line appointee.  How do they know that?  I told them.  I just don’t see Masonic administrative leadership as being my path in Freemasonry when my focus remains on helping others through education, communication, and mentoring.  I also told these same Grand Line officers they could count on me if needed or as needed to get things done.  These private conversations with the Grand Line officers pay off in ways we may never see.  By making our interests known, by making our voices heard, by showing up and simply having a good time in fellowship with our Brethren, we set many wheels in motion behind the scenes.  If you want to serve on committees or serve in other ways, how will they know if you don’t tell them?  If you want to support your Grand Lodge but not serve on committees or by appointment, how will they know if you don’t tell them?  If you are able to provide Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth in some way to your District, Region, or Grand Lodge, how will they know if you don’t tell them?

~RS

Randy and his wife Elyana live near St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Randy earned a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, and he works in Telecom IT management. He volunteers as a professional and personal mentor, NRA certified Chief Range Safety Officer and enjoys competitive tactical pistol, rifle, and shotgun. He has 30 plus years teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and healing arts. Randy served as a Logistics Section Chief on two different United States federal Disaster Medical Assistance Teams over a 12 year span. Randy is a 32nd degree KCCH and Knight Templar. His Masonic bio includes past Lodge Education Officer for two symbolic lodges, Founder of the Wentzville Lodge Book Club, member of the Grand Lodge of Missouri Education Committee, Sovereign Master of the E. F. Coonrod AMD Council No. 493, Co-Librarian of the Scottish Rite Valley of St. Louis, Clerk for the Academy of Reflection through the Valley of Guthrie, and a Facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society. Randy is a founding administrator for Refracted Light, full contributor to Midnight Freemasons, and an international presenter on esoteric topics. Randy hosts an open ongoing weekly Masonic virtual Happy Hour on Friday evenings. Randy is an accomplished home chef, a certified barbecue judge, raises Great Pyrenees dogs, and enjoys travel and philosophy.