I’ve been a Mason for 20 years, Past Master, 32°, Scottish Rite & York Rite. I don’t have any juicy secrets (like “33° Masons control the price of Ovaltine”), and I’m of the view that we’re / they’re mostly harmless. That said, I’m disillusioned. The Brotherhood is broken and not fulfilling what they promise to their craftsmen, which is to make good men better. It’s become one big LARP that sucks free time and money from its members and gives nothing back to the Brothers, their families, communities, or the world.
They broke their oath, I’ll break mine. Ask me anything. Or nothing.
Has any of the teachings/literature made you a better as a person than you were the day before you joined? If so, what was the most enlightening lesson?
Nothing I ever read (although there was one book I read the name escapes me, but it talked about how Masonry fills the lack of rites-of-passage for men). Any positive growth I experienced was mostly self confidence of running the lumbering beast of a lodge for a year. I probably could’ve had the same effect by running my own business.
The rites-of-passage, sounds like creating a solution for a problem that was never there and normalizing a constant jumping-through-hoops mentality.
Do you remember your high school graduation? Do you remember your 300th day of highschool? Do you remember the day you became a father? Do you remember your 1000th day of fatherhood?
Rites of passage are intrinsic to humans and our conceptions of life, it seems to me. They are some kind of foundation for how we perceive and comprehend the universe. Your first rite of “passage” (stepping through a threshold) happened the day you were born.
Sounds similar to the tiered structure of a pyramid scheme. A milestone is created and it is all important that you meet the criteria to pass it. When you finally do that the cycle starts over indefinitely. I guess this could give meaning to people who can't seem to find any in their own lives. Just seems like needless busy work.
It kinda makes sense.. nothing to mark a transition from boyhood to manhood, like Bar Mitzvahs (“you’re a man now”) or going into the army. Maybe that’s why some adults have trouble adulting. Then again it could just be a convenient argument.