that amazing light

December 16, 2015 12:00 PM

Despite the dwindling membership, there are still around six million Freemasons all over the world. The photographer focused on capturing the lodges in California, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado where he’s based. Despite the different locations there’s a uniformity between all of Jamie’s images and they begin to blend into one archaic space where dingy doorways and curtain-clad assembly rooms are the norm. - Jamie Kripke: Freemasonry
posted by Potomac Avenue (50 comments total)

Lodges are the communal buildings Freemasonry members use to convene with the rest of the Masonic community.

Wrong, a lodge is not a building but a gathering of Freemasons. Lodges meet in temples (this term is becoming archaic), halls, or masonic family centers (ugh).
posted by entropicamericana at 12:19 PM on December 16, 2015 [5 favorites]

Ah, the earth tones!
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:22 PM on December 16, 2015

You can kinda tell there was a bit of a boom in membership in the postwar period, huh?
posted by Sys Rq at 12:30 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

My first girlfriend's dad was a Freemason. He basically hated me for the first year or so of our relationship*, but whenever I asked him about Freemasonry, he changed completely, had me sit down so he could explain things to me, etc. He even lent me this massive sort of Masonic Bible. I guess he was grooming me? I never got any sort of invite, though, so I guess I didn't pass some test.

*He was a Pinochet supporter, me not so much, plus I had long hair and an aversion to wearing shoes. Double plus, I had sex with his daughter.
posted by signal at 12:33 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I never got any sort of invite, though, so I guess I didn't pass some test.

And all the Freemasons here are smiling sadly to themselves.
posted by entropicamericana at 12:39 PM on December 16, 2015 [10 favorites]

License plate at the Scottish Rite center in San Diego that was frequently rented out for non-masonic events: 2B1ASK1
posted by LionIndex at 12:42 PM on December 16, 2015 [6 favorites]

I hear their beach parties totally rock.
posted by any major dude at 12:55 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I never got any sort of invite, though, so I guess I didn't pass some test.

Because Freemasonry explicitly forbids members from asking others to join. The prospective member has to request to become a Freemason.
posted by Jahaza at 1:22 PM on December 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

The prospective member has to request to become a Freemason.

Oh, I see. It just took me 26 years to find this out.
I never was much of a joiner of groups of any kind, anyway, so I doubt I'd have requested.
posted by signal at 1:36 PM on December 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Both my grandfathers were masons and while I think it served a certain role that the VFW or American Legion might have played, as being a social club for men who had served during the war, there was also just a historic presence and tradition in the area of belonging to such fraternal orders. One grandfather's father had been an Odd Fellow and here's a photograph of him with other members plus women dressed for as Rebeccas from sometime around the turn of the 19th Century.

I actually worked with allegedly one of the youngest master masons in Iowa, who was distinctly not involved with masonry anymore, but who's family had been connected to the Grand Master of the relevant lodge. I had actually inquired about masonry with the local lodge, which had a website and email for questions...but never got a response.

I do enjoy looking over Masonic temples when I visit cities because they are often pretty beautiful, or at least, interesting buildings. On the outside, mostly.
posted by Atreides at 2:13 PM on December 16, 2015

I was once allowed in to a Masonic temple on Crown Street, Aberdeen in Scotland for some location drawing. We were shown by a doddering old caretaker into a big room with checked flooring and left to our own devices. There was a big wooden chest beside a lectern looking thing. Amanda Miele probably still has nightmares.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 2:29 PM on December 16, 2015

The lodge in my town in northern Rhode Island has a number of guys I know (as fellow Boy Scout dads) who have joined. I am not a member but they seem to have a very strong community.
posted by wenestvedt at 2:32 PM on December 16, 2015

I must admit a fondness for these fraternal organizations. Here in my small town I get a kick out of buying my Christmas tree from the local Lions club, or buying a BBQ chicken dinner at the KofC hall on the 4th of July. There are all these cheerful dad-like dudes grinning and enjoying themselves immensely. And the Masons have that extra layer of secret mysterious illuminati antics, that makes them extra interesting.

If I were male and retired I would research them and find one to join. Try to get into one that does maximum cool community services with minimal reactionary bullshit.

The women's equivalent seems to just be church groups and as a secular humanist I just can't bear the thought. Maybe I could join a local arts organization or the friends of the library. If I ever get to retire I definitely want to join something. But for now I guess I'll keep staring at them and trying to work up to getting involved.
posted by elizilla at 2:45 PM on December 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

Try to get into one that does maximum cool community services with minimal reactionary bullshit.

You'll find it varies from chapter to chapter, it's rare that these organizations have any sort of uniform culture, though I have heard some nasty thing about some fraternal orders on the state level in a certain region. I chalk that up to being more a result of the state than the organization.

Shriners might be up your Ali, er, alley, but you need to be a Master Mason first.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:57 PM on December 16, 2015

Wait. I missed the point of my anecdote. Inside the wooden chest we found a human skull. It had a bayonet type fixture in the base of it. We presumed it was for popping onto the top of a staff and waving it round in some masony way.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 2:57 PM on December 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm fascinated with Freemasonry, not for its own sake but because Russians are obsessed with it. To this day books about how (Judeo-)Masons were behind the Revolution and every other bad thing in Russian history sell like hotcakes, and otherwise reasonable people will talk your ear off about how some famous figure was secretly a Mason and was in the same lodge with so-and-so. Nina Berberova went on and on about Masons in her (wonderfully gossipy) autobiography. Eco should write a novel about it.
posted by languagehat at 3:01 PM on December 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

There's sure something to be said for the aesthetics of decor last updated in 1971 and cleaned meticulously ever since.

My father-in-law was a Freemason. He once gave me a "go on, ask me about it, ask me about it" spiel. I never did.
posted by Jimbob at 3:01 PM on December 16, 2015

Shriners might be up your Ali, er, alley, but you need to be a Master Mason first.

Well, reading about the Shriners, that sounds right up my alley. Its a shame they're male-only organizations. That's totally not my thing.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:44 PM on December 16, 2015

I haven't driven around the midwest for a few decades. Back when I lived there, as I drove all over the place, I eventually noticed that outside of many towns were metal signposts with little white signs on top (just a few inches tall) that bore the classic symbol of masonry. Oh the Ubiquity.

Gotta wonder, with the disappearance of most of major fraternal organizations (in the US at least), if those signposts haven't dwindled in number. The org's disappearances have gone down with little comment ... while countless, repurposed city buildings still bear their names on their exteriors.
posted by Twang at 3:45 PM on December 16, 2015

That's totally not my thing.

I hear ya, I'm still sore the Red Hat Society rejected my application.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:49 PM on December 16, 2015

I used to work in an office on the ground floor of the Masonic Temple in Austin. One day a woman came in off the street and asked if she could pass through our offices to look around the rest of the building. (The main doors remained locked except for during their meetings/events, but our office and the six or seven others had back doors that opened into the interior hallway.) I shrugged and said sure and let her in.

On her way out again I asked her if she was an architecture buff, because the old building did have some interesting little charms. She said no, that she was the operator of a downtown walking tour that stopped at haunted buildings, and she wanted to see for herself whether the stories she'd heard about *our* building were true. She (infuriatingly!) wouldn't tell me what those stories were, though.

Later that day I was telling my coworkers about the loony woman with the ghost stories. One of the guys in the office said "Oh, I bet it has something to do with that secret door in the men's room."

~~~~~~ record scratch ~~~~~~

I accused them of putting me on, but they insisted that there was a removable panel on the wall in the men's room, next to the urinals, and that it led up into the Masonic Temple on the second floor.

I still didn't believe them. So that night, after dark, I dragged a guy friend with me to the office to investigate.

Sure enough, next to the urinals and at about knee-height, there was a wooden panel in the wall. On closer inspection, it was on hinges (though it had no knob or handle), but it had been painted over by what looked to be several redecoratings worth of paint.

We got a screwdriver and managed to get the panel open after a bit of work. Honestly, I expected to find a water shutoff valve or fuse box or something. But no, this little door, maybe 2-feet square, opened into a dark concrete shaft that was two stories tall.

Now, I've since heard that these shafts are common in Masonic buildings, that they were even built into the blueprints, because they're used for some sort of initiation rite where a prospect is lowered down into a hole, on a rope, blindfolded, where he then gets his feet tickled or something. Whether or not that's true, the population of that particular Masonic lodge was gray-haired and almost universally too old and frail to either be in control of a man's descent into a hole or to be the man clinging to the rope. So luckily for us, there was an extension ladder in there.

We climbed up, and there was a trap door in the floor. Pushed it aside, pulled ourselves onto the second floor, and found ourselves in the inner sanctum. It looked very much like the picture on the linked site that has the three chairs at the front of the room and an altar-like thing in the middle of it, except the style was more late-19th century. The floor was made of wood planks. There were heavy, heavy red velvet curtains over the windows. There was gold braiding everywhere. It was extremely, eye-wateringly dusty. Also, musty. There were large, ornately framed posters on the walls with portraits of the membership over the years.

And that was pretty much it. The doors that led into the other rooms were all locked, so that was the only room we got to see.

I am generally a lawful person, and I don't usually mess with other people's stuff. I realize this constituted breaking-and-entering. But here's the thing: The old Mason who managed the property and who served as our office's landlord was a crusty old guy known as Colonel Berry. He had to be at least 85. He always wore a tartan-plaid ascot cap. He walked at a 45-degree angle, with purpose, and he refused to speak to the women in the office. I managed the office checkbook. He would come in on the first of the month to get the rent check. I'd be holding it in my hand, practically waving it in his face, and he would walk right past me to shake one of my male coworkers' hands, then ask him for the rent. I made it my personal mission to make him make eye contact with me, but he never would. One time, when there were no men in the office, he walked in and then walked out again, without acknowledging that any of us womenfolk were even in his breathing space. He was a chauvinistic old goat, and he pissed me off.

So like I say, I am generally lawful. But when I was in that room where I was not supposed to be, it was knowing that that it was likely that women weren't allowed in there, ever. So I stayed in there longer than I needed to and longer than was interesting, just because I could. It was a metaphorical nose-thumbing at old Colonel Berry. If he'd known I'd been in there, he'd have had a spittle-flecked fit -- maybe even would have made eye contact.

He's almost certainly dead now, but I hope he's reading this from beyond. Ha ha, Colonel Berry. I was in your secret space! *thumbs nose*
posted by mudpuppie at 3:58 PM on December 16, 2015 [53 favorites]

How was I to know you were a mason?
(wasn't able to find video of the better scene later in the movie)
posted by kokaku at 4:08 PM on December 16, 2015

I spent much of my childhood in a masonic hall that looks incredibly similar to this one; right down to the darkened spots on the cinderblock walls left by decades of Brylcreem.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:08 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Some of these, particularly this one, look like sets from Mad Men.
posted by dnash at 4:34 PM on December 16, 2015

Book five chapter 2 through chapter 5 of War and Peace is Tolstoy's version of Count Pierre's Mason adventure. It is the best short literary account I know. This is a Russian nobility version of freemasonry but the ideals are that everybody is supposed to be "on the square".

If you are interested in non-fiction there are two really great books:

Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717-1927

(the handsome fellow in the center of the cover photo is one of Queen Victoria's sons);

and Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840.
posted by bukvich at 5:28 PM on December 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

My brother is really into being a mason, and his kids are involved in their youth programs, and so they do a lot of charity work, which is cool. I've been to some of the social events he has organized, and somehow I always end up bartending, because the masons working the bar were too slow. Apparently there is no overlap between people-who-join-fraternities and people-who-have-slung-beer-in-busy-nightclubs.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:52 PM on December 16, 2015

Back in the mid-90s I was in a band called Grand Lodge. We were obsessed with freemasonry (unsurprisingly), and so when the grand lodge in Sydney had an open day, we went along dressed in our stage gear (ie musty old op-shop suits).

Our guide was Cyril, a red-faced, silver-haired old bloke. He eventually took us into the main hall - the one with the chessboard floor and the velvet chairs and the giant letter G dangling from the ceiling. He told us that during important meetings the doors were guarded by masons armed with swords.

Why swords, we asked.

"To guard -" replied our guide, reeling around and glaring at us, "Against COWARDS and INTRUDERS!"

It was intense.
posted by misterbee at 5:58 PM on December 16, 2015

Good lord, this picture is perfect. Absolutely iconic design, furniture, architecture, all of it, well-cared-for and still losing a battle with time. There's almost nothing to that photo, and somehow it is amazing.
posted by mhoye at 7:03 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

My grandfather was a Mason, and when he died all the Eastern Star ladies descended on my grandmother and made sure she didn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, arranging for medical stuff still inthe house to be picked up, or organizing the reception after the funeral. They kept dropping in on her for a couple months after, helped deal with his clothes and stuff, everything. Brothers from his lodge carried the casket with family and former RCAF buddies.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:32 PM on December 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

For a few years in high school I was a Job's Daughter, which is the related organization for under-20 female relatives of Masons (for young men there is DeMolay, and for women, Eastern Star).

Secrecy was a big part of our meetings, including having guards sitting in the antechambers between the doors to the Bethel and the outside room. Since we met in the place the Masons did, I think they had similar security.

Our organization was based on the story of Job from the bible. There was a hierarchy of members, including the First through Fifth Messengers who each had to memorize a big chunk of the story of Job and recite it.

There were five "officers," three in the front as in the pictures of the Masonic temple, and two in the back of the room. There were three chairs there, so I guess that was related to the Masonic ceremony.

We had to wear white satin robes and white ballet slippers. The Junior and Senior Princesses as well as the Honored Queen also wore purple velvet capes and tiaras.

In retrospect it was kind of weird. It was very social, with district and state and national meetups, but at the same time like a pageant - officers were elected every six months and then were moved up the hierarchy automatically. It was a secret club and a bible study and a ritual and a place where you were expected to be womanly and a social group.

I've probably broken a vow of secrecy here, but it's a fascinating, insular because it's secret, organization.
posted by bendy at 7:34 PM on December 16, 2015 [5 favorites]

Wow, bendy, that is amazing. I had no idea. It sounds a bit like my Baptist upbringing, plus white satin robes.
posted by misterbee at 7:47 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was also a Job's Daughter. I started out as Musician, since I was studying piano, but I yearned to rule and was able to jump to Princess-dom after recruiting a friend to join and take over as Musician. I still have my tiara and gavel somewhere, and I stayed involved (playing piano and filling in as necessary) until I became a Majority Member. One of the best things I got out of the experience was a no-interest loan for college through the Ensign Mayo Loan Fund
posted by mogget at 8:03 PM on December 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

That is a really gorgeous group of images on Kripke's site. Great post.
posted by photoslob at 8:11 PM on December 16, 2015

Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717-1927

(the handsome fellow in the center of the cover photo is one of Queen Victoria's sons)

I think it's her grandson, actually. Prince Arthur of Connaught (Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, 1920-24), not to be confused with Victoria's son, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (Governor General of Canada, 1911-16).

...South Africa, of course, having been conquered and unified by the British during the Second Boer War. Honouring the soldiers of the Second Boer War was the original raison d'être of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, a Canadian women's group. My grandmother was a member, albeit long after the Boer Wars. Her husband, my grandfather, was a Mason.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:20 PM on December 16, 2015

My wife and her sisters did Rainbow Girls when she was growing up. Which, now that I check, seems to be an alternative to Job's Daughters, but with more hoop skirts. So I've been to a few awards ceremonies, got the quilt made when she a Grand-something officer for the state and had about 200 extra people she knew and invited to our wedding reception show up. And they all brought wedding-loot, so it was great.
posted by ericales at 10:41 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

The next time you're in Washington D.C., visit the George Washington Masonic temple in Alexandria. It is an amazing building with a wonderful view. It's a beautiful building, more like a church than some of the halls picture in the FPP. My SO is a 32nd Degree Mason and he assures me there is no tickling of feet. My dad was in the Knights of Columbus and its doesn't seem that different to me. It's a religious organization more than anything.
posted by tamitang at 11:21 PM on December 16, 2015

I'm not a Mason, but I've been in a couple of temples. One was in a former church, and that's what the meeting room looked like. The pews had been replaced by folding chairs, but not much else had changed, other than the stained-glass windows having been opaqued. The other was the upper story of a three-story building. I vaguely recall that I was there with a Mason who was also in Kiwanis (which my boss forced me to join). I had plenty of time to wander around the room. It didn't look anything like Kripke's photos. The walls were gaudy with red and gold in wild, bizarre patterns. Seems like there were no windows.

Double plus, I had sex with his daughter.

That double plus'll get you every time.
posted by bryon at 11:24 PM on December 16, 2015

I think it's her grandson, actually. Prince Arthur of Connaught (Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, 1920-24), not to be confused with Victoria's son, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (Governor General of Canada, 1911-16).

Thanks Sys Rq. I'm not confused now but I read your comment twice and there is no way I could get it right on a quiz tomorrow.
posted by bukvich at 6:28 AM on December 17, 2015

entropicamericana's information is closest to my own knowledge (great uncles and father were/are members) about Nashville's hospital that specializes in the care of burns. I've visited one other temple in Indianapolis. Its architecture is rare because its dimensions reflect a fair amount of numerology. I "borrowed" a book given to initiates, Morals and Dogma, that contains in its preface a curse if the book is not properly loaned and returned. It has been explained to me that Masons, Shriners, Scottish Rite, etc., have a storied history, but that WWII veterans filled their ranks after having witnessed senseless carnage because a local church couldn't address the traumas and PTSDs (now named) experienced by veterans.

So, I'm of the opinion much of the cult-ure is men-only hooey, but some portion of it is as real, reactive, and noble as possible.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:40 AM on December 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

My dad was in the Knights of Columbus and its doesn't seem that different to me. It's a religious organization more than anything.

Knights of Columbus was started because the Catholic Church and the Freemasons hated each other, but the Catholic guys wanted to do fun secret-handshake stuff too. KoC is the Asylum of Freemasonry.
posted by Etrigan at 6:40 AM on December 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

My grandfather was a Mason and bendy's account of Job's Daughter sounds basically the same to everything my grandfather told me about. Memorizing passages and rites to advance in ranks.

From my understanding it was actually pretty egalitarian. They didn't care what religion you believed in, as long as you believed in a higher power. Community outreach was particularly big in his lodge, but it was always expressly done secretly. They would just volunteer or donate money anonymously.

On the secrecy of the rituals and temple happenings; I think that was mostly just a good way to form bonding and create a safe space for members.*

When my grandfather died, they paid all of his funeral expenses and hosted it at the temple. (My grandfather died poor. It was also the first and last time I saw the temple.)


He tried to get me to join DeMolay, in teenage rebellion I decided not to. Sometimes I think about it, and wonder what it would've been like, but ultimately when it comes down to it, the Masons are just another Good-Ole-Boy network, and I don't really want to be a part of that.


*there was always this kind of weird double-think my grandfather and the few good friends of my grandfathers who would talk about this stuff. You could tell they all sort of thought the pageantry was meaningless and pretty ridiculous, but they had a fierce devotion and dedication to it because it was the structure of the organization, and thus, had meaning.
posted by mayonnaises at 7:10 AM on December 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Growing up in the '80s my ballet studio was in a Masonic temple. I remember thinking the building was weird and out of place in my small town (on a residential street), and asking about the symbol on the outside. There were lots of locked doors and robes but I was too young to do any proper sleuthing.

My uncle was very involved in Knights of Columbus and had a heck of a time recruiting in the past 10-20 years. But when he died a few years ago two knights stood guard (with swords) over his casket during the wake and accompanied the casket all the way to the grave. I always wanted to be part of a secret society (preferably with costumes) but ran into the problems of (1) being female and (2) being an atheist.
posted by Bunglegirl at 8:38 AM on December 17, 2015

> Book five chapter 2 through chapter 5 of War and Peace is Tolstoy's version of Count Pierre's Mason adventure. It is the best short literary account I know.

That's a good one, but equally good (to my mind) is the extended sequence in Vasily Narezhny's 1814 Rossiisky Zhilblaz [A Russian Gil Blas]; I loved the novel so much I made a detailed chapter-by-chapter plot summary so I could keep it straight (it's one of those stories-within-stories-within-stories novels), and here's the Masonic section:

Dobroslavov agrees that there is no guilt toward him, though the action itself was wrong, and says that to show his continuing confidence he will induct Chistyakov into his Masonic circle if he is willing. He agrees, and thinks to himself that this is the culmination of his studies of metaphysics “and especially her wisest daughter, pneumatology” – he will finally be able to prove the existence of celestial beings to the unbelieving world! That evening Dobroslavov and Olimpii blindfold him and put him in the carriage; after an hour’s drive they get out, and after a long walk his blindfold is removed. He is in a huge room draped in black, with white images of birds, beasts, fish, and insects sewn on. In the middle, around a long table covered with candles, are about fifty men in black mantles with flaming images of constellations, planets, and good and evil spirits. One of them stands and makes a long, high-flown, and incomprehensible speech to which Chistyakov stops listening. Finally he is admitted into the group, under the name Capricorn. Then they all proceed to a brightly lit hall with divans and plenty to eat and drink; there was merry conversation between the men, all of whom had half their faces hidden by masks. One, named Scorpio, tells Chistyakov he is an actor and invites him to come see him perform; when Chistyakov asks how he’ll know him, he says to make the Masonic sign, which he demonstrates. After a musical interlude young women dressed as nymphs enter and dance, and one of them, Likorisa, is chosen Queen of the Night. She sits on a raised throne and sings a song beginning “Blessed is he who knows how to live life and to love what is lovely!” Chistyakov burns with passion for her. [...] Dobroslavov leads him out, he is blindfolded again, and they go home. The next day, Dobroslavov tells him what he has in mind for him. Among the Masons are Taurus and Arctic Goose; the former is a count and the latter a mill-owner, and both are rich, wicked, and willful. Chistyakov is to bring them both to serve the good of humanity, after which he will be well rewarded. He agrees, thinking joyfully of how he will help bring balance to the world.

I think there's more about Masonry, but that's long enough already and will give you an idea.
posted by languagehat at 8:59 AM on December 17, 2015

"To guard -" replied our guide, reeling around and glaring at us, "Against COWARDS and INTRUDERS!"

I suspect, although I cannot be certain, that he probably said "cowans and eavesdroppers". There's a lot of odd archaic terminology in the rituals, and that's a stock phrase.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:02 AM on December 17, 2015

Before anyone asks, there's no English translation of the novel yet, but I corresponded with Professor Ronald LeBlanc (who calls himself the sole member of the North American Narezhny Society) and he said he was planning to do one after he retires. I hope he does; it's tremendous fun to read.
posted by languagehat at 9:05 AM on December 17, 2015

I used to work for the city in a building that was a former temple. Anyone in SF who is interested can go visit it although some of the cooler details are hidden in offices now. Beautiful old wooden paneled walls are now chopped up with dry wall and partitions into offices, but there's still an atrium with a mosaic dome and a statue of Moses on the corner of the building.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:57 AM on December 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

These photographs reminded me strongly of Andrew Wyeth's painting, Groundhog Day. The surroundings, and the light, suggest something about the absent men.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:18 PM on December 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

To find out more about members of the British Royal family who are also Masons, you can go on a one of the daily tours of Freemasons Hall in London. There are pictures!

And if we're talking about hidden masonic halls, there was one forgotten behind a false wall in the Great Eastern Hotel in London for decades.
posted by Helga-woo at 3:34 PM on December 17, 2015

mayonaises: there wasn't any "higher power" jibber jabber it was based on a ritualistic interpretation of the bible - there was never a challenge to worship someone, it was just rote memorization of a story. Like you said, it was more of a pageantry than anything religious.

I don't know much about DeMolay, but I do know that us "Job's" had mixers with them a few times a year and sometimes they made out!
posted by bendy at 9:41 PM on December 25, 2015

Just found this in the Guide to the Roman Gul ' Papers from Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library:

Prior to World War II, Gul' was a member of the Russian Masonic lodge "Svobodnaia Rossiia." After the war, he became a member of the Russian lodge "Jupiter." When he learned, however, that the lodge was not open to criticism of the Soviet Union, he resigned. Gul's Masonic experiences are eloquently detailed in his memoirs.

Thought it was an interesting enough tidbit to share.
posted by languagehat at 12:29 PM on December 26, 2015 [2 favorites]