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@forthrighter-roughashlar
Fearsomely Made
The trying hard and the striving is part of who I am. I don’t have to feel bad or make apologies for it. I am as I am made. It is mysterious and terrible why I am made this way. There are all manner of powerfully positive and negative characters out there, from saints to serial killers, each playing their part. Each, fearsomely made. Direction We cannot answer why some children are born into…
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Not even a Frame: Disillusioned with the Scottish Rite
I have been a 32° Mason in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) for a few years. My un-framed certificate is on my wall, and it caught my eye for the third time in a few days. I had a bit of an “ugh” feeling, and I thought about demitting for the 100th time. This post is intended to think these issues through and not shame anybody, so it will be kept anonymous. My…
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God is an Elephant
People who write esoteric papers are constantly telling on themselves. Masonic researchers go down many different rabbit holes, each of them individual. I’m not here to claim I am right, papers such as these are in-progress term papers. They show what a person has learned so far, walking the path, with hopes it’s useful to others. Feel free to disagree with whatever seems unsound to you. I have…
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Equanimity; and Cultivating Ease
Sometimes, you can’t move your thinking forward on some topic, because you want it to move too much. You might be too thirsty; even desperate. It causes you to apply internal force, and that makes it worse, because force tightens knots. There are many situations like this; calming a fussy baby, attracting a mate, going on vacation – where you fail from the beginning if you don’t have a certain…
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What is Love?
A: A set of neuronal firings in the brain B: Is that all? A: Material is all there is. No material in the brain, no love. B: And how do you know, have you used science to determine this? A: Well, not directly. Science can’t prove the non-existence of a thing. But we can reasonably suppose based on what we know.  B: This process of reasonable supposition without proof or experiment has been…
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Perennial Philosophy and Prisca Theologia
a universal core of spiritual truth that underlies and unites all major religious and philosophical traditions
Prisca theologia, also known as the “perennial philosophy” or “perennial wisdom,” is the idea that there is a universal and timeless core of spiritual truth or knowledge that underlies and unites all major religious and philosophical traditions. The term comes from the Latin for “ancient theology,” and holds that essential wisdom has been present throughout human history and across various…
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Carl Jung - Ending Your Inner Civil War
Carl Jung - Ending Your Inner Civil War
The following text was originally part of a lecture by Carl Jung, transcribed from Alan Watts reading, because the original text couldn’t be found online. People forget that even doctors have moral scruples, and that certain patients confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow. Yet the patient does not feel himself accepted, unless the very worst in him is accepted too. No one can bring…
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Top-Down and Bottom-Up Leadership
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Leadership
Each year, Masonic lodges elect a new Master for the following year. The progressive line of positions leading up to the master’s chair acts as a kind of leadership training, or at least ideally should. Long before someone “assumes the east” and takes over the role, they’re encouraged to build a plan for their year as master. Planning advice, this article is a good example usually boils down to…
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Holding Sand
On March 1, 2018, out of nowhere I woke up at 4:30AM and left a voice memo to myself. I sat straight up in my bed, with a head full of confused thoughts about the job I had left 6 months prior to that. It felt like the wooly left-over bits of a dream barely remembered. An anxious, awful dream about working your hardest and failing to meet the bar. It was about a job I had quit 8 months prior to…
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Masonic Engagement and the Orbit Model
Masonic Engagement and the Orbit Model
A few days ago we discussed the membership declines in Freemasonry over 2020. Today we’re going to talk about more practical and specific solutions, and actions Grand Lodges can take to improve the situation. Let’s picture a lodge as a set of concentric circles, with some members closer to the core. The closer to the center, the more involved & enthusiastic, the outer circles less involved and…
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Secrecy and Personal Control
Who you are isn't what you present to the world
Sissela Bok In 2022, secrecy is often thought to be extremely negative; a way to conceal information that ought to come to light. Attitudes about secrecy have changed over centuries though, and it is interesting to consider the balance between society wanting transparency, for example to hold the powerful to account, and also wanting privacy, which requires secrecy. In Sissela Bok’s book…
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The Right Size and Future for Masonry (UPDATE)
The Right Size and Future for Masonry (UPDATE)
In February 2020 I wrote an article with the same title as this one; this post is an update on that data, with current data as of the full year of 2020 for US Masonic membership. You can find the original post here. In that original article we covered hypothesized reasons why demographics are changing. At the time of that writing (early 2020) it was expected the decline would continue, the data…
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The Decline of Fraternal Ritualism
The Decline of Fraternal Ritualism
This post is about how changes in society at the beginning of the 20th century did away with the “Golden Age of Fraternalism” and hundreds of different fraternal orders. It is an important part of the history of Freemasonry at a time when it was co-evolving with many other bodies. Regular text is a quotation from the book; my commentary interspersed is in italics. Any emphasis was added by me.…
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Masonry and Fathers
It’s surprising how many Freemasons I know have stories in their background of major conflicts with their fathers. There are masons who grew up adopted wondering why their biological father gave them up, those whose fathers were physically or emotionally abusive, those who had problems with alcohol, or just neglectful fathers who weren’t really there. Relationships with a father like that tend to…
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Many Hands Make Light Work?
Many Hands Make Light Work?
Suppose, for the sake of argument that it takes 2 full-time people worth of work to conduct all of the business of your average Masonic lodge. In order to keep an entity such a lodge in operation, it has some basic overhead, separate and apart from the fundamental work of Freemasonry. What does that work consist of? Administrative – bills, building, supplies, trestle board, stated…
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Accountability, and the Sword of Damocles
Accountability, and the Sword of Damocles
A simple lesson, in a nutshell: You might be very powerful, but in the end you’re not getting away with anything; mind your actions very carefully. You have certain powers in the world to do things, but power always comes with both responsibility and danger; this is unavoidable. That’s the punch line. Here’s the story: Sword of Damocles, 1812 Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, his king, and…
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Perspectives on Masonic Secrets
Perspectives on Masonic Secrets
In this post I’d like to summarize 3 very different perspectives about Masonic secrets & secrecy. Masons don’t all agree on the purpose or meaning of these secrets, and I think it’s useful to compare these views because it helps understand where people are coming from. The three perspectives: There are secrets, and it’s impossible to divulge them, even if you want to.There are secrets, and they…
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