The Place of Brotherhood in Freemasonry

Masonic brotherhood transcends danger or necessity, and requires that we exercise the same selfless qualities towards our Masonic Brethren in everyday life and in everyday situations.

I should be towards my Brother such a mainstay that my own pillar of strength should mirror his own in any situation in life, whether that situation be a negative or a positive one.

But I believe that, to practise true brotherhood Masonically, it is a prerequisite that I first learn to practise it in respect of myself.

In a fascinating essay written in 1896, the Freemason J.E. Thomas of South Africa wrote:

To assist in the ceremonial duties of the Lodge without seeking

to unfold the symbolism, is to remain satisfied with the externals

only, those husks which envelope and protect the grain.  Our quest

is to ascertain the internal truths of which symbolism is but the

index.  For instance, to what extent are the fraternal relations

between my fellow Freemasons and myself different to those which

I hold with my neighbours and friends?

With these words, the author places brotherhood firmly at the centre, both of our Masonic existence, and of our initiatic quest.

Brotherhood, the bonding between human beings, exists of course on different levels and in different spheres of human experience.

In the profane world, brotherhood may be more often relied on in times of danger and distress than in the hour of ease and comfort.

There is ample evidence of bonding between men on the field of battle, or between those caught up in a natural disaster.

And after each of the world wars of the twentieth century, the numbers of lodges and consequently of Freemasons increased substantially, testament to the search for fraternal comradeship in their daily lives by men who had experienced it so dramatically in war.

But the answer to Brother Thomas’ question above may be to say that Masonic brotherhood transcends danger or necessity, and requires that we exercise the same selfless qualities towards our Masonic Brethren in everyday life and in everyday situations.

I should be towards my Brother such a mainstay that my own pillar of strength should mirror his own in any situation in life, whether that situation be a negative or a positive one.

But I believe that, to practise true brotherhood Masonically, it is a prerequisite that I first learn to practise it in respect of myself. Let me explain.

Man, know thyself, then thou shalt know the universe…

 

If I am to achieve the desired close bond of brotherhood with men and women of any group, it requires that I fully understand my Brethren.

And to understand them, to know them, I first have to know myself, to achieve true gnosis as the Greeks call it, most accurately translated as the Act of Knowing.

If I can come to truly know myself, and therefore to understand myself, with all my virtues, vices, merits and failings, then I can begin to validate myself, to acknowledge my uniqueness as a part of the Creation, a part of the Cosmos.

Through this validation, I achieve some measure of self-esteem. This is neither pride nor prejudice; it is being still at my own centre, and knowing. ‘Man, know thyself, then thou shalt know the universe’ wrote Pythagoras.

So it is with Brotherhood, since only at that centre of my own being will I be able to look outwards, and be able to esteem my Brother or Sister, to experience their humanity alongside my own.

The plumb-rule, one of the most important symbols in Freemasonry, denotes correctness…

 

In this context, it is also important to understand the principle of tolerance. In today’s world, in religion as in philosophy, what is true for me may not be that which is true for my Brother. 

The plumb-rule, one of the most important symbols in Freemasonry, denotes correctness on many levels, and through that it strives to denote that which is true. Truth however is elusive. 

What was shown to be scientifically true in previous centuries has been superseded by advances in scientific research, and is now no longer true. It was once deemed impossible for men to explore space.

Advances in material science have superseded that. On the other hand, a mathematical equation formulated many hundreds of years ago is still true – one has only to think again of Pythagoras.

Our task, as Brethren, is to achieve a ‘fusion point’, where the religious or philosophical truth held by my Brother, a truth mutable or immutable depending on the individual viewpoint, becomes united with that truth held by me. T

his has less to do with sacrificing my own strongly-held beliefs than with acknowledging the parallel truth of the belief held by my Brother.

I am going to be your Brother, and you will be my Brethren…

 

Correctness is transitory – truth ought to be absolute, and brotherhood rests on us being tolerant of many truths. 

When a person comes to a lodge for initiation, he is basically saying ‘I am going to be your Brother, and you will be my Brethren’, a commitment as basic and profound as any that can be made by a human being.

It is the oneness extolled by Buddhism. But the tolerance required to do this to perfection is not a passive tolerance. We are required to practise tolerance actively, in making sure that the brotherhood is all-inclusive.

In a lodge I visited there was a very disputatious Brother. One of the members expressed the view that this Brother had been sent to us, in order to test our tolerance.

Trust me, she said,  I won’t let you fall…

 

Let me give you an example of how tolerance can be engendered by close companionship. There was an offensive confrontation some years ago in Belfast, in an area where a catholic school is situated in a predominantly protestant area.

At that time, for the catholic mothers to take their children to school in the morning, they had to run a gauntlet of hostile protestants, shouting abuse and menacing them, adults and children alike, shameful behaviour by any standards.

Some time later, a television company, in the ‘reality television’ now so popular, devised a programme in which adults from both sides of the sectarian divide in Belfast spent some time, outside Ireland, camping in a desolate and mountainous area, where they had to come to terms with their primitive surroundings.

This environment required that they all worked together in some sort of harmony, without which their day-to-day endurance would not have been possible.

The participants were obliged to cooperate in all their activities, simply to ensure survival. They were subjected to the severest tests of fortitude and inner strength.

Among them were two mothers – one a parent of a child at that school, the other a mother who had shouted abuse.

These two had come on the programme in ignorance of each other’s part in that episode, but as their relationship to each other slowly developed, they became aware of their previous confrontation, and began to learn to accommodate their differences.

They had begun better to understand the sterile ‘blame culture’, that barren landscape lying between, and alienating them from, each other. Towards the end of the programme, these two women were teamed together in an abseiling exercise, the protestant woman suspended over a very frightening sheer rock-face, paralysed by fear.

The catholic woman, her former antagonist, paid out the rope from the top and, to encourage the other, called out the words we all long to hear from time to time when we feel abandoned or helpless, the words which resonate to us from the memories of our mother in our childhood. ‘Trust me,’ she said,  ‘I won’t let you fall’, among the most evocative words one human being can speak to another, spoken here by a woman to her former enemy.

This was active tolerance at its best, in extreme circumstances. 

Mutuality without tolerance is an unstable building. Mutuality requires not only physical closeness, but closeness of spirit, impossible if tolerance is missing.

The verb ‘tolerate’ is of course Latin in origin, meaning ‘bear’, ‘carry’ or ‘support’. This aspect of mutuality is illustrated by Laurence Dermott, the first Grand Secretary of the ‘Antients’ Grand Lodge, who wrote in his seminal work Ahiman Rezon:

For human society cannot subsist without concord, and the

maintenance of good offices; for, like the working of an arch

of stone, it would fall to the ground provided one piece did

not properly support another.

 

The integrity of such an arch is often said to depend on the keystone, but in fact its integrity depends on every stone, the smallest and the newest, together with the largest and the most important.

It is of course in this respect like a chain, whose efficacy depends on every constituent link, and not only those links perceived as the strongest or most important.

This is what we mean when we speak of equality among Brethren.

At the time when I was initiated into Freemasonry, it was commonplace for the senior members of the lodge to say, with a certain amount of self-importance, ‘When you have been in Freemasonry as long as I have, you will be qualified to express a view on it’.

The implication was, that I should simply listen and learn, and not say too much. That is, of course, not a valid standpoint, however much humility is needed. 

There is a tendency in some Masonic jurisdictions for Masonic rank to play a large part in our activities. 

Grand Rank awarded as an active, administrative rank, awarded in respect of merit or achievement, is necessary and laudable, but the awarding of past ranks in profusion can only lead to corrosion of brotherhood.

One younger Brother ironically described this aspect to me as ‘Masonic graffiti’. The joy of hermetic thought was that the teacher taught, and the student in time became himself a teacher, qualified to teach others.

This did not place him on a higher plane, and those who do so place themselves, are hindering themselves on their Masonic journey, since the equality we experience as Brethren is what makes the journey possible.

 

 

Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453.
IMAGE CREDIT:  linked wikimedia

In today’s world, I hope to learn from a new aspirant as much as, or more than, he may learn from me. It is true that I can instruct him in the form of ritual, allegory and symbol of which he may not yet be aware. 

But if I fail to take note of how he invests those forms with his own unique interpretation, I shall be the loser, and Freemasonry will lose not only its diversity, but its vitality as well.

From this it follows that, as a member of my lodge, however ‘experienced’ I may be, I am dependant on the most newly-initiated Brother.

This is true. If I claim, as some do, that I have nothing to learn from a new, ‘inexperienced’ Freemason, then I am making a grave mistake, for myself as well as for the Brotherhood.

But central to all of this is the notion that I must first attend to my own moral progress.

A manuscript was discovered in 1696 in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, setting out the purported examination of a member of the Masonic fraternity by King Henry VI:

 

Do Masons love one another mightily as is said?

Yes, verily; and that cannot be otherwise, for the better men are,

the more they love one another.

 

And can we come nearer to understanding the nature of this brotherly love?

Many Masonic jurisdictions world wide lay great stress on the practice of charity to those in need, a charity which most often expresses itself by financial assistance.

In those jurisdictions Freemasons of course also support those of their own members who need assistance, often believing that the exercise of brotherly love requires no more.

The brotherhood of Freemasons, to be perfectively effective, does require more.  It requires the seizing, daily, of opportunities to cultivate a spirit of true brotherhood in those ways that do not involve financial assistance, by lightening a Brother’s burden, by gladdening his heart, by gentle words of encouragement.

Paradoxically, although the pursuit of self-knowledge and moral progress and development is an individual pursuit, to engage in it within a group such as a lodge  or other Masonic fraternity, increases its effectiveness, as though the force of the whole is greater than the sum of its several parts.

It is as though each member of the group acts as a catalyst for the transforming power of  Freemasonry for all of his Brethren.

It is this that truly sets Freemasonry apart from other fraternal pursuits, and this is possibly the best answer to Brother Thomas’ quotation cited at the beginning.

It depends what you mean by believe…

 

If the pursuit of brotherhood with my Brethren requires first a pursuit of that brotherhood, that humanity, which is individual to me, then I need to look at that centre from which that humanity springs, the centre within myself.

I am reminded that different jurisdictions in Freemasonry use different words for this centre, if not different concepts.

For too long, the question of belief in a Supreme Being has tragically divided Freemasons, when it is indeed that essence which ought to unite.

How does my new-made Brother view his own humanity and his place in the cosmos? In my own Masonic jurisdiction, a belief in a Supreme Being is a sine qua non of membership, an immutable condition.

An aspirant came before my lodge committee for interview, and was asked if he had such a belief. 

After a long pause, he said ‘It depends what you mean by “believe”’.

He told me afterwards, without irony, that it was like asking if a wave believed in the sea. He regarded himself as a part of the Creation.  How should he question, therefore, the very life-force of which he was himself a part?

Pour le Grand Orient, le vrai athéisme n’existe pas…

 

I believe that, in this sense, Brethren from different jurisdictions, so-called believers and so-called unbelievers, might like to examine this question in a common discourse.

We might like to consider whether it is simply language that divides us. Pierre Mollier, Grand Librarian of the Grand Orient of France, remembers a senior member of the Grand Orient saying to him, ‘Pour le Grand Orient, le vrai athéisme n’existe pas’, and if we can, collectively, come to acknowledge the spark of Being – divinity or humanity –  within ourselves, we will already have made a great leap forward.

Brotherhood, I believe, requires that, in the process of validating each other’s humanity in the way I have spoken about, we seek out that spark in our Brother which does make him unique and estimable.

We call ourselves Free-Masons. In the same way that we need air to breathe, we need to be free, and that freedom exists, for Freemasons, on so many levels. 

It can be freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom from dogma, freedom of positive purpose, freedom of speech, freedom from political or ideological coercion.

I believe there is another freedom, perhaps the most important of them all, and that is, the freedom to serve our Brethren. According to tradition, there was supposed to be an inscription on the Round Table of King Arthur which read:

In seeking to serve others, we become free.

Article by:  Julian Rees

Julian Rees was initiated into Freemasonry in 1968 in Kirby Lodge No. 2818, London and was Master in 1976/77 and again at the centenary of the Lodge in 1999/2000. He joined many other UGLE Lodges. 

He has been a regular contributor to Freemasonry Today since its founding in 1997 and from 2003 to 2007 he was Deputy and News Editor. 

He was appointed active Junior Grand Deacon in the United Grand Lodge of England in 2007. In 2011 he left UGLE and joined the International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women Le Droit Humain. He remains a well-published and respected Masonic author.

web site: www.julianrees.com

Making Light Handbook For Freemasons

by Julian Rees

 

At last an easy-to-read guide to the path of self-knowledge and self-improvement that is Freemasonry. This volume takes the reader through each of the three degrees of Craft Freemasonry, explaining how best to gain insight from the study and application of these teachings.

For the newly made Mason, this book provides an explanation of the ceremony and a glossary of Masonic terminology. It also provides a similar guide for future degrees of Masonic progression.

For the experienced Freemason it illustrates interesting and largely unknown aspects of the symbolism of the three degrees. To discover the true Masonic secret, we have to work to bring it forth; this book is the manual for that great work.

 

Tracing Boards of the Three Degrees in Craft Freemasonry Explained

by Julian Rees

 

Although most Freemasons will be familiar with the Tracing Boards – painted or engraved illustrations developed in the early years of Freemasonry which are used in Lodges to illustrate Masonic symbols and allegories during degree ceremonies and lectures – little has been published on them.

The Tracing Boards are an essential part of the three Craft Degrees, assisting the Freemason in his quest to decode and interpret those allegories.

There is no publication which adequately explains the Tracing Boards, their use and meaning of their symbolism, and Tracing Boards of the Three Degrees in Craft Freemasonry Explained fills that gap.

The first three chapters give a detailed method of understanding and revealing the import of the three craft boards, based on those used in the three degrees by the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, known as the Harris Boards, which contain the elements of most of the Tracing Boards used in Lodges throughout England.

The fourth chapter gives a brief overview of the history and the development of Tracing Boards in England, with some fascinating illustrations of long-forgotten boards.

In the fifth chapter the author draws in many Tracing Boards and Lodge Cloths from other countries, particularly from the USA, and from other Masonic jurisdictions, bringing the art-form right up to the 21st century.

This book is richly illustrated and features boards never before seen outside museums.

Julian Rees was for some years on the Precepting Committee of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement in London. He has been a regular contributor to the quarterly magazine Freemasonry Today since its founding in 1997.

In 2003, he joined the editorial team as deputy and news editor, and in the same year delivered the prestigious Wendel K. Walker Memorial Lecture in New York entitled Through Ritual to Enlightenment.

He was one of the founding members of The Cornerstone Society, serving as Secretary for a number of years, and has lectured extensively to lodges in this country and abroad.

Rees has been honoured by the Institut Maçonnique de France with the Ordre Maçonnique de Lafayette.

He is now a member of the International Order of Freemasonry Le Droit Humain in England.

He is the author of Making Light – A Handbook for Freemasons, The Stairway of Freemasonry, Ornaments Furniture and Jewels and So You Want To Be A Freemason?

 

Recent Articles: by Julian Rees

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Hail Holy Light!

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Sanctifying with Grace

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The Place of Brotherhood in Freemasonry

To what extent are the fraternal relations between my fellow Freemasons and myself different to those which I hold with my neighbours and friends?
 

Kindle with Celestial Fire

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
 

Seeing in a Different Light

Further in-site into The International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women Le Droit Humain which has been implanted in the United Kingdom since 1902 and is today the standard-bearer of the Order in this country.
 

Introduction to Co-Freemasonry

A brief introduction to universal Co-Freemasonry - Le Droit Humain, Freemasonry for both Men and Women
 

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