Struggling to Learn Ritual? Here’s My Secret

By: Darren Allatt

Last week I performed a very dramatic rendition of the raising for a 3rd Degree, have been invited to take the Chair on numerous occasions to confer degrees and when my lodge or other lodges have work I often perform multiple charges as well as an office in the same ceremony.

Not to mention, many of the charges and roles I know, I can perform at any time. Some say that I’m just naturally good at it, but the truth is, I am not, I’ve just developed a system that makes it easy for me to learn and remember.

In this episode of Daily Masonic Progress, I will share:

1. What my system is that learning Masonic Ritual extremely easy,

2. How you can use this system for yourself and

3. Why learning masonic ritual is critically important to obtaining Masonic Light.

4. My Greatest and Final Secret to permanently learning Masonic Ritual

By the end, you will know my secrets to learning masonic ritual and how you can make it easy to not only learn it, but to embed it in your mind where you don’t just remember it, but you know it.

This edition is dedicated to W Bro Tony Haslam who wrote in about any tips to making learning ritual easier as he takes the Chair for the second time.

Before I share my secret to learning ritual I want to clear up one of the biggest misconceptions and also limiting beliefs that we continually tell ourselves about Freemasonry.

It’s this misconception that prevents us from obtaining Masonic Light and it’s critically important we overcome this, otherwise we will never get anything out of our time and effort in the Craft.

Everyone is constantly going on about how difficult it is and how we need to make it easier. For every argument, regardless which side you are on there is always a counter-argument that seems to provide an equally valid reason. Yet, despite this, everyone misses this critical aspect — that is learning ritual is supposed to be difficult.

Yes, that’s right, it’s not meant to be easy. It’s meant to be hard. No, it doesn’t get easier. Well that’s not entirely true, it does get easier but not in the way you think. See when we first start learning the ritual, we don’t know how, so it’s exponentially harder than it needs to be. Then once we figure out a system to learning it, it doesn’t remove the difficulty but we become able to endure the effort required to progress through the stages of learning ritual.

One other thing that everyone who wants to make it easier neglects is that in order to receive Masonic Light from our Degree’s you need to learn it, study it and understand it. Memorisation is only the first level of cognitive learning, there are 6 and Light isn’t received until you’ve learned something to level 6.

No this isn’t another set of degrees, but rather the levels of cognitive learning as defined in Benjamin Blooms Taxonomy, they are:

1. Remembering – Recall information

2. Understanding – Grasp the meaning of instructional materials

3. Applying – Use the information in a new but similar way

4. Analysing – Take apart the known and apply relationships

5. Evaluating – Examine the information and make judgements

6. Creating – Using the information to create something new

If you make learning ritual easy, you never progress through these different levels and you actually never end up receiving Masonic Light. How many leave the craft as Master Masons saying “I didn’t learn anything”, yet when you ask them a question about something they can’t even recall anything from the Degree’s related to it?

Freemasonry can’t make you better, if you don’t work at becoming better. You become better only by engaging with the difficult things that are part of Freemasonry and embrace them.

Ultimately, Freemasonry makes you a better person by forming you into a someone who can do hard things over a sustained period of time which have either no immediate or material pay off or a combination of both.

Just as our ancient and operative brethren embraced the difficulty of hard manual labour of cutting stone into perfect bricks so they can be placed in the temple we too, need to embrace the marathon of learning the ritual.

Now that we know why it’s critical to embrace the difficulty of learning it, you have learned my first secret. Knowing that it’s difficult, embracing it and like the chisel persevering through it is what gets you to the end. Without knowing this secret reminding yourself of it, the remaining secrets which I am about to share are pointless.

What I am about to share if I am being true to my obligation, are not my secrets. Rather these secrets are taught within the allegory of the First Degree itself. How did I discover this? Well, I have been through the 6 levels of cognitive learning on may parts of our Degrees. I am still and always will be going through each of those levels on different elements within our Degrees and I won’t every achieve level 6 on everything.

Here are my secrets which are simply applying the lessons found from within Freemasonry. Are you ready? These are:

1. 24 Inch Guage

2. Common Gavel

3. Chisel

4. Square

5. Level

6. Plumb Rule

24 Inch Guage

Like the first implement placed in the hands of the operative mason to measure the work and prepare its several parts in their proper proportions, when it comes to learning any ritual the first thing I do is break it down into smaller chunks. This makes it easier to learn!

For me, I like to break down a charge or part of the work, like the obligation, into the different pauses I need to take when performing that part, such as the comma’s (they’re also dependant on the sentence length) and the full stops But it’s also and also depending on sentence length as well. These I call “lines”. Once I have done this, I count the number of lines in a charge. When I learned the Address to the Worshipful Master in 2023, our version has 30 “lines”.

After breaking down a charge into lines, I work out how many days it is from today until I need to perform the work. Sticking with the Address the Master, I had 3 months to learn that, so 90 days. Then, I take 80% of that time period which gives me 72 days. Then, I divide the 30 lines by 72 which is 0.41… This is how many lines a day I need to learn by day 72, or another way to look at it, 1 line every 2 days.

Why 72 or 80%? Well, what I am aiming to do here is give myself enough runway to not only handle setbacks or when I just don’t get the time or opportunity there is something up my sleeve. Although this can be a misnomer as knowing you have time can result in you procrastinating! The remaining 20% I use to polish such as fix any mistakes I have learned and to also nail down how I will perform the work.

You also need to carve out time in the day to be able to learn your lines. One of the mistakes many make is thinking you need to set aside 1-2 hours a day to learn your work, so they try to carve out too much time or wait until the weekend when you can dedicate the 1-2 hours. To be honest, I have never done this. Here is what I do instead.

To work out how much time you need to commit each day, start a stop watch and time yourself reading the work out in full. Another way is to count the words. Which is the way I prefer. The Address to the Master is 308 words. Now this can be variable as to how long it takes to present it, so the find the right amount of time, consider that most US Presidents when giving a speech speak at around 100 words per minute. So that makes it 3 minutes. Regardless of how you got there, wow, double it. 6 minutes.

That 6 minutes, for the Address to the WM is the most amount of time in any one sitting you should be dedicating to learning the work. Sort of.

Common Gavel

We know through our ceremonies the Common Gavel is all about taking action and persistence. Combining action and being persistent, ie constant action, is how the Comman gavel is used. So now we have how many lines we need to learn as well as how much time it should take each day its time to take action and do it! Not quite.

I mentioned the 6 minutes in any one sitting. I didn’t say how many sittings. But I will get to that in a moment. Each day you have a number of lines, now you also don’t want to have a goal of learning more than 1 line each day when you are first learning this system, over time and as you build your muscle of learning the ritual, you can take on a few lines each day. But, start it off with 1 max per day. It will get harder as we compound.

Now back to the number of sittings. What you want to do is find opportunities to practice your lines everywhere and anywhere you can. Sitting at a red light, do your lines. Restoring your personal comforts, do your lines. Walking your dog. Waiting in line for a coffee. Pumping gas. The elevator. The trick is to find these little windows of time, especially when you are starting off. Do it for as much time as you can get, if the elevator is 30 seconds, take the whole 30 seconds.

Now of course, don’t say these out-loud, but don’t say them in your head either. Muscle memory is critical to learning. Yes, mouth muscles have memory too. Our inner voice is far more beautiful than our spoken voice. Yes, ok, the whole secrecy thing, Doesn’t mean you can’t say it as a wispier if no one is around or just move your mouth as if you are saying the words. That chin needs to be wagging as you build your muscle memory.

Here is the cadence to use, and its why I like the 1 line every 2 days cadence. For the Address to the Master: Day 1 and 2 its the first line only, easy! Day 3, the second line only. Day 4 the first and second line together. Day 5, third line. Day 6 all the lines together. Day 7, the fourth line, Day 8 all the lines together. Repeat.

If you look for these small windows of time to practice your lines, such as standing in line for coffee and you find 15 to 20 of them throughout the day, each doesn’t have to be longer than 10 seconds, but you do it several times in a sitting and several sittings a day. That line is going to be embedded into your memory.

The Chisel

With the Chisel the Operative Masons makes impressions on the hardest material and thus forms and embellishes the mightiest structures. Do you know what the hardest substance known to man is? Our minds. The Chisel also teaches us about perseverance. While it’s not just persistence, effort and action, there is perseverance. It’s why the Common Gavel and the Chisel together are what carves the stone into shape, neither one on their own.

This means, it will get tough, it will be hard. It will be difficult. It will seem pointless. You will be thinking, its only 1 line today, I will just do more. You could also be thinking, I have plenty of time, so you skip a day or two or three or a week. What was that I mentioned about procrastination earlier? You will try to put it off, but, this is the whole point of the lesson.

Think of anything of value. Diamonds are made from constant pressure of a long period of time. Think about any goal you want to achieve in life, its never easy and it’s accomplished overnight. As they say, overnight successes are 10 years in the making. You are going to need to persevere through this. The battle will be in the first couple of weeks as you form this new habit, forming a habit can take just 18 days, sometimes more — but breaking a habit is really easy, usually just 2-3 times.

Take this newsletter, Daily Masonic Progress. My writing habit hasn’t been daily for some time now. I am struggling to get it back. Even the habit of putting something out at least once a week in the weeks where it’s just felt impossible. Recently I broke an 85 week publishing streek where I have written at least one article. Things came up and I kept saying I will get to do. But I never did. 85 week streek, 1.5 years. Gutted.

I just fell out of the rhythm and do I have legitimate reasons for not being able to deliver? I tell myself they are, but really, that’s just me making excuses and telling myself what you want to hear. I even starting writing this Monday morning, and took a break to start my work day, then to come back to it later. At 10:30pm Monday night, I still hadn’t finished. Here is where I stopped and went to bed. Word 2,300.

The Square

You will tell yourself what you want to hear as to why you haven’t adhered to the plan and make excuses for it and justify them as legitimate. The truth is, you tell yourself this because there is no immediate payoff to doing the work and persevering through the difficult or challenging parts.

Sure there will be difficult phrases and words to learn, and parts in the work that are tongue twisters, like in the Obligation — “which, may hereto for, have been known by, shall now, or at any future period” — The biggest difficulties you will have to overcome are all the things you tell yourself.

Where does the square come into it, well, the square is about morality but it’s symbolical of honesty. Now we all agree and believe being honest is handing a lost wallet full of cash, but who carries physical cash these days. No, honesty is about being honest to yourself first. If you can’t be honest with yourself, how can you be honest with your family, your brothers, complete strangers or just honest when no one is looking.

Take out your phone. Go to the screen time setting and take a look at how much time you’ve spent on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and every other social media or internet app. How much time have you wasted on those platforms. Using those apps gives you an immediate payoff, that’s how they’re designed. They fuel the dopamine in your brain which is the reward or anticipated reward neurochemical that makes you want to do something. It’s why you doom scroll on those apps, it’s like playing the pokies (slot machines).

Let’s be honest, the immediate pay off from those applications has zero value, rather it’s negative value. Not only does it screw with your brain chemistry, but it doesn’t make you a better version of yourself. Don’t try to justify it either, “oh but I watch on youtube Daily Masonic Progress or listen on Spotify” … nice try, but no. If you were making Daily Progress on your own by studying the ritual, I wouldn’t be producing these articles, videos and podcast episodes.

On the matter at hand, there is no long term value from wasting time on social media or internet applications. The feeling of satisfaction from a video or a post is gone and leaves you deflated and wanting more. That’s the insidious design of those applications which use a finely tuned anticipated reward system to keep you on the platform scrolling so they can show you more advertisements and make money.

Every minute you’ve spent on a social media or internet application is 1 minute you could have spent learning your work, practicing your lines, and studying the meaning of the words that you are saying. This is why the square is part of the process. You need to be honest with yourself, be square with yourself.

The Level & Plumb Rule

Being honest with yourself is one thing, however, you need to check in with yourself once a week and let the results humble you with how your progress is going on learning the work. When we do, we need to have the integrity to correct ourselves if we are not adhering to the plan or achieving the milestones we have set.

If you are sticking to the plan as I have described which is a two day cycle. To quickly recap, day 1 you learn the new line, then on day 2 you compound it with what you previously learned; combined with a dozen small opportunities throughout the entirety of the day, you should be on track. If you are not, use the square, level and plumb rule together to adjust where you have fallen short and get back on track.

Now I have spent enough time ranting about the morals of learning work, let’s get back to the practical matter at hand.

If we were learning the address to the WM, by day 72 or 80% along the way until the deadline, you should by now have memorised the entire work. Congratulations, you’ve done well, but you are not done.

See this is the issue many masons make. We plan to learn the work by the date we have to deliver it, so then when we do, we have not left any time to correct our mistakes. Don’t tell me you’ve learned it perfectly, while I am sure the system we are following would lead you to, we need to acknowledge that we will be making errors and we need the time to correct them and get it right.

One example I am reminded of, is from the Third Working Tools. When I first delivered this charge I said a word wrong. Last week at our raising the Master Mason who delivered that charge made the same error that I had many years ago. Here is the line:

“So that when summoned from this sublunary and probationary abode….”. As the language in our ceremonies is dated around 1700’s words like “sublunary” are not in our common day lexicon. If we break these kinds of words down, “sub” meaning under, “lunar” meaning moon, similar to how the word “submarine” refers to a boat that us used to go under the marine or water — in our ritual the line becomes “when summoned from this temporary place under the moon” referring to earth.

It’s these things we need to polish in the 20% of the time remaining and constantly using the square, level and plumb rule to check our work.

Dealing With Mistakes

I want to stay on mistakes for a moment. What I found is that when learning the work, we tend to embed mistakes into our memory, why is it that we always get stuck at the same point and we always need a prompt here or always get this part mixed up?

We do this because we get to a part where we make a mistake or need a prompt, it’s corrected, then we continue from there. What this does is embed that mistake into our memory and we are taught to always need a prompt or that we always make a mistake at that moment in time.

To combat this, when you get to the point that you need a prompt or make an error — get the correction you need but don’t continue on, that’s the bigger mistake. Go back to the start of the previous couple of lines and then practice the correct performance through the part where you make the error. You want to practice the delivery of that part without the mistake or the need for a prompt.

Here is an example of what I mean Say you want to jump over a wall:

When you run up to it you immediately stop before the wall (point of a mistake or a need for a prompt) and because you stopped at the wall you then climb over it (the prompt), then you continue on after it. Next time you come to that point, you are going to the same thing, run up the wall, stop, climb over it, then continue.

Imagine if instead of stopping at the wall and climbing over it, you then went back several meters and practice running and jumping over the wall. Now, you will no doubt the first few times smack straight into the wall and end up in a mess on the floor. That’s ok. But go back, try again to jump over the wall. After your first successful attempt, go back and do it a few times, practice running and jumping over the wall.

What you are doing is teaching yourself to present the part correctly, instead of teaching yourself to make a mistake. You embed the right thing in your mind, instead of the mistake.

You don’t want to wait until the last 20% to do error correction, you must be doing this constantly throughout the entire process.

Polishing the Delivery of the Work

In the remaining time I like to polish my delivery. While I have the work memorised, I need to memorise and practice my performance.

Here I am thinking about who are the characters and what the actions are they doing in this part of the story (allegory). I am thinking about what emotions do I want the audience (candidate and brethren) to feel at this point. Do I need to be speaking with reverence to the Divine, or humility & sincerity. Is the ritual providing positive instruction (do this) or an admonishment (don’t do that). What hand gestures or visuals can I use within the lodge that help me make the point. Who am I supposed to be embodying in this part of the work. You can tell all of this from the words on the page.

Here are some examples:

○ When presenting the First Working Tools, I will often get the Rough Ashlar and place it on the pedestal that’s used for the gavel when the WM is behind the altar and then as I am talking about the operative uses the tools, I will visually demonstrate (without actually making contact) the actions of measuring the work, hammering and chiselling it.

○ If it’s not prohibited in your jurisdictions codification, place the Working Tools in the hands of the new apprentice as you give the operative meaning, but take them back when you say the line about not being operative, but speculative.

○ In the North East Charge, descending from the dais and shaking the hand of the candidate for the part “let me congratulate you”

○ Point to the Volume of Sacred Law when referring to “Knowledge” in the Moral of the First Tools.

○ Second Working tools, using the Perfect Ashlar and showing the actions of testing it to see that it’s square, level and perpendicular.

○ In the Address to the Master, when saying “charge them to practice outside of the lodge ” pointing to the outside for “practice outside”, and then for “those duties they are within it” pointing down to the ground for “within it”.

○ In the Address to the Brethren, with a slightly aggressive tone of voice and gesturing to remove a sword from the sheave but stopping when saying the part about “taught to be meek”, using a calmer voice and having two hands with palms facing down to say “humble” before finally turning palms upwards and gesturing to open them with an even calmer and relaxed tone for “resigned”.

○ Continuing on in the Address to the Brethren, then emphasising each word in “to moderate the passions”, speeding up a bit for “the excess of which”, before slowing down again and emphasising with seriousness “deform the very soul’

But my favourite one I have ever seen of polishing the work and being performative was last year (and soon again in February) at the Raising Under the Stars. This Third Degree was performed at an outdoor lodge in rural New South Wales on a farm. It was a beautiful night and silent except for our work and the natural beauty and sounds surrounding us, where at the “Continue to listen to the Voice of Nature” there was a 3ish second pause for us all to take in that voice of nature surrounding us.

Another which comes close was the raising I did last week. We had the worst thunder, lightning and heavy rain we’ve seen in a long time. All that added to the significance and theatre of the a Third Degree.

The point with polishing the work is two-fold. Not only does adding these theatrical and performative elements make the work more enjoyable for the candidate and the brethren witnessing it, it also makes it fun for you and it strongly embeds the work in your mind.

You are no longer just memorising a speech but you are putting emotions and actions along with the words and thus engaging all the senses and more parts of the brain to make it memorable. Its muscle memory and the more muscles you are engaging with an action the more you will remember it. It’s like riding a bike.

My Greatest and Final Secret

I supposed my greatest and final secret of learning masonic work and making it permanent in your mind is active participation. Recently I finished a term as Most Wise Sovereign of my Rose Croix Chapter in the Scottish Rite. It was absolutely difficult to learn that work as not only was it complete new, but the words and phrasing was completely different. At least in Craft Masonry, all the work is kind of similar and sounds the same. But, Scottish Rite was completely different, like another language.

Now, Craft Masonry will feel like a new language as well, so it was a nice wake up for me to realise this. But the lesson here is that active and frequent participation in our ceremonies helps immensely.

When I recently learned the Address to the Brethren, it was relatively easy. You may think, well of course it’s easy for a Right Worshipful who’s Chairman of Education. You are partly correct but also missing something critical.

Underneath the Right Worshipful is years of active participation in our ceremonies, it’s being attentive to the work being delivered. For me, hearing the Address to the brethren performed from several to probably a dozen times a year compounded over the last 18 years means the words will be in my unconscious. Like a song we have learned the lyrics to by listening to it on the radio.

If I was to have gone to lodge and not paid attention, been on my phone, I’d struggle to learn it. Which is sort of why learning the Scottish Rite work was difficult, not because I was on my phone during meetings, but because the work wasn’t familiar.

The chapter meets quarterly and I haven’t had several years of hearing the same work performed several times each year for it to be embedded in my subconscious. It was learning something new completely from scratch. So I get the difficulty. Which is why it’s important to turn up to Lodge not only your own but visiting and pay attention.

Having the words naturally instilled into your memory from years of Lodge makes learing things easier. There is a lesson here as well.

Take a Worshipful Master installing his successor after having been in the Chair for the first time. He’s not going to be perfect, because he may have only seen the full installation performed once or twice if he’s lucky and is now expected to learn it and perform it.

Or a Master Mason who’s only 2 years+ into Freemasonry learning a brand new charge and performing it fot the first time. Yes you are going to stuff it up. It will suck and you will feel like you’ve let people down. So what, if you can’t trip and fall in-front of the very people who are expected and supposed to pick you up, then Masonry is pointless. We are all working and learning.

I’ve seen a Right Worshipful Brother who been a Past Assistant Grand Master for longer than I have been alive (37 years), who is a perfectionist takes absolute pride in his work is physically and mentally capable of someone in their late 50’s or early 60’s but you’d never know it, he’s is well in his 90’s. The kind of Brother who you’d say wrote the Address to the Brethren he knows it so well, have an off night and need some prompts and make mistakes. Barn, you are an inspiration to us all.

Don’t be hard on yourself, you are human, we are here to support you, encourage you and pick you up when you fall down.

It’s now 10:32am, Tuesday. It’s done and I feel I have my rhythm back. Although I need to do the video & podcast version now, except the council is outside in the park mowing the lawn, so that wont be done until later, we will see how that goes.

The Square Magazine Podcast

The Square Magazine Podcast