We call the natural ability to make sound judgments based on observable facts, common sense. As we are told in a quote often attributed to Voltaire, common sense is not so common. Keeping an open mind, no matter one’s bias is a hallmark resting at the core of any research, especially research about American Freemasonry. Another guiding principle for research about Freemasonry and the institutions that surround it, is appreciating the reality that to attain truth is to be open to the possibility that we are simply not right about a lot of things because we do not take into consideration the original meaning or intent of actions,courses, and even simple mottos. The story behind the seal of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts is an example of what research can do when reason is followed. In fact, the term, Follow Reason, appears today as a motto on that grand lodge seal. Following reason is precisely what Masons in that state did in 1880 after a committee in 1857 presented a report that changed the original 1733 seal and motto.
Read MoreSociety, in general, has and continues to be dumbed down. If you don’t think so, you may possibly be among those who may be counted as victims. The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a civic education poll among public school students. A surprising 77% didn’t know that George Washington was the first President; couldn’t name Thomas Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and only 2.8% of the students passed the citizenship test. Along similar lines, the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix did the same survey and only 3.5% of students passed the civics test.
Read MoreIn October 1859, the then Grand Master of Kentucky, Rob Morris, asked whether Masonry would survive the causes at work deteriorating it. He also expressed that it was the Masonic knowledge in the few that sustained the Institution when the Masonic knowledge of the many brought it down. In November 2022, Robert G. Davis, Past Grand Master of Oklahoma, delivered a dynamic and timely presentation as the guest speaker at a dinner event in Northern Kentucky sponsored by the William O. Ware Lodge of Research. The title of his presentation was, “It’s Time to Cross the Rubicon and Battle Our 20th Century Ruffians.”
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This is the Entered Apprentice Tracing Board on display at Lexington Lodge No. 1.
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MASONIC PHOTOS This is the Fellow Craft Tracing Board on display at Lexington Lodge No. 1.
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MASONIC PHOTOS This is the Master Mason Tracing Board on display at Lexington Lodge No. 1.
Read MoreMasonic Perspectives is a project created by Past Masters John W. Bizzack, Ph.D. and Dan M. Kemble intended to bring the writings about controversial topics of the past in American Freemasonry and provide readers a second look and contemporary perspective on the topics to serve as a catalyst for further discussion. This project is a joint venture of Lexington Lodge No. 1, The Rubicon Masonic Society, and William O. Ware Lodge of Research, Covington, Kentucky.
Read MoreIn December 1943 the last major offensive of World War II by the German Army took place in southern Belgium near the town of Bastogne. Twenty-five German Divisions made up of 200,000 soldiers and supported by nearly 1,000 heavy tanks, executed a surprise attack on Allied Forces. The battlefield became a seventy-five-mile stretch thick forest held by four inexperienced and battle-worn American divisions stationed there for rest and seasoning. The Germans broke through the American frontlines surrounding most of an infantry division, seizing key crossroads, and advancing their spearheads toward the Meuse River. This created a bulge in the line established by the Allies, thus giving history the name of what was to follow the Battle of the Bulge.
Read MoreThe word “fib” extends back to the 1400s or so. At that time, the word fable had its first appearance in the English language and had two meanings: a pleasant narrative or a downright lie. We still use that word in either sense. About 300 or 400 years ago, some unknown parent decided to soften the blow of the word by accusing their child of telling a “fibble-fable” when the child was caught telling a story the parent knew to be utter nonsense. This term caught on as an expression for a slight falsehood. Wordsmiths surmise that the term was too long to use as a name for a “slight sin,” so it soon shortened to “fib.”
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By the time the first lodges in America had been warranted and formed, organized British Freemasonry had been in existence for no more than fifteen years. American Freemasonry did not merely take over from where the grand lodges of England, and later the grand lodges of Scotland, and Ireland left off. Freemasonry in the United States is a child of the Revolution—several generations removed from a more mature British society of the time that influenced the shape of and initial organization of Freemasonry in England. In the 1730s when Freemasonry began to appear in the colonies, it collided with local cultures and began transforming what was created in Britain into a different kind of system influenced by yet another set of cultural stimuli.
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