EXERCISES IN BROTHERHOOD

I have been working on what I call a Lodge project. I am currently working on what I would consider a program on "Exercises in Brotherhood" to bring before the Lodge for discussion, additions or subtractions, then an implementation of a program that would build our Brotherhood muscles. I played college football and other various recreational sports, and there were specific exercises for building any muscle in the body if one so desired. There are specific brain exercises to strengthen ones brain power. There are also meditative exercises, that once practiced, one becomes stronger/better at meditating/reflecting.

I firmly believe there are "exercises" that must build Brotherhood. I also believe that Dr Anderson and his cronies were concerned with building Brotherhood amongst all mankind. The Church and Crown had done such a wonderful job creating the Dark Ages and trying to perpetuate it into the future, that the common man had been ground down to dust. Too much guilt and degradation had destroyed any sense of a United Family/Brotherhood of Man and the concept that every human was special and beautiful, not evil. The early 1700's was the beginning of the movement of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. These tenets where what was going to heal Mankind. The founders of Organized Freemasonry I believe were trying to put down in a set of codes how to create Universal Brotherhood amongst Mankind, and remove the veil of superstition put in place by the Church and Crown. Man needed to be lifted up(raised) from being knocked down for centuries by our supposed annointed leaders.

Somewhere along the way, Freemasonry, at least in America, has lost its way from what Dr. Anderson and his cronies had in mind for what the purpose of Freemasonry was to be. We get a little "brotherhood" when performing ritual, but is not masonry supposed to be more? Is ritual the only thing that seperates us from other volunteer fraternal org's? Or should what we do once we tyle the Lodgeroom door determine our distinction? I feel that mining the past, what Anderson and his fellows were ultimately trying to accomplish by stamping the orgs charges and constitutions to paper, making it official that an order has become public, and has a purpose.
I believe that there are specific exercises that can be done in a Lodge of mason that build the bonds of brotherhood in the same way our tendons become stronger when we exercise our muscles. the bonds that tie us together will become stronger as we strengthen our Brotherhood muscle.

I will update this post frequently with results and information I come across with what could be considered "Brotherhood Building Exercises". Time to start stretching Brothers and limber up for a workout!

See you at Lodge.
Nemo me impune lacessit!

Degrees: What Thomas Jefferson Thought.........

Thomas Jefferson, Founder and Patron of the University of Virginia, never allowed his university to give degrees. He considered them pretentious, irrelevant to learning and unconnected to the preparation for responsibility. This was not idealism. It was the opinion of the most successful practitioner of Reason. The purpose of Universities has now been inverted. Learning has become a goal-oriented process aimed at winning a degree.

Could this be true of Masonry?
Original masonry consisted of 2 degree's, with a third, for occult reasons, added later. It was a calm and peaceful useful society for the times. Once the "higher degrees" were introduced for membership purposes; knowing how man is gluttonous and awestruck easily, the Aspirant then began his goal oriented membership aimed at "winning" degrees.
For what, I ask?
Outside of satisfying the Ego, what do these "higher degrees" add to Freemasonry?
Having gone through the Scottish Rite and York Rite degree's, they added nothing to "bettering" me, they just added to the amount of dues I had to pay, also I had a couple of more "guys" trying to tell me what to do!

If Thomas Jefferson knew the folly in degree chasing, why are masons so hungry for degrees and titles?
Not only hungry: but impatient?
How can letting in people, in one day, without any training or proficiency, sit within a tyled Lodge Room and it be an environment of Equality?
Letting in cowans this way has cheapened our "university", and the selling of degree's to just about anyone, and then letting them loose on society as 32 degree dousche bags will cause irreparable damage to your craft and name.....
Why have our Leaders left Jeffersonian Reason for UGLE Obligatory neutered masonry?
Degree factories instead of Learning Temples for those searching Enlightenment...

Are we not supposed to be HUMBLE servants of the Craft?
Not egotistical title craving degree hounds?
The opposite of Thomas Jefferson………..
Time to go Old School with Freemasonry

Jefferson:
"Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will happen next, yet follow truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person can extricate himself from difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimilation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an unjustice."

Chicanery,trimming and untruth equate to one day masons enjoying the rights and benefits that many have died and laboured for throughout the Ages.
Shame