Biffy Clyro - Mountains

Biffy Clyro's Mountains was filmed in a masonic lodge 'deep within the walls of Liverpool Street in central London' - whatever that's supposed to mean. Cool! (As the young people say nowsdays)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGjDsVPV6VI

Promoting Freemasonry

One of the important, and often ignored, ways of capitalising on the currency of Freemasonry is through the books that are available. Robert Lomas has written several on the matter, whilst Dan Brown's next book is allegedly about the Craft.

Films that have included a masonic elements include 'National Treasure', 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'From Hell'. Rather than making an this accessible way of putting Freemasonry on the agenda, it appears to be deliberately ignored.

Where are the opportunities?

All this seems rather negative, so where do the opportunities lie?

First of all the legacy of masonic secrecy, far from being a problem, can be used as an asset. Secrecy creates curiosity, as the Police Chief out of the Simpson's quipped 'What is your fascination with my secret closet of mystery?'

Freemasonry is ineffable: difficult to put into words. Before joining Freemasonry I read about it in Stephen Knights book 'The Brotherhood.' Whatever I learned in that book was useless: Freemasonry has to be experienced before it can be understood. The question then is, how do we reach Generation Y?

Membership statistics for my Lodge

Above is the profile for the membership of my Lodge, the Lodge of Connaught and Truth No. 521. After a bit of a rocky start it maintained a membership of over 80 for nearly 100 years. A steady decline is noticeable after a peak of over 100. That is my 'boiling frog' of the next post; a gentle but steady and sustained decline in membership that has been so small it is barely noticeable.

Boiling Frogs

There is an apocrophal story about boiling a frog. Apparently if you put a frog in water and gently boil the water the frog will not jump out because it is insensitive to small changes in its environment. In the same way Freemasonry has become insensitive to subtle changes in its environment. In my Lodge, for example, there has been a steady decline in membership since the turn of the last century; a decline that most brethren seem to accept with a resigned sigh.

1. Can't tell you, it's a secret.
2. Three. One to change the bulb, another to take the minutes and a third to tell you how it used to be done.
3. Change? Change? What do you mean, change

Stewarding

One aspect I have never understood about Freemasonry is its [apparent] fascination with stewarding. On Sunday I went to a cycling club Sunday lunch where someone pointed out a former member of a local Lodge.

He had joined and, because newer members were somewhat thin on the ground, all the bar and meal duties were left to him. His response? He promptly resigned. How many members have we lost because of this archaic system?

After a full day's work the last thing a Brother wants to do is wait upon table. This is the biggest singular complaint I hear from newer members. My previous post talked about the lost metaphor of apprenticeship. Getting the apprentice to sort the nails may have been an acceptable practice 30 years ago. Now many of our brethren are university educated this metaphor is lost. In fact apprenticeship in days gone past were little more than a cheap source of labour, which is effectively what stewarding is to newer members.

We are all equal, but some more equal than other it would seem.

Another lost metaphor

Previously I have written about the lost metaphor of the ashlar as the building brick of society. Yet there is another metaphor that has become lost over the years: the meaning of an apprentice.

With the knowledge economy a larger number of brethren who join lodges have been educated to degree level. Up until the 1950s most of the members will have followed a recognised appretiship. However these have become less and less over the years and most of the newer members will not have had the 'lived the experience' of being an apprentice.

Likewise, it has to be pointed out that many of the brethren who served an apprentiship left school at 15, and do not have a university degree!