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Next Up for Your Consideration…. The Landmarks of Freemasonry
Others will report to you the details of this Grand Lodge Session so there is no need for me to recap the legislation here. Following our process for making Constitutional Changes, each lodge will soon be asked to decide on the wisdom of removing the landmarks from our constitution.
The Landmarks of Masonry are an Albert Mackey innovation and can be found in his Jurisprudence of FreeMasonry first published in 1878. As a writer, I find that this book is often snipped and quoted but rarely read cover to cover. Any portion from the book must be reported accurately in its historical context.
A better understanding of Masonic Jurisprudence can be obtained by reading the lectures of Roscoe Pound or a quick review of the thirty-nine articles in James Anderson's original old Charges and Regulations. A word to ward off danger, however… just be careful when reading Anderson's work, particularly the histories. These fantasies were intended by their author to be allegorical entertainment. Each must be taken in context that they are the tongue in cheek stuff that Fellow Crafts tell Entered Apprentices. To weight each bit of Masonry properly requires from the reader, the tacit understanding that these works are like our penalties, emblematically intended to express our greater passions and repugnance at violating the principles and tenets of our fraternity; and not something to be enacted realistically.
The Landmarks of Freemasonry, until Mackey's book, were identically allegorical. Though incorporated into every Grand Lodge's Constitution and By-Laws in spirit, the intent of the author, the generational body of freemasons at work doing what Masons do in local lodges, has never been that they be enumerated into a laundry list. The act of composing a finite accounting of the landmarks of the fraternity limits our growth.
In the twentieth century, as one example, the fraternity was moved by well meaning Grand Lodge Officers to cause our ritual to become a static and unchanging thing. Examining the arguments in the Proceedings reveals that the topical motivations for isolating and preserving the esoteric and exoteric ritual, acts such as eliminating the German language ritual and publishing books of standardized text, were often motivated by the temporal interests of that generation. As a period snapshot of the work, each published recording is useful. However, the content is derived from the frailty of the limited imagination of that crowd and not built necessarily upon any mutually agreed upon assertion, well argued opinion, or universal principle characteristic of the Craft.
In Illinois, for example our Book of Exoteric Ritual, those ceremonies that are performed in front of the public such as the Dedication of Lodge Halls, Installation of Officers, and the Funeral Work, was made static by the legislation in 1930. Many young officers are surprised to learn that the funeral work was altered for the publication. The older, and in my humble opinion, more poetic ritual can be found in its entirety in the Grand Lodge Proceedings Book for 1915.
The original exhortation begins: "Brethren, The solemn notes that betoken the dissolution of this earthly tabernacle has again alarmed our outer door…"
How beautiful is that? And yet by legislating permanence, our generation has lost the permission to perform the archaic work and still remain regular. By crafting our Code 368 and amending the Code in 1979, we have effectively removed from the landscape of regular performance other useful services such as Bible Presentations and prescribed ceremonies for twenty-five and fifty year pins. Other jurisdictions have these programs available for their Officers. However, in Illinois, the Board of Grand Examiners have left us without them while furher disecting ever more miniscule bits of choreography. Code 368, in the meantime, continues to demand that anytime such presentation work is done in Illinois Lodges, foreign ritual is introduced and tedious, special dispensation is required of the Grand Master for the lodges to have their ceremony.
Locking out of the jurisdiction other formats and languages, moves the fraternity in the direction of ending in an archaic curiosity working against the ideal of an interesting and cerebral endeavor. Doing so has injured our product and has done much to retard progress and deepen the division between our generations. The wound has been nearly fatal almost bringing us to point of removing the fraternity from the topical landscape and into celestial oblivion.
The 1st Grand Lodge in Illinois, deriving its esoteric work, those services that we perform for our candidates and ourselves, was organized along York Rite Degree practices. The York Rite work has two additional Officers and involves performing the Hiramic legend exclusively in monologue form by the Worshipful Master. The work remains displayed by the lodges in Pennsylvania; and, I encourage any Illinois Mason who enjoys travel to take the time out to see how this jurisdiction's work is done. The first regular Masonic lodge in Illinois was formed in Kaskaskia, our earliest Capitol, in 1805 having been chartered by Grand Master Isreal Isreal (No typo here, his first and last names were identical) and the M.W. Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. Shortly after Illinois became a State, the Grand lodge itself met in the new Capitol Building erected at Vandalia. Unfortunately, structures at that site were destroyed by fire, three times, including the occasion when our first Tyler, Colonel William Berry, lost the ornate presentation sword that he had donated, after having rescued as much of the early records as his arms could carry out of the conflagration.
By 1822, Illinois' first Governor, Shadrach Bond, presided as Grand Master. Earlier he had helped to charter the first German Language ritual lodge in Belleville on June 28th, 1818. This organization would later work in both languages, and eventually matured into the lodge now known as St. Clair No. 24.
The light of Masonry was not extinguished in Illinois after the 1st Grand Lodge ceased to meet after January1828. At least nine lodges were somewhat active, often off of the lunar calendar in places such as Alton, Franklin Jacksonville and the area around New Salem. We know this from the letters that Bodley Lodge wrote in 1836 suggesting the reanimation of a Grand Lodge in Illinois and the independent records of Grand Lodges Records found in Mississippi, Missouri, Indiana, and Kentucky. With a pedigree an additional eighteen years earlier than Springfield, Harmony, or even Bodley Lodge No. 1, St. Clair has some claim to the status of being the longest continually operating lodge in Illinois, having met and operated regularly during the Interregnum. The Interregnum, a Latin phrase for a period of time without a King, was the twelve-year moment that there was no Grand Lodge in Illinois. Lodges, here and then, were allowed to work free and unfettered, quiet and harmonious. The work developed along a variety of independent styles according to each Lodge's inclinations and ability. Indeed, as soon as five years after the establishment of this 2nd Grand Lodge an organized movement to reform and create a 3rd Grand Lodge, in 1845, was underway. The location for the new convention was Belleville.
Nineteenth Century Lodges in Illinois were tolerant of a variety of formats. Herman Lodge No. 39 meeting in Quincy, was the last lodge made to abandon the German language ritual in 1917 answering the fearmongering hysteria of the public during our War with the Kaiser. Today, lodges cannot perform the original York Rite style work or introduce foreign language ceremonies or other useful services, unless, of course, the Grand Master sets aside Code 368 for their expressed and formally requested need.
Mackey was wrong in enumerating a list of Landmarks. At the time, less then thirty-five years had passed since the Baltimore Convention of 1842 where the existing regular Grand Lodges had toyed with the idea of forming a National Grand Lodge and establishing uniform work for America. Hold-outs for this proposal clung to the notion that American Masonry would do better, somehow, to replace the existing practices and bring less diverse, less topical and personable, and less unique enactments of our principles to the various jurisdictions and local lodges. Imitation fraternal organizations, such as the Odd Fellows, Eagles, Red Men, Knights of Labor, and Knights of Columbus wrote into their structure an enumerated list of ideas as found in Mackey's Landmarks such as the modes of recognition. Even quasi and New Age religions of the period took the degree process into their Temple Endowment Ceremonies, rebuilding the third Landmark into a Creation Revelation without understanding the vanity and apostasy of the endeavor. Prince Hall Lodges in the nineteenth century adopted the National Grand Lodge Organization idea from this Convention. Doing so was certainly reasonable, as Prince Hall himself, at least according to Grimshaw, was the last Provincial Grand Master for the whole of North America having acquired the position upon the death of PGM John Rowe in 1790. However, this form of Masonry has had innumerable problems with the concept and our organization has performed better without the innovation of the Morris Trestleboard and other failed products of this Convention.
The modern fraternal organizations that resemble our own annually cause their landmarks to be revised along newsworthy lines. The K of L, the organization that grew into the AF of L in the 1890s, adopted landmarks as a political platform in the 1880s for such things as woman's suffrage, a ten hour workday, the abandonment of child labor, and even the establishment of a Governmental Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That such temporal topics can alter our landmarks today is not so far fetched. The Knights of Columbus recently added language into their vows to "defend the unborn," a noble precept; but obviously one that is fraught with the danger of alienating young people from choosing to participate in the organization. Afterall, if the US Supreme Court still debates the morality of opposing sides, then what conviction should the Man on the Street posses on his way to becoming a member of a private club? Should they not be admitted due to an unsettled question? Is it wise to subject a fraternity to commit infrastructural suicide by placing itself at odds with young men who may have some other idea or are as yet undecided on their position regarding this hot topic? Doing so expands the rifts between the generations and is best left unlegislated.
Grand Lodges work with a variety of innovations that require being weighted by scholarly jurisprudence accordingly. Constitutional Amendments and By-Laws are permanent and have gone through at least the formality the Grand Lodge Convention's validation process. Resolutions and edicts are good ways for Lodges to overcome temporal hurdles and continue to function while unforeseen problems appear during the time that the Congress is not in session. To these things must be added other categories of Masonic Jurisprudence, such as the "deduction" and the "affirmation, the "consensus," and the "resolution."
M.W. Brother Levi Lusk sought to introduce thirteen deductions, one of which was that a Mason must profess a belief in the divine nature of the Holy Scriptures. Certainly to the mid-Nineteenth Century members such an acceptance seemed reasonable. However, had the Grand lodge adopted this notion, our jurisdiction would have been divided from our global cousins, and many young men of varying faiths would not have been able to find a home in our local Lodges.
Mackey's Landmarks are derivative reasoning gleaned from our documents, deductions, and his personal affirmations. No Mason has an obligation registered in Heaven to abide by such underdeveloped notions. We are kept safe, however, by adhering to our better-reasoned laws, edicts, rules and regulations. Elevating these arguments into written law spells out trouble for us, degrading our reputation when future generations look at us in hindsight.
Landmarks are supposed to be universally accepted and easy to agree upon no matter where they appear in the time stream or around the world. Enumerating the Landmarks causes them to be inappropriately influenced and possibly developed along radical and extreme lines often found in copycat organizations, an awful formula for promoting Harmony for our little club.
Our 2nd Grand Lodge of Illinois sent representation to the Baltimore event. M.W. Bro. Levi Lusk a MM representing the newly crafted and admitted Rushville Lodge No. 9 was to attend the Convention. He would later become our first Grand Lecturer "At Large" and Grand Master in 1844. As such he was instrumental in separating our fraternity from the Mormon Lodges at Nauvoo and Keokuk. Indeed, some readers may be interested to learn that our current LaMoille Lodge abandoned its original number, 383 to acquire the lower number during consolidation from Levi Lusk Lodge No. 270, ending the practice of having Lodges vainly name themselves after Grand Masters, posthumous expressions being the exception, in the hope of currying special favor.
Albert Mackey, like Albert Pike, was a natural progressive product of the National Convention. Discussion along these lines continued to culminate here in Illinois with conflict between Grand Master Gorin and Grand Secretary Reynolds in 1860. Two camps developed opposing organizations, the "Overseers of the Work" and the "Conservator's Association." After the dissolution of one and a decision to cause the other club to be considered "clandestine, " Illinois Masonry then began to develop into its twentieth century track, limiting style variations and alternative ceremonies.
Even basic "landmarks" listed in the current Constitution that seem at first glance to be universal are not and are at odds with the practices of recognized foreign jurisdictions. Take the 2nd Landmark, for example, that Masonry is to be divided into three degrees. The practice in many Lodges during the first thirty years of Degreework, was that the Royal Arch Degrees were a Past Master's Ceremony done for the New Master by the Past Masters, or at the end of his term of Office. If in a local Lodge, the PMs did not feel like affording a Master this service, they would refuse to perform the task. Therefore a disability for controversial Masters was created whereby they could be elected and serve their full year; and, yet remain treated by the PMs of their local lodges as something less than a fully entitled Past Master.
The 2nd landmark sought to correct this anomaly. The Past Master's Ceremony, a continuation of the Hiramic legend and reinvestiture of "the word" was incorporated into the Royal Arch Degrees. There was movement during the 1870s to reincorporate the Royal Arch into Blue Lodge Masonry an idea that some still foster. Lodges in other countries, of course, do work in EA and FC degree almost exclusively, and take years to invest the individual member with the MM degree. Yet, these "landmarks" are professed, including the 2nd, to be universal, hence placing US Lodges at odds with others both globally and continentally.
The better practice, in my humble opinion, is that the landmarks return to their original status, as being allegorical. Drafting them into a permanent form, as was recently done, diminishes them and immediately causes divisions among us and places untenable and unforeseeable obstacles to involvement for new and existing members in our Craft.
Frateranlly,
Torence Evans Ake
Senior Deacon
Auburn Park Lodge No. 79 - Crete, Illinois
PM Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 - Lansing, Illinois
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