A Brother Asks: What's Missing?

A Brother Asks: I see so many men coming in to our organization with no clue as to what to expect from their membership.  Coach!  What's missing?

My Response: Great observation and a truly awesome question!

It's a front end preparation issue and in it is the flaw that you have detected.  The missing component in far too many Masonic Investigations is not having the petitioner disclose verbally and in a concise and revealing way what he Perceives to be "Betterment" and how that Applies specifically to him!   These two things are the Vision and Intent behind his joining!

Think about it.  What's Prescribed based upon Ritual?  If we take it for granted that he actually did come to the organization to truly improve himself, shouldn't that be the target to shoot at in all his future involvement?  Shouldn't that be what we focus upon in our investigation and later on in our support of him?  Shouldn't that be what he shares with us upfront so that everyone is on the same page as he goes through our Freemasonic process? 

When these two things are not disclosed upfront, he is likely to blindly wander the Freemason Landscape unknowingly bumping into one Improvement Opportunity after another without taking advantage of them in any way. His focus will be elsewhere and so will most all those who direct him.

To Improve Improvement Opportunities, Investigation members would do well to have the potential Brother-Member lay out this Strong Foundational Intent and Vision during the Interview.  What does he Visualize Betterment to be and how would that apply to him!  Force the interview to come to a complete stop if necessary and return to it when the petitioner has had time to give these things worthy consideration and contemplation.  These are not worth dismissing or skipping past.  They ARE the reason all candidates have come through the West Gate, at least, according to Preston-Webb Ritual.

Yes, his Vision and Intent may and shall rightfully change with Further Light and that's not the point or an issue here.  Giving him opportunities to pro-actively think is!  And especially upon the very things that Ritual Espouses!

A Purposeless Quest is non-hunger driven eating; it serves no good purpose.  Make sure his Quest starts out with the best of intent and clearest of vision!

If a Pre-Mason's attention is not focused upon the very reasons Ritual espouses for what he should be coming here to do as a future member, how can we honestly expect him to focus upon that activity if we don't?

F&S,

Brother John S. Nagy

Major News Program to Explore Masonry’s Dark Underworld

New York City, NY – In an unusual investigatory twist, 6☉ Minutes[1], a seriously long running television journalism and exposé program has decided to explore the dark underbelly of the Fraternal Organization known as the “Society of Free & Accepted Masons”.

“Our main focus will be exposing the seedy side of Freemasonic activities at an organizational level”, said the show’s producer, Candied Cameron. “It’s clear from the tremendous fallout in membership over the last 50 years that something has changed within the organization and we aim to find out what it is”.  She added, “From all that we've gathered so far, we’re betting the root causes are in its informal operations”.

When asked what they have found so far through their diligent and highly controversial probing efforts, we received only sketchy almost cryptic comments and this from one of the investigators who would talk under the cloak of anonymity.  “We’ve found several things so far”, he said under low breath while looking around nervously. “There's the continuous and purposeful use of language and symbols to obscure and deliberately veil what is truly being stated.  These obfuscations were clearly evident.  A second was the incessant espousing of principles and tenets that are only practiced when others were deemed worthy of receiving them.”  He added a moment later, “We also found a lot of backroom dealings hidden from public view and even from other individuals who do not attend Regularly.” 

Another investigator, who too expressed a desire to remain anonymous, said that, “One very disturbing activity that never gets reported by main stream media is how this organization has faked each and every member’s death over the years.  What’s worse, they have done so on a Regular basis for nearly 300 years!”

One of the clerical staff, who chose to remain off camera, shared on the side that “there’s this really much uglier side that hasn't yet been reported upon.  The investigation committee has dubbed it ‘the degree & title pushers’ for now”, he said with a heavy sigh. “They’re active everywhere within the organization.  They approach extremely vulnerable and naïve candidates who don’t know any better and who have little to no experience in organization operations and in dealing with these most aggressive rogues.  They push these newbies toward more involved and higher degrees, other support organizations and volunteer positions that’ll distract them from the very Work for which they joined.” He took a deep breath and continued, “This'll have to wait though.  It's too involved so we’ve decided to use this information in our second report later this year.”

The program was scheduled to air this last fall but for some unknown reason it has been caught up in some unfortunate delays due to the faked deaths of some of the investigation committee members.

If you have information related to this investigation, please contact the 6☉ Minutes’ main office and let them know.

F&S,

Brother John S. Nagy

[1] Read as "Six Circumpunct Minutes" and not to be confused with "60 Minutes", another awesome yet highly underrated investigatory news program who employs similar techniques and insightful graphics.