THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

BY BRO. H.L.HAYWOOD, IOWA
THE BUILDER MAY 1921


PART I - INTRODUCTION

WHAT is this all about? This is a question I asked myself many
times during my initiation experiences.  It is a question, brother,
which you doubtless asked yourself, and so has every other man who
has forged on to the end of the Third degree.
The language of the ritual, stately and beautiful as it usually is,
is to most of us a mystifying speech; and the stations and stages
of the dramatic actions are equally bewildering to the novice. 
Therefore is it that we ask the question, "What is it all about?"

After we have become familiarized with the ritual, and have learned
something of its drift and its meaning, we discover that the
Fraternity itself, as a whole, and apart from any mystery in any
one part or detail, is something almost too complex to grasp.  A
member grows so accustomed to the goings on of his home lodge, that
he loses his first sense of strangeness, but even so he hears ever
and anon such things of the antiquity, the universality, and the
profundity of Freemasonry as it exists in history and in the great
world, as to make him feel that for all his familiarity with one
Masonic lodge he is very much in the dark about the Masonic
Fraternity in its entirety.

What is Freemasonry? What is it trying to do? How did it come to
be? What are its central and permanent teachings? It is to answer
these questions - and they are such questions as visit the mind of
almost every Mason, however indifferent he may be - that the
philosophy of Masonry exists.  To learn "what it is all about," in
the whole more especially than in the part, it is for this that we
philosophize about our mysteries.

"How would you answer the newly-initiated brother who asks the
question, "What is this all about?" Did you ask yourself that
question? How did you answer it? What advantage is there in trying
to learn what Freemasonry means in the largest sense? What is meant
by "the philosophy of Masonry"? 

Why do we philosophize about it? How many reasons can you give for
the necessity of philosophizing about it? Have you ever read a book
explaining Freemasonry?"

The individual who secures membership in a Masonic lodge becomes
thereby the heir to a rich tradition; that to which initiation
gives him access is not something put together in a day, and it
will profit him little if he makes no attempt to enter into his
patrimony. He must learn something of the history of Masonry; of
its achievements in the great nations; of its outstanding teachers,
and what they have taught, of its ideas, principles, spirit. 
Initiation alone does not confer this knowledge (and could not):
the man must himself strive to make his own the inexhaustible
riches of the Order.  He must be taught the larger purposes of the
Fraternity to which he belongs.

There is no authorized interpretation of Freemasonry.  The newly
initiated brother does not find waiting for him a ready-made
Masonic creed, or a ready-made explanation of the ritual - he must
think Masonry out for himself.  But to think Masonry out for one's
self is no easy task.  It requires that one can see it in its own
large perspectives; that one knows the main outlines of its
history; that one knows it as it actually is, and what it is doing;
and that one knows it as it has been understood by its own
authentic interpreters and prophets.  It is not easy to do this
without guidance and help, and it is to give this guidance and help
that such studies exist as this new series on which we are now
embarking.  In the series of Correspondence Circle Bulletin
articles which we have been following for the last three years we
have been confined to the ritual. For the next year we shall have
a larger field, and one that includes the ritual only as one among
many other items of interest.

"What is Brother Haywood's first reason for the study of the
teachings of Freemasonry? How much of Freemasonry can a man learn
from initiation? How else can he learn? What would you give as "the
larger purposes of the Fraternity"?

"Why should one try to think Masonry out? Could you, unaided by
books or another person, write an intelligent and intelligible
answer to the question, "What is the meaning of Masonry?"-

There is still another reason for a study of philosophy, or as we
here more familiarly describe it the teachings of Masonry.  Our
Fraternity is a world-wide organization with Grand Lodges in every
State and practically every, Nation.  In this country alone it is
a vast affair of some two million members and forty separate and
independent Grand Lodges.  To sustain and manage and foster such a
society costs the world untold sums of money and human effort.  How
can Masonry justify its existence? What does it do to repay the
world for its own cost? In one form or another these questions are
asked of almost every member, and every member should be ready to
give a true and adequate answer.  But to give such an answer
requires that he shall have grasped the large principles and be
familiar with the outlines of the achievements of the Craft, and
this again is one of the purposes of our philosophizing on Masonry.

How can we arrive at a philosophy of Masonry? How are we to learn
the authentic interpretation of the teachings of Masonry? What is
the method of procedure whereby one who is neither a general
scholar nor a Masonic specialist may gain some such comprehensive
understanding of Masonry as has been called for in the preceding
paragraphs? In short, how may a man "get at it?"


One way to "get at it" is to read one or two good Masonic
histories.  There is no need to go into detail or to read up on the
various side issues of merely antiquarian interest; that is for the
professional student. There is only need to get the general drift
of the story and to catch the outstanding events.  To learn what
Masonry has actually accomplished in the world is to gain an
insight into its purposes and principles, for, like every other
organization, it has revealed its spirit through its actions.  From
a knowledge of what the Order has been and what it has done in the
past one can easily comprehend its own present nature and
principles, for Masonry has never had need to break with own past!
The Masonry of today does not make war on the Masonry of yesterday. 
Its character emerges clearly from its own history as a mountain
stands out above a fog; and what it has ever been - at least in a
large way - it is now, and doubtless always will be.

This same history forges ceaselessly on evermore renewing and
making itself.  It is going on today and the process is one that
keeps publishing itself to the seeing eye, for, after all, there is
not much that is secret about the rich and tireless life of the
Fraternity: indeed, this life is constantly revealing itself
everywhere.  Grand Lodges publish their Proceedings; men engaged in
the active duties of Masonic offices make reports of their
functionings; students of the Craft write articles and publish
books; Masonic orators deliver countless speeches; special Masonic
conferences, whatever be their nature, make known their business;
most of the more important events get into the daily
 papers; there are scores and scores of Masonic papers, bulletins
and journals, weekly, monthly and bi-monthly, and there are many
libraries, study clubs and learned societies everywhere
endeavouring with tireless zeal to make clear to members and
profane "what it is all about." So it turns out that to learn this
for one's self one does not need to take any one man's word for it;
he can look about, and listen, and read up a little, and thereby
form his own conclusions.  It is amazing, when one looks into it
how much of the labour going on in the Craft is designed to make
clear, and to propagate and enforce the principles and teachings
and spirit of our great Order.  To learn what are these teachings
asks of us no rare talents, no "inside knowledge," but only a
little effort, a little time.

What would be your estimate of the money cost of Freemasonry to the
United States? to the world? How many Masons are there in the
United States? in the world? How many lodges are there in the
United States? What does Masonry give in return for its cost? What
reasons other than those given by Brother Haywood can you give for
a study such as this?

How many Masonic histories can you name? Whose is generally
considered the best? What advantage does a Mason derive from
reading such a history? Would a knowledge of Freemasonry's own past
be of any help to a lodge worker in present day affairs and
problems? What is the character of Freemasonry as it "emerges from
its own history"? What is there secret about the Order? If a man
were to ask, How can I find out what is going on in American
Freemasonry? how would you answer him? Can you name half a dozen
Masonic periodicals? Have you ever read the Proceedings of your own
Grand Lodge? How many can you name of the "few great ideas"  about
which Masonry constantly revolves? What is the difference between
an "idea" and an "ideal"? How can a member learn what are these
"great ideas"? Where and how are they taught? Did your initiation
cause you to think about life differently?

To the novice the Masonic world seems very confusing, it is so
many-sided, so far-flung, so clamorous with voices and the din of
action; but this, after all, need not frighten us away from an
attempt to grasp that world with a comprehensive understanding, for
all of Masonry constantly revolves about a few great ideas.  These
ideas confront one at every turn - what becomes more familiar to an
active Mason than such words as "Brotherhood," "Equality,"
"Toleration," etc., etc. - so that the youngest Entered Apprentice
need have no difficulty in getting at them.  If he does get at
them, and if he learns to understand them as Masons understand
them, they will help him greatly to gain that comprehensive and
inclusive understanding which we have been calling the philosophy
of Masonry.

Nothing has been said as yet of the great teachers of Freemasonry.
In the older days there were Anderson, Oliver, Preston, Hutchinson,
etc.; then came the philosophers of the middle years, Pike, Krause,
Mackey, Drummond, Parvin, Gould; Speth, Crawley, and others, and in
our own day Waite, Pound, Newton, etc, etc.  In the writings of
these men the great and simple ideas of Freemasonry become luminous
and intelligible, so that he who runs may read.

In addition to all this the member may take advantage of those
interpretative devices which are a part of the Craft itself, the
lectures and monitorial explanations built into the ritual of all
the rites and degrees.  None of these are infallible - nor are any
of them made compulsory to believe but even when they stray
farthest from the original meaning of our symbols they are always
valuable in reviewing the ideas and ideals of multitudes who have
originated or used them.

Thus much to show why we should strive to make for our own mind a
philosophy of Masonry, and in how many ways one may arrive at that
philosophy.  There remains only one word in caution.  A study of
the philosophy of Masonry is not a study of Philosophy; the Masonic
student as such has little interest in Plato and Aristotle, in
Neo-Platonism, Mysticism, Scholasticism, Rationalism, Idealism,
Pragmatism, Naturalism, etc.  Masonry touches upon the
circumference of each of these and the other major philosophical
systems, no doubt, but there is no such thing as a Masonic
philosophy any more than there is such a thing as a Masonic
religion.  We speak of a philosophy of Masonry in the sense that we
speak of a philosophy of government, or industry, or art, or
science.  We mean that one studies Masonry in the same large,
informed inclusive and critical way in which a political economist
studies government or an astronomer studies the stars. It would be
a blessed thing if more of our members were to lift up their eyes
from the immediate and often petty affairs of their own lodge room
in order to gaze more often on those profound and wise principles
which are to our Fraternity what the laws of nature are the
universe.

Can you name a great Masonic teacher not mentioned in article by
Brother Haywood? Whom do you consider the greatest interpreter of
Masonry? Can you tell the differences between the groups mentioned
by Brother Haywood? What is idea at the bottom of present-day
Masonic thinking? In way does the ritual explain itself? What is a
"philosophy"? What does the word mean? What means the phrase, "A
Philosophy of Freemasonry"? 
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