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why this confusion in the temple
INTRODUCING THE SHOCK
TREATMENT
CHAPTER I
dwight l. smith
Applying a Shavian witticism to present-day Freemasonry, the
author of "Whither Are We Traveling?" asserts that not only do Master Masons
need to be shocked, but they need to be shocked pretty often.
ONCE UPON a time the labors of the Craft came to a
standstill. There was confusion in the
temple. A trestleboard, which long had displayed the designs of
a master workman, was blank.
Like sheep without a shepherd, the workmen wandered about idly.
No longer was there a sense of
direction; order had given way to chaos. A noble Tyrian in whose
mind the designs had been
conceived had been stricken down in the performance of duty – not by enemies from without the
temple, but by foes from within.
The extent to which a legend may be repeating itself in American
Freemasonry today may be open
to dispute, but certainly no man can challenge the premise that
the Craftsmen are not at their labors.
And few, I daresay, will take issue when I suggest that there is
indeed confusion in the temple.
Regrettably, the analogy ends there. Designs of a sort are on
the trestleboard, but are they designs
of master workmen? From where I view the scene they are not.
Rather are they the faulty sketches
of amateurs. All too often our idle workmen are confronted with
patterns foreign to the style and
purpose of the temple we are erecting. Sometimes I feel it would
be far better if the trestleboard
were entirely blank than to try to build a structure of beauty
and majesty with plans that are fundamentally
unsound.
AT THE RISK of offending some of my friends, I submit that
in American Freemasonry today too
many fertile minds are having too many bright ideas. And those
bright ideas-if we can dignify them
by calling them bright-bear little or no evidence of a sense of
purpose or direction. It is as if each
workman were attempting to take the place of the Master Builder,
and making a sorry job of it.
Here and there may be heard an occasional voice calling for calm
reasoning, pleading that we stay
on the track. But too many of our leaders far too many-are
running in all directions at once,
advocating almost everything the human mind can conceive. "Lo,
it is here!" cries one, while
another proclaims, "Lo it is there!" And out of all the
confusion there appear the inevitable nostrums
as fantastic and incr4ible as they are prolific. if taken
seriously and followed to their logical
conclusion, they would indeed mark the beginning of the end of
Speculative Freemasonry in the
United States.
Only one panacea to my knowledge has not been advanced (and I am
almost afraid to mention it)
: Not yet have I beard a Masonic leader advocate a remodeling of
the Ancient Landmarks so that
Women may be admitted!
WHAT DO I mean by all this scornful reference to bright
ideas? Specifically, what am I talking
about?
Two years ago I raised the question,
Whither are we traveling? Over a twelve-rnonth
period I
probed the body Masonic with a ruthlessness that caused some of
my Brethren to wince. To their
everlasting credit let it be said that by and large, Master
Masons accepted the whiplashing with good
grace. Even though not in agreement with all the conclusions Of
that soul-searching, an amazing
number of them observed that it was a refreshing interlude to
leave off self-glorification for a season
and engage in Some frank self-examination.
In the concluding chapter I pointed the finger of ridicule at
the Masonic Gimmick Manufacturing
Company, Unlimited, which, I said, is "working overtime devising
stunts to 'modernize' Freemasonry,
to put it in line with ten thousand other organizations that
clamor for the attention of the
Tribal American."
Of course I know now that "gimmicks" was not the proper word,
for they are more than that. Per.
haps I should have described them as Prescriptions of the
Masonic Medicine Men. At any rate, here
is the way I enumerated them:
L: Abandon the "free will
and accord" rule which has placed our Craft far above the mine run of
societies and permit outright solicitation.
L: Ape the service clubs.
Get busy on "projects" galore in the best Babbitt fashion.
L : Go into the organized
do-good business in a big way. Find an area of the human body that has
not been exploited. Exploit it. Set a quota, have a kickoff
dinner, ring the doorbells.
L : Subsidize other
organizations right and left, and, in the doing, ignore, neglect and starve the
parent body.
L : Feminize the Fraternity.
Carry "togetherness" to even more ridiculous extremes than we have
already.
L : Hire press agents to
tell the world, like Little Jack Horner, what great boys we are. ("Masoinry
is not getting its proper
share of publicity," complains one Grand Master.) Never mind actions;
concentrate on words.
L: Imitate Hollywood. Stage
an extravaganza. Bring in all the groups that ever fancied
themselves remotely related to Freemasonry. Form the parade,
blow the bugle, beat the drums, and
cheapen the Fraternity.
L : Let Freemasonry "take a
position" on public issues of the day. Stand up and be counted (assum
ing, of course, that the position our Craft takes is in line
with our own pet prejudices).
L: Go all out for
materialism. Raise money; spend it. Build temples, institutions. Subsidize;
endow.
Whatever can be had by writing a check, get it.
L: Centralize, centralize,
centralize. Pattern Freemasonry after Washington bureaucracy. Let
nothing be done modestly by an individual or a Lodge; do
everything on state or national level the
super-duper way. Make a great to-do about local self-government,
but accept no local self-responsibility.
AT THE VERY outset, may I hazard two guesses:
First, that every Masonic leader of any stature in the United
States today has heard all ten prescriptions
advocated in one form or another, and,
Second, that an appalling number of readers, finding in that
list a cherished idea, will bristle and
inquire, "Well, what's wrong with that?"
One time several years ago I was engaged in small-talk with a
friend on some of the food
combinations we had observed that to us seemed rather odd. We
mentioned sugar on sliced
tomatoes, the peanut butter and ketchup sandwich, custard pie
smeared over with mustard. Then
I recalled with a shudder the time I had seen a man pile an
ample helping of strawberry preserves
on top a curdling mass of cottage cheese.
"Well, what's wrong with that?" my friend countered in a flash.
We both laughed. It was plain
to each of us what we had been doing. We had been in complete
rapport until I had poked fun at
one of his own concoctions.
Thus, the confusion in the temple is compounded by the fact that
many present-day prescriptions
have some degree of merit. Not all of them are completely
vicious, ill advised though they may be.
It is not a situation wherein all is black or all white. In many
instances the shades are gray.
But the trouble with all the prescriptions is this: On the
surface they may appear innocent enough,
but each is fraught wtih grave dangers; each is capable of
setting in motion forces that would destroy
American Freemasonry as we have known it.
And what shall it profit us if we gain new
members
by the thousands - whole regiments and armies of them and lose
the soul of Freemasonry in
the doing?
IN THE NEXT several chapters I hope to examine all
prescriptions here outlined and subject them
to the acid test. And with me the acid test is not whether a
prescription will add new members or
whether it will give occasion for newspaper and TV publicity. To
me the acid test always must be,
Does the prescription comply with the fundamental usages,
customs, philosophy and purpose of
Ancient Craft Freemasonry, or would it necessitate a change in
the character of our Craft which
would make it something other than Freemasonry?
By now I daresay you have suspected that I am not going to "buy"
any of the prescriptions, for
I do not believe them to be sound. In experimenting with
nostrums there is always the possibility
that the "cure" may be worse than the illness.
My position on each bright idea may be stated in advance and
with utter simplicity: We had better
think it through. There are no signs on the horizon that any
of them have been thought through just
yet. The very fact that immature and irresponsible schemes are
advanced at all is evidence of our
lack of thoughtful consideration.
Sadly enough, in excitable America one who challenges Sacred
Cows or questions pet theories
must run the risk of having his motives misunderstood. It is
possible that I may be labeled a tool
of Soviet Russia before I am through, since that is one of our
favorite methods of disposing of all
who point out our weaknesses. But I trust there will be a few
level-headed Brethren who will
appreciate my deep concern for the future of our Craft and at
least give me credit for sincerity.
What a shame George Bernard Shaw was not an American and a
Freemason! His razor-sharp wit
could have worked wonders for us just now. It was Shaw the
Inimitable who, without knowing it,
advocated the only sensible treatment I have seen for
Freemasonry's first trip to the clinic. Hearken
unto the wisdom of GBS:
"The plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be
shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress
of society that they be shocked
pretty often!"
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