Reverse Engineering the Question: What Does it Mean to be a Mason?

As the Master of a Masonic lodge I find myself interviewing prospective candidates and explaining to them what it means to be a Mason. This is the prime question that must be explained to all who would join our craft but I find that I cannot give a simple answer to it, certainly not one that clearly sets Masonry apart from many other organizations.

Increasingly I find myself wanting to provide answers to two different yet highly related constituent questions, each of which relates to an important part of the whole. Surprisingly, perhaps, these questions do not involve the usual queries about religion or secrecy in Masonry and they do not come from the concerns of the interviewee. They originate with me and reflect what I think is important to communicate to anyone considering membership in the craft.

In retrospect, I realize that I have simply reverse engineered the questions. In other words, I am generating the questions so that the answers provide what I believe is the correct response to what the possible Mason should know about what it means to be a Mason. I find it necessary to explain what it means to be a Mason by answering the two questions – “When am I a Mason?” and “Where am I a Mason?”

When am I a Mason? Some would argue that at the moment a candidate is made an Entered Apprentice he is in fact a Mason, while others hold firm to the idea that a person is only a Mason when elevated to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason. Either way, the answer to the first question could be stated simply as “I am a Mason when I am made one.” That may be true in some elementary sense, but it is not a very satisfactory answer. It is true but hardly enlightening or useful.

For one thing, while the process of interviewing and examining a candidate might lead to certain confirmations about his character and values, it is no guarantee

Dalton West, Worshipful Master Naval Lodge No. 4

that the candidate will be fully committed to all that Masonry expects. In any case, almost certainly it will not tell you whether, or even if, the person ever can or will exhibit a fraternal spirit in the Masonic tradition. Unless one knows the candidate for a very long time prior to his petition, it is almost impossible to detect his dedication prior to receiving the degrees.

A better answer would be that a man is a Mason when in his daily life and in his social interactions he exhibits truthfulness, charity, even handedness and the other social and moral virtues that Masons are expected to practice. In other words, “behaving Masonically” is one of the gold standards when determining whether or not one is a Mason, and a judgment about a person’s willingness to live that way should be a key factor in any decision about admitting him to the fraternity.

But let us be clear and honest with ourselves about these virtues. They are not exclusively or uniquely “Masonic” ideas. In fact, they are quite the opposite because they are genuinely universal concepts and are found in most civilized societies to one degree or another. The peculiarity of Masonry is that the craft has gathered together the universal virtues from a wide range of civilizations over a long period of time and adopted them as its own and codified them into its practices.

As regards the universal social and moral virtues, if we are unique at all, it is only in the sense that we are “transcendental” in our acceptance and adaptation of these virtues, whereas most of the great civilizations and the universal religions are to one extent or another somewhat parochial, limited in time, place, and historical circumstance. In the modern period we may differ from other organizations professing similar ideas but the difference as to substance is often only a matter of degrees.

If we return now to where we began, in our attempt to explain to an enquiring person what Masonry is, we must answer in two ways. There is the manner in which Masons relate to their fellow man in the profane world, and there is the manner in which Masons relate to one another in the lodge setting. We can and must act “Masonically” in almost every setting, but we can only fully act “as Masons” in a duly tiled lodge setting where we come together to reaffirm, in a time-honored way, our brotherhood.

Part of the answer to the question “When am I a Mason?” resides, then, in our careful attention to all that the level, the square, the plumb and the other implements of our craft instruct us. They can be and should be exhibited toward all people, whether they be Masons or not. They can be and should be practiced everywhere and do not depend on being in or near a Masonic lodge. But we must admit that they do not sufficiently set us apart from other fraternal organizations so that we can say “this is what it means to be a Mason.”

Where am I a Mason? The question, if it is answered properly, turns out to be something quite different and it provides the answer to another important aspect of the prime question. The reason for this is because there are some things about being a Mason that can only be done within the context of a Masonic lodge meeting. To explain this let us go back to the origins of Masonry, to those many different traditions we adopted as our own and molded into what today we call Free and Accepted Masonry.

Beginning with ancient times, through the middle ages to the modern period, groups of men gathered together for various reasons to do together what they found congenial and necessary. Sometimes this involved shared religious beliefs, sometimes a dedication to a military mission, sometimes to regulate their economic activity, sometimes to liberate themselves from tyranny and often a combination of these. In a manner similar to our adoption and amalgamation of the social and moral virtues, modern Masonry borrowed from these and other fraternal traditions to create a craft based upon banding together like minded individuals in a well regulated institution. This activity goes by many names and anyone who has been in Masonry for any length of time has heard them all — craft, fraternity, brotherhood and so on. What modern Freemasonry does is to take the common, shared core value of each of these historical traditions and lodge it at the very epicenter of the craft.

By whatever name, this process is at the very center of Masonry as we know it today. It is something that almost singularly takes place in a Masonic meeting. There are many social and moral virtues and to some degree they change with the times as social mores change and adapt to changing circumstances. But the absolute irreducible core of Masonry from ancient times to the present, through its many different traditions, is the concept of brotherhood and brotherly love. This is what has endured the test of time and is this that sets us apart from many other organizations professing similar values.

If we return now to where we began, in our attempt to explain to an enquiring person what Masonry is, we must answer in two ways. There is the manner in which Masons relate to their fellow man in the profane world, and there is the manner in which Masons relate to one another in the lodge setting. We can and must act “Masonically” in almost every setting, but we can only fully act “as Masons” in a duly tiled lodge setting where we come together to reaffirm, in a time-honored way, our brotherhood.

These two traditions — moral and social virtues on the one hand, brotherhood in a lodge setting on the other — combine to create what we know as Free and Accepted Masonry. In its most ideal form it is nothing more less than a way of life. The true Mason cannot pick and choose whether or not to behave Masonically one day and then pass it up the next. Nor can he practice only the social and moral virtues without practicing brotherhood. To do so is to be only part-Mason. Each of us has been asked, three, six, or nine times, if choosing this way of life was of our own free will and accord, and each of us answered that it was. Without that affirmation we could not have continued our journey. We have talked the talk; we must now walk the walk. It is a way of life and, regardless of how Masonically we act in the profane world, it cannot be fully practiced without attending lodge on a regular basis.