Charley Chase in Sons of the Desert
AS A DRAMATIC SUBJECT, secret societies have it all. Furtive communications through body language and choreographed handshakes, elaborate rituals and costumes that take place in strange buildings, and its meetings closed off from the public by self-important, sword-wielding officers.
All this secrecy was originally developed when secret societies were, many claim, to have been freebooting pirates of the Scottish Sinclair family, who had formerly been Knights Templar. Some maintain that the Sinclair family controlled large Knights Templar fortunes, and forged an alliance with Masonic president James Monroe who in 1812 officially assigned the Sinclairs the job of operating a private naval army to board and seize any British vessels. There is, to this day, a Sinclair Lodge in South Carolina.
In time, secret rituals became unnecessary but the theatrical trappings appealed to club joiners who enjoyed the complex shadowplay of secret organizations.
One can easily see why a number of fraternal Orders were created by actors, novelists, poets, and playwrights, such as the Shriners, Ben-Hur, Elks Club, and Veiled Prophet Order, and why various Masonic Orders and copycat fraternal brotherhoods adopted theatrical rituals, costumes, and backdrops, and often used projections of odd, highly symbolic paintings. Even today, writers like Dan Brown feel the need to pump up ornate Freemasonic and Vatican settings with evil albino killers.
John Wayne was a Master Mason of the Marion McDaniel Lodge of Tucson, Arizona. Earlier in his life he belonged to a DeMolay Order, and late in his life joined the Al Malaikah Shrine Temple in Los Angeles.
Some information here is gratefully adapted from the website of The Grand Lodge of Columbia and Yukon (freemasonry.bcy.ca)
About Schmidt (2002)
The Omaha headquarters of the friendly fraternal society turned insurance company, Woodmen of the World, was central to the thesis of the Jack Nicholson film, a Midwestern tragedy about meaningless and disposable lives in American culture.
L’Âge d’Or (1930)
The Buñuel/Salvador Dalí film shows a Masonic certificate in a crucial moment.
El Ángel Exterminador/The Exterminating Angel (1962)
In Luis Buñuel’s allegorical film, two characters give each other what appears to be the sign of the Fellowcraft degree. Later a man lets out a cry that another man then explains is the Masonic call for help.
Are You a Mason? (1915)
Based on the play Die Logenbrüder in which two non-Masons attempt to convince others that they are Freemasons.
Bimbo’s Initiation (1931)
Max Fleisher nightmarish cartoon starring Betty Boop and dog character Bimbo receiving vicious secret society initiation.
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Based on the bestselling novel The Clansmen by Thomas Dixon Jr., which received widespread acclaim for director D.W. Griffith. The Ku Klux Klan, the Protestant fraternal society, is shown in Griffith’s film in a positivist, racist manner.
Bobby Bumps Starts a Lodge (1916)
A one-reel silent animated film. Young Bobby Bumps plays a trick on his friend who wants to be initiated into his lodge. When his friend outsmarts him and saves his life, they both agree to be initiated into the lodge together. Reference is made to a Lodge Apron, Riding the Goat, and the 3rd Degree.
Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
With Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret, and Dick Van Dyke, a filmed version of the stage play that includes a sexualized scene in which Janet Leigh’s character dances, flirts, and suggests further under-the-table naughtiness with a room full of crazed men at a Shriners convention. This scene was recently cut for a re-enacted stage play.
Chawlie Takes His 2nd Degree (1919)
Cartoon by Eugene Zimmerman about a dog named Chawlie who undergoes initiation rites for entry into what he thinks is the Freemasons.
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Mel Gibson, as a programmed assassin, says “I mean George Bush knew what he was saying when he said New World Order. You remember those fatal words, New World Order? Well, he was a 33rd Degree Mason, you know, and an ex-director of the CIA.”
Glenn Ford. Co-author Adam Parfrey won the Glenn Ford Award for theater arts in his senior year at Santa Monica High School. He was awarded an inscribed plaque and not a fez.
Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Charley Chase in Sons of the Desert
Cremaster Cycle (1995–2002)
A set of five art films by Matthew Barney with numerous Masonic references
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Tom Hanks, as Robert Langdon, stands in front of a display of religious symbols, including a Masonic square-and-compass. The Langdon character describes the symbols found in Rosslyn Chapel. The Dan Brown novel is directed here by Ron Howard.
The Devil Rides Out (1968)
Christopher Lee takes a break and plays a good guy, the Duc de Richleau, in the Hammer Film version of the Dennis Wheatley novel which casts Charles Gray as Mocata, based on Aleister Crowley, whom Wheatley knew as a friend and fellow British agent. Mocata nearly sacrifices a girl as head of an evil occult secret society. Baphomet the Goat makes a personal appearance.
Elmer Gantry (1960)
Edward Andrews as real estate agent George F. Babbit says, “Do you realize that practically every American president was a Mason and a Protestant?” He later exclaims, “I’m in business! I’m a 32nd Degree Mason!” Novel by Sinclair Lewis.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Stanley Kubrick’s last movie with extended sequences at a privileged and frightening secret society enacted sexual rituals.
From Hell (2001)
Implicates the Craft as being responsible for the Jack the Ripper Whitechapel murders in London. Includes many Masonic images throughout. Based on a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)
Depicts killings in the racist backwaters of the deep South. Shriners and Order of Elks symbols and paraphernalia throughout.
Brother Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs, Daffy, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, and a thousand others
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Plays up images of the P2 scandal.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
Masonic/Illuminati symbolism throughout this Terry Gilliam/Johnny Depp film.
Magnolia (1999)
Masonic rings and chitchat.
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Based on a Rudyard Kipling story in which mercenary soldiers convince African tribesmen that they are gods after discovering Masonic symbols on religious artifacts. Directed by John Huston.
Murder by Decree (1979)
Sherlock Holmes investigates the Jack the Ripper case and discovers that Jack has Freemasonic friends in high places.
National Treasure (2004)
Benjamin Franklin Gates, played by Nicolas Cage, descends from a family of treasure-seekers who’ve all hunted for the same thing: a war chest hidden by the American founding fathers. This movie links Freemasons, the Knights Templar, and the founding of the USA.
National Treasure Two: Book of Secrets (2007)
Artifact hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates, again played by Nicolas Cage, returns in this adventure sequel. Masonic references cite a secret correspondence between Queen Victoria and Albert Pike.
“I HAVE this recurring dream sometimes where there’s a phantom in my home and he takes me into a room, and there’s a blond girl with ropes tied to all four of her limbs. And she’s got my shoes on from the Grammys. Go figure—psycho. And the ropes are pulling her apart.”
But it gets even stranger. “I never see her get pulled apart, but I just watch her whimper, and then the phantom says to me, ‘If you want me to stop hurting her and if you want your family to be OK, you will cut your wrist.’ And I think that he has his own, like, crazy wrist-cutting device. And he has this honey in, like, Tupperware, and it looks like sweet-and-sour sauce with a lot of MSG from New York. Just bizarre. And he wants me to pour the honey into the wound, and then put cream over it and a gauze.”
Gaga was confused by her dream and turned to other sources to find out its meaning. “So I looked up the dream, and I couldn’t find anything about it anywhere. And my mother goes, ‘Isn’t that an Illuminati ritual?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’”
—Rolling Stone, June 2010
Pay Your Dues (1915)
Modern Woodmen of America present this two-reel comedy about “The Ancient Order of Simps.” Title cards: “Shhh—gaze into the sacred realms of the initiation chamber. The royal goat has had its whiskers trimmed and horns manicured,” and “Don’t raise the blindfold under penalty of death. We lost two or three members a week this way.”
Revelation (2001)
The Knights Templar search for an ancient relic so that they can resurrect Christ.
Rosewood (1997)
Based on an actual incident in 1923, this movie presents a scathing indictment of racist and Masonic times.
Secrets (1982)
A group of girls at a boarding school re-enact a Masonic ritual based on one girl’s deceased father’s ritual book.
Slacker (1991)
A montage of interconnected conversations and monologues—one is a rant on UFO conspiracies—Kennedy assassination conspiracies involving Freemasons. Directed by Richard Linklater.
Sons of the Desert (1933)
The Laurel and Hardy feature, considered by many as being the “brothers’ best,” opens at a meeting of Oasis 13, “the oldest lodge of the great Order of the Sons of the Desert.” Members, dressed in tassled fezzes and sashes, sing “Auld Lang Syne.” The “brothers” are directed to sit with one knock of the “The Grand Exhausted Ruler’s” gavel, then told about their annual convention in Chicago in a week’s time.
In the year 1936 a global war begins. This war drags out over many decades. Raymond Massey as John Cabal/Oswald Cabal makes a reference to “The brotherhood of efficiency. The Freemasonry of science.”
Future Shriner Harold Lloyd makes fun of fraternal brotherhoods with the silent two-reeler Pay Your Dues.
Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone attend a Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes lodge meeting.
Mobile sphinx and harem as part of a 1913 Shriners parade in Los Angeles in the early days of the film industry
We are the Sons of the Desert,
Having the time of our lives.
Marching along, two thousand strong,
Far from our sweethearts and wives,
God bless them.
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
the boys are marching,
And dancing to this melody.
Na Na Naa Na Na
Na Na Naa Naa Na Na Naa
Sons of the Desert are we!
The most notable of many references to fraternal Orders in episodic television programs.
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Rob Petrie approaches two conventioneers from the Seals Lodge who are sitting in a bar watching a televised boxing match. One of them accuses Rob of being an Odd Fellow.
Flintstones
Fred and Barney belong to The Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes who wear a distinctive horned helmet with fraternal insignia.
The Honeymooners
Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton belong to a fraternal Order, variously referred to as the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons, the International Order of Loyal Raccoons, or the Royal Order of Raccoons. The Raccoon’s slogan is “E Pluribus Raccoon.”
Several Masonic references have popped up in this show, most notoriously in “Homer the Great” which includes a lampoon on the Masons as the Stonecutters. But the Shriners and Freemasonry are not the only fraternal references in this long-running television show; George Bush addresses the Springfield BPOE on the topic of teen alcoholism.
Ernest Borgnine, who famously played a sadistic railroad bull in the film Emperor of the North, was also a Shriner.
In 1946, I traveled with a friend down to a little town called Abingdon, Virginia, to see what the Barter Theater had to offer. It offered nothing except hard work and board. My friend, not accepting the work they offered him, stayed one day. I stayed five years. In that time I grew to love the town and all it offered. The people, in particular, were simply marvelous.
Occasionally I would be assigned to go down to the printing shop and get posters made for the upcoming shows at the Barter Theater. One day, in talking to the owner of the print shop, one Elmo Vaughan, I found that he belonged to the local Masonic Lodge, No. 48, in Abingdon. My father was also a Mason and had advanced to the 32nd Degree in Scottish Rite Masonry, and I told this to Elmo. He was pleased, and sensing his pleasure, I asked him if maybe I could join. He said nothing, continuing his work, and a short while later, I took my posters and left.
The next time I saw Elmo, I asked him again about joining the Masonic Order—again he said nothing, and again my work took me away. We became good friends and finally one day I passed by and again I asked if I could join the Masons. Instantly, he whipped out an application and I hurriedly filled it out. I didn’t learn ‘til later, that in those days, you had to ask three times.
I was thrilled! Not only was I going to be the first actor ever in Lodge No. 48, but I could just imagine my father’s surprise when I would spring the old greetings on him! I wanted only to surprise my Dad, and was I surprised, when after I was made an Entered Apprentice, I found I had to remember everything that happened to me at that event and come back and answer questions about it!
I was assigned to a dear old man of about ninety-two years of age who, I felt, must have been there when the Lodge first started. He was really of the old school, and he started me out with the foot-to-foot, knee-to-knee, and mouth-to-ear routine of teaching.
Besides doing my work for the Barter Theater and a little acting to boot, I was also going to that dear Brother for my work in Masonry. I’d tramp all over those lovely hills and work on my “Whence came you’s” and one day—oh, one fine day—I stood foot-to-foot with my Brother and answered every question perfectly! I was ecstatic! I was overjoyed and couldn’t wait to get to Lodge to show my ability as an Entered Apprentice.
After I quieted down, that dear Brother said, “You’ve done fine, but aren’t you really only half started?” I couldn’t believe him! I knew my work; what else was there? He said “Wouldn’t it be better if you knew all the questions too?”
I couldn’t believe my ears! All that hard work and only half done? He gently sat me down foot-to-foot, knee-to-knee, and mouth-to-ear and taught me all the questions. That didn’t come easy, because I was almost doing the work by rote, but with careful listening and by really applying myself, I was soon able to deliver all the questions and answers perfectly!
The night that I stood in front of the Lodge and was asked if I were ready to answer the questions of an Entered Apprentice, I respectfully asked if I could do both—questions and answers. I was granted that wish and later found that I was the second man in my Lodge to have ever done so! I am truly proud of that, never having demitted, I am still a member in good standing in Abingdon Lodge No. 48.
“ILLUMINATI want my mind, soul, and my body—secret society trying to keep their eye on me”
“THIS is the Freemason stalker that has been threatening to kill me—while he is TRESPASSING! im actually scared now—the blood in the ‘cults’ book was too much”
“ALL MY FANS, my supporters, please stand by me. g-d bless xxL.”
(Accompanying photo of her stalker was reportedly taken by the surveillance system at her Venice, California home.)
All of the tweets have since been deleted.
Dr. Gordon G. Johnson hung up his dentist’s drill, got a bite to eat and headed for Medinah Temple, Chicago headquarters of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Doc made a beeline for the third floor where the Temple’s Oriental band was gathering.
Lanky Eddie Gall, traffic cop at Dearborn and Madison, rubbed his big bass drum with glass wax. Ed Roubik, warehouse foreman, licked the mouthpiece of his ebony musette pipe and squealed a few notes. Hefty Morton H. Petrie, salesman for a candy company, strapped on his whip drum and knocked off a couple of tiddybums, tiddybums. Shrieking pipes and throbbing drums in the hands of sixty middle-aged musicians swung informally into “The Hootchy-Kootchy,” Little Egypt’s tune at the 1893 World’s Fair.
Time magazine finds Imperial Potentate Harold Lloyd worthy of a cover story.
For forty Friday nights Doc Johnson had been rehearsing his boys. Tonight’s session was for last-minute touching up and instructions. “Bleach those leggings out,” Doc directed. “Be sure they are white. I’ll check up sure as hell and if they aren’t right you won’t get in the parade.”
Diamond Jubilee. All around Chicago last week, the scimitar-crescent-and-star flag of the Shrine flapped from hotel windows. Hotels as far away as Waukegan got braced for 75,000 fez-wearing nobles from the 160 Shrine temples in the US, plus wives and children. This week, in sweltering Chicago, they will celebrate the Shriners’ Diamond Jubilee.
The first big event on the schedule was the parade down Michigan Avenue: Doc Johnson’s boys and some 1,500 other temple bandsmen; the Medinah nobles in $42,500 worth of new uniforms; the country’s leading citizens decked out like Zouaves and harem guards; Imperial Potentate Galloway Calhoun of Tyler, Texas, sitting in a car in a bower of 120,000 Texas roses; 1,000 chanters (glee clubs), drill teams, the mounted Pinto Patrol from Oklahoma City, the Black Horse Patrol from the Kansas City, Missouri, Ararat Temple (whose most illustrious noble is Harry S. Truman).
New “Pote”
After the parade, wealthy Medinah Temple, which values its building, equipment, robes, rugs, fezzes and investments at more than $2 million, becomes the center of formal activities. Noble high jinks on Chicago’s street corners and in Chicago bars are left to individual enterprise. For the climax, on stage at Medinah Temple, a new Imperial Potentate (sometimes referred to as the “Pote”) would be named. This year he was no less a person than Harold Clayton Lloyd, of Burchard, Nebraska, and Los Angeles, California, better known as the comedian hero of such Jazz Age films as The Freshman, Safety Last and Grandma’s Boy.
Chanters from Lloyd’s Al Malaikah Temple in Los Angeles had practiced Lloyd’s favorite songs (“Marcheta,” “The Donkey Serenade”). Choice sequences from Lloyd films had been put together to be shown on a screen, finally dissolving into a shot of Mrs. Lloyd and her three children—Gloria, 23, Peggy, 22, and Harold Jr., 17—in the garden of their sixteen-acre Beverly Hills estate. Then there would be a bouquet of roses for Mrs. Lloyd, and a new Cadillac sedan for the new Pote, purchased with 10¢ contributions from 42,333 California nobles. Said Lloyd in pleased anticipation, “The whole thing is usually done in a very lovely style.”
HAROLD LLOYD & WIFE GREETED IN CHICAGO BY SHRINERS WERING “HAROLD LLOYD” GLASSES A noisy manifestation of a quiet phenomenon.
The Shriners’ annual conventions are one noisy manifestation of a quiet and widespread U.S. phenomenon. Fraternal societies, which dwindled during the Depression and war, have flourished anew. This year they occupy a good deal of the leisure time of almost a quarter of the country’s adult population.
Week after week, in thousands of halls, in darkened rooms over Main Street drugstores, men meet, exchange mystic signs and complicated handgrips. New members are sent upon symbolic journeys through wildernesses of sawhorses and overturned chairs. Old members toll bells and simulate the groans of lost souls, solemnly chant and portentously listen as the initiate promises to keep the secrets of the Order or have his throat cut and his tongue pulled out by the roots.
Masonry is an exclusively male reservation and one of unassailable respectability. (“You can get off any time you like for a lodge meeting.”) Its grand titles satisfy a yearning for rank and prestige. “I am among other things,” said a degree-draped Elgin, Illinois, photographer, “a Noble of the Shrine, a member of the Council of Royal and Select Masters of the York Rite, a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, a Knight of the East and West, a Knight of the Brazen Serpent, and a Knight of the Sword. Sometimes when I go home late at night crocked and my wife raises hell, I tell her that’s what I am too.”
Many join because their fathers belonged. Some join because membership is good for their business or good for their political careers (this is known scornfully as “button Masonry”). More join because they meet the town’s best citizens on eye level. Some, perhaps, join out of mere curiosity over the mysterious rites. The majority join just to be with the gang—and are more or less surprised to experience a quite considerable spiritual uplift after they get in. Said a Rutland, Vermont, advertising salesman: “There’s something gets under your skin at a lodge meeting which makes you think about God.”
In the Focus
The average Mason comes close to being the average U.S. male—a hearty fellow with an inner loneliness which he cannot quite define. He is anxious to share in good works. U.S. Masonry supports some 4,500 of its aged brethren and their wives in 30 homes, also supports homes for some 1,400 orphaned and needy children.
Other charitable projects include research in rheumatic fever and dementia praecox, an extensive hospital-visitation program. U.S. Masonry in 1948 spent more than $9 million on various philanthropies (the figures are incomplete since the Order does not advertise its charities).
In the US, the theory has the same obvious chink as the theory of democracy. With very rare exceptions, negroes are kept out. There are, however, some 800,000 negroes practicing the rites, the vast majority of them in what are known as Prince Hall Grand Lodges. At least two negro lodges, one in New Jersey and one in Massachusetts, can lay claim to the legitimacy of their charters; the others, white Masons insist, are “clandestine” lodges, neither bona fide nor legitimate.
Tree of Learning
The root stock of Masonry is the so-called Blue Lodge, which includes the first three degrees and is as far as the great majority of brethren ever progress. Degrees, for all their impressive titles, are simply grades in Masonry’s school. In the Blue Lodge the brethren learn all they need to know to be good Masons, including the legend of Hiram Abif.
A brother who wants to devote the time and effort to it can continue his education through various higher grades. He can go through the Scottish Rite (Northern or Southern Jurisdiction, depending on the location of his lodge), and up through the degrees. He will be dubbed along the way Grand Master Architect, Prince of the Tabernacle, Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander, etc. At the 32nd Degree he is a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. Or he can work up through the York Rite with fewer degrees but just as much prestige, to the top grade of Knight Templar. Or he can learn both rites. He does not necessarily emerge a better man than his Blue Lodge brother; he merely becomes a more erudite Mason.
The Order of the Mystic Shrine, sometimes called Masonry’s “playground,” is a kind of detached and whimsical cloud floating somewhere above Masonry’s topmost branches. Its members must all be 32nd Degree Masons or Knights Templar. It was started about 1870 by William Florence who was fascinated by some Oriental rites he saw in Marseille. Florence was a well-known American comedian of his day. Harold Lloyd, the new Imperial Potentate, therefore follows in a noble tradition.
Outside of the fact that he is a movie comedian and worth more than $10 million, Lloyd is a typical U.S. citizen. He works hard, rides a succession of hobbies (old cars, microscopy) with grim preoccupation, loves sports, and has been happily married to the same wife for twenty-six years—Mildred Davis, once his leading lady. He keeps himself trim at fifty-six by exercising, and eschewing tobacco and drink.
He is the typical fraternity man who loves good fellowship. He joined the Masons with his father in 1924 because, he says, “It was a crosscut of a wonderful group of citizenry.” As enthusiastic about Masonry as he is about everything he has ever taken up, he went up through Scottish Rite with his father beside him, became a 32nd Degree Mason, then went up the other route to Knight Templar. In 1926 he “crossed the hot sands,” i.e., took the initiation into the Order of the Mystic Shrine.
FINALLY, perhaps it is a boast, but it is nice to know that Dan Brown in his latest book, The Lost Symbol, took the definition of Heredom that Art De Hoyos and Brent Morris composed for Volume 9 (2001) and claimed it to be an encyclopedia entry that Professor Langdon found on the Internet. Of course, the definition of “Heredom” was typeset to look like an entry from a dictionary. We apparently succeeded better than we imagined. Perhaps it is just one more example conspiracy theorists can use to bolster their persistent claim that the hand of Masonry is indeed behind everything.
—3rd Degree editor Robert G. Davis stated in his Introduction, Heredom vol. 17, 2009
Hero in Spectacles
Sobriety’s rise had one interruption. Lloyd posed for a publicity gag shot lighting a cigarette from the lighted fuse of a small bomb. Someone had made a mistake: the bomb was no fake. It exploded, blowing a hole in the ceiling and taking away part of Lloyd’s face and the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Only determination pulled him through the accident and the subsequent surgery. But back into the movie business he went. The intent, slightly bewildered, obviously virtuous face of Harold Lloyd began popping out at movie audiences in thousands of Palaces and Bijous. The nation split its sides.
This week Lloyd, convalescing from a serious gall-bladder operation, stood at another satisfying apex of his life. He had given himself unstintingly to Shrine activities. He had been Al Malaikah Temple’s Potentate. For the past seven years he had worked among the Shrine’s crippled children’s hospitals, had been a director and trustee of that program, which is a substantial and sober part of Shrine activities. It maintains sixteen hospitals, and annually raises millions of dollars through its circuses, East-West football games, annual dues, and local contributions.
Ten years ago Lloyd’s temple nominated him for Imperial Outer Guard, which is the first and only contested place in the Shrine’s national hierarchy (candidates spend large sums on favors like fountain pens and tie clasps, and set up many a drink). Once in the hierarchy, called the Imperial Divan, the select and exalted nobles move up automatically one position each year until reaching the Imperial Potentate-ship. Lloyd was defeated for Outer Guard the first year; the next year his rivals withdrew, and he was unanimously elected.
As Imperial Potentate he now faces a strenuous and expensive year. The Imperial Potentate is expected to spend his year in office visiting temples. Lloyd plans to get around to more than 100 of the 160, including a temple in Honolulu to which he will go in September on a chartered ship, accompanied by 600 of his brethren (if the Honolulu dock strike is over). The Shrine puts up $12,000 for his year’s expenses, but tips, entertaining and other odds and ends will probably leave him some $50,000 out of pocket by the end of his year. The job of Imperial Potentate is not only for good men, but for men who are well-heeled.
LONG YEARS AGO, I climbed a stair
And rapped at an ancient door.
I passed within a temple fair
And trod the checkered floor.
I passed between the pillars two;
I climbed the winding stair;
The letter “G” then met my view;
I earned my wagers there.
I knelt beside the altar fair
I counted not the cost.
I searched afar with earnest care,
But still the Word was lost.
Though some may think
my search absurd,
When time shall ebb and fail,
I hope to learn the final Word
Beyond life’s mystic veil.
—D.C. Tidwell, P. M., The Texas Freemason, August 1967
THE MINISTER was sympathizing with the recently bereaved widow.
“Your husband,” he said, “was a man of many excellent qualities.”
“Yes,” sighed the widow, “he was a good man. Everybody says so. I wasn’t much acquainted with him myself. You see he belonged to seven lodges and three clubs.”
—from Masonic joke book
The Eagles lodge displays interest in a carnival’s 10-in-1 show.
There was so much seriousness in even the lighter side of Masonry that instead of items for a book of humor, I was gathering material of inspirational character, too. There was so much similarity in the Masonic jokes—or because of their lack of taste they were not usable—it became evident that I was not going to have enough material for a book of humor that anyone would read.
I regrouped my conglomeration of humor, weeded out the sick jokes (most of them); purged many of the stories involving race, creed, religion and sex; added some educational material together with inspirational items and came up with what you’ll find on the following pages.
In Iowa is a town that was originally known as Shibboleth, later as Masonic Grove, and later still it became Mason City. It was founded by Masons.
Not only does Disneyland have an exclusive “Club 33” but also sponsored a Masonic Club.
When I was a King and a Mason—a master proven and skilled,
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build,
I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.
There was no worth in the fashion—there was no wit in the plan—
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran—
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone:
“After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known.”
Swift to my use in my trenches,
where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart.
As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.
When I was King and a Mason—in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness—
They whispered and called me aside.
They said—”The end is forbidden.” They said—”Thy use is fulfilled,
“And thy Palace shall stand as that other’s—
the spoil of a King who shall build.”
I called my men from my trenches, my quarries,
my wharves and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber—only I carved on the stone:
“After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known.”
Fraternal sheet music
The sex-appeal of a man in fez with secrets
There was Rundle, Station Master,
An’ Beazeley of the Rail,
An’ ‘Ackman, Commissariat,
An’ Donkin’ o’ the Jail;
An’ Blake, Conductor-Sargent,
Our Master twice was ‘e,
With ‘im that kept the Europe-shop,
Old Framjee Eduljee.
Outside—”Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!”
Inside—”Brother,” an’ it doesn’t do no ‘arm.
We met upon the Level an’ we parted on the Square,
An’ I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!
We’d Bola Nath, Accountant,
An’ Saul the Aden Jew,
An’ Din Mohammed, draughtsman
Of the Survey Office too;
There was Babu Chuckerbutty,
An’ Amir Singh the Sikh,
An’ Castro from the fittin’-sheds,
The Roman Catholick!
We ‘adn’t good regalia,
An’ our Lodge was old an’ bare,
But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
An’ we kep’ ‘em to a hair;
An’ lookin’ on it backwards
It often strikes me thus,
There ain’t such things as infidels,
Excep’, per’aps, it’s us.
For monthly, after Labour,
We’d all sit down and smoke
(We dursn’t give no banquits,
Lest a Brother’s caste were broke),
An’ man on man got talkin’
Religion an’ the rest,
Of the God ‘e knew the best.
So man on man got talkin’,
An’ not a Brother stirred
Till mornin’ waked the parrots
An’ that dam’ brain-fever bird;
We’d say ‘twas ‘ighly curious,
An’ we’d all ride ‘ome to bed,
With Mo’ammed, God, an’ Shiva
Changin’ pickets in our ‘ead.
Full oft on Guv’ment service
This rovin’ foot ‘ath pressed,
An’ bore fraternal greetin’s
To the Lodges east an’ west,
Accordin’ as commanded
From Kohat to Singapore,
But I wish that I might see them
In my Mother-Lodge once more!
Shriners choral collective and brass band recordings
I wish that I might see them,
My Brethren black an’ brown,
With the trichies smellin’ pleasant
An’ the hog-darn passin’ down;
An’ the old khansamah snorin’
On the bottle-khana floor,
Like a Master in good standing
With my Mother-Lodge once more!
Outside—”Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!”
Inside—”Brother”, an’ it doesn’t do no ‘arm.
We met upon the Level an’ we parted on the Square,
An’ I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!
It is not ornamental, the cost is not great,
There are other things far more useful, yet truly I state,
Though of all my possessions, there’s none can compare,
Its video and recording approved by Shriner headquarters, Ray Stevens’ Shriner’s Convention highlights whoring and boozing aplenty.
With that white leather apron, which all Masons wear.
As a young lad I wondered just what it all meant,
When Dad hustled around, and so much time was spent
On shaving and dressing and looking just right,
Until Mother would say: “It’s the Masons tonight.”
And some winter nights she said: “What makes you go,
Way up there tonight thru the sleet and the snow,
You see the same things every month of the year.”
Then Dad would reply: “Yes, I know it, my dear.”
“Forty years I have seen the same things, it is true.
And though they are old, they always seem new,
For the hands that I clasp, and the friends that I greet,
Seem a little bit closer each time that we meet.”
Years later I stood at that very same door,
With good men and true who had entered before,
I knelt at the altar, and there I was taught
That virtue and honor can never be bought.
That the spotless white lambskin all Masons revere,
If worthily worn grows more precious each year,
That service to others brings blessings untold,
That man may be poor tho’ surrounded by gold.
Shriner Dixieland players celebrate the death liturgy of freemasonry in its coffin and eight ball symbolism.
I learned that true brotherhood flourishes there,
That enmities fade ‘neath the compass and square,
That wealth and position are all thrust aside,
As there on the level men meet and abide.
So, honor the lambskin, may it always remain
Forever unblemished, and free from all stain,
And when we are called to the Great Father’s love,
May we all take our place in that Lodge up above.
I met a dear old man today
Who wore a Masonic pin.
It was old and faded like the man,
Its edges worn and thin.
I approached the park bench where he sat,
This celebration of Islamic holy land also serves as a hurrah for the Shriner initiation ceremony in which prospective members “cross the burning sand.”
To give the old brother his due,
I said, “I see you’ve traveled East,”
He said, “I have, have you?”
I said, I have and in my day
Before the all-seeing sun
I played in the rubble
With Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum.
He said don’t laugh at the work my son
It’s good and sweet and true
And if you’ve traveled as you said
You should give these things their due.
The word, the sign, the token,
The sweet Masonic prayer
The vow that you have taken
You have climbed the inner stair.
The wages of a Mason
are never paid in gold,
But the gain comes from contentment
Modern Woodmen of America wasn’t going to be outdone by other Orders.
When you’re weak and growing old.
You see, I’ve carried my obligations
For almost fifty years
It has helped me through the hardships
And the failures full of tears.
I’m losing my mind and body
Death is near, but I don’t despair
I’ve lived my life upon the level
And I’m dying on the square.
Sometimes the greatest lessons
Are those that are learned anew,
And the old man in the park today
Has changed my point of view.
To all my Masonic brothers
The only secret is to care,
May you live upon the level
And part upon the square.
Order of the Jesters sheet music celebrating their retarded Buddha mascot
Come on, ye Modern Woodmen, for your cause is just and right;
You must not stop till you have won, the goal is just in sight;
Take off your coats, roll up your sleeves, and trim yourselves to fight
Under the banner of Woodcraft.
CHORUS
We are making Talbot happy!
We are making Talbot happy!
We are making Talbot happy
In our Membership Campaign.
If your guns are out of order and your powder horns are damp
You can’t expect to win the fight and build a hustling Camp;
We want two hundred thousand men to catch our step and tramp
Under the banner of Woodcraft.
CHORUS
Round de meadows am a-ringing
De darkies’ mournful song,
While de mocking-bird am singing
Happy as de day am long.
Where de ivy am a-creeping
O’er de grassy mound,
Dare old massa am a-sleeping,
Sleeping in de cold, cold ground.
CHORUS
Down in de cornfield,
Hear dat mournful sound;
All de darkies am a-weeping,
Massa’s in de cold, cold ground.
Edgar Allan Poe’s famous anti-Masonic story The Cask of Amontillado features a Roman Catholic taking murderous revenge on Fortunato, a Freemason named after the fictional hero of one of the most famous Freemasons of the day, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s hero had appeared before Poe wrote his story, in his French Bagatelles. Various theses regarding Poe’s angle of the story are explored in Poe Studies, vol. X, no. 1, June 1977, in “Montresor’s Audience in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’” by William H. Shurr:
One of the more ingenious [interpretations] is Shannon Burns’ suggestion that Montresor addresses his tale to the buried bones of his Catholic family, now satisfactorily avenged for the insult of Fortunato’s freemasonry.
Shurr then quotes and focuses on the “bagatelle,” or tale of Franklin, in which Montresor makes the deathbed confession of a man without religion, and is told to enter Heaven “nevertheless” and to place himself “where he can.” The moral of Franklin’s tale is a type of typical Masonic indifference to specific religions; it contrasts the single-minded Catholic zeal of Fortunado, who takes his vengeance on Montresor by using the trowel of real stonemasonry to kill the Freemason and walls him up to die. An episode of the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows more or less gave an occult reversal to this theme by having the vampire Barnabas Collins brick up the fanatical Reverend Trask.
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong....
He had a weak point, this Fortunato, although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine....
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”
“How?” said he, “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible? And in the middle of the carnival?”
“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”…
“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—”
“Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”
“And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.”
“Come let us go.”
“Whither?”
“To your vaults.”…
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo....
I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement—a grotesque one.
Edgar Allan Poe
“You do not comprehend?” he said.
“Not I,” I replied.
“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”
“How?”
“You are not of the Masons.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Yes! Yes.”
“You? Impossible! A Mason?”
“A Mason,” I replied.
“A sign,” he said.
“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.
“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”
“Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame....
“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”
“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess....
“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
“True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of my Masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was NOT the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back....
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR!”
“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud—
“Fortunato!”
No answer. I called again—
“Fortunato!”
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.
In pace requiescat!
The following brief excerpt from the lengthy prose/poem “Lalla Rookh” by Thomas Moore inspired the Veiled Prophet Ball (and Parade) of St. Louis, founded in 1878, and other fraternal Orders, including the Dramatic Order Knights of Khorassan, an offshoot of the Knights of Pythias.
Thomas Moore
And, now thou seest my soul’s angelic hue,
‘Tis time these features were uncurtain’d too:
This brow, whose light—oh rare celestial light!
Hath been reserv’d to bless thy favour’d sight;
These dazzling eyes, before whose shrouded might
Thou’st seen immortal Man kneel down and quake—
From the Veiled Prophet Ball, St. Louis
Would that they were heaven’s lightnings for his sake!
But turn and look—then wonder, if thou wilt,
That I should hate, should take revenge, by guilt,
Upon the hand, whose mischief or whose mirth
Sent me thus maim’d and monstrous upon earth;
And on that race who, though more vile they be
Than mowing apes, are demi-gods to me!
Here—judge if hell, with all its power to damn,
Can add one curse to the fond thing I am!
He rais’d his veil—the Maid turn’d slowly round,
Look’d at him—shriek’d—and sunk upon the ground!
Mocking protest of Veiled Prophet Ball and Parade racism by black protesters
“Prophet is Wearing Mask at Veiled Prophet Ball, to Protect the Identity,” Life magazine, October 28, 1946
