Mozart

Here is a link to an interesting article about Brother Mozart and how his masonic ideals may have been incorporated into his work...

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2007-02/music/magic-flute

Articles from "The Square" Magazine from Pietre Stone's Site

Here are some interesting articles published on Pietre Stone's Website:

http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/pragmatic_masonic_history.html

The SQUARE MAGAZINE for the DECENNIAL of PS REVIEW OF FREEMASONRY
10 featured papers first published on The Square Magazine from 1996 through 2006now online on this website to celebrate the 10 years of PS Review of Freemasonry

¨ A Pragmatic Masonic History by Leo Zanelli
¨ The Mark Degree by Craig David
¨ The York Rite. An Echo of the Antients? by Jack Chisholm
¨ The Freemasons in China
¨ Who were the Ruffians? by C.Bruce Hunter
¨ Temples around the World: Philadelphia
¨ Euclid on the Square by Craig Gavin
¨ Landmarks an Mysteries: who needs them? by Mark Domenic
¨ A Look at a Lodge by Bernard Williamson
¨ Mystery of the Royal Arch by Gavin Domenic

Rosslyn Chapel

Greetings All!

I found the following article (see link
below) today while surfing the web
and thought it was interesting enough
to post.

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1594402006


Happy Halloween!
Dan

Simpson's Clip

Here is a humorous clip of a "Stonecutter's" lodge meeting (a not so veilled referrence to Freemasons)...

Freemasonry today!

I found this excellent video on Freemasonry. Excellent for sharing with family or friends interested in Masonry.

Masonic Brotherhood Fund

Masonic Brotherhood Fund

October 10, 2006

Bro. Martin Richards, JW
Lodge Chairman

Dear Brothers and Ladies:

I am proud to be appointed by the Worshipful Master as the chairman for the Masonic Brotherhood Fund Committee for our Lodge. This is the first time I am filling this position so I am genuinely seeking your support for this year’s annual Masonic Brotherhood Fund drive.

The Brotherhood Fund is the principal support for our Masonic Charities and Programs, including:
Masonic Medical Research Laboratory
Masonic Care Community in Utica
Livingston Library and Museum
Military Outreach Program (includes Veteran Hospital Visitation Program)
Masonic Benevolence
Masonic Youth Program
Camp Turk
Child ID Program
Masonic Student Assistance Training (MSAT)
Masonic Blood Donor Program
Drug & Alcohol Abuse Program
Or: Grand Master’s Allocation

This year the Grand Master challenges you to be counted on as a contributor to keep the above mentioned projects going. This appeal is the only solicitation made to support our Masonic Charities. Your participation is very important to our Lodge as well as the Grand Lodge. Last years donation did not reach the desired goal (in many Manhattan Districts). This year my goal is to increase the number of contributions. Any amount that you contribute can help. I am not asking for a large donation, a sum as little as $5 would be greatly appreciated and would increase the number of participants.

I would like to thank those who already answered the Grand Master’s call in September. For the individuals who are planning to donate now, I am enclosing a return envelope for your convenience. Please write a check and send it in to me soon. I will recognize all contributors in our future meeting notices.

As an added incentive, there will be a Commemorative Crystal presented to any Brother who donates a $100 or more to the Brotherhood fund for the year. If desired, the $100 amount can be achieved in 4 donations of $25.

On behalf of Grand Lodge and True Craftsman’s Lodge, thanking you in advance for your support in this endeavor.

Fraternally,

Martin Richards,
Brotherhood Fund Chairman

MONTY PYTHON: Freemasons architects

And now for something entirely different... Here is a Monte Python sketch which you might find amusing....

Here is a link to an article in FoxNews that discusses the upcoming
book by the author of the DaVinci Code, Dan Brown. The book appears
to focus on Freemasons.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,222278,00.html

NY Times #1 Bestseller - Masonic

There is a new novel with Masonic undercurrents currently #1 on the New York Times
Best Seller list:

http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061008/APN/610081745

Article in the NY Times

To All,

I saw the attached article in the NY Times and thought that it might be of interest....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/04masons.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A Secret Society, Spilling a Few Secrets


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By JAMES BARRON
Published: October 4, 2006
For more than two centuries, the Freemasons and their grandiose rituals have played a secretive, mysterious role in American life. One of the Masons’ symbols looks a lot like the all-seeing eye on the back of every $1 bill. And look whose picture is on the other side.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
A statue of George Washington, in a Masonic apron, stands in the New York Grand Lodge Headquarters.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Two Masonic leaders, Neil I. Bidnick, seated, and Thomas M. Savini, at lodge headquarters in New York, are opening up a bit to attract members.
George Washington was not the first Mason, and not the only famous one. Mozart worked thinly disguised touches of Masonry into operas. Fourteen presidents and everyone from the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale to the comedian Red Skelton belonged. Masons presided when the cornerstone was laid at the Statue of Liberty.
But the Masons’ numbers have been steadily dwindling — whatever their secrets are, they apparently do not have one for avoiding death — and their ranks have been graying. So the New York State Masons have followed other state Masonic societies in doing something that they would have once considered heretical: they are actively reaching out for new members. And, in the process, a famously reticent fraternal organization that now puts a premium on its community service has lifted its veil of secrecy just a bit.
The Masons are not giving out the secret words that members are supposed to say to get into meetings (although these days, simply showing a dues card might do). But the Masons are giving public tours of the New York Grand Lodge Headquarters.
So people can see the gilded ceiling, the marble walls, the benches along the sides for the rank and file and, at either end, the thronelike chairs for high-ranking Masons. And, in a conference room next door, there is more gold, though it is only paint on a copy of a larger-than-life statue of George Washington.
The lodge also hired a public relations firm to spread the word about its 225th anniversary, which was last month. And the Masons have run advertisements in movie theaters and run one-day classes to award the first three Masonic degrees in a single session. Until then, would-be Masons had to spend months learning what they needed to know to rise from Entered Apprentice to Fellowcraft to Master Mason.
“We’re still not thinking of it as recruiting or trying to amass people,” said Thomas M. Savini, the director of the library at the New York Grand Lodge Headquarters, on West 23rd Street and the Avenue of the Americas, “but I think we’ve reached a point where we realized that not saying anything isn’t making it any easier.”
They had also reached a point where they could not ignore what others were saying about them in “The Da Vinci Code” and other bestsellers like “The Book of Fate” by Brad Meltzer.
“What ‘The Da Vinci Code’ gave us was an opportunity to say, ‘Here’s what we are,’” Mr. Savini said.
What there is, inside the grand lodge headquarters, are a dozen ornate rooms where some 60 lodges still hold meetings regularly.
Those dozen rooms have no windows. Leading the way into one of them, the Grand Master, or leader of all Masons in New York State, Neal I. Bidnick, said the layout was no different from any other lodge room in the world, with an altar and candles in the center. At the one end are two pieces of stone, each about the size of a cinder block — one uncut, the other finished.
“We take a good man and polish the rough edges,” Mr. Bidnick said. (The Masons do not admit women.)
In the hallways of the grand lodge headquarters, the walls are crowded with framed photographs of Masons past and present, but mostly past: Hubert H. Humphrey, the former vice president; and William J. Bratton, the former police commissioner who is now the chief of police in Los Angeles.
But there are fewer names on the membership rolls than there once were: 54,000 in New York, down from a high of 346,413 in 1929. Membership rose again after World War II, rising to 307,323 in 1957 before beginning a long slide.
As Mr. Bidnick explains it, New York’s Masons are heavily involved in community service, underwriting medical research and supplying 29,000 American flags,one for every public school classroom in the city. But still there are the secret rooms where Masons gather.
“Why do we bring them into a room like this?” Mr. Bidnick asked. “Basically, all our rituals are designed to be educational. All these things they show you on TV, the assumptions are wrong.”
He described an encounter with a cable television reporter. “The woman from CNN read some passages about a rope and a hood and asked, ‘Is that what you do?’” he recalled. “It’s not.”
He has heard the conspiracy theories. “We’re often asked why we have a G” as a symbol, Mr. Bidnick said. “We had a person in here from CNN before ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ She pointed out that only in English and German does the word for God begin with a G. But masonry is an educational institution, so that G stands for geometry.”
And, on one wall, is a stained-glass panel with a G in a square and compasses.
Geometry is but one of the seven liberal arts. A Mason who could not remember the other six would need only to look up, for they are written on the ceiling: arithmetic, rhetoric, logic, grammar, music and astronomy. The four cardinal virtues — fortitude, prudence, temperance and justice — are written there, too.
And Mr. Bidnick said when Masons refer to God, they refer to the great architect of the universe. To hear him and Mr. Savini tell it, there is nothing theological in the reference. Mr. Savini said that Masonry was dogma-free. “It doesn’t tell a man how to interpret a symbol, which leaves it open to people outside to misinterpret it,” he said.
They would not describe in detail what happens in the room when members are present for a lodge meeting. Mr. Savini did dispel what he said were misconceptions — that there are secret tattoos, for example. “Masonry has nothing to do with tattoos,” he said. “You don’t get a tattoo when you become a Mason.”
Still, he himself has a tattoo, though not a Masonic tattoo.
And Mr. Savini points out that the eye on the dollar bill is not really a Masonic symbol. “We use the eye,” he said, “but opticians use the eye. It makes us look ridiculous if we say it links into some Masonic connection that was not there.”
Next Article in New York Region (1 of 29) »

While surfing the net, I found the following article in the Irish
Grand Lodge News March 2006 Edition:


A Visit to True
Craftsman’s
Lodge No. 651
On a recent holiday to New York, I
had the pleasure and privilege of
meeting R.W.Bro. John “Bud” Prout, -
Past Grand Treasurer of the Grand
Lodge of New York – who facilitated
my request to attend a meeting of a
Lodge. In due course I attended True
Craftsman’s Lodge No. 651 and it
was fascinating to experience the
workings of that Lodge and the
differences and similarities between
the Irish and American rituals.
I also took the opportunity of touring
the Grand Lodge building which is
located at 71st West 23rd Street,
which is 19 storeys high, cost $16
million to construct, contains 13
Lodge rooms, the largest of which
can accommodate 1,200 Brethren.
The library is by no means small –
containing over 60,000 books –
which can also be accessed via the
Internet at the following URL:
www.nymasoniclibrary.org
Bro. John Lawson,
Ensor Masonic Lodge No. 625

Online Masonic Library

Just a reminder to all brothers, the True Craftsman's Website
(www.tcl651ny.com) has an extensive selection of online masonic
books in the Masonic Education section of the website.

These books are a great resource for those interested in delving
further into the history and symbolism associated with the craft.

Welcome to True Craftsman's Lodge #651

Greetings and welcome to True Craftsman's Lodge #651's Blog.

Please feel free to use this blog to discuss lodge related issues, Masonry in general, upcoming
events, etc.