writing writing writing

Music: The Nefilim: Zoon (1996) I've not written a ton this past year---very little, actually---so I have been feeling a little of that self-imposed pressure. It's not "quality" or "quantity" that is demanded from the seniors, it's consistency---you know, going the distance. This is sometimes a problem for we premature epistle-ators and essayists. I can do quality. I can do quantity. But consistency?

Here's a secret admission: I actually asked an editor to hold off on publishing something to make sure it appeared in print next year. Looks more "consistent." Having five things appear in one year creates an absolutely horrible (and daunting) thing to live up to in following years (and that was a consequence of editors who delayed publication like a beaver dam that finally broke). Anyhoo, so I'm trying to make good "consistency" by doing a summer writing fest. I may even sit on completed essays or dally with getting the revisions done to make the "two a year" pace I'm supposed to be at. Argh.

Finished are: a short essay on glossolalia; a co-authored thing on the i-pod. I've yet to get to my and Tom's thing on the Da Vinci Code, but that's next. I just couldn't wait to start my project on Freemasonry as I keep reading this Freemasons for Dummies book, which makes me so damn angry (especially because I spent three months memorizing the esoteric work getting my degrees, and here is this joe who says it's all meaningless "mumbo jumbo"--which it is not!). So, I’m going to write about what Freemasonry really is and publish it. Then I'm going to rewrite the same article, add some admonitions to my brethren in the Craft, and publish it in a Masonic journal. Yup. That's the plan.

Here's what I wrote today (in addition to responding to that smug Lucretius at IHE); I hope it will pique academic reader's interests:

The Rhetoric/Death of U.S. Freemasonry

"These two pillars are the most duplicated architectural structures in history. Replicas exist all over the world. . . . [They] are exact replicas of the two pillars that stood at the head of Solomon's Temple." Langdon pointed to the pillar on the left. "That's called Boaz--or the Mason's Pillar. The other is called Jachin--or the Apprentice Pillar." He paused. "In fact, virtually every Masonic temple in the world has two pillars like these." --Robert Landon in The Da Vinci Code [1]

At the conclusion of Dan Brown's wildly successful novel, The Da Vinci Code (2003), Professor Robert Langdon and his younger companion Sophie Neveu arrive at the famous Rosslyn Chapel in Edinbrugh, Scotland on their quest for the Holy Grail. Brown's use of Masonic symbolism in the novel is frequently inaccurate, such as Langdon and Sophie's discussion of Boaz and Jachin (see fig. 1). Although it remains the oldest and most well-known occult organization in the world, contemplative or "speculative" Freemasonry--that is, a fraternity that is not actually made up of laboring masons--most likely originated in the early eighteenth century in England.[2] The allegorical and symbolic teachings of the fraternity orbit the stories surrounding the building of King Solomon's temple and are drawn from what is thought to be the practice of Masonic guilds in the Middle Ages, however, the suggestion that the markings and architecture of Rosslyn Chapel are directly related to contemporary Freemasonry is misleading. Speculative Freemasonry has retroactively claimed the symbolism of Rosslyn,[3] but, just like the pyramid and the all seeing eye on the back of the U.S. dollar bill, Rosslyn's architectural symbolism existed long before the Order was established.[4]

Owing to the centrality of its strange symbolism and secrecy (see fig. 2), Freemasonry has often been the topic of many misleading associations and cultural fantasies that have made fraternity and its teachings an interesting topic for conspiracy theorists, mystery novel writers, and Hollywood filmmakers.[5] Historically, most of the fantasies about Masonry have been negative and hostile, and frequently involve the fraternity's allegiance to Satan or various projects to establish a "New World Order." Although there are only a few references to Freemasonry The Da Vinci Code, these references are largely positive, and because the book has been so widely read (at this writing, there are over 65 million copies in print), the book has helped to generate a less hostile, worldwide interest in the fraternity, spawning a flood of "knock-off" novels, films (e.g., National Treasure), and television documentaries related to the Masons.[6] In connection with the release of the film version of The Da Vinci Code--which curiously only has one, very brief mention of Masonry--the ABC show Good Morning America broadcast live from the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington D.C.7 Perhaps because Masonry seemed to pique the interest of so many, Brown has announced that his sequel to The Da Vinci Code, titled The Solomon Key, concerns early U.S. Freemasons, many of whom were among the "founding fathers" of the United States of America, including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

The recent media attention of the past few years has been a mixed blessing for U.S. Freemasons. On the one hand, although the renewed exposure in the mass media is mostly positive, this publicity has nevertheless resurfaced many of the myths and conspiratorial fantasies that have plagued the fraternity since its inception.[8] On the other hand, however, media exposure is seen as an opportunity to "revive" Freemasonry and increase its membership, which has declined more than fifty percent in the latter half of the twentieth century.[9] Seizing this opportunity, a number of Masonic leaders have been appearing on television and publishing essays and books to ensure that the popular media spin remains positive. Christopher Hodapp's Freemasons for Dummies and S. Brent Morris' The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry, for example, are two recent books by Master Masons that attempt to explain away the myths and rumors surrounding the organization in an easy-to-read style. In keeping with the rhetorical response of Masons to anti-Masonic movements for hundreds of years, these newer efforts to popularize Freemasonry tend to distance the fraternity from the Western mysteries and occult traditions central to the philosophical teachings of its past.

In this essay I argue that the recent rhetorical response of Masons to public scrutiny has been to deemphasize, and sometimes disown, the fundamentally Platonic function of Masonic symbolism and ritual in favor of stressing the social and charitable missions of the fraternity. Combined with technological and cultural changes that have been documented as causes for the decline of participation in social and civic groups (e.g., the arrival and dominance of television, interactive video gaming, and the Internet as stationary, in-home mediums of stranger socialibility),[10] the rhetorical strategy of divesting Freemasonry of its deeply imaginative and symbolic rites of contemplation erodes the "cultural capital" of Masonic membership, paradoxically further contributing to the fraternity's decline. At least in part, what is appealing about Freemasonry to the Entering Apprentice Mason and non-Mason alike is precisely the mystery that surrounds its teachings, the mystery that Dan Brown hijacks to sell millions of his best-selling novels. After describing the rhetorical function of Masonic mystery, I conclude by arguing that the move to explain it away in order to promote the fraternity as a charitable social club with a charming, colorful occult past not only detrimental to the occult character of the Craft, but also another example of the decline of civic engagement in the United States.

To this end, this essay begins by describing Freemasonry, outlining a number of its divisions and describing its basic teachings. Then, with the example of the writings of one of the most well known Masonic scholars and leaders, Albert Pike, I explain how the complex symbolism and allegories of Masonry have long been taught as an occult rhetoric designed to encourage a "brother" to spiritual apprehensions beyond the realm of human representation. This occult rhetoric to a great degree centers on the fraternity's central allegory, the legend of Hirim Abif and the building of King Solomon's Temple. Third, I trace the relationship between the fraternity's response to anti-Masonic attacks in the nineteenth century and the more positive media exposure of recent years. Finally, conclude by expanding the discussion to the relation of civic engagement to changing modes of publicity in postmodernity.

[1] Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 436. [2] The consensus among Masons and historians is that the present form of Masonry as it is now practiced can be traced back to a 1717 formation in London. See Steven C. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), esp. 9-49; Margaret C. Jacob, Living in the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), esp. 23-51; and W. Kirk MacNulty, The Way of the Craftsman: A Search for the Spiritual Essence of Craft Freemasonry (London: Central Regalia Ltd., 2002), esp. 3-12. [3] See W. Kirk MacNulty, Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991). [4] asdfa [5] W. Kirk MacNulty, "Freemasonry for Bobos." Heredom 13 (2005): 27. [6] See ____. I will discuss this further in the essay.