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Delivery of ritual

CLewey44

Registered User
Lets say that you have about one-two degree conferals a week and have not acess to the building except for those days.
How would you practice then?
Realistically, you wouldn't need to practice. Thats one problem here in NY. They do group conferrals maybe once a year or less. Twice for busier lodges. Sometimes gameday is practice too. I say having one candidate/brother at a time is best.
 
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CLewey44

Registered User
As for side Orders, you'd be hard pressed to find many that are rock solid on ritual. Im sure some are but the two main ones Im in have the books open half the time. I dont have a problem with someone as a prompter in BL with a book following along. I've always thought the idea of having the immediate PM sitting in the North as a symbolic beacon of light in darkness. They could maybe have a book open if they needed it to help prompt brothers through open, close and ritual. If the immediate wasn't available any PM could fill in.
 

Scoops

Registered User
As for side Orders, you'd be hard pressed to find many that are rock solid on ritual. Im sure some are but the two main ones Im in have the books open half the time. I dont have a problem with someone as a prompter in BL with a book following along. I've always thought the idea of having the immediate PM sitting in the North as a symbolic beacon of light in darkness. They could maybe have a book open if they needed it to help prompt brothers through open, close and ritual. If the immediate wasn't available any PM could fill in.
Here, the IPM sits to the immediate left of the WM and has a ritual book to assist as the Master's prompter. The secretary in the North has a book as well to prompt everyone else.

Of course, unsolicited prompting can come from all corners of the lodge, but that's frowned upon!

Sent from my EML-L09 using Tapatalk
 

marteno

Registered User
As a freshly-minted EA, initiatied earlier this month, I'm not entirely sure I should be contributing yet! But I'm in the process of learning my words for when I'm passed to FC (as an aside, we're a red lodge so it seems that there's a lot more to learn than for other rites). Personally, I'm liking the process of learning the text very much and feel I'm getting a lot more out of the experience than I would if I were reading from a book. I'm sure that on the day I'll feel like a far more active participant, partly because I've absorbed the content and also because I'm spending time getting a feel for the ritual. Maybe I'll feel differently afterwards though, particularly if I've forgotten anything.
 

David612

Registered User
As a freshly-minted EA, initiatied earlier this month, I'm not entirely sure I should be contributing yet! But I'm in the process of learning my words for when I'm passed to FC (as an aside, we're a red lodge so it seems that there's a lot more to learn than for other rites). Personally, I'm liking the process of learning the text very much and feel I'm getting a lot more out of the experience than I would if I were reading from a book. I'm sure that on the day I'll feel like a far more active participant, partly because I've absorbed the content and also because I'm spending time getting a feel for the ritual. Maybe I'll feel differently afterwards though, particularly if I've forgotten anything.
Please contribute away :)

How do you feel that the initiation went?
without being too specific, how was your initiation?
 

chrmc

Registered User
As a freshly-minted EA, initiatied earlier this month, I'm not entirely sure I should be contributing yet! But I'm in the process of learning my words for when I'm passed to FC (as an aside, we're a red lodge so it seems that there's a lot more to learn than for other rites). Personally, I'm liking the process of learning the text very much and feel I'm getting a lot more out of the experience than I would if I were reading from a book. I'm sure that on the day I'll feel like a far more active participant, partly because I've absorbed the content and also because I'm spending time getting a feel for the ritual. Maybe I'll feel differently afterwards though, particularly if I've forgotten anything.

I think everything you say is correct, but the big difference between the memory work and learning a degree is the focus. The memory work is something you do for youself and which only needs to have an impact on you. We all want to deliver it well, but if your rhythm is off, and a word or two slips it has no real effect.

When you're learning ritual for a degree the focus shifts and becomes about you doing something to impact another person. The delivery of ritual has to move the candidate, be impactful and resonate. It's a completely different skillset and focus that goes into it in my experience.
 

David612

Registered User
Possible though I’m not across the Egyptian side of things to be honest- I have thought it as the master and wardens literally overseeing the work of those down in the quarry, crude as that interpretation is.
 

jermy Bell

Registered User
I think if you can't memorize it. Don't do it. I wouldn't take JW. Until I memorized opening , closing, and the ritual. So, this year I will be sitting in the south knowing I earned the right to fill the chair. I am already half way through memorizing the SW. Opening and closing and apron lectures.
 

Keith C

Registered User
Our SW & JW stations are raised by 3 steps and our WM station raised by 6 steps. During Degrees for the investment of the apron, lecture on the working tools and for the charge EAs stand on the first step, FCs on the 2nd, MMs on the third, which is basically a small landing, the WM and whoever delivers the charge also stand on that landing. The actual Station of the WM is further elevated by 3 additional steps.

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Keep in mind this is not a PA thing, it is just our Lodge. Other Lodges in the District are set up differently, but all have at least 3 steps up to the WM's Station.
 

Bloke

Premium Member
Lets say that you have about one-two degree conferals a week and have not acess to the building except for those days.
How would you practice then?
We meet once per month usually. We rehearse the week prior. It is a "rehearsal" which concentrates on training deacons and officers to move in the lodge - and, if they have not delivered a particular charge, to run through it by way of confidence building and competence testing. As a rehearsal, it is expected people will have learned their words before it. They have a ritual book to support them in that, but also they can call men who have done the work they have learning - or arrange a meeting to go through it with someone.

Most of the really good work I have done on improving charges is in the car while traveling somewhere..

As to learning ritual vrs reading it; We are not supposed to read ritual, but we have done so when no competent brother is there to deliver it. It is very rare. I try to have all that organized (it is my task) at least 2 weeks prior and with backups. I am a big believer in leaning ritual by heart - because it goes into the heart (and mind). I never understood why teachers at school made us memorize a poem when we could read it off a page- but as a Freemason realized why - in learning it, you internalize it and master it in a way you don't simply reading. Listen to two experienced Masons who know ritual talk about some point - quoting bits and pieces, you realise that's a great way to understand Freemasonry in depth. The Third Degree has a line here "..the connection of our whole system and its relative dependence of its several parts.." and it is only in learning, and understanding, ritual by rote that you come to grasps with it. What many places call the "catechisms" or Questions and Answers, are of value to EAs and FCs not only because they start their learning about Freemasonry, but also how to learn. For me, that it repetition, I don't think anything substitutes for it for the average Joe to get ritual into short term memory, and then revision to move it to long term memory.

As a Director of a Public Company, operating three other businesses, two lodges, family commitments and a full diary, it is a matter of planing and prioritizing to learn what I have learned. It is not easy, but for me, has been worthwhile.
 

Elexir

Registered User
As to learning ritual vrs reading it; We are not supposed to read ritual, but we have done so when no competent brother is there to deliver it. It is very rare. I try to have all that organized (it is my task) at least 2 weeks prior and with backups. I am a big believer in leaning ritual by heart - because it goes into the heart (and mind). I never understood why teachers at school made us memorize a poem when we could read it off a page- but as a Freemason realized why - in learning it, you internalize it and master it in a way you don't simply reading. Listen to two experienced Masons who know ritual talk about some point - quoting bits and pieces, you realise that's a great way to understand Freemasonry in depth. The Third Degree has a line here "..the connection of our whole system and its relative dependence of its several parts.." and it is only in learning, and understanding, ritual by rote that you come to grasps with it. What many places call the "catechisms" or Questions and Answers, are of value to EAs and FCs not only because they start their learning about Freemasonry, but also how to learn. For me, that it repetition, I don't think anything substitutes for it for the average Joe to get ritual into short term memory, and then revision to move it to long term memory..

Actully I disagree that its the only way to learn whats in the ritual. Plenty of written material, lectures by brothers on a topic related to the degree as well as disscusions about the degree makes it a lot more intressting as it makes you actully think and consider things from diffrent wiews and therefore the actuall core of the ritual make more sense.
 

David612

Registered User
We meet once per month usually. We rehearse the week prior. It is a "rehearsal" which concentrates on training deacons and officers to move in the lodge - and, if they have not delivered a particular charge, to run through it by way of confidence building and competence testing. As a rehearsal, it is expected people will have learned their words before it. They have a ritual book to support them in that, but also they can call men who have done the work they have learning - or arrange a meeting to go through it with someone.

Most of the really good work I have done on improving charges is in the car while traveling somewhere..

As to learning ritual vrs reading it; We are not supposed to read ritual, but we have done so when no competent brother is there to deliver it. It is very rare. I try to have all that organized (it is my task) at least 2 weeks prior and with backups. I am a big believer in leaning ritual by heart - because it goes into the heart (and mind). I never understood why teachers at school made us memorize a poem when we could read it off a page- but as a Freemason realized why - in learning it, you internalize it and master it in a way you don't simply reading. Listen to two experienced Masons who know ritual talk about some point - quoting bits and pieces, you realise that's a great way to understand Freemasonry in depth. The Third Degree has a line here "..the connection of our whole system and its relative dependence of its several parts.." and it is only in learning, and understanding, ritual by rote that you come to grasps with it. What many places call the "catechisms" or Questions and Answers, are of value to EAs and FCs not only because they start their learning about Freemasonry, but also how to learn. For me, that it repetition, I don't think anything substitutes for it for the average Joe to get ritual into short term memory, and then revision to move it to long term memory.

As a Director of a Public Company, operating three other businesses, two lodges, family commitments and a full diary, it is a matter of planing and prioritizing to learn what I have learned. It is not easy, but for me, has been worthwhile.
Well said Bloke-I agree wholeheartedly. I’d like to add that it’s quite an expression of Brotherly love to dedicate that time to memorise and deliver a charge for a specific brother.
 
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