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Getting back into the craft....the RIGHT way!
- Thread starter Damage357
- Start date
acjohnson53
Registered User
Darn Shriners, they just like "Clowning"
Damage357
Registered User
BullDozer Harrell
Registered User
For future discussions, i would hope to inform anybody who might read this thread about three subjects that arose. Demits from a clandestine lodge, healing into a Regular PH lodge and hazing.
In my particular PH GL jurisdiction, a demit certificate or even the act of demission from a clandestine lodge means nothing. A demit issued from a clandestine organization is as valuable as a sheet of toilet paper. Flush it. Forget about it and don't bother to mention it.
The same would naturally apply to an act of 'demitting' from a clandestine organization. It's actually not demitting out of the organization but unaffiliating your membership which is an act of renouncing allegiance to any part of that body. You've walked away and severed your ties.
This is the clean break that a lodge in my jurisdiction would examine upon a petition seeking membership.
We have the process of healing in place which allows a petitioner for our degrees of Craft Masonry to affiliate himself under the Laws & Regulations governing the Craft lodges under the authority of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Illinois.
My GL recognizes that much of what exists as black clandestine lodges in North America began largely due to its expulsion of John G. Jones in 1903. It was their ruling that Jones was done as a Regular Mason in this jurisdiction which also was adopted by other jurisdictions that set the stage for this widespread problem. The rationale is that the problem started here and so we have to address it here. To allow a clandestine made Mason to heal into a subordinate lodge within our Grand Masonic jurisdiction is one way of addressing the problem.
This is why we have healing. But, of course, there are other PHA Grand Masonic jurisdictions that have decided upon their way to deal with it. They have decided not to allow healing. But that every petitioner and candidate begins as an Entered Apprentice. Grand Lodges of State favor this approach as well with ex-clandestine made Masons.
Lastly on to hazing, i can positively assert (that's a strong word choice ) that it's unconstitutional here and will not happen under subjection to the laws of our penal codes. No lodge is going to risk their existence for the act.
In my particular PH GL jurisdiction, a demit certificate or even the act of demission from a clandestine lodge means nothing. A demit issued from a clandestine organization is as valuable as a sheet of toilet paper. Flush it. Forget about it and don't bother to mention it.
The same would naturally apply to an act of 'demitting' from a clandestine organization. It's actually not demitting out of the organization but unaffiliating your membership which is an act of renouncing allegiance to any part of that body. You've walked away and severed your ties.
This is the clean break that a lodge in my jurisdiction would examine upon a petition seeking membership.
We have the process of healing in place which allows a petitioner for our degrees of Craft Masonry to affiliate himself under the Laws & Regulations governing the Craft lodges under the authority of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Illinois.
My GL recognizes that much of what exists as black clandestine lodges in North America began largely due to its expulsion of John G. Jones in 1903. It was their ruling that Jones was done as a Regular Mason in this jurisdiction which also was adopted by other jurisdictions that set the stage for this widespread problem. The rationale is that the problem started here and so we have to address it here. To allow a clandestine made Mason to heal into a subordinate lodge within our Grand Masonic jurisdiction is one way of addressing the problem.
This is why we have healing. But, of course, there are other PHA Grand Masonic jurisdictions that have decided upon their way to deal with it. They have decided not to allow healing. But that every petitioner and candidate begins as an Entered Apprentice. Grand Lodges of State favor this approach as well with ex-clandestine made Masons.
Lastly on to hazing, i can positively assert (that's a strong word choice ) that it's unconstitutional here and will not happen under subjection to the laws of our penal codes. No lodge is going to risk their existence for the act.
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Damage357
Registered User
That's what I have learned from my recent reading. A "demit" isn't necessary because technically you aren't a part of anything.
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Damage357
Registered User
Warrior1256
Site Benefactor
Haven't heard about this. Is it a wide spread problem?
BullDozer Harrell
Registered User
Yes, it's a rather common & degrading thing done in the black spurious organizations. Often i hear of men who were beat with paddles across the butt, punched in the gut and pushed around roughly during degree work ceremonies.
There's a buddy who told me that for his MM degree, he was made to sit on a wooden pony in the fashion of 'riding a goat'. The men had a piece of rope attached to the pony. They would begin to twirl both around in a circular path so fast until the rider fell off of the pony. At which point while on the floor, he was told to stay lying down and not motion to stand up. He was instructed to lay there and play dead. A dead man doesn't move.
At that point, they began to mourn his 'death' and begin to re-enact the 3 Ruffians & Hiram Abiff. When he told me i was like, that's wrong on so many levels. Those guys changed the Ritual to incorporate the childish hijinks and demoralizing acts of hazing.
At least this is the report from ex-members of the Chicago area black spurious organizations.
BullDozer Harrell
Registered User
Warrior 1256, I've recently visited Missouri for a national Phylaxis Society Convention held there in the St. Louis area. One of the things i noticed is the presence of the 2 Regular Grand Lodges, PH & State.
There seemed to be an almost perfect absence of spurious organizations claiming to be Masonic. My hosts when asked about it said they've ( bogus lodges) tried to established themselves but have never been successful. The lodges didn't find Missouri to be fertile soil like Chicago, Houston, NYC, Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta etc.
Good for Missouri.
There seemed to be an almost perfect absence of spurious organizations claiming to be Masonic. My hosts when asked about it said they've ( bogus lodges) tried to established themselves but have never been successful. The lodges didn't find Missouri to be fertile soil like Chicago, Houston, NYC, Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta etc.
Good for Missouri.
BullDozer Harrell
Registered User
Specifically you weren't part of any Regular Masonic body. A Regular Masonic does not acknowledge anything other than another Regular Masonic body. Hate to be a stickler for small differences. But it does make a big difference to speak in long bursts instead of short spurts when it comes to talking Masonry. At least it works well for me.
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Warrior1256
Site Benefactor
Good! And thank you for the hazing information. As I said, I had never heard of this before.
BullDozer Harrell
Registered User
You probably won't hear of too many stories nowadays since it's almost entirely not attached to Regular Masonry and not done in Regular Masonic lodges.
It's mainly practiced in black spurious organizations claiming to be Masonic. But even they are beginning to shy away from the brutality & degradation of beating an adult man in the name of making him a Mason.
Maybe they've discovered the indignity of beating a man for a so-called higher purpose or maybe they've realized that it touches upon meeting the legal definition of assault & battery?
Or it maybe it could be that they're changing their practices to simply imitate what Regular Masonic bodies do or do not?
In any event, i think it's shame that any body of men could ever agree that striking another man in any way could be a test of brotherhood, quality of the person or their level of commitment to desire belonging to a particular lodge.
Glad hazing in an adult Craft is going away. Never deserved a place to begin with in Masonry.
Damage357
Registered User
Exactly...and yes I understand. Just wish I knew 20 plus years ago. But, as was stated above, it's a lot of that in the Chicago area.
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Ripcord22A
Site Benefactor
See I dont know....in the military when one gets promoted hes given "blood" rank. Where the metal pin on rank is placed on their collar and then every member of their unit that our ranks them gets to drive it in. The milutary too has shyed away from it as some some whiney snowflake complained that it got taken to far. Also when we changed to wearing the rank on the chest i was bumbed inwasnt gonna get blood ranks when i got my 5,6,7 ect ect. We found a away around it though. Going through it was awesome. Bringing it back to masonry though.... A full on gang style jump in is ridiculous and the first time i got punched and or kicked would have been the end of it. I do think that going thru something physically demanding knowing that everyone there has or is going thru it with you breeds brotherhood.
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Warrior1256
Site Benefactor
Alfred Taylor
Registered User
Military lodges take a completely different approach.
I'm willing to bet a majority of you have never heard of a "Masonic Apple"? We had to eat these "Masonic apples" because that's what they were given to eat in the quarries. That's what we were taught at least.
Or physically went to the quarries. Technically they consider that hazing in the MWPHGLoTX.
How many people were asked to write down the best part of the EA degree immediately after being intitiated? As a result we had to wash it down with fiery brimstone, but it instilled in us not to violate any part of our OB ever again.
Personally because of the way I was raised I feel like the rules about hazing need to undergo a little changing. I'm not saying I agree with the paddle or any type of physical abuse I guess one could call it because we aren't a college fraternity but there are some lessons that can be learned that can be directly applied to masonry that are no worse than receiving our wages as an FC IMHO.
I'm willing to bet a majority of you have never heard of a "Masonic Apple"? We had to eat these "Masonic apples" because that's what they were given to eat in the quarries. That's what we were taught at least.
Or physically went to the quarries. Technically they consider that hazing in the MWPHGLoTX.
How many people were asked to write down the best part of the EA degree immediately after being intitiated? As a result we had to wash it down with fiery brimstone, but it instilled in us not to violate any part of our OB ever again.
Personally because of the way I was raised I feel like the rules about hazing need to undergo a little changing. I'm not saying I agree with the paddle or any type of physical abuse I guess one could call it because we aren't a college fraternity but there are some lessons that can be learned that can be directly applied to masonry that are no worse than receiving our wages as an FC IMHO.
Warrior1256
Site Benefactor
Me.
Same here. At my age I am not going to undergo physical mistreatment to join an organization. There is just no need for that.
Alfred Taylor
Registered User
Alfred Taylor
Registered User
I didn't say anything about havin to haze to teach a lesson. I don't feel that I was ever hazed and I will never let anybody tell me different because it wasn't hazing. If anything they might have tested our fortitude? Which there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing should be given it should be earned. Especially within Masonry.
Just because you can regurgitate some words verbatim do you really understand what it means? Do you really understand why it was done in that particular manner?