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What did PGM of Texas Lightfoot mean by this statement?

rhitland

Founding Member
Premium Member
In the 1911 GL Proceedings Jewell Lightfoot who was Grand Orator of Texas GL at that time gave a speach titled "The Lost Word" which has flipped my wig to say the least but one of the things he mentioned I have been tumbling in my head and wanted to get ya'lls opinion on it.

"It is our duty to make Freemasonry the object of a profound study."

What did Lightfoot mean by that and how do we as Masons go about doing it, that is if you even agree with this statement and if not why not?



p.s. I am trying to digitize "The Lost Word" by: Jewel Lightfoot so I can post it for all to read, I had no luck finding online.
 

Wingnut

Premium Member
Lightfoot is considered by many to be the Father of Texas Ritual, and is Monitor of the Lodge is almost unchanged...

I always took that to mean that we should spend time studying and learning about Masonry. Learn what the symbolism means to others and what it means to us, and how we apply it. Further we should attempt to help others with their personal study.
 

Nate Riley

Premium Member
This answer is coming from a new master mason, so I may be way off, but here it is:

I would like to see the entire speech. It may put some context to this statement that I am not reading. My interpretation of just the sentence (with no additional context) is that he is encouraging masons to search deeper and study more. IMO there are many parts of our esoteric and exoteric (monitorial) work that needs to be thought out, researched and meditated upon.

I just went through the degrees and was raised earlier this month. I was constantly asking my instructor "What in the world does that mean". Some of the stuff he would explain, some he would tell me to research and think about, some of the stuff he say "that could mean different things to different people". Some of the words used are not part of our common language (bourne for example), so he made it a point for me to look up these words to make sense of what I was saying. I have to give him a lot of praise, he didn't want for me to memorize and regurgitate the work, he wanted me to learn it and know it. Sadly, some (not all by long shot) of the EAs and FCs, that I would study with at the lodge were simply repeating words and they had no clue what they mean. More importantly that did not learn the "moral lesson" intended in the work.
 

Wingnut

Premium Member
might be, Im not YR, I was actually thinking of something much more popular and available to all
 

owls84

Moderator
Premium Member
This then would be one of Lightfoot's curve balls again. I was unaware that Lightfoot did anything with such a literal meaning. It seems that everything I have read of his (a little) has had multiple meanings and thoughts.

To me "Study" could mean a couple of things. Could be that the Grand Architech is observing us in a "profound study" constantly or that we are to be students of the craft constantly. We are taught we may never posess ALL the secrets but I believe we are to always be looking and aware. Keep an open mind, which again that is one of the first things we are told in the ante room. I just think it, as with all of Lightfoot's work, is way more complex then I may ever know.

Just me talking though, I have been wrong before, once or twice.
 

Wingnut

Premium Member
Act 3, Scene 1, Hamlet's Soliloquy

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
 

A7V

Registered User
A study can be a drawing or sketch even a painting done in preparation for a finished piece.

Not sure if that helps but if I meditate on it more, I think I may be able to pull out more.
 
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