Free Born?!

[Shahkem]

Brethren, I really appreciate the feedback. I'm glad i posted my concern about this topic instead of just allowing it to continue to bother me. You guys were a great help!


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[BryanMaloney]

The qualification can and should be taken literally as well as figuratively. There's physical bondage which becomes more and more rare as the centuries and decades pass. There's also mental bondage which does fade gradually across time but that has done so more slowly than physical bondage...

Fundies have good reason to want to keep their better men from joining our assemblies when we start discussing such topics. Environmentalists say "Think globally. Act locally". Our parallel might read "Think to an enlightened future. Act today with that future in mind." Not as succinct in words but at least as simple in concept. Excelsior!

So, then, if one is born into a family that practices mental bondage and grows up in such mental bondage, one is forevermore disqualified from being a Mason, even if one has become a freedman? Freedman is a different status than freeborn, after all.

The historical exoteric meaning of "freeborn" is an easily-defined and rigid legal status, that of not being born into helotry, slavery, etc. Someone who was born to slaves could never be "freeborn" as the term has been traditionally used. However, if that born slave was freed before having children, his children would be "freeborn".

On the other hand, what is the esoteric meaning of "freeborn". If we are to embrace Enlightenment philosophy (and there are those even in Freemasonry who would reject the Enlightenment in favor of Romanticism, Obscurantism, or both), then all are innately "freeborn", what matters would be claiming your inherent status. One of the great innovations of the Enlightenment is that individual people matter. They do not matter by virtue of belonging to a certain class, race, or society. They matter simply because they exist. "All men are created equal." All are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". All of us have those rights, in full measure. No government can create them, no government can remove them. They could be violated, but they cannot be alienated from us.

These principles were unthinkable to the Enlightenment's predecessors, and they are rejected by the Enlightenment's successors, be it on the basis of Romantic hierarchicalism, Marxist collectivism, or one of the other more "up to date" paradigms that ascribes identity and value to membership in a group instead of being inherent attributes of simple human existence.

Thus, exoterically, someone could fail to be "freeborn", but the moment he steps up and says "I choose this for my reasons. Nobody compels me." he claims his innate esoteric "freeborn" status, which is always there and always exists for all people, waiting to be seized. It would not matter if he is still technically "in bondage", be it physical or mental. Such a "bondage" is imposed. When he makes his claim, he shows that it is also illusionary.

This does not require redefining "free" to mean something it has never meant outside a tiny circle of people. It does not require excluding people due to the misfortune of circumstance that they did not contribute to. Instead, it contrasts the inner reality of being freeborn to the outer appearance of being born into bondage.

 

[dfreybur]

So, then, if one is born into a family that practices mental bondage and grows up in such mental bondage, one is forevermore disqualified from being a Mason, even if one has become a freedman? Freedman is a different status than freeborn, after all.

In asking this question and then explaining how it works you have explained very well what the mental qualification version of being free means the way I have thought about it. There are many types of symbolic birth and stepping out of mental bondage into free thought is one of them. Consider that we call the date of our raising our "Masonic birthday" as it is the day we are symbolically reborn into a life where good works are seen as having spiritual goals independent of and consistent with other forms of symbolic rebirth. The type of mental rebirth you have described is one of many transitions that can be symbolically described as a rebirth.

 

[Knowled/G\e_Seeker]

JMorris, I'm with you on the whole questioning whether free will exists or not.

 

[pointwithinacircle2]

I've thought about the same thing before. Then I thought can you have free will if you are not a freed man? I don't think you can and not just talking in terms of slavery but any person subservient to another human, do they truly have free will.

Here is my book recommendation on this topic, as described by wikipedia: Man's Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic methhod, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity.

It is my opinion that man always has a choice, he simply does not have all choices. We choose within the limited scope of what is available to us.

 

[Morris]

Here is my book recommendation on this topic, as described by wikipedia: Man's Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic methhod, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity.

It is my opinion that man always has a choice, he simply does not have all choices. We choose within the limited scope of what is available to us.

I started it's own topic. Maybe we will see each other's view a little better. I always do appreciate a good book recommendation, so thank-you.

 

[AndreAshlar]

Thus, exoterically, someone could fail to be "freeborn", but the moment he steps up and says "I choose this for my reasons. Nobody compels me." he claims his innate esoteric "freeborn" status, which is always there and always exists for all people, waiting to be seized. It would not matter if he is still technically "in bondage", be it physical or mental. Such a "bondage" is imposed. When he makes his claim, he shows that it is also illusionary.

This does not require redefining "free" to mean something it has never meant outside a tiny circle of people. It does not require excluding people due to the misfortune of circumstance that they did not contribute to. Instead, it contrasts the inner reality of being freeborn to the outer appearance of being born into bondage.

On point.

 

[Warrior1256]

You are not alone my Brother!

The problem most Brothers (and future possible Brothers) shall have with this is the misunderstanding that each of them bring to the word freeborn when they read it.

Freeborn (and Free born) did not mean "not born into slavery" as most people define it today. It meant that the person had a superior or excellent* birth and more specifically, he was "able of birth", alluding to all that this simple phrase meant at the time it was first put down in the old charges; and it also implied a whole lot that we have little understanding of in this day and age.

The word freeborn was used to describe the phrase "able of birth" at the original time of its use. It is most unfortunate that semantic drift over the years, that was caused by a myriad of factors, has left the meaning of the word freeborn utterly different from its original intent. The phrase "able of birth" meant that: No man should ever be allowed to Enter who is unsuitable and who would have anything in his character preventing him from being molded into a Superior or Excellent Craftsmen. (and more specifically, no Master or Fellow Craft shall take into his charge and Apprentice such a man!)

(Shameless Plug) I have written extensively upon this subject within Volume 8 of my Uncommon Masonic Education Series, Building Free Men. I show the historical basis for what you have just read, if there is further interest in knowing more about the subject. The material just referred to can be found in chapter VIII, but is best supported be reading the supporting chapters leading up to it first.

Yes! You should be bothered, not by the Landmark my Brother, but by the way it is misunderstood and how this misunderstanding is applied in ignorant and unjust ways. I hope that this Further Light shall assist you in being a Light bearer in a dark forest of indifference and ignorance. Good Luck!

F&S,

Coach John S. Nagy, MM

* The word "Free" within the context of use within the words, Freemason and Freeborn, originally meant "Excellent; Superior". (See chapter III for details)

Wow! Did not know this. Thanks brother.

 

[coachn]

Wow! Did not know this. Thanks brother.

You're most welcome my Brother. It's sad that more Brothers don't.

 

[AndreAshlar]

When discussing the requirement of being freeborn, I believe we tend to think of how this impacts blacks in masonry. I understand that to be a natural connection: One must be freeborn. Prince Hall freemasonry. The descendants of slaves in America. Interestingly though, there are large numbers of freemasons worldwide, who are of Jewish descent. Yet no correlation, in my experience, gets made with the freeborn requirement as it pertains to Jews.