March 23, 2026 • 33 mins
WB Jorge Manuel Molina Aguilar, recently published a profound article in The Square Magazine titled "Transformational Leadership in Contemporary Freemasonry." Bro. Jorge joins us to discuss how the Craft, by its very nature, is a school for a specific kind of leadership, one that does not impose but inspires.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Launch, Concordant Body, a Pendant Body,
a Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, right worship for Brother Michael Lars. No,
I'm not sick. They're just called allergies, and I love
when they flare up. Got a cool episode this week
that's going to take us to El Salvador. But before
we jump into that, and oh my gosh, when I'm
looking at our guest background and I can see palm
(00:51):
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(01:13):
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the notes for this episode, Okay, just a quick heads up. Well,
I am dealing with those wonderful seasonal allergies. You'll notice
(01:36):
there's a difference in the audio with our guests. We
had some issues when it came to the internet connection
in El Salvador, but that doesn't prevent us from welcoming
Worshipful Brother Jorge Manuel Molina Aguilar, a first timer on
the Craftsman Online podcast. Welcome brother Jorge, Hi, thank you,
thank you very much for your words. I want to
(01:57):
talk a little bit about you, of course, the article
a Freemason, just your thoughts on things. So let's get
started first with the U part. Your bio, Your background
very fascinating. He's a PhD candidate in social sciences, a psychologist,
two time worshipful Master of his lodge, and also a
royal art companion. How did you get into freemasonry and
(02:20):
how are you able to do all the other things
in life while still being a freemason.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Well, my father was a freemason, so when I was
a teenager, I remember seeing the prune and many things
in the house, and sometimes the brothers of his time
they used to come to the house. So I remember
something about freemasonry back when I was in high school probably,
(02:47):
and then we were in he was a graduation day
from a relative, an uncle, who is also a freemason,
and my father, my uncle and me, we were speaking
at the graduation and they were talking about freemasonry, about
how the Lodge was developing, and the Grand Lodge, and
(03:09):
many subjects about freemasonry. And I asked them, you know,
how do I become a member? And he said, well,
you have to be graduated first, I mean, finish your
your university and then afterwards you just you come and
talk to your uncle or me or someone else. Like
(03:29):
a year after he started speaking to me about the
work that he's done that to study and to understand
meanings in life. You know, we had not very much
conversation about freemasonry. So then I started to read, and
(03:50):
not from internet, mostly from my father's books, you know,
because he had a few books about freemasonry, and I
I think I had other relatives who were into freemasonry,
because now after sixteen years of being in the Order,
I can still remember a few things about relatives that
(04:13):
you know they are linked to freemasonry. But I never
asked back then.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Could you help me out? I know it's a Praternidad
lodge number six, but I am going to mess up
your grand lunch so bad. How do you say your
grand lodge?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Oh, my grand lodge is Grand Lohier, Coscotland.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
There's no way I would get that right.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Oh, it's you have better try, You better try. It's
Coscutland Grand Lodge, Coustlakan Grand Lodge in the Orient of
El Salvador, Ohlstavador. Yes, what is freemasonry like in El Salvador?
And I guess a fairer question would be have you
visited lodges in North America and have you noticed any
difference between freemasonry. I have visited in British Columbia in Vancouver,
(04:59):
I have visited Toronto as well. I have visited in
Panama and most it's very different. I remember in in
Vancouver it was the first time I wasn't familiarized with
the ritual. It's a it's a proper ritual from the
British Columbia work the way they do things. But they
(05:21):
were very kind and they were very very fraternal with me.
They were great, but it was completely different. We we
study a lot, We have like many discussions during the
lote of subjects each week. I mean, we work each week.
Sometimes we go to two to three times to lodge
(05:43):
per week. Wow, I'm also a grand officer. It is
a lot of work. I mean, first, you have to
be very organized. Not all the time you get everything right.
I have, I have forgot compromises sometimes in the past.
And then I something that Freemasony did is that it
(06:04):
helped me to get more organized in my life, to
prioritize to I mean sometimes to work in small amounts
I mean, but to never stop working. I mean we
at least in the lodges that I go, there are two.
I belong to two lodges at the moment. Fraternida number
six and we learn most number twenty two, which is
(06:28):
how do you how do you translate this Scottish rectified ritual? Yeah,
rectify Scottish. Yeah. So I work the two lodges and
you have to read a lot. At least I like
to read a lot. I enjoy reading a lot, but
each week you have different subjects. At the moment, we
(06:52):
publish a book that I author about how to organize
all these content incompetencies so enter apprenticeships and senior wardens
can organize their work in a more pedagogically and didactic way.
I think I said it right, dude, You're doing great.
That's the biggest challenge. I mean, to get organized and
(07:15):
to never stop studying, and to find meaning in what
you're studying, and to understand what is it for you know,
and to see it in your everyday life.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, one of the things that struck me with your
article and I did want to get into that, but
I also like just learning about how freemasonry is practiced
around the world. And I'm sure our listener is kind
of digging this as well. But one of the lines
that really got me is a theme you touched on
was that freemasonry is not merely ritual. It is leadership
by light. And I feel like when we talk about
(07:46):
freemasonry and all the benefits of being a brother and
a Mason, we don't really talk about leadership that much.
So how did that start to become something that you
focused on that drove you to write this very important paper.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
As a psychologist and as a social scientist, I am
very much interested in study the human phenomena and the
human phenomena link it to the non human phenomenon. I mean, like,
for example, the link between nature and humans and humans
and animals. But when it comes to the human phenomena,
(08:22):
leadership is it's a subject. I mean, even if someone
does not consider himself as a leader, in some ways,
he is a leader in some part of your life.
You develop leadership, not one leadership, but many leaderships through
your life, and even in your mind. I mean you
have an idea, plenty of ideas, for example your podcast.
(08:46):
You have plenty of ideas, and then you get a leadership,
an internal leadership, which is an assemblage, not a product,
but an assemblage of many, many ways that you have
understand differentlyleaders who have inspired you through your life. Some
of them you know you knew in person, some of
(09:06):
them you know at the moment, and some of them
you never knew, but they did inspire you through different forms,
sometimes a book, sometimes a movie, sometimes a myth a legends,
for example, we have different legends in the order, you know,
that inspire us through leadership. And I have been very
(09:32):
my work as an academic has been very much structuring
understanding that human phenomena that arises in everyday life. And
I was thinking a few years back about what is
the type of leader that we want, the type of
(09:52):
leader that we have, and the type of leader that
we need in different times, because it's not it's not
the same thing, you know, it changes through through context, societies,
through times. So when I was thinking about that, I
was following a friend. We and I went to this
(10:17):
event that he had. He was the president of the
Shriners here in Alsabad or so. He said, you know,
I have an event. Come with me and join me
at the event. And I said, all right, I go
with you. He's a brother and a very close friend,
one Carlos, and I went with him. And when when
we got into the event, before the before the cameras
(10:41):
and everything, and in the hospital, he was by his
own putting all the all the chairs and creating the
you know, the atmosphere for the event, being the president
of of the shrine on his own. And then the
cameras came, and then people came, and then he he
did you know, all the speeches and and and all
(11:03):
the talking about the event and to help the children.
And I was very inspired by that because it's it
was a combination of leaderships that arise at in that
precise moment. And I said, it is good that we
have a discussion or at least a thought about what
(11:23):
is the type of leader that we want, the type
of leader that we need, and the type of leader
that we have, and to study the leaderships that have
been going through the order in different times. So I
wanted to make this paper as a like like a milestone,
(11:43):
like a stepping stone to think about leadership.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
One of the things that caught my eye besides you know,
the paper, was the title. The title jumped out to
me and I saw transformational leadership. And in my professional life,
I see that word used a lot when it comes
to innovation and technology and improving how an organization runs.
And I was like, wow, that is crazy to think
about that in a Masonic context. So what does transformational
(12:11):
leadership mean to you when it comes to being a Freemason.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
It is a type of leadership that transform the leader
and the people around him. No, it doesn't transform the
people by having the purpose of transforming them into something
that the leader wants. It's more of a reaver that
(12:37):
the leader has, not an echo, but a reaver because
it changes with the people who are around him. For example,
transformational leadership, it's about inspiring someone. It's about creating that
atmosphere where you feel inspired to be the best you
(12:58):
can be in that precise moment. And I think that
is a good way of leadership. I think it's a
proper way of leadership in some cases. Some cases might
be different. But in the case of leadership when it
comes to freemasony because the article goes in two ways
in the worship master and also in the shriner case.
(13:20):
But I said, okay, if you're the worship master, then
you have to inspire people. You can make demands and
you can be angry about something and say this has
to be done. Because I have the authority and the
power at the same moment to ask for things. You
can go through that to that script. It's an old
(13:40):
manuscript to work, and I will not criticize it. It's
a way of doing things in my work in some cases,
but I believe you can create a stronger reader in
someone if you inspire this person, because you inspire them
to be better and to become leaders in their own ways,
(14:03):
in their own nature, in their own context.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You've been a past master twice of a lodge. I've
been a past master once for a lodge. But the
cool thing is is when you move out of that role.
I think part of the transformational leadership, the validation that
you get is when you see the impact and the
influence as you're talking about on the wardens and the
next guy that comes in, and then it's not just
can it be the next one or two guys, but
(14:51):
five years down the road, are they still embracing the
ideas and the vision that you had? And that's how
you can tell. That's your measuring stick right there.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
As a leader, I did a measuring stick about having
a a sort of methodology to study and to write
and to present your study work in large. I don't
know if I was a good or a bad worship master.
(15:23):
When I see myself back then, I always i'm very
I got to do it twice. I think that the
first one was a lot better than the second one.
The second one we we will not. We did not
have a harmony with the lodge. You know, we were
we had a different point of view about the outcome
that the lodge should have back then, but I had
(15:48):
to it had to be done because we had a
problem of successory. I think it's all you call it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
You had a progressive line and guys were moving along
and it was part of the thing that you talk
about in your paper where freemasonry has to be different
than what we see in the profaner in our professional world,
where a lot of leadership there is like your boss,
your manager. It's a transactional or authorient, dative style, and
you want something that's more. It's not imposing, but it's
(16:19):
inspiring and that's what makes what we do in the
lodge different.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That's the case even it has I believe it has
to be inspiring, even if you don't agree with the
guy that is sitting in the chair, because sometimes it
inspire you to do things differently, and just by understanding
that then you're moving on. That inspiration is not always
through harmony. I'm very I'm very close to the Hegel
(16:46):
pieces when it comes to that. So I believe that
sometimes you have friction, sometimes you have different point of views,
but that is also inspiring because it helps you to
understand how to go through conflict, which is one of
the main ideas also of this paper. Because that leader,
if you see it beyond the paper, is someone that
(17:10):
is solving things. Is solving things on the outside through
the outside world, in the everyday life through a shriner example,
and it's solving things in the inside of the lodge
through the worship master example. So it's someone that is
making decisions. I believe a transformational leader it's like a
(17:33):
great jazz player, like a Chet Baker or a Charlie
Bird or a Miles Davies, because it's someone that is
in the flow all the time. It's flowing, it's making decisions.
Sometimes it seems like he hit the wrong note, but
the next note that he hit is going to be
(17:53):
the most important thing. But it's going to create a melody.
It's such a unique melody that will inspire other people
to listen to jazz, to play jazz, or to play
a different instrument.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
The article is called transformational leadership in contemporary Freemasonry. If
you didn't get a chance to see it in the
Square magazine, don't worry and the notes for this episode,
which you'll find in the description of the episode Boom.
There's a link to get it Right now at the
Square Magazine, we're talking with the author worshipvil Brother Jorge
Manuel Melina Aguilar. This is what I love about freemasonry
(18:25):
is like, we have some really really smart brothers yourself included,
that can take this college level or classroom learning and
bring it into a large space. And it's not like,
Okay told me this, look I'm stupid. Like you're explaining
it to me as like, ah, this is making sense.
You're connecting with examples, this is the kind of stuff
we talk about, making good men better. This, this moment
(18:47):
right here is what it's all about. Another, You're very welcome.
You're doing a great job. Another example in your article
that I was struck by was you talk about the
educator Pollo Priori Fredy, thank you again for the help
on the names, and you called the ideal master a sewer,
(19:10):
not a supervisor. And I started thinking about that because
one of my first rules in leadership is that a
leader delegates, a leader listens, but mainly a leader knows
how to delegate. And it was kind of reaffirmed because
you said that a master sewer, not a supervisor who
quote a company is like a sewer one who with
(19:31):
initiary patients casts just words and fertile silences. Beautiful metaphor.
What did you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, I think the worship of master as an educator,
it's someone that creates possibilities. So these possibilities become probabilities.
But you create an atmosphere where others can blow and grow.
You do not supervise them. You're not because if you're
(20:01):
supervising them, then probably you're just projecting what you want
from you in them, which is not I'm not saying
it's bad, but my thesis when it comes to that
paper is that you just put seeds of probabilities in
some and you also respects the seeds that comes with him,
because a person doesn't come empty when he joins the craft.
(20:26):
This person has is a culture, it has a history,
it's a social subject as a social individual. So you
just it's like you converge these seeds and you help
to create an atmosphere where they can actually grow without
being condemned, without being cut when they are different. This paper,
(20:53):
if you have a chance, it's part of three other
papers that are actually in the same magazine, and in
the other paper that follows this one, it's called Pedagogy
of Freemasonry, and that precisely is where I explained that
I try to expand more. Pedagogy is not a way
(21:13):
of doing things, you know, It's not a technique. It's more.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A reflection.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
It's a political, historical and philosophical reflection of education. How
are being are we being educated, and how we want
to educate others. So this was mostly a reflection that
you're not the supervisor who is just seeing when is
the sea going to be growing into a big plant?
(21:44):
And this plant has to be the color that I want,
and it has to have flowers, but it must have fruits.
Someone is going to be different. I learned through through
my profession that all some plants grow in the shadow.
Other plants grow in the sun. Other glow in the water,
(22:04):
other glows and you know in land, and they have
different weathers where they can grow, and they are so
peculiar that even if you change a plant from one
place to another, it might get depressed. There is a
record for that. Because I told you most of my
(22:24):
work is based on music. And this record is called
plantation from off Garsen, which is also to understanding. But
we argue that, I mean, we glow and we grow
in different areas, but most of our talents they grow
and they glow in different places. Not everybody glows in
(22:45):
the suns, glows in the shadow. So did the master
must respect that? But before it respects that, master must
have a competence to understand and to understand the need
to observe. You need to listen and you need to
pay attention.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And the other thing too is you can easily take
what we say master. So we're talking about the worship
master of the lodge, the leader of the lodge, but
we can also just take that to the individual and say, well,
you have to be a master of yourself too. So
these are all principles that you can put into place
on an individual level. Just don't always be looking up
to the worshipful Master. Let's take some of these theories
(23:46):
that you have from lodge and put them into work
with the profane world. And one of the examples you
give in your article now here is a two time
past master. He's a member of two different lodges, he's
a royal art companion and you talk a lot about
your case study is the Shriners. You've mentioned the Shrine
and El Salvador even in this podcast episode. For our
(24:07):
listeners like myself who might be unfamiliar with the shrine
in El Salvador, what is the mission there with the
work that you do with the League of Prevention.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
My brothers, some close friends, they are Shriners. I do
like their work. They work with children who have like
serious burn injuries and think bringing mostly to galbuston teaching
because it's teaching hospital as I remember my mate one
Carlos of Ai, who is in the in the pictures,
(24:35):
well when when when he started about the Shriners, I
call him the Mandalorian and he say why, Actually, you
take a kid from a point A to a point B,
and between those two points it's a lot of problems
and a difficult context. So you take this kid to
point A to point B to make him better, to
(24:57):
help him through his life. So that was very inspiring
to see.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's also warms my heart to the Shrine. I always
talk about the Shrine or the clowns of Freemasonry, but
they do so much beyond the little you know here
in North America. The guys adjudged the little cars in
the parade or performance circuses. That is a part of
what they do, like to being troy into other people's lives,
but the work that they do for kids around the world,
(25:24):
and to have that reputation and for them to be
Masons and to be doing that and people don't even know.
I love those guys. So it made me smile so much.
And You're like, oh, you know the shrine with the
burn and I'm like, yes, but to know that that
from Al Salvador, we're helping kids here at in the
Houston hospital in the Houston area. That's amazing. So and
it was really and I got to that point in
(25:46):
the article, I was like, Okay, he's showing this is
putting theory into action. You're showing how the work gets done.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah. I think it's very important that we we we
create an atmosphere's work, the work of our brothers.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It has become more visualized.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It's seen through through the eyes of everyday life. That
that nickname the Mandalorian was very synthitized about that, that
idea is. I was thinking, Okay, what do you guys do?
I was actually I was there is this I always
have as an an academic, I always have this many
(26:28):
ideas about to create assemblages different papers, and one of
the papers that this paper is well be a part
of it. It's to understand how institutions such as Shriners
have reshaped the national health systems in each com because
(26:48):
you know, every time you have an institution such as
as Shriners, such as bigger Shriners. Every time you have
institutions like that, they if you study in history, they
re shape the way that we understand charity, the way
that we understand to assist someone because it even they
(27:09):
have been changing, you know. And that's something that I
caught in the article because that institution changes not to
assist the kids, but also to create a campaign when
they try to you know, educate the salvatory and population
so this doesn't happen, so a kid doesn't get a
second reach or third degree injuries. So that reshapes. That
(27:31):
is a paradigament, that is a different context, and that
is history. That is a milestone when the national system,
a medical attention system or psychological extension system changes the
way that it sees the assistem of the person, and
that has been changing three years, and especially when it's
in it's internalized international, it's it's because you bring stuff
(27:59):
that might have work in different countries. So that also
reshapes your cultural health system and your national health system,
and we have to record that, I mean in a
historic way.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
One of my favorite expressions that I picked up at
the start of the new year here in twenty twenty
six was change begins with you, the changes inside of you.
It's got to start with you. We talk about that
little circle, that point within a circle, and how it
grows so the individual all the way out to the lodge,
to the community, to the world. And your paper talks
(28:31):
about this, you get into you talk about in an
era that has institutional disillusisment that your article feels like
it's almost a call to action. So you come up
with this term leading with light, and I'm just curious,
you know, what does that mean to you now in
twenty twenty six, where where our world is and how
(28:51):
it's changing day by day and it becomes even more
madder and crazier.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Leading with light is leading with coherence. I mean leading
with your your own example. If your own example is
not enough, then words might not be good enough. You
need to lead with your example. Sometimes leaders they don't
have to speak, I mean, you just see them and
that inspires you. And I think we can achieve that
(29:17):
through freemason.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
As I mentioned in the beginning, I feel like, brother Jorge,
you're hitting something that it caught my eye. And that's
why I wanted to have you on the podcast because
I feel like we don't talk about leadership enough as
a core benefit of being a Freemason, and honestly we should.
We should be talking about how we're preparing future leaders,
just not only in their own individual lives, but of organizations,
(29:40):
of companies, of countries. At some point. What are some
books or resources or videos or speakers or who do
you draw inspiration from and what do you look for
as a good example of a leader.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I like artists, you know, when it comes to non
academic work. Very inspired by the artists as leaders. For example,
the jazz players that I taught, I think they become
leaders in their own way because they reshape generations through
(30:14):
their art. They project something and sometimes with a language
that is not words, the music language they improvise. They
flow with in this improvisation atmosphere. And I think that
becomes inspirational. I read very boring authors, for example, Mikhael Bactin,
(30:37):
who talks about you know, the world being chaotic and
not thinking that the world is this order that we
see in through media, and it's a very very old author.
I think that we're going through a post structuralism paradigm
at this moment, and I think we have a lot
to read from Spinoza and Hegel as well to understand
(31:01):
how things get this. In main, this reaver through different purposes.
Most of the authors are boring. I mean, I don't
encourage people to go on reading if they don't have to,
because they are actually boring. But I get very very
inspired about art, very very inspired because they don't become
these political leaders or the historical leaders, but they become
(31:25):
leaders in their own community and they change generations. I mean,
you have generations that like swing, you like generations that
like jazz, you have bitnis. You have all these leaders
that we shape the way we understand life. And I
think that's a great example. I follow it through art
(31:47):
and I try to translate it in an academic language.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The article that we're talking about is transformational leadership in
contemporary Freemasonry. As you mentioned, it's one of a couple
articles that is in the edition of the Square Magazine.
I love our friend, Worshipful Nicholas Broadway, but I gotta say,
Brother Jorge, the next time you have an article, let
me know. We'll get you back here on the podcast. Okay,
(32:10):
until then, Worshipel Brother Jorge Manuel Molina Aguilar, thank you
so much for your time and being on the Craftsman
Online podcast.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Thank you, thank you so much, and greeting so all
the brothers there.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Thanks again to my guest this week, Worshipful Brother Jorge Aguilar.
You can read his article in the Square Magazine, Transformati
Leadership in Contemporary Freemasonry by opening the description for this
episode and now right there in the notes boom the link. Yes,
check it out, you're gonna dig it. I'm write, Worshipful
Brother Michael Ars. I'm always looking forward to our time together,
(32:43):
and next week we'll be traveling to the Land of
ten Thousand Lakes when it comes to freemasonry. As worshipful
Brother read endersby joins us from the Minnesota Masonic History
and Mysteries Podcast. Until then, let peace and harmony prevail.
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Launch, Concordant Body, a Pendant Body,
a Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, right worship for Brother Michael Lars. No,
I'm not sick. They're just called allergies, and I love
when they flare up. Got a cool episode this week
that's going to take us to El Salvador. But before
we jump into that, and oh my gosh, when I'm
looking at our guest background and I can see palm
(00:51):
trees and the playa the beach behind us, I wish
i'd listen there first. One, I give some love to
our friends on Patreon who can continue to support the
show every month. That five dollars that gets you add
free episodes and access to our full back catalog of
subscriber extra content, gets the software to connect with our
guests across the miles. The bonus time to speak with
(01:13):
some of these guests, and of course helps connect those
who have an interest in freemasonry with our ancient and
gentle craft, we're happy to get you started with the
free seven day trial to see if it's a good fit.
You can visit us on Patreon at Craftsman Online or
click on the link for your seven day trial in
the notes for this episode, Okay, just a quick heads up. Well,
I am dealing with those wonderful seasonal allergies. You'll notice
(01:36):
there's a difference in the audio with our guests. We
had some issues when it came to the internet connection
in El Salvador, but that doesn't prevent us from welcoming
Worshipful Brother Jorge Manuel Molina Aguilar, a first timer on
the Craftsman Online podcast. Welcome brother Jorge, Hi, thank you,
thank you very much for your words. I want to
(01:57):
talk a little bit about you, of course, the article
a Freemason, just your thoughts on things. So let's get
started first with the U part. Your bio, Your background
very fascinating. He's a PhD candidate in social sciences, a psychologist,
two time worshipful Master of his lodge, and also a
royal art companion. How did you get into freemasonry and
(02:20):
how are you able to do all the other things
in life while still being a freemason.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Well, my father was a freemason, so when I was
a teenager, I remember seeing the prune and many things
in the house, and sometimes the brothers of his time
they used to come to the house. So I remember
something about freemasonry back when I was in high school probably,
(02:47):
and then we were in he was a graduation day
from a relative, an uncle, who is also a freemason,
and my father, my uncle and me, we were speaking
at the graduation and they were talking about freemasonry, about
how the Lodge was developing, and the Grand Lodge, and
(03:09):
many subjects about freemasonry. And I asked them, you know,
how do I become a member? And he said, well,
you have to be graduated first, I mean, finish your
your university and then afterwards you just you come and
talk to your uncle or me or someone else. Like
(03:29):
a year after he started speaking to me about the
work that he's done that to study and to understand
meanings in life. You know, we had not very much
conversation about freemasonry. So then I started to read, and
(03:50):
not from internet, mostly from my father's books, you know,
because he had a few books about freemasonry, and I
I think I had other relatives who were into freemasonry,
because now after sixteen years of being in the Order,
I can still remember a few things about relatives that
(04:13):
you know they are linked to freemasonry. But I never
asked back then.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Could you help me out? I know it's a Praternidad
lodge number six, but I am going to mess up
your grand lunch so bad. How do you say your
grand lodge?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Oh, my grand lodge is Grand Lohier, Coscotland.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
There's no way I would get that right.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Oh, it's you have better try, You better try. It's
Coscutland Grand Lodge, Coustlakan Grand Lodge in the Orient of
El Salvador, Ohlstavador. Yes, what is freemasonry like in El Salvador?
And I guess a fairer question would be have you
visited lodges in North America and have you noticed any
difference between freemasonry. I have visited in British Columbia in Vancouver,
(04:59):
I have visited Toronto as well. I have visited in
Panama and most it's very different. I remember in in
Vancouver it was the first time I wasn't familiarized with
the ritual. It's a it's a proper ritual from the
British Columbia work the way they do things. But they
(05:21):
were very kind and they were very very fraternal with me.
They were great, but it was completely different. We we
study a lot, We have like many discussions during the
lote of subjects each week. I mean, we work each week.
Sometimes we go to two to three times to lodge
(05:43):
per week. Wow, I'm also a grand officer. It is
a lot of work. I mean, first, you have to
be very organized. Not all the time you get everything right.
I have, I have forgot compromises sometimes in the past.
And then I something that Freemasony did is that it
(06:04):
helped me to get more organized in my life, to
prioritize to I mean sometimes to work in small amounts
I mean, but to never stop working. I mean we
at least in the lodges that I go, there are two.
I belong to two lodges at the moment. Fraternida number
six and we learn most number twenty two, which is
(06:28):
how do you how do you translate this Scottish rectified ritual? Yeah,
rectify Scottish. Yeah. So I work the two lodges and
you have to read a lot. At least I like
to read a lot. I enjoy reading a lot, but
each week you have different subjects. At the moment, we
(06:52):
publish a book that I author about how to organize
all these content incompetencies so enter apprenticeships and senior wardens
can organize their work in a more pedagogically and didactic way.
I think I said it right, dude, You're doing great.
That's the biggest challenge. I mean, to get organized and
(07:15):
to never stop studying, and to find meaning in what
you're studying, and to understand what is it for you know,
and to see it in your everyday life.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, one of the things that struck me with your
article and I did want to get into that, but
I also like just learning about how freemasonry is practiced
around the world. And I'm sure our listener is kind
of digging this as well. But one of the lines
that really got me is a theme you touched on
was that freemasonry is not merely ritual. It is leadership
by light. And I feel like when we talk about
(07:46):
freemasonry and all the benefits of being a brother and
a Mason, we don't really talk about leadership that much.
So how did that start to become something that you
focused on that drove you to write this very important paper.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
As a psychologist and as a social scientist, I am
very much interested in study the human phenomena and the
human phenomena link it to the non human phenomenon. I mean, like,
for example, the link between nature and humans and humans
and animals. But when it comes to the human phenomena,
(08:22):
leadership is it's a subject. I mean, even if someone
does not consider himself as a leader, in some ways,
he is a leader in some part of your life.
You develop leadership, not one leadership, but many leaderships through
your life, and even in your mind. I mean you
have an idea, plenty of ideas, for example your podcast.
(08:46):
You have plenty of ideas, and then you get a leadership,
an internal leadership, which is an assemblage, not a product,
but an assemblage of many, many ways that you have
understand differentlyleaders who have inspired you through your life. Some
of them you know you knew in person, some of
(09:06):
them you know at the moment, and some of them
you never knew, but they did inspire you through different forms,
sometimes a book, sometimes a movie, sometimes a myth a legends,
for example, we have different legends in the order, you know,
that inspire us through leadership. And I have been very
(09:32):
my work as an academic has been very much structuring
understanding that human phenomena that arises in everyday life. And
I was thinking a few years back about what is
the type of leader that we want, the type of
(09:52):
leader that we have, and the type of leader that
we need in different times, because it's not it's not
the same thing, you know, it changes through through context, societies,
through times. So when I was thinking about that, I
was following a friend. We and I went to this
(10:17):
event that he had. He was the president of the
Shriners here in Alsabad or so. He said, you know,
I have an event. Come with me and join me
at the event. And I said, all right, I go
with you. He's a brother and a very close friend,
one Carlos, and I went with him. And when when
we got into the event, before the before the cameras
(10:41):
and everything, and in the hospital, he was by his
own putting all the all the chairs and creating the
you know, the atmosphere for the event, being the president
of of the shrine on his own. And then the
cameras came, and then people came, and then he he
did you know, all the speeches and and and all
(11:03):
the talking about the event and to help the children.
And I was very inspired by that because it's it
was a combination of leaderships that arise at in that
precise moment. And I said, it is good that we
have a discussion or at least a thought about what
(11:23):
is the type of leader that we want, the type
of leader that we need, and the type of leader
that we have, and to study the leaderships that have
been going through the order in different times. So I
wanted to make this paper as a like like a milestone,
(11:43):
like a stepping stone to think about leadership.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
One of the things that caught my eye besides you know,
the paper, was the title. The title jumped out to
me and I saw transformational leadership. And in my professional life,
I see that word used a lot when it comes
to innovation and technology and improving how an organization runs.
And I was like, wow, that is crazy to think
about that in a Masonic context. So what does transformational
(12:11):
leadership mean to you when it comes to being a Freemason.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
It is a type of leadership that transform the leader
and the people around him. No, it doesn't transform the
people by having the purpose of transforming them into something
that the leader wants. It's more of a reaver that
(12:37):
the leader has, not an echo, but a reaver because
it changes with the people who are around him. For example,
transformational leadership, it's about inspiring someone. It's about creating that
atmosphere where you feel inspired to be the best you
(12:58):
can be in that precise moment. And I think that
is a good way of leadership. I think it's a
proper way of leadership in some cases. Some cases might
be different. But in the case of leadership when it
comes to freemasony because the article goes in two ways
in the worship master and also in the shriner case.
(13:20):
But I said, okay, if you're the worship master, then
you have to inspire people. You can make demands and
you can be angry about something and say this has
to be done. Because I have the authority and the
power at the same moment to ask for things. You
can go through that to that script. It's an old
(13:40):
manuscript to work, and I will not criticize it. It's
a way of doing things in my work in some cases,
but I believe you can create a stronger reader in
someone if you inspire this person, because you inspire them
to be better and to become leaders in their own ways,
(14:03):
in their own nature, in their own context.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You've been a past master twice of a lodge. I've
been a past master once for a lodge. But the
cool thing is is when you move out of that role.
I think part of the transformational leadership, the validation that
you get is when you see the impact and the
influence as you're talking about on the wardens and the
next guy that comes in, and then it's not just
can it be the next one or two guys, but
(14:51):
five years down the road, are they still embracing the
ideas and the vision that you had? And that's how
you can tell. That's your measuring stick right there.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
As a leader, I did a measuring stick about having
a a sort of methodology to study and to write
and to present your study work in large. I don't
know if I was a good or a bad worship master.
(15:23):
When I see myself back then, I always i'm very
I got to do it twice. I think that the
first one was a lot better than the second one.
The second one we we will not. We did not
have a harmony with the lodge. You know, we were
we had a different point of view about the outcome
that the lodge should have back then, but I had
(15:48):
to it had to be done because we had a
problem of successory. I think it's all you call it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
You had a progressive line and guys were moving along
and it was part of the thing that you talk
about in your paper where freemasonry has to be different
than what we see in the profaner in our professional world,
where a lot of leadership there is like your boss,
your manager. It's a transactional or authorient, dative style, and
you want something that's more. It's not imposing, but it's
(16:19):
inspiring and that's what makes what we do in the
lodge different.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That's the case even it has I believe it has
to be inspiring, even if you don't agree with the
guy that is sitting in the chair, because sometimes it
inspire you to do things differently, and just by understanding
that then you're moving on. That inspiration is not always
through harmony. I'm very I'm very close to the Hegel
(16:46):
pieces when it comes to that. So I believe that
sometimes you have friction, sometimes you have different point of views,
but that is also inspiring because it helps you to
understand how to go through conflict, which is one of
the main ideas also of this paper. Because that leader,
if you see it beyond the paper, is someone that
(17:10):
is solving things. Is solving things on the outside through
the outside world, in the everyday life through a shriner example,
and it's solving things in the inside of the lodge
through the worship master example. So it's someone that is
making decisions. I believe a transformational leader it's like a
(17:33):
great jazz player, like a Chet Baker or a Charlie
Bird or a Miles Davies, because it's someone that is
in the flow all the time. It's flowing, it's making decisions.
Sometimes it seems like he hit the wrong note, but
the next note that he hit is going to be
(17:53):
the most important thing. But it's going to create a melody.
It's such a unique melody that will inspire other people
to listen to jazz, to play jazz, or to play
a different instrument.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
The article is called transformational leadership in contemporary Freemasonry. If
you didn't get a chance to see it in the
Square magazine, don't worry and the notes for this episode,
which you'll find in the description of the episode Boom.
There's a link to get it Right now at the
Square Magazine, we're talking with the author worshipvil Brother Jorge
Manuel Melina Aguilar. This is what I love about freemasonry
(18:25):
is like, we have some really really smart brothers yourself included,
that can take this college level or classroom learning and
bring it into a large space. And it's not like,
Okay told me this, look I'm stupid. Like you're explaining
it to me as like, ah, this is making sense.
You're connecting with examples, this is the kind of stuff
we talk about, making good men better. This, this moment
(18:47):
right here is what it's all about. Another, You're very welcome.
You're doing a great job. Another example in your article
that I was struck by was you talk about the
educator Pollo Priori Fredy, thank you again for the help
on the names, and you called the ideal master a sewer,
(19:10):
not a supervisor. And I started thinking about that because
one of my first rules in leadership is that a
leader delegates, a leader listens, but mainly a leader knows
how to delegate. And it was kind of reaffirmed because
you said that a master sewer, not a supervisor who
quote a company is like a sewer one who with
(19:31):
initiary patients casts just words and fertile silences. Beautiful metaphor.
What did you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, I think the worship of master as an educator,
it's someone that creates possibilities. So these possibilities become probabilities.
But you create an atmosphere where others can blow and grow.
You do not supervise them. You're not because if you're
(20:01):
supervising them, then probably you're just projecting what you want
from you in them, which is not I'm not saying
it's bad, but my thesis when it comes to that
paper is that you just put seeds of probabilities in
some and you also respects the seeds that comes with him,
because a person doesn't come empty when he joins the craft.
(20:26):
This person has is a culture, it has a history,
it's a social subject as a social individual. So you
just it's like you converge these seeds and you help
to create an atmosphere where they can actually grow without
being condemned, without being cut when they are different. This paper,
(20:53):
if you have a chance, it's part of three other
papers that are actually in the same magazine, and in
the other paper that follows this one, it's called Pedagogy
of Freemasonry, and that precisely is where I explained that
I try to expand more. Pedagogy is not a way
(21:13):
of doing things, you know, It's not a technique. It's more.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A reflection.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
It's a political, historical and philosophical reflection of education. How
are being are we being educated, and how we want
to educate others. So this was mostly a reflection that
you're not the supervisor who is just seeing when is
the sea going to be growing into a big plant?
(21:44):
And this plant has to be the color that I want,
and it has to have flowers, but it must have fruits.
Someone is going to be different. I learned through through
my profession that all some plants grow in the shadow.
Other plants grow in the sun. Other glow in the water,
(22:04):
other glows and you know in land, and they have
different weathers where they can grow, and they are so
peculiar that even if you change a plant from one
place to another, it might get depressed. There is a
record for that. Because I told you most of my
(22:24):
work is based on music. And this record is called
plantation from off Garsen, which is also to understanding. But
we argue that, I mean, we glow and we grow
in different areas, but most of our talents they grow
and they glow in different places. Not everybody glows in
(22:45):
the suns, glows in the shadow. So did the master
must respect that? But before it respects that, master must
have a competence to understand and to understand the need
to observe. You need to listen and you need to
pay attention.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And the other thing too is you can easily take
what we say master. So we're talking about the worship
master of the lodge, the leader of the lodge, but
we can also just take that to the individual and say, well,
you have to be a master of yourself too. So
these are all principles that you can put into place
on an individual level. Just don't always be looking up
to the worshipful Master. Let's take some of these theories
(23:46):
that you have from lodge and put them into work
with the profane world. And one of the examples you
give in your article now here is a two time
past master. He's a member of two different lodges, he's
a royal art companion and you talk a lot about
your case study is the Shriners. You've mentioned the Shrine
and El Salvador even in this podcast episode. For our
(24:07):
listeners like myself who might be unfamiliar with the shrine
in El Salvador, what is the mission there with the
work that you do with the League of Prevention.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
My brothers, some close friends, they are Shriners. I do
like their work. They work with children who have like
serious burn injuries and think bringing mostly to galbuston teaching
because it's teaching hospital as I remember my mate one
Carlos of Ai, who is in the in the pictures,
(24:35):
well when when when he started about the Shriners, I
call him the Mandalorian and he say why, Actually, you
take a kid from a point A to a point B,
and between those two points it's a lot of problems
and a difficult context. So you take this kid to
point A to point B to make him better, to
(24:57):
help him through his life. So that was very inspiring
to see.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's also warms my heart to the Shrine. I always
talk about the Shrine or the clowns of Freemasonry, but
they do so much beyond the little you know here
in North America. The guys adjudged the little cars in
the parade or performance circuses. That is a part of
what they do, like to being troy into other people's lives,
but the work that they do for kids around the world,
(25:24):
and to have that reputation and for them to be
Masons and to be doing that and people don't even know.
I love those guys. So it made me smile so much.
And You're like, oh, you know the shrine with the
burn and I'm like, yes, but to know that that
from Al Salvador, we're helping kids here at in the
Houston hospital in the Houston area. That's amazing. So and
it was really and I got to that point in
(25:46):
the article, I was like, Okay, he's showing this is
putting theory into action. You're showing how the work gets done.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah. I think it's very important that we we we
create an atmosphere's work, the work of our brothers.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It has become more visualized.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It's seen through through the eyes of everyday life. That
that nickname the Mandalorian was very synthitized about that, that
idea is. I was thinking, Okay, what do you guys do?
I was actually I was there is this I always
have as an an academic, I always have this many
(26:28):
ideas about to create assemblages different papers, and one of
the papers that this paper is well be a part
of it. It's to understand how institutions such as Shriners
have reshaped the national health systems in each com because
(26:48):
you know, every time you have an institution such as
as Shriners, such as bigger Shriners. Every time you have
institutions like that, they if you study in history, they
re shape the way that we understand charity, the way
that we understand to assist someone because it even they
(27:09):
have been changing, you know. And that's something that I
caught in the article because that institution changes not to
assist the kids, but also to create a campaign when
they try to you know, educate the salvatory and population
so this doesn't happen, so a kid doesn't get a
second reach or third degree injuries. So that reshapes. That
(27:31):
is a paradigament, that is a different context, and that
is history. That is a milestone when the national system,
a medical attention system or psychological extension system changes the
way that it sees the assistem of the person, and
that has been changing three years, and especially when it's
in it's internalized international, it's it's because you bring stuff
(27:59):
that might have work in different countries. So that also
reshapes your cultural health system and your national health system,
and we have to record that, I mean in a
historic way.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
One of my favorite expressions that I picked up at
the start of the new year here in twenty twenty
six was change begins with you, the changes inside of you.
It's got to start with you. We talk about that
little circle, that point within a circle, and how it
grows so the individual all the way out to the lodge,
to the community, to the world. And your paper talks
(28:31):
about this, you get into you talk about in an
era that has institutional disillusisment that your article feels like
it's almost a call to action. So you come up
with this term leading with light, and I'm just curious,
you know, what does that mean to you now in
twenty twenty six, where where our world is and how
(28:51):
it's changing day by day and it becomes even more
madder and crazier.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Leading with light is leading with coherence. I mean leading
with your your own example. If your own example is
not enough, then words might not be good enough. You
need to lead with your example. Sometimes leaders they don't
have to speak, I mean, you just see them and
that inspires you. And I think we can achieve that
(29:17):
through freemason.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
As I mentioned in the beginning, I feel like, brother Jorge,
you're hitting something that it caught my eye. And that's
why I wanted to have you on the podcast because
I feel like we don't talk about leadership enough as
a core benefit of being a Freemason, and honestly we should.
We should be talking about how we're preparing future leaders,
just not only in their own individual lives, but of organizations,
(29:40):
of companies, of countries. At some point. What are some
books or resources or videos or speakers or who do
you draw inspiration from and what do you look for
as a good example of a leader.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I like artists, you know, when it comes to non
academic work. Very inspired by the artists as leaders. For example,
the jazz players that I taught, I think they become
leaders in their own way because they reshape generations through
(30:14):
their art. They project something and sometimes with a language
that is not words, the music language they improvise. They
flow with in this improvisation atmosphere. And I think that
becomes inspirational. I read very boring authors, for example, Mikhael Bactin,
(30:37):
who talks about you know, the world being chaotic and
not thinking that the world is this order that we
see in through media, and it's a very very old author.
I think that we're going through a post structuralism paradigm
at this moment, and I think we have a lot
to read from Spinoza and Hegel as well to understand
(31:01):
how things get this. In main, this reaver through different purposes.
Most of the authors are boring. I mean, I don't
encourage people to go on reading if they don't have to,
because they are actually boring. But I get very very
inspired about art, very very inspired because they don't become
these political leaders or the historical leaders, but they become
(31:25):
leaders in their own community and they change generations. I mean,
you have generations that like swing, you like generations that
like jazz, you have bitnis. You have all these leaders
that we shape the way we understand life. And I
think that's a great example. I follow it through art
(31:47):
and I try to translate it in an academic language.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The article that we're talking about is transformational leadership in
contemporary Freemasonry. As you mentioned, it's one of a couple
articles that is in the edition of the Square Magazine.
I love our friend, Worshipful Nicholas Broadway, but I gotta say,
Brother Jorge, the next time you have an article, let
me know. We'll get you back here on the podcast. Okay,
(32:10):
until then, Worshipel Brother Jorge Manuel Molina Aguilar, thank you
so much for your time and being on the Craftsman
Online podcast.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Thank you, thank you so much, and greeting so all
the brothers there.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Thanks again to my guest this week, Worshipful Brother Jorge Aguilar.
You can read his article in the Square Magazine, Transformati
Leadership in Contemporary Freemasonry by opening the description for this
episode and now right there in the notes boom the link. Yes,
check it out, you're gonna dig it. I'm write, Worshipful
Brother Michael Ars. I'm always looking forward to our time together,
(32:43):
and next week we'll be traveling to the Land of
ten Thousand Lakes when it comes to freemasonry. As worshipful
Brother read endersby joins us from the Minnesota Masonic History
and Mysteries Podcast. Until then, let peace and harmony prevail.
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