February 23, 2026 • 30 mins
Have you ever visited a Lodge in another state and noticed small, yet distinct, differences in the ritual? Or wondered why, despite these differences, the core ceremony feels so familiar from coast to coast? The answer to both questions can largely be traced back to a pivotal, yet often overlooked, event: the Baltimore Convention of 1843. In this episode, we journey back in time with Masonic author, WB Nathan St. Pierre ("Harmony in the Hive"), to understand this crucial turning point in American Freemasonry. This national convention was an ambitious attempt to unify and standardize Masonic ritual across a rapidly expanding United States.
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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 Lodge, 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
Bisonic podcast still proudly endorsed by the Grand Lodge of
New York. I'm your host, White Rouschel for Brother Michael Arsa.
Before we jump into this week's episode, I want to
say thank you to Dwight Lewis, who just became our
latest five dollars member on Patreon. Hey Dwight, thank you
so much for supporting the Craftsman Online Podcast. That five
(00:50):
dollars it gets you add free episode plus access to
our entire subscriber extra catalog, which will feature some bonus
time with this week's guest. Get the link to start
your free seven day trial on Patreon. In the notes
for this episode, well as part of his introduction, we
should include he was the number one most listened to
(01:12):
Craftsman Online Podcast guests for twenty twenty five, and that
episode on Preston Webb and how they became the Father
figures for lack of a better term for American Freemasonry,
ritual has led to this moment where we travel back
in the time machine to the Baltimore Convention of eighteen
(01:32):
forty three with our friend and Masonic book author of
Harmony in the Hive, Worshipful Brother Nathan Saint Pierre.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Welcome back. I am happy to be here as always.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, here's a cool thing I showed you. This
is a picture.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
What I'm holding here is the Empire State Mason magazine.
And back in the fall of twenty twenty five, which
just seems like it was yesterday, wink wwink are freshly
established a Grand Lodge of New York Esoteric Committee selected
Da da da da.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Harmony in the Hive as one of the selected reading texts, and.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It was a great review. I really really was wonderful.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But also I want to get your book previewed on
a future Craftsman online reading room because of that same reason.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As we talk about leadership.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Normally, Nathan is here to talk to us about ritual
because he is more learned than the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
And if you've been.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Playing along, you might have had that gem stuck in
your head from your last appearance, and we talked about
the Preston Web ritual back and way back then in
season number five, you talked about this thing called the
Baltimore Convention of eighteen forty three, and you're just like
brother Michael. We'll have to talk about that in a
future episode. So for those of us who haven't spent
(02:49):
every waking minute googling it and wikipediing it and looking
it up, can you explain what this was and what
they were trying to set out and achieving in eighteen
forty three.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
The Baltimore Convention was an attempt to save Masonry in
the post Morgan affair world. Was an ambitious attempt to
standardize Masonic ritual and practice throughout the United States. It
took place over the course of about ten days or so,
(03:21):
except for Sunday, where they all went to church, you know,
and so, and they all met in Baltimore, Maryland, and
they all got into different committees and they just had
a big old nerdy time pashing out. Everybody who knew
the ritual had either quit the fraternity or died, and
so they were left with this. Okay, but but what
(03:42):
do we like, what's what do we do? What's good work?
How do we do that? And what made things even
harder was the number of expose's that had been published
because of anti Masonic fervor. So there's so between between
the death of Thomas Smith Webb and the Baltimore Convention,
(04:03):
there's like at least four that I could that I
personally have expose's that come out, you know, starting with
Hardy in eighteen nineteen. Then you've got Jeremy lad Cross,
the Morgan the book that's actually published from the Morgan Affair,
Illustrations on Masonry, which is a you know, making fun
of Preston. And then you've got Light on Masonry, which
(04:26):
is like that's like a four hundred page bookcase that
does all the appendent bodies too, so that just gives
you everything. And then Alan's Masonic Ritual was eighteen thirty one,
and so all of those are all in this little
tiny window post Morgan Affair, pre Baltimore Convention. So there's
a lot of Masonic impostors. Part of what's going on
(04:48):
is all right, since everybody knows what they think the
ritual is, let's find out what we say the ritual
is so that way we will know who's a pretender.
The idea starts in eighteen thirty nine in Alabama. They
send out an SOS to like, everybody, we need to
get together and save this, and we're gonna do that
(05:10):
in eighteen forty two, and we're gonna go to Washington, DC.
You got three years be there of e squere so
that in eighteen forty two nobody shows up. I'm kidding, no,
like a few people show up, but then they go,
we don't actually have the authority to do this. So
in eighteen forty two, those people who showed up, about
ten of them, they go, all right, everybody here, go
back and get the official delegate. Get So what they
(05:33):
called for was grand lecturers, which didn't really exist before.
Then give me your grand lecturers. We're gonna talk to them.
And then that was eighteen forty three the Baltimore Convention.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
First of all, we you and I have kind of
talked about the More Gonna Fair a little bit. I
feel like I'm living in the future because it seemed like.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, you're an expert because you just chatted with doctor Ann.
So this is why I've been planning to drop this
bomb on you for a while because I'm like, he
is an expert. I don't have to I don't have
to beat around the bush with.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
More interesting than that, though, is the idea of a convention,
because this is right about the time where kind of
the modoc the modern party system that we're used to
with nominations from the floor and delegates and how the
president was being selected was shaping and becoming different. And
(06:27):
as you pointed out, masonry does not have, at least
in North America, in the United States, does not have
a central governing body. So you mentioned a really key
thing and I want to kind of go back to
that where you said, hey, this first version with ten
guys in DC and eighteen forty two you said, or
eighteen forty they realized they didn't have quote unquote the power.
(06:50):
So how did they get the power? And how did
you get fifty juris Well, there wasn't fifty jurisdictions at
that time, but forty something ishictions at that time. Knowing
that you are still sending letters and there's no that's
the most modern form of communicator, how did they get
all these guys together.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
In eighteen forty two when those ten people were there.
That's ten out of twenty three, so it's basically half
the Grand lodges, so it's not an its significant number.
But in eighteen forty three when they did when they
went to Baltimore for the second attempt, they had they
had sixteen Grand lodges out of twenty three and more
attention and more delegates. So that was why they were like,
(07:31):
all right, this one, this one's a success. We'll go
through with the business of doing the convention rather than
punting it another year.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And the part that they were coming together to save masonry,
because this was almost twenty well twenty years so a
generation after the effects of the Morgan affair. So they're
coming together to save masonry. And the solution was, hey,
we need to canonize our ritual around one type of
ritual because we have too many different flavor going on.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We need we literally need to canonize. That's a great word.
It was the attempt to canonize Thomas Smith Webb, okay,
and make that the quote unquote law of the land.
Thomas Smith Webb died very young, and he died in
eighteen eighteen or something like that, right, and so that's
a year before Jeremy led Cross writes the Masonic chart
that's before John Barney in the and John Snow and
(08:25):
the roving ritualists are going all over doing the you know,
spreading the web work right. So there's there's also a
there's also a little bit of a I got to
do this for my friend kind of thing going on,
like because oh it was Webb and he was the
and he was so good, and he's not here anymore,
and so he can't tell us how it went, so
it's up to us to remember how Webb would have
(08:45):
done it right. Like it's it's a very Masonic like.
It's you can see I don't poo poo them. I don't.
It's just it is what you said. It's the we're canonizing.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I've begun to have more of an appreciation of the
performance of ritual in the idea that I'm lucky we
live now in the year twenty twenty six and we have,
you know, entertainment in our pocket all the time with
our cell phones. We're back in eighteen forty three you
had the theater, or you honestly had your Masonic lodge.
An opening and closing of lodge was a form of entertainment.
(09:15):
It was seeing ritual on display to some extent as
much as degrees were a greater pors city. It was
almost like going to the theater and watching a play.
If you saw somebody executing this, how confusing would that
be if you were traveling around and seeing different styles
of that play?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, I think the play thing comes later. That's very
much a that's very much a nineteenth century thing where
we're going to add the costumes, we're gonna add the sets,
and we're going to actually pretend that we're like doing
the thing instead of you know, you got to remember
in the we used to do this with three candles
and a piece of chalk, you know, like we used
to be able to play pretend. It was only you know,
(09:54):
one hundred years after that people were like, I can't pretend.
What if we really had the thing here? I need
to see it.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
What they wanted to do was get some unanimity around
like the modes of recognition obviously, but probably also around
all of the lectures and essays that were now becoming
part of the degree after it was conferred.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Lectures, charges, prayers, ceremonies such as consecration, funeral, so basically.
So at this convention they also split themselves into two committees.
So there's one committee that does work in lectures. There's
a different committee for funerals. There's a different committee for
mercenic jurisprudence. There's a separate committee for each of the
things that goes into what would come into our monitors.
(10:35):
The big push was for the lectures, right because in
the eighteen hundreds, in the early eighteen hundreds, Americans weren't
really lecturing, and then there was misunderstanding about what that meant. Okay,
because in England, lecturing simply was like you're teaching about
the subject. So like, here's a better way of saying it.
When when we open our monitors now, sometimes it'll have
(10:56):
little headings like the moral advantages of geometry, and then
there'll be a paragraph underneath of the that's there because
somebody didn't understand, like eighteenth century cut and paste. What
was happening was the masters would say, and then you,
as master of the lodge, have to lecture your guys
on the moral advantages of geometry. And so you can
(11:19):
use Preston, you can use Charles Leslie, you can use Hutchinson,
you can use like, there's all of these Masonic lectures
on the moral advantages of geometry, they're all different. What
happened was in America, nobody was doing these lectures or
knew that you were supposed to be doing it, so
are like to steal man them. Our brothers were like, Hey,
(11:40):
we have these these lectures that Thomas Smith Webb has
narrativized from Personian work. Do these right? In other words,
like if you're gonna if you're not doing anything.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Do these kind of the short talk bulletin, pinch hitter.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't think it was that that KOI, but you
can see the picture I'm sort of painting is it's
not necessarily like this was always what we taught. We
always said these words. That's not accurate.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Our listener doesn't have to like imagine very much, especially
if you're a Freemason. Just imagine, you know, ten brothers
sitting in a room and the question is, hey, what
are we having for dinner at our next meeting? Cue
the crickets, and then no one's going to agree, and
then eventually someone's going to say this is it, and
the Master's going to say we're going to have this,
and then guess what. That's what we have for dinner.
(12:51):
What were some of these debates that were taking place,
And keep in mind these guys had a ten day
timetable to figure this out. So what were the big
points of contention?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Knees Wadsworth, my man from New York, Right, this is
way you gotta be proud, okay. Ebenezer Wadsworth, he's known
for being the descent. He voted no on everything and
he was like, no, you're changing everything. Dare you change
what you're doing? Idiots? He's the one guy who votes
to know everythake. They're all going, oh yeah, we all agree,
(13:20):
and Eberdezer Wadsworth is like, you're changing the ritual and
I can't abide it. By day two he quits that
committee and goes and joins a different one. The do
guards we were fixed, so the the second and third
degree d guards were changed to conform with the first
degree du guard. I could explain more to you, but
(13:40):
we're in a podcast. They flipped the jewels.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Wait wait, wait, wait, so you're telling me that picture
of George Washington standing there with the gavel and the
bust and what looks to be the Master's call odor
and jewel. Well, that was photoshop.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Every image of Washington in Masonic regalia other than the
Williams portrait is a fabrication. But at the George Washington
Masonic Memorial there is the only portrait of Washington and
Masonic regalia for which he actually posed. So he put
all this stuff on and then it's got painted. That's
really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I have asked this question so many times, and I'm
sure it's what kind of peaud Your interest into all
of this was like, well, hey, what if I traveled
back in time, Like how much of the ritual and
masonry would I be familiar with?
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Oh? Not a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I mean, all I have to do is go back
to eighteen forty and I'd walk into a lodge and
and be like, hey, the master doesn't have his jewel on,
Like we can't even open the meeting with us.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh no, it's not that's not what I mean. I
mean they changed so from the immovable jewels being the
Ashler's like an actual giant rock that you can't move
because it's a giant rock, and instead we're going to
have it be this tiny thing that clearly can move.
I mean, like we renamed those jewels to be immovable
or movable.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
They made something makes sense. Then wow, that's a.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Full they made make the opposite of sense.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Oh, then that also makes sense because that's Freemason.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, totally, totally. It has to make the opposite of sense.
And it still confuses are UK Brethren because they never
flipped it. So the square, the level, and the plum
are the movable jewels over there, and the rough Aschler,
perfect bachelar and trustle board are the immovable I mean,
pardon me, are the yeah are the immovable jewels? See
(15:21):
even me, I'm making myself go cross. That they had
debate over what degree we should do business on because
prior to this meeting, business was always done on the
EA degree, and you would call up to do things
at the Baltimore Convention, they especially with the push of Missouri,
it was like, nope, master Mason's only so any jurisdictions
that still do business only on the Master Mason degree.
(15:42):
It's it's because of this, it's it comes directly from
the Baltimore Convention. Another thing they changed was the blazing star.
The explanation of that symbol in the early eighteen hundred's,
especially Jeremy lad Cross. They really really were tying the
blazing Star to the Star of Bethlehem. It was supposed
(16:02):
to be heralding the birth of the Savior, so that
symbol got associated with Bethlehem. But when you read the
Finch lectures and stuff from England, that's not part of
that symbol. So this was kind of like a move back.
Was intended originally to be the Glory, like it's a
divine glory rather than an actual celestial body. They tried
(16:25):
to create the Grand Lodge of the United States. So
this was actually the answer to your question that you
had earlier, which was like who gives them the who
gives them the authority? Well, they tried. If you know
anything about American history at that time, you know states rights,
and that wasn't really ever going to fly, and so
that ultimately did fail. But what they decided to do was,
let's do this again every three years. The next year
like eight people showed up, the year after that like six,
(16:47):
And basically it was because the Grand Lodges were like, no,
we're not interested.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
In your opinion. Did for what it was trying to
accomplish or what it was set out to do in
eighteen forty three. Do you say six not a success?
How do you write it? They morphed it. It still
exists now it's called the North American Conference of Grand Masters.
All the grand Masters get together, and that is a
direct descendant of the Baltimore Convention.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Is it a success? See? This is hard, all right,
because the Baltimore Convention, to me, is the birth of bureaucracy.
This is all of the bloat, the blob, everything that
stinks about twenty twenty five. Freemasonry was born in Baltimore.
DU's cards and dropped for non payment and how to
(17:35):
just be a Freemason in the right way. And then
we're all going to go home, and because we couldn't
agree altogether, I'm going to go home and be a
tyrant back home. Historically, masonry was a lodge level thing.
The lodges were doing different rituals, the lodges were doing
different ceremonies, the lodges were doing things, and then the
lodges made up a grand lodge. So but the steel
(17:58):
man this, okay. The Baltimore Conventions standardized the administrative rails. Okay.
That made the mass growth of the nineteenth and twentieth
century possible without the Baltimore Convention. Freemasonry is very fragmented,
and I don't I don't know how much it survives
post Morgan affair. But it creates this very rigid framework
(18:27):
that kind of calcifies over time and then entrenches these
managerial this managerial class rather than like and that that
becomes like the standard is this idea that a grandmaster said,
So I see it as the birth of bureaucracy, and
I don't. I don't think that was a bad thing
(18:49):
at the time because it helped us survive. But now
we're in a huge decline and nobody wants a meeting
for the sake of meeting, or a meeting about the meeting,
or a meeting about we can have more meetings and like,
and we've this sort of I feel like we're drowning
in the blob of But the Digest says this. The
(19:09):
Digest says that, well, the Digest is completing different, conflicting
things in two different spots, and it hasn't been updated
since nineteen eighty whatever, and we're still doing fifty dollars
per capita, even though that was set up in eighteen
eighty five, and it really should be fifteen hundred back,
like we're just we're drowning in this bureaucracy instead of
remembering that we used to do this with three candles
(19:31):
and a piece of chalk to all play pretend together
about how we can be better men. I think about
the ancients and how they were better men like that.
So it's it's a very simple thing that we make
very complicated. And I see that as an outskirt of Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well for a fraternity that's set on you know, ancient
values of like respect and trust and tradition. These are
all things that carry for us. Like I feel the
same way. And I think anybody that's visited our nation's
capital and gone in and taken a capital tour and
looked up and been like so inspired and been like, yes, America,
democracy is great and all these things that we need
(20:10):
to fight for this and we need to keep advancing that.
And then you turn on your news and you get
home on and you see these two sides fighting over
red blue issues, over stupid things that you're like, what
the founding fathers would be so embarrassed. I feel the
same way when I go to my Grand Lodge session
in New York in May, and I get to go
into our wonderful Grand Lodge building and go upstairs into
the big room with the old chairs and the smell
(20:33):
and the pipe organ and the stained glass ceilings and
all the portraits of the grand masters. And I sit
there and I think, Wow, the wonderful things, the meaningful
things that these guys discuss. And I'm like, you know what,
it was pretty much the same stuff that we're still
talking about today.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
It was Yeah, I say that all the time, you
know what was it like, it's exactly like it was now.
And then finally, you know, the Gavel Act we were
able to get out of there.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think the thing for me to your point about
this is so we kind of like look through it
and then we're not trying to do revisionist history here.
We're just looking back through that lens of time and going, yeah,
but that is kind of cool to think. Like, you know,
brothers from twenty something different jurisdictions, they got together for
ten days. They talked about things to the point where
one guy was like, NaNH no, I don't want to
be on that committee anymore. I'm going to switch over
here because nah, I don't want to be a party.
(21:21):
They talked about something that we're still passionate about today.
And some of these differences they are much much bigger
now with some of the with a lot of the
social issues. Honestly, that's kind of tearing our country apart
hit and has gotten into the craft. That's for another time.
But to know that these guys at one time in
place got together and it finally said, hey, we need
(21:42):
to save freemasonry after this national disaster that happened that
almost put us out of business, to be honest, and
let's try to get together and talk and we'll start
by talking about the ritual. We'll start by talking about
the symbols. We're going to try to level set everything here.
And I like that we had that conversation.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
What's very interesting is how many American Grand lodges were
created after this convention. You know, like it's it's a
like so the yeah, the the so. Like when this
whole conversation you and I started, it was like the
question was like, oh, I want how much did did
this affect? And it's like, well, it depends how old
(22:21):
or how old is your grand lodge of course, Like
it's a no brainer if you've your brand new grand
lodge and somebody says, hey, we just here's all the
ceremonies and here's all the work. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
I accept this gratefully.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
When did you first realize that the ritual that you
learned was not and there's not just one gospel ritual
that rules all rituals, and it's it's different, And how.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Do you feel about that? I knew that pretty early,
but I was also curious, So like when I see
something in the ritual, especially in like DC, there's there's
weird things in DC that don't exist other places. So
when I would read that, I'd be like, that's weird,
why is that there? I love the pasta sauce my
grandma used to make, and I'm sure you love the
pasta sauce your grandma used to make, and I'm sure
they're very different pasta sauces. And if I tried to
give you my grandma's pasta sauce and you tried to
(23:26):
give me yours, we would it wouldn't be right, right
because the answer isn't pasta sauce. The answer is pasta
sauce is right. And so the answer isn't Freemasonry. The
free answer is free masonryes.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I love that sauce analogy because that really hits it. Like,
my grandmother never made spaghetti sauce. She's Mexican and she
made enchilada sauce, So to your point, like it's it's
still sauce. And I think that's what makes it kind
of cool that we live in this big country where
brothers were across jurisdictions were still connected. And I like
the fact I go to one's reisdiction and their worshipful
(24:02):
master wears an apron with purple ribbon. And to me,
I'm like, oh, that must be a right worshipful because
purple is the color of the grand lodge. Like nope,
that's what the worshiful master wears here. It's like, oh okay, yeah,
so like that's it, and that's a great that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right. So purple is worn by most grand lodges, and
it is not worn by DC. They don't wear purple,
they wear white. And so went to a tableladge once
when we were toasting the purple and the gold, and
I was like, I don't know what that means, but
I'm here for it. Whoo right exactly like exactly right.
There are thirty five lodges that do one work, and
(24:36):
then there's twelve other lodges in the city that you
can go see. Farci Italian, German, French. I'm gonna see
the Scottish work. I'll see the emulation work. I'll see
the McBride ritual. I'll see the like there's Pasta Sauces,
there's Enchilada Sauces.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Again. His book is Harmony in the Hive. He is
the author of it. Worsful brother Nathan Saint Pierre for
the listener, brother who has an interest, who's enjoyed this
conversation on the Baltimore convention and is like, Hey, I
want to dive into that thing called a book or
an article or something else I can read to really
kind of get into this and understand the evolution of
(25:15):
American ritual.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Where would you point them, Nathan, Awesome things like digitized PDFs.
You can read the books that they published after the convention. Oh,
it's actually more exciting. We didn't get to this part.
We didn't get to the drama of the fallout. So
the guy from Massachusetts, he's in charge of writing the
book with the help of the guy from Missouri. So
(25:37):
the two of them are working. They get the book,
and then the guy from Virginia was supposed to sign
off on the book and say like, yeah, we're good,
and then he gets the book and they had added
like two charges that they didn't talk about at the convention,
and he like freaked out and was like, I cannot
sign this. A few years later, he publishes his own
(25:59):
called the Masonic Textbook, and then that becomes the one
that they do in Virginia. And then Virginia does this
big thing where like they denounce the Baltimore work but
they adopt John Dove's work. John Dove was at Baltimore.
So it's like, like I can't stand the New York giants.
I love Eli Manning. Like it's like I don't know,
like it's like okay whatever, like you're you're good. Okay.
(26:21):
So there's that split. So they have that whole fight
over whether Virginia or Massachusetts is right. And then like
I said, out in Missouri, they're like, ah, but we
just got Jerry M.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Lad Cross's book.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
We're gonna use that one instead. So they do that.
So you have all these books that are all supposed
to be the Baltimore work, The Masonic trustle Board is
available the pdf the Virginia textbook John Dove that's available pdf.
More contemporary authors The Mason's Words by Bob Davis, thirty
third degree Grand Cross. That's the one of the best
(26:53):
books on the history of American ritual that's that's been done.
And the way he writes is like talking to him.
It's great. Another good book about American Freemasonry, but not
about Baltimore is American Freemason's Mark Tabert. That's that's a
very good one from two thousand and six. And then
David Hackett was a professor at University of Florida. He
(27:16):
wrote a book called That Religion in Which All Men
Agree and it is the history of Freemasonry in American culture.
That came out in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
All right, here comes the fun question. And but don't
make me regret that I asked you this. What was
the one thing that I didn't ask you that you
were like, RC, I've got to talk about this. Give
me a good solid five minutes go.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I mean we may have hit on everything.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
No way, no way.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Oh, do you know what we didn't talk about? You
asked me Okay, you asked me, what what's a what's
an actual piece of work that we do that we
could say like this come from Baltimore, Like like, what's
what's an actual thing? And you're not going to like it,
Great architect of the universe, in that name we have assembled,
and in thy name we desire to proceed in all
our two eggs script that dispressed.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
That is what came from the prayer. Was it originally
a Masonic prayer or was it like when you talked
about songs in the past where they.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Say it's an adaptation of an adaptation of an old prayer. No,
so there's a there's a there's a Masonic prayer from
the seventeen forties, now pardon me, seventeen thirties. That is
very close to the prayer that we use at initiation,
with a few added differences. Is when two or three
are gathered in thy name, you will be in the
(28:35):
midst of them, and so on and so forth. But
the we desire to proceed in all our doings. That's
a quote, like a paraphrase of this guy William Smith
from seventeen eighty three, who was like a personal enemy
of Ben Franklin. And a friend of Washington, and he
did this. He had a prayer that starts that way
for the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. And so it's like
(28:55):
they're they're they're basically like taking a bunch of different poems,
prayers rather, and they put them together. And now we
always have to open lodge with the same prayer because
of eighteen forty three. So that's one. The other one
is opening charge. The ways of virtue are beautiful. Knowledge
is attained by degrees. Wisdom dwells with contemplation. Therefore let
(29:17):
us seek it. That's a bad read tread of a
Charles Leslie lecture from seventeen forties and mixed in with
some Prestonian things from the seventeen seventies.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode with Worshipful Brother Nathan
Saint Pierre, we're going to spend some extra time in
the Masonic time machine back in the Baltimore Convention of
eighteen forty three, really getting into that attempt to unify
and standardize ritual and how it kind of broke across
to the United States and our subscriber extra episode. Yeah,
some bonus time for our Patreon subscribers. There's still time
(29:52):
for you to join us on Patreon. Get your seven
day trial to get started for free. And the notes
for this episode, I'm right worshipfel Brother Michael R. Say,
I will see you back here next week as we
jump in to the first episode for the month of
March featuring right Worshipful Brother Michael Sheck, who is the
author of Vile and Impetuous Wretches.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh, I can't wait to say it in the tone of.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
The angry King Solomon as we get a different view
of what life was like in King Solomon's temple and
the ancient Middle East next Monday. 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 Lodge, 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
Bisonic podcast still proudly endorsed by the Grand Lodge of
New York. I'm your host, White Rouschel for Brother Michael Arsa.
Before we jump into this week's episode, I want to
say thank you to Dwight Lewis, who just became our
latest five dollars member on Patreon. Hey Dwight, thank you
so much for supporting the Craftsman Online Podcast. That five
(00:50):
dollars it gets you add free episode plus access to
our entire subscriber extra catalog, which will feature some bonus
time with this week's guest. Get the link to start
your free seven day trial on Patreon. In the notes
for this episode, well as part of his introduction, we
should include he was the number one most listened to
(01:12):
Craftsman Online Podcast guests for twenty twenty five, and that
episode on Preston Webb and how they became the Father
figures for lack of a better term for American Freemasonry,
ritual has led to this moment where we travel back
in the time machine to the Baltimore Convention of eighteen
(01:32):
forty three with our friend and Masonic book author of
Harmony in the Hive, Worshipful Brother Nathan Saint Pierre.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Welcome back. I am happy to be here as always.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, here's a cool thing I showed you. This
is a picture.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
What I'm holding here is the Empire State Mason magazine.
And back in the fall of twenty twenty five, which
just seems like it was yesterday, wink wwink are freshly
established a Grand Lodge of New York Esoteric Committee selected
Da da da da.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Harmony in the Hive as one of the selected reading texts, and.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It was a great review. I really really was wonderful.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But also I want to get your book previewed on
a future Craftsman online reading room because of that same reason.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As we talk about leadership.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Normally, Nathan is here to talk to us about ritual
because he is more learned than the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
And if you've been.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Playing along, you might have had that gem stuck in
your head from your last appearance, and we talked about
the Preston Web ritual back and way back then in
season number five, you talked about this thing called the
Baltimore Convention of eighteen forty three, and you're just like
brother Michael. We'll have to talk about that in a
future episode. So for those of us who haven't spent
(02:49):
every waking minute googling it and wikipediing it and looking
it up, can you explain what this was and what
they were trying to set out and achieving in eighteen
forty three.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
The Baltimore Convention was an attempt to save Masonry in
the post Morgan affair world. Was an ambitious attempt to
standardize Masonic ritual and practice throughout the United States. It
took place over the course of about ten days or so,
(03:21):
except for Sunday, where they all went to church, you know,
and so, and they all met in Baltimore, Maryland, and
they all got into different committees and they just had
a big old nerdy time pashing out. Everybody who knew
the ritual had either quit the fraternity or died, and
so they were left with this. Okay, but but what
(03:42):
do we like, what's what do we do? What's good work?
How do we do that? And what made things even
harder was the number of expose's that had been published
because of anti Masonic fervor. So there's so between between
the death of Thomas Smith Webb and the Baltimore Convention,
(04:03):
there's like at least four that I could that I
personally have expose's that come out, you know, starting with
Hardy in eighteen nineteen. Then you've got Jeremy lad Cross,
the Morgan the book that's actually published from the Morgan Affair,
Illustrations on Masonry, which is a you know, making fun
of Preston. And then you've got Light on Masonry, which
(04:26):
is like that's like a four hundred page bookcase that
does all the appendent bodies too, so that just gives
you everything. And then Alan's Masonic Ritual was eighteen thirty one,
and so all of those are all in this little
tiny window post Morgan Affair, pre Baltimore Convention. So there's
a lot of Masonic impostors. Part of what's going on
(04:48):
is all right, since everybody knows what they think the
ritual is, let's find out what we say the ritual
is so that way we will know who's a pretender.
The idea starts in eighteen thirty nine in Alabama. They
send out an SOS to like, everybody, we need to
get together and save this, and we're gonna do that
(05:10):
in eighteen forty two, and we're gonna go to Washington, DC.
You got three years be there of e squere so
that in eighteen forty two nobody shows up. I'm kidding, no,
like a few people show up, but then they go,
we don't actually have the authority to do this. So
in eighteen forty two, those people who showed up, about
ten of them, they go, all right, everybody here, go
back and get the official delegate. Get So what they
(05:33):
called for was grand lecturers, which didn't really exist before.
Then give me your grand lecturers. We're gonna talk to them.
And then that was eighteen forty three the Baltimore Convention.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
First of all, we you and I have kind of
talked about the More Gonna Fair a little bit. I
feel like I'm living in the future because it seemed like.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, you're an expert because you just chatted with doctor Ann.
So this is why I've been planning to drop this
bomb on you for a while because I'm like, he
is an expert. I don't have to I don't have
to beat around the bush with.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
More interesting than that, though, is the idea of a convention,
because this is right about the time where kind of
the modoc the modern party system that we're used to
with nominations from the floor and delegates and how the
president was being selected was shaping and becoming different. And
(06:27):
as you pointed out, masonry does not have, at least
in North America, in the United States, does not have
a central governing body. So you mentioned a really key
thing and I want to kind of go back to
that where you said, hey, this first version with ten
guys in DC and eighteen forty two you said, or
eighteen forty they realized they didn't have quote unquote the power.
(06:50):
So how did they get the power? And how did
you get fifty juris Well, there wasn't fifty jurisdictions at
that time, but forty something ishictions at that time. Knowing
that you are still sending letters and there's no that's
the most modern form of communicator, how did they get
all these guys together.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
In eighteen forty two when those ten people were there.
That's ten out of twenty three, so it's basically half
the Grand lodges, so it's not an its significant number.
But in eighteen forty three when they did when they
went to Baltimore for the second attempt, they had they
had sixteen Grand lodges out of twenty three and more
attention and more delegates. So that was why they were like,
(07:31):
all right, this one, this one's a success. We'll go
through with the business of doing the convention rather than
punting it another year.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And the part that they were coming together to save masonry,
because this was almost twenty well twenty years so a
generation after the effects of the Morgan affair. So they're
coming together to save masonry. And the solution was, hey,
we need to canonize our ritual around one type of
ritual because we have too many different flavor going on.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We need we literally need to canonize. That's a great word.
It was the attempt to canonize Thomas Smith Webb, okay,
and make that the quote unquote law of the land.
Thomas Smith Webb died very young, and he died in
eighteen eighteen or something like that, right, and so that's
a year before Jeremy led Cross writes the Masonic chart
that's before John Barney in the and John Snow and
(08:25):
the roving ritualists are going all over doing the you know,
spreading the web work right. So there's there's also a
there's also a little bit of a I got to
do this for my friend kind of thing going on,
like because oh it was Webb and he was the
and he was so good, and he's not here anymore,
and so he can't tell us how it went, so
it's up to us to remember how Webb would have
(08:45):
done it right. Like it's it's a very Masonic like.
It's you can see I don't poo poo them. I don't.
It's just it is what you said. It's the we're canonizing.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I've begun to have more of an appreciation of the
performance of ritual in the idea that I'm lucky we
live now in the year twenty twenty six and we have,
you know, entertainment in our pocket all the time with
our cell phones. We're back in eighteen forty three you
had the theater, or you honestly had your Masonic lodge.
An opening and closing of lodge was a form of entertainment.
(09:15):
It was seeing ritual on display to some extent as
much as degrees were a greater pors city. It was
almost like going to the theater and watching a play.
If you saw somebody executing this, how confusing would that
be if you were traveling around and seeing different styles
of that play?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, I think the play thing comes later. That's very
much a that's very much a nineteenth century thing where
we're going to add the costumes, we're gonna add the sets,
and we're going to actually pretend that we're like doing
the thing instead of you know, you got to remember
in the we used to do this with three candles
and a piece of chalk, you know, like we used
to be able to play pretend. It was only you know,
(09:54):
one hundred years after that people were like, I can't pretend.
What if we really had the thing here? I need
to see it.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
What they wanted to do was get some unanimity around
like the modes of recognition obviously, but probably also around
all of the lectures and essays that were now becoming
part of the degree after it was conferred.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Lectures, charges, prayers, ceremonies such as consecration, funeral, so basically.
So at this convention they also split themselves into two committees.
So there's one committee that does work in lectures. There's
a different committee for funerals. There's a different committee for
mercenic jurisprudence. There's a separate committee for each of the
things that goes into what would come into our monitors.
(10:35):
The big push was for the lectures, right because in
the eighteen hundreds, in the early eighteen hundreds, Americans weren't
really lecturing, and then there was misunderstanding about what that meant. Okay,
because in England, lecturing simply was like you're teaching about
the subject. So like, here's a better way of saying it.
When when we open our monitors now, sometimes it'll have
(10:56):
little headings like the moral advantages of geometry, and then
there'll be a paragraph underneath of the that's there because
somebody didn't understand, like eighteenth century cut and paste. What
was happening was the masters would say, and then you,
as master of the lodge, have to lecture your guys
on the moral advantages of geometry. And so you can
(11:19):
use Preston, you can use Charles Leslie, you can use Hutchinson,
you can use like, there's all of these Masonic lectures
on the moral advantages of geometry, they're all different. What
happened was in America, nobody was doing these lectures or
knew that you were supposed to be doing it, so
are like to steal man them. Our brothers were like, Hey,
(11:40):
we have these these lectures that Thomas Smith Webb has
narrativized from Personian work. Do these right? In other words,
like if you're gonna if you're not doing anything.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Do these kind of the short talk bulletin, pinch hitter.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't think it was that that KOI, but you
can see the picture I'm sort of painting is it's
not necessarily like this was always what we taught. We
always said these words. That's not accurate.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Our listener doesn't have to like imagine very much, especially
if you're a Freemason. Just imagine, you know, ten brothers
sitting in a room and the question is, hey, what
are we having for dinner at our next meeting? Cue
the crickets, and then no one's going to agree, and
then eventually someone's going to say this is it, and
the Master's going to say we're going to have this,
and then guess what. That's what we have for dinner.
(12:51):
What were some of these debates that were taking place,
And keep in mind these guys had a ten day
timetable to figure this out. So what were the big
points of contention?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Knees Wadsworth, my man from New York, Right, this is
way you gotta be proud, okay. Ebenezer Wadsworth, he's known
for being the descent. He voted no on everything and
he was like, no, you're changing everything. Dare you change
what you're doing? Idiots? He's the one guy who votes
to know everythake. They're all going, oh yeah, we all agree,
(13:20):
and Eberdezer Wadsworth is like, you're changing the ritual and
I can't abide it. By day two he quits that
committee and goes and joins a different one. The do
guards we were fixed, so the the second and third
degree d guards were changed to conform with the first
degree du guard. I could explain more to you, but
(13:40):
we're in a podcast. They flipped the jewels.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Wait wait, wait, wait, so you're telling me that picture
of George Washington standing there with the gavel and the
bust and what looks to be the Master's call odor
and jewel. Well, that was photoshop.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Every image of Washington in Masonic regalia other than the
Williams portrait is a fabrication. But at the George Washington
Masonic Memorial there is the only portrait of Washington and
Masonic regalia for which he actually posed. So he put
all this stuff on and then it's got painted. That's
really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I have asked this question so many times, and I'm
sure it's what kind of peaud Your interest into all
of this was like, well, hey, what if I traveled
back in time, Like how much of the ritual and
masonry would I be familiar with?
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Oh? Not a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I mean, all I have to do is go back
to eighteen forty and I'd walk into a lodge and
and be like, hey, the master doesn't have his jewel on,
Like we can't even open the meeting with us.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh no, it's not that's not what I mean. I
mean they changed so from the immovable jewels being the
Ashler's like an actual giant rock that you can't move
because it's a giant rock, and instead we're going to
have it be this tiny thing that clearly can move.
I mean, like we renamed those jewels to be immovable
or movable.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
They made something makes sense. Then wow, that's a.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Full they made make the opposite of sense.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Oh, then that also makes sense because that's Freemason.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, totally, totally. It has to make the opposite of sense.
And it still confuses are UK Brethren because they never
flipped it. So the square, the level, and the plum
are the movable jewels over there, and the rough Aschler,
perfect bachelar and trustle board are the immovable I mean,
pardon me, are the yeah are the immovable jewels? See
(15:21):
even me, I'm making myself go cross. That they had
debate over what degree we should do business on because
prior to this meeting, business was always done on the
EA degree, and you would call up to do things
at the Baltimore Convention, they especially with the push of Missouri,
it was like, nope, master Mason's only so any jurisdictions
that still do business only on the Master Mason degree.
(15:42):
It's it's because of this, it's it comes directly from
the Baltimore Convention. Another thing they changed was the blazing star.
The explanation of that symbol in the early eighteen hundred's,
especially Jeremy lad Cross. They really really were tying the
blazing Star to the Star of Bethlehem. It was supposed
(16:02):
to be heralding the birth of the Savior, so that
symbol got associated with Bethlehem. But when you read the
Finch lectures and stuff from England, that's not part of
that symbol. So this was kind of like a move back.
Was intended originally to be the Glory, like it's a
divine glory rather than an actual celestial body. They tried
(16:25):
to create the Grand Lodge of the United States. So
this was actually the answer to your question that you
had earlier, which was like who gives them the who
gives them the authority? Well, they tried. If you know
anything about American history at that time, you know states rights,
and that wasn't really ever going to fly, and so
that ultimately did fail. But what they decided to do was,
let's do this again every three years. The next year
like eight people showed up, the year after that like six,
(16:47):
And basically it was because the Grand Lodges were like, no,
we're not interested.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
In your opinion. Did for what it was trying to
accomplish or what it was set out to do in
eighteen forty three. Do you say six not a success?
How do you write it? They morphed it. It still
exists now it's called the North American Conference of Grand Masters.
All the grand Masters get together, and that is a
direct descendant of the Baltimore Convention.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Is it a success? See? This is hard, all right,
because the Baltimore Convention, to me, is the birth of bureaucracy.
This is all of the bloat, the blob, everything that
stinks about twenty twenty five. Freemasonry was born in Baltimore.
DU's cards and dropped for non payment and how to
(17:35):
just be a Freemason in the right way. And then
we're all going to go home, and because we couldn't
agree altogether, I'm going to go home and be a
tyrant back home. Historically, masonry was a lodge level thing.
The lodges were doing different rituals, the lodges were doing
different ceremonies, the lodges were doing things, and then the
lodges made up a grand lodge. So but the steel
(17:58):
man this, okay. The Baltimore Conventions standardized the administrative rails. Okay.
That made the mass growth of the nineteenth and twentieth
century possible without the Baltimore Convention. Freemasonry is very fragmented,
and I don't I don't know how much it survives
post Morgan affair. But it creates this very rigid framework
(18:27):
that kind of calcifies over time and then entrenches these
managerial this managerial class rather than like and that that
becomes like the standard is this idea that a grandmaster said,
So I see it as the birth of bureaucracy, and
I don't. I don't think that was a bad thing
(18:49):
at the time because it helped us survive. But now
we're in a huge decline and nobody wants a meeting
for the sake of meeting, or a meeting about the meeting,
or a meeting about we can have more meetings and like,
and we've this sort of I feel like we're drowning
in the blob of But the Digest says this. The
(19:09):
Digest says that, well, the Digest is completing different, conflicting
things in two different spots, and it hasn't been updated
since nineteen eighty whatever, and we're still doing fifty dollars
per capita, even though that was set up in eighteen
eighty five, and it really should be fifteen hundred back,
like we're just we're drowning in this bureaucracy instead of
remembering that we used to do this with three candles
(19:31):
and a piece of chalk to all play pretend together
about how we can be better men. I think about
the ancients and how they were better men like that.
So it's it's a very simple thing that we make
very complicated. And I see that as an outskirt of Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well for a fraternity that's set on you know, ancient
values of like respect and trust and tradition. These are
all things that carry for us. Like I feel the
same way. And I think anybody that's visited our nation's
capital and gone in and taken a capital tour and
looked up and been like so inspired and been like, yes, America,
democracy is great and all these things that we need
(20:10):
to fight for this and we need to keep advancing that.
And then you turn on your news and you get
home on and you see these two sides fighting over
red blue issues, over stupid things that you're like, what
the founding fathers would be so embarrassed. I feel the
same way when I go to my Grand Lodge session
in New York in May, and I get to go
into our wonderful Grand Lodge building and go upstairs into
the big room with the old chairs and the smell
(20:33):
and the pipe organ and the stained glass ceilings and
all the portraits of the grand masters. And I sit
there and I think, Wow, the wonderful things, the meaningful
things that these guys discuss. And I'm like, you know what,
it was pretty much the same stuff that we're still
talking about today.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
It was Yeah, I say that all the time, you
know what was it like, it's exactly like it was now.
And then finally, you know, the Gavel Act we were
able to get out of there.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think the thing for me to your point about
this is so we kind of like look through it
and then we're not trying to do revisionist history here.
We're just looking back through that lens of time and going, yeah,
but that is kind of cool to think. Like, you know,
brothers from twenty something different jurisdictions, they got together for
ten days. They talked about things to the point where
one guy was like, NaNH no, I don't want to
be on that committee anymore. I'm going to switch over
here because nah, I don't want to be a party.
(21:21):
They talked about something that we're still passionate about today.
And some of these differences they are much much bigger
now with some of the with a lot of the
social issues. Honestly, that's kind of tearing our country apart
hit and has gotten into the craft. That's for another time.
But to know that these guys at one time in
place got together and it finally said, hey, we need
(21:42):
to save freemasonry after this national disaster that happened that
almost put us out of business, to be honest, and
let's try to get together and talk and we'll start
by talking about the ritual. We'll start by talking about
the symbols. We're going to try to level set everything here.
And I like that we had that conversation.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
What's very interesting is how many American Grand lodges were
created after this convention. You know, like it's it's a
like so the yeah, the the so. Like when this
whole conversation you and I started, it was like the
question was like, oh, I want how much did did
this affect? And it's like, well, it depends how old
(22:21):
or how old is your grand lodge of course, Like
it's a no brainer if you've your brand new grand
lodge and somebody says, hey, we just here's all the
ceremonies and here's all the work. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
I accept this gratefully.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
When did you first realize that the ritual that you
learned was not and there's not just one gospel ritual
that rules all rituals, and it's it's different, And how.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Do you feel about that? I knew that pretty early,
but I was also curious, So like when I see
something in the ritual, especially in like DC, there's there's
weird things in DC that don't exist other places. So
when I would read that, I'd be like, that's weird,
why is that there? I love the pasta sauce my
grandma used to make, and I'm sure you love the
pasta sauce your grandma used to make, and I'm sure
they're very different pasta sauces. And if I tried to
give you my grandma's pasta sauce and you tried to
(23:26):
give me yours, we would it wouldn't be right, right
because the answer isn't pasta sauce. The answer is pasta
sauce is right. And so the answer isn't Freemasonry. The
free answer is free masonryes.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I love that sauce analogy because that really hits it. Like,
my grandmother never made spaghetti sauce. She's Mexican and she
made enchilada sauce, So to your point, like it's it's
still sauce. And I think that's what makes it kind
of cool that we live in this big country where
brothers were across jurisdictions were still connected. And I like
the fact I go to one's reisdiction and their worshipful
(24:02):
master wears an apron with purple ribbon. And to me,
I'm like, oh, that must be a right worshipful because
purple is the color of the grand lodge. Like nope,
that's what the worshiful master wears here. It's like, oh okay, yeah,
so like that's it, and that's a great that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right. So purple is worn by most grand lodges, and
it is not worn by DC. They don't wear purple,
they wear white. And so went to a tableladge once
when we were toasting the purple and the gold, and
I was like, I don't know what that means, but
I'm here for it. Whoo right exactly like exactly right.
There are thirty five lodges that do one work, and
(24:36):
then there's twelve other lodges in the city that you
can go see. Farci Italian, German, French. I'm gonna see
the Scottish work. I'll see the emulation work. I'll see
the McBride ritual. I'll see the like there's Pasta Sauces,
there's Enchilada Sauces.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Again. His book is Harmony in the Hive. He is
the author of it. Worsful brother Nathan Saint Pierre for
the listener, brother who has an interest, who's enjoyed this
conversation on the Baltimore convention and is like, Hey, I
want to dive into that thing called a book or
an article or something else I can read to really
kind of get into this and understand the evolution of
(25:15):
American ritual.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Where would you point them, Nathan, Awesome things like digitized PDFs.
You can read the books that they published after the convention. Oh,
it's actually more exciting. We didn't get to this part.
We didn't get to the drama of the fallout. So
the guy from Massachusetts, he's in charge of writing the
book with the help of the guy from Missouri. So
(25:37):
the two of them are working. They get the book,
and then the guy from Virginia was supposed to sign
off on the book and say like, yeah, we're good,
and then he gets the book and they had added
like two charges that they didn't talk about at the convention,
and he like freaked out and was like, I cannot
sign this. A few years later, he publishes his own
(25:59):
called the Masonic Textbook, and then that becomes the one
that they do in Virginia. And then Virginia does this
big thing where like they denounce the Baltimore work but
they adopt John Dove's work. John Dove was at Baltimore.
So it's like, like I can't stand the New York giants.
I love Eli Manning. Like it's like I don't know,
like it's like okay whatever, like you're you're good. Okay.
(26:21):
So there's that split. So they have that whole fight
over whether Virginia or Massachusetts is right. And then like
I said, out in Missouri, they're like, ah, but we
just got Jerry M.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Lad Cross's book.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
We're gonna use that one instead. So they do that.
So you have all these books that are all supposed
to be the Baltimore work, The Masonic trustle Board is
available the pdf the Virginia textbook John Dove that's available pdf.
More contemporary authors The Mason's Words by Bob Davis, thirty
third degree Grand Cross. That's the one of the best
(26:53):
books on the history of American ritual that's that's been done.
And the way he writes is like talking to him.
It's great. Another good book about American Freemasonry, but not
about Baltimore is American Freemason's Mark Tabert. That's that's a
very good one from two thousand and six. And then
David Hackett was a professor at University of Florida. He
(27:16):
wrote a book called That Religion in Which All Men
Agree and it is the history of Freemasonry in American culture.
That came out in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
All right, here comes the fun question. And but don't
make me regret that I asked you this. What was
the one thing that I didn't ask you that you
were like, RC, I've got to talk about this. Give
me a good solid five minutes go.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
I mean we may have hit on everything.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
No way, no way.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Oh, do you know what we didn't talk about? You
asked me Okay, you asked me, what what's a what's
an actual piece of work that we do that we
could say like this come from Baltimore, Like like, what's
what's an actual thing? And you're not going to like it,
Great architect of the universe, in that name we have assembled,
and in thy name we desire to proceed in all
our two eggs script that dispressed.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
That is what came from the prayer. Was it originally
a Masonic prayer or was it like when you talked
about songs in the past where they.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Say it's an adaptation of an adaptation of an old prayer. No,
so there's a there's a there's a Masonic prayer from
the seventeen forties, now pardon me, seventeen thirties. That is
very close to the prayer that we use at initiation,
with a few added differences. Is when two or three
are gathered in thy name, you will be in the
(28:35):
midst of them, and so on and so forth. But
the we desire to proceed in all our doings. That's
a quote, like a paraphrase of this guy William Smith
from seventeen eighty three, who was like a personal enemy
of Ben Franklin. And a friend of Washington, and he
did this. He had a prayer that starts that way
for the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. And so it's like
(28:55):
they're they're they're basically like taking a bunch of different poems,
prayers rather, and they put them together. And now we
always have to open lodge with the same prayer because
of eighteen forty three. So that's one. The other one
is opening charge. The ways of virtue are beautiful. Knowledge
is attained by degrees. Wisdom dwells with contemplation. Therefore let
(29:17):
us seek it. That's a bad read tread of a
Charles Leslie lecture from seventeen forties and mixed in with
some Prestonian things from the seventeen seventies.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode with Worshipful Brother Nathan
Saint Pierre, we're going to spend some extra time in
the Masonic time machine back in the Baltimore Convention of
eighteen forty three, really getting into that attempt to unify
and standardize ritual and how it kind of broke across
to the United States and our subscriber extra episode. Yeah,
some bonus time for our Patreon subscribers. There's still time
(29:52):
for you to join us on Patreon. Get your seven
day trial to get started for free. And the notes
for this episode, I'm right worshipfel Brother Michael R. Say,
I will see you back here next week as we
jump in to the first episode for the month of
March featuring right Worshipful Brother Michael Sheck, who is the
author of Vile and Impetuous Wretches.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh, I can't wait to say it in the tone of.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
The angry King Solomon as we get a different view
of what life was like in King Solomon's temple and
the ancient Middle East next Monday. Until then, let peace
and harmony prevail.
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