March 10, 2025 • 33 mins
Our guest this week is WB Nicholas Broadway, editor of "The Square Magazine," and Master and Membership Officer of Ex Libris Lodge No. 3765, UGLE. In this episode, we discuss how individual Freemasons find themselves at the infancy of the digital transformation. We’ll also cover how Masons can embrace technology to enhance their Masonic experience. Bro. Broadway will also share his trailblazing idea of creating the first virtual Masonic research academy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 (00:30):
Hey, welcome back to the Graftsman Online Podcast, the only
podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge in New York. I'm
your host, right worship for Brother Michael Arse back with
a special guest this week who's the editor of The
Square magazine. He's also the Master and Membership Officer of
the Ex Libris Lodge number thirty seven sixty five of
the United Grand Lodge of England. I love having this
(00:51):
brother back and inside this episode with Worshipful Brother Nicholas Broadway,
we're going to be talking about how individual Freemasons we
find ourselves right now with this infancy of digital transformation,
and how can we as a craft embrace technology to
enhance the Masonic membership. Let's get him in here to
talk about that as he is trailblazing the idea of
(01:12):
creating the very first Masonic Virtual Research Academy. Worshipful Brother
Nicholas Broadway, Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And I'm Michael. Great to be back again.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We've talked about AI, We've talked about, you know, machine learning,
the future, how technology incorporates with freemasonry. We're also going
to get into your new lodge that you've created and
some of the online learning that you're putting together your
very first virtual Masonic Research Academy. But I wanted to
start our conversation with a story, and this is a
(01:44):
true story that took place last year. We were doing
a Master Mason's degree, and I'm sure in lodge you
get the whole you know, everybody turn off your cell
phones or put them on silence, you know, put all
your devices away so there's no distraction. It's the worst
possible time, right during the degree, during the obligation and
that solemn moment when there's a distraction. So we've got
(02:05):
everything quiet, we're standing there. The worshipful Master comes down,
he goes up to the altar. There's the brother who's
ready to take that at a very important obligation. And
I'm trying to remember the exact phrase that he said,
because I'm sure it's different than with the ritual here
in the States. And how it's done in the UK
or in Europe, but basically something to the extent of furthermore,
(02:30):
I solemnly and sincerely, And that is what triggered his
Apple watch, because Siri heard sincerely and thought we were
calling her name out and she said, I'm sorry, I
don't understand what you're asking me. He paused, and the
rest of us were just ready to just bust out
laughing because there's technology interrupting things. Later on, when he
(02:54):
finished the obligation, I sat there thinking, I was like,
you know, I got to ask Nicholas about this, Like, well,
Siri ever be able to understand the obligations of freemasonry.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I don't think an AI will ever understand the moral
the more understanding. I think it will certainly understand the allegory,
because even now, you can ask it questions about symbols
and allegory within freemasonry and it will and you can
ask for the output to give it the output in
(03:28):
forms of personal development, and it's very good. So it
understands it better than we understand the interpretations of the allegory.
But it will never understand the morally the way we
would understand it. It is lines of code on team.
You can't get away from that. So I don't think
(03:51):
it will understand from from a moral point of view,
but it certainly understands a lot more than we'll ever
understand from the interpreter of the allegories because we weren't
having enough time in our lives to read all the
ancient texts to try to understand it. And I also
found from my own work experience some of the books
(04:14):
that even Masonic books that are written one hundred hundred
and fifty years ago, the old English is very difficult
to follow and to read, and trying to reinterpret that
in a modern language becomes very difficult. And I've found
that taking a Caay's Encyclopedia or Freemasonry and trying to
(04:34):
research it. If you get the volumes, you can't buy
the volumeer and you've got them on your shelf and
you want to you want to research something, just reading
it through and trying to understand is impossible. I've got
a digital version of it, and I had to break
it up into smaller sections, but I've loaded it into
our Google's Notebook a M, which is an AI tool,
(04:56):
and I can now ask any question about any aspect,
any symbol, any any anything related to those volumes, and
it will come back fully interpreted so it understands it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
As you said, AI will be able to do the
research end of it. It will be able to tell
you what this symbol means, where it dates back to
in history or the Bible or whatever. But the esoteric
elements of it unless we plug that in for AI
to scrape that that data, because that's really all it
can do. But it's never going to be able to
understand the experience or any emotion or human feeling that
(05:31):
comes with that because it doesn't it's not that sophisticated
yet and.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I don't think it's it ever will do really understand
because does a dog understand ritual? If a dog could read,
would it understand what it does? It have a faith?
Part one. One argument might be that to understand freemason,
you have to have a faith. Even people who who
claim to be atheists, they have they have a belief
(05:58):
in something, they have a fee at something. So freemasons
who from those jurisdictions that are atheists, I'm sure they
have certmbly and I don't think and AI will ever
get to that stage. It is still lines of code.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Here's the other conversation. And I told you we had
had this discussion at work recently on AI governance and
how federal contractors we have a very challenging role. Everybody
knows that people are using products like chat, GPT or
the Google products. That's what I like to use, and
we have people putting data inside of that, and once
you put something into an AI system, there's no way
(06:36):
to get that out. It's in there forever. What I've
been really fascinated with is in my use of AI,
asking questions. Sometimes I use it for prepping for guests
that come on the podcast and they have subjects that
I don't know that much about, and it's a great
research tool. When it comes to the quote unquote secrets
of freemasonry. Are there things that we should not be
(06:57):
putting into AI?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We're going to going to look books like Masony Dissected
that was written in seventeen thirty and that book is
freely available on the internet. It includes all the secrets
of the words and the explanations, and they've been around
for three hundred years. I don't think see the pint
(07:22):
about the secrets for me is I was given the
secrets when I was obligated, and I was I obligated
myself that I wouldn't revolt to them. And that's for me,
that's my conscious. I'm not going to tell people those words,
even though they could see them in the book, breathe
them in the book. I'm not going to be the
one who tells them. So it's very personal to me.
(07:45):
I know those words are available. They're available everywhere, So
if somebody wants to know the words, they'll know the words,
but they'll never understand why it's a secret unless they're obligated.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And is this a discussion I want to kind of
pivot off to the Ex Libris Academy and some of
the work that you're doing. Is this a discussion that
you're having with your lodge brothers as you're sitting here
trying to create the first virtual Masonic lodge.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's going to be the challenge. How do we keep
its secure and for virtual meetings. That's absolutely right, but
that's one of ten projects. So the virtual creating a
virtual lodge is one of ten projects, and I would
also say it's probably the biggest challenge, but at this stage,
(08:31):
it really what we're asking is let's start a dialogue
on how we can do it, because I think we
want to get there in the end. But first of all,
this discussed how do we even want to start that dialogue.
There's lots of things to think about. How do we
know somebody is taking an obligation or a holy book
(08:54):
if they're not in the room. So we've got to
figure out from a technology point of view, how do
we assume that? I also think is how much do
we want to replicate in the virtual space which actually
takes place in a in person performance, and yet still
(09:14):
maintain that egreboard that's feeling that you have you know
yourself when you when you're in the room and there's
a group of men performing a ceremony, there is this
sense of egripoord, this energy that's in the room. It's
impossible to describe, but you know it's there when you're there.
(09:35):
How do we replicate that? And that's part of the challenge,
and that's why in our lodge we have members who
are technology technical people who are who live and die
work all day in AI. We also have other members
who are not technical but very good ritualists, and they're
going to be like the test bed. If we show
(09:57):
them we're going to work in this particular way. They
are there to act as the first customer for the system. Well, actually,
I don't get I don't get it. I don't feel it.
It's not worth.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Let's get to the Ex Libris Lodge number thirty seven
sixty five, another brand lodge of England. This is what
I find so fascinating your story. I love Masonic history.
This is a lodge that was founded back in nineteen
sixteen with a prestigious legacy as the hall Stone Lodge.
And now you are a lodge, it's in the future.
As we mentioned in the open, you're also the master
(10:30):
and membership officer for this lodge.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Well, let's start a little bit about the history first,
and I can talk about the project. So, yes, the
lodge was founded in nineteen sixty Ex Libris is Latin
for book plate. Yes, So these are plates that people
would have printed. They would stick them to the inside
cover of a book and they'd write their name and
so it's part of their life. So and they were
(10:53):
sort of innovative. Printing was innovative, you know, in nineteen sixteen.
So what happened over the years The lodge on hard times.
I guess in England, when a lodge gets to a
point where there's not enough members, it hands the warrant
back to the grand Master, and then lodge ceased to
be and it can never come back again. And it
(11:13):
was about this time last year that they wanted to
hand their warrant in. We went to the Metropolitan Grand
Lodge and London Lodge and explained what we wanted to do,
and we wanted to take over an existing warrant. It's
quicker process to take their lodge that's already in existence
and repurpose it than to start with a new one.
(11:34):
The six of us were introduced to the existing members
of ex Lebus. They'd already made their mind that they
were going to hand the warrant in, haven't. We haven't
been running for a whole year yet. We've initiated four
candidates into the Lord and we've grown the membership from
what it was before we moved in about half a
dozen members. We will be about thirty members at the
(11:57):
eight at this coming April meeting. We've turned it around.
So the first target, or the first task, was to
secure the lodge's stability. A lot of our research has
to be done outside the lodge environment because there's certain
book of constitutional rules that you can't break, and we
don't want to break those. We want to use the
(12:18):
lodge as a test bed, so try things outside and
then bring it in. We set up a second entity,
the ex Lebros Academy Limited. This is an English registered
company as a board of directors and it will manage
all the research projects. So the research is done in
the Academy, but we also have a lodge which allows
(12:42):
us to put to use some of the research. The
good thing here is in the Academy we're because it's
not the Masonic lawn, we're able to have people work
with us who are not men or lodges recognized by
(13:03):
a United Winn Lodge of England. And in the few
years that have been leading up to this, I've made
a number of acquaintances with many Freemasons from around Europe
and other parts of the world who are in what
we loosely regard as liberal lodges. They're regular Freemasons, but
then their grand lodges are not recognized. They can't participate
(13:25):
in lodge meeting, but they can participate in the Academy
because it's not a Masonic environment. The other thing is
the cost of joining the lodge is quite high because
we have to pay Grand Lodge fees. We have to
pay Metropolitan Grand Lodge fees and have to pay lodge
on costs. All the money that we get in it
(13:47):
goes out and costs. But the idea with the Academy,
there's going to be a much smaller charge to be
a member of the Academy. To be a member of
the Academy, it allows you to do research work but
also to be received for the research results when they're published,
and the money that we raise in the Academy will
be used to fund the research project.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
This timeline, where are you at now to where you
are close to the finished product.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
We're at the very beginning. We are at the very
beginning of the process.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I have so many questions about this because this is
a fascinating story. Like when you walked in to meet
with the brothers that were kind of getting prepared to
surrender their charter so to speak, and you said, hey,
we have this idea that we want to resurrect this
Like what was their reaction? Were they excited to see
that their lodge was going to be taken to a
next to a new level.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
There were probably only three or four people at that
point in that left in the lodge that were active.
The rest had given up. One has stayed. He was
initiated into the lodge and he's been a member of
the lodge since nineteen seventies. He's going to be listening
to this. So I've got to say it's a real
nice chat other members. This wasn't what they were interested in,
(14:58):
and they've taken membership. Basically, what it means is they've
resigned their subscribing membership. They remain a member of the lodge,
but on an ornorary basis. That means they don't pay
any money for their membership and they don't get involved
with it. Everyone's really happy because we've managed to save
a wholstone lord, which is within itself is good. We've
(15:20):
managed to save a lodge that's one hundred years old,
it's called history, which is good, and we've managed to
attract new members into that lord. So it's a win
for everybody.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
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enjoy free shipping with your first order. It's interesting, this
is like turning out to be the year of birth.
I know of so many lodges that are now under
(17:05):
a dispensation or brothers are coming together and saying, hey,
we want to do a lodge that does this. They
have an affinity or a specific purpose that they want
this lodge to do. It's just not like, hey, we
want to plan a flag and start a new lodge.
It's like, no, we want to do the lodge that
does this type of work. What were the conversations like
with your Grand Lodge and the Metropolitan Lodge and the
(17:26):
steps that went through to line this up.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
He put the proposal to Metropolitan Grand Lodge the members
that he was having the conversation with, and their view was,
this is really fascinating. I think I understand what you're doing.
It turns out this particular person works in one of
the banks in the city of London working on aidealer disks,
(17:52):
so he did know what we were talking about, and
his view was, don't explain it too much, go ahead
and do it and then let's see what happens. So
we're very much an entity that's sitting on the edge
of the main poll here. We are a research lodge.
We're sitting on the head. We're going to go away
and break things disrupt things, change things, and then bring
(18:16):
it back and show what we've done in our time.
So we've got a little bit of a freehand at
the moment. I don't think too many people know about us,
which is good. It gets us a chance to get established.
We do follow the sort of Mesite tradition, ask for
forgiveness rather than us permission. Everything that's done in the
(18:40):
LAWD is done by the Boolger constitutions. There's nothing that
we're doing that is not part of book of constitutions.
The research is where all the interesting stuff people pay.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Every month, I get an email with the kind of
the summons for your meetings, and it's like, if you
can come and join us, And I'm like, I'd love
to hop on my private plane and fly out there
and be with you for dinner because I imagine the
conversations that you have at this lodge and just the
fact when you said we had thirty members that have
already affiliated and come and joined. Here's why. Because this
is new, this is exciting, there's purpose. I'm sure we're
(19:15):
not hearing conversations about you know, leaky roofs or sidewalks
that need to be fixed and plumbing issues. In the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
No, it's it's very different. We only meet four times
a year and we when we set out to lodge
meetings there are lodge events, they're not it's not a meeting,
it's an event we had we did. We were meeting
on a Friday evening, which made traveling home at night
(19:41):
a bit of a challenge. We've now moved our meetings
to Saturday morning and that's completely changed everything. But it's
now people coming from further Afield to London. We're getting
a lot of overseas visitors who come over for the weekend.
But the conversations are all about the technology, and when
I go and meet other Brad or my general Masonic travels,
(20:03):
the conversations often lead come back to what we're doing
it Liba and people are just fascinated that there is
a group of people Freemasons who are actually looking at
this and how are we going to make this work.
But we don't talk about the food. We're not worried about,
as you say, leaky rooms or anything. This is all
about how's AI going to work, how's the be going
to work, how's blockchaining, how we're going to be doing that,
(20:27):
and the conversation is really deepen into Let's.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Get to that, because I'm sure there's brothers that are like, oh,
I want to know what they're talking about. How do
they do this? What are some of these conversations, and
what is the vision that you have. I think when
brothers hear a virtual lodge, they think, oh, like I
can just log in like in this meeting. I can
go to a Zoom meeting or a team's Microsoft Teams
meeting and there I'll be or it's a Google hangout
(20:50):
or a chat or something you're actually talking about. We'll
have what are the avatars of ourselves, and we'll be
in a virtual lodge that with all of the four
D and.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
The idea it will be is that we'll be based
on VR headsets, so members will have VR headsets accessing
into the meeting. For example. I foresee that will be
based on blockchain technology, so your brain Loge certificate will
be a token on a blockchain, so you will need
(21:22):
your past code to access to access in. It will
be just the same security that the entertainment industry is
going to be in point when they do live VIR experiences,
if they've got to have a ticketing system that is secure.
They can't have a leaky system otherwise they're not going
(21:44):
to make money. So no events, no evites. Now no,
if you want to BTE, then you've because the point
is you've got to make sure that the people who
are coming in who are recorded to one other project
is specifically looking at how do we digitized grand lot
of certificates on a chain so that when a member
goes to a meeting is basically going to it's been
(22:05):
shown that he says, this is my certificate, So he
gives a QR code and that pops up on an
iPad and he's got six digit code he's got to
put in to prove who he is and then go, yep,
this is who he says he is. Yes, just as
you would take a Grand Lodge certificate to a secutar
and say here here I am, here's my grandload certificate.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And the reason why I'm laughing about this is because
I know in certain jurisdictions we still have paper duze cards.
The idea even a plastic ducee card doesn't exist. It's paper.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
We don't have juice cards. We just pay into a
bank and then if we want to go to visit
if we want to go visit another lodge and we're
not known, we might be asked to send a clearance letter,
so we have to beg a lodge that we're visiting.
Secretary would contact our lodge treasurer and get an email saying, yes,
(23:02):
this person has packed. I mean yeah, it's having a
Jews cub probably be a really great idea. We're still
we're still further back, and even the application to have
to join Freemasonry, it's still a paper form that has
to be written. It can't be so we are going
(23:22):
from the eighteenth century to the twenty first center in
one league. The VR is the most interesting of the topic,
but it's not the only topic, but it's going to
be the most challenging. But there are companies in Europe
VR companies who have already created VR spaces in temples.
(23:44):
I know a company in Portugal. They created a VR
space and when you go in, you're going into King
Solomon's teen and you walk it into it and you
sit down and you are into King Solomon's ten.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I want to be there so bad. At seeing sounds
so cool.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
And if you've ever been in a use a VR headset,
you'll know, it takes a few minutes for to trick
the brain the sound and the vibration and the visual
because as you turn your head you're seeing different parts
of the room. You're not It's not like we are
now having a camera to camera conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So next level, will you actually be having your meetings
in a lodge room or will brothers be logging on
remotely from home or wherever.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Myin vision would be is that we would be sitting
at home. We would put ourselves in a quiet room
and we will put our VR headsets on and then
we would do the log in process and we'd go
to lodge meetings. So your lodge meeting would start in
three hours time. Well, I'd be ready, and I would
have I'd have got my access code ready and I
(24:53):
would be sitting waiting and I'd join your meeting. It
sounds crazy now, and I can probably imagine people listen
to this podcasting. Yeah, are never going to happen. It
is never going to happen. Well, you've only got to
look at the younks is what they're doing, and they
are the future. So one of the eras of interest,
of course is looking at how we can attract gen
(25:13):
Z into premats. Now the gen Z are the twelve
to twenty seven years. Yes, so that's the generation.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I can already hear the voice from those that
would oppose this and say, oh, well, it's not a
lodge meeting if you're not in a lodge with your brothers,
and as we've kind of joked, but oh yes, because
it's so important that we have to be in person
to talk about cracks in the sidewalks or leaks.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
In the roof.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Because the focus isn't going to be about that. I imagine
where you're taking ex libris. And this is what makes
it so fascinating is minds are going to want to
come together to do that thing that we talk about
in our ritual, which is becoming those living stones, and
the focus is going to be on the programs and
the Masonic education that will be instilled in them. There
still will be in person events, I'm sureners, special banquets,
(26:02):
you know, large functions that will happen outside of a
VR headset. But when you log in, this would be
like take your favorite sports team, the best TV your
favorite TV show that you watch right now streaming, and
a movie theater experience combined into one wrapped around freemasonry.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Also, don't forget what's happening in the rest of the
world around us. I've i envisioned why we still have
live sports venues and we still have restaurants that we
go to. Of course in person events will still take place.
It wasn't that many years ago that we're all in
(26:42):
lockdown and we weren't able to go to sports events,
we weren't able to go to restaurants. And I think
the emphasis will shift on a sliding scale from being
a social event to be a learning platform. Then shifts
the proposition. Now you might be talking about all the
(27:04):
social side of it, and you know, great to meet
all these people, and that's what you're selling, the camaraderie. Already,
I'm starting to shift that away from that to free
mercearies a learning platform. You learn the symbols, you learn
the allegories, you learn what happens within the lot. But
the important part thing is you learn how to transfer
(27:25):
transfer that from within the lodge to outside world. How
you become a better person by literally taking those lessons
and put them into practice. We talk about it, we
talk about it all the time, but there's no one
actually teaching us how to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
We're not using technology to ask questions to get answers
to things that we don't have the time to research
on our own.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
That's kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Where AI and machine learning helps us. We're not using
it to compile huge amounts of data and give us
an answer. What we're using the technology for is to
connect to enrich the human experience. And that's what I
love about this, and that's why I'm such a big
supporter personally of this. And I can't wait until all
of these developments and all these initiatives that you have
(28:39):
open up so that I can be a part of them,
because I want so. As I said in the beginning,
I so desperately want to be there with you in
the future together. And I know, brother, that you're going
to get there. And that's what's so exciting about this
is every time I talk to you here like, well,
we're doing this and we're rolling out this. This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
In America, you have a blue log Craft loads and
then you have right and within the York right, we
have the Royal Arch within New York. Right. In England,
it's a different story. We have Craft and we have
Royal Arch Chapter, and these are two separate entities, different operations,
(29:16):
but they're the same and they the Grand Lodge is
trying to bring this together, but of course they're very
different degrees and they operate very differently. So one of
the projects that we are working on will be to
bring a chapter along with us within the Lodge. Now,
the expression that we're using is to open in the fall.
(29:38):
So how do we open in the fall? We are
in negotiations with a chapter that exists and to get
them to change their meeting dates to suit our meeting
dates and Saturday, so we are meeting the morning, the
chapter meets in the afternoon. We want to do the
process where we can do a one, two, three in
the morning and then a four. Try and bring that seamlessly.
(30:00):
That it's not a big step. I appreciate in some
jurisdictions is craft is three degrees and then you go
and join the appendent bodies. In English freemasonry, it's not
quite like that. So this is a very English centric issue.
It doesn't necessarily translate. However, there are many pendent bodies
(30:24):
in England that have got small appendent orders to those
and of course it could translate to that as well.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'm sure there's our listener as a brother and it
is like I want to be a part of this.
You had me at Academy research. How do I get involved?
The website to get all of this information, we're going
to have that and the notes for this episode. You
can click on that link, but just kind of walk
us through, like what options are available for brothers that
might have an interest in affiliating or being a part
(30:52):
of the academy and the lodge.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
As I say, there's two entities as the lodge and
to be a member of the lodge. If they're joining member,
they would be from a Grand Lodge that's in recognition
with United Grand Lodge. That can't be altered. If we
are as a lodge also attracting candidates for initiation, we
are a lodge. There were research lodge. We were attracting candidates,
(31:14):
and the candidates that we are attracting generally have an
interest in it. Are they either working or they've got
a passion for it. As it happens that the candidates
that we are initiating are all IT based people, and
that's that's great because it's that interesting for them. The
Academy is more liberals, more open. So any brother, any
(31:38):
brother or sister, any Freemason, regardless of their brand log
can join the Academy and they can to join the Academy.
You'll join it to either take part in research projects
and or you really want to start looking at the
output of the research topics. I would hope that in
(31:58):
the years after two of the eighteen months of research,
we start to have some papers that will be of interest,
and that will be a time when we bear introducing
these into various grand lodges around the world and say
do you want to have access to this research. It's
really open to people who are currently working in the AI,
(32:20):
the VR, the blockchain space, who are Freemasons, who who
can see how that technology can really help the future
of freemates. As they say, if you want to go fast,
go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.
And we think that we're going to go far in
(32:41):
these groups.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worship for Brother
Nicholas Broadway, who's the Master and membership officer of Ex
Libris Lodge number thirty seven sixty five. If you're interested
in learning more about this lodge, you can open up
these show notes for this episode and find the link
to learn more about the lodge and his res search Academy. Hey,
if you've enjoyed this episode of The Craftsman Online podcast,
(33:03):
make sure to open up that player, click follow on Spotify,
or subscribe on Apple Podcasts. That way, you can ensure
that new episodes get to your device every Monday morning.
It's right, worshipful Brother Michael Arse. You know I always
enjoy our time together and I'm looking forward to chatting
again 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 (00:30):
Hey, welcome back to the Graftsman Online Podcast, the only
podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge in New York. I'm
your host, right worship for Brother Michael Arse back with
a special guest this week who's the editor of The
Square magazine. He's also the Master and Membership Officer of
the Ex Libris Lodge number thirty seven sixty five of
the United Grand Lodge of England. I love having this
(00:51):
brother back and inside this episode with Worshipful Brother Nicholas Broadway,
we're going to be talking about how individual Freemasons we
find ourselves right now with this infancy of digital transformation,
and how can we as a craft embrace technology to
enhance the Masonic membership. Let's get him in here to
talk about that as he is trailblazing the idea of
(01:12):
creating the very first Masonic Virtual Research Academy. Worshipful Brother
Nicholas Broadway, Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And I'm Michael. Great to be back again.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We've talked about AI, We've talked about, you know, machine learning,
the future, how technology incorporates with freemasonry. We're also going
to get into your new lodge that you've created and
some of the online learning that you're putting together your
very first virtual Masonic Research Academy. But I wanted to
start our conversation with a story, and this is a
(01:44):
true story that took place last year. We were doing
a Master Mason's degree, and I'm sure in lodge you
get the whole you know, everybody turn off your cell
phones or put them on silence, you know, put all
your devices away so there's no distraction. It's the worst
possible time, right during the degree, during the obligation and
that solemn moment when there's a distraction. So we've got
(02:05):
everything quiet, we're standing there. The worshipful Master comes down,
he goes up to the altar. There's the brother who's
ready to take that at a very important obligation. And
I'm trying to remember the exact phrase that he said,
because I'm sure it's different than with the ritual here
in the States. And how it's done in the UK
or in Europe, but basically something to the extent of furthermore,
(02:30):
I solemnly and sincerely, And that is what triggered his
Apple watch, because Siri heard sincerely and thought we were
calling her name out and she said, I'm sorry, I
don't understand what you're asking me. He paused, and the
rest of us were just ready to just bust out
laughing because there's technology interrupting things. Later on, when he
(02:54):
finished the obligation, I sat there thinking, I was like,
you know, I got to ask Nicholas about this, Like, well,
Siri ever be able to understand the obligations of freemasonry.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I don't think an AI will ever understand the moral
the more understanding. I think it will certainly understand the allegory,
because even now, you can ask it questions about symbols
and allegory within freemasonry and it will and you can
ask for the output to give it the output in
(03:28):
forms of personal development, and it's very good. So it
understands it better than we understand the interpretations of the allegory.
But it will never understand the morally the way we
would understand it. It is lines of code on team.
You can't get away from that. So I don't think
(03:51):
it will understand from from a moral point of view,
but it certainly understands a lot more than we'll ever
understand from the interpreter of the allegories because we weren't
having enough time in our lives to read all the
ancient texts to try to understand it. And I also
found from my own work experience some of the books
(04:14):
that even Masonic books that are written one hundred hundred
and fifty years ago, the old English is very difficult
to follow and to read, and trying to reinterpret that
in a modern language becomes very difficult. And I've found
that taking a Caay's Encyclopedia or Freemasonry and trying to
(04:34):
research it. If you get the volumes, you can't buy
the volumeer and you've got them on your shelf and
you want to you want to research something, just reading
it through and trying to understand is impossible. I've got
a digital version of it, and I had to break
it up into smaller sections, but I've loaded it into
our Google's Notebook a M, which is an AI tool,
(04:56):
and I can now ask any question about any aspect,
any symbol, any any anything related to those volumes, and
it will come back fully interpreted so it understands it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
As you said, AI will be able to do the
research end of it. It will be able to tell
you what this symbol means, where it dates back to
in history or the Bible or whatever. But the esoteric
elements of it unless we plug that in for AI
to scrape that that data, because that's really all it
can do. But it's never going to be able to
understand the experience or any emotion or human feeling that
(05:31):
comes with that because it doesn't it's not that sophisticated
yet and.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I don't think it's it ever will do really understand
because does a dog understand ritual? If a dog could read,
would it understand what it does? It have a faith?
Part one. One argument might be that to understand freemason,
you have to have a faith. Even people who who
claim to be atheists, they have they have a belief
(05:58):
in something, they have a fee at something. So freemasons
who from those jurisdictions that are atheists, I'm sure they
have certmbly and I don't think and AI will ever
get to that stage. It is still lines of code.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Here's the other conversation. And I told you we had
had this discussion at work recently on AI governance and
how federal contractors we have a very challenging role. Everybody
knows that people are using products like chat, GPT or
the Google products. That's what I like to use, and
we have people putting data inside of that, and once
you put something into an AI system, there's no way
(06:36):
to get that out. It's in there forever. What I've
been really fascinated with is in my use of AI,
asking questions. Sometimes I use it for prepping for guests
that come on the podcast and they have subjects that
I don't know that much about, and it's a great
research tool. When it comes to the quote unquote secrets
of freemasonry. Are there things that we should not be
(06:57):
putting into AI?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We're going to going to look books like Masony Dissected
that was written in seventeen thirty and that book is
freely available on the internet. It includes all the secrets
of the words and the explanations, and they've been around
for three hundred years. I don't think see the pint
(07:22):
about the secrets for me is I was given the
secrets when I was obligated, and I was I obligated
myself that I wouldn't revolt to them. And that's for me,
that's my conscious. I'm not going to tell people those words,
even though they could see them in the book, breathe
them in the book. I'm not going to be the
one who tells them. So it's very personal to me.
(07:45):
I know those words are available. They're available everywhere, So
if somebody wants to know the words, they'll know the words,
but they'll never understand why it's a secret unless they're obligated.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And is this a discussion I want to kind of
pivot off to the Ex Libris Academy and some of
the work that you're doing. Is this a discussion that
you're having with your lodge brothers as you're sitting here
trying to create the first virtual Masonic lodge.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's going to be the challenge. How do we keep
its secure and for virtual meetings. That's absolutely right, but
that's one of ten projects. So the virtual creating a
virtual lodge is one of ten projects, and I would
also say it's probably the biggest challenge, but at this stage,
(08:31):
it really what we're asking is let's start a dialogue
on how we can do it, because I think we
want to get there in the end. But first of all,
this discussed how do we even want to start that dialogue.
There's lots of things to think about. How do we
know somebody is taking an obligation or a holy book
(08:54):
if they're not in the room. So we've got to
figure out from a technology point of view, how do
we assume that? I also think is how much do
we want to replicate in the virtual space which actually
takes place in a in person performance, and yet still
(09:14):
maintain that egreboard that's feeling that you have you know
yourself when you when you're in the room and there's
a group of men performing a ceremony, there is this
sense of egripoord, this energy that's in the room. It's
impossible to describe, but you know it's there when you're there.
(09:35):
How do we replicate that? And that's part of the challenge,
and that's why in our lodge we have members who
are technology technical people who are who live and die
work all day in AI. We also have other members
who are not technical but very good ritualists, and they're
going to be like the test bed. If we show
(09:57):
them we're going to work in this particular way. They
are there to act as the first customer for the system. Well, actually,
I don't get I don't get it. I don't feel it.
It's not worth.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Let's get to the Ex Libris Lodge number thirty seven
sixty five, another brand lodge of England. This is what
I find so fascinating your story. I love Masonic history.
This is a lodge that was founded back in nineteen
sixteen with a prestigious legacy as the hall Stone Lodge.
And now you are a lodge, it's in the future.
As we mentioned in the open, you're also the master
(10:30):
and membership officer for this lodge.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Well, let's start a little bit about the history first,
and I can talk about the project. So, yes, the
lodge was founded in nineteen sixty Ex Libris is Latin
for book plate. Yes, So these are plates that people
would have printed. They would stick them to the inside
cover of a book and they'd write their name and
so it's part of their life. So and they were
(10:53):
sort of innovative. Printing was innovative, you know, in nineteen sixteen.
So what happened over the years The lodge on hard times.
I guess in England, when a lodge gets to a
point where there's not enough members, it hands the warrant
back to the grand Master, and then lodge ceased to
be and it can never come back again. And it
(11:13):
was about this time last year that they wanted to
hand their warrant in. We went to the Metropolitan Grand
Lodge and London Lodge and explained what we wanted to do,
and we wanted to take over an existing warrant. It's
quicker process to take their lodge that's already in existence
and repurpose it than to start with a new one.
(11:34):
The six of us were introduced to the existing members
of ex Lebus. They'd already made their mind that they
were going to hand the warrant in, haven't. We haven't
been running for a whole year yet. We've initiated four
candidates into the Lord and we've grown the membership from
what it was before we moved in about half a
dozen members. We will be about thirty members at the
(11:57):
eight at this coming April meeting. We've turned it around.
So the first target, or the first task, was to
secure the lodge's stability. A lot of our research has
to be done outside the lodge environment because there's certain
book of constitutional rules that you can't break, and we
don't want to break those. We want to use the
(12:18):
lodge as a test bed, so try things outside and
then bring it in. We set up a second entity,
the ex Lebros Academy Limited. This is an English registered
company as a board of directors and it will manage
all the research projects. So the research is done in
the Academy, but we also have a lodge which allows
(12:42):
us to put to use some of the research. The
good thing here is in the Academy we're because it's
not the Masonic lawn, we're able to have people work
with us who are not men or lodges recognized by
(13:03):
a United Winn Lodge of England. And in the few
years that have been leading up to this, I've made
a number of acquaintances with many Freemasons from around Europe
and other parts of the world who are in what
we loosely regard as liberal lodges. They're regular Freemasons, but
then their grand lodges are not recognized. They can't participate
(13:25):
in lodge meeting, but they can participate in the Academy
because it's not a Masonic environment. The other thing is
the cost of joining the lodge is quite high because
we have to pay Grand Lodge fees. We have to
pay Metropolitan Grand Lodge fees and have to pay lodge
on costs. All the money that we get in it
(13:47):
goes out and costs. But the idea with the Academy,
there's going to be a much smaller charge to be
a member of the Academy. To be a member of
the Academy, it allows you to do research work but
also to be received for the research results when they're published,
and the money that we raise in the Academy will
be used to fund the research project.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
This timeline, where are you at now to where you
are close to the finished product.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
We're at the very beginning. We are at the very
beginning of the process.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I have so many questions about this because this is
a fascinating story. Like when you walked in to meet
with the brothers that were kind of getting prepared to
surrender their charter so to speak, and you said, hey,
we have this idea that we want to resurrect this
Like what was their reaction? Were they excited to see
that their lodge was going to be taken to a
next to a new level.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
There were probably only three or four people at that
point in that left in the lodge that were active.
The rest had given up. One has stayed. He was
initiated into the lodge and he's been a member of
the lodge since nineteen seventies. He's going to be listening
to this. So I've got to say it's a real
nice chat other members. This wasn't what they were interested in,
(14:58):
and they've taken membership. Basically, what it means is they've
resigned their subscribing membership. They remain a member of the lodge,
but on an ornorary basis. That means they don't pay
any money for their membership and they don't get involved
with it. Everyone's really happy because we've managed to save
a wholstone lord, which is within itself is good. We've
(15:20):
managed to save a lodge that's one hundred years old,
it's called history, which is good, and we've managed to
attract new members into that lord. So it's a win
for everybody.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
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(16:44):
enjoy free shipping with your first order. It's interesting, this
is like turning out to be the year of birth.
I know of so many lodges that are now under
(17:05):
a dispensation or brothers are coming together and saying, hey,
we want to do a lodge that does this. They
have an affinity or a specific purpose that they want
this lodge to do. It's just not like, hey, we
want to plan a flag and start a new lodge.
It's like, no, we want to do the lodge that
does this type of work. What were the conversations like
with your Grand Lodge and the Metropolitan Lodge and the
(17:26):
steps that went through to line this up.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
He put the proposal to Metropolitan Grand Lodge the members
that he was having the conversation with, and their view was,
this is really fascinating. I think I understand what you're doing.
It turns out this particular person works in one of
the banks in the city of London working on aidealer disks,
(17:52):
so he did know what we were talking about, and
his view was, don't explain it too much, go ahead
and do it and then let's see what happens. So
we're very much an entity that's sitting on the edge
of the main poll here. We are a research lodge.
We're sitting on the head. We're going to go away
and break things disrupt things, change things, and then bring
(18:16):
it back and show what we've done in our time.
So we've got a little bit of a freehand at
the moment. I don't think too many people know about us,
which is good. It gets us a chance to get established.
We do follow the sort of Mesite tradition, ask for
forgiveness rather than us permission. Everything that's done in the
(18:40):
LAWD is done by the Boolger constitutions. There's nothing that
we're doing that is not part of book of constitutions.
The research is where all the interesting stuff people pay.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Every month, I get an email with the kind of
the summons for your meetings, and it's like, if you
can come and join us, And I'm like, I'd love
to hop on my private plane and fly out there
and be with you for dinner because I imagine the
conversations that you have at this lodge and just the
fact when you said we had thirty members that have
already affiliated and come and joined. Here's why. Because this
is new, this is exciting, there's purpose. I'm sure we're
(19:15):
not hearing conversations about you know, leaky roofs or sidewalks
that need to be fixed and plumbing issues. In the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
No, it's it's very different. We only meet four times
a year and we when we set out to lodge
meetings there are lodge events, they're not it's not a meeting,
it's an event we had we did. We were meeting
on a Friday evening, which made traveling home at night
(19:41):
a bit of a challenge. We've now moved our meetings
to Saturday morning and that's completely changed everything. But it's
now people coming from further Afield to London. We're getting
a lot of overseas visitors who come over for the weekend.
But the conversations are all about the technology, and when
I go and meet other Brad or my general Masonic travels,
(20:03):
the conversations often lead come back to what we're doing
it Liba and people are just fascinated that there is
a group of people Freemasons who are actually looking at
this and how are we going to make this work.
But we don't talk about the food. We're not worried about,
as you say, leaky rooms or anything. This is all
about how's AI going to work, how's the be going
to work, how's blockchaining, how we're going to be doing that,
(20:27):
and the conversation is really deepen into Let's.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Get to that, because I'm sure there's brothers that are like, oh,
I want to know what they're talking about. How do
they do this? What are some of these conversations, and
what is the vision that you have. I think when
brothers hear a virtual lodge, they think, oh, like I
can just log in like in this meeting. I can
go to a Zoom meeting or a team's Microsoft Teams
meeting and there I'll be or it's a Google hangout
(20:50):
or a chat or something you're actually talking about. We'll
have what are the avatars of ourselves, and we'll be
in a virtual lodge that with all of the four
D and.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
The idea it will be is that we'll be based
on VR headsets, so members will have VR headsets accessing
into the meeting. For example. I foresee that will be
based on blockchain technology, so your brain Loge certificate will
be a token on a blockchain, so you will need
(21:22):
your past code to access to access in. It will
be just the same security that the entertainment industry is
going to be in point when they do live VIR experiences,
if they've got to have a ticketing system that is secure.
They can't have a leaky system otherwise they're not going
(21:44):
to make money. So no events, no evites. Now no,
if you want to BTE, then you've because the point
is you've got to make sure that the people who
are coming in who are recorded to one other project
is specifically looking at how do we digitized grand lot
of certificates on a chain so that when a member
goes to a meeting is basically going to it's been
(22:05):
shown that he says, this is my certificate, So he
gives a QR code and that pops up on an
iPad and he's got six digit code he's got to
put in to prove who he is and then go, yep,
this is who he says he is. Yes, just as
you would take a Grand Lodge certificate to a secutar
and say here here I am, here's my grandload certificate.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And the reason why I'm laughing about this is because
I know in certain jurisdictions we still have paper duze cards.
The idea even a plastic ducee card doesn't exist. It's paper.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
We don't have juice cards. We just pay into a
bank and then if we want to go to visit
if we want to go visit another lodge and we're
not known, we might be asked to send a clearance letter,
so we have to beg a lodge that we're visiting.
Secretary would contact our lodge treasurer and get an email saying, yes,
(23:02):
this person has packed. I mean yeah, it's having a
Jews cub probably be a really great idea. We're still
we're still further back, and even the application to have
to join Freemasonry, it's still a paper form that has
to be written. It can't be so we are going
(23:22):
from the eighteenth century to the twenty first center in
one league. The VR is the most interesting of the topic,
but it's not the only topic, but it's going to
be the most challenging. But there are companies in Europe
VR companies who have already created VR spaces in temples.
(23:44):
I know a company in Portugal. They created a VR
space and when you go in, you're going into King
Solomon's teen and you walk it into it and you
sit down and you are into King Solomon's ten.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I want to be there so bad. At seeing sounds
so cool.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
And if you've ever been in a use a VR headset,
you'll know, it takes a few minutes for to trick
the brain the sound and the vibration and the visual
because as you turn your head you're seeing different parts
of the room. You're not It's not like we are
now having a camera to camera conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So next level, will you actually be having your meetings
in a lodge room or will brothers be logging on
remotely from home or wherever.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Myin vision would be is that we would be sitting
at home. We would put ourselves in a quiet room
and we will put our VR headsets on and then
we would do the log in process and we'd go
to lodge meetings. So your lodge meeting would start in
three hours time. Well, I'd be ready, and I would
have I'd have got my access code ready and I
(24:53):
would be sitting waiting and I'd join your meeting. It
sounds crazy now, and I can probably imagine people listen
to this podcasting. Yeah, are never going to happen. It
is never going to happen. Well, you've only got to
look at the younks is what they're doing, and they
are the future. So one of the eras of interest,
of course is looking at how we can attract gen
(25:13):
Z into premats. Now the gen Z are the twelve
to twenty seven years. Yes, so that's the generation.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I can already hear the voice from those that
would oppose this and say, oh, well, it's not a
lodge meeting if you're not in a lodge with your brothers,
and as we've kind of joked, but oh yes, because
it's so important that we have to be in person
to talk about cracks in the sidewalks or leaks.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
In the roof.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Because the focus isn't going to be about that. I imagine
where you're taking ex libris. And this is what makes
it so fascinating is minds are going to want to
come together to do that thing that we talk about
in our ritual, which is becoming those living stones, and
the focus is going to be on the programs and
the Masonic education that will be instilled in them. There
still will be in person events, I'm sureners, special banquets,
(26:02):
you know, large functions that will happen outside of a
VR headset. But when you log in, this would be
like take your favorite sports team, the best TV your
favorite TV show that you watch right now streaming, and
a movie theater experience combined into one wrapped around freemasonry.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Also, don't forget what's happening in the rest of the
world around us. I've i envisioned why we still have
live sports venues and we still have restaurants that we
go to. Of course in person events will still take place.
It wasn't that many years ago that we're all in
(26:42):
lockdown and we weren't able to go to sports events,
we weren't able to go to restaurants. And I think
the emphasis will shift on a sliding scale from being
a social event to be a learning platform. Then shifts
the proposition. Now you might be talking about all the
(27:04):
social side of it, and you know, great to meet
all these people, and that's what you're selling, the camaraderie. Already,
I'm starting to shift that away from that to free
mercearies a learning platform. You learn the symbols, you learn
the allegories, you learn what happens within the lot. But
the important part thing is you learn how to transfer
(27:25):
transfer that from within the lodge to outside world. How
you become a better person by literally taking those lessons
and put them into practice. We talk about it, we
talk about it all the time, but there's no one
actually teaching us how to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
We're not using technology to ask questions to get answers
to things that we don't have the time to research
on our own.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
That's kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Where AI and machine learning helps us. We're not using
it to compile huge amounts of data and give us
an answer. What we're using the technology for is to
connect to enrich the human experience. And that's what I
love about this, and that's why I'm such a big
supporter personally of this. And I can't wait until all
of these developments and all these initiatives that you have
(28:39):
open up so that I can be a part of them,
because I want so. As I said in the beginning,
I so desperately want to be there with you in
the future together. And I know, brother, that you're going
to get there. And that's what's so exciting about this
is every time I talk to you here like, well,
we're doing this and we're rolling out this. This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
In America, you have a blue log Craft loads and
then you have right and within the York right, we
have the Royal Arch within New York. Right. In England,
it's a different story. We have Craft and we have
Royal Arch Chapter, and these are two separate entities, different operations,
(29:16):
but they're the same and they the Grand Lodge is
trying to bring this together, but of course they're very
different degrees and they operate very differently. So one of
the projects that we are working on will be to
bring a chapter along with us within the Lodge. Now,
the expression that we're using is to open in the fall.
(29:38):
So how do we open in the fall? We are
in negotiations with a chapter that exists and to get
them to change their meeting dates to suit our meeting
dates and Saturday, so we are meeting the morning, the
chapter meets in the afternoon. We want to do the
process where we can do a one, two, three in
the morning and then a four. Try and bring that seamlessly.
(30:00):
That it's not a big step. I appreciate in some
jurisdictions is craft is three degrees and then you go
and join the appendent bodies. In English freemasonry, it's not
quite like that. So this is a very English centric issue.
It doesn't necessarily translate. However, there are many pendent bodies
(30:24):
in England that have got small appendent orders to those
and of course it could translate to that as well.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'm sure there's our listener as a brother and it
is like I want to be a part of this.
You had me at Academy research. How do I get involved?
The website to get all of this information, we're going
to have that and the notes for this episode. You
can click on that link, but just kind of walk
us through, like what options are available for brothers that
might have an interest in affiliating or being a part
(30:52):
of the academy and the lodge.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
As I say, there's two entities as the lodge and
to be a member of the lodge. If they're joining member,
they would be from a Grand Lodge that's in recognition
with United Grand Lodge. That can't be altered. If we
are as a lodge also attracting candidates for initiation, we
are a lodge. There were research lodge. We were attracting candidates,
(31:14):
and the candidates that we are attracting generally have an
interest in it. Are they either working or they've got
a passion for it. As it happens that the candidates
that we are initiating are all IT based people, and
that's that's great because it's that interesting for them. The
Academy is more liberals, more open. So any brother, any
(31:38):
brother or sister, any Freemason, regardless of their brand log
can join the Academy and they can to join the Academy.
You'll join it to either take part in research projects
and or you really want to start looking at the
output of the research topics. I would hope that in
(31:58):
the years after two of the eighteen months of research,
we start to have some papers that will be of interest,
and that will be a time when we bear introducing
these into various grand lodges around the world and say
do you want to have access to this research. It's
really open to people who are currently working in the AI,
(32:20):
the VR, the blockchain space, who are Freemasons, who who
can see how that technology can really help the future
of freemates. As they say, if you want to go fast,
go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.
And we think that we're going to go far in
(32:41):
these groups.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worship for Brother
Nicholas Broadway, who's the Master and membership officer of Ex
Libris Lodge number thirty seven sixty five. If you're interested
in learning more about this lodge, you can open up
these show notes for this episode and find the link
to learn more about the lodge and his res search Academy. Hey,
if you've enjoyed this episode of The Craftsman Online podcast,
(33:03):
make sure to open up that player, click follow on Spotify,
or subscribe on Apple Podcasts. That way, you can ensure
that new episodes get to your device every Monday morning.
It's right, worshipful Brother Michael Arse. You know I always
enjoy our time together and I'm looking forward to chatting
again next Monday. Until then, let peace and harmony prevail.
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