GENERAL GRAND MASONIC CONGRESS A. F. & A. M. Southern-Western Jurisdiction of the Grand Masonic Congress of the United States and Canada

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1 GENERAL GRAND MASONIC CONGRESS A. F. & A. M. Southern-Western Jurisdiction of the Grand Masonic Congress of the United States and Canada Information Night & Candidate Study Guide

2 MASONIC INFO NIGHT Every Mason makes a solemn declaration that he believes in the existence of one ever-living & true God and in immortality of the soul, and that he is in search of everlasting life. Freemasonry ministers to the Whole Man. It pays attention to his secular and earthly interests, which promotes harmony & happiness; also, it cultivates his moral & spiritual character. A Masons progress in spiritual character is more important than his success in the world. Masons engage in discussion to enrich one another s mind---not to prove who is right or who is wrong. Mt. Sinai does have a systematic program of instruction. You as a new baby in Masonry will be assigned to a Master Mason who is to guide you through your 1 st degree. Any man who displays slothfulness, hesitancy, & negligence in the orientation & through the 1 st degree will not be permitted to travel any further. Man s mental & spiritual capacity along with his willingness to meet & perform is imperative to the success of both the individual and the Order. Some men think Masonry will improve their business prospects, some like the insignias & regalia, and some seek the prestige of affiliation. Those that join and grasp the implications and interpretations of Masonic work receive all of the above & more. The mysteries will only be revealed to those who are duly and well qualified to receive them. You are not to only learn Masonic lessons, but live them. What is most worth knowing in Masonry is never very openly taught. Modern Masonry confers 2 kind of benefits; 1-Universal brotherhood in which men help one another; 2-Benefits of committed study of the philosophy of Masonry (no man can pass through the degrees of masonry properly and no receive great benefit). Masonic truths tend to creep up on those who attend regularly. Those who gain the most---are the ones who diligent seek its mysteries. The purpose of Masonry and the real purpose of Christian teachings are the same: Soul Regeneration Building through faith and works ones spirit.

3 CANDIDATE ORIENTATION CLASS-A MASONIC HISTORY In the Middle Ages the word Mason was used to denote a builder. In theory this included men in many crafts and trades connected with architectural construction, but in daily usage, it was narrowed to mean only such men as those working in stone, brick, and tiles. Within these there were many grades, classes, or specialists: quarrymen, stonecutters, and workers in rough stone, free-stone sculpture, along with servants and helpers. Among the six or seven organized groups of Masons, one gild stood above and apart from the others, with more honor, higher wages and with certain peculiar privileges to themselves. These were called Freemasons. Whether they were called this because they worked with freestone (which could be carved), or because they were free to move about without regard to local restrictions or because they possessed a Royal Charter which empowered them to work anywhere in the kingdom is a question unanswered. These Freemasons were highly skilled and educated men. They designed and constructed between 1500 and 2000 cathedrals, thousands of chapels, monasteries, castles, and halls. Not many could read or write, but through long and thorough apprenticeships together, they possessed a large body of knowledge. A Master Freemason was a better-educated man than a bishop or a prince. It was among those Freemasons of the middle Ages that the modern brotherhood of Free and Accepted Masons had its origin. The Freemasonry is more than eight centuries old. Freemasonry is not the consequence of a miracle; it has perpetuated itself like mathematics, or the Christian religion. Like them, it has in its possession something men are in want of, and would go to great lengths of labor and sacrifice to obtain. It is this possession, which is the true (or Royal ) secret of Freemasonry. In their philosophy, Freemasons have stood in sharpest contrast and even in contradiction to the world in which they lived. For more than two centuries Freemasons were the supreme men in Britain and Europe, for their intelligence,

4 knowledge, ability and character. No other society can look back to an ancestry nobler than our own. When a bishop decided to build a cathedral, he set up a board or foundation. The foundation employed a Master Mason. He then sent out the word for craftsmen. Craftsmen applied, was examined and if found satisfactory was signed on, with his family to follow. The craftsmen became an organized community. There were officers, meetings, and conferences. They formed themselves into a lodge. This existed as long as the work lasted. A Lodge is a body of men organized for the sole purpose of working together as a unit. As a convenience and to distinguish the first half of Masonic history from its later half, we call the workmen in the first period Operative Freemasons and in the later (this period) Speculative Freemasons. The only fundamental difference between Operative Freemasonry and Speculative Freemasonry is that a Speculative Freemason does not use Freemasonry as a means of livelihood, but for another nobler purpose. Freemasonry is a society of men. There is a society of women. Neither is allowed to join the other. Masonic rituals are full of quotations from the bible. Many others are not easily recognized and their full meaning will be lost without knowledge of the bible. The legends of masonry even when not taking from the bible are based on bible teachings. Masonry clothes itself, its stories, and lessons in the promotion of growth as the bible does. Both have the same purpose---to bring man from darkness to light that he may see and know God. Masonic rituals are commentaries on the bible and like many commentaries are meaningless alone. It is necessary to study the bible. Our aim as Masons is to follow the bible, and therefore become an instrument of God. Masons adopted the bible as their Great Light because there is no other book so full of the wisdom of life, or as enlightening to the soul, and as helpful in finding your way through darkness (troubles & problems). Without the Bible, there can be no Masonry.

5 DEFINITION OF FREEMASONRY Masonry is building with durable material, according to a well-conceived design. Masonry is a system that takes good men and makes them better. The definitions of Freemasonry have been numerous; but they all unite in declaring it a system of morality, and by the practice of which its members may advance their spiritual interest. A Masonic Lodge is a body of workmen in which each member has a station or place corresponding to his task or function. The chief officer is a Master Workman charged with responsibility to see that the members work peaceably and harmoniously as a unit. The workmen (craftsmen) are to act as one man, as men do when working together in the same place. The Freemasons of the Middle Ages who formed the first of these lodges lived in a society in which not only institutions and rulers but the great majority of men and women were opposed to the teachings of Masonic Lodges, and were ready to destroy them by force and violence. The fundamental doctrine of the church was that work was a curse which had been pronounced on Adam s descendants as a supernatural and never-ceasing penalty for his disobedience. The Kings and his nobles and the aristocracy by which they were surrounded looked down upon work as something beneath them. People suffered disgraces, indignities, injustices, and atrocities were heaped upon them inhumanly century after century not because they were criminals, traitors but because they were neither lords nor landlords but were working men. The Medieval Freemasons found out the truth about work; they found it out for themselves and from the work, they themselves were doing. They did not write that truth down in books or cast in the form of a creed, it was written down in a series of statements in the language of today: 1. To work is to produce, grow, or make something without which men and women cannot continue to live. To have such things a man must make use of himself as the means to produce them. To take away directly or indirectly the products of a man s work is to do violence not to things but to the man himself, and hence is absolute injustice. 2. The need men and women have for countless products, services, and a commodity are not a temporary one, nor is it

6 accidental, but continue to be true forever. For this reason, work is neither a curse nor an inconvenience, but is a fact about man and the world. 3. Man is by nature a worker. It is only in his work that a man finds himself, his fulfillment, and satisfaction. Idlers and parasites become less than men. This truth is plain to any observer; when a man ceases or refuses to work an inner deterioration begins, first in character, later in his mind, and in the end his body. 4. Since numbers, 2 and 3 above are true, work is one of the attributes of God, the creator of both man and the world. 5. If a man be not honorable, upright, and truthful it is not he alone who suffers from his failure; his fellows suffer also, they and the work together. If work fails the world fails, and workers and non-workers go down in catastrophe together. No church or government is more stupid than one which denies men the liberty to work, or interferes with the liberties required by work. When the first Freemasons found out for themselves the truth about work, they won a place for themselves among history s great wayshowers, thinkers, philosophers, and prophets. The soul of Freemasonry as well as its purpose in the world is the set of truths which they found. The fact that those truths are not codified, or printed, or tabulated but are embodied in rites and symbols and lodge practices does not matter; they are there, and while a man is made a Mason they stamp themselves upon his mind. It is a mistake to suppose that Freemasonry is a religion. It is but the handmaiden to religion Prov. 12:11, 12:24, 14:23, 22:29, and lastly so that we have our priorities in order Prov. 24:27 NOTES:

7 CANDIDATE ORIENTATION CLASS-B DUTY OF A FREEMASON---The very 1 st duty that a newly made Mason acknowledges is to improve himself in Masonry. Many truly and sincerely attempt to discharge that duty. What would be the success of a lawyer who never again looked into a law book after his admission to the bar; a minister of the gospel who never read the Bible after his ordination; a doctor who never continued his education after the acquisition of his sheepskin; or any other professional who does not take up postgraduate studies? Would you trust them? Would you take advice from them? Would you give them your business? Yet, you will find Freemasons pretending to be Masonic lights, which never read, study and work at their profession. Some of them, perhaps, can quote and repeat certain portions of the ritual, but cannot give an intelligent interpretation of the same to save their lives. Masonic reading is an essential part of the education of a Freemason. It is never too late to begin, but always better to begin early. Your Masonic knowledge is like money. 1. It is better to have it sooner than latter. 2. You can do more with it, than without it. 3. It is better to have more of it, than less of it. The duty of a Freemason as an honest man is plain and easy. It requires of him honesty in contracts, sincerity in affirming, simplicity in bargaining, and faithfulness in performing. To sleep little, and to study much; to say little, and to hear and think much; to learn, that he may be able to do; and then to do earnestly and vigorously whatever the good of his fellows, his country, and mankind requires. These Are Your Duties As A Freemason.

8 ETHICS OF FREEMASONRY---After the union of the Ancient (1751) and the Modern (1717) Grand Lodge, in 1813 the Rev. Dr. Hemming wrote the definition of Masonry, which has been learned and repeated by millions--- Freemasonry is a beautiful system of morality. Freemasonry is not a system of morality, either in its Speculative form or as it was in its Operative form, and was never intended to be, but is a brotherhood of men of which the grand idea is work. Freemasonry has never been an ethical culture society, nor one devoted to moral reform. In fact, its petitioners are to have already morals in order to be considered qualified for admission. The definition makes Freemasonry appear to be one of several systems of morality, and that it has a system peculiar to itself. Which neither is the case. In the first book of Constitutions ever published it was stated that Masons were to be good and true men but it was taken that Masons meant the same thing by goodness and truth that other men did. Character belongs to what man is. A man who does nothing to destroy character out of himself is said to righteous; a woman is said to be moral. In character are truthfulness, honor, honesty, courage, bravery, goodness, dignity, and purity. Character of itself is everywhere, and belongs to man as man; and is not the product of any religion, race, culture, country, or class. No man can ad anything to character, or take anything away. Freemasonry is universal in righteousness, just as character is universal. The word Ethics derived from a Greek word ethos which signifies custom. Ethics came to mean the custom of doing good acts, and through those acts arises the habit of moral virtue----the practice of all that is good in relation to God and to man, to the state and the individual. Ethics being thus engaged in the inculcation of moral duties, there has to be a standard, an authoritative ground principle, a doctrine on which they depend, which forbid the performances of others or offense. Ethics is divisible into several species; Ethics of Theology teaches the nature and attributes of God. Ethics of Christianity---founded on the Scriptures. Ethics of Philosophy---mans personal speculations concerning God.

9 Ethics of Freemasonry combines all three. The symbolism of Freemasonry, which is its peculiar mode of instruction, inculcates all the duties, which we owe to God as being his children, and to men as being their brethren. At a very early period of your initiation, you will be instructed that you owe a threefold duty to God, your neighbor, and yourself---and the inculcation of these duties constitutes the ethics of Freemasonry. The tetragrammation, the letter G, and many other symbols of a like character, impressively inculcate the lesson that there is a God, and that we are His offspring. To Him, then as the Universal Father, does the ethics of Freemasonry teach us that we owe the duty of loving and obedient children. Then, the vast extent of the lodge, making the whole world the common home of all Freemasons, and the temple, in which we all labor for the building up of our bodies as a spiritual house, teaches us that we are not only children, but also fellow workers, laboring together in the same task. Joint labor, for a joint purpose. The ethics of Freemasonry is really founded on the two great ideas of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. These are your Ethics as a Freemason. READING ASSIGNMENT FOR THIRD CLASS EPH. 5:1-14 AND PROV Be prepared to discuss fully.

10 CANDIDATE ORIENTATION CLASS-C History of YOUR GRAND LODGE A.F. & A.M. ----and Summarize the United Supreme Council Packet. Discussion of Reading Assignment----Eph. 5:1-14 & Prov. 1-9 To put up, erect, or build anything, there must be a Foundation, a Foundation solid enough so that it stays in tack. Strong enough that storms/shifting earth cannot destroy it; strong enough for structure to be tied to it PROPERLY. What Do I Mean By PROPERLY? As Masons, we profess to be builders. The 1 st thing we must begin to build is ourselves. Here, and now, you have agreed to start Construction, Reconstruction, or Remodeling if your foundation is already solid enough to build upon. Let s design the end product? Phil. 4:8 TRUE; HONORABLE; RIGHT; PURE; LOVELY; GOOD REPORT Think On These Things. Disclaimer these things make up a normal Christian lifestyle. Whatever we think on---we Work On, as a man thinks so he is. These things should exude from a Masons walk, & his Talk. Where does our walk & talk come from? Is it fair to say mans speech and actions are reflections of his thinking, and a man s thinking is a reflection of his SPIRIT (what is on the inside)? We now have SPIRIT THINKING RESULT! None are perfect---all fall short. We all have something to work on. Matt. 3:10 A tree is known by its what? (FRUIT!) No good fruit not a good Tree. No good Works Not a Good Man. The Root is the Spirit of the tree. This scripture symbolizes that time is running out. Therefore, we have to get/start at the root. If you or I want to cause a change or improvement in ourselves, we have to start with our?

11 The beautiful thing about Masonry is that we have Help Am I my brother s keeper? CANDIDATE ORIENTATIN CLASS-D STUDY ASSIGNMENT: Masonry is a way of life. We must, as Masons be able to Think Clearly, Make Sound Decisions, & Be Just In Our Actions. Life is an interdependent journey, in which we are dependent on everyone to do what they are responsible for, so that we can do what we are responsible for doing. No Man Is An Island. I believe life is simple, but not an easy thing to deal with. However, when we master or come close to putting things where they belong, we experience a lot less frustration. To abide by Ps. 133, we must possess the same spirit, and that should be the Spirit of the leader. A House Divided Will Not Stand. Not to say that the leader is right in all they do, but only when we get as far as they can take us, can we get further. Please read the above info again before going any further. Then read and concentrate on the things I say below, and give me any feedback or your thoughts on the subjects. This is how we can get on One Accord. This is a two-way conversation---no one else will know your response or thoughts. Question: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: Everything we need for our fulfillment is available. We were created for success. If you have limitations you get limitations. The individual chooses! People will solicit you to support their views (be them good or bad). Discernment is a must. There is place for everything & everybody, and everything & everybody should be in their place. No decision is a decision, & tentativeness kills. Life on earth only two guarantees: #1- Everything is temporary; #2- It will end. It is not what happens to us---it is what we do afterwards that matters. Applied pressure (action) will move or change everything. Everything affects everything, & everybody affects everybody they know, meet, & see. Whatever you deposit, will be your withdrawal. Only when we have identified the unadulterated truth about ourselves, can we make changes needed for the fulfillment of our purpose. Reference Verses: Prov. 16:32, 23:7, Matt. 7:7-8, 18:19-20, Prov. 14:23, 2 Tim. 1:7