"We've done a lot of one day degrees, probably more than any other state, and we found that a lot of the guys coming in were losing attention with all the stuff we were throwing at them," explained RW Steve Garvey, the Grand Lodge Publicity Spokesperson. "By the end of the day, they hardly retained anything. Half, maybe three quarters of them always have that 'deer in the headlamps' look, so we figured that the best thing to do would be to cut out the unimportant parts and just have one big degree."
The Past Bastard questioned RW Garvey on shortened degrees.
 |
| Grand Lodge of Ohio at the Dayton Masonic Center |
"We all know that there's a lot of repetitious stuff in the degrees, and that there's some stuff that doesn't really add anything," he told us. "What we did was remove some of the longer lectures, like that staircase thing. Nobody really listens to the whole thing anyhow. Then we realized that there was no sense in having three different obligations, so we're just giving them the Master Mason one. And we're combining all the working tools into one big set that we call 'The Working Toolbox.' And if we're only giving them one obligation, there's no sense in having them walk around three different times, so we're going to settle on circumnavigating just three times."
The Grand Lodge figures that by consolidating the rituals and ceremonies into one big degree, they can save between two and three hours on the One Day Class.
"If this works out, then we're going to look at possibly having a morning session and an afternoon session for our next Grand Master's One Day Class," said RW Garvey. "Our goal is to make things easy enough so that a lodge never has to put on their own set of degrees again."
-- Conte Calvino Gliostro
"That staircase thing." You mean the one Pennsylvania Masons know nothing about because it was never in their ritual to begin with?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWOW,what happened to the part where it says, "as ALL Brothers and friends have done who have gone this way before me." Beyond that...there's a LOT of work and time put in for each degree and we have around a 40% retention rate in both AF&AM and PHA Masonry here in NC. Wondering what the retention will be for one who has only 1 day of work and effort invested to get the same MM Degree? SMH.
ReplyDelete"If this works out, then we're going to look at possibly having a morning session and an afternoon session for our next Grand Master's One Day Class," said RW Garvey. "Our goal is to make things easy enough so that a lodge never has to put on their own set of degrees again."
ReplyDeleteThis will be the death of Freemasonry!
It's ummmmm. A JOKE!
DeleteI thought the web address would make that plain! But maybe he didn't read it.
DeleteThis is awesome! Somebody explain the definition of satire again? Some folks aren't quite getting it
ReplyDeletePoems law atrikes again sadly - essentially the more ridiculs society becomes the harder it is to write satire that's obviously satire because it sounds so stupid some people would believe it.
DeleteFor example there's a famous 9/11 satirical poster that uses a quote from 'respected researcher Dr Benjamin K. Ghnobi' to justify how it couldn't have been an attack planned and orchastrated by Islamic terrorists however because a hell of a lot of 9/11 truthwr stuff is so insane and blatantly offensive real truthers will believe it and at first glance it appears to be a legitimate trigger belief when in fact its a paraphrasing of a star wars quote
'the attacks cannot have been committed by these poorly educated and brainwashed afgan/saudi nationals the piloting was too good they targeted precise impact points to cause the most destruction'.
hahaha! Well done satire.
ReplyDeleteConsolidating the Blue Lodge Ritual needs done to be current with the times. With every state Grand Lodge seeing consistent membership loss. It only make sense to consolidate it down to one degree. Maybe some of the "Big Smoke No Fire" leaders in the Grand Lodges will figure it is about building relationships at the Lodge level. This is not a rehearsed ritual society. The only problem is most Grand Lodges can't see change needs to happen.
ReplyDeleteHere in Delaware we only shorten the third degree , but it has to be done in long form so all candidates can see it all the way to the raising . And l agree there is allot of repetition in all three degrees but each one has a different lesson in them from the position of the hands on the bible , the penalty and the Steps
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed. Half the commenters don't seem to realize IT'S A JOKE.
ReplyDelete