Many Masonic authors mention the influence that Gnosticism had on the gradual development of the Speculative Freemasonry that perpetuates today. In their noble efforts to theorize the genealogy of the Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, many historians include the Middle Eastern religious movement known as Gnosticism in their linear pedigree of the Craft. The influence of gnostic thought, on the seventeenth-century Brethren, who probably wrote the ritual that we still recite, is evident in King Solomon’s prayer in the Third Degree of Blue Lodge, or Craft Masonry.

As we bring this issue of Masonic Magazine to a close, I thought I’d take advantage of this space to reflect upon a few things that have been discussed within the pages of this edition.

Last summer – the beginning of last summer, as a matter of fact – I stacked a dozen bags of mulch and topsoil next to my garage. Now, I had every intention of spreading that stuff all over my garden. I had big plans, but I got sidetracked. Things happened, and there are loads of really outstanding excuses as to why I never got around to it. So they sat there. All summer, fall and winter. They’re still there. As I write this, I figure it’s been about 270 days since I put them there. I see them every single day of my life.

Robbie Burns is standing in Detroit’s Cass Park with his arms folded. The poet’s stance suggests that he might be contemplating his next literary work, except for the tears in his eyes.

Looking northward toward the intersection of Temple Avenue and Second Boulevard, where the cornerstone to the famed Detroit Masonic Temple was laid in 1922, he can see a garbage bag lying on the street beneath the very spot where George Washington’s working tools were once used to spread the cement for the stone.

Burns wonders why nobody bothers to pick it up.

It seems a little unusual to do a book review on something that is only 17 pages in length.

Although brief, the Masonic Information Center’s (MIC) new publication, “It’s About Time, is so important, we felt that it would be well worth offering a few words of commentary on it.

In the 30 years between the start of the 20th Century and the commencement of the Great Depression, American Freemasons spared no expense in turning their dreams and goals into tangible edifices that survive to this day, testament to the high regard with which Freemasons of that era held the Masonic craft.

Alright, how does one review a book that is not only written by a Brother Mason, but one whose author is a personal friend? That’s a pretty tough row to hoe, in and of itself. Add to that the fact that the author in question is the Worshipful Master of a Lodge that you are an honorary member of and you are faced with an even tougher writing assignment. It would be very easy to pass on the assignment to someone else, but that would be a cop out. No; you simply grit your teeth, read the book and write the bloody review.

The deacons cross their wands at the door as the Worshipful Master gives three sharp knocks that causes every Mason in the room to immediately rise and stand at attention responding in true Pavlovian fashion. After a brief announcement at the door, in it comes, a sea dark blue cloth trimmed in dark gold braid. The Grand Lodge Officers have arrived.