Masonic Education Resources
August 23, 2014
Everything you see below has been used by Resurgam Lodge.
If you don't know about our education program, go to
Resurgam Lodge
and scroll down the page to "Third Tuesday Discussion Group."

Prerequisite To Any and All Successful Masonic Education

Pull up your pants, take a deep breath, and DEMAND that your Lodge get off its collective backside.
Move it into the 21st Century!
If you want Masonic Education - and your Lodge - to wither and die just keep doing what you've always done.
You'll bore your members into the grave.  

Masonic education can be, should be, and in successful lodges is, interesting and challenging.  
It leads to amazing things.  
Just ask us what's happened.  
So, be creative.  And be progressive.

Resurgam Lodge has had great success using a simple combination of wireless internet, a laptop, and a digital compatible television.  Internet and the laptop should, by the way, already be in every Lodge for MORI and education purposes.  If you don't have them, get them NOW.  It will be some of the best money  your Lodge has spent in the last decade or so.  You'll also find that adding a modern, digital television and cable/internet to your lodge will create significant opportunities for socialization - sports events, watching election returns, movie nights,  etc.  With very little effort your Lodge can be busier than it has ever been before...a place Brothers will want to come to often, not just on Lodge nights.

Here are some resources we've found useful and recommend you try as well...

Theology/Philosophy/Religious Tolerance

Living the Questions - DVD programs with discussion guides and promotional material

LTQ products are overtly sectarian and prepared by a select group of progressive Christian theologians.  The presenters are from all denominations and backgrounds so the programs are completely ecumenical.  That notwithstanding, they are presented from a Christian perspective.  

Resurgam Lodge used Painting the Stars  as an education program spreading over the first six (6) months of 2014.  It was well received and appeared to be valuable to the participants.  It was presented as a Christian study but was noted repeatedly that this was not an attempt to  prosleytyze or promote a specific faith.  Rather it was to prompt discussion about the interplay of religion, faith, science, and the relationship of rational thought and belief in a Supreme Being. The study includes a significant discussion of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the concept of the "Cosmic Christ."  Our discussion included Brothers of all Christian and Deist/Humanist backgrounds.  Speaking from a non-Muslim and non-Jewish perspective, it did not appear to  contain anything overtly offensive to either faith.  LTQ accurately describes the program as follows:  "Mystery is a condition of awe, of resting precisely in an unknowing, long enough for the silence to have its way with us. The goal of this curriculum is to create some space for us to inhabit this mystery more deeply, and explore the relationship between science, particularly evolution, and religion. Perhaps most importantly, the hope is that each participant will feel from the inside what it is like to be the presence of all this creativity showing up after 13.7 billion years as him or her. Without this felt sense of being one with the creative process that is ceaselessly animating life, the conversation will remain objective and academic. We invite you to engage these seven weeks with an awareness that you are not separate fromthe creativity that produced you."

Resurgam Lodge is considering using The Jesus Fatwah for its initial 2014 education series.  The program promises to be appropriate for Masonic use as it describes itself with the following:"Much of what passes as information about Islam is weed-like disinformation rooted in stereotype and watered by fear. In The Jesus Fatwah, Islamic and Christian scholars offer reliable information about what Muslims believe, howthey live out their faith, and how we all can be about building relationships across the lines of faith."

Other LTQ programs with some promise for theological/philosophical discussion in the context of Masonic education
include Uppity Women of the Bible and Questioning Capital Punishment.  The former is described as "Combining careful scholarship with humor and fresh insights, Dr. Wolfe presents just what your group needs for lively, thoughtful discussion of Ruth, The Song of Songs, Esther and Judith." The latter is described as featuring Sister Helen Prejean "A Roman Catholic Sister and leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, [who] has ministered to numerous inmates on death row, and has authored two books based on those experiences, Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions. Questioning Capital Punishment...is a five session DVD study featuring one of the world's leading authorities and outspoken critics of state-sponsored execution."

History

There is a vast wealth of FREE video programs appropriate for Masonic use.  Resurgam Lodge has had great success using a simple combination of wireless internet [which should be in every Lodge for MORI and education purposes], a laptop or equivalent, and a HDMI/digital compatible television.  You'll also find that adding a modern, digital television and cable/internet to your lodge will create significant opportunities for socialization - sports events, watching election returns, movie nights,  etc.

Building the Great Cathedrals is available online from Nova and playable on demand.  Resurgam Lodge had about a dozen brothers come for its screening and an excellent discussion followed. Medieval Stained Glass Science, The Palace of King David, and Sacred Architecture are other productions pertinent to Freemasonry.  These may, or may not, be available on the Nova website for play.  If not on the program website, you will generally find them on YouTube and available for viewing.

YouTube offers tremendous resources for video education with a simple search.  Insert "Knights Templar" in the YouTube search bar and you'll find a host of slag and detritus - and also some gems.  The Templar Code, King Arthur - Celtic and Christian Gnosticism in Britain:Knights Templar Gnostic Secrets, and probably 100 more various exposés, hyped up spectaculars, and useful historical documentaries.  Even the bad stuff, the negative pans, and the just plain silly fiction about Freemasonry can spur quality discussion about what really is the life Masonic. Spend an hour some evening previewing things and you can have yourself a year's worth of video education programs!  

If you can't find anything else, just go to CBS News and you'll find something worthwhile. [Go back and click on the link...we should all have already watched this segment.]

Grand Lodge Websites/Programs

Several Grand Lodges have outstanding resources available at the click of a few computer keys.  Don't hesitate to use their material.  It's well done, readily available, and your Brothers deserve quality information and education.  It's right here, for free:

The Grand Lodge of British Columbia & The Yukon Index of essays and Masonic papers.
Pennyslvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge book list and recommended reading.  Pick a book, buy a few copies, and have a book discussion?  Eezy Peezy.
Grand Lodge of Iowa on symbolism and philosophy.
Grand Lodge of Iowa on general and applied Masonry.
Masonic Jeopardy  is self-explanatory.
Grand Lodge of Minnesota Masonic book club.
Southern California Research Lodge for archived papers suitable for education presentations.

A Final Comment

Do something, anything, but DO SOMETHING!  If you have but one Brother come to a Masonic Education night, you've succeeded.  One Brother brings another, then another, and pretty soon it's the place to be on whatever evening or afternoon you've picked.  Set the day and time AND NEVER VARY.  Always be there and always have a program...you will succeed.  If nothing else you're going to learn something  yourself.  And through your example, and how you present your new knowledge to your Brothers, they are going to decide to come, to learn, and your Lodge will prosper!