S. Brent Morris, Stephen C. Bullock, Kojo Nnamdi
c/o The Supreme Council, 33°
1733 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009-3103

The following article is edited from an interview with two well-known Masonic scholars. They were guests on a National Public Radio show on July 31, 2002. It was broadcast to 30 public radio stations across America and, via the Internet, to persons around the world.The first part of this interview appeared in the December 2002 issue of the Scottish Rite Journal.

Photo: The Great Seal of the United States was not designed by Masons, though conspiracists allege that it contains "hidden Masonic symbols" placed there by the Illuminati. The motto "Novus Ordo Seclorum," which means "New Order of the Ages," is frequently mistranslated as "New World Order" or "New Secular Order."

Nnamdi: We got an e-mail from Tom in Springfield, Virginia, who says, "Would you ask your guests to comment on conspiracy theories, which if taken seriously would indict the Founding Fathers of the United States in conspiracies like the Illuminati? Most specifically, what do they think of the claim that the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States--the side with the pyramid--refers to the New World Order?" That it is a code word for modern conspiracy theorists? Care to start on that one Steve?

Bullock: I'm going to defer to Brent on the question of the Great Seal, because he has written the sort of definitive work, but I would just say there are all sorts of stories like this, that the more you get closer to the actual sources the harder it is to find anything of that sort. There are fears of the Illuminati, a group that actually did have a real existence in Bavaria in the 1780s but seems to have died out. And there is no real evidence that it came to America, and of all the people in America who get very concerned about this, almost all of them except, the Masons, say it is not our American Masons who are involved here. So it is hard actually to see anything of that sort actually going on, as for the Great Seal I'll let Brent take over.

Morris: Thanks Steve. In fact, it's nice to chat with you again. The Great Seal of the United States is notorious for having on the back the uncompleted pyramid composed of 13 steps and at the top of it is the All-Seeing Eye of Providence. The motto is "Novus Ordo Seclorum" which is not "A New World Order." It is not.…

Nnamdi: Can I interrupt?

Morris: Please, Sir.

Nnamdi: To have Chris ask you that question, that you were just about to explain. Chris, is that your question?

Chris: [On the telephone] It sure is. The question stems on the back. It says "Novus Ordo Seclorum." I was always told that it means "New Secular Order." It that true? Does it mean "New World Order," and how does that kind of play into the Masons sounding?

Morris: Well, the first thing is, who- ever told you that it means "The New Secular Order," I believe ought to go back and study a little more Latin. Secula is a word that means "an age or a generation" and Seculorum is the plural genitive of Secula, so Novus Ordo Seclorum is "A New Order of the Ages" or "A New Order of the Generations." This motto was taken from Virgil, the poet, and it means nothing about the New World Order.5 I mean, you can go back and read the minutes of the committee that designed it and read how they selected the motto and what it means.

Now, the Seal itself is composed of the pyramid of 13 steps or the uncompleted pyramid of 13 steps. Well the 13 steps are the 13 colonies; the pyramid is uncompleted because additional states were going to be added. At the top is the Eye of Providence, overseeing everything and showing Providence has interspersed itself into the history of our nation.

Now, the Freemasons do indeed use the Eye of God as a symbol. And in fact this was a … just as if you were to see a political cartoon with a skeleton figure inside of a black cowled robe holding a scythe, you would immediately recognize this as an emblem of death. It has become an icon. The Eye of God-the Eye of Providence-in the sky is similarly an icon. Sir Walter Raleigh in his book The History of the World has the Eye of Providence on the top of the frontispiece overseeing everything. It's an image that shows that God knows everything; He pervades the innermost recesses of our minds and our hearts. He watches our deeds and actions, and will take care of things in the end. So, this was added with that intention.

Now, the Freemasons use the All-Seeing Eye. On the committee, of all the committees that designed it, there was only one Freemason, and that was Benjamin Franklin. The first committee was Franklin, Jefferson, and John Adams.

Nnamdi: And Adams and Jefferson were not Freemasons.

Morris: There is zero evidence that they were Freemasons.

Nnamdi: Okay. Chris thank you very much for your call. Steve, to pick up, Masons are often accused of conspiring for bigger more sinister motives, such as world domination. Did you find anything in your research that would lead you to support any such conspiracy theories?

Bullock: I really didn't. As an academic, you know it might have been a good thing if I had found something like that.

Nnamdi: Sell more books, huh?

Bullock: Sort of appealing in some ways, and so I … it wasn't something I went in sort of looking for. If I had discovered that Washington and Franklin had worked together, tried to change the society in a way which we don't know about, that would have been sort of interesting, but, you know, unfortunately, from that one perspective, I didn't see anything.

It certainly is true that Freemasonry provides the way for people to make connections with each other. Connections which they wouldn't necessarily have before. So if you are a businessman in Washington, D.C., and you need to order goods from Baltimore, it may actually be very helpful to have some kind of connection between you and the person in Baltimore. In the 1600s and 1700s quite often people would send different members of their family there. One brother, the son of the same father, would go to another spot, and they would then be able to trust each other more.

Well, Freemasonry attempts to create that without actual blood families, but actually through an organization. And so there's no doubt that Masonry provides a way of doing this, and, from the outside, it can seem, I think, to the people of that time and maybe even today, as if there is some sort of unfair advantage there. But Freemasonry is open to all people-and at least to all men-and so there is that "voluntary-ness" which makes it a way of making connections which is very useful.

Nnamdi: On now to Gene in Charlotte, North Carolina. Gene, you are on the air, go ahead please.

Gene: [On the telephone] Thank You. My concern is, being an Evangelical Christian, the oath that one has to take to join the Brotherhood. And I was wondering if one of the gentlemen could recite or at least say part of that oath?

Nnamdi: Brent?

Morris: Well, I think, Gene, if you are interested in doing that, if you are willing to spend 15 minutes on the Internet, you can find anything you want. There are several kinds of "secrets," Gene. There are "real secrets" and there are "symbolic secrets." The "secrets" of the Masons are "symbolic secrets." I mean they have been in continuous print since 1723.6 We are listed in the telephone directory; you drive up to a Lodge and it tells you when the meetings are held; we have stickers on our bumper plates. This is not a good way to run a really secret organization! The "secrets" of the Masons are entirely symbolic. I promised I wouldn't tell anybody what they are. It doesn't matter if you know; it does not matter if Kojo knows; I promised I wouldn't say. It's the symbolism of me keeping a promise. Now, I consider my promise a sacred thing, and I have no intention of breaking it. So, do a little research on your own.

Nnamdi: Gene?

Gene: [On the telephone] Yes?

Nnamdi: Looks like you are going to have to get that information on your own.

Gene: [On the telephone] Thank you.

Nnamdi: Thank you very much for your call, Gene.

We got an e-mail from Jeff who says: "Correction to Prince Hall's birth. Prince Hall was born in Bridgetown, Barbados… listed September 12, 1748. He was free-born. His father, Thomas Prince Hall, was an Englishman and his mother was a free-colored woman of French extraction. In 1765, at the age of 17 he worked his passage on a ship to Boston where he worked as a leather-worker, a trade learned from his father." It goes on to talk a little bit about how he got involved with the Freemasons, and it relates to the part of the conversation we had earlier about the Prince Hall Masons, which is the African-American form of Freemasonry as it exists in the United States.7

We got a question from Mike by e-mail, who says, "I have heard of the Scottish Rite Masons and recently learned there is a York Rite. How are the two groups similar? How are they different?"

Morris: I'll be glad to tell you about that. Freemasonry evolved in London, it started in 1717. The transformation from a labor union to a fraternity was in the 1600s. What I'm going to try and do, Kojo, for Mike is to take what could easily be a one-hour lecture and condense it down into about two minutes. First, there are three basic levels of membership in a Masonic Lodge that correspond to the levels of membership in a labor union: an Apprentice, a Journeyman, and a Master. You can go today to the carpenters, to the electricians, to the plumbers, and they have a very similar structure.

Freemasons, having evolved from a labor union in England, maintained similar levels of membership. Entered Apprentice is the first level. The Apprentice joins the Lodge, and his name is entered on the roll. There's the Fellowcraft, that means he is a "Fellow of the Craft," or a Journeyman laborer. Then, after achieving a great skill, he is recognized as a Master Mason.

The guild legend that came with Freemasonry concerns the building of King Solomon's Temple, and problems that arose in building the Temple, and how those problems were solved. It was a fairly straight-forward story. In fact, Masonic Degrees are like small morality plays. Imagine the story of the tortoise and the hare being told to you, and at the end of the story they don't add the tag line: "Slow and steady wins the race." They just tell you the story, and they say, "Go think about it." Then you have to decide for yourself what the moral of the story is. So that's the basic structure in 1717-1730 of the three levels of membership.

As Freemasonry expanded across the world, and in particular as it went to the Continent, there seemed to be a desire for more levels of distinction. This idea of all men meeting in a Masonic Lodge on the level, that there was no distinction within the Lodge, except for Masonic distinction, did not seem to sit as well with Frenchmen. They wanted to have: everyone was equal, except some were more equal than others. So additional Degrees or levels of membership started to be added. These were additional morality plays. You have the tortoise and the hare, you have the fox and the grapes, and so on, and each one of these stories as they're added are usually centered around the building of King Solomon's Temple or legends concerned with King Solomon's Temple. They expanded the legends, and they expanded the opportunity for moralizing. Now something like 10,000 different Degrees were created, and over about a century they coalesced into two major groups that we have in the United States: the Scottish Rite, which is basically from France, and the York Rite, which is basically American and English.

Nnamdi: Okay, back to the telephones and starting here with Mickie in Helena, Arkansas. Mickie, you are on the air, go ahead please.

Mickie: Yes Sir. I'd like to ask the gentlemen: I'm an only child, and my father is the middle of three children, three male, two brothers, and at my father's funeral, after my mother put the first handful of dirt into the grave, seven to twelve men lined up, that nobody in my family knew, and each one of the men had a forget-me-not. And each man went into the front of the grave, not sideways, going lengthwise, and each man bowed his head, put the forget-me-not in, and said some words. I was so distraught that I didn't know what words they said. And as I recall there were 12 men, and each of these men did this.

Nnamdi: And you never had a chance to ask them about it afterwards?

Mickie: And I never asked them if they were Masons and how they knew my daddy. Is this part of honoring a Mason at his funeral?

Nnamdi: Brent Morris?

Morris: Yes, indeed it is, Mickie. It's the Masonic custom at the funeral of a Brother to put into the grave a piece of evergreen. And though I wasn't at your father's funeral, I'd be willing to bet that was evergreen, not a blue forget-me-not. But, it is a symbol of the immortality of the soul, and the words they probably said were something like: "We cherish his memory in our heart, and commend his Spirit to God Who gave it."

The blue forget-me-not or a pin resembling it (left) has been adopted by German Freemasons as an emblem of Masonic membership, that is recognized around the world.

Mickie: Well, it was a beautiful thing. And I was so sorry that I didn't individually thank each man because it was just … for a stranger to do something for someone you loved as much as I loved my father, I will forever be grateful to the Masons.

Nnamdi: Mickie, thank you very much for your call. Now to Joseph in Kansas City, Missouri. Joseph, you're on the air. Go ahead please.

Joseph: [On the telephone] Yes, good afternoon gentlemen. Look, I have a question to ask, and the question is simply this: I know that all the organizations in the United States, the not-for-profit organizations, are registered. And each one, when they register, has a mission statement they have to fill out. What, specifically, is the mission statement of the Masonic fraternity? And the other part of the question is: I know that you have two patron saints, John the Divine and the other John. What is their connection with early Masonry? And if you could answer that, I would appreciate it very much.

Morris: Joseph, I would be very glad to do that. In fact, Steve, I don't mean to take your thunder, but if you'd like to jump in here, you can.

Bullock: Go ahead, I'll jump in later.

Morris: Okay. First with the Saints John. They are the patron saints of Freemasonry.8 In fact, it is one of the mysteries: How did they get to be the patron saints of Freemasonry? For example, St. Catherine is the patron saint of fireworks makers, because she was martyred on a burning rotating wheel. You can still buy today a pinwheel, called a "St. Catherine's Wheel." But why the Saints John were the patron saints of the Masons is one of those guild legends that are lost.

As to the mission statement, I am not aware that we have filed with anybody a formal mission statement, but I can tell you it is to take good men and to make them better.9 It is to make our communities a better place, it is to provide philanthropy, and charity, and help to those who need. Freemasons in 1995, the last year for which we have data, contributed over $2 million a day-over $750 million that year-to help the needy in the United States.

Nnamdi: And thank you very much for your call, Joseph. On now to Richard, in Alexandria, Virginia … no let's go to Mike in Middletown, N.Y. Mike, you are on the air. Go ahead please.

Mike: [On the telephone] Ah yes, I would like to hear something more specifically to the effect of how men are made. And I hear a lot of talk of skill and craft and specifically the use of mind-altering ritual or psychoactive substances in the making thereof. I will take the answer off the air.

Nnamdi: Steve Bullock. Anything in your research indicating mind-altering substances?

Bullock: [laughing] No mind-altering substances. There was drinking of alcohol. And so I suppose.…

Nnamdi: That's a mind-altering substance.

Bullock: There was some of that, and right from the beginning there are charges that Masons drank too much. Although, you know, that doesn't seem to be necessarily any more unusual than anyone else at the time. I think it was … he was saying mind-altering in the chemical sense. The idea of the rituals is that they are meant to be altering. That it is a transitional thing from being an outsider to being a member of the fraternity. And you are made a Mason because you asked to be one. There is not supposed to be any official-or some people say even unofficial-request to people to become Masons.

The person who wants to be a Mason is supposed to ask. He is investigated. In some cases in early America this was a fairly complicated sort of thing. Clearly, people were asking around to see if the person was someone who was of high standing, someone who was not a crook, someone who was not a bad person, someone who beat his wife, or who stole things. And he would be checked out, and only then would he be allowed to enter the Lodge and go through this ritual which made him a Mason. And the idea was that he would experience something that would mark that development.

Part of it as Brent, I think, was saying before, is teaching him new things-creating connections between building tools, the square, the compasses, and moral sorts of things-with the idea that he would learn these lessons of morality better by having some sort of physical connection to them. There is also a sense in which you feel you are a part of the Brotherhood, just like college fraternities or all sorts of organizations like that, who feel they have to have some kind of initiation that makes it clear that you are not simply paying your dues, paying money to something and becoming a member as some of the organizations are today, but it actually is supposed to mean something in your daily life.

Nnamdi: Brent, we got an e-mail from Elizabeth in South Bend, Indiana, who says: "One of your guests is in charge of membership development for the Scottish Rite Masons. He would seem to have his work cut out for him. Everyone I see heading to our Scottish Rite Temple is an octogenarian, at least. What membership development strategies does he have, and how does he see the future of the organization?" Membership nationwide, Brent, I'm told, has shrunk by more than one-half over the past 40 years or so. I guess that really adds a sense of urgency to Elizabeth's question.

Morris: It's always fun to have a challenging job! [laughing] That's putting a positive spin on it. Membership in Freemasonry peaked about 1959 with something like 4,200,000 Masons, and, as Elizabeth said, we have declined slightly over half to slightly under 2 million-1,900,000. Something like that. This is part of a larger societal trend that Professor Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, you interviewed him.…

Nnamdi: Yes, I certainly did.

Morris: Putnam has pointed out that every voluntary association in the United States has a declining membership. And, if not in actual numbers, if you look at it as a percentage of their base population, there are fewer. This is [true for] civic groups; this is sports clubs; this is every type of organization-all showing a declining membership. Masonry is not immune from this, and, in fact, Elizabeth, you are absolutely right. It is a problem facing us. At the moment right now, we are in the process of short-term remedies. Short-term remedies are looking at our list of members who have dropped out, seeing if we can induce them to return, trying to stop our members who are on the verge of dropping out from doing that. Then we are trying to retool the entire organization so that, in the process of joining, the members are enrolled, they are engaged, they are activated into the organization, and it becomes a more vital activity for them.

Nnamdi: Well, you will be heartened to hear that we got an e-mail from Peter, who seems to be listening to us on the web in Kenya in East Africa. Peter's saying: "It is wonderful to hear this from the United States, and I hope they can continue to get the same success and membership and interest as the rest of the world. I am proud to announce that as a 32° member in Africa, we are experiencing a great number of new members, and the Craft is, again, becoming relevant to the world." So, you may be growing internationally.

Morris: Peter, glad to hear from you.

Nnamdi: Another e-mail from Barry who asks: "Would you please ask if women have full membership, meaning rights to all learning and information?" Steve, can I throw that your way?

Bullock: This is an issue that goes back right to the beginning, right from the start. Masonry has been a male-only fraternity. Partly because, as Brent has been suggesting, this is a group that grows out of the work organization. There were not women who would do these kinds of jobs, and so this follows right into the fraternal organization, something which was not that unusual at the time. It was considered to be the norm that women and men would socialize separately. Women didn't get to vote in America until the 20th century. Now quite early on in Masonry it becomes an issue. People begin to ask that question, "Why is it that if Masonry makes people better, why can't women join?" Women are known to be more moral, at least in the 19th century, and people say why can't they have that? And so there is a whole history of concern about that. As you get into the middle of the 19th century, there are organizations for women. Women connected with Masonry in some way can join. The Order of Eastern Star is still a very popular [organization].…

The Order of the Eastern Star, founded in the 1850s, was the first of several organizations for female relatives of Masons. Others include the Order of the Amaranth and the White Shrine of Jerusalem.

Nnamdi: I guess I'm going to have to rush it forward to the present day because we are running out of time. Brent Morris, how is it today?

Morris: Well, in 1855 with the Eastern Star … this is a radical step forward to allow women to join a group with men. And in 1880 in France, the first woman was initiated into a Masonic Lodge, and that Masonic Lodge was promptly expelled, and then they said that's fine, we'll form our own group. But when it tried to move to the United States, the Eastern Star had already established itself so well and successfully that the ladies did not want to leave the Eastern Star and be Co-Masons. Today, in the United States, the dominant way for women to become involved in Masonry is through the Eastern Star or another ladies' groups, but there are Lodges of men and women, and Lodges of women only.

Notes:

5. For a discussion of translating "Novus ordo seculorum," see John G. Robinson, A Pilgrim's Path (New York: M. Evans & Co., 1993), pp. 64-65. "E pluribus unum" was "borrowed, it seems, via the Gentleman's Magazine from Virgil's least-known poem, the Moretum [104].…" "Thomson notes in his report his addition to the reverse of two mottoes somewhat compressed from, respectively, Virgil's epic of Rome foundation, the Aeneid [Annuit Coeptis], and his eclogue announcing a new Golden Age [Novus Ordo Seculorum]." Jay MacPherson, "The Masons and the Great Seal," in W. Weisberger et al. ed., Freemasonry on Both Sides of the Atlantic (Boulder, Co.: East European Monographs, New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 557-81.

6. "A Mason's Examination," the first exposure of Masonic rituals, was published in the London newspaper Flying Post, April 11-13, 1723. Further details on early exposures of rituals can be found in H.W. Coil et al., Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia (New York: Macoy Publishing Co., 1961), under "Rituals" and in D. Knoop et al., Early Masonic Catechisms (Manchester, England: Manchester Univ. Press, 1953).

7. Documentation of Prince Hall's life is almost non-existent; what little exists can be unreliable. The information on Prince Hall furnished by Jeff is from William H. Grimshaw, Official History of Freemasonry Among the Colored People in North America.… (New York: 1903). Charles H. Wesley questioned Grimshaw's reliability in, Prince Hall Life and Legacy, 2nd ed. (Washington: United Supreme Council, S.J., 1983), p. 14.

8. For a detailed discussion see H.W. Coil et al., Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia (New York: Macoy Publishing Co., 1961), under "Saints John."

9. The Scottish Rite Creed, Supreme Council, 33°, S.J. U.S.A.: Human progress is our cause, liberty of thought our supreme wish, freedom of conscience our mission, and the guarantee of equal rights to all people everywhere our ultimate goal.