From time to time, I get behind in my reading. (To be honest about it,
I received a collection of Godzilla DVDs for Christmas, and since I am a great fan of the big lizard, I’ve been shamelessly overdosing.) So I have to play catch-up in this column. The result is a mixed bag of books, but there are some really good choices here. Plus, we have a guest review of Moneyball by Todd E. Carton, 33°, Valley of Baltimore, Maryland.

C. Bruce Hunter, Masques of Solomon: The Origin of the Third Degree, Richmond, Virginia: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., Inc., 2003, Hardbound, 219 pages, 2 photographs, a useful chronology, ISBN 0-88053-095-2, price $22.50 (Macoy code M338), s/h $2.00 first book; $.75 for each additional book: Macoy Publishing & Masonic Supply, Co., Inc.; call 1-800-637-4640 for more information or to order a Macoy catalog.

I enjoy Brother Hunter’s books, and this one is no exception. While I still think that the Fellowcraft is by far the richest and most compelling of the Blue Lodge Degrees, it is certainly true that the Master Mason Degree has the most mysterious origins. As Hunter says, “The Third Degree. . . has always been a paradox because no one knows precisely who created it—when or why. And the problem is complicated by the fact that little evidence survives to prove what really happened when this Degree was created nearly three centuries ago.” The Masques of Solomon approaches each aspect of the Degree as a detective would investigate a “cold case.” Its exploration of more than 400 years of Masonic history follows clues that lead to a surprising conclusion. The book will challenge your thinking.

John E. Beaumont, 33°, PM, Freemasonry at the Top, Richmond, Virginia: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., Inc, 1995, Soft-bound, 131 pages, ISBN 0-88053-080-8. Available at the Macoy Web site (under General Interest at http://users.erols.com/macoy) for $10.95. See ordering directions above.

I reviewed this book when it was first published in 1995. It is now in a second printing, and I still find it a useful tool. The bullets on the cover give the contents in a nutshell: Sure-fire ways to build Membership; How to be a Successful Leader; Planning your Calendar; Working with your Officers and Members; How to bring your Fraternal Organization to the Top; One Master’s Plan for Success.

In some ways, the Blue Lodge is a very strange organization. Can you imagine the Board of Directors of, say, the Ford Motor Company, going to a newly hired assembly-line worker and saying, “In a very few years, we’re going to make you the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Operating Officer of Ford Motors. You’ll hold the position for a year. No training or significant experience will be provided”? Unlikely! Yet we do that all the time in Masonry. We often don’t even take the time to find out if the one we are pushing into the water can swim. (And, incidentally, the Worshipful Master of a Lodge has far more power and far more responsibility, relatively speaking, than the C.E.O. of a large corporation.)

Ill. Brother Beaumont’s book goes far to supply that missing training. There are clear “how-to” steps as well as sample forms and examples of programs which work. If you are headed to the East of your Lodge, or just interested in Masonic leadership, you’ll find this book a great help.

Brothers Dick E. Browning, PGM; Joseph Clements, Jr., PM; Angelo G. Coppola, Sr., PM; C. James Graham, PM; Terrell Strickland, PM; edited by Mrs. Gayle A. B. Browning, They Made a Difference: Arkansas Freemasons, Richmond, Virginia: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., Inc., 2003, Hardbound, 119 pages, numerous illustrations, ISBN 0-88053-096-0, price $15.00. Ordering directions above.

This book was released to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Library of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, and it is a worthy achievement for the purpose. I’m deeply fascinated by the wide variety of men, from so many diverse areas with such varied interests and abilities, who have found a common bond in Freemasonry. The book contains biographical sketches of 56

Arkansas Masons, each a man who made a difference for good in the world. The biographies are well written and well illustrated. Albert Pike is here, of course, as is Archibald Yell, Pike’s superior officer during the War with Mexico. Wilbur D. Mills, GC, is here. He was a powerful U.S. Congressman who could single-handedly influence legislation enough to pass or kill a bill. Then there is Oren E. Harris, who began his career as Prosecuting Attorney of the 13th Judicial District. He was elected to Congress in 1940 and served 13 terms—holding the Chairmanship of very important and powerful committees—and was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as a U.S. District Judge in 1966.

There are many other biographies as well as a good opening essay on the history of the Arkansas Grand Lodge Library itself. I really enjoyed this book, and, if you are interested in the way Masons shape the world with their lives and example, I think you’ll enjoy it, too.

Rev. J. B. Craven, D.D., Count Michael Maier: Life and Writings, Boston: Ibis Press, 2003, Softbound, 165 pages, Foreword by R.A. Gilbert, ISBN 0-89254-083-4, $16.95, available on the Internet for $11.00.

This is a 2003 reprint (with a new foreword) of a book originally published in 1910. Brother Craven (1850-1924) was a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He served as rector of St. Olaf’s Church in Kirkwall for 39 years and was very active in the Masonic Fraternity, especially in his role as Deputy Provincial Grand Master for the Provinces of Caithness, Orkney, and Zetland. He also earned a reputation as an expert in Scottish church history. A first-rate scholar, he brought his academic acumen to the study of Count Michael Maier (1568-1622), one of the most important alchemists at a time when alchemy was developing its nature as a spiritual and speculative science. Maier was a pivotal character in that transformation, and his many writings formed the basis for much of the understanding we have today of alchemy. Of course, alchemy forms one of the sources of the symbolism of Freemasonry, so this is rather like looking back to the time our intellectual foundations were being laid. The book reads fairly easily while provoking significant thought.

Charles Freeman, The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003, Hardbound, 432 pages, numerous illustrations, ISBN 1-4000-4085-X, cover price $30.00, available on the Internet for various prices and also in a paperback edition.

A few years ago, the Rev. Forrest D. Haggard, PGM, GC, and I were chatting during a break in a Scottish Rite Research Society meeting. We had been talking about prayer and faith, and Forrest said to me, “The trouble, Jim, is that when most people pray, they are really praying ‘Dear God, let two and two make five today.’ They should be praying, ‘Dear God, help me to understand that two plus two really do make four; help me to understand the implications of that, and give me the strength and wisdom I may need to deal with the implications.’”

I have often thought since that is a perfect example of the proper balance between faith and reason. And it was the first thing I thought of when Forrest’s fellow PGM, Ill. Brother Richard E. Fletcher, called and told me about this book. It is an impressive work. The author suggests that with the rise of power of Constantine, and especially with his adoption of Christianity, the balance between faith and reason, which had been preserved through the Greek and Roman periods, was changed. Faith triumphed over reason, to the great detriment of both. It was this period which set the groundwork for almost all of the ills which can be charged against some Christians (remembering that there is a vast difference between Christians and Christianity): intolerance, anti-intellectualism, bigotry, and willing self-deception.

Albert Pike suggested that finding the proper balance between faith and reason was the greatest intellectual challenge any individual man or nation could face. As we observe America today, when polarization seems so strong, with extremist of various causes so ready to advance their cause at any cost, it is more critical than ever to find that balance. This is a powerful book about a important issue.

Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, 2003, W.W. Norton Publishing, Hardbound, 288 pages, $24.94 at major booksellers and on the Internet for $14.97.

On the surface, it is easy to wonder at the connection between Freemasonry and Michael Lewis’s immensely readable Moneyball, an analysis of professional baseball today. However, the book’s subtitle, “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” hints at a possible connection.
In Freemasonry, decades of declining membership caused in part by the changing demands of job and family as well as television, access to the Internet, and other rather effortless and undemanding distractions, seem to have stacked the deck against the health of our Fraternity. Similarly, there is an economic gulf between comparatively poor small-market teams, like those in Kansas City and Oakland, and wealthy large-market teams, such as the Yankees and the Red Sox. This inequality ostensibly favors the on-field success of the large-market teams.
Facing the challenge of this system, Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, has, since 1999, built a consistently competitive, playoff-caliber team. His formula for success included shattering every paradigm traditionally used to predict and measure on-field performance.

In the 1970s, baseball enthusiast Bill James, a man Lewis describes as having the ability to “light a torch in a dark chamber and throw a new light on a dusty problem,” began to experiment with new statistical measures in an effort to quantify more accurately a player’s true value. Beane, inspired by his own experience with the failures of traditional predictors, began to apply some of these lessons. Using James’s measures of achievement, he systematically set about deconstructing long-held beliefs regarding what engendered success on the baseball diamond.
While reading Moneyball, I frequently found myself highlighting passages such as these: “If you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done” and “What begins as a failure of the imagination ends as a market inefficiency.”
As Freemasons, we are encouraged to think symbolically. In applying this mode of thought to many of the unconventional insights provided in this gem of a book, perhaps we can discover not merely a new way of looking at the great American game but also discover a new methodology to apply to the problems of Freemasonry today

Moneyball review by Todd E. Carton, 33°,
Valley of Baltimore, Maryland

Jim Tresner, Valley of Guthrie, Okla., is the Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute; Editor of The Oklahoma Mason, Member of the Steering Committee, Masonic Information Center; Director of Work in Guthrie; and author, among other books, of Albert Pike: The Man Beyond the Monument and Vested in Glory: The Regalia of the Scottish Rite. Contacts: Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, P.O. Box 1019, Guthrie OK 73044; Tel. 405-282-3212; Fax 405-282-3244; okmasonmag@hotmail.com