One of the more amusing nicknames I was given when I first started to talk in the New York area back in the mid-1990s was ‘Piers the Nut’!
When I first came across from England, I had assumed that American Masonry was identical in nature, and behaved as such. This put the leadership of my District on high alert, since they disapproved of a (then) young man coming into their fraternal home with a mission to change everything. In hindsight I can quite understand their alarm!
However, the differences clearly began to show when I was invited to speak in my and other Lodges.
My topics were about symbolism, esotericism, history, theurgy, the Mystery Schools. This was a far cry from the usual fare of talks, which tended to focus more in life insurance policies and famous dead Masons! I remember one early talk in my Lodge which was to be on ‘The Link Between Medicine and Masonry’. How excited I was at the prospect that we were to learn of the possible links between alchemy, Masonic symbolism, and how exposure to Masonic ideals had influenced great scientific discoveries! But it was not to be. Instead, our worthy lecturer spent 45 minutes listing Mason who happened to be doctors. It was more a litany than a voyage of discovery, as he would say: “Dr. Peter Mayler, Surgeon, 1903 – 1989: he was a Mason. Dr. Archibald Fetter, General Practitioner, 1869 – 1932: he was a Mason….” I could not fault the scholarship: this was years before the internet and he must have spent long hours in libraries correlating doctors to Masonic records. But….yawn!
So my words of wisdom tended to fall on somewhat deaf ears to begin with. Then came the nickname. “Oh God, is Piers the Nut coming to speak tonight? Wake me up when he’s finished, so we can get back to the Business!”
But I persevered.
And eventually the Past Masters began to notice that whenever I spoke, they had quite a few young visitors form other Lodges. Why are they here? To listen to Piers. But Why? Because he is saying what they joined Freemasonry to hear. And slowly the back bench began to wake up. The first time a Past Master actually asked a question following a talk, I knew I was winning.
Fast forward nearly 25 years, and talks on symbolism and esotericism are commonplace. There are many fine speakers across the nation, many of whom I found attending Masonic Week in Alexandria, VA and elsewhere over the years, and through the wonders of the internet. This is not to say that all of them are consistently good! For every truly well-informed and entertaining speaker, there is a person who thinks reading a couple of books and attends a Lodge for a year makes him into a world-class expert. But the average member is now becoming sufficiently well-informed to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff.
This all came to mind a couple of days ago (Wednesday, March 15) when I delivered a talk linking Alchemical Rosicrucian themes to Blue Lodge Masonry at Benjamin B. French Lodge No. 15 in Washington D.C. The sheer level of attention, the enthusiasm, the quality of the questions and observations gave me great hope for the future of Freemasonry. By rediscovering the inner purpose of the Craft, it has rediscovered its soul, and I can safely pronounce it alive and kicking!
