John Quincy Adams, Masonry & the Free, Invisible Car

On 29 August 1832, John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States, and a vociferous critic of Freemasonry, wrote a letter to the author William L. Stone denouncing what he viewed as the underlying meaninglessness of Masonry.

The secrets, to the keeping of which the Entered apprentice is sworn, are indefinite. In genuine Masonry, when revealed to him, he finds them frivolous…. So must it be with every reflecting, intelligent man; nor is it conceivable that any such Entered Apprentice, on leaving the lodge after his admission, should fail to have observed, with pain and mortification, the contrast between the awful solemnity of the oath which he has taken, and the extreme insignificance of the secrets revealed to him. It is to meet this unavoidable impression, that the institution is graduated. The lure of curiosity is still held out, and its attractive power is sinewed, by the very disappointment which the apprentice has experienced. He takes the degrees of Fellow Craft and Master Mason, and still finds disappointment – still finds himself bound by tremendous oaths to keep trifling and frivolous secrets. The practice of the institution is deceptive and fraudulent. It holds out to him a promise of which it never performs. Its promise is light – its performance is darkness. (Adams, John Quincy. Letters on the Masonic Institution, Boston: T.R. Marvin, 1847, pp. 70-1.)

Adams went on to state that what Masonry does perform is to introduce the new member to an intimate cabal and give him access to the Elite of society dedicated to the furtherance of its own aims and the exclusive favor and prosperity of its own members. By his lights – Masonry was the perfect engine of conspiracy. Adams was not, nor does he remain, alone on these points. The multitude of books, pamphlets, websites and breathless television commentary that continue to describe the fraternity as an unwholesome and omnipresent influence upon American and world affairs, bear this out.

These allegations – In Re the Great Masonic Conspiracy -- have been refuted elsewhere and far more eloquently by Masonic scholars of great merit. But despite the intervening span of a nearly two centuries, Adams’ acidic assertions about the light and trifling character of the fraternity still rankles. Without doubt the fraternity has many detractors from dictators and despots who fear Masonry as something uncontrollable, to religious leaders who perceive it to be somehow unholy or perhaps too competitive, as well as the obsessive who wind and re-wind the Zapruder film seeking something, anything, that will assure them of the primacy of order in the midst of chaos. But these assailants at least have the common decency to esteem Masonry as a force to be reckoned with, which with some perverse pride, the Masons accept, knowing full well that a lodge which finds itself in the midst of tumultuous internal conflict over whether to replace rusted handrails in the stairwells, or to re-pave the lodge parking lot is not quite ready to assume universal stewardship over mankind. And so the Masons of the world agonize over whether white table cloths or checkered should be used at the awards banquets and, presumably bide their time….

But Adams’ remarks still sting, perhaps because there is a certain truth to them. Not often acknowledged, but certainly considered by many Masons following their full and final entry into the Craft are questions about the meaning of it all. Some Masons immediately plunge into the immense body of scholarly (and sometimes decidedly unscholarly) work on the subject, with the insistence of the astronomer who knows the star must be there, he just can’t see it yet. Conversely, other new members, perhaps most of them, don’t think much about it at all, and apparently view our ornate and complicated ceremony as some vestigial legacy of the past where oaths and piracy were more commonplace than in today’s world where notions of honor, fidelity, and trust are often little more than crumbling mottoes on the edifices of once proud public buildings – forlorn, nearly forgotten, and certainly not conducive to being lit by the neon lights of now.

But there is another group of men who have passed through the west door: these men are under the impression that when they reach the third degree they will be given the spiritual equivalent of a new car, and when they find that this is not the case, they lose interest rapidly. Perhaps they see the lessons and lectures we give as essentially frivolous, or perhaps they don’t understand them. Some certainly are not inclined towards further study, whether it be of geometry, or anything else, and these are the men about whom Adam’s speaks. Yet discounting Adams’ comments as pure political vitriol by a committed Anti-mason misses the point, because taken at face value, Adams has pointed to the elephant in the room. At face value, what is the new master mason given? Certainly nothing tangible, unless you count some wearing apparel, and perhaps a nice tie tack. And so, Adams is quite right in asking: what answers can the master Masons take away from the ceremony? Fortunately, as Bilbo Baggins said in The Hobbit, the answer is “lots and none at all.” They are not tangible, they are esoteric, and very probably they simply elude Adams’ linear thought process. Sadly, they also elude many of our brethren, as well.

I don’t think I’m giving anything away here by publicly stating that there isn’t a wheel of fortune in the East, and we don’t spin it whenever we raise a new Mason. And although we don’t hand out the esoteric equivalent to a BMW E46 Generation with ZHP Performance Package, it might be argued that on reaching the third degree, one is given the keys to the car. The task then becomes finding out where it is parked. Sometimes that takes a lifetime and some, perhaps many, of us are inclined to spend that lifetime looking for it. Some other fellows couldn’t care any less and will wait for the bus.

Me? Well, I’m not so keen on buses. How about you?