Try this and see how it fits. Freemasons belong to an organisation which ought to be dedicated to self-knowledge, the nature of being, love, tolerance, the brotherhood of man, liberty of conscience and, yes, perhaps a brush with the Deity on the way. However, we have become bogged down in systems resembling officaldom, obsession with promotion to higher rank, discussions about precedence, confused notions about God, the relative merits of this or that dining venue and the parrotting without meaning of what is in itself a very meaningful ritual. And perhaps worst of all, we call ourselves a charitable organization, when what we are really is an organisation with all the attributes I have outlined above, plus some philanthropic ones.
    On the evening I was initiated, one of the Past Masters shook my hand with the words : “Well, boy, from now on you won’t need any other hobbies!” I instantly found that offensive, sensing (correctly) that Freemasonry should be a profession or vocation rather than a hobby. My impression, so early formed, was shortly after substantiated by visits to lodges in Germany, where they take these things very much more seriously than we do in England.
    Where, I ask, is the spirituality, the attempt at self-improvement, the journeys into symbolism, the journeys, come to that, into the unexplained, both without and within? If we examine where Freemasonry in England is at the moment, put bluntly we are engaged in initiating ever more men into the craft and conferring second and third degrees on them, so that they shall in their turn be Appointed to Office In the Lodge, In Due Time Becoming Worshipful Master. To what end? The end, unfortunately, is so that they can then confer initiation on more men so that they can then do the same usque ad infinitum. It seems that we do this under the justification that this activity constitutes “a daily advancement in masonic knowledge.” Is it too much to ask, between their own initiation and their conferring of initiation on others, what has happened to them? How has Freemasonry shaped their lives, if at all? Have they grown, and if so, in what way? What have they learned? These are not rhetorical questions, because to some of these brethren something has happened; Freemasonry has shaped their lives, even if only in a small way; they may indeed have grown, without knowing it; they have almost certainly learned something, even if it is only some ritual learned by default. But for many of us, I suspect, the eternal conferring of degrees very quickly becomes an end in itself.
    Freemasonry in the eighteenth century was a radical movement, often standing against the abuses of power in the Establishment. Its development and growth was a vital part of the Age of Enlightenment. After a recent talk on education in Freemasonry, I asked the speaker why it was not possible to include study sessions, or lectures on historical or philosophical matters as a regular feature of lodge proceedings, such as are commonplace in many continental lodges. The reply was that “people enjoy their Freemasonry on different levels”, a knife-and-fork masons’ charter if ever I heard one.
    The good news is that it doesn’t have to be like this. An author as recent as Colin Dyer points out that the proper means of instructing young masons is not by repetition of degree ceremonies, but by lectures. In the late 18th. century and early 19th., lodges of instruction did not teach degree ceremonies, so much more engaged were they in philosophical and moral debate. Degree ceremonies after all are only the means, however ornate, of making masons and advancing them to other degrees. This begs the question, degrees of what? Knowledge? Expertise? Whatever, we need either to instruct our young candidate or encourage him to learn for himself, so that he may be proficient in his degree in order to be advanced to the next. This surely is the principle of any academic pursuit, and the time-honoured method employed by any institute; why should the requirements of Freemasonry be any less? Those who are well acquainted with the Emulation system of lectures will know that the perfunctory questions we require of our candidates for advancement are merely the rump of an intricate system of morality lectures which, in the 18th. century, had to be imparted verbally (nothing was written) and learned by heart before a candidate could advance to a higher degree. Nowadays, even the small amount which is left does not constitute a proper test, since any amount of prompting by the deacon at his side is allowable. Compare this with the practice in a German lodge I once visited, where the Master could delegate one of the junior brethren to prepare and deliver a lecture on a philosophical subject of his choosing, and then be prepared to answer questions on it. Or a French lodge which I recently visited, where a candidate was only admitted after months of searching questions about his moral and philosophical attitude.
    When I started writing this, I had in mind the conversations I have had with one or two of our younger brethren. Some of them, whose second and third degrees came quite a while after their first, expressed surprise that they were not required to make a more taxing daily advancement in masonic knowledge, and seemed a little bored by the lack of activity; they felt abandoned. I had a keen sense that they were right, and a sense of déjà vu with respect to my own experience as a young mason.
    So how about it? What is our daily advancement in masonic knowledge, and how do we go about this business of inner growth, of improvement, or is it all empty words?