This above all, - to thine own self be true;
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hamlet, Act I Scene 4

Oh dear, what have I done now? Truth, Relief and Brotherly Love? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Well, I wanted to look at things from a different angle, to give myself a new perspective, a new view, a different horizon, like the teacher in Dead Poets’ Society who has his pupils stand on top of their desks to give them a new perspective on their surroundings.
    It simply occurred to me that, of our three Grand Principles, the third is the most important - Truth. The Cornerstone Society Conference on Saturday 13 May certainly gave us a new way of looking at things. It made me think that our Order, whatever else it has, does not have a dogma or a rigid doctrine. It doesn’t claim to be a Creed (‘follow me, folks, this is the right way’ etc). It should not seek to control its members through rank, through governance, like a military organisation. Rank ought to be foreign to us (although we should be ready to make an award for merit as a Freemason). Our Grand Lodge should not behave like a controlling influence. Many Grand Lodges in other parts of the world, I notice, don’t feel the need to ‘control’ their members, or ordain how they should do things, in the way that ours does.
    No, Freemasonry does not have the right in this way to dictate to us, any more than it has the right to impose dogmas or creeds. Why? Because, put quite simply, we don’t need dogmas or creeds. We have in our system the most precious of all precious stones - the Truth, not the truth of this or that political or religious system, not ‘a truth’, not the truth of this or that moral virtue, but the absolute Truth. We try (with a try-square) our Perfect Ashlar to find if it is true (straight, direct, unbending) or not. Our Masters-Elect must be ‘true and trusty’. Let’s look at those words.
    My dictionary has a number of meanings for ‘try’. Something which is ‘tried’ is ‘choice or élite’; it is ‘excellent or good’ and in joinery it is ‘quite true, correctly wrought’ (for which the joiner uses a ‘trying plane’); to try something is to ‘set it apart, to distinguish’ or it is to ‘ascertain by search or examination, to ascertain the truth of a matter’ - sorry to go on, but you get the point. And what connects it all? Truth, defined as ‘the quality of being true’. And true? ‘free from deceit, sincere, agreeing with reality, representing the thing as it is’. We’re more or less agreed that a freemason needs to ‘know himself’. He needs to acquaint himself with moral truth and virtue in order later on to discover the hidden mysteries of nature. Only then can he follow Shakespeare’s exhortation to be true to himself, and thereby true to his fellow-men and to this world.
    Grand Lodge? Well, whatever they are, they should not, I believe, control us by severe regulations, by rank, by precedence and the like. The badge with which we were invested at our initiation was described to us as ‘more ancient than the Golden Fleece, or Roman Eagle, more honourable than the Garter, or any other Order in existence, being the badge of innocence and the bond of friendship’. Now, if we don’t believe those words, we should stop saying them. If we do believe them, it places us, each one of us, above worldly rank and splendour. The white lambskin apron denotes a man and a worker, working to keep his thoughts and actions simple and direct, working with purity of heart and working towards the Truth in himself and in God. In some constitutions the Grand Master wears a plain white apron, to remind himself of that search for innocent, uncomplicated truth, sophia hagia or heavenly wisdom.
    We don’t need further so-called adornment on that badge in the shape of gold braid or dark blue border. We are indeed invested with the splendour of Truth. Let us mind that.
    jrees@aol.com