There is a growing practice in the United States of so-called ‘Grand Master One-Day Classes’. Each State has its own Grand Lodge, and in many jurisdictions a composite initiation, passing and raising is being practised in which all three degrees are conferred in one day on many candidates, in some cases thousands of them. One unhappy lodge in Connecticut which declined to participate in this bizarre routine had its Warrant summarily withdrawn.
    The practice is one whereby the Grand Master of a masonic jurisdiction in the United States requests lodges under his jurisdiction not to carry out individual initiations in their own lodges, but to send all their candidates to the Grand Lodge for a mass initation, passing and raising. What actually happens is that a group of candidates, numbering anything from a few dozen to several thousand, have all three degree ceremonies conducted in front of them, with one candidate acting as a ‘sample’. The remainder are then deemed to have had the degrees conferred on them. And all this in one day.
    It is a process wittily described by one member of a New York lodge as a ‘Moonie initiation’, by others as ‘all the way in a day’, and by a non-mason in this country with a heavy sense of irony as ‘drive-through Freemasonry’.
    When the Grand Lodge of New York held their first one-day classes on 29 March this year, despite the upbeat publicity afterwards generated by the Grand Lodge itself, observers were less enthusiastic. One official participant was pressed into service to mentor two candidates. On being asked which lodge they were from, these two hapless candidates had no idea. The work was ‘of the lowest quality, highly disorganised and generally unrecognisable as masonic ritual,’ reported this observer. ‘It was characterised as a poor rehearsal witnessed by 500 eavesdroppers and cowans. After passing through this, the “newly-made brothers” were subjected to a very long and boring film apparently about the Grand Lodge’s retirement community in Utica, New York. This provoked the only spirited response, when the film was cut short since so many expressed irritation by it.’

Opposition to the classes

Yet there is no shortage of tacit opposition. There are many brethren in New York who find this practice very distasteful and are not at all happy with the way this matter has been pushed through, apparently without wide consultation. There are also genuine grassroots concerns about how their Grand Lodge is now viewed by European Grand Lodges, with fears being expressed about the possibility of de-recognition. There are signs that the United Grand Lodge of England is a little less than happy with the situation. And in Germany, one senior Grand Lodge Officer of the Grossloge AFAM said ‘Wherever this practice is mentioned, it is met with gales of laughter and incredulous headshaking.’ In addition, the catechism traditionally learned by a candidate as a means of advancement to the next degree has been waived in the case of Grand Master Classes. This has already led to some adverse comment amongst grassroots American Freemasons, who view with dismay the drop-out rate, estimated by some American observers as 86 percent.
    It is quite clear that the practice of Grand Master Classes is accountantdriven. The Grand Lodge of New York for example has seen its membership fall off dramatically over the past forty to fifty years. ‘Since the heyday of Freemasonry in the 1950s’, said the New York Times on Sunday 13 January this year, ‘membership has plummeted. Statewide, membership now stands at about 65,000, down from a peak of over 300,000 in 1958.’ At the same time, not surprisingly, the average age of lodge members has been increasing. The annual expenditure from the Grand Lodge over the same period has not diminished. There is as much call on masonic funds for retirement homes and other charitable commitments as there ever was, and this leads to pressure for a more vigorous recruitment drive to shore up the income side of the equation. A recent survey indicated that this is a spreading contagion – thirty-five States have adopted the practice, with only sixteen not yet doing so. Interestingly, some of the southern states, which are traditionally held to be conservative in outlook, have held firm against the practice.
    The trend seems to have been set by the District of Columbia, which first held a Grand Master One-Day Class in 1992, and has done so every year since then. In that State, the format consists of conferring the first degree on a Friday evening and the second and third the following day. Here, the class sizes are about 75, a pin-prick compared to the State of Ohio, where 6,800 men had all three degrees conferred on them in one day. The numbers game has caught on here, with New York vowing to outdo Ohio, and trying for a record of 8,000 in one day. One commentator said ‘Where will this end? Will Illinois next say it can do 10,000? Will New Jersey bid 15,000?’ In the event New York were only able to field 2,100 candidates at their first attempt on 29 March this year.
    There is however some light at the end of this particular tunnel. There is resistance in many States to the idea; Kansas is one such. And in Pennsylvania, where a dispensation had been given for up to five candidates to have all three degrees conferred on them on the same day, the move has not proved popular.
    However the Grand Master of Pennsylvania, in common with other Grand Masters across the country does have the right to make a man a mason ‘at sight’. The most high-profile example of this is New York, where the Grand Master, Carl Fitje, intends to bestow this privilege on the Governor of the State of New York. The Grand Master’s own comments on their website indicate that he ‘will exercise one of the prerogatives of a Grand Master, and make Governor George E. Pataki a ‘Mason at Sight’ in accordance with New York Masonic Law.

Problems to come?

This whole issue throws into sharp focus the difference between the ethos of Freemasonry in Europe, and that in America. While European Freemasonry is not slow to engage in philanthropic works and to extend relief in cases of suffering, Freemasonry remains first and foremost a very personal endeavour, with important lessons to be learned from the ritual in terms of moral and spiritual growth. In America it seems that the most important image is the one that Masons present of themselves to the non-masonic world. In Connecticut, for instance, ninety mirrors have been distributed, one to each lodge, with the inscription ‘Take a good look at yourself: you’re somebody’s impression of Freemasonry.’ Hence the masonic image is first and foremost a civic and social one, where one’s duties as a mason seem to be bound up with local affairs, national affairs and even with patriotism in its deepest sense.
    It is hard to see what an effective antidote to this might be. Clearly the vision of initiation as a life-changing experience has been lost, and the experience, both for those conferring the degrees and those receiving them, has been degraded to less than admission to membership of a social club. The individual, personal dimension also has been jettisoned, and it comes as no surprise that the drop-out rate is so high. As a quick-fix for the financial troubles of Freemasonry on the other side of the Atlantic, it may or may not work, but it can certainly do nothing but harm to the masonic movement as a whole.

The Pro Grand Master, Lord Northampton, has said of these one-day classes:

‘This means we could get ‘fast track’ masons in our lodges a day after they have been through all three degrees, with no respect for all the things we hold so dear and which cement the Brotherhood. It also has the potential to do enormous harm to the Craft’s reputation, because those who never attend after their first and only meeting are bound to ridicule the fact that they have been coerced into joining an organisation which has taken their money and taught them nothing lasting.’