Why Mastering the Liberal Arts & Sciences is Critical to Practicing Freemasonry

I was going to be writing a different article today, covering the meaning of “Masonry is a Progressive Science”, when I made a discovery that completely reshapes how we are to practice Freemasonry. A discovery so profound that I must share it with you now.

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As part of writing this newsletter, I have been using AI to help me compose my thoughts into something that is more coherent than what spews out of my brain. Basically, it gives me another ‘being’ to bounce off in order to develop my own understanding, then restructure all that raw information, and helps me to write the final article.

But to do this, I have been been side studying literature. Well more specific how literature is composed. This is required to be able to instruct the AI how to write.

This is where the discovery that I am sharing with you today comes to light.

In order to prompt an AI to write, you have to give it specific instructions. You have to tell it how you want your sentences written. What language to use. What style, tone, vocabulary. Which point of view should it take. Should it write active or passive sentences. You really have to program it, through your prompt to produce the output.

All of what we take for granted when we read or write is to an extent intuitive or learned through practicing it. This mostly comes from our schooling. But, many never go into the depths of writing literature the same way you would go into writing a computer program. But, my side study as taken me there.

So when I was researching “masonry is a progressive science”, breaking down the meaning of the individual words. I found that this phrase uses a structure that I discovered the other day.

In English, our sentences are mainly composed to follow subject-verb-object. Or, at least a minor variations with adverbs, adjectives and relative clauses etc. I won’t go into those as they’re not relevant to this discovery.

So when breaking down the meaning of “masonry is a progressive science”, I realised that this phrase follows the subject (masonry) verb (progressive) obejct (science) word order.

And this blew my mind. It then made complete sense as to why we need to Master the Liberal Arts and Sciences in order to effective learn and Practice Freemasonry.

Now, this may not seem as profound as what I am making it out to be. Afterall, as part of speaking english we intuitively know this. But do we really know it, do we actually understand it. Do Understand why it’s important to be consciously aware of the word order in the sentences of our ritual, when trying to acertain the lessons of practical and moral instruction or admonishment (warning) that our ceremonies give us.

I hear so often many struggle to learn from Freemasonry. They come to the craft seeking to imprve themselves, but many never do. That’s because we don’t learn how to learn from our ceremonies. But, being consciously aware of the word order and sentence structure makes it easier for us to bridge the gap between the King James English our ceremonies are written in, and the modern lexicon of language we use today.

So when we take this conscious awareness into the word order of a phrase in our ritual, not only do we understand the meaning, we understand the intention. It gives us the “how” of how we are supposed to interpet the ritual. How we are supposed to learn these practical and moral lessons.

Here is what I mean using “Masonry is a progressive Science”, but let’s reverse it.

The “object” of Masonry is Science. But objects, can have many definitions.

Like in computer science, such as programming/prompting an AI, the object can be a variable, a data structure, a function, or a method. It’s anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form, such as a thing, person, or matter to which thought or action is directed.

From the word object, we get objective. Objectives are factual and are goals or things to be aimed at, like a goal. So we have the “Science” of Masonry being the goal or objective of Masonry.

Now where does the verb come into it. Well the point of the verb, is it tells us “how” or gives us the “action” or “instruction” that must occur for the objective of the subject to be achieved. This means, progressively we are to obtain the object (science) of the subject (masonry).

This tells us exactly what we need to know in order to learn what this phrase is teaching us through either instruction or warning (admonishment).

So, you may be thinking, how does this exactly tell us why mastering the liberal arts and sciences is critical to practicing freemasonry.

Well, in our liberal arts and sciences we have the trivium of language being Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic.

• Grammar is the study of the structure, rules, and conventions of language. It involves understanding parts of speech, sentence structure, punctuation, and syntax.

• Rhetoric involves understanding how to craft arguments, appeal to emotions, and use language. It teaches techniques for organizing ideas, using figurative language, and adapting communication style to different contexts and audiences.

• Logic is about analyzing arguments, identifying fallacies, and constructing valid and sound arguments. Logic teaches critical thinking skills, enabling us to evaluate information, make informed decisions, and solve problems effectively.

Mastering Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic is crucial for not just practicing Freemasonry, but understanding it. These three disciplines form the foundation of effective communication, critical thinking, and symbolic interpretation, which are critical to being able to learn any of the of our Masonic teachings from the symbolism and allegories.

What it all boils down to is this:

By mastering the liberal arts and sciences, specifically the trivium, we can be more effective in learning what our ceremonies are teaching.

By learning what our ceremonies are teaching we can apply those lessons in our own lives, thus achieve the ultimate aim of why we are Masons- self-improvement through practical and philosophical lessons.

Which brings us to the point. We can hear the ritual presented over and over again, but none of its meaning will ever sink in, if we don’t practice it, and we can’t practice if we don’t learn (not memorise, learn according to Blooms Taxonomy) from the Craft.

It’s this infinite cycle of never being able to get anything (real) from Freemasonry that you cannot break unless you use Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic to interpret from our ceremonies their lessons and instructions.

What I have learned from figuring out how to have AI assist with wrting this newsletter, is that, I have needed to deepen my own studies into the trivium. Writing a prompt for an AI, and delving into the meaning of our rituals has forced me into working towards (the process of learning to) master the liberal arts and sciences. It’s forced me to dig deep into the trivium so that I can truly and deeply understand the words that are on the page.

But the most pround thing is, the beauty and perfection of Masonry. The system of morality, that it gives you, gives you the lessons on how to study it so you can understand it. It’s meta. It’s self-fullfilling. Freemasonry gives us the tools (literally) to be able to Master it. We just have to look inside our ceremonies for the answers.

Although, the old addage of the quality of the answers is directly proportional to the quality of the question. Spend more time refining your questions and getting very specific on the questions you want to ask Masonry.