SUBCULTURE Freemason Revival

“FORBIDDEN.”

That’s how Jason Cohen answers the phone. The glass case Jason stands behind is stocked with books: Haie!, The Illustrated Kama Sutra, The Diary of 0, and other titles you probably don’t want your kids to read. The face behind the voice is pale, serious, and topped with bleach-tipped, spiky hair; the eyes behind the glasses are intelligent and pale blue. The arm that holds the receiver is totally tattooed, wrist to shoulder, but if you can look past that, you might notice that Jason wears-among other jewels, chains, and neo-punk ornaments-a small gold ring embossed with the square and compass insignia of the Ancient and Accepted Order of Freemasonry.

Jason is the proprietor of Forbidden Books, a store in Exposition Park specializing in the so-called occult, the seemingly-obscene, and the just plain weird. Violence, sex, Satanism, and Japanimation are the stock in trade here. The shelves are stocked with titles by people like witchcraft scholar and possible warlock Alastair Crowley, loony visionary novelist H.P. Lovecraft, and far-out philosopher/sci-fi author Robert Anton Wilson. Forbidden Books rents off-the-wall videotapes such as the one called “Freemasonry and the New World Order,” which suggests that the honorary 33rd degree of Masonry is a Satanic initiation rite. Jason is intrigued by the blurry edges of thought, where imagination can verge on hallucination and logic can mushroom into paranoia. Forbidden Books is on the very fringe of coolness, so hip, so skeptical, it’s scary. It’s the kind of place your mother doesn’t want to know you know about, filled with the sort of books people like to have banned.

In Dallas. Forbidden Books serves as a salon of the strange, attracting people fascinated by a Foucaultian mix of witchcraft, conspiracy theory, ancient wisdom, philosophy, and physics. That’s why, oddly, Forbidden Books has also become the city’s epicenter of Freemasonry. Jason is a Brother of the Lodge, and so are many of his friends. They became Masons as another experiment, a lark, springing from a need to know the secrets, from curiosity carried to the extreme of actual expertence. They’ve remained Masons because to their surprise, they found the Brotherhood’s arcane and costumed ritual is based on principles that appealed to their post-modern punk sensibilities. In the meantime, they have revived an organization most people assumed-if they thought about it at all-was dying out.



IT WAS A TYPICAL TEXAS SPRING DAY: COLD, damp, indecisively dripping rain, The grounds of Restland were just getting green last March, and around one new grave, sheltered by the standard-issue, funeral-home tent, gathered a group of men-old men with white hair and young men with pierced ears, all wearing funny-looking white leatherette aprons over their dark clothes.

The Lodge of Sorrow was open. Members of the old Highland Park Lodge, now Louis Priester Lodge No. 1150, dressed in their full Masonic regalia, were paying the Craft’s final tribute of Love and Esteem to their departed Brother in the Freemasonry Ante-Burial service, spoken according to the words of the Texas Monitor of the Lodge (the Masons’ functional blend of the Book of Common Prayer and Robert’s Rules of Order). You could almost hear the capital letters: “May Brotherly love prevail and every moral and social Virtue cement us. Amen.”

“So mote it be” came the response.

The Ante-Burial service is becoming a familiar ritual to Texas Masons. The words of this service, held for a lifetime Mason in his 80s, were no different from those spoken at Brothers’ funerals everywhere- Masonic ritual has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. What was different was that nearly half the group around the grave were young twenty-somethings. Deep Ellum refugees in Masonic aprons were intoning the responses with men four times their age, It’s an unlikely story, but in Lodge No. 1150, the ancient order of Freemasonry has been given a future by Jason and his friends, who share a taste for the forbidden.

Freemasons believe their order was founded when the great medieval cathedrals were being built in Europe. The guilds of skilled stonemasons weren’t bound to any one place but were allowed to move freely from one church construction site to another. Supposedly, these “operative” masons were joined by “speculative” or “accepted” masons, men who didn’t work in stone but were attracted to what had become a mystical, fraternal-and eventually prestigious-order. The order spread worldwide in a small way, thriving in the New World. Four of the five men who drafted the Declaration of Independence were Masons. There is a famous, straight-faced oil painting of George Washington in his white Masonic apron (in those days, they were made of real lambskin) and jewels as Master of Alexandria Lodge, No. 22. Texas’ early heroes were Masons-the Grand Lodge of Texas was founded in the Senate Chamber of the Republic of Texas, presided over by Brother Sam Houston.

Membership peaked after World War II, when servicemen found in the Lodge the same male camaraderie they’d experienced in the military. In those days, there were nearly 200 applications being processed each year at Louis Priester Lodge 1150. But the last few disillusioned generations found the Order’s rituals corny and irrelevant. When older members died, there were no young men to take their place. Of the over 200membersofLodge 1150, the vast majority are between 76 and 80 years old. Nine members are younger man 30.

To become an Entered Apprentice, the first degree of Craft Masonry, you must be 21, male, and without any criminal record. And you must be recommended by a Mason. Jason knew about Freemasons from his Shriner grandfather, but he was recommended to Lodge 1150by friend, fellow student of the weird, and Freemason Bob Martin, who brought Robert Anton Wilson to speak in Denton in 1988. Wilson’s books are strange ramblings that thread together Eastern philosophy, physics, and Freemasonry with the logic of an experienced acid traveller. Martin, a natural proselytizer, figured from their mutual taste in literature that Jason might be interested in Freemasonry. “What models do these kids have?” he demands. (Don’t try to answer,) “The leaders of society are suspect, there’s corruption in high circles. In the midst of the miasma of modern culture, the seeds of salvation are there in Masonry-not in the Christian sense, but in the sense of how we’re going to survive as human beings.” The “miasma of modern culture,” of course, is what Forbidden Books is all about. And Jason-with the friends who became Masons with him- loves to explore the miasma.



THEY CALLED IT THE “LABORATORY OF Love.” “Blisskrieg,” the “Invisible Laboratory of Esoteric Disc Jockeys.” The event was a “group endeavour.” an “environmental installation” of “meta-program-ming devices.” It was held in an Expo Park warehouse, and it involved 20,000 gallons of water in a reservoir four feet deep, a “Tree of Life” sculpture garden, multi-colored banners, spray-painted walls, and beer.

Like the annual Halloween “Disturbathon,” this is the kind of thing Jason and his Mason friends (Ean Schuessler, Forrest Jackson, and Steven Aydt) do when they’re not safe in a Lodge meeting. It’s easy to see the connection between a ’90s happening like Blisskrieg and the rituals of the Craft-they’re both loaded with symbolism, invented mysticism, and play-acting.

The elaborate Masonic initiation rites are just symbolic one-acts. The initiate might expose his breast, roll up his left trouser leg, and remove his right shoe. He’s “hoodwinked” (blindfolded), and a noose is placed around his neck. All these actions, as well as the memorized ritual questions and responses, have symbolic meanings that are made clear later in the initiate’s education.

Jason and his buddies went through the age-old rites with some trepidation, and the old-timers were justifiably nervous about the unorthodoxy of some of the petitioners. One rite requires the initiate to remove his shirt, and the sight of bare-chested Jason- tattooed from neck to waist, shoulder to wrist, with images of a Kali-like mermaid, Tibetan gods, and other mythical creatures-was a shock. But several old Masons came up to Jason afterwards and offered to be his teacher, proving, as Schuessler perhaps overstates, that “Freemasonry is the perfect incubator for the individual.’”

Except that there are modern problems with Freemasonry, problems that even Jason can’t gloss over. ’There are no black Masons in Lodge No. 1150.” he admits. Or any Lodge. Discrimination based on race is against the published tenets of Freemasonry, but at a critical point in Texas Freemasonry history, many Lodges were Ku Klux Klan outposts, and racism is still often linked with the Order. The combination of strict secrecy and religious-like loyalty makes Masonry, by itself a mildly beneficial organization, a perfect vehicle for others with an actively dangerous agenda- in Italy, the Masonic Order has been linked to the Maria. Here, anti-government and subversive activities have been credited to the Masons-things like throwing tea into Boston Harbor, for instance.

The ’60s generation rejected received wisdom in favor of individual experience, but the Craft is built on knowledge passed orally from old men to young and swallowed whole. Lodges across Texas are watching to see “how the young kids do” at Louis Priester. whether the old guys and the strange young men can bridge the generation gap by doing the work of the Craft. Or whether the young guys will drop out when something else piques their interest.

For now. Jason and his friends are committed to Freemasonry. It’s “a social outlet. a group-oriented phenomenon without politics or religion,” says Jason. ’That’s rare. Our intent is to sustain it.” Jason and his friends all hold offices in the Lodge. Last year, Jason was Junior Steward; this year, he’s moved up to senior deacon, replaced in the kitchen by Schuessler. As Junior Steward, Jason cooked dinner before the Tuesday night stated meetings. Because Jason is a vegetarian, the menu at Louis Priester has changed considerably.

“They used to serve barbecue, fried chicken, spaghetti, old-style food. I cook tofu. steamed vegetables, quinoa, grains.” Jason says. “Actually, they like it, and it suits the older guys’ necessary diet because a lot of them have heart conditions.”



The catechism of the Craft uses architecture as its main system of symbolism. Masonry is full of phrases like “Regulate our lives by the plumbline of justice, ever squaring our actions by the square of virtue.” Masons often refer to the Supreme Deity as the “Grand Architect of the Universe.” It’s safe to say that the Kiest Lodge, home of 1150, is one of the Supreme Architect’s poorer designs. It looks like a garage rec room, with sculpted, pale blue carpet and cheaply panelled walls. The Pillars of the Porch, topped with globes of the Earth and the Universe, are in place near the entrance. There’s a neon “G” over the Worshipful Master’s chair, which stands for “Geometry,” according to one Mason. ’And, urn, God.”

Masonry has traditionally had an uneasy relationship with established religions. The Bull of Pope Clement XII in 1738 was the first official condemnation of Freemasonry-even today, no Catholic can be a Mason. Modern fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson have labeled Freemasonry ’’anti-Christian.” And in Lodge No. 1150, a Mason close to his 50th year in the Lodge asked to be demitted because of pressure from his wife and the elders of his church, who said he couldn’t be a church elder and a Mason. Some conspiracy buffs believe that Shriner hospitals for children are a front for Satanism, and one expansive school of conspiratorial thought insists that every large human conflict is actually a skirmish between the York and Scottish Rites of Freemasonry.

Just last spring, Britain’s Parliament brought up the question of the Masonic brotherhood connection affecting government decisions. The origins of our government are intertwined with Masonry, so suspicion of Masonry is conveniently linked with suspicion about government. (Some clues: There are Masonic symbols in the walls of Fort Wood at the base of the Statue of Liberty, and the eye in the pyramid on the dollar bill is a Masonic emblem.)

Naturally, the Masonic philosophy to combat criticism with silence has only produced more paranoia about the secret society. Secrecy about the Masonic Mysteries feeds the question: Why keep a secret if you have nothing to hide? Most Masons tend to think that the secrecy of die Order is the reason it’s dying. They want to lighten the laws and lessen the requirements for each degree to encourage enrollment. “They want to remove the veil of secrecy, make it more like a mainstream charitable organization,” says Jason. Older Masons want to dilute me tenets to gain more membership so Masonry won’t die.

But the young people are generally delighted by the conspiracy theories. They’re attracted to Masonry by the illusion of mystery, the esoteric flavor, the so-called secrets. They’re latter-day seekers who find practical wisdom more tolerable mixed with the necessary weirdness in Masonry. They want to bring even more of the ancient mystery back. ’The initiation rites should be powerful and thought-provoking,” insists Jason. The older generation uses the Lodge as a refuge from home, a sanctuary, a hang-out. It’s a cleaner, more acceptable version of Homer Simpson’s corner bar. But the younger guys are looking for something else.

From the outside, most were attracted by a kind of prankster curiosity about an organization that required grown-ups to wear funny costumes and walk backwards reciting ritual phrases. But, Jason discovered, “It was interesting, and not only that, it’s actually something to believe in. I firmly believe that brotherhood and friendship are more important than religion and politics. Masonry is a moral organization. You have a responsibility to your brother-not to God-to be moral and decent. It emphasizes the human, not the holy.”

So mote it be.