Twain Submission

[Frater Cliff Porter]

I have had some inquiries into the Twain Award. Here is part of the submission E198 wrote and submitted:

I. Planning:

Enlightenment Lodge 198 has a simple philosophy, Masonic awareness through education and fulfillment of its members.

We recognized that there would need to be multiple phases to creating a lodge that would be fulfilling to its members and would then fulfill the purpose that all Masonry should strive for in providing light within our community.

The planning process was not a difficult one. We gathered together over good food, with our brothers, identified our goals and actually worked towards gaining them. We worked with zeal, kept committees to a minimum and empowered our individual members with the ability to make decisions on behalf of the lodge so long as they were in keeping with our ultimate goals. Too many good ideas die in committee. We decided that we would rather fail trying a good idea, than feel safe for never having risked the try.

The goals were this: Create the kind of experience we thought Masonry was supposed to be when we joined the Craft. To that end, we would make the investigation and selection process intense, we would make the initiation special and extraordinary, and make the first line signer relationship with anyone coming in as a truly special mentoring experience designed to create a bond with the man from the outside, he would have a new family and a friend to guide him through that new family every step of the way.

Further, we would not focus on getting members. When your focus is outside of your lodge trying to find members, your back is turned on the men already standing within. We wanted to fulfill the men within the lodge. We wanted them to truly mentor those men that found the Craft and to do that we needed to educate ourselves on the symbols of Masonry and on the esoteric aspects that our great adepts allude to in their writings. If we could not do this, we could not answer the questions asked of us by men who joined or the community whom are sometimes suspicious of Masonry. So we decided to bring in speakers who were experts in their field to inform us, so that we might inform others.

The first two goals could not be achieved without effective Masonic leadership. We often make officers in a lodge, but we do not often make leaders. Men are rushed through chairs and given instruction in basic parliamentary procedure and some administrative function. The lodge is not designed to produce parliamentarians, it is designed to produce men who found countries and draft constitutions. The Fraternity points well to our great members of the past, we decided we would implement corporate level leadership educational programs to build leaders of the future.

Last, we would document our failures and our successes, come up with a list of best practices and train others to achieve success.

Our budget was based on our dues. We decided that it would not be cheap and Masonry shouldn’t be. We also decided that Masonry was worth the cost of a cup of coffee a day. So, to that end, we made our dues $1 a day or $365 plus Grand Lodge per capita.

Every member of the lodge would be called upon to make the experience work. Attendance at meetings and events is assumed and unless written notice is provided the member is billed accordingly for the cost of meals and such which remain extra and not part of the budget so that those monies can be spent on the programs themselves.


II. Execution/implementation:
In keeping with our first goal we implemented a program where interested men in Enlightenment Lodge would first be taken to lunch with a some of members from the lodge. If lunch went well they would be invited to the Agape (dinner) after lodge. If that went well they would be invited to dinner for a period of about six months. They would share food, wine, and fellowship in a formal dining experience with their future Brothers. They would be invited to Scotch and cigars at a small restaurant that Enlightenment Lodge has formed a relationship with and allows for the reservation of a back room especially for members.

On the day of initiation the Brothers are picked up in a super stretch limousine by men dressed in tuxedos. The man is hoodwinked at his home and driven in the limo to the lodge where the experience begins. The man receives a custom made to lodge standards lambskin apron actually designed to wear and he will forever wear it as a member of the lodge. This is his apron and is not designed to present him as an ornamental token. It is his true apron and one just like it is worn by every members.

His first line signer and the new Brother meet weekly in their favorite environment for at least one hour of study, conversation, and proficiency practice. The initiate has months planned between each degree, the study will include meditation, study of philosophy and psychology, and good fellowship; not just rote memorization.

He will present a paper between each degree and upon his raising to Master Mason he will receive a custom made hand bound Bible in black lambskin with the seal of the lodge and his name embossed with real silver.

We did this with two candidates last year.

In fulfilling, educating and equipping the men we already had we recognized that Masonic education would need to be multipronged. We decided we would begin a program in which non-Masonic and Masonic speakers alike that were experts in their fields would be brought into the lodge. This would serve two purposes. It would provide the best available speaker regardless of affiliation and would expose non-Masons to the Craft allowing for an exchange of ideas and generating awareness.

Speakers have included Dr. Casey Blood, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Rutgers University. Dr. Blood is a recognized expert in the field of quantum theory, providing breakthrough research that the “particle” is not necessary for quantum theory to work. He has as wealth of published articles on quantum physics and has independently pursued an interest in neuroscience. He studied Sufism for more than twenty years with teachers such as Pir Vilayat and Shahabuddin David Less.

Other non-Masonic speakers have included Louis Sahagan. Mr. Sahagun has worked on Pultizer prize winning documentaries and worked more than 30 years with the Los Angeles Times as a staff writer and reporter. Mr. Sahagun published a biography on Brother Manly P. Hall. His associations with the Enlightenment Lodge have lead to his pursuing the possibility of a documentary of Freemasonry.

Brother and professor Dr. Joshua Gunn, professor of communications at the University of Texas in Austin, who presented on communications and secrecy as a mechanism of communication.

Brother and published author Kevin Townley, who spoke upon the role of Masonry in the coming age and necessity of education with in Masonry.

We would also require members to prepare philosophical and research papers to provide that it labor is action and we must not simply sit and learn from others, but must also become teachers and mentors as we educated ourselves. It was not enough to learn, we would put our new educations to the test as well.

In recognizing that the Fraternity needs leaders and members of the Fraternity, to truly realize the Masonic goal of helping the community would need to be leaders, we implemented leadership training programs that included the following:

• In lodge training personality typology, communications skills, senses of perception as it relates to communication.
• We sought and received funding to provide corporate level leadership training for free to all Master Masons in the state as part of the first Visionary Leadership Seminar and brought in National level speakers and members of the Supreme Council in Washington D.C. to speak of leadership and membership for a new approach to the Craft.
• We traveled to Kansas City Missouri and addressed the Philosophical Society on the Psychology of Masonry which included training of Subconscious Communications, understanding yourself and communicating with others.

As the program of speaking progressed we realized that the community became more aware of our activities and sought us out.

We were invited to speak to a large congregational church body in the state and provided a one hour key note speaker who spoke of Freemasonry and its symbols. The meeting was a great success at the church. It dispelled myths, created awareness and resulted in some men becoming interested in membership in the Craft. The speaker was invited back and a thank you letter from one of the attendees is in the attachments as well as the PowerPoint used for the presentation.

Those who heard of Enlightenment Lodge’s practices indicated that they wanted similar programs, but were not sure where to start.

Members of Enlightenment Lodge worked with the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Education Committee to create the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Speakers Bureau. The program is funded with Grand Lodge funds. A board of certification has been established to certify speakers. The Board travels to speakers within the Fraternity and rates the quality of the content and the quality of the delivery. If the speaker and their content are voted upon approvingly, the speakers is listed as certified. This allows lodges to request them as a speaker and all travel fees and lodging are paid for by the Grand Lodge so that the speaker can travel throughout the state to benefit the Fraternity and the Grand Lodge pays for the travel so that smaller lodges can afford to bring the best speakers and ones which have been vetted.

As our multifaceted approach to education and fulfillment grew we decided to branch out again. Working with the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Education Committee we contacted the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and began coordination with their student government. We have now coordinated for a previously vetted Enlightenment Lodge speaker who is a Brother and Professor of Communications at the University of Texas in Austin to speak at the opening week of school to the student body. The event has been sponsored and sanctioned by the student government. The topic of the speech with will be the role of secrecy in society. The formal presentation will be followed by an open forum and panel discussion with the student body and Freemasons.


III. Evaluation/Reflections:

The success of our educational approach to Masonic awareness was more successful than we ever dreamed.

Our newest members do not miss meetings and can not contemplate why a person would. We have men attending our dinners and participating in lodge events for months, more than a year in some cases, just at the hope of becoming a member, effectively creating a “waiting list” to become a member.

Our lodge’s attendance per meeting averages more than 100% of our membership numbers because of the programs we offer and the guest they attract.

Enlightenment Lodge has participated in drafting guidelines for a Chamber of Reflection at the Grand Lodge level with an increasing number of lodges in Colorado now incorporating the style of an Enlightenment Lodge initiation which includes a Chamber of Reflection.

Enlightenment was so recognized at the national level and was sought out by Dateline NBC for their hour long special on Freemasonry and Dan Brown’s new novel, the Lost Symbol, in which Masonry plays a central role.

Members of Enlightenment have appeared on numerous live radio broadcast representing the Fraternity and its unique educational approach.

We have ended up forming multiple community partnerships because of interactions which include relationships with multiple colleges, the Center for Creative Leadership, restureants, and meeting facilities which have generated much interested in the Craft and the same time as bringing much needed business to a struggling economy.

Several members of Enlightenment also started and own the world’s largest regular Masons only online forum (www.thesanctumsanctorum.com) bringing classes from Masons and non-Masons alike to members around the world. The classes are online and include alchemy, tarot, leadership, philosophy, and physics.

Two members of Enlightenment have published books for general consumption and have now been called upon to review a movie script on the history of General Warren, the Green Dragon Tavern, and Freemasonry during the American Revolution.

We continue to educate ourselves, so that we might educate others.

[Bro. Michael Costello]

Wow! That sounds great. I wish we had something like that here in New Jersey.

[Bro. David G. Cassidy]

This is exactly what I was looking for when I became a Mason.
I hope I can someday find and/or help to build such a lodge.

[Brother Steven]

How difficult was it to get a charter from your GL for such a Lodge? (I assume this is a TO Lodge).

[Frater Cliff Porter]

Well there is distinction in Colorado for forming a "T.O." lodge. We are just a lodge. That being said, we just followed the provisions laid in the Constitutions to form a new and lodge and worked hard to keep the GL informed of our progress.