Despite Bandits The Masonic Treasure Remains Safe

by Midnight Freemasons Founder

Todd E. Creason 33°

World reknown detective Sherlock "Ray" Cummings investigating robbery. He thinks the bandits may have entered through this door perhaps... or it could be termites.  The real mystery is why Ray travels around with a deerstalker cap and pipe in his car???

The morning after Christmas, Greg Knott and I got a call from a member of our Lodge—Greg is the Master, and I’m the Secretary.  This member had gone up to the Lodge and discovered that somebody had broken in.  As I was talking to him, I was remembering some of those pictures I’ve seen of Lodges that have been broken into and then are maliciously vandalized.  It sickened me to think about what I might find when I got up there.  When we got there, we found that our exterior door had been badly damaged when the door was forced open.  And the internal door was even worse—that door was basically destroyed.  There was some minor damage to the door that leads into the Lodge room.  The Lodge room and the kitchen had been ransacked.  The fireproof safe by my desk (Secretary) had been destroyed.  They’d ripped it apart but failed to get the door open.  The foamed concrete fireproofing material and the masonry dust from the interior walls of the safe was broadcast over a wide area.  Nothing stolen that we've found but some change from the kids charity jar.

A County Sheriff and his K-9 Tanto arrived along with a pair of crime scene investigators.  They photographed.  They dusted.  The took a few things of interest with them (including our last bag of Doritos that those criminals had helped themselves to).  All in all, things could have been much worse. 

I put out a call, and the next morning about ten Masons showed up from a few different Lodges, and within an hour we had it all cleaned up.  The safe was so badly torn up we couldn’t get the door open.  One of the Masons was a locksmith, and using the tire iron from his Jeep within a few seconds he accomplished what the bandits had not—he had the door of the safe open.  And the treasure we keep locked inside was perfectly fine and undamaged.  

The "treasure."  Hope the bandits don't have allergies--they're kind of dusty.

Obviously, the majority of the effort applied by the thieves was on that fireproof safe.  They had to have spent considerable time trying to pry that door open without success judging from the damage.  They must have believed there was some great Masonic treasure inside.  Perhaps cash or jewels.  Or maybe bars of solid gold.  Or maybe the Holy Grail or a map to the Oak Island Treasure.  Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the “Wizard of Oz” maybe?  Who knows what they thought was in there.  But the reality is that’s where we keep our original membership records going back about 140 years, including our log book that every member of our Lodge has signed upon being raised a Master Mason.  That’s all you’re going to find in most Lodge safes anywhere—old dusty records.  I really wish after all that work they spent on that safe they’d gotten it open—I’d have liked to have seen their faces when they saw all those old ledger books.  The safes in Masonic Lodges are meant to protect records in the event of a fire, not valuables from theft. 

Freemasons don’t keep their treasures in a safe.

There’s only one way to get at the treasure guarded for generations by Freemasons.  You have to join.  Our treasures are contained within our ritual traditions.  Our asset is the knowledge we pass on to our members.  The great wealth and power of our Fraternity is in the great benefit of these principles we learn when they are applied in our lives.  Freemasons are not collectors of wealth, they are investors in men. 

They haven’t caught these bandits yet.  I think they will.  Obviously, these criminals are not geniuses—do you know they left three autographed copies of my first book sitting right there on the corner of my file cabinet? 

~TEC

Todd E. Creason, 33° is the Founder of the Midnight Freemasons blog, and an award winning author of several books and novels, including the Famous American Freemasons series. Todd started the Midnight Freemason blog in 2006, and in 2012 he opened it up as a contributor blog The Midnight Freemasons (plural). Todd has written more than 1,000 pieces for the blog since it began. He is a Past Master of Homer Lodge No. 199 and Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL) where he currently serves as Secretary. He is a Past Sovereign Master of the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a Fellow at the Missouri Lodge of Research (FMLR). He is a charter member of the a new Illinois Royal Arch Chapter, Admiration Chapter No. 282 and currently serves as EHP. You can contact him at: webmaster@toddcreason.org