Making a Case for Templarism

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Randy Sanders

When I petitioned York Rite years ago, I petitioned too early in my Masonic path. It wasn’t that I needed more time to learn my Blue Lodge lessons, it was that there existed too few learned companions that could teach the deep lessons. The same remains today, meaning in most cases I had to learn the lessons on my own and without any mentoring, just like in Blue Lodge. Fast forward to receiving my Orders in Knights Templar, and I was stunned at the words I heard, the amazing allegory, the beautiful charges to be a better man. And I held deep hope in my heart when I attended my first and second Commandry meetings which also turned out to be my last.

Why would they be my last? After all, I experienced sheer beauty and powerful imagery in receiving the orders. How can I make a case for Templarism if I myself became disillusioned over stale coffee and dragging business meetings? You know, the same stale coffee and dragging business meetings we endure in Blue Lodge? I experienced even worse in the Asylum. I listened to adult men argue over the placement of a ribbon or pants length on a uniform of no significance, argue over foot placement during extremely basic marching and maneuvering drills, and watched them wear funny hats in the name of a 150-ish-year-old tradition. A tradition supposedly connected to a centuries-old religious military order that quite possibly obtained and applied the spiritual teachings of the East.

Doesn’t sound like much reason yet, right? The meaning is lost on those focused on the outer trappings. That is partly my definition of outer trappings: physicality that inhibits passage into the inner workings of anything. Remember the lessons of the Entered Apprentice to not get caught up in the outside world, to subdue your passions so that you might shed the physical and thereby get on with the important stuff. Today’s Templars with a few exceptions lost their way, and we can bring life back into an organization with such beautiful lessons. We must be the ones who teach those lessons because those adept at teaching the lessons within the organization become scarce. There’s egotistical infighting at the leadership levels as recently exposed at the national level, there’s devolution into the unimportant worries of whether a uniform is worn correctly, or the hat has enough feathers, or the foot is lifted high enough while marching. It’s all allegory. It isn’t important except to those who never understood the allegory.

Knights Templar and Templarism is indeed worth saving, and we should make the effort. Templarism allegory demonstrates the 24-inch gauge by teaching us to work toward preparation and to balance our time. It teaches personal ritual by demonstrating preparing the uniform as an allegory of cleansing and preparing yourself to meditate or do inner work (see an excellent article or catch the YouTube reading of Personal Ritual by Brother Chuck Dunning). Templarism teaches the allegory of the righteous battle as a means toward working hard to find your higher self, and finally, Templarism parallels the journey toward enlightenment by the finding of the Lost Word. What? No lost word? Templarism calls it the Holy Grail.

Again, the lessons of Templarism, largely lost on most current Templars, continue to be worthy of saving. Templarism teaches a wonderful set of philosophical values and moral virtues. Templarism lessons extend well beyond the stale coffee, silly costumes, and stomping footwork for those willing to take that next allegorical marching step. The symbolism encompasses a contemplative path toward Light, and the allegories of the Orders demonstrate the inner workings of the Psyche, or Self, on its various cyclical journeys. Journeys that lead to the Divine. These remain powerful internal lessons we may preserve while reminding the leadership and ritualists that the external lessons are outer trappings that have trapped many unworthy Knights thus denying them the Grail. There are always deeper meanings to any Masonic body.

~RS

Randy and his wife Elyana live near St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Randy earned a bachelor's Degree in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, and he works in Telecom IT management. He volunteers as a professional and personal mentor, NRA certified Chief Range Safety Officer, and enjoys competitive tactical pistol, rifle, and shotgun. He has 30-plus years of teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and healing arts. Randy served as a Logistics Section Chief on two different United States federal Disaster Medical Assistance Teams over a 12-year span. Randy is a 32nd-degree KCCH and Knight Templar. His Masonic bio includes past Lodge Education Officer for two symbolic lodges, Founder of the Wentzville Lodge Book Club, member of the Grand Lodge of Missouri Education Committee, Sovereign Master of the E. F. Coonrod AMD Council No. 493, Co-Librarian of the Scottish Rite Valley of St. Louis, Clerk for the Academy of Reflection through the Valley of Guthrie, and a Facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society. Randy is a founding administrator for Refracted Light, a full contributor to Midnight Freemasons, and an international presenter on esoteric topics. Randy hosts an open ongoing weekly Masonic virtual Happy Hour on Friday evenings. Randy is an accomplished home chef, a certified barbecue judge, raises Great Pyrenees dogs, and enjoys travel and philosophy.

No 13th Floor? It Must Be A Masonic Conspiracy!

by Midnight Freemasons Contributor

Todd E. Creason, 33°

I'm sure everyone has noticed that in many hotels and skyscrapers, builders have left off the 13th floor.  It's due to a condition known as triskaidekaphobia--yes, that's right, fear of the number 13!  Otis elevators estimates that about 85% of tall buildings do not have a 13th floor.  Some buildings skip it altogether.  Some might refer to the 13th floor as 12B, or use it as a mechanical floor.

Thirteen is just considered an unlucky number.  According to superstitious folks, it's unlucky for a number of reasons.  There were 13 people at the last Supper.  Also a year with 13 moons was unlucky for church monks in charge of keeping track of the calendar.  It caused confusion, rescheduling of religious festivals, etc.  There are traditionally 13 in a witches coven.  Of course then there's also Apollo 13--the only unsuccessful moon mission.  It's a common fear and it has nothing to do with Freemasonry what-so-ever. 

But Why Is Friday The Thirteenth Considered Particularly Unlucky?
Well that's not exactly a Masonic conspiracy either--unless you believe there is a link between the ancient Knights Templar and modern Freemasonry (which a few researchers believe does exist).  On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip had Knights Templar from all over France rounded up by his agents, tortured and once confessions of heresy were extracted from them, finally executed.  This brought an end to the order of warrior monks that had protected the Holy Land for more than 200 years.  Pope Clement later issued a papal bull ordering all the Templars arrested and their assets seized everywhere.  Every indication is that the Knights Templars were not actually destroyed for heresy, but because of the tremendous wealth, property and power they had attained--all things that King Philip wanted.  Others believe that the Knights Templar may have been in possession of certain truths that the Roman Catholic Church didn't want known.  Speculation about what that might be runs wild and provides fodder for conspiracy theorists and fiction authors like Dan Brown alike--was it the Holy Grail?  The Ark of the Covenant?  Evidence Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married?  A bloodline of Jesus Christ? That's a very short version of a very long story.  WB Adam Thayer wrote a much better piece about the Knights Templar here if you want to read a more detailed account.

What ever the reason for the the destruction of the Knights Templar, it is one of the possible reasons why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky (although there will be a few that disagree with that assertion), and why that date on our calendar give some a sense of dread.

And by the way--Happy Friday the 13th!

~TEC

Todd E. Creason, 33° is the Founder of the Midnight Freemasons blog and continues to be a regular contributor. He is also the author of the From Labor to Refreshment blog, where he posts on a regular schedule on topics relating to Freemasonry.  He is the author of several books and novels, including the Famous American Freemasons series. He is a Past Master of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), and currently serves as Secretary, and is also a member of Homer Lodge No. 199.  He is a member the Scottish Rite Valley of Danville, the York Rite Bodies of Champaign/Urbana (IL), the Ansar Shrine (IL), Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees, Charter President of the Illini High Twelve in Champaign-Urbana (IL), and a Fellow of the Missouri Lodge of Research.  He was recently awarded the 2014 Illinois Secretary of the Year Award by the Illinois Masonic Secretaries Association.  You can contact him at: webmaster@toddcreason.org

Friday the 13th

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

WB. Adam Thayer

One bad leader killed our fraternal brothers. One pompous, self-righteous, egotistical bastard was singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of a holy Order that had existed for nearly two hundred years, and for the death of two men who, like our own Grand Master Hiram, became martyrs to their fidelity.

Before we even begin to discuss the end of the Templars, it’s important to understand who they were, what they stood for, and why they were a perceived threat.

The Templars sprang from somewhat humble beginnings: Hugues de Payens, along with eight relatives who had been knighted, formed the Order to protect travelers and pilgrims who were visiting Jerusalem and other sites in the Holy Lands. While there is some disagreement as to which French king first sanctioned the group, it was probably around 1118 or 1119. The rules of the Order were simple: renounce all of your titles and worldly possessions, pursue a life of purity, and take up arms to defend against Sarcean attacks.

While in Jerusalem, the Order took to living at the Al Aqsa Mosque, which was believed to be built on top of Solomon’s Temple. It didn’t take long for the knights of the Order to become associated with the Temple in the public’s mind, and soon they took the name “Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici”, or The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and The Temple Of Solomon. This, in time, was shortened to Knights Templar.

In 1129, the Templars were officially sanctioned by the Vatican. This move garnered significant criticism, as the public could not accept monks carrying weapons and committing acts of violence. The Church, for their part, supported the Templars, by explaining that the knights were charged to protect the innocent from violence, not to commit acts of war.

Through the coming years, the Templars gained significant power, through the Church and governments granting it, and through controlling the supply of money with an elaborate banking and lending system. Although the knights themselves had taken vows of poverty, the Order was exceedingly wealthy.

A thorough examination of the Templars activities is beyond the scope and intention of this paper. Those who are interested may, with minimal effort, discover a wealth of information available that discusses their actions during their active years.

By the 1300s, the Order was well established throughout the known world, was a respected and vital part of the Church, and had amassed a significant amount of money, but was not the powerhouse it had been in its heyday. In many ways, the Order reflects our own gentle Craft; it started from small beginnings, had a rapid rise to dominance, enjoyed a position of power for many years, then began a slow decline into a less powerful, but no less important, organization. Left alone, this system could have continued indefinitely, enjoying brief periods of growth, followed by another gradual decline.

Enter the bad leader.

Philip the 4^th became King of France at a young age. While he was not mature enough at age seventeen to lead the country, his older brother died before taking the throne, so Philip was forced to ascend.

His youth and inexperience showed; he habitually ignored his advisors, insulted those who attempted to help him, issued poor orders, and was stubbornly inflexible. This led him into a number of unnecessary battles, forcing him to borrow more and more money from the Templars to fund his stupidity. During one war against England, he devalued the currency of France by two-thirds, causing his own people to riot against him.

Philip also chose, quite unwisely, to battle with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, which was the dominant power at the time. He expelled clergy from their positions of legal administration, and began taxing them at a high rate.

These actions caused Pope Boniface the 8^th to issue a papal bull excommunicating King Philip and any leader who would attempt to collect taxes from the clergy. Philip, being too stubborn to back down, retaliated by prohibiting the export of goods and moneys from France to Rome, effectively cutting off one of the larger income sources of the Catholic Church. Pope Boniface, holding power over an ever weakening Church, rescinded his papal bull, and restored trade from France to Rome.

King Philip, however, could not accept victory so graciously. He launched into a large scale “anti-papal” campaign against Pope Boniface. He began arresting and trying clergy members on various charge, likely invented by Philip himself. Even worse, he accused Pope Boniface of committing sodomy, a rumor which haunted him even after his death, when he was posthumously tried and the charges subsequently dropped. It’s interesting to note that the charge of sodomy was a favorite of King Philips, used against many of his political enemies, as we shall soon see.

In response to these outrages, Pope Boniface again asserted that the Church was superior to the ruling class, and that the Pope held the power over Kings. Hostilities again escalated, the Pope again excommunicated Philip, and Philip responded by having Pope Boniface arrested. He died less than one month later.

The Church, and by extension the Templars, now found themselves without leadership, but not for long. Within a year, Bishop Bertrand, a French Bishop from Bordeaux, was elected Pope Clement the 5^th. At the time, there were significant rumors that the new Pope had obtained power due to the political maneuverings of King Philip, and all of the subsequent actions of Pope Clement point this to be true, as he withdrew and changed the papal bulls that Boniface had released, restored King Philip to grace, moved the papacy to France, and granted the French King power over the leadership of the Catholic Church.

King Philip was in debt. His various wars, political maneuvers, and extravagant lifestyle had caused him to become deeply indebted to the Knights Templar, and unable to satisfy his debt. Worse, he saw that the Knights had significant income but did not pay taxes, significant assets that they kept to themselves, and were all well trained in the art of fighting.

What’s a King to do? The Templars were still under the control of the Catholic Church, not answerable to any king, and to lay attack on them would be seen poorly by the public, who held sympathy for the Church.

King Philip, showing unusual intelligence, determined to destroy the Templars quickly and efficiently; he would accuse the entire Order of heresy, extract confessions under brutal torture before the Church could get involved, and claim their property and wealth as French. Sealed orders were sent across all of France, to be opened on the appointed day, and the Templars fate was sealed.

Friday, October 13^th, 1307. King Philip’s orders were simultaneously opened across his realm. They included a letter detailing the numerous heretical crimes of the Templars, along with the order to arrest all Templars, and a list of the highest ranking Templar officers.

Reports vary, but most agree that six hundred and twenty five Templars were arrested that day. They were tortured until they confessed to any charge that was leveled against them, and those confessions were used as proof that King Philip had acted in the best interests of the Catholic Church in apprehending the knights. Pope Clement had no choice but to issue papal arrest warrants for the remaining knights worldwide.

When the knights began recanting their confessions and imploring the Church for aid, King Philip ordered fifty four of them, including their Grand Master Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake, and forced Pope Clement to disband the Order completely.

In a final act of defiance and bravado, de Molay pronounced that King Philip and Pope Clement would both soon stand with him before God to answer for their crimes. Within a year, they were both dead.

The remaining Templars scattered. Some joined with the Knights Hospitallers, who became known as the Order of Saint John. Others fled to Scotland, where Masonic tradition tells us they joined with Robert the Bruce and formed the Knights of Saint Andrew. The rest simply disappeared, lost in the annals of history.

What lessons can we take from the ordeal of the Templars? First, we can see the danger of mixing religion and politics, which is a lesson taught repeatedly in Scottish Rite Masonry. Had the Papacy not been controlled by the French King, it would have been able to fight back, and protect the Templars from his greed.

We can also see the risks a private society such as ours takes when we attract public attention by getting too large or too powerful. No doubt is had that the Templars flaunted their wealth and power, which attracted the attention of the king to begin with, and which led to their eventual destruction.

Perhaps most importantly, we see the importance of choosing good leadership. It only took one man to completely destroy that which had lasted nearly two hundred years. We must be constantly wary not to put the vain, the egotistical, or the dictatorial into positions of leadership within our lodges, as one bad Master can destroy a Lodge. The Templars did not have a choice in who led their lodge or country, but we do. We can choose to elect someone into leadership because he is a warm body to fill the chair, or we can choose to only move our best and brightest into them. At the risk of sounding political, we should be carrying that same attitude with us when we vote for our public leaders as well.

Finally, a warning to any who would abuse their position of power: never forget that although King Philip was successful in destroying the Templars, his victory was short lived. Within eight months of the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay, King Philip suffered a stroke and died. Within a few years, his bloodline had all died out, and the subsequent battles for control of France became known as The Hundred Years’ War, but that’s a story for a different time. The only lasting memory most people now have of King Philip the 4^th is the incorrect belief that his actions led to the fear of Friday the 13^th, even though this connection was not discovered until 1989. It would be equally ludicrous to say that we are superstitious about Friday the 13^th because of a man in a hockey mask with a machete, and I hope that a few hundred years from now there will be another Freemason, writing an education piece debunking that legend instead!

~AT

WB. Adam Thayer is the Junior Warden of Lancaster Lodge No 54 in Lincoln (NE) and the Worshipful Master of Oliver Lodge No. 38 in Seward (NE). He’s an active member of the Scottish Rite, and Knight Master of the Lincoln Valley Knights of Saint Andrew. Adam serves on the Education Committee of the Grand Lodge of Nebraska. You can contact him at adam.thayer@gmail.com

Masonic Artifacts Can Tell A Story

by Midnight Freemasons contributor

Gregory J. Knott

One of the things I enjoy most is walking through antique stores looking for Masonic artifacts.  On a recent trip through Decatur, Illinois, we stopped at a very nice shop and I set upon my hunt.  They had a few items, but none of them really caught my interest until I ran across a small framed case with 3 medals in it.  Upon closer review I knew that these were Knight Templar Medals.

SK Orlando Powers

The three medals were from Beaumanoir Commandery No. 9, which was and still is at home in Decatur, Illinois.  The medal on the left is the Order of the Temple member medal, the middle is a Past Eminent Commander’s jewel and the one of the right is a drill attendance medal with a number 32 on the bar in the middle.

As I was checking out, I asked the clerk if she knew of any history of these medals.  I was in luck because she did!   It turns out they belonged to Orlando Powers, who was an early prominent settler of Decatur.  He was born in 1812 and came to Decatur in 1849 and died in July 1902.

Powers Opera House

Bro. Powers built a tremendous Opera House in 1889 at Decatur where many of the most prominent settlers of the day performed.  It burned to the ground in 1895 and was later rebuilt, but burned again in 1914.  His son built a hotel on the same site that is still run as a residential hotel today.

The Powers Mansion--haunted some say . . .

But it is the Powers Mansion that seems to be his real legacy today.  According to a couple of websites that I visited, the mansion seems to be haunted.  Perhaps the ghost of Orlando Powers is still looking over his house.

I couldn’t find a Masonic record for Bro. Powers.  I can only assume he belonged to a local lodge and perhaps other York Rite bodies.   

But it was purchasing these medals and learning about a man who died over 110 years ago and seeing his impact upon the Prairie of Illinois that gave me the greatest pleasure.

~GK

 WB Gregory J. Knott is the Past Master of St. Joseph Lodge No. 970 in St. Joseph (IL) and a plural member of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), and Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL). He's a member of both the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite, and is the Charter Secretary of the Illini High Twelve Club in Champaign-Urbana. He's also a member of the Ansar Shrine (IL). Greg is very involved in Boy Scouts--an Eagle Scout himself, he serves the Grand Lodge of Illinois A. F. & A. M. as their representative to the National Association of Masonic Scouters.