17. Lodge of Instruction, Sort Of

It was off to Lowell for Lodge of Instruction last week. Unfortunately, I had the date wrong. The only people I saw were dressed in what I believe is the Scottish Rites uniform (it looks like what my grandfather wore in the picture I have). A Brother from Thomas Talbot confirmed that I had the wrong night. I might have consulted the Lodge’s online calendar but my Internet service was down. It was a lovely evening, at least.

Back home, my wife and I were watching one of the history channels and what should come on but a show about Freemasonry. I would not mind learning more about the history of the organization. I know that many Founding Fathers were Masons but  have yet to do much reading on the subject.

It turns out that this show was not a lot of help in elucidating the history of Freemasonry in America. Some factual information was were relayed but holy cow what a lot of obvious malarkey was mixed in with those tidbits. Lots of supposition. Lurid supposition.

The show centered on Ben Franklin, a remarkable and larger than life figure, as we all know. Things rapidly took a salacious turn as leering reference to Franklin’s sexual proclivities was made. Okay, he liked the ladies. Let it go.

It is hardly substantiated, but Franklin may have been a member of another organization, the Hellfire Club. This seems to have been a club for sexual escapades. Even if Franklin did belong to this club, how does that relate to Freemasons? Well, it doesn’t. That did not prevent the producers of this show from going into depth about what members of this club did, or were supposed to do.

We repeatedly saw a Franklin impersonator giving the wink to ladies while suppositions were presented as damning facts. Many of the experts—and some of them were university professors—extrapolated to an unseemly degree. My wife and I love history, but this show was a travesty.

Midway through the show, as if things weren’t bad enough, a goofy occult segment was introduced. Some ghost hunters were shown using their ‘scientific’ equipment to discover Franklin’s spirit in some house that Franklin stayed at in London. That pretty much finished the show for me. The ghost hunters came up with lame ‘proof positive’ that Franklin’s spirit was present, and I went to bed.

I hope to make it to Lodge of Instruction this week.