# Organizational & Strategic tips from the Freemasons - Lou

- Channel: [Edge City](https://streameth.org/edge_city)
- Date: 2024-10-18
- Duration: 12:46
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/6712294050c4a854801024c7
- Download: https://vod-cdn.lp-playback.studio/raw/jxf4iblf6wlsyor6526t4tcmtmqa/catalyst-vod-com/hls/7806vxoq9z25r1kz/720p0.mp4

## Transcript

Perfect. It's going to be a teaser on the book I decided to start writing yesterday called 33 Lessons from the Freemason, the Ancient and Accepted Rites, Tips and Tricks to Building Networks of Rates. I'll go quickly. Lesson one, changing the world order through building maybe networked organization that transcend geographical boundaries is possible. Here you may recognize George Washington is his best Freemason paraphernalia. So if you... Actually, the origins of Freemasonry, they come, as their name indicates, literally from guilds of Masons, like cathedral, castle builders, at the time when we had this need for huge stone constructions. But then there was this transition where there was less need for huge stone constructions. But then there was this transition where there was less need for stone construction. And there was this transition from what is called operative masonry, like actual building, to speculative masonry, so using the symbols of the mason for philosophical inquiry and self-development. Freemasonry emerged through times of really big civilizational change. So just like started at the Renaissance, where everything like curiosity reignited about many things, reformation in the middle of religious wars and contestation of existing ideology about many things, reformation in the middle of religious wars and contestation of existing ideology, and the Enlightenment, of course, which is the beginning of modern philosophy. In 1777, the first Grand Lodge was established in London, which marks the formal organization of Freemasonry as a society dedicated to philosophical, philanthropic, and societal, social endeavors, it had a major influence on world politics, right? Like, we have to acknowledge that, just in the sense that, arguably, Freemasons were at the origin of, like of a lot of the thinking around modern liberal democracy, founding it through the model of the US and the United States, which were super influential into the revolution. Today there are 6 million Freemasons in the world, so it's a small country. And yeah, so lesson one, something is doable. Lesson two, make it catchy. So how can we talk about Freemasonry being a nation? Like literally Freemasonry thinks of itself as a nation in the sense that it's the nation on which the empire and on which the sun never sets because there are Masonic lodges everywhere in the world in like many many countries not all countries but many of them and fundamentally it is like an organization that is trying to build an enduring culturally rich community with shared values and a collective identity that is relating completely independently of like physical location meaning like there can be transitions of masons from country to country, from lodge to lodge even if they are in different countries. Lesson three starts with the basics. So what are the shared values of Freemasonry? Like the very fundamental declared one are the belief in the perfectibility of humanity. So there is this commitment to making oneself as a human and humanity better the idea of fraternity and solidarity, the love of brotherhood justice is very important truth and the research, the philosophical research for inquiry and research for truth and inclusivity and I'll talk a little bit more about it in some next slides, but it is a syncretism. It is taking from so many different religious, esoteric, I put the vitriol symbol because it's the alchemical tradition and gather all this symbolism to try to basically appeal to everyone because it was created in the context of trying to end religious wars and so they had to decide on what is the posture of Freemasonry regarding religion and they were like okay, what is the posture of Freemasonry regarding religion? And they were like, okay, it is the sort of... They tried to make it as inclusive as possible. I'm not going to get too much into details, but... So there is no religion rejected, and it's not necessarily religious. Lesson four, memes for the win. So I think Freemasonry is a fascinating meme producing machine, like truly. A few of them, like here I'm focusing on like what brings the collective identity together but you have like, you know, this catchy goal like establish the Holy Empire. Okay, so this is because, again, it comes from this Roman, the old Holy Roman Empire tradition, but you have to understand that now it's a symbolic value, right? They are not trying to establish an empire. It is trying to establish a dominion of humanity over itself, which I think is a very interesting call to self-determination and self-governance and autonomy. There are three enemies that Freemasons are usually fighting. Fanaticism, ignorance, runaway ambitions. Ambition is not bad. Runaway ambitions are. And so all of this to arrive at a theoretical humanity where everyone is a Freemason. That's the dominion of humanity over itself. But it's not about converting. It means everyone has achieved a spiritual quest and acquired wisdom, and the highest level of it. Lesson five, a secret club is better than a club. Well, isn't it attractive that there is this secrecy around Freemasonry. But more seriously, there is this way for Freemasons to recognize each other in any context, supposedly, in these signs. And I think the first question of the... In the first level, first grade, they check people at the entry and they ask, like, are you a Freemason? And the answer, the code answer is, my brothers acknowledge me as such. So there is this mutual recognition and like peer recognition. Lesson six, you can't cut off the head of a mycelium. So here we are getting a bit more into the technical details of governance, which is honestly totally mind-blowing. So there is no central authority, right? Freemasonry operates through a decentralized network of autonomous lodges and jurisdiction. There was a Congress of, a congress of supreme councils. So the supreme councils are the top national entity. There is one supreme council per country in 1875. And they gathered, and then they dispersed, and they never met again. So there is no head. And each grand lodge. So there are many different body, like it's really too complex to get into it right now. Like I need to do a diagram, but there is like grand lodges and there are bodies and like they are like democratic bodies and like the lodges are democratic. Some are more like through co-optation, aristocratic but through co-optation, not through inheritance there is interesting features about interconnectedness so like some of these different lodges and bodies and like basically flavors of Freemasonry that have evolved and declined and like iterated recognize each other. Some do not recognize each other, so some practice the visitation. It means if you're a Freemason in a lodge, you can visit any lodge that is recognized by your lodge. And some have had just diplomatic grievances and disagreements. Like some, for instance, that decided to be necessarily religious lodges, where you cannot be part of the lodge if you're not religious, where like stop being recognized by some others, and so mutual recognitions. And I talked about the fact there is no central authority. Lesson seven, peace, love, and Byzantine bureaucracy. So how do you handle conflict between various, all of these bodies, all of these lodges? Well, there is an extremely elaborate system of justice, of courts, of various judicial mechanisms of law. There is a hierarchy of norm that is also very interesting, being like a clear structure with constitution, regulations, principles. constitution regulations, principles. There is also one that I found super interesting is theoretically in the principle of like, at least for instance in France, the Grand Lodge is supposed to abide by the constitution of France, of the country. It's like submitting to it. Except during the Vichy regime, when the Nazis invaded and the Vichy, the Maréchal Pétain came to power and enforced quite a different regime, then Freemasons decided to bail out, basically, and entered in conflict. So these things can change, and the relationship with nation-state has changed. And there are a bunch of different strategies, right, in terms of being in cooperation in conflict hidden from the state. Something also philosophically it seems like one core principle is that oppositions are considered like necessary and fertile so conflict is something that is like expected, welcome and like seen as a source of like growth and transformation and like the source of the churning but it has to be managed and understood and integrated in the system. Last lesson, make it a pluriverse. So, Freemasonry, as I already kind of mentioned it a bit, is notable at least to me for its pluralistic approach. It's both a universalism, right? It's really anchored in this fundamental principle or sometimes you know sort of wisdoms or traditions that span, that were born like millennia ago like really from thousands of years ago it is a syncretism it's bringing like different cults and cultural traditions together into like this universalism that is bringing creating a brotherhood and transcending