You never know who you might meet when your out and about. One of the cool factors of Freemasonry is that pretty much anyone you meet who has the square and compass somewhere on their person is a person you can trust and that that you have an undercurrent of social commonality with one another.
As a quick example, I can’t keep count anymore of how many brothers I’ve met on my commute who fly our emblematic device on their bumper. And its a good feeling to be the company, even if sitting in traffic. Its an even better feeling when its in person and the brother that you meet is sporting a ring, lapel pin, or t-shirt. You know almost instantly that the person with wearing it is an instant friend.
But, that seems to be shifting, especially as the fraternity is mushrooming into the broader material culture and the symbolism is being appropriated for more and more non-Masoninc commercial endeavors and ending up as logos or devices for particular brands. This was evident a few weeks ago with the Angel and Airwaves logo for their new album.
Br. Hodapp posted up not to long ago a shirt lifted by Old Navy that used a wings up double headed eagle on one of its new shirts. But yesterday I had the first hand experience of encountering one of these T’s in the field and a startling realization came over me.
What I realized was the question of whether I could trust the person wearing the device or not as a brother. The reason the thought rolled through my head was because the mark wasn’t a subtle to headed eagle or a scimitar or star… No, what I saw was a new shirt out from Van’s Shoes apparel line under Anthony Van Engelen who is one of their Pro Skaters. A quick search on the web and I couldn’t turn up anything to suggest that Van Engelen is a Mason, more likely some off shore designer was building an apparel line and thought the design was cool and skater worthy and the picked it up for his “style” (to many years in the apparel/branding industry has jaded me).
So, the broader question I’m left with is that as the emblems that we use to know a brother in the “regular” world become more common as a design device, can we so easily trust the wearer as a brother, or does it erode the fraternities logos to be just another brand device to sell into pop culture? The easy answer is that you can still approach someone and ask if they’re a traveler, but does it signify on a deeper level a break down of Masonry’s control of its own means to unite men outside of lodge?
Maybe it just means that Freemasonry will be cooler in the skateboarder world.
What do you think?
I met a man with a s+c belt buckle who wore it because his name was Gordon! He liked the G in the middle!
I wrote about it here in my blog.
http://myjourneyintofreemasonry.blogspot.com/2009/07/false-representation.html
While I was vacationing in Florida with some friends in June, we went to an outlet mall. In a “skate shop” a friend of mine tossed me a shirt with a bunch of masonic-like graphics which read “Grand Lodge No. 107” something something something. I wish I had taken a picture or atleast taken notice of the store name to share, but alas I did not.
I think that you can’t have it both ways. If we want Masons and Freemasonry to be more visible to the public eye, then that is going to lead to more people (or groups) co-opting the theme.
We don’t have teams of lawyers to track down all such displays and demand that they stop (like, for example, McDonalds or Disney); nor would that be the best PR.
That said, the S&C is emulated all the time by various trade unions and other organizations. I think that crossed or overlapping Vs are a fairly well-known cultural design, and now that you bring this up, I’m surprised that we don’t see this happening more often.
I think this reaffirms that we should never assume someone to be a brother unless congregated behind certain closed doors. We should always guard our “exalted experiences” while in public, and not stand satisfied until worthy information is provided.
-Joe
i fucking hate freemason..
they kill my father just because my father telling the people about the truth behind freemason..YOU ALL WORSHIP ANTI-CHRIST AND SATAN..
Hey Lamb – that’s the problem with people. They only think that Freemasons worship Lucifer because back in the 1400s, they were the only group that were organized to kill zombies and vampires, when the Church, itself, was afraid of them. If you only knew that part of our history, you’d see how Freemasons helped the church and government by keeping the population of the undead down to manageable numbers.
I’m a Mason, we all know you play with fire you will get burned.. if you want to wear freemason shirts and and ect. you better be prepared for the outcome, when someone comes to you and u don’t know what to say or do” have mercy on your SOUL..
Do any of u freemason assholes even know what the REAL motives behind freemasonry are? Or do you really think you help the community, country by doing weird ass creepy rituals sacrificeing pure children and such? Do you even know what the ILLUMINISIM stage of freemasonry is? It’s far past the rank of a 33 degree scot rite mason and it’s when you learn all the bullshit the government has been feeding people for thousands of years. And when you learn what freemasonry is REALLY about. Teaching that all religion is bullshit and is a mechinisim of keeping people far from reality as possible. That the media is all full of shit. And most importantly the global depopulation plot to create a New World Order. A perfect world of an elite 512,000,000. Wake up idiots. Your not helping people your hurting them and yourselfs. Unless your elitests yourself. Which your not.
Im sorry but almost every comment is soo far off it isnt even funny. People, please speak of that which you know and not what you’ve heard second hand, as it makes you look very misinformed and ignorant.
My friend…..I am not a Mason….but I have become very familiar with much of the symbolism the Masons communicate with. So…..they are on everything. 95% of the logos we see daily are Masonic. So are the tv and movie plotlines, song lyrics, even as an old punk rocker, I have found my “music from the streets and suburbs” riddled with 666s, 5,6, and 8 pointed stars, 33s, pillars …..all kinds of stuff. I am quite fascinated with it. I often wonder how many Masons are actually symbol literate. How aware are you guys of this stuff? Anyway….I hope you can answer me without breaking any oaths. My YouTube channel is chainsaw barbarian. I show thousands of examples of the symbols everywhere. I’m learning and sharing….not judging. I’m not sure how you can identify your fellow travellers by sight alone. That square and compass, in many forms, are on many things. Thank you….hope to hear from you.———matt
Matt, thanks for the note. With so much symbolism out there, one has to wonder if its really copying it from the masons or if the symbolism is just replicating itself at this point. A sort of unintentional feedback loop done by people who like the look but with no understanding of the meaning.