Georgia Gate City Lodge Persecutor Honored By Scottish Rite

James Tyroff is a Georgia Mason who was one of the members of the Grand Lodge of Georgia who preferred charges against Gate City Lodge No. 2 in 2009 for admitting a Black African-American Mason to their Lodge. The same Black African American, Victor Marshall, who was just blackballed twice by the Atlanta Scottish Rite.

Well James Tyroff has just been rewarded by The Scottish Rite with the honor of a red cap. This honor was conferred on him after Marshall & Waters had been blackballed for the second time by the Scottish Rite. Verification can be obtained here.

The red cap, emblazoned with the red and gold cross of a Knight Commander, designates that the wearer is a 32nd Degree Mason who has been invested with the “rank and decoration” of Knight Commander of the Court of Honour, usually abbreviated K.C.C.H.

If Georgia has healed Gate City Lodge No. 2 and the Grand Master has reformed Georgia’s former racist ways with his edicts why reward those who tried to keep Black African-Americans out of Lodges in Georgia? WHY IS THIS MAN BEING HONORED? It’s a slap in the face to those working for a color blind Freemasonry. It looks as if Georgia Masons are thumbing their nose at Gate City Lodge No. 2 and all those Masons in Georgia who would like to see reconciliation between Black and White Freemasonry.

Tyroff openly flouts his anti Black African-American feelings signing all his correspondence with, “Just say no to 21st century universal Masonry.”  These are code words used in the South similar to other disguises of attitude like “states rights.”

Tyroff authored all the 2009 documents against Gate City Lodge No. 2 below.

Georgia SR 27th Degree Master Demits In Disgust

The Master of the 27th degree immediately demitted from the Scottish Rite before the Atlanta Session had concluded causing the degree to be canceled. He cited the refusal of the Scottish Rite to admit an African American Master Mason for the second time for his reason, saying that he is taking a stand against bigotry.

Some other demits have been reported in protest to the actions of the Atlanta Scottish Rite leadership. Response to the Beehive story is pouring in from across the country. Most responders have expressed dismay that this would occur again to brothers from Gate City Lodge No. 2.  It looks to many like an ongoing war or vendetta and that doesn’t sit well with the majority of American Masons.

The Beehive also has report of some internal behind the scenes pressure being applied to Atlanta. Along with the disapproval of Brethren across the nation it just might mean that public exposure and pressure will have turned back racial persecution for the second time in Georgia Freemasonry. Many older Freemasons have not quite caught up with the Information Age and the fact that actions can be known around the world in a matter of minutes. This failure has led to those in power  to think that they can sneak one by everybody but their local membership. Fortunately this is no longer possible in today’s world.

The story is not done yet.  More is to come and we will be right here to let you know what is going on.

Georgia Black Mainstream Mason Is Black Balled Again For The Second Time In His Masonic Journey

Sometimes lightening strikes twice – to the same spot. When it does you know that either God is in control or the fix is in. In the case of Gate City Lodge #2, Atlanta, Georgia it is definitely the latter.

You might remember the articles The Beehive published in 2009 -   My Brother’s Keeper, Open Racism in Georgia Freemasonry and Georgia: Not Such A Peachy Masonic State describing the machinations that the Grand Lodge of Georgia went through to try to keep out a Black African-American.  His name was Victor Marshall and he was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason by Gate City Lodge #2, after which the Worshipful Master  was brought up on charges –  of “allowing a non-white man to join Freemasonry” –   that were approved by the Grand Master.

Since no Black Man had been initiated in Georgia Freemasonry in 275 years, the charges were interpreted that “Ancient Lights” of the Grand Lodge of Georgia prohibited Black Men from becoming F & AM.  The charges called for the Worshipful Master to be expelled and the Lodge to lose its Charter.   Mortified by this blatantly evil and certainly illegal affront to the Lodge, and having had first-hand experience with “Masonic Justice”, David Johnston and David Llewellyn, members of Gate City Lodge No. 2 and attorneys, filed for an injunction in civil court against the Grand Lodge of Georgia.  . Oooppps – The Grand Lodge never thought the public would find that out.  When they did and the resulted outcry reached a clamor of disdain as the story spread throughout the nation, the plaintiffs in the case revoked their charges and the Grand Lodge of Georgia ultimately backed down deciding that was one battle they could not win.

They say by doing that one lives to fight another day. And that other day has arrived. Victor Marshall and Zeithlin Waters from Gate City Lodge #2, both Raised on the same night and having studied their catechisms together, submitted applications to the Atlanta Scottish Rite Body. Now the first thing that you have to understand about the story that will unfold here is that it is SOP to ballot on an entire class with one ballot for all. And so on November of 2010 the entire class of applications including Marshall and Waters was balloted upon. One or more black balls were cast on the first ballot.  Then and only then was an individual ballot cast for each applicant one at a time. Marshall and Waters were the last two to be voted on and both were blackballed. All others were approved. No comments were made on the ballot and the two Brothers were informed that their applications were not approved and that it would be six months before they could reapply.

In March of 2011 a called Communication of the Scottish Rite Valley of Atlanta was held for the purpose of balloting on a new class. This class did not include Marshall & Waters for they were still waiting out their 6 months to reapply. As was the custom the entire class was balloted upon with one ballot. On the first ballot one or more black balls were cast.  Each petition was then read individually and subsequently black balled. The whispered speculation was that Gate City Lodge members or sympathizers were striking back for the black balling of Marshall and Waters. The Personal Representative to the Grand Master rose to say how ashamed he was to be a Mason that night – thus commenting on a ballot which is actually unmasonic and a chargeable offense.

On April of 2011 at a stated meeting of the Scottish Rite Valley of Atlanta was held with business being among other things balloting on candidates once again. This vote was taken on a few new petitions as well as all of the candidates black balled in March. Again Marshall and Waters were not included. On the first ballot for the entire class one or more black balls were cast. The individual petitions were then read and balloted upon.  Each petition was rejected (black balled).

The SGIG arose to speak castigating any who would use the ballot for retribution and declaring how ashamed he was of the way this process had worked out. He went on to say that whoever threw the cubes was suffering from a mental illness.  He declared the ballot null and void and then took the unprecedented action of healing the ballot declaring all petitions granted.  He also ordered the black balls expunged from the personal records of those who received them. 

On October of 2011 a called Communication of The Scottish Rite Valley of Atlanta was held for the purpose of voting on petitions. For this called meeting a limited number of summonses had been sent out. Not everybody was called to this meeting.  This was a new class of 30 with Marshall and Waters added.  It had been almost a year since they had been black balled.  They could not get into the spring class of 2011 as not quite six months had lapsed since they had been black balled.  They had waited their 6 months and reapplied.   Before the vote, the SGIG advised all called to vote their conscience. But this time around the voting would not operate in the usual manner.  The entire class would not be balloted upon en masse as was the custom. Right from the start each candidate would be balloted upon individually, and Marshall and Waters were ballots number 29 and 30, the last two.  In the hour and a half that ensued, twenty eight candidates were approved but the 29^th and 30^th, Marshall and Waters, were blackballed. Once again the SGIG rose to thank all who participated for voting their conscience.  But he did not heal Marshall and Waters as he had done with the class of April 2011. He did not ask that the black balls be expunged from their Masonic records either.

This is where you can say the fix is in. The very actions of the leadership involved in this process leads to that conclusion. The SGIG and The Personal Representative to the Grand Master were only ashamed of any black balling when it did not involve Marshall and Waters. Comments were made by those in power after the balloting process in the 2^nd and 3^rd cases but not in the 1^st and 4^th when Marshall and Waters were being considered. The rules or the customary methods of procedure were changed at the leadership’s whim. The SGIG could heal an entire class but he couldn’t heal just two others.  He could heal a whole class in one month not making them wait 6 months to be voted on again but he wouldn’t extend that privilege to Marshall and Waters. In both instances where candidates were voted on individually Marshall and Waters were always the last two to be balloted upon.

Of further note, the crowd at the ballot box swelled when Waters and Marshall’s petitions were being voted upon.  Yet, during the two votes when entire classes were being cubed, there was an instance where a Grand Lodge of Georgia Officer stopped an entire line of voters from proceeding by refusing to move forward to cast his ballot.   At one point, only three people, other than Scottish Rite Officers, were voting.

Georgia Mainstream Freemasons think they have won the second battle, round two. But they thought the same way in the first round before the publicity forced them to retreat. Here we are again fighting the same fight and calling upon all Masons nationwide to put pressure upon The Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction to act in a Masonic manner, put an end to such shenanigans and heal Marshall and Waters without further comment. If we did it once we can do it again.  The ball is in your court, Brother

Paranormal Activity 3 and the Masonic nexus

It’s Halloween, time for spooky movies, and the new film Paranormal Activity 3 does a terrific job in delivering the spooktacular. If you haven’t followed the series, Paranormal Activity 3 is actually the first story installment of the trilogy giving us the foundation of its Paranormal predecessors.

I won’t give away the plot (big house, bumps in the night, and Ghost Hunter esque videography) but in the climax of the movie, the audience is treated to a glimpse of perhaps why the activity is so paranormal and a tease of things to come. Its a fun film and perfect for the season and with the end of the film, I can only say that there needs to be a pre-prequel to tell the story of the apparition/demon Toby and what really is going on at Grandmas house.  But it was the end of the film that I found myself pulling it into the Masonic nexus of freemason symbols.

Neared its end, there came a scene that made me chuckle and find a thread to pull with a link to Freemasonry. In the films transition from a faux cinéma vérité into a DIY shaky camera aesthetic, a la Blair Witch Project, we catch a glimpse of the why the activity is so paranormal. This is the last 15 minutes of the film that Derrick Deane of Fandango.com says “.. will ‘Mess You Up For Life’” which is right about where we find the Masonic connection.

It’s obvious that the sinister Paranormal Activity is coming from somewhere. Its not so obvious from where.  Its not the benign ghosts from the Disney Haunted Mansion, or the night vision sleuthing of Syfy’s Ghost Hunters. On the wall, in the manner of the Satanic Panic films from the 80′s, is the Luciferian leverage to make it really creepy.

If you go watch the film, pay attention to the unicorn.

In the blur between the faux cinéma vérité and shakey cam we, from the vantage of the hapless cinematographer and stepfather Dennis, find ourselves looking for the missing wife and step kids amidst a flurry of things that go bump in the night. There, on the all where the cute and cuddly unicorn once rested is a modified Magical Triangle of Solomon followed by a quick camera pan to the infamous Sigil of Baphomet on the opposite wall.

While, neither of the symbols are truly freemason symbols, the Magical Triangle comes out of a tradition of King Solomon, the wise king and one third Master Architect behind the construction of the great Temple constructed in his name to house the ark of the covenant.

Christian tradition holds the wise king was benign and kingly in status, but when you read deeper into the subtext of Judaism and Islam, as Lon Milo Duquette does in his book The Key to Solomon’s Key: Is This the Lost Symbol of Masonry?, we discover a king, prophet, and wizard, on the level of the great eastern Magi. Duquette writes “…he [Solomon] could talk with animals, fly through the air on a magical carpet, and cause others to fly through the air to him.” One other thing Solomon is thought to of done was summon evil spirits. The Triangle comes out of a work called The Lesser Key of Solomon the King or Clavicula Solominis Regis, a work originally translated by MacGregor Mathers who, in occult circles, was a well known Golden Dawn mage and Masonic devotee in the rebirth of magical spiritualism.

As the symbol goes the triangle with the circle, Duquette refers to is as the Magical Triangle within which Solomon commanded evil spirits. As it was used in ritual practice, it was a place on within which the magician inscribed on the ground to hold the demons he summoned. While it looks good in the movie on a wall, the symbols when used to summon “evil spirits” it is to be made 2 feet from a Magical Circle on the ground in evocations.

The Sigil of Baphomet is a bit more abstract in the Masonic landscape. Coming out of the work of French Occultist Eliphas Lévi, the pentagram with a rams head is more a device to illustrate (represent) evil than serve as any summoning symbol. Often the illustration includes the words Samael and Lilith which are inscribed in the middle and come from the work La Clef de la magie noire, by French Occultist Stanislas de Guaita. Guaita was a student of Levi’s work and elaborated in image to Levi’s conception. The Church of Satan website says of the symbol “…oriented in the opposite direction, the pentagrammatic Star is nothing more than a symbol of iniquity, perdition, blasphemy: its two points in the air become the horns of the foul Goat threatening Heaven, and whose head is framed with the stellar pentacle, with its low ears in the side branches, and its beard in disorder in the single lower point.”

Levi’s work, in time, became important in the occult world at the rise of spiritualism in the late 1800′s along side with tarot cards, Ouija boards, astrology, and séances. Evidence of Levi’s influence can be traced into the workings of the Golden Dawn which is in and of itself an extrapolation of Masonic degree work.

So, with those two images at the end of the film, from an occultist’s point of view, it’s easy to see the film maker’s idea of connecting the Paranormal Activity to some form of magical summoning from which the terror ensues. Without a doubt, the two symbols have been absorbed by the black magic community and fallen into the material culture of all things evil, with Paranormal Activity 3 becoming the latest instance. As viewers watch the film and begin to ask themselves the meaning of the two symbols, it makes me wonder if it will incite another decade of Satanic Panic as it did in the 80′s or if the sinister black magic of the cinema will be treated as just another work of cult fiction made to titillate the timid with the evils of witchcraft and black magic shrouded in the horror things that go bump in the night.

Is it time for some national unity among Masons?

Recently, I attended an Entered Apprentice degree at a local lodge here in Kansas and was allowed to assist in conducting one of the candidates through the degree. It was an experience that I greatly appreciated and enjoyed. Degree work has been my favorite part of being a Freemason since I was raised to the sublime degree and I hadn’t witnessed any degrees in a couple of years.

I was thoroughly enjoying the experience when the new Brothers entered the lodge room to receive the lectures when my enthusiasm suddenly disappeared. The two Brothers were positioned in front of a television screen where they watched a video of a man giving the lectures.

I was abhorred.

I had heard rumors from different places throughout the country that some lodges had been using such methods, but I honestly regarded them as a dirty rumor. This was not the impressive and solemn degree conferral that these new Brothers deserved. So, I decided to get involved and talked to the lodge’s leadership after the degree. I explained that I knew nearly all of the lectures by memory. The only issue is that I had memorized South Dakota’s ritual. I was sure that it wouldn’t be a problem. I had seen Brothers from other states give lectures before with the appropriate level of approval. Why would this be any different?

Unfortunately, in this situation I was told that I must give the lectures straight from the Kansas ritual. Only being slightly disappointed by this, I decided to learn the lectures. However, I was not ready for how difficult it is to re-learn a lecture with a slightly different cadence and verbiage.  I am still working on that little project, but my motivation has waned. I realized that I do not plan on living in Kansas for a long time and that eventually, I will have to learn some other state’s ritual. It is a lot of work just to learn a new way to convey the same information, especially since every Masonic lodge in the U.S. could receive some greatly needed assistance if a few Grand Masters would get together and have a little conversation about this subject.

In a world where people move long distances and rarely stay in one place throughout their whole life, why can we not perform another state’s ritual in our lodges? Now, some would say “We can’t have a nationalized ritual!” I am not so naive to think that this would be a simple undertaking. We wouldn’t develop a solution to that in a century. What I’m proposing is that when one grand lodge recognizes another as regular and recognized, that it also accepts that grand lodge’s ritual as being acceptable to be performed in that state.  It is a simple concept (that I’m sure would meet resistance) that could make a huge difference. I have met a number of Freemasons that have moved to another jurisdiction during their Masonic career and had to give up administering a lecture solely because they were in another state. In many of those instances, the new lodge that they were attending was in need of someone new to give that same lecture!

I’m not proposing some sort of sweeping change. I’m not proposing that we teach ritual from other states in our lodges. I’m just proposing that we give the individual lodges and the individual Masons an opportunity to provide a better ritualistic experience to our new Brothers by giving a them a little bit of latitude to use Brothers from other jurisdictions to accomplish this.

I think that this little bit of national unity among Masons is a very reasonable proposal.

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