While it should be obvious that the “other Mason” is me as well, when I coined the tagline for this blog I had in mind something else.

It came as a reaction to a perceived flood of so-called esoteric and symbolic articles about Masonry. There is no doubt ancient initiatic orders had both “knowledge base” (to use a familiar term from modern websites) and an occult, esoteric component.

In Freemasonry, sometimes this esoteric hidden tradition seems to be lost but during the 19th century, during a romanticist revival of all things spiritual, many authors – Masons and non-Masons alike – attempted to reveal them. Unfortunately, in most cases without a real insight or the wisdom of the initiated, which resulted in poetic exaltation and abundance of ideas without relevance. Not a reliable source of knowledge to hand down to the next generations…

On the other hand, Masonry, the “accepted”, speculative Masonry of ‘gentlemen’s lodges’ always had a strong scientific and rational aspect, since the 17th century – when science (natural philosophy as they called it in those days), the new scientific methods, the new concept of the heliocentric world and its physical forces began to be incorporated into the ‘modern’ teachings. The beginnings of the Royal Society and of the speculative lodges happened the same time.

If you look at an average “Masonic” library, the overwhelming majority of the books are about finding or revealing the hidden, the symbolic, the esoteric, the secret, the occult… As if there wasn’t anything in Masonry that speaks to the reason. To the intellect. To the ratio (the original Latin word, from where our word “rational” comes).

The Other Mason is determined to re-introduce this aspect of Masonic knowledge into our perception of Masonry. The Other Mason is the rational, science-oriented, intellectual Mason. The Mason of the Age of Reason… and the discovery of the meaning of this latter phrase is left to the reader.

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