Discuss the Idea. Protect the Confidence

Seven Questions for Masonic Disclosure

When I began writing The Temple Within, I confronted a question that probably occurs to every Mason who tries to write seriously about the Craft: What can I say? Not what can I find in a book or on the internet, and not what someone else has already published, but what can I, as a Mason, properly disclose? I wanted to write about the philosophy, symbolism, history, and personal meaning of Freemasonry without crossing a line that I had obligated myself not to cross.

At first, I concentrated primarily on four questions. Am I obligated to keep this private? Is this confidential? Is it mine to share? Will disclosure spoil the experience for someone who has not yet had it? Those four questions carried me through much of a book that eventually became more than 100,000 words. They gave me room to explore Masonry without confusing thoughtful discussion with indiscriminate disclosure.

Over time, however, the way I communicate about Freemasonry has changed. The book led to essays. Essays led to shorter discussions. Facebook and the broader internet provided an opportunity to reach thousands of people who might never pick up a 100,000-word book on Masonic philosophy. More recently, generative artificial intelligence has given me something else I never possessed before: the ability to communicate visually.

That evolution forced me to reconsider the original four questions. Today, before I post, comment, or reply about Freemasonry, there are seven questions I try to ask myself.

They are not seven new Masonic rules. I am certainly not suggesting that I possess authority to prescribe them for anyone else. They are questions for me—an evolving personal standard for writing, research, social media, and Masonic education. Another Brother may find them useful. Another may reject some of them. I may even change them myself as I continue learning.

That is part of the point.

Am I Obligated to Keep This Private?

This remains the first question because it is the easiest boundary to understand. If I have obligated myself not to disclose something, the inquiry ends there. No number of Facebook views, comments, shares, or intellectual arguments changes that obligation.

But I have also come to believe that we sometimes expand this concept much farther than necessary. Freemasonry possesses things that are private, but that does not mean that everything connected with Freemasonry is secret. Its history is not secret. Its philosophy is not secret. Its charitable work is not secret. The moral lessons represented by its symbols are discussed in thousands of books, lectures, museums, websites, and public Masonic programs.

I have compared my developing framework with publicly available guidance from several Grand Lodges and found substantial differences in terminology and practice, as we should expect in a fraternity composed of sovereign jurisdictions. Yet one principle appears repeatedly: there are matters that are protected, and there is also a great deal about Freemasonry that can appropriately be discussed. Knowing the difference is more useful than simply declaring everything Masonic off limits.

Is This Confidential?

Secrecy and confidentiality are not the same thing. A Brother's personal difficulties may contain no Masonic secret whatsoever, yet they may deserve greater protection than almost anything contained in a ritual. Lodge discipline, ballots, applicants, personal disputes, financial difficulties, private correspondence, and conversations given in confidence do not become appropriate subjects for Facebook merely because they contain no secret word or mode of recognition.

This distinction became increasingly important to me as I wrote. I can discuss the principles involved in Masonic discipline without identifying the private circumstances of a Brother. I can discuss the philosophy of the ballot without revealing what occurred in an actual case. I can discuss leadership problems without turning the private failures of identifiable men into public entertainment.

Confidentiality rests not merely upon law or ritual. It rests upon trust.

Is It Mine to Share?

This question goes beyond confidentiality. Sometimes information may not technically be confidential, but it still does not belong to me. Another Brother's story is his story. His membership, correspondence, problems, mistakes, family circumstances, or private opinions are not automatically material for me to publish.

The same principle applies institutionally. I can express my own thoughts about Freemasonry, but that does not mean I speak for my lodge, my Grand Lodge, or Masonry generally. The farther my writing reaches, the more important that distinction becomes.

I can say, “This is what I see.” I should be much more cautious about saying, “This is what Freemasonry says.”

That distinction leads directly to one of the newer questions in my framework.

Will Disclosure Spoil the Experience?

Something does not have to be secret for me to decide that it should remain undisclosed.

Initiation works partly because it is experienced rather than merely explained. A man can read about symbolism beforehand, but reading a description and experiencing a carefully constructed ceremony are very different things. I can discuss why initiation matters without giving a candidate a scene-by-scene preview of what will happen to him.

This is perhaps best understood as the difference between a secret and a spoiler. There are books, historical exposures, old rituals, and internet pages containing enormous amounts of Masonic material. The mere fact that information can be located does not mean that I should personally place it in front of someone before his experience.

I can discuss the lesson without reproducing the ceremony that teaches it.

Those first four questions served me well while writing The Temple Within. Then my work moved increasingly onto social media, and I discovered that I needed another question.

Am I Clear About What Kind of Claim I Am Making?

This question was less obvious when I was writing a book. In 100,000 words there is room to say, “Here is the historical evidence,” “Here is what this author believed,” “Here is how this jurisdiction handles the question,” or simply, “Here is an idea I have been considering.”

Long-form writing gives the writer room to establish those distinctions.

A meme does not.

A meme may contain a picture and twenty words. It can reach 50,000 people before an essay reaches 500. That compression creates enormous power, but it also creates responsibility. If I am presenting an interpretation, I need to find a way to communicate that it is an interpretation rather than an established universal Masonic teaching.

That does not mean interpretation is somehow inferior. Much of what interests me most about Freemasonry is interpretive. Symbols invite interpretation. Ritual invites reflection. Architecture, numbers, working tools, biblical imagery, philosophy, and history can all generate questions that do not necessarily have a single authorized answer.

The question, therefore, is not simply, “Is this true?”

A better question for me is:

“Am I being honest about what kind of claim I am making?”

Is it documented history? A rule in a particular jurisdiction? A traditional explanation? A commonly accepted Masonic teaching? My interpretation? Or simply an idea I am asking the reader to consider?

That distinction became particularly clear to me recently.

What the Apron Taught Me

I published an image exploring the geometry of the Masonic apron through the numbers three, five, and seven. I thought the idea was interesting. Apparently, many other people did too.

But I made a mistake.

I should have framed portions of the image more clearly as questions. Instead of effectively saying, “This represents this,” I should sometimes have asked, “Could this represent this?” or “Is there another way to look at this?”

That small grammatical difference would have described what I was actually trying to do.

The reaction was fascinating. Some Brothers immediately said it was wrong. Some explained that their jurisdictions handled the apron differently. Others began discussing completely different meanings of three, five, and seven. Some saw additional symbolism that I had not considered at all. Some thought the entire exercise was reading far too much into a simple apron.

And a few believed we should not be discussing the subject publicly in the first place.

That is precisely the kind of conversation that interests me.

A meme does not necessarily have to provide an answer. Sometimes it can simply cause a Brother who has looked at an apron hundreds of times to look at it once more and wonder whether there is something there he had not previously considered.

If he concludes that there isn't, that can still be worthwhile.

Masonic education does not always have to begin with an answer. Sometimes it begins with a question worth considering.

What Purpose Does Sharing It Serve?

That brings me to the sixth question.

Why am I putting this into the world?

I hear a complaint repeatedly among Masons in different lodges, jurisdictions, and generations: we need more Masonic education. Yet there is a strange contradiction in that complaint. Masonic education is everywhere.

There are research lodges devoted to it. There are journals. There are lectures. There are libraries containing shelves of Masonic books. I can look around my own library and see dozens of volumes on history, philosophy, symbolism, biography, ritual development, and comparative Masonry.

The problem is that much of it is difficult.

Some of the great Masonic books are dense. Some assume considerable background knowledge. Some were written in language that no longer feels natural to a contemporary reader. Some require considerable determination simply to get through them.

I enjoy that kind of research, but I cannot assume everyone else does.

Facebook gives me another way to enter the conversation. A man who will never read a 400-page book on Masonic symbolism may stop for ten seconds to examine an image. Perhaps he reads the caption. Perhaps he challenges it. Perhaps another Brother answers him. Perhaps he searches for more information. Perhaps he eventually reads the essay attached to it.

That is Masonic education too.

The purpose of my work is not simply to demonstrate that I know something. It should be to encourage inquiry, offer an idea, document something interesting, correct an error, preserve a piece of history, or cause someone to think.

If the purpose is merely to embarrass somebody, win an argument, demonstrate insider knowledge, or generate outrage, I should probably reconsider posting it.

Artificial Intelligence and a New Medium

AI has now become part of this discussion, whether some people like it or not.

I have no intention of stopping my use of artificial intelligence.

I am a writer. My natural medium has always been words and ideas. I can describe an image in considerable detail, but I cannot draw it. I do not possess the artistic ability to take something that exists in my imagination and place it visually in front of another person.

Generative AI changed that.

For me, it does not replace my writing. It expands the ways in which I can communicate it. I can conceive an idea, research it, argue with it, revise it, write about it, and then explore how the same idea might be communicated visually.

I have begun calling these images memes, although some are really closer to miniature visual essays. They allow me to compress an idea into something a person can understand—or at least begin questioning—in seconds.

Predictably, some responses consist simply of “AI,” “AI slop,” or similar dismissals. I find the reaction interesting because when the image expresses something people already agree with, objections to the medium seem to diminish considerably.

I have posted Masonic leadership images that are essentially complete thoughts in themselves. I have posted material about men such as Jimmy Doolittle and Audie Murphy. Those posts can perform very well, and people generally respond positively because there is little to argue about.

But agreement does not necessarily produce conversation.

One Audie Murphy post reached roughly 44,000 views, generated about 3,000 engagements, and brought in 64 followers. That is excellent performance by almost any reasonable standard.

The apron discussion behaved very differently. In less than twelve hours, at one point it had already approached 80,000 views, generated more than 7,300 engagements, and produced 236 new followers. The comments were far more contentious. Some were thoughtful. Some were angry. Some were funny. Some were dismissive. Some were exceptionally detailed.

The post caused people to stop.

That tells me something.

People may not simply be hungry for more Masonic information. They may be hungry for Masonic conversation.

There is a difference.

Would I Be Comfortable If It Became Public?

The seventh question is perhaps the simplest because anything I put on Facebook effectively already is public.

A private group can be screenshot. A message can be forwarded. A comment can be copied without its surrounding discussion. Something written for twenty people can appear before twenty thousand.

So I try to ask myself whether I would still be comfortable with the statement if every Mason I know saw it, if a Grand Lodge officer saw it, if a non-Mason saw it, if somebody hostile to Freemasonry saw it, and if the person I was discussing saw it.

If the answer changes depending upon who reads it, that should tell me something before I press “Post.”

That does not mean avoiding controversy. I do not think controversy is inherently harmful. There is a tremendous difference between disagreement and disrespect.

Someone telling me, “I think you are completely wrong, and here is why,” may give me far more to think about than fifty people clicking a thumbs-up.

The Public Square

The internet has created something Masonry did not possess in quite this form before: an enormous public square in which Brothers from jurisdictions, countries, traditions, lodges, and generations can encounter one another almost instantly.

That has problems.

It also has extraordinary possibilities.

A Brother may spend forty years assuming that the way his lodge does something is simply the way Freemasonry does it. Then someone from another state says, “We don't do that.” Someone from another country explains an entirely different tradition. A Prince Hall Mason offers another perspective. Someone supplies an old source. Someone challenges the source. Someone else discovers that the practice changed fifty years ago.

That discussion is not a failure of Masonic harmony.

Handled respectfully, it is Masonic education.

In fact, one of the most useful things social media can teach us is how often we confuse our Masonry with Masonry.

A Working Standard

So these seven questions are where I am today:

Am I obligated to keep this private?
Is this confidential?
Is it mine to share?
Will disclosure spoil the experience?
Am I clear about what kind of claim I am making?
What purpose does sharing it serve?
Would I be comfortable if it became public?

I don't regard them as finished.

They developed because I wrote a book. They changed because I began writing essays. They changed again because social media compressed those ideas into posts, comments, and images. Artificial intelligence has now expanded my ability to explore those ideas visually, creating yet another set of questions about how I communicate.

I expect the framework will continue changing as I learn.

That is probably appropriate for Freemasonry.

The Craft has never interested me because I believe I have finally figured it out. It interests me because I haven't.

There will always be another symbol to examine, another historical claim to investigate, another Brother whose jurisdiction does something differently, another interpretation I had never considered, and occasionally another idea I confidently held that turns out to require revision.

The tiled door still matters. There are things entrusted to us that deserve protection, and there are confidences that should never become content.

But the public square matters too.

There are ideas worth discussing, assumptions worth challenging, histories worth investigating, symbols worth examining again, and Brothers worth listening to.

For now, the best way I know to balance those responsibilities can be expressed in two short sentences:

Discuss the idea. Protect the confidence.

If you want, I can next tighten this into the final blog version with a stronger opening hook and SEO-ready subheads while preserving the first-person voice.