Officer Jewels

Why this matters

Look at the three principal officers of any regular Lodge and you can read their rank from across the room without knowing them. Around the Master's neck hangs a square. Around the Senior Warden's neck hangs a level. Around the Junior Warden's neck hangs a plumb. The three jewels of office are the same three tools the Fellowcraft was handed in his second degree. The men who govern the Lodge wear the instruments by which they themselves are measured.

The published choice to make the officer jewels the working tools is one of the cleanest design moves in Masonic regalia. It says, on sight, that authority in a Lodge is not given to men who escape the published standards but to men who carry them around their necks. Knowing what each jewel means lets you read the room and read the office at the same time.

What this chapter is

Each of the three principal officers of the Lodge wears a different jewel of office, and each of those jewels is itself one of the Fellowcraft's working tools: the square, the level, and the plumb. The published lectures use the officer jewels to teach that the men who govern the Lodge are themselves measured by the tools they hold.

How to practise it

A lesson walks the same seven steps every time. Read the intro, study the material, then drill it through Quick Fire, Matchup, Sequence, Flashcards, and the Mix capstone. Each step opens to the next; no choices to make in the middle of the work.