# Public recognition



## Andymac40330 (Aug 29, 2015)

So before I became a mason I used to hear other masons talk about being able to tell if someone else was a mason or not just by looking at them. They would look at a guy in the mall and say "he's a mason!" Or see someone across a parking lot and say "I don't think that guys a mason" and neither party was wearing anything that screamed mason (hat, shirt, ring, etc.).

Today I met a mason through a third party friend who casually mentioned that I was also a mason to which he replied "well I don't see anything that would give me that impression". My friend knowing I wasn't wearing a ring or anything else said "well he's not wearing anything today" and the guy says "he doesn't have to be" and kind of walks off. 

I haven't been instructed (unless I missed it) as to how this could be done? If anyone could clue me in it could eliminate a lot of confusion down the road. If this is a question better asked at lodge or answered through a P. M. then by all means let me know. I'm just a little confused by that whole transaction.

In brotherly love...
Andy


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## Andymac40330 (Aug 29, 2015)

Nobody?


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## BroBook (Aug 29, 2015)

I am not really sure my brother, this is my first time seeing one of your  post I think , but when you enter a room you should greet them sincerely and wave, walking upright, but all that being said, it matters not whether others think you were I, p & r, as long as you were!!! WWE, AMEN,SMIB!!!


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## Bill Lins (Aug 29, 2015)

Not knowing how you presented or carried yourself in the Brother's presence, it's impossible to say.


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## Andymac40330 (Aug 29, 2015)

I introduced myself and shook his hand with a grip. But still nothing.


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## Andymac40330 (Aug 29, 2015)

I am always respectful and courteous but not sure if I should act or look for people acting in a different manor?


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## JJones (Aug 30, 2015)

In my opinion, it's usually easier to tell who -isn't- a mason that it is to tell who is.  Even that only works 70% of the time though, as some masons aren't very...masonic if they don't think any brethren are around.

I wouldn't fret over the brother you mentioned.  There are thousands upon thousands of other brethren out there and  the majority of them are far more friendly than that.


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## Ripcord22A (Aug 30, 2015)

Maybe he knew you were in the guard....lol


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## dfreybur (Aug 30, 2015)

Men who are or should be Masons comport themselves well.  Just enough to stand out in a group but not enough to stick out from the group.  A bit more balanced and serene.


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## Mike Martin (Sep 4, 2015)

If I was you I would call BS on them.


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## Warrior1256 (Sep 4, 2015)

JJones said:


> In my opinion, it's usually easier to tell who -isn't- a mason that it is to tell who is.  Even that only works 70% of the time though, as some masons aren't very...masonic if they don't think any brethren are around.
> 
> I wouldn't fret over the brother you mentioned.  There are thousands upon thousands of other brethren out there and  the majority of them are far more friendly than that.


Agreed!!!


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## Warrior1256 (Sep 4, 2015)

Mike Martin said:


> If I was you I would call BS on them.


Exactly!


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 4, 2015)

He was very secretive and according to our mutual friend, always is. He asked me the age  of my grandmother, which I was prepared for. Are there any other common sayings that I could use / encounter that I should be aware of? ( once again, feel free to direct me to lodge or PM for direction)


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## ej6267 (Sep 5, 2015)

I think it's a little thing called Confirmation Bias, that most human tendency to recollect the hits and forget the misses.


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## Mike Martin (Sep 8, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> He was very secretive and according to our mutual friend, always is. He asked me the age  of my grandmother, which I was prepared for. Are there any other common sayings that I could use / encounter that I should be aware of? ( once again, feel free to direct me to lodge or PM for direction)


 Ask him about his Lodge, ie name, number, when it meets and which Grand Lodge it operates under. That usually sorts the wheat from the chaff, as a pretending Mason will bluff whereas an actual mason will tell you freely.


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 8, 2015)

Mike Martin said:


> Ask him about his Lodge, ie name, number, when it meets and which Grand Lodge it operates under. That usually sorts the wheat from the chaff, as a pretending Mason will bluff whereas an actual mason will tell you freely.



I tried looking up the lodge that he mentioned and couldn't find it, although I may have forgot the lodge number.


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## BroBook (Sep 8, 2015)

That could be the problem he is an impostor!!!


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 8, 2015)

BroBook said:


> That could be the problem he is an impostor!!!



I hope not, but I suppose that could be the case. I've just never encountered someone so private and cryptic about their membership. I don't hide or deny my membership to this great fraternity to anyone.


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## Dontrell Stroman (Sep 9, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> I hope not, but I suppose that could be the case. I've just never encountered someone so private and cryptic about their membership. I don't hide or deny my membership to this great fraternity to anyone.



You didn't know we keep everything a secret, even with our own brothers. Lol


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## Mike Martin (Sep 9, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> I hope not, but I suppose that could be the case. I've just never encountered someone so private and cryptic about their membership. I don't hide or deny my membership to this great fraternity to anyone.


 That reinforces my opinion that you should call BS on him.

That is exactly how non-Masons imagine we are about our membership.


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## Brother_Steve (Sep 9, 2015)

JJones said:


> In my opinion, it's usually easier to tell who -isn't- a mason that it is to tell who is.  Even that only works 70% of the time though, as some masons aren't very...masonic if they don't think any brethren are around.
> 
> I wouldn't fret over the brother you mentioned.  There are thousands upon thousands of other brethren out there and  the majority of them are far more friendly than that.



Pretty much this.

You cannot sit on a park bench and go, "Mason, Mason ... not a Mason ... Mason ... Mason...may be a Mason..."

You will know when you meet a Brother though. It is the interaction you have with them. Words and phrases that creep into our every day language. Phrases that have nothing to do with some cool catch phrases. You'll know it when you hear it. Sometimes they slip out. Other times it is done on purpose to see if you pick up on it.


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## Warrior1256 (Sep 9, 2015)

Mike Martin said:


> That reinforces my opinion that you should call BS on him.
> 
> That is exactly how non-Masons imagine we are about our membership.


I agree. I would be very suspicious of a "brother" that would not discuss ANYTHING.


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## Warrior1256 (Sep 9, 2015)

Brother_Steve said:


> Pretty much this.
> 
> You cannot sit on a park bench and go, "Mason, Mason ... not a Mason ... Mason ... Mason...may be a Mason..."
> 
> You will know when you meet a Brother though. It is the interaction you have with them. Words and phrases that creep into our every day language. Phrases that have nothing to do with some cool catch phrases. You'll know it when you hear it. Sometimes they slip out. Other times it is done on purpose to see if you pick up on it.


Very true brother.


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## dfreybur (Sep 9, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> I tried looking up the lodge that he mentioned and couldn't find it, although I may have forgot the lodge number.



To me that suggests he is a member of a clandestine lodge.  Maybe he knows its clandestine status.  Maybe his lodge teaches evasion as a strategy to keep him from learning.

Then again it's usually easy to do a web search for a clandestine lodge and find it.  So he could easily have made it up on the spot or referred to some on-line only "lodge" that's openly made up.


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## LAMason (Sep 9, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> Today I met a mason through a third party friend



Is your friend that made the introduction a Mason?  How did he know the other man was a Mason?

As far as being able to tell if someone is a Mason just by looking at him that is total BS.  I challenge anyone that says they can do it to go someplace where there is a large number of men present, select 10 men (not displaying a Masonic emblem) and say who is a Mason and who is not and then ask them.


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 9, 2015)

LAMason said:


> Is your friend that made the introduction a Mason?  How did he know the other man was a Mason?
> 
> As far as being able to tell if someone is a Mason just by looking at him that is total BS.  I challenge anyone that says they can do it to go someplace where there is a large number of men present, select 10 men (not displaying a Masonic emblem) and say who is a Mason and who is not and then ask them.



My friend is not currently a Mason, although after we talked about it casually over that weekend he asked me today how to join and where his local lodge is (we live in different towns and work together). 

He told me on the way to meet this gentleman that he often wore a S&C belt buckle but as with me, when he asked him if he was a mason, he just said yes and wouldn't say anything else. He was a nice guy and everything, but the whole transaction seemed odd. He was quite a bit older than me so I chocked it up to maybe him being "old school" when members thought it was truly a secret society. The lodge he mentioned was out of state so I thought maybe that was a factor as well.


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## JJones (Sep 9, 2015)

> when members thought it was truly a secret society.



You mean it isn't? Why do people have to take all the fun out of everything?


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 9, 2015)

JJones said:


> You mean it isn't? Why do people have to take all the fun out of everything?



What do I know, I'm new here lol


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## LAMason (Sep 10, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> shook his hand with a grip



Which one?



Andymac40330 said:


> "old school" when members thought it was truly a secret society



So, please compare and contrast the "old school" "secret society" thought to the "new school" not a "secret society" thought.


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 10, 2015)

LAMason said:


> Which one?
> 
> With the guy who was supposed to be a MM
> 
> So, please compare and contrast the "old school" "secret society" thought to the "new school" not a "secret society" thought.



Well from what I've gathered, in the past many members were reluctant to give any information to a non-mason (which lodge they attend, what type of activities they are involved in, etc.) where as from my experiences most guys now are fairly open about anything other than what's said in a a tyled lodge. I have no problem telling people what lodge I attend, when and where we meet, what charities we are involved in, or any other basic info.

Two guys in my office believed that you had to be asked to be a member and that everything about belonging is completely a secret and I think that stems from older traditions but I don't know that to be 100% accurate. That is just from my observation, listening to others and reading online. Feel free to correct me because as stated before, I'm still quite new to this great fraternity and still learning.


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## LAMason (Sep 10, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> Well from what I've gathered, in the past many members were reluctant to give any information to a non-mason (which lodge they attend, what type of activities they are involved in, etc.)



Well, I joined the Lodge in 1973.  At that time there were members who had been members for 30, 40 and even 50 years, so that means that I knew some men that had become Masons in the 1920s.  Now I can only speak for a very small area of the country (rural Northwest Louisiana), but there was never any effort made to conceal Masonic membership, in fact I would say it was more well know then than it is now.  The Lodge Hall was the only 2 story building in the Village and was prominently marked and known to be a Masonic Lodge.  There were many more Masons, Masonic Funerals were very common, corner stone laying ceremonies were much more common.  Masons were generally held in high regard and many prominent citizens were Masons and known to be Masons.  Open meetings were common where the public was invited.  There were even events at Churches that we would attend as a group and wear aprons.

To offer a possible perspective on your meeting:  You and this other man are introduced to each other and identified by him to both be Masons, but he himself is not a Mason, so in fact he does not actually know if either of you are Masons and is not able to "vouch" for the two of you being Masons, so the two of you do not actually know if the other person is in fact a Mason.  Yet, you apparently shake his hand and give him a Masonic grip.  So, he may have been  put off that you would do that in public in front of a man you both know is not a Mason, and that if you had learned one of the lessons of the degrees you would not have done it.   I suggest you think on what "lawful masonic information" means in respect to having Masonic communications with someone.

They may not do it in your Lodge, but at the degrees I have witnessed, at the end of the degree, someone instructs the candidate that the only people he knows to be a Mason are the men in the Lodge.  Of course that number increases as you sit in Lodge with more members and/or introduced to other Masons by someone that you know to be a Mason.


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 10, 2015)

LAMason said:


> Well, I joined the Lodge in 1973.  At that time there were members who had been members for 30, 40 and even 50 years, so that means that I knew some men that had become Masons in the 1920s.  Now I can only speak for a very small area of the country (rural Northwest Louisiana), but there was never any effort made to conceal Masonic membership, in fact I would say it was more well know then than it is now.  The Lodge Hall was the only 2 story building in the Village and was prominently marked and known to be a Masonic Lodge.  There were many more Masons, Masonic Funerals were very common, corner stone laying ceremonies were much more common.  Masons were generally held in high regard and many prominent citizens were Masons and known to be Masons.  Open meetings were common where the public was invited.  There were even events at Churches that we would attend as a group and wear aprons.
> 
> To offer a possible perspective on your meeting:  You and this other man are introduced to each other and identified by him to both be Masons, but he himself is not a Mason, so in fact he does not actually know if either of you are Masons and is not able to "vouch" for the two of you being Masons, so the two of you do not actually know if the other person is in fact a Mason.  Yet, you apparently shake his hand and give him a Masonic grip.  So, he may have been  put off that you would do that in public in front of a man you both know is not a Mason, and that if you had learned one of the lessons of the degrees you would not have done it.   I suggest you think on what "lawful masonic information" means in respect to having Masonic communications with someone.
> 
> They may not do it in your Lodge, but at the degrees I have witnessed, at the end of the degree, someone instructs the candidate that the only people he knows to be a Mason are the men in the Lodge.  Of course that number increases as you sit in Lodge with more members and/or introduced to other Masons by someone that you know to be a Mason.



When I exchanged a grip with him it was casually and introductorily and not done so much as a pronounced recognition thing and my friend was at my back and no one else around. I don't think it looked anything out of the ordinary anyway. Perhaps I was in the wrong to greet this gentleman this way but I thought if he was a mason he would know and if not, he's probably be none the wiser, just an introductory hand shake. If this is out of line, please let me know for future encounters.

I'll explain my (probably incorrect) thought process. Think back to what a grip is used for. I interpreted in the darkness to possibly mean when dealing with people outside the lodge (where there's light) and with people you don't know (you are in the dark about). If looked at literally, if it's dark you wouldn't see the brother to know if you'd been in lodge with him or not. This is probably completely incorrect but just how I saw it. Once again, feel free to correct this view. I'm here to learn and grow.


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## LAMason (Sep 10, 2015)

Andymac40330 said:


> If this is out of line, please let me know for future encounters.



This is just my opinion and there are a lot of people who will disagree with me.  I would not say it "is out of line" so much as unnecessary.  Why was it important that you know for a fact that he was a Freemason or that you prove to him that you are a Freemason?  There is no valid reason to hold Masonic communication with someone you are meeting on the street.  What I do and what I think is typical is to greet them as I would anyone else, then possibly acknowledge that he may be a Freemason (possibly because he is wearing a ring or as in this instance someone told you he was a Freemason), tell him what Lodge you belong to and invite him to attend, he may do the same.  If he does show up at your Lodge, he will be properly examined before he is admitted and the same would happen if you show up at his Lodge.  Keep in mind that the situation would have been entirely different if the man who introduced you had been a man that you knew (i. e. had sat in Lodge with) to be a Freemason and had "Lawful Masonic Information" that both of you were in fact Freemasons, in which case he could have "vouched" for both of you.


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## Andymac40330 (Sep 10, 2015)

LAMason said:


> This is just my opinion and there are a lot of people who will disagree with me.  I would not say it "is out of line" so much as unnecessary.  Why was it important that you know for a fact that he was a Freemason or that you prove to him that you are a Freemason?  There is no valid reason to hold Masonic communication with someone you are meeting on the street.  What I do and what I think is typical is to greet them as I would anyone else, then possibly acknowledge that he may be a Freemason (possibly because he is wearing a ring or as in this instance someone told you he was a Freemason), tell him what Lodge you belong to and invite him to attend, he may do the same.  If he does show up at your Lodge, he will be properly examined before he is admitted and the same would happen if you show up at his Lodge.  Keep in mind that the situation would have been entirely different if the man who introduced you had been a man that you knew (i. e. had sat in Lodge with) to be a Freemason and had "Lawful Masonic Information" that both of you were in fact Freemasons, in which case he could have "vouched" for both of you.



Understandable, I will bear all this in mind in the future. I appreciate your in depth explanation.


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## Warrior1256 (Oct 8, 2015)

JJones said:


> You mean it isn't? Why do people have to take all the fun out of everything?


Lol!!!


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## drw72 (Oct 9, 2015)

Maybe some people have MADAR ;-)


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## Andymac40330 (Oct 9, 2015)

drw72 said:


> Maybe some people have MADAR ;-)



I guess so, maybe mine will come with time!


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