Is Dwight L. Smith still relevant today?
In EP 190 of Masonic Muscle, the Curmudgeon Supreme and I continue reading Whither Are We Traveling?, written by Dwight L. Smith, Past Grand Master of Indiana, in 1963.
Before we read chapters 9 through 12, we discuss the recent controversy involving Tucker Carlson interviewing Conor McGregor inside the Freemasons’ Hall in Dublin, home of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The Irish Freemasons later apologized, saying they did not know the full details of the booking, the content, or the participants, and that the rental money would be donated to charity.
That situation raises a larger Masonic question:
How can a Grand Lodge protect its reputation if it does not know what is happening inside its own building?
Then we return to Dwight L. Smith.
This episode asks:
Why are Smith’s warnings from 1963 still painfully relevant to lodges today?
We discuss:
- Whither Are We Traveling?
- Dwight L. Smith, Past Grand Master of Indiana
- chapters 9 through 12
- lodge decline
- weak Masonic education
- confusion about what Freemasonry is
- Masons failing to read important Masonic writings
- Grand Lodge responsibility
- he Tucker Carlson and Conor McGregor controversy in Dublin
- public reputation and institutional oversight
- why lodges keep facing the same problems decade after decade
Smith’s article should not be read once and forgotten.
It should be studied until it gets into the conscious and subconscious mind of the Craft.
Why?
Because he identified problems that still exist:
Weak standards.
Shallow programs.
Confused purpose.
Membership anxiety.
Lodges trying to be everything to everyone.
Masons forgetting what Freemasonry is supposed to produce in a man.
That is not ancient history.
That is now.
If a document from 1963 still describes your lodge in 2026, then stop pretending the problem is new.
The problem is old.
And old problems require serious men, not slogans.
Have a question, lodge problem, Dwight L. Smith observation, old document, or origin theory?
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