Again 5 years later

I started this website in 2016, two years after my initiation into Freemasonry. A year and a half later I ‘looked back and compared‘. I blinked my eyes once and we’re again five years down the line. What happened in the meantime?

Having been a Freemason for 8 years and member of a tiny lodge and of a tiny Grand Lodge I have mostly been involved in the ‘administrative side’ of Freemasonry; the uninteresting side; secretary. In a small lodge it can be hard to assign the ritualistic functions, so people are sometimes Tyler, sometimes ‘Talent’ (‘Organist’ to use the old-fashioned English term), etc., but the secretary is always the secretary. Until (s)he ‘approaches the East’ that is.

In my time as a Freemason I have read a load of books, mostly concerning the esoteric side of Freemasonry, very early Freemasonry (before and just after 1717), mostly in order to figure out how ‘esotericism entered Freemasonry’ and history of certain rituals.
I did, and do, continue studying heathenry, but there isn’t so much new that I want to pick up. Even less so with ‘Masonic heathenry’. My focus there has shifted somewhat. Consequently, there isn’t all that much to write here.

In my (grand) lodge, people come and go. There aren’t too many really active people, so these few active people carry their lodges and the grand lodge. I am one of those. That involves a lot of preparations, administration, etc. and not really study or discussions and so my membership mostly became a time-consuming and not too ‘rewarding’ occupation that also didn’t really result in inspiration, new paths to follow, friendships or anything like that. The work the organisation costs to keep going, takes a too high toll on the social side.

Then of course there were two years of Covid-19. Masonic activities moved to Zoom, heathen activities mostly died and for two years I have – like the whole world- been locked inside my home. When meeting people was allowed, there was always the threat of contamination so meetings often had to be cancelled last minute. A tiring period in the middle of which I became responsible for my lodge too.

The more time I had to spend at home, the more I read (but the shorter my attention span became), but there seldom is anything to read that could be of interest to this website. Of the two living investigators one keeps publishing, but about other subjects, and the other still seems to be working on getting an English version of his book published.

With declining activities, my ‘heathen interest’ dwindled a bit. Freemasonry kept providing the ‘year cycle’ in solstices and equinoxes (online if need be), so I haven’t entirely fallen still, but during and after Covid-19 I seem to move in a lower gear.
I’m curious if Covid will return my fall and how that’s going to affect my activities.

Perhaps somewhat noteworthy, in the last years I didn’t really get any reactions to the website that you’re reading now, not here, not on Reddit. I did get a few reaction on my Farwerck website. Apparently there are a handful of people interested in what Farwerck wrote, even his ‘Masonic heathen’ hypothesis. This didn’t result and prolonged contacts. It mostly concerns people who are looking for information for a lecture for their lodges (so Freemasons with an interest in Farwerck). I guess when the lecture is done, the interest is over as well.