Freemasons in midst of popularity, membership boom

The secretive society gains a higher, hipper profile as younger men seek out
a place for fraternal bonding.

By Adam Tschorn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 18, 2008

IN LOS FELIZ, across from a 7-Eleven on North Vermont Avenue, a few dozen
men in their early 20s to late 80s share a dinner behind closed doors. Some
wear full tuxedos with bow ties and jeweled cuff links, some have
shoulder-length hair, and others wear open-collared shirts that reveal the
slightest filigree of tattoo arching across their chests.

Over Italian food, retired lawyers and judges sit elbow-to-elbow with owners
of scrap metal yards and vintage clothing boutiques. They hold forth on
philosophy, the weather; they rib each other and joke about saving room for
cannoli. As they reach for seconds, they reveal skull-cracking rings
emblazoned with a compass and a square.

Meet the millennial Masons. As secret societies go, it is one of the oldest
and most famous. Its enrollment roster includes Louis Armstrong and Gerald
Ford, and it has been depicted in movies such as "The Da Vinci Code"
and National Treasure." Once more than 4 million strong (back in the 1950s),
it has been in something of a popularity free-fall ever since. Viewed with
suspicion as a bastion of antiquated values and forced camaraderie, the
Masons have seen membership rolls plummet more than 60% to just 1.5 million
in 2006.

Only now the trend seems to be reversing itself, and nowhere more noticeably
than in Southern California. The reasons seem clear. In another Masonic Hall
 this one on La Cienega, a Sri Lankan-born banker, a sunglasses-wearing
Russian immigrant and a continent-hopping Frenchman break bread, poke at
their salads and chat about their health.

"For a time it looked as if Masonry was going into a sharp decline, if not
the death throes," said UCLA history professor Margaret C. Jacob, who has
written extensively about the fraternal order. "But it looks like it may
be making a comeback."

That's because the Freemasons, whose tenets forbid soliciting or recruiting
members, have enthusiastically embraced the Internet as a way to leverage
curiosity about an organization with its roots in Europe's medieval
stonemasons guilds. Freemasonry today sees itself as a thinking man's
salon, a learned society with a philanthropic bent.

"We had a record number of new members last year," said Allan Casalou, 

grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of California. "We added 2,000 men, 
which is the most since 1998 and our seventh straight year of membership
increases.

And, to paraphrase that Oldsmobile campaign, these definitely aren't your
father's Freemasons. They are bar owners, male models and olive-oil
brokers. They are men like Zulu, an L.A. tattoo artist with a swirling Maori-inspired
design inked across his face and a panoply of metal piercing his ears, nose
and face. They are men like Jonathan Kanarek, who runs a men's vintage
clothing store on Hollywood Boulevard and whose retro chic wardrobe of
polka-dot ascots, glen-plaid jackets and smartly pressed pocket squares
earned him a spot on Esquire magazine's 2007 list of best-dressed real men
in America. And they are men like Daemon Hillin, whose surfer-dude looks and
blinding white smile can be found on Japanese TV, where he plays sidekick
and comic foil to the Japanese version of the Hilton sisters.

They are also all men who want to be part of an all-for-one and one-for-all
brotherhood built on shared ideals, philosophical pursuits and a penchant
for rings, aprons and funny hats. As Zulu bluntly put it: "I joined
because I was looking for people to hang with that were like-minded but also hip and
cool, and a lot of tattoo artists tend to be drunks and druggies."

Hillin, who originally joined the Masons in Temecula, moved to L.A. and is
interested in the Santa Monica-Palisades Lodge No. 307, one of the youngest
and most diverse congregations in the state (the average age of active
brothers is just 33). The lodge's senior deacon, Jim Warren, calls it
"Star Trek' without the chicks." "We have every possible national
origin, ethnicity and religious denomination you could imagine," he said.

Warren credits the Internet. "We were one the first lodges in the state to
have a website up," he said. "That led to a huge spike in membership."

Other lodges followed suit, putting up their own sites and drawing a crowd.
That's how prospective Mason Johnny Royal ended up at the door of Elysian
Lodge No. 418 last month. Intrigued by the distinctive Masonic architecture
that graces most halls, the 31-year-old publicist with sideburns to his chin
and hair to his shoulders and a Renaissance lute player tattoo on his right
forearm hit the Web.

What he read about the Masonic ideals -- wisdom, strength, beauty and the
pursuit of knowledge -- made him decide to pursue membership. "My
generation wants to be part of something beyond itself," Royal said. "I want to
learn; I want to participate."

The Web generation

THE INTERNET hasn't only made it easier to learn about the Freemasons,
Casalou says, it's changed the type of men coming forward. "There is
so much information on the Internet that by the time someone comes to a lodge to
seek membership, they already know a lot about Masonry," he said.
"Which is a big departure from previous generations. And it means they are more likely
to be active participants."

Zulu became curious about Freemasonry after tattooing Masonic symbology on
several clients. He joined five years ago at age 39 and now serves as
webmaster and senior warden of North Hollywood Lodge No. 542. He has also
gone on to become both a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner (Masonic membership
is a prerequisite for both), and next year he will become the leader of his
lodge. "I'll be the first black worshipful master in the lodge's
history," he said, using the proper term of respect.

But he probably won't be the last. Because California's contingent of
Freemasons is expected to grow, the average age of its members, once 71 and
now 65, is expected to drop. By 2018, as Casalou predicts, the state will be
awash in 55-year-old pre-retirement Masons giving each other secret
handshakes, wearing ritual aprons and invoking the Grand Architect of the
Universe.

The Internet continues to help. Zulu said that he gets at least four e-mails
a week from prospective Masons around the globe who see his tattooed and
pierced visage at the lodge website and want to be reassured such an
alternative look isn't a barrier to membership.

"Yeah, I think it's going to become hip and chic to be a Mason,"
Zulu said. And that could be a dangerous thing."

Source: From the Los Angeles Times, STYLE PROFILE on May 18, 2008