I finally got a chance to read my issue of MAKE Vol. 9, the Fringe issue, and I think it’s one of the better ones they’ve done. I kind of winced at the Fringe theme, thinking it was going to be a lot of psychic silliness, reinforced by the Kirlian “aura” on the cover. But they do an awesome job of maintaining skepticism and decent B.S. detection, while still being open-minded and not forgetting the fun.
One of the more intriguing pieces in the Fringe section is a piece on the Freemasons, by MAKE’s Project Editor Paul Spinrad. The basic point of the piece is that the Masons started out as a society of geeks, stone masons/ engineers, who knew the “secrets” of cathedral building. He calls this period “operative Masonry.” Over time, more and more members joined who weren’t geeks/engineers and didn’t have any direct experience of the knowledge held in the Order. He calls this “speculative Masonry.” Paul asks the question: Wouldn’t it be cool if geeks reclaimed the Masons by joining in large numbers to a create new generation of operative Masonry, a place where people doing amazing things with technology could get together and share their discoveries? As he points out, the Masons have an amazing infrastructure, with lots of cool resources and swanky Lodge buildings. The Masonic membership is looking very gray these days and some Lodges have allegedly closed down because of dwindling membership.
