Blindfolded and Bamboozled

We could hardly have known what we were doing at the time; my brother Dick and I participated eagerly in a mutual purgative ritual, probably in the summer of 1962.

Driving east one night to what was then the eastern city limit of Brighton, we parked my car on a dirt lane that ran along an irrigation canal, just up a rise from the city’s outdoor swimming pool.

We proceeded to consume several beers each. For some reason we didn’t fully comprehend at the time, we got out of the car and began shouting the secret word of the Order of DeMolay.

“Fidelitas,” we shouted repeatedly, “fidelitas.” At the top of our lungs, we energetically revealed the important secret which had been entrusted to us. Our mutual revulsion with the organization was expressed in a very unusual and aggressive way.

At the urging – even insistence – of our parents, Dick and I had been members of the Brighton Order of DeMolay, an organization sponsored by the Masonic Lodge, during our high school years.

Though I don’t pretend to speak for Dick, I could safely say that DeMolay was a puzzling experience for both of us.

We had both been active in Boy Scouts and Explorers, thriving and excelling in the activities and requirements of those groups.

Dick became an Eagle Scout; I barely missed that goal, having gone off instead to The University of Wyoming. I kind of thought scouting would have been enough to satisfy the folks. Silly me. DeMolay was required as well.

What a weird experience, our foray into the Masonic world. Interrogation took place before admission was granted. We new guys were blindfolded when we were finally allowed into the inner sanctum of the Masons’ ritual room. Blindfolding: this has always given me the creeps.

The aversion to being blindfolded had precedence galore. Before I even started grade school, a group of girls made sport of me during a game of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” I felt like I was the donkey. A blinded donkey at that.

Later on came “Blind Man’s Bluff,” same sadistic sad story. This is a game in which a blindfolded player has to catch – and identify – another. Oh what fun.

When it came time for the piñata, I balked. The object of the piñata: The blindfolded child is given a stick with which to hit and break a paper container of candy suspended overhead. To “win” one would have to ignore the hazing of the other children while swinging the stick repeatedly through thin air. Doesn’t sound like fun to me.

And so, I was already plenty tired of being blindfolded and bamboozled by the time I was “honored” by being named a new member of the Boy Scouts’ secret “Order of the Arrow” in a ritual at Camp Tahosa.

We candidates were blindfolded, taken from camp, well after dark, up a winding mountain trail strewn with exposed tree roots. Blindfolded. Not a good idea for this little crippled boy.

After about 20 yards of stumbling embarrassment, I bailed on the whole project. I got out of line, sneaked back to my tent where I had hidden an L&M cigarette. Oops. I wasn’t the only one; there at camp I discovered Emil Zeiler, the janitor-cum-scout leader, also playing hooky, also smoking a cigarette. Misery loves company.

I was eventually awarded my Order of the Arrow embroidered pocket-flap patch, my absence from the initiation ritual not having been discovered. After that little escapade, I went reluctantly on to DeMolay, and once again endured the blindfold, albeit indoors on a flat floor.

Dick and I passed “through the chairs,” trying half-heartedly to memorize portions of Mason-speak for the Stations of the South, West, North and East.

Dick was better than I was at memorizing his parts – he says Mom force-fed him the words. I always cheated by looking at the book during the ritual, but Dick could recite his from memory. Sometimes.

There was a great deal of pomp and circumstance. There was costuming – long black robes – and mysterious, theatrical stuff we didn’t quite get, and an altar of ill repute in the center of the ritual room.

The altar was where we replicated the torture and murder of the supposed martyr Jacques DeMolay. We were told it was evil men from the ancient Church who did the dirty deeds, making poor Jacques a hero of sorts.

Well yes. The Inquisition did take place. No reasonably educated person could deny that. But upon mature reflection, the heinous deeds of some early Christian leaders should not lead us to reject what Jesus has taught us.

It doesn’t stand up to rational inspection for mere men to establish their own “church” in denial of the teaching of our Lord. It isn’t logical. It’s a dangerous idea, toying with God, with salvation.

But this is what the Masons and dozens of offshoot or imitative organizations have done.

In DeMolay, we were told it didn’t matter whether we were Christians, just so that we were “something.” Simultaneously in that era I was struggling with the oddities of Methodism, so DeMolay’s lack of Christian structure was moderately attractive to me.

Still, it seemed something just wasn’t right. The blindfold. The secret word. The deep faith in ritual for the sake of ritual. The implied superiority over Christianity.

For these and any number of other reasons, I was grateful to be finished with high school, finished with life in my parents’ home. With a great sigh of relief, I went off to Laramie, away from DeMolay, away from Boy Scouts, away.

Only recently have I gone back in memory to the days of DeMolay. Although the Masons helped the boys with ski trips, roller skating outings, dances with the Rainbow Girls and Job’s Daughters, there didn’t seem to be any real reason to participate in DeMolay. Back in the day, I asked, “Why?” Today, I ask, “Why?”

Had I been better prepared, educated, at the time, I would have known DeMolay and other Secret Societies for what they are – the anti-Christ.

Stay tuned.

-0-

Word of the week: Blindfold. It comes from Middle English, blindfeld, struck blind. Webster’s first definition is “to cover the eyes with a cloth or bandage.” Number two is to hinder the sight. Number three - get this - is to delude, mislead. It can also mean reckless or heedless.

You wouldn’t think a bunch of nice people like the Masons would delude or mislead a bunch of innocent high school boys and girls, do you?