Thanks for your reply, my Brother.

However, my point is not to lessen the requirement of proficiency. It is still required to pass through the degrees. If anything I am proposing that we increase the requirements, not lessen them. I am not a fan of the one-day class and that is not the point of the question I have posed.

My point is that many Brothers come through, memorize the catechism, recite it and then....well, that's it. Yes - there is a sense of achievement - great. Ask them what the questions alluded to or why their answers were what they were, and they can't tell you. Yes, they are Masons, but what have we taught them? The reasons why Freemasonry is what it is and why it is different than say, the Elks or the Moose, is due to the initiatic experience of the ritual. It should not be enough to just pass through them, but experience them with an experienced Brother to help you understand the experience.

By no means am I stating that proficiency should go away or be lessened. It is an essential part to the formation process. However, just as the Brother is finding and forming his rough ashlar to create himself a perfect ashlar using the tools which we will give him and teach him to use - we ourselves as Masters of the Craft work towards forming our new Brothers into Masons using the same tools we ourselves learned to use. The word "formation" means "the process of taking shape" - and the Brothers are doing just that during the process.

Bro. Julian Rees wrote in his essay "Through Ritual to Enlightenment":
"It seems, in some lodges, that the learning of the words and actions has become an end in itself, and the enormous effort put into this learning and the concentration necessary to render the words correctly according to the book have proved so to completely divert us from the meaning as to obscure it almost completely."

Proficiency alone will not complete the journey. Those hidden meanings and treasures can only be found if the Brother is made to look, and once found helped to understand - otherwise what's the point?

Agreed............most of the time when I ask them what they just took an Oath to, they have no Idea. I always point out the improving oneself on every level is the foundation of the craft. A reading list can be helpful if they're intrested in our history, but the selection needs to be hand picked be the wiser ones and that's not always the Elders. I love the idea of educating new brothers, but instilling the desire within them is a 50/50 outcome. I wanted it for myself, but thats who I am and continued studies of the arts, I believe, must be comprehensive, or we'll be cultivating our own ignorance. How do we awaken that desire in any of our brothers.........?