The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

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Chapter 9 - Masonic and Anti-Masonic Literature
encyclopedia Masonry Defined, according to which healing is an act of a legally
constituted Masonic body and is done to a person who has been irregularly
admitted to the mysteries of Freemasonry, in order to make him a lawful
Mason. 1762 When this person has been initiated into a self-constituted or false
lodge, the only way to heal him is re-initiation. However, if the person in
question has been made a member in a schismatic lodge, he might be recognized
as legitimate by the action of a Grand Lodge. The encyclopedia states that there
is a difference between simply schismatic lodges and clandestine or sham lodges.
The founders of the latter are impostors, whereas schismatic lodges are regular
lodges, which "from some cause or other, are not recognized by legitimate
Masonic authorities." 1763
Sometimes, the healing consists in merely exacting a new obligation to a
lawful body 1764 . This is explained in Mackey's Encyclopædia of Freemasonry
and Its Kindred Sciences as follows: "If the authority which conferred the degree
was only irregular, and the question was merely a technical one of legal
competence, it has been supposed that it was only necessary to exact an
obligation of allegiance, or in other words to renew the covenant." 1765 In cases
where the defects are only slight, the person can be healed by a general
declaration after removal of the illegality of the initiating Masonic body. When
we believe Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, "the kinds of irregularities and the
surrounding circumstances are innumerable; the methods of healing are also
numerous and no general rules can be laid down to fit all occasions." 1766
One of these innumerable cases of irregularity and a trick of repairing the
damage is described in Claudy's playlet "Greater Love Hath No Man," which
relates the story of how Hank Higgins, a poor and uneducated, but much beloved
and newly-passed Fellow Craft, lies on his deathbed before he can obtain the
Master's Degree, because he has saved 53 children out of a burning movie
theater, receiving fatal burns himself. When the Worshipful Master of Doric
Lodge learns that Higgins is going to die, he fulfils his only wish and confers the
third degree on him. By this act, he violates five Masonic rules: the first
transgression of Masonic law consists in the fact that the prescribed time
between the conferral of the second and the third degrees has not elapsed,
Higgins having received the second degree only five days earlier. The second
violation is that Higgins does not fulfill the requirements for initiation since a
candidate has to be in full possession of his physical abilities: he is heavily
bandaged, lies on a stretcher and cannot perform the staging of the degree
correctly. The third transgression of Masonic law is that the conferral of the
degree takes place in a much shortened procedure due to the candidate's physical
condition. The fourth violation of Masonic custom is that not all of the brethren
have been informed and summoned, because the time was pressing. The fifth
1762 MD, p. 272.
1763 Ibid.
1764 Cf. CME, p. 311.
1765 EFKS, p. 320.
1766 CME, p. 311.