THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

Honorable body to the expediency of some legal provision to prevent the
administration of oaths in all cases not authorized by law. It may justly be
required of the Petitioners, before a compliance can be expected with this request,
that a case should be made out requiring such Legislative provision; and your
Petitioners confidently trust that satisfactory grounds for this application will be
found to exist in the oaths which are administered in Masonic Lodges.
The disclosures which have been recently made by the seceding Masons of the
secret proceedings of those Lodges fully prove that the Institution of Freemasonry
consists of numerous degress[sic.] which may be increased to an unlimited extent,
and that an oath of an extraordinary character is administered at the entrance of
every degree. Your Petitioners would not trespass upon the principles of decorum
by an unnecessary recital of all these horrid imprecations, but justice to the cause
they have espoused compels them to exhibit the following specimens, which are
selected from the oaths administered in the different degrees: The Entered
Apprentice Mason swears, "I will always hail, ever conceal, and never reveal any
part or parts, art or arts, point or points of the secrets, arts, and mysteries of
Ancient Freemasonry which I have received, am about to receive, or may
hereafter be instructed in;" "without the least equivocation, mental reservation, or
self-evasion of mind in me whatever, binding myself under no less penalty than to
have my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the roots, and my body buried in
the rough sands of the sea." The Master Mason swears, "I will obey all regular
signs, summonses, or tokens, given, handed, sent, or thrown to me from the hand
of a brother Master Mason;" "a Master Mason's secrets, given to me in charge as
such, and I knowing them to be such, shall remain as secure and inviolable in my
breast as in his own, when communicated to me, murder and treason excepted,
and they left to my own election." The Royal Arch Mason swears, "I will aid and
assist a companion Royal Arch Mason when engaged in any difficulty; and
espouse his cause so far as to extricate him from the same, if in my power,
whether he be right or wrong." "A Companion Royal Arch Mason's secrets, given
me in charge as such, and I knowing them to be such, shall remain as secure and
inviolable in my breast as in his own, without exception." The following
obligations are contained in the oath of the Holy Thrice Illustrious order of the
Cross, Knights, or Kadosh, etc.: "I swear to put confidence unlimited in every
illustrious brother of the Cross as a true and worthy follower of the blessed
Jesus;" "I swear to look on his enemies as my enemies, his friends as my friends,
and to stand forth to mete out tender kindness or vengeance accordingly." "I
solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will revenge the
assassination of our worthy Master Hiram Abiff, not only on his murderers, but
also on all who may betray the secrets of this degree." "I swear to take revenge on
the traitors of Masonry."
It can not be necessary for your Petitioners to enter upon a formal argument in
order to satisfy this enlightened Assembly that oaths like the foregoing ought not
to be administered. The guarded and redundant language in which they are
expressed, and the barbarous and abhorrent penalties annexed to them, were
evidently designed to impose upon the mind of the candidate the necessity of
entire and universal obedience to their requirements. They purport to be the