Instilling A Sense of Purpose Within The Masonic Experience

A glance at the history of initiatory practices tells us about a time when entrance to ancient mysteries could include lenghty and life threatening tasks. We can readily assume this offered a barrier that only the worthy would share a secret covenant. 

The shadows of that period have grown long, and weak. Given that we live in a Post-Renaissance period, our modern sensibilities would be violated by condone this behavior. Today, the initiatory practices of Ancient And Accepted Freemasonry is such a pastiche we now experience risk during initiation as we do to wild zoo animals on dsiplay for our entertainment. We become emboldened being approximate to danger without risk. Today, we have removed accountability from the equation.

How then can we possibly expect initiation will allow the worthy to pass if individual accountability is muted?  Ultimately it is the Order that bears the problem.  For worthy or not, the door has been left ajar.

Perhaps we have unintentionally replaced risk of one sort for risk of another; physical risk to intellectual risk.  If we believe freemasonry expects one must read, to explore esoteric meaning, apart from temporary rhetoric, this too has been down played.  No risk. Little consequence. 

That said, how then do we instill purpose? When we removed the rigor we replaced it with less qualified initiation, removed unique identifiers and pursuasively  reduced accountability (individual or otherwise). Did we unconsciously replace the geometry of the masonic experience with a populist, selling point?  From safe guarding the Order, we have been soliciting men for far too long, in far too many places.

Perhaps organizational fatigue. The question for many is whether or not this is satisfactory?

A fair question. Can we instill a sense of purpose when facing even more change?