VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Barnes County Historical Society Lecture Series Season 21 Presents: Dr. Gilbert Kuipers (VCSU Emeritus) “Secrets of the Masonic Lodge” 7PM Thursday January 23rd at the Barnes County Museum.

The presentation will begin by explaining why it isn’t possible to give a 40-minute presentation on the subject. That will be followed by two Medieval mysteries that might be connected to origin the secrets of Freemasonry, what we know about the subject, and then questions.

The ritual was probably created from Medieval morality plays typical of craft guilds of that time and is symbolic. The “secret” handshakes, oaths, passwords and rituals have been publicly available since at least the early nineteenth century. The worst penalty in Freemasonry is expulsion. So why are those things still treated as secrets and not changed? What is still secret? Perhaps the biggest secret is how to understand Freemasonry.

There are at least a hundred ancient documents that seem to be related to Freemasonry, with the most referenced one dating back to about 1390. The oldest continuous records of Masonic Lodges go back to the sixteenth century in Scotland. We don’t know the details, but I believe that somehow Freemasonry is related to creating the First Amendment as European society moved out of the Medieval Period into the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

Gilbert Kuipers is an emeritus faculty person after retiring from Valley City State University. He is originally from Georgia, where the Grand Lodge is FAM and transferred his Masonic membership to North Dakota where the Grand Lodge is AFAM.

The public is cordially invited

All Lectures are at the Barnes County Historical Society Museum and held in conjunction with Valley City State University. They are free and open to the public.

For more information contact Wes Anderson at 701-845-0966

Story submitted to NewsDakota.com