Learning and Memorizing Ritual

Learning and Memorizing Ritual                                                                                                                                                                          

   Learning and Memorizing Ritual

W. Bro. Mark Waks

One of the problems that most often plagues Masonry is poor ritual. By this, I don't just mean getting the

words wrong -- I mean ritual that is drab and uninspiring, which fails to actually *teach* a candidate.

Ritual is often mediocre, and it doesn't have to be; anyone can do ritual well, provided he knows a little

about acting.

It isn't hard, actually; it's mostly a matter of knowing how to do it, plus a lot of practice. This article is

intended to impart some guidelines on how to do Good Ritual. It doesn't demand a lot of time, or any

particular talent, just a little drive to do well. Read it and play with it. With some practice, you should be

able to use these techniques to good effect in your Lodge. The course is specifically aimed at dealing

with the longer speeches, but much of it is also relevant to shorter pieces; I commend it to junior

officers.

This is adapted from a lecture that I worked up for my own lodge; having done that, I figured I should

try to spread these tips around for the common weal of the Craft. (Caveat: I do assume that you have

some kind of cypher book, with encoded ritual. If your jurisdiction doesn't use this, you'll have to adapt

these lessons.)

1) Figure out the Words

The first step of learning any ritual is to know what you're saying! This should be obvious, but is often

overlooked, because brethren are afraid to admit that they don't already know the right words. Don't be

afraid to admit your own limits -- I've never met *anyone* who gets every single word right every time.

Start out by listening to someone say the speech, preferably several times. (You should be doing this the

entire previous year, listening to your predecessor.) Listen carefully, and make sure you understand

what's being said; ask questions if you don't. (After Lodge, of course.)

Next, go through your cipher or code book carefully, and see how much you can read. Mark words that

you can't figure out, or that you're unsure of -- this is the point to catch any mistakes you may be

making. Then call or get together with a Ritualist or a reliable Past Master, and talk through it, reading

out of the book slowly. Have him correct any mistakes, and fill in the words you don't know. Take notes

(preferably somewhere other than in the book), because you will forget the corrections as soon as you're

on your own.

2) Understand the Speech

This step gets overlooked even more often than the previous one. Read through the ritual a couple of

times, and make sure you really grasp it. Don't just know the words -- know what it's talking about. Find

out who the characters being talked about are. Again, ask questions.

Now, start trying to understand the speech structurally. Any ritual is made up of components, separate

pieces that are linked together. For example, a section may be talking about symbols, with three

paragraphs per symbol: concrete meaning, abstract meaning, and purpose. Figure out what these pieces

are -- you'll use them later.

The next step is especially useful for long speeches -- visualize the speech. Any speech can be thought

of in terms of movements, places, rooms, stuff like that. Words are hard to remember in order; places are

easy. The canonical example is the Middle Chamber Lecture, which walks through King Solomon's

Temple. That's no accident -- that path is easily visualized, and makes a good example of how to learn

ritual, which is probably why it is the first major speech an officer learns. This is why we use symbols in

the first place: because they are easy to learn and internalize. Use them.

3a) Small-Scale Memorization

This is never anyone's favourite part; anyone can do it, but no-one finds it simple. It's considerably

easier if you do it right, though.

Start out by reading the speech over and over. Don't move on to the next step until you can read it from

the cipher quickly, without breaks or hesitation. Read it *out loud*, when you get the chance. This step

is particularly important and skipped more often than any other. Don't skip it -- this is how you get your

brain and mouth trained to the words. It may sound silly, but it really matters -- the mental pathways

used to talk are distinct from those used to read.

Now, start trying to learn sentences. Just sentences. Read the first word or two of the sentence, then try

to fill in the remainder from memory. Don't fret if you can't do it immediately; it will probably take at

least 5 or 10 times through before you're getting most of the sentences. You'll find some that are hard --

hammer those ones over and over (but don't totally neglect the rest while you do so). Again, get to the

point where you're doing reasonably well on this, before going on to the next step.

3b) Large-Scale Memorization

Once you've got most of the sentences, try to move on to paragraphs. Again, some will be easy and

some hard. Try to understand exactly why this sentence follows that one -- in most cases, the ritual does

make sense. An individual paragraph is almost always trying to express a single coherent thought, in

pieces; figure out what that thought is, and why all the pieces are necessary. Keep at this until you're

able to get most paragraphs by glancing at the first word or two, or by thinking, "Okay, this is the

description of truth," or something like that.

Finally, start putting it all together. This is where the structural analysis in (*understanding the speech)

Step 2 gets important. You visualized the speech, and figured out how it hooks together; use that

visualization to connect the paragraphs. Make sure you have some clue why each paragraph follows the

one before. In almost every case, the next paragraph is either a) continuing this thought, or b) moving on

to a related thought. In both cases, you can make memorization much easier by understanding why it

flows like that. Convince yourself that this paragraph obviously has to follow that one, and you'll never

forget the order.

4) Smoothing It Out

You're now at the point where you've got pretty much all the sentences down, and most of the

paragraphs, and you're able to get through the whole thing only looking at the book a few times. Now,

start *saying* it.

When you're driving in the car; when you're alone at home; pretty much any time you have some

privacy, try saying it all out loud, at full voice. Trust me, it sounds very different when you actually say

it aloud. You'll find that you stumble more, and in different places. Some words turn out to be more

difficult to pronounce than you expected. Try it a few times.

Start out by trying to do this frequently -- once, even twice every day. It'll be hard at first (and it's a real

pain to pull out the cipher book while you're driving), but it'll gradually get easier. When you're starting

to feel comfortable, slow down, but don't stop. Practice it every couple of days, then every week. Don't

slow down below once a week. If you feel up to it, see if you can speed up your recitation. (But do not

ever speed-talk the ritual in open Lodge -- that's for memorization and rehearsal only.)

5a) Mindset

Last part. You're now at the point where you pretty much have the ritual memorized. Now, the trick is

learning how to perform it well. Very nearly everyone has some amount of stage fright; us acting types

often have it even worse than most. The trick to overcoming it is control of the nerves.

Now that you're comfortable reciting the ritual, observe how you do it. By now, you're not thinking

about it so much; your mouth is doing almost all the work, with the conscious mind simply making a

few connections between paragraphs. That is the right state to be in. Think about how that feels, and

learn it.

Before you go in to "perform", do some basic acting exercises. Take a few deep breaths; concentrate on

not thinking. I think the ideal is a little light meditation, but it takes a fair bit of practice to be able to

drop into that state on demand; for now, just worry about being calm. Being calm is far more important

than anything else. If you're calm, you're unlikely to screw up too badly; if you're tense, you're far more

likely to. Some people like to exercise the body a bit, to relax the mind; you should do what works for

you.

5b) Acting

Now the final nuance, which separates merely competent ritual from the really good stuff. Now that

you're able to let your mouth do all the talking, start listening to yourself. Think about the ritual again,

but don't think about the words, think about what it means. What are the important bits? Emphasize

those. How could you use your body or hands to illustrate a point? Try talking *to* the person in front

of you, not just *at* them -- look them in the eye and make them get the point. You are teaching

important lessons here; try to capture a little of the emotional intensity of that importance.

Think of your "performance" as a melding of two parts. Your mouth is providing the words, your mind

and heart the emotion. Again, nothing beats practice. This is what rehearsal should really be for -- taking

a dummy candidate in hand, and learning how to really get the point across. Don't fret if you find that

you need to change "modes" now and then -- here and there you will need to think about the words

briefly, when you change paragraphs or hit a hard sentence. That won't throw you, though, so long as

you keep track of what you're saying; you've already figured out why each part leads into the next, and

that will guide you when you stumble.

Conclusion

Don't expect to get all this down instantly; it takes most people a few years to really get good at it. Just

try to advance yourself bit by bit. Learn the transitions and pieces first -- if you have that, you can get

through the ritual. Next time, work on memorizing more thoroughly. The time after that, work on getting

it really smooth. After a while, you can build up to the point where you have the luxury to act. And at

that point, you will find that you start doing the kind of ritual that Masonry is meant to have -- both

moving and interesting, enough so that the candidate (who is, remember, the whole point) actually

*learns* what you're saying, and what it actually means. And if you really do it well, you'll find that you

come to understand the meaning of the ritual a good deal better yourself.

W. Brother Mark Waks

Hammatt Ocean Lodge - Saugus, MA