It really fries me when I see stuff written by people who've never been to a meeting or read our Ritual.

Our Ritual is not made available to the general public by us, but it can be had on Ebay and from used book dealers. When you read it, you'll see that all the ceremonies are based on stuff from the Bible. Rob Morris, the guy who created OES, chose 5 Biblical heroines and created a 5-pointed star to go with them. So when you draw it, a pentagram is formed in the center. I haven't seen anything written about the symbolism of it, but I will do further research. I feel like he must have meant for the pentagram to be there because the higher-ups do use it around the outside of their insignia. The pentagram had been used as a symbol of protection for thousands of years before Rob Morris came along. Its use in Satanism was probably very new if it even existed at all back then, so it's likely he didn't know of it.

I have never seen a treatise against the Masonic bodies that was written by anyone who ever visited one. That's irresponsible and dishonest. There are plenty of events that are open to the public including Installation, which is like a changing of the guard for the head person in charge for the next year. You'll see just about everything, except the Secret Work.

Speaking of Secret Work, Anderson Cooper of CNN didn't do himself any favors in his quest to find out Masonic secrets. If he had only thought to ask what KIND of secrets they are, he wouldn't even care anymore. It's clubhouse stuff. Is your college Fraternity Satanic because they have secret code words and handshakes? Or the Grange? Or the Knights of Columbus?

Some people think it's wrong to have a closed-door meeting with an open Bible in the room, because that's like excluding people from a Bible study. I don't happen to feel that way, but it's a matter of opinion. Some also feel it's sexist because you have to be either a Mason or related to one to join, and the meetings are always led by a man. I don't have any rebuttal for that except that the head guy is really second in charge to a woman, and as long as there has to be at least one man there in order to hold a meeting, at least they can't all drop out on us.

By the way, we aren't an auxiliary to the Masons. You have to be related, but we function completely apart from them. Some chapters do earn money by catering for Masonic dinners, but we're really just capitalizing on proximity there.

Rob Morris declared that the original purpose of OES would be to care for Masonic widows & orphans and so forth. Today we do much more, raising millions for charity, in some cases creating services from scratch, like cancer research hospitals and learning centers for dyslexic kids. Yeah, we do it wearing tuxes & evening gowns and marching around like a pageant. It's fun. That's our excuse.

A major objection I hear from my peers is that Eastern Star is for fogeys. When you're a member, you can go to no meetings at all, special events a couple of times a year, or you can be out every night. It's true the retired people are the ones with more time for travel, so they're the most visible. But every chapter has its younger members who are working and/or raising children, so you won't see as many of them out and about. Some younger people don't see any sense in doing all the pageantry along with the charity work, and so we may die out. Then again, society is bombarded with images of famous people going out all the time, wearing beautiful clothes - so maybe there are younger people who would like a reason to get all dressed up and feel important. It sure has been fun to be "one of the young ones", and when I get old, it will be fun to do our little parties and things with younger people. Hanging around with people exactly like me is boring and stagnating.

That leads me to the one area where I do have issues - RACE. We're not racist in our doctrines, but I traveled from my predominantly-white-populated state to a midwest state and I was still disappointed by how white it is. So, part of the mission of our Vision Commitee should also be to encourage diversity.

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