How to Catch Masonic Impostors Using Index Cards

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library's blog turns seven years old this month! As in years past, we celebrate the anniversary of our blog by revisiting the topic of our very first post: Masonic impostors.

Pictured above is the back page of the November 1933 (No. 552) Bulletin of the Masonic Relief Association of the United States and Canada, which explains how the Masonic Service Association distributed index cards of people known to impose upon Masonic relief boards for charity under false pretenses so that local boards of relief could compile an index of known "crooks and impostors."

Be sure to read all of our previous posts on Masonic impostors for more information about why someone would impersonate a Mason and how the Masonic Service Association and local Masonic relief boards attempted to detect those trying to defraud them.

 

Comments

[Jeff]

Hi Micah.

Thanks for writing. I'm very interested to hear about your early 20th-century Almoner's archives with relation to Masonic impostors.

- Jeff

[Micah Evans]

Interesting article! We have in our Almoner's archives from the 1910s-1930s notes about men claiming to be Masons fraudulently, whether to ask for money or for other fraudulent purposes, and notes from other Grand Lodges warning Nebraska Masons to be on the look out for particular individuals pretending to be Masons. We also have letters from brethren to Grand Lodge repenting for receiving and renouncing spurious rite of memphis degrees or Cerneau Rite degrees "in their zeal for Masonry."