Fight Club & Freemasonry

Pop Culture and The Craft Collide Into One

Equilibrium in Freemasonry and Fight Club by Robert Johnson

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

Fight Club — What does it have to do with Freemasonry? It’s gritty and vulgar, certainly two descriptors of what Freemasonry is inherently not. Fight Club is on the surface, a testosterone filled cinematic experience that puts on a pedestal, those ideas of power, masculinity and sexual prowess.

Behind the curtain however lays a deeper story. We can only see it if we’re willing to cut through our own dissonance and idiocy and for God’s sake — look in the mirror. Fight Club is a narrative of a man who actively engages his own animal-based masculinity in order to “let it out” in a world that has largely constrained its very existence — a commercialized word beset with surface level comforts and prescription drugs to sooth the inner distresses. As the central character allows this version of himself to take control, his mind begins to formulate the internal struggle that’s taking place. Ultimately, what is achieved is a wholesale destruction of the gritty toxic masculine form of Tyler Durden — his brains and blood decorating the floor from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the climax of the film. As buildings collapse and a visible shockwave hits and bends the glass in a high-rise, a man is left standing who is a whole new character in the film. It’s the Narrator less his alter ego. It’s a man in an equilibrium of sorts.

Until that last word, “equilibrium” you may have been on the fence about this concept — Freemasonry and Fight Club. Through a series of expertly filmed sequences, Fight Club dissects the psycho-spiritual journey and the fallout of the same. People claim to have their spiritual awakenings through their Saturday morning Yoga ritual, their tea, hitting some DMT, or reading a Manly P. Hall book — but that’s just bullshit. A real awakening is scary, unwanted, not peaceful and sure doesn’t involve the cherry-picked cultural appropriation of Hindu or South American Shamanistic practices. From time immemorial, we have the existence of schools of wisdom which convey allegories, plays, dramatizations and rites of passage which are all designed to accomplish a singular goal, not unlike what happens to the Narrator in Fight Club. This is a transformation which should, when done properly, change our mind forever. What happens within Fight Club can be described as a visualization of the ensuing internal struggle of self.

Freemasonry alludes to an esoteric art of contemplation of its symbols. Through meditations or thoughts, we can reflect on our own existence, our lives and our place in this reality. The result is oftentimes an ego death and from this, an emergence of an objective consciousness — if done properly. Once the sight is gained, or even during the struggle process, the mind is called to the welfare of his fellow creatures — the superego’s call to altruism. What happens in Fight Club is no different. Our main character (the Narrator) decides to take on what could be considered the slavery of the modern age when he blows up multiple buildings that hold financial and credit records for millions of people — an act of domestic terrorism, had he not ensured the buildings were empty. Ultimately this creates financial equilibrium.

This act is seen as one of “civic responsibility,” not unlike those actions which led to the formation of the United States of America. Men who were preeminent in their stations in life, members of our Craft who decided that the time was right to gather, to become a new Nation whose basic foundation of principal was the equality of men. No longer would we be slaves to the crown. But of course, the scales of justice took another 89 years to balance with the introduction of the Emancipation Proclamation. When the Proclamation was given in 1867 there were two years of chaos. From that Chaos, Order; and still, 155 years later, we’re still going. “I am Jack’s cold sweat.”

Looking at the central characters of Fight Club, the obvious connotations regarding masculine and feminine forces are present. A duality of man is exposed: Tyler Durden and the Narrator. One is a titan among men, the other, arguably so meek, his name is never even given. The film evokes thoughts relative to the id, ego and superego — the Rebis, the balanced being, laying somewhere between the ego (preservation of the self and knowledge of others) and the superego (capitular altruism).

All this is mystical and psychological of course. What makes Fight Club so great however, is that in the end, we’re left with what seems to be a broken man, who is in reality, more complete than anyone else. A man with an objective view, who frees the world from the modern chains of bondage. In Fight Club, a story of internal struggle, of perseverance, self-awareness and action is laid before us. There’s no good or evil. We have a man who descends into the realm of chaos only to be reborn, and by a victory over the mind, is raised to a new level of consciousness. Given all of this, how is Fight Club not Masonic? If you don’t see it…you’re nuts.

You’ve no doubt heard the most tired platitude in Freemasonry, “…that a Mason gets out of the Fraternity what he puts into it”; and this is true. You must contemplate the tools and concepts, to battle your “self” in order to come out a better man. Simply going to lodge won’t make you better. Of course, you may not find it completely necessary to start your own Fight Club, sell soap made from human fat, get fired from your job, blow up your apartment, and destroy the world’s financial records to achieve this. You could simply start by sitting quietly and thinking about what the level really means. Maybe follow it up with some real life actions…

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

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• Note to the Reader* Many times during this short essay, I was tempted to dive into the Bhagavad Gita when relating to symbolism of internal struggles. If the reader chooses to do a comparison on their own, they will no doubt find a correlation.

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