Making a "Periodic" Table of Masonry

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For some reason, I’ve become fascinated with infographics made to resemble the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements. I’ve printed out a few for use with my students (Periodic Table of Storytelling, Periodic Table of Visualization Methods, Periodic Table of the Elements of Language, Periodic Table of the Figures of Speech).

What I’m onto now is making one of my own. I want to make a Periodic Table of Freemasonry (I searched online and did not find something laid out this way; the infographics I did find are not that informative and are also confusing) and also a Periodic Table of Fraternal Orders. Of course, the former would be included in the latter, which makes me wonder how doable this project is.

For those who don’t know, this is the famous table.

So, in making one for Freemasonry, I want to align closely related groups together in columns, but to do that systematically, I think the first step is to decide on the data of each element, so to speak. In the table for the elements, each cell has the element’s name, sybmol, atomic number, and atomic weight. I want my periodic table to be as succinct and logical as that, but not more terse than need be.

Anyway, I do recognize there are different viewpoints from a designer and end-users. So, I’ll ask the following questions for you to answer, if you wish, as an end-user.

  1. What information must be the minimum for each cell?
  2. Should I use abbreviations that the groups use for themselves (AF&AM, etc.), or would it be more clear to make up by own symbols?
  3. Is it simpler to use colors to indicate Prince Hall affiliation or should I just add “PH” in the cell? I’m leaning towards color.
  4. If I use color for #3, I can also indicate mutual recognition between bodies, such as Grand Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons of California and Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of California Free & Accepted Masons.
  5. Some of the youth groups can be sponsored by different Masonic bodies. Would that best be indicated by information in the elemental cell?

Note on #3 & #4: There are Blue Lodges and Prince Hall Lodges (I think I have that correct). I’m not insinuating anything by these questions, but since color is already used in the terminology (“Blue Lodge”), I think it would be okay to extend that system, but using different colors for different groups, such as DeMolay, Eastern Star, and Rainbow Girls.

I cannot think of any other questions now. Feel free to answer these five, and to add other questions of your own, with answers for those, too, if you can.

Thanks to anyone who adds answers or questions!

2

Where are you shooting for on the spectrum between fun and useful? Not that those are polar opposites, but at some point you’ll face the tradeoff. There’s this fun Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense:

It’s made to look like the Elements table, with the extra lanthanide/quack blocks and so on. It’s obviously more for fun than anything else–they could have achieved better organization without the constraint that it looked like the Elements table. So what are you targeting?

3

I have that one, too!

Yes, that’s a consideration. I want it to be informative, easy to read and use, but also to be a bit fun without mocking. Although I’m not a Freemason, I am a member of two appendant bodies.

4

As a designer and a teacher and a chemist I firmly believe that FORM SHOULD FOLLOW FUNCTION.

In other words, the Periodic Table is only that shape because a normal grid would get too cumbersome, due to the way electron levels work. For anything else to look that way, it’d have to be unnaturally shoehorned in.

Now, I’ll understand if you want to just have fun and mimic that shape. It’d be the same if someone posed their four family members walking across Abbey Road for a Christmas card, or a big crowd standing together à la Sgt. Pepper’s.

But, to me, that’d be co-opting a cultural icon that originally meant something… before it was trivialized. And a parody of it would only work if the new version had a connection to the original.

Dr.Strangelove’s example works, and has a reason for having the long blocks (“Credulous” block and “Quack” block)…
Sorry, maybe you should ignore purists like me, and just have fun and put anything in any box you want and have fun.

5

I desperately need to see the other Periodic Tables you have generated!

~VOW

6

I haven’t generated any yet. The examples I gave above are ones I found on the Internet. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

7

I have a periodic table of the vegetables. It is not complete (skips from 59 to 72, I think) and the vertical columns display no periodicity. What they do is put in each box a picture of a vegetable whose name somehow (often with a lot of imagination) the name of the element. For example, where Br fits in the real PT, they might put broccoli. Each block contains a picture of a veggie and its binary classification. There are several brassica with the exact same genus/species. It’s very amusing.

8

That’s fantastic! I copied it for my archives, thanks!

9

I liked that table too, though I took exception to Taoism being on the list, both in terms of it being ‘irrational nonsense’ and a ‘religion’.

I’d say Taoism is more of a philosophical approach to life than a religion, and there is much common sense to be gleaned from it.

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Aside: I note that this fun Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense is drawn by one Crispian Jago. He’s the same guy who also diagrammed irrational nonsense as a Venn Diagram.

He also has an Alternative Therapy Flowchart

and a Scientifically Accurate Labelling of the Acupuncture Meridians and Acupoints.

So there are many other formats possible besides Periodic Tables.

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I had that one on my wall at work (back when I had walls… and was in the office). I like it better than the periodic table because it doesn’t try to shoehorn the data into an existing structure. And it’s… well, maybe not useful, but legitimately works as a flowchart.