By Brian Mattocks in symbol — 25 Jun 2025

Hoodwink

What are you assuming - and what are you ignoring. Take off the hoodwink and be brought to light.

Darkness before light. The moment before perception shifts.

Blindfolded on Purpose

Being hoodwinked sounds like a trick, right? Like you’ve been duped. But in Freemasonry, the hoodwink is something else entirely. It’s the conscious choice to step into darkness—to say: “I know I don’t yet see clearly.”

It’s humbling. And that’s the point.

Imagine standing blindfolded in a room full of people. You’re uncertain. You’re vulnerable. You’re dependent on something other than sight. That’s not weakness—that’s preparation. It’s the recognition that before you can see clearly, you have to admit you don’t.

One Mason told us that his first real leadership lesson came not from a book or a mentor—but from the hoodwink. He said, “I realized I’d been leading with certainty, not curiosity.” I made some early assumptions that hurt my team and set our work back quite a bit. After that, he started every major decision process with the phrase, “What am I not seeing yet?” I became an investigator - always assuming that I was in the dark in the conversation. It let my team show me their truth and I learned at a multiplier that I hadn't thought possible. That shift changed everything.

The Hoodwink isn’t just symbolic darkness. It’s the fertile soil of insight. Because clarity only means something when it follows confusion. To learn, to grow, to wake up—you first have to stop pretending you already see.

Where in your life are you pretending to see clearly—but deep down, you don’t?
What assumptions are you acting on without examining?
When was the last time you let yourself not know—and stayed curious instead?
What clarity might emerge if you allowed yourself to sit in the dark a little longer?

Use it now:

Write down a current problem you think you’ve already figured out. Now list three alternate explanations for what might really be going on. They don’t have to be right—they just have to be possible.

Pick one and ask yourself: If this were true, what would I do differently?

That’s the Hoodwink coming off.

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