I resigned from the lodge by letter, which is how these things are properly done, and posted it on a Thursday evening. I had held a modest grade for some years. I will not say which, partly from habit and partly because grades matter less than their holders believe.
The reasons were ordinary. A senior member had begun treating his rank as a licence to run other people's lives, and the rest of us had begun letting him. Nobody did anything dramatic. People simply stopped asking questions in his presence. In my experience a method can survive almost anything, but a room where nobody will say the obvious thing aloud is beyond saving.
I expected the next morning to feel like freedom. It felt rather like waking in a house after the furniture has been taken. No meeting to prepare for, no officer to report to, no reason at all to rise early and stand facing east in the cold.
I did it anyway. The banishing, start to finish, in my coat, in a back garden that wanted mowing. It was badly done. My voice was hoarse and I lost my place twice. At the end of it I knew where I was, which is the only thing the rite has ever properly promised.
I have done it every morning since. Fewer words, no costume, the same structure underneath.
When younger practitioners tell me the old systems are dead weight, I ask them how long they ran one. The answer is usually a few weeks.