That Mason/Occult thing..., page 1

Originally posted by masqua

There are those who fear the unknown and wish others to tell them what it means to be human and how we relate to the mysteries. Nice safe systems full of security are what they crave. To them there is nothing to learn.

And I believe that this is where the misunderstood connection with the "occult" and Freemasonry began.

In my opinion, a lot of people are satisfied with not knowing who or what they are. They go so far and refuse to go another step and are fearful of those that do. If you took a room of average people how many would claim that they know themselves? I'll bet the majority, even though the truth is that very, very few people (if any) know themselves. If they did, they would have the answers to everything. I believe that most people have been taught to go so far and then to stop - they have been taught to rely on the word of the Church and swallow dogma. It's a procedure that has been drummed into mankind for millenia. It's not even a case of people being deliberately ignorant and craving a security. The security that you speak of has been forced upon them so it's very, very hard to take the first step out of the door if they have lived in the house all of their lives.

Certainly history tells us that the Church relied on ignorance to propogate it's growth. There could be no questioning of it's doctrine or it's teachings. The individual was offered only one acceptable course in spiritual learning and everything else was branded with the label of occult and became associated with Satanism. And here we get to the crux of the problem. Freemasonry encouraged a man to learn about who he is, what he is, what his place in the grand scheme of things is. It offered the opportunity for spiritual study outside of the set parameters that were enforced by the Church. Obviously, the Church perceived a threat. Any independent study would be able to see flaws in the "accepted" doctrine. If those flaws were large enough, there would be damage caused to the Church's image and as it relied on total obedience to it's dogmatic system, it could hardly afford the quesioning that would follow.

To stop this perceived threat to it's power, the Church reverted to a tried and tested defence. Anything which had threatened it in the past had been labelled as ungodly or Satanic. Before the 20th century, there was no more powerful accusation than to brand someone with being outside the realms of God. The Church had such complete power that it could make the acussation and the people would go along with it, without question. The people were so fearful of being branded as heretics themselves and being denied Salvation, that they would literally fall over themselves to join the Church in condemnation where-ever the finger pointed. Even if they didn't entirely agree with the Church, they had become so indoctrinated and so fearful that they would never dare defend any group which the Church saw fit to brand as occult or Satanic.

And to a degree, we still have that situation occuring. People still follow the Church and some still perceive it's word to be the pure truth. They pick up their history books and see the past and apply it today.
But this sort of attack is losing it's power. Ordinary people can pick up their Bibles and study the Word for themselves. We now have a literacy rate that allows this and we live in a society that doesn't destroy an individual if he seeks knowledge. But that's not to say thst the Church isn't still fearful of that knowledge though. Although it's power may be ebbing and flowing in the West, it still controls the spiritual learning of the rest of the planet. Organised groups of individuals searching for truth are a threat to it's hold over those elsewhere.

In the Middle East, Freemasonry is still associated with occultism and Satanism by Islam and this is the excuse that the authorities there use to ban it. They have managed to keep their people in the same spiritual box that the Church in the West used up until the 20th century. But in the West, as more and more people start looking for answers themselves, that accusation is starting to lose it's bite. We therefore have the situation where those that want to retain their power have to look for another line of attack. They had to adapt the fears of modern day society and use those. The easiest tool to use was money, so they charged Freemasonry with corruption and sedition. So Freemasonry now comes under attack from both sides of history. The ancient, which relies on the control of the spiritual. And the modern, which relies on the control of the physical.

Returning to the subject of the occult itself. I believe that it's a matter of definition and is relevant to the individual. Everything is occult until you open your eyes. It doesn't matter if the subject matter has been placed in front of you or not but until you actually see it yourself, it is occult. It doesn't occur to some, that although they keep their eyes closed, there are others who are looking at what is in front of themselves.
A lot of of what is classed as occult is only what we have not been allowed to see. Yet more is branded because the majority don't want to see. And yet more because there are unfortunately those who can't see.
The true meaning of the word is as relevant today as it was in the days of that it was coined. First it was hidden in Nature. Then it was hidden by the Church. Today it is hidden by those who fear the unknown and by those whose way of life is so concentrated on the physical that they muddy the waters for those who want to study the spiritual.

[edit on 13-1-2005 by Leveller]