It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
I am sure that it is not a premeditated plan to distance the two groups, but I have found that whenever I have listed the many commonalities Masons and Templars share, the reaction is most often a defensive posturing. It may not be that at all, but it appears that way. The other factor that I try to keep in mind is that even if the Lodges know full well that they are directly traceable straight back to Jacques DeMolay and Roger BelleChance, they may desire to keep that heritage on the down low. The reason they would does not matter to me, as I am certain it is not sinister, and is more likely modesty.
Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
Perhaps european stonemasons went with their lords to police the holy land, and picked it up there and transfered it back, but not the knights.
Nygdan
Once they got to the Holy Land they had to lay siege to stone fortresses, which entailed digging tunnels under the corners to weaken the walls, then when the wall collapsed they would storm the breach. The job of the tunnellers was not envied. Then, when they had captured the castle, they had to make it back into a fortress, rebuilding the walls, turrets, etc.
So the returning Crusaders would have contained many adept stoneworkers among them.
It would be proper here to state, that the degrees, to which this history relates, have no connection whatever with what is known as " Ancient Craft Masonry,'' whether derived from York, in England, or Kilwinning, in Scotland.
"This ancient Council had its chamber in the old Grand Lodge of France, and both the Grand Lodge and the Council were under the direction of the same Grand Master, Count de Clermont, Prince of the Royal Blood, and also of the same representative or Substitute of the Grand Master, Challon de Joinville. This Council of the Emperors of the East and West was formed in 1754, by the Chevalier de Bonnville, from the ruins of the 'Chapter of Clermont.'"
Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
You do realize Mr. Pike was a notorious practical joker, especially among the Freemasons (he was a member of the Scottish Rite an appendant body).
Winston Smith.
The Council of the Emperors never imagined for a moment that such an audacious Jew and Juggler as he was, would take possession of the rite, to make a profit out of it, they never dreamed that he would make it an article of traffic, and not only so, but that he would re-model the degrees, make new ones, &c."
Originally posted by Masonic Light
The degrees of the Scottish Rite consist of the 25 degrees of the French Rite of Perfection, along with 8 additional degrees taken from the French Philosophical Rite and Rite of the East and West. The Scottish Rite is purely speculative in nature, and derives from the York Rite, which had an operative ancestry.
I think Black Guard's confusion is a common one, though, stemming from the use of the word "Scottish". The Scottish Rite actually has nothing to do with Scotland; it was named "Scottish Rite" because the title of the 29° was "Grand Scottish Knight of St. Andrew", not because it originated in Scotland.