Want the Low-down on Freemasonry? This Thread's For You!

Originally posted by mastermind77
freemasonry was created by good intentions that went bad. Today the inner circle of masonry is corrupted by greed and scheming towards control over the planet, while leaving you with a sensation that you are free, when your not. The goal is nothing more that short and sweet satisfaction, and revenge by a creature, who posesses ignorant curious minds with no moral boundaries. Then carries thir toungues into the land of whispy deceit, and will be how satan, lucifer will destroy us all. Thats masonry in all its self deceived forms.

Wow, the OP started this with well thought posts, with documentation too boot. Would you care to add some scholarly insight to your post? Or is it merely opinion?

Axeman,

I lift my hand to you Brother, you have displayed one of the most water-tight arguments for The Craft, showing what it truly is. I'm afraid thou, that most people in here are blinded by certain medias and will not or refuse to believe the truth. I know from personal experience that they are difficult to change. theres a certain poster in here that thinks hes so smart because of his teaching and debunks my posts everytime by ridiculing my grammar etc. I give them thier due, they have paid a fortune for thier education, and they are very intelligent. But what good is intelligence, if you cannot use it to advance your own knowledge, instead of quoting others??

I could actually sink there boat anytime I wanted, but I'm afraid that they wouldn't believe or understand the books where I got my info from....


I wish everyone could look at life as we can then maybe the world would be a much better place. If any Brothers want to have a liberal discussion, including Illuminati conspiracy etc, then PM me, I'll send you a link. But this only goes to Brethern no matter what GL you belong to. If your not a Brother, we'll find out quickly and send the Secret Police around to interrigate your a**

Originally posted by spirit7
This thread isn't for me and neither is Freemasonry. Grand "Commander" Algert Pike? Pike can command nothing. And you don't even know everything there is to know about Freemasonry because it's so secretive. So what are all of the rituals that you've performed yourself?

Have you even bothered to read any of Pike's or Hall's work? I bet not

Originally posted by intrepid

Wow, the OP started this with well thought posts, with documentation too boot. Would you care to add some scholarly insight to your post? Or is it merely opinion?

Well, now to be fair, even Pike mentioned in Morals and Dogma that at one point, Masonry had been infiltrated and over 800 different levels were created...

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth

Originally posted by intrepid

Wow, the OP started this with well thought posts, with documentation too boot. Would you care to add some scholarly insight to your post? Or is it merely opinion?

Well, now to be fair, even Pike mentioned in Morals and Dogma that at one point, Masonry had been infiltrated and over 800 different levels were created...

Well, to be quite fair, could you point out where in Morals and Dogma this is stated? I'm not saying that it's not - I still haven't read the whole thing (it is a really long and verbose book) - but still, if you could give a little more background info and perhaps a chapter/page number to search. I used to have a link to M&D with a search function included, but I have since lost it. The one on sacred-texts.com (which there is a link for above) is hard to search unless you know the specific chapter.

Nothing personal, of course, I'm just inclined to request sources when people say "oh, well Pike said this or that," no matter who they are.

Originally posted by mastermind77
freemasonry was created by good intentions that went bad.

Well, I agree with the first part of that statement, but... when/how, specifically, did it go bad?

Today the inner circle of masonry is corrupted by greed and scheming towards control over the planet, while leaving you with a sensation that you are free, when your not.

Here we go with the inner circle thing again... can you give evidence of even one person operating as you say? Or one global event that was allegedly orchestrated by this supposed Masonic cabal (we're not talking about pancake breakfasts here)?

The goal is nothing more that short and sweet satisfaction, and revenge by a creature, who posesses ignorant curious minds with no moral boundaries.

If that's who he (the creature) is after, he's damn sure barking up the wrong tree if he's looking for ignorant curious minds with no moral boundaries within the ranks of the Masons. In fact, a huge part of Masonry is learning to define and stay within those "moral boundaries." Of course, defining your circle is a personal matter.

Then carries thir toungues into the land of whispy deceit, and will be how satan, lucifer will destroy us all. Thats masonry in all its self deceived forms.

Uhhhh... What?

[edit on 8/6/07 by The Axeman]

Originally posted by The Axeman


Well, to be quite fair, could you point out where in Morals and Dogma this is stated? I'm not saying that it's not - I still haven't read the whole thing (it is a really long and verbose book) - but still, if you could give a little more background info and perhaps a chapter/page number to search.

At one point (I don't recall page number), Pike mentions that hundred of degrees were created by various folks who really knew nothing about Masonry. I think this was what the guy who posted above was referring to, but it's important to understand that Pike did not call them "levels", they were just spurious degrees.

Originally posted by The Axeman

Well, to be quite fair, could you point out where in Morals and Dogma this is stated? I'm not saying that it's not -

No, I can't tell you page or paragraph but apparently you haven't read very far into it. It's within the first 300-400 pages of the book.

Originally posted by Masonic Light

At one point (I don't recall page number), Pike mentions that hundred of degrees were created by various folks who really knew nothing about Masonry. I think this was what the guy who posted above was referring to, but it's important to understand that Pike did not call them "levels", they were just spurious degrees.

Yep....

Ah come on Intrepid he's entitled to his opinion just like I am to say how stupid he must be to interject that type of comment in a thread that has showed someone who has put his money where his mouth is opposed to simply hiding behind a log on name shouting stupid remarks.

But again I must state that I think he has a right to his opinion to say it.

Cory

Originally posted by intrepid

Originally posted by mastermind77
freemasonry was created by good intentions that went bad. Today the inner circle of masonry is corrupted by greed and scheming towards control over the planet, while leaving you with a sensation that you are free, when your not. The goal is nothing more that short and sweet satisfaction, and revenge by a creature, who posesses ignorant curious minds with no moral boundaries. Then carries thir toungues into the land of whispy deceit, and will be how satan, lucifer will destroy us all. Thats masonry in all its self deceived forms.

Wow, the OP started this with well thought posts, with documentation too boot. Would you care to add some scholarly insight to your post? Or is it merely opinion?

Originally posted by mastermind77
freemasonry was created by good intentions that went bad. Today the inner circle of masonry is corrupted by greed and scheming towards control over the planet, while leaving you with a sensation that you are free, when your not. The goal is nothing more that short and sweet satisfaction, and revenge by a creature, who posesses ignorant curious minds with no moral boundaries. Then carries thir toungues into the land of whispy deceit, and will be how satan, lucifer will destroy us all. Thats masonry in all its self deceived forms.

mastermind77,

Honestly...you really should NOT drink and post.

[sigh]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
No, I can't tell you page or paragraph but apparently you haven't read very far into it. It's within the first 300-400 pages of the book.

As I said, I wasn't saying that it wasn't there. And you are half correct in assuming that I haven't read that far into it. I have completely read all the way up through the 18°, or Knight Rose Croix. After that I have read bits and pieces, looked up what I have wanted/needed to from the 19-32nd chapters, but have not read them in their entirety. So, yeah, I have read a fair bit into it, but as luck would have it, what you were talking about is in the 20th chapter, regarding the degree of Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, just beyond where I stopped reading whole chapters.

Well, now to be fair, even Pike mentioned in Morals and Dogma that at one point, Masonry had been infiltrated and over 800 different levels were created...

Yes, he did, as is shown below. What you fail to mention, however, is that he seems to be explaining what had happened to Masonry because of inventive interlopers, and that the result was that the material had been profaned nearly beyond recognition. He then goes on to say that it is our responsibility as Masons never to let this happen again:

"As Master of a Lodge, you will therefore be exceedingly careful that no Candidate, in any Degree, be required to submit to any degradation whatever; as has been too much the custom in some of the Degrees: and take it as a certain and inflexible rule, to which there is no exception, that real Masonry requires of no man anything to which a Knight and Gentleman cannot honorably, and without feeling outraged or humiliated submit."

And now, to the text itself:

As Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, it is your especial duty to aid in restoring Masonry to its primitive purity. You have become an instructor. Masonry long wandered in error. Instead of improving, it degenerated from its primitive simplicity, and retrograded toward a system, distorted by stupidity and ignorance, which, unable to construct a beautiful machine, made a complicated one. Less than two hundred years ago, its organization was simple, and altogether moral, its emblems, allegories, and ceremonies easy to be understood, and their purpose and object readily to be seen. It was then confined to a very small number of Degrees. Its constitutions were like those of a Society of Essenes, written in the first century of our era. There could be seen the primitive Christianity, organized into Masonry, the school of Pythagoras without incongruities or absurdities; a Masonry simple and significant, in which it was not necessary to torture the mind to discover reasonable interpretations; a Masonry at once religious and philosophical, worthy of a good citizen and an enlightened philanthropist.

Innovators and inventors overturned that primitive simplicity. Ignorance engaged in the work of making Degrees, and trifles and gewgaws and pretended mysteries, absurd or hideous, usurped the place of Masonic Truth. The picture of a horrid vengeance, the poniard and the bloody head, appeared in the peaceful Temple of Masonry, without sufficient explanation of their symbolic meaning: Oaths out of all proportion with their object, shocked the candidate, and then became ridiculous, and were wholly disregarded. Acolytes were exposed to tests, and compelled to perform acts, which, if real, would have been abominable; but being mere chimeras, were preposterous, and excited contempt and laughter only. Eight hundred Degrees of one kind and another were invented: Infidelity and even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry. The rituals even of the respectable Degrees, copied and mutilated by ignorant men, became nonsensical and trivial; and the words so corrupted that it has hitherto been found impossible to recover many of them at all. Candidates were made to degrade themselves, and to submit to insults not tolerable to a man of spirit and honor.

Hence it was that, practically, the largest portion of the Degrees claimed by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and before it by the Rite of Perfection, fell into disuse, were merely communicated, and their rituals became jejune and insignificant. These Rites resembled those old palaces and baronial castles, the different parts of which, built at different periods remote from one another, upon plans and according to tastes that greatly varied, formed a discordant and incongruous whole. Judaism and chivalry, superstition and philosophy, philanthropy and insane hatred and longing for vengeance, a pure morality and unjust and illegal revenge, were found strangely mated and standing hand in hand within the Temples of Peace and Concord; and the whole system was one grotesque commingling of incongruous things, of contrasts and contradictions, of shocking and fantastic extravagances, of parts repugnant to good taste, and fine conceptions overlaid and disfigured by absurdities engendered by ignorance, fanaticism, and a senseless mysticism.

An empty and sterile pomp, impossible indeed to be carried out, and to which no meaning whatever was attached, with far-fetched explanations that were either so many stupid platitudes or themselves needed an interpreter; lofty titles, arbitrarily assumed, and to which the inventors had not condescended to attach any explanation that should acquit them of the folly of assuming temporal rank, power, and titles of nobility, made the world laugh, and the Initiate feel ashamed.

[...]

The Mason kneels, no longer to present his petition for admittance or to receive the answer, no longer to a man as his superior, who is but his brother, but to his God; to whom he appeals for the rectitude of his intentions, and whose aid he asks to enable him to keep his vows. No one is degraded by bending his knee to God at the altar, or to receive the honor of Knighthood as Bayard and Du Guesclin knelt. To kneel for other purposes, Masonry does not require. God gave to man a head to be borne erect, a port upright and majestic. We assemble in our Temples to cherish and inculcate sentiments that conform to that loftiness of bearing which the just and upright man is entitled to maintain, and we do not require those who desire to be admitted among us, ignominiously to bow the head. We respect man, because we respect ourselves that he may conceive a lofty idea of his dignity as a human being free and independent. If modesty is a virtue, humility and obsequiousness to man are base: for there is a noble pride which is the most real and solid basis of virtue. Man should humble himself before the Infinite God; but not before his erring and imperfect brother.

As Master of a Lodge, you will therefore be exceedingly careful that no Candidate, in any Degree, be required to submit to any degradation whatever; as has been too much the custom in some of the Degrees: and take it as a certain and inflexible rule, to which there is no exception, that real Masonry requires of no man anything to which a Knight and Gentleman cannot honorably, and without feeling outraged or humiliated submit.

Morals and Dogma, Ch. XX - Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, pp. 325-328

source: www.sacred-texts.com...
(emphasis mine)

So, to be fair, he does indeed say something about 800 spurious degrees, but then goes on to say what a disgrace that was, and is probably the reason he took it upon himself to rewrite the ritual. Sounds reasonable to me, and it also goes a long way to explain why we Masons keep our rituals and practices private; so that they are not profaned by the "unworthy." We deem them important enough to protect.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Would you argue, or agree, with the conclusion I have come to regarding this excerpt?

[edit on 8/7/07 by The Axeman]

[edit on 7-8-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by The Axeman

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Would you argue, or agree, with the conclusion I have come to regarding this excerpt?

[edit on 8/7/07 by The Axeman]

Oh, I agree... I was just saying that even Pike mentioned that there had been some tampering with the Craft... Look, I am one of Masonry's biggest defenders on this site, but, one has to be honest when approaching the subject.

Why aren't women allowed in?

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Why aren't women allowed in?

Because it's a fraternity, and fraternities only admit men.

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Oh, I agree... I was just saying that even Pike mentioned that there had been some tampering with the Craft... Look, I am one of Masonry's biggest defenders on this site, but, one has to be honest when approaching the subject.

Agreed, 100%.

But in all fairness, the "tampering" the other dude was talking about, and the kind of "tampering" we've just discussed are two different things. What he implied was more like an infiltration and misuse of Masonic connections to take over the world and enslave people... hardly the same as some dorks writing spurious degree rituals.

I think I am honest in my postings about Masonry, and, as I've just demonstrated, will admit when I am ignorant or misinformed, and will stand corrected.

Much, much more than I can say for most folks on the other side of this ongoing argument... though there are a few anti-Masonic posters who have my respect for the way they post and debate. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I respect them. Admittedly, there are few of these, and they probably know who they are.

Originally posted by Masonic Light

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Why aren't women allowed in?

Because it's a fraternity, and fraternities only admit men.

Obviously.

But is there a certain reason that it was decided only to be a fraternity?

Originally posted by nixie_nox
But is there a certain reason that it was decided only to be a fraternity?

I would say that it dates back to the middle ages, when lodges were actual operative Stone Masons guilds. It's just a guess, but it seems logical. There's no doubt that the views on men vs. women were certainly different then.

Perhaps a better answer would be that the allegories that Masonry uses to teach her lessons are based around male characters; I think this is because the lessons are retained better if the candidate can identify with the characters portrayed. Women do not have the same psychological makeup as men, so it stands to reason that a female would get less from it becuase she would have a harder time personally identifying with the allegories.

There are some affiliated organizations that admit women, as well as some irregular Masonic bodies that admit women.

Order of the Eastern Star: www.easternstar.org...

Daughters of the Nile: www.donhq.org...

International Order of Job’s Daughters: www.iojd.org...

International Order of the White Shrine of Jerusalem: www.calodges.org...

Order of Amaranth: www.amaranth.org...

Co-Masonry:
www.co-masonry.org...

www.luckymojo.com...

web.mit.edu...


[edit on 8/8/07 by The Axeman]

From the above text quoted by Axeman (www.sacred-texts.com... Morals and Dogma, Ch. XX - Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, pp. 325-328). Can anyone elaborate on the paragraph being discussed?

“Eight hundred Degrees of one kind and another were invented: Infidelity and even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry. The rituals even of the respectable Degrees, copied and mutilated by ignorant men, became nonsensical and trivial; and the words so corrupted that it has hitherto been found impossible to recover many of them at all.”

Leaving aside the rather tempting reference to the Jesuits, at what period in the history of Freemasonry is the author referring to? He mentions two hundred years previous, but I was hoping that someone might know a specific period or have a little more background. If so I’d be interested to know more.

Thank you.