Masonic Power Myth

reply to post by LordBucket


Actually, I didn't issue the OP, in fact I commented that given the OP I'm sure any mason could list a few since its well know that Jesse Jackson, some senators, and some congressmen are masons. However, it wasn't my challenge and I didn't think Josh wanted masons to respond.

I do not think anyone disputes that some politicians are masons, since there are a few million worldwide members. Probability alone means your going to get a hit occasionally.

The deeper question is (1) whether being a mason means anything in this context, and (2) whether anyone can find any current world leader who is a mason. No one really needs to bother doing (2) until you can establish (1), but as of yet I have never seen either done.

So you can ignore me...However, I'll continue responding as I usually do if I see something I want to respond to

[edit on 22-10-2008 by LowLevelMason]

reply to post by LowLevelMason


Take it easy man, Lord Bucket isn't making any claims about Masonry, he's responding to Josh Norton's post.
No need to jump on him for it. If you don't think you are, reel back a little.
Until he says something out and out, just let him talk.

Originally posted by LordBucket
It's "generally believed" that freemasons secretly rule the world. I'm not particularly interested in what "most people" believe, and I didn't think you were either. I quoted LODGES as sources. To write that off with "oh, but most people think..." is intellectually dishonest if you ask me.

OK, how about this... the lodge you cite? On their own page, which you linked to, it says this about LBJ. " It is not known whether he completed the degrees."

The Masonic Service Association of North America estimated there were roughly 1,670,000 freemasons in North America in 2003. Please note that that includes Canada, so the number of freemasons in the US would be less than that. The US Census Bureau in 2003 there were 271.1 million people in the US of at least 5 years of age. Looking at those two numbers...that gives us a rough estimate that in 2003, approximately POINT SIX percent of the US population were freemasons.

And yet, according the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, TWENTY SIX percent of Pennsyvania Senators were freemasons.

We can make the numebrs say all sorts of things... Seems like 5 of those 13 are no longer in office, so we're down to 16 percent of Pennsylvania state senators confirmed Masons today. 10 of the 50 Pennsylvania senators are women, so 20% of Pennsylvania state senators who could be Masons are. There are 4,623,304 males over the age of 18 in Pennsylvania. There are 120,200 Masons in Pennsylvania. 5-10% of the US population is atheist. (Apparently atheists are not legally allowed to hold public office in Pennsylvania, but nonetheless, we have to scrape them off the general male population...) So let's split the difference and say that there are 4,276,556 non-atheist males above the age of 18, so 2.8% of eligible males are Masons. Now, I don't have any figures handy on how many men in PA are or have ever been convicted felons, but I've already raised your own base figure almost 5x without those numbers. Sure, there's still a disparity between 3% and 20%, but not nearly as wide as 0.6% to 26%...

[edit on 10/22/2008 by JoshNorton]

reply to post by LordBucket


First of all, great research there, my Lord Bucket.

In context, it occurs to me that we could take a number of select entities that people join and which have (or had) an aura of prestige and influence -- and construct a similarly impressive list.

For instance -- and I could be talking out my ear here because I'm not going to take the full time needed to do it -- I believe we could construct an even more impressive per-capita list of US persons of power if we were to use the Episcopal Church (and perhaps to a lesser degree, the Presbterian Church or the Methodist Church) as the defining baseline -- much as you did here, though with that variant factor. Likewise with certain universities, especially Harvard and Yale.

So in the the comparison I made, unrelated to the (implied) validity of the denomination or the (understood) worthiness of these faith traditions, we can just observe them as Christian sects whose numbers are dwindling, year over year.

However, especially in the case of the Episcopal Church, it retains the patina of that earlier prestige and influence despite small and shrinking numbers. (i.e. of 108 SC justices, 35 have been Episcopalian; of 46 vice presidents, 10 have been Episcopalian; of 42 presidents, 11 have been Episcopalian; of 100 senators in just the 109th congress ('05-'06) 10 were Episcopalian.)*

Not that you implied this, but in trying to pre-answer the question: "So what?" -- I'm inclined to think that the membership attribute (Masonry, Episcopal Church membership, Yale alumnus etc.) is incidental to the person of power based more on socio-economic status than on any cabal to recruit or place impressive persons in high station and then any ability to mobilize an assumed network for control or domination.

("Psssst, Senator ... we're headed over to the cathedral for Holy Eucharist ... wanna come?")

As a footnote, it turns out that Mr. Hoover was a Presbyterian, which surprised me, thinking he would have so liked the 'smells and bells' of the Episcopal Church.

Again, thanks for your thoughtful digging and good writing -- you brought up some interesting stuff.

* Source: www.adherents.com

Sandalfon:

First of all, great research there, my Lord Bucket.

Aww...everyone is being so nice to me. Thank you.

(Is this really the first time that a non-mason every actually tried to answer your questions...?)

In context, it occurs to me that we could take a number of select entities that people join and which have (or had) an aura of prestige and influence -- and construct a similarly impressive list.

That may very well be true. But the original premise of this thread was to suggest that freemasons don't have any significant representation in positions of power. Which is not true. Similarly, it's quite possible that a disproportionately large percentage of media moguls are jews, corporate owners are white, sports stars are black and actors are scientologists. You mention Harvard and Yale, and yes...it seems completely reasonable that there would be a lot people from those schools in positions of power.

Such trends can and do exist, and it doesn't necessarily mean that any of these groups are trying to take over the world.

Howver...I would speculate that in the case of each of these trends, there probably actually is a reason for why they exist.

In the case of scientology, it's very simple. The church of scientology deliberately targetted actors for recruitment. They admit this. There's no secret about it. I can justify most of the others pretty easily too. This country was initially founded by whites who systematically slaughtered or enslaved anyone who wasn't. They started out in power, and pretty much kept it that was for a long time. So, whites as a group have the longest history of opportunity to secure power and ownership. Seems reasonable. Blacks in sports is also easy: biologically they tend to be bigger and stonger than most other races. That may not be a very potically correct observation, but I think a google search will back me up on that. You'll notice blacks are most prevalent in sports like football where size and strength matter, but are very rare in sports like hockey in which fine motor control and reaction time are more important. Harvard and Yale graduates...well, several reasons. For instance, politics is closely related to the legal system, and both are internationally famous for their law schools. But on the other hand, they're also amonsgt the oldest , most expensive and most prestigious schools in the country. Anyone who is already in a posision of power and wants to send their children to school has a lot of incentives (and definitely the financial abliity) to send them to schools like these. So, while to some extent to may be true that people who attend Harvard or Yale are more likely to find themselves positions of power, it's almost definitely true that people who are already in positions of power are likely to actively seek out these schools. As for jews in media, I suspect that it's true, but I can't think of any obvious reason why it would be. Culturally, jews have traditionally placed a strong emphasis on both education and humor, so I would understand if a disproportionate number of libarians, historians and comedians were jewish, but the dominance in media ownership is more difficult to explain. Maybe it shouldn't come as any surprise that the jews are also a favorite target for conspiracy theorists.

Which brings us to freemasons. We've demonstrated that there seem to be an awful lot of freemasons in certain types of positions. Why? We started this thread simply with the notion of freemasons in 'positions of power,' but after having spent some time with it now, it seems like the most peculiar concentration is in politics. Yes, there are some notables in the british royalty and quite a few religious leaders who appear to be masons...but the percentages in politics are the most overwhelming.

So...why are so many politicians freemasons? I presume there is a reason. It may be benign, it may be sinister...but either way, what's the reason?

Anyone?

Lord Bucket,

Just keep in mind, we are not recruited into Freemasonry. You must "ask one to be one."

In my local district of over 1,000 members...we don't have a single local, state, or national politician presently serving.

Originally posted by LordBucket
(Is this really the first time that a non-mason every actually tried to answer your questions...?)

I can not recently remember anyone doing so with sincerity or uncynically. I commend you as well.

Originally posted by LordBucket
(Is this really the first time that a non-mason every actually tried to answer your questions...?)

Yeah, actually. And, as you pointed out earlier, it's likely that the majority of Masonic detractors were simply too lazy to do so, as I gave them ample opportunity prior to starting this particular thread.

So...why are so many politicians freemasons? I presume there is a reason. It may be benign, it may be sinister...but either way, what's the reason?

Anyone?

No clue. I'm still not convinced the numbers are that great, but as to why the appeal? Masons are told time and again to be patriotic. They're told to give back to their community. Politics can be one way of achieving both of those goals.

Likewise, we're taught to honor grammar, logic and rhetoric (among other liberal arts & sciences), and the memorization work might be good practice for budding orators. (I'd guess there are an equal number of plumbers as lawyers in my lodge...)

JoshNorton:

We can make the numebrs say all sorts of things

Yes, but yours don't work for two reasons:

Seems like 5 of those 13 are no longer in office, so we're down to
16 percent of Pennsylvania state senators confirmed Masons today.

You're making two assumptions here. First, that only freemasons left office, and all of the non-freemasons stayed in office. This is unlikely. With 50 total Senators, 13 of whom were freemasons, if 5 freemasons left, and if the ratio is the same...that would imply that roughly 14 of the non-freemasons also left office over those five years. Or to put it another way, 19/50 of the Senators were no longer in office after five years, and five of those who left happened to be freemasons. Second, you're not accounting for the fact that all of those Senators who left were replaced by new Senators, and there's no reason to think that none of the replacements were freemasons.

Since 26% had been Senators up to that point, it seems very unlikely that between 2003 and 2008 only freemasons would leave, and that absolutely no freemasons would step in to office to fill the 19 vacancies.

Either way, it's all speculation. We have a confirmed figure for 26% as of 2003. If we want a 2008 figure we should probably try to find it rather than making up numbers.

there's still a disparity between 3% and 20%

...so even assuming that over five years only freemasons leave and no freemasons step in...you still conclude that there are nearly seven times as many freemasons in the Pennsylvania Senate as you'd expect from even distribution?

Who's side are you arguing for again?

----------

MOFreemason:

In my local district of over 1,000 members...we don't have a
single local, state, or national politician presently serving.

A counterexample does not contradict a trend. What you're describing probably shouldn't come as any surprise. I'm suggesting that "a lot of politicians are freemasons" not "a lot of freemasons are politicians."

For example, if you say that "Wow! A fifth of the entire world's population is Chinese! That seems like a lot!" and I then reply with, "I have over 1,000 people living in my hometown, and none of them are Chinese," my response is really very silly. Both can be true. There's no conflict between the statements.

we don't have a single local, state, or national politician presently serving.

How many politicians do you think you have living in the area near you? According my my local city hall website, we have a population of 50,000, one mayor, one mayor pro tem, and three council members. From the numbers we've seen to date, of the groups we've looked at, anywhere from 15-30% of politicians are freemasons. So if the ratio hold true for local politicians, we'd expect probably one of them to be a freemason. But this obviously isn't a large enough sample group to mean anything.

Another way to look at it, of our 50,000 people, 5 are politicians. So one in ten thousand people in my city are politicians. You're saying that of your sample group of one thousand, none are. Ok. But for even one politician to appear in your sample group, he would have to be ten times as likely to be a politician as a non-freemason.

Again, sample groups of this size aren't meaningfull.

Originally posted by LordBucket
But the original premise of this thread was to suggest that freemasons don't have any significant representation in positions of power. Which is not true.

I do not believe you have demonstrated this. You have demonstrated some Freemasons hold what you perceive to be power (I do not think anyone listed as particularly powerful). But if we were to take the 8 people you've named compared to all people who hold any amount of power in the world right now, we'd end up with about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, and that is a generous guess on my part.

You generalized from the fact that say, X% presidents were masons or X% Pennsylvania senators were masons, but there is no reason to believe those percentages are the same across states (in the case of senators) or across all world leaders (in the case of presidents). In fact, its likely not to be so at all, since different states have vastly different cultural attitudes toward freemasonry and the national attitudes towards freemasonry vary from hatred to nonchalant across countries.

Originally posted by LordBucket
Such trends can and do exist, and it doesn't necessarily mean that any of these groups are trying to take over the world.

Of course that is the point I think, that being a Freemason doesn't indicate any sort of plot, but concurrently nor do I think its been demonstrated that there are a significant enough number of masons "in power" for it to even matter.

Originally posted by LordBucket
Which brings us to freemasons. We've demonstrated that there seem to be an awful lot of freemasons in certain types of positions.

You really have not demonstrated this at all.

Originally posted by LordBucket
Why? We started this thread simply with the notion of freemasons in 'positions of power,' but after having spent some time with it now, it seems like the most peculiar concentration is in politics. Yes, there are some notables in the british royalty and quite a few religious leaders who appear to be masons...but the percentages in politics are the most overwhelming.

So...why are so many politicians freemasons? I presume there is a reason. It may be benign, it may be sinister...but either way, what's the reason?

The reason is selection bias and incorrect methodology behind your assumptions. You have used Google to find masons you perceive as having power, but we know Google can't find everyone. The nature of the internet is such that what you find on Google is going to be influenced by what other people have looked for in the past because it ranks based on previous hits.

As politicians are probably in the most visible of all professions except for Hollywood stars, it is unsurprising that these are the types of masons most searched for, and thus, what you found.

Of course, your sample size here is what, 8 people? Hardly enough to say that "most" are politicians. However, you found what you did through a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Its not that more Freemasons are politicians, we really don't know since your sample size is not statistically significant nor large enough to generalize to any population.

I believe the statistics methodology professor I had in graduate school passed away recently. Hes got to be rolling over in his grave from all this absolute abuse of statistics!

[edit on 22-10-2008 by LowLevelMason]

So...why are so many politicians freemasons? I presume there is a reason. It may be benign, it may be sinister...but either way, what's the reason?
Anyone?

I've been thinking about it, and I think I've actually come up with a very good explanation. Take another look at some of the names listed by Burbank Masonic Lodge No. 406.

They claim that 18 out of 56 signers of the US Declaration of Independance were definitely masons, and they list 13 others as 'possibly' being masons, but without any way to check for sure.

So...of the original group founding this country, that's at least a third, and possibly more. They also list George Washington as a freemason. So not only the signers, but also the commanding general of their army and the man they decided to make the first president.

So...think about it: you've just succesfully broken away from england, you've formed your own country, after a month or two it's time to settle in to business as usual. You're a mason, and a lot of the people who helped you get to where you are are also masons. So...when it comes time to appoint officers, and nominate candidates to positions, who are you going to choose? Masons. Of course.

Especially since freemasonry seems to have a tradition of 'helping brothers' find work, and so forth. It seems only natural that a bunch of freemasons in government to begin with would tend to put other freemasons into positions when they could. and I'm sure that especially in those early years, with that group being perceived as the heroes of the country, even in cases of popular vote rather than appointment, it probably didn't take much in the way of encouragment and endorsement to get people to vote for your friends.

So from the very begining of this country, politics has probably always been dominated by masons. Some of you in this thread have pointed out that the numbers and ratios of freemasons now are not as high as they used to be. Overall, a third of all US presidents have been freemasons, but the most recent one was Gerald Ford thirty years ago. Similarly, overall about a third of all US Supreme Court Justices have been freemasons, and in the early 50's eight out of nine were, but the there haven't been any at all since 1992

Then when you throw in the overall shrinkage of the number of masons total...from over 4 million in 1.6 million in North Ameria in just the past few decades, really there's a pretty constant picture of a steady decline in all of US freemasonry.

----

Of course...there is one conclusion I draw from all this that may amuse you masons out there. If this is true...then this whole idea of freemasonry as a grand conspiracy is largely true. Think about it. A third of the founders and their general were all freemasons. It's very plausible that the American revolution would never have occurred if a few dozen freemasons hadn't conspired together in a room someplace, and secretly plotted to secede from the British Empire. Yeah...that's a conspiracy. And if for nearly two hundred years the legacy of that initial group carried on the trend of freemasons making such a large protion of the government, all without letting anyone who wasn't a freemason know what was going on...yeah, again...that would be a conspiracy.

Maybe not a conspiracy formally recognized or chartered by the "organization" or "principals" of freemasonry, but a very real conspiarcy of freemasons nonetheless, and one that's had a massive effect on the course of world history for over two hundred years.

Amusing, no?

reply to post by LordBucket


Oi vey. The conclusion is based off an invalid premise, because there has as of yet been no demonstration that ANY significant numbers of masons make up the number of total politicians!

Step 1) Prove that there is a statistically significant number of Freemasons in power or who have been in power.
Step 2) Come up with why.

You've completely ignored step 1.


[edit on 23-10-2008 by LowLevelMason]

Originally posted by LordBucket

Take another look at some of the names listed by Burbank Masonic Lodge No. 406

Lots and lots and lots of dead folks, my Lord. Were they significant to progress and history? Absolutely, and thank goodness they lived and contributed to humankind.

But the vast majority of those listed are now lost to time (i.e. Voltaire) or political term limits. (i.e. Al Gore)

If Burbank Lodge would employ the custom of the little "D" (deceased) next to names of those who've left for the grand pancake breakfast at Fluffy Cloud Lodge #1, this list would paint a better picture of the HERITAGE that modern-day Masons inherit from these (mostly) leaders of yesteryear.

Perhaps therein lies the rub. No faithful Freemason and keeper of a public website would want to intentionally do anything to purposely diminish the power of these historic, heritage statistics to convey the great scope of Masonic membership and contribution.

Implying that "a lot of the really important Masons are dead" (which sort of quietly implies: "our best years are behind us") is not a good present-day membership strategy for young seekers.

Now, before anyone jumps on that -- I'M NOT SAYING THAT'S THE CASE. I'm just saying it wouldn't be good to position Masonry that way. Please let me have the nuance.

Cheers, and thanks for the interesting conversation.

reply to post by Sandalfon


I was talking to my brother-in-law the other day and he asked me if all that stuff in National Treasure was true? Holding back my laughter, I said I am not at liberty to discuss such matters. I only did it because I think he would make a great mason and if that is what it takes for him to get interested in it, so be it. If we did exciting stuff like that, I might quit my day job and find out how to do that full time. But apparently, our founding fathers (some of them) did just that, albeit outside of a regular lodge meeting from what I understand.

Aparently every NC governer up till 2009 has been a mason. I had no idea about that and I am still trying to verify that claim, but it was said by our newly elected WM at our installation last night. Maybe not any true world power, but at a state level, how many other states have that claim?

Originally posted by network dude
Aparently every NC governer up till 2009 has been a mason. I had no idea about that and I am still trying to verify that claim, but it was said by our newly elected WM at our installation last night. Maybe not any true world power, but at a state level, how many other states have that claim?

He most likely got it from:
www.treasuresofnorthcarolinamasonry.org...

I read that site a few days ago - its from the North Carolina Grand Lodge - and there were a few gaps in the lists of governors I think. Its a long list and I didn't look too carefully. However, in any case a vast majority of NC governors have been.

However, in 2009 the Governor of North Carolina is a female. So for all the masonic power anti-masons will claim is supposedly involved...it obviously isn't working anymore.