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Freemasonry is German?

Winter

Premium Member
1. Ordo ab chao
2. Porch and middle chamber.
3. Morals & Dogma.
4. Anderson Constitution
5. Encyclopedia of A.G. Mackey
& Many other OFFICIAL WEBSITES, sir.
That proves nothing other than that you lack an understanding of the works as well as Masonic organizations and their relationship to each other.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

Brother JC

Moderating Staff
Staff Member
1. Ordo ab chao
2. Porch and middle chamber.
3. Morals & Dogma.
4. Anderson Constitution
5. Encyclopedia of A.G. Mackey
& Many other OFFICIAL WEBSITES, sir.

Nothing you’ve listed is “official.” All of it is subject to scrutiny and marred by perception.
You, sir, are misinformed by your own inability to dig deeper than the surface.
And I’m a member of a group that is based on ancient Persia, but I guarantee it didn’t exist in that time or place. It is just a backdrop. Just like Masonry and it’s use of the LEGEND of Solomon’s Temple.
 
Nothing you’ve listed is “official.” All of it is subject to scrutiny and marred by perception.
You, sir, are misinformed by your own inability to dig deeper than the surface.
And I’m a member of a group that is based on ancient Persia, but I guarantee it didn’t exist in that time or place. It is just a backdrop. Just like Masonry and it’s use of the LEGEND of Solomon’s Temple.

Guys, no hurting you, but you really -- "not clever enough" to give answer to simple questions.(masons should be intellectuals, instead you're just insulting like "idiot", "loony", etc.).
Dude, I didn't say "books are official".
I said: Germans helped Jews developing Masonry.
 
You said several times you were quoting “official” sources. I corrected you.
You are attempting to paint the world with a narrow brush but it doesn’t work. And you really must do better research.

Dude.
Albert Pike wrote in his book that German King Frederick The Great was "the greatest mason". Pike is liar?
 

Roy_

Registered User
The article that is referred to is a chapter from Klövekorn's book 99 Degrees Of Freemasonry. This is a book about "modern" Freemasonry (not Memphis-Misraim as the title suggests though). It is an alright book that does not really go in depth. The man has 'an agenda' too. Besides Freemason, he is a 'heathen priest', so this chapter about the German(ic) origins of Freemasonry suit him well.

I'm currently reading R.F. Gould, a Dutch translation of his Concise History in which he gives much much more information about early German Masonry, guilds, Bauhütten, etc. I suppose that Gould will eventually come to the more reasonable conclusion that several rivers mounted in the pool that would become Freemasonry instead of following one such river and claiming to have found the source (whether German, Jewish or otherwise).

Personally I'm mostly interested in Klövekorn's thesis, but his book hardly supports my 'cause'. I am glad that a relatively famous author breaks a lance promoting the theory. Soon there will (hopefully) be another one. A Norwegian former Mason wrote a book about the Viking origins of Freemasonry (he was kicked out of his lodge for his book for it being too revealing). The book is written in Norwegian, but work is done on an English version. The book is much more in depth than Klövekorn's with his German theories and it goes back further into the past.
 

Luigi Visentin

Registered User
Let me quote a little part of my book (sorry for the translation because I've not yet reviewed it):

An eighteenth-century anti-Masonic text accuses Oliver Cromwell of having created Freemasonry, characterizing it in a Jewish and anti-Catholic sense. In fact, Cromwell was the protagonist of an attempt to bring the Jews back to England from which they had been expelled a few centuries earlier. King Edward I of England (1239-1307), in fact, like other Christian kings of the time, persecuted the Jews forcing them, among other things, to wear a symbol of recognition on their clothes, although it was not the six-pointed star as in Nazi Germany but the two Tables of the Law of Moses. Then, in 1290, they were expelled and remained only the Marranos, that is the Jews who had converted (really or only officially) to Christianity, living in perpetual danger due to various episodes of anti-Semitism.


Cromwell's attempt was unsuccessful and it was only with Charles II Stuart, who lifted the ban in 1655, that the Jews returned to the British islands. This fact, however, reveals that the Jews were not present in Renaissance England and it is therefore unlikely that they could have had any influence on the evolution of Freemasonry before the second half of the seventeenth century. It is therefore unlikely any Jewish influence on Freemasonry at least prior to the birth of modern Freemasonry.


End of quote

I have reported this part to clarify that in middle age freemasonry is very unlikely a "jewish influence". This presumed "jews influence" is due to a mistake that was made along eighteenth and nineteenth century. The reason is tied with the Kabbalah. The original "masonic" Kabbalah (early seventeeth century) was the "Christian Kabbalah" a system, born during Renaissance, to find a way to fuse together the three "a" religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). However along 1700 Christian Kabbalah lost popularity while the Hermetic Kabbalah became the basis of western esoterism. However the ancient Masonry was not kabbalistic but was transformed in such a way between the end of seventeenth and the beginning of eighteeenth.

Coming back to the origin, however, in 1726 (three years after the Constitutions) a Mason, Bro. Francis Drake, made one of the first speech that have been conserved and its closing was:

Since we are so happily met to celebrate this Annual Solemnity: let neither Dane nor Norman, Goth nor Vandal, start up, to disturb the Harmony of it: That the World may hear and admire, that even at this critical Time all Parties are buried in Masonry. But let us so behave our selves here and elsewhere, that the distinguishing Characteristicks of the whole Brotherhood may be to be called Good Christians, Loyal Subjects, True Brittons, as well as Free-Masons

"True Brittons" is the anwers. How the "true Brittons" are tied with Romans is explained by the Legend of the Craft.

PS 1: the book is "“I LIBERI MURATORI SCHIACCIATI. Origine, dottrina ed avanzamento della setta filosofica ora dominante. Opera composta da Uom pratichissimo delle Loggie, ora tradotta dall᾿edizione di Amsterdam dal sig.abbate Pietro Mogas sacerdote spagnuolo, confermata con Note relative alle presenti rivoluzioni e novita di Europa dal sig.abbate Pietro Saverio Casseda pompejopolitano.” Assisi, per Ottavio Sgariglia, 1793" an italian version of "Les Francs-Maçons écrasés: Suite du livre intitulé: L'ordre des Francs-Maçons trahi" de l'Abbé Larudan

PS 2: The G.A.O.T.U. was initially a christian kabbalistic concept (The Harmony of the World, Francesco Zorzi or Giorgi 1466-1540, an Italian friar well known in England because he was the consultant of Henry VIII for a divorce). However also John Calvin (1509 - 1564) used this definitiond. I suspect that this was one of the reason of the friction with the Catholic Church: its sound a "protestant concept"!
 

Elexir

Registered User
PS 2: The G.A.O.T.U. was initially a christian kabbalistic concept (The Harmony of the World, Francesco Zorzi or Giorgi 1466-1540, an Italian friar well known in England because he was the consultant of Henry VIII for a divorce). However also John Calvin (1509 - 1564) used this definitiond. I suspect that this was one of the reason of the friction with the Catholic Church: its sound a "protestant concept"!

If I dont remember wrong Thomas Aquinas drew paralells to God as an architecht in the 1200.
 

Elexir

Registered User
>It is therefore unlikely any Jewish influence on Freemasonry at least prior to the birth of modern Freemasonry.

Unless there was a Jewish component in the Templars.

Some have accused the templars of being moslims but never jewish.

However the RCC has already cleared the templars of the charges over ten years ago.
 

Winter

Premium Member
>Templar connection? Fiction alert!
Templars in Scotland. Earliest (named) Freemasonry in Scotland.

Scotland also had sheep at that time. Are you suggesting they're connected to Freemasonry? As much as I enjoy books by by authors like Knight and Lomas, the evidence at this time does not support they claim that there is any connection between the Templars and Freemasonry.
 

Luigi Visentin

Registered User
If I dont remember wrong Thomas Aquinas drew paralells to God as an architecht in the 1200.
Right, but it was a way to indicate the perfection. Giorgi used many time the expression "Great Architect" and his works illustrates and gives specific instructions about the "sacred architecture" with rules about dimensions and proportions that were really used for the building of churches all around Europe. His work was very influential and I recommend a read. From Llull to Pico della Mirandola to Cornelius Agrippa, to Philo of Alexandria the Christian Cabala was a system taken to overlap the previous Masonry "kwnoledge" with another one, similar but at the same time different. The overlapping was so good that basically it is possible to make the inverse operation. In other words we have conserved the ancient kwowledge in most of the part of our rituals and education, simply we have to use a different decoding.
 

Luigi Visentin

Registered User
Even a cursory investigation into the founding of Freemasonry will prove that our origin myths are just that. Allegorical stories to help us form a common framework of morality.
Unfortunately a "cursory investigation" its not enough. I have studied a lot the Legend of the Craft and my conclusions are that it tells a story and with no a moral intent or teaching. It is not possible to state exactly if this story has really happened or it is a novel fabricated on an historical background, but it is plausible or, at least, its author has done a so good job that it could really have happened.

Aboust the moral content, surely in ancient Masonry existed a specific moral system which has been translated in the modern Freemasonry in what you rightly define a "a common framework of morality". This system is illustrated by the "charges" and by some other documents that, currently, would not be classified as "masonic". The modern version is a sort of "translation" of this system but since much water has passed under the bridges we have forgotten the original meanings.
 

Glen Cook

G A Cook
Site Benefactor
Unfortunately a "cursory investigation" its not enough. I have studied a lot the Legend of the Craft and my conclusions are that it tells a story and with no a moral intent or teaching. It is not possible to state exactly if this story has really happened or it is a novel fabricated on an historical background, but it is plausible or, at least, its author has done a so good job that it could really have happened.

Aboust the moral content, surely in ancient Masonry existed a specific moral system which has been translated in the modern Freemasonry in what you rightly define a "a common framework of morality". This system is illustrated by the "charges" and by some other documents that, currently, would not be classified as "masonic". The modern version is a sort of "translation" of this system but since much water has passed under the bridges we have forgotten the original meanings.
Hmm. The rituals with which I’m familiar actually spell out the moral lesson that is being taught.

That the story is fictional has no bearing on whether it teaches a moral lesson. I suspect there is no cultural belief system that does not use legends and myths to teach moral lessons. Even the story of Job falls in this category, does it not?

In my rituals, the system is not illustrated by charges.

I would commend to your study the morality plays of the ancient guilds.
 

Winter

Premium Member
Unfortunately a "cursory investigation" its not enough. I have studied a lot the Legend of the Craft and my conclusions are that it tells a story and with no a moral intent or teaching. It is not possible to state exactly if this story has really happened or it is a novel fabricated on an historical background, but it is plausible or, at least, its author has done a so good job that it could really have happened.

Aboust the moral content, surely in ancient Masonry existed a specific moral system which has been translated in the modern Freemasonry in what you rightly define a "a common framework of morality". This system is illustrated by the "charges" and by some other documents that, currently, would not be classified as "masonic". The modern version is a sort of "translation" of this system but since much water has passed under the bridges we have forgotten the original meanings.

Are you saying there is no morality lesson in the Hiramic legend?
 

Elexir

Registered User
Unfortunately a "cursory investigation" its not enough. I have studied a lot the Legend of the Craft and my conclusions are that it tells a story and with no a moral intent or teaching. It is not possible to state exactly if this story has really happened or it is a novel fabricated on an historical background, but it is plausible or, at least, its author has done a so good job that it could really have happened.

Aboust the moral content, surely in ancient Masonry existed a specific moral system which has been translated in the modern Freemasonry in what you rightly define a "a common framework of morality". This system is illustrated by the "charges" and by some other documents that, currently, would not be classified as "masonic". The modern version is a sort of "translation" of this system but since much water has passed under the bridges we have forgotten the original meanings.

In a temprance fraternity I used to be a member there was a strong knights templar influence in the rituals.
Did the templars drink alchol? Most likley yes. So why use templar symbolism in a temprance order? Maybe the value isnt in the historical facts but rather in the myth that is used.

An initatiary fraternity is not focused on historical facts but rather uses histories and myths to convay something more...
 

Luigi Visentin

Registered User
I have little time so I will answer one by one. It could take some days.

Are you saying there is no morality lesson in the Hiramic legend?

I have not talked about Hiramic legend but about the Legend of the Craft, that is Regius Poem and about one hundred of following manuscripts. But lets talk about the Hiramic legend as it is a 18th century product, that is of the beginning of modern Freemasonry. This is not only my opinion but the one of the most qualified scholars that have studied it. The first trace is in the "Masonry dissected" of 1730. In the Legend of the Craft Hiram architect apparently is not even cited. Hiram the artificer appears only in the manuscripts of Spencer family (together with the name of his father !!!!) which are pretty recent (the oldest is the Inigo Jones manuscript which date is very uncertain as it varies from 1697 to 1725). Therefore it is difficult to affirm that its morality lesson starts from ancient time. On the other side I have seen that Hiram's tragic death tale (what happend after the death has been created by our 18th century Brothers) is an adaptation of a well known European legend about a saint of the catholic church (or a knight, depending from the version as there are many, including one were the poor "Hiram" was both a monk and a knight) who is ... the catholic protector of Stonemasons!
Did ancient Brothers know this legend? Yes, as I have written "apparently is not even cited". Its story is, in reality, hidden in the part where the Legend of the Craft tells about saint Alban and exactly when it is detailled the increase in the salary that Alban obtained for the Masons. Why it is there it is long to explain as it take many pages.
 
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