By Ross Bonander
Entertainment Correspondent - Every Thursday
Freemasonry is the perfect example of how presumed secrecy “injures†those not privy to the secret: Exclusion is an insult, and those not in the know must learn the secret -- or else they get creative with the truth. Thus since their conventional establishment in 1717, Freemasons have been a whipping boy for paranoids.
In reality, however, Freemasonry is a fraternal organization dedicated to charitable work. Also, Freemasons most likely descended from guilds established by Scottish and English stonemasons. Highly skilled and valued, these stonemasons had plenty of work throughout history: the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, and some Renaissance and Gothic architecture. Guilds wisely kept a lid on their lucrative trade skills, which were passed down through generations.
In time, the stone work dried up, but the guilds and their compass-and-square symbolism, standard apron, and other rituals and imagery, stayed afloat as a fraternal order open to non-masons. Today, with as many as five million people worldwide belonging to a Masonic Lodge, it’s time we looked at five things you didn’t know about Freemasons. There’s a pretty good chance these will be the first five things you’ve ever learned about Freemasons as well.
1- They are not a secret society
While not being a secret society is one of the five things you didn’t know about Freemasons, they evade this status only because the term itself is so poorly defined.
On its website, the United Grand Lodge of England, the oldest and most respected Lodge in the world and the cradle of modern Freemasonry, denies being a secret society. It’s hard to blame them, however, when the many definitions of the term include groups like La Cosa Nostra.
The Freemasons aren’t really even secretive. In fact, the only thing that is truly secret about a Freemason is his “traditional methods of proving he is a Freemason when visiting a lodge where he is not known,†which is probably some variation on a fancy, complicated handshake.
Other than that, everything is pretty much out in the open for folks to learn about. Their meetings and what goes on aren’t secret, but they are closed to non-members.
2- They have been blamed for assassinating JFK
Of course this is no great distinction -- who hasn’t been blamed for that? This accusation, however, goes a ways in pointing out how often this fraternal order has been targeted as a basic bunch of conspiratorial good ol’ boys, all the way to being suspected of controlling a “One World Government†that is in global power at this moment.
Conspiracy, however, does tie into some things you didn’t know about Freemasons. Some groups, including the Nazi regime, have used Freemasonry as a scapegoat to express their anti-Semitic views. Much of that stems from a literary hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a nonsense, fraudulent anti-Semitic text that argues that Jews + Masons = world domination. Compelling stuff, primed to fool a towering intellect like Hitler.
No less an authority on ignorance, the Catholic Church dubbed Freemasonry “the kingdom of Satan†(Pope Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus). This denouncement is part of a long papal tradition denouncing the group, one that continues today: the bull Quaesitum est issued in 1983, and written by Cardinal Ratzinger (current Pope Benedict XVI), expressly denies Holy Communion to Catholics who join Masonic lodges. This is because they have been misinterpreted as anti-clerical, stemming in part from an early belief in the separation of church and state.
3- Some orders admit women
Although the major Masonic orders do not admit women (in general, they don’t permit interaction with women in a ritual context) there are Orders associated with them that admit women and that have their own variation on the secret handshake and other rituals, such as Order of the Eastern Star and Order of the Amaranth. Additionally, there is also a form of Freemasonry known as Co-Freemasonry. Not surprisingly, Co-Freemasonry does not enjoy any formal recognition from the major Masonic orders.
4- They have one qualification for membership
Beyond being an adult man, there is just one essential qualification necessary to become a Mason, and one’s lineage, wealth or association with the ghostly inventions of conspiracy theorists have nothing to do with it.
According to the United Grand Lodge of England, Freemasons require members to believe in a Supreme Being. It doesn’t matter which one because Freemasons consider themselves a secular group of religious individuals.
In a paper titled Masonry's Love/Hate Relationship with Esoteric Traditions, Jay Kinney (the Librarian and Director of Research for the San Francisco Scottish Rite Bodies) writes that Freemasons believe that people from different religions can “share a brotherhood, despite their theological differences -- as long as they believed in God, Who was neutrally called the Great Architect of the Universe.â€
5- They have no single governing body
Perhaps the single most insidious accusation against Freemasonry is that it is a cult. By definition, a cult is easy to join, difficult to leave and it revolves around the blind worship of a single, dominating figure. Freemasons do not recruit; if you want in, you have to go to them. It is not easy to join, but it is easy to leave. There is no governing body of Freemasons, no holy vicar, Jim Jones or Grand PooBah. The organization is not an organization at all -- not on a global, unifying level.
Also, Freemasons do not send representatives to foreign countries hoping to save your soul, nor do they meter your body for “areas of concern.†They have no official publication or doctrinal book, no special oversight authority. From one to the next -- Swedish Rite, Scottish Rite, sponsored youth service organizations like Job’s Daughters International, DeMolay International FDC (of which Mickey Mouse is an honorary member), and on -- they have differing signs, symbols and rituals while following a shared set of very basic principles.
Why is it searched?
Freemasons might be the only subject of these AskMen.com features that aren’t searched enough, if only so that people would stop and learn something about them first. Then they can join the anti-Masonic nut-job legion and point their crooked finger at Freemasonry for its role in the Gunpowder Plot, Pearl Harbor, Watergate, 9-11, or whatever else you’ve got.
Length of the public's interest?
The world will always have miserable people in it. Miserable people need to blame others for their misery, and who better than a loose confederacy of do-gooders gathered around precepts like wisdom, strength and beauty? Francis Bacon said that it is the “solecism to power, to think to command the ends and yet not to endure the means.†So, if you want to know and you just have to know, join a lodge.
For some members of the public that’s asking way too much of them, they just want to be told.
So, thanks to that unearned sense of entitlement, we suspect the public’s interest in Freemasons will continue unabated until that fraternal conspiracy ends its bid for global domination. Since they will first have to start it, we may be here a while.
http://www.askmen.com/toys/special_feature_200/200_special_feature.html
Entertainment Correspondent - Every Thursday
Freemasonry is the perfect example of how presumed secrecy “injures†those not privy to the secret: Exclusion is an insult, and those not in the know must learn the secret -- or else they get creative with the truth. Thus since their conventional establishment in 1717, Freemasons have been a whipping boy for paranoids.
In reality, however, Freemasonry is a fraternal organization dedicated to charitable work. Also, Freemasons most likely descended from guilds established by Scottish and English stonemasons. Highly skilled and valued, these stonemasons had plenty of work throughout history: the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, and some Renaissance and Gothic architecture. Guilds wisely kept a lid on their lucrative trade skills, which were passed down through generations.
In time, the stone work dried up, but the guilds and their compass-and-square symbolism, standard apron, and other rituals and imagery, stayed afloat as a fraternal order open to non-masons. Today, with as many as five million people worldwide belonging to a Masonic Lodge, it’s time we looked at five things you didn’t know about Freemasons. There’s a pretty good chance these will be the first five things you’ve ever learned about Freemasons as well.
1- They are not a secret society
While not being a secret society is one of the five things you didn’t know about Freemasons, they evade this status only because the term itself is so poorly defined.
On its website, the United Grand Lodge of England, the oldest and most respected Lodge in the world and the cradle of modern Freemasonry, denies being a secret society. It’s hard to blame them, however, when the many definitions of the term include groups like La Cosa Nostra.
The Freemasons aren’t really even secretive. In fact, the only thing that is truly secret about a Freemason is his “traditional methods of proving he is a Freemason when visiting a lodge where he is not known,†which is probably some variation on a fancy, complicated handshake.
Other than that, everything is pretty much out in the open for folks to learn about. Their meetings and what goes on aren’t secret, but they are closed to non-members.
2- They have been blamed for assassinating JFK
Of course this is no great distinction -- who hasn’t been blamed for that? This accusation, however, goes a ways in pointing out how often this fraternal order has been targeted as a basic bunch of conspiratorial good ol’ boys, all the way to being suspected of controlling a “One World Government†that is in global power at this moment.
Conspiracy, however, does tie into some things you didn’t know about Freemasons. Some groups, including the Nazi regime, have used Freemasonry as a scapegoat to express their anti-Semitic views. Much of that stems from a literary hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a nonsense, fraudulent anti-Semitic text that argues that Jews + Masons = world domination. Compelling stuff, primed to fool a towering intellect like Hitler.
No less an authority on ignorance, the Catholic Church dubbed Freemasonry “the kingdom of Satan†(Pope Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus). This denouncement is part of a long papal tradition denouncing the group, one that continues today: the bull Quaesitum est issued in 1983, and written by Cardinal Ratzinger (current Pope Benedict XVI), expressly denies Holy Communion to Catholics who join Masonic lodges. This is because they have been misinterpreted as anti-clerical, stemming in part from an early belief in the separation of church and state.
3- Some orders admit women
Although the major Masonic orders do not admit women (in general, they don’t permit interaction with women in a ritual context) there are Orders associated with them that admit women and that have their own variation on the secret handshake and other rituals, such as Order of the Eastern Star and Order of the Amaranth. Additionally, there is also a form of Freemasonry known as Co-Freemasonry. Not surprisingly, Co-Freemasonry does not enjoy any formal recognition from the major Masonic orders.
4- They have one qualification for membership
Beyond being an adult man, there is just one essential qualification necessary to become a Mason, and one’s lineage, wealth or association with the ghostly inventions of conspiracy theorists have nothing to do with it.
According to the United Grand Lodge of England, Freemasons require members to believe in a Supreme Being. It doesn’t matter which one because Freemasons consider themselves a secular group of religious individuals.
In a paper titled Masonry's Love/Hate Relationship with Esoteric Traditions, Jay Kinney (the Librarian and Director of Research for the San Francisco Scottish Rite Bodies) writes that Freemasons believe that people from different religions can “share a brotherhood, despite their theological differences -- as long as they believed in God, Who was neutrally called the Great Architect of the Universe.â€
5- They have no single governing body
Perhaps the single most insidious accusation against Freemasonry is that it is a cult. By definition, a cult is easy to join, difficult to leave and it revolves around the blind worship of a single, dominating figure. Freemasons do not recruit; if you want in, you have to go to them. It is not easy to join, but it is easy to leave. There is no governing body of Freemasons, no holy vicar, Jim Jones or Grand PooBah. The organization is not an organization at all -- not on a global, unifying level.
Also, Freemasons do not send representatives to foreign countries hoping to save your soul, nor do they meter your body for “areas of concern.†They have no official publication or doctrinal book, no special oversight authority. From one to the next -- Swedish Rite, Scottish Rite, sponsored youth service organizations like Job’s Daughters International, DeMolay International FDC (of which Mickey Mouse is an honorary member), and on -- they have differing signs, symbols and rituals while following a shared set of very basic principles.
Why is it searched?
Freemasons might be the only subject of these AskMen.com features that aren’t searched enough, if only so that people would stop and learn something about them first. Then they can join the anti-Masonic nut-job legion and point their crooked finger at Freemasonry for its role in the Gunpowder Plot, Pearl Harbor, Watergate, 9-11, or whatever else you’ve got.
Length of the public's interest?
The world will always have miserable people in it. Miserable people need to blame others for their misery, and who better than a loose confederacy of do-gooders gathered around precepts like wisdom, strength and beauty? Francis Bacon said that it is the “solecism to power, to think to command the ends and yet not to endure the means.†So, if you want to know and you just have to know, join a lodge.
For some members of the public that’s asking way too much of them, they just want to be told.
So, thanks to that unearned sense of entitlement, we suspect the public’s interest in Freemasons will continue unabated until that fraternal conspiracy ends its bid for global domination. Since they will first have to start it, we may be here a while.
http://www.askmen.com/toys/special_feature_200/200_special_feature.html