Why do people insist on calling some symbols Masonic when they are not?

Originally posted by raknjak


That's the big problem for me, some masons think Pike is an authority and others don't, just like Manley P. Hall, which is confusing for the questioning mind.

Pike was an "authority" for the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction of the USA in the sense that he was the presiding officer of the Scottish Rite Supreme Council in this jurisdiction. In other words, yes he was an authoritative from an administrative perspective.

But if by "authority" you mean someone who has to be believed in everything he said, then the answer is no. Pike spent many years studying Freemasonry, so I personally think he deserves to be heard as one who had attained a lot of knowledge concerning it. But that doesn't mean he was infallible.

Thanks for all the info Masonic Light.

Originally posted by Trinityman

Originally posted by raknjak
The obelisk in Central Park is masonic because it's put there by masons and has great symbolic value for them, the same goes for Cleopatra's needles or the Louvre Pyramid.

You might have missed my previous post. Obelisks are not masonic symbols as they are not ascribed any specific symbolism within freemasonry. They are not used or referred to within the ritual and to the best of my knowledge are not referred to in any of the side orders either.

I am extremely dubious of your claim AS FACT that Cleopatras Needles have great symbolic value within masonry. Could you elaborate, and perhaps let me know where this little gem came from?

I got it from that Hugenot site I posted earlier (www.huguenotlodge46fam.com...), I thought it was one good source since it contains first hand historic material. There are others confirming this and I always try not to use conspiracy sites or subjective content as reference. All I can say is it has symbolic value for some masons so as a symbolist (hobby) I can categorize it as such regardless of what masons think.

I've had some very clear and honest responses from all of you, thank you for that. I'm just a guy who likes a fair debate and tries to keep his feet on the ground and his mind open. It looks like I have finally found a place where this is possible. I know most masons are good persons. I don't have the right to judge people, I'm just not very crazy about the occult and it triggers my interest so I research it.

And the internet can be a great place for research but people might want to visit university and library websites in stead of the subjective blogs and conspiracy websites. And yeah sometimes I have to pay for it but you have access to almost unlimited historically accurate information.

Originally posted by raknjak
I got it from that Hugenot site I posted earlier (www.huguenotlodge46fam.com...), I thought it was one good source since it contains first hand historic material. There are others confirming this and I always try not to use conspiracy sites or subjective content as reference. All I can say is it has symbolic value for some masons so as a symbolist (hobby) I can categorize it as such regardless of what masons think.

Interesting page. Clearly the NY freemasons got very excited about some of the things they found with respect to the Needle. Please bear in mind that this happened over 125 years ago when "freemasonology" was in its infancy and many masons still believed as fact the "Traditional History" of freemasonry as devised by James Anderson in his 1738 Book of Constitutions.

Clearly advanced operative masonry tools and skills were in use in Ancient Egypt - the very same skills and tools which speculative freemasons chose to moralize upon in the 17th and 18th centuries as the modern masonic movement emerged. That modern speculatives would wish to honor the operative ancients is not too much of a surprise, but the whole ought to be taken in context.

Nowhere in the article quoted is it noted or even implied IMO that freemasons use the obelisk as a specific symbol. They just seemed to be swept up in the excitement of the time in the discovery of the genius of Ancient Egypt. However the article, being written by a freemason for a masonic audience, repeatedly refers to Henry Gorringe as a freemason and unfortunately this could imply to the non-masonic reader that he brought the Needle to NY in his capacity as a freemason, when in fact he was employed by Vanderbilt to do this, presumably though connections with the Navy, and nothing whatsoever to do with freemasonry at all.

As usual, it's all about context.

reply to post by Masonic Light


MasonicLight, thank you for bringing that information to our attention. Any clarification regarding the symbols is greatly appreciated. I would be interested in viewing or reading your ritual to see what context the Eye makes its apperance as it is absent in the ritual of my jurisidction. Feel free to private message me if you do not wish to make a public post.

Originally posted by raknjak
I got it from that Hugenot site I posted earlier...

This exact obelisk was discussed in the 'Masonic obleisk thread' and there was no verifiable proof to tie it to Masonry. Iron tools were allegedly discovered underneath the obelisk when it was being readied for transport to New York. However, the obelisk was constructed in the bronze age, many centuries before tolls of iron were employed. I tend to agree with Trintyman, and feel that any 'Masonic connection', apart from the impressive conrner stone laying ceremony, is from an overzealous application of Masonology.

Originally posted by Trinityman
Nowhere in the article quoted is it noted or even implied IMO that freemasons use the obelisk as a specific symbol. They just seemed to be swept up in the excitement of the time in the discovery of the genius of Ancient Egypt. However the article, being written by a freemason for a masonic audience, repeatedly refers to Henry Gorringe as a freemason and unfortunately this could imply to the non-masonic reader that he brought the Needle to NY in his capacity as a freemason, when in fact he was employed by Vanderbilt to do this, presumably though connections with the Navy, and nothing whatsoever to do with freemasonry at all.

It is interesting to note (in the context that you outline) that the transportation of London's Egyptian obelisk is almost completely thanks to a Freemason, Sir William James Erasmus Wilson.

In 1878 he earned the thanks of the nation on different grounds, by defraying the expense of bringing the Egyptian obelisk inaccurately called Cleopatra's Needle from Alexandria to London, where it was erected on the Thames Embankment. The British Government had not thought it worth the expense of transportation. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1881, and died at Westgate-on-Sea in 1884

en.wikipedia.org...

The London needle is in the City of Westminster, on the Victoria Embankment near the Golden Jubilee Bridges. It was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by Mehemet Ali, the Albanian-born viceroy of Egypt, in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801. Although the British government welcomed the gesture, it declined to fund the expense of transporting it to London.

en.wikipedia.org...'s_Needle

Skilful investments in the shares of gas and railway companies made him a rich man, and he devoted his wealth to various charitable objects, for he was a prominent Freemason. He restored Swanscombe Church; he founded a scholarship at the Royal College of Music; and was a large subscriber to the Royal Medical Benevolent College at Epsom, where he built a house for the head master at his own expense. At a cost of nearly £30,000 he built a new wing and chapel at the Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, where diseases of the skin were extensively treated, and in 1881 he founded the Erasmus Wilson Professorship of Pathology at the University of Aberdeen in memory of his father. The bulk of his fortune reverted to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1884 on the death of Lady Wilson.

Wilson was particularly fond of foreign travel. He visited the East to study leprosy, Switzerland and the Vallais to examine goitre, and Italy to become more closely acquainted with tinea pellagra and other diseases of the skin in the underfed and dirty vegetarian peasantry. He became particularly interested in the study of Egyptian antiquities, and in 1877 he paid the cost (about £10,000) of the transport of ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’ to London.

livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk...

Whether he took this action because he was a Freemason and held a fascination with ancient Egypt such as you describe, or he was acting out of patriotism is perhaps debatable, however, I think most likely it was his personal interest in antiquity. Either way, a great man, a credit to your organisation and our country, if not to humanity as a whole.



[edit on 15-4-2008 by KilgoreTrout]

Originally posted by AugustusMasonicus

MasonicLight, thank you for bringing that information to our attention. Any clarification regarding the symbols is greatly appreciated. I would be interested in viewing or reading your ritual to see what context the Eye makes its apperance as it is absent in the ritual of my jurisidction. Feel free to private message me if you do not wish to make a public post.

The All Seeing Eye is a Third Degree symbol, where it represents the Omnipresence of God. According to the monitor:

"The Sword Pointing to a Naked Heart demonstrates that justice will sooner or later overtake us; and although our thoughts, words and actions may be hidden from the eyes of man, yet that All-Seeing Eye, whom the sun, moon and stars obey, and under whose watchful care even comets perform their stupendous revolutions, pervades the inmost recesses of the human heart, and will reward us according to our merits."

In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite this symbolism is retained, but it is also said to be a symbol of the Sun. However, the Sun itself is a symbol of Divinity, as it is the physical life-giver.

reply to post by Masonic Light


MasonicLight, I was aware of the All Seeing Eye's symbolism within Masonry, my curiosity was directed towards the Five-pointed Star and the usage you alluded to. Can you expound further upon that symbols employement?

Originally posted by AugustusMasonicus
I was aware of the All Seeing Eye's symbolism within Masonry

Do you not see that you're answering your own question -

Why do people insist on calling some symbols Masonic when they are not?

Answer - because the symbols ARE used within Masonry, that's why people insist on calling them Masonic, when the only context they appear is to Masonry.



[edit on 30-8-2008 by II HAL II]