Freemasonry and The Coming Storm

originally posted by: KSigMason
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Freemasonry isn't a religion nor is our rituals a version of "baptism."

• Religions advocate sectarian faith. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions have dogmas and theology. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions enforce an orthodoxy. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions seek coverts. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions have clergy or priesthoods. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions offer some kind of sacrament. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions have a plan for salvation and atonement. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions have ascetic practices. Freemasonry does not.
  
• Religions have sacred locations. Freemasonry does not.
  

Thanks for telling us what Masonry isn't.
Care to clue the clueless in on what Masonry is then?

a reply to: Asktheanimals
Gladly.

Freemasonry is, first and foremost, an initiatic order whose rituals attempt to transform men both spiritually and morally. The ritualistic initiation is what separates Freemasonry from the other fraternal and philanthropic organizations such as the Kiwanis or the Rotary. A commonly used motto of Freemasonry is “making good men better.” What is meant by this is that the Mason will apply the lessons, imparted in those rituals, to his daily life and thus will better himself and, through him, his community. Charity is an important principle of the fraternity stresses the need for charity for the less fortunate and those in need.

Freemasonry is a complex system of appendant/optional bodies such as the York Rite and Scottish Rite, but the main body and basic organizational unit of Freemasonry is the Blue Lodge. The Blue Lodge is composed of three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. The rituals of the Blue Lodge surround the building of King Solomon’s Temple, but this legend is considered figurative or allegorical, not literal. In the degree of Entered Apprentice Mason, the candidate is introduced into the values, principles, tenets, and legend of Freemasonry. The lessons of this degree are Truth, love, charity, moderation, courage, prudence, and justice. As a Fellow Craft Mason, you learn the importance of the study of the liberal arts and sciences. The lessons of this degree are the need for acquiring knowledge and education, charity, and obedience to the established rules of our Ancient Craft. In the Master Mason degree, the candidate is taught lessons of fidelity and the struggle against the enemies of Freemasonry: tyranny, ignorance, and fanaticism.

When one attains the Sublime Degree of Master Mason he has attained the highest degree in Freemasonry, but he should not be content with stagnation and should continue to seek further light in Freemasonry. This could be done by personal research and study, but another option is to join one of the appendant bodies of Freemasonry such as the York Rite or Scottish Rite. While the Scottish Rite uses a numbering system these degrees are appendant, not superior to the Master Mason degree.

The Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemason, or simply known as the Scottish Rite is perhaps the most known appendant body of Freemasonry, maybe second only to the Shriners. It confers a series of progressive degrees. This Rite is one of several appendant or concordant bodies in the Masonic fraternity. They confer from the 4° to the 33°. These degrees build upon the ethical and moral teachings and philosophies offered in Craft Masonry, or more commonly known as the Blue Lodge, through dramatic presentations. These degrees should not be seen as superior to the first three degrees of Craft Masonry, but just a continuation of one's search for more Light in Freemasonry. These degrees are conferred by several controlling bodies: The Lodge of Perfection confers the 4° through the 14°, the Chapter of Rose Croix confers the 15° through the 18°, the Council of Kadosh confers the 19° through the 30°, and the Consistory confers the 31° and 32°. For certain members who have given meritorious service to the community and to Freemasonry, the Rite may confer the 33°.

The York Rite is another branch of Freemasonry. The term York Rite is a misnomer though and should more accurately be called the American Rite as this rite is comprised of degrees and orders uniquely structured in America in comparison to that seen in such places like the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Scotland. The York Rite is composed three main organizations who each operate with their own hierarchy and enjoy their own autonomy. These three bodies have united in a confederate system to ensure mutual continuation and prosperity. These three bodies are known as the Royal Arch Masonry, Cryptic Masonry, and Knights Templar. There are 9-degrees and orders that are conferred by these three bodies. The Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry confers the degrees of Mark Master, Past Master, Most Excellent Master, and Royal Arch Mason. The Council of Cryptic Masonry confers the degrees of Royal Master and Select Master. The Commandery of Knights Templar confers the Illustrious Order of the Red Cross, Order of Malta, and Order of the Temple. The Royal Arch and Cryptic degrees enlarge upon the legends and ceremonies of the Blue Lodge and provide answers to many of the questions that a newly Raised Master Mason may have. The Chivalric Orders transition from the story of Craft Masonry to the legendary Christian knighthoods during the Crusades and the virtues they were founded upon.

originally posted by: eisegesisThe creator of the Egyptian Freemasonry of Egyptian Rite was the Count Alexander of Cagliostro (1749-1796), born in Tunisi. He must not be identified with the mystifier Giuseppe Balsamo (1743-1795), the palermitano recruited by the Jesuits to personify and to throw the disrepute on the true Count of Cagliostro.

Alexander of Cagliostro was initiated to the secrets of the Egyptian Freemasonry by the mysterious Master Altothas in 1776, year of the foundation of the Illuminati Order. And few know that the summit of the Illuminati Order was constituted by six members: four were known (Weishaupt, von Knigge, Goethe, Herder) and two were secrets (Franklin and Cagliostro).

In effects a secret connection existed between the Illuminati Order of Weishaupt and the Egyptian Freemasonry of Cagliostro that was officially founded in 1785, year of the suppression of the Illuminati Order. Besides, Napoleone Bonaparte was initiated by Cagliostro to the Egyptian Freemasonry and the Masonic Rites of Memphis, of Misraïm and of Memphis-Misraïm come down from it.

This is something of an irony. Ancient Egyptian culture aren't misogynistic originally. That order goes way way back.

To consider that Freemasonry is heavily prejudiced against women (originally), if they adopted Ancient Egyptian rites, they have corrupted it as well. Therefore, nullifying the connection. They made up something entirely of their own, an abomination, a bastardized version of the ancient Egyptian rites.

a reply to: Elementalist

Women in a lodge would fuel sexual energy in the brotherhood that can only hurt and slow one's work in the path to knowledge.


P.s the french rite does accept women

a reply to: Golantrevize

My mixed-gender Lodge gets along just fine without any sexual distractions at all.

Wouldn't these "sexual energies" be the responsibility of a Brother who has yet to overcome his own carnal desires? This shows a lack of moral, ethical, philosophic, and spiritual attainment of the Brother, not the blame of a woman for being a woman. This is like telling a woman that she must wear a hijab, burka, or niqab because a man refuses to transcend his own lustful impulses,... or like blaming a victim while defending the rapist.

I understand that some men can not, or refuse to, check their impulsive sexual desires. Even Shakyamuni Buddhi initially prohibited women from joining his sangha. But the fact that we are talking about uncontrolled sexual energy should let us know that it is a sign that the man must work on his inner qualities instead of blaming women for their role in mirroring and bringing to light a man's hidden desires. It is a chance for personal growth, not stagnation.

a reply to: KSigMason

You need to realize that the Palladium Rite doesn't exist. Palladium Masonry is the invention of a Frenchman named Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès, but better known by the pen name of Léo Taxil. In 1885 and 1886, Taxil published works which attributed Palladium Masonry to Albert Pike, although this is just one of the many fabrications he concocted and duped the world with.

I'm starting to wonder about you.

Taxil was born in 1854, but the Order of the Palladium, or Sovereign Council of Wisdom was constituted in Paris in 1737. "Taxil" wasn't entirely wrong and you are right to say that attributing Palladium Freemasonry to Pike is a fabrication. Pike only resurrected the Order and created the Palladium Rite, existing withing the Palladium. I love how quickly a Mason will default to that story in order to lead others from the truth.

There is a series of documents first published in 1877 by Theodore Merzdorff, which were said to come from the Masonic Grand Lodge of Hamburg. These Latin documents were the official Rule of the Knights Templar followed by three other documents said to be secret statutes of the Order.

They were said to be copies of the original documents that existed in the Vatican, which were copied in the 1780s-1790s by the Danish scientist Frederic Munter. The documents were translated into German, and from there into French in 1957 by Rene Gilles.

How about we discuss The Book of the Baptism by Fire or Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum or maybe the Secret Templar Rule or The Priesthood of Amon-Ra, because the history of Palladism is a lot older than you know.

Actually, I think you know.

originally posted by: Thanatos0042

originally posted by: xbeta
a reply to: Thanatos0042

yeah, i like forums too. if i didntt go to work i would like to chat here all the time and i would only use a keyboard..well..thats prety much like my work ..hmm. puff. how confusing this stuff is.

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. Computers are my work too so I obviously spend entirely too much time on them and here

lol though I mostly read, I don't post a ton.

and, sort of on topic, when it comes to organized religion or fraternities or anything, I am not really a joiner. I think that kind of thing allows for too much risk of losing ones individuality and becoming one of the groups mirrored masses. Now I'm not saying it does that to everyone...but some people, just want to follow and let others think and interpret for them. And that's okay, for them.

You said somethings really hard for me to understand. But i appreciate it much we chat :-)

a reply to: eisegesis
No he didn't. Palladium Masonry doesn't exist. Like I said, you are falling for the hoaxes made by Leo Taxil.

In the early 1890s Léo Taxil purported to reveal the existence of "Palladium," the most secret masonic order, which practiced devil-worship. He recounted the story of its high priestess Diana Vaughan; and ended by publishing the Memoires d'une ex-Palladiste after her conversion to Catholicism. When doubts began to spread, Taxil realized the time had come to end the deceit. In a widely reported conference in Paris on April 19, 1897, he confessed that it had all been a hoax.1

After Taxil’s public confession, Abel Clarin de la Rive (1855-1914) expressed his disgust and recanted his writings on Diana Vaughan in the April 1897 issue of Freemasonry Revealed, a magazine devoted to the destruction of the Craft. As much as he hated Freemasonry, Claren de la Rive had the integrity to admit Taxil’s hoax in the following editorial:

"With frightening cynicism the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most extraordinary and most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed."2

Possibly the inspiration for Taxil’s choice of name, but otherwise of little interest other than to masonic students, the Order of Palladium was a masonic society open to both men and women, founded in Paris in 1737. Termed a very moral society by Albert G. Mackey, it does not appear to have survived its founders.

Source

Also read: The Palladium Rite

a reply to: KSigMason

I don't understand.

Both of your links technically prove me right.

Possibly the inspiration for Taxil’s choice of name, but otherwise of little interest other than to masonic students, the Order of Palladium was a masonic society open to both men and women, founded in Paris in 1737. Termed a very moral society by Albert G. Mackey, it does not appear to have survived its founders.

The Palladian Rite, was a fabricated version of the Reformed Palladium Rite which existed in France for a short increment of time. According to Kenneth Mackenzie in his “Royal Masonic Cyclopedia” the Order of Palladium first appeared in Paris in 1737 being derived from Douai with rituals being written about 1637. This group contained heavily Greek oriented degrees, two for men under the titles of “Adelph” and “Companion of Ulysses” while female members were admitted to the degree of “Sister of Penelope”.

Let me ask you this, if both the Reformed Palladium Rite and the Reformed Palladium are real, doesn't it simply boil down to Order/Rite semantics and whether or not Pike had any part in either?

Do any of the other topics at the end of my last post interest you?

Such as the Templar Palladists?

Said to have been written in 1240 AD. by a French Templar Master named Roncelinus, it appears to give a green light to all the heretical offenses that the Knights were accused of in the 14th century. Permission to indulge in all manner of Templar heresy can be found in this document, including defilement of the Cross, denial of Christ as the Savior, sexual liaison, and the worship of the idolic head known as Baphomet.

There is even a passage within the document that gives the Knights permission to initiate other gnostics into their order, including Cathars, Bogomils, and even Assassins. If the Baptism of Fire of the Brothers-Consulate was indeed in circulation beginning in 1240 AD. it would have been an easy task for a Church or Royal spy to procure a copy for their employers.

a reply to: eisegesis
No both state that Taxil fabricated Pike's Palladium Rite from an earlier group that only lasted a few years.

originally posted by: Sahabi
I understand that some men can not, or refuse to, check their impulsive sexual desires.

You meant to say :

"I understand that some people can not, or refuse to, check their impulsive sexual desires."

Women are just as guilty as men. I've know a couple women who also could not check their impulses.

a reply to: noonebutme

Good day noonebutme!

I'll concede to this correction and clarification. It takes two to tango, and a woman can pursue and purposefully tempt a man, just as a man can a woman.

For reasons of personal preference, tradition, and culture, I see nothing wrong with Male-Craft Freemasonry's exclusion of women, so long as parallel Women-Craft and Mixed-Gender Freemasonry exists.

Forgive a non Mason but the article reference in the first post, is there a reason other than poor writing skills that Trump and Putin are named in lower case, it sort of makes what would seem to be an important article rather slap dash...

a reply to: Sahabi

No worries - nothing malicious was intended in my reply.

And yes, there are women-only Masonic orders.

But there are always gender-specific clubs or groups. Not necessarily because the other gender is looked down or frowned upon, but because there is always a different type of bonding that happens within the gender.

I love my wife and my kids beyond words, but we both need our own space and have our own groups (as well as shared groups, of course). As I said in another post, there's things men can say amongst other men that you just cannot say with women. i don't mean that it is sexist or derogatory. Just that you can 'be' a guy amongst guys.

And I suspect the same goes for women amongst other women. There are things they can say and do that they can't around men. Again, not for equality issues, but because women can be 'women' amongst other women, and likewise for men.

Just as there are sororities for women and fraternities for men. I personally don't see anything wrong with it.

Now, if a gender was excluded from something because the other looked down on them, or believed them to be lesser to themselves, or a sub-class of person - THEN we have a f**king problem.

a reply to: KSigMason

Those wearing the anti-mason blinders won't accept the truth no matter how it's presented. Such as the whole "Satanists run the Freemasons" conspiracy. Considering the FACT that Satanists do not believe In a higher power they are specifically excluded from membership.
As for the "Mason" the OP quoted as being a 100°...
Ummm...
Definitely not a regularly chartered Blue Lodge...
What appendant body does 100 degrees???

There are a lot of fairly recent Mason publications freely available on the 'net. You can find them by doing a google site search of a particular lodge for PDF documents, so they're not the ones from public sites that Masons try to debunk. The ones I've seen are full of Christian prayers, so it's hard to argue that it's not a religious organization.

While it doesn't matter to me who is a mason and who isn't, it is interesting to see how people so vehemently say it isn't religious in nature. It's okay that it is, so why hide it?

A high school friend of mine's father who was a mason had a slim hardback book on his coffee table. It was written in some kind of code that looked like runes. It seemed so mysterious. I wish the Internet had been around when I was in high school because the Mason code can be found in a google image search.

originally posted by: icanteven

There are a lot of fairly recent Mason publications freely available on the 'net. You can find them by doing a google site search of a particular lodge for PDF documents, so they're not the ones from public sites that Masons try to debunk. The ones I've seen are full of Christian prayers, so it's hard to argue that it's not a religious organization.

Links?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: icanteven

There are a lot of fairly recent Mason publications freely available on the 'net. You can find them by doing a google site search of a particular lodge for PDF documents, so they're not the ones from public sites that Masons try to debunk. The ones I've seen are full of Christian prayers, so it's hard to argue that it's not a religious organization.

Links?

Start here to learn how to do an advanced google search: www.google.com... Here's a sample of what you can find: www.mainemason.org...

I love threads like these!! Very interesting conversation and, "The Gut", putting his two sense in makes this thread even more interesting to me. So happy to come back to ATS periodically and see such a fine thread not taken over by negative trolls.


What I find interesting is the different Masons in different Lodges experience's. One Mason may not be "in the know" of such craft until they either reach a certain degree or transfer to another Lodge.

Each (Lodge) are different from what I've gathered. Here in the South ( Tennessee) I had the chance to visit our local Lodge and speak with a Master Mason. There in the Lodge was a HUGE Bible and they always open their meetings with prayer. To say Freemasonry isn't religious is imho an understatement and or misleading. Mr. Master Mason told me in order to join you must BELIEVE in a higher power. When saying atheists are practicing the craft without the belief in a higher power is quite confusing as the atheists I know do not believe in a soul, spirit, or a "higher power". This Lodge here in TN doesn't sound like a lodge in the North which is why I must assume each are different and teach differently.

Secret meetings, secret rituals, giving to the poor, growing and or evolving the self does remind me of a mythical man some people call, Jesus. Freemasonry also reminds me of Kabalists.

Do some lodges have whats called a "Grand Chaplain"?

Do Lodges not teach or speak about Alchemy?

Do they teach Jesus was just a man or he was one of the “exemplars,” one of the great men of the past, but not a redemption for mankind?

Do they teach about the spirit being resurrected as in reincarnation?

Do they celebrate Christmas or Easter?

What exactly have you learned while being a Mason you wouldn't have learned on your own?

Albert Pike is referenced a lot because... well.. he's Albert Pike and most of us will read this and believe he should know what hes talking about. He wrote in Morals and Dogma "Every Masonic lodge is a temple of religion, and its teachings are instructions in religion... this is true religion revealed to the ancient patriarchs; which masonry has taught for many centuries, and which it will continue to teach as long as time endures." www.sacred-texts.com...

OP, I am wondering how Trump and Putin fit into the OP if you don't mind telling me your thoughts, it is appreciated.

originally posted by: icanteven
Here's a sample of what you can find: www.mainemason.org...

Not seeing the Christian prayers you claimed, what page are they on?