Is Secrecy Good or Evil?

Originally posted by Masonic Light
However, we do have the power to offer a kind word,

You mean like, "Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled"? ;-)

Sorry, I could not resist.

Anyway, thank you for your reply. It proves that all collectives, be they masonic, christian, muslim, jewish, taoist, buddhist, hindu, communist or what not, share the same perspective, one command, one superior law: and it is love.

But they all have different opinions on why we cannot love the way we would like to; obviously humanity shares some little, subliminal secret; a divorcing principle is the driving force in our poor excuses for NOT loving the way we're meant to be - the way we would like to.

Mosaic religions call it satan, others have evil demons and spirits, but basically and psychologically it's our knowledge that each and every one of us is imperfect. How do we know? How can we be so sure?

Because we're being told so. It's everywhere around us - when our parents are disappointed by our disobedience, when governments want to protect us from ourselves, when religions offer salvation, when advertisements tell us we're not beautiful enough, when friends complain about other friends' errors. It's screaming at us:

YOU ARE NOT PERFECT.

Conclusion: noone is, nothing is.

I smell dark magic. Is that the secret we share? Our common quest for perfection on our way up the "cosmic foodchain" that I mentioned before? Because if it was, the secret would be unveiled and we could start to act together as one planet, in peace and harmony, to achieve that goal.

What if it isn't? To be honest, whatever that secret may be, however huge and well hidden it is in nature our in our memes and genes: it can not be a logical reason for NOT acting by the ways of love.

Originally posted by Akareyon
Secrets and rituals, traditions and history, taste and like-mindedness in general are established to help the individual indentify himself with the collective.

That may be the result, but it's not the purpose. Freemasonry is above all a 'tradition'. Not a very old one perhaps compared to the Ancient Mysteries, but a few hundred years certainly counts for something. IMO opinion freemasonry is a time machine, step through the door of the lodge and you are close to being back in the 18th century and beyond. For those with an appreciation of history, for those who feel we are lacking a connection with the past, this is spectacular.

Very little that freemasons do has changed much in the last couple of hundred years. We might drive to lodge instead of ride a horse. Our clothing might be different. But the lessons, the secrets, the environment hasn't changed. Does this help me identify with freemasonry? Yes. Is this the purpose of the environment? No, it's a symptom.

What is the secret behind this? Who planted that fear in all of us that taught us to keep secrets, individually and collectively?

So your extrapolation of secrecy IMO doesn't apply to freemasonry. It's not maintaining a great Secret, it's continuing a tradition.

What's freemasonrys take on the highest of all commandments (according to Jesus) - to love our neighbours like our selves?

It is one of the key tenets of freemasonry. Brotherly Love. This doesn't of course mean that we should only love our blood brother. It's symbolic (no surprise there). Everyone is our brother.

Of course this law implies that I have to love myself. If I do, I'll strengthen my self - but also that of my neighbour. I will not withhold knowledge how to produce medicine, how to avoid diseases, how to grow food, I will not keep patents secret and hidden and locked away, I will not gather intelligence about him. Compare James 2,15&16: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit?"

Indeed. I'm interested to see where this is going, but I think I might have an inkling...

How can I achieve personal greatness, yet bear in mind that others will never be given the chance to (before being killed by a bullet that my taxes helped paying - or by lack of food caused by my collective's embargo policy)?

I think you would find it difficult. But I'm not sure what you're implying here. Is it freemasonry or freemasons that you are referring to in your examples above?

Freemasonry is a program, freemasons are people who participate in that program. Freemasonry, as I have already indicated, works on the internal development of its participants. Freemasons can embrace the lessons or completely ignore them, as is their preference (although the latter is difficult due to the nature of the program).

Just as an aside, Akareyon, one of the great difficulties in creating a meeting of minds between freemasons and some non-masons on this site is the complete lack of a common frame of reference. The organization that freemasons are members of, attend and study over a number of years bears absolutely no relation to the organization that is perceived by some conspiracy theorists. Misunderstandings are rife and arguments ensue. Bear this in mind as you continue your studies - there are many examples of this to be found.

Dear umwolves 123, Trinityman and Masonic Light!

We're getting off topic. The OP, GreatTech, asked - if I may paraphrase - if the world would be better off without secrecy. He was clearly referring to knowledge that "normal" humans are allegedly not "entitled" to know; Belinquest backed him up with the example of the Vatican Library. Cinosamitna made a few good points as well:

There was a time when these Brotherhoods had a mission to help humanity [...] What exactly do they plan on doing with all those books just sitting there - just to have it but not doing much of anything with it? Notice how the response from many well intentioned people is "others may not know how best to deal with the truths". Well, this is one reason why we still cannot be rid of several of these brotherhoods today - not that they are all evil, but that they still see themselves as being in the position to hold enlightenment and thus lead others. But in all their self-admiration and in calling themselves such, they have lost the ability to lead others and cannot comprehend that they too, no longer fully understand those very secrets that they claim to protect!

umwolves123 also made a good point: secrets aren't evil by themselves, it depends on what you're hiding: a christmas present (surprise) or your wrongdoing.

At this point, Skibum made a completely invalid point and asked GreatTech for his personal information as if to prove he too is "evil" because he has secrets. Wellwhatnow agreed, umwolves 123 repeated the request a few posts later.

But the OP had already clarified what he meant:

Secrecy creates conflict between country and country, country and group, group and country, country and individual, individual and country, group and individual, individual and group... Whatever happened to Universal Bonding? After all, are we not created equal? Maybe this is idealistic but should we not push towards an idealistic world that reduces and eliminates secrecy.

I found that asking for personal data quite unfair and decided to enter the discussion with providing my personal data, trying to demonstrate WHY we are keeping secrets: to protect ourselves, because of fear.

It was entirely stupid by me to address the "dear masons" for their reasons for secrecy, because after that, the discussion evolved solely around freemasonry and its secrets (and we found out that freemasonry doesn't have any dark secrets either except for their rituals, initiation rites and so on; which was not very surprising, because nobody really expected that freemason orders are responsible for all evil in the world). I tried to keep it as general as possible, because I saw no point in discussing freemasonry ideology any further. After all, we're discussing secrets here and not the secrets of the freemasons. It would have been interesting to see if they have a good answer to the most pressing problems we're facing today, but obviously they haven't. They share only "good" secrets to strengthen their community.

Maybe humanity as a whole should share a secret to feel as one, as a community, as one collective that needs not fight among itself, regardless if there's anyone out there who could unveil it.

That said, let us switch back to topic, shall we?

²Trinityman: sorry, but maybe we can continue that discussion elsewhere, okay? Maybe you can tell me how will I find a lodge near me? I just love discussing different world views...

²GreatTech: I am tempted to conclude that secrecy is only a symptom, not the agent of planetary wars and hate and suffering. As I said earlier, it is a symptom of fear. If we love instead of fearing each other, there'll only be christmas gifts left that we could hide from each other. That would be the ideal world :-)

[edit on 5-10-2006 by Akareyon]

Originally posted by Akareyon

Maybe humanity as a whole should share a secret to feel as one, as a community, as one collective that needs not fight among itself, regardless if there's anyone out there who could unveil it.
[edit on 5-10-2006 by Akareyon]

In the end even Seven of Nine preferred being a human with secrets rather than Borg and share all.

Joking apart, I think there will always be secrets, not for fear but for individuality sake.

If it were possible to be another person rather than yourself, how many people would you really swap places with ?

We are the secretive even to ourselves and the greatest advice ever given is: Know Thyself.

Originally posted by Akareyon
²Trinityman: sorry, but maybe we can continue that discussion elsewhere, okay? Maybe you can tell me how will I find a lodge near me? I just love discussing different world views...

Always happy to swop u2us with fellow ATSers!

Because of its foundation of hatred for fellow humans and its lack of truth, secrecy has caused more wars than almost anything

Religion has caused more wars than anything. When I say reliegion I mean organized religion, not spirituality. One can be spiritual without being religious.

First I'm going to state, I only read the first post, as I'm tired, and in a
hurry, so sorry if what I say has already been said and/or addressed.


In general I consider secrecy to be negative.

However, there are times when secrecy can be a good thing, but that
tends to be on the personal individual level.

On the national level, I think secrecy is something that in the current
global environment we are forced into.
However, the level of secrecy we employ is still overkill.

For example, allowing people to know that a hypersonic spyplane
exists is a good thing, however, without having an even better
version and abilities to detect it, putting the information out on how
it's built and what it's amed of is a bad thing.


If we lived in a world with a one world government, and there was
peace, than government secrecy should not exist.