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Article: 3153 of alt.freemasonry
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!dryfoo
From: dryfoo@athena.mit.edu (dr foo)
Newsgroups: alt.freemasonry, alt.urban.folklore, alt.christnet,
alt.religion.gnostic, alt.conspiracy, alt.illuminati
Subject: Re: MASONRY FAQ: Blasted to Bits!
Date: 23 Mar 1995 20:25:34 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 217
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3kslfu$2qd@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
References: <3knuu7$tr6@tequesta.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: thelonious.mit.edu
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.freemasonry:3153 alt.christnet:19526
alt.religion.gnostic:690 alt.conspiracy:83679 alt.illuminati:6902
In article <3knuu7$tr6@tequesta.gate.net>, asia@gate.net (Enchanter!) writes:
|> People, take warning! Masonry is a two-faced preditor, just as the Masonic
|> icon of the two-headed eagle indicates. The Masonry FAQ is a fine example of
|> their conniving and deceiving nature. Hear the truth!...
|> ...[threats of violence omitted]...
|> I would now like to directly quote from the Mason FAQ, then demonstrate that
|> these are lies and half-truths. The very words of the FAQ are contradicted
|> by the writings held sacred within the Lodges! My primary source is _Morals
|> and Dogma,_ a Masonic book written in 1871 by 33rd degree Grand Commander
|> Albert Pike.
Oh boy, here we go again. Another conspiracy-head with a sci-fi high
school pen-name come to set us all straight and warn the world by
quoting Grand Commander Pike.
First of all, I am NOT addressing this reply to "enchanter," because
a few months of reading this newsgroup have taught me the wisdom of the
following, by Masonic author of an earlier age:
from The Book of the Lodge, by George Oliver (1782-1867)
Never enter into a dispute with a cowan. Like the deaf adder he will
stop his ears, and refuse to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he
never so wisely. No matter how clear are your facts, or how convincing
your arguments, still he will turn an incredulous ear to your reasoning.
Though you anxiously cry out, Oh, Baal, hear us, and even cut yourself
with knives and lancets to bespeak his attention, there will be neither
voice nor any answer, nor any that regardeth. You may as well endavour
to extinguish the sun by pelting it with snowballs, or to cut rocks in
pieces with a razor, as to make any genial impression on the mind of a
professed cowan.
( Aphorisms,
no. XXV)
I am addressing this other non-Masons who may be wondering if
"enchanter" really has got his beans all together on this one, and to
brother Masons who may run into this kind of nonsense from time to time.
Okay, set your minds to the OPEN position and continue.
1) Although we say this again and again, many people of a more
authoritarian mind-set find it so bewildering that they cough it up like
a hairball and ignore it: No Mason is "the Authority" of Freemasonry.
No one speaks for all of us. No one's interpretation or essays or
musings about what Masonry _might_ mean apply officially to anyone
except (at most) the author himself. Is it possible to say that more
clearly?
Pike is an interesting writer, and he studied a lot of the world's
philosophies and religions, and produced lot of speculation and myth
about how all these streams might be interpreted or compared with or
understood by Masons. He _enlarged_ on Masonic symbolism; complex
symbolic systems kind of allow and encourage that, but it doesn't mean
that his enlargements and interpretations are authoritative, or that
acceptance of them is required of anyone else.
To describe his works as "the writings held sacred within the Lodges"
is flat wrong and at least mis-informed, if not recklessly malicious.
2) Next, I really should point out that not one Mason in ten has ever
read Pike. Yes, the current Scottish Rite degrees are sort of based on
Pike, sort of. (I'll defer to the Rev. Lamed Vavnik for a more complete
description of that relationship.) But I don't think I know more than
three Scottish Rite masons who've ever read any Pike, or know any more
about the degrees than is contained in the rote scripts of the little
morality plays they've seen acted out, from which they may recall at
most some really subversive little moral gem like "Honesty is good",
"Loyalty is a good thing", "Noble self-sacrifice is noble", etc.
In other words, anybody who thinks that the Scottish Rite today is
imparting some kind of satanic influence, or anything other than the
ordinary homiletic middle-class virtues, is either mean-spirited or a
credulous fool.
3) But perhaps, suggests "enchanter", only the Secret Chiefs know of
the deep significance of these writings and rituals, and their innocent
deluded duped dopey middle-class minions are merely their captured,
unshelled, about-to-be-deveined-and-boiled, helpless prawns.
Well, the problem with "Secret Chiefs" logic is that it regresses
pretty quickly to terrified solipsism, the kind that leaves one in a
tiny apartment with lead-lined windows, wearing an aluminum-foil hat.
(There's a nice book about this called _Architects of Fear_. Can anyone
help out with a publisher's
citation on this one?)
As Fermat says, the space here is not adequate for a complete proof
of the assertion, but I can ask you to try to imagine how a group Secret
Chiefs could stay secret and actually get anything done in this modern
world. Do they control vast wealth? Huge armies? Are they able to
hire assistants who don't blab, even though presidents and princes can't
manage that? How many of them would be needed to do Secret Chief kinds
of things? And that many of them would never argue, feud, or spill the
beans?
Besides, most Masons that I know are too busy to get to meetings
regularly, never mind having the time to toil ceaselessly toward
dimly-perceived evil ends.
[Oh, and about that 33rd degree stuff: Scottish Rite Masonry numbers
its degrees, from 4 to 32. Each is a little play about some legendary
or historical episode intended to teach a moral or philosophical lesson.
When you join, you get to watch 3 or 4 of these little plays, sometimes
all in one day, and at the end of it, you're an official "32nd degree
Mason" with all the rights and privileges appurtenant... etc. And then,
every year, a number of notable Scottish Rite Masons (usually long-time
or Grand Lodge officers, fund-raisers, perhaps a celebrity, etc.) are
named to receive the honorary 33rd degree. These are the straightest of
the straight. The white-breadest of white-bread. One might as well
look for demonic revolutionary satanists among the honorary
past-presidents of a barber-shop quartet society.]
4) Masonry is a tapestry of philosophies, myths, legends, and
teaching, some of them pretty far out, and some of them pretty "normal"
according to today's middle-class western standards.
But what Masonry is to any one Mason is a very few core ideas, along
with his own understanding of those ideas based on his life-experiences
and his learning. The core ideas, once again, (for those of you who
haven't been taking notes when you read alt.freemasonry) are
(unauthoritativly, of course) _something_ like this:
- Belief in a Supreme Being, Whose skill and benevolence are
displayed in the Universe,
- Who created in Humankind the ability to learn from and
appreciate that Universe,
- Who implanted in each member of the Human race a need for
and a desire to work with, care for, and enjoy the company of
their fellow humans,
- and Who inspires and comforts Humanity with various ideas
about the awesome mystery of mortality, and with various
dreams, hopes, and faiths, about what may lie beyond the
appearances of ordinary daily life, and death.
God Knows. We don't. We stand in awe before his Mystery. We
speculate, dream, think, and make stories about what we seem to sense.
When an intelligent Mason reads Pike, or any other author, that's the
context he reads it in.
There are people on this planet who hate and/or fear the idea that
God may have given out more than One Big Idea about Who God is or Why
we're here. Those people want everyone to believe the exact same One
Big Idea as they do. One Big Idea People find under-bed
darkness-monsters in any thoughts that aren't their own One Big Idea.
They'd like to be cultural jailers to keep us all on their One Big Idea
reservation, as if God has deputized them to keep the rest of Humanity
in line.
There's a particular kind of pride or hubris in that, as if the
Individual Soul (Tiferet) had misunderstood his place and saw himself
transposed up to the vantage point of the Deity's own Emanation (Keter).
(Although "enchanter"'s ascii Kabbalistic Tree of Life isn't really an
accurate rendition, refer to it if you can't find another.)
5) Why all this sudden interest in Pike's turgid and difficult prose,
and the resurfacing of the Taxil hoax slanders?
Unlike "enchanter" I won't point to any "secret conspiracy" but to
the open and public acts and writings of a few people and groups.
These are uncertain and changing times, and as usual in such times,
some particular versions of One-Big-Ideaism are currently casting around
for new witches to hang and burn in their run-up to their hoped-for new
inquisition. (Even a certain presidential hopeful has announced that he
intends to fight and win the "culture war" on behalf of his own idea of
the "good people".)
As part of the effort, certain branches of OBIism have begun to
consider the Masons as a suitable target, and for that purpose have
spent incredible amounts of time digging through Albert Pike's writings,
hoping to build their new gallows on the excavation site.
"enchanter" and others like him have been reading the pamphlets of
these few ambitious and fearful people, temporarily in positions of
authority in a few religious communities around the country.
They come, they go, but they often leave a mess behind them.
6) Conclusion:
Masons aren't ashamed of who we are, and we haven't hidden what we
are. We have, in this newsgroup, repeatedly published clear answers to
the slander that we are a "secret society" with "secret goals". (I will
immodestly point to http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/Masonry/Altf/secrets.html
among others.)
Now, if you happen to have One very fragile Big Idea that gets hurt
anytime it's around other ideas, and you can only stand to be around
other people who share your One Big Idea, then Freemasonry is not for
you, and you won't like us, and you'll be sure find something that one
of us wrote once that you'll really hate, and it'll be really scary to
you. You'll be like "enchanter". That's okay. Have your One Big Idea.
But don't expect to be able to hang around alt.freemasonry and not have
your One Big Idea bump into some others. And please find better things
to do with your time than slander things you don't understand.
On the other hand, if what I've said about Masonry appeals to you,
and you have a deep feeling that freedom of conscience is A Good Thing,
then you are invited to keep reading here, and to learn more about us
from any honest sources. And if you are inspired to knock on our door
and ask for entrance, so much the better.
sincerely and fraternally,
-- Gary L. Dryfoos
(my actual name)
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Gary L. Dryfoos <dryfoo@mit.edu> 617.864-4248, ofc:253-0184, fax:253-8665
| P.O.Box 505, Cambridge, MA 02142 HTTP://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/www/
| Master, Mt. Scopus Lodge AF&AM, Malden, Mass.
| P.M. Ocean Lodge AF&AM, Winthrop, Mass. (1988-90, 1991-93)
| "...one sacred band, or society of Friends and Brothers, among whom no
| contention should ever exist, save that noble contention, or rather
| emulation, of who best can work and best agree."
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