Are the Freemasons a powerful secret organization or just an organization with some powerful members and some secrets? Is it possible that a small clique secretly rules the world? We discussed this idea in sf, including Anderson's works, here.
Friday, 10 November 2017
Masons
Are the Freemasons a powerful secret organization or just an organization with some powerful members and some secrets? Is it possible that a small clique secretly rules the world? We discussed this idea in sf, including Anderson's works, here.
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9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The question of the Freemasons is a complex one. There WERE some Lodges who were anti-Catholic or "anti-clerical" (say, in Italy). And some Masons did believe in religious ideas no Catholic could agree with. And the Church objected organizations requiring its members to take oaths of secrecy (why should any honest organization require such a thing?). That was why Catholics were and still are prohibited from becoming Masons.
And, no, I don't believe a secret cabal of Freemasons or One Worlders runs the world. If such a group exists then they are doing a darn poor job bossing the planet! I see far more chaos and anarchy than I do any kind of "order"!
Sean
Sean,
It is consoling to conspiracy theorists to believe that the chaos around us is really controlled by someone. There is, if nothing else, an explanation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The REAL explanation, of course, is that human beings are contentious, quarrelsome, and have conflicting ambitions and goals.
Btw, in S.M. Stirling's three Shadowspawn books (beginning with A TAINT IN THE BLOOD), we see a "real" cabal of vampire like hominids secretly gaining control of the world. I don't want to spill too many beans so I'll stop with only saying that much.
Sean
Sean,
I can't join the Masons because you have to believe in a Great Architect of the Universe.
A story about the Masons: A trial was starting at the Old Bailey in London. The Judge stood up and said, "I am a Freemason. The defendant has just signaled to me that he is a Freemason. I cannot hear this case," and walked out.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Your first point, yes most Masonic Lodges require would be members to affirm belief in a Supreme Being or Great Architect. That would exclude agnostics or atheists.
I think I read some where else of the story about the British magistrate and Mason who recused himself from hearing a case because the Freemasonic defendant identified himself as another member of the "Craft." The judge was right to refuse hearing that case.
Sean
Sean,
The defendant thought that he could use the Masons as a secret society whereas the Judge believed the Order's own protestations that it is merely a fraternal and charitable organization.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But the fact SOME Masons thought otherwise than this honorable judge brings such protestations into question.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Kipling was a Mason, and his poem "The Mother-Lodge" praises the egalitarian inclusiveness of the Order. Outside, they had ranks, some of them very superior to others, and often-conflicting religions. Within the lodge, they were all "'Brother,' an' it doesn't do no 'arm."
He mentions particularly that they couldn't give banquets because it might inadvertently violate a Brother's religious precepts and cause him trouble. But they'd chat peacefully in their meetings of those things that to this day are still killing matters for all too many people.
"We'd say 'twas 'ighly curious,
An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed,
With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva
Changin' pickets in our 'ead."
Kaor, DAVID!
Of course that was good, what these Masons in the Kipling poem did. I simply have some demurrals, discussed above.
Btw, I'm nearly two thirds of the way thru my rereading of Kipling's novel KIM.
Sean
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