Does anyone know what the Free Masons are all about? What do they do, and what is all the mystery surrounding their organization?
Cecil did a column on it: here
On a related note…
this column
A related, hijack question…
Is it true that Santa Ana, the leader of the Mexican forces who attacked the Alamo, was later spared because of his connection to freemasonry?
I doubt it. Rumors and dumb theories aside, the Masons have never been that powerful.
Was Santa Ana Catholic? If he was I doubt he would have been a Freemason.
Picking my nits here, the name of the former president of Mexico is spelled Santa Anna.
My late father-in-law was a freemason, in fact, the master of the local lodge. I gave him the usual shit like “Bring out the goat!” etc,which he studiously ignored with good grace.
Most of the work of his lodge, apart from the ceremonies and rituals, was in raising money for charitable use in the local community. His lodge frequently donated sums of money to the hospital to buy biomedical equipment that was not budgeted for. They also sponsored an annual scholarship for the school, and, on occasion, discreetly provided charitable financial assistance to families in difficulty.
These days, of course, the masons are basically a group of elderly men who raise money for charitable causes and perform quaint rituals to amuse themselves.
I had a great uncle who was a 33rd degree mason, and in fact, earned his living for many years as an administrator of some masonic school fund. A lifelong bachelor who never moved from the small town he was born in, he was essentially a harmless old coot whose life revolved entirely around the masonic lodge. Imagining my great uncle as a secret master of the universe stretches credulity well past any reasonable breaking point.
That said, there were points in history where the freemasons exerted a lot of influence. At the time of the revolution, freemasonry in both Europe and the New World was a movement that appealed to many of the progressives and intellectuals of the day. It is in this connection that many of the founding fathers belonged to it, and hence we wound up with a few bits of masonic bric-a-brac among our national emblems, and the masons was a club which most of the revolutionary era movers and shakers belonged to.
The early masons were powerful enough to exert real or imagined influences which scared people, and resulted in the rise of the antimasonic party in the 1830’s. A key event leading to it involved a guy name William Morgan, who divulged masonic secrets, and was murdered. You will have a hard time finding objective accounts of this affair. It DOES appear that the masons may have been implicated in his demise at some level, though you needn’t imagine any consipiracy extending beyond a local lodge containing some of the towns leading citizens.
Any time you have a “club” that practically all your leaders belong to, it is going to have quite a bit of influence, whether it actually has any sinister aims or not. After the 1830’s, freemasonry lost its appeal and ceased to be such a club. There are still a significant number of various bigwigs who belong to the masons, but it is below the “critical mass” number for us to worry about the organization influencing national affairs.
The thing which gets everybody’s undies in a bundle is that an organization with “secret” arcane rituals, even if they’re really nothing but a lot of silliness, should have a significant number of politically influential members.
The “secret rituals” of the Freemasons are hardly secret. They have been published in many books (mostly by disgruntled masons). With that said, good luck finding any of them at the library. A buddy of mine works at the downtown library and says those books are the most likely to not be returned. Of course, the internet likely has sources online.
I saw a good re-creation of a part of a ritual on a religious show. Sounded like basic precept stuff mired in symbolic language, the stuff religious nuts can intrepret any evil way they wish, and the host of that show did just that.
The freemasons have volumes of rituals they use, many borrowed from ancient customs, cultures, christian and non-christian religions. Many of these the fundy nuts like to call satanic. You know, the ones that go ape over 5 sided stars.
Most of the rituals seem to honor the Knights Templars,
a religious order that protected the passageway from europe to the holy land during the Crusades. After the crusades ended, they were a powerful, wealthy group which operated much like bankers today, providing investment opportunities and lending money. King Phillip of France back in the early 14(?) century was envious of the group’s wealth as well as owing them a lot of money. He had the group disbanded, siezed the assets, and killed Jacque DeMolay, the last grand-master.
Freemason lore will connect their history back to that time. This is mostly created legend though. Most likely it evolved from a group of stonecutters (a good middle-class trade at the time) to include freethinkers and disciples of The Enlightment.
I am envious of their past, and if I were alive in that time and had the money, may have joined. Today they are mostly older men who do charitable work.
At one time, Freemasonry did transmit alot of Hermetic and neo-gnostic teachings. I don’t think much of that still exists.
The Masons got blamed for many conspiracies. I think there is some truth in this, but not because Masonry was part of any diabolical plot at world domination. It’s merely because Masonic lodges gave powerful men a place and time where they could get together in secrecy and talk among themselves.
Masonry was extremely important in the founding of the US of A. Many of the ideals of the constitution were inspired by masonic values of reason and egalitarianism. Depending on how you feel about the US of A, that is either a good thing or a bad thing.
Weirdest thing at church this morning.
This older man sitting at the other end of my row was wearing one of those bolo ties. You know, thin leather braids, silver tips. The little choker thing that slides up was the masonic symbol of a square and compass.
I’m Catholic.
Re: Catholics and Masons.
There’s a car (huge late-1980s Caddy or Lincoln) that always parks right by ours in the (Catholic) church parking lot every Sunday. I commented on this once to the rest of my family as we left Mass and they had heard the same thing, that Masons couldn’t be Catholic or vice-versa. They pondered the question for about five seconds before they went back to discussing the priest’s goofy disconnected sermon. 
There does not appear to be, right now, any binding authority that forbids Catholics from becoming Masons.
The Code of Canon Law, Can. 1374, does provide that a person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a “just penalty.” However, since the Masonic order, so far as I’m aware, no longer (if it ever did) plots against the Church, this would not apply.
There is undoubtedly a long and uncomfortable history there. But there is no prohibition.
- Rick
Today, the Catholic Church and the Freemasons get along. I believe since the 1960’s. I have known a few Masons who were Catholic. But during the 18th century they were at the forefront of the enlightment.
Of course there were excesses andabuses. (Adam Westpahl. The Hellfire club)
My concern is their racial attitude. As late as the mid 1980’s they were a very segregated fraternity. Black Masonic tradition dates back about 230 years in the U.S. But they have a completely different governing body than the non-black masons. There may be communication and mutual acceptance now.
Somebody has to ask.
The the RCC and the Freemasons are hunky-dory now, where does that leave the Knights of Columbus?
What I really want to know is why they don’t do masonry work for free? Isn’t that false advertising? All I want is a nice brick home; is that too much to ask?
The Knights of Columbus are in great shape!
While it may be true that one of the original purposes of forming the Knights of Columbus was to provide Catholic men the opportunity to join a fraternal society, this was secondary to the main ideals of fraternal assistance and charity.
Now that the Catholic Church has - more or less - reconciled with the Masons, you might think the K of C would suffer a decline in membership. Not so – on the contrary, the Knights have grown an average of 200,000 members each year since 1977, and now number over 1.6 million members. So far as I am aware, Freemasonry has actually suffered an overall decline in membership over the past twenty years.
- Rick
Ah it’s all BS for old guys with no life and wives who loathe them…
But if any of you could put in a word for me I’d love to be a mason. Masonry opens doors. I’d be very quiet, I was a bit on edge just now but if I were a mason I’d sit at the back and not get in anyone’s way.
On the subject of Masons, I gotta wonder at the building they have in my hometown (Vancouver, BC).
It’s about 6 stories high, the street level seems to be a parking lot, and only a few windows are installed on the very top floor - the rest is solid concrete, no windows or openings at all.
What the heck are they doing in there that requires solid walls 4 floors high? Handball with hand grenades? Torturing people that don’t make the monthly donations? Hiding in a top-secret communications centre and scouring the 'Net for ignorant people like me that question their activities?
Everytime I see it I have the urge to walk in and ask for a tour, but it just seems to have this foreboding look about it…
you can get a tour of the Philadelphia masonic lodge very easily. like on the hour every hour, sunday afternoons. I even got a baseball cap embroidered with the compass and square!
I’ve been seriously considering joining the masons for about a year and a half now. honestly, I’m fascinated by this kinda shit. and to get membership/degrees, you basically have to study freemasonry histroy. seems like a match made in the heavens to me.
if you want a pseudohistory of the masons (completely historical, albeit a bit hyperbolic) read ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, by Umberto Eco.
beautiful treatemnt of the subject, and a great novel to boot. can’t recommend it more. before I read ‘Infinite Jest’, it was my favorite novel of all time.
jota berge