My father-in-law (rip) was a Shriner. He wanted my hubby to be a freemason, so he went to a few 'meetings'. They have some bizarre indoctrination rituals. I'm personally wary of the them, although I know the Shriners do excellent work with the kids hospital they've established. There's alot of secrecy with the freemasons. From what I've heard, the lodges differ greatly.
freemasons
by jolly_green_giant 22 Replies latest jw friends
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singsongboi
used to be a lot of masons in aust. in fact, i think you probably had to be one to stand a chance of making it politically..
they built a lot of masonic lodges all over the place, and sometimes some congreations hired the attached halls for meetings.
but it's all in the past..
nowdays, the halls are being sold etc.
my father was a mason, and really wanted me to be one too.. (big thing apparently, to have your sons follow you in a lodge.)
he used to go to a lodge in Liverpool Rd Ashfield in sydney -- for some reason my mother hated it.
that building has been bought by the chns community in sydney and converted into a temple...
downstairs is a buddhist temple (went there a couple of weeks ago to burn incense for a sick friend and the silentlambs mob) and upstairs is a taoist temple.
when i told my mother about this, she really perked up and said that this should have happened years ago... but still refuses to tell me why she bears this dislike.
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Scully
There was a program on A&E just the other day that discussed the Knights Templar and druidry. They seemed to suggest that Freemasonry has its roots in the Knights Templar organization.
That might be worth checking into.
One thing we learned about the Masons from a JW we used to know who was a member of the Masons prior to becoming a JW was this: males of any religious background EXCEPT JWs can be accepted as members - if a member decides to become a JW they have to resign membership with the Masons - it's written in their "laws".
Love, Scully
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plmkrzy
We use to have some in our neighborhood where I grew up. Then I thought there were only one kind, the secrete kind. I remember they were a strange bunch. We hardly ever talked much i went to school with a couple of thier kids but they only hung out with eachother. My mom tried to start a bible study with the mom and dad. HAhahahah. I remember sitting out on thier front lawn while my mom sat with them on the front porch for about an hour one day talking but I don't know what they talked about.
I do remember a remark made later on, something along the lines of "Lord Have Mercey!" Hahahahahahaha
Life sucks...get a helmet
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MikeMusto
some of the Brownstones in Brooklyn are worth millions of
dollars. You will never get a mason to repair it for free. -
Scully
http://www.cephasministry.com/masonic_connection_of_the_watchtower.html
According to this website, Charles Taze Russell (JWs founding father) was a 33rd degree (highest level) Freemason. The monument marking his gravesite has Masonic symbols on it, as do several of the publications he authored.Notice the cross & crown symbol (aka the Crusader's symbol) on Russell's grave:
It matches the cross & crown symbol in Masonic literature:
Christian Science also uses the same symbol on some of its literature:
This is what the original symbol looks like from the Knights Templar organization:
Interesting connections....
Love, Scully
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sf
Use the search engines. There a thousands of sites and pages.
There is also, DAILY NOW, a 'freemasonry' room open on yahoo messenger VOICE CHAT.
It's highly intriging going in there. Some come in declaring 'freemasonry' a cult and some masons rise to the occasion. There's a fair amount of 'bashing' just like there is with this WT Cult too.
I suggest those search engines, highly. Try these keywords:
fremmasons or freemasonry
Watchtower Bible
Charles Taze Russell
United Nations
United States presidents
early masonry
or any other keywords that pop into your headsKally, Shriners klass
Too many 'lambs'! -
Seeker4
Funny you should ask. On Sunday I covered a story on the local Eastern Star chapter's 100th anniversary. There were about 100 Masons and ES people there.
Ceremony was in the Mason Hall, and the org has a huge amount of ceremony and symbolism in what they do. Tons of well known people in the community here are Masons. I did some research on the web for the article. There are fundamentalist groups that attack the Masons like they attack JWs. They consider it a religion. You do have to believe in one God, but they consider that all religions worship the same God.
The ceremonies I watched were definitely Christian - the Bible was opened, hymns sung, pledge of allegiance and national anthems of both US and Canada sung (Canadians were in attendance).
I loved the titles - Worthy Matron, Worthy Patron, etc. Reminded me of the Waterbuffalo Lodge from the Flintstones. A web search would be your best bet for getting some background on them. Some of the sites reveal the secret ceremonies, handshakes, words, etc.
Interestingly, after the initial year's initiation process, attendance at their monthly meetings drops off drastically, like to about 20 percent. So most Mason's are pretty much inactive - in JW terminology.
S4
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plmkrzy
Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1037.
"There was a rapid expansion of interest in Freemasonry during the 1720s A list of Lodges published in 1725 includes 64 names. The first Provincial Grand Masters, namely those for North and South wales, were appointed in 1726. The first overseas Lodges were constitued in Bengal, Gibraltar and Madrid by 1728. "
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Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1038."In North America Speculative Freemasonry had already taken root by 1730, on lines approved by the Grand Lodge in London. Benjamin Franklin, who was hostile to the Craft in the early days, nevertheless became a Mason in 1731 and remained devoted to the cause until his death in 1790. George Washington was Master of his Lodge when he became the first President of the United States in 1789. "
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Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1038."Such is the size of the United States that there is no single Grand Master but, instead, a Grand Lodge for each State. Another feature of American Freemasonry is the very large membership of many Lodges. Some years ago the average membership in each of the thousand or so Lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of New York was about 280. It is also on record that very recently there were 43 Lodges in Texas with between a thousand and three thousand members. "
"In the 1970s there were nearly six million Freemasons worldwide, of whom four million were in the U.S. and one million in Great Britain. "
*******************Crim, Keith (ed.). The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. San Francisco: Harper Collins (1989). Reprint; originally pub. as Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, 1981; pg. 266.
"Freemasonry. The common designation of secret fraternal orders and related groups descended from medieval guilds of stonemasons. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these guilds were joined by persons who were not 'operating' masons... The movement was stimulated by the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. "
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Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1037."One of the most surprising features of Speculative Freemasonry's early history is the Craft's vigorous and speedy expansion in Europe. An English Lodge was founded in Paris in 1732 and three years later Freemasonry had reached Portugal, Holland and Sweden. The first German Lodge was established at Hamburg in 1737. During the next decade the Craft took root in many other European centres... "
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Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1037."The first German Lodge was established at Hamburg in 1737. "
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Cavendish, Richard (ed.). Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (vol. 8). New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp. (1970); pg. 1038."Another feature of American Freemasonry is the very large membership of many Lodges. Some years ago the average membership in each of the thousand or so Lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of New York was about 280. "
560,000 members in New York in 1970
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FREEMASONRY: an international organization whose principles are embodied in SYMBOLS and ALLEGORIES connected with the art of building and involving an oath of secrecy. The origins of the movement probably lie in twelfth century Europe. There are two major divisions: the Old Charges which date 1390 and 1400; and The Masonic Word, which is a Scottish institution of obscure origin. From the eighteenth century there developed "Speculative Masonry" or modern FREEMASONRY. The Grand Lodge was formed in 1717 to co-ordinate other Lodges. The origins of most Masonic ceremonies are obscure and probably date to the seventeenth century. The movement places considerable emphasis on social welfare activities and claims to be based on the fundamentals of all religions. In the eighteenth century it was closely associated with DEISM and even today a general deistic ethos generally prevails modified by the incorporation of religious symbols derived from ASSYRIAN and EGYPTIAN BELIEFS. The CHURCH OF ENGLAND, ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH and many EVANGELICAL denominations have condemned FREEMASONRY as UN-CHRISTIAN. Recently various sensational journalists have published exposes claiming that it is a closed club which often breaks the law to promote the interests of its members. Such claims are, of course, hotly denied by Masons.Life sucks...get a helmet
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DanTheMan
I used to work at an engraving shop. We had a customer come in occasionally who was some sort of high priest in the freemason org. He drove this impossibly clean purple Cadillac. It never had a spot on it. I think he washed and waxed it every day. He was one of the strangest men I've ever known.
