Like you, what I know of Freemasonry comes from my forebears. In my case a Grandfather, who was a 32nd Degree Mason and founder more than a century ago of the Masonic Chapter in a small mid-state town in Nebraska, and a Worthy Past Patron of the Eastern Star and a Grandmother, who was a Worthy Past Matron of that same Eastern Star Chapter. They were both devout Presbyterians, remaining so all their lives. From what I observed, the most salient characteristic of Masons was their firm adherence to Protestantism and to the Founders’ principles as best expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
I appreciate your remarks on Jefferson, and yes, I do rely on original sources (and established definitions) to the fullest extent possible. Beware of anyone who does not.
I’m sure you are aware that we do not always agree on every jot and tittle in all matters Judeo-Christian, just as we do not agree about every detail of Jefferson’s ideas. In the same vein we are both aware that the same is true of most of our friends, and that they are, likewise, equally aware of their differences with us. None of this upsets us at all for we know that our thoughts and beliefs are held sincerely, that we will not be reduced to jumping out in front, pretending to lead the parade, to infantile mockery, to hapless mischaracterization, or to pathetic misconstruction.
Reduced to a popnjay, or babbaġā, in other words.
And yet you and Ms boop -- who both know better! -- let spirited irish prattle on & on & on about alleged wicked satanic, Gnostic, etc. Freemasons and you said nothing to correct her, let alone rebuke her stupidity!
You let me do your dirty work, and then you criticize me for doing it!
What's wrong with you people?
Do you not know the difference between right & wrong, even when it's staring you in the face?
Why won't you stand up to defend Freemasons, and tell Ms irish to go jump in a lake?
“Like you, what I know of Freemasonry comes from my forebears. In my case a Grandfather, who was a 32nd Degree Mason and founder more than a century ago....”
Spirited: There is no doubt that Freemasonry is shrouded in conspiracy, mystery, and misunderstanding. On one hand it is seen as a high-toned ethical order interested in doing good works. Against this are those who dip their brushes in a bucket of black and paint the entire order black.
It is often said that the truth is stranger than any fiction, and so it is with Freemasonry.
In his book “Painted Black,” Carl Raschke, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Denver, provides us with a thoroughly-researched background history of Freemasonry that clearly reveals that it has two faces: one harmless, the other magical and satanic.
Raschke is a leading authority on subcultures of darkness and in his book he puts together, piece by piece, a terrifying puzzle revelatory of an alarming epidemic of violence sweeping our country. Fully documented, “Painted Black” clearly presents the chilling facts and cases behind an invisible wave of evil that with every day makes its’ presence felt more openly.
With respect to Freemasonry, Raschke traces its first glimmerings all the way back to the growth of an occult elite during the Rennaisance.
Certain leading Churchmen and intellectuals, having embraced the occult science of Hermetic Cabalah, had harshly critiqued the medieval Christian worldview by this ‘science,’ thereby paving the way for the rebellion against the God of the Bible and Christianity that eventually gave birth to liberal pantheist theology and its primary doctrine evolution, Marxist Communism, National Socialism and gnostic progressive liberalism here in America. Crossan and the gnostic Jesus Seminar advanced by BroJoeK is a further outgrowth.
The occult mystery tradition of ‘secret knowledge’ (gnosis) closely guarded by secret fraternities and orders into which followers had to be initiated had been preserved from Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman times despite the vigilance of the Catholic Church. During the Renaissance this tradition emerged into the daylight with the consequence that hermetic evolutionary science became respectable and fashionable among Europe’s educated elites.
By the 17th century it had permeated the,
“...Protestant countries where it was ensconced as the spirit of Freemasonry, or what are popularly known as the Masonic orders. Extolling the God of ‘nature’ and ‘nature’s laws’ over the God of biblical revelation, Freemasonry served as the popular faith of the Age of Reason...from the late 1600s to about the time of the French Revolution in 1789.” (p. 139)
For most members, this early Masonry was a gentlemen’s club for religious doubters and even libertines. Raschke adds that history clearly shows that the majority of Masons were really,
“...armchair intellectuals who maintained tight organization control by offering quick-and-easy access to the ‘ancient mysteries’.....that turned out to be little more than imaginatively embroidered exercises from old Egypt and Babylon (comingled) with some Muslim mysticism. Many of the signers of America’s Declaration of Independence were members of the ‘secret fraternity’ of Masons.”
Despite their membership in Masonic fraternities, the Founders nevertheless held a Christian consensus explained in previous posts to this thread.
It was during the late 18th and 19th centuries that the more conventional and harmless orders became prey for sinister occult entrepreneurs seeking to subvert Masonic rationalism and its high-toned ethical philosophy. The entrepreneurs introduced goetia (magic)including tantric sex magic, libertinism, and exultation of Lucifer as the seething energy of evolution, the first free spirit, liberator of man from Yahweh (the evil demiurge) and so on.
The most notorious sect of magical Luciferian Masons were the Illuminati, or the ‘illumined ones.’ This sinister order developed an incestuous relationship with Blavatsky’s Theosophy (Blavatsky taught that Satan is god) and not only did it have a significant place in the early modern era but a broad, deeply evil impact that is being felt today.
The Illuminist hierarchy and initiatory structure was designed to mimick ordinary lodge Masonry for the indisputable purpose of confusing and snaring ordinary members into participating in its occult goals.
From the outset, the goal of Illuminism was to accomplish what,
“....alchemists and occultists have called the ‘great work’ as a social and political undertaking” Its’ magical objective was the “creation of a universal, utopian society that knitted together all humankind.’ (p. 144)
In other words, their goal was the ‘healing’ and ‘purifying’ of nature (matter) through combination of opposites: initiates with god or Lucifer; the masses of men with nature (methodological naturalism; reductionism); the natural dimension with the supernatural; male with female, female with male; light with dark, good with evil, and so on.
Hopefully, this brief overview demonstrates the fact of Freemasonry’s two faces.