Masonic Lodges Open Those Mysterious Doors

A replica of a mildewed 14th- century scroll has been unfurled and displayed at a library in New York. An eagle clutching arrows and ribbons, on a tattered flag made around 1803, has just been restored and framed for viewing at a Philadelphia museum. Near Boston a museum exhibition decodes cryptic symbols like compasses and columns embossed on metal badges and embroidered onto aprons.

That the public is now being enthusiastically shown these previously hidden-away items indicates that Freemasons in America are trying to shed their reclusive, somewhat fusty image. Tour guides at the groups’ lavishly ornamented lodges, mostly built around 1900, are explaining ceremonial rituals in newly restored rooms with murals of ancient builders polishing stones and vitrines full of gold pendants and domed velvet hats.

“We’re trying to help more people hear our story accurately,” said H. Robert Huke, the communications and development director at the Grand Lodge of Masons of Massachusetts, an 1899 state headquarters in downtown Boston covered in sunburst mosaics. When curiosity seekers get to visit Masonic rooms, he added, “they’re less inclined to think we’re trying to control the world and run the banks.”

Freemasons have been portrayed as conspirators in books like Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” and “The Lost Symbol” (due on Sept. 15) and the “National Treasure” movies starring Nicolas Cage. The truth is less entertaining. Founded around 1600 by British stonemasons, the men-only clubs hold closed sessions mainly to teach ecumenical ethics codes and raise money for charity, especially medical care. On their lodge walls and ceremonial clothing, motifs like eyes, beehives and drafting tools refer to virtues like steadfastness, tolerance and industriousness.

Now open to the public, the Chamber of Reflection at the Grand Lodge of Masons of Massachusetts, in Boston.

“Now, the masonic sect produces fruits that are pernicious and of the bitterest savour. For, from what We have above most clearly shown, that which is their ultimate purpose forces itself into view - namely, the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas, of which the foundations and laws shall be drawn from mere naturalism....”

“Now, the fundamental doctrine of the naturalists, which they sufficiently make known by their very name, is that human nature and human reason ought in all things to be mistress and guide. Laying this down, they care little for duties to God, or pervert them by erroneous and vague opinions. For they deny that anything has been taught by God; they allow no dogma of religion or truth which cannot be understood by the human intelligence, nor any teacher who ought to be believed by reason of his authority....”

“But the naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly erroneous course, they are carried headlong to extremes, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are - the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers; for, although in a general way they may profess the existence of God, they themselves are witnesses that they do not all maintain this truth with the full assent of the mind or with a firm conviction. Neither do they conceal that this question about God is the greatest source and cause of discords among them; in fact, it is certain that a considerable contention about this same subject has existed among them very lately. But, indeed, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who obstinately contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who contend that God exists, though, like the pantheists, they have false notions concerning Him: all which is nothing else than taking away the reality, while retaining some absurd representation of the divine nature.

When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall - namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life.”

The origin of the Freemasons is shrouded in the past.

I don't believe they go back to the time of Solomon, and I'm not sure that they present themselves as such.

Personally, I find some things about the Masons and their stormy relationship with the Catholic Church intriguing.

I read SOMEWHERE that the oldest extant Masonic text actually goes back to the late 1300’s or early 1400’s.The Knights Templar were supressed, with varying degrees of effectiveness, in the early 1300’s most thoroughly in France, whose monarch, Philip the Fair, wanted their money - allegedly for a new crusade. A pope who was the first of the Babylonian Captivity approved of the suppression of the order but apparently was less than enthusiastic about believing allegations of heresy and worse.

Less than 100 years later, Masonic rituals were apparently going on in England, where the Templars’ suppression was far less enthusiastic than in France.

Then, the Catholic Church, for reasons unknown to me, decided that any Catholic who joined the Masons was automatically excommunicated. This was, supposedly, because the Masons were a secret society and a form of “religion”. Very odd, as admission to the Masons apparently only requires a belief in a Supreme Being, and their are Christians, Jews, and others admitted to this group.

None of the above definitely connects the Masons with the Knights Templar, but the connections are suspiciously there. A a matter of fact, the Scottish Rite of the Masons actually has an order CALLED the Templars and this is the ONLY group within the Masonic umbrella which is restricted to Christians only.

I write this as a Christian non-Catholic and a non-Mason.

All of the above information I have gathered from various sites on the net, Masons I have known who have told me non-restricted information about their organization, and from Catholics.

Its most interesting.

But the Masons, like the Knights of Columbus, Elks, etc, appear to be suffering from a loss in new members as the present generation is more interested in more mundane and selfish activities than actively participating in organizations dedicated to charitable causes.

> But the Masons, like the Knights of Columbus, Elks, etc, appear to be suffering from a loss in new members as the present generation is more interested in more mundane and selfish activities than actively participating in organizations dedicated to charitable causes.

I can’t remember the last time our Lodge held a meeting where we weren’t processing a Candidate for one of his three degrees. Often we have to do two candidates at once, such is the demand to join, and sometimes we have had to hold emergency meetings to process our candidates. Freemasonry in NZ seems to be enjoying a very pleasing resurgence .

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