Knights Templar and North America, myth or fact?

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I've been invited a few times to become a Mason. I just wasn't that interested. But the guys inviting were all squared away and stand up guys perhaps better men than I.

To all the Mason bashing... I see no evidence of evil afoot. I do however see an awful lot of charity done. One of my close friends was one of the Keystone Kops in the parades. I knew him well... secret evil take over the world stuff. No. Drank a bit too much... ok.

It's like whats been mentioned earlier, things humans are ignorant of and do not have unfettered access to, become subject to all kinds of untruths and slander. People need to get a life.

To you masons in the thread, I'll drink with you anytime... and don't care about your "secrets". :)
 
mikewint said:
The Freemasons are one of the most secretive and controversial religious groups in the world. Masons have existed for centuries – and if we are to believe their claims, they've existed covertly for even longer. Whatever their history, speculation has always been an enjoyable pastime – and this is especially true in the case of the Masons. Their secrecy fuels the speculation and the few things that are known add fuel. Having passed down traditions and secrets from one generation of initiates to the next, they make it difficult to know what's outdated and what's still practiced. Connecting this thread to another current thread:
Speculation at the time was that Freemasons were behind the series of attacks attributed to Jack the Ripper. The Rippers' mutilation of his victims was supposed to represent the symbolic penalties imposed on a Brother who revealed the secrets of the Lodge. According to people like Stephen Knight and Walter Sickert, it was a plot devised by Sir William Gull to cover up the fact that Edward, Duke of Clarence and heir to the throne had secretly married a prostitute and fathered a child. (In fact, Sir William Gull was not even a Freemason, but this does not discourage the story.) Even the mysterious message left behind by the Ripper, "The Juwes Are The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing" was supposed to be masonic, with "the Juwes" referring to the 3 masons of masonic ritual who murdered Hiram Abif: Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum.
Consider these ten masonic activities as possible facts.

1. Freemasons are commanded not to testify truthfully when another Mason is on trial if that truth would harm their brother. They admit that it may be perjury, but to them, it is a far greater sin to not protect one of their own.


2. Though some members deny it to the public, the Freemasons have at least one secret masonic handshake. Supposedly, there are even phrases a Freemason can utter when facing grave danger – causing other members to rush to their aid. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, is said to have uttered this phrase in the last moments before his death.


3. The Masons have a secret password. This is one of the best-known facts about the Masons, but the general perception is that they have just one password. In fact, there are several passwords for various occasions and reasons. As the one person with the final syllable for the ultimate secret word was murdered, they substituted "mor-bon-zi" for this word, and only very few people know the actual secret word. This secret word is used only for ceremonies: "tu-bal-cain" is the more common secret password, on the tip of every Freemason tongue.


4. The initiation rituals- though described by Masons as beautiful ceremonies – include a noose. It's hard to tell whether this is meant as a threat, a call to maintain silence, or simply as the symbol of an umbilical cord (as they claim), but in any case: the initiate is blindfolded, with his left trouser leg rolled up to the knee and his shirt partially unbuttoned to expose his left nipple, and a noose is placed around his neck. The new member must promise to uphold Masonic traditions and not divulge any of the society's secrets. Traditionally, this promise was accompanied by various bloodthirsty punishments (such as having your tongue torn out and being buried alive below the high water mark), however, in deference to modern sensibilities these lines have now been largely excised or euphemistically referred to as the "traditional penalties."
5. Freemasons believe that the east symbolizes rebirth. They sing the sun in its flight – marvelling at its passage through the sky. Masonic lodges tend to be built in the east and in the west, as an attempt to control solar power for their own purposes.

6. It's impossible to become a Freemason if you're an atheist. The first requirement is that potential members must believe in a higher power of some sort. They claim not to care what higher power that is, but you must define it for yourself. You can lie about it, but religion seems to be a point of honor among them. On the other hand, traditionally excluded groups – such as gay men – are included in Masonry, so long as they behave in the same moral manner as other groups. The temple still excludes women, but some groups are currently challenging that fact.
7. The official corruption of Masonry is well-documented, but often covered up. Half a million Masons in England are disproportionately involved in banking, politics, and government. Even hospitals and universities are often controlled by the Masons
8. If you've ever looked closely at the US dollar bill, you've probably seen the All-Seeing Eye above the pyramid. This symbol is a Freemason symbol, and the Latin underneath is a Freemason motto, meaning "new world order". Many say that the decision to include this masonic symbol was not influenced by Freemasons – Benjamin Franklin being the only Mason on the design committee – but the coincidence remains fascinating all the same.


9. Breivik – responsible for the 2011 mass murder in Norway – was a member of the Lodge of St. Olaf in Oslo. He was promptly excluded – but his degree of involvement within the organization is open for debate.
That a Mason did this DOES NOT reflect on Masons as a group. Timothy McVeigh was raised Catholic and before his execution accepted the Catholic sacrament.
10. Some say that Masons have an agenda to take over the world – but some Masons seem to have their sights set on the moon. Astronauts in the Apollo program – including Buzz Aldrin – were self-professed Masons. Their rite flags have been to the moon and back, and Aldrin seems to have claimed the moon for his Masonic lodge in Texas.


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Mike: Where do you get your information ?? Oh, BTW, I am a Master Master... over 35 years since I opened the door to the "west gate"

Let's tale your numbered items, above:

1. B.S. News to me. A Mason is always encouraged to tell the truth. Years ago I was a witness as a Masonic Trial. The man accused was a Past Master and the charges were gambling or causing a gambling enterprise in the Lodge. He was found guilty and expelled from the Masons.

2. This is true. You have to remember, the Masons are not a 'secret society', but a society with secrets.

3. Partially true. There is a password for each of the three degrees in the "blue lodge" "mor-bon-zi" ???
Never heard of it.

4. There is no place in a lodge for a noose ! In the initiation ceremony, a "cable-tow" is placed very loosely around the candidate's neck. Supposedly, if the candidate refuses to participate in the ceremony, he could be dragged from the Lodge. Never seen it happen.

5. Not sure what you are trying to say, here. Masonic lodges are built so the sun never shines into it's North.

6. Partially true. You must believe in "a supreme being" regardless of what you call him. I was at an initiation, years ago, where the candidate was asked in whom he put his trust. His answer was "Jehovah". The Master of the Lodge continued on with the initiation. Gay men are welcomed in any of the four Va. Beach Lodged I attend.

7. The only hospital in the U.S.A that is possibly controlled by Masons is The Shriner's Hospital for Children. Shriners Hospitals for Children is a network of 22 medical facilities across North America. Children with orthopedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care and receive all services in a family-centered environment, regardless of the patients' ability to pay.

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, the hospitals, known as "The World's Greatest Philanthropy," are owned and operated by Shriners International, formerly known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a Freemasonry-related organization simply known today as the Shriners. Patients must be minors under the age of 18 and are not required to have any familial affiliation with the Shriners order nor Freemasonry.

As it sez it para 1, no child's parents have ever been asked to pay for services. FYI, the Shriners give away $1 million dollars a day, every day of the year !!

8. Partially true. I've never heard of "a new world order".

9. Never heard this one.

10. Pure B.S.

Just in case my Masonic Brother, Chris, seems to think I've given away the farm, I assure you I have not said anything that is not written. If it's written, it's not secret.

As for you, Mike, I suggest you do some more research.

Charles
Lynnhaven Lodge #220
Va. Beach, VA.
 
ccheese said:
Mike: Where do you get your information ?? Oh, BTW, I am a Master Master... over 35 years since I opened the door to the "west gate"

Let's tale your numbered items, above:

1. B.S. News to me. A Mason is always encouraged to tell the truth. Years ago I was a witness as a Masonic Trial. The man accused was a Past Master and the charges were gambling or causing a gambling enterprise in the Lodge. He was found guilty and expelled from the Masons.

2. This is true. You have to remember, the Masons are not a 'secret society', but a society with secrets.

3. Partially true. There is a password for each of the three degrees in the "blue lodge" "mor-bon-zi" ???
Never heard of it.

4. There is no place in a lodge for a noose ! In the initiation ceremony, a "cable-tow" is placed very loosely around the candidate's neck. Supposedly, if the candidate refuses to participate in the ceremony, he could be dragged from the Lodge. Never seen it happen.

5. Not sure what you are trying to say, here. Masonic lodges are built so the sun never shines into it's North.

6. Partially true. You must believe in "a supreme being" regardless of what you call him. I was at an initiation, years ago, where the candidate was asked in whom he put his trust. His answer was "Jehovah". The Master of the Lodge continued on with the initiation. Gay men are welcomed in any of the four Va. Beach Lodged I attend.

7. The only hospital in the U.S.A that is possibly controlled by Masons is The Shriner's Hospital for Children. Shriners Hospitals for Children is a network of 22 medical facilities across North America. Children with orthopedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care and receive all services in a family-centered environment, regardless of the patients' ability to pay.

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, the hospitals, known as "The World's Greatest Philanthropy," are owned and operated by Shriners International, formerly known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a Freemasonry-related organization simply known today as the Shriners. Patients must be minors under the age of 18 and are not required to have any familial affiliation with the Shriners order nor Freemasonry.

As it sez it para 1, no child's parents have ever been asked to pay for services. FYI, the Shriners give away $1 million dollars a day, every day of the year !!

8. Partially true. I've never heard of "a new world order".

9. Never heard this one.

10. Pure B.S.

Just in case my Masonic Brother, Chris, seems to think I've given away the farm, I assure you I have not said anything that is not written. If it's written, it's not secret.

As for you, Mike, I suggest you do some more research.

Charles
Lynnhaven Lodge #220
Va. Beach, VA.
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No worries Brother Charles. I was waiting for him to explain where he gets this nonsense from before I chimed in. You however did a much better job than I could.

Everything you have said can be found on the internet anyhow...;)

People just choose to believe the BS they hear because they are afraid of what they don't understand. Hollywood does not help either...:)
 
really. I learn something every day. why is the number 13 considered unlucky? You would think 6 or any combination of 6 would be a more likely contender.....

And why is friday considered unlucky....something to do with Christs cruxifixion i expect, but if Christs sacrifice is meant to be our good fortune, wouldnt it mean that friday should be considered a lucky day.

i know I consider friday to be a lucky day.....right before the weekend for me....now mondays, they are a different story altogether.
 
I personally see no Mason bashing. Secret Societies OF ANY TYPE invite speculation. And Human Nature being what it is we seldom hide the good it is the evil we hide. The Templar, Freemasons, Illuminati, ect. whether in truth or not are linked:
Jacques de Molay's death marked the end of the history of the Templars, but it was only the beginning of the history of the Templar myth. That myth has essentially nothing to do with the historical Knights Templar, and everything to do with the history of secret societies in the western world from the 1730s to the present.
At the time of the Templars' destruction, and for hundreds of years thereafter, almost everyone in Europe believed that Philip IV had destroyed the Templars to get at their wealth, and only a handful of propagandists for the French royal house and the official historians of the Papacy even claimed to believe the stories about heresy and the worship of Baphomet. The contemporary poet Dante Alighieri, whose great poem The Divine Comedy commented on most of the events of his time, referred to the Templars' fate in Canto XX of the Purgatorio as purely a result of Philip's greed and spite. The great Renaissance legal theorist Jean Bodin, two centuries later, cited the Templars as a classic example of a group oppressed and destroyed by an unjust monarch. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, this view and the orthodox claim that the Templars had done exactly what Philip IV said they did were the only opinions about the Templars in circulation.
Abruptly, in the late 1730s, a third set of claims began to appear, insisting that the Templars were the secret guardians of an ancient wisdom ruthlessly suppressed by the forces of orthodoxy. These first surfaced in Masonic circles in France linked to the Jacobites – supporters of the exiled House of Stuart – and drew their theme from the famous 1736 Masonic address of the Chevalier Andrew Ramsay, an influential Jacobite who argued that Freemasonry itself was descended from the knightly orders of the Crusades.
Within a few years of Ramsay's address, rumors circulated through the French court about a new, "Scottish" Freemasonry above the three Craft degrees of ordinary Masonry. French sources claim that the first Scottish system was launched by Ramsay himself and included the three degrees of Scottish Master, Novice, and Knight of the Temple. More degrees followed; a 1744 pamphlet from Paris claims that there were six or seven degrees above Master Mason at that time, while in 1751 most French lodges worked a system of nine degrees.
Central to the entire system of Scottish degrees was the claim that they descended from Templar traditions preserved in Scotland, and that the Templars themselves had been guardians of an ancient wisdom that now survived in the higher degrees of Freemasonry. Many historians of Freemasonry have argued that the entire Templar myth was created by Jacobite propagandists at this time, as part of a struggle for control of French Freemasonry between Jacobites and their opponents.
After the catastrophic defeat of the Jacobite rising of 1745 several different systems of Scottish Masonry surfaced in public, among them the Royal Order of Scotland in The Hague in 1750, the Rite of Perfection (the source of today's Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite) in Paris in 1754, and the Rite of Strict Observance in Saxony, also in 1754. All these rites had connections to the Jacobite court in exile and included, as part of their teachings, the claim that surviving Templars had carried their mysteries to Scotland in the years after 1307 and established Freemasonry there. This claim was originally a secret teaching but, like most Masonic secrets, it slipped out at an early date, and sparked a lively market for Templar degrees within Masonry. Eighteenth-century Masonry being what it was, supply soon caught up with demand, and soon more than a dozen newly minted Templar rites with no connection to the Stuart cause competed with the Scottish degrees for membership and influence. The Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, an eighteenth-century German Rosicrucian order, also found room for the Templars in their origin story, claiming that Templars were initiated in 1188 into the Rosicrucian order, originally founded in Alexandria in 96 CE, and brought its teachings back to Europe with them.
The next major element of the Templar myth arrived by way of the French Revolution. Many of the liberals who originally supported the National Assembly in its struggle against royal privilege in the heady days of 1789 were Freemasons. During the Revolution years, a handful of journalists turned this fact into the foundation for a claim that the Revolution itself had been hatched as a Masonic plot. One contributor to this literature was Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt, a former radical whose book Le Tombeau de Jacques Molay (1796) claimed that the Freemasons were exacting their vengeance against the French monarchy for the death of Jacques de Molay. Cadet de Gassicourt's book also introduced the idea that the Templars had been influenced by the Order of Assassins, and strung together more than a dozen unrelated secret societies into a supposedly continuous tradition of anarchist conspirators plotting across the centuries.
The two great founders of modern conspiracy theory, Augustin de Barruel and John Robison, both drew on Cadet de Gassicourt's work in claiming that Freemasonry had been infiltrated by a vast conspiracy against religions and governments. See antimasonry.
Far more influential than either of these authors in shaping the Templar myth, however, was the Austrian scholar Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, whose Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum (1818 ) and several later books argued that the Templars had been Gnostic heretics, practicing an orgiastic cult of the goddess Achamoth or Baphomet passed on in secret since the third century CE. His books on the Templars were part of a deliberate strategy of disinformation meant to tar the revolutionary secret societies of the era with charges of sexual deviance, religious heresy, and occult practices.
All the elements of the Templar mythology just surveyed remain live options in the alternative scene today, and many have penetrated popular culture as well. Bestselling books repeat the old claims of a Templar origin for Freemasonry and link the Templars to Gnostics, Assassins, and others. New elements have entered the myth in recent years; Pierre Plantard's extraordinary Priory of Sion hoax, and its various mutations at the hands of other authors, grafted an entirely new body of fable onto the existing mythology, centering on the Merovingian kings of Dark Age France, the alleged mysteries of Rennes-le-Château, and exotic accounts of Christian origins. These same speculative claims have also found a home in the world of popular fiction, most notably in Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003).
 
The French King, moved in on the Knight Templars, on the Friday the 13th, if I remember correctly....
 
from Wiki......On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, an action apparently motivated financially and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown. Philip IV was the force behind this ruthless move, but it has also tarnished the historical reputation of Clement V. From the very day of Clement V's coronation, the king falsely charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses, and the scruples of the Pope were compromised by a growing sense that the burgeoning French State might not wait for the Church, but would proceed independently. It is further said Jacques de Molay, Magister (Master of the Knights of the Temple) cursed King Philip IV of France and his descendants from his execution pyre. As he was about to be executed, he appealed "from this your heinous judgement to the living and true God, who is in Heaven", warning the pope that, within a year and a day, he and Philip IV would be obliged to answer for their crimes in God's presence. Philip and Clement V both died within a year of Molay's execution. However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention.
 
Ah there is something I know absolutely nothing about. I know we have free masons here in the Netherlands. One lodge was even close to my childhoods town in a pretty little castle in Groningen. Have even been in there and a very nice person told us all about things. Didn't understand it as I was 5 or 6 at the time. As I said, I've got no idea what it all means. Tried to read the wiki about them, but got lost in levels and stuff. Can I ask what it means to be a mason? Do you have to go to the lodge at certain times, like Christians go to church? Sorry for the naive questions, as I said, I don't know anything about it.
 
Marcel said:
Ah there is something I know absolutely nothing about. I know we have free masons here in the Netherlands. One lodge was even close to my childhoods town in a pretty little castle in Groningen. Have even been in there and a very nice person told us all about things. Didn't understand it as I was 5 or 6 at the time. As I said, I've got no idea what it all means. Tried to read the wiki about them, but got lost in levels and stuff. Can I ask what it means to be a mason? Do you have to go to the lodge at certain times, like Christians go to church? Sorry for the naive questions, as I said, I don't know anything about it.
Click to expand...

Evert lodge is different. I am a member of two lodges. Granted one is in Germany, and one here where I live. Both meet regularly once a month, but do get together in between that once a month for other things. We support the community and many charities.

Every Mason has their own reasons. For me it is about making a good man a better one. It is about character and being with like minded people.
 
There probably are bad people who happen to be masons, just like there are bad people who happen to be cops, or priests or teachers, or Baptists. Doesnt mean that freemasonary is a bad thing. it means that its a human organization, and like all human organizations, its subject to the vagaries of human imperfection.
 
Add to that, the "mystique" of being a closed organization.

In otherwords: if you have a room full of people and you leave to another room, closing the door behind you, they will die of curiousity, wondering what's going on behind that closed door.
 
gumbyk said:
I may be biased, but the Mason's specifically excluded a mass-murderer, and the Catholic Church opened it arms to one? Which one sounds more moral?
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True Christianity believes in forgiveness of sins. The idea is that it's not up to us to convict, but up to god. Therefore every church should be open to any individual. Revence should not be part of the church. At least that's the teaching of Jesus. Unfortunately the church doesn't always do what they should preach. But in this case this is perfectly sound to the principe and in my eyes very moral.
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Evert lodge is different. I am a member of two lodges. Granted one is in Germany, and one here where I live. Both meet regularly once a month, but do get together in between that once a month for other things. We support the community and many charities.

Every Mason has their own reasons. For me it is about making a good man a better one. It is about character and being with like minded people.
Click to expand...
The last sentence sounds a bit like the forum :lol: ( apart from becoming a better man :lol: ).

But on the serious part, not wanting to ask you secrets, but is it about moral and values of life and such? What defines "a better man"?
 
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