The Tao of Masonry

I’m sure that you’ve heard the term “Belly Mason,” but that’s not a typo in the subject heading.

Bello is the Italian adjective for “good” or “nice,” as in having done a good job in making a sandwich form steak marinated in tomato sauce, smothered in roasted peppers and covered with provelone cheese on a fresh grinder roll. Yes, that’s a long definition, but it’s relevant because this weekend is the Southington Italian Festival, and Friendship Lodge once again has a bracciola sandwich booth set up.

I know that we generally don’t equate Freemasonry with any ethnic celebrations, with the possible exception of Scotch-tasting nights, but consider that the members of a lodge are representative of the members of the local community. Southington has a fairly large Italian-American population; once a very rural town, Southington is located between the cities of New Britain and Waterbury, and over the last several decades, many of the Italian-American families moved from those cities and settled in town. Consequently, where the old town records typically featured names like Adams, Smith, or Flanders, it’s now not uncommon to open the local paper and see names like DePaolo, Secondo, or Della Vecchia.

The Italian Festival is only a few years old, and now takes up most of the main street in the downtown area. Last year some of the members of Friendship Lodge decided to enter in order to have the opportunity for some community exposure, and to hopefully make a few dollars for the Trowel Club. Since we were already known for selling the steak and cheese sandwiches at the Apple Harvest Festival, it was very little work to set up a booth for a more Italian-themed treat.

I was away last year, but this year I was biking in the area and stopped by to see what I could do. The answer was “nothing” because the weather was 95°, with 95% humidity; not many people were in the mood to eat anything except some gellato or Italian Ices. I came back later that evening, but the temperature and humidity was still pretty high. It seemed that a lot of people were walking around with their drinks, but the tempting aromas just were not enough to induce people to eat.

The Festival ends today. Hopefully it’s going to be a bit less humid, or else we’re going to be eating beef at the next few dinners after lodge reopens in September.

Although I haven’t had much time to write lately, it seems that another of our esteemed brethren has been hard at it. Masonic Traveler, a collection of essays and thoughts about Freemasonry by Greg Stewart, has just been released, and it looks to be an excellent read.

Masons familiar with the internet probably remember Greg from various web forums. More recently, however, he would be found on Freemason Information, a blog aggregate on which he frequently posts essays and commentary, and on Masonic Central, the well known podcast that he runs with co-host Dean Kennedy.

Greg has always had an esoteric bent, and I expect that his book will reflect his own personal journey. I’m sure that it will make an excellent addition to your already overcrowded Masonic library.

The Grand Lodge Annual Communication was Monday of this week. In Connecticut, they generally follow a pattern: a disjointed opening (because we all know that Grand Lodge officers can’t do ritual), three hours of introductions, another hour of Masonicare presentations, and then an hour break for lunch (after which there seem to be a lot of empty seats). After lunch, we have a few items of business, some remarks from the outgoing Grand Master, a few rounds of applause, and then a disjointed closing. Although I complain about them all the time, I generally try to make time to participate. Connecticut is a fairly small state, so it’s not that much of an inconvenience, unlike some other states which require an 8 hour drive. However, as it happens, several people at work are out this week, so I probably won’t get out of the office early enough to make the session, or even the installation of the new officers later on.

Not that anybody will miss me, of course, seeing that after today, I will have been stripped of my position as the District Grand Lecturer.
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No, it wasn’t because of my latest April Fool’s prank. It’s simply that they have decided to eliminate the position entirely.

I’m still so not the drama, remember ?

My travels over the last three years have given me a few things to think about with regard to the ritual and ceremonies of the lodges in and around my district.

After the District Lecturer position was created, there were still issues as to what the officers should do and how they should do it. Initially, it was expected that they would help the lodges to improve in their ritual skills, but there were never any definite plans as to how they were supposed to go about doing so. Not surprisingly, some Lecturers did little, for fear of over-stepping some boundary. Others tried things such as helping at rehearsals, or having Q&A sessions on lodge nights, or sponsoring practice sessions. However, without any authority to compel the officers of under-performing lodges to participate, you can imagine that the people most often seen at the practice sessions were those who needed the least amount of help. And again, not surprisingly, some people complained that ritual wasn’t getting any better.

There’s an old joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a lightbulb. The answer is none; the lightbulb has to want to change.

Back in 2005, Connecticut tried to implement some small steps to improve the ritual work. They required that all incoming Masters for 2006 be certified in the ability to open and close a lodge. I was in that first class of Masters, and it was witnessed by the District Lecturer, two District Deputies, and their Associate Grand Marshals. A few years later, the certification job was given to the District Lecturers. I’ve complained a few times that often Senior Wardens would wait until the very end of the year before calling me, meaning that October and November would see me visiting several lodges a week.

It didn’t really help, though.

One of the the point that everybody missed is that some lodges have a very strong internal culture that values good ritual work. Those lodges pass these expectations on to new members in various ways; perhaps by showcasing certain good ritual performers, or by asking new officers to start memorizing lectures as soon as possible, or by holding not just one, but a number of rehearsals for degree work. What usually happens in those cases is that new officers will take up the challenge — especially if they are praised for their good work, instead of being carped at for missing a word or two. Yes, some old-timers have told me that they developed good ritual skills because the old-timers before them were harsh task-masters, but times have changed. Nobody wants to be humiliated into not doing a bad job, they prefer to be coaxed into doing a god job.

What I have noticed is that the men from these lodges have consistently better degrees because they enjoy doing it. And they enjoy doing it because they know that their brothers have encouraged them along. More interesting is that even those who consider themselves to be “poor” performers (compared to their peers) are often much better than the average performers at other lodges.

Lodges like that do not need District Lecturers, except, perhaps, to address some of the finer points of ritual and floor work.

Another point that was missed is that the lodges that really need the most improvement tend to be full of officers who don’t believe that they need any help. Connecticut is very liberal in ritual; we have a printed monitor, but several lodges follow rituals that pre-date the Grand Lodge itself. A few others have somehow managed to create their own, but have been doing so for so long that nobody bothers trying to correct them. To accommodate such differences, the Grand Lodge has a policy, which is summed up as “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty.” So, in the absence of regulation, some lodges have managed to develop “traditions,” i.e., customs that make their work markedly different from that of other lodges.

But a large number of lodges differ simply because they are doing something not just markedly different, but remarkably wrong. When questioned, they simply claim that it’s “lodge tradition,” and expect to be given a pass. Generally, the “tradition’ was an error on the part of one member that was inadvertently passed down to succeeding officers, most of whom learned ritual not from reading the monitor, but from trying to emulate the other officers, and who ended up copying the mistakes as well as the important things.

Connecticut has always had a problem with defining the essentials from the non-essentials, but I think that the overall view of the Grand Lodge itself is to let those lodges alone that are doing good ritual, even if that ritual is not exactly what is in the book. I know that this view drives some of my brothers in other, more rigidly defined states into looking for the smelling salts, but they, themselves forget, that ritual was always fluid and changing, especially in the educational lectures, which often varied from lodge to lodge. It’s a common misconception that the ritual we hear today is the same thing that has been passed down the generations; personally, I believe that this fluidity is one of the most interesting aspects of ritual practice, and should be one of our incentives to travel to other lodges.

Anyway, it’s probably pointless to discuss this any further. As the only official duties of the District Lecturers (certifying that potential Masters can open and close a lodge) were brief, those will now be assigned to the Associate Grand Marshals; the ones in my district are eminently qualified, and they are excellent brothers, as well.

For my part, I’ve been appreciative not only for the support that most of the lodges in my district have shown me, but also for the several lodges that actually asked for my help. It gave me a great opportunity to work with some fine new officers, and hopefully I’ve been able to pass along something useful to them. I w
ish them all the best in the future.

A funny, yet eerie thing happens when you wander into the world of secret conspiracies; like  wandering the Cretan Labyrinth, it’s easy to lose sight of both your original starting point and your ultimate goal.

Our theory that early operative Freemasons became familiar with “revenants” (creatures that in folklore later became zombies and vampires), and codified the means of how to destroy them in certain ceremonies has been met with the expected amount of derision and skepticism. I think that many people simply fail to understand that Freemasons, being employed by the Catholic Church to work on their buildings, had a need to keep their activities on the downlow so as not to be accused of trafficking with the demonic by the less educated and more superstitious population.

We expected this when I volunteered to be the one to publish the ideas.

None of us believe that the revenants are supernatural creatures; those ideas didn’t come about until the Gothic period, when — ironically enough  – people began to be frightened by the idea of technology. No, we think that the historic records of the time will show that people were falling to an as-yet unnamed disease that caused the appearance of death, after which the victims became mindless eating machines (insert jokes about teen-aged boys here). Poor knowledge of medicine and other social factors contributed to the occasional outbreaks in the rural and wooded districts. Unfortunately, when people started moving to the cities in the early 1700s,  so did the outbreaks.

Initially, we theorized that high-level Masons were (although in league with the national and state governments) still keeping this quiet, so as not to alarm the general public, who have shown themselves to be more educated, but not really much less superstitious than they were in the Middle Ages. Naturally, this has met with a lot of skepticism from both Masons and non-Masons alike.

We expected this, too.

But what we did not expect was to be presented with an alternate theory: That the high-level Freemasons have been trying to educate the public by allowing them access to these rituals and ceremonies. Indeed, for the last several years, virtually every newspaper article, news show, or cable TV special has begun with “The once secretive Freemasons have begun to open their doors,” or “The secret mysteries of the Freemasons are being unveiled,” or “Freemasons, that once-secret society, have now begun to…”

The alternate theory, which we have found to be very compelling,  is that various Grand Lodges have been pressured by these higher-level Masons to show off a little, and to encourage non-Masons to look at our secret ceremonies, ostensibly to show that they are simply arcane rituals, but actually, so that the viewing public will understand what to do should there be a wide-spread outbreak of this unknown disease. Indeed, just the fact that we have come so far into the public eye in only a few short years suggests that the higher-level Masons may even expect that a wide-spread infection is about to happen.  Our rituals have been discussed in print by hundreds of authors, and in the last few years have been featured on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and several other cable TV specials. A generation ago — even ten years ago — this would have been unthinkable. Now we’re practically giddy when we think about it.

Ultimately, I expect that we’ll discover that our original conception was closer to the mark. But the idea remains: is it possible that an unknown disease — perhaps a new “superflu” is about to bring us culturally back to the Middle Ages?

One of the great things about the internet is how people with seemingly nothing in common can exchange ideas without ever actually meeting in person. Such is the case when I recently began exchanging emails with an amateur historian, an epidemiologist, and a professor of sociology. At first, it seemed that our only common bond was that we all share an interest in Freemasonry; however over time it developed that we all had some questions about our gentle Craft that have never been satisfactorily answered. As we began discussing the dilemma, we also found that we were able to integrate our various fields of knowledge in order to work through the problem. In doing so, we believe that we have managed to solve one of the most puzzling  issues in the early history of the fraternity.

We now have some serious evidence pointing to the origins of what is commonly known as The Hiramic Legend in the Master Mason degree.

Some brief background: Early Freemasonry had only two degrees, the Entered Apprentice, and Fellowcraft (i.e., Fellow of the Craft). This situation was extant before the 1717 formation of the Grand Lodge of England, and continued for some years afterward. Yet, sometime in the mid-1700s, records show that various lodges seemed to have begun performing some variation of this legend. The origins of the drama are unknown, but is often attributed to being some kind of morality play. The drawback of this theory is that the legend draws on the Biblical story of Hiram Abiff; in the Old Testament, Hiram is a relatively minor character.

More confusing is the rather obvious paradox in which the Masonic legend deviates so drastically from the actual Old Testament story: in the OT, Hiram Abiff comes to help King Solomon build his famed Temple, and when finished, goes home to his family with some considerable payment. In the Masonic drama, however, Hiram is shown to be struck down before the completion of the Temple by three Fellowcrafts, who then attempt to hide his body in a makeshift grave out in the dessert. This is the most extreme departure from Biblical scripture recorded in any of the dozens of Masonic ceremonies, and it stands to reason that there is a purpose for this. By taking what we know about Masonic history from that era, and placing it within the context of the social and cultural aspects of the time,  we believe that we have discovered that purpose.

To understand the social context, we need to consider that the early 1700s was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; prior to this period, most people lived an agrarian-based lifestyle. However, as more factories were built in and around the cities, larger populations were drawn into the urban areas, and by the mid-1700s, larger numbers of people left the farming communities to see work in the factories. Not surprisingly, the population explosion led to issues of public hygiene: the spread of disease, the disposal of wastes, and the proper internment of the growing number of the deceased.

Although we can trace Freemasonry back to the late 1400s and early 1500s, it wasn’t until the early to mid 1700s that we see the rise of organized networks of Masons, via the formation of Grand Lodges. There are no records as to why several London lodges decided to formalize their arrangement, but it wasn’t long before other lodges joined the network — and it was a network, as the lodges we more able to freely exchange information, including the variations of their rituals and ceremonies. It is significant to note that during this period, There were still only the two degrees in Masonry;  “Master” Masons were those who were literally Masters of their lodges. Likewise, the degree ceremonies were relatively simple and the basic ceremonies were essentially the same in each lodge, although many lodges had their own particular set of “lectures” for the candidates.

At some point in the early to mid 1700s, we see records of lodges adding a type of morality play to the degree ceremonies. The main character varies in some of the earliest versions, but by the third quarter of the 1700s, that character was solidified as Hiram Abiff, and the stories became more consistent. Interestingly, they all contain similar elements: A character is beset by three assailants, and is then murdered; each assailant using a different weapon and attacking a different part of the character’s body. In many variations, the Hiramic legend specifies that Hiram is struck across the throat, in the chest, and in the head. The assailants (often referred to as the “Ruffians” in North America) strike with tools commonly associated with Masons: A square, a rule  (sometimes called the 24 inch gauge), and a mallet or setting maul.

While Masons often assume that the assailants use those particular tools as a way to tie in to the tradition working tools in the various degrees, as we unearthed more information about the underlying social context, it became obvious that this line of reasoning has it backwards; that is, the legend itself is an instructional play that uses these tools as a way to reinforce knowledge to which only a few were at one time privy.  And while we can not yet account for the reasoning behind using the character Hiram Abiff (except that he is a relatively minor character in the OT, and the change of storyline would be easily forgotten), we believe that the traditional lessons taught by this drama — about his integrity and bravery in the face of death — intentionally overshadow the real lessons that needed to be passed down to the new generations of Masons living in the crowded cities and urban areas. In this light, it is the Ruffians themselves who are the teachers and exemplars.

Consider: the three blows to Hiram are the neck, chest, and head. Why? Ignoring the symbolism behind this, those are the traditional  and time-tested points of attack in order to dispatch revenants; those re-animated corpses that wander the countryside in search of living flesh.

It appears that the Three Ruffians are exemplifying the secret art of what the popular media now might call zombie hunting.

It’s easy to dismiss this as nonsense because in our modern era, revenants are portrayed as either sexy, sparkly, quasi-supernatural creatures, or as shambling, brain-devouring bogeymen. But before modern medicine and proper burial techniques, folks in the rural areas and countryside knew that periodically some unknown force would re-animate the newly buried, who then roamed the area terrorizing the denizens with their mindless taste for flesh until they were put down. In fact, until Bram Stoker’s fictional account in the late 1800s, there really were few distinctions between what we now call vampires and zombies; they were simply the re-animated, walking dead.

The question now presents itself: how do the Freemasons figure into this?

Consider that before the late years of the Industrial Revolution, firearms were rare, and most people themselves could not afford metal tools and implements, let alone weaponry (and at some points in history, metal weapons were forbidden to those not of the noble class).This is one of the reasons that a wooden stake through the heart became part of vampire lore: no rural farmers had swords, but skewers, posts, and spindles were easy to come by. Although superstitions attached more importance to the idea of using wood, obviously the important part was destroying the heart.

As the need for Masons grew during the period from the 1300s on up, Masons became a well-traveled, and therefore, more educated, class of
worker. Small groups of Masons were almost always carrying various tools and implements, often made of metal. Our research suggests that when traveling through sparsely populated areas, some Masons, being less superstitious than the local population, developed a means of eliminating these revenants in such a way as to expose themselves to as little  harm as possible. This information they eventually passed on to other traveling brothers, after making sure that those brothers would not reveal such secrets to the superstitious; the Catholic Church was still strong in Europe, and since most Masons were employed at cathedrals and monasteries, they would not want to be perceived to be trafficking with the undead.

This brings us to the methods that the early Masons used to eradicate the revenants. Since Masons often traveled in small groups, each would step in for a short, quick attack, then step aside to allow the next attack. While it is suggestive that this two or three pronged approach may have been passed along from the Knights Templar, this is mere conjecture on our part, as the evidence for the link between the early Freemasons and the Templars are unsubstantiated, and beyond the scope of our research. Perhaps at some future time we will be able to explore Templar history to determine how much exposure they would have had to revenants in the Middle East, but for now, we are only concerned with the suppression of the living dead within England and western Europe.

The Masonic method itself is ruthlessly simple. Upon being confronted with an approaching revenant, the first Mason steps in to strike a blow across the throat with an edged implement, such as a rule or stick. If the implement is an edged weapon, such as a sword (a Tyler’s sword?), full or partial decapitation would be the hoped-for outcome. However, even wooden measuring sticks will serve to damage the airway of the creature.

That Mason steps out of the way, and the second traveler will strike a blow across the chest or midsection. This serves to momentarily stun and confuse the creature for the (quite literally) coup d’etat, in which the last, and presumably strongest Mason smashes a hammer, mallet, setting maul, or some other heavy, blunt instrument into the head of the stunned revenant. Minimal risk, maximum damage.
It should be pointed out that blows to these three areas correspond to killing points in more conventional zombie and vampire lore: midsection (heart), neck, and head (brains). Again, understanding that folktales from the middle ages made little distinction between what we now think of as vampires or zombies, it’s easy to see why this method was adopted.

As notions about public health, medicine, disease, microbes, sewage, control, etc., became more widespread, the cases of revenants declined. Soon, entire lodges of Masons might form without any of the members ever having seen, or indeed, having heard of one. Freemasons became one more of the dozens, nay, hundreds of social clubs in metropolitan Europe. As this happened, the secrets of revenant killing were being lost. We believe that it is safe to assume that some inner group kept these secrets alive by codifying them into a ritual in which new generations of Masons could be taught, without making it obvious, and therefore, more more public. Thus, the legend of Hiram being killed by the Ruffians was developed.

When our researches led us to these conclusions, we spent some time in wondering if there were something that we were missing; given our assumptions, wouldn’t that make Hiram Abiff a zombie or vampire of sorts?
Possible signs in the drama we noticed in context were the disagreeable effluvia and the mangled condition of his body (both zombie and vampire lore make references to the unbearable stench of death from the creatures), and certainly one could make conjectures about “raising” him from the grave. But eventually we decided this line of reasoning was inane, and stuck to the more reasonable explanations. In fact, this could well explain why the early dramas featuring other Biblical characters, notably Noah and his three (note the number!) sons eventually morphed into the lesser known Hiram: the lessons about how to defend against the revenants was a lesson hidden inside another lesson, i.e., the morality play about Hiram’s integrity and honor.

Indeed, when you look at the dramatic enactment of Hiram and the Ruffians in the Temple of Solomon, it becomes clear that the Masons actually have been passing down a secret; only, it’s not the esoteric knowledge that we tend to associate with Freemasons, but practical, operative knowledge. Indeed, in some areas Masonic ritual explains that “tools and implements are carefully chosen by our Fraternity to imprint upon the memory [certain] wise and serious truths.”  In other words, to the true initiates, the ceremony was to reinforce the time-tested method of eradication. If it weren’t making light of so serious a situation, I’d suggest that this parallels the “wax on, wax off” education shown in the old “Karate Kid” movies.

Why teach in this manner? Because in sparsely populated agricultural regions, infestations of revenants were probably rare occurrences, and few Masons had to opportunity to experience such circumstances in person. However, as more people moved to the cities in the early 1700s, public hygiene and proper burial techniques did not keep up with the population boom. As the infection which causes “zombieism”, i.e., re-animation became more wide-spread, Masons, with their tools of the trade and penchant for secrecy, were particularly well-suited to deal with the threats. We believe that the Freemasons of London (and later, those in other cities and countries) entered into an agreement — a conspiracy of sorts — with the local and national governments: Masons would continue to practice their strange rituals without interference as long as they continued to watch for and exterminate the reanimated creatures — quietly, of course, so as not to cause a wide-scale panic. From this, it’s not hard to see how rumors of secret Masonic / government conspiracies could have grown into the outlandish idea that the anti-Masons now have.

Now that we have come close to establishing the origins of the Hiramic legend, where do we go from here?

We suspect that there is still a core group, an inner cadre of Freemasons who are knowledgeable about the existence of the revenants, and who still maintain the agreements with world governments so as not to cause wide-spread panic. While we still believe that such cases are rare because of modern technology and medicine, there is some evidence that whatever causes zombieism has not been eradicated. Occasional news reports of unusual animal maulings, unexplained violent attacks, or mysterious disappearances of people hiking in wilderness or areas of low population seem to indicate that the dangers of zombie infestation are still a small, but extant threat.

Having made these discoveries, we are trying to convince the Grand Lodges of various jurisdictions to open their archives on this matter in order that we might better educate the public — both to make them aware of the potential dangers, and to teach them how to cope if faced with such a situation. Unfortunately, the several Grand Lodges that we have contacted about this issue have either denied any knowledge, or have completely ignored our communications.

We further believe that Freemasons of every jurisdiction have a duty to be alert, aware, and educated in these lost arts, should the situation arise in which — Grand Architect forbid! — the number of revenants overwhelm that small inner cadre. Remember, brothers: it’s quite possible that you and your lodge may be the only source of protection in your community.

A surprise full house at our FC degree last night as a bunch of traveling bros from Valley 36, one of our Massachusetts lodges, show up to visit.

People love our old stairs that we use in the second half.

Blogged from my phone.

We listen to all sorts of music in my house, and the radio stations will often flip from “classic” rock, to 80s/90s alternative, to current pop, to NPR, and even AM talk radio. So, last year when Lady Gaga was the new, hot thing over the pop airwaves, I really got to enjoy listening to her witty lyrical takes on the New York club scene, and the music business.

Okay, let’s stop here. For those of you readers who have not heard of Lady Gaga, it’s time to unplug your AOL dial-up connection, order some broadband, and spend some time on Youtube.

Oh, and welcome to the 21st century.

Yes, the millennium finally ticked over a few years ago, and trust me: it’s perfectly okay to put away your Lynyrd Skynyrd 8-tracks, your colored vinyl 33s of Sha-Na-Na, your bootleg cassette tapes of Grateful Dead concerts, and that Led Zepplin Stairway EP, at least for a little bit, and listen to some of the new music that has been made since the Beatles. Nobody will judge you, and you might even find something interesting.

Anyhow, the other day I was idly skimming some humor website, when I ran across a post claiming that Lady Gaga was the latest example of how “they” (the Masonic-Illuminati-NWO konspiracy) was using the entertainment media in an attempt to control our minds. The post linked to an article on a particular blog which promises hours of entertaining reading.

Yeah, I know. Y’all think I’m kidding.

Back when I started this blog — going on four years, which makes it a teenager in blog years — I wrote a parody of the type of thinking that we typically encounter when Anti-Masons talk about the various flavors of Masonic conspiracies. And over the last few years I’ve written a few more articles based on the conversations that I’ve had with the Antis in real life and on various web boards. And yes, I get a few blog comments, and a few people catch me at a lodge meeting to chuckle over a recent post, but I know that most of you simply don’t take any of this seriously. I mean, it’s stupid — how could anybody take this stuff seriously, right?

Some of you would be surprised — nay, astounded — at how often Masons are implicated in plots ranging from Zionism to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks to NASA (and the secret bases on the Moon) to UFO & alien technology, to fixing the parking tickets for local politicians. Whew, we’re really busy bees, aren’t we? But naturally, all of those conspiracy theories are completely ridiculous. I mean, alien technology? Moon bases? Hah, don’t be ridiculous.

No, the real Masonic conspiracy is how we control the electronic media and how we manipulate the entertainment industry in order to engage in our mind control experiments.

Yes, that’s right: the people who believe that Masons are using Hollywood to engage in mind control actually believe that they are smart ones.

And that brings me to my case in point: the meteoric rise to fame of Lady Gaga. Her videos are supposedly filled with Masonic/Illuminati symbols, which prove the efforts of the Masonic controlled entertainment media to warp the mind of our youth.

This is the contention of The Vigilant Citizen (“Symbols rule the world, not words nor laws”) in a series of articles that he has done over the last year. Here’s an example:

My first article on Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta called “Lady Gaga, the Illuminati Puppet“ generated a great deal of interest and controversy. It got featured on many websites and I was deemed either a “genius” or “batshit crazy” depending on the point of view. I can confirm that I’m neither of those two things and that I’m just a guy who knows his symbolism. Many news sites and blogs linked to my article by deforming its original intent (probably for more sensationalism) by adding sarcastic remarks like “Oh No Lady Gaga Wants to Control our Minds!” or “The Crazy Lady Gaga Conspiracy“. I guess those reactions were to be expected. To people who are not acquainted with obscure concepts such as Monarch programming and occult symbolism, the whole thing might sound totally far fetched and ridiculous. But to those who have background knowledge and who have researched these topics (a small minority), I was simply stating the obvious.

Since this article, Gaga has released more material re-using exactly the same themes as were discussed in the first article: mind control and secret society occultism. I have to hand it to Gaga, she knows how to generate buzz and controversy around her persona and keep people guessing. The great majority of people still have no idea what her symbolism refers to. So, at the risk of being called “batshit crazy” again here’s Lady Gaga’s latest occult pictures.

Most of Mr. Vigilant’s contentions are based on MK Ultra mind control conspiracies. In case you have any doubts about the breadth of these attempts, he points out:<
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During their reeducation, subjects are said to be exposed to numerous symbols such as trees, spider webs, masks, mazes, butterflies, etc. They are also shown movies which contain specific symbols (or “triggers”) such as The Wizard of Oz and many Disney Movies. The same way those subjects are brainwashed and reeducated, mass media conducts a large scale mind control project, which starts at birth with Disney movies and continues with Hollywood flicks and music videos.

Yeah, I know. Conjecture and assumptions. But Mr. Vigilant drives home the point in this article:

In my articles on Lady Gaga and the 2009 VMAs, I’ve identified the use and display of elements taken from Masonic symbolism. If my previous claims were considered inconclusive or “grasping at straws” by some, I wonder if they’ll remain skeptical of the presence of Masonic symbolism in pop culture after seeing this set of photos, taken INSIDE A MASONIC LODGE,

If you have minimal knowledge of Freemasonry, you already know the great importance of the twin pillars Jachim and Boaz. They are depicted in a great number of Masonic works of art, such as this one.

Gaga is standing between both pillars, wearing Hello Kitty shoes, occultly referring to mind control programming (innocence, childhood, re-education, etc). Her eyes are closed but she has wide-open eyes painted on her eyelids, which is very symbolic: her eyes seem open but they are still wide shut.

In the picture above, Gaga is sitting on a Masonic throne, complete with the twin pillars on each side of her.
Above her head is the compass of Freemasonry:

She is wearing a Hello Kitty dress and posing in a very mannequin-like stance. Her hands are positioned in way reminiscent of iconic art which displays the hermetic maxim “as above so below”.

In the picture above, Gaga is standing next to the bust of an important Mason (easily recognizable by the collar). The “one eye” symbolism discussed in the previous article is still an intricate part of Gaga’s imagery. She is however far from being the only artist doing this (see Rihanna’s R Rated album cover). Hello Kitty is covering Gaga’s…kitty in another odd juxtaposition of Masonic symbolism with mind control, often found in entertainment photo shoots.

Wow. Just… just, wow.

Over the last year, I’ve used Youtube to watch a few of her music videos (You know, it’s too bad that there’s not some TV channel that’s devoted solely to playing music videos, in the way that radio stations play tunes. Somebody would make a fortune if they could implement that idea.), and personally I’ve been struck by how detailed they are, and how she makes excellent use of imagery ranging from modern to classical. But is she streaming symbolic Illuminati messages to the masses, or is she just a clever mash-up artist?

In my opinion, since most people simply aren’t aware of the classical meanings behind most symbols (and since meaning often changes according to the contexts), then this is a particularly ineffective way of sending a signal. Personally, I just enjoy them for the effects.

If you have the time and inclination, you might be tempted to follow the links to his other articles which list examples of the symbolism and hidden/secret messages that she is sending on behalf of our Zeta-Reticulan overlords. I rather liked the assertion that her frequent use of her fingers framing her eyes are examples of the “eye in the pyramid”, which, as everyone knows, is a Masonic symbol (finding it on the back of our money and all that).

Yeah, I know. He’s just some guy with too much time on his hands writing a blog, right? I mean, they’ll let anybody have a blog nowadays — as witnessed by the very one that you’re reading.

But more instructive is not the blog itself, but the literally several hundred comments on these posts by people who are not just agreeing, but often augmenting them with links and information and theories of their own. I’m less worried about the one blog than I am about the hundreds — perhaps thousands — of people who take it so seriously.

Sometimes I read these conspiracy theories and I marvel at the amount of effort that people put into them; the connections and inferences drawn, the hunt for the data, and the time taken to make these mental leaps. But other times I simply shake my head and wonder why they bother.

Maybe, when our lives simply aren’t going the way we’d like them to be, it’s just easier to point to some larger conspiracy that keeps us from achieving our goals and dreams, instead of simply accepting that sometimes — perhaps most of the time — we can’t always get what we want.

It Will Pass

An Entered Apprentice was waiting to enter the lodge. He sat down with the Tiler and said, “My life is in chaos! I feel so distracted, I cannot concentrate on my questions and answers, and I’m so tired that I keep falling asleep in lodge. This is just horrible! What shall I do?”

“It will pass,” the Tiler said matter-of-factly.

At the next lodge meeting, the EA came back to the Tiler. “You were right! Everything is great now! My life is in order once again, I can focus on the questions and answers, and I’m not too tired to pay attention in lodge.”

“It will pass,” the Tiler said matter-of-factly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Except for a handful of officer’s installations, I haven’t been to a lodge function, let alone a lodge meeting in two months.

It’s not that I’m upset with anybody there, or because I haven’t paid my annual dues (umm… I’m pretty sure I sent out that check), or because they don’t serve low-carb dinners. It’s because after 2 -1/2 years of a miserable economy, I’m suddenly working like crazy. Customers that pushed off orders indefinitely all seem to be calling them in. While this is a good thing indeed, at the moment we’re lacking in manpower to meet the demands. I’ve had to cut 30% of our personnel over the last couple of years, and now we’re trying to meet production schedules with the people that are left.

I’m not sure if this is a sign that business in general is coming back, or if it’s simply a temporary spike as customers replace depleted inventories; accordingly, I’m hesitant to hire more people in case I have to let them go in a few months. This means that I spend half of my days doing paperwork, and the other half working out in the shop; I’ve been working twelve to fourteen hours a day, and by the time I get home I can barely stay awake enough to read my messages and do a little internet surfing. More than once my wife has nudged me when I’ve started to doze behind my laptop. I have a few other writing gigs, and lately I’m way behind because I’ve been falling asleep at the keyboard.

And of course, holidays, family time, school plays, music recitals, charity functions (can you believe that not every community function I do is not some Masonic thing?), home repairs, and the annual pasta dinner at the local church fill in the other gaps in my many heures joyeuses.

My lack of personal time has also taken a toll on my blogging — I barely seem to get an article in each month. It’s not for a lack of ideas; I’ve got a dozen drafts that I get a couple of paragraphs into, and then can’t seem to finish because after a week or two I lose the train of thought behind them. I used to write a bit in the morning, but lately, instead of writing I head to my exercise room (actually, it’s the laundry room-slash-pantry) and work out for an hour. Sit mens sana in corpore sano and all that. Actually, those of you who have been following my Tweets, Facebook, or Buzz have seen my not infrequent complaints about my exercise routines, my diet, or my (lack of) weight loss — and even at that, I can barely find enough energy to micro-blog more than a couple of times a day. I mean, how much energy and inspiration do you need to grind out 140 characters?

Anyway, you’re not here to read about my busy life. You’ve got your own busy lives, and can barely squeeze in enough time to read your favorite blogs.

Over the last few years, I’ve met people in town who say things like “Oh, my father (brother, grandfather, uncle, husband) is (was) a Mason.. But he doesn’t go anymore.” When I ask about this, it seems that many members stay active for about 10 years or so, and then wander off into other things. Yes, there are exceptions, but those that do seem to lose interest after that time rarely come back. Perhaps it’s because many of the people that they knew — the officers and other regulars — have also run through their own 10 year span; when a member goes back and doesn’t recognize anyone, he feels out of touch, and loses the motivation to come back again.

Or maybe it’s because, having been an officer, perhaps even having been the Master, they no longer feel that they have any purpose in the lodge anymore. Yes, I know that many Past Masters seem to believe that their purpose it to make the newer officers miserable, but I suspect that such PMs are actually a minority, albeit at times a loud, vocal, annoying minority. But some Past Masters really have no role in lodge anymore; once in a while they are called upon to sit in a chair for a degree, perhaps to take part in a Past Master degree, or maybe to deliver some lecture or charge on short notice.

Don’t get me wrong; I know that there are only 24 hours in a day, and only seven days in a week. But this is the longest I’ve been too busy to make lodge meetings, and it did make me wonder why some of us simply stop going and drift away. Were they suddenly too busy with work or family issues? Did they expect that it was only temporary, and that they would soon be back in their regular seats? When did they realize that they just aren’t going back at all? Does some psychic inertia take over that makes it just too difficult to start going again?

What do you think? What makes you or your brothers wander off for long periods of time? And why do you (or they) lose the motivation to come back?

Connecticut may seem a long way from Haiti, both geographically and culturally, but five years ago, members of the Haitian community requested permission to form a lodge. After a year under dispensation, during which they had to learn the very different  Connecticut workings, they were chartered as Universal Fraternity Lodge No. 149 in 2006.
The following article was originally written by RW Carl Ek for The Connecticut Freemason.

Universal Fraternity Lodge No. 149 – Their Strength is in Prayer
by Carl G. Ek

The sound of singing could be heard in the anteroom as the lodge opened. The brothers again joined in song as a delegation from the Grand Lodge was received – in French, of course, as this is the native language of so many of the brothers of Universal Fraternity Lodge No. 149.

Yet the music lacked the joy usually associated with the brothers of this lodge. The songs were a capella, with the organist away, dealing with personal issues. Pro-tem officers filled the West and the secretary’s chair. And while the room was well filled, the majority of brothers were almost certainly visitors.

Recently installed Worshipful Master Leslie St. Victor welcomed his visitors – RW’s Deputy Grand Master Charles A. Buck, Jr., Grand Senior Warden James T. McWain, and Grand Senior Deacon Simon R. LaPlace, plus a number of past and present District Deputies and Associate Grand Marshals. All were present to bring early support to brothers just beginning to learn the horrors of Haiti’s earthquake. Universal Fraternity Lodge No. 149, Stratford, was chartered at the Grand Lodge of 2006, but nearly all of its charter members were made Masons in their native Haiti. These good brothers bring traditions of their homeland to their new Grand Lodge, making a positive impression on those who have had the pleasure to visit their communications and celebrations.

In Haiti, it was clear there was nothing to celebrate. The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti has been described as a country lacking food, clean water, medical facilities, infrastructure, or even a working government – and this was before the earthquake. On January 16, less than a week after the quake, even factual information was hard to come by.

WM St. Victor emotionally filled in some of the facts that were known concerning “the inexplicable calamity of the island of Haiti” as it affected members of his lodge. His mom was uninjured, and he was planning to go to Haiti to bring her back to Connecticut. His father-in-law had lived for a half century in Brooklyn, New York before deciding to return to his homeland. His home was flattened; his own 98 year-old mother and an infant survived, but he did not. Bro. Leslie knew of at least six of his relatives who had been taken by the quake and its aftershocks.

The sister of one brother worked for the Archdiocese of Haiti. She died in the collapse of the cathedral, as did the Archbishop. Another brother had seven relatives – including his father and father-in-law – living in the same house. What was left of the structure had been shown several times on television news, but he could get no information about his family. All that he was told was that there were “bad smells” coming from the flattened dwelling.

The Master said that he and his brothers were, as best, coping, “not understanding why, not understanding how, not understanding how much their poor little country would have to suffer.” Against that backdrop, all present took part in a program of hope. “We pray for those who survive,” said WM St. Victor, who asked all present to “learn from the devastation how merciful can be the Almighty.”

Noting that “there is strength in prayer,” the Master led the group in the reading of several psalms, some familiar, others less so. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…  He restoreth my soul…  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:1,3 4) “I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” (Psalm 42:9) “Have mercy upon me, O God…” (Psalm 51) “Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord… But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.” (Psalm 70:1,5) “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.” (Psalm 85:7) The readings were concluded by the singing of the “Haitian Faith Battle Song,” en Francais, certainment.

A number of visiting brothers stepped forward as early responders to MW Arthur H. Carlstrom’s request that Connecticut brothers wishing to help in Haitian relief send checks to he Universal Fraternity Lodge Relief Fund. Worshipful Master Tony Foote of Corinthian Lodge No. 104, Stamford, presented a check for $1,000, and RW Steven Bowen delivered a Temple Lodge No. 65 check for $2,120. Bro. Chris Buck, Senior Warden of Ansantawae Lodge No. 89, Milford, delivered the proceeds of a collection taken the night before at his lodge. He was startled
to find exactly $149 in cash donations.

Several brothers mentioned gifts to other relief agencies, while a number noted that they have not yet met but would be making donations as soon as their lodges opened. In total, over $5,500 had already been donated by lodges and brothers present in the 5 days after the initial earthquake, with promises of far more in the upcoming days.

RW Deputy Grand Master Charles A. Buck, Jr. noted his sorrow that his first visit to Universal Fraternity Lodge was under such circumstances. He noted that Freemasons around the state share these brothers’ pain, and will do all they can to lessen it.

Worshipful Master Leslie St. Victor was eloquent in his sadness. “We are asking for prayer. We will be whole again. Please pray for us.” And, as he said quietly to one of the brothers in the Grand Lodge suite as they met in the East, “We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.”

I’d heard about it over the years but never gave it much thought. Unlike some people who had friends or relatives already into it, I got into it after picking up a little bit here and there, and finally developing enough interest to really look into it.

There were a ton of books on it, and I picked up a few at the library, then perused bookstores for more current information. Eventually I turned to the internet, where I found a wealth of information. My problem then became more one of how to figure out which websites were going to be useful.

After many long hours at various websites – both pro and con – I began to get a better idea. My next step was to haunt the web forums and bulletin boards where I could see discussions, and ask questions. I had a lot of questions, but I discovered that sometimes it was difficult to get answers; at least, answers that satisfied my curiousity. It didn’t dawn on me until later that this was probably because I was still looking in from the outside; some questions can only be answered from experience.

But I did discover some things. There’s an entire culture built around it, and it seems that almost everybody else who was in it had a different idea of what it was, or what it should be. I continued to study, though, and eventually decided to get into it myself. I hadn’t planned any huge commitment, at least, not at first. But I finally figured that I simply wasn’t going to understand it any better until I gave it a shot.

The online communities were a big help, although I did discover that just like any other interest group, there were some “old timers” who had been into it from “back in the old days” and always maintained some attitude about how things were better, and how much harder they had to work, and how the new guys have it is easy, and how they had to walk to school in their bare feet in a blizzard, etc., etc. I guess their underlying message was “we were here first, and that makes us better than you.” I saw how this put off some others, but I persevered.

Interestingly, I discovered that there were many schisms and splits over the years, and even though they seem to share the same general philosophy, the various groups seem to snipe at each other, and spare no words in describing how their version is better. Even though it was obvious which group was bigger and more wide-spread, I still fail to see why there is so much animosity.

But once I made my decision, I discovered that there were many, many more people online who were only too happy to help, to give me some ideas and pointers, and to take the time to direct me toward even more information. And the neat thing is that I continue to ask questions, because once I think I’ve figured out one area, I realize how much more of it there is to understand. I have no idea how some people can take in all there is to it.

And here’s the weird thing: once I decided to get into it, I began to notice more instances of it in my daily life. Being more attuned, I discovered people who were into it, and I saw signs and expressions all over the place. I had no idea that it was so widely known, and it has turned into a game for me, seeing how many signs I can spot in unexpected areas.

I also noticed that there are peculiar signs and tokens, not to mention a huge syntax – a vocabulary that is used by those who are into it. The words are either unfamiliar, or familiar, but made strange because of the context. Figuring that out became another fun game, but worthwhile, too, as it helped me to figure out how things are put together. And of course, there are purists who insist that the usages have to be exactly a certain way, or it’s not right.

And as I use the various tools that I’ve learned about, I become more aware of the philosophy behind them, and how all of these things fit together to help me be more productive in my craft.

Yes, it took a while, but I’m into it, now. I’ve even made a point of being more open about it, both at home and at work. People ask me questions, and I try to answer them without sounding too pushy. A few of them are thinking about getting into it, themselves.

Yes, I’m very happy that I finally got into it. In fact, now I wonder what took me so long to finally get around to using Linux.

What’s that?

Linux. It’s an Open Source operating system for PCs. I installed Linux on my home PC and now I’m running it at work, too.

Yes, this is about my computer.

Why, what did you think I was writing about?