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Poetry or prose? Considerations about Lomas and Knight works on Freemasonry
“Veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols...” – Albert Pike
I must answer a very dear Brother of mine about some questions regarding the work of Brothers Robert Lomas and Chris Knight. To achieve that, trying to make myself understandable in a language that is not my mother tongue, I have to make an introduction. So, here we go: According to Albert Pike (1808 – 1891), Freemasonry is “A Peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” That is wonderful poetry! To read poetry in terms of prose usually causes confusion. Author of a famous book, nowadays out of print but easy to find over the Internet in places like (http://reactor-core.org/morals-and-dogma.html ) his book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry, published in 1871 became a widely source of research for many Freemasons, particularly those who, like himself, are protestants in religion and right winged conservatives in politics. Again, Freemasonry is not a religion – but it has common roots with most protestant forms of religious manifestation – neither preaches it some political form as a principle – regardless, most Freemasons are indeed right winged conservatives, usually conservatives in practices but quite liberal while making speeches, Oh, well, that is another issue… At “Morals and Dogma” I found 32 commandments at its “Decalogue”: Maybe there are more. But as the Protestants, all is focused on a last one, given by Jesus. As follows:
“Masonry has its Decalogue, which is a law to its Initiates. These are its Ten Commandments. I. God is the Eternal, Omnipotent, Immutable WISDOM and Supreme INTELLIGENCE and Exhaustless Love. Thou shalt adore, revere, and love Him! Thou shalt honour Him by practising the virtues! II. Thy religion shall be, to do good because it is a pleasure to thee, and not merely because it is a duty. That thou mayest become the friend of the wise man, thou shalt obey his precepts ! Thy soul is immortal ! Thou shalt do nothing to degrade it! III. Thou shalt unceasingly war against vice! Thou shalt not do unto others that which thou wouldst not wish them to do unto thee! Thou shalt be submissive to thy fortunes, and keep burning the light of wisdom! IV. Thou shalt honour thy parents! Thou shalt pay respect and homage to the aged! Thou shalt instruct the young! Thou shalt protect and defend infancy and innocence! V. Thou shalt cherish thy wife and thy children! Thou shalt love thy country, and obey its laws! VI. Thy friend shall be to thee a second self! Misfortune shall not estrange thee from him! Thou shalt do for his memory whatever thou wouldst do for him, if he were living! VII. Thou shalt avoid and flee from insincere friendships! Thou shalt in everything refrain from excess. Thou shalt fear to be the cause of a stain on thy memory! VIII. Thou shalt allow no passions to become thy master! Thou shalt make the passions of others profitable lessons to thyself! Thou shalt be indulgent to error! IX. Thou shalt hear much: Thou shalt speak little: Thou shalt act well! Thou shalt forget injuries! Thou shalt render good for evil! Thou shalt not misuse either thy strength or thy superiority! X. Thou shalt study to know men; that thereby thou mayest learn to know thyself! Thou shalt ever seek after virtue! Thou shalt be just! Thou shalt avoid idleness! But the great commandment of Masonry is this: "A new commandment give I unto you: that ye love one another! He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, remaineth still in the darkness."
Well known as favor to slavery and a fundamentalist protestant, Grand Lodge of British Columbia denies that Pike was founder of Ku Klux Klan: http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/kkk.html – it is really not likely, but I wonder why people never bother, for instance, to make essays proving that “the pope is not a Jew”. That being said and based upon the rules and dogmas he created, Pike is considered by many as a The Pope of Freemasons.
Joseph Campbell tries to reinforce our faith bringing science and religion together
Religious books like Rig Veda, the Talmud, the Bible, and the Koran were written most in terms of poetry. Reading them in terms of prose brings not only confusion but even war! What happened many times in history – Christians, Muslins and Jews fighting each other over the same basic God, code of rules and morality – is an example. Some simple minded Buddhist people believes that Siddhartha Gautama was conceived and generated not in the uterus, but in the heart of her mother with an elephant as a father. It’s sublime to think about a human being born “from the heart” – that is magnificent poetry, not scientific explanation at all! Same goes to simple minded Jews, Christians and Muslins: Enoch was lead to heaven in his body; Moses opened the Red Sea to the “chosen people” pass in dry making it close again to drawn Pharaohs troops; Joshua prayed and God made the Sun stop its course in the sky for as long as it took in order to the “chosen people” wins a battle; Again: Joshua made a large wall fall down simply using some priests whistling some horns; Jesus – and for simple minded catholic people – ascended to heaven in their bodies (if we think “heaven” same as “sky” – in Portuguese we have same word for both: “céu” – what is the point? How could a human body fly around without any equipment? If it reaches the speed of light and endures the fierce conditions of outer space – no air, low pressure and so on – where exactly would they be today? Alpha Centauri?); Mohammed, according to simple minded Muslins, also “ascended to heaven” from Jerusalem, so that city very important in their belief system. The problems in Mohammed’s space travel would be the same and the examples are really numerous to all religions. So: how can we bring together our scientific achievements with the belief system? According to Joseph Campbell: by reading sacred books in terms of poetry, not in terms of prose. We don’t have to throw the Book away because it conflicts with the scientific discoveries. Just read it in terms it was written, not in terms it was interpreted (should I say “misinterpreted”?) by many allover the years.
Brothers Lomas and Knight issue
Those men are really devoted to the Craft, try to bring faith and science together and made extremely accurate research using libraries and also in loco in many different countries during about 30 years of hard work. The least they deserve is the benefit of doubt. Maybe they were lead to some kind of “wishful thinking” here and there – like that example of Pharaoh Seqenenre Tao – whose mummy was found with same kind of injuries Hiram Abiff would have suffered. That is really hard to believe and I still searching for more solid information about that issue. Inspite the story of Seqenenre Tao points precisely to the direction they claim – and they bother even to take some pictures of the mummy’s head in order to show the similarities of those injuries suffered by Hiram Abiff according to our allegories and those found in Seqenenre Tao. I still find that proof a bit poor yet. But they are really persuasive and they clearly believe what they write is reflection of truth. The point I agree the most – and they appear in almost all their books – is that the dogma saying that Masonry was born in England at June 24th 1717 when 4 lodges joined in a pub and decided to create UGLE – that fabulous theory throws away as spurious all Masonic constructions, writings, symbols and representation allover Europe prior to that gathering. Another dogma hard to bear is that some nobles, rich traders, bankers and princes went to labor constructors in order to learn by them a morality system… Also, all reference of Freemasons other than that is considered not regular. All writings, notes of gathering of Freemasons (called by this precise name) in ancient Prussia, Portugal and other points of Europe were considered forgery or simply “non regular”. I am convinced that Lomas and Knight have a point here that sure deserves more attention. On the other hand and after accurate re-reading of our Brother’s works, I couldn’t find any reference saying that “Jesus was a Freemason” – the very concept, the word itself, didn’t exist at Jesus time. Lomas and Knight, however, explain in details and point the right places, so that anyone who cares may find, how the initiation system functioned among the high Jewish priests during Jesus years on Earth. They speculate – not affirm – if Jesus could have being initiated according to ancient Jewish rites removed later by Romans and maybe found later by the Knights Templar when they dig bellow Solomon’s Temple. “Maybe”, “perhaps” and “could be” are words they use a lot. Over that we can’t disagree. In sum, there must be an explanation to our reverence toward the Knights Templar, some similarities between their practices and ours and even our high consideration regarding Jacques DeMolay. In “The Second Messiah” – an unfortunate choice of title in my humble opinion – they present proof based on Carbon 14 about the correct dating of the Shroud of Turim – between 1290 and 1380 BC. That piece could not be a painting, it was a person who caused that effect. A Caucasian person, no doubt. The book was written in an attempt to proof that it was Jacques DeMolay in the shroud, not something like a “second coming” – those words Lomas and Knight don’t use, not even once, in that book – but a torture like roman catholic church used to do in order to extract confessions and relevant information from someone considered heretic. This is only a first approach. Much more information might come into light since the problem is presented. 3x3
Lázaro Curvêlo Chaves.’. – 21/03/2007 Some books by Lomas and Knight
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