Regarding Freemasonry (Super Conspiracy Edition. Expanded!) Read online

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  Regarding Freemasonry

  (Super Conspiracy Edition! Expanded!)

  Bernard Schaffer

  Published by Apiary Society Publications

  Copyright 2012 Bernard Schaffer

  Discover other titles by Bernard Schaffer at Amazon.com such as:

  Superbia

  Guns of Seneca 6

  Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, should be inferred.

  Introduction to the Super Conspiracy Edition

  Regarding Freemasonry was first published in December 2011 as a short essay. Frankly, there wasn’t much to it (about fifteen pages), but people seemed to enjoy the content, so I kept it available for purchase. The problem is that people kept buying it, and it dawned on me that there is a real need for frank, honest discourse about the fraternity of Freemasonry. Also, someone needs to call out the kooks who try to make it something that it isn’t.

  Enjoy.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Regarding Freemasonry

  Chapter 2: Proof of a Conspiracy! Or, Something Close to It

  Chapter 3: An Incomplete but Still Thoroughly Engaging List of People Who Were Freemasons

  Chapter 4: The Internet, or, Affirmations for Silly People

  Chapter 5: Which Brings Us to Jack the Ripper

  Chapter 6: Somewhere, a Whole Lot of Villages Are Missing Their Idiots

  Chapter 7: But Wait, It Gets Better

  Chapter 8: Blame It All On Albert Pike (I Do)

  Chapter 9: And With All That Said, Something IS Rotten in Denmark

  Chapter 10: Questions and Answers

  Chapter 1: Regarding Freemasonry

  My interest in Freemasonry began as I became serious about studying the history of the United States of America. It is impossible to truly examine our beginnings as a nation and not see the Masonic influence over the men who founded it. The mark of Freemasonry can be found etched into our national monuments, hidden in the design of our currency, and intertwined into the very documents that birthed this country.

  Much has been made of that. Some of it was actually correct.

  Most of what is written today about Freemasons are conspiracy theories shouting about “New World Orders” and other inaccuracies inspired by fiction. I’ve watched the same re-enactments you have on the History Channel of “secret Masonic rituals,” and I can tell you this much: I don’t know what those folks were up to, but it sure did look like fun.

  Right? All the masks and robes and stuff? Pretty cool.

  I am a Freemason. A brief listing of my pedigree would read: Master Mason in a Blue Lodge, Royal Arch Master Mason and Knight Templar.

  Getting in was simple. I applied to each of those various organizations and paid the required dues to show up a few nights and go through the initiation proceedings. That’s the big mystery. That’s how hard it was to do it.

  No one in my family has ever been a Freemason before. My father said he was interested in joining many years ago, but could not afford the dues. Coming from a long-line of blue collar workers with large families, I’m not surprised that I’m the first to be able to afford it.

  Initially, I had no idea how to become a Freemason. All I knew was that the myths about them both intrigued and entranced me. In short, I wanted to see what went on behind those closed doors, and there’s only one way to find out. So I did.

  ***

  The old adage of Freemasons is that “To Be One, Ask One.”

  I’ll consider your interest in this book as you’re asking me, but if you tell anybody I replied, a secret team of ninja assassins will come to your house and kill all your goldfish using an ancient dagger from the mines of King Solomon.

  ***

  Just kidding.

  ***

  I showed up on my very first night at the Masonic Lodge after a long, long application process. The Lodge can only do so many First Degrees at any given time, so if there are a lot of applicants, your wait can stretch on for months. Mine did.

  But finally, it was the night, and I was there on time. Alone. There was nobody else around.

  I walked through the Lodge, looking for people, but saw no one. Finally, I ventured up the steps and saw two closed doors. There were voices inside.

  Whoever was supposed to be sitting outside of the doors was not there that night (might have been in the bathroom. He’s an old guy.) so I sat on the bench and waited.

  That’s when my mind began to play tricks on me. Was I supposed to knock on the door? Were they waiting for me to show them how serious I was about being a member? Was this all part of some test?

  I got up to go knock, then changed my mind and sat back down. What if I was just supposed to wait? What if it was like the scene from Fight Club where you just had to keep showing up and standing outside of the door patiently until someone finally took pity on you and allowed you inside?

  So I waited. And waited. And that’s when my imagination started to run wild.

  What really was about to go on? I was putting myself at the mercy of an entire room of men who, for all I knew, secretly ran the world and engaged in animal sacrifice.

  I comforted myself by thinking that whatever was about to take place inside of that room had been in existence for centuries. Whatever the ritual or ceremony I was about to partake in, it would be much the same as the one George Washington underwent. For me, taking a step into Freemasonry was the equivalent of taking a step into history, to hear the things the great men of our country heard and said.

  Finally someone did come out and ask me if I was ready.

  I told them that I was. I was escorted to a small room and instructed on how to go about preparing to enter the Lodge of Freemasons for the first time. It’s something you never forget. When you are going into closed rooms with no idea of what is inside waiting for you, no clue about what the people intend to do, it requires a certain measure of trust.

  Trust in people you’ve never met.

  Trust in the people you’ve admired throughout history.

  I kept telling myself that whatever happened to me had happened to things greater than I for countless years, and somehow, it made every step I took that much easier.

  ***

  It is, by far, easier to tell you what Freemasonry is not, than what it actually is. First of all, it is not a religion. There is no specific religious instruction, and no claim of any particular deity.

  This seems to be a sticking point for the religious organizations who disavow Freemasonry. They get angry because THEIR God isn’t singled out as the real one. I personally see this as a traditional practice of non-discrimination. If any church wants to tell me that’s a sin, so be it, but they do it with the air of prejudice against everyone outside of their particular denomination.

  The Freemasons are not a religious organization, so it really does not matter what the individual member’s particular belief is. It never becomes an issue, because it is never brought up.

  I realize that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around. It was for me as well, because I initially thought the Masons had their own religion. They don’t.

  *** />
  The only Masonic requirement in terms of religion is that you as a person accept the existence of God. Whether that means the Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or Glycon the make-believe Roman snake deity, they don't say. It isn't asked. Whatever God you take with you into Freemasonry is the one they are talking about.

  ***

  Freemasonry is not a cult. It is also not a political organization. There has never once been, in my experience, any effort to rally the brethren to partake in any political event. There was no mention of any Presidential Elections, no support offered by the body to any candidate, and no Freemason representation at any of the voting polls.

  If anything, there are more rules against what can be discussed inside of the Lodge that prevent people from talking about religion and politics than any kind of encouragement to do so.

  ***

  There is no central leadership of Freemasonry outside that of the state any lodge operates in.

  I’m going to say this again, because it is a fundamental point when we discuss conspiracy theories that the Freemasons are attempting to take over the world.

  There is NO central leadership of Freemasonry outside of the state any lodge operates in.

  Pennsylvania’s Grand Lodge is located in Philadelphia. It has no connection to the Grand Lodge of New Jersey, California, London, Nova Scotia, or anywhere else. Everybody in other parts of the country and world might do things completely different than we do, and that’s okay, because there is no governing body between the two.

  If you are a Freemason reading this thinking, “This guy’s nuts, that’s not how we do it” then let me reinforce that I have no clue what you guys are up to. Except for the people in New Jersey. I have my suspicions about you folks and always have.

  But that has more to do with them being from New Jersey than anything else.

  Let’s keep moving.

  ***

  Basically, any local Masonic Lodge is a club. Masons call themselves a fraternity, but in my mind, I picture fraternities as being places with Greek names and naked college vixens hanging from the chandeliers. You will be highly disappointed if you join up thinking people are doing keg stands behind closed doors.

  Until recently, none of the Masonic instruction was allowed to be written down. It had to be taught verbally from instructor to student over a period of months, and practiced relentlessly until the degree could be imparted without flaw. The trouble is that there is no other specific instruction on how to be a “Good Freemason” aside from that which is imparted during the degree.

  Of course there are hundreds of books and websites that tell you to BE a good Freemason, but the parts that say, “A good freemason wakes up early on Sunday, mows his grass, eats a few fruits and grains and feeds stray dogs. On Monday he toils in the field, builds a tree house, and learns to play the kazoo," do not exist.

  If the concern is that this group of mainly old men and curious young upstarts that meets once a month is somehow conspiring to control the World Bank, you are seriously deluded. The most controversial thing I’ve seen is a debate about who’s going to cater the next meeting and what members will volunteer to wash the dishes during the pancake breakfast.

  ***

  Inauspicious Beginnings

  Real masons are referred to as Operative Masons. Those are the guys who point, grout, lay concrete and build foundations.

  Speculative Masons, like me, are the guys who meet at the lodge and discuss the formation of building temples within each individual member.

  Looking back, it’s always been pretty clear which type of Mason I would wind up being. When I was fifteen years old, my dad hired a stonemason to build a new front deck on our house.

  My dad, ever the spendthrift, graciously offered my services to this man free of charge. He did this, of course, without bothering to ask me or ever even tell me about it.

  I got off of the school bus one sunny afternoon to see this very large, burly man covered in concrete dust standing by my front door. “Hey kid,” he said. “Pick up that wheelbarrow and make me some mud.”

  I set down my schoolbag and said, "Excuse me?" All I had wanted to do that day was pour myself a nice glass of lemonade and read a few comic books. The prospect of getting filthy for no pay did not seem very appealing.

  He grunted at me when he said, “Pick up that wheelbarrow right there, and go make me a batch of mud. I need it quick. Your dad said you were working with me, so get to it.”

  I looked up at him. “Mud?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay.”

  I wheeled the wheelbarrow into the backyard and found a shovel in the barn. I found a nice patch of soft grass and started to dig and dig until there were piles of dirt and grass inside the wheelbarrow’s bucket. After it was full, I picked up the handles and drove the thing back into the front yard. The mason was up on a ladder, carefully setting a stone in place.

  I grabbed a hose from the side of the house and started spraying it into the bucket, until there was so much water inside the wheelbarrow that clumps of dirt started to spill over the side. I grabbed one of the mason’s hammers and began to stir.

  At some point, this enormous man looked down at what I was doing from high up on the ladder. All I remember is looking back up at him and seeing his amazed, wide-eyed expression, to which I dutifully responded, “Your mud is almost ready, sir!”

  And that was how my career as an Operative Mason began and ended. I picked up my schoolbag and went inside to set about doing what I’d wanted to do in the first place. It was not until my father came home that I was finally told that “mud” meant concrete to some people. Luckily, the mason was not interested in my returning to his worksite and opted to forge ahead without me.

  ***

  History: Quick and Dirty

  More than anything else, the Masonic connection to the Knights Templar has always fascinated me and drawn me to learning more about it. Freemasonry has an ancillary body that calls itself the Knights Templar, and even though they deny any historical ancestry, the evidence suggests otherwise.

  The first thing we should do is get our historical understanding straight. Sit up, class. Get your pencils ready.

  Since the dawn of time, people have sought to build things. They needed good, solid structures for government buildings, statues, temples, residences, and fortifications. It probably seemed like a good idea that if you were building a house, you’d want the people putting it together to have some idea about what they’re doing. In those days before Better Business Bureaus, they needed a way to ensure that trained personnel were up to the task they were being paid for.

  Kind of like the guy that shows up offering to repave your driveway.

  It is up to you to decide if he is from a reputable asphalt company or a gypsy scam artist. I’m thinking that the station wagon with two buckets of Home Depot driveway sealer in the back are a pretty good indicator, but far be it from me to get involved with your business.

  Anyway, the creation of a guild of Masons.

  Given that the privilege of reading and writing was not available to much of the public, other ways were developed of ensuring that if a person said they were a member of the Mason’s Guild, it could be proven. Secret words, handshakes, signs and many other forms of recognition were created to enable a Mason to travel around the country freely. They were a way of identifying yourself as a trained craftsman to others. A kind of primitive business card, if you will, but one that was only handed out to deserving recipients.

  ***

  Severe punishments awaited those who somehow learned the secret ways of identifying themselves as Masons under false pretenses. These were unforgiving, hardened men who knew how to use the power tools of their times. Not people to be taken lightly, for sure.

  ***

  One benefit of being an Operative Mason during this time was that Masons were one of the only classes of people allowed to travel freely from city to city. By virtue
of the need to have them working at any given job site at any given time, the rulers of the kingdoms didn't want them tied up at the gatehouse.

  This plays a very significant part in our story.

  Over time, during the 16th or 17th Century, arose what we now call Speculative Freemasonry. It was a group of men who adopted the system created by their Operative brethren, but instead of physically building temples for kings, the idea was to erect a “temple” within each individual member.

  There is no definitive answer as to why so many Freemasons abandoned the practical application of their trades and began focusing instead on character-development and solidarity. Historians can only guess as to how and why this occurred.

  From what I’ve read, the answers can be found in the history of the Knights Templar.

  ***

  After Jerusalem was captured during the First Crusade, many Christians wanted to make pilgrimages to the Holy Lands that so many had died to secure. Getting there was a harrowing task, and many of the pilgrims were robbed or killed while travelling there.

  In the early 1100’s a group of Knights were established to protect these travelling Christians and took on the name Knights Templar. The Catholic Church bestowed an official endorsement on them and the Templars began expanding rapidly. Many charities were directed toward the Order, and in 1139, the Pope declared that they were exempt from paying taxes.

  And then, the Knights Templar had a moment of pure genius. They erected temples all along the path to Jerusalem, which were actually secret banking locations. Travelers were able to deposit money at one temple and withdraw it at any other temple along the way. For a small fee.

  This early foray into franchise banking worked well. Staggeringly well.

  It worked too damn well.

  The Knights Templar amassed SO much money that King Philip the IV of France had to borrow from them to finance his war with the English. The problem was, the Knights Templar actually expected to be paid back. There are, of course, certain risks associated with having a King owe you more money than he is interested in repaying.