A group of flying monkeys, led by a paranoid videographer who calls himself "Weaving Spider," descended on a Masonic meeting in Toronto, Canada, recently. Two brothers outside the meeting tried to answer their questions about Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, and Masonic symbols. Bro. Chris Garlington, who pointed me to these videos, said "I don't know how I would handle it if I got waylaid by a camera toting gaggle of conspiracy geeks like this. I have to say I think he did ok.... I would have maybe told more jokes and asked them to buy tickets to a fishfry."
The Canadian brothers did do a good job of maintaining their cool, even though they were unprepared to be discussing Pike and the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, they being Canadian.
How would you have reacted and responded to the camera jockeys' rants and questions?
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I would direct them to the introduction in which Pike says the reader is entirely free to agree or disagree with Pike. The former and the latter of which I do on regular occasion, despite or because of my deep admiration of Pike. I take this statement as an absolute truth when reading M&D, and the rest as I find measures to weight and size. It's not a Bible, and Pike is not a God. No man is-Mason or no.
ReplyDeleteWith all respect to the Canadian Mason whom they spoke to, I actually have read significant portions of Morals and Dogma.
ReplyDeleteI would have taught them about sovereignty of the Grand Lodge, and then explained about things like Knights Templar, Shrine, OES, Masonic Rosicrucians, etc.. to show that there are different appendant/concordant bodies that have different teachings and agendas, and that even if they are organized nationally or internationally, the Grand Lodge is still the Sovereign authority. Scottish Rite is merely one of those groups.
Even so, Scottish Rite's symbolism as with the majority of the symbolism in Masonry, is left up to the interpretation of the individual brother. Pike expressed his opinion. Each of us is free to express our own.
But yes, some of us do read Morals and Dogma. But we don't read it like a volume of scripture. We read it like a commentary. Sometimes we laugh at it.
What a weird feeling.... I thought for a moment it was going to be me in this clip. The Toronto Society of Masonic Research held an event last fall and these guys were there cornering Masons and non-Masons as they went in.
ReplyDeleteThey latched onto the same questions and trust me it doesn't matter what you say in response as they always end with "They obviously don't know the truth, 'they' aren't high enough up the hierarchy to know the real secrets" (but they do???)
These guys aren't interested in the truth or rational explanations, they are interested in their conspiracies and being right. The more rational your answer the more they self confirm that you are hiding something.
This fervent pack of followers would be great candidates for a sociological study, but a well thought out explanation is irrelevant unfortunately.
Kudos to this brother for holding his own.
ReplyDeleteThose kids just pounced on him not letting him answer.
Best quote: "is this a real book?"
ReplyDeleteUh, what the h*ll does that mean? Can something be a fake book and exist? (ex: the Necronomicon is a fake book).
Obviously, these idiots aren't into doing any real research.
Such as, Pike was only involved in the Southern Jurisdiction SR, and he and his work is meaningless outside of their area. And the SJSR no longer even publishes M&D, having updating the rituals.
Well... kids. What kind of fairness do you expect from a bunch of self-righteous smart asses in their teens or early twenties who believe they are in the possession of the absolute truth because the Bible (King James version only, of course) is the true word of God, that great bestselling author who sometimes enjoys speaking of himself in the third person, or praying to himself, as in the Psalms. After all, since Wired (Weird?) Magazine says that Wikipedia is fixed, we at least know for sure that the Bible isn't, right? And to show how courageous they fight for the truth of the Bible, and to assure themselves of just how right they are, these kids had to descend on this brave brother like a murder of crows, all cawing at the same time (most obnoxiously that dumbass who apparently held the camera, posing as moderator, and interrupting everyone with his babble as he saw fit).
ReplyDeleteAs policomm has already written, these dudes only wanted to show off how right they are. They don't need any arguments, because -- they are right. That's why their knowledge of history is so sketchy -- or maybe, since history is probably fixed altogether as well, there's no point of knowing anything about history, right? (The founding fathers put the pyramid on the dollar bill, sure).
My admiration belongs to the unknown brother who defended reason and truth so valiantly, in a fair manner, and, at most of the time, unperturbed -- like a Mason, that is.
If Ezra Pound's Cantos were the only thing I had ever read about Fascism, I would quite possibly consider Mussolini a great philosopher. It has always been Pike, it will always be Pike; mobs of that sort will never know, nor use any other source about the Craft -- it is so convenient, you don't need to actually know anything (speaking of doing "a lot of research"), you don't even need to read anything; you just quote the same two paragraphs again and again, and hope that you will receive bonus points for the afterlife.
The moral of the story: It is quite easy for me to be right after all, if I don't read, don't listen and don't stop asking the same off-topic questions time and again and again.