While I sit here making fun of conspiracy-minded fundamentalist anti-Masons, other people are doing and writing about much grander things, both inside and outside of Freemasonry.
I found on California Freemason Online a 2003 article by Bro. Jay Kinney titled "Is Freemasonry Afraid of Its Own Shadow: Masonry's Love/Hate Relationship with Esoteric Traditions," wherein he explores why mainstream Masonry tends to "consign to the lunatic fringe those Masons who have seen or do see connections or parallels between Masonry and the Ancient Mysteries, the great myths, and esoteric traditions." Interesting reading....
Edgewood Lodge No. 82 of Edgewood, New Mexico has republished W. Bro. Phillip Bennison's "History of the Craft." Bro. Bennison examines the different possible histories of Freemasonry, asking whether Freemasonry originated from Megalithic times, King Solomon, Athelstan, the Knights Templars, Medieval Stone Masons, William Schaw and King James I of Scotland, Box charities, the Invisible College or the Rosicrucians.
Pietre-Stone Review of Freemasonry gives us R. W. Bro. Don Falconer's "King Solomon's Temple: Symbol of Freemasonry," a look at the biblical history and Masonic symbolism of Solomon's Temple, the pillars of Boaz and Jachin, and the Ark of the Covenant.
W. Bro. Ronald Paul Ng, of Malaysia, interprets the First and Third Degrees of Freemasonry in light of Prof. Joseph Campbell's basic structure of myth, the Hero's Monomyth, in "The Philosophy of Freemasonry: Its Mythical Structure."The Burning Taper discussed Campbell's The Hero of a Thousand Faces and the monomythic structure in "The Power of Myth: Thou Art That" in February, 2006.
Earlier this week a news story that had nothing to do with Masonry fascinated me. It's about a Jewish man who grew up in a hippie commune in Oregon, who went on to become a radical Muslim, then gave it up to become a Baptist. Along the way, he became an informant for the FBI. CNN called him one of "God's Warriors." I guess some people, anyway, agree that Yahweh, Allah and Gawd are all the same God.
Earlier today, the brother who writes the From Darkness to Light blog let loose on something political he disagreed with that was on a recent X-Oriente Masonic podcast.
Bro. Brian at Grail Seekers posted a couple of interesting links, one to a site showing tattoos of Noon Blue Apples emblazoned with "to the prettiest one" in Greek. In addition to the tattoos, you'll find an interesting discussion of Discordianism and the late Robert Anton Wilson.
Another article Bro. Brian linked to is titled "Astronomy of Astrology", which explores the history of astrology from a scientific viewpoint.
And finally, for no apparent reason, I point you to a story about a cemetery in Meridian, Mississippi, that has gone to weeds since a Masonic lodge that had owned and maintained it since the 1890s sold it a few years ago.
Image: Keira Knightley as Guinevere in 2004's "King Arthur"
I've written several times on, or made reference to, astrotheology, which is the study of, or belief, that the Sun, Moon, planets and stars and their movements are the basis for all mythological and religious stories.
I have come to believe this is not only the basis of the general story of Jesus and other savior-gods who came before and since Him, but is also the source of the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff, and why the Sun and Moon are such important symbols in Freemasonry.
This doesn't discount the fact that Jesus may actually have existed; it simply calls into question whether the widespread astrotheological beliefs of the ancient Middle East and later Rome were superimposed upon a historical man who was the descendant of King David and rightful heir to the title King of the Jews, and that then superimposed onto religious, spiritual and moral philosophies and commandments.
Heretical? Yes. True? Could be. It vibrates as truth to me.
I live in the country, where the lights of the city don't block out the stars at night. I sit outside in the evenings regularly, basking in their shimmering, subtle rays. I can't observe a sunrise or sunset, or watch the motion of the Moon, Venus and the constellations without the overwhelming feeling that humanity has been doing the same thing for eons, watching the sky with a curious amazement, creating stories to explain what they see.
Until now.
In today's world, we seldom look up. We take the Heavens for granted. To most of us, space is just a place we send satellites and shuttles, and a setting for sci-fi soap operas and shoot-em-ups.
I stood in awe a few months ago, watching a perfect lunar eclipse just after sunset, with hundreds of unaware people near me, first outside a scouting function I was attending at a local elementary school, and then in a Wal-Mart parking lot.... A few scouts came out to watch with me, but to my knowledge, no one there even knew the eclipse was happening until I mentioned it to a few people who then joined me outside. Later, at Wal-Mart, shoppers bustled through the parking lot, not noticing the magnificent light show in the sky, as I leaned against my car watching for another half hour.
Is not the Sun the Giver of Life? It shines upon us, warms us, and feeds us. It is the Light without which we would die. Humanity figured that out long ago, and deified it, calling it (or its human, often kingly "son") Jupiter, Zeus, Apollo, Ra, Osiris, Mithras, Deus Sol Invictus, and finally, Jesus, the Son of God. Some Hindu teachings have 12 names for the Sun, one for each month. Sun-chariots are pulled by 12 horses. Its disk shape is the All-Seeing Eye of God to Freemasons, and together with the (apparent) same-sized Moon disk, it is the Eye of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis. The child is or becomes the parent, just as Jesus, the Son of God, is also considered God the Father.
It's not easy making this "leap of faith," that the Jesus story as we usually hear it is a myth. I'm as steeped in Christianity as any one of you reading this, perhaps moreso. Sunday School threats of eternal damnation for disbelief still rattle around in my brain, I guess.
But it's never made sense to me. Jesus, the scapegoat. God killing himself on a cross because He loves us, but damning us if we don't believe it. Paul, the former Christian-hater, writing all the rules of Christianity, right down to silly requirements about women wearing hats to church that most Christians ignore. Judas died either by hanging himself, or by falling off a cliff, depending on which book of the Bible you read. Walking on water. Raising the dead. Miracles....
These things are illogical and in most cases impossible, and if someone told you any of this happened in modern times, you'd laugh and call them a kook. Because people don't rise from the dead or fly or walk on water, except in movies and comic books. And myths.
And don't even get me started on the Old Testament Yahweh, the baby-killing, nation-smiting, jealously insecure God in a Box. That God certainly isn't "love."
I read recently there are 30,000 different sects or variations of Christianity on the planet. If any one of them is "right," the other 29,999 are wrong by definition.
But... if it's all metaphorical, allegorical, symbolic — then and only then does it resonate rationally within me.
There you go.... There's my "testimony" as it stands today. I don't expect I'll be invited to give it at the local Baptist church, but so it goes.
Have I been duped by the Devil, doomed to Hell for my non-belief in today's "standarized" version of an age-old world mythology? I don't think so. It doesn't seem that way to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay "On Self Reliance,"
On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil’s child, I will live then from the devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.
None of this means I don't necessarily believe in a God, or a Great Architect of the Universe, or a Higher Power, or the survival of the soul or survival of the personality after death, nor does it deny the desirability of being moral, upright, compassionate or spiritual. It's simply my attempt to shake off the shackles of a twisted theology based in fear, foisted upon me at an early age, and to replace it with something of value that makes sense.
This, for now, is my Truth. I don't ask that it be yours.
You might enjoy the video below. You can watch it here, or on YouTube.com.
Image: Sunrise over the Atlantic, taken on the shores of Daytona Beach, Florida, July 4, 2005. Released into the public domain.
After reading more articles spawned by the Blog Against Theocracy campaign, I was musing ("musing" is such an overused word on blogs these days) thinking about the Radical Right's continued dead-horse beating of their mantra "America is a Christian nation."
A few miscellaneous and random points to ponder:
George Washington wrote into the Treaty of Tripoli, later signed into law by John Adams, the phrase "...the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." [A comment on a forum about this article says this is "a myth being spread across the Internet." And this website, which posts the text of the entire treaty, indicates that Joel Barlow, not Washington, wrote the Treaty.]
Thomas Jefferson wrote in "Notes on the State of Virgina, "It does me no injury for my neighbors to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
The days of the week are named after gods or goddesses or things-in-the-sky that were once considered gods. Sunday and Monday are named in honor of the Sun and Moon; Tuesday is named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the equivalent of the Roman war god Mars. Wednesday is named for the Germanic god Woden (Wodan), who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons, equivalent to the Norse Odin and akin to the Roman Mercury. Thursday is named after the Germanic Thunor, or Norse Thor, akin to the Roman Jupiter. Friday takes its name from Frigg or Freyja, the Germanic goddess of beauty, roughly equivalent to the Roman Venus and Greek Aphrodite. Saturday, of course, is named in honor of the Roman god of agriculture and time, Saturn.
The planets in our solar system are all named for Roman Gods: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, Charon, and Eris. Earth's other name, Gaia, was a Greek goddess.
Many of the months are named for non-Christian gods: January is named for Janus, the Roman two-headed or two-faced god of the doorway. One face looked back to the past, the other to the future, just as we still do in the month of January. February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual Februa held on February 15 in the old Roman calendar. That ritual probably was related to February 14 as well; the "love" rituals we go through every Valentine's Day are hardly a Christian thing. Even if St. Valentine did begin it (he didn't), he would hardly be considered a Christian by today's standards. March was called Martius in ancient Rome, and was dedicated to Mars, the god of war. It has been suggested that the name April (Latin aprilis) comes either from the Latin word aperire, "to open," referring to the new growth in springtime, or, more likely, from aphrilis, which referred to the Greek equivalent of Venus, Aphrodite. The month of May may have been named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May. June is named after the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera, Zeus's wife. July and August were named for the Roman emperors who were proclaimed a god and son of a god. In 42 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was formally deified as Divus Iulius ("the Divine Julius"), and Caesar Augustus henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god").
Early American space missions were named for gods: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo; it was even mirrored in the fictional Lost in Space television program with the spacecraft Jupiter II.
American (and foreign) automobile brands and models have been named after gods: Mercury, Roman messenger of the gods; Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and of time, equivalent to Cronus in the pre-Greek pantheon; Taurus, associated with the Greek myth of Zeus taking the form of a bull to seduce Europa; Mazda (full name Ahura Mazda), the Zoroastrian god of light; Thunderbird, a mythical creature common to Native American religion; the Dodge Odyssey reminds us of Odysseus, released by the goddess Athena only to have his raft destroyed by Poseidon. Dodge also had a car called the Aries, which was a mythological ram which carried Athamas's son Phrixus and daughter Helle to Colchis to escape their stepmother Ino. Dodge also had a car called the Phoenix, named for the mythological bird associated with Egypt's sun gods, as far back as the 1950s.
Our favorite sinking ships are named for non-Christian gods: Poseidon, named for the Roman god of the sea, and the Titanic, named for the Titans (Gaea, Uranus, Cronus, Rhea, Oceanus, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, Phoebe, Thea, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, Metis, and Dione), who ruled before they were overthrown by the later Greek pantheon we're more familiar with (Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, et al). The NFC football team from Tennessee is named for these gods, too.
American culture and products are rife with pagan god names: Canon cameras are named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy. Trident chewing gum is named for the pitchfork-like staff carried by the gods of the sea, Neptune and Poseidon. There are Venus razors and a Venus Bridal brand of bridal accessories. There are condoms named for Ramses II, a pharaoh-god of Egypt. The popular Disney characters Snow White and Cinderella, taken from folklore, are veiled archetypes of European goddesses, and Pocahantas, though she was a real woman, is also a goddess archetype of Native American religion. The Allman Brothers originally recorded for Capricorn Records. Sirius Radio is named for hunter Orion's canine companion. And don't forget Mickey Mouse's dopey dog Pluto. Even our weapons of war are made by a company named after mythology: Raytheon, maker of missiles such as Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder and Tomahawk, means "light of the gods."
America even has her own goddess, Columbia, who graces the top of the Capitol, New York Harbor, the old Liberty Head dimes, and the start of every movie by Columbia Pictures. She is based on earlier goddesses Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar and Isis.
And that overused word, "musings," comes from the Muses, fifty goddesses, water nymphs, or spiritual guides who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance.
Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter, and even our favorite anti-Christian holiday (since the Christians abandoned All Hallow's Day), Halloween, are pagan in origin. The word Easter derives from the name of the Germanic Goddess of the Dawn, or spring, the dawn of the year. She was called Ēaster, Ēastre, and Ēostre, in various dialects of Old English, and may go back as far as the similar-sounding middle eastern Astarte and Ishtar. Easter eggs and bunnies represent new life at springtime. Many Christmas traditions have their origins in the deep past, long before Zero A.D.
The American Superman saga is a loose re-telling of the Jesus story. But then, the Jesus story — a virgin birth, ascensions, miracles — is a re-telling of savior myths that predate Christ by hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. Learn more about Tammuz, Bacchus, Osiris and Isis. And those stories, just like the legends told in Masonic lodges, ultimately lead you back to man's fascination with what happens in the sky.
Yes, America is anything but a Christian nation. Our culture is steeped in polytheistic paganism. Even if we're not always consciously aware of it, these archetypes live in our subconscious, reminding us that, as they say in the movie Magnolia, "we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
Christianity is only 2,000 years old; it's simply today's most popular Western religion. The modern American version of fundamentalist Christianity is even younger, and in many ways would be unrecognizable to Christians of the past, and totally baffling to the billions of people who lived in pre-Christian times.
Spirituality and religious belief in things greater than and beyond ourselves is timeless.
Neither Christianity nor America is ultimately cosmic, or universal, or changeless. Like everything that has come before, both will change, adapt, mutate, and eventually fade away. Or perhaps become the brand name of a toothpaste or an automobile.
We're all only here for a short while, and while we're here, we've got to co-exist — all of us — Christian, Jew, Muslim and pagan. Christianity and other religions and spiritual practices and beliefs have their place in people's lives... even in mine. The one you follow, if any, is a matter of one's consciousness and conscience. One size doesn't fit all, and no one religion is the "only one," no matter what your Bible or other Volumes of Sacred Law say.
Let me take this down to a common denominator we all understand — bumper stickers: "Get your theocracy off my democracy."
Or simpler still: "My karma ran over your dogma."
I say no to theocracy in America, and yes to religious tolerance.
Sources: Wikipedia, Wilson's Almanac, and my mind Image: Sunrise, taken by the crew of Apollo 12 on their return trip from the Moon.
While I sit here making fun of conspiracy-minded fundamentalist anti-Masons, other people are doing and writing about much grander things, both inside and outside of Freemasonry.
