The truth about the Rite of the Rose Cross of Gold and the erasure of 15 Master Masons

If you've followed the Burning Taper with any regularity, you've read many of Bro. Jeff Peace's articles, and you probably know that he along with 14 other Master Masons were erased, without trial or due process, from mainstream Georgia Freemasonry in 2005.

There are many articles on the Taper about the RRCG. Just use the search box on the top left next to the Blogger symbol to find them. Be sure to read "Renounce the Rose Cross of Gold or face banishment, says the Grand Lodge of Georgia," dated March 4, 2006.

In a recent issue of the official magazine of the Philalathes Society, a Masonic publication, Bro. R.S. Sagar made reference to Bro. Jeff and the Rite of the Rose Cross of Gold, repeating half-truths and distortions that he'd probably heard third-hand.

Bro. Jeff wrote to the editor of the magazine to set the record straight about the beginnings of the RRCG, about how they worked with the Grand Master to make the group an official Masonic club, about the Georgia Grand Master's surprise edict against it, and about the subsequent erasure of Bro. Jeff and over a dozen other Georgia Masons.

Here is his letter, which appeared as a two-page spread in the April 2007 issue.

— W.S.

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February 23, 2007

Bro. Samuel B Walker, President
The Philalethes Society
204 Bushy Hill Road
Deep River, CT 06417

Dear Bro. Walker:

I wish to reply to the letter from Bro. R. S. Sagar, published in the October 2006 Philalethes Magazine regarding the expulsions of brother Master Masons by the Grand Lodge of Georgia. While Bro. Sagar may believe the information he sent to you was factual, many of his comments can only be based on hearsay evidence, as he was not present at the events about which he writes. As a principal member of the expelled group, I was there, and I would like to add my account to the record about what happened in Georgia.

Since the expelled brothers were never offered an opportunity to defend themselves and their actions before a jury of their brothers, it has become necessary to seek justice in the court of Masonic opinion nationally. The Philalethes Society allowed Bro. Sagar to publish the perspectives of the Grand Lodge of Georgia. I ask the same for a group of young Masons whose only crime was that they cared passionately about Freemasonry, and endeavored to try something new based on that shared passion.

In his letter, Bro. Sagar stated that: “The true facts of the situation are as follows. In recent years several members of the Grand Lodge of Georgia had, despite all accepted Masonic tradition and custom, tried to promote the so-called “Rite of the Red Cross of Gold”; the long discredited and debarred “Rite of Memphis”; and (I Believe) the desirability of allowing females in their lodges. There was evidence also of a desire to affiliate with an upstart so-called Grand Lodge in England. One of the group stated to me personally, the United Grand Lodge of England was false and the new group was the “Real Grand Lodge of England”.

Ignoring the pejorative language, the above statement is only partially true. In 1999 I, along with a small group of dedicated young Master Masons, tried to create a new Masonic club based loosely around the old Rite of Memphis. This was done because we saw a need for something new and exciting in Freemasonry that would keep and attract young Masons. At the time I knew little about the old Rite, other than it was dead, and wrongly assumed that no one would care if someone picked it up and did something with it. Subsequently we discovered that the Scottish Rite (SMJ) viewed the older Rite of Memphis with disdain and suspicion, and upon that discovery we immediately abandoned this concept.

We then began thinking about the possibility of creating something entirely new that was based in the traditions of the past, but offered them in a new and exciting format. After much thought we formed a new organization which we named the “Rite of the Rose Cross of Gold” (RRCG) based on an old legend I read about in a book. It was in no way connected with the Rite of Memphis. Bro. Sagar wrongly and inaccurately connects the two.

Bro. Sagar then suggests that the RRCG desired to allow women into our lodge. This is patently false. The RRCG was a Masonic club that met in a regular lodge. You had to be a Master Mason in good standing of a regular Masonic lodge recognized by the Grand Lodge of Georgia in order to join the club. By its own rules the RRCG clearly barred women from membership. As I can find no reason to think that Bro. Sagar would purposefully misrepresent this fact, I can only assume that he has been misinformed.

Bro. Sagar’s final statement regarding the Regular Grand Lodge of England is a complete mystery to me. If the RRCG had desired to work with a new Grand Lodge in England, then why did we spend so much time meeting with the Grand Master of Georgia trying to become a recognized body? Clearly, from the very beginning, our only desire was to form a new Masonic club that worked within the bounds of mainstream Freemasonry, and to do so in a legal manner.

Bro. Sagar then states that: “Attempts were made by high present and past officers of the Grand Lodge to rectify the situation without satisfaction. Eventually there was no recourse but to deal with it in Grand Lodge in accordance with established Masonic custom.” As far as I am aware it is the “established Masonic custom” to formally charge a brother in his lodge if you believe him to be guilty of a Masonic offense. He is then given the opportunity to defend himself before his peers. No charges were ever filed against any of the expelled brothers, nor were they permitted to offer anything in their defense before the Grand Lodge of Georgia. They were guilty simply because the Grand Master said they were guilty.

Next Bro. Sagar states: “Known Brethren who had been a part of “The Red Cross of Gold” were given 30 days to renounce their membership therein or be “excluded” from the Grand Lodge. All but two of those individuals did so renounce their memberships.” The first part of his statement distorts the facts of the Grand Lodge’s action while the second is simply false. The brothers were sent letters compelling them not only to renounce their membership in the RRCG, but also to sign pre-written confessions of their guilt upon the threat of being expelled if they refused. In reading the pre-written confessions it became clear that should anyone have signed them, they would then have been expelled for confessing their supposed guilt. In other words, whether they signed the confession or not, they were to be expelled if the Grand Master’s whim so desired.

And Bro. Sagar has it backwards when it comes to the number of brothers who signed the confessions. One signed the confession. One signed the confession but appended to it a statement of his innocence and that all of the members of the RRCG were equally as innocent of any Masonic offense. A third brother refused to sign it but wrote them a letter stating that he had resigned, but felt that the Grand Master had acted un-Masonically towards the RRCG and the younger brothers. The remaining fifteen members refused to sign it.

Clearly, Bro. Sagar’s perspective on the RRCG is nothing more than creative propaganda produced by the Grand Lodge of Georgia in an attempt to defend its own improper conduct towards brother Master Masons. Having been present at all of the critical events regarding the RRCG, I would like to provide my reckoning of the facts, facts that can be supported through the testimony of multiple brothers who were also present. Some were members of the RRCG, but not all.

In March of 2005 Brian Roper approached Grand Master Albert Garner, Jr., about officially recognizing the RRCG as a Masonic organization in Georgia. The Grand Master told him that he would need submit legislation before the Grand Lodge of Georgia to change the Constitutions, and that this process would take two years. Approximately a week later the Grand Master informed Bro. Roper that he was wrong about the need to change the Constitutions and that he would form a committee and setup a meeting with the other Grand officers to allow Bro. Roper to present the RRCG and its By-Laws so that it could be reviewed. The committee was composed of Past Grand Masters and leaders of some of the other Masonic bodies in Georgia. We were delighted by this opportunity to make our case for our new club, and several members of the RRCG attended the meeting as well as the Worshipful Master of Sandy Springs Lodge, No. 124.

The committee members asked everyone questions about the RRCG and the By-Laws were turned over to them. The Grand Master asked only one question: “What has lead to all of the confusion over this organization?” to which I replied, “A lack of good communication.” Everyone agreed that good communications was essential to the success of our endeavor, and I agreed to setup an email list consisting of all the brothers present to foster better communications.

It was then that Gary Lemmons, PGM, rose to the floor and discussed how that each year the Past Grand Masters discuss the decline in membership and how to keep and retain younger Masons. He said that the young Masons are here telling us what they want, and I recommend that we give them an opportunity to try this new organization. Everyone seemed to agree with him. We were told that there would be another meeting after the committee had an opportunity to review the By-Laws and make any recommendations. We left this meeting feeling hopeful and energized about the apparent support for our new club.

Two days after the meeting the new email list was setup and tested. Several members of the committee responded to the initial email, but after that the list fell silent. I contacted Bro. Ed Tante (a member of the committee) to see if he was receiving any messages from the list. He said that he was but that the Grand Master had instructed all of the committee members not to communicate with the RRCG members. He also told me that he already had a list of recommendations for the RRCG but that he wasn’t allowed to give them to me. This was a complete turn-around from what had been discussed at the committee meeting about the need for better communication.

The next meeting of the committee didn’t take place until July, and the members of the RRCG were barred from attending. We were told that the results of the meeting would be communicated to us by the Grand Master. Weeks went by without a word from the Grand Master. Then I received an email in August from a brother in my lodge pointing me to the Grand Lodge’s web site. Here was posted a new edict declaring all un-recognized groups to be clandestine. I then called the Secretary of my lodge asking if he had received a copy of the edict. He said that he had not. After some research I discovered that the edict had not been sent to any of the lodges in Georgia. In the past all edicts of the Grand Master had been sent out to all of the lodges.

I called the Grand Master and requested a meeting and he agreed to meet with me and the other brothers. He cancelled the meeting and several attempts to reschedule the meeting were postponed.

I received an email from Past Grand Master Gary Lemmons in which he told me that the RRCG had done everything that could be expected of them, and that he could not understand how anyone could claim we refused to work with the Grand Master and Grand Lodge.

The Grand Lodge of Georgia met in late October and then in early November we received the letters that presented us with a Hobson’s choice to either sign a pre-written confession which would result in our expulsion, or refuse to sign and be expelled anyway. Then in late December, we were sent notifications of our erasure from Freemasonry.

I think it is more than clear from the events that took place that the brothers who were expelled were the victims of a political coup, and not guilty of any Masonic offense. We worked with the Grand Master and Grand Lodge in good faith to have our club recognized by them, but were not treated with the openness and fairness expected of Masons, more especially Grand officers. We were and still are good Masons, and hope that by making known what happened to us in Georgia, other good brothers do not suffer the same fate just for trying to make their lodge and Freemasonry a better place for all.

At the end of the day, our only crime was that we were passionate about Freemasonry and wanted to start a new Masonic club. Our biggest error was in naively trusting our Grand Lodge officers deal with us on the square, coupled with our utter failure to appreciate that our club would be viewed as an intolerable threat by the Scottish Rite (SMJ) that must be stopped by any means necessary. We did not realize the extent to which the influence of SMJ reached into our Grand Lodge. We never saw it coming, and we never had a chance.

In conclusion, we only want what any Mason wants: the opportunity to meet and work with his brother in peace, love, and harmony. So mote it be!

Sincerely & Fraternally



Bro. Jeffrey Peace
Formerly of Sandy Springs Lodge, No. 124
Erased by order of MWB Albert F. Garner, Jr. on December 8, 2006

Jeff Peace | RRCG | Rite of the Rose Cross of Gold |Masons | Masonic Erasure | Philalethes Society | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

'Freemasons rule the world!': Feed me something new

Making Freemasons the bad guys in fiction is nothing new. The anti-mason conspiracy websites do it every day.

But it's being taken to a new height (or new depth) by three Canadian writers who are peddling their screenplay The Establishment online.

Like I said, nothing new. Anybody could have whipped this up in their kitchen.

Recipe:

Mix together:

• Gary Allen's early 1970's conspiracy classic None Dare Call It Conspiracy
• The dumbest anti-Mason web page you can find
• A vague memory of the 1960's TV program Run for Your Life and a rounded teaspoon of the original The Fugitive TV series
• A random episode of 24
• A shadowy government organization — sprinkle in a popular flavor from Millennium, The X-Files, Nowhere Man, The Prisoner, or maybe Boss Hogg's goons on the Dukes of Hazzard
• Character names that Dan Brown would be proud of
• A period-piece introduction a la National Treasure

Stir in for color:

• Middle East turmoil
• Terrorism in Washington, D.C.
• Detectives Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man series, but make them reporters

Blend at high speed with Howard Beale's "hijacking of the airwaves" in 1976's classic Network.

Bake on the Internet using the Eye in the Pyramid from the back of a dollar bill at 400 degrees for a few months, to see if anyone will actually take a bite.

Result: A bland, tasteless chowder that tells us what The Simpsons have already spelled out with Alpha-Bits in a bowl of milk: Freemasons rule the world!

Invest now! It will probably be a hit. Americans love a movie where something blows up.

Masons | Masonic Conspiracy | The Establishment | Freemasonry | Film | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Liberty University student made bombs to kill Falwell funeral protesters

In the 60's, the slogan was "Kill a Commie for Christ!"

Now, it seems, it's "Jihad for Jesus!"

Those who didn't like my Blogs Against Theocracy posts during the Easter weekend, or my list of quotations from Jerry Falwell the other day, should stop reading here.

A student at Falwell's Liberty University has been arrested for making bombs to be used against any protesters who showed up at Falwell's funeral. Yes, one of Jerry's kids was willing to kill to keep his beloved preacher's funeral pure. Three more people, including a soldier at Fort Benning, Ga., and a high school student, are being investigated as possible accomplices.

Falwell was a hate-monger. He preached contempt for those who didn't believe as he did. He was an equal opportunity hater — gays and lesbians, liberals, Jews, Teletubbies... he even reportedly called Rev. Billy Graham a tool of Satan. And his university is teaching 20,000 young people to think and act just like he did.

Where in the Bible does Jesus say it's okay to kill in his name?

Our new bumperstickers should say "God save us from your followers!"

I grew up in a large Southern Baptist church. As hypocritical as things were there when I was growing up, I always kind of had a weird sense of pride that at least my church wasn't as wacky as those television preachers like Falwell, Jim Bakker, Ernest Angley, Ed Tilton, and Jimmy Swaggart.

My parents — God love 'em — are still devout Baptists, and still attend and support the church I grew up in.

But they're not happy.

A new, young minister of music was hired a year or so ago, and he's "modernized" things with multimedia extravaganzas and guitars and trumpets and new melodies for old hymns. His 21st century showmanship is not doing what it's supposed to — attracting younger new members — and it's irritating the bejeebers out of the older members who've been paying the bills with their hard-earned tithes for most of their adult lives. The older people stand up and stare instead of sing. They miss their old standards; they miss the good ol' days. They can't even read the movie screens with the song lyrics on them; they want their hymnbooks back.

I attended Easter service with my parents last month, and saw firsthand the cocky 20-something they'd hired to lead their music.

My misplaced pride that "at least" my old church wasn't as dopey as the TV evangelists was dissipated like vapor when I heard the young minister of music say, after leading us in a 10-minute "hymn" no one had ever heard before, "When I was at Liberty University, Jerry would have us all greet each other by saying 'He is risen!', so stand up and shake hands with your neighbor and say that to each other."

The next few moments were a din of noise as most everyone shook hands with each other murmuring what they'd been told to repeat. I paid them scant attention, though. My mind couldn't get past the bizarre image of 20,000 myrmidon borg-like zombie-students bustling from classroom to classroom, chirping to each other "he is risen, he is risen," like something out of an SNL Coneheads sketch.

I wonder how many of those 'droids had a bomb in their backpack?

Image: Virginia authorities arrested Liberty University student Mark D. Uhl after officials discovered several homemade bombs in the trunk of his car.

Jerry Falwell | Liberty University | Bomb Plot | TV Evangelists | Coneheads | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Priest ires Catholics by receiving German Masonic honor

Many Roman Catholics have gotten their rosary beads all a-tangle over Masonic news from Germany.

German Freemasons recently awarded "controversial theologian" Hans Kueng (also spelled Küng) the Kulturpreis Deutscher Freimaurer (Culture Award of German Freemasons), the Catholic Citizens website reports.

In presenting the award to Bro. Kueng, Bro. Jens Oberheide, an atomic physicist at the University of Wuppertal in Germany, reportedly called him a "free and brave thinker" and said Bro. Kueng spoke "straight from our Masonic hearts."

The Catholic website says "the history of Freemasonry at its highest levels is unquestionably hostile to Catholicism. It has long been rumored that in its quest to undermine Catholicism, Freemasons have been sent into the ranks of the Catholic Church's hierarchy since the 1930's."

Bro. Kueng was stripped of his approval to teach Catholic theology in 1979. He has remained a Catholic priest, and to many Catholics' consternation, he is a Freemason.

He became a priest in 1954, and was appointed professor of theology at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany in 1960. From 1962 to 1965, he served with now-Pope Ratzinger as an expert theological advisor to members of the Second Vatican Council until its conclusion in 1965, having been appointed by Pope John XXIII.

He was the first prominent Catholic theologian to publicly question papal infallibility since the 1800s, writing a book about it called Infallible? An Inquiry in 1971. In 1979, for this transgression, he lost his license to teach Roman Catholic theology, though he remained at the University until his retirement in 1996, teaching ecumenical theology.

Bro. Kueng regularly lectures on topics from quantum physics to neuroscience, and has recently called Americans who oppose teaching evolution on religious grounds as "naive [and] un-enlightened."

In 2005, he surprised critics by being invited to have dinner and discuss theology with Pope Benedict XVI, his old friend from the 1960s. The pope has written and recently reiterated his displeasure with Freemasonry.

Masons | Masonic Priest | Hans Kueng | Freemasonry | Pope Benedict XVI | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Jinn and Freemasons: An Ad Astra Educational Lecture

As the former Director of Masonic Education in my lodge here in Georgia, I learned rather quickly that history, spiritual matters, or even cut-and-dried recitations of Masonic Code were dangerous topics for lectures. I've been shouted down for mentioning that sectarian religious views shouldn't be, according to Code and tradition, discussed in the lodgeroom. I've been told my lectures were too long, or too esoteric. And often heard from the Worshipful Master that we "just don't have time."

That's why I get excited when I learn that all lodges aren't that way. When I discover a lecture or a paper written by a brother Mason that was presented and well-received in his lodge, I want to share it.

After the article I posted the other day about jinn being blamed for starting fires in Fujairah, Bro. Dean Kennedy, the author of the Freemason's Corner blog (and creator of a new Masonic toolbar you might want to download), told me about a recent paper presented in his lodge, Ad Astra Lodge No. 130, in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The article was written by Bro. Giles W. Crouch, who has given me his kind permission to publish it here.

Enjoy!

— W.S.

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Jinn & Freemasons
An Ad Astra Educational Lecture
Giles W. Crouch, MM, MIA(c)

About this Lecture

This lecture is about the Islamic concept of “Jinn” or in Western mythological terms “Genie,” what the Jinn are, their importance in Islamic belief and law and the relation to Freemasonry and what it may mean in current world terms.

Etymology of Jinn (according to Wikipedia)

Genie is the usual English translation of the Arabic term jinni, but it is not an Anglicized form of the Arabic word, as is commonly thought. The English word comes from French génie, which meant a spirit of any kind, which in turn came from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth (see genius). But this has nothing to do with the jinn of Islam, as this might suggest. The Latin word predates the Arabic word jinni, and the two terms have not been shown to be related. The first recorded use of the word in English was in 1655 as geny, with the Latin meaning. The French translators of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights later used the word génie as a translation of jinni because it was similar to the Arabic word both in sound and in meaning; this meaning was also picked up in English and has since become dominant. The plural is Djinn (or Jinn).

Who Are the Jinn?

The jinn have communities much like human societies: they eat, marry, die, etc. They are invisible to humans, but they can see humans. Sometimes they accidentally or deliberately come into view or into contact with humans. Jinn are believed to live much longer than humans. Jinn are beings much like humans, possessing the ability to be good and bad. An "Ifrit" is a type of strong and powerful jinn. Evil or malicious jinn are called "Marid" usually they're malicious due to their feeling they have been usurped by humans, example "Shaitan."

Muslims believe that jinn are real beings. The jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by Allah (the literal translation being "subtle fire", i.e., a fire which does not give itself away through smoke), much in the same way humans were made of clay. In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, Satan or Iblis is believed to be the most powerful (Jinn were created before humans) of the Jinn race, called "Shaitan." (Jinn have free choice, and satan exploited this in front of God by refusing to bow to Adam when ordered to do so.) In the Qur'an, jinn are frequently mentioned and Sura 72 of the Qur'an named Al-Jinn is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al-Naas) mentions the Jinn in the last verse. In fact, it is mentioned in the Qur'an that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both "humanity and the jinn."

Jinn in Modern Day Society

In more Muslim parts of the world, hardly a week passes without a story about the Jinn. In Uganda in August of 2006, residents of a central became highly agitated over the story of a Jinn that was kidnapping and raping young women. When a woman stumbled out of the forest one day, unkempt and woolly looking, she was denounced as a Jinn. Town residents stoned her nearly to death. The local police finished the job with six bullets at close range.

A later investigation found she had been hunting with her husband and become lost and dehydrated while searching for her husband. Local newspapers asked the government to deny the existence of jinn. They did not.

There is said to be a cleft on the hill in northern Somalia that even the gangs avoid, for it is said to be the hole that leads down to the world of the jinn. As jinn were willed into existence to worship Allah, they were preserved for this purpose, living in a parallel world, but set at an angle where jinn can see men, but we cannot see them.

It is said that when a donkey bays, it is seeing a jinn and that animals can see jinn. Some say jinn can become an animal. If you say “Allah” aloud in your house, a jinn cannot sleep there and before you eat, a jinn cannot eat your food.

By many accounts, education is said to be a “noise” to jinn that they cannot stand, and women, especially uneducated women, are more open to jinn.

There is, currently, broad disagreement on whether jinn are just pulses of energy that can occasionally inhabit a body or animal, or are physical and beastly in shape. It is currently the subject of significant debate among mullahs and muezzins.

A prominent Muslim cleric and sheik in Pakistan warned the Americans in 2005 that their missiles, if they attacked Pakistan, would be redirected by jinn. A study is underway at McMaster University on stories in Toronto of clerics providing aspiring and anti-jinn advice to ill women since about 2000 to current times.

In the Star Wars series, the new episodes (1-3), the main character played by Liam Neesom is named Qui-Gon Jinn; his name had to be changed for certain Mid-East countries and Star Wars was banned in Saudi Arabia as the “Jedi” are seen as Jinn and their spirits might haunt cinema goers.

In 2004 the government of Dubai recorded 10 complaints of Jinn as extra-terrestrials, kidnapping people.

How Serious Are Jinn in Muslim Society

The concept, deeds and actions of jinn are written into Shari a Law in ALL Muslim cultures. One can claim that they were “invaded” by evil jinn as a standard defence, and this is more viable in court than the Western “insanity” plea.

Connecting Jinn, Jews and Freemasons

Many Muslims believe Jews are either “of” the jinn or have control and special powers over jinn, they believe this, very strongly, today. Jinn are said to be held under power by the Jews and respond in a servile manner to Hebraic. Many original texts on the Jinn were written by Muslims — in Hebraic.

As we know, the Kabbalah and much Judaic mythology is inherent to Masonic tenets. There are many links between Masonry and Judaism as well as the Mithraic legends and even earlier pagan links going even before the birth of Islam. It’s common knowledge in various Abrahamic cultures that King Solomon could control spirits and jinn; most legends claim that Solomon used the help of spirits to build the great Temple of Jerusalem. This legend automatically brings one to Freemasonry, where the “masons” in question were individuals involved in the construction of the Temple under the leadership of Hiram Abiff. Since Solomon built the temple using the assistance of the jinn, under the command of Hiram Abiff, one might wonder where the Masons were. Is it not possible that the Masons involved in the construction of the Temple *ARE* the jinn?


How Do Muslims Feel About Freemasons?

From a relatively non-fundamentalist website:

“One could never truly love another unless he has faith in Allah. This is why the term "human love." which is frequently used in the Masonic Ideology is entirely divorced from reality; all ideologies based on denial will strengthen the wicked side in people and will therefore give rise to bloodshed and torture. During the 20th century, due to the existence of irreligious ideologies such as communism and fascism, hundreds of millions of people suffered from genocide while billions were subjected to torture and pressure. It is also important to remember that The French Revolution, a Freemason-supported movement, derived its strength from the motto "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity" but ended up with tens of thousands of dead executed under guillotine.”

From a British Muslim Society:

In other words 'Masonic', 'Masonry' and 'Craft' are euphemisms or abbreviations to describe the 'Old Religion of Wicca,' the cult of 'Cunning Men.' Therefore, it can now be stated, categorically, and without fear of further contradiction, that the 'Masonic Craft' and its other branches and degrees, are simply 'Witch Craft' by another name, albeit of the all male variety.

Muslims believe that Freemasons are an extension of Judaism and that we have little understanding of the truth of what we are being subjected to by the usual conspiracy buffs.

In the Middle East, identifying yourself as a Freemason can result in jail time and in Saudi Arabia public display and communication of Masonic items and rituals can result in death.

In basic Islamic beliefs, there are those who are “In the City of Islam” and those who are “Outside the City of Islam,” those outside are non-muslims and are considered, at best “unclean” and at worst, Jinn, among which are Masons.

Basically, in Islamic terms, you can and must only surrender your will to Allah, and similar to Catholicism you cannot “serve two deities” or surrender to another belief beyond Allah, if you do so, this is called “shirk” or to associate a partner with Allah. In Islamic countries and culture Allah comes first before anything, followed by family, then business, then anything else.

“Everything that furthers the interest of the Jews and promotes their position in the world is undertaken by the society. The cover of absolute secrecy and its strict hierarchy enables it to make use of the positions and influence of its non-Jewish members to serve the Jewish cause. We have to understand that many of its members work for the society trusting that they only serve the causes of liberty, equality and justice. They remain unaware that they simply serve the cause of giving the Jews supremacy in world affairs. Freemasonry has over the years earned itself a number of enemies, most notably the Catholic Church.”

So What Does This Mean To Us?

As with my travels in the Middle East, I learned that as a businessman, one will never do business in that area if you are known to be a Mason. Wearing Masonic jewelry or symbols can at the very least, get you kicked out of the country and at worst, you may be hung.

In Nova Scotia, it currently has little impact, if any. But we do not know what the future holds as we are in challenging times and fractures between countries increase along with religious fervor, the increasing rise in Islamic Fundamentalism, the reach of terrorists and the explosive growth of Christina Evangelism in Western society, some of whom are also anti-Masonic. Likely in Western culture however, Masonry will see a broader appeal and growth, while becoming a deadly marker in some Islamic parts of the world.

Are All Muslims Anti-Masonic?

Definitely not. There are some Islamic muezzins that actually think Masonry is tied to Islam and supports Islamic belief similarly to Protestant sects acceptance of Masonry. In more tolerant Islamic societies or where Islam shares space with many religions, many Islamic Freemasons can be found. There are a number of websites and books that have been written comparing the two and finding many connections — perhaps in reality, Masonry is a uniter of all religions? Perhaps the Jinn are real, but perhaps too, it was Hiram Abiff’s Masons that controlled the Jinn who helped them build the temple?

Masons | Genies | Jinn | Freemasonry | Muslims | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

'Evil that goes unchallenged is evil that will eventually prevail'

The following anonymous post was made as a comment on the Burning Taper article Masonic obligations: Do we owe blind obedience to Grand Masters?"

The post is so interesting and, in some ways, so shocking, that I wanted to republish it here as an article in its own right in case you don't always check the comments section of older posts.

I have corresponded privately with this "anonymous" poster for some time now, and have heard this and even more scandalous stories about grand lodge improprieties in the writer's Masonic jurisdiction. I'm glad he is now willing to come forward publicly with some of them.

The writer has his own reasons for remaining anonymous at this time. I believe him to be a good and true brother, and while I have no firsthand knowledge of these events, I have no reason to doubt his story.

The events described did not take place in Georgia.

— W.S.

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> But aren't we past Orsen Wells by now (1984)?

I believe you mean George Orwell, else your reference to "1984" has eluded me.

> Are we really at they're mercy? ...I think we are speaking of the same outcome but how do WE get there?

That's a good question, and the truth is, I don't know. The power brokers entrenched in the Masonic Grand Lodges of the US today aren't going to willingly give up their fiefdoms, no matter what they have to do. They insist that their own actions aren't governed by the same Masonic laws that govern the rest of us, and they brazenly do exactly as they please, while brushing away anyone who dares to take a stand against their corruption.

Recently in my grand jurisdiction, several of the older Past Grand Masters finally realized what the younger ones were doing, and tried to take a stand. Charges of un-Masonic conduct were initiated against the reigning Grand Master, who (among other serious issues) had been fired from a lengthy career in law enforcement for sexual harassment of one or more of his subordinates. He even had to move to another state during his term as Grand Master because his reputation in law enforcement here prevented him from being able to find comparable employment.

Masonic law here dictates that charges of un-Masonic conduct against a Grand Master can only proceed with the majority consent of all the living Past Grand Masters. As soon as the reigning Grand Master was made aware of the charges against him, he called a meeting of the Past Grand Masters to discuss the subject.

As the Grand Master called his own meeting, he took charge of it, thereby effectively becoming the presiding officer at his own "arraignment." Then, with the support of his grand line, he made certain that one of his cronies assumed "chairmanship" of the committee. A few of the older PGMs objected, noting that our Masonic law requires the most senior PGM to chair such meetings, but that elderly brother was unable to attend due to frail health and the recent death of his wife, and it was declared that he had forfeited his right to preside.

The reigning Grand Master then lectured the assembled PGMs for an hour or so, and when he finished, he and his entourage left the PGMs to conduct their deliberations without the testimony of any other "witnesses." The "chairman" of the committee then removed the charges from a sealed envelope, read them silently to himself, and returned them to their envelope without ever allowing any of the other PGMs to see or hear them. He then called for a "vote of confidence" in the reigning Grand Master, but the written votes of (mostly older) PGMs who weren't able to attend were disqualified. Again, a few of the older PGMs objected, but the "chairman" declared that since the brothers hadn't been able to hear the "testimony," they weren't able to make "informed decisions," and their votes were summarily dismissed.

So the "vote of confidence" in the Grand Master was sustained by a majority of the PGMs present at the meeting called by the Grand Master, and presided over by one of his cronies. A few days later, the Grand Master declared the brothers who had initiated the charges against him "suspended pending Masonic trial," on charges that they'd "conspired to subvert the authority of the Grand Master." The Grand Master then appointed Grand Lodge Trial Committees composed of other cronies to "try" the brothers, and not surprisingly, every one of them were declared "guilty" and expelled for life. One of the accused brothers even suffered a heart attack while waiting to testify in his own defense, and was rushed from the Grand Lodge offices in an ambulance. Rather than postponing the trial, however, the Grand Lodge Trial Committee declared him guilty in absentia, and sentenced him to expulsion while he was undergoing emergency heart surgery at the local veterans' hospital.

In a last ditch effort to right the course of Masonry here, the older PGMs made one final attempt at the following annual session of Grand Lodge. When nominations were solicited for the office of Grand Master, the Deputy Grand Master who had supported his predecessor's corrupt reign was immediately nominated. An elderly but courageous PGM then attempted to nominate an alternative candidate, but the reigning Grand Master angrily rapped him down and declared that he wouldn't accept that nomination. Despite having no authority to "reject" nominations, the Grand Master said he had to "do what's best for the good of Masonry," and the elderly PGM shuffled back to his seat with his head hung in shame. Needless to say, with no other "nominations" being accepted, the DGM was "elected," and the future of corrupt leadership here was thereby perpetuated.

In our Grand Lodge, voting delegates consist of principal officers from blue lodges, as well as all Grand Lodge officers and committee members, PGMs, DDGMs, etc. All Grand Lodge committee members are appointed by the Grand Master himself, as are the District Deputy Grand Masters, etc., so that the Grand Master effectively "controls" about one-third of all votes at Grand Lodge. Most of the important issues that come before the Grand Lodge require two-thirds majority approval, and with a "solid block" of one-third that supports the Grand Master unanimously, it's effectively impossible to achieve a sufficient majority to effect any kind of real reform.

Just to make sure that reform efforts don't have a chance, however, any "resolutions" submitted to Grand Lodge that would help restore the power of majority rule, and return Masonry to a correct and upright path, are simply declared "out of order." In one year alone, nearly 20 resolutions regularly approved and submitted by blue lodges, were declared "out of order," or "not for the good of Masonry," and were dismissed by the reigning Grand Master, who has no legitimate authority to dismiss resolutions, regardless of his own personal opinion of them.

In the long run, it's back to what I said previously: "People who have to work within a framework of rules are at an insurmountable disadvantage against those whose don't." Mainstream Masonry in my jurisdiction has been hijacked by a brazen political clique, yet the vast majority of regular Masons don't realize it even now. The clique controls the principal venues of communication, and the only story that reaches the majority of Masons is the one the Grand Lodge wants them to hear, which is often a complete fabrication.

The minority of Masons who realize what's really happening are left with no means by which to change the "system" either from within, or from without. In order to continue practicing Masonry as the gentle and noble craft it was intended to be, they've been forced to start over with a new lodge, which is obviously considered to be "clandestine" by their mainstream counterparts.

Perhaps someday Masonry will again be as it was in its early days — a loose affiliation of independent lodges with no Grand Lodges, or other central governing authorities. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it seems to me that the absence of central authority would certainly be preferable to the dominance of corrupt ones, such as some that exist today. I can't say if all Grand Lodges are as corrupt as the one here, but I suspect they are, or eventually will be because they choose to turn a blind eye, rather than taking a stand for what they know is right.

Evil that goes unchallenged is evil that will eventually prevail, and if the corruption that's rampant in the leadership of the Masonic fraternity today is allowed to continue, the Masonry that once existed as a benevolent force in the US, is surely destined for extinction.

— An anonymous Freemason

Masons | Masonic Trial | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Jerry Falwell: What a guy!

As I'm sure you know, Jerry Falwell, the man behind the 1970's and 80's "Moral Majority" movement (they were neither moral nor, thank God, in the majority) passed away last week at age 73.

Falwell's political activities are credited with the conservative groundswell in 1980 that put Ronald Reagan in the White House, and began the creeping American theocracy we're still dealing with 28 years later.

Judging from thousands of posts to various forums on the Internet this week, he was, shall we say, a very divisive man, especially for a minister of God, and was not universally loved.

I'll not say anything negative about him here. I'll let his own words speak for him.

On mixing politics and religion: "I want the members of Congress to understand... that the solution to America's serious moral and spiritual problem is not political. We're in need of a religious awakening."

More on politics and religion: "The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

On the Antichrist: "If he's going to be the counterfeit of Christ, he has to be Jewish. The only thing we know is he must be male and Jewish."

Apologizing for the Antichrist remark: "I apologize not for what I believe, but for my lack of tact and judgment in making a statement that served no purpose whatsoever."

On the prophet Muhammad: "I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to decide] that he was a violent man, a man of war."

On the 9/11 attacks: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad."

Again on 9/11, just days after it happened: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

On the BBC children's program Teletubbies: "As a Christian I feel that role modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children."

On banning prayer at college football games: "The NCAA has enough problems with drugs and crime and violence, sex and rape to bother itself with prohibiting prayer."

The man said so many outrageous things in the name of Jesus that even fellow Christian minister Rev. Billy Graham once rebuked him.

On AIDS: "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

On feminism: "It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening."

On God: "God is a Republican."

On Jesus: "Jesus was the first American."

On Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I do question the sincerity of people like the Reverend Martin Luther King...."

On Desmond Tutu: "Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a phony."

On public schools: "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don't have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."

On promoting theocracy: "If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth.... We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress."

On geography, science and history: "The Bible is the inerrant... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history...."

On morality: "Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."

On homosexuals: "[Homosexuals are] brute beasts and a vile and Satanic system [that] will one day be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven."

On being a Christian: "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

And if he hasn't convinced you to become a Christian with all these messages of Christian love, maybe this will do it:

"Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions."

Curiously, Falwell called lots of people and groups "Satanic" and said they'd be going to hell. But he never made a public statement about Freemasonry, even when the Southern Baptist Convention was on a Masonic witchhunt back in the 80s and 90s.

In 1988, when Falwell was asked in a letter whether a Christian should be a Mason, his "position" on the question was answered by Rick Lawreson, his "theological correspondent": "I have enclosed a commentary addressing the subject of Masons. I would encourage you to take time to study this commentary so that you will have a proper understanding of the position that Dr. Falwell and this ministry [Liberty Home Bible Institute/Old-Time Gospel Hour] take with regard to this subject."

The printed commentary stated:

We appreciate the opportunity to be of assistance to you with regard to your inquiry regarding whether or not the Christian should be involved in Freemasonry.

Without doubt, the Freemason organization and especially the Shriners and their particular interest in providing medical assistance to children, both burned and crippled, is to be commended. These humanitarian acts of charity are certainly showing forth the character of a Christlike compassion....

It is unfortunate that there is not more charity being shown in today's society. Jesus Himself is our great example of One who willingly gave Himself compassionately to those who were in greatest need...

Unfortunately, there are some individuals who condemn others to Hell for belonging to the Freemasons. They fail to understand the passage: For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). People are not condemned to Hell because of some organization that they do or do not belong to, but people are condemned to Hell because of their unbelief in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal saviour....

Dr. Falwell has never belonged to the Mason organization and does not intend in the future to belong to the Mason organization. He feels that all of his time should be given over to the Christian service to which God has called him.

Dr. Falwell does not take a public stand concerning Masonry; but neither does he let this be the issue that draws a line between fellowshipping with other Pastors.

Baptist and Fundamentalist Christians who believe Freemasonry is Satanic took Falwell's wishy-washy response and the fact that he damned just about every other non-Christian or non-Christian group he ever heard of, and didn't badmouth Masonry, to mean that Falwell himself was a Mason.

It's more likely Falwell knew that many patrons of his 24,000-member church and his television ministry were conservative Freemasons, and wisely chose not to attack a part of his "bread and butter" that kept him living large.

Sources:
SaintsAlive.com
Voices of American Sexuality
Huffington Post
and others....

Freemasonry |Christianity | Jerry Falwell | Moral Majority | Jerry Falwell Quotes | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Who are you?

I have a pretty good statistics program running. According to the numbers, Burning Taper has quite a few readers. Many people just pass through once to read a particular article, but there are also many who visit regularly.

If you would be so kind, please indicate on the poll below what your "status" regarding Freemasonry is. I think it would be interesting to see who is reading the Taper.

I know many people don't like to answer a poll of any kind, but really, this won't hurt a bit, and no one will know who you are.

We average 400-600 unique visitors a day, and many more when there's something timely on the site, like news about Bro. Bozeman's death last week or the Virginia Tech shootings last month, so if in a few days this poll only has five entries, we'll know someone's not playing along.

Feel free to use the comments section to introduce yourself!

Thanks!



Masons | Masonic Trial | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Genies haunt Arab family

Watch out! The spirits are angry.

Genies have been terrorizing a family in Fujairah, one of the United Arab Emirates, causing nine separate fires in their home in a single week, 7Days.com reported earlier this week.

"I have lived with my family in this house for 25 years, without any trouble, but during the last week we have lived in terror because of the blazes breaking out inside our home," Abdullah Ali said.

It's not just the fires that are scaring the bejeebers out of the Ali family. Their electricity and water supply comes and goes, and clothes fly mysteriously around the house.

Abdullah's son Sulaiman told a reporter that "one day last week a fire started in a room in the house and we called the Fujairah Civil Defense who came and controlled the fire. As they were leaving they were shocked to see another fire break out in the same room. After extinguishing those fires, two more suddenly broke out in other rooms.

"There is no other reasonable explanation but the genies are doing this,” Sulaiman, a colonel in the Civil Defense, said, adding that he did not believe that genies (spirits with supernatural powers, known as jinn in Arabic) were responsible until he witnessed the strange events unfolding in the house for himself.

"I saw with my own eyes my colleagues' hoses becoming tangled up with each other to prevent the water coming out to extinguish the flames. It was so strange."

Spooked by the strange events, the family had an exorcism of the house performed.

"Furniture and clothes began flying as the ceremony was taking place. The genies were not happy," Sulaiman explained.

This is not the first genie infestation in Fujairah. Last August similar unexplained fires were reported by 7Days. Residents then also blamed the fires on mischievous genies.

Have you had any experiences of genies, imps, ghosts, goblins, gremlins or dark Satanic forces gone wild at your house? Inquiring minds want to know!

Genies | Hauntings | Supernatural | Fujairah | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

The doors of the human herd

Finally — a conspiracy theory incorporating Freemasonry that's worth paying enough attention to to laugh at, or be puzzled by. But then, I'm only at the Fifth Door. What do I know?

On the website Cult of the Dead Cow, I found an anonymous essay that lays the whole plot out there for us. We're not told who wrote it, but only that English is his second language (his first may be Tralfamadorian). The title is "The Doors of the Human Herd."

In an overlong introduction we're told that most people can't perceive "factual reality" and that "most people act as though they were in some kind of mindless hive or herd, controlled by mass consciousness, rendering them incapable of personal insight."

Interesting stuff, even though he rambles a bit. I read a little further.

Using examples from sports, chess-playing and musical talent, we're told that people do not "see" things as they really are by noting that "only a tiny fraction of those engaging in these respective endeavors ever attain a degree of professional skill."

He's starting to lose me here, rambling back and forth between rather shaky points that don't seem to be going much of anywhere. Still, I read on....

After some power-skimming, I find his point again: "[J]ust as only a tiny number of novice athletes end up competing at the professional level, so do only a few who tread the path of sacrifice and worldly renunciation attain higher levels of political and spiritual realization."

Okay, I'm back with you, but I could stop reading at any second now. Where are you going with this?, I think to myself....

He asks, why do certain people not accept it when other, more enlightened beings try to explain what's "really" going on? Why do people not accept the "truth" when an activist of any kind, be it a conspiracy nut or a religious zealot or an ecological alarmist or even your mother giving you advice, tries to give you the low-down on "how it really is"?

"Okay," I think. "What's the secret, buddy?"

Voila! There are "Doors" only a few enter. Thinking of Huxley's Doors of Perception, I read on....

"[E]very person encountered can be thought of as having a certain 'level' of understanding, with the opening of a 'door' as its prerequisite. Each door is accessible to fewer individuals at each turn. Each successive door is only accessible to approximately ten percent of the population that made it through the previous door. At each level, it is common for the people 'below' those 'above' to view those higher as insane, whereas those 'above' view those 'below' as lazy or complicit."

Okay, guy. I'm with you. Like everyone else, I'm an elitist. I don't want to be called lazy, or insane, so tell me your secrets. Show me through your doors.

[The references to population numbers at each door are mine, not the author's.]

There are six billion of us sheep cattle with tags on our ears contentedly grazing (to use his metaphor) upon the Earth right now.

Most of them will think of little more than the basic physical functions, reproduction, responsibilities toward offspring, maintaining the home space, and the mass entertainment used to create an orderly, unified herd. They live and die without seriously contemplating anything other than what it takes to keep their lives together. Ninety percent of all humanity live and die without opening the first door.

Sounds reasonable. Johnny, tell us what's behind door number one!

Ten percent [600 million] of us will open the first door and find the world of politics. We will vote, be active and have an opinion. Our opinions are shaped by our conditioning, world-view, and assumptions; we tend to believe that government officials, network media personalities and other "experts" are voices of authority. We think that our vote counts and ignore the fact that religious pressure groups, industry self-interest groups, and privileged ethnic groups set policy and buy political power collectively for their own self-interests.

Okay. Most people pay little attention to politics, instead focusing on survival. I can see your point, somewhat in the USA and to a greater degree in some less developed parts of the world. Go on....

Ten percent [60 million] of these will open the second door to explore the world of history, the relationship between man and government and the meaning of self-government through constitutional and common law. History can show precedents and repetitive patterns in collective human behavior. Some few within will begin to understand economic principles and realize that money is an illusion, debt a contract, and that economic reality is set by arbitrary rules.

Starting to get a bit philosophical and conspiratorial here.... Whatcha got next?

Ten percent [six million] of the previous group will open the third door to find that the resources of the world, including people, are controlled by extremely wealthy and powerful families whose incorporated old world assets have, with modern extortion strategies, licensing requirements, regulations, and laws, become the foundation upon which the world's economy is currently indebted.

My hopes of a helter-skelter Huxley tie-in dashed, I plod on to the next door, expecting to find the Bilderbergers (and I do).

Ten percent [600,000] of us will open the fourth door to discover the Committee of 300, the Illuminati, Skull & Bones, Freemasonry and the other secret societies. These societies use symbols and perform ceremonies that perpetuate the generational transfers of arcane knowledge that is used to keep the ordinary people in political, economic and spiritual bondage to the oldest bloodlines on earth.

Ooh, cool. I've not only entered door number four, I'm one of the bogeymen with arcane knowledge. Please continue....

Ten percent [60,000] of us will open the fifth door to learn that at the top layer, secret society members are so far advanced technologically that time travel and interstellar communications have no boundaries and controlling the actions of people is what their members do as offhandedly as we tell our children when they must go to bed. Many of those who do reach this level of reality perception simultaneously develop a nihilistic coping response, caring not that a tiny, alien minority may rule them and feeling irritated that anyone has brought any aspect of this to their attention.

Oh, crap! I forgot to put on my tinfoil hat! Warily, I read further....

Ten percent [6,000] of us will enter the sixth level where the dragons and lizards and aliens we thought were the fictional monsters of childhood literature are real and are the controlling forces behind the secret societies. It cannot be known from outside these cryptocracies whether these beings are in our dimension or are mere representations of the human mind in the ranks of the elites, thinking with an early-developed, Reptilian part of the brain or whether their behavior and goals reflect the infiltration of a reptilian consciousness that is extradimensional into their minds.

Oh, man! You got some of that bad acid at Woodstock, didn't you!?

He continues:

I do not know what is behind the seventh door [which only 600 have or will go through]. I think it is where your personal evolution has reached the point that you can know all of this, yet remain sane, centered,and functional at some sort of base consensus level. At this level, you try to make a difference, and to use reason and/or action to open the doors to others. Just because the world is ruled by brute force, straightjackets of law and religion, you try to exercise freedom in relating to those around you and to brighten their spaces and your own in an act of existential rebellion. You realize that, with the doors open, the only way that the evil cryptocracy could exert this much control over the lives of men is in the absence of a person "God/Allah/Yahweh/Force" that would have counterweighted or prevented it.

He lost me here, as I'm still bemused by the lizard kings behind the sixth door. I mean I liked Jim Morrison and those Doors, and V was a pretty cool mini-series with all those reptilian invaders, but... I guessed I've risen as far as I can go on his insanity meter.

[We're down to 60 people now.] Opening the eighth door is something that even those at the seventh level of awareness do on only a fleeting, momentary basis. Here, they enter into what the ancient Nordics called "Ginungagap," the "Cleft between worlds," a state of pure, undifferentiated, impersonal energy and realize that this has been flowing through them all the rest of the time. They interact with it, using thought-forms (what Tibetans call "Tulpas") to attune to that power, linking with the higher, collective unconscious, and conscious projections of their Folk, to create a better reality, no matter how long that may take. There may be fewer than 50,000 persons who reach this level, and those who do will find it increasingly difficult to relate to persons of other reality levels.

Apparently he lost his math skills along with his sanity somewhere around door number six.

Actually, what he's describing in his own paranoid way is a skewed modification of Dr. Tim Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness. But that's a topic for another day. I gotta go out and get some lizard traps.

Lizard Kings | Masonic World Domination | Paranoia | Freemasonry | Conspiracy Theories | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Masonic murder mystery or bizarre suicide? After a year, police still baffled

It happened a year ago — May 16, 2006. A Masonic murder mystery. Or maybe it was a suicide. Police haven't figured it out yet.

Rey Rivera, age 32. Married (but the last person to see him alive was a female houseguest on May 16). Former editor of a financial newsletter. Aspiring filmmaker. Masonic wannabe?

His decomposing body was found a week later in a locked conference room on the lower floors of the Belvedere hotel. Next to him were his sandals and his still-working cell phone. Experts don't believe the phone would have survived the impact intact.

He apparently crashed through the roof of the lower level of the hotel, and it's assumed he killed himself by jumping from 14 stories up. Or maybe he was pushed.

Though the hotel has an extensive security camera network, videos of the day in question were not available.

[Cue spooky music.]

At his home, family members found a cryptic note, typed in miniscule print, folded up in a plastic bag, taped to Rivera's computer screen along with a blank check.

Police called it "bizarre, really bizarre."

It wasn't a suicide note, the FBI concluded.

"What it does appear to be is a weird stream of conscious writing," Baltimore Police Department Cmdr. Fred Bealefeld said. "The other thing I thought of... is if he's writing some type of code to someone about something. That's possible."

The note was addressed to brothers and sisters and referred to a well-played game. It named people who had died, including actor Christopher Reeve and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. It also contained a long list of people Rivera knew and was related to, with a request to make them and himself five years younger, WBAL-TV reported.

The note began and ended with unnamed phrases used in Freemasonry.

Rivera's family and friends said he was fascinated with Masonic "secrets."

On the weekend before his disappearance, he spent time reading the book The Builders. On the day he disappeared, Rivera talked with a member of a lodge in Maryland about joining.

On the day he disappeared, he went to a bookstore and bought Bro. Hodapp's book Freemasons for Dummies.

"Based on what we've seen, his interest in the Masonic order was not to do charitable work," Bealefeld said. "Somehow it was linked to his interest in the movie industry and this theory that somehow there was control being exerted by the Masonic order."

Rivera had worked for Agora Publishing, editing a financial newsletter called Rebound Report. His family said he'd been unhappy that many of the stocks he had recommended were not performing as he had predicted.

Six months before his death, he'd stopped working as a writer/editor, and had become a contract worker for the same company, producing videos for them.

What do you think was going on? The police don't have a clue.

I think he felt guilty that people, perhaps his brothers and sister to whom the bizarre note was addressed, had invested in stocks based on his recommendations, and then lost money. The blank check was his way of paying them back, and wishing them five years younger a way of going back before the stock purchase.

Perhaps his interest in Freemasonry came from a belief that we do, as the conspiracy theorists proclaim, indeed rule the world, and our secret power at controlling world financial markets had caused the stocks he'd recommended not to rebound as he believed they should. We're so sinister that way.

If he believed that, he certainly was a Dummy.

Masons | Masonic World Domination | Suicide | Freemasonry | Baltimore | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Luke Skywalker, the universal hero's monomyth, and me

Grouchogandhi was right. I couldn't hold out a week without writing a blog article. He told me introducing myself as an ex-blogger wouldn't impress the ladies.

I've had a hard time working up any anger this week. That's a good thing. It's been very peaceful.

I walked and played with my dog. He's a big almost-a-year-old mixed breed German shepherd/husky and/or malamute and/or rottweiler and/or your guess is as good as mine with floppy ears I got from a shelter in January. He's figured out how to escape from his wire crate when I'm gone without opening the door. Like Krypto the Superdog, he bends the bars and pushes his way through.

I went to the Indian burial ground near here for a few minutes of meditation. Very peaceful.

On Tuesday I went to Atlanta for a surprise 40th birthday dinner party for a long-time friend. Most of the people there work in the healing arts. It was a very laid-back and peaceful group, even with the beer and wine flowing.

On Wednesday, I had coffee with a friend who is an artist and Reiki master. Again, very peaceful.

I had dinner last night with a Mason (Bro. FA in Small Town Freemasonry Part 4) and his wife. We rehashed the lodge events of 2005 that led to the creation of this blog, but I didn't work up any negative emotions about it. It's over.

I posted photos from the Indian powwow held back on May 5-6. The final picture in the slideshow shows an older gentleman and a child. That's Bro. TW from Small Town Freemasonry Part 4 and my son.

I looked through some of the drafts of articles for the Taper I'd begun but never finished, including one that was set to explore the roots of my anti-religion feelings. I'll probably never finish that one, as I'm no longer angry at the adulterers who shot each other, the sex pervs, the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the crooked cops and the two pastors with their hands in the till who were my "leaders" when I was growing up in my Southern Baptist mega-church.

This morning Grouchogandhi pointed out to me that an awesome collection of paintings and sculptures from the Louvre is on display in Atlanta through September, including Nicolas Poussin's Et in Arcadia Ego, the painting shown in my previous article. A trip to the museum will be a fun field trip sometime this year, maybe as a counterpoint to a visit with the crazy Klingons at DragonCon.

I've received many emails of friendship and support this week. I'm glad the Burning Taper is a part of your regular blog-reading day. And I appreciate all your public comments, too.

One commenter said I should seek professional help. He might be right. Maybe we can get a group rate.

One emailer psychoanalyzed me and philosophized that my loss of anger last weekend was caused by chemical changes in my bloodstream and brain, brought on by sympathy from being around sad and mourning people. He may be right about the effect, but he misdiagnosed the cause.

Another emailer said he was glad to see my heart finally prevailed over my head. He (Bro. JW in Small Town Freemasonry Part 4) is one of the few Masons from my lodge that I sincerely respect. He's been reading the Taper since its inception, but until now hasn't communicated with me. He's been through a lot in the last year and a half, and I didn't even know. I'm sorry we didn't stay in touch. I would have liked to have been there for him.

I especially liked Masonic Traveler's comment suggesting I had delusions of grandeur of being a Jedi. While I certainly don't think of myself as a swashbuckling Luke Skywalker, the Star Wars story is a superb re-telling of the Grail legend, or more specifically, it's a prime example of Joseph Campbell's universal hero monomyth.

In my personal version of the universal hero's monomyth, ostensibly to save the princess (Freemasonry), I've traveled to the Death Star of my soul, and found myself staring back at me. It's no coincidence, I think, that I introduced the movie Star Wars to my eight-year old son less than two weeks ago.

Dismiss this as psychobabble if you will — that's what this is, my psyche babbling — but I answered the Call to Adventure, went down into the Belly of the Whale, traveled the Road of Trials, had the Meeting with the Goddess (SacredFems.com), made the Atonement with the Father (see Sun of God), experienced the Apotheosis (the lifting of the anger on my drive home from Bro. Bozeman's Masonic graveside service — compare Saul on the road to Tarsus), and now have arrived at the Freedom to Live.

I think the change within me is due to the fact I've returned to living in the present, and not the past (or future). When I started looking for peaceful things and peaceful people instead of angry things and angry people, peaceful things and peaceful people immediately came back into my life.

To complete my monomyth, I guess I should bring back a "Boon for Mankind" from my Abyss. It's simply this, best I can tell: Live in the moment; it's all we have. We can't change the past, but only our attitudes towards it. Let go of the anger or frustration you might have towards the dismal state of Freemasonry in so many locales. Let go of the anger or frustration or resentment you have toward any aspect of your life. I'm not saying don't work towards bettering things. And I'm certainly not saying you have to "work within the system" (of Masonry or of any system) to fix it. I am saying, though, that if you look for the problems, you're going to find them. And if you focus on solutions, you'll find them.

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle teaches this (and "coincidentally," the book fell open to the exact passage I was looking for):

What is the power of Now?

None other than the power of your presence, your consciousness liberated from thought forms.

So deal with the past on the level of the present. The more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self" out of it. Don't misunderstand: Attention is essential, but not to the past as past. Give attention to the present; give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present. There's the past in you. If you can be present enough to watch all those things, not critically or analytically but nonjudgmentally, then you are dealing with the past and dissolving it through the power of your presence. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present. (page 75)

On how to deal with problems in your life:

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.

...If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power. Through surrender, you will be free internally of the situation. You may then find that the situation changes without any effort on your part. In any case, you are free. (page 68-69)

It's amazing how many times I've read those passages in the past several years, and then forgot them, letting my consciousness drift back to the past, or to the future, instead of living in the Now.

But you can always return in the blink of an eye. The Force is with you, always.

Masons | Jedi | Star Wars | Freemasonry | Power of Now | Eckhart Tolle | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

An unexpected thing happened today

An unexpected thing happened today.

I buried my anger. I just let go of it.

I went to the Masonic graveside service for Bro. Bozeman this afternoon. It was good to see and shake hands with my brothers today, especially those who were once my friends. I saw the sadness in their eyes and the pain in their hearts as they buried their friend.

It's no secret I didn't like Bro. Bozeman, and it's no secret he didn't like me. He was, in fact, the impetus — I can't say inspiration — for my having created the Burning Taper 20 months ago. ["B.G." in "Small Town Freemasonry Part 4" is Grady Bozeman.]

Forgive. Forget. These seem to be concepts it's time for me to embrace.

While I'll never be one to, as Emerson put it, "capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions," I think it's time I do some Work on my own rough ashlar.

I'm taking a break from publishing The Burning Taper. It may be a day, a week, or a month or more; I don't know. I just know it's time to focus my energies elsewhere.

I thank each of you for reading my accumulated rants and ramblings, especially those brothers who disagree with me. I've enjoyed having an audience for my soapbox.

Heads-up to my local brothers: Save me a seat. I'll be back.

The taper still burns, but I buried my anger today.

And we buried a brother today. Rest in peace, Bro. Grady.

Masons | Masonic Virtues | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

W. Bro. Grady Bozeman, Grand Senior Deacon of Grand Lodge of Georgia, killed in workplace dispute

This article was originally posted Friday morning, May 11. It has been updated and moved to the top of the stack on Saturday morning and again on Sunday afternoon.

W. Bro. Grady Bozeman, Senior Grand Deacon of the Grand Lodge of Georgia, was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in a workplace dispute in Bluffton, South Carolina, about 25 miles from Savannah, Georgia.

Bro. Bozeman was a Past Master of Pickens Star Lodge No. 220, F. & A.M., of Jasper, Georgia. He was also a member of the Scottish Rite, York Rite, and Order of the Eastern Star.

I will update this article as new information becomes available.

FINAL UPDATE Sunday 5/13 4:45 pm: I've just returned from the graveside Masonic service after the funeral of Bro. Bozeman. A large crowd, perhaps 500 or more, were at the church, and well over 200, most of them Masons, were at the grave site.

UPDATE Sunday 5/13, 9:30 am: Here's an article where they're spelling Bro. Bozeman's name correctly again, with further details about the shooting and about the shooter's private life.

UPDATE Saturday 5/12, 10 pm: The brothers of Excelsior Lodge of Milwaukee, Wisconsin have offered their condolences to the brethren of Georgia on their website, and announced "there will be a moment of silence followed by a round of knocks (with one missing to signify the loss of our brother) prior to our Fellowcraft degree on May 14."

UPDATE Saturday 5/12, 9:20 pm: I've found several more articles about the shooting that I missed yesterday because Bro. Bozeman's name was incorrectly spelled "Boseman." Here's a link to the Associated Press story, which was published on dozens of TV and newspaper websites with the incorrect spelling. Most of the versions used a headline similar to this: "Shooting that killed 3 began after gunman called 'crazy.'"

Other articles give more details. The two contractors had been feuding earlier in the day. Bro. Bozeman came to the scene to find out why a crew wasn't working. When told by Rolondo Matta that there was a problem with James Mobley, Bro. Bozeman said, "Don't worry about him — he's crazy." Mobley overheard that statement, and pulled a gun from his lunchbox and began shooting Bro. Bozeman, striking him eight times in the head and upper body, before shooting Matta six times and then himself in the head.

The weapon used was a Glock .40 caliber auto-pistol. Mobley had a concealed weapons permit.

From a report released by the sheriff's department:

Motive: Rolando Matta was the painting sub-contractor for the construction project. Mobley was an electrical sub-contractor on the site. Earlier in the day Matta and Mobley had a disagreement over access to perform their specific jobs. Boseman, the general contractor, arrived on the site and questioned why Matta and his crew were sitting idle. When Matta explained his inactivity Boseman made the statement: “Don’t worry about him, he’s crazy.”

Mobley heard the comment, began angry and produced a weapon from his lunch pail and confronted Boseman first, shooting him and then turning the weapon on Matta. He then retreated to the corner of the building where he turned the weapon on himself. Mobley did possess a current concealed weapons permit from SLED.

The police report seems to be the source of the misspelled name.

More articles:

• SavannahNow.com
• Bluffton Today

UPDATE Saturday 5/12, 11:10 am: Bro. Bozeman's body is en route from South Carolina to Jasper, Georgia. Visitation will commence at 6 pm Saturday at Cagle Funeral Home [directions] in downtown Jasper, Georgia.

His funeral will be held at 2 pm Sunday, May 13, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church [map] in Jasper, on Old Highway 5 (Talking Rock Road) not far from Pickens Star Lodge.

UPDATE Friday 5/11, 8:20 pm: Within the past hour WTOC-TV in Savannah filed two new stories about the event. The first article, by Liz Flynn, cited Bro. Bozeman's Masonic ties and quoted Georgia Past Grand Master M. W. Bro. Clyde Griffin. There is also a newscast video that can be linked to from the news article (small link is just above Bro. Bozeman's photo).

The second article, by Jaime Dailey, deals more with the events surrounding the killing, and reports that Bro. Bozeman stepped between the two fighting men and said to Rolando Matta, one of the subcontractors, "Don't worry about him, he's crazy!", referring to James Mobley. Mobley then pulled a handgun from his lunchbox and shot Bro. Bozeman eight times, and then shot Matta several times. He then went into a corner and turned the gun on himself. Mobley fired a total of 17 rounds.

Original news articles Friday morning:

• Savannah Morning News
• WTOC-TV, Savannah
• Myrtle Beach Online
• Beaufort Gazette
• WCSC-TV, Charleston
• WSB-TV, Atlanta
• Star News Online, Wilmington, NC

Image: Grand Senior Deacon W. Bro. Grady Bozeman

Masons | Grady Bozeman | Grady Boseman| Crime | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com