Mere Freemasonry

I read Jason Colavito’s blog with great interest and unbridled enthusiasm.  He’s a fascinating guy, with some serious knowledge.  His biography states “Jason Colavito is an author and editor based in Albany, NY.  He is internationally recognized by scholars, literary theorists, and scientists for his pioneering work exploring the connections between science, pseudoscience, and speculative fiction. His investigations examine the way human beings create and employ the supernatural to alter and understand our reality and our world.”

His latest post about the Knights Templar is no exception.  From the article:

The Telegraph has an interesting article published yesterday by scholar Dominic Selwood, author of a 1999 academic study of the Knights Templar as well as a new novel about them, pondering why the medieval order of warrior monks has captured the modern imagination. His conclusions are more or less exactly what I’ve taken so much criticism for pointing out. Selwood, who holds a PhD in medieval religious warrior orders, sees in the Templars a convenient focus for two distinct threads of alternative thought, which are not completely severable. Read more »

Dan Truax remembers when one of his closest friends joined the Freemasons. He gave him a sideways look and a crooked smile and said “You’re doing what?”

That was about four years ago. Now the 44-year-old Onalaska man is a Mason himself; his buddy, Dave O’Neill, is preparing to serve his first term as head of their lodge.

Having found an outlet for their desire to better themselves and their community — and a sense of camaraderie they hadn’t felt since their days in the Air Force, they are hoping to dispel some of the myths that surround the centuries-old group.

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Jasmine Dotiwala posted on Huffington Post UK about Freemasonry:

Alongside the conspiracies that the original moon landing was fake, the USA government orchestrated 9/11, and the idea that the C.I.A invented and planted the deadly AIDS virus to wipe out homosexuals and African Americans, is the age-old favourite – that secret societies rule the world.

I’ve been listening to scare stories about the Freemasons for over two decades in the music industry, and have had a vague interest and intrigue about the group.
Coincidently this past the month, the Freemasons put on a Ball, a white tie charity ball that revived a 150-year-old masonic social tradition. I was invited to both the ball and their building at Great Queen Street in Covent Garden.

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This post was written by Hatchet reporter Morgan Baskin

Freemasons have been dissected and analyzed in Dan Brown novels and Nicholas Cage movies as enigmatic, with puppet strings in everything from banks to income taxes.

But Nicholas Sampogna, a 2010 GW alumnus and Mason, wants to dispel the stereotype that Freemasons are secretive and all-powerful.

“It’s just not true,” Sampogna said. “People hear about conspiracy theories regarding the Masons and their connections to the government and they assume we secretly run everything. In reality, the last U.S. president to be a Mason was Gerald Ford.”

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(CBS News) “Sunday Morning” looks at the rumors, fears and conspiracy theories sparked by the Freemasons’ fraternal order, its secrets and rituals.

1. When meeting, Masons do not discuss religion or politics.

“There are certain subjects which are prevented or we simply proscribe from discussing within the lodge,” Piers Vaughan, master of St. John’s Lodge #1 in New York, told Mo Rocca. “And religion is one. Politics is another.”

One of the world’s leading experts on Freemasonry confirms.

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