The Free Masons

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

First, on a totally unrelated note, I am watching Deep Impact right now for the first time, mainly because I heard it sucked, and while I have not seen any evidence that it does not indeed suck, I was surprised to see the actor who played Steven Kiley on "Goodbye Charlie". He seemed to have a nice run of appearances in the late 90s, but then fell off the face of the Earth.

OK, on to the main topic. While flipping channels today, I found a fascinating little program on the History Channel about the Free Masons. It called to mind the episode where Millennium touched briefly on the subject in one of the final 2 episodes of season two. I think it was the Fourth Horseman. As Peter Watts does in the episode, the show went on to talk about the dollar bill and the significance of the symbols and art work on the bill. I don't necessarily buy into any of the "conspiracy" theories about the new masons having an agenda to form a new world order or any of the other ideas that were discussed, but it does make for some interesting writing material, and I'm surprised that they are not covered more in film or on TV, especially given the significant contributions free masons like George Washington and, if I remember correctly, Ben Franklin, among others have made in founding our country. I wish they would have gotten a little deeper into it on Millennium. It is a topic I would like to read into a little more. I did a google search and found some interesting facts about them. It's kind of strange looking at a list of some prominent members. There are many people who are not surprising at all, such as Douglas MacArthur, John Hancock, and Andrew Jackson, as well as random members that don't seem to fit, such as Bronson Pinchot ("Balki Bartokamous"), and Red Skelton. Like I said, they probably amount to little more than a social club in this day and age, but I always crave a good conspiracy theory, and even though I don't necessarily believe much of what is implied about them, I also have my doubts about E.T. life, and that doesn't stop me from enjoying the X-files.

[Guest SouthernCelt]

I take it you've never seen the movie "National Treasure"? I won't go into the plot but it all centers around the Masons (click on the title for the IMDb page). (BTW, if you use the formal term for them, it's Freemasons, one word not two, otherwise they're just called the Masons.)

The organization supposedly arose out of the masonry guilds of Scotland (primarily) which supposedly hid the surviving Knight's Templar after King Phillip of France got the Pope's blessing to declare the order heretics and persecute them via an inquisition unlike any previously seen. Although the Masons today won't confirm that to be their origin, they don't deny it either. In fact the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry has degrees of membership which use Templar symbols for badges of rank and Templar terminology for naming.

Many so-called researchers have tried to equate the Masons and the later-founded Illuminati but the only proveable facts seem to be that the Illuminati was born out of the minds of men who had been or were Masons; however, the Illuminati strove for utter secrecy while the Masons allowed a certain amount of public knowledge of their beliefs and principles. The Masons still exist but no one can determine if the Illuminati survives or not.

If you'd like to discuss this further, PM me and we can take it off the board so as not to load up the postings with stuff most members aren't interested in.

[Raven Wolf]

Odd..... Didn't I just start a thread on this subject a while back? *wink*

[The Old Man]

Deep Impact (enjoyable fun!) aside, I enjoyed National Treasure and its links to the Masons etc.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Odd..... Didn't I just start a thread on this subject a while back? *wink*

I must have missed that. Can you link me to it?

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Deep Impact (enjoyable fun!) aside, I enjoyed National Treasure and its links to the Masons etc.

I will have to rent National Treasure (if I can find it). As for Deep Impact, I agree, it was good fun. I heard it was just a horrendous film, but, even though it was a bit far fetched at times, it wasn't that bad. From what I have seen on the Discovery Channel and other places, an impact of the magnitude described in the film would send a dust cloud into the air that would blot out the sun and probably end most life on Earth and linger for months and months, but hey, how many people in the target audience for such a movie watch TDC.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Odd..... Didn't I just start a thread on this subject a while back? *wink*

PS, was your link specifically about the movie national treasure or about the freemasons?

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I take it you've never seen the movie "National Treasure"? I won't go into the plot but it all centers around the Masons (click on the title for the IMDb page). (BTW, if you use the formal term for them, it's Freemasons, one word not two, otherwise they're just called the Masons.)

The organization supposedly arose out of the masonry guilds of Scotland (primarily) which supposedly hid the surviving Knight's Templar after King Phillip of France got the Pope's blessing to declare the order heretics and persecute them via an inquisition unlike any previously seen. Although the Masons today won't confirm that to be their origin, they don't deny it either. In fact the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry has degrees of membership which use Templar symbols for badges of rank and Templar terminology for naming.

Many so-called researchers have tried to equate the Masons and the later-founded Illuminati but the only proveable facts seem to be that the Illuminati was born out of the minds of men who had been or were Masons; however, the Illuminati strove for utter secrecy while the Masons allowed a certain amount of public knowledge of their beliefs and principles. The Masons still exist but no one can determine if the Illuminati survives or not.

If you'd like to discuss this further, PM me and we can take it off the board so as not to load up the postings with stuff most members aren't interested in.

You are correct, I have not seen the movie, but I will add it to my list of films to see.

[hippyroo]

Secret societies would be the ones we don't know about, right? Another interesting study along this line is how the Mormans owe so much to their founders memebership in the Masons. The mormans have initiations, secret rights, special underwear etc. copied right from the Masons.

If you like stuff like this you might check out YALE university. Since 1972 every presidentail election in the USA has had at least one YALE grad. The last three US presidents :Bush, Clinton and Bush are all YALE grads. Hillary is running now and of course is a YALE grad. The late president Ford was a YALIE, as are John Kerry and Howard Dean.

If you don't think that powerful and or rich people get together and conspire to become more powerful and richer, you don't really understand human nature do you?

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Cool, I forgot to set my timer to turn off my TV last night, and I woke up to back to back documentary type shows about the Free Masons. Listening to some of the conspiracy theorists, you would swear that the Masons are up to no good. Then you listen to other people who insist that it's all a bunch of non sense, and the conspiracy theorists are reading things into the symbols and other coincidental circumstances that simply are not there. Of course, all the Masons who they interview also insist that there is nothing sinister about the group. It's still on the History Channel right now (10:30 AM), and they tend to replay their programing if anyone is interested.