Tip 1: What Masons Do

Culture and Society

Tip 1: What Masons Do

The Masonic lodges began their existenceseveral centuries ago and reached its peak in the late 18th century. Thanks to the fact that among their members were prominent politicians, the Masons had a significant influence on the life of society. Today the Masonic order is popular in many countries, but for many people the question remained - what are the Masons doing?

In the Middle Ages Masons actively fought against religionand a monarchical government. Despite the fact that officially Masons preach tolerance and can support any religion, it was important for them to free humanity from the prejudices associated with it. Masons secretly or openly supported freethinkers and various sects, thereby bringing about a split in the Christian church. The idea of separating the church from the state in the time of the activation of liberal and socialist parties belonged to the masons. Another goal of the Masonic lodges was the destruction of monarchical power, as well as the national identity of peoples. In their opinion, these shortcomings of society significantly hinder the achievement of the ultimate ideal of society - a super-state without nationalities, religions, monarchs, where all people are brothers. Masons supported the ideas of democracy, liberalism, helped the revolutionaries. To achieve their goal, they tried to seize political influence and power in their hands and redraw all spheres of life in their own way. This concerned not only religion and the state, but also the family, the school, the army, science, art, industry, etc. Today, many goals of the Masons have been achieved in one way or another. Religion no longer plays an important role in the governance of the state, the monarchy has practically outlived itself, in most countries democracy, freedom of conscience, assembly, and creed have reigned. However, the society did not achieve the ultimate ideal, therefore the actions of the Masons are now directed in a different direction. In civilized countries, including Europe, Freemasonry faced such problems as the decline in the general culture of the population, the indifference of people to each other. Meanwhile, an integral part of the ideal society in the teachings of Freemasons - the brotherhood and equality of all people. Therefore today Freemasonry considers itself to a certain extent a club for the creation of the intelligentsia - the dying society at the moment. Relations between people should be built on the principles of friendship, related relationship to each other, self-sacrifice. In fact, it looks like funding schools, universities, hospitals, medical research centers, and other charitable activities. For example, in the United States, for these purposes Masonic charities spend about half a billion dollars a year. In Russia, this activity is hardly noticeable, since Masonic lodges are practically not developed.

Tip 2: Who are the Masons

The organization of Freemasons always interested and frightenedinhabitants. The myth that the whole world is ruled by "free masons" has been around three centuries already. Freemasonry in a bizarre way combines politics, religion, and pagan cults.

The very word "mason" is translated as "mason,builder". This secret and mystical movement arose in the eighteenth century. Masons are a world organization that is political and religious in nature. Like medieval builders, members of a modern organization use secret symbols and passwords to communicate with each other. Masons completely adopted the terms and letters from the participants of these closed shops. This allows them to keep the secret of their belonging to the group, but freely communicate with each other. In 1717, Freemasonry officially became part of the Great Lodge of England. Later members of the organization began to create separate groups all over the world. They can influence the cultural, economic and political life of the country, since it includes mostly rich and powerful citizens. Now around the world live about eight million masons. Members of this group do not consider themselves a religious organization, but all participants have a certain faith, rituals, hierarchy. The Masons worship the Great Architect of the universe. The main precept of this religion is the mind, which will help a person escape punishment after death, the soul is considered immortal. Masons use very ancient rituals based on pagan rites. Rites are performed in special temples, called lodges. Some Masonic ceremonies are similar to Christian ones, for example, marriage. A person who wants to become a member of Freemasonry must undergo a ritual of initiation. This ceremony is very frightening, it keeps the initiate in constant tension. Officially, Freemasonry is considered a philosophical and public organization. This group owns a number of charitable institutions. Members of Freemasonry seek power, for this they recruit people from the upper strata of the population. Within the organization there is a division into several branches, which constantly compete and struggle for spheres of influence and finance. Modern Masons and their meetings are more like a sort of social closed club, where members meet to share their problems and discuss the political situation. Plaque of the Middle Ages and those mystical rituals remained only here and there, because society is now too numerous to manage every member of it.

Council 3: What is the Masonic conspiracy

Often you can hear that in those or otherevents both in the distant past, and in the present, there are clear traces of the Masonic conspiracy. This is one of the most popular conspiracy theories, suggesting the existence of a world government.

Who are the Masons?

To understand why the idea of a Masonic conspiracyso popular, it is necessary to look into the history of the appearance and development of Masonic lodges. The word "mason" means a mason, and originally the Masonic brotherhood was an association of building artels in the Middle Ages. In those days, many guilds existed in a fairly closed mode, carefully guarding their secrets of skill. The propensity of Masons to mysticism and secret ceremonies was due to the fact that it was the masons who created the majestic Gothic cathedrals, and in the middle of the clergy, by the fifteenth century, the secret knowledge was quite popular. In addition, since such buildings could be built up to several decades, it is obvious that the principles of continuity were necessary.

The Masonic lodges were subjected to persecution by the Catholic Church because of the fascination of the Masons with occultism and Kabbalah.

In the XVI century in England in the Masonic lodge steeltake not only builders and architects, but also simply wealthy and influential people who could support society. Strictly speaking, it is from this moment that the real history of secret Masonic societies begins, which very quickly turned from building associations into mystical clubs for the elite of that time. Masons attracted new members with their mystical fleur, the desire to search for truth, various attributes of secret societies: signs, accessories, greetings, rituals. Eventually Freemasonry became a very fashionable phenomenon, and many European rulers were members of Masonic lodges.

Conspiracy theory

It is thanks to the presence in the Masonicthe societies of many influential people, the theory of the Masonic conspiracy is actively developing, which is the assertion that a number of geopolitical and economic upheavals are directly related to the influence of Freemasons on the course of world history. As a rule, the supporters of this theory can not clearly articulate the ultimate goal of the intervention of Freemasons in historical events, and the only evidence is the fact that the participants in these events were in Masonic lodges. In addition, there is no significant evidence that members of the ruling elite of a state, who were Masons, acted in harm to their country.

Many famous personalities were Masons, for example Napoleon Bonaparte, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Washington.

In fact, the theory of Masonic conspiracy does notdiffers from other conspiracy theories, which state that all processes occurring in the world are inspired by a certain group of persons in their own interests, but none of the proofs of the allegiance to the Masonic conspiracy theorists have been found.

Tip 4: What is a Masonic Lodge

Masonic lodges are called as rooms, wheregather "free masons", and the associations of these people themselves, moreover the second of these values is much more common than the first. In a broad sense, the Masonic lodge is a peculiar society with its hierarchy, secret symbols and ideology.

Freemasonry appeared in the Middle Ages, and the firstlodges - in the XVII century. The term "freemason" means "freemason", and at first such people really belonged to representatives of the workers of the English workshops of masons, who in the fifteenth century received a huge number of privileges, although they were not considered influential before. The word "free" was added to the name of their profession, since they were the only English workers who were officially allowed free movement around the country. Over time, Masonic lodges began to appear, and "freemasons" began to take in their ranks not only workers, but also representatives of the intelligentsia, and also created their own ideology. An ancient idea, which stated that the building was built only thanks to the joint efforts of all workers, became the main one. Freemasons who knew firsthand about building ethics and equality among all workers, accepted literary, philosophers and other intellectuals as their ranks, who told them about a utopian society built on the principle of justice, reason and science. The Masons decided to start creating such a society, and since it was very dangerous to talk about such things, they created their own language, incomprehensible to those who did not enter the boxes. The number of Masonic lodges and the number of their members grew, and this affected the hierarchy badly. To coordinate the actions of all these disparate societies, it was decided to create the Grand Lodge. She appeared in London in 1717. The activities of the Grand Lodge were so successful that the number of masons increased many times, including even the English princes, some of whom subsequently ascended the royal throne. According to the ideology of Freemasonry, the lodges were created in order to enable representatives of different nationalities and even different religions to gather together and in a friendly atmosphere to discuss their views, ask for help from others, take certain decisions, etc. Later, the lodges changed a little: in particular, there were ceremonies and the transition to new levels of Freemasonry, and the hierarchy of lodges has become more clear.