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Post by maximus on May 11, 2009 22:42:11 GMT 10
We often see that which we wish to see.
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Post by Tamrin on May 12, 2009 6:55:40 GMT 10
Indeed, we are adept at recognising patterns, whether intended or not. In the case of changes at each step, deducing a third step in a sequence from only two earlier steps would be doubtful. However, in this case, one is being asked to entertain the more reasonable notion that what was the same in the first two steps, remains the same in the third (and finding substantial corroborating evidence). There is a difficulty in communicating this matter more clearly outside a tyled lodge: However, for now, please consider the initials depicted on the pillars and pedestal below. In strength will I establish this Mine House that it stand fast for ever
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Post by Gaslight on May 16, 2009 12:52:07 GMT 10
This post is in response to the Asherah thread, much of which is in the locked section of this forum. (I find this fragmentation makes it difficult to relate to some of the themes.)
Bro. Tamrin, I think you've made a solid case for the importance of Asherah in ancient history and your quotations make clear that she was accepted in early Judaism but then rejected. All of this was new to me; many thanks for the edification.
However, getting back to Desaguliers , I still don't see why he should have wanted to cloak references to Asherah in the way you suggest. The Masonic rituals used in my two lodges are an awful mish-mash of historical inaccuracies, clumsy and pretentious prose, and contradictions. I suspect that it was so from the beginning, even as far back as the Masonic catechisms. Why, therefore, Desaguliers should have chosen such an unreliable medium as Masonic ritual to include a 'code' that might be corrupted in only a few years, or might end up being edited out, I find difficult to understand.
Using the expunging of Asherah from the Judaic tradition as a salutary example of intolerance does make sense, but I would have thought that the Masons of Desaguliers' age would have been familiar with far more current examples of religious intolerance, so familiar that no explanation would have been needed for the injunction to leave religious and political discusssion at the door of the lodge.
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Post by Tamrin on May 16, 2009 16:10:34 GMT 10
Bro. Gaslight,Like you, I am frustrated by aspects of on-line communications and, in seeking to overcome some problems, I have created others. My intention in locking the threads under the "Featured Themes" category was to avoid the points raised being cluttered or waylaid by inane responses, which I have seen happen on a number of forums. I am not suggesting you would be likely to do so and am glad you have accommodated the limitations thus far. In view of participation of late being limited to a few mature posters, I shall unlock these threads while this standard of participation prevails. I agree that much Masonic ritual bears little in common with history. As for Desaguliers' motives, we are on even more uncertain ground. All we can say confidently is that the radical changes attributed to him and others in the early 1720's readily lend themselves to the theory offered. Why? We can only infer. That said, please bear-in-mind that a disproportionate number of the early members of the Premier Grand Lodge were Huguenot émigrés and other Calvinists. For them, their new found emphasis on religious tolerance may have been as much a self-serving appeal for their own security as it was a magnanimous gesture toward others. True, their own experiences might have served as direct examples but perhaps the memories were all too raw and the controversies still current (e.g., Desaguliers being smuggled out of France in a barrel when his clergyman father was forced to leave). An allegory from the Bible appears to have been used to rise above contemporary particulars by presenting a general truth steeped in antiquity. By way of example, please consider the strife in Northern Ireland and the many examples from recent history which might be raised as prime instances of the need for tolerance there: However, for each example, one might find an apologist arguing that particular instance was justified and thereby stirring more trouble. A less immediate example, demonstrating a peculiar moral principle, might be more effective.
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Post by Gaslight on May 16, 2009 22:08:28 GMT 10
Bro. Gaslight,In view of participation of late being limited to a few mature posters, I shall unlock these threads while this standard of participation prevails. Many thanks. I'll continue this particular thread here, but will switch to the unlocked section when appropriate. I'm afraid my knowledge of the early days of English Masonry is limited to a few books read many years ago, and a hazy recollection of their content. I remember the roles of Anderson and Desaguliers in the publication of the two Constitutions, but don't recall any references to their influence on the ritual of the time. If Prichard's expose can be taken as representative of the ritual of the time, there would appear to be a distinct continuity with fragments of earlier, pre-1717 rituals written as aide-memoires in diaries and notebooks. Some of the Q & A's go back as far as operative lodge rituals. Do you think that Desaguliers could have had as much influence on contemporary ritual as Preston, or the enthusiasts (can't remember their names) who forced Emulation on UGLE lodges?
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Post by Tamrin on May 16, 2009 22:35:26 GMT 10
For an overview, I recommend:
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Post by Tamrin on May 16, 2009 23:42:00 GMT 10
If Prichard's expose can be taken as representative of the ritual of the time, there would appear to be a distinct continuity with fragments of earlier, pre-1717 rituals written as aide-memoires in diaries and notebooks. Some of the Q & A's go back as far as operative lodge rituals. These aides-memoires are collectively known as the Early Masonic Catechisms. While much of their material is familiar with us, they only described two rudimentary degrees much of which was later reorganised and more was introduced. Among the material introduced in the early 1720's was the Third Degree together with its Hiramic Legend (the Mason Word and FPOF had featured in the earlier Second Degree and later featured among the now "substituted" secrets of the Third Degree). Looking at an even earlier clue, we find: For what we do presage is not in grosse, For we are brethren of the Rosie Crosse; We have the Mason Word and second sight, Things for to come we can foretell aright
Henry Adamson, The Muses' Threnodie (Edinburgh, 1638) This confident boast was published less than a century before the creation of our third degree and the reorganisation of the two degrees described in the Catechisms. After the early 1720s (with the first reference to the third degree being in 1930 with Pritchard's, Masonnry Dissected), members of the Premier Grand Lodge would have been less confident in asserting what they had or knew about the Mason Word as, among their many innovations was the introduction, at least to the Craft, of the notion of the lost Word.
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Post by Tamrin on May 17, 2009 7:07:52 GMT 10
Do you think that Desaguliers could have had as much influence on contemporary ritual as Preston, or the enthusiasts (can't remember their names) who forced Emulation on UGLE lodges? All lodges descended from the Moderns and the Antients practice the Third Degree, whereas Emulation is not common to all lodges (there is much diversity, particularly under the three "Mother Grand Lodges").
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Post by Tamrin on May 17, 2009 14:28:00 GMT 10
For an overview, I recommend: For theoretical context, I also recommend:
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Post by Tamrin on May 21, 2009 21:14:30 GMT 10
Asherah! Ashlar! hmmmmmm..... Indeed! “The Perfect Ashlar is a stone of true die or square, fit only to be tried by the Square and. Compasses.” "Asher-ah" (Strong, #842) is the feminine form of "Asher," among whose meanings is: A Semitic variant was even venerated as THE cubic stone: Cybele was worshipped under the names Kubaba and Kuba in Arabia, and Khaba in Mecca was originally a shrine to her.
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