Spiritual Powers

The Masons

I'm one of those people who grew up amidst Freemasonry (which is itself supposedly a misnomer, or mis-translation from an earlier French usage).  Both my grandfathers were Masons - Grandpa Nelson, with only a 6th grade education, was actually a Shriner - 32nd degree, which requires memorization and understanding a large body of comparative religion and history, which isn't really that bad.  

This was a way you  could get an advanced understanding of the world and your place in it without having gone to school.  You did have to be able to read and write, though - in other words, be literate.  I'm afraid that's an accomplishment that few young people have, today, except in the fashion of "computer-literate" or whatever.  140-character consciousness.  Even "scientific literacy" or "numeracy", as they say in Britain, is hard to come by except by the techies who are basically Borg from Day 1.  

You'd be amazed at how many upper-level professionals don't know the  slightest thing about social science, including economics.  And how many lawyers seem to know nothing about legal philosophy, let alone ethics and sociology.  Like  physicians, they now spend a lot of time learning about how to maximize their "practice" and incomes.  

But in the 19th Century, there wasn't really a "professional class". Outside the nobility, the best-educated and most productive people were either clergymen or skilled tradesmen and craftsmen - i.e., Masons.  The Medieval Guild system, and an economy based on humane and Christian teachings, and of course the schools that trained them .  The great European and British universities were founded in the 12-1300's.  And the Italian ones like Bologne were directly transplanted from the Hellenistic schools which go back to Athens or before with Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, and the later Museum of Alexandria - the greatest center of learning in the world before it was destroyed in various waves of monotheistic fanaticism.  I've just been reading about Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine (the first Christian Emperor, who moved the Roman Empire to Byzantium), who actually re-established paganism (poly-theism) and all the cults and mysteries associated with it!   So there has always been this conflict between "established" churches and belief systems, and the rest of us who may want to think and believe something different.   

The Knights Templar, who were started during the Crusades in order to "Save Jerusalem", were supposedly the fore-runners of the Masons.  Jacques DeMolay, for whom the Masonic youth organization is named, was supposedly the last Templar.  Don't quote me on this - I read it many years ago.  Although we now think of Masons as "anti-Catholic," that was not always the case.  DeMolay was tortured by the Inquisition (or something like that - the one we know by that name, now, was part of the Counter-Reformation, I believe).   This was part of an event which must have been one of the most coordinated mass murders in history, taking place all over Europe by secret orders carried by itinerant monks (somewhere in the 1300's, I think).  All the Templars were killed, and their vast estates  confiscated by the Church.  It's fascinating stuff, and can still be seen in films (and contemporary politics, for that matter) in Europe and the U.S. 

Come to think of it, the resurgence of Masonic interest in the 18th and 19th centuries was probably closely connected with destroying the Church and reclaiming the lands which it had stolen.  In Mexico, I've heard, the Church is still not allowed to own property, and exists only under strict state control.  

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It's often remarked that the Ku Klux Klan was a Masonic-style group, probably started by people who had been trained in Masonry.  So was the Knights of Labor, the first successful labor union, which was made up of equal parts Lincoln Republicans and active Freemasons (the leader was named Stephens, and seems to fit our  family type, which was how I discovered this).  Most of the American Founding Fathers were Masons, as well - just to  show this  wasn't some recent fad.  Not to mention Mozart.  

I've got the basic 32nd Degree "Morals and Dogma" in a book right here, compiled by someone named Pike in the Southern Jurisdiction in the 1890's.  I haven't read the "Morals" carefully, but I flipped through it.  Basically, it's sort of like the Rosicrucians - they may  have common roots - where the wisdom and knowledge of every great religion and philosophy is combined and "syncretized" (if that's the right word) to make a workable everyday philosophy or belief system, and its wider community.  We might say, now, that it has a somewhat elitist bent.  It's the old "esoteric" vs. public understanding of things.  The  Enlightened Ones, the Illuminati, as they called themselves, know  best, so just trust them.  They are wiser than the rest of us.  

I've  been in Mensa and other groups  which purport to  represent some "higher thinking," including the Objectivist movement.  (Never quite got into Scientology, but I've known a few who did).  The whole academic  game is based on this, for that matter.  You have more "education" so  you get  more money.  That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?   For the educators, anyway.  But it totally paralyzes and locks into classes everything that a free people would value or want to do!  Most importantly, control their own "cultural infrastructure" instead of having it "managed" by a bunch of professional racketeers...

Against State Socialism

That's the real argument against "state socialism".  There's simply no way to prevent it from being taken over and diverted to private gain.  Look at that wretched Obamacare!   And then imposing a further tax on young working people (whose real health-care costs are low) in order to pay off the rotten drug cartels and as well as doctors and hospitals which have apparently no concept of economics, except to maximize their own incomes from the public purse, and enslave or pillage everyone who is forced to use their services.

As bad as direct provision of public services often is (that's our present model for so-called "public education"), at least it can be changed on short notice and must be responsive to public outrage.  No such thing happens with "Obamacare" or the various "contractors" who now run most of our public services as well as the military.  

Then there's the insurance racket bailout.  In the guise of "fixing" such "problems" as "pre-existing conditions", and the added risk to the pool by having to insure such people, they simply made it compulsory, thus immediately raising premiums for everyone by about 15% (and there was a lot of tightening up on other benefits, too, in order to keep the premium increase that low).  

No problem!  We just subsidize low-income people so they can now "buy" this low-grade "health insurance" with higher deductibles and limited coverage for maybe twice what the same product would have cost them, before the ACA.  

Besides, it's FREE MONEY.  The Federal Government just prints it, or borrows it from the Chinese.  What could go wrong?   Essentially, that was main argument (often used by Gov. Bullock) in favor of approving Medicaid Expansion.  It was almost all "free money", and even if it was cut off later (as the Republicans claimed to fear, since they were trying to do the cutting).   But the real selling point was that this would allow us to establish real health care for some 80,000 low-income people who presently "fall through the cracks".  

We should never worry whether it's state or federal money - not, at least, until we have our own state money to replace it - as some have proposed.  It's all the same money, but we have to get ours (on the state and local level) from taxing the people and businesses who are actually here.  We can't borrow the difference from China, although we can make deals to give them our coal at rock-bottom (no pun intended) prices.  We are becoming an economic colony of China.  

It happened before, to a certain extent, with Japan, which has invested heavily in Montana to support and maintain its food supply.  Now, the Chinese want "equal treatment," and they're actually building a pork packing and distributing center in Shelby, MT.  From Jack Dempsey (who won a world Heavyweight Boxing title here in the 1920's) to the  Hog Farm in less than 100 years.  And I know a lot of people from Shelby - it was one of the authentic hippy towns in the '60's and '70's, too.  The fabled "Highline", or did they write it "Hi-Line," maybe.  In any case, as the crossroads between East and West and the main road to Alberta, it always had a special place in Jim Hill's Empire.  

Now, it's dominated by a CCA prison, along with the hogs.  What a fate for its beautiful people.  Yet, a recent poll showed wide local support for both projects (and employers).  When all the good jobs have already been exported to China (ahead of the hogs), they'll have to take whatever they can get and not  complain, I guess.  A whole new meaning to "Oriental Despotism."  

Which brings us back to the Masons.  When the Shriners have a parade, we now see the cities of their various "cauldrons" and other sinister-sounding collectives with names like Algeria, Baghdad, etc.  They're essentially black-face Muslims (as opposed to Black Muslims, whom they tend to fear and despise).  Then they get drunk, roll dice, hire a stripper, and otherwise have a jolly-good time.  Not much of an inspiration to our best and brightest youth, right?  But we don't want our country run by a bunch of sissies, either.  And they have their Women's groups  - Eastern Star, Rainbow Girls (not  to be confused with Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition), etc. to keep the men and boys in check, more or less.  

I've done my time as an atheist, as well.  And I was actually a DeMolay, for about a year.  I've compared my experience there with a number of other  local drop-outs, and we all left for good reasons.  I still live in the apartments which were once owned (and provided income for) the adult "supervisor" of the DeMolay's, which turned out to be merely a conduit for his orders and predjudices.  

I don't consider myself a Mason, nor a Lutheran, either - the other "church" in which I was made to participate as a child.  Mostly, it was the women who were for it (Lutherans and DeMolay), while my father, uncle, and even cousin and brother discouraged it entirely.   Ron, who is now a lay preacher of sorts, never went to church because Abraham Lincoln didn't.  And that was accepted - plus his father was pretty much a non-believer (in anything).  

Unitarianism was a nice compromise, after I had been immersed in Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, and other spiritual movements in the 1970's.  And I can still call myself  a Unitarian, although their main church seems hopelessly "professional" and elitist in many ways, plus not providing a whole lot of spiritual sustenance.  It seems to flourish where there is already a diverse intellectual community.  Where there is none (like GF), it withers and dies, like our public library and local broadcast media.