ONE IOTA?
I want to take this opportunity to honor a valiant soul There was a 35 year old homeless guy named Kelsy H. Ruiz that moved here from Honduras immigrating to Miami.
He lived on the streets as a homeless man sleeping wherever he could. Instead of stealing, selling drugs or taking advantage of others, he made every effort to work for his food and drink. Among other things he would help the female Colombian cuisine restaurant owner Malida Marreo in return for food and sometimes cash.
He would work and send money home to the Honduras for his family.One day when in proximity to the restaurant, Ruiz observed a man named Tyrone Clark attempting to rob the store owner.
The robber stabbed the female store owner while attempting to rob her and Mr Kelsy Ruiz stepped in & defended her fighting the robber, preventing further injury.The robber then turned on Kelsy stabbing him and leaving both victims literally lying in the middle of the street.I came by this story and thought to myself how many lazy selfish and greedy people there are in this world, and how many fewer are selfless brave and valiant if far from perfect, that when faced with the decision between doing the very difficult and dangerous right thing, and the easy zero-risk "nothing", they don't hesitate for a minute.
I realize this has nothing to do with the forum, and in particular, this thread but:
Something eats at me, when a soul who, however imperfect gives to the sum of humanity somehow gets struck down. although it bothers me, I understand the nature of the world & the beast. Its going to happen when you try to do the right thing. The saying "no good deed goes unpunished" is sadly often times true.It doesn't stop the good from doing good often times. They may lose their lives doing something good, but what Burns me up is when a good person falls, and leaves the earth "without a trace". Without some kind of remembrance, some tribute or honorable mention.So I just thought I'd take a minute to honor this young guy, and let him know that he isn't completely forgotten. I don't know him, never met him, but his name is on my lips today, and his spirit is in my heart.Kelsy H. Ruiz Rest in peace with the LORD, there are more here. We will do what we can.
-Juan Iota
Monday, December 31, 2007
Anyone home on planet earth?
Juan Iota is my "pen name".
Full name meant to be: "Juan LeedleStenken Iota"
Theres a meaning to why I took this name. I have this fantasy of making a difference in this world before checking out.
This article is about the Greek "iota. "
Iota (uppercase Ι, lowercase ι) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh (). Letters that arose from Iota include the Roman I and J. Iota is pronounced yota by modern Greeks.
Iota represents /i/ (as in English beet). In ancient Greek it occurred in both long and short versions, but this distinction has been lost in Modern Greek.
Iota participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, with both long and short vowels as the first element. Where the first element was long, the iota was lost in pronunciation at an early date, and was written in polytonic orthography as iota subscript in other words as a very small ι under the main vowel, for instance ᾼ ᾳ ῌ ῃ ῼ ῳ
[edit] Common English phrase
The word is used in a common English phrase, 'not one iota of difference', to signify a meaningless distinction (lit. "not even a small difference").
The phrase derives from the introduction to the Antithesis of the Law in the Gospel of Matthew (a jot or a tittle), and became common in the theological debate which arose around the time of the First Council of Nicaea, regarding the nature of the Holy Trinity.
The argument centered on which of two alternative Greek words, differing only in a single 'iota' letter, should be used in describing Jesus' relationship to the Holy Trinity. One word, 'homoousios', would mean that Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father, and the other 'homoiousios', would mean that Jesus was of similar substance.
[edit] Symbol
The Iota symbol is used to generate a vector of consecutive integers in the APL programming language.
The lowercase Iota symbol is sometimes used to write the imaginary unit but more often Roman i or j are used.
In logic, the lowercase iota denotes the definite descriptor.
hmmm
Full name meant to be: "Juan LeedleStenken Iota"
Theres a meaning to why I took this name. I have this fantasy of making a difference in this world before checking out.
This article is about the Greek "iota. "
Iota (uppercase Ι, lowercase ι) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh (). Letters that arose from Iota include the Roman I and J. Iota is pronounced yota by modern Greeks.
Iota represents /i/ (as in English beet). In ancient Greek it occurred in both long and short versions, but this distinction has been lost in Modern Greek.
Iota participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, with both long and short vowels as the first element. Where the first element was long, the iota was lost in pronunciation at an early date, and was written in polytonic orthography as iota subscript in other words as a very small ι under the main vowel, for instance ᾼ ᾳ ῌ ῃ ῼ ῳ
[edit] Common English phrase
The word is used in a common English phrase, 'not one iota of difference', to signify a meaningless distinction (lit. "not even a small difference").
The phrase derives from the introduction to the Antithesis of the Law in the Gospel of Matthew (a jot or a tittle), and became common in the theological debate which arose around the time of the First Council of Nicaea, regarding the nature of the Holy Trinity.
The argument centered on which of two alternative Greek words, differing only in a single 'iota' letter, should be used in describing Jesus' relationship to the Holy Trinity. One word, 'homoousios', would mean that Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father, and the other 'homoiousios', would mean that Jesus was of similar substance.
[edit] Symbol
The Iota symbol is used to generate a vector of consecutive integers in the APL programming language.
The lowercase Iota symbol is sometimes used to write the imaginary unit but more often Roman i or j are used.
In logic, the lowercase iota denotes the definite descriptor.
hmmm
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Its been over eleven years now.
Dec 20th 2007 It's been 11 YEARS!!!!?From this distant vantage point, the earth may not seem of any particular interest, but for us its different. Consider again that dot: That's here. That's HOME. That's US.On it, every one you Love, everyone you know, every one you ever heard of every human being who ever was lived out their lives. Every aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religion and ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar every supreme leader every saint and sinner in the history of our species.A very small stage in a vast cosmic arena; think of the all those rivers of blood spilled by all the generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of this one fraction, of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited, by the by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel upon the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.How frequent, their misunderstandings, how EAGER they are to kill one anotherHow fervent their hatreds. Our COSTUMES, our IMAGINED images of self importance. The delusion that we have so privileged a position in the universe, by this point of pale light. Our planet, thus a lonely speck in the great cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in ALL this vastness there is NO hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is no where else at least in the near future to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes, Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, the earth is where we make our stand it has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is Perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits. Than this distant image of our tiny world. To me it underscores our responsibility to be more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot. The only home we've ever known.
-Carl Sagan,
TO LOVE, AND LIVE IN THE HEARTS WE LEAVE BEHIND, IS TO NEVER DIE.
I can remember being taught how "electrons were classified as inorganic matter", how "inanimate" matter is classified as "without life".
I can remember immediately wanting to question that. Thats almost as funny as children having to teach us about "plate tetonics". Funny how we are slowly trampled from childhood. AT first by "grownups" who are intent on "killing our spirit". This unintentional process makes it easier to "protect, and keep an eye on us. This squashing helps in turning us into serious adults, then by our very selves our spirit gets worked over even more..
Get my "drift"?
I have always been of the opinion that We dont really know that an electron is inorganic, or that it doesnt initself, contain its very own part of the universe with its own stars, galaxy's and solar systems. we dont know the boundaries of the whole universe. Thats part of the wonder I have for our creator. I feel important only because I feel Loved and connected I can feel special without subscribing to the belief that I am supposed to know everything about, or control one single aspect of the universe EXCEPT my behavior, my emotions, my actions, and my passions. I can believe in a benevolent loving creator, a GOD who loves us, and still not have "proof" other than the knowledge that something this vast, this organized, perfect, indescribeably beautiful and wonderous could only have been created and not have happend by chance.
-Carl Sagan,
TO LOVE, AND LIVE IN THE HEARTS WE LEAVE BEHIND, IS TO NEVER DIE.
I can remember being taught how "electrons were classified as inorganic matter", how "inanimate" matter is classified as "without life".
I can remember immediately wanting to question that. Thats almost as funny as children having to teach us about "plate tetonics". Funny how we are slowly trampled from childhood. AT first by "grownups" who are intent on "killing our spirit". This unintentional process makes it easier to "protect, and keep an eye on us. This squashing helps in turning us into serious adults, then by our very selves our spirit gets worked over even more..
Get my "drift"?
I have always been of the opinion that We dont really know that an electron is inorganic, or that it doesnt initself, contain its very own part of the universe with its own stars, galaxy's and solar systems. we dont know the boundaries of the whole universe. Thats part of the wonder I have for our creator. I feel important only because I feel Loved and connected I can feel special without subscribing to the belief that I am supposed to know everything about, or control one single aspect of the universe EXCEPT my behavior, my emotions, my actions, and my passions. I can believe in a benevolent loving creator, a GOD who loves us, and still not have "proof" other than the knowledge that something this vast, this organized, perfect, indescribeably beautiful and wonderous could only have been created and not have happend by chance.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Physics of 11 Sept 2001
PHYSICS DOES NOT LIE...... IF we are Industrious & Astute and arent easily distracted by bullshit.
Greetings fellow citizens. Thanks to D. Jonesy While he appears a bit edgy and extreme at times to some people, he has earned friendship and respect from his contemporaries & allies. Free Thinkers usually do knock over a few glasses and vases around the house occasionally. That is a natural occurance when you lock a BULL (our FREE thoughts and dreams) in a china closet (the ever shrinking tyrannical thought process of the "powers that be").
They hate us and always have, because theres no f__king place to attach the puppet strings.
I hate them back and always have for trying to ruin a perfectly good planet, ALMOST as much as I hate any other "terrorists" "FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC"
Enough of that Rant.
Lets get to my favorite one. How in the hell do you (in this atmosphere & gravity) make "water pour up"?. OR; How does one; "throw an average baseball, with enough speed to develop the monumental potential energy to 'completely' destroy the bat all the way down to the knob of the handle, and itself".
NOW, this analogy should be backwards: How does the ball able to destroy the bat in the first place? Well, potential energy.
The only place this could come from is the increase in mass as a direct result of motion.
Energy = (m) X Acceleration
Without 'other' outside forces acting upon the ball ("explosives") this is otherwise impossible.
My scientific query eliminates many of the confusing variables. I like to try and compartmentalize things into "sub-routines". This is a trick I learned when trying to become a proficient computer programmer. The question (Ball vs Bat), can be answered quite simply:
Please express in mathematics, each collapse from initiation of collapse to completion. UC Davis HAS in fact done this, and in a really OBJECTIVE (and kinda humorous, for nerds) way.
Keep in mind, I constantly provide science form both sides of the coin. So I do NOT do "Abstracts" unless I provide links to their entirety. (part of my personal ground rules) I want to stress here, that after general theory and the basics of these in formula form, I get just as lost is not more, than other people do. My mathematics skills are equal to that of maybe a 7th grader.
The rest of my mind in my opinion, makes up for this weakness.
(orbital mechanics for instance; I can tell you HOW it works, but not exactly why)
http://trefoil.math.ucdavis.edu/author/C.Beck?c=physics.pop-ph http://trefoil.math.ucdavis.edu/ Makes me want to fill a bathtub with it and jump in.
Here are some links to engineering and science treatments.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5442 http://www.gnn.tv/threads/18598/Engineer_s_Remarkable_WTC_Collapse_Simulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blevy http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_equals_MC_squared http://syracusecoe.org/symposium/2003/cd/presentations/Herbert.pdf
Heres one thats going to send you running to the drugstore: http://www.nucleardemolition.com/GZero_Sample.pdf
Disclaimer: I am not interested in "conspiracy theories". I leave that to my fried friend and ally David. He ties them up well, and his presentations are fantastic food for thought. I will say publicly that I do not agree with everything he has. So no one can ever accuse him and I of pandering one another. We are two opposites of the same person, and we happen to have some similarities in subtle sarcasm and insensitivity with regard to "Political Correct-ness" and "Religion". Of course I have my opinions.
He is critical of my opinions & findings. He questions my results even when they align with his theory. Thats a good man. Instead of broad strokes. I tend to be specific IE: do I think Oswald acted alone? HELL NO. Do I believe there were more than 1 shooter? Yes, because of my science, Im sure of it. I am careful NOT to >>>>Project<<<< into any case studies, but take the time to proceed one point at a time, until I have a consensus of details which either come to a cu=onclusion, or don't. This is what a scientific Approach / mind will do.
IE: I hear something under the bed. I shush up, and listen quelling my fear lond enough to activate the impulse of steering all of my available "ram" to my hearing feeling and seeing" senses. I am quiet for a minute, and listen. If I hear something under the bed nagain, and say catch a glimpse of shadow, I slowly (even though I am fearful) look under the bed. Either theres something there, or there isnt. Some minds will hear, & have a hidden fear and instinct there is something under the bed. They will turn up the music. They will turn away and look in a different direction. They will ignore this instinct, and ask someone else to look under the bed. IF someone says to them, "I hear something under the bed", they will argue with them saying "No, you dont hear anything". "If we ignore the noise, it will go away".
There is a lot more to this phsycological dynamic, but Im sure some will catch my drift.
Dynamic + Havoc = Dynavoc That is my latest word.
The professional skeptic, I have never been able to figure out so: Go Figure?......lol
Our purpose is a good one. Our efforts, however difficult are productive in the long run. Discouragement is normal and natural. Lets stay at it. With the moderators permission I will transfer some of my earliest scientific inquiries from the "other" forum to here. With no protests, you should see the initial question appear here shortly. Much work has been lost, but who cares.
Im a stubborn son of a bitch. I dont give up easy and I want to figure out what happened so no other fire fighters or Port Authority people like 35 year old <> get sacrificed for greedy shitty reasons. I didnt then, have never and still do not feel that what happened on 11 Sept was what we were being told was happening. I do not feel right, I trust my instincts, I trust my perception, I trust my life long interest in Physics and Science. I trust my many many years of experience. Just to avoid any doubt, I will post my qualifications here as soon as I write them down for anyone to examine. This way you will know how much or how little of a right I have to MY OWN opinion... Interesting concept in a "free society" isnt it?
_________________
T.S. Negron Curious Fellow.
Keen interest in Humanity, Physics & general theoretical Sciences.
Sword Bearer w/ plenty of faith and trust in GOD.
Aimiable, non-violent Musician whenever possible
Greetings fellow citizens. Thanks to D. Jonesy While he appears a bit edgy and extreme at times to some people, he has earned friendship and respect from his contemporaries & allies. Free Thinkers usually do knock over a few glasses and vases around the house occasionally. That is a natural occurance when you lock a BULL (our FREE thoughts and dreams) in a china closet (the ever shrinking tyrannical thought process of the "powers that be").
They hate us and always have, because theres no f__king place to attach the puppet strings.
I hate them back and always have for trying to ruin a perfectly good planet, ALMOST as much as I hate any other "terrorists" "FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC"
Enough of that Rant.
Lets get to my favorite one. How in the hell do you (in this atmosphere & gravity) make "water pour up"?. OR; How does one; "throw an average baseball, with enough speed to develop the monumental potential energy to 'completely' destroy the bat all the way down to the knob of the handle, and itself".
NOW, this analogy should be backwards: How does the ball able to destroy the bat in the first place? Well, potential energy.
The only place this could come from is the increase in mass as a direct result of motion.
Energy = (m) X Acceleration
Without 'other' outside forces acting upon the ball ("explosives") this is otherwise impossible.
My scientific query eliminates many of the confusing variables. I like to try and compartmentalize things into "sub-routines". This is a trick I learned when trying to become a proficient computer programmer. The question (Ball vs Bat), can be answered quite simply:
Please express in mathematics, each collapse from initiation of collapse to completion. UC Davis HAS in fact done this, and in a really OBJECTIVE (and kinda humorous, for nerds) way.
Keep in mind, I constantly provide science form both sides of the coin. So I do NOT do "Abstracts" unless I provide links to their entirety. (part of my personal ground rules) I want to stress here, that after general theory and the basics of these in formula form, I get just as lost is not more, than other people do. My mathematics skills are equal to that of maybe a 7th grader.
The rest of my mind in my opinion, makes up for this weakness.
(orbital mechanics for instance; I can tell you HOW it works, but not exactly why)
http://trefoil.math.ucdavis.edu/author/C.Beck?c=physics.pop-ph http://trefoil.math.ucdavis.edu/ Makes me want to fill a bathtub with it and jump in.
Here are some links to engineering and science treatments.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5442 http://www.gnn.tv/threads/18598/Engineer_s_Remarkable_WTC_Collapse_Simulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blevy http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_equals_MC_squared http://syracusecoe.org/symposium/2003/cd/presentations/Herbert.pdf
Heres one thats going to send you running to the drugstore: http://www.nucleardemolition.com/GZero_Sample.pdf
Disclaimer: I am not interested in "conspiracy theories". I leave that to my fried friend and ally David. He ties them up well, and his presentations are fantastic food for thought. I will say publicly that I do not agree with everything he has. So no one can ever accuse him and I of pandering one another. We are two opposites of the same person, and we happen to have some similarities in subtle sarcasm and insensitivity with regard to "Political Correct-ness" and "Religion". Of course I have my opinions.
He is critical of my opinions & findings. He questions my results even when they align with his theory. Thats a good man. Instead of broad strokes. I tend to be specific IE: do I think Oswald acted alone? HELL NO. Do I believe there were more than 1 shooter? Yes, because of my science, Im sure of it. I am careful NOT to >>>>Project<<<< into any case studies, but take the time to proceed one point at a time, until I have a consensus of details which either come to a cu=onclusion, or don't. This is what a scientific Approach / mind will do.
IE: I hear something under the bed. I shush up, and listen quelling my fear lond enough to activate the impulse of steering all of my available "ram" to my hearing feeling and seeing" senses. I am quiet for a minute, and listen. If I hear something under the bed nagain, and say catch a glimpse of shadow, I slowly (even though I am fearful) look under the bed. Either theres something there, or there isnt. Some minds will hear, & have a hidden fear and instinct there is something under the bed. They will turn up the music. They will turn away and look in a different direction. They will ignore this instinct, and ask someone else to look under the bed. IF someone says to them, "I hear something under the bed", they will argue with them saying "No, you dont hear anything". "If we ignore the noise, it will go away".
There is a lot more to this phsycological dynamic, but Im sure some will catch my drift.
Dynamic + Havoc = Dynavoc That is my latest word.
The professional skeptic, I have never been able to figure out so: Go Figure?......lol
Our purpose is a good one. Our efforts, however difficult are productive in the long run. Discouragement is normal and natural. Lets stay at it. With the moderators permission I will transfer some of my earliest scientific inquiries from the "other" forum to here. With no protests, you should see the initial question appear here shortly. Much work has been lost, but who cares.
Im a stubborn son of a bitch. I dont give up easy and I want to figure out what happened so no other fire fighters or Port Authority people like 35 year old <
_________________
T.S. Negron Curious Fellow.
Keen interest in Humanity, Physics & general theoretical Sciences.
Sword Bearer w/ plenty of faith and trust in GOD.
Aimiable, non-violent Musician whenever possible
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Freemasonry or "Don't Believe the Hype"....
"Life is a school. The world is neither prison, nor penitentiary, nor a palace of ease, nor an amphitheater for games and spectacles; but a place of instruction, and discipline.Life is given for moral and spiritual training; and the entire course of the great school of life is for virtue, happiness and a future existence. The periods of life, are its terms; all human conditions it's forms; all human employments its lessons. Families are the primary departments of this moral education; the various circles of society, its advanced stages; Kingdoms and Republics its universities.Riches and poverty, gayeties and sorrows, marriage & funerals, the ties of life bound or broken, fit and fortunate, or untoward and painful, are all lessons. Events are not blindly & carelessly flung together. ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Providence does not school one man, and screen another from the fiery trial of its lessons. It has neither rich favorites nor poor victims. One event happeneth to all. One end and one design concern and urge all men".
-Albert Pike, Morals Dogma ___________________________________________________
Easterly towards the dawn. GOD'S light.àI will travel
Ok,Here I am. My name is Thomas Scott Negron. I am a Freemason. Some of you know me fairly well by now, so, Judge me as a person, as you will. I am starting this thread to open a dialogue on Freemasonry. Ask me anything and I will endeavor to answer you HONESTLY.You can choose to get your information second hand, or you can go to a source knowledgeable, first hand. I am here to translate intent for anyone with an open mind to understand and learn from me. And I will surely learn from you. I will be accessible for anyone who wants to seek the knowledge I possess. It's absolutely nothing special. ANY good hearted, GOD fearing (meaning you believe in a creator or higher power) man or Woman will understand it. Very few are turned away from Freemasonry when they voluntarily come seeking it -OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL. Those who are turned away, are done so for good reason, and usually, they are the ones who get pissy and start the rumors, as you will soon learn.You will NEVER be urged or asked to seek the degrees of Freemasonry. That's one of the "secrets" I am authorized to give you. That is also one of the protected secrets of ancient & accepted Freemasonry. It has been in place since time immemorial so that only those seeking good and honest wisdom would know "the secrets".
Evil hearts stumble across this trap immediately.I am a Master Mason. I am also somewhat of an unofficial lodge "Freemasonry historian". I have been voraciously consuming ("organic" not processed) information on the craft for well over fourteen years now.My search in life for, & faith in GOD led me to ask questions such as: "Is this all there is to this life?""Is mankind truly evil by instinct?" The lessons of the one (King James Version, for me anyway) true Bible gave me Landmarks which I naturally and thankfully recognized in my search for Wisdom, and further instruction from the one who created us all.
I, although as wretched as any other average guy on earth have been fortunate enough to be born with a heart that truly seeks what GOD is willing to give me: Grace and Wisdom. In other words, I ache to improve myself as a person, as a father, as a man. This has not been easy.
GOD has blessed me. Lucky for me, because otherwise, my "wages" of average sins and endeavor would have surely brought me what I call: "squished like a bug" by now.You will notice that I always capitalize the word "LORD" & "GOD", This is simply to give praise, thanks and respect for that which I can barely grasp. It's a small way to show my faith and enthusiasm.
I am not a "GOD freak". I have always refused to run around beating up others with my Bible, or my belief's You can be snobby today, and tomorrow, have to eat every word right?
You will see me referring to "GOD" as the "Grand Architect of this Universe". I have been taught that this is because, there are many similarities for the creator in omnipotent religions, (a word you will come to know that I hate) and tolerance whispers that "he is called be several names" God, Jehovah, Lord, Allah, "The great Spirit"..... so who are we to say?Who are WE to say which is right, or which is wrong? The only specification Freemasonry makes is that; a freemason believes in one creator. That's it. How's that for "dogma"? There are reasons for this requirement, but that's something to cover for another time. Just ask me.I have earnestly researched and searched Freemasonry for the lessons I sought when I was led to Freemasonry by my own spiritual quest for knowledge and wisdom. As a matter of good fortune, I prayed for wisdom instead of riches. I have also searched for the evil many people accuse Freemasonry of being the true purpose of. I would be aghast, had I spent so much effort in such a noble cause, only to find that I had been part of anything evil much less a world conspiracy.
>>>>>>>>My findings have been very consistent.
99.99 percent of the terrible and untrue things which have been written about Freemasonry are copied from other writings. In almost every single case, they are modified just a little bit from their source to fit the context of the accusations, and form a piece of some otherwise unrelated puzzle, or agenda! Here ahead are several examples of what I am referring to. I will give you a perfect example of a severely out of context "quote" along with the plagiarizers' INSTRUCTIONS on how YOU should interpret the words. THEN I will supply you the text IN its context, so you may see what Pike means to convey.Keep in mind that Pike wrote Morals & Dogma at the behest of his constituents. It is a supplemental to the sublime degrees. It is a collection of the LECTURES and charges given to those receiving the degrees, which include WARNINGS of falling into the traps evil has laid out for us in our travels. This isn't some secret book spelling out what someone should believe. It's a collection of information including the good, the bad & the ugly of which MANKIND himself has been party to. Nothing more, nothing less. You want to know once and for all? I am here to help.I will receive neither money, nor other consideration for my efforts here. If you find that you want to give, Give to the truly needy, help children and widows. Give to help children with insurmountable medical problems. In this way, you are SUPPORTING ONE OF THE VERY PURPOSES FOR OUR FRATERNITIES EXISTENCE. I've seen very few of these "persecution" sites whose purpose and existence is for nothing more than their own personal material enrichment. This is an easy living for "beating upon a meek and passive victim". SURELY if Freemasonry were evil, would we NOT exert some of the very real and perceived "power" we possess, and wield it against these unsolicited so-called "enemies"?So, In the spirit of this forum thread:I will start with this letter I wrote in response to a website which demonizes Albert Pike & the book, Morals & Dogma. It was so blindly spiteful, in so many ways that I found it necessary to write and point out a few things:
This is just one website I surfed into. Note: Like this guy is here to save the world from us. The only problem is, HE is only willing to do so, if he can make money doing it. The site has 80% of its space prostituted for advertising income. Hmmmm....He begins by touting himself as really astute in knowledge of Pike, and "Morals & Dogma" saying that "most Masons have never read it". Hmmm a bit presumptuous at the least. Well Ladies and Gents, I (& most Masons I know!)have read it, in its entirety, and I am here to help you understand in in all of its various contexts'.
Heres the site:http://threeworldwars.com/dogma.htm
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While a prolific writer, Albert Pike is best known for his major work Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry. Published in 1871 (no ISBN), this massive volume consists of 861 pages and 32 Chapters, covering each of the 32 Degrees of Freemasonry. While many consider it to be a Mason's guide for daily living, the truth is that not many Masons have even read the book, on account of it being somewhat difficult to understand. More than 75% of the book consists of historical records of ancient civilisations (inc. Egypt, Greece, China, India, Persia) and their superstitions and religious observances. At first reading Pike creates the impression of being well-read and extremely knowledgeable on his topic, until you take the time to read the preface. It accuses Pike of plagiarism throughout, stating that "he has extracted quite half its contents from the works of the best writers and most philosophic or eloquent thinkers". Is Pike really the genius we've been led to believe?Freemasonry Described by Albert Pike In Morals and Dogma, Pike wrote: "Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it.... The truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason... every man's conception of God must be proportioned to his mental cultivation and intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself..." 1
The next statement reduces the Masonic philosophy to a single premise. Pike writes: "The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry. Lucifer, the Light Bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!" 2
WOW huh. We are baby killers then? Its easy to understand how people could pervert this work and manipulate it meaning when you can twist the context of whats being written, and expect no rebuke!
NOW Here's Pikes work:
Bear in mind that small "snippets" were taken from the lecture which follows. Please keep in mind: I have taken the copy of the true text from a website (a persecutionists website at that!) so Ill need to read through and compare it to the true text, to make sure no one is "putting words in Pike's mouth" as they are SO often prone to do! Anyway read with caution. Ask any questions you like.XIX. GRAND PONTIFF. (Ed note: this is the lecture for this degree.)
The true Mason labors for the benefit of those who are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race. That is a poor ambition which contents itself within the limits of a single life. All men who deserve to live, desire to survive their funerals, and to live afterward in the good that they have done mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in men's memories. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that may outlast their own day and brief generation. That is an instinctive impulse, given by God, and often found in the rudest human heart; the surest proof of the soul's immortality, and of the fundamental difference between man and the wisest brutes. To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted.
The rudest unlettered husbandman, painfully conscious of his own inferiority, the poorest widowed mother, giving her life-blood to those who pay only for the work of her needle, will toil and stint themselves to educate their child, that he may take a higher station in the world than they;--and of such are the world's greatest benefactors. In his influences that survive him, man becomes immortal, before the general resurrection. The Spartan mother, who, giving her son his shield, said, "WITH IT, OR UPON IT!" afterward shared the government of Lacedaemon with the legislation of Lycurgus; for she too made a law, that lived after her; and she inspired the Spartan soldiery that afterward demolished the walls of Athens, and aided Alexander to conquer the Orient. The widow who gave Marion the fiery arrows to burn her own house, that it might no longer shelter the enemies of her infant country, the house where she had lain upon her husband's bosom, and where her children had been born, legislated more effectually for her State than Locke or Shaftesbury, or than many a Legislature has done, since that State won its freedom. It was of slight importance to the Kings of Egypt and the Monarchs of Assyria and Phoenicia, that the son of a Jewish woman, a foundling, adopted by the daughter of Sesostris Ramses, slew an Egyptian that oppressed a Hebrew slave, and fled into the desert, to remain there forty years. But Moses, who might otherwise have become Regent of Lower Egypt, known to us only by a tablet on a tomb or monument, became the deliverer of the Jews, and led them forth from Egypt to the frontiers of Palestine, and made for them a law, out of which grew the Christian faith; and so has shaped the destinies of the world. He and the old Roman lawyers, with Alfred of England, the Saxon Thanes and Norman Barons, the old judges and chancellors, and the makers of the canons, lost in the mists and shadows of the Past,--these are our legislators; and we obey the laws that they enacted. Napoleon died upon the barren rock of his exile. His bones, borne to France by the son of a King, rest in the Hopital des Invalides, in the great city on the Seine. His Thoughts still govern France. He, and not the People, dethroned the Bourbon, and drove the last King of theHouse of Orleans into exile. He, in his coffin, and not the People, voted the crown to the Third Napoleon; and he, and not the Generals of France and England, led their united forces against the grim Northern Despotism. Mahomet announced to the Arabian idolaters the new creed, "There is but one God, and Mahomet, like Moses and Christ, is His Apostle." For many years unaided, then with the help of his family and a few friends, then with many disciples, and last of all with an army, he taught and preached the Koran. The religion of the wild Arabian enthusiast converting the fiery Tribes of the Great Desert, spread over Asia, built up the Saracenic dynasties, conquered Persia and India, the Greek Empire, Northern Africa, and Spain, and dashed the surges of its fierce soldiery against the battlements of Northern Christendom. The law of Mahomet still governs a fourth of the human race; and Turk and Arab, Moor and Persian and Hindu, still obey the Prophet, and pray with their faces turned toward Mecca; and he, and not the living, rules and reigns in the fairest portions of the Orient. Confucius still enacts the law for China; and the thoughts and ideas of Peter the Great govern Russia. Plato and the other great Sages of Antiquity still reign as the Kings of Philosophy, and have dominion over the human intellect. The great Statesmen of the past still preside in the Councils of Nations. Burke still lingers in the House of Commons; and Berryer's sonorous tones will long ring in the Legislative Chambers of France. The influences of Webster and Calhoun, conflicting, rent asunder the American States, and the doctrine of each is the law and the oracle speaking from the Holy of Holies for his own State and all consociated with it: a faith preached and proclaimed by each at the cannon's mouth and onsecrated by rivers of blood. It has been well said, that when Tamerlane had builded his pyramid of fifty thousand human skulls, and wheeled away with his vast armies from the gates of Damascus, to find new conquests, and build other pyramids, a little boy was playing in the streets of Mentz, son of a poor artisan, whose apparent importance in the scale of beings was, compared With that of Tamerlane, as that of a grain of sand to the giant bulk of the earth; but Tamerlane and all his shaggy legions, that swept over the East like a hurricane, have passed away, and become shadows; while printing, the wonderful invention of John Faust, the boy of Mentz, has exerted a greater influence on man's destinies and overturned more thrones and dynasties than all the victories of all the blood-stained conquerors from Nimrod to Napoleon
Long ages ago, the Temple built by Solomon and our Ancient Brethren sank into ruin, when the Assyrian Armies sacked Jerusalem. The Holy City is a mass of hovels cowering under the dominion of the Crescent; and the Holy Land is a desert. The Kings of Egypt and Assyria, who were contemporaries of Solomon, are forgotten, and their histories mere fables. The Ancient Orient is a shattered wreck, bleaching on the shores of Time. The Wolf and the Jackal howl among the ruins of Thebes and of Tyre, and the sculptured images of the Temples and Palaces of Babylon and Nineveh are dug from their ruins and carried into strange lands. But the quiet and peaceful Order, of which the Son of a poor Phoenician Widow was one of the Grand Masters, with the Kings of Israel and Tyre, has continued to increase in stature and influence, defying the angry waves of time and the storms of persecution. Age has not weakened its wide foundations, nor shattered its columns, nor marred the beauty of its harmonious proportions. Where rude barbarians, in the time of Solomon, peopled inhospitable howling wildernesses, in France and Britain, and in that New World, not known to Jew or Gentile, until the glories of the Orient had faded, that Order has builded new Temples, and teaches to its millions of Initiates those lessons of peace, good-will, and toleration, of reliance on God and confidence in man, which it learned when Hebrew and Giblemite worked side by side on the slopes of Lebanon, and the Servant of Jehovah and the Phoenician Worshipper of Bel sat with the humble artisan in Council at Jerusalem. It is the Dead that govern. The Living only obey. And if the Soul sees, after death, what passes on this earth, and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery, and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten.
We know not who among the Dead control our destinies. The universal human race is linked and bound together by those influences and sympathies, which in the truest sense do make men's fates. Humanity is the unit, of which the man is but a fraction. What other men in the Past have done, said, thought, makes the great iron network of circumstance that environs and controls us all. We take our faith on trust. We think and believe as the Old Lords of Thought command us; and Reason is powerless before Authority. We would make or annul a particular contract; but the Thoughts of the dead Judges of England, living when their ashes have been cold for centuries, stand between us and that which we would do, and utterly forbid it. We would settle our estate in a particular way; but the prohibition of the English Parliament, its uttered Thought when the first or second Edward reigned, comes echoing down the long avenues of time, and tells us we shall not exercise the power of disposition as we wish. We would gain a particular advantage of another; and the thought of the old Roman lawyer who died before Justinian, or that of Rome's great orator Cicero, annihilates the act, or makes the intention ineffectual. This act, Moses forbids;that, Alfred. We would sell our land; but certain marks on a perishable paper tell us that our father or remote ancestor ordered otherwise; and the arm of the dead, emerging from the grave, with peremptory gesture prohibits the alienation. About to sin or err, the thought or wish of our dead mother, told us when we were children, by words that died upon the air in the utterance, and many a long year were forgotten, flashes on our memory, and holds us back with a power that is resistless. Thus we obey the dead; and thus shall the living, when we are dead, for weal or woe, obey us. The Thoughts of the Past are the Laws of the Present and the Future. That which we say and do, if its effects last not beyond our lives, is unimportant. That which shall live when we are dead, as part of the great body of law enacted by the dead, is the only act worth doing, the only Thought worth speaking. The desire to do something that shall benefit the world, when neither praise nor obloquy will reach us here we sleep soundly in the grave, is the noblest ambition entertained by man. It is the ambition of a true and genuine Mason. Knowing the slow processes by which the Deity brings about great results, he does not expect to reap as well as sow, in a single lifetime. It is the inflexible fate and noblest destiny, with rare exceptions, of the great and good, to work, and let others reap the harvest of their labors. He who does good, only to be repaid in kind, or in thanks and gratitude, or in reputation and the world's praise, is like him who loans his money, that he may, after certain months, receive it back with interest. To be repaid for eminent services with slander, obloquy, or ridicule, or at best with stupid indifference or cold ingratitude, as it is common, so it is no misfortune, except to those who lack the wit to see or sense to appreciate the service, or the nobility of soul to thank and reward with eulogy, the benefactor of his kind. His influences live, and the great Future will obey; whether it recognize or disown the lawgiver. Miltiades was fortunate that he was exiled; and Aristides that he was ostracized, because men wearied of hearing him called "The Just." Not the Redeemer was unfortunate; but those only who repaid Him for the inestimable gift He offered them, and for life passed in toiling for their good, by nailing Him upon the cross, as though He had been a slave or malefactor. The persecutor dies and rots, and Posterity utters his name with execration: but his victim's memory he has unintentionally made glorious and immortal. If not for slander and persecution, the Mason who would benefit his race must look for apathy and cold indifference in those whose good he seeks, in those who ought to seek the good of others. Except when the sluggish depths of the Human Mind are broken up and tossed as with a storm, when at the appointed time a great Reformer comes, and a new Faith springs up and grows with supernatural energy, the progress of Truth is slower than the growth of oaks; and he who plants need not expect to gather. The Redeemer, at His death, had twelve disciples, and one betrayed and one deserted and denied Him. It is enough for us to know that the fruit will come in its due season. When, or who shall gather it, it does not in the least concern us to know. It is our business to plant the seed. It is God's right to give the fruit to whom He pleases; and if not to us, then is our action by so much the more noble. To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those who are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man. All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid. The Volcano and the Earthquake, the Tornado and the Avalanche, leap suddenly into full life and fearful energy, and smite with an unexpected blow. Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in a night; and Lisbon fell prostrate before God in a breath, when the earth rocked and shuddered; the Alpine village vanishes and is erased at one bound of the avalanche;and the ancient forests fall like grass before the mower, when the tornado leaps upon them. Pestilence slays its thousands in a day; and the storm in a night strews the sand with shattered navies. The Gourd of the Prophet Jonah grew up, and was withered, in a night. But many years ago, before the Norman Conqueror stamped his mailed foot on the neck of prostrate Saxon England, some wandering barbarian, of the continent then unknown to the world, in mere idleness, with hand or foot, covered an acorn with a little earth, and passed on regardless, on his journey to the dim Past. He died and was forgotten; but the acorn lay there still, the mighty force within it acting in the darkness. A tender shoot stole gently up; and fed by the light and air and frequent dews,put forth its little leaves, and lived, because the elk or buffalo chanced not to place his foot upon and crush it. The years marched onward, and the shoot became a sapling, and its green leaves went and came with Spring and Autumn. And still the years came and passed away again, and William, the Norman Bastard, parcelled England out among his Barons, and still the sapling grew, and the dews fed its leaves, and the birds builded their nests among its small limbs for many generations. And still the years came and went, and the Indian hunter slept in the shade of the sapling, and Richard Lion-Heart fought at Acre and Ascalon, and John's bold Barons wrested from him the Great Charter; and the sapling had become a tree; and still it grew, and thrust its great arms wider abroad, and lifted its head still higher toward the Heavens; strong-rooted, and defiant of the storms that roared and eddied through its branches; and when Columbus ploughed with his keels the unknown Western Atlantic, and Cortez and Pizarro bathed the cross in blood; and the Puritan, the Huguenot, the Cavalier, and the follower of Penn sought a refuge and a resting-place beyond the ocean, the Great Oak still stood, firm-rooted, vigorous, stately, haughtily domineering over all the forest, heedless of all the centuries that had hurried past since the wild Indian planted the little acorn in the forest ;--a stout and hale old tree, with wide circumference shading many a rood of ground; and fit to furnish timbers for a ship, to carry the thunders of the Great Republic's guns around the world. And yet, if one had sat and watched it every instant, from the moment when the feeble shoot first pushed its way to the light until the eagles built among its branches, he would never have seen the tree or sapling grow. Many long centuries ago, before the Chaldaean Shepherds watched the Stars, or Shufu built the Pyramids, one could have sailed in a seventy-four where now a thousand islands gem the surface of the Indian Ocean; and the deep-sea lead would nowhere have found any bottom. But below these waves were myriads upon myriads, beyond the power of Arithmetic to number, of minute existences, each a perfect living creature, made by the Almighty Creator, and fashioned by Him for the work it had to do There they toiled beneath the waters, each doing its allotted work, and wholly ignorant of the result which God intended. They lived and died, incalculable in numbers and almost infinite in the succession of their generations, each adding his mite to the gigantic work that went on there under God's direction. Thus hath He chosen to create great Continents and Islands; and still the coralinsects live and work, as when they made the rocks that underlie the valley of the Ohio. Thus God hath chosen to create. Where now is firm land, once chafed and thundered the great primeval ocean. For ages upon ages the minute shields of infinite myriads of infusoria, and the stony stems of encrinites sunk into its depths, and there, under the vast pressure of its waters, hardened into limestone. Raised slowly from the Profound by His hand, its quarries underlie the soil of all the continents, hundreds of feet in thickness; and we, of these remains of the countless dead, build tombs and palaces, as the Egyptians, whom we call ancient, built their pyramids. On all the broad lakes and oceans the Great Sun looks earnestly and lovingly, and the invisible vapors rise ever up to meet him.No eye but God's beholds them as they rise. There, in the upper atmospere, they are condensed to mist, and gather into clouds, and float and swim around in the ambient air. They sail with its currents, and hover over the ocean, and roll in huge masses round the stony shoulders of great mountains. Condensed still more by change of temperature, they drop upon the thirsty earth in gentle showers, or pour upon it in heavy rains, or storm against its bosom at the angry Equinoctial. The shower, the rain, and the storm pass away, the clouds vanish, and the bright stars again shine clearly upon the glad earth. The rain-drops sink into the ground, and gather in subterranean reservoirs, and run in subterranean channels, and bubble up in springs and fountains; and from the mountain-sides and heads of valleys the silver threads of water begin their long journey to the ocean. Uniting, they widen into brooks and rivulets, then into streams and rivers; and, at last, a Nile, Ganges, a Danube, an Amazon, or a Mississippi rolls between its banks, mighty, majestic, and resistless, creating vast alluvial valleys to be the granaries of the world, ploughed by the thousand keels of commerce and serving as great highways, and as the impassable boundaries of rival nations; ever returning to the ocean the drops that rose from it in vapor, and descended in rain and snow and hail upon the level plains and lofty mountains; and causing him to recoil for many a mile before the long rush of their great tide. So it is with the aggregate of Human endeavor. As the invisible particles of vapor combine and coalesce to form the mists and clouds that fall in rain on thirsty continents, and bless the great green forests and wide grassy prairies, the waving meadows and the fields by which men live; as the infinite myriads of drops that the glad earth drinks are gathered into springs and rivulets and rivers, to aid in levelling the mountains and elevating the plains, and to feed the large lakes and restless oceans; so all Human Thought, and Speech and Action, all that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God. We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and carved the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned; and many years elapsed before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin. Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait! The issues are with God: To do, Of right belongs to us. Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results;but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to God! Soldier of the Cross! Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True!be patient and work! The Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty. The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apothesis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darknesss! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls ? Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired. The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar. It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. "Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who under stands, calculate !" he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be undertood by the multitude.
The Sephar Yezirah, the Sohar, and the Apocalypse are the completest embodiments of Occultism. They contain more meanings than words; their expressions are figurative as poetry and exact as numbers. The Apocalypse sums up, completes, and surpasses all the Science of Abraham and of Solomon. The visions of Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, and of the new Symbolic Temple, are equally mysterious expressions, veiled by figures of the enigmatic dogmas of the Kabalah, and their symbols are as little understood by the Commentators, as those of Free Masonry. The Septenary is the Crown of the Numbers, because it unites the Triangle of the Idea to the Square of the Form. The more the great Hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute Science, the more they sought to add grandeur to and multiply its symbols. The huge pyramids, with their triangular sides of elevation and square bases, represented their Metaphysics, founded upon the knowledge of Nature. That knowledge of Nature had for its symbolic key the gigantic form of that huge Sphinx, which has hollowed its deep bed in the sand, while keeping watch at the feet of the Pyramids. The Seven grand monuments called the Wonders of the World, were the magnificent Commentaries on the Seven lines that composed the Pyramids, and on the Seven mystic gates of Thebes. The Septenary philosophy of Initiation among the Ancients may be summed up thus: Three Absolute Principles which are but One Principle: four elementary forms which are but one; all forming a Single Whole, compounded of the Idea and the Form. The three Principles were these: 1ø. BEING IS BEING. In Philosophy, identity of the Idea and of Being or Verity;in Religion, the first Principle, THE FATHER. 2ø. BEING IS REAL. In Philosophy, identity of Knowing and of Being or Reality; in Religion, the LOGOS of Plato, the Demiourgos, the WORD. 3ø. BEING IS LOGIC. In Philosophy, identity of the Reason and Reality; in Religion, Providence, the Divine Action that makes real the Good, that which in Christianity we call THE HoLY SPIRIT. The union of all the Seven colors is the White, the analogous symbol of the GOOD: the absence of all is the Black, the analogous symbol of the EVIL. There are three primary colors, Red, Yellow, and Blue; and four secondary, Orange, Green, Indigo, and Violet; and all these God displays to man in the rainbow; and they have their analogies also in the moral and intellectual world. The same number, Seven, continually reappears in the Apocalypse, compounded of three and four; and these numbers relate to the last Seven of the Sephiroth, three answering to BENIGNITY or MERCY, SEVERITY or JUSTICE, and BEAUTY or HARMONY; and four to Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malakoth, VICTORY, GLORY, STABILITY, and DOMINATION. The same numbers also represent the first three Sephiroth, KETNER, KHOKMAH, and BAINAH, or Will, Wisdom, and Understanding, which, with DAATH or Intellection or Thought, are also four, DAATH not being regarded as a Sephirah, not as the Deity acting, or as a potency, energy, or attribute, but as the Divine Action. The Sephiroth are commonly figured in the Kabalah as consti- tuting a human form, the ADAM, KADMON Or MACROCOSM. Thus arranged, the universal law of Equipoise is three times exernplified. From that of the Divine Intellectual, Active, Masculine ENERGY, and the Passive CAPACITY to produce Thought, the action of THINKING results. From that of BENIGNITY and SEVERITY, HARMONY flows; and from that of VICTORY or an Infinite overcoming, and GLORY, which, being Infinite, would seem to forbid the existence of obstacles or opposition, results STABILITY or PERMANENCE, which is the perfect DOMINION Of the Infinite WILL. The last nine Sephiroth are included in, at the same time that they have flowed forth from, the first of all, KETHER, or the CROWN. Each also, in succession flowed from, and yet still re mains included in, the one preceding it. The Will of God includes His Wisdom, and His Wisdom is His Will specially developed and acting. This Wisdom is the LOGOS that creates, mistaken and personified by Simon Magus and the succeeding Gnostics. By means of its utterance, the letter YOD, it creates the worlds, first in the Divine Intellect as an Idea, which invested with form became the fabricated World, the Universe of material reality. YOD and HE, two letters of the Ineffable Name of the Manifested Deity, represent the Male and the Female, the Active and the Passive in equilibrium, and the VAV completes the Trinity and the Triliteral Name, the Divine Triangle, which with the repetion of the He becomes the Tetragrammaton. Thus the ten Sephiroth contain all the Sacred Numbers, three, five, seven, and nine, and the perfect Number Ten, and correspond with the Tetractys of Pythagoras. BEING IS BEING, Ahayah Asar Ahayah. This is the principle, the "BEGINNING." In the Beginning was, that is to say, IS, WAS, and WILL BE, the WORD, that is to say, the REASON that Speaks. The Word is the reason of belief, and in it also is the expression of the Faith which makes Science a living thing. The Word, is the Source of Logic. Jesus is the Word Incarnate. The accord of the Reason with Faith, of Knowledge with Belief, of Authority with Liberty, has become in modern times the veritable enigma of the Sphinx. It is WISDOM that, in the Kabalistic Books of the Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, is the Creative Agent of God. Elsewhere in the Hebrew writings it is Debar Iahavah, the Word of God. It is by His uttered Word that God reveals Himself to us; alone in the visible and invisible but intellectual creation, but in our convictions, consciousness, and instincts. Hence it is that! certain beliefs are universal. The conviction of all men that God is good led to a belief in a Devil, the fallen Lucifer or Lightbearer, Shaitan the Adversary, Ahriman and Tuphon, as an attempt to exlain the existence of Evil, and make it consistent with the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Benevolence of God. Nothing surpasses and nothing equals, as a Summary of all the doctrines of the Old World, those brief words engraven by HERMES on a Stone, and known under the name of "The Tablet of Emerald:" the Unity of Being and the Unity of the Harmonies, ascending and descending, the progressive and proportional scale of the Word; the immutable law of the Equilibrium, and the proportioned progress of the universal analogies; the relation of the Idea to the Word, giving the measure of the relation between the Creator and the Created, the necessary mathematics of the Infinite, proved by the measures of a single corner of the Finite ;--all this is expressed by this single proposition of the Great Egyptian Hierophant: "What is Superior is as that which is Inferior, and what is Below is as that which is Above, to form the Marvels of the Unity." --------------------------------------------------Do you see the problems people like this poor sould has in understanding such deep work? Pike is saying: Satan will present himself as the light! Anyway, ask away.
T. S. Negron says:
Ok, that is a LOT of reading. So you can see why some of these problems exist.My letter to these people who used that excerpt out of context to demonize Pike follows:Good SirI have a few questions and comments.I JUST surfed into your website, and after reading only the first paragraph I am inclined to write that you are guilty of exactly the "plagerism" you cite for Pike.There were several glaring inaccuracies in that first paragraph alone. A reasonable, and knowledgeable man would immediately recognize that your site has an agenda and isn't interested in objective treatment of Pikes work in the least. I'll try to get through it anyway.Have you or anyone really close to you ever been a freemason? Have you ever really sat down and interviewed a freemason? You present yourself as someone who HAS read Morals & Dogma in its entirety. I submit that if you have, you did not understand it too well. (This is not to imply that you are stupid. It is in no way my intent to look down my nose, insult or degrade your efforts. I will assume that you have honorable intent, which is why I write to you in earnest) I have read the text several times over (admittedly, in between many naps).Morals and Dogma was written as a supplemental to the Rites. It is a collection of the lectures. Of course it will contain previously written material by other writers. That's the intent of the work my new friend.I bear you absolutely no ill will for your ignorance of the true purpose. I will express however that it is so endlessly exasperating that freemasonry's attackers display so little real in-depth knowledge about the craft, and yet are so obviously positive that they are right, even to the point of attack when someone with any knowledge of this subject attempts to correct the inaccuracies. I have found that 99% of the people, who help to spread the misinformation, such as you are, get this misinformation from some other written sources of misinformation.This is precisely why we don't make any attempt to "defend ourselves". I have found most of the time, it's pointless. In fact, I have been discouraged from this, by most of the elders in Masonry because of the fact that experience has taught them it hasn't been very productive. I am of the opinion that in order to allow understanding, we must be willing to be a bit more accessible, as long as we protect our so-called "secrets" from the evil tyranny of men. I tell you; these "secrets" are in plain sight. They are in the words YOU SKIPPED OVER. They are the basic gifts, the LORD-GOD, Grand Architect of this Universe has given us. We protect them from those who are blind and yet seek to blind other men from these wonderful "secrets". These secrets merely allow us to recognize another human who has freely taken the same obligation, and is committed to the same purpose as we. We can recognize him/her at night as well as in broad daylight. There is no further purpose than for the protection against persecution (which we experience anyway).People who believe (some) of the ridiculous claims you make are already convinced they have uncovered some kind of devil. I submit that its human nature to attack something which isn't easily understood, or is kept "secret" from others. Our ultimate example of tolerance should be obvious but instead, it's overlooked as a weakness, Pity.I am a sort of "lodge historian." I have been studying in earnest from the "inside" for years now. If I can ever help you to "uncover" the "evils" of freemasonry, I will be happy to do so, and will fulfill my obligation to mankind.
I would be happy to make a new friend, if you are willing to open your mind and perception just a bit.This is my duty, as I have "Promised" to leave the earth better than I found it for my existence.
so I will be available anytime for exchange.
Thank you all for bearing my postulations.
Warmest Regards
"Juan Iota" -My Pen Name
-Albert Pike, Morals Dogma ___________________________________________________
Easterly towards the dawn. GOD'S light.àI will travel
Ok,Here I am. My name is Thomas Scott Negron. I am a Freemason. Some of you know me fairly well by now, so, Judge me as a person, as you will. I am starting this thread to open a dialogue on Freemasonry. Ask me anything and I will endeavor to answer you HONESTLY.You can choose to get your information second hand, or you can go to a source knowledgeable, first hand. I am here to translate intent for anyone with an open mind to understand and learn from me. And I will surely learn from you. I will be accessible for anyone who wants to seek the knowledge I possess. It's absolutely nothing special. ANY good hearted, GOD fearing (meaning you believe in a creator or higher power) man or Woman will understand it. Very few are turned away from Freemasonry when they voluntarily come seeking it -OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL. Those who are turned away, are done so for good reason, and usually, they are the ones who get pissy and start the rumors, as you will soon learn.You will NEVER be urged or asked to seek the degrees of Freemasonry. That's one of the "secrets" I am authorized to give you. That is also one of the protected secrets of ancient & accepted Freemasonry. It has been in place since time immemorial so that only those seeking good and honest wisdom would know "the secrets".
Evil hearts stumble across this trap immediately.I am a Master Mason. I am also somewhat of an unofficial lodge "Freemasonry historian". I have been voraciously consuming ("organic" not processed) information on the craft for well over fourteen years now.My search in life for, & faith in GOD led me to ask questions such as: "Is this all there is to this life?""Is mankind truly evil by instinct?" The lessons of the one (King James Version, for me anyway) true Bible gave me Landmarks which I naturally and thankfully recognized in my search for Wisdom, and further instruction from the one who created us all.
I, although as wretched as any other average guy on earth have been fortunate enough to be born with a heart that truly seeks what GOD is willing to give me: Grace and Wisdom. In other words, I ache to improve myself as a person, as a father, as a man. This has not been easy.
GOD has blessed me. Lucky for me, because otherwise, my "wages" of average sins and endeavor would have surely brought me what I call: "squished like a bug" by now.You will notice that I always capitalize the word "LORD" & "GOD", This is simply to give praise, thanks and respect for that which I can barely grasp. It's a small way to show my faith and enthusiasm.
I am not a "GOD freak". I have always refused to run around beating up others with my Bible, or my belief's You can be snobby today, and tomorrow, have to eat every word right?
You will see me referring to "GOD" as the "Grand Architect of this Universe". I have been taught that this is because, there are many similarities for the creator in omnipotent religions, (a word you will come to know that I hate) and tolerance whispers that "he is called be several names" God, Jehovah, Lord, Allah, "The great Spirit"..... so who are we to say?Who are WE to say which is right, or which is wrong? The only specification Freemasonry makes is that; a freemason believes in one creator. That's it. How's that for "dogma"? There are reasons for this requirement, but that's something to cover for another time. Just ask me.I have earnestly researched and searched Freemasonry for the lessons I sought when I was led to Freemasonry by my own spiritual quest for knowledge and wisdom. As a matter of good fortune, I prayed for wisdom instead of riches. I have also searched for the evil many people accuse Freemasonry of being the true purpose of. I would be aghast, had I spent so much effort in such a noble cause, only to find that I had been part of anything evil much less a world conspiracy.
>>>>>>>>My findings have been very consistent.
99.99 percent of the terrible and untrue things which have been written about Freemasonry are copied from other writings. In almost every single case, they are modified just a little bit from their source to fit the context of the accusations, and form a piece of some otherwise unrelated puzzle, or agenda! Here ahead are several examples of what I am referring to. I will give you a perfect example of a severely out of context "quote" along with the plagiarizers' INSTRUCTIONS on how YOU should interpret the words. THEN I will supply you the text IN its context, so you may see what Pike means to convey.Keep in mind that Pike wrote Morals & Dogma at the behest of his constituents. It is a supplemental to the sublime degrees. It is a collection of the LECTURES and charges given to those receiving the degrees, which include WARNINGS of falling into the traps evil has laid out for us in our travels. This isn't some secret book spelling out what someone should believe. It's a collection of information including the good, the bad & the ugly of which MANKIND himself has been party to. Nothing more, nothing less. You want to know once and for all? I am here to help.I will receive neither money, nor other consideration for my efforts here. If you find that you want to give, Give to the truly needy, help children and widows. Give to help children with insurmountable medical problems. In this way, you are SUPPORTING ONE OF THE VERY PURPOSES FOR OUR FRATERNITIES EXISTENCE. I've seen very few of these "persecution" sites whose purpose and existence is for nothing more than their own personal material enrichment. This is an easy living for "beating upon a meek and passive victim". SURELY if Freemasonry were evil, would we NOT exert some of the very real and perceived "power" we possess, and wield it against these unsolicited so-called "enemies"?So, In the spirit of this forum thread:I will start with this letter I wrote in response to a website which demonizes Albert Pike & the book, Morals & Dogma. It was so blindly spiteful, in so many ways that I found it necessary to write and point out a few things:
This is just one website I surfed into. Note: Like this guy is here to save the world from us. The only problem is, HE is only willing to do so, if he can make money doing it. The site has 80% of its space prostituted for advertising income. Hmmmm....He begins by touting himself as really astute in knowledge of Pike, and "Morals & Dogma" saying that "most Masons have never read it". Hmmm a bit presumptuous at the least. Well Ladies and Gents, I (& most Masons I know!)have read it, in its entirety, and I am here to help you understand in in all of its various contexts'.
Heres the site:http://threeworldwars.com/dogma.htm
<<<<>>>
While a prolific writer, Albert Pike is best known for his major work Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry. Published in 1871 (no ISBN), this massive volume consists of 861 pages and 32 Chapters, covering each of the 32 Degrees of Freemasonry. While many consider it to be a Mason's guide for daily living, the truth is that not many Masons have even read the book, on account of it being somewhat difficult to understand. More than 75% of the book consists of historical records of ancient civilisations (inc. Egypt, Greece, China, India, Persia) and their superstitions and religious observances. At first reading Pike creates the impression of being well-read and extremely knowledgeable on his topic, until you take the time to read the preface. It accuses Pike of plagiarism throughout, stating that "he has extracted quite half its contents from the works of the best writers and most philosophic or eloquent thinkers". Is Pike really the genius we've been led to believe?Freemasonry Described by Albert Pike In Morals and Dogma, Pike wrote: "Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it.... The truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason... every man's conception of God must be proportioned to his mental cultivation and intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself..." 1
The next statement reduces the Masonic philosophy to a single premise. Pike writes: "The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry. Lucifer, the Light Bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!" 2
WOW huh. We are baby killers then? Its easy to understand how people could pervert this work and manipulate it meaning when you can twist the context of whats being written, and expect no rebuke!
NOW Here's Pikes work:
Bear in mind that small "snippets" were taken from the lecture which follows. Please keep in mind: I have taken the copy of the true text from a website (a persecutionists website at that!) so Ill need to read through and compare it to the true text, to make sure no one is "putting words in Pike's mouth" as they are SO often prone to do! Anyway read with caution. Ask any questions you like.XIX. GRAND PONTIFF. (Ed note: this is the lecture for this degree.)
The true Mason labors for the benefit of those who are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race. That is a poor ambition which contents itself within the limits of a single life. All men who deserve to live, desire to survive their funerals, and to live afterward in the good that they have done mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in men's memories. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that may outlast their own day and brief generation. That is an instinctive impulse, given by God, and often found in the rudest human heart; the surest proof of the soul's immortality, and of the fundamental difference between man and the wisest brutes. To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted.
The rudest unlettered husbandman, painfully conscious of his own inferiority, the poorest widowed mother, giving her life-blood to those who pay only for the work of her needle, will toil and stint themselves to educate their child, that he may take a higher station in the world than they;--and of such are the world's greatest benefactors. In his influences that survive him, man becomes immortal, before the general resurrection. The Spartan mother, who, giving her son his shield, said, "WITH IT, OR UPON IT!" afterward shared the government of Lacedaemon with the legislation of Lycurgus; for she too made a law, that lived after her; and she inspired the Spartan soldiery that afterward demolished the walls of Athens, and aided Alexander to conquer the Orient. The widow who gave Marion the fiery arrows to burn her own house, that it might no longer shelter the enemies of her infant country, the house where she had lain upon her husband's bosom, and where her children had been born, legislated more effectually for her State than Locke or Shaftesbury, or than many a Legislature has done, since that State won its freedom. It was of slight importance to the Kings of Egypt and the Monarchs of Assyria and Phoenicia, that the son of a Jewish woman, a foundling, adopted by the daughter of Sesostris Ramses, slew an Egyptian that oppressed a Hebrew slave, and fled into the desert, to remain there forty years. But Moses, who might otherwise have become Regent of Lower Egypt, known to us only by a tablet on a tomb or monument, became the deliverer of the Jews, and led them forth from Egypt to the frontiers of Palestine, and made for them a law, out of which grew the Christian faith; and so has shaped the destinies of the world. He and the old Roman lawyers, with Alfred of England, the Saxon Thanes and Norman Barons, the old judges and chancellors, and the makers of the canons, lost in the mists and shadows of the Past,--these are our legislators; and we obey the laws that they enacted. Napoleon died upon the barren rock of his exile. His bones, borne to France by the son of a King, rest in the Hopital des Invalides, in the great city on the Seine. His Thoughts still govern France. He, and not the People, dethroned the Bourbon, and drove the last King of theHouse of Orleans into exile. He, in his coffin, and not the People, voted the crown to the Third Napoleon; and he, and not the Generals of France and England, led their united forces against the grim Northern Despotism. Mahomet announced to the Arabian idolaters the new creed, "There is but one God, and Mahomet, like Moses and Christ, is His Apostle." For many years unaided, then with the help of his family and a few friends, then with many disciples, and last of all with an army, he taught and preached the Koran. The religion of the wild Arabian enthusiast converting the fiery Tribes of the Great Desert, spread over Asia, built up the Saracenic dynasties, conquered Persia and India, the Greek Empire, Northern Africa, and Spain, and dashed the surges of its fierce soldiery against the battlements of Northern Christendom. The law of Mahomet still governs a fourth of the human race; and Turk and Arab, Moor and Persian and Hindu, still obey the Prophet, and pray with their faces turned toward Mecca; and he, and not the living, rules and reigns in the fairest portions of the Orient. Confucius still enacts the law for China; and the thoughts and ideas of Peter the Great govern Russia. Plato and the other great Sages of Antiquity still reign as the Kings of Philosophy, and have dominion over the human intellect. The great Statesmen of the past still preside in the Councils of Nations. Burke still lingers in the House of Commons; and Berryer's sonorous tones will long ring in the Legislative Chambers of France. The influences of Webster and Calhoun, conflicting, rent asunder the American States, and the doctrine of each is the law and the oracle speaking from the Holy of Holies for his own State and all consociated with it: a faith preached and proclaimed by each at the cannon's mouth and onsecrated by rivers of blood. It has been well said, that when Tamerlane had builded his pyramid of fifty thousand human skulls, and wheeled away with his vast armies from the gates of Damascus, to find new conquests, and build other pyramids, a little boy was playing in the streets of Mentz, son of a poor artisan, whose apparent importance in the scale of beings was, compared With that of Tamerlane, as that of a grain of sand to the giant bulk of the earth; but Tamerlane and all his shaggy legions, that swept over the East like a hurricane, have passed away, and become shadows; while printing, the wonderful invention of John Faust, the boy of Mentz, has exerted a greater influence on man's destinies and overturned more thrones and dynasties than all the victories of all the blood-stained conquerors from Nimrod to Napoleon
Long ages ago, the Temple built by Solomon and our Ancient Brethren sank into ruin, when the Assyrian Armies sacked Jerusalem. The Holy City is a mass of hovels cowering under the dominion of the Crescent; and the Holy Land is a desert. The Kings of Egypt and Assyria, who were contemporaries of Solomon, are forgotten, and their histories mere fables. The Ancient Orient is a shattered wreck, bleaching on the shores of Time. The Wolf and the Jackal howl among the ruins of Thebes and of Tyre, and the sculptured images of the Temples and Palaces of Babylon and Nineveh are dug from their ruins and carried into strange lands. But the quiet and peaceful Order, of which the Son of a poor Phoenician Widow was one of the Grand Masters, with the Kings of Israel and Tyre, has continued to increase in stature and influence, defying the angry waves of time and the storms of persecution. Age has not weakened its wide foundations, nor shattered its columns, nor marred the beauty of its harmonious proportions. Where rude barbarians, in the time of Solomon, peopled inhospitable howling wildernesses, in France and Britain, and in that New World, not known to Jew or Gentile, until the glories of the Orient had faded, that Order has builded new Temples, and teaches to its millions of Initiates those lessons of peace, good-will, and toleration, of reliance on God and confidence in man, which it learned when Hebrew and Giblemite worked side by side on the slopes of Lebanon, and the Servant of Jehovah and the Phoenician Worshipper of Bel sat with the humble artisan in Council at Jerusalem. It is the Dead that govern. The Living only obey. And if the Soul sees, after death, what passes on this earth, and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery, and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten.
We know not who among the Dead control our destinies. The universal human race is linked and bound together by those influences and sympathies, which in the truest sense do make men's fates. Humanity is the unit, of which the man is but a fraction. What other men in the Past have done, said, thought, makes the great iron network of circumstance that environs and controls us all. We take our faith on trust. We think and believe as the Old Lords of Thought command us; and Reason is powerless before Authority. We would make or annul a particular contract; but the Thoughts of the dead Judges of England, living when their ashes have been cold for centuries, stand between us and that which we would do, and utterly forbid it. We would settle our estate in a particular way; but the prohibition of the English Parliament, its uttered Thought when the first or second Edward reigned, comes echoing down the long avenues of time, and tells us we shall not exercise the power of disposition as we wish. We would gain a particular advantage of another; and the thought of the old Roman lawyer who died before Justinian, or that of Rome's great orator Cicero, annihilates the act, or makes the intention ineffectual. This act, Moses forbids;that, Alfred. We would sell our land; but certain marks on a perishable paper tell us that our father or remote ancestor ordered otherwise; and the arm of the dead, emerging from the grave, with peremptory gesture prohibits the alienation. About to sin or err, the thought or wish of our dead mother, told us when we were children, by words that died upon the air in the utterance, and many a long year were forgotten, flashes on our memory, and holds us back with a power that is resistless. Thus we obey the dead; and thus shall the living, when we are dead, for weal or woe, obey us. The Thoughts of the Past are the Laws of the Present and the Future. That which we say and do, if its effects last not beyond our lives, is unimportant. That which shall live when we are dead, as part of the great body of law enacted by the dead, is the only act worth doing, the only Thought worth speaking. The desire to do something that shall benefit the world, when neither praise nor obloquy will reach us here we sleep soundly in the grave, is the noblest ambition entertained by man. It is the ambition of a true and genuine Mason. Knowing the slow processes by which the Deity brings about great results, he does not expect to reap as well as sow, in a single lifetime. It is the inflexible fate and noblest destiny, with rare exceptions, of the great and good, to work, and let others reap the harvest of their labors. He who does good, only to be repaid in kind, or in thanks and gratitude, or in reputation and the world's praise, is like him who loans his money, that he may, after certain months, receive it back with interest. To be repaid for eminent services with slander, obloquy, or ridicule, or at best with stupid indifference or cold ingratitude, as it is common, so it is no misfortune, except to those who lack the wit to see or sense to appreciate the service, or the nobility of soul to thank and reward with eulogy, the benefactor of his kind. His influences live, and the great Future will obey; whether it recognize or disown the lawgiver. Miltiades was fortunate that he was exiled; and Aristides that he was ostracized, because men wearied of hearing him called "The Just." Not the Redeemer was unfortunate; but those only who repaid Him for the inestimable gift He offered them, and for life passed in toiling for their good, by nailing Him upon the cross, as though He had been a slave or malefactor. The persecutor dies and rots, and Posterity utters his name with execration: but his victim's memory he has unintentionally made glorious and immortal. If not for slander and persecution, the Mason who would benefit his race must look for apathy and cold indifference in those whose good he seeks, in those who ought to seek the good of others. Except when the sluggish depths of the Human Mind are broken up and tossed as with a storm, when at the appointed time a great Reformer comes, and a new Faith springs up and grows with supernatural energy, the progress of Truth is slower than the growth of oaks; and he who plants need not expect to gather. The Redeemer, at His death, had twelve disciples, and one betrayed and one deserted and denied Him. It is enough for us to know that the fruit will come in its due season. When, or who shall gather it, it does not in the least concern us to know. It is our business to plant the seed. It is God's right to give the fruit to whom He pleases; and if not to us, then is our action by so much the more noble. To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those who are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man. All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid. The Volcano and the Earthquake, the Tornado and the Avalanche, leap suddenly into full life and fearful energy, and smite with an unexpected blow. Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in a night; and Lisbon fell prostrate before God in a breath, when the earth rocked and shuddered; the Alpine village vanishes and is erased at one bound of the avalanche;and the ancient forests fall like grass before the mower, when the tornado leaps upon them. Pestilence slays its thousands in a day; and the storm in a night strews the sand with shattered navies. The Gourd of the Prophet Jonah grew up, and was withered, in a night. But many years ago, before the Norman Conqueror stamped his mailed foot on the neck of prostrate Saxon England, some wandering barbarian, of the continent then unknown to the world, in mere idleness, with hand or foot, covered an acorn with a little earth, and passed on regardless, on his journey to the dim Past. He died and was forgotten; but the acorn lay there still, the mighty force within it acting in the darkness. A tender shoot stole gently up; and fed by the light and air and frequent dews,put forth its little leaves, and lived, because the elk or buffalo chanced not to place his foot upon and crush it. The years marched onward, and the shoot became a sapling, and its green leaves went and came with Spring and Autumn. And still the years came and passed away again, and William, the Norman Bastard, parcelled England out among his Barons, and still the sapling grew, and the dews fed its leaves, and the birds builded their nests among its small limbs for many generations. And still the years came and went, and the Indian hunter slept in the shade of the sapling, and Richard Lion-Heart fought at Acre and Ascalon, and John's bold Barons wrested from him the Great Charter; and the sapling had become a tree; and still it grew, and thrust its great arms wider abroad, and lifted its head still higher toward the Heavens; strong-rooted, and defiant of the storms that roared and eddied through its branches; and when Columbus ploughed with his keels the unknown Western Atlantic, and Cortez and Pizarro bathed the cross in blood; and the Puritan, the Huguenot, the Cavalier, and the follower of Penn sought a refuge and a resting-place beyond the ocean, the Great Oak still stood, firm-rooted, vigorous, stately, haughtily domineering over all the forest, heedless of all the centuries that had hurried past since the wild Indian planted the little acorn in the forest ;--a stout and hale old tree, with wide circumference shading many a rood of ground; and fit to furnish timbers for a ship, to carry the thunders of the Great Republic's guns around the world. And yet, if one had sat and watched it every instant, from the moment when the feeble shoot first pushed its way to the light until the eagles built among its branches, he would never have seen the tree or sapling grow. Many long centuries ago, before the Chaldaean Shepherds watched the Stars, or Shufu built the Pyramids, one could have sailed in a seventy-four where now a thousand islands gem the surface of the Indian Ocean; and the deep-sea lead would nowhere have found any bottom. But below these waves were myriads upon myriads, beyond the power of Arithmetic to number, of minute existences, each a perfect living creature, made by the Almighty Creator, and fashioned by Him for the work it had to do There they toiled beneath the waters, each doing its allotted work, and wholly ignorant of the result which God intended. They lived and died, incalculable in numbers and almost infinite in the succession of their generations, each adding his mite to the gigantic work that went on there under God's direction. Thus hath He chosen to create great Continents and Islands; and still the coralinsects live and work, as when they made the rocks that underlie the valley of the Ohio. Thus God hath chosen to create. Where now is firm land, once chafed and thundered the great primeval ocean. For ages upon ages the minute shields of infinite myriads of infusoria, and the stony stems of encrinites sunk into its depths, and there, under the vast pressure of its waters, hardened into limestone. Raised slowly from the Profound by His hand, its quarries underlie the soil of all the continents, hundreds of feet in thickness; and we, of these remains of the countless dead, build tombs and palaces, as the Egyptians, whom we call ancient, built their pyramids. On all the broad lakes and oceans the Great Sun looks earnestly and lovingly, and the invisible vapors rise ever up to meet him.No eye but God's beholds them as they rise. There, in the upper atmospere, they are condensed to mist, and gather into clouds, and float and swim around in the ambient air. They sail with its currents, and hover over the ocean, and roll in huge masses round the stony shoulders of great mountains. Condensed still more by change of temperature, they drop upon the thirsty earth in gentle showers, or pour upon it in heavy rains, or storm against its bosom at the angry Equinoctial. The shower, the rain, and the storm pass away, the clouds vanish, and the bright stars again shine clearly upon the glad earth. The rain-drops sink into the ground, and gather in subterranean reservoirs, and run in subterranean channels, and bubble up in springs and fountains; and from the mountain-sides and heads of valleys the silver threads of water begin their long journey to the ocean. Uniting, they widen into brooks and rivulets, then into streams and rivers; and, at last, a Nile, Ganges, a Danube, an Amazon, or a Mississippi rolls between its banks, mighty, majestic, and resistless, creating vast alluvial valleys to be the granaries of the world, ploughed by the thousand keels of commerce and serving as great highways, and as the impassable boundaries of rival nations; ever returning to the ocean the drops that rose from it in vapor, and descended in rain and snow and hail upon the level plains and lofty mountains; and causing him to recoil for many a mile before the long rush of their great tide. So it is with the aggregate of Human endeavor. As the invisible particles of vapor combine and coalesce to form the mists and clouds that fall in rain on thirsty continents, and bless the great green forests and wide grassy prairies, the waving meadows and the fields by which men live; as the infinite myriads of drops that the glad earth drinks are gathered into springs and rivulets and rivers, to aid in levelling the mountains and elevating the plains, and to feed the large lakes and restless oceans; so all Human Thought, and Speech and Action, all that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God. We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and carved the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned; and many years elapsed before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin. Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait! The issues are with God: To do, Of right belongs to us. Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results;but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to God! Soldier of the Cross! Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True!be patient and work! The Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty. The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apothesis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darknesss! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls ? Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired. The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar. It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. "Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who under stands, calculate !" he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be undertood by the multitude.
The Sephar Yezirah, the Sohar, and the Apocalypse are the completest embodiments of Occultism. They contain more meanings than words; their expressions are figurative as poetry and exact as numbers. The Apocalypse sums up, completes, and surpasses all the Science of Abraham and of Solomon. The visions of Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, and of the new Symbolic Temple, are equally mysterious expressions, veiled by figures of the enigmatic dogmas of the Kabalah, and their symbols are as little understood by the Commentators, as those of Free Masonry. The Septenary is the Crown of the Numbers, because it unites the Triangle of the Idea to the Square of the Form. The more the great Hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute Science, the more they sought to add grandeur to and multiply its symbols. The huge pyramids, with their triangular sides of elevation and square bases, represented their Metaphysics, founded upon the knowledge of Nature. That knowledge of Nature had for its symbolic key the gigantic form of that huge Sphinx, which has hollowed its deep bed in the sand, while keeping watch at the feet of the Pyramids. The Seven grand monuments called the Wonders of the World, were the magnificent Commentaries on the Seven lines that composed the Pyramids, and on the Seven mystic gates of Thebes. The Septenary philosophy of Initiation among the Ancients may be summed up thus: Three Absolute Principles which are but One Principle: four elementary forms which are but one; all forming a Single Whole, compounded of the Idea and the Form. The three Principles were these: 1ø. BEING IS BEING. In Philosophy, identity of the Idea and of Being or Verity;in Religion, the first Principle, THE FATHER. 2ø. BEING IS REAL. In Philosophy, identity of Knowing and of Being or Reality; in Religion, the LOGOS of Plato, the Demiourgos, the WORD. 3ø. BEING IS LOGIC. In Philosophy, identity of the Reason and Reality; in Religion, Providence, the Divine Action that makes real the Good, that which in Christianity we call THE HoLY SPIRIT. The union of all the Seven colors is the White, the analogous symbol of the GOOD: the absence of all is the Black, the analogous symbol of the EVIL. There are three primary colors, Red, Yellow, and Blue; and four secondary, Orange, Green, Indigo, and Violet; and all these God displays to man in the rainbow; and they have their analogies also in the moral and intellectual world. The same number, Seven, continually reappears in the Apocalypse, compounded of three and four; and these numbers relate to the last Seven of the Sephiroth, three answering to BENIGNITY or MERCY, SEVERITY or JUSTICE, and BEAUTY or HARMONY; and four to Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malakoth, VICTORY, GLORY, STABILITY, and DOMINATION. The same numbers also represent the first three Sephiroth, KETNER, KHOKMAH, and BAINAH, or Will, Wisdom, and Understanding, which, with DAATH or Intellection or Thought, are also four, DAATH not being regarded as a Sephirah, not as the Deity acting, or as a potency, energy, or attribute, but as the Divine Action. The Sephiroth are commonly figured in the Kabalah as consti- tuting a human form, the ADAM, KADMON Or MACROCOSM. Thus arranged, the universal law of Equipoise is three times exernplified. From that of the Divine Intellectual, Active, Masculine ENERGY, and the Passive CAPACITY to produce Thought, the action of THINKING results. From that of BENIGNITY and SEVERITY, HARMONY flows; and from that of VICTORY or an Infinite overcoming, and GLORY, which, being Infinite, would seem to forbid the existence of obstacles or opposition, results STABILITY or PERMANENCE, which is the perfect DOMINION Of the Infinite WILL. The last nine Sephiroth are included in, at the same time that they have flowed forth from, the first of all, KETHER, or the CROWN. Each also, in succession flowed from, and yet still re mains included in, the one preceding it. The Will of God includes His Wisdom, and His Wisdom is His Will specially developed and acting. This Wisdom is the LOGOS that creates, mistaken and personified by Simon Magus and the succeeding Gnostics. By means of its utterance, the letter YOD, it creates the worlds, first in the Divine Intellect as an Idea, which invested with form became the fabricated World, the Universe of material reality. YOD and HE, two letters of the Ineffable Name of the Manifested Deity, represent the Male and the Female, the Active and the Passive in equilibrium, and the VAV completes the Trinity and the Triliteral Name, the Divine Triangle, which with the repetion of the He becomes the Tetragrammaton. Thus the ten Sephiroth contain all the Sacred Numbers, three, five, seven, and nine, and the perfect Number Ten, and correspond with the Tetractys of Pythagoras. BEING IS BEING, Ahayah Asar Ahayah. This is the principle, the "BEGINNING." In the Beginning was, that is to say, IS, WAS, and WILL BE, the WORD, that is to say, the REASON that Speaks. The Word is the reason of belief, and in it also is the expression of the Faith which makes Science a living thing. The Word, is the Source of Logic. Jesus is the Word Incarnate. The accord of the Reason with Faith, of Knowledge with Belief, of Authority with Liberty, has become in modern times the veritable enigma of the Sphinx. It is WISDOM that, in the Kabalistic Books of the Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, is the Creative Agent of God. Elsewhere in the Hebrew writings it is Debar Iahavah, the Word of God. It is by His uttered Word that God reveals Himself to us; alone in the visible and invisible but intellectual creation, but in our convictions, consciousness, and instincts. Hence it is that! certain beliefs are universal. The conviction of all men that God is good led to a belief in a Devil, the fallen Lucifer or Lightbearer, Shaitan the Adversary, Ahriman and Tuphon, as an attempt to exlain the existence of Evil, and make it consistent with the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Benevolence of God. Nothing surpasses and nothing equals, as a Summary of all the doctrines of the Old World, those brief words engraven by HERMES on a Stone, and known under the name of "The Tablet of Emerald:" the Unity of Being and the Unity of the Harmonies, ascending and descending, the progressive and proportional scale of the Word; the immutable law of the Equilibrium, and the proportioned progress of the universal analogies; the relation of the Idea to the Word, giving the measure of the relation between the Creator and the Created, the necessary mathematics of the Infinite, proved by the measures of a single corner of the Finite ;--all this is expressed by this single proposition of the Great Egyptian Hierophant: "What is Superior is as that which is Inferior, and what is Below is as that which is Above, to form the Marvels of the Unity." --------------------------------------------------Do you see the problems people like this poor sould has in understanding such deep work? Pike is saying: Satan will present himself as the light! Anyway, ask away.
T. S. Negron says:
Ok, that is a LOT of reading. So you can see why some of these problems exist.My letter to these people who used that excerpt out of context to demonize Pike follows:Good SirI have a few questions and comments.I JUST surfed into your website, and after reading only the first paragraph I am inclined to write that you are guilty of exactly the "plagerism" you cite for Pike.There were several glaring inaccuracies in that first paragraph alone. A reasonable, and knowledgeable man would immediately recognize that your site has an agenda and isn't interested in objective treatment of Pikes work in the least. I'll try to get through it anyway.Have you or anyone really close to you ever been a freemason? Have you ever really sat down and interviewed a freemason? You present yourself as someone who HAS read Morals & Dogma in its entirety. I submit that if you have, you did not understand it too well. (This is not to imply that you are stupid. It is in no way my intent to look down my nose, insult or degrade your efforts. I will assume that you have honorable intent, which is why I write to you in earnest) I have read the text several times over (admittedly, in between many naps).Morals and Dogma was written as a supplemental to the Rites. It is a collection of the lectures. Of course it will contain previously written material by other writers. That's the intent of the work my new friend.I bear you absolutely no ill will for your ignorance of the true purpose. I will express however that it is so endlessly exasperating that freemasonry's attackers display so little real in-depth knowledge about the craft, and yet are so obviously positive that they are right, even to the point of attack when someone with any knowledge of this subject attempts to correct the inaccuracies. I have found that 99% of the people, who help to spread the misinformation, such as you are, get this misinformation from some other written sources of misinformation.This is precisely why we don't make any attempt to "defend ourselves". I have found most of the time, it's pointless. In fact, I have been discouraged from this, by most of the elders in Masonry because of the fact that experience has taught them it hasn't been very productive. I am of the opinion that in order to allow understanding, we must be willing to be a bit more accessible, as long as we protect our so-called "secrets" from the evil tyranny of men. I tell you; these "secrets" are in plain sight. They are in the words YOU SKIPPED OVER. They are the basic gifts, the LORD-GOD, Grand Architect of this Universe has given us. We protect them from those who are blind and yet seek to blind other men from these wonderful "secrets". These secrets merely allow us to recognize another human who has freely taken the same obligation, and is committed to the same purpose as we. We can recognize him/her at night as well as in broad daylight. There is no further purpose than for the protection against persecution (which we experience anyway).People who believe (some) of the ridiculous claims you make are already convinced they have uncovered some kind of devil. I submit that its human nature to attack something which isn't easily understood, or is kept "secret" from others. Our ultimate example of tolerance should be obvious but instead, it's overlooked as a weakness, Pity.I am a sort of "lodge historian." I have been studying in earnest from the "inside" for years now. If I can ever help you to "uncover" the "evils" of freemasonry, I will be happy to do so, and will fulfill my obligation to mankind.
I would be happy to make a new friend, if you are willing to open your mind and perception just a bit.This is my duty, as I have "Promised" to leave the earth better than I found it for my existence.
so I will be available anytime for exchange.
Thank you all for bearing my postulations.
Warmest Regards
"Juan Iota" -My Pen Name
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Knock Knock........Anyone Home?
The year, 2007- End of Times? 2012?
I wake up asking myself every day how as a race of humans, we have even made it this far.
The way some of us treat each-other is purely evil. Nothing like Malice to separate us from any other form on earth and in the known universe. So much for the rise of civilization.
I always come back to the fact that it must be the will of our creator (whatever you call the Grand Architect of this universe) to allow us on this path, so close to the edge of complete disaster all the time.
And somehow we think were more evolved than plants & animals?
I had thought over and over about how I would begin to write these blogs.. What I come up with is "separate the issues, so its not just some pointless rant about how lame and backwards our race has come, or when the fall of civilization really began?
I usually don't even get that far.
When I began writing, Many of my friends and family told me what a fantastic writer and storyteller I was... Huh, Me?
most of my blogs were too incendiary for anyone. No one but my absolute closest friend(s) would provide me any feedback. Thank GOD for that little bit of encouragement too, not just ion that but in my life in general Instead, my family and friends began their slow backwards steps until very few stood ready to listen and exchange. Many of my closest friends from the past have abandoned our friendship, either not being interested enough in the subjects or what I personally have to say about them. Many of them requested that I not send them my "spam".
I wondered about this, and still do.
I wonder how they are able to deal with the fear and uncertainty without having the urge to share their feelings and opinions with others whom they care about. I wonder how anyone can have children and yet live like none of this matters anymore. Hope fully it wont all get out of hand until they are gone. When I sit down to write in the middle of the night, when everything is silent, I wonder what I am leaving behind for my son Nicholas. I wonder what would happen to me were I to just ignore and internalize all of these concerns. I mean, I pray about them (Yes, I do believe and have faith in GOD, but you may not like what I have to say about religion. Anyway, thats another subject/thread).
AT one point, I felt such a responsibility to all of the people I love, that I was willing to piss them off if I had to, if it meant insulting them to get them riled into seeing whats (obvilously to me) going on in this country. I read a book called "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom
This book helped me understand how some people, smarter than I deal with issues such as these. That book helped me put some of these same things I have been dealing with into perspective. For instance, The sudden and untimely death of my father. The distance which has grown so vastly between myself and some of the best friends I ever had. I have always tried to mauintain those friendships. I had to grow and realize that it cant only be important to one of you, it must go both ways.
Another example: Until very recently, I thought I still had a responsibility to apply my business talents towards "taking over the world", and being financially wealthy. I was in a hurry to make up for lost time....... Boy what a putz. I am so glad I learned how to get rid of money! It would suck to have to be buried with it, and never have know what its like to just live a good life.
At Amazon's wonderful forum, I started several threads. The Raising of important no, critical questions has been met with such a venom that I had to learn my education about taking part in the forum threads on the run.
The baiting by trolls, the (what I call) "Fear Biters".... Little other wise intelligent people who have been so affected by the barrage of this sensory overload and materialistic "paint your own reality" society that they are truly living in an illusory existence. They also live in paralyzing fear, so they conform. They hide. They "Buy into it".
I have read: If the culture doesnt work, then dont buy into it. Those very words have always been right on the tip of my tongue. Thanks Morrie.
Now I know what it was like,to live in the early 1700's yearning to be free, knowing what evil was and knowing that there were only so many people who would stand up and be counted among the citizenry. Ive never been much of a coward actually way too confident. I had learned the technique of absolutely ignoring what everyone thought of me (to a fault) and to follow my instinct even when it was wrong (right off the cliff of course). Back to patriotism.
I took part in the thread called "Shame on you BUSH supporters!"
Nothing like baptism (we'll get around to religion eventually) by fire.
By the way:-
(Thank you Amazon, for listening to your public, and providing the forum even if it IS a bit censored)
Of course. Its no big deal to buy an American flag sticker and slap it on your truck. Being a Patriot in easy times isn't anything new. Its the few people who care enough, to be willing to stand up and say, Something is not right here. We want you to take down the veil. This is a public society. Government for and by the people right? I have begun to learn many things about my fellow Americans in the past few years. I am learning that there are plenty of people who realkly arent sharp enough to get past the brainwashing
Being a Ptriotic American these days earns you the right to be labeled as a "potential Terrorist threat" to your own country!
Complaining at the ticket counter in any airport can get you a ride on the "Taser Special" where dying in custody is not all that uncommon. Three deaths in custody in one month! Unacceptable behavior from any public servants in a truly free society.
I wake up asking myself every day how as a race of humans, we have even made it this far.
The way some of us treat each-other is purely evil. Nothing like Malice to separate us from any other form on earth and in the known universe. So much for the rise of civilization.
I always come back to the fact that it must be the will of our creator (whatever you call the Grand Architect of this universe) to allow us on this path, so close to the edge of complete disaster all the time.
And somehow we think were more evolved than plants & animals?
I had thought over and over about how I would begin to write these blogs.. What I come up with is "separate the issues, so its not just some pointless rant about how lame and backwards our race has come, or when the fall of civilization really began?
I usually don't even get that far.
When I began writing, Many of my friends and family told me what a fantastic writer and storyteller I was... Huh, Me?
most of my blogs were too incendiary for anyone. No one but my absolute closest friend(s) would provide me any feedback. Thank GOD for that little bit of encouragement too, not just ion that but in my life in general Instead, my family and friends began their slow backwards steps until very few stood ready to listen and exchange. Many of my closest friends from the past have abandoned our friendship, either not being interested enough in the subjects or what I personally have to say about them. Many of them requested that I not send them my "spam".
I wondered about this, and still do.
I wonder how they are able to deal with the fear and uncertainty without having the urge to share their feelings and opinions with others whom they care about. I wonder how anyone can have children and yet live like none of this matters anymore. Hope fully it wont all get out of hand until they are gone. When I sit down to write in the middle of the night, when everything is silent, I wonder what I am leaving behind for my son Nicholas. I wonder what would happen to me were I to just ignore and internalize all of these concerns. I mean, I pray about them (Yes, I do believe and have faith in GOD, but you may not like what I have to say about religion. Anyway, thats another subject/thread).
AT one point, I felt such a responsibility to all of the people I love, that I was willing to piss them off if I had to, if it meant insulting them to get them riled into seeing whats (obvilously to me) going on in this country. I read a book called "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom
This book helped me understand how some people, smarter than I deal with issues such as these. That book helped me put some of these same things I have been dealing with into perspective. For instance, The sudden and untimely death of my father. The distance which has grown so vastly between myself and some of the best friends I ever had. I have always tried to mauintain those friendships. I had to grow and realize that it cant only be important to one of you, it must go both ways.
Another example: Until very recently, I thought I still had a responsibility to apply my business talents towards "taking over the world", and being financially wealthy. I was in a hurry to make up for lost time....... Boy what a putz. I am so glad I learned how to get rid of money! It would suck to have to be buried with it, and never have know what its like to just live a good life.
At Amazon's wonderful forum, I started several threads. The Raising of important no, critical questions has been met with such a venom that I had to learn my education about taking part in the forum threads on the run.
The baiting by trolls, the (what I call) "Fear Biters".... Little other wise intelligent people who have been so affected by the barrage of this sensory overload and materialistic "paint your own reality" society that they are truly living in an illusory existence. They also live in paralyzing fear, so they conform. They hide. They "Buy into it".
I have read: If the culture doesnt work, then dont buy into it. Those very words have always been right on the tip of my tongue. Thanks Morrie.
Now I know what it was like,to live in the early 1700's yearning to be free, knowing what evil was and knowing that there were only so many people who would stand up and be counted among the citizenry. Ive never been much of a coward actually way too confident. I had learned the technique of absolutely ignoring what everyone thought of me (to a fault) and to follow my instinct even when it was wrong (right off the cliff of course). Back to patriotism.
I took part in the thread called "Shame on you BUSH supporters!"
Nothing like baptism (we'll get around to religion eventually) by fire.
By the way:-
(Thank you Amazon, for listening to your public, and providing the forum even if it IS a bit censored)
Of course. Its no big deal to buy an American flag sticker and slap it on your truck. Being a Patriot in easy times isn't anything new. Its the few people who care enough, to be willing to stand up and say, Something is not right here. We want you to take down the veil. This is a public society. Government for and by the people right? I have begun to learn many things about my fellow Americans in the past few years. I am learning that there are plenty of people who realkly arent sharp enough to get past the brainwashing
Being a Ptriotic American these days earns you the right to be labeled as a "potential Terrorist threat" to your own country!
Complaining at the ticket counter in any airport can get you a ride on the "Taser Special" where dying in custody is not all that uncommon. Three deaths in custody in one month! Unacceptable behavior from any public servants in a truly free society.
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