Now, I have always been quite interested in anything secretive and exclusive (let’s face it although Dan Brown does discuss a female branch) the Masons are traditionally well known as an exclusive brotherhood. I do remember trying to persuade my most gifted brother many years ago to join a Masonic Lodge in Cambridge during his university days, to infiltrate the Masons just to let me know all the secret rituals and philosophies involved. Sadly, he refused. Until quite recently, the two most common notions that the word ‘Mason’ used to conjure up for the non-initiated masses, including myself, tended to be the ’secret handshake’- nobody knows quite what this entails but there are more theories than actual possible handshakes and the rolled up trouser leg, again nobody was quite sure which trouser leg but the mention of ‘The Masons’ at most dinner tables would have somebody leaping up to roll up a trouser leg and hop about.

Dan Brown, at the very beginning of his book has included a page entitled ‘Fact’ and states that, “All rituals, science, artwork, and monuments in this novel (The Lost Symbol) are real“. Brown goes on to describe, in some detail, secret Masonic initiation rituals. An important part of most of these rituals appears to be an acting out of exactly what would happen to a Mason if the secrets of the brotherhood were to be revealed. One initiation ceremony involves a ceremonial dagger pressed to the initiate’s bare chest whilst he wears a ceremonial velvet hood in front of an elaborate altar. Punishments outlined should the ‘Mysteries of the Freemasons’ be revealed at this level include, “having one’s throat cut across, one’s tongue torn out by its roots, and one’s body buried in the rough sands of the sea….” Acceptance into the third degree of the Masons involves acting out the initiate’s murder with simulated blows to the victim’s head including one with a Mason’s stone maul. The story behind this ritual goes back to the master Architect of old who chose to die rather than reveal the Masonic Secrets that he possessed. Entrance into the highest level of the Mason’s, the elite thirty third degree involves the famed ‘caput mortuum’, red wind drank out of a human skull in front of a black marble altar. The Mason takes the wine and announces, “May this wine I now drink become a deadly poison to me … should I ever knowingly or willingly violate my oath” (of secrecy to the Masons).

As we can see from the above excerpts from the novel, a central and important part of all of the initiation rituals within the Masons involve fiercely guarding the secrets within, on pain of death. Nowadays, The Masons claim to be neither a religion, a cult nor a secret society. However, it is quite obvious from reading the fascinating snippets from Dan Brown’s latest little gem that there is a lot more to the Freemasons then a group of powerful men rolling up their trouser legs and doing an odd little handshake. One thing is for sure, and that is Masonic history, ritual, belief and practices will continue to hold a fascination for the uninitiated for many years to come.

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If Dan Browns’ latest Bestseller has aroused your curiosity about the Masons do not miss out on a more in-depth look into these new, never-before disclosed secrets behind the Freemasons.

The Freemasons

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“If I had to choose a few books for our leaders today to read they would be Vergil’s Aeneid and some Greek and Roman classics,” says Marie Bolchazy, executive vice president of Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. “The classics are the foundation of our civilization, and we still live by and debate the same ideas they did back then, whether we realize it or not.”

Bolchazy recommends four books that have a wide-ranging appeal and can get anyone up to speed on how our past informs our future:

* “Vergil’s Aeneid,” translated by G. B. Cobbold.
An action-packed epic tale, the Aeneid is the story of a man whose city is destroyed by war, who struggles to find a higher purpose in life and leaves the woman he loves to fulfill his destiny. The eternal struggle between good and evil is featured in this fast-moving history of Rome. The debate over war and morality could just as easily be taking place in the halls of Congress or the opinion pages of today’s newspapers.

* “Classical Considerations — Useful Wisdom from Greece and Rome”
Even thousands of years ago people knew that wisdom comes from sharing ideas with each other and with those who have gone before. In this book, a diverse group, including students, a psychiatrist, Vietnam veterans and no less an authority on leadership than Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, share in their own words how these ancient writings have influenced their lives.
Paterno cites the Trojan hero Aeneas as an inspiration, not only in football, but also in life.

* “The Epic of Gilgamesh” by Danny P. Jackson
The epic of Gilgamesh goes back to 2800 BC. Translated for the first time in the 1850’s, this ancient work, which predates the Bible, created a theological stir in Christian Europe. The story of the flood, the myth of the loss of immortality due to a serpent and the civilization of the first male are some of the stories found 2,000 years later in the Bible. The historical hero Gilgamesh goes through various stages of manhood — hormonal, intimacy, empire-building, awakening, search for immortality, finally obtaining the herb of immortality and ultimately losing it to a serpent. This Bolchazy-Carducci edition has been favored by the Great Books Foundation and Prentice-Hall (which includes it in their literature anthology), and was translated into Turkish. It is also published with a Hebrew translation. The epic is read by thousands of students in college and high school, with 15 original illustrations in color and 18 illustrations depicting the ancient world of the Mesopotamians. The epic is extremely important in comparative mythology and religions.

* “When in Rome”
When you just can’t bring yourself to sit down with heavy themes like the battle between good and evil, you can laugh and learn with a book of cartoons featuring Julius Caesar, Medusa and the Trojan War. Because, after all, if you can’t laugh at history, you won’t learn from it.

These books and other can be found at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com and Bolchazy.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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