Freemasons in the UK, a general discussion

[Spymaster]

I've not made any sweeping generalisations about freemasonry, I've pointedly stuck to the specifics about the linkages and influence that one specific freemason who was the grand master for north wales for 30 years might have as a result of this, and the connection he might have with another admitted freemason who was a key copper covering the area his son was involved in.

So you're implying that two freemason's may have conspired to cover up criminal activity.

Whether they did or didn't I've no idea, but if they did so, it would have been because they are a pair of criminal arseholes, not because they're freemason's. There's absolutely nothing in freemasonry that compels one to assist another in criminal or immoral activity, in fact there's an awful lot to the contrary. That's not to say that there aren't mason's who are criminals or immoral, of course there are. But it's not because they're mason's, and neither is it in any way protective of such people.

 

[elbows]

peculiar. Is that symbol a common tag in those parts? it's not round here.

One possibility is that those who vandalised his house had in mind that freemasonry is implicated in his crimes.

 

[Spymaster]

eg in my example I gave earlier about the masonic lodge christmas party involving lots of the top coppers in the area, and a hired in group of strippers (story told to me by one of them a couple of years later), and lots of stuff going on that they'd not want getting back to their wives / public. This in itself didn't involve paedo activity, but nobody who was involved in that would be too keen on prosecuting any other members of the lodge who were there for anything they might get up to as it'd risk them making all the sordid details of their fetish parties public.

So pretty much like any stag-do, rugby club dinner, or many other situations where groups of blokes get together on the piss.

 

[newbie]

so while one scrawled JIMMY IS A BEAST the other neatly drew a somewhat obscure symbol to make a very ambiguous point.

If it's an attack on freemasonary I'd expect a line through the symbol. or an axe. or a rat chewing at it or something else direct and obvious.

 

[Spymaster]

If it's an attack on freemasonary I'd expect a line through the symbol. or an axe.

What else could it be?

Freemason's tagging Saville's house as a mark of respect?

 

[newbie]

or a mark of warning? The all seeing eye is watching you sort of warning.

 

[Spymaster]

I reckon someone did it to perplex people on internet message boards.

 

[newbie]

a damn good troll if they did.

 

[free spirit]

So you're implying that two freemason's may have conspired to cover up criminal activity.

Whether they did or didn't I've no idea, but if they did so, it would have been because they a pair of criminal arseholes, not because they're freemason's. There's absolutely nothing in freemasonry that compels one to assist another in criminal or immoral activity, in fact there's an awful lot to the contrary. That's not to say that there aren't mason's who are criminals or immoral, of course there are. But it's not because they're mason's, and neither is it in any way protective of such people.

what would you say the main reason is for people joining the masons?

IMO it's related to networking, the increased access to fellow masons in other fields who're potentially able to assist you in your career progression / throw some work your way in a you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back kind of way.

obviously alongside the fellowship, social aspect of things, but why the masons and not a few pints down the working mens club, or just going out with your mates to a bar?

What I'm saying at a basic level is that this can work as much for the criminally minded (or at least in this case a highly respected member reaching out and asking a favour on behalf of their son) as it does for a builder, solicitor etc.

I believe this sort of thing is technically against the rules, but can you really say that no back scratching of this nature goes on?

I'd also suspect that there's a bit of a general 'what goes on at the lodge, stays at the lodge' type of ethos to it, which could lead some to a level of indiscretion they'd not let themselves be seen doing in public in a normal bar, as with the case of the strippers and high ranking coppers, which then opens them up to the potential to be a bit more pressured into doing favours they'd not really want to be doing, which is where the real corruption can start coming in.

That's not really heresay btw, as I heard it straight from one of the girls involved, and we were basically partly using the same tactic at the time by bringing her with us to an official meeting with them where they looked decidedly shaken to see her walking through the door (we didn't even need to say anything, the implied threat was enough).

ps - please don't quote this post, I may well decide I need to delete some of this as it might give away the identity of the person I'm referring to.

 

[free spirit]

So pretty much like any stag-do, rugby club dinner, or many other situations where groups of blokes get together on the piss.

I don't know what you get up to at your rugby club dinners, but maybe.

These are coppers though, supposed pillars of the community, and there may well not have been anything actually illegal going on, but it's also not the sort of thing they'd want to be made public / have their wives and kids find out about.

I was really just using this as an example of the kind of stuff that was happening not so long ago in a neighbouring area to the one in question involving multiple coppers using a masonic lodge in a way that clearly showed how comfortable they were with the surroundings, and how safe they felt from the potential for anyone to blab about it. It also contradicts the impression the police would like to give about there not being any significant links between the police and the masons - it's clearly not true in that area.

 

[Spymaster]

what would you say the main reason is for people joining the masons?

IMO it's related to networking, the increased access to fellow masons in other fields who're potentially able to assist you in your career progression / throw some work your way in a you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back kind of way.

People join for a host of reasons. Networking can be part of it but as you identify, using the lodge to gain financial advantage is expressly forbidden, though again, of course it goes on. That's not because it's freemasonry though. It's because there are groups of blokes from all walks of life who become close friends. If a bloke in my lodge was a plumber or an accountant and I needed one or the other I may well ask him to do a job for me, not because he's a freemason but because he's a friend and I'd trust him. However I'd be under no obligation to give him the work nor he to do the job for me. It's really no different to most other clubs, except we dress in funny gear and talk a bit of mumbo-jumbo every now and then.

 

[newbie]

After considerable and painstaking research I've excluded foxyred and ninj. I don't think they went to Glencoe just to troll this thread.

Leaving a peculiar symbol on a particular wall. I'm hard pushed to think it's random and it's too specific to be meaningless, especially when taken with the quote spy provided, "closely bound together in a union employing symbolic usages".

 

[Spymaster]

These are coppers though, supposed pillars of the community, and there may well not have been anything actually illegal going on, but it's also not the sort of thing they'd want to be made public / have their wives and kids find out about.

But they're no less likely to be "found out" over a lodge event than they would if it were at a similar party in the nick canteen. There's no magic vow of silence that automatically gives protection any more than the old stag-party adage "what goes on tour stays on tour". If they decide to keep schtum it's a pact between that group of blokes. Being freemasons doesn't give them any greater protection than that.

 

[free spirit]

People join for a host of reasons. Networking can be part of it but as you identify, using the lodge to gain financial advantage is expressly forbidden, though again, of course it goes on. That's not because it's freemasonry though. It's because there are groups of blokes from all walks of life who become close friends. If a bloke in my lodge was a plumber or an accountant and I needed one or the other I may well ask him to do a job for me, not because he's a freemason but because he's a friend and I'd trust him. However I'd be under no obligation to give him the work nor he to do the job for me. It's really no different to most other clubs, except we dress in funny gear and talk a bit of mumbo-jumbo every now and then.

maybe so, but I'd expect that in some lodges, particularly where the ties might go back multiple generations (or at least a long lifetime) there's a bit more too it than in others where everyone's fairly new to it. Or in those groups that are specifically made up of lawyers, magistrates etc... I doubt they get up to exactly the same sort of stuff as your lot do.

Or in other words, I doubt you can really generalise from your experience to all masonic lodges and orders in the same way that it'd be wrong to state that all masonic lodges are part of some massive conspiracy and all masons will always look out for each other no matter what.

 

[Spymaster]

Leaving a peculiar symbol on a particular wall. I'm hard pushed to think it's random and it's too specific to be meaningless, especially when taken with the quote spy provided, "closely bound together in a union employing symbolic usages".

I think it's almost certainly someone taking the piss. The eye of providence is hardly a secret symbol, it's on every dollar bill in existence.

 

[Spymaster]

maybe so, but I'd expect that in some lodges, particularly where the ties might go back multiple generations (or at least a long lifetime) there's a bit more too it than in others where everyone's fairly new to it. Or in those groups that are specifically made up of lawyers, magistrates etc... I doubt they get up to exactly the same sort of stuff as your lot do.

Or in other words, I doubt you can really generalise from your experience to all masonic lodges and orders in the same way that it'd be wrong to state that all masonic lodges are part of some massive conspiracy and all masons will always look out for each other no matter what.

Well I suppose that there could be lodges that get up to shit that neither I nor many of the hundreds of my fellow masons at all levels, old and young, have no idea about, and masonic conspiracy theories are never going to go away. But I suspect that the reality is really rather more boring.

I've been asking for years, "when do we get into the really secret stuff?", but to be honest most lodges have difficulty agreeing the minutes of their meetings, never mind a plan for global domination or judicial conspiracy!

 

[newbie]

of course it's not a secret symbol, but it's not commonplace either, bearing in mind we don't use dollar bills over here. I don't recall seeing it used as graffiti, though that doesn't mean much.

conjectures:
1 the artist is a loon attempting to draw attention to the loon sites that link freemasonry with illuminati and gok what else
2 the artist is taking the piss. er..?
3 the main purpose was to write Jimmy Is A Beast and someone took the opportunity to do a random doodle cos they could;
4 the peculiar, rather precise symbol was put there with intent and meaning and the JIAB stuff was a distraction, merely to focus the cameras on.

I'll accept 1 if anyone can point to a previous case of that symbol being used in that way (real life, not on the internet). I don't really get 2; 3 is obviously a possibility and 4 raises far too many circular routes back to the loons. But it's there, the symbol, and I can't help thinking it's there for a reason.

 

[free spirit]

Well I suppose that there could be lodges that get up to shit that neither I nor many of the hundreds of my fellow masons at all levels, old and young, have no idea about, and masonic conspiracy theories are never going to go away. But I suspect that the reality is really rather more boring.

I've been asking for years, "when do we get into the really secret stuff?", but to be honest most lodges have difficulty agreeing the minutes of their meetings, never mind a plan for global domination or judicial conspiracy!

now if I was going to be conspiratorial about it, I could say something along the lines of 'well you would say that'

4. BEHAVIOUR IN PRESENCE OF STRANGERS,
NOT MASONS
You shall be cautious in your words and carriage, that the most penetrating stranger shall not be able to discover or find out what is not proper to be intimated; and sometimes you shall divert a discourse, and manage it prudently for the honour of the worshipful fraternity.

http://www.ugle.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/boc-2009-online-craft-rules-r5.pdf

eta you're nicely diverting attention there with those mentions of plans for world domination. Good sleight of hand, your lodge will be proud of your efforts. It's really not what I've been talking about at all though, but it does seem to be a common method of shutting down any actual debate about any potential malign influence or abuses of positions within the masons that may actually have happened.

 

[cesare]

Have you become a conspiracy theorist, free spirit?

 

[xes]

what do you expect me to say when you post this sort of shit about me?
well out of order IMO.

ignore it, trying to belittle someone is a very good way of making their points look sill;y, but it atually just reflects on the person that they don't actually have an argument, and all tehy have left is callousness to try and deflect what you were tryig to say. It's an old trick. It's a cunts trick.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

After reading the link in the op, I find it quite disturbing that grown men in responsible, well paid careers could take all that shit seriously. I'm failing to see how these people who are well paid by the public to serve the public could find being a being a mason would actually help them to serve the public better.

 

[yardbird]

After reading the link in the op, I find it quite disturbing that grown men in responsible, well paid careers could take all that shit seriously. I'm failing to see how these people who are well paid by the public to serve the public could find being a being a mason would actually help them to serve the public better.

I'm clearing out things and just found some stuff from when my dad was a bank manager before WW2, among it some masonic scrolls.
He was a socialist and when he learned the webs and weirdness and connivance of the masons he politely told them to stuff their strange exclusionary ritualistic mumbo-jumbo (his word, not mine).
That was the end of his career, from the bank's high flyer to manipulated pawn.
The Commercial Bank of Scotland became part of RBSC, a lot of the manouvering done by masons over the years.

The Devil Rides Out!

*I'm just venting - I'll read the thread now*

 

[stuff_it]

How does one know, when one is dealing with a mason? What signs are there? Masons is just something I ready about on the internet and in casual/loosely argued conspiracy theories.

Sometimes they are perfectly open about it, and will even discuss it in public - eg 'are you going to that lodge meeting alter Dave?' 'No not this week Bob, it's the wife's birthday, maybe next time'.

 

[DotCommunist]

I believe thatch was in the womens version of the masons

 

[Citizen66]

If you shake hands with a man and he tickles the skin between thumb and index finger in mid shake then he is a mason.

Slightly different to that. It's if they hold their thumb between two of your knuckles when they shake your hand. And depending which two knuckles is how senior they see themselves.

I used to drink in the same pub as a mason and told him I knew the handshake. So shook his hand and his reaction was one of shock.

 

[Spymaster]

eta you're nicely diverting attention there with those mentions of plans for world domination. Good sleight of hand, your lodge will be proud of your efforts. It's really not what I've been talking about at all though, but it does seem to be a common method of shutting down any actual debate about any potential malign influence or abuses of positions within the masons that may actually have happened.

LOL!

I was referring to the aspects of potential legal subversion that we've been discussing rather than global domination per se but I'll hold my hands up and say that I wasn't at my sharpest at 4 o'clock this morning.

It's very telling that you choose to selectively quote those charges and regulations that concentrate on the element of secrecy (they regard identification and parts of ritual, btw, most of which you can find out on the internet if you really want to) whilst ignoring all the preceding rules compelling freemason's to adhere to moral and legal codes, respect others, promote the good of society, cultivate social values, assist those less fortunate .... etc, etc.

As with all conspiracy theories those promoting them are going to concentrate on the aspects that they can engineer to suit their agenda. Not much anyone can do about that really except be open and honest as I try to be on freemason threads. Jazzz for example, insists that rank and file master masons like myself are not party to the machinations of those in the upper echelons of the craft. Apart from being bollocks, this ignores the fact that most of us know and socialise with freemasons at every level, not just our own. Also worth beraring in mind is that there are a number of outfits which purport to be masonic but in principle are anything but (see sections 8, 9, 10, and 11, of what you've quoted).

 

[Spymaster]

I used to drink in the same pub as a mason and told him I knew the handshake. So shook his hand and his reaction was one of shock.

I doubt he was genuinely shocked, it's probably the worlds worst kept "secret". I'm usually more surprised when someone tries to badger me into revealing it and then proceeds to keep getting it wrong.

 

[Riklet]

The only active freemason I know is a cunt, paedophile and thief, with a thirst for power.. Just saying!

I'm distantly related to one of the Grand Masters ('yer a wizard, 'arry!) of the Masons in Ireland. Weird.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't quite understand what freemasonry is for, really, aside from networking opportunities. However, it seems pretty clear to me that membership of secretive organisations is problematic with certain jobs. Being a copper, for instance.

Also, they're not quite an equal opportunities organisation, given that they exclude just over half the population.

 

[frogwoman]

my mum's dad was a freemason and where he was it was basically another version of a working men's club, with added robes