Freemasons exposed

[shaberon]

Posted by petra (here)
This rabbit hole is the worst one yet. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more awful, there's this connection!

What couldn't get more awful?

As most of the posts here state, no, there isn't anything inherent about Masonry that anyone need be concerned about.

The easiest corollary I can make is football. Let's say there is a football team that specializes in the use of those date rape drugs (there was). They manage to spread it around so a few other teams start picking up the habit. Then they're caught. Do we blame football or ban or suppress it?

[petra]

Posted by shaberon (here)

Posted by petra (here)
This rabbit hole is the worst one yet. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more awful, there's this connection!

What couldn't get more awful?

As most of the posts here state, no, there isn't anything inherent about Masonry that anyone need be concerned about.

The easiest corollary I can make is football. Let's say there is a football team that specializes in the use of those date rape drugs (there was). They manage to spread it around so a few other teams start picking up the habit. Then they're caught. Do we blame football or ban or suppress it?

The rabbit hole couldn't get any more awful

Nude rituals? I mean come ON!

I get your point though, and I'm not panicking I swear

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by petra (here)
My father was a mason and we didn't find out until after he died

He taught me nothing! He was a quiet man.

An uncle of mine was also a mason, and possibly quite high ranking. He too was a very quiet man.

It was really my Aunt - and Godmother - who I was close to. As a kid, I spent many school holidays staying with them in their quite beautiful house in Salisbury. I loved staying there. My Aunt was bright and wonderful and cheerful in every possible way. The sort of person who lifted your spirit just to be around. She had a laugh that was timeless. I miss it very much. I remember very clearly, after spending a happy day with her around town, visiting the market, or at home playing endless board games, my Uncle coming home from work. He was an insurance executive. When he walked in, the temperature went down about 10 degrees. Cold as ice, that man, and hard as stone. He hardly spoke a word to her or me. For my aunt, it was a very difficult marriage.

The closest I ever got to him was the day he taught me to play golf at his country retreat, where he hobnobbed with his friends and colleagues, and probably fellow masons. I was 12 or 13 at the time.

My aunt had a terrible time with him. But she remained faithful and true. They never divorced, but it was a close-run thing. It wasn't until much later in life that I learned he was a mason. When that hit home, a number of things started to add up.

Interestingly, as he got older, he changed, and quite radically. With retirement, he started to mellow out. At the same time, my visits to Salisbury became less frequent. I was getting older, too. But when I did see him - they'd often visit over Christmas - he had a light in his eye that hadn't been there before. He spoke more, and I saw him laugh. I didn't know he had it in him. My aunt seemed happier too, and more relaxed.

I don't know if there's a correlation between retirement and one's involvement with the masons, but I do know that as time wore on, he became less and less involved with his lodge. I wonder, looking back, if there was a connection between that and his change in personality.

In 2017, my Aunt passed away aged 90. An era came to an end for me. My Uncle went into a care home. I visited him several times. On each occasion, he was worse. Frail and confused and calling for my aunt who was dead. The staff there told me he rarely left his room. He'd spend hours lying on his bed, quietly weeping, and refusing to come downstairs. This, a man, who was as hard as granite, and who I didn't believe capable of tears.

In 2020, his care home was ravaged by covid. He succumbed and died in May of that year. Because of the lockdown, he never got to have his big, masonic funeral. I'm not sure he would have wanted one anyway. I do suspect that the secret order he was a member of all those years broke something inside of him, or robbed him of some quality he thankfully regained in his twilight years. Regrets? I wonder if he was plagued with them. I wonder if that was the reason he cried. He never revealed the reason, so we'll never know.