From: shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu (Shava Nerad Averett)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: masonic morals & dogma
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:41:07 GMT
Reply-To: fredj@wang.com
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This is From: Fred Jewell  <fredj@wang.com> whose machine was having 
problems posting today.  I am posting my response to him in another 
post.  All of the remaining text is his email to me.  If you reply
in email, please be sure you pick up his address, or specify my address
if you want to reply to me.

Shava Nerad Averett
shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu
==================================

In alt.magick you write:

>I have access to a book which I am not supposed to have access to.  Although
>the book says: "This book is to be returned to the mother lodge upon the
>descease of the member who has custody of it." (or somesuch), I have a copy
>of a morals and dogma manual for the southern (US) scottish rite masons.
>Obscure used book stores in tiny little towns are wonderful things...

What makes you think you should not have access to this book??!!!!  The
note was there because the mother lodge owned that book and it was lent to
the original brother, probably someone put it in a box sold it or whatever,
the note is to indicate that the book was lent not owned.  So in reality
you unknowingly misappropriated it!

>The book doesn't have any of what I think of as the technical secrets of
>the craft, which would be grips and passwords and suchlike stuff, nor the
>rituals/psychodramas of the degrees themselves.  However for each degree,
>there is a wealth of expository material having to do with each degree of
>the scottish rite.

Do you really need/want to know the "technical secrets", what good would it
do for you??

>This manual was put together by a Mr. Pike, in the mid-1800's, although my
>copy is a printing from about 35 years ago.  It is a marvelous book,
>comprising a reasonable primer in qaballah, history of religious ideas
>(accurate enough for its time, and extremely thorough at that!), the
>foundation ideas behind ritual (well put considering the lack of what
>I think of as a more rich philosophical/psychological/... vocabulary 
>today), and is generally up to the standard of any of the magickal
>primers of any sort I have ever read.  It startles me to think that this
>sort of education has been available through masonic sources for this
>long -- and probably longer, in various other forms.

>It also makes me understand much better the origin of the GD & OTO in
>their masonic roots.

>One thing that I went through this book with a fairly fine comb to find,
>is to try to clue out the foundation of the idea of excluding women
>(along with idiots and drunks and suchlike riffraff incompetants).  I
>poured through the document looking for references that indicated a
>disqualification of women.

>What I found, to the contrary, was a low-key but definite philosophy
>that promoted the idea of the resolution of opposites, with gender 
>definitely being included.  The extrapolation of the isis/osiris/horus
>myths was full of strong female symbols, and at one point the author
>expounded upon the doctrine of the Fall in judeochristian tradition,
>pointing out that persons are always interested in blaming someone
>else for their troubles, and since men were writing down the story,
>and it was men that they knew were reading it, surely it was easy
>to lay blame on women. (He also made some very nice points about the
>identification of woman and serpent in the bible and made parallels
>between this and the serpents of the oracles in greece and such...).

>No where in the very thick volume (over 800 pages, as I remember) 
>does the author have a word to say against women, or women's competance.
>He says some things in favor of the idea that a dichotomy of the sexes
>is an issue of Maya, but he never addresses in any direct or indirect
>way the moral or religious (or any) competancy of women.

>It is material like this which causes me to believe that the masons
>should not be viewed as being sexist in priciple, but only in practice.

Wait a moment!  What makes you think Masons are sexist in practice?
In the craft there are MENS organizations and then there are WOMENS
organizations and BOYS and GIRLS and then there are organizations for MEN
and WOMEN.  Women run the womens organizations, men run the mens
organizations.

>One suspects that this is a major reason for the various schizmatic
>organizations, such as the IMORC, GD, OTO and so on.  You will also
>notice that the scions of masonry are almost universally more openly
>magickal lodges, while also admitting women.  I think this is an issue
>of the limitations of the current structure of "traditional" AF&AM
>(and A&FM or whatever) masonry, and also perhaps an issue of the
>persons interested in serious magick being winnowed out from the 
>main line.  (I almost said more conservative mainline, but decided 
>that wasn't necessarily appropriate...)

Where do you get these bogus facts from??  Where is your data?  I also
assume that IMORC is really AMORC and a typo.  H Spencer Lewis was not a
disgrunteled mason deciding that he would found a counter organization!  It
irks me that people get 1/2 truths and then expound their own psuedo
theories as gospel.
 
Our system does not allow a post today, something about lack of inodes, so
I give you permission to post this if you care to post it!!!!!!

>Let's see if that starts some juices flowing...

Fred Jewell
fredj@wang.com

If you have questions then i'll be glad to answer any except those of
recognition!

-- 
Shava Nerad Averett				shava_averett@unc.edu
/*  all materials (c)1992, Shava Nerad Averett, and have nothing significant
    to do with the University of North Carolina, a mostly owned subsidiary 
    of the NC Legislature, a mostly owned subsidiary of the DOT.      */