From: shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu (Shava Nerad Averett)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: masonic morals & dogma
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:43:05 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill


This is my response to Fred Jewell's email:

> 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!
> 
I don't have the book right here, but it states that it is for the use of
persons involved in instruction in Scottish Rite and isn't to be released
to persons not master masons, or somesuch.  It has no inscription that
describes the lodge of origin, only that it should be returned to the
mother lodge.

> >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??
> 
No, I don't.  I was just describing the contents of the book.  It is my
understanding that the technical secrets are the only real secrets of
masonry, and I was merely being specific that the book did not have any
of that specific information, so that people wouldn't think it did.

> >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.
> 
Separate but equal?  I have never found this to be so in any of the lodges
I have had communication with.  Also OES is not a women's organization,
since it admits both men and women.

> >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?  

Which facts do you find bogus?

	1)  That the GD, OTO, & AMORC are more openly magickal?
	2)  That they admit women.
	3)  That the organizations listed in (1) are schisms of 
		masonry.

The rest of the paragraph is opinion.

> I also
> assume that IMORC is really AMORC and a typo.  

Yup.  Somewhere in there I had AMORC and ISKCon confused, perhaps...;-)
I deal with too many acronyms in the course of a day...

> 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.
>  
Then you wouldn't define them as masonically derived?  Nor as attracting
a membership which might be masons if the masons were gender integrated?
I did not state that they were *founded* for that reason, but I suspect
that it is a goodly part of their continued existance.  How could one
possibly corroborate this, unless one went into all the lodges and asked
them about their feelings about masonic traditions -- something I don't
have the time, nor the facilities, to do.  

I don't "expound [these] theories as gospel."  If you *read* the paragraph
you would note the phrases: "One suspects..." and "I think..."

> 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!!!!!!
> 
Surely.  I'd be happy to...

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

All right.  Do you think that the instruction of the men's lodge and the
women's lodge (as you will) is of an equivalent character?  Why do you
think that the lodges are segregated?  Do you believe that the masons
are as openly magickal in charter as the other organizations I mentioned
(particularly the GD/OTO)?  Do you believe that it promotes the 
development of masons to be in a segregated environment, and how?  Has
this belief changed since you became a mason (i.e. what did you think
about the reasons for segregation when you first became a mason?  Would
you have been attracted to becoming a mason if it were *not* segregated?
Why did you join the masons rather than another organization in the same
general tradition?).

-- 
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.      */