[PEN-L:4080] Re: Re: Re: secret societies <36DC3009.ADF558FD@uniserve.com> <3.0.3.32.19990302105020.006d978c@lmumail.lmu.edu> <36DC46BB.B44BF658@mindspring.com> <4.1.19990303075336.00939660@lmumail.lmu.edu>

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

There is a huge jumble of sense and nonsense in this thread on the
masons.
One of the jumbles is between the actual history of the masons, which
has little or nothing to do with mysticism, ancient egypt, alexander the

great and a great deal to do with guild economics in a very vulgar sense

in Scotland. It was only later that the masons themselves, as their
purpose and function changed radically, began to incorporate all that
nonsense. Now on this thread (as far as I can tell from browsing in
it) people seem to be confusing the actual history of the masons with
lace trimmings added in the 18th c. And all the political implications
as well as the secret-society hysteria connected to the Masons
have their source in those added trimmngs. The masons became
Masons by inventing out of whole cloth an ancient lineage. (I haven't
tried to look up and recheck my sources on this, but I'm pretty
sure of the rough outline I give.)

Carrol