Fraternal greetings. Masonic Regalia will keep you in Due Form with online shopping opportunities for Masonic regalia, Masonic rings, gifts, and t-shirts, as well as frequent articles on Masonic topics. Thanks for having a look!
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 English Judges May Stay Mum On Masonic Affiliation The UK Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has announced that judges in the UK will no longer be required to make known publicly their Masonic affiliations. This overturns a judicial policy, in place since 1998, that sought to allay alleged public concern over Masonic cronyism having improper influence in court cases in which a Freemason appeared before a Freemason judge. Not surprisingly, this policy reversal has been met with skepticism amongst the anti-masonry crowd, with some claiming that it is proof of a wider Masonic conspiracy that includes Jack Straw himself. The reason for the change, however, has less to do with conspiracies and more to do with a European Court of Human Rights (ECHT) ruling earlier this year. The court ruled in favor of the Grand Orient of Italy in its lawsuit challenging an Italian law that required governmental appointees to declare their Masonic affiliation. In its decision the court cited Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, a provision that guarantees freedom of association and was originally intended, in part, to ensure the ability to organize labor unions. Nice summary of the European Court of Human Rights decision. Read the UK Guardian story on the change of English judicial policy here.  Olympic Torch, 1936 Olympics, Berlin, Germany Freemasons, not surprisingly, are fascinated by the often hidden-in-plain-sight influence of Freemasonry on everyday culture. Well, I just came across a very intriguing example that will have particular relevance as the world turns its attention to the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games. In case you missed it, the official Olympic flame was just lit on October 22 to kick off the torch relay that will culminate in Vancouver next year. [Here's a cool interactive map showing where the torch is at any particular moment]. The torch, we’ve always been told, represents the light of the Olympic movement passing peacefully through the various participating countries. While this is a laudable undertaking, the torch relay has an unfortunately sinister origin in the propaganda that surrounded the Nazi-hosted 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The Nazis invented the torch relay (it had never occurred previously in either the ancient or modern versions of the Olympics) as subtle symbol of the spread of Nazi Fascism throughout Europe. [For more on the story of the Nazi torch relay, check out this interesting article].  Marathon Tower and Flame Chalice of the 1928 Olympic Games Stadium But where did the Nazis get the idea of the Olympic flame? As it turns out, the Olympic flame was another modern invention, this time originating with the 1928 Summer Olympics stadium in Amsterdam, Holland. The Olympic flame burned in a huge chalice atop a tall tower adjacent to the stadium. The result was an effect not unlike a giant candle overlooking the stadium, a symbol that will be familiar to all Freemasons. Here’s where the intriguing Masonic connection comes in. The designer of the stadium was the Dutch architect and active Freemason, Brother Jan Wils (1891-1972) who was a member of the l’Union Frédérique Lodge in Rotterdam. To be sure, it’s fair to say that candle-like tower is just a coincidence. Brother Wils did not become a Freemason until 1929, at least a couple years after he would have completed his design for the stadium. But according to Professor Bob Barney in the interview for the CTV article on the Nazi torch relay cited above, “Jan Wils, the architect of the Amsterdam stadium, was looking for inspiration . . . And so he turned to his lifelong infatuation with the Masonic order.”  Brother Jan Wils, Masonic Architect Further, once Wils became a member, he was very involved with the design of Masonic Lodge halls. For starters, he designed the lodge hall for the Silentium Lodge in Delft. Also, he was on the board of directors of the Foundation for Rites and Temple Building, a group dedicated to bringing modern ideas of architecture into the realm of Masonic lodge halls. This foundation promoted the notion that lodge halls should employ subtle references to Freemasonry in the underlying architecture through the use of spatial geometry — connecting lines that form stars within circles, etc. — rather than overt iconographic decorations. And these subtle Masonic gestures can be found in both public and Masonic buildings designed by the architects associated with this group. [More on Dutch Masonic architecture]. So, is the Olympic Flame a re-tooled Masonic Candle? It’s hard to say for sure. But the connections are, to say the least, quite striking.  International Masonic Brotherhood I’m delighted to announce that Masonic Regalia is now available in fifty languages thanks to some amazing translation software available from Wordpress, the blogging platform I use here. While I’ve known for some time that this page enjoys a wide international audience, I’ve recently discovered that many of my visitors are relying on Google to translate the pages they wish to see. It occurred to me that if my pages were already translated when indexed by Google, the site might get an even larger international Masonic readership because the translated version would appear in the non-English search results rather than in English to be translated by the reader before browsing. What is so cool about the software I chose to translate the Masonic material here is that once it has been translated, the software creates a whole new page with the translation as part of the site’s permanent sitemap. Thus Google can index and cache all of the translated material as well as the native English version. Aside from my nerdy enjoyment of great traffic to this site, I’m especially delighted with this development as I think it promotes one of the great aims of Freemasonry: reconciling true friendship from those who must have remained at perpetual distance.
A judge in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania has ordered that the owner of the old Masonic Lodge hall in Carbondale must present a plan to either fix or demolish the historic building ten days to present to the court a plan to either fix or demolish the structure or face contempt of court and possible jail time. It is unclear whether the building in question is still owned by the lodge or whether, like so many of our stately old lodge halls, it was sold off. As with the problem of fire destroying many of the old halls, the loss of Masonic halls due to simple neglect or the inability on the part of lodges to keep them threatens a wonderful part of our Masonic heritage. Maybe there should be a dialogue about how best to insure that these grand old building stay in the Fraternity. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised that, even as you read this, several threatened old lodge halls come to mind. Here’s the original Times-Tribune story.  Termites: The true silent destroyers I came across a particularly unfair Masonic slur today in the comments section of a news story that I thought deserved special mention because it seems to have gained some traction in the Google search engine: Silent Destroyers. The news article wasn’t too exciting — another small town UK paper reporting on the (shocking!) fact that there are Freemasons on the town council (fifteen percent of the members!).
I’ve seen a number of these stories of late, a likely consequence of the Dan Brown excitement. Folks, it seems, are quite curious to know whether there is a secret ruling cabal right under their noses in their home towns. What the articles usually end up reporting are the (accurate and un-sexy) facts that 1) of course Freemasons are involved in local politics because they are often hardworking and successful pillars of the community, 2) the influence of Freemasonry, such as there ever was, has declined in recent years due to its aging and contracting demographic, 3) the biggest impact of Freemasonry isn’t secret nepotism but quiet charity.
What really caught my attention, though, was the comment section. As any reader of Masonic web material can attest, the comment sections are usually where our, well, less enlightened friends tend to spout off. One commentator suggested that everyone do a Google search for the term “Silent Destroyers”. I of course did and came up with quite interesting results. Out of 27,400,000 (!) pages indexed by Google containing the words “silent destroyers” the first two text links on the first page were virulent anti-Masonic sites that use the phrase to describe the old anti-masonic chestnuts of Satanism and undue influence.
Further, when I did a Google image search for the term, the first images where Masonic lodge rooms and buildings.
Now, what surprised me with this search is that whenever I’d previously heard the phrase “silent destroyers” it’s *always* been in connection with termites. And in fact, stuff about termites immediately followed the anti-masonic links. This is curious because insect pest control is a big industry — one would think that the phrase “silent destroyers,” as clearly associated as it is with termites, would have called up the surely more reputable pest control websites first and foremost.
The fact that it didn’t speaks to the popularity in Google’s eyes of these anti-Masonic sites. And how does Google determine which pages rank higher? The method for ranking at Google is a closely guarded secret, but it is known that one of the primary factors is how many other sites link to the site in question. Clearly a lot of people are linking to these anti-Masonic sites.
 Solomon's Temple. Freemasonry has always been about building! Normally anti-Masonic stuff rolls off my back. In this case, though, it irked me because Freemasonry has always been about building up, not tearing down. I simply couldn’t let the irony of linking us on Google to termites stand.
So, what can you do about it? I say fight fire with fire. I would love to see this rebuttal to the Secret Destroyer slur rise to the top of Google for the search term and displace the hateful sites. How can we achieve this? Easy. If you don’t have a website on which you can link to this article, use the share button below the article to share this article on your favorite social media — whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit or whatever. Google loves those sites and will boost the ranking of any site receiving links from them. It only takes a second, so please share this article with the button below.
If you have a website, link to this article at the above URL using “secret destroyers” as the anchor text for the link. This will also have the happy side effect of bumping the termites photo above ahead of the anti-Masonic stuff in the Google image search.
Let’s give termites their due place as the real secret destroyers! (And I’ll follow up with further postings to see where we are on Google!)
Termite photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/editor/ / CC BY 2.0
So this explains everything about my misspent youth: MTV has been a secret tool of the Freemasons to promote Satanism all along. The proof (and unintentional hilarity) appears earnestly in this video.  Loading ...
Nowadays, Freemasonry is only speculative. But the members of Tehachapi Masonic Lodge and the Scottish Rite from Bakersfield will be acting as operative masons to assist in the construction of a stone walking-labyrinth like the one pictured above in Philip Marx Central Park, Tehachapi, CA. Of course, since this type of labyrinth is a traditional symbol of finding one’s true self on the path of life, one could argue that they will be working in a speculative capacity as well. Read the full story here. |
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Well so much for the great Masonic Conspiracy. We can scarcely preserve our old lodge halls.
George Washington is something akin to a patron saint of Freemasonry in America, and so it’s only fitting that the university named in his honor should have a Masonic lodge. Fortunately, several George Washington University alumni and administrators agree. Read about their proposal to bring Freemasonry to campus as a fraternity for students and faculty alike 
Historically, Masonic tradition makes a clear distinction between “operative” and “speculative” Freemasons, the difference being that the former work with real stone and the latter use the tools of stone construction to teach moral lessons.