Friday, October 9, 2009

Fantasies About Freemasonry, I:
Gary Osborn, Pyramids, Washington, and the Scottish Rite


Many of those who write about Freemasonry are not writing about real-life Freemasonry at all. Rather, they are writing about “Fantasy Freemasonry,” a Freemasonry mythical as the griffin (depicted) that never existed and certainly does not exist today. I see this in the 1980 German Bishops’ statement about Freemasonry, which declared Catholicism and Freemasonry to be incompatible on the basis of a deeply distorted and highly inaccurate perception of Freemasonry, a matter that I have addressed elsewhere. Lately, of course, I am seeing this in relation to the many things people are writing in relation to the publication of Dan Brown’s novel, The Lost Symbol.


In the biggest of Big Pictures—the one where we seek to obtain and to propagate Strength, Wisdom, and Beauty in the world—it is important to correct such fantasies. One cannot place one’s pillars on the shifting sands of Falsehood and expect them to stand.

Even on a smaller scale, it is still important to correct false notions about Freemasonry. Such fantasies get in the way of Freemasons doing their real work in the world; people hear that you’re a Freemason, and (depending on the precise fantasy they hold), they either expect you to rule the world, slit their throats, or suck their brains right out of their heads like the alien celebrities on those Hulu commercials. In addition, such fantasies keep men who would be interested in the real thing from finding their way to the Western Gate. (Certainly that much has been accomplished for many men by the German Bishops’ statement.)

Thus, from time to time on this blog, I shall do what I can to correct fantasies about Freemasonry. Today’s entry involves the theories of a gentleman named Gary Osborn.

Mr. Osborn authors a website titled P A R A D I G M S H I F T. He recently commented on a post at another blog of mine, in which I was addressing the fact that, in The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown implies that the pyramid is an important symbol in Freemasonry (which, of course, is not true). Mr. Osborn invited the readers of my blog to look at a specific post on his website, a post titled, “The Pyramid of Washington DC and The Lost Symbol.”

There is a lot on Mr. Osborn’s post. Confining myself just to what was written about Freemasonry, I encountered there a full-blown Fantasy of Freemasonry. I attempted to respond within the limits of a comment on my own blog, but there was insufficient room. In addition, if I am encountering this sort of stuff, surely many other people are as well, and there is value to responding in a full-blown post here to this sort of Fantasy About Freemasonry.

Thus, below I respond to the major points about Freemasonry that I found on Gary Osborn’s post. I consider some points that are particular to what Mr. Osborn claims, and then I describe some general points that will be useful to people interested in learning about Freemasonry and evaluating what they read. My hope is that readers here will find this material useful enough to pass along to others.

Myths About George Washington and the 33rd Degree

Mr. Osborn states in his very first sentence that “As many of us know, the US Capital City is Washington DC, named after the first American President George Washington—a 33rd degree Freemason.”

Oy.

At the risk of mentioning the obvious, George Washington was never a 33rd degree Freemason. Washington died on December 14, 1799. The Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite—the body which confers the 33rd degree—was founded at Charleston, SC, on May 31, 1801, well over a year after Washington was dead and buried. The organizations that were predecessors to the Scottish Rite did not have 33 degrees. Consequently, there was no 33rd degree of Freemasonry for Washington to have received. There is certainly no evidence that I have ever seen presented to the contrary.

Why do people believe things like this? My guess is that it helps to support the Legend of the Mighty Thirty-Thirds, the myth that the holders of the 33° run the world. My sense is that there is a deep psychological need that is fulfilled by this belief—something of a pathological need, quite frankly—and the myth that the Father of our Country was one of the Mighty Thirty-Thirds helps to address that need.

The Street Layout of Washington, DC

Like many others before him, Mr. Osborn makes much of the geometry of the streets of Washington, DC. However, what he already knows about the source of this geometry should be enough to tell him not to read too much into the patterns of triangles that emerges from the layout of the DC streets.

Mr. Osborn notes, correctly, that the streets of DC radiate out from the White House and the Capitol. If one creates a street plan based around streets radiating out from two or more central points, it is inevitable that triangles of various sorts shall show up. It is geometrically unavoidable, in fact.

Masonic Involvement in the Design of Washington, DC

Mr. Osborn says that that it is “officially denied” that Jefferson and L'Enfant were Masons. This subtle choice of wording is actually quite misleading.

There is no centralized authority for Freemasonry, no central registry of all Freemasons that could issue an “official denial.” There is no Masonic equivalent of the White House Press Secretary that could issue an “official denial.” However, to state that something about Masonry has been “officially denied” is to play into the widespread and essentially paranoid fantasy that there is One Über-Lodge to Rule Them All. This simply is not so. Sure, there are various Masonic organizations that may make statements, but none of them is empowered to issue an “official denial” on behalf of Freemasonry.

For the record, neither Jefferson nor L'Enfant were Masons. People who claim otherwise should either cough up the evidence or give up the assertion. This playing about, as Mr. Osborn does, with phrases like “it's likely that so-and-so was a Mason” is just so much twaddle. As it happens, I have taught over a dozen class sections of statistics at the university level: I know from “likely.” I see no evidence to support such an assertion. On what basis is this claim of “likely” being made?

Mr. Osborn states that “there is no question that many of the new city’s [that is, Washington, DC’s] architects were Freemasons.” Actually, there certainly is such a question—and I am raising it. What evidence does anyone have for this assertion? Of course, the real issue is, what evidence does Mr. Osborn have that any of the people who laid out the capital city—not just any architects working in DC, but the people who actually laid out the streets of the city itself—were Masons?

The Scottish Rite, the House of the Temple, and Washington, DC

There are times, I must say, when I wish the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite were headquartered in Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Bayonne, Brooklyn, anywhere but a mile directly north of the White House, a location that cannot but help to feed the paranoid fantasies that make the Mighty Thirty-Thirds The Rulers of The World. As it is, Mr. Osborn implies that Washington, DC, is built around the headquarters of the Southern Jurisdiction, the beautiful House of the Temple, which Mr. Osborn describes as the “Temple of Freemasonry.”

The simple fact that the Scottish Rite did not exist until 1801 should suggest that Washington, DC was not designed around, let alone at the behest of, the Scottish Rite. The city was founded in 1790. Congress held its first session in DC in November 1800. The Scottish Rite had its headquarters in Charleston, SC, when it was established in May 1801, and there it remained until 1870, when the headquarters moved to DC. The Supreme Council met at several locations until the House of the Temple was constructed, a process which lasted from 1911 to 1915, a full century after DC was laid out; DC was clearly not designed around the House of the Temple.

It is important for people to understand that the Scottish Rite is only one of several "rites" of Freemasonry, and does not run or command Freemasonry as a whole, a matter I described at length in another Dan Brown-related post. The Scottish Rite has no authority whatsoever over the Masons of the Blue Lodge, the York Rite—anyone at all except other Freemasons of the Scottish Rite (who themselves are divided into two separate Jurisdictions in the United States alone). The House of the Temple is, strictly speaking, of administrative importance only to the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, not even to other Scottish Rite Freemasons, let alone other Freemasons; it is lovely and impressive, but it is not the “Temple of Freemasonry.”

Pyramid Symbolism and Freemasonry

Like many other people uninformed about the Fraternity, Mr. Osborn insists that the Pyramid is an important symbol to Freemasonry. As I demonstrate elsewhere, there are a few distant echoes of pyramid symbolism in Freemasonry, but the pyramid certainly is nothing important among the many symbols of Freemasonry as these have been recorded over the last three centuries. If some person is so sure that the Pyramid is an important symbol in Freemasonry, then that person should please tell us where exactly the symbol occurs within the ritual or symbolism of contemporary or historic Freemasonry.

Freemasonry and the Illuminati

Mr. Osborn seems to lend support to those who conflate the Freemasons and the Illuminati. As I explained elsewhere on my Dan Brown-related blog, the Illuminati was a very different organization that had very different ideals than Freemasonry. In addition, although the Illuminati did infiltrate Masonic lodges on the Continent, they were unsuccessful in infiltrating Masonic lodges in either Great Britain or North America. Conflating the Masons and the Illuminati is the province of the proponents of some extremely irrational and even pathologically paranoid conspiracy theories. One would not wish to put oneself in the company of people like David Icke, Jim Marrs, or Texe Marrs. And, yes, any Gentle Reader who happens to know any of these gentlemen is welcome to quote me to him or them directly.

(Messrs. Icke and Marrs: if you don't like what I have to say here, you can reach me through my home page. I would delight in debating any one of you—or all three together—in public in New York City. Three writers given to fantasy versus one who insists on evidence: I’d say that the odds favor me.)

The Use of Horrifically Unreliable Sources About Freemasonry

Mr. Osborn mentions the late Reverend Jim Shaw's book, The Deadly Deception, as if it were a reliable source of information about Freemasonry. The nicest thing that one can say about this book is that its late author was a fraud and a liar; my only regret in saying this is that he is no longer alive for me to say this to his face.

I strongly suggest that anyone confronted by this book read Chapter 8 of the book by Arturo de Hoyos and S. Brent Morris, Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry? (New York: Evans, 2004), which is available not only through Amazon but simply off the shelf at many major bookstores; their book demonstrates that the late Rev. Shaw lied extensively about his involvement with Freemasonry.

There are fine sources to use to learn about Freemasonry. I mention several of them in a basic post about Freemasonry. The sources are easy to obtain.


Now it is time to step back from the specifics of Mr. Osborn's claims and consider some general principles.


Basic Principle #1: We Can and Should Tell People That They Simply Don’t Know Much About Freemasonry

The first basic principle that comes to mind is that we should be kind, we should be gracious, but we should also be quite direct in telling people who make wildly inaccurate statements about our Fraternity that they simply do not know that much about real-life Freemasonry.

Yes, I know that, in this feel-good age, that all just seems so very rude.

So be it.

At public and private universities in the Northeast and Southeast, I have taught literally thousands of students, many among them including future physicians, nurses, psychologists, counselors—people who will hold other people’s very lives in their hands some day. I have taught them subjects like statistics, where there are right and wrong answers, and counseling, where right answers are in short supply, but wrong answers abound throughout the kingdom. I have always found that, when these people err, the most merciful way to help these people and their future patients is to tell them, nicely but extremely directly, that they are just plain wrong, and why.

Freemasonry is a real set of principles with a real history. It is not just a matter of someone’s opinion. (Contrary to what many people seem to believe these days, let me state quite clearly: “God was not elected. Truth is not a matter of opinion.”) And yet every day there are people teaching nonsense about Freemasonry—perhaps because the process of actual study and reflection and critical thinking is so challenging. These spun fantasies become so much more rubbish obstructing the way to the Western Wall. Beyond that, every unchallenged Fantasy is another message to the youth of America and the world that The Truth Does Not Really Matter—Just Make It All Up! Not a good message to send, brethren. Remember: these are the people who will be running your nursing home and performing your surgeries some day. (Now that is a scary thought.)

Basic Principle #2: Use Simple But Powerful Logical Principles to Evaluate Claims

This would be a long topic by itself to handle well. For now, it will have to suffice to note that so much wild writing about Freemasonry uses weak logic, as evidenced by phrases like “there is no doubt that,” or “it is likely that.” By contrast, a strong thinker both presents and asks for specific evidence. In addition, as put by Carl Sagan (in paraphrasing Marcello Truzzi): Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For example:

  • You want to claim that so-and-so was a Freemason? Fine. Show me a dues card, a signature on a lodge register, a private diary entry or a letter where the writer claims membership. Rumors or traditions simply don’t count.

  • You want to claim that some Masons actually murdered someone? Okay, I’ll listen. But show me a body, first of all. Show me a reliable eyewitness who is disinterested in the case, who can through personal experience connect persons A, B, and C with crimes X, Y, and Z. Video would be nice. Show me the kind of evidence that you would need to convict someone, if not in criminal court (where one must prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt), then at least in civil court (where a mere preponderance of the evidence will do).

  • You want to claim that Masons run some sort of conspiracy? Hey, I’m all in—like my wife asks, “where’s my gold bar?” But show me documents, video, signed confessions and affidavits. Show me bank records, travel records, phone records, e-mails, telephone recordings. (“Follow the money,” Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein. Here was a man near the top of a conspiracy run from the office of the President of the United States, the veritable Leader of the Free World. You did not hear him suggest that Woodward and Bernstein settle for rumor, did you? No, you heard him push for hard evidence.)

  • You want to claim that the Masons are run by shape-shifting aliens who drink human blood? Hey, it’s all good, baby. But you’d better be ready to show me tissue samples collected in the Lodge, video recordings from the Lodge, satellite imagery of their craft, ground radar showing their underground bases. I want samples of scales, alien blood, extraterrestrial implants--all collected from within the Lodge. At this level, simple personal testimony is no longer good enough.

Yet, what we see so often in the world is that, the more outrageous the claim, the less evidence is presented. What we get instead are excuses. It’s as if somehow lack of evidence was itself evidence.

Well, here’s a tip for all those on the fringe of the Fantasy Theories: Lack of evidence is not evidence. Lack of evidence may actually mean there is no evidence—because there is nothing to have evidence about. Lack of evidence should inspire increasing skepticism, not wide-eyed devotion.

Do I sound a little cranky here? I’m sure I do. But there is a reason for crankiness like this. The older one gets, the shorter the days become, and the more one resents having to put up with nonsense. Perhaps now there will be just a little less nonsense to put up with in the world.

Mr. Osborn, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it is intended. I am actually trying to help you. For if there is any bit of Masonic symbolism that should be known to the public at large, it should be this: to really make one’s way in the world, one needs the light of true knowledge, not the darkness of ignorance. Not to put too fine a point on it, but statements such as you have made betray a profound ignorance of real-life Freemasonry. If you intend to connect Freemasonry to your theories, you really ought to learn a great deal more about it, from reliable sources.

[The photo of a Griffin at Kasteel de Haar, in Holland, was taken by Ellywa on 20 July 2003. It was obtained from Wikimedia Commons, and appears here by license under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

14 comments:

  1. The catholic statement is a statement from the entire church,not a position of some german bishops.
    Its clear,catholics cant become freemasons.
    Take a look at positions that come from grand orient of France,anti christian,anti religious and anti catholic positions,endorsed by freemasons.
    The necessary changes to transform this situation,will come from freemasonry,not from the churches.

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  2. In your section "Basic Principle #2," points one and three aren't mutually exclusive - just the opposite, in fact.

    In order to show that someone is a Freemason, one has to have access to said lodge registries. A potential investigator begins with a severe disadvantage: all the cards are in the hands of your brethren, and they're not sharing it with the profane. In order to prove or disprove a conspiracy, it would be incumbent upon the Freemasons to allow full and open transparency regarding exactly who is on the square. Then - and only then - will it even be possible to conduct the most cursory of investigations.

    For example, there's a Lodge in my city that had at one time doubled as offices of two of the most powerful defence attorneys in the area. Anyone charged with anything from a drinking and driving to murder would hire these guys, and as if by magic, their clients would invariably get the lightest sentence possible. These lawyers would whisper with the crown prosecutors, joke with the judges, and they all basically got along as if they were "brethren." Oh, how I wish the provincial Grand Lodge would provide full discloser of the initiated - the judges, the lawyers, the prosecutors, the councilman, the police chiefs and mayors. One cannot truly investigate anything when from the beginning you are confronted with secrecy.

    I wholeheartedly agree with the principle of put-up-or-shut-up ... but it goes both ways.

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  3. Anonymous: Thank you for commenting on this important issue. The fact of the matter is that the German Bishops did indeed issue a lengthy report on the compatibility of Freemasonry and Catholicism. That report seems to have had a great deal of influence on subsequent Catholic thought on this matter. I shall have a great deal more to say on this blog as I continue with the series regarding Freemasonry and Catholicism--which I hope to do later today.

    Terry: Thank you for furthering the dialogue on this matter. The issues you raise deserve a full hearing all by themselves. For this comment, I will confine myself to one issue. Membership in Freemasonry is a private matter. If a Mason wishes to keep the matter of his membership confidential, that is his privilege. The matter of cronyism in the courts system will not be solved by violating the privacy of Freemasons. I completely oppose any efforts to make public the membership records of Freemasons--the same way that I oppose efforts to make public the records of what people read in the library, purchase at the bookstore, and buy at the pharmacy.

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  4. I fully understand the situation and circumstances, even the fact that many would quit outright if they were admonished to reveal their membership. But that is the system as it was set up, and as it has perpetuated - despite the obvious success and encroachment of Freemasonry in all sectors of society. All I ask is that you see it from the other perspective: those on the outside. We all have the right to privacy, but in certain circumstances it would be beneficial to voluntarily be transparent. FYI: the CFR, the Trilats, and the Bilderbergers provide a full list to those who inquire.

    The famous 10,000 Freemasons is a quaint book, and a curiosity at best. What of the million+ others, in the present, at any one time, who are cloaked within our midst? Seriously. Ominous insinuations, sure. But what do you expect, considering?

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  5. You have missed the point.
    Actually, I'm not really saying anything about Freemasonry and really have no opinions about it one way or the other. And I am not connecting Freemasonry to my theories.
    You are on the defense for no reason I can see really, if you think this article is all about Freemasonry.
    I am merely showing what I have discovered and what I see on the Washington map, which is more important to me than anything else and is surely there . . . its all about enlightenment .
    No insinuations, and surely no ignorance.

    See here:
    http://www.freewebs.com/garyosborn/235degrees.htm

    And here:
    http://www.freewebs.com/garyosborn/greatpyramidandaxis.htm

    What we see in these articles has been encoded in the avenues of Washington. The Great Pyramid has within its geometry a reference to the obliquity of the Earth's Axis of 23.5 degrees, and we see this on the map of Washington DC . . . again, a pyramid with references to the present obliquity of the Axis - 23,5 Degrees.
    This is what I am bringing attention to - whether the is the design of the Freemasons or not, the references and the symbolism is still there! That's it! That's all it is! That's what i am bringing attention to.
    There are also connections here with the enlightenment experience known as Kundalini.

    Earth's axis . . . Human axis. Physio-Kundalini-Chakra system that centres on the spinal axis.
    Earth's Axis tilted; the belief was and is, that we are now tilted away from the heavenly kingdom of God (Ecliptic Centre) . . . misaligned.
    It may be that the Earth was upright at one time and/or that it was believed it was.
    If the Earth were upright there would be a continual springtime paradise. Garden of Eden?
    We are being told in numerous sources that something happened that tilted the earth, and since then there has been a desire to bring the Earth's axis back to the vertical position . . . balance!!
    Djed column (backbone of Osiris raised up on the Spring Equinox - one of only two days in the year when the conditions of the Earth are the same as if the axis were upright - i.e., equal day and night.
    Hence the reason why Jesus (the crucifixion based on the raising of the Djed of Osiris) carries the tilted cross on his back and is then raised upright with the cross to enter the kingdom of God - the Godhead . . . enlightenment, ascension, life eternal.
    These are the themes I am interested in - not Freemasonry - and I can see these themes are all there in the map no matter who encoded it!

    Regards,
    Gary Osborn

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  6. And another thing I do not state anywhere in my article that Jim Shaw is a reliable source, which is really contrary to what I DO believe.
    I don't consider Jim Shaw to be a reliable source at all.
    I was merely saying that Dan Brown appears to have been inspired by what Jim Shaw describes in his book concerning the 33rd Degree initiation ritual. What Shaw has written is very similar to what Dan Brown describes at the beginning of his novel. Many others have noted this too.
    So please retract your statement! Its not accurate as regards my views and certainly not true.

    Regards,
    Gary Osborn

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  7. Terry: Thank you for sharing your views. However, your comments suggest that you actually do _not_ understand the circumstances. To wit:

    * You frame my objections to forced disclosure of Lodge membership as if the issue for me were its supposed effects on the number of members. I said nothing of the kind. For me, it's all a matter of civil liberties and freedom of conscience.

    *You speak of "the obvious successes and encroachment of Freemasonry in all sectors of society." First: I resent the "encroachment" language: we are a spiritual brotherhood, not an outbreak of head lice. Second: What facts could you possibly be working from? In the USA, the membership trend has been a precipitous decline since 1962, even as the country's population has exploded. Masons now comprise a smaller percentage of the US population than they have in a century. I don't imagine it's much different in the UK. You severely overestimate the "success" of Masonry.

    * You speak of the benefits of being "voluntarily transparent." We already have voluntary transparency: any Mason who wishes can declare his membership. What you want is _mandatory and enforced_ declaration of Lodge membership, which is a violation of civil liberties and freedom of conscience.

    *I don't care a fig what the policies of the CFR et alia are. Those organizations exist to fulfill specific political agenda; Freemasonry does not, and should not be grouped with them.

    * What _about_ the other Masons? Their membership is their business--not yours.

    * Where do you get off saying that Masons are "cloaked within our midst," like Nazi spies during the Blitz? If you have proof of Masonic evil-doing, come forth with it. "Ominous insinuations" are unbecoming a civil adult. What I expect is that you and your society will seek to address the problems with your legal system by the hard work of systemic change, not by scapegoating Masons or others.

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  8. Dear Readers all:

    Terry's comments are evidence of one of the reasons why it is important in the real world to dismantle the Fantasies of Freemasonry that one encounters: people in the real world come to believe the Fantasies, and then act on them as if they were true, which can create very negative consequences for Freemasonry in particular and for society in general.

    Case in point: For the last generation and more, the public perception of the Craft in England has been heavily colored and distorted by a variety of sources, perhaps especially including that scurrilous libel of a book, The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons (1984) by the late Stephen Knight. The book is full of illogicality, innuendo, insinuations, and serious inaccuracies about Freemasonry. It was, however, quite popular, and I believe it had quite an effect on British society.

    I myself trace the movement in the United Kingdom to force Freemasons in law enforcement to declare their lodge memberships to this book. Now, a quarter of a century later, people like Terry want to force all Masons to declare their membership, sacrifing their privacy in the name of the hypothetical benefits of 'transparency.'

    (I have not seen a definitive debunking of Knight's The Brotherhood. However, his other popular book, intended as nonfiction, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution--where, bless his heart, he blames the Ripper murders and their alleged coverup on the Freemasons--was debunked in the following article: Paul M. Bessel (2001) "The 'Jack the Ripper' Murders: An Examination of Alleged Masonic Connections" Heredom: The Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, vol. 9, pp. 53-67.)

    Let us be warned, brethren: Letting others get away with spreading Fantasies of Freemasonry to the public is a policy that comes with real dangers.

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  9. Gary Osborn: Thank you for visiting again. Please let me clarify that I have not missed the point of the page on your website to which you gave a link (that point involving, for example, the supposed significance of the orientation of the streets of DC, and much more). Rather, I have deliberately chosen not to address your points there, because my objective in this blog is to address Freemasonry.

    As it happens, contrary to your two most recent comments, you have indeed said a great deal on that web page about Freemasonry, as I document in this post above--a great deal about Freemasonry, much of it very poorly informed. Your inaccuracies regarding Freemasonry are my sole concern here.

    If, as you state, you are not interested in Freemasonry, then it would seem improper for you to write as if you are knowledgeable about it. My suggestion is that you simply not mention Masonry, but that's all up to you. On the other hand, when it comes to correcting publicly stated inaccuracies about Freemasonry--well, that's up to me, as well as every other Mason.

    As far as your statements about Shaw are concerned, I shall not be retracting a thing. Yes, you cite the book as Dan Brown's "more than probable" source. (Here, incidentally, you and others who take this position are likely wrong, since Brown does not perpetuate the other falsehoods of Shaw's book. As I have stated elsewhere on this blog [http://lostsymboltweets.blogspot.com/2009/09/do-you-masons-really-drink-from-skulls.html] Brown seems to be citing the old renegade Cerneau rituals, which are easily available.)

    However, contrary to your most recent Comment above, stating that Shaw's book was Brown's source is _not_ all that you do. You then go on to tell the reader what the ceremony reminds you of, in terms of what you wrote with Philip Gardiner in The Serpent Grail, etc. etc., for many sentences. Basically, you use the ceremony that you said was mentioned in the Shaw book and then cribbed by Brown as the jumping off point for your own reflections, which implies that you endorse Shaw as a reliable source. You certainly put up no objections to Brown's supposed use of Shaw. As the English Common Law principle states: "Silence is assent."

    Again, if you really are not interested in Freemasonry--well, then allow me to suggest that you not write so much about it!

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  10. Thanks Mark for the constructive criticism.
    Yes, you have helped a great deal as regards the comments made to Freemasonry in the article. These are honest mistakes at the end of the day, and I really didn't set out to deceive the reader.

    For example, the numerous sources that state that George Washington was a 33rd Degree Mason are clearly wrong as you say.

    I am not a Mason and don't belong to any institution or belief system, and this article was not meant to reflect any in-depth knowledge of historical facts regarding Masons and Freemasonry - which is clearly not my forte.
    As you know, my initial interest in writing the article in the first place, was finding the 23.5* angle avenues that radiate from the Whitehouse in the map of Washington DC.
    Actually, what we see in the map of Washington DC is the same as what we see in a cross-section image of the Great
    Pyramid - again a 23.5* line (present obliquity of the Earth's Axis) from the south vertice and through the centre of the
    King's Chamber.
    Of course, I would like to know WHY this knowledge, that the Great Pyramid of Giza contains geophyscial information concerning the angle of the tilted axis and also geodetic information - i.e., the GP's location on the earth in relation to the equator and ecliptic plane, has been encoded in the avenues of Washington.
    This is more important to me than the points raised as to whether George Washington was a 33rd degree Mason or not, and/or whether Dan Brown used Jim Shaw as his source, and I'm sure that such things would have been seen as trivial and less important to the reader.

    However, I will update this article and the webpage - correcting any mistakes to make it more balanced than it was as I am all for the truth, and I will quote you if that's alright with you.

    Thanks again for the points raised.

    Best wishes,
    Gary Osborn

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  11. As long as we are on the subject of Gary Osborne, I ask you to look at the footnotes on his pyramid page linked to in the post. You will find me addressed as bigbytes. I have been writing about the DC map since 2001 online. My current page is entitled Masonic and Kabbalistic Symbols in the Washington DC Map.

    http://dcsymbols.com/index.htm

    I have written a critique of Dan Brown's new book too.
    http://dcsymbols.com/lost_symbol/lost.htm

    Shaw a source? How about Umberto Eco? Try re-reading Faucoult's Pendulum. It contains most all the ideas in all of Brwon's books.

    Bigbytes

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  12. bigbytes again-

    My first 'run in' with Gary Osborne was when I read on a web page of his that the Washington Monument had been moved from Egypt like Cleopatra's Needle. Having seen that, I posted a msg on the Graham Hancock Mysteries Message Board, asking Gary to explain. It took weeks for him to look at the board and answer.

    By that time dozens of people had read that and gone to his site and read it again, and were asking questions; mostly like what the heck? Because anyone that knows anything knows that it was built in place, and that the largest obelisk built was a third that size.

    When we add the idea about Washington being a 33rd degree Mason, it becomes apparent who Gary was reading when he wrote that. On the first page of "Magic of Obelisks", Peter Tompkins says that GW was a 33rd degree Mason, and later in the book he deals with the monument and other obelisks.

    As usual, Gary couldn't get the facts straight, and getting it right isn't a high priority for him. He prefers volume (space) over quality of contents.

    When he finally checked the message board, he made some comment about it having been a typing error, but we all know that anyone who can type on the page that the Washington Monument was moved from Egypt clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the words he is typing.

    It took me a year before he would admit that Pennsylvania Avenue is bent between the WH and the Capitol Building. Even David Ovason mentions the bend in his book, and you can see it if you look at the map, rather than projecting preconceived ideas on the plan.

    If you look at his footnotes you will see him address a 'claim' of mine that I published about the pyramid in the map in 2001, and instead of pointing to my post he points to my claim. If you go to Graham Hancock Message Boards and do a search for author: bigbytes , and look under Dec 2001, you will see that I mention the pyramid and the Tree of Life there, then.

    http://dcsymbols.com/index.htm

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  14. Pyramids are the most incredible thing that the ancients leave us, today many people believe that they were built by us humans, but there is no evidence of that been true, I think there is more evidence of the pyramids been built by other more intelligent race that lived here before our history began.

    SV77

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