From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 07:43:58 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: [RRE]The Return of Antimasonism in American Political Life
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At 11:42 AM -0800 10/31/98, James A. Donald wrote:
>    --
>At 10:01 PM 10/30/98 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>> I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the United
>> States is now a country in which a man who believes that
>> the President is an agent of the Illuminati has a regular
>> program on public television.
>
>This is not quite as deranged as it seems.  The Masons are of
>course not a conspiracy, but one of the services they provide
>their members is a facility for constructing and operating
>conspiracies.  As a result Masons have been big players on
>all sides in most revolutions.


Masons also had good contacts in what passed for the "intelligence
business" back a few hundred or more years ago. In a time when there was
not much mobility in Europe, as most folks worked farms or ran small shops,
masons were, by their nature, mobile and itinerant construction workers.
They moved to where large building projects were happening, then moved on
when the cathedral or bridge or whatever was completed.

They also needed places to stay when they were in town, so "masonic lodges"
developed. Paid for out of dues collected, with facilities then built.

(No need for such things today, what with hotels and such, but more needed
in, say, 1400.)

The Masons who moved around from town to town and who saw a lot and who met
with other Masons would have access to lots of intelligence about which
kings were planning to expand, about unrest in various areas, etc. Same as
the intelligence that village priests collected in the confessionals and
then fed back through secure channels to Rome. (Not surprising that the
Masons and the Catholics viewed each other with suspicion.)

And then there are the Knights Templars, Cathars, Priory of Sion, and all
the rest of that stuff. (An entertaining read is "Holy Blood, Holy Grail.")

And like many guilds and unions, the flow of knowledge was modulated in
various ways (as usual, to benefit the senior memembers, the bureaucrats,
the "shop stewards," and with the likely cuts to the local kings and
satraps).

There was the expected mumbo jumbo about the knowledge going back to the
Ancients, to the Pyramid builders (back side of the dollar bill fnord), and
secret handshakes (to serve as an indentity credential, as it were).

 Eventually the Masons learned to increase their revenues by letting in
folks who were not actually stoneworkers, and masonry became a professional
contact organization. Hence the large number of Masons who signed the
Declaration of Independence (to royalist Europe, surely a sign of
secularist conspiracy!).

And the memetic power of any secret society is such that various
revolutionaries, mystics, troublemakers, and such will claim connection to
various secret societies, or will recruit from them, etc. Illuminati,
Bilderbergers, Bohemian Grove, etc.

Besides, the Queen of England almost certainly _is_ a dealer of drugs, as
was George Bush and the Boy from Mena.

--Tim May

Y2K: A good chance to reformat America's hard drive and empty the trash.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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