{"id":2126,"date":"2010-07-29T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2010\/07\/fiat-lux-1-of-2-2\/"},"modified":"2010-07-29T14:16:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T21:16:48","slug":"fiat-lux-1-of-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2010\/07\/fiat-lux-1-of-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiat Lux (1 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The conference was closed by the sacred dance which I wrote about yesterday, and everyone was invited to participate in the Epagomenal Festival as well. I very much enjoyed the attitude at the festival — while it was kid-friendly, it wasn’t something just<\/em> for the kids, and I received only cheerful invitations when I asked if the event booths were available for the adults to try as well. All in all, it was a truly lovely end to a fascinating and enjoyable weekend.<\/p>\n

So, about the seminars! :)<\/p>\n

Fiat Lux<\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’ll have to write about the first Sunday presentation (Rosicrucian Principles & Scientific Discoveries<\/em>) later, as the one on Fiat Lux<\/em> is what came flooding out of my head as I sat here thinking and remembering.<\/p>\n

The Fiat Lux<\/em> presentation was quite interesting. Apparently there is a fear of Freemasonry as a group or cult which is attempting to establish a so-called New World Order — whereas they apparently see themselves as agents of the Enlightenment. The speculative premise of the speaker, who was himself a very high-ranking member in the Freemasons, is that this fear is unfounded, as the New World Order arrived with the establishment of the United States of America — a democracy ostensibly dedicated to justice, tolerance, freedom of thought and teaching — all of which are apparently also Freemason beliefs.<\/p>\n

I was interested to hear those Enlightenment ideals, and democracy in action, were occurring in the various lodges as early as the very late 1500s. What a great way to train generations of men to think for themselves! In fact, over the years the very word “enlightened” has come to be synonymous with “civilized.”<\/p>\n

If I’m understanding correctly, the Freemasons were originally actually artisans working with stone and buildings, who gathered as a guild and in their meetings expressed their (Hermetic?) beliefs in their gods and nature. Over generations, “gentlemen volunteers” were allowed to join as well, as non-laboring but financially supportive members, which helped evolve the democratically governed and almost franchise-like lodge system. Further, many of the ideas of the approaching Enlightenment (such as advancement by merit rather than birth, democracy rather than divine right, and the equality of man — although they still<\/em> do not allow women to join) were freely discussed in all the lodges.<\/p>\n

Over time, of course, Freemasonry became linked to high social status. Also, according to what I was told by someone at the conference, when the Freemasons achieve the order’s highest-possible rank, they’re invited to join the Rosicrucians. I was quite interested to hear it was Benjamin Franklin, in fact, who inducted Voltaire — what a fascinating meeting of the minds that<\/em> must have been! I suspect it was the influence of remarkable men like those two which helped move the originally esoterically based Freemasons toward a more political, revolutionary bent. Nowadays, since there’s little need for violent revolution, the Freemasons are shifting back towards being a more esoterically based group.<\/p>\n

However, apparently in the mid 1600s to the 1800s, revolution is what the Freemasons were known for — to their dismay. The speaker noted, however, that revolutions occur when there’s a need to utterly change society — most often when desperately needed socio-economic change has occurred, but the associated political modernization is lagging. In those situations it is frequently the citizenry that makes the change — by violently replacing the government.<\/p>\n

Posted via email<\/a> from Collie’s Bestiary<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The conference was closed by the sacred dance which I wrote about yesterday, and everyone was invited to participate in the Epagomenal Festival as well.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3,5,12,9,1,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-review","category-anthropology","category-ethics-questions","category-library","category-minorities","category-uncategorized","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2127,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions\/2127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}