Post by antoninus9 on Oct 30, 2007 0:07:56 GMT
Have you ever read a "Masonic" book? I guess for a book to be "Masonic" it must be about Freemasonry. Right? Well... I'd like to challenge that notion. What is Freemasonry about? Is about itself? Me don't think so.
Some say Freemasonry is about personal development, enlightenment, or making good men/women better. I've always wondered exactly how it's supposed to do that since most mainstream lodges never do much more than meet, eat and pay the bills.
I think change is only possible with a paradigm shift in our perspective of things. So long as we continue to view the world in the same way we will never change, or be able to change others. Traditional Observance Lodges are merely fancy ways of doing the same old things, and I suspect that not much change will evolve from this either.
In general most mainstream Masons today tend to be more concerned with protocols, jurisprudence, and loyalty to a dying system than anything of great value to themselves or humanity. This is the reason why they are going the way of the buggy whip.
The original speculative Freemasons of the eighteenth century were engaged in creating a paradigm shift in the western world. Their ideas were at the core of the Age of Enlightenment. Great men from all over Europe and America belonged to the fraternity because what it had to offer was important and far reaching.
The world today is much like that of the early eighteenth century. We are at a crossroads in our intellectual and spiritual development. Do we turn back to the ways of superstition out of fear of the unknown, or do we push forward into uncharted territory?
Freemasonry is a progressive science and as Masons I believe we must push forward and lead the way into whatever the future holds. To do otherwise would be un-Masonic.
Prof. David Bohm wasn't a Mason, or at least I've never seen any reason to believe he was, but his ideas were aimed at the heart of the Masonic world. As a respected scientist and student of Einstein he dared to put forth the idea that there may be something like a G.A.O.T.U. controlling the dice after all. He ventured to say that there is an implicate order to the cosmos - all the way down to the quantum level. His ideas made the glaring differences between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics merely a matter of perspective. From our perspective it appears that everything is mechanistic, only because we have been trained to think that way, and that a paradigm shift in human thinking was necessary to truly understand the cosmos and the nature of deity.
Freemasonry is stuck in the mud of Newtonian physics when it should be expanding to a better and clearer understanding of everything. By changing our perspective we change ourselves.
I would like to recommend a "Masonic" book to everyone. It's entitled "The Essential David Bohm" edited by Lee Nicole. This is not the easiest book to read and its implications so far reaching that they are difficult to comprehend. It is, however, a book that can teach you to see the world from a different perspective, and create a paradigm sift in your thinking.
It has been read and discussed for several years now in the RRCG, and the UGLA is also recommending it as an essential book for every Masonic library.
I hope all of you can benefit form this material and make use of it for the betterment of the Craft.
Fraternally,
Jeff
Some say Freemasonry is about personal development, enlightenment, or making good men/women better. I've always wondered exactly how it's supposed to do that since most mainstream lodges never do much more than meet, eat and pay the bills.
I think change is only possible with a paradigm shift in our perspective of things. So long as we continue to view the world in the same way we will never change, or be able to change others. Traditional Observance Lodges are merely fancy ways of doing the same old things, and I suspect that not much change will evolve from this either.
In general most mainstream Masons today tend to be more concerned with protocols, jurisprudence, and loyalty to a dying system than anything of great value to themselves or humanity. This is the reason why they are going the way of the buggy whip.
The original speculative Freemasons of the eighteenth century were engaged in creating a paradigm shift in the western world. Their ideas were at the core of the Age of Enlightenment. Great men from all over Europe and America belonged to the fraternity because what it had to offer was important and far reaching.
The world today is much like that of the early eighteenth century. We are at a crossroads in our intellectual and spiritual development. Do we turn back to the ways of superstition out of fear of the unknown, or do we push forward into uncharted territory?
Freemasonry is a progressive science and as Masons I believe we must push forward and lead the way into whatever the future holds. To do otherwise would be un-Masonic.
Prof. David Bohm wasn't a Mason, or at least I've never seen any reason to believe he was, but his ideas were aimed at the heart of the Masonic world. As a respected scientist and student of Einstein he dared to put forth the idea that there may be something like a G.A.O.T.U. controlling the dice after all. He ventured to say that there is an implicate order to the cosmos - all the way down to the quantum level. His ideas made the glaring differences between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics merely a matter of perspective. From our perspective it appears that everything is mechanistic, only because we have been trained to think that way, and that a paradigm shift in human thinking was necessary to truly understand the cosmos and the nature of deity.
Freemasonry is stuck in the mud of Newtonian physics when it should be expanding to a better and clearer understanding of everything. By changing our perspective we change ourselves.
I would like to recommend a "Masonic" book to everyone. It's entitled "The Essential David Bohm" edited by Lee Nicole. This is not the easiest book to read and its implications so far reaching that they are difficult to comprehend. It is, however, a book that can teach you to see the world from a different perspective, and create a paradigm sift in your thinking.
It has been read and discussed for several years now in the RRCG, and the UGLA is also recommending it as an essential book for every Masonic library.
I hope all of you can benefit form this material and make use of it for the betterment of the Craft.
Fraternally,
Jeff