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Post by whistler on Mar 18, 2005 10:33:06 GMT
Ever studied the Chapiter of the pillar. To start the discussion The Chain each loop of seven Links typifies a sub-race, and the seven loops which extend round the pillar making one festoon, correspond to one of the great root-races, such as the Lemurian, the Atlantean or the Aryan. The whole set of seven festoons hanging one below the other denotes one world period, one occupation of this planet
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 18, 2005 15:43:59 GMT
Wibble wibble.
Whistler, I hope you're not going loony on me. Where's Russell when you need him? Transmogrified back to Egypt, no doubt, but stuck in a baggage queue at Luxor. Bloody Easyjet!
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Post by a on Mar 18, 2005 16:04:31 GMT
Ruff
I have found Russells input to be very illuminating. As has yours in the past. I am saddened that he has chosen to no longer post here, especially since his views are representative of a good number of Freemasons worldwide.
Ruff, in the nicest possible way can I ask that you don't ridicule him and his Freemasonry. Please. His guidance has helped me enormously.
Besides which I reserve the right to be the loony one.
Freemasonry is going through (in Masonic terms) a rapid evolution just now. Part of that evolution is the acceptance that due to the Internet different flavours of Freemasonry become more apparent and less hidden. Lets keep the illumination moving and sweep back the darkness.
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Post by whistler on Mar 18, 2005 20:24:05 GMT
The chapiters which fit on the top of the pillars like caps are most interesting. The whole chapiter swells upwards in a somewhat urn-like form , with a flat circular disc resting on it. The upward cuirve of the urn is continued through the disc, and makes a projection above the disc which is a segment of a sphere, which would be visable looking down on the shere from above, though it is not actually a sphere but an oblate spheroid, this somewhat unusual form was adopted in order to give an idea of the true shape of the earth, which was perfectly well known in ancient egypt.
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Post by Hubert (N. Z.) on Mar 18, 2005 22:28:31 GMT
The secrets of Freemasonry are everywhere to be investigated, by verbalising our personal discoveries, more & more data provides us with reasoned info to form or redefine our understanding of the Universe.
I hardly think "wibble, wibble" adds to this excersise. Far more credit would result were contrary ideas posited.
The chapiter also represents the pomegranate, symbol of vast quantities of seeds impregnating the minds of men to further enlightened discoveries.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 19, 2005 3:54:14 GMT
The whole chapiter swells upwards in a somewhat urn-like form , with a flat circular disc resting on it.
Aren't you describing something vaguely suggestive of a tulip bloom? In other words, the capital in the shape of a Blue Lotus which completes each of the pillars in the Hall of Pillars at Luxor? [glow=red,2,300]Tres spooky[/glow], n'est-ce pas?
You are of course perfectly correct that the ancient Egyptians knew the world was spherical - or curved, at any rate.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 19, 2005 4:24:57 GMT
stewart,
I wasn't ridiculing Russell, I just simply drawing a parallel between Whistler's obscure pronouncements on race theory and other, well, what I would call loonyideas of Russell's.
It seems a little unfair to go on at Russell in his absence, and I swear I won't do so any longer than necessary. Russell's loony ideas don't need me to poke fun at them: they come with self-ridiculing as standard. He has a brilliant imagination, I will concede; but he professes to believe what he dreams up, and I'm supposed to sit there and swallow all this BS with a straight face.
Sorry, but I am the little boy in the crowd who, though he try ever so hard, can only see the Emperor's bare bahookie. That may be crude of me. It may seem like an awfully troublesome vice. Such, alas, are the perils of a Classical education, that it does occasionally fling out a runty freethinker like myself.
I bear no ill-will to those courageous enough to pursue recondite paths of inquiry, drednot where they lead. But where do they lead? If into boggy ground full of monstrous imagined truths, can I help but pop up irritatingly, lantern in hand, to direct the obstinate back to the strait way? God that sounds pompous. All I really mean is, I like to have a laugh at silly ideas pumped full of nonsense. That's all.
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 19, 2005 6:30:42 GMT
Whistler, thanks for that. In UGLE Freemasonry the Chapiters are mentioned "en passant" in the Second Degree Tracing Board but that is about it, no greater examination or explanation is made of them. Next time I go to a Passing I will give this a bit more thought and indeed if I am at a Meeting in a Temple where they actually have the Two Great Pillars I will have a look at what you mention. Again thanks.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 19, 2005 18:50:11 GMT
"...each loop of seven Links typifies a sub-race, and the seven loops [...]correspond to one of the great root-races, such as the Lemurian, the Atlantean or the Aryan..."
The ancient inhabitants of the Middle East knew nothing of these "great root-races" (neither do I, as it happens - only one, the Aryan, is even known to have existed, the Indo-European civilisation), but instead believed the world to have been seeded after the Deluge by Noah's three sons, whence come traditionally the Semitic, Hamitic and Japhetic (or European) families of Man.
The appearance of Noah (as the immortal Ut Na Pishtim) in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving document of a cuneiform epos, demonstrates such legends to have been longstanding and very widespread in the region, not culturally peculiar to the Hebrews.
As to the chapiters (or capitals), I quote here from the FC Lecture of the Scots Ritual (Goudielock):
These Pillars were adorned by chapiters, 5 cubits high and enriched by net work, lily work and pomegranates, two hundred in a row : the net work from the closeness of it’s meshes, denoting unity, the lily work purity, and the pomegranates, from the exuberance of it’s seeds plenty : They were further ornamented with a large sphere, placed on top, on which were delineated the terrestrial and celestial globes, denoting ‘Masonry Universal’ and were considered complete when covered with a canopy.
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Post by whistler on Mar 19, 2005 21:56:07 GMT
Whistler, thanks for that. In UGLE Freemasonry the Chapiters are mentioned "en passant" in the Second Degree Tracing Board but that is about it, no greater examination or explanation is made of them. Next time I go to a Passing I will give this a bit more thought and indeed if I am at a Meeting in a Temple where they actually have the Two Great Pillars I will have a look at what you mention. Again thanks. Taylorsman I thought you might find the subject interesting. The band of flowers that hides the junction of the chapiter with the pillar, consists i of a triple row of lilies. the center row which exactly covers the edge of the chapiter are fully opened flowers facing outwards from the pillar with leaves between them, while there is an upper row of tightly-closed buds standing between the flowers of the middle row giving an effect like the points of a crown. The lilies of the third row hang gracefully downwards from the middle row upon curved stems and face various directions. The two pillars are an example of "As above,so Below" for though they are absolutely alike, they represent respectively the terrestrial and celestial worlds. On the left hand pillar the link of each chain symbolize, a branch race and the links as they descended become larger and thicker to indicate a deeper descent into matter, until the fourth when the life force begins to draw inward and upward, and so its embodiment becomes less material.. On the right hand the lilies represent the flowers of humanity, arranged in line round the edge indicating the jewels in the crown of mankind hovering above the human race and directing its evolution. The three bands of lilies . The buds of the upper row, pointing upwards represents the initiates reaching upwards and in that way raising the general average of human thought. The flowers in the middle row opened and faced outwards are iniitates showing forth by their lives the glory, dignity and power of humanity as it should be . The third row the drooping lilies represent initiates reaching down into the world in order to devote themselves to the helping and enlightenment of humanity. HGW
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 20, 2005 19:24:11 GMT
Hubert,
"One could also argue that the 'great deluge of Noah' is fiction too!!"
As in, not literally true? Undeniably so, otherwise the sedimentary record would show traces of this worldwide event, as it has of the little apocalypse which wiped out the dinosaurs and created the Caribbean.
"Undoubtably some catastrophy did occur in some part of the world. That together with time and circumsatnces would easily have hidden/destroyed records pertaining to the 'root-races' Whistler mentions."
I don't think there's any proof of a deluge or comparable event outside of the fossil record. Instead, world culture carries many, many stories of different floods, earthquakes and eruptions, stories of vast loss of life and of survival by scattered groups. All natural disasters follow a pattern - event, effects, death, survival, thanksgiving and recriminations - so all stories of such disasters will naturally tend to resemble one another.
As for these "root-races", if they were anything like as widespread, and were responsible for the kind of technological advances, that people say, we would at least expect more remnants to be left of their civilisations than any two-bit flood could destroy. Even more glaringly absent is their representation in the genetic record of the species.
The closest thing to a genocide which this theory requires is the supposition that at some point considerably more than half the original stock of homo sapiens must have been destroyed, to account for the relatively small population of people now compared to how long we have been on the earth and the historical uniformity of the population in its gradual expansion. The human race as we have it is thought to have grown from a seed population of a few thousands. This means that everyone on earth is more closely related to everyone else than, say, an African plains elephant is to an African forest elephant. But this, presumably natural, genocide occurred during the incunabular stage of human expansionism, when the entire population was still in Africa, about a hundred thousand years or more before we ever entered the Fertile Crescent of Asia.
"The Dead Sea Scrolls is but one example of LOST accounts coming to light."
The Qumran scrolls were never lost, only hidden. The fact that whoever hid them probably died during a suppression of the monastic community in which he lived - or else developed a mighty strong case of amnesia - doesn't detract from them having been deliberately concealed in a cave, the sort of place where a human being might hide something, and also where another human being might some day exercise his curiosity. So they were sure to be found, eventually.
"If further reading is required on Root Races see Theosophical literature [etc.]."
The fault in these sources, from an evidential point of view, is that they are all accounts which have been arrived at psychically. In other words, they are made up. I'm sure their authors did not consciously manufacture untruths, they earnestly believed their own results. Unfortunately that is scientific death. Independent corroboration must always be sought, and where this occurs it makes a strong case for psychic inspiration as a research technique (see John Mitchell's The New View Over Atlantis). Without it, you might as well look to Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson for evidence.
"I think Edgar Cayce has also commented on the subject. "
Q.E.D.: hardly a shining example of corroborated psychic testimony.
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Post by a on Mar 20, 2005 20:17:47 GMT
The fault in these sources, from an evidential point of view, is that they are all accounts which have been arrived at psychically. In other words, they are made up. I'm sure their authors did not consciously manufacture untruths, they earnestly believed their own results. Unfortunately that is scientific death. Independent corroboration must always be sought, and where this occurs it makes a strong case for psychic inspiration as a research technique Ruff, five years ago I would have agreed with you fully here, now I agree partially. Let me explain why. There are certain things about life whih I have come to know, understand, and trust, which to many may appear barmy at first sight. One example of this is feeling energies. Another is Guardian Angels. I could cite others. Anyway I came to a level of understanding which I had great difficulty believing. Then I came to meet some esoterically orientated Freemasons, most of whom have said remarkably little to me beyond a little guidance. But that guidance has come at the precise point that I needed it for me to take my own next steps. Consider the example here of Russell recommending to me Alice Baileys book "Initiation, Solar and human," a little while back on this forum. I read this book and some of what I read made me take note. Why? Because it reflected things that I knew. It offered me external evidence to doors that I had been able to access. I then found out that a good deal of the other stuff that I have come to know is also reflected in such "made up" as you suggest texts. Now how can I prove to you any of this? Not easy I admit. I once, before I understood any of this, sat for hours explaining this sort of stuff to a very high ranking esoterically orientated Freemason, and he listened, and I wondered why he was listening so intently. Now that my understanding has improved I just wish that I could get all such Freemasons in one room where I would offer a very interesting talk. The trouble is Ruff that unless you yourself have knocked at the relevant doors it will appear to be gobbligook. But the doors remain there for you to open. The trouble that I have found with reading these books, is that for all of the benefit they have given me as independent evidence, they have also I think (in a nice way) "polluted" what I know with what I now want to know. So as with many things the concept of "double edged" comes into play.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 20, 2005 21:32:20 GMT
stewart,
I don't think we actually disagree. All I want is external verification for things discovered psychically. Otherwise, how can creative visualisation be successfully dissected from wishful thinking? The psychic sense is affected by so many factors internal to the subject, and of which the subject may be unaware, that objectivity should be utmost.
I appreciate this is rather an external evaluation. Armchair traveller, me: the places sound interesting, but I have a thousand weak-kneed excuses. In my youth, my interests were strongly esoteric and occult. So what's new there? I'm sure there's a Kinsey percentage for that among teenage boys. I skim-read Blavatsky and Bailey - standing in the occult section of a bookshop, most likely - and found them then, as I find them now, unappetising fare. Like being stuck on the ringroad when you want to get to the motorway.
Not that I ventured very far down the motorway itself, you understand, just drew into the Services and sat a long while in a Little Chef reading and scrutinising the Highway Code.
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Post by a on Mar 20, 2005 21:43:22 GMT
Ruff
That is an interesting difference with you and me. I was about 38 before I started to read anything esoteric, and have only really got into into it since Russell recommended Alice Bailey. Prior to that I had read bardons works, and some Kabbalah. But all of this has been in the last couple of years.
Prior to that I just plodded through life. And with reflection with me it was more the motorway even though I did not realise that it was the motorway, hey I did not even know what the motorway was.
About the only esoteric thing that I was consciously aware of prior to this was at the millenium when I stayed up eagerly awaiting the golden capstone to be placed on the Great Pyramid, and feeling very deflated when it did not happen. I sensed that was immensely important (to me in a romantic way anyway), but it was not to be.
However now that I have reflected on my life I could write a book about this sort of stuff.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Mar 20, 2005 21:48:25 GMT
That just sounds like me, but the other way around. Esoteric interests first, then on with the serious business of - - plodding through life.
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Post by whistler on Mar 26, 2005 2:41:19 GMT
A little More on those pillars. On the Other Pillar the crown of flowers around the edge of the disc symbolize the Planetary Logoi. The four chains of lilies flowing down from that crown a signification connected with the Tetraktys, while the triple band of lilies round the lower edge of the chapiter signify the action in matter of the three Aspects of the Logos - the bud the arm always pushing upward and onward with the spirit of man, the middle row shows the strength of the creator ever shining forth as the sun far beyond the clouds and mists of earth the lowest row the betoken the second Aspect, bending down into incarnation and raising humanity from within.. The upper segment of the pillars - the spheroid beyond the disc entirely bare of ornament in order to indicate that beyond all that could be symbolized there was yet something more, out of manifestation, and therefore entirely inexpressible. To quote A E Waite " He who know the mysteries of the two Pillars which are J.. & B..., shall understand after what manner the Neshamoth, or minds, descend with the Ruachoth, or Spirits, and the Napthasoth or souls, through the El-chai and Adonsai by the influx of the said two pillars" and: "By these two pillars and by El-chai (the living God) the Minds and Spirits and Souls descend , as by their passages.." These Pillars also illustrate the doctrine of pairs of opposites - spirit and matter, good and evil, dark and light, peasure and pain and more. These are some explaination of the symbols on just two objects in our Masonic Lodge - To show younger Bro, just how much is in our Masonry, when we pause to look, think and question.
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jmd
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Post by jmd on Mar 26, 2005 3:48:12 GMT
Those pillars are wonderful to study, and their various possible connections to other matters arise, I would suggest, more out of correlations that are made possible from considerations of similarly numbered items than intrinsic meaning.
It is of the nature of symbols that, at times, a part can lead to other reflections. In various esoteric disciplines, and for good naked-eye astronomical reasons, historical reasons, and mathematical reasons, the number seven will again and again lead to various trains of thought.
With regards to the various 'root-races' and the development of consciousness amongst humanity, there is a more (or less) common view in Anthroposophical and Theosophical literature that suggests that indeed humanity has had characteristic phases of incarnation, with characteristic ways of interacting, perceiving the world, etc..
Without the need to argue either for or against such view, it makes sense for those who work with such world views to also consider that a sevenfold vine (or equivalent) refers to seven patterns in humanity's spiritual evolution. Partly where the danger lies is in presuming that somehow those residing in Egypt, or having Egyptian genetic ancestry, are characteristic of ancient Egypt: they are not, and are as present as everyone else.
With regards to the quote from Waite, this seems more of the nature of Kabalistic ideas as understood more along Golden Dawn (and his own later derivative order) than along the lines suggested from Theosophical and Anthroposophical lines: the pillars as representing the left and right-hand 'pillars' on the Tree of Life, and one's 'descent' to Malkut through the lightning flash (or through, sequentially, the Sefirot).
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