It's always sunny in Kazakhstan

It's It's been a while, but because we're a) into flags, b) into suns, and c) into numbers associated with Freemasonry, we thought we'd take a gander at the flag of Kazakhstan.

The flag adheres to the basic "rules" of good flag design: not too many colors (2 or 3), meaningful symbolism, no seals or writing, simplicity, and uniqueness.

One might argue the vertical band to the left is an unnecessary complication, but I don't think so, because it's a typical pattern of Kazakhstan.  That said, I could see the flag without the design and not "losing" anything.  The band was originally red, and changing it to yellow was a good decision.

The design of the sun is not like the Argentine/Uruguay type but more like that of Taiwan or Namibia, in that the rays are triangles detached from the circle.   And there are 32 of them. These 32 rays are said to represent the stages of grain development, but I always geek out on the Masonic use of this number.  There are 32 degrees in the Scottish Rite, or 33 if we count the ultimate, honorary degree.  The Rite is also, it so happens, to be symbolized by an eagle.

When I learned about this,. I didn't think it was an intentional Masonic message wink to those on the level.  A 32-rayed sun?  Coincidence.

Here's Wikipedia on the flag's symbolism.  No Masonry mentioned:

....The pattern represents the art and cultural traditions of the old Khanate and the Kazakh people. The turquoise background symbolises the peace, freedom, cultural, and ethnic unity of Kazakh people including the various Turkic people that make up the present-day population such as the Kazakhs, Tatars, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, as well as the significant Indo-European peoples. The sun represents a source of life and energy. It is also a symbol of wealth and abundance; the sun's rays are a symbol of the steppe's grain which is the basis of abundance and prosperity.

People of different Kazakh tribes had the golden eagle on their flags for centuries. The eagle symbolises the power of the state. For the modern nation of Kazakhstan the eagle is a symbol of independence, freedom and flight to the future.

So, there you go.  The end.  And then....

I was about to put this to bed and then decided to Google  "masonry and Kazakhstan."   What resulted surprised me. Apparently the capital city, created pretty much from scratch, is considered to be rife with occult and Masonic symbolism in it's architecture, parks, and monuments, including pyramids, towers, 32 symbolism, pentagrams, an owls.  Hoo boy, this place has it all.  I have a lot to unpack here; it's not so much a rabbit hole as a full-on warren. Gonna need to dig into this and get back atcha.

Until then, check out this link.  Don't know if I can add much more, and it's just so much to deal with!

Link

Europe Confronts Conspiracy Theory

On an EU website about Europe's COVID response, there are pages about Fighting Disinformation and Identifying Conspiracy Theories. These latter are not just about Covid, but conspiracy theories in general.

I think the latter page is especially useful and both pages should be incorporated into every high school student's curriculum.  Now that an unnamed orange muppet with tiny hands has announced he will run for POTUS in 2024, the page may become a lot more useful to help young people navigate the increasingly murky info-sphere.

I say that half-kiddingly.  I genuinely applaud the fact that the EU finds conspiracy theory a serious enough topic that it needs to be confronted head on.

After the Stateside events of January 6th, (there's that sandy-haired orange muppet again), more people are taking note.  Conspiracy theory has been leading to moral panic, and even violence, since the Romans accused Christians of: plotting to bring down the empire; cannibalism: conducting ritual orgies....probably even before.  

Once Christendom had in effect supplanted the Roman Empire as the warp and woof of Europe (the Romans were right!), the unfortunate target of the conspiracy-fueled mob has more often than not been the Jews. Which is something the EU page notes; conspiracy theory is often crypto-antisemitism.

The name of the players may change, but the elements of moral panic have remained the same since the Middle Ages: medieval blood-libel, the "Rosicrucian furore", the Illuminati, anti-Masonry, Satanic Ritual Abuse, QAnon.  

These elements include powerful, hidden elites; black magic and/or Satanism; trafficking children for ritual sex and murder; an international or even global reach....

QAnon is a political force the orange muppet openly toys with.  Whether he believes it or not is irrelevant.  Many of his supporters do, and it's one reason he wins their votes.  

Democracy can't function when lies and conspiratorial thinking dominate the agora.  Or as the WaPo has put it since the reign of the muppet:  "Democracy Dies in Darkness.". D-D-i-D, yo!

I recommend reading the EU's pages and the downloadable PDFs they make available.  We really may need them in the run-up to 2024.  And maybe even beyond.

I know that global elites working behind the scenes for their own benefit do exist.  By definition, two or more people working illegally for their own ends is a conspiracy.  I would say that in the spheres of business and politics "conspiracy" in it's widest sense is as much the rule as it is the exception.  I also know, thanks to Epstein, that billionaire sex-trafficking exists.  But it ain't Squid Game.

One could say, with or without irony, that the diffusion of outlandish conspiracy theories is itself a kind of disinformation campaign to make people so leery of anything hinting at conspiracy that they just roll their eyes at the very mention of illegal shenanigans in high places; so their crimes are hidden in plain sight. 

I got that reaction when I wrote a paper about the connection between Freemasonry and Scouting.  It sounds so loony that some people refused to read beyond the title for what is a rather sober and well-documented paper.

Anyway, this started out as a simple link to the EU site and as usual has morphed into another LoS prolixity.  And there isn't even a photo!

R.I.P. Dave Lettelier

David Lettelier was the Founding President of Phoenix Masonry and curator of its extensive museum, much of which came from his personal collection.  Over the years Phoenix Masonry has become one of the most visited Masonic websites in North America, if not the world.  Dave's interest in Masonry was broad and the museum showcases all manner of Masonic articles, from Co-Masonry, Prince Hall, Grand Orients....The world of Masonry is vast, complex, and diverse, and on Phoenix Masonry one can find a little of everything.

I wrote a few Masonic essays some years ago that caught Dave's eye and he asked to publish them on the Phoenix Masonry site. I was happy to do so. He later sent me a Phoenix coin which still sits on my mantle with other treasured Masonic items. We never met in person, but had talked about meeting up next time I went back home to Florida. He'd even looked into sending me some Cuban sandwiches packed in dry ice and shipped express to France after I bemoaned not having any Cuban sandwiches here. Dave was just a nice, thoughtful, and generous guy, a broad-minded Mason, and even though we never actually met in person, a friend as well as a Brother.

 

 

We hadn't been in contact for a long time, but a few days back I got a strong urge to write him about a project I am working on in which I thought he might be interested.  Maybe something (GA?) was letting me know that it was then or never, I don't know, because yesterday a mutual acquaintance contacted me to inform me that David had passed. Sad thing is I never sent the letter, and it's my loss not having been able to exchange ideas with him one last time.

 

David was a real mensch and a vital presence in Freemasonry. I will miss him. My sincere condolences go out to his friends and family. I hope it brings them a small measure of comfort to know that David was well-liked and respected and had a positive impact on many lives, including my own.

 

Peace be with you Brother.

 

Please feel free to share your memories in the comments.

Links to Links

Got some referrals recently:

The Knights of the Golden Circle blog reproduced Lone Star Republics orignally here.

Big League Politics referred to Freemasonries: David Henry X°, Clandestinity and Recognition in What Was Kamala Harris Staffer And His Masonic Brothers Doing Behind The LAPD During Trayvon Riots? and Kamala Harris Aide, A Masonic ‘Grand High Priest’ And Phony Cop, Spoke On Her Behalf At Grandmaster Gathering.  I don't endorse their site, it's just me being a completist....

That is all.

...a pointless rock wall as a metaphor for the myopia of the culture-bound...

Israeli West Bank Barrier - Justin McIntosh. CC License.

A wall is defined as "a structure that defines an area, carries a load, or provides shelter or security".  Seems simple enough, but simple definitions are themselves walls that hide complex realities. 

Walls can be made from a large variety of materials and serve a large variety of purposes.  There are many kinds:  Curtain, Mullion, Partition, Party, Infill, Fire, Shear, Knee, Cavity, Pony...and that's just in building lingo.  We won't even go into Facebook walls and firewalls.  They can be works or art or canvases, even the screen for vast and complex animated films.  From Banksy to Blu, the ordinary can be made into something extraordinary, a reclamation of our shared environment.  We don't think about them too much, but we should, for they define us as humans as much as opposable thumbs, binocular vision, and the use of tools.  

"Tear down this wall!" signaled the end of a nearly 100-year geopolitical duopoly whose ramifications are still defining the world in which we live.  The wall in question came crashing down, and the clouds of dust are still settling.  Within this murky atmosphere, the blind and our one-eyed kings are clamoring to put walls back up.  The rich retreat behind them and some western nations are debating them as a way to keep the migrants out.  The collision between globalization and nationalism may well be a story of walls, or a lack thereof.

Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv. Public Domain.

But enough with the stentorian platitudes.  This post came about after seeing a photo of Trump at the Western Wall -- he loves his walls, -- and an EFL class I gave using public art and urbanization as its theme.  We discussed the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and I intended to do a short post about the two walls as places to grieve, where people leave mementos of their grief, whether rolled up pieces of paper with prayers written upon them, or mementos of a war whose combatants are now dying off.  The memories will soon be gone, but the wall will remain.

Some of the most famous walls -- The Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, The Berlin Wall, The West Bank Barrier, Trump's proposed border wall -- were erected to keep people out...or in.  There are score thousands of lesser-known walls all across the world, like their cousins the fence, making manifest the abstract lines on a map that define the boundaries of private and public property, from the homeowner to the state, from anonymous mud-brick dwellings to the only human structure visible from space.  They shelter and protect us from the outside world, from threats real and imagined.  But I wanted to speak of other kinds of walls.

Some of these walls are metaphors, like Pink Floyd's Wall, the emotional barriers to shut out the world, to compartmentalize experience, the kind of walls that allow a preacher to spread the gospel on Sunday and snort methamphetamine with male prostitutes on Saturday.  Or in this case "where traumatic experiences are represented as 'bricks' in the metaphorical wall [the hero] constructs around himself that divides him from society."

 

The Walls of Jericho were blown down a trumpet....the Walls of Jerusalem and countless other cities the scene of great mayhem and carnage.  Alexander the Great scaled walls like a spider, single-handedly jumping into a walled city to inspire his troops along their unstoppable march to India and back to Macedonia.  And when there were no more walls to breach, he died.

"Shaka, when the walls fell"....in an episode of Star Trek, this is a phrase uttered by an alien trying, incidentally, to break down the walls between humans and his race.  In that episode, the language barrier is eventually overcome.  The aliens speak in allegory and though Capt. Picard and crew understand the words, the meaning is lost without knowing the ur-tales to which the allegory refers.  When the walls fall, the language barrier drops.  Dialogue is established and when Riker asks Picard if they'd made friend that day, Picard can answer that at the very least, they didn't make an enemy.

Some walls exist only because they are all that's left of an edifice, like The Western Wall, the last remaining remnant of Solomon's temple.  Jews go there to mourn the destruction of the Temple and pray for its reconstruction, leaving prayers on rolled up papers pushed into the crevasses.  It is the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray -- the holiest site is actually behind it.  Some rabbis teach that the Foundation Stone is located near the El-kas fountain, opposite the exposed section of the wall and where the Holy of Holies once stood.  As a practical reality, the wall symbolizes the great obstacle to the restoration of Judaism, for Islam's second-holiest shrine, the Dome of the Rock, sits atop the Temple Mount.  Its destruction would unleash Armageddon.  As long as the Dome of the Rock stands, the Temple cannot be rebuilt.  It is an impassable wall with apocalyptic ramifications.  As the location of the Foundation Stone, it recalls that our earthly creation was in effect the separation of Man from God; it is a great wall separating Heaven from Earth.

In addition to the mosque on the Temple Mount, Muslims revere the wall because it is believed that the Prophet's miraculous steed was tethered to it by Muhammad during his night flight to Jerusalem.

Stoning the Devil in Mina - Al Jazeera English. CC License.

During the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca incumbent upon all able-bodied Muslims with the means to undertake it, Muslims also perform a ritual called the Stoning of the Devil.  Pilgrims throw seven pebbles at three walls (jamarāt), from east to west, in order to reenact a part of Abraham's pilgrimage, where he threw pebbles at three pillars.  For safety reasons, in 2004 these pillars were replaced by walls.  The walls represents God's temptation of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael to renounce the sacrifice of Ishmael.  They also represent casting away base desires and are a repudiation of the self before God.  This renunciation also serves to bring the pilgrim closer to God; the walls in effect represent not just temptation, but sin itself, and thus represent, much like the Western Wall, the separation of God and Man.

Again, like the Western Wall, walls serve a stand-in for the buildings themselves.  Sacred Walls:  Learning from Temple Symbols, is a book about the symbols found on the walls of a Mormon temple, symbols which communicate to the faithful.

Both books and buildings have voices.... However, even though architectural symbolism existed before the written word, the message of a building is often difficult for most of us to recognize.

For Latter-day Saints, temples are the most important and symbolic buildings in existence. Through temples the unique doctrines of the restored gospel are communicated...

This unique and fascinating book is designed to help you see the House of the Lord with new eyes as you examine the “voices” of temple exteriors along with the “voices” of the Book of Mormon....

Gate of a Hunting Ground - Jean Jacques Lequeu. Public domain.

This is no different from a Catholic cathedral, which is in many ways a Bible in stone, a visual didactic tool for the illiterate.  It is "architecture parlante" -- or speaking architecture.  Architecture parlante may be as simple as an inscription or phrase, a quote perhaps, to instruct and to declare the building's purpose.  Or it may be that a building's form reflects its purpose:  the cooper's atelier is shaped like a barrel, the brothel resembles an erect penis (yes, those were real proposals).  The idea of architecture parlante was originally "voiced" at the time of the French Revolution by architects Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Étienne-Louis Boullée, and Jean-Jacques Lequeu.  "The same concept, in the somewhat more restrained form of allegorical sculpture and inscriptions, became one of the hallmarks of Beaux-Arts structures" and was a recurring feature of American civic architecture.  The severity of Modernist architecture saw a decline in the use of ornament and inscription, but Post-Modernist architects have revived it.

Married (Mario Roverto Durán Ortiz). CC License.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is composed of three parts: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the Three Servicemen Memorial, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial.  These latter were erected to appease early critics of the original memorial -- which consisted of the Wall alone -- who deemed it shameful because of its unconventional design, black color and lack of ornament.  Sad to say, architect Maya Lin's gender and ethnicity were a factor in much of the negative reaction (Ross Perot reportedly called her an "egg roll").   It's since become highly regarded, if not revered.  The Memorial Wall is a wall that doesn't enclose or bear anything at all.  Like the Western Wall, people leave articles, not prayers necessarily, but personal mementos.  As one travels along the wall it gets higher and the names of the dead eventually rise over one's head.  It's a mournful black, and a mirror in which one can see oneself reflected.  It is spare, elegant and deeply moving.  It has the atmosphere of a holy place, like an outdoor temple.  Visitors are hushed and while there is no wailing, there are a lot of tears.  It's perhaps one of the most powerful memorials in Washington, and has been described as a "wound that is closed and healing".  In a sense, it is architecture parlante, and it is a dialogue.

The three soldiers appear to be looking at the wall and there is something archetypal about their number: Three Kings, Freemasonry's Three Ruffians, The Trinity.... 
 

Cliff (cliff1066) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3041642644/.  CC License.

The Women's Memorial also depicts three uniformed women evoking perhaps the Three Mary's, with a wounded soldier.  It is a Pietà in all but name.

The wall has proven so popular that at one point three half-sized portable versions traveled across the country and to date have attracted tens of millions of visitors.  There are four other traveling versions of differing scale, and four fixed replicas.

The idea that architecture can communicate something, a set of ideals or civic virtues, may be a high-falutin' topic to be bandied about by art historians and architects, but something in it resonates in the popular imagination:  "If these walls could talk...." some people say, as if the walls, silent witnesses, retain memories of scenes enacted within them, like video cameras which record but cannot play back.  The artists Blu and Banksy have made them speak, however, often quite eloquently.  The simple wall, however, unadorned, can often speak volumes.  While ostensibly barriers, they can serve to identify where one space meets another and serve as points of communication.  Why have more than one space at all?  Boundary stones, fences, great walls....are these basically human equivalents of pissing on rocks to mark a territory, like most graffiti?  One piss stain upon another?  I dunno, It's too late for more of my grade-school philosophizing.  I just thought it was neat how that photo of Trump at the Western Wall popped into my monitor about the same time I was discussing the Vietnam Memorial Wall, two walls where people feel compelled to leave stuff.  The rest is just riffing.  Breaking on through to the other side.

And with that, I'm Audi 5000.

PS

Looks like I hit "Publish" too soon.  Reading about the Robert Frost poem "Mending Wall" (of "Good fences make good neighbors" fame), I came across the following analysis of the themes, stating more or less what I was trying to say at some point in the post:

The poem explores the contradictions in life and humanity, including the contradictions within each person, as man "makes boundaries and he breaks boundaries".  The poem also explores the role of boundaries in human society as mending the wall serves both to separate and to join the two neighbors, another contradiction....Then, in "Mending Wall", Frost meditates on the role of language as a kind of wall that both joins and separates people.

"Out of something comes something else"

I was reading Christopher Dawes' book Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail th'other day and he mentioned a product called Lyle's Golden Syrup.  Specifically, the tin; this features an olde-fashioned logo (dating from 1885) featuring a dead lion, above which fly a swarm of bees.  According to Wikipedia:

This is a reference to the Biblical story in chapter 14 of the Book of Judges in which Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife. During the journey he killed a lion, and when he passed the same spot on his return he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. Samson later turned this into a riddle at a wedding: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness". While it is not known exactly why this image and slogan were chosen, Abram Lyle was a deeply religious man, and it has been suggested that they refer either to the strength of the Lyle company or the tins in which golden syrup is sold.

What really struck me about this was the motto on the tin, which reads:

"Out of the strong came forth sweetness"

 

Readers of LoS will recall that in our last post, we reproduced the coat of arms of Americana, a Brazilian town founded by Confederate emigres; it not only features a beehive and two bees, but the motto "Ex Labore Dulcedo" which I have seen translated as "The Sweetness of Labor" or "Pleasure arises from Labor" but which I think could be translated as 

"Out of Labor comes forth Sweetness"

The Confederados who founded Americana were farmers, specializing in, unsurprisingly, cotton, but also in watermelon.  They probably had their fair share of beekeepers as well.  But the hive here was probably chosen because the Confederados were overwhelmingly Freemasons, and the Freemasons used the beehive as a symbol both of industry and of a well-ordered society.  Both the Mormons and the Jacobins borrowed the symbol from the Masons.  Indeed, Utah is called the "Beehive State".  The Jacobins were drawing on French tradition as well.  

In 1653 the Merovingian King Childeric's tomb was found, containing hundreds of small golden bees, and Napoleon later adopted this symbol for himself as opposed to the Bourbon fleur-de-lys; as a symbol of the first royal dynasty of France, perhaps the bee was far more appropriate to mark the foundation of a new France than the symbol of a recently vanquished dynasty.  To this day, metropolitan France is referred to as the "hexagon" for it's rough approximation of the form.  And of course, honeycomb is a series of hexagons.....

No indication that Abram was a Freemason, by the way, and I'm not suggesting a link between the Mormons, the Confederados of Lyle's Golden Syrup.  Just the common symbolic currency of the era....

Ain't just whistlin' Dixie

One would think that Civil War reenactors would be limited to the American states where the war was actually fought. Then again there probably aren't too many members of the SCA from Westeros, and hell, even in my podunk French village there's a Western-style ranch where once or twice a summer they do a rodeo and men with beards show up in American pickups, flying American flags, duded up in shit-kickers and leather vests.  So if the French can play cowboy, why can't the Brazilians play the Song of the South?

To be fair, they actually have a reason: they are descendants of American Southerners who'd been enticed by the Brazilian government to settle the country before the Civil War even began.  Quite a few went, and today the cities of Americana and Santa Barbara d'Oeste are peopled with, um, people, bearing British surnames, including a name in my family tree: Carr (Amos Adkins married one Mary Carr ca. 1801).

I mentioned these Confederados in my post about the "Golden Circle" (Lone Star Republics, July 2013), a long-time dream of a group of slave-owners of creating a slave-holding empire centered on Havana, with a radius reaching up to the Mason-Dixon line and down to the northern tip of South America and everything in between.

After the Civil War, many of the defeated Confederates moved and set up operations in Cuba and Brazil, where slavery was still legal until the 1880's.  In Brazil they and their descendants are known as Confederados.  The dream of the Golden Circle didn't die with the Confederacy.

Brazil was perhaps not the ideal location, but it was sparsely populated, agricultural, and most of all, friendly to slavery.  It was the last holdout in the Americas against abolition.

I have a French friend who's lived in Brazil some years now and we were discussing this yesterday before he pressed on with his European visit and then lo and behold, the New York Times wrote an article about annual celebrations by the descendants of the Confederados.

Critics see the outfits and the romanticism, the Stars and Bars Confederate battle flags being flown, and point out that the whole issue of slavery is being sidestepped.  The celebrants counter that for them, the flag and celebration don't honor slavery or racism, it's all about heritage.  A familiar argument.  I'm sure this is often true.  But I recently saw a segment of Amy Shumer's Chelsea Handler's show about reenactors in the US, and the discourse of the participants was flat-out racist, not in a "hateful" way, but the extremely patronizing and romanticized version of history was pretty jaw-dropping.  Slaves were happy and well-cared for, certainly not ill-treated....why would you treat your property poorly? etc.  Well, even if this is a selective presentation of the participants' attitudes, it was authentic, and something tells me their attitude is less exception than rule.

I don't want to say that anyone proud of their heritage is a racist, but man, I'm from the South, and people who fly the Confederate flag are a dime a dozen and most of them would probably not be among those pushing for say, the recognition of MLK Day.  Knowhutimean, Vern?  A lot of people who fly the Confederate flag tend to casually refer to blacks with epithets.  I'm from Florida and there you hear it often enough that you can draw some conclusions.

The process of "de-Confederatization" was hammered out militarily and politically during Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Era, but the cultural legacy is today's news nearly daily.  It began with getting the Stars and Bars so-called Confederate flag off of state flags, but is now being fought out over the names of schools or buildings, and monuments to specific Confederate Generals.  I wrote about this earlier in the year (The Politics of Removal; Pulling an Oneida).  Whatever misgivings you may have about the destruction of the past in this form, you have to understand at least to some degree why a black guy walking down the street isn't going to feel so good about seeing a monument to Jefferson Davis.  States' Rights, heritage, whatever you want to call it, the Confederacy and the Civil War boil down to slavery.  The flag commonly referred to as the "Confederate flag" was never even the national flag of the CSA at all, and it was never a part of any state's flag until the 50's and 60's, added there in order to defy the Federal gub'ment as a symbol of white supremacy and in defiance of integration.

Interestingly, the coat of arms of Americana includes a shield with the Stars and Bars Confederate battle flag:

Notice also the center is adorned with a beehive, a symbol used by Freemasons and Mormons to symbolize hard work, industry, and a harmonious social order where everyone knows their place and does their job.  I don't know if the beehive is a Masonic reference, nor if the obelisk in the town cemetery was erected by Masons.  The obelisk has become the focal point, however, for Confederado celebrations, bearing an engraved Stars and Bars Confederate battle flag on the socle. I only muse about the possible Masonic connection because the Golden Circle scheme appears to have been the long-standing dream of a group of Freemasons in New Orleans who were involved in the establishment of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, the Republic of Texas, several failed invasions of Cuba, and other filibustering expeditions south of the border.  I know this sounds a little wing-nutty, but I think if you read my Lone Star Republics post and look at the references, you'll find that although it's not a well-known history and corresponds too neatly with the wildest of conspiracy theories, the fact remains that a shadowy group of Freemasons in New Orleans were using the cover of the Lodge to plot the overthrow of the Catholic Spaniards throughout the Americas using rhetoric pulled straight from the degrees of the Scottish Rite.

The descendants are organized into the Fraternidade Descendência Americana and their symbol doesn't do much to disprove the possibility of a Masonic connection.  Triangle logo?  Check.  Masonic symbol of Fraternity?  Check.

Of course, it begins to look as though these things are Masonic in origin after all, when you see that in the cemetery where these present-day Confederados gather every three months there is a monument to pioneering Confederate settler Col. William H. Norris, honored with a triangle/pyramid monument with unmistakable Masonic symbolism:

http://cronicas-cronicas.blogspot.fr/2012/08/razao-no-4-cemiterio-do-campo-ou.html

Norris was a veteran of the Mexican-American War, an Alabama state senator, and the leader of a group of 30 Confederate families who set off for Brazil after the end of the Civil War.  In 1861 he had been elected Grand Master of the Alabama Masonic Lodge.

Norris helped establish the Confederate presence in Americana and Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and began planting cotton.  He served as a Congressman for the State of São Paulo and was commissioned as a Colonel in the National Guard.  It is said that he purchased his land with a cache of gold buried on his farm that his wife had saved from being taken by Union soldiers after flashing some sort of Masonic hailing sign at their commanding officer.

Full disclosure:  I am descended from one Culvin F. Sanders, a lawyer who served in the Army of Tennessee as a cavalry Captain in the Buckner Guards under General P. R. Cleburne.  He participated in all the battles of the Army of Tennessee.  He was also a Freemason, as all his descendants have been.  I loathe what he fought for, and feel no real family fealty, yet I admit, perhaps to my discredit, some ambivalence about that heritage.  As I've said in other posts about Confederate monuments, I would not seek to honor it, but recognize it, and perhaps somehow understand what responsibilities I have regarding my past, and what I can do to ameliorate its legacy.

Info for the following part of this post comes from an article that can be read here.

Now, you might think I'm making too much of this Masonic connection, but dig this, one entrance to Americana is marked by a large Square and Compasses because it was "founded in 1865 by Confederate emigrants, most of them Freemasons...."

At least 154 families began the migration in 1865 and maybe as many as 4000 more joined them in the next ten years (although half eventually headed back).

Why Brazil?  Well, as I discussed in my post on the Golden Circle, Texas, Central America and South America, along with the Caribbean, had long been eyed as having the potential for a Southern slave-holding confederation much like Confederate States of America.  As we saw in that post, many of these efforts were led by Masons. 

As it turns out, the Confederados' emigration was facilitated by prominent Freemasons in Brazil and even the Emperor Dom Pedro I was a Mason.

The Masons founded George Washington Lodge in the village before it had even been named Americana.  They'd been encouraged by Freemason Charles Nathan, a member of a Brazilian immigration society that helped arrange passage to Brazil via New Orleans.  More encouragement came from Freemason Taveres Bastos, founder of the immigration society and friend of the Emperor, who as previously mentioned, was himself a Freemason, like his father before him.

Another Freemason and friend of Bastos was Joachim Maria Saldaña Mariño, co-editor of a liberal newspaper in Rio de Janeiro and Grand Master of the Grande Oriente do Brasil ao Vale dos Beneditinos, the Emperor’s branch of Freemasonry. He was also President of São Paulo, the province where Americana was founded.  Mariño was particularly active in the mid-1860s in the cause of separation of church and state.  Mariño signed one Alabama migrant's Masonic papers, a fellow named Dr. Russell McCord.  These documents not only testify to the Brazilian-Confederate amity; a second signer was José Maria da Silva Paraños, the Visconde do Rio Branco. He was also Grand Master of the Grande Oriente do Brasil, and he was the author of the first emancipation legislation that led to the abolition of slavery in Brazil.  Ironic, no?

As previously stated, half of the Confederates didn't stick it out, but those that stayed are the ancestors of a small but proud minority in Americana.  In the small museum that celebrates the Confederados, Masonry is not given short-shrift, and they hold their quarterly festivals in the cemetery of their ancestors, amid plenty of Confederate flags and people in historical dress, and headstones emblazoned with the Square and Compasses....

 ****

Erratum:  In this post I originally referred to the "Confederate battle flag" as the "Stars and Bars."  I was mistaken, as Mr. Dawson points out in a comment below.  The "Stars and Bars" was nickname of the first national flag of the CSA and doesn't resemble the more familiar battle flag with the 13 stars arranged in a saltire cross.  This flag in a square form was used as The Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and in rectangular form as The Second Confederate Navy Jack.  It appears in the canton of the 2nd and 3rd national flags and also in The Second Confederate Navy Ensign.  It also appears in the canton of other battle flags and there are some variations.  It is now certainly more well-known than the Stars and Bars and is used widely as a symbol of the South and the CSA.  It is also widely known as the "Confederate Flag", though strictly speaking, this is inaccurate.  I refer to it as the "Confederate flag" or the "Confederate battle flag" in place of "Stars and Bars"; this is indicated by a strikethrough in the text.  In any event, it is the flag chosen by the Confederados and seems ubiquitous in photos of their celebrations, whereas the national flags aren't pictured at all.  Thanks to Mr. Dawson to pointing out my error.  My apologies.

I also came across these articles looking to see what nomenclature other writers used in connection with Americana.

Vice weighs in with a piece on the Confederados' view of their heritage and writes a parallel narrative about modern slavery in Brazil:  The Brazilian Town Where the American Confederacy Lives On

The Fog of Policy refers to the Vice and NYT articles in The Confederacy Still Lives in the Deep Deep South

Wikipedia: Flags of the Confederate States of America

The Order of St. Hubertus (and other assorted Bavarians and Bohemians)

Screen shot of IOSH homepage

Back in 2011 I made a facetious post about "evil Masonic braumeisters".  A little jest to be sure, but strangely prophetic.  Five years on and we're in a bit of a constitutional tizzy over how to best go about replacing our recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice.  Doesn't look like the congressional Republicans are going to budge and will block any Obama nominee until he's out of office and can no longer press the issue.

We'll get to the fraternities and alcohol in a minute.

Scalia died at what appears to have been a meeting (perhaps merely informal), of the Order of St. Hubert, an aristocratic order of hunters founded by one Count Anton von Sporck in 1695, a man who is also said to have dabbled in Freemasonry.  The order promotes hunting and sportsmanlike conduct, in addition to respecting animals and minimizing their suffering; responsible hunters, in other words.  These are teachings handed down by their namesake.

Reading about St. Hubert (656-727 CE), I came across a passage about the vision he had one Good Friday; he'd skipped Church to go hunting, a pursuit in which he'd become immersed after the death of his wife.  He had retired from the world to hunt.

Chasing a stag (or hart) on that day, he was astounded to see it stop and turn towards him; a glowing crucifix appeared between its antlers and a voice said to him:  "Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell". Hubert dismounted, prostrated himself and said, "Lord, what wouldst Thou have me do?" He received the answer, "Go and seek Lambert, and he will instruct you."

Hubert then sought out Lambert, Bishop of Maastricht, becoming his protege and successor.  Hubert embarked upon a life of piety and evangelism, becoming Bishop of Liège in 708 CE.  He laid down several principles for ethical hunting and wildlife management that are still highly-regarded among German-speaking hunters to this day.  He generally seems to have been a decent fellow and died peacefully in 727.

Drive Dull Care away with some Jäger shots

Hubert's vision of the hart made me think of the Jägermeister label; which I've been meaning to use in a post for years.  Finally the opportunity has arisen.  The Jäger label is indeed a reference to St. Hubert's vision.

But it does not only honor St. Hubert.  The label also represents the vision of St. Eustace, another patron of hunters.  Even the church says that Eustace is probably a spurious figure, as no evidence proves he ever existed, but his legend has become mixed with that of Hubert. 

This legend has it that Eustace was a Roman general.  Once, out hunting, he had a vision of a crucifix between a stag's antlers under pretty much the same circumstances as Hubert.  It seems Eustace's cult pre-existed that of Hubert, but it's possible they both have pre-Christian antecedents.  The stag (or hart, or hind) makes many appearances in various pagan mythologies.

According to the legend, after his vision Eustace converted to Christianity and baptized his family.  Eustace then went through a series of Job-like misfortunes, yet he always remained steadfast in his faith.  His patience served him well, for a time.  He was eventually restored to his position and reunited with his family.  But like many early Christians, the occasion arose where he refused to sacrifice to a pagan altar and thus he set the chain of events into motion that would lead to his martyrdom.  In this case he and his family were roasted to death inside a giant bronze bull (or ox) in 118 CE.

The refusal to sacrifice before a pagan altar is a common theme in the hagiographies of these early Christian martyrs.  St. Sernin of Toulouse (Hubert's birthplace) refused a pagan sacrifice and was killed by being tied to a bull (or ox) and dragged down the street until his head cracked open.  This road is now called the Rue du Taur and the site of his original tomb is a small church called Notre Dame du Taur.  The Matabiau quarter of Toulouse also takes it's name from this event and the big bell in a Toulouse-style carillon is known as the "big bull".

Anyway, Curt Mast, original distiller of Jägermeister, was an avid hunter and so named his drink appropriately; Jägermeister translates to "Hunting Master", a title familiar to Germans for centuries.

When the Nazis reformed the hunting laws in 1934 "Jägermeister" was applied to senior foresters, game wardens, and gamekeepers.  Hermann Göring, who was a particularly active hunter, was appointed Reichsjägermeister at that time, so when the drink was introduced in 1935, some people called it "Göring-Schnaps."  In addition to being an avid hunter, Mast was a local politician and joined the NSDAP on May Day, 1933.  He claimed it was political opportunism and a way to help his fragile business (he was never prosecuted after the war), but Mast did become pals with Göring, probably bonding over hunting. (source)

Now here's something I've just read and had already suspected:

Some historians have noted that Hitler and Göring’s hunting regulations actually had little to do with concerns for animal welfare and were merely part of a concerted attack upon the German aristocracy. Hitler and Göring had a dream of giving each of the Jägermeisters their own private hunting grounds as a symbol of their position of privilege within the Reich. Curt Mast became a Jägermeister and organised hunting parties for leading Nazi dignitaries at the Reichsjägerhof, Göring’s hunting lodge. Sensing an opportunity to rebuild his business interests on the back of his association with the new hunting fraternity, Mast re-branded the herbal liqueur that his company produced as the official drink of the hunt. (boldface added)

Göring's relationship to the Order of St. Hubert bears this speculation out:

In 1938, after Austria was absorbed by the German Reich, Herman Göring demanded membership on the Order [sic] and executed the Grand Prior when he was denied. At the end of the World War surviving members of the Order, were authorized by Halvor O. Ekern, chief political adviser of the US Armed Forces in Austria to use their sporting guns to provide winter food to the rural population, avoiding not only famine but helping to save the country from falling behind the Iron Curtain. (source)

The Order was Restituted on May 1st 1950 by Albert Franz Messany at the request of Chancellor Figi of Austria. In order to better reflect its new multi-national character it was redesignated as International Order of St. Hubertus.

Reichsjägermeister Hermann Göring --
1937 Hunting Exposition in Berlin

I wonder if  "helping to save the country" meant using their sporting rifles for more than hunting.  Could they have been re-armed in order to fight the Communists?  The aristocracy had a lot to lose to both the Communists as with the Nazis before them....

Despite the Nazi's attacks on the aristocracy and the apparent sympathy of Curt Mast, the hunting ethics espoused by Jägermeister, the Order of St. Hubert, and the Nazi reforms all kind of match.  There is an un-credited verse from a poem by outdoorsman Oskar von Riesenthal (1830–1898) on each bottle which the company translates as:

It is the hunter’s honour that he
Protects and preserves his game,
Hunts sportsmanlike, honours the
Creator in His creatures.

This is very much the same creed as the Order of St. Hubertus: "Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures". Jägermeister, as the story goes, was intended to go with "a toast with which every hunt would begin and end."

The symbolism of Hubert, patron of hunters is reproduced in the crests of various German hunting clubs to this day.  Thus it is so with the Deutsches Jägerverein, the Nazi-era German hunting organization.  Interesting how the swastika has replaced the cross.

http://www.rzmilitaria.com/viewitem.php?id=10066

Göring apparently took his role as Jägermeister seriously and sincerely threw himself into the reforms of German hunting laws.  This page shows a collector's one-of-a-kind Deutsches Jägerverein collar pin, custom-made for Göring himself, a collar pin with the antler/swastika motif we see on the flag above.  Göring posed for a painting wearing this collar pin and in his Jägermeister uniform, and this painting of him appeared on the covers of both Time and Life, in 1940 and 1939, respectively.

If Göring took his role this seriously, imagine his fury when he was refused membership in the Order of St. Hubert.  Furious enough to execute the prior, apparently.  This really is a medieval saga.  Whatever else you want to say about the Order, that their leader would die rather than admit Göring speaks volumes about their attitude towards the Nazis.  This was a microcosm of the tensions and conflicts in Nazi Germany, the uneasy relationship between the old aristocrats, the Church, and the Party.  Although anti-Bolshevism united them, the old guard must have resented this new Nazi power structure and the Church certainly couldn't have been happy with seeing a swastika replace the cross; this wasn't just a question of the hunting clubs.  It also reminds me that assassination attempts on Hitler were organized by aristocrats within the Army; Clause von Stauffenberg was one of the last conspirators, but a quick glance at the list of assassination attempts on Hitler between 1940 and 1944 -- and there are quite a few -- show that most were organized by members of the aristocracy, after the war began.  Before the war, there were also a few attempts on Hitler's life, but these did not seem to implicate the aristocracy.

I'm betting that when it was "restituted" in 1950, those Americans invited to join the Order of St. Hubert were neck deep in de-Nazification and anti-Communist activities.  Just a hunch.  Ambassadors, Generals, and "others", including the George Wood who established the American branch at the Bohemian Club in 1968.  It would be interesting to see what other groups the Order has links to, either within the arcane labyrinth of Catholic lay orders (Knights of Malta, Knights of Columbus, Opus Dei, the Jesuits....) or factions or within the intelligence community.

Something about that period between the Order's dissolution by the Nazis and their Postwar rebirth intrigues me.  A group of powerful men which spread out to include Americans at the highest levels of the Postwar occupation.  It seems a bit strange that five years after the war's end, ambassadors and generals were joining the clubs of their recent enemies, and 16 years later creating an American chapter at the site of the most elite group of men in America, the Bohemian Club.

What intrigues me in this context about the Bohemian Club (despite the name -- remember the Order is of Bohemian origin) is its tangential connection to another German organization called the Schlaraffia.  It would appear that a number of American elite groups have their roots in German culture.

The Schlaraffia is a fraternal society founded in Prague (Bohemia) in 1859.  It is a German-speaking club founded by people much like the founders of the Bohemian Club, people involved in the arts and theater.  Like the Bohemian Club, their symbol is an owl and their philosophy is one of fun; once stepping into their "castle", they remind themselves to leave dull care outside.  The Bohemian Club was founded in 1879 and we know the Schlaraffia existed in San Francisco in 1884.  Is it possible that they are connected, that the Bohemian Club was inspired by the Schlaraffia?  The latter conduct their meetings in German, so perhaps the B.C. was created to make a more accessible organization?  (I'd be remiss not to point out that Terry Melanson first made me aware of these connections).

I almost feel apologetic bringing it up, but I'd also like to mention the Skull and Bones, founded at Yale in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft (father of the future president and no small shakes himself).

Skull and Bones doings are largely unknown, but there is talk of a rebirth initiation ritual which involves the candidate lying in a coffin and recounting their sexual history.  There are photos of Bohemian Grove encampments where a similar ritual is enacted, a man lying in a coffin-shaped array of candles prayed over by robed figures.  This rebirth ritual is a fairly well-known element in various Masonic Rites.  The Schlaraffia has three grades, which also brings to mind Masonic organization.  What interests me here though, is that like the Order of St. Hubert, the Schlaraffia, and the Bohemian Club, the Skull and Bones has a connection to the German-speaking world.  Founder Wm. Russell allegedly got his idea for the Skull and Bones after returning from a trip to Germany, where quasi-Masonic secret societies were quite popular, some of which are said to have modeled themselves on the Illuminati (a group I have purposefully avoided in my writings on this topic thus far).  The Bavarian Illuminati was founded in 1776 at Ingolstadt, about 360 KM from Prague, basically a stone's throw from Bohemia.

Interestingly, there is another order, The Bavarian Order of Saint Hubert, a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood founded in 1444 or 1445 to commemorate a victory on Saint Hubert's day.  There doesn't appear to be a connection to this order and the International Order of St. Hubertus, despite the name, but if we're looking to complete a Bavarian/Bohemia axis, I suppose there's value in following up on this.  St. Hubert was in fact the patron saint not only of hunters, but soldiers as well, which is logical.  At least one historical military unit used the horns and cross imagery:  the Royal Bavarian Jäger Regiment Nr. 1 (again with the Bavarians!). Jäger units were elite light infantry and the word in this sense can translate to "Ranger", which has the sense of both the US Army's elite units and forest rangers.  Think Aragorn in Lord of the Rings: aristocrat, woodsman, badass soldier, Ranger.  The first Jäger units were indeed recruited from gamekeepers, hunstmen, and foresters, people with both a knowledge of the woods and firearms, and who were also closely linked to the aristocracy who appointed them.  The first units of this type were formed in 1632 in Hesse-Kassel and in the modern German army the term is still used for elite Special Forces.

Crest of the 1st and 2nd Battalions and the 2nd  Reserve Battalion - Royal Bavarian Jäger Regt. 1

So, a lot of elements to ponder.  My German history is piss-poor, so I have probably missed some interesting connections someone else might have easily picked up on.  I did, however, think of one other thing, which is almost embarrassing to include; but what the Hell....

The Church of Satan has a rebirth ritual involving sexual rites and a coffin, called the Ceremony of the Stifling Air. Anton LaVey obviously cribbed his work from pre-existing Masonic Rites (like he cribbed everything in the Satanic Bible, from John Dee to Ayn Rand and Ragnar Redbeard).  Interesting time the 60's, especially 1966 (666 get it?); the same year George Wood was appointed Grand Prior, Anton LaVey launched the Church of Satan, on April 30th, which in the occult world goes by the German name of Walpurgisnacht....

Which brings me back to the question....who the f--k is George Wood?

Apocalypse France: La France Maçonnique

La France maçonnique from TOPDOC on Vimeo.

La France maçonnique is the first episode in a series of documentaries entitled Apocalypse France.  It's currently only available in French, but will eventually be subtitled for the wider world.

The film takes a dim view of French Masonry, especially the Grand Orient, which is described as a lobby with strong ties to the Socialist Party and a historically strong influence in French politics, from the Revolution to today.  It claims, for example, that Masonic nepotism resulted in a disproportionate number of Masonic generals in the French Army at the beginning of the First World War, chosen regardless of competence, with disastrous results.  The documentary also proposes that Masonry is essentially the religion of the Republic!  There are certainly links in the expressed values of the Republic and the Craft, attested to by its language and symbols.  How this translates into concrete policy actions is another story.

Does the film exaggerate Masonic influence in France?  This is a good question, and I'm not sure the film makes a tight case; the interviewees generally have a negative view of the Craft, and with one or two exceptions, positive views are not well represented.  I think the film has some valid points to make, but it suffers from a lack of historical background, context and examples of if and how specific Masonic initiatives have been implemented as official state policy.  For example, the film mentions that Jules Ferry, a Freemason, succeeded in passing the laws which bear his name in 1881 and 1882; these laws made public education free, non-clerical, and mandatory.  But that's the extent of the reference.  In Argentina, in 1884, education also became free, compulsory, universal and non-clerical.  In both countries these laws harmed relations between the Church and the State, and were actively promoted by their respective Grand Orients.  In Argentina, the "father" of Argentine education is President Domingo Sarmiento; his tomb is considerably strong enough to support a good many large bronze Masonic plaques and emblems.  Some development of the references made in this film, more details, such as the link between Freemasonry and public education, would have made for a better film.  I recognize the one-hour format limits content, but perhaps a more historical narrative and fewer musings by the talking heads could have permitted the inclusion of more fact, as opposed to the opinions of its interviewees.

Still, it's interesting viewing and the questions it raises are worthy of consideration.  It's strange for me to have participated in what is essentially a negative view of Masonry, but I think it's better to be open and acknowledge opposing points of view than pretend these points of view don't exist.  Masons have usually deigned not to answer its critics and in this silence, critics have had free reign to present their case without rebuttal, thus controlling the narrative.  As I said in my last post, there's a lot of BS floating around out there about Masonry; if there are valid criticisms of Masonry to be made, the currency of the BS can only cloud the issue, functioning as a kind of disinformation where there is so much to be disbelieved that even true information is tainted with suspicion.  People are lazy or simply not that interested to sift through and distinguish wheat from chaff; it ends up where a person simply believes whatever scurrilous invention comes down the Pike, or on the contrary scoffs away everything which hints of secret dealings and unseen hands in action.  I had that experience when I wrote about the links between Scouting and Masonry; people are so used to dodging BS that they wrote it off as "conspiracy theory".  Those that had actually read the work and examined the facts presented still seemed reluctant to recommend my writings without the disclaimer that the author didn't seem to be a nut job....

If Masons acknowledge their critics, it will certainly be much more useful than simply letting them go unanswered.  One also has to bear in mind that this is not a documentary about Masonry as a whole, but in France; a lot of Anglo-Saxon Masons will be surprised, shocked even, at the level of political involvement by Masonry in France, something officially forbidden by Masonic bodies in the UK and the US.  The Grand Orient certainly has friends in high places and is clearly operating to influence the political life of the Republic.  How successful it has been is another issue, and I'm not sure the film gives us enough "history" and concrete examples to justify its claim that it has been extremely successful in its efforts.  Which isn't to say that is hasn't.  If you're looking for answers, this film might be a good starting point, but there are no smoking guns or jaw-droppers here.  It will probably be more interesting to someone already familiar with Masonic history and its rivalries; for a newcomer, not enough is done to explain what Masonry is; what different Grand Lodges and Orients currently operate in France; and how these Lodges relate to each other and the other Lodges in the world.  There are some killer shots inside various Lodges as well as extensive historical illustrations (again, without much context), as well as some thoughtful commentary by the interviewees.  French-speaking Masons should definitely check it out.  We'll keep you posted if a sub-titled version is made available.

A Pack of Lips Now

Update 11/11:  I won't be appearing in this documentary after all.  Not enough time to fit everything in, apparently.  In the end, they decided to focus on France and the bits of U.S. Masonic history I discussed were too far away from the central theme.  Oh well, it was an interesting and useful experience.  Helped me appreciate how hard giving an interview can be.  I'll probably be a lot more understanding when I see interviewees that don't come across very well.  Still looking forward to seeing this....

A few weeks ago I sat in my armchair in front of a cozy little fire and was interviewed for a documentary about Freemasonry.  I spoke primarily about the differences between "Anglo-Saxon" and "Continental" Masonry, racism and the Craft, and a few other related topics.  

The documentary will actually be the first episode in a 7-part series entitled Apocalypse France; each episode will have a different focus and this one, obviously, trains its lens on the political activities of France's various Masonic Orients and Lodges.

I don't know how much of my interview will be in the documentary. We shot over an hour of footage but the episode will only run to 45 minutes, so it may only be a few seconds. In the second trailer (below), you can see my hand for all of a second, holding a Masonic coin.

I hope I don't come to regret my participation. The documentary could be qualified as "anti-Masonic", or, more precisely, it takes issue with the lobbying activities and political ties of the different Grand Lodges and Orients. But I trust the filmmakers in the sense I don't think they'll manipulate the footage to make me look a fool (I do that all by myself!) or appear to have said something I haven't. Best to be forthright and honest. I could have refused their request for an interview, but then I'd have let the filmmakers have their say without at least being able to inject my perspective into the conversation.

Right move or not, what's done is done. Hopefully, a subtitled version will appear one day; this episode would be of great interest to the English-speaking Masonic community, where generally speaking, the Masonic landscape is a little less crowded.  LoS readers will also see some nice video footage of places I've written about, such as Toulouse's Egyptian Revival Terre Cabade Cemetery or Blagnac's Temple du Sagesse Suprême (a.k.a. the "Illuminati Pyramid").

BTW, in case you're wondering, there is as much BS floating around in France about Freemasonry/Satanism/the Illuminati (aren't they all the same?!) as there is in the U.S. and U.K.  The subject must sell a lot of magazines because at least one national monthly will publish an exposé or "the whole, unvarnished truth"-type features on the subject every year or so.  They of course tend towards sensationalism and do a lot to nourish the manure pile.  

Hopefully this project doesn't simply pile it on even higher!