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!

Ektoplazzem

Dear Laws of Silence:

First a bit of background on ectoplasm:

Definition	A substance said to be excreted by mediums during trances; a slime-like substance said to be associated with hauntings.
Signature	Said to be white/gray/transparent or any other colour, viscous; resembling mucus. Said to ooze from solid objects or from mediums' bodies involving mucous membranes (nose, eyes, mouth), and to take form as a misty substance.

Source:  Wikipedia

The text above (minus "Source:  Wikipedia") was electronically cut-up four times, re-formatted, the punctuation eliminated, and given an aleatory title (on the ectoplasm page, the words "with the" were typed into "find" and, when found, the next two words were selected).  I wish I could say that this geste had no particular purpose and wish even more I didn't have to say that the result has no particular value.  The cut-up tool has merely repeated only a few of the words several times and eliminated several others.  The secrets liberated from inside this prison of words thus do not shed any light on my question (forthcoming).  Cybernetic bibliomancy has led nowhere, so fate has forced you upon me.

"Le Miro"

with be
nose, from said
any said be
take said viscous
nose, said to nose
trances, be to trances
by said said
other said take to said
take any be said associated
nose, other said take
to nose
to said trances
viscous
said to to be white/gray/transparent
by trances
take nose, associated to be
colour,
        colour,
                bodies

So the point, the question, is this.  You fellows obviously think of yourselves as what Tzara's vulgar herd would consider clever men; whereas this opinion is debatable, it is undeniable fact that you both have noses.  Tell us, then, pray:  Is Caspar indeed the ghost of Richie Rich?

Kind regards,

Théophile Prades
Beaupuy, France

Back atcha

As I mentioned in a recent post, reddit has recently sent some traffic our way.  It's always nice to see that people feel what we're doing is worthwhile (or shitty) enough to bring to other people's attention.  The comments on one of these links aren't all positive, but it doesn't so much matter whether the opinion is good or bad, as long as people are talking about the posts and, more importantly, the topics.  The comments are kind of fascinating; comments people leave here on LoS are usually positive, so I like seeing what people are saying when they aren't saying it to our face, so to speak.  Plus, I don't take the negative stuff too hard, it suggests ways we can improve what we do.

Although some of the responses were critical, the person who shared the link has a generally favorable opinion of our post:  More on Grand Master Flash, and the Masonic Fraternal Police Department Story

Someone else linked to LoS in a comment about Eblen's Cave: Tennessee Cave Degree.  The guy who left this comment also commented on the previous link, so I suppose we can assume he came across the cave post as a result of visiting the blog via the police post.  Cool!


Finally, it's very flattering to be included in Phoenixmasonry's list of "popular Masonic blogs".  I don't know how popular we are and we're not a specifically Masonic blog, but I think we do have an interesting approach to Freemasonry.  I'm glad LoS' profile is rising -- it's a good reminder to keep things tight -- people who know their stuff won't hesitate to tear us apart if we post BS.  All without allowing this increased scrutiny to overly-influence our style and opinions!

Anyway, just thought I'd pop this up to demonstrate the value of site stats and hopefully send some visitors over to these sites which have shown an interest in our work....

My Bologne has a first name:

L'obelisque

When I moved to Toulouse in April, 2002, I lived a few hundred yards away from this plaza and for over a year regularly frequented the restaurants and bars nearby.  My best pal Alex's office is just around the corner and the plaza provides a convenient shortcut to the hopping/happening Place St. Pierre.

Which is why it's kind of odd that I must have seen this plaza fewer times than I can count on one hand.

The few times I had been there I must have

dithered about as if in a dream, 
some kind of hapless mote 
floating through on a sunbeam

(from Burning Pizzle by J. Trenchwheat)

because I'd never really quite grokked -- done the spit-take as it were -- the fact that there's an obelisk fountain at the dead center.  And if there's anything I'd grok, it's an obelisk fountain.  This quiet, almost hidden plaza in the midst of one of Toulouse's hubbiest bubs features an obelisk and, as Prof. Freedom Williams once said, "I'd never even gone "hmmm."")

The Place de Bologne is relatively new, so it's jut another indication that the Egyptian Revival is still going strong in Toulouse  (I've written extensively about plethora of contemporary pyramid monuments in the metropolitan area).  Egypt remains a source of inspiration for architects, developers, and builders as it has since the Phoenicians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans -- times when Egyptian civilization was the antiquity of what we consider our own antiquity.

Place de Bologne as seen from the LoS helicopter

Take a S.I.P.

Imagine how geeked out I got when after seeing the obelisk I took a look at the office doors facing it and saw a triangle logo for home builder (an outfit called S.I.P.)  I have explored the links between Freemasonry, the Egyptian Revival(s), the triangle and/or pyramid logo, and the French real estate and construction industries.  In this case I was doubly geeked:  facing this first S.I.P. was another be-triangled business:  Groupe Osiris (!) is a developer and real estate manager.

Osiris has the cool-for-us title of the "Lord of Silence" -- but he was also known as the "Lord of the Dead" and the "King of the Living".  Interesting -- perhaps the Groupe seeks to evoke the importance of urban planning and lodging as a controlling force in our lives.  Haussmann certainly understood the relationship between urban geography and political liberty when he designed wide boulevards favorable to army forces and cannon at the expense of the narrow streets favorable to building blockades and defending the poor quarters with rusty rifles and kitchen knives.

King of the Living Room

When Toulouse performed the same kind of "remodeling" (at about the same as Haussmann), the city's motivations were probably less strategic than practical in terms of everyday traffic.  In any event, if an urban zone is defined by the constant reconstitution of its component parts (to paraphrase T.A. Wilson), a city is in a constant state of degeneration, regeneration, and transformation.
Osiris worship was in essence a cult of regeneration and rebirth, and a city it essentially an entity which is dying and re-birthing itself at every second of every day.  The city is its own mother, father, and child, a family coiled-up into a convoluted relationship which at its mutating center is a kind of cosmic incest.  (If in fact we can speak of a center at all; perhaps it's less inaccurate to speak of something so folded up in upon itself that it's all periphery.

Given the increasingly restrictive circles in which the elite travel, and -- like boolean ovals -- intersect through various boards, clubs, business groups, Lodges -- tighter and tighter as we head towards the tip of the pyramid -- it's no small wonder these increasingly reduced and therefore intimate business bedfellows move with ease within the nomenclature of this incestuous Egyptian genealogy: Horus, Osiris, Cheops....

One of the many challenges facing urban planners is how to move a city forward without totally destroying its past.  One can't forbid any and all new construction in an historic city or we end up stunting a city's dynamism.  We have a static showpiece where we can't even put in a new skylight because it doesn't mesh with the surrounding 19th century character, for instance.

That said, I'm a firm believer in taking the time and spending whatever is necessary to properly investigate new construction sites and thinking long and hard about what we're destroying.  When in the 19th century the city of Toulouse plowed through the medieval warren of the centre ville to create a logically straight pair of central axes, they did indeed facilitate movement through the center of town; they also forever destroyed  its medieval character.  The neighborhoods around these axes remain today among Toulouse's most beautiful streets.  Imagine what has been lost.

In my own time, during the renovation and construction of the new Palais de Justice, the remains of the palace of the Counts of Toulouse were found; minimal archaeological investigation was carried out and what we might have learned from it has probably been lost forever.
  

Not so far from there, the destruction of a building attached to the Church of the Dalbade revealed a medieval cemetery underneath.  This was also investigated, but then, poof, a new building appeared and the cemetery was lost forever.

The Place de Bologne is another such place, which "represents in an edifying manner the problems posed by a certain kind of urbanism" (here).  Some of the buildings were renovated for use in the current plaza, but some very old buildings, in one of the oldest parts of Toulouse, were simply destroyed.  If we were dealing with some run-of-the-mill urban building, we could shrug it off as acceptable change.  "Urban Renewal" has been used to put lipstick on the pig of various corrupt and disruptive schemes dreamed up by developers eager to squeeze every last coin from every last square foot, but if we look past the abuse of this doctrine, we'll find it's a necessary and even positive part of urban evolution.  Without renewal, there is no urban stasis, only decay.

But the ruins here were in fact the last vestiges of the palace of the Visigoth kings of Toulouse, before various depredations obliged them to remove to Toledo (Spain, not Klinger's hometown).

This is an important and relatively under-known period of the city's history:  the Dark Ages, the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages -- the Visigoths being one of the tribes who brought that about -- in the epicenter of Gallo-Roman France.  The Visigoths had sacked Delphi and Rome and legend has it that they made off with the spoils of Solomon's Temple.  They built the first Church of the Daurade in an octagonal, Byzantine style, so-named for its golden mosaics.  Their kingdom extended from Andalusia to the Loire and Toulouse was their capital; Place de Bologne was the epicenter.

The worst part is what they destroyed it all for; the architecture is unremarkable and the entrances to the plaza are gated, giving the impression of a private rather than a public space.  Indeed, all the buildings on the plaza are a tightly controlled development, not really an organic residential zone but operated by one of the powerful developers which have had so much power in determining the ever fluid urban and suburban landscapes of French cities and villages

As one site puts it "the result of these errors makes this place close, cold, without life.  With a century of history destroyed beneath our feet."  Interesting now that I think of it.  Another one of these "dead zones" is Compans Caffarrelli, which, incidentally, is another big plaza surrounded by high-rises, a public space privatized, basically, but with a cold and inert feeling despite the fact that several hundred people probably live there.

One must also consider the chilling effect of all this not only on street life, but free speech.  Consider this anecdote from a few years ago:

Taking pictures of this pyramid and architecture, Daurade was approached by a squat little security guard, a little nervous and scowling, who informed him that taking pictures is forbidden. So there you have it. On the city streets one is free to photograph what one wants. But as all this public space is enclosed and privatized, public inquiry and expression are somewhat less free. In fact, taking a photo is forbidden. Whatever the reason for this, security probably, it still doesn’t eclipse the fact that in this new world order everything will be for sale, and those with money to buy are welcome. As long as the money keeps flowing in the right direction: up towards the pinnacle.

The fountain isn't remarkable:  an obelisk in an octagonal basin, accessed by three steps which form the octagonal base.  The plaza itself is paved in the same form.  I suppose one could read something into the three steps in terms of Freemasonry, but that may be pushing it!  It occurs to me that this is the second thing in this post described as octagonal; it's possible the form of the plaza is a reference to the original Church of the Daurade which sat in roughly the equivalent position at the other end of the Quai Lucien Lombard.

I've already mentioned in a few posts how the Count of Montalambert called Toulouse the "home of vandalism".  Part that vandalism isn't just the destruction of history, but replacing what has been destroyed by shite architecture.  Toulouse has recently been obliging people on the outskirts to sell their homes so they can be razed and big dumpy apartment blocks put in their place.  The whole quasi-rural character of vast tracts close to the dead center of Toulouse have been sucked into a cold and sterile, inorganic mess of character-less, undifferentiated buildings.

So, I was attracted by the Egyptian obelisk and, sniffing around for anything vaguely Masonic, came across the two developers using triangles -- a subject to which I've already dedicated both a post and a Picasa album -- one of these developers specifically evokes Osiris.  A curious choice, given the theme of death and rebirth.  They certainly killed something off here -- a piece of history which could furnish much-needed detail about the Visigoth period of Toulouse -- but whether something worthwhile has been born from this remains to be seen.