Hunting the Lost Symbol

Freemasonry in Britain, or anywhere else, is no more "conspicuous" in law enforcement and the Civil Service than it is in any other aspect of society. Jack Straw's witch hunt in the 1990s, stirred up by the hysterics of Martin Short, came up with no serious allegations against Masonic influence in the police or judiciary.

Masons are charged to be peaceable citizens, true to the laws of their country. Any Mason who gives an automatic pass to his brethren for unlawful acts wasn't paying attention during his degrees.

As for "mumbo jumbo," if you actually study Masonic ritual, especially of the three degrees of the local lodge, you will find it is nothing of the kind. Additional, so called "higher" degrees added by appendant groups in the 1800s went through phases of attempting to hang alchemy, Kabbalah, mystical manifestations and party gags onto the fraternity It got veiled in the excess baggage of Victorian belief in anything and everything in search of making Masonry more mystical than it was first intended to be in the early 1700s. But the Masonry that goes on in the lodge down the street is really quite simple, basic, and beautifully rendered.

the time. But it isn't just the recent worries about the Old Boy Network that Freemasonry provided in many professions besides Law Enforcement in Britain. These concerns, valid or not, have pervaded public perception for more than a century. I did not mean to imply that they were true, merely that they were widely held, indeed so widely held that they creep into fiction and TV programs about the police in Britain, and not as with Dan Brown as primary plot points, but as a given background. I repeat, I don't particularly believe or care about their validity, I am just saying that the belief that they exist was (note the past tense) widely spread.

My maternal (Rnglish) Grandfather was a Mason, I have no axe to grind here. I am trying to give context. I find Dan Brown mildly amusing and enjoy all the disparate elements he draws together, but he's not writing the Great American Novel, just the Great American Best Seller, and good luck to him, but it's neither History with a capital H, nor is it the Truth handed down from on High. It's just amusement, and a keen eye for sales.

Rob

LOL

I take it you're not a big fan of his....

although he did shine in Forrest Gump, and his performance in the Green Mile was good

but in Da Vinci and Demons and Angels? not at all

,.

Resurrection was garbage and disappointing.

TONI H

I thought the video was a very slick, well funded attempt to disarm any public intrigues that might develop as a result of Brown's book. Very slick ... a least a $300,000 or more budget. Lot's of expensive footage! Who's got that kind of money to fund a production like this ... surely the denizens of conspiracy theorist !!! No ... no ... no ... they don't have the money nor the organization to do so! This leaves the rest to you imagination ... follow the money!