Neutral?

[whatsontv]

Financial Times Article.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a59912a-1dd5-11db-bf06-0000779e2340.html?nclick_check=1

Have a look.

[chrism]

Financial Times Article.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a59912a-1dd5-11db-bf06-0000779e2340.html?nclick_check=1

Have a look.

I tried - I can only get the first 2 paragraphs - tried to subscribe but then it told me I had already used my 30 free articles - I can;t remember doing that!

I reckon it's a conspiracy :eek: (kidding. my jokes are crap...)

Any chance you could copy/paste the article or PM it to me??

Chris

[perry_mason]

Voila:

Mutual assistance comes to the fore with a nipple exposed

By Sathnam Sanghera

Published: July 28 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 28 2006 03:00

Over the centuries, the Freemasons have been accused of a great many evil crimes, ranging from corporate nepotism and attempting world domination, to encouraging adults to walk around lodges with one trouser leg rolled up. In other words, they are exactly the kind of organisation that ambitious readers of a business newspaper should belong to, and to find out what being a mason actually involves, I decided to become one.

It was a surprise to discover that anyone wanting to join one of the world's most secretive organisations need only log on to a website, call a number cited there, and make an appointment to see one Chris Connop at the Freemason's Hall in Covent Garden. It was even more of a surprise to be greeted by Mr Connop a short while later with the remark: "Don't worry if you hear a gunshot, they are killing someone in the toilets."

An explanation did eventually transpire - an episode of BBC spy drama Spooks was being filmed in the headquarters - but the comment threw me entirely. Suddenly, the surrealness of the scenario was too apparent: I was a journalist going undercover to join a notorious undercover organisation, whose headquarters were full of actors pretending to be spies, who work for another notorious undercover organisation. What we needed was some frankness, and as soon I took a seat in his office for my application interview, I blurted out the truth.

There was another surprise in store when the 59-year old magistrate and former headmaster responded with: "Actually I also work as the Freemason's media manager and I'd be quite happy to answer any questions you have. You might even want to join at the end of it." But isn't freemasonry meant to be secret? "Not at all. You see, it was banned in Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain. English freemasonry continued to be excessively private after peace came and as a result a mythology grew up that we were a secret society serving our own aims. But we have been talking to the press for 20 years . . . Would you like a tour?"

I very much wanted a tour and over the next hour we walked around the society's imposing art deco headquarters, Mr Connop maintaining a commentary throughout which informed me, among other things, that: (i) the historical origins of freemasonry are vague; (ii) famous masons have included Winston Churchill, George Washington and Geraldo; (iii) there are different kinds of masonry around the world, which don't necessarily recognise each other; (iv) freemasons give large sums of money to charitable causes; (v) some Freemason ceremonies do indeed involve the rolling up of trouser legs.

By the end of the tour Mr Connop was quite emotional ("It's really a marvellous organisation ") and I was beginning to consider submitting an application. Admittedly, spending evenings walking around in an apron, with a nipple exposed, didn't particularly appeal, and the vocabulary of Freemasonry - members are called Grand Master This, Supreme Master That and so on - is a little bit Star Wars, but such eccentricities seemed a small price to pay for career advancement and a possible role in world domination. Back in his office, I asked Mr Connop what conditions I'd have to meet in order to join.

The reply came back that Freemasons have to be male, over the age of 21, of good character, judged to be "like-minded" by other masons, and to have a belief in a "Supreme Being". Of these conditions, the first three were no problem at all. However, the phrase "like-minded" has always troubled me, in the way that the phrase "one thing led to another" has always done (it never does in my experience), and while I used to be religious, I am now undecided on the existence of God. How flexible were they on this matter, I asked Mr Connop. Could the "Supreme Being" in question, be anyone? "It needn't be a Christian God." Could it be someone like . . . Elvis? "If you can say, hand on heart, that you believe in them as a Supreme Being, that's fine. " Wow. What about . . . Satan? "I don't know about that. Being a Satanist would clash with the three great principles of Freemasonry: brotherly love, relief and truth."

I paused for a moment to reflect and then revealed to Mr Connop the happy news that while I still had a few doubts, I was willing to swallow them for the sake of the material self-advancement offered by the Freemasons. There was another pause as Mr Connop grimaced as if I had just thrown up over his favourite lambskin apron. "That would be a misuse of membership and subject to Masonic discipline. On his entry into Freemasonry each candidate states he expects no material gain from his membership." But isn't "mutual assistance" what Freemasonry is all about: a wink across the courtroom, a probing thumb in a handshake over a business deal. "Mutual assistance is about helping positively. If a mason is ill, take them to hospital, for example. But we are not entitled to use our freemasonry for professional or financial gain. Membership of the Freemasons will help your career no more than joining a golf club."

It struck me as I left, not having submitted an application, that Mr Connop's analogy was a good one. Freemasonry and golf clubs have a great deal in common. Both require members to dress bizarrely. Both have, at their core, acts of silliness. And while masons may have been criminalised by Franco, condemned as petit bourgeois by the Communist party, and accused by anti-Semites of being Jewish conspirators bent on world domination, I suspect that the modern day reality is that, like golf clubs, they are entirely harmless.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008



Not a bad article in my opinion, the message came across towards the end that Freemasonry's not about back-handers and buggery.

[danielson23uk]

A nice article all in all. I love the bit about being shot in the toilets.

[chrism]

Neutral - I am not sure about neutral but I think it is accurate!

From what I gather it is what anyone going into GQS should expect (not the gunshots, though) and although everything the media chap said rings true with my experiences, I reckon there will be a few people here who will know better than Freemasons Hall!

I saw something similar on TV about 2 years ago - a chap asking questions and visiting while a lodge was in session (just so he could be turned away by the Tyler, I suppose) and the information given was much the same. I think they even did a tour of the lodge room.

Thanks for posting!

Chris