Masons

Vladimir Toltz: Today we will talk about the subject of the notorious, but at the same time really unknown: about Masons. A variety of rumors go about them. Some believe that the Masons are devoted to secret occult secrets, others see in them a dangerous international conspiracy, seeking to establish their power everywhere, others do not attach any significance to them at all. In the late Brezhnev years, rumors went that the top of the party leadership was Masons, that Masonic symbolism could be found in places such as the hat of the Pravda newspaper.

Olga Edelman: When I studied in high school, the film was released about Lenin in Paris, we were told to watch him at school. And I remember the conversations that a bunch of Masonic symbols is hidden in the film, you need to carefully watch: which signs fall into the frame, house numbers and so on.

Vladimir Toltz: Well, we will return to Masonic symbolism. It is doubtful, of course, that the members of the Brezhnevsky Politburo did this. Moreover, when you have some idea of the Masonic rites.

Olga Edelman: And getting such a view is actually not so difficult. The archives are full of old Masonic manuscripts, mainly the late 18th - early 19th centuries, when in Russia the Masonic lodges existed quite legal. Their distribution was suppressed by Catherine II after the Novikov case, then under Paul and Alexander I was a stormy flowering, until in 1822 a decree was issued on the prohibition of Masonic lodges and secret societies.

From the ritual of the 4th degree of Scottish Freemasonry.

The adoption of a comrade-in-law requires four rooms, including this number and hall of the lost path. ... The first of these can be inhabited by just black matter ... The second is a gloomy cave, in the depths of which three grottoes who came to the ruins are visible. In the middle gross, a tomb is gained, on which the human skull lies and two cross -frauded bones of a natural size of silver ... The grotto, which, on the right side, is filled with open coffins or tombs, in which there are bones and bloodied coats. The grotto, located on the left side, should be built so that you can bring to the top to achieve that hill on the top of which the Acacia branch is hoisted. The path to this hill lies through the mortal remnants of mankind and through ruins. This place is covered with such light that clarity can be increased and reduced, to multiply the horror of this place.

Vladimir Toltz: Well, how can you imagine Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, or, say, Mikhail Alexandrovich Suslov, in such an entourage?

Olga Edelman: With difficulty. But it seems to me that the aesthetics of Gothic horror films could come from here, up to Disneyland Caves of Horror.

Vladimir Toltz: But let's better engage in historical Freemasonry, or, as they called themselves, free mason. Later, after all, the same tradition continued. At the same time, it will become clear why all these skulls and opening tombs were. Olya, tell us what kind of documents we read today?

Olga Edelman: Actually, there are a lot of them, quite the same type. In that era - I'm talking about the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century - not only the members of the lodges had manuscript books, where some secret concepts were replaced by conventional badges. For example, the word "bed" was indicated by a rectangle. But there was a lot of printed literature, the lodges propagated the lists of their members in a typographic way. The Masons had part of the information not very secret, moralizing, discussions about virtue. And it was what, it was believed, only the initiates should know, and the rest - profans - were not allowed to this knowledge. Here is a fragment from the ritual of initiation that we heard is certainly closed information. But leaks occurred from time to time. After all, Freemasonry itself was heterogeneous (there were many currents, noise), and people are different. It happened that the dedicated Mason decided, despite these oaths, to disclose secrets. Today we will use the book of such an author. In Russia, it was published in 1784, but was written earlier in London. It was called "Freemason without a mask, or genuine sacraments of Masonic, published with many details accurately and impartially." The author announced that he was dedicated to the 3rd degree, the master (meter - in the then spelling). The first degree initial, student (aprantiv), then - comrade (companion), then master. Classical English Freemasonry with three degrees and was limited.

... I take a feather for that tokmo, in order to prevent the multiplication of such an ridiculous society, what is now free masonry, who do not have any need to resort to the sacraments, in the same land, what is England and the entire almost northern part of Europe, where everyone is given full and perfect freedom to clarify their thoughts and where no one has long been affected pronounced. The ancient sages had an important reason to preserve in their hearts some truths from the eyes of a superstitious and cruel people, but in our times and in our Fatherland, does this cause cause a place? ... Why, for the sake of persisting the Masses, who are the most excellent virtues that are fidelity and philanthropy, in the discovery of their sacraments, which do not contain anything more reprehensible, except for empty rites, which can be called fairly children ...

I heard in some famous ... lodges of opinion about fate and about various other excesses, do not differ from the thoughts depicted in many Scriptures of the Great Plato and other ancient sages, about which and the thousandth free mason is hardly known; Most of them either do not read anything either, or they read only fabulous works and rarely burden themselves with their own thoughts. ...

Masons, wanting to say that they make up a friendly society, that they reject everything that is disgusted by common sense and that it has the form of fabulist, ... that they do not accept any fables, which they supply themselves not to plunge the beads before people who do not know the price of it and not enlightened by their light, to make possible help experienced in honesty, but to the poor members of their society and to be hard and solid Constant in their affairs and thoughts, use ... so many difficult allegorical signs that for their direct understanding you need to visit often and for a long time their lodges ... Having turned off all the secrets and private selfishness of their chairmen from the lodges ... You can honestly be honored by the fair Aglin's clubs, in which all kinds of people gather in the evenings: breadbaskets, brewers, sapovaries, sapovs, sapovniks Rear, judges, merchants, parliamentary members, priests, military leaders and other condition people, drink good porter and talk with perfect freedom about trade, faith, government, sciences, arts, in a word about everything, about what to talk about. The fraternity of free mason will be apparently still supported by the frivolity of young members and apologists of the old ones, in which, how many fluffy words, so little truth is gained. ...

Vladimir Toltz: Olya, are you sure that this exposure to secrets should be trusted? Maybe this is such an organized misinformation?

Olga Edelman: I don't think. For a number of reasons. Information from this book is confirmed by Masonic manuscripts. Yes, and a copy of the book I used - from the Masonic Assembly. Then, they had such a naive conspiracy that it would be too complicated for them. The author talks about conditional signs, secret words, most of all it looks like a children's game. Yes, and he himself says that at every stage he was waiting for everything to be revealed important truths - and instead, members of the box with a serious look did what he called "childishness".

Vladimir Toltz: You know that, let's not discuss the dedication rites today - because they are well described in the “War and the World”, there Pierre Bezukhov enters Masons. It is better to talk about the main tradition of free masons.

Olga Edelman: They erected the foundation of Freemasonry by time when the biblical king Solomon built a temple in Jerusalem. The main legend was reported when dedicated to the degree of the master. And he beat the rite, symbolically repeated this story.

From the speech of the chairman when dedicated to the 3rd Masonic degree - Masters:

We are going to the memory of Adoniram of our father, to whom the wise Solomon once believed the view of the temple that he built. Adonimers, being put on a great deed, had under the command of many artists, whom the Mazda was not equal, and he, in order not to pay the aprantections of what belonged to the companions, and the sim that the meters deserved, always paid the aprantivians at the Pillars of the Iakin to the north, the companions of the pillar of BOOZ by the midday, and the meters in the middle of the temple. Folding armed three violent companions, which agreed either to beg from Adoniram Metersky password, or kill him. They became at three different doors of the temple and each of them was armed with a rod to fulfill his conspiracy. Adonimers, not suspecting anyone against himself against himself, entered the temple without fear, and when he wanted to wipe the western doors, the former villain demanded an impudent way from his Meter password and, he did not receive him from his wand tightly. ... The stabbed adonigs ran to the midday gates, but then he saw another villain who also hit him with a rod ... and plunged it to the ground, but the Adoniram had enough strength of the spirit and, without saying a password, rose and ran to the eastern gates from the upcoming trouble, but there the third villain gave him a strong blow to his head. "

Olga Edelman: In this place of the dedicated, they forced to feel like Adonirama: they hit him with symbolic hammers, then fell on the floor, closed his eyes with a handkerchief, his left hand was laid along the body, and the right was placed on the heart, it was a 2nd degree identification mark, the right leg was bent and put on the left knee so that the triangle came out. Then he was circled three times, portraying the search for a lost password.

When Adoniram was killed at the eastern door, the killers only thought about how to hide their crime from people and not to expose themselves to revenge that threatened them. They immediately buried in the land of our constant father, waiting for the case to transfer him to a different place, and put a branch of acacia for recognition over his place. Solomon, seeing that there was no Adoniram in the temple, used all the means to find a person who was very necessary for him. On the seventh day after his death, he sent nine meters so that, dividing into three, we would go to three sides, east, west and noon for the best awareness about him. Already they began to weaken from their useless search, as one of them wanted to grab the branch of acacia in order to make it easier to sit down. He saw with horror that the branch remained in his hand and the earth in which it was planted, it seemed all soft and unsteady, why he thought that of course the Adoniram was buried here. ... they immediately began to dig the earth to which he was filled; But suspecting that the unfortunate circumstances in which Adoniram were forced to pronounce him to pronounce the Metursky password, they reasoned among themselves what to do in such dangerous circumstances and agreed to change the whole password, and instead of this, to choose the word that they first say when gaining adoniram. Seeing his corpse, horrified and ran away from fear. ... One of the meters came up to raise Adonirama and took his hand, and when the first two fingers fell off from his spell, he announced that ... Jewish words Mack Benak, that is, the body lags behind the bones, they took this word with the hunting of Meterskoye. [The author of the book is noted: this case is disgusted by any type of truth and by any narrative either in the Holy Scriptures or in secular history is not confirmed].

Solomon made a magnificent burial to the gained body of Adoniram, whom death caused such a great devastation in the temple. He buried him with all honor and cut out an ancient word on his tomb, and above it two branches of acacia laid on the cross on the cross.

Olga Edelman: Today we tell you about the innermost secrets of Masons, free masons. They themselves erected the foundation of the lodges by the time when King Solomon built the temple. But already in the 18th century they doubted this. Now researchers believe that Freemasonry arose in England, the first box was established in 1717. However, free masons, depending on the variety of Freemasonry systems, considered themselves the successors of mystical traditions and the ancient East, the Order of the Templars, and the Rosicrucians.

It is much easier to open the veil, which strips the secrets of Freemasonry than to determine the time when it has begun. The ancient Masons, not so much talkative as the current and at the same time more reasonably, did not show themselves to be different and revered them with proofans. The story does not mention anything about their beginning, and we have no chronicles, nor other similar monuments that can certify us about it. ... England attribute the beginning of Freemasonry. The fable will be like it, there is it from the time of the Solomonovs. The name Solomonov, which is symbolic, does not prove anything in history in favor of Freemasonry ... Some suspected that Freemasonry was leaving for the renewal of Solomon’s Temple, or to the construction of Paki of Vetertov’s house to the throne of Aglinsky, but their opinion is empty and not approved on any basis with a reasonable reason. ...

Olga Edelman: Freemasonry, as we have already said, had various currents, these were different organizational systems - English, Swedish, and French. Some of the Masons were based on Christianity, for everyone the main thing was the veneration of God as a creator. There were lodges really occupied by mystical searches, there were more frivolous, rather secular clubs. As for symbols, first of all, these are signs of the craft of masons: compass, plumb, trowel, then what was supposed to remind of the murder of Adoniram, the builder of the temple: skulls, bones, tombs, a branch of acacia. The symbolism of the temple itself. All this had interpretations. For example, the Temple of Solomon was represented by the greatness of the lodge, fiery stars - the light that illuminates them, the plumb line - equality, rights and circus and circhulum and caution in deeds, white gloves - the purity of morals dedicated to the blindness of the human, etc. Secret identification words for the first two degrees were the names of the two pillars of the temple - Iakin and Boose, they are mentioned in the Bible.

Vladimir Tolts: Adonrams are also mentioned as a boss over taxes and over workers who built the temple. According to the 3rd Book of the Kings, when, after the death of Solomon, his son Rovoam ascended to the throne, Troubles began, and Adoniram, sent by Rovoam to the rebellious Israelis, was thrown into stones and died.

Olga Edelman: The creators of Freemasonry borrowed from various sources. And among the symbols there were many those that not only they used: a triangle, Solomon, a star, the sun and moon, morning star, bees. Each degree had identification signs - a gesture, a word. This is so that unfamiliar Masons can recognize each other among the crowd of profiles. For example, a triangle served as a sign. It was necessary to portray it in some way: fold a napkin, fingers with a triangle, describe the triangle with your hand, removing the hat or taking tobacco snap. Then, a special handshake, the conditional position of the hands (the 1st degree was to put a hand under the throat, holding the triangle with the thumb and index fingers, and put on the heart of the 2nd degree). Finally, it was required to exchange a secret word. All these, and many other subtleties were described in the set of questions and answers that necessarily insisted at the meetings of the box.

Questions and answers for free pammens of students of the 1st degree

Question. Are you a free mason?

Answer. All the brotherhoods of my comrades recognize me as such.

V. Why can I recognize you with such?

O. According to my signs, by touch, word and in the rituals of my student acceptance.

B. What are your sacraments?

O. The origin and institution of the Order.

B. What is the student’s sign?

O. The cervical sign.

B. What does it mean?

O. My vow, namely: that I better give myself to cut my neck than to open my sacrament entrusted to me ...

B. How is the touch done?

O. When the two brothers, taking each other's hand, touch with the thumbs of one other first joint of the index flask.

V. What is the word of students?

O. Tell me the first letter of it, then I will tell you another (they say in warehouses) ...

Why do students need this word?

O. To get the entrance to the boxes of our ...

Vladimir Toltz: Yes, conspiracy is so -so. Please note that later, truly well -conspired political organizations used a completely different principle: members divided into small groups and should not know anyone outside the group. Only the leader of the group had access to the "next level". The underground should not know too much.

Olga Edelman: Free mason is the reverse logic, they had to recognize each other. By the way, in our history, the case is known in our history when these conventional signs saved the life of the future Decembrist Batenkov. In 1814, he was wounded in the battle of Montirala and, losing consciousness, dropped his hand on his chest in the usual Masonic gesture. Local Masons pulled him out of a pile of bodies and left.

Владимир Тольц: Мы, Оля, говорим о масонских обрядах, - а слушателей наших, наверное, волнует главный вопрос: что насчет политической деятельности. Действительно ли масоны стремились распространить всюду свое влияние, установить власть над миром? В общем-то, конечно, маловероятно.

Ольга Эдельман: Есть еще мнение, что масонство было первым приступом к гражданскому обществу. Они же, помимо задач религиозно-нравственного совершенствования, вели довольно активную благотворительную деятельность.

Владимир Тольц: Тем не менее, вот тексты, которые мы в основном сегодня читали, относятся к началу 80-х годов 18 века, еще до французской революции. Уже вскоре после того, как она разразилась, именно масонов стали обвинять, или подозревать, в том, что они-то ее и организовали. Этот вопрос я хочу обсудить с гостьей нашей студии, филологом, исследователем русско-французских связей Верой Аркадьевной Мильчиной.

Вера Мильчина: Я думаю, что для Франции, можно сказать, один из краеугольных вопросов – кто виноват во Французской революции? Никак нельзя сказать, что масоны готовили Французскую революцию. Был такой герцог Филипп Орлеанский, потом во время революции он стал Филипп Эгалите, его можно характеризовать по-разному. Он был большой кутила и развратник. Он был владелец Пале-Рояля, который за долги продал и там стало главное торжище Парижа. И он же был великий мастер французской масонской ложи. И он участвовал, действительно, во Французской революции, страшно поддерживал, был членом Конвента и в этом Конвенте голосовал за казнь Людовика 16. Вот вопрос: он так способствовал и так горячо принял Французскую революцию, потому что он был масон? Можно сказать так. Можно сказать: потому что он был большой дебошир и развратник. А можно сказать – потому что в нем был торгашеский дух.

Меж тем, что Французскую революцию устроили масоны, эти концепции имеют своих авторов с легкой руки аббата Барюэля, иезуита, который при Директории, после окончания революции выпустил книжку под названием «Памятные записки к истории якобинства», где объяснял, что все якобинцы были масоны. А на самом деле, я думаю, то, что Оля сказала по поводу подготовки гражданского общества, новых форм общества. Собственно говоря, революция готовилась не тем, что ее готовили конкретные люди, которые хотели совершить переворот, а это был переворот изменения умственных структур, общая десакрализация и секуляризация общества. И людям хотелось чего-то, каких-то форм общения помимо тех, которые существовали от века и каких-то форм благотворительности помимо тех, которые существуют в официальной католической церкви. И отсюда одни люди шли по пути католицизма и вступали в конгрегации, ультра-католические организации, а другие вступали в масонские ложи. И вот это все и расшатывало устои и основы, в этом смысле Барюэль прав. Но совсем не потому, что масоны целенаправленно хотели совершить такую Французскую революцию.

Ольга Эдельман: Тут есть еще один интереснейший аспект. Эта идея - тайного могущественного заговора - очень живучая, и не только масонов подозревали. В России она приобретала национальную форму: западный заговор против нас. Когда случилось восстание декабристов, да и пятью годами раньше, после бунта гвардейского Семеновского полка - сразу усмотрели руку международных тайных обществ либералистов. Вера Аркадьевна, были же и еще кандидаты на роль мирового (в тех понятиях общеевропейского) заговора?

Вера Мильчина: Тут я позволю себе сослаться на книжку Мишеля Леруа, она называется «Миф о иезуитах от Беранже до Мишле», тем самым назвали героев, которые претендуют почти в такой же степени на роль источников всяческого зла, как и масоны – это Орден иезуитов. У Ордена иезуитов, как у масонов реальных была реальная история. И они, конечно, в 17 веке вмешивались сильно в политику. Но в 19 веке иезуиты, которых во второй половине 18 века вообще во всех европейских странах запретили и, кстати, только Екатерина Вторая дала им, они у нас существовали в России. К 19 веку они влачили довольно жалкое существование и никак не были такой могущественной организацией, которая как спрут запустила щупальца во все сферы жизни. И чем слабее они были в действительности, тем страшнее расписывали их. Это нас приближает к масонам. Но иногда масонов изображали как иезуитов и иезуитов как масонов. Тут же еще примешивались тамплиеры и, конечно же, евреи.

Всякий автор, иезуиту хотелось показать, что все зло от масонов, но масон ту же самую роль предназначал иезуитам. А качества, которыми их наделяли, были абсолютно аналогичными. Все они, естественно, тайный ордер, глубоко законспирированный, щупальца свои запускает во все сферы жизни и хочет всех подчинить своему мировому господству. И в этом смысле масоны очень сильно могут потускнеть, если мы поставим рядом с ними других претендентов на роль этого самого мирового заговора, и они так же мало годны на нее в реальности, как и масоны.

Владимир Тольц: Но вернемся к масонам. Важно ясно разделить: одно дело - планы и намерения организации в целом, в данном случае масонских лож, их руководителей. Конечно, можно подозревать, что они стремились не только к нравственному совершенствованию и использовали своих адептов, что называется, "втемную". Но есть и обратная сторона: планы и устремления самих членов. Ведь масонские ложи, с их провозглашаемым братством членов, создавали замечательные возможности для личного продвижения. Не внутри ложи, - в обществе, по службе. Это же система неформальных связей между людьми, нечто вроде блата, если угодно. Молодой человек, не очень знатный, с неважными "стартовыми позициями" в ложе мог оказаться среди людей влиятельных, значительных, которые должны были называть его братом. Завязывались полезные знакомства. Скорее уж масоны использовали ложу, чем наоборот.

• 

  Vladimir Tolts

  In the RS since 1983, since 1995, I have edited and conducted the programs “Difference in Time” and “Documents of the past”. Since 2014 - a permanent author of the RS in Prague.

  tolz.dates@gmail.com