Thats the problem with ideals....people get involved,shit gets unpredictable. When watching news take the raw info everything else is editorial spin, the BBC is far from perfect, balance it out with Al Jazerra and you'll find the truth somewhere in between.
I like reflecting on diametric opposites.
Whats funny though is Religion is attacked as a higherarchical institution, Masonary is the same in a secular guise....and thats just the structure, not the people and ideas they have within them.
To me that's unbalanced.
Take down one, take down them all.
Im gonna delete some previous posts...you get the jist.
PEACE!!!
Added (03/Oct/09, 6:53 Am)
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Your taking a rather insulting and almost Colonial stance on the sophistication and diversity of Indian society at the time.
To negate the importance and draw of these old boys clubs is at best arrogant.
Swami Vivekananda (initiated in 1884 under the name of Bro. Narendra Nath Dutt in Lodge Anchor & Hope, Calcutta). Motilal Nehru - Lodge Harmony, Kanpur (Father of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and grand father of Indhira Gandhi), C. Rajagopalachary (Governor General of India), Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer (Divan of Travancore), Dr. P V Cheriy (Governor of Maharashtra), and Fakruddin Ali Ahmed (President of India).
My take on conspiracy theories is i pay them no mind...hot air reported with the same sensationalist fervor as gutter tabloid press.
What i know of freemasonry is from experience.
Cold war politics and the means of global brinksmanship of that time are irrelevant in the context of the spheres of influence of the 17th to 18th century, there was no third world only first and second, there had been no Industrial Revolution.
Britain was not considered an Empire until Victoria's time over a hunderd years after the eventual subjugation of the various Kingdoms within the Raj and achieved it by proxy through the East India Company begining 1600 and it took them over 150 years to do so.
In 1717, the Company achieved its hitherto most notable success when it received a firman or royal dictat from the Mughal Emperor exempting the Company from the payment of custom duties in Bengal.
The first Masonic temple, The Goshamahal Baradari, Hyderabad, was built in 1682 by Sultan Abul Hassan Tanasha.
Meanwhile in 1717 the United Grand Lodge of England and Scotland took shape at a meeting of the local Lodges of London, to elect a Grand Master. A United constitution was drawn up and recognized by all the Lodges. A democratic tradition in the election of the Worshipful Master of a Lodge was prescribed. The Worshipful Master was authorized to appoint his team of officers.
It is therefore of interest that within 12 years of the constitution of the Grand Lodge of England, constituted for the purpose of exercising supervision over the lodges in London, and its neighboring areas, a petition was sent by a few Brethren in India to constitute a Provincial Grand Lodge in Calcutta. The Petition having been granted, a Provincial Grand Master was appointed to supervise Masonic activity in India and the Far East in 1728 A.D.
The Lodge at Fort William -- that is, Calcutta -- appears in the Engraved List of 1730, as No. 72. It was to meet at Fort William in Calcutta. The coat of Arms was adopted from the East India Company a golden lion, rampant guardant, supporting between the forepaws a regal crown. In 1729, Captain Ralph Farwinter was appointed "Provisional Grand Master for East India in Bengal " and also James Dawson as "Provincial Grand Master" for East Indies.
The Provincial Grand Lodge of Madras was formed in 1752 and The Provincial Grand Lodge of Bombay was created in 1758.
What coincidences.
I do not prescribe to the belief that the take over of India was some sort of Masonic venture.
To negate the importance of Free Masonary as a tool of influence however, one of many as i previously stated, is close minded and naive.
If on a street level Freemasonary can have such effect what effect can its members create on a multinational level?
I re-itterate that i do not believe there to be some devious Masonic agenda.
However if Jesuits were the storm troopers of "civilized Religion".
I believe Masons will be judged as the stormtroopers who laid the keystone,pardon the pun of "civilized secular free market economy".
Added (02/Oct/09, 5:18 Pm)
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PEACE!!!