WHEN confronted with a problem involving the use of the reasoning faculties, individuals of strong intellect keep their poise, and seek to reach a solution by obtaining facts bearing upon the question. Those of immature mentality, on the other hand, when similarly confronted, are overwhelmed. While the former may be qualified to solve the riddle of their own destiny, the latter must be led like a flock of sheep and taught in simple language. They depend almost entirely upon the ministrations of the shepherd. The Apostle Paul said that these little ones must be fed with milk, but that meat is the food of strong men. Thoughtlessness is almost synonymous with childishness, while thoughtfulness is symbolic of maturity.
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Conspicuous among the symbols of Freemasonry are the seven liberal arts and sciences. By grammar man is taught to express in noble and adequate language his innermost thoughts and ideals; by rhetoric he is enabled to conceal his ideals under the protecting cover of ambiguous language and figures of speech; by logic he is trained in the organization of the intellectual faculties with which he has been endowed; by arithmetic he not only is instructed in the mystery of universal order but also gains the key to multitude, magnitude, and proportion; by geometry he is inducted into the mathematics of form, the harmony and rhythm of angles, and the philosophy of organization; by music he is reminded that the universe is founded upon the laws of celestial harmonics and that harmony and rhythm are all-pervading; by astronomy he gains an understanding of the immensities of time and space, of the proper relationship between himself and the universe, and of the awesomeness of that Unknown Power which is driving the countless stars of the firmament through illimitable space. Equipped with the knowledge conferred by familiarity with the liberal arts and sciences, the studious Freemason therefore finds himself confronted by few problems with which he cannot cope.
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Though the modern world may know a million secrets, the ancient world knew one--and that one was greater than the million; for the million secrets breed death, disaster, sorrow, selfishness, lust, and avarice, but the one secret confers life, light, and truth. The time will come when the secret wisdom shall again be the dominating religious and philosophical urge of the world. The day is at hand when the doom of dogma shall be sounded. The great theological Tower of Babel, with its confusion of tongues, was built of bricks of mud and the mortar of slime. Out of the cold ashes of lifeless creeds, however, shall rise phoenix-like the ancient Mysteries. No other institution has so completely satisfied the religious aspirations of humanity, for since the destruction of the Mysteries there never has been a religious code to which Plato could have subscribed. The unfolding of man's spiritual nature is as much an exact science as astronomy, medicine or jurisprudence. To accomplish this end religions were primarily established; and out of religion have come science, philosophy, and logic as methods whereby this divine purpose might be realized.
Last edited by peter griffin on Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
The extent to which propaganda shapes the progress of affairs about us may surprise even well informed persons. Nevertheless, it is only necessary to look under the surface of the newspaper for a hint as to propaganda's authority over public opinion. Page one of the New York Times on the day these paragraphs are written contains eight important news stories. Four of them, or one-half, are propaganda. The casual reader accepts them as accounts of spontaneous happenings. But are they?
* I - The Present Crisis In Human Affairs
* II - The Idea Of The Open Conspiracy
* III - We Have To Clear And Clean Up Our Minds
* IV - The Revolution In Education
* V - Religion In The New World
* VI - Modern Religion Is Objective
* VII - What Mankind Has To Do
* VIII - Broad Characteristics Of A Scientific World Commonweal
* IX - No Stable Utopia Is Now Conceivable
* X - The Open Conspiracy Is Not To Be Thought Of As A Single Organization; It Is A Conception Of Life Out Of Which Efforts, Organizations, And New Orientations Will Arise
* XI - Forces And Resistances In The Great Modern Communities Now Prevalent, Which Are Antagonistic To The Open Conspiracy. The War With Tradition
* XII - The Resistances Of The Less Industrialized Peoples To The Drive Of The Open Conspiracy
* XIII - Resistances And Antagonistic Forces In Our Conscious And Unconscious Selves
* XIV - The Open Conspiracy Begins As A Movement Of Discussion, Explanation, And Propaganda
* XV - Early Constructive Work Of The Open Conspiracy
* XVI - Existing And Developing Movements Which Are Contributory To The Open Conspiracy And Which Must Develop A Common Consciousness. The Parable Of Provinder Island
* XVII - The Creative Home, Social Group, And School: The Present Waste Of Idealistic Will
* XIX - Human Life In The Coming World Community
The original bond between the linguistic and the mythico-religious consciousness is primarily expressed in the fact that all verbal structures appear as also mythical entities, endowed with certain mythical powers, that the Word, in fact, becomes a sort of primary force, in which all being and doing originate. In all mythical cosmogonies, as far back as they can be traced, this supreme position of the Word is found. Among the texts which Preuss has collected among the Uitoto Indians there is one which he has adduced as a direct parallel to the opening passage of St. John, and which, in his translation,certainly seems to fall in with it perfectly: "In the be-ginning," it says, "the Word gave the Father his origin".
THE third degree in Freemasonry is termed the Sublime Degree and the title is truly justified. Even in its exoteric aspect its simple, yet dramatic, power must leave a lasting impression on the mind of every Cand.. But its esoteric meaning contains some of the most profound spiritual instruction which it is possible to obtain to-day.
Even the average man, who entered The Craft with little realization of its real antiquity and with the solemnity of this, its greatest degree. In its directness and apparent simplicity rests its tremendous power. The exoteric and esoteric are interwoven in such a wonderful way that it is almost impossible to separate the one from the other, and the longer it is studied the more we realize the profound and ancient wisdom concealed therein. Indeed, it is probable that we shall never master all that lies hidden in this degree till we in very truth pass through that reality of which it is a allegory.
In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river.
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In a very simple prose Herman Hesse has conveyed a very profound message for all seekers. This is a story of a brahmin boy who follows his heart and goes through various lives to finally understand what it means to be enlightened. Siddhartha experiences life as a pious brahmin, a Samana , a rich merchant, a lover, an ordinary ferryman to a father--each life bringing a new awakening, bringing him closer to the truth till he finally is one with Buddha. --Submitted by Payal Koul
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize For Literature, wrote this satirical political novel in 1935, a time when the United States and Western Europe had been in a depression for six years. In this novel, Sinclair Lewis asks the question – what if some ambitious politician would use the 1936 presidential election to make himself dictator by promising quick, easy solutions to the depression - just as Hitler had done in Germany in 1933.
Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Minneapolis. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart.
When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town's physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it.
She speaks with its members about progressive changes, joins women's clubs, distributes literature, and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie's inhabitants. Despite her friendly, but ineffective efforts, she is constantly derided by the leading cliques.
She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class. These companions are taken from her one by one.
In her unhappiness, Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington, D.C., but she eventually returns. Nevertheless, Carol does not feel defeated:
"I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women!"
Carol is discontented with life in Gopher Prairie, but she finds that big city life also has disadvantages. In the end, she learns to settle with Gopher Prairie and accept it for what it is.
Erich Fromm’s first book publication, Escape from Freedom (1941, British edition as The Fear of Freedom, 1942), established his fame as a social psychologist almost overnight. Fromm began work on the study when he was still associated with Max Horkheimer’s Institute for Social Research. In the inaugural volume (1932) of Horkheimer’s Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung [Journal for Social Research] Fromm had published two seminal articles, “Über Methode und Aufgabe einer analytischen Sozialpsychologie” [“On the Methods and Goals of Analytical Social Psychology”] and “Die psychoanalytische Charakterologie und ihre Bedeutung für die Sozialpsychologie” [“Psychoanalytical Characterology and its Relevance to Social Psychology”]. The studies are grounded in Critical Theory and contain the methodological foundations of his later work. Psychoanalysis, argues Fromm, must augment Marx’ dialectical materialism to interpret the interrelations between material conditions and human thought processes and to analyze ideologies in terms of their libidinal properties and their effect on collective consciousness. His original theory of the social character emerges here, although the term itself is not used yet.
In Escape from Freedom, Fromm presents the first large-scale synthesis of his socio-psychological theory with observations derived from the two societal structures under discussion: the authoritarian fascist state versus American democracy. One should read the appendix, “Character and the Social Process”, before approaching the text proper, as it provides the study’s theoretical framework. Here Fromm defines the “social character” as the character-disposition shared by the majority of individuals within a given collective; it comprises “a selection of traits, the essential nucleus of a character structure of most members of a group which has developed as the result of the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group” (277). The family as the initial agency of socialization is a participant in the social character of the society at large, and instills certain prevalent traits in the infant and adolescent. Any social process must be analyzed in terms of the prevailing social character, because the latter is not only the product of the dominant social structure, but the agent responsible for both its sustenance and for potential change. Fromm pinpoints this reciprocal function of the social character as it, on the one hand, is defined by the ruling majority of a societal group and, on the other, helps maintain the status quo of the socio-economic, psychological and ideological makeup of this group as the “cement” which joins the blocks of social structures. Shifts in the social character are, as a rule, gradual and are usually effected by the cooperation of external factors
The Art of Loving is a book written by Erich Fromm and published in 1956 by Harper & Row.
Fromm's most popular book, it was an international bestseller and recapitulated and complemented the theoretical principles of human nature found in Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself, principles which were revisited in many of Fromm's other major works. In this work love is presented as a skill that can be taught and developed. It opposes the idea of loving as something magic and mysterious that cannot be analyzed and explained.
Because modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature, we seek refuge from our aloneness in the concepts of love and marriage (pp. 79-81). However, psychologist and social philosopher, Erich Fromm (1900-1980), observes that real love "is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone." It is only through developing one's total personality to the capacity of loving one's neighbor with "true humility, courage, faith and discipline" that one attains the capacity to experience real love. This should be considered a rare achievement (p. vii). The active character of true love, Fromm observes, involves the basic elements of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge (p. 24).
Readers will be disappointed if they approach this book as a how-to book. Rather, Fromm's 1956 classic is more of an exploration into the theories of brotherly love, motherly love, erotic love, self-love, and the love of God (pp. 7-76), and an insightful examination into love's disintegration in contemporary Western culture (pp. 77-98). We are starved for love, yet all our attempts to attain love in Western society may seem bound to fail. However, like art, Fromm observes that real love is possible with discipline, concentration, patience, and a supreme concern for mastering love (pp. 99-123).
