12 th September 2007-10-02 - Giuseppe Barbone writes:
The the proposed subject ‘Where did Masonic Solidarity get to?' is unfortunately one of the topics of the day and cause of reflection for many brothers. Ten minutes ago I received a message from a brother who is abandoning the Masonic Institution for the reasons you mention. Unfortunately, I must add that they are the same reasons that forced me to abandon the Institution which I was initiated to.
I am 56, I have little education but many first hand experiences; personally I think that Love, Charity, Tolerance and Solidarity lack among many Masons.
I hear a lot of talk about initiation and initiates, but there can't be initiation or initiate without a true philosophical base. When I talk about philosophy I mean what came back to life in the Middle Ages, which has in itself all the knowledge passed on by ancient Philosophers, Alchemists, Astrologists, Cabbalists, etc…
It is the philosophy of Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Bernard Trevisan, Thomas Aquinas, Giordano Bruno, etc… Here, in their philosophy there are the fundaments to start the initiatory journey. Unfortunately I feel that true Freemasonry was not born in 1717 but rather that it died at that time.
All my love. Giuseppe
12 th September 2007 - Athos A. Altomonte writes:
First of all we must clear the way from wrong words. Indeed, only using definite concepts we can hope to reach sensible conclusions. To think is to construct a building. The heavier it is the more robust the foundations need to be. The roof represents the conclusions and it is a consequence of the previous work. You know that many people talk starting from the roof. Perhaps the reason is that we don't consider that Freemasonry is an elementary initiatory school, where symbols are used to play around rather than to project the development of new conjectures, starting from the assumptions of the so-called ancient mysteries, which are not at all mysterious. Ars – muratoria, regia and pontificia – (see Ars Muratoria, Ars Regia, Ars Pontificia ) is not understood because in actual fact Masons are born initiates and they become Masters straight away; therefore they are covered by an armor of conceited incompetence and they become unable to reform the Order of what used to be a first class think tank. They prefer to fall back in the non-speculative field of organization and administrative rules.
As a consequence, the initiatory Order is turning into a compromise Organization that uses symbols to celebrate itself, unable to inspire in the intellectual world any interest but occasional curiosity for unknown old folklores.
This is why we must realize that individualist and self-trading brothers are not true Brothers but paper Brothers, who base their being Masons and their relationships on licenses and association receipts. In other words, pieces of paper rather than initiatory competence. It is easy to recognize them if you use the heart and then the head to part from them like you separate the wheat from the chaff.
After discriminating, separating and throwing away the superfluous you will see that there are a few brothers left. Perhaps very few, but if it wasn't so why would they be called ‘initiatory elite'?
The lack of solidarity is not a symptom of Freemasonry but rather of the ‘paper brothers'. They are ‘Bad Fellowships' that have been let in the Temple by other bad fellows, where a Master Hiram will never show up.
There is the possibility that with heart, tenacity, intelligence and … patience we can pick the flag from the floor and give it back the honor that it symbolizes. But it is a bold venture for bold spirits who know the Fire Element.
Fraternally Triple Fraternal Embrace Athos
12 th September 2007 - Antonio D'Alonzo writes:
The problem is that philosophy, like science, must think its own time. This doesn't mean to put the classics in mothballs, but to realize the temporal distance that separates us from the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas and Bruno, in order to understand them in the best possible way and avoid anachronistic straining. A typical and clumsy example is the Nazified reading of Nietzsche made by Alfred Bäumler and Alfred Rosenberg during the Third Reich and in a Marxist view by Lukács.
Another more recent example is the Popperian view of Plato as an ‘enemy of the open society'. The historicity of reason can't be put in brackets in order to empathically fall in the past, as historicism theorizes. Opening to the dialogue with Plato means to be aware of the temporal distance between us and the Greek world; indeed for this reason we must avoid the fall into historical straining or anachronisms and to make unilateral and ideological readings. Only through the awareness of the distance between us and Plato we can open to the space of understanding and realize the fusion of temporal horizons. Only understanding that the text is the result of the thought of an Athenian philosopher of the 4 th century B.C., which means that two thousands years of history separate us from him, it is possible to open the dialogic space. The consciousness of the historical and cultural difference actualizes Plato's thought and makes it contemporary.
Recognizing him in his specification we open to his thought. In other words, the consciousness of the temporal distance opens the space of comprehension.
It is necessary to dialogue with Plato with the consciousness of the temporal distance that separates us from the time when the philosopher lived; likewise it is necessary to think about the way he can cor-respond to the horizon of ‘truth' opened for us, only for us men of the twenty-first century. The horizon can't be the Greek philosopher himself. I think that Freemasonry is dying not because it has forgotten its past, but because it can't think of a way to reveal the ‘truth' (I prefer the classical term ‘being') in the age of technology.
As usual, these are only personal elaborations.
Triple Fraternal Embrace. Antonio
14 th September 2007 - Giuseppe writes:
If it is true that science must and does think its own time, it is not so for the philosophical thought. Indeed ancient Philosophers have borrowed, passed on, elaborated and enriched the only philosophical trend unanimously recognized (Chaldean, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, etc…), which includes and has always included since they first appeared Alchemy, Astrology, Cabbala and so on, even mythology itself, which we can define temporal in its language but not temporal in its occult content; the problem is to lift the veil.
Anyway, this is the only trend where I identify myself and that I recognize as Philosophy; likewise I don't identify myself with the philosophy that was a result of Illuminism; in my humble opinion it has been the grave of Philosophy and true Philosophy has reached our time only thanks to some willing people. We can define the ancient language as pro-tempore, but certainly not its concepts. Indeed, we can consider the symbol as a visual expression of its archetype of which it hides the true essence; likewise the language of Philosophers and not that of ‘philosophers' tells its archetype and hides it to those unable to lift the veil; an archetype grows but it doesn't have a time since it includes it all.
Like the initiate embraces all religions and is above them, ‘Philosophy' embraces and takes in space and time and gives the careful scientist the prime essence: the idea that ‘spirit' shapes matter is a result of intuition and intellect. This is why Philosophy as I mean it is atemporal, since temporality is a product of the human mind, whilst Philosophy is the sublime expression of the Being, it is the song of the soul, it is not the product of the mind, which is only its means of expression. See, dear brother, I have a strange way of thinking; at this moment my head tells me that the word is not always a result of the mind; sometimes it is a result of animal instinct, sometimes of divine intuition and often it is a result of the mind.
But when it is a result of intuition, which ‘sea' does it come from? I think that there is a limited divine sea included in the Athanor and an unlimited ‘Divine' eternal ‘sea' where everything is written; we only need to be able to read it.
A Triple Fraternal Embrace. Giuseppe 
