Like his manufacturing rival Daniel Leavitt — who patented the first revolver after his own — and another great firearms exponent, Richard Gatling, Colt was also an active Freemason. Colt’s name will forever be associated with the gun, and interestingly his products were of great use to fellow Masons Benito Juárez, Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Sam Houston in their various violent revolutionary activities.
Sir Sandford Fleming was a Scottish-born Canadian inventor and engineer. Perhaps best known as the man who, in 1851, designed the first Canadian postage stamp, Fleming is also often credited with the invention of standard time zones. Amongst his many achievements, Fleming was chief engineer of the cross-continental Canadian Pacific Railway. Knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897, Fleming was also a Freemason. Freemasonry helped Fleming in no small way, providing him with links to many influential members across the international fraternity. His proposal of world time zones was supported by many powerful masons, most notably the fourth Governor General of Canada, 9th Duke of Argyll John Campbell. Fleming’s engineering genius also helped to bring about the trans - Pacific submarine telegraph cable, which some have dubbed the “Victorian Internet.”
It can be reasonably claimed that the American innovator King Camp Gillette changed the world when he launched the cheap, disposable safety razor to a grateful public in 1901. Yet the founder of the world famous Gillette brand (now a business unit of Procter & Gamble), who was known for his business acumen and innovative marketing strategies, was also a Freemason. Little is known of Gillette’s personal experience within the Fraternity, but his political ideas are well documented and must surely have been shared among other members. Gillette was a “Utopian Socialist,” and envisioned a single public - owned corporation that controlled the entire world’s industry. He also imagined a giant US-wide city named Metropolis that would be powered exclusively by Niagara Falls.
The Romanian inventor, engineer and aviation pioneer was one of the earliest innovators in flight technology. In 1906, his self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft – complete with landing wheels – managed to fly 39 feet, approximately 3 feet off the ground. What is less well known is that the aeronautics genius was a member of Romania’s Masonic Order, which had grown steadily more organized following the unification of its lodges in 1880. It has been reported that, in the wake of World War I, Vuia was part of a small group of Freemasons who traveled to the Peace Conference in Paris to facilitate links with the Paris Ernest Renan Lodge — and in turn, between the governments of the two countries. As a world famous innovator and designer, Vuia’s value to Romania and his lodge was priceless while journalists who were part of the French fraternity ensured Romania got good press at the conference.
American engineer, scientist and developer of the first electronic analogue computer he is perhaps best remembered as the author of the revolutionary essay “As We May Think.” Published in 1945, it envisaged much of the technology we take for granted today, including personal computers, the Internet, hypertext, online encyclopedias, and speech recognition software. In 1939, Bush — a Worshipful Master in Massachusetts’s Richard C. Maclaurin Lodge — was appointed president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; as such he assumed considerable influence with the US Government in military and scientific research. Bush was involved in the development and proposed use of the atomic bomb, and was the alleged head of the “Majestic 12” — the purported code name of a secret committee of scientists, leaders, and officials formed by President Harry Truman. Bush is rumored to have investigated UFO activity in the wake of the Roswell incident, the supposed crash of an alien aircraft in New Mexico in 1947. The secrets his fellow Lodge members may have heard are almost too immense to contemplate.
Our eyes can be fooled Our mind can be fooled Examples
PARIS IN THE THE SPRING
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Find the mistakte
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
WOMAN WITHOUT HER MAN IS NOTHING
WOMAN WOMAN, WITHOUT WITHOUT HER HER, MAN, MAN IS IS NOTHING NOTHING
Lateral thinking puzzles are strange situations in which you are given a little information and then have to find the explanation . They require that the solver be able to “think outside the box”, or think laterally.
1 + 4 = 5 2 + 5 = 12 3 + 6 = 21 8 + 11 = ?
How is it possible to cut a traditional circular cake into eight equal size pieces using only three straight cuts?
A woman is seated in a cabin and is writing a letter. There is a violent electrical storm outside and she dies as a consequence. How did she die?
What is the number of the parking space containing the car?
So why is all this important?
These examples show that sometimes we can be mislead by our own senses. Sometimes we do not think “outside the box” and we get locked into traditional thinking. That can make us rigid in our thinking.
I now present you with the working tools of a Fellowcraft Mason, which are the Plumb, Square and Level. The Plumb is an instrument used by Operative Masons to try perpendiculars, the Square to square their work, and the level to prove horizontals. But we as Free and Accepted Masons are taught to make use of them for more noble and glorious purposes.
The plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations before God and man; The square teaches us to square our actions by the square of virtue; And the level reminds us that we are travelling upon the level of time to the “undiscovered country, from whose bourne , no traveler returns.”
You may define a symbol in a different way than another brother. Which definition is better? I would submit that both are correct.
How would you define plumb? How would you define square? How would you define level?
Nothing in the ritual prevents us from finding our own interpretations of those symbols. “Uprightly” refers to our passage through life. But the plumb may do more than admonish us It may be the symbol by which we erect our thoughts; for there is crooked thinking as well as crooked building.
Masons know that buildings must stand straight up if they are to endure But “straight” is not in itself an absolute term.
Tower of Piza was originally plumb and level Ground and foundation settled over time
2 buildings next to each other look plumb and level What about a building in NY compared to a building in LA? Locally each is plumb and level but when viewed from father away it would appear that they are not
Therefore, we can easily read into “plumb” not only the teaching of straight thinking, but of toleration. What is “straight” to one may not be straight to another. As geographic locations alter the perspective of what is “straight” so our position in the world of thought may alter our ideas of what is “straight” thinking. Two men may have vastly different ideas of what Truth is, yet each may be right from his own standpoint.
A plumb which admonishes us to recognize that, to an observer far off (to the Great Architect, for instance) both thoughts may be right, even if different, is a symbol with a concealed meaning well worth study.
Virtue is a “disposition to conform cordially to the requirements of the moral law.” But what is Moral Law?
Ideas of morality can change with time, and with geographical location. Can we boil a criminal in oil? A thousand years ago this was considered a perfectly moral act. Two thousand years ago, an “eye for an eye” was considered to be moral and just. Can you have more than one wife? It depends on where you live. It is not illegal in some places today.
Time and custom have altered the conception of the moral law for some acts and thoughts, yet certain “squares of virtue” are the same for all mankind. No matter our race, location, religion, or country we call home, it is the opposite of virtuous to steal, to bear false witness, to murder, or to betray one’s country. But Freemasonry is not concerned with the major crimes when she bids an initiate obey the moral law. If she supposed a man was a potential thief (or worse) she would not admit him into her ranks.
As the operative mason each had his individual square, so we have, each of us, our own individual square of virtue. But the operative masons must of necessity have had squares which were alike in their “ squareness .” If their squares differed, then their stones would not be alike and the wall they made would not be plumb and level.
Operative masons might well have been allowed some latitude as to the size of their squares, and of the materials out of which they were made. Examples But it is not thinkable that they were allowed any latitude in the angle of their squares; all had to be ninety degrees.
The kind of square we use as the square of virtue will be dictated by what manner of men we are. There is room for an honest difference of opinion regarding many things, and there is room for differing squares of virtue.
“In the most friendly manner remind him of his faults” does not mean that we are to judge our neighbor, who builds with a square of steel, because we prefer to build with a square of wood. But when he builds with a square which is out of true, then it is time for us to “whisper good counsel in his ear.”
The moral law to which Masons must conform, must be considered to be that general body of public opinion, as recognized by us all. It is by this that we must try our squares of virtue. If our individual tools conform to this standard, then we may use them fearlessly, regardless of size or material.
Like perpendiculars, all horizontals are not parallel to each other. Each of us has our own “level of time.” We share a common time in that we are all alive at the same time, and that month, day and year are all the same for us. But in the larger sense, none of us travels the same level of time.
Do you think time passes the same for: Terminal cancer patient Newlyweds Someone stuck in a boring job Countdown to something exciting Countdown to something dreaded 5 minutes Some lives are short and swift while others are long and slow. Such “times” are surely not the same.
It is seen, therefore, that even such objective symbols as the plumb, level, and square, with an explanation printed in the ritual cipher manual, are not without possibilities of individual interpretation. It is not so important that your interpretation be the best, only that you make some individual interpretation, and be tolerant of other interpretations WHAT a man thinks is usually far less important, than that he DOES think!
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