Some interesting points when considering Russell's masonic activities.

by oldguy 25 Replies latest jw friends

  • oldguy
    oldguy

    Hello everyone

    This will be the first time I have communicated with former witnesses in this manner, so please be patient with me as I figure out how this all works.

    It would be great to find a brother in Scotland who could trace the membership records of the Knights Templar division of the Masonic lodge that Russell belonged to.

    If indeed he was a 32nd degree master mason in the order, then he would have been practicing secret rituals for a considerable number of years during his adult life in order to achieve the title of Master Mason and being referred to as "Worshipful Master".

    Small wonder he was so determined to have his father (a mason with powerful contacts) on board the original bible study group.

    Makes it somewhat more understandable how he was able to give lectures in Carnagie Hall, and attract financing donations during the early years of the society.

    What more could the rich families in America that supported the early Zionist movement ask for than to support Zion's Watchtower and it"s elitist form of heavenly class distictions.

    There are claims that Joseph Rutherford was also a member of the same masonic lodge as his mentor Charles Russell.

    All this begs us to ask Can a rotten tree ever produce good fruit? or Can a crooked tree be made to grow straight?

    Welcome your thoughts and comments. Have a great day.

    oldguy

  • clarity
    clarity

    Hi Oldguy ...welcome to jwn! Lots of speculation about

    Russell & the Masons & just as many conclusions.

    Personally I think he was tied to that organization.

    There is a SEARCH button top left hand side of this

    page, and many sites to research this subject.

    We look forward to your introductory post.

    clarity

  • TD
    TD

    It would not surprise me if C.T. Russell was involved with the Masons, because it was extremely common at the time, especially for men with a modicum of means. A number of my family members were Masons and the rituals and contortions they went through at funerals struck me as a bit odd in a "Crazy uncle by marriage " sort of way.

    When it comes to Russell, I have yet to see a shred of concrete evidence though.

  • Island Man
    Island Man

    I'm not sure that C.T. Russel himself was a free mason. However, what is very obvious given the imagery on the cover of early Watchtower literature, is that he was in some way exposed to masonic influences.

  • AndersonsInfo
    AndersonsInfo

    Back in 2001, I requested historical information from the ANCIENT ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE OF FREEMASONRY, VALLEY OF PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, asking if Charles Taze Russell, his father, Joseph Lytel Russell, and his uncle, Charles Tays Russell, were Pennsylvania Freemasons. This is the answer I received in a letter:

    “AFTER A SEARCH OF OUR RECORDS, WE DETERMINED THAT THE THREE RUSSELL’S WERE NOT MEMBERS OF OUR ORGANIZATION.”

    In their letter, the Pittsburgh Chapter recommended that I send an inquiry asking for further research into this question to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, which I did. On April 27, 2001, I received this reply:

    “THE RECORD BOOKS IN THE GRAND SECRETARY’S OFFICE ARE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME AS THEY ARE BEING CONSERVED AND SHOULD BE BACK SOME TIME IN THE FALL.”

    Inasmuch as I was very involved with other, more pressing things then, I did not follow-up and eventually my desire for resolution of this question faded out of my mind, that is, until September 2005 when I sent a follow-up email to the Masonic Temple, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, I received this reply:

    DEAR MS. ANDERSON,

    CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL WAS NOT A PENNSYLVANIA FREEMASON. NOR DOES HE APPEAR IN THE RECORDS OF ENGLAND OR IRELAND.

    I SHALL CHECK THE RECORDS FOR THE OTHER TWO RUSSELLS.

    BEST,
    GLENYS A. WALDMAN
    LIBRARIAN

    I never checked back with Ms. Waldman to see whether the other two Russell’s were Pennsylvania Freemasons, but there has never been any evidence they were, so I didn’t bother.

    In any event, I would hope the answer from a search of the original records will forever put this claim to rest that Charles Taze Russell was a Pennsylvania Freemason because he absolutely was not. If anybody should know it's the Masons themselves.

    Further Information:

    Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon – Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions – Section 3, Version 2.9 http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry03.html#russell
    Charles Taze Russell “Claims have been made that “Pastor” Russell” (1852/02/16-1916/10/31), founder of the International Bible Students Association — forerunner of the Jehovah’s Witnesses — was a freemason; that the banner on the front of early issues of the Watchtower contained masonic symbols; and that Russell’s gravestone bears a masonic cross and crown symbol.

    “Russell was not a freemason. Neither the symbols found in the Watchtower nor the cross and crown symbol are exclusively masonic. And the cross and crown symbol does not appear on his gravestone in the Rosemont United Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — it appears on a memorial erected some years later.

    “In an address delivered in a San Francisco masonic hall in 1913, Russell made positive use of masonic imagery by saying, “Now, I am a free and accepted mason. I trust we all are. But not just after the style of our masonic brethren.” He further develops this idea: “true Bible believers may or may not belong to the masonic fraternity, but they are all masons of the highest order, since they are being fashioned, chiseled and polished by the Almighty to be used as living stones in the Temple Built Without Hands. They are free from sin, and therefore accepted by the God of Heaven as fit stones for the heavenly Temple.” Later in this address, Russell stated quite clearly that “I have never been a mason.” Those who claim Russell was a freemason quote this address out of context without noting the rhetorical imagery.

    “Although Russell wrote about the pyramids and the Knights Templar, the pyramids are not a part of Freemasonry and Russell’s understanding of the relationship between the modern Knights Templar and Freemasonry displays an outsider’s ignorance of both organizations.”

    http://watchtowerdocuments.org/charles-taze-russell-was-not-a-pennsylvania-freemason/

    Barbara

  • Old Goat
    Old Goat

    Russell wasn't a Mason. Some of his associates were. His uncle was. Russell wasn't. Period. See the appendix in Schulz's Separate Identity.

    Russell was born in the USA. He was never a member of a Scottish lodge. He never lived in Scotland. His father was born in Londonderry, Ireland. Joseph Russell was on his mother's side a Little/Lytel. While there were well-off Littles, the Russell brothers were not among that number. Not being among the more wealthy in Ireland, they would not have been Masons. In that era the Mason drew from upper class people.

    It memebership lists of Pittsburgh and Allegheny lodges exist. Neither Russell nor his father Joseph are on those lists.

  • Finkelstein
    Finkelstein

    There is little evidence that Russell and his father were actual registered Freemasons but there's is evidence of Russell's association with that particular secular organization

    had some connecting influence that he absorbed, in which he expressively taught himself and published in his own literature.

    As its known the Pyramid form has symbolic relevance toward Freemason theology, the very reason why you see it on the US dollar for example.

    Russell like other speculative theorists of his era also got caught up in Pyramidlogy by noted British astronomer Charles Smyth and his book .

    Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid

    .

    Pyramidological researches

    Smyth corresponded with pyramid theorist John Taylor and was heavily influenced by him. Taylor theorized in his 1859 book The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? & Who Built It? that the Great Pyramid was planned and the building supervised by the biblical Noah. Refused a grant by the Royal Society, Smyth went on an expedition to Egypt in order to accurately measure every surface, dimension, and aspect of the Great Pyramid. He brought along equipment to measure the dimensions of the stones, the precise angle of sections such as the descending passage, and a specially designed camera to photograph both the interior and exterior of the pyramid. He also used other instruments to make astronomical calculations and determine the pyramid's accurate latitude and longitude.

    This diagram from Smyth's Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid (1877) shows some of his measurements and chronological determinations made from them

    Smyth subsequently published his book Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid in 1864 (which he expanded over the years and is also titled The Great Pyramid: Its Secrets and Mysteries Revealed). Smyth claimed that the measurements he obtained from the Great Pyramid of Giza indicated a unit of length, the pyramid inch, equivalent to 1.001 British inches, that could have been the standard of measurement by the pyramid's architects. From this he extrapolated a number of other measurements, including the pyramid pint, the sacred cubit, and the pyramid scale of temperature.

    Smyth claimed that the pyramid inch was a God-given measure handed down through the centuries from the time of Shem (Noah's Son), and that the architects of the pyramid could only have been directed by the hand of God. To support this Smyth said that, in measuring the pyramid, he found the number of inches in the perimeter of the base equalled one thousand times the number of days in a year, and found a numeric relationship between the height of the pyramid in inches to the distance from Earth to the Sun, measured in statute miles. He also advanced the theory that the Great Pyramid was a repository of prophecies which could be revealed by detailed measurements of the structure. Working upon theories by Taylor, he conjectured that the Hyksos were the Hebrew people, and that they built the Great Pyramid under the leadership of Melchizedek. Because the pyramid inch was a divine unit of measurement, Smyth, a committed proponent of British Israelism, used his conclusions as an argument against the introduction of the metric system in Britain. For much of his life he was a vocal opponent of the metric system, which he considered a product of the minds of atheistic French radicals, a position advocated in many of his works.

    Smyth, despite his bad reputation in Egyptological circles today, performed much valuable work at Giza. He made the most accurate measurements of the Great Pyramid that any explorer had made up to that time, and he photographed the interior passages, using a magnesium light, for the first time. Smyth's work resulted in many drawings and calculations, which were soon incorporated into his books Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, the three-volume Life and Work at the Great Pyramid (1867), and On the Antiquity of Intellectual Man (1868). For his works he was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but in 1874, the Royal Society rejected his paper on the design of Khufu's pyramid, as they had Taylor's. The rejection of his ideas helped contribute to his resignation from his post as Royal Astronomer in 1888.

    Influence of Smyth's pyramid theories

    Smyth's theories on pyramid prophecy were then integrated into the works and prophecies of Charles Taze Russell(such as his Studies in the Scriptures), who founded the Bible Student movement (most visible today in the Jehovah's Witnesses, though Russell's successor, Joseph F. Rutherford, denounced pyramidology as unscriptural). Smyth's proposed dates for the Second Coming, first 1882 then many dates between 1892 and 1911, were failed predictions.

    .

    So one can see that Russell gravitated toward many different sources of information which he thought carried appealing relevance or he could further propagate to the public.

    To this day there are ancient Egyptian images inside the Pittsburgh Freemason Hall, which makes one wonder if he had some influence in placing the

    images there or were they there before his time and they influenced him ???

    .

    Interesting enough C. Smyth also had a stone monument of a Pyramid place at his grave site just like Russell.

    .

  • oldguy
    oldguy

    Hello Again

    Well, as one who was terminated from the flock (the year Ray Franz wrote his second wonderful volume (1993) for apostacy against the organization and speaking out against holy ones., I might well be guilty again!

    As Ron Frye always said to me, Consider that there may be a third alternative. Psydomason/templar ?

    I want to thank all who have commented thus far on the subject. I have heard convincing argumentation on both sides of the table as to Russell's actual membership and appreciate your additional input.

    How many think the Watchtower organization will eventually split into several groups some Unitarian and some Trinitarian as the older adventist Worldwide Church of God did? (Armstrong/Ambassidor college)

    Thanks again Oldguy

  • Terry
    Terry

    Oldguy asks:

    How many think the Watchtower organization will eventually split into several groups some Unitarian and some Trinitarian as the older adventist Worldwide Church of God did? (Armstrong/Ambassidor college)

    _________________________

    Without the "high-control" aspect of Jehovah's Witnesses what would be the point of starting an offshoot when Seventh Day Adventists are a much nicer alternative. Christadelphians come pretty darned close to the JW's as well.

    No, without "Big Brother" the thrill is gone.

    If you are a social misfit with delusions of intelligence, it is attractive to be a "thumb-in-everybody's-eye) cult. Contrarians simply get off

    on proving others wrong. It is a poor substitute for actual information, education and social integration, however.

    The same people who are attracted to 50 Shades of Grey are attracted to the intense domination of the GB.

  • designs
    designs

    So exactly what is it you object to about the Masonic groups.

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