The article is now in English. Please let me know what you think.
Why Charles Taze Russell was NOT a Freemason
by ILoveTTATT2 16 Replies latest jw friends
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ILoveTTATT2
No one? It took me a very long time to make this article. Hopefully you find interesting that I found a magazine that explains the real reason why the Masonic center is near the Rosemont United Cemetery.
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Finkelstein
Kind of known already ILoveTTATT2
Russell did use many Freemason Halls in his traveling sales pitch for his publications and might have also been influenced from this organization's Egyptian pyramids which the Freemason theology is slightly involved with.
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ILoveTTATT2
Thank you for the response. I guess in this forum I am not shocking anyone with the info. In other locations, and certainly in the Hispanic exJW community, yes... I'd say about 80% of the community believes he was a Freemason.
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Finkelstein
One could say he was a Freemason in theological terms but apparently he wasn't a registered Freemason.
The close intermingling of this organization's theology in relation to Russell's can not be denied though.
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Londo111
Good work.
Alas, this misinformation will continue to be propagated by some who do not care about facts and fact-checking.
Another thing is...if Russell was a Mason...so what? I'm not sure this would change my opinion of him one way or another. He had so many verifiable failings, that even if true, being a Mason would be the least of the concerns.
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Finkelstein
The Freemason institution was built upon men seeking their power and prominence, Russell had a character that was also seeking of his own power and built up personal stature around himself, money alone wasn't quite accomplishing what he personally wanted and desired, so becoming a designated servant to God the almighty one was perceived by him in cultivating much more public notoriety toward himself and it did,
The Laodicean Messenger he was.
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Half banana
I understood he had Masonic leanings earlier in life and no doubt Masonic sentiments influenced his values to some extent such as the idea of an exclusive brotherhood and the notion of gaining esoteric knowledge from hidden sources e.g. the Bible and the pyramids of Gizeh. His trick was to claim to be the conduit for interpreting these things.
Just one thing I noticed a couple of days ago; Russell's actual headstone bearing his photograph is only half finished, deliberately so, he wasn't short of cash!
As it happens my great grandfather's grave is the same with the dressing of the lower half of the stone left rough (in pink granite, Russell's favourite stone) and my grandfather with his unusual secular grave, was a high flying Mason.
In gravestone lore, to have a stone unfinished can mean going from material to a spirit life, especially if the inscription is not complete or it can be a Masonic symbol of the incompletion of the Temple building-- at least that was how I understood it to be.
Is there anyone here better versed in these things than I am?
Russell was not a practising Mason but he was not beyond using symbols as he saw fit or did someone else choose his headstone? I imagine the autocrat Russell chose his own.
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Finkelstein
His trick was to claim to be the conduit for interpreting these things.
Self propagating marketing, which the following leaders of the WTS took on as well.
They have only the true interpretation of the bible, all others are false, essentially creating more validating importance to the literature the WTS published
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Finkelstein
Sorry Half Banana I dont see this half finished of which you speak of ???
