shriners - tell me stuff about them

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not posted here in ages, but i need to know stuff about shriners - now! a friend of mine at work and myself have developed a three-day obsession with them and it's not going away, so we need pictures (especially if they're in those cool dinky, little cars they ride round in with fezs on), articles, exposes, explanations of their philosophy, everything. basically we want to be britain's foremost authorities on the subject by the time this thread is over. also, what is the deal with all the islamic iconography? are they actually moslem, or are they, as i have read, non-denominational and non-religious?

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Paramilitary wing of the Masons?

― Ed (dali), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:26 (twenty-one years ago)

No, they're far closer to the Knights Templar. They're not Freemasons at all.

Modern revival of the Templar movement, IIRC.

(Though some might say that the Masons were an 18th Century revival of the Templar movement, so there you go.)

― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:27 (twenty-one years ago)

with v cool little cars

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

And fezzes.

They're on the cover of that Dead Kennedys album, yeah?

― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Surely the /knights of St John are the nears thing to an extant Knights Templar.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

thems the fellas

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, they inherited their lands and some of their power, and in many ways the St.Johns actually picked up where the Templars left off. (And in some case were just a front, especially in Britain.)

But the Shriners are a modern revival who are unaware of this tradition.

― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Aren't they the one that have the youth order of Jacque de Molay or something?

― Super-Kate (kate), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:31 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't know but i'm betting that on a list like this at least on person's dad will be one and that will totally rock my world when i hear it

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 2 April 2004 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Some answers:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/4175588.htm

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Friday, 2 April 2004 12:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I did a story once on fading old-school men's social organizations--Masons, Shriners, Elks. Apparently, once you become a 32nd Degree Mason (sort of like becoming an Eagle Scout, but a whole lot easier), you are eligible to join the Shrine. The whole thing's sort of like an overgrown fraternity--some charity work, some drinking, some brotherly networking/back-scratching, and some embarrassing public behavior, most often in little cars. They have appropriated lots of Middle Eastern imagery--much like the Masons have carried forward all sorts of weird atavistic mumbo-jumbo trappings--but pretty much every Shriner I talked to for the piece was a middle-aged, middle-class Baptist or Methodist.

My grandfather and father both were members of their local Scottish Rite Temple of Freemasonry and both joined the Shrine, although my dad didn't stick with it very long (generational thing, I suppose, hence the fading). When I was a little kid, I used to get his fez out of the top of the closet and wear it around the house, which he wasn't too keen on. Between my impressions of it as a kid and the reading I did later--and stuff like The Man Who Would Be King--I had attributed a certain air of mystery to the Masons and the Shrine. Later on, when I did the story, I was sort of disappointed by how mundane it all was--like Kiwanis or Jaycees with better outfits.

― Lee G (Lee G), Friday, 2 April 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it when people say please.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 2 April 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, there are separate white and black Masonic societies, at least here in the States. It is my understanding that white Masons (at least in the South) interpret a certain line in their bizarro bylaws to mean that they can't accept members who are the descendents of "bondsmen," aka slaves. (Of course, the bylaws also include bits about having your tongue torn out at the root and being buried in sand at the low-tide line if you violate the mysteries.) That didn't stop an African-American Masonry tradition from evolving in parallel, though; it seems particularly active here in Baltimore, where I live now.

― Lee G (Lee G), Friday, 2 April 2004 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

There's an all-black Masonic hall up the street from here. It's a pretty decrepit looking 'temple' however.

― andy, Friday, 2 April 2004 16:05 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

what can you tell me about the knights templar?

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 08:21 (twenty years ago)

they were a crusading order of monks who fought in the crusades. They owned lots of property all across Europe which was used to fun their FITES. After the Christians lost the Crusades people began to wonder what the point of the Templars having all that money was, and the greedy King of France decided to shut them down and steal all their stuff. He made up charges of heresy and satan worship against them to justify this, and got the Powp to sanction the Templars abolition. The leading Templar was burned at the stake.

That's it really.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 25 September 2004 15:41 (twenty years ago)

what about the protection of the blood line of christ?

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:04 (twenty years ago)

FICTION!!!!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:24 (twenty years ago)

RUMOR!!!!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:24 (twenty years ago)

MERE SPECULATION!!!!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:24 (twenty years ago)

FAULTY REASONING!!!!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago)

EXCALAMATION POINTS!!!!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago)

there's a clue inside my last post, it will lead you to trasure!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago)

Only trasure? Not the Holy Grail, the tablets of the ten commandments, the True Cross and the body of Christ posed in a 69 with the also-miraculously-preserved body of Mary Magdalene AS WELL?

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:17 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/10/27/2009-10-27_burglars_steal_atlanta_georgia_shriners_minicars_from_storage_facility.html

― StanM, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 22:51 (fifteen years ago)

Shriners with semi-on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyVL7EaqMeA

― Dags in Space (S-), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 13:06 (fifteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.