# Questions about your organization.



## securitiesnerd (Apr 22, 2013)

Iam not a mason (oh no!).  I have a bizarre and unexplainable passion for securities speculation. I have been speculating since Iwas around 20 years old. I am now 28. I love speculation.  Any true speculator, anyone who truly does this in reality knows the incredible tole it takes on ones own psyche.  Jesse Livermore posited once that anyone can be a great shot with a gun, but that doesn't make him a great dueler because how calm and collected and effective will he be with a gun pointed at his heart? The same can be said of speculation anyone can in theory be good at it, but when real money is on the line their emotions get the best of them. 


Ilove what is known in our world as discretionary global macro long/short trading.  The key word being discretionary which in our world means based on a system with no input from the trader. It is set up as a logical paradigm. If  Y event happens then you do x action.  The reason discretionary trading emerged was due to traders beliefs that we cannot overcome our own deep lower brained animal instincts. That instincts such as foraging/hording or fear or greed overcome us. That we have lower brained deep animal instincts that make us emotional and unreasonable. If the speculator were to move the decision making from his own flawed self and make all decisions made by a logical system where he has no input then his failings as a man cannot cause him to lose. IF the system works, he works.  The philosophical construct of discretionary is one that begins with the ideas that man cannot overcome his animal instincts and emotions so he must use only a logical system in trading. 


I have an extensive background in philosophy (I have a Jesuit education). I adore plato, and to a lesser extent Aristotle. I studied extensively their constructs expressed in such works as Republic. I know Aristotle and later Hobbes were a great influence on the founding fathers who were largely masons. I am fascinated by their observation that the Majority can be and is often wrong, and the minority, even a minority of one can be right. The minority can know the truth that the majority is delusional of. The founding fathers instilled an amazing judiciary to deal with this.  And your members have done nothing to the judiciary except expand greatly the idea that the minority can know the truth the majority fails to see.An amazing prince hall member (thurgood marshall) wrote in a decision named Patsy that the cornerstone to America was a citizens right to be able to petition his local federal judge for help to protect himfrom his own government. Your prince hall member wrote a wonderful decision that found our country as being an amazing country because it assumes government would wrong its own citizens.  Thanks to opinions authored by marshall or voted on by him such as Bivens v Six unknown agents, under his direction we gained the ability to have our local judge protect us from any government even the federal government. Thanks to the work of people in your organization any American can overrule his entire local government if they are doing the wrong things (see Olech v Willock or Plazazzo v Rode island,  in olech the government defined the minority as one person, and even if one person is right and the government is wrong the one person still prevails as they have the truth).


What fascinates me about your organization is not your history but your ideas, the ideas that the majority is often wrong.  Your jurist seem to form arguments around this premise.  I've read your members legal opinions.  


Insecurities markets 90 to 95% of participants regularly lose money while 5% make money on a regular basis. Traders argue this proves that the vast majority of people are wrong the vast majority of the time and a small minority of people know the truth. This all reminds me of plato's cave how most everyone is consumed with the shadows with staring at a projection of a shadow show on the wall that doesn't exist while a minority of people wanted to see what was outside of the cave. The light outside of the cave burned their eyes and skin but eventually they were able to see and they saw what was the truth and reality. 


 I like to study these two ideas 1. that the majority is wrong and 2.that men have animal instincts they need to overcome.  I find them to be the same topic as it seems animal instincts are what causes mos tmen to be wrong most of the time.  When I study my ideas I keep comig  upon articles and books that discuss neoplatonism and gnosticism and then of course reference your (often described as“lucifarian”) organization.  It seems your organization has ideas tantamount to those of neoplatonism and gnosticism.  Also I occasionally study merkabah or chariot study, and find your organization again comes up in discussions of cosmology and its effects on more emotionally controlled men.  I adore the work of George Bayer and WD Gann.  Gann was argued as reaching the highest degree of your order.  The name Gann in securities is like saying lockness monster because he argues for cosmology's effect on securities prices, however his geometric ideas I have studied andfound his ideas of geometry and securities prices are amazingly accurate. 


Doesyour organization in fact study ideas similar to this?  Is your“light” the same light as plato's? Is your organization devotedto gnosis? 


Thankyou so much in advance


jason


ps. 


were Aarron burr and Hamilton both members?  I can't see why they would have dueled if they were both members. Our founding father Burr disagreed with Hamilton that we did not need a central bank as the rich would take over. He as the vice president murdered Hamilton and no one said anything... and people think Washington is tough today! I don't see the VP shooting people. But I never understood how two of your brothers could have dueled and one killed the other even if Burr thought he was saving America from oligarchy.


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## BryanMaloney (Apr 22, 2013)

If the vast majority of people are wrong the vast majority of the time, then the vast majority of people who are alive at the beginning of every day will die that day, or if not that day, then within a month, at the very least. This conclusion by "Traders" about "the vast majority of people" is an example of a fallacy, in this case an unsubstantiable conclusion, made by experts in a field, that broad lack of expertise in their field is a sign of general incompetence in all walks of life by "the vast majority" of people.

Let us transfer the arena from securities markets to molecular psychiatry. How many securities traders would, off the bat, without years to make themselves familiar with the techniques of molecular psychiatry, without a selfless mentor from within the field, but having to resort to "agents" or "brokers" who are out for themselves and see their non-expert "client" as an opportunity to make money, would do well in their first forays? How many would fail "the vast majority of the time"? I would say that "the vast majority" of them would. Therefore, would I be reasonable to say that the vast majority of securities traders are general incompetents for all aspects of life? That is what is being claimed when a group of experts claim that lack of expertise within their field is evidence of being "wrong the vast majority of the time".

The model is so flawed that I can only imagine Elmer Fudd and Foghorn Leghorn expounding upon it to a rapt audience consisting of Daffy Duck and Sylvester the Cat. Bugs, of course, immediately sees the ridiculousness of the claims and turns it into a comedy springboard.

Let me spell it out more abstractly:

Given field X.
Field X, to perform competently, requires highly specialized knowledge, not all of which is sufficiently understood to impart explicitly.
Therefore, competence in field X is a sign of acquisition of this knowledge.
Therefore, lack of competence in field X is a sign of lack of acquisition of this knowledge AND NOTHING MORE.

Drawing any conclusion beyond this is at very best intellectual laziness, although it is more likely crass egotism and general ignorance of logic and of the human psyche.

Truth be told, the vast majority of people are right the vast majority of the time. This explains why people are willing to dabble in difficult matters like securities trading without sufficient knowledge. If the vast majority of people were not right the vast majority of the time, the vast majority of people would eat rat poison, run in front of moving vehicles, forget to eat or drink at all, drive knives into their eyeballs, walk through windows instead of using the door, say "Frp zrble ga hoo." instead of "Hello" upon greeting each other, fall down because they forgot how to walk, put pants on their heads, and drive into trees, EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF EVERY SINGLE DAY. There is some small fraction of humanity that does this sort of thing, daily, but the vast majority do not and continue not to do so.

Therefore, if you are smart enough to put pants on your bottom half, not drive into a tree, eat roast beef instead of rat poison, and say "Hello" to someone, why not dabble in other stuff, too? After all, living is an extremely difficult task, given how amazingly easy it is to die. Our daily, indeed, nanosecond-by-nanosecond record of correct decisions lulls us into a false sense of competence when we step outside our immediate realm of knowledge. To make matters worse, alleged "experts" tell us, over and over, how very EASY securities trading is, all we have to do is buy their book and follow their method. Since we wouldn't lie to them, why would they lie to us? (That gets into another element of human behavior that most people misunderstand--liars only succeed in a fundamentally honest culture--I digress.)

Thus, the very premise that one must have "gnosis" merely to get by is silly, QED.

That being said, one must certainly have expert knowledge in order to do difficult, specialized, expert things. Medicine, securities trading, leadership, all are skills that we are not born knowing. Thus, we need to seek out willing experts and learn from them (or learn it the hard way--much higher failure rate). This "gnosis" is thus acquired through appropriate groups. I, for example, acquired the "gnosis" of data analysis from other scientists and statisticians. A security trader acquires the "gnosis" of securities trading from other securities traders. Men acquire the "gnosis" of leadership (self-control and a moral life count as leadership--leadership of yourself) from groups like the Masons. However, none of these "gnoses" are "gnosis" in the sense promulgated by the Gnostic religions. Instead, they use the more general (and older) meaning of "gnosis"--"knowledge".

That being said, there are Gnostic Masons, just as there are non-Gnostic Masons. Likewise, there are neoplatonist Masons, but one need not be a neoplatonist to be a Mason. Indeed one can thoroughly reject neoplatonism and Platonism and still be a Mason. For example, I am a Fideist. I consider the eidoi to be convenient shorthands but no more. That is, no "ideal" of a human exists outside of human beings. No "ideal" table exists outside of peoples perceptions and desires regarding tables--but there is no external "universal prototype" upon which all of these are based. I'm not a nominalist, but I am closer to nominalism than to realism, Platonism being a type of realism.


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## dfreybur (Apr 22, 2013)

securitiesnerd said:


> Does your organization in fact study ideas similar to this?  Is your“light” the same light as plato's? Is your organization devotedto gnosis?



Masonry encourages the study of all ideas.  There are Masons who study those ideas and there are masons who have no interest in them and that's as it should be.  Our light is the divine however each of us view the divine.  So if your idea of Plato's light is your idea of the divine then yes for you.  As to gnosis it means knowledge and masonry encourages the study of all ideas.  As that brings me answer into a circle that's a good point for me to stop typing ...


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## Michael Hatley (Apr 22, 2013)

Well, I've never been more than a dabbler at either trading or poker - but I'm in the black at both over the course of my life.  I think that has more to do with the fact that I don't get a charge out of money, resist high stakes, and avoid the tables and markets I'm outclassed in.  But anyhow.

I've also read some of the philosophers - from Plato and Aristotle to Locke and so forth, both on my own and then in University philosophy and political science courses.  I'm very, very far from a scholar but its safe to say I have something close to the modern take on a classical liberal education.

My take - it is difficult to take any of the philosophers, or for that matter religious texts wholesale.  Plato's Republic was not a place most of us would actually want to live in.  It was more an aristocracy than anything, for example, and Marx got as much out of it as Jefferson did.  And the forms are interesting, but true?  Etc.

I feel about the same about pretty well everything I read.  Good bits and bad bits.  Gnosis is interesting but I shrug at the mysticism.  Buddhism, the same - karma seems right, no creator God not so much, and lots of mysticism that gilds the lily. Spinoza seemed on the right track in areas. 

Thoreau was an interesting fellow and while I don't agree with him either on everything, he was my sort of fellow all the way around.  A reader of primary sources.  A former of his own opinions.  A person willing to amalgamate bits and pieces of everything he read, take all the things that felt correct and have his own world view.  

Its the seeking bit, the self reliance to accept that there is value in many, many books and to take those things which sit right to your soul and discard the rest that I think is the operative thing.  And most of all the curiosity to keep asking questions and keep taking in new sources to add to the gumbo.  

There are a number of avenues which, in my mind, start the mind working for fellows not already on that path in Freemasonry.  It has a way of creating seekers and bringing them together.  Some of the allegories in Freemasonry, for a fellow who has already read a number of primary sources, might not be as moving as they might be to someone who has no experience with them.  But they are great conversation starters.

Put it this way - we have no shortage of ways to generate meaningful and real conversations over a libation, and that is a fact.  Do we have all the answers?  Yes, I believe we do - but then again I believe the answer to the question of the meaning of life is to seek it earnestly with an open and glad heart.  To reach for God, meaning, and love.  And to spend time with others who see life the same way.

Anyway, rambling again :24:


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## securitiesnerd (Apr 22, 2013)

Mr. Maloney you are correct in your ideas on how absurd it is for someone with no training to enter a field. The greatest traders from Livermore to O'Neil to Cutten all find that being a trader is tantamount to the profession of a doctor and takes years of study.  

When i say that the people are wrong, I am referring to the condition of popular delusion or the ideas that a crowd believe a delusional for no other reason than the crowd believes it.  A famous study took participants in a room and showed them various colored wood sticks. They were of different lengths  The administrator would ask the person which stick was longer  red or green,  blue or red, etc.  After an hour or so someone would enter the room and state that there were just to many people who needed to be "tested" and there were just so many sticks to look at they needed to group people together. They would take the participant into a room with three other participants who were actually "confederates"  or actors. The participant would be labeled person number 4.   They would show two sticks again and ask which was longer red or blue.  They would go in order with responses person 1, 2, 3, and 4 with 1,2,3 being actors.  After a few correct responses the participants 1,2,3 would start all at the same time answering incorrectly they would say one stick was longer when it really was shorter.  The actual participant 4 would agree with them. He would go along with what the group said rather than what he could see with his own eyes.  He would answer incorrectly with something as simple as "which is longer."

The same can be said of securities markets.  Most people in markets know price is divorced from value,  even value investing by Graham and Dodd which argues price is value states you should buy when price is below value, for this to be possible price has to be divorced from value. Therefore value is what ever the crowd says it is, not what is reality.  Just as the crowd once said the world was flat and it wasn't.   The crowd once bid up tulip buds to be the most valuable substance on earth. This is obviously absurd. What use is a tulip bud? Its a flower that withers and dies.   In securities people invest in things because everyone else is investing in the same thing, they all want to be a part of the crowd even if the crowd is wrong. 

Crowds being massively wrong is documented in works like  The Crowd by gustav le bon, or Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by mackay, or even Ann Coulters demonic.  There are countless examples of delusions being massively subscribed to by the mass population for no other reason than the mass population is subscribing to it. People will believe the mob mentality over themselves. '

Its not ego, its reality.  The only thing that guarantees failure in trading is pride, that is why so many traders have moved discretionary or letting a system decide for them because they can't be trusted wit their own pride. 

When i said they were wrong i didn't mean they couldn't eat food or put on pants i meant their ideas were often and almost always were subject to mass crowd delusion. 

Mr. Hatley i agree with your point the republic was not a happy place to live, but look at Aristotle who came after who said all men were created equal and we could bring equality by having slaves.  It reminds me of the constitution and its bill of rights while also holding some people are 3/5ths of a man.  I agree that no one person was right.  

My question more had to deal with literary works of your organization such as ones by Albert Pike, or similar these documents seem to be Gnostic in basis. you organization has written many esoteric texts. I was referring to these such works in my original question.


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## widows son (Apr 22, 2013)

I think securitiesnerd and Bryan both have very good points. Albert Pikes words were just that. His words. They in no way reflect the general consensus of Freemasonry as a whole. Same goes to any Masonic author on this subject. But Pike felt that in order to understand Humanity, you must go back, to see the progressive line of thought that has directed mankind through the ages. He includes many other schools of thought other than Gnosticism. But he relates these schools of thought to masonry, not because its some hidden continuous line of succession, but because they all have valid points, and some of these have been passed on and adopted by newer schools of thought. Esoterica is a vastly wide and general term that covers many grounds and philosophies. When a mason approaches these philosophies, the interpretation is up to him. Again no regular Masonic body sways to one specific philosophy. And it's not that anyone of these philosophies is wrong or right.  My question is, the would be "masonophobes" be a majority that is wrong? I'm opined to think so.


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## OES513 (Apr 22, 2013)

What exactly is international masons?

Freemason Connect Mobile


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## widows son (Apr 23, 2013)

A bogus order that claims to be masons.


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## widows son (Apr 23, 2013)

This was a very confusing subject, but thanks to a few brethren here I've learned quite a bit about these bogus and unrecognized groups. Basically there's no international headquarter for freemasonry. The closest thing that would ever come to that is the UGLE. And even then they don't speak for the 1000's of regular GL's that sovereign. They only trace their lineage to UGLE. I'd you see the words "Regular" "National" "International" "Sovereign" or "Grand Orient" chances are they are bogus.


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## widows son (Apr 23, 2013)

I learned the majority of this from masonicinfo.com


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## BryanMaloney (Apr 23, 2013)

securitiesnerd said:


> When i say that the people are wrong, I am referring to the condition of popular delusion or the ideas that a crowd believe a delusional for no other reason than the crowd believes it.  A famous study took participants in a room and showed them various colored wood sticks.


 
I am well aware of this and the other classic studies (many done fairly shortly after the end of WWII, in part with an eye toward explaining what had happened). This still has absolutely nothing at all to do with the absurd and unsubstantiable claim that "most people are wrong most of the time". All these studies prove is that we are still essentially troop-living apes, for all our pretensions of greatness. We still are hard-wired to prefer to follow the troop.



> 1,2,3 would start all at the same time answering incorrectly they would say one stick was longer when it really was shorter.  The actual participant 4 would agree with them. He would go along with what the group said rather than what he could see with his own eyes.  He would answer incorrectly with something as simple as "which is longer."



You are misrepresenting the results. While a significant portion of the subjects would end up going with the crowd, another portion would not do so. But aren't we taught to go along with the crowd, no matter what? If you don't like what other people like and like what others don't like, it makes you worse than a child molester. I'm not exaggerating. A child molester is very often far more socially acceptable in his overall behavior and image than is a mere eccentric. Until that child molester's crime is discovered, he will be a "pillar of the community" and the eccentric will be an outcast. Afterwards, the eccentric will not rise in community standing--indeed, his eccentricities will be used to fuel suspicions against him, as well, even though the child molester shared none of those eccentricities and was very much a "normal" person, otherwise. The moral is not that "people are bad" but that the surface is not to be mistaken for the reality.



> The same can be said of securities markets.  Most people in markets know price is divorced from value,  even value investing by Graham and Dodd which argues price is value states you should buy when price is below value, for this to be possible price has to be divorced from value.


 
Value is whatever people are willing to pay (and that doesn't have to mean pay in money) for something, no more, no less. Price is what the seller demands, no more, no less.



> In securities people invest in things because everyone else is investing in the same thing, they all want to be a part of the crowd even if the crowd is wrong.



You start with something sensible and leap off into silly. People do not invest just to be part of the crowd. They invest with the intent of making money. If they thought the crowd were wrong, they would not follow it IN THAT PARTICULAR INSTANCE unless there is some ADDITIONAL cost inherent in not following the crowd. Why do we follow crowds, because, over evolutionary time, the cost in not following them has been higher than the cost of following them. Cost and value are NOT ONLY MONEY. It doesn't matter how much money you have if nobody is willing to sell you anything, including food.



> Crowds being massively wrong is documented in works


 
So what? Prove that this means that "the vast majority of people are wrong the vast majority of the time". Using your "logic" we MUST conclude that it is wrong to drink water and refuse to drink antifreeze. Why? Because the vast majority of people drink water and refuse to drink antifreeze. Therefore, IT MUST BE WRONG TO NOT DRINK ANTIFREEZE!!!




> Its not ego, its reality.  The only thing that guarantees failure in trading is pride, that is why so many traders have moved discretionary or letting a system decide for them because they can't be trusted wit their own pride.



And those market crashes triggered by superfast computer trading never happened? 



> When i said they were wrong i didn't mean they couldn't eat food or put on pants i meant their ideas were often and almost always were subject to mass crowd delusion.



Which specific ideas? The crowd idea that ordinary people should be allowed to vote? The crowd idea that the government shouldn't dictate our religion? The crowd idea that the government shouldn't dictate how many children we have? The crowd idea that the government shouldn't dictate what we are allowed to read? The crowd idea that the government shouldn't conduct unlimited surveillance of everyone? The crowd idea that the government shouldn't dictate the clothes we wear? The crowd idea that groups like the Freemasons aren't worth the trouble to lynch? Which of these crowd ideas are merely delusion? Let's have some actual specifics for ideas that have not been generally discarded in the present day. For every crowd idea that has turned out to be stupid, I could find two that seem to be doing just fine.

The fundamental ideals of the Enlightenment is part and parcel of the foundation of Freemasonry, and those ideals include the idea that "all men are created equal", not "most men are created morons". Likewise, it includes the idea that, given education and freedom of thought, most people will eventually come around to correct conclusions, not that most people are idiots. Freemasonry is not about setting up some kind of gnostocracy.



> Mr. Hatley i agree with your point the republic was not a happy place to live, but look at Aristotle who came after who said all men were created equal and we could bring equality by having slaves.  It reminds me of the constitution and its bill of rights while also holding some people are 3/5ths of a man.


 
How does this mean that we should adopt hardcore elitism as an ethic? Does that mean that all the Founders were wrong "most of the time"? Gee, if they're wrong most of the time, maybe we should become a military dictatorship. I nominate me as Fearless Leader.



> My question more had to deal with literary works of your organization such as ones by Albert Pike, or similar these documents seem to be Gnostic in basis. you organization has written many esoteric texts. I was referring to these such works in my original question.



As I have been told many times, Pike and others are merely personal interpretations of Freemasonry, not to be taken as Masonic doctrine, prima facie--Pike, himself, said this. Here is a short essay on Pike by a Masonic scholar: http://www.masonicinfo.com/pike.htm


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## dfreybur (Apr 23, 2013)

securitiesnerd said:


> The same can be said of securities markets.  Most people in markets know price is divorced from value,  even value investing by Graham and Dodd which argues price is value states you should buy when price is below value, for this to be possible price has to be divorced from value. Therefore value is what ever the crowd says it is, not what is reality.  Just as the crowd once said the world was flat and it wasn't.   The crowd once bid up tulip buds to be the most valuable substance on earth. This is obviously absurd. What use is a tulip bud? Its a flower that withers and dies.   In securities people invest in things because everyone else is investing in the same thing, they all want to be a part of the crowd even if the crowd is wrong.



The bounce of price above and below value teaches us how inefficient a market is and how emotional people can be.  Price is a matter of supply and demand and as such the market does define the price.  Value is a matter of how much work it would take to build the resources of the deal.  They are not the same thing and to the extent they don't match the market is inefficient.  This is why both technical and fundamental analysis approaches are needed.  One to predict trends the other to show when trend predictions are bound to fail.

Claiming the crowd is wrong more often that it is correct fails to explain why the general trend of markets remains solidly linked to the values of companies and the net incomes of companies, to the value of housing and other commodities whether they are exchange listed or not.  Claiming the crowd is never wrong ignores the fact that bubbles happen.  But claims of bubbles often ignore the fact that market swings happen because of economic forces.  Still, isn't the market one of the better investments when taken as a long term buy and hold strategy like an mutual fund that is tied to an index?  Dollar cost averaging such an investment tends to average out the effects of bubbles and economic swings.

Humans are rational.  Humans are emotional.  Humans are individuals.  Humans are members of groups that act as hives.  All true in their own time (queue the music and the words, Turn, Turn, Turn).


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## securitiesnerd (Apr 23, 2013)

dfreybur said:


> The bounce of price above and below value teaches us how inefficient a market is and how emotional people can be.  Price is a matter of supply and demand and as such the market does define the price.  Value is a matter of how much work it would take to build the resources of the deal.  They are not the same thing and to the extent they don't match the market is inefficient.  This is why both technical and fundamental analysis approaches are needed.  One to predict trends the other to show when trend predictions are bound to fail.
> 
> Claiming the crowd is wrong more often that it is correct fails to explain why the general trend of markets remains solidly linked to the values of companies and the net incomes of companies, to the value of housing and other commodities whether they are exchange listed or not.  Claiming the crowd is never wrong ignores the fact that bubbles happen.  But claims of bubbles often ignore the fact that market swings happen because of economic forces.  Still, isn't the market one of the better investments when taken as a long term buy and hold strategy like an mutual fund that is tied to an index?  Dollar cost averaging such an investment tends to average out the effects of bubbles and economic swings.
> 
> Humans are rational.  Humans are emotional.  Humans are individuals.  Humans are members of groups that act as hives.  All true in their own time (queue the music and the words, Turn, Turn, Turn).



I have to absolutely disagree.  This system fails. Even if you bought at the most opportune time and sold at the most opportune time you barely make any money in REAL dollars (not nominal).  If you get a moment read Edwards and Mcgeee's book on technical analysis. 

your system fails because it calculates future value like this 

 P(1+r)^n

which is unrealistic. you need to figure it like this 

P (1+r)^N
---------------
1(1+inflation)^n

i use the CPI and ECI  so i get 

P(1+r)^n
---------------
1(1+.0321)^n      1(1+.05)^n

future value will be between those numbers.   Basic Down theory investing yields  10 times value investing if you assume you bought at the best time and sold at the best time..

How price stays in line with earnings  is best explained in the books by William Garret or Dewey & Dawkin.  They are cyclical cycles of up and down earnings with price osilating above and below intrinsic value. 


trend following is the best system if one has the discipline, and can stomach the drawn downs


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## widows son (Apr 23, 2013)

I think I'm gonna have to agree with Bryan on this one. Another note on Pike, the SGIG of the NJ was at odds with Pike throughout both of their time as SGIG's. Most of which had to do with the philosophies of Morals and Dogma.


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## securitiesnerd (Apr 23, 2013)

widows son said:


> I think I'm gonna have to agree with Bryan on this one. Another note on Pike, the SGIG of the NJ was at odds with Pike throughout both of their time as SGIG's. Most of which had to do with the philosophies of Morals and Dogma.



Well what book best describes masonic thought?

I've read the lost keys to masonry:the secrets of Hiram Abiff by Hall. Which my version states in the forward that it is printed and sold to masons and has 18,000 copies in print.   It clearly states early in the book of your organization seeing the point to life as education and obtaining knowledge (plato's exact argument). It calls the light the divine to wit it argues all religions as having the same dignity. It argues mason take information from all religions and consume it in their formation of their thoughts on the divine.  However it clearly shows that trough education is the way to seek the divine, and in a platonic sense Plato saw knowledge as divine. Your light in that book looks to be the same as Plato's.  Then I skimmed Pike's book dogma (the thing is just tooooo long).  And his book seems to be similar.  Your organization seems to be neoplatonic in nature.  Hall in his work also clearly states that another goal of your organization is the suppression of man's animal instincts.  Which again is platonic. 

Your organization seem to me like Gnosis/Neoplatonist  because their ideas are so similar. 

Your organization also argues for the divine spark which is clearly Gnostic  or possibly relates to Kabballah (jewish) or Cabballah (Gnostic).  I've studied most mystery schools they all seem to reduce to the same basic argument of suppressing animal instincts and perusing the very tiny part of the divine in us all. Your organization does not seem that different from any of the rest. 

Also if you truly are decedent of the Templars then you probably are Gnostic in basis. The Templars had their own esoteric form of Christianity until the Catholics killed them all after accusing them of being Muslim lovers. The Templars were hired to kill the muslims not study them and join them.  The thought is some Templars escaped to scottland while the catholics were killing them. I have a jesuit education. Even in the modern day printing of catholic materials it still refers to your organization as muslim, stating you argue for god in one person not three just as Mohammad did, and calls you muslim.   The only reason i would believe your group is directly related to the templars is that after your organization was formed and within a few years it was nation wide with countless members and an organized system of government with its own dogma, etc. I don't think anyone could have done that in a few years. The organization might have just not been more secret and decided to show itself to the public. I just don't believe anyone in a few years can create a nation wide club.  Its probably likely the templars just continued being a club and grew nation wide in the uk and then went public. It just defies reason to believe that anyone could make a nation wide club in a few years


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## widows son (Apr 23, 2013)

Again these are specific Masonic authors views on the craft. If I may, Bryan and I sometimes have opposing views on masonry in general. His opinion is his, and I respect that. My opinion is mine, which I'm sure I can say the same for him. We debate quite a bit. But in the end, no matter how much we debate, we still haven't really gotten anywhere because in the end IT'S UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL to interpret masonry. That's the beauty of it. Opinions will only be opinions is this subject. No one man or specific entity speaks for freemasonry. Believe me I thought much in the same way before I joined. Once you are apart of everything it makes much more sense.


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## BryanMaloney (Apr 24, 2013)

securitiesnerd said:


> I've read the lost keys to masonry:the secrets of Hiram Abiff by Hall. Which my version states in the forward that it is printed and sold to masons and has 18,000 copies in print.


 
I could write a book that says the exact same things and otherwise disagrees with Hall completely. Likewise, a mere 18,000 copies is chump change when it comes to sales of masonic-themed literature. As for Hall's other claims--so what? If Hall is a good Mason, then he took a vow to not publish the secrets of Freemasonry in any way, whatsoever, that would allow them to be known to non-Masons. If he's not obeying this vow, that makes him an oathbreaker, and thus not to be trusted. If he is, then whatever he has published should not be taken at face value but should be interpreted within the context of Masonic paradigms (that Masons are not to bandy about in detail on computer message boards). You want to play the game, you gotta join the team.

But that issue notwithstanding, Hall's personal opinions and YOUR personal twist on them are just that--personal. Yes Freemasonry is about personal improvement. Neoplatonism has no monopoly on reining in the animal passions. It's part and parcel of most moral philosophies. As for a "divine spark", again, it is not the private property of Gnostics, Kabbalists, or other such groups. It's an old idea, that the Divine can at least be approached by direct experience. Read the Book of Isaiah, for example. God complains about the sacrifices and rituals, because they have become empty.

The alleged Templar connection is debatable even among Masons. We don't all accept it. There is also the "strong Templar descent" vs "weak Templar descent" question. Claims about what the Templars allegedly believed are to never be accepted prima facie. This is because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING we have about these supposed beliefs come from the trials and associated torture sessions. So, corrupt Church officials, in collusion with an indebted monarch, cook up false charges of heresy. Then they torture Templars until a properly detailed "heresy" is "discovered"--or was it invented by the torturers and then forced upon innocent Templars who practiced the most mainstream of mainstream Roman Catholicism of its day? Either alternative could be true.

As for Jesuitical accusations against Freemasonry--that deserves a gigantic "SO WHAT?". Jesuits are infamous, worldwide, for their propaganda apparatus. It sounds like some really creaky, ancient propadanda, too. The same argument could be used to claim that Jews are Muslim, after all. Likewise, Freemasonry teaches NOTHING about the "true nature" of God. We hold that there is a Supreme Being, but the details of His existence are matters of individual conscience.  Thus, I hold that the Supreme Being is the Holy Trinity, the Father almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Son, the only Begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages, through whom all things were made, and the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who spoke through the prophets, etc.

If you seek to be filled with Masonic knowledge, you must empty yourself of what you know. A cup that is already filled cannot have anything more added to it.

Finally, the growth of Freemasonry in England is not at all mysterious. Records exist from the 17th century, and it is verifiable that there were several smaller gentleman's societies already around. These formed into different alliances. One of these was the Freemasons. It succeeded. The others faded into obscurity.


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## BryanMaloney (Apr 24, 2013)

widows son said:


> no matter how much we debate, we still haven't really gotten anywhere because in the end IT'S UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL to interpret masonry.



I wouldn't say we never get anywhere--steel sharpens steel, after all.


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## widows son (Apr 24, 2013)

"I wouldn't say we never get anywhere--steel sharpens steel, after all."

True say. 

"As for Jesuitical accusations against Freemasonry--that deserves a gigantic "SO WHAT?". Jesuits are infamous, worldwide, for their propaganda apparatus."

True say.


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## dfreybur (Apr 24, 2013)

securitiesnerd said:


> I have to absolutely disagree.



I wouldn't have it any other way.  Disagreement is good.

It's interesting how few ever notice inflation relative to investing.  Before the 1929 stock market crash the Dow was approaching 1000. Has the Dow *ever* reached 1000 after adjusting for inflation?  It depends on how you define the word.  If you use the Consumer price Index how you you account for the fact that the government has continually adjusted how it is reported?  It seems like entries are selected to understate inflation.  If you use gold there are market fluctuations in its price.  I tend to prefer a 1 year rolling average of the price of gold but it's easy to find the lowest price for gold in a year so I'll use that.

In 1929 gold was $25 per ounce.  That makes the number 1000 equivalent to 40 ounces of gold.  During 2012 the price of gold was always above $1500.  So 40 ounces of gold gives a target DJIA of "a thousand" at 60,000 to be properly adjusted for inflation.  During 2012 the DJIA peaked at under 14,000.  After adjusting for inflation that's a DJIA of "two fifty" in 1929 dollars. The Dow never has hit "a thousand".

There are still people who invest steadily and do well.  Take dividends into account.  Find other cash flow options.  More than just following trends they figure out how to exit and take their profits ahead of adjustments and/or they ride out adjustments doing dollar cost averaging across swings.

Back to Masonry - You can't make Masonry gnostic by insisting it is and neither can the authors you cite.  You can make Masonry gnostic *for yourself* by petitioning and living to that standard *for yourself*.  The difference is important.  We are a diverse brotherhood and only a few are interested in gnostic issues.

We say "You get out of Masonry what you put into Masonry".  Feel free to join us and pour a bunch of effort into gnosticism in your Masonic journey.  Then *for you* Masonry will be gnostic *for yourself*.


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## widows son (Apr 24, 2013)

"Then I skimmed Pike's book dogma (the thing is just tooooo long). And his book seems to be similar. Your organization seems to be neoplatonic in nature."

Skimming through Morals and Dogma isn't going to do you any good.  I've read it three time and still haven't grasped everything in it. I also have a very early turn of the century copy of it (1905) and is in the archaic language of the time, making it a bit more difficult to decipher. 

"Hall in his work also clearly states that another goal of your organization is the suppression of man's animal instincts. Which again is platonic."

Pike also referred to this in Morals and Dogma

"If Hall is a good Mason, then he took a vow to not publish the secrets of Freemasonry in any way, whatsoever, that would allow them to be known to non-Masons. If he's not obeying this vow, that makes him an oathbreaker, and thus not to be trusted."

Of course, in any of Halls works, he never reveals any secrets that any mason can't reveal. No words, grips, or passwords.


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## Michael Hatley (Apr 24, 2013)

> Well what book best describes masonic thought?



If you had to choose one, in the United States, the Holy Bible is probably closest.  In many lodges, a family Bible actually is distributed to newly raised Master Masons.  I received one.

Does that mean that every Master Mason has read it, in its entirety?  No, certainly not.

It also does not mean that every Master Mason believes that it is to all be taken literally, though some do.  Allegory is a word well known to us.

It also does not mean that every Master Mason is a Christian.  Some lodges may give copies to their members of the Gitas, or the Torah, or nothing at all.

No, in truth, I reckon the book that best describes Masonic thought, for that jurisdiction is the Monitor.  And the bylaws.

The bulk of our ethos is an oral tradition which relies on no written word.  It is not a philosophy in that sense.  It is an experience and a journey, and trying to dissect it into formulas, theories and science is tough to do.  Impossible, in my opinion.  To build on, yes.  To explain and create the perspective and foundation, no.

Its like trying to experience the military by reading about tactics and strategy, or military history.  Nothing substitutes for living through basic training and being deployed.  Or describing the taste of a strawberry to someone who has never had the sense of taste.  You can write and read a great description, but sans the experience it is a mental exercise which never comes close to what it really is.

And that sense oriented portion, the living of it, that is more a part of Freemasonry than any single text by such a long way that I think you'll find most answers to the question I'm trying to answer inadequate.   It isn't because we are trying to obfuscate or be evasive, or make it mystical.  Its just pretty well how it is. 

Freemasonry in my opinion is about 3 parts soul to about 2 parts mind.  But see, I say something like that to try and explain, and what is just my own metaphor could be interpreted as "what does the 3 signify" and so on and so forth.  Some folks have done that and driven on with it with relish, and so you get a lot of diverging opinions and over complication, tangents and whatnot.

Again, I think you'll find that most Masons who are reader types read a very wide selection of texts.  Same as any other intellectual sort.

Personally speaking, if I had to choose one single book to save in a zombie apocalypse, Morals and Dogma would be pretty far down my list. 

Now a good book on Geometry.....that is another story.


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## widows son (Apr 24, 2013)

"The bulk of our ethos is an oral tradition which relies on no written word. It is not a philosophy in that sense. It is an experience and a journey, and trying to dissect it into formulas, theories and science is tough to do. Impossible, in my opinion. To build on, yes. To explain and create the perspective and foundation, no."

- I like this.


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## Roy Vance (Apr 25, 2013)

widows son said:


> "The bulk of our ethos is an oral tradition which relies on no written word. It is not a philosophy in that sense. It is an experience and a journey, and trying to dissect it into formulas, theories and science is tough to do. Impossible, in my opinion. To build on, yes. To explain and create the perspective and foundation, no."
> 
> - I like this.



You would like this. I have watched you go back and forth on several of the threads. You ain't half bad at it. LOL.


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## widows son (Apr 25, 2013)

What's that supposed to mean?


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## Michael Hatley (Apr 25, 2013)

I read it as "damned hippies" :lol:

Just jesting, just jesting - lets be friendly


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## stuntman98 (Apr 25, 2013)

Wow..........................

Freemason Connect Mobile


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## Michael Hatley (Apr 25, 2013)

Just to be clear, I figured Bro Vance didn't mean anything by it and figured I'd try and make a funny with myself as part of the joke.  My best buddy is an accountant and when I wax philisophical calls me a damned hippie (the rascal knows hipsters drive me nuts, went back to school a while back, etc etc)

Im in the parking lot of the Shrine Circus and may be away from here all day volunteering, and just wanted to make sure noone took it the wrong way.

Anyhow, have a good one fellas!


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## Roy Vance (Apr 26, 2013)

widows son said:


> What's that supposed to mean?



I meant it as a compliment. You have some very good information to impart and you make your points very well. I guess I just said it like the country boy I am. Sorry if I offended. It was not intended that way.


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## widows son (Apr 26, 2013)

My apologies to you. It's tough to determine tone through text. Ill be sure to analyze comments more thoroughly the next time. Thank you for your kind words though. Again MY apologies for the misunderstanding.


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## securitiesnerd (Apr 27, 2013)

I wanted to thank everyone for your input. You actually did a lot more than you realize.  As i said earlier I have a extensive Jesuit education from elementary to undergraduate. And despite going through that much Catholicism  and being of irish heritage and all,  the education convinced me not to be a catholic. I ended up being Episcopalian which is an identical religion except for the fact that Episcopalians allow dissent. They expect everyone to form their own view of their religion. They allow some people to think women priest are wrong and some to think its right. And if your a woman who thinks its right then you can be a woman priest just because you say so. If you are priest who wants to get married you can. You can view homosexuality as right or wrong same with abortion. Its a religion that promotes independent thought and is a church that in general wants discourse not drones. 

I got the interpretation from you all that this is how masonry works.  That makes sense to me.  Masonry is i guess post modern and feels no one person is capable of all the answers.  

I liked most mr Maloney's responses. If anything is clear is that mans in-depth understanding of the enlightenment. I felt like i was reading Rousseau, or smith, or Locke (who were all masons).  I get you really believe in their ideas. All men are equal, etc.  On the enlightenment, i always felt like their friend who wasn't officially ever recognized as a mason but for some reason knew them.  David Hume. I love his reaction to their works which basically reduces to the ideas that he wished he could  live in a world run by their principals but that men were just to corrupt to ever see them all work. Looking at washington DC today, I think hume was right. Men are just too corrupt to make it work.   If you read Locke's "born free" argument and then think about the name "free mason" itself you realize how deeply they were ingrained in that argument. I think this is evident by Layfette (a mason and on the 1900 dollar with washington) coming to USA to make sure we won the revolution to see a start of the end of monarchy.  I realize it still is a very active thought with your group. All men born equal, no group of people are born more capable of leading, and everyman is born free from any government's ruling them, but by choice they allow the government to regulate them knowing if they get upset with the government they'll just change who the government is. 

I just wanted to thank you all and I think I understand your organization more


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## widows son (Apr 27, 2013)

Has your experience here made you think about joining the fraternity?


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