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From the Daily Mail

Tests taken by an Amazonian tribe indicate that children understand the basic principles of geometry without an education.

Amazonian children in the Mundurucu tribe could solve basic problems with lines and points, suggesting that geometry skills are innate in humans.

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the results show that abstract geometry may be learned naturally through day-to-day interaction with the world.

Researchers found eight children aged between seven and 13, as well as 22 adults from the Mundurucu tribe could identify the number of lines that can be drawn through two points, correctly complete unfinished triangles and estimate angles.

Their results were compared with equivalent tests on French and U.S. schoolchildren.

Basic geometric principles as most people know them were first established by the Greek mathematician Euclid about 2,300 years ago.

'Euclidean geometry' includes familiar tenets such as the fact that the angles of a triangle always add up to the same total, a line can connect two points, and that two parallel lines never cross.

The Amazonian tribe test results 'suggest Euclidean geometry, inasmuch as it concerns basic objects such as points and line on a plane, is a cross-cultural universal that results from the inherent properties of the human mind as it develops in its natural environment' according to the paper's authors.

Researchers said the control groups showed the same performance profile as the Amazonians, except for the American children, who were younger.

The researchers asked the children and adults questions about lines, planes, angles, triangles and spheres.

They were given sketches of lines and asked questions such as 'Can a line be drawn through two points?' and 'Can two such lines be drawn?'

All groups performed better at planar than spherical geometry, the study said.

Palastinian Arab is GM in Israel

A Palestinian Arab has been installed as the head of the Freemasons in the State of Israel.

Nadim Mansour, a Greek Orthodox, is the third Palestinian Arab to hold the office of Grand Master.

The country has 1,200 members in 56 lodges where ten languages are spoken and adherents practice five religions.

Disturbing news from the Church

This is taken from the Sunday Telegraph...


The Archbishop of Canterbury is at the centre of a row after it emerged he had appointed a Freemason to be a bishop.

Dr Rowan Williams named the Rev Jonathan Baker as the next Bishop of Ebbsfleet despite knowing he was an active and senior mason.

The appointment, announced earlier this month, marked a significant U-turn by Dr Williams who had previously said that Freemasonry was “incompatible” with Christianity and had refused to promote Masons to senior posts.

Last week, as news of Fr Baker’s membership of the Masons began to circulate through the Church, it provoked growing concern and criticism from clergy and members of the General Synod.

When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph on Friday, Fr Baker defended his continued membership of the Masons and insisted it was compatible with his new role as a bishop.

Yet yesterday he said he had changed his mind was leaving the masons so he could concentrate on being a bishop, adding: “I wish nothing to distract from the inauguration of that ministry.”

Freemasonry, a secretive male-only organisation dating back 300 years, requires its members to declare a belief in a “supreme being” and to undergo elaborate rituals.

Fr Baker joined the Apollo University masonic lodge in Oxford while he was a student, in an initiation ceremony that involves promising to keep the “secrets of Freemasonry”.

This ritual is said to involve members being blindfolded, wearing a hangman’s noose, and being warned that those who break the oaths of allegiance will have their throat slit and their tongue torn out before being buried in the sand.

He remained a member of the lodge for more than 20 years until his resignation yesterday, rising in the organisation to serve a term as an assistant Grand Chaplain.

Fr Baker, who is currently principal at Pusey House in Oxford, said he had told Archbishop Williams he was a mason when they discussed his appointment to be the next Bishop of Ebbsfleet – one of the “flying bishops” who oversee clergy opposed to women priests. The post had fallen vacant when its previous holder quit to join the Roman Catholic Church.

He said on Friday: “For many years I have been an active member and I continue to be a member. This came up in discussion with Rowan, but it has not caused a problem for me at any stage of my ministry and it won’t cause a problem now.”

He argued that it would not interfere with his role of overseeing traditionalist parishes and said he saw no conflict in being a bishop and a Freemason.

“I’ve never found it to be anything other than an organisation that is wholly supportive of the Church.”

However, yesterday he said: “I have concluded that, because of the particular charism of episcopal ministry and the burden that ministry bears, I am resigning my membership of Freemasonry.”

He said that in his conversation with Dr Williams about taking up the Ebbsfleet post, the Archbishop had asked him to reconsider his membership of Freemasonry, but was happy for the appointment to go forward while he was still a Mason.

Yet Dr Williams has previously expressed serious concerns about clergy being involved with the organisation.

In 2002, shortly before he became the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams wrote in a letter to Hugh Sinclair, of the Movement for the Register of Freemasons: “I have real misgivings about the compatibility of Masonry and Christian profession ... I have resisted the appointment of known Masons to certain senior posts.”

A year later he repeated this unease when he tried to apologise for upsetting Freemasons with his comments, saying: “Where anxieties exist they are in relation not to Freemasonry but to Christian ministers subscribing to what could be and often is understood [or misunderstood] as a private system of profession and initiation, involving the taking of oaths of loyalty.”

His senior advisers went even further at the time. “He questions whether it’s appropriate for Christian ministers to belong to secret organisations,” said The Rev Gregory Cameron, a close friend and former chaplain to Dr Williams. “He also has some anxiety about the spiritual content of Masonry.”

A spokesman for Dr Williams said at the time that he was “worried about the ritual elements in Freemasonry, which some have seen as possibly Satanically inspired and how that sits uneasily with Christian belief”.

He continued: “The other idea is that because they are a society, there could be a network that involves mutual back-scratching, which is something he would be greatly opposed to.”

Last night, Christina Rees, a member of the Archbishops’ Council, said: “The fact that Jonathan Baker has resigned as a Freemason suggests to me there is a serious incompatibility between the organisation and the Church. If it was only a matter of perception, surely he could have stuck it out.”

Her comments were echoed by Alison Ruoff, a prominent member on the General Synod, who said she had been stunned to learn of Fr Baker’s involvement with the Masons.

“I’m pleased to hear he’s resigned as a Mason because it is clear that the gospel does not go with masonic beliefs,” she said.

“I think Rowan should have said he could not be a bishop if he continued to be a Mason.”

The Rev David Phillips, general secretary of the Church Society, a conservative evangelical group, said: “The Church has said that Freemasonry is not compatible with Christianity so appointing him as a bishop seems to contradict its own stance.”

Lambeth Palace declined to comment.

The Order of the Pug

A bizarre but valuable snuff box commemorating a strange German fraternity in which the men pretended to dogs and barked as memebrs were initiated has emerged for sale.

The Order of the Pug was formed by Roman Catholics after the Pope in 1738 banned them from joining Freemasonry.

A series of pug-related items were made for the new order including this Schrezheim porcelain snuff box that is valued at a whopping 18,000 pounds.

It was made between 1761 and 1770 and measures just 9.3cm across and shows the crouching animal chewing on a bone, wearing a gilt-edged purple collar.

The cover was painted by Johann Andreas Bechdolff and the inside is decorated with a landscape scene depicting a figure facing a building across a gully.

After the Pope Clement XII's bull - Eminenti Apostolatus Specula - banned Catholics from Freemasonry men in Cologne are thought to have created their own organization.

Members were required to wear dog collars and had to scratch the door of the lodge to gain entry.

Initiates were said to have been blindfolded and led around a symbol-filled carpet nine times while other "pugs" would shout "Memento mori" - remember me.

The snuff box is one of a huge colection being sold by Bonhams that could make one million pounds.

The Helmut Joseph Collection includes 80 snuff boxes and they will be sold in London on July 5.

A spokesman from Bonham said: "These exceptional and exquisite objects were considered the pinnacle of refined 18th century court culture at its most luxurious and the collection has been exhibited in world-renowned institutions.

"Prolonged exposure to air causes snuff to dry out and lose its quality, so pocket snuff boxes were designed to be airtight containers with strong hinges, generally with enough space for a days worth of snuff only.

"The examples for sale at Bonhams come from what is without doubt the greatest collection of snuff boxes in the 20th century, formed by Helmut Joseph.

"Joseph began collecting boxes following the example of his father, who already has a substantial collection before WWII.

"A real connoisseur of early Meissen porcelain, he had a profound and intimate relationship with his subject, and a deep knowledge of the field.

"Helmut Joseph generously made his collection available to the public; he always showed an interest in sharing information, and indeed supporting the development of knowledge on ceramics, be it by funding museums, or publishing his own collection."

Masons light up India - literally

From the Times of India...

AHMEDABAD: For the first time, nights in this remote, dim village, 220-km from Ahmedabad will see light on Sunday. The 45 tribal families in Nalwas village, of Amiragadh taluka in Banaskantha will experience a lit-up house. The Freemasons of Lodge Fellowship, Ahmedabad has taken up the solar electrification of Nalwas. The project is part of Grand Lodge of India's initiative to light up 50 remote villages across India.

Nalwas has a population of 250 people who survive by tilting their small patches of land. The village doesn't have a proper access road. One has to walk kilometres to reach the village. In fact, the three youths of the village who have recently got cellphones, have to travel more than 20 km, which includes 5 km of tracking, to charge their phones. "We selected the village as the tribals were totally disconnected and had no life after 5 pm," said Rajiv Sethi, assistant regional grand master.