World's oldest purpose-built Masonic building to get makeover

This comes from the Sunderland Echo.

THE WORLD’s oldest purpose-built masonic temple in Sunderland could be given a new lease of life.

Students at Sunderland College will take on other colleges in the region in a competition to design a revival and extension scheme for Hendon’s Phoenix Hall, a Grade I Listed building.

The Heritage Skills Initiative has set the challenge for the students and the winning project will hopefully be carried out with funding from Heritage Lottery grants and offer the students professional experience in sympathetically restoring an historic structure with stringent building restrictions.

Based in Sunderland’s Queen Street East, Phoenix Hall was the first to be purpose built by the Freemasons to hold their meetings in 1783. It is still in use today, but in need of an update.

The students, who will work on their proposals as part of the Higher National Certificate (HNC) in Construction Design and Management, will not only submit their plans, but will present their work to a panel of judges, which will hopefully include Sunderland-born TV architect, writer and presenter George Clarke.

Gerry Ruffles, construction lecturer at Sunderland College, said: “The students have been visiting the building to begin planning and design work. This project provides hands-on professional experience in areas of architecture, construction, costing and planning that they need to pursue in their chosen careers.”

The Masonic Hall houses many original features, including a pipe organ built by John Donaldson and an eighteenth century organ, which sits in its own purpose-built gallery in the hall.

Part of the judging process will look at how sympathetic the students are to ensure they consider the historic artefacts contained within the walls of the building, as well as the feasibility of their ideas.

The project has already been given a significant boost with the help of Sunderland-based firm Precision Geometrics Ltd, which has carried out a laser scan of the lodge providing intricate details of the structure itself.

Mr Ruffles, who is supporting the Wearside team of students, who are all employed in the construction industry, said: “This project is such an exciting, challenging one, particularly given the building’s history, but I’m sure they will do a brilliant job.”

The students are expected to have completed the project by the end of this academic year.

Masonic goblet

These goblets, including a Masonic one on the right, are going under the hammer at Bonhams in Oxford on January 29. The are estimated to sell for £500-£700.

The catalogue description reads:

An engraved Sunderland Bridge goblet and an engraved Masonic goblet, circa 1810 and 1830

The first with cup-shaped bowl engraved with view and title of the bridge, the reverse with initials 'NMC', on a square lemon-squeezer base, 13cm, the masonic goblet with oviform bowl engraved with masonic emblems including a King, a Devil, sun, moon and stars, on a square lemon-squeezer base, 13.8cm high (2)...

Freemasons and crime bosses unite - allegation

This from the Independent...

Secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal justice system, according to a bombshell Metropolitan Police report leaked to The Independent.

Operation Tiberius, written in 2002, found underworld syndicates used their contacts in the controversial brotherhood to “recruit corrupted officers” inside Scotland Yard, and concluded it was one of “the most difficult aspects of organised crime corruption to proof against”.
The report – marked “Secret” – found serving officers in East Ham east London who were members of the Freemasons attempted to find out which detectives were suspected of links to organised crime from other police sources who were also members of the society.
Famous for its secret handshakes, Freemasonry has long been suspected of having members who work in the criminal justice system – notably the judiciary and the police.
The political establishment and much of the media often dismiss such ideas as the work of conspiracy theorists. However, Operation Tiberius is the second secret police report revealed by The Independent in the last six months to highlight the possible issue.
Project Riverside, a 2008 report on the rogue private investigations industry by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, also claimed criminals attempt to corrupt police officers through Freemason members in a bid to further their interests.
Concerns over the influence of freemasons on the criminal justice system in 1998 led former Home Secretary Jack Straw to order that all police officers and judges should declare membership of the organisation.
However, ten of Britain’s 43 police forces refused to take part and the policy was dropped under threat of legal action. In England and Wales, the Grand Master of the Freemasons is Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. The United Grand Lodge of England declined to comment last night.
The Independent revealed last week that Operation Tiberius found that organised crime syndicates such as the Adams family and the gang led by David Hunt were able to infiltrate the Met “at will”.
Asked to comment on the Tiberius report, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “The Metropolitan Police Service will not tolerate any behaviour by our officers and staff which could damage the trust placed in police by the public.
“We are determined to pursue corruption in all its forms and with all possible vigour.”

Is Freemasonry behind the latest internet puzzle?

From the Daily Telegraph

 

Cicada 3301 update: the baffling internet mystery is back

A third instalment of the infamous internet puzzle appeared over the weekend, this time featuring William Blake, Masonic stars and a promise of ‘enlightenment’

Cicada 3301: the baffling internet mystery is back 

Wanted: willing puzzle fans to help solve the internet’s most complicated and enduring mystery. Only those conversant in hexidecimal cryptology, medieval Welsh poetry and classical music theory – among many others – need apply.

After a 12 month hiatus, Cicada 3301 – a complex collection of anonymously-set puzzles, without apparent purpose, that have nevertheless held thousands of amateur web sleuths rapt – has made a reappearance.

When the Telegraph first reported on the underground phenomenon last November, global interest intensified in the shadowy organisation – and the elaborate series of cryptographic puzzles apparently aimed at recruiting expert programmers.

And the Cicada’s re-emergence is exactly on schedule, too. The first set of puzzles, identified by images of the insect, appeared on January 5th 2012.

A message left anonymously on notorious website 4Chan simply read: “We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test…”

After a series of increasingly complex riddles – ranging from cyberpunk literature to voicemail messages to posters affixed to streetlights around the globe – the mysterious organisation behind the tests went quiet. Only for another set of teasers to appear exactly one year later, on January 4th 2013.
Again, solvers were faced with another formidably eclectic range of subjects – from ancient Hebrew code tables to Anglo-Saxon runes to Victoria occultist Aleister Crowley. Within a few weeks the puzzles stopped, with only a select few allowed through to a hallowed “inner sanctum” of Cicada.
And, of course, no-one was left any the wiser as to the source or ultimate purpose of the puzzles. Were they part of an elaborate PR campaign for a new Alternate Reality Game? A recruitment drive by the CIA, NSA or MI6? Or just a bit of fun?
But while another set of posers was anticipated during the first week of 2014, this year was different. Such widespread coverage had led some commentators to wonder if, like the insect itself, the organisation might be scared back underground.
Worse, some feared it might lead to widespread “trolling” – hoaxers trying to pass off their own puzzles as legitimate Cicada tests, further muddying the water.
Indeed, the first week of January has seen dozens of messages appearing on messageboards purporting to be from Cicada – some of which were elaborate enough to be believable. And yet all of which have been proved fake.
Until, that is, just before 11pm on January 5th. A Twitter account previously used by the Cicada organisation released a message, bearing the faint image of a cicada, to its 700 followers.
"Hello," it read. "Epiphany is upon you. Your pilgrimage has begun. Enlightenment awaits. Good luck. 3301."
Enthusiasts have since confirmed the message has the necessary PGP signature – a common encryption method used for privacy – to prove it is legitimately from Cicada 3301.
And so the hunt is underway once more. Already, a debate has begun online into the relevance of “Epiphany”, as January 6 is the Christian feast day known as Epiphany.
But by examining the image for steganography – a technique used to hide data inside images, sometimes used by paedophiles or terrorist organisations – solvers have already revealed a quote: "The work of a private man/ who wished to transcend,/ He trusted himself, / to produce from within."
Further analysis with a program called Outguess has revealed a link to Self-Reliance, a treatise on transcendentalism by American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
When run through a cipher, the excerpt reveals the phrase “For Every Thing That Lives Is Holy” and a new image – a collage of artworks from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by the English poet and painter William Blake.
Specifically, it features a collage of his works Nebuchadnezzer, The Ancient Of Days and Newton – with a faint marking of a cicada tucked into the bottom of the picture.
But the images are arranged in such a way that some solvers are now debating whether the image is supposed to represent a Thelema star (a hexagram developed by Aleister Crowley) or an image of a Masonic Square.
Either way, the pursuit of a solution continues. Enthusiasts wishing to join in the debate can access an internet chat relay – while a Wiki is constantly updating and sharing progress, with helpful explanations.
And after three years, who knows – perhaps, in terms of determining the purpose and source of Cicada 3301, we may be finally getting closer to what that initial image promises: “enlightenment”.