That the ‘Mad Monk’ greatly destabilised the Russian imperial government is a matter of historical fact. He used his influence to put his followers in positions of power and authority, demanded extortionate bribes in return for persuading the Czarina Alexandra, the Empress, to favour certain courtiers, business people or plans of action, and charged great sums for dispensing his ‘healing’ amongst the lesser nobility. He was already a national scandal by 1911, and by 1915 had become the Czarina’s chief advisor.

He also had a voracious sexual appetite, and would fequently demand sexual intercourse as part of the payment for his services – often insisting that he sleep with the teenage children of a supplicant, if such were available. He also had no end of groupies available, partly because of his power, and partly because of his 13-inch erection. In both cases, either sex was acceptable. His exploits outraged the general public, but the royal family were totally under his spell, and reports from the time suggest that his healing and his precognition were both entirely genuine. Letters from Alexandra to Rasputin also hint that he was having an affair with her too.

Finally, a cabal of Russian nobles decided his influence was corrupting the state, and he had to die. Led by Prince Feliks Yusupov, the cabal lured the healer to a private party hosted by Yusopov, where he was murdered, on December 30, 1916. It was too late to save the reputation of the royal family though, and shortly afterwards the revolution swept away the old order.

Grigori Yefimovich aka Rasputin

THE STRANGE PART

The tale of Rasputin’s death certainly lends credence to his healing powers. Arriving at the party, the holy man was given a banquet laced with enough cyanide to kill a dozen normal men by one of the conspirators, a medical doctor called Lazovert. When he failed to show any ill effects from this feast and became suspicious that Yusupov was not eating, the Prince panicked, and shot Rasputin at close range, as did a back-up member of the conspiracy, Grand Duke Pavlovich, the Czar’s nephew. Enraged but still seemingly mobile, Rasputin chased Yusupov out of the house and into the coutyard, where a gang of conspirators beat him to a bloody pulp with big iron chains. Dr. Lazovert examined the monk, and declared him still alive, so they wrapped him in the chains and dumped him in a hole cut into the ice of the River Neva.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Spiritual Avatar

Perhaps the most common theory is that Rasputin genuinely did possess the healing and precognitive powers that history has granted to him, including the ability to mesmerise women. He used these powers to gain his position of authority, and it was his sexual prowess that led to his being murdered. The powers were derived from the fact that Rasputin was in fact a spiritual avatar or genuine saint.

St Germain

Rasputin was in fact the immortal known to medieval Europe as the Count de St. Germain, smoothing the way for the Russian revolution so that history could follow its proper course. When he found himself stuck in the water and unable to tunnel out, Rasputin/St Germain decided that the best course of action was to feign death and lie low. He was dug out of the Neva by the conspirators, and hastily buried. From a shallow grave, he found it relatively easy to tunnel out. His enemies were certain he was dead, so he was free to make an unpursued escape. Rumour suggests that St Germain may now be in Los Angeles, having spent the 1980s in Eastern Europe bringing Communism to an end.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Alien Invader

Rasputin’s unnatural vitality was not a result of psychic ability at all. The healer was actually an alien, a rogue member of a small exploration team who decided to indulge himself in a few years of orgiastic amusement. Because his physiology was different to ours, the assassination was almost ineffective. In the end, it was lack of exposure direct sunlight that killed him, not the temperature or lack of oxygen.

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

Rasputin’s frozen corpse was finally retrieved several miles down-river from where it had been dumped. He had shaken loose of his chains somewhere up-stream, and had been trying to claw his way out of the ice from the inside when he had finally succumbed – after having been totally submerged in freezing water for at least six hours.

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

Perhaps the oddest feat of Rasputin’s survival is his capacity to consume such a huge dose of cyanide, medically administered. Equally as strange though is an artifact that surfaced in Paris in the 1960s – Rasputin’s mummified penis. One observer described it as ‘like a blackened banana, about a foot long’. There is no record of any of the conspirators castrating their victim, however.

SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING

It is just about possible that the poison was old and ineffective, that gunshots failed to hit any vital organs, that the beating was mostly surface damage, and even that the cold of the river Neva slowed tissue damage from oxygen starvation so much that Rasputin was able to revive for long enough to lock his fingers in the ice. Also, if he was so precognitive, why did he not foretell the danger of taking Yusupov up on his invitation?

There are only three true ranks within Freemasonry – Entered Apprentice (first degree), Fellowcraft (second degree), and Master Mason (third degree). Although all sorts of other teaching degrees exist, they carry no authority or ranked weight. The Worshipful Master of a Lodge is, of course, the head of that Lodge, and is due respect accordingly, but he is still a Master Mason, and any Master Mason may potentially reach that position. It is one of the Landmarks of Freemasonry that all Master Masons are equal, irrespective of any further teachings they may undergo.

A candidate starts Masonic life as a petitioner, outside the organisation entirely. Everyone’s first experience of Freemasonry is the ceremony in which they are initiated into the 1°, that of Entered Apprentice. This degree’s ritual (and the one after it) draw on imagery of life as a worker helping to build King Solomon’s Temple. It teaches the new Freemason that it is important to labour on building the temple of his good character, and to master his emotions in favour of his morality. Obedience to rules and regulations is stressed. After the ceremony has been completed, the new Entered Apprentice is allowed to take part in those parts of Lodge meetings which are not restricted to higher ranks – specifically, second and third degree initiation ceremonies, and Master-only business. It varies of course, but many Lodges consider that Entered Apprentices are not yet proven enough to be entitled to vote in some or all Lodge decisions. Additionally, in many Lodges it is expected that the newest member of the Lodge will selflessly volunteer to do any chores that the Lodge requires.

The apron of an Entered Apprentice

When the Lodge feels the member is ready and has proven genuinely interested and reliable, the second degree initiation ceremony will take place. This raises the Apprentice to the rank of 2°, Fellowcraft. As a symbolic skilled workman, the Fellowcraft is introduced to the tools by which he can understand the world and his place within it – the five senses, the orders of architecture, the principles of geometry, and the seven liberal arts and sciences.  Again the exact details vary from Lodge to Lodge, but generally a Fellowcraft will only have to leave the Lodge Room for third degree initiation ceremonies, will be entitled to vote on all Lodge matters, and should be fairly safe from having to run any errands. After a further time, which depends entirely on the Lodge’s discretion, the Fellowcraft will be initiated into the third degree, becoming a Master Mason.

The apron of a Fellowcraft

Once a member has attained the ‘supreme and exalted’ rank of 3° Master Mason, the highest rank attainable, the entire society is accessible. The degree draws upon the legend of the murder of Solomon’s chief architect in the construction of his Temple in Jerusalem, and teaches the candidate that he must not cheat, defraud or wrong his fellows, and that he must render aid and assistance where required. The Temple is incomplete, and its construction inside the self is the work of a lifetime. A Master Mason may serve as one of the Lodge’s officers; may visit any other (approved) Lodge, subject to invitation; may take full part in Lodges of Research and Instruction; and may seek deeper learning and instruction by joining one or more of the appendant teaching bodies. None of these things are actually required of any member of course – although all are encouraged – and none of them carry any extra ranking. There are plenty of steps to take from that of Master Mason, down a fair number of different paths, but they are all steps sideways.

The apron of a Master Mason

In addition to progressing through the ranks of the Lodge’s Officers on the road to becoming Worshipful Master of that Lodge, a Master Mason is also free to join an appendant body or other related group. These are designed to allow the Master Mason to continue moral development and progression without in any way replacing the core Lodge work. There are several different options available – depending, of course, on the territory the Mason is active in. By far and away the most important of these appendant bodies are the Scottish Rite and the York Rite, roughly parallel systems that provide further scope for learning and development. Although both the York and Scots Rites award further degrees (with increasing numeric value), they both place great emphasis on the sideways nature of their work, agreeing absolutely that the 3rd is the highest-ranking degree any Mason can attain.

Images from the website for the Cumbria and Westmoreland Freemasons.

The conspiracy surrounds Camp Hero, an officially deserted Air Force Station at Montauk Point on Long Island, New York State. Camp Hero was a US Army base established before World War II. It later became the Montauk Air Force and was officially active until 1969. However, since but then new telephone lines and high capacity power have been installed whilst many witnesses have observed advanced military electronics equipment being tested in the area. Power usage for the derelict facility is measured with a gigawatt meter meaning it consumes enough power to run a small city.

Conspiriologists believe the subterranean levels of the base continue to house a centre for research and experimentation electromagnetic mind control operations and interdimensional and time manipulations. These experiments date back to 1943 and the infamous — and probably fictitious — ‘Philadelphia Experiment’, when Albert Einstein and Hungarian-born physicist Janus Eric Von Neumann worked on US Government experiments that ripped holes in  the fabric of reality whilst attempting to make a Navy vessel invisible to radar.

It is alleged that during the Philadelphia Experiment a battleship disappeared from sight and from our normal timeline. When it reappeared, the crew onboard had suffered devastating psychological damage and terrible physical repercussions as some sailors rematerialising in the hull of the ship or suffered third degree burns. After the war, Montauk and other associated bases and laboratories in the Long Island area continued  research into what sounds like the most outlandish science fiction. When a US Congressional investigation into these secret projects decided to shut them down in the 1960s, it was not just the base that was underground as Montauk continued to run without governmental approval, receiving its funding from mysterious sources.

THE STRANGE PART

In 1984, the officially empty Montauk Air Force Base was given to New York State for use as public park land. However, whilst the property is under the care of the New York State Parks System, no part of it has ever become a park. Significantly, the deeds transferring the base to New York State make it explicit that the US government still hold all rights to any and all property beneath the surface. Given that plans from the US Army Corps of Engineers provide evidence of the existence of at least four levels of subterranean facilities beneath Camp Hero, maybe there is something to the conspiracy buff’s claims of a massive underground research centre looking at the borders of established science.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

National Security Council

Montauk is often alleged to be run by a cabal behind the National Security Council of the US. All of the members of the cabal are also thought to be members of the Grand Orient Lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry who are using the advances made through research carried out at Montauk to further their aim of global domination.

Aleister Crowley

Possibly the most important occultist of the century, self-styled ‘wickedest man in the world’ Crowley is known to have visited the Montauk area of Long Island shortly after the end of World War One in which he had been acting as an intelligence officer. Quite what his interest in Montauk was is open to speculation, but it is worth noting that his pupils included ground-breaking scientists such as Jack Parsons — the man behind NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories and an associate of Janus Eric Von Neumann.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Nazi Scientists

Nazi submarines were often spotted off of Montauk during the war and many Nazi scientists came to work for the American military after the conflict ended. Montauk has a had a large Aryan community since the 1930s and some conspiracy theorists believe that the experiments at Montauk were infiltrated and taken over by ex-Nazis bent on using the awesome power being studied for their own evil schemes.

Time Travellers

Given that many of the experiments at Montauk seem to involve the prospect of time travel, some feel it is fair to assume that the real force behind the conspiracy are time travellers from the future. Stranded in the past, they have taken over the experiments started by Einstein and Von Neumann in the hope they can build a machine to take them back home.

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

For what is officially claimed to be merely a derelict military facility within a designated state park, there seems to be a lot of security around Camp Hero. Picnicking women and children have been accosted and threatened at gunpoint by unidentified military personnel for venturing into its vicinity. Other people wandering through the park near to the supposedly abandoned Air Force Station have been told they have violated top secret and restricted areas and could be arrested. Non-uniformed armed guards from

seemingly shadowy government and military agencies have a track record of performing some very unconstitutional activities in the area. If there is no conspiracy at Montauk why is this happening?

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

The land the Montauk Air Force Base is built on — and possibly under — should under the terms of American law belong to the Montauk tribe of Native Americans who were the original inhabitants of the area. Despite huge amounts of evidence to the contrary, the US Federal Court has declared the Montauk extinct to prevent the remainder of the tribe claiming the land.  It should be noted that the Montauk Indians record numerous strange legends concerning the area and can remember when the site of Camp Hero was actually home to an ancient and rather odd stone pyramid.

SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING

Whilst fascinating conjecture, there is little independent hard evidence to back up some of the wilder aspects of the Montauk conspiracy. It seems understandable that the US Government or dark forces within it might test ultra-advanced technology at a secret base, but when you have got places such as Area 51 at your disposal, there is not any logical need to operate out of base only 100 miles from New York City.

However, whether or not any given Lodge is judged regular or not is, like everything else regarding Masonry, at the sole discretion of each Grand Lodge individually. There are a set of criteria used to judge regularity, including adherence to the Landmarks, the precise minutiae of the Lodge’s original creation, membership requirements and dues, benefits of membership, and so on. Naturally, no two Grand Lodges have the exactly same set of criteria.

The issue does have some notable practical ramifications. A Freemason is, naturally, allowed to fraternise – associate as a Mason – with any other Mason associated with the same Grand Lodge. In order to preserve Masonry’s ideals of fellowship, members are also allowed to fraternise with members associated with any other regular Grand Lodge. Although there may be some differences in ritual, it is accepted that a Master Mason can take part in all the Lodge proceedings of any regular Lodge – with an invitation, anyway. However, it is a serious breach of protocol to take part in any Masonic meeting of a Lodge which has been judged irregular – it will usually result in the member’s expulsion for misconduct.

While it’s very unlikely that you would get into trouble visiting other Lodges in your local area, the international field is an entirely different matter. In any foreign area, Masons are always strongly encouraged to make sure that they have established whether or not the local Grand Lodge is considered regular back home.

The House of the Temple in Washington DC by NCinDC

There is no easy way to guess regarding regularity. There is no common ground. Certifying regularity normally takes an extensive investigation into the Grand Lodge in question – one that each other Grand Lodge has to undertake in its own time and at its own expense. In some cases, questions about the status of just one individual local Lodge may be enough to get an entire Grand Lodge ruled as irregular. It depends on the investigators. Certain forms of ritual may be acceptable to some Grand Lodges but not to others; the same goes for admissions policies, historical precedents, or the issue might be decided for reasons of political expedience. There is no requirement (or even specific trend) to automatically recognise a Grand Lodge that recognises you.

Historical issues can further cloud matters. In a few cases, old slights and rivalries may be carried through as refusal to grant recognition. The opposite can happen too, of course; a Grand Lodge may feel obliged to recognise a group with normally fatal incompatibilities just because of local issues of solidarity. Situations where A mutually recognises B and B mutually recognises C but A and C do not recognise each other are common; even so, if Masons from both A and C are visiting B at the same time, the visitors could both find themselves in trouble when they go home. Despite this potential, Grand Lodges accept that other bodies sometimes have to come to expedient arrangements, and it is uncommon for D to refuse to recognise B because B accepts C.

Some Masonic researchers have tried to draw up a world-wide recognition map, but the scale of the job is so huge – and the exact details are forever changing, anyway – that it has not so far proven possible. Most Grand Lodges draw the line at maintaining a list of other Grand Lodges that they consider regular. Some go a little further, and also note the main decisions made by those other regular Grand Lodges, but almost none waste members’ money on investigating what irregular (and therefore forbidden) institutions are up to.

Incidentally, the issue of visiting and regularity is what lies behind the common mistaken impression that Freemasonry is for men only. There are indeed male-only jurisdictions, but there are also female-only jurisdictions, and mixed sex jurisdictions as well. Because granting recognition includes granting access to Lodge meetings, it is not possible for the single-sex Grand Lodges to grant recognition to their opposing numbers, or to the mixed-sex groups. If they did so, they would be breaking the single-sex requirement – which was originally put in place, like the bar on religion and politics, to try to head off internal division and competition. Freemasonry is no more sexist than the school education system, which also includes single-sex male, single-sex female and mixed-sex institutions.

At the simplest levels, everything is quite straightforward. The core keystone of the Masonic organisation is the Grand Lodge (alternatively, some are called Grand Orients). This serves an administrative function, bringing together four or more Symbolic Lodges and providing them with a common set of rules and regulations. In most cases, the members of a Grand Lodge have formerly served as Master of one or more of its constituent Lodges. These Past Masters tend to have no specific duties in their home lodge, and the ones who serve at Grand Lodge possess enough spare time to donate themselves to helping with central administration and other clerical services as required. It is expected that their years of experience in the regular Lodges will give them enough insight to be in a good position to help steer the group.

The key thing that every Grand Lodge has in common, in theory, is its adherence to the ‘Landmarks’ of Freemasonry – the guiding principles that make up the very heart and core of the craft. Unfortunately, there tend to be as many different opinions as to what the Landmarks actually are as there are Freemasons. Noting the potentially divisive nature of the issue, some Grand Lodges specifically do not attempt to define the Landmarks at all (although, informally, they have a pretty close idea). So, in fact, the only absolutely common ground is that each Grand Lodge agrees that there are Landmarks which define the Craft.

Freemasonry by W9NED

For the most part, Grand Lodges tend to be organised territorially. In countries with a relatively light Masonic presence or a comparatively compact landmass, there may be a single Grand Lodge than serves the entire nation. If the country’s Lodges are numerous enough and distant from each other however, then the country may be divided up into regions, with each territory or state having its own Grand Lodge. It is not always that simple, of course. In many cases, historical events leave Grand Lodges with territories that may overlap, even within the same strand of Masonry. However, each Symbolic Lodge is attached to – and follows – just one Grand Lodge, so even in an area in which two or more Grand Lodges hold sway, any given Freemason will be under no confusion as to which body he is linked to.

In addition to the basic structure above, some regions are large enough that the Grand Lodge cannot easily represent all of its membership. In these instances, a middle layer of Provincial (or District) Grand Lodges is put in place. These, as the name suggests, are junior offshoots of the Grand Lodge responsible for a part – a province – of the Grand Lodge’s territory. Where a Provincial Grand Lodge is in place, a local Lodge will typically deal with its Provincial Grand Lodge, and the Provincial Grand Lodges will take business on to the Grand Lodge proper. To further muddy the water, some Grand Lodges are referred to as United. This is most commonly the case when two or more competing regional Grand Lodges have put aside their differences and merged back into one single body, but it can also indicate that a Grand Lodge has made use of a network of Provincial Grand Lodges beneath it.

Each Grand Lodge is its own sovereign power. It is as simple as that. There is no higher body or structure; once a Grand Lodge has been formed, it is free to do as it wills. In practice of course that means that it follows the general needs of its Lodges, because there are always opportunities for a Lodge to break away from one Grand Lodge and attach itself to a different one – or to gather some other groups and form a new one. However, setting aside the membership’s right to vote with its feet, a Grand Lodge is answerable to no-one. It can choose to modify which forms of the standard ritual its Lodges may perform, it can set membership policies, raise or lower dues, alter the structure of Lodge meetings, and generally tinker as it sees fit. Most, of course, stick with the rules and regulations that they inherited from their founder Lodges.

In addition to directing general policy with regards to the specifics of the way Freemasonry is practiced by its Lodges, a Grand Lodge also takes care of a number of other central functions. Each Lodge donates a certain amount of money a year to the Grand Lodge, in the form of assorted dues and fees towards equipment, tokens of initiation and so on. That money is budgeted at the Grand Lodge’s annual general meeting by members’ vote, and typically goes towards paying any full-time central administrative staff (reception staff, security and so on) or professionals (ie lawyers and accountants) as may be needed, maintaining such properties, museums and other projects as may be on the books, organising occasional all-member social events, preparing member newsletters, and so on. The greatest single budget item however is almost invariably the collected charitable causes.

The puzzle is as follows:

If thou art diligent and wise, O stranger, compute the number of cattle of the Sun, who once upon a time grazed on the fields of the Thrinacian isle of Sicily, divided into four herds of different colours, one milk white, another a glossy black, a third yellow and the last dappled. In each herd were bulls, mighty in number according to these proportions: Understand, stranger, that the white bulls were equal to a half and a third of the black bulls together with the whole of the yellow bulls, while the black were equal to the fourth part of the dappled and a fifth, together with, once more, the whole of the yellow. Observe further that the remaining bulls, the dappled, were equal to a sixth part of the white and a seventh, together with all of the yellow.

These were the proportions of the cows: The white were precisely equal to the third part and a fourth of the whole herd of the black; while the black were equal to the fourth part once more of the dappled and with it a fifth part, when all, including the bulls, went to pasture together. Now the dappled in four parts were equal in number to a fifth part and a sixth of the yellow herd. Finally the yellow were in number equal to a sixth part and a seventh of the white herd. If thou canst accurately tell, O stranger, the number of cattle of the Sun, giving separately the number of well-fed bulls and again the number of females according to each colour, thou wouldst not be called unskilled or ignorant of numbers, but not yet shalt thou be numbered among the wise.

The Cattle of the Sun God by Roman Bearden

But come, understand also all these conditions regarding the cattle of the Sun. When the white bulls mingled their number with the black, they stood firm, equal in depth and breadth, and the plains of Thrinacia, stretching far in all ways, were filled with their multitude. Again, when the yellow and the dappled bulls were gathered into one herd they stood in such a manner that their number, beginning from one, grew slowly greater till it completed a triangular figure, there being no bulls of other colours in their midst nor none of them lacking. If thou art able, O stranger, to find out all these things and gather them together in your mind, giving all the relations, thou shalt depart crowned with glory and knowing that thou hast been adjudged perfect in this species of wisdom.

If you want to have a go at this yourself, stop reading now. But be warned. Most professional mathematicians would need either a high-powered computer or several years of hard work to find the answer!

Still reading?

The trouble is that the sheer vastness of the numbers concerned makes it extremely difficult. The puzzle describes a complex indeterminate polynomial equation that must have an integer solution. The answer turns out to be 7.76×10^{^206544} – a truly gargantuan amount. Number theorists have suggested that if you took a sphere with a diameter equal to the width of our galaxy, and shrunk each of the cattle to the size of an electron, they still wouldn’t fit.

No-one is entirely sure of course. But for me at least, the second side represents the importance of 10 as a number, by omission. 9 and 11, at either end, bracket 10; and 19 and 21, in the centre, bracket 20. Remember that 10 and 20 are very natural human numbers of importance, given our digits.

The third side is the most stunning. It gives 11, 13, 17 and 19 – the prime numbers between 10 and 20, in order. The remaining 7 and 5 on the first side extend the sequence of primes to include all the prime numbers below 20 occurring after 4… the first non-prime number.

The Mafia was first formed in the 9th Century AD, in Sicily. In response to the frequent invasions from Arabic and Norman French forces and their ongoing oppression, native Sicilian peoples formed a secret society to help organise resistance to the invaders. They took the name of ‘Mafia’, after the Arabic word for refuge. The original Mafia placed great value on traditional Sicilian social structures. They valued loyalty above all and respected culture, family and heritage. Members were strictly Sicilian only, and their interests were to be protected. As the centuries passed, the Mafia came to the decision that justice, vengeance and honour were matters for the individual to look after, not the current government, who were often invaders anyway. Secrecy was maintained through the tradition of Omerta, which said that betrayal of the society’s trust was repayable by torture and murder.

Early in the 18th century, the Mafia started to become openly criminal. Money was extorted from wealthy Sicilians, who would receive a picture of a black hand. If cash was not forthcoming, arson, kidnappings and murder would follow. This trend escalated, to the point that in 1876, Rafael Palizzolo, a Mafia Don, achieved political office as the head of the Sicilian government by literally forcing voters to choose him at gunpoint. Once elected, he selected a colleague, Don Crispi, as his Prime Minister. The pair proceeded to channel large amounts of government money to the organisation.

The Mafia had been active in the USA since the early 1800s, particularly in New Orleans. Word soon good back to Sicily that a lot of money could be made in the New World, and the organisation grew swiftly. In 1924, Mussolini cracked down on the Mafia in Italy and Sicily, and many members fled to the USA. Since the super-profitable days of prohibition, the Mafia has been spreading its influence throughout the American political, legal and financial sectors, and creaming off vast amounts of money.

THE STRANGE PART

The Mafia in the USA are commonly thought to be a collection of rival gangs, clans organised on a ‘family’ structure that have little but hatred for each other. However, this appears to be far from the truth. While the different gangs do certainly compete, the heads of the 24 families regularly meet in a cartel called The Commission. At these meetings, they settle territorial and business disputes, and decide policy for the coming months. The families pool their resources, so that (for example) much Mafia money laundering is done through the casinos in Las Vegas. The Commission also negotiates with government agencies, particularly the CIA, on several areas of mutual benefit.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

The Network

Major world crime organisations are teaming up to maximise profits. Like most big business, mergers mean profit for the crime empires. The Mafia have joined forces with the Triads, the Yakuza and drugs cartels. This alliance, known as the Network, also accepts junior members such as the Jamaican Yardies and Algerian slave traders. Because different groups control different resources, they have much to offer each other. The American Mafia, for example, can provide access to much of the US banking industry and law enforcement and justice systems as required.

Designs on Government

To what extent are government and organised crime actually different? Paying tax or protection money amounts to much the same thing, and few criminal organisations have caused as much public death as the USA did courtesy of Vietnam, or Russia did in Chechnya. In both power structures, officials are corrupt and out of touch. Their rules are enforced by violence. Politicians may be outraged by international crime because they feel power slipping away, not because of fear for the people.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

The Freemasons

The Mafia has long held strong ties to Masonry through the shadowy Vatican lodge P2, said to be the most powerful Masonic lodge in Europe. When Pope John Paul I determined to clear the Masons out of the Vatican – having discovered over 100 among the priesthood – he was killed, supposedly by the Mafia. Could the Masons be the power driving the Mafia’s relentless advance over the years? Certainly both groups own a lot of judges and policemen…

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

State department officials in Illinois have been named in attempts to suppress anti-Mafia cable TV bulletins. According to the program makers, a top IRS agent passed them evidence that officials from the Illinois Department of Revenue were maintaining the First National Bank of Cicero as a criminal enterprise, laundering money. The bank was run by Catholic Bishop of Cicero Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank until 1991, under the leadership of Congressman Henry Hyde, controller of the CIA’s ‘Black Ops’ budget. Before the program could be broadcast, the makers were threatened by state law enforcement officers, families were harassed, and one was falsely arrested.

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

David Lytel, a White House official, was presenting the case for great FBI powers of wiretapping at a “computers and privacy” conference in 1995. When he asked the audience how many members feared they were at greater risk from governmental abuse of power than from criminal activity, to his horror the majority raised their hands. One delegate yelled out “What’s the difference?”

SKEPTICALLY SPEAKING

Organised crime is just that – organised crime. The last thing it wants to do, surely, is to take over the irritating trivia of everyday government, particularly given the amount of politicians already in the pay of Mafia Dons.

The Ishango Bone

But the Ishango Bone contains three sets of numbers, in the forms of columns of scratches marked into its sides. Although there remains some academic uncertainty, it is thought that each of the three groups represents a depiction of the tribe’s knowledge of mathematical processes – astonishing, given the era. The first column is the plainest. There is a 3 next to a 6, a 4 next to an 8, and a 10 next to a 5, along with a further 5 and a 7. Leaving aside the last pair for the moment, these pairs clearly indicate multiplication by two.

What mathematical processes would you guess that the other two sides indicate, and where do the remaining 5 and 7 from the first side fit?

Update:

So. The Ishango Bone.

The second side represents the importance of 10 as a number, by omission. 9 and 11, at either end, bracket 10; and 19 and 21, in the centre, bracket 20. Remember that 10 and 20 are very natural human numbers of importance, given our digits. The third side is the most stunning. It gives 11, 13, 17 and 19 – the prime numbers between 10 and 20, in order. The remaining 7 and 5 on the first side extend the sequence of primes to include all the prime numbers below 20 occurring after 4… the first non-prime number.

In 1784, the group applied for a Warrant of Charter from the Grand Lodge of England, and formed African Lodge #459. In 1813 however, after the rectification of English Masonry, the newly-formed UGLE moved address and withdrew a lot of its activities world-wide. African Lodge #459 was left with no means of contact with its former Grand Lodge, and was removed from the UGLE rolls for non-payment of dues.

With nowhere else to turn, African Lodge restyled itself African Grand Lodge #1 (not to be confused with any of the Grand Lodges in Africa, of course) and continued operating. The widespread racism at the time made it very difficult for African Americans to get membership in white-dominated Lodges, and the movement – now known as Prince Hall Freemasonry – flourished. It remains very strong today. Although considered ritually regular, the Prince Hall Grand Lodges are only slowly being accepted as regular bodies.

There are two big stumbling blocks that the Prince Hall movement faces for recognition, and neither of them have anything to do with racism any more, save perhaps in a very few intransigent areas in the deep south of the USA. One is that the formation of African Grand Lodge #1 was undoubtedly irregular, and under Masonic canon that means the other Grand Lodges it has created are also irregular; the other is that the Prince Hall Grand Lodges all impinge on the sovereign territory of older Grand Lodges. However, it is also widely recognised that Prince Hall Masonry developed because there was nowhere else for its brothers to turn at the time. The Prince Hall Grand Lodges are slowly winning acceptance across Anglo Freemasonry, bit by bit, and it seems just a matter of time before they are entirely regularised.

The Fred U. Harris Prince Hall Lodge by the unabonger

Women’s Freemasonry has likewise been a thorny issue. When Freemasonry first developed – in the 18th Century – there was a tacit assumption amongst its members that women just wouldn’t be interested. There are a couple of early records of fully regular lodges with female members, and one of the earliest forms of the ritual workings includes the designation ‘He or Shee’ in reference to the candidate, but for the most part, the women of the time were too downtrodden to factor. The 19th Century was the real flourishing of society-wide sexism though, and as it approached, the requirement that Freemasons be male was recognised as a formal Landmark.

When the Grand Orient d’ France reorganised its charter in 1877, it indicated to all parties that it was alright to be separate from ‘regular’ Masonry. Two international mixed-sex jurisdictions were formed fairly swiftly, called Le Droit Humain and The Order of International Co-Masonry. Both are still fully active world-wide. The Grand Orient and all affiliated Continental Grand Lodges swiftly granted them full recognition, also recognising any national female-only Grand Lodges that sprung up. A completely separate but similarly-aimed women’s organisation called the Order of Weavers developed, and that too has spread.

Anglo Freemasonry still does not formally recognise female or mixed-sex Grand Lodges on the grounds that it would mean breaking charter; the resistance to such a move is now concentrated in North America. However, UGLE openly accepts that female and mixed-sex jurisdictions are indeed a part of broader Freemasonry, just not under the UGLE banner. Their announcement, in March 1999, plainly states “Freemasonry is not confined to men”, with just the simple proviso that “this Grand Lodge does not itself admit women”.

Two female Grand Lodges based in England – The Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons (which is becoming international, with Lodges in Spain and Gibraltar) and The Order of Women’s Freemasons – and one mixed-sex Grand Lodge have been informally recognised by UGLE as regular apart from the sex of their membership; a declaration that may well herald the approach of full recognition. Note also that the female groups and the mixed-sex group also do not formally recognise each other, for the same reasons of charter. All the groups are in regular informal contact on matters of mutual concern. There are also Women’s Grand Lodges in many European countries. In North America, Women’s Freemasonry is still meeting resistance. Rather than joining a female jurisdiction – the Women’s Grand Lodge of Belgium has four Lodges in the USA – it is more common for interested women to join a group called The Order of the Eastern Star, which is open to Masons and to women who are related to a male Mason.

There are scores of other tiny self-styled Grand Lodges. Some of these appear to be protest movements against a specific policy of a mainstream Grand Lodge, and tend to be short-lived; others are active scams, degree mills designed to milk money out of prospective Masons. In general, if a supposedly Masonic body is not recognised by any Grand Lodge within Anglo, Continental, Prince Hall Freemasonry, Co-Masonry and Women’s Freemasonry, it should be treated with extreme caution.