I have a friend who encountered a place with a bunch of pentagrams and the word tetragrammaton and IO HE VAE HE (Jehovah?) as well. I'm thinking they might be freemasons, but really I have no clue. I'm worried it may be a cult whatever it is. Anyone have any idea?

[www.tween-the-shadows.com] Image sample (not a direct copy of what was seen, but basically ...)

As to the symbol you have shown, I don't know other than it looks like an occult symbol and there is an occult connection in the higher "degrees" of Freemasonary.

The following website gives a good general overview of the origins, structure, practices, beliefs and symbols of the Freemassons:
[www.rapidnet.com]

In it there is a paragraph on symbols and on God, both of which indirectly connect to Dervish's original question:

The symbols on the back of the U.S. dollar bill (pyramid, all-seeing eye, the number of feathers on the eagle's spread wings, the stars above the eagle's head in the shape of the Star of David, and the mottos e pluribus unum [out of many one] and novus ordo seclorum [a new order of the ages]) also appear to emanate from Freemasonry; this would not be surprising considering many of America's so-called founding fathers were themselves Masons -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, John Hancock, John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, Robert Livingston, and 35 other lesser known men who were signers of the Declaration of Independence and/or the Constitution. (It should be noted that there were also a number of the founding fathers who condemned masonry: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Madison, Millard Fillmore, Daniel Webster, and Charles Sumner.) Other notable men in history who have been Freemasons include Mozart, Henry Ford, Rudyard Kipling, Gerald Ford, Norman Vincent Peale, Douglas MacArthur, and Will Rogers.[/color:2f2a8528fe]


AND:

God. Masons require one to believe in God to be a member, but the candidate is never required to say what god he believes in -- "Masonry ... requires merely that you believe in some deity, give him what name you will ... any god will do, so he is your god" (Little Masonic Library, Macoy Publishing, 1977, 4:32). Masons commonly refer to their deity as the "Great Architect of the Universe" (G.A.O.T.U.) or the Supreme Being. God is further described as Grand Artificer, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Above, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, or Great Geometer. (The "G" in the Masonic ring can refer to God; it can also refer to geometry.) Masons claim that the actual name for God has been lost (cf. Jn. 14:8,9; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Jn. 5:20) [HJB].[/color:2f2a8528fe]


My own observations on Masonic symbols:
A few years ago I visited Blenheim Palace, on the way to Oxford in England. In the main entrance dipicted in the middle of the picture in the following website, the outside ceiling is divided into squares and in each square is the Masonic eye, as on the USA 1 Dollar bill. This detail is not shown on the website: [www.blenheimpalace.com]

What I found interesting at the palace was the choice of artwork as it all seemed to be a celebration of humankind, so far removed from castles and palaces of Europe which are adorned with religious art, particularly in Italy. In my visit to Engand I found architecture and art to be more along these lines and even considering the effects of the Reformation on religious art, I still feel that there is historical evidence to suggest that Masonic symbols and art had/has an influence over that country's artistic expression.

The Freemasons are the grandfather of cults and are an illustration of how a secret society can perpetuate and influence society on a religious, political and societal way. Reading through the website attached, I wonder why a modern day person would join it?

Oz

Dervish,

It sounds like ceremonial magick stuff. I'm not really well versed in it, but I do know that the Tetragrammaton refers to the secret name of the God of Abraham, which is what the following four word phrase would be (roughly taken from the Hebrew).

I think it would be help ful to know more about the site, and how these things were marked there. If it was a largely isolated area, where one could easily spend several hours un-noticed, and the symbols were hand marked, that would be more suggestive of someone practicing ceremonial magick, or perhaps classical satanism. It certainly could be associated with a cult -- it could just as easily be a teen just messing around with 'spooky occult stuff' from a book they read. No way of telling based just on the symbols.

This is, of course, my purely hypothetical opinion.

PennyBright

An excellent book on the history and tenets of Freemasonry is [i:c54d72db60]Masonry: Beyond the Light[/i:c54d72db60] by William Schnoebelen.

Schnoebelen's lecture on the same material may be viewed on youtube.com and [www.prophecyclub.com].

If Christianity bothers you, ignore that part. The information is valid yet.