Rosalind Brodsky: The delusional time-traveler

The other day in a comment to the article Rituals, Pop Stars and Conspiracy Theory , someone called Freeman a conspiracy poet. Today brings ...

Bloggers unite for love and compassion

I received an email from BlogCatalog , one of those blog-indexing websites The Burning Taper joined. The email said: Thousands of bloggers ...

Rituals, pop stars and conspiracy theory

I'm often amused and/or baffled and/or intrigued by conspiracy theorists. It must be a constant adrenaline rush to be continuously afrai...

Pickens Star Lodge 150th anniversary commemorative coins available

Along with about 200 others, including many of the brethren's family members, I attended the 150th Anniversary get-together at my lodge ...

There must be some misunderstanding

As you've probably noticed, I enjoy quotations by famous people, as well as quotes from readers, pro and con, that express your opinions...

That which was found

I've just returned from a very enjoyable trip to Hartford, Connecticut. Though the trip was for business purposes, as the Gods and Godde...

Hate crime laws: Are they good for society?

In the past several years, legislation against "hate crimes" has been instituted across the country. Exactly what is a hate crime?...

Friday the 13th, Jacques de Molay and alien lizard kings

We're only a month away from the 700th anniversary of the Pope's roundup of the Knights Templar, the event that supposedly gave us t...

Guest editorial: 'Halcyon Lodge: Moving Freemasonry Forward'

The Burning Taper welcomes guest editorials, essays and papers from Masons and non-Masons. If you have a paper or editorial you'd like t...

Freedom of expression

Thanks for the interaction on yesterday's article on the 2007 First Amendment survey. I got a good chuckle out of an anonymous poster...

The Christian States of America

If belief creates reality, it's no wonder we're living in a Bizarro World. The First Amendment Center just released its 2007 survey ...

Albert Pike's 'Compasses and Square'

Brother Tubalcain of the blog Tubalcain420 recently posted the following essay from Bro. Albert Pike's Esoterika which discusses the C...

A photo tour of the George Washington Masonic Memorial

The non-Mason blogger at The Contrarian and his wife stopped by the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia over the wee...

Grand Orient of France votes against allowing women to join

The blog Lost in France reports that at the recent annual meeting of the Grand Orient of France, "sixty percent of the 1,200 delegates...

Hot enough for you?

It's been an extremely hot and dry summer here in Georgia, as it has elsewhere around the country. I've noticed several of the local...

Masonic unrest in West Virginia

Georgia. Alabama. Arkansas. Arizona. Connecticut. England. The Philippines. There's another crack in the cement of brotherly love. This ...