经济学人下载:共济会会所内幕(1)

Books and arts
文艺板块

Book review
书评

The Freemasons
共济会

Inside the Lodge
共济会会所内幕

The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World.
《The Craft：共济会如何创造现代世界。》

By John Dickie.
作者：约翰·迪基

Since they first came to prominence in the alehouses of 18th-century London, the Freemasons have proved adept at self-promotion. From their blindfolded initiation ceremony, obscure rituals and symbols and infamous handshake, the organisation has grasped the powerful attraction of mystery as a recruiting tool. Today the secret society has around 6m members, most of them in America.
在18世纪的伦敦酒馆，共济会初露锋芒，自此，也证明了这个组织善于自我推销。共济会有着蒙着眼睛的入会仪式、晦涩的仪规和象征、以及声名远扬的握手礼，它抓住了具有强大吸引力的神秘感作为招募会员的工具。时至今日，这个神秘组织有大约600万会员，其中大部分是在美国。

Conspiracists have long speculated that these individuals are part of a secret “world order”, with ties to the Illuminati and satanic cults. Debunking these theories is relatively easy, but in his new book John Dickie goes much further. Based on years of research into the archives of the Grand Lodges, he has produced a global history of the organisation, explaining how the brand spread far beyond Europe. “The Craft” is a fascinating tale of imperial trade, warfare and scientific progress which presents the Masons as a response to the broader development of the modern world.
阴谋论者长期以来一直猜测共济会的会员们参与策划秘密“世界秩序”，而且与光明会和撒旦邪教有关联。揭穿这样的阴谋论相对容易，但是约翰·迪基在自己的新书中进行了更加深入的研究。基于多年对总会档案的研究，约翰撰写了共济会的全球历史，解释该组织是如何在欧洲以外的地方进行传播。《TheCraft》这本书讲述了帝国贸易、战争和科学技术的进步，情节引人入胜，书中将美生视为对现代社会更广泛发展的回应，娓娓道来。

In their simplest form the Freemasons are groups of (almost exclusively) men, who undertake to pursue a “beautiful system of morality” and self-improvement according to a symbolic code. Their society is united by pledges to defend rational, enlightenment values, and over the centuries has attracted many high-profile members, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Winston Churchill and Walt Disney.
简单来讲，共济会由一群男性组成（几乎完全是男性），他们致力于追求“美好的道德系统”，并根据一个象征性的准则进行自我完善。共济会的会员们为捍卫理性启蒙的价值观团结在一起，几个世纪以来，已经吸引了许多名士加入其中，包括沃尔夫冈·阿马迪斯·莫扎特、温斯顿·丘吉尔和沃尔特·迪斯尼。