Talk Horror The Mouth of Madness
You all have already read my articles on the Allegheny Cemetery and the Evans City Cemetery; but there was one other I managed to visit: the Rosemont Cemetery located next to the Greater Pittsburgh Masonic Center, obviously, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
My brother decided to take me here because he wanted to show me this pyramid monument that was erected. I found that it was actually built by followers of Pastor Charles Taze Russell. Now, unless you’ve extensively studied religion, you may not know who Pastor Russell was; however, if you have ever heard the term “Bible Study,” you have him to thank for that. Pastor Russell, for all intents and purposes, invented Bible Study. His headstone is located a few feet away from the pyramid monument, and displays his photograph.
Walking down the hill a few steps, I noted a freemason symbol on a headstone and next to it, the man’s wife was buried. Her headstone was especially peculiar to me, because of the inverted pentagram it displayed.
Popular culture is to blame for a lot of the negative connotation that accompanies an inverted pentagram, but it appears that the freemasons used the inverted pentagram as a way to distinguish a specific order of the fraternity called Order of the Eastern Star. This was created in the 1850s by Rob Morris (also a freemason), and is basically a group within the fraternity that allowed both men and women to socialize, without fully allowing the women to become freemasons, as they were not (and still are not) allowed.
I’ve always hated the phrase “conspiracy theories,” although I’m sure if you get me angry about the right thing for long enough that I’m bound to use it at some point myself. As I researched freemasonry for this article, I found a lot of sites (mainly Christianity-faith based) accusing freemasons as occultists.
It seems that ever since the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, whenever the “right” religion is challenged (either directly or indirectly), there will be naysayers that said challenge is wrong for whatever reason. Freemasonry doesn’t identify with any one particular religion (although they do seem to hold that their members believe in some deity), but it does seem to be the forefront for accusations made by other religions about their religious affiliation.
Nowadays, freemasonry is a fraternal order, but remains challenged for its use of “occult” symbols that litter the headstones and monuments at Rosemont Cemetery.
