Wonderful
Masonic Goat Stein
This
rare and beautiful kitschy goat stein was manufactured exclusively by Ceramarte in
1994 for the members of Rio Negrinho City Lodge in Santa Catarina, Brasil.
It stands 7 inches tall and comes with its original triangular box made of
pine. This future collectible can still be purchased from Claudio
Nogueira by contacting him at his e-mail address:
claudio-nogueira@uol.com.br
The
humorous idea that riding the goat constitutes a part of the
ceremonies of initiation in a Masonic Lodge is just a Joke and has
its real origin in the superstition of antiquity. The old Greeks and
Romans portrayed their mystical god Pan in horns and hoof and shaggy hide and
called him goat-footed. When the demonology of the
classics was adopted and modified by the early Christians, Pan gave way to
Satan, who naturally inherited his attributes; so that to the common mind the
Devil was represented by a he-goat, and his best known marks were the horns,
the beard, and the cloven hoofs. Then came the witch stories of the
Middle Ages, and the belief in the witch orgies, where, it was said, the Devil
appeared riding on a goat. These orgies of the witches, where,
amid fearfully blasphemous ceremonies, they practiced initiation into their
Satanic Rites, became, to the vulgar and illiterate, the type of the Masonic
Mysteries; for, as Doctor Oliver says, it was in England a common belief that
the Freemasons were accustomed in their Lodges "to raise the Devil."
So the riding of the goat, which was believed to be practiced by the witches,
was transferred to the Freemasons; and the sayings and jokes about it remain
to this day, although the belief has long since died out. The Lodge Goat
and Goat Rides book plays on the joke of riding the goat and plays on the
humorous side of Lodge life.
See "The
Lodge Goat and Goat Rides" book for many of the humorous goat riding
stories.
