"Riddles in Stone" purports to expose the truth behind Masonic influences upon the design of Washington DC, and its supposed "purpose". Well, it's largely crap. How do I know? First, I'm a Freemason. And not just some "porch Mason"; I'm 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite, a member of a Traditional Observance Lodge, and deeply involved in Masonic philosophy and esoteric thought. I'm _also_ a skeptic, especially when it comes to claims made about Masonry and world history. It's that background that informs my opinion about this "documentary".
First, I'm wary of any narrator who constantly says things like "...it's said that..." and "...some think that..." Those are worthless qualifiers that can be used to excuse the most ridiculous nonsense. I could just as "accurately" say that "it's been said that the moon is made of cheese", and be absolutely correct since it HAS been claimed (a century or more ago). Does that lend credence to the actual claim that the moon IS made of cheese? Hardly!
Next, the film spends far too much time trotting out the presence of the number 13 in US history and iconography (such as the Great Seal), as if it is some mysterious -- not to mention ominous -- presence. They only passingly mention that "some say that this is because there were 13 States". Well, no kidding! It was hugely important that there were 13 Colonies, and the use of 13 ranks in the pyramid on the Great Seal and 13 stars in the flag and elsewhere, celebrate that fact. Can you feature some conspiracy theory-monger today going on about the sinister presence of the number 50 in the US today (50 being the number of the pentagram multiplied by the number of toes on George Washington)?! Instead of simply admitting that the union of the 13 Colonies into 13 States was hugely significant to early Americans, the show goes out of its way to try to tie it to some arcane numerological significance. Pathetic.
Also, the show goes to great lengths to try to claim the existence of a pentagram in the streets of Washington DC. They show a variety of maps and overlays, but all of them are manipulated to make it look far more like a pentagram. The fact is that it's NOT a pentagram. It's a collection of 30 and 60-degree angles, as one finds in cities from NY to San Francisco. Pentagrams are ONLY made up of 36 and 72-degree angles. So the "pentagram" they claim exists in DC is actually a squashed, 4-legged one. Now, if Masons had a blank slate to work with when laying out DC, don't you think we would've used 36 and 72-degree angle streets rather than 30 and 60? There's so much else to find fault with about this show, but I have no interest in going into more detail. The final and most significant fault is that they interview a host of certifiable loonies and outright liars like "Dr." Ed Decker, who claims to know that the 30th Degree ritual in the Scottish Rite involves drinking blood out of a human skull! How does Decker "know" this? Because he claims that his father was a Freemason.
The show also relies heavily upon the claims of William Schnoebelen, another outright fraud who claims to know all about Freemasonry, but has never been a Mason, despite his claims. (He also claims to have been a Satanist, a Wiccan, a Gnostic bishop, a Mormon, an Old Roman Catholic priest, a 90th Degree Mason in the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim Freemasonry, and a vampire! --and all of this by the age of 37, when he got "saved". Somehow, he finds time to be a prominent critic of Freemasonry, and to "know" all of its secrets. Amazing.
The ONLY saving features of this show are some good shots of architectural features and artworks in DC, and interviews with reasonable people like Brent Morris and Trevor McKeown who come across as as sensible and sober as Schnoebelen and Decker are hysterical and comically misinformed. "Riddles in Stone" is just entertainment where truth takes 3rd place behind sensationalism and conspiracy-mongering.
First, I'm wary of any narrator who constantly says things like "...it's said that..." and "...some think that..." Those are worthless qualifiers that can be used to excuse the most ridiculous nonsense. I could just as "accurately" say that "it's been said that the moon is made of cheese", and be absolutely correct since it HAS been claimed (a century or more ago). Does that lend credence to the actual claim that the moon IS made of cheese? Hardly!
Next, the film spends far too much time trotting out the presence of the number 13 in US history and iconography (such as the Great Seal), as if it is some mysterious -- not to mention ominous -- presence. They only passingly mention that "some say that this is because there were 13 States". Well, no kidding! It was hugely important that there were 13 Colonies, and the use of 13 ranks in the pyramid on the Great Seal and 13 stars in the flag and elsewhere, celebrate that fact. Can you feature some conspiracy theory-monger today going on about the sinister presence of the number 50 in the US today (50 being the number of the pentagram multiplied by the number of toes on George Washington)?! Instead of simply admitting that the union of the 13 Colonies into 13 States was hugely significant to early Americans, the show goes out of its way to try to tie it to some arcane numerological significance. Pathetic.
Also, the show goes to great lengths to try to claim the existence of a pentagram in the streets of Washington DC. They show a variety of maps and overlays, but all of them are manipulated to make it look far more like a pentagram. The fact is that it's NOT a pentagram. It's a collection of 30 and 60-degree angles, as one finds in cities from NY to San Francisco. Pentagrams are ONLY made up of 36 and 72-degree angles. So the "pentagram" they claim exists in DC is actually a squashed, 4-legged one. Now, if Masons had a blank slate to work with when laying out DC, don't you think we would've used 36 and 72-degree angle streets rather than 30 and 60? There's so much else to find fault with about this show, but I have no interest in going into more detail. The final and most significant fault is that they interview a host of certifiable loonies and outright liars like "Dr." Ed Decker, who claims to know that the 30th Degree ritual in the Scottish Rite involves drinking blood out of a human skull! How does Decker "know" this? Because he claims that his father was a Freemason.
The show also relies heavily upon the claims of William Schnoebelen, another outright fraud who claims to know all about Freemasonry, but has never been a Mason, despite his claims. (He also claims to have been a Satanist, a Wiccan, a Gnostic bishop, a Mormon, an Old Roman Catholic priest, a 90th Degree Mason in the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim Freemasonry, and a vampire! --and all of this by the age of 37, when he got "saved". Somehow, he finds time to be a prominent critic of Freemasonry, and to "know" all of its secrets. Amazing.
The ONLY saving features of this show are some good shots of architectural features and artworks in DC, and interviews with reasonable people like Brent Morris and Trevor McKeown who come across as as sensible and sober as Schnoebelen and Decker are hysterical and comically misinformed. "Riddles in Stone" is just entertainment where truth takes 3rd place behind sensationalism and conspiracy-mongering.