The Céile Dé Priest Masons

That's significant that he comes from or is connected to the Vulcan mythology

Vulcan of the alchemists was the patron deity of alchemy. It was also known to be a symbol of the hermetic art.

Despite being important in Egyptian and Greek religion, it was the Renaissance physician/alchemist Paracelsus who first introduced the mythological figure of Vulcan.

[...]
The alchemists' adoption of the mythic figure of Vulcan may be interpreted on several levels. At the lowest scale of interpretation, Vulcan represents the cunning amoral demiurge who blindly gains power over Nature without integrity; this mundane level anticipates the nascent Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. The activities of the extraction of coal from mines to fuel colossal Furnaces to manufacture Steel and Iron on a gigantic scale and the development of the railroad and steam-train throughout Europe and North America are both decidedly Vulcan-like activities and in many ways, the general "business" of the Protestant work-ethic and industrialised Western society, is strongly reflected in this archetypal figure. At a higher level of interpretation Vulcan is transformed to become an inspired apostle, the visionary capable of releasing Mankind from the bonds of unknowingness and darkness.

The transforming power of Vulcan the "higher man" and anthropos figure of the alchemists has today devolved into the negative aspects of a demi-urge figure; none other than the modern technological man, who, divorced from God, forges his own destiny independent of Religion, Divine Love or theological considerations towards a brave new world or utopia.

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and also to add to this, here's a video i cropped from the movie Baron Munchausen for a visual characterization of Vulcan.
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Yeah, all of this keeps coming back to the Black Art (Alchemy) and the artificers/smiths/craftsmen, and the Gobban Saor, the ancient legend of the sage-cum-master craftsman skilled in all technical arts. Architecture/masonry, metalworking/weapon construction (very crucially weapon making), and many other technical crafts.
A film that has this thread running right through it, and which I take as relating allegorically the story of the Johannites and the "Sons of the Artificers," is Kingdom of Heaven by Ridley Scott. I watched the full director's cut the other day and that's the way it seems to me.

The main character, Bloom's Iban (Iban, Cowan, Gowan, Gobban ), 'son of the wright,' is even psychologically wounded, lame just like the old myths of the blacksmith's gods who were physically lamed, is called on to protect the Holy Land. With the Knights of St. John. The Hospitallers who cared for the sick and infirm, the common man. Just like the Culdees. Or so the historical account says...



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Just finished the next part in this Céli Dé series at my blog:

The Sons of the Tradition

Watch out, its a long one! And this nowhere near finished.

That looks great. Thanks for posting what you've been working on

I'm taking your quote from the True Blood thread because my answer is relevant to this subject

Extant wrote:I think the show is awesome. The mythic narrative allied to the way it uses supernatural creatures and fables to impart social critiques is brilliant!
I note your Godric avatar Lucid.
The second season with the maenad was inspired storytelling.

The Maenad angle interested me a lot. I've done a bit of research regarding neolithic matriarchal orgiastic societies and their development into the Greek Dionysian Mysteries (also the early forms of Indian Tantra) and the True Blood series pretty much casted it in it's usual negative "evil" stereotype. And I think theirs a reason for this.

What I think is going on here is that we've inherited ancient Roman memes that views particular culture forms as negative and evil. The Roman's feared the conquered Greeks were part of a secret Dionysian plot to rabble nationalistic fervor among the lower classes and conquered Greeks against their Roman oppressors. That the secrecy around the initiatory mystery rites was a literal "sworn together" conspiracy. And much of the propaganda the Romans used to demonize the Greek mystery schools were almost identical to how they later treated the Jews...and I feel much of this demonization of mysteries and Jews still lives on strong today as part of the Roman Christian ideological package in ways most people do not understand.

What you may find particularly interesting their may be something similar to this with how the Romans treated Gaul, the Celts, and the Druids. And if your Céli Dé priest mason concept is correct, this Roman conspiracy meme may partially contribute to the upper class fears of masonic worker guilds as part of a conspiring union attempting to undermine the traditional social order.

Lucid Memes wrote: What you may find particularly interesting their may be something similar to this with how the Romans treated Gaul, the Celts, and the Druids. And if your Céli Dé priest mason concept is correct, this Roman conspiracy meme may partially contribute to the upper class fears of masonic worker guilds as part of a conspiring union attempting to undermine the traditional social order.

A potentially sound theory to ponder. There are those writers who say that the Romans chased the Céli Dé (read Druids) to the far outposts of Britain, hence why they then appear in recorded history in Ireland, the outer reaches of Scotland, the North of Wales and such.

I think there was a definite merger of Roman memes and Celtic Druidic tradtions as a matter of survival thereafter. Hence the original Druids may have became the Céli Dé. Many traditions may have merged under this umbrella as the term was used kind of loosely at times as a kind of honorific, artistocratic title.

Also, Celtae, as in Celt, means "those who hide."

I was just reading about the schism between The Grand Lodges and The Grand Orients and it reminded me to read the OP again.

According to this wiki entry, the division began with the usual divisive ploys of race and religion. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Makes me think about that book called "Scarlet and the Beast" about the war between English and French Freemasonry

That is a book I want to read sometime soon.