![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksA reference book B. had lying around.
This is decidedly not the reference book you want if you want to learn anything about Freemasonry. It is an unredeemable disaster.
It is, however, moderately entertaining if you enjoy unredeemable disasters. The question, of course, is in what direction the book will be terrible next. Will there be yet another uncaught typo? An inappropriate and uncaptioned illustration? A myth presented as unequivocal fact? A paragraph (or several) spun from the words 'it seems likely that', extrapolated upon so wildly that by the end of the page nothing seems less likely? The usual answer is, in fact, all of the above at once. I can't remember the last time I saw a book presented as fact that cited its sources less. There is no bibliography. There is no works cited page. There is no index. There is no list of photo credits, for crying out loud.
And the book states that it actually believes that the Masons were both literally descendants of the builders of Solomon's Temple and founded/carried on by the Knights Templar.
This is the sort of book where I would want to fact-check it if it were to tell me that two plus two is four.
It isn't even a good source for the usual conspiracy theories, because the writing isn't good enough to present them comprehensibly if you don't know what they are already.
I had a good time wincing and laughing, but in general: avoid avoid avoid.
This is decidedly not the reference book you want if you want to learn anything about Freemasonry. It is an unredeemable disaster.
It is, however, moderately entertaining if you enjoy unredeemable disasters. The question, of course, is in what direction the book will be terrible next. Will there be yet another uncaught typo? An inappropriate and uncaptioned illustration? A myth presented as unequivocal fact? A paragraph (or several) spun from the words 'it seems likely that', extrapolated upon so wildly that by the end of the page nothing seems less likely? The usual answer is, in fact, all of the above at once. I can't remember the last time I saw a book presented as fact that cited its sources less. There is no bibliography. There is no works cited page. There is no index. There is no list of photo credits, for crying out loud.
And the book states that it actually believes that the Masons were both literally descendants of the builders of Solomon's Temple and founded/carried on by the Knights Templar.
This is the sort of book where I would want to fact-check it if it were to tell me that two plus two is four.
It isn't even a good source for the usual conspiracy theories, because the writing isn't good enough to present them comprehensibly if you don't know what they are already.
I had a good time wincing and laughing, but in general: avoid avoid avoid.
