Bulgarian Freemasons. The tale.

There are several versions about who the founder of the teaching is; on of them that he was Boyan Maga, son of Tsar Simeon I. Boyan’s older brother Peter took over the throne after Simeon’s death while Boyan was sent to Constantinople to study at the Magnaura school where he possibly was initiated in a secret Egypt teaching and the ancient knowledge of cosmogony, religion, philosophy, medicine, and extrasensory. Upon returning to Bulgaria, Boyan Magna founded his own school with the goal to reinstate the real Christianity.
His teaching is universal, examining common human issues, summarizing the ancient wisdom and revealing the hidden simplicity of Christianity. The Bogomils (in Bulgarian Dear to God) declared themselves against the dogma of the Church, the lavish decorations, the hypocrisy, greed and strive for power of the clergy, the merge between the church and the tsar’s power. The Bogomils appealed for bringing back the virtues of real Christianity – kindness, humility, helping others, equal rights and lawfulness, abandon of opulence, admiration for human labor, dignity and high morals.
The Bogomils, known in the West under different names, such as Bougres, Albigens, Chatars, created their own schools and became founders of the Humanism and Renaissance. The schools taught Bulgarian cosmogony, Christianity and ancient wisdom. These schools were built on the principle of three concentric circles – the consecrated (called the Perfect) in the most inner one, the believers in the middle and the listeners in the outer one.
The Bogomils had many public speakers and education centers. They called each other brothers and sisters and treated each other as such. They eliminated the social and origin differences; celebrated brotherly gatherings, went on trips to the mountains seen as symbolic of the real liberation of the Spirit from the mundane worries and problems. The Bogimils valued highly women and their role in society and considered them equal to men. It is believed the

"The Rosicrucian promised their followers access to supreme secrets by following basic steps for the awakening and development of internal forces and through tools such as occult symbolic. Each occult sign had three meanings – exterior, interior or secret that can be explained only through intellect, and the spiritual which is sensed only through intuition. The cross, pointing at the four geographical directions, is a symbol of the infinity, while the rose symbolizes the morning light and rebirth of life and of the soul. Together they symbolize immortality achieved through suffering. In the 17th – 18th century, the Rosicrucianity spread from Germany to England and merged with the Freemasonry, according to same researchers, while others believe that the origins of the Freemasonry stem from the Albigens in France. In all different versions, however, the ties with the Bogomils are obvious.

” Nedkov writes that proof the Bogomils were founders of the Order of Knights Templar and of their connections with Freemasonry is dispersed all over the world’s history and the time has come to collect them and bring them together as part of our true Bulgarian history. He tells Novinite.com that he believes in the connection between the Bogomil teaching and the Freemasonry because the Bogomils are known as the spark of the Western periods of Reformation and Enlightenment and the next keepers of the secret books with the secret teachings that have formed the human self-awareness through ages while organizations such as the Templar found the administrative form of applying this knowledge to real life and after them, the Freemasons assumed this function.
Bulgarians then, unaffected by aristocratic and royal prejudice, were tolerant towards ethnic and religious differences, but the perceptions about the Freemasonry were loaded with negativism because their society bears deep symbolic, esoteric, metaphoric, almost mystical elements, unfamiliar and incomprehensible to the common people. The lack of democratic traditions and of an upper class became an obstacle for the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment, researchers point out. In Bulgaria, the designation Freemasons became equal to people who eat meat during fast, to dishonest individuals. “Farmasonin” is still an offensive name, meaning someone who is impious, belongs to a sect, and uses any means to achieve his goals. Nedkov further explains the inadequate state of Freemasonry in Bulgaria with the common belief we must practice some American, German, French or “God knows” what Masonry and with the distortions arising from the mechanical transfer of methodologies that work in totally different societies, cultures, and mentalities.
“The true meaning is the adaptation of the values of Freemasonry to the cultural environment and the mentality of each separate nation. The meaning is to enrich the global Brotherhood with the uniqueness of our rites, traditions, spiritual practices, and our own understanding of the relation between humans and nature,” the Bulgarian Mason points out.
Adapted from http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=116583