Featured Religious book in shorthand?

I doubt this is worth anything, but it was too strange to discard without figuring out what it is. The best I could do to decipher the script was that it could be a form of shorthand, though I couldn't find it online. What were they thinking and who is this for?

 

It's Masonic; see the order blank in the endmatter:

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/content/books/ebooks/king-solomon-and-his-followers.pdf

 

look who's back.....Hey SOS......how ya bin ????

 

I think it's an abbreviated, aide memoire, ritual book with the arrows indicating directions to face or turn, etc. & abbreviations of the wording. Maybe used by someone in a prompter position. Officers do stumble sometimes.

 

I think it's in decibet

 

Some of it resembles 'Speed Writing'.

 

According to Amazon, Masonic cipher book for memorizing and reciting rites and rituals. Still in print!

 

Masonic ritual guide, written in cipher so that the mysteries of Masonry may not be revealed to the uninitiated. These little books are not terribly common.

Incidentally, the "Mass." on the title page is the abbreviation of Massachusetts. It's not referring to mass in the religious sense.

 

Rituals vary slightly in the different Grand Lodges, but basically it's the same just about anywhere a Freemason might wish to attend a lodge. The greater part of the rituals are taught orally, and many Masons may not every see one of these.

That being said, it's all available online, now.

 

How it is 'Strictly in accordance with the latest authors' is the mystery to me. Makes it sound like the latest biology textbook.

 

At the time it was written, there was a good bit of scholarly discussion and research into the origins of the ritual and how lodges were conducted, as well as the philosophic aspects. For a long time, very little of it was written down.

 

So they're claiming orthodoxy?

 

Well, at least in the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

 

Yes, the "Mass." definitely threw me off. Even though that was the only way the state was abbreviated until the postal code MA took over.