This is kind of a dark part of Civilization that no one talks about, but in the past, it was believed that when you built a structure for a building, it was considered best to use a human body in the foundation. Many old churches around Europe and other places still have markers with the name of people buried in the foundation of different churches and tons of Ghost stories exist to this day because of these bodies in these buildings. Sometimes it is a knight or a monk, but usually it is a church. This idea still exists in regular culture when people talk about building things on Indian Burial grounds.
That version of Building no longer exists, but the groups that built those building still exist. Such as, the Catholic and Protestant Churches. And there are still building methods that are used that have meaning similar to that of putting a body in the foundation.
The first example is the Cornerstone, which people sometimes use as Time Capsules. Any large building usually has a Cornerstone somewhere, I have seen them in places like Airports and Libraries.
According to myth, there was a man named Hiram Abiff. He was the Grand Master in control of building King Solomon's temple, but there were three Wage earners who wanted to earn more money for their work and decided to tell Hiram they would go to other nations and pretend to be Grand Masters themselves if he did not pay them more. So they went to the temple where he prayed and blocked the 3 entrances. One of them met him on the East side and demanded to be named master, but Hiram told him that he could not teach him those things without permission from the King of Tyre and King Solomon. So the worker slit Hirman's throat with a 24 inch measuring gauge, and when he turned away from his attacker, he met another one of the workers at the South door who hit him in the chest with an Architecture's square. He turned again and was hit with a Mallet/Gavel at the West door. He died and they carried in through the West door and later buried him in a 6 ft grave and they fled. 9 other workers had backed out of the plan went to the Grand Master wearing White Aprons and White Gloves as tokens of innocence, When the 3 were found, they suffered horrible deaths. No one knows if this myth is true, because the temple was destroyed in 597 BC, according to Ancient Historians.
During the Hellenistic Era, the cult that held these "Mysteries" was spread out of Crete and Egypt, Mithraism came from Babylon, and then the Roman government eventually adopted them as their Government religion until Christianity took over. This can be found by searching the "Mithraic Mysteries" to see the Roman Government or "Minoan Genius" to see the ceremonies being done in Crete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries
Emperor Constantine Converted to Christianity in 312 AD, and commissioned the people in the Government religion to build the Churches of Rome, which started a tradition of Giant stone Churches and strange Symbols on the Churches that are sometimes not related to Christianity at all. During this time most people could not read, so when they built the churches they built them so that people would learn from the Symbols. For example, in the early church the Choir would stand behind a screen/veil that only allowed the people to get glimpses of them, which would make them feel more like they were angels or souls. This is still used in Catholic Confession boxes.
Within 300 years, these groups were making Churches all over Europe, and by 1217 they had adopted the French name for "Stone Craftsman" which is "Maszun", and by 1292 they were commonly using Huts to store their tools and eat meals, that they would call the "Lodge". These groups became well established and the government hired them to build everything from military forts, to palaces. Around 1220 the Masonry industry became Unionized, and there were guilds setting the prices of work in different areas. They were not allowed to join together like this to control the prices, so they had to meet in secret.
Trade Guilds would make new Masons follow a set of rules known as "Charges", which included things like never playing Cards, except for during the 12 days of Christmas. The Church demanded loyalty from these groups, but they held on to the Ancient Mysteries that came before the church.
Around this time there were 7 Crusades by the Church, and the "Poor Knights of Christ" became "The Knights Templar". Which was a central part of supply of Knights and Mercenaries in Europe. This is the group that worshiped Baphomet, and who Christians claim worship the Devil. This group was forced in to the shadows by the Catholic church after they were tortured and confessed to Heresy, at which point some of them were burned like witches.
An Important Document to these groups is known as the Regius Poem. It claims that the group started in Ancient Egypt with Euclidean math. But their work can be found on Churches all over Europe before 1400.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonic_ma ... egius_Poem
