The phallic Washington monument portrayed as a “Sacred Image” from the “I Am” cult of Mount Shasta, California
A great secret of Masonic historians is that many of us have a love affair with ritual exposures. Like other affairs of the heart, it is exciting, but it may also be a love-hate relationship.
—Arturo de Hoyos, 33rd Degree, Light on Masonry: The History and Rituals of America’s Most Important Masonic Exposé
SECRET SOCIETIES have generated a perplexing array of human reactions ranging from obsessive devotion to an intense hatred and fear.
Just as soon as the Grand Lodge of England got off the ground, the Catholic Church issued a string of condemnations that continues to the present day. Some prominent Protestants like Charles Finney joined the Catholic chorus and urged the faithful to steer clear. The Morgan Affair and the Anti-Masonic Party of early American history created a tsunami of opposition but also fertilized the soil in which other Brotherhoods such as the Odd Fellows would grow. The Taxil Affair also renewed anti-Masonic fervor, but after Taxil’s public retraction, Masons seemed to gain a hammer with which to beat their foes.
Masons and Brothers themselves also turned and took aim at the Church, from Albert Pike to Know Nothings to the Klan.
There is nothing more reactive than group ritualism. For example, the American tradition of individualism fed a distrust of Catholicism, its masses and sacramental rites. Ironically, similar structures—initiation, obligations, oaths—were also part of the secret Brotherhoods that objected to Rome. Ritual fought ritual, creating a polarizing moral crusade still very present in American culture.
It might seem strange to scan the library of a Catholic priest and find a section devoted to atheism. And, as odd as it seems, many Masons and lodge libraries collect the books of the nineteenth-century anti-Masonic publisher Ezra A. Cook. Any one of them carries commentary calculated to rile any worshipful master. A representative sample:
The man who enters a secret organization, where the foot of Christ never trod, enters on ground which devils inhabit, and which angels of light shrink from, and from that instant his moral sight grows dim, and his conscience grows weak, and he worships he knows not what.
Why do Masons buy these books? Like the labyrinth of an old myth, the story of the anti-Masonic manuals of Ezra Cook is tangled, surprising, and, intentionally or not, possibly a bit of a ruse. After going into this maze of Cook’s publications, one just might emerge supporting some of the lodge agenda. As we shall see, Cook’s books have played their part in such ironic reversals, perhaps one of the reasons these old reprints are on the lodge list of must-haves.
To grasp the ferment in which Ezra Cook’s books rose to prominence, one must understand that Masonry in Cook’s day was making a big comeback.
The Mr. Clean image of Freemasonry through its own promotion understates the body blows delivered to the Order during the period following the death of Captain William Morgan in 1826, followed by the creation of the first American third party, the Anti-Mason Party.
The Morgan Affair can be summarized briefly. Captain Morgan, a Royal Arch Freemason, violated his oath of secrecy and published the rituals of the lodge. Since Masons in Morgan’s day vowed not only secrecy, but committed themselves in the lodge rituals (as he also revealed) to a death sentence for revealing these secrets (grisly in detail), a posse of Freemasons took it upon themselves to administer the “penalty” to the traitorous captain, dumping him in the Niagara River in New York. When the facts emerged, a national outcry arose, culminating in an Anti-Masonic Party, Anti-Masonic conventions, and strong support from President John Quincy Adams.
One of many copies of the best-selling exposé of freemasonry by the murdered Captain William Morgan
Anti-Masonic publisher Ezra Cook’s books were primarily purchased by freemasons themselves.
One of many plaques on the Washington monument by a masonic Grand Lodge
The exposures and attacks upon Freemasonry were quite successful. Many Masons began to object to the “killer lodge” and dropped out. Some joined the anti-Masonic movement and enacted rituals publicly, sometimes for money, drawing increasing attention to the dramatic and death-oriented pledges taken behind the walls of temples across the land. The public demanded closure of the secret societies, and as the momentum grew, the lodge suffered further defections.
However, the post–Civil War period a couple decades later saw a renaissance of Freemasonry in the United States. One can see this strength in the increasingly Masonic architecture and artwork of the Capitol building and the Masonic-influenced layout of Washington, DC. An excellent example, playing on the growing cult status assigned by Masons to George Washington, is the Apotheosis of Washington, a large fresco in the rotunda of the Capitol building, painted during the last year of the Civil War (1865) by Italian artist Constantino Brumidi (1805–1880). In this Washington-turned-Christ deification, the first president is draped in royal purple, a rainbow arch at this feet, flanked by the goddesses Victory and Liberty, with thirteen maidens in a circle for the thirteen colonies (or perhaps a more occult meaning as seen on the twentieth-century dollar bill). Numerous other gods, ranging from Vulcan to Ceres, fill the breathtaking image.
Similarly, the Washington Monument, with its Egyptian-Masonic phallic symbolism, was begun with a cornerstone in 1848 but not finished and dedicated until 1885. Designed by Freemason Robert Mills (1781–1855), its cornerstone was laid in conjunction with the rising of Sirius, the “Dog Star” (Alpha Canis Majoris), over the Capitol.
Why the obsession with Sirius?
Fortean author Jim Brandon notes in The Rebirth of Pan: “This star has been the object of veneration by cults and even national religions since time immemorial.... Sirius cultists definitely are represented in our era as well.” Brandon references Ordo Templi Orientis leader Kenneth Grant about Aleister Crowley’s identification of his “Holy Guardian Angel” with Sirius, and the identification by Masonic leader Albert Pike of Sirius with the “Blazing Star” (l’Etoile Flamboyante), or pentagram, one of the “ornaments” in all Masonic lodges:
To find in the BLAZING STAR of five points an allusion to the Divine Providence, is also fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi, is to give it a meaning comparatively modern. Originally it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog-star.
—Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
Sirius veneration has been alleged to trail back to Sumeria by Robert Temple in The Sirius Mystery. Kenneth Grant posits that the binary star represents the occult “Twin,” or Double—that is, the “Devil”/Shaitan (Satan). The symbolism of dualism, or Double Mind structures, has been linked to everything from the androgynous Baphomet to Kabbalistic glyphs such as Rabbi Yitzhak Luria’s “Tree of Life,” which is either a very spiritual diagram or an occult blueprint for contrasting structures that cover mystical, yin-yang concepts, two-party systems, and political charades—depending on your degree of paranoia.
Structures such as the Washington Monument and Washington’s quasi-deification on a ceiling are symbolic of an elevated lodge stature after the Civil War. Together with the “Sirius” Masonic Pentagram and other Masonic and occult street-patterns alleged to be present in Washington, DC, by authors such as David Ovason (The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital), we just might have a Twilight signal: anti-Masons be damned; the lodge is back.
Images from one of many anti-Masonic exposés from the 1840s, this one attacking the Order with humor
After the Civil War ended, Albert Pike moved to Washington, DC, where today sits the enormous Masonic House of the Temple at 1733 Sixteenth Street. The House of the Temple is modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Egypt, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Scottish Rite seemed to emerge with symbolic clout.
As the lodge rose to prominence in the late 1860s, the anti-Masonic movement suffered its death throes. What the movement needed was a fresh touch: a burst of initiative, prominent new and salacious revelations of lodge shenanigans, and a man or men possessed with the fanatical urge to blast away against the imposing edifice of U.S. Masonry. The movement found its man in Ezra A. Cook.
A Baptist preacher warns of un-Christian ritualism practiced by various forms of American fraternalism.
The late Stephen Knight’s famous exposé of sinister British and European fraternal hijinks
Cook was preceded on the anti-Masonic scene by two Methodist ministers, N.D. Fanning and C.H. Underwood, who formed the National Christian Association (NCA) in the early 1860s to oppose secret societies and their reputed insidious influence. The NCA used tracts, lectures, and sermons to warn Christians and others about the contrast between the goings-on in the secret rooms of the lodge and the religion of Christ, who “in secret spoke nothing” according to the Gospels.
In 1868, NCA began to issue a publication, The Christian Cynosure, to warn Christians about the dangers of “secretism.” The Cynosure relied on the cash of Philo Carpenter (1805–1866), a wealthy Chicago merchant who also donated a building for the headquarters of the newspaper. Carpenter was Illinois’ first pharmacist and a real estate investor who caused a stir by arriving to town with his wife in an ostentatious carriage. The first president of the NCA is one of those forgotten men whose influence was enormous in his day. Jonathan Blanchard (1811–1892) was not only the first NCA president, but the first president of Wheaton College in Illinois as well, an institution which would eventually produce a range of individuals, from revival preacher Billy Graham to filmmaker Wes Craven of slasher movie notoriety. Blanchard gained a name as an abolitionist but also as the new face of anti-Masonry, considering it thoroughly diabolical and deserving of the type of whip-cracking rout that Christ gave the moneychangers in the Temple.
Blanchard set to work with the assistance of the Billy Graham of his day, Charles G. Finney (1792–1875) of Oberlin College. Finney, a Master Mason, experienced a religious epiphany and left the Brotherhood, attacking the lodge in a forgotten work of anti-Masonic rhetoric, The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry (1869), which also covered the Morgan affair.
But the man who turned anti-Masonic publication into a major enterprise was about to enter the scene. Ezra A. Cook joined the fray in one of the quickest routes: he married Blanchard’s daughter. Blanchard found with Cook a zealot who was ready to grind out as much dirt on every aspect of the Grand Lodge and its satellites as he could muster.
In 1867, Cook started producing a monumental number of “exposés,” displaying revelations of actual rituals with accompanying notes, commentaries, and endorsements from former members of the lodge. Cook’s books, in fact, were good enough for a Mason to use as a manual, ignoring the commentary—and many began to do just that.
In the years that followed, Cook took shots at not only the Grand Lodge Freemasons, but also the Scottish Rite, Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Pythias, Knights Templars, Shriners, “Adoptive” Freemasons (female branches of Freemasonry such as the Eastern Star), the Woodmen of America, the Red Men, the Foresters, the Temple of Honor, the Knights of Labor, the United Sons of Industry, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Knights of Columbus. Anything that seemed to Cook to slither in secret came into his trained sights and soon was lined up in his crosshairs. Manuals of their rituals, supplied by disaffected members, became the basis of his effective exposure-commentary combination. In addition, Cook published such provocative numbers as the Confession of the Murder of Morgan by Henry L. Valance, who, according to a Cook catalogue, “says that he was one of the three chosen by lot to drown Captain William Morgan in the Niagara River for exposing Freemasonry.” Cook also carried Finney’s previously mentioned volume, promoted with this blurb: “By President Charles G. Finney, of Oberlin College. President Finney was a ‘bright Mason’ but left the lodge when he became a Christian. This book has opened the eyes of multitudes.”
Ezra Cook catalogue, promising to tell all secrets without initiation, but prices subject to change without notice.
Masons soon found that they need not wait for promotion within the lodge to gain upper-level secrets; they only had to buy from Cook. Everything that went on behind a lodge door seemed to be up for sale—rituals, burial services, secret explanations of Masonic symbols, Masonic laws and jurisprudence, mysteries, and ciphers—all was illustrated and available for cash.
An important feature, endorsements from former Freemasons, gave a sort of imprimatur to Cook’s books. One would find in the opening pages ceremonious statements such as these:
John Hoek, Senior, of Laketown, Allegan County, Michigan, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that he has been a member of the society of Freemasons, and that he took in due form the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason, in Battle Creek Lodge No. 12, F. and A. M., [Free and Accepted Masons], Battle Creek, Michigan, and this deponent further saith, that he took in due form the Masonic degrees of Mark Master, Past Master, Most Excellent Master, and Royal Arch, in Battle Creek Chapter No. 19, at Battle Creek, Michigan, and that he was a member in good and regular standing at the time of this seceding from the society of Freemasons, which he did about one year ago.
And this deponent further saith, that he is familiar with the rituals and ceremonies of the seven degrees referred to, and that, after a careful examination of the proof sheets of a book entitled Freemasonry Illustrated, published by Ezra A. Cook and Company, of Chicago, Illinois, he finds the same to contain a complete and accurate statement and description of the ritual, ceremonies, and secrets of the said seven degrees of Freemasonry, generally known as Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason, Mark Master, Past Master, Most Excellent Master, and Royal Arch.
—JOHN HOEK SR, Sworn and subscribed before me this 24th day of October, AD 1879, H.D. POST, Justice of the Peace in and for Ottawa County, Michigan
Meanwhile, with Cook setting suspicion on everybody’s neighbor, Blanchard himself rode the anti-Masonic momentum in his own, personal way. In 1882 he ran for President of the United States on the Anti-Masonic Party ticket. Blanchard’s reputation as patriarch of the anti-Masonic movement was guaranteed by his exposure, published by Cook, of the “Scotch” (Scottish) Rite of Freemasonry, which rapidly grew into a powerhouse in the states.
Blanchard published the rituals and wrote a commentary which blasted, in turn, the Jews, Masons, and finally, the Catholics. All were in league with the plans and forces of Antichrist. Blanchard tacked these editorials to the end of each section of rituals under the headings, “Philosophical Analysis” or “Historical Analysis.” Some of Blanchard’s subheadings give the feel for his philosophical and historical point of view:
SATAN THE MASONIC GOD
MASONIC BAPTISM A HEATHEN RITE
FALSE LIGHTS ON THE COAST OF CHRISTENDOM
RENEWING THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT ON AMERICAN SOIL
MASONIC FACTS ARE FALSEHOODS
SHAM PRETENSE OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION
FILLED WITH VAIN REPETITIONS
Blanchard’s axe was ever ready to reduce to flinders any bit of lodge furniture. Nothing but the Protestant religion passed the bar for him. Masonry was the “image of the Romish beast” for Blanchard—resembling in his mind a sort of Trojan Horse version of the Catholic Church on American soil, a pagan imposture that had to go. But did Cook’s books ultimately serve a purpose that was unambiguously anti-Masonic? The question may seem baffling, given the content of his books, but the question must be raised, particularly in the light of this statement in the Cook catalogue: “Ezra A. Cook, who founded this publishing business in 1867, was unalterably opposed to secret orders. While many of our publications reflect his spirit, our books have been extensively adopted as text books in conferring the secret work of all standard orders, and the publishers, in continuing their sale, believe they are filling a much felt want.”
Cook possessed a fine marketing sense. To give the flavor of Cook’s steamed-up promotion, here is the Ezra Cook advertisement for his exposure of the KKK:
THE PUBLICATION of the hour! Complete story of the Masked Riders of the Night. Their oath of blood and death. How members are obtained. The Klan’s attitude on “white supremacy,” Jews, Catholics and Foreign Born. List of officers in every State with their addresses, etc., etc. Bound in pictorial wrapper. Prepaid 25¢
A VIRTUOUS MIND cannot delight in secrecy. Its joy is in communication. We are made sociable by nature.
—from the Proceedings of the United States Anti-Masonic Convention, held in Philadelphia, September 11, 1830, Address to the People of the United States
William Wirt. As a candidate for President in 1832 for the Anti-Masonic Party, he won the vote of the state of Vermont.
Cook’s famous publication of Blanchard’s exposure of “Scotch Masonry” has been criticized by Freemasons as inaccurate, having been based on the spurious “pseudo-Masonic” organization founded by Joseph Cerneau. Indeed, Blanchard shows quite a few grisly details in his book—including ritual enactments of decapitation in the 9th Degree, stabbing at the papal tiara in the 30th, and drinking wine from a human skull in the 33rd.
In the Masonic apologetic work Is It True What They Say about Freemasonry?, Blanchard receives criticism on just this point. The authors quote Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia to claim that Albert Pike’s revision of the Scottish Rite rituals “completely eradicated all such [bloody, death-oriented] penalties from the degrees and substituted mental, moral, and symbolic condemnation.”
Well, almost. Pike indeed added more allegorical lectures and themes, but hardly eliminated fundamental death/decapitation themes and symbols. To give one example, in the Cerneau Rite version of the 9th Degree, a Freemason plays the part of “Joabert” and ritually enacts an assassination by decapitation, going so far as to produce a “severed head” in the course of the ritual. The candidate then swears revenge against the enemies of Freemasonry.
The “toned down” Albert Pike–authored version, which became the Scottish Rite standard, still shows images of decapitation—including a hand holding a knife and a hand holding a severed head. The revised ritual, while more cautious, ambiguous and ornate in tone, still focuses on the severed head: “The Hand holding the bloody Head represents the just punishment of those who degrade and brutalize the human soul.”
Pike’s description of the Masonic Apron for this degree: “The Apron is of white lambskin, spotted with red, and lined and bordered with black. On the flap is painted or embroidered an arm holding a dagger; and in the middle of the apron, an arm holding a bloody head by the hair.”
Stereoscopic card presenting Masonic initiation rite. Probably anti-Masonic in intent.
Although historians often have misunderstood or slighted its importance, as mass enthusiasm Anti-Masonry was unparalleled, and its political career served as a catalyst for the formation of the first true mass party organizations in the United States.... Scholars have associated Anti-Masonry with illiberal excess, if not right-wing extremism. In the 1950s it became fashionable to depict Anti-Masonry and other populist movements as irrational and paranoid. Less judgmental observers, while granting that the movement often wreaked havoc on social comity, took a more neutral view, and emphasized its egalitarianism and defense of republican values, as well as its moralism.
The 1826 [Joseph Morgan] kidnapping and its aftermath led Anti-Masons to believe that Freemasonry possessed inordinate power throughout civil society, bending political factions and local and state government to the will of secret cabals. In fact, while Masonic lodges normally eschewed partisan action, they ‘included substantial numbers of politically active and aware men.’... Masonry formed part of the post-Revolutionary infrastructure of power and authority, helping to constrain, channel, and facilitate political activities.
Political Anti-Masonry declined in large part because the social movement in New York (and elsewhere) had been so successful.... By 1830 the 480 lodges of New York had fallen to under 100; by 1835 some 50 active lodges remained, mostly in the east. By early 1834 Anti-Masonry in the Empire State was ready to move into the new Whig Party....
During Anti-Masonry’s career, some 115 to 125 Anti-Masonic newspapers overall may have existed, either created by activists or converted to Anti-Masonic principles. Many, however, were short-lived. Anti-Masonic leaders knew that most of the established press—perhaps as many as seven-eighths of the nation’s newspapers—were hostile or neutral toward Anti-Masonry....
In many areas Anti-Masonry also served as a springboard for antislavery and abolitionist activity. The affinities between the two, though much greater numbers had been involved in Anti-Masonry, became evident as prominent Anti-Masons embraced abolitionism, and simultaneously or eventually moved on to antislavery societies or political organizing.
Comical Anti-Masonic play-acting of Masonic ritualism
After the developments I have given, I must, I do, believe the evils of Masonry to be stupendous; I must, I do, believe that they [c] ounterbalance, a thousandfold, any good it can achieve. It follows that I think favorably of the exertions which you and your anti-Masonic friends, here and elsewhere in the United States, are making to root out its bad influence from the face of our land. I hope that you may continue them with ardor. Taking care that they avoid personal slander or injustice, let them fall short of no just means that may give promise of success. You have a vigorous foe: but fact, and argument, and the force of truth, are with you! Employ these weapons vigorously on your side. If you do make up but a small band, more is the honor to your public spirit; and more the reproach to those who remain insensate under an attack so high-handed upon life and liberty, where guilt has been so presumptuous, where the bloody league continues, as malevolent as ever, unbroken, unabashed. Jenkins, the Englishman, when under torture by the Spaniards, and expecting death from those who were mutilating him, commended, says the English Historian, his soul to his God, and his cause to his country. But where is Morgan’s country? Where the avenging arm for him? As yet, he has found none. Unrelenting and bloodthirsty conspirators could even dare to convert a fortress of the republic into his dungeon. Monsters in human shape, they thrust him into the cavern of death. But who takes up the cause of his wrongs? I perceive tens of thousands marshaled against it; but who espouses it? There are none but you. Go on then in your course. You are under the broad banner of the law, of patriotism, of humanity, of public order, of private safety; the banner of right reason and of right feeling. You have all the motives that can urge good citizens into action. You have shown that you are not afraid of Masonry, or bound by its spell; and as to those who chant its praises, say to them all, that they are as dust in the balance to the unfathomable guilt which bad men of the brotherhood have forever fastened upon it; and that the only way to stop the stream of blood and pollution, which you have detected simply in Morgan’s case, is to dry up the fountain. Say that you will never cease from your endeavors to break down a power in the country, which has shown itself, in the face of millions if they will but look, to be an overmatch for the laws. Keep up an eternal battery against its dangers. “I like a clamor,” said Burke, “where there has been outrage; the firebell at midnight breaks your sleep, but it saves you from being burned.” We have been told that Masonry is too strong to be put down; that such attempts have been made in European countries, but have failed. Let this animate you but the more. Already it has been the glory of America to set Europe the example of conquest over public abuses, in many memorable ways. It may be her further glory to be the first to dispel the solemn folly, and break the tyrannical fetters of Masonry. The day that shall witness this triumph among us, may well deserve to stand next in our celebration to the Fourth of July.
“The Mummery of Masonry–A Relic of the Dark Ages.” Further Anti-Masonic cartoonery from the late nineteenth century.
Mothers, conceal your daughters—the Freemasons are passing.
—Léo Taxil
Léo Taxil, originally Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès (March 21, 1854–March 31, 1907), was a French writer, originally anti-Catholic and ultimately responsible for the most famous and lurid accusations against the Masonic Lodge ever penned. Thanks to Taxil, the Freemasons became in the late nineteenth century a hotly whispered-about den of Satanists, assassins, and orgiasts, ultimately leading to an Anti-Masonic Congress of Trent, and crowned by a public retraction by Taxil, which raised even more questions than it answered, at least for some of his most ardent followers.
Léo Taxil was born in Marseille, and at the tender age of five embarked upon a religious education in a Jesuit seminary. As happens to many who have too much religion too fast, Taxil rebelled, and to the chagrin of his Jesuit teachers, he did it with pen in hand. Taxil began pouring out anti-Christian works such as La Bible Amusante (The Amusing Bible) and La Vie de Jesus (The Amusing Gospel), both satirical skewers of the Bible. Taxil went on to depict leaders of the Catholic Church in pornographic writings as fetish addicts in the mold of the Marquis de Sade, engaging in gleeful romps. In 1879 he was tried at the Seine Assizes for writing À Bas la Calotte (“Down with the Cloth”), accused of “insulting a religion recognized by the state.” He was acquitted.
Suddenly, in 1885, Taxil did a 180-degree reversal and claimed a major conversion to Catholicism, becoming a zealous defender of the Faith and an arch-exposer of the Masonic Lodge. Taxil announced his reconciliation to the Church; he renounced his Masonic membership, went to the local bishop for absolution for his sins, and after a long penance, was squared away with the Church. He lost little time in turning his facile pen to a new tack: exposing Freemasonry. Taxil seemed to Catholics like Saul in the New Testament, who was knocked off his horse and turned into Saint Paul. Taxil the pornographic blasphemer had become the Great Catholic Champion, the renegade Mason who was ready to confirm every Catholic fear and reveal every last lurid detail of the real secret covered up by lodge oaths administered behind closed doors. That secret was Satanism.
Taxil’s books and articles started pouring out, detailing a Satanic inner sanctum in the lodges, a Free and Regenerated Palladium or Palladian Order. In fresh detail, Taxil described Palladist soirées in which initiates worshiped Baphomet, the Goat of Mendes—Satan—committed sacrilege and hooked up with the female Masons of the “adopted rites.” Taxil portrayed a massive devil-worshiping brigade at the core of the network of lodges, hell-bent on destroying the Catholic Church and pumping up the British Empire. As a master stroke, Taxil fingered Albert Pike, Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite in America, as sitting on top of it all as the kingpin—the “Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry” and a die-hard secret Luciferian.
Taxil’s books became bestsellers, and in 1887 he was granted a private audience with Pope Leo XIII. Several other authors joined the fray apparently competing for increasingly shocking and fantastic revelations of Masonic depravity, including the confessions of one Luciferian Grand Priestess Diana Vaughan, put forth as the descendent of the English alchemist Thomas Vaughan and a female demon.
Illustrating Taxil’s contention that Masons sacrificed goats in initiation ceremonies.
By 1895 Taxil was getting some heat, assailed by liberals and defended by Catholic conservatives. That same year Diana Vaughan was heralded as yet another convert to the Church, making the headlines across France. From Taxil’s press poured forth a new magazine from the former Palladist Priestess, billed as her Memoirs and recounting details of the orgiastic rites of the Palladium over which she had presided. Diana also fingered Adriano Lemmi (1822–1906), Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, as the top European Palladian Satanist, and Baphomet buddy of Pike. Diana’s memoirs in fact started naming names and in general stirred so much controversy that pressure started to mount for Léo or Diana to provide some proof. Taxil announced in 1897 that Diana Vaughan, the ex-Palladian Priestess herself, would make a public appearance at last. Taxil collected in advance, after staging an event at a spacious hall in Paris, and the event easily sold out ahead of schedule. But to the disappointment of ticket buyers, it was only Taxil who appeared on stage.
STEP BY STEP, as the affiliated advances in Masonic instruction, the occult chiefs of the sect gradually withdraw the veil of symbolism, the term “Great Architect” ceases to be a vague expression and the initiated, having been insensibly prepared for demon worship, first by blasphemy and then by sacrilege, finds himself rendering worship to the most abominable of idols.... Says the orator…“What harm is there in it, anyhow? Baphomet is the pantheistic and magical figure of the absolute. The torch placed between the two horns represents well-balanced intelligence... Will anyone reproach Baphomet for having the breasts of a woman?”
—Léo Taxil
A MONSTER throned upon an altar, mitred and horned, having a woman’s breasts and the generative organs of a man.... Below this figure we read a frank and simple inscription—THE DEVIL. Yes, we confront here... the Baphomet of the Templars... the goat of the Sabbath... yes, there existed in the past, and there may be still in the present, assemblies which are presided over by this figure, seated on a throne and having a flaming torch between the horns.
—Eliphas Lévi
THIS SERPENT, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “The Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection.
—Aleister Crowley
NOW, the original Order of the Palladium... made no mark whatsoever... Its alleged reconstitution in 1870 and its alleged diabolical rituals are inventions of Léo Taxil…[There are] other varieties of Satanism which are peculiar to the associations instituted for the express purpose of offering divine worship to the devil. There is evidence to show that such associations exist, and there was one at Naples in the year 1885, of which I have had a full account from a person who was initiated therein, and appears to have taken part in its orgies.... It remains only to say that the Society in question was not Masonic.
—A.E. Waite
IN 1960 the Reverend Peale led a group of 150 Protestant clergymen to oppose the election of John F. Kennedy as president. “Faced with the election of a Catholic,” Peale declared, “our culture is at stake.” In a written statement Peale and his group declared that JFK would serve the interests of the Catholic church before the interests of the United States: “It is inconceivable that a Roman Catholic president would not be under extreme pressure by the hierarchy of his church to accede to its policies with respect to foreign interests,” and that the election of a Catholic might end free speech in America.
“MUSLIMS and non-Muslims as well as Freemasons have only to read English Translation of the whole of Holy Quran by anyone from beginning to the end and in particular Surah’s Baqarah, Alay Imran, Maidah, TaHa, Saba, Jinn from which it is clear that the teachings of Freemasonry are in conflict with the beliefs and practices of Islam.”
—Abdul Wahid Osman Belal in response to “Anti-Freemasonry in Islam” online
“ISLAM is the religion of peace and harmony for all mankind. It was Islam that brought light in darkness. But the disbelievers have always tried to destroy Muslims and Islam. In Quran Allah says:
“‘O Ye who believe! take not for friends unbelievers rather than believers do ye wish to offer Allah an open proof against yourselves?’ (4.144)
“This website [antimasons.8m.com] has been made to divert the attention of Muslims to one of their greatest enemies which they are unaware of The Free Masons.”
TO STRENGTHEN his political position he [the Jew] tries to tear down the racial and civil barriers which for a time continue to restrain him at every step. To this end he fights with all the tenacity innate in him for religious tolerance—and in Freemasonry, which has succumbed to him completely, he has an excellent instrument with which to fight for his aims and put them across. The governing circles and the higher strata of the political and economic bourgeoisie are brought into his nets by the strings of Freemasonry and never need to suspect what is happening.
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
FREEMASONRY is an ideological form of hostility to National Socialism, the significance of which, in the historical development of the past two centuries, must be deemed comparable to the effects of other supranational organizations, the political churches, world Jewry, and Marxism. In its present form, it must be viewed as the bourgeois-liberal advance troops of World Jewry.
—Dieter Schwarz, Freemasonry: Ideology, Organization, and Policy, 1944
IN THE WAKE of this Freemasonic democracy swindle, the entire Marxist movement falsified the beginnings of a healthy protest by the workers, and controlled all social democratic parties in the service of the stock exchange with aid of Jewish finance, Jewish leaders, and the Jewish, pvartly individualistic, partly universalistic, ideology.
—Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century: An Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of Our Age, 1930
ALL THE SUPPOSED abominations, the skeletons and death’s heads, the coffins and the mysteries, are mere bogeys for children. But there is one dangerous element and that is the element I have copied from them. They form a sort of priestly nobility. They have developed an esoteric doctrine not merely formulated, but imparted through the symbols and mysteries in degrees of initiation. The hierarchical organization and the initiation through symbolic rites, that is to say, without bothering the brain but by working on the imagination through magic and the symbols of a cult, all this has a dangerous element, and the element I have taken over. Don’t you see that our party must be of this character—? An Order, that is what it has to be—an Order, the hierarchial Order of a secular priesthood.... Ourselves or the Freemasons or the Church—there is room for one of the three and no more.
—Hermann Rauschning,
Hitler Speaks, 1939
Taxil proceeded to confess. Unlike his confession to a bishop many years before, Taxil confessed publicly to hoaxing everyone who believed his writings. Diana Vaughan, he explained, was his typist; she had agreed to lend her name and photograph, but was (alas) hardly a big-time, devil-worshiping orgy queen. The rest of the authors that had corroborated Taxil and Vaughan were simply Taxil operating under several pseudonyms. His goal? To show how gullible Catholics were. The talk ended with Taxil scooting off just ahead of a riot. The gendarmes cleared the hall, and Taxil landed elsewhere at a nearby restaurant to celebrate.
The only remaining question for Taxil’s readers was why?
For the Freemasons, it was simple (and still is): he had set up the Catholics and showed them to be a bunch of gullible idiots.
For his faithful Catholic readers, however, that was too hard to swallow. Either Taxil had been a Masonic agent sent to overplay the Satanic truth and then issue a phony retraction in order to discredit legitimate exposés of the lodge (the position of Monsignor Jouin, Vatican-blessed watchdog and leader of the journal Review of International Secret Societies), or... could he have been legit, yet threatened by the Masons and forced to recant?
Whatever the case may be, few put any stock in Taxil today.
The following is an excerpt from an extensive Christian prayer regarding Freemasonry and other fraternal Orders. It can be downloaded online from dozens of Christian sites.
(If you or someone you love is a descendant of a Mason, I recommend that you pray through the following prayer from your heart. It is best to pray this aloud with a Christian witness or counselor present.)
Shriners
(AMERICA ONLY—DOESN’T APPLY IN OTHER COUNTRIES)
I renounce the oaths taken and the curses and penalties involved in the ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. I renounce the piercing of the eyeballs with a three-edged blade, the flaying of the feet, the madness, and the worship of the false god Allah as the god of our fathers. I renounce the hoodwink, the mock hanging, the mock beheading, the mock drinking of the blood of the victim, the mock dog urinating on the initiate, and the offering of urine as a commemoration.
All Other Degrees
I renounce all the other oaths taken, the rituals of every other degree and the curses involved. I renounce all other lodges and secret societies, such as Prince Hall Freemasonry, Mormonism, the Order of Amaranth, Odd Fellows, Buffalos, Druids, Foresters, Orange, Elks, Moose and Eagles Lodges, the Ku Klux Klan, the Grange, the Woodmen of the World, Riders of the Red Robe, the Knights of Pythias, the Mystic Order of the Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, the women’s Orders of the Eastern Star and of the White Shrine of Jerusalem, the girls’ Order of the Daughters of the Eastern Star, the International Orders of Job’s Daughters, and of the Rainbow, and the boys’ Order of DeMolay, and their effects on me and all my family.
I renounce the ancient pagan teaching and symbolism of the First Tracing Board, the Second Tracing Board and the Third Tracing Board used in the ritual of the Blue Lodge. I renounce the pagan ritual of the “Point within a Circle” with all its bondages and phallus worship. I renounce the occultic mysticism of the black-and-white-mosaic chequered floor with the tessellated boarder and five-pointed blazing star.
I renounce the symbol “G” and its veiled pagan symbolism and bondages. I renounce and utterly forsake the Great Architect of the Universe, who is revealed in the higher degrees as Lucifer, and his false claim to be the universal fatherhood of God. I also renounce the false claim that Lucifer is the Morning Star and Shining One and I declare that Jesus Christ is the Bright and Morning Star of Revelation 22:16.
I renounce the All-Seeing Third Eye of Freemasonry or Horus in the forehead and its pagan and occult symbolism. I renounce all false communions taken, all mockery of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, all unbelief, confusion and depression, and all worship of Lucifer as God. I renounce and forsake the lie of Freemasonry that man is not sinful, but just imperfect, and so can redeem himself through good works. I rejoice that the Bible states that I cannot do a single thing to earn my salvation, but that I can only be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on the Cross of Calvary.
I renounce all fear of insanity, anguish, death wishes, suicide, and death in the name of Jesus Christ. Death was conquered by Jesus Christ, and He alone holds the keys of death and hell, and I rejoice that He holds my life in His hands now. He came to give me life abundantly and eternally, and I believe His promises.
I renounce all anger, hatred, murderous thoughts, revenge, retaliation, spiritual apathy, false religion, all unbelief, especially unbelief in the Holy Bible as God’s Word, and all compromise of God’s Word. I renounce all spiritual searching into false religions, and all striving to please God. I rest in the knowledge that I have found my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that He has found me.
I will burn all objects in my possession which connect me with all lodges and occultic organizations, including Masonry, Witchcraft, and Mormonism, and all regalia, aprons, books of rituals, rings, and other jewelry. I renounce the effects these or other objects of Masonry, such as the compass, the square, the noose, or the blindfold, have had on me or my family, in Jesus’ Name.
(All participants should now be invited to sincerely carry out the following:)
1. Symbolically remove the blindfold (hoodwink) and give it to the Lord for disposal;
2. In the same way, symbolically remove the veil of mourning;
3. Symbolically cut and remove the noose from around the neck, gather it up with the cable-tow running down the body and give it all to the Lord for His disposal;
4. Renounce the false Freemasonry marriage covenant, removing from the fourth finger of the right hand the ring of this false marriage covenant, giving it to the Lord to dispose of it;
5. Symbolically remove the chains and bondages of Freemasonry from your body;
6. Symbolically remove all Freemasonry regalia and armor, especially the Apron;
7. Repent of and seek forgiveness for having walked on all unholy ground, including Freemasonry lodges and temples, any Mormon or other occultic Masonic organizations. (Shriners Hospital)
8. Symbolically remove the ball and chain from the ankle.
9. Proclaim that Satan and his demons no longer have any legal rights to mislead and manipulate me. (or the person(s) seeking help.)
Holy Spirit, I ask that You show me anything else which I need to do or to pray so that I and my family may be totally free from the consequences of the sins of Masonry, Witchcraft, Mormonism, and Paganism.
I recently received a letter in which the writer asked, “Why are you a Freemason?” The question caused me to think and reaffirm my feelings about Masonry.
At first I thought about my own forebears. My grandfather was a Mason for fifty years, my father for fifty years, and I have been a Mason for sixty years. This means that my tie with Freemasonry extends back to 1869, when my grandfather joined the Masons.
My feelings on my first entrance into a Masonic Lodge are very clear in memory. I was a young man and it was a great thrill to kneel before the altar of the Lodge to become a Freemason. This must have been the same feeling my father and grandfather experienced before me. And it must also have been identical to the one that many great leaders of America and the world felt as they became Masons. Prominent among this select group are George Washington, Harry Truman, and twelve other presidents as well as countless statesmen and benefactors of humanity.
Royal Neighbor: fraternal order that turned into full-time Insurance business
So I found myself thinking: “What does Freemasonry mean to me?” Of course Masons say that Freemasonry actually begins in each individual Mason’s heart. I take this to mean a response to brotherhood and the highest ideals. I recall the story of a man who came to me once and said: “I see that you are a Freemason. So am I.” As we talked, he told me of an experience he had years ago. It seems that he joined the Masonic Fraternity shortly after he became twenty-one years old. When he was stationed in the military, he decided to attend various Lodge meetings. On his first visit to a Lodge in a strange city, he was a bit nervous. One thought was constantly in his mind: could he pass the examination to show that he was a Mason? As the committee was carefully examining his credentials, one of the members looked him squarely in the eye and said: “Obviously you know the Ritual, so you can enter our Lodge as a Brother Mason. But I have one more question. Where were you made a Mason?” With that he told the young visitor to think about it because when he knew the answer the examiner would not have to hear it. He would see it in his eyes. My friend told me that after a couple of minutes a big smile came to his face and he looked at the examiner, who said: “That’s right, in your heart.”
Danny Thomas
The years found me an admirer of the great work the Masonic Order has been doing in making this world a better place for all of us to live. I have, for a long time, desired to be one of you and rejoice that now I can proudly boast of my membership in one of the world’s greatest fraternal associations. I am grateful for those individuals who have in quiet ways motivated me in my work on behalf of unfortunate children. I am grateful for the high moment in my life when the doors of Freemasonry were opened to me. Since then I have had many pleasant times of fraternal fellowship and even opportunities for service in the work of many branches of Freemasonry.
Our Order, for now I can say, “our Order,” teaches, “the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God” and this is great! The world needs so desperately to discover the value of this great truth in human relationships and world affairs. It is also a truth that will motivate men and women to continue to explore avenues of service and areas of common concerns in order to restore a measure of sanity to the madness of our day and to enrich the quality of life for all peoples everywhere. Now I join hands and heart with you in all your endeavors of philanthropy and say we must not slacken our efforts “to do good to all,” especially those with needs that will not be met if we fail in our common task of service to humanity.
On stage, screen, platform, and in private life I have always sought to bring a smile to the face of others and put a little joy in their lives. I am grateful now for the larger opportunity which is mine to adopt the tenets of Freemasonry as my own and hopefully be able to have a small part in spreading Masonry’s message of love and caring to a larger audience, for wherever I go, I will be proud to tell others of my work and concern in behalf of all that you are doing, unselfishly, for others.
Someone once asked me why did I want to be a Mason and my reply was: “Because Masons care for those who cannot care for themselves.” The Shriners have always been a favorite of mine because of their work for crippled and burned children. Also I am excited about efforts proposed at the recent Conference of Grand Masters in regard to drug abuse among young people.
It is great to be a Freemason! I am proud of what we are doing. I shall assist in every way I can our work of mercy, and it doesn’t hurt to be a Brother with a “big mouth and lots of television cameras” to help get the message across. Masons are people of goodwill who want to “keep our kids alive” and we are doing this throughout the world. Our purpose is noble and humanitarian. Our labors will be crowned with success, for as Freemasons we will bring to our mission the best we have, regardless of what it demands from us in the way of sacrifice and service. We will make sure that in the tomorrows, life will be better for those who suffer today.
I was a Freemason in my heart long before I was accepted as a member in this great Fraternity. I was an outsider but now I am one of you, and the remaining years of my life will be spent in seeking some small way to say to all: “Thank you for making me a Freemason.” I want always to make you laugh but I trust that I will also make you care and that now, together, we will put melody in the heart of the world that will sing of a better life for all people. The task challenges us to larger efforts and higher goals that will demand from all of us the best we have to make a better life for others. My promise to Freemasons everywhere is that I will give the task my best!
The College of Islamic Jurisprudence considers Freemasonry one of the most dangerously destructive organisations to Islam and to Muslims. The full text of the Fatwa is as follows:
The College of Islamic Jurisprudence, in its session convened at Makkah on 15th July 1978, examined the issue of Freemasonry, of those affiliated with it and the legal Islamic judgment on it, after adequate study of this dangerous organisation, and the body of literature on it, inclusive of the College’s own published documents, books, and newspaper and journal articles.
From the totality of writings and texts, which the College examined, the following was evinced:
Freemasonry is a clandestine organisation, which hides as well as reveals its operations as it sees fit. Its true principles are guarded from all but its most venerated masters, who have, by virtue of their consecration at Freemasonry’s highest Order degrees, proven worthy of this honour.
It establishes the relation of its members one to another, in all places of the earth, as is the alleged human brotherhood among all entrants in its organisation, without discrimination as to race, religion, and creed. Such overt misrepresentation of “fraternity” is simple-minded, at best.
It attracts persons whose affiliation is practicable for the organisation; its allure is largely of a personally lucrative nature for the individuals sought. The high-minded principles of this recruitment entail: pledged assistance to any Freemasonic brother the world over; firm support of any Freemasonic candidacy to public office; and unconditional loyalty in all Freemasonic endeavors, even in those where the individual must compromise his sense of honour, justice, truth, and right. Such lofty appeals often amass considerable financial contributions.
Admission to Freemasonry is based on the celebration of the new member’s affiliation through symbolic and awe-inspiring ceremonies which serve to frighten the initiate if he is at variance with the instructions; the more threatening orders are issued successively with rank.
Gullible members are left free in the exercise of their religious beliefs; if they do not choose to benefit from the directives of guidance and the assignment of task appropriate to their status, they remain in lower degrees. As to the heretics, rank is calibrated in relation to individual experience and mastery, as well as demonstrated readiness to serve Freemasonry’s purposes, principles, and plans.
It has political aims, and in most political and military upheavals, it has a visible, as well as an invisible, role.
Its original organisational roots are Jewish; its secret global high administration, Jewish; and its activity, Zionist.
In its secret real aims, it is against all religions: in general it seeks to destroy Islam for its Muslim adherents.
It strives to select its membership from among positions of influence—financial, political, social or scientific status (and to draw to its ranks kings, presidents and ministers, as tools to be manipulated in the forging of its dogma.
It has branches which adopt other names to thus misrepresent and divert attention away from activities which encounter resistance to the name of Freemasonry. Among the most conspicuous branches operating under pseudonym are the Lions and Rotary Clubs; many, under multiple guise, similarly contradict the fundamentals of Islam.
It has become evident to the College of Islamic Jurisprudence the strong relation of Freemasonry to world Zionist Jewry. Thus it has been able to dominate many officials in the Arab countries concerning the question of Palestine and to interfere in the Palestine question on behalf of the Jews and world Zionism.
Therefore, and for the detailed data on Freemasonry’s activity, its considerable danger, its wicked dressing and its cunning aims, the College of Islamic Jurisprudence considers Freemasonry one of the most dangerously destructive organisations to Islam and to Muslims.
Whoever would associate himself with it while in knowledge of its true nature and aims, would be a non-believer in Islam and uncounted among its adherents.
—Fatwa reproduced in Freemasonry by Muhammad Safwat al-Saqqa Amini and Sa’di Abu Habib
In October 1941, the ‘Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibit’ opened in occupied Belgrade. Its central theme was the Jewish-Communist-Masonic plot for world domination. A few months later, Serbian authorities issued postage stamps commemorating the opening of the exhibit. At the time, the Third Reich popularized the idea that Freemasonry was “the bourgeois-liberal advance troops of world jewry.”
At this period, however, the partisans of evil seem to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons....
The Roman Pontiffs Our predecessors, in their incessant watchfulness over the safety of the Christian people, were prompt in detecting the presence and the purpose of this capital enemy immediately it sprang into the light instead of hiding as a dark conspiracy....
For as soon as the constitution and the spirit of the Masonic sect were clearly discovered by manifest signs of its actions, by cases investigated, by the publication of its laws, and of its rites and commentaries, with the addition often of the personal testimony of those who were in the secret, this Apostolic See denounced the sect of the Freemasons, and publicly declared its constitution, as contrary to law and right, to be pernicious no less to Christendom than to the State; and it forbade anyone to enter the society, under the penalties which the Church is wont to inflict upon exceptionally guilty persons. The sectaries, indignant at this, thinking to elude or to weaken the force of these decrees, partly by contempt of them, and partly by calumny, accused the Sovereign Pontiffs who had passed them either of exceeding the bounds of moderation in their decrees or of decreeing what was not just....
But, what is of highest importance, the course of events has demonstrated the prudence of Our predecessors... the sect of Freemasons grew with a rapidity beyond conception in the course of a century and a half, until it came to be able, by means of fraud or of audacity, to gain such entrance into every rank of the State as to seem to be almost its ruling power....
There are several organized bodies which, though differing in name, in ceremonial, in form and origin, are nevertheless so bound together by community of purpose and by the similarity of their main opinions, as to make in fact one thing with the sect of the Freemasons, which is a kind of centre whence they all go forth, and whither they all return....
There are many things like mysteries which it is the fixed rule to hide with extreme care, not only from strangers, but from very many members also....
Moreover, to be enrolled, it is necessary that the candidates promise and undertake to be thenceforward strictly obedient to their leaders and masters with the utmost submission and fidelity, and to be in readiness to do their bidding upon the slightest expression of their will; or, if disobedient, to submit to the direct penalties and death itself. As a fact, if any are judged to have betrayed the doings of the sect or to have resisted commands given, punishment is inflicted on them not infrequently, and with so much audacity and dexterity that the assassin very often escapes the detection and penalty of his crime....
Instructions of the Alta Vendita: the alleged Masonic infiltration document published during Leo XIII’s pontificate, and still circulating in Catholic circles
Albert Pike gets fingered by Jack Chick’s comic to clinch an equation of the Masonic God with Satan.
We wish it to be your rule first of all to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and to let it be seen as it really is... It may seem to some that Freemasons demand nothing that is openly contrary to religion and morality; but, as the whole principle and object of the sect lies in what is vicious and criminal, to join with these men or in any way to help them cannot be lawful.
... the negative position of the Church in regard to Masonic associations remains unchanged, since their basic principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the teachings of the Church, and consequently, membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who belong to Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.
—Declaration of Masonic Associations, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, November 26, 1983 [issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI]
The following is taken from the report and recommendations on Freemasonry issued by the Home Missions Board, Southern Baptist Convention, 1993. The report also contained positive statements regarding Masonic charitable activities and left membership up to the conscience of Southern Baptists.
1. The prevalent use of offensive concepts, titles, and terms such as “Worshipful Master” for the leaders of the lodge; references to their buildings as “mosques,” “shrines,” or “temples”; and the use of such words as “Abaddon” and “Jah-Bul-On,” the so-called secret name of God. To many, these terms are not only offensive, but sacrilegious.
2. The use of archaic, offensive rituals and so-called “bloody oaths” or “obligations,” among those being that promised by the Entered Apprentice: [listed in original] or that of the Fellow Craft degree: [listed in original] Or that of the Master Mason: [listed in original] Or that of other advanced degrees with required rituals considered by many to be pagan and incompatible with Christian faith and practice.
Even though these oaths, obligations and rituals may or may not be taken seriously by the initiate, it is inappropriate for a Christian to “sincerely promise and swear,” with a hand on the Holy Bible, any such promises or oaths, or to participate in any such pagan rituals.
3. The recommended readings in pursuance of advanced degrees, of religions and philosophies, which are undeniably pagan and/or occult, such as much of the writings of Albert Pike, Albert Mackey, Manly Hall, Rex Hutchens, W.L. Wilmhurst and other such authors; along with their works, such as Morals and Dogma, A Bridge to Light, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, and The Meaning of Masonry.
4. The reference to the Bible placed on the altar of the lodge as the “furniture of the lodge,” comparing it to the square and compass rather than giving it the supreme place in the lodge.
5. The prevalent use of the term “light” which some may understand as a reference to salvation rather than knowledge or truth.
6. The implication that salvation may be attained by one’s good works, implicit in the statement found in some Masonic writings that “Masonry is continually reminded of that purity of life and conduct which is necessary to obtain admittance into the Celestial Lodge above where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides.” Even though many Masons understand that the “purity of life and conduct” can only be achieved through faith in Jesus Christ, others may be led to believe they can earn salvation by living a pure life with good conduct.
7. The heresy of Universalism (the belief all people will eventually be saved), which permeates the writings of many Masonic authors, which is a doctrine inconsistent with New Testament teaching.
8. The refusal of most lodges (although not all) to admit for membership African Americans.
A modern-day Iranian edition of the famous anti-Semitic propaganda, in English
The goyim enter the lodges out of curiosity or in the hope by their means to get a nibble at the public pie, and some of them in order to obtain a hearing before the public for their impracticable and groundless fantasies: they thirst for the emotion of success and applause, of which we are remarkably generous. And the reason why we give them this success is to make use of the high conceit of themselves to which it gives birth, for that insensibly disposes them to assimilate our suggestions without being on their guard against them in the fullness of their confidence that it is their own infallibility which is giving utterance to their own thoughts and that it is impossible for them to borrow those of others....
Meantime, however, until we come into our kingdom, we shall act in the contrary way: we shall create and multiply free Masonic lodges in all the countries of the world, absorb into them all who may become or who are prominent in public activity, for in these lodges we shall find our principal intelligence office and means of influence. All these lodges we shall bring under one central administration, known to us alone and to all others absolutely unknown, which will be composed of our learned elders. The lodges will have their representatives who will serve to screen the above-mentioned administration of Masonry and from whom will issue the watchword and programme. In these lodges we shall tie together the knot that binds together all revolutionary and liberal elements. Their composition will be made up of all strata of society. The most secret political plots will be known to us and will fall under our guiding hands on the very day of their conception. Among the members of these lodges will be almost all the agents of international and national police since their service is for us irreplaceable in the respect that the police is in a position not only to use its own particular measures with the insubordinate, but also to screen our activities and provide pretexts for discontents, et cetera....
The Scottish Rite’s Ninth Degree as illustrated in Michael Di Gargano’s 1876 book, Freemasons and Their Foreign Brothers
The class of people who most willingly enter into secret societies are those who live by their wits, careerists, and in general people, mostly light-minded, with whom we shall have no difficulty in dealing and in using to wind up the mechanism of the machine devised by us. If this world grows agitated the meaning of that will be that we have had to stir it up in order to break up its too great solidarity. But if there should arise in its midst a plot, then at the head of that plot will be no other than one of our most trusted servants. It is natural that we and no other should lead Masonic activities, for we know whither we are leading, we know the final goal of every form of forbidden activity whereas the goyim have knowledge of nothing, not even of the immediate effect of action; they put before themselves, usually, the momentary reckoning of the satisfaction of their self-opinion in the accomplishment of their thought without even remarking that the very conception never belonged to their initiative but to our instigation of their thought.
Odd Third Reich anti-Masonic publication attempts to reconstruct a supposed Lodge Room with two Mogen David stars above the front door.
I think quite simply and definitely that the American troops in North Africa, all of ‘em ought to go back to America, IF they can get there.
America ought not to be makin’ war on Europe, and America knows it. I think it is time the American U.S. citizen studied Mr. Morgenthau’s treasury reports, whether or not he is out in front proclaiming the coming of Zion or not. I think it is time you opened Kipling’s memoirs Something about Myself. I think it is time more American Masons developed a curiosity about the possible relations of their Order to Jewry as such, and to at least a sect or portion or selection of ORGANIZED Jews as a possible enemy of mankind, and of the American people, the British people in particular.
I think it might be a good thing to hang Roosevelt and a few hundred yidds IF you can do it by due legal process, NOT otherwise. Law must be preserved. I know this may sound tame, but so is it. It is sometimes hard to think so. Hard to think that the thirty-five ex-army subalterns, or whatever, who wanted to bump off all the kike congressmen weren’t just a bit crude and simpliste. Sometimes one feels that it would be better to get the job done somehow, ANYhow, than to delay execution.
A chair has been founded in the Sorbonne to study modern Jewish history, i.e., the role of the kike in modern history. It would be well to have similar chairs in ALL American universities, though Harvard and the College of the City of New York might find it hard to get the necessary endowments. I don’t think there is any American law that permits you to shoot Nic. Butler. It is a pity but so is it. No ex post facto laws are to be dreamt of. Not that Frankfurter or any other damn Jew cares a hoot for law or for the American Constitution. But we are not here to uphold Frankfurter or the Jewish vendetta. In the midst of which YOU jolly well are. And every American boy that gets drowned owes it to Roosevelt and Baruch, and to Roosevelt’s VIOLATION of the duties of office.
It is on the ground of those violations, those that occurred before Pearl Harbor, that you should impeach him. It is time that the matter was studied.
Third Reich anti-Masonic propaganda
Illustration from the wartime anti-Fascist publication Mussolini: The Wild Man of Europe
Nazi publication equating Freemasonry with the Hebrew Golem monster
In 1958 Ezra Pound returned to Italy after being held for a dozen years in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, DC under the charge of treason. As he arrived in Naples, Ezra saluted Italian soil.
It is time that the practical means for doing the job were made subject of study. It will be difficult insofar as your press and radio are mostly in Chewisch hands. It will be difficult to coordinate effort in our so all-fired anarchic country. Instinctively anarchic BUT controlled, by an organization. An organization well worth your study. Be you Mason or Non-Mason. You will have to form cells, nuclei, and communicate. You will have to maintain some freedom of the press and get radio stations somehow. Congress should go on the air. Failing that, state senates and legislatures should go on the air. And state universities in states not wholly run by their ghettoes should start a study of history of the Jew’s role in history, of the role of usury, and currency control BY extraneous private bodies—all that should be made subject of study. You’ve got to start sometime.
Like no other Order, the Elks indulge in every lust of the flesh at their annual conventions. The Detroit Free Press called the convention of 1912 an orgy, and the Baptist young people in session in Portland, Oregon, 1912, went on record with a protest against the “reckless and unprecedented revelry of drunkenness,” the “veritable orgy of indecency and evil-doing,” which accompanied the Elks’ convention in that city.
—from Theo Graebner, The Secret Empire: A Handbook of Lodges
This 1943 Vichy France movie invokes against Freemasonry in documentary style.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship aims to educate and construct, to be charitable even to those from whom we differ, and never to vent the venom of vituperation, spite, or malice even upon those who seem deliberately determined to mislead. We revere the Catholic religion; it is as divine in its essence, as Mystic Masonry—both are rooted in hoary antiquity, both were born to further the aspiration of the striving soul, and both have a message and a mission in the world not apparent upon the surface today, because man-made ceremonial as a scale has hidden the kernel of divinity in each. It is the object of the present articles to remove that scale and show the Cosmic purpose of these two Great Organizations, which are so bitterly antagonistic to each other. We do not aim to reconcile them, however, for though they are both designed to further the emancipation of the soul, their methods are different from the quality of the soul nurtured in the other School. Therefore the strife must continue until the battle for the souls of men has been lost and won.... The writer is not a Mason, and thus he is free to say what he knows without fear of violating obligations, but he is a Mason at heart, and therefore frankly opposed to Catholicism....
That which we see as Freemasonry today is an attempt by the Hierarchs of Fire, the Lucifer Spirits, to bring us the imprisoned spirit “Light,” that by it we may see and know. Catholicism is an activity of the Hierarchs of water, and places “Holy Water” at the temple door to quench the spirits seeking light and knowledge and to inculcate faith in Jehovah.
Nesta Webster (1876–1960) was a much-discussed woman in her day: a pro-fascist British author, granddaughter of the Anglican bishop of Chichester, and an author that garnered praise from Winston Churchill and H.G. Wells, support from British Grand Lodge Masons, and a reputation as a fierce opponent of Freemasonry (although strictly speaking she only targeted “Illuminized” Freemasonry). The modern attacks against the Illuminati by anti-Masonic writers, while traceable to earlier authors such as Abbé Barruel and John Robinson (both former Masons, more so the latter), are all indebted in one way or another to her prolific pen and potboilers denouncing secret societies.
The truth is that Freemasonry in a generic sense is simply a system of binding men together for any given purpose, since it is obvious that allegories and symbols, like the x and y of algebra, can be interpreted in a hundred different manners. Two pillars may be said to represent strength and stability, or man and woman, or light and darkness, or any other two things we please. A triangle may signify the Trinity, or Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, or any other triad. To say that any of these symbols have an absolute meaning is absurd....
In the same way the whole organization of Freemasonry, the plan of admitting candidates to successive degrees of initiation, of binding them to secrecy by fearful oaths, is one that can be employed for any purpose, social, political, philanthropic, or religious, for promoting that which is good or for disseminating that which is evil. It may be used to defend a throne or to overthrow it, to protect religion or to destroy it, to maintain law and order or to create anarchy....
Illuminism, Cabalism, and even Satanism are still realities.... I too have seen dozens of documents relating to occult groups in this country which practise rites and evocations that lead to illness, moral perversion, mental derangement, and even in some cases to death. I have heard from the lips of initiates themselves accounts of the terrible experiences through which they have passed; some have even urged me to bring the matter before the attention of the authorities. But unfortunately no department exists for the investigation of subversive movements. Yet since all these movements are intimately connected with revolutionary agitation they are well worth the attention of governments that desire to protect law, order, and public morality. Nevertheless, whether the power at work behind them is of the kind we are accustomed to call “supernatural,” or whether it is merely the outcome of the human mind, there can be no doubt of its potency for evil and of its very definite effects in the obliteration of all sense of truth and in sexual perversion.
—from Nesta Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements
Nesta Webster
I HAVE ALWAYS clearly differentiated between British and Continental Masonry, showing the former to be an honourable association not only hostile to subversive doctrines but a strong supporter of law, order, and religion. I am in fact indebted to certain distinguished British Masons for valuable help and advice in my work, which I here gratefully acknowledge.
“IT TOOK ME 33 years for me to see the truth
Ever so clear I was too young
I couldn’t articulate myself the right way son
But now let me break it down, pass it all around
This is not a theory, lift the spirits, see his spirit
They wanna put me in a straitjacket in a padded room
And tell the world there’s 12 monkeys so they can be confused
Illuminati want my mind, soul, and my body
Secret society, tryin’ to keep they eye on me…”
—Prodigy, “Illuminati”
“ILLUMINATI want my mind, soul, and my body …
Secret society, tryin’ to keep they eye on me…”
—Jay Z, “Devils”
“THEY DON’T give a fuck about us…
Some say they expect Illuminati take my body to sleep …
Before I flee computer chips…”
—2Pac, “They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us”
“AIN’T TRYING to stick around for the Illuminati…”
—Dr. Dre, “Been There Done That”
“YOU THINK Illuminati’s just a fucking conspiracy theory?”
—Immortal Technique, “The Cause of Death”
“ILLUMINATI. A secret society do exist.”
—Fatboy Slim, “Illuminati”
“ILLUMINATI want my mind, soul, and my body…
Secret society, trying to keep they eye on me.”
—LL Cool J, “I Shot Ya”
“ILLUMINATI, You’ll never take control
Your New World Order
Will lead to none at all
We all stand before you as one
Heaven is for everyone
To be free from the dark”
—Gamma Ray, “No World Order”
No survey of the controversies regarding secret societies could possibly omit the Illuminati. We include several varying comments from authors—beginning with Adam Weishaupt himself, the founder of the legendary Bavarian Order (on May 1, 1776).
From Diogenes’ Lamp Or, an Examination of Our Present-Day Morality and Enlightenment
BY ADAM WEISHAUPT
But, Lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm:
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish,
We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
And unavoided is the danger now
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
—Richard II, Act II, Scene 1
Our knowledge is a Whole. If our first principles and ideas are flawed, this error will spread to all branches of our knowledge. They even give our individual actions their unmistakeable character. So, if we remain in the dark today about certain main questions upon which our welfare or woe depends, then it is solely because there is not enough respect for the higher principles, because we are considering a subordinated Purpose to be the chief Purpose, and consequently are not unifying the varying points of view into a Highest and Final point of view, as we ought to be doing. For this reason, despite our supposed Enlightenment, we do not know with certainty whether the world is heading toward Evil or toward Improvement, and this fact is the source of the most harmful results, as I have proven above. Even more harmful, we know equally little about whether we ourselves are good or evil, what the purpose of our existence is, whether we are in fact ruined, and whether our ruin is incurable. Likewise, we know not whether Reason and Enlightenment are Good or Evil things that ought to be encouraged or impeded. We even appear to think that a government’s strength rests on the blindness and ignorance of its subjects. This leads one to the conclusion that we still have very inadequate ideas about even the foundations of the highest authority.
Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Order of the Illuminati
Albert Mackey
Before these questions are resolved, no one can be surprised if we are the same today as we were centuries ago. But they cannot be resolved before the point of view has been fixed. To place this point of view beyond doubt and thus to determine whether the world is good or evil, our ruin incurable, to determine the true foundation of the highest authority, whether ignorance is a lasting foundation for the same, whether Reason should be encouraged or suppressed—my goal in this treatise is to prove all these things. This subject appears vast to me. To me, it seems the most important but also the unhappiest subject a writer could choose. It seems important to me because it goes to the single and true core of the matter and grasps Evil by its roots. If anything can still be done to abet humanity’s ennoblement and happiness, it can only be done in this way. But I tell you it is also the most unhappy way that can be selected by a writer, and I could wish that I had erred in my judgment. Success will prove me only too right, however. This subject is an unhappy one to take up. For the examination itself is a thankless task and can do aught else but make hateful the writer.
It is a thankless subject. For it interests no one. Everyone already has their own system for dealing with this matter, and those who lack a system would prefer not to have one. Books of this sort are never read, or people read them to be able to refute them.
Men read no morals now: It was a custom.
But all are to their fathers’ vices born
And in their mothers’ ignorance are bred.
If you have children, never give them knowledge,
‘Twill spoil their fortune, fools are all the fashion.
If you’ve religion, keep it to yourselves.
Atheists will else make use of toleration
And laugh ye aut on’t.
—Ottway, The Orphan, Act III
But it is also a dangerous subject because it cannot be dealt with without disparaging humanity’s moral conceit and administering a telling blow toour own self-love. Our egoism will not refrain from exacting revenge and repayment in kind. It has more than one false ground to choose from as justification for such intentions. Such enterprises awaken the suspicion however that people consider themselves wiser and better than everyone else. People seldom reprimand the errors and transgressions of others without betraying a certain maliciousness and proud schadenfreude. I must leave it to my readers to decide what they will be pleased to think about me in this regard. Any excuses on my part would only add weight to their suspicions. To this end, I have nothing better to say than what Rousseau declares at the start of his Confessions:
Je ne suis fait comme aucun de ceux que j’ai vus; J’ose croire n’être fait comme aucun de ceux qui éxistent. Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre. Si la nature a bien ou mal fait de briser le moule, dans lequel elle m’a jetté, c’est ce dont on ne peut juger qu’après m’avoir lu.
So much is certain: My way of seeing things is quite different from others’ ways. I do not deny that my way could be false. But anyone who wishes to disregard it completely is undeniably wrong. Precisely because it deviates greatly from their ways of seeing things, my way’s great contrast can enable anyone who truly desires further perfectioning to uncover many an unused aspect and find results that they never would have found in any other way. My work provides much food for thought and for comparison. I dare to vouch for this.
It is true that this sort of thing rarely occurs free of pretensions and vanity and for the most part can be interpreted to mean nothing more than that I think people are no good because they are not as I am or as I require them to be. They would be better if they were as I need them to be to further my own intentions. But should this be grounds for eliminating all instruction and leaving people to their own devices with no further guidance? Should this be grounds for all writers to fall silent? Show me the writers who would consider themselves incapable of teaching others and thus less wise than their readers. What would be their purpose in writing if they did not believe that other people were not in need of a lesson in something, a lesson that, according to the writers’ personal delusion, no one would be as capable of delivering as themselves. We authors are thus permitted our vanity, and we in turn allow our readers to judge our labors for themselves, according to their preferences; we only ask them to remember that the delusion that one can do without all instruction betrays no lesser an arrogance and is much more harmful.
Because we humans have too many reasons to wish that we never be recognized for what we in fact are; because we cannot be more painfully insulted than when someone takes the trouble to destroy the illusions in which our vanity has veiled itself, which happens when the baselessness of our virtues is demonstrated—for such reasons alone it is very easy to comprehend that a moral writer could not do more to spoil his relationship with his readers than by touching on this area they despise so much. Unfortunately, that is what occurs in this book; it is even this book’s primary and most especial objective. The natural consequence is that everyone closes their minds and accuses anyone dealing with such topics of deliberate viciousness. Such people are thus feared and hated and lose any ability to successfully influence others. I concede quite freely that this is not the way to win people’s hearts, and that it is even less suited for finding one’s fortune in the world. No vanity could be more foolish than the wish to be known as a good judge of human nature. Everyone judges people who praise themselves, as Caesar praised Cassius, whether rightly or no.
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men—
Such men as he be never at heart’s case.
Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;
And therefore are they very dangerous.
—Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2
The Masonic scholar Albert Mackey, author of the popular notes in the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, eventually came to a mild opinion of Adam Weishaupt and the Illuminati. His earlier views, not as well known, are reprinted here:
Illuminati... This was a secret society instituted in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law in the University of Ingoldstat. Weishaupt was a radical in politics, and an infidel in religion; and he organized this association, not more for the purpose of aggrandizing himself, than of overturning Christianity and the institutions of society.
—Albert Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry
Robert Anton Wilson re-introduced the historic figure of Adam Weishaupt to a new generation of readers and students of parapolitics in 1975 with his remarkable satirical trilogy, Illuminatus!, co-authored with Robert Shea. By the time of his death in January 2007, Wilson had taken Weishaupt on a journey of many years through the sensibility of a conspiracy-obsessed subculture, blurring the line between the accepted canon of normal history and a more animated subtext best described as tongue-in-cheek. Factions of those cognizant of this subtext at various times declared both men as the head of the Illuminati, that ages-old conspiratorial secret society responsible for the world’s evil, putting each on a par with Satan himself.
Amid endless controversy about them, all agree that the Bavarian Illuminati began on May 1, 1776, in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, created by a Freemason (and former Jesuit) named Adam Weishaupt. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Illuminati managed to influence many Masonic lodges and gained “a commanding position” in the movement of anti-royalist, anti-Papist and pro-democratic “secular humanism.” They attracted such literary men as Goethe and Herder but the whole movement came to an end when the Bavarian government banned the Illuminati in 1785. So says the standard reference.
Most historians believe the Illuminati originally recruited only high-degree Freemasons, and every generation since 1785—when the Bavarian government discovered and outlawed the Illuminati—Freemasons have faced the charge that they remain “under Illuminati control.”
They all deny it, of course.
Well, not all of them; a Scotch Freemason, John Robison, in his Proofs of a Conspiracy [1801], claimed the damned Illuminati had taken over Continental European Masonry. He wrote chiefly to warn the lodges of England, Scotland, and Ireland against a similar coup. Ever since Robison, the Masonic/Illuminati debate has included those who think the Weishauptians have taken over all Freemasonic lodges, those like Robison who think they’ve only infiltrated some, and those, including the Encyclopedia Britannica, who see Illuminism as a “short-lived movement of Republican free thought” which never had a major influence on Masonry—or on anything else. But the Illuminati debate covers a lot more ground than that.
For example, Kris Millegan in his Fleshing Out Skull and Bones presents that Yale society as a branch of the Illuminati. In case you don’t know, some prominent Bonesmen have included Bush I, Bush II, Henry Luce of Time, Justice Potter Stewart, an all-star cast of the Captains of American banking, publishing, and politics, and most of the directors of the CIA. Sure you really want to know more about this?
From another angle, Akron Daraul, in his History of Secret Societies, argues that Weishaupt did not invent but only refurbished the Illuminati, which he relates to earlier movements known as the Holy Vehm (Germany), Allumbrados (Spain), Roshinaya (Persia) etc.; while the more exuberant John Steinbacher in Novus Ordo Seclorum traces them all the way back to the Garden of Eden! They were founded, he says, by Cain, the son not of the holy marriage of Adam and Eve but of an illicit and Satanic coupling between Eve and the Serpent. How’s that for Hot Stuff? Bestiality, Satanism and all the themes for a new X-Files movie.
Meanwhile, Eliphas Lévi’s History of Magic traces the Illuminati back to Zarathustra and claims its secret docrine came down to Weishaupt via Manicheanism, the Knights Templar and Freemasonry. This places them as part of the same occult tradition as Giordano Bruno, Dr. John Dee, Aleister Crowley, and the Sufis of Islam. But on the fourth or fifth hand, a British researcher named Nesta Webster sees the Illuminati as the brains behind socialism, communism, anarchism, and the Prussian government from 1776 to 1918. (She wrote shortly after England’s first war with the latter.) On the sixth hand, J.F.C. Moore argues that the Illuminati, a secret source of fascist occultism, inspired such odd birds as Aaron Burr, Adolf Hitler, and J. Edgar Hoover; but Philip Campbell Argyle-Smith claims they are extraterrestrial invaders from the planet Vulcan. They call themselves “Jews” on this planet, he adds.
Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy satire (co-authored with Robert Shea), set off great interest in this conspiratorial meme.
Part 1 of The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975.
Whether that means all Jews are Vulcans, or only some of them, seems unclear to me, but the most famous Vulcan, Mr, Spock, is Jewish insofar as being performed by a Jewish actor makes one at least partially “Jewish,” whatever that means. Maybe Argyle-Smith has looked at too many Star Trek movies. He also credits the Illuminized Vulcans with managing the Thugs of India, the Zionists in Israel, the Rothschild banks, the Communist International, the Theosophical Society, Freemasonry, and the Assassins of medieval Afghanistan. I don’t know why he left out George Bush and Al Qaeda; maybe he just wrote too soon.
Another Cosmic Illuminati theory appeared in the East Village Other in June 1969; it included Skull and Bones, the Rothschilds, the Nation of Islam [“Black Muslims”], Richard Nixon, the Black Panthers, the Bank of America, the Rosicrucians, the Holy Vehm, the Federal Reserve, and the Combine’s Fog Machine. That one must contain some hidden jokes [I hope]. According to the RogerSpark, a radical Chicago newspaper [July 1969] Weishaupt actually murdered George Washington and served in his place for his two terms as president. (Then who wrote Diogenes’ Lamp? Hegel maybe; it sounds like him at times.)
The John Birch Society, of course, has a different slant on all this. According to Gary Allen, the editor of their news magazine, American Opinion, Adam Weishaupt was a “monster” but the Illuminati only got really monstrous after its capture by English adventurer/billionaire Cecil Rhodes, who used it to establish British domination of the world. The Council on Foreign Relations acts as its most important “front” in the U.S. today, according to Allen.
Sandra Glass, however, thinks of the Illuminati as a group of clandestine pot-heads which included the medieval Assassins, Weishaupt, Goethe, Washington, the first mayor Richard Daly of Chicago, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
“Beethoven?” you may gasp. Well, oddly enough, a recent, scholarly and non-conspiratorial biography of the great Ludwig van, by Maynard Solomon, says Mr. B wrote some of his music under commission from the Illuminati and had many friends in the Order itself. What does Diogenes’ Lamp reveal about the “real” Adam Weishaupt and the “real” Illuminati?
A book works like a mirror, somebody said once: when a monkey looks in, no philosopher looks out. I can only tell you what this book seems to me; others, I feel certain, will find other things in it—including coded references to Vulcans, Skull and Bones, Zarathustra, the Holy Vehm, communism, Mary Magdalene, the Federal Reserve, the Combine’s Fog Machine et al.
To me, this book seems to support the most cautious and conservative of my sources, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and old Adam looks much like a weary defender of “Republican free thought,” eighteenth-century style. In other words, he seems a distant relative, philosophically speaking, of Adam Smith, Hume, Voltaire, Jefferson, Franklin, Tom Paine—i.e., of all those libertarian ideas currently as unfashionable in this country as in the Bavaria in Weishaupt’s day. I know why he seems weary to me: trying to teach liberation to people who feel reconciled to their slavery can really grind you down, in 1804 or 2006.
I also think I see an influence of Kant, and perhaps a foreshadowing of Hegel, in the semantic structure used continually by Weishaupt—”X seems true; not-X also seems true; we’ll have to think more about that.” Aquinas did the same trick, but always comes down on the side of safe orthodoxy, Papist flavor. Weishaupt throws the ball back to the reader, although you may not always catch him doing that.
I do not see any conclusive proof that the Illuminati plotted anything nefarious or even illegal, except insofar as free thought itself remained illegal in southern Europe. But I also don’t see any conclusive proof that they wouldn’t and couldn’t and didn’t do nasty things. As a secret society hidden inside the secret society of Freemasonry, the Illuminati will always remain somewhat mysterious, and pedants and paranoids will argue about it until the last galoot’s ashore.
Perhaps Tom Jefferson got it right when he said that secret societies seemed necessary in Europe, haunted by monarchy and Papism, but not in the United States. Certainly, when the Constitution remained the law of the land no sane person would feel the need for secret societies here. Do I dare add “But now with the Constitution in cryonic suspension—”?
No: I better not... better safe than sorry.
On the other hand, not just secret societies but secrecy itself or even privacy seem increasingly impossible under the reign of George III. They have hidden cameras everywhere. They bug our phones. If they want to, they can “read” every keystroke on my computer, including this one: >>. They can even pry into the contents of our bladders, in random tests explicitly forbidden by that wonderful, moribund Constitution. Sweet grieving Jesus, there’s no place we can escape or hide or feel alone, is there? Sometimes, tossing and trying to sleep in the wee hours, I explore the ideas rejected by my skeptical waking mind. Maybe the most paranoid fantasies about the Illuminati contain some truth... maybe. Maybe the All-Seeing Eye on the dollar bill does represent the fascist state those bastards want. Maybe all those Internet rants about Skull and Bones serving as a recruiter for the Illuminati have some foundation in fact, after all. Maybe we should really worry when the choice in a presidential election remained limited to two rich Bonesmen... What is it Weishaupt wrote?
“Whoever is rich—very rich—can do anything.”
Maybe we should regard “Illuminati” as a generic term, or a metaphor? Maybe every Power Structure acts a lot like the most paranoid fantasies about the Illuminati, especially when it feels threatened?
No, no—that way lies madness, schizophrenia and Usenet trolls. After some sound sleep, I wake, the shadows flee, and I remember that “all’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” Voltaire didn’t intend that as sarcasm, did he?
From Secret Societies: Illuminati, Freemasons and the French Revolution by Una Birch: Edited, Enlarged and Introduced by James Wasserman. Mr. Wasserman is a distinguished author of several occult books, including volumes on the Knights Templars. A longstanding member of the O.T.O. and a more recent member of the Masonic Order, he is also an advocate of Second Amendment gun rights and keeps a watchful eye on the United Nations.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION:
I began my research into the Illuminati on the assumption that they represented a highly evolved ideology....
I considered them to be enlightened spiritual luminaries. Had not my mentors acknowledged that we are the descendants of the Illuminati? Am I myself not an Epopt of that illustrious Order? Yet, over time, I have come to understand them as a political rather than a spiritual phenomenon. And in this sense, one can understand their victories. For the period in which the Illuminati emerged was a dark one in serious need of reform. Although their social and political policies have since been proven abject failures in the empirical laboratory of history, they were successful in opening Europe to an anti-authoritarian possibility. And in this sense I do applaud them....
Following the French Revolution, Europe entered a period of revolutionary activity and secret society influence that continued unabated until the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917. Most of these movements shared ideas that can be traced back to the Illuminati. Among these are the following: a rejection of revealed religion, personal property, national boundaries, and “traditional” social values. Virtually all European revolutionary movements of the nineteenth century were opposed to marriage and rejected the independent family as the basic unit of social organization. While Illuminati prattled on about each man being the sovereign of his own home, their rejection of family, property, and rights of inheritance made that claim either hypocritical or naïve. Loyalty to the State is the goal of the collectivist: God and the family are unwanted competition on both ideological and emotional grounds....
The utopian collectivism of the Illuminati and later devotees of the French Revolution, and their incessant desire to “improve” mankind that we may become better-fitted subjects for their management goals, is alive and well today on “both sides of the aisle.” Hillary Clinton or George Soros could as easily be writing these prescriptions as Adam Weishaupt or Karl Marx. George W. Bush’s embrace of big-government “compassionate conservatism” is arguably the Christian socialism preached by the Illuminati, as his immigration policy proposals of 2006 could have been taken straight from the “open borders” page of the Illuminati playbook.
People don’t quite know how to interpret the work of David Vaughan Icke, the 1952-born speaker and writer who famously describes leaders like George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth II as being reptilian aliens. For Icke, borrowing from Nazi literature, situates Freemasonry as a Zionist-Illuminati structure with unlimited resources to drain human beings’ energy and resources. The following is an excerpt from an article titled “The Lower 4th Dimension.”
David Icke
BY DAVID ICKE
It is from the 4th dimension that the fallen angels police our vibrational prison—the Matrix—and seek to addict and restrict us to the dense physical senses. This world was once far less dense than it is today and the “fall” down the frequencies, caused by the manipulation of incarnate consciousness and DNA infiltration, has made it so much more difficult to maintain a multidimensional connection while in physical form. We are now in a cycle of change when the vibration of this “world” will be raised out of dense physicality and return to where it once was. In doing so, the reptilians’ ability to manipulate our physical form will be removed and this is why they are in such a panic at this time to prevent this shift from opening the vibrational prison door.
David Icke’s book explains the illuminated reptilian enemy.
The reptilians and other manipulating entities exist only just outside the frequency range of our physical senses. Their own physical form has broken down and they can no longer reproduce. Thus they have sought to infiltrate human form and so use that to exist and control in this dimension. They chose the Earth for this infiltration because it most resembles in vibration the locations from which they originate. These reptilians are addicted to the dense physical “world” and the sensations it offers and they have no desire to advance higher. Their aim in this period is to stop the Earth and incarnate humanity from making the shift from dense physical prison into multi-dimensional paradise.
This dense physical world is caught in a manufactured time “loop,” in which “time” is a circle, constantly repeating itself. Note that one of the ancient symbols for “infinity” is the snake swallowing its own tail. The pentagram or five-pointed star, so prevalent in Satanism, is also symbolic of this unbroken “time” cycle, the vibrational prison.
The period we are now experiencing has, therefore, been played out before. We are just at that point again in the repeating circle or cycle, like a rat running on one of those wheels in a cage. No matter how fast it runs, it keeps covering the same ground. What we need to do is break the “time” circle and thus the prison. We are now in that part of the circle that is most vulnerable to this because of the vibrational changes taking place in this part of the Universe and this is why the control of humans has tightened so rapidly in this period—they are doing everything they can to defend their prison from the awakening of the inmates. The micro-chip is crucial to that.
Once activated, the DNA opens the body to possession by these reptilians and other beings, and this is what is happening, for example, to Freemasons in the rituals that most of them deliver parrot fashion while having no idea of their vibrational significance. This is why the Illuminati are so obsessed with knowing a person’s bloodline. They know which have the potential for this activation and possession and which do not. The Mormon Church genealogical data base and now the DNA data banks are designed to identify those with the bloodline. These are the people who are given jobs and roles that serve the Illuminati agenda, while most of them have no idea what is really going on and what they are being used for. Their DNA is then activated and they go through a change of character (a phrase I have heard so many times in relation to such people once they advance in the system) and a very different consciousness takes over their mental and emotional processes.
This is why it is so important for everyone to stay well clear of ritual, no matter how innocent it may appear on the surface. I would include “New Age” ritual in this, too. I don’t mean standing in a circle, connecting together and projecting loving thoughts, etc. I mean carefully constructed ritual that is constantly repeated, as with religious ceremony for example. I am beginning to realise why I have had a lifelong aversion to taking part in ritual of any kind.
Each new generation of the Illuminati bloodline families is exposed to the appropriate ritual to activate their possession by the reptilian entities and so the cycle goes on. The phrase that comes to mind is “forgive them for they know not what they do.”
P.S. Apparently, this DNA infiltration is known within the inner circles of the British royal family as the “family disease.” They are actually in fear of it because they know that once it is activated they will be taken over. But of course they are caught in a world of constant ritual and ceremony designed specifically to activate their possession. It is catch-22. Without the ritual they cannot be the royal family, but with the ritual they are activated and possessed.
The Illuminati pyramid caption, from PropagandaMatrix.com
