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It is no secret that Freemasonry played an important part in the founding of the United States of America. Indeed, it would have been very strange if this had not been the case. The intellectually motivated radicals that inspired both the French Revolution and its counterpart in the British Colonies of North America were exactly the sort of men that would be drawn to Freemasonry. From its outset, Freemasonry espoused the virtues that were shouted in both Paris and along the eastern seaboard of the Americas as the white-hot anger of people who felt themselves sorely oppressed found its expression. These virtues were liberty, fraternity and equality.
So pivotal are these concepts to the very basis of Freemasonry that it might be suggested that the presence of Freemasonry was, in great part, what ‘allowed’ both the American and French Revolutions to take place at all.
At Freemasonic meetings all brothers are equal. Differences in class and station mean nothing in the lodge and all Freemasons are bound by the same rules and mutually held agreements. Together with the unambiguous secrecy of the Craft this made Freemasonry a wonderful conduit for revolutionary ideals and even revolutionary activity in the 18th century. British and American Freemasons might be quite circumspect about their early revolutionary credentials these days, but the Grand Orient of France – the governing body of many French Freemasons, makes no bones about its involvement in both the American and then the French Revolution. Its own website, discussing a French Freemason called Lafayette who assisted in the American War of Independence, says:
Thus Lafayette received a sword from George Washington [himself a high-ranking Freemason]1 in honour of the part played by French Freemasons in the American War of Independence.
In this way, the preparation of the ideas of liberty and equality in the Masonic lodges contributed to the great reforms of the French Revolution.2,3
Jacobin Clubs, formed in pre-revolutionary France for the discussion of political ideas and the planning of specific activities associated with revolution, were often merely extensions of Freemasonic lodges. This was certainly the case with regard to the highly influential ‘Lodge Les Neuf Sœurs’, established in Paris in 1776. This lodge was derived from a charitable organization known as the ‘Société des Neuf Sœurs,’ which itself had close associations with the French ‘Académie des Sciences’ about which we will have more to say. These French lodges offered both advice and material support to the American colonialists in their efforts to split from Britain.
The existence of Freemasonic lodges in the American colonies allowed secret discussions to take place amongst the citizens of the colonies and ultimately led to the formation of militias that fought against the British Redcoats once revolution broke out in 1775. Some of the major happenings that spurred the American War of Independence were entirely led by Freemasons. A good example of this was the famous ‘Boston Tea Party’ in which a group of colonialists, dressed as American Mohawks, went aboard ships belonging to the East India Company. The entire cargo of tea aboard the ships was dumped into Boston harbour as a protest regarding the East India Company’s virtual monopoly on tea brought to the colonies. This event, which took place on 16 December 1773, is seen as being a major precursor to the American War of Independence. The attacks were planned at The Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, a building that had been purchased by the St Andrews Freemasonic Lodge of Boston in 1764.
The organization that destroyed the East India tea was known as the ‘Sons of Liberty’, but nobody has ever doubted that the majority of those involved, and certainly those organizing the event,4 were Freemasons from St Andrews Lodge, which met regularly in a room above the Green Dragon Tavern.
It is common knowledge that George Washington, the most famous American general in the War of Independence and later the first President of the United States of America, was a Freemason. Indeed he never attempted to hide the fact. For example, he presided at the laying of the cornerstone of the US Capitol on 18 September 1793 in full Masonic regalia, which was about as public a demonstration of his allegiance to Freemasonry as would have been possible.
Although the percentage of Freemasons involved in the War of Independence, and the subsequent republic that followed, is sometimes exaggerated, there can be no doubt about the influence of those who were of a Freemasonic bent. At the signing of the American Constitution on 17 September 1787, 9 of the 39 men who signed the document were already Freemasons and 6 more became Freemasons subsequently. Thus we can see that, of the 39 signatories, almost half (15) were, or would be, Freemasons.
A slight diversion is called for at this point, specifically regarding the signing of the American Constitution and also the laying of the cornerstone of the US Capitol in Washington DC. Both dates are quite significant in terms of something we have discovered about Freemason-inspired ceremonies that had not been noticed prior to our own individual and common research. These have a bearing on our later findings regarding Washington and megalithic measurements.
Just one of the facts that made us suspect a commonality between Freemasons and those who had inspired and used the megalithic system of geometry and measurements so long ago, was a specific interest in the planet Venus. We demonstrated in Civilization One that Venus had provided the means of setting the size of the Megalithic Yard after around 3200 BC. It was Venus that was observed, across one Megalithic Degree of the sky (at specific times during its orbit) that had allowed the megalithic priests to set the length of the pendulum that in turn offered the true size of the Megalithic Yard. Although we have shown that the technique of establishing the true size of the Megalithic Yard was originally reliant on the movements of a star, this would have proved to be too variable for the extreme accuracy required. It was at a period sometime around 3500 BC that Venus was first used for the purpose. Venus was also important in setting the length of the 1-metre–1-second pendulum.
In most cultures of the world Venus, as a deity, has been considered feminine. This is probably not too surprising. Both as a morning and an evening star Venus is a spectacular and beautiful sight, far outshining any celestial object apart from the Sun and Moon. No other planet and no star come anywhere near to the brightness of Venus and in a moonless sky it is capable of casting a shadow.
Many Freemasons would be shocked to discover that much of their Craft is based on the adoration of the planet Venus and on goddess worship, but there are many reasons for believing that this is indeed the case. Arguments favouring Freemasonry as being based upon a species of Mystery Religion in which the Great Goddess, who was once worshipped universally across Europe and Asia, are set out in Alan’s book The Virgin and the Pentacle5 and also in our co-authored book entitled Solomon’s Power Brokers.6
Substantial evidence, not only for the importance of the ‘feminine’ in Freemasonry but also regarding the Craft’s deep interest in astronomy and astrology, comes from studying not so much what Freemasons have done in the past but rather when they did it.
As an example, let us first look at the signing of the American Constitution, which we can reasonably assume would have been influenced by leading Freemasons such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. The chosen date for the ceremony was 17 September 1787 in the then capital city of Philadelphia, where Franklin was a past Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. Before this date the infant United States had relied heavily on the Declaration of Independence that had been rather hastily drawn up and signed on 4 July 1776, without much in the way of prior planning. The United States of America did not become a true republic until it had a constitution, and this was not finally thrashed out until 1787.
The delegates from the various fledgling states of the original United States had come together in Philadelphia as early as May of 1787 and they had gathered and talked throughout much of the following three and a half months. In fact there is good reason to believe that the substance of the Constitution was decided upon quite some time before 17 September, but there were agencies involved that clearly wanted the ratification of the Constitution to take place at a very specific time on a very particular date.
We now come to the world of astrology, which deals not just with the position of planets and stars in the sky from a scientific point of view, but rather with regard to the bearing these positions might have on the Earth and its inhabitants. Astrology has been more or less totally debunked by science and astronomers in particular hate any mention of it. However, this does not matter a jot as far as historical research is concerned because although most intelligent people may not give astrology much house-room these days, our forebears certainly did. Freemasonry is riddled with astrological lore, and at the time it came into official being it was in good company. It disturbs many astronomers to learn (which is why they rarely talk about it) that their greatest hero, Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), the eminent English scientist and all-round genius, spent far more of his life studying astrology than he ever did astronomy or physics!
We are both individually convinced from separate and mutual research that Freemasonry is based on astronomy and, by ancient dint, a variety of astrology. One significant source of evidence for this view came from a photocopied version of an old book that came into Chris’ possession some years ago whilst on a talking tour in the USA. At the time this book, Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy7 was not generally available and, as it was clearly astrological, Chris passed it to Alan, who has studied this subject for many years. To say this book was an eye-opener for Alan is something of an understatement. He devoured it. It was originally written in 1882 by an American Freemason, Robert Hewitt Brown, and to anyone with a good understanding of historical astronomy and astrology it demonstrates one specific fact beyond doubt: It shows that Freemasonry is not merely influenced by astronomy and astrology – its entire framework is built upon them.
As an interesting side issue, in the photocopied pages of Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy certain passages were extremely difficult to read. This was because the passages in question had been intentionally ‘crossed out’ in the original book, presumably so as to prevent those consulting the book in the Masonic library from reading these particular sections. By a great stroke of luck the process of photocopying the pages had re-instated the words below the pen strokes – at least enough to read them. Almost all the sections in question dealt with the planet Venus, the zodiac sign of Virgo and information appertaining to the Mystery Religions and Demeter. Someone, at some time in the past, obviously did not want run-of-the-mill Freemasons to access this information.
Alan began to look closely at Freemasonic events from the past in order to ascertain whether those organizing such occasions had taken note of what was happening in the sky over their heads at the time. There have been long periods of history, both ancient and more modern, in which nobody would make an important move regarding a treaty, an important dynastic marriage or in fact any other major event of state, without consulting a competent astrologer.
Alan drew up an astronomical/astrological chart for the date upon which the American Constitution was signed and, although he expected that something significant might be forthcoming, the result shocked even him.
At the time of the signing of the Constitution, the Sun, together with the planets Mercury and Venus were all in the zodiac sign of Virgo. Just as surely as Venus is the ‘planet’ of the goddess, Virgo is her zodiac sign. The zodiac sign called Virgo is named for ‘the virgin’, one of the guises of the Great Goddess of ancient religion to this very day. As a modern example there is nothing remotely coincidental about the appearance of the Virgin Mary in the New Testament of the Bible. If anyone was going to adopt the new religion in its very early days, the virgin simply had to be there. Why? Because she was in just about every other religion, and her presence was especially pivotal in the ‘Mystery Religions’ that proliferated prior to, and long after, Christianity came into being.
The Mystery Religions, of which the Mysteries of Demeter and of Isis were the most popular, were celebrated across the known world. They had much in common, one with another, and without going into detail the presence of a virgin, a young god who is sacrificed and who is then resurrected, together with much of the detail we find in the early part of the New Testament were present in all the Mystery cults of the ancient world.
The pivotal period for the sacrifice of the god, and for the lamentation of his mother the holy virgin, was the start of the autumn8 and for a very important reason. It is at this time of year that the Sun stands in the zodiac sign of Virgo – or at least it did in ancient times. In the northern hemisphere the period when the Sun was in Virgo was marked by the harvest. It was at this time of year that the corn was cut, and the sacrificed god was often known as the ‘corn god’. In other words the corn and the god were synonymous. Of course ‘as’ the corn he rose again when the next crop grew, but it was necessary for him to die in order that humanity could survive another season.
We see some of the symbols of the Mystery Religions and the sacrificed and risen corn god still present in Freemasonic iconography and practice. Included are the sheaf of corn, the weeping virgin, the story of Hiram Abif, who was sacrificed at the completion of Solomon’s Temple, the death and rebirth that are a major part of the Third Degree ceremony and in various other symbols and rituals. In short, nobody who has a really good understanding of ancient religion and astrological symbolism could possibly fail to recognize the many aspects of the Mystery Religions that exist in Freemasonry.
How far back the corn god and the virgin go, in terms of developing religion, is not known, though something of the sort was almost certainly present at the time the henges were being created in Britain and as Egypt began to rise to importance along the river Nile. Just as surely as Greece had the sacrificed god Dionysus, Egypt had his counterpart Osiris – both of whom were expressions of religious imperatives that were almost certainly already hoary with age in the period we refer to as ancient. In fact we can say with some certainty that the myth of the dying and reborn corn god, together with his mother who was paradoxically also a virgin, probably goes back to the very earliest days of farming by human beings.
In Greece this Goddess was Demeter who was herself, in the conception of many scholars, merely a counterpart of a goddess worshipped in the Island of Crete, certainly prior to the middle of the second millennium BC, far back into the Bronze Age. On the mainland of Greece Demeter was especially venerated at a place called Eleusis, not far from Athens.
Each year thousands of existing Demeter worshippers, plus a large number of new recruits, gathered in September at Athens. After ritual preparation in the sea nearby they walked in procession all the way to Eleusis. There, each celebrant met the Goddess face to face in a ceremony about which we know little or nothing. The reason the Mysteries of Demeter remain so mysterious is because worshippers were warned on pain of death not to divulge anything that took place in Eleusis. It is possible that a ritual meal of barley cakes was eaten, and also almost certain that each adherent went through some figurative death and rebirth ceremony, probably not unlike the one still present in Freemasonry. Whatever the magic was, it had a profound effect on people for many centuries and Demeter worship continued well into the Christian era.
All of this is interesting enough but would have seemed well beyond our remit when we embarked on this particular book. However, it is interesting to note that when the Constitution of the United States of America took place, it happened on 17 September 1787. The worshippers of Demeter had met each year in Athens on what is now 14 September, when certain ritual objects were brought to Athens from Eleusis. The worshippers then went to the coast for ritual bathing and, on 17 September, sacrifices were made at a temple in Athens known as the Eleusinion. The procession to Eleusis began on 19 September.
Much later, in fact in the 20th century, a whole week was set aside by United States law as being special; it is known as ‘Constitution Week’. It runs from 17 September until 23 September, coinciding absolutely with the period of the Demeter ceremonies in Athens and Eleusis.
As to why all of this should be important to the creation of the American Constitution is not at all difficult to see. Until the Constitution was signed, the United States was not really a legal entity. In other words, it might be suggested that despite the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent war with Britain, the states were still a British dependency.
This tie to Britain had to die officially before the new republic could be born, and that is what the Constitution represented. No period of the year could be more significant for this undertaking. What is more, the planets Mercury and, of course, Venus, rose before the Sun on 17 September 1787 – they were ‘exalted’ ahead of dawn. For an astrologer this happening, with both planets in the zodiac sign of Virgo, would represent a veneration of the goddess of rebirth (Venus), in her own zodiac sign (Virgo). It was also a trumpeting of the fact to the world (Mercury also in Virgo). Venus itself is representative of death and rebirth because it constantly alternates from being a morning star to an evening star and then back again. In other words it ‘dies’ and is ‘reborn’ in each and every one of its orbits around the Sun.
The signing of the Constitution took place around the middle of the day, by which time the planets Mercury and Venus were directly overhead, which is known as the midheaven. To any astrologer, and particularly to one who was an adherent of the ‘mysteries’ and of Venus, there could be no more auspicious time for such an undertaking as the signing of the American Constitution.
Undoubtedly some people reading this explanation will shout ‘coincidence’ so, just in case they do, let us also look at another pivotal moment in the birth of the United States. This time we will address the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol in Washington DC – the place where democracy would be discussed, where laws would be decided and where presidents would be forced to capitulate to the will of the people – an essential and even a crucial component of democracy.
The laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol took place on 18 September 1793. How and why Washington DC came into existence we will deal with presently, but it is a fact that, with great ceremony and attended by a positive bevy of Freemasons from a number of different lodges, the cornerstone was laid by George Washington on that Wednesday in 1793. Washington wore his Masonic apron, as frequently depicted in paintings of the event.
Once again the event took place during that most important week in which the rites of Demeter had been celebrated in Athens and Eleusis. Once again, on that morning, the Sun and Mercury were in the zodiac sign of Virgo, but preceding them both and almost as far away from the Sun as it can get, as a morning star, was Venus, which rose a full 170 minutes before dawn.
What better or more auspicious start could there have been for the very home of American democracy?
Presiding over all this new activity was a concept of ‘Liberty’, which was much more than just a word for freedom. As the Founding Fathers must have known very well, Liberty was originally a Roman goddess named ‘Libertas’, a goddess much loved by freed slaves and those who had been released from imprisonment. Her symbol was the Phrygian cap, the soft conical hat worn by the revolutionaries of France, but in statues she stood in splendour, with the torch of freedom held high. Any doubt about Freemasons not being aware of the connection between Liberty and the Goddess is blown away when one takes the journey from Washington DC to New York, where the huge Statue of Liberty stands to this day – a gift to the United States of America from the Freemasons of France.
Many other Freemasonic ceremonies, at different times and in different parts of the world, carry the same astronomical and astrological symbolism as the signing of the American Constitution and the laying of the foundation stone of the Capitol. As a result, we can be certain that although this specific week in September is not generally held as being special or significant by Freemasons today, it certainly was as recently as the 18th century. But we can find no mention of the fact in newspaper reports or other descriptions of either ceremony, so it is likely that although those organizing the events knew exactly what they were doing, the public did not, and it seems likely that only ‘certain’ Freemasons were in on the secret.
We had seen this information as being extremely interesting and informative as far as Freemasonry and its origins were concerned, and there was a strong Venus connection between Freemasons and the ancient megalithic system. All the same, it was entirely possible that this connection was simply a coincidence. After all, many civilizations and groups have venerated Venus, yet they showed no knowledge of megalithic geometry or mathematics. The likelihood of a ‘direct’ connection was massively increased because we had found megalithic measurements and geometry applied to the ground plan of Washington DC.
We knew that Washington DC is replete with Masonic symbolism and planning, and even its position geographically spoke legions about the true beliefs of the Freemasons that planned it. The new capital of the United States would straddle the border of two states, these being Maryland and Virginia. Although both states had apparently been named after European royals it might easily be suggested that both names carry immense symbolism in terms of the Goddess who was venerated at the time of the signing of the Constitution and the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol. Mary is a relatively modern name for the Goddess, in her guise as the Virgin Mary, and of course the name Virginia speaks for itself.
What is more, the district that would house the city of Washington DC was called ‘Columbia’. The origins of this name are somewhat lost or obscured. The standard explanation is that it is an allusion to Christopher Columbus, the mariner and explorer erroneously supposed to have been the first European to find the New World. The name in association with the British possessions in North America came about in 1738 in a copy of the British monthly The Gentleman’s Magazine. At that time, reporting of parliamentary business in Britain was not allowed and so writers of the day often used subterfuge in order to get across to readers what was actually taking place in Parliament. One such writer was Samuel Johnson, who regularly wrote for The Gentleman’s Magazine.
In order to get round the national censorship, Johnson reported on the parliamentary proceedings, not of Britain, but of Lilliput, a fictitious kingdom created in Gulliver’s Travels by the writer and satirist Jonathan Swift. It was Samuel Johnson who first coined the word ‘Columbia’ to describe territories of Empire in the Americas. The word first appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine of June 1738.9 It has been assumed that Johnson, if indeed he was the one to coin the word ‘Columbia’, was merely paraphrasing the name of Christopher Columbus, though of course it has to be remembered that Columbus never actually set foot on the mainland of the United States, having never gone further west personally than the West Indies. But there is no definitive proof that it is his name from which ‘Columbia’ derives – re- membering also that this sailor’s name in his native Genoese was actually Christoffa Corombo and in Spanish, Cristóbal Colón (he was employed by Queen Isabella of Spain).
Another explanation occurs to us, though we have never seen it suggested by anyone else. If we go back to the source of the name of Columbus we find it directly associated linguistically with the name of a Catholic saint – St Columba, who flourished in the 6th century. It is generally believed that St Columba took his name from the Latin columba which means ‘dove’. The dove has an ancient pedigree and has, from time out of mind, been associated with various versions of the Goddess. The earliest recorded and most telling references to the dove as actually representing the Goddess come from Minoan Crete, where an ‘absence’ of an actual portrayal of the Goddess herself in many sanctuaries is replaced by the presence of doves. Later Hellenic goddesses retained this association with the dove, which then passed to Rome as a companion of the goddess Venus.
In view of what happened regarding Columbia we think it highly likely that the name ‘Columbia’ probably had deliberate feminine overtones from the very start. But whether or not this was the case, it wasn’t very long before there was a definite association between Columbia and a female deity. This association had certainly been made before the District of Columbia came into existence in 1791. It wasn’t alone because there are at least 13 locations in the United States named Columbia. Very quickly Columbia was closely associated with Liberty, another goddess name, originally ‘Libertas’, who to the Romans had a special function to perform amongst freed slaves. Americans took Columbia to their hearts and she is to be seen in many sculptures and on a wealth of popular and patriotic posters
So we have the peculiar situation of the name ‘Columbia’ (a name for the Goddess) being given to a district situated on the border of Virginia and Maryland – the names of which are derived from the two most fundamental and powerful aspects of the female godhead.
And if all of this is not enough we discover that the shape of the District of Columbia, as surveyed in 1791, is a diamond, with its points at the cardinal points. The diamond has always had strong associations with female divinity, since time began, being a symbolic representation of the vagina. In the case of Washington DC there is one particular location, as close as makes no difference to the very centre of this diamond, that proved to be of the most pivotal importance to our research and which is dealt with in detail in the next chapter.
No discussion regarding the Freemasonic credentials of Washington DC would be complete without mention of David Ovason, author of The Secret Zodiacs of Washington DC.10 Ovason is an astrologer and is therefore likely to notice deliberately engineered patterns in historical architecture that any ordinary historian might miss – if such patterns can be shown to have a cosmological resonance. As we have previously suggested ‘we’ may not believe in astrology these days but many of our forebears certainly did and therefore to ignore the possibilities of astrology, simply because of a modern prejudice, might be said to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We may just as well say we don’t believe in oracular prophecy these days so we will ignore the presence of Delphi or any of the other ancient sites where oracular prophecy took place.
Ovason turned his attention to the ground plan of Washington DC and many of its monuments and their decoration. He noticed a great many instances of zodiacs being created in and around Washington, and across a long period of time. After a great deal of research regarding the astronomical credentials of Washington DC, Ovason came to the same conclusion that occurred to us: those planning and building Washington DC showed a great regard for astronomy and astrology and had a special interest in the zodiac sign of Virgo and in the planet Venus. Partly thanks to the observations of David Ovason it occurred to us that the whole orientation of the city might well have been planned with this specific interest in the sign of Virgo in mind.
One of the most important areas in Washington is the National Mall. This is a long tract of green space occupied by some of Washington’s most important civic buildings. It runs west from the Capitol and eventually reaches the Washington Monument about 2 km away. It then continues west to the Lincoln Memorial. The whole distance from the steps of the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial is quoted as being 3 km.
The Washington Monument, a huge obelisk more or less due west of the Capitol, was erected between 1848 and 1884. It is the tallest building in Washington DC, being 169.294 m in height. Anyone standing on the steps of the Capitol and looking west could not fail to see the Washington Monument. Because the line between the Capitol and the Washington Monument runs east to west, the Washington Monument cannot avoid being the setting point of the Sun at two particular times of year.
At the latitude of Washington DC the Sun sets well north of west in midsummer and far south of west in midwinter. But only on two evenings each year does it set at absolutely due west – at the spring and autumn equinoxes. In the case of the autumn equinox, which occurs around 21 September each year, the Sun, as it sets in Washington, is said by astrologers to be at the 29th degree of the zodiac sign of Virgo.11
This means that the Capitol and the Washington Monument are ‘aligned’ in such a way that one of the only two times in the year that the Sun sets perfectly behind the Monument, as seen from the Capitol, occurs during that crucial period in which the Sun occupies the zodiac sign of Virgo. Of course it is also the case that on that same day (the autumn equinox) the Sun ‘rises’ in Virgo, an event that could be observed from the Capitol by simply turning around to face east.
It might therefore be suggested that the whole orientation of Washington DC was designed with the zodiac sign of Virgo in mind.12
The current form of rationalism that is at the heart of modern academia is good and valuable, although it does have some very well-informed critics as regards its almost total rejection of fuzzier human qualities. However, it would be a serious error to assume that this approach to logic is the only one, or even the best one. For example, the medieval approach to intellectual reasoning would be seen as wild and undisciplined if measured against today’s yardstick. Equally, the gentlemen scholars of the 18th and early 19th century were entirely open to the intermeshing of the esoteric with the exoteric. Whatever one’s view of the desirability of such a thing – it remains a fact that any historian worth their salt has to understand fully. To project pure modern rationalism into the minds of scientists such Newton or Franklin, for example, would be foolish indeed.
We have found that the Megalithic Second of arc was used to create a web for the positioning of key structures, and that the surface layout was astronomical. Now there is powerful evidence suggesting that Masonic-based astronomy was also woven into the fabric of the design for the new capital of the United States of America.
In today’s world, architects and civic designers sketch ideas drawn from nowhere on their pads or their computer screens to create pleasing or exciting shapes that will win awards. For the most part they have little or no understanding of, nor interest in, the power of symbolism.13 Since the Thornborough henges were built, through Stonehenge, the pyramids, Solomon’s Temple, Rosslyn and on to the city of Washington – symbolism was a fundamental driver.
However, we were soon to find that this determination to celebrate prehistoric values had not disappeared after the time of Founding Fathers. Far from it.