Of all the secret societies, probably the most famous as well as being the most misunderstood, by both outsiders and even its adherents at its lower levels, is freemasonry.
Freemasonry probably had its original roots in the mediaeval crafts, whereby each trade had its own ‘guild’ or ‘union’ in modern parlance, to protect the interests of its members. In return for this protective presence the craftsman had to submit to the most rigorous regulation. He had to serve as an apprentice, usually without pay, for two to ten years (depending on the trade), live with and obey the master craftsman who taught him and then finally once this long induction process was complete, the apprentice was free to start out alone, frequently taking one of his master’s daughters as a wife.
With the expansion of economics often came the need of the craftsman to borrow money to finance long-term or long-distance undertakings and his willingness to pay interest for this benefit. The Christian Church condemned usury and money-lending was permitted only by and to Jews, who were barred from guild membership by dint of their religious practices.
Stonemasons, by the very nature of their trade, were itinerant, constantly moving between villages and towns seeking employment. Their membership of the masonic craft guild was a reassurance to potential customers and employers that here was a bona fide craftsman who could be relied upon to provide a fair days work for a fair days pay. The insignia of their guild displayed representations of the tools of their trade and where language or literacy was a barrier to communication, served as a visual guarantee of ability. It was from these humble beginnings that secret symbols, restricted membership, oaths of secrecy and mutual aid evolved but eventually the guilds became entities that were no longer necessarily populated by those skilled in the crafts and trades their societies purported to represent, becoming almost entirely symbolic and totally unrepresentative of the craft or trade.
In 1645, the Royal Society, founded either in Oxford or in London depending on source, was created with the intention of promoting scientific enquiry rather than the simple, unthinking acceptance of received wisdom. Many facets of the society were based on the tenets of freemasonry and indeed many of the founders were freemasons – a state of affairs that still exists to this day.
It was the brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell, the future ‘Lord Protector’ of the Commonwealth of Great Britain who became its first chairman. Cromwell’s uncle, Thomas Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII a century earlier had already severed the ties between the Roman Catholic Church and the English monarchy and Oliver himself managed to complete the job by engineering the severing of King Charles I’s head from his body.
In 1717, Freemasonry, now a new form of cult entirely distinct from the various existing creeds of Europe, spread rapidly to Paris, Florence, Rome and Berlin, where its deliberately syncretic rituals and décor, Solomon’s temple’s signs and symbols made it thoroughly cosmopolitan and religiously neutral. Nothing could better encapsulate the early spirit of the ‘enlightenment’.
Andrew Ramsay, a Scottish Jacobite exiled in France, who was Chancellor of the French Grand Lodge in the 1730s, claimed that the first Freemasons had been stonemasons in the crusader states who had learned the secret rituals and gained the special wisdom of the ancient world. According to the German Freemasons, the Grand Masters of the Order had learned the secrets and acquired the treasure of the Jewish Essenes.
Either way, Freemasonry had escaped its earlier guise of stonemasonry and in its new incarnation appealed to the intellectuals and the nobility. The early membership of masonic lodges included merchants and financiers, notaries and lawyers, doctors, diplomats and gentry, in other words men of substance or sound reputation. By the middle of the eighteenth century these included members of the French royal family, Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa’s husband, Francis of Lorraine and her son, Joseph. Voltaire was admitted with great pomp into a publicity-hungry masonic lodge in Paris.
Freemasonry not only played an important role in the French Revolution, but also with regard to the American Revolution, in particular the lodges affiliated to the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Scottish Rite Freemasonry blossomed in the North American soil and indeed Freemasonry could be found on both sides of the looming war between the colonists and the Crown and although there is no clear evidence of collusion amongst masons from opposing camps, the fact that the British made some extraordinary military errors arouses my suspicions in this regard.
Sir William Howe’s failure to pursue Washington after expelling him from New York and Sir Henry Clinton’s refusal to link up with Burgoyne’s army marching south from Montreal in 1777 are the two most conspicuous examples. The Grand Master for North America was Joseph Warren and the Green Dragon coffee house in Union Street, Boston, purchased by the Provincial Grand Lodge is generally considered to be the site where one of its offshoots ‘The Sons of Liberty’ plotted the Boston Tea Party and carried it out in the guise of ‘Red Indians’, now re-branded for the sake of political correctness as ‘Native Americans’.
So already there was an infiltration of the ‘hidden hand’, as a secret society is an ideal vehicle for undercurrents and for control. It was however, an infiltration of which many of its members were unaware.
However, one of the little known and least advertised facts about Freemasonry and the Masonic Lodge is its Jewish origin and nature. The religion of Judaism based on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jewish Kabbalah form the basis for the Scottish rite’s 33 ritual degree ceremonies.
“Masonry is based on Judaism. Eliminate the teaching of Judaism from the Masonic ritual and what is left?” The Jewish Tribune of New York, 28th October 1927
“Freemasonry is a Jewish establishment, whose history, grades, official appointments, passwords and explanations are Jewish from beginning to end.” Rabbi Isaac Wis
Undoubtedly already under Jewish influence, Judeo-masonry in Europe became popular with the rise to power of the House of Rothschild. Adam Weishaupt who formed the ‘Illuminati’ in 1776, founded the Lodge of Theodore in Munich and was befriended and funded by Meyer Rothschild, whose clerk Sigmund Geisenheimer in his Frankfurt office had wide Masonic contacts and was a member of the French Grand Orient Lodge called l’Aurore Naissante Lodge. With the help of Daniel Itzig (Court Jew to Frederick William II) and the merchant Isaac Hildesheim (who changed his name to Justus Hiller) he founded the Judenloge.
In 1802 the old established Jewish families including the Adler, Speyer, Reiss, Sichel, Ellison, Hanau and the Goldsmid families became members of the Judenloge and in 1803 Nathan Rothschild joined the Lodge of Emulation in England whilst his brother James Rothschild became a 33rd degree Mason in France.
The book on the Masons, ‘Morals and Dogma’, authored by the late Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish rite, Albert Pike, states…
“Masonry conceals secrets from all except the adepts and sages and uses false explanations and myth interpretation of its symbols to mislead.”
The rise of Masons to political power in Israel dates back to the state’s origins in 1948. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, was a Freemason. Every Prime Minister since then has been a high level Mason, including Golda Meier who was a member of the women’s organisation, the Co-Masons. Most Israeli judges and religious figures are masons and the Rothschild-supported Hebrew University in Israel has erected an Egyptian obelisk, symbol of Freemasonry in its courtyard.
Indeed today, it is virtually impossible to obtain a state of high office in any sphere without membership of this all-pervasive body. From politicians to law-makers, to police and security agencies, they are all heavily populated at the upper echelons by high-ranking Freemasons. All of which makes claims of democracy for our society, almost laughable if it were not so serious a subject. Freemasons must always and under all circumstances put their own kind first. How then can one conclude that any election, from presidential elections down through the election of local political leaders to the appointment of company directors and high-level civil servants, could possibly be fairly conducted?
The simple answer of course is that they cannot and thus we have as our default a system whereby exploitation and corruption is the norm and not the exception, whatever we may try to convince ourselves to the contrary.