Freemasonry
Today, apart from their occasional appearance in a Monty Python
sketch, or the popular theory that Jack the Ripper was one,
Masons pass unnoticed by the general public. But this wasn't
always so.
In 1827, the United States witnessed the birth of a third
political party. This had never happened before. The new party
offered America its first alternative to the two dominant
political groups. Like so many third parties to come, this one
had a rather narrowly-focused platform. It was dedicated to
countering the malevolent and subversive influence of the
international cabal known to the world as Freemasonry. It was
named the Anti-Masonic Party, and the Anti-Masons were well
aware that theirs was an uphill battle.
America's first President, George Washington, had been a Mason.
So were many other Founding Fathers, including Ethan Allen, John
Paul Jones, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin.
Eight of the 56 signatures on the Declaration of Independence
belonged to avowed Masons, as well as nine on the Constitution.
In 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party managed to elect Millard
Fillmore to Congress, but their candidate for President received
only seven votes in the Electoral College. He was crushed by
Andrew Jackson... who was a Mason.
Freemasons claim that their group dates back to the
stonemason guilds of the Middle Ages, some even say it reaches
back to the building of King Solomon's Temple in 850 B.C. No one
really believes that. It was actually founded in 1717 by a bunch
of affluent Englishmen with too much time on their hands. The
organization flourished and spread rapidly throughout the
British empire; Masonic lodges appeared in the American colonies
as early as the 1730s. A separate strain later popped up in
France and swept across Europe.
It was a fraternity of sorts, attracting the community's best
and brightest. They would gather together for strange and secret
rituals, swearing oaths of allegiance to the brotherhood and
each other. Naturally, it became a place for negotiating
business deals and the exchange of gossip. The fraternity was
soon a major power center in any large city, and the
international network of lodges constituted an immense, wealthy,
and well-connected supragovernmental organization.
As such, it took almost no time at all for the the backlash
to begin. The Roman Catholic church was officially opposed to
the group ever since 1738, when Pope Clement XII condemned
Freemasonry and banned it from his faith. Catholics were
forbidden from joining, under pain of excommunication. In 1825,
Leo XII reiterated the ban and declared it to be permanent and
everlasting. In 1884, Leo XIII called on each member of the
clergy to get the word out and help defeat this insidious foe:
We pray and beseech you, venerable brethren, to join
your efforts with Ours, and earnestly to strive for the
extirpation of this foul plague, which is creeping through
the veins of the body politic. [...] 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; and by sermons and
pastoral letters to instruct the people as to the artifices
used by societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing
them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their
opinions and the wickedness of their acts.
In his encyclical, Leo pointed out that the Masons were in
cahoots with the Socialists and Communists. Quizzically, he
omitted the Jews. Perhaps it escaped his mind. Leo also referred
to the fact that Masons believed in such demonic notions as
democracy, free elections, the rule of law, and the separation
of church and state.
This opposition to Freemasonry persisted into the 20th
century. Pope Pius XII hated them. |
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Freemasons suffered harshly in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler
firmly believed that they had been completely subverted by the
Jews, as described in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As he
explained in his bestselling autobiography Mein Kampf,
the Masons had been subverted to provide a mask of legitimacy
for the diabolical Jew:
[I]n 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.
Accordingly, the Nazis made it one of their top priorities to
uproot the organization. The government seized Masonic temples,
jailed their membership, and otherwise made life very difficult
for anybody attached to the group. In fact, it was Adolf
Eichmann's first assignment in the SS to track the activities of
suspected Masons.
The greatest dictators of recent decades have jumped on the
Anti-Masonic bandwagon:
Stalin, Mussolini,
Franco,
Pinochet (Chile),
Salazar (Portugal)... not to mention all the conspiracy kooks.
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There are many who claim that the Freemasons grew out of the
medieval organization known as the
Knights Templar. Today,
the Knights Templar exists as one branch of the interconnected
organizations making up Freemasonry.
When a new member joins, his initial ranks in the
organization are referred to the Blue Lodge. This culminates in
the designation of "Master Mason." At which point, the
newly-minted Mason faces a choice: pursue either the Scottish
Rite or the York Rite. Men who choose the York Rite eventually
have the option of joining the Knights Templar. |
Why They Are Hated And Feared
But why do the Masons have so many enemies? Historically, the group has
been attacked for a variety of reasons.
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The Freemasons secretly rule the world.
Or, more precisely, the usual claim is that the Freemasons are
the visible arm of the Illuminati, who actually rule the world. The
founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, was also a
Mason. This fact prompted wide speculation that the two groups had
been (or still are) working in tandem for a broader objective -- the
establishment of a "New World Order." This notion is still widely
believed, especially among the militia types.
But how sneaky can this society possibly be, if you can
purchase any of their tchotchkes through eBay? Last time we
checked, there were 3,204 auctions matching the query:
masonic,freemasonry,freemasons. In addition to the standard
fezzes, aprons, trowels, rings, and printed literature, there's a
seemingly endless parade of gaudy souvenirs:
ashtrays, ballpoint pens, bath towels, beer
bottles, beer mugs, bells, belt buckles, bottle stoppers, bumper
stickers, bolo ties, bookends, bookmarks, bowties, buttons,
candles, canes, cigarette cases, collapsible umbrellas, combs,
commemorative plates, cufflinks, cutlery, decals, decanters,
door knockers, doorknobs, drawer pulls, earrings, embroidered
patches, figurines, flags, flasks, gavels, goblets, golf balls,
hat pins, ice cream molds, jewelry of all kinds, keyrings,
lamps, lapel pins, leather belts, leather wallets, letter
openers, license plates, license plate holders, lightbulbs,
lighters, magnets, medallions, medals, miniature replicas of the
ark of the covenant, money clips, paperweights, pillboxes,
pocket knives, polo shirts, postage stamps, postcards,
potholders, radiator caps, rubber stamps, silver ingots, shot
glasses, socks, statuettes, straight razors, sundials,
suspenders, swords, teddy bears, thermometers, thimbles, tie
clasps, tobacco pipes, tokens, travel alarm clocks, travel mugs,
tumblers, wall clocks, wall hangings, watch fobs, windbreakers,
wristwatches...
Or, if you'd prefer brand new merchandise instead of
hand-me-downs, try contacting any of the hundreds of retail sites
listed in Google under fraternal supply. Almost all of them
sell Masonic crap. Just keep contacting them until you find one that
doesn't care whether you belong to a Lodge.
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The Freemasons are Satanic, or at least anti-Christian.
Jack Chick promotes this idea. Many fundamentalist Christians
believe that Masons are required to pledge themselves to Freemasonry
above and beyond their religious faiths. This would be a strict
no-no for the Jesus freaks, if it were true. Which it isn't.
But then, you can hardly blame them. We're talking about a bunch
of people living under the specter of intergenerational suffering
(according to Exodus 20:4-5):
You are strictly prohibited from the manufacture of graven
images resembling anything found in heaven above, within the
Earth, or dwelling in the waters underneath the Earth. Neither
will you bow down before such images or serve them; because, as
your god Yahweh, I am easily excitable and will not hesitate to
punish sons for the misdeeds of their fathers, all the way to
the third and fourth generations.
Which is also why the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to say the
Pledge of Allegiance. Better safe than sorry, especially when you're
talking about eternal torment for you and your extended progeny.
Some even believe that Freemasonry is itself a religion,
whose deity is the pagan god Baphomet.
The problem is, as any devout Christian in the organization will
tell you, there is nothing Satanic about the group's ideology,
rituals, or symbols. But the nutballs have an answer for this. The
Masons don't believe that their group is anti-Christian because only
the innermost, core members know the truth. Meaning: inside the
secret club is another, even more secret, club.
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The Freemasons are controlled by the Jews.
Already discussed that. Hitler, The Protocols, etc.
Contributing to the sinister reputation are all of their freaky
ceremonies. The Masons are very proud of their rituals, which have been
copied innumerable times.
One longstanding sore point for the Masons has been the
plagiarization of Masonic ceremonies and symbology by Joseph Smith for
his religious cult known as the Mormon Church. Smith was inducted into
the brotherhood in March 1842. In May he produced the Endowment
ceremony, which borrowed whole sections of dialogue from the Masonic
ritual. This pissed off a lot of Freemasons, to say the least. Like
every Mason, Smith had been required to swear an oath never to reveal
the secrets of Freemasonry to non-members, under pain of death. Oh well.
Evidently tired of taking crap from the Masons, the Mormons finally
excised the offending elements from their ceremony in 1990.
One prominent 19th century Mason was Albert Pike. He was an officer
in the Confederate army during the Civil War, who later went on to
become a big deal in Freemasonry. He wrote seminal books which are still
read today by the Freemasons.
He was also evidently a big fat racist, writing editorials in his
newspaper inveighing against the Negroes and so forth. It is
widely-believed but poorly documented that Pike might have been one of
the original founders of the Ku Klux Klan. The Masons vehemently deny
this, of course. |
