Regarding Freemasonry: Everything You Wanted to Know About Masonic Conspiracies, (3 page)

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 If you examine things at face value, the essential logic goes like this:

 There are secret Masonic symbols etched into the dollar bill for the United States of America.

 Therefor the Masons secretly run the World Bank.

 The World Bank is obviously controlled by the people looking to instill a New World Order.

 The Masons are going to kill everyone on the planet. 

 I can’t even freaking make sense of it and I’m sitting here looking at all of their mixed up gibberish claiming to be evidence of the whole thing.  It’s just silly. 

 Unlike the damn Europeans.  We Americans are just misunderstood but those bastards across the pond are REALLY up to no good. 

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 In 2002 twelve European countries agreed to operate under one unified currency called the Euro. 

 (Cue Organ Chords) Duh Duh Duh Duhhhhhhhh.

 And because now the European countries involved (called the Eurozone.  Sounds like a fun place to me.  Some kind of club where all the guys are in black turtlenecks smoking long, thin cigarettes and the women are sexy, exotic types.) are moving toward the elimination of hard currency to replace it with devious things like debit cards. 

 And we know how that one goes. 

 No more hard currency?

 Chips in the brains of our children by the government and Antichrist taking over. 

 Bam.  One, two, three, you’re pinned, Free World. 

 Good thing
SOME
people were paying attention. 

***

 All right, show of hands.  How many of you stopped reading this chapter to go look at a dollar bill in your wallet? 

 Know how I knew that? 

 Evil Masonic Kindle Book Telepathic Mind Control Conspiracy, suckers.  Take that.

Chapter 3: An Incomplete but Still Thoroughly Engaging List of People Who Were Freemasons

 Given that Freemasonry has existed for such a long period of time, it stands to reason that there have been a large multitude of members that have travelled through its ranks.  While it is not the worldwide historical conspiracy that some people insist, it is still mind-boggling at the sheer number of influential people who belonged to the fraternity.

 This is not a complete list of notable masons, just the ones I thought notable or interesting enough to write down.  Plenty of very important historical people were also Freemasons who I have left out, but I still included Bronson Pinchot.  Why?  Because I found out he was and said, “Seriously?  Balki?”

Historical figures:

 Benedict Arnold, Simon Bolivar, Daniel Boone, James Bowie, Winston Churchill, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody,  Samuel Colt, Charles “The Count of Auschwitz” Coward,  Davy Crockett, Benjamin Franklin, John Glenn, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, J. Edgar Hoover, Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson, Marquis de Lafayette, Dr. Charles Mayo, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Paul Revere, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George Washington

It’s really no surprise that so many influential members of the American Revolution were also Freemasons.  The birth of the United States is steeped in Masonic tradition, all of which has been well-documented both for historical purposes and crude sensationalism.  There are large numbers of important figures from both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War that I did not include, but are still worth researching.

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Modern Era Politicians:

Gerald Ford, Robert Dole, Rev. Jesse Jackson

 I can’t really say why Gerald Ford and Bob Dole don’t impress me but Jesse Jackson does.  I think it’s because it’s just a bizarre person to associate with Freemasonry.  I mean, Ford and Dole are both crusty old white guys, and I’m pretty sure every single crusty old white guy in politics is suspected of being one as well.  But Jesse Jackson?  Didn’t see that one coming.

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Sports Figures:

Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey, Rogers Hornsby, Shaquille O’Neal, Sugar Ray Robinson, Cy Young

 Okay, now take a quick look at that group and tell me which one you didn’t expect to see.  Chances are, if you’re my age, you first became familiar with Shaq as one of the two-man team on NBA Jams in the arcades as a kid.  “He’s heating up!”  Indeed.  On another note, I’m always kind of embarrassed to see Ty Cobb’s name in there.  Talk about not exhibiting Masonic principals.  Cobb was a racist, a poor sportsman, a woman beater, and an all-around A-hole.

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Business Moguls:

Bob Evans, Henry Ford, Richard Gatling, John Gates, Frederick Maytag, The Ringling Brothers, Col. Harland Sanders, Dave Thomas, John Wanamaker

 Some interesting names in there, but none more so than the Ringling Brothers.  All seven of them.  I’m pretty sure that’s enough people to start your own lodge.  Although, you have to admit, spaghetti dinners would be pretty interesting if you had all of the Ringling Brothers hosting.  I’d be expecting jugglers and fire-eaters to come popping out of the kitchen every time.    

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Actors and Entertainers:

Gene Autry, Johann Christian Bach, Mel Blanc, Ernest Borgnine, Samuel Clemons, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Duke Ellington, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, Oliver Hardy, Harry Houdini, Rudyard Kipling, Audie Murphy, Bronson Pinchot, Richard Pryor, Michael Richards, Roy Rogers, Will Rogers, Telly Savalas, Peter Sellers, Red Skelton, John Wayne, Oscar Wilde

 I wonder if all those old timey Western actors were Masons before they went to Hollywood?  If that’s the case, then I think we might have just uncovered an actual Masonic conspiracy.  These are a group of men who infiltrated the movie industry and conspired to wear tall hats and pants with tassels.  Impressive.  But there it is: Bronson Pinchot.  I’d make fun of Bronson Pinchot, but hey, at least he had the dignity to never perform at the Laugh Factory and go on a racist tirade.  Isn’t that right, Michael Richards?  Interestingly enough, after Richards embarrassed himself he turned to notable black leaders to apologize and seek guidance.  Who was number one on his list?  None other than fellow Mason, Jesse Jackson!

Chapter 4: The Internet, or, Affirmations for Silly People

 Listen, I know this will come as a surprise to most of you, so I’m going to try and break the news as gently as possible. 

 People are stupid. 

 And nowhere on the entire planet Earth are people more willing to demonstrate exactly how stupid they are than on the internet.  Sadly enough, great heaping hordes of other stupid people are willing to devour the drivel that appears online and take it as gospel. 

 If you go on any number of websites, you will see the following people held up to be Freemasons or members of some other nefarious, world-dominating group.  The justifications for these insinuations is so convoluted that you’d have to be a complete jello-head to give them any credence, and yet…well, there must be a good amount of jello-heads out there. 

 Some are pretty obvious as to why people like to claim they are Freemasons, such as:

Tony Blair, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, L. Ron Hubbard, Barack Obama, Colin Powell, and Ronald Reagan

Nearly any controversial or powerful modern political figure is associated with the Fraternity, normally as a way of justifying their popularity.  Normally, the people asserting that so-and-so must be Freemason is on the other side of the political fight from the person their accusing.  It’s basically a way of saying, “This complete moron could not possibly have risen to power unless they had the support of Illuminati behind him.  I mean, the guy is hardly smart enough to tie his own shoes.” 

 Some of the more amusing allegations of Freemasonry are leveled against modern celebrities, with my all-time favorites being

Sean (Jay-Z) Carter and Kanye West

 The reasons for this are so completely crazy that it would take a whole book to psychoanalyze the paranoid, misinformed goofiness that goes into them.  Essentially, it can be boiled down to a few things.  Both men are rich, successful, and powerful in their respective fields. 

 I’ve seen countless articles that claim to have proof of their connection to either Freemasonry or the Illuminati based on their jewelry, t-shirt designs, hand gestures and lyrics to their songs. 

 It is like claiming certain rock groups are encouraging people to worship Satan by spinning their albums backwards.  Complete silliness. 

 Unless we are talking about Simon and Garfunkel.  For some reason, when I hear their music, I want to run screaming through the city streets.  They either have hidden messages in their music or I just really can’t stand them. 

 Incidentally, do you remember the scene in Fight Club when Tyler Durdin asks who you would fight out of anyone in the world if you had a chance?  Mine would be Simon and Garfunkel.  I have the battle plan worked out in my head, where I go for Paul Simon first because he’s smaller and looks sneakier. 

 You’re still with me on this one, right?  I can’t be the only person having these thoughts. 

 And finally, the two funniest names of people I found who are “accused” of being Freemasons on the internet are:

 
Leonardo da Vinci and Williams Shakespeare

 I’m not even sure what to really say to that.  Poor Leo sure does get dragged through the mud a lot these days.  Whether people are claiming he painted himself as a woman in the Mona Lisa or he somehow stole all of his ideas from aliens who abducted him, it’s somehow fashionable to discredit the man. 

 As for Billy the Bard, your guess is as good as mine.  I would think that in between rewriting the King James Bible and stealing all of those works of literature from Christopher Marlowe or his wife Anne Hathaway, he’d have been too busy to be a Freemason.

 And just for the record, that’s the Anne Hathaway he married, not the actress. 

 Although, I’m sure if we really put our minds together, we can cook up a whole new conspiracy theory that brings all of these wonderful elements into play.  Perhaps during his alien abduction/time travel escapades, Leonard da Vinci picked up William Shakespeare and whisked him all the way to modern times where he found nubile Anne Hathaway slaving over a series of unproduced movie scripts.  He stole the plots from the movies, and da Vinci stole the space age technology that appeared in them.  Each of them went back to their separate times and carried on like they’d created something special.  And then Jay-Z used the powers of Baphomet to trick Beyonce into marrying him.  Bam!

 Admittedly, it’s kind of farfetched, but if we couldn’t get at least a dozen people to believe it just because it’s written on the internet, I’ll eat my hat.

Chapter 5: Which Brings Us to Jack the Ripper

 Anyone who tells you they know who Jack the Ripper really was is wildly arrogant and sadly uninformed. 

 Here’s the truth, folks: Nobody knows and nobody ever will.

 I spent an entire year researching the Jack the Ripper crimes for my book WHITECHAPEL: THE FINAL STAND OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.  I built timelines, studied autopsy reports, worked with the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit, and read newspaper accounts until my eyes started to go numb. 

 One of the worst mistakes any criminal investigator can make is developing a theory first, then structuring their investigation to support that theory. 

 Imagine if one of your neighbors was found murdered, and the detective who showed up took one look at the crime scene and said, “I bet that guy who lives next door did it.” 

 The detective then based every single investigative decision around proving it was you who killed the person.  At the end of the day, you’d be arrested, and the case would be based on a series of shaky assumptions. 

 That is exactly what happens with Jack the Ripper nowadays.  Not just with the Freemasons, either.  Any random name that pops up from history is given the once-over by amateur Ripperologists who doggedly seek to pin the crimes on him. 

 And for the record, amateur Ripperologists aren’t just pimply youths in their mother’s basements logging onto Casebook.org.  In 2002, best-selling novelists Patricia Cornwell got it into her head that world famous painter Walter Sickert must have been the culprit.

 She published a book titled PORTRAIT OF A KILLER: JACK THE RIPPER – CASE CLOSED in which she systematically accused Sickert of all those horrible crimes.  What was her evidence, you ask?

 Well…mainly, he painted things that appeared to be scary and unkind to women.

 Wait, you mean that’s not enough to convince you?

 She conducted DNA testing on stamps licked by the painter and had handwriting analysis done on the alleged Ripper letters and destroyed a valuable painting all in the effort to prove her initial thought.  And what did it gain her?

 People like me laughing at her. 

 Jack the Ripper, case closed.  Indeed.

 The list of Ripper suspects is endlessly amusing, and it includes people like Lewis Carrol (author of Alice in Wonderland), Prince Albert, and Jill the Ripper.  Among the top of the list, however, are the more serious suspects and who among us has not heard of poor Sir William Gull?

 Gull is the perfect Jack the Ripper suspect.  Made to order.  You couldn’t ask for juicier subject matter.  First, Gull was the royal physician to Queen Victoria.  Second, he was a Freemason. 

 Guilty. 

 Reams and reams of volumes of books, films, articles, and internet sites have been devoted to proving William Gull was Jack the Ripper.  By association, this also drags in the Royal Family and the entire Masonic Order into the equation.  Pretty good bargain for conspiracy theorists, I must say.

 Except for one tiny detail.  In 1887 Gull began to experience a series of strokes brought on by a cerebral hemorrhage.  These events left him partially paralyzed and the strokes continued until he passed away in 1890.  He was seventy-three years old.  

 Pishaw!  Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?  People find all sorts of ways to get around that information, and often tie it into the crimes themselves.  They say that William Gull committed the Jack the Ripper crimes precisely because he was sick.  As if some kind of brain fever spurred Gull on to unleash his fury upon the whores of Whitechapel.