Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (9 page)

Nor is this an exclusively American phenomenon. Sir Winston Churchill, Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker, and at least four presidents of Mexico all held high positions within Freemasonry. Can any other closed society claim such extensive influence on seats of power over so many years?

Proof that Masons exert enormous power over world events, should you choose to believe conspiracy buffs, can be found in pockets, purses and billfolds around the world. Every U.S. dollar bill bears the Great Seal of the U.S. on its reverse, a symbol many believe confirms Freemasonry's dominance and control of the country. The seal's design includes an eye within a triangle floating above an apparently unfinished pyramid. On the base of the pyramid are engraved the Roman numerals for 1776 (mdcclxxvi), and the design is framed by two Latin phrases:
Annuit Coeptis
(Providence Has Favored Our Undertakings) and
Novus Ordo Seclorium
(A New Order of the Ages). According to those who fear the Masons, the eye and pyramid are Masonic symbols, and the manner in which the emblem is flaunted proves their power remains unchallenged.

The Great Seal on the U.S. dollar—is it proof of a Masonic plot?

Or does it? Masons have long used a triangle as a symbol of their membership but only because it represented a set-square, a tool used by the stonemasons who created the organization. In any case, the Great Seal of the U.S. depicts not a triangle but a pyramid, chosen because it represents strength and stability, important qualities for a nascent country. The eye represents the all-seeing vision of God, nothing more, and while it is indeed framed within a triangle, triangular shapes have been popular among Christian societies for centuries, representing the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Historical evidence supports this view. Writing on behalf of the Freemasons in 1821, Thomas Smith Webb noted that the Masons did not adopt either the eye or the triangle as a symbol until 1797, fourteen years
after
the U.S. Congress approved the Great Seal. Webb explains the components of the seal in fine early-Victorian prose:

Although our thoughts, words and actions may be hidden from the eyes of man, yet that All-Seeing Eye, whom the Sun, Moon and Stars obey, and under whose watchful care even comets perform their stupendous revolutions, pervade the inmost recesses of the human heart, and will reward us according to our merits.

Some skeptics believed him. Most did not.

Freemasons have been trying to shake off this connection with the Great Seal of the U.S. for two centuries without success. They have also attempted to disprove the theory that
Freemasons are determined to carry out acts of revenge on the Templars’ behalf for abuses committed against the group almost 800 years ago. In the process, they also deny an association with the Illuminati, an organization of free-thinking intellectuals whose goal, two centuries before cnn, was nothing less than global control of social and political thought; or that they installed popular personalities in positions of power to carry out secret Masonic strategies.

Crusading knights, revenge-driven descendants, subversive currency, global tyrants, celebrity insurgents—what is really behind the Masonic movement? As with all secret societies, the reality suggests both more and less than the eye reveals.

While a few fringe commentators declare that Adam was the first Mason (the same crowd who claim that remnants of de Molay's group escaped to America 200 years ahead of Columbus), the origin of the Freemasons is as simple and direct as their name. In seventeenth-century England, craft organizations began forming as a means of concealing specialized knowledge of their trade from outsiders who might profit from it. The craft guilds declared that they were setting quality standards among the craftsmen; they were less open about their goal of ensuring higher incomes for members by restricting the number of people qualified to join and elevating wages accordingly.

Among the most powerful craftsmen of their time were stonemasons, who possessed the tools and skills to build strong, straight walls. The proof of their talents is evident throughout Britain, where many stone structures remain as solid as the day they were constructed 400 years ago. Mason skills were rated according to three levels: Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason. Each level of skill elevated the mason to a higher rank of recognition, or degree, entitling him to earn appropriately higher wages. Secrecy became paramount among the masons, who chose their companions carefully and swore new initiates to silence about the techniques they had perfected over centuries. To provide control
over their members and ensure that the secrets remained hidden, masons were organized in small community-based lodges with each lodge electing a leader or master.

What began as an organization of craftsmen evolved into something quite different in June 1717, when the leaders of four London lodges gathered at the Apple Tree Tavern to form the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. The goals of the Grand Lodge extended beyond those of the original craft guild to encompass the status of a pseudo-religion, reflecting established Protestant values. Members vowed to work within Christian principles, rationalize the teachings of Christ, and empty Christianity of its mystery through the application of logic and scientific analysis. This marked the beginning of Freemasonry as a global power.

The Freemason concept spread to France and the rest of Europe, and in the process it also spread its recruitment net to snare a wider range of members. No longer restricted to trades-men, Freemasonry began to welcome all men of qualified social stature, providing them with a fraternal organization where they could exchange ideas, pursue common interests, and make important business and professional contacts. Retaining the oath of secrecy among its members, the movement added a mystical initiation ceremony. Soon after, the historical intrigue tying Masons to the Templars began to spread.

A historical link with romantic martyrs garnered as much status for organizations and individuals 300 years ago as it does today. Adding color to the fraternal basis of their organization, Freemasons began to claim descendancy from the Knights Templar. The hypothetical combination transformed an organization originally based on the practical concerns of tradesmen into a fraternal assembly of upper-class businessmen and professionals.

Once their association with the Templars took hold, many enthusiastic Masons began to build an aura of mystique around their group. Like all mystiques, this one acquired a patina of authenticity with time. Scottish Freemasons claimed that several of de Molay's most dedicated followers had escaped France
and fled to Scotland following their leader's execution. A few went further, maintaining that de Molay himself had escaped execution and arrived in Scotland, where he fought with Robert Bruce at the Battle of Dupplin in 1332 and the Battle of Durham in 1346.
³

Masonic records trace the Templar–Mason connection back to an oration delivered in 1737 in the Grand Lodge of France by a Mason named Chevalier Ramsay. Ramsay claimed Freemasonry dated from “the close association of the order with the Knights of St. John in Jerusalem” during the Crusades, and that the “old lodges of Scotland” preserved the genuine Masonry abandoned by the English. From this rather dubious historical connection spun the Scottish Rite or, as the Masonic constitution identifies it, the Antiquus Scoticus Ritus Acceptus, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A more likely explanation stems from the mid-eighteenth–century emigration by Scottish and Irish Masons to the Bordeaux region of France, where they were identified as the
Ecossais
.

The
Ecossais
extended the original three degrees of Masonry first to seven degrees and later to twenty-five degrees, eventually evolving into thirty-three degrees today. Masons who choose to advance beyond the basic three degrees join the Scottish Rite.

³
In recognition of de Molay's leadership and martyrdom, the International Order of de Molay was founded as a fraternal organization for young men aged 13 to 21. Operating under the direction of Masonic advisers, it is essentially a recruiting service for the parent organization.

American colonists established a Masonic lodge in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1733. Memberships in this first American lodge grew spectacularly, and by the American Revolution over 100 lodges were listed. In fact, members of the St. Andrew Masonic Lodge effectively kick-started the revolution with the Boston Tea Party, when they dressed as Mohawk Indians and dumped British tea into the harbor to protest unfair taxation. As in England, American Freemasons represented the most ambitious, gifted and powerful men in society, so it is no surprise that
fifty-one of the signers to the Declaration of Independence supposedly identified themselves as Masons. With so many prominent rebels actively involved, it's reasonable to claim that Freemasons, more than any other single group, instigated the revolution. The list included luminaries such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Paul Revere, John Paul Jones, Ethan Allen, Alexander Hamilton and, to the later chagrin of his fellow American Freemasons, Benedict Arnold. With independence achieved, American Freemasons cut all ties with Britain and launched an exclusively American Grand Lodge in 1777.

Freemasons in the U.S. strengthened their organization, refined their procedures, and extended their influence beyond the lodge halls more than members in any other country. Along with an emphasis on rituals and secrecy, their growth and authority produced speculation about their true motives, encouraged at the outset by Masonic practices and policies; the more mystery attached to the order, the more they would be regarded as powerful men engaged in shadowy activities. Decisions were made not to dilute this vision, but to enhance it in every way possible. The location for the Supreme Council of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, for example, was chosen as Charleston, South Carolina, because that city is located on the 33rd parallel, reflecting the thirty-three degrees of Masonic membership.

To outsiders, this kind of conscious effort to create inscrutability proved either amusing or menacing, and over the years a number of outlandish claims were made about the true goals of Freemasons. Some rather astonishing practices and achievements were credited to them, including the following:

FREEMASONS ARE IN LEAGUE WITH THE ILLUMINATI
. Like Russian dolls, secret societies are reputed to exist within each other, large groups concealing smaller, more concentrated divisions through ancient alliances. Among the most persistent claims by conspiracy buffs and anti-Masons generally is the
allegation that Freemason lodges secretly harbor members of the Illuminati.

In the view of these alarmists, the Illuminati are the people who pull the strings on puppeteers who believe they themselves are pulling strings attached to other puppets. Shadows within shadows, Illuminati members supposedly hover in the background among Masons and other groups, including the Priory of Sion, followers of Kabbalah, Rosicrucians and, in a test of theological extremes, the Elders of Zion.

Launched in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian Jesuit scholar described as “an unpractical bookworm without necessary experience in the world,” the Illuminati (“Enlightenment”) was created as a secret society the true objectives of which would be revealed to its members only after they achieved a “priestly” degree of awareness and understanding. Those who managed to survive Weishaupt's process of selection and preparation eventually learned they were cogs in a political/philosophical machine regulated by reason, an extreme extension of the founder's “reason over passion” Jesuit education. Thanks to the Illuminati, people would be liberated from their prejudices and become both mature and moral, outgrowing the religious and political restrictions of church and state.

Achieving this utopia would be a gain not without pain, however. Illuminati members were to observe everyone with whom they came into social contact, gathering information on each individual and submitting sealed reports to their superiors. By this means, the Illuminati would control public opinion, restrict the power of princes, presidents and prime ministers, silence or eliminate subversives and reactionaries, and strike fear in the hearts of its enemies. “In the bosom of the deepest darkness,” wrote one of the movement's early critics, “a society has been formed, a society of new beings, who know one another though they have never seen one another, who understand one another without explanations, who serve one another without friendship. From the Jesuit rule, this society adopts blind obedience; from the Masons it takes the trials and the
ceremonies; and from the Templars it obtains subterranean mysteries and great audacity.” Without a doubt, this was a force to be reckoned with.

One of Weishaupt's early strategies was to ally himself with the Freemasons, a move that initially proved successful. Within a few years “Illuminated Freemasons” were active in several European countries. But as details of their true aims escaped, public attitude turned against them until, in August 1787, Bavaria declared that recruiting Illuminati members was a capital crime. This managed to drive the society more deeply underground, but it also persuaded Weishaupt that his vision was seriously flawed. After renouncing his own order and writing several apologies to mankind, Weishaupt reconciled with his Catholic religion and spent his last few years helping to build a new cathedral in Gotha.