Secret Societies, Fraternalism and Imperialism Through Them

The study of secret societies is part of the history of civilization in general and the history of politics in particular. However, all too often, secret societies are written and spoken about by various persons who are epistemologically inadequate (if not completely unequipped with the necessary intellectual/informational resources for such an undertaking), delusional, or just cynical trade publication speculators. Also, there are those who practice deliberate misinformation to cultivate neo-mythologies that serve them and advance their own interests through false narratives or the technique of half-truths.

However, secret brotherhoods exist and have their own history, which can and should be subject to scientific investigation. The importance of the currents and organizations of Western esotericism in the history of the West has been officially recognized by the academic community and is the subject of specialized studies and research in various universities.

In England, in 2000, the University of Sheffield established a specialized research center for the study of Freemasonry and secret Brotherhoods. This is the Center for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism. The said university research center in collaboration with the publishing house Equinox Publishers published the first scientific journal on Freemasonry and secret Fraternities: it is the journal Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, which was first launched in 2009 with editorial directors Dr. Andreas Önnerfors (Lund University and Malmö University College, Sweden) and Dr. Rob Collis (University of Sheffield, England).

Also, the subject of Western Esotericism in general and specifically the study of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Hermitism, Alchemy, Templars, Western Magic, Astrology, Gnosticism, traditional Kabbalah, etc. is a subject of study in which one can obtain a Master’s degree or even a PhD in various European universities, such as the University of Exeter in England (which offers an MA and MPhil/PhD in Western Esotericism), the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam), the Sorbonne University in France (Sorbonne, École Pratique des Hautes Études, EPHE) etc.

Mystical imperialism

As the author Robert Dreyfus has written in his book The Devil’s Game (Henry Holt and Co., 2005), “many British intellectuals, and no less imperialists, were seized with the desire to find a kind of holy grail, a unified field theory for religious belief.” According to what we pointed out about “soft power” and neopolitics in chapters 34 and 37 of this book, with his above-mentioned phrase, Robert Dreyfus describes attempts by intellectuals and imperialists to manage the spiritual being of the people so that, by dominating the mythological field (i.e. identifying the spiritual core of things), to dominate the world. This role is played by various attempts to create new super-mythologies and a super-religion or pan-religion.

Led by the great Orientalist Edward Granville Browne, this quest for a pan-religion brought the elites of the British Empire into contact with various mystical movements, cults, and mystery religions throughout the East as well as the Arab Masonic community. The intellectual elite of the British Empire sought to use various modernist Islamic movements, Arabic Masonic Lodges, and Far Eastern mystical traditions to create a unified religious field, which would allow collective spiritual-neopolitical management of Great Britain’s Asian possessions. But the majority of the leadership of British imperialism was more cautious and wanted to preserve its traditional technique of ‘divide and rule’, and therefore cooperated with even the most regressive (at least by British standards), violent and fanatical factions within the Islamic world.

To understand British imperial policy, it must be seen through a Neoplatonic lens, which provides the philosophical underpinnings of Britain’s ‘divide and conquer’ policy, within which Great Britain can co-operate with different camps simultaneously. In the 19th century CE, it became clear that, in the Middle East, Great Britain was pursuing a foreign policy that simultaneously included principles of the European Enlightenment and occultism, or what Enlightenmentists would call obscurantism. In fact, British imperial policy itself included, from its very inception, strong elements of occult philosophy derived from the vision of a sacred destiny that dominated the Elizabethan Renaissance. This combination of European Enlightenment and occult philosophy also characterizes British Freemasonry (Freemasonry), which is an institution for the exercise of neopolitics and mass management of people, especially of the middle social class, both domestically and internationally.

In their quest to establish a Protestant empire in opposition to the forces of Roman Catholicism, elites in Britain and elsewhere turned to Renaissance Neoplatonism, Rosicrucianism, Hermeticism, the Kabbalah of the Jewish and Christian mystics of the West, Alchemy, and Numerology (Gematria), with a view to making Great Britain a new kind of empire. Having, symbolically, Queen Elizabeth I[2] as their living ‘Virgo-Principle’, British Neoplatonic mystics sought to bring about a world reformation (with Great Britain as the imperial centre), according to astrological models of universal order and harmony and their own mystical visions.

Dame Frances Yates (1899-1981), in her book The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), points out that that British imperial vision of of world reform included three worlds:

• the elemental,
• the heavenly (celestial) and
• the super-celestial,

where the super-heavenly world, Yeats explains, is an intellectual realm in which “Platonic ideas merge with the angelic ranks.”

Queen Elizabeth I’s head of the secret service, Sir Francis Walsingham, recruited the natural philosopher, occultist and astrologer John Dee (1527-1608/9), who enriched him with astrological, mathematical and alchemical evidence of his activity as a British psychic spy at the court of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague. As Deborah E. Harkness writes in her book “John Dee’s Conversations with Angels” (Cambridge University Press, 1999), the revelation of John Dee’s thought provided British imperialism with a mystical background. Also, John Dee combined his apocalypticism with Natural Philosophy to demonstrate that the nature of things – as shaped by the Holy Roman (Germanic) Empire (the opposing pole) – was tragically wrong and perverted and needed to be corrected. This thought of John Dee influenced many of his contemporaries and was inherited and further developed by the British philosopher Francis Bacon and the British physicist and alchemist Sir Isaac Newton.

Combining the British legend of King Arthur with Israel through magical systems of Christian Kabbalism, John Dee and other occultists such as Sir Philip Sydney, Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spencer ), fused the ideas of continental European mystical philosophers such as Giordano Bruno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Francesco Giorgi into a British-Israelite mystical philosophical melting pot, yielding to Queen Elizabeth I a messianic role. According to Yeats’ research, Dee justified attributing a messianic role to Queen Elizabeth I by citing the writings of the Welsh Bishop Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was also a 12th-century historian and, in his Historia Regum Britanniae, had claimed that the origins of the British kings went back to Wales and Troy. As Yeats writes, in her book Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (Astraea, The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century, Ed. Routledge & K. Paul, 1975), the royal House of Tudors had Welsh roots, and when the Tudors ascended the throne of England a myth was cultivated, according to which the ancient Troadi-British line of monarchs regained their imperial power and ushered in a golden age of peace and plenty.

In his book General and Rare Memorials Pertaining to the Perfect Art of Navigation (1577), John Dee recounts his vision of Great Britain’s imperial destiny and how could be carried out. As Yeats explains in her studies of Elizabethan occultism, the expansion of British naval power and the imperialist policies of Elizabeth I could, according to Dee, be combined with the promotion of claims that Queen Elizabeth I entitled to rule over the realms of the empire by virtue of its mythical descent from King Arthur.

The British philosopher Francis Bacon – who played a decisive role in the transition from magic to mechanics – methodically dealt with British mysticism and, according to the traditions of British Freemasonry, is the one who is mainly responsible for the leading role that Jerusalem occupies in the myths of British Freemasonry. While British Freemasons emphasize that Francis Bacon played the most important role in replacing Egypt with Jerusalem in the allegories and myths taught in Masonic Lodges, Yeats points out that Francesco Giorgi’s influence on Elizabethan thought was decisive in shaping a of British-Israelite mysticism which was incorporated into Arthurian mythology.

British imperialism was also expressed through the magical writings of Edmund Spenser, which were based on Zoroastrian metaphors of good-evil and light-dark. According to Yeats, the magical system recounted by Spenser in his poem “The Faerie Queen” should not only be approached as a poetic metaphor, but should also be studied in relation to the intellectual and political issues that preoccupied Spenser and his contemporaries. of. Specifically, in this Spenser poem, the white magic of pure imperial reform (corresponding to Great Britain) is contrasted with the evil necromancy of Great Britain’s enemies.

In Spenser’s case, Renaissance Neoplatonism serves the development of a Manichean mysticism, in which the British Empire is idealized, which is presented as in tune with the world rhythm and with a higher ideal and as ruled by heavenly white knights who impose themselves on the inferior and inherently evil earth, preparing for the day of judgment.

In the above-mentioned rhetoric about white knights who, with their “white magic”, rule and protect Great Britain from above, are the seeds of the neo-gnostic theory of “exceptionalism”, which the Anglo-Saxons invoke to claim that they possess a unique historical destiny and, in this light, are above criticism when they attempt to fulfill it. This theory of “exceptionalism” and the transcendence of all criticism, which is attempted to be legitimized through a British-Israelite mysticism and is deeply embedded in the mystical subculture of the British Empire, was scientifically developed and developed by the philosopher Francis Bacon, in his book New Atlantis, in the 17th century, and by geopolitical theorists Halford Mackinder and Karl Haushofer, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The first great practical application of the mystical imperialism of the Elizabethan powers was their conduct of a Neoplatonic ‘holy war’ against neighboring Ireland, which cost Ireland four centuries of bloody conflict and social division. During the periods 1569-1573 and 1579-1583, in the Irish province of Munster, the so-called Desmond Rebellions took place. It was a series of rebellions by the Irish Roman Catholic earl of Desmond (earl of Desomnd) – head of the FitzGerald Dynasty of Munster (from which the American president John F. Kennedy was also descended) – and his supporters against the Protestant Elizabethan English rule in the province of Munster. In fact, the name Desmond (Desmond) is an anglicized form of the old Irish term Desmunhain (Deasmumhain), which means South Munster.

Desmond’s wars provided a model metaphor for shaping the rich literature of British mystical imperialism and for the idealization of the British Empire (since, in the context of British mystical imperialism, Great Britain represents the good and the ‘others’, especially the enemies her, the bad). In this vein, while armies clashed in various operations of geopolitical expansion and ethnic cleansing, the British elite, in the background, was also waging an occult-magical war. Gathering in mystical orders such as Walter Raleigh’s “School of Night”, Sir Philip Sidney’s magic circle and various Masonic Lodges, English poets, soldiers and scientists combined magic, mathematics and religion. , while dealing with the practical application of Alchemy, Kabbalah and the formalities of their orders.

Also, as part of the creation of neopolitical networks in conjunction with their geostrategy, the British created a large international network of Masonic Lodges and other secret societies. For example, after the establishment of the Neohellenic State, with the London Protocol of 1830, Great Britain, in order to strengthen its geopolitical influence in Greece and to undermine and ultimately prevent the policy of Ioannis Kapodistrias on Greek-Russian strategy of cooperation, created in Greece a network of Masonic Lodges and Workshops of the “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type” under the administration of Count Dionysios Roma and Dimitrios Rodokanakis, who were two dedicated agents promoting British policy in Greece.

The background to the history of Freemasonry

Freemasonry (or Masonry from the English term Masonry) or Freemasonry is the largest and longest-standing organization of Western mysticism. The basic organizational unit of Freemasonry is called, depending on the Masonic order, Lodge, Chapter, Council, Preceptory, etc. In each country, the individual Lodges are usually organized under the auspices of a single national administrative Authority called the Grand Lodge or the Grand Orient, depending on the management model followed.

According to the Masonic formal used by the United Grand Lodge of England and by many other Grand Lodges of Freemasons, the initiate, on his initiation into Symbolic Freemasonry, learns that Freemasonry existed at the time when King Solomon built the Temple of Jerusalem , that the Masons who built it were divided into organizational units called Lodges, and that Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff, Architect of the Temple, ruled over those Lodges as equal Grand Masters.

Also, the Masonic formal defines Freemasonry as a symbolic ethical system. Each Masonic degree imparts certain teachings through dramas which, in a theatrical manner, symbols and allegories, reveal and explain principles of the Fraternity. Masonic works are not typically historical theses, but didactic symbolic and mythological systems, which reflect and express the neopolitical strategy of their editors and the patrons of each Masonic system. Therefore, what is mentioned about Freemasonry in the Masonic are typically not sources for the historical roots and historical development of Freemasonry, but symbols and allegories that reveal a neo-political agenda. In particular, regarding the existence of Freemasonry during the time of Solomon, we have no historical evidence to prove this claim.

The search for the principles of Freemasonry has been a difficult and complex problem from the beginning (for a methodical and in-depth investigation of the history of Freemasonry, the following books are a good start:

• R.F. Gould, History of Freemasonry,
• Grand Lodge of Scotland Year Book, 1996;
• J. Hamill, The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry, Ed. Lewis Masonic, 1994; and
• A. Mackey, The History of Freemasonry, Ed. Gramercy Books, 1996).

Its complexity is due on the one hand to the scarcity of ancient sources for the history of this institution, on the other hand to the fact that many publications about the history of Freemasonry present simple assumptions as certainties and imaginary scenarios as real. Next, we will summarize the major theories that have been advanced about the history of Symbolic Freemasonry. Our main source is the scientific journal Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (abbreviation: AQC), published by the Research Lodge QUATUOR CORONATI under the auspices of the United Grand Lodge of England.

1. One theory is that Freemasonry is a historical continuation of the ancient Mysteries, e.g. of the Eleusinian, Dionysian, Mithraic and other Mysteries (see M. Baigent, “Freemasonry, Hermetic Thought and the Royal Society of London”, AQC 109, 1996). Indeed, ritualistically, there are similarities between Freemasonry and the ancient Mysteries. On the other hand, the ritual analogies between Freemasonry and the ancient Mysteries cannot establish the claim that Freemasonry is a genuine or even illegitimate child of the ancient Mysteries, given that Masonic formalism has undergone many changes during the 18th, 19th and of the 20th century.

The masonic formalities which are characterized by teachings of a mystical nature and refer to the esoteric education of the ancient Mysteries were formed mainly at the end of the 18th century or later and mainly in France, and in fact they are more common in formalities of degrees and classes that are beyond Symbolic Freemasonry, that is, in Masonic orders created much later than the original Symbolic Freemasonry. The latest Masonic orders, such as the “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type” of 33 degrees, created only at the end of the 18th century, incorporated into their formal elements occult legends about the ancient Mysteries due to the enthusiasm with which many 18th and 19th century Europeans surrounded the ancient world. But this does not mean that these new Masonic orders can establish the view that there is some initiatory continuity between the ancient Mysteries and ancient Freemasonry.

2. A second old theory regards Freemasonry as the descendant of a group of Italian itinerant masons from Como in northern Italy, the so-called Comacian Masons of the 7th century AD. (see H. Carr, “600 Years of Craft Ritual”, AQC 81, 1968; and E. Ward, “The Birth of Freemasonry”, AQC 91, 1978). Proponents of this theory decide that the Comac Masons possessed sacred secrets that reached them from classical Antiquity, and especially from the Roman Colleges, which they secretly protected with initiation rites and secret marks of recognition. But there is no historical evidence to support the aforementioned theory, and in the archives of the Vatican, which are probably the most well-organized source of historical records in the world, there is not even any indication of the existence of secret possessions by the Komakin masons.

3. According to a third, widely held theory, Freemasonry is a direct descendant of the medieval Knights Templar (see Cyril N. Batham, “The Origin of Freemasonry: A New Theory,” AQC 103, 1990; and S. Dafoe, The Compasses and the Cross, Lewis Masonic Pub., 2008).

Proponents of this theory claim that, after the dissolution of the Templar Order by the Pope and the execution of the last Grand Master of the Templars, James de Molay, some Knights Templar fled to Scotland and gathered at the mysterious Mount Heredom, near Kilwinnin, where, in order to protect their secrets and to protect themselves from persecution against them, they transformed themselves into Freemasons. This theory is particularly promoted by the formalities of the Order of Strict Observance and the Knights Beneficent of the Holy City.

A major problem with this theory is that in Scotland the Templars were never persecuted and therefore there was no reason for the Scottish Templars to hide and re-emerge as some other organization. In fact, the Abbot of Torpitsen, i.e. the first hierarchical Templar of Scotland, remained a member of the Scottish government, precisely because of his Templar status, until the time of the Protestant Reformation.

Also, there is no historical evidence that the Order of the Knights Templar acquired any secrets that were so shocking that the mere possession of them could endanger the life of the possessor. Claims that the Templars adopted beliefs from Islamic mystics such as the Sufis or Jewish mystics such as the Kabbalists and Essenes and that they had constructed a mystical monstrous idol named Baphomet are historically unproven assumptions and often expressed romanticized notions of chivalry. which was fashionable among occultists and noble circles of the 19th century.

The relationship between Freemasonry and the Knights Templar is cultivated by newer Masonic orders, such as e.g. the “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Press” and the “United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta”, which are systems mainly devised by Freemasons of the 19th century, with in order to furnish Masonic teaching with new mythologies and new symbolic systems which expressed their own consciousnesses as they sought to articulate their own building pattern for the course of humanity.

4. A fourth theory, which gained wide acceptance especially during the 19th century, traces the roots of Freemasonry to the Rosicrucian Brotherhood (see Cosby F. Jackson, “Rosicrucianism and Its Effect on Craft Masonry,” AQC 97, 1984). The first public reference to the Brothers of the Rose and Cross appeared in 1614 in a pamphlet printed in Cassel, Germany, entitled Fama Fraternitatis (The Fame of Fraternity). The Fama Fraternitatis announced the existence of a secret brotherhood founded in the late Middle Ages by a German nobleman called Christian Rosenkreuz, or Brother C.R. Indeed, the Rosicrucian proclamations that began to appear in Germany in the early 17th century and referred to the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz exerted a significant influence on European thought. The original Rosicrucian manifestos cultivated and promoted Protestant conceptions, mystical Jewish and Christian traditions (Kabbalah, Alchemy, apocalypticism, astrology, etc.), as well as a friendly attitude towards the natural sciences.

The Rosicrucian manifestos were published in an era marked by great geographical explorations and discoveries (one of the foremost of which was the discovery of America), by advances in the natural sciences (indeed, the transition from the geocentric to the heliocentric theory of Copernicus revealed a new perception of the universe) and from the Religious Reformation. Hence the Rosicrucian manifestos express a hymn and a deep expectation for the coming of a ‘New Era’ which will lead humanity to new, greater achievements and better living conditions.

The proponents of the theory that Freemasonry originates from the Rosicrucians rely on the one hand on the fact that the two oldest known Freemasons, Sir Robert Morey, founder of the Royal Society of London, and the alchemist and naturalist Elias Asmole (17th century), had made systematic studies in Rosicrucianism and in the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, on the one hand, on the other hand on the fact that, during the 18th century in Europe, various Masonic systems were developed which were oriented towards an esoteric Christianity and used as their main emblems the Rose and the Cross. As a new symbol, the rose signified Divine Grace and the Philosopher’s Stone of the alchemists, and the Cross signified the four elements of the universe, namely air, water, fire and earth. But nowhere in ancient Masonry are typically found elements of Rosicrucian mysticism, as ancient Masonry is typically limited to simple systems of symbolism – centered around stone carving and building – through which they explain simple and basic lessons in moral and intellectual cultivation. Therefore, the Rosicrucian tradition did not influence the ancient Masonic formalities, but only in their later development and especially in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type, which even dedicates its 18th degree to the Rosicrucians.

The prevailing view among historians of Freemasonry is that it arose in the British Isles and is descended directly or indirectly from the practical stonemasons who built the famous cathedrals and castles of medieval Europe (see H. Carr, “600 Years of Craft Ritual’, AQC 81, 1968; and E. Ward, ‘The Birth of Freemasonry’, AQC 91, 1978).

According to the theory of the direct origin of Freemasonry from Operative Masonry – i.e. from the masons – the Lodges of the masons were control units of the profession. During the 17th century, these Lodges began to accept as members men who were not practical stonemasons and called them “Accepted Masons”. Gradually, these rejected Masons became the majority in the practical Lodges and turned them into theoretical Lodges, and thus Symbolic Masonry was born.

Several historical accounts support the theory of the direct descent of Freemasonry from practical Freemasonry. Two of the most important relevant sources are the First and Second Schaw Statutes and are addressed to Masonic Lodges in Scotland – the first drawn up on 28 December 1598 and the second on 28 December 1599. Also from 1599 onwards, minutes of Scottish Lodges are preserved which indicate on the one hand that, beyond the preservation of the guild, some form of ritual took place, on the other hand that theoretical Masons, unrelated to the practical art of stonemason, were admitted. In particular, in London, since 1620, the London Masons’ Company had an inner circle, the Acceptance, whose members included theoretical Masons, unrelated to Operative Masonry.

On the other hand, the theory of the direct descent of Freemasonry from practical Freemasonry presents several gaps.

• First, there is no historical evidence of the existence of practical Lodges in England after about 1500 (the practical Society of Freemasons, i.e. the professional guild of Masons, is clearly distinct from the Brotherhood of Freemasons, i.e. the body of symbolic, or theoretical, Masons).
• Second, in England, the historically recorded initiations into Freemasonry have all been by theoretical Freemasons, unrelated to practical Freemasonry. The case of the initiation of Elias Ashmole (Elias Ashmole), in 1646, in the Symbolic Lodge of Warrington is a typical example. Ashmoll records in his diary the names of all the ‘brethren’ present at his initiation into Freemasonry and none of them are connected with practical Freemasonry, nor do we have evidence that the Lodge Ashmoll was initiated into was permanent. Thirdly, although there were indeed practical Lodges in Scotland which admitted non-practical Masons as members, we do not know what kind of ritual they followed or certainly if they followed any particular ritual in the case of admitting theoretical Masons.
• Also, in contrast to the newer Symbolic Freemasonry, traditional practical Freemasonry was the guild of manual builders, masons and stonemasons and was directly in the service of the Christian Church and medieval rulers. For example, in 960, Archbishop of Canterbury Dunstan, who was canonized by the Church of England, was installed as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in York. In 1040, the English King Edward III was installed Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in York, who, after his canonization in 1161, is known as Saint Edward the Confessor (Saint Edward the Confessor, King Edward III) and is to this day the patron saint of the Royal Family of Great Britain. Also, in 1077, Gundulf, Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Rochester, was installed as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in York, who played an important role in the reorganization of English monasticism, while, in 1078, King William I used the Gudulf’s skills in building the White Tower at the Tower of London as well as building Colchester Castle.

To address the gaps presented by the theory of the direct origin of Freemasonry from the guild of masons, the theory of the indirect origin of Freemasonry from practical Freemasonry was formulated. The theory of indirect descent was formulated by Colin Dyer, in his work published by the famous research Lodge of London Quatuor Coronati (see C. Dyer, Symbolism in Craft Freemasonry, Lewis Ed., 1976). According to the theory of indirect descent, the investigation of the origins of Freemasonry is inextricably linked to the investigation of the causes for which Freemasonry developed. In other words, in order to understand the origins of Freemasonry, we should not only be concerned with investigating the questions of when and how (symbolic) Freemasonry was created, since after all, as we mentioned above, the historical sources of this kind are particularly incomplete and unclear, but we must turn our research interest to answering the question of why (symbolic) Freemasonry developed.

Symbolic Freemasonry

By the term Symbolic Masonry, we mean a Masonic order consisting of three degrees (Apprentice, Fellow, Master) and whose dominant international form is a creation of the United Grand Lodge of England (United Grand Lodge of England), the which was founded in 1717.

During the 18th century, important developments took place in Freemasonry and in general in the political life of Europe. In 1707, the parliaments of Scotland and England were united, and in 1789, the French Revolution took place. Also, in 1717, the establishment of the first Grand Lodge of Symbolic Masons takes place. Specifically, on June 24, 1717, St. John’s Day in England, at the “Goose and Iron Grill” Tavern, four Lodges established the Grand Lodge of England of the three Symbolic Degrees (i.e. Apprentice, Fellow and Master) and elected a Grand Master Sayer. The Grand Lodge of London and Westminster, as it was called, elected in 1718 G. Payne as Grand Master and in 1719 the Reverend Dr. Desaguliers (Dr J.T. Desaguliers).

Under the leadership of Desagilliers and then the Duke of Montagu, the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster experienced particular growth, and English noblemen were initiated into Freemasonry, seeking to use the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster as a means of strengthening rule of the Royal House of Hanover. Also in 1723, following Paine’s actions, the first Charter of Symbolic Freemasonry was issued by James Anderson under the title The Constitution, History, Regulations and Customs of the Honorable Fraternity of Accepted Freemasons.

The First Grand Lodge of 1717 was closely associated with the Hanoverian Dynasty, which had meanwhile seized the English Throne, displacing the Stuart Dynasty. In particular, George I of the Hanoverian Dynasty, a cousin of the Stuarts, ascended the English Throne in 1701. George I tried, with the establishment of the Grand Lodge of London (1717), to eliminate from Freemasonry any Jacobin element and to give English Freemasonry a new stamp, by eliminating many elements which referred to the old practical masons, who, being in the service of the Christian Church, built the magnificent Gothic monuments of Europe.

After the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the royalist and conservative political faction – namely the Tories party – sought to have the Dark heir of the Stuart Dynasty ascend to the English throne. The opposing political faction – namely the Whig party (liberals) – supported the enthronement of George I of the Hanoverian Dynasty[3]. As the historical researcher and Freemason Tobias Churton has pointed out, in his book Freemasonry: The Reality (Published by Lewis Masonic, 2007), the presence in London of a multitude of secret guilds which were ideologically close to the Tories it worried George I, and so George I used the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster to reorganize and manipulate Freemasonry to his advantage.

Under the Hanoverian Dynasty, Freemasonry ceased to be a Christian brotherhood and soon admitted Jews, and also renounced many of the symbolic traditions of ancient Freemasonry. In particular, many ceremonial elements and degrees that connect Symbolic Freemasonry with Practical Freemasonry are eliminated. In commemoration of its Masonic past, the latest English Freemasonry introduced the Masonic girdle (apron) as a symbolic garment for its members. The Masonic girdle, as Laurence Gardner writes in his book The Shadow of Solomon (Harper Element Publishing, 2005, ch. 8), was an invention of Freemasonry promoted by King George I ‘, after 1717, in an attempt to imitate the form of a Masonic institution which had now become deeply corrupted.

Also, under the Reverend Desagilliers, English Freemasonry acquired new formalities. As Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England (1719-1722) and draftsman of the General Regulations of the Constitutions of 1723, the Reverend Desagilliers (who was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of George I) invented the myth of Hiram Abiff, taught in grade of the Teacher. The degree of Master was introduced into English Masonic Lodges after 1724, since until then the Symbolic Masons – in accordance with the traditions of the practical masons – met as Fellows of the Craft, and after the degree of Fellow they conferred the degree of the Passed Master.

While the earliest architectural archetypes of the Masons were Noah and Beseleel, Desagilliers constructs a new archetype of the Architect, Hiram Abiff, who was an artificial Masonic hero, in order to promote the liberal ideology of King George I and especially tolerance between religions (a sophisticated interfaith syncretism with strong deistic and neo-gnostic elements), as well as the bourgeois culture of English society.

But the political and religious ferments taking place in England in the 18th century did not leave the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster alone. Around 1740, there were a large number of Irish Freemasons in London, many of whom had been initiated into Freemasonry in Ireland. Many of the Irish Freemasons experienced difficulties in entering London Lodges which were under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster. So they established in London, in 1751, a new Grand Lodge, and claimed on the one hand that the first Grand Lodge had made innovations and had moved away from the “ancient landmarks”, on the other hand that they themselves were working “according to the old institutions which had been granted by Prince Edwin to York in AD 926.’ Therefore, the new Grand Lodge founded in 1751 became known as the “Grand Lodge of the Ancients” (Grand Lodge of the Ancients), while the First Grand Lodge, founded in 1717, became known as the “Grand Lodge of Grand Lodge of the Moderns.

The Grand Lodge of Ancients sheltered conspiratorial efforts by the Jacobites to restore James II (the exiled king of the Stuart Dynasty) to the British Throne. In 1715 the Jacobins, who were Roman Catholics, had revolted in England in favor of James II, and Londoners’ traumatic memories of these politico-religious conflicts were still fresh when, in 1717, the first Grand Lodge (i.e. the Grand Lodge of Moderns), which expressly forbade political and religious discussions within the Lodges, adopted a spirit of religious toleration (i.e. allowed the admission of non-Christian members) and supported the retention of the Protestant King George I on the British Throne.

Despite their differences, the two rival Grand Lodges, namely the Grand Lodge of the Moderns and the Grand Lodge of the Ancients, continued to function separately from each other for about 63 years. In 1809, they appointed Commissioners to negotiate an equal union. The negotiations were successful, and so, on December 27, 1813, the two former rival Grand Lodges united and founded the United Grand Lodge of England, whose first Grand Master was the Duke of Sussex ( the youngest son of King George III). The Duke of Sussex’s policy was to maintain the unity of the United Grand Lodge of England under the control of the British Throne as the first priority and therefore stipulated that religious and political discussions within the Lodges were prohibited and also that genuine Freemasonry consisted only of the degrees of Apprentice, Fellow and Master and from the Order of the Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem (Order of the Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem), as completion and perfection of the 3rd degree, taking care at the same time to rewrite the formalities of Freemasonry, so that they are in harmony with the ‘line’ of the new Masonic leadership.

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type

By the term Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or more simply Scottish Type, we mean a Masonic order consisting of 33 degrees (adding 30 secondary degrees to the 3-degree system of Symbolic Freemasonry) and whose dominant international format created by the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Press, which is based in Charleston, South Carolina in the USA. In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type system, legends concerning the Rosicrucians (to whom the 18th degree is dedicated) and the Knights Templar (who play a central role in the mythology and ritual of the 30th degree) are of particular importance.

The degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type are the following 33 (the first three being identical with the three degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry):

• 1st grade: Student,
• 2nd Degree: Partner,
• 3rd grade: Teacher,
• 4th Degree: Secret Master,
• 5th Rank: Perfect Master,
• 6th grade: Secretaries,
• 7th grade: Superintendent and Judge,
• 8th grade: Supervisor of Buildings,
• 9th Rank: Master Chosen of Nine,
• 10th degree: Great Chosen of the Fifteen,
• 11th Degree: Supreme Elect of the Twelve,
• 12th Degree: Grand Master of Architects,
• 13th Degree: Royal Arch (of Enoch),
• 14th degree: Great, Elect, Perfect and Supreme Mason,
• 15th Rank: Knight of the East or Sword,
• 16th Degree: Prince of Jerusalem,
• 17th Degree: Knight of East and West,
• 18th Degree: Knight/Prince Rosicrucian,
• 19th Degree: Grand Pontiff,
• 20th degree: Grand Master of Symbolic Lodges,
• 21st degree: Patriarch Noeitis,
• 22nd degree: Prince of Lebanon,
• 23rd Degree: Stage Leader,
• 24th degree: Prince of the Tent,
• 25th rank: Bronze Knight of Ofeus,
• 26th Rank: Prince of Mercy,
• 27th Degree: Knight of Jerusalem or Temple,
• 28th Rank: Knight of the Sun,
• 29th Degree: Knight of Saint Andrew,
• 30th degree: Knight of Cados or Knight of the White and Black Eagle,
• 31st degree: Grand Inspector Brigadier Judge,
• 32nd Degree: Supreme Prince of the Royal Secret,
• 33rd degree: Supreme Grand Inspector General

The origins of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type go back to an earlier Masonic order called the Rite of Perfection, it had 25 degrees and a strong Templar color, its seat was in the Jesuit College of Clermont, France, and it was closely associated with the Jacobins.

A figure who played a decisive role in the formation of newer Masonic degrees associated with the culture of the 18th-century European nobility, the Jacobins and the Jesuits was Andrew M. Ramsay (c. 1686-1743), a Scotsman from of Ayrshire, who rose to the office of Orator of the Grand Lodge of France, and, in that capacity, had charge of lecturing at the meetings of the French Grand Lodge. Ramsay was brought up a Presbyterian in his native Scotland but, in 1706, left Scotland to serve in the Duke of Marlborough’s (1650-1722) army in France during the War of the Spanish Succession ( 1701-1714). In 1710, he met François Fenelon (1651-1715), Archbishop of Cambrai, who converted him to Roman Catholicism. Also, Ramsay served as tutor to the sons of the exiled Roman Catholic King of England, James III Stuart. In 1737, influenced by the Jesuits and the Jacobins, he supported before the French Grand Lodge the novel theory of the origin of Freemasonry from the Order of the Knights Templar, i.e. from the Roman Catholic Crusaders. Through chivalry, Ramsay sought to give Freemasonry an aristocratic glamor and possibly attempted to establish a partnership between the Roman Catholic Church and Freemasonry. In 1754, Chevalier de Bonneville (de Bonneville), based on Ramsey’s theory, established the Perfection Press with 25 degrees.

Taking a historical detour at this point, it would be useful to point out that the final downfall of the Templar Order came at the beginning of the 14th century due to a financial dispute. The French King Philip IV the Fair wanted to dissolve the Order of the Templars on the one hand because he despised their economic wealth, on the other hand because he felt insecure about moves made by the Templars to obtain their own state in the Languedoc region of south-eastern France or in Cyprus. On October 13, 1307, military forces of King Philip IV carried out coordinated operations and arrested the French Templars and the Grand Master of the Templar Order, Jacobus De Molay. Templars who were arrested were tortured in various prisons, such as the tower at Chinon, to confess that they had committed heresy. The French king had seen to it that the Templars were accused of many offences, such as denying Christ, blaspheming against the Cross, worshiping the devil and committing sodomy. And Pope Clement V took no action to prevent injustice and violence against the Templars and, obeying the will of King Philip IV, ordered the dissolution of the Order of the Templars. On the eve of March 18, 1314, Jacob de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars, was condemned to death at the stake.

The history of the Templars and the paraphilology created around their beliefs and their persecution by political and religious Authorities inspired many younger Masonic degrees and many occultists, especially in 18th and 19th century France. The Knights Templar and Templarism, in the context of Freemasonry and the occult in general, were used as a symbol of the general concept of ‘crusading’ (eg Masonic ‘crusade’) and of challenging the political and religious Authorities it wanted to target the respective mystical brotherhood.

In general, in France, apart from the case of knight Ramsay, there was already a great tradition of creating new Masonic degrees, beyond the simple English Freemasonry of the 3 degrees and the Royal Arch. The mythological content of these new ascendant degrees which developed in France – mainly under the patronage of the Stuarts and the French aristocracy and under the influence of Kabbalists and other mystics (especially in the south of France) – was associated with Scotland (which, in many wars, had allied with France against the English). Thus, in France, many so-called ‘Scottish’ Masonic degrees were created, which of course had no literal historical connection with Scotland (but only symbolic-mythological).

As early as 1740, in Avignon, France, there were various schools and groups dealing with Hermeticism (ie the philosophical-religious tradition of Hermes Trismegistus) and Alchemy, which is also called the Hermetic Art as it is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Many of these Avignon Hermetic groups worked under the umbrella and framework of Lodges of Symbolic Freemasonry as well as some so-called Scottish degrees of Freemasonry. The most important representative of that Hermetic movement was the Benedictine monk and alchemist Antoine-Joseph de Pernety (Antoine-Joseph Pernety, 1716-1801). The spiritual roots of the Scottish Philosophical Type of the Freemasons go back to the work of de Pernetti and a Masonic movement called Illuminés d’Avignon and founded in 1784 by de Pernetti. Also, during the 18th century, in France, a multitude of new, intensely mystical, Masonic and paramasonic orders and degrees were created, such as the Ellus Coens, the Illuminés du Zodiaque, the Frères noirs, etc. Also, in 1766, the French Freemasonic organization called “Mother Lodge of Comtat-Venaissin” had already created and awarded the following secondary degrees besides the 3 degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry: 4th degree: True Mason, 5th degree: True Mason on the Right Atrapou, 6th degree: Knight of the Golden Key, 7th degree: Knight of the Iris, 8th degree: Knight of the Argonaut, 9th degree: Knight of the Golden Fleece (incidentally, many neo-mythologies and works of fiction have sprung from these degrees).

On May 20, 1766, in Paris, a Lodge was founded under the name of Saint Lazarus which operated under the patronage of the Grand Lodge of France. On April 2, 1776, this Lodge declared itself the “Mother Lodge of the Scottish Philosophical Press in France,” changing its name to the “Social Contract.” On May 5, 1776, this “Social Contract” Lodge was formally recognized by the “Mother Lodge of Comtat-Venaissin” and, on August 18, these two Lodges merged with each other and, in 1772, joined the force of the Lodges of the Grand Orient of France.

The matrix of creation of ‘Scottish’ Masonic degrees and orders in France was the Peristyle of Clermont (Chapter of Clermont), whose official founder was the Chevalier de Bonneville (Chevalier de Bonneville) in the year 1754. The traditions of the Peristyle of Clermont came from three sources:

1) from the Templar legends incorporated into Freemasonry by Baron von Hund, who, in 1751, founded the Order of Strict Observance,
2) from the exiled Scottish courtiers of the Stuarts who were in Saint-Germain (Saint-Germain) and
3) by Jesuits of the College of Clermont.

In 1758, the Peristyle of Clermont was transformed and renamed the Council of the Emperors of the East and the West. 1761, just three years after its foundation, the Council of Emperors of the East and West granted a special patent to Estienne Morin “to establish perfect and honorable Freemasonry in all parts of the world,” making him ” Grand Inspector” of the Press of Perfection (of 25 points). A copy of that patent is included in the “Golden Book” of Comte de Grasse-Tilly, who was the founder of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for France. In 1761, Estienne Morin went to Saint Dominic, from where he began to spread the new Masonic type and appointed and installed various Inspectors of this Masonic type responsible for the West Indies and the USA (see the entry on Scottish Rite in his Masonic Encyclopedia Albert C. Mackey). The administrative center of the Perfection Press in Charleston, South Carolina was established in 1783, under Isaac da Costa, who was appointed Deputy Surveyor of South Carolina by Moses Hayes.

Estienne Morin was not at all fit to preserve the prestige and seal of the Press of Perfection. On the one hand, he had neither a high philosophical education nor a high knowledge of Freemasonry, on the other hand, he chose unsuitable persons – mainly corrupt Jews – for the positions of Press Inspectors of the Perfection in the West Indies and in the USA. Thus the Press of Perfection went through a period of several years during which a cynical economic trade in Masonic degrees and titles took place and networks of social entanglement were organized. Also, in addition to the 25 degrees of the Press of Perfection, other degrees were created. Specifically, in 1770, the Rite Primitif de Namour was created, consisting of 33 degrees, and in 1804, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was created, also consisting of 33 degrees .

Indeed, during that period of great Masonic chaos in America, the Jewish speculators who managed the Press of Perfection and its evolution into the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press of 33 degrees—in order to further raise the prestige and commercial value of its degrees of the Masonic system – created the myth that, supposedly, in Europe, the King of Prussia was the supreme head of this Masonic order. In particular, it was spread that the King of Prussia Frederick the Great (1712-1786), shortly before he died and while he was bedridden, drew up the Grand Constitutions of the Scottish Press in the year 1786, raised the 25 degrees of the Press of Perfection to 33 (and the 25th degree of the Press of Perfection became the 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press) and also that he personally instituted the 33rd highest and last degree of the Scots Press, entrusting the administration of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press to the so-called Supreme Council of the 33rd degree. Certainly, nowhere in the world has the original of this document with the clear signature and seal of Frederick the Great been found.

The truth is that Frederick the Great never played an active role in the Press of Perfection, did not draw up the Constitutions of the Scots Press, and was not the creator of the 33rd degree of the Scots Press. However, even today, most High Councils of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type throughout the world continue to claim that their history can be traced back to Frederick the Great of Prussia, who had little interest in Freemasonry. The documents attributed to Frederick the Great are forgeries sent from Europe to the USA at the behest of the American Jewish profiteers who operated the Perfection Press and generally the Scottish Press in the Western Hemisphere.

The Protocol of 19 December 1861 issued by the “Grand Lodge of the Three Spheres” (the so-called “Grand National Mother Lodge” of German Freemasonry) in Berlin regarding the so-called Grand Constitutions of 1786 of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type states, among other things , the following: “King Frederick the Great took part in Masonic affairs for only seven years (from his initiation in 1738 to 1744) and never engaged in them again. He had reservations about any direct involvement in them, devoting himself…exclusively to the problems and concerns of the government and the command of his Army…It is, therefore, false that King Frederick the Great had, on the 1st of May, 1786, convened the his house in Berlin, a Grand Council for the organization of the High Degrees.’

The well-known occultist Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), founder of the Theosophical Society, in the second volume of her book Isis Unveiled, writes that the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type of 33 degrees came from an earlier attempt by the Roman Catholic Stuarts to retake the British Throne through Freemasonry, and that, after the Stuarts failed in that attempt, the Scottish Press was reorganized in Charleston, South Carolina by a small local group of Masons (which included a a tailor named Pirlet and a dancer named Lacorne) which group, in order to enhance its prestige, claimed to be acting on a document signed by Frederick the Great, dated May 1, 1786, and that this document of Frederick the Great constituted the Grand Constitutions of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type and established the 33rd degree thereof. And Blavatsky continues in her aforementioned book as follows: “This document was an impudent forgery and obliged the Grand Lodge of the Three Spheres in Berlin to issue a protocol which conclusively proved that the whole affair (about the role of Frederick the Great in Scottish Press) was false in every aspect. On the basis of allegations based on this alleged document, the Ancient and Accepted Press fraudulently obtained thousands of dollars from credulous brethren in America and Europe.”

After the Scottish press failed to act as a tool to restore the Stuarts to the British Throne, it passed into the hands of the American Jewish establishment and took on new roles in accordance with the neopolitical strategy of its new leaders. The 33 degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press were reorganized and given a final form by Albert Pike (1809-1891), who worked as a lawyer, teacher and journalist, while, during the Mexican-American War, in 1846- 1848, fought as an officer in the US Cavalry (notably at the Battle of Buena Vista). In the War between the North and the South, he supported the Confederate States of America (Confederate States), i.e. the South (the Confederate States of America was formed as the government created, from 1861 to 1865, by eleven southern slaveholding states of the USA , each of which had previously declared secession from the US). Also, Pike served the interests of the British Empire at the expense of Lincoln and the Union (Union), that is, he undermined the legitimate US government under Lincoln, and even was a key supporter of the notorious racist organization Ku Klux Klan (special report on his relationship Albert Pike and the Ku Klux Klan was issued by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche, February 21, 2013, via the Schiller Institute). In 1859, Albert Pike was elected Supreme Grand Brigadier of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type in the USA, a position he held until the end of his life. In 1786, in the USA, the Constitution of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type (“Scottish Freemasonry”) was drawn up by Albert Pike.

The Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Type of the USA, based in Charleston, South Carolina, is the Mother High Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Type for the entire world. In each country, where it operates, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Press is governed by a corresponding High Council of the 33rd degree. From the Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press in the USA, the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press of 33 degrees spread to Europe and elsewhere around the world. Specifically, in 1804, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Press was introduced into France by the Comte de Grasse-Tilly. From France, this order spread to Italy (in 1805), Spain (in 1811) and Belgium (in 1817). In 1824, the first High Council of the 33rd degree was established for Ireland. In 1845, the first High Council of the 33rd degree was established for England and Wales. In 1846, the first Supreme Council of the 33rd degree was established for Scotland. In 1872, Dimitrios Rodokanakis, a resident of Great Britain, an active member of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for Scotland and of St. Andrew’s Lodge No. 48 of Edinburgh, founded the first Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for Greece, with His Highness Grand Taxiarch himself, Deputy Grand Taxiarch the university professor Nikolaos Damaskinos, Grand Treasurer the prefect and minister Dimitrios Mavrokordatos, Grand Chancellor the industrialist and banker Athanasios Duroutis and Grand Secretary the Polytechnic Professor Ioannis Papadakis (see Masonic Bulletin Pythagoras, Ed d. Big Lodge of Greece – Masonic Institution, issue 100, 2010, pp. 280-282).

York Type or American Type

In 1797, at Rode Island, USA, Thomas Smith Webb organized all the ascendant Masonic degrees (that is, all degrees beyond the three degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry) operating in the British-born American Lodges into a special system of which is called “York Rite” or “American Rite”.

The York Press, in addition to the three symbolic degrees conferred by a Grand Lodge of Symbolic Freemasonry, includes the following derivative degrees (the first three degrees of the York Press coincide with the three degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry):

• 4th degree: Distinguished Master or Master of the Sign,
• 5th Degree: Former Venerable,
• 6th grade: Excellent Master,
• 7th degree: Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem,
• 8th degree: Royal Master,
• 9th grade: Elect Master,
• 10th Rank: Super Excellent Master,
• 11th degree: Knight of the Red Cross,
• 12th degree: Knight of Malta,
• 13th Rank: Knight Templar.

The earliest surviving evidence of Knights Templar Masonic activity in the British Isles is in Ireland, while in England the earliest relevant evidence is in Portsmouth and dates to 1777.

The York press has a particularly high impact and influence in the USA and even has a significant presence in NATO, where there are special Lodges and “Knight Camps” exclusively for NATO officials. After the end of the Cold War, the development of Peristyles (Chapters) of the York Press took on a large dimension in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, for the exercise of American-Atlantic influence on members of the elites of these countries through Freemasonry.

The Priestly Masonic Order

The Masonic Type of York and especially its highest degree, that is the Knight Templar, ends in a very selective Masonic Order called the Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests, which constitutes the priestly Masonic order! The Order of Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch consists of 33 degrees and to enter it one must have already risen to the rank of Knight Templar. Once a Knight Templar is accepted into the Order of Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch, he is directly awarded, by proclamation, 31 additional degrees/titles and is properly and extensively initiated into the 32nd degree of this Order.

The gatherings of members of this elitist Masonic Order are called Tabernacles and its members are called Knight Priests. These Holy Knights wear a white mantle and on the head an episcopal matrix of the Western type on which, on the front side, is embroidered a large red Templar Cross and is eight inches high. The superior of such a Temple is called High Priest and his office constitutes the 33rd degree of this Order. The corresponding episcopal matrix for a High Priest of the Order of Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch is twelve inches high and bears a Patriarchal Cross (Cross with two horizontal axes).

The Tabernacles/Temples of this Order are organizationally divided internationally into various jurisdictions and each such jurisdiction is called a Grand College and is governed by a Grand High Priest. In England, the first Lodge of the Order of Knights Templar of the Royal Arch was founded in 1895 (called The Royal Kent) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1923, the Grand College of England of Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch was founded and admission to it requires, among other things, that the candidate is a Past Worshipful of a Symbolic Lodge (ie has served as president of a Lodge of Symbolic Freemasonry), a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England.

The 32nd degree of the Order of Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch is called Knight Templar Priest of the Royal Arch, and the initiation ceremony into this degree includes readings from the Old and New Testaments (especially from the Revelation of John the Evangelist). At the ceremony of induction into this Order, the candidate is led to seven posts, which are placed in the form of a triangle, and at each of these posts stands an officer. Each of these pillars bears a ‘holy word’ referring to the characteristics of the Lamb of God, who opened the Seven Seals, revealing the Seven Spirits of God, according to the Revelation of the Evangelist John. The seven ‘sacred words’ corresponding to these seven pillars are: Power, Riches, Wisdom, Strength, Honor, Glory and Blessings ). The first of the aforementioned seven pillars is white and on it is placed an effigy of a lion’s face. The second pole is black and on it are placed an anchor and a fig. The third pillar is crimson and on it are placed a sun and apples. The fourth pillar is red and on it are placed a star, wine and milk. The fifth pillar is purple and on it are placed a heart and water. The sixth pillar is blue and on it are placed a priestly epitaph and an episcopal matrix. The seventh pillar is green and on it are placed a royal crown, water and bread.

The symbol of the Order of the Knights Templar Priests of the Royal Arch is an equilateral triangle on which are engraved letters corresponding to the secrets of the Knight Templar Priest of the Royal Arch. Specifically, the letters within this equilateral triangle mean “King of Kings” and in the center “Lord of Lords”.

The geopolitics of Freemasonry

Freemasonry – under its various orders and degrees around the world – is a symbolic technology for the practice of neopolitics, according to the neopolitical strategy of the respective Masonic leadership and the typical corresponding Masonic system. Freemasonry is based on myth, i.e. the essence of culture, as well as drama-theatre, i.e. experiential teaching, as it has been handed down by e.g. Aristotle in his theory of tragedy. These methods are used to ‘sculpt’ the consciousnesses (symbolically, the ‘stones’) according to the ‘architectural design’ of the leadership and the typical Masonic system, so that, in this way, the members of the organization become ‘ living stones’ of the intended ‘edifice’. Each order, in the history of Freemasonry, also has a particular ‘architectural design’ in mind. Also, different intellectual lobbies, even within the same Masonic order, may compete with each other for who will exert the most significant influence in shaping the ‘architectural design’.

On the other hand, within Freemasonry, there are many members who are not aware – at least fully – of what is happening in Freemasonry or what is happening to them in the framework of their Masonic course, but are engaged either in simple public relations within the Lodges (for individual social and economic reasons) or immerse themselves in their own imaginative creations inspired by Masonic ethos and symbols.

Internationally, at the dawn of the 21st century, the strongest Masonic powers are the United Grand Lodge of England (the so-called Mother Grand Lodge of the world’s Symbolic Freemasonry), the Grand Orient of France, the United Grand Lodges of Germany, the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Press of the USA (the so-called Mother High Council of the Scottish Press of the world), as well as the York Rite Press of the USA. In fact, after the end of the Cold War, these Masonic orders competed with each other to take the lead (and thus secure the greatest influence) in the creation of Masonic systems in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Skopje, Croatia, Slovenia , the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.

German Freemasonry gained major influence in Croatia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, US Freemasonry gained major influence in Romania, Bulgaria and Skopje, while French and English Freemasonry vie for dominance over Masonic affairs in Russia . At the same time, due to the above-mentioned competitions between the great Masonic Powers of the West for the creation of spheres of Masonic influence, various Masonic schisms are incited, such as e.g. it has happened in Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, Greece, Italy, France, etc. (some useful information for the study of the geopolitics of Freemasonry is also included in Francois Thial’s book The Geopolitics of Freemasonry, published in Greek by Proskenio Publications, with a foreword by geopolitics professor Ioannis T. Mazis and an introduction by psychiatrist Kostis Ballas, who was an active member of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Press for Greece).

In London, on the two days of November 5-6, 2007, a meeting of all the Grand Lodges of Europe took place, following a relevant initiative of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Pythagoras Masonic Bulletin of the Grand Lodge of Greece, in issue 98 of the year 2008, wrote the following about this international Masonic meeting: “The first day was devoted to getting to know the guests in the building of the Grand Lodge of England, and then followed a lunch with the participation of the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England A.B.E. Duke of Kent, during which the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England addressed a greeting and explained that the aim of the meeting is not to take decisions but to submit opinions on issues that are currently troubling Freemasonry in Europe but also worldwide and mainly on issues of regularity, especially after the creation of many new or the awakening of older Grand Lodges in the countries of Northern Europe” (p. 165).

In Eastern Europe, Freemasonry methodically serves the politics of Western elites to promote liberal globalization. Especially in Russia, Freemasonry has a long history as an institution that promotes Western liberal values ​​and attitudes in Russian society. The natural scientist, political thinker and defender of the values ​​of Freemasonry, Christos Goudis, in his article entitled “Freemasonry and Revolutions”, which was published in the Pythagoras Masonic Bulletin of the Grand Lodge of Greece, in issue 98 of the year 2008, wrote following: “Masons were also the leaders of the movement of the Russian Decembrists of 1825, who operated within the ranks of the tsarist army, organizing a coup d’état with the aim of liberalizing Russia. The return of the victorious Russian troops in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon, was accompanied by the realization in the officer corps that the superiority of arms did not exonerate Russia from her inferiority vis-à-vis a rapidly liberalizing Europe. The result of this contact of the military aristocracy with the liberal ideas of the French Revolution was the establishment of secret societies on Masonic patterns…Karl Marx but also the father of anarchism Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as well as many leaders of the later Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 , among whom Nikolai Ilyich Ulyanov (Vladimir Lenin) and Alexander Kerensky, passed through Freemasonry” (pp. 111-112). An advocate of the Masonic plan to liberalize Europe, Goudis, in his aforementioned article, does not hesitate to characterize the Russian political tradition as an element of the alleged Russian “inferiority” vis-a-vis the West. This is precisely the ideological ‘line’ promoted by Freemasonry in Russia especially and in Eastern Europe in general, after the end of the Cold War, in order for the Russians and in general the Eastern European Freemasons to become loyal defenders of liberal globalization and instruments of the Atlantic oligarchy.

Along with promoting a global liberal monologue, Freemasonry promotes interfaith syncretism as a form of religious globalization. For example, according to the Standard of the Synod of the 32nd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Type, issued by the Supreme Council of the 33rd of Greece, in Athens, in the year 1975, the initiate of the 32nd degree, who is called Prince of the Royal Mystery, the following is taught[8]: “But perhaps the day will come when the religions still existing at that time, preserving their historical form, will consider each other as different types of one and the same Religion, i.e. a truly universal Religion… then set aside many things from those which they honor or preach in Indian pagodas, Buddhist temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches. Each one will then bring with him to the peaceful crypt, all that he values ​​and considers as the highest” (p. 28). Hence the so-called “entrance word” in the 32nd degree is given as follows: one says “PHAAL CHOL”, i.e. separated, the other says “PHARASCH CHOL”, i.e. united, and then the two together they say “SHADDAI”, i.e. Almighty, as a confession of Masonic interfaith syncretism (see the Standard of the 32nd degree, ibid., p. 43, as well as the Masonic book Manuel Maçonnique Ou Tuileur des Divers Rites de Maçonnerie Pratiqués en France, Imprimerie de Sétier, rue de Grenelle-St-Honoré, no. 29, Paris, 1830.

Also, at the 32nd degree, a review and summary interpretation of all previous degrees takes place. This review shows that liberal globalism, modern Western rationalism, and Gnosticism are intellectual pillars of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press.

Also, according to the aforementioned Standard, the holders of the 30th degree, i.e. the “Knights of Cados” or “Knights of the White and Black Eagle”, are “the keepers of Templar Knowledge” and “struggle against every political and spiritual despotism, whose Jacques de Molay and the Order of the Templars fell victim”, and “it was emphasized to the holders of the 31st degree that their duty is to cultivate and preserve the teaching of the Gnostics” (Standard of the 32nd degree, op. , pp. 20-21).

The deep connection of Freemasonry with the rationalism and liberalism of the modern West and with the forces of the Protestant world is emphasized in the 30th degree.

Also, at the 32nd degree, a review and summary interpretation of all previous degrees takes place. This review shows that liberal globalism, modern Western rationalism, and Gnosticism are intellectual pillars of the Ancient and Accepted Scots Press.

Also, according to the aforementioned Standard, the holders of the 30th degree, i.e. the “Knights of Cados” or “Knights of the White and Black Eagle”, are “the keepers of Templar Knowledge” and “struggle against all political and spiritual despotism, whose Jacques de Molay and the Order of the Templars fell victim”, and “it was emphasized to the holders of the 31st degree that their duty is to cultivate and preserve the teaching of the Gnostics” (Standard of the 32nd degree, op. , pp. 20-21).

The deep connection of Freemasonry with the rationalism and liberalism of the modern West and with the forces of the Protestant world is emphasized in the 30th degree.

the Knights of Cados seek revenge for the destruction of the Templar Order and the execution of the last Grand Master of the Templars, “incessantly decrying the abuses of those who fell victims and fighting against religious and political despotism…Such is the revenge they fell upon Pope Clement V., not on the day when his bones were burned by the Calvinists of Provence, but on the day when Luther stirred up half of Europe against papacy, in the name of the rights of conscience. Such is the revenge that fell upon King Philip the Fair…on the day when the Constituent Assembly of the French proclaimed the rights of man and citizen. Our work is far from finished” (p. 39). Hence, according to the aforementioned Standard of the 30th degree, during the secret handshake between the members of the 30th degree, one says “NEKAM MENACHEM” (Nekam Menachem), which means “satisfaction in revenge or satisfaction in punishing guilty’, and the other responds PHARASCH CHOL (Faras Hall), which here means ‘everything is explained’, thus praising Luther’s Reformation and the bourgeois liberalism that arose from the French Revolution, as part of the revenge they aspire to take the Knights of Cados in the name and for the sake of their Templar ideals (see the Standard of the 30th degree, ibid., p. 8, as well as the Masonic book Manuel Maçonnique Ou Tuileur des Divers Rites de Maçonnerie Pratiqués en France, Ed. Imprimerie de Sétier, rue de Grenelle-St-Honoré, no. 29, Paris, 1830). In fact, as stated in the same Standard of the 30th degree, during the “Official Assurance”, the Knight of Cados swears to the Order, among other things, the following: “I…before the M.A.T.S. (Grand Architect of the Universe) and the reverence of this pledge, I swear to execute without hesitation and at the risk of my life everything that is ordered to me under the Order…I swear to avenge the just and the truth, even with armed force if necessary, if imposed on me…I swear to contribute by all the means possible to me to the propagation and spread of all free ideas” (Standard of the 30th degree, op. cit., pp. 40-42).

Freemasonry and Zionist imperialism

In the November 3, 2000 issue of the special newsletter Executive Intelligence Review, which is edited by the American counterintelligence expert and personal acquaintance of mine, Jeff Steinberg, there was published a report on the terrorist activity of Israeli fundamentalists and the relationship them with factors of British Freemasonry. On October 16, 2000, Israel Police repelled members of the extremist Zionist movement known as the “Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement” as they attempted to storm the Qubat Islamic Mosque As-Sakhrah (Qubbat As-Sakhrah), located on the Temple Mount, in the Old City of Jerusalem, to consecrate the foundation stone of the Third Temple of Jerusalem, which they want to rebuild. The Temple Mount Faithful Movement issued a press release claiming that their provocative action had the approval of the Israeli Authorities and the protection of the Israeli Security Forces. The aforementioned press release of the Temple Mount Faithful Movement was signed by the leader of this movement, Gershon Salomon, and stated the following: “Now is the time to rebuild the House of God on the holy Temple Mount, in location of the First and Second Temples. God is ready for this and expects Israel to re-liberate the Temple Mount from the pagan Arab religious people and to rebuild His House to once again become the heart, soul and hearth of Israel and all nations.”

If the Israeli authorities had allowed those Temple Mount extremists to proceed immediately with their plans, a religious war of incalculable consequences would have broken out, since the Qubat Ash-Saqra Mosque, like the Al-Aqsa Mosque , are some of Islam’s holiest pilgrimages worldwide.

However, just three weeks before that provocative move by the extremists on the Temple Mount, the Israeli authorities had allowed Ariel Sharon, then leader of the Israeli right-wing party “Likud” and a notorious “slaughterer” of Palestinians in the Shabra refugee camps and Shatila, to enter the Islamic Holy area on the Temple Mount accompanied by thousands of fanatical Jews and Israeli Security Forces. Sharon was a leading figure in the Temple Mount Faithful Movement, and his aforementioned presence, on September 28, 2000, at the Islamic pilgrimages to the Temple Mount caused massive protests by Arabs.

On the day that Sharon carried out his above provocative operation on the Temple Mount, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in New York had announced that they were close to an agreement that would advance peace talks between them. The peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians had reached a difficult and critical point because the American president Bill Clinton (Bill Clinton) – under the influence of the American vice president Al Gore (Al Gore), who was acting as a Zionist puppet, and some advisers of the group of the President for Middle East Affairs – had raised the issue of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem at the July 2000 Camp David summit. In September 2000, that is, at a particularly critical phase of Clinton’s talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ( Yasser Arafat) and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon intervened with his extremist provocateurs on the Temple Mount to undermine the peace process in the Middle East and advance the plans of Zionist imperialism.

The Jewish religious organization “Ateret Cohanim yeshiva”, located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is an important core of the secret paramilitary activity of extremist Jews and targets Islamic pilgrimages to the Temple Mount. Sharon, as well as his successor in the leadership of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, have significantly helped the financing of the organization “Ateret Cohanim yeshiva” by Jewish actors in New York. Also, according to evidence published in the November 3, 2000 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review special newsletter, Sharon has acted as a “conduit of millions of dollars to the Gush Emunim movement of Rabbi Moshe Levinger and Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook, which acts as a religious fundamentalist death squad.”

The 3 November 2000 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review analyzed the role played by the strategically important “research Quatuor Coronati Lodge” of the United Grand Lodge of England and the Seventh Marquess of Northampton (Spencer Douglas David Compton), who served as Additional Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England from 2001 to 2009, in supporting plans by Jewish fanatics to build the Third Temple in Jerusalem and to carry out provocative actions against Muslims to ignite a major religious war and thus establish a ‘Pax Judaica’ (Jewish Peace). In the same issue of the Executive Intelligence Review, it was reported that the Seventh Marquess of Northampton is a follower of a strain of “British Israelism”, which cultivates the mythology that the British oligarchy possesses secret powers because England was settled by lost tribes of Israel and that therefore Kabbalah is very strong in England. Also, according to the Seventh Marquess of Northampton’s own statements published in the above issue of the Executive Intelligence Review, “America and England received the Two Lost Tribes (of Israel) and therefore since then, in a very intellectual Jewish way, began to run the world” (literally: “America and England got the Two Lost Tribes, and that is why they then, in a very intellectual Jewish way, started to run the world”).

In December 1995, the “Jerusalem” Masonic Lodge was established adjacent to the Temple Mount and, as reported in the November 3, 2000 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review, is working with extremist Zionists, Jews and ‘Christians’ to control the Temple Mount and the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. Fittingly, the editors of the November 3, 2000 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review comment: “That such a Lodge was founded not long after the revolutionary results of Oslo[11]—and just weeks after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Yitzhak Rabin), one of the architects of peace – it is certainly not by chance.”

The above Lodge “Jerusalem” was founded by the Grand Master of Canonical Freemasonry of Italy (Gran Loggia Regolare degli Antichi, Liberi e Accettati Muratori d’Italia), Giuliano di Bernardo, ‘right hand’ of the Seventh Marquess of Northampton , based on the Zionist plan for the Temple Mount. At the founding ceremony of this Lodge, Giuliano di Bernardo proclaimed: “The rebuilding of the Temple is at the center of our studies.” In June 1996, Giuliano di Bernardo published a book entitled Rebuilding the Temple, which was published in English by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of the United Grand Lodge of England. Also, in interviews, Giuliano di Bernardo has boldly admitted that he has created an entire international movement promoting a new utopian faith based on Jewish Kabbalah and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. Also, this Jew-centric plan of globalization and the Jew-centric mythology on which it is based are also promoted by various Neo-Nite knightly orders.

The Enlightened Ones of Bavaria

While the organization of the Illuminati of Avignon (Illuminés d’Avignon), as we mentioned above, was an important trend within French Freemasonry and more generally within French occultism, the organization of the Illuminati of Bavaria (Illuminati of Bavaria) – no relation to the Illuminati of Avignon (minus a synonym) – founded in 1776 in Bavaria by the young university professor Adam Weishaupt to promote a cultural and political program based on a mixture of Rousseauian philosophy, Christian humanism, socialism and science.

Adam Weishaupt was born on February 6, 1748 in Ingolstadt and was educated by the Jesuits. His appointment, in 1775, as professor of natural and canon law at the University of Ingolstadt – a post previously held only by members of the Jesuit Order, but which had by then been abolished by the Pope – is said to have caused a feeling of offence. in the Roman Catholic chaplaincy of the University of Ingolstadt. “Weishaupt, whose views were characterized by cosmopolitanism, and who knew and condemned the hypocrisy and prejudices of the priests, created rivalries against him in the University” (see A.G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Ed. Macoy Publishing , 1966, p. 1099). At that time, Weishaupt was not yet a member of Freemasonry. He was initiated into Freemasonry in 1777, in Munich, in a Lodge of the Press of Strict Observance called “Theodor zum guten Rath”.

The typical of the Bavarian Enlightenment promoted the spirit of science and a political theory inspired by classical Greek Antiquity. In the upper ranks of the Bavarian Enlightened, Weishaupt taught a vision of natural freedom and human equality inspired by Christ and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Weishaupt’s purpose was, through the organization of the Bavarian Enlightened Ones, to reform Freemasonry according to his own ideals and to wrest Freemasonry from the control exercised over it by various authoritarian elites in Europe.

According to the standard of the rank of Overseer of the Bavarian Enlightened the candidate was encouraged to work for the establishment of the “empire of reason”, within which, as he was told, intellectual and political prejudices and contradictions would be eliminated and people would become capable to assume their existential responsibilities and govern themselves. Also, according to the standard of the Bavarian Enlightened and Weishaupt’s special instructions, promotion to the rank of Regent of the Order of the Illuminati required the candidate to be “as much as possible a free man and independent of all princes” and to have given significant signs of will to change the political system. Specifically, according to Weishaupt’s texts, in order for the Supervisors to be worthy of being promoted to the rank of Regent, they must be persons who have succeeded in uniting wisdom with freedom of thought and action, know how to combine the transcendence of of spirit with gravity and honesty of manners, and whose heart is fully devoted to the mission of the order for the welfare of mankind. Also, in accordance with the standard of the Regent’s rank, the officer who initiates the candidate into this highest rank of the Bavarian Enlightened One says to him: “You are now strong enough to guide yourself, therefore in the future the guide of self you…Be free, that is, a man, a man who knows how to govern himself, a man who knows his duty, and his inalienable rights…Behold, take back the engagements you have hitherto entered into with us. We return them all to you.”

Thomas Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826), who was the third president in a row of the USA (1801-1809) and was the main author of the declaration of American Independence (1776), has written the following about the founder of the Bavarians Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt: “Weishaupt believes that to promote this perfection of human character was the object of Jesus Christ…His principles are love of good and love of neighbor. And by teaching innocence of conduct, he intended to set men in their natural state of liberty and equality. He says that no one laid a firmer foundation for freedom than our Great Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. He believes that the Freemasons originally possessed the true principles and purposes of Christianity, and that they have still preserved some of them through tradition, but much distorted. The means he proposes to bring about the improvement of human nature are ‘to enlighten men, to correct their morals, and to inspire them to benevolence’… As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of despotic regimes and despotic priests, he knew that caution was necessary even for the dissemination of information and principles that had to do with pure morality. That is why he undertook to lead the Freemasons to adopt this purpose and make the objects of their institution the diffusion of science and virtue. He proposed the initiation of new members into his own body through a hierarchical structure which corresponded to his fears that tyranny might flash against him. This has lent an air of mystery to his views…I think you will agree with me that, if Weishaupt were writing here (in America), where the secrecy of our efforts to make men wise and virtuous is not necessary, he would not have devised some secret mechanism for accomplishing this end” (see “Thomas Jefferson to Reverend James Madison, January 31, 1800”, in: The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford).

Because of strong disagreements between Weishaupt, who was the president (and founder) of the Supreme Court (as the supreme executive council was called) of the Bavarian Enlightened, and Baron Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who was a very powerful member of the Bavarian Supreme Court of the Enlightened and a leading member of the Masonic Order of the Strict Observance, as well as due to the fact that, in 1777, Karl Theodor, a supporter of the regime of the enlightened despotism, became ruler of Bavaria and placed under persecution of the Bavarian Enlightened Order and other secret societies, the Bavarian Enlightened Order was disbanded around 1785. Meanwhile, in 1784, at the Congress of the Enlightened in Weimar, the order’s president and founder himself, namely Adam Weishaupt, had resigned his position and offices in it, having, among other things, become disillusioned with the low spirit and selfishness of many Masons and others who had entered the order which he had so ambitiously created, and finally saw it decaying and decaying from within.

The absolutist Bavarian regime of Karl Theodor, the Jesuits and the leadership of the Bavarian Roman Catholic Church launched a harsh propaganda operation against the Bavarian Enlightened, making this short-lived organization (which, after its dissolution, was now an easy target for propaganda operations) the ‘scapegoat’ for a multitude of social problems. Also involved in this propaganda operation against the Bavarian Enlightened were leading figures of Masonic orders who were in direct or secret collaboration with the dominant authoritarian regimes of Europe and the big bourgeoisie. In this way, the totalitarian leaderships of Europe and the dominant imperialist mystical orders used the disbanded order of the Bavarian Enlightened to disorient and misinform the public, accusing the phantom organization of the Bavarian Enlightened of conspiracies and imperialist designs which they themselves leaderships emerged and implemented. That is why, after all, as pointed out in Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia, in the entry on the Illuminati, “Masons’ aversion to the history of the Illuminati is traditional”. In order for the European oligarchy and its controlled Masonic orders to have a means of misinforming the masses and a ‘scapegoat’ as dictated by the science of propaganda, Weishaupt’s Illuminati were demonized and became the lead organization in various fanciful conspiracy stories , which are produced to cover up real conspiracies and to manipulate public opinion.

In the Order of the Enlightened of Avignon and in general in the mystical communities of the south of France, from where the Scottish Type of Freemasonry spiritually originated, conceptions of Gnosticism, various Hermeticists (hermes of Trismegistus-Alchemy doctrine) and various mystical Jewish movements (centered on Kabbalah) dominated ). The Bavarian Order of the Enlightened, created by Adam Weishaupt, who, as we mentioned above, was mainly inspired by ancient Greece and Rousseau, was not related to these concepts and to this path of development of Freemasonry, and was rather actively opposed. However, various members of the Bavarian Enlightened who were at the same time members of ‘normal’ Masonic Lodges, among them Baron Adolf Freiherr Knigge, wanted, in contrast to Weishaupt, to give the Order of the Bavarian Enlightened a similar occult orientation with that of the Order of the Enlightened of Avignon.

Finally, after the dissolution of the Bavarian Order of the Enlightened and since Weishaupt’s project had now been defeated by ‘regular’ Freemasonry, which functioned as a tool of social control and social influence in the hands of Western European princes and Jewish mystics, the Jewish Masonic establishment itself conducted disinformation operations against the Bavarian Enlightened in order to protect the Jewish Masonic establishment and the Avignon Enlightened by targeting the Bavarian Enlightened.

The case of the Bavarian Illuminati deserves special attention, not of course because it is used to create imaginary, non-existent conspiracy theories and generally to conduct disinformation operations, but because Weishaupt attempted to articulate a critical attitude towards modernity and especially towards the myth of civil constitutions, to politicize Freemasonry, to synthesize mysticism with Rousseau’s philosophy, and to engage with radical political movements of the 18th century. But the great problem of Rousseau and Weishaupt’s Illuminati is that they perceived and pointed out the problems of the modern rationality, but failed to cure them because they tried to found social unity in nature and not in metaphysics, which always gave Hellenism, ancient and Christian, freedom in society.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778), in his attempt to save human freedom from the discipline and violence of rational thought (which is the great deity of rationalist Western universities and naturalistic political economy) , claims that the most important reason why man differs from animals is not that he thinks, but that he chooses. But at this point, Rousseau makes his first fundamental mistake: he defends and emphasizes man’s ability to choose, but he does so by thinking that man makes choices with a view to his physical fulfillment and not with a view to spiritual freedom . So, ultimately, the difference between man and animal in Rousseau’s philosophical system is a difference in degree of physical integration. Again, the freedom of metaphysics is absent. Metaphysics leads to a world of spiritual possibilities, freeing man from the necessity of modern logicism and naturalism.

Rousseau opposes modern rationality and takes a critical stance towards the European Enlightenment, because he disagrees with the method they chose to follow (ie the logocratic method), but he does not disagree with the purpose of modernity and the Enlightenment, namely the attempt grounding truth in individual consciousness. ‘I feel’ may be methodologically and epistemologically different from ‘I think’, but the ontology of ‘I feel therefore I am’ (Rousseau) is shared with the ontology of ‘I think therefore I am’ (Descartes). Hence, even though Rousseau, like other Western philosophers, invokes the ancient Greek ‘asty’ as a model of his political theory, it differs essentially from the ancient Greek ontology.

Although Plutarch and the classical Greek philosophers exerted a particular fascination on Rousseau, the ideal of society and the individual expressed by Rousseau is that of the modern Western subject. For Rousseau, man is by nature an emotional person and his society (i.e. ‘natural’ society) must be based on passion and not on cold calculations. But again, Rousseau’s starting point is the individual, even if it is the individual of feeling (as opposed to the individual of rationalist speech), but nevertheless the individual. On the contrary, in Greek Antiquity, man, as a rational animal, is not essentially an ‘individual’, but a synthesis of impulses and forces, as analyzed in Plato’s psychology, and, by extension, is a political being in the service of social happiness . That is why, in the ancient Greek theory of Law, social justice does not concern the protection of ‘human rights’, but is understood as the citizen’s contribution to society.

Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO)

Between 1895 and 1906, in Austria and Germany, the wealthy Austrian chemist Karl Kellner (Karl Kellner, 1851-1905) and the Anglo-German occultist, member of the anarchist space, singer, journalist and Prussian police agent Theodor Reuss , 1855-1923) created a new occult order which they called the “Ordo Templi Orientis” (Ordo Templi Orientis), known by the acronym OTO. The OTO standard was based on legends about the Knights Templar, tantric occultism, arbitrary accounts of the Enlightened Ones of Avignon and the Enlightened Ones of Bavaria, and Gnosticism.

Karl Kellner was a German spy and had developed espionage activity in London as a member of London’s anarchist and socialist organizations. Around 1880, in Munich, Kellner founded an order modeled on the Bavarian Order of the Enlightened (as a knockoff of Adam Weishaupt’s original organization) to use as a ‘showcase’ for his espionage activity, posing as the anti-authoritarian. Also, in 1885, Kellner is in London as a member of the executive committee of the “Socialist League”. After his espionage activity was revealed, Royce was forced to leave England. In 1888, Royce reappeared in Berlin, where he collaborated with actor Leopold Engel to reorganize the Illuminati.

Using secret service expertise in mind manipulation combined with occult rituals, Kellner and Royce proceeded to found the OTO, where they combined what they thought were typically Masonic and Enlightened Bavarians, without of course the OTO having no connection with any other Masonic order, nor, much less, with the Enlightened of Bavaria.

In 1910, the British occultist, poet and journalist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) met Royce and became a member of the OTO. In 1914, shortly after the start of the First World War, Crowley, having already risen to the highest positions in the OTO, settled in the USA, where he worked as a journalist and as a spy on behalf of the British Secret Service against Nazi circles operating in the USA . During this period, Crowley reorganized the ranks and formalities of the OTO, and in 1921 declared his independence from Royce, who was the international leader of the OTO. Finally, in 1923, Royce died under suspicious circumstances, and, in 1925, at a tumultuous conference of OTO Grand Masters, Crowley succeeded in being named the new international head of OTO. Crowley, under the cover of the British secret services, became involved in extreme occult practices (sexual orgies, drugs, blood sacrifices, worship of the Antichrist, etc.) and created an occult tradition which he called “Thelema”, in which he mixed, according to his personal judgment, elements from the formalities of the conventional Masonic orders and the Enlightened of Bavaria, causing great confusion to Masons and non-Masons alike.

After the end of the Second World War, the OTO center was now in California, under the command of Crowley’s successor, who was Karl Germer. Germer was born in 1885 in Elberfeld, Germany and died in 1962 in West Point, California. In World War I, he worked as a German military intelligence officer and was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Class for his distinguished services. In 1926, he joined Crowley’s “Will” occult system (thus passing under the management of the Anglo-Saxon factor), and in the same year went to the USA, where he published German translations of Crowley’s works. In 1935, he returned to Germany, where he was arrested by the Gestapo because of his association with Crowley’s occult system. In 1942, Crowley appointed Germer as his successor in leadership of the OTO. In 1947, after Crowley’s death, Germer took over as international head of the OTO.

After Germer’s death, OTO went through a period of crisis and disorganization. In the midst of this situation, in 1971, retired American officer Grady Louis McMurtry assumed the international leadership of the OTO, who remained at the top of the OTO hierarchy until his death in 1985. McMurtry had received an active took part in many battles in the Second World War (landing in Normandy, liberation of France and Belgium and occupation of Germany) and in the Korean War and had personally met Crowley in England (1943-1944). Also, McMarty was a CIA operative and used the structures and rituals of the OTO as a means of practicing and testing various methods of mind control that US intelligence had created.

Neo-chivalric orders

Particularly privileged meeting places for political conspirators, spies, occultists and common crooks are various fictional knightly orders, reviving medieval knightly institutions, such as those of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller of St. John (also known as the Knights of Malta). The orders of chivalry hold a great fascination for broad sections of the population and lend themselves to the exercise of vanity and propaganda. Very important and reliable information about the connection of Neo-Naite and Neo-Ioannite knightly orders with fascism, with agents of the secret services of various Western countries and with private extortion networks is published in Patrice Chairoff’s book under the title Dossier B…Comme Barbouzes (Ed .Alain Moreau, 1975). Syrov’s real name is Ivan Dominique Calzi, he was a neo-fascist and agent of Western secret services and, for many years, worked as a journalist for Left-wing newspapers.

Syroff mentions, for example, that in the early 1970s, Charles Lascorz—who was a prominent figure in the Service d’Action Civique (SAC), which was a private Right-wing organization affiliated with the party de Gaulle, and an expert in extortion and arms dealing – managed, under the scheme of the parastatal Right-wing organization SAC, to gain a leadership position in the neo-Nazi order “Sovereign and Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem”, known by the initials OSMTJ, i.e. “Ordre Souverain et Militaire du Temple de Jérusalem”.

Lascorz had active connections in Germany with the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) as well as with elements of the Bavarian Far Right and the West German secret services. Lascorges acted on the plan of powerful figures of the Gaulish Right – such as Pierre Lemarchand, General Zdrojewski and Colonel Moreau, an associate of the French Foreign Intelligence Service (SDECE) – who thought that he would be useful to control and administer new orders of Knights Templar and Hospitallers of St. John (the Hospitallers of St. John are also known as the Knights of Malta). However, Lascorge and other leaders of such organizations, at some point, began to act independently to serve their own agendas, which had to do with promoting fascism, extortion and smuggling.

Through spectacular knightly costumes and galas, feeding the vanity and fancies of various affluent (but not foolish and vain) members of society who craved aristocratic titles, Lascorges created a profitable business of trading in fictional knighthoods through which, in addition to he was just making money, filing the members of the order, trading information, practicing blackmail and of course cultivating, through the institution of chivalry, medieval, feudal political concepts and attitudes. Also, various officers of the OSMTJ order had close cooperation with the notorious Italian fascist and mafia Masonic Lodge “Propaganda 2” (known more simply as “P2”).

A similar work to that of the OSMTJ is played by a fairly large number of Neo-Naite and Neo-Ioannina knightly orders, operating mainly in Western Europe. Most of these ‘chivalric orders’, during the Cold War period, were corroded and manipulated by Western intelligence services, but the collaborators of Western intelligence services – mainly far-right – operating, throughout the Cold War, in in these new knightly orders they played, as much as they could, individual, selfish games of money and power.

Congregation/Abbess of Sion

As Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code hit the New York Times bestseller list and was brought to the screen by Hollywood, many people now speak with scandalous ease and arbitrariness. about the secrets of a supposed super-organization called “Kiono tis Sion” or “Priory of Sion”, about the “true” history of Christ and about the supposed secrets of the Knights Templar.

Through the pages of his books, Dan Brown has woven an addictive myth around the existence of a secret society, which he writes was founded centuries ago to protect the potentially world-shattering secret that lies within in a treasure of great importance to humanity. This secret society, according to the claims of Dan Brown and his sources, is called the Abbot (or Congregation) of Zion and counts among its Grand Masters scholars of the stature of Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Jean Hot.

Although, as many claim, the Abbey of Sion was founded in 1099, the first time its existence was “revealed” to the general public was in 1967, with the publication, in French, of the book The Gold of Rennes-le-Chateau (L’ Or de Rennes) by Gérard de Sède. De Saint connected the Abbot of Sion with the ‘mystery’ of the French Temple of Rennes-le-Chateau, in the Corbier mountains of the Pyrenees, and thus was the first to develop the populist occult tale of the Abbot of Sion as the ultimate mystical society.

This story did not become widely known in the English-speaking world until the publication of the English bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Lincoln). Since then, the Abbot of Sion and its various alleged connections have become a hotbed of occult and pseudo-historical literature. Michael Baigent in particular has contributed greatly to the spread of these tales, as he has a great talent for disinformation and has been a professional officer of the United Grand Lodge of England and editor of the Masonic magazine Freemasonry Today, so he has privileged access to a large Masonic audience, who are usually very vulnerable to disinformation and mind control operations by the Masonic Authorities to which they owe obedience.

The basic narrative that has been reproduced since the 1960s about the Abbot of Zion has, in summary, been this: Jesus married Mary Magdalene and intended to appoint her as his successor in his Church after his death. After the Crucifixion of Jesus, Magdalene, having not been accepted as the leader of the Church of Jerusalem, left for the south of France with the child or children (depending on who writes the relevant storybook each time) that she had acquired from Jesus. In the south of France, according to the aforementioned account, Magdalene found refuge in the Jewish community there and in particular among the “Cathar” sect.

According to the same tale, in the 5th century, a descendant of Jesus and Magdalene – a member of the “holy blood” line – was united by marriage or simple love affair with one of the first kings of the Frankish Merovingian Dynasty. The Merovingian Dynasty was the first royal house of France and, according to the legend of the Abbot of Sion, its ancestral root went back to ancient Israel. At this point, we must point out that, in the Western Middle Ages, many kings were accompanied by grandiose legends to make them seem superhuman in the eyes of their subjects and their opponents.

When the Merovingian Dynasty was succeeded by the Carolingian Dynasty, the secret “bloodline” of the Merovingians – always according to the mythological narrative of the Abbot of Sion – was preserved by the French aristocratic House of Lorraine. The head of the House of Lorraine, Godfrey de Bouillon, joined the First Crusade and, through the intervention of secret protectors of his bloodline, succeeded in becoming the first king of Jerusalem. These alleged secret patrons of Godfrey de Bouillon settled in an abbey or priory on Mount Sion and became known as the Abbot of Sion. They are supposed to have been the first creators of the Knights Templar Order.

The Abbot of Zion supposedly assigned the Knights Templar to dig in the area where the old Jewish Temple of Jerusalem stood, to supposedly find evidence of the Magdalene, or perhaps relics of Jesus, or even the Ark of the Covenant. In 1118, the Abbot of Sion and the Knights Templar were separated from each other and the latter, as the outer, visible, arm of the Abbot of Sion, suffered severe persecution from the Pope in 1307 and was disbanded. Since then, for about 600 years, the Abbot of Sion operated in absolute secrecy, using as its instruments other mystical societies, to preserve the secret of the “bloodline”, which was the real “Holy Grail” (the womb of Magdalene, from which the descendants of Jesus came from).

At the end of the 20th century, a Frenchman named Pierre de Plantard, who presented himself as a representative of the Abbot of Sion, began to publicize, through his interviews with the authors of the book Holy Blood Holy Grail, the existence of the Abbot of Sion . Plantar died in 2000 and since then only his legends and stories remain.

What really is the Priory of Sion?

Not only is it not a thousand-year-old mystical society of enormous importance and influence, but the original “Abbey of Sion” was founded in 1956 in France as a local pressure group, dealing with the government’s housing policy. In particular, on May 7, 1956, Pierre de Plantard, then living in the city of Annemasse, visited the provincial sub-prefecture in Saint-Julien-en-Genovois and entered in the company registers a non-profit company called “Abbey of Sion”. It was so named, not because it continued some secret tradition that had developed on Mount Zion in Israel, but because of the name of a local monastery near the town of Annemasse, and the purposes set forth in its charter were to support opposition candidates in local elections, with a request the improvement of the state’s housing policy.

In its short life, the Abbot of Sion published a few issues of a magazine under the title Circuit. The subjects of this magazine concerned the protection of the rights of those living in state-provided housing, as well as the adoption of new measures for water supply and the improvement of pavements. Plantar soon withdrew from this company, and after a while the “Abbey of Sion” was disbanded.

But how did this small, short-lived local interest company in a French country town inspire the legend of one of mankind’s oldest living mystical societies? The answer lies in Plantar himself.

Pierre Plantard was born in 1920 in Paris, the son of a butler and descendant of a 16th-century chestnut. From a young age, however, he showed signs of megalomania. In 1940, while living in Nazi-occupied Paris, Plantard attracted the attention of French authorities in the Vichy government when he wrote a letter to Field Marshal Pétain in which he claimed to have a force of 100 men who placed in the marshal’s service to end the war. According to the report compiled by the French intelligence services of the time about Plantard, Plantard was simply a fanciful and bigoted young man.

In the 1940s, Plantard created two small far-right groups – Rénovation Nationale Française and Alpha Gelates – and published a short-lived anti-Semitic paper called Vaincre. He was also pro-monarchist and at the same time began calling himself “Pierre Plantard de France” and claiming to be heir to the French throne.

During the post-war period, Plantar reinvented itself. This time, he claimed to be a member of the French Resistance against the Nazis. At some point during the 1950s, Plantard met Noël Corbu, who had created his own mythology about one of his ancestors, Abbé Bérenger Sonière, who he had been vicar at the Temple of Rennes-le-Chateau. From here on, the management of the fanciful and bigoted Plantar by dark circles of mystics and Sionists, either knowingly or unknowingly, begins.

Berenge Saunier, Corby’s ancestor, took up his duties as vicar of the Rennes-les-Chateau Temple in June 1885. Very soon, his strange behavior, the mystical symbols he placed inside the Rennes-le-Chateau Temple , as well as his close relationship with his faithful housekeeper Marie Denardo alienated the villagers. Also, although he received a meager fee from the Church, Saunier, within a very short time of his arrival at Rennes-le-Château, renovated the presbytery, built a personal tower and generally lived in luxury. According to Corby, Saunier had acquired enormous wealth due to a mysterious treasure that he had accidentally discovered, during maintenance work, in a crypt of the church in question and was connected to the medieval Cathar sect and Mary Magdalene.

But this story about the mysterious treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau was a work of fiction. In fact, Saunier had become a member of a mystical, neo-gnostic group of French Freemasonry and, through these circles, he met wealthy Frenchmen prone to occult fancies and ceremonies, to whom – in return for a pittance – he promised to perform special magical rites of communication and rest. of the souls of their dead loved ones. In this way, he collected a huge number of orders to perform these rituals (of the “necronomical” type), along with the corresponding sums of money. He never made any discovery of treasure or secret about the life of Jesus, nor did he even fulfill his obligations to those who paid him to perform his magical rites. When the Roman Catholic Church discovered Saunier’s continued fraud, it expelled him from its fold. But because of him, the legend of Rennes-le-Chateau was developed by Corby.

Inspired by Saunier’s story, Plantard teamed up with an eccentric nobleman, Phillipe de Cherisy, and together they created the tale of the supposed treasure Saunier discovered in the Temple of Rennes-le-Chateau. Specifically, they claimed that Saunier found evidence in the Temple of Rennes-le-Chateau that linked to the genealogy by which Plantard claimed to be heir to the French throne and also provided information about a mystical society that kept the secret of his bloodline successors. Jesus and which was called the Abbot of Sion. Plantard and de Serizy deposited these false facts in the National Library of Paris as a collection under the title Dossiers Secrets, in order to foster the development of a philology around the illusory history they had constructed.

Plantard and de Serizy then teamed up with author Gérard de Saint to “discover” the Secret Files in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and publicize the story they had created about the Abbey of Sion and Rennes-les-Chateau. . In 1967, Gérard de Saint did indeed publish a book based on the Secret Files, which, as mentioned above, was titled The Gold of Rennes-le-Chateau. However, soon after, Plantard and de Serizy broke off their collaboration with de Sed because they disagreed over the sharing of royalties. In the context of this conflict, de Serizy publicly admitted that the Secret Files and the story they told were the work of himself and Plantard. Plantard made the same statements as those of de Serizy to the French journalist and researcher Jean-Luc Chaumeil. However, Plantar later tried to recant, saying that the Secret Files were forgeries, but based on true original sources.

The whole story was resurrected from its ashes when Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh made a documentary for the BBC about Rennes-le-Chateau. Impressed by their contact with the tale of the treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau, Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh published their book Holy Blood Holy Grail, in which they presented the Plantar mythology as historical fact. This material was relied upon by Dan Brown to write his novel The Da Vinci Code and a large group of writers of fantasy and pseudo-historical fiction who sustain the trade of obscurantist literature.

Bohemian Club

In 1872, a group of five San Francisco journalists founded the Bohemian Club as an all-male social club. D.G. William, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has published a methodical sociological account of the Bohemian Grove (see D.G. William, The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling Class Cohesiveness, Harper and Row ed., 1974).

The Bohemian Club has developed into one of the most powerful mystical societies, closely linked to the US Republican Party and the American capitalist elite. Some of the most famous members of the Bohemian Club include: all the Republican presidents of the USA since Herbert Hoover (including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. and Jr.) and other prominent figures of the Republican Party, such as the following: William F. Buckley Jr, Frank Borman, Justin Dart, William Randolph Hearst Jr, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Newt Gingrich and others.

The meetings of the Bohemian Club are secret and are held at the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, about 70 miles north of San Francisco. In the Bohemian Grove, there is a giant owl totem, which is the badge of this club. Initiation into the Bohemian Club involves a special formality. At the meetings in the Bohemian Grove, many of the most powerful men in the US and a few other countries gather around the fire or walk along the shores of the lake in their private grove and discuss geopolitics, globalization and joint business initiatives, but mostly they all have fun together . Also, one of the most important customs of the Bohemian Club is that, at each of their meetings, the members of this club perform a play.

Manipulated ‘patriotic’ secret societies and false revelations

The know-how and mind-manipulating technologies developed by the Atlantic system were used, after the end of the Cold War, to control the new nationalism that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet space in general. In this context, from 1990 onwards, various legends were developed about prophecies with political significance and about secret patriotic organizations that, from the historical background, take care of people’s justice and possess super-technologies and great political and scientific power. These kinds of silly narratives have proven very effective in managing the imaginary large part of the social mass in various countries, especially in “transition” countries and countries in crisis.

For example, in Greece, such narratives are used to undermine, in a very cunning way, any strategic Greek-Russian political and cultural rapprochement. Specifically, through the production and artful circulation of ‘Greek-centric’ neo-mythologies, Atlantists connected to pro-NATO secret services and parastatal organizations (usually of Far Right identity) serve their following goals:

– They prevent the creation of a Greek-Russian geopolitical and cultural axis and direct the attention of a large part of the Greek ‘patriotic’ space to prophecies of popular ‘enlightened’ monks (according to which the demands of the Greek ‘patriotic’ space will be satisfied ‘miraculously’ and the Greeks will be, or should be, neutral between the Atlantic coalition and the Russian coalition) and in legends about secret Greek super-organizations and groups, so as to cause confusion and delusion (if not paranoia) in the ‘patriotic’ space and to prevent innocent members of the ‘patriotic’ space from learning the truth about geopolitics and neopolitics.

– They maintain the ‘patriotic’ space in a fundamentally friendly relationship with NATO and prevent the articulation of a serious alternative to NATO political and cultural discourse (e.g. various legends about the secret Hellenistic ‘Team E’ are used to maintain the Greek ‘ patriotic space in the Atlantist camp through the mythology that, within the Atlantean camp, e.g. in NASA, there are members of the supposedly Greek-loving secret “Team E”, who look after Greek interests and carry out geopolitical exploits through the Atlantists institutions).

– Confuse the masses with the ‘enemy-friend’ dichotomy by projecting and ‘analyzing’ imaginary ‘enemies’ (such as Weishaupt’s disbanded Illuminati order) as super-conspirators in order to prevent the masses from understand the real enemies, the real conspiracies and the secrets of political leadership and geopolitics.

– They seek to reap, manage and ultimately deconstruct or even ridicule positions of the Russian geopolitical school, Russian Diplomacy and the anti-Atlantic space in general. Various individuals, whether they are aware of the game they are playing or not, act as de facto NATO provocateurs within the ‘patriotic’ and ecclesiastical arena as they articulate a critique of the Atlantic ‘New World Order’, but what they actually do is to mix criticism of the Atlantic “New World Order” with ridiculous myths (often of a Hollywood aesthetic), inaccuracies and delusional texts, even with UFOlogy. In this sly way, they essentially discredit and ridicule the anti-Atlantic political space in the eyes of serious people and generally confuse public opinion. For example, in August 2013, many reports circulated on the Greek-language Internet according to which NATO did not intervene militarily in Syria because this war was prevented by the supposed “E Group”, acting within NATO itself, and not because the Russian Diplomacy.

Another method of misinforming and confusing the masses used by various provocateurs and propagandists in the context of their psychological operations is the hermeneutic abuse of symbolic religious texts and mixing them with additional imaginary elements. For example, David Icke, former England goalkeeper and BBC reporter, and Greek publisher and TV presenter Demosthenes Liakopoulos create various dramatic literary ‘cocktails’ of ancient legends and myths, symbolic theological writings of Christian Church Fathers and various fictional narratives belonging to the culture of the New Age movement, ignoring of course the methodological and epistemological problems posed in the context of academic theology, philosophy and social anthropology. In this way, the symbolic and prophetic texts of various cultures and religions, including the Greek Patrology, are ridiculed and abused, and books are published about strange beings, “reptilians”, “Nephilim”, Illuminati, etc. who conspire against humanity. What is achieved by this kind of obscurantist literature? On the one hand, heavy epistemological confusion and subconscious phobias are caused in the masses, on the other hand, instead of analyzing real political, economic and cultural conspiracies, instead of analyzing geopolitical and neo-political data and instead of analyzing real structures of exploitation of people, consciousnesses are directed to imaginary, non-existent worlds and in imaginary, non-existent beings and thus the established order of things is ultimately served.