Three hundred Masonic lodges work in Cuba
09 July 2009, 13:28
Moscow, July 9, Interfax - About 29 thousands Cubans are members of more than 300 Masonic lodges in various cities of the country and at the same time are actively involved in public work, humanitarian and charitable projects.
Ethnic composition of Masonic lodges is very diverse as well as Cuban population in general. Majority of "Freemasons" - over 9 thousand people - live in Havana. Masons act freely, each person can confess that he is a Mason of his own free will, the Tribuna paper has cited Grand Secretary of Cuban Masons Alberto William Rojas Aguilar as saying on Thursday.
Masonic lodges crept over all Cuban provinces in the late 18th century, representatives of elite mostly joint them. Role of Masons was especially significant in the Cuban liberation movement. Before socialism, Masons actively participated in the government, though according to the Grand Secretary, today there is no masons in executive power of Cuba.
"Freemasons" donated money to construct the main Masonic church in Havana in 1955. After the revolution, Masonic property was partly nationalized, the number of Masons abruptly reduced. However, the Masonic church was not closed, offices of several ministries are located there.
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6206
Showing posts with label Freemasonry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freemasonry. Show all posts
May 15, 2010
March 23, 2010
Death of the West: The Cultural Revolution
Note from TTHC: The following review came from the blog Victory or Death back in 2007.
A while ago I finished reading Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan. I was not familiar with the author prior to reading the book, and would in all likelihood not have come across his book had a close friend not urged me to read it. I'm glad I did read it, and for a number of reasons which I will endeavor to share with you. It discusses a number of crucial issues which may be summarized as the following: a dying population, mass immigration, an anti-Christian culture, and 'the breakup of nations and the defections of the ruling elites to a world government whose rise entails the end of nations'. I intend to post about all of those issues but if I'm to give each area the proper attention I'm going to have to do it one by one. So I'll start with the cultural revolution. This post is actually less of a review, and more of a summary. I quote Buchanan at length, and keep my commentary to a minimum, so as to keep the post as short as possible (even so its pretty long). First things first though; although I think the book is immensely useful when it comes to explaining certain things, it does have some drawbacks, so I'll start with them.
Drawbacks
There are 4 main faults. First is the use of the term Judao-Christian throughout the book. Although the author is not a Christian Zionist he persists in using the phrase and I can only assume that he is covering his back after having been accused of being an anti-Semite many times. Therefore since he is already bringing up very controversial issues such as the cultural revolution (and naming Jewish names), and promoting Christian values, he feels a need to temper the possible fallout and not rock the boat even more. Usually the nonchalant use of the term bothers me, but in the context of the information and values he conveys in his book, I'm willing to overlook it in this instance.
Secondly, being an American, a large portion of the book is understandably devoted to examining American problems and possible solutions. While I found his information and thoughts interesting, I confess that I have no emotional attachment to America. Even though it has patently been hijacked for malevolent means, I don't have much affinity for the founding fathers or the Old America. If Buchanan thinks America can climb out of the present hole it has dug for itself then good luck to him. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm more concerned with Europe, and most of all with Orthodox nations.
Thirdly, being an ex-Presidential candidate, and Republican, Buchanan does show some flicker of hope in the democratic process and even his former party. To his credit he does ravage Republican policy, Republican politicians, the political and judicial system, but out of some sort of nostalgia or wishful thinking, hopes that the situation can be reversed using the democratic process. That after he spent the whole book outlining that the media, political, educational institutions are all firmly tied up in the hands of those he opposes.
Fourthly he talks in broad terms about the West without really giving a definition.
Cultural Revolution
Buchanan starts off by stating that America has 'undergone a cultural revolution, with a new elite now occupying the commanding heights.' He observes: 'What was immoral and shameful- promiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, suicide- has become progressive and praiseworthy'.
He traces the start of this revolution to 1914, which in my opinion doesn't go back far enough, but in his analysis of the situation from that moment on, he brings up some very interesting points. He describes how during WW1, that apart from in Russia, the workers had failed to rally to the revolutions launched in their name. Nothing the marxists had predicted had come to pass. Two of Marx's disciples advanced an explanation: 'they had not risen in revolution because their souls had been saturated in two thousand years of Christianity, which blinded them to their true class interests.' Until Christianity were uprooted the revolution would be betrayed by the workers in whose name it was to be fought.
The first 'dissenting disciple' was Hungarian Georg Lukacs who had the following solution to the problem: 'I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution. A worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries'. As deputy commissar for culture in the Hungarian communist regime, Lukacs put his self-described 'demonic' ideas into action in what came to be known as 'cultural terrorism'. Buchanan summarises:
As part of this terrorism he instituted a radical sex education program in Hungarian schools. Children were instructed in free love, sexual intercourse, the archaic nature of middle-class family codes, the outdatedness of monogamy, and the irrelevance of religion, which deprives man of all pleasures.
The second disciple was Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist who had seen that Bolshevism did not work, and that the regime could only compel obedience through terror.
A while ago I finished reading Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan. I was not familiar with the author prior to reading the book, and would in all likelihood not have come across his book had a close friend not urged me to read it. I'm glad I did read it, and for a number of reasons which I will endeavor to share with you. It discusses a number of crucial issues which may be summarized as the following: a dying population, mass immigration, an anti-Christian culture, and 'the breakup of nations and the defections of the ruling elites to a world government whose rise entails the end of nations'. I intend to post about all of those issues but if I'm to give each area the proper attention I'm going to have to do it one by one. So I'll start with the cultural revolution. This post is actually less of a review, and more of a summary. I quote Buchanan at length, and keep my commentary to a minimum, so as to keep the post as short as possible (even so its pretty long). First things first though; although I think the book is immensely useful when it comes to explaining certain things, it does have some drawbacks, so I'll start with them.
Drawbacks
There are 4 main faults. First is the use of the term Judao-Christian throughout the book. Although the author is not a Christian Zionist he persists in using the phrase and I can only assume that he is covering his back after having been accused of being an anti-Semite many times. Therefore since he is already bringing up very controversial issues such as the cultural revolution (and naming Jewish names), and promoting Christian values, he feels a need to temper the possible fallout and not rock the boat even more. Usually the nonchalant use of the term bothers me, but in the context of the information and values he conveys in his book, I'm willing to overlook it in this instance.
Secondly, being an American, a large portion of the book is understandably devoted to examining American problems and possible solutions. While I found his information and thoughts interesting, I confess that I have no emotional attachment to America. Even though it has patently been hijacked for malevolent means, I don't have much affinity for the founding fathers or the Old America. If Buchanan thinks America can climb out of the present hole it has dug for itself then good luck to him. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm more concerned with Europe, and most of all with Orthodox nations.
Thirdly, being an ex-Presidential candidate, and Republican, Buchanan does show some flicker of hope in the democratic process and even his former party. To his credit he does ravage Republican policy, Republican politicians, the political and judicial system, but out of some sort of nostalgia or wishful thinking, hopes that the situation can be reversed using the democratic process. That after he spent the whole book outlining that the media, political, educational institutions are all firmly tied up in the hands of those he opposes.
Fourthly he talks in broad terms about the West without really giving a definition.
Cultural Revolution
Buchanan starts off by stating that America has 'undergone a cultural revolution, with a new elite now occupying the commanding heights.' He observes: 'What was immoral and shameful- promiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, suicide- has become progressive and praiseworthy'.
He traces the start of this revolution to 1914, which in my opinion doesn't go back far enough, but in his analysis of the situation from that moment on, he brings up some very interesting points. He describes how during WW1, that apart from in Russia, the workers had failed to rally to the revolutions launched in their name. Nothing the marxists had predicted had come to pass. Two of Marx's disciples advanced an explanation: 'they had not risen in revolution because their souls had been saturated in two thousand years of Christianity, which blinded them to their true class interests.' Until Christianity were uprooted the revolution would be betrayed by the workers in whose name it was to be fought.
The first 'dissenting disciple' was Hungarian Georg Lukacs who had the following solution to the problem: 'I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution. A worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries'. As deputy commissar for culture in the Hungarian communist regime, Lukacs put his self-described 'demonic' ideas into action in what came to be known as 'cultural terrorism'. Buchanan summarises:
As part of this terrorism he instituted a radical sex education program in Hungarian schools. Children were instructed in free love, sexual intercourse, the archaic nature of middle-class family codes, the outdatedness of monogamy, and the irrelevance of religion, which deprives man of all pleasures.
The second disciple was Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist who had seen that Bolshevism did not work, and that the regime could only compel obedience through terror.
Gramsci concluded it was their Christian souls that prevented the Russian people from embracing their Communist revolution. 'The civilized world had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2000 years', Gramsci wrote; and a regime grounded in Judeo-Christian beliefs and values could not be overthrown until those roots were cut... Marxists must first de-Christianize the West.
Rather than seize power first and impose a cultural revolution from above, Gramsci argued, Marxists in the West must first change the culture; then power would fall into their laps like ripened fruit. But to change the culture would require a 'long march through the institutions'- the arts, cinema, theater, schools, colleges, seminaries, newspapers, magazines, and the new electronic medium, radio. One by one, each had to be captured and converted and politicized into an agency of revolution. Then the people could be slowly educated to understand even welcome the revolution. Gramsci urged his fellow Marxists to form popular fronts with Western intellectuals who shared their contempt for Christianity and bourgeois culture and who shaped the minds of the young.
On the cover of his 1970 runaway bestseller The Greening of America, the manifesto of the counterculture, author Charles Reich parroted Gramsci perfectly: There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted with violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions, and social structure are changing in consequence... This is the revolution of the new generation.
In 1923, Lukacs and members of the German Communist party set up, at Frankfurt University, an Institute for Marxism modelled on the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow which would come to be known as the Frankfurt School. The Jewish Max Horkheimer became its director.
At Horkheimer's direction, the Frankfurt School began to retranslate Marxism into cultural terms...To old Marxists the enemy was capitalism; to new Marxists, the enemy was Western culture... Victory would come only after Christian beliefs had died in the soul of Western man. And that would happen only after the institutions of culture and education had been captured and conscripted by allies and agents of the revolution.
The following extract from the book could easily be passed over by many, but it is telling:
...in 1933, history rudely intruded. Adolf Hitler ascended to power in Berlin, and as the leading lights of the Frankfurt School were Jewish and Marxist, they were not a good fit for the Third Reich. The Frankfurt School packed its ideology and fled to America.
Two of the more famous Jews were Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno (who changed his surname from Wiesengrund). Among the new weapons of cultural conflict that the Frankfurt School was to develop was Critical Theory. One student described it as the 'essentially destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism'.
Under Critical Theory, one repeats that Western societies are history's greatest repositories of racism, sexism, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-semitism, fascism, and Nazism. Under critical theory, the crimes of the West flow from the character of the West, as shaped by Christianity...Critical Theory eventually induces 'cultural pessimism', a sense of alienation, of hopelessness, of despair where, even though prosperous and free, a people comes to see its society and country as oppressive, evil and unworthy of loyalty or love. The new Marxists considered cultural pessimism a necessary precondition of revolutionary change.
They flatly asserted that individuals raised in families dominated by the father, who are flag-waving patriots and follow the old-time religion, are incipient fascists and potential Nazis. As a conservative Christian culture breeds fascism, those deeply immersed in such a culture must be closely watched for fascist tendencies.... As early as the mid-1960s, conservatives and authority figures who denounced or opposed the campus revolution were routinely branded 'fascists'. Baby boomers were unknowingly following a script that ran parallel to the party line laid down by the Moscow Central Committee in 1943:
Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When obstructionists become too irritating, label them a fascist, or Nazi or anti-Semitic...The association will, after enough repetition, become 'fact' in the public mind.
Since the 1960s, branding opponents as haters or mentally sick has been the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the left.
During the 1950s, the Frankfurt School lacked a personality to popularize the ideas buried in the glutinous prose of Horkheimer and Adorno. Enter Herbert Marcuse. (Editors note: another Jew)
Marcuse provided the answer to Horkheimer's question: Who will play the role of the proletariat in the coming cultural revolution? Marcuse's candidates: radical youth, feminists, black militants, homosexuals, the alienated, the asocial, Third World revolutionaries, all the angry voices of the persecuted 'victims' of the West.
Past societies had been subverted by words and books, but Marcuse believed that sex and drugs were superior weapons. In Eros and Civilization, Marcuse urged a universal embrace of the Pleasure Principle. Reject the cultural order entirely, said Marcuse, and we can create a world of 'polymorphous perversity'.
For cultural Marxists, no cause ranked higher than the abolition of the family, which they despised as a dictatorship and the incubator of sexism and social injustice... Wilhelm Reich believed the way to destroy the family was through revolutionary sexual politics and early sex education. The appearance of sex education in elementary schools in America owes a debt to Lukacs, Reich and the Frankfurt School.
In the death of the West, the Frankfurt School must be held as a prime suspect and principal accomplice. The propaganda assault on the family it advocated has contributed to the collapse of the family.
The pill and condom have become the hammer and sickle of the cultural revolution.
In a third of a century, what was denounced as the counterculture has become the dominant culture, and what was the dominant culture has become, in Gertrude Himmelfarb's (Editors note: yet another Jew) phrase, a 'dissident culture'. We see it in the mandatory requirement for 'sensitivity training' in the military, in business, and in government. Turn on the TV and observe. The values of the revolution dominate the medium. Political correctness rules. Defiance of our new orthodoxy qualifies as 'hate speech', disrespect for its dogmas as a sign of mental sickness.
Political correctness is cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy.
People who today accept these ideas 'cannot know that they were hatched in a Marxist nursery in Weimar Germany' or that their purpose was to 'subvert our culture and overturn our civilization'.
Why they succeeded
Buchanan proposes a number of elements that came together:
First was 'the message in a bottle', as the men of the Frankfurt School called their ideas.
Second, there arrived on campus, beginning in 1964, a huge cohort of youth who had known niether hardship nor war. The cultural revolution now had a huge, captive, and receptive audience. Spoiled and affluent, carefree, confident, liberated, and bored, these young people were ready for rebellion.
Third, 1960s television could convey the tactics and triumphs of campus radicals and urban revolutionaries instantly to their peers.
Through its control of the culture, the Left dictates not only the answers, but the questions asked. In short, it controls the cosmological apparatus by which most Americans comprehend the meaning of events. This cosmology is based on two great axioms: the first is that there are no absolute values in the universe, no standards of ugliness, good and evil. The second axiom is- in a Godless universe- the Left holds moral superiority as the final arbiter of man's activities.
I'll end today's commentary with a rousing quote:
Political adversaries who use terms like Nazi, fascist, anti-Semite, nativist, homophone, bigot, xenophobe, and extremist have started a fight and should be accommodated.
I'll add that its time, not to be silenced, but to take their 'Critical Theory' and shove it right back in their faces with the same gusto that they try to shove it into ours. Two can play the game of constant repetition and demonisation, and since the truth is not on the side of those degenerates, we can beat that at their own game!
April 27, 2009
Who's Behind Freemasonry?
"The Kabalah is indeed of the essence of Freemasonry." -- co-Mason Helena P. Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge" by Ankerberg and Weldon, page 236
"Freemasonry is kabbalism in another garb." -- Freemason F. De P. Castelle, "The Genuine Secrets of Freemasony Prior to A.D. 1717, according to secondary source "Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star" by Dr. Cathy Burns, page 263
"Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences." -- Albert Pike, 33rd Degree Mason, as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge" by Ankerberg and Weldon, page 219
"The Jewish mysteries are the source of our present tradition of which was carried to Rome, and thence passed down through the Collegia into the mediaveal guilds, finally emerging in the eighteenth century in the speculative rituals fo the Craft degrees, in the Holy Royal Arch and the degree of Mark Master Mason, and in those of other emblems and ceremonies..." -- Freemason C.W. Leadbeater, "Freemasonry and its Ancient Mystic Rites, page 77
"The whole basis of our theory is the Qabalah...." -- Aleister Crowley, Freemason and father of modern satanism as quoted in Craig Heimbichner's "Blood On The Altar", page 116; primary source is "Magic In Theory and Practice" by the self-professed "Beast-666" himself, Crowley.
"....the theories of Qabbalism are inextricably interwoven with the tenets of alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry." -- 33rd Degree Freemason Manly Palmer Hall, as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," by Ankerberg and Weldon, page 220
"...in the Kabbala we find fragments of the symbolic knowledge which was once the exclusive property of the initiates. So close are the analogiews between certain of the doctrines of the Kabbala and those of the earlier degrees of Masonry, that it has been supposed that Kabbalistic students were responsible for the introduction of speculative Masonry into our modern Craft. The student of occultism does not hold this veiw, for he knows that our speculative rituals belong in substance to a far older past than the eighteenth century, and that they perpetuate the tradition of the Jews, who derived it from the Mysteries of Egypt. He sees in the Kabbala a written and exoteric portiion of certain teachings belonging to the Jews, though handed down...." - Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites, Freemason C.W. Leadbeater, page 73
"The Cabala may be defined to be a system of philosophy which embraces certain mystical interpretations of Scripture, and metaphysical and spiritual beings... Much use is made of it in the advanced degrees, and entire Rites have been constructed on its principles." -- Freemason Albert Mackey, "Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry," as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," page 220
"Masonry cannot be fully appreciated or understood without knowledge of the Qabalist Tree of Life..." -- Paul Foster case, Freemason and Golden Dawn member, considered to be the outstanding authority of Tarot, Qbalah, Alchemy, and other occult topics, as quoted by Dr. Cathy Burns, "Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star, page 263
"...all Masonic associations owe to it [Kabala] their secrets and their symbols." --Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic, as quoted from secondary source, "Fallen Angel" by Thomas Friend on page 241 [brackets mine; Levi was a 19th century Freemason and black majician, whose works were plaigarized by infamous Freemason, Albert Pike, according to Freemason Manly Hall.]
"The true philosophy, known and practised by Soloman, is the basis on which Masonry is founded." -- Albert Pike, Freemason of the 33rd and last Degree, "Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry", 1871, L.H. Jenkins Inc., p. 785. "According to Talmudic legends, Solomon understood the mysteries of the Qabbalah. He was also a necromancer, being able to summon demons." -- Manly P. Hall, 33rd Degree Freemason, "The Secret Teachings of All Ages", p. 566.
"Freemasonry is founded upon the activities of this secret society of Central European adepts, whom the studious Mason will find to be the definite 'link' between the modern Craft and the Ancient Wisdom. The outer body of Masonic philosophy was merely the veil of this qabbalistic order whose members were the custodians of the true Arcanum." -- 33rd Degree Freemason Manly Palmer Hall, "Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins
"The basis of the Western occultism of medieval is the Kabbalah of the medieval Hebrew Rabbis." William Wynn Westcott, a Freemason, "The Rosicrucians: Past and Present, At Home and Abroad, an Address to the Soc. Rosic. In Anglia
"That great Kabbilistical association known in Europe under the name of Masonry appeared suddenly in the world when the revolt against the Church had just succeeded in dismembering Christian unity." -- Eliphas Levi, Freemason, black magician and Cabalist, author of "Trancendental Magic", "Mysteries of the Qabalah", and "The History of Magic", from whence this quote was derived, page 283, here notes that Freemasonry is a Cabalist institution and suggests that it became public in consequence of the wreckage of Christian unity that followed in the wake of the Reformation, which it likely had no small part in effecting in this author's opinion.
"Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us dire- ctly back, as you see, to the Kaballah." -- Freemason Albert Pike, 33rd Degree, as quoted in Ankerberg and Weldon's excellent book, "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," page 217
"Judaism is one of the oldest living estoteric traditions in the world. Virtually every form of Western mysticism and spiritualism known today draws upon Jewish mythic and occult teachings--magic, angelology, alchemy, numerology, astral projection, dream interpretation, astrology, amulets, divination, altered states of consciousness, alternate healing and rituals of power--all have roots in the Jewish occult." -- Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, xi, 2007, Llewellyn Publications,
"Freemasonry is kabbalism in another garb." -- Freemason F. De P. Castelle, "The Genuine Secrets of Freemasony Prior to A.D. 1717, according to secondary source "Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star" by Dr. Cathy Burns, page 263
"Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences." -- Albert Pike, 33rd Degree Mason, as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge" by Ankerberg and Weldon, page 219
"The Jewish mysteries are the source of our present tradition of which was carried to Rome, and thence passed down through the Collegia into the mediaveal guilds, finally emerging in the eighteenth century in the speculative rituals fo the Craft degrees, in the Holy Royal Arch and the degree of Mark Master Mason, and in those of other emblems and ceremonies..." -- Freemason C.W. Leadbeater, "Freemasonry and its Ancient Mystic Rites, page 77
"The whole basis of our theory is the Qabalah...." -- Aleister Crowley, Freemason and father of modern satanism as quoted in Craig Heimbichner's "Blood On The Altar", page 116; primary source is "Magic In Theory and Practice" by the self-professed "Beast-666" himself, Crowley.
"....the theories of Qabbalism are inextricably interwoven with the tenets of alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry." -- 33rd Degree Freemason Manly Palmer Hall, as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," by Ankerberg and Weldon, page 220
"...in the Kabbala we find fragments of the symbolic knowledge which was once the exclusive property of the initiates. So close are the analogiews between certain of the doctrines of the Kabbala and those of the earlier degrees of Masonry, that it has been supposed that Kabbalistic students were responsible for the introduction of speculative Masonry into our modern Craft. The student of occultism does not hold this veiw, for he knows that our speculative rituals belong in substance to a far older past than the eighteenth century, and that they perpetuate the tradition of the Jews, who derived it from the Mysteries of Egypt. He sees in the Kabbala a written and exoteric portiion of certain teachings belonging to the Jews, though handed down...." - Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites, Freemason C.W. Leadbeater, page 73
"The Cabala may be defined to be a system of philosophy which embraces certain mystical interpretations of Scripture, and metaphysical and spiritual beings... Much use is made of it in the advanced degrees, and entire Rites have been constructed on its principles." -- Freemason Albert Mackey, "Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry," as quoted from secondary source "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," page 220
"Masonry cannot be fully appreciated or understood without knowledge of the Qabalist Tree of Life..." -- Paul Foster case, Freemason and Golden Dawn member, considered to be the outstanding authority of Tarot, Qbalah, Alchemy, and other occult topics, as quoted by Dr. Cathy Burns, "Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star, page 263
"...all Masonic associations owe to it [Kabala] their secrets and their symbols." --Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic, as quoted from secondary source, "Fallen Angel" by Thomas Friend on page 241 [brackets mine; Levi was a 19th century Freemason and black majician, whose works were plaigarized by infamous Freemason, Albert Pike, according to Freemason Manly Hall.]
"The true philosophy, known and practised by Soloman, is the basis on which Masonry is founded." -- Albert Pike, Freemason of the 33rd and last Degree, "Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry", 1871, L.H. Jenkins Inc., p. 785. "According to Talmudic legends, Solomon understood the mysteries of the Qabbalah. He was also a necromancer, being able to summon demons." -- Manly P. Hall, 33rd Degree Freemason, "The Secret Teachings of All Ages", p. 566.
"Freemasonry is founded upon the activities of this secret society of Central European adepts, whom the studious Mason will find to be the definite 'link' between the modern Craft and the Ancient Wisdom. The outer body of Masonic philosophy was merely the veil of this qabbalistic order whose members were the custodians of the true Arcanum." -- 33rd Degree Freemason Manly Palmer Hall, "Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins
"The basis of the Western occultism of medieval is the Kabbalah of the medieval Hebrew Rabbis." William Wynn Westcott, a Freemason, "The Rosicrucians: Past and Present, At Home and Abroad, an Address to the Soc. Rosic. In Anglia
"That great Kabbilistical association known in Europe under the name of Masonry appeared suddenly in the world when the revolt against the Church had just succeeded in dismembering Christian unity." -- Eliphas Levi, Freemason, black magician and Cabalist, author of "Trancendental Magic", "Mysteries of the Qabalah", and "The History of Magic", from whence this quote was derived, page 283, here notes that Freemasonry is a Cabalist institution and suggests that it became public in consequence of the wreckage of Christian unity that followed in the wake of the Reformation, which it likely had no small part in effecting in this author's opinion.
"Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us dire- ctly back, as you see, to the Kaballah." -- Freemason Albert Pike, 33rd Degree, as quoted in Ankerberg and Weldon's excellent book, "Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge," page 217
"Judaism is one of the oldest living estoteric traditions in the world. Virtually every form of Western mysticism and spiritualism known today draws upon Jewish mythic and occult teachings--magic, angelology, alchemy, numerology, astral projection, dream interpretation, astrology, amulets, divination, altered states of consciousness, alternate healing and rituals of power--all have roots in the Jewish occult." -- Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, xi, 2007, Llewellyn Publications,
Darwinism: Then and Now
by Erik G. Magro Aug. 16th, 2005
The Victorian Age in England was a time of dramatic changes, new inventions, the Industrial Revolution, and an introduction to new ideologies, all of which would transform the way significant portions of society lived and thought of life forever. The overwhelming external changes in daily life during this period would match in intensity the nature of changes happening in the internal lives of the public. Charles Darwin, as a naturalist, helped usher in this change after a long voyage to the South Seas where he observed several widely unknown species. In 1859, a year after his return, he presented his observations in a book, The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In it he deduced from their widely diverse natures a common thread that linked all species to a single ancestor; the Theory of Evolution as he called the phenomenon soon became a household word and stirred up massive controversy and debate, still resounding today. The implications of Darwin's theory created a deep divide in culture, a conflict of natural versus supernatural order. Not only did it offer an alternate account of the genesis of life from the Old Testament, but it also gave a sense of moral freedom from the divine Creator and His judgment; it became a cause unto itself in society among leaders in political and industrial circles, effecting science and academia. Darwinism, as the collection of theories was called, changed the course of man's history forever.
The Victorian Age in England was a time of dramatic changes, new inventions, the Industrial Revolution, and an introduction to new ideologies, all of which would transform the way significant portions of society lived and thought of life forever. The overwhelming external changes in daily life during this period would match in intensity the nature of changes happening in the internal lives of the public. Charles Darwin, as a naturalist, helped usher in this change after a long voyage to the South Seas where he observed several widely unknown species. In 1859, a year after his return, he presented his observations in a book, The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In it he deduced from their widely diverse natures a common thread that linked all species to a single ancestor; the Theory of Evolution as he called the phenomenon soon became a household word and stirred up massive controversy and debate, still resounding today. The implications of Darwin's theory created a deep divide in culture, a conflict of natural versus supernatural order. Not only did it offer an alternate account of the genesis of life from the Old Testament, but it also gave a sense of moral freedom from the divine Creator and His judgment; it became a cause unto itself in society among leaders in political and industrial circles, effecting science and academia. Darwinism, as the collection of theories was called, changed the course of man's history forever.
In the immediate aftermath of unleashing the evolution theory to the public, the common man was faced with a choice of how to look at life and live it. Among those exposed to these choices were some of the most important men in the business community, men who could, with their influence of wealth and power, determine the lifestyles of the middle class population by means of their product prices, work policies, and wages in the factories they owned. A staunch supporter of evolution, Herbert Spencer, developed the social application of Darwinism, which was highly influential on the practices of such powerful moguls. The ideology was known as Social Darwinism and made use of the models Darwin used to describe evolution in nature, namely, survival of the fittest and natural selection. These orders of development were the philosophical basis that publicly justified the methods factory owners were already applying in their businesses to stay competitive. As leaders of industry, they believed they had the right to impose whatever treatment they saw fit for those below them on the social ladder.
Social Darwinism reduced society to the rule of the jungle in a sense. Man became a commodity, a worker bee to be exploited by a stronger species - as opposed to a sacred being made in the image of God. Soon larger segments of society in Europe and America suffered brutal working conditions throughout most of the Industrial Revolution. Extremely long hours, puny wages, underage workers, little or no benefits, and broken spirits were the rule of the day. The strong words of activist Annie Besant give testimony of the desperate frustration during this time: "Oh if we had but a people's Dante, to make a special circle in the Inferno for those who live on the misery, and suck wealth out of the starvation of helpless girls" (1717).
Once the tremendous hardships were no longer bearable, public attention eventually organized successfully to agitate reform in labor laws and would soon influence other industrialized countries around the world like America, Germany, and France, opening the door for further progress in the workplace effecting workers even today. Whether or not they were conscious of it, by the masses taking such actions they were in essence rejecting the precepts of Darwinism: a great instance of irony, as they were popular during this time.
Even as the materialism and dialectic principles were known and influential among the ruling and elite classes long before the Victorian Age, thinkers like Darwin, Malthus, and Spencer repackaged and updated them with new observations and analysis of the natural world and society, helping to popularize them among intellectual spheres and civilians. Once these widely shared worldviews were politicized, new forms of government emerged employing many of the perceived scientific principles described by evolutionists. Two very important shapers of political thought during this time were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They believed Social Darwinism provided a way to perfect mankind behaviorally and socially. Marx even offered to dedicate his first volume of Das Kapital to Darwin. Darwin's book had given God's presence "the death-blow," he exulted to fellow socialist, Lassalle (Marx). By enhancing Socialism with Darwinism, Communism emerged as a powerful movement led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, later wrenching control of Russia in the Revolution of 1917. All land, materials, and biological (including human) resources became property of the state. Lenin implemented social programs and began starving and slaughtering whole societies whom he regarded as herds of animals. He was encouraged by the deaths of millions and believed people would lose faith in God and turn more to socialism. To survive the famine, many turned to cannibalism. Lenin's ideology was inspired by Darwin's Origin of Species: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows" (Darwin 1886). As Darwinism spread throughout Europe, violence was legitimized under the "struggle for existence" theory. As Austro-Hungarian chief of staff, Franz Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorff wrote in his post-war memoirs: "It is in accordance with this great principle that the catastrophe of the World War came about as the result of the motive forces in the lives of states and peoples--" (qtd. in Joll 164).
Following in Lenin's footsteps, Stalin took control of Soviet Russia. Earlier in life, right before Stalin became a priest he read Origin of Species, and his life quickly changed; he became atheist and joined the Bolsheviks. As dictator, he executed scientists who rejected evolution and the projects developed from it, like soaking seeds in cold water for long periods of time expecting them to adapt to the low temperatures in Russia. As a result, 9 million starved to death and cannibalism once again turned humans into wild savages. During Stalin's reign, 40 million died at his hands, more than the 25 million that died fighting Nazi Germany. The system of Communism paved the way for other disciples of Marxist-Leninist-Darwinism to rise to power in Asia, such as Mao Zedong. After Darwin's work was translated in 1895 into Chinese, many believed constant violence was how evolution occurred. Under Mao, 40 million starved in his Great Leap Forward social program, 78 million in general. Communism eventually spread into surrounding North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cambodia, dragging America into strung out bloody guerilla wars with the terrorist regimes. Today, these ideologies still exist - effecting world politics in no small measure - and make Evolution mandatory learning in the education system, force families apart premised on views that humans as advanced apes do not need them, or religion and ethics, and instead must show loyalty only to the state as the highest authority.
Fascist forms of government indoctrinate the same concepts of Darwinism as Communist governments. Mussolini and Hitler were great advocates of Darwin and Spencer's work. Hitler's National Socialist German Worker's (Nazi) Party combined their deep mystical beliefs with Darwinism to inspire a grandiose vision of world conquest, leading the globe into a new age of enlightenment. Anyone who did not conform to Hitler's ideas of the model citizen were rounded up and executed as inferior races that were holding back the rest of society from evolving. Professor of modern European History, Richard Weikart reviewing his book, From Darwin to Hitler, says "Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis" (Weikart).
Every major war and revolution from the Victorian Age onward has its catalyst rooted in the dialectical-materialism philosophy known as Evolution. Today these concepts are found in Communist regimes and the western world. In the US, Communist activism broke out on the streets and college campuses during the 60s and 70s in war protests, and in general counter-culture movements under the cloak of various civil rights movements such as feminism and often with the radical motives of breaking up families. In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy exposed many high-level Communists working in various posts in Washington D.C. Many of the accusations were false, but many were supported, including the allegation that elements within the US were funding Mao's regime. Professor Antony Sutton exposed the false dichotomy of Capitalism versus Communism by documenting how Wall Street and centralized banks created the Soviet superpower threat (Sutton). Neoconservatives such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rove fill key positions in the current US administration, and Irving Kristol, a disciple of Leon Trotsky (one of Lenin's top officers), founded Neoconservatism in the 1980s. Kristol explains: "Ever since I can remember, I've been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative;" ("New York"). On top of this, national archives in the US detail how Wall Street banker, senator, and grandfather of George W. Bush, Prescott Bush, underscored the Nazi war machine and several major US corporations were contracted to build it (Aris and Campbell). Yale's secret society, Skull and Bones, was founded in 1832 by W. Russell, a member of a Germanic cult linked to the Thule Society, later morphing into the Nazi party (Sawyer). From Prescott to George W., the Bushes have been members of S&B, a.k.a. the Death's Head - death as the means to advance man's evolution through "struggle for existence". The ideologies of Fascist-Communism, thus, Social Darwinism, grip the US establishment today.
The long-winding path of Darwinism has an unmistakable imprint on the course of history since the Victorian Age and affects the globe today. The conflict of the natural evolution versus the supernatural creation of man will continue as long as the ideas do. Whether the world's remaining free peoples will abandon the laws of God and acquiesce under the mantras and slogans of socialist shills depends on the success of transnational corporations and the revolving door into the highest world councils that they co-opt. This global plutocracy via world banking and the IMF directs world governments, economies, mass media, education, resources, religion, and planetary conflict to push for the next step in man's evolution: a New World Order.
Works Cited
- Aris, Ben, and Campbell, Duncan. "How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power." Guardian Unlimited 25 Sept. 2004. 18 Mar. 2005.
- Besant, Annie. "The 'White Slavery' of London Match Workers." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh ed. Vol. 2. Eds. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. 1715-17.
- Darwin, Charles. "From Origin of Species." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh ed. Vol. 2. Eds. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. 1679-86.
- Joll, James. Europe Since 1870: An International History. Middlesex, Lnd: Penguin Books, 1990.
- Marx, Karl. Letter. Marxist Internet Archive. 1942. International Publishers. 16 Mar. 2005.
- "New York Intellectuals." 1999. PBS Online. 18 Mar. 2005.
- Sawyer, Roy. "Skull and Bones, Bush's Nazi Link." Fathermag.com. 4 Jan. 2002. 18 Mar. 2005.
- Sutton, Antony. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books, 1974. 18 Mar. 2005.
- Weikart, Richard. "Dustjacket Blurb." From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. 17 Dec. 2004. CSU. 16 Mar. 2005.
April 03, 2009
Freemasonry in Greece
By Ioannis Michaletos 9/28/2006 (Balkanalysis.com)
A topic insufficiently researched in Greece nowadays is the existence and historical progression of freemasonry in the country. Great debates occur whenever this theme is mentioned, with conspiracy theorists doing their best to blame all of the misfortunes of the Greek state on the existence of the lodges. This article will examine briefly the intriguing and little-known history of freemasonry in the Greek world, as it has unfolded over the past two centuries.
The Early Days: Venetian Influence and the Spirit of Revolution
The first Freemason’s Lodge in Greece was created in 1782 on Corfu. At the time, the island was still under Venetian rule, while most of the rest of Greece was occupied by the Ottomans. The Lodge’s name was “Beneficenza” and was under the direction of the Grand Lodge of Verona, based in Padova, Italy. During that period there were quite a few Greek people residing or studying in Northern Italy, and they were the ones who formed the nucleus of the first Greek lodge; soon they would spread the organizational structure of Freemasonry all around the Greek diaspora in Europe.
In 1790 in Vienna an organization similar in some respects to the Masons was formed by Greek merchants and intellectuals. It was called “Bon Cuisins,” and was presumably associated with the Greek pre-revolutionary intellectual Rigas Feraios, one of the leading figures in spreading revolutionary idea among those Greeks still under the Turkish occupation. This era was one of intellectual ferment, following the American and French revolutions, and thus offered an excellent environment for the dissemination of new ideas. This ideological development would ultimately lead to the dissolution of the world of empires and the emergence of the nation-state.
In the case of Greece, it seems that the lodges became veritable repositories of knowledge, where the information and ideals needed to start an uprising were collected and shared with a select few. Usually, these were Greeks of the diaspora who had the intellectual capacity, as well as the capital, to take the first decisive revolutionary actions.
After 1789, a series of Masonic lodges opened throughout the Heptanisa (“seven islands”) off of the western Greek coast, islands such as Corfu, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Ithaka, Zakinthos. At that time, these represented the only area in the Hellenic world in relative peace and prosperity, being as they were under Venetian control.
In 1810, one of the leading figures of Corfu, Dionysios Romas, merged together the two existing local lodges, Filogenia and Agathoergia and thus created the Grand Anatolian Lodge of Hellas and Corfu. After this event, Masonic lodges mushroomed across the Hellenic world so that already by 1812 the Greeks in Moscow were able to organize a formidable secret society. Under the auspices of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the then-Russian Foreign Minister, a Masonic lodge that encompassed the Greek elite of Tsarist Russia and played an important role towards creating the framework for the forthcoming Greek revolution was created.
Interestingly, it was named the “Phoenix Lodge. The ancient symbol of the Phoenix – the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes – is frequently encountered in Greek mysticism. Ioannis Kapodistrias would become the first head of state in Greece (1827-1831) and was the head of the Phoenix Lodge while still in Moscow. In fact, he even named the first Greek currency ‘phoenix,’ but after his assassination by a Greek clan chief, the famous ‘drachma’ was born.
The grandest Greek secret society of them all, the Philiki Etaireia (“Friendly Society”) used the phoenix as its symbol. Nowadays it is still one of the symbolic emblems of the Freemason Lodges in Greece. Lastly, during the Junta in Greece (1967-1974) the symbol of the regime was the Phoenix again; presumably this owed to the membership of some of its officers in certain Greek Masonic lodges.
One of the most important organizations in modern Greek history, the Philiki Etaireia was established on September 14, 1814 in Odessa; it is widely assumed to have been an offshoot of the Phoenix Lodge of Moscow. However, Kapodistrias himself would later voice his opposition to the organization. It was created in order to prepare the Greek populace to rise up against the Ottoman Empire. Its leaders were Nikolaos Skoufas, from the Arta province of Epiros, Emmanuel Ksanthos from Patmos in the Dodecanese, and Athanasios Tsakalov, also from Epirus.
These men had previous connections with secret societies. Ksanthos was a member of the Lodge of Lefkada, while Skoufas’ associate Konstantinos Rados was a devotee of the Italian “Charcoal-burners” Carbonarism movement, an equivalent to the Greek group which sought the unification of Italy. For his part, the much younger Tsakalov had been a founding member of Ellinoglwsso Xenodoxeio (the “Greek-speaking Hotel”), an unsuccessful precursor to the Etairia that was devoted to the same goal of an independent Greece.
It is worthwhile to note that the date of the society’s creation was that of the “Holy Cross,” which in the Greek Orthodox calendar has been associated with the miraculous victory of the Byzantine Empire against a combined Avar-Persian siege in 614 AD. According to hagiographic tradition, Constantinople was in dire danger of falling to the barbarians, until the patriarch of the city ran across the walls, armed with an icon of the Virgin Mary (the icon now resides in the Monastery of Dionysiou on Mt. Athos).
Considering the symbolism and importance of the day for the Greek nation, one can assume that the creators of the Philiki Etaireia chose it in order to highlight to their followers the historical role that this organization planned to play in the future. Indeed, the members of the organization were inevitably high-born and ambitious, and included many Phanariots living in Russia. They firmly believed in the mutual obligation to the Etairia’s secrecy, to the extent that those who revealed its secrets were murdered.
With such severity was the Filiki Etairia able to maintain its cohesion and, in less than seven years, to encompass the length and breadth of Greek populations in Europe, from Alexandria and Antioch to Budapest and Trieste. Most importantly, it created the intellectual foundations upon which a revolutionary uprising could be established.
Freemasonry in Greece after 1830: Philanthropy, Scandal and Schism
During the early years of independence in Greece, there was no notable activity among the Freemasons. Only in 1863, the year that the new Glücksburg royal dynasty came to Greece, was the Panellinio Lodge established in Athens, soon to be followed by numerous others in provisional Greek towns. In 1867, the Grand Orient Lodge of Italy accepted the autonomy of Greek Freemasons and the “Great Orient Lodge of Hellas” was created. The same organization has been known under this name since 1936.
The 19th century saw the Freemasons in Greece engaged in continuous recruitment of new members, despite the fact that it never became fully accepted by Greek society. Freemasonry was often viewed as a heresy by the Orthodox Church, or as a manifestation of unwanted foreign influence in the political sphere. Nevertheless, various philanthropic initiatives were undertaken as a result of Masonic activity. Schools, hospitals, support during wartime, scholarships and so on were the legacy of Greek lodges. These factors explain why, in 1927, the Greek state recognized the Hellenic Lodge as a philanthropic association administered by the Ministry of Public Health.
Unfortunately, during the WWII occupation most of the Greek Masonic archives were destroyed by the Germans. The lodges stopped operating during this turbulent period. In the aftermath of the war, Freemasonry gradually regained its previous influence and spread further in Greek society. Today, a grand building in the centre of Athens attests to the economic affluence of the organization that has managed to retain its veil of secrecy right through the present day.
During the military dictatorship in Greece of 1967-1974, officers involved in the Junta were accused of being Freemasons, something that was decidely bad public relations for the Greek Grand Lodge. In 1980, a Greek journalist, Kostas Tsarouchas, revealed the names and ranks of numerous Greek Freemasons. This revelation created a certain havoc in the Athenian world, because a large number of politicians, judges, academics and other were said to be involved- precisely at a time when political passions in the country were running high, one year before the first socialist government of Andreas Papandreou took power.
Later, in 1993, the Grand Lodge of Greece was accused by the mother lodge of London of engaging in political activity, supposedly a no-no for Freemasons worldwide. Thus once again was the image of the Greek Lodge tarnished, and as a result a schism began that ultimately brought about the creation of several unrecognized Masonic Lodges in Greece.
However, it should be added that politics and Freemasonry do mix; it would be incomprehensible to expect otherwise from a class of people frequently involved in politics and who exercise political clout. The 1993 argument with the Grand Lodge in London happened, according to rumors, from the different opinions between the Greeks and the British over who had the right to initiate and take under its influence the newly emerging Masonic lodges of the Balkan states. If true, this would most certainly amount to an act of politics of the higher level. Moreover, the global Freemason movement has always been heavily influenced by its Anglo-Saxon members, and even nowadays the majority of the members worldwide are to be found in Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia. Obviously, the influence they exert is not only spiritual but political as well.
Greek Freemasonry: Some Conclusions
Even though it is difficult to keep track of developments in the Freemason world due to its secrecy, some interesting notes can be made so far as the Greek example is concerned. In our days numerous associations have been active within the Greek society such as the Rotary Club and the Junior Chamber International, and there has been a veritable mushrooming of esoteric societies and other forms of more or less secret fraternities. This proliferation of groups has weakened the traditional supremacy of the Freemasons in Greece.
On balance, the Greek Freemasonry movement has most historical significance in that it was the main procreator of the revolutionary organizations of the early 19th century, chief among them the Philiki Etairia. Similar societies both before and after have drawn from a rich tradition of esoteric customs, symbols and activities. These can be traced ultimately back to the pagan mystery cults of Greek Antiquity, and the later crypto-Christian groups (when Christians were still being persecuted by the Roman Empire). It can even be argued that the pyramidal, multi-leveled organizational hierarchy of the Philiki Etairia resembles somewhat the neo-Platonic conception of the universal organization of ideality and divinity as laid out by ancient authors such as Porphyry and Plotinus.
If all of these are indeed manifestations of the unique Greek passion for convoluted and complex organization, irrational rules and secrecy (the undoing of which would open onto time-honored themes of scandal and betrayal), then one can perceive a continuous historical tradition, in which Freemasonry becomes just one epoch’s manifestation of the seminal impulses and psyche of a people.
A topic insufficiently researched in Greece nowadays is the existence and historical progression of freemasonry in the country. Great debates occur whenever this theme is mentioned, with conspiracy theorists doing their best to blame all of the misfortunes of the Greek state on the existence of the lodges. This article will examine briefly the intriguing and little-known history of freemasonry in the Greek world, as it has unfolded over the past two centuries.
The Early Days: Venetian Influence and the Spirit of Revolution
The first Freemason’s Lodge in Greece was created in 1782 on Corfu. At the time, the island was still under Venetian rule, while most of the rest of Greece was occupied by the Ottomans. The Lodge’s name was “Beneficenza” and was under the direction of the Grand Lodge of Verona, based in Padova, Italy. During that period there were quite a few Greek people residing or studying in Northern Italy, and they were the ones who formed the nucleus of the first Greek lodge; soon they would spread the organizational structure of Freemasonry all around the Greek diaspora in Europe.
In 1790 in Vienna an organization similar in some respects to the Masons was formed by Greek merchants and intellectuals. It was called “Bon Cuisins,” and was presumably associated with the Greek pre-revolutionary intellectual Rigas Feraios, one of the leading figures in spreading revolutionary idea among those Greeks still under the Turkish occupation. This era was one of intellectual ferment, following the American and French revolutions, and thus offered an excellent environment for the dissemination of new ideas. This ideological development would ultimately lead to the dissolution of the world of empires and the emergence of the nation-state.
In the case of Greece, it seems that the lodges became veritable repositories of knowledge, where the information and ideals needed to start an uprising were collected and shared with a select few. Usually, these were Greeks of the diaspora who had the intellectual capacity, as well as the capital, to take the first decisive revolutionary actions.
After 1789, a series of Masonic lodges opened throughout the Heptanisa (“seven islands”) off of the western Greek coast, islands such as Corfu, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Ithaka, Zakinthos. At that time, these represented the only area in the Hellenic world in relative peace and prosperity, being as they were under Venetian control.
In 1810, one of the leading figures of Corfu, Dionysios Romas, merged together the two existing local lodges, Filogenia and Agathoergia and thus created the Grand Anatolian Lodge of Hellas and Corfu. After this event, Masonic lodges mushroomed across the Hellenic world so that already by 1812 the Greeks in Moscow were able to organize a formidable secret society. Under the auspices of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the then-Russian Foreign Minister, a Masonic lodge that encompassed the Greek elite of Tsarist Russia and played an important role towards creating the framework for the forthcoming Greek revolution was created.
Interestingly, it was named the “Phoenix Lodge. The ancient symbol of the Phoenix – the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes – is frequently encountered in Greek mysticism. Ioannis Kapodistrias would become the first head of state in Greece (1827-1831) and was the head of the Phoenix Lodge while still in Moscow. In fact, he even named the first Greek currency ‘phoenix,’ but after his assassination by a Greek clan chief, the famous ‘drachma’ was born.
The grandest Greek secret society of them all, the Philiki Etaireia (“Friendly Society”) used the phoenix as its symbol. Nowadays it is still one of the symbolic emblems of the Freemason Lodges in Greece. Lastly, during the Junta in Greece (1967-1974) the symbol of the regime was the Phoenix again; presumably this owed to the membership of some of its officers in certain Greek Masonic lodges.
One of the most important organizations in modern Greek history, the Philiki Etaireia was established on September 14, 1814 in Odessa; it is widely assumed to have been an offshoot of the Phoenix Lodge of Moscow. However, Kapodistrias himself would later voice his opposition to the organization. It was created in order to prepare the Greek populace to rise up against the Ottoman Empire. Its leaders were Nikolaos Skoufas, from the Arta province of Epiros, Emmanuel Ksanthos from Patmos in the Dodecanese, and Athanasios Tsakalov, also from Epirus.
These men had previous connections with secret societies. Ksanthos was a member of the Lodge of Lefkada, while Skoufas’ associate Konstantinos Rados was a devotee of the Italian “Charcoal-burners” Carbonarism movement, an equivalent to the Greek group which sought the unification of Italy. For his part, the much younger Tsakalov had been a founding member of Ellinoglwsso Xenodoxeio (the “Greek-speaking Hotel”), an unsuccessful precursor to the Etairia that was devoted to the same goal of an independent Greece.
It is worthwhile to note that the date of the society’s creation was that of the “Holy Cross,” which in the Greek Orthodox calendar has been associated with the miraculous victory of the Byzantine Empire against a combined Avar-Persian siege in 614 AD. According to hagiographic tradition, Constantinople was in dire danger of falling to the barbarians, until the patriarch of the city ran across the walls, armed with an icon of the Virgin Mary (the icon now resides in the Monastery of Dionysiou on Mt. Athos).
Considering the symbolism and importance of the day for the Greek nation, one can assume that the creators of the Philiki Etaireia chose it in order to highlight to their followers the historical role that this organization planned to play in the future. Indeed, the members of the organization were inevitably high-born and ambitious, and included many Phanariots living in Russia. They firmly believed in the mutual obligation to the Etairia’s secrecy, to the extent that those who revealed its secrets were murdered.
With such severity was the Filiki Etairia able to maintain its cohesion and, in less than seven years, to encompass the length and breadth of Greek populations in Europe, from Alexandria and Antioch to Budapest and Trieste. Most importantly, it created the intellectual foundations upon which a revolutionary uprising could be established.
Freemasonry in Greece after 1830: Philanthropy, Scandal and Schism
During the early years of independence in Greece, there was no notable activity among the Freemasons. Only in 1863, the year that the new Glücksburg royal dynasty came to Greece, was the Panellinio Lodge established in Athens, soon to be followed by numerous others in provisional Greek towns. In 1867, the Grand Orient Lodge of Italy accepted the autonomy of Greek Freemasons and the “Great Orient Lodge of Hellas” was created. The same organization has been known under this name since 1936.
The 19th century saw the Freemasons in Greece engaged in continuous recruitment of new members, despite the fact that it never became fully accepted by Greek society. Freemasonry was often viewed as a heresy by the Orthodox Church, or as a manifestation of unwanted foreign influence in the political sphere. Nevertheless, various philanthropic initiatives were undertaken as a result of Masonic activity. Schools, hospitals, support during wartime, scholarships and so on were the legacy of Greek lodges. These factors explain why, in 1927, the Greek state recognized the Hellenic Lodge as a philanthropic association administered by the Ministry of Public Health.
Unfortunately, during the WWII occupation most of the Greek Masonic archives were destroyed by the Germans. The lodges stopped operating during this turbulent period. In the aftermath of the war, Freemasonry gradually regained its previous influence and spread further in Greek society. Today, a grand building in the centre of Athens attests to the economic affluence of the organization that has managed to retain its veil of secrecy right through the present day.
During the military dictatorship in Greece of 1967-1974, officers involved in the Junta were accused of being Freemasons, something that was decidely bad public relations for the Greek Grand Lodge. In 1980, a Greek journalist, Kostas Tsarouchas, revealed the names and ranks of numerous Greek Freemasons. This revelation created a certain havoc in the Athenian world, because a large number of politicians, judges, academics and other were said to be involved- precisely at a time when political passions in the country were running high, one year before the first socialist government of Andreas Papandreou took power.
Later, in 1993, the Grand Lodge of Greece was accused by the mother lodge of London of engaging in political activity, supposedly a no-no for Freemasons worldwide. Thus once again was the image of the Greek Lodge tarnished, and as a result a schism began that ultimately brought about the creation of several unrecognized Masonic Lodges in Greece.
However, it should be added that politics and Freemasonry do mix; it would be incomprehensible to expect otherwise from a class of people frequently involved in politics and who exercise political clout. The 1993 argument with the Grand Lodge in London happened, according to rumors, from the different opinions between the Greeks and the British over who had the right to initiate and take under its influence the newly emerging Masonic lodges of the Balkan states. If true, this would most certainly amount to an act of politics of the higher level. Moreover, the global Freemason movement has always been heavily influenced by its Anglo-Saxon members, and even nowadays the majority of the members worldwide are to be found in Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia. Obviously, the influence they exert is not only spiritual but political as well.
Greek Freemasonry: Some Conclusions
Even though it is difficult to keep track of developments in the Freemason world due to its secrecy, some interesting notes can be made so far as the Greek example is concerned. In our days numerous associations have been active within the Greek society such as the Rotary Club and the Junior Chamber International, and there has been a veritable mushrooming of esoteric societies and other forms of more or less secret fraternities. This proliferation of groups has weakened the traditional supremacy of the Freemasons in Greece.
On balance, the Greek Freemasonry movement has most historical significance in that it was the main procreator of the revolutionary organizations of the early 19th century, chief among them the Philiki Etairia. Similar societies both before and after have drawn from a rich tradition of esoteric customs, symbols and activities. These can be traced ultimately back to the pagan mystery cults of Greek Antiquity, and the later crypto-Christian groups (when Christians were still being persecuted by the Roman Empire). It can even be argued that the pyramidal, multi-leveled organizational hierarchy of the Philiki Etairia resembles somewhat the neo-Platonic conception of the universal organization of ideality and divinity as laid out by ancient authors such as Porphyry and Plotinus.
If all of these are indeed manifestations of the unique Greek passion for convoluted and complex organization, irrational rules and secrecy (the undoing of which would open onto time-honored themes of scandal and betrayal), then one can perceive a continuous historical tradition, in which Freemasonry becomes just one epoch’s manifestation of the seminal impulses and psyche of a people.
Metaxas states, "The Masons are behind democracy and serve Zionism's dark plans of global domination. International Jewry does not want the creation of a powerful Hellenic state. The Masons are national enemies of Hellas".
February 28, 2009
The Judeo-Masonic Roots Of Modern 'Culture'
By Henry Makow Ph.D - 8/16/2008
Modern "culture" is a product of the Luciferian conspiracy against Christian Civilization.
Relentlessly negative and increasingly obscene, modern "culture" attacks the sources of dignity, decency and hope that define us as human beings rather than animals.
For example last week the media in London was hyping a play about "sexual love" between a married man and a goat.
In an interview, the playwright Edward Albee said "The Goat" challenged this "societal taboo" and hoped that members of the audience would "re-examine their values and attitudes toward bestiality."
"Funny, moving and tragic," raved Channel 4 News, a respected and "serious" program in the UK.
Bestiality has occurred and the play is primarily concerned with the protagonist's confession and inability to deal with the fact that he "feels guilty for not feeling guilty". "We are all animals," he rationalizes. The play deals with the confrontation between the protagonist, his wife and their gay son.
A reader, Jonathan Stonehouse wrote: "It staggers me to think that there are many who now associate freedom with the normalization of everything formerly regarded as morally repugnant, when the truth is we're building a world in which the majority will be slaves to every whim and fancy, not to mention dark and abhorrent desire, the human imagination can conceive. That's a form of 'freedom' I can well do without."
True culture is based on refining our animal instincts in terms of spiritual ideals (like truth, justice, goodness and beauty.) Modern anti-culture is based on demoralizing and destroying society by disparaging these ideals.
Anti-culture portrays man in purely naturalistic and material terms. Every sexual impulse and bodily function must be recognized and indulged. This is considered "courageous" while any demur is considered repressive, prudish or fascist.
In one of the final episodes of "Sex and the City", the audience had to endure Carrie getting a bikini wax. Thankfully we were spared a full frontal view. This is not prudishness. Human dignity requires privacy. Female allure requires modesty and mystery. We have souls, not only bodies.
The exaltation of man's animal nature, at the expense of his spiritual qualities, is a direct consequence of the deification of man. Our anti-culture assumes that man is a finished product and doesn't need to be transformed by God's Love.
A symptom of making man God is that we mystify and worship human beings. We worship a cult of great minds, a cult of great beauty, a cult of great wealth and power.
Modern "culture" reflects the final unfolding of a diabolical conspiracy that rejects the Designer's instructions.
THE JUDEO MASONIC ROOTS OF ANTI CULTURE (MODERNISM)
By eating the forbidden fruit, Lucifer promised: "Your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5) This means that man will redefine what is good and evil to suit his self interest.
God is Good. When man makes himself God, good becomes whatever the most powerful man or group wants. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good. This is happening today.
There were a lot of groups who wanted to be God but some conservatives believe our anti culture can be traced to the Jewish view of their "chosen-ness."
Originally Jews had a conception of God as a Universal Moral Force. (This is the Judaism I identify with.) Apparently in 79 BC there was a Civil War and the Pharisees were victorious. They proclaimed the supremacy of the Babylonian Talmud over the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament.)
The Talmud teaches that the Jews are chosen by God to lead mankind. In practice this makes them God and gives them the right to redefine reality. It has made them Luciferians. In the words of Harold Rosenthal, "Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our god is Lucifer...and we are his chosen people. Lucifer is very much alive." http://www.savethemales.ca/000334.html
According to the author "Rabi": "Christianity is essentially preoccupied with the individual salvation of man. Judaism only contemplates the salvation of the House of Israel, which alone can permit the salvation of seventy nations of the universe." (Anatomie du Judasime Francaise, pp.203-204)
Thus the Pharisees rejected Christ because he taught that God is Love and all men are equal in the sight of God. http://www.savethemales.ca/000322.html "
The advent of Christ was a national catastrophe for the Jewish people, especially for the leaders," Leon de Poncins writes. "Until then they alone had been the Sons of the Covenant; they had been its sole high priests and beneficiaries.... "
He continues: "The irreducible antagonism with which Judaism has opposed Christianity for 2000 years is the key and mainspring of modern subversion...[The Jew] championed reason against the mythical world of the spirit ...he was the doctor of unbelief; all those who were mentally in revolt came to him either secretly or in broad daylight..." ("Judaism and the Vatican", pp.111-113.)
FREEMASONRY AND JUDAISM
I suspect that the Messianism of the Pharisee Jews may be an instrument of international bankers, a way to consolidate their power. These bankers and their allies are creating a New World Order that cares little for democratic principles. They will be the Gods.
Nathan Rothschild (1777 -1836) said: "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply."
In addition to Jewish Messianism, Freemasonry has been the bankers' tool. It was instrumental in the destruction of the Christian monarchies in Germany, Austria and Russia and the decline of the Catholic Church. http://www.savethemales.ca/000338.html
This is also the view revealed in "The Red Symphony." http://www.savethemales.ca/000280.html
In his "Encyclical Humanum Genus" (1884) Pope Leo XIII wrote that the ultimate aim of Freemasonry is "to uproot completely the whole religious and moral order of the world, which has been brought into existence by Christianity...This will mean that the foundation and the laws of the new structure of society will be drawn from pure naturalism."
Again Pope Leo XIII said: "Freemasonry is the permanent personification of the Revolution; it constitutes a sort of society in reverse whose aim is to exercise an occult overlordship upon society as we know it, and whose sole raison d'etre consists of waging war against God and his Church." (De Poncins, "Freemasonry and the Vatican," p. 45)
In "Freemasonry and the Vatican," Leon de Poncins uses Jewish sources to argue that Freemasonry is closely related to Judaism. For example, Rabbi Elle Benamozegh wrote: "Masonic theology corresponds well enough to that of the Kabbala.,,,("Israel et L'Humanite", p.73)
De Poncins cites an article that appeared in 1861 in a Parisian Jewish Review "La Verite Israelites": "But the spirit of Freemasonry is that of Judaism in its most fundamental beliefs; its ideas are Judaic, its language is Judaic, its very organization, almost, is Judaic... "
De Poncins writes that the goal of both Freemasonry and Judaism is the unification of the world under Jewish law. (Freemasonry and the Vatican, p. 76)
CONCLUSION
Judeo Masonic culture hasn't been all-bad. It has allowed us to accept our sexual desires without guilt and given us the freedom to find God again on our own terms. However these benefits are temporary enticements. The ultimate aim is to divorce us from God and enslave us to our sexual and material lusts, i.e. to arrest our development.
Mankind is being subverted by its political and cultural leaders, beholden to international bankers and their allies, who often are practising Luciferians. They use Judaism (incl. Zionism) and Freemasonry as instruments of organization and control. Obviously the majority of Jews and Freemasons are unaware or do not believe this.
Modern culture makes a God of man. Man defines everything including goodness and truth. The result is that we are in a spiritual prison cut off from God and oppressed by relentless reminders of our own stunted development.
I'm afraid spiritual and psychological enslavement is but a prelude to a political and economic one. Since 9-11, we are sheep grazing in sight of an abattoir.
From April 18, 2004, revised August 16, 2008
Henry Makow Ph.D. is the author of "Cruel Hoax: Feminism and the New World Order." (www.cruelhoax.ca) His articles can be found at his web site www.henrymakow.com He enjoys receiving your comments, some of which he posts on his site using first names only. hmakow@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)