Freemasonry
Freemasonry is involved in the spiritual war because while visible Freemasonry appears to be a noble and charitable institution, but invisible Freemasonry works with Satan, called Lucifer within Freemasonry, against the Church. For a concise treatment see William A. Whalen’s The Pastoral Problem of Masonic Membership. My 1990 study on the subject (below) provides more detail particularly on “Invisible” Freemasonry:
The Catholic Church Opposes Freemasonry
Cardinal Ratzinger’s Declaration on Masonic Associations published in 1983 is the Church’s current statement on Freemasonry and all of its appendant bodies. The Church does not allow Catholics to become Freemasons. No priest or even a bishop can dispense from that directive. And note the sentence, “The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”
Some Catholics may say, “I’m a Mason, I attend all my lodge meetings, and my lodge doesn’t plot against the Church, so in my heart I believe it’s okay to be a Mason. It doesn’t work. Sin is rebellion against God. § 1850 “Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods” [Gen 3:5], knowing and determining good and evil.” The Catholic Church is Rabbi Yeshua’s voice in the world. § 1857 Rebellion against the Church on a serious matter with full knowledge and deliberate consent is mortally sinful. § 679 “By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one's works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.”
Freemasonry’s Origin
The story begins, as so many do, with the Catholic Church and its restless struggle against sin.
Masonic myth suggests that it all began with Huramabi, also called Hiram 2 Chron 2:13, the father of Hiram King of Tyre. Freemasonry calls the king’s father Hiram Abif. No evidence independent of Freemasonry supports its myth of a Hiram Abif who is killed and raised from death by the strong grip of the lion’s paw. By contrast, Rabbi Yeshua finds support in the major non-Christian historians Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and others.
Scottish Rite Freemasonry’s 30th degree ritual asserts that the Masonic craft had its origins in the Knights Templar, a Catholic military order formed in Jerusalem in 1118 to support the Crusades. They were first quartered in the Temple Mount’s royal palace, hence their name, in effect, Knights of the Temple. The 30th degree refers to “… those Knights Templar of whom we are the true successors.”
When King Philip IV ascended the throne of France in 1307, he arrested all of the Knights Templar in France, some two thousand, and sent Pope Clement XII a list of charges against the order. Among them was the charge that the Templars worshiped a human head.
The Shroud of Turin, then called the Edessa Cloth, is described in ancient texts as a tetradiplon, a Greek word meaning towel. The literal translation, however, means doubled-in-four. By folding the cloth to half-length, then quarter-length, then one-eighth length (doubled-in-four), only the face of Jesus is visible on a wide cloth as shown in a tenth century diptych of the Image of Edessa. At times, the cloth was very likely framed such that only the face was visible through a round hole in the middle of the frame. Dr. John Jackson used a raking light test and high magnification to reveal fold marks on the Shroud exactly where expected for such folding. A Templar painting of the head, discovered in England in 1951, bears a striking resemblance to the Shroud image.
Pope Clement XII, after investigation, suppressed the order in 1312. The last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, whose name is associated today with a Masonic order for youth, was burned at the stake in 1314. Freemasonry’s historical hatred for the Catholic Church has its origins in Pope Clement XII’s suppression of the Knights Templar and is sustained by Catholic opposition to Freemasonry’s interest in the occult.
Some evidence exists for a connection between the Knights Templar and Freemasonry. Templars were not persecuted in England as they were in France, but they were driven underground. Some of these covert Templars may have become Masons. There are also legends that the stone masons who had built the great Catholic cathedrals, particularly renowned for their skills, formed guilds or lodges so that when they arrived in a town their credentials would be recognized, using secret passwords and grips as journeyman cards. When the Protestant Reformation stopped new church construction some lodges disbanded while others admitted honorary “speculative” members to survive. The first such Masonic lodge is said to have come into existence in 1599 in Aitchison’s Haven, Scotland. These accounts live in mists and shadows. The historical record offers some evidence, but a paper trail showing continuity does not begin until 1717 when four craft lodges gathered at the Apple Tree Tavern near Covent Garden in London to set up a constitution for Free and Accepted Masons.
The basic lodge of Freemasonry is called the “blue lodge.” There are numerous “appendant bodies” such as the Scottish Rite or the York Rite, but the blue lodge alone confers the first three degrees including the third or Master Mason degree. Most Masons remain blue lodge Masons all their lives and never enter an appendant body.
Catholic Response
Twenty-one years after the Apple Tree Tavern meeting, Pope Clement XII’s encyclical, In Eminenti, 1738, condemned the new Masonic movement. Many Popes have reiterated the condemnation. Pope Leo XIII’s great encyclical, Humanum Genus (HG), April 20, 1884, the Church’s definitive statement on Freemasonry, was clear: “Let no man think that he may for any reason whatsoever join the Masonic sect, if he values his Catholic name and his eternal salvation as he ought to value them” HG §31.
Humanum Genus was Pope Leo XIII’s first and by far most prominent encyclical against Freemasonry, but there were also Dall'alto Dell'apostolico Seggio, Custodi Di Quella Fede, and Inimica Vis.
The Code of Canon Law, 1917 edition, in Canon 2335, declared: “Persons joining associations of the Masonic sect or any others of the same kind which plot against the Church and legitimate civil authorities contract ipso facto excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See.”
After Vatican II, while a revision to the Code of Canon Law was underway, Cardinal Francis Seper, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on July 18, 1974 wrote a letter to the presidents of all the episcopal conferences, saying, [1] the Holy See has repeatedly sought information from the bishops about contemporary Masonic activities directed against the Church; [2] there will be no new law on this matter, pending the revision of the Canon Law including Canon 2335; [3] all penal canons must be interpreted strictly, and [4] the express prohibition against Masonic membership by clerics, religious and members of secular institutes remained in force. Many well-intentioned priests interpreted this letter, which was not published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the Holy See’s journal of record, as allowing lay Catholics to become Masons if the local bishop found that the lodge in question was not actively plotting against the Catholic Church or the civil authorities.
Since Canon 2335 was in force at that time, and remained in force until 1983, these priests should have realized that even Cardinal Seper had no authority to allow lay Catholics to become Masons. Cardinal Seper on February 17, 1981 tried to end the confusion with a formal declaration: [1] his original letter did not in any way change the force of the existing Canon 2335, [2] the stated canonical penalties are in no way abrogated, and [3] he was but recalling the general principles of interpretation to be applied by the local bishop for resolving cases of individual persons, which is not to say that any episcopal conference now has the competence to publicly pass judgment of a general character on the nature of Masonic associations in such a way as to derogate from the previously stated norms. This declaration helped, but many priests continued to rely on their erroneous interpretation of the 1974 letter.
When the new Code of Canon Law came out in 1983, Canon 1374 stated: “A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; however, a person who promotes or directs an association of this kind is to be punished with an interdict..” The new Code firmly reinforced the Church’s constant teaching on Freemasonry. However, Canon 1374 required further explanation. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI, issued his Cardinal Ratzinger’s Declaration on Masonic Associations to make Catholic teaching on Freemasonry crystal clear. Its key paragraph states: “Therefore the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion. Cardinal Ratzinger had written, “The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations …” Pope Leo XIII had written, “There are several organized bodies which, though differing in name, in ceremonial, in form and origin, are nevertheless so bound together by community of purpose and by the similarity of their main opinions, as to make in fact one thing with the sect of the Freemasons, which is a kind of center whence they all go forth, and whither they all return” HG § 9. The Church’s prohibition against membership in Masonic lodges and their appendant bodies is unchanged at least since the year 1884 when Pope Leo XIII published Humanum Genus.
Introducing Albert Pike
Masons who have only gone as far as the Blue Lodge may not be familiar with Albert Pike. Pike was Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite from 1859 to 1891, thirty-two years, a man authoritative within Freemasonry. Pike was also an Arkansas newspaperman, poet, soldier, philosopher, and visionary. He was the only Confederate solder ever to be honored with a statue, erected by the Freemasons, in Washington, D.C., at Judiciary Square. The United States also honors him with the Albert Pike Highway, which runs from Hot Springs, Arkansas to Colorado Springs, Colorado, more than nine hundred miles. His imposing home, now a museum, and the Albert Pike Memorial Temple, are two of the most prominent features of downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.
Pike’s great Masonic book is Morals and Dogma. In these observations, every reference to Pike’s writing refers to Morals and Dogma. We will be seeing much of it in what follows.
C. Fred Kleinknect, then Sovereign Grand Commander, Supreme Council, for the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, stated in New Age magazine, the official organ of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, January 1989 issue: “The apex of our teachings has been the rituals of Morals and Dogma, written over a century ago.”
Visible Freemasonry
Visible Freemasonry is the part revealed to all Master Masons and members of the appendant bodies. Everything in this section, other than Catholic sources, should be familiar to Master Masons.
The First Commandment
The most grave objection to visible Freemasonry is that it violates the First Commandment: Ex 20:2-6 “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”
Rev. Joseph Fort Newton’s essay, The Bible in Masonry, appears in front of the Holman Masonic Bible. It says this of Holy Scripture:
- My brethren, here is a Book whose scene is the sky and the dirt and all that lies between — a Book that has in it the arch of the heavens, the curve of the earth, the ebb and flow of the sea, sunrise and sunset, the peaks of mountains and the glint of sunlight on flowing waters, the shadow of forests on the hills, the song of birds and the color of flowers. But its two great characters are God and the Soul, and the story of their eternal life together is its one everlasting romance.
But Albert Pike also tells us:
- The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong on the altar … The obligation of the candidate is always to be taken on the sacred book or books of his religion, that he may deem it more solemn and binding … We have no other concern with your religious creed.
Albert G. Mackey’s Masonic Ritualist describes the candidate’s initial entrance into a Masonic lodge.
- There is to be, not simply a change for the future, but also an extinction of the past; for initiation is, as it were, a death to the world and a resurrection to a new life … The world is left behind — the chains of error and ignorance which have previously restrained the candidate in moral and intellectual captivity have been broken.
Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma, discussing the Fellow Craft degree, wrote, Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became obsolete, and Protestantism arose, flourished, and deteriorated. The doctrines of Zoroaster were the best which the ancient Persians were fitted to receive; those of Confucius were fitted for the Chinese; those of Mohammed for the idolatrous Arabs of his age. Each was Truth for the time. Each was a Gospel, preached by a Reformer; and if any men are so little fortunate as to remain content therewith, when others have attained a higher truth, it is their misfortune and not their fault. Pike’s discussion of the Master Mason’s degree adds, “We do not see the churches and priesthoods of Christendom relinquishing their old task of governing men by imaginary terrors.”
In the second section of the Master Mason’s degree, a ritual drama reenacts Hiram Abif’s death and resurrection. The Worshipful Master teaches the candidate:
- You have this evening represented one of the greatest men, and perhaps the greatest Mason, the world ever knew, our Grand Master Hiram Abif, who was slain just before the completion of King Solomon’s Temple … After prayer, King Solomon took the body by the strong grip of a Master Mason, or lion’s paw, and raised it …
The satanic mockery of the Catholic faith gets worse. The Scottish Rite, an appendant Masonic body, in its Knight Kadosh (30th) degree, (kadosh is a Hebrew word meaning holy) requires that the candidate stab a skull with a papal tiara, and a skull on which is a crown, saying, “Down with imposture! Down with crime!” In the fourth oath the Knight Kadosh again focuses on the “cruel and cowardly Pontiff, who sacrificed to his ambition the illustrious order of those Knights Templar of whom we are the true successors.” All present then trample on the papal tiara while shouting “Down with imposture!” Freemasonry’s conflict with the Catholic Church is veiled in the Blue Lodge, but here the veil is lifted to reveal hatred.
This virulently anti-Catholic theme of the Knight Kadosh degree is part of what Pike meant when he said that the Blue Degrees intentionally deceive Master Masons. Recognizing that some Master Mason might obtain the script for this degree, the script says only, “Down with imposture.” These words were carefully chosen to conceal what is really going on. Catholics, who propose truth and oppose imposture, would not be alarmed by these words. Even the reference to the “cowardly Pontiff” could be explained as one of Freemasonry’s many invented titles or perhaps a reference to the Scottish Rite’s 19th degree. Only those present when the degree is given, who have already sworn 29 oaths of secrecy, would recognize its vituperation against the Catholic Church.
Freemasonry encourages its members to attend church. Many active Masons teach religion in their churches. Pike’s comment above, “We have no other concern with your religious creed,” means Freemasonry teaches indifferentism, the idea that it does not matter whether we are Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or any other religion, or none. The Catholic Church differs sharply. §1257 “The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.” A Catholic catechist who teaches indifferentism is a termite in the Cross of Christ.
The Second Commandment
The second most grave objection is that the Masonic oaths, or obligations, violate the Second Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” Ex 20:7.
These oaths promise bloody penalties if the Mason should ever violate his oath. If the penalties were actually intended to be imposed, they would bind a man to do bloody violence in God’s name, a grave violation of the Second and Fifth Commandments. Masons always explain that the penalties are never actually imposed, but rather are there only to impress upon the candidate that the oaths are serious. God is then called to verify a false oath, which violates the Second Commandment.
The Entered Apprentice’s Obligation, paraphrased for brevity except for quoted portions, follows.
- I, (Name), of my own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God, and this Worshipful Lodge, erected to Him and dedicated to the holy saints John, do hereby and hereon solemnly and sincerely promise and swear …” that he will keep all Masonic secrets from anyone not entitled to receive them. It continues, “All this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear … binding myself under no less penalty than that of having my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by its roots, and my body buried in the rough sands of the sea, at low-water mark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours, should I ever knowingly violate this my Entered Apprentice obligation. So help me God, and keep me steadfast in the due performance of the same.”
- I, (Name), of my own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God, and this Worshipful Lodge, erected to Him and dedicated to the holy saints John, do hereby and hereon solemnly and sincerely promise and swear …” The candidate swears not to reveal any part of the obligation to anyone not entitled to receive it, that he will abide by all the rules and regulations of the Lodge, that he will respond to all orders from the Lodge if his conscience allows, that he will aid and assist poor and distressed Fellow Crafts and their widows and orphans, and that he will not cheat, wrong or defraud a Master Mason. It continues, “All this I most solemnly promise and swear … binding myself under no less penalty than of having my breast torn open, my heart plucked out, and placed on the highest pinnacle of the temple there to be devoured by the vultures of the air, should I ever knowingly violate the Fellow Craft obligation. So help me God, and keep me steadfast in the due performance of the same.”
- “I, (Name), of my own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God, and this Worshipful Lodge, erected to Him and dedicated to the holy saints John, do hereby and hereon solemnly and sincerely promise and swear …” The candidate swears not to reveal any part of the obligation to anyone not entitled to receive it, that he will abide by all the rules and regulations of the Lodge, that he will respond to all orders from the Lodge if his conscience allows, that he will aid and assist poor and distressed Master Masons and their widows and orphans, that he will keep the secrets of a brother Master Mason (murder and treason excepted), that he will not support making a Mason of any woman, senile old man, immature young man, atheist, madman or fool, that he will not participate in any Masonic activity with a clandestine-made Mason, that he will not cheat, wrong or defraud a Master Mason, that he will not violently attack a brother Mason except in defense of family or property, that he will not have illegal carnal intercourse with a Master Mason’s wife, mother, sister, or daughter, that he will not give the secret word except as prescribed by Masonic law, and that he will not give the secret Masonic signal of distress except in imminent danger or for instruction. It continues, “All this I most solemnly, sincerely promise and swear … binding myself under no less penalty than that of having my body severed in two, my bowels taken from thence and burned to ashes, the ashes scattered before the four winds of heaven, that no more remembrance might be had of so vile and wicked a wretch as I would be, should I ever knowingly violate this my Master Mason’s obligation. So help me God, and keep me steadfast in the due performance of the same.” These obligations are not something grafted onto Freemasonry. The obligation for each degree makes a man a Mason in that degree. When a new Master Mason examined before his brethren in open lodge is asked, “What makes you a Master Mason?,” he answers, “My obligation.” Since these oaths violate God’s second commandment, they are inherently evil. God never binds us to do evil; any man who has taken these oaths is not bound by them in any way.
The Religion of Freemasonry
Freemasonry teaches in the Lodge that it is not a religion. The arguments given are that it has no theological doctrines, offers no sacraments, and does not claim to lead to salvation. However, the Unitarian-Universalist Church, which does consider itself a religion, fits the same description.
More important, Masonic authorities themselves describe Freemasonry as a religion. Pike, in Morals and Dogma, first says, “Masonry is not a religion,” but soon afterward says, “Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.” Pike adds that Masonry “… is the universal, eternal, immutable religion.”
Albert G. Mackey says: “We see that the altar in Masonry is not merely a convenient article of furniture, intended, like a table, to hold a Bible. It is a sacred utensil of religion, intended, like the altars of the ancient temples, for religious uses, and thus identifying Masonry, by its necessary existence in our Lodges, as a religious institution.”
When caught in this contradiction, some Masons reply that Freemasonry is religious, but not a religion. Masonic historian Henry Wilson Coil answers, “Some attempt to avoid the issue by saying that Freemasonry is not a religion but is religious, seeming to believe that the substitution of an adjective for a noun makes a fundamental difference. It would be as sensible to say that man had no intellect but was intellectual, or that he had no honor but was honorable.”
Albert Pike writes in Morals and Dogma, “God Himself … leads the masses away from the highest Truth,” and, “Religion, to obtain currency and influence with the great mass of mankind, must needs be alloyed with … error.”
Tubal-cain Gen 4:22, a forger of bronze and iron, is held in such high regard by Freemasonry that his name is used as the password for a Master Mason. Adam and Eve’s murderer son Cain fathered the evil line that produced Tubal-cain. Tubal-cain’s father, Lamech, married two women at once and committed murder Gen 4:23.
Freemasonry and Racial Segregation
After Prince Hall and fourteen other black men were rejected by St. John’s Lodge in Boston, a British military lodge initiated them. In 1784 the Grand Lodge of England granted them a charter for African Lodge #459. Regular Masons do not accept the validity of the Prince Hall charters and so do not recognize them as Masons. However, Albert Pike wrote in 1875: “Prince Hall lodge was as regular a lodge as any lodge created by competent authority. It had a perfect right to establish other lodges and make itself a Mother Lodge.” The Prince Hall lodges also do not recognize the validity of the Regular Masonic charters. The Klan’s founder and first Imperial Wizard was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and a Mason. The Klan’s Chief Justice was the same Albert Pike, who had also been a Confederate general. William Joseph Simmons, a dedicated Mason, in 1915 revived the Klan and recruited Masons for nearly all of its top offices. Many of the Klansmen were also Masons, since both organizations felt the same about blacks, Jews, or Catholics.
By the 1920s many Grand Masters were discouraging Masons from joining the Klan, and so Freemasonry survived the Klan’s collapse.
Freemasonry has long been the last bastion of American racial segregation. Most regular Masonic lodges until recently were all white and most Prince Hall lodges were all black. But as Freemasonry’s powerful political protectors become senescent, its ability to remain segregated is fading. Many lodges today are racially integrated.
What Masons Get From Freemasonry
Masons once proudly told their friends that fourteen U.S. presidents had been Master Masons. They were: Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Garfield, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman and Ford. (Lyndon Johnson was initiated an Entered Apprentice in 1937 but when he found out he was expected to learn the degree work before he could be passed to the degree of Fellow Craft, he dropped out.) Gerald Ford, like Truman a 33° Mason, was never elected to the presidency. Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, who lost to President Clinton in the 1996 election, are both 33° Masons.) Truman in 1948 was the last Master Mason elected president. The last Mason appointed to the Supreme Court was Thurgood Marshall in 1967.
Some men still seek the preference that Freemasonry promises. Masonic obligations carefully specify that Masons are to assist other Masons. Perhaps they can sell more insurance. If they get into trouble, perhaps there will be a brother Mason on the jury. However, more and more Protestant denominations, as well as the Catholic Church, are becoming aware of Freemasonry’s opposition to their doctrines. In American business and social life, Christian preference for non-Masons is less intense than Masonic preference for Masons, but the greater Christian numbers may produce an aggregate negative.
Other men imagine that if they get into financial trouble the lodge will help. They can assess the probability of such aid by asking the Worshipful Master how many such brethren the lodge is currently supporting. There would certainly be some help, but few lodges can afford to support even a single brother for very long.
Freemasonry also promises access to great secrets. In the Blue Lodge, these secrets turn out to be the password of a Master Mason, Tubal-cain, the substitute for the ancient master’s word, Mah-hah-bone, and several gestures that accompany these words. All of these “secrets” are easily obtainable in numerous books such as William J. Whalen Christianity and American Freemasonry (Huntington, Indiana, Our Sunday Visitor, 1987) or Malcolm J. Duncan, Masonic Ritual and Monitor (New York, McKay, 3rd ed.). Any security expert knows that information revealed to several million men in a fraternity cannot long be closely held. Most active Masons remain in the Blue Lodges, but some, seeking more secrets of Freemasonry, proceed with the Scottish Rite’s 29 additional degrees, the York Rite’s four additional degrees, or both. All offer fanciful tales that purport to teach traditional moral lessons in an atmosphere of great secrecy.
Masonic lodges do offer good fellowship. The vast majority of Masons are white, middle class, and Protestant. Masons send an investigating committee to meet with prospective candidates. After the committee reports, the brethren vote on whether to accept a candidate. A single black ball secretly dropped in the ballot box stops a candidate’s entry; only men who “fit in” are accepted. Conversations on controversial subjects such as religion and politics are prohibited within the lodge room and discouraged even afterward when the brethren gather in the lodge hall for collation, a Masonic term for fellowship. In so homogenous an environment, harmony and monotony prevail.
Freemasonry, at least in the United States, is slowly passing from the scene. The lodges still meet, and still bring in new members from time to time, but the excitement is gone. The bright young men who once joined the lodges to advance their careers have turned to the Internet for social networking. The secrets are no longer secret. The older men stay with it, completely unaware of the influence on them of invisible Freemasonry.
Invisible Freemasonry
Invisible Freemasonry is revealed only to a smaller inner circle. Few references in this section will be familiar to most Master Masons. However, any Master Mason willing to do the research can find all of it. Any good Masonic library, such as those maintained by the grand lodges, will have books on invisible Freemasonry.
Freemasonry Deceives Master Masons
Albert Pike declares that the blue (first three, including Master Mason) degrees of Freemasonry intentionally defraud the Master Mason, who is assured that he has all the secrets of Freemasonry. Pike writes: “The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them, but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them.”
Pike offers examples, such as this one in which pagan meaning is concealed from most Masons: “Blue Masonry, ignorant of its import, still retains among its emblems one of a woman weeping over a broken column, holding in her hand a branch of acacia, myrtle, or tamarisk, while Time, we are told, stands behind her combing out the ringlets of her hair. We need not repeat the vapid and trivial explanation there given, of this representation of Isis, weeping at Byblos, over the column torn from the palace of the King, that contained the body of Osiris, while Horus, the God of Time, pours ambrosia on her hair.”
Read that again. Freemasonry’s most eminent philosopher is saying that the fraternity deliberately deceives Master Masons. Some Masons answer that Pike was merely promoting Scottish Rite Masonry, but Pike swore during his Master Mason’s obligation, “I will not cheat, wrong, or defraud a Master Mason’s lodge, nor a brother of this degree.” If Pike’s statement is false, he has seriously violated his obligation and should have suffered ignominy within the craft. In fact, Freemasonry has given him high honors. Even today, Pike’s name is revered among Scottish Rite Masons.
Pike explained why most Masons are misled. “A Spirit that loves wisdom and contemplates the Truth close at hand, is forced to disguise it, to induce the multitudes to accept it ... Fictions are necessary to the people, and the Truth becomes deadly to those who are not strong enough to contemplate it in all its brilliance.” What kind of “truth” would be so incendiary that Freemasonry would conceal it not only from outsiders but from most of its own members?
Freemasonry is Actively Demonic
The Scottish Rite Journal, in its August 1990 obituary section, described Manly Palmer Hall, a 33rd degree Mason, as “… the 20th century’s greatest Masonic scholar and philosopher.” The September 1990 issue called Manly Palmer Hall “Masonry’s greatest philosopher.” Hall explains visible and invisible Freemasonry:
- Freemasonry is a fraternity within a fraternity -- an outer organization concealing an inner brotherhood of the elect ... it is necessary to establish the existence of these two separate and yet interdependent orders, the one visible and the other invisible. The visible society is a splendid camaraderie of “free and accepted” men enjoined to devote themselves to ethical, educational, fraternal, patriotic, and humanitarian concerns. The invisible society is a secret and most August [defined as “of majestic dignity, grandeur”] fraternity whose members are dedicated to the service of a mysterious arcannum arcandrum [defined as “a secret, a mystery”].
- When a Mason learns the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply energy.
- Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light and with its splendors intolerable, blinds feeble, sensual or selfish souls? Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo also, were inspired.
The Thirty-Third Degree
Scottish Rite Masons of the 32nd degree who have been given the special title “Knight Commander, Court of Honor” (KCCH) wear red hats. Those who reach the 33rd degree wear white hats, an obvious mockery of the Catholic Church, in which cardinals wear red hats but only the Pope wears a white hat.
The secrecy surrounding the 33rd degree is extraordinary. Each year, the 33rd degree Masons gather and select a few men as candidates. No 32nd degree Mason may ask for admission; anyone who asks for the 33rd degree is forever barred from it.
In the degree work, after the preliminaries, a candidate takes the obligation of a 33rd degree Mason, which includes a specific declaration that Lucifer is God. The candidate completes his obligation by drinking wine from an upside-down human skull, declaring, “May this wine I now drink become a deadly poison to me, as the Hemlock juice drunk by Socrates, should I ever knowingly or willfully violate the same [the obligation].” A skeleton, actually a 33rd degree Mason dressed as one, embraces the candidate, who then says, “And may these cold arms ever encircle me should I ever knowingly or willingly violate the same.”
Every Mason Serves Lucifer
Lucifer is God? That is the secret deception Freemasonry conceals far more deeply than its grips and words. The inner circle silently exposes the whole membership of Freemasonry to the seething energies of Lucifer.
Recall that every man gains the degree of Master Mason by three times entering the lodge in darkness seeking light. He does not realize that he is asking for the light of Lucifer! See how Pike reverses the Christian understanding:
- The Prince of Darkness, with their consent, made Adam, whose soul was of the Divine Light, contributed by the Eons, and his body of matter, so that he belonged to both Empires, that of Light and that of Darkness. To prevent the light from escaping at once, the Demons forbade Adam to eat the fruit of “knowledge of good and evil,” by which he would have known the Empire of Light and that of Darkness. He obeyed; an Angel of Light induced him to transgress, and gave him the means of victory, but the Demons created Eve, who seduced him into an act of Sensualism, that enfeebled him, and bound him anew in the bonds of matter. This is repeated in the case of every man that lives.
Even Deeper Deception
God radiates light. His creatures shine by reflecting His light. Before the war in heaven the brightest cherub of all was called Lucifer, from the Latin fer lucis, bearer of light. Lucifer is traditionally represented with horns symbolizing his authority over the angels as first prince of the heavenly host. Isaiah’s vision of the war in heaven called him in Hebrew heilel ben shakhar, “Shining one, son of dawn,” Is 14:12, comparing him to a star so bright it could be seen even at sunrise. But Lucifer imagined that he was like God, that his authority over the angels would extend to everything God created. But when Lucifer rebelled against God he no longer reflected God’s light and so he became dark Eph 6:12. At that instant, “War arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” Rev 12:7-9. God changed Lucifer’s name to Satan. “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” Lk 10:18. But Freemasons carefully retain his original name, Lucifer, so that when a candidate says he wants “more light in Masonry” they can pretend to give him the light of Lucifer, who never had that name on earth.
33rd degree Masons are taught that they can manipulate Satan. Nonsense. A fallen angel retains the angelic intellect which is far more powerful than any human intellect. The idea that the highest and most prideful cherub of all would allow himself to be manipulated by men is inconceivable.
Satan allowing men to believe that they are manipulating him while he manipulates them is consistent with the demons’ well known strategy of the ouija board. God commanded Israel, “There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer” Deut 18:10. But when men disobey by playing with ouija boards the demons do what he wants, to let him imagine that he is controlling them while they open a channel of communication between him and themselves through which they can entice him into activities that will destroy his eternal life.
Approaching Master Masons
Most Masons are so accustomed to seeing their lodge as a pillar of the community that it takes them awhile to think through this evidence of Freemasonry’s nature.
Having been exposed so long to the altered light of Lucifer, who constantly tells us, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” Gen 3:5, the problem is pride. Most Masons have sat in their lodges for years and heard what they understood to be secrets explained in the degree rituals. It takes a humble cast of mind to accept that someone who has never sat in a Masonic lodge can possibly know more than they do about it. Some Masons can understand a clear explanation of Freemasonry, backed up by Masonic sources they can research independently. But, in most cases, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” Mk 9:29.
A “Catholic Mason” may protest that he has never even heard of Albert Pike or Manly Palmer Hall, but both are widely respected at the higher levels of Freemasonry, especially within the grand lodges. Their books are found in every comprehensive Masonic library.
He may protest that all this is limited to Scottish Rite Freemasonry and has nothing to do with Blue Masonry. But the Scottish Rite is recognized by every grand lodge in the United States. Morals and Dogma is made available to every Scottish Rite Mason.
He may protest that he has been a Mason a long time and has never seen anything demonic occur within the lodge. We gently remind him that he has never seen anything that he recognized as demonic occur within the lodge.
He may protest that he sends his dues each year and wears his Masonic ring, but never actually goes to meetings. To no avail. Through his financial support and his personal display of the square and compass, he promotes and identifies himself with Freemasonry.
He may even protest that he does not have time to acquire the books and confirm the statements made by Pike and Hall. We gently remind him that he has come to the Catholic Church seeking salvation, and show him Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1983 Declaration on Masonic Associations, which is still in force. For those who scan the text for loopholes, there are none; it is canonically airtight. When the Catholic Church tells us that our salvation is at mortal risk and we do not respond, we have lost faith in the Church and therefore have lost the state of grace.
Finally, we ask him Elijah’s question: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” 1 Kings 18:21. Will it be the Catholic faith instituted by Rabbi Yeshua, or Freemasonry? In whom do you put your trust?