This month is dedicated to United States of America;
THE FREEMEN
THE FREEMEN
Dear Brethren,
The (Masonic) Nation – United States of America.
On the 18th September, 1793, the first President of the United States took part in a Masonic ceremony to officially mark the beginning of the construction of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Wearing his own Masonic apron, George Washington marched to the site with members of a number of local Freemasonry lodges, and then descended into the construction pit which housed the cornerstone of the building. Washington placed a silver plate upon the cornerstone, and then made the standard Masonic ‘offerings’ of corn, wine and oil. The Masonic tools carried by Washington on this momentous day are still held at a lodge in the District of Columbia.
To many of us today, it seems strange that such an important day in the history of the United States of America would have such an overtly Masonic theme.
The idea that the United States may have been founded as a ‘Masonic Republic’ based on Masonic / Utopian ideals is not a new one. In 1897, an American army officer named Charles Totten wrote “there are mysteries connected with the birth of this Republic”. Totten had been investigating the strange iconography of the Great Seal of the United States, and through his research became convinced that the birth of the American nation could be related to the Masonic vision of the Englishman Sir Francis Bacon a well known freemason, which he described in 1626 in his allegorical novel The New Atlantis. The esoteric author Manly P. Hall also claimed in his book The Secret Destiny of America that Bacon himself had decided that the Utopian dream could be realized in North America.
Historian Ron Heisler suggests another link between Utopian/masonic visions in Europe and the new colony in America. Heisler discovered that the German occultist – and staunch Rosicrucian – Michael Maier was in close contact with a number of individuals connected with the Virginia Company. This group of wealthy individuals had been granted a royal charter by James I in 1606, giving them virtually unlimited power of government in the New World colony. This charter had been drafted by none other than Sir Francis Bacon a freemason. Heisler believes that Maier’s well-known alchemical tract Atalanta Fugiens “may have been deeply inspired by the Utopian vision of America.”
American scholar Donald R. Dickson provides yet another link between the Utopian dreamers and the Virginian settlement in his book The Tessera of Antilia. Dickson’s investigations uncovered the existence of a fraternity known as ‘Antilia’, which counted Valentin Andreae – the author of the original Rosicrucian documents – among its participants. Inspired by both the Rosicrucian tracts as well as the writings of Sir Francis Bacon, this brotherhood at one point contemplated emigrating en masse to Virginia in order to found their own new society.
Why were these groups were so set on a ‘fresh start’ in the New World Order? The answer lies in the two dominant powers which dominated Europe at the time – the Church and the monarchies. Renaissance thinking, secret societies, and the printing press all posed new and growing threats to those in power. New scientific discoveries, such as Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the Solar System and Newton’s physics, were challenging not only the authority of the Church but also God’s place in the cosmos. Interestngly Sir Issac Newtaon is well known Freemason. Secret societies – even semi-mythical ones such as the Freemasons, Rosicrucians – bravely raised new ideas and challenged the status quo. Scientism gave birth to Deism, which stood in sharp contrast to Christianity with its view that reason, rather than revelation, should be the basis of any belief in God, and that God would not intervene in his creation. As the Enlightenment dawned, many intellectuals found themselves as virtual heretics when compared with the religions, philosophies and governments which controlled European society.
Such was the breeding ground for ideas of a Masonic nation where freedom of religious thought and personal philosophy would be tolerated, and where government would be democratic and for the good of the people. Many Freemasons, such as the great educator Comenius, dreamt of a society where men of opposing philosophies could still work together in the greatest quest of all – the search for knowledge. This pan-sophist philosophy had been enunciated very early on in Bacon’s The New Atlantis, where a group known as the ‘House of Solomon’ was comprised of philosopher-priests united in this very goal. In Bacon’s allegory, we find evidence of many of the philosophies persecuted in Europe: Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Utopian thinking and scientism.
Historical evidence militates against the view that those who formulated the fundamental documents of American government were Christians. To the contrary, not a few who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the U. S. Constitution were Deists, Theists and Freemasons. Webster's Dictionary defines "theism" and "deism":
Theism - "belief in the existence of a god or gods; specif: belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world."
Deism - "a movement or system of thought advocating natural religions based on human reason rather than revelation, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe."
One recent historical account of Freemasonry, THE TEMPLE & THE LODGE, boast instead of the profound influence of Freemasonry on the founding documents:
"Of the fifty-six signatories of the Declaration of Independence, nineteen can be identified as Freemasons. Of the general officers in the Continental Army, there were so far as documentation can establish, thirty-three Freemasons out of seventy-four. Granted the known Freemasons were, as a rule, more prominent, more instrumental in shaping the course of events than their unaffiliated colleagues...
"On 11 June, (the Continental) Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. Of the five men on this committee, two - Franklin and...Robert Livingston - were Freemasons, and other three i.e. Robert Sherman, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are believed, to have been freemasons. The text of the declaration was composed by Jefferson. It was submitted to Congress and accepted on 4 July 1776. The nineteen signatories who can now be established as proven Freemasons, included such influential figures as Washington, Franklin and, of course, the president of the Congress, John Hancock. The army, moreover, remained almost entirely in Masonic hands. As we shall see, it is in the Constitution that the influence of Freemasonry is most discernible.
"At last, on 25 May 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia and commenced its efforts to devise the machinery of government for the new nation. The first voice to make itself heard in any significantly influential way was a characteristically Masonic one, that of Edmund Randolph.. Randolph...a member of a Williamsburg lodge, had become Washington's aide-de-camp. Subsequently he was to become Attorney-General, then governor of Virginia and Grand Master of Virginia's Grand Lodge. During Washington's presidency, he was to serve as the first Attorney-General of the United States, then the first Secretary of State.
"There were ultimately five dominant and guiding spirits behind the Constitution - Washington, Franklin, Randolph, Jefferson and John Adams. Of these, the first three were active Freemasons, men who took their Freemasonry extremely seriously - men who subscribed fervently to its ideals, whose entire orientation had been shaped and conditioned by it. And Adam's position, though also a known to have been a Freemason was virtually identical to theirs. When he became president, moreover, he appointed a prominent Freemason, John Marshall, as first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."
"Some of the greatest names of the American Revolution were Masons: Ethan Alien, Edmund Burke, John Claypoole, William Daws, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, John Paul Jones, Robert Livingston, Paul Revere, Colonel Benjamin Tupper, and George Washington. Of the forty signers of the Constitution, Twenty Two were known Masons, and six more later became Masons.
"There were many other Masonic influences in early American history:
(1) Lafayette, the French liaison to the Colonies, without whose aid the war could not have been won, was a Freemason;
(2) The majority of the commanders of the Continental Army were Freemasons and members of "Army Lodges";
(3) Most of George Washington's generals were Freemasons;
(4) The Boston Tea Party was planned at the Green Dragon Tavern, also known as the "Freemasons' Arms" and "the Headquarters of the Revolution";
(5) George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States by Robert Livingston, Grand Master of New York's Masonic lodge, and the Bible on which he took his oath was from his own Masonic lodge;
(6) The Cornerstone of the Capital Building was laid by the Grand Lodge of Maryland."
See the Masonic secrets;-
perhaps it is appropriate to remember that Lenin gave a huge gift to the Grand Orient Lodge in Paris for all their monetary help during the Russian revolution....
ReplyDeleteWashington is said to have become convinced that the illuminati existed, while he was unsure as to the extent of its influence in the United States. This is indicative of a difference between what has come to be called illuminated freemasonry and regular freemasonry, which is usually supposed to have been prominent in the United States, while the former has been considered to have been widespread in Europe. This is an important distinction to bear in mind.
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