Europe After the Revolution of 1848

Europe After the Revolution of 1848Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: Foot notes in the original are omitted.]

This paper discusses four major events that happen in Europe the quarter century following the Revolution of 1848. These events are the rise and fall of Napoleon III, the Crimean War, the unification of Italy, and the unification of Germany.

Napoleon IIIIn France a result of the Revolution of 1848 was the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic, the “Social Democratic Republic.” Secret societies had organized this Revolution, and socialists directed it. However, Louis Napoleon’s rise to power meant an end to socialist rule. After he was elected president of the new republic, most of the socialist leaders were imprisoned.

Freemasonry had supported Louis Napoleon’s overthrow of Louis Philippe. Earlier during the Revolution of 1830, Freemasons had supported Louis Philippe when he deposed Charles X. The Revolution of 1830 was an Orleanist led conspiracy whose primary objective seemed to have been to change the monarchial dynasty.

Another secret society working to overthrow the monarchy was the reorganized Society of the Seasons. Controlling this Society were Caussidiere (who became perfect of police under the provisional government), Grandmesnil, Leontre (writer), and Leroux (a manufacturer). In 1846, Albert (a mechanic and later a secretary of the provisional government) and Flocon (chief editor of the Reforme, for which Leontre worked) replaced Caussidiere and Leontre.

The Dissidents was a Communist secret society involved in overthrowing Louis Philippe. Communists who had seceded from the Society of the Seasons formed it. Its leaders were Chenu, Culot, Flotte (a naval officer), and Gueret. Like the Society of the Seasons, the Dissidents wanted to institute the doctrines of Robespierre.

Between the abdication of King Louis Philippe and the implementation of the new constitution, a self-appointed provisional government ruled France. Included in this government were Etienne Arago (Freemason), Adolphe Cremieux (Jew and Freemason), Jacques Dupont de l’Eure (Carbonari and Freemason), who became the provisional president, Alphonse de Lamartine (Freemason), Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (Freemason), Marie, and Louis Garnier-Pages (Freemason). Flocon (head of the Society of the Seasons), Louis Blanc, and Paquerre were made secretaries.

Louis Napoleon, later Napoleon III, was elected president of the new republic. Apparently, Louis Napoleon, who was a Freemason and a member of the Carbonari, angered many Illuminists when he seized power in France in 1851 and proclaimed himself Emperor in 1852. One of Louis Napoleon first acts was to dissolve Masonic lodges. Soon afterwards, he allowed them to reopen with his nephew, Prince Lucian Murat, as Grand Master. Murat ran the lodges primarily for his uncle’s benefit. By 1862, Freemasons were able to pressure Napoleon III into replacing Murat. Napolean’s seizure of power apparently was not part of the Illuminists’ grand plan. They retaliated by having his son killed.

Furthermore, Napoleon III gained the hatred of Mazzini when he (Napoleon III) gained Palmerston’s favor. (After, perhaps even before, 1848 animosity existed between Palmerston and Mazzini.) After Palmerston died in 1865, Mazzini began his work to overthrow Napoleon III.

Using his powerful position in Freemasonry, Mazzini directed Freemasons in France and Germany. Mazzini got Bismark to promise to persecute the Catholic Church in exchange for Masonic support against France. Bismark delivered on his promise. Freemasons close to Napoleon III urged him to misdirect the French army to Mexico and Italy. In 1870, Prussia led the German states in an invasion and defeat of France. Born out of the Franco-German War was the German Empire promised Prussia more than a decade earlier. The war ended Napoleon III’s rule and the Second Empire.

When the Second Empire fell, the socialists and Freemasons seized power. The control of the government of France fell to 11 men, nine of whom were Freemasons (Emmanuel Arago, Cremieux, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Louis Garnier-Pages, Camille Pelletan, Picard, Rochefort, and Jules Simon) and three were Jews (Cremieux, Leon Gambetta, and Glass-Bizoin). They established the Third Republic, which Freemasons controlled until it fell to the Germans in 1939.

Crimean War
Under Palmerston’s leadership, the Illuminists undertook to break the alliance between Russia and Austria, the two great conservative empires of Europe, and to turn France against Russia. Accomplishment of this plan required war with Russia. To be successful, Prussia and Austria would have to remain neutral. Prussia was bought with the promise of the Empire of United Germany. Austria was threatened with carving a kingdom of Poland and Hungary out of her.

The threat to Austria was real in that French and English forces were massing along the Danube. Once Austria withdrew from her alliance with Russia, the French and English armies moved to the Crimea. Because of Austria’s capitulation, Austria lost her influence and in 1866 her last province, Venetia, in Italy.

The ultimate objective of the Crimean War was a united Germany under the Prussian monarchy and a united Italy under the Piedmontese monarchy. The alliance between Russia and Austria prevented achievement of these objectives. Once the alliance was broken, the German states and Italian states were soon united. (Another objective, an independent Polish state and an independent Hungarian state, had to wait for World War I to be achieved.)

Unification of Italy
Following the Crimean War, Illuminists began to work earnestly to unify Italy. Groundwork toward the unification had begun decades earlier.

When the unification movement began, Freemasonry and the Carbonari were outlawed in every country in Italy except Piedmont. (The Austrians had outlawed secret societies in 1820 in her two provinces, Lombardy and Venetia.) As leaders of the Revolution of the 1820s, the Carbonari forced Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, to bow to their will. The Austrians entered Italy and ended the revolution. The Carbonari were driven underground throughout Italy except in Piedmont. Giuseppe Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Conte Camille Benso di Cavour, all three of whom were Freemasons, revived the society after 1830. Thus, Piedmont became the base for unifying Italy.

Modern Freemasonry had come to Italy in 1733 when Lord Sackville of England established the first Masonic lodge in Italy. The Grand Orient of Italy had been organized in 1805 in Milan under the auspice of Napoleon to unify and control Freemasonry in Italy for the benefit of the French. Thus, it claimed authority over all Freemasonry in Italy. Through the Alta Vendita, the Carbonari directed the Grand Orient of Italy.

The Carbonari was a ruse. It was a Catholic front created by Illuminists. Although controlled by Illuminists, the Carbonari were organized as a Christian society with Christ Jesus as the Grand Master. This ploy deceived the Catholic Church and seduced many Christians into joining so that they could be corrupted. To be a member, one had to be a Catholic who regularly attended the Sacraments. The Carbonari had the typical traits of a secret society with ascending degrees, unquestionable obedience to hidden masters, and a death penalty for breach of secrecy. Such features made control of the Carbonari by the anti-Catholic Illuminists relatively easy. Control, Illuminists gained and executed. Although the Carbonari were ostensibly loyal Catholics, they became the instrument of the Illuminists to destroy the power of the Catholic Church in Italy.

Daraul describes the Carbonari as follows: “The objective of this society [the Carbonari] was to constitute a body of men who would be subject to the order of a central body. . . . It formed a state within a state. . . . the Carbonari were a . . . body dedicated to revolt and to gaining of material power.”[1] Among the ancestors of the Carbonari were the ancient Mysteries, particularly the cult of Mithra, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, Templarism, Cathars, and Sufis.

In 1851, when Louis Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor, the Carbonari moved to consolidate their gains in Italy. Later, an international group of Freemasons met in London in 1860 to plan their strategy for seizing absolute control in Italy. (Freemasonry was to be the means by which British intelligence would unify Italy.) Lord Palmerston led the group, which included Louis Kossuth and Adriano Lemmi.

Garibaldi and Mazzini led the illuministic revolution in Italy that resulted in the unification of Italy in 1860. (Complete unification was finished in 1870 when the pope lost his last vestige of temporal power and Rome fell to Italian Freemasonry.) Behind this Masonic led revolution was the British intelligence. The British intelligence, under Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Great Britain, planned and financed the Italian unification movement. Rich German Jews were also an important source of financing the Carbonari, Alta Vendita, and the unification of Italy and the advancement of Illuminism. (Jews were among the members of the Alta Vendita.)

In 1864, Garibaldi (who was in reality merely a tool of Palmerston, Mazzini, and Cavour) united the three Masonic groups in Italy and made himself the most powerful political leader in Italy.

Following the unification of Italy and Lord Palmerston’s death, Mazzini, with the aid of Albert Pike, went on to unify Freemasonry. Mazzini saw Freemasonry as an important and powerful weapon in revolutionizing (illuminizing) the world. To unify Freemasonry, Mazzini left all the established systems and rites in place. However, he and Pike created a supreme rite, which remained unknown to most Freemasons, except the high-degree Freemasons whom Mazzini and Pike selected. This supreme rite governed all Freemasonry.

In 1870, Mazzini and Pike entered an alliance that would give them control of Freemasonry. Pike became the dogmatic authority of Freemasonry with a title of Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. Mazzini became the executive authority with the title of Sovereign Chief of Political Action. Also, 1870 was the year of the Franco-Prussian War.

Unification of Germany
After the unification of Italy, came the unification of Germany. With the aid of Mazzini, Jews, and Freemasons, Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. To break the alliance between France and Italy, Bismark, a Freemason, used Mazzini and Italian Freemasonry. The war forced France to withdraw from Italy. This withdrawal gave Mazzini and Italian Freemasonry, with Bismark’s approval and encouragement, the opportunity to force Victor Emmanuel to take Rome. Bismark agreed to provide the Italian revolutionists the arms and money that they needed to take Rome if Victor Emmanuel refused to take it. The revolutionists promised to foment sufficient agitation to prevent Italy from forming an alliance with France. With Bismark’s money, Freemasonry soon prevailed, and Italy marched on Rome.

After the war, Bismark used the Jews to replenish his war chest, and the Jews used Bismark to bring about liberal reforms in Germany that benefitted them. Both used the other to advance Prussian imperialism through subversive revolutions. Through their agent, Samuel Bleichroder, court banker of the Prussian Emperor, the Rothschild’s money financed Germany unification and expansion.

As the head of Young Germany, Jews were an important element in the unification of Germany. They sought to unify Germany under Prussian control. They intended to, and to a large extent did, control Prussia. To achieve this goal, they had participated greatly in the Revolution of 1848 in Germany, which sought Jewish emancipation and Prussian supremacy.

Endnote

Arkon Daraul, A History of Secret Societies, p. 105.

References
Daraul, Arkon. A History of Secret Societies. New York, New York: The Citadel Press, 1961.

Fahey, Denis. Grand Orient: Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power behind Communism through Discovery of Lost Lectures Delivered by Monsignor George F. Dillon, D.D. at Edinburgh, in October 1884. New and Revised Edition. Metairie, Louisiana: Sons of Liberty, 1950.

Frost, Thomas. , The Secret Societies of the European Revolutions 1776–1876. Two volumes. London, England: Tinsley Brothers, 1876.

Knight, Stephen. The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons. Briarcliff Manor, New York: Stein and Day, 1984.

MacKenzie, Norman, ed. Secret Societies. New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

Marrs, Jim. Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids. New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.

Mullins, Eustace. The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History. Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987.

Mullins, Eustace. Secrets of the Federal Reserve. 1991.

Poncins, Leon de, Vicomte. Freemasonry and the Vatican: A Struggle for Recognition. Translator Timothy Tindal-Roberston. London, England: Briton Publishing Co., 1968.

Queenborough, Lady (Edith Starr Miller). Occult Theocracy. Two Volumes. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933.

Roberts, J.M., The Mythology of the Secret Society. New York, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.

Still, William T. New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies. Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1990.

Webster, Nesta H. Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. Palmdale, California: Omni Publication, 1924.

Webster, Nesta H. World Revolution: The Plot Against Civilization. Editor Anthony Gittens. Seventh edition. Palmdale, California: Omni Publications, 1994.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Coley Allen.

 More articles on history.

Revolution of 1848

Revolution of 1848Thomas Allen

[Editor's note: The footnotes in the original are omitted.]

During the 1820s, the Illuminists rehearsed with revolts throughout Europe their plan for European-wide revolt in the future. The Revolution of the 1820s resulted in the abdication of the King of Piedmont (1821) and the establishment of a constitutional regime in Portugal (1822), which lasted until 1824. It led to revolts throughout the European part of the Turkish Empire in 1821 with rebellions breaking out in Walachia, Moldavia, and Greece. Rebellions also occurred in Spain, Russia, and Italy.

Revolts occurred in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The most successful was in Greece. With the support of the secret society Hetairia Phileke, Greek independence was achieved in 1827.The Hetairia Phileke was a reformation of an earlier society, Hetairias, which Constantin Rhygas had formed. Greeks living in Vienna formed the Hetairia Phileke in 1814. Its organization was similar to the Bavarian Illuminati.[1] Initially, it operated from Moscow; later, in 1820, it moved its center of operation to Kishinev in Bessarabia. Its avowed goal was to liberate Greece from Turkish rule. Among its early patrons were Czar Alexander I of Russia, Count John Capodistria (who was Czar Alexander’s private secretary and secretary of foreign affairs and was the primary organizer of the Hetairia Phileke), Prince John Caradja (hospodar of Walachia), and Prince Alexander Ypsilanti (a major-general in the Russian army).[2] Among its leading members were Capodistria (who became president of Greece in 1828, which office he held until assassinated in 1831), Caradja (who wanted to become king of Walachia), Count Galati (a Greek jeweler living in Moscow), Anthymos Gazi, Petros Mavromichalis (who was governor of Maina and who wanted to become the ruler of the Peloponnesus), Pentedekas (a Greek merchant), Sekeris (a Greek merchant), Prince Michael Soutzo (who wanted to become king of Moldavia), Ypsilanti (who later became the head of the Hetairia Phileke and who wanted to become king of Rumania, i.e., Walachia and Moldavia), and Zanthos (a Greek merchant).[3] Hence, a secret society organized and executed the Greek rebellion. Yet this secret society did not originate in Greece and was never in Greece. It obtained its support from persons and countries that lacked the passion of the Greeks for independence, but who were motivated solely by a desire to damage the Ottoman Empire. Although the revolt in Greece succeeded in bringing independence, the rebellion in Walachia and Moldavia failed. Greek independence was secured in 1827 when Great Britain, France, and Russia agreed to intervene in the Greek revolt on behalf of the Greeks.

Mutinies occurred in the Spanish army; French intervention crushed them. The conflict in Spain resulted primarily from factions in the Constitutional party—the ultra constitutionalists led by the Society of the Communeros and the moderate constitutionalists led by the Freemasons—and to a lesser extent between these two factions and the absolutists, whom most European countries favored. The Communeros led the mutiny with the immediate objective of deposing the king and replacing him with a regency in the name of defending the constitution and the crown. With the aid of the French, the king and the absolutists eventually prevailed over the constitutionalists.[4]

In 1825, the Decembrist Conspiracy broke out in Russia, but it was quickly suppressed. Behind the Decembrists was the United Slavonians. The goals of the United Slavonians were to overthrow the Russian autocracy and to unite the Slavic people. This Society came into existence between 1817 and 1820, with the most likely year being 1820. Many of its members came from the military.

Revolts also broke out in Italy. In Italy secret societies were intimately involved in fomenting the revolts. Leading the Italian revolts were the Carbonari, which had heavily infiltrated the military. The Carbonari succeeded in gaining control of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and establishing a constitutional monarchy for a few months until the Austrians crushed them. (Disagreement between the Constitutional party and the Republicans divided the Carbonari and lead to their downfall.) The Carbonari, along with the closely allied secret societies, the Italian Federati, the Guelphs, and the Adelphi, were behind the turmoil in Venetia, Lombardy, and Piedmont. In Piedmont, they forced the king to abdicate.[5]

The Revolution of the 1820s was practice for the next great upheaval—the Revolution of 1848.

The year of 1830 was the year that the leadership of the Illuminists change. B. Nubius, an Italian nobleman, succeed Weishaupt as the head of the Illuminists when Weishaupt died in 1830. Jews were the primary supporters of Nubius.[6] Then in 1837, Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary leader, had Nubius assassinated and became the head of the Illuminists. Mazzini led the Illuminists toward a more direct action of promoting revolutionary outbreaks.[7]

Plans for the next great revolution were made at the Masonic Congress of 1846 at Strasbourg. High-degree Freemasons and members of other secret societies attended this Congress. The Haute Vente took the lead. Among the French Freemasons’ representatives were Louis Blanc (an ardent socialist), Caussidiere (Prefect of Police in Paris during the Revolution of 1848), Adolphe Isaac Cremieux (Jew and head of Alliance Israelite Universelle) and Alexandre A. Ledru-Rollin. Among the German Freemasons’ representatives were Heckler, Fickler, and Herwegh from Baden; Robert Blum from Saxony; Karl Jacobi (a Jew and formerly a professor of mathematics at Konigsberg ); and von Gagern from Berlin.[8] The next violent revolution was to be Communism, which has lasted more than a century and a half.

Like Zionism, Communism came out of the Frankfurt Illuminists.[9] In 1807, Sigismund Geisenheimer (head clerk of the House of Rothschild), Zvi Hirsch Horowitz (chief rabbi of Frankfurt), and Isaac Hildesheim (later call Justus Hiller) established the Frankfurt Lodge of Freemasons. Among the members of the Frankfurt Lodge were all the leading bankers of Frankfurt: Adler, Ellison, Goldschmidt, Hanau, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, and Speyer.[10] About a fourth of its members were non-Jews.

To carry forth their communist revolution, the Illuminists worked through the Communist League. The Communist League was a secret society founded in 1847. It came out of the League of the Just, which sprang from the Parisian Outlaws League.[11] German refugees fleeing the suppression of the Bavarian Illuminati may have been involved in founding the Parisian Outlaws League. Among its members were Karl Marx, Baron Lionel de Rothschild, and Heinrich Heine.[12]

The Communist League commissioned Marx and Friedrich Engels to write the Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848. (Marx and Engels wanted to destroy Europe with revolution and out of the chaos and destruction, would raise a dictatorship of Satanists.) Through Freemasonry, it immediately gained worldwide circulation. With the appearance of the Communist Manifesto, the Revolution of 1848 erupted across Europe. The purpose of the Revolution was to destroy the existing social order and to bring all the countries of Europe under the control of the Illuminists.

Behind the Revolution of 1848 were Mazzini and Lord Palmerston, who was Foreign Minister of Great Britain at this time. Palmerston’s contribution came through British diplomacy and secret service money. Mazzini’s role was organizing revolutionary sects, such as Young Italy, Young Poland, and Young Europe.

The Revolution of 1848 erupted in Paris and soon spread across much of Europe. Within a few weeks, insurrection and turmoil broke out in Baden, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Parma, Venice, London, Spain, Naples, and Russia. Behind these insurrections and turmoil were Freemasonry and the Haute Vente.

According to Benjamin Disraeli, a Freemason, Jews were ultimately behind the Revolution of 1848.[13] They desired not so much to replace the present order with Communism or socialism, but to destroy Christendom and Christianity.

The Revolution of 1848 was not the success that the Illuminists had sought. They wanted to overthrow the established monarchs and replaced them with a Communist state. After the failed Revolution, many of the revolutionists fled to the United States and became advocators and supporters of the abolitionist war to destroy the South and later Lincoln’s war to suppress Southern independence.

As a result of the failure of the Revolution of 1848, Lord Palmerston went on to supplant Mazzini as the chief of Western secret societies. Mazzini was the person primarily responsible for Palmerston’s rise to power in the Alta Vendita. With his rise to power in the secret societies, Palmerston turned from Mazzini to Napoleon III.[14]

Following Palmerston’s death, Mazzini again gained control of the Western secret societies. With the assistance of Albert Pike, Mazzini established organizational control over Freemasonry.

Appendix: Karl Marx
Karl Marx became the most famous Communist. He was the grandson of a Jewish Rabbi. His ancestry contained an unbroken line of rabbis from the sixteenth century until his father “converted” to Christianity. Also, his mother had a long line of rabbinical ancestors. His father converted to Christianity to keep his job, not because of any convection; his father was a disciple of Voltaire. [15]

In his youth, Marx had a Christian leaning. However, during his last year in high school, Moses Hess, whom Marx called the “Communist Rabbi,” instilled Marx with a strong anti-Christian attitude and initiated him into an advance level of Satanism.[16] (Hess also converted Friedrich Engels to Communism.)

Marx embraced Communism not because he believed in it. He embraced it because he was a Satanist, and Communism was a means to destroy Christian civilization.[17]

Marx was a close associate of Mazzini. Mazzini used Marx to penetrate and subvert the growing socialist labor movement.[18]

Communism ingrains and feeds on hate, and Marx hated. He hated the proletarians, whom he avoided, and considered them as merely the raw material needed for the construction of his revolution.

After the Revolution of 1848, Marx went on to help organize the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864 in London, which became known as the First International. Actually, Marx played no active role in the founding of the First International, but was placed on the organization committee anyway. Other organizers were Wolff (a Polish Jew, and Mazzini’s personal secretary), Cremer (secretary of the English Masons’ Union), Le Lubez (a French Freemason), and Weston (an Owenite).[19] Lionel Rothschild was the controlling power behind the First International.[20] Wolff proposed organizing the Association using the statutes of Mazzini’s working men’s associates, which the Association accepted. Middle class Illuminists organized the First International to deceive and control the proletariat. It consisted of Freemasons, Communists, socialists, atheists, and Satanists. Most of its members had no real idea what life was like for the proletariat or what their hopes and dreams were—other than they did not desire the New World Order about which the illuministic First International preached. The leaders of Europe’s secret societies soon joined and gained control of the First International. In reality, it was merely a congress of secret societies disguising itself as a labor convention. It was a front for the Illuminists. The program and doctrines espoused by the First International were essentially Masonic Illuminism.[21] Out of the First International came Communism of the twentieth century.

Hoarse Greeley, member of the Columbian Lodge of the Order of the Illuminati, hired Marx in 1851 as a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune.

Marx fled to New York in 1872 with the First International to escape Michael Bakunin’s harassment. In 1876, the First International formally dissolved when Marx merged the International Workingmen’s Party with the Socialist Party.

Endnotes

1. Lady Queenborough, (Edith Starr Miller). Occult Theocracy (Two Vols. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933), pp. 438-439.

2. Thomas Frost, The Secret Societies of the European Revolutions, 1776–1876 (Vol. II, London, England: Tinsley Brothers, 1876), p. 46-47.

3. Frost, vol. II, pp. 47, 50-52, 54.

4. Thomas Frost, The Secret Societies of the European Revolutions, 1776–1876 (Vol. I, London, England: Tinsley Brothers, 1876),, pp. 282-300.

5. Frost, vol. I pp. 249ff.

6. Nesta H. Webster, World Revolution: The Plot Against Civilization (Ed. Anthony Gittens. Seventh ed. Palmdale, California: Omni Publications, 1994), p. 96.

7. Eustace Mullins, The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History (Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987), pp. 94-95.

8. Webster, pp. 134, 157.

9. Mullins, p. 94.

10. Mullins, pp. 92-93. Jacob Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723-1939 (Translator Leonard Oschry. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 60.

11. Dennis L. Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning of the New Age New World Order (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone Publishing, 2000), p. 31.

12. K.R. McKilliam, Conspiracy to Destroy the Christian West (London, England: The Board of Anglo-Saxon Celtic Deputies), p. 8. Mullins, p. 94, 211.

13. Webster, p. 162.

14. Denis Fahey, Grand Orient: Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power behind Communism through Discovery of Lost Lectures Delivered by Monsignor George F. Dillon, D.D. at Edinburgh, in October 1884 (New and Revised Edition. Metairie, Louisiana: Sons of Liberty, 1950) p. 83.

15. The Cause of World Unrest (New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920), pp. 55-56.

16. William T. Still, New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1990), p. 130.

17. Stanley Monteith, Brotherhood of Darkness (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone, 2000),
p. 133.

18. Gary H. Kah, En Route to Global Occupation (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1992), p. 116. Queenborough, p. 219.

19. Webster, p. 181.

20. "Red Symphony Two Accounts," http://www.acts1711.com.red_symphony.htm, Nov. 9, 2003.

21. Still, pp. 137-138.

[Editor's note: The list of references in the original are omitted.]

Copyright © 2009, Thomas Coley Allen.

  More articles on history.

Freemasonry the Early Years

Freemasonry the Early Years
Thomas Allen

[Editor's note: Footnotes in the original are omitted.]

Interest by non-masons in Freemasonry began to grow in the seventeenth century. Freemasonry began to divide into two kinds: operative and speculative. Scottish Masonic lodges began to allow honorary members, who were not stonemasons. These Scottish Masons brought about the restoration of the House of Stuart in 1660. The beginnings of modern Freemasonry started about 1619 when the London Masons’ Company organized a body called the "Acception." This organization was established for men who were not masons by trade; they were known as "gentleman masons" or "accepted masons."

Freemasonry became so popular and fashionable in Great Britain during the seventeenth century that the "accepted" Masons became the majority. Finally, those who were not operative masons, masons by trade, decided to abandon the operative masonic lodges and form their own gentlemen’s lodges. Thus, Freemasonry was born.

An important figure behind the creation of speculative Freemasonry was Francis Bacon, a Rosicrucian and possibly a son of Queen Elizabeth I.[1] He was highly involved in the tradition of the Knights Templars.[2] Furthermore, Bacon is one of Illuminism’s most important leaders. In his New Atlantis, Instauratio Magna, and some of his other works, he laid out the plan for the New World Order.

Modern-day secret societies and their concomitant conspiracies and occultism may be said to begin in the early eighteenth century with the establishment of modern-day Freemasonry. Modern-day Freemasonry began in 1717 with the union of four London lodges to form the United Grand Lodge of British Freemasons (the Grand Lodge of London).[3] The seven founders were James Anderson (a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and a libertine), Calvert, Theophile Desaguliers, Joseph Elliott, James King, Lumen-Madden, and George Payne.[4] All seven were Gnostics and Magi of the English Rose Croix. Anthony Sayer became the first Grand Master. In 1721, John, the Duke of Montagu, became the GrandMaster; since then, the Grand Master has always been a nobleman. Philip, Duke of Wharton, a prominent Whig politician became Grand Master in 1722. The first person of the royal family to be Grand Master was Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, brother of George III, in 1782. Since 1782, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of York, or the Duke of Sussex has been grand master. Traditionally, a member of the royal family, or someone with close ties to Buckingham Palace, has been Grand Master of the English lodges.

By 1732, the Grand Lodge of London had become the center of English Freemasonry. By 1747, it dominated Freemasonry throughout the world.

The Freemasons modeled the structure of their organization after the craft guilds of the Middle Ages, primarily the French Compagnons and the Vehmgerichts, with degrees of membership. To this structure was added a speculative philosophy acquired from the Cabala. Among the other ancestors of Freemasonry are the ancient Mysteries of Egypt and Greece, Pharisaic Judaism, the Essences of Jerusalem, Hinduism, Gnosticism, the Roman Collegia of Artificers (Roman College of Builders), the Templars, the Steinmetzen of Westphalia, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy. Of these, Jewish ones predominate and are, by far, the most important.

Fahey describes the relationship between Jews and Freemasonry as follows:

What we see, then, in the years following 1717 is rather the emergence into fuller light of a secret organised Force aiming at enrolling and forming groups of adepts to work for Naturalism, that is, for the denial of the Supernatural Life and the elimination of membership of Christ from society. The Jewish nation is a non-secret organised naturalistic Force, that is to say its naturalistic opposition to the Mystical Body of Christ is openly proclaimed. Freemasonry, the organised naturalistic Force action in subordination to and in conjunction with the Jewish nation is a secret society or group of societies, for its naturalism or anti-supernaturalism is secret or camouflaged.[5]

Of the relationship between modern Judaism and Freemasonry, Cahill observed,

(1) That much of the external trappings of Freemasonry, such as its ritual, its terminology, its legends, etc. are of Jewish origin;

(2) that the philosophy or religion of esoteric Freemasonry (that is of the inner circles and controlling power) is practically identical with the doctrines of the Jewish Cabala, which is the religion or philosophy of a certain section of the Jews;

(3) that a certain group of Jews, probably very few in number, but of immense influence and power, are leading Freemasons; and

(4) that a somewhat larger group of very influential Jews pursue the same ends as Freemasons, and use similar means, and are at least in close alliance with them.[6]

According to James Anderson, the real aim of Freemasonry was to carry "pure Gnosticism and liberal rationalism throughout the entire world"[7] and that "the secret teachings of the supreme leaders of Freemasonry may be summed up in these words: to establish all the rights of Man."[8] (Masonic Gnosticism goes back at least 200 years before the union of the London lodges.)

Freemasonry soon spread across Europe. In 1721, speculative English Freemasonry first appeared on the Continent in France. In 1725, English nobles and gentry who were supporters of James II, the Jacobites, founded the Grand Lodge of Paris. Charles Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater was its first Grand Master. (Thus, while Illuminists through Freemasonry in England supported the house of Hanover, Illuminists through Freemasonry in France and Scotland supported the house of Stuart.)

After arriving in France, Freemasonry spread rapidly across the continent. It appeared in Spain in 1728, Holland in 1730, Germany in 1730, Russia in 1731, Italy in 1733, Poland in 1735, Portugal in 1735, Sweden in 1735, Switzerland in 1736, Austria in 1742, Hungary in 1742, Denmark in 1743, and Finland in 1756. Monarchs in Spain, Portugal, and Naples opposed Freemasonry. However, in Germany and Austria, the monarchs viewed it favorably.

Freemasonry soon received the opposition of King Louis XV, who forbad his subjects to become Freemasons. Opposition to Freemasonry in France seemed to have been directed against selected individuals rather than Freemasonry per se. Two anti-masonry movements occurred in France: one in 1737 and the other in 1744 and 1745. However, persecution was sporadic and ineffective. Cardinal Andre de Fleury, who lead the first anti-Masonry movement, did not submit the Papal Bull issued in 1738 condemning Freemasonry to the French Parliament. Opposition to Freemasonry was mostly from the Catholic Church; the government showed little concern. Much of it may have been Cardinal Fleury’s attempt to protect himself from a high-ranking aristocrat using Freemasonry against him.

Frederick the Great aided the introduction of Freemasonry into Germany. In 1738, he was initiated into Freemasonry. He became Grand Master, and in 1761, he headed the Scottish Rite. Other rulers of German states followed his lead, as did Francis I of Austria. Frederick used Freemasonry as a cover for his intrigues.

Schisms soon developed within Freemasonry. In Great Britain, Freemasonry divided between the United Grand Lodge of England, which followed the new rules and ceremonies of The Constitutions of the Freemasons that Dr. James Anderson had written, and the Grand Lodges of Scotland and of Ireland, which preferred the old constitutions. Adherents of the new rules and ceremonies were known as the Modernists, and the adherents of the old, as the Antients or Ancient Masons. The Antients supported four Masonic degrees while the Moderns supported only three. Furthermore, while the Moderns had fully de-Christianized Freemasonry, the Antients had not. (Freemasonry did not seek to destroy the established religion so much as to replace it with the religion of Freemasonry.) Furthermore, the new constitutions replaced loyalty to country and patriotism with loyalty to the brotherhood of Freemasons, cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and nebulous mankind. (Freemasonry placed itself above state and country; for practical reasons, it avoided open conflict with the state.) This division remained until 1813 when the rival Grand Masters, George IV’s brothers, Edward Augusta, Duke of Kent and Grand Master of the Antients, and Augusta Frederick, Duke of Sussex and Grand Master of the Moderns, reunited the two factions. The union resulted in the United Grand Lodge of England with the Duke of Sussex as the Grand Master. The Moderns won in de-Christianizing Freemasonry, and the Antients won in having higher degrees and the invocation of the supposedly rediscovered long-lost name of God associated with the higher degrees.

In France a split occurred between followers of the Jacobites, who favored higher degrees (the Scottish Rite), and followers of the Grand Lodge of France (the English Grand Lodge of France), who opposed higher degrees. Masonic lodges that followed the Scottish Rites were known as red masonic lodges. Lodges following the English were known as blue masonic lodges. In 1754, Louis, Prince of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France, began adding higher degrees. (Louis was Grand Master from 1743 until 1771.) In 1756, the Grand Lodge of France declared itself independent of the Grand Lodge of England.

At the urging of Mirabeau, Philippe Egalite, Duke of Chartres, later Duke of Orleans, united the various factions of French Freemasonry in 1773 with himself as Grand Master. Thus, to bring greater coordination and discipline among the red lodges, the Grand Orient of France was founded. Essentially, the union resulted in the Grand Lodge being submerged into the Grand Orient with the masters of the Grand Orient being masters of the new organization. The union was one of force as mush as of mutual agreement. (Even after this union, schisms continued until 1799.)

The Duke of Orleans led the faction that sought to overthrow Louis XVI, his brother-in-law, and put himself on the throne. He used the Grand Orient, which was no social club, to fulfill his ambition. It was in the forefront of revolutionary incitement. As early as 1776, it leadership was instructing the membership in preparation for insurrection.

In Germany a power struggle occurred between the Rosicrucian element and the French element. (French prisoners of war introduced the French element in 1756 and 1757.) Disagreement involved craft practices. The Rosicrucians had adopted the Scottish Rites, which had degrees above the first three. An appeal was made to the Grand Lodge of London, which claimed that to guarantee the purity of Freemasonry, it must instruct and rule on all matters of Freemasonry. It ruled that only three degrees were authentic. German Freemasonry divided into two factions: the Rosaic (Rosicrucian) lodges and lodges adhering to the Grand Lodge of London.

While these two factions squabbled, another Masonic faction rose to become much more important than these two. This was the Order of Strict Observance, which was founded in 1751. Karl Gotthold, Baron von Hund, organized this Order, which was based on the Scottish Rite and the Order of the Gold and Rosy Cross (a Rosicrucian society), and which was a Templar order.[9] Among the members of this Order were Prince Charles (Karl) of Hesse, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick (who became the head of the Order), von Bischoffswerder (the Prussian minister), Christian Bode (the Councillor of Legation in Saxe-Gotha and later a member of the Bavarian Illuminati.), Baron de Wachter, von Haugwitz (foreign minister of Frederick the Great), Baron Adolph von Knigge (Weishaupt’s assistant), Marquis de Chefdebien d’Armisson, and Count Leopold de Kollowrath-Krakowski.[10] Behind this Order were the Unknown Superiors, who remained in the background yet who had supreme control of the Order. Frederick the Great, Voltaire, and Hayyim Samuel Falk were probably among the Unknown Superiors.[11] The Order of Strict Observance eventually gained control of German Freemasonry. Then it was absorbed into the Order of the Illuminati as a result of the Congress of Wilhelmsbad in 1782. Officially, the Order of Strict Observance disappeared after the Congress of Wilhelmsbad. Nevertheless, it seems to have merely changed its name and became the Rectified Scottish Rite.

The Order of Strict Observance spread to France, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, and Russia. The Duke of Sudermania, who later became King Charles XIII of Sweden, presided over the Order in Sweden. In France, Jean-Baptiste Willermoz set up the first lodge in 1774 in Lyon, the year that he joined the Order. However, in 1778, Willermoz made French members of the Strict Observance independent of the Germans.

Besides Freemasonry, other secret societies also played an important role in the development of Illuminism during the eighteenth century. One such society was the Martinists or French Illuminati.

In 1754, Martines de Pasqually (Martinez Paschalis or Pasqualis), a Jew of Portugese origin, who was supposedly a Catholic by faith, founded the Order of the Elected Priest, whose members became known as Martinists and as French Illumines. Pasqually was a Rose Croix Freemason and a Rosicrucian. His Order was centered in Lyon, but it spread as far as Russia. This Order was an important instrument in spreading occultism across France. It emphasized theurgy, the Cabala, magic, divination, alchemy, Gnosticism, and Theosophy. Its goal was to use hedonism, secrecy, terror, and revolution to destroy Christianity and the existing order. From this anarchy would arise a New World Order without God where the Illuminists would hold the sexes and goods in common and mankind would be reduced to a herd of animals. Like all Illuminists, the Martinists had an intense hatred of the God of the Christians—thus, their rampant immorality, which is merely open rebellion against Him. It eventually became the third great Masonic power in France. Its philosophy became the predominant philosophy of Freemasonry.

In 1771, the Martinists and several other rival Masonic orders united and formed the new lodge of the United Friends. Savalette de Lange, a high initiate in Freemasonry and "the man of all conspiracies,"[12] founded this lodge. When he founded it, he was the Royal Treasurer, Grand Officer of the Grand Orient. To unite the other lodges into his, he blended sophistic, Martinist, and Masonic systems. Among the members of the United Friends were Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville, Marquis de Chefdebien d’Armisson (he was also a member of the Grand Orient and the Strict Observance), Condorcet (Freemason), Danton, Frederic-Louis de Hesse-Darmstadt Count de Gebelin, Baron de Gleichen (Freemason), William Law (English clergyman), Mirabeau, Louis Claude Saint-Martin, Emmanuel J. Sieyes (Freemason), Viscount of Tavannes, Willermoz, and William IX of Hesse.[13] The United Friends "prosecuted the dark and dangerous work of preparing that reformation of society which in practice became [the French] Revolution."[14]

At the time of the union, Willermoz, who had joined the Martinists in 1767, controlled the Martinist lodges. He remained at Lodge Theodore in Munich until 1784, two years after Weishaupt’s Illuminati formerly united with Freemasonry. Lodge Theodore was the center of the Illuminati.

Endnotes
1. William T. Still, New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1990), p. 47.

2. Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids (New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000), p. 228.
3. Norman MacKenzie, ed., Secret Societies (New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), p. 163. K.R, McKilliam, Conspiracy to Destroy the Christian West (London, England: The Board of Anglo-Saxon Celtic Deputies). p. 5.
4. Queenborough, Lady (Edith Starr Miller), Occult Theocracy (Two Volumes. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933), pp. 34, 175. J. S. M. Ward, Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods (London, England: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd., 1921), p. 68.
5. Denis Fahey, Grand Orient: Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power behind Communism through Discovery of Lost Lectures Delivered by Monsignor George F. Dillon, D.D. at Edinburgh, in October 1884 (New and Revised Edition. Metairie, Louisiana: Sons of Liberty, 1950), p. xiii.
6. E. Cahill, Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement (Second edition. Dublin, Ireland: M.H. Gill and Son, Ltd., 1930. Reprinted 1952), p. 77.
7. James W. Wardner, Unholy Alliances: The Secret Plan and the Secret People Who Are Working to Destroy America (James W. Wardner, 1996), p. 81.
8. Ibid., p. 82.
9. Marrs pp. 240, 246-247. Queenborough, p. 350. J.M. Roberts, The Mythology of the Secret Society (New York, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), pp. 106-107. Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (Palmdale, California: Omni Publication, 1924), p. 154.
10. Clarence Kelly, Conspiracy Against God and Man: A Study of the Beginnings and Early History of the Great Conspiracy (Belmont, Massachusetts: Western Islands, 1974), p. 72. Webster, pp. 154, 210, 236.
11. Kelly, p. 72. Webster, pp. 157,190.
12. Una Birch, Secret Societies and the French Revolution Together with Some Kindred Studies (New York, New York.: John Lane Co., 1911), p. 31.
13. The Cause of World Unrest (New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920), p. 23. Queenborough, pp. 183, 369. Webster, p. 171.
14. Birch, p. 31.
[Editor's note: The original contains a list of references, which has been omitted.]
Copyright © by Thomas Coley Allen.

 More articles on history.