Secret Societies and Conspiracies in the Founding of America

Secret Societies and Conspiracies in the Founding of America

Thomas Allen

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

Secret societies and conspiracies were highly involved in the founding of American. Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry were heavily involved. Two of the most important conspiracies were the Arnold conspiracy and Randolph conspiracy.

Rosicrucians
In 1693, a movement began in Europe to establish a colony of European Rosicrucian leaders. The objective of these colonists was to establish Rosicrucianism, arts, and trade in the New World. They sought to bring about a New World Order outlined by Sir Francis Bacon in The New Atlantis. This book reveals Bacon’s ideal commonwealth in the political world that the Illuminists have sought through the ages. It describes a utopian society across the ocean from Europe; this society was built upon the principles of Atlantis. This utopia was a world without national boundaries and without racial distinction under a world government.[1]

Under the leadership of Grand Master Johannes Kelpius, a German Pietist theologian, the colonists landed in 1694 in Philadelphia. The colonists brought with them books on alchemy, astrology, and magic; the Cabala; and the writings of the German mystic Jakob Boehme. By 1801 the Rosicrucian Order had become inactive or moved completely underground in America.[2]

Arrival of Freemasonry
After Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry was perhaps the next non-Indian secret society brought to the British colonies. It arrived in 1730 when Daniel Coxe was appointed Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.[3] In 1733, Henry Price became Provincial Grand Master of New England; he is considered the father of regular Freemasonry in the United States. Benjamin Franklin, who was a Rosicrucian,[4] became provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734.[5]

The red Freemasonry of France was introduced in 1761 into the Colonies. Behind red Freemasonry were Frederick the Great, Philip Egalite, Swiss bankers, and British intelligence. The Grand Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secrets of Paris, which Frederick the Great controlled, sent Stephen Morin, a Jew, to establish the Rite of Perfection, i.e., the Scottish Rite. Philip Egalite, Duke of Clermont and later Duke of Orleans, signed his papers. Louis, Count of Clermont, granted Morin the authority to establish Scottish Rite Freemasonry.[6] His deputy inspector was Henry Francken. Francken appointed Moses M. Hayes, a Jew, of Boston as inspector general of North American Freemasonry. Hayes introduced the Scottish Rite in 1780 into the United States at the New Port Lodge.[7] Hayes also appointed Isaac da Costa, a Jew, as deputy inspector general of South Carolina, Solomon Bush as deputy inspector for Pennsylvania, and B.M. Spitser as deputy inspector for Georgia.[8] In 1801, the first Supreme Council of Scottish Rite Freemasonry was established in Charleston, South Carolina.[9]

Before the appearance of the Sottish Rite, Franklin had been the primary organizer of Freemasonry in the Colonies. The lodges that he organized were connected with the Grand Lodge of London.

American Revolution
Freemasonry was at the center of the American Revolution. At the forefront was the St. Andrew Lodge, which was a Grand Lodge of the Scottish Rite. Joseph Warren, a close friend of Franklin, headed this Lodge. Paul Revere was also a leader of this Lodge. This Lodge was probably behind the Boston Tea Party.[10]

In 1778, the Americans re-occupied Philadelphia after the British evacuation. To celebrate this great occasion, General George Washington, dressed in full Masonic attire, solemnly led 300 Freemasons through Philadelphia to Christ Church. Here a Masonic divine service was held.

Besides Washington and Franklin, many other American revolutionists were Freemasons. They included the following generals: Nathaniel Greene, Henry Knox, Henry Lee (Light-Horse Harry), Richard Montgomery, Israel Putnam, Rufus Putnam, Baron von Steuben, and John Sullivan. (Of Washington’s generals, 33 were Freemasons.) Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, and John Paul Jones were also Freemasons. Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Marshall were Freemasons.[11] John Hancock and eight other Freemasons singed the Declaration of Independence.[12] (Manley Hall, a Masonic writer, asserts that all but one signer were Freemasons.) Fifty of the 59 members of the Constitutional Convention were Freemasons.[13] Of the 39 signers of the Constitution, at lest 13 were master Freemasons.[14] The Continental Army had approximately 14,000 officers of whom 2018 were Freemasons.[15]

Freemasons in England championed the colonists in their struggled for independence. They included William Pitt, Edmund Burke, and the Duke of Manchester (Grand Master of English Freemasonry).

During the American Revolution, Masonic agents freely moved between British controlled areas and American controlled areas.

Freemasons in France were also instrumental in providing the American revolutionists the aid that they needed to secede from England successfully. Through Freemasonry, Franklin made his contacts with the appropriate officials in the French government and outside the government. The most ardent support for the American Revolution came from the French nobles who were Freemasons. (Franklin berated the French nobility and campaigned against it in spite of its zealous support of Freemasonry and the American Revolution.)

The Arnold Conspiracy
William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, head of British intelligence, managed to place his agents in many critical positions among the American revolutionists. Benedict Arnold, a Freemason, is perhaps the best known of these agents.[16]

The Mallet-Prevost family put in place Lord Shelburne’s spy and espionage network. This family was the leader of Swiss espionage. One of the family leaders, General Augustine Prevost became Grand Stewart of the Lodge of Perfection. (This lodge had been established in Albany, New York in 1768.) He was also Prince of Royal Secrets and commander of the British southern forces during the American Revolution. His second in command was James Mark Prevost, his brother. Arnold was one of his agents.[17]

Margaret “Peggy” Shippen Arnold, wife of Benedict Arnold and stepsister of Aaron Burr, was a conduit for communications between Mark Prevost and Benedict Arnold. Mark Prevost often communicated with Peggy Arnold through his wife, Theodosia, who later married Aaron Burr. Through this channel, the arrangement to surrender West Point to the English was initiated. For aiding the English in its failed attempt to capture West Point, Arnold was charged with treason.[18] After conspiring to surrender West Point, Arnold was given his promised command in the British army and fought against the Americans in the South.

The Randolph Conspiracy
In 1774, Edmund Randolph at age 21 joined the Ancient Order of York Masons. After becoming a Freemason, his career began its climb upwards. He soon became an aide de camp to General George Washington. In 1785, he became Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia. The next year he was named Grand Master. At the time of his election to Grand Master, Randolph was Attorney General of Virginia. (Since then Freemasons have controlled the legal system of Virginia.)[19]

The Grand Lodge of Virginia was established in 1768 at Williamsburg, which was then the capital of Virginia. John Blair, who was then acting governor of Virginia and later a Virginian delegate to the Constitutional Convention, was its first Grand Master.[20]

Peyton Randolph, Edmund Randolph’s uncle and adoptive father, became the first President of the First Continental Congress. Peyton Randolph was also Grand Master of the Masonic Order.

President Washington appointed Edmund Randolph the first Attorney General of the United States and then the second Secretary of State after Jefferson resigned.

In 1787, Congress called a convention to amend the Articles of Confederation. (This convention became known as the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787.) At this time, Randolph was Governor of Virginia. He persuaded the Virginia delegation to support scraping the Articles of Confederation and write a new constitution that would incorporate the states into a federation. (“Thus it was the Grand Master of Virginia, Edmund Randolph, in league with Aaron Burr and British intelligence, who foisted on the nation the concept of a federal government which could rule over and above the sovereignties of the states.”[21]) Randolph was also a delegate to the convention.

Result of American Revolution
In spite of the Illuminists involvement in the American Revolution and the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1789, the essence of English freedoms and institutions survived. What saved the new United States from Illuminism and from becoming its communistic, democratic egalitarian new Atlantis, the New World Order, ruled by Illuminists, was that 65 to 99 percent of the Aryan population was Christian. Now the Illuminists began the work of destroying them.

Most of the leaders of the American Revolution who were Freemasons believed that they were fighting to free the American colonies from the tyrannical British rule. They were ignorant of the ultimate objective of the Revolution, which was to establish an illuministic New World Order. The Illuminists who controlled Freemasonry had deceived them, as they deceive most Freemasons today. They had deceived them into believing that Freemasonry was the savior of Christianity and the bearer of liberty and happiness. Only the highest degree Illuminists knew the real objective—the establishment of Lucifer’s New World Order.

Fortunately for Americans, the ideals of the Reformation and the English Revolution guided the American Revolution much more than the ideals of the Renaissance and the French Revolution. In spite many leaders of the American Revolution being Illuminists, Christianity had a much greater influence over the American Revolution than did Illuminism. (Revolutions based primarily on Illuminism, such as the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution lead to despair and anarchy, which is followed by dictatorship. Revolutions based primarily on Christianity, such as the English Revolution and the American Revolution, lead to hope and freedom.)

Endnotes
1. Dennis L. Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning of the New Age New World Order (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone Publishing, 2000), p. 15. H. Spencer Lewis, Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History of the Rosicrucian Order (Second Edition. San Jose, California: Rosicrucian Press, 1932), pp. 135-136, 138. William T. Still, New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1990), pp. 46ff.

2. Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning, p. 15. Lewis, pp. 135-136, 138.

3. Bernard Fay, Revolution and Freemasonry 1680-1800 (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company, 1935), pp. 230-231. 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. 55. J. S. M. Ward, Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods (London, England: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd., 1921), pp. 230-231.

4. Lewis, p. 137.

5. Kelly, p. 55.

6. The Cause of World Unrest (New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920), pp. 48-49. Lady Queenborough (Edith Starr Miller), Occult Theocracy (Two Volumes. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933), pp. 189, 336. Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (Palmdale, California: Omni Publication, 1924), p. 149.

7. Kelly, pp. 55-56. Eustace Mullins, The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History (Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987), p. 132. Queenborough, p. 190.

8. Cause of World Unrest, p. 49. Kelly, pp. 55-56. Queenborough, p. 190. Webster, p. 149.

9. Gary H. Kah, En Route to Global Occupation (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1992), p. 110.

10. Fay, pp. 239-240. Still, p. 61.

11. Fay, p. 250. Kelly, p. 55. 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), pp. 231-232.

12. Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning, p. 23.

13. Still, p. 61.

14. Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning, p. 23.

15. Marrs, p. 232.

16. Mullin, pp. 132-133.

17. Anton Chaitkin, Treason in America From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman (New York, New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1984), p. 148. Mullin, p. 133.

18. Chaitkin, pp. 15-18.

19. Mullin, pp. 181-182.

20. Mullin, p. 181.

21. Mullins, p. 183.

[Editor’s note: List of references in original are omitted.]

Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Templars

TemplarsThomas Allen

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

One little known, but immensely important, secret society was founded in the eleventh century. It was the Priory (Order) of Sion. Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine and leader of the First Crusade, founded this Order in 1090. It was connected with the Rosicrucians. Between 1118 and 1188, the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion was also grandmaster of the Templars; in 1188 the two orders separated. Then the Priory of Sion became mostly concerned with the Merovingians, who had laid the foundations of the Priory of Sion. Its declared objective was to restore the Merovingian dynasty to the thrones of Europe; however, World War I seemed to have thwarted this scheme.

Grand masters of the Priority of Sion have included Leonardo da Vinci (1510-1519), Robert Fludd (1595-1637), Robert Boyle (1654-1691), Sir Isaac Newton (1691-1727), Charles Radcliffe, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy, and Jean Cocteau.[1] Today its members are among the inner circles of Freemasonry, the Round Tables, and other secret illuministic societies.

Out of the Priority of Sion came the Templars. Hugues de Payens, a Burgundian knight, Godfrey of St. Omer, Andre de Montbard, and six other knights founded the Order of the Temple in 1118. Bernard of Clairvaux was the author of the Templars’ constitution, which he modeled after the Cistercian Order. The Templars were divided into degrees. The Order had a pyramidal chain of command where subordinates were expected to obey commands of superiors without question or hesitation. Furthermore, like all other secret societies, those who controlled it possessed secrets about which ordinary members were ignorant. In 1128, the Council of Troyes approved the Templars as an official military and religious order.

Like the Assassins, the Templars were established to serve their religious faith as an independent power. Moreover, some of the Templars’ esoteric dogmas and ceremonies seemed to have come from the Assassins. The Templars and Assassins were allies in several battles—and at times to the detriment of the Christians.

Hugues de Payens, a member of the Priority of Sion, and his knights established the Templars ostensibly to protect pilgrims as they journeyed to the Holy Land. However, for some years they provided little protection to travelers; they left this task to the Hospitalers, an order established earlier for the protection of pilgrims. The Templars’ primary objective was to search for treasurer among the ruins of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. They apparently found ancient scrolls that contained hidden knowledge and other holy artifacts. They also found much gold. The manuscripts that they found conflicted with much of the teachings of the Catholic Church. With this new knowledge, they intimidated church officials. These discoveries brought them immense power and wealth. Later the Crusaders of Jerusalem saw the Templars as a military resource to be used to defend against Moslem incursions. Although they only owed allegiance to the pope, they offered their services to defend the Crusaders.

Because of the services provided by the Templars, Crusaders begin bequeathing their estates to the Templars. Soon the Templars had amassed enormous wealth although they had taken a vow of poverty. This wealth enabled them to become bankers. They lent money to the kings of Europe and even to Moslems. With their enormous wealth scattered throughout Europe, the Templars had become the international financiers or bankers of their era. They performed the same functions as international financiers and banks perform today.

The Templars also became analogous to a modern multinational corporation. They imported into Europe new knowledge of architecture, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and metallurgy that they had acquired in the Middle East.

Not only had they been given castles and other buildings across Europe, they were also avid builders. The Templars were the prime movers behind building the great medieval cathedrals and were probably responsible for introducing Gothic architecture in Europe. (Missing from the cathedrals built by the Templars were depictions of the Crucifixion.) Templars were behind the formation of the medieval stonemason and other building guilds, whose members became members of the Templar Order.

The Templars began deteriorating with its fourth Grand Master. As the wealth and fame of the Templars grew, fewer desirable men began to join and rise to control the Order. Gnostic dogma eventually replaced Christian doctrine. (Some Templar authorities contend that the Templars were Gnostics from the beginning.) The Templars, especially those in the inner most circle, believed that “the true church, one that taught mysticism, reincarnation, and good works, was being suppressed by a dark power that called itself the one true faith.”[2]

The Templars answered to no one but the pope. In Europe their holdings were independent of secular authority. With the passage of time, the Templars became more independent and more isolated as the popes granted them more privileges. The Templars were exempted from tithes and church taxes. They were exempted from feudal oaths and services. Of these privileges, the most irritating one to bishops and archbishops was the authority of Templars to suspend interdicts wherever they traveled. In short, Templars owed allegiance only to the pope. They were rich and powerful, and their persons were sacred.

In Palestine, negotiations with the Saracens fell to the Templars. Thus, the Templars and Saracens became well acquainted. At times the Templars even allied with the Moslems against the Christians.

After the fall of Jerusalem to the Moslems, which was due in large part to the incompetence of Gerald de Ridfort, Grand Master of the Templars, the Templars lost what remained of their religious virtue. They eventually became politicians. As their power grew, their own independent power became more important than Christian unity.

By 1303, the Moslems had driven the Templars and the Christian Crusaders from the Holy Land. After being driven from the Holy Land, the Templars no longer functioned as guardians of the Crusaders. However, the Order still had 20,000 members and enormous wealth scattered throughout Europe.

After the Templars left the Holy Land, the pope saw them as a force to be used to keep recalcitrant princes in line. He would use them to expand and maintain his secular sovereignty. They would be soldiers of the Church at home.

In France the Templars served as the king’s banker in exchange for his protection from the envious. To escape from civil disorder, the bankrupt King Philip IV (Philip the Fair) fled to their temple in Paris. Here he witnessed their enormous wealth. Finally, King Philip’s lust for their wealth (he needed money for his wars), and perhaps his fear of their independence, came so great that in 1307 he proceeded to expropriate their wealth in France. The Templars had defied his orders and refused to pay taxes. Moreover, the Templars had denied him membership in the Order. He charged them with heresy and turned them over to the Inquisition. (The evidence seems to have supported Philip’s claim of heresy. The highest degree Templars were probably Gnostics, and many lived licentious lives.) Other kings followed Philip when in 1312 at the Synod of Vienna, the pope abolished the Order of the Templars and ordered the kings of Europe to arrest the Templars in their domains. Much of the Templar’s wealth fell to the kings of Europe although most of it was supposed to go to the Hospitalers. Poor Philip seems to have confiscated little of their vast wealth in France. Most of their wealth, which included not only money, but also artifacts and ancient writings, vanished.

Some of the surviving Templars joined the Hospitalers, the Knights of Christ, and the Teutonics Knights. Some joined other secret societies that Freemasonry or other illuministic societies later absorbed. Some Templars fled to Scotland; from them the York Rite and Scottish Rite of Freemasonry probably came. Today the Order of the Knight Templar survives in the highest degree of the York Rite Freemasonry.

Appendix. Cathari
An important religious movement associated with the Templars was the Cathari (Pure Ones), whom the Catholic Church condemned as heretics. The Cathari, who were also known as the Albigenses, arose to prominence during the twelfth century in Languedoc in southern France.

They lived a simple, religious life. Instead of meeting in elaborate buildings, they meet in the open. Their beliefs were similar to Buddhism and closely related to the Mithras and Manichaeans. Among their beliefs was reincarnation, abstention from meat except fish, and nonresistance. Jesus was the spiritual Son of God; he existed in a spiritual body and not a human body. They also taught that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and had children by her. Mary and her children migrated to Languedoc after Jesus’ execution. Their theology was a dualistic theology. An evil god created the material world and man; a good god created and ruled the heavens. Thus, the God of the Old Testament was Satan. They were also followers of the Cabala. To the Cathari, all baptized members were spiritually equal and were priests. As itinerant preachers, they traveled in pairs. In the utmost poverty and simplicity, they lived. They refused to acknowledge the authority of the pope. The Templars have been accused of having the same religious beliefs as the Cathari. St. Bernard may have been a secret adherent of the Cathari’s beliefs.

The pope had Philip II, King of France, to declare the Cathari heretics and to exterminate them. The war against the Cathari began in 1209 and became known as the Albigensian Crusade. The crusade ended in 1229, and the Cathar heresy was finally eradicated in 1244 with the fall of Montsegur. More than 100,000 Cathari were killed during the crusade.

Endnotes
1. Boyd Rice, "The Prophet," http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/prophet.html, Jan. 31, 2001.

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. 291.

References
The Cause of World Unrest. New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920.

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

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

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

Froude, James Anthony. The Spanish Story of the Armada and Other Essays. New York, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892.

Kah, Gary H. En Route to Global Occupation. Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1992.

Kah, Gary H. The New World Religion. Noblesville, Indiana: Hope International Publishing, Inc., 1998.

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.

Monteith, Stanley. Brotherhood of Darkness. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone, 2000.

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

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

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Allen.

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Rosicrucians

Rosicrucians
Thomas Allen

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

One of the great secret societies originating in ancient times was the Rosicrucian society. The Rosicrucians (the Great White Brotherhood) trace their origin back to the ancient Egyptians—at least as far back as Ahmose I, who reigned from 1580 B.C. to 1557 B.C. Thutmose III, who reign from 1500 B.C. to 1447 B.C., is credited with organizing the present physical form of the secret society of the Rosicrucians.[1]

Several centuries later the Rosicrucians began to spread to other lands. Those who went to Palestine became known as the Essenes. Those who went to Greece became known as the Therapeuti.[2]

The Essences were ascetics. They held their goods in common and rejected marriage. Living in an egalitarian community, members were prohibited from exercising authority over one another and were required to serve one another mutually. They were associated with esoteric healing traditions. Bounded by a horrific secret oath, they were forbidden to reveal their sacred mysteries and secret doctrines. The sect divided itself into three degrees through which members progressed. Using secret spiritual keys, the Essences reinterpreted the Pentateuch. They were Cabalists and Gnostics and practices a primitive form of Communism.

On Mount Carmel, the Essenes built their monastery and temple in the ninth century B.C. Shortly before the birth of Jesus, they built a new monastery and temple at Heliopolis, which became the center of their activity. Several centuries after the birth of Christ, the Rosicrucians moved their headquarters to Tibet.

During the reign of Charlemagne, Rosicrucian Order came to France when Arnaud established a Rosicrucian lodge in Toulouse in 804 A.D. Soon afterwards, Charlemagne introduced Rosicrucianism in Germany. In 1100 a lodge was established in Worms.

After the twelfth century, Rosicrucianism was mostly inactive until the sixteenth century. It had a revival in Protestant circles in Germany during the Counter Reformation. Many people began looking to the Orient, past civilizations, and speculative ideas of contemporaries for a hidden wisdom to counteract the disquieting events of the day. They consulted alchemy, the Egyptian Mysteries recorded by Hermes Trismegistus, Sufism, and the Cabala. A synthesis of alchemy, astrology, Cabalism, mysticism, and Theosophy provided the basis of the revived Rosicrucianism.

In 1586, Simon Studion, a Rosicrucian of the high degree of Imperator in Germany, planned and called an international convention. This convention was known as the Cruce Signatorum Conventus and was held in Hanover. The ostensible purpose of the convention was to prevent the misuse and abuse of the cross. Henry IV, King of France, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Frederick II, King of Denmark, sponsored this convention.[3]

As a result of this convention, the Militia Crucifera Evangelica was established to defend the cross and stop its use in religious warfare, religious persecution, other destructive contests. It opposed persecution because of religious or scientific teaching. This Militia was an organization of loyal Rosicrucians. It became the protector of the Rosicrucians and revived their pure physical mystical teachings.

The Militia Crucifera Evangelica became the inner circle, the secret organization, within the Rosicrucian Order. Its membership was, and continues to be, limited to advanced adepts of Rosicrucian teachings, who had devoted their lives to the Rosicrucians, and who loyally supported the Imperator in each country where the Militia existed.

The first written document of Rosicrucianism, the Fama Fraternatis (the history of the founding of Rosicrucianism), appeared in 1614 at Cassel. It urged the learned to abandon the false teachings of the pope, Galen, and Aristotle and to join the Rosicrucians. It promised “a deeper knowledge of nature and a share in bringing about a general reformation of the world.”[4] This document was read widely throughout Europe.

A stated objective of the Rosicrucians was to restore the lost secrets of science, especially in medicine. They also sought to provide rulers sufficient wealth to take care of their subjects.

Johann Valentine Andrea is believed to be the reviver of the Rosicrucians. He had been a student of astronomy, mathematic, optic, and philosophy at Tubingen. Millenarian and visionary forms of religion gained his interest. Later he became a Lutheran deacon, after which he became a faithful upholder of Lutheranism and apparently remained such for the remainder of his life. He seemed to have used the Rosicrucian Order to advance Protestantism and abandoned the Order when Catholics captured it and started to use it to advance Catholicism.

Whatever its use to advocate Protestantism or Catholicism, the Rosicrucian Order was an anti-Christian society. It was Gnostic in nature and promoted Theosophy and Cabalism. It taught that “the soul of man moves in a spiral upward through spheres of angelic hierarchies toward God,”[5] who is not the God of the Christians. Rosicrucianism is a convoluted system of rituals and ceremonies combined with enigmatic teachings laced with Judaic and Christian tenets and merged with occult practices and pagan mythology. It is a mixture of the tenets of the Egyptian Mysteries, paranormal and psychic phenomena, and pseudo-science like alchemy. The god of Rosicrucianism is an impersonal god who is the “Supreme Intelligence,” a form of “pure energy,” and “the First Cause of All.”

Rosicrucians of this era included Dante Alighieri (author of The Divine Comedy), Sir Francis Bacon (philosopher), Dr. John Dee (scientist and a spy for Queen Elizabeth I), and Robert Fludd (one of the translators of the King James version of the Bible and a Jesuit).

By 1630, Rosicrucianism seemed to have ceased to exist. It next surfaced in the early eighteenth century when two detailed sets of rules were published, one in 1710 and another in 1777, in Germany. It also appeared in England, France, and Russia. This revived Rosicrucianism stressed superstition and ceremony. It possessed little of the ideals of the early Rosicrucians.

Modern Rosicrucianism appeared in 1865 with the establishment of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (Rosicrucian Society in England). Actually, it was not a true Rosicrucian society. It was not a direct descendant of earlier Rosicrucian orders. Rather, it was an off shoot of Freemasonry. However, the difference between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry is not much. Philosophically, both are illuministic, pantheistic, and gnostic. Only Master Masons could be members. Robert Wentworth Little, a Freemason, was the primary organizer of this society. Its stated aims were “to afford mutual aid and encouragement in working out the great problems of life, and in discovering the secrets of nature; to facilitate the study of the systems of philosophy founded upon the Cabala and the doctrine of Hermes Trismegistus.”[6] Its structure was similar to that of the Bavarian Illuminati.

A related society, the Order of the Golden Dawn (or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), a Hermetic society, was founded about 1887. Dr. William Wynn Westcott, a London corner and third Supreme Magus of Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, founded this society. Westcott, Dr. Robert Woodman, and MacGregor Mathers (all three were Freemasons) ran the Order. (Mathers became the sole leader after the death of Woodman and the resignation of Westcott and remained so until the Golden Dawn lodge in London ousted him and selected three new chiefs.)Kenneth MacKenzie, who died in the 1870s was probably the mind behind the creation of the Golden Dawn and its tents and practices. The purpose of this society was to study Cabalistic doctrine and magic rites. The Golden Dawn has been credited with bringing about the modern expansion of ritual magic and the occult explosion in the West. Philosophically, it was close to the Theosophical Society except it studied magic, which the Theosophical Society denounced. It was connected with the Martinists of France. An order in Germany known as the Hidden and Secret Chiefs of the Third Order, whose members were unknown, was the real controller of the Golden Dawn. Members of the Golden Dawn included Algernon Blackwood (novelist), Aleister Crowley, Maud Gonne (Irish patriot), Annie Horniman (theater manager), George Russell (Irish poet, artist, and conservationists), and W. B. Yeats (a poet).

In 1903, the Golden Dawn split into the Golden Dawn with Arthur E. Waite as its leader and the Stella Matutina with Dr. R. Felkin as its leader. Waite, MacGregor Mathers, and their followers denied the existence of the Third Order, rejected the occult, and insisted on working along mystic lines. Felkin, Crowley, Westcott, and their followers retained the belief in the Third Order and continued their occult works. The two societies reunited in 1912.

Endnotes

1. H. Spencer Lewis, Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History of the Rosicrucian Order (Second ed. San Jose, California: Rosicrucian Press, 1932), pp. 21-22.

2. Ibid., p. 53.

3. Ibid., pp. 96-98.

4. Norman MacKenzie, ed., Secret Societies (New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), p. 137.

5. Dennis L Cuddy, Now Is the Dawning of the New Age New World Order (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone Publishing, 2000), p. 16.

6. Lady Queenborough (Edith Starr Miller), Occult Theocracy (Two Vol. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933), p. 499.

References
Carrico, David. “Freemasonry and the 20th Century Occult Revival.”

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Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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