Global Freemasonry

From the Templars To the Mansons

When we mentioned the Templars earlier, we noted that this peculiar order of crusaders was affected by a "secret" found in Jerusalem, as a result of which they abandoned Christianity and began to practice magic rites. We said that many researchers had reached the opinion that this secret was related to the Kabbalah. For example, in his book Histoire de la Magie (The History of Magic) the French writer, Eliphas Lévi, presents detailed evidence that the Templars were initiated into the mysterious doctrines of the Kabbalah, that is, they were secretly trained in this doctrine.29 Therefore, a doctrine with its roots in Ancient Egypt was transmitted to the Templars through the Kabbalah.

In Foucault's Pendulum, the famous Italian novelist, Umberto Eco, relates these facts in the course of the plot. Throughout the novel, he relates, through the mouths of its protagonists, that the Templars were influenced by the Kabbalah and that the Kabbalists possessed a secret that could be traced back to the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs. According to Eco, some prominent Jews learned certain secrets taken from the Ancient Egyptians, and later inserted these into the first five books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch).

But, this secret, which was transmitted secretly, could be understood only by the Kabbalists. (The Zohar, written later in Spain, and forming the fundamental book of the Kabbalah, deals with the secrets of these five books) After stating that the Kabbalists read this Ancient Egyptian secret also in the geometric measurements of the temple of Solomon, Eco writes that the Templars learned it from the Kabbalist rabbis in Jerusalem:

The secret-what the Temple already said in full-is suspected only by a small group of rabbis who remained in Palestine… And from them the Templars learn it.30

When the Templars adopted this ancient Egyptian-Kabbalist doctrine, naturally, they came into conflict with the Christian establishment that dominated Europe. This was a conflict they shared with another important force-the Jews. After the Templars were arrested, by joint order of the king of France and the Pope in 1307, the order went underground, but its influence continued, and in a more radical and determined way. As we said earlier, a significant number of Templars escaped arrest and appealed to the king of Scotland,

the only European kingdom at that time that had not accepted the authority of the Pope. In Scotland, they infiltrated the wall-builders' guild and, in time, took it over. The guilds adopted the traditions of the Templars, and thus, the Masonic seed was planted in Scotland. Still, to this day, the mainline of Masonry is the "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite."

As we investigated in detail in The New Masonic Order, from the beginnings of the fourteenth century it is possible to detect traces of the Templars-and some Jews associated with them-at various stages of European history. Without going into detail, here are some of the headings under which we examined this topic:

o In Provence, in France, there was an important Templar refuge. During the arrests, very many hid here. Another important feature of the area is that it is the most well known center of Kabbalism in Europe. Provence is the place where the oral tradition of the Kabbalah was made into a book. o The Peasants Revolt in England, in 1381, was, according to some historians, fanned to flame by a secret organization. Those experts who study the history of Masonry agree that this secret organization was the Templars. It was more than a mere civil uprising, it was a planned assault on the Catholic Church. 31

o Half a century after this revolt, a clergyman in Bohemia by the name of John Huss started an uprising in opposition to the Catholic Church. Behind the scenes of this uprising were again the Templars. Moreover, Huss was very interested in the Kabbalah. Avigdor Ben Isaac Kara was one of the most important names that he was influenced by in the development of his doctrines. Kara was a rabbi of the Jewish community in Prague and a Kabbalist.

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Examples such as these are signs that the alliance between the Templars and the Kabbalists was directed at a change in the social order of Europe. This change involved an alteration in the basic Christian culture of Europe, and its replacement by a culture based on pagan doctrines, like the Kabbalah. And, after this cultural change, political changes would follow. The French and Italian revolutions, for example…

In the coming sections, we will look at some important turning-points in the history of Europe. At every stage the fact that will confront us is that there existed a force that wanted to alienate Europe from its Christian heritage, replace it with a secular ideology and, with this program in mind, to destroy its religious institutions. This force attempted to cause Europe to accept a doctrine that had been handed down from Ancient Egypt through the Kabbalah. As we pointed out earlier, at the basis of this doctrine were two important concepts: humanism and materialism.

First, let us look at humanism.

Humanism Revisited

"Humanism" is considered a positive idea by the majority of people. It brings to mind notions such as love of humanity, peace and brotherhood. But, the philosophical meaning of humanism is much more significant: humanism is a way of thinking that posits the concept of humanity as its focus and only goal. In other words, it calls human beings to turn away from God their Creator, and concern themselves with their own existence and identity. A common dictionary defines humanism as: "a system of thought that is based on the values, characteristics, and behavior that are believed to be best in human beings, rather than on any supernatural authority."33

The clearest definition of humanism, however, has been put forward by those who espoused it. One of the most prominent modern spokesmen for humanism is Corliss Lamont. In his book The Philosophy of Humanism, the author writes:

[In sum] humanism believes that nature ... constitutes the sum total of reality, that matter-energy and not mind is the foundation stuff of the universe and that supernatural entities simply do not exist. This nonreality of the supernatural means, on the human level, that men do not possess supernatural and immortal souls; and, on the level of the universe as a whole, that our cosmos does not possess a supernatural and eternal God.34 As we can see, humanism is almost identical to atheism, and this fact is freely admitted by humanists. There were two important manifestos published by humanists in the last century.

The first was published in 1933, and was signed by some important individuals of that time. Forty years later, in 1973, a second humanist manifesto was published which confirmed the first, but contained some additions relative to some developments that had occurred in the meantime. Thousands of thinkers, scientists, writers and members of the media signed the second manifesto, which is supported by the still very active American Humanist Association.

When we examine the manifestos, we find one basic foundation in each of them: the atheist dogma that the universe and human beings were not created but exist independently, that human beings are not responsible to any other authority besides themselves, and that belief in God has retarded the development of individuals and societies. For example, the first six articles of the first Humanist Manifesto are as follows:

First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process.

Third: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

Fourth: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture. Fifth: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values...

Sixth: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought."35 In the above articles, we see the expression of a common philosophy that manifests itself under such names as materialism, Darwinism, atheism and agnosticism. In the first article, the materialist dogma of the eternal existence of the universe is put forward. The second article states, as the theory of evolution does, that human beings were not created.

The third article denies the existence of the human soul claiming that human beings are composed of matter. The fourth article proposes a "cultural evolution" and denies the existence of a divinely ordained human nature (a special human nature given in creation). The fifth article rejects God's sovereignty over the universe and humanity, and the sixth states that it is time to reject "theism," that is belief in God.

It will be noticed that these claims are stereotypical ideas, typical of those circles that are hostile to true religion. The reason for this is that humanism is the main foundation of anti-religious sentiment. This is because humanism is an expression of "man's reckoning that he will be left to go on unchecked," which has been the primary basis, throughout history, for the denial of God. In one verse of the Qur'an, God says: Does man reckon he will be left to go on unchecked?

Was he not a drop of ejaculated sperm, then a blood-clot which He created and shaped, making from it both sexes, male and female?

Is He who does this not able to bring the dead to life? (Qur'an, 75: 36-40) God says that people are not to be "left to go on unchecked," and reminds them immediately afterwards that they are His creation. This is because, when a person realizes that he is a creation of God, he understands that he is not "unchecked" but responsible before God. For this reason, the claim that human beings are not created has become the basic doctrine of humanist philosophy. The first two articles of the first Humanist Manifesto give an expression to this doctrine. Moreover, humanists maintain that science supports these claims.

However, they are wrong. Since the first Humanist Manifesto was published, the two premises that humanists have presented as scientific facts-the idea that the universe is eternal and the theory of evolution-have collapsed:

1. The idea that the universe is eternal was invalidated by a series of astronomical discoveries made when the first Humanist Manifesto was being written. Discoveries such as the fact that the universe is expanding, of cosmic background radiation and the calculation of the ratio of hydrogen to helium, have shown that the universe had a beginning, and that it came to be from nothing some 15-17 billion years ago in a giant explosion called the "Big Bang.

" Although those who espouse the humanist and materialist philosophy were unwilling to accept the Big Bang theory, they were eventually won over. As a result of the scientific evidence that has come to light, the scientific community has finally accepted the Big Bang theory, that is, that the universe had a beginning, and therefore humanists have no argument. Thus the atheist thinker Anthony Flew was forced to confess:

…I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas contended could not be proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning…36

2. The theory of evolution, the most important scientific justification behind the first Humanist Manifesto, started to lose ground in the decades after it was written. It is known today that the scenario proposed for the origin of life by atheist (and no doubt humanist) evolutionists, such as A. I. Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane in the 1930's, hasno scientific validity; living things cannot be generated spontaneously from non-living matter as proposed by this scenario.

The fossil record demonstrates that living things did not develop through a process of small cumulative changes, but appeared abruptly with their distinct characteristics, and this fact has been accepted by evolutionist paleontologists themselves since the 1970's. Modern biology has demonstrated that living things are not the result of chance and natural laws, but that there are in each organism complex systems indicating an intelligent design that are evidence for creation. (For details refer to Harun Yahya, Darwinism Refuted: How the Theory of Evolution Breaks Down in the Light of Modern Science)

Moreover, the erroneous claim that religious belief was the factor that prevented humanity from progressing and drew it into conflict has been disproved by historical experience. Humanists have claimed that the removal of religious belief would make people happy and at ease, however, the opposite has proved to be the case. Six years after the first Humanist Manifesto was published, the Second World War broke out, a record of the calamity brought upon the world by the secular fascist ideology.

The humanist ideology of communism wreaked, first on the people of the Soviet Union, then on the citizens of China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba and various African and Latin American countries, unparalleled savagery. A total of 120 million people were killed by communist regimes or organizations. It is also evident that the Western brand of humanism (capitalist systems) has not succeeded in bringing peace and happiness to their own societies or to other areas of the world.

The collapse of humanism's argument on religion has also been manifested in the field of psychology. The Freudian myth, a corner-stone of the atheist dogma since early twentieth century, has been invalidated by empirical data. Patrick Glynn, of the George Washington University, explains this fact in his book titled God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World:

The last quarter of the twentieth century has not been kind to the psychoanalytic vision. Most significant has been the exposure of Freud's views of religion (not to mention a host of other matters) as entirely fallacious. Ironically enough, scientific research in psychology over the past twenty-five years has demonstrated that, far from being a neurosis or source of neuroses as Freud and his disciples claimed, religious belief is one of the most consistent correlates of overall mental health and happiness. Study after study has shown a powerful relationship between religious belief and practice, on the one hand, and healthy behaviors with regard to such problems as suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, depression, even, perhaps surprisingly, levels of sexual satisfaction in marriage, on the other hand. 37

In short, the supposed scientific justification behind humanism has been proven invalid and its promises vain. Nevertheless, humanists have not abandoned their philosophy, but rather, in fact, have tried to spread it throughout the world through methods of mass propaganda. Especially in the post-war period there has been intense humanist propaganda in the fields of science, philosophy, music, literature, art and cinema. The attractive but hollow messages created by humanist ideologues have been insistently imposed upon the masses. The song "Imagine," by John Lennon, soloist of the most popular music group of all times, the Beatles, is an example of this:

This song was chosen as the "song of the century" in several polls that were held in 1999. This is a good indication of the sentimentality with which humanism, lacking any scientific or rational foundation, is imposed on the masses. Humanism can produce no rational objection to religion or the truths it teaches, but attempts to employ suggestive methods such as these.

When the promises of the 1933 I. Humanist Manifesto proved vain, forty years passed after which humanists presented a second draft. At the beginning of the text was an attempt to explain why the first promises had come to nothing. Despite the fact that this explanation was extremely weak, it demonstrated the enduring attachment of humanists to their atheist philosophy.

The most obvious characteristic of the manifesto was its preservation of the anti-religious line of the 1933 manifesto:

As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to live and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith… We believe ...that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species... As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.38

This is a very superficial explanation. In order to understand religion, one first needs the intelligence and understanding to be able to grasp profound ideas. The predisposition must be sincerity and the avoidance of prejudice. Instead, humanism is nothing more than the attempt of some individuals, who are passionately atheistic and antireligious from the outset, to portray this prejudice as rational.

However, the efforts of humanists to describe faith in God and monotheistic religions as groundless and outmoded creeds is actually not a new undertaking; it is the emulation of a claim that has been made for thousands of years by those who reject God. In the Qur'an, God explains this age-old argument propounded by the unbelievers:

Your God is One God. As for those who do not believe in the hereafter, their hearts are in denial and they are puffed up with pride. There is no doubt that God knows what they keep secret and what they make public. He does not love people puffed up with pride. When they are asked, "What has your Lord sent down?" they say, "Myths and legends of previous peoples." (Qur'an, 16: 22-24)

This verse reveals that the real reason of the unbelievers' rejection of religion is the arrogance hidden in their hearts. The philosophy called humanism is merely the outward manner by which this age rejects God. In other words, humanism is not a new way of thinking, as those who espouse it claim; it is an age-old, antiquated world-view common to those who reject God out of arrogance.

When we look at the progress of humanism in European history, we will discover many solid proofs for this assertion.

The Roots of Humanism in The Kabbalah

We have seen that the Kabbalah is a doctrine that dates back to Ancient Egypt, and that it entered and contaminated the religion that God revealed to the Israelites. We have also seen that its foundation rests upon a perverse way of understanding that regards human beings as uncreated though divine creatures that have existed for eternity.

Humanism entered Europe from this source. Christian belief was based on the existence of God, and the belief that human beings were His dependent servants created by Him. But, with the spread of the Templar tradition throughout Europe, the Kabbalah began to attract a number of philosophers. So, in the fifteenth century, a current of humanism began that left an indelible mark on the European world of ideas.

This connection between humanism and the Kabbalah has been emphasized in several sources. One of these sources is the book of the famous author Malachi Martin entitled The Keys of This Blood. Martin is professor of history at the Vatican's Pontifical Bible Institute. He says that the influence of the Kabbalah can be clearly observed among the humanists:

In this unaccustomed climate of uncertainty and challenge that came to mark early-Renaissance Italy, there arose a network of Humanist associations with aspirations to escape the overall control of that established order. Given aspirations like that, these associations had to exist in the protection of secrecy, at least at their beginnings. But aside from secrecy, these humanist groups were marked by two other main characteristics.

The first was that they were in revolt against the traditional interpretation of the Bible as maintained by the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, and against the philosophical and theological underpinnings provided by the Church for civil and political life…

Not surprisingly given such an animus, these associations had their own conception of the original message of the Bible and of God's revelation. They latched onto what they considered to be an ultrasecret body of knowledge, a gnosis, which they based in part on cultic and occultist strains deriving from North Africa-notably, Egypt-and, in part, on the classical Jewish Kabbala….

Italian humanists bowdlerized the idea of Kabbala almost beyond recognition. They reconstructed the concept of gnosis, and transferred it to a thoroughly this-wordly plane. The special gnosis they sought was a secret knowledge of how to master the blind forces of nature for a sociopolitical purpose.39

In short, the humanist societies formed in that period wanted to replace the Catholic culture of Europe with a new culture that had its roots in the Kabbalah. They aimed to create a sociopolitical change to bring this about. It is interesting that, besides the Kabbalah, at the source of this new culture were the doctrines of Ancient Egypt. Prof. Martin writes:

Initiates of those early humanist associations were devotees of the Great Force-the Great Architect of the Cosmos-which they represented under the form of the Sacred Tetragrammaton, YHWH ….[humanists] borrowed other symbols-the Pyramid and the All Seeing Eye-mainly from Egyptian sources.40 It is quite interesting that humanists make use of the concept of "the Great Architect of the Universe," a term still used by Masons today. This indicates that there must be a relationship between humanists and Masons. Prof. Martin writes:

In other northern climes, meanwhile, a far more important union took place, with the humanists. A union that no one could have expected. In the 1300s, during the time that the cabalist-humanist associations were beginning to find their bearings, there already existed-particularly in England, Scotland and France-medieval guilds of men …

No one alive in the 1300s could have predicted a merger of minds between freemason guilds and the Italian humanists…. The new Masonry shifted away from all allegiance to Roman ecclesiastical Christianity. And again, as for the Italian occultist humanists, the secrecy guaranteed by the tradition of the Lodge was essential in the circumstances.

The two groups had more in common than secrecy, however. From the writings and records of speculative Masonry, it is clear that the central religious tenet became a belief in the Great Architect of the Universe-a figure familiar by now from the influence of Italian humanists…The Great Architect was immanent to and essentially a part of the material cosmos, a product of the "enlightened" mind.

There was no conceptual basis by which such a belief could be reconciled with Christianity. For precluded were all such ideas as sin, Hell for punishment and Heaven for reward, and eternally perpetual Sacrifice of the Mass, saints and angels, priest and pope.41

In short, in Europe, in the fourteenth century, a humanist and Masonic organization was born that had its roots in the Kabbalah. And, this organization did not regard God as the Jews, Christians and Muslims did: the Creator and Ruler of the whole universe and the only Lord and God of humanity. Instead, they used a different concept, such as the "Great Architect of the Universe," which they perceived as being "part of the material universe."

In other words, this secret organization, that appeared in Europe in the fourteenth century, rejected God, but, under the concept of "the Great Architect of the Universe," accepted the material universe as a divinity.

For a clearer definition of this corrupt belief, we can jump forward to the twentieth century and look at Masonic literature. For example, one of Turkey's most senior Masons, Selami Isindag, has a book entitled Masonluktan Esinlenmeler (Inspirations from Freemasonry). The purpose of this book is to train young Masons. Concerning the Masons' belief in the "Great Architect of the Universe," he has this to say:

Masonry is not godless. But the concept of God they have adopted is different from that of religion. The god of Masonry is an exalted principle. It is at the apex of the evolution. By criticizing our inner being, knowing ourselves and deliberately walking in the path of science, intelligence and virtue, we can lessen the angle between him and us. Then, this god does not possess the good and bad characteristics of human beings. It is not personified. It is not thought of as the guide of nature or humanity. It is the architect of the great working of the universe, of its unity and harmony. It is the totality of all the creatures in the universe, a total power encompassing everything, an energy. Despite all this, it cannot be accepted that it is a beginning… this is a great mystery.42

In the same book, it is clear that when Freemasons speak of the "Great Architect of the Universe," they mean nature, or, that they worship nature: Apart from nature there can be no power responsible for our thought or our activities…The principles and doctrines of Masonry are scientific facts based on science and intelligence. God is the evolution. An element of it is the power of nature. So the absolute reality is the evolution itself and the energy that encompasses it.43

The magazine Mimar Sinan, a publishing organization especially for Turkish Freemasons also gives expression to the same Masonic philosophy: The Great Architect of the Universe is a leaning toward eternity. It is an entering into eternity. For us, it is an approach. It entails the on-going search for absolute perfection in eternity. It forms a distance between the current moment and the Thinking Freemason, or, consciousness.44 This is the belief the Masons mean when they say, "we believe in God, we absolutely do not accept atheists among us." It is not God that Masons worship, but naturalist and humanist concepts such as nature, evolution and humanity divinized by their philosophy.

When we look briefly at Masonic literature, we may begin to see that this organization is nothing more than organized humanism, as well as recognize that its aim is to create throughout the whole world a secular, humanist order. These ideas were born among the humanists of fourteenth century Europe; present-day Masons still propose and defend them.