Secret Societies, Freemasonry, Cronyism and Conspiracy: Answers
Theirs and mine…
Many so called secret societies figure in conspiracy theories as bodies, secretly ruling the world. But do you think some of these societies accomplished something really significant in reality? Or are they only ordinary groups of people with common interests who maybe sometimes delight in being seen in mysterious way?
The heyday of secret societies occurred during the 18th Century. We see the birth of Freemasonry-proper along with its enumerable offshoots or extensions, as well as the more socio-political variety represented by the Bavarian Illuminati. But, all of them - without exception - as you say - “delight[ed] in being seen in [a] mysterious way.”
The Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Criticism also gave birth to the modern conspiracy theory. And this is due, in large measure, to the very real machinations of the Bavarian Illuminati. When John Robison wrote Proofs of a Conspiracy in 1797; a more apt title there was not. Through defectors from the secret society itself to the confiscation of internal correspondences by the government, it was learned that the Illuminati’s sole raison d’être was infiltration and subversion – a conspiracy through-and-through. One did not need further “theorizing,” for the Illuminati was a concrete manifestation of everyone’s worst fears.
On the political program of the Illuminati, the late great, German historian Reinhart Koselleck wrote (utilizing primary sources, of course):
Education, training, propaganda and enlightenment were in themselves not enough to achieve the moral objective. Its attainment called for political action, to make virtue triumph over evil. ‘Not words, deeds are what is required here.’ The ‘plan of operation’ for fighting the rule of evil was drawn up by the council of ‘regents’. The programme of political action called for the indirect, silent occupation of the State. ‘The princely dicasteries and councils’ were gradually to be staffed ‘by the zealous members of the order’, that is the State was to be absorbed from the inside. In this way the Illuminati would be able to accomplish ‘still more’, they said, ‘than if the prince himself were a member of the order’. Once the order held all key positions – in Bavaria they thought that six hundred members would suffice – than [sic] it would ‘have gained enough power…to be able, if it so chooses, in a given place, to become terribly dangerous to those who do not co-operate’. The State is run from the moral inner space, and the rule of freedom is thereby protected. At this point the order ‘no longer has to fear the government, but on the contrary it holds the government in its hands’ (Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society, MIT Press, 1998, p. 93)
When you asked if these societies accomplished something real, the answer is yes. The Illuminati proved beyond doubt – perhaps for the first time in modern history – that cabals have indeed been conspiring behind the scenes; have been successful to varying degrees; have remained entirely secret for extended periods of time; and have had decidedly subversive goals of occupying or overturning the established order of the day. A present day equivalent to this phenomenon is the entire octopus of Propaganda Due and Gladio (even Ergenekon). (Dan Edelstein, your third respondent, rightly mentions the 19th Century Carbonari and the later Germanic cults that gave rise to Nazism such as the Thule Society. I would also include in this category the entire apparatus of 19th century revolutionary secret societies modelled upon, or inspired by, the Illuminati in one form or another: the Camorra and the Decisi; the Philadelphes, Sublimes Maîtres Parfaits and Monde; Young Italy, Young Europe, Young America, etc.; the Young Turks; the Decembrists; Speshnev and the Petrashevsky circle; the Society of the Seasons; the League of Outlaws and the League of the Just.)
Probably the most popular (if we can use the word popular) are Freemasons? Why?
Of all the secret societies during the Enlightenment, the Freemasons are (probably) the only group that has survived intact since then. It has millions of members worldwide; a closed system with its membership roster not available for inspection. Whether or not its professed aims are good or not, the Lodges of Freemasonry have been utilized, in some fashion or another, by revolutionaries since the 18th Century: the Illuminati; the Jacobins; the Carbonari; Buonarroti and his secret societies; Blanquists, socialists, communists, and anarchists; the Order of Mizraim and the Philadelphes; the Decembrists; the Young Turks; the Grand Orient of France and Italy and P2.
Secret societies are a necessary precondition to corruption. The ubiquity and inherent secrecy of Freemasonry lends itself to conspiracy, or at the very least, cronyism.
As a Mason wrote to me once:
In my lodge alone we have Mayors from three surrounding townships as well as several police chiefs and officers and other ‘notable’ members of the community…
And those other “’notable’ members of the community” are – I have no doubt - lawyers and prosecutors and judges and city councilman and business elite. And guess what? They are intimately aware of exactly who is or isn’t “on the square.” Joe-blow simply does not have such an advantage; to his own detriment and society at large. (In my city the most successful lawyers are Masons – one even had his office in the same building as the local lodge. Do you think that is accident? “Justice” is carried out according to how they see fit.)
Why do the people tend to believe that there is someone who is secretly ruling the world? Why is the idea of secret societies, comprised of rich / powerful / educated / religious people so popular?
You’d be a fool to dismiss history, human nature, and the old adage “…absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And while academia’s current agenda is to describe networks of power in terms of sociology or group psychology, and a concerted effort has been undertaken to diminish (to eradicate, even) the traditional meaning of conspiracy; it amounts to semantics.
Dictionaries do not include in their definitions of conspiracy the following snippet: “…in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, conspiracy theory is…” However, here’s a conspiracy “theory” for you: they soon will.
Tags: Conspiracies, Cronyism, Freemasonry, Illuminati, Terry Melanson
PERFECTIBILISTS: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati
The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism
Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith
America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones
May 19th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I love how the Stanford professor Dan Edelstein (in the link you provided) states that the Rosicrucians probably didn’t exist apart from a few published texts.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
He’s right. Read the works of Frances Yates and Christopher Mcintosh. The original Fama Fraternitatis in the early 1600s was a call to action, with a plea at the end to correspond. At every turn the supposed real Rosicrucian Order were silent despite numerous efforts of all sorts to contact them. Here, from my book, in the Prologue:
The story of Rosencreutz in Fama has all the hallmarks of an allegorical myth, and thus the secret society to which it is claimed he founded as well. That being said, there was a person (or people) behind the original manifestos. And others took up the cause and began calling themselves Rosicrucians anyway, simply because they agreed with the philosophy of the Fama and the works of Johann Valentin Andreae and other alchemists/hermeticists.
It would be great to say here they are; these are the original Rosicrucians; this is their history and this is how it went down. But that isn’t the case. The only thing tangible is the fact that Fama appeared out of nowhere - we still don’t know from whom - and continues to influence people almost 400 years later.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Really? Interesting. I had the impression that they just were immensely successful in maintaining secrecy. So, to your mind perhaps all the speculation linking John Dee, Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake, and others from the general time of Queen Elizabeth the First being Rosicrucians may be just that? Pure speculation?
The “invisible college” was thus not visible because it didn’t truly exist? Apart from the writings that someone, or some body of people, produced?
Do you see any possibility that no records are available to the general public at all, and are hidden away from prying “profane eyes”? I realise that so many “secret socities” have much of their histories documented, to lesser or greater degrees, but is there any chance the any entity known as the Rosicrucians slipped through the academic cracks due any sphere of influence such an organization may have had?
May 20th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Too often “Rosicrucianism” is mistaken for a Rosicrucian. The Fama appeared in 1614 and another in 1615, in Kassel Germany. That is ground zero for the legend, which gave birth to “Rosicrucianism.”
I really hate to do this - no actually I detest doing it - but … see this wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucian
Read through the “Origins” section and the “Reception” section to see where I am coming from. It is straightforward and to the point - and correct. Actually the entire article is surprisingly good.
All kinds of work has been done trying to find the origins of this thing that they call Rosicrucianism, and still continues. The thing that doesn’t help is the myth upon myth propagated over the years by occultists and shysters - i.e. by mystic initiates who have a stake in perpetuating a tale. Before academia started taking seriously the study (or historiography) of occultism and occultists in the ’60s and 70s, what we knew of the thing called “Rosicrucianism” was solely the domain of characters such as Waite, Westcott, Rudolf Steiner, Manly P. Hall, H. S. Lewis. Occultists with an agenda (professed “Rosicrucians”), not PhD students with a history thesis to complete. Those two worlds have different methodology and skill sets.
Have you read the Fama of 1614 and 1615? It is in France Yates’ Rosicrucian Enlightenment as an appendix. If so, does the tale of Rosencreutz (his life, his travels, his secret society) have the ring of anything besides legend? Have you read Christopher McIntosh’s work cited above? I just want to know if we are on the same page, with the same knowledge of the subject.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I re-read the Wikipedia article before I posted my earlier message. Wikipedia is more reliable than many say, but still open to error. Just asking questions of someone I presumed has knowledge of the subject. Haven’t read the McIntosh book you cited or I would have said so previously.
Never claimed to have the same knowledge of the subject as you. I never did take the story of Rosenkreutz as literal, but as you said, someone wrote the texts associated with them. Merely asking questions out of amateur interest. Not making a challenge.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:29 am
LOL! Don’t worry about it. I just thought that I should ask a few questions of my own as well
Who knows, perhaps you could have been privy to the leading research in the field. People go to scholarly conferences and papers are presented on the subject and stuff. I am far from an expert on the current state of research. Maybe they have found the true writer of the Fama; and maybe they have indeed identified a bona fide secret society that was behind it.
There are more questions than answers, for sure.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:39 am
In any case, I do recommend Yates and McIntosh if you want to delve into what is the thing called Rosicrucianism. McIntosh also got his PhD on the 18th Century variant of the Rosicrucians - the Golden and Rosy Cross. It was printed in book form shortly after in the early nineties, went out of print, and is exceedingly rare and prized: The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and Its Relationship to the Enlightenment
May 20th, 2009 at 12:48 am
No probs. I should say “LOL”, my reply was too serious. I always ask too many questions of people to try and learn, I bother people with more knowledge than me on forums too.
Thanks for the book recommendations, I’ll look into them.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
It is really a surprise to hear about this illuminate; those who manage the wrold through the masons, in the Goverments, in the churches, in the Vatican, they want to do the New Order, and the anticrist will have the doors open, The Vatican is already prepared for that, and time is coming hard for the real Catholics.
I recomend the Sion Protocols, in Spanish is; LOS PROTOCOLOS DE SION;
THERE YOU WILL SEE ALL THE PLANS , AND WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING NOW, IN THE LETTERS.
They will worok to have the power over us.
I recomend to pray so the Lord Jesus Christ change the plans of Satan, I will be united. God bless. Maria
May 20th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Terry and Justin…..go to http://WWW.CHRISTIANANSWERSFORTHENEWAGE.ORG…..no kidding you will find alot of info on Marcias website about this topic. Also….FYI….google “the 13th day the film”….this Catholic movie is powerful and going to wake Catholics up.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:31 am
Here’s the problem with the argument that (a) secret societies don’t exist and (b) is they DO exist they have no real power and therefore don’t do any harm…
Simple history shows us that this view isn’t true.
KKK-Secret Society founded by Albert Pike:
The Main Library of the Supreme Council 33� of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, S.J., U.S.A., the Mother Supreme Council of the World, Washington D.C., is dedicated to none other than Confederate General Albert Pike, the KKK’s Chief of “Judiciary”.
This was a SECRET SOCIETY that ran the Southern states for years and oppressed, murdered and terrorized my people, along with Catholics, Jews and anyone else who did not agree with them. My mother saw the bodies of teens hanging in the trees where she grew up. My grandmother was almost horse whipped by these people. Tell my ancestors and my people that the KKK didn’t exist as a violent, secret society that conspired to murder and oppress people of color, Jews and Catholics.
That same Albert Pike was a Mason who wrote a great deal about Aryans, a topic that was pushed by the Nazis who started out being a secret society too. And they did plenty of damage.
And then there are the Communists who so far have left behind a trail of bodies that puts every religious war to shame. At no time did the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and every other religion put together ever manage the millions of people slaughtered by the Commies. In Mao’s Great Leap Forward AND the Cultural Revolution they count up to 49 MILLION dead. The Communists started out as a secret society aiming to dominate the world.
The American Revolution was called the Masonic Revolution for a reason. The same French who backed up in our revolution for the same of Masonic ideals when ran the French Revolution and the Terror that followed.
And so on and so on and so on…
There are myriads of stupid people sitting in smoky rooms whispering of world domination. Some of them get a large enough following to earn them a page or two in a book. But even more end up as political movements that rock the world, most of the time to the hurt of innocent people. The problem with these groups is not when they are secret. It is when they come out of the closet so to speak and start running publicly after they have bribed, threatened and weaseled their way into positions of power. That’s when a few starry eyed geeks and freaks become monsters.
The way to stop that is to speak up against their consent mantra of ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, ONE WORLD MONEY AND ONE WORLD RELIGION. Say “Up Yours” and expose their ideas and bs until they can’t operate in the dark any more.
Anyway, that’s what I think.
Peace in the Lord.
T+
May 21st, 2009 at 4:04 am
I do firmly believe that the Rosicrucians are still functioning today and that they form an integral part of the Bilderberg group. Their objectives are no doubt sinister and world Dominance is their ultimate goal , surely you all have heard of the Georgia Guidestones and the Mysterious Mr.R C Christian who “allegedly” was a Rosicrucian and that the Name Christian was a Psuedonym and an Anagram , but an Anagram for what ? Antichrist ? Thats for you to discern , and why the Initials RC ? what could that mean ? Rosicrucian ?
We are living in very strange times indeed and it is prudent to consider that we may be at the end of an “Era” that will come about with great purging and persecution of christians - the Catholic church in Particular. Just taking a look at who the American President is today should suffice to Indicate catastrophic times ahead. Not Apocalyptic but like I said the end of an Era. The Anti Christ I think wil still be a long while in coming. The 13th Day is a breath of fresh air a must see.
Read these and google Geogia Guidestones for more - http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/stones.htm
May 21st, 2009 at 10:45 am
Raoul……where did you see “The 13th Day”? I have only seen the trailer and was blown away. Is it going to be in theatres? It looks to be powerful and so mystical.