STB-97-08
Music by Brother J. L. F. Mendelssohn.
THE MEDIA MOGUL
By: John J. Robinson
Bro. John J. Robinson's last book was A
Pilgrim's Path. In this book Bro. Robinson
responds to numerous religious criticisms of
Freemasonry as well as writing about the
"Evangelist Mentality." We are printing several
STB's as a series to help our readers have a
response to some of the misleading, inaccurate,
and oftentimes untrue statements made by the
religious extremists against Freemasonry! (The
title The Media Mogul is from a chapter title in
the book.)
A Pilgrims Path, by John J. Robinson, was
published in 1993 by M. Evans & Co., Inc. in
New York City. The book is available in many
bookstores or can be ordered through your
local bookstore using ISBN 0-87]31-732-X
Editor--
A conspiracy revealing book titled Secret
Societies and Subversive Movements is listed in
the bibliography for Pat Rohertson's The New
World Order. Written by the British historian
Nesta Webster and published in 1924, Secret
Societies has been more recently published in a
book club edition by the Christian Book Club of
America. Robertson asserts that Nesta Webster's writings support his theory of a world
takeover conspiracy. What he fails to mention is
that Nesta Webster was the most bitter and
aggressive anti-Semitic writer of her time. Her
conspiracy to take over the world was blamed
on the Jews, in cooperation with German
bankers, not on the Masons, in cooperation with
the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.
Equally forthright about political systems
that she admired, Mrs. Webster expressed her
attitude toward the Fascist government that
Mussolini had established in Italy in 1922. She
stated her opinion very clearly: "Fascismo
(Fascism) triumphed in Italy, because it was
not, as it has been absurdly represented, a reactionary movement, but it was essentially democratic and progressive, because by appealing to
the noblest instincts in human nature, to patriotism and self-sacrifice, it rallied all elements in
a disorganized and disunited nation around the
standard of a common cause."
That declaration, coupled with Mrs. Webster's conclusion that the great conspiracy to
rule the world was initiated by a partnership of
Jewish and German leaders, causes one to wonder if the English climate in which she worked
fogged up her crystal ball from time to time.
And how in the world did a work containing so
much bigotry and racism become a selection of
a Christian book club and serve as a reference
work to a man who declares himself to be a
great worldwide Christian evangelist?
The one appeal that Secret Societies would
have held for Pat Robertson was that Mrs. Webster included in her world conspiracy theory
what she termed "Continental Masonry," alternately referenced as the "Grand Orient of
France," and an organization known as the
"Bavarian Illuminati." Robertson eagerly
pounced on those names to link American
Freemasonry to his own theories.
The term "Illuminati" (enlightened ones)
has been claimed by numerous intellectuals
and religious sects from time to time, but the
Bavarian Illuminati cited by Nesta Webster
referred to the Order of the Illuminati, a secret
society born in the mind of a man named
Adam Weishaupt and launched on May 1,
1776, in Bavaria. Weishaupt hated the
Catholic Church and especially the Society of
Jesus, the Jesuits. His aims, shared in correspondence with his cohorts, were the abolition
of organized religion, the downfall of established rules, and the destruction of national
boundaries, so that each man would rule himself. A father would not be only the ruler of his
own family, subject to no external laws, but
would also be its priest. Weishaupt recognized
no deity as such, but appeared to hold that
nature is God, so there is no need for an organized church. Weishaupt embraced a communistic view of common ownership, and therefore opposed the concepts of qapitalism and
private property.
Shortly after forming the Illuminati,
Weishaupt joined a Masonic lodge in Munich,
with the avowed intention of discovering the
"secrets" of Freemasonry. He did not advance
very far in the fraternity, but he did formulate a
plan to spread his philosophies inside Freemasonry. He urged his followers to become
Masons, but he advised them to conceal their
antireligious feelings and act like devout Christians. They were to spread their views gradually and to try to persuade their lodge brothers
to realize that governments were tyrannical and
to join them in lamenting the corruption within
the Catholic Church.
Weishaupt's plan worked best in France,
where anti-Catholic feeling ran deep, and
resentment toward the tyrannical Bourbon
monarchy simmered and bubbled, soon to boil
over into the French Revolution. The Grand
Lodge of France, called the "Grand Orient,"
was in the forefront of what writers would subsequently refer to as Continental Masonry, and
sometimes as Illuminated Freemasonry, to indicate the Illuminati influence.
The essence of that history of the Illuminati
and the Grand Orient of France appear in Pat
Robertson's book, but nothing of the vital
events which took place later. In 1785 an Illuminati emissary on a mission from Bavaria to
Silesia was struck dead by lightning. When the
body was searched for effects that would yield
the name of the dead man, dispatches were
found indicating beyond doubt the treasonous
nature of the order. A government investigation
followed and the Order of the Illuminati was
outlawed. Membership in it became a serious
criminal offense.
The twisted aims of the Illuminati lived on
inside the Grand Orient of France, and it is
said that these Illuminated Freemasons played
leading roles in the French Revolution of
1789. At that time the Grand Orient had about
two thousand lodges and one hundred thousand members.
Since each Grand Lodge is completely
autonomous and not subject to control by any
other Masonic body, other Masons were unaware of what was going on within the leadership circles of the Grand Orient. In 1887,
almost a century atter the storming of the
Bastille, the Grand Orient had been so thoroughly infused with antireligious zealots that it
felt emboldened to make a public declaration.
The announcement declared that from that day
forward the Grand Orient would set aside some
of the most basic principles of Freemasonry.
Atheists would be welcome in its lodges: No
man had to assert his belief in God or immortality. God would no longer be the object of
prayers in the lodge. Its new requirement
would be "absolute liberty of conscience,
including the acceptahility of any man's assertion that there is no God."
British Masonry reacted by severing all ties
with the Grand Orient of France; the American
Grand Lodges followed soon after. Today, no
legitimate Masonic body recognizes the Grand
Orient, and no visitations are permitted either
way. Even the Catholic Church recognized the
schism. It condemned Continental Masons and
their political and antireligious goals, while
specifically excluding other Masonic Grand
Lodges around the world from that condemnation. Nesta Webster, too, acknowledged the
need to clarify the issue, referring to ". . . England, Germany and America...where Freemasonry is not subversive..." However, Pat
Robertson, who apparently gleaned his facts on
the Illuminati and Illuminated Freemasonry
from Secret Societies, fails to mention the true
facts about the fate of the Illuminati and the
Grand Orient and deliberately encourages his
readers to believe that the Illuminated Freemasonry to which he refers is, in fact, American
Freemasonry.
The tragedy arising from these distortions
and omissions is that, in many quarters, Pat
Robertson will be believed. His publishers told
me that they have already printed fifty thousand hard-bound copies of The New World
Order. That means that tens of thousands of
men and women will be misled by a man
whom they believe is dedicated to speaking the
truth and obeying the will of God.
When a writer depends upon a research staff,
it is impossible to tell whether or not he has
actually read for himself all the books in his
bibliography. If he did read Nesta Webster's
Secret Societies for himself, Pat Robertson
would certainly have been struck by one line, a
quotation from the German historian von Hammer, who said, "It is nothing to the ambitious
man what people believe, but it is everything to
know how he may turn them for the execution
of his projects."
In the middle of his vicious attacks on
Masonry, Mr. Robertson cannot keep from
preaching his own conscience-free self-righteousness:
"To my mind," he writes, "there is no more
monstrous evil than to bring public-spirited,
often churchgoing, men into an organization
that looks like a fraternal lodge, then deliberately mislead them until they are solid members. Then move them up thirty degrees to the
place where they are ready to learn that Satan is
the good god waiting to liberate mankind. . ."
I can think of an evil more monstrous than
that: To besmirch the character and reputations
of "public-spirited, often churchgoing, men"
for no other purpose than to achieve the usual
Robertson goals of profits and power.
One special aspect of Robertson's The New
World Order seems to have gone unnoticed. A
couple of years before Robertson's book, a
book was published by an Arizona author
named A. Ralph Epperson. It was based on the
same central thesis: a Masonic conspiracy to
rule the world. As its "evidence," it cited some
of the same writings that Robertson used later.
It even discussed the same alleged Masonic
symbolism in the design of the Great Seal on
the U.S. dollar bill, although Robertson
appears to present it as his own original thinking. I'm quite certain that Mr. Robertson, if
questioned on these points, would claim that
they are simply innocent coincidences,
although he might take a deep breath before
asserting that stand on Epperson's title, which
was The New World Order--precisely the
same title Robertson used.
If Pat Robertson knows that what he writes is
flagrant fabrication, he is a decidedly dangerous man. If, on the other hand, he actually
believes what he writes, then this poor man is
in dire need of therapy.
Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source