Freemasonry A Political Force

Scottish Rite Freemasonry

During their stay in France in 1745, the "Young Pretender" Bonnie Prince Charlie and other Stuarts "had become deeply involved in the dissemination of Freemasonry. Indeed they are generally regarded as the source of the particular form of Freemasonry known as 'Scottish Rite'. 'Scottish Rite' Freemasonry introduced higher degrees than those offered by other Masonic systems at the time. It promised initiation into greater and more profound mysteries - mysteries supposedly preserved and handed down in Scotland. It established more direct connections between Freemasonry and the various activities - alchemy, Cabalism and Hermetic thought, for instance - which were regarded as 'Rosecrucian'. And it elaborated not only on the antiquity but also on the illustrious pedigree of the 'craft'."

"...It did not, like many rites of Freemasonry, consist primarily of free-thinkers and atheists. On the contrary, it seems to have been deeply religious and magically oriented - emphasizing a sacred social and political hierarchy, a divine order, an underlying cosmic plan. And the upper grades or degrees of this Freemasonry, according to M. Chaumeil [Le Tresor du triangle d'or] were the lower grades or degrees of the Prieure de Sion."
     - Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

"In the aftermath of the 1745 rebellion, Jacobite Freemasonry as such, with its specific political orientation and allegiance to the Stuart bloodline, effectively died out. Variations of it, however, purged of political content and tempered by the moderation of the Grand Lodge of England, survived. They survived in part through the so-called 'higher' degrees' offered by such institutions as Irish Grand Lodge. Most important, however, they survived within the Strict Observance promulgated by Hund - of which the highest degree was that of 'Knight Templar'. The Strict Observance was to spread throughout Europe."
     - Baigent & Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge

"...By the third decade of the eighteenth century, English Freemasonry, under the auspices of Grand Lodge, had become a bastion of the social and cultural establishment, including, among its more illustrious brethren, Desaguliers, Pope, Swift, Hogarth and Boswell, as well as Charles de Lorraine, future husband of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa."
"In England, the Grand Lodge became progressively more divorced from both religion and politics. It fostered a spirit of moderation, tolerance and flexibility, and often worked hand in hand with the Anglican Church, many of whose clergy were themselves Freemasons and found no conflict of allegiance. In Catholic Europe, on the other hand, Freemasonry became a repository for militantly anti-clerical, anti-establishment, eventually revolutionary sentiments and activity....In France, for example, prominent Freemasons such as the Marquis de Lafayette, Philippe Egalite, Danton and Sieyes, acting in accordance with Freemasonic ideals, were prime movers in the events of 1789 and everything that followed. In Bavaria, in Spain, in Austria, Freemasonry was to provide a focus of resistance to authoritarian regimes, and it functioned prominently in the movements, culminating with the revolutions of 1848. The whole of the campaign leading to the unification of Italy - from the revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century, through Mazzini, to Garibaldi - could be described as essentially Freemasonic."
      - Baigent and Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge

Alessandro Cagliostro "founded the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, which received into its mysteries many of the French nobility and was regarded favorably by the most learned minds of Europe. Having established the Egyptian Rite, Cagliostro declared himself to be an agent of the order of the Knights Templars and to have received initiation from them on the Isle of Malta. (See Morals and Dogma, in which Albert Pike quotes Eliphas Levi on Cagliostro's affiliation with the Templars.) Called upon the carpet by the Supreme Council of France, it was demanded of Cagliostro that he prove by what authority he had founded a Masonic lodge in Paris independent of the Grand Orient. Of such surpassing mentality was Cagliostro that the Supreme Council found it difficult to secure an advocate qualified to discuss with Cagliostro philosophic Masonry and the ancient Mysteries he claimed to represent. The Court de Gebelin - the greatest Egyptologist of his day and an authority on ancient philosophies - was chosen as the outstanding scholar. A time was set and the Brethren convened. Attired in an Oriental coat and a pair of violet-colored breeches, Cagliostro was haled before this council of his peers. The Court de Gebelin asked three questions and then sat down, admitting himself disqualified to interrogate a man so much his superior in every branch of learning. Cagliostro then took the floor, revealing to the assembled Masons not only his personal qualifications, but prophesying the future of France. He foretold the fall of the French throne, the Reign of Terror, and the fall of the Bastille. At a later time he revealed the dates of the death of Marie Antoinette and the King, and also the advent of Napoleon. Having finished his address, Cagliostro made a spectacular exit, leaving the French Masonic lodge in consternation and utterly incapable of coping with the profundity of his reasoning. Though no longer regarded as a ritual in Freemasonry, the Egyptian Rite is available and all who read it will recognize its author to have been no more a charlatan than was Plato."
     - Manly P. Hall, Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins pp. 408-409

"...The United States was not created as a republic of the kind implied by that word today. Most of the men responsible for creating it were staunch Freemasons, and the new nation was originally conceived as the ideal hieratic political structure postulated by certain rites of Freemasonry. The state as a whole was seen as an extension, and a macrocosm, of the Lodge."
     - Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy

"...St. Andrew's Lodge of Boston, which had perpetrated the Boston Tea party in 1773 conferred a Templar degree already on August 29, 1769 after applying for the warrant in 1762 from the Scottish Grand Lodge in Edinburgh. That application was made almost a decade before the American Revolution began. Some Templars were not only anti-Hanoverian, they sought the abolition of all monarchy."
     - William Bramley, The Gods of Eden

"At the beginning of 1776, the more moderate Freemasonic-oriented factions in the Continental Congress still prevailed. Their position had been enunciated once again the previous December, when congress again defied Parliament but continued to affirm allegiance to the crown. Now, however, the mood began to change and more radical elements began to gain the ascendancy. Thomas Paine's pamphlet, 'Common Sense', did much to polarize attitudes and convert many hitherto loyal colonists to the principle of independence from the mother country."
"On 11 June 1776, the Continental Congress "appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. Of the five men on this committee, two - Franklin and...Robert Livingston - were Freemasons...The other two - Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - were not, despite subsequent claims to the contrary....The nine signatories who can now be established as proven Freemasons, and the ten who were possibly so, included such influential figures as Washington, Franklin and, of course, the president of the Congress, John Hancock. The army, moreover, remained almost entirely in Freemasonic hands."
     - Brian Francis Redman ("The Big C")

VATICAN CITY (1985) "The Vatican, clarifying its position on membership in Masonic lodges, said yesterday that Catholics who join such organizations commit 'grave sin'. The new reminder, in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, appeared to be aimed mainly at Catholics in the United States, where some have interpreted recent church statements as relaxing the 247-year-old ban on Masonic membership imposed by Pope Clement XII. A new code of Canon Law outlined on Nov. 25, 1983, omitted membership in the Masons in the list of offenses that incur automatic excommunication."
     - (UPI)