"The societies of the elder world perished through the materialistic egoism of castes, becoming petrified on their own part, isolating the common people in a hopeless reprobation and reserving the reins of power to a small number of the elect, so that it was deprived of that circulation which is the principle of progress, motion and life."(21)
"A power that ruled without antagonism and without concurrence, and consequently without control, proved fatal to the Sacerdotal Royalties; while the Republics, on the other hand, had perished by the conflict of liberties and franchises, which, in the absence of all duty hierarchically sanctioned and enforced, had soon become mere tyrannies, rivals one of the other. To find a stable medium between these two abysses, the idea of the Christian Hierophants was to create a society devoted to abnegation by solemn vows; protected by severe regulations; which should be recruited by initiation, and which, sole depository of the great religious and social secrets, should make Kings and Pontiffs, without exposing it to the corruptions of Power. In that was the secret of that 'Kingdom of Jesus Christ,' which, without being of this world, would govern all its grandeurs.
"This idea prevailed at the foundation of the great religious orders, so often at war with the secular authorities, ecclesiastical or civil. Its realization was also the dream of the dissident sects of Gnostics or Illuminati who pretended to connect their faith with the primitive tradition of the Christians of Saint John. It at length became a menace for the Church and Society, when a rich and dissolute Order, initiated in the mysterious doctrines of the Kabalah, seemed disposed to turn against legitimate authority the conservative principle of Hierarchy, and threatened the entire world with an immense revolution.
"The Templars, whose history is so imperfectly known, were those terrible conspirators."(22)
"The Templars, whose history is understood so little, were the terrible conspirators in question, and it is time at length to reveal the secret of their fall, so absolving the memory of Clement V and Philip the Fair."(23)
"In 1118, nine Knights Crusaders in the East, among whom were Geoffroi de Saint-Omer and Hugues de Payens, consecrated themselves to religion, and took an oath between the hands of the Patriarch of Constantinople, a See always secretly or openly hostile to that of Rome from the time of Photius. The avowed object of the Templars was to protect the Christians who came to visit the Holy Places: their secret object was the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon on the model prophesied by Ezekiel.(24)
"This re-building, formally predicted by the Judaizing Mystics of the earlier ages, had become the secret dream of the Patriarchs of the Orient. The Temple of Solomon, re-built and consecrated to the Catholic worship would become, in effect, the Metropolis of the Universe; the East would prevail over the West, and the Patriarchs of Constantinople would possess themselves of the Papal power.
"To explain the name of Templars adopted by this military Order, historians assume that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, gave them a house in the vicinity of the Temple of Solomon. But they are guilty of a serious anachronism, since at that period the edifice in question had not only ceased to exist, and not only was there no stone of Zerubbabel's Second Temple left upon another, but it would be difficult to indicate the site on which they stood. It is to be concluded that the House allotted to the Templars by Baldwin was not situated in the vicinity of Solomon's Temple but of that place on which these secret and armed missionaries of the Eastern Patriarch designed to rebuild it."(25)
"The Templars, or Poor Fellow-Soldiery of the Holy House of the Temple, intended to be re-built, took as their models, in the Bible, the Warrior-Masons of Zorobabel, who worked, holding the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. Therefore it was that the Sword and the Trowel were the insignia of the Templars, who subsequently, as will be seen, concealed themselves under the name of brethren masons. [This name, FRERES MAÇONS in the French, adopted by way of secret reference to the Builders of the Second Temple, was corrupted in English into Free-Masons, as Pythagore de Crotone was into Peter Gower of Groton in England. Khairum or Khur-Um (a name mis-rendered into Hiram) from an artificer in brass and other metals, became the Chief Builder of the Haikal Kadosh, the Holy House, of the Temple, the '3,D@H )@:@H , and the words Bonai and Banaim yet appear in the Masonic Degrees, meaning Builder and Builders.(26)]
"The trowel of the Templars is quadruple, and the triangular plates of it are arranged in the form of a cross, making the Kabalistic pantacle known by the name of the Cross of the east. The Knight of the East, and the Knight of the East and West, have in their titles secret allusions to the Templars of whom they were at first the successors.
"The secret thought of Hugues de Payens, in founding his Order, was not exactly to serve the ambitions of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. There existed at that period in the East a sect of Johannite Christians, who claimed to be the only true Initiates into the real mysteries of the religion of the Saviour. They pretended to know the real history of YESUS THE ANOINTED, and, adopting in part the Jewish traditions and the tales of the Talmud, they held that the facts recounted in the Evangels are but allegories, the Key of which Saint John gives, in saying that the world might be filled with the books that could be written upon the words and deeds of Jesus Christ; words which, they thought, would only be a ridiculous exaggeration, if he were not speaking of an allegory and a legend, that might be varied and prolonged to infinity.
"As to the actual historical facts, the Johannites recounted what follows:[the Legend of Yeshu ben Pandiru, as told above in the quote from MacKenzie, and in the Toledoth Yeshu.] ..."(27)
"The Johannites ascribed to Saint John the foundation of their Secret Church, and the Grand Pontiffs of the Sect assumed the title of Christos, Anointed, or Consecrated, and claimed to have succeeded one another from Saint John by an uninterrupted succession of pontifical powers. He who, at the period of the foundation of the Order of the Temple, claimed these imaginary prerogatives, was named Theoclet; he knew Hugues de Payens, he initiated him into the Mysteries and hopes of his pretended church; he seduced him by the notions of Sovereign Priesthood and Supreme royalty, and finally designated him as his successor.
"Then the Order of Knights of the Temple was at its very origin devoted to the cause of opposition to the Tiara of Rome and the crowns of Kings, and the Apostolate of Kabalistic Gnosticism was vested in its chiefs. For Saint John himself was the Father of the Gnostics, and the current translation of his polemic against the heretics of his Sect and the pagans who denied that Christ was the WORD, is throughout a misrepresentation, or misunderstanding at least, of the whole Spirit of that Evangel.
"The tendencies and tenets of the Order were enveloped in profound mystery, and it externally professed the most perfect orthodoxy. The Chiefs alone knew the aim of the Order; the Subalterns followed them without distrust.
"To acquire influence and wealth, then to intrigue, and at need to fight, to establish the Johannite or Gnostic and Kabalistic dogma, were the object and means proposed to the initiated Brethren. The Papacy and the rival monarchies, they said to them, are bold and bought in these days, become corrupt, and tomorrow, perhaps, will destroy each other. All that will become the heritage of the Temple: the World will soon come to Us for its Sovereigns and Pontiffs. We shall constitute the Equilibrium of the Universe, and be rulers over the Masters of the World.
"The Templars, like all other Secret Orders and Associations, had two doctrines, one concealed and reserved for the Masters, which was Johannism; the other public, which was the Roman Catholic. Thus they deceived the adversaries whom they sought to supplant. Hence Freemasonry, vulgarly imagined to have begun with the Dionysian Architects (27a) or the German Stone-workers, adopted Saint John the Evangelist as one of its Patrons, associating with him, in order not to arouse the suspicions of Rome, Saint John the Baptist, and thus covertly proclaiming itself the child of the Kabalah and Essenism together.
"For the Johannism of the Adepts was the Kabalah of the earlier Gnostics, degenerating afterward into those heretical forms which Gnosticism developed, so that even Manes had his followers among them.(28) Many adopted his doctrines of the Two Principles, the recollection of which is perpetuated by the handle of the dagger and the tessellated pavement or floor of the Lodge, stupidly called 'the Indented Tessel,' and represented by great hanging Tassels, when it really means a Tesserated floor (from the Latin tessera) of white and black lozenges, with a necessarily denticulated or indented border or edging. And wherever, in the higher Degrees, the two colors white and black, are in juxtaposition, the Two Principles of Zoroaster and Manes are alluded to. With others the doctrine became a mystic Pantheism, descended from that of the Brahmins, and even pushed to an idolatry of Nature and hatred of every revealed dogma.(29)
"[To all this the absurd reading of the established Church, taking literally the figurative, allegorical, and mythical language of a collection of Oriental books of different ages, directly and inevitably led. The same result long after followed the folly of regarding the Hebrew books as if they had been written by the unimaginative, hard, practical intellect of the England of James the First and the bigoted stolidity of Scottish Presbyterianism.](30)
"The Johannism of the adepts was the Kabalah of the Gnostics, but it degenerated speedily into a mystic pantheism carried even to idolatry of Nature and hatred of all revealed dogma. For their better success, and in order to secure partisans, they fostered the regrets of every fallen worship and the hopes of every new cultus, promising to all liberty of conscience and a new orthodoxy which should be the synthesis of all persecuted beliefs. They went even so far as to recognise the pantheistic symbolism of the grand masters of Black Magic, and the better to isolate themselves from obedience to a religion by which they were condemned beforehand, they rendered divine honours to the monstrous idol Baphomet, even as of old the dissenting tribes had adored the Golden Calf of Dan and Bethel. Certain monuments of recent discovery and certain precious documents belonging to the thirteenth century offer abundant proof of all that is advanced here. Other evidences are concealed in the annals and beneath the symbols of Occult Masonry."(31)
"The better to succeed and win partisans, the Templars sympathized with regrets for dethroned creeds and encouraged the hopes of new worships, promising to all Liberty of Conscience, and a new orthodoxy that should be the synthesis of all the persecuted creeds.
[It is absurd to suppose that men of intellect adored a monstrous idol called Baphomet, or recognized Mahomet as an inspired prophet. Their symbolism, invented ages before, to conceal what it was dangerous to avow, was of course misunderstood by those who were not adepts, and to their enemies seemed to be pantheistic. The calf of gold, made by Aaron, for the Israelites, was but one of the oxen under the laver of bronze, and the Karobim of the Propitiatory, misunderstood.(32) The symbols of the wise always become the idols of the ignorant multitude. What the Chiefs of the Order really believed and taught, is indicated to the Adepts by the hints contained in the high Degrees of Freemasonry, and by the symbols which only the Adepts understand.(33)
"The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them. Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry.(34)The whole body of the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully, centuries since, in the High Degrees, as that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain. It is well enough for the mass of those called Masons, to imagine that all is contained in the Blue Degrees; and WHOSO ATTEMPTS TO UNDECEIVE THEM WILL LABOR IN VAIN, and without any truereward violate his obligations as an Adept. Masonry is the veritable Sphynx, buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages.(35)]
"The seeds of decay were sown in the Order of the Temple at its origin. Hypocrisy is a mortal disease. It had conceived a great work which it was incapable of executing, because it knew neither humility nor personal abnegation, because Rome was then invincible, and because the later Chiefs of the Order did not comprehend its mission. Moreover, the Templars were in general uneducated, and capable only of wielding the sword, with no qualifications for governing, and at need enchaining, that Queen of the World called Opinion. [The doctrines of the Chiefs would, if expounded to the masses, have seemed to them the babblings of folly. The Symbols of the wise are the idols of the vulgar, or else as meaningless as the hieroglyphics of Egypt to the nomadic Arabs. There must always be a common place interpretation for the mass of INITIATES; of the symbols that are eloquent to the ADEPTS.]
Hugues de Payens himself had not that keen and far-sighted intellect nor that grandeur of purpose which afterward distinguished the military founder of another soldiery that became formidable to kings. The Templars were unintelligent and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits.
"Their watchword was to become wealthy, in order to buy the world. They became so, and in 1312 they possessed in Europe alone more than nine thousand seignories. Riches were the shoal on which they were wrecked. They became insolent, and unwisely showed their contempt for the religious and social institutions which they aimed to overthrow. Their ambition was fatal to them. Their projects were divined and prevented. [Rome, more intolerant of heresy than of vice and crime, came to fear the Order, and fear is always cruel. It has always deemed philosophical truth the most dangerous of heresies, and has never been at a loss for a false accusation, by means of which to crush free thought. ] Pope Clement V, and King Philip le Bel gave the signal to Europe, and the Templars, taken as it were in an immense net, were arrested, disarmed, and cast into prison. Never was a coup d'etat accomplished with a more formidable concert of action. The whole world was struck with stupor, and eagerly waited for the strange revelations of a process that was to echo through so many ages.(36)"(37)
"The Templars having in 1307 carefully abstracted [sic] all the manuscripts composing the secret archives of the Order from the search made by authority, and these authentic manuscripts having been preciously preserved since that period, we have today the certainty that the Knights endured a great number of religious and moral trials before reaching the different degrees of initiation: thus, for example, the recipient might receive the injunction under pain of death to trample on the crucifix or to worship an idol, but if he yielded to the terror which they sought to inspire in him he was declared unworthy of being admitted to the higher grades of the Order. One can imagine in this way how beings, too feeble or too immoral to endure the trials of Initiation, may have accused the Templars of having superstitious beliefs."(38)
"It was impossible to unfold to the people the conspiracy of the Templars against the Thrones and the Tiara. It was impossible to expose to them the doctrines of the Chiefs of the Order. [This would have been to initiate the multitude into the Secrets of the Masters, and to have uplifted the veil of Isis. Recourse was therefore had to the charge of magic, and denouncers and false witnesses were easily found. When the temporal and spiritual tyrannies unite to crush a victim they never want for serviceable instruments.] The Templars were gravely accused of spitting upon Christ and denying God at their receptions, of gross obscenities, conversations with female devils and the worship of a monstrous idol. (38a)
"The end of the drama is well known, and how Jacques de Molai and his fellows perished in the flames. But before his execution, the Chief of the doomed Order organized and instituted what afterward came to be called the Occult, Hermetic, or Scottish Masonry. In the gloom of his prison, the Grand Master created four Metropolitan Lodges, at Naples for the East, at Edinburgh for the West, at Stockholm for the North, and at Paris for the South. [The initials of his name, J. B. M., found in the same order in the first Three Degrees, are but one of the many internal and cogent proofs that such was the origin of modern Freemasonry. The legend of Osiris was revived and adopted, to symbolize the destruction of the Order, and the resurrection of Khurum, slain in the body of the Temple, of Khurum Abai, the Master, as the martyr of fidelity to obligation, of Truth and Conscience, prophesied the restoration to life of the buried association.](39)
"The Pope and the King soon after perished in a strange and sudden manner. Squin de Florian, the chief denouncer of the Order, died assassinated.(40) In breaking the sword of the Templars, they made of it a poniard; and their proscribed trowels thenceforward built only tombs.
[The Order disappeared at once. Its estates and wealth were confiscated, and it seemed to have ceased to exist. Nevertheless it lived, under other names and governed by unknown chiefs, revealing itself only to those who, in passing through a series of Degrees, had proven themselves worthy to be entrusted with the Dangerous Secret. The modern orders that style themselves Templars have assumed a name to which they have not the shadow of a title.(41)]
FOOTNOTES
21.Levi, History of Magic, p. 207. The next quote is where Pike's account in M&D begins, but is actually the next sentence in Levi's account.
22.Pike, M&D.
23.Levi, History of Magic.
24.We have a study we are preparing which demonstrates that Ezekiel's Temple could have been located in the Himalayas.
25.Levi, History..., p.. 208.
26.But...see above, where we give our own take on Ben-Yehudah's translation of Mah-Hah-Bone!
27.Levi, History, p. 208, 210.
27a. Yet the Dionysian Artificers can be seen to have carried the Authentic Tradition into Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, etc., where the Johannite Gnosis was born and where it developed. The old wives' story that the Legend of the Dionysian Artificers is just that is no longer tenable, in fact it has been demonstrated to be true many times in the decades since archaeology started giving up the secrets of the past.
28.It appears that the author is referring to the Borborites, whom we will discuss later. These also are called Barbelo-Gnostics, Ophites, Sethians, Naassenes, etc.
29.Yet, in its purest form, this is religion par excellence. The troubles that religion has gotten into are due, for the whole part, to revealed dogma. Natural Religion and Pantheism are considered evil by the believers of revealed dogma. But, those of us who believe in the personal, private revelation of divinity in every facet of manifested existence, are regarded as evil heretics or bogus dreamers by they who prefer to believe that they are on the one true path, at the exclusion of everybody else. We accept all beliefs and creeds which are truly tolerant. But we reject as absolutely bogus anything which denies humankind Immortality of the Soul, the ability for the individual to think for itself, for the ability to access the Divine on an individual basis, and we deny the racist doctrines which claim that there is one group that is more superior to the others by virtue of revelation of the nature we see in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, or in the New Age, where any kind of individual belief is considered egotistical, evil, bad karma, arrogant, heretical, etc. True, the core thesis of this work relies on such notions, yet the Tradition which has upheld the Bloodline has also been at the front line when it comes to matters of freedom of speech, thought, conscience, and self-expression.
30.Hear! Hear! We recommend the interested party consult Tim Leedom's THE BOOK YOUR CHURCH DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ for some interesting articles on the subject, and some brutal horror stories of the excesses of Fundamentalism.
31.Levi, History, p. 211. Notice the sentence we emphasized in boldface. Was this a reference to the work he was employed to undertake at the order of Charles Nodier? Or was it something pertaining to the Order of the Temple of Fabre-Palaprat? Either way it seems to hint at the Priory of SION.
32.As well as being a symbol of Hathor, the Goddess of the Sinai Peninsula.
33.We refer the reader to The Code of the Eternal, Part II, Essay and Commentary, in which we discuss the true meaning of Baphomet. [To be completed circa 2001-2 c.e.] [See also, Is THIS the Holy Mountain? << now in Version 2.0 >> ] Also, in Part Three of this book , we shall give an informative outline of the Rite of Memphis, which is the Highest level of Freemasonry,
34.Maybe in another day and age, but we are doubtful if there are actually ten out of 10 million who can understand and appreciate the symbols and their meanings. This was written in the 1860s e.v., when there was still more than one well-read man in existence in the U.S.A. or elsewhere. It is true, that there are Princes of Masonry, even today, but they may not even be Freemasons!. Especially today.
35.And in about the same physical shape too.
36.So True. This same process was employed with the so-called Witches, in Europe, and in America. And, in every time and place when the established authorities recognize a potential threat to their existence. Witness the Cold War strategy of J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy(may they rot forever). For, though there may have been Communist threats to the National Security of the USA, the real object was to control the minds of the masses, who were beginning to get a taste of high technology, and new scientific breakthroughs, and the philosophical implications of these which posed a real threat to the entire fabric of the JudaeoChristian mindset. The Kingdom of Heaven could be realized, on Earth, but it was to be put off indefinitely so the politicians could thrive and collect their inflated retirement pensions. As far as true Christians go, Aleister Crowley was a true Christian, in every sense of the word. This may seem a contradiction, but it is true. The head of Calvary Chapel, or of The Christian Coalition, or of Trinity Broadcasting Network, or any of the rest of them are worse than Richard Ramirez in the hierarchy of evil. Also, many misguided "Mind Control" "researchers" tend to concoct completely false fantasies pertaining to persons like Crowley, Parsons, and the rest; such testimonials can only be regarded with extreme suspicion and appear to be a dangerous preoccupation among the afflicted slaves of Because who are truly fearful of those who choose to control their own destiny, rather than be controlled by the fount of lies which a society that is based on original sin and guilt and shame and envy really is.
37.Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite ( M&D), Chapter 30, pp. 815-820. Pike is quoting, probably the "Allocution of Pio Nono", who issued a famous Papal Bull condemning the Masons. This same story, originally circulated once upon a time, by Fabre Palaprat, and others, possibly, was picked up by Eliphas Levi, by Kenneth Mackenzie, by H.P. Blavatsky, and by Pike. They all tell essentially the same story, with a very few differences. This entire Chap. 30 is, with a few edits, in Levi's History of Magic. Pike's version contains more, in some areas, but Levi's contains the part about Jesus ben Panther.
38.Webster, p. 68. Of course, the typical Roman Catholic official of the period under examination, could in no way be considered a superstitious person! For an interesting account of the superstitions of the Mother Church of Rome, please obtain a copy of ISIS UNVEILED, Vol. II. We also recommend, A. D. Smith's The History of the Warfare between Science and Theology in Christendom. And, for an interesting and often humorous account, in the form of fiction, please obtain a copy of Umberto Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE, especially where the subject of relics is taken up, and Luis Buñuel's excellent film, The Milky Way (1969 e.v.), which is a parody of some of the most cherished "mysteries" and/or dogmas of the Catholic Church. If this film is still available in Video, please let us know!
38a. Nowadays an enemy of the State would be branded an Aryan Satanist, a sociopath, guilty of the heresy of equanimity, or a Moslem extremist, a threat to the children, and so forth.
39.The reader is urged to obtain a copy of Baigent and Leigh's The Temple and the Lodge, for the best account of how Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism before it, evolved from the Order of the Temple, as survivals. In fact, several of the families which later became grouped together in the Scottish Clan system, were Templar survivals. See also, Yarker's The Arcane Schools.
40.Some interesting facts are brought out in Peter Partner's The Murdered Magicians. Especially Chapter 3, "Magic, Heresy, and Conspiracy," pp. 42 - 58.
41.Very true.
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