12-27-2020, 03:37 PM
Hence, the proverbial line had been drawn when Deists had abandonedeverything that was held sacred in the Catholic Church. In addition to rejectingreligious authority, the Deist concept of an ‘aloof god’ was a completely heretical doctrine contradicting the teachings of the Church cunningly masked with the Christian ideal of fraternal charity: the idea that mankind could do very well on his own without God was nothing short of Satanic pride. In addition, the scriptures clearly state God so loved the world He gave up His only Son in order to redeem it. The world was not a plaything made on a whim, a mere bauble to be set aside by a bored deity. God had created an Eternal Kingdom out of Love for His Son and with His Son, both acting together in union with the Holy Spirit. There could be no surer or quicker path back to Heaven than the one God revealed Himself through His Son and the Church established by His own Blood in self-giving sacrifice. As God is Goodness and Love itself, in fact he is Everything except evil, there is no possible alternative to righteousness. Everything else is darkness and hell. Christ declared He was the True Vine, and that any branch that separated from Him would prove fruitless, it would eventually wither and die, warning everything not united to Him will come to nothing.78 Therefore a similar fate awaited any illegitimate order or sect that established itself apart from God as prophesied in the Book of Wisdom: “... and bastard slips shall not take deep root, nor any fast foundation. And if they flourish in branches for a time, yet standing not fast, they shall be shaken with the wind, and through the force of the winds they shall be rooted out. For the branches not being perfect, shall be broken, and their fruits shall be unprofitable, and sour to eat, and fit for nothing.” (Wisdom 4: 3-5) Of interest, we find other texts in Scripture that warn about the ‘doom of nothingness’ awaiting the enemies of God, stating that anyone who deliberately separates themselves from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the path to salvation set by Them has chosen all that is not of God ~ a state of ‘nothingness’. “All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made.” (John 1:4) In other words, God not only made the world out of nothing, but anyone or anything that openly rebelled against Him was ‘made nothing’ or ‘made void’ and had set itself aside in darkness exactly like Satan, described as the Beast that “was and is not”. (Apoc. 17:8)
Tolkien makes a particular point about the ‘nothingness’ that awaits the evil ones in Lord of the Rings. We recall how Gandalf commands the evil Nazgûl Witchking to depart from the city of the Faithful and return back to the ‘nothingness’ prepared for him and his Dark Master; indeed, the evil king leaves no earthly remains but disappears into emptiness when he is slain on the Pelennor Fields. When the traitor Saruman is murdered, his ‘spirit’ appears as a thick mist, but soon disappears into emptiness. “As a cloud is consumed and passeth away: so he that shall go down to hell shall not come up.” (Job 7:9) The eye, often considered the window to the soul, is a dead aperture in the case of Lord Sauron, the horrific pupil of his All-Seeing Eye opening like a black bottomless pit, “a window into nothing” Tolkien writes. The Dark Lord Sauron faces the fate of ‘nothingness’ when the One Ring is eventually destroyed: he rises up in a huge billowing lightning-crowned shadow with a frightening hand, but his power has evaporated. As he grasps towards Aragorn and his army, Sauron is blown away by a great wind like the fruitless branches mentioned in the Bible and is reduced to emptiness in the end. His black kingdom is but a far cry from the royal kingdom of Aragorn symbolised by the blessed White Tree of Telperion, the fruitful Tree of Life.
78 “I am the true vine; and My Father is the husbandman. (...) Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless you abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth.” (John 15: 1, 4-6)
Returning to the contentions between the Church and the secretive lodges, they became more than theological struggles, for several of the secret orders vying with the lodges for dominance or acceptance as legitimate rites soon acquired subversive political agendas. The most notorious of these orders was the Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt on May 1, 1776, which may be the prime source of Tolkien’s secretive Dark Lord and his chosen emblem of the Lidless Eye. Although not a Mason at first, Weishaupt attempted to join the fraternity, apparently with the aim of ensuring his new version of the Illuminati was acceptedinto the hermetic fold.79 In fact, Freemasonry already had several orders founded under the name ‘Illuminati’ or the ‘Enlightened Ones’, no doubt in reference to the scholars of the medieval and Renaissance periods who strove to acquire enlightenment through their studies of mystic hermetic wisdom, but Weishaupt’s new order had more dangerous objectives. Weishaupt was one of the foremost promoters of hard-line Deism: he believed mankind could reach perfection, but not until it returned to a simpler patriarchal life. The only way to accomplish this was to instigate a great reformation that would ultimately clear the ground, a complete eradication of the exiting forms of ‘domination’ supposedly oppressing mankind,namely monarchies and all established Christian religion. Only then could this ‘New World Order’ of the true Illuminati rise up and take its rightful place:
Although Weishaupt failed to have his new order officially recognised by the Freemasons, it continued to spread its destructive influence. Waite declares it “...was one definite and highly organised attempt to appropriate Masonry in the interest of propaganda which aimed at religious, political and social revolution.”81 In the structuring of his new Illuminati order, Weishaupt was inspired by Hund’s Rite of Strict Observance and its ‘Unknown Superiors’ upon which much political intrigue circled. Weishaupt was further influenced by one peculiar Masonic foundation-theory proposed by the Mason C.F. Nicolai: that Freemasonry was first established by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) who attempted to establish a secret order hidden from the eyes of the world that would bring about a ‘great reformation’.82 Nicolai had based his curious hypothesis on Bacon’s Instauratio Magna and also his famous unfinished text The New Atlantis (1627), the latter tract presenting Bacon’s vision of a secret commonwealth unknown to the world with daily life centring on Christian ideals, yet with no visible organised Christian Church, its advanced way of life carried out by a priestly brotherhood of scientists who presided over a ‘House of Solomon’. Their undiscovered continent remains hidden from the rest of the world, yet the New Atlantians are well aware of the other countries around them,and in fact, send out secret scouts to observe how far the rest of the nations are progressing in scientific matters. Armed with this ‘proof’ from Bacon’s text, Nicolai then dared to propose Bacon attempted to accomplish a similar ‘secret reformation’ by establishing the Royal Society of London in order to spread knowledge throughout the world via the ranks of a secret society, aka, Freemasonry. Influenced by these theories and rumours, Weishaupt constructed his New Order with its various rites around a group of Unknown Superiors with the aim to spread his destructive anarchist ideals under the dark cloak of secrecy doubly-concealed by the guarded exclusivity of the Masonic lodges. It is no wonder his subversive ‘Big Brother’ order became associated with the symbols of the Freemasons, the Eye of Providence twisted into a sinister emblem of intimidating surveillance leering from the shadows.
79 A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, Vol. I, p. 386, Vol. II, p. 67.
80 Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 386-387.
81 Ibid. p. 386.
82 Ibid. p. Vol. II, pp. 134-135
Tolkien makes a particular point about the ‘nothingness’ that awaits the evil ones in Lord of the Rings. We recall how Gandalf commands the evil Nazgûl Witchking to depart from the city of the Faithful and return back to the ‘nothingness’ prepared for him and his Dark Master; indeed, the evil king leaves no earthly remains but disappears into emptiness when he is slain on the Pelennor Fields. When the traitor Saruman is murdered, his ‘spirit’ appears as a thick mist, but soon disappears into emptiness. “As a cloud is consumed and passeth away: so he that shall go down to hell shall not come up.” (Job 7:9) The eye, often considered the window to the soul, is a dead aperture in the case of Lord Sauron, the horrific pupil of his All-Seeing Eye opening like a black bottomless pit, “a window into nothing” Tolkien writes. The Dark Lord Sauron faces the fate of ‘nothingness’ when the One Ring is eventually destroyed: he rises up in a huge billowing lightning-crowned shadow with a frightening hand, but his power has evaporated. As he grasps towards Aragorn and his army, Sauron is blown away by a great wind like the fruitless branches mentioned in the Bible and is reduced to emptiness in the end. His black kingdom is but a far cry from the royal kingdom of Aragorn symbolised by the blessed White Tree of Telperion, the fruitful Tree of Life.
78 “I am the true vine; and My Father is the husbandman. (...) Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless you abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone not abide in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth.” (John 15: 1, 4-6)
Returning to the contentions between the Church and the secretive lodges, they became more than theological struggles, for several of the secret orders vying with the lodges for dominance or acceptance as legitimate rites soon acquired subversive political agendas. The most notorious of these orders was the Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt on May 1, 1776, which may be the prime source of Tolkien’s secretive Dark Lord and his chosen emblem of the Lidless Eye. Although not a Mason at first, Weishaupt attempted to join the fraternity, apparently with the aim of ensuring his new version of the Illuminati was acceptedinto the hermetic fold.79 In fact, Freemasonry already had several orders founded under the name ‘Illuminati’ or the ‘Enlightened Ones’, no doubt in reference to the scholars of the medieval and Renaissance periods who strove to acquire enlightenment through their studies of mystic hermetic wisdom, but Weishaupt’s new order had more dangerous objectives. Weishaupt was one of the foremost promoters of hard-line Deism: he believed mankind could reach perfection, but not until it returned to a simpler patriarchal life. The only way to accomplish this was to instigate a great reformation that would ultimately clear the ground, a complete eradication of the exiting forms of ‘domination’ supposedly oppressing mankind,namely monarchies and all established Christian religion. Only then could this ‘New World Order’ of the true Illuminati rise up and take its rightful place:
“In its complexion the Order (of the Illuminati) was anti-
Christian, because it was an aggressive Deism; it was antimonarchical
certainly; and those who describe it as an anti-social
movement are not far from the mark, if we admit their implicits in
the use of the term. (...) (Through Deism) Weishaupt sought to
raise his doctrine of human perfectibility, while the means sought
for its advancement were political revolution and the destruction
of all authority, for the restoration of a patriarchal life.”80
Although Weishaupt failed to have his new order officially recognised by the Freemasons, it continued to spread its destructive influence. Waite declares it “...was one definite and highly organised attempt to appropriate Masonry in the interest of propaganda which aimed at religious, political and social revolution.”81 In the structuring of his new Illuminati order, Weishaupt was inspired by Hund’s Rite of Strict Observance and its ‘Unknown Superiors’ upon which much political intrigue circled. Weishaupt was further influenced by one peculiar Masonic foundation-theory proposed by the Mason C.F. Nicolai: that Freemasonry was first established by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) who attempted to establish a secret order hidden from the eyes of the world that would bring about a ‘great reformation’.82 Nicolai had based his curious hypothesis on Bacon’s Instauratio Magna and also his famous unfinished text The New Atlantis (1627), the latter tract presenting Bacon’s vision of a secret commonwealth unknown to the world with daily life centring on Christian ideals, yet with no visible organised Christian Church, its advanced way of life carried out by a priestly brotherhood of scientists who presided over a ‘House of Solomon’. Their undiscovered continent remains hidden from the rest of the world, yet the New Atlantians are well aware of the other countries around them,and in fact, send out secret scouts to observe how far the rest of the nations are progressing in scientific matters. Armed with this ‘proof’ from Bacon’s text, Nicolai then dared to propose Bacon attempted to accomplish a similar ‘secret reformation’ by establishing the Royal Society of London in order to spread knowledge throughout the world via the ranks of a secret society, aka, Freemasonry. Influenced by these theories and rumours, Weishaupt constructed his New Order with its various rites around a group of Unknown Superiors with the aim to spread his destructive anarchist ideals under the dark cloak of secrecy doubly-concealed by the guarded exclusivity of the Masonic lodges. It is no wonder his subversive ‘Big Brother’ order became associated with the symbols of the Freemasons, the Eye of Providence twisted into a sinister emblem of intimidating surveillance leering from the shadows.
79 A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, Vol. I, p. 386, Vol. II, p. 67.
80 Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 386-387.
81 Ibid. p. 386.
82 Ibid. p. Vol. II, pp. 134-135