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In summary, there is evidence of a ‘priesthood’, a ‘church’ and a ‘true faith’ influencing Tolkien’s work skilfully concealed in the text. In fact, if reference to the Catholic Faith is intended, no doubt the White Council and the wise ‘priesthood’ of the Istari are representative of the Church. The ‘angelic’ Gandalf is eventually made ‘pontiff’ when he deposes Saruman by rightful authority invested in him from Beyond, “You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and the Council”.57 Gandalf wears ‘papal’ white, and has symbolically carried out the threefold office conferred upon the Church: that of teacher, of priest, and of shepherd. Of importance, he remains faithful as a ‘servant of the Secret Fire’ and therefore, defends the doctrine of the Trinity.
He also bears the symbols of his authority as ‘pontiff’, a staff and a ring. Like Christ, he was a shepherd who protected his flock with his very life, his first staff as Gandalf the Grey shattering in the process. “... For it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.” (Matt. 26:31) The Fellowship are indeed scattered when Gandalf falls in the Mines of Moria with the Balrog, but he reunites them all when he rises again in victory. Of interest we find that Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich was shown the significance of the pastoral staff from the time of the ancient prophets to the crosiers used by the bishops, and the Pope as Bishop of Rome also carries a distinctive crosier:
“I saw this gift of the priesthood possessed by the
Prophets, and the signification of the form under which it was
exercised was shown me. I saw, for example, the history of
Eliseus giving his staff to Giezi to lay upon the dead child of the
Sunamitess. In this staff lay spiritually Elisues’s mission and
power. It was, as it were, his arm, the prolongation of his arm.
And here I saw the interior signification of a Bishop’s crosier and a
monarch’s sceptre. If used with faith, they unite both Bishop and
monarch in a certain way with Him from whom they hold their
dignity, with God, marking them out at the same time as distinct
from all others.”58
And the Ring? We discover in the end of the tale that Gandalf had in his possession the whole time one of the Three Rings of Power made by the Elves ~ “Narya the Great, and the stone upon it was red as fire.”59 In the Appendix we discover this rare Ring was given to him by one of the greatest of the Eldar Elves, Círdan the Shipwright, who was granted the gift of perception and discernment more than anyone else on Middle Earth. When Gandalf first arrived from the Undying Lands with the Istari centuries ago, Círdan welcomed him “... knowing whence he came and whither he would return.”...
“Take this Ring, Master,’ he said, ‘for your labours will be
heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken
upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may
rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.”60
57 Ibid. p. 607.
58 The Life of Jesus Christ, Vol I, p. 19.
59 Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, p. 1068.
60 Ibid. Appendix B, p. 1122.
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Hence, Círdan foresaw that Gandalf would renew the faith and the charity of the people when times would be at their darkest, much like the End Times when charity will “grow cold” as Christ foretold. 61 The only detail that does not correspond with the idea of the papal ring is that Gandalf’s ring is not the mightiest
of the Three. The Pope of the Catholic Church as the Vicar of Christ is quite independent of every temporal sovereignty and of every spiritual power, i.e. he cannot be ordered around by kings or bishops in Church matters, and is supreme on earth, not even being subject to a general council of the Church.62 Concerning the papal ring, it was once used to sign important documents as his official seal. Upon the death of a pope, the papal ring was effaced to ensure that no other may usurp his authority or forge documents after his death with the seal. The ritual of effacing the ring is still continued to this day. Perhaps it was an unintended oversight in that Tolkien did not give Gandalf the most powerful of the Three Elven Rings, but he did reaffirm the theological symbols of Gandalf as ‘pontiff’ of the Istari, representative of the Logos and the Holy Spirit symbolised by Light and Fire, by giving him Narya the Great, the Ring of Fire. Of interest, one of the principle duties of the Catholic pontiff is to preserve the Faith, unite Christendom, and heal Christ’s people. Lord Elrond reveals that the Three Elven Rings, (including Gandalf’s Ring of Fire), were made with a similar purpose: “But they were not made as weapons of war or conquest: that is not their power. Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained.”63 The only difference is the Elven Rings could be enslaved if Sauron finds the One Ring, while pontifical authority symbolised in the pope’s ring cannot be enslaved as the spiritual authority of the pope is above all secular and ecclesial power.
Regarding the Catholic pontificate itself, Christ had declared that Peter was the Rock on which he would build His Church and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. (Matt.1 6:18) In other words, all Hell would try to destroy the Church, especially by attacking the papacy, but would not succeed. We notice Tolkien may have alluded to Christ’s promise to Peter and his successors, i.e. when the black orc-hosts of Mordor eventually attack the Gates of Minas Tirith with a gigantic battering ram shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf. The battering ram
is called Grond after the Hammer of the Underworld wielded by the ancient Satanlike Lord Morgoth. The gates of the King’s City holds amidst the initial poundings of the battering ram, but the Lord of the Nazgûl urges the black army onward and the gates eventually burst asunder. The Nazgûl king attempts to enter the City of Gondor and rides “... under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed.” All flee from his horrific form sending despair with its menacing shadow, all save one, Gandalf and his fearless white horse: “There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dìnen. ‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted.’” 64 Gandalf commands him to depart and enter the black nothingness of the abyss prepared from him and his Dark Master. The Lord of the Nazgûl mocks Gandalf, but he is prevented from entering and taking the city. The sun rises and the faithful armies of Rohan ride to the rescue. The evil Nazgûl king suddenly flies off to engage them and leaves the city just when he had it within his grasp. In the end, Gandalf courageously held him off, ensuring that the City of the Faithful Númenoreans that had never seen an enemy enter past its threshold remained as it was ~ hammered, but undefeated.
61 “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.” (Matt. 24:12)
62 The Pope not subject to a general council was declared by Eugenius IV., (Sept. 4, 1439; Vatican Council, 4, 3).
63 Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 286.
64 Ibid. The Return of the King, pp. 860-861.
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One last observation concerning Gandalf’s role as ‘pontiff’ is his unexpected mercy towards Saruman in a Christ-like manner in the hope he might repent of his treachery. The most important mission of the Church is teaching the forgiveness of sins no matter how great, and to encourage souls to follow He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life: Gandalf fulfils this mission as well. Saruman and his army are defeated and the traitor is imprisoned in the tower of Orthanc. However, Gandalf gives Saruman the choice to go where he wishes, even to the Enemy if that be his desire, or, to redeem himself by helping them in their cause to defend Gondor against Lord Sauron. Gandalf also declares that in time if Saruman’s deeds merit it, he will eventually give him back his staff and reinstate him as a member of the Council. Everyone is amazed at this generous offer and cannot comprehend it. Unfortunately, Saruman craves supremacy in Middle Earth and refuses to leave the tower of Orthanc willingly, nor will he help Gondor and its allies, accusing Gandalf of the lust for power that he himself is consumed by. Gandalf is left with no choice but to forcibly divest Saruman of his office not only as Leader but also as a member of the Istari as he has proved unworthy to be numbered among them. Gandalf leaves him confined within the tower to await the dreadful wrath of Lord Sauron,whom he had also betrayed. Gandalf bitterly regrets this turn of events; “I do not wish for mastery. What will become of him? I cannot say. I grieve that so much good now festers in the tower.”65 Rather than rejoice at his enemy’s demise, Gandalf attempts to save him from his own evilness and is mournful that Saruman remains unrepentant.
As we have seen, there is enough evidence to suggest that Tolkien fashioned Gandalf and his adventures after the Roman Catholic papacy to a point, but are there passages or events in Lord of the Rings that links him with the ‘Angelic Pontiff’ that Catholic mystics have foretold? According to prophecy, both the Great Monarch and the Angelic Pontiff will work together in their respective spheres to restore all that was destroyed by evil and usher in an age of peace before the final temptation of mankind near the end of time. As we have seen earlier in our study, Gandalf reappears as the ‘Angelic’ Leader of the Istari just as Aragorn comes forth from hiding and reclaims his kingdom similar to the prophecies concerning the Great Monarch that will help restore Christendom. There are a few other similarities with Gandalf and prophecies concerning the Angelic Pontiff: when Saruman attempts to persuade Gandalf yet known as The Grey Pilgrim to join with him in his evil designs, Gandalf refuses and as a consequence is imprisoned upon the pinnacle of Orthanc; however, he eventually escapes Saruman’s clutches. As we have seen earlier, Catholic mystics such as Marie-Julie Jahenny foretold that the Angelic Pontiff would be held captive within Rome itself, and would be freed by the Great King. Although Gandalf’s situation is slightly different, he is not yet Leader and is not rescued by Aragorn, the fact he is held prisoner by one of his own who has grown corrupt bears a resemblance to Jahenny’s revelations. We could also propose that Gandalf courageously challenging the Nazgûl King at the Gates of the King’s City when all resistance seems hopeless may also represent the captivity of the Angelic Pontiff surrounded by enemies in Rome. The King of Rohan and Aragorn arrives with his phantom army and saves Gondor, much like the Great Monarch who will come to Italy with his armies and liberate the Eternal City. In several prophecies we find that the Great Pope will crown the Great Monarch Holy Roman Emperor of Christendom, for example, St. Ignatius of Santhia declared (1686-1770): “A scion of the Carolingian race, by all considered extinct, will come to Rome and behold and admire the piety and clemency of this Pontiff, who will crown him, and declare him to be the legitimate Emperor of the Romans...”66 In the Lord of the Rings, we find that Aragorn departs from custom for his coronation and instead of setting the crown upon his head, grants the honour to Gandalf:
“...let Mithrandir set it upon my head, if he will; for he has
been the mover of all that has been accomplished, and this is his
victory.’
Then Frodo came forward and took the crown from
Faramir and bore it to Gandalf; and Aragorn knelt, and Gandalf
set the White Crown upon his head, and said:
‘Now come the days of the King, and may they be blessed
while the thrones of the Valar endure!’.”67
Yet, the triumph and happiness of the restored kingdom is not yet complete, Aragorn is awaiting the ‘sign’ when all shall be fulfilled and his days assured of blessedness and peace, for the White Tree of his forefathers still stands dead in the King’s courtyard. Gandalf takes Aragorn up a steep forgotten path that only kings have tread leading to a high precipice in the mountains overlooking the kingdom. First, he reminds Aragorn of his secular and sacred duties, to rule wisely, and to preserve and defend the true faith: “This is your realm, and the heart of the greater realm that shall be. The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what may be preserved.”68 Gandalf bids Aragorn to look away from the valley and search the snow. To his surprise, Aragorn discovers a young white sapling: a lost descendant of Telperion, symbolic of the Biblical Tree of Life. With joy Aragorn takes it back to the city and plants it in the royal courtyard for now he knows that his wish will be granted ~ Lord Elrond will give his daughter Arwen to him to be his wife. Elrond had declared he would not give him the hand of his daughter in marriage, Princess Arwen, unless he became King of the Númenoreans and someone worthy of her. Now that a White Tree has been found, Aragorn set guards upon the walls of the city and awaits her arrival. Elrond and his retinue enters the city and at last surrenders to Aragorn the sceptre of his ancestors that he may rule as king, and their joy is finally complete as he gives him Arwen to be his bride, a scene reminiscent of the Lamb and Eternal King receiving His bride in the Heavenly court with the Tree of Life planted at the foot of His Eternal Throne as seen in the Apocalypse:
“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to him; for the
marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath prepared herself.
And it is granted to her that she clothe herself with fine linen,
glittering and white.” (Apoc. 19:7-8)
“And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal,
proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst
of the street thereof, and on both sides of the river, was the tree of
life ...” (Apoc. 22:1-2)
In all, there is considerable evidence that Tolkien modelled his characters Gandalf and Aragorn upon the various prophecies of the Angelic Pontiff and Great Monarch, mighty spiritual and secular leaders restoring peace and joy to the Faithful on Middle-Earth.
By now, the reader is probably wondering that if Tolkien did indeed fashion two of his heroic characters from Catholic prophecies, what about the evil protagonists? Were any of them inspired by these little-known revelations concerning future times? The answer is yes, but to discover the links between the myth and the prophecies, we must venture not only into the realm of unnerving revelations, but also into the murky world of secret sects, dark plots, occult signs, bloody revolutions and conspiracy theories ~ we must probe deep into the burning Eye of Sauron.
65 Ibid. The Two Towers, p. 608.
66 We are Warned, pp. 539-540.
67 Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, p. 1004.
68 Ibid. p. 1007.
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Lord Sauron ~ Veiled Malice
Of all the evil antagonists ever portrayed in literature, the Dark Lord Sauron is certainly one of the most mysterious. He is not Evil itself embodied in the Satanic Lord Morgoth who poisoned the two Trees of the Undying Lands, but he is its servant, and as a loyal servant he has learned all the diabolical ways of his Master. Since he has plagued Middle Earth for millennia and has been reduced to a black shapeless spirit of terror, we know he is immortal like the Valar and at one time was a spirit of good as Lord Elrond declares, “... nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”69 Sauron then is obviously a fallen member of an angelic race similar to demons in Christian theology, and as such he is greatly feared by all the faithful peoples of Middle Earth who remain true to the One Creator and His immortal Guardians, the Valar. Strangely, in spite of the terror he spreads and the vast armies under his command, we do not see Lord Sauron throughout the entire epic of Lord of the Rings. He is only perceived under different veils for we learn in the Chronicles in the Appendixes that he assumes various 'shapes' throughout the different ages when his evil powers grow, but his forms are never fully described. He did at least have a hand on which he bore the One Ring before Isildur hacked it off, but whether he assumed a man-like shape or a beast with a hand-like appendage is left to the imagination. At another point in Middle Earth’s history he had assumed another form and was called the ‘Necromancer’, but again, what he looked like, and indeed if he looked human at all, is left a mystery.
During the Third Age in which the Lord of the Rings takes place, it is curious that Tolkien leaves this shadowy veil draped over his principal character of evil. Considering that for the first time in millennia Sauron has the opportunity of crushing the last remnant of the Faithful Númenoreans and is reaching the zenith of his powers, he does not rise forth in a blaze of demonic bravado to lead his own armies as the reader might expect in fantastic literature such as this. Tolken completely sidesteps this dramatic imagery and instead, he reveals one particular feature of Sauron's being that fills the world with awe and fear ~ the Great Lidless Eye, a burning Eye, an Evil eye that never sleeps and watches over all, plotting, seeking, mustering fell beasts, rallying evil allies and causing despair.
Frodo is shown a vision of the terrible Eye in the Mirror of Lady Galadriel:
“But suddenly the Mirror went altogether dark, as dark as if
a hole had opened up in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into
emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that
slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it
that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze.
The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a
cat’s, watchful, and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on
a pit, a window into nothing.”70
69 Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 284.
70 Ibid. p. 383.
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The most chilling aspect is the length and breadth of Sauron’s menacing influence despite never leaving the Dark Tower of Mordor, the entire world feels the malevolent presence of his watchful Eye. In some instances, he attempts to read the thoughts of the Wise, even the Elven Lady Galadriel. At other times he endeavours to win allies such as Saruman and corrupts the White Council, not to mention he destroys the unity of Gondor by instilling despair in the ruling Steward using the master Seeing Stone he captured, fooling or twisting the minds of those who dare to look into the other Stones that still exist. When Sauron does not attempt to influence anyone directly, his power is exerted through his minions who carry out his wicked designs. Fell creatures of his own twisted breeding programs such orcs and trolls, and evil men under his dominion, especially the Nazgûl Witch-Kings, hasten to carry out his commands. He himself remains secreted away and lays a rule of silence on his servants, never allowing them to say or even spell his name except for the Lieutenant of the Tower, a fallen member of the Númenorean race adept in the dark arts who is given the dubious honour of being “the Mouth of Sauron”. A miserable creature named Gollum who has become decrepit on account of the One Ring is one of the few who have seen the Dark Lord and declares he still has a powerful ‘Black Hand’ missing one finger, but never once do we see Sauron as he truly is, only in the guise of his diabolical trait as the Evil Eye. It is his chosen Sign and his minions bear a Red Eye on their shields and helmets. The Dark Lord remains a hidden entity of maliciousness lusting after power and the ultimate control of Middle Earth.
Who or what could have inspired this new and dreadful revelation of Lord Sauron as the All-Seeing Eye? If Tolkien also based his characters on Catholic prophecies concerning the appearance of the Great Monarch and the Angelic Pontiff, it stands to reason he would also fashion the Dark Lord on the enemies of both Kingdom and Church denounced in these revelations. Hence, we need look no further than the Eye of Providence appropriated by Freemasonry and similar secret sects.
All of the prophecies tells of great heresies and the global relaxation of morals spread by the enemies of God before the coming of the Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff: several mystics clearly state Freemasonry and other associated secret orders will be the prime instigators of this dark period. The mystic Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich revealed that the secret societies were the principle enemies that would relentlessly attempt to undermine the Church before the great renewal. Sister Jeanne Royer (1731-1798) also foretold that “... many precursors, false prophets and members of infernal secret societies, worshippers of Satan, shall impugn the most sacred dogmas and doctrines of our holy religion, shall persecute the faithful, shall commit abominable actions.”71 Marie-Julie Jahenny declared that before the chastisements, France would lose the faith, and the chief cause would be the evil influence of men working from the depths of the “lodges”.72 She also received a visitation from St. Michael the Archangel who declared that he himself would aid the arrival of the Great Monarch into France by destroying all the enemies of God, Freemasonry included; “I hold under my feet all the enemies of God and all that is of Freemasonry. I will exterminate them and the Justice of God will complete it and will crush them under the weight of His anger. Meanwhile, marching to France and on the borders of France, we will accomplish our duty.”73 The Church itself has also condemned Freemasonry, declaring all members are automatically excommunicated ipso facto. Pope Leo XIII, who saw Satan challenge Heaven and demanded a period of time to bring havoc on earth as mentioned earlier, also warned the faithful about the dangers of Freemasonry. No doubt Pope Leo recognised the esoteric guild as one of the tools that would be used during that predicted time.
Why has Heaven and the Church condemned Freemasonry? The answer is complex: in order to understand the centuries-old irreconcilable division between the secretive lodges and the Catholic Faith, we must first examine the known history of the early stonemason guilds together with the formation of the liberal arts and the philosophical mysticism of the medieval period.
In those times, the sum total of scholastic education and higher learning consisted of seven arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. These academic branches of learning were held in the greatest esteem as they were sublime evidence mankind was more than an animal: humans were beings created by God with the ability to reason, and through these arts mankind could be ‘liberated’ from the base nature of the corporal body and attain wisdom, hence the term ‘liberal’ arts. An important scholar and philosopher named Boethius (c. AD 430-525) categorised the last four mathematical branches into what he called the quadrivium, setting them apart from the first three arts, which were later called the trivium. For Boethius, number was the ultimate means to understand and attain heavenly wisdom as numbers with their mathematical laws were steadfast and never changing just like the Creator, hence his focus on the quadrivium. Boethius’ categorisation of these liberal arts as ‘numerical’ philosophical disciplines greatly influenced the academic thought of medieval Europe. Every art was bound by the use of reason, hence the importance of understanding the laws that governed numbers and ratio, even music was studied as a mathematical discipline governing sound. In fact, Boethius considered music the highest form of mathematical science, enabling one to understand the cosmic music of the spheres, for it was believed every planetary body moved in unity and harmony to an unheard ‘music’ in the heavens. The corporal heavens were the last boundary between Creation and the Spiritual Heaven, and hence to understand this hidden wisdom of the cosmos would enable man to come closer to the Wisdom of his Heavenly Creator.
71 We Are Warned, p. 544.
72 Ibid. p. 331 August 22, 1882.
73 Ibid. St. Michael to Marie-Julie, September 29, 1878, p. 154.
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Boethius divided music into three categories: the cosmic music as described above, the second was musica humana, which was an ‘inaudible music’ that
governed the invisible and mysterious union of the soul with the body. The third (and least important!) was audible instrumental music, which according to Boethius, pandered to the pleasures of the body but did little to improve the mind. Instrumental music had its place, it was the first step to hear and understand that sounds could be structured with proportion, balance and unified in a beautiful harmony, but it was not the highest form of music, which was always mystical and philosophical. Instrumental musicians were considered ‘labourers’ oblivious to the harmonic and metaphysical laws behind their performances. Composers were only a step above this grade as they fashioned music on an instinctive level, but not on the rational level of the philosopher, who was the ‘true musician’. Boethius declared: “How much nobler is the study of music as a rational discipline than as a composition and performance. It is as much nobler as the mind is superior to the body; for devoid of reason, one remains in servitude.”74 Numbers then were more than mathematical figures, each number also held a mystic significance. By studying rational numbers through music and the other mathematical arts, the mind could grasp the concept of unseen yet perceptible wisdom of philosophy and theology. As a result, theology and philosophy were also bound together with the liberal arts in an interdisciplinary fashion. We note Tolkien was obviously influenced by medieval philosophy when constructing his mythical tales of Middle Earth as evidenced in his other writings in which he envisioned the ‘One’ God creating a cosmic music that was visibly made manifest via the creation of the physical World Circle.
Returning to our study, we can see from Boethius’ philosophical theories on numbers and music that medieval scholars’ perception of the liberal arts was
completely different from that of today. The sciences were not primarily studied for the purpose of learning a technical or practical trade, but to expand the mind and reach the heights of wisdom, and by learning wisdom, one could discern how to attain spiritual perfection. The liberal arts were an ennobling means to teach mankind how to rise from its fallen, base nature and connect once more with the divine. For instance, another example of science mixed with allegorical philosophy is alchemy, the pseudo-science of turning base or worthless materials into more precious substances, the ancestor to modern chemistry. Alchemy is often perceived as the ‘goose-chase’ of ages past, the dabbling quest of the greedy determined to produce gold out of lead, but it was much more than that, working with lead was just one aspect of the craft. The alchemists experimented with many materials, plants and minerals, in attempt to discover the quintessence ~ the perfect and incorruptible fifth element hidden in Nature that bound the Universe together. As gold was the symbol of wisdom in both the Bible and ancient myth, the Holy Grail of alchemy was the quest to discover how to make it, for it was believed that if one could reveal the secret of transforming crude lead into precious gold, they could also discover how to unlock the hidden quintessence of man ~ the eternal quest to rise above the corrupt flesh and once more reach perfection in spirit. In all, Christianised alchemy of the medieval period was intended to be a visual allegory, much like the nature-parables Christ used to teach the people about the Kingdom of Heaven. Unfortunately, the hunt to make easy gold quickly overshadowed alchemy’s original symbolical purpose.
74 Wayne D. Bowman, Philosophical Perspectives on Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 64.
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Although the liberal arts were intended for philosophers, many of the mystic and allegorical aspects of the sciences also became an integral part of the trades associated with them. Geometry, ‘measurement of the earth’, became the revered art of the stonemason guilds. While Boethius championed music as the ultimate philosophy, geometry was viewed by others as the ultimate branch of numerical knowledge in understanding the Creator and His creation, for geometry, the unique three-dimensional application of number, was the highest form of arithmetic. It was thought that since God could not have created the structure of the universe without creating the laws of geometry, it had to be the most important. God was the ‘Great Architect of the Universe’ and therefore every other art was subject to geometry. The heavens and the earth could not be ordered without three dimensional measurements, alchemy was closely bound with the study of astronomy and the materials of the earth, and therefore also tied to geometry. Music and words were bound by rhythm, and since that too was bound by logic and proportion, which required the use of reason symbolised in rational and unchanging numbers in addition to measurement, it followed that geometry, the art of the Freemasons, had to be master of all the liberal arts.
The term ‘freemason’ arose circa the 1200s AD and was originally used to describe those stonemasons that were skilled in carving ‘freestone’ that did not splinter in the process, such as limestone. Later, ‘Freemason’ defined a stonemason who was free to work his trade wherever he chose without any restrictions imposed upon him by the trade unions or builders’ guilds. In most cases, medieval masons worked in lodges where much of the preliminary labour of drawing plans and hewing rough stones was carried out. Soon, guilds were formed with a master mason as leader, the term ‘lodge’ was continued and later used in reference to a guild, or a group of stonemasons. Each step from apprentice to master mason was accompanied by various ‘rites of passage’, ‘graduation’ rituals so to speak emphasizing the mystic knowledge gained with each step of becoming a stonemason and mystic philosopher of geometry.
Stone masonry, also inseparable with architecture at the time, had the unique privilege of being associated with kings, princes, and with the philosophers and theologians of the Church since most of the master stonemasons’ skills were channeled into building castles, palaces, municipal buildings, and of course, churches and cathedrals. As a result, many of the allegorical and mystical parables of the Church became closely entwined with the geometric mysticism of the stonemasons’ lodges. As the Scriptures declare Christ is the rejected Stone that became the cornerstone of the Church, every member was also a ‘living stone’ that constituted the heavenly kingdom and represented in the physical stones of a church; therefore, as the masons had the unique privilege of fashioning each and every stone, it is not surprising that they also incorporated this visual symbolism into their craft, viewing each member as a living ‘stone’ or ‘block’ that constituted their mystic lodge. The tools of their trade also held an allegorical significance concerning the path to Christian perfection. A ladder represented the spiritual steps leading up to heaven, while the plumb-line, geometrical compass and rule were symbolic reminders of how a man should live his life with moderation and moral balance. The gavel and hammer used to trim down and polish an ashlar or rough stone displayed the patience and labour required to transform one’s fallen and base nature into a perfectly hewn stone worthy of the heavenly Kingdom. The trowel was symbolic of laying the perfected stone in place, that is, within the Christian society of the Church, while mortar represented the charity, peace and brotherly love that keeps the ‘stone’ secure. In all, the freemason’s trade was an allegorical parable made visible in construction tools similar to the chemical hunt for the spiritual quintessence, or ‘philosopher’s stone’ of alchemy.
As we can see, freemasonry was not regarded as an ‘evil’ organization in the beginning and was closely associated with the Church. We cannot help but recall Lord Elrond’s observation in Lord of the Rings, “... nothing is evil in the beginning,” including the Dark Lord Sauron. Indeed, the freemasons adopted many Christian symbols, including the Eye of Divine Providence set within the triangle of the Trinity as the number three was considered a mystically important number in geometry. However, several factors began to contribute to the growing division between Church and the Mystic Lodge. One of the first troublesome issues emerged when freemasons continually added pagan myths and belief systems into the ‘history’ of their craft in their zeal to discover when mankind first practised the noble liberal art of geometric-stonemasonry. A number of the earliest surviving stonemasons’ charters display a curious mishmash of texts, inventive retellings of Biblical history, anachronistic accounts of secular history in addition to speculative myths concerning the foundation of the seven liberal sciences, all that were later combined with pagan philosophy as the years progressed. Many guild charters listed the ill-omened Tower of Babel as the first Biblical mention of organized stone masonry. Masonic legends grew from this supposed beginning, in particular, a strange account that a prophecy had already existed before the deluge warning mankind it would be destroyed by fire or water. Not knowing which would strike first, humanity had preserved knowledge of the seven sciences in two pillars, one that could withstand fire, the other water, hence the sciences were saved for posterity and allowed proud King Nimrod to build his mighty edifice. How they arrived at this legend is a mystery, some Masonic researchers note the ancient historian Josephus first mentioned this legend and wrote that it was Adam who had warned his son Seth what would happen, accrediting Seth with the construction of the two pillars. However, Josephus could have confused this story with the Egyptian pharaoh Sethos, or Seth, who raised memorial columns in the countries he conquered. Masons then traced the ‘history’ of their craft from Babel to the patriarch Abraham, who according to their legends taught the arts to the Egyptians, who in turn passed it on to the Greek philosophers, eventually arriving at the history of Solomon’s temple. After ancient Israel, masonry was then introduced into Europe, France receives particular attention in several guild charters. This ‘history’ of their origins was often incorporated into the various graduation rituals of ‘raising a mason’ from apprentice to Master Mason.
The temple of Solomon also features in Masonic pseudo-history and has its own curious collection of legends connected with it. For instance, freemasons associated the mythical two pillars of ‘Seth’ with the pillars of Wisdom and Strength in the Biblical temple. Another strange legend is that of ‘Hiram Abif’, the widow’s son, who helped King Solomon in its construction. In the Bible, King Hiram of Tyre sends King Solomon his own father also named Hiram to help with the construction of the building. (2 Paralipomenon 2:13) His father Hiram, the son of a widow from the daughters of the tribe of Dan, was skilled in every craft concerning building, metalwork, engraving, and rare materials. However, the freemasons concocted a strange tale that non-masons tried to enter the lodge to learn the secrets of the masons and discover the hidden plans for the temple: when ‘Hiram Abif’ refused to reveal the secret password or ‘Mason’s Word’ allowing admittance into their exclusive workspace, he was murdered and became a martyr for sacred wisdom. There is no proof this ever happened, but for the freemasons the legend was a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection as the ‘Word’ of God, the Divine geometric Logos of ‘ratio’, ‘word’ and ‘proportion’.
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We may ask why was secrecy so important? First, there was a practical reason as only those skilled and learned in the craft where allowed to progress
through the various stages of initiation from apprentice to master mason and learn their trade secrets. If the ignorant could learn how to carve or draw architectural plans, the stonemasons and architects would be out of work! It was common sense to keep the skills ‘in house’ and off limits to the general populace. Even today, revealing patented trade secrets of a company is a serious crime. However, secrecy was important for other reasons. In the medieval period, the study of the philosophy surrounding the seven liberal sciences was often shrouded with mystery and kept a private matter among those of ‘higher intellect’ as the ignorant could often perceive the research of the scholars to be something bordering on the satanic. Alchemy could be misconstrued as brewing witch potions, astronomy closely bordered on astrology in those days, and the study of mysticism in numbers, especially the strange geometrical figures associated with architecture, could be misjudged to be pagan witch-circles and diagrams. In fact, innocently studying the ‘occult’ or hidden mysticism of the earth in the footsteps of the Three Kings or Magi was a risky business, scholars were often labelled ‘wizards’ in the incorrect sense rather than philosophers, the word ‘occult’ corrupted into something associated with the demons, hence the requisite for secrecy. As a result, masons developed codes to recognise each other, the infamous development of secret fraternal handshakes among lodge members comes from this practise. However, the protective shroud of secrecy was often taken to extremes. We recall the confidentiality surrounding the Venetian glass blowers guild of the medieval days was infamous, their glass was so prized throughout Europe that it would be detrimental if their trade secrets should be made common knowledge, their source of income would come to an end. Of interest, glass-blowing was also a unique form of alchemy, the base material of sand turned into something pure, clear, hard and brilliant through the cleansing process of fire was a prime example of the quintessence at work in Nature and displayed how the world in the end times would eventually be purified by fire. The fortunes and mysticism of the glass-guild also had to be kept from the prying eyes of the vulgar and ignorant. Those who attempted to leave were hunted down by an assassin and killed with a sword or dagger made of glass.
As time progressed, the requisite of secrecy in the lodges helped to contribute towards the friction between the Church and Freemasons. Scholars of the medieval and Renaissance periods who wished to study pagan sources of ‘wisdom’ and various scientific works banned by Rome found a hidden sanctuary from the Church’s scrutiny in the lodges as ‘speculative members’, that is, as members who did not intend to acquire the practical skills of the stone carvers, but who wished to study the esoteric and ‘speculative’ history of masonry in addition to the associated liberal ‘occult’ sciences. However, the occult knowledge acquired in the lodges was ‘all inclusive’ ~ wisdom had to be ‘good’ no matter where it was found ~ therefore many heretical concepts and ideas contrary to Church doctrine continued to be melded with the Judeo-Christian mysticism of the speculative branches of the guilds. Hence, not only were hermetic scholars concealing their studies, they began to separate themselves from the theology of the Church as well.
Over time, the various trades and sciences were divested of their ‘speculative’ nature and progressed into the forms we know today: alchemy became chemistry, astronomy was purged of astrological study, mathematics became the study of equations, and so forth. Stone masonry was also gradually stripped of its mysticism, yet the speculative branch survives in Freemasonry. When this separation took place, it is difficult to discern considering the secrecy surrounding
the lodges, although we may safely say the speculative Freemasons still operated according to the charges of their stonemason lodges for a considerable amount of time, albeit independently from the carvers that is until June 24, 1717 when a small group of four lodges in London formally united to created the first fraternal organisation with a common set of Charges. Six years later in 1723 the Grand Lodge of England was established from which all other recognised Masonic grand lodges throughout the world claim their origin. This period is generally considered the first official historical division of the operative or practical practise of stone masonry from speculative Freemasonry. From this time onward, Freemasonry as a fraternal society quickly spread throughout Europe. As the true history of masonry as a stone carvers’ craft was lost over time or obscured in speculation, the various lodges began to vie with each other in the quest to discover which had the oldest charters, and therefore, the lodge that should hold supreme authority over the others. In addition to the hunt for the oldest charters, many attracted to speculative Freemasonry attempted to form their own rival esoteric Masonic orders, attracting adherents by claiming they had discovered the true origins of the hermetic craft. At this point, many other forms of mystic philosophy such as Jewish cabala, Gnosticism, Egyptian lore, Persian wisdom myths, in addition to Christian doctrine, were all considered valid modes of attaining wisdom for a Masonic philosopher, the various Christian symbols of the stonemasons trade, including the All-Seeing Eye of the Trinity, was often placed side by side with other pagan images of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome, not to mention those from other non-Christian belief systems. Eventually the All-Seeing Eye become recognised as a definitive Masonic symbol circa the 1790s.
One of the most popular rites that emerged was the Rite of the Strict Observance founded by Baron von Hund in the late 1800s allegedly ruled by a group of secret ‘Unknown Superiors’. Hund claimed that hermetic Freemasonry had originated with the medieval crusader Templar Knights who had discovered esoteric secrets of the East during their time guarding the Temple and escaped to England disguised as stonemasons when their chivalric order was disbanded and persecuted. All English lodges were reputedly descendants of the exiled Templars according to Hund, who therefore claimed his order was the legitimate form of Masonry. The theory that the Templar knights had stumbled across occult wisdom hidden in caverns under the temple mount and practised it secretly similar to the hermetic scholars of old was a popular theme among masons, accounting for the introduction of numerous ‘Templar grades’ in Masonic rites, the symbol the Templar masons adopted was a skull and crossbones. Another strange contender to legitimacy was the charlatan Count Cagliostro (1743-1795) who claimed to have received mystic powers at the ancient pyramids of Egypt, inventing a new Egyptian Masonic Rite with which he attempted to “ ... exercise universal jurisdiction over Freemasonry” according to the New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry.75 Cagliostro allegedly founded a private Temple of Isis in Paris where he ordained himself High Priest, or Copht, Bearer of the mysteries of the gods Isis and Anubis from the Far East. It quickly grew in popularity until the lodges of France rejected his ‘order’ and it dwindled into obscurity. However, before it lost its popularity it was a rite to be reckoned with and was influential in establishing Egyptian-oriented rites such as the Rite of Mizraim.
75 Arthur Edward Waite, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (Ars Magna Latomorum), And of Cognate Instituted Mysteries: Their Rites, Literature and History ~ Combined Two Volume Edition, Vol. I (New York: Wing Books, 1996), p. 90.
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In all, instead of solidifying the various lodges, myriads of new Masonic rites and orders mushroomed, competing against or using each other, their strange theories rising into popularity or falling into obscurity, each founder squabbling over who had discovered the true history of Masonry, or who were the legitimate guardians of esoteric wisdom and could lead mankind to the surest path of perfection. We cannot help but notice that in Lord of the Rings Tolkien may have alluded to the deep ‘secret devilry’ introduced by this strange proliferation of constructed legends and rites, in particular, the Templar legends that continue to intrigue people today. King Solomon’s Temple was built on Mount Moria (2 Paralipomenon 3:1) the exact same name Tolkien calls his fabulous underground kingdom of the Dwarves. Just as wise King Solomon’s temple and kingdom were associated with one* precious metal, gold, the alchemical symbol of wisdom among the hermetic scholars, Tolkien’s Moria is prized for its extremely rare mithril, the priceless metal of kings and princes. However, the Dwarves burrowed too far into Moria in their quest for mithril and unleashed the terrifying Balrog of the depths, a demon-servant of the satanic Morgorth as we recall. In the end, evil creatures overtook their beloved kingdom and the Dwarves were forced to abandon their realm. No doubt Tolkien was secretly jabbing at the hermetic scholars who delved too deep into forbidden places in their quest for the hidden ‘gold’ of wisdom and ultimately unleashed the multi-headed hydra of Masonic spiritualism. Only the Angelic Pontiff of the Church would eventually put an end to the Enemy and his useless rites once and for all as symbolised by Gandalf quelling the Balrog of Moria.
For obvious reasons, the all-inclusive nature of occult esoteric study in Freemasonry and its offer of an alternative path to redemption divorced of Christ’s organised religion became a great cause for alarm with the Church.76 Any promised path to perfection or salvation derived from pagan religions and whitewashed with Christian mysticism was nothing more than a ploy of the devil to ensnare the curious through alluring but hazy ‘mysteries’ that lead nowhere. Scripture clearly states that all pagan deities are devils and places idolatry in the same category as witchcraft, a ‘spiritual adultery’ separating the soul from God. Hence, the study of hidden wisdom from the medieval days was no longer viewed as a completely innocent academic occupation as it dived straight into pagan sources for alternative sources of ‘wisdom’, the term ‘occult’ now viewed as something demonic. Mankind still corrupted by original sin could not save itself without Christ and the graces of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Freemasonry could offer nothing more than fool’s gold, a spiritual sect with no known or concrete foundation in history luring new followers in with the promise of attaining true wisdom but failing to deliver, giving nothing but appealing yet illusive vagaries followed by the accomplishment of strange rites without any power invested in them from Heaven and therefore could not bestow or convey supernatural grace to lead man to salvation.
Freemasonry therefore became an ‘empty’ organisation in contrast to the Church and its grace-giving seven Sacraments established by Christ Himself: two of which imparted the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Baptism and Confirmation, one which restored grace when lost through sin, the Sacrament of Penance, and of course, the Blessed Sacrament of His own Body and Blood, the Eucharist that sustained body and soul unto Life Everlasting. No other religion, sect or fraternity possessed the promised gifts of Christ and the Holy Ghost, nor had the power to forgive sin and impart grace. Anyone who attempted to seize Christianity and its mysticism while at the same time setting themselves apart from Christ’s one and only Church, or claimed to have the secrets to salvation, or declared that all religions were equal, was nothing but a fruitless sham leading souls to perdition. Therefore, Satan, who separated himself from God yet could not make his own kingdom and had to accept Hell prepared for him and his angels, could not create a convincing ‘church’ of his own unless he appropriated the mysticism of Christ’s true Church and used it to promote his diabolical aims, turning the original good intentions of the medieval freemason guilds into a satanic Antichrist ‘church’. We observe Tolkien’s Lord Sauron shares similar characteristics as Frodo remarks: “The Shadow that bred them (the orcs) can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.”77
This division between Freemasonry and the Church became more apparent in the 18th century when many lodges were used as tools to foster the ideals associated with the Age of Enlightenment, in particular, Deism: the belief that the ‘Sublime Being’ or Creator was not concerned with the affairs of mankind after the Creation and left humanity to its own devices. It was the duty of man to tread the path of good, and therefore was given the gift of reason to learn how to accomplish this, namely, by doing charitable deeds and promoting the concepts of equality, fraternity, liberty and love. Deism proposed the belief that reason and observation of the natural world alone were sufficient means to determine the existence of a Creator, therefore deists rejected religious knowledge as a source of authority, including the scriptures. Of course, by rejecting revealed religion in favour of a ‘natural’ belief system, the deists also cast aside the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which in turn was to reject the concept of a loving God. In all, Deism inferred that man was left independent of God, and could advance in perfection by his own reasoning power and merits.
* “For no account was made of silver in those days,” i.e., during King’s Solomon’s reign. (2 Paralipomenon 9: 20)
76 The Russian author Leo Tolstoy indicated this was a particular lure of the Lodges. In War and Peace Pierre Bezùkhov joins the Freemasons, believing he has found the true path to heaven and the surest road removed from the oppressive ‘rules’ of religion. He declares all other creeds are a lie: “Freemasonry, he claimed, was Christian doctrine freed from the bonds of politics and organized religion, (...) ‘You must understand, my dear fellow, outside this fraternity it’s all lies and deceit.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Volume II, Part II, Ch. 12, Penguin Red Classics, (London: Penguin Books, 2006), p. 418. Eventually Pierre is disillusioned with the members of the lodge as they joined simply to make connections or to be sociable, rarely paid their expected alms to the poor, were too busy trying to poniard those who had betrayed the secrets of the lodge, or were scrambling to find which lodge had the oldest charters: nearly all members proving to be hypocrites, failing to practise the supposed wisdom that they preached.
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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:
“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
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