By Frank Dux
“The Veiled Threat of Freemasonry” can mean many things to many people. But within Masonry itself this is not viewed an external threat. This has more to do with regards to ancient mysticism and how Masonry tests men to go and stay in the light.
To this end, many believe it is society mores invariably shifting in two different directions, like a wave going in and out, what is just and right today is oppressive and evil, tomorrow, had over the ages force secrecy and various name changes to the order as well as the alteration of allegory, symbolism and ritual, all to ensure the survival of Ancient Egyptian Schools of Mystery.
Alleged to also be known as the Rosicrucian’s; Freemasonry; Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn; Ordo Templi Orientis (“O.T.O.”), etc
The proposed theory of the “metamorphism” of Ancient Occult Societies best explains how there can exist an alleged to be 1100 year-old Masonic Prussian Lodge, in Germany, made known by its hiding a Nazi treasure diary (obstructing justice) as reported by Ed Wight Stuart Dowell In Warsaw, Poland For Mailonline – March 8th 2019.
The story is contested as FAKE NEWS chiefly because of an allege age discrepancy — Modern Freemasonry, being founded, in 1717.
The people who believe otherwise and suggest the Masonic order is far older than four centuries claim that not only is an 1100 year old lodge possible but this is evidence of how Modern Freemasonry is the metamorphic result of Egyptian occultism.
They do so by drawing a comparison to mystical rituals, traditions and the esoteric strange hieroglyphics and monuments erected by enslaved Hebrews. All of which, are part of a metaphysical tradition and modern mystery schools of which Modern Freemasonry, is one.
Connecting these historical secretive societies to each other and the Ancients is their shared in common belief there exist a higher power that is not exclusive to any organized religion nor is the soul of a man bound to obey any dogma — that God is in them. And thus, they have the right to exercise free will.
Obviously, this is contrary to the gospel teachings of the Catholic Church.
Diverse incompatible philosophical differences is what Catholic Popes cite as their basis to have ruled Freemasonry is against the gospel to the extent a Catholic being a Freemason is grounds to be excommunicated from the Church. This is canon law.
Based upon my interacting with Masons, primarily, when I was just a lad in DeMolay, I came to realize very quickly Masonic teaching takes the candidate through a journey steeped in history, symbolism and allegory.
Being done to impart wisdom of how to ignite within one a divine spark. That is, recognize the relationship to a higher power (God, Grand Architect, Supreme Being, etc) and live a life of moral righteousness.
To become a Mason by design through a method by division—steps, classes, or degrees— purification, preparation, initiation, and perfection — this first appeared in Ancient Egypt and given both Freemasonry and the Ancients make use of same if not similar rituals and symbolism — this further suggest how they are linked.
So much so, Modern Freemasonry ascribes to a belief that those who believe in God cannot help but conclude there exist unfathomable depths of his own essence. Masons say “G” for them is hangs there in their lodges symbolizing the divine spark within, the god essence of oneself. “G” is a big part of the symbolism used by Masons.
The letter “G” in the middle of the square and compass is also there to signify Gnosis, Generation and the Grand Architect. Gnosis in its most elementary form means “knowledge of thyself” or the Great Arcanum, Da’Ath (Hebrew for knowledge).
“The Egyptian philosophers have sublime notions with regard to the Divine nature, which they kept secret, and never discover to the people but under a veil of fables and allegories,” says the early Christian Priest, Origen.
Like the Egyptian philosophers the Masonic order visibly utilize symbolism and allegory to be never revealed to the uninitiated, addressed as, “cowans”; a purely Masonic word that Masons in their writings attribute to the Schaw Manuscript, a Scotch record which bears the date of 1598.
In it appears in the following passage: “That no Master or Fellow of Craft receive any cowans to work in his society or company, nor send none of his servants to work with cowans.”
A broaden reinforcing the historical connection to Ancient Egyptian Schools of Mystery is the Osiris story that formed the crux of the Ancient Egyptian belief system.
In the Egyptian rites, Orus is the savior-avenger, son of Isis, magically conceived through ritual after the brutal murder of Isis husband / brother Osiris.
Disenfranchised Mason’s allege this story is the basis of Freemasonry’s allegory of the murder of Hiram Abiff, the chief architect of Solomon’s Temple.
More similarities can be drawn between Modern Freemasonry and the Ancient Egyptian Schools of Mystery beginning with certain Masonic symbols, initiate rituals and established protocols, like secrecy.
Disenfranchised Masons often speak of how when a candidate first enters a lodge room for initiation, the candidate for Freemasonry is blindfolded and has a rope tied around his neck which he is led by. This rope is called a “cable tow” that is rooted to Ancient Egyptian Schools of Mystery, that placed a chain around a candidate’s neck instead, while also led blindfolded as in Masonry to represent a state of darkness before emerging into the light of knowledge when the blindfold was removed.
The symbolism used to acknowledge a person is a Freemason is the presentation of a white apron consisting of a square overlaid with a triangle. The apex of the triangular flap represents the divine spark to endeavor to recover and there’s no better geometric figure to symbolize this than the triangle, say Masons.
A triangle is the very first shape that can be made by drawing straight lines. Masons represent this is why the number 3 is so venerated by them and point out how, in Judaism, the triangle represents the past, present and future; to the Chinese: heaven, earth and water; to the Hindus: creation, preservation and renewal.
The three points of the triangle represent the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the collective unconscious with regard to Ancient Mystery Schools of Egypt and likewise, the same goes for Freemasonry.
The Ancient Egyptian School of Mystery ceremony of initiation led the candidate to a door shaped exactly as a Masonic apron with a triangle over a square, symbolizing his progression from an earthly, material existence (square) into a heavenly, spiritual existence of higher learning (triangle).
The Masonic symbol of the Point Within a Circle inside two parallel, perpendicular lines can also be visibly linked to antiquity, given how Egyptian monuments are inscribed with the symbol of God represented by the Alpha and Omega, the centre of a circle bordered by two perpendicular, parallel serpents.
In many ancient belief systems and mystery schools, a circle was used to symbolize God as, like a circle, God has no beginning and no end.
The Rosetta Stone that is dated back to approx. 196 BCE. is etched with pictures of bees. Ancient civilizations revered bees and honey and linking the Masons to the ancients are the emblems of the third degree of Freemasonry, which is the honeycomb.
Ancient Egyptians developed methods of advanced apiculture as far back as 3000 BCE. Menes, the first King of Egypt, his rein approx. between 5000 BCE to 4000 BCE, was called ‘The Beekeeper’, a title bestowed on all subsequent Pharaohs.
Depictions of bees and honey are prevalent on Egyptian Flamic and Pamphilic obelisks, the obelisk of Luxor, pillars of the Temple of Karnak and on statues of Rameses II.
In fact, the sarcophagi of Rameses II had been accompanied by pots of honey, honeycombs and honey cakes, as food for the gods.
Alexander the Great schooled in the secrets of the Ancient Egyptian School of Mystery ordered his body be wrapped in honey upon his death.
Secrecy and silence that surrounds Freemasonry is part of the tradition of Ancient Egyptian Societies of Mystery that pay homage to Orus AKA Harpocrates by the Greeks, — The God of Silence, Secrets and Confidentiality.
This deity is given peculiar honor and veneration, represented with the right hand placed near the heart, and the left down by his side, covered with a skin before, full of eyes and ears, to signify, that of many things to be seen and heard, few are to be published. This image is loosely connected to Hermetic Gnostisim and through Crowley’s writings, such as, Magick, is associated with Freemasonry.
Apuleius, who was an initiate in the Mysteries of Isis, said: “By no peril will I ever be compelled to disclose to the uninitiated the things that I have had entrusted to me on condition of silence.”
The best known to be a champion of silence and secrecy was Pythagoras, who ventured to Egypt to study the ways of the Ancient Egyptian School of Mysteries, which he later brought back to Greece. To become a member of the Pythagorean School, an initiate took an oath of silence for two to five years. Novices were called ‘Listeners’ and were not permitted to partake in class discussions, but only to listen so the teaching could be absorbed before entering into an intellectual debate on what they learned.
The historical findings are so vast regarding the connections between occult Ancient Egyptian School of Mystery and Freemasonry that Masons themselves writing upon the subject have stated they are just are too vast to be able to be presented in an article.
The Origin of Freemasonry and its internal struggles dates far back before the term Mason was ever used. A 1918 Masonic Text, The Builder, affirms this stating the original Modern Freemasons were a society that arose out of the Rosicrucian mania, certainly within the thirteen years from 1633 to 1646 and probably between 1633 and 1640.
They were engaged in mastery of magic in the cabbalistic sense–that is—“the occult wisdom transmitted from the beginning of the world and matured in Christ; to communicate this when they had it–to search for it when they had it not; and both under an oath of secrecy.”
This object of Freemasonry is represented under the form of Solomon’s Temple–as a type of the true church whose cornerstone was Christ, the temple was to be built of men, or living stones, and the true method and art of building with men it is the province of magic to teach.
Hence it is that all the Masonic symbols either refer to Solomon’s Temple, or are figurative modes of expressing the ideas and doctrines of magic in the sense of the Rosicrucian’s and their mystical predecessors in general.
The Freemasons making use of the symbols, etc., from the art of masonry, to which they were led by the language of Scripture went on to connect themselves in a certain degree with the order of handicraft masons and adopted their distribution of members into apprentices, journeymen and masters. Christ, to them, was the Grand Master who was put to death whilst laying the foundation of the temple of human nature.
Therefore, the historical root origin of Masonry is open for discussion and remains an entirely debatable subject amongst academic historians and Masons, alike.
But one thing that is certain and not up for debate are the Freemasonry rituals, teachings and structure being interconnected as far back as to the Ancient Egyptian Schools of Mystery as well as the Rosicrucian’s transplanted into England, that pre-dates
Organized “Modern Freemasonry.” — established on 24 June 1717.
Modern Freemasonry only occurred when four London lodges came together at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House, St Paul’s Churchyard, formed themselves into a Grand Lodge and elected Anthony Sayer, a Gentleman, as their Grand Master, creating the first Grand Lodge in the world.