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but more likely borrowed from the Rosicrucians a part of their system and symbols which they adapted totheir own purpose. Moreover, the incontrovertible fact is that in the list of English Freemasons and Rosicrucianswe find men who belonged to both Orders and a amongst these two who contributed largely to the constitutionsof English Freemasonry.The first of these is Robert Fludd, whom Mr. Waite describes as " the central figure of Rosicrucian literature,...an intellectual giant,... a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his writings,of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one of the most distinguished disciples ofParacelsus... ."(64) Yarker adds this clue: " In 1630 we find Fludd, the chief of the Rosicrucians, using architecturallanguage, and there is proof that his Society was divided into degrees, and from the fact that theMasons' Company of London had a copy of the Masonic Charges ' presented by Mr. fflood ' we may supposethat he was a Freemason before 1620."(65)A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer, and alchemist, founder of theAshmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also aFreemason. Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said to have perfected its organization,to have added to it further mystic symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up theritual of the existing three Craft decrees-Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason-which wasadopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For,as Ragon also informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the Rosicrucians heldtheir meeting in the same room at Mason Hall !(66)How, then, can it be said that there was " no traceable connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism"? and why should it be the part of a " malignant reviler " to connect them? It is not suggested thatRosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements into Freemasonry, but simply thesystem and symbols of the Rose-Croix with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forman important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore undeniable.The Seventeenth-century RabbisThere is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of Freemasonry may have penetratedto the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declaredthat " there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"(67) and if this statement is applied to theperiod preceding the institution of Grand Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it issaid that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge had been designed by an AmsterdamJew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo, colleague of Cromwell's friend the Cabalist, Manasseh ben Israel.(68) To quote Jewish authority on this question, Mr. Lucien Wolf writes that Templo " had a monomaniafor... everything relating to the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle of the Wilderness. He constructed giganticmodels of both these edifices."(69) These he exhibited in London which he visited in 1675, and earlier,and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that this may have provided a fresh source of inspiration to theFreemasons who framed the masonic ritual some forty years later. At any rate, the masonic coat-of-arms stillused by Grand Lodge of England is undoubtedly of Jewish design." This coat," says Mr. Lucien Wolf, " is entirely composed of Jewish symbols," and is " an attempt todisplay heraldically the various forms of the Cherubim pictured to us in the second vision of Ezekiel-an Ox,a Man, a Lion, and an Eagle-and thus belongs to the highest and most mystical domain of Hebrew symbolism."(70)In other words, this vision, known to the Jews as the " Mercaba,"(71) belongs to the Cabala, where a particularinterpretation is placed on each figure so as to provide an esoteric meaning not perceptible to the uninitiated.(72)The masonic coat-of-arms is thus entirely Cabalistic as is also the seal on the diplomas of CraftMasonry, where another Cabalistic figure, that of a man and woman combined, is reproduced.(73)Of the Jewish influence in Masonry after 1717 I shall speak later.To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry are not to be found in onesource alone. The twelve alternative sources enumerated in the Masonic Cyclopædia and quoted at the beginningof this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative Masonry may have descendedfrom the Roman Collegia and through the operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonrymay have derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the source of inspirationwhich admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala. Whether this penetrated to our country through the RomanCollegia, the compagnonnages, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter ofNesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I— 67 —
speculation. The fact remains that when the ritual and constitutions of Masonry were drawn up in 1717, althoughcertain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic versionof the secret tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which to build up theirsystem.Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I— 68 —
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Nesta H. WebsterSecret Societies an
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That the author was right in his de
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1. Moniteur for the 14th Fructidor,
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and that " the priests did not shut
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Is the Cabala, then, as Gougenot de
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system of the Jewish hierarchy and
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traditions woven into a coherent na
Page 16 and 17:
This passage would alone suffice to
Page 18 and 19: itive innocence of the garden of Ed
Page 20 and 21: 1. August le Plongeon, Sacred myste
Page 22 and 23: ah was not that of ' a light to lig
Page 24 and 25: 110. Matter, op. cit., II. 364.111.
Page 26 and 27: By means such as these the extraord
Page 28 and 29: policy. A system which, with no oth
Page 30 and 31: devoted his life to murder. Thus by
Page 32 and 33: CHAPTER IIITHE TEMPLARSIN the year
Page 34 and 35: nesses, says the official report, "
Page 36 and 37: As to the Pope, we have already see
Page 38 and 39: The Paulicians who flourished about
Page 40 and 41: regard to the miracles of Christ is
Page 42 and 43: ing homage to the powers of darknes
Page 44 and 45: 27. Ibid., p. 384.28. F. Funck-Bren
Page 46 and 47: CHAPTER IVTHREE CENTURIES OF OCCULT
Page 48 and 49: from this source. Indeed Eliphas L
Page 50 and 51: ment of physics by which the mystic
Page 52 and 53: It will be seen that, according to
Page 54 and 55: Moreover, towards the end of the ce
Page 56 and 57: existence to the world under the na
Page 58 and 59: the true and indisputable facts con
Page 60 and 61: legia in Scotland, at Kilwinning, M
Page 62 and 63: Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Mas
Page 64 and 65: Moreover, according to a masonic tr
Page 66 and 67: sider one more link in the chain of
Page 70 and 71: 1. A Free Mason's answer to the Sus
Page 72 and 73: Les Sociétés Secrètes en Allemag
Page 74 and 75: ment, but in the transformation tha
Page 76 and 77: middle of the eighteenth century sp
Page 78 and 79: Freemasonry traced to the Crusades:
Page 80 and 81: Cross; and finally, that a degree o
Page 82 and 83: claimed to be not merely a part of
Page 84 and 85: 1. Histoire de la Monarchie Prussie
Page 86 and 87: 41. A.Q.C., XXXII. Part I. p. 17.42
Page 88 and 89: Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet M
Page 90 and 91: thentic they were the work of Volta
Page 92 and 93: speech had reached the ears of Fred
Page 94 and 95: 1782 an English Freemason writes: "
Page 96 and 97: Contemporaries, however, take him l
Page 98 and 99: 25. Evidently a reference to the se
Page 100 and 101: CHAPTER IIXTHE JEWISH CABALISTSIT h
Page 102 and 103: Podolia, known as Ba'al Shem Tob, o
Page 104 and 105: applied to Falk in his quest for th
Page 106 and 107: und Falk: Gespräche für Freimaure
Page 108 and 109: 1. L'Antisémitisme, p. 335.2. Ibid
Page 110 and 111: CHAPTER IXTHE BAVARIAN ILLUMINATITH
Page 112 and 113: mancers, would authorize us in decl
Page 114 and 115: merce by customs, excise duties, an
Page 116 and 117: day.Weishaupt, however, admits hims
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and the world the abode of reasonab
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ing esteemed and " respectable " pe
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mother dead ! Corpse, wedding, chri
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way of duplicity and imposture.More
Page 126 and 127:
isted, whereat he gave me his word
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100. It has several times been stat
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But in the year before these events
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terested in supporting the system o
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Amongst these others were not only
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attempt on the part of the Jews to
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been and will be the authors of pre
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ressorts]."Two years later, on Janu
Page 142 and 143:
derstood that there may be uniformi
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ectory of the Carbonari and was led
Page 146 and 147:
1. Henri Martin, Histoire de France
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