booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

thentic they were the work of Voltaire, aided probably by a Jew capable of forging Syriac manuscripts. That
Johnson was the Jew in question seems probable, since Findel definitely asserts that the history of the continuation
of the Order of Knights Templar was his work.[18] Frederick, as we know, was in the habit of employing
Jews to carry out shady transactions, and he may well have used Johnson to forge documents as he
used Ephraim to coin false money for him. It would be further quite in keeping with his policy to get rid of
the man as soon as he had served his purpose, lest he should betray his secrets.
At any rate, whatever were the methods employed by Frederick the Great for obtaining control over Masonry,
the fruitful results of that " very trifling circumstance," his initiation at Brunswick, become more and
more apparent as the century advances. Thus when in 1786 the Rite of Perfection was reorganized and rechristened
the " Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite "-always the same Scottish cover for Prussianism !-it is
said to have been Frederick who conducted operations, drew up the new Constitutions of the Order, and rearranged
the degrees so as to bring the total number up to thirty-three,[19] as follows: 26. Prince of Mercy.
27. Sovereign Commander of the Temple. 28. Knight of the Sun. 29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew.
30. Grand Elect Knight of Kadosch. 31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander. 32. Sublime Prince of the
Royal Secret. 33. Sovereign Grand Inspector-General.
In the last four degrees Frederick the Great and Prussia play an important part; in the thirtieth degree of
Knight Kadosch, largely modelled on the Vehmgerichts, the Knights wear Teutonic crosses, the throne is
surmounted by the doubleheaded eagle of Prussia, and the President, who is called Thrice Puissant Grand
Master, represents Frederick himself; in the thirty-second degree of Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret,
Frederick is described as the head of Continental Freemasonry; in the thirty-third degree of Sovereign
Grand Inspector-General the jewel is again the double-headed eagle, and the Sovereign Grand Commander
is Frederick, who at the time, this degree was instituted figured with Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, Grand Master
of the Grand Orient, as his lieutenant. The most important of these innovations was the thirty-second degree,
which was in reality a system rather than a degree for bringing together the Masons of all countries under
one head-hence the immense power acquired by Frederick. By 1786 French Masonry was thus entirely
Prussianized and Frederick had indeed become the idol of Masonry everywhere. Yet probably no one ever
despised Freemasonry more profoundly. As the American Mason Albert Pike shrewdly observed: There is
no doubt that Frederick came to the conclusion that the great pretensions of Masonry in the blue degrees
were merely imaginary and deceptive. He ridiculed the Order, and thought its ceremonies mere child's play;
and some of his sayings to that effect have been preserved. It does not at all follow that he might not at a
later day have found it politic to put himself at the head of an Order that had become a power. ...[20]
It is not without significance to find that in the year following the official foundation of the Stricte Observance,
that is to say in 1752, Lord Holdernesse, in a letter to the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Albemarle,
headed " Very secret," speaks of " the influence which the King of Prussia has of late obtained over
all the French Councils "; and a few weeks later Lord Albemarle refers to " the great influence of the Prussian
Court over the French Councils by which they are so blinded as not to be able to judge for
themselves."[21]
But it is time to turn to another sphere of activity which Masonry opened out to the ambitions of Frederick.
The making of the Encyclopédie, which even those writers the most sceptical with regard to secret influences
behind the revolutionary movement admit to have contributed towards the final cataclysm, is a question
on which official history has thrown but little light. According to the authorized version of the story-as
related, for example, in Lord Morley's work on the Encyclopædists-the plan of translating Ephraim Chambers's
Cyclopædia, which had appeared in 1728, was suggested to Diderot " some fifteen years later " by a
French bookseller named Le Breton. Diderot's " fertile and energetic intelligence transformed the scheme....
It was resolved to make Chambers's work a mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider scope." We
then go on to read of the financial difficulties that now beset the publisher, of the embarrassment of Diderot,
who "felt himself unequal to the task of arranging and supervising every department of a new book that was
to include the whole circle of the sciences," of the fortunate enlisting of d'Alembert as a collaborator, and
later of men belonging to all kinds of professions, " all united in a work that was as useful as it was laborious,
without any view of interest... without any common understanding and agreement," further, of the cruel
persecutions encountered at the hands of the Jesuits, " who had expected at least to have control of the articles
on theology," and finally of the tyrannical suppression of the great work on account of the anti-Christian
tendencies these same articles displayed.[22]
Now for a further light on the matter.
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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