Freemasonry is a subject that has attracted much discussion for several centuries. Some have accused Masonry of fantastic crimes and misdeeds. Instead of trying to understand "the Brotherhood," and criticizing it objectively, critics have been unduly hostile to the organization. For their part, Masons have deepened an ordinary social club-which they are not.
This book contains a correct exposition of Masonry as a school of thought. The most important unifying their traditional reticence in the face of these accusations, preferring to present themselves as influence among Masons is their philosophy-which can be best described according to such terms as "materialism" and "secular humanism." But, it is an errant philosophy based on false suppositions and flawed theories. This is the basic starting-point from which Masonry must be criticized.
It is necessary to point out from the start that such criticism is important, not only to inform non-Masons on the subject, but also to invite Masons themselves to see the truth. Of course, Masons, like everyone else, are free to choose for themselves, and can adopt whatever worldview they wish and to live in accordance with it. This is their natural right. But, others also have a right to expose their errors and to criticize them, and this is what this present book attempts to do.
We follow the same approach in our criticisms of other communities as well. Like the Jews for example. This book, in part, also deals with the history of Judaism and offers certain important criticisms. It must be pointed out that these have nothing to do with anti-Semitism or "Judeo-Masonic" conspiracy theories. Indeed, anti-Semitism is alien to a true Muslim. Jews are a people that at one time had been chosen by God and to whom He sent many prophets.
Throughout history they suffered much cruelty, even being subjected to genocide, but they never abandoned their identity. In the Qur'an, God calls them, together with Christians, the People of the Book, and enjoins Muslims to treat them kindly and justly. But, a necessary part of this justice is to criticize the errant beliefs and practices of some of them, to show them the path to true righteousness. But of course, their right to live according to what they believe in and desire is beyond question.
Global Freemasonry sets out from this premise, and investigates critically Masonry's roots, as well as its aims and activities. In this book, the reader will also find a summary of the history of the Masons' struggle against theistic religions. Freemasons have played an important role in Europe's alienation from religion, and in its place,
founding of a new order based on the philosophies of materialism and secular humanism. We will also see how Masonry has been influential in the imposition of these dogmas to non-Western civilizations. Finally, we will discuss the methods Masonry has used to help establish and perpetuate a social order based on these dogmas. Their philosophy and the methods they use to establish this philosophy will be exposed and criticized.
It is hoped that the important facts related in this book will be a means whereby many, including Masons, will be able to look at the world with better awareness.
After reading this book, the reader will be able to consider many subjects, from schools of philosophy to newspaper headlines, rock songs to political ideologies, with a deeper understanding, and better discern the meaning and aims behind events and factors.
The common perception of the majority of historians of Freemasonry is that the origin of the organization goes back to the Crusades. In fact, though Masonry was only officially established and recognized in England in the early eighteenth century, the roots of the organization do reach back to the Crusades in the twelfth century. At the center of this familiar tale is an order of crusaders called the Knights Templar or the Templars.
Six years before this present work, our book, entitled The New Masonic Order, examined the history of the Templars in great detail. For that reason, we will now offer just a summary. For, as we analyze the roots of Masonry, and the influence that it has had on the world, we discover the meaning of "Global Freemasonry."
No matter how much some may insist that the Crusades were military expeditions carried out in the name of the Christian faith, fundamentally, they were undertaken for material gain. In a period when Europe was experiencing great poverty and misery, the prosperity and wealth of the East, especially of the Muslim in the Middle East, attracted the Europeans. This inclination took on a religious facade, and was ornamented with the symbols of Christianity, though, in actuality, the idea of the Crusades was born out of a desire for worldly gain.
This was the reason for the sudden change among Christians of Europe from their former pacifist policies, in earlier periods of their history, towards military aggression. The founder of the Crusades was Pope Urban II. He summoned the Council of Clermont, in 1095, in which the former pacifist doctrine of the Christians was abandoned. A holy war was called for, with the intent to wrest the holy lands from the hands of the Muslims. Following the council, a huge army of Crusaders was formed, composed both of professional soldiers, and tens of thousands of ordinary people.
Historians believe Urban II's venture was prompted by his desire to thwart the candidacy of a rival to the papacy. Furthermore, while European kings, princes, aristocrats and others greeted the pope's call with excitement, their intentions were basically mundane. As Donald Queller of The University of Illinois put it, "the French knights wanted more land. Italian merchants hoped to expand trade in Middle Eastern ports... Large numbers of poor people joined the expeditions simply to escape the hardships of their normal lives."1 Along the way, this greedy mass slaughtered many Muslims, and even Jews, in hopes of finding gold and jewels.
The crusaders even cut open the stomachs of those they had killed to find gold and precious stones the victims may have swallowed before they died. So great was the material greed of the crusaders that they felt no qualms in sacking the Christian city of Constantinople (Istanbul) during the Fourth Crusade, when they stripped off the gold leaf from the Christian frescoes in the Hagia Sophia.
After a long and difficult journey, and much plunder and slaughter of Muslims, this motley band called Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099. When the city fell after a siege of nearly five weeks, the Crusaders moved in. They carried out a level of savagery the like of which the world has seldom seen. All Muslims and Jews in the city were put to the sword. In the words of one historian, "They killed all the Saracens and the Turks they found... whether male of female."2 One of the Crusaders, Raymond of Aguiles, boasted of this violence:
Wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are normally chanted ... in the Temple and the porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.3
In two days, the Crusader army killed some 40,000 Muslims in the most barbaric manner.4 The crusaders then made Jerusalem their capital, and founded a Latin Kingdom stretching from the borders of Palestine to Antioch.
Later, the crusaders initiated a struggle to maintain their position in the Middle East. In order to sustain the state they had founded, it was necessary to organize it. To this end, they established military orders, the alike of which had never existed before. Members of these orders came from Europe to Palestine, and lived in a type of monastery where they received military training to fight against Muslims.
One of these orders, in particular, was different from the others. It underwent a transformation that would influence the course of history. This order was the Templars.
The Templars, or, their full name, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ and the Temple of Solomon, was formed in 1118, that is, 20 years after the crusaders took Jerusalem. The founders of the order were two French knights, Hugh de Payens and Godfrey de St. Omer. At first there were 9 members, but the order steadily grew. The reason they named themselves after the temple of Solomon was because the place they had chosen as a base was the temple mount where this ruined temple had been located. This same location was where the Dome of the Rock (Qubbet as-Sakhrah) stood.
The Templars called themselves "poor soldiers," but within a short time they became very wealthy. Christian pilgrims, coming from Europe to Palestine, were under the complete control of this order, and by whose money they became very rich. In addition, for the first time they set up a cheque and credit system, similar to that of a bank. According to the British authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, they established a kind of Medieval capitalism, and led the way to modern banking through their interest-based transactions.5
It was the Templars who were mainly responsible for the crusaders' attacks of and murder of Muslims. For this reason, the great Islamic commander Saladin, who defeated the crusaders' army in 1187, in the Battle of Hattin, and afterwards rescued Jerusalem, put the Templars to death for the murders they had committed, even though he had otherwise pardoned a large number of Christians. Although they lost Jerusalem, and suffered heavy casualties, the Templars continued to exist. And, despite the continual diminution of the Christian presence in Palestine, they increased their power in Europe and, first in France, and then in other countries, became a state within a state.
There is no doubt that their political power made the monarchs of Europe uneasy. But there was another aspect of the Templars that also made the clergy ill at ease: the order had gradually apostatized from the Christian faith, and while in Jerusalem, had adopted a number of strange mystical doctrines. There were also rumors that they were organizing strange rites to give form to these doctrines.
Finally, in 1307, the French king Philip le Bel decided to arrest the members of the order. Some of them managed to escape but most of them were caught. Pope Clement V also joined the purge. Following a long period of interrogation and trial, many of the Templars admitted to heretical beliefs, that they had rejected the Christian faith and insulted Jesus in their masses. Finally, the leaders of the Templars, who were called "grand masters," beginning with the most important of them, Jacques de Molay, were executed in 1314 by order of the Church and the King. The majority of them were put into prison, and the order dispersed and officially disappeared.
Some historians have a tendency to portray the trial of the Templars as a conspiracy on the part of the King of France, and depict the knights as innocent of the charges. But, this manner of interpretation fails in several aspects. Nesta H. Webster, the famous British historian with a great deal of knowledge on occult history, analyzes these aspects in her book, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. According to Webster, the tendency to absolve the Templars of the heresies they confessed to during the trial period is unjustified. First, during the interrogations, despite the standard claim, not all the Templars were tortured;
Moreover, do the confessions of the Knights appear to be the outcome of pure imagination such as men under the influence of torture might devise? It is certainly difficult to believe that the accounts of the ceremony of initiation given in detail by men in different countries, all closely resembling each other,
yet related in different phraseology, could be pure inventions. Had the victims been driven to invent they would surely have contradicted each other, have cried out in their agony that all kinds of wild and fantastic rites had taken place in order to satisfy the demands of their interlocutors. But no, each appears to be describing the same ceremony more or less completely, with characteristic touches that indicate the personality of the speaker, and in the main all the stories tally.6
Anyhow, the trial of the Templars ended with the termination of the order. But, although the order "officially" ceased to exist, it did not actually disappear. During the sudden arrest in 1307, some Templars escaped, managing to cover their tracks. According to a thesis based on various historical documents, a significant number of them took refuge in the only kingdom in Europe that did not recognize the authority of the Catholic Church in the fourteenth century, Scotland. There, they reorganized under the protection of the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce.
Some time later, they found a convenient method of disguise by which to continue their clandestine existence: they infiltrated the most important guild in the medieval British Isles-the wall builders' lodge, and eventually, they fully seized control of these lodges.7
The wall-builders' lodge changed its name, at the beginning of the modern era, calling itself the "Masonic lodge." The Scottish Rite is the oldest branch of Masonry, and dates back to the beginning of the fourteenth century, to those Templars who took refuge in Scotland. And, the names given to the highest degrees in Scottish Rite are titles attributed centuries earlier to knights in the order of Templars. These are still employed to this day.
In short, the Templars did not disappear, but their philosophy, beliefs and rituals still persist under the guise of Freemasonry. This thesis is supported by much historical evidence, and is accepted today by a large number of Western historians, whether they are Freemasons or not. In our book, The New Masonic Order, we examined this evidence in detail.
The thesis that traces the roots of Masonry to the Templars is often referred to in magazines published by Masons for its own members. Freemasons are very accepting of the idea. One such magazine is called Mimar Sinan (a publication of Turkish Freemasons), which describes the relationship between the Order of the Templars and Freemasonry in these words:
In 1312, when the French king, under pressure from the Church, closed the Order of Templars and gave their possessions to the Knights of St. John in Jerusalem, the activities of the Templars did not cease. The great majority of the Templars took refuge in Freemasonic lodges that were operating in Europe at that time. The leader of the Templars, Mabeignac, with a few other members, found refuge in Scotland under the guise of a wall builder under the name of Mac Benach. The Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, welcomed them and allowed them to exercise great influence over the Masonic lodges in Scotland. As a result, Scottish lodges gained great importance from the point of view of their craft and their ideas.
Today Freemasons use the name Mac Benach with respect. Scottish Masons, who inherited the Templars' heritage, returned it to France many years later and established there the basis of the rite known as the Scottish Rite."8
Again, Mimar Sinan presents a lot of information about the relationship between the Templars and Freemasonry. In an article entitled, "Templars and Freemasons," it states that "the rituals of the initiation ceremony of the Order of Templars are similar to those of present-day Freemasonry."9 According to the same article, as in Masonry, the members of the Order of the Templars called each other "brother."10 Towards the end of the article, we read:
The Order of the Templars and the Masonic organization have influenced each other to a noticeable extent. Even the rituals of the corporations are so similar as to have been copied from the Templars. In this respect, Masons have to a great extent identified themselves with the Templars and it can be said that what is viewed as original Masonic esoterism (secrecy) is to an important extent an inheritance from the Templars. To summarize, as we said in the title of this essay, we can say that the starting point of Freemasonry's royal art and initiatic-esoteric line belonged to Templars and its end-point belonged to Freemasons.11
Finally, we say, it is clear that the roots of Freemasonry stretch back to the Order of Templars, and that the Masons have adopted the philosophy of this order. Masons themselves accept this. But certainly, the important matter for our consideration is the nature of this philosophy. Why did the Templars abandon Christianity and become a heretical order? What led them to this? Why did they undergo such a change in Jerusalem? Through the agency of Masonry, what has been the effect on the world of this philosophy adopted by the Templars?
THE TEMPLARS AND THE KABBALAH
A book written by two Masons, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, entitled The Hiram Key reveals some important facts about the roots of Freemasonry. According to these authors, it is evident that Masonry is a continuation of the Templars. Though, in addition to this, the authors also examined the origins of the Templars.
A TEMPLAR-MASON TEMPLE: ROSSLYN CHAPEL
The church known as "Rosslyn Chapel" near Edinburgh in Scotland is recognized as a symbol of the heretical pagan beliefs of the Templars. In the course of the construction of this edifice, Masons and Rosicrucians, the successors of the Templars, were employed, and decorated the whole chapel with symbols representative of their pagan philosophy.
In a publication of Turkish Masonry, the magazine Mimar Sinan, the Masonic origins and the pagan elements of the chapel are described in these words: The most convincing proof of the unity of the Templars and the Masons in Scotland is the castle and chapel in the village of Roslin, 10 km. south of Edinburgh and 15 km. from the ancient Templar center at Balantrodoch. The Templars lived in this region and in this castle especially after 1312 under the protection of the Barons of St. Clair.
...The chapel was built between 1446-48 by Sir William St. Clair who was one of the most prominent nobles of the time in Scotland and even in Europe. Masons and Rosicrucians worked on the construction. The chief architect of the work was the Templar Grand Master, Sir William St. Clair who brought itinerant mason architects and stone masons from every part of Europe. New houses were built in the near-by village of Roslin and a lodge was opened…
The plan and decoration of the chapel is unique. There is no other such example in Scotland or even Europe. It captured the atmosphere of Herod's temple very well and every part of it was decorated with Masonic symbols. Among the symbols were reliefs on the walls and arches depicting the heads of Hiram and his murderer, a relief of an initiation ceremony,
the keystones of the arches, and compasses. Apart from the fact that the chapel was constructed in a marked pagan style with Egyptian, Hebrew, Gothic, Norman, Celtic, Scandinavian, Templar and Masonic architectural elements, and that it contains very rich examples of stone work, one of the most interesting aspects of it is that the tops of the columns are decorated with cactus and corn motifs, besides various other plants figures. …
There are so many pagan decorative elements inside the chapel that a priest, writing an account of the baptism he performed of the Baron of Rosslyn in 1589 complained, "because the chapel is filled with pagan idols, there is no place appropriate to administer the Sacrament. In August 31, 1592, as a result of pressure exerted on Baron Oliver St.Claire of Rosslyn, the chapel's pagan-style altar was destroyed. (Tamer Ayan, "The Oldest Known Masonic Institution-the Scottish Royal Order," Mimar Sinan, 1998, No.110, pp.18-19)
According to their thesis, the Templars underwent a great change while they were in Jerusalem. In the place of Christianity, they adopted other doctrines. At the root of this lies a secret that they discovered in the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, whose ruins they had set out to investigate. The writers explain that the Templars used their purported role as protectors of Christian pilgrims visiting Palestine as a pretense, but that their real aim was quite different:
…There is no evidence that these founding Templars ever gave protection to pilgrims, but on the other hand we were soon to find that there is conclusive proof that they did conduct extensive excavations under the ruins of Herod's Temple…12
The authors of The Hiram Key were not the only ones who found evidences of this. French historian Gaetan Delaforge makes this similar contention: The real task of the nine knights was to carry out research in the area in order to obtain certain relics and manuscripts which contain the essence of the secret traditions of Judaism and ancient Egypt.13
At the end of the nineteenth century, Charles Wilson of the Royal Engineers, began conducting archeological research in Jerusalem. He arrived at the opinion that the Templars had gone to Jerusalem to study the ruins of the temple. Wilson found traces of digging and excavation under the foundations of the temple, and concluded that these were done by tools that belonged to the Templars. These items are still in the collection of Robert Brydon, who possesses an extensive archive of information concerning the Templars.14
The writers of the Hiram Key argue that these excavations of the Templars were not without result; that the order discovered in Jerusalem certain relics that changed the way they saw the world. In addition, many researchers are of the same opinion. There must have been something that led the Templars, despite the fact that they had previously been Christian and came from a Christian part of the world, to adopt a system of beliefs and a philosophy so completely different from that of Christianity, celebrate heretical masses, and perform rituals of black magic.
According to the common views of many researchers, this "something" was the Kabbalah.
The meaning of the word Kabbalah is "oral tradition." Encyclopedias and dictionaries define it as an esoteric, mystical branch of Jewish religion. According to this definition, the Kabbalah investigates the hidden meaning of the Torah and other Jewish religious writings. But, when we examine the matter more closely, we discover that the facts are quite something else. These facts lead us to the conclusion that the Kabbalah is a system rooted in pagan idolatry; that it existed before the Torah, and became widespread within Judaism after the Torah was revealed.
This interesting fact about the Kabbalah, is explained by just as interesting a source. Murat Ozgen, a Turkish Freemason, maintains the following in his book, Masonluk Nedir ve Nasildir? (What is Freemasonry and What is it Like?):
We don't know clearly where the Kabbalah came from or how it developed. It is the general name for a unique, metaphysically constituted, esoteric and mystical philosophy particularly connected with Jewish religion. It is accepted as Jewish mysticism, but some of the elements it contains show that it was composed much earlier than the Torah.15
The French historian, Gougenot des Mousseaux, explains that the Kabbalah is actually much older than Judaism.16 The Jewish historian, Theodore Reinach, says that the Kabbalah is "a subtle poison which enters into the veins of Judaism and wholly infests it."17 Salomon Reinach defines the Kabbalah as "one of the worst aberrations of the human mind."18
The reason for Reinach's contention that the Kabbalah is "one of the worst aberrations of the human mind" is that its doctrine is connected in large part with magic. For thousands of years, the Kabbalah has been one of the foundation-stones of every kind of magic ritual. It is believed that rabbis who study the Kabbalah possess great magical power. Also, many non-Jews have been influenced by the Kabbalah, and have tried to practice magic by employing its doctrines. The esoteric tendencies that took hold in Europe during the late Middle Ages, especially as practiced by alchemists, have their roots, to a great extent, in the Kabbalah.
The strange thing is, that Judaism is a monotheistic religion, incepted with the revelation of the Torah to Moses (peace be upon him). But, within this religion is a system called the Kabbalah, that adopts the basic practices of magic forbidden by the religion. This substantiates what we have presented above, and demonstrates that the Kabbalah is actually an element that has entered Judaism from the outside.
But, what is the source of this element?
The Jewish historian Fabre d'Olivet says that it came from Ancient Egypt. According to this writer, the roots of the Kabbalah stretch back to Ancient Egypt. The Kabbalah is a tradition learned by some of the leaders of the Israelites in Ancient Egypt, and passed down as a tradition by word of mouth from generation to generation.19
For this reason, we must look to Ancient Egypt in order to find the basic origins of the Kabbalah-Templars-Freemasonry chain.
THE MAGICIANS OF ANCIENT EGYPT
The Ancient Egypt of the pharaohs was one of the most ancient civilizations of the world. It was also one of the most oppressive. The magnificent monuments that still remain from Ancient Egypt-the pyramids, sphinxes and obelisks-were constructed by hundreds of thousands of slaves, worked to the point of death, under the whip and threat of starvation. The pharaohs, the absolute rulers of Egypt, wanted themselves to be represented as gods and to be worshipped by the people.
One of our sources of knowledge about Ancient Egypt is their own inscriptions. These were discovered in the nineteenth century and, after intense labor, the Egyptian alphabet was deciphered, bringing to light much information about the country. But, because these inscriptions were written by official state historians, they are filled with biased accounts designed to praise the state.
For us, of course, the best source of knowledge about this matter is the Qur'an.
In the Qur'an, in the story of Moses, we are given important information about the Egyptian system. The verses reveal that there were two important focal points of power in Egypt: pharaoh and his inner-council. This council tended to exercise an important influence over pharaoh; Pharaoh would often consult them and, from time to time, follow their suggestions. The verses quoted below show the influence that this council had on Pharaoh: Moses said, "Pharaoh! I am truly a Messenger from the Lord of all the worlds, duty bound to say nothing about God except the truth. I have come to you with a Clear Sign from your Lord. So send the tribe of Israel away with me."
He said, "If you have come with a Clear Sign produce it if you are telling the truth."
So he threw down his staff and there it was, unmistakably a snake. And he drew out his hand and there it was, pure white to those who looked. The ruling circle of Pharaoh's people said, "This is certainly a skilled magician who desires to expel you from your land, so what do you recommend?"
They said, "Detain him and his brother and send out marshals to the cities, to bring you all the skilled magicians." (Qur'an, 7: 104-112) It should be noticed that mention here is made of a council that advises Pharaoh, that incites him against Moses, and recommends to him certain methods. If we look at the records of Egyptian history, we see that the two basic components of this council were the army and the priests. There is no need to explain the importance of the army; it constituted the basic military power of the regimes of the pharaohs. But, we should look more closely at the role of the priests. The priests of Ancient Egypt were a class referred to in the Qur'an as magicians.
They represented the cult which supported the regime. It was believed that they had special powers and possessed secret knowledge. By this authority they influenced the Egyptian people, and ensured their position within the administration of the pharaohs. This class, known from Egyptian records as the "Priests of Amon," focused their attention on practicing magic and administering their pagan cult; in addition, they also studied various sciences such as astronomy, mathematics and geometry.
This class of priests was a closed order possessed (so they thought) of a special knowledge. Such orders are commonly known as esoteric organizations. In a magazine called Mason Dergisi (Masonic Journal), a publication distributed among Turkish Masons, the roots of Freemasonry are stated as going back to this kind of esoteric order, and special mention is made of the Ancient Egyptian priests:
As thought develops in human beings, science advances and as science advances, the number of secrets increases within the lore of an esoteric system. In this development, this esoteric enterprise, which began first in the East, in China and Tibet, and then spread to India, Mesopotamia and Egypt, formed the basis of a priestly knowledge that had been practiced for thousands of years and formed the basis of the power of the priests in Egypt.20
How can there be a relationship between the esoteric philosophy of the priests of Ancient Egypt and present-day Freemasons? Ancient Egypt-a classic example in the Qur'an of a godless political system-disappeared thousands of years ago. Can it have any influence today? To find the answer to these questions, we must look at the Ancient Egyptian priests' beliefs with regards to the origin of the Universe and of life.
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BELIEF IN MATERIALIST EVOLUTION
In their book The Hiram Key, the English Masonic authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas argue that Ancient Egypt has a very important place in regards to the origins of Masonry. According to these authors, the most important idea that has transpired to modern Masonry, from Ancient Egypt, is that of a universe existing by and of itself, and evolving by chance. They explain this interesting notion in these words:
The Egyptians believed that matter had always existed; to them it was illogical to think of a god making something out of absolutely nothing. Their view was that the world began when order came out of chaos, and that ever since there has been a battle between the forces of organization and disorder…This chaotic state was called Nun, and like the Sumerian …description …, all was a dark, sunless watery abyss with a power, a creative force within it that commanded order to begin. This latent power which was within the substance of the chaos did not know it existed; it was a probability, a potential that was intertwined within the randomness of disorder.21
It will be noticed that the beliefs described here are in harmony with the assertions of the present-day materialist establishment, which are promoted by the agenda of the scientific community with such terms as "the theory of evolution," "chaos theory," and the "essential organization of matter." Knight and Lomas continue their foregoing discussion by saying:
Amazingly, this description of creation perfectly describes the view held by modern science, particularly "chaos theory" which has shown intricate designs which evolve and mathematically repeat within completely unstructured events.22
Knight and Lomas claim that there is a harmony between Ancient Egyptian beliefs and modern science, but what they mean by modern science, as we have stressed, is materialist concepts, such as the theory of evolution or chaos theory. Despite the fact that these theories have no scientific basis, they have been forcibly imposed on the field of science over the past two centuries, and are presented as scientifically justified. (In the following sections we will examine those who have imposed these theories on the scientific world.)
Now, we have come to an important point in this stage of the book. Let us summarize what we have discovered so far:
1. We began the discussion by discussing the Order of Templars which is thought to be the origin of Masonry. We have seen that, although the Templars were founded as a Christian order, they were affected by some secret doctrines that they discovered in Jerusalem, totally abandoned Christianity and became an anti-religious organization practicing heretical rites.
2. When we asked what this doctrine was that influenced the Templars, we found that it was basically the Kabbalah. 3. When we examined the Kabbalah, we found proof that, however much it may resemble Jewish mysticism, it is a pagan doctrine older than Judaism, that later entered the religion, and that its true roots are found in Ancient Egypt. 4. Ancient Egypt was governed by the pagan system of Pharaoh, and there we found an idea that forms the basis of the modern atheistic philosophy: that of a universe existing of its own accord, and evolving by chance.
All this surely paints an interesting picture. Is it by chance that the philosophy of the priests of Ancient Egypt still thrives, and that there exist traces of a chain (Kabbalah-Templars-Masonry) that has been responsible for maintaining the supremacy of this philosophy to the present day? Is it possible Masons, who have made their mark on the world's history since the eighteenth century, fomenting revolutions, promoting philosophies and political systems, can be the inheritors of the magicians of Ancient Egypt?
In order to make the answer to this question clearer, we must first examine more closely the historical events that we have now only briefly outlined.
The Inside Story on the Kabbalah
Exodus" is the title of the second book of the Torah. This book describes how the Israelites, under the leadership of Moses, left Egypt and escaped the tyranny of Pharaoh. Pharaoh made the Israelites work as slaves and would not consent to set them free. But, when confronted by the miracles God performed through Moses, and the disasters He inflicted on his people, Pharaoh relented. And so, one night the Israelites gathered en masse, and began their emigration from Egypt. Later, Pharaoh attacked the Israelites,
but God saved them through a further miracle He performed through Moses. But, it is in the Qur'an that we find the most accurate account of the exodus from Egypt, because the Torah underwent much textual corruption after it was originally revealed to Moses. An important proof of this is that in the five books of the Torah-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy-there are many contradictions. The fact that the book of Deuteronomy ends with an account of the death and burial of Moses is indisputable proof that this portion would have to have been added after Moses' death.
In the Qur'an, in the account of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, as in all other stories related in it, there is not the slightest contradiction; the story is recounted soundly. Moreover, as with other stories, God reveals much wisdom and many secrets in the course of what is related. For this reason, when we examine these stories closely, we can extract a number of lessons from them.
THE GOLDEN CALF
One of the important facts concerning the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, as related in the Qur'an, is that they rebelled against the religion revealed to them by God in spite of the fact that God had rescued them through Moses from the tyranny of Pharaoh. The Israelites were not able to comprehend the monotheism that Moses communicated to them, but tended continually toward idolatry.
The Qur'an describes this strange tendency here: We conveyed the tribe of Israel across the sea and they came upon some people who were devoting themselves to some idols which they had. They said, "Moses, give us a god just as these people have gods." He said, "You are indeed an ignorant people.
What these people are doing is destined for destruction. What they are doing is purposeless." (Qur'an, 7: 138-139) Despite Moses' warnings, the Israelites continued in such perversion, and when Moses left them, to ascend alone to Mt. Sinai, it manifested itself fully. Taking advantage of Moses' absence, a man by the name of Samiri came forth. He fanned the sparks of the Israelites' inclination towards idolatry, and persuaded them to fabricate the statue of a calf and worship it.
Moses returned to his people in anger and great sorrow. He said, "My people, did not your Lord make you a handsome promise? Did the fulfillment of the contract seem too long to you or did you want to unleash your Lord's anger upon yourselves, so you broke your promise to me?" They said, "We did not break our promise to you of our own volition. But we were weighed down with the heavy loads of the people's jewelry and we threw them in, for that is what the Samaritan did."
Then he produced a calf for them, a physical form which made a lowing sound. So they said, "This is your god-and Moses's god as well, but he forgot." (Qur'an, 20: 86-88)
Why was there such a persistent tendency among the Israelites to erect idols and worship them? What was the source of this inclination? Clearly, a society that had never before believed in idols would not suddenly adopt such inane behavior as to construct an idol and begin to worship it. Only those for whom idolatry was natural inclination could have believed in such nonsense.
However, the Israelites were a people that had believed in one God since the days of their ancestor Abraham. The name "Israelites" or "the Sons of Israel" was given first to the sons of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and afterwards to the whole Jewish people who derived from him. The Israelites had safeguarded the monotheistic faith that they had inherited from their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, peace be upon them. Together with Joseph,
peace be upon him, they went into Egypt and preserved their monotheism for a long period of time, despite the fact that they had lived amidst Egyptian idolatry. It is clear from the stories related in the Qur'an that, when Moses came to them, the Israelites were a people that believed in one God.
The only explanation for this is that the Israelites, however much they adhered to a monotheistic belief, were influenced by the pagan peoples among whom them lived, and began to imitate them, replacing the religion chosen for them by God with the idolatry of foreign nations. When we investigate this matter in light of historical records, we see that the pagan cult that influenced the Israelites was that of Ancient Egypt. An important evidence in support of this conclusion is that the golden calf the Israelites worshipped, while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, was actually a replica of the Egyptian idols Hathor and Aphis. In his book, Too Long in the Sun, the Christian author Richard Rives writes:
Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship…23
The influence of the Egyptian pagan religion on the Israelites occurred in many different stages. As soon as they had encountered a pagan people, this leaning towards heretical belief appeared and, as the verse maintains, they said "Moses, give us a god just as these people have gods." (Qur'an, 7: 138) What they said to their Prophet, "Moses, we will not believe in you until we see God with our own eyes." (Qur'an, 2: 55) reveals that they were inclined to worship a material being that they could see, as their pagan religion provided the Egyptians with.
The tendency of the Israelites to the paganism of Ancient Egypt, that we have here outlined, is important to understand and gives us some insight into the corruption of the text of the Torah and the origins of the Kabbalah. When we consider these two topics carefully, we will see that, at their source, is found Ancient Egyptian paganism and the materialist philosophy.
FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE KABBALAH
While Moses was still alive, the Israelites began to create likenesses of the idols they had seen in Egypt and to worship them. After Moses died, there was less to deter them from backsliding farther into perversity. Of course, the same thing cannot be said of all Jews, but some of them did adopt Egyptian paganism. Indeed, they carried on the doctrines of the Egyptian priesthood (Pharaoh's magicians), that lay at the foundation of that society's beliefs, and corrupted their own faith by introducing these doctrines into it.
The doctrine that was introduced into Judaism from Ancient Egypt was the Kabbalah. Like the system of the Egyptian priests, the Kabbalah was an esoteric system, and its basis was the practice of magic. Interestingly, the Kabbalah provides an account of creation quite different from that found in the Torah. It is a materialist account, based on the Ancient Egyptian idea of the eternal existence of matter. Murat Ozgen, a Turkish Freemason, has this to say on this topic:
It is evident that the Kabbalah was composed many years before the Torah came into existence. The most important section of the Kabbalah is a theory about the formation of the universe. This theory is very different from the story of creation accepted by theist religions. According to the Kabbalah, at the beginning of creation,
things called Sefiroth, meaning "circles" or "orbits," with both material and spiritual characteristics came into being. The total number of these things was 32. The first ten represented the solar system and the others represented the masses of stars in space. This particularity of the Kabbalah shows that it is closely connected to ancient astrological systems of belief... So, the Kabbalah is far removed from Jewish religion and much more closely related to the ancient mystery religions of the East.24
The Jews, by adopting these Ancient Egyptian materialist and esoteric doctrines that were founded on magic, ignored the related prohibitions in the Torah. They took on the magic rituals of other pagan peoples, and thus, the Kabbalah became a mystical doctrine within Judaism, but contrary to the Torah. In her book entitled Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, the English writer Nesta H. Webster says:
Sorcery, as we know, had been practised by the Canaanites before the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites; Egypt, India, and Greece also had their soothsayers and diviners. In spite of the imprecations against sorcery contained in the Law of Moses, the Jews, disregarding these warnings, caught the contagion and mingled the sacred tradition they had inherited with magical ideas partly borrowed from other races partly of their own devising. At the same time the speculative side of the Jewish Cabala borrowed from the philosophy of the Persian Magi, of the Neo-Platonists, and of the Neo-Pythagoreans. There is, then, some justification for the anti-Cabalists' contention that what we know to-day as the Cabala is not of purely Jewish origin.25
There is a verse in the Qur'an that refers to this topic. God says that the Israelites learned satanic sorcery rituals from sources outside their own religion:
They follow what the satans recited in the reign of Solomon. Solomon did not become unbeliever, but the satans did, teaching people sorcery and what had been sent down to Harut and Marut, the two angels in Babylon, who taught no one without first saying to him, "We are merely a trial and temptation, so do not become unbeliever." People learned from them how to separate a man and his wife but they cannot harm anyone by it, except with God's permission. They have learned what will harm them and will not benefit them. They know that any who deal in it will have no share in the hereafter. What an evil thing they have sold themselves for if they only knew! (Qur'an, 2: 102)
This verse maintains that certain Jews, although they knew that they would lose out in the hereafter, learned and adopted the practices of magic. Thus, they strayed away from the Law that God had sent them and, having sold their own souls, fell into paganism (magic doctrines). "They have sold themselves" for an evil thing, in other words, they abandoned their faith.
The facts related in this verse demonstrate the main features of an important conflict in Jewish history. This struggle was, on the one hand, between the prophets that God sent to the Jews and those believing Jews who obeyed them, and on the other hand, those perverse Jews who rebelled against God's commandments, imitated the pagan culture of the peoples around them, and followed their cultural practices rather than the Law of God.
PAGAN DOCTRINES ADDED TO THE TORAH
It is important to note that the sins of the corrupt Jews are often reported in the holy book of the Jews itself-the Old Testament. In the book of Nehemiah, a kind of history book within the Old Testament, the Jews confess their sins and repent:
Then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves from all foreigners; and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God [for one-fourth] of the day; and [for another] fourth they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God. Then Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, [and] Chenani stood on the stairs of the Levites and cried out with a loud voice to the LORD their God.
...[They said:] "...they [our fathers] were disobedient and rebelled against You, cast Your law behind their backs and killed Your prophets, who testified against them to turn them to Yourself; And they worked great provocations. Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who oppressed them;
And in the time of their trouble, when they cried to You, You heard from heaven; And according to Your abundant mercies You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hand of their enemies.But after they had rest, They again did evil before You. Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them;
Yet when they returned and cried out to You, You heard from heaven; And many times You delivered them according to Your mercies, and testified against them, that You might bring them back to Your law. Yet they acted proudly, and did not heed Your commandments, but sinned against Your judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. And they shrugged their shoulders, stiffened their necks, and would not hear.
...Nevertheless in Your great mercy You did not utterly consume them nor forsake them; For You [are] God, gracious and merciful. Now therefore, our God, The great, the mighty, and awesome God, ...You [are] just in all that has befallen us; For You have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly. Neither our kings nor our princes, our priests nor our fathers, have kept Your law, nor heeded Your commandments and Your testimonies, with which You testified against them. For they have not served You in their kingdom,
or in the many good [things] that You gave them, or in the large and rich land which You set before them; Nor did they turn from their wicked works." (Nehemiah 9: 2-4, 26-29, 31-35)
This passage expresses the desire that a number of Jews had in returning to their faith in God, but in the course of Jewish history a different segment gradually gained strength, and came to dominate the Jews and later thoroughly altered the religion itself. For this reason, in the Torah and the other books of the Old Testament, there are elements that derive from heretical pagan doctrines, as well as those mentioned above which urge a return to the true religion. For example:
• In the first book of the Torah, it is said that God created the entire universe in six days from nothing. This is correct and derives from the original revelation. But, then it maintains that God rested on the seventh day, though it is a completely fabricated assertion. It is a perverse idea derived from paganism which attributes human qualities to God. In a verse of the Qur'an, God says:
We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in six days, nor did any sense of weariness touch Us. (Qur'an, 50: 38) • In other parts of the Torah, there is a style of writing that is not respectful of the honor of God, especially in those places where human weakness is falsely attributed to Him. (God is surely beyond that) These anthropomorphisms are made to resemble the human weaknesses that pagans applied to their own fictitious gods.
• One such blasphemous assertion is another that claims that Jacob, ancestor of the Israelites, wrestled with God, and won. This is clearly a story invented to confer the Israelites with racial superiority, in emulation of the racial feelings widespread among pagan peoples. (or, in the words of the Qur'an: "fanatical rage")
• There is a tendency in the Old Testament to present God as a national deity-that He is God of the Isrealites only. However, God is the Lord and God of the universe and of all human beings. This notion of national religion, in the Old Testament, corresponds to tendencies of paganism, in which every tribe worships its own god.
• In some books of the Old Testament (for example, Joshua) commandments are given to commit horrible violence against non-Jewish peoples. Mass murder is commanded, with no regard for women, children or the elderly. This merciless savagery is totally against God's justice, and recalls the barbarism of pagan cultures, who worshipped a mythical god of war.
These pagan ideas that were introduced into the Torah must have an origin. There must have been Jews who adopted, honored and cherished a tradition foreign to the Torah, and changed the latter by adding into it ideas derived from the tradition they espoused. The origin of this tradition stretches back to the priests of Ancient Egypt (the magicians of Pharaoh's regime). It is, in fact, the Kabbalah which was passed on from there by a number of Jews.
The Kabbalah assumed a form that enabled Ancient Egyptian and other pagan doctrines to insinuate themselves into Judaism and develop within it. Kabbalists, of course, assert that the Kabbalah simply explains in more detail the hidden secrets of the Torah, but, in reality, as Jewish historian of the Kabbalah, Theodore Reinach, says, the Kabbalah is "a subtle poison which enters into the veins of Judaism and wholly infests it."26
It is possible, then, to find in the Kabbalah clear traces of the materialist ideology of the Ancient Egyptians.
THE KABBALAH-A DOCTRINE OPPOSED TO CREATIONISM
God reveals in the Qur'an that the Torah is a divine book that was sent as a light to humanity:
We sent down the Torah containing guidance and light, and the Prophets who had submitted themselves gave judgment by it for the Jews-as did their scholars and their rabbis-by what they had been allowed to preserve of God's Book to which they were witnesses…(Qur'an, 5: 44)
Therefore, the Torah, like the Qur'an, is a book that contains knowledge and commands related to such topics as the existence of God, His unity, His qualities, the creation of human beings and other creatures, the purpose of human creation, and God's moral laws for humanity. (But, this original Torah is not extant today. What we possess today is an "altered" version of the Torah, corrupted by human hands.)
There is an important point that both the true Torah and the Qur'an share in common: God is recognized as Creator. God is absolute, and has existed since the beginning of time. Everything other than God is His creation, created by Him from nothing. He has created and formed the whole universe, the heavenly bodies, lifeless matter, human beings and all living things. God is One; He exists alone.
While this is the truth, there is a quite different interpretation found in the Kabbalah, that "subtle poison which enters into the veins of Judaism and wholly infests it." Its doctrine of God is totally opposed to the "fact of creation," found in the real Torah and the Qur'an. In one of his works on the Kabbalah, the American researcher, Lance S. Owens, presents his view on the possible origins of this doctrine:
Kabbalistic experience engendered several perceptions about the Divine, many of which departured from the orthodox view. The most central tenet of Israel's faith had been the proclamation that "our God is One." But Kabbalah asserted that while God exists in highest form as a totally ineffable unity-called by Kabbalah Ein Sof, the infinite-this unknowable singularity had necessarily emanated into a great number of Divine forms: a plurality of Gods. These the Kabbalist called Sefiroth, the vessels or faces of God. The manner by which God descended from incomprehensible unity into plurality was a mystery to which Kabbalists devoted a great deal of meditation and speculation. Obviously, this multifaceted God image admits to accusations of being polytheistic, a charge which was vehemently, if never entirely successfully, rebutted by the Kabbalists.
Not only was the Divine plural in Kabbalistic theosophy, but in its first subtle emanation from unknowable unity God had taken on a dual form as Male and Female; a supernal Father and Mother, Hokhmah and Binah, were God's first emanated forms. Kabbalists used frankly sexual metaphors to explain how the creative intercourse of Hokhmah and Binah generated further creation...27
An interesting feature of this mystical theology is that, according to it, human beings are not created, but are in some way divine. Owens describes this myth: The complex Divine image …was also visualized by Kabbalah as having a unitary, anthropomorphic form. God was, by one Kabbalistic recension, Adam Kadmon: the first primordial or archetypal Man. Man shared with God both an intrinsic, uncreated divine spark and a complex, organic form. This strange equation of Adam as God was supported by a Kabbalistic cipher: the numerical value in Hebrew of the names Adam and Jehovah (the Tetragrammaton, Yod he vav he) was both 45. Thus in Kabbalistic exegesis Jehovah equaled Adam: Adam was God. With this affirmation went the assertion that all humankind in highest realization was like God.28
This theology comprises of a mythology of paganism, and formed the basis of the degeneration of Judaism. Jewish Kabbalists breached the limits of common sense to such an extent that they even tried to make human beings into gods. In addition, according to this theology, not only was humanity divine, but it consisted only of Jews; other races were not considered human. As a result, within Judaism, which was originally founded on the basis of service and obedience to God, this corrupt doctrine began to develop, whose intent was to satiate Jewish arrogance. In spite of its contrary nature to the Torah, the Kabbalah was introduced into Judaism. Eventually though, it began to corrupt the Torah itself.
Another interesting point about the corrupt doctrines of the Kabbalah is its similarity to the pagan ideas of Ancient Egypt. As we have discussed in earlier pages, the Ancient Egyptians believed that matter had always existed; in other words, they rejected the idea that matter was created from nothing. The Kabbalah asserts the same thing in relation to human beings; it claims that human beings were not created, and that they are responsible for regulating their own existence.
To state it in modern terms: the Ancient Egyptians were materialists, and, essentially, the doctrine of the Kabbalah can be called secular humanism. It is interesting to note that these two concepts-materialism and secular humanism-describe the ideology that has dominated the world over the last two centuries.
It is tempting to ask if there are forces who have carried the doctrines of Ancient Egypt and the Kabbalah from the midst of ancient history to the present day
source : alhassanain
