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Masonic references in non-fiction
This collection of references to Freemasonry does not include the many books about Freemasonry or the occasional description of historic masonic events or persons, but is limited to the use of Freemasonry as metaphor, analogy, or aside. The intent is to track the popular notion of what constitutes Freemasonry. A selection of public perceptions of Freemasonry is also available on this site. Serious researchers should consult "A tentative list of English references to, and works on, Freemasonry, published before 1751," AQC. vol. xxv (1912) pp. 353-384.
CINEMA | PRINT | PERIODICALS| PERFORMANCE | RADIO | TELEVISION
FURTHER REFERENCES
Cinema Λ
Back from the Brink (1996)
At 00:25:00 a pan shot down a main street of Suisun City, California runs past a masonic hall with square and compasses signage.
"Back from the Brink: Saving America’s Cities by Design," GVI, Washington, DC, created by Fry Communications, Arlington, VA. Distribution: The American Architectural Foundation, 1735 New York Ave., NW Washington, DC 20006-5292. 00:56:40. c. 1996.
Buster Keaton Rides Again/The Railrodder (1965)
In a documentary filmed during the shooting of The Railrodder, Buster is presented with the key to the city of Rivers, Manitoba, during a dinner held in the community hall. On the wall is painted a large square and compasses.
Directed by John Spotton, produced by Julian Biggs. 55 min./25 min. National Film Board of Canada 1965. *
Cartel Land (2015)
Winner of the Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Cartel Land follows two vigilante leaders, one on either side of the Mexican/USA border, as they attempt to defend their communities against illegal drug cartels. In one scene, Dr. José Manuel Mireles Valverde is wearing a large ring displaying a square and compasses emblem.[
01:17:30]
Directed by Matthew Heineman. Tim "Nailer" Foley, José Manuel 'El Doctor' Mireles, Enrique Peña Nieto. Mexico | USA, English | Spanish 100 min., Colour. *
Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove (2000)
"It becomes clear:, it is a mixture of the Babylonian Caananite cult of Moloch fused with ancient Druidic rites where you have the female side of Satan, which they first call out to in the "she" and then toward the horned god with the "he", mixed with masonic rites from Scotland." [01:42:10]
"Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove." Directed by Alex Jones, written by Alex Jones. 123 min. USA English Black and White / Color (2000). *
Don't Be a Sucker (1943)
A street corner agitator exclaims: "We'll never be able to call this country our own, until its a country without. Without what? "Without negroes, without alien foreigners, without catholics. Without freemasons!"
One man in the crowd responds: "What’s wrong with the masons? I'm a mason. Hey that man’s talking about me." [00:05:11]

In a flashback scene, a Nazi street corner agitator in 1932 Berlin exclaims: "Then there are the freemasons. In Germany we have no place for secret societies. There will be only one society and that is the Nazi party. There will be no secrecy about that!" A freemason in the crowd looks at his ring. [00:09:55]
Don't Be a Sucker (1943). Felix Bressart, Paul Lukas, Lloyd Nolan. 22 min. USA, English. Black and White, Mono War Department Educational Film. E.T. 6 MCMXLVII United States of America War Office This film will not be shown to the general public without permission of the War Department. (1942) *
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
In a segment where Michael Moore lists U.S.A. President George W. Bush’s "Coalition of the Willing" he uses footage from different countries. At the end of the list the visual shows black and white footage of a Shriners parade while the narrator says, "With our mighty coalition intact, we were ready." [01:18:00] Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). Directed by Michael Moore, written by Michael Moore. Ben Affleck, Stevie Wonder, George W. Bush, James Baker III, Richard Gephardt, Tom Daschle, Jeffrey Toobin, Al Gore, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, Ricky Martin, Byron Dorgan, Osama Bin Laden. 122 min. English | Arabic, Color, Dolby."
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) Directed by Michael Moore (1954/04/23- - ), written by Michael Moore. James Baker, Tom Dashle, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Carol Ashley, Thomas H. Kean, Rosemary Dillard, Martha Brill Olcott, Jim McDermott, Porter Goss, Tammy Baldwin, Michael Moore, Khalil Bin Laden, Dan Briody, Jenna Bush, Michael Castle, Neil Cavuto, Richard Clarke, Jack Cloonan, John Conyers, Byron Dorgan, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore, Thomas Hamill, Abdul Henderson, Lila Lipscomb, John Major, Jim McDermott, Patsy Mink, James C. Moore, Helen Thomas, Jeffrey Toobin, Craig Unger. Also Known As: Fahrenheit 911. 122 min. USA, English / Arabic. Colour, Dolby. Lion’s Gate Films. IFC Films. Alliance Atlantis (Firm)
The Making of A Hard Day’s Night (1994)
A documentory of the Beatles' first movie made in 1964. In a New York street scene the day before the release of the movie, a smiling Shriner can be seen walking by the crowd. 60 min. [DVD release] *
The Sorrow and the pity (1969)
Maître Henri Rochat, defence lawyer for former French Socialist State Secretary, Pierre Mendès-France (1907-1982), recounts that when Mendès was brought to trial by the Vichy government in 1940, he announced: "Colonel [Leprêtre / Perret ?] and gentlemen, I am Jewish, I am a Freemason, but I am not a deserter. May the trial begin." [Part I, "The Collapse" 00:58:07] Mendès was sentenced to six years for desertion on 9 May 1940. He escaped to England in 1941 where he became a pilot for the duration of the war. He was later premier of France in 1954-55.
Marcel Ophüls asks Marcel Verdier, a pharmacist in Clermont-Ferrand, "You weren't high on the priority list of those persecuted by Hitler’s regime. But did you know any Jews, Communists, or Freemasons who were?" [Part II, "The Choice" 01:12:33]. Verdier recounts his assisting Jews but does not mention freemasons.
Print Λ
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.
Henry Miller,
(Volume One). New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1970. Copyright 1945. pb 292 p. ISBN : 0-8112-0106-6. pp. 143-50.
In chapter six, "Arkansas and the Great Pyramid", the reader finds: 'I glide over these interesting items to dwell at some length on two men, now dead, whom many Americans have possibly never heard of: Brigadier-General Albert Pike, one time Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. and "Coin" (William Hope) Harvey, builder of the Pyramid which was never built at Monte Ne, Arkansas.' [p. 135.] Miller later gives an extended panagyric to Albert Pike.
Benjamin Franklin : An American Life
Walter Isaacson
New York : Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2003. ISBN: 0-684-80761-0
Two major references to Freemasonry, the first on pages 106-107, and the second on page 355:
The Académie served as one of Franklin's bases among the intellectual elite of Paris. Another was a remarkable Masonic lodge known, in honour of the Muses, as the Lodge of the Nine Sisters. Freemasonry in France was evolving from being just a set of businessmen's social clubs, which is what it mainly was in America, and was becoming part of the movement led by the Philosophes and other freethinkers who challenged the orthodoxies of both the church and the monarchy. Claude-Adrien Helvetius, a very freethinking Philosophe, had first envisioned a superlodge in Paris that would be filled with the greatest writers and artists. When he died, his widow, Madame Helvétius (about whom we will soon hear a lot more), helped fund its creation in 1776.
Franklin and Voltaire joined the Lodge of the Nine Sisters in April 1778, the same month as their public meeting at the Académie. The lodge provided Franklin with influential supporters and enjoyable evenings. But it was risky. Both the king and the clerics were wary of the renegade lodge — and of Franklin's membership in it.
The controversy surrounding the lodge was heightened when, in November 1778, it held a memorial service for Voltaire, who, on his deathbed, a few months earlier, had waved off priests seeking to give him last rites.
The Best Democracy Money can Buy
Greg Palast
London : Pluto Press, 2002. ISBN: 0-7453-1846-0
In an excellently researched and written criticism of
global politics: "The other listed board members and executives include former CIA chief William Webster, two nuclear industry executives, one former Nixon administration insider, the general who commanded the US Marine Corps, one top Masonic official and indeed, one certified greenie tree-hugger." [p. 134.]
Between Silk and Cyanide : The Story of S.O.E.’s Code War
Leo Marks
London : Harper Collins Publishers, 1998. ISBN: 0-00-255944-7
Not noted in the index, Freemasonry has two brief references. On page 1:
My father was scarcely larger than the suitcases he insisted on carrying, was an antiquarian bookseller whose reading was confined to the spines of books and the contents of the "Freemason’s Chronicle".
On page 2:
I resolved to make one last try and suddenly remembered that I had a godfather named Major Jack Dermot O'Reilly who worked in the Special Branch at Scotland Yard. I also remembered that Major Jack (like father) was a Freemason, a branch of the Spiritual Secret Service for which I was still too young.
... However he must have put his 'brother' before his country ...
The Birth of the Middle Ages: 395 - 814
H. St. L.B. Moss
London : The Folio Society, 1998. (Copyright Henry St. Lawrence Beaufort Moss, 1935). hc 321p.
"But the dangerous freemasonry which linked up the Blue or Green parties of the great cities of the Empire, and the passions aroused by the chariot races, which might culminate in a sudden riot, if not revolution, made the circus factions a powerful force in politics." [p. 89.]
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
Hampton Sides
Anchor Books, division of Random House, 2006. ISBN : 978-1-4000-3110-8.
"At last, Carson had achieved the sense of stability he'd longed for during the 1840s. He had become a pillar of the community, a member of the local gentry, a good Catholic, a provider, a diplomat to the Indians. He had even become, of all things, a Mason — having joined the fraternal lodge in Santa Fe, whose membership included nearly all of the most prominent citizens in the territory, tough Western stalwarts wearing funny hats and chanting mantras in a dark hall." [p. 353.]
Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse
James L. Swanson
HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-123378-4.
"Then came [Lincoln's] hearse, accompanied by the guard of honor from the train plus sixteen local, honorary pallbearers. There followed a cavalcade of passengers from the funeral train, including the governor of Pennsylvania, various generals and officers, elected officials, fire and hook and ladder companies, and various fraternal groups, including Freemasons and Odd Fellows." [p. 218.]
"The public viewing began at 9:00 A.M., and the mourners included a contingent of black Masons displaying a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and banners bearing the mottoes 'Colored Men, Always Loyal' and 'Slavery Is Dead.' " [p. 261.]
The Book of Alchemy
Francis Melville
Hauppauge, NY : Barron’s Educational Series Inc., 2002 ISBN : 0-76415462-1 hc 128 p.
"Rosicrucianism and freemasonry
"It is possible that Andrea and his coauthors, if he had any, were influenced by Freemasonry, the earliest-known statutes of which date back to 1598 and 1599. The reverse is certainly true. The second-known reference to the "Mason’s word" appears in the freemason Henry Adamson’s
The Muses Threnodie (1638):

For what we do pressage is not in grosse
For we be brethren of the Rosie Cross:
We have the Mason’s word and second sight,
Things for to come we can foretell aright.
Freemasonry, the most famous and influential of all secret societies, absorbed the ideals and mysicism of Rosicrucianism, providing it with a lasting, though sadly as yet unfulfilled, legacy."
The Book of the Werewolves
Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924)
London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1865.
In a scholarly study of folk tales: "This story bears some resemblance to one told by Von Hahn in his Griechische und Albanesische Märchen ; I remember having heard a very similar one in the Pyrenees; but the man who flies from the werewolf is one who, after having stripped off all his clothes, rushes into a cottage and jumps into a bed. The were-wolf dares not, or cannot, follow. The cause of his flight was also different. He was a freemason who had divulged the secret, and the were-wolf was the master of his lodge in pursuit of him." [pp. 128-29.]
Building the Great Pyramid
Kevin Jackson (1955 - ) and Jonathan Stamp.
Toronto : Firefly Books Ltd., 2003 ISBN : 1-55297-721-8. p. 121.
"From the early eighteenth century all manner of secret societies and cults, from the
Rosicrucians to the Freemasons, seized eagerly on the trappings (often poorly understood) of ancient Egyptian culture and religion...." Also see "Building the Great Pyramids".
Code Breaking : A History and Exploration
Rudolph Kippenhahn / Ewald Osers (trans)
Woodstock and New York : The Overlook Press, 1999. 283p. hc. ISBN: 0-87951-919-3. pp. 29-30.
Signs on Gravestones and Walls
Not far from the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street stands Trinity Church, a church that is more than two hundred years old, tiny and lost between the skyscrapers around it. ... In the churchyard beside it the visitor finds the gravestone of James Leason, who died on September 28, 1794. Leason had been a Freemason, a member of the "Jerusalem Lodge No. 4." Next to the inscription is a row of signs along the upper edge of the stone, as reproduced in figure 1.5, top. They are
secret signs that can be read only by someone in possession of the key.
Each sign corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. The assignment of the letters is exceedingly simple; it can be understood from the bottom part of the figure. The inscription reads: "rememberdeath."
Fig. 1.5 ... twenty-five letters of the alphabet are divided among three grilles. The number of dots in each sign indicates the grille in which the letter is found. The lines of the sign indicate the position of the letter in the grille. The signs are kept so simple to allow them to be incised into the stone with a hammer and chisel (after S. B. Morris, Cryptology, January 1983, p. 27).
As we will see later, this kind of code is easily deciphered. Presumably the Freemasons did not so much intend to keep the text secret by encoding it as to express the mystery of their fraternity.
Canadians in the Civil War
Claire Hoy
McArthur & Company, 2004 ISBN 1-55278-550-5, p. 117-118.
Abolitionist
John Brown spent the month of May 1858 in Chatham, Ontario, an important centre of black culture, organizing and attending a convention to lay plans for his provisional government.
"There were several preliminary meetings leading up to the convention, for the purpose of drawing up a constitution for the movement, the first at a frame cottage on Princess Street just south of King Street, then known as King Street School. Other meetings were held at the First Baptist Church on the north side of King Street, with the organizers, to hide their true intentions, saying they were forming a Masonic Lodge of coloured people. The final pre-convention meeting, where the proposals were finalized, was held at a local fire station [...]."
A Cartoon History of the District of Columbia
Patrick M. Reynolds
The Red Rose Studio, Willow Street, Pennsylvania. 1995.ISBN : 0-932514-31-6. p. 41.
The involvement of freemasons in the founding of the American capitol is noted on
page 41: 'On April 15, 1791 Dr. Elish Dick, Worshipful Master of Lodge 22, led a procession of masons, dignitaries, and "strangers" to Jones Point.'
Later, on page 65, George Washington is incorrectly titled as acting Grand Master of Maryland.
Company of Adventurers
Peter C. Newman (1929-)
Markham, Ontario : Penguin Books, 1985. pb 565pp. ISBN : 0-14-006720-5, p. 217.
From the diary entries of Hudson Bay Company factor James Duffield (1741-1744), it is unclear if he is actually blaming Freemasonry for his difficulties in controlling the outpost at Moose Factory on Hudson's Bay, or if he is simply equating the secretiveness of his underlings with that of the
recently exposed society:
Curiously, Duffield blamed most of the troubles at Moose on the dominance of the Masons, the secretive organization that had influenced the HBC's founding father, Prince Rupert, and many of the crowned heads of Europe. Duffield's journal contains the bitter complaint that he felt he had been "dropp'd down amongst a nest of free and accepted Masons, without being initiated by the brethren, but as an intruder on their laws, by virtue of the Companys authority: and therefore at all events I was to be hoodwink'd and kept from discovering their secret measures... such a scandalous society." [p. 217.]
Newman's claim for the masonic membership of, or "influence" on, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (17 December 1619 - 29 November 1682) is uncited. With equal lack of citation, he later claims: "The Order of the Buck, a spurious offshoot of the Freemasons, was primarily a drinking club that met at various London pubs, its adherents exchanging bawdy tales and smashing glasses in the fireplace." [p. 383.] Properly styled the Noble Order of Bucks—later the Antient and Noble Order of Bucks—this drinking club founded in the early 1720s was not affiliated with Freemasonry but rather took its inspiration from the Mohocks and Hell-Fire Club. Also see : "The present race of Bucks, Bloods and Free-thinkers, are but the spawn of the Mohocks and the Hell-Fire-Club" Connoiseur, No. 22, 27 June 1754. Cited AQC vol. iii (1890) p. 143.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy In Action
Jon Stewart, the writers of The Daily Show
New York : Warner Books, 2004. 240p., ISBN 0445632681. pp. 110-11.
A
double-page illustration of a graveyard titled "Third Parties Rest in Peace" is drawn to resemble an old computer game. One of the tombstones is labelled "ANTI-MASONIC PARTY 1826-1836" and bears a square and compasses behind the international symbol for No. The epitaph on the plot itself reads, "Fine, don't teach us the handshake."
The Dark Workshop The Occult's Quest for World Domination
Toyne Newton
London : Vega, 2002. pb. 176pp. ISBN : 1-84333-586-7
The author of this book shows his ignorance of Freemasonry when he erroneously claims: "In craft masonry, one of the initiation rituals involves the symbolic slaying of an apprentice—administered by the master, for submitting a triangular stone rather than the obligatory square or rectangular stone." [p. 61.]
Death at the Priory: Love, Sex, and Murder in Victorian England
James Ruddick
New York : Grove Press, 2002. pb 224pp. ISBN 0802139744
The author unfortunately perpetuates an historical error.
"Interestingly, Sir William Gull has recently been exposed as a high-ranking Freemason. Studies of this secret organization have revealed that, in the nineteenth century, its members were compelled to act or speak in a manner that benefited fellow Masons. Knight does not make reference to Robert Campbell or Joseph Bravo as being Freemasons, but Campbell's status — particularly his appointment as High Sheriff of Berkshire and as Berkshire Justice of the Peace — make it almost inconceivable that he would not have enjoyed Masonic connections." [p. 117.]
"Sir William Gull was exposed as a high-ranking Freemason by Stephen Knight in his 1985 book, The Brotherhood." [p. 198]
"Freemasons: fraternal responsibilities 117-18." [Index]
Note that
Gull was never a freemason.
Death and Transfiguration
Gerald Elias
New York : Minotaur Books, 2012. x, 322 p. ; 25 cm. [Mystery fiction] ISBN: 9780312678357
Although this is a work of fiction it is included here because, in an author's note on page vii, the author makes reference to orchestral musicians who are assumed to "get along as well as Masons on a picnic."
The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Vol. III, 1826 - 1832, edited by William H. Gilman, Alfred R. Ferguson. "1827"
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1963.
"There's a freemasonry among the dull by which they are recognized & are sociable with the dull, as surely as a correspondent tact in men of genious." [p. 65]
Devil in the White City
Erik Larson
New York : Crown Publishers,2003. hc. 447pp. ISBN : 0-609-60844-4
Referring to the residents of a new Chicago suburb, Englewood : "They sent their children to school and went to church and attended meetings of the Masons and of forty-five other secret societies having lodges, kingdoms, and hives in the village." [p. 46.]
"Newspapers launched crusades against pestilent alleys and excessive smoke and identified the worst offenders in print—among them Burnham's newly opened Masonic Temple, which the Chicago Tribune likened to Mount Vesuvius." [p. 212.]
"This notion came to Prendergast initially as a glimmer, like the first sunlight to strike the Masonic tower each morning, but now he thought of it a thousand times a day." [p. 215.]
"In the loop men and women gathered on rooftops and in the highest offices of the Rookery, the Masonic Temple, the Temperance Building, and every other high place to watch the distant conflagration." [p. 335.]
The Dragon Syndicates : The Global Phenomenon of the Triads
Martin Booth
Bantam Books, New York : 2000. pb. ISBN : 0553505904
"About 1900, the
Che Kung Tong also set up a branch in liverpool, where it still exists at 10 Nelson Street, operating as a Chinese social club and referring to itself as a Chinese freemasonic organization. A non-criminal association, it is probably the oldest Chinese secret society in Europe..." [p. 445.]
Also photo insert section pp. 12-13 : "Opposite below : The lodge of the Che Kung Tong in San Antonio, Texas, c. 1930. Note the freemasonic insignia above the door proclaiming it to be a masonic charity."
The Essential Jung
Carl Jung, introduced by Anthony Starr
Princeton University Press, 1983. pp. 40-41.
Mental Disease and the Psyche
The simplest form of schizophrenia, of the splitting of the personality, is paranoia, the classic persecution-mania of the "persécuteur persécuté." It consists in a simple doubling of the personality, which in milder cases is still held together by the identity of the two egos. The patient strikes us at first as completely normal; he may hold office, be in a lucrative position, we suspect nothing. We converse normally with him, and at some point we let fall the word "Freemason." Suddenly the jovial face before us changes, a piercing look full of abysmal mistrust and inhuman fanaticism meets us from his eye. He has become a hunted, dangerous animal, surrounded by invisible enemies: the other ego has risen to the surface.
The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution
John Gribbin
London : Allen Lane / Penguin Books / Penguin Group, 2005 hc 336pp., pp. 132, 164, 170.
The [Royal] Society's liberal views on religion were matched by by its aim of doing good for humankind as a whole, very much in the way
Bacon had envisaged. These attitudes of religious toleration and inclusion, and working for the good of humankind, echo some of the basic tenets of Freemasonry, and some of the founders of the Royal Society were indeed Masons, which gave them an additional bond with each other and with Charles II, himself a Mason. But it is probably going too far to suggest, as some have, that the society was a product of Masonry. Rather men with liberal and charitable views would be likely to be attracted to the Freemasons, and the same men would be likely to be attracted to the idea of science in the service of humankind. [p. 132.]
Moray was also one of the first Freemasons, and used to sign his letters with a pentagram that he referred to as his Masonic sign; the correspondence with Bruce continued into the 1660s, but at a much reduced rate, when both men had other things to attend to. [p. 170.]
Robert Moray was born on 10 March, either in 1608 or 1609 — the record of his early life is very patchy and incomplete. His father was Sir Mungo Moray of Craigie, in Perthshire; and he had a younger brother, who as Sir William Moray eventually became Master of the Works to Charles II. [p. 164, not in index.]
The Gates of hell by Auguste Rodin
Albert Edward Elsen
Palo Alto : Stanford University Press. 1985. pb 269pp ISBN : 0804712816. p. 224
"Ironically, Rodin's imagery of a suffering humanity might have appealed to the Freemasons, who wanted to establish humanity as the object of worship rather..."
The Ghost-hunting casebook
Natalie Osborne-Thomason
London : Blandford Cassell plc, 1999. pp. 89-90.
"Case 44, The monk and the mason," details a reputed haunting in the Grosvenor Shopping Centre in Northampton, UK. "Eventually the staff enlisted the help of a medium to try to understand the phenomena. He told them the spirit was that of a long-deceased keeper of the masonic lodge which was once on the site of the present-day sweet shop. He is now known to all the staff as Charlie."
Gin. The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva
Patrick Dillon
Boston : Justin, Charles & Co., Publishers, 2003. hc ISBN : 10932112-00-6. 354 p.
"In March 1742 a satirical 'procession of the
scald miserable masons' tagged onto the real freemason’s [sic] parade, lampooning their ceremonial with 'fellows on jack asses... cow horns on their heads, [and] a kettle-drum on a jack-ass with two butter firkins for kettle-drums.'8" [p. 165]
When fellow freemason William Hogarth published Night March 25, 1738 (the date was in the week of the magistrates' meetings) it showed someone emptying a chamber pot on Thomas De Veil’s head." [p. 184.]
Freemasonry is not noted in the index, nor are any other references made to Freemasonry
Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War
Charles Bracelen Flood
HarperCollins, Harper Perennial, 2005 ISBN 978-0-06-114871-2
'[Ulysses S. Grant's] Jo Daviess Guards were being sent off in a large and enthusiastic parade through town and across the bridge to the railroad depot, where the recruits would board the train for Springfield to join the many volunteer companies converging there. Grant watched from the sidewalk as different organizations --the Masonic Assembly, the city's fire companies with their horse-drawn engines, the Odd Fellows, the mayor and various civic groups, all interspersed with brass bands-- paraded down the street, followed by the hundred newly uniformed recruits [Grant] had equipped, many of them waving high-heartedly to the cheering crowd.' (p. 41)
' "All the public buildings [of Barnwell, South Carolina] were destroyed. The fine brick Courthouse, with most of its stores, laid level with the ground, and many private residences, with only the chimneys standing like grim sentinels; the Masonic Hall in ashes." ' (p. 288)
Gypsy: Memoirs of America’s Most Celebrated Stripper
Gypsy Rose Lee (1914-1970)
Berkley, California : Frog, Ltd., 1999. Originally published: New York : Harper, 1957. ISBN : 1-883319-95-1. pb. 353 pp.
Both ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee and her younger sister, actress June Havoc, wrote
autobiographies in which they noted their mother’s reliance on their grandfather’s membership in a number of fraternal associations. This was also noted in the 1962 film, Gypsy.
Hell’s Angels : A Strange and Terrible Saga
Hunter S. Thompson
Modern Library, Random House Library, Inc., 1999. c. 1966. ISBN: 067960331. pp. 17-18.
A
casual aside about Casanova ends with: "Perhaps the Angels will one day follow the Freemasons into bourgeois senility, but by then some other group will be making outrage [sic] headlines.... "
A History of Militarism Civilian and Military
Alfred Vagts
New York : The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1959 [1937, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.] 542p.
Writing about the Napoleonic Wars of Liberation period in the early nineteenth century, Vagts reports:
"Some of the reformers and other officials conspired with the bourgeoisie against the French in the Tugendbund, or Association of Virtue. [Gerhard Leberecht von]
Blücher held high degrees in the Masonic Orders and was a speaker of unusual gifts, playing at the same time on the warlike and on the humanitarian instincts that co-exist in man, celebrating in Maonry the harmony of society which would exist after the Wars of Liberation were over." pp. 132-33.
Note that J.M. Roberts writes that "in Germany the Tugendbund, an anti-Napoleonic movement, had no practical importance in the Restoration, yet Metternich believed it responsible for student unrest and the murder of the journalist Kotzebue in 1819."
A history of private life, from Pagan Rome to Byzantium
Paul Veyne, ed,
Cambridge : The Belknap Press, 1987.
"To understand this mixture of snobbery and salon mysticism, we need only think of the early days of Freemasonry, in the time of
The Magic Flute. Like Freemasonry, the Bacchic sects had secret rites, initiation rituals (or "mysteries"), and a hierarchy from which women were not excluded." [p. 194.]
The Hitler / Hess Deception
Martin Allen
London : HarperCollinsPublishers, 2003. ISBN: 0 00 714118 1.
[On 8 September 1940] 'Albrecht [Haushofer] didn't pull any punches, and bluntly told Hess that if a solution to the conflict was to be found, "It was necessary to realise that not only Jews and Freemasons, but practically all Englishmen who mattered, regarded a treaty signed by the Führer as a worthless scrap of paper".' [p. 92.]
If Britain Had Fallen
Norman Longmate
London : British Broadcasting Corporation & Hutchinson & Co., (Publishers) Ltd., 1972. ISBN: 0 09 114210 5.
"When in due course Operation Sea Lion was cancelled, [SS Colonel Professor Dr. Franz] Six was found a congenial job as head of Section VII of RSHA, a small department which carried out basic research into such Nazi obsessions as freemasonry and the Christian religion....'" [p. 127.]

"No Gestapo intelligence report would have been complete without a reference to those legendary enemies, the Jews, the Communists and the Freemasons." [p. 131.] "Freemasonry, however, was a real danger. 'English freemasonry gives the impression of being a much stronger movement than in Germany. One met them more often and more openly.... I knew a number of students who were masons at twenty. It was nothing out of the ordinary to be asked by fellow-students whether one was a freemason. A freemason’s lodge met in the Students Club, the main hall of which was decorated with Masonic emblems.'" [p. 132.] "If the Germans demanded billets or bicycles, it was the mayor and his staff who had to find them; if they wanted a list of Jews, or Freemasons, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, a harmless sect which the Nazis had singled out for persecution, he had to provide it...." [p. 167.] "One organization supressed in the Channel Islands which would assuredly have suffered the same fate in Great Britain was the freemasons, who numbered about 450,000. Many British people have expressed distrust of this supposedly powerful secret society, but Hitler’s hatred of it reached the dimensions of a phobia and he believed it formed a conspiracy second to his old adversary 'international Jewry'. Freemasonry, despite the links between the Grand Lodges in different countries, made no known contribution to rescuing the victims of Nazi oppression or to any resistance movement, but Hitler described it to his cronies in 1942 as an immense enterprise of corruption' and (without irony) as 'a handful of men who are responsible for the war'. A month later he returned to the subject, boasting that he had known 'little towns that were entirely under the dominion of masonry', and had himself once refused an invitation to a 'full-dress gathering' of a local lodge with the courteous response ’save your saliva. For me, freemasonry’s poison.' Its rituals, he considered, 'transformed men who were quite sane and sober in their ordinary lives into informed apes'. The movement had been suppressed in Germany shortly after Hitler came to power, and former freemasons could only become Nazis if he gave his personal approval, but, he told his listeners, 'I grant absolution only to men whose entire lives bear witness to their indisputably nationalist feelings'.
Shortly after their arrival on Jersey the Germans closed the Masonic Temple and forbade the Provincial Grand Master, the local head of the order, from holding any further meetings, and in 1941 a task-force of no fewer than thirty Germans—another of those 'column-dodging' groups with a soft job which flourished within the Security Service—arrived to make a detailed photographic record of the temple and strip it of all its elaborate decorations, which, with the ceremonial regalia, were shipped off for exhibition in Berlin, apparently to prove that British freemasonry was under the control of the Jews. Thereafter one or two small masonic meetings were held in private offices but officially 'the craft', as its members called it, had ceased to exist on the islands. 'Most of us felt a great loss', recalls one Jersey freemason. 'It was like losing something that you had owned from boyhood. But I think there were other things that worried us more at the time.' The sequence of events would have been the same in England, for Section III at Gestapo headquarters had already laid down, on 26 August 1940, that 'a separate Commando Group' was needed to 'deal with English freemasonry, with special attention paid to the relations between England and France and the Balkan countries, which to a large extent involve freemasons'—further evidence of Hitler’s belief in an international conspiracy of which Germany was the victim." [pp. 197-98.]
The Innocent Man
John Grisham
New York : Bantam Del, 2007. pb.
"The town's reputation for lawlessness changed dramatically in 1909, when the locals finally got fed up with living in fear. A respected rancher named Gus Bobbitt was gunned down by a professional killer hired by a rival landowner. The killer and three conspirators were arrested, and an epidemic of hanging fever swept through the town. Led by the Masons, the upstanding members of Ada, a lynch mob formed early on the morning of April 19, 1909. Forty members marched solemnly out of the Masonic Hall on Twelfth at Broadway in downtown Ada and arrived at the jail a few minutes later. They subdued the sheriff, yanked the four thugs out of their cells, and dragged them across the street to a livery stable that had been chosen for the occasion. Each of the four had his wrists and ankles bound with baling wire, then each was ceremoniously hanged." [p. 98.]
Although billed as nonfiction, this book by novelist John Grisham fails to provide any citation for his claims. In fact, to date no one associated with the lynching has been identified.
Journals Kept In France And Italy, From 1848 TO 1852. With a Sketch of the Revolution of 1848
Nassau William Senior (1790-1864)
London : Henry S. King $ Co., 65 Cornhill, 1872, p. 69.
'I said that I was told that the distinction between noble and roturier existed in its full force in real life.
'"Yes," said Tocqueville, "it does, meaning by noble, gentilhomme; and it is a great misfortune, since it keeps up distinctions and animosities of caste; but it is incurable—at least, it has not been cured, or perhaps much palliated, by our sixty years of revolution. It is a sort of Freemasonry. When I talk to a gentilhomme, though we have not two ideas in common, though all his opinions, wishes, and thoughts are opposed to mine, yet I feel at once that we belong to the same family, that we speak the same language, that we understand one another. I may like a bourgeois better, but he is a stranger."
The "Jewish Threat" : Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army
Joseph W. Bendersky
New York : Basic Books / Perseus Books Group, 2000. 538 p. hc. pp. 65-66. ISBN: 0-465-00617-5
Chapter Two: Military Intelligence and International Jewry" 1917-1919
Despite Trevor’s* fairly accurate guess on the historical origins of the fraudulent
Protocols, he seriously entertained the possibility of a different source of international Jewish influence. While researching the Protocols, his investigator had uncovered a source suggesting that

Freemasonry is, unknown to most of the craft, managed by five or six Jews who lend its influence in every possible way to the furtherance of the Anti-Christian movement that passes under the name of Liberalism. The constant influx into the English speaking countries of Jews and Continental Freemasons must necessarily impregnate the order with all the poison of the Continental sect. (53)
Discrediting the Protocols, Trevor maintained, "did not necessarily mean that [this] original thesis on Freemasonry may not have some basis in fact, because Freemasonry on the Continent of Europe is quite a different proposition from Freemasonry in England and the United States." (54)
(from Notes)
51. W. Nelson to Captain Henry G. Pratt, March 3, 1919 MID 99-75 (4)
52. MID 99-75 (5)
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
* Captain John B. Trevor of American Military Intelligence Division’s New York office. [described as being a lawyer by training who’s views on Bolshevism and the influence of Jews were highly influential within military and political circles. He is further described as a friend of Winston Churchill, who was likewise influenced.]
The Knights Templar in Britain
Evelyn Lord
London : Longman (an imprint of Pearson Education Ltd.), 2002. ISBN: 0582472873.
The index lists Freemasons on pages 3, 208, 215-217; pg. 215-217 is a section titled "Templars and Freemasons".
276p. incl. list of abbreviations, name evidence and its uses, preface, glossary, events in the Holy Land, notes, appendix - Templar records in the public record office, gazetteer of Templar sites, bibliography, index
Letters to the Family (Notes on a recent trip to Canada) (1908)
Rudyard Kipling
Toronto : The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited.
[September 1908. Copyright 1907. pb 72pp.]
"Canada possesses two pillars of Strength and Beauty in Quebec and Victoria." [p. 66.]
Life on the Mississippi (1885)
Mark Twain
Harmondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd, 1986. 450pp.
ISBN : 0-14-039050-2
On the need for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to stop a variety of perennial newspaper stories, firstly, the February miracles of the Southern climate:
Under the authority of such an amendment, Congress could then pass an act inflicting imprisonment for life for the first offence, and some sort of lingering death for subsequent ones; and this, no doubt, would presently give us a rest. At the same time, the amendment and the resulting act and penalties might easily be made to cover various cognate abuses, such as the Annual Veteran-who-has-Voted-for-Every-President-from-Washington-down, and Walked-to-the-Polls-Yesterday-with-as-Bright-an-Eye-and-as-Firm-a-Step-as-Ever, and ten or eleven other weary yearly marvels of that sort, and of the Oldest-Freemason, and Oldest-Printer, and Oldest-Baptist-Preacher, and Oldest-Alumnus sort, and Three-Children-Born-at-Birth sort, and so on, and so on. [p. 410.]
Twain also makes several masonic references in his fiction.
Long Livers
Long livers: a curious history of such persons of both sexes who have liv'd several ages, and grown young again: with the rare secret of rejuvenescency of Arnold de Villa Nova...
Robert Samber [Eugenius Philalethes, Jun.]
London: Printed for J. Holland at the Bible and Ball in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1722.
199 p viii. 4 1/2" x 7"
The only masonic significance to this book is found in the introductory dedication: ""To the Grand Master, Masters, Wardens and Brethren, of the Most Antient and most Honourable Fraternity of the Free Masons of Great Britain and Ireland."
[See AQC vol. 11: pp. 103-124.]
Man, Myth & Magic
An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the supernatural.
Richard Cavendish, ed.
Purnell for BPC Publishing Ltd.,
49 Poland Street, London W1A 2LG
There are several notable references to Freemasonry in this monthly serialized encyclopaedia:
No. 37 (1970) "Freemasonry." pp. 1034-1040. Sympathetic and informed article with many colour plates, mostly American, suggesting the anonymous author was an American.
No. 40 (1970) "Order of the Golden Dawn." pp. 1130-1134. Kathleen Raine. p. 1122: painting in the National Gallery of Ireland (colour): W. B. Yeats. photograph (b&w) from Radio Times Hulton Picture Library of MacGregor Mathers. "Goethe" pp. 1124-28. L. A. Willoughby. p. 1126 portrait of Goethe (colour) from Mary Evans Picture Library
No. 50 (1970) "Illuminati." pp. 1402-1404. Ellic Howe. p. 1403: portraits of Adam Weishaupt and Baron Knigge.
No.67 (1971) "Modern Witchcraft." pp. 1864-1870. Frank Smyth. p.1870: photograph of Gerald Gardner, Camera Press, London.
No. 87 (1971) "Rosicrucians." pp. 2426-2433. Ellic Howe.
McGowan's War
Donald J. Hauka
Vancouver : New Star Books, 2003.
While the author factually reports the early history of Prince Hall Freemasonry: ".. they formed their own masonic lodge..." [p. 31.], he later uses literary licence in other descriptions: ".. like a modern militia or a masonic lodge..." [p. 53.] and "... secret hand signals and battle cries fit for a Masonic Lodge or a Shriners convention...." [p. 54.].
The Mormon menace; being the confession of John Doyle Lee, Danite, an official assassin of the Mormon church under the late Brigham Young
John Doyle Lee (1812-1877)
New York : Home protection publishing co., 1905.
John Doyle Lee, leader of the Danites, who conducted the Mountain Meadow massacre in 1857, claimed to be a freemason, telling of a meeting in Tennessee where he preached:
"I had just commenced speaking when one of the men began to swear and use indecent language and made a rush for me with his fist drawn. I made a Masonic sign of distress, when to my relief and yet to my surprise, a planter pushed to my aid. He took the drunken men and led them out of the crowd and then sat by me during the rest of the sermon, thus giving me full protection. That man was a stranger to me but he was a good man and a true Mason." [p. 169.]
My life : an attempt at an autobiography
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
New York : Pathfinder Press, Inc., 1987. xxxvii, 602 p. 23 cm ISBN: 0-863480-143-7. pp. 119, 120-123.
While Trotsky was a political prisoner in Odessa in 1898 he read the prison library’s back issues of Orthodox Review: "The articles dealing with freemasonry in the theological magazines aroused my interest. Where did this strange movement come from? I asked myself. How would Marxism explain it?" Trotsky goes on to give a two page evaluation of Freemasonry.
The Origins of the Tiandihui: The Chinese Triads in Legend and History
Dian H. Murray, in collaboration with Qin Biaoqi
Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 1994
"The Western discovery of secret societies in China at a time of widespread suspicion of this darker side of Masonry caused Freemasons to seize on the find to prove that theirs was an honorable order that had originated in antiquity. As a result, when European civil servants encountered the Tiandihui and its offshoots in Asia, they immediately focused on the similarities between the secret societies of the East and West. Freemason intellectuals created the myth that the Chinese and Masonic orders were descendants of a common mystic ancestor." See pp. 90-92 for full passage.
Northcliffe
Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth
London : Cassell & Company Ltd, 1959
In reference to a period around 1868 during which Alfred Harmsworth was plagued by poverty : "Freemasonry may have helped him to survive the worst crises. He was for five years a member of the Honor and Generosity Lodge of that order in St. John's Wood." [p. 21-22.]
Orientalism : 25th Anniversary Edition
Edward W. Said
New York : Vintage Books / Random House, Inc., 2003. tp 394 p . ISBN : 0-394-74067-X
'...an eighteenth-century mind could breach the doctrinal walls erected between the West and Islam and see hidden elements of kinship between himself and the Orient. Napoleon is a famous instance of this (usually selective) identification by sympathy. Mozart is another; The Magic Flute (in which Masonic codes intermingle with visions of a benign Orient) and The Abduction from the Seraglio locate a particularly magnanimous form of humanity in the Orient. And this, much more than the modish habits of "Turkish" music, drew Mozart sympathetically eastwards.' [p. 118.]
The Paradise of Association, Political Culture and Popular Organizations in the Paris Commune of 1871
Martin Phillip Johnson
Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN : 0-472-10724-0
"Already by early April the semiorganized student movement opposed to the commune had been subverted by the Communards, and the same transformation was affected in other associations, such as the Massonic Lodges, the Défenseurs de la République, and the Union Républicaine Centrale, groups that had previously been suspicious of the insurrection." "Similarly, the leadership of the Masonic Lodges of Paris attempted to keep its distance from the insurrection while trying to end the fighting. Yet general assemblies of Masons in late April declared their allegiance to the Commune, and in a grand celebration of April 29 thousands of Masons rallied in favor of the movement." "fn: Phillip G. Nord "The Part of Conciliation and the Paris Commune," French Historical Studies 15 (1987): 25. APP: Ba 364-5." [p. 122.]
"By late May the Masons had joined the [Féderation des Sociétés Républicaines]." [p. 200.]
Paris after the liberation 1944-1949
Antony Beevor & Artemis Cooper
London : Penguin Books, 2004 (1994). ISBN: 0-14-243792-1 435pp.
"General Weygand, in his baffled anger, was attempting to shift the responsibility for France's humiliation away from the French army. He and his kind bitterly blamed everything they loathed — the Popular Front government of 1936, liberals, Communists, anti-clericalism, freemasonry and now, it seemed, their allies for having started the war. No criticism of the French general staff could be considered." [p. 6.]
"The last day of October marked the trial of a fanatical old scribbler of pamphlets, Compte Armand de Chastenet de Puységur, who described himself professionally on his visiting cards as 'anti-sémite, anti-macon, anti-bourgeois, anti-capitaliste, anti-communiste, anti-démocrate et anti-républicain.' When he heard the death sentence read out, he gave the fascist salute and shouted, 'Vive la France!'" [p. 137.]
"Yet, as one or two writers have pointed out, the Communists' xenophobic conspiracy theory owed much to a right-wing, anti-masonic tradition." [p. 360.]
Paris : The Biography of a City
Colin Jones
Viking / the Penguin Group : London, England, UK, 2005. ISBN: 0-670-03393-6
The later [urban bourgeoisie], guided by the philosophes, was becoming increasingly self-confident in its own judgements. They dominated the Masonic lodges, for example, which had started up in Paris in the 1720s. Although some of these were socially exclusivist, in most of them individuals ranging from nobles down to artisans and shopkeepers happily rubbed shoulders with businessmen, state officials and professionals, as they performed arcane secret rituals and engaged in clandestine acts of philanthropy. Around one hundred lodges existed in Paris by the end of the Ancien Régime, containing perhaps as much as 5 per cent of the adult male population and a very high proportion of the commercial and professional bourgeoisie.
Just as there was more than earnest and clandestine do-gooding taking place in Masonic lodges, there was more than coffee being consumed within Paris's coffee-houses. These too formed a forum of discussion and debate especially popular with the middling sort. Around 400 in number under the regency, coffee-houses were probably three or four times as numerous by late in the century. [p. 187.]
Pétain
Charles Williams
London : Little, Brown, 2005. 568pp. ISBN: 0-316-86127-8.
Detailed notes on Marshal Philippe Pétain's distrust and dislike of freemasons before World War I.
The Plot, the secret story of the protocols of the Elders of Zion
Will Eisner
New York London : W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. ISBN : 0-393-06045-4. 148 p. hc.
In illustrated narrative form, noted comic book artist Will Eisner recounts the convulated history of this notorious fraud. Freemasonry is mentioned twice.
"But what no one noticed was that Godsche had done nothing other than copy a scene from Joseph Balsamo (1849) by the French novelist Alexandre Dumas. In this work, Dumas recounts a meeting between Cagliostro and other Masonic conspirators in which they hatch the 1785 Diamond Necklace Affair and, with this scandal, create the right climate for the French Revolution." Introduction by Umberto Eco. [p. vi.]
"... a newspaper carried a 40-page insert that linked Freemasonry to Jewish world power headed by 70 elders!" [p. 119]
Power, Faith and Fantasy
Michael B. Oren (1955- )
New York : W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2007. 778 pp. ISBN : 0-393-05826-3
"Mark Twain may have dispelled the fantasy of Americans in the Middle East, but he could not extinguish their fantasies of the Middle East. Full vent to these was given on September 26, 1872, at the inauguration of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a fraternal offshoot of the Masons. Founded by Dr. Walter Fleming, a former Civil War surgeon, and the actor Billy Florence, who had performed in Cairo and Algiers, the "Shriners" adopted the scimitar and crescent as their emblems and the fez as their headgear. Their first temple was called Mecca, and entering it, initiates greeted one another with the Arabic salutation, "Es Selamu Aleikum"—peace be upon you. The organization, though originally focused on fun, eventually became philanthropic and, a century later, could boast of half a million members and twenty-two hospitals specializing in pedistrics and burn care." [pp. 244-45.],
"[Henry Honeychurch]Goringe was also an enthusistic member of the Masons and shared their attachment to Middle Eastern monuments." [p. 252.]
The Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers.
Betty Sue Flowers, editor.
1988 : Doubleday, New York. p. 29.
Moyers: That's why our founders opposed religious intolerance -
Campbell: That was out entirely. And that's why they rejected the idea of the Fall, too. All men are competent to know the mind of God. There is no revelation special to any people.
Moyers: I can see how, from your years of scholarship and deep immersion in these mythological symbols, you would read the Great Seal that way. But wouldn't it have been surprising to most of those men who were deists, as you say, to discover these mythological connotations about their effort to build a new country?
Campbell: Well, why did they use them?
Moyers: Aren't a lot of these Masonic symbols?
Campbell: They are Masonic signs, and the meaning of the Pythagorean tetrakis has been known for centuries. The information would have been found in Thomas Jefferson's library. These were, after all, learned men. The 18th century Enlightenment was a world of learned gentlemen. We haven't had men of that quality in politics very much. It's an enormous good fortune for our nation that that cluster of gentleman had the power and were in a position to influence events at that time.
Moyers: What explains the relationship between the symbols and the Masons, and the fact that so many of these founding fathers belonged to the Masonic order? Is the Masonic order an expression somehow of mythological thinking?
Campbell: Yes, I think it is. This is a scholarly attempt to reconstruct an order of initiation that would result in spiritual revelation. These founding fathers who were Masons actually studied what they could of Egyptian lore. In Egypt, the pyramid represents the primordial hillock. After the annual flood of the Nile begins to sink down, the first hillock is symbolic of the reborn world. That's what this seal represents.
In Praise of Drunkenness
Albert-Henri de Sallengre (1694-1723)
The titlepage of the first edition reads:"written by a Person of Honour (who is a Freemason) Author of Eunuchism Display'd".
It was not Sallengre but the English translator, Robert Samber (1682-1745) who was a Freemason. Edmund Curll (1675-1747) publishing Ebrietatis encomium: or, the praise of drunkenness. Wherein is authentically, and most evidently proved, the necessity of frequently getting drunk; and, that the practice of getting drunk is most ancient, primitive, and catholic / By Boniface Oinophilus, de Monte Fiascone [pseud. Albert-Henri de Sallengre], A.B.C. London : Printed for E. Curll, 1723 [5] l., 204 p : front ; (12mo) trans. attrib. Robert Samber (1633-1729). E. Curll published Eunuchism Display'd' in 1718, also translated by Robert Samber, but written by C. d'Ollincan [pseud. Charles Ancillon (1659-1715)]. Samber also wrote Long Livers. Cited in The Hell-Fire Clubs, A History of Anti-Morality, Geoffrey Ashe. Gloucestershire : Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000.
The Rasputin File (2000)
Edvard Radzinsky
New York : Random House, Inc., 2000. 524pp. ISBN : 0-385-48909-9
"The culmination of all the recent research on Rasputin is the nationalists' favourite tale about the evil 'Yid-Masons'. 'It was, in essence, the Masons who created the Rasputin myth, a myth having as its goal the blackening and discrediting of Russia and its spiritual principal' (Oleg Platonov, Russia's Crown of Thorns)." [p. 17.]
The Real Oscar Wilde (1917)
Robert H. Sherard (1861-1943)
Wilde's most prolific biographer, Sherard recounts an anecdote told by Wilde to Robert Ross:
"It was toward the end of my time and one day as I was walking round and round the prison yard at exercise I noticed a man, another prisoner, signalling to me. He was a perfect stranger to me. I could see from his clothes — he was not in prison dress — that he was a prisoner on remand. I took no notice of him at first because at the time I was on the Governor's good books, Major Nelson had been very kind to me and I did not want to get reported for communicating with another prisoner in the exercise yard. It is a grave offence. I had been punished once before. But when he had again attracted my attention he made that Masonic sign to me which is known as The Sign of the Widow's Son. Which is an appeal from one brother mason to another when in direct distress which cannot be disregarded under any circumstances and must be responded to. So I was obliged to respond to the man and very fortunately escaped attracting the attention of the warders, but I was determined not to run the risk again, especially as it was quite out of my power to help the brother mason. I asked to see the Governor after I got back to my cell and I told him how I was placed between my desire not to break the prison regulations and my pledged duty to my order. I did not, of course, indicate in any way who was the man who had signalled to me. And a ruse was decided upon. If my eyes were bad and I couldn't see well I could not be expected to respond to Masonic signals. So next time I went out to exercise I had been fitted by the prison doctor with a pair of dark blue goggles, and after that the man left me alone."
The Real Oscar Wilde: To be used as a Supplement to, and in Illustration of "The Life of Oscar Wilde". London: T. Werner Laurie, 1917.
Reflections of a nonpolitical man (1983)
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
New York : F. Ungar, c1983. (Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, 1918) xvii, 435 p. ; 26 cm.
I met the New Passion, then, as democracy, as political enlightenment and the humanitarianism of happiness. I understood its efforts to be toward the politicization of everything ethos; its aggressiveness and doctrinary intolerance consisted - I experienced them personally - in its denial and slander of every nonpolitical ethos. "Mankind" as humanitarian internationalism; "reason" and "virtue" as the radical republic; intellect as a thing between a Jacobin club and Freemasonry; art as social literature and maliciously seductive rhetoric in the service of social "desirability"; here we have the New Passion in its purest political form as I saw it close up. I admit that this is a special, extremely romanticized form of it. But my destiny was to experience it in this way; and then, as I have already said, it is always at any moment on the verge of assuming this form: "active intellect," that is: an intellect that is "resolved" to be active in favor of enlightened world liberation, world improvement, world happiness, does not long remain "politics" in the more abstract, figurative sense; it is immediately so in the strict, real sense as well. And - to ask the question again foolishly - what kind of politics is this? It is a politics that is hostile to Germany. This is obvious. The political spirit that is anti-German as intellect is with logical necessity anti-German as politics.
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
Drew Gilpin Faust
Vintage Books, Division of Random House, 2008. ISBN 978-0-375-70383-6.
'Hugh McLees, a missionary to South Carolina regiments, noted that "the deathbed of an impenitent and unpardoned sinner is a very awful place yet it is the one where I have often been called to stand." To stand — but not to describe, for there was little motivation to communicate such distressing information to survivors. But depictions of Bad Deaths could serve as "edifying" examples. Reports of painful, terrifying deaths offered powerful warnings. Father Louis-Hippolyte Gache, a Confederate chaplain, found Freemasons especially likely to die badly, obstinate in rejecting faith to the end.' (p. 27)
Ritual Magic in England, 1887 to the Present Day
Francis King
London : New English Library, 1973. Pictorial Card Covers. Reprint. 11 cm. x 18 cm. 176 pp, bibliography.
"It seems that within a very few years of the publication of the Fama [1614] some people had drawn the conclusion that there was a connection between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, for as early as 1638 the following lines occur in Adamson's Muses Threnody.
For what we do pressage is not in grosse,
For we be brethren of the Rosie Crosse;
We have the Mason Word and second sight
Things for to come we can foretell aright.
I think it is of some significance that this quotation comes from a Scot who was himself probably a Freemason." [p. 20.]
Further masonic references to Wentworth Little, Eliphas Levi, Westcott, Theosophy, Crowley and the Golden Dawn appear through to page 57.
"The Ordo Templi Orientis, founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by a German high-grade freemason and occultist named Karl Kellner, was the last of a long line of allegedly Templar organizations, and, like its predecessors, its origins are a little mysterious." [p. 94.]
"The outbreak of the War in 1914 seems to have taken both the Felkins [Dr. Robert William Felkin and Harriet] and their astral teachers by surprise — for the former were still in Germany in August 1914 (as usual they had been visiting Rosicrucian Temples), and only managed to get out of that country with the aid of their high-grade masonic friends." [p. 103.]
"J.S.M. Ward, a bogus Bishop who had at one time been an important official of the Federation of British Industries, who had written some quite good but far-fetched books on masonry, and who ran a peculiar religious-cum-occult community called the Abbey of Christ the King, at first near St Albans in England and later in Cyprus where [Gerald B.] Gardner met him." [p. 142.]
Saint Germain on Alchemy
recorded by Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Corwin Springs, MT : Summit University Press, 1985, 1993. ISBN: 0-916766-68-3.
The Prophets purport to channel the thoughts of the Italian adventurer, the Count de Saint Germain (c.1710 - 1783). Saint Germain claimed to hold the highest rank in Freemasonry, to be over five hundred years old and to possess the power to produce pure diamonds from carbon. He also claimed to be immortal.
According to this book, Saint Germain "formed secret societies, [and] was a leading figure in the Rosicrucians, Freemasons and Knights Templar of the period." [p. xiv.] "In a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he, 'the mysterious old professor,' inspired the designing of the flag. Throughout the Revolution he overshadowed General George Washington and when the time came annointed the Master Mason the first president of the United States of America." [p. xxix.] In a chapter entitled The Mystical Origins of the United States of America, many references to Freemasonry, including an illustration of the masonic square and compasses, can be found. "Secret societies, such as the guilds, Knights Templars, the Rosicrucians, and the Masons were repositories for the ancient, sacred mystery teachings that were handed down to initiates throughout history." [p. 114.] They erroneously claim "...nearly all the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were Masons." [p. 122.] "According to Alfred Dodd and other authorities, in 1580, at the age of twenty, [Francis] Bacon secretly founded the first Rosicrucian Brotherhood, the Rosicrosse Literary society, and the first Lodge of the Free and Accepted or Speculative Masons." [p. 124.] "For it was Saint Germain who embodied as the 'Christ-bearer colonizer,' Christopher Columbus, and as the founder of Freemasonry, Francis Bacon." [p. 137.]
The following three quotes illustrate the lack of real research in this book:
"The Masonic third degree is the allegorical crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Hiram Abiff, the teacher, or guru, who is analogous to Christ. [p. 125.]
"The gift of that name [I am that I am] —the Lost Word of Masonry—was the dispensation for the twelve tribes, who were destined to establish peace in America through their realization of the inner Christ consciousness, or the Masonic Hiram Abiff as the archetype of each one’s Real Self—the mediator between the soul and the universal Spirit." [p. 128.]
"Estimates vary, but as many as fifty-three of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons. All but five of the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention were Masons. All the leading generals in the Continental Army were Masons." [p. 131.]
The Secret Hope of the Confederacy
Tom Chaffin
New York : Hill & Yang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8090-9512-4 .
Background: The Confederate-built H. L. Hunley became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy vessel when she torpedoed the 1240-ton USS Housatonic off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, on February 17, 1864. The sub and her eight-man crew, captained by George E. Dixon, failed to return to port after the attack. Her fate remained a mystery for 131 years until she was found at the bottom of Charleston Harbor in 1995 and recovered in 2000.

"George Dixon's friend and executor of his estate Henry Willey successfully petitioned Mobile's probate court in February 1866 for permission to sell off the worldly possessions that Dixon left behind. Those items included various Masonic books, a flannel coat, a leather valise, a leather trunk, and Dixon's Confederate Army officer's uniform." [p. 205.]
Sex in History
Reay Tannahall
London : Shere Books Ltd, 1989. ISBN: 0 7474 0522 0.
'It is occasionally argued that, to begin with, circumcision was used as a mark of the tribe, a sign that would distinguish the children of Israel from their polytheistic neighbors; if so, it was a singularly inconvenient one in a fully clothed society where "indecent exposure" was a cardinal sin. Nor did it permit evasion or denial of race when the circumcised fell into the hands of enemies. Something like the tikka mark of the Hindus, the sprig of herb stuck in a Highlander’s bonnet, or the characteristic handshake of the Masonic order, would have been a more satisfactory recognition symbol.' [p. 58.]
"It was the old international conspiracy theory — usually applied to Jews, but also, at various times, to such sects as Freemasons and Rosicrucians...." [p. 374.]
'In 1906 Maximilian Harden, publisher of the Berlin periodical Die Zukunft, decided to open everyone's eyes to the danger of a Urnings' [aristocratic homosexuals] alliance. These people formed, he said, "a camradeship which is stronger than that of the monastic orders or of Freemasonry, which grips tighter and makes a link across all the walls of creed, state, and class, which unites the most remote, the most foreign, in a fraternal league of offense and defence.' [p. 374.]
Sherman: A Soldier's Life
Lee Kennett
New York : HarperCollins Perennial, 2001. ISBN : 978-0-06-093074-5.
In the spring of 1829 Judge Sherman [Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman's father] was forty-one years old. He was holding court in the town of Lebanon on June 18 when he was suddenly taken ill. Friends sent to Cincinnati for the best medical help and dispatched an express messenger to Lancaster, a hundred miles away. As soon as she got word Mary Sherman started to Lebanon by coach. She had gone about halfway when a second messenger met her with word that her husband was dead.
For Charles Sherman's widow and children [nine-year-old William and ten siblings] 1829 was a watershed year. Family and friends stepped in to help; money was taken up, and the Masons were particularly helpful. [p. 8-9]
Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora
Lynn Panl
New York : Kodansha Globe, 1997. ISBN : 9781568360324 Kodansha Globe Series Volume: no. 197. 432 p.
In describing the misnamed Chinese Freemasons : "The arcanum of freemasonry — secret signs, passwords, initiation ritual, symbolisms, oaths, and other form of hocus-pocus — had its fascinations and no doubt engendered romantic notions." [p. 20.]
Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea
Noah Andre Trudeau
New York: HarperCollins, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-059868-6
In the late autumn of 1864, in the closing months of the US Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman led a force of 62,000 Union troops on a five-week march across central Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah. Engaging in a scorched-earth policy, his army burned or demolished an estimated $200 million of public and private property, leaving a swath of destruction nearly 80 kilometres wide and 500 kilometres long.

Emma High's resourceful mother produced her husband's Masonic apron to back her request for help from any society member in the group of soldiers outside her home [in Madison, Georgia]. An officer stepped forward, took charge, and posted a guard." (page 141)

"Also on the target was Park's Mill. [....] The mill owner's wife played the Mason card, which secured a guard for her residence, though her smokehouse was emptied by the hungry Federals." (page 154)

Spy Catcher
Peter Wright
Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1987. ISBN : 0-7736-7183-8 489pp.
"Just wanted to have a chat — a few personal details, that sort of thing," he said, giving me a distinctive Masonic handshake. I realized then why my father, who was also a Mason, had obliquely raised joining the brotherhood when I first discussed with him working for MI5 full-time. [pp. 41-42.]
"Are you a Freemason?" she asked me almost as soon as I joined her in her office.
"No," I replied, "and I don't approve of it."
"I didn't think you looked like one, but you'd better join if you want to be a success in this place." she told me darkly. [p. 232.]
Stealing Lincoln's Body
Thomas J. Craughwell
Belknap Press, 2007. ISBN : 9780674030398.
"While the pageantry and the mystery of the Odd Fellows or the Freemasons were, in part, inspiration for the Lincoln Guard of Honor, one important factor set Power's group apart — they actually had a secret worth keeping." [p. 164.]
Studies in Seventeenth-century English Literature, History and Bibliography
J.M. Blum, "A German Jesuit and His Anglican Readers: The Case of Jeremiah Drexelius,"
edited by Gerardus Antonius Maria Janssens and F.G.A.M. Aarts,
Amsterdam : Rodopi B.V., 1984, Costerus. New Series ; vol. 46. isbn 90-6203-736-4. p. 48
"He [Samber] went to the English College Rome in 1705, but left there a year later to enter upon a very chequered life as hack writer, renegade Freemason, renegade Catholic and pornographer. He exploited his masonic connections in order to make money by first courting the favour of his wealthier brethren and by later ridiculing them. He made use of his Catholic background and education in a variety of ways; his translation of Roma Illustrata testifies to his knowledge of Rome and of Catholic art; his adaptation of Drexel to his knowledge of Catholic devotional stuff and its attraction among English non-Catholics; and his translation of Venus in the Cloister to his shrewd eye for the contemporary interest in smutty stories about the secrets of the convent. It is a nice irony that his role in Edmund Curll's publication of the latter book is Samber's only literary activity that has been noticed in the 20th century."

[Robert Samber is known to masonic students as the author of Long Livers... and his claimed authorship of Albert-Henri de Sallengre's In Praise of Drunkenness. Further notes can be found in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum vol xi (1898).
Sultana
Alan Huffman
Smithsonian Books / Harper-Collins, 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-147054-7. p. 148.
From the prison diary of Pvt. Samuel Melvin, a 20-year-old Union soldier captured in Virginia during the US Civil War and held at Andersonville, the notorious Confederate military prison in Macon County, Georgia. He died of dysentery four months into his captivity and was buried there.

July 3 [1864] : Only think, tomorrow is the immortal 4th. If I were only in Boston my joy would be unspeakable. I can't imagine the joy if Dow and I were there, free and accepted, in all things as well as Masonry.
Tallyrand, Betrayer and Savior of France
Patrick Wright
London : John Murray, 2007. hc 436pp. p. 33, 357.
Charles-Maurice, Prince de Tallyrand's possible membership in Freemasonry is noted, with footnote citation. On page 43 François de la Rouchefoucauld, duc de Liancourt is, curiously styled "Grand Master" of the royal wardrobe, while on page 357 the duc d'Orlèans is equally curiously styled as grand master of "France's Grand-Orient lodge".
Tank
Patrick Wright
New York : Viking / The Penguin Group, 2002. ISBN: 0-670-03070-8 hc, 499 pp. p. 179
"Fuller opposed the new mood and, of course, fulminated against all its manifestations. Condemning the idea of 'peace' as an inane and effectively pro-Soviet fantasy, he insisted that war, far from being an unnatural evil, had its roots deep in the social and economic organization of the world and could therefore be both 'a moral force, or deeper still, a spiritual force' and a 'rightful instrument of progress'. (78) He dismissed the League of Nations as a Bolshevik front and 'a Judaic-Masonic Ideal' (79) and its Geneva disarmament conference as 'an immense hypocritical swindle'. (80)"
From Notes:
78 Fuller First of the League Wars, pp. 301 and 295.
79 Fuller Towards Armageddon, p 17.
80 Fuller First of the League Wars, p. 242. [John Frederick Charles Fuller (1878-1966)]
The Third Reich - A New History
Michael Burleigh
New York : Hill and Wang, 2000. hc 995 pp.
"The embryonic SD was reliant on unpaid volunteers, whose enthusiasms mutated into fixed branches of ideological surveillance. One early recruit brought an archive on Rhineland separatism, while a Russian émigré had a collection on Freemasonry." [p. 180.]
The SD also assumed responsibility for sociological monitoring of opinion, as a surrogate for free expression of public opinion. Reporting on opposition groups was extended to monitoring entire swathes of life, designed to gauge the extent to which the Nazi 'worldview' had made progress among the population. From early December 1939, the digests of these reports were called 'Reports from the Reich'. A 1938 report included what became routine surveys of Freemasonry, whose essentially benign activities have always been a bugbear to the paranoid left and right. It began with a disarming flourish of erudition, outlining the various lodges and national traditions. Organised Freemasonry had been smashed because of its Enlightenment legacy of 'humanity, tolerance and liberalism', and because it was a vehicle for promoting 'Jewish ideas and objectives'. But the remnants were recoalescing, like globules of oil spilled on the floor. There was a Dr Horneffer, giving dangerous lectures on 'Greek philosophy', not to speak of Anthrosophists, Rotarians, Rosicrucians and Theosophists with 'foreign' connections. The report duly recommended that Gestapo colleagues needed to pulverise what had been smashed once already. [pp. 189-90.]
Freemasons were allegedly active in the Party, the Reichsbank and the German railways. Worse, low-level masons, granted an amnesty by the Führer, were abusing his magnanimity to reorganise. Although some appeared to conform with the new dispensation, their 'almost total rejection' of the measures taken against the Jews, attributed to their 'philanthropic training and outlook', was sinister. So were the wider connections. Former Freemasons had many 'social relations' with Jews, 'oppositional Church circles' and 'reactionary associations', so that 'cross connections of a personal nature exist, which have been consolidated by the ideological affinity of both enemy groups'. A museum in Nuremberg was helping to counteract the view that the apron and trowel crowd were pretty innocuous. The SD also had its eyes on international Freemasonry, learnedly unravelling obscure doctrinal rows between the English and French masons, the progress of masonry in Brazil or Uruguay, and its repression in Hungary, Ireland and Poland. It was worrying that most of the French cabinet were masons, not to speak of Roosevelt or the Earl of Harewood. The anti-Nazi activities of the American masons warranted detailed attention.111
"Freemasons were feared by right-wing, clerical France as an occultic force with sinister international English and Jewish connections — the name Rothschild served multiple functions here — and as a corrupt nexus for radical businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers and twenty-five of the thirty-five members of Léon Blum's Popular Front government. In reality, the Freemasons were a more modest lot: liberal anti-clericalism and a dose of rationalist mumbo-jumbo went hand in hand with conviviality, philanthropy, and an old pals' network. The director of the Bibliothèque nationale, Bernard Fay, was appointed 'delegate of the French government to liquidate masonic lodges', with a separate registry of France's fifty thousand Freemasons and a dedicated unit to police them. In October 1940, an exhibition on Freemasonry — the Exposition Maçonnique — was opened at the Petit Palais, attracting over a million visitors in Paris and when it toured the provinces, come to gawp at aprons and triangles and the revealed names of those who really ran things." [p. 471.]
This Loving Darkness: The Cinema and Spanish Writers 1920-1936
Cyril Brian Morris
Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1980, pp. 28-29.
ISBN-10: 9780197134405
A contemporary right-wing Spanish newspaper published a condemnation of Bunuel's and Dali's 1930 film, L'Age d'Or, describing the film as "...the most repulsive corruption of our age ... the new poison which Judaism, Masonry, and rabid, revolutionary sectarianism want to use in order to corrupt the people".
Unbought Spirit: A John Jay Chapman Reader
John Jay Chapman (1862-1933), edited by Richard Stone.
Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press, 1998
The great, terrible, important powers of the world, like social caste and religious denomination, always rest on secrets. A man is born on the wrong side of the street and can therefore never enter into certain drawing rooms, even though he be in every way superior to everyone in those drawing rooms. When you try to find out what the difference is between him and the rest, and why he is accursed, you find that the reason is a secret. It is a secret that a certain kind of straw hat is damnable. Little boys know these things about other little boys. The world is written over with mysterious tramp-language and symbols of masonic hieroglyphics. [p. 62.]
Unregistered proprietary horse racing in Sydney 1888-1942
Wayne Peake
Institution University of Western Sydney : 2004
"Frank Underwood, the freemason chairman of the Canterbury proprietary club, was heavily engaged in rowing before 1900."
Frank Underwood had been a long-time Chairman of the now defunct Canterbury Park Race Club. For the first two years of the race’s existence its name was the Frank Underwood Handicap; in 1947 it was elevated to the Frank Underwood Cup, and it is now called the Listed Winning Edge Presentations Cup. Underwood’s claimed masonic affiliation is neither documented nor given relevance.
Chapter two, "Promotion, administration and financing of unregistered proprietary pony racing," [p. 64.]
View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages. vol iii.
Henry Hallam,
New York : W. J. Widdleton, Publisher, 1872. [p. 339.]
"The curious subject of freemasonry has unfortunately been treated only by panegyrists or calumniators, both equally mendacious. I do not wish to pry into the mysteries of the craft; but it would be interesting to know more of their history during the period when they were literally architects. They are charged by an act of parliament. 3 II. VI. c. i., with fixing the price of their labor in their annual chapters, contrary to the statute of laborers, and such chapters are consequently prohibited. This is their first persecution ; they have since undergone others, and are perhaps reserved for still more. It is remarkable, that masons were never legally incorporated, like other traders ; their bond of union being stronger than any charter. The article Masonry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica is worth reading."
The Volume Library, A Concise, Graded Repository of Practical and Cultural Knowledge Designed for both Instruction and Reference
Henry W. Ruoff, editor-in-chief.
Chicago : The W.E. Richardson Company, 1912. 485 (48), xviii pp. 21 cm. x 29 cm. hc. p. 84
College Fraternities. The college fraternities antedate all secret societies in America except Freemasonry. They reach back to Phi Beta Kappa, founded as a secret literary society at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va., Dec. 5, 1776. It was a radical departure from the open or public Latin-named literary or debating clubs which formed so marked a part of American college life late in the eighteenth century and during much of the nineteenth century. Its inspiration has never been satisfactorily explained, but with three Greek letters for a name (Philosophia Biou Kybernetes) and a secret sign and grip, it became the parent of this type of American fraternity life in the colleges. In 1831, in response to the anti-Masonry agitation, Phi Beta Kappa abandoned its secret character, and has since then spread to a large number of American collegiate institutions, where membership in it for many years has been merely an indication of high scholarship attained.
Rituals of college fraternities did not amount to much prior to 1831, when the anti-Masonic agitation had had time to exploit the subject. Beginning with the revival in general secret-society life, which came as the reverse movement of that pendulum, the Greek-letter fraternities absorbed into the fabrics of their ceremonials much that is Masonic, the David and Jonathan, and Robin Hood, and Druidic and chivalric legends, in some instances with a skill which not infrequently betrayed the work of a master hand.
It should be noted that among the larger universities Princeton is the only one at which there are no Greek-letter fraternities. At Yale the secret-society system differs from that at almost every other like institution, with local fraternities of its own for sophomores and for seniors (the latter Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf's Head, and the new Elihu Club), and the three historic Greek-letter societies, Alpa Delta Phi, Psi Upsilon, and Delta Kappa Epsilon, as the junior year stepping-stones to "Bones," "Keys," Wolf's Head, and Elihu.
Vancouver the way it was
Michael Kluckner
North Vancouver : Whitecaps Books Ltd., 1986 [1984]. ISBN : 0-920620-56-6
"The first substantial commercial building was erected across from Bell's store by Frank Bowser for the Bank of North America (it now houses the Bank of Montreal), A. C. Bruce, a realtor in an adjoining building to the south, announced that "Kerrisdale—,Sunny Southern Slope" was "The Place for your Permanent Home." A few doors west along 41st Avenue was the Masonic Hall, also called the "Jolly Bachelors' Hall" [p. 164.]
Washington: A Life
Ron Chernow
New York : The Penguin Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59420-266-7
On his seemingly inexorable rise in the world, Washington proved no less resourceful in the social sphere. In September 1752 a new Masonic lodge was convened in Fredericksburg, and two months later Washington was inducted as one of its first apprentices. Within a year he progressed swiftly through the ranks to become a Master Mason. We don't know how Washington reacted to the fraternal group's arcane rituals and occult signs. Still a relatively young movement, Freemasonry had been founded in London in 1717, drawing its symbols from the squares and compasses of masons' guilds. While American Masons preached the Enlightenment ideals of universal brotherhood and equality, they discarded the anticlerical bent of their European brethren. Washington believed devoutly in the group's high-minded values. He attended lodge meetings sporadically, came to own two Masonic aprons, walked in Masonic processions, and was even painted in full Masonic regalia during his second term as president. Repeatedly throughout his career, he paid tribute to the movement. "So far as I am acquainted with the principles and doctrines of Free Masonry," he said toward the end of his life, "I conceive it to be founded in benevolence and to be exercised only for the good of Mankind." On another occasion, he stated that the purpose of Freemasonry was to "enlarge the sphere of social happiness" and "to promote the happiness of the human race." Whatever credence he gave to Masonic ideals, the young George Washington, a born joiner, was likely drawn to the group as a convivial place to hobnob and expand his social contacts. [p. 27-28.]
William Lloyd Garrison
John Jay Chapman
New York : Moffat, Yard And Company, 1913
Now the South sincerely believed that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had morally bound the North not to talk about slavery in private conversation, and not to treat the negro as a human being. The South had succeeded in imposing this conviction upon the whole North.
This paralysis of dumbness and of fear touched everyone. It was not exactly fear, either, but a sort of subtle freemasonry, a secret belief that nothing must be disturbed. The Southerners lived in sincere terror of slave uprisings—and they managed to convey a mysterious tremor to the North upon the subject. [p. 25.]
Worldly Acts and Sentient Things: The Persistence of Agency from Stein to DeLillo
Robert Chodat
Cornell University Press, 2008. 272p.
"Or code: a street preacher in 1951 Harlem describes the Freemason and Rosicrucian symbolism of the dollar bill, announcing that he is "getting closer everyday to breaking the code"(U354) just as Caro Strasser, Klara Sax's neighbor and husband-to-be in the 1970s, says that money "is becoming very esoteric", a "higher kind of intelligence" made of "waves and codes" (U386). [p. 202]
Yakuza, Japan’s Criminal Underworld
David E. Kaplan and Alec DubroReay Tannahall
Berkley : University of Californoia Press, 2003. ISBN : 0-520-21562-1. pb. 400 p. with index.
Back cover quote: "Blend the Mafia with the Masons. Let them simmer awhile, then fold in the Ku Klux Klan and you'll have the Yakuza." San Jose Mercury News
Periodicals Λ
Lapham's Quarterly (2016)
Following an excerpt from Giacomo Casanova's autobiography regarding gambling, the following biographical note is appended:
After taking a trip to Paris, Dresden, Vienna, and Prague, he returned to Venice in 1755 and was imprisoned "for magic and for freemasonry."
"1762: Sulzbach / Overtime Payout", Lapham's Quarterly, vol. ii no. 3 (Summer 2016) p. 179.
Globe and Mail (2021)
Sarah Berman is an investigative journalist based in Vancouver and the author of Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM. Raniere, found guilty of sex trafficking, wire fraud, racketeering, identity theft and sexually exploiting a child, was sentenced to 120 years in prison in October, 2020.
Unfortunately, Berman finds an undefined similarity between this cult and Freemasonry:
"The group went by many names and descriptions, among them the broken Latin handle Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS. It was a vow, a sorority, a secret society like the Freemasons, an elite talent agency or a "badass bitch bootcamp.""

"Mr. Raniere's status as the "grandmaster" overseeing the operation was hidden and outright denied to everyone but his most loyal fixers."

"NXIVM wasn't a 'sex cult,' it was about power and control," by Sarah Berman. Contributed to The Globe and Mail, published 16 April 2021. theglobeandmail.com Accessed 2021/04/26.
Newark Daily Advocate (1900)
"The penalty for treachery was, of course, death, inflicted by one or more members chosen for the mission. as is the custom with the Russian nihilists. Like the Freemasons, the brethren were able to make themselves known to each other by secret signs and passwords and could thus communicate among a crowd without exciting suspicion. One of their signs was the picking up an object with three fingers, signifying the 'three united' of the Triads."
"Secret Orders in China", Newark Daily Advocate, Saturday, 30 June 1900, p. 11.
Vancouver Sun (2023)
In a newspaper article about a nurse who is being disciplined for expressing her opinions, the author makes a reference to the persecution of Freemasonry.
"In the 14th century the Spanish Inquisition began targeting "conversos," Jews who had converted to Catholicism but were believed to be still practising Judaism in secret. Of course, that wasn't enough. To protect the faith - whether it be Catholicism or wokeism - you have to ensure the orthodoxy is widespread and enforced. So the Inquisition then went after moriscos (Muslims who had converted), and then Lutherans, and then Freemasons. There was always a target."
"Opinion. B.C. nurse Amy Hamm is being persecuted for believing in biology. Feminism used to be a complimentary word, now it's a slur". Michael Higgins, Published Jan 23, 2023 vancouversun.com [accessed 2023/01/24]
Perfomance Λ
Lenny Bruce Live at the Curran Theatre (1961)
Lenny Bruce (1925/10/13-1966/08/03) gave a three hour and seven minute concert at San Francisco's Curran Theatre less than two weeks after his 8 November 1961 arrest for obscenity. Near the beginning of his performance, he makes two references to Freemasonry. Fantasy Records 34201-1(1971).
Radio Λ
Coast to Coast (2004)
A nationally sindicated political call-in talk show, Coast to Coast AM, broadcast on the 50,000-watt station, KDWN in Las Vegas, Nevada, made several references to Freemasonry.
Television Λ
Cops Under Fire (2008)
In one sequence from this reality television show, a deputy sheriff's teenage son in Willoughby, Ohio speeds off after being pulled over for stealing from people's mailboxes.
Filmed on a snowy day in December 2002, after the chase ends with the teenager's vehicle spinning off the road, the narrator says:
"These kids won't be going straight to jail however. But that's not because of any favoritism or, possibly, Dad's being in the masons, but because they both need to spend a lot of time in hospital first." [09:28:31]
The Fuzz! Cops Under Fire. youtube Uploaded by CopsCarsandCrashes on Nov 10, 2008
Global News Hour at 6 BC
As part of a news segment in Vancouver, BC, regarding a local restarant owner who refused to follow the BC Health Office COVID guide, one interviewee is noted:"One of the speakers at the rally was this women, a regular attendee of COVID protest rallies. Friday, she told us we need to investigate the role of the Freemasons in the lockdowns."
globalnews.ca Accessed 2021/04/24.
Shipping Wars (2012)
Shipper, Jarrett Joyce wins the bid to ship a new mini 18-wheeler for the Shriners of Khedive Temple in North Carolina. Executive producer: Jonathan Nowzaradan; co-executive producers: Elaine Frontain Bryant, Neil A. Cohen, Graham Davidson, Jeff Keels, David McKillop, Tom Mireles. Camera setup: Ryan Benton Miller. Starring: Roy Garber, Marc Springer, Jennifer Brennan, Jarrett Joyce, Christopher Hanna, Robbie Welsh. : "Jennifer's Arch" (Season 1, Episode 8)31 January 2012, Colour, Mono, 22 min., Megalomedia, A&E.

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