What? Masonry is not a secret society?
It holds secret initiations inside buildings it calls a temple. It has secret passwords, handshakes and signs that only its members know. And those signs are used to advantage in public life, because masons are holden to advance and even protect other brother masons that show those signs. They also take oaths of secrecy. They not only teach about eastern religious traditions, but also traditions involving Solomon's temple and it's building and religous history of those times. And not too long ago, in a Lodge in (NY?), there was a handgun accident during one of the initiations. Earlier in American history, around the 1900's, there was a sanctioned murder involving a certain lodge that came to light in the U.S., and masonry became very unpopular in America during that era.
For those truly interested in learning more, I highly recommend the book 'Proofs Of A Conspiracy' by the English naturalist John Robison (1789). John Robison was an ENGLISH MASON.
I've got relatives that were/are masons, and I know several folks that are masons. And those are good people down at heart, and quite a few are Christians. The reason is, they are not part of the higher levels of masonry, what's known as the "greater mysteries". Most masons never reach the higher degrees, it's very selective.
What masonry really is, is a "kitty" at the lower levels, while being a "dragon" at the higher levels.
John Robison wrote his work 'Proofs Of A Conspiracy' to let OTHER MASONS know how continental masonry was being taken over at the higher levels by a secret fraternity called the Illuminati, a fraternity a man named Adam Weishaupt formed in 17th century Bavaria. Weishaupt was a Jewish professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt University.
Robison said there are 3 original degrees in English masonry, and that the rest of the lodges of Europe of continental masonry (the continent of Europe) grew out of English masonry. But in his days something was happenning, another group was perverting the original lodges, adding to and seeking to take them over, bringing in occult doctrines and eastern mysticism ideas. Robison documented in his book the Illuminati order's movement among the European lodges in his era from the secret papers the Bavarian police got off one of Weishaupt's dead agents. Within those documents was a master plan to overthrow the governments of Europe, and the Christian Churches in Europe, including the European Monarchs. Because of the discovery of those Illuminati documents, the Illuminati order was banned in Europe by all governments and monarchs. Robison documented Weishaupt saying that if his order were ever discovered publically, it would then go ten times deeper into secrecy thereafter.
John Robison's book is one of only two documented works revealing the Illuminati order, and it's attempt to overtake the high levels of European masonry. The other work was written in the same era by the Abbe Barruel, and the two authors did not know each other.
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