The Secret World of the Freemasons
by Tim Sedoulous
Freemasonry is the World's most famous and successful fraternity
With millions of members spread right across the globe, the organization is well known for tis veilf of secrecy as for its impressive roster of historical members.
The Secret World of the Freemasons takes a fascinating look inside this enigmatic institytion and the trial facing te ancient order as it approaches the challenges of the twenty-first century. With a detailed examination of the visible structure of International Freemasonry ans the myths and legends that surround it, the book examines the true meaning of Freemasonry -its mythological and real history, its context, and the symbolism and philosophy that illuminate every aspect of the Freemasonry Craft. Tracking the conditions, symbolism, relics and rituals from the Knights Templar to today's Freemasons who pledge to abide by the time -honoured tenets of morality, charit and loyalty. The Secret World of the Freemasons reveals the true purposes of this ancient secret society... Tim Dedopulos is an anthropoligist, esoteric reseacher and historian, with well over a score of books to his name, including Kabbalah amd wizards (Carlton Books). He has been studying the subject of Freemasonry ever since discovering that his grandfather was a 33=degree Master Mason and former Worshipful Master of the island of Corfu in Greece....
What is Freemasonry?
Rumours and legends have dogged Freemasonry since its inception. Everyonr uoi talk to seems to have a dificult take,,,
Itsa secret conspiracy of power that rules the world...
No, it's the inheritor of the wealth amd mysteries of the Knights Templar..
A club to gove harmless old men something to do during the week..
A satanic conspiracy to destroy mankind for ever...
A hugh... corrupt... old boy's network...
The guardian of great ocult secrets ...
A blasphemous religion..
One big charity fund-raising group..
A blasphemous religion....
.The guardian of great occult secrets...
There are a thousand theories, but the truth is something altogether stranger and more wonrous...
The official traditional answer- the one you will probably get if you go and ask a Grand Lodge about the Craft - is that Freemasonry is " a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illuminated symbols". There is no deying that the answer sounds evocative, but what does it mean and, more importantly, what does it imply? At its simplest level, reemasonry is one of the wrold's oldest surviving secular farernal societies. Although it is specifically not religious, its members are concerned with developing themselves morally and spiritually in order to become better people... Over the course of their time as members, they are taught the society's plays, These are ancient words, actions and settings, and are exlained through allegorical reference to the trappings of stonemasons' craft, particularly its tools and customs.. The single most crucial qualification required to become a Freemason is that you have to beleive in God, or some other supreme being deity... It doesn't matter what religion you follow, or how dedicated you are to it.. Allbeleif systems are welcome into Freemasonry, even home-brewed ones, and how strictly you follow your religion's dictates is left entirely up to your own conscience...The important thing is that you have faith is a supreme being. The reason should be obvious - if you don't believe that there is a spiritual side of life, you can't genuinely claim to be interested in your spiritual development, and so the whole thing would be a bit pointless for you.... Apart from that, what you believe absolutely doesn't matter. Freemasonry never pries into a member's religion - in fact , all religios discussion is utterly forbidden during Masonic meetings, as it political debate,,Such matters are deeply held personal issues and are likely to prove divisive. In an organizattion that seeks members of good repute from all races, religions and creeds, avoiding political and religious clashes in vital....There is, of c ourse, far more to Freemasonry than just a series of moral and spiritual teachings... There are a number of other "sides' to Freemasonry that arise from its core purpose... One of the most important of these is that Freemasonry is a very charitable organization. For in 1994, it is estimated that the collective Grand Lodges and their constituent memebers across the USA donated a sum of $625 million to national and local charitable caused alone, with perhaps as much as an additional $400 mllion going to international funds.. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, as great many Masons volunteer their time.. The masonic Service Association, for example, ensures that every Veteran's Administration Hospital in A merica has a Masonic volunteer working with patients - half a million hours worth of work a year...By comparison in Detroit a smany as athousand local masons regularily turn out as part of the efforts to help patrol the city on "Devils Night". 30th October, to try and prevent the annual epidemic of fires and looting associated with tha night... Their efforts have kept their assigned territory of the city entirely clear of damage for several years... InBritain, the Craft;s members contribute more than £3 million annually to national and international - non-Masonic - charitable causes, ranging from the hospice movement and the Prince's Trust to Alzheim r;s research and housing for disadvantaged innrcity chidren.. In addition each lodge contributes toward local non-Masonic charities...
Stephen Knight the author of the Brotherhood who died aged 33 ......18 months after publishing his book
..... Had Stephen Knight lived, Stephen Knight would have written his own sequel. Instead Martin Short stepped, almost literally, into a dead ma's shoes.. Martin Short's tracked down many of Stephen Knight's sources and read hundreds of letters sent in response to Stephen Knight's book, which were never pursued because of illness. More than three years after Stephen Knight's death, fan mail still pours in for Stephen ... Knight from all over the world...
A dramatic moment during Freemason third degree ceremony
Inside The Brotherhood –
Explosive Secrets of the Freemasons
by Martin Short
Contents:
Acknowledgemtns P 7
Foreward P 9
Intorduction: The Brotherhood and Its Aftermath P 18
Part One: Ritual or Religion?
1. Ritual Poison P 45
2. Whatever Happened to Jsus? P 60
3. Cloth and Apron, Cross and Square P 81
4. Jahbulon - the sacred Word to Keep P 90
5. Masonic Light, resurrection and Gnosis P 106
6. Obelisks and Egypt P 115
7. Sorcery, Sex, Satan and Skills P 124
8. St Peter's Squared P 149
. PART TWO: Who are the Masons?
9. Figuring the Facts P 169
10. A Mechanism of Social Control? P 149
PART THREE: Freemasons and the Police
11. The Manor of St James Mason Lodge P 195
12. The Fall and Fall of Brian Woolard P 205
13. The meaning of the Manor P 236
14. The Phoenix P 258
15. A Criminal Intelligence P 261
16. A Firm in a Firm: Freemasonry and Police Corruption P 268
17. Master of the City P 291
18. A column of Mutual Defence P 300
19. The Encompassing of John Stalker P 312
20. Parrish's Council P 351
21. Tough at the Top P 361
PART FOUR: Masonic Activities
22. Judging by Results P 369
23. Masonic Justicea P 381
The Isle of Wight has sixteen or more Freemason Lodges which claim over 1,500 members.. of a total population of about 110,000 in 1993 and if we discount unlikely Masonic recruiting material (men under 25, the poor, districts and most inmates in Albany and Parkhurst jails) the ratio comes down to one in ten being Freemasons on the Isle of Wight...most are in business, local government, the police and the law, so it follows that a very large percentage of all island business goes through Masonic hands....a local nightclub owner who was not a Freemason, one Derek Smith was forced to shut down, lost his license and had to sell his nightclub closed after fighting a powerful Freemason police inspector Gerald Marsh and a powerful Freemason Justice...other people had been battling with Isle of Wight masons for years, especially over widespread abuse of licensing laws by masonic publicans... one of them were doing a roaring after-hours trade, damaging the legitimate business of a neighbouring landlord who had no Masonic Protection and thus had to operate within the law....There is no doubt that throughout Britain Freemasonry is very strong on 'the Bench' ( the collective term for magistrates and licensing justices)...in 1973 a survey in one provincial city discovered that 29 out of 43 magistrates were Freemasons or Rotarians.. Anyone's chance of appearing before a Mason-free slate of three magistrates are almost nil - unless all of them are women...For almost 25 years Ian Morton worked as an administrator in Derbyshire magistrates' courts .. his father was a mason and Morton was perfect Mason material...he never joined because what he saw going on at the courts was more than enough to put him off joining Freemasonry... he states :..'.. All this stuff about Masonic signals may well be true, but in my experience Masons aren't let off in court.. They don't even get into court!.... We used to see all the police files and we could never understand why some people were prosecuted and others were not; why working-class men under thirty were breathalysed, but not professional people; why boys on 125 Yamaha bikes were done for speeding but older men driving rolls-Royces or Jaguars..Over many years we found out who the Freemasons were, and that's when all these decisions made sense...' Morton's wife, Rae, used to be married to a Mason and came to understand how the Freemason Craft justified its covert control of so much of British society, ..'I was always told Freemasonry was "the Benevolent Mafia" and that "we know best". When I showed the couple a Derbyshire Masonic Yearbook, they identified not only a large number of JP's, but also many justice's clerks, councilors, policemen, solicitors and estate agents..This only reinforced Ian Morton's opinions which had been expressed two years earlier in a letter published in a local newspaper...'...it is high time that Freemasons were obliged to state their interests and the mere fact that they are reluctant to do so is more than adequate reason to demand that they do... Anyone in or standing for public office should be prepared to be open, as to their interests and affiliations..That is all that is being asked..if a list is successfully completed, it must be published..anything less would be an insult..'
Further evidence of how Freemasonry operates in magistrates's courts come from the far north of England. A Justice of the Peace had read The Brotherhood and wrote to offer his own experiences about life on the Bench..In later conversations he asked me not to name him in this book, for obvious reasons...' There are some sixy JP's on our bench and vacancies come up most years.. They are filled on the advice of a small group of magistrates who are known as the `lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee for the area. To my surprise I was asked to go on this committee - I was the first Catholic chosen for many years...what I saw going on in the committee astonished me..For a start, no one was meant to serve on it for more than six years, but one man had been there for more than twelve years...I also noticed the same tow men were constantly nominating people to fill the vacancies. I was amazed at their range of acquaintances, people from all walks of life, and all of them thoroughly competent. They were OK in themselves. It was the way they came to out attention which was obnoxious.. I soon found out that the two men who nominated them all, and the man who had served more than 12 years on the committee, were all Freemasons..Their whole operation was subtle and well-planned. even the women they nominated turned out to be wives of Freemasons!..Although our Bench was very efficient, the `lord Chancellor's representative came to tell us that out appointments were getting out of balance..There were too many teachers and too many conservatives..this encouraged me to use my power of veto..All you have to do to stop the appointment of a new JP is to say you object...No one may ask why - you simply say so. Whenever the two Masons pushed his luck by putting up too many of their friends I would say, ' I cannot support this nomination.' They got the message after a while and cut down on their offers..
The coroners' court is another place where Masons often preside..This merely reflects Masonic dominance in the professions from which coroners are selected: the law and medicine..
24. The Cotton Inheritance P 391
25. Masonic Light in Town Halls P 406
26. London Belongs to Them (Masons) P 432
No where in Britain has the battle over Freemasonry been fought more bitterly than on London;s local councils.. It is not always Labour versus Conservative, the roughest fights have broke out between rival factions with the Labour parties which have rulles moat inner London Boroughs for most of the century... For Generations Freemsonry was not an issue in London's town halls..Nobody dared raise it because of on strak truth: the power-brokers in both main parties were Masons and usually belonged to the same lodge..Many London Lodges were created especially do elected councillors and full-time officia`ls could socialize togther off-duty..The Masonic Lodges were often named after the boroughs themselves....The Wandsworth Borough Council Lodge (no. 2979). Founded in 1903 survived a 1970 corruption scandal which revealed long-standing Masinic bonds between Labour Sydney sporle and Ronald ash, his Conservative opposite number. ash was not implicated in any crime but Sporle was later jailed for six years for corruption in the firs of the 'Poulson trials.... Undaunted, the Wandsworth Borough Council Lodge (no. 2979) continued to bridge Wandsworth's party divide, as an underground newspaper Lower Down proved in October 1976, whne it surreptionsly potographed numerous male personages arriving at a `masonic suite in Clapham Junction, clad in Dinner jackets, bow ties and carrying regalia cases.. That evenimg they were installing the new lodge master:...'...Included in their number were Norman B, white, the Chief Executive; Clir Dennis Mallam, Leader of the Tory Minority; Councillor Maurice Heaster, Tory Whip; Tory Councillor Michael Chartres; ex-mayor, Councillor Jimmy Hill, ex-council solicitor Harry Sargent; plus a number of other Council officers and ocal notables...Freemasonry attempts to be a secret society..members of Masonic Lodges are sworn to give primary allegiance to their Masonic brethren, and to eep secret all the doings of their order.. It is right that officers and elected members of our Council, whose first duty should be to the public, should belong to an organization that requires this of them? ..There are a number of ex-emplyees of the Council who reeived the cold shoulder from their colleagues for refusing to join the Lodge; they are only too ready to identify those who are 'on the square', and tell some hair-raising stories of what 'they' get up to.. And they don't mean performing silly rites and ceremonies or rolling on te carpet in silly aprons... They allude to much more siniser goings-on..The implicaion is that the Freemasons constitute a significant, mainly non-elected elite within our Corporation...'
Powerful stuff!!! .... Yet Lower Down never published the lowdown because it was shut down soon afterwards...At the time `i was making a television programme about Freemasonry, so I tried ot find these folk who were 'only too ready' to tell 'hair-rasing stories'....
27. Every Breath You Take P 449
28. A Masonic Education P 462
29. What's Up Doc? P 480
30. Squaring te Square Mile P 486
31. The Regimental Square P 502
32. Yor Masonic Public Servant P 517
33. Spooks in Aprons P 532
34. The Tory Party in Aprons? P 564
PART FIVE: Masonic Troubles
35. Plain Tales of the `Lodge P 589
36. Falling Masonry P 595
37. Charity Begins at Home P 607
38. The Destruction of arthur Edmonds P 627
39. The Ladies - God Bless Them! P 641
Conclusion: The emedy P 658
Notes P 674
Index P 689
In the Midland Bank the Lodge seemed composed entirely of senior managers.. I have spotted no lower level staff, no messengers or maintenance men and of course no women in the Midland Bank being Freemasons and have generally discovered that (a) most bank mangers are Freemasons, ( b) a non-Mason bank manger may feel must join Freemasonry so as to not to lose business (c) Masonic Bank manager meet at functions, no doubt must talk about their customers over wine...
Freemasonry in Banking In London; Pages 495-499 : Bank of England (lodge No. 263) Lloyds Bank Lodge (Blackhorse of Lombard Street, London -Lodge No. 4155) Midland Bank Lodge ( lodge no. 2946)
Judging by Results: Page 385 and pages 379 to 380-Judges and Masters who are Freemasons....
Bill Rugman in the 1970's accused a High Court Official in his affidavit of acting in a hostile manner owards him:he twice passed his right hand across his right eyebrow as if wiping away some drops of perspiration, butostentatiously ( a well known Freemason sign) Moreover, he did this in the judges vision ( judge Murray-band)..this thought Rugman, was the masonic sign of Grief and Distress. according to the ritual, this has compelling significance: ..' When adversity has visited our Brother, and his calamities call for out aide, we should cheerfully and liberally stretch forth the hand of kindness, to save him from sinking and to releive his necessities...' ... Rugman took his case to the Court of Appeal where three judge re-looks at the case... Lord Hustice Sir Francis Purchas observed, ' If only one or more of these allegaions were to be substantiated they would amount to a serious miscariage of justice and misconduct of the part of the judge.' ,,The Appeal judges had alrady been forced to pay attention to Rugman's Masonic claims because at the outset he had applied for his Appeal to be heard by non-Masonic judges.. He even cited the Royal Masonic Hospital case as a precedent where it was successfully organised for non-Masonic judges to hear the case...Lord Purchas responded that Rugman was in some difficulty because Freemasons swaer an oath not to reveal their membership..This was an extraordinary statemen coming from a Lord Justcie of appel, for Puchas seemed to be saying that soe of his colleages would rather lie than reveal they were Masons..They would place their Masonic oath above thir oath as a judge!.... & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ;
Spooks in Aprons( Freemason Apron): Chapter 33...
... There seems no doubt that there are many Freemasons working for the Spook- secret service organizations such as MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc ,which according to many investigators, past members of MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc and in particular Leroy Flecture Prouty ex-CIA officer in his book, The Secret Team .. MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc is not run and financed by the various governments they purport to represent but are run and financed by a cabal of powerful bankers, financiers, and industrialists like the Rothschild Family, the Rockefella Family and their associates ..however the worrying and scary thing is that the governments which they purport to represent gave give these organization like MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc the full 'Green Light' to commit what every criminal offenses and be involved in any criminal activities which include murder (they call it a license to kill) and the growing, manufacture and supply of most of the illegal drugs around the world which is a muli-trillion pound business with the only people prosecuted for selling, manufacturing and growing illegal drugs being people that are not in their gang or were in their gang and have decided to go their own way...outside the laws on any country that they like without fear of any investigation, prosecution, and/or punishment... all covered up under the secrecy acts and all declared as 'official secret government security business ..members of MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc can simply appear at the scene of a murder or a big drug bust in any country in the world and simply tell the local police that they are in charge of the investigation and stop the local police from doing their normal police work and inquiries.. which seems to often also include telling witnesses what lies to tell to the local police and the courts and what evidence and information to to tell the local police and the courts... so that the final outcome of any court trial and investigation and public media releases that are allowed are completely controlled by MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc.. if MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc do not want certain information being publicized world wide in main stream media outlets such as mainstream newspapers, magazine, TV Net works and Internet web sites..MI5, MI6, CIA, Massad, KGB, ASIO etc simply issue what is called a "D Notice" to all mainstream newspapers, magazine, TV Net works and Internet web sites telling them not to publish a certain story.. this has happened recently with the murder of `scottish and Australian INL News undercover journalist, Thomas Allwood, who was conveniently murdered on the 21st June, 2012 in Broxburn Scotland ...one month before he was due in London's High Court of Justice for a hearing on the 24th July, 2012. before Justice Vos (a well known and well respected Freemason) to have a criminal contempt application Thomas Allwood had issued against David Cameron, the UK prime minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, UK Home Office and Government, UK Border Agency, UK Treasury Solicitors, for deliberately and knowingly preparing and presenting a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency Document to Master Bowles (well known and respected Freemason) London's High Court of Justice that falsely stated that USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty had stated the UK Border Agency Officers that Thomas Allwood had paid him $2,000 to appear in the filming of the pilot of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show being filmed in April-May 2011..when Ronnie Prouty did not say this and in fact told UK Border Agency Officers on the 27th April, 2011 that he was not getting paid to be in the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show filming.. when he was wrongly and falsely arrested for no sensible and/or valid reason by UK Border Agency Officers on the 27th April, 2011 at Heathrow Airport while traveling from Los Angeles-London-Edinburgh for a five day say in Edinburgh before he was due to fly back to Los Angeles.. and held for about 24 hours in detention at Heathrow Airport and the next day placed in hand cuffs and flow back to Los Angeles in hand cuffs on his own return air ticket... the reason why David Cameron, the UK prime minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, UK Home Office and Government, UK Border Agency, UK Treasury Solicitors deliberately and knowingly prepared and presented a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency Document to Master Bowles (well known and respected Freemason) London's High Court of Justice was to convince Master Bowles to strike out a £500 million damages claim against David Cameron, the UK prime minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, UK Home Office and Government, UK Border Agency, in his Masters Chambers, without any hearing for the parties to discuss the letter of request by UK Treasury Solicitors to Master Bowles requesting that he strike out Thomas Allwood's £500 million damages claim against David Cameron, the UK prime minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, UK Home Office and Government, UK Border Agency, in his Masters Chambers, for the damages caused to the filming of the pilot of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show which was due to be used to present to TV Networks in Australia, Europe, UK and the USA to sell the rights to air the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show world wide with an expected yearly income of over £1 billion a year to Thomas Allwood and the INL News Group and their various financiers and investors have financed the development of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show over the last 10 years....it is understood from investigations made that USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty was wrongly arrested BY UK Border Agency Staff on the 27th April, 2011 at Heathrow Airport as a favour done for Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild's all powerful media ground News Corporation and News International who wanted the UK Government to help sabotage the INL News Group's filling of their media opposition .... the INL News Group ... because of the INL News Groups Fringe Shows Have Talent was financially successful this would have assured the INL News Group's financial strength to be a major media competitor to Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild's all powerful media group News Corporation and News International .. which as has been shown by all the information that was made public with the Parliamentary inquiry into Phone Hacking, Police Bribes and computer hacking done by staff of Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild's all powerful media group News Corporation and News International to gain commercial advantage and for commercial sabotage against its competitors .. it had been fairly standard practice for Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild's all powerful media group.. News Corporation and News International ... to Hack Phone, Bribe Police and hack computers for to gain commercial advantage and for commercial sabotage against its competitors .. and with all the evidence the Freemason Police involved in illegal activities in the police force there seems no doubt that Freemason police were up to their neck in Phone Hacking, Police Bribes and computer hacking at least prior to the major publicity in 2012 caused by the the Parliamentary inquiry into Phone Hacking, Police Bribes and computer hacking done by staff of Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild's all powerful media group News Corporation and News International to gain commercial advantage and for commercial sabotage against its competitors...
Retired Metropolitan police officer, John Thompson says he received at least six approaches to become a Freemason, varying from the subtle to the obvious....'... The fact that I was a known atheist did not seem to concern my would-be proposes who advised me to lie b professing a belief...I never made any attempt to become a Freemason because, I hope, I did not possess the necessary hypocrisy...'
One Mason told me that his lodge always checks if any candidate for membership has a criminal record..
..'.... That's why we've got a copper in the lodge; to check candidates out on the computer!...If they have a record, their applications are withdrawn or they are blackballed - unless senior lodge members are nominating them, in which case nothing is said... of course nowadays, if a policemen is caught using the computer for non=police purposes, he could be charged with a criminal offense himself.. All this is strictly illegal, but you can be sure it still goes on...'
“ ...We very soon gathered that our past Freemason friends and their wives no longer desired our company. After learning the good points of Freemasonry, and believing in its foundations, having enjoyed so much the company of the brethren and their families, this sudden treatment came as a shock. We were obviously being treated with the alternative treatment to murder, as laid down in the rituals. Instead of having our throats cut across, we were branded as 'wilfully perjured individuals, void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful lodge...'.....”
"...Among the hundreds of letters which Stephen Knight received from readers of The Brotherhood, several came policemen who felt they had spent most of heir careers battling against a Masonic Mafia ...
From Chapter 14 : The Phoenix
".... it might be wondered how men (Policemen) whose work requires brain as well as brawn, a sense of truth and reality, and considerable courage, can allow themselves to be drawn into fraternity whose ritual requires a total suspension of disbelief and a taste for the occult... The outsider might be concerned that men that must take so many crucial decision sin their careers - concerning life and death, imprisonment or liberty, kidnaps and sieges, as well as helping old ladies across the road... can subject themselves to such a welter of gobbledegook concocted in the eighteen century by men who were, in part, superstitious fantasists....Let us look at the other side of the coin.. Instead of caning cops all the time for rushing into the Craft, se should pause to consider why the Freemasonry Craft wants these policemen in the Craft...My masonic informer Badger explained it this way: whatever policemen may get out of Freemasonry, Freemasonry gets even more out of the police...
....... ' Why do nearly all masonic lodges like to have a copper in their midst? Because Freemasonry is a vehicle for bringing together the various threads of a general view... Its a form of social cement.. a pyramid erected on the class system,,,, It should go without saying that the police are a vital part of the pyramid, or rather the strongest shied the status quo possesses ... That is why policemen have to be continually sucked into Freemasonry: to maintain the deferential structure of society and to ensure that Freemasons and Freemasonry is perpetually favoured by those who enforce the law...'
Evidence appearing to support Badger's view came in a letter in the Independent in 1988. It was from M.E. Rowe, a retired policeman with thirty years' service. In 1980, while a senior officer in the West Midlands:
'..I was approached by a local businessman I knew personally who at the time was lobbying on behalf of a group of businesses who were concerned with the effect of proposals in which the police and local authority were involved. I declined to discuss the matter... This refusal was followed by the offer of a membership of his lodge...I was told that he was in a position to ensure my acceptance as a member, and he would regard it as a personal favour if I would accept his offer.... I refused, saying that it was not consistent with the independence I thought was essential in my position..However, I did indicate that in the next eighteen months I would be retiring and then I might consider his offer - I was told with some favour that the 'offer' would not be open to me when I retired...'
If policemen pursue the Craft of Freemasonry as an amusing hobby or an antiquarian game which they leave behind at the temple.. it may be harmless as masonic spokesmen claim,, The public need to be convinced .... In the meantime there is evidence to suggest that some Mason cops go on duty still mentally wearing their regalia and are not as impartial as their Constable's Oath requires....
From Chapter 15: A Criminal Intelligence:
Masons usually claim such stories are invented by embittered non-Masons who cannot accept that their careers have failed because of their lack of ability; instead it is claimed by Masons, that they ;fantasize about malicious wrongdoing by Masonic colleagues. Retired Metropolitan Policeman John Thompson ( a non-Mason) rejects this argument as itself a canard..
..'....I admit we non Masons were resentful at our lowly rank. Yet most of us were not bitter. On the contrary, the men who were bitter were those Freemasons who had expected patronage and preferment but never got it. What non-Masons such as I did resent was entering a five-furlong sprint race but being forced to start at the mile and three quarter gate...We also resented that our Masonic colleagues were likely to have their errors, omissions, in adequacies, incompetencies and indiscipline covered up, sometimes at the expense of non-Masons..I concede that many Masonic policemen had an aura if greater competence and many became more able because they had less pressure and could acquit themselves better on boards..I put my hands up to being bitter in one respect..I object when masons dismiss their victims as jealous and vindictive, I am neither neither but what do they expect us to be? They expect us to act like the three wise monkeys: seeing no evil, speaking no evil and hearing no evil - of Freemasonry of course ....'
One on-Masonic sergeant knows to his cost the Brotherhood's power in Oxfordshire...
..'... In 1983 I had some building work done on my house..When it was finished I was not entirely satisfied and paid the builder only part of the money..He put most of the faults right but I was still not completely happy and we had quite a disagreement.. He then told me he was a Freemason and he knew various people that I also knew, one of them being a chief superintendent..Not long afterwards the builder had a car accident and he finished up in hospital.. When he was there he received a visit from the chief superintendent who asked if there was anything he could do for him.. A few days later I was summoned to headquarters to see this chief superintendent. He 'advised' me to hurry up and sort out my dispute with the builder because his being in hospital gave him quite enough to worry about. Now whilst no threats were made, there was undoubtedly some moral pressure and I came away from headquarters feeling decidedly uneasy.. The obvious difference in our ranks made it a very simple task for him to 'put the screws on'.... As a result I felt bound to pay the builder the remaining money... I find membership of this organization quite odious and not compatible with being a police officer. ... Incidents happen - internal politics you understand- which defy rational explanation and can only be put to the influence of these people.. They are unknown, unseen, but seem to pull strings behind the scenes and get things done...
Freemason Michael Richardson: Chairman of the Board of Management of The Royal Masonic Hospital (RMH) in Hammersmith and also managing director of merchant bankers N. M. Rothschild..who represents and personifies everything about Grand Lodge which many Freemasons resent: wealth, power, connections and the City of London and is also seen as the front man to the aristocrats who had given him the job ...who dominate Grand Lodge's committees and are still held responsible for the earlier 'betrayal' of masonic charity: closing and selling the School for Boys in 1977... the previous chairman of RMH was an eminent surgeon Lord Porritt ... the fact that a merchant banker, rather than a medical man, had taken over from the saintly Porritt was now seen as proof that the scheme to sell the RMH two years before was planned years before and felt that Richardson had been chosen because 'privatization' was a Rothschild speciality...
Comment: it is noted that researches come to the clear conclusion that the Rothschild family and their partners, who appear to own and/or control over 60% of the world's wealth and valuable resources .. appear to have profited well out most wars in the last 300 years and in particular the 1st and 2nd Word Wars by encouraging them to happen and lending money to all sides of these wars ... and effectively bankrupting both Britain and Germany who had to pay back their large war debts to the Rochschilds in gold at the end of the wars .. with it also claimed that Adolph Hitler was a grandson of a Rothschild (see Mark Hallet's book 'Hitler was a British Agent and other researchers) and it claimed that the Nazi Consentration Camps and Death Squads first focus was to murder senior Freemasons and this way re-organise the world wide control of Freemasonry into the Rothschild family hands .. the quiet shipment of hundreds of millions worth of gold from Heathrow Airport to Switzerland on pallets, wrapped in black plastic without any security with the late Thomas Allwood senior, transport engineer, on board to repay the Rothschild war debt, was brought to public light by INL News undercover journalist Thomas Allwood, who was murdered in Broxburn Scotland on the 21st June, 2013 a month before he was due to attend the High Court in London to have his application for Criminal Contempt against the Rothschild sponsored politicians..the UK Prime Minister- David Cameron, the UK Chancellor- George Osborne, the UK Home Office, the UK Border Agency and their Treasury Solicitors for deliberately preparing and presenting a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency Document 'falsely stating that USA Comedian had told the UK Border Agency Officers that he was paid $2,000 to be involved in introducing Fringe Entertainers in the making of a pilot of the INL News Group's and Thomas Allwood's 'Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show' due to be filmed over five days in April-May 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland'... as an illegal way of having Freemason Master Bowles at the London's High Court of Justice strike out a £500 million damages claim against ... the UK Prime Minister- David Cameron, the UK Chancellor- George Osborne, the UK Home Office, the UK Border Agency for the wrongful and illegal arrest of USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty at Heathrow Airport on the 27th April, 2011 and holding him custody for 24 hours and putting him in handcuffs the next day on a plane back to Los Angeles as a favour for Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild family and their all powerful News Corporation and News International Media Group, as a way of commercially sabotaging the expensive fiming of a pilot of the INL News Group's and Thomas Allwood's 'Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show' due to be filmed over five days in April-May 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland'... there is mounting proof that leads to the involvement of Freemasons, MI5 and UK Special Branch in the planning and carrying out of the murder of Thomas Allwood on the 21st June, 2012 and the coverup of a lot of the known evidence and investigations by Scottish Police and Prosecution in the arrest and trial of Kyle Montgomery in November, 2012 for the murder of INL News undercover journalist Thomas Allwood ...
Conclusion by Martin Short at the end of his book 'Inside the Brotherhood
In my book I have tried where possible third hand evidence..not third-hand rumour... I have tried to provide sober deduction, not exaggeration... it should go without saying that anyone investigating a secret society - or even a 'private' one - as Grand Lodge now characterizes Freemasonry - will always find evidence hard to come by...therefore 'rumour and speculation'. although unsatisfactory, become legitimate .. if the investigator 'exaggerates; what little evidence he or she gets, the 'private society should hold itself to blame...Freemasonry gives rise to genuine public concern, which Masons ignore at their peril...
'What Public, Legal and Political Action Should be Taken regarding Freemasonry?
.... I suggest that the action taken about Freemasonry should be more than would appeal to the Tory MP who says, 'if people wish to belong to secret societies, that is their own business' , but probably less than is required by the Labour man who feels that 'Freemasonry should be made illegal'....
...Most MP's who completed my 1986 questionnaire said than councillors, local government officers, civil servants, policemen, judges and MP's should all be required to disclose their Masonic membership....the only proper way to test political opinion would be to put a 'disclosure' bill to the vote. There is no chance that the present Tory Government in the UK would sponsor it, so an MP should introduce a private member's bill and a free vote should follow...this bill also should give the public access to full and up-to-date membership lists of all masonic lodges...as I suggested on Chapter 21, these should be available at reference libraries in the localities where the lodges meet, and a town and country halls...
... thus us Bromyard one Craft Lodge List would be open for inspection..
... In Truro six ... in Cambridge eleven ..... in Sunderland twenty-nine....
.... in Croydon eighty-nine ,, in Manchester 129 ... in the city of London over 200 ....
..... in Greater London another 1,450 or more...
..The degree of 'publication' might also be required of all other Masonic bodies: from the Royal Arch .. right the way through to the Society of Rose Croix Order..
..The list of any lodge affiliated to a particular workplace, or recruiting mainly from within a specific organization, should be open for scrutiny by everyone who works at that place or in that organization. Thus the list for a town hall-lodge, such as the Borough of Newman, should be available at Newman Town Hall; the Holden Lodge list at Midland Bank; he London Hospital Lodge list at London Hopsital; the lis for the Union Lodge of Norwich should be given on demand to any emplyee of Norwich Union; the Lutine, Lloyd's and Fidentia lodge lists should be viewable at Lloyds of London; likewise lists of all military lodges (including the 21st Territorial SAS) at regimental HQ's; lists of barristers', Masters, Court Clerks' lodges should be displayed in the Inns of Court, at the Bar Council and the High Court, and the Manor of St James's list at New Scotland Yard, and at Bow Street, Vine Street and West End Central police stations...
...Most Masons would argue against these measures...
..They would say that although they have nothing to hide, why should their lists be publicly available if the same is not required for the MCC, the Athenaem, the Labour Party, the Transport and General Worker's Union, the Royal and Ancient Order of Foresters, the Sons of Temperance, the Druids, Rotary, the Round Table, the Elks, the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffalos, the Lions, the Kiwanis, the Baker Street Irregulars, the Sovereign and Military Oder of Malta, the Catholic Police Guild, BUPA, the AA, the Women's Institute, the Mother's Union or the subscription department of Readers Digest...
... The answer is simple. It is for Masons to demonstrate that any other organization has all these features:
1. A code of mutual aid, sworn by all members, to assist each other beyond the aid they swear to perform for all other people in society...
2. Oaths (however watered-dwon in recent years) which threaten that some physical, economic or social penalty - or negative moral judgement - will be applied to those who reveal the organization's secrets..
3. Rituals which make use of blindfolds, nooses, daggers or similar menacing objects or disorienting devices ...
4. Secret passwords, signs, grips or handshakes ...
5. Widespread public concern about the organization's activities or those of its members ...
I know of no golf club which has any of these features and no political party, trade union, friendly society, insurance company, businessmen's club, social group, or mainstream religious fraternity which has more than two of the above... If it can be shown that any other group manifests all of these elements, it should be subject to the same curbs as may be imposed on Freemasonry ..Some Masons claim that three Catholic organizations - the Knights of Columbus, the Catenians and Opus Dei - are quasi-Masonic ...If their rituals and oaths do resemble Freemasonry's, if genuine texts can be produced to prove it, and if there is widespread pubic concern, they too should be subject to any obligations imposed on the Craft..
..If Masons have nothing to hide, none of this should cause them great disquiet.... Just as their secretiveness breeds paranoia among the 'profane'. so a new openness would help dispel it, If the Freemasonry Craft is primarily a charitable organization, a movement or moral regeneration or just a load of men pursuing an arcane hobby, the have nothing to fear...`personal anxieties could be accommodated... such as that they maybe do not want their home addresses disclosed ..However, all voters' addresses are on view at public libraries on electoral roles... at Companies House, the home addresses of all company directors are available to anyone who pays a small fee ...As it happens, Freemason's home addresses might not be required, provided every lodge discloses the full named of all members..
..It is noted that today's MP's should bear in mind that any law to curb Freemasonry will face widespread evasion, as the history of the 1799 Unlawful Societies Act shows. Brought in 'for the more effectual Suppression of Societies established for Seditious and Treasonable Purposes', this was passed when there were fears of French plots to overthrow the Government of Great Britain and to achieve Irish independence. The Act claimed that societies such as United Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Britons and United Irishmen were plotting seditious ends, and that their members swore oaths and secret vows, used secret signs and operated a cell-like structure across the country, However, a blanket ban on such organizations would also have banned Freemasonry, which shared all offending characteristics. To gain exemption, England's rival Grand Lodges (the 'Moderns' and the 'Ancients') jointly lobbied politicians will skill which would do credit to today's ruthless 'political action committees' in the USA. Their respective leaders, the Earl of Moirs and the Duke of Atholl, pressured Prime Minister William Pitt. According to 1799 Grand Lodge minues, the Masonic delegation reported that Pitt:
'... expressed his good opinion of the Society and said he was willing to recommend any Clause to prevent the New Act from affecting the Society, provided that the Name of the Society could be prevented from being made use o as a Cover by evilly disposed persons for Seditious purposes..'
The pressure worked ... Prime Minister William Pitt duly introduced a clause stating the Act did not apply to ' Lodges of FreeMasons, the meetings whereof have been in great measure directed to charitable purposes'...
...Pitt must have been beguiled by the smooth talking aristocrats, particularly Moira... According to one Masonic Historian, Moira's 'timely intervention had saved Freemasonry from extinction'....
...'Presumably Moira and Atholl had told Pitt that no British Masonic Lodge was likely to contain plotters bent on ' overturning the laws, constitution and government. and every existing establishment, civil and ecclesiastical' in Great Britain or `Ireland...Yet even 'regular' Freemasonry (as opposed to the truly seditious continental variety) had harboured traitors... Many American Revolutionaries were 'regular' Masons, notably George Washington, Ben Franklin and Admiral Paul Jones who had been initiated in Scotland. One Boston Lodge, St Andrews , was full of rebels, including Paul Revere, General Joseph Warren, John Hancock and John Rowe... It was John Rowe who inspired the Boston Tea Party, according to one of the 'Indian' raiders who belonged to the lodge, was planned within St Andrew's itself...
...The American Revolution had begun only twenty-four years before the Unlawful Societies Act became Law... It is extremely unlikely that Briton's Prime Minister, William Pitt, had any idea of Freemasonry's strength among the Revolutionaries - for sure Moira would have not told him! - but, had be known. he would have had good reason to suspect that the Freemasonry Craft might 'again be made use of as a Cover by evilly disposed persons for Seditious purposes'. Pitt wold also have had grounds for believing that not all brethren subscribed to their second Antient Charge: ' A mason is a peaceable subject to the civil powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the nation.'...
..Of course, even if Pitt had known about the Masonics of Washington and hi brother rebels, he may not have pressed the point because the Craft's leading petitioner, the Earl of Moira, had himself been a hero on England's side in the Revolutionary Wars. Pitt would have been 'snowballed' by Moira's revelation that no less than six of George III's sons were 'on the square', for how could a fraternity boasting 'so many of His Majesty's illustrious Family' possibly be seditious?...
...Nevertheless, the Act did impose major restrictions on Freemasonry. The 'names and descriptions' of all members of each lodge had to be registered with the local clerk of the peace.... By the time the Act was repealed in 1967, it had long been widely ignored .. Many lodges did not make returns..One pre-1967 lodge secretary told me: 'I never bothered and many other secretaries never knew this law existed..besides, who was going to make you do it... In out town most law enforcers - the Clerk of Peace, half the JP's and the police chief --were all in the lodge...!'
...Even more restrictive, the 1979 Act had exempted only meetings of 'regular Lodges of Free Masons held (before) the passing of this Act...for some years the Masonic orders subverted this clause by reissuing the warrants of dominant or dead lodges, thus back-dating the foundation of many lodges. Not only were these Freemasons breaking the criminal law, their stealth and deceit show they knew their actions were illegal..
... On the rolls of United Grand Lodge today there are fewer than 300 lodges which were founded before 1799, yet by 1967 another 6,000 had been 'consecrated'. Abroad view of the 1799 Act might have encouraged Masons to feel the exemption applied to any future lodges formed under both Modern and Antient Grand Lodges (united in 1813) and two more Grand Lodges in Scotland.. The terms of another Act in 1817 may have supported that view... However, neither Act legalized other Masonic Orders such as the Knights Templar (which had barely got going by 1799), the Rose Croix (founded in 1845), the Mark (organized about 1845), the Red Cross of Constantine (whose earliest lodge was founded in 1865) and the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (founded in 1866) ...... All these orders are self governing and have never come under the authority of the various Grand Lodges, which regulate only the CRaft and Royal Arch degrees. so they could never have been exempted from the ban on other societies imposed by the 1799 Act....
... The illegality of the `masonic Knights Templar is confirmed by the fact that their Grand Master, Lord Rancliffe, 'was personally concerned with the bill in the Lords' and neglected the Order thereafter. Masonic historians differ over whether the revival of the Masonic Templars some years later indicates that 'any question of illegality was over' or whether it suggests that 'the authorities were turning a blind eye'. My onw view is that all these 'higher' or ' sides' degrees ( from Knights Templar on wards) met illegally for more than a century until 1967.... Nobody would have dared enforce the 1799 Act (even had they known about it) because many magistrates, Court Masters, Court Lords, judges, policemen belonged to these same degrees... Through vested interests. Masonic law-breaking has been constantly connived at by the forces of law and order....
Today, any Parliamentary moves requiring public disclosure by masons should be matched by legislation creating an Ombudsman for the public servant and the police,as advocated by Brain Woollard ( see Chapter 13)... This is necessary to prevent the kind of career abuse which 4 million other State employees may suffer at the hands of Masons.. or... indeed..non-Masons..There must me many Masons in pub lic service who feel that hey too have had a raw deal at work ...In future they should have a mean of redress against anti-Masonic prejudice, especially if they are to be obliged to disclose Masonic Membership...
The former British ambassador featured in Chapter 32 has further suggestions:
...'..It should not be too difficult to procure form civil and public servants who belong to secret societies some written declaration and assurances about their activities..I also suggest that something should be done about the confidential personal reporting systems...It seems that any officer who believes he may be the subject victimization through the reporting system (as I was) should be entitles to state that the reporting officer as a Freemason and that this should be taken into account in assessing the report..Ideally, in my view, Freemasons should be excluded from the reporting process, but that is too much to hope for...
...I also suggest that the numerous voluntary organizations and charities which serve this country and have been one of its great strengths, should be required by law to keep an indication of any secret society membership by its officers..Members of any society - or indeed contributors to a charity - should, as a matter of routine, be able to obtain a statement of its officer's affiliations...This is not an unreasonable request, but a simple reassurance that the society is being run for the benefit of all members and not primarily for `masons perpetuating themselves in office...
In the present diminished and dangerous situation of our country, a very real danger exists from organizations, such as the Freemason Brotherhood - partly through infiltration, partly from the illusionment and frustration which arises when our meritocratic system is deliberately and consistently distorted....'...
..In the House of Commons in June 1988 Labour MP Dale Campbell-Savours introduced a bill to compel police recruits to swear they would not join any organization such as Freemasonry....he also demanded that officers who are already Masons should resign from their lodges or leave the police force.. On first reading the bill was passed by 117 votes to sixteen, but it had no chance of becoming law because of the shortage of Parliamentary time...
..If any future bill along these lines looks as if it might become law, it will encounter fierce lobbying just like the 1799 bill did ,,,, It will infuriate Masonic cops... It it ever reached the statute book, it could provoke mass resignation from the police force...
..This might not be a bad thing, but it seems unlikely that policemen could be banned from joining Freemasonry unless this 'private, voluntary organization' is itself made illegal....In the present political climate (of near perpetual Conservative rule) there is no chance of this happening,....
...However, beacsue an action is otherwise legal,,, it does not mean that public servants have an in alienable right to perform it...
..In many respects the civil liberties of public servants and already severely curtailed....Millions of public servants (including the police) sign the Official Secrets Act which curbs their right to discuss, publish or otherwise disseminate information which they may learn in the course of their work... Also no civil servant, member of the armed forces or policeman may stand as a candidate in local or national elections without first resigning his or her employment. Since 1984 no employees of GCHO may belong to a trade union. The armed forces and the police have long been deprived of that right, just as they have surrendered their civil liberty to withdraw their labour and go on strike...Thus, imposing a similar curb on policemen in respect of Freemasonry has undeniable precedents.. They would retain the right to remain a Mason..but they would lose their right to remain a copper.. a judge. a Master of the Court .... a Lord of the Court .,, or any other job which has the power and/or authority in any way over the public in general..so that the same rule might well be applied to all other public servants..
...All this is for Parliament and the public to decide and debate... In the meantime Dale Campbell-Savours says: 'If Freemasonry were to shed itself of its secrecy, its exclusiveness and its oath of allegiance, I would have no objection to police officers being members....'
..However.. if it were to do all that, it would not longer be Freemasonry!....
..Even some senior Freemasons such as Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Peter Neivens ( an honorary Manor of St James Lodge) has been concerned about excessive 'tears of sympathy' for Freemason Brothers who have been convicted of serious crime stares...'As for lodges which have allowed major criminals to remain as members for years after conviction... if that were proven to me, then if the authority rested with me, I would seriously think of disbanding that lodge...'
..If this policy were to be rigorously applied throughout Britain, not only would Freemasonry be far healthier : its opponents would have far less meat to feed on....Yet is must be doubted if the hierarchy as a whole would want to apply such discipline..As things now stand, Grand Lodge only acts against lodges like Waterways many years after they have become a haven for criminals, and only then after embarrassing media exposure.. It is therefore no wonder that in the meantime other lodges like the Queenswood contain cells of public corruption and the entire institution of Freemasonry is brought into disrepute as a result..
....however, Freemasons will argue that the merits of an institution as vast as Freemasonry do not turn on the vice or virtue of individual Masons... and that it does not change its esense because one Grand Officer, his Honour Judge Joseph Butler-Sloss, was exposed in the News of the World in July 1988 as a regular patron of Nairobi prostitutes while serving as a High Court judge on Kenya.. Freemasons argue that the private quirks of prominent men who happen to be a FreeMason should not be held against the Brotherhood... as Masons have said... this would be like condemning Christianity because quite a few vicars over the years have been caught molesting choirboys...
...As I write these final pages in December 1988 I am still being sent evidence of Freemasonry's reluctance to punish those who transgress its own moral code.. the evidence come not form outsiders..but from men who are themselves staunch Masons...One such source is leonard Acklam, a well-to-do self-made Yorkshire businessman who fought for years to win redress for a Masonic Grand Officer's outrageous attempt to interfere with justice...A Mason for 33 years, a Past Master of Brighouse Lodge (no. 1301) and a 30th degree member of the Rose Croix, Acklam is worth hearing...
...Leonard Acklam a Freemason, had employed a Freemason Solicitor to collect a £10,000 debt he was owed.. however his own solicitor lied to him about the case and when appointing a new non Mason Solicitor who threatened to report the Mason Solicitor to the Law Society and sue for negligence, a senior well respected Mason, Sir Herbert Redfearn told Acklam that he 'would lose a lot of friends' and that Acklam should 'look on it in a true Masonic manner and forget it.. a senior well respected Mason, Sir Herbert Redfern was not only interfering with Acklam's legal action against a Mason solicitor, but was also telling Acklams to forget the £10,000 he is owed...An in initial letter of complaint in 1981 sent to the local Yorkshire Ws Riding grand secretary did not go down well,,, for Redfearn was not only a Grand Officer of English Freemasonry, but also a leading industrialist, a deputy lieutenant of the county, a knight of the realm, a one time chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations and the local Tory KIng-maker (future Tory MP Gary Waller was initiated in his lodge in 1971)..also he was photographed at Conservative Party occasions alongside Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, It was extremely unlikely. therefore. that any Yorkshire masonic body would dare condemn him...
From Chapter 14
The Phoenix "....
.. If the Manor Lodge of St James was formed in defiance of the anti-Masonic views of a Metropolitan Commissioner, it would not be the first time the Brotherhood has waved two fingers at the most important police chief in Britain...
...Back in 1958 the new commissioner was Joseph Simpson. He was the first man ever to reach the top job after starting as an ordinary bobby...He was public school educated and a university graduate but, unlike his gentleman predecessors, he had done three years on the beat and had the deserved respect of most London coppers..In short, He was a policeman's policeman...
.... One shaft of light which Sir Joseph Simpson brought to the job was a distinct hostility to Freemasonry, or at lease a dislike of its most arrogant manifestations...During his early years in office he was greatly irritated by an organization calling itself the Metropolitan Police Masonic Association (MPMA), The title gave it an official air, but its founders had no authority for using the words 'Metropolitan Police',... They might have had the unofficial 'non' from a previous commissioner, but Sir Joseph took a dim view and demanded its abolition....
... The MPMA;s members were not prepared to disband on the say-so of a mere commissioner - especially as earlier commissioners, such as Charles Warren, had themselves been Freemasons. Rather than abolish their fraternity in a fraternity, they decided just to change its name. They also decided to keep the initials MPMA. The were determined to keep 'Masonic' in the title, and 'Association' was harmless enough, also they would have to substitute another word for either Metropolitan or Police.... some wag in the leadership had a little education.... As this new body was going to rise from the ashes of the old, he thought, it could have no more appropriate name than 'Metropolitan Phoenix Masonic Association'. This would get round Sir Joseph Simpson's vexatious objections, but it would still be the MPMA and the same old bird...
....Simpson died in office, from a heart attach three days after the batt;e of Grosvenor Square in 1969, but the Phoenix lived on..IN 1971 it had 288 members..Its rule book reveals that the inclusion of Metropolitan in its title was gratuitous and misleading, for its members only needed to be 'Master Masons who are regular, serving and retired officers of any police force'...
The rule book makes it clear this was no Masonic Lodge..Ritual was forbidden at its gatherings..Instead its objects were:
1. To introduce Master Masons of the Police Force who would otherwise have no opportunity of meeting as Brother Masons.
2. To promote fraternal intercourse by arranging social functions.
3. To render assistance to those who may be distressed by sickness or adversity.
4. Loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen and the Craft in General,
..Aside from the genuflection to the Crown, these aims might strike an anti-Msonic as a sugar-coated code of mutual aide, arousing fears in the outsider that the Phoenix as a means of achieving a kind of Masonic apartheid in the Police Service...Could it have acted as a wedge between Masons and non-Masons, or a jungle telegraph, or a 'firm in a firm'? .. Its members would doubtless deny it, but the club does seem like a collective support system: ideal for help up t˙e promotion ladder, or saving skins...
....The 1971 list contains one man still serving at Scotland Yard: a deputy assistant commissioner ..Another is a detective chief superintendent...Most members left the service long ago,,, Many held humble rank, so either the mutual aid principle never helped them gain promotion or they never sought to use it.... Perhaps the Phoenix was just a social club for men with a common hobby ... If so, one brother was such an enthusiast ha he took the hobby with him to a Mediterranean retirement,, In 1971 Brother A,J, Fookes was running a pub in Gibraltar called the Mason Arms...
The phoenix list shows that in the early 1970's there was a network of police Masons, in lodges all over south-east England, who were doubly committed to mutual aid. Today, it seems, the Phoenix may not be the bird it was. I have been unable to find out if it is still flying,,It may now be in one of its 'ashes' periods: about ti burst forth in full plumage ,, Perhaps the Manor of St James's Lodge is its latest incarnation... AS it happens, no 1971 Phoenix people show up as masons members..Perhaps this is only because there is a fifteen-year gap between the lists, but it seems to confirm that there must be thousands of London police Masons, otherwise there would be names in common....
Another indicator of the Crafts strength in the police force emerged when barrister Andrew Arden presented his 1987 report on the running of the London Borough of Hackney (see Chapter 6) ..During his research mr Arden was assisted by Grand Secretary Michael Higham,,He gave the 'profane' Arden forty-four lodge lists to help him identity Masons working for Hackney Council but. in performing this unprecedented favour, he knowingly divulged the identities of over 3,500 Masons who had no connection with Hackney and whose individual permission he did not seek..
.... Higham aslo divulged the occupation of 2,534 named Masons...Of these ninety-eight were policemen .... amounting to 3.9% of Ardens sample.. or slightly less than one Mason ^n every twenty five... if this were typical of thew the whole country..and if ( according to Commander Higham) there a re between 250,000 and 500,000 Masons under GRand Lodge, then between 9.700 and 19,400 policemen in England and Wales are Freemasons... However if my total figure of 600,000 living Masons, whether active or lapsed, is correct (see Chapter 9), then some 23,400 serving and retired policemen are Freemasons .... In December 1985 there were slightly fewer than 108,000 serving make police officers in England and Wales... Even if we exclude my highest estimate and stick to the Higham figures ....it would seem that between 9 and 18 percent of all policemen may be Masons : one in eleven or one in six of all men in English and Wales police forces...yet, as ever, when it comes to calculating Masonic strength, huge statistical crevasses have to be vaulter ....The records at Freemasons' Hall are always out-of-date because they show only the occupations declared when men become Master Masons .. Should they change t heir jobs or retire, these records stay the same... Yet even if 20% of men who said they were policemen have since retired, it seems that between 8,000 and 16,000 policemen are 'on the square'.. In addition, however, young policemen are being drawn into Freemasonry all the time, which may bring the total back to around 20,000... There a re thousands more in Scotland and Northern Island, where they probably form an even higher proportion of the police service, for reasons explained in Chapter 19..
... Higham supplied Arden with the names and occupations of men in fourteen individual lodges,,One lode had fifty-two members, of which eleven policemen out of eighty-eight members, another had five out of fifty four. Of course these high numbers are outdone by the Manor Lodge of St James , but the manor is not Britain's only all-police lodge... According to the Grand Secretary of East Lancashire, three lodges are composed entirely of ex-police officers: in Wales, Kent and Liverpool..The Kent lodge meets in Sittingbourne and is called the Watch and Ward,,, It was founded as recently as 1977, yet it has already won a place in Freemasons' Hall Museum by presenting a masonic gavel made in the form of a police truncheon,,,In the early 1980's the Watch and Ward could muster only twenty-five members, but this is no proof of ill-health..Indeed, Masonic consciousness among policemen, both serving and retired, is growing stronger..The Liverpool lode, Sovereign;s Peace, was founded in 1979..
.... Most policemen belong to general lodges where they get to know men form other walks of life - that is one of the main benefits of Freemasonry - yet they are usually proposed by other policemen... A random sample of lodge summonses reveals that policemen are valued candidates for admission into almost any lodge..
.. In 1976 the Derby Allcroft Lodge of London initiated a Scotland Yard detective sergeant and a builder on the same day...It already contained several policemen, including one future member of the Manor of St James's, In 1982 Gateway Lodge of Witney initiated a Thames Valley officer along with an electrical engineer, a British Telecom warden and an Oxfordshire fireman... These lodges contain a mix of employees, public servants and the self-emplyed.. Whatever a Mason's job, on lodge days he must be able to sop work early enough to arrive for the meeting at three or four o'clock,,Policemen can almost always manage this because they work shifts, or because senior officers are also Masons and will turn a blind eye if brothers slip off during working hours...
...Thus it was that is january 1972 a thirty-teo-year-old detective sergeant took a half-day off from West Hampstead police station in north London to be initiated in the Fryent Lodge alongside a C-op produce controller.. The Fryent is a general lodge but, over dinner, brethren proposed several toasts to the 'Blue Lamp', in honour of the Metropolitan Police....This may have something to do with the fact that the lodge meets at Hendon Hall Hotel, close to Hendon Police College from which it recruits some of its members...
it might be wondered how men (Policemen) whose work requires brain as well as brawn, a sense of truth and reality, and considerable courage, can allow themselves to be drawn into fraternity whose ritual requires a total suspension of disbelief and a taste for the occult... The outsider might be concerned that men that must take so many crucial decision sin their careers - concerning life and death, imprisonment or liberty, kidnaps and sieges, as well as helping old ladies across the road... can subject themselves to such a welter of gobbledegook concocted in the eighteen century by men who were, in part, superstitious fantasists....Let us look at the other side of the coin.. Instead of caning cops all the time for rushing into the Craft, se should pause to consider why the Freemasonry Craft wants these policemen in the Craft...My masonic informer Badger explained it this way: whatever policemen may get out of Freemasonry, Freemasonry gets even more out of the police...
' Why do nearly all masonic lodges like to have a copper in their midst?
Because Freemasonry is a vehicle for bringing together the various threads of a general view... Its a form of social cement.. a pyramid erected on the class system...
... It should go without saying that the police are a vital part of the pyramid, or rather the strongest shied the status quo possesses ...
....That is why policemen have to be continually sucked into Freemasonry: to maintain the deferential structure of society and to ensure that Freemasons and Freemasonry is perpetually favoured by those who enforce the law...'
Evidence appearing to support Badger's view came in a letter in the Independent in 1988. It was from M.E. Rowe, a retired policeman with thirty years' service. In 1980, while a senior officer in the West Midlands:
'..I was approached by a local businessman I knew personally who at the time was lobbying on behalf of a group of businesses who were concerned with the effect of proposals in which the police and local authority were involved. I declined to discuss the matter... This refusal was followed by the offer of a membership of his lodge...I was told that he was in a position to ensure my acceptance as a member, and he would regard it as a personal favour if I would accept his offer.... I refused, saying that it was not consistent with the independence I thought was essential in my position..However, I did indicate that in the next eighteen months I would be retiring and then I might consider his offer - I was told with some favour that the 'offer' would not be open to me when I retired...'
If policemen pursue the Craft of Freemasonry as an amusing hobby or an antiquarian game which they leave behind at the temple.. it may be harmless as masonic spokesmen claim...
....The public need to be convinced ....
... In the meantime there is evidence to suggest that some Mason cops go on duty still mentally wearing their regalia and are not as impartial as their Constable's Oath requires....
Chapter 15 A Criminal Intelligence
.... Many masons tell stories of favo¨ra by policemen whom they have come to know through the craft..One brother told me how his Masonic connections cam in handy in unforeseen circumstances....
"..A friend and I were developing and industrial heating system in our spare time... We used to do research in a workshop at the back of his house..On one occasion, while he and his wife were away on holiday, I was working there as usual when suddenly the police turned up... They'd been called to the house by a neighbour who thought I was an intruder..I promptly explained who I was and produced my key, but I had no identification on me so they were not satisfied... They took me to the police station and told me that, unless I could prove my bona fides, I'd be spending the night in the cells..,, I was trying to think my way out of this mess when I remembered that on several Masonic occasions I'd met a chief superintendent who was based at the station... After one lodge function he had invited us back to that very station's social club where we had a few drinks... Now I fond myself in this jam ... I naturally asked the arresting officers to let me talk to him...He came into the charge room, immediately recognized me and then took my captors into another room.. A few seconds later they cam out again and told me, lost civilly, I was free to go... I'm sure if i hadn't been 'on the square' I would have been kept in the clink all night, maybe longer..My masonic brother, the police chief, had done me a favour: a small one perhaps, but a favour nevertheless..Freemasonry had worked like a magic wand..
...Such interventions look less benign to non-Masons inside the force who see them as inextricably intertwined with Masonic manipulation of the police service as a whole...
....Among the hundreds of letter which Stephen Knight received from readers of The Brotherhood, several came policemen who felt they had spent most of heir careers battling against a Masonic Mafia ...
.... John Thompson retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1970,...Among the hundreds of letter which Stephen Knigt received from readers of The Brotherhood, several came policemen who felt they had spent most of heir careers battling against a Masonic Mafia ...
.... John Thompson retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1970, having reached the rank of inspector.. When he joined the force in the later 1940's he was aware that many senior officers were 'on the square' , but like most constables he pooh-poohed the power of the Craft with what he calls 'childish flippancy'. .. he only became concerned in January 1953 when he was about to take the competitive examination for promotion to the rank of sergeant...
' ... Rumours were rife that masonic candidates had been given the questions in advance..I also heard that they were going to identify themselves as masons on their exam papers to masonic examiners... I sat the exam with all the other candidates -- you guessed it!!.. it had to be cancelled and re-arranged...throughout my police career I was aware of too many incidents involving patronage and favouritism to dismiss them with the same ease as masonic policemen are always able to do...Some were so trivial I was amazed high-ranking officers deigned to involve themselves, but some were so serious that they bordered on criminal conspiracies.. As a young sergeant at Notting Hill I began to note the very effective influence if freemasonry, One night I was on duty as the station;s officer when at one o'clock in the morning I had to charge a man with being 'drunk and indecent'. He was a mason and was on his way home from a Ladies' Night, accompanied by his wife and others, when a constable arrested jim for urinating in a shop doorway. t about 3 A.M the chief superintendent (now Commander rank) suddenly turned up at the station. Such a visit was unknown and he had obviously been dragged from his bed. He sat a round for a long time, reading and re-reading the charge, but when he realized there was nothing he could do, he left. The general consensus at the station was this visit had masonic overtones. It seems nothing was too trivial for Masonic interference...Later, as an inspector at Marylebourne, I was called out by two PC's who had arrested a nineteen-year-old youth for stealing a drivers license and using it with intent to deceive. He had managed to escape and reach his home a block of luxury flats where his father was refusing to let the constables in to re-arrest him. When I arrived the father allowed me in and took me into his study, where photographs were prominently displayed of him in masonic dress. I noted that he had been master of his lodge and he clearly expected me to direct the PC's to forget the matter,,,, I told him he was 'not on' and left him in no doubt he was backing a loser... We took the son to the station. His father followed soon after, staying in the waiting room. As I was preparing the charge sheet the station sergeant told me that a Commander (Now DAC rank) wished to speak to me on the phone.. I had never met this man, so I told the sergeant to tell him I was not prepared to discuss the matter. You see, I had learned to face Freemasonry in the force head-on without fear... Before the father left he asked if the Commander had spoken to me. I replied he had not. He then told me they were in the same Masonic Lodge and then asked me if I was 'on the square'. He had clearly assumed was, so I had to disappoint him. As it happens, the incident did me some good. I had not hit it off with my PC's beforehand, but this broke the ice...
..Masons usually claim such stories are invented by embittered non-Masons who cannot accept that their careers have failed because of their lack of ability; instead it is claimed by Masons, that they ;fantasize about malicious wrongdoing by Masonic colleagues. Retired Metropolitan Policeman John Thompson ( a non-Mason) rejects this argument as itself a canard..
..'....I admit we non Masons were resentful at our lowly rank. Yet most of us were not bitter. On the contrary, the men who were bitter were those Freemasons who had expected patronage and preferment but never got it. What non-Masons such as I did resent was entering a five-furlong sprint race but being forced to start at the mile and three quarter gate...We also resented that our Masonic colleagues were likely to have their errors, omissions, in adequacies, incompetencies and indiscipline covered up, sometimes at the expense of non-Masons..I concede that many Masonic policemen had an aura if greater competence and many became more able because they had less pressure and could acquit themselves better on boards..I put my hands up to being bitter in one respect..I object when masons dismiss their victims as jealous and vindictive, I am neither neither but what do they expect us to be? They expect us to act like the three wise monkeys: seeing no evil, speaking no evil and hearing no evil - of Freemasonry of course ....'
Retired Metropolitan police officer, John Thompson says he received at least six approaches to become a Freemason, varying from the subtle to the obvious....'... The fact that I was a known atheist did not seem to concern my would-be proposes who advised me to lie b professing a belief...I never made any attempt to become a Freemason because, I hope, I did not possess the necessary hypocrisy...'
..... Some readers may feel that John Thompson's recollections can now be dismissed because he retired in 1970, but other police correspondents bemoan present-day Masonic goings-on...Thames Valley Police was formed in 196, through the merger of five forces in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.Recent lodge summonses from these countries show that today Freemasonry is recruiting just as strongly among policemen in this force as it is in London..
One on-Masonic sergeant knows to his cost the Brotherhood's power in Oxfordshire...
..'... In 1983 I had some building work done on my house..When it was finished I was not entirely satisfied and paid the builder only part of the money..He put most of the faults right but I was still not completely happy and we had quite a disagreement.. He then told me he was a Freemason and he knew various people that I also knew, one of them being a chief superintendent..Not long afterwards the builder had a car accident and he finished up in hospital.. When he was there he received a visit from the chief superintendent who asked if there was anything he could do for him.. A few days later I was summoned to headquarters to see this chief superintendent. He 'advised' me to hurry up and sort out my dispute with the builder because his being in hospital gave him quite enough to worry about. Now whilst no threats were made, there was undoubtedly some moral pressure and I came away from headquarters feeling decidedly uneasy.. The obvious difference in our ranks made it a very simple task for him to 'put the screws on'.... As a result I felt bound to pay the builder the remaining money... I find membership of this organization quite odious and not compatible with being a police officer. ... Incidents happen - internal politics you understand- whic defy rational explanation and can only be put to the influence of these people.. They are unknown, unseen, but seem to pull strings behind the scenes and get things done...
..Even back in the 1960's John Thompson saw the beginnings of what he regards as the most sinister phenomenon involving Freemasonry and the police force in Britain.. he had just moved to the north London area known as "Y" division..He soon learned that the divisional commander and his deputy were Roman Catholics but that all the other senior officers were Masons...
...'... It was on 'Y' Division that I first noticed how former high ranking officers - both uniform and CID - were making new careers as security agents for solicitors, finance houses and other organizations hungry for confidential information ...This has now become a huge industry and Freemasonry is an important constituent in this web of intrigue. Now that more and more information is stored on computer (and its dissemination is subject to serious legal curbs under the Data Protection Act), so employers have realized that the only people that can get round the regulations are high-ranking policemen - especially Freemasons who are particularly well-placed to obtain confidential information with no chance of exposure, because they can get it all from their colleagues in the Brotherhood..Thoroughly illegal..of course,,,'
Recently police computers have been criminally abused for the purpose of keeping criminal out of Masonic employment. In 1983 the Warwickshire Grand Lodge dismissed the catering manager at its Birmingham Temple because of the way he had disciplined a member of the staff. The brethren alleged that the manager, veteran Masons Derek Yeomans, had shouted at a junior employee, but Yeoman says he was fired for 'telling off' his own boss at the Temple..He took revenge on the ungrateful brethren by squealing about their criminal wrongdoings..He disclosed that one of the province's top Masons habitually checked whether applicants for senior jobs at the `temple had criminal records logged on the West Midlands Police computer, According to Yeomans, this wholly illegal service was performed through a retired chief inspector, himself a leading FreeMason, who used to pass the applicants' names and dates of birth to an officer who worked for the local force and had access to the computer...
...Such abuse of police intelligence systems is now taken very seriously all forces, so a local superintendent was appointed to investigate the allegation..He later reported that Yeoman's only specific claim - that certain applicant's name had been fed into the computer on a certain day --was not true...Yeoman responded that the name might well have been fed in on the day before or the day after but, in any case, it cannot be satisfactory when a policeman is appointed to investigate abuses of his own force's computer by another member of the same force.. Whether or not that inquiry was performed by checking computer records or searching old-fashioned criminal record fils, it seems Warwickshire's Mason's did call on police connections for such a service..As Provincial Grand Master Thomas Wood told the Birmingham Post..
...' I believe that on one occasion when someone was needed for a very responsible position I was told that person had been vetted....'
One Mason told me that his lodge always checks if any candidate for membership has a criminal record..
..'.... That's why we've got a copper in the lodge; to check candidates out on the computer!...If they have a record, their applications are withdrawn or they are blackballed - unless senior lodge members are nominating them, in which case nothing is said... of course nowadays, if a policemen is caught using the computer for non-police purposes, he could be charged with a criminal offense himself.. All this is strictly illegal, but you can be sure it still goes on...'
Chapter 21 Tough at the Top
..Many police chiefs are mistaken when the claim the issue has never come up in public complaints against their police forces... I have a pile of letters from citizens who have enclosed copies of formal complaints they have sent to police forces alleging Masonic wrongdoing by policemen... ....In the future chief constables may have to act on increasing public. press and political concern about the role of Freemasonry in the police service...
..In the future chief constables may have to act on increasing public, press and political concern about the role of Freemasonry in the police service....
Early in 1988 Home Office leaks implied Home Secretary Douglas Hurd was thinking of requiring police officers to declare their lodge membership if Freemasonry emerged as a factor in any matter in which they were involved whether these were internal issued such as promotion and discipline or external investigations...
...It is my view that Mason membership should be declared by all police officers and that a regularly updated register of Mason serving in each police force should be kept at every police station and at headquarters of the police force concerned.. this register should be readily available to fellow police officers and to embers of the public..If this is not a service which police forces are willing to give their paymasters, then the register should be on display in all public libraries, just like electoral roles. There will be arguments over whether membership of other secret pr quasi-secret societies, pr fraternal organizations, should be declared. If a convincing case can be made that any other society is an extensive, powerful and cohesive as Freemasonry, then its members should indeed declare themselves.
If public opinion were to demand this register for policeman, it might even demand the display of entire Masonic Lodge Membership Rolls at public libraries. This would be stoutly opposed on grounds that it is not the 'British Way' of doing things, but that is for the British people to decide. British people have only just gain access to the Land Registry. For centuries it has been considered an invasion of 'property owners' privacy for other people to know who really owns what in Britain. However this has grossly infringe other people's right to information - especially information which could effect themselves. The same principle applies to membership of secret, or private, mutual aid societies .heir secrecy (about both what they do and who they are) is a standing invasions of the liberty of all non-members...
...The 1964 Police Act forbids policemen from belonging to a trade union. This appears not be formally applied to Freemasonry..despite the Craft's claim to be descended from a medieval trade union and despite its continues adherence to the same principles of combination and mutual aid for which policemen are banned from joining union today...
,,Ian Oliver, a non-mason a police chief stated: "... During my sixteen years in the Metropolitan Police until 1977, it was not unknown for officers to join the Masons ^n the hope that it might just help their promotion prospects...
Chapter 22 Judging by Results
... at least eighteen circuit judges, four Queen;s Bench judges, three family division judges, two judges in Chancery, three Lord Justices of Appeal and one Lord Justices of Appeal and one Lord of Appeal in Ordinary....this is some of the known ranks of Freemason's strength as revealed in Masonic reference books to which I have had access... many other sources (such as provincial yearbooks and membership lists of lawyers' lodges) have eluded me, so I am forced to guess that many more judges are 'on the Square' (a well known term to describe a member of FreeMasonry).. certainly many recently retired judges are Masons: fifteen circuit, one Queens Bench, two family division, one Chancery, three Lord Justices of Appeal and one Master of the Royal Court of Protection...
..A recent Lord Chief Justice , the late Lord Widgery, was Past Senior Grand Warden of England. The current Chief Justice of Australia, Sir Harry Gibbs, is 'on the square'. Sir Harry Gibbs, is also the only Australian on the judicial committee of the Privy Council..
..The president of the Lands Tribunal is a mason,,
...So is England's Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy is 'on the square'...so was his immediate predecessor is 'on the square'..
..Beyond the Royal Courts of Justice sit many more Masonic judges, from the current Recorder of Southport to an English Advocate-General in the European Community;s Court of Justice...still more barrister Masons choose to stay where real money can be made: as QC's..
...it is also noted that and even higher proportion of lawyers went to public schools and Oxford or Cambridge Universities: networks which are perhaps more powerful than Freemasonry.. however the difference is that those institutions (privileged and self-perpetuating though they are) are dedicated largely to the gaining of open educational qualifications which are essential in a lawyer. What the outsider might wonder is why many of these men, who judge the rest of us, need to belong to a secret (or would -be secret) society; how can these men be trusted to find the truth is court of law...when as Masons they swear belief in - and repeatedly enact - the mythical murder of a bogus historical figure whom they glorify as the stonemason architect of a temple built mainly of wood, even the stonemason architect of a temple built mainly of wood, even though he was neither a stonemason nor an architect! !!!
..for some enlightenment of what Freemasonry means to many esteemed dispensers of justice I wrote to Lord Templeman, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, who sits in the House of Lords...Lord Templeman is England's highest-ranking Mason judge,,,Lord Templeman did not reply to me (Martin Short) or Stephen Knight's letters...
..perhaps even non-freemason judges feel they belong to a greater brotherhood- of judges - which takes precedence over any feelings they may have about their colleagues' Masonic frolics...they may well fear coming out would provoke retribution...One Court recorder told me, '...I'm not a Mason, but don't quote me or I may end up hanging under Blackfriars Bridge..' .. I reacted as if this reference to the bizarre death of the Italian banker-Mason Roberto Calvi in 1982 was a joke, but the Recorder assured me he was very serious....
Chapter 19 The Encompassing of John Stalker
banker MASON WIRCH_HUNT ON TOP COP
MASON MAFIA FRAMED COP CHIEF
On the 29th June, 1986 those two deadly rivals for out Sunday morning favours, the People and the News of the World ran almost identical stories about John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police, Four weeks earlier John Stalker had been suddenly removed from a highly sensitive inquiry into allegations of a shoot-to-kill policy by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)..
..Why was John Stalker removed at the Deputy Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police became a massive media guessing game..Sooner or later someone was bound to blame the FreeMasons...
..The Press had already blamed the RUC, its Special Branch, Stalker's Rivals in the Manchester force, the SAS, MI5, the Norther Island Office, the Home Office and. or course.. the British Government...
The People wrote:
"... Top cop John Stalker is the victim of a plot by Freemasonry that stretches all the way from Ulster to Whitehall, according to his friends and colleagues.. They are convinced that 'a get Stalker order' originated in Ulster, where he made enemies with his inquires into an alleged police 'shoot-to-kill' policy... the order was taken up in Manchester...
The News of the World offered a less global but equally sinister scenario:
....
James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, is studying secret information naming eight key officers. They are all members of the same Freemasons l
Lodge. Friends of Roman Catholic Mr Stalker believe the eight were asked by their mason colleagues in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to 'dish the dirt' on him..
..Throughout the 'Stalker Affair I subscribed to a cuttings service which sent me every story linking Stalker and Freemasonry printed anywhere in Britain's press.
There are 200 such cuttings... such stories drove East Lancashire's Grand Lodge to hold the only press conference in fifty-seven years to deny the existence of a 'Mason Mafia'. ..Manchester's Masons claimed the witch hunt was on them,,
..Masons were active at almost every twist in 'Stalker', Some Masonic involvement was inevitable because Masons are numerically strong in the organizations with which Stalker was bound to clash with if he was doing his job properl...
the question is...Were masons acting in concert to protect each other, to protect Freemasonry or to protect the establishment in which Masons thrive and prosper...
..in my opinion Stalker himself produces evidence in his book about the affair fairly points towards a conspiracy of interests, if not of individuals..
In May 1984 John Stalker as asked to lead an inquiry into three 1982 incidents in which an undercover RUC 'Mobile Support Unit' had shot dead five suspected Republican terrorists and a seventeen-year-old boy, All six were unarmed so questions were asked as to why they had not been taken alive. The fear was that RUC men had committed multiple murder. The deeper concern was that the 'murders' were not unauthorized acts by police marksmen committed in the heat of the moment, but the product of cold-blooded policy... ..In 1984 four of the marksmen were tried for murder but were acquitted. This distressed the families of the dead men (all Catholics) and outrages Republican sympathizers.
The two separate trials had disclosed systematic (if badly co-ordinated) police lying. One defendant revealed that senior Special Branch officers had told him what false story to tell, allegedly to protect their informers (some south of the border). Stalker's job was to investigate not just he shootings, but the cover stories and also the local CID's limp search for the truth, for it seemed as if RUC marksmen had been acquitted because their CID colleagues had deliberately failed to make a murder case against them...
..In his own book John Stalker tells how his Manchester team found out that shorltly before these killings, an informer had told the RUC that four of the suspects had been involved in an IRA landmine attack which killed three policemen. This incident had occurred just three weeks before he suspect's own deaths so it seemed likely that they were he victims of RUC revenge killings...
John Stalker asked for the intelligence file on the landmine attack, to check if the dead men had indeed been named as suspects, but RUC Special Branch (SB) repeatedly denied such a file existed... then when he finally
John Stalker was eventually suspended from the police force on false allegations against him of wrongful association with a local businessman named Kevin Taylor ..which was only activated when John Staler had finally manoeuvered Hermon into handing over the surviving Hayshed material which included a tape of a bug planted by MI and Special Branch which recorded the whole shooting incident..Stalker was granted completed access to March 1986.. he did not get his hands any of the material until 30th April..even then the crucial papers eluded him because on the 29th May, shortly before he was to fly to Belfast to get them he was removed forever from the inquiry...
.
Chapter 24 The Cotton Inheretence
"..Many of Britain's most prominent solicitors are Freemasons. They all appesr in Who's Who, yet none of their entries contains any reference to their involvement in Freemasonary (known as The Craft)
Some examples of past prominent Freemason solicitors are:
Sir Desmind Heap, President of the Law Society 1972-3, Solicitor for the Corporation of London fpr twenty-six years and England's greatest expert o town and country planning law.
Sir Edmund Liggins, President if the Law Society 1975-6. An eminent Warwickshire solicitor.
Sir David Napley, President of the Law Society 1976-7. England's leading defence solicitor. A lapsed Mason
Sir John Stebbings, President of the Law Society 1979. Member of a Derbyshire lodge (deceased December 1988)
David Sumberg MP, partner in a Manchester legal firm, member of a Staffordshire lodge.
Bert Millichip, Chairman of the Fotball Association, senior partner in the familty firm in West Bromwich, where he is active in Staffordshire Freemasnary.
Other prominent Masonic solicitors have included Julius Mermer, Lord Mayor of Cardiff 1987-8; John Evans, for twenty years Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court of Judicature; and Colonel George Kelway, High Court Registrar for Pembroke and Carmarthen from 1940 to 1962.
These folk are not household names. They do not match singers, sportsman or soap oera stars in public recognition. Yet they have been the backbone of Britain and Britain legal establishment which effectivey runs Britain... they are men of status and respect in the regions where they have built their careers, and nationally influential in the legal profession. Most of these men are Masons of Grand Rank and all are citizens above reproach...
..In contast, rank-and-filr Masonic solicitors are regarded as pillagers and looters by many anti-Masons. Stephen Knight's post -Brotherhood files are full of letters alleging all manner of conspiracies against the legal professions with allegations that most of the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff they complain about having done the wrong thing to them....are suspected to be Freemasons and/or closely associated in various solcial, business, political and legal networks and associations they belong to...to the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff that are embers of the CRAFT OF FREEMASONRY...
.Most of these correspondents of compalint suffer from the same the ame problem: they often do not have enough evidnece that Freemsonry and/or Freemasons and/or their associates and friends have played a part in their troubles.... the ones that do not have the evidence ask for information how to find out if the the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff that they say have done the wrong thing to them are in any way involved im Fremasonry...
...part of the answer to their question is that there should be a legal requirement that all Freemasons and/or anyone else in any sort of close association with Freemason members and/or involved in any way with any other social, political, business and/or legal association and/or network should ne required to openly declare such association on a public registrar before they are allowed to be involved in any appointment to a profession and/or job that involves making decisions about the public and/or acting for the public in any way..such as the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs, court staff , anyone inv0lved in politics, local councils and/or any other puvlic and/or semi-public body and/or organisation....
..another part of the answer to their problem is the setting up an independent judicial inquiry body run by a retired judge who is not a Freemason and has declared not to have any possible strong biasn in favour of Freemasony...when anyone can request that they legal cases be reveiwed to see if they have been treate din a far and reasonable way... and such reveiw to be a completely different reveiw from all the normal appeals and reviews available at present in the legal system.. and such reveiw to be free of charge to the person requestion the reveiw...
..Their allegations are a shocking litany of businesses being destroyed, bankruptcies precipitated, investments mishandled, trust funds defrauded, tr5ials rigged and murders committed and covered up and who was really behind the murders also covered up so that proper and full investigations are simply not carried out by the relavent bodies...The writer of the allegations all claim Masonic solicitors have conspired with a mermutation of Masonic bank managers, estate agents, business rivals, policemen, judges - and even Masonic relatives.... each tragic tale has dozens of characters with an apparently bottomless capacity for evil... some 'victims' are themselves solicitors, driven out of business by Masonic competitors, or it is claimed....even if 95% of this stuff in fantasy, the rest shows there are a lot of wicked people in the world, be they be Masons or not...
..Freemasons however, did pay a large role in one miserable story of an old Lancashire lady who ame to sign anew will only days before she died. In 1980 Mrs Esther Cotton aged ninety-two was sick with cancer. She was living alone at home, taking tablets to kill the pain and slow the cancer's growth..On 9th December 1980 her doctor discovered sge was suffering not just from cancer but from bruses to her face and legs, black eyes and cuts, broke ribs and a collapsed vertebrae, Her doctor promptly put is Ormskirk General Hospital where she complained of leg and neck pains. Mrs Cotton's ankles were swollen and the cancer had completely destroyed her tight breast. Tests also showed she was very deaf and suffering from severe heart trouble and anaemia. Two days later she was sinking fast: nois at times but very drowsy in between. By 12th December, despite fairly heavy sedation, she was in constant pain...
On this same day Mrs Cotton was the subject of frenzied attention which was far from medical. Shortly after midday a solicitor named Gordon Brown appeared at Mrs Cotton's beside insisting she sign a new will. The soliticitor, Gordon Brown, was not Mrs Cotton's regular solicitor, but was acting on instructions from Mrs Cotton's son, Ernest... Because of the noise and bustle of the ward, Brown asked for the dying woman to be moved to a private room where, witnessed by two hospital administrators, she scrawled a mark where she was meant to sihn her name on the will document...
.... Within hours her condition rapidly worsened. Her face turned grey, she suffered a relapse, and had to be treated for congestive cardiac failure. Her condition further deteriorated ... On the 17th December, 1980, Mrs Cotton slipped into a coma and died. Mrs Cotton's funeral was attended to by her son Ernest and her daughter, Mrs Juneth Pilkington.
Juneth had ben visiting her mother twice daily but the first she knew of the will was on 29th December when a copy came through her letterbox. Juneth thought it strange that her mother had never told her about this will but stranger still that her mother Mrs Cotton could have made it at all. In hospital her condition had been so bad that she could say nothing, could recognize no one and, says Juneth, had quite lost her mental facilities.
As Juneth read through the will (in which she and her brother were named as executors) Juneth was stunned. The will said Juneth would get just one-quarter of the value of her mother's house. Each of four grandchildren would get a mere £100, but the rest of the estate would go to her brother, Ernest, 'for his own use and benefit absolutely'. The estate was no pittance. The and was worth some £60,000, much of it was tied up in the family business, a motor coach firm. Yet only five months before she signed this 'hospital will', Mrs Cotton had signed another very different message: she was going to leave each grandchild £1,000, but everything else was to be split between her son and daughter 'in equal shares absolutely'.
What shocked Juneth was not the loss of so much money, but the clandestine way in which the new will had been concocted. The solicitor Gordon Brown had never acted for her mother before, whereas her solicitor for the past thirty years was not consulted. Indeed, no one had even told Mrs Cotton's previous solicitor that Mrs Cotton was ill.
In the period between these wills the future of the coach firm had caused great family bitterness. The trouble went back to 1948 when old Mr Cotton had died without a will. The business had been held in trust ever since, with shares divided between Mrs Cotton and the Children. Juneth refused to sell her shares to Ernest, who ran the business and wanted total ownership. The 'hospital will' did not give him that - it could could not take away the shares Juneth already had - but it gave `Ernest his mother's 50 percent share, and thus Ernest had majority control for the first time.
Juneth herself had been very ill during her mother's last days at home but Juneth had called in to see her mother Mrs Cotton on the 4th December, 1980, when she found Mrs Cotton squatting on a settee in an incoherent state. Juneth called the doctor but does not know if he saw Mrs Cotton before the 9th December, 1980, when he sent her to hospital. However, Juneth was not sure whether Mrs Cotton was not suffering from cuts, bruises, broken ribs or collapsed vertebrae.
Years later Juneth gained access to previously withheld hospital notes and discovered that on 6 December someone had called the hospital to report that Mrs Cotton's back had 'caved in' and she was covered in bruises because of several falls. Juneth also learned that on the 8th December, 1980, the solicitor Gordon Brown, acing on Juneth brother's instructions, had twice visited Mrs Cotton so that she could dictate a new will. Nether he nor a colleague could have noticed her caved-in back, or they would have realized she was in no condition to make a will. Instead, Gordon Brown took down the details and later had them typed on the appropriate form. On 12th December, 1980, by which time Mrs Cotton was in hospital, she signed her new will. Two hospital employees initialled a few hand written words saying the contents had been read over to Mrs Cotton, 'she appearing perfectly to understand the same'.
Re-reading the will with care, Juneth felt her mother could have no idea what Mrs Cotton was signing. Mrs Cotton's signature was illegible, and unlike her normal signature as it appeared on the earlier will. The E(for Esther) was vaguely recognizable, but the A (for Annie) was like a M. In place of 'Cotton', there were a few gnarled loops with no 't's or an 'n'.
Juneth did not dispute that her mother made that that scrawl, but felt that maybe her hand had been held, but what was extraordinary about the will was that it contained two gross errors. Mrs Cotton's 'dwellinghouse' is described as '22 Brighouse Close, Ormskirk', whereas she lived at number 33. Even more astonishing, the document is made out in the wrong name: 'Hester Annie Cotton', not Esther Annie Cotton. At no time in her life had Esther ever been called Hester.
Would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily sign a will made out in the wrong name and address? Can such a will be valid?
In succeeding months and years, Juneth tried to find out if her mother could possibly have known what she was doing. in 1981, Mr Cotton's doctor wrote that, on 9th December, 1980: "My patient appeared to be in agony and under a great deal of distress. I therefore did not think it appropriate to assess he metal capacity. I immediately arranged her urgent admission into hospital.'
On the 10th December, 1980, a hospital physician (whom solicitor Gordon Brown had approached) wrote, 'She is is a fit mental state to sign a will.' Later he explained that on 12th December, 1980, he thought Mrs Cotton capable of understanding and signing a will, and could appreciate the extent of the property, the person who should be considered, and the way her estate should be divided.
If so, how did Mrs Cotton not protest that her new will made a hast of her name and address? The opinion also clashes with Juneth's experience on 10th December, 1980, when her mother, Mrs Cotton, failed to recognize Juneth and two other familiar visitors. The next day Mrs Cotton did not recognize her own grandchild. The day after, Mrs Cotton failed to recognize Juneth, only one hour before she signed the new will...
... was wearing a hearing aid, but I did not check to see it it was working properly, as I had no reason to suspect that it wasn't. When I spoke to Mrs Cotton I did so is aloud voice, bending over the patient. Mrs Cotton did not make any comment regarding mistakes in her name and the address of her property. I asked the patient if she understood what I had read out and if she agreed with it. As far as I can recollect Mrs Cotton did not make any comments, Mrs Cotton appeared to be an elderly ill lady...
Juneth's solicitors sent all available hospital records and statements t a consultant physician in Liverpool. In his Opinion he sated Mrs Cotton had been very ill for six weeks before she died. When Mrs Cotton signed the will, her mind may have been clouded by pain from widespread canerous growth; impairment and cardiovascular functions through cancer, and toxic absorption; lack of natural sleep; effects of drugs against pain and for sedation; and difficulty in communication and resulting frustration due to advanced deafness. He went on....
.....It is indeed quite possible that `Mrs Cotton may have been given the appearance of not only hearing, but also understanding the contents of the will, as read to her, It is, however, more doubtful whether her cerebral functions were sufficiently unimpaired for her to express her own viewpoints on the contents of the will and to use her independent judgement ... I am inclined to believe that not only an extraordinary effort on her part would have enabled her to rise above her suffering in order to concentrate her mind on the task presented to her by the solicitor on December the 12th, 1980....
...... NO INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE EXISTS TO SHOW THAT MRS COTTON HAD EVER WANTED TO MAKE A NEW WILL....
In a letter to Juneth's solicitors, Gordon Brown said that Ernest Cotton had told him to visit his mother and take instructions. He cannot comment now because he died in 1984, yet the question remains.... for whom was solicitor Gordon Brown really acting for? Even if Mrs Cotton were compos metis, Mrs Cotton would not have known Gordon Brown from Adam. Mrs Cotton's son Ernest only brought Gordon Brown into her ninety two year old life at her last gasp. So what was the relationship between Ernest Cotton and solicitor Gordon Brown?
Ernest Cotton and solicitor Gordon Brown are both Freemasons- both members of Ormskirk's Pilgrim Lodge (no. 6207). In 1946 Ernest's Cotton's father had been one Ormskirk Pilgrim Lodge's founders.. Ernest Cotton was Master in 1962 and later achieved the mighty provincial rank of Senior Grand Deacon. Ernest Cotton was a big wheel in West Lancashire Freemasonry, whereas Gordon Brown had only just been initiated. When Brown drew up the 'hospital will' he was a mere Fellow Craft. Just three weeks later he was raised to the third degree and became a Master Mason. The gap in the two men's Masonic status was immense, notwithstanding that, in the wider world, Gordon Brown was a prosperous solicitor while Cotton ran a modest coach firm. When Cotton asked him to make a will for his mother, it was an offer Solicitor/Freemason Gordon Brown could not refuse. The job had even been arranged in the ledge. On the 3rd of December, 1980, as some brothers stood drinking at the bar in Ormskirk Masonic Hall, Ernest Cotton walked over to Brown and was heard saying he 'had a little job for him'.
Such deals may well go on all the time in Ormskirk Masonic Hall, which has many Masons, The mid-Lancashire town has a population of about 27,000 of which about 10,000 are men over twenty-one. The Masonic Hall in Park Road caters for eleven lodges with some 700 members. Even if many of them live in other communities nearby, it seems one Ormskirk man in twenty is 'on the square' (the common description of a Freemason). The town's most powerful lodge is Ormskirk Priority (no. 4007). At six o'clock on the fourth Wednesday of each month from September to April, its members slip into the hall to perform rituals, quaff a gin and tonic and super at the festive board.
This lodge showed its power one morning in July 1985 by bringing the town to a halt for the funeral of one of its most revered members. By nine o'clock Ormskirk was paralysed by traffic. Everyone was late for work and shops could not open because the assistants had not arrived. Tradesmen, office staff and shoppers sat in their cars and fumed because, without warning, the main carpark had been closed to the public so mourners would have only a short walk to the parish church.
The dead man, Howard Ballance, had been a pillar of the community since World War II. A dentist, he had been a councillor for town and country for thirty-eight years, He was chairman of Lancashire Police Authority for thirty-three years, and was still a Justice of Peace (JP) and chairman of the Magistrates Bench when called to the Grand Lodge Above'.
Nobody begrudged Ballance a good funeral, but giving his mourners sole use of the carpark sent the town wild. The Chamber of Trade was furious and rand the police to complain, The cops said the council had told them to do it. The Chamber's president blasted the the council's 'Kremlin-like attitude' of 'we are equal, but some are more equal than other'. The council blamed the idea on the police, but said that, anyway, 'it was a sensible way out of what could have been a ticklish problem'. The problem may have been how to appease Lodge no. 4007, whose members included several more councillors, and Ormskirk's ten other lodges. In all Freemason members could call on a total of fifteen of the town's fifty-five JP's and quite a few brethren among the local police.
One policeman belonged to Pilgrim Lodge with Ernest Cotton and his solicitor Gordon Brown. Other members were factory owners, engineers, builders, shopkeepers, estate agents, an accountant, a printer. a farmer and an instrument technician named Derek Pilkington. He was Juneth Cotton's husband, and it was her brother Ernest Cotton who had nominated Derek Pilkington in 1978 at old Mrs Cotton's instance.
Derek Pilkington was raised to Master Mason in October 1979 and regularly attended lodge meetings until November 1979 and regularly attended ledge meetings until November 1980, when the family was in dispute over the future of the coach business. Until this was sorted out Derek Pilkington decided to 'withdraw' from attend the lodge, thus avoiding a row with his brother-in-law and complying with Freemasonry's Ancient Charge that, 'no private piques or quarrels must be brought within the door of the lodge'.
However, the Pilkingtons did complain to a lodge elder about what they felt was Ernest Cotton's 'unmasonic behaviour. They said Ernest Cotton had 'quite wrongly' put pressure on his mother to sign a will to his own advantage and the near disinheritance of his sister. Ernest Cotton had also damaged the interests of a brother Mason (Derek Pilkington), breaking the Masonic commandment of brotherly love. The elder was upset and rand Ormskirk's top Mason (another JP) for advice. The Pilkingtons hoped this call would result in a pledge of Masonic justice, but they received none. Far from getting help from Freemasonry, they were soon ostracized by it, in Juneth COTTON'S words:
....We very soon gathered that our past Freemason friends and their wives no longer desired our company. After learning the good points of Freemasonry, and believing in its foundations, having enjoyed so much the company of the brethren and their families, this sudden treatment came as a shock. We were obviously being treated with the alternative treatment to murder, as laid down in the rituals. Instead of having our throats cut across, we were branded as 'wilfully perjured individuals, void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful lodge...'.....
Derek Pilkington was promptly struck off the lodge steward's list, perhaps in retribution for branding Ernest Cotton's conduct 'unmasonic', perhaps because he had stayed away from three meetings rather than clash with his brother-in-law. It was on the advice of her mother's doctor that Juneth Cotton decoded to fight the 'hospital will', but she ran into widespread obstruction. She wanted to see insurance papers for the coach firm of which she had long being a partner. Swindon Insurance's local manager, George Parr, refused to let her have them, He said, she was 'on dangerous ground' and added, 'my firm has not got enough money to fight this,'..He did not explain these remarks, but Juneth thinks he was referring to the 'secret and silent power of Freemasonry and Rotary9=9 avery much related organisation)'. Parr may not have been a mason but he was definitely in Rotary: 'Many Rotarians are Masons and it seems clear that is Parr was to help me in my troubles he would be working against the interests of his close professional colleagues.' When Parr died in 1983, many Masons had refused to give Juneth Cotton details of the family firm's accounts. Pilgrim Lodge kept its funds in one of those banks...
Meantime, Derek Pilkington had been the victim of a forgery which could only have been perpetrated by a FreeMason. According to the constitutions every lodge member should receive a Grand Lodge certificate as soon as he is registered as a third-degree FreeMason. Derek Pilkington's third-degree Freemason certificate arrived twenty-three months late: on the 28th August, 1981 is a dirty crumpled envelope dropped through the letterbox at dinnertime. Derek complained to the Provincial GRand Secretary, who wrote back saying 'Pilgrim Lode had kept the certificate in order to present it to him in person...' and 'when he did not turn up to the lodge, it was sent on by registered post..'
That letter contained two errors. fed to the writer by some Pilgrim Lodge member. Derek had attended all its meetings for a full twelve months after he became a Master Mason: which was ample time for him to receive the certificate in person. As for 'registered post', he had never signed for the document because it had been stuffed through the door when no one was at home.
Derek Pilkington got in touch with the local acting post master who referred to the registered mail receipt book. This contained a signature in Derek's name which showed he had received the letter on the 26th August, 1981: a full two days before it landed of Derek's doormat. The official admitted the signature looked new and stood out from the page, but said it must have been made on that date..
If so, it had not been made by Derek because he and Juneth were on holiday in France on the 26th August, 1981, and did not return until two days later. No one else had been at home to sign on his behalf or in his name. Besides, the letter bore no registration slip. The Pilkingtons called in the police. A CID man confirmed that the signature looked 'fresh' yet nothing came of his inquiries, even though the suspects were obvious. The forgery could have been perpetuated only by a high-ranking Post Office official with access to the registered mail pen, or wit such a person's co-operation.
This may sound trivial, but it proves Freemasonry can pervert even the Royal Mail. It if interferes with registered letters, what else does Freemasonry contaminate?
The the incident also shows how far some Masons will go to cover up a breach of their own rules. First forge the signature, then lie to the Provincial Grand Secretary (a former policeman, then get him to regurgitate the lie to the victim. even hough he too is a Mason.
Handing out certificates on time and in the correct manner is the job of a lodge secretary. In 1981 the secretary of Pilgrim Lodge was Ernest Cotton. In November that year Derek sent a cheque to cover his annual subscriptions and £10 for Masonic charities. He also enclosed a note which he asked the Master to read in open lodge to the assembled brethren:
Please accept my apologies for my non-attendance at Pilgrim Lodge ... being unable to attend has been a bitter disappointment to me, but, as you know, there is a brother in the lodge with whom I am at variance over matters which have caused deep distress for almost two years to my wife and myself...I regret so few of my Brothers feel able to discuss my problems with me, or are prepared to listen... However, when the time comes, the Great Architect of the Universe will surely as always be on the side of righteousness...
The letter was not read out and Derek Pilkington never got a reply to his letter...
..In 1983 Derek also lost his job...
The manager who sacked him was also in the brotherhood.. Freemasons are exhorted to give a brother work, not deprive him of a job. yet Derek's dismissal was unfair and unnecessary, as he later proved to an industrial tribunal which found wholly in Derek's favour..
..In January 1984 the Masonic solicitor Gordon Brown died aged little more than fifty. His funeral was attended by many Pilgrim brethren, but not by Ernest Cotton. Some Pilgrim men felt Brown's health had declined largely because he had spend three year trying yo defend the indefensible 'hospital will'. The Pilkington's are convinced its 'mistakes' were deliberate.
For instance, the will says Juneth Pilkington is to get one-quarter of the value of Mrs Cotton's 'dwellinghouse' but then gives the wrong address. This might have been a mistake, but it could have been a deliberate ploy to cut her out of her inheritance altogether. As it is worded, she would have received one-quarter of a property which her mother never owned - in other words, nothing at all.
The Pilkington's also say the mistake over Mrs Cotton's name is a Masonic sign. Falsely named 'Hester Annie', not 'Esther Annie', her initials become H.A. These also stand for Hiram Abiff (H.A.), the 'architect' of the Temple of Solomon. The 'Widow' is inserted, as word which did not appear in the earlier will. However, if this is a 'Masonic' will, the word 'Widow' is there to show that Ernest is the 'Widow's Son', a phrase FreeMasons use to identify themselves to other Masons.
Derek Pilkington has often complained to top Masonic officials, but they refuse to get involved, saying his dispute with Cotton is a legal matter in which Freemasonry cannot interfere. Derek retorts that Masonic lawyers have interfered from the start, first by drawing up a 'Masonic will' and then by ensuring no other lawyer is town dare to fight it. When he complained to Freemasons' Hall in London, Commander Michael Higham wrote to suggest he consult another lawyers 'in another town'.
This is just what the Pilkingtons did, when they eventually found a non-Masonic solicitor in Manchester. In 1987 they were about to fight the will in court, when Ernest Cotton's side made a last-minute offer: half the value of the mother's house and £4,500 for Juneth Pilkington's share in the coach business. This came to £18,000 out of an estate worth some £60,000. Her barrister urged her strongly to accept, to avoid a legal contest which would exhaust the estate and leave her with nothing.
As a result the will's glaring mistakes ( or Masonic signs) were never tested, nor was the legality of Mrs Cotton's signature nor the issue of her mental state. Instead, a highly suspect will - perhaps made under duress - was laundered and legitimized by the legal process itself. Now the law took its own cut, Juneth had to pay costs of £9,000: half her entire share of the estate.
... Ernest Cotton in the meantime had been Master of Pilgrim Lodge a second time.
.... Ernest Cotton has now been awarded the lofty rank of Past Provincial Grand Warden, an honour which goes only to men who embody what the Anchient Charges call 'the benign influence of masonry, as all true masons have done from the beginning of the world, and will do to the end of time'. A former town councillor, Cotton has even had a road named after him.,,
In contrast, Derek Pilkington has been 'excluded' from Pilgrim Lodge for non-payment of dues but, as he told officials, he could not attend until the anti-Masonic deeds of other members of the lodge had been remedied. Derek's unfair dismissal by another Mason and subsequent unemployment were two more reasons why he could not pay £35 a year. Yet his Brethren resolved that it was Derek Pilkington, and no one else, who was 'void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful Lodge or any other warranted Lodge or society of men, who prize honour and virtue above the external advantages of rank and fortune...'.....
For many years Worshipful Brother Ernest Cotton ran a funeral business from the same premises as the family coach firm. A decade later, on the shelves of the unlocked and deserted garage, a plastic bag was discovered. It contained the remains of a named individual incinerated at Thornton Crematorium on the 15th November, §974. Out of respect for the man and his family, I shall not name him here... However, his crematorium reference number was C9856. Perhaps he too was a Freemason, Even if he was not, his ashes deserved rather better care from a Masonic undertaker...
"..It is an obvious truth, that the privileges of Masonry have long been prostituted for unworthy considerations. and hence their good effects have been less conspicuous.... William Preston, one of Freemason's greatest teachers....written more than 200 years ago by William Preston..
In 1972 William Preston could see his beloved Brotherhood sinking into a 'general odium, or at least a careless in difference'....
Today Freemasonry has an even worse public image that in Preston's day ...but does it deserve it?
In Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood, Martin Short tries to weigh all its good effects against the cost of this enduring prostitution...
Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood car has its origins in the pioneering work of Stephen Knight who died in July 1985 aged thirty-three, just eighteen months after the publication of his best-selling, controversial and much-despised expose of Freemasonry, The Brotherhood...
..... Had Stephen Knight lived, Stephen Knight would have written his own sequel. Instead Martin Short stepped, almost literally, into a dead ma's shoes.. Martin Short's tracked down many of Stephen Knight's sources and read hundreds of letters sent in response to Stephen Knight's book, which were never pursued because of illness. More than three years after Stephen Knight's death, fan mail still pours in for Stephen ... Knight from all over the world...
Behind Closed Doors-
The power and Influence of Secret Societies
By
Michael Streeter
The Church of Scientology -
Fair Game
Ron Hubbard’s (the founder of the Church of Scientology) approach to anyone who disagreed or criticized Scientology – and thhere have been many- could be summed up by his ‘fair game’ policy…This policy was aimed at those who were called ‘Supressive Persons (SP’s). Hubbard believed that about 2,5 percent of the world’s population was an “SP”, this is, someone who wanted to destroy whatever was good or useful in the world.. However, in practice, this meant anyone who was opposed to of Scientology
An example of alleged ‘fair game’ used against those regarded as hostile to Scientology was seen in 2007, during a now notorious BBC investigation into Scientology by reporter John Sweeney.. That investigation is best known for the way in which Sweeney – an experienced journalist who has reported form trouble spots throughout the world – lost his temper during an exchange with a Scientologist spokesman…Sweeney said on the BBC website: “While making our BBC Panorama film “Scientology and me”, I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, been denounced as s “bigot” by star Scientologists and been chased around the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers. Back in Britain strangers have called on my neighbours and my mother-in-law, and someone spied on my wedding and fled the moment he was challenged…
As well as allegedly using such harassment tactics, Scientology has also been accused of trying to curtail freedom of speech on the Internet. This is a key issue when discussing the impact of the movement on modern society….However, the website run by Andreas Heldal-Lund, in Norway, has continued to publish Scientology material on his website.. He states on his website: ‘After careful consideration I have concluded that these material are being kept secret in order to withhold information form the public, with the sole purpose of deceiving the public as to the true nature of Scientology. I feel it is my moral duty to society to reveal this information to the public in order to alert them as to its nature…Chuck Beatty, who became a Scientologist in 1975 as a young student in Phoenix, Arisona, and stayed for 27 years because he was especially impressed when he learned that, after becom9ing a ‘clear’ and moving on to the higher levels known as ‘Opertating Thetan’ or the ‘OT’ levels, he would learn to ‘zoom around the universe like Falsh Gordon’. He adds: ‘What a perfect idea! Instead of being bound by earth and archaic religions, this was like a space-age religion,’ says Chuck Beatty…’of course, after 27 years you find out that nobody is doing this stuff. It’s a complete fucking scam – it’s outrageous.”
Organisation and structure of The Church of Scientology
The Scientology organization operates through a variety of different bodies throughout the world.. For Ron Hubbard, the group’s structure and discipline was no incidental occurrence, but an integral part of Scientology.. Chuck Beatty was a member of what is called the Sea organization (“Sea Org”). this organisation provides the staff members for the upper echelons of Scientology, and is known as its religious order, or ‘Vatican’. As Beatty refers to it. According to Scientology’s own description: #Sea org members work long hours and live communally with housing, meals, uniforms, medical and dental care provided by the Church. They participate in Scientology training and auditing during a portion of each day, but otherwise dedicate themselves to furthering the objectives of Scientology through particular functions.’
Long-standing critics of the movement are less kind. ‘Scientology actually has a lot in common with the worst excesses of the Nazis, with the Sea Org playing the role of the Gastapo,’ says Professor Touretzky. ‘It is the only “church” with its own intelligence branch, called the Office of Special Affairs,” According to Beatty, ‘as well as keeping dossiers on ‘enemies’ of Scientology, this office (where Beatty’s second wife had worked) also circulated the bad press that Hubbard and Scientology attracted in what are called ‘pass arounds’, with the aim of helping them counter negative publicity. Members of the Sea org ( Beatty included) sign ‘billion-year contracts’ as part of their commitment Scientology and the Sea Org…
The Sea Org started life in 1967, when for a period of seven years Scientology was run by Ron Hubbard form on board a boat…in reality the relocation was probably due to the fact that Scientology had been running into problems with various governments around the world, and the sea was one place where the organization could operate without hindrance, ( Operation from the sea could also have been a way of testing potential safe havens). Scientology’s clashed with various governments, parliaments and legal systems go right to the heart of the concerns about the influence of the Scientology
Movement. Following an official report
Freemasons
Inside The World's Oldest Secret Society
By Paul Jeffers
published by Citadel Books
Kensington Publishing Group
859 Third Avenue New York, NY, 10022
Tel: 1-800-221-2647
Chapter 19- The Men Who Run the World .starting Page 158
'''Throughout Freemasonry's history, wary, suspicious and often frightened outsiders have denounced it as a seed of paganism and/or being anti-Christian, explorers of dark mysteries of Occult, as web of Satanism, and a revolutionary threat to the established order, whether it be democracy or totalitarianism. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European monarchs persistently suppressed Masonry in their belief that it fomented revolution. When the Horthy regime took power in 1919-1920, it marked the start of raids by army officers on Masonic lodges hat included the destruction of libraries, records, archives, paraphernalia, and works of art. Masonic buildings were seized and used for anti-Masonic exhibitions, A decree of 1920 mad Masonry unlawful.... In German, as noted previously, General Erich von Ludendorff, a Hero of World War I, and his wife spread anti-Semitic propaganda during the 1920's. They wrote the tract "Annihilation of Freemasonry through Revelation of is Secrets"and other hate-illed material that explained Germany's defeat in World War I as "a knife in the back by Jews and Masons.". Later, in Mein Kampf ( Adolph Hitler;s autobiography written while in prison for attempting to over throw the democratic government in Germany in the 1920's-Hitler wrote that Masonry had "succumbed to the jews and had become an "excellent instrument" to achieve their aims. He said Germany's post-World-War I "general pacifistic paralysis of the national instinct of self-preservation" began with Freemasonry..In 1931, Nazi Party official were given a Guide and Instructional Letter" that said. "The natural hostility of the peasant against the Jews, and his hostility against the Freemasons as a servant of the Jew, must be worked up to a frenzy. After `hitler came to power in January 1833, his top deputy, herman Goering, informed the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Germany here was "no place for Freemasonry" in Nazi Germany. At that time, there were nine principle German Grand Lodges, with a membership of almost 80,000. The largest were the Grand Lodges of Three Globes, National grand Lodge of All German freemasons, and the Grand Lodge Royal York of Friendship. Their leaders were told tat the Nazi government did not intend to prohibit the activities of the lodge, but that the masonic Order must discontinue the use of the words "Freemason" and "lodge", break a;; international relations, require that its members be of German descent, remove the requirement of secrecy, and discard all parts of the ritual that are of Old testament origin, Thereafter, the Association of german Freemasons called itself the National Christian Order of Frederick the Great.
- it is however noted here that well respected author Martin Allen in his book The Hitler/Hess Deception-British Intelligence's Best-Kept Secret of the second World War states that Hitler was not the real author of Mein Kampf with the bulk or maybe all of the information for Mein Kampf be provided by Professor Karl Haushofer, with Hess Rudolf Hess taking down the notes while in prison with adolph Hitler ..with Haushofer was the man who provided Hess and Hitler all their political awareness and knowledge and understanding of world affairs.... in October 1944, an investigation by the FBI would take a statement that revealed: 'according to (name Censored) Rudolf Heds... brought Hitler and Haushofer together (and this) combination of Hess and Haushfer was, on the opinion of (Censored) the root of the Nazi Party' .. in fact Karl Haushefer and his son Albrecht became confidential advisors to Adolph Hitler and Rudolf Hess on their most important foreign policy matters - in effect an unofficial Fuhrer's private office on foreign affairs..
The Hitler/Hess Deception-P20-21: "... one of the significant facts about the 1923 Munich Putsh is that it marked a watershed in the Hess-Hitler relationship. Hess would come to prominence as the loyal Nazi-Hitler relationship. Hess would come to prominence as the loyal Nazi who followed his Fuhrer to Lansberg priosn, near Munich, for a year of confinement after the failed "Putsch', during which time he acted as Hitler's secretary whilst he wrote his vitrolic book on political ideology, Mein Kampf...While there were incarcerated at Landsberg, Hitler and Hess were extensively tutored by Pressor Karl Haushofer. Indeed, many of Haushofer's geopolitical theories on Lebensraum, German ethnicity and nationhood, became adopted as Hitlerisms in Mein Kampf..in fact, Hitler was quite literally a captive audience to Hess and his political guru Karl Haushofer, receiving tutorials on the european balance of power, the distribution of peoples, ethnicity, colonies and nationalism....'
Freemasons
Inside The World's Oldest Secret Society
Chapter 20: The Future of Freemasonry: P.177
Of the world's estimated 5.9 million Freemasons the majority live in the United States ( about 4 million). Most of the other can be found in English-speaking nations, Statistics for English Masonry are somewhat unreliable because an individual can belong to more than one lodge. Worldwide estimates place membership in England and Wales at about 550,000, Scotland 400,000, Ireland 47,000, Canada and United States 4.1 million; Europe 0,00, Australasia 375,000, Latin America 50,00-; Philippines 10,000; and other areas India, Japan, Formosa, Africa, and Israel) 288,000
..Since the mid-1960's, the members in the unites Stated have been declining. This has been attributed to an increasingly secular and materialistic society in which the youth of the "MTV" generation prefer to make their social connections by going to shopping malls, the movies, and rock-an-roll concerts, rather than joining groups that attracted their fathers and grandfathers. they appear to believe that the rituals and rites of such organizations offer no relevance to their lives. Historian John J. Robinson, author of 'Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry', assigns the cause of "the erosion of recruitment" by Freemasonry to "an increasingly permissive and materialistic society (in which) concepts of personal morality, personal pride, and personal honour may appear antiquated." ... This does not mean that Masons are resigned to ultimate extinction, In "Freemasonry and its Future," David F, Coady writes that while "doomsayers are ready to bury the Craft," the future of Freemasonry "lies with the youth of our nation." If these writers "could leave their marble sanctuaries and come down in the quarries of the workmen who are grooming the young men of today to be Freemasons of tomorrow," he continues, "they would see the light at the end of the tunnel." ..Speaking to the District Grand Lodge of North Queensland, Australia, in 1989, Allan D, Wakeham warned, "If we ourselves cannot see in our organization a purpose in the community which is wider than our internal aims, then we will never draw unto our ranks the type of men we need, neither will we be able to convince the world outside that it is an organization which has a beneficial influence on the affairs of the community at large In an address titles "Masonry in the Modern World," Reverend Dean J.O. Rymer, dean of Auckland, New Zealand, said:
",, Because the world is modern, it does not follow that it is the best conceivable world that there could be, To my mind it is not, Nevertheless, we have to recognize that there could be, To my mind it is not, Nevertheless, we have to recognize that nothing that nothing stands still. We liv e in a world of change. If all aspects if life were altered we would repeat mistakes in every generation. There are some values that will be permanent, whatever changes happen in societies. It is these values that we must preserve, whether we are the Church or civic authorities or Freemasonry, It is for Freemasonry to discover in its own self-understanding that which we must never surrender, Belief in God is necessary for any civilization to continue. High moral standards accepted by a community are necessary if people are to live together. The respect for the value of individual persons is obligatory if individuals are to realize their personal potential/ It is the commitment to these beliefs and values that Freemasonry must always uphold. Freemasonry is a solid foundation in unchanging principles, it can be a marvelous training ground in ethical sensitivity, but its searchlight exclusively on itself, and neglects a study of that larger society which exists outside the lodge room ..." ...
Gary A, Henningsen, past grand master and grand secretary, New York State GRand Lodge of Masons, in an address titles " A Look Ahead ,,, No Secret to masons, Ours Is a Fraternity That Encourages the Human Imagination and Will Continue to Do So Even into This New Century and Millennium" said"
" ...Human imagination has always thrived in Freemasonry. WE have enticed to our fraternity artists, poets, warriors, inventors, manufacturers, explorers, pioneers, government leaders, business tycoons and gentle everyday family men made better because of their association with the love of our beloved Craft (Freemasonry), It has been so from the very beginning. And that holds whether you think our beginnings took root with the formation of the United Grand Lodge of England, the Illuminati, Knights Templar or Crusader days, the Druids and/or the Egyptians.... Whenever and where ever a people proclaimed a belief in God, in the immortality of their soul, and in a heartfelt obligation to help and serve their fellow man, the environment fostered the unfoldment of human imagination. Whether these people were bona fide Freemasons complete with dues card or forerunners of what was to become bona fide Freemasonry, we have much to be grateful as we advance into the uncertainties of this unfolding 21st Century. We've a wonderous track record to lean on and to emulate. For the first time in history, the consequences of our acts as masons not only will affect our immediate environment, but also can affect the entire planet, WE've never been at this point before. We need to give it serious thought..."
... Calling Freemasons "Eighteen Million Beacons of Light," he saw 6 million men..
.." .... believe in God (by whatever name), believe in the immortality of our souls, and, in the heartfelt obligation to serve our fellow man as we would have our fellow man serve us... What a wonderful opportunity we're being given to become responsible planetary stewards of our human creatively, thus preventing others from wreaking unimaginable horror on our planetary home.,,Nowhere since entering Masonry have we sensed the boundless possibilities so available to us individuals as masons, and collectively as a fraternity..." ..
Introduction:
The purpose of this book is to examine Freemasonry by exploring its complex and often controversial history, delving into its rituals and rites, and drawing back the shroud of mystery and suspicion that has enveloped it for centuries....
..In the interests of full disclosure, I'm not and never have been a Freemason .... However, because I meet basic rules of membership, could have been, I believe in God, I'm over the age of 21, and I have no criminal record..... I am not among the Freemasonic fellowship, or other groups, such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Off Fellows, Elks, and so on, for two reasons. (a) I've not been invited to join, and (b) except for professional societies, a few labor unions in which membership was a condition of employment, and a peculiar group dedicated to keeping green the memory and the spirit of sherlock Homes, known as the Baker Street Irregulars, I've never been a joinder. Consequently, when U was asked if I would be interested in writing a book on the Masons, I knew almost nothing about them. I was aware of "Shriners" wearing quaint, colourful outfits consisting of flowing capes and a tasseled cap called a fez as they march in the annual Tournament of Roses and other parades, that the motion picture academy awards are handed out at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles, and that the Shriners run several Hospitals for children... I've passed by the Masonic lodge in my hometown and others in cities in the united Sates and elsewhere, I've known men who wore masonic rings and other emblems that seemed to me to be no more significant than the class rings adorning his school and college graduates and the pins on sweaters of members of college fraternities.
.. Deciding to launch a quick exploration of the subject before committing myself to the project, I learned that Freemasonry is an international fraternity, although some lodges admit women.. membership is open to adults who believe in a Supreme Divine Being and immortality of the soul. While Freemasonry does not claim to be a religion, its beliefs have been heavily influenced by eighteenth - and nineteenth century Universalism and Deism. Its critics find in its influences of occultism, anti-christianity, and even satanism. While its members must believe in a divine Being, Masonry is open to people of all religions and races. Although Freemasonry is found all over the world. it is not a monolithic organization with a central authority figure, such as the Catholic Church;s papacy, an 'international president', or "secretary general", board of directors, or other overreaching governing authority. The governing body is a country is called the Grand Lodge, In the United States there is one for each stated in which Masonry exists...
...The oldest secret society in the world, Freemasons engage in rituals and rites that are said to date the the building of Solomons' Temple and the murder of it's Chief architect, Hiram Abiff,
(please note that many other Freemason Historians and Researchers come to the strong conclusions that this part of the historical background of Freemasonry is simply a fabrication made up in the 1600's by the 'Speculative masons"_not 'building workers'.. who made a take over of Freemasonry in the 1600's when they employed Dr James Anderson and others to write a new Freemason Constitution and historical account and codes and rituals for Modern Day Freemasonry to give a thousands of years old feel to Freemasonry which would gibe authenticity and creditability to the secret codes, oaths and blood curdling rituals of death by satanic and devastating means to those Freemasons who spoke about what happens in Freemasonry Lodges to the outside would on non-Freemasons)
Common ancient tools used in construction that are employed in Masonic ceremonies - trowel, plumb, level and compass - have symbolic meanings that are related to developing morality and the advancement of the members to the understanding of "Universal Light." Although Freemasons engage in secrecy regarding these rituals, Freemasons dispute a popular belief that Masonry is a sinister organization. They also dismiss allegations of a masonic conspiracy to control the United States and the world, Masons answer that they are simply idealists who have banded together to study and celebrate common moral beliefs and individual improvement.
What is not in dispute is an astonishing number of significant individuals throughout history of Europe and the United States in all fields of human endeavor who were Freemasons, from kings, presidents, and politicians to tycoons of industry, writers, composers, educators, generals, doctors, journalists. and other cultural. social and civic leaders. The provocative question that has persisted since the rise of Freemasonry is whether these men were engaged in a conspiracy to impose the tenets of Freemasonry in a "new world order", Some critics have gone so far as allege that Freemasons already run everything...
(note, that regardless of the influence and power Freemasonry has in all different countries and major centres around the world.... there seems no doubt that in Scotland where there are an estimated over 400,000 Freemasons.. and in 2013 when this edit is being written, this figure may well be closer to 1.000,000 freemasons and or Freemasons associated groups, clubs, organizations and networks in Scotland... out of about 5 million people in Scotland..which is about 20% of the population of Scotland .. however Freemasonry only invites males that are in respectable and solid positions ( or planning to be in the near future) such as media banking, police, lawyers, advocates, barristers. judges, sheriffs, magistrates, government and court clerks. parliamentarians and their staff, artists, poets, warriors, inventors, manufacturers, explorers, pioneers, government leaders, business tycoons and gentle everyday family men ..the become full fledged members of Freemasonry ... one has to take the view that 90% of all males in the work of respectable and solid positions ( or planning to be in the near future) such as police, lawyers, advocates, barristers. prosectors. judges, sheriffs, magistrates, government and court clerks. parliamentarians and their staff, artists, poets, warriors, inventors, manufacturers, explorers, pioneers, media banking, government leaders, business tycoons and many respectable family men ... are Freemasons and/or belong to one of the many Freemason associated groups, clubs, organizations and networks in Scotland..so if one wants anything done or not done connected with anyone in the councils, the courts, politics, business, police, prosecution, the law, business, media etc and they are not Freemasons and/or have a good Freemason connection... they have little chance of success... and if they try to buck anyone involved and/or connected in any way with Freemasonry in Scotland they will likely be run out of town in one way or another .. and or murdered ... like what happened to the INL News under-cover Journalist Thomas Allwood who was murdered in Broxburn Scotland on the 21st June, 2012 for trying to expose Freemason High Court judges, and masters, barristers. lawyers and investors who Thomas Allwood claimed were involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud him and his de-dacto wife Valerie Jouai (Nee Butler) of their lawful rights to a multi million pound 25 acre property known as Haywicks Farm, Haywicks Lane, Hardwicke, Gloucester -see www,awn.bz - Thomas Allwood stated that he had the proof that Freemason lawyers and investors were involved in creating a fraudulent will for Valerie Jouai's father the late herbert Henry Butler to have a fellow Freemason ) Gary Jouai.Butler obtain the title deed of Haywicks Farm, Haywicks Lane, Hardwicke, Gloucester by devious and fraudulent means.... Thomas Allwood was also trying to expose the Freemason UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and UK Chancellor George Osborne for instructing UK Border Agency to illegally arrest US comedian Ronnie Prouty at Heathrow airport as a favour for Freemasons Rupert and James Murdoch to help commercially sabotage the opposition media INL News Media Group's and Thomas Allwood's filming of their pilot of their Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show in Edinburgh in April, 2011,, and when Thomas Allwood sued them for £500 in damages Freemason UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and UK Chancellor George Osborne, the UK Home Office and the UK Border Agency, they filed a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency Document to have the claim struck out by Freemason Master Bowles.. which caused Thomas Allwood to file a criminal contempt of court application against
Freemason UK Prime Minister David Cameron, UK Chancellor George Osborne, UK Home Office and the UK Border Agency to be heard in the High Court on London before Justice Vos on the 24th July, 2012.. for them to be locked up in jail for such criminal contempt ... however Thomas Allwood was conveniently murdered on the 21st June, 2012 about one month before the proposed hearing to be heard in the High Court on London before Justice Vos on the 24th July, 2012...)
The origin of Freemasonry are debated by Masons themselves. Some accounts trace it back to the building of Solomon's Temple and even earlier to Greece and Egypt...
What is known is that in 1717 several Masons met in London to form the first United Grand Lodge of England as a governing force over groups of Freemasons in Britain. As the British Empire extended into the American colonies, Freemasonry followed... Many founding father oft he USA were Freemasons. Some students of Freemasonry contend that it was at the heart of the American Revolution and that it became the cornerstone of the U.S. Government. Since George Washington, numerous presidents have belonged, as well as members of Congress and other government officials. Although the U,S. Treasury Department denies that the one-dollar note contains Masonic Symbols, and some historians dispute that the plan for Washington D.C., was laid out according to masonic beliefs, there is a great deal of compelling evidence to bolster belief in a masonic link.
.... That Freemasonry is shrouded in closely held rites and rituals, including an oath of secrecy taken by its members, has created a mystique and a widely held belief that Masons are a group with sinister objectives and that they are anti Christians. This belief has resulted in an opposition to Freemasonry by the Roman Catholic Church, which bans the faithful form joining.
.. Masons counter a belief that it is the prototype of antidemocratic secret societies by noting that there is no overall veil of secrecy. One Masonic group states, quite correctly, that the degree of secrecy varies widely around the world. It noted, "In English-speaking countries, most Masons are completely public with their affiliations, Masonic buildings are clearly marked, and meeting times are generally a matter of public record,"
..While this is true, central aspects of Freemasonry are kept hidden. Meetings are closed to the public. Members are sworn to silence on what goes on and why, They also have a system of signs of recognition, including a secret handshake. Because of this, masons have been suspected of showing favourtism to other Masons, a sin France recently, when the chief prosecutor accused some judges and lawyers of stalling cases involving Masons. In the 1990's in Great Britain, the Labour Party government tried to enact a law requiring al; public officials who were masons to make their affiliation public.
.... In this examination of the story of Freemasonry, these and other aspects of the group will be explored, including organization of masonic lodges, rites and rituals, symbolism, the role of women, black Masons (Prince Hall Masonry), Masonic literature, membership requirements, how one joins, involvement of Freemasons in social and charitable causes, and masonic terms that have made their way into everyday language, such as 'hoodwink" and someone being "on the square". Other topics included the role of Freemasonry in the Crusades, an exploration of the hostility to Freemasonry by the Roman Catholic Church, links to Mormonism, the possible role of Freemasonry in the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a controversial theory that Freemason were connected to history's first serial killer ( Jack the Ripper), and a nineteenth-century mysterious disappearance and murder of a critic of Freemasonry that resulted in the formation of America's first "third party".
.. Although Freemasonry has been vehemently opposed and feared as a sinister conspiracy, it has been vigorously defended as essentially a religiously rooted philosophic system expressed in dramatic ceremonies intended to answer the questions posed by every thoughtful human: Who I am? Why an I here? What is the purpose of life? According to one of Freemasonry's eminent historians, W,L, Wilmshurst, it "supplies a need to those who are earnestly enquiring into the purpose and destiny of human life,"
.... With symbolism "its soul", Freemasonry has been described as a means by which all "good men" can unite to cultivate "freedom, friendship, and character." recognizing that other groups exist for these purposes, Wilmshurst noted in his book 'The Meaning of Masonry', "It is absurd to think that a vast organization like Masonry was ordained merely to teach grown-up men of the world the symbolic meaning of a few simple builder's tools" or t teach its members elementary virtues of temperance, justice, brotherly love, charity, and morality that can be found in the "fountain of truth and instruction' of the Bible.
... Because participants in "the Craft". as Freemasons call it, assert that it has some larger end in view than merely inculcating the practice of common social values, this books explores not only Freemasonry's origins and development, its numerous controversies, suspicions as to its intent, rituals, riles, symbols, and signs, but also its religious and philosophical influence throughout the rise of Western civilization and the extent of its influence today.
Chapter One: Cornerstones
If the story of a murder committed 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem that represents one of the cornerstones of Freemasonry ritual is true, the victim was no ordinary man.
The tale begins in the first verse of the third chapters of Second Chronicles in the Holy Bible, It records that the building of "the house of the Lord" on the order of King Solomon at Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, commenced on the second day of the second months in the fourth year of his reign. To construct the temple, Solomon assembles "three score and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them" . Needing a master artisan to properly adorn the holy edifice, he asked his friend, the king of Tyre, to lend the services of a man "cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, crimson, and that cab skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me,"
The King despatched Hiram, To this "cunning man, endued with understanding," on all the artistic fields that Solomon had requested, as well as "in stone", tradition has added the name "Abiff." Although little more is noted about him in the Bible beyond recording that he worked with precious metals and made most of the gold and silver adornments of the temple including a pair of columns named Jachin and Boaz, it is assumed that he was placed in command of all aspects of temple construction along specifications revealed to Solomon by God. According to first-century historian Flavious Josehus, in Antiquities of the Jews, the foundations of the temple were set "very deep" in the ground. They were "very strong Stones," said Josephus, that would "unite themselves with the earth" and be a "basis and a sure foundation" for the superstructure that was to be erected over it that would "resist the force of time".
As the supervising figure with authority for assigning jobs to achieve tis perfection in cutting and fitting enormous stones. Hiram would have also decided when a man was qualified to learn certain "mysteries" necessary for elevation to more challenging tasks in a workforce that was divided into three ranks: apprentice, fellow craftsman and grand master.
According ti Freemasonry tradition, as the temple neared completion there were fifteen craftsmen who conspired to coerce Hiram into promoting them by threatening to pass for grand masters in other countries to earn higher wages. While twelve of these men eventually abandoned the scheme, Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum were determined to go ahead with the original plan, Knowing that it was Hiram's custom to enter the temple's sanctum sanctorium to pray at nood each day they placed themselves as the three entrances (west, south, and east) and waited, As Hiram left through the east door, Jubela demanded to be named master, Hiram relied that he could not receive "mysteries" without the approval of Solomon and the king of Tyre.
Infuriated at being told to wait, Jubela slashed Hiram's throat with a 24 inch measuring gauge. s Hiram tried to escape through the south door, he was attacked by Jubelo with a blow to the chest with an architect's square. Reelng to the west door, he was slammed on the head by Jubelum wielding a common gravel or setting ma`ul that killed him. The three then carried his body through the west door and hid it in a heap of rubbish, Returning at midnight, they dug a grave that measured six feet east, six feet west, and six feet deep. With Hiram buried, they fled from Jerusalem for the town of Joppa on the coast of the Mediteranean Sea, The next day, King Solomon noticed Hiram;s absence and began an inquiry, When the twelve craftsmen who had backed out of the pan went to see Solomon to inform him of the plot and incriminate Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, they appeared before the Kinh wearing white aprons and gloves as token of innocence. Solomon sent search parties in all directions of the compass to find Jubla, Jubelo and Jubelum.
As the men going west arrived at Joppa, one of the searches sat on a rock to rest and heard Jubela wail form nearby, "O that I had my throat cut across, and my tongue torn our by the root, and burried in the sands of the sea at low water a cable length from the shore, where the tide doth regularly ebb and flow twice in the course of the twenty-four hours, than that I had been concerned in the death of our master Hiram.
A moment later, Jubelo blurted, "Oh! That I had my heart torn out from under my naked left breast, and given to the vultures of the air as a prey, rather than I had been concerned in the death of so good a master."
Jubelum exclaimed, "But oh! I struck him harder than you both, for I killed him. Oh! that I had had my body severed in two, one part carried to the south, and the other to the north, my bowels burnt to ashes and scattered before the four winds of the earth, rather than I had been concerned in the death of our master Hiram."
Seized and taken back to Jerusalem, they confessed to Solomon, described how they had killed Hiram, and described no desire to live. Solomon answered, "They have signed their own deaths, and let it be upon them as they have said."
with that, Jubela was taken out and had his throat cut and his tongue torn our by the root. He was buried in the sands of the sea at low water a cable length from the shore, where "the tide doth regularly ebb and flow twice in the course of the twenty-four hours'.
Jubelo's heart was torn out from under his naked left breast, and "thrown over the left shoulder" to be consumed by vultures.
Jubelum's body was cut in half, with one part carried to the north, and the other to the south. His bowels were burnt to ashes and cast before "the four winds".
Although we know the existence and the work of Hiram in the building of Solomons Temple from the bible and Joesphus's history of the jews, there is no record outside the rites and rituals of Freemasonry as to whether Hiram Abiff was the supervising architect of the temple, the manner of hi death, nor if Jubelo, and Jubelum were actual persons who were so impatient in their ambition to rise to the supreme rank of grand master that they murdered him and suffered ghastly deaths, Consequently, no one can state with certainly that Freemasonry is as old as the first temple built by the Jews. Whatever evidence might have existed within Solomon's temple to provide credence to the story of Hiram Abiff, and whether a trio of strivers killed him, was lost in the destruction of the temple. Despite the description by Josepus that the stones of the temple were strong enough "to resist the force of time." they were dismantled by invading and pillaging Babylonian troops in 597 B.C.
How and Why Solomon's Temple and the death of Hiram Abiff are central to FReemasonry was explained and interpreted by W.L.Wilmshurst in one of a series of papers for "members of the Masonic Order, constituted under the United Grand Lode of England." In the collection 'The Meaning of Masonry' he asserts that Solomon's Temple was meant to represent " the temple of the collective body of humanity itself," Describing Hiram Abiff, Solomon, and the king of Tyre as a "triad" corresponding to Christianity;s Holy Trinity, he writes, "The tragedy of Hiram Abiff, then, is not the record of a vulgar brutal murder of an individual man, It is a parable of cosmic and universal loss; an allegory of the breakdown of a divine scheme. We are dealing with no calamity that occurred during the erection of a building in an eastern city, but with a moral disaster to universal humanity."
With the slaying of Hiram, Wilmshurst contends, "the faculty of enlightened wisdom has been cut off from us," as a result, the temple of human nature remains unfinished:
Hiram Abiff is slain, The light and wisdom to guide and enlighten humanity are wanting in us. The full blaze if light and perfect knowledge that were to be ours are vanished form the the race, but in the Divine providence there still remains to us a glimmering light in the East, In the dark world, form which the sun has disappeared, we still have our five senses and our rational facilities to work with and these provide us with substituted secrets that must distinguish us before we regain the genuine ones..."
Freemasonry is defined as a system of religious philosophy that provides " a doctrine of the universe and of our place in it," by which we may understand that mankind has fallen away from 'a high and holy " centre: Those who desire to regain it must look within themselves.
" he regenerated man, the man who not merely in ceremonial form but in vital experience, has passed through the phases of which Masonic degrees are the faint symbol," Wilmshurst writes, Is alone worthy of the title of Master-Mason in the building invisibly out of the souls of just men made perfect."
This explanation of Solomon's Temple as a metraphoric foundation of Freemasonry was also provided in a speech in 1858 by Albert Pike, published with other addresses under the title 'The Meaning of masonry. Esteemed as "master genius of Masonry, both as Scholar and artist" and regarded as the most significant figure in American Freemasonry during the 19th century, Pike was born in Boston in 1809, Among his relatives were Nicholas Puke, the author of the first book on arithmetic in the Unites States, and the explorer Zebulon (Pike;s Peak) Pike, (the controversial life of Albert Pike as a poet, journalist, Confederate soldier, jurist, and orator and his influence on Freemasonry in the United Sates will be discussed in detail in chapter 11.) Settling in Arkansas in 1850, at the age of forty-one, he became intensely interested in masonic symbols, s he studied them he found that Freemasonry began to shape itself into "something imposing and majestic, solemnly mysterious and grand," along with "dim intimations, half-revealed and half concealed," an d of repository of the highest wisdom of the ancient world.
Noting that is all periods of the world's history secret orders and societies had formed outside "official churches" to impact "to suitable and prepared minds certain truths of human life" and instructions about "divine things," Pike asserted that Freemasonry offered a "synthesis, a concordat, for men of every race, of every creed, of every sect," with "foundation principles being common to them all." These principles are that after mankind's separation form God as the result of the rebelliousness of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (known as "the Fall"), God provided a means by which individuals could find their way back to `Him. To assist men in this quest, God provided guidance through human intermediaries, Imbued with "the light of the divine truth", they have appeared through history as sages, prophets, teachers, philosophers, the leaders of moral movements, and the founders of great religions. One of these " illuminated" men, st. Paul, called such leaders "stewards of the Mysteries." Although these enlightened men differed in accordance with the cultures, societal structures, and religions of the civilizations of their eras, they sought to share their knowledge of human nature, purpose of life, and steps by which mankind could pursue reconciliation and ultimate unity with the Deity. They found eager followers among people who's become dissatisfied with formal rituals of official religions that that consisted principally of appealin to a God or Gods on behalf of a ciy-state or tribe. Individuals seeking a route to personal salvation and morality hoped to find it within cults. They met in secret and practiced elaborate initiations, rites of purification, veneration of objects, took part in sacred dramas; and advanced by steps to full knowledge and Mastery of the Mysteries.
By the fifth century B.C. in Greece, these cults had become an integral part of the fabric of life. With the conquest of the Hellenistic empire by Rome, he Mysteries became even more widespread and so entrenched that the cult was recognized as a public institution. It remained a central element of Roman society until the fall of the empire and the advent of Christianity and its adoption as the state religion by Emperor Constantine.
The final blow fell in A.. 399 when Emperor Theodosius decreed, "whatever privileges were conceded by the ancient laws to the priests, ministers, prefects, hierophants of sacred things, or by whatsoever name they may be designed are to be abolished henceforth, and let them not think that they are protected by a granted privilege when their religious confession is known to have been condemned by the law."
While the Mysteries are primarily associated with ancient Greece and Rome, their origins are attributed to earlier cults that flourished in Crete and Egypt. Freemason historian, student of the occult, and self-proclaimed clairvoyant C.W, Leadbeater contends in Freemasonry and its Ancient Mystic Rites that the Mysteries and the " great doctrine of the 'Inner Light' ", which was God, "dwelt in the heart of every man".
Having learned from the World-Teacher, the priests passed on the teachings and"secret instructions. which they enshrined in their Mysteries, and students came form all nations to learn the Wisdom of the Egyptians, and the fame of the Schools of Egypt went abroad to all lands." Among those who learned the Egyptian Mysteries and carried them to another place was a former prince named Moses. Described by the historian Philo as "skilled in music, geometry, arithmetic, hieroglyphics, and the whole circle of arts and scientists, " he was inspired by God to lead Hebrews out of bondage toward 'a land of milk and honey," where as Leadbeater writes, the Mysteries were" faithfully handed down from generation to generation from the days of Moses until King Solomon came to the throne of his father David" and built the temple that would be centre piece of Judaism and eventually stand as a symbol of the path to mankind's reunion with `god that is at the heart of Freemasonry.
While Masons may claim to be, in Leadbeater's words, "lineal descendants of the kings and prophets of old who have been forbearers of the Hidden Light to men through countless generations," they have more tangible and recent connections to buildersb of the great cathedrals of Europe during the Middle Ages and their artistic and spiritual heirs in eighteen-century Britain.
Chapter Four Page 18-24
Freemasonry and the Protestant Reformation
Two centuries after Christianity was named the official religion of the Roman Empire in a decree by Emperor Constantine, cults of the ancient Mysteries that had become public institutions were abruptly prohibited by emperor Justinian I. His purpose was to strengthen the (now official) religion of the (Roman) Empire and establish himself as the supreme authority over the church in matters of organization and dogma. ( The term was "casesaropapism") . Toward this end, he issued a declaration of faith (544) and convened an ecumenical council at Constantinople (553). The resulting 'Corpus Juris' made paganism and apostansy punishable by death. There was no toleration of dissent. He decreed, "let no place be afforded to heretics for the conduct of their ceremonies, and let no occasion be offered for them to display the in sanity of their obstinate minds. Let all persons know that if any privilege has been fraudulently obtained by means of any rescript whatsoever, by persons of this kind, it will not be valid. Let all bodies of heretics be prevented from holding unlawful assemblies."
Because the emperor was declared both king and supreme authority on Earth in matters ecclesiastical. Justinian placed himself in conflict with the claim of the Catholic Church that the Pope was the true worldly representative of Jesus. As a result, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that a present day Roman Catholic "cannot applaud the great emperor's ecclesiastical policy." Wile recognizing Justinian's effort to promote peace and union within the (Roman) Empire, the entry notes that it was "a matter of course that this union was to be that of the 'most holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.' History records that after the decline of the Roman Empire, it was indeed the church and papacy that emerged as supreme arbiters of the Christian faith. It would remain so far far nearly one thousand years.
he judgement of history is that the efforts of Justinian's reign were so crucial in every aspect of the development of post-Roman European civilization that the Middle Ages would never have happened had it not been for Justinian. An ill-conceived military venture meant to unify the western and eastern parts of the empire, the abandonment of the Latin Language as the official language of the government and administrations, and a weakened eastern empire, which encouraged and strengthened the Persians, set the stage for a devastating war and made possible a westward spread of Islam. By over throwing western Germanic governments that were committed to saving as much of the Roman imperial civilization as possible, Justinian was indirectly responsible for the rise of the medieval church and the papacy to a position of unchallenged power in the European nations that replaced the Roman Empire.
In addition to Justinian's significant role in the emergence of Christianity as the religion of Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire, Justinian provided impetus to the arts in the style of design and construction known as Byzantine architecture, As a prodigious promotor of building, he saw his empire come to be strewn with superb monuments and buildings that were to be models for all later architecture in the East (Islamic style) and in the West (Gothic).
While this change of style that spread quickly over a great part of Europe was the result of advances in construction technology, consisting of revolutionary innovations in the form of the vaulted ceiling and the pointed arch, its enthusiastic acceptance was rooted in the birth of a new national consciousness that sparked a rivalry between cities and church officials who were eager to elevate their status with imposing cathedrals and public buildings.
It was a time, writes art historian H. R. Correrill in the multi-volume 'History of Art', when the Romanesque style building "suddenly gave way to that of a new, popular, and civic architecture" in which "Christendom cast aside its outworn attire and put on a fresh white robe of new-built Churches."
The Gothic style in religious edifices was meant to raise the devotion of the illiterate masses to a greater height represented by the soaring, majestic cathedrals than was ever possible in the flat, stolid lines of Romanesque structures. In this era id fresh Christian fervor, known as the Middle Ages, every stone was carved to glorify God by men who found in the craft of masonry a means for the expression of their own faith, possessing not only religious feelings, but also skills with which to express them in stone, they went from job to job and place to place. They called themselves "Free Masons", but were always under the domain of those who employed them. Whether it was a Monarch, a civic corporation, or a prince of the church who commissioned the building, the "Free Masons" found every aspect of their work and lives strictly regulated. The result of strictures in the matter of limits on wages was the formation of trade union that were necessarily steeped in secrecy. Employers who chose not to engage in clandestine dealings with the "Free Masons" sought to stifle the practice, In 1360, a (new) law banned secret agreements among "Free Masons" and "Carpenters" and prohibited all oaths of secrecy. In 1425, English "Free Masons" were forbidden to hold assemblies. A code of laws drafted by the duke of Bedford, acting as regent for three-yera-old King Henry VI, noted that a common bond united separate units or working lodges and declared them illegal. In less than two years, the law was being so widely ignored that attempts to enforce it were dropped.
While "Free Masons" were exhibiting economic strength to Great Britain, their counterparts in France and "Free Masons" in germany had also benefited from the premium placed on their skills during the period of cathedral building.
The French organization of "Free Masons" called 'compagnons' also held secret meetings that ran into government resistance and restrictive laws.
In Germany, "Freemasons" were called "Steinmetzen" ( stonemasons). Among their masterpieces were cathedrals at Strasbourg and Cologne, Both became schools where 'Free Masons' of other countries wee received in masonic lodges with symbolic ceremonies, But it was consequences of an event at a far less imposing church if German that would alter the course of Western civilization and change the direction of Freemasonry from fraternity of men bound by their unique "real stone mason craft" with a desire to be respected for it, and paid accordingly, to a broader society of gentlemen from all walks of life.
The incident that triggered the chain of events that would transform Freemasonry took place in the university of WITTENBERGE, Germany, on the front steps of a church. Part of a castle Church ( Scholsskirche), it had a sturdy wooden door that was frequently used by city and university officials and faculty and students for the posting of messages, notes, and notices, but never a thirty-four-yearpold monk named Martin Luther.
A university graduate with a doctorate in theology who was serving as Augustinian Vicar of Meissen and Thuringia, he had been ordained a priest in 1507. Described by a biographer as "temperamental, peevish, egomaniacal, and argumentative," he had come to the conclusion that there was no place for intermediaries between man and God in the form of church priests and in the church institution of buying remission of sins through "indulgences". Believing that the only requirement for the soul's salvation was faith, he wrote a document attacking the system, titled "Ninety-fiv Theses," nailed it to the Castle Church door, and began the Protestant Reformation.
Although there has been a strong strain of anticlericalism in England, Freemasons had remained loyal to the Catholic Church, When King Henry VII let a procession to a ceremony for laying of the cornerstone of a chapel at Westminster in 1503, Freemasons participated. The Freemasons could be rightly accused of flaunting laws intended to curtail and punish them for their secret dealings on the rate of wages, notes Jasper Ridley in a history of Freemasonry, nut however "wicked" they were in forming illegal trade unions, "they were perfectly law-abiding as far as religion was concerned,"
When Henry VIII's personal wishes collided with the supremacy of the pope on the issue of his demand that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon be dissolved so that henry could wed mistress, Anne Boleyn, Henry found it expedient, profitable, and popular to promulgate the Act of Supremacy in 1534, putting him at the head of the Church in England.
Between 1534 and 1549, a policy decreeing dissolutions of he monasteries stripped the church of hugh tracks of land and placed them in the hands of the Crown and ultimately those of the nobility and gentry. Because this resulted in an end to the building of churches, Freemasonry entered a period of decline that resulted in a change in the character of membership and from "operative" meaning those who actually worked in stone, to "speculative", in which the tools of masonry were employed as symbols in the contemplation of the mysteries of life and its meaning.
At precisely what period the "Freemason" lodges started admitting non-Masons is unknown. The practice was noted in 1646 when a lodge was recorded as having admitted Elias Ashmole and Colonel Henry Mainwaring, "There was nothing in the circumstance" note H,L. Haywood, "to indicate that this was a new thing,"
The shift in the purpose of Masonry from workers' guild to philosophical society was regarded at the time as so much of an innovation that secretaries of some of the operative lodges burned their records because they feared that with admission of non-Masons the secrets of the fraternity would become public. Comparing this felling of the necessity for secrecy among the speculative Freemasons to ancient cults, Haywood explains that steps had always been taken to preserve some previous and secret knowledge or magic. Such societies, when they attained to a real or fancied revelation of truth, sought to perpetuate their lore and to secret to themselves exclusive enjoyment of the power or dignity it conferred.
As later secret societies developed, they also masked their discoveries in allegorical terms. legends, and symbolical dramas. To protect themselves from intrusion, they emulated the early cults that had veiled their rituals in impenetrable mystery and had bound their members by oaths.
To ensure propagation of their work by competent successors, they invented ordeals of initiation and submission by which candidates for admission proved their fortitude and zeal in ceremonies consisting of successive phrases that sometimes too years to complete. These secret societies invested their symbols and ceremonials with significance that was suitable to the understanding of novices and led step by step to those that could be comprehended only by the most advanced.
Veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls, the youngest aged nine
Stuart Hall admits sex assaults on children aged between 9 and 17
'He can only be described as an opportunistic predator'
Stuart Hall Admits Sex Assaults On Children
Bill Roache Charged With Rape
Sky video 2:18
Veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls as young as nine years old.
The Crown Prosecution Service said he was an "opportunistic predator" and almost all the victims provided "strikingly similar accounts".
The CPS also said the victims, among them a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old, did not know each other and Hall's pattern of behaviour was "unlawful".
Hall, 83, admitted 14 charges of indecent assault and the offences took place between 1967 and 1985.
The former It's A Knockout presenter, who was also a regular football match summariser on Radio 5 Live, had previously denied any wrongdoing, telling reporters the claims were "pernicious, callous, cruel and above all spurious".
He said he had endured "a living nightmare" and but for his "very loving family" may have considered taking his own life.
He entered the guilty pleas last month at Preston Crown Court. However, they can only be revealed now after reporting restrictions were lifted.
In court, Hall calmly and repeatedly answered "guilty" when the charges were put to him at the hearing on April 16.
He admitted touching and kissing 13 young victims over nearly two decades, many were daughters of friends.
The Recorder of Preston, Judge Anthony Russell QC, told him he would be required to sign the Sex Offenders Register.
Hall was granted bail until his sentencing date on June 17 and the judge told him all sentencing options remain open including immediate custody.
Hall's barrister, Crispin Aylett QC, said: "The defendant is, of course, sorry for what he has done. Through me he wishes to apologise to his victims.
"He is not a man easily moved to self pity but he is only too aware his disgrace is complete."
Hall was told he must live and sleep at his Wilmslow home in Cheshire and have no unsupervised contact with girls under 18.
Hall did not comment on the case as he left court accompanied by his legal team, saying only to waiting reporters that he had a "terrible cold".
He was surrounded by a media scrum as he was led into a waiting car.
Outside court, Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for the North West, said: "We prosecuted Stuart Hall because the evidence of the victims clearly established a pattern of behaviour that was unlawful and for which no innocent explanation could be offered.
"His victims did not know each other and almost two decades separated the first and last assaults but almost all of the victims, including one who was only nine at the time of the assault, provided strikingly similar accounts.
"Whether in public or private, Hall would first approach under friendly pretences and then bide his time until the victim was isolated. He can only be described as an opportunistic predator."
Hall was facing 18 charges. A court order was lifted so that the pleas could be reported.
It was to avoid prejudicing a possible future trial on a count of rape and three separate counts of indecent assault which Hall had denied last month.
Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said the Crown was satisfied the rape count could lie on file after it was given consideration at "the most senior level" of the CPS. The three other counts were merged with a charge Hall had admitted.
The BBC said it would not be featuring Hall again in its programmes. In a statement, the corporation said: "In light of today's events, Stuart Hall will no longer be contracted by the BBC."
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You want to break the rich man's back.Learn simplicity,live simplicity,and when the rich man taketh away what he controls,seek means around it such as thriftiness and frugal practicality.That beast system that provides for the rich man's table is driven by the wants of the masses,if the masses took in stride what the rich man has denied and sought ways to make attainment irrelevant,he would think twice before inciting the masses to demand fairness and justice.
mike trik 1 month ago
god bless Greece and her people they gave the world many inventive gifts and she once was a super power she was beautiful but she fell and got back up now she falls again and she will get up. All my love to the Greek people stay strong ,just as Greece fell all those years ago so will the current super power lets hope they learn from their mistakes.
zampination 2 weeks ago
i pay 1.75 euro per litre of gas here in greece... tomatoes cost 2 euros per kilo... How much does petrol fuel and tomatoes cost in slovakia and estonia nowadays? and how much their pension is? Just to straight somethings out before people like you come and judge our ass without knowing shit about anything