In the year 2013 it is easier to kill a million people than control a million people
http://www.inlnews.com/WhoIsZbigniewBrzezinski.html
Zbigniew Brzezinski - Easier to kill a million people than to control them.
//www.youtube.com/watch? v=lkOOBo45TZU&feature=player_ embedded#
Zbigniew Brzezinski Obama's Top Foreign Policy Advisers, Professor of American Foreign Policy Strategic Analysis and Foreign Policy National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, worked for Ronald Regan as Intelligence advisor, founder and trustee of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Council For Foreign Relations (CFR) and Council for Strategic and International Studies, analysis, mastermind behind the creation of Ben Ladin and the terrorist Al Queda organisation, international advisor for a number of major corporations, an associate of Henry Kissinger, co-chairman of the Bush Advisory Security Task Force in 1988 ...what a guy...
states the following belief, conviction and effective advice to Barrack Obama and to Barrack Obama and
Zbigniew Brzezinski's employers and bosses...Jacob and Evilyn Rothchold and the rest Rothschild International Banking Family and their other evil and criminally insane International Baking Partners and Business associates and elite families
In a Speech Made on November 17th 2008
For the first time in human history ,.,.for the first time in all of human history.....almost all of mankind is politiclaly awake... andthese new and old major powers...face and yet another .... a novel reality...in some respect unprecidented ... and it is that while the lethality ..the lethality of their power is greater that ever.... their capacity to propose control ove rthe politicsally awakened masses of the world is at an all time low an unprecidented alll time low... I once put it rather pungently ... and I was flatered that the British Foreign Secretary repeated this...as follows ... namely in ealier times ...'.It was easier to control a million people literally...it was easiet to control a million people that physicly to kill a million people ... today it is infinitely easy to kill a million people than control a million people ..it is easier to kill that ot control...
Michael Ruppert gives a lecture of Zbigniew Brzezingski's 1997 book : The Grand Chessboard
The secret of 33 degree Freemasonry
Zbigniew Brzezinski BLAMED FOR 9/11
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 in Australia, for example, the Church of Scientology was banned form operating under that name and as a religion in some states form the mid 1960’s..This ban was overturned in 12983, when a court ruled that the organization was entitles to operate as a religion..
Promotional Video One of the INL News Film - The Great American Novel -The American Dream that never happened...
Deep Under Ground Military Bases known as DUMBS
Tavistock Society Global manipulation
Secret Societies- History Channel Video 1
Promotional Video Two of the INL News Film - The Great American Novel -The American Dream that never happened...
The Great American Novel- The Theme song for the INL News Film- The Great American Novel
Stuck In Babylon - the Song- for the INL News Film- The Great American Novel
The Entities - the Song- for the INL News Film- The Great American Novel
Illuminati - Freemason- New World Order Video 3
Stephen Knight the author of the Brotherhood who died aged 33 ......18 months after publishing his book
Stephen Knight the author of
the Brotherhood who died aged 33 ......18 months after publishing his book
Illuminated above the Mason's head, the equilateral triangle - all sides and angles the same -
symbolizes the strength and unity of the parts that make the whole complete
A dramatic moment during Freemason third degree ceremony, After the ritual, the candidate is a fully fledged Freemason
A dramatic moment during Freemason third degree ceremony
Christopher added...' Masonic doctors can also be used..'
Christopher continue for about half an hour to list examples of the ways in which corrupt members of the Brotherhood could defeat opposition..' ... those in power in Freemasons Hall knew something of what went on, but they felt defeated by it and preferred to look the other way rather than take steps to eradicate it...' ... Christopher said... if Christopher and his group failed for force the issue into the open, the organization would become so morally polluted that it would simply cease to exist...' Christopher also said ..we are not solely concerned with the Brotherhood .. it was the victims of those who used masonry as a source of personal power who has to be helped as well...
Christopher also said ..'..only the fighters have a hope of beating the system once it's at work against them' ..'Most people, fighters or not, are beaten in the end, though ,,It's..you see... you finish up not knowing who you can trust..you can get no help because your story sounds so paranoid that you are thought a crank, one of those nuts who think the whole world is a 'conspiracy' against 'them'. It is a strange phenomenon...Bt setting up a situation that most people will think of as fantasy, these people can poison every part of a person's life... if they give in they go under... if they don't give in... it is only putting off the day they go under...because if they fight, so much unhappiness will be brought to the people around them that there will likely come a time when even their own families and close friends turn against them out of desperation.... when that happens ..... and they are without friends where ever they look...they become easy meat... the newspaper will not touch them or their story...
'...There is not defense against an evil which only the victims and the perpetrators know exists..'
Acknowledgements:
I am free to name only a small number of the many hundreds of people who have helped me with advice and information for this book.. Most of those who helped did only on the understanding that I would say nothing that could lead to their identification. among there were Freemasons who feared recrimination from other members of the Brotherhood. . Others included government official, politicians, judges, policemen of all ranks, lawyers, churchmen, past and present officers of MI6 and MI6, and people from every sector of society touched on in this book...Without such people a book of this kind could not be contemplated.
Two men must be singled out: Simon Scott, managing editor of New English Library whose idea this books was an who supported me with unflagging enthusiasm all through the research and writing only to have the project snatched from him at the last moment; and my friend and agent Andrew Hewson who has never, even at the busiest moments, been unavailable.
Thank you Simon and I thank everyone else...all names fully listed in the book..
Proloque;
Freemasonry. although its leaders strenuously deny it, is a secret society. And few of its members- judges, police, politicians and royalty among them - realize that every time they attend a meeting they break the law, and (at least technically) lay themselves open to minimum of two year's imprisonment. Under the Unlawful Societies Ac of 1799 - unlikely, of course, ever to be enforced - Freemasons are permitted to hold meetings if yearly returns providing names, addresses and descriptions of brethren are submitted to local Clerks of the Peace .his is rarely done, so most gatherings in `Masonic Lodges are held in breach of the law.
In England and Wales alone Freemasonry has more than 600,000 initiates, with a further 100,000 in Scotland and between 50,000 and 70,000 in Ireland..(1984 estimated Figures... Paul Jeffries in his book Freemasons-Inside the World's Oldest Secret Society published in 2005 he states the following Freemason membership: Over 5.9 million Freemasons worldwide; consisting of: England and Wales- over 550,000. Scotland-over 400,000; Ireland over 47,000; Canada and USA- over 4.1 million; Europe-over 80,000; Australasia-over 375,000; `Latin America-over 50,000; Philippines-over 10,000 and other areas (India, Japan, Formosa, Africa, Israel etc)-over 288,000
All the members of this extraordinary Brotherhood are male. All except those who are second-, third-, or fourth-generation Freemasons, who may join at eighteen, are over the age of twenty-one. All have sworn on pain of death and ghastly mutilation No 5 to reveal Masonic secrets to outsiders, who are known
US founding father and president George Washington was a dedicated Freemason, and is shown here is his regalia as the Worshipful Master of his lodge
Beehives are an important Masonic symbol referring to industry, dedication, productivity, good works and the power of all pulling together....
The Brotherhood
by Stephen Knight –published 1984
The Dissidents – Chapter 16 _ages 140 to 149
One of my major sources of information was a former Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander of the Thirty-First degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite who has withdrawn form masonry in 1968 for religious reasons.. her agreed to be interviewed by me through a third party concerning his conviction that no active Christian could in all conscience remain a Freemason…
When I met him I learned he was a judge, and a particularly quick-tempered one .. I asked him about the Ancient and Accepted Rite of the Thirty-Third degree, he answered quickly: ‘Nom I dare not go into that’, her said ….’we’d better stick to religion… I thought immediately afterwards how strange it was he had used the words ‘dare not’, Most people said, ‘I’d better not’, or ‘I’d rather not’… I remarked on his used of the world. He said, ‘Anyone in public life has to be cautious.’ ..’Cautious’.. I repeated. “That’s a Masonic word of recognition.”..
He then said, ‘You’ve obviously delved into the ritual, so you know…..’
… ‘Mr Knight, I don’t like this line of questioning. I agreed to speak to you in general terms about why my commitment to Jesus is incompatible with Masonic religion …. I do not wish to be drawn into discussion of matters covered by whatever undertakings I have … taken…
I went on to tell the judge ..’I have heard form quite a lot of contacts about organized action groups of Freemasons that have resulted in the financial or social ruin of certain people, ‘ I said..
The judge replied.. ‘So have I’…’ ..still looking me st5raight in the eye as if telling me this was an important issue and point of fact…’ So have I Mr Knight… No of such happenings which had the backing of official Freemasonry, but of actions which were unofficial, in other words, Masons abusing the Craft for their own ends..’…’You know the answer to that form what I have said.. ‘I have also heard about people who have .crossed’ certain masons and finished up in prison…’ He then stopped me in mid-sentence by placing a finger on his lips ... ’if I told you everything about Freemasonry, being betrayed by its members, it would surprise you… it would make your hair stand on end … I can’t tell you any more..’ he said…then he said.. Give me your phone number, you might hear from someone in a few days…’… His finger went back to his lips and he went to fetch my coat .. as he left he said, ‘God Bless’…
A few days later received as phone call from a man calling himself Christopher whom I ended up having along meeting at his private club and he showed me his papers to show him bona fide ID and Freemason membership… I asked him what a person might have to fear from a group of influential Freemason if circumstances made him, for instance, a threat to them in the business world; or if he discovered they were using masonry for corrupt purposes; or had fallen victim of their misuse of Freemasonry and would not heed warnings not to oppose them…
He replied..’.. It is not difficult to ruin a man,’ he said, ‘And I will tell you how it is done time and time again.. there are more than half a million Freemasonry Craft Brethren (In 1883) just in England and Wales and over 400,000 in Scotland (in 1983) under the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge.. Standards have been falling for twenty or thirty years, it is now too easy to enter the Craft, so many men of dubious moral have now joined the Craft… about 12-13% abuse the Craft for selfish and/or corrupt ends.. (that is about 60,000 in England and Wales and about 40,000 in Scotland)..
Note: Christopher was one of a small and unpopular group within Masonry who sometime in the early 1970’s had decided that either they had to get out of the Brotherhood or they had to do something ‘to stop the rot’, which the ‘blinkered officers of Great Queen Street refuse to admit was there..’
This group wanted pressure brought to bear on those in positions of responsibility within the Brotherhood to put Freemasonry’s house in order.. to instate proper policing, to close down Lodges used for shady dealings and to root out corrupt brethren and expel them, they also wanted the whole business of Masonic secrecy looked into by Grand Lodge, most of them believing that secrecy was more harmful than helpful to Masonry..
Christopher explained that Masonry’s nationwide organization of men from all walks of life provided one of the most efficient private intelligence networks imaginable, private information on anybody in the country could be accessed very rapidly through endless permutations of Masonic contacts in the police, magistrates, solicitors, bank managers, Post Office staff (‘very useful is supplying copies of a man’s mail’), doctors, government employees, bosses of firms and nationalized industries etc. etc. …. A dossier of personal data could be built up on anybody very quickly.. when the major facts of an individual’s life were known, areas of vulnerability would become apparent…
I asked what action might be taken?..
“ Solicitors are very good at it…Get your name involved in something legal it need not be serious and you have him,, Solicitors are past masters a causing endless delays, generating useless paperwork, ignoring instructions, running up immense bills, misleading client into taking decisions damaging to themselves etc..
‘Masonic police can harass, arrest on false charges, and plant evidence.. ‘ A business man in a small community or a person in public office arrested for dealing in child pornography, for indent exposure, or for trafficking drugs is at the end of the line..’
‘Masons can bring about the situation where credit companies and band withdraw credit facilities form individual clients and tradesmen, said my informant..Banks can foreclose ...
People who rely on their telephone for work can have it cut off for long periods ... Masonic employees of councils can arrange for a person's drains to be inspected and extensive damage reported etc ..this burdening the person with huge repair bills; workmen carrying out the job can 'find' - very conveniently- further damage ..a fair legal hearing is lard to get when a man in ordinary circumstances is in financial difficulties .. legal aid applications can be delayed endlessly...Employers can be given private information about a man who had made himself an enemy of Masonry ... at worst he will be dismissed and/or consistently passed over for promotion....
Christopher added...' Masonic doctors can also be used..'
Christopher continue for about half an hour to list examples of the ways in which corrupt members of the Brotherhood could defeat opposition..' ... those in power in Freemasons Hall knew something of what went on, but they felt defeated by it and preferred to look the other way rather than take steps to eradicate it...' ... Christopher said... if Christopher and his group failed for force the issue into the open, the organization would become so morally polluted that it would simply cease to exist...' Christopher also said ..we are not solely concerned with the Brotherhood .. it was the victims of those who used masonry as a source of personal power who has to be helped as well...
Christopher also said ..'..only the fighters have a hope of beating the system once it's at work against them' ..'Most people, fighters or not, are beaten in the end, though ,,It's..you see... you finish up not knowing who you can trust..you can get no help because your story sounds so paranoid that you are thought a crank, one of those nuts who think the whole world is a 'conspiracy' against 'them'. It is a strange phenomenon...Bt setting up a situation that most people will think of as fantasy, these people can poison every part of a person's life... if they give in they go under... if they don't give in... it is only putting off the day they go under...because if they fight, so much unhappiness will be brought to the people around them that there will likely come a time when even their own families and close friends turn against them out of desperation.... when that happens ..... and they are without friends where ever they look...they become easy meat... the newspaper will not touch them or their story...
'...There is not defense against an evil which only the victims and the perpetrators know exists..'
Chapter 28
The Threat To Britain P 297 to 303
The "Chinaman Report" goes further than drawing attention t the KBG's almost certain use of Freemasonry for placing operatives in positions of authority, most damagingly achieved, so far as we know, such as in the case of Sir Roger Hollis, who was the director-general of the M!% service in the critical years 1956 to 1965 (as convincingly demonstrated by Chapman Pincher in his controversial study of Russia's infiltration of the West's secret services and defenses in his book 'Their Trade is Treachery)'. few people in MI5 now doubt that Hollis was a Russian spy for nearly 30 years and a respected Freemason having joined when he was in Shanghai, China in the 1930's working an international tobacco company along with then spending time in Russia..
(From Chap 27)..Of the many mysteries surrounding Sire Roger Hollis, one of the most baffling is how Hollis was ever accepted into M!% in the first place, Hollis was quite the opposite of what was required. In MI5, as opposed to MI6, which operates abroad, there is a great reluctance to accept candidates who have travelled widely out of the U,K. In the 1930’s when Hollis was recruited this stipulation was more easily met than it is today. For this reason and other reasons. Hollis was most unlikely candidate to be allowed to join the MI5 organization...Hollis did badly at university, having thrown in the towel in 1926 after only two years, then worked in London for a while and set off for China, Hollis then became stranded with only $10 in his pocket in Malaya, where he got a job with an international tobacco company in Penang and was later transferred to the company's offices in Shanghai. Hollis moved around China for the next nine years, working at Peking, Hangchow and Dairen. After this, Hollis contracted tuberculosis, and travelled to a Swiss sanatorium by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Vladivostok. spending some time in Russia All this, especially his time in Russia, should have been an insuperable obstacle to any hopes he had of joining MI5... So it proved.. at first ....Even after Hollis's treatment that his health was not strong enough for Hollis to continue working the tobacco company, so early in 1936 Hollis went back to England....''Even Hollis's friend agreed that Hollis was not particularly talented', wrote Chapman Pincher, who describes Hollis at the time of his return to England as 'basically a broken man': 'Though surprisingly athletic, Hollis was to retain the look of someone who had had contracted tuberculosis and Hollis became progressively round-shouldered that he looked almost hunched...he had no degree, his health was suspect and his experience in China was not likely to be helpful in securing a post in England...the only work Hollis could find at the time was as a clerk-typist. .... However, through an army major Hollis met, Hollis secured an interview with MI5.. Hollis was turned down and told that his experience abroad might be useful to MI6, so Hollis then applied to join MI6, but Hollis was turned down for health reasons from the MI6 service. Then when Hollis applied to join MI5 for the second time later that year nothing had changed as far as Hollis' ability, background and health ,,except the mind of MI5... miraculously....completely against any sort of normality given Hollis had already been turned down by MI5 and MI6 on previous occasions.. Hollis was hired by MI%... it is noted that the director-general of MI5 at the time was Major General Sir Vernon Kell, who happened to be a Freemason ..almost everything against him, Hollis had got into MI5... What is even more remarkable? was the rate in which Hollis was promoted within the MI5 service once Hollis got in... this astonished his colleagues them and still cannot be explained by any of the MI5 officers, current and retired, with whom I (Stephen Knight) have had contact either directly or through intermediaries. this is one of the great mysteries of Sir Roger Hollis.. Even though it was against regulations for any MI5 or MI6 officer to be a Freemason - and this, incidentally, must presumably indicate that membership of Freemasonry was regarded as a threat to security- several MI5 officers were in the Freemasonry Brotherhood - Among them was man called Potter, who was in charge of the huge MI5 card index, which is now computerized... such a man would be good to have as a friend... But is was Freemasonry that got Hollis against all odds into the MI5 service and took Hollis, the unlikeliest of all its officers, to the very top of MI5 .. the likeliest key to the mystery of Hollis is Shanghai and the time Hollis spent there for the British American Tobacco Company in the 1930's... the European community in Shanghai was small.. the English-speaking community was of course smaller and very tight-knit; virtually every Englishman arriving in Shanghai gravitated to the Masonic Hall at 1623, Avenue Road, Shanghai .. Freemasonry had flourished among the British expatriates here and at the previous Masonic Hall at 30 The Bund, Shanghai, since the mid-1800's .. In the 1930's, when Hollis was in Shanghai, the tradition of Freemasonry there was at its zenith.. A man who was not a Mason was at a grave disadvantage in achieving whatever social or professional ambitions he had...Almost everyone I have contacted who knew Hollis, including MI5 officers past and present, has reacted similarly to the suggestion that the former director-general Sir Roger Hollis was a member of the Freemason Brotherhood. - that was just the kind of man, extremely secretive by nature, with few friendships and with small prospect of advancement - who would join Masonry in order to exploit its covert advantages ...Freemasonry, said the contacts, offered the first explanation to the Hollis mystery, his otherwise inexplicable acceptance and his phenomenal rate of promotion.....it is understood that Hollis's immediate predecessor as director-general of the MI5 security service, Sir Dick Goldsmith White, was also a Freemason, who was the only man to have ever been both the head of MI5 and MI6, having moved from MI^ to MI5 in 1956 to take over the MI5 secret service from Sir John 'Sinbad' Sinclair... Despite his impressive record and qualifications, the unprecedented transfer was viewed by many within MI6 as dangerous and as something which, once again breaking all the traditional rules governing the secure operation of the two services, should never have been allowed. It was Sir Dick Goldsmith White. who on his appointment as MI5 Secret Service Chief, recommended Hollis as his successor to premier Anthony Eden....Hollis' treachery should have come to light in the late 1940's when Sir Percy Sillitoe was director-general of MI5..As A.W. Cockerill, Sillitoe's biographer, points out, 'practically the entire effort of the MI5 Service form 1946 on, and until long after Sillitoe's retirement, was directed at identifying and weeding out Communists from positions in which they posed a threat to national security'. Cockerill states that one of Sillitoe's first actions after getting settled into the job as MI5 chief was to carry out a purge, for which he had something of a reputation in his former career in the police..
'" In the case of MI5m he was primarily interested in the political reliability of his staff, and a number of employees were forced to leave for one reason or another.... Beginning with those whose credentials were 'impeccable', he carried out a systematic security check of the entire establishment, This was a programme in which the internal security officers combed through each personal file as though the person concerned was a newcomer; the individual's history was checked and rechecked, membership in clubs, societies and social organizations was investigated anew to ensure that the service itself was 'clean'..."
But Sillitoe, without knowing it, was fighting an impossible battle,,, with the man in charge of all the personal records being a member of the Freemasonry Brotherhood, Sillitoe would never be allowed to learn that Hollis's mans of entry to the MI5 Service had been by way of a Masonic Lodge in China and a Masonic Director-General of MI5.. In is an interesting fact that the Freemason Lodge membership lists of the Shanghair Lodges between the wards are among the lost closely guarded secrets of the United Grand Lodge.. Several attempts by concerned Freemason members of the Brotherhood to get try and hold of these files through the ordinary channels have been always blocked ... it is evident that those lists of names contain something so explosive, so potentially damaging to the Brotherhood, that it will not permit them to be examined even by senior Masons,,
Whose name is being concealed???
If not...Sir Roger Hollis????
Chapter 28: The Threat To Britain continued
The Chinaman Report also expresses concern that British Freemasonry as a whole is, quite unknown to its members, a major target for so-called 'Special Political action' for the KGB, The Chinaman Report states among other things"
" ...sheer prudence demands that the lessons of the P2 affair receive the attention of all who have the interests of the UK and the West at heart, masons and no-masons alike... The affair has so far been to the considerable advantage of the Soviet Union and the Communists, which alone of the political parties ( conveniently) has no known members among the listed names published by order of the Prime Minister,, Has P2 continued its secret growth and unacceptable activities, the inevitable scandal could have brought down with it non-Communist government in Italy ... Yet Italian Freemasonry has been estimated as of the order of under 100,000 - a mere tenth of the supposed UK total for roughly similar population,..."
In the UK he Brotherhood enjoys the inestimable advantage of royal patronage... The Chinaman Report suggested that 'the Italian affair is a serious warning form which important lessons can be drawn ..The UK could well prove very much more vulnerable to exposure of improper activities by a group of Freemasons than is Italy...'
According to the Chinaman Report There are two reasons for this:
",,,First, Masonry so permeates so many revered British institutions form the Crown downwards, that a grave Masonic scandal could in modern circumstances involved popular revulsion against the whole established order ...Government and Business ...
Second, the proportion of Masons to non-Masons in some professions and other walks of life, including areas of Government, appears to have reached a critical point: the point at which people believe themselves obliged to join Freemasonry, no longer voluntarily, but from a feeling of compulsion...."
..This statement is certainly accurate, as my own enquiries have revealed..
.."Masons and non-Masons alike seem increasingly to fear the potential of the fraternity (Freemason) to ruin them (if they in any way upset the Freemason Fraternity or try to take them on in any way)...At such a point it becomes hard to find in certain areas vital to the state an adequate numbers of competent persons who are non-masons to prevent such a vacuum as now threaten Italy were al the officers of the armed forces of General rank named in the P2 documents to be required to retire (because of being exposed and named as members of the P2..
Third, there is much circumstantial evidence that more ruthless elements have joined Freemasonry and are using up the find of respectability that Royal patronage confers to indulge in activities which reputable members would find quite unacceptable were they aware of the extent of the abuse (of Freemasonry)..This of course, is a danger inherent in all secretive societies for their cellular from devised by the founders for the security of the movement, can as readily be used to 'hoodwink" the leadership, who thus become unwitting 'front men' for activities they would never countenance,..."
..The Chinaman Report alludes to the argument that there has not been a Masonic scandal of major proportions in modern times and the contention that should one occur, it could readily be contained by the Brotherhood by mean of both public expulsions and cover-ups. the Chinaman Report continues:
"...This may possibly be so... But British society as a whole is changing rapidly..The established order of things developed over the past thousand years in no longer so widely and so automatically accepted as in even recent past ....Many, of all political hues, consider some of our institutions archaic and in need of reform.. this view is fueled by the loss of national self-confidence and national pride following from the loss of Empire and our very poor showing in the list of advanced industrial societies,, Disrespect for those in authority is already considerable and is increasing at an accelerating rate: such rife dissatisfaction soon comes to seek a scapegoat, such as 'the Establishment' provides... But out institutions - both public and private - seem incapable of reforming themselves and performing the 'aggiornamento' the thoughtful of all moderate persuasions are increasingly coming to expect...
...Against this worsening background it would be rash to suppose that the methods of the pas to contain scandals and irregularities in Masonry ( or indeed in anything else) will still be adequate by, say, the end of the decade. And this is to count without the intentions of the KBG...
The possibility that the KGB has along-term interest in British Freemasonry must be taken seriously..For to any trained intelligence officer, Freemasonry offers an ideal vehicle for the destabilization of the United Kingdom. to make two points:
(1) there has for some time been practically no mention of Freemasonry in the media: for widespread and important a movement this almost amounts to a taboo- any serious, well documented exposure of substantial malpractices could be expected to have a disproportionate shock effect. We are not yet so cynical and so inured to scandal as the Italians.
(2) Second, the KBG - itself growing out of a clandestine movement's seizure of state power, well understands the organization, motivation and other problems of secret societies (particularly of Communication records, and the use of a reputable ''front'') and is thus ideally qualified to exploit Freemasonry for its own ends,,"
..here the Chinaman Report constructs, form its thirty-year knowledge of the KGB's political methods and of the inner workings of British Freemasonry -with the P2 conspiracy forming a bridge between the two - a scenario which to my certain knowledge senior official of both MI5 and MI6 regard with utmost gravity. ..the man code-names Chinaman suggest that the most likely method of attack would follow the pattern of P2 - in other words, the KGB, doubtless through Czech intelligence, would attempt to hive off a promising area of Freemasonry and encourage its growth...
"....The more prominent those unwittingly involved, the greater the ultimate effect - provided the top echelon (of Freemasonry) were carefully preserved untainted.. Another phase would be deliberately to encourage and exacerbate existing abuses for personal advancement at the expense of non-Masons.. Arrogance would be inflated to a point where the Masons concerned would become over-confident and incautious ..... the KGB would then obtain and collate documentary and circumstantial evidence in as many spheres of activity as possible ...
...Once sufficient material has been gathered, the KGB would be prepared to wait years if required until directed to mount an exposure at a politically appropriate juncture.. Then the 'fuse' would be lit for example by arranging for a blackmail operation to fail, or a 'Soviet 'defector' to arrive perhaps in the US, and point conclusively to KBG involvement in Masonry ..Media and Government enquiries could then be fed with supplementary evidence garnered for the purpose over the years... Names would be called....Confusion would be sown by including the righteous (chosen for their effectiveness in opposition to Soviet designs) with the guilty (chosen for their publicity value) : in such circumstances lies mixed with incontrovertible truths would be hard to winnow.
If the right moment for 'ignition' were chosen the disaster could be very great. ...One only need only to remember the effect on each occasion of the news of Fuchs's espionage (Klaus Emil Julian Fuchs, was convicted in 1950 of passing British American atomic research secrets tot eh Soviet Union), the Maclean and Burgess defections, the Philby case, the Blunt exposure and the recent public allegations regarding the late Sir Roger Hollis, to appreciate the effect of well documented exposures at one time of even fifty prominent persons - let alone nearly a thousand as in the Italian P2 case.."
Chinaman makes it plain that short of information from some formerly well-placed genuine defector, there is no certain means of knowing whether the Soviet Union is operating such a plan..
"..I simply suggest that it is self-evident that the possibility should be taken seriously and appropriate defensive action taken if this has not already been done adequately.."
..I can reveal that no such defensive action has yet been taken because prior to the submission of the Chinaman Report, no one had considered the possible exploitation of Freemasonry. No one knew enough about the Brotherhood for it to present itself as a possibility. Chinaman suggests measures to minimize the effects of any KGB-promoted exposure in two main ways:
"..(1) First, by ensuring that we are not 'caught' with persons holding certain key delicate positions being Masons ... From my own experience (as well as reports of the P2 case) I would hope for example that the heads of both the MI5 Secret Intelligence Service and the MI6 Security Service are not (again) permitted to be Freemasons, and that the regulations of these two services now provide for any Masons to declare their adherence to the head of the service concerned personally (as already stated, MI5 officers are banned from joining the Brotherhood, but this has not prevented several MI5 officer from being members of the Freemasonry Brotherhood).. I believe that the same should apply o MI6 Special Branch. Masons who are already members of MI5 and/or MI6 branches of Government could provide a valuable link to Freemasonry in the MI5 and MI6 services, in the service of the State, if they are not so acting already.. In other Government Departments, arrangements could ensure that heads of personnel sections be non-Masons, and that they have a right of access to the Director-General of the Security Service, ..The legal professions- presently the object of increasing public disquiet because of its alleged tendency to protect its own - is a particular problem given the large number of Freemasons (in the legal profession in the United Kingdom)
(2) The Second direction I would concentrate upon would be legislation. It seems to me, for instance, far less likely that any deliberate organized exposure would cause serious and lasting damage to the benefit of the pro-Communist left and the Soviet Union, if all citizens had the legal right, if the elected, to a written assurance that any professional person they consulted is not a member of any secret society, including Freemason and similar or related groupings: an untrue denial rendering the professional person liable to criminal proceedings.. I appreciate the very great difficulties, but possibly in the not too far distant future in the wake if the P2 affair, some measure along these lines might be passed ... In the Government service Masons in delicate areas would come to know that for security reasons a few positions were closed to the: this too would help shift the balance of advantage..
...Such measures could, I believe, also incidentally lead to a significant improvement in Britain's performance in many places, lessening the possibility that the more dynamic, more forward-looking and better qualified may be passed over to the detriment of government and industrial efficiency ... I repeat, though, that I am well aware that I have not the qualifications for suggesting counter-measures, that I have for setting out the dangers,,,'
..I have discussed the Chinaman Report in general terms and off the record with several high; placed officials and with three former Cabinet Ministers, all of whom told me that if such a report came into their hands when they were in office hey would have initiated an enquiry, IN March 1982, having contacted Foreign ~Secretary Lord Carrington and been assured by him that he was not a Freemason Brotherhood, I was on the point of raising it with him.. The Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and Britain lost on of its most able ministers.
And here another link is forged between Licio Gelli (P2 founder and controller), his Overt Masters, and the important task P2 had been created to perform in the continuing programme to destabilize the West, After Licio Gelli's flight from Italy. Licio Gelli did not go hiding beyond the Iron Curtain as suggested by the perspicacious Peter Hebblethwaithe...Most informed sources believed Licio Gelli was in Argentina, where he had exercised so much influence in the past and where, I suggest. Geberal Galtieri was Licio Gelli's new Peron, It cannot be a coincidence that Admiral Emilo Massera, the commander of the Argentine Navy and one of the three-man junta that launched the Falkland invasion, and the commander of the Argentine Fits Army, General Calos Suarez Mason, we`re both secret members of Lodge P2.
Chapter One: Origins
Some Freemasons claim great antiquity for Freemasonry. This is reflected in the Masonic calendar which is based on Archbishop Ussher's seventh-century calculation that the Creation must have taken place in the year 4004 BC/ For convenience, the off four years are ignored and Anno Lucis (in the Year of Light, when Freemasonry is deemed to have begun) is four thousand years ahead of Anno Domini - so a Masonic certificate of initiation bearing the date A.L. 5983 was issued in A.D. 1983. The implication is that Freemasonry is as old as Adam. \ Throughout the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, Masonic writers produced vast numbers of books seeking to show that their movement has a continuous history of many hundreds, even thousands of years. Some claimed that the ancestors of the Brotherhood were the Druid or Culdees; some claimed they were the pre-Christian Jewish Monks, the Essenes, Others insisted that Freemasonry had its origins in the religion of ancient Egypt - an amalgam of the briefly held momotheism of Ikhnaton (c.1375 B.C.) and the Isis-Osiris cult.
Modern Masonic historians are fare more cautious. It is now accepted that Freemasonry as practiced today goes back no more than three centuries. What is true, though, is that the philosophic, religious and ritualistic concoction that makes up the speculative element of Freemasonry is drawn from many sources - some of them, like the Isis-Osiris myth, dating back to the dawn of history. Rosicrucianism, Gnosticism, the Kabbala, Hinduism, Theosophy and traditional notions of the occult all play a part; but despite the exhaustive literature - one scholar estimates that some 50,000 items of Masonry had been published by the 1950's - it is impossible to determine what comes from where and when, if only because Freemasonry on its lower and more accessible levels is opposed to dogma. There is therefore no alternative statement of what Masons believe or what the Brotherhood stands for in the first, second and third degrees, to which the vast majority of members restrict themselves. Even a 33 degree Mason who has persevered to attain all the enlightenment that Freemasonry claims to offer could not - even if he were freed from his oath of secrecy - provide more than a purely personal view of the Masonic message and the meaning to be attached to Masonic symbolism, since thus remains essentially subjective.
The comparatively short documented history of Freemasonry as an institution is nevertheless quite extraordinary. It is the story of how a Roman Catholic trade guild for a few thousand building workers in Britain came to be taken over by the aristocracy, the gentry and members of mainly non-productive professions, and how it was turned into a non-Christian secret society enjoying association with offshoot fraternal societies with millions of adherents throughout most of the non-Communist world.
In many cultures and at many times humankind has been drawn to the esoteric - the conception that the great truths about life and how to control social and natural phenomena are secrets and can only be known to initiates, who pass on their privileged knowledge to the elect from generation to generation. Ad one highly placed Mason told me: ' Truth, to the initiate, is not for everyone, pearls must not be thrown before swine.'
Equally. throughout history men have joined together in secret groups to further purely worldly ambitions. All such groups also involve initiation - the initiation ceremony involving fearful oaths of secrecy. For secrets to remain secrets there must be certain and effective sanctions. Secret societies formed for essentially practical ends have commonly had religious and moral elements. The religious element creates awe and so adds to the effectiveness of the oath of secrecy. The moral element determines the fraternal way that the organization's members threat each other, which might bear small resemblance to the way they treat outsiders.
Freemasonry is both speculative, philosophic - even religious and mystical -system, and a fraternity of those organized to help each other in material matters. For some Masons it is entirely the former, for other the latter. but for most it is a mixture of the two.
Masonic historians seem as uncertain as non-Masons about who first saw in the obsolescent mediaeval Christian Masonic guild as organization that could be taken over and converted into a quasi-religious, quasi-secular secret society. What evidence there is indicates that this evolution began very slowly and almost by chance, and that it was only later that the potential of the Masonic guild as a clandestine power base was perceived. In other words, it appears that the original interest of the gentry in the Masonic lodges stemmed from curiosity, antiquarian interest, and a kind of fashionable search for an unconventional, exclusive social milieu - rather like a jet-set fad for frequenting working men's pubs.
..There are a number of reasons why the Masonic guild should have attracted this general interest....
...First, the working (or 'operative') mason's craft guild was ripe for takeover: structured in the heyday of Gothic architecture in the thirteenth century, the craft was dying.. King's College Chapel at Cambridge, perhaps the last truly great English Gothic building, had been completed about 1512...
... Secondly, the highly skilled stonemasons of the Gothic age were peculiar in that many were itinerant workers, moving from church site to cathedral site as work was to be found. They had no regular headquarters like other trades, gathering in temporary lodges on site to discuss affairs ...and, as they often did not know each other as did permanent residents of mediaeval towns, they needed some method of recognition, some way of maintaining a closed shop to protect their demanding and highly esteemed profession against interlopers who had not undergone the rigorous apprenticeship necessary to acquire the mason's skills. These, as Professor Jacob Bronowski termed them, were the 'industrial aristocrats'.....
.... There was thus cosmopolitan romance, exclusivity and an organized secretiveness about the mason's guild, which became increasingly moribound as baroque replaced Gothic architecture ... all of this had potential fascination for men of education.......
Modern Freemasonry probably originated in Scotland... The earliest known instance of a non-stonemason, a gentleman, joining a mason's lodge is John Boswell. Laid of Auchinlech, who was a member of the Lodge in Edinburgh in 1600. Apparently the first English gentleman to join an English Lodge was Elian Ashmore, founder of Oxford' Ashmlean Museum. An antiquarian deeply interested in Rosicrucinism, he joined in 1646, Masonry became so fashionable that as the seventeenth century progressed the 'acceptance' (the collective term for non-stonemasons) became the majority in the Masonic Lodges.
For example, in 1670 the Aberdeen Lodge had thirty-none 'accepted' members while only ten remained 'operative' masons. But it was not long before the novelty in participating in the Quaint and venerable doings of artisans wore thin. Men of fashion saw no reason to prolong association with working men, and they began to form their own gentlemen' Lodges.... Freemasonry was launched...
... The 'speculative' Masons inherited seven main fundamental points from their 'operative' predecessors:
(1) an organization with the three grades of membership: (a) Apprentice, (b) Fellow or Journeyman, and (c) Master Mason;
(2) A unit termed a Lodge;
(3) Legendary histories of the origins of the Masonic craft set out in the 100-odd manuscripts containing the so-called 'Old Charges', the oldest being the Regius manuscripts of 1390, which was in verse;
(4) A tradition o fraternal and benevolent relations between members;
(5) A rule of secrecy about Lodge doings, although the Old Charges themselves were simply lists of quite ordinary rules for the guild, which members were enjoined to keep 'so help you God'. as befitted a Christian grouping there were no blood-curdling oaths;
(6) A method of recognition, notably the Scottish 'mason word' traced back to 1550: unwritten but variously remembered as Mahabyn, Mahabone, or even Matchpin;
(7) A thoroughly Christian foundation - the Old Charges are permeated with mediaeval Roman Catholicism;
With the demise of the original 'trade union' purpose of organization and the eclipse not only of Roman Catholicism due to the Reformation, but also the waning of Christianity with the rise of science, what was left towards the end of the seventeenth century was the framework of a secretive association, likened by authority to a peasant's cottage ripe for extensive development as a luxury weekend home for the well-to-do.
... Serious Masonic historians themselves deplore the lack of documentation about the three or four critical decades before the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717 ,,but is was during these years that the course of Freemasonry was to follow set.. it was evidently then that feww men among the small number (possibly only a few hundred in all) of 'accepted' masons must have come to see the potential of a secret society cutting across class divisions to embrace aristocrats, gentry, professional men and elements of the expanding middle class... It was to be a 'brotherhood' which would put a string to pull into the hand of every members, and strings enough in the hands of its shadowy controllers to manipulate events - like puppet masters behind the scenes ..But who these people were and just how consciously they planned or, as some have said, even plotted, is shrouded in mystery ,,, One thing united a majority of politically conscious people at this time: the need to preserve the gain of the Civil War of 1642-1651 - the limitation of the power of the King.. The 'accepted' Masons of the last quarter of the seventeenth century would appear to have been largely drawn from the type of people most anxious to preserve and to increase the steadily growing influence in society and government if men of quite moderate wealth and standing...
.... William of Orange and his consort Mary in 1688 were invited to become joint sovereigns..
.... When Grand Lodge was founded, George I had been on the throne only three years ..the prominent in Masonry were poised to have a hand in the manipulation of the new Hanoverian dynasty...
...Before the foundation of Grand Lodge in 1717, moves to transform the old guild into a true secret society were well on the way. As the normal trade union business of operative Masonic Lodges dwindled and eventually ceased, so the element of ritual based on the readings of the Old Charges - their legendary stories about the origins of the 'Mason's Craft; and their injunctions to members to obey the traditional rules - was transformed. Lodge ritual, initiations and speculative dissertations became the mail business of actual lodge meetings ... at the same time fraternal conviviality - which in the old days of operative masonry had probably been confined to a tankard or two after meetings in a local ale house - soon became a major feature of Masonic society... much was eaten, much was drunk, and much was discussed in the privacy of Masonic meeting places (usually taverns) after the rather dry formal doings in Lodge were over... the 'better' the `lodge - in the sense of social class - the 'better' the conversation and the more lavish and expensive the entertainment ,,,Masonry was already on its way to mirroring and reinforcing the class system and the emerging social order based on strictly constitutional monarchy... whatever it was to become overseas, where no Civil War, no Glorious Revolution had yet taken place, Masonry in England was already headed towards a conservative future...The sights of its prime movers were already set on a movement underpinning a type of society admirably suited to its purposes: a stable society with limited social mobility in which a secret inner 'Old Boy' association could provide an environment where considerable benefit could be gained by members who knew how to 'play the Masonic organ'.
,, Formal oaths of secrecy to be sworn by individual initiates appear in a number of Old charges containing 'new orders', but as these were published five years after the establishment of Grand Lodge they are possibly spurious. ,,,either way, no horrific sanctions are mentioned.. even so, the inclusion of an oath in the initiation rituals can be regarded as a crucial step in the creation of a secret society from the old guild...
The headquarters of the Brotherhood ( as Freemasonry is generally called) in England and Wales is in London, where the massive bulk of Freemasons Hall squats at the corner of Great Queen Street and Wild Street, like a gigantic elephant's footstool... This is the seat of the United Grand Lodge of England, the governing body of the 8,000 plus lodges in England and Wales, These Lodges, of which there are another 1,200 odd under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and about 750 under the Grand Lodge of Ireland, carry out their secret business and ritual in a deliberately cultivated atmosphere of mystery in Masonic Temples. Masonic Temples might be purpose built, or might be rooms in hotels or private buildings temporarily converted for Masonic use. Many town halls up and down Britain have private function room, used for Masonic rituals, as does New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police...
.... The Grand Lodges control what is known as ''Craft" Freemasonry, and brethren often refer to the Brotherhood as "the Craft". Craft Freemasonry covers the three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason..The vast majority of Masons rise no higher than Master Mason, and most are under the impression that there are no higher degrees... Even many masons who go on to become Royal Arch Masons, governed by Grand Chapter, have no idea that the Masonic ladder extends a further thirty rungs above those on the third who believe they had already reached the top of Freemasonry....( it is note that other researchers such as Glen Kealy believe that the ladder goes even higher to a 90 degree mason..however a 33 degree mason can not request to become and/or would not know about the 90 degree mason levels unless selected and told about them......
.... There is an important distinction to be made between 'Freemasonry', which is the Freemason movement as a whole, and 'Freemasons', which describes any number of individual masons .... it has been claimed that Captain William Morgan in American in 1826,Mozart and the Jack the Ripper murders were committed by Freemasons and/or the Brotherhood.. some people today look upon Freemasonry as an underground movement devoted to murder, terrorism and revolution ... and is a worldwide conspiracy and watch.... however... Freemasonry is not a worldwide secret society ..however is a secret society that, originating in Britain, now has independent offshoots in most of the non-Communist world ...while the British Grand Lodge recognize more than a hundred Grand Lodges ( forty-nine in the USA), they have no control over them, and most reflect the political complexion of the country in which they operate. Far from being revolutionary, there is no organization more reactionary, more Establishment-based, that British Freemasonry. Its members derive benefit from the Brotherhood only so long as the status quo is maintained ... nevertheless, Freemasonry has a potent influence on life in Britain - for both good and ill... the Brotherhood's publicly stated aims are: morality, fraternity and charity ... the average member of the Brotherhood will be eloquent on the generous donations made by United Grand Lodge to charity ...which are quite substantial ... on the other hand, there can be no doubt that many others have suffered because of Freemasonry entering into areas of life where, according to all its publicly proclaimed principles, it should never intrude .... the abuse of Freemasonry caused alarming miscarriages of justice.. it is one of the aims of this book to look at some of the effects of this abuse .... I am free to name only a small number of the many hundreds of people who have helped me with advice and information ... (for the writing of this book) .... most of those who helped did so only on the understanding that I would say nothing that could lead to their identification... among these were Freemasons, who feared recrimination from members of the Brotherhood ... other included government officials, politicians, judges, policemen of all ranks, lawyers, churchmen, past and present officers of MI5 and MI6, and people from every sector of society touched by this book.....
Edited from: The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies Intro: Elias Ashmore:
Elias Ashmore was an English historian, astrologer, alchemist, in 1644, where he became a member of Brasenose
College and studied astrology and mathematics, His studies were interrupted by the final phase of the English Civil War , and he served with distinction in the Royalist cause, helping defend Oxford and Worcester against Parliamentary armies. After the final collapse of the Royalty cause in 1646, Ashmore went to live with relatives in Cheshire, While there in October 16th, 1646, he was initiated into Freemasonry, becoming one of the first two "accepted (speculative) Masons (Masons not employed in the building trades) in England, the other, initiated on the same evening, was his brother-in-law Henry Mainwaring. He remained active in Masonry for the rest of his life and appears to have placed a significant role in its spread in seventeenth-century England...
The Brotherhood
by Stephen Knight –published 1984
The Dissidents – Chapter 16 _ages 140 to 149
One of my major sources of information was a former Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander of the Thirty-First degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite who has withdrawn form masonry in 1968 for religious reasons.. her agreed to be interviewed by me through a third party concerning his conviction that no active Christian could in all conscience remain a Freemason…
When I met him I learned he was a judge, and a particularly quick-tempered one .. I asked him about the Ancient and Accepted Rite of the Thirty-Third degree, he answered quickly: ‘Nom I dare not go into that’, her said ….’we’d better stick to religion… I thought immediately afterwards how strange it was he had used the words ‘dare not’, Most people said, ‘I’d better not’, or ‘I’d rather not’… I remarked on his used of the world. He said, ‘Anyone in public life has to be cautious.’ ..’Cautious’.. I repeated. “That’s a Masonic word of recognition.”..
He then said, ‘You’ve obviously delved into the ritual, so you know…..’
… ‘Mr Knight, I don’t like this line of questioning. I agreed to speak to you in general terms about why my commitment to Jesus is incompatible with Masonic religion …. I do not wish to be drawn into discussion of matters covered by whatever undertakings I have … taken…
I went on to tell the judge ..’I have heard form quite a lot of contacts about organized action groups of Freemasons that have resulted in the financial or social ruin of certain people, ‘ I said..
The judge replied.. ‘So have I’…’ ..still looking me st5raight in the eye as if telling me this was an important issue and point of fact…’ So have I Mr Knight… No of such happenings which had the backing of official Freemasonry, but of actions which were unofficial, in other words, Masons abusing the Craft for their own ends..’…’You know the answer to that form what I have said.. ‘I have also heard about people who have .crossed’ certain masons and finished up in prison…’ He then stopped me in mid-sentence by placing a finger on his lips ... ’if I told you everything about Freemasonry, being betrayed by its members, it would surprise you… it would make your hair stand on end … I can’t tell you any more..’ he said…then he said.. Give me your phone number,, you might hear from someone in a few days…’… His finger went back to his lips and he went to fetch my coat .. as he left he said, ‘God Bless’…
A few days later received as phone call from a man calling himself Christopher whom I ended up having along meeting at his private club and he showed me his papers to show him bona fide ID and Freemason membership… I asked him what a person might have to fear from a group of influential Freemason if circumstances made him, for instance, a threat to them in the business world; or if he discovered they were using masonry for corrupt purposes; or had fallen victim of their misuse of Freemasonry and would not heed warnings not to oppose them…
He replied..’.. It is not difficult to s=ruin a man,’ he said, ‘And I will tell you how it is done time and time again.. there are more than half a million Freemasonry Craft Brethren (In 1883) just in England and Wales and over 400,000 in Scotland ( in 1983) under the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge.. Standards have been falling for twenty or thirty years , it is now too easy to enter the Craft, so many men of dubious moral have now joined the Craft… about 12-13% abuse the Craft for selfish and/or corrupt ends.. (that is about 60,000 in England and Wales and about 40,000 in Scotland)..
Note: Christopher was one of a small and unpopular group within Masonry who sometime in the early 1970’s had decided that either they had to get out of the Brotherhood or they had to do something ‘to stop the rot’, which the ‘blinkered officers of Great Queen Street refuse to admit was there..’
This group wanted pressure brought to bear on those in positions of responsibility within the Brotherhood to put Freemasonry’s house in order.. to instate proper policing, to close down Lodges used for shady dealings and to root out corrupt brethren and expel them, they also wanted the whole business of Masonic secrecy looked into by Grand Lodge, most of them believing that secrecy was more harmful than helpful to Masonry..
Christopher explained that Masonry’s nationwide organization of men from all walks of life provided one of the most efficient private intelligence networks imaginable, private information on anybody in the country could be accessed very rapidly through endless permutations of Masonic contacts in the police, magistrates, solicitors, bank managers, Post Office staff (‘very useful is supplying copies of a man’s mail’), doctors, government employees, bosses of firms and nationalized industries etc. etc. …. A dossier of personal data could be built up on anybody very quickly.. when the major facts of an individual’s life were known, areas of vulnerability would become apparent…
I asked what action might be taken?..
“ Solicitors are very good at it…Get your name involved in something legal it need not be serious and you have him,, Solicitors are past masters a causing endless delays, generating useless paperwork, ignoring instructions, running up immense bills, misleading client into taking decisions damaging to themselves etc etc..
‘ Masonic police can harass, arrest on false charges, and plant evidence.. ‘ A business man in a small community or a person in public office arrested for dealing in child pornography, for indent exposure, or for trafficking drugs is at the end of the line..’
‘ Masons can bring about the situation where credit companies and band withdraw credit facilities form individual clients and tradesmen, said my informant..
People who rely on their telephone for work can have it cut off for long periods, Masonic employees of councils can arrange for a persons drains to be inspected and extensive damage reported etc etc..
Chapter 3- Schism and Reunion
.... In 1717 Freemasonry enters properly into history,, Four London Lodges alone formed Grand Lodge and owed allegiance to it. What is interesting is that a none too well-off gentleman, Anthony Sayer, was installed as Grand Master, In the beginning the upper classed kept a low profile.. they backed the creation of a central organization welding individual lodges together, but eventually wanted this done before they assumed official public control... Of the four original London Lodges, the first three contained not one 'Esquire' between them, where as Lodge Original No.4 was made up of seventy-one members of whom, in 1724, ten were nobles, three were honourable, four were baronets or knights, and two were generals. .. in 1718, Sayer was replaced after barely a year by George Payne, a 'man of more substance', being a member of Original No 4. But he too had only one year in office another interim while the upper-class moved in on the small gentry just as the small gentry moved in on the 'operative' artisans a century earlier...
... The third Grand Master was the Reverend John Theophilus Desaguliers, a Doctor of Law, a Fellow of the Royal society and chaplain to Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom he admitted to the Brotherhood in 1737. He was of French extraction. ,, A head hunter for Freemasonry.... he not only visited Edinburgh to encourage the Scots along the organizational path the London Masons were following , but visited The Hague in 1731, where he admitted the Duke of Lorraine to the Brotherhood. The Duke married Mara Theresa in 1736 and become co-Regent when she acceded to the Austrian throne in 1738... under Joseph II Mozart, Haydn and a host of other notables became Freemasons ...Dr Desaguliers, certainly appears to have sparked the missionary zeal of British Freemasonry which eventually carried the Freemasonry movement to almost every country in the world....Desaguliers too only held office a short time, In 1721 he gave way to the long awaited first noble Grand master, the Duke of Montague, But, unlike his predecessors, Desaguliers was not usurped: the evidence suggests that he was the prototype of the long line of powerful Masonic figures who preferred the shade to the limelight, the reality of power to mere appearances.
Chapter: 4 Across The Seas and Down the Centuries
The Irish Grand Lodge was formed in 1725 and the Scottish Grand Lodge was formed the following year in 1726. the Scots proved at least as fervent missionaries as the English, As already mentioned. the movement had spread to the Continent at least by the third decade of the eighteenth century, often in very high society. Frederick the Great of Prussia is claimed to have been initiated in 1738, although one must be careful of accepting Masonic claims of membership by the illustrious. There is no proof, for example Christopher Wren, often hailed as one of the brethren, was ever a member. Masonry, its undefined Deism so close to that of Voltairean rationalism, was soon the rage among the pre-revolutionary freethinkers in France: ironically, it may have been planted there by Jacobite exiles around 1725.
Freemasonry remains a power t be reckoned with in many European countries, France and Germany in particular. The French Grand Master today is Air Force general Jacques Mitterand, the President's brother, and Freemasonry's influence in politics is profound. Francois Mitterand owes much of his success in the 1981 election to influential Freemasons. Masonry has been closely identified with the Socialists for most of the last seventy years. According to Fred Zeller, Grand master of the Grand Orient of France in 1971 and 1973, the 1974 presidential election would have been won by the Socialists had Valery Giscard d'Estang not become a Freemason and colluded with sympathetic forces in the Brotherhood, which eventually persuaded French Freemasons that it was in their best interests to vote for Giscard. He was initiated into the Franklin Rossevelt Lodge in paris the year of the election.
Italian Freemasonry, later to pay significant role in the unification of the country ( Garibaldi was a Freemason). was established in Rome by Jacobite exiles in 1735 and was already a force by 1750. Masonry among Roman Catholics relates was one reason for the repeated papal condemnations.
No country was too small for attention: Holland, Switzerland and Sweden all had keen and influential memberships in the eighteen century. Continental Masonry reached as far as Russia: Tolstoy in War and Peace describes the different motivations of upper-class masons during the Napolionic Wars.
Freemasonry crossed the Atlantic to the colonies of the old empire very early on: George Washington's initiation was in 1752, Today, the dollar bill bears not only Washington's likeness, but also the all-seeing-eye symbol of Freemasonry. washington refused to become head of masonry for the whole of the newly formed United States, and US Freemasonry came to be organized on a state-by-state basis. Today, each US state has its own Grand Lodge, Royal Arch Chapters come under state Grand Chapters, the first mention of Royal Arch appearing in Virginia records of 1753. A few states followed the British lead and spread the Brotherhood abroad, For example, before the Second World War there were Lodges in China under Massachusetts jurisdiction, and it was Massachusetts that warranted the first Canadian Lodge in 1749, The oldest Masonic Lodge room in the USA dates from 1760 and is at Prentiss House, Marblehead, Massachusetts. No fewer than none Canadian Grand Lodges were eventually formed. The United States proved a home form home for the Brotherhood. Eight signatories to the Declaration of Independence- Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, Robert Treat Payne, Richard Stockton, George Walton and william Whipple - were proven Masons, while twenty-four others, on less that certain evidence, have been claimed by the Brotherhood. Seventeen presidents have been Masons: Washington, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Garfield. McKinley, both Roosevelts, Taft, Harding, Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and Ronald Regan, Seventeen Vice-Presidents including Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson have also been brethren,
But the British - the founders of masonry - remained throughout the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries the chief propagandists for the movement. Undaunted by the loss of the first empire and with it direct control over American Masonry, the British took masonry with the flag as they created their second empire- the one on which the sun never set.
For some years membership of the Lodges set up in the empire (grouped in 'Provinces' under English, Scottish or Irish jurisdiction) as confined to Europeans, apart from a handful of Indian princely exceptions. But after 1860. a first Parsees, then other Indians were brought into the Brotherhood. In British West Africa and the West Indies there were 'black' lodges (likely to be where Barrack Obama's relations came from as a long term plan to raise a Mason family dark president of the USA) as well as 'white' Lodges (as in the US), and eventually mixed Lodges were formed.
Associating the native upper and middle classes on a peculiar, profitable and clandestine basis with their while rulers, some historians believe, did much to defuse resentment of imperial domination. Despite his colour, any man rather better off than the mass of people - who were not sought as members - could, by being a Freemason, feel that he belonged in however humble a way to the Establishment. Just how far masonry reached is shown by the fact that on the small island of Jamaca there were no fewer than twelve Lodges, some in townships of little more than a couple of streets.
Freemasonry of itself is simply a secret environment tended by its various Grand Lodges, as exclusive society within society, there to be used by its members largely as they wish. Hence its influence, political and social, can be quite different at times and places, In the eighteen masons were thin on the ground, but enough aristocrats, men of fashion and influence, were Masons to give the top masons influence disproportionate to their numbers. And of course royal involvement ensured, as it does today, the impression of total reputability. because of this, Freemasonry has been able to ignore all legislation dating form 1797 concerning secret societies and illegal oaths. Although regarded as subversive in some countries where the environment was less amenable, in eighteenth-century Britain the Brotherhood had the effect already alluded to - of reinforcing the development of constitutional monarchy under which its own establishment could thrive....
The advantages of `masonry, in terms of cult, diversified friendships and straight worldly interest, had become evident to many. with the Union of 1813 the movement began to snowball for the more Masons there are in any area or profession the more important it is to be a Mason f one is not to risk losing out, as a non-member of the 'club', in one's business, one's profession and one's preferment.
another factor was important: with the Industrial Revolution, social mobility began to increase. And masonry, providing a ladder extending from the lower middle class to the Royal Family itself, offered great advantages to those who could learn how to climb it. There was also the loneliness of the new urban way of life: Freemasonry provided an enormous circle of instant acquaintances in most walks of life. Then too, the English public schoolboy could continue to be public schoolboy in the intimacy of the Craft.
At the end of the eighteen century only about 320 English Lodges had been warranted. About twice as many more were formed in the next half of the century, No 1000 in 1864. This number was doubled in the next twenty year, No 2000 being warranted in 1883. The next twenty years maintained tis rate of growth with Lodge no 3000 opening in 1903, in which year Winton Leonard Spencer Churchill, the MP for Oldham, was initiated to a Masonic career that was to last more than sixty years. All this nineteenth explosions resulted essentially from recruitment form the middle and professional classes.
With the First World War, which led to so many of quite humble background seeking better status, the rate of growth speeded dramatically. Lodge No 4000 was formed in 1919, and No 5000 only seven years later in 1926. The Second World War, for similar reasons, led to another such period of extraordinary rapid growth - Lodge No 6000 being formed in 1944 and Lodge No 7000 in 1950.
In 1981, Lodge No 9003 was warranted. Even allowing for Lodges that have been discontinued, taking average Lodge membership at around sixty men, a membership of at least half a million can reasonably reliably be estimated for England alone. Official Masonic estimates, as already stated put the total for England and Wales at around 600,000. ( plus according to H. Paul Jeffers around 400,000 in Scotland as well taking the total to over one million Freemasons in England, Wales and Scotland).
As the recruiting ground for ~Freemasons is primarily the not directly productive middle and professional classes, it is clear that a very high proportion of these people, occupying managers and so on - are Freemasons. In many fields nowadays the disadvantages of being left out of the 'club' are perceived as being too serious for a great many people to contemplate, whatever hey may feel personally about the morality of joining a secret society, or about the misty tenets of speculative Freemasonry.
Chapter 5
The Thirty-Third Degree
There is an elite group of Freemasons in England over whom the United Grand Lodge has no jurisdiction. These are the brethren of the so-called Higher Degrees, and even the majority of Freemasons have no idea of their existence.
Most Freemasons who have been raised to the 3rd Degree to become Master Masons believe they are the top of the Masonic Ladder. As novices they were Entered Apprentices. They were the '[assed' as Fellow Craft Masons and finally 'raised' as Masters. The very name Master has connotations of supremity. It Master Masons have ambition it will usually be to achieve office within their Lodge - eventually, with good fortune and the passing of yeas, to become Worshipful master of their mother Lodge ( the Lodge to which they were first initiated into Masonry). Those who have their eyes fixed on higher office will aim for rank in their Provincial Grand Lodge or in the United Grand Lodge itself. But even the Grand Master of all England is only a Freemasons of the 3rd Degree. The three Craft:
3rd Degree -Master Mason
2nd Degree - Fellow Craft
1st Degree - Entered Apprentice
degrees form the entire picture of masonry for most of the 600,000 ' uninitiated initiates' of the Brotherhood in England and Wales.
The 'Masters', who form the largest proportion of Freemasons, are inmost cases quite unaware of the thirty superior degrees to which they will never be admitted, nor even be mentioned. This is the real picture, with the three lowly degrees governed by a Supreme Council.
These thirty degrees, beginning with the 4th (that of Secret Master) and culminating in the 33rd (Grand Inspector General), are controlled by a Supreme Council whose headquarters are at 10 Duke Street, St James's London SW1. Nobody walking down Duke Street form Piccadilly is likely to suspect the true nature of what goes on inside the building, even if he or she happens to notice the small plate to the right of the entrance which says,
' The Supreme Council..... Ring once'
Built in 1910-11, this imposing Edwardian mansion with fine neo-classical features might easily be taken for a consulate of the headquarters of some private institute.
Nor do people thumbing through the S-Z section of the London `telephone Directory get any clue form the entry sandwiched between Supreme Cleaners and Supreme Die Cutters: 'Supreme Council 33rd Degree ...01 930 1606'
Nobody looking at that fine but anonymous house from outside could suspect that behind its pleasing facade, beyond the two sets of study double doors and up the stairs, there is a Black Room, a Red Room and a Chamber of Death. To high masons, the house is Duke Street is known as the Grand East.
members of Craft Freemasonry - that is, all but a few thousand of England's Masons - often argue that Freemasonry is not a secret society but ' a society with secrets'. Although argument is is the end unconvincing, it has its merits. But no such case can be made out for the wealthy society-within-a society based at 10 Duke Street, London.
The Thirty-Three Degrees of Freemaosonry
1st Degree - Entered Apprentice
2nd Degree - Fellow Craft
3rd Degree - Master Mason
4th Degree - Secret Master
5th Degree - Perfect Master
6th Degree - Intimate Secretary
7th Degree - Provost and Judge
8th Degree - Intendant of the Building
9th Degree - Elect of Nine
10th Degree- Elect of Fifteen
11th Degree- Sublime Elect
12th Degree- Grand Master Architect
13th Degree- Royal Arch of (Enoch)
14th Degree- Scottish Knight of Perfection
15th Degree- Knight of the Sword, or of the East
16th Degree- Prince of Jerusalem
17th Degree- Knight of the East and West
18th Degree-
Knight of the Pelican and Eagle & Sovereign Prince Roe Croix of Heredom
19th Degree- Grand Pontiff
20th Degree- Venerable Grand Master
21st Degree- Patriarch Noachite
22nd Degree- Prince of Libanus
23rd Degree- Chief of the Tabernacle
24th Degree- Prince of the Tabernacle
25th Degree- Knight of the Brazen Serpent
26th Degree- Prince of Mercy
27th Degree- Commander of the Temple
28th Degree- Knight of the Sun
29th Degree- Knight of St Andrew
30th Degree-
Grand Elected Knight Kadosh, Knight of the Black and White Eagle
31st Degree- Grand Inspector inquisitor Commander
32nd Degree Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret
33rd Degree Grand Inspector General
One of the regulations of ordinary Craft masonry is that no Mason may invite an outsider to join. Anyone wishing to become a Freemason must take the initiative and seek two sponsors from within the Brotherhood
(This at least is the theory - and United Grand Lodge staunchly maintains that it is the practice. In reality entered apprentices are recruited by existing Masons they know personally- we know this to be a fact). The position is reversed to the Higher Degrees. Initiation into Scottish Rite Freemasonry is open only to those Master Masons who are 'selected' by the Supreme Council. If a representative of the Supreme Council establishes contact with a Master Mason and concluded that he is suitable, the Candidate will be offered the chance of being 'perfected' and setting the first foot on the ladder to the 33rd Degree. But only a very small proportion, even of the limited number of Freemasons who take the first step. progress beyond the 18th Degree, that of Knight of the Pelican and Eagle and Sovereign Prince Rose Croix of Heredom. With each Degree the number of initiates diminishes. the 31st Degree (Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander) is restricted to 400 members; the 32nd Degree ( Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret) to 180; and the 33rd Degree - the re-eminent Grand Inspectors General - to only 75 members.
While Armed Forces are strongly represented in ordinary Freemasonry, the 'Antient and Accepted Rite of the Thirty-Third Degree' is particularly attractive to military men, Grand Inspectors General (I.e. members of the Supreme Council) have included Commander-in-Chief in the Middle east and allied supreme Commander in the Mediterranean in the Second World War; Major-General Sir Leonard Henry Atkinson; Brigadier E,W,C. Flavell; Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Williams; Brigadier General Edward Charles Walthall Delves Walthall; scores more in the last two decades. Before his retirement in 1982 the Most Puissant Sovereign Grand Commander (the most senior Freemason of the 33rd Degree in England and Wales and head of the Supreme Council) was Major-General sir (Herbert) Ralph Hone, KCMG, KBE, MC, TD, and so on. There is no mention of Freemasonry in his entry in Who's -Who, which lists every other decoration, award and distinction he has earned in his eighty-seven years, although becoming Britain's highest Freemason can have been of no little consequence to him. In Masonic matter he would dispense with all the other abbreviations and simply sign himself, Ralph Hone, 33 Degree. Born in 1896, he is also a Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.
Major-General sir (Herbert) Ralph Hone, was wounded during the First World War while serving with the British Expeditionary Force, went on to practice as a barrister-at-law in Uganda and Zanzibar in the 1920's becoming Resident Magistrate in Zanzibar in 1928 and Crown Counsel of Tanganyika Territory two years later. In the thirties he was Attorney-General and Acting Chief Justice of Gibraltar, and Attorney-General of Uganda between 1937 and 1943. after serving as Chief Legal adviser, Political Branch, and then Chief Political officer, GHQ Middle East, he was appointed to the General staff of the War Office in 1943. After the war he was Chief Civil Affairs Officer in Malaya for a year before becoming Secretary-General to the Governor-General of Malaya and then Deputy Commissioner-General in South-East Asia. In 1949 he was appointed Governor and Commander-in-chief of North Borneo. At the end of five years there he spent seven years as Head of the Legal Division of the Commonwealth Relations Office. This took him into 1961 when he returned to the Bar. Among other posts at home and abroad in the next fourteen years he was a constitutional advisor to R.A, Butler's Advisers on Central Africa,to the South Arabian Government and the Bermuda Government. He was standing Counsel
to the Grand Bahama Port Authority until hi retirement on 1975 at the age of seventy-five, He succeeded Most Puissant Brother Sir Eric Studd, Bt, OBE, 33 Degree, as sovereign Grand Commander.
This, then was the man who - at the time 'The Brotherhood' was completed for New English Library - was truly Britain's highest Freemason. whatever might be said of the Duke of Kent, the current Grand Master of Craft Masonry. Page 39 shows the hierarchy over which the Most Puissant Sovereign Grant Commander presides, with the Duke of Kent's sub-hierachy way down low.
Although in 1936, 1947 and 1967 Major-General Sir Ralph Hone held grand rank in the United Grand Lodge, and has achieved distinction in many fields, he is one of that brand of men who attain power without the notoriety or fame. Few of the many hundreds of Freemasons I have interviewed had ever heard of Sir Ralph Hone, and of those few only five knew of him in his secret role as the Highest Mason of the Highest Degree. These five were all initiates of the Ancient and Accepted Rite: Two Sovereign Princes Rose Croix of Heredom (18th Degree); one of the 180 Sublime Princess of the Royal secret (32nd degree); a 33rd Degree Grand Inspector General; and a former Grand Inspector Inquisitor of the 31st Degree who had renounced Freemasonry in order, he said, to become 'a true and living Christian', But beyond the fact that Major-General Sir Ralph Hone was the preminent member of the Supreme Council, none of them would say any more either about the man himself or about the rituals, the degrees or the administration of the Rite.
Sir Ralph's successor is Harold Devereux Still, former Grand Treasurer and Junior Grand warden of the United Grand Lodge of England, and Grand Treasurer and Grand Scribe Nehemiah of the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal arch Masons of England. He also attained the rank of Grand Master of the United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta.
The Brotherhood attracts men of distinction in the judiciary and legal profession, as will be seen later. One such man is His Honour Judge Alan Stewart Trapnell, who was appointed to the Circuit Bench in 1972. he is a Craft Freemason of grand rank, having been Assistant Grand Registrar in 1963. n 1969 he became Assistant Grand Sojourner of the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Freemasons. All these details are listed in the 'Masons Year Book', which is now very difficult for non-Masons to come by, What is not mentioned is that he is a Freemason of the 33rd degree and Grand Inspector General for Middlesex.
Although Craft Freemasonry is worldwide in the sense that it exists in most parts of the non-Communist world, and even underground in parts of the eastern bloc, it has no international organization. The Ancient and Accepted Rite of the `thirty-Third Degree is the only cohesive Masonic group run on truly international lines. The Supreme Council in London is one of many Supreme Councils in various parts of the globe, of which the senior is the Supreme Council of Charleston, USA, which effectively operated a worldwide network of Freemasonry in the most powerful positions in the executive, legislature, judiciary and armed forces as well as the industry, commerce and professions of many nations.
The English working of the Rite - sometimes known by the code name Rose Croix from the title of the initiate to the 18th Degree - differs from the American in one basic respect. In England and Wales only a few of the 33 Degrees are conferred by special ritual, while in the USA each Degree has its own initiation ceremony, In this country, the 4th to §7th Degrees are conferred at once and in name only during initiation of the selected Freemason to the 18th Degree. To the few who rise higher than the 18th Degree, the 19th to 29th Degrees are conferred nominally during the ritual of initiation to the 30th Degree - that of Grand Elected Knight Kadosh or Knight of the Black and White Eagle. Degrees above the 30th Degree are conferred singly, No initiate can rise higher than the 18th Degree without the unanimous agreement of the entire Supreme Council.
Chapter 6
The Great Debate
'The insidious effect of Freemansonry among the police has to be experienced to be believed'
With these words, David Thomas, a former head of Monmouthshire CID, created a storm of protest in 1969 and re-opend a debate that had started nearly a century before, when a conspiracy involving 'Masonic Police' and 'Masonic Criminals' brought the destruction of the original Detective Department of Scotland Yard,,, Since then allegations of 'Masonic Corruption' (within the UK Police Force) have been rife, the Jack the Ripper murders in the East End of London in 1988 were perpetrated according on 'Masonic Ritual' and a subsequent police cover-up was led by the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, both Freemasons... There have been allegations of charges being dropped against criminal Masons by police Masons; of unfair promotions; of on-masons being hounded out of the police service; of livelihoods ruined; of blackmail and violence; of discipline eroded by a system in which a Chief Superintendent, Commanded or even on occasion as Assistant Chief Constable or Chief Constable can be made to Kneel in submissions before one of his own constables; and, in recent times, of robery and murder planned between police and criminals at Lodge Meetings'
Chapter 7
Men at the Top
There are fifty-two police forced in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Island....The consensus among my most reliable, highly-ranking informants is that of the fifty Chief Constables and London Commissioners..no fewer that thirty-three are of the Freemasonry Brotherhood ..
Chapter 8
Worshipful masters of Conspiracy
Corruption among Scotland Yard detectives, always a problem, grew enormously during the 1960's. One cause of the trouble was the conventional methods of detection were being less and less effective in the face of the burgeoning crime rate......between 1969 and the setting-up of the famous Operation Countryman in 1978 there were three big investigations into corruption in the Metropolitan Police These were:
(1) An enquiry into allegations of corruption and extortion by police, first published by the Times newspaper. This resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of two London detectives in 1972
(2) An enquiry by Lancashire Police into members of the Metropolitan Police Drug Squad. this led to the trial of six detectives, and the imprisonment in 1973 of three of them.
(3) An enquiry into allegations of corruption among CID officers responsible for coping with vice and pornography in London's West End. Over twenty detectives were sacked from the police force during the three-year investigation in the early 1970's, which led eventually to the notorious Porn Squad trials ...
There were corrupt Masonic Police involved in all these cases....
Chapter 9
Operation Countryman
Operation Countryman, the biggest investigation ever conducted into police corruption in Britain, would never have come about if the Commissioner of the City of London Police between 1971 and 1877 had not been corrupted and unduly influenced by Freemasonry...Indeed there seems little doubt that if James Page had refused to join the Brotherhood, he would not have been appointed Commissioner in the first place...
Chapter 11
Birmingham City Police
What I really needed at the outset of my investigation into Masonry in the police was a 'Masonic mole' who was a policeman of rank and integrity..Eventually, as has been shown, I built up a large network of such men, None was so earnest or more scathing than those contacts, masons and otherwise, who spoke to me about Birmingham City Police... One informant spoke of his experiences in Birmingham dating back many years, he was on the point of entering the first of the three chairs of his Holy Royal Arch Chaptwer. he had, he told me, been considering a Knights Templar, the branch of Freemaosnry which admits only Christians, but was becoming increasingly disillusioned to realize that he had to resign from one or the other...he said...'Chief |Constable. Sir Derrick Capper, was an officer of the Warickshire Provincial Grand Lodge, and he saw to it as far as possible that non-Masons were kept to the lower and middle ranks...it was impossible to be a civilian employee at higher level unless you were Mason..'
Chapter 12
Conclusion (Regarding the Debate about Masons and the effect of Masons in the Police Force)
An independent enquiry into Freemasonry in the police should be initiated at the earliest possible moment,, Even thought the majority of police, including Masonic officers, are not corrupt, it is clear that corrupt police can and do use Freemasonry to effect and further corruption.....In September 1981 and again in April 1982 there were claims in court of criminal conduct on the part of Freemason police...At Knightsbridge Crown Court on Tuesday, 22nd September 1981 an ex-Metropolitan Police Detective accused of trying to bribe a senior Drugs Squad officer said they were both members of the same Masonic Lodge.. the detective told the court that he had - seconded the application of the Drugs Squad man - a Superintendant - to join the Lodge when they were both stationed at King's Cross Road -The Superintendant admitted that he was a member of the Brotherhood and that he had visited the Lodge when the detective was there....In the later case, a police informer named Michael Gervaise claimed as the Old Bailey that policemen in the same Masonic Lodge as criminals involved in a multi-million-pound silver bullion robbery had warned them that they were about to be arrested ....As a result of this 'Masonic Act', one of the men involved in the £3.5 million robbery fled and has never been traced. Gervaise, who had been involved in the robbery himself, told the court, 'certain officer were Freemasons, and certain criminals belonged to the same Lodge .. there were eight or none officers in the same Lodge as the people involved in the silver bullion robbery.'
Unrest about the undoubted misuse of Freemasonry by policemen is spreading and demands for an enquiry will continue to grow...Many people want to see masonry banned in the police... a compulsory register on which police officer have to list their affiliation to secret societies, and their status within such societies, is the minimum requirement if a grave situation is to be improved.....
Part Three: Inside Information
Chapter 13: The Rabbi's Tale
Despite the ban on speaking to outsiders, many Freemasons allowed me to interview them...Some were extraordinary frank, some going so far ... as confiding the most secret workings of the Brotherhood...among these honourable men was an eminent Freemason of long standing and grad rank: The Rev Saul Amias, MBE, a London rabbi who was Assistant Grand Chaplain to the United Grand Lodge in 1973 . I interviewed him at his home in Edgware in 1981..
Chapter 14
Five Masters and a Lewis
Chapter 15: Jobs For the Brethren?
Although a new initiate to Freemasonry declares on his honour that he offers himself as a candidate 'uninfluenced by mercenary or other unworthy motives'... there can be no doubt that the majority of businessmen who become Masons do so because they believe it will assist them in business... - as it frequently does...
On the local level, there is much cross-fertilization between masonry and other groups of business people such as Round Table, Lions Clubs, and Rotary Clubs as well as Chambers of Commerce - Men in business on their own account - for example, accountant, architects, builders, estate agents, restaurateurs, taxi firm proprietors, travel agents, commercial travelers, Insurance agents and shop keepers of all kinds - are strongly represented in Lodges up and down the country (UK)
... if you are applying for a job it can make a big difference whether you get the job or not id you give the employer a Freemason sign and the employer is also a Freemason...
One sign by which a masons may secretly make himself known to other in the room involves a particular arrangement of the feet .. the arrangement is outlined in the ceremony of initiation to the First Degree....'..you are expected to stand perfectly erect your feet formed in a square, your body being thus considered an emblem of your mind, and your feet of the rectitude of your actions..' if he is in a position to shake hands with the person to whom he wished to identify himself, recognition becomes much easier...the Entered Apprentice applies distinct pressure with his right thumb on the knuckle of the other man's forefinger.. the Fellow Craft does the same thing with the second knuckle ... The Master Mason applied distinct pressure with his right thumb between the knuckles of the other man's middle and third finger...
Ron, an Insurance Agent price explained... '.. I have got business from two people as a result of being a Mason ...'
A Past Master of Eden Park Lodge No 5379 in Croydon told me... ' I was a consultant for Taylor Woodrow. ...quite a few times I know I got contracts because I gave the Masonic Grip...the whole of the board of directors of Taylor Woodrow were Freemasons at the time...
'..You'll find none out of ten architects are Masons ... went I put in a tender I'd shake the architect by the hand...oh, he'd say, .."You're a Mason.. The contract is yours..."...that is how masonry works ... if there is a contract going from an architect,, the chances are he is a mason..so the chances are a Mason will get it...'
John Poulson, the notoriously corrupt architect whose activities in bribing local government officer, councilors, Civil Servants, officials of nationalized industries and other created a scandal which was described by more than one commentator as the 'British Watergate', was an avid Freemason... read 'The Web of Corruption.. the definitive story of Poulson and his infamous PT man T. Dan Smith ...
I have been told by several informants how details of their bank accounts have been obtained by parties with no right to the information by 'Masonic Contacts'.. the high proportion of bank managers and bank staff who are Freemasons can make the acquisition of this kind of confidential information relatively easy for a Mason,, having as he does the right access to every Lodge in the country ...
In industry, Masonry is far stronger among while collar workers and management up to the higher echelons... the medical profession has a high proportion of Freemasons...most main hospitals, including all the London teaching hospitals have their own Lodges. ... According to Sir Edward Tuckwell, former Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen, and Lord Porritt, Chairman of the African Medical and Research Foundation, both Freemasons and bother consultants to the Royal Masonic Hospital, the Lodges of the teaching hospitals draw their members from hospital staff and GP's connected with the hospital in question.. Most senior members of the profession are Freemasons, especially those involved with the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons....Masonry dopes seem to have an influence over certain appointments..
Freemasonry plays a significant role in the field of education...
|The ambulance and fire serviced are strongly represented in Masonry..
Epiloque of The Brotherhood
by Stephen Knight –published 1984 Pages 304 to 308:
On the 18th June 1982 the dead body of a middle-aged man was found hanging by the neck from a rope suspended from Scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge, London. The pockets of his black suit contained nearly £23,000 in various currencies and were weighted with 12 pounds of builder's blocks. He was Rpberto Clvi, president of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano. who in 1981 had been named a member of Licio Gelli's illegal Freemasonic Lodge Propaganda Due (P2). Calvi was later found guilty by an Italian court of illegally exporting $26.4 million to Switzerland and received a four year suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay a fine of equivalent to £7.3 million, A week later he was confirmed as chairman of Banco Ambrosiano. In April 1982 Calvi's deputy at the bank was wounded by a would-be assassin. Known as 'God's banker', Calvi had been closely linked with Instituto per le Opere di Religione (IOP), the Vatican Bank, for years. A number of highly questionable transactions involving the Vatican Bank, Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano subsidiaries in Latin America and elsewhere led the Bank of Italy to launch an investigation. On the last day of May 1982 the Bank of Italy demanded an explanation for loans of $1,400 million ( $1.4 billion) made by Banco Ambrosiano subsidiaries to several companies registered in Panama owned directly or indirectly by the Vatican Bank. This precipitated a run on Ambrosiano's shares, and eleven days later Calvis disappeared in Rome. Using a false passport. Calvi fled to Austria and then to England. arriving at Gatwick on the 15th June. 1982 and travelled straight to London where he remained for several days in an apartment in Chelsea Cloisters. On the 17th June, 1982 the Bank of Italy seized control of Banco Ambrosiano and trading in its shares was suspended after they had dropped twenty percent in value in one day. Ambrosiano's directors resigned and Calvi's secretary- Graziela Corrocher - who kept the books of Lodge P2 - jumped, or was pushed, to her death from, a fourth-floor window at the bank, Graziela Corrocher left behind her what was obviously intended to be taken as a suicide note, although there is more tan a small doubt that this was genuine.. The note said: 'May Calvi be double cursed for the damage he has caused to the bank and its employees,'
The following night Calvi's body was found hanging from the scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge, four miles from the apartment in Chelsea Cloisters. Even as the Daily Express postal clerk who found the body was hastening to call the police, Italian police were busy chartering a plane ..and a party of high officials arrived at Gatwick a few hours later..
There were many rumours: The Mafia, with whom Calvi had connections, had murdered him; frightened and despairing, he had committed suicide; he had been ritually done the death by Freemasons. a Masonic 'cable-tow' around his neck and his pockets filled symbolically with chunks of masonry, the location of the murder being chosen for its name - i Italy, the logo of the Brotherhood is the figure of a Blackfriar.
....But a City of London inquest later decided that Calvi had committed suicide, a verdict the banker's family immediately announced its intention to challenge... Italian police, and a number of City of London police associated with the case, are convinced it was murder...a further inquest in 1983, the jury returned an open verdict....as for the reason for the death of Calvi
The mystery of Calvi's death deepens rather than clarifies with time. It is inextricably bound up with the riddle of P2, the KGB penetration of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry's penetration not only of the Roman Catholic Church, but also of the Vatican itself... At the time this book goes to press, investigations are continuing into Banco Ambrosianos link with the enigmatic president of the Vatican bank, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, and into the continuing international reverberations of the P2 lodge conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Licio Gelli has since been arrested in Switzerland where he was attempting to withdraw nearly $100 million from several numbered accounts at Genva's Union Bank - money belonging to Banco Ambrosiano.. Gelli awaits the outcome of extradition proceedings,,,
Meanwhile, too, Andropov, had of the KGB when the P2 plot was hatched, now sits at the pinnacle of Soviet power and diverts ever more funds towards the KGB's activities in the West, the exploitation of Freemasonry included
In this highly allegotical and symbol-laden painting,the spirit of Freemasonry is shown dispensing wisdom and informnation to the people
The pillars on this Scottish Rite Masonic Apron are meant to represent the two mighty pillars that were alledged to have stood at the entrance to Solomon’s temple.
Illuminated above the Mason's head, the equilateral triangle - all sides and angles the same -
symbolizes the strength and unity of the parts that make the whole complete
A dramatic moment during Freemason third degree ceremony, After the ritual, the candidate is a fully fledged Freemason
US founding father and president George Washington was a dedicated Freemason, and is shown here is his regalia as the Worshipful Master of his lodge
Beehives are an important Masonic symbol referring to industry, dedication, productivity, good works and the power of all pulling together....
In this highly allegotical and symbol-laden painting,the spirit of Freemasonry is shown dispensing wisdom and informnation to the people
The pillars on this Scottish Rite Masonic Apron are meant to represent the two mighty pillars that were alledged to have stood at the entrance to Solomon’s temple.
The left- and right-hand " pillars" on the Tree of Life corresponded closely to the pillars that stood outside Solomon's temple
A German lodge carpet, c.1760, called an “Arbeitsteppich”, shows the magnificant symbolism of the Crafy. Freemasonry’s rich mysteries need defending and re-expressing in the modern world
This painting is claiming to show stonemasons of all grades hard at work buiding Solomon’s temple, while Solomon himself consults with Hiram Abiff.
This highly allegorical and symbolic illustration is meant to depict the interior of the perfect lodge room, as constructed within the soul of each true Freemason
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 P18
Part One: Ritual or Religion?
1. Ritual Poison P 45
2. Whatever Happened to Jsus? P 60
3. Cloth and Apron, Cross and Square P81
4. Jahbulon - the sacred Word to Keep P90
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 clian 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, dericts and most inamtes 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 percentag of all island business goes through Masonic hands....a local nightclub owner who was not a Freemason, one Derek Smith was forced to sut 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 abise of licensing laws by masonic publicans... one of them were doing a roaring after-hours trade, damaging the legitimate bisoness of a neighbouring landlord who had no Masonic Protection and thus had to operate within the law....There is no doubt that throughout Britain Freemasonr is very strong on 'the Bench' ( the collective term for magistrates and licensing justices)...in 1973 a survey in one provincal city discovered that 29 out of 43 magistrates were Freemasons or Rotarians.. Anyone's chance of appearing before a Mason-free slate of three magisrates are almost nil - unless all of them are women...For almost 25 years Ian Morton worked as an adminisrator 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 t˙e corts wa smore than enough to put im 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 breahalysed, but not proessional 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 ws "the Benevolent Mafia" and that "we know best". When I showed the couple a Derbyshire Masonic Yearbook, they identified not only a lare number of JP's, but also many justice's clerks, councillors, policemen, solicitors and estate agents..This only reinforced Ian Morton's opinions which had been expressed two years earlier ina letter published in a local newspaper...'...it is high time that Freemaons 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..ifa list is successfully completed, it must be published..anything less would be an insult..'
Futher evidence of how Freemasonry operates in magistrastes's courts come from the far north of England. A Justice of the Peace had read The Brotherhood and wrote to offer his onw expereinces 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...waht I saw going on in the committe astonished me..For a start, no one wa smeant to serve on it for more than six years, but on eman 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 competant. 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. ven 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 vito..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 hir luck by putting up too many of their freinds 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! P641
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!....
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- 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...
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 in Australia, for example, the Church of Scientology was banned form operating under that name and as a religion in some states form the mid 1960’s..This ban was overturned in 12983, when a court ruled that the organization was entitles to operate as a religion..
The Brotherhood
The Secret World of the Freemasons
By Stephen Knight
The Secret World of the Freemasons
HarperCollins UK, 2007 - Social Science - 326 pages
This is a classic and highly controversial expose of the secret world of the Freemasons reissued with a new introduction by Martin Short, author of "Inside the Brotherhood". The Freemasons have long fascinated outsiders. The subject of Dan Brown's new novel - set for release in 2007 - this secret and exclusive society, thought to be the largest in Britain today, remains a mystery to the many excluded from its ranks. One would never know if a father or brother was a member due to the mandatory vow of secrecy. In this classic, controversial expose, Stephen Knight talks to the men on the inside - those who have broken their vow of secrecy to reveal the darker side of the 'brotherhood'. Do they influence the law? Is the KGB involved? And is there is a secret group of Masons running the country today, perhaps influencing every move we make? Fully updated with a new introduction by Martin Short, acclaimed author of "Inside the Brotherhood", this is the unmissable, true story of an ancient, and mysterious brotherhood operating in our midst.
http://www.blackstarreview.com/rev-0155.html
Stephen Knight
by Richard Whittington-Egan
Stephen Knight was born, a Wednesday’s child, on September 26th, 1951, at Hainault, Essex. He attended West Hatch Technical High School, at nearby Chigwell, where, in his own words, he was “unsuccessfully educated”, and told by his teachers, “Your future lies in ruin before you.” He was inclined to agree when he took his first job as a trainee showroom salesman for the London Electricity Board.
But he had already made up his mind that what he really wanted was to be a journalist, and found himself facing the first – and toughest – assignment that any journalist ever has to cope with: getting a foothold in the profession. Determination stood him in good stead. In 1969, aged eighteen, he succeeded in having himself accepted as a trainee junior reporter on the Ilford Pictorial, and when that paper folded about his still-wet ears, contrived a desk place on the Ilford Recorder. Sacked somewhat prematurely from the Recorder, he achieved a smooth, upwardly mobile transition to the Hornchurch Echo, where, at the age of twenty, he was promoted to chief reporter. For a month’s span in 1973, he worked on the East London Advertiser, before rejoining the staff of the Ilford Recorder, where he became chief reporter and subsequently feature-writer-cum-dramatic-critic-cum-book-reviewer.
Still restless, he parted company again with the Recorder, this time of his own volition, in 1975, to take up a position on the Travel Trade Gazette, but was off on his own travels again in 1976, as a full-time, self-employed writer, following the enormous success of The Final Solution.
He had meanwhile married Margot Kenrick, acquiring two stepdaughters, Natasha and Nicole, and, in 1977, she bore him a baby daughter of his own, Nanouska. The following year, he, Margot, and Nanouska took a trip to Australia. In August 1978, from Singapore, en route, he sent me a cheerful postcard. Later, he told me that he was scenting the antipodean track of Constance Kent, the young fratricide of Road Hill House, who would, in 1979, stand fully discovered and revealed by Bernard Taylor in his definitive book on the case, Cruelly Murdered, as the one hundred year old Miss Ruth Emilie Kaye, who had died, full of redemptive honours – a congratulatory message from the King and Queen no less – after a career of nursing lepers, on April 10th, 1944, in a rest home in the municipality of Strathfield, New South Wales.
In 1979 Knight produced his first novel, an Edwardian detective story really, with a supernatural tinge, Requiem at Rogano. He did not, I remember, like the publisher’s choice of title. He told me that he had wanted to call it The Heretics of Rogano. It was generally well received. A satisfactory successor to his Ripper book.
After all this early-flowering success, the year 1980 was to prove his, as majestic language has it, annus horribilis; and in a most unexpected way. It began low key and innocuously enough, with Knight’s seeing an advertisement which appeared in the London Evening Standard seeking people who suffered from epilepsy to take part in a B.B.C. Horizon programme documentary on the disease. He answered it because he wanted to have an opportunity of talking about the public’s misunderstanding of the illness.
Three years before – in 1977 – he had started to have epileptic episodes. “When I was ten, I was hit on the head by a cricket bat.” The doctors believed that a consequent area of dead tissue discovered in the brain was the causal factor. Recently, his epileptic fits had been steadily increasing in intensity and duration. “Not knowing why was,” he said, “rather frightening.”
Inside The Brotherhood –
Explosive Secrets of the Freemasons
by Martin Short
"..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...
has he 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...
Outline history of Modern FREEMASONARY
Stonemasons of medieval timers propably spent their entire working lives on a few big sites: a cathedral, some churches and maybe a secular building such as a castle.On each site some kind of hut or 'lodge' wuld be ereted where masons could shelter in bad weather, store tools, organise work rotas and even sleep or 'lodge'. Cathedr5als mighttake hundreds of years to build, so lodges took on a near permanent from, Stone masons seem to hve developed a system of mutual aid, and at times exercised great economic power. After the Black Daeth of 1348-9, which killed as many as 1.5 million people in Britain, there was such a shortage if stonemasons that the survivors were able to bargain high wages through assemblies. By 1425 the assemblies had become so powerfdul that they were ourlawed by Parliament and anyone ateending them risked imprisonment.
Through their 'lodges' the stone masons protetced themsleves against a harsh and unforgiving world. Theysafeguarded their own jobs, and maintained work standards, through a controlled rank structure of three degrees: aprentice, fellow craft and master mason. They also laid down rukes governing relations between masons and with the world at large. Like the cit guilds of the day, thet seem to have given charity to members in hard times.
The word 'lodgte' is little more than a word which modern masons have borrowed from the old stonemasons, and there are other features common to both groups of men, notably a passion for secrecy. Within their early lodges the stonemasons probable 'worked'rituals in which initiates swore not to reveal the skills and trade secrets of their craft. To block infiltration by unskilled outwsiders, the early stomemasons may have devised a sectret code of passwords, handshakes and other signs of recognition.If so, it was these elements which ensured that lodges, in quite another form, would far outlast the men who had set them up.
The early stonemasons were completely dependent on money from Rome and the Catholic Church to fund the building of cathedrals ..if the church in England broke with Rome and the Church no loger had the assets and incometo pay for neww cathedralz, abbeys or5 parish churches, then the stonemasons would be amoung the first to suffer.
In 1534, the unthinkable happened, Henry VIII broke with Rome, denied the authority of the Pope, became an Anglican, and through England into Reformation. In a few year he seized the Churches wealth, disolved and dispossed the monestries ande brought ecclesiastical building to a halt. Suddenly the number of stonemasons far exceeded demand. and they lost their bargaining power. Their lodges decayed and their assets, if any, were looted by the State. In 1545 Henry desperately needed money 'for the mainenance of the present wars'. This gave Henry VIII the excuse to confiscate the assets of all 'fraturnities, brotherhoods and guilds'. These were Catholic institutions, so their assets were fair game. By 1600 most fraturnities had disappeared along with their records, w3hich is why the true history of the stonemasons is anybody's guess.
A few lodges survived, but only by throwibg membership open to men who had never worked stome in their lives, such as merchants, landed gentlemen and aristocrats. Soon there 'speculative masons', s they came to be called, far outnumbered the 'operative stonemasons, or 'working masons' who had let them ujoin. The earliest surviving complete membership roll of any lodge is for Aberdeen in 1670. Of forty-nine master and fellow craft members only ten were working masons. Another fifteen were artisans:carpenters, slaters, glaziers, wigmakers, a smith, an armorer, a hookmaker and a cardmaker. All the rest would now be middleclass: nine merchants, three clergymen, three gentlemen, two surgeons, a collector of customs, a lawyer, a professor of mathematics and four noblemen, of whome three were earls. Quite a slate for town of only 8,000 souls...with the lodge turning into a predominantly Protestant g4entlemen's club. The name 'lodge' was reatoined, but rather as the facade of an old building is preserved to maintain a historic appearane. Behind it the old structure has been demonished and a new one is rising in its place....
By this time lodges were also claiming to be schools of moral instruction, which is where the image of the stonemasons -ainstakingly learning his craft came in handy... Each tool- the square, compasses, level, plumbline, gauge, gavel, chisel - became the symbol o soem process in man's moral and spiritual perfection..
After hisinitiation, the 'Entered Aprentice' is told he is like a rough stone or Ashlar, 'in his infant or primitive state'. He is then meticulously hewn into a perfect Ashlar, ' a fit member of civilized society', presumably through the arts of Freemasonry.
However, this high morlaizing fell on death ears. Many eighteeth-centuary Masons used their lodges only as social clubs, indulging in 'the dissipations of luxury and intemperance'. If this had been Freemaonsry's only charm, it would have soon died out, like many other drink-sodden fraturnities of the day. There had to be another incentive to attend. ...he may have been more attracted by a realization that tis honourable facade could provide cover for less honourable activities: not moral but align, not social but self serving. In Aberdeen, for instace, the lodge's social-mix would have made it one of the best places to learn what was going on in local business, in politics and in almost every Aberdonian's private life. Altjough lodges might claim to inculcate Masonry's 'peculiar system of morality', they could easily become cells of intrigue, self advancement and corruption.
....Less strident Masonic historians admit, the rituals worked today were not devised until the early 1700's. For instance, the stonemaons never uttered the sadistic oaths or 'obligations' traditionally sworn by candidates as they enter modern Masonry's three "Craft" degrees. All evidence indicates that these were invented by Freemasonry's eighteenth century masters who fund the genuine oaths far too tame for their purpose...
In Freemasonry's first degree the initiate, candidate or would-be Apprentice, swears he will never reveal any of the Craft's secrets or mysteries. He further promises not to write down those secrets or mysteries in any form or to 'cause or suffer to be done by others is in my ower to prevent it, on anything movable or immovable, under the canopy of Heaven....'
..An increasing section of the public seem to think Freemasons are guided by greed and self-interest, and constitute nothing less than England's 'Mafia'..
This might be unjust, but the Mafia tag sticks because lodges rarely punish brethren who break to criminal law. In the past thirty years (until September 1988) Grand Lodge has expelled only seven Freemasons for criminal acts, even though many more have been
convicted of spectacular crimes
even though many more have been convicted of spectacular crimes...
Social pressures make it difficult for an honest mason to complain about criminal or immoral conduct by his brothers...Indeed it is he, not the wrongdoers, who faces ostracism and even exclusions form his lodge. he will probably opt for the less couragess route of quietly withdrawing from Freemasonry, embittered at what he sees as the sham, humbug and hypocrisy whereby serious abuses go unpunished...
A prime example is Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson who was installed as Worshipful master of the Waterways Lodge ( no. 7913) on Tuesday 13th November, 1979 have only been initiated into Freemasonry only seven years earlier...with his Freemason brethren having lauded him as a man of good report, true and trust...but Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson was a crook.. indeed Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson was an underworld figure of considerable status...as V became a master of the Waterways Lodge. Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson was one of London's top 100 criminal, according to a secret booklet then being circulated in the Flying and Robbery Squads of the London Metropolitan Police.. with known convictions for going equipped to steal, handling stolen goods, shop-breaking etc...with the criminal intelligence officers who complied the report having delivered their most serious observation in the last line: 'Modus Operandi ( criminal specialty) …Armed Robbery...
..It is further noted that by the time the Waterways Lodge elected Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson as Master, its members included several policemen ..One was Superintendent John Brian McNeil who, until 1978, had been chief inspector in the Flying Squad ..it seems rather odd that, having joined the lodge five years earlier...McNeil had picked up nothing about Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson's criminal background...Superintendent John Brian McNeil seems to have been very conveniently officially been unaware of the Top 100 criminal Lists circulating in Flying Squad Offices .. which included the name the Waterways Lodge elected Master Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson ..yet with so many Flying Squad detectives’ 'on the square', it would seem extra-ordinary if none of them had tipped off McNeil about his fast-moving Masonic Colleague...if they really did believe Gibson was open of London's top 100 gangsters, they must have carried out surveillance on him and probably tailed him to lodge meetings at Southgate...
..to cut along story short...the Waterways Lodge elected Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson as Master confessed to being involved with the robbery on the 24th March 1980, of £3.4 million worth of silver at gun point from a lorry, heading to the port of Tilbury for onward shipment to east Germany....one of the gang dressed in a police uniform with two bogus Ministry of Transport officials pulled out a pistol and a sawn-off shotgun and forced the bullion driver, his companion and a security guard into the back of a van .. the trio received very light sentences of only 10 years and the Waterways Lodge elected Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson as Master came out of prison in 1986.. only serving about 5 years in prison in a comfortable open prison at Spring Hill Open Prison in Buckinghamshire......
..the Waterways Lodge elected Freemason Brother Leonard John Gibson as Master was never expelled and/or suspended from Freemasonry.. he did not have to re-join as he had never left the Waterways Lodge and during his five years away in prison had remained on the roll as a 'country member'...
..In 1987 one frightened Waterways members told me: 'Gibson's name is still on the list, but what can I do about it? I'm an ordinary brother. Of course it's a scandal, but don't tell anyone I told you. It's more than my life's worth.'
Facinating examples of Masonic skullduggery'...Observer
'A judicious investigation, and Short puts forward a devastating case for the prosecution … Short produces a persuasive testimony that Freemasonry has become a scourge and a disease in jobs in the public service.. Martin Short cites some fascinating and entirely credible examples of Masonic skullduggery -and of Broth ranged viciously against Brother... It is difficult to dispute Short's conclusion that disclosure of their Masonic membership by those in positions of power should be made obligatory...'...Piers Brendon, Observer
When the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee decently recommended that police officers, magistrates, judges and crown officers should publicly register their Masonic membership, it was very largely thanks to the ammunition provided by Martin Short's investigative tour de force. Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood carried on the pioneering work begun by Stephen Knight's explosive account of The Brotherhood.
Approximately half a million men in the England and Wales and a further over 400,000 in Scotland.. and a further over 5 million elsewhere around the world-- are Freemasons. Inside the Brotherhood examines what kind of men join Freemasonry (known as the Craft)- and why...
Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood carried investigates, the occult elements in Masonry whether its rituals should ne seen as a religion - and, is so, what God is being worshipped. And, relying or' first-hand evidence where-ever possible, the book probes the extent to which Masonic paths of mutual aid and secrecy have contaminated the fraternity, aroused mounting hostility form churches, politicians and public, and provoked charges of corruption in key areas of British life, including the police force, local government, the City, and the secret services...
'Given the nature of the subject, it is doubtful if a more conclusive book could have been written'...Alan Rushbridger. Times Literary Supplement...
'An anatomy of vice .. I recommend it' .. Mark Archer, The Spectator
Freemasonry- The Reality
By
Tobias Caurton
P523
..” A parliamentary select committee led by campaigning MP, Chris |Mullen ( labour) had read Martin Short’s Anti-Masonic book… “Inside the Brotherhood”…Short found alleged “evidence” of favourtism in the police and the judiciary in Britain…however ( wrongly or rightly) found no single case of provable corruption to bring to the bar of justice ( it is noted that the Grand Lodge of England has never denied that it occasionally finds a “Bad apple in the barrel”.. they are then expelled)..
…Jesus was not a socialist and has no interest in democracy..
…in the bible, the majority is always wrong.. David slays Goliath…
….Christ found himself against the people…
…to any wise man or woman, the notion that large numbers of people know anything better than small numbers of people is parable nonsense…
….Hitler was voted in by popular vote in 1933….
..the genius of mankind has always had to struggle with ignorance of his so called fellows…
….democracy as a defense against tyranny is one thing, used in the interests of tyranny, it is itself tyrannical…
..charity for the poor is the duty of the gentleman and the conviction of the lady .. it has never been a priority of ‘society’ as a whole .. welfare is an insurance system not an act of loving charity …
….legal measures were required to care for the disabled and unemployable only after the monasteries, the guilds and the contraternities were smashed during the reformation…
…the church does not engage in charity fort eh sake of “society”, but because it is seen as the sign of Christian Love expected by the saviour from his “sheep”…
….the state cannot function as a religious society .. history demonstrates that time and time again .. if politicians wish to invoke the word of the saints, the should renounce all their worldly goods and ambitions and follow the “way, the truth and the life” for its own sake ….. The fact is that politicians want power, and that power invariably comes from outside themselves…the people give it to them as an act of insurance .. the people, it is argued, can hardly complain of the consequences, when they are so ready to abrogate so much responsibility at the ballot box ..in this sense, politics is a sign of human weakness, usually accompanied by folly…
…the principle of the ‘sovereignty of the individual’ is the only defence against creeping state tyranny….
Freemasons: Inside the World’s Oldest Secret Society
By H. Paul Jeffers
Written in 2005
Chapter 20
The Future of Freemasonry
Of the world’s estimated 5.9 Freemasons, the majority live in the United States ( 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 the membership as follows:
(a) England and Wales at 550,000
(b) Scotland at 400,000 ( likely that the greater of these are based in or near Edinburgh)
(c) Ireland at 47,000
(d) Canada and United States at 4.1 million
(e) Europe at 80,000
(f) Australasia at 375,000
(g) Latin America at 50,000
(h) Philippines at 10,000
(i) Other areas ( India, Japan, Formosa, Africa and Israel) at 288,000
It is very interesting to note that the population of Scotland was about 5 million in 2005
And Edinburgh about 400,000 to 500,000 and Glasgow at about 600,000
It seems that about 10% of the population of Scotland are Freemasons
And taking to two major cities and Edinburgh and Glasgow.. making up about 1-1.2 million people combined it seems that one could argue that the bulk of the Scottish Freemasons are based in these two cities… this would mean that one could futher say that it is likely that over 30% or more of the population of Edinburgh and Glasgow are Freemasons .. which would mean that most of the top executive, government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal jobs are filled by Freemasons.. and it seems clear that for one to progress in Scotland in the government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal world once simply has to be a Freemason… this would mean that it is likely that the greater percentage if not nearly all of the male persons working as a Lord, Judge, Sherriff, clerk, solicitors, advocate etc would be a Freemason and if a person who is a party litigant ( litigant in person and not a layer) is arguing a case against a trained solicitor/advocate-Freemason in front of a Freemason Lord, Judge, Sherriff .. what chance have they of having an fair and unbiased hearing in Scotland?…obviously none…
Chapter 9
The Mystery of Mozart’s “The being involved in the death of Mozart…
With the allegation that Mozart had hiiden under the pro-masonic surface of the opera a secret counter plot in which Tammino was Mozart, Pamina was Marie Antoinette, and Pamina’s captors were Freemasons..In the scenario, Mozart’as murder was part of a Masonic conspiracy to assassinate Leopold II, as well as Gustav III of Sweden, who was actually murdered at a masked ball a few months after Mozarts death. The plot originated seventy years later ( in1981) by Geirge Friendrich Daumer, a researcher of antiques, a religious fanatic, and an anti-semite. His work would be seized byb a nazi leader in the 1930’s. General Erich Ludendorff, along with his wife, Mathilde, asserted that the secret of Freemasonry was “the Jew” and that Freemasonry’s goal was to “rob the Germans of their national pride and to assure the glorious future of the Jewish people..
In 1931, Nazi Party officials were given a Guide and Instructional Letter” that said “the 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…”
The Reich main Security Office determined that masonry was not only part of the “Jewish problem” but also “ an autonomous ideology with political power” that ruled the press and public opinion and motivated wars and revolutions…
In Czechoslovakia when the Nazi’s entered the country in 1939, 4,000 Freemasons were arrested and many were sent to concentration camps.. less that 5% of Czech Freemasons escaped to England and formed a Grand Lodge Comenius in Exile.
In Germany, France, Italy Morocco, the Spanish Canary Islands and Spain.. Freemasons and their lodges were banned, outlawed and Freemasonry was made a criminal offence and many were arrested and killed and/or sent to concentration camps…. Anyone who did not denounce masonry and reveal to the police the names of all mason with whom he had been associated faced imprisonment….
Hitler himself decreed “Freemasons and the ideological enemies of National Socialism who are allied with them are the originators of the present war..”
Chapter 5
Dr. James Anderson’s constitution
Dr. James Anderson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, around August 5th, 1662.
A doctor of Divinity… James Anderson had become a hero of Scottish nationalism by publishing “An Essay Showing That the Crown of Scotland Is Imperial and Independent and became a prominent and well respected Freemason….. Dr. James Anderson was called upon to write a new code of Freemasonry called “The CONSTITUTION, history, Laws, Charges, Orders, Regulations, and Usages, of the Right Worshipful FRATURNITY of ACCEPTED FREE MASONS ( which was collected from their General RECORDS, and their faithful TRADITIONS of many Ages)”….
which after it was competed meant he was enshrined in the lore of the Craft as “the father of Freemasonry History”.
. In A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry composed by Arthur Edward Waite, Dr. James Anderson is described “as a son of Aberdeen”, where he earned a doctorate and served somewhere as a Presbyterian minister and “ultimately drifted to London prior ot 1710.”
Exert of the Summary of the Constitution of Freemasonry by Dr James Anderson
“…Finally, all these Charges you are to observe, and also those that shall be recommended to you in another Way, cultivating Brotherly Love, the Foundation and Cap-stone, the Cement and Glory of this Ancient Fraternity, avoiding all wrangling and quarrelling, all Slander and Backbiting, nor permitting others to slander any honest Broth, but defending his Character, and doing him all good Offices, as far as is consistent with your Honour and safety, and no farther…And if any of them do you Injury you must apply to your own or his Lodge, and from thence you may appeal to the Grand Lodge, at the Quarterly Communication and from thence to the annual Grand Lodge, as has been the ancient laudable Conduct but when the case cannot ne otherwise decided, and patiently listening to the honest and friendly Advice of master and Fellows when they would prevent your going to Law with Strangers; but with respect to brothers or Fellows at Law, the master and Brethren should offer their mediation, which ought to be thankfully submitted to by the contending Brethren; and if that submissions is impracticable, they must, however, carry on their process, or lawsuit, without Wrath and Rancor ( not In the common way) saying or doing nothing which may hinder Brotherly Love, and good offices to be renewed and continued; that all may see the benign Influence of Masonry, as all true Masons have done form the beginning of the World, and will do to the End of Time…”
Freemasons: Inside the World’s Oldest Secret Society
By H. Paul Jeffers
Written in 2005
Chapter 20
The Future of Freemasonry
Of the world’s estimated 5.9 Freemasons, the majority live in the United States ( 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 the membership as follows:
(a) England and Wales at 550,000
(b) Scotland at 400,000 ( likely that the greater of these are based in or near Edinburgh)
(c) Ireland at 47,000
(d) Canada and United States at 4.1 million
(e) Europe at 80,000
(f) Australasia at 375,000
(g) Latin America at 50,000
(h) Philippines at 10,000
(i) Other areas ( India, Japan, Formosa, Africa and Israel) at 288,000
It is very interesting to note that the population of Scotland was about 5 million in 2005
And Edinburgh about 400,000 to 500,000 and Glasgow at about 600,000
It seems that about 10% of the population of Scotland are Freemasons
And taking to two major cities and Edinburgh and Glasgow.. making up about 1-1.2 million people combined it seems that one could argue that the bulk of the Scottish Freemasons are based in these two cities… this would mean that one could futher say that it is likely that over 30% or more of the population of Edinburgh and Glasgow are Freemasons .. which would mean that most of the top executive, government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal jobs are filled by Freemasons.. and it seems clear that for one to progress in Scotland in the government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal world once simply has to be a Freemason… this would mean that it is likely that the greater percentage if not nearly all of the male persons working as a Lord, Judge, Sherrif, clerk, solicitors, advocate etc would be a Freemason and if a person who I sa party litigant ( litigant in person and not a layer) is arguing a case against a trained solicitor/advocate-Freemason in front of a Freemason Lord, Judge, Sherrif.. what chance have they of having an fair and unbiased hearing in Scotland?…obviously none…
Chapter 9
The Mystery of Mozart’s “The being involved in the death of Mozart…
With the allegation that Mozart had hiiden under the pro-masonic surface of the opera a secret counter plot in which Tammino was Mozart, Pamina was Marie Antoinette, and Pamina’s captors were Freemasons..In the scenario, Mozart’as murder was part of a Masonic conspiracy to assassinate Leopold II, as well as Gustav III of Sweden, who was actually murdered at a masked ball a few months after Mozarts death. The plot originated seventy years later ( in1981) by Geirge Friendrich Daumer, a researcher of antiques, a religious fanatic, and an anti-semite. His work would be seized byb a nazi leader in the 1930’s. General Erich Ludendorff, along with his wife, Mathilde, asserted that the secret of Freemasonry was “the Jew” and that Freemasonry’s goal was to “rob the Germans of their national pride and to assure the glorious future of the Jewish people..
In 1931, Nazi Party officials were given a Guide and Instructional Letter” that said “the 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…”
The Reich main Security Office determined that masonry was not only part of the “Jewish problem” but also “ an autonomous ideology with political power” that ruled the press and public opinion and motivated wars and revolutions…
In Czechoslovakia when the Nazi’s entered the country in 1939, 4,000 Freemasons were arrested and many were sent to concentration camps.. less that 5% of Czech Freemasons escaped to England and formed a Grand Lodge Comenius in Exile.
In Germany, France, Italy Morocco, the Spanish Canary Islands and Spain.. Freemasons and their lodges were banned, outlawed and Freemasonry was made a criminal offence and many were arrested and killed and/or sent to concentration camps…. Anyone who did not denounce masonry and reveal to the police the names of all mason with whom he had been associated faced imprisonment….
Hitler himself decreed “Freemasons and the ideological enemies of National Socialism who are allied with them are the originators of the present war..”
Chapter 5
Dr. James Anderson’s constitution
Dr. James Anderson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, around August 5th, 1662.
A doctor of Divinity… James Anderson had become a hero of Scottish nationalism by publishing “An Essay Showing That the Crown of Scotland Is Imperial and Independent and became a prominent and well respected Freemason….. Dr. James Anderson was called upon to write a new code of Freemasonry called “The CONSTITUTION, history, Laws, Charges, Orders, Regulations, and Usages, of the Right Worshipful FRATURNITY of ACCEPTED FREE MASONS ( which was collected from their General RECORDS, and their faithful TRADITIONS of many Ages)”….
which after it was competed meant he was enshrined in the lore of the Craft as “the father of Freemasonry History”.
. In A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry composed by Arthur Edward Waite, Dr. James Anderson is described “as a son of Aberdeen”, where he earned a doctorate and served somewhere as a Presbyterian minister and “ultimately drifted to London prior ot 1710.”
Exert of the Summary of the Constitution of Freemasonry by Dr James Anderson
“…Finally, all these Charges you are to observe, and also those that shall be recommended to you in another Way, cultivating Brotherly Love, the Foundation and Cap-stone, the Cement and Glory of this Ancient Fraternity, avoiding all wrangling and quarrelling, all Slander and Backbiting, nor permitting others to slander any honest Broth, but defending his Character, and doing him all good Offices, as far as is consistent with your Honour and safety, and no farther…And if any of them do you Injury you must apply to your own or his Lodge, and from thence you may appeal to the Grand Lodge, at the Quarterly Communication and from thence to the annual Grand Lodge, as has been the ancient laudable Conduct but when the case cannot ne otherwise decided, and patiently listening to the honest and friendly Advice of master and Fellows when they would prevent your going to Law with Strangers; but with respect to brothers or Fellows at Law, the master and Brethren should offer their mediation, which ought to be thankfully submitted to by the contending Brethren; and if that submissions is impracticable, they must, however, carry on their process, or lawsuit, without Wrath and Rancor ( not In the common way) saying or doing nothing which may hinder Brotherly Love, and good offices to be renewed and continued; that all may see the benign Influence of Masonry, as all true Masons have done form the beginning of the World, and will do to the End of Time…”
The Brotherhood:
The Secret World of the Freemasons
HarperCollins UK, 2007 - Social Science - 326 pages
This is a classic and highly controversial expose of the secret world of the Freemasons reissued with a new introduction by Martin Short, author of "Inside the Brotherhood". The Freemasons have long fascinated outsiders. The subject of Dan Brown's new novel - set for release in 2007 - this secret and exclusive society, thought to be the largest in Britain today, remains a mystery to the many excluded from its ranks. One would never know if a father or brother was a member due to the mandatory vow of secrecy. In this classic, controversial expose, Stephen Knight talks to the men on the inside - those who have broken their vow of secrecy to reveal the darker side of the 'brotherhood'. Do they influence the law? Is the KGB involved? And is there is a secret group of Masons running the country today, perhaps influencing every move we make? Fully updated with a new introduction by Martin Short, acclaimed author of "Inside the Brotherhood", this is the unmissable, true story of an ancient, and mysterious brotherhood operating in our midst.
http://www.blackstarreview.com/rev-0155.html
Keywords: Freemasonry
Title: The Brotherhood
Author: Stephen Knight
Publisher: Harper Collins
Media: Book
Reviewer: Doug Lowe
In this case the 'brotherhood' being Freemasonry. This is a subject rarely discussed on the Left but we shouldn't underestimate them.
Many socialists tend to view Freemasons with merely amused contempt because of their strange rituals but, as Knight points out, behind these bizarre rites lie more serious issues. We're not talking about conspiracies as such (although their secretiveness leaves them open to such interpretations). We'll leave the paranoia to others.
There are millions of Freemasons around the world and an estimated 3/4 million in Britain. They claim to stand for 'morality, fraternity and charity'. Accordingly, they make large donations to charity and take care of their fellow members and relatives when bereavement and sickness strike.
But membership itself is strictly controlled. British Freemasonry is exclusively male and overwhelmingly middle class. It is open only to those with enough money to cope with the expense involved (and that can be considerable). Freemasons are mainly businessmen and 'professional' people - policemen, bank managers, lawyers, senior civil servants etc. Shop floor workers and clerks are definite no-no's. Catholic and Jewish people are not excluded, since class counts for more than religious persuasion. I get the impression from Knight that the same 'tolerance' is not likely to be extended to non-'white' people.
Although Masons claim a direct line back into the mists of time, this is just part of the mystical shroud it cloaks itself in. In fact, the real beginnings of Freemasonry (as we understand it today) coincided with the rise of a confident and growing middle class in the Seventeenth Century. It was an expression of their assertiveness and growing identity. Its exclusiveness and secrecy was also an expression of its fear and hatred of the growing working classes.
Now, with the ruling class long-entrenched in its power and privileges, Freemasonry is an extremely hierarchical, respectable and conservative group concerned to maintain the status quo. This is, of course, reflected in its membership. The rituals, oaths, mystical jargon and symbols are merely a way of binding them together against 'outsiders'. This obviously helps to reinforce class loyalties.
Most of this is documented by Knight, who then proceeds to show how many Masons use their membership to advance in business, win promotion and generally 'improve' their wealth and positions.
He used his contacts (Masonic and non-Masonic) to look into instances of corruption involving Masons. Amongst other things, he claims that 'the corruption which led to Operation Countryman...would never have arisen had a masonic City of London police commissioner in the 1970s not turned a blind eye to the activities of several desperately corrupt Freemasons under his command'. He also cites the infamous Poulson case as an example of Masons abusing their membership for corrupt ends.
But, as he himself points out, it can be argued that the possibilities for corruption are not confined to those with Masonic contacts. This is where Knight really goes off the rails. He seems concerned that the 'impartiality' of the police and judiciary might be impaired by 'corrupt' Masons using their influence 'unfairly'. His is a Britain where there are a few 'bad apples' in various parts of the State who use Freemasonry for selfish ends. But the key supporting institutions of capitalism - the City, police, judiciary, civil service etc. are riddled with inherent possibilities for dirty dealings anyway, 'legal' or 'illegal'.
In certain situations it is undoubtedly true that being a Mason is helpful because of the organisation they can use for their benefit. But wheeling and dealing isn't confined to Freemasonry. In any case, when it comes to capitalism and its main institutions Masons are 'loyal citizens' and loyalty to fellow Masons is ultimately secondary.
Naturally, socialists should expose corruption but, unlike Knight, I couldn't care less if a barrister on £xxxxx thousands a year gains promotion aheade of another one because of his Masonic contacts.
As the book proceeds, we head into other familiar territory. He rambles on at length about the dangers of infiltration of Freemasonry by hostile foreign intelligence services. He seems terrified that a major scandal involving Freemasonty would have disastrous effects because it contains many 'top' businessmen, politicians and royals etc. This would cause 'popular revulsion against the whole established order, Government and business', turned to their advantage by unscrupulous extremists. He therefore concludes that the ruling class should do its utmost to weed out the few 'bad apples' who use Fremasonry for 'corrupt ends'.
This is Fantasy Island, of course. The whole orchard is rotten to the core.
Having said that, it is a book worth a glance at as it gives a useful insight into the mentality and workings of Freemasonry. Freemasonry itself is not something that the Left should be overly concerned about - there are clearly a lot more pressing issues. Masonry will only become a real threat during and after a revolution, as one of many organisations attempting to use its power and influence to organise against socialism. Then Freemasonry will have to be destroyed as any other counter-revolutionary institution. Some time to go before that becomes an issue, though!
Stephen Knight (author)
Stephen Knight (26 September 1951 at Hainault, Essex - 25 July 1985) was a British author.
He is best known for the books Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976) and The Brotherhood (1984).
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution suggested that those murders were part of a conspiracy between Masons and the royal family, a claim which is not accepted by historians. Nevertheless, the book became popular as the inspiration for works of fiction, among them the 1978 film Murder by Decree by Bob Clark and the graphic novel From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The latter was adapted, very loosely, into a film by the Hughes brothers in 2001.
The Brotherhood was published at a time when Freemasonry was coming under feverish scrutiny in the United Kingdom.
Knight also wrote the books Cruelly Murdered, Requiem at Rogano and The Killing of Justice Godfrey. He was a religious follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and, as a part of this interest, took the name Swami Puja Debal. He struggled with epilepsy for much of his life and was discovered to have a brain tumour in 1980 while taking part in the documentary TV programme Horizon. The tumour was removed, but returned in 1984. Knight died in 1985 at the age of 33.
Stephen Knight obituary
Review of Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution
Detailed analysis of Knight's Masonic Ripper claims
http://casebook.org/authors/obituaries/knight.html
Stephen Knight
by Richard Whittington-Egan
Stephen Knight was born, a Wednesday’s child, on September 26th, 1951, at Hainault, Essex. He attended West Hatch Technical High School, at nearby Chigwell, where, in his own words, he was “unsuccessfully educated”, and told by his teachers, “Your future lies in ruin before you.” He was inclined to agree when he took his first job as a trainee showroom salesman for the London Electricity Board.
But he had already made up his mind that what he really wanted was to be a journalist, and found himself facing the first – and toughest – assignment that any journalist ever has to cope with: getting a foothold in the profession. Determination stood him in good stead. In 1969, aged eighteen, he succeeded in having himself accepted as a trainee junior reporter on the Ilford Pictorial, and when that paper folded about his still-wet ears, contrived a desk place on the Ilford Recorder. Sacked somewhat prematurely from the Recorder, he achieved a smooth, upwardly mobile transition to the Hornchurch Echo, where, at the age of twenty, he was promoted to chief reporter. For a month’s span in 1973, he worked on the East London Advertiser, before rejoining the staff of the Ilford Recorder, where he became chief reporter and subsequently feature-writer-cum-dramatic-critic-cum-book-reviewer.
Still restless, he parted company again with the Recorder, this time of his own volition, in 1975, to take up a position on the Travel Trade Gazette, but was off on his own travels again in 1976, as a full-time, self-employed writer, following the enormous success of The Final Solution.
He had meanwhile married Margot Kenrick, acquiring two stepdaughters, Natasha and Nicole, and, in 1977, she bore him a baby daughter of his own, Nanouska. The following year, he, Margot, and Nanouska took a trip to Australia. In August 1978, from Singapore, en route, he sent me a cheerful postcard. Later, he told me that he was scenting the antipodean track of Constance Kent, the young fratricide of Road Hill House, who would, in 1979, stand fully discovered and revealed by Bernard Taylor in his definitive book on the case, Cruelly Murdered, as the one hundred year old Miss Ruth Emilie Kaye, who had died, full of redemptive honours – a congratulatory message from the King and Queen no less – after a career of nursing lepers, on April 10th, 1944, in a rest home in the municipality of Strathfield, New South Wales.
In 1979 Knight produced his first novel, an Edwardian detective story really, with a supernatural tinge, Requiem at Rogano. He did not, I remember, like the publisher’s choice of title. He told me that he had wanted to call it The Heretics of Rogano. It was generally well received. A satisfactory successor to his Ripper book.
After all this early-flowering success, the year 1980 was to prove his, as majestic language has it, annus horribilis; and in a most unexpected way. It began low key and innocuously enough, with Knight’s seeing an advertisement which appeared in the London Evening Standard seeking people who suffered from epilepsy to take part in a B.B.C. Horizon programme documentary on the disease. He answered it because he wanted to have an opportunity of talking about the public’s misunderstanding of the illness.
Three years before – in 1977 – he had started to have epileptic episodes. “When I was ten, I was hit on the head by a cricket bat.” The doctors believed that a consequent area of dead tissue discovered in the brain was the causal factor. Recently, his epileptic fits had been steadily increasing in intensity and duration. “Not knowing why was,” he said, “rather frightening.”
Stephen Knight ca. 1976
Martin Freeth, the producer of the Horizon programme, was anxious to show viewers a scan of an epileptic brain, and, knowing that the mark left by the cricket bat accident would show up, chose Knight as the guinea pig. The scanner revealed that this necrotic patch had increased to the size of an egg. Within a week a biopsy had established the diagnosis of a cerebral tumour, and he underwent brain surgery in the Maudsley Hospital, at Denmark Hill, South London.
He recovered. “I was told that there was only about a five per cent. chance of the tumour ever recurring, as it was very low grade. I translated that at nought per cent. and just carried on living.”
And there was a happy sequel.
In his private world things had not been going along too smoothly. Critical differences had blown up between him and his “Belle Marguerite”. In November 1980, it was announced that Lesley Newson, Horizon’s 28-year-old researcher, and Knight would marry when his divorce from his separated wife came through. In the event, though, they never did.
With six-monthly scans proving clear, Knight went merrily on to write The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons, published early in 1984. It was a direct result of his literary Mason-watching, carried out in connection with his Jack the Ripper book. This new work, containing as it did many sensational allegations, among them that the K.G.B. had succeeded in infiltrating Masonry, and with its exposure of the power of the square among the guardians, at all levels, of the law, caused a considerable stir – and most satisfactory sales figures.
What proved to be his last book, The Killing of Justice Godfrey, another piece of investigative work, also came out in 1984 – in the July. This Knight regarded as his best book. He explained: “When I was thirteen I had the idea of taking an historical mystery and ‘solving’ it in the form of a short story. I approached my history teacher at West Hatch Technical High School, Chigwell – an inspiring man called John Hudson – and asked if he knew a suitable case. He immediately told me to get Who Killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey by Alfred Marks from the library. It was, he said, the greatest unsolved murder in English history. Alas, Mr. Marks’ turgid prose proved too much for me and I abandoned the project. But the idea stayed with me and when, ten years later, I finished my book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution and was casting around for a new subject, Godfrey seemed the obvious choice: the three hundredth anniversary of his death was just three years off. If John Hudson had not hooked me in 1965 it is unlikely this book would ever have been written.” It, too, was well received.
The Brotherhood was dedicated: “For Ma and Pa, with love.” The Killing of Justice Godfrey introduced a completely novel dedicatee: “For Barbara Mary Land. Love.” No more for Margot. His marriage had ended in divorce.
The first disquieting hints that something was going wrong with himself came shortly after the publication of The Brotherhood. “I began to get strange symptoms. I developed a curious kind of word blindness – not being able to say the word I wanted, however simple; and my handwriting started to become very, very bad. I thought it was due to over-medication from the drugs I’d been taking for epilepsy.”
He was in South Carolina, holidaying with his girlfriend, Barbara Mary Land, that summer of 1984, when he suddenly realised that the postcards he was writing home were “indecipherable travesties” of his usual writing. Equally worrying was the fact that he found when he was walking that he was continually stumbling to the right.
“I telephoned my doctor, Peter Fenwick, at the Maudsley.” Dr. Fenwick told him that if he was getting headaches he must come home immediately. He was. He flew back the next day.
Knight, who was interviewed in considerable depth by Anne De Courcey, from whose perceptive and sympathetic article in the Standard I quote, told her: “I was so confident I was only suffering from over-medication I’d booked a room at the Gatwick Hilton and a return flight the following afternoon. The first inkling that anything was wrong otherwise was when I was kept waiting while they looked at my scan. It turned out they were comparing it with the previous ones. Then a doctor came into the room and said: ‘I’m afraid there’s a recurrence of the tumour.’”
The following day Knight saw Dr. Fenwick. “He knew that I always respond best to the truth. I asked him how long I had got. He said: ‘We intend to give you another operation followed by chemotherapy. Even if there’s nil response to either you will have at least two years.’ Although I cried at the time and was very upset, we were actually able to have conversation about what those two years would contain for me.”
In July 1984 about seventy per cent of the aggressive cancer tumour was removed by operation. The remaining thirty per cent. could not, because of its proximity to speech and movement centres of the brain, be subjected to surgical interference. Chemotherapy for eighteen months was prescribed.
Every six weeks throughout that autumn, winter and spring Knight went to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, in leafy Queen Square, Bloomsbury, where, nearly fifty years before, another tragic young writer, Denton Welch, had been a doomed patient. Brain scans and blood tests in the morning. Chemotherapy in the afternoon. Often, after being injected with iodine to boost the scanner’s effectiveness, he would feel sick. “Then I get frightened, because if I’m sick with my head stuck in one position I might choke myself.”
In October 1984, Knight was painfully honest with Anne De Courcey. “They have now told me frankly there is nothing they can do to save my life, only prolong it. The surgeon who did the operation thinks it more likely I have one year than two.”
Knight had heard of the special attitude that was being taken to cancer at the Bristol Centre, where it was treated without drugs or surgery. He visited it and found himself so impressed with the work being done there that he promptly adopted the fruit and vegetable diet which the Centre advocated. “Apart from the nausea and illness induced by chemotherapy, I feel incredibly healthy,” he announced. “More so than I’ve ever been in my whole life – although I still get a yearning for sausages, bacon and eggs.”
But he was too clever a young man to lose sight of the fact that he was “treading a very slender tightrope between wanting so much to live that I have been trying all sorts of unorthodox therapies, and at the same time trying to realise that if none of them works I will die – and to come to terms with this. I’ve received such incredible amounts of love, both from expected and unexpected sources, that there are now times when, just for a few seconds, I feel open and accepting to everything. Then I slip back and begin to fret."
Stephen Knight spent his last days enjoying himself, living with his girlfriend in his house at Leytonstone. It was large enough for them to have friends visiting them constantly.
He said: “I always have plots in my head but at the moment I’m not getting round to writing them. I’ve visited several healers – there’s a whole network of people in alternative work, one of whom leads to another. It’s a new world to me, and very exciting. More than anything else, I have taught myself to live in the moment. Even all the blubbering and soul-searching and agonising I did was part of being in the moment. So is thinking, but acceptingly, ‘I don’t know if I shall see another October.’”
He did not.
He died in July 1985, while staying with friends at Carradale, in Argyllshire. And that is where he is buried.
When I last saw him, Stephen Knight was calling himself Swami Puja Debal and explained to me that he was now a follower of the Indian religious leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, having become a Sannyasin after ending his marriage. He had his little daughter, Nanouska, with him, and we all trooped into a small café-bar hard by the London School of Economics. We drank a dish of tea – Indian, of course – together and Nanouska had an ice cream. He wore, I remember, a strange dark corduroy cap – shaped somewhat like one of those that Burke and Hare the body-snatchers wear in old engravings – to hide his hairless, bandaged head. He carried with him an air of finality.
Perhaps now he knows the answer to the big question. Whatever, let us remember him with charity. He was human. He erred. He was mortal. Spare him that small slice of immortality which is the warmth of his fellows’ remembrance.
Related pages:
Richard Whittington-Egan
Message Boards: Casebook on Jack the Ripper
Ripper Media: A Casebook on Jack the Ripper
Ripper Media: The Identity of Jack the Ripper
Royal Conspiracy
Dissertations: On the Origins of the Royal Conspiracy Theory
Message Boards: Royal Conspiracies
Press Reports: Burlington Daily Times News - 9 December 1970
Press Reports: Times - 14 November 1970
Press Reports: Times - 4 November 1970
Press Reports: Times [London] - 19 November 1970
Press Reports: Times [London] - 9 November 1970
Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands - Annie and Alice Cr...
Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands - John Netley
Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution
Ripper Media: Prince Ripper and the Royal Family
Ripper Media: The Ripper and the Royals
Ripper Media: The Royal Ripper!
Suspects: The Royal Conspiracy
Stephen Knight
Press Reports: Times [London] - 26 July 1985
Stephen Knight the author of the Brotherhood who died aged 33 ......18 months after publishing his book
A dramatic moment during Freemason third degree ceremony
The highly allegorical and symbolic illustration is meant to depict the interior of the perfect lodge room, as constructed within soul of each true Freemason..
Beehives are an important masonic Symbol referring to industry, dedication, productivity, good works and the power of all pulling together...
US founding father and president George Washington was a dedicated Freemason and is shown here in his regalia as the Worshipful master of his lodge
Inside The Brotherhood –
Explosive Secrets of the Freemasons
by Martin Short
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 37 and 380-Judges and Masters who are Freemasons....
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- 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...
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...
http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/freemasonry/stocks.html
Freemasonry and the Ripper
by Wor. Bro. Dennis Stocks, Barron Barnett Lodge.
(*with apologies to George Johnston)
Few events in the annals of violent crime, not even the murders of monarchs or the assassinations of major political or religious figures have aroused as much sustained interest(1) over the years as the deaths in London in the autumn of 1888 of five quite ordinary prostitutes.
The killer of these unfortunate women in London at the end of the nineteenth century has captured the imagination as no other ever has, becoming one of the most written about, most speculated about, most thoroughly investigated of all time. Even those gentle souls among us who may not be all that well versed in the subject of murder, or be personally acquainted with individuals who have homicidal tendencies know the name that has now passed into common English usage. Those of us who might have to pause a moment or two before being able to identify any one of a number of other well-known murderers in history who have been responsible for far more deaths, or for more important ones, and whose violent acts have had far greater impact on the times in which they lived instantly recognise the name Jack the Ripper(2). Yet as well known as he is, virtually nothing is actually established about him.
This, in part, explains our continuing morbid fascination with him; the fact that his (or her) identity remains a mystery. This, and of course the unspeakable horror of his crimes, for it is a curious phenomenon that the human animal is, at one and the same time, both repelled and attracted by horror.
There is more to it than that, of course. There is the sheer audacity of the man and his single-mindedness of purpose: his uncanny ability to stalk his victims and do his grisly work - all in the face of the most elaborate efforts to prevent him from doing just that, making fools of the authorities in the process, which in itself is enough to gain him a measure of public approbation. Let's face it, there has to be grudging admiration for the man, despite his crimes, despite his obvious insanity, despite the sheer evil and repugnance of his deeds.
After all, he got away with it!
There are individuals who have spent lifetimes pursuing the mystery, who have immersed themselves in every aspect of it, who have become authorities in the most trivial details of the crimes and of the victims. Yet little new light has been shed over time; little the "experts" can agree upon. Indeed, as the years go by, the theories seem to become wilder, the list of suspects longer and more fantastic, the controversy ever deeper, the mystery even more tantalising. And the known facts more problematic. Even the number of murders actually committed is a subject for debate: some say five, or eight, some say eleven, a few say as many as fourteen(3).
The story has just about been milked of every possible drop of information. Canards, suspect sources, forced readings and outright hoaxes (such as the "James Maybrick"/Mike Barrett diaries) are becoming more prevalent(4).
All we can ever be reasonably certain of is that a single individual was responsible for the five murders and mutilations committed between August 31 and November 9, 1888 - those of:
Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, (43) found in Buck's Row on 31st August with her throat cut and with slight stomach mutilation,
Annie Chapman, (47) found in Hanbury Street on 8th September with her throat cut, her stomach and genitals badly mutilated and some of her entrails placed around her neck,
Elizabeth ("Long Liz") Stride, (45) found in Berner Street on 30th September with her throat cut but no attempt at mutilation,
Catharine Eddowes, (46) found in Mitre Square on the same night as Elizabeth Stride (30th) with her throat cut and severe mutilation of both face and stomach, and
Mary Jane (Marie Jeanette) Kelly (25) found 9th November in Miller's Court with her throat cut and her whole body grossly mutilated.
Beyond that, there is hardly a fact that is not in dispute (including whether the man was indeed a man - more than one "expert", including Arthur Conan Doyle, has theorised that "he" was a "she").
What little we know about the killer has been pieced together from the often conflicting descriptions provided by witnesses who saw him (or thought they saw him, or merely said they saw him), and by police officials and medical examiners who made certain inferences - educated guesses, if you will (and some of them not so educated) - based on his modus operandi and on the postmortem examination of his victims.
This is what we think we know: He had a moustache, he was five feet six or seven, seemed to be left-handed(5), seemed to have had a familiarisation of with the Whitechapel district, may have had some knowledge of human anatomy, and may have been a member of the Upper or Middle classes.
Incredible as it may seem, after all the years of research and investigation and all the hundreds of studies, that - and only that - is all we really know about him. Even here there is disagreement. Valid arguments can be made and ample "evidence" submitted to refute most of the above.
Over the years, several candidates have been proposed - Scotland Yard's computer printout lists 176 individual suspects - but few of them have stood the test of time and none has survived close scrutiny. After all is said and done, after all the research and all the theorising, we are no closer to an answer now than we were over one hundred years ago. Quite simply, we do not know who the killer was.
Some are convinced that, because of the killer's apparent knowledge of anatomy, he was a physician or surgeon(6). Others think that because he was not all that skilled with a knife, he could not have possibly had medical training. He could have been a butcher or slaughterer (there were several in the area). He could have been a cork cutter or a shoemaker. He had demonstrated enough skill with a blade to suggest that he at least had had experience as a deer hunter, a theory that lends support to those who believe he was a member of the upper classes. (All "gentlemen" of that period were assumed to know how to "gralloch" (disembowel) a deer.) It has been suggested that he was a Russian Secret Agent, a Black Magician, an I.R.A. agent, even a midwife. And he could have been none of these things. Even the fact that all his victims were prostitutes has been questioned(7).
In 1988 as part of the Cosgrove-Muerer TV Production's "The Secret Life of Jack the Ripper," a FBI profile of the Ripper was compiled(8). As educated guesses go, it is probably as good as we are going to get:
He was a white male, single, in his mid to late twenties of average intelligence.
He was probably locally resident and had an intimate knowledge of its geography.
He was probably employed, as the murders all took place over weekends.
He was free from family accountability and in all probability lived alone as the murders took place between midnight and 6 am.
In all probability, he was of unsanitary personal habits since the murders showed a marked unfastidiousness.
He would not have reacted well with people and would have been considered by his associates a loner and engaged in erratic behaviour.
He was not surgically or anatomically skilled.
He was likely to have been in trouble with the police prior to the murders. He hated women and was probably intimidated by them.
He most likely had an unhappy childhood, was probably raised by a woman alone, and may have been sexually molested by that woman - perhaps his mother.
He was, the profile concluded, a "predatory animal".
And, perhaps, even one who could not help advertising. On 27th September, 1888 a letter addressed to "The Boss, Central News Office, London City" was received by the Central News Agency which concluded:
"...My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get the chance.
Good Luck
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper.
Dont mind me giving away the trade name."
On 16 October 1888, George Lusk(9) received a three-inch square cardboard box wrapped in brown paper containing half a human kidney preserved in spirits of wine. An accompanying note claimed it was half the missing left kidney from Catharine Eddowes. The sender claimed to have eaten the other half(10).
As for motives, it has been theorised by armchair psychiatrists that the killer was probably someone who contracted a venereal disease from a prostitute, had become mentally deranged, and committed the crimes out of revenge. Or was he a religious nut whose self-appointed mission in life was to rid the world of fallen women and "excoriate the evil from their bodies?" We simply do not know(11).
As to whether anyone ever did know... that is another question.
There is a persistent rumour of an official conspiracy of silence - a cover-up at the highest level - the purpose of which was either to conceal the identity of the killer or, what is more likely, to hide from the public the depth of ineptitude displayed by the police and various government officials in the case, from the cabinet ministerial level on down.
Scotland Yard's files on the Whitechapel murders were supposed to have been officially sealed until 1992 (coincidentally, the one hundredth anniversary of the death of H.R.H. Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, if anyone cares to read anything into that). Instead, they were opened to the public in 1988, the one hundredth anniversary of the murders. There were, however, some who claimed to have had access to those files earlier, and those individuals indicated that much appeared to be missing by 1988(12). A few went so far as to state that the records seemed to have been deliberately purged of essential information: of anything that was of any real value and could possibly lead to the identification of the killer. Time after time we are told of lost archives, stolen letters, purloined documents, mysterious disappearances of pertinent materials, files that were purposely destroyed or systematically "sanitised" or simply "misplaced". While this state of affairs has surely been overdrawn and over dramatised, some of it just as surely has taken place. Careful searches, for example, have failed to reveal the whereabouts of the original detailed postmortem report of Catharine Eddowes, prepared by Dr Frederick Gordon Brown, the City Police Surgeon. It is not enough to blame it all on "inefficient record keeping" and "crude file indexing" or the "insufficient budgets" of the agencies responsible for securing the files, as has been the case.
Moreover, private notes and diaries belonging to individuals who were retired officials, or who were otherwise personally involved in the investigations of the murders, or had information pertaining to them, have on several recorded occasions "disappeared" - in at least a few cases within a few days of an individual's death. Dr Thomas Stowell's files were destroyed within hours of his death by his son, who never explained why and refused to discuss the matter at all(13). Sir Melville Macnaghten's personal personal files - he headed the CIS and had first hand knowledge of Scotland Yard's entire investigation - simply "vanished" shortly after his death(14).
So the possibility of a cover-up cannot be dismissed lightly. The question then remains, why bother to go to such pains unless there was something to hide, something the government, or at least certain highly placed officials within the government, did not wish to have revealed?
There is another source of frustration: Much of the information that has come down to us is not merely incomplete, but incorrect. For example, the so-called "writing on the wall" found in the passage off Goulston Street following the Murder of Catharine Eddowes. As has been pointed out by Richard Whittington-Egan (A Casebook on Jack the Ripper), at least seven different versions of that message exist (an indication of how difficult it sometimes is to establish even simple facts of the case). And each version is from a "reliable", respected source, one of them being no less a personage than Sir Henry Smith, who actually saw the original message before it was ordered removed.
The point is, one cannot help but wonder whether such instances as this are the result of carelessness and simple lapses in memory, or whether efforts were made to purposely deceive and mislead(15).
So much has been written about the Whitechapel murders through the years that it is virtually impossible to keep track of it. Down through the years, literally hundreds of books have been written about the Ripper and his crimes, and the magazine and newspaper articles number in the thousands(16). In 1972 Alexander Kelly(17) compiled a bibliography on the subject that had to be updated twelve years later because another one-hundred-odd books and articles on the subject had been published in the intervening period. The revised edition, too, soon became outdated as 1988 and the Centenary arrived. Jack the Ripper had become a cottage industry.
Much of what has been written, at least in recent years, is well researched and scholarly, but a good deal of what has come down to us over time is, in whole or in part, simply nonsense. The one thing that almost every single "expert" has in common with every other is the ability to articulate logical reasons why the newest most-favoured suspect could not possibly be the Ripper. Where they fail - every single one of them - is when they offer their own candidate for the distinction. This is where imagination most often comes into play, where supposition comes to the fore, where data become selective and credulity is stretched to the breaking point. Where - in the words of Donald Rumbelow, a former London detective and author of one of the best works on the subject (Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook) - "every fact is capable of being wrenched into the weirdest of interpretations."
And that brings us to the Freemasons, and Brother Jack.
Mozart and the Morgan Affair not withstanding, the other great crime with which the name of Freemasonry has been intimately linked is that of Jack the Ripper. Melvin Harris in his 1987 book "Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth" has convincingly annihilated any such connections. But Melvyn Fairclough (The Ripper and the Royals) resurrected the problem in 1991 in nothing more than an extension of the Stephen Knight fantasies.
Fairclough has based his premise on the story/stories of Joseph Sickert. Some years ago, Sickert agreed to cooperate with Stephen Knight by recounting Sickert's family history which involved a good deal of hearsay material Joseph had heard from his father, Walter Sickert(18). The result was the publication in 1976 of "Jack the Ripper - The Final Solution." During the course of this collaboration, Joseph said he realised that Knight was misinterpreting the material and a quarrel ensued. Joseph went his separate way without revealing to Knight "The Full Story" so that, according to Joseph, Knight's book, while broadly on the right lines, was also wrong on many points and missed out many vital details including the identities (yes, plural) of "Jack the Ripper." This idea of a plurality of "Rippers" (a doctor and assistants) was not new; for example, it had formed part of a story by William Le Queux in 1923(19). But Joseph (from his version of what his father had told him) and Knight made it slightly original by adding the Freemasons.
Knight, knowing he was onto a good thing, continued his self-indulgent fantasies and manufactured mysteries with a second book, "The Brotherhood." But, after Knight's death in 1985, Sickert claimed to have found "forgotten" documents proving he was entitled to part of the profits from "The Final Solution."
Joseph Sickert, of course, has a family axe to grind since his dear old dad, Walter, has himself been directly implicated as being "Jack" (20). This highly tenuous conclusion is based on a claim, attributed to a statement made in 1948 by Florence Pash (one of Walter's acquaintances), that Walter had seen the bodies of the Ripper's victims. By a quantum leap in jurisprudence relating to evidence, this is assumed to have been at the site of the murders totally discounting that Walter may have seen the bodies, say, in the mortuary; in one of the many illustrated newspapers or, indeed, in his fertile imagination. The conclusion by Knight that Walter Sickert was one of the Rippers seems to have been one of the reasons for the falling out between Knight and Joseph Sickert.
Fairclough resurrected all this. His argument is now common enough and he continues to push the Sickert/Knight fantasy that was first articulated in the final episode of a 1973 Z CARS spin-off - "Jack the Ripper" - scripted by Elwyn Jones and John Lloyd where "Inspector Barlow" and "Sergeant Watt" re-examined the Ripper murders(21).
In case you did not know, as a young journalist for the East London Advertiser (the sole surviving newspaper covering the Whitechapel area), Knight had been sent to interview Joseph Sickert after Sickert's story of the murders as cover-up for the indiscretions of H.R.H. Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward ("Eddy")(22a), Duke of Clarence and Avondale had been publicised in that BBC drama-documentary series. Knight apparently found Sickert's story to be persuasive and embarked on his own "research".
To recap this story for those of you who have come in late:, Eddy has a liaison with and eventually marries the commoner (and Catholic) Annie Elizabeth Crook. According to the story, they meet at Walter Sickert's studio at 15 Cleveland Street and a daughter, Alice Margaret, is born to the couple on 18 April 1885. "Something" has to be done to protect the throne. This was especially urgent after Mary Kelly, a friend of Annie, escaped attempts to arrest everyone concerned with the liaison and fled to Whitechapel. There Kelly shared her secret with a handful of fellow prostitutes who, in turn, dreamed of blackmailing the Crown. They ended in a mortuary courtesy of Masonic assassins who couldn't resist advertising their involvement by using Masonic ritual in the slaughter.
Annie Crook was caught and incarcerated in Guy's Hospital by the Queen's physician for 156 days before being transferred to a smaller hospital at 367 Fulham Road where she was kept until she died on 3 February 1920. During the period at Grey's, Sir William Gull is supposed to have operated on her brain to remove all unwanted and embarrassing memories.
But the Sickert family saga, however, takes all this even one amazing step further by claiming that the child that resulted from Eddy's dalliance, Alice Margaret Crook, is Joseph Sickert's mother; making him Eddy's grandson and Queen Victoria's great, great grandson.
Walter was twenty-five years older than Alice. Yet the story is that she later bore him two sons, Charles (1905-1919) and Joseph (1925- ). From 1899, she lived with Walter as his ward in Dieppe, leaving him when she was 18 to marry William Gorman, an ex-boxer, and bore him several children. On page 111, Fairclough reports that Alice married Gorman on 14 July 1918 and Gorman died in 1951. Now, you don't have to be an intellectual giant to work out that, although now married to Gorman, for Joseph to maintain his claim to be a descendent of royalty, Alice continued to have sexual relations with Walter Sickert as Joseph was born five years after Walter's second wife died and seven years after Alice had married Gorman.
"One reason Walter encouraged the romance [between Alice and Gorman] was to ensure that any further children Alice might have would be born in wedlock and be accepted as Gorman's"(22b).
Seven months after Alice gave birth to Joseph, Walter married for a third time.
"How did Sickert (Walter, that is) become involved?" you ask.
Oswald Sickert (Walter's father and Joseph's supposed paternal grand father) was an artist/painter and had apparently made friends with many members of the Danish Royal family including King Christian IX's daughter, Alexandra (Alix). After Alix had married Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1863, she came to live in England, gave birth to Eddy and, by 1880, was deeply concerned as to Eddy's social and sexual development. (There were rumours he had been indulging in homosexual liaisons). Alix turned to Oswald's son, Walter (also a painter), to take Eddy under his wing.
In 1884 Walter was twenty four and four years older than his royal charge. He passed Eddy off as a younger brother, "Albert", and that year introduced him to one of his models, Annie Crook. After the birth of a child in April 1885, Walter Sickert employed Mary Kelly to act as the child's nanny.
Joseph claimed that his father (Walter) had been bribed to keep silent about all this by Lord Salisbury when Salisbury purchased one of Walter's painting with no more than a cursory glance for 500 pounds. At the time Walter was lucky if he obtained 3 pounds for any of his work.
According to Joseph's story, on 2 April 1888, on the orders of Prime Minister and prominent Freemason, the Right Honourable Robert Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, plain clothes police raided the "home" of Annie Crook during a staged street fight to distract the neighbours. But Mary Kelly escaped and triggered off the run of murders and the subsequent cover-up when she and her cronies attempted to use the information she had gained to blackmail the Crown(23).
There are, to say the least, some intrinsic problems with this story. As much of a bounder Eddy was, would he have left Annie in next to destitute conditions? Would he have condoned Sir William Withey Gull, the Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria, first imprisoning his lover/wife and later performing some form of psychosurgery on her? Eddy had eight to nine months to quietly and comfortably secrete Annie away in a nursing home. Yet we are asked to believe he callously looked the other way at all this.
I would like to present four points against this story:
1. Howells & Skinner have found absolutely no connection between Walter Sickert and Princess Alexandra, nor between any member of the Sickert family and that of the Danish Royal family. So it is most unlikely that Queen Alexandra would call on the Sickert family to look after her son, a prince of the realm.
2. Alice Margaret Crook was born on 18 April 1885 which means that her conception must have occurred between 18 July and 11 August 1884 - a time when Eddy was 400 miles away in Heidelberg with his German tutor.
3. The Royal Marriages Act was - and still is - operative. Any such marriage between Clarence and Cook could have been set aside as illegal because Clarence was under twenty-five years old at the time of the "marriage"; and he had "married" without the Queen's consent.
This Act had been specifically designed by King George III to stop his sons from entering into marriages of which he disapproved; it was even used to nullify the marriage of Augustus, Duke of Sussex, although a second son had been born in lawful wedlock!
Further, the Act of Settlement, promulgated in 1772, expressly debars anyone who marries a Roman Catholic from "inheriting the Crown". So the "marriage" of Eddy would have been null and void and easily patched up(24). Why on earth should Eddy, the heir presumptive, be so dramatically protected from scandal?
His father, the Prince of Wales, was involved in so many scandals it is difficult to know where to start.
For example, twelve years earlier the Prince of Wales was prominent in a scandal involving Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston's father); a complicated affair (no pun intended) with comic opera overtones(25). The Prince had earlier had a secret love affair with the wife of the Earl of Aylesford (a close friend). While Aylesford was in India with the Prince of Wales making an official good will tour of Britain's Imperial possessions, Lady Aylesford wrote saying she was going to elope with Lord Blandford (Lord Randolph's elder brother) who was also prepared to leave his wife for Lady Aylesford.
Aylesford immediately returned home and the Prince of Wales denounced Lord Blandford as "the greatest blackguard alive" - conveniently forgetting he, himself, had earlier indulged in a serious flirtation with Lady Aylesford. Both families convinced the lovers not to elope, but Aylesford was intent upon a divorce, citing Lord Blandford as co-respondent. Lady Aylesford passed to Lord Blandford a series of letters the Prince of Wales had written to her during their flirtation ("harmless enough, but containing an undue familiarity"). Blandford, in turn, passed the letters to his brother.
In a naive effort to keep his brother's name out of a potentially messy divorce trial (all of the Victorian aristocracy's divorce trials were potentially messy), Lord Randolph foolishly went to the Princess of Wales with the letters. His motive was to enlist the aid of the Princess to convince her husband to bring pressure on Aylesford to call off the divorce proceedings and to avoid a major scandal. To no one's surprise (but Lord Randolph's) the Prince of Wales became furious, accused him of blackmail, and challenged him to a duel. Queen Victoria became aware of the situation and the duel never took place. Instead, Lord Randolph was banished to a government post in Ireland and the Prince was denied access to his mother for some time (a relief to both of them if one believes contemporary accounts).
The affair is often held up as proof, if proof be needed, that the true measure of Victorian respectability, among the upper classes, at least, lay not in refraining from extramarital sex, but engaging in it with discretion. Or, as one member of society put it: "It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses!"
4. In March 1987, Simon Wood published his researches into all this Sickert family background in a now-defunct magazine - "The Bloodhound." He found that in 1888 Annie Crook and Walter Sickert could not have been living at 15 Cleveland Street (identified by Stephen Knight and Joseph Sickert as the place where Walter had his studio and where Eddy and Annie would meet)(26) since the building and its neighbour #17 were demolished in Michaelmas 1886 and the gap stayed vacant until the Middlesex Hospital Trained Nurses Institute was built on the site in November 1887! He also showed conclusively that Annie Crook was not a Catholic and was not confined from 1888 in one or more hospitals until her death. The rate books for Cleveland Street also show that, rather than being kidnapped by Freemasons and subjected to imprisonment in Guy's Hospital, Crook lived in the basement of #6 throughout 1888, was still there in 1889 and for every year up to 1893!
But all this Sickert family history aside, Fairclough's thesis quickly involves the prominent Freemasons of the late nineteenth century viz The Duke of St Albans, the Earls of Carnarvon, Derby, and Limerick, the Marquess of Lincolnshire, the Queen's Physician-in-Ordinary (Sir William Withey Gull), the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (Sir Charles Warren) and so on. Oh yes, they include Eddy, Duke of Clarence and Avondale who was, at the time of the murders in 1888, Right Worshipful Master of the Royal Alpha Lodge(27).
So far, no major problems; but Fairclough seem to go right off the rails at this point. Not content to quote Knight as a source of Masonic practices (highly questionable, if not downright laughable), he also cites William Morgan's (of the "Morgan Affair" infamy) "Freemasonry Exposed," published in 1836.
Fairclough insists in using the present tense in the paragraphs purporting to expose the nefarious activities of the Freemasons. Yet Morgan's "exposure" (sic) was published some 50 years before the events under analysis. For example, the Oath of a Royal Arch Mason quoted by Fairclough on page 54, bears no relation to any Royal Arch oath with which I am familiar. Yet Fairclough's tense makes it appear modern. The author's attitude is typical of the erroneous misinformation bandied about and is not only vexatious but (with the wealth of correct information available to Cowans in the United Kingdom under the relaxed policies of the Grand Lodge) this cannot be anything less than a premeditated and deliberate attempt to denigrate the Craft. Even Walter Hannah (Darkness Visible and Christian by Degrees) had better information forty years ago.
Fairclough's premise seems to be broadly based on two primary facts :
a. There were Freemasons living at the time of the Ripper murders - some of whom were prominent in contemporary society, as there have always been.
You can do almost anything you wish with this "fact". For example: As each candidate for the Fellow Craft Degree recites, our Lodges usually meet at night. Dracula, as is well known, comes out at night: therefore Dracula is a Freemason. With his sartorial preference for Dinner suits, he is also obviously a member of Grand Lodge!
Unfortunately for their case against Freemasonry, some of the "Freemasons" named by Knight and Fairclough were not Freemasons (for example Lord Salisbury), while others listed as anti-Masonic were, in fact, prominent Freemasons. For example Wynne Edwin Baxter, the Coroner presiding over the inquests on Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride. Baxter, a flamboyant and garrulous coroner who had won a very bitter election to that post for East London and Tower of London districts amid accusations of electoral improprieties, was often highly critical of the police. Knight sees this as being in conflict with the Masonic conspiracy of Warren and Anderson and points to Baxter as an anti-Mason.
In fact, Baxter was a leading member of South Sussex Lodge and simply possessed a combative and touchy personality(28).
b. There is an exceedingly superficial and tenuous linkage between the apparent mutilations and placement of the internal organs of the victims to the purported ancient penalties of the Masonic oath. Of course, we run into factual problems here. If we follow Fairclough, who is slavishly following Knight, we learn that not only have the unfortunate ladies' throats been cut left to right (making all right-handed murderers cutting their victim's throat from behind Freemasons), but with some Ripper victims, their intestines had been thrown over the shoulders.
For Fairclough/Knight this is "definitely Masonic" as the murderers of Hiram Abiff had "...their vitals taken out and thrown over the left shoulder". Unfortunately for the comparison, both Chapman's and Eddowes' intestines lay over their right shoulder. Not to be bothered by the facts, Knight explained this away as, "it is possible that the point about which shoulder was overlooked" - presumably due to the hurry, of course.
This is typical of Fairclough's misinformation regarding the Freemasons. Like Knight, Fairclough delves into wishful thinking and much ingenuity in his vendetta against the Craft and in his search for Masonic involvement(29). If the facts do not fit the hypothesis, simply shrug and move on to the next fantasy.
Without (much) comment, let me examine a few more of Fairclough's statements. Fairclough has a wild case to plead and so impartially, logic and truth are recklessly abandoned. His mistakes on Masonic ritual are more than irritating or annoying. He cannot have been insensible to the fact that a wealth of material is available to get at least his Masonic "research" correct.
Like Knight, Fairclough makes much of Hogarth's engraving THE REWARD OF CRUELTY by painstakingly analysing it to show (sic) similarities between the slaughter of Mary Kelly and a Masonic Ritual Murder(!) The Hogarth work shows no more than a standard eighteenth century medical dissection of a hanged criminal. All the so-called Masonic features are nothing more than common anatomy practices of the period.
Fairclough claims the Royal Arch is part of the chain of advancement to the 330.
"Beyond the third degree, it takes another fourteen degrees to become 'perfected', to pass through the Holy Royal Arch"
I believe he has been confused by the thirteenth degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite - the Royal Arch of Enoch. But, of course, the mathematics are questionable. Three plus fourteen equals seventeen. The Royal Arch of Enoch is a thirteenth degree, but let's not worry about facts - they only confuse a good story.
Catharine Eddowes (the fourth victim) was found in Mitre Square.
"Both the mitre and the square are tools of the stone mason, and potent emblems of Freemasonry"
Fairclough goes on to emphasise this point by revealing that "J." (in the Royal Arch Degree) wears a mitre or bishop's hat.
The importance of the murder site is hammered home in no uncertain terms. A highly obscure source claims that there had been a murder in Mitre Square in 1530 - over 350 years before, which Fairclough takes to mean that Mitre Square is "obviously" of significance to Freemasons. All the more so, he claims, since the sixteenth century victim was murdered in a priory which stood on that spot. An "obvious" reference to the Hiramic Legend(30).
The murderous Freemasons simply could not help advertising:
"Eddowes had cuts on her cheeks. They formed two lines meeting at right angles...another reminder of the mason's square"
All these linkages are, for Fairclough, conclusive proof of direct Masonic involvement in the murders. He goes on to talk about Masonic aprons and the fact that one suspect in the long, long line of choices as the true identity of "Jack" was someone called "Leather Apron."
"One wonders whether the rumour was spread by the Freemasons themselves, as a veiled means of proclaiming their responsibility".
There is also a popular myth about the death of Annie Chapman. That is that her rings and some polished farthings were placed in a ritualised pattern at her feet. Knight and Fairclough make much of this. Obviously, to them, she was "deprived of all money and metallic substances" and the rings represent the hollow cross-sections of the two great pillars which stood at the porch or entrance to King Solomon's Temple.
Unfortunately all this was a pure invention of the Pall Mall Gazette(31). In the succeeding years the money and rings have entered the realm of Jack the Myth, rather than Jack the Ripper. To be fair to Knight and Fairclough, better researchers such as Cullen, Odell, Harrison, Rumbelow, Fido, Skinner and Wilson have all accepted the story with minor variations. But, for Knight and Fairclough, the rings had to exist to legitimise their fantasies of Masonic involvement.
The (in)famous, if elusive, writing of the brick walls about the "Juwes" "who will not be blamed for nothing":
"Freemasons I have met have made it clear that masons are fond of puns, puzzles and double negatives". OK, but does this make them guilty of murder?
It is highly likely that the writing was simply angrily and hastily scrawled by a disgruntled customer who had had less than satisfactory service from one of the numerous Jewish craftsmen in the area and wrote his frustration on the wall that the Jews won't take responsibility for anything (especially, presumably, bad workmanship).
By 1775, the original fields and gardens of Whitechapel had almost completely vanished beneath streets, alleys and tenements. 88% of all the immigrants arriving in England in the 1880s came from Europe, most of them Jewish emigrants fleeing the pograms of Russia and persecution in other nations. They settled in the Spitalfields area which took its name from the priory and hospital ("spital") of St. Mary founded in 1197. Prejudice was widespread and there was a real fear of anti-Jewish riots(32).
While there is conflicting testimony as to the actual spelling of the key word used in this chalked message, let's look at the so-called Masonic "Juwes" for a moment. It seems Fairclough is relying on Knight in many instances. So an examination of what Knight says is appropriate.
Knight writes that the murderers of Hiram Abiff were Entered Apprentices (they were actually Fellow Craft Masons); that Hiram Abiff is resurrected (he is simply exhumed and later buried at a different place) and that the Juwes were hunted down and slain (they were, in fact, taken to King Solomon and subject to a proper trial - although one "traditional" Masonic history has it that one refused to surrender and was killed in self-defence. Knight wrote that when Sir Charles Warren erased the writing he "knew only too well that the writing was telling the world, 'The Freemasons' are the men that will not be blamed for nothing'". This is a marvellous dialectic leap in logic since the Juwes were the enemies of Freemasonry and it was Superintendent Thomas Arnold (a non-Mason) of H Division who arranged the erasure, albeit with Warren's later approval and acceptance of full responsibility(33). As for the word "Juwes" itself as a collective term for the murderers of Hiram Abiff - it had been dropped from English Masonic ritual in the early nineteenth century and is unlikely to have been known to Freemasons (let alone anyone else) in 1888. At that time they were referred to as "the Three Ruffians" as they are today(34).
Paul Begg has written "It is a mystery why anyone ever thought that 'Juwes' was a Masonic word"(35).
There is also the problem of syntax. If, for a moment, we accept that the first letter and postcard sent to "The Boss" signed 'Jack the Ripper' really were from the murderer(36), the writing styles are inconsistent. It is generally assumed among those who believe that the letter and postcard are genuine that they were written by an educated man who may have been deliberately attempting to muddy the waters by appearing to be unlettered. Of course, there is the other suggestion that the graffiti hides an anagram, in which case the syntax would be skewed to fit(37).
Regarding Mary Kelly - the last (fifth) victim - Fairclough reaches the depths of inventiveness.
"The corpse has a cable tow round its neck. Freemasons use this device to represent the cutting of the throat".
"...one of the legs, the right one, had been skinned. This feature is a Masonic allegory, a reminder of the initiation of a Master Mason when the Candidate, in reference to his two previous initiations, says; 'and my right leg bare'. As he utters these words he has to roll up his trouser leg. With Kelly they rolled away the flesh(38)."
Fairclough goes on to implicate Quatuor Coronati Lodge #2076, founded by Sir Charles Warren in 1884.
The "evidence" for the prosecution as to the culpability of the Lodge? Quatuor Coronati held its annual installation ceremony on the night of 8 November 1888 - the night Kelly may have been slaughtered and Warren, a Past Master, "had enough time to meet up with his murderous friends in the East End".
"Discounting Eddowes, since her murder was a mistake, the Ripper's intended victims numbered four. Doubtless Warren saw a parallel between the ancient story of the 'Four Crowned Ones'...and...the modern story of the four women, killed for daring to defy the Monarchy, which was an image of the real power behind it: Freemasonry and the Royal Alpha Lodge, No.16".
So, although we have five murders, we need only four(39) to implicate Quatuor Coronati.
One wonders if there had been two victims, would Antiquity Lodge #2 UGLE be implicated? or British Lodge #8 UGLE if eight. If Fairclough was so set on Quatuor Coronati, and using this warped logic, it is a wonder he did not find two thousand and seventy-six murders that could be laid at their doorstep.
Fairclough also continued the story that Dr Gull did not die "as advertised", but ended his days as "Thomas Mason" (note the name!!) alias "#124" at St Mary's Asylum, Islington.
All this derives from a story carried by the Chicago Sunday-Times Herald of 28 April 1895 wherein it was claimed that a Dr. Benjamin Howard had been one of twelve London physicians who had sat "as a commission of lunacy upon a brother physician who had been responsible for the Ripper murders".
V. Wor. Bro. Neville Cryer, in his address on the Church and Freemasonry presented to Barron Barnett Lodge last October, identified an increasingly aggressive and intrusive culture among the members of the Press. I would argue that "anything for the story" has a long history.
Can you honestly believe that after such a story broke in England, that St. Mary's was not besieged by screaming, photographing, journalists with an open purse to bribe guards and wardens? It never happened! One must conclude that the contemporary newspaper hounds realised that the story was pure fabrication.
Hasty acceptance has outweighed careful appraisal. To be generous and not to make accusations of outright fraud(40), both Knight and Fairclough seem to have misread the Sunday-Times Herald article. Most of the text is not attributed to Dr. Howard at all but to an anonymous "Gentleman of Chicago". Furthermore, in 1896, Dr Howard wrote to repudiate the whole thing - a fact carefully ignored by Fairclough, now completely governed by devotion to conspiracy theory.
Melvin Harris has convincingly argued that this Gull/Mason story was a deliberate hoax planted in the Sunday-Times Herald by the Chicago Whitechapel Club which met at the back of the newspaper offices. The Whitechapel Club was "strange and frolicsome (and) was not only the focal point for knowledgeable Ripperologists, but it was also a tall story workshop" (41) where hoaxes were burnished to perfection(42).
We have yet another problem here with the Gull/Mason story. Sickert's story claimed that Gull and the coachman, Netley, murdered at least Annie Chapman in a carriage after feeding her poisoned grapes. But Gull was 72 at the time of the murders and had already suffered one heart attack. If Annie Chapman (not a light person and found in the rear yard of 29 Hanbury Street) was killed in Gull's coach, she would have to have been carried to where she was found. An unlikely event, even with Netley's help!
Gull died of natural causes in January 1890 an much has been made of the fact that his death certificate was signed by his son-in-law. Medical ethics aside, it does not prove Gull was one of the Rippers(43).
Lord Randolph Churchill was the supreme Freemason in England and directly involved in the murders.
"Randolph (Churchill) had an important source of influence on the eminent men he recruited. He was their Masonic superior. He was the highest Freemason in England. the supreme position he held, according to Walter Sickert, though the Grand Lodge deny that he was ever a mason, was that of Magister Magistrorum - Master Mason". (Fairclough p. 92).
Fairclough goes on to point out that, although none of Randolph's biographers records his Masonic membership and the records at Freemason's Hall contain no record of him as a Freemason, these are "unreliable" and downright sinister as all the records have been erased.
Fairclough points out that Pick and Knight show Randolph to be a Freemason and claims Randolph was initiated into Freemasonry under the name Rudolph H. Spencer in Dublin in 1878.
One is tempted to wonder where the Prince of Wales fitted in here with Randolph being the "highest Freemason in England." The Prince of Wales was installed as Grand Master and served in that capacity from 1874 to 1901. His installation ceremony at the Albert Hall was attended by the largest assemblage of Freemasons ever held.
It also does not help Sickert's-Knight's- Fairclough's linking of the Ripper murders with Freemasonry that, in 1978, Joseph Sickert confessed to the Sunday Times that his story of a Masonic Conspiracy was "a hoax; I made it all up". Knight reacted with a letter to the same paper printed on 2 July 1978 saying Joseph had only made that statement when he (Knight) had proved that Joseph's father was directly involved in the murders along with Gull and Netley.
Even more serious for Fairclough and his nonjudgemental acceptance of the Sickert family is the diaries Joseph gave him. These are claimed to be three private diaries kept by Frederick George Abberline(44) between 1892 and 1915 and supposedly given to Walter Sickert in 1928 - a year before Abberline's death in Bournemouth. In 1888, Abberline had coordinated the hunt for "Jack." The diaries implicate Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir William Gull and James K. Stephen - Eddy's tutor at Cambridge and Frederico Albericci ("Fingers Freddie") an Italian pickpocket. Melvin Harris calls all this "the Gothic Lewis Carroll world of pasteboard characters (45)."
Unfortunately all this contradicts Abberline's known views on the Ripper. Worst still, on one page of the diaries reproduced by Fairclough, Abberline's signature is written "G.F.Abberline" instead of F.G.Abberline (46) - and the biographical notes on four of the murder victims set down in the diaries is plagiarised word for word from a research article by Neal Sheldon(47).
But what about Joseph Sickert and his dad? In September 1907, one Emily Dimmock was found in Camden Town with her throat cut. Robert Wood was charged with the crime, but later acquitted. Walter Sickert was living in Camden Town at this time and was a friend of Wood. Marjorie Lilly in her work "Sickert, The Painter and His Circle" shows how the murders in Whitechapel and at Camden Town became intertwined in Walter's psyche. Dr Wendy Baron, the authority on Walter's work, has pointed out that he customarily gave his work "joke" titles after the manner of Victorian genre painters whose "pictures told a story". Walter and his followers in the "Camden School" concentrated on depressed urban interiors which (with vaguely Degas-like paintings of music-halls) became Walter's best known and most influential work. Walter was known to have an impish and macabre sense of humour and his elaborate jokes and leg-pulling could be disconcerting(47). Joseph claimed that his father incorporated clues as to the identity of the Ripper in his paintings or their titles. One such clue is reported to be a seagull in the painting ENNUI. Sea-GULL - get it?
Various other "hidden" messages are claimed to lurk in Walter Sickert's paintings: MRS BARRETT and LA HOLLANDAISE are claimed to contain the face of Mary Jane Kelly; LAZARUS BREAKS HIS FAST shows a bowel of grapes claimed to have been used by Gull to sedate his victims(49); and the CAMDEN TOWN MURDER series supposedly shows Mary Kelly's dismembered corpse(50). Another recent book on Jack the Ripper by Dr David Abrahamsen also shows elements of Fairclough's techniques. Abrahamsen's book (Murder and Madness: The Secret Life of Jack The Ripper) has Prince Albert Victor Edward and his tutor, J.K. Stephen, running around Whitechapel in drag taking out their sexual resentments against prostitutes by ripping them to pieces. Abrahamsen does not produce any evidence at all. Court circulars of the time clearly indicate that the Prince was no where near London on every single occasion the Ripper struck(51).
As Joseph Goebbels may have said, "If you are going to lie, tell BIG lies!" Look at the attraction and furor over the so-called Hitler Diaries and the more recent elaborate hoax attempt to produce the diary of James Maybrick, proving him to be Jack the Ripper! No one was at all interested, I am unhappy to report, in the Dennis Stocks diaries. Perhaps one prerequisite is to be a mass murderer?
There seems to be a human willingness to suspend the critical functions and wallow in the dangerous morass of misinformation that supports our deeper prejudices.
But the Jack-the-Ripper-industry rolls along with books continuing to be published, at least three different companies offering walking tours of the murder "sites"(52), and the fascination with the events of 1888 is scarcely diminished. The Victorians were brutally indifferent to many social problems - such as child prostitution. Wilson and Odell(53) have pointed out that this is more insensitivity than callousness. When misery was actively brought to their attention, they were inclined to dissolve into tears. Consider the attraction of East Lynne by Mrs Henry Wood - the best seller of the 1870s. Their simplified perceptions of the world (right was right, men were men, women in their place and half the world map shaded in pink) and their open and spontaneous emotional reactions seem almost naive and jingoistic to us. The frisson and morbid fascination of the Whitechapel murders were primarily that "one of us could be one of them" - that "respectable people" could turn from doctor, solicitor, housewife; turn from the teachings of the Church of England and slide into homicidal self-indulgences.
So the Ripper murders and especially the sexual mutilations were seen as a premeditated insult to Victorian society. Yet, in the obsession with sexual wickedness, it was still believed the Ripper could not be all that grotesque. So the first full-length English book on the subject by Matters, published in 1929, presented the Ripper as a moral avenger(54).
If Jack does prove to be a lowly labourer or fish porter then nobody is going to take a blind bit of notice, but if we can come up with a belted Earl or something similar and weave a complete and utter fantasy around him with the required amount of gore, sex and violence thrown in, then we can sit back and bathe in the glory of yet another "final solution".
I certainly do not have the answer as to Jack's identity, but I have suggestions which I believe worthy of consideration:
Chief Inspector Walter Dew (who captured Crippen) has made a valid point when he reminded the authorities: With all the furor over the murders, with the heightened awareness of all strangers, with the numerous Vigilance Committees roaming the streets, after Nichols' death why were Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and Kelly so easy a target? Was there something about their attacker that put him above suspicion in their minds? Why was he so invisible?
Another source for research would be the surviving case files of H Division(55). It is unlikely that "Jack" jumped straight into slaughter. A check of previous incident files for the area should contain the name and evidence of the increasingly violent behaviour of "Jack" - whoever he was.
At the beginning of this paper I intimated the plethora of unknowns associated with this case. But I can tell you one thing for certain, fiction aside, Jack the Ripper, whoever he was, is dead. As the East End children's rhyme has it:
Jack the Ripper's dead
and lying on his bed.
He cut his throat with Sunlight soap.
Jack the Ripper's dead.
But as for Walter Sickert and his story of "Brother Jack," his misperception of what is "Truth" seems to have extended to his son. Following the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe ("The Yorkshire Ripper"), Joseph attracted press attention when he claimed to have been harassed and had his life threatened by Sutcliffe. He even claimed Sutcliffe had attempted to run him down. You can perhaps wonder that the whole Sickert family is obsessed with the "Ripper" honorific.
Whatever the real facts of these sad incidents, I believe Knight and now Fairclough have been the dupe of the son of a clever hoaxer with excessive testicular diameter to promote some quirky and mischievous ideas.
As far as the involvement in Freemasonry in these events is concerned, it has the same relationship to the facts of Criminology as the exploits of Peter Rabbit and Blinkey Bill do to Zoology.
Appendix One
The Ripper Project applied modern scientific detection techniques in an attempt to isolate realistic suspects from the plethora of candidates. The eight characteristics that resulted were:
1: He was a white male, aged 28-36, who lived or worked in the Whitechapel district.
2: He would have come from a family with a weak, passive or absentee father.
3: He would have sought a job where he could vicariously experience his destructive fantasies, such as a butcher, mortician.s helper, medical examiner's assistant or hospital attendant.
4: He would probably have had some type of physical abnormality that, although not severe, he would perceive as psychologically crippling, such as a speech impediment.
5: He would have been interviewed during the course of investigations, but would have been overlooked and/or eliminated as a suspect, in part because his ordinary appearance would not have fitted the preconceived notion that both the police and local populace held of Jack the Ripper being an odd or "ghoulish" looking man.
6: He would be perceived as being quiet, a loner, shy, slightly withdrawn, obedient, and neat and orderly in appearance. He would drink at the local pubs.
7: He would not have committed suicide after his last homicide. Generally crimes such as thee cease because the perpetrator has come close to being identified, has been interviewed by the police, or has been arrested for some other offence. It would be surprising if Jack the Ripper simply would suddenly stop, except for one of these reasons.
8: He believed that the homicides were justified - that he was only eliminating garbage.
See Paley, pp. 169-171
BIBLIOGRAPHY
David Abrahamsen
Murder and Madness: The Secret Life of Jack the Ripper. (Robson Books, London, 1992.)
Peter Acroyd
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (Minerva, London, 1995)
Andy Aliffe
"Murder by Degree - A Literary Ripper?", Ripperana, #8 (April 1994), pp. 24-28
Karl Alexander
Time After Time. (London: Granada, 1980)
Paul Begg
Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts. (Robson Books, London, 1988.)
Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner
Jack the Ripper A to Z. (Headline, London, 1991.)
Robert Bloch
The Night of the Ripper. (Tor, New York, 1986)
Tom Cullen
When London Walked in Fear (Bodly Head, 1973)
David Stuart Davies
"Murder by Decree", in Sherlock Holmes Gazette, Summer 1995, #2, pp. 8-10.
Michael Dibdin
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (Faber and Faber, London, 1990)
Arthur Douglas
Will the Real Jack the Ripper...? (Countryside Publications, London, 1979)
Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper (eds)
Ripper. (Tor Books, New York, 1988)
Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey
The Lodger: The Arrest and Escape of Jack the Ripper (London: Century, 1995)
Melvyn Fairclough
The Ripper and the Royals. (Duckworth, London, 1991)
Daniel Farson
Jack the Ripper (Sphere, London 1973)
Martin Fido
The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper. (Weidenfield and Nicholson, London 1987)
Martin Fido
Murder Guide to London (Grafton Books, London, 1986)
Martin Fido
"Jack the Ripper's East End," in City Walks of London, edited by Paul Begg, (London: Robson Books, 1990)
Martin Fido
"In the Footsteps of Jack the Ripper", The Talking Tour Company, London: Victoria Embankment
(audio cassette)
Martin Fido
Correspondence in Ripperana, #9 (July 1994), pp.22-23.
Jean Overton Fuller
Sickert and the Ripper Crimes (Mandrake, Oxford 1990)
Rick Geary
Jack the Ripper (New York: Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine Publishing, 1995).
R.A. Gilbert
"William Wynn Westcott and the Esoteric School of Masonic Research," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 100 (1987), pp. 6-32,
"The Masonic Career of A.E. Waite," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 99 (1986), pp. 88-110,
"To See Ourselves as Others See Us," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 107, 1004, pp. 1-7.
Richard Gordon
The Private Life of Jack the Ripper (Heineman, London 1980)
Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh, Frank D. McSherry.
Red Jack. (DAW Books, New York, 1988)
J.M. Hamill
"The Sins of our Masonic Fathers....," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 101 (1988), pp. 133-159
Edward B. Hanna
The Whitechapel Horrors. (Carroll and Graf, New York, 1993)
Melvin Harris
Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth. (Columbus Books, London, 1987)
Melvin Harris
The Ripper File (W.H. Allen, London 1989)
Michael Harrison
Clarence: The Life of HRH the Duke of Clarence and Avondale 1864-1892 (W.H. Allen, London 1972)
Paul Harrison
Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved (Robert Hale, London, 1993)
Shirley Harrison
The Diary of Jack the Ripper. The Discovery, The Investigation, The Debate. (Hyperion, New York, 1993)
Veronica Hart
The House that Jack Built (Mandarin; Port Melbourne, Victoria, 1994)
Michael A. Hoffman II
Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (Dresden, New York; Wiswell Ruffin House, 1992).
Ellic Howe
"Fringe Masonry in England," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 85, 1972, pp. 242-295
Martin Howells and Keith Skinner
The Ripper Legacy: The Life and Death of Jack the Ripper. (Sedgwick and Jackson, New York 1987.)
Stewart James
Jack the Ripper. (Horwitz, Sydney, 1960.)
Elwyn Jones & John Lloyd
The Ripper File (Arthur Barker, London 1975)
Stephen Knight
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. (Panther Books, New York, 1977)
Stephen Knight
The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons (London, Granada {Panther], 1985)
Richard Laymon
Savage. (BCA, London, 1993.)
Donald McCormack
The Identity of Jack the Ripper (Pan 1962 - revised John Long 1970)
Edmund McCoy
Blood of the Fathers. (Orion, London, 1993)
Evan Macpherson
"Jack the Ripper in Dundee", (The Scots Magazine, Volume 128, number 4 (January 1988), pp. 389-393.)
Leonard Matters
The Mystery of Jack the Ripper. (Pedigree Books, London, 1960)
Doug Moench
The Big Book of Conspiracies (New York, Paradox Press, 1995)
Alan Moore
From Hell(Baltimore,Borderlands Press, 1994)
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
From Hell: Volumes 1 (March 1991), 2 (June 1993), 3 (December 1993), 4 (March 1994), 5 (June 1994), 6 (November 1994), 7 (March 1995), 8 (July 1995) (Northampton, Montana; Kitchen Sink Press, dates as shown)
Tony Mudawar
"The Most Cunning and Dangerous Criminal in London", (The Sherlock Holmes Journal, Volume 19, (Winter 1988), pp.22-24.)
Robin Odell
Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction (London: Mayflower, 1966)
Helen O'Neill
"What Kind of Ghoul am I?," The Australian, 1 November 1995.
Bruce Paley
Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth (Headline Book, London, 1995).
Fred L.Pick and G. Norman Knight
The Pocket History of Freemasonry, Seventh Edition. (London; Frederick Muller, 1983).
Anton Powell
Londonwalks (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1982).
Donald Rumbelow
The Complete Jack the Ripper. (Star Books, London 1984)
Terrance Sharkey
Jack the Ripper: 100 years of Investigation (London: Ward Lock, 1987)
Seymour Shuster
"Jack the Ripper and Doctor Identification", (International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, Volume 6, number 3 (1975), pp. 385-402.)
Sir Osbert Sitwell
A Free House! or the Artist as Craftsmen, being the Writings of Walter Richard Sickert (London, Macmillan, 1947)
Terrance Lore Smith Yours Truly from Hell. (St Martin's Press, New York, 1988.)
Frank Spierling
Prince Jack (Doubleday, New York 1978)
Philip Sugden
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (London: Robinson Books, 1994)
Herbert Tingsten
Victoria and the Victorians (trans. David and Eva Leckstrom Grey), (Delacorte Press, London, 1972.)
Peter Underwood
Jack the Ripper: One Hundred Years of Mystery. (Blandford Press, London, 1987.)
N.P. Warren
Editorial, Ripperana, #14 (October, 1995)
Pamela West
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. (Dell Books, New York, 1987.)
Colin Wilson and Robin Odell
Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict. (Corgi Books, London, 1988)
Colin, Damon and Rowan Wilson
World Famous Gaslight Murder (The Book Company, Sydney, 1995)
Richard Whittington-Egan
A Casebook on Jack the Ripper (Wildy, London 1976)
Phil Wilshire
Ripperana, #12 (January 1996), p.22
A.P. Wolf
Jack the Myth: A New Look at Jack the Ripper. (Robert Hale, London 1993.)
Notes
(1) I say "sustained interest" because we have all seen the OJ Simpson obscenity.
(2) Try this simple quiz: How many people were killed by Hawley Harvey Crippen, John Wayne Gacy, John Reginald Halliday Christie, Charles Whitman and Dennis Nilsen? With the possible exception of Crippen, most people would say "Who?" when confronted by these names.
Answers: respectively - Crippen: 1; Gacy: 32; Christie confessed to 7; Whitman killed 19 and wounded 28 from a tower at the university of Texas and Nilsen boiled the dismembered limbs and severed heads of his 12 victims in a large pot and flushed surplus flesh down the lavatory.
(3) The front cover blurb of Stuart James' work reads "His razor-sharp scalpel claimed twenty-nine victims as he prowled the dark streets for the woman he hated."
There have been a number of attempts over the years to link "Jack" with other murders before Nichols and after Kelly. One of these was that of "Fairy Fay" who, it is claimed, was killed on Boxing Night 1887. Unfortunately for this theory, "Fairy Fay" did not exist and her murder simply never took place!
However, we must be cautious and not become so engrossed in the "form" of the killings to the point of obsession. We must be careful not to imagine a serial killer can never change his method of killing. For example, take the death of Alice McKenzie (Claypipe Alice) who was found 17 July 1889 in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. Thomas Bond, one doctor who examined her body, was convinced her murderer was the "same person who committed the former series of Whitechapel murders" {MEPO 3/140.262 Scotland Yard File 18 July 1889. PRO Kew}, cited by Wolf, p.25.
Odell and Wilson (p.95) reject this as one of the Ripper
...
StephenKnight-1976-INKNews.com.jpg
TheBrotherhood_StephenKnight-INLNews.com.jpg
Freemasons: Inside the World’s Oldest Secret Society
By H. Paul Jeffers
Written in 2005
Chapter 19
The Men Who Rule the World
General Rich von Ludendorff, a hero of World War I and hiss wrote the tract Annihilation of Freemasonry through Revelation of its Secrets and oither hate-filled 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 in prison for attempted to overthrow 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 pacifist paralysis of the nation instinct of self-preservation” began with Freemasonry…
In 1931, Nazi Party officials were given a Guide and Instructional Letter” that said “the 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…”
The Reich main Security Office determined that masonry was not only part of the “Jewish problem” but also “ an autonomous ideology with political power” that ruled the press and public opinion and motivated wars and revolutions…
In Czechoslovakia when the Nazi’s entered the country in 1939, 4,000 Freemasons were arrested and many were sent to concentration camps.. less that 5% of Czech Freemasons escaped to England and formed a Grand Lodge Comenius in Exile.
In Germany, France, Italy Morocco, the Spanish Canary Islands and Spain.. Freemasons and their lodges were banned, outlawed and Freemasonry was made a criminal offence and many were arrested and killed and/or sent to concentration camps…. Anyone who did not denounce masonry and reveal to the police the names of all mason with whom he had been associated faced imprisonment….
Hitler himself decreed “Freemasons and the ideological enemies of National Socialism who are allied with them are the originators of the present war..”
After Hitler came ot power in January 1933, his top Deputy, hermann Goering, informed the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Germany there was “no place for Freemasonry” in Germany. At that time, there were nine principle Grand Lodges, with a membership of almost 80,000. the largest were the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, National Grand Lodge of All German Freemasons, and the Grand Lodge Royal York of Friendship. Their leaders were told that the Nazi government did not intend to prohibit the activities of the lodge, but that the Masonic order must discontinue to use the words “Freemason” and “lodge”, break all international relations, require that its embers be of German descent, remove the requirement of secrecy, and discard all parts of the ritual that are of Old Testament origin. There after, the Association of German Freemasons called itself the National Christian Order of Frederick the Great…
Then in 1934, Goering, as premier of Prussia, ordered dissolution of the oldest and most influential Masonic Grand Lodges in Prussia ( Christian Grand Lodges, Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, All German Freemasons, and Royal York of Friendship) because they “might be regarded as hostile to the State because of their affiliations with international Masonry.”..
A Nazi Party court in berlin published a decree barring form membership those who had been Freemasons for a number of years or who had received the higher degrees of the order. Masonic lodges were attacked for hcving borrowed much of their doctrine and ceremonies form “Semitic sources”.
P.163 ..During the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Robert H, Jackson, the chief prosecutor and a U.S. Supreme Court justice, said, “ It Is not generally understood that among the earliest and most savage of the many persecutions undertaken by every modern dictatorship are those directed against the Free Masons.. ( the ) dictators realize that its membership are not likely to support the police state, which lays so heavy a hand on the freedom of the individual…”
..In 1950, the Soviet-imposed government in eastern Europe countries dissolved the lodghes as “meeting places of the enemies of the people’s democratic republic, of capitalistic elements, and of the adherents of Western imperialism.” This would be the policy in every country behind the Iron Curtain…
…the era of the Cold Wat also brought a widespread belief that powerful men engaged in a complex conspiracy to take over the world….as is every period in a uncertainty and fears in all of history, suspicions stirred and thrived among ordinary people that a small group of men gathered in secret to control events and direct to future of the world.. in earlier times, they had been tribal elders and religious figures.. thrn with the 18th century came the Illuminati, consisting of persons who believed they possessed supernatural intellectual powers that entitl4es them to tell others how to live…
… As a result of the Industrial Revolution ansd the rise of the modern capitalism, proponents of socialism pointed to a concentration of power in a few individuals and families as evidence of conspiracies to oppress…”the masses2.. In the first half of the 20th century, a plot by Bolshweviks in Russia and a Nazi conspiracy in Germany had demostrated that small groups of plotters were capable to seizing control of countries and trying to impose a particular ideology on the world…
..In the eyes of many American group such as the Council of Foreign Relations (founded in 1921), the Builderberg Group ( founded in 1954) and the Trilateral Commission ( foundered in 1973) were seen a groups who purpose was economic, political and social domination of the world and went far beyond their started purpose of stopping the imposed threat of “International Communism”..
..Running through this suspicion if elites is a belief that most of the individuals involved in these organisations are involved in a plan to control the world are either Freemasons or sympathetic to Freemasonry…Among the most persistent popular beliefs concerning the power of Freemasonry in the United States is that the Great Seal of the United States and the street plan and designs and designs of federal government buildings in Washington D.C., were laid out on the basis of Masonic beliefs…..One discourse on the subject notes that the symbol of an inverted triangle or pyramid can be seen in the street plan (it’s a pyramid) and that sites are “ connected to famous Freemaons,” suich as Marquis de Lafayette, for whom a park opposite the north side of the White House is name. Old Masonic connections include the Washington Monument and the Pentagon building, said to have been designed by masons to conform to a pentagram (an occult symbol)…
..the U.S. one-dollar note contains Masonic symbols. The Great Seal pictured on the back of the dollar bill has an eagle with thirty-two feathers (the degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry). …..
..The eagle is also the symbol of St, John the Evangelist, the great patron of Freemasonry…
….the arrows in its left talon refer to Israel’s King david ( father of Solomon)…
..The olive branch in the eagle’s right talon is associated with Solomon…..
..The thirteen stars above the eagle’s head represent Jacob, and his twelve sons, and the tribes of Israel…
..Thirteen stars, in a double triangular form, are symbolic of the delivery of the children of Israel form their oppressors and their attainment of a glorious freedom..
….The Latin “ E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one) indicates Masonic fraternity.
..Those who find Freemasonry on the mighty dollar also note that the largest symbol on the buck is the portrait of George Washington, a Mason..
…..Also cited as evidence of masonry on the greenback is an unfinished pyramid..
..also at the tope, inside a radiant triangle .. is the “all seeing eye,” representing “the Grand Architect of the universe,” who is omniscient and watching over the United States…….
..the Latin motto inscribed beneath the pyramid in the GFreta Seal of America is “Novus Ordo Seclorum” ( New order of the Ages) and taken as synonymous with a “new world order”…
…An example of this thinking reads, “ The’ new world order’ involves the elimination of the sovereignty and independence of nation-states and some form of world government. This would mean the end of the United Stated, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as we now know them.”..
..Most of these new world order proposals involved the conversion of the United nations and its agencies into a world government, complete with a world army, a world parliament, a world court, global taxation, and numerous other agencies to control every aspect of human life ( education, nutrition, health care, population, immigration, communications, transportation, commerce, agriculture, finance, the environment, and so on)..
..the various notion of the new world order differ as to the details and scale, but agree on the basic principle and substance…
..One historian sees the Statue of Liberty as a “Masonic goddess from top to bottom.”… It was ..” conceived by freemasons,” built by French Freemaon Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi ( who had already made a statue of the Freemasons Marquis de Lafayette for the city of new York, for the occasion of the centenary of the signing of the declaration of Independence), and “installed by Freemasons in a Freemasonic ceremony..”
..Those who discern a pattern of Freemasonic influence in American history point to the fact that one-third of the presidents have been members of the Craft of Freemasonry:
George Washington
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk,
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
James A, Garfield
William McKinley
Theordore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Warren G. Harding
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
Gerald R. Ford
Lyndon B. Johnson
Ronald Regan
US Vice presidents who have been members of the Craft of Freemasonry:
Daniel Decius Tompkins
John Cabell Breckinridge
Andrew Johnson
Garrett Augustus Hobart
Charles Warren Fairbanks
Thomas Riley Marshall
Henry A. Wallace
Harry S Truman
Gerald Ford
Also there have been many Five Star Generals and Admirals, U.S. secretaries of state, Chief justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and Associates justices of the U. S. Supreme court who have been members of the Craft of Freemasonry…
Chapter 20
The Future of Freemasonry
Of the world’s estimated 5.9 Freemasons, the majority live in the United States ( 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 the membership as follows:
(a) England and Wales at 550,000
(b) Scotland at 400,000 ( likely that the greater of these are based in or near Edinburgh)
(c) Ireland at 47,000
(d) Canada and United States at 4.1 million
(e) Europe at 80,000
(f) Australasia at 375,000
(g) Latin America at 50,000
(h) Philippines at 10,000
(i) Other areas ( India, Japan, Formosa, Africa and Israel) at 288,000
It is very interesting to note that the population of Scotland was about 5 million in 2005
And Edinburgh about 400,000 to 500,000 and Glasgow at about 600,000
It seems that about 10% of the population of Scotland are Freemasons
And taking to two major cities and Edinburgh and Glasgow.. making up about 1-1.2 million people combined it seems that one could argue that the bulk of the Scottish Freemasons are based in these two cities… this would mean that one could further say that it is likely that over 30% or more of the population of Edinburgh and Glasgow are Freemasons .. which would mean that most of the top executive, government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal jobs are filled by Freemasons.. and it seems clear that for one to progress in Scotland in the government, semi-government, media, business, court, legal world once simply has to be a Freemason… this would mean that it is likely that the greater percentage if not nearly all of the male persons working as a Lord, Judge, Sherrif, clerk, solicitors, advocate etc would be a Freemason and if a person who I sa party litigant ( litigant in person and not a layer) is arguing a case against a trained solicitor/advocate-Freemason in front of a Freemason Lord, Judge, Sherrif.. what chance have they of having an fair and unbiased hearing in Scotland?…obviously none…
Chapter 9
The Mystery of Mozart’s “The being involved in the death of Mozart…
With the allegation that Mozart had hiiden under the pro-masonic surface of the opera a secret counter plot in which Tammino was Mozart, Pamina was Marie Antoinette, and Pamina’s captors were Freemasons..In the scenario, Mozart’as murder was part of a Masonic conspiracy to assassinate Leopold II, as well as Gustav III of Sweden, who was actually murdered at a masked ball a few months after Mozarts death. The plot originated seventy years later ( in1981) by Geirge Friendrich Daumer, a researcher of antiques, a religious fanatic, and an anti-semite. His work would be seized by a Nazi leader in the 1930’s. General Erich Ludendorff, along with his wife, Mathilde, asserted that the secret of Freemasonry was “the Jew” and that Freemasonry’s goal was to “rob the Germans of their national pride and to assure the glorious future of the Jewish people..
In 1931, Nazi Party officials were given a Guide and Instructional Letter” that said “the 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…”
The Reich main Security Office determined that masonry was not only part of the “Jewish problem” but also “ an autonomous ideology with political power” that ruled the press and public opinion and motivated wars and revolutions…
In Czechoslovakia when the Nazi’s entered the country in 1939, 4,000 Freemasons were arrested and many were sent to concentration camps.. less that 5% of Czech Freemasons escaped to England and formed a Grand Lodge Comenius in Exile.
In Germany, France, Italy Morocco, the Spanish Canary Islands and Spain.. Freemasons and their lodges were banned, outlawed and Freemasonry was made a criminal offence and many were arrested and killed and/or sent to concentration camps…. Anyone who did not denounce masonry and reveal to the police the names of all mason with whom he had been associated faced imprisonment….
Hitler himself decreed “Freemasons and the ideological enemies of National Socialism who are allied with them are the originators of the present war..”
Chapter 5
Dr. James Anderson’s constitution
Dr. James Anderson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, around August 5th, 1662.
A doctor of Divinity… James Anderson had become a hero of Scottish nationalism by publishing “An Essay Showing That the Crown of Scotland Is Imperial and Independent and became a prominent and well respected Freemason….. Dr. James Anderson was called upon to write a new code of Freemasonry called “The CONSTITUTION, history, Laws, Charges, Orders, Regulations, and Usages, of the Right Worshipful FRATURNITY of ACCEPTED FREE MASONS ( which was collected from their General RECORDS, and their faithful TRADITIONS of many Ages)”….
which after it was competed meant he was enshrined in the lore of the Craft as “the father of Freemasonry History”.
. In A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry composed by Arthur Edward Waite, Dr. James Anderson is described “as a son of Aberdeen”, where he earned a doctorate and served somewhere as a Presbyterian minister and “ultimately drifted to London prior ot 1710.”
Exert of the Summary of the Constitution of Freemasonry by Dr James Anderson
“…Finally, all these Charges you are to observe, and also those that shall be recommended to you in another Way, cultivating Brotherly Love, the Foundation and Cap-stone, the Cement and Glory of this Ancient Fraternity, avoiding all wrangling and quarrelling, all Slander and Backbiting, nor permitting others to slander any honest Broth, but defending his Character, and doing him all good Offices, as far as is consistent with your Honour and safety, and no farther…And if any of them do you Injury you must apply to your own or his Lodge, and from thence you may appeal to the Grand Lodge, at the Quarterly Communication and from thence to the annual Grand Lodge, as has been the ancient laudable Conduct but when the case cannot ne otherwise decided, and patiently listening to the honest and friendly Advice of master and Fellows when they would prevent your going to Law with Strangers; but with respect to brothers or Fellows at Law, the master and Brethren should offer their mediation, which ought to be thankfully submitted to by the contending Brethren; and if that submissions is impracticable, they must, however, carry on their process, or lawsuit, without Wrath and Rancor ( not In the common way) saying or doing nothing which may hinder Brotherly Love, and good offices to be renewed and continued; that all may see the benign Influence of Masonry, as all true Masons have done form the beginning of the World, and will do to the End of Time…”
Mr Wijat's friend Magic Rabbit 
Mr 
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ll_a8a_1196450643
is a fast pased novel full of intrigue and action and it would be great material to be made into a movie. Hopefully Tom Hank’s hair will be clean and short by then or; big or; they can instead have George Clooney or Dennis Quaid to play the main character. When I first read The Da Vinci Code, I invisioned Tom Selleck as Robert Langdon because he fits the attractive professor’s type and masculine good looks and he is a such a great actor. He keeps himself fit and young looking and his portrayals come accross as genuine and so witty. I feel he could do the role justice with ease. Had he made the Indiana Jones movies, he would be a terrific looking Indiana, too bad he had a Magnum P.I. contract he wouldn’t be released from or be a studio loaner.
'No. 1 Perfume' is most expensive scent ever
Favre hurt, comeback vs. Cowboys falls short
Freemason mystery to get 'Da Vinci' treatment
Top 10 highest paid actresses 2007
AP Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland
_Founder_of_the_Jesuits.jpg)
.jpg)
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