M. Benes, the Czecho-Slovak Foreign Secretary, has

offered in his Memoirs some shrewd reflections on secret societies in general. He says “they rapidly form men’s minds, force them to attention, reflection and clairvoyance, teach them to penetrate psychology, judge situations, are in fact a regular school of life, educating men to profit by experience. They also teach courage, devotion and an abnegation that soon develops into fanaticism. Indeed, all conspirators are or soon become fanatics with a narrow out- look based upon their intimate desires. I observed traits in them which I had previously known only in Russian novels. Clandestine action easily attracts men of adventurous spirits, incurable romantics, and sometimes lazy folk too, who mistake pot-house intrigues for politics. Self-seekers also slip in and weak characters, who may drift into treason. All conspirators are prone to lose themselves in personal questions or trivial details, tilting against windmills and magnifying the adversary’s slightest action into vast and diabolical designs. A conspirator’s work is a preparation for revolution and therefore essentially destructive. It is full of dangers for statesmen, killing their constructive strength or plunging them into an incurable condition of romanticism. That is why conspiracy is so different from politics, and why these innumerable cohorts of conspirators who raise wars and revolutions include only a small number of real politicians and still less of statesmen.” This is a remarkable confession, well illustrated by the poor intelli- gence displayed by the leaders of all the Austrian Succession States since the Peace.
Consciously or subconsciously, a secret society mind has been produced, akin to the secret service mind. We do not all possess it, any more than we all possess poetry or phthisis,
INTRODUCTION 13
but it can be instilled and when it begins to spread, behold it is virulently epidemic,—epidemocratic.
The secret society mind suffereth not long, but seeketh to _ Impose opinions, to play the missionary with velocity and violence ; envieth, vaunteth itself, doth behave itself unseemly, is easily provoked, thinketh evil, rejoiceth in iniquity, beareth nothing, believeth nothing, is usually the antithesis of charity according to St. Paul.
The chief infirmities of the secret society mind are ignor- ance, vacillation, credulity and sometimes cowardice, all of which qualities place the masses at the mercy of unscru- pulous manipulators.
Untutored minds see wealth and comfort acquired by energy or fraud, or else inherited from provident or fortunate ancestors. An inspired maniac or a specious mountebank appears with a new slogan, such as Shelley’s “ Ye are many, they arefew.” There is talk of chains anda goldenage. The credulous are easily persuaded that they have but to stretch out their hands and seize all the good things of the world without thought for the morrow. Religion is distorted to preach putting down the mighty from their seats and exalt- ing them of low degree. Then the clowns are all agog with visions of fowls in their pots, but they know they cannot organise revolutions or administer republics. So they con- sent to swear blind obedience to some mysterious Number One or Chief Centre, who is quite unknown to them or may not even possess an individual existence. They go mad with enthusiasm, take ridiculous oaths, throw bombs, sacrifice their lives and their interests for an anonymous absolutism.
And what have been the results ? Demagogues have been exalted and their little fingers have grown thicker than the loins of their predecessors. The right to vote has been bought at the cost of the right to think and live indepen- dently. Poverty has been extended and magnified. Appa- rent success has imposed long periods of unrest, confusion, corruption, intolerance and national bankruptcy, almost as disastrous as winning a war.
The Greeks turned out the Turks by secret societies and substituted home anarchy for alien rule ; the Serbian Black
a
14 * SECRET) SOCIETIES.
Hand committed unspeakable crimes and a gang of mur- derers is now installed to govern the nation ; the Irish have fulfilled Lord Salisbury’s prophecy and stew in their own juice.
The intentions of the untutored mind—the raw material of secret societies—may be admirable, but the effects are often disastrous. Under wise and philanthropic direction it may be constrained to perform and progress like clockwork. But machinery that is wound up and released at large is a derelict that tears down hills like an avalanche foaming forth to sea as an Imminent menace to all honest craft. In the hands of Satanic self-seekers it becomes an apocalyptic Beast deliberately trained for universal threatenings and slaughter.
The masses may be capable of pronouncing on wide issues and are consulted by a prudent ruler, but they are incapable of dealing with details. Men may be trusted to declare a preference for a certain machine, but cannot hope to build it if they ignore the rudiments of mechanics. Say serfs desire to own the land. They can be gratified as the result of votes or privy conspiracy. But they are not qualified to decide the intricate details of a Land Bill and assure an equit- able settlement. Say women have been down-trodden. They can chain themselves to railings, and pollute letter- boxes, and invite forcible feeding or secure concessions by good ambulance-work during a war; but your charwoman or your nun or your chorus-girl must trust to experts for a new measure of divorce or the revision of a Salic law.
The masses know no history and are therefore poor pro- phets of future content. But the impotence of the newly enfranchised never prevents them from desiring to dictate. Anchorites refuse to realise that they are unfit to legislate on night-clubs, bookmakers’ touts to pronounce on eccle- siastical ritual. Give them a vote and they rush in to exer- cise it. Indeed, in some countries, they are actually com- pelled to vote, whatever their misgivings.
If you must have popular government, some kind of soviet or syndicalism or government by compartments seems the only way to avoid inexpert interference. Those who cannot
INTRODUCTION 15
direct may perhaps be trusted to delegate. The medieval guilds were a step in that direction, but the degeneration of Trades Unions has become a menace to the public weal. In Hamburg in 1927, there actually arose a Trade Union of bullies who batten on women’s immoral earnings.
And when attempts at the delegation of authority fail, some absolutism, either under a monarch or a dictator, remains the only way to maintain order, perhaps the only means to secure liberty. That, at least, is the idea of Tory- Democracy, which, wisely administered, means central strength and a respect of traditions for the benefit of all. A well-ordered State.depends on authority and fidelity, with various rights and duties that must be recognised and res- pected on both sides, by the flocks and their shepherds, by the tribes and their patriarchs alike. It depends also upon continuity.
Changes are always a risk, but may sometimes be neces- sary. The best regulated State evolves to avoid revolution. When all the conditions of life are changed, as, for instance, by the settlement of nomads in villages, or by the migration of villagers to towns, entirely new codes are required. But change for the sake of change, or for the personal aggrandise- ment of the ambitious few, is a leap into darkness, perhaps into chaos.
The history of England leaves us an example. The initiators of such changes were, in the first place, the so- called upper classes, barons, mayors of the palace or Whig magnates seeking to undermine the central power. Con- sider the selfish farce of Magna Charta, which brought the English under a new and harsher tyranny than that of King John; then the Fifth Monarchy Muggletonian rebellion that crushed our forefathers’ liberties beneath the heel of a military tyrant; then another revolution and the domina- tion of a smug burgherdom for 200 years; and now the lowest degree seething and suffocating and sterilising on every hand. And the lesson of experience is that, without the intervention of the State, one class always persecutes and exploits the others.
Opinions differ widely as to the legitimate function of the
16 SECRET SOCIETIES |
State. The ideal State has perhaps not yet existed. There remains an eternal conflict between the Man and the State. We may blame the State, as Herbert Spencer did, for a ten- dency to enslave, for liquor laws and Sabbath laws and general grandmotherliness. But every community needs the stability of responsible government. And responsible govern- ment is incompatible with secret societies.
Secret societies constitute a state within the State. They are essentially irresponsible. They usually flout laws and constitutions, justice, religion and morals. The State has to use another secret society, commonly called the police, to hold them in check.
Your judgment on secret societies must depend upon your attitude towards authority. Are you an ancient or a modern, a mystic or a materialist ? Do you favour auto- cracy or democracy ? Do you emphasise the rights or the duties of property ? Where do you place the frontier between liberty and licence ? Do you trust anointed kings, successful upstarts, Parliaments or Soviets ? Do ends justify means ? These are some of the questions to be submitted to the jury of my readers before judgment can be pronounced on the State. The impartial reader, if he existed, would judge every case on its merits, but the impartial are usually un- principled or hidebound, and their verdicts a miscarriage of justice.
And extenuating circumstances may be admitted for mis- guided fanatics,—not only ignorance or collective halluci- nations but sublime motives. How far are the criminals of secret societies responsible for their actions ? Does not the real guilt lie with crafty organisers, men like Dimitrijevitch who equipped the Sarajevo murderers for his own selfish ends from the safety of his office ? Does it not make us hesi- tate to condemn when we hear of passionate enthusiasm and supreme sacrifices for a Cause, whether that Cause be devilish or divine.
Altruism, courage, idealism, poctry, romance have all been lavished in perfect good faith upon the most abominable outrages, and it is difficult to refuse a sigh for Bosnian stu- dents, eaten up with disease, singing of fairies and national
INTRODUCTION U7
heroes as they bear their weight of bombs to a treacherous slaughter ; or for softly nurtured Nihilist maidens despising death and torture as they sally forth to stab a benevolent Prince unawares in the name of Liberty.
The same fanaticism is there, whether displayed by Judith or Jael, whose perfidy has been exalted in Holy Writ; by Vera Sassulitch, the female Judas who shot General Trepoff ; or by Charlotte de Corday, the noble martyr, who rid France of a bloodthirsty tyrant. If you are an uncompromising believer in all established government, you must blame those who sought to stab Cromwell and Lenin or plotted for Prince Charlie.
On the other hand, if we had French or German prefects installed in our cities, if a Bolshevik Inquisition proscribed our prayers and our songs, if our wives and daughters were violated by Communist Major-Generals, should we not be tempted to join secret societies and rejoice over the darkest deeds ?
Then a critic may object: if you allow privy conspiracy in one case, why not in another? How do you know you are right ? Who made you a ruler and a judge ? If you are pre- pared to plot on behalf of your comfort or your conception of God or your loyalty to the King over the Water, why may I not do the same for what I consider the brotherhood of man or the advent of a golden age? .
And I shall not convince my critic by an appeal to right and wrong, for the world regards them as convertible terms. I must rely upon dialectics or force, trusting in God and keeping my powder dry, confessing in hours of despondence that the arguments of the adversary may convince, the forces of the Philistines triumph, the Devil exultantly look after his own.
But when I come to the Hidden Hand behind secret socie- ties I stand on surer ground. Apart from the conspiracies themselves, there will surely be no wretch so vile as to plead for those who play with and prey upon the noblest as well as the lowest instincts of mankind for their own personal ag- grandisement.
Let it be granted that the world, still evolving from chaos, remains in a state of ferment, that there are at least two great
B
18 o SECRET SOCIETIES
natural causes or Creators continuing their everlasting war- fare. They may be called Good and Evil for the sake of convenience ; Spirit and Matter ; Wisdom and Ignorance ; Light and Darkness ; Order and Confusion ; White and Red ; or God and Mammon.
These antagonists each employ a different method of war- fare, on the one hand the patent, on the other the occult, relying upon force or fraud, courage or cunning, muscles or mind.
Force is used by armies in the open. It has been dis- played in the migrations of peoples, conquests by superior races, clashes of civilisations, battles, charges, sieges, armadas ; symbolised by shields and bucklers, waving plumes, banners and bannerets, oriflammes; sung by minstrels and trouba- dours.
Secrecy is the weapon of those who are too proud or too puny to fight above ground. It has mustered unseen arrays that have lurked in the most ancient civilisations, spread over every continent, captured the imagination of heterogeneous propagandists, from pious Christians to political profiteers, Indian stranglers and African witch-doctors. Their traces are to be detected in catacombs, pyramids, the library of Alexandria, philosophy, mysticism, magic, ritual, rites that depend upon good intentions, falsehood, perfidy, treason, pretended mysteries, foolish or dishonest appeals to senti- ment and greed. Their symbols may begin with crucifixes and rosaries, descend to daggers, poisoned cups, hangmen’s ropes. They usually rely upon asphyxiating ideas. While regular troops are led to battle with anthems and intoxicating songs and visions of glory, the recruits of secret societies are trained to stifle their consciences and commit what they know to be crimes in pursuit of mirages and will-o’-the-wisps repre- sented as liberty, humanity, truth, justice and posterity.
Secret societies play upon the infirmity of human minds. Chéradame has crystallised this idea. The experience of warfare, he says, has proved that x tons of projectiles will accomplish y destruction in a period of z hours. Similarly x tons of printed matter prepared with sufficient ability, fired with sufficient intensity and camouflaged with the neces-
INTRODUCTION 19
sary cunning will demoralise an adversary’s judgment and powers of resistance long enough to render him vulnerable to the meanest assaults. A lie repeated one hundred times may not succeed in deforming truth, but the same lie re- peated a million times is accepted as truth for a given period, during which the adversary is in some sort hypnotised, ren- dered incapable of defending himself with his reasoning powers or instinctive good sense. He is paralysed or intoxi- cated into accepting the absurdest suggestions, those most contrary to his own interests and to the realities of life.
Who have been the creators and instigators of the whole prodigious engine, the generals of these insidious armies, the manufacturers of gases for poisoning minds, the professors of mass suggestion, the proftteers of international crimes ? A careful survey of secret societies will not provide a conclu- sive answer, but it may cast searchlights in useful directions. Unsatisfactory answers have often been provided by deluded scribes, sometimes perhaps by cunning conspirators deli- berately laying false scents. We have been asked to believe in melodramatic Black Hands dabbling in political black arts. The rise of a British Empire, for instance, has been attributed to the fact that the freemasonry of the last two centuries originated in England and spread all over the civilised world; from which it is deduced that freemasonry provided nurseries of voluntary agents everywhere to tend the seeds of British imperialism. Others again see the occult tentacles cf Jewry penetrating to the remotest recesses, and it isa plausible argument that, since their dispersion, Israelites have ceased to be a fighting people, found all men’s hands against them, been driven to fight their battles underground.
Each fanatic denounces the Black Hand of his own par- ticular bugbear. The Puritan scents Jesuits under every bed, a Communist denounces the captains of high finance, a French- man whispers darkly of the iniquitous German peril. And their charges are often brought so wildly that the whole indictment collapses in a cataract of ridicule.
I prefer to submit that secret societies are a branch oi warfare, utilised in varying degrees at all times and in_all countries to supplement open armies for the establishment
20 oe SECRET SOCIETIES
of world dominion. There is a family likeness among them. They follow the same lines in obedience to a scientific art of secret warfare. In the first place, postulants are attracted by vague baits of liberty or humanity or solidarity or pen- sions—all that the word freemasonry has come to mean. The postulants promise implicit obedience, submit to strict dis- cipline, are subjected to the most rigorous observation until the wheat of them can gradually be sifted from the chaff. In due time the postulants are promoted to bear the name of adepts, initiates, associates, or brothers—some form or other of the same hypocrisy. If they are initiated into any lore, it is only some fresh mummery ; into any other brotherhood, ~ it means only more serried ranks for extended usefulness to their exploiters. None is ever taken into the confidence of the power behind the scenes. The wirepullers are multiply- ing their effects, increasing their products just as industrial machinery increases the products of human labour, standardis- ing their instruments, rendering them more automatic and irresistible. Meanwhile, states of passion are aroused to attack and blind adversaries whom the hidden forces have determined to overthrow. New societies and grades are erected one above the other for mass suggestions that shall trickle through men’s minds like poisons through filters, sponges or conduits.
The attitude of the exploiter of a secret society is well illustrated by the satisfaction of Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, when he devised the degree of Priest or Epopte for his campaign against religions and other authorities. Hear how he wrote about it to one of his intimates: “‘ You cannot imagine what admiration my priest’s degree is arousing in our world. The oddest thing is that great Protestant and reformed theologians, who are members of our Illuminism, really believe that the passages in my speech which relate to religion contain the true spirit and meaning of Christianity. Oh, men! what can I not make you believe? Frankly, I never pictured myself as the founder of a religion.”
That is the open confession of a rogue who enjoyed material prosperity and came near to grasping unbounded power through the foundation of one secret society.
ENT RODU CTL ON 2
‘Hear also what he said, not when confiding to an intimate, but when appealing to a prospective initiate: ‘ Do you know what secret societies are, what place they fill and what part they play in the events of this world? Do you look upon them as insignificant and transient apparitions? Oh, bro- ther! God and nature, disposing everything for suitable times and places, have their admirable goal, and they make use of these secret societies as an unique, indispensable means to lead us thither. . . These mysterious societies, even though they may not proceed to our goal, prepare the ways thither for us. They take away from the Church and the State the best and most laborious heads. They bring together men who would otherwise not have known one another. Thereby alone, they undermine and sap the foundations of States even though they never projected to do so. They make men know the strength of united forces, they unveil to them the imperfections of their constitutions without exposing us to the suspicions of our enemies, such as magistrates and public government. They mask our advance. They afford us the facility of receiving the best subjects within our bosom, of incorporating them with our plans. Thereby they weaken the enemy. Even when they do not immediately triumph, they at least diminish the number and zeal of his defenders. In proportion as the secret societies formed within States increase in strength and prudence at the expense of the old civil society, the latter weakens and insensibly fails. All the efforts of princes to impede our progress are therefore clearly futile. The spark may long smoulder beneath the ashes, but the day of conflagration will certainly come... The seed is sown from which a new world will issue. Its roots are extending. They are already too well fortified and propa- gated for the fruit-time to fail. We may have to wait for thousands of years, but sooner or later nature will consummate our work, will give back to the human race that dignity which was its destiny from the beginning of time.”
Assume that his methods are adopted and extended whole- sale by a powerful and unscrupulous Government with the object of securing world-dominion. Then the wild assertions of those whom we dismiss as ill-balanced cranks do not seem
22 S SECRET SOCIETIES
so utterly incredible. There were many who laughed at the warnings of Lord Roberts against a German peril, but who- ever was or was not responsible for the war, the seriousness of German ambitions did presently reveai itself. And once admit a privy conspiracy in grand style, there need be no bounds to its antiquity, ubiquity and zest. We may even find ourselves in the mood for listening to M. Copin-Alban- celli’s theory that the French Revolution was instigated by Prussia with the object of weakening and breaking up France, failed only because an unscrupulous general created order out of chaos and devastated the lands of the aggressors. We may even believe that German secret agents organised paci- fism in France to such an extent that she was found utterly unprepared in 1914, would have been crushed and dismem- bered but for the unexpected intervention of Great Britain and the United States. And if Panslavism can be attainted for having devoted long generations to the incubation of a world-dominion in Balkan shambles and Indian outposts, is it any more absurd to imagine Pan-Germanism devising counter-plots and, in its life and death struggle, following such devious paths as those which led to the sealed-wagon journey and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the apocalyptic nightmare of Bolshevism ?
I do not pretend to have solved the problem. Iam content to provide pictures, knowing that pictures reveal only so much as can be inspired into them by their observers. I ask only that the world’s secret societies may be surveyed dispassion- ately, that scientific methods of observation may be applied to their termite organisations, that the ebb and flow of revo- lutions and reactions throughout the ages may be taken into account, that horrors and sloughs of despond may not deter courageous students in their search after beacons and anti- dotes. A gleam of hope has been discerned in the glittering entity of Fascism, though it may still halt and grope in its growing-pains. Pisgah may be nearer than we dream— some Royalist or Reactionary International, perhaps—stand- ing forth from the Wilderness of Sin and revealing delectable vistas of a long sought promised land.
INTRODUCTION 23
SOME AUTHORITIES ON SECRET SOCIETIES IN GENERAL
Heckethorn : Secret Societies of all Ages. London, 1897, 2 vols.
Franz Schweyer: Politische Geheimverbande. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1925.
Copin-Albancelli: La Guerre Occulte: Les Sociétés Secrétes contre les Nations. Paris, 1925.
(1) Forerunners
Christianity—China, Egypt, Greece and Rome—Secret science—Proscrip- a of popular knowledge—Pythagoras—Rabbis—Essenes—Therapeutz —Gnostics.
HRISTIANITY has been claimed.as the earliest secret
society extant. It was born in a sepulchre and grew in catacombs, cherished passwords, symbols, secret signs, thwarted persecutions by passive resistance underground, hinted at hidden truths that were to be acquired only through great labour and blind obedience.
But apart from divine origin, Christianity depended on Pagan precursors for its methods and constitution. China- men, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans all contributed to its origin and development. Indeed, the birth pangs of secret societies seem lost in the mists of antiquity. Secret societies must have existed in prehistoric China and the Stone Age, if not in Atlantis, for they are part and parcel of human develop- ment.
It was in Egypt, however, that they reached their prime. There the priests used to preserve their authority by retreating to impenetrable sanctuaries of the desert and the soul; by mustering their adepts in divisions and degrees.
Greek mysteries were of Egyptian origin, and the Greeks handed them on. Pythagoras, for instance, inspired the Druids, who had two doctrines,—one for the initiated and another for the vulgar. Zoroaster introduced Egyptian mysteries to Persia. Then the religious philosophy of the Alexandrian school confirmed the mysticism of old Greece and old Egypt. The Romans grafted Greek mysteries upon their own simple worship, and degeneration followed, as in the case of their Dyonisia, which became wild Bacchanalia.
And in every case, knowledge or wisdom or science was made a monopoly of priestcraft, was treasured as too sacred for dis- semination among the vulgar. The Brahmins of India pro-
27
28 e SECRET SOCIETIES
tected it by a secret language, as modern medicine-men guard their prerogatives by writing prescriptions in Latin, as thieves carry on their conspiracies by means of a jargon of their own.
The idea of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing is as old as the tree in the garden of Eden. Untutored pursuers of science, aspirants of self-education were regarded as sinners. Thus Lucifer, the light-bearer, the protagonist of popular enlightenment, was a name conferred on the devil; democracy was a form of devil-worship; most subversive movements combated religion as the prime obstacle in their paths.
There was indeed, little or no distinction between politics and religion. All governments were originally theocracies. Even the Czsars claimed to be divine.
The secret society founded by Pythagoras at Crotona was no less political than religious or philosophical, for philosophy means love of wisdom, and wisdom, according to theological conceptions, was an inspiration of the gods. The society of Pythagoras possessed arcana, secret doctrines hidden from the vulgar, and, like the secret societies of all times, imposed a probation for postulants and a division of members into classes or degrees. His object was to substitute the worship of one God for the worship of many, but he admitted the many as apocryphal adjuncts, borrowing his mysteries from those of Orpheus and Bacchus.
The Jewish Rabbis were also a secret society, relying on the Kabbala, mysterious traditions and Scriptural interpretations that were never committed to writing but handed down through generations of experts and capable of being adapted to circumstances.
The Essenes were a secret society of the Jews at the time of the Maccabees, combining Pythagorean and Stoic philosophy with a claim to spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures. They shrank from worldly affairs, established Communistic settlements in the desert and may have affected religious thought in Christ’s day.
The Gnostics of the first century, who inspired many Chris- tian and philosophic sects, began with an attempt to fathom the inner meaning of the various mythologies and religious systems among the numerous races of the Roman Empire
GNOSTICS 29
with a view to solving the riddle of the universe. They analysed Greek, Roman, Persian, Chaldean, and Jewish doc- trines and claimed to possess a secret knowledge of Christianity derived directly from its Founder and superior to that conveyed by the Gospels.
The extent of their rites and mysteries is disputed, but they taught by means of emblems and symbols, and their influence over the world’s thought cannot be questioned. Their main doctrines were the eternal conflict of Spirit and Matter, the goodness of the supreme spiritual Being and the evil of Matter, which was also eternal. Out of Matter, the supreme Being generated ons, spirits or emanations gifted with the power of evolving more Matter from the spiritual universe. The zons, however, degenerated from emanation to emanation until Christ came to bring the redemption of all by restoring primitive purity and harmony with a prospect. of eventual Nirvanic happiness in the bosom of God.
Gnosticism was a singular mixture of monotheism and pan- theism, Christianity and heathenism, spirituality and mate- rialism, oriental imagination and cold philosophy. Gnos- ticism has been described as the last struggle of the ancient world resisting the barbaric flood of modern thought. Its schools, almost its name disappeared in the course of the sixth century, but neither imperial edicts nor priestly perse- cution could annihilate it utterly. It was still at work under- ground in the thirteenth century, and—who knows?—its zons or emanations may even now be inspiring the less futile controversies of to-day.
AUTHORITIES
A. P. Marras: Secret Fraternities of the Middle Ages. London, 1865. T. Frost : Histoive des Sociétés Secrétes. 1876.
30 e, SECRET SOCIETIES
(2) Freemasons.
Importance and universality—Origin—Development in various countries— Constitution—Aims—Secrecy.
Not wishing to thrust my head into a hornets’ nest, I do not propose to criticise the freemasonry of to-day. That may be left to Signor Mussolini. But it is impossible to treat of secret societies without a cursory study of the most important of them all.
Freemasonry has attracted monarchs, generals, philosophers, statesmen, clergymen and revolutionary agitators. On its roll we find such varied names as Joseph II of Austria, Edward VII, Blucher, Goethe, Mozart, Kitchener, Cecil Rhodes, Walter Scott, George Washington, Roosevelt, Danton, Voltaire, Poin- caré, Clemenceau, Zola, Garibaldi, Kossuth, Masaryk, Kerenski, Pashitch, Bottomley, Asquith, the Serajevo murderers, Lenin and Trotski. There are now 25,000 lodges with 3,000,000 members, including 30,000 American ministers of religion.
The craft boasts of immense antiquity, a legend representing Adam as the first mason and the masonic apron as a symbol of his fig-leaf. Lessing said the craft was “as old as civic life.”
Be that as it may, societies of stonemasons flourished exceed- ingly after the great fire of London, and their constitution of 1723 is regarded as the beginning of modern freemasonry. This constitution took the building of Solomon’s temple as a symbol of the development of the soul and was adopted by all foreign masons.
There were three stages of development: (1) the Anglo- American, which insisted on the worship of God and attached importance to masonic ceremonies, but was indifferent about religion and held aloof from politics ; (2) the German and Scan- dinavian, on similar lines but subordinating outward forms to the inner life of the lodges; and (3) the Franco-Latin, which denied God, fought all religion, and laboured abundantly for democratic triumphs.
FREEMASONS 31
Freemasonry has proved a leaven that has worked differently in various atmospheres.
In England it is recognised as philanthropic and loyal, remains almost fashionable, with a mildly Liberal bias. In Scotland it is now similar, though at one time it was employed by Jacobites in their national movement.
The first French lodge is said to have been founded in 1725 according to the Scottish rite, though sceptics assert that the so-called Scottish masters wore acacia-blossoms as symbols and that the word acassais (acacian) was mistaken for écossais (Scottish). | Freemasonry soon became fashionable in France, but incurred the suspicion of government and people as well as the jealousy of women, who were pacified for a while by the foundation of special lodges for their sex. When the French revolution came, freemasons were persecuted as aristocrats, but they became fomenters of revolution in 1830 and 1848, and of the Commune in 1871. Latterly, they became more and more opposed to religion, and promoted the confiscation of church property in 1905.
They were organised in Germany in 1737 and secured the approval of high quarters, suffered discredit through their connection with Cagliostro and alchemists, aroused suspicion by fantastic rites and titles, resisted State attempts to suppress them, and relapsed into obscurity through internal dissensions.
Itahan lodges began soberly in 1730, but were responsible for revolts from 1822 onwards, and begat the Carbonari, growing more and more anti-clerical. They supported Italy’s entrance into the war against the Central Powers, and were suppressed by Mussolini in 1925.
Scandinavian freemasons began in 1735 on high aristocratic lines, claiming descent from apostolic times, insisting not only upon God but upon Christianity, and enjoying special favours which they have not lost to this day.
Belgium and Spain adopted the craft from France and em- phasized anti-clerical opinions, some lodges going so far as to refuse Christian burial and to prohibit attendance at weddings
in church. Austrian lodges confined themselves to philanthropy and did
32 Ls SECRET SOCIETIES
not attain importance until 1919, when they began to secure the chief posts in the government of their derelict State.
The United States claim the largest dissemination of free- masonry: as in other spheres of activity, it must be “ the greatest show on earth.” Their first Grand Master was Ben- jamin Franklin in 1735. Great importance is attached to ritual. The lodges are rich and not subversive, though they sympathise vaguely with revolutionary movements abroad. Special lodges have been founded for negroes with no admission for white brothers.
Some lodges still reject Jews, and there are lodges restricted to Jews. Otherwise every white mason has the right of admis- sion to any lodge in the world. The lodge is the unit of organi- sation and an Orient is the place where a lodge is situated, a grand lodge being called a Grand Orient in Latin countries. Correspondence is kept up between lodges, and visits are exchanged, though divergences of views have broken off rela- tions between Anglo-American and other forms of freemasonry International relations were to a great extent suppressed during the war, but freemasonry emerged without being considerably weakened and has since increased numerically. From time to time, there have been attempts to found an international union of grand lodges, so far without success, though many still work for it, desiring the eventual foundation of a world republic. There is no centralrule in freemasonry. It is rather a federal system with corporate responsibility of all members.
Few freemasons have a clear conception of their aims. They are all agreed in a vague desire for improving the world, and they profess their regard for humanity, honour and righteous- ness in the abstract, but have no definite programme beyond lavish charity among themselves. According to one of their leaders, they are “ not a sect or a church but a path for the development of the soul.” They assert that all are born good and must be their own priests, lawgivers and judges, reason sufficing without religion. Their ideal is the non-religious school, and they seek to influence the education of the peoples through the schools, the press and political organisations. The famous French historian, Henri Martin, called freemasonry
FANTASTIC OATHS 33
“the workshop of revolution,” but the American freemason, A. G. Mackey, said in his “ Masonic Jurisprudence” that “felony and revolution are foreign to freemasonry.”
The secrets of the craft are thought to be concerned only with ritual and symbols, of no interest to the general public, and we are assured that all masonic work is chronicled in open books. This, however, is not believed by opponents, who argue that, if the secrets were unimportant, they would not be kept so strictly. Apprentices, for instance, have to call down a curse on themselves in case of betrayal, offering their heads to be cut off, their hearts and entrails to be torn out, and their ashes to be scattered to the winds. Still wilder oaths are taken for higher degrees, and the freemason, J. G. Findel, wrote : “ Frivo- lous oaths are taken throughout the nine degrees. If we could describe them, people would ask in horror how any edu- cated man could sink to taking such oaths. One of them is absolutely indecent as well as ridiculous.” .
Secrecy, however, possesses a romantic attraction for certain types of mind, and simple folk are certainly impregnated with ideas which affect all the details of their lives.
AUTHORITIES
The Constitutions of the Freemasons, for the Use of the Lodges. London, 1723.
De La Tierce: Apologie pour l’Ordre des Francmagons. 1747.
Deschamps and Claude Jannet: Les Sociétés Secrétes et la Société. Paris, 1860.
Claude Jannet: Les Précurseurs de la Franc-Magonnerte. Paris, 1867. (A pamphlet.)
Thory : Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de Paris, and Ragon: Orthodoxie Magonnique. (Both apologists of Freemasonry.)
Rebold: Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges de France. (A critic of Freemasonry).
R. F. Gould: History of Freemasonry. London, 1883-7.
Oliver: Antiquities of Freemasonry.
G.M. Pachtler: Der Stille Krieg gegen Thron und Altar.
Amberg, 1876.
W. Smitt: Katechismus der Freimaureret. Leipzig, 1891.
J. G. Findel: Die Grundsdtze der Freimaurerei im V élkerleben. Leipzig, 1892.
J. G. Findel: Geschichte der Freimaureret. Leipzig, 1900.
Cc
34 r SECRET SOCIETIES
Georges Goyau: L’Idée de Patrie et VHumanitarisme. Paris, 1902.
Max Doumic (unsigned): Le Secret de la Franc-Magonnerte. Paris, 1905.
O. Neumann: Das Freimaurertum, seine Geschichte und sein Wesen. Berlin, 1909.