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NEW
AGE |
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The Occult
Influence In Freemasonry
by
Dave Hunt |
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Occultism has gained a new
respectability both in the world and the church through its acceptance
and promotion by numerous business and civic leaders and pastors. Among
the latter, none was more influential than Norman Vincent Peale. A
prolific and popular "Christian" author, Peale’s writings have
introduced millions in the world and church to the occult. There are at
least two sources of Peale’s occultism: the writings of occultist
Florence Scovel Shinn, and Freemasonry. A 33 rd
degree Mason, Peale was pictured on the cover of the Masonic magazine,
New Age.1 He was inducted into the Scottish Rite [Masonic] Hall
of Honor on September 30,1991, and his portrait now hangs in the
Washington DC Masonic Temple.2
He was often held up by Masons as an example of Masonic character. Yet
instead of honestly acknowledging the truth about Masonry, Peale
perpetuated its deceits.
According to its own documents, Masonry involves
occultism. Its influence permeates both the world and the church.
Although many professing Christians are Masons, Masonry is an
anti-Christian religious cult rooted in paganism. Masonry contains much
of the mysticism of Hinduism and Buddhism, and is Luciferian. Yet Peale
declared, "I have never seen the slightest word or expression [in
Masonic rituals] that is anything a Christian could not endorse." 3
Such an obviously false statement sheds further light upon Peale’s
perversion of Christianity. No one who has reached the 33rd degree could
be so ignorant. Declarations by Masonic authorities expose Peale’s
dishonesty on that subject. Albert G. Mackey, coauthor of
Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, is one of Masonry’s highest
authorities. In Manual of the Lodge, Mackey traces Masonic
teaching back to "the ancient rites and mysteries practiced in the very
bosom of pagan darkness...."4
Albert Pike, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Supreme
Council of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the USA, was "an honorary member
of almost every Supreme Council in the world."5
He authored Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish
Rite of Freemasonry for the Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third
Degree, which was published by its authority. This compendium of
official Masonic lore traces Masonry to Hinduism, Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, and other Eastern religions. In that volume Pike
declared:
Masonry, like... all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy,
conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the
Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its
symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled….6
Part of the symbols are displayed [in the Blue Degrees] to the
Initiate [Mason], but he is intentionally misled by false
interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them,
but... that he shall imagine he understands them.7
Secrecy and occultism go hand in hand. At the heart of Masonry is a
secret Luciferian doctrine which a Mason comes to understand only when
he reaches the higher levels. Manly Palmer Hall, another of the greatest
authorities on Masonry, writes, "When the Mason... has learned the
mystery of his Craft, the seething energies of Lucifer are in his
hands...."8 Nevertheless,
Masonry is highly respected in today’s world and Masons constitute a
high percentage of those in leadership both in the world and in the
church.
Those who deny that Jesus is the only Christ and that
He came once-and-for-all in the flesh have embraced the spirit of
Antichrist (1 John 4:1-3). Such is the teaching of Eastern mysticism and
the mind science cults: that Jesus had attained to the state of "Christ
consciousness" available to all mankind. Masonry declares the same:
Jesus of Nazareth had attained a level of consciousness, of
perfection, that has been called by various names: cosmic
consciousness, soul regeneration, philosophic initiation, spiritual
illumination, Brahmic Splendor, Christ-consciousness.9
An Anti-Christian Religion of Salvation by Works
Masonry has its own anti-Christian gospel, which
assures members that through good works and obedience to its tenets they
will reach the Celestial Lodge in the Sky presided over by the G.A.O.T.U
(Great Architect of the Universe), or "God as you conceive him to be."
Masonic authority Carl H. Claudy writes: "Masonry... requires merely
that you believe in some deity, give him what name you will... any god
will do, so he is your god." 10
In the initiation into the very first degree, the
Lambskin represents "that purity of life and conduct which is necessary
to obtain admittance into the Celestial Lodge above [i.e., heaven],..."
In the 19th degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry the initiate is told
that attachment to Masonry’s "statutes and rules of the order" will make
him "deserving of entering the celestial Jerusalem [heaven]." In the
28th he is told that "the true Mason [is one] who raises himself by
degrees till he reaches heaven" and that one of his duties is "to divest
[him] self of original sin...." These and other rituals of Masonry fly
in the face of the many declarations in the Bible that salvation is "not
of works" (Ephesians 2:8-10) nor by "works of righteousness" (Titus
3:5).
In the ritual for "Knight of East and West," the
Master, after anointing the candidate with perfumed ointment, declares
that his body has "this day been made holy!" In a further mockery of the
blood of Christ shed for sin, the Senior Warden, after taking a drop of
blood from the candidate’s arm, declares that he has washed his robe in
his own blood. He is then given the "sacred word, Abaddon," which,
according to Revelation 9:11, is the name of the leader of the hordes of
hell.
Similar blasphemy is found in nearly all Masonic
rituals. How then could Peale declare that there is nothing a Christian
"could not endorse"? Albert Pike declares, "Masonry... is the universal,
eternal, immutable religion.... [It] sees in Moses... in Confucius and
Zoroaster, in Jesus of Nazareth and in the Arabian Iconoclast [Mohammed]
Great Teachers of Morality... and allows every brother of the Order to
assign to each such higher and even Divine Character as his Creed and
Truth require." 11 But no Mason
may declare that the God of the Bible is the only true God or that Jesus
Christ is the one true Savior of sinners, for such statements would
undermine Masonry’s ecumenical embrace of all religions. Thus in
Masonry’s "Maundy Thursday Ritual of the Chapter of Rose Croix" it is
stated: "We meet this day to commemorate the death of Jesus, not as
inspired or divine, for this is not for us to decide."12
Joseph Fort Newton, another authority on Masonry, writes, "Masonry
is... a worship, in which men of all religions unite.13 ... It invites
to its altar men of all faiths, knowing that, if they use different
names for the nameless one of a hundred names, they are yet praying to
the one God.…"14 In full confirmation of this astonishing and impossible
ecumenism, Albert Pike also wrote: "Masonry [is the religion] around
whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahman [Hindu],
the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and
unite in prayer…."15 And again
Manly P. Hall declares:
The true disciple of ancient Masonry has given up forever the
worship of personalities.... As a Mason his religion must be
universal; Christ, Buddha or Mohammed, the names mean little, for he
recognizes only the Light and not the bearer [person]…. 16
The quotes we have given above demonstrate beyond dispute the
anti-Christian nature of Masonry. Yet more than a million Southern
Baptist laymen and clergy are in Masonry’s "brotherhood," and defend it
as "Christian." In a stunning demonstration of Masonry’s power (and the
number of Masons present), the 1993 annual convention of Southern
Baptists voted that Masonic membership was "a matter of personal
conscience." The vote followed the report delivered to the convention by
the Interfaith Witness Department that many "tenets and teachings of
Freemasonry are not compatible with Christianity and Southern Baptist
Doctrine" and that much "undeniably pagan and/or occult" was involved in
Masonry.17 How astonishing that
anti-Christianity is an option in the largest Christian denomination in
America!
Notes:
1 For many years the magazine of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the
United States was called New Age. That title accurately
described Masonic beliefs and rites. In order to hide that fact
(because the truth about the New Age is becoming known), the name has
been changed to Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Southern Jurisdiction
USA, or The Scottish Rite Journal.
2 Scottish Rite Journal, May 1992.
3 The Miami Herald, July 28, 1995, p. 1F.
4 Albert G. Mackey, Manual of the Lodge (Macoy and Sickles,
1802), p. 96.
5 Albert G. Mackey, 33rd degree, and Charles T. McClenachan, 33rd
degree, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (The Masonic History
Company, 1921), revised ed., vol. II, p. 564.
6 Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third
Degree, 1964), pp. 104-05.
7 Ibid., p. 819.
8 Manly Palmer Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (Macoy
Publishing, 1976), p. 48.
9 Lynn F. Perkins, The Meaning of Masonry (CSA Press, 1971),
p. 32.
10 Little Masonic Library, vol, 4 (Macoy Publishing, 1977),
p. 32.
11 Pike, Morals, pp. 219, 525.
12 Found in any official manual of Masonic rites.
13 Joseph Fort Newton, The Religion of Masonry: An
Interpretation (Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., Inc.,
1969), p. 11.
14 Joseph Fort Newton, The Holy Bible, The Great Light of
Masonry (A. J. Holman, 1940), pp. 3-4.
15 Pike, Morals, p. 226.
16 Hall, Lost Keys, pp. 64-65.
17 "A Report on Freemasonry" (6 pages) published by the Home
Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, March 17, 1993, in summary
of the 75-page analysis "A Study of Freemasonry," which the Southern
Baptist Convention in annual session June 9-11, 1992, directed the
Interfaith Witness Department of the Home Mission Board to undertake.
This quote is from pp. 4-5.
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