Secret Societies: Good Or Evil?

The Internet has awakened many people to the fact that a totalitarian Invisible Government—constituted by the Elite families who own and control the world banks and giant multinational corporations—has acquired financial, economic, and social global hegemony, virtually enslaving everyone beneath them in a socio-economic hierarchy.  But many authors and conspiracy theorists have attributed far too much longevity and occult power to this Invisible Government, mistakenly accusing this villainous group of being “descendants” of the ancient Mystery Schools and “masters” of the ancient arts of Gnosticism, Alchemy, Occultism and (authentic) Freemasonry. If you are confused by all the “guesswork” on the Internet and you are not sure who is “good” and who “bad,” this article will attempt to provide a beam of illumination.

Group photo of Skull & Bones members, Yale University, 1800s.

As a lifelong student of archaeology, ancient wisdom, symbolism, comparative religion, esoteric philosophy and occult doctrine, and as a keen onlooker and investigator into the globalist Elite agenda, I’ve come to realize some very clear realities that I think the rest of the population―including many famous authors and well-known researchers―do not understand.

Left: Me in Italy 1986 studying the ruins of Pompeii age 14. Right: Me
at Yale 2012 studying the architecture of the Skull & Bones tomb.

I see how confused so many people are today, and I receive confused emails sent to me almost daily from confused people who are desperately looking for something to latch onto, but can’t figure out, can’t decide, and can’t understand what is good, what is bad, what to follow, what to recoil from. It saddens me deeply.

But I’m not surprised. So many books and online videos set forth varying, contradicting, and often ridiculous points of view, usually without propounding any convincing evidence or believable research. The creators of these books and videos throw around words like “Freemasons” and “Illuminati” using them like blanket-terms for “all bad people,” as if they knew for sure what these organizations are, when and why they were founded, what they stand for, and who composes them.

A typical symbol seen on the Internet today. It insinuates the idea that
the Freemasons are responsible for a coming New World Order.

On one hand, these authors, researchers, and websites (those not being paid to purposely spread “disinformation”―because a handful are) can’t be faulted. They sense something is wrong with American society and with the rest of the world, and they’re trying hard to uncover and stop it. They are not sitting careless in their living rooms watching American Idol every night like most Americans; they seek truth. On the other hand, their work is often superficial, because it doesn’t delve deeply enough; they make incorrect assumptions, indirectly leading to the confusion of those very truth seekers whom they are trying to awaken.

Often these researchers are Christians who, never thinking to question the extent of their own brainwashing, automatically assume that anything that doesn’t jive with Christianity―like Freemasonry―is, by its very nature, evil.

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Truth Vs. Fiction:

We’ll get to Christianity in a moment. For now, let’s compare the following two statements:

WHAT CONSPIRACY THEORISTS SAY:

“An ELITE bloodline of sinister ILLUMINATI and FREEMASONS, who are descended from the EVIL Priests of the Ancient MYSTERY schools in Egypt, have for thousands of years been controlling the rest of us. They are master OCCULTISTS who use advanced ALCHEMY and practice secret PAGAN rituals which means they use MAGIC to control our minds,  empty our wallets and virtually enslave us. To put it quite simply they are a CABAL of ILLUMINATI and they worship SATAN/LUCIFER. They have been controlling all the governments for thousands of years, and their goal is to eventually form a NEW WORLD ORDER to complete their mission and to fully imprison the entire planet under their EVIL control (even though they haven’t been able to fully carry out their plan after thousands of years).”

WHAT THE TRUTH (PROBABLY) IS:

“Aside from the tyranny of the Catholic Church, which is a separate tyranny altogether…

For the past two centuries, a handful of the world’s wealthiest families (who own and run the big banks and the giant multinational corporations) have been gaining more and more hegemony over the rest of us. This selfish CABAL has achieved this power by using economic, psychological, military, scientific, and political resources, as well as spiritual information that they’ve stolen from once-noble Orders and organizations like the ILLUMINATI, FREEMASONS, SKULL & BONES and from several other high PAGAN, SPIRITUAL, and MAGIC organizations of the past, all of which were once benevolent. There is no NEW WORLD ORDER, but this group of Elite constitute an INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT (as described by many reputable 20th century officials and intellectuals) and this Invisible Government is continuously trying to maneuver things in their favor, and right now they control more than ever before.”

See the difference?

Conspiracy theorists automatically lump everyone into the same category, creating one big melting pot of “bad people”—ALCHEMISTS, PAGANS, GNOSTICS, FREEMASONS—without any evidence whatsoever. The very nature of a “Secret Society,” in the minds of these conspiracy theorists, automatically qualifies it as being “evil” and behind everything that is “no good.”

This is a terrible mistake, in my opinion.

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Secret Societies ― Secrecy For Good Reason

Secret Societies like the Freemasons were founded more than a thousand years ago for benevolent ends―namely, to protect a powerful pre-Christian spiritual wisdom that needed protection from the tyranny of the Catholic Church and from the unspeakable acts of the Church’s deadly Inquisition.

Let’s look at one Secret Society as an example, the Masonic Fraternity a.k.a. the Freemasons. Few people realize it but the Order was founded to be an initiatory storehouse of an ancient Pagan spiritual wisdom. This wisdom was called the “Secret Doctrine” and/or “Perennial Philosophy” by Renaissance mystics and occult scholars. The wisdom once formed a “Universal Religion” that was shared by ancient civilizations worldwide, like the ancient Egyptians, Hindus, Chinese and Mayans, but was banned by the Church as Christianity became dominant. If the Church caught anyone professing or practicing the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy, they were accused of heresy and killed. Hence the need for Masonic secrecy.

“…Freemasons have a secret which they carefully conceal…Masonry is derived from some very ancient religion…At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded time…”

—Thomas Paine, Origin of Freemasonry

“The first and chief object of our [Masonic] Order, the foundation on which it rests…is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery… which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man—a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace

Desperate to ensure the survival of this ancient wisdom, and in fear of the tyrannical Church and of the Church’s murderous Inquisition, the Freemasons “hid” their ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy in plain sight in a place where it could be safely handed down to posterity.

Where did they hide it?

It has been rumored for centuries that the Freemasons, who were commissioned by the Church to build Europe’s majestic Gothic cathedrals, encoded their forbidden wisdom into the very architecture of these Gothic cathedrals:

Can you see the same repeating blueprint here? Scholars never have.
In my book, Written In Stone, I show how this pattern is a message that clearly
reveals Freemasonry’s lost ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy.

“In Mediaeval Europe…fragments of the Secret Doctrine—transmitted in the symbols and secrets of the cathedral builders—determined much of Gothic architecture.”

―Claude Bragdon, The Beautiful Necessity, 1910

“It is generally believed in occult circles that these medieval masons had inherited esoteric knowledge from their pagan antecedents and that this knowledge was incorporated into the sacred architecture of the cathedrals.”

―Michael Howard, The Occult Conspiracy, 1989

The Freemasons were not the only Secret Society to preserve the Secret Doctrine  / Perennial Philosophy. There were many, but most of them were violently uprooted by the Church. Virtually all of them disappeared, except for Freemasonry, which has carried the torch of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy into the modern era.

“When the Roman Empire of the West was destroyed, political power came more and more into the hand of the Church, which grew very suspicious of secret societies, and suppressed them with great vigor. She did not, however, persecute the operative Masons, whom she regarded as a body of men wisely guarding the secrets of their trade, which she supposed to be concerned with the measurements of columns and arches, quantities for the mixing of mortar, and other such things.”

―C.W. Leadbeater, Freemasonry Ancient Mystic Rites

Despite Masonic secrecy, the Church eventually did discover that Freemasonry was carrying on the tradition of ancient wisdom; and the Church knew this wisdom threatened its tyranny, which explains why the Church suddenly and inexplicably did a 360-degree about-face and instead of commissioning the Freemasons to build more cathedrals suddenly sought to stomp out Freemasonry forever. This changed attitude toward the cathedral builders has been ongoing for hundreds of years.

Here is one of many papal bulls issued over the past centuries calling for the total destruction of Freemasonry, accusing the Order of carrying ancient Pagan wisdom:

“The purpose and aim of the Masonic sect having been discovered from plain evidence…is easy to understand…to try to revive, after eighteen centuries, the manners and institutions of paganism…

…we intend to turn our attention to the Masonic society… to illustrate more and more this wicked force and stop the spread of this contagious disease…”

—Pope Leo XIII

We’ll uncover Freemasonry’s ancient and blasphemous Great Secret / Perennial Philosophy in a moment. For now, it’s important for the reader to understand that Masonic “secrecy” existed for good reason—to protect the Masonic Fraternity and its members from the wrath of the Church and its evil Inquisition i.e., not because the Masons were trying to form a clandestine New World Order.

Masonic initiates begin their journey adorned in the ritualistic garb of a medieval
heretic with hangman’s noose around the head, being led to the gallows. This is because
the wisdom of Freemasonry, once learned, turns an initiate into a heretic eligible
for death in the eyes of the Church and the Church’s Inquisition.

To repeat: Masonic “secrecy” existed for good reason: It was because the Freemasons were the inheritors and custodians of a very important ancient Pagan wisdom. This Pagan wisdom reveals vital information on the spiritual nature of Man and humanity, which the Catholic Church has long been suppressing. This wisdom turns an initiate into a “heretic” in the eyes of the Church, and for many centuries the Church punished heretics with death. Hence the need for Masonic secrecy.

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The Masonic Fraternity ― Robbed Of Its Wisdom

Then, something critical happened in the 1800s. The Masonic Fraternity went through a kind of unwilling transformation. Someone―a sinister clan of organized individuals―went in and ripped apart the rituals. The symbols were dumbed-down, the wires were crossed, and the teachings were tweaked and compromised. It seems to have happened slowly, perhaps over the course of a few decades, rather than all at once.

This coup appears to have been done on purpose, apparently to render these Secret Societies impotent so they can no longer provide initiates with wisdom, tools, and insight needed to advance spiritual growth. For example, today Masonic symbols like the Pentagram (a very powerful and very great spiritual symbol) are no longer explained to incoming Masonic initiates; so-called “Master” Masons thus don’t understand the Pentagram’s esoteric symbolism, while some even (have the balls to) deny the pentagram is Masonic!

The Masonic pentagram. Its wisdom is no longer explained to new initiates of Freemasonry.

“The Masonic significance of the pentagram is controversial. While it often appears on Masonic regalia and decorative illustration, nowhere is it mentioned in Masonic rituals or lectures.”

―Grand Lodge of British Columbia Website

The Pentagram is an example of one spiritual symbol that has been “stolen” from Freemasonry―one of many spiritual symbols historically associated with Freemasonry but today no longer explained in the Craft. Seeing how the Elite corporations use the Pentagram in their corporate logos, it seems clear where at least some of this stolen Masonic wisdom/symbolism ended-up (i.e., in the hands of the Elite big corporations):

Top: Masonic symbolism featuring the pentagram.
Bottom: Corporate logos featuring the pentagram.

How did big corporations like Macy’s, Texaco, and Heineken come to understand the power of the pentagram? How did they get their hands on such high spiritual symbolism and wisdom? Did they steal it from Freemasonry?

The answer, in my opinion, is yes. Remember, an empowered population does the corporate Elite no damn good. The Elite need sheep/followers, not lions/leaders, or else their hegemony may one day be discovered and begin to erode. (The Elite need a dumbed-down, fearful, and angry population in order to sell us their clothes/cars/pharmaceuticals/genetically-engineered food. In other words, they need a system of fear-based competition instead of love-based cooperation. And “fear-based competition” is exactly the society we live in today.) So it’s quite possible that members or representatives of these fledgling corporations decided, almost two centuries ago, to eliminate the “secret” from mystical organizations like Freemasonry early on, seeing such groups as a potential threat to their fledgling Invisible Government.

Interestingly, in direct support of this claim, a “catastrophic” event is recorded in the history books in the mid-1800s at about the same time this wisdom was stolen from Freemasonry. Mainstream media describes this catastrophic event as the “Morgan Affair” in 1826. After vowing to reveal Freemasonry’s Ancient Secret, Freemason William Morgan went missing. His disappearance and presumed murder caused a backlash.  By the 1830s, we’re told, Masonic attendance diminished tremendously and hostility against Masons grew enormously.

For years the Order languished, but historians say the brotherhood was suddenly born anew in the 1860s. It was, however, a different society altogether; though sharing surface similarities with its esoteric predecessor, it was no longer concerned with esoteric doctrine. It instead now focused on “Faith, Hope and Charity”—its new three pronged slogan, which it continues to promote today. It was as if a new and invisible force, a force alien to the fraternity’s original purpose, had taken hold.

The so-called “Fork & Knives” is a modern parody of the Masonic “Square &
Compass” emblem, emphasizing the new pastime of Freemasons—food and drink!

Thus, today Freemasonry exists for purposes alien to its original spirit. Initiates who join seeking light get virtually no light. The whole damn apparatus is broken, and this is because someone purposely broke it, unbeknownst to most modern Masons.

Freemasons Chris Knight and Robert Lomas, authors of The Hiram Key, bear this statement out in an article printed in the Yorkshire Post, 11 May 1996:

“A compelling reason for silence amongst Masons is not so much a compulsion to adhere to their sacred vows, or a fear of macabre retribution from their fellows: it is more that they do not understand a word of the ceremonies they participate in, and their only fear is that people would laugh at the apparently pointless and silly rituals they perform…

Our biggest criticism of freemasonry is its sheer pointlessness. It does not know where it came from, no one seems to know what it is trying to achieve, and increasingly it seems improbable that it can have much of a future in a world that demands a clarity of purpose and benefit.”

―Chris Knight and Robert Lomas, Yorkshire Post, 1996

We read a very similar statement on the website of the Grand Lodge of England:

“…the honest answer to the questions when, where and why Freemasonry originated are that we simply do not know…”

―United Grand Lodge of England (website)

When they say “honest answer” I believe they really mean it. Here is a three-minute snippet from the Discovery Channel’s documentary on the Freemasons. It explains the Morgan Affair and its devastating consequences on Freemasonry:

Was the Morgan Affair a kind of false flag operation, designed to disrupt Freemasonry and allow outsiders to infiltrate and change the Order from inside out?

If yes, then it explains why the “Freemasonry” that emerged “after” the Morgan Affair was a much different type of “Freemasonry” that existed “before” the Morgan Affair. It also explains why the vast majority of today’s Masons don’t understand Masonic symbols or rituals, whereas the “pre-Morgan-Affair” Founding Fathers did understand them.

Today men join Freemasonry seeking spiritual “light” but they never really gain any; I mean none whatsoever. In response to the question, “Why, then, do you stay?” the answer is usually “conviviality” and “friendship.” Some say they joined because their dad was a Mason, while others admit they are attracted to the Order’s prestige; they like being attached to an organization with a long and storied history, not realizing that Freemasonry can be likened to a light-bulb that has been turned off.

Thousands of prominent men through the years have been members of the Masonic Order.

There is, however, a small group of Freemasons alive today―deep, caring, and philosophically-minded individuals―who are actively searching to decode the symbols, piece together the rituals, uncover the secret, and find the missing truth.

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Decoding Masonic Symbols

As a symbolist, I’ve decoded the key symbols that Secret Societies like the Freemasons use. They are all positive symbols, designed to teach deep physical and spiritual wisdom on the human condition, including how to love, care for others, and learn to distinguish between our higher Self (soul) and lower self (ego/body). As mentioned before, this wisdom has been known to mystics during the past two thousand years of Christian hegemony as the “Secret Doctrine” or “Perennial Philosophy.” Only a tiny handful of the millions of Freemasons alive today understand this, due to the fact that Freemasonry is no longer the powerful custodian of this ancient wisdom, this wisdom having been stolen long ago, as described above.

Let’s take one symbol, the “All-Seeing Eye” emblem. Many Secret Societies have for centuries used the Eye, including Freemasons, Oddfellows, and Knights of Pythias.

The single luminous Eye symbol crowns an Oddfellows certificate.

The Founding Fathers, many of whom were practicing Freemasons, used this important Secret Society Eye symbol on The Great Seal Of The United States, which is featured on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill. The Founding Fathers sketched the Masonic Eye inside a luminous Triangle, and set it hovering above an unfinished pyramid.

Americans believe the Eye is that of “God” (the Jewish “Yahweh”).
Conspiracy theorists (with little understanding of occult symbolism) insist
the Eye represents the “Illuminati” who are “Freemasons”  “watching” over
us and throwing their tyranny in our faces. Both are wrong, in my opinion.

Conspiracy theorists, lacking any in-depth research into ancient civilizations (the Pyramid), lacking any in-depth understanding of sacred  geometry (the Triangle), and lacking any in-depth knowledge of esoteric symbolism (the Eye), would have you believe that this symbol is simply a “boastful” emblem created by the Elite themselves―the “Illuminati” who have been “sitting on top” and “watching over” and “controlling” the rest of the world for thousands of years.

Ridiculous!  This “Eye” is NOT a symbol of the Elite “at the top” watching and controlling us! Nor have “they” been in power for thousands of years. The “Eye” is NOT a symbol of them “laughing at us” and “lording it over” us!

Regular readers of this website will know that I’ve set forth a fair amount of convincing evidence here on www.RichardCassaro.com supporting the fact that this Eye symbol is far more potent, far more spiritual, and far more ancient than these conspiracy theorists believe/understand. It is nothing less than a symbol of the GREAT (but now “lost”) SECRET OF THE FREEMASONS, which we’ll see in a moment.

Just ask yourself: Were the Founding Fathers of America―many of them Freemasons―a bunch of power-hungry Illuminati?

George Washington and other Masonic Founding Fathers laid the cornerstone of
the Capitol building on September 18, 1793 dressed in full Masonic regalia.

Did the Founding Fathers put the Eye above an unfinished pyramid to show that they were lording it over the population? ―lording their plans for New World Order over the fledgling American nation?

Of course not!

All you need to do to figure this out is look at the blueprint for the United States of America, the greatest nation (in its political setup) on Earth. Sure, today the USA has been hijacked by the international bankers and big corporations to the extent that the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. But those Founding Fathers who created America and the Constitution (and fought and died for it) obviously cared about We The People. That’s plain to see, for me anyway.

If you bear this in mind, then clearly the whole stupid conspiracy theory that the “Eye-symbolizes-the-controlling-Illuminati-watching-over-us” goes up in a puff of smoke!

Do you see that?

America’s Masonic Founding Fathers were a group of powerful and benevolent men, supported by an equally powerful group of caring women, and their American dream came true, having a tremendous impact on world history and on all our lives.

What made the Founding Fathers so powerful? The answer is certainly not religion:

“…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

—George Washington

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”

—Thomas Jefferson

“The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.”

—Abraham Lincoln

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

—James Madison

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion…has received various corrupting Changes…”

—Ben Franklin

“People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended Word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good… Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies wickedness and blasphemy.”

—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

So if religion did not make America’s Founding Fathers so great, what then did? The answer is the ancient wisdom of Freemasonry.  The Founding Fathers told us this by going to great lengths to encode this Masonic wisdom into the art, architecture, and layout of their cities, streets and capitol buildings. As Freemasons, they were inheritors of a Pagan wisdom-tradition, the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy of the ages, of which most modern men and women are completely unaware of.

Now, let’s take a look at what this ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy teaches…

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The True Meaning Of Freemasonry’s Eye Symbol

The Pagan wisdom I’ve been referring to in this article (the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy) has for many centuries been secretly conveyed by the image of a single luminous Eye bursting with light. We see this luminous Eye symbol in various images of Americana:

The back of the old American $2 bill is a giant Masonic Eye symbol.

The Masonic Eye forms part of a design for the
Great Seal submitted to Congress on May 9, 1782.

This single Eye, often depicted inside a Tri-angle (Tri = Three, the “Masonic” number Three), is the key symbol of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy, and it alludes to one of the greatest secrets in human history―namely, that as human beings each one of us has a “Third Eye” hidden in our foreheads, which we can activate to help us see our inner divine and eternal Self (inner soul):

The Third Eye inside the Triangle.

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly formed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

—Dr. George Washington Carey, The Wonders of the Human Body, 1918

“The Order of Freemasonry acknowledges the ‘All Seeing Eye’ as the Eye of Great Wisdom.’ This ‘Great Wisdom’ is said to offer those who seek the sacred mysteries an understanding of illumination, inner vision, and intuitive knowledge. Contact with this great wisdom occurs through the ‘Third Eye’ (pineal gland) located inside the forehead.”

—Dr. Joye Jeffries Pugh, Eden, 2006

“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the ‘all seeing eye’ pierces through, and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn’t detect.”

—Mark Twain, Famous American Author and Freemason, 1899

“The Great Pyramid is a central occult symbol that is often depicted with the “all-seeing-eye” or “third eye” inside it. In this form it is the symbol of mystical Freemasonry.”

—John Bowlt, Wendy Salmond, and Marie Turbow, The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konenkov, 1874-1971

“The All-Seeing Eye…also emblematic of the…third eye of the human being…has been found amid the ruins of every civilization….”

—Grace Morey, Mystic Americanism, 1924

Freemason George Washington wearing apron depicting an awakened Third Eye.

Clearly, the vast majority of conspiracy theorists have never gone to the trouble to really sit for a moment―or, rather, a decade or two―and decode Freemasonry’s Eye symbol, piece by piece, in terms of it ancient iconography. If any one of them did, they would understand what it really means.

Going into the particulars of how to decode this Third Eye symbol is outside the scope of the present article. But in several other articles on this website (www.RichardCassaro.com) I present a small amount of evidence that this symbol is nothing else but the ancient Third Eye symbol, which Third Eye we all have hidden in our foreheads―and this is the lost key to spiritual development.

As practitioners of the ancient Eastern spiritual traditions have long known, we can activate the Third Eye to “see” our inner soul and this helps us to become more spiritual, more loving, more powerful, and more pure.

Statue of Buddha meditating with awakened
Third Eye (symbolized by the bindi “dot” on forehead).

Readers of my book will know that I set forth a far more convincing case for the “Masonic-All-Seeing-Eye-is-really-the-Third-Eye” idea in Written In Stone, indeed much more convincing than the small amount of evidence set forth on the various articles of this website.

“I can truly say that you put a lot of my concerns regarding the ‘mainstream conspiracy theorists’ to rest.

Most theorists are all about doom and gloom and sell ignorance, claiming that the symbols you’ve decoded are symbols of oppression. Take, for example, the all seeing eye on the dollar.  It is rampant in several mainstream music videos and when younger people search what that symbol means in google, all of these ‘authorities’ claim the symbol represents the illuminati and how they ‘see’ all because they control all.

I knew that these people were not authorities and kept looking and looking for the truth, and when I found your work it struck so many cords and I was relieved that I finally had evidence to do away with the mainstream ignorance on these topics.”

―Jordan (letter to me written on 2/6/2013)

(Receiving this letter and many others like it inspired me to write the present article.)

Ancient civilizations all over the world, like the Egyptians, Etruscans, Celtics, Druids, Babylonians, pre-Incas, Mayas, Olmecs, and so on all understood and practiced the same Universal Religion which during Christianity became known as the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy. They were all “good” civilizations made up of good people. Walk among ancient ruins and your heart should tell you this.

In the ancient civilizations, there was something called the “Mystery Schools” (like our Universities) that were setup to teach people the Universal Religion. These Mystery Schools provided answers to questions like “Who am I?” “What am I?” “Where do I come from?” “Where am I going?” and “What is life about?” Today American and Western universities in general teach our children “how to go off into the world and make a lot of money.” And their parents think this is just great. What a damn shame!

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Christ Good, Christianity Bad

So, until the time of Christ the Universal Religion was widely followed, and the Mystery Schools were teaching its wisdom. The spirit of the Universal Religion consisted in the idea that beneath our bodies we are all the same; we are all eternal spiritual souls, the same souls (called Brahman in the East), who have chosen to temporarily have a human experience on earth. The trouble is that when we are human beings we have amnesia of this truth; we have amnesia of who we really are deep inside because we cannot see our inner eternal divinity and spirituality. We think life is real, but it is not; life is in fact just a temporary ride, and we (as souls) have chosen to go on this ride, similar to the way we choose to go on a ride at an amusement park.

“The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round; it has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud and it’s fun…for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, and they say, “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid EVER because, this is just a ride.” And we KILL those people HAHAHA! “Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride – SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry! Look at my big bank account, and my family! This just HAS to be real!”…But it’s just a ride. And we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok.”

―Bill Hicks, Late Comedian

A tradition handed-down among mystics teaches that Jesus Christ was a student of the ancient Mysteries; and that he was someone who realized he had been on this ride before. Initiated into, and empowered by, the Mystery School teachings, Jesus became aware of his inner spiritual nature, his inner “soul” or “godhood.” Some call it his inner “Christhood.” Regardless of whether you call it the “soul” or “Self” or “inner god” or “inner Christ” it’s all the same, even though the words change. Jesus’ message to us was that we all have this inner “godhood,” this inner “soul,” this inner “Christ,” and this is who we really are. And life is indeed just a ride.

Mystics have long believed that Jesus had a deep understanding of this knowledge (gnosis) because he had awakened his Third Eye, which he used to “see” his inner soul or “godhood.” Countless portraits for hundreds of years have portrayed Jesus with an awakened Third Eye:

A 1525 painting by Jacopo Pontormo painting showing
Jesus with an awakened Third Eye above him.

Joseph Campbell explained:

“…if you read “Jesus ascended to heaven” in terms of its metaphoric connotation, you see that he has gone inward—not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward. The point is that we should ascend with him by going inward.”

―Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

The following Eye symbol with Christ inside the pupil is called “The Transfiguration of Jesus.” It is a mosaic from the church of the monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai, Egypt. It was painted in c. 560 AD.  It conveys the idea that we can see our “inner Christ” or inner “soul” when we awaken our Third Eye.

Christ depicted inside the pupil of a giant Eye symbol.
“The Transfiguration of Jesus” mosaic from the church of
the monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt (c. 560 AD).

In Christian teachings, this concept of a “transfiguration” is described as a metamorphosis:

“The Transfiguration of Jesus is an episode in the New Testament narrative in which Jesus is transfigured (or metamorphosed) and becomes radiant…In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment…the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal…the bridge between heaven and earth.”

―Wikipedia

What Christians fail to realize (through no fault of their own) is that the transfiguration is, in esoteric Christianity, the act of Jesus’ awakening his Third Eye. And it teaches that we must follow Jesus and do what he did! This ancient church painting is thus telling us: “Follow Jesus. Awaken your Third Eye. Find your “inner Christ,” your “inner soul,” your “inner god”―just like Jesus did.”

“Jesus Christ knew he was God. So [you too should] wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house, which is pretty much the same thing. However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.”

―Alan Watts

A few years ago, the Renaissance masterpiece painting titled The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child (shown below) by 15th century Italian master Sandro Botticelli was the subject of a colossal Third Eye discovery. After being photographed with infra-red cameras, the painting was reportedly found to have a very interesting original Third Eye design:

“…[it] show[s] a rather spooky “floating” third eye in the centre of the Christ child’s forehead, the remnants of Botticelli’s original design.”

―The Herald Scotland, May 26, 2005

The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, by Sandro Botticelli (1490).

Who covered-up the Third Eye in Botticelli’s painting? Are all these Third Eye images pointing to an Inner Tradition in Christianity?—a tradition that reveals that Jesus’ message was really originally all about awakening our “Third Eye” to find our “soul within” or “god within” or “Christ within”?

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”

―Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:22

If so, then these ideas are far different than the mainstream Christianity we’ve been taught. The Christianity we’re taught, brought to us by the tyrannical Catholic Church, has historically allowed only two viewpoints when it comes to the soul:

Creationism: The Hebrew/Biblical God “Yahweh” creates each individual soul either “at conception” (for some) or “at birth” (for others).

Traducianism: The parents in begetting the child beget the soul too.

Nineteenth century English scholar and Egyptologist Gerald Massey (1829-1907) affirmed that this Christian denial of the eternal divine soul was the result of the Church purposely distorting the ancient Mysteries, with the Mysteries being the worldwide Universal Religion upon which Christian theology is secretly based.

“…it may be remarked that the war of the Papacy against Masonry is because it is a survival of the pre-Christian Mysteries, and a living, however imperfect, witness against Historic Christianity!”

―Gerald Massey

“Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries”

—Albert Pike

“Freemasonry is the survivor of the ancient mysteries—nay, we may go further and call it the guardian of the Mysteries.”

— J.S.M. Ward (Freemason and noted Masonic author) Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods

“The Masonic Movement…is the home of the Mysteries and the seat of initiation.”

—Alice Bailey, Director of the House of Theosophy

In books and lectures Massey insisted that in the Mysteries the concept of “Christ” did not, in fact, refer to one particular man. Instead, it referred to the centered, eternal “soul within” or “god within” or “Christ within” each of us, waiting to be found.

“…Christ was the Immortal Spirit in man… It did not and could not depend on any single manifestation in one historic personality.”

Historic Christianity originated with turning the…teachings inside out and externalizing the mythical allegory in a personal human history.…a huge and hideous mistake…”

―Gerald Massey, Gerald Massey’s Lectures

According to Massey, Christianity had subverted this “Christ within” concept; while the Mystery traditions link it to an inner reality common to all of humanity, Christianity instead bound it to one historical personage, moving the path to enlightenment and ascension from an inward, internal path to one externalized to a Messianic figure. This gave rise to the two thousand years of the Church’s domination, the empire we know today as Christendom.

Massey gained acceptance among early 20th Century scholars, and many took up his investigation. One such professor was Alvin Boyd Kuhn. Professor Kuhn’s The Lost Light (1940) asserted that by denying the soul’s divinity and pre-existence, Christianity wiped away a valuable fragment—indeed the key principle—of the Mystery religion. As a result, the true power of the “soul within” or “Christ within” teaching has become lost:

“Christianity took the type figure of the divine in man for the Divine Man. It exalted the alleged Divine Man…but left the divine in man to grovel in the dust… …it shifted the center of gravity, so to say, from the cult of the Christ within to that of the Christ without, or from the Christ as principle to Christ as a man.”

―Alvin Boyd Kuhn, The Lost Light

Kuhn’s work showed how basic Christian tenets were perversions of age old spiritual Mysteries. In his 2005 book, The Pagan Christ, author and Rhodes scholar Tom Harpur bravely resurrected Kuhn’s research:

“…the Christ principle is potentially in every one of us.”

“Christ of the myth became a flesh and blood person identified with Jesus.”

―Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ

Kuhn insisted that the early Church purposely hid the “god within” or “Christ within” wisdom in order to consolidate their hold on power over the masses. The Church instead promoted the idea of the coming of a future Savior destined to save all mankind, provided mankind followed the dictates of the Church. This led to a rapid consolidation of the Church’s power which is still visibly today.

Countless ancient Pagan sects tried to stop the Church, according to Massey, Kuhn and many like-minded scholars of their day. But upon facing merciless persecution, they realized their cause was fruitless. So these Pagan sects switched their objective to keeping the torch of the old Mystery religion alive through secret initiations into their gnosis or “knowledge.” This was the beginnings of Secret Societies.

This eventually led to the birth of Freemasonry as the main storehouse of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy. Thus, Christianity is merely a corrupted line of the age-old Mystery School teachings, of which Masonry became the modern vehicle. In the days of the Inquisition, this concept that we are each an eternal divine “soul”―which the Freemasons championed―was a “secret” and indeed this secret was punishable by death. Hence the need for Masonic “secrecy” and “Secret Societies” in general, all of which to some degree preserve the ancient wisdom.

As evidence of this is the fact that Secret Societies like Freemasonry began to “surface” in the early 1700s when the Church began to lose its power! Think about it. By the early 1700s the Church was less powerful than it had been in centuries prior. So there was no longer a need for secrecy, you see. The Age of Reason and the Era of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries)―which occurred thanks to the European Renaissance or “rebirth” of the ancient Perennial Philosophy, after many centuries of the so-called Dark Ages―had stripped away some of the powers of the Church, to the extent that a majority of the Western world felt more free to speak their minds, as it was now safe to do so.

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Conclusion

The ancient Pagan cultures, their powerful Mysteries, and the keepers and preservers of these Mysteries, the Freemasons, were all good. The more ancient you look into human history the higher, more sophisticated, more spiritual and more intuitive men and women once were. You can see this in all ancient monuments around the world. Visit them. Feel their spiritual power. Many people today are reawakening to the power these monuments emit, not because they were taught to do so in school, but because the monuments naturally resonate with something deep inside of them. I am one of those people.

Almost two hundred years ago, the then fledgling globalist Elite (the wealthy families who now own the giant multinational corporations and the banks) hijacked the Secret Societies, messed around with the wires, and, in doing so they diluted the power of these organizations. In some cases they infiltrated them entirely, changing their course and turning them into organizations that are now far different than what these Secret Societies were founded for.

The result? Modern initiates seeking true spiritual light are now left in the dark. By perverting the Secret Societies the Elite have lessened the chances of anyone seeing what they are rally up to, which, in part is that they are using the ancient symbols and wisdom for their own greedy and sinister ends!

The Elite are not spiritual people. Many are sociopaths and psychopaths who crave money, power, and control.  And that’s exactly why they are in power right now, not only in America but across the world.

Thus, to answer the question: Are Secret Societies Good or Evil? The answer, today, is both. They were founded for good reasons, namely to preserve the ancient Universal Religion (a.k.a. the Mysteries, which later became called the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy) but they have been hijacked and are no longer the pure pristine Orders they once were―kind of like America (and many other countries under the Elite’s control).

The “Triptych” facade (three doors) is the common denominator not only
of all the ancient pyramid cultures but of all the modern Secret Societies.
In Written In Stone, this discovery is set forth for the first time in literature.
It shows how the Triptych Temple (three doors) is the ancient architectonic
symbol of the Perennial Philosophy. It is this Perennial Philosophy that has
been perpetuated in all the (once great) Secret Societies. And it is this Perennial
Philosophy that has been stolen from them, with only its symbols remaining
―a sad empty shell.

To learn more about Freemasonry, esoteric wisdom, the Cathedral Code, the Perennial Philosophy and the Triptych three-door-design, read my new book Written In Stone:

Richard Cassaro is a journalist, speaker and author of “Written In Stone: Decoding The Secret Masonic Religion Hidden In Gothic Cathedrals And World Architecture.” The book uncovers a lost Wisdom Tradition that was practiced globally in antiquity, found memorialized in pyramids, Triptychs, and identical images worldwide. The central tenets of this tradition have been perpetuated in Western Secret Societies. The most visible of these is the so-called “Masonic Fraternity,” an age-old chivalric Order whose ranks have included Europe’s Gothic cathedral builders and America’s Founding Fathers. Richard has two websites: www.DeeperTruth.com and www.RichardCassaro.com

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