The Warriors and the Bankers by Alan Butler and Stephen - TopicsExpress



          

The Warriors and the Bankers by Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe In this fine book on Templar history, the authors deal with three crucial areas that have given rise to much controversy. They deal with the all-important connection between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons, with the differences between Scottish Rite and York Rite branches of Masonry, and with the role of Switzerland as a new bastion of Templar power after the purges of the fourteenth century. We present a few important passages from the book: Philip IV of France He was known as Philip le Bel, meaning the Fair. However, despite his nice sounding name he was a tyrant and sought to destroy the Templars and steal their wealth. He was in league with the weak Pope Clement V, who resided not in Rome but in Avignon, France. Owing to the weakness and irresolution of Pope Clement, the royal plan succeeded. After an unsuccessful attempt of the Pope (in August, 1307) to unite the Templars and the Hospitallers, he yielded to the demands of King Philip and ordered an investigation of the order, against which the king brought charges of heresy - (page 15) Clement V (1264-1314) Philip IV (1268-1314) Templar-Rosicrucian Connection Templar graves have been found in several sites in Palestine which contain a carved effigy of a warriors sword, which itself is a cruciform shape, around which are entwined roses - (page 54) ...the route taken by the rose into Templar beliefs probably owes a great deal to a pre-Christian deity called Rosemerth, who was worshipped in Lorraine (now a part of France) since time out of mind. It was at her shrine, Sion Vaudemont, that the Virgin Mary was first named Queen of Heaven, a theme that St. Bernard of Clairvaux took up some 60 years later. St. Bernard influenced the Vatican to offer Mary this position officially - (page 54-55) ...the common dog rose (Rosa Canina) is rare among plants in that it does not have to be cross-fertilized to produce its fruit, the rosehip. In this sense the rose is capable of virgin birth, and it seems unlikely that this potential was lost on our distant ancestors - (page 55) ...the first time that the Rose Cross was mentioned in conjunction with a contemporary and espoused religious belief was in the early part of the 17th century, when a series of documents known as the Rosicrucian Manifestos began to circulate in Western Europe. Authorship of these documents has never been irrefutably established, but they were probably written by a man called Johann Valentin Andrea, a Protestant preacher from Wurttemberg in Germany - (page 55) Protestants and Rosicrucians ...Europe was deeply damaged by the Thirty Years War, which represented a setback for Catholicism as the driving religious and political force in Western Europe. For a while the Catholic forces made great gains and Protestant sympathizers flocked out of Europe, but especially to Holland, to find refuge in England. Many of them were aided in their flight by a quasi-Masonic-type institution known as The Christian Unions. The main organizer of these clandestine brotherhoods was Andrea, also supposedly author of the Rosicrucian Manifestos - (page 55) Luther and the Rosicrucians It is extremely doubtful whether the first stirrings of rebellion against the Catholic Church, again propagated by a German, Martin Luther, of the 16th century, could ever have become the raging force for reform that it proved to be in the following century, without the bravery and persistence of men and women who held Rosicrucian ideals - (page 58) The Invisible College Rosicrucian ideals grew apace and nowhere more so than in Britain, though it is impossible to assert that ideas such as these were anything out of the ordinary to a particular section of society in Britain at the time. A specific group of early Freemasons, most of whom also enjoyed Rosicrucian leanings, had already formed themselves into a fraternity called The Invisible College, which began meeting in the middle years of the 1640s...Most of the first members of the Royal Society were either known Rosicrucians, or else were staunch supporters of similar beliefs - (page 58) Templarism and Freemasonry ...According to the United Grand Lodge of England, Freemasonry began in 1717 with the formation of Grand Lodge, whereas the Knights Templar were disbanded and dissolved not so long after the 1307 persecutions of King Philip IV of France. It follows therefore that there was a gap of four full centuries between the last Templar and the first Freemason...any person who has looked at the issues carefully must first come to the conclusions that not only did the Knights Templar, in one form or another, very definitely survive beyond 1307, but that Freemasonry, on one form or another, significantly pre-dates the 18th century - (page 71) Freemasons do not consist of one cohesive body, centrally run and all-encompassing. The Masonic fraternity consists of the individual members who gather in individual Lodges. These Lodges are, in turn, governed by a Grand Lodge. Although each Grand Lodge worldwide recognizes the others, with few exceptions, there is no one universal governing jurisdiction. This is the reason why there can be so many ideological differences between lodges and individual freemasons. The Irish lodges can be separated into Orange and Green. We have the Republicans on one side and the Loyalists on another. In Germany, there are English lodges with English fascists as members. In Italy, Propaganda Due, is a Catholic order of ardent fascists competing with left wing Freemasonic lodges. There are elite lodges with Protestant nobles and royals, and lodges were the members are primarily Catholic, like P2. And although Masons are meant to believe in the brotherhood of all men, white lodges, particularly those of upper class members, rarely if ever allow Blacks or Asians to become members. Not only does the fraternity owe its existence to Templarism, the fraternity seems to loudly proclaim it in a number of ways...the Masonic body known as York Rite contains three sub-groups called Capitular, Cryptic and Chivalric Masonry. These three bodies of the York Rite are perhaps better known...as The Royal Arch, Cryptic Rite and Knights Templar. It is this latter branch that smacks of Templarism, containing the Chivalric distinctions of Illustrious Order of the Red Cross, Knight of Malta, and Order of the Temple (Knights Templar). These Chivalric Masons meet in Preceptories or Commanderies generally named after heroes of the Crusades, for example King Baldwin Preceptory - (page 72) The homage to Templarism does not end here for modern Freemasonry, as even its group for young men is called de Molay after the martyr of the Knights Templar - ibid Scottish Masonry If we assert, as we must do, that Freemasonry is originally a Scottish peculiarity, we must, of course, support our belief with proof and this proof starts with the Masonic guilds. Guilds of operative masons had existed since early medieval times not only in Scotland but all over Europe. These fraternities were something of a mixture between a trade organization and a trade union, bent of protecting the interests of those participating in a particular trade - (page 73) The Sinclairs ...as early as 1441 James II, who was King of Scotland at the time, appointed the St. Clair (Sinclair) family as patrons and protectors of Scottish masons. The King made this a hereditary office and declared that annual meetings would be held in Kilwinning, Scotland. This early date roughly coincides with the building of Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, and it is upon the bastion of this sturdy little Gothic masterpiece that so many claims for the origins of speculative Freemasonry rest - (page 73-74) ...it has been suggested that Hugh de Payens, the first Grand Master of the Templar Order, was married to a St. Clair heiress. There is no doubt that the St. Clairs are of French origin, or that St. Clair eventually became Sinclair - (page 76) The earliest Scottish reference to a speculative Lodge of Freemasons comes from...a charter of 1598...well over a century before Grand Lodge in London was formed. The first speculative lodge was already known in the 1598 charter as The Old St. Marys Lodge, ...It was located in Edinburgh, which is only a few miles from Roslin, and for some time after this, successive charters, signed by Scottish monarchs, attest to the fact that the Sinclair family had historical rights to Scottish Freemasonry that predominated over those other families - (page 77) York Rite Freemasonry This is the predominately Protestant branch, as opposed to the mainly Catholic Scottish Rite branch whose members supported King James of the House of Stuart. The York Rite branch was initiated by Protestant Charles Howard of the prestigious Howard family who owned vast territories of land in North West England and in Yorkshire. The Howards had been tremendously powerful in England or centuries, having been, since the days of Richard III, the Dukes of Norfolk...one branch of the family, headed by a noted turncoat and political opportunist by the name of Charles, ultimately became Dukes of Carlisle...There they intermarried with the Dacre and Greystoke families, gaining vast estates in Yorkshire, to add to those in Cumberland - (page 81) The Third Earl of Carlisle, another Charles, fell out with his political contemporaries in the North West, and decided to build a fantastic new seat, close to York. This house, Castle Howard, was built on the ruined foundations of an Anglo-Saxon castle called Henderskelfe - (page 82) Castle Howard positively shouts Freemasonry, from the pyramids and the obelisk in the grounds, to the Bacchanite, Cerenite and astronomical treatment of the Grand Hall, staircase and dome. And there is little doubt that this branch of the Howard family have been staunch Freemasons up to the present day. In fact, even before this section of the Howard family split from its Norfolk counterparts, it is known that the Dukes of Norfolk were early Freemasons - (page 82) The Dukes of Carlisle were Protestant by inclination. it is therefore highly likely that Charles, though a keen Mason, would have wished to distance himself from Freemasonry, many of the members of which were plotting the return of the Stuart monarchs. As a result it seems highly likely that Charles Howard was instrumental in either taking Freemasonry to York and replaced the Stuart affiliation with one based on early Anglo-Saxon history, which showed England as superior to Scotland and he avowed Christianity to lie at the center of the York Rite - (page 82) Replete as it is with Christian symbolism, York Rite Freemasonry still espouses Templar beliefs - probably to a greater extent than any other branch of Freemasonry - and in this regard it is representative of the Sinclairs earlier, Scottish, Freemasonry - (page 83) We have shown that Templarism has been endemic to Freemasonry from its inception, long before the formation of Grand Lodge in London. It is apparent that the transformation from Templarism to Freemasonry took place in Scotland at the time of the building, by the Templar family Sinclair, of Rosslyn Chapel...During the reign of James I, a Scottish-born Stuart King, it travelled from Scotland with the King and his ministers, and took root in England. Ultimately it fell into disfavor during the difficulties experienced by the Stuart monarchs, and lived underground until the Hanoverian accession. At this time it was massaged to accommodate the needs of the moment and its Stuart sympathies were exorcised - (page 83) From first to last, and despite the patently absurd assurances to the contrary by representatives of Grand Lodge in London, Freemasonry...is Templarism reborn, at a time when to be a Templar in a Christian country would have meant death...the Knights Templar could never have have been totally destroyed by the actions of one European monarch, even though that king had the backing of a tame Pope - (page 85) Templarism and the Switzerland Connection ...the Templars remained absolutely central to everything that was happening in Europe, and what is more they were partly instrumental in the formation of the Western World as we know it today. The Templar state was, and is, Switzerland - (page 86) Many authors have shown the very strong association between Templar history and ideals and a particular French dynasty - the Merovingians. Clovis I, the first Christian French monarch, had been born of this bloodline...it is almost certain that Merovingians, and what they had represented, lay at the heart of Templarism and the Merovingians had been especially strong in the area we today call Switzerland. Chief amongst their strongholds in the Alps had been the town that today is known as Sion, the very name of which shouts Templarism, and lives as a testimony to the virtual obsession regarding Sion - Jerusalem - that lay at the heart of the First Crusade - (page 87) Sion was originally a Hyksos city in Egypt. Moreover, the Order of Sions charter was signed by a Lodge in Switzerland. (See Irish Origins, Volume Two). At the self-same moment in history when the Templar order found itself facing public approbation, and when the crowned heads of Europe at last seemed powerful enough to stem its influence, a new and remote mountain state, thought one on the very frontiers of France, began to forge its independence, with the use of a soldiery that became synonymous with efficiency, bravery and ferocity - (page 88) The so-called Swiss Guard protect the Vatican. It was in Geneva that the League of Nations was formed after the First World War, and it was also from Geneva that the International Red Cross sprang up in the 19th century. Earlier still, Switzerland had fostered the embryonic notion of Protestantism, which without the important bastion it found in Geneva, may never have survived to challenge the retarding and corrupt influences of the all-powerful Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th centuries - (page 93) Danton and Marat, and many other agent provocateurs, came out of Switzerland. ◊ ◊ ◊
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 19:29:14 +0000

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