CONSPIRACY RISING Chapter 2 The Big Three: The Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the Bavarian Illuminati Part 1

CONSPIRACY RISING

Chapter 2

The Big Three:

The Knights Templar,

the Freemasons, and the

Bavarian Illuminati

Conspiracy thinking pervades our social world, to such an extent that we might think that it has always been a part of the way people talk about politics, economics, and society. Modernity and globalization challenge societies in particular ways that seem to encourage the development of conspiracy theories. As noted in the previous chapter, however, while political conspiracies have likely always existed, the superconspiracy theories popular today are relatively recent inventions. Their immediate origins lie in the early 20th century, and they were nourished by the changing social structure of the declining British Empire. Although superconspiracy theories are therefore a recent innovation, their historical roots are deep, and believers search history for evidence of their influence over the modern world.

Among the panoply of conspirators identified by modern theories, three groups in particular stand out: the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the Bavarian Illuminati. Amidst the government officials, aliens, lizards, and other peculiar entities that populate many modern conspiracy theories, these groups are particularly noticeable. First, we know with some certainty—even though they are / were secret societies—that they actually existed, and second, they have, if conspiracy thinkers are correct, been working through their evil plans for hundreds of years. Finally, they play a critical role in so many conspiracy theories that their presence is impossible to ignore. Why do these ancient organizations dominate so many modern conspiracy theories ? The answers to this question help to explain the emergence of conspiracy theory and the continuing popularity of the conspiracy belief structure. This chapter therefore begins with a brief historical examination of each of the “Big Three”: the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the Bavarian Illuminati. As J. M. Roberts writes, it is difficult to discern the history of secret societies because the line between their “mythological and positive history” is frequently unclear. The many and spectacular deeds for which they are supposedly responsible are only related in a tangential way to the historical record, and sometimes the historical record itself is only “semi-real.” While this account of their histories is unlikely to convince conspiracy believers as noted in the previous chapter, their convictions are a matter of faith, not rational thought such an examination is important, for it illustrates the interesting similarities in their origins and the function they served in their respective political communities. These commonalities suggest good reasons why, in times of political and economic change, these groups have come to dominate the popular imagination.

The Knights Templar

The first and most ancient of the Big Three is the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Commonly known as the Knights Templar, this group came to widespread mainstream attention through Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code.In that fictional story, the Templars and their disappearance provide an elaborate screen for the Priory of Sion, a yet more secret organization, supposedly charged with protecting the secret bloodline of Jesus’s and Mary Magdalene’s offspring. McConnachie and Tudge describe the plot as “codswallop,” and Aaronovitch makes a similar suggestion, but this mythological history was compelling to millions of people. The real history of the group is just as interesting but somewhat less dramatic.

The Knights Templar began in the early 1100s when a French nobleman and nine of his companions dedicated themselves to the protection of Christians traveling to and from Jerusalem during the Crusades. The Templars were therefore first a religious community. They did, however, practice secret rites of initiation and prayer, activities that made them suspect, and eventually helped lead to their downfall. In many ways, the Templars are the symbolic prototype for all secret societies. They were both priests and soldiers, an innovative combination that Pipes contends was particularly threatening to individuals outside the Order. Their embodiment of both heavenly and earthly authority was a new and, for many, a troubling development. Ultimately, too, they accumulated significant wealth, a fact that further added to their aura of mystery and power. For a time, they were  even bankers to French royalty. Their tremendous wealth further increased outsiders’ suspicions of the Order. Their proximity to political power, and their wealth and prestige transgressed feudal norms. In addition, it led outsiders to question their piety.

The Templars were therefore extremely successful, but eventually they met with a significant military defeat. In 1291, Acre, the last Crusade stronghold, fell, and Templar fortunes changed. In the early 1300s, as they prepared to launch another crusade, the French monarchy and the Church moved against them. The monarchy confiscated the Templars’ wealth and imprisoned and tortured its members. Eventually, Philip IV found the Templars guilty of apostasy, and their leader, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake.

The secretive Knights Templar had religious authority, economic resources, and political power. Not only did they challenge the social order of their day, but they also created a new kind of political actor, the priest knight. In so doing, the Templars came to represent a power beyond the control of traditional authorities, and these qualities ensured their place in history.

After their abrupt loss of authority, the Templars apparently disappeared from political life. In the minds of conspiracy theorists, however, they live on. Indeed, the Templars cast a deep shadow over modern conspiracy theories, and they can, in Umberto Eco’s words, be found everywhere. Different conspiracy theories understand the Templars’ role in different ways, but the Knights play a pivotal role in the history of conspiracy thinking. A number of modern conspiracies, for example, identify the Knights Templar as pivotal players in the French Revolution. Frequently, these types of theories argue that it was the Templars’ leader, Jacques De Molay, who directed the Freemasons to make the Revolution.

Some theories also identify the Knights Templar as closely involved in more recent events, for example, September 11, 2001. Barkun notes that in “The Twin Towers and the Great Masonic Experiment,” Richard Hoagland argues that the numerological meaning of the date September 11, 2001, reveals a link to the number 11 (each tower had 110 floors  one was struck by Flight 11, etc.). This information is then linked to the year 1118, a number with integers that total 11, and evidently the year the Knights Templar were recognized by the Vatican. Hoagland then concludes that the events of September 11, 2001, were in fact an attack by the Islamic Order of Assassins against the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.

Today, various instantiations of the Knights Templar do continue to exist, and the Order claims to have a membership that numbers three quarters of a million. Its branches are not, however, centers of military power, and while its members may be wealthy, they do not threaten the established economic system. A prospective member of the Order must profess a belief in “Christian ideals, a belief in the Holy and Undivided Trinity and [be a person] who seeks the society of men pledged to deeds of Charity, the practise of Christian virtues and the promotion of Christ’s Kingdom on earth.” Membership in the modern Knights Templar does, however, require applicants to already be members of York Rite Freemasons and to have reached the level of “Master Mason.” It is therefore appropriate to next engage in an examination of the Freemasons. Conspiracists would hold that the link between these organizations suggests some nefarious plan. A consideration of the Freemasons’ historical evolution reveals that this is likely not so.

The Freemasons

The history of the Freemasons reveals that it is marked by similar themes to that of the Knights Templar. Roberts’s assertion that secret societies’ real history differs substantially from their mythological history is undoubtedly the case for the Freemasons, the organization perhaps most often identified at the center of both early and modern conspiracy theories. The Freemasons are apparently in cahoots with Rotary and Lions Clubs and involved in plots ranging from the distribution of aspartame to control the human mind (“Aspartameis such a blatantly High Masonic term. You have the asp,which is the serpent; of course, of Cleopatra, she did herself in with them; and you have tame. See, you tamethe person—and you do that by going for the brain cells. However, who was the one who got it through into the US Food and Drug Administration? It was Donald Rumsfeld”) to the death of Pope John Paul I, to an apparent plot to spread Zionism. Understandably then, the legends surrounding the group’s origins and history are many, and they have overwhelmed the popular imagination. It is the case, however, that the significantly more mundane reality of its development in a rapidly industrializing Britain is perhaps more interesting and suggests where the movement’s real significance and power truly lie.

Some Masonic histories—and indeed, a number of conspiracy theories claim that the movement’s history reaches back to biblical times, specifically to the construction of Solomon’s Temple, and includes an assortment of other groups and events such as the Eleusinian mysteries, the Essenes, the Druids, and Roman cults. The predominantly mythological Constitutions of the Free-Masons,for example, asserts that:

KING SOLOMON was GRAND MASTER of the LODGE at JERUSALEM and the LEARNED KING HIRAM was GRANDMASTER of the LODGE at TYRE and the INSPIRED HIRAM ABIF was MASTER OF WORK, and MASONRY was under the immediate Care and Direction of Heaven . . . after the Erection of SOLOMON’s Temple, Masonry was improv’d in all the neighboring Nations; for the many artists employed about it, under HIRAM ABIF, after it was finished, dispers’d themselves into SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, ASSYRIA, CHALDEA, BABYLONIA, MEDIA, PERSIA, ARABIA, AFRICA, LESSER ASIA, GREECE, and other Parts of Europe, where they taught this liberal Art to the FREE BORN Sons of eminent Persons, by whose Dexterity the Kings, Princes, and Potentates, built many glorious Piles and became GRAND MASTERS, each in his own Territory . . . even in India.

This document suggests that the principles of Freemasonry were blessed by God and that their spread around the world was undertaken as part of God’s larger plan. These mythic stories were popular during the 18th century and helped to shape not only Masonic legends but also outsiders’ views of the organization and its goals, particularly with respect to Freemasonry related conspiracy theories. Although this depiction of a group that has existed from almost the beginning of human history fits well with an organization purported to control the world, there is little evidence that Freemasonry and its lodges existed before the 17th century.

The first recorded mention of Freemasonry is of an Edinburgh militaryoriented lodge in 1641, but the clearest indication of the movement’s origins in Great Britain can be found in the Premier Grand Lodge of England, an entity created in 1717 by four London lodges. Its public emergence was followed by several other lodges across Great Britain openly declaring their existence. In 1723, the organization published its first rulebook ( The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, quoted above), and by 1748, there were over 150 lodges across England. In 1776, Freemasons’ Hall, on Queen Street, London, opened; it included the Freemasons’ Tavern, office space, and meeting rooms. In addition to Masonic activities, the Hall also hosted the meetings of many British philanthropic societies, including the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Anti-Slavery Society.

Historical documentation of the Freemasons thus exists from the middle 17th century through to the present. The organization’s continued presence in the social fabric of modern nations (there are Masonic lodges around the world, and in the United States, the group’s membership, although in decline, still stands at over one million, makes the questions of why and how the organization emerged important. Most relevant to our purposes here is that the answers to the questions help to explain why the Freemasons have played such an important role in modern conspiracy theories.

Social movements and organizations do not appear out of nowhere  they are the by products of the societies from which they emerge. The social, economic, and political conditions that nourish them also foster their development in particular ways. They are therefore always marked by their generative conditions.The Freemasons are no different. The political environment of a rapidly changing Great Britain, as well as the practical economic and social needs of the masonry profession, led to the development of an organization that was both a refuge from, and a vehicle of, that change.

While England had long been governed by a monarchy, the 17th and 18th centuries saw English politics fundamentally transformed. The combined impact of the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the Settlement Act of 1701 finally established the supremacy of Parliament, a development of critical importance in the establishment of Western democracy. It was followed by a century of civil conflict within the British Isles (including the Act of Union with Scotland and the subsequent Jacobite Rebellion) and explosive political events outside Britain that included the American War of Independence, Wolfe’s defeat of Montcalm, the expulsion of the French from what is now Canada, and most notably for our purposes, the French Revolution.

Alongside this tremendous upheaval, economic and social changes occurred as well. The increased efficiency of British farm production meant that fewer workers were needed in agrarian pursuits; no longer required on farms, individuals moved to cities, a trend that increased the population’s mobility and fostered further urbanization. The 1801 British census, for example, indicates that between 1775 and 1800, Manchester’s population increased tenfold. Once a small parish, its population in 1801 had increased to 75,275 registered citizens by the close of the century. From the patent of the steam engine in the middle 17th century onward, Britain was in the process of moving from a manual labor–based to a mechanized manufacturing economy. All of these changes played a role in the emergence of the Freemasonry.

As Roberts points out, among the craft-related organizations of the Middle Ages, Masons stand out. Most craftsmen belonged to town-based guilds, but the masons, due to the nature of their work, developed the lodge structure which “met the needs of a craft whose members were often itinerant, assembling sometimes for limited, even if for long, periods on building sites where no urban craft organization existed . . . [their] mobility led to the generalization of practices . . . and the evolution of rudimentary codes of mutual help and an internal discipline operating through the lodges.” While a guild hierarchy could maintain a close eye on its local members, and ensure standards and practices were upheld, masons had to develop a more flexible structure to undertake this role as they traveled to the far corners of Britain building cathedrals and halls. A significant problem was identifying whether or not other on-site colleagues were skilled tradesmen and members of their organization. The Masons developed secret signs and symbols for their members as a means of assessing outsiders and ensuring the standards of their profession. These secrets were not only a measure of an individual’s standing as a mason (and thus maintaining a monopoly by limiting those who could practice the craft) but also a means of developing a spirit of brotherhood among a group of men who might often work far from their home and other masons.

Initially, the masons’ lodges were open only to practitioners of the craft. Members had to possess a sophisticated knowledge of Greek geometry and the skill to cut stone. In part because of their specialized knowledge and skill set, their trade was regarded as possessing a kind of special status. In addition, the masons’ work was linked in practical terms to the centers of religious and political power. Priests and kings relied on masons and their knowledge to create the great and glorious stone buildings that symbolized their power. In this way, the masons and their secret knowledge were linked to both divine and pragmatic political power. The most powerful of individuals indeed the state and its institutions—depended upon them. Their knowledge and power could therefore be perceived as a threat to the social order. Symbolically, masons thus became revolutionary figures.

Their special knowledge, secret brotherhood, and proximity to power suggested they could transcend social boundaries and class.

The liminal status of the masons was further complicated by the shifting social and economic order of the early 1700s. The dynamic expansion of capitalist economies had begun to threaten the traditional guild structure (including Masonic lodges). Membership numbers began to decline, and in response, the Masonic brotherhood determined to admit new members: individuals who were not masons by trade but who wanted to have a part of the perceived Masonic cachet of secrecy and proximity to power. Typically, these individuals were members of the rising British middle class and brought to the organization both funds and increased political and economic influence. In turn, their presence transformed the movement from a trade organization to what was in effect a social club for men of the upper middle classes. In this way, traditional working “operative” Masonic lodges gradually declined. New “accepted masons” (individuals who were not working stonemasons) came to dominate the lodge structure, and eventually “speculative” masonry was born. Speculative Masonic lodges were those that were entirely nonoperative. As might be expected, with no real practical knowledge of stonemasonry’s methods and practice, but attracted to the organization for its aura of specialized knowledge and its proximity to power, these new masons were free to create their own mythic language and symbols. They did so, building on the ancient language and work of the masons who were the forefathers of the organization. The rapid decline of operative masonry in the late 17th century was thus countered by an even more sudden and rapid expansion of speculative masonry. Indeed, by the time the London Grand Lodge was created, there was apparently only one operative lodge still in existence.

As noted above, the growth of these nonoperative, speculative lodges was phenomenal, with over 150 lodges in existence by mid-century. Such a sudden and widespread urge to join suggests that there was more at work here than an attraction to an atmosphere of mystery and power.

In this transformed movement, the traditional tools of masonry became central symbols, and these symbols embodied complex philosophical themes:

A stone, symbolizing man in the natural state, is to be shaped, polished, and fit into the building, which symbolizes the brotherhood of man. A first-degree Mason is responsible for ‘preparing stones.’ Upon initiation he is given a gavel, which symbolizes conscience; a chisel, which symbolizes education; and a twenty-four inch ruler, which symbolizes the hours of the day. After studying more Masonic lore, an initiate becomes a second degree or Fellow Craft Mason and is given a square (mortality), a level (equality), and a plumb (rectitude). . . . Third-degree Masons are given a trowel to help cement the blocks together. . . . [i]t represents brotherly love.

The mason’s tools came to represent both major enlightenment themes and the idea of self-improvement. These ideas help to explain the widespread appeal of the Masons. The lodges’ transformation from operational to speculative masonry coincided with the transformation of British society. In the same brief span of time, Parliament became sovereign, and the Enlightenment’s emphasis on education and science challenged the inward-looking, traditional, hierarchically based societies of Europe. In many ways, England was the crucible of those changes.

The Masonic organization embodied the two major themes of this new age:  first, the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human rationality and its capacity to create a new and perfect world, and second, what was at the time a very revolutionary idea, the notion that an individual’s station in life was not predetermined at birth. Through education, one could rise through society’s ranks. Alongside the rapid expansion of capitalism, these forces were a potent mix. Billington argues that the most immediate appeal of Masonry was that it connected the notion of building construction and the possibility that a new society could also be made (or remade) in a more perfect way. The Masons idealized the pragmatic rationality and the brotherhood of their predecessors, and their hope for the future embodied both these themes. When Freemasons can fully live the organizations’ principles, “[t]he speculative Craft will then become operative, and the Ancient Wisdom so long concealed will rise from the ruins.”

The basic philosophical ideas manifest in Masonry’s symbols underpinned a doctrine that emphasized equality, brotherhood, and selfimprovement. To progress from “apprentice” to “journeyman,” and then to “master,” members had to acquire philosophic knowledge and demonstrate philanthropy, and any man who joined and learned the organization’s symbols, rituals, and history could rise in its ranks. It was, as Billington writes, “a moral meritocracy.” The Masons’ attention to status was related to the stratified nature of English society at the time. As Roberts points out, “It showed both the uneasiness of men increasingly aware of the artificiality of some social institutions which drove them to seek new social ties, and the status consciousness which was the reaction of those alarmed by signs of a new social mobility.

Britain’s new elite may have joined the organization to escape the country’s rigid class structure, but in Masonry’s doctrine, they recreated what they knew. Their organization, however, also reflected their appreciation for Enlightenment principles. They were not dangerous radicals but instead “middle class liberals who sought to improve society through free speech, elections, and secularism.” The Freemasons may have been revolutionary but only insofar as the ideals of democracy were revolutionary.

The Freemasons’ lodges were in another way at the cutting edge of social organizations of their era. As discussed above, the England of the 1700s was marked by the polity’s transition from monarchy to parliamentary democracy. It was also marked by significant religious conflict related to that transformation. While the Masonic lodges were a site where new democratic ideals could be discussed, they were also a place where they claimed religious conflict could be put aside. Freemasonry’s Ancient Charges, for example, begin with a statement “concerning God and Religion”:

A Mason is oblig’d by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charg’d in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet ’tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be goodMen and true,or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish’d; whereby Masonry becomes the Centerof Union,and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remain’d at a perpetual Distance.

In this way, the Masons claimed that the religious upheaval and conflict of the country as a whole was not to intervene in their lodges’ affairs. This statement is not a declaration that members should abandon their religious faith (in fact, one cannot be a Mason and an atheist);it is instead an assertion that good men of all faiths can come together as brothers. It might well be argued that the Masons’ adoption of complicated symbols and rituals provided a new and unifying secular mythology for the organization’s membership that replaced the divisive role of religion in society. Indeed, Hall begins his The Lost Keys of Freemasonrywith the assertion that “Freemasonry, though not a religion, is essentially religious. Most of its legends and allegories are of a sacred nature; much of it is woven into the structure of Christianity. “ Instead of a Christianity that drove men apart, however, it was a form of religion that brought them together.

Despite this less than radical ideology, Masonry was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1738, the Vatican issued the fi rst of 15 papal bulls condemning Freemasonry. The most recent statement on the compatibility of Roman Catholicism and membership in the Freemasons was in 1983, written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI):

[T]he Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.

This prohibition was rooted in a number of factors related to Masonic doctrine, including a concern over Masonic support for rationalistic humanism and the assertion that Catholic Masons would have to exist in a “twofold mode,” wherein they expressed their relationship with God in two forms, one that is merely humanitarian, and the other that is Christian. By virtue of their Masonic beliefs, members of that organization must also in some way look upon their fellow Catholic communicants as outsiders.  As a result, the Vatican has therefore consistently found Freemasonry to be irreconcilable with Catholicism.

Freemasonry and its doctrine of faith, brotherhood, and liberal democratic ideals spread quickly from England tothe European continent and beyond. By the close of the 18th century, a rich tapestry of Freemason organizations existed across Europe, from Finland to Spain. Indeed, as Roberts points out, in urbanizing regions across Europe, the Masonic lodges provided a sense of community for their members, and a place of introduction for Masons who were visiting from other regions and /or countries. Casanova, for example, commented in his memoirs that Freemasonry allowed him to travel the world and, at the same time, enjoy the company of his social equals.

Despite the variations among them, however, the Freemasons were united by their commitment to the ideas of the Enlightenment. The geographic reach of the movement saw the English Grand Lodge lose firm ideological control of the organization, and new variants of Freemasonry soon appeared among European countries, and within them. In France, for example, the late 1700s saw the Grand Loge de France, whose members were largely from the aristocratic class, in competition with French Grand Orient Freemasonry, which drew its membership from the professional and commercial class. In addition, what were called “lodges ofadoption” appeared for women who desired to become members. In fact, Roberts suggests that on the eve of the French Revolution, there may have been as many as 100,000 French Freemasons; the organization effectively pervaded French culture and society.

The most influential conspiracy theorist of the 20th century, Nesta Webster, argues that this was no accident, and that the Masons’ nefarious plans were responsible for the French Revolution. Her accusations echo through modern conspiratorialists’ belief systems, but the causal link she identifies is highly questionabl the Masons were too diverse and insuffi ciently organized to conduct a concerted campaign with a single purpose but it is absolutely the case that the Masonic lodges facilitatedthe Revolution. This distinction is important, for it marks the line between reasonable political argument and conspiracy theory.

It is certainly the case that the Masons’ emphasis on equality and brotherhood meant that its membership was likely a fruitful recruiting ground for the French revolutionaries. More significantly, however, as Billington points out, Masonry provided a critical metaphor for modern political revolutionaries, including those French men and women who hoped to overthrow their monarchical government and create a new republic: the idea that human beings, like architects and stonemasons, could build a new and better human society.

This belief structure was an innovation in the history of political thought and one of the modern era’s most powerful inventions. Humans took upon themselves that which before it was believed that only God possessed: the power to make the world, and in so doing, make their own salvation. In this way, the French Revolution ushered in the era of political millenarianism. Human beings did not need to wait for God to intervene in history and end their suffering; instead, they could free themselves and create their perfect world. The violently apocalyptic French Revolution embodied this urge, and the scope of the changes the revolutionaries enacted was far-reaching. It was not just the replacement of a monarchy with a republic but also the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church, the replacement of traditional provinces with more geometric départements,the replacement of traditional laws  with the civil code, and the replacement of traditional weights and measures by the more rationalistic metric system. As Flanagan suggests, each of these changes may have been desirable in and of itself, but together, they represented an attempt to remake society from the ground up, in an effort to create a perfect future. This secular millenarian effort was inherently totalitarian and unsurprisingly resulted in serious and sustained violence against dissenters.

In the religious sphere, this hope for a perfect future is often tempered by the fact that believers are content to wait for God to initiate the final age of history. Political millenarians, however, may be more dangerous, for they believe it is their destiny to transform the world. For this reason, they are often more violent than their religious compatriots, and their attempts to remake the world are inherently totalitarian.

The French revolutionaries’ desire for an entirely new world was perhaps best expressed in their creation of the Republican Calendar, which decreed that Year One began on September 22, 1792, the day of the Proclamation of the Republic, and that September 22 would be considered the first day of the year. The yearly calendar was now to be comprised of 12 months of 30 days; each month was divided into three 10-month units called decades and every year included five extra days in order for the new Calendar to more accurately reflect the 365¼-day yearly cycle of the earth’s movement around the sun. (Every fourth year was allotted a further extra day to make up the remaining time.) This new Calendar, fantastically confusing as it is, aptly symbolized the revolutionaries’ desire to begin a new era. It also evidenced the totalitarian implications of this way of thinking. Between 1793 and 1794, the regime executed thousands of men and women in a period that became known as the Reign of Terror. This campaign annihilated enemies, and through the use of fear, silenced critics and potential antiregime conspirators. In this way, a political movement based on the ideals of liberty, equality, and humanity became a political regime that used terror and violence to subjugate its citizens.

At the time of the French Revolution, a variety of Masonic lodges existed in France. A number of revolutionary leaders were Masons, and Masonry provided a “symbolic vocabulary” for the Revolution. These facts alone, however, do not allow us to conclude that Freemasonry planned  the Revolution and coordinated its development. Instead, the events of the Revolution should perhaps incline us to conclude that even in the best conditions possible for directing a revolution a political ideology whose time had come, and an oppressed and poverty-stricken population open to these ideas and willing to engage in violence to enact them it is impossible to impose an idea on the world and have the world conform to your plans. Although many powerful individuals, including, no doubt,many Masons, intended that the French Revolution would create an eternal and glorious republic, those men could not make the entirety of the French political world conform to their will. The tremendous political upheaval that marked France in the years following the Revolution is evidence of this fundamental truth. During the next 100 years, the country certainly became a republic, but it was hardly stable; in that time frame, it also experienced constitutional monarchy, Napoleonic rule, and the Third Republic. In powerful and unexpected ways, the world resists attempts to shape it.

In a time of tremendous social upheaval in Europe, Freemasonry’s lodges therefore provided a place where the emerging capitalist elite could discuss radical political ideas, including democracy, freedom, and equality, in a safe environment. The organization’s emphasis on history and tradition, accompanied by the use of prominent ancient symbols, linked members to the past, while their focus on the ideas of the Enlightenment drew them into the future. The lodges served many practical purposes, including providing members with a sense of community in increasingly large urban centers. They also facilitated international mobility. As discussed above, Masonry’s emphasis on brotherhood offered to its members who traveled an immediate and effective introduction to like-minded individuals in the countries that they visited.

In his classic analysis of social movements, Anthony Wallace argues that one can compare societies to living organisms. Like cells, they therefore work to maintain homeostasis, or a “steady state” at all times. During times of rapid social, political, and economic change and /or crisis, they develop mechanisms that help the community respond to new situations and challenges. In Wallace’s terms, these social groups are revitalization movements, “deliberate, organized, and conscious effort[s] to construct a more  satisfying culture.” Such movements help to transform a society’s way  of understanding itself, and therefore facilitate its adaptation to changed  circumstances.

The Freemasons and their lodges therefore played an important role in the development of 18th-century society, although perhaps not in the way conspiracy theorists would have us believe. As Dan Brown’s character Robert Langdon points out in The Lost Symbol,the Masons were not a secret society so much as they were a “society with secrets”: they provided a confidential forum for the discussion of what were in the 18th century radicl political ideas. For real political revolutionaries, however, the idea of a truly secret society was appealing. Indeed, it was not long before the Masons’ innovations in organization were utilized by others.