Templars, the Islamic connection and other false leads

Umberto Eco writes in one of his books, maybe it was the Foucault pendelum, that every New World Order conspiracy gets at some point to the Templars. Tegtmeier (E. R. Carmin: Das Schwarze Reich), that I now reread mainly in order to brush up my too long neglected German, is no exception. In about half way in this bible Tegtmeier tells the well-known story of Templars and their assumed connections with the Ismaili Order of Assassins. At this point, when the theory ties in the Templars, it usually loses all credibility.

            I would not say that Tegtmeier loses all credibility. His book is of the gentre where the reader should be all the time careful, but he does given many pieces of correct information, and the book is nicely written. (Apart of the German style of writing very long sentences, which – when you break them into intelligible pieces – do not finally have any clear meaning.)

           But I decided to write a short text explaining what this Templar and Islamic connection actually is according to what I found out in this small study on conspiracies. Thus, the (false) claim that Freemasonry derives from medieval Temple knights was invented by Karl Gotthelt von Hund, who in 1764 founded the Order of Strict Observance. He may have been inspired by the Rosicrusian legend of the burial chamber of Christian Rosencreuz, which contained all hidden knowledge and suggestions in the Rosicrusian documents to Templars and Islamic wisdom. Already in 1782 the Order of Strict Observance denounced this theory. Yet, it stayed in German Freemasonry and still just before the Nazi time Lanz von Liebensfels founded the Order of New Templars in Austria.

            The real story is simpler and much less exotic than the legend: no old man of the mountain, no hashish addicted murderers, no Templar secret in the Montsegur fortress. It seems that Adam Weishaupt joined the lodge of Good Counsels in 1777, a year after founding the Bavarian Illuminati, Mirabeau confirmed that the Good Counsels was Illuminated when he visited it. This was the start of Illuminati’s takeover of Freemasonry. A bit later Franz von Knigge of the Bavarian Illuminati infiltrated the Strict Observance. The German mother lodge founded 1744 by Frederick the Great, The Three Globes, adopted the Rite of Strict Observance in 1767, thus, before Illuminati took over. This is where German Freemasonry got the Templar legend. The Three Globes withdrew from the Strict Observance in 1778 and it probably never become Illuminated. The identity of the unknown masters of the Order of the Strict Observance has remained a secret, but the connection between the Illuminati and later revolutionary Freemasonry (Memphis and Mizraim) is known: in 1787 Johann Joachim Christoph Bode of Illuminati visited the Lodge of Philalèthes (also known as the Amis Reunis, the predecessor of Mizraim Freemasonry and the lodge that was most involved in the French revolution), the Lodge of Philadelphes (the predecessor of Memphis Freemasonry) was created as a result of this visit. The correspondence between the Amis Reunis and Cagliostro’s Egyptian Freemasonry was through a Strict Observance member Francois Luis de Beyerle (according to A. E. Waite, who usually is well informed). Thus, the beginnings of the French revolution are not in mystery, but what about German Freemasonry?

            I think it is very likely that Frederic the Great, the founder of German mother lodge The Three Globes, used Freemasonry and Frankists in the first division of Poland. The reason I think so is that the term Baałakaben in Jacob Frank’s The collection of the words of the Lord seem to refer to Freemasons: Baałakaben have made an oath and lost their legs (a reference to Freemason initiation) and Jacob Frank cannot do anything if not told by Baałakaben. (search for the word kaben form a text version, the word is written in many ways in the text). In his book Jacob Frank says that Poland will be destroyed. That was the plan of Frederick the Great and as it was the plan of Baałakaben and they were Masons, Baałakaben means German Freemasons. German Freemasons tried to stop Polish Illuminated Freemasons from reforming the country, they tried to introduce a new Constitution and might have managed to make Poland stronger, neighbors did not like the idea. Many Frankists joined Freemasonry, probably both German Freemasonry and French Freemasonry, like Moses Dobruschka, who joined Jacobins.

            The events of the French revolution and the reaction against Illuminati infiltration divided Freemasons. Frederick the Great and German Freemasonry were on the side which opposed Jacobins, and later Napoleon and leftist revolutionary Freemasonry. This German Freemasonry was one of the sources of the anti-leftist, anti-Semitic secret societies in Germany, Austria and Russia, which later formed the basis of Nazism.

            As for the Islamic connection, Jacob Frank had spent some time in Dönmeh in Turkey and there is a small possibility that some Sufi ideas came to Freemasonry this way, but I find it improbable. It is more likely that European esoteric societies studied Sufi mysticism first at the end of the 19th century, when there was the second esoteric revival with Theosophy, Buddhism, and other similar doctrines. It is known that Rudolf von Sebottendorf studied Sufism in Turkey. As Sufi doctrines have some resemblance to Manichean and Neo-Platonic teachings, there have been suggestions that the two gods of Freemasonry (Lucifer and Adonis) would have come from this Islamic connection. I do not find it convincing. It is more probable that the two gods come from S. L. MacGregor Mathers’ translations of the Larger and Smaller Holy Synod of Zohar, where there are two gods: Macroprosopus and Microprosopus.

            In general, the Islamic connection to Freemasonry and to world events after 1750 is very weak, probably there was no effect. Instead, it is a very valid question to ask what happened around 1000 AD. It looks like a case of the messianic movement and Islam had a major role in it. The Pope was provoked to start the First Crusade Fatimid caliph al-Haken, the incarnation of God for some believers. A new, quite esoteric, religion (Druze) emerged. It does look like one of the arranged ends-of-the-times. Templars may have had some role in it, but Freemasonry has no connection with those early times.      

            It is also a false lead to look for a greater role for Dönmeh, Sabbateans or Frankists in the New World Order. They have about as much importance to world events as Tibetian monks, who were claimed to really rule the world by Theosophists, Thule and other similar early 20th century esoteric movements. One can add that Freemasons do not any more play any major role in the conspiracy. Their activities can be tracked only to the end of the First World War and the last major achievements they did were starting the First World War (or contributing to it), giving power to Bolsheviks in Russia, and putting the Young Turks to power in Turkey. While these are not minor events, they are all in the far past. In a sense Tolkien said it correctly in the Lord of the Rings where the ghost army (being bound by an oath and decorating their locations with skulls, so very Masonic society) is released from the oath. Likewise, Freemasons seem to have been released from their oath after 1918 (or maybe 1948), at least in the political sense.

           It is also quite incorrect to try to identify people in the conspiracy by e.g. listing names of people, who supported Hitler and lifted him to power. The names obtained in this way are names of people connected with J. P. Morgan, which was the investment bank assigned with the task of giving loans to Germany in the Dowes and Young plans, people from the Standard Oil, General Electric, I.T.T., and other American firms, which created companies in Germany according to those plans, and other people you would find in such arrangements, like the Dulles brothers or the Warburg brothers. So, these connections show nothing. Instead, if we want to know who the people are in the conspiracy today, it should be fairly easy. We simply have to ask if there is any group which tries to achieve Illuminati goals: one world, control of media, control of finance; with Illuminati methods: control by creating huge loans, lifting to power corrupted leaders who can be controlled, making terrorist actions, wars, and changes of government, surrounding political leaders with its own members as advisors; and finally, has a special relation to Israel, as it was a Masonic project.

           But as it turns out, it is not so easy to find such a group. The answer is not some ethnic group. The group we should be looking for, if it is built like Illuminati of the past, has at most ten people on top, who know what is being done, and a thousand to ten thousand people, who have some connection to what is done, though they know nothing because of the struct hierarchy of the organization. If the answer were an ethnic minority group, then it is not a conspiracy. Then it is simply one ethnic group dominating other ethnic groups, which is an extremely common situation. But there was a conspiracy, the Masonic conspiracy, a real one, there was also a Communist conspiracy, also real, so if there is no conspiracy any more, then we can ask what happened to the conspiracy.

There is domination and suppression of some ethnic (or some other category) groups in countries, where there are different ethnic (or some other category) groups, as there always has been, it is favoring your own and suppressing others, but that is not the conspiracy. The New World Order (=Masonic) conspiracy is the one that made many revolutions and liberation wars, two world wars and Napoleonic wars, and created Israel. This conspiracy was never destroyed and it most probably had not disappeared by itself. It should still exist.

I have no answer to what the group could be. Instead, we have conspiracy theory books, which at some point continue to the Templar theory: medieval Knight Templars did not die, they are still here as the secret world government, or maybe it is reptiles form the outer space, or Sabbateans from Turkey or monks in Tibet, or Jesuits. Indeed, the Bavarian Illuminati was modeled after Jesuits, as was Himler’s SS, but it cannot be Jesuits, as the original order, which did engage in plotting, was dissolved in 1773 and after that time they have not been subversive. Or one can still try to find Freemasons. The last Freemason president of the USA was Gerard Ford and the only 33. Freemason president was Truman, but that does not stop anybody from declaring all suspicious people as 33. degree Freemasons.

As a conclusion, it is not so easy to identify the real conspiracy today, it does not use esoteric secret societies as cover organizations. It is not even possible to prove that there is such a conspiracy.