Files Show Chicago Archdiocese Hid Decades Of Child Sex Abuse

via CBS:

CHICAGO (CBS/AP) – After a 13-year-old boy reported in 1979 that a priest raped him and later threatened him at gunpoint to keep quiet, the Archdiocese of Chicago assured the boy’s parents that although the cleric avoided prosecution, he would receive treatment and have no further contact with minors.

But the Rev. William Cloutier, who already had been accused of molesting other children, was returned to ministry a year later and accused of more abuse before he resigned in 1993, two years after the boy’s parents filed a lawsuit. Officials took no action against Cloutier over his earliest transgressions because he “sounded repentant,” according to internal archdiocese documents released Tuesday that show how the archdiocese tried to contain a mounting scandal over child sexual abuse.

For decades, those at the highest levels of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese moved accused priests from parish to parish while hiding the clerics’ histories from the public. The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin often approved the reassignments. The archdiocese removed some priests from ministry, but often years or decades after the clergy were known to have molested children.

Politicians and celebrities part of Jimmy Savile pedophile ring

via The Express:

A former female MP was involved in a paedophile network at the heart of government, police have been told. She is alleged to have forced a boy in care to perform a “vile” sex act at one of a series of drug-fuelled parties in Westminster in the Eighties where boys and girls as young as 13 were allegedly abused.
Last night her alleged victim told the Sunday Express: “I want justice.” Andrew Ash, now 45, said he has given Scotland Yard the name of the former MP. We cannot name her for legal reasons. Mr Ash claims he was frequently ferried down to London from the North of England, where he was in care, to take part in sex parties.

He says they were organised by a paedophile ring involving David Smith, Jimmy Savile’s former chauffeur who killed himself last year before he was due to stand trial for sex offences. He said: “It wasn’t just politicians, there were also a number of celebrities, including Jimmy Savile, who seemed to have a lot of good links to MPs and powerful businessmen. “There was usually drugs like cocaine and speed available as well as bottles of champagne.” Of his encounter with the female MP, he said: “She was extremely drunk and was laughing as she did it. “I didn’t really know what was going on but the others around her were goading her on. “I must have been about 13 years old at the time and felt humiliated.” We can also reveal that security services have been working closely with Yard detectives because of the highly sensitive nature of the allegations.

The Sunday Express understands police seized video footage and photographs of an alleged sex party from a well-known paedophile last year. Mr Ash claims officers have footage which shows a senior male MP in the same frame as him, although no abuse takes place on camera. He said he is speaking out now because he is frustrated by the lack of action after being interviewed for 70 hours by the Met Police’s Paedophile Unit. He says he was abused by the male MP on another occasion too. He said: “I remember being filmed with this MP, who was abusing me in a garage of a very prominent building behind a Rolls-Royce. “Another politician turned up with a video camera but the man abusing me just smirked and joked, ‘OK, OK, I’ll vote any way you want’ as if he was being blackmailed. What I want to know is why they haven’t arrested him yet if they have this evidence. “All I want is justice and for the truth to come out because these people have been protected for far too long.”

Mr Ash said two Met officers called at his home in Yorkshire last May. Interviews were conducted mainly at a safe house in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, but also in London. “The interviews were usually carried out in blocks of three, normally every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. “On at least two occasions there were two other officers present that I didn’t recognise. They didn’t ask me a thing, they just scribbled notes. “I asked who they were but all I was told was that they were from ‘upstairs’. It was clear from the tone that they were intelligence officers. “They had obviously been made aware of the high-profile names and the sensitive information I had given police.” Dutch intelligence officers attended at least one interview because Andrew told of being trafficked to Amsterdam on a number of occasions to be abused by a group of paedophiles including convicted child killer Sidney Cooke.

He claims Cooke, now 84, made him film the paedophile abusing another young boy on video. It is feared Cooke may have abused and killed young boys in the Netherlands. Mr Ash also told police he was abused by a big-name celebrity. He said: “This particular person was able to get youngsters into glitzy nightclubs in the West End. After one evening he invited me and a young girl back to his house where he made us have sex before joining in.” Mr Ash is being helped by anti-abuse campaigners Bill Maloney and Chris Fay. Mr Fay said: “The police have spent a good deal of time with him, listening to his evidence, and now potentially have compelling information that Andrew was at one of these parties with at least one prominent former MP. more...

Also relevant is the following article about the connection between Cardinal Keith O'Brien and Jimmy Savile, who the Guardian reports is a member of the Catholic fraternity Knights of Malta. Savile has been accused by numerous individuals of having participated in ceremonial occult rites that included acts of rape and child molestation occurring in a group setting. Accounts of this activity can be found here, here and here. Operation Yewtree has identified over 450 victims who alleged to having been abused by a child sex trafficking ring connected to Savile. He has also been photographed with public figures including Margaret Thatcher, the British Royal Family, and members of Led Zeppelin. The possibility that Savile may have been involved in an organized pedophilia ring for blackmail purposes seems even more credible considering the social circles he was given access to.

via The Mirror:

Jimmy Savile and the Cardinal: Britain's top Catholic cleric was friend of disgraced TV host



Grinning and giving a thumbs-up, Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric poses with his friend, disgraced paedophile Jimmy Savile. The snap, taken six years ago, emerged last night after Cardinal Keith O’Brien quit amid allegations of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests. When Savile’s vile secrets became known, the cardinal called for him to be stripped of his papal knighthood, awarded in 1990. Cardinal O’Brien quit just 24 hours before he was due to fly to Rome to help choose the next pope....His resignation followed a series of recent allegations against him dating back to the 80s by three priests and one former priest.

The ex-priest claimed the cardinal made an inappropriate approach after night prayers at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange. Another said he was living in a parish when he was visited by O’Brien, and inappropriate contact took place. A third accused him of “unwanted behaviour” after late-night drinking. And a fourth alleged he used night prayers as excuse for inappropriate contact...His sudden departure means Britain will be unrepresented in the process as he was the only cardinal in the British Catholic churches...Cardinal O’Brien, who, along with Prince Philip, welcomed Pope Benedict to Scotland in 2010, was no stranger to controversy.
He recently clashed with the Scottish government over its plans to enshrine same-sex marriage in law by 2015.
A year ago he described gay marriage as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”.more...

The Knights of Columbus and child abuse cover-up*

This post contains details that may be upsetting for sensitive readers.

The Knights of Columbus (KOC) are commonly known as the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, but most people don't know that the Knights also function as a recruiting organization for highly exclusive Catholic equestrian orders such as the Knights of Malta and the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The history of equestrian orders dates back to Ancient Rome, where the order comprised a large proportion of the patrician classes that monopolized the Roman political process, as well as most major commercial enterprises. Today, this same oligarchical tradition is continued through Catholic equestrian orders that subvert the democratic process by way of quasi-political religious organizations. While the KOC does not represent the upper echelons of the Catholic cryptocracy, that dubious honor instead being designated for the equestrian orders noted above, their political influence as an arm of the Vatican has been significant enough to play a role in silencing countless victims of clerical abuse.

The photo above captures the opening Mass of the 131st annual Knights of Columbus convention on August 6 in San Antonio. Included in the photo is church leader Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who the New York Times states "worked quietly to keep evidence of child molesting away from law enforcement officials and shield abusive priests from criminal prosecution more than a decade before the scandal became public, according to confidential church records." The article continues, "Rather than defrocking priests and contacting the police, the archdiocese sent priests who had molested children to out-of-state treatment facilities...Ray Boucher, a lawyer representing some of the plaintiffs in those cases, said the files released on Monday were “particularly damning,” because they showed the “wanton disregard for the health and safety of children, and a decision by the highest members of the church to put its self-interest and the interest of abusive priests ahead of those of children.”"

Also pictured above is Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexual assault by former Benectine monk and Catholic priest Richard Sipe. According to Sipe, "On file are the unsealed “MEDIATION DOCUMENTATION FOR FR. G.” that involved McCarrick and the dioceses of Metuchen and Newark, NJ. A financial settlement was reached. The case was sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, but it has not yet responded." What follows is an excerpt of the events described in the mediation document:

“He put his arms around me and wrapped his legs around mine. Then He started to tell me what a nice young man I was and what a good priest I would make someday. He also told me about the hard work and stress he was facing in his new role as Archbishop of Newark. He told me how everyone knows him and how powerful he was. The Archbishop kept saying, “Pray for your poor uncle.” All of a sudden, I felt paralyzed. I didn’t have my own car and there was nowhere to go. The Archbishop started to kiss me and move his hands and legs around me. I remained frozen, curled up like a ball. I felt his penis inside his underwear leaning against my buttocks as he was rubbing my legs up and down. His hands were moving up and down my chest and back, while tightening his legs around mine. I tried to scream but could not…I was paralyzed with fear. As he continued touching me, I felt more afraid. He even tried several times to force his hands under my shorts. He tried to roll me over so that he could get on top of me, but I resisted, I felt sick and disgusted and finally was able to jump out of bed. I went into the bathroom where I vomited several times and started to cry. After twenty minutes in the bathroom, the Archbishop told me to come back to bed. Instead I went to the recliner and pretended to fall asleep.”

A news article reports that the Knights of Columbus sponsored a youth group, the Squires, members of which have accused the KOC of collaborating to cover of child sexual abuse. The article states "In one of the lawsuits, an unnamed Kansas resident claims the Squires leader abused him from 1978, when he was 10 years old, until 1986. He claims the leader shared him with other youth counselors in the group and threatened to kill him if he told anyone, the lawsuit said. The second lawsuit came from Texas resident Jim Dennany, who said he alerted Knights of Columbus officials in 1986 to assaults he said he suffered in the 1970s when he was a young teenager. He claimed the group took no action, concealed the allegations and told him to keep quiet, according to the lawsuit."

According to former Domnican priest and canon lawyer Thomas Doyle, "The Knights of Columbus take great pride in their loyalty to the Church and to the bishops. They regularly show their support for priests and announce their love for the Church. They shell out barrels of money to the Vatican, to bishops, to seminaries and to other causes in support of priests. The Knights of Columbus have totally missed the boat. They have supported priests and bishops in their moral bankruptcy and in their destruction of the bodies and souls of the victims of abuse. They have said and done nothing to support the victims."

So it may not be much of a surprise that a Pennsyvania newspaper, the Observer-Reporter, reported that convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky was awarded Coach of the Year title by the KOC. Sandusky has also been a speaker at KOC events. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh was assigned to investigate the Sandusky scandal. "We will immediately report any evidence of criminality to law enforcement authorities," said Freeh. New York state newspaper The Journal News reports that Louis Freeh, along with suspected Russian spy Robert Hanssen, are both members of the secretive Catholic fraternty Opus Dei. In his book, Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei, Robert Hutchinson writes of the canonization of Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva, noting that in attendance was "Dr Carl A. Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus and senior American member of Opus Dei." Given the overlapping membership between Opus Dei and the KOC, the likelihood that the Penn State investigation was doomed by favoritism from the very beginning is very high indeed.

According to Vatican Insider, a project run by the daily newspaper La Stampa, Opus Dei is "one of the ecclesiastical bodies closest to the Pope". So the testimony of Jim Jenkins, former chair of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Review Board under Archbishop (now Cardinal) William Levada, should not be ignored. Jenkins states, in reference to the Dallas Charter which provided guidelines for how the Church would respond to the clerical abuse scandal, that "The Charter’s scope needed to be limited to the alleged assaults upon “minors” leaving the inappropriate sexual behavior of clerics with other adults beyond the jurisdiction of the review boards." In other words, the sexual assault of adults was considered to be acceptable behavior. Jenkins also states that "The behavior of bishops and cardinals was off-limits to the scope of any investigation by any archdiocesan review board." Translation: bishops and cardinals are not subject to civil law.

As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Pope Benedict XVI was responsible for investigating clerical abuse scandals. Let's examine some of his accomplishments during that time period.

via CBS News:

The Vatican's lawyer says then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told a California bishop to make sure a priest with a history of sexually molesting children didn't abuse while the church worked to defrock him...Attorney Jeffrey Lena was responding to a 1985 letter obtained by The Associated Press on Friday in which the future pope said more time was needed to study the case of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle. Lena says Ratzinger urged the bishop to give Kiesle "as much paternal care as possible." Lena says that was a way of saying the bishop was responsible for ensuring Kiesle didn't reoffend....The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock Kiesle, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to the 1985 letter bearing his signature. The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office. The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle...

Attorney Irwin Zalkin represents a woman who says Kiesle assaulted her three times by the time she was 7 years old. Court documents accuse Kiesle of providing her with wine, binding her hands and sexually abusing her, Tracy reports....Earlier Friday, the Vatican confirmed that it was Ratzinger's signature on the letter. "The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said....The diocese recommended removing Kiesle from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests. The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church..... the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.

Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory. As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him. In his earliest letter to Ratzinger, Cummins warned that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than stripping him of his priestly powers. "It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982...California church officials wrote to Ratzinger at least three times to check on the status of Kiesle's case and Cummins discussed the case with officials during a Vatican visit, according to correspondence. At one point, a Vatican official wrote to say the file may have been lost and suggested resubmitting materials....As Kiesle's fate was being weighed in Rome, the priest returned to suburban Pinole to volunteer as a youth minister at St. Joseph Church, where he had served as associate pastor from 1972 to 1975.

Kiesle continued to volunteer with children, according to Maurine Behrend, who worked in the Oakland diocese's youth ministry office in the 1980s. After learning of his history, Behrend complained to church officials. When nothing was done she wrote a letter, which she showed to the AP. "Obviously nothing has been done after EIGHT months of repeated notifications," she wrote. "How are we supposed to have confidence in the system when nothing is done? A simple phone call to the pastor from the bishop is all it would take." She eventually confronted Cummins at a confirmation and Kiesle was gone a short time later, Behrend said. Kiesle, who married after leaving the priesthood, was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations. He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

Now would probably be a good time to include this painting by the highly talented tattoo artist Paul Booth:

*Research credit for many links in this post is due http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/11/will-opus-dei-knights-shield-sandusky.html

Dante in the faerie bog

Second Update to Occult Origins of the Counterculture

Here is another update to my Occult Origins of the Counterculture article. I still need to make a few minor revisions to the original article so hopefully that will be done within a few days.

In addition to the the shamanic ceremonies of First Nation peoples, another indigenous spiritual tradition that influenced Western occultism was the African religion of Vodun. Along with European folk magic, Vodun was merged into the syncretic religion of Lousiania voodoo, which by turn influenced the development of American spiritualism. In Haiti, a similar syncretic religion was created in the form of voodou, with many rituals and mythological figures overlapping with the American voodoo tradition. Both Louisiana voodoo and Haitian vodou were created when African slaves passed on to their descendants the traditional ceremonial dances of Africa under the guise of Catholic litanies following the suppression and criminalization of these ceremonies by slave owners. The religious suppression of the voodoo religion was a direct extension of the social policies enacted by Christian and Muslim colonization of Africa, which resulted in the murder of many Vodun priests as well as destruction of Vodun temples. One aspect of Vodun religion that was incorporated into its syncretic North American incarnations was the idea of continuity between the world of the dead and the living, in that ancestors were deified and considered an ever present part of the family through spiritual communion.

Although voodoo has been sensationalized as being oriented towards accumulation of material wealth and predatory magical powers, its origins are far more nuanced, centered around a belief in a nebulous force which pervades all aspects of existence. Because the Voodoo creation myth emphasizes metaphysical interconnectedness, extending emotional, material and spiritual support to family and community is considered an intrinsic expression of religious worship. Vodun cosmology also emphasizes the divinity of the natural world, formulated in a hierarchy of spirits from those that govern weather to smaller spirits who inhabit rivers, streams and even individual rocks and trees. Animism offers a continuity in belief between African tradition and that of European occultism. The overlapping belief in nature devas and elemental spirits formed the basis of many divination rituals and conjuration methods, especially regarding the use of botanical magic.

Occurring simultaneously with the rise of voodoo was the folk magic system of hoodoo which made use of European magical grimoires that typically contained translations of ancient Kabbalistic documents as well as unorthodox interpretations of biblical texts. The Old Testament is inundated with passages that justify slavery as a necessary, even righteous social institution, however vodoo and hoodoo practitioners emphasized the story of Exodus as a representation of the freedom-seeking impulse. When Moses lead the Israelites out of bondage in the Book of Exodus, the obvious parallel was the transatlantic slave trade, with the abolition movement seen by hoodoo conjurers as divine imperative. Largely for this reason, the primary magical texts utilized by hoodoo practitioners were the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, a compendium of magical seals, astrological treatises, and incantations taken from European occult literature, Talmudic magic names and Christian Biblical passages. The texts, although primarily printed in the 18th and 19th centuries, were purportedly lost writings of Moses and they circulated throughout The United States, the Caribbean, West Africa, Scandinavia and Central Europe, widely known as "the Black Bible". Moses, who was traditionally depicted carrying a serpent on his staff, became a figure who easily combined elements of the Vodun serpent god Damballa, primordial creator of life and archetypal father figure, with orthodox religious doctrines and European concepts of Luciferian Enlightenment.

Although recent years have, to a certain extent, seen the recognition of the voodoo religion as a richly varied cultural tradition, the central role of voodou and hoodoo conjurers in galvanizing slave revolts has not been fully documented, since most historians of the colonial time period held perspectives that would have been favorable to the economic interests of plantation owners. What has been conclusively documented is that, in 1791, under the cover of vodou ceremonies, Haitian slaves organized an uprising that went on to shut down the majority of sugar plantations on the island. Haiti, one of two sovereign states located on the island of Hispaniola, was a particularly appropriate locale for an uprising since its inhabitants had been subjected to some of the most horrific brutalities of the transatlantic slave trade. When Christopher Columbus and his men had first arrived on the shores of Hispaniola, they quickly established an enforced labor system in which the native Arawak people collected gold, with enforcement occurring via the method of slower laborers having their hands cut off. The original Arawak population has been roughly estimated to be at least 250,000, yet within less than 25 years, through murder, mutilation, malnutrition and mass suicide, that number was reduced to 50,000.

By 1650 almost none of the original Arawaks or their descendants remained on the island. The importation of African slaves soon replaced their rapidly dwindling numbers, however the population of foreign slaves was also continually replenished because their death rate was vastly higher than their birth rate due to similar brutalities. The unintended consequence for European colonists was that Haitian slaves were able to more effectively preserve African cultural traditions through vodou ceremonies, eventually leading to a resistance movement which was uniquely unified in comparison to other areas of colonial America. One of the most influential leaders of the rebellion was a vodou priest named Francois Mackandal, who created a secret organization connecting escaped slaves (Maroons) with those who still lived on plantations. The Maroons, a mixture of Native Americans and Africans, combined African agricultural practices with Native American wilderness skills as the number of former slaves surviving outside of the settlements of the colonists expanded. After the Maroons torched plantations and chased out the owners, Mackandal was burned alive in the public square of Cap-Francais on account of his role in organizing the insurrection. His actions set a strategic model for the Haitian Revolution of 1791, which is generally considered to be the most successful slave rebellion in the Western hemisphere.

Compared to the American Revolution, which exclusively granted rights to the minority of the white male population that owned property, Haiti's revolution sought and achieved political rights for the entire population. Although the insurrection was accompanied by horrific and dehumanizing massacres on both sides of the conflict, by 1803 slavery had been abolished and decolonization was attained. The secret society organized by Mackandal played no small part in Haitian resistance movements, and there is evidence to suggest that much of the symbolism and themes adopted by vodou-practicing Maroons were a product of Freemasonic influence. Anthropologist Richard Stanley gave the following statement in the special feature section of his documentary on Haitian vodou, The White Darkness: “Most books consider voodoo to be a combination of Roman Catholicism and African mythology. There are elements of voodoo that have nothing to do with either. There is a huge amount of Old World Masonic imagery—for example, pentagrams, which suggests that perhaps three or four hundred years ago slaves were initiated by previous imperialists. That's something that hasn't been talked about. I was told about the various handshakes and rituals that I would need to know. Altes Paul (voodou sorcerer) warmed to me after I gave him a third degree masonic handshake, convinced that I was a fellow Mason.”

In his book on Haitian vodou culture, The Serpent and the Rainbow, ethnobotanist Wade Davis describes a network of secret societies covering the country, each maintaining control of its own territorial jurisdiction. Haitian vodou cults inevitably contained elements of Freemasonic tradition, including ritual handshakes, initiation rites, banners and even a hierarchical degree system. This network is described in the book as a “quasi-political” force that effectively managed to organize a parallel government and expel the regime at Port-au-Prince. Unlike Freemasonry, vodou secret societies granted membership to women, many of whom became political leaders in their own right. This history of cultural influence reveals the ideological complexity of Freemasonry, which at times has participated in, and even instigated, the furthest abuses of colonial social institutions, and at others has worked towards political sovereignty of oppressed peoples.

The cultural influence of European colonists on Haitian secret societies was most likely a factor in the vodou cults' adoption of Masonic rites and regalia. This same influence may have also played a role in shaping the iconography of West African secret societies, which were located in the same approximate geographical vicinity from which Vodou cults descended. This West African cult network had risen to prominence precisely at the time when European slave traders invaded African villages and negotiated the right to abduct community members with the elders of their group, many of whom formed a fraternal order called The Ekpe. Similar to the vodou societies, the Ekpe organizational structure mirrored Freemasonry in all of its essential aspects, indicating the strong possibility that much of the imagery and mythology of these West African cults were synthesized as a consequence of collaboration with Freemasonic slave traders. The Ekpe hierarchy consisted of nine initiatory grades, with each successively higher rank ensuring greater prestige within the community. The cult society maintained the loyalty of their community by sponsoring elaborate masquerades, while also acting as a court system for the enforcement of debt collection, the nonpayment of which could result in the debtor being sold to foreign slave traders. Ekpe cults enacted a wide variety of punishments for nonpayment, ranging from fines to property seizure to execution. Those community members who were executed were left tied to trees with their lower jaws removed as a warning that others should obey the dictates of the cult.

Given the Ekpe's participation in enabling the transatlantic slave trade, it may seem counterintuitive that the group provided cultural and spiritual inspiration for another secret society, the Abakua, who would later act as a liberatory force against colonial occupation in Cuba. The latter organization was started by a group of former Ekpe members who had been imported as slaves into Havana, after which they reorganized to form a lodge, Efik Buton, named after a settlement in the Nigerian city of Calabar. Like the Vodou and Ekpe cults, the Abakua Society is structured around a graded degree system and oaths of secrecy are required during initiatory ceremonies. During the Christian festival, Day of the Three Kings, members danced through the streets wearing the Abakua ceremonial outfit, a checkerboard dress and a headpiece topped with tassles. The dress is reminiscent of the checkerboard floors of Freemasonic Lodges, whereas the headpiece is remarkably similar to the fez worn by the Shriners (Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine), who were established as an appendant body to Freemasonry.

Abakua was originally formed as a mutual aid society committed to resisting Spanish authorities by purchasing slaves in order to release them. In recent years the Abakua Society has been reframed as a national symbol of anticolonial liberation struggle by historians such as Dr. Ivor Miller, who has documented the group's cultural narrative through interviews with Abakua elders as well as more conventional academic sources. Miller states that, during the Cuban wars of independence, members of the Abakua formed associations with famous Freemasons like Antonio Maceo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and other leaders of the Mambi Independence army which fought to end slavery.This documentation should demonstrate that attempts to classify Freemasonry as necessarily always working towards oppressive ends are short-sighted simplifications of a multi-faceted legacy. However, the fraternity's reputation for conspiracy and intrigue is well deserved, and its history includes many reprehensible acts such as playing a central organizing role in colonial racism. Where the furthest extremes of this more problematic representation of societal conditioning play out tends to be in the advanced Freemasonic degrees which are heavily influenced by royalism and an agenda for concentration of wealth and resources.

To cite one example, Confederate war General Albert Pike was the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction, who also wrote the primary reference book for Freemasonic ritual, Morals and Dogma. In Klu Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment, Vanderbilt University history department chair Walter L. Fleming wrote “General Albert Pike, who stood high in the Masonic order, was the chief judicial officer of the Klan.” Pike was the owner-publisher of the Memphis Daily Appeal, and on April 16, 1868, he authored an editorial stating the following: “With negroes for witnesses and jurors, the administration of justice becomes a blasphemous mockery. A Loyal League of negroes can cause any white man to be arrested, and can prove any charges it chooses to have made against him...The disenfranchised people of the South...can find no protection for property, liberty or life, except in secret association...We would unite every white man in the South, who is opposed to negro suffrage, into one great Order of Southern Brotherhood, with an organization complete, active and vigorous, in which a few should execute the concentrated will of all, and whose very existence should be concealed by all but its members.”

As Confederate commissioner of Indian affairs, General Pike negotiated a treaty of alliance between the Confederate government and Native American tribes. One of the signatories of this document was Freemason and Cherokee Chief John Ross. On May 5, 1855, Ross wrote a letter to Reverend Evan Jones, in which he described a “secret society” that had attempted to invade the Cherokee Nation: “It seems that there has been a secret society organized in Delaware and Saline Districts, auxiliary to a Mother Lodge in some of the States or Territories of the United States, and the enclosed copy is a form of the oath it is said to be administered to the members of the Society. But I do not apprehend that the authors of this sinister plot can possibly dupe the Cherokee people into their own ruin and downfall, as the schemes when found out will only render themselves more odious to all who feel an interest in the prosperity and welfare of the Nation.” The oath attempted to bind the Cherokee nation in support for slavery, and to “...support any person that you may be instructed to, by the Mother Lodge, for any office in the Cherokee Nation or anywhere else, and to assist any member that may get into difficulty on account of being a brother of the Secret Society and to keep secret the names of the Brothers of the Society and other secrets of the Society.”
The secret society to which Chief Ross was referring was the Cherokee branch of the Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.T), a fraternal organization that included in its membership many prominent Cherokees including Chief Stand Watie, who was also a Freemason affiliated with Federal Lodge Number One in Washington D.C. The Constitution to this adjunct organization states “No person shall become a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle in the Cherokee Nation who is not a pro-slavery man.” The Kansas Encyclopedia of 1912 states that the organization was formed as part of the Freemasonic Blue Lodges. Despite this uncharacteristic and obviously strategic inclusion of Native Americans by a Freemasonic sect, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas failed to recognize the charters of lodges registered in Native American territory following the end of the Civil War.

The overarching goal of the Knights of the Golden Circle was to create a circular-shaped Southern empire founded on slavery and centered in Havana, Cuba with jurisdictions extending throughout the Caribbean, to the Southern portion of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, and Central America. The intended addition of fifteen new slave-holding states was to persuade Congress to abandon the goal of abolition. The economic security of the empire was hoped to be provided by slave labor capable of supporting industries including sugar, cotton, tobacco, rice, coffee, indigo and mining.

The political influence of the Knights is thoroughly detailed in The Private Journal and Diary of John H. Surratt, the Conspirator, which describes the author's induction into the fraternity through an elaborate ceremonial rite. Surratt discovered that prominent members of the K.G.C. included congressmen, cabinet members, judges, politicians and actors.. He also reveals the organization's intent to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, a plan whose formation began before the President's inauguration and was finalized with the actions of K.G.C. member John Wilkes Booth. Surratt had been accused of plotting the assassination and narrowly escaped arrest by fleeing the country. His mother, who owned the boarding house where the plot was conceived, was convicted of conspiracy and hanged by the United States Federal Government.

In addition to Freemasonry's role in pursuing colonial policy and intrigue in the Americas, the fraternity has also been unequivocally active in suppressing indigenous populations on the African continent. Renowned statesman, founder of Debeers diamond monopoly and 33rd degree Freemason Cecil Rhodes was one of the primary architects of the laws that would later enable apartheid in South Africa. For over forty years the Cape Colony had been based on laws that allowed the entire population to vote for representatives of the Assembly, irrespective of the race of the voter. Rhodes utilized his role as Prime Minister of the Cape to pass two laws that removed large numbers of native Africans from the electoral role. The Glen Grey Act strictly limited the amount of land Africans could possess, while the other law tripled the property requirements for the vote. The system Rhodes helped to set in place would develop into a framework for racial segregation that enabled white supremacy while reducing black Africans to second class status. The ultimate goal was to unite the entire world under an Anglo-Saxon empire intended to include Africa, South America, much of the Middle East, the East Asian coast and South Pacific Islands.

Once again, a prominent Freemason would call for the formation of a secret society to curtail the political rights of people of color. In his first will, Cecil Rhodes acknowledged plans for a “secret society” aiming towards “the extension of British rule throughout the world”, a goal that would be accomplished by the “ultimate recovery of the United States as an integral part of the British Empire.” The plan would be finalized in “consolidation of the whole Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial Representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire, and finally the foundation of so great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity.” This organization, The Society of the Elect, was the inner committee for a larger group, the Round Table Movement, which would establish the elite Rhodes scholarship program before finally attempting to implement neocolonial imperialism by way of global think tanks and non-governmental organizations.

In his exhaustive history of Western civilization, Tragedy and Hope, Harvard history professor and U.S. military political consultant Carrol Quigley inserts the following infamous quote: “There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and many of its instruments.” He further elaborates on the machinations of the Round Table group in another book, The Anglo-American Establishment: “This organization has been able to conceal its existence quite successfully, and many of its most influential members, satisfied to possess the reality rather than the appearance of power, are unknown even to close students of British history.”

The Society of the Elect was composed of a small handful of political leaders, including Freemason Lord Alfred Milner, who once stated “My patriotism knows no geographical but only racial limits. I am a British Race patriot.” Due to his success as a colonial administrator in South Africa, Milner was made a baron in 1901 and a viscount in 1902. After his retirement in 1921 Milner was appointed a Knight of the Garter, designating affiliation with the Order of the Garter, an organization which contains no more than 24 members including the British Royal Family. Society of the Elect member Reginald Baliol Brett, later known as Lord Esher, was also a friend of royalty, in addition to being a member of Lord Elgin's South African War Commission. Esher was known to be a confidant of Queen Victoria, as well as the most significant advisor to King Edward VII and King George V.

The political authority of the Round Table group in South Africa continued an extensive tradition combining Freemasonry and royalism on the continent. The Royal African Company was a slaving company founded by the House of Stuart, previously mentioned for their role in establishing the Blue degrees of Freemasonry. The company was led by James, Duke of York, the younger brother of James II, and was responsible for the transport of approximately 5,000 slaves per year. The total number of slaves transported between 1672 and 1689 is estimated to be between 90,000 and 100,000. Many of these slaves were branded with the letters DY, in reference to the Duke of York, while others were branded with the company's initials, RAC. The company was granted a monopoly in the region and given the authority to maintain troops, exercise martial law and capture any ships that defied the terms of their monopoly in the area. Revenues derived from slave-trading were divided equally between the King and company shareholders. Its profits were so significant that the Royal African Company played a critical role in the economy of London.

The stage of colonization defined by military conquest can be represented by the company founded by the House of Stuart, whereas the political imposition enacted by the Round Table groups, while no less destructive in its aims, is contingent upon neocolonial policies which seek to hide cultural subjugation under a guise of ostensibly democratic representation. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, a senior Society of the Elect member named Lionel Curtis proposed the idea of establishing what Quigley describes as an “Anglo-American Institute of foreign affairs”, organized for the purpose of preventing future wars. This organization became known as the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), also referred to as Chatham House, and its U.S. counterpart became the Council on Foreign Relations. RIIA is now known as the second most influential think tank in the world, behind the Brookings Institute. The Queen of England is designated as the official patron of Chatham House, and through it, as well as other non-state actors, the influence of royalism maintains a covert presence in the international political process.

That Lord Milner, a key member of the Round Table groups, would also claim Knighthood in the Order of the Garter is likely no coincidence, considering that the Order is itself founded on the myth of King Arthur's Round Table. The Order of the Garter is the highest order of chivalry in England, considered to be the pinnacle of the British honors system after hereditary peerages, which are now normally only given to members of the Royal Family. Membership in the Order is always bestowed as the sole prerogative of the Monarch. In the historical treatise, Order of the Garter, politician, Freemason, royalist sympathizer and court astrologer Elias Ashmole contends that “The Order of the Garter was formed by Edward III, perhaps in imitation of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.” Froissart's Chronicles, recognized as the primary expression of the 14th century chivalric revival, states “The King of England took pleasure to re-edify the Castle of Windsor, which was begun by King Arthur, and there first began the Table Round, whereby sprang the fame of so many noble knights throughout all the World. Then King Edward determined to make an Order and a Brotherhood...to be called Knights of the Blue Garter, and a feast to be kept yearly on St. George's Day.”
Arthurian legend tells the story of how the Round Table was designed to seat 24 knights, in parallel with the strict membership limitation of 24 within the Order of the Garter. There are other indications of the Order's origins in esoteric symbolism as well, such as its insignia which depicts a red cross on a white background, the same image that was carried on the banners of the Knights Templar. The red cross in the Order's insignia is depicted in the center of an 8-pointed star, traditionally known as the star of Venus or Ishtar. Within Babylonian and Assyrian cultures, the 8-pointed star of Ishtar was an astrological representation of the four cardinal directions divided by the two solstices and equinoxes.

Taken together, this symbolic imagery likely indicates the Order's association with ancient mystery schools that trace a direct line of descent from the cults of antiquity through mystical Catholic orders to the occult fraternities that form the basis of today's shadow government system.
The Order of the Garter's close relationship with Freemasonry is suggested by observing the extensive number of high-ranking Freemasons who have also been members of the Royal Family. The United Grand Lodge of England is the main governing body of Freemasonry within England and other Commonwealth countries. As the oldest Grand Lodge in the world, according to its records, the lodge is often recognized as the “home Grand Lodge” by international Freemasons. The current Grand Master of the lodge is Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who continues an uninterrupted tradition of heading the lodge as royalty since it began keeping records in 1813. The book 10,000 Famous Freemasons, published by Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, claims that Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, was initiated into Freemasonry in 1952, stating: “Present at the initiation were the Earl of Scarbrough, Grand Master...and Geoffrey Fisher, archbishop of Canterbury. The lodge has many ties with the royal family as King Edward VII served as its first master in 1896 when he was Prince of Wales. King George VI...served as master when he was Duke of York.”

There is a certain amount of historical evidence intimating that the Royal Family's preoccupation with Arthurian legend, and concurring membership in secret societies, may not be a simple matter of antiquated pomp and circumstance, but instead a deliberate attempt to conceal a historical pedigree that could damage the family's claim to support democratic political structures. In the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, authors Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln unearth documents that they claim provide evidence of a secret society existing for the purpose of housing genealogical records that trace the origins of present reigning Monarchs to the Merovignian dynasty, which was ostensibly deposed in 751. The authors believe that these records were maintained by secret societies, including the Rosicrucians, Templars, and Freemasons, which sought to conceal evidence of the royal bloodline whose descendants would go on to take leadership roles in these same secret societies. In the course of pursuing research for the book, the authors discovered a series of pamphlets that contained royal pedigrees stretching from the early Middle Ages to the present day.

Three of the authors linked to the dissemination of the pamphlets were later found to have died under mysterious circumstances that point strongly towards murder. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln managed to locate the daughter of another of the authors, who was unaware of her father's apparent interest in genealogy, yet also informed her interviewers that he had been denied a visa for entry into the United States on account of suspected espionage or other clandestine activity. Although the book has been dismissed by professional scholars as pseudo-history, probably in large part because of the authors' belief that the royal bloodlines they studied may have descended from Jesus, the dizzying volume of data contained within the book is unparalleled in scope, and far too exhaustively researched to be based purely in speculation. While many fans of the book argue that Holy Blood... exposes an unorthodox religious history with liberatory implications, few of these readers have speculated as to why it may be that a genuinely altruistic organization would resort to murder to maintain the cover of secrecy.

One possible explanation for this seeming paradox is that high-ranking initiates did, in fact, work to subvert dominant social institutions, not as a secret ploy to liberate the masses, but instead as a route to consolidate political and economic power for themselves and their descendants. In this scenario, a democratic political framework would be the ideal camouflage for exercising such a strategy, and the numerous proto-globalist projects of the Round Table movement may serve as prime example of this pattern. What this supposition amounts to is a literal re-establishment of the divine right of kings under cover of representative government. Of particular interest in pursuing this line of reasoning is historical data linking the legend of King Arthur's Round Table, and perhaps, Cecil Rhodes' Round Table groups as well, to the royal bloodlines from which present day Monarchs descended.

Wolfram von Eschenbach is the author of Parzival, which is considered to be one of the most important works of Arthurian literature, particularly for its focus on the Holy Grail which shifted focus away from King Arthur himself to other Knights of the Round Table. The story recounts the tale of Lohengrin, son of the Grail King Parzival and member of a secret order whose mission is to provide lords to kingdoms that have lost their protectors. Lohengrin was said to have rescued and then married the duchess of Brabant, after which he informed her that she was forbidden from asking him about his origins or ancestry. When the duchess finally succumbed to curiosity, Lohengrin abruptly departed, leaving behind a child of uncertain lineage. According to Eschenbach, this child was either the father or grandfather of Godfroi de Boullion, founder of the Knights Templar who captured Jerusalem from the Saracens. Bouillon himself was the subject of numerous legends attributing him with supernatural lineage, such as the story of his half-serpent daughter Melusine. Bouillon is also the subject of legend amongst Freemasons, who erected a statue of him alongside Lichfield Chapel which is considered to be a Christian holy site. In his book on Cecil Rhodes' wills, Society of the Elect member William T. Stead makes the following comment. In light of the historical and mythological data expressed above, this otherwise inexplicable quote becomes far more intriguing: “He aspired to be the creator of one of those vast semi-religious, quasi-political associations which, like the Society of Jesus, have played so large a part in the history of the world. To be more strictly accurate, he wished to found an Order as the instrument of the will of the Dynasty, and while he lived he dreamed of being both its Caesar and its Loyola.”

Update to Occult Origins of the Counterculture

The following section has been added to the Occult Origins of the Counterculture article, and the introduction to the article has been revised as well.

The social stratification represented by the degree system of Freemasonry is a logical extension of natural law, the Catholic ideology by which rigidly maintained social hierarchy was deemed a necessary component of any holy society. The Eye of Providence, colloquially known as the all-seeing eye, was first a Catholic symbol intended to symbolize the divine providence of God watching over humanity and superseding in human affairs through ecclesiastical authorities. The earliest depiction of the Eye of Providence in Europe was within the Palatine Chapel, whose construction was begun by Charlemagne in 786. Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor, and his accession inaugurated a return to the divine right of kings in Christian Europe. In the New Testament, the concept of the divine right of kings had been justified by the statement of St. Peter that all Christians should honor the pagan Roman Emperor. Throughout Medieval Europe, the same idea applied to feudal properties, which were believed to be owned by God and managed by Kings, who were in turn answerable only to the authority of Popes. This arrangement of power formed the basis of the figurative pyramid whose base was composed of serfs living in conditions akin to slavery in all of its most essential aspects. Feudal plantation owners were legally allowed to beat, murder and rape their serfs, while the serfs were forbidden from owning or selling property. The etymology of the term “serf” can be traced to the Latin word “servus”, which literally translates to slave.

In 1865 slavery was permanently abolished within the United States by way of the Thirteenth Amendment. Less than a year later, the Holy Office responded via an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX, which states: “Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons … It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given”. This policy was not officially changed within Canon law until 1918. Medieval texts used the words “peasant”, “serf” and “slave” as synonymous representations of the overwhelming majority of the population who did not own property. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a census of Britain's million and a half inhabitants, noting that less than three percent were free landholders. The feudal pyramid explicated a regimented division of value whereby corporeal hierarchies of serfs, lords, abbots, knights and bishops were arranged below heavenly hierarchies of saints, angels and, ultimately, God. As a material extension of these values, religious institutions such as abbeys and monasteries maintained a significant portion of European feudal properties while simultaneously amassing vast fortunes as a result.

The social stratification of greater Medieval society was also applied to individual families, which were typically formed according to strict laws and customs as opposed to individual choice. For example, the lord of an estate could prevent serfs from marrying women from another estate, while also exercising the power to choose husbands for their tenants' daughters. Medieval laws also required parental consent for marriage up to the age of 30 for men and the age of 25 for women. The doctrine of mutual consent also allowed for spouses to abandon their families based on “confession” of prior marriage to a different spouse. As merchant classes arose in later centuries, the doctrine of mutual consent ostensibly allowed for freedom of choice in marriage, however, in practice, parents controlled the choices of their children by denying inheritance rights to those who married against their wishes. The free bench was an English manorial custom that defined a widow's inheritance rights as dependent on her chastity, and remarriage, as well as any ostensible evidence of sexual activity, required the widow to forfeit her lands. Similarly, the Legrewite was a fine designed to punish single sexually active women, a fee often compounded by the childwite, yet another fine for the birth of illegitimate children. As stated previously, the doctrine of mutual consent allowed for previously married women to have their children classified as illegitimate regardless of the wife's commitment to her marriage. In France, unmarried pregnant women were systematically interrogated at local government offices.

The “virtue” of blind obedience to religious and political authorities was promoted by the Jesuits, a Catholic fraternity that predated both the Freemasons and the Bavarian Illuminati. In his Letter on Obedience, Jesuit (Society of Jesus) founder Ignatius of Loyola wrote “And so, I should wish that all of you would train yourselves to recognize Christ our Lord in any Superior whomsoever, and with all devotion, reverence and obey in him His Divine Majesty. And this will appear less strange to you, if you keep in mind that St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, bids us obey even temporal and pagan Superiors as Christ from Whom all well ordered authority descends: Slaves, obey your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your hearts as you would Christ: not serving to the eye as pleasers of men, but as slaves of Christ.”

Loyola's apparently tolerant attitude toward polytheistic cultures did not, however, prevent the Jesuits from playing a central role in the Goa Inquisition, a horrific period of history enabled by the Society's reverence for social inequality. The office of the Inquisition on the Portugese state of Goa was responsible for sanctioning the death by torture of dozens of Hindus and Muslims for the crime of practicing their native religion. The Goa Inquisition was originally installed after Francis Xavier, a student of Loyola's, one of seven original Jesuits and co-founder of the same group, wrote a letter to King John III of Portugal, requesting Catholic expedition to India as a route to ensuring Christian purity. As Xavier departed to lead the mission, the pope appointed him apostolic nuncio to the East, an ecclesiastical diplomatic title equivalent to that of ambassador. The Inquisition's first act was to establish the death penalty for open practice of the Hindu faith. Hundreds of prison cells were set up to accommodate the accused. Hindu temples were destroyed and ransacked, their contents confiscated by army action. The local Konkani language was suppressed, Hindu holy books were destroyed and Portugese became the compulsory national language.

The Jesuits organized an annual mass baptism on January 25, the Feast of Saint Paul, whereby their African slaves were ordered to grab Hindus and smear their lips with beef, an act that resulted in many Hindus being labeled as untouchable by their own people. In his book, the Goa Inquisition, Indo-Portugese historian T.R. De Souza writes “...the government transferred to the Church and religious orders the properties and other sources of revenue that had belonged to the Hindu temples that had been demolished or to the temple servants who had been converted or banished. Entire villages were taken over at times for being considered rebellious and handed over with all their revenues to the Jesuits.” The Goa Inquisition also exhaustively details the methods of torture through which Catholic missionaries enforced religious conversions, including flogging, dismemberment and amputations carried out so slowly that the victims remained alive throughout the process. The auto-de-fa was the Catholic ritual of public penance whereby condemned heretics and apostates were burned at the stake. According to De Souza, Francis Xavier was present at the first Inquisition, where two of the accused, including a French cleric, were burned alive. For his efforts, Xavier was canonized as a saint by Pope Gregory XV, at the same time as Ignatius Loyola, and proclaimed the “Patron of Catholic Missions” by Pope Pius XI.

Aside from their work in suppressing cultural and religious expression abroad, the Jesuits also endeavored to suppress European institutions that threatened the power of the Catholic church, particularly in the areas of politics and scientific discourse. In 1616 the Inquisition declared the scientific proposition that the Earth rotates around the Sun to be heresy, shortly after the Index of Prohibited Books banned any writings that advanced Copernican heliocentric astronomy. Jesuit astronomers argued that geocentrism, the theory that the earth is the center of the universe around which all heavenly bodies revolve, was in accordance with a literal interpretation of Scripture, particularly Psalms 96:10, Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1, Ecclesiastes 1:5 and Psalms 104:5. The chief theologian of the Inquisition, Robert Bellarmine, was a Jesuit who read the astronomer Galileo Galilei the decree of the Index and ordered him to abandon his research into the Copernican system. When this decree was ignored, Galilei was confined to house arrest for the rest of his life. Galilei's discoveries were so ground-breaking that he has since been dubbed the “father of observational astronomy”.

The Society of Jesus was also able to gain political influence by hearing the confessions of kings, princes and other political authorities. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “they acted as royal confessors to all French kings for 2 centuries, from Henry III to Louis XV; to all German emperors after the early 17th century; to all Dukes of Bavaria after 1579; to most rulers of Poland and Portugal; to the Spanish kings in the 18th century; to James II of England; and to many ruling or princely families throughout Europe.” Confessions in this context functioned much as the Bacchanalia had in previous centuries: organizations in a position to elicit incriminating secrets were much more likely to gain the advantage of political blackmail. Royal confessors were thus able to promote the interests of the Papacy, such as when LeTellier, Jesuit confessor to King Louis XIV, convinced the monarch to revoke the Edict of Nantes which granted substantial rights to Calvinist Protestants. Because of this history of political maneuvering, the Society was expelled from most states across Europe, as well as a number of European colonies. In Portugal the Jesuit royal confessor Gabriel Malagrida was declared guilty of high treason on account of his role in plotting the attempted assassination of King Jose I. Malagrida was not executed because the Papacy expressed opposition to the execution of a Jesuit by secular authorities. Instead, he was confined to a dungeon beneath the tower of Belem along with other Jesuits, who were also arrested for their role in the plan.

Aside from political intrigue, another charge commonly leveled at the Society was economic exploitation, especially regarding trade revenues derived from colonial mission plantations. As a religious order the Jesuits were technically forbidden from buying and selling for profit, however, as had been the case with the Knights Templar before them, this rule was largely disregarded. Referring to the Society's financial management of mission plantations, the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1908 states “...this was allowed, partly to provide for the current expenses of the mission, partly in order to protect the simple, childlike natives from the common plague of dishonest intermediaries.” In the Americas, Jesuit acquisitions were so extensive that suppression of the order resulted in widespread economic changes. The Society had owned the largest number of black slaves in Chile, so when Jesuits were expelled from the country there was a sharp decrease in the number of imported slaves. After Jesuit vineyards in Peru were auctioned, wine production also declined because the new owners did not have the expertise necessary to manage the fields.

The combined political, economic and academic influence of the Society contributed to numerous anti-Jesuit conspiracy theories alleging the order to be involved in plotting to overthrow nation-states on behalf of the Papacy. Many of these theories were a product of French anti-clericalism and claimed a rivalry between Freemasons and the Society of Jesus. Ironically, historians documenting the origins of speculative Freemasonry have unearthed evidence indicating that Freemasonry is in large part derived from Catholicism, with the Jesuits, in particular, playing an important role in their expansion throughout France and Germany. According to Chevalier Ramsay, a Fellow of the Royal Society as well as a tutor to King James' two sons, Freemasonry was founded in antiquity and renewed at the time of the Crusades. Crusaders utilized a symbolic language derived from the ancient Mystery cults, which was intended to differentiate Crusader from Saracen. The close relationship between these early Masons and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem eventually resulted in the Blue Degrees which are named St. John's Masonry. Masonic participation in the Crusades may also be the reason why, according to Freemasonic legend, the original Lodge is “symbolically” located in Jerusalem. It may also be worth noting that Ramsay was a Baronet in the Jacobite Peerage (a hereditary honor granted by the deposed Stuart dynasty), so he may have been in a strategic position for absorbing the guarded secrets of high-ranking initiates.

One of the oldest surviving Masonic documents, from December 1658, suggests that the commonly held belief of the ideals of Freemasonry being opposed to royalism may, in truth, be erroneous. The document states, “That as formerly we and predecessors have and had from the temple of temples building on this earth one uniform community and union throughout the whole world from which temple proceeded one in Kilwinning in this our nation of Scotland and from that of Kilwinning many more within this kingdom of which there proceeded the Abbey and Lodge of Scone, built by men of art and architecture where they placed that lodge as the second lodge within this nation, which is now past memory of many generations, and was upheld by the Kings of Scotland...this Lodge is the most famous Lodge (if well ordered) within this kingdom-of which name of Mylne there had continued several generations of Master Masons to his Majesties the Kings of Scotland ." Art and Magic in the Court of the Stuarts is a book by architectural historian Vaughan Hart which further verifies this assertion, primarily through documenting the Hermetic-Cabalistic themes inherent in the masques of the Stuart court, which were typically planned and conceived by Masons.

The acolytes of King James Stuart II, the Jacobites, followed him into exile and renewed the ancient Rite of Heredom, also known as the Scottish Rite of Perfection, along with the Rite of Kilwining, which had commingled with the Templar tradition. Although this moment in history is a point of contention amongst many modern historians, in his work Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences, the Freemasonic historian Albert Mackey states that King James II took refuge in the Jesuit College of Clermont in Paris, where a network of aristocrats and members of the royal court had founded a Masonic Lodge. The purpose of this Lodge was the restoration on the House of Stuart to the throne of England, and its rites consisted of six degrees including those of St. John's Masonry. The Baron von Hund then synthesized the ideas of these degrees and produced from them the Rite of Strict Observance which gained popularity in Germany. Mackey also contends that the Masonic lodge at the Jesuit College of Clermont has had a particularly notable influence on the advanced degrees of Freemasonry.

These higher degrees can be easily traced to their origin in Jesuit initiation ceremonies by scrutinizing the commonalities found in both fraternal orders, as well as the Templars and Knights of Malta who share a common line of descent with the Society of Jesus. Although detailed accounts of Jesuit initiations are scarce, the Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge contains revealing quotes from a 16th century Jesuit document which describes ceremonies culminating in acts analogous to modern day accounts of Satanic ritual abuse. The second degree into the Jesuits began when the candidate fasted and was then blindfolded and led through a cavern while reciting incantations. After crawling through a narrow opening, the initiate's blindfold was removed and he found himself in a dungeon with three lamps on the ground, surrounded by skeletal remains. This room was called the Cave of Evocation. A similarly darkened room, containing a skull, scythe and candle, is used within the initiation rites of advanced Freemasonic degrees, and referred to as the Chamber of Reflection. The second degree initiation of the Knights of Malta also contains the Chamber of Reflection, which the order says is a symbolic representation of the tomb of the Pharaoh.
The Jesuit document quoted in the Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia describes the conclusion of the rite: “...they took off all his clothing, which they cast upon a pyre in one corner of the cave, and marked his body with numerous crosses, drawn with blood. At this point, the hierophant with his assistants entered, and having bound a red cloth round the middle of the candidate's body, the brethren, clothed in bloodstained garments, placed themselves beside him, and drawing their daggers, formed the steel arch over his head.”

Further corroboration of the details of Jesuit initiation rites can be found in the Journals of the 62nd Congress, 3rd session, which records the personal testimony of former Jesuit priest Alberto Rivera: “When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Covenant of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of an altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colours, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbone, with the words INRI and below them the words IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIUS, the meaning of which is: it is just to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, governments or rulers. Upon the floor is a red cross at which the postulant or candidate kneels. The superior hands him a small black crucifix, which he takes in his left hand and presses to his heart, and the Superior at the same time presents to him a dagger, which he grasps by the blade and holds the point against his heart.” The Jesuit candidate is then instructed to receive “the wafer from the Superior and writes his name with the point of his dagger dipped in his own blood taken from over his heart.”

The presence of a dagger, as well as that of the skull and cross bones, can also be found within Freemasonic ceremonial rites. In a documentary entitled “Secrets of Secret Societies”, the Discovery Channel interviewed Catholic author and former high-ranking Freemason John Salza, who reported his participation in an initiation rite that involved him stripping off his clothes and being pierced with a knife. He described the rite as conveying a “warning” to the initiate. The skull and crossbones were also adopted by the Knights of Malta, whose second degree initiation involves the candidate being presented with bones which are described as the remains of the biblical patriarch Joseph, whose body had been carried to Egypt by his people.

Rivera expresses further similarities to Freemasonry with his delineation of how fellow Jesuit members identify one another, stating that the initiate, “with his right hand makes a circle around his head, touching it; the other then with the forefinger of his left hand touches the left side of his body just below the heart; the first then with his right hand draws it across the throat of the other, and the latter then with a dagger down the stomach and the abdomen of the first.” As reported by Richardson's Monitor of Freemasonry, a candidate is awarded the Grand Master Elect degree when he is either being pricked under the chin with a knife, or clenches the fingers of his right hand, extends the thumb and slides the tip of it up his abdomen to the underside of his chin. Within both the Society of Jesus and the Freemasons, the gesture is meant to convey the image of the initiate being ripped open with a knife, typically in response to his having violated the vow of secrecy protecting fellow members. This ceremony is based on the penal code of Freemasonry, which, Duncan's Masonic Ritual and Monitor states, “intimates that the stiff neck of the disobedient shall be cut off from head of the living...”.

Musician who painted Queen's portrait arrested for child sexual abuse

Entertainer Rolf Harris arrested in fallout from Jimmy Savile sex-abuse case London – The Associated Press Friday, Apr. 19 2013 Rolf Harris, a veteran entertainer who has released hit singles and painted the Queen’s portrait, has been arrested as part of a police investigation into sexual abuse allegations stemming from the Jimmy Savile scandal, British media reported Friday.
Major media outlets followed The Sun newspaper in identifying Harris, an Australian-born artist, musician and television host who is a household name in Britain….
Harris, who lives in Berkshire and turned 83 on March 30, has been a British entertainment stalwart for decades. He has had musical hits with “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” – which he once performed with The Beatles – and “Two Little Boys.” He also has hosted television shows, painted an official portrait of the queen for her 80th birthday in 2006, and performed at the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee concert last year. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/entertainer-rolf-harris-arrested-in-fallout-from-jimmy-savile-sex-abuse-case/article11400305/