Was Jack The Ripper A Freemason?

By Fu Ceyi

Every one loves a good detective story and Jack the Ripper, a serial murderer in England in the late 1880s is a small little industry on its own. When authors Stephen Knight and Martin Short linked the serial murderer to the “secretive” freemasons, their books instantly became best sellers.

Stephen Knight and Martin Short cashed in on the Freemasonry’s bandwagon by writing a couple of books sensationalizing Freemasonry. Stephen Knight’s books Jack the Ripper – The Final Solution (1976) and The Brotherhood (1983) and Martin Short’s Inside the Brotherhood (1989) and Lundy: The Destruction of Scotland Yard’s Finest Detective (1991) may have triggered a new witch-hunt against the freemasons accusing them of practicing among other devilish things not less than ten heresies.

It does not help that Stephen Knight died in July 1985 aged thirty-three eighteen months after the publication of his best-selling, controversial and much-disputed expose of Freemasonry, The Brotherhood. He died from epilepsy brought on by a hit on the head by a bat while playing cricket. Martin Short in his book, Inside the Brotherhood insinuated that he was murdered by freemasons because he criticized and exposed the freemasons in his book The Brotherhood. According to him many freemasons believed that their Masonic brothers murdered him.[i] Both books received sensational reviews by the press in their times. There are not counting other related works, no less than 76 books on Jack the Ripper since 1888 and no less than 56 films and television shows on the topic. For a more detailed list readers may wish to refer to the bibliography and filmography of The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper.

This article is a critique of Knight and Short’s books and seeks to provide a more balance alternative view. I thought it worthwhile to resurrect the Ripper issue because in a recent discussion on the latest Jack the Ripper movie From Hell, which followed faithfully the Sickert/Knight story line, a past master in the fraternity is of the view that this story is true. I believe that others who watched the movie From Hell may also believe the story, especially non Masons who are not familiar with the tenets and practice of Freemasonry. Good acting, with a sensational detective story supported by powerful audio and full color visual cinema impact can be dramatic and persuasive.

Johnny Depp, leading actor in the movie From Hell

My guess is the title of the movie From Hell was taken from this letter written in October 1888. The text of the letter reads:

From hell.
Mr Lusk,
Sor

I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
signed

Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

The "From Hell" letter postmarked 15th October 1888.

The "From Hell" letter is the name given to a letter mailed in 1888 together with half a human kidney preserved in alcohol by a man who claimed to be the killer known as Jack the Ripper. Amongst the many letters claiming to be from the killer received by the police then, this one was considered one of the few possibly authentic ones from the serial murderer. It is noteworthy that the writer did not sign his name as Jack the Ripper as many others did. The letter was addressed to and received by a George Lusk, then head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.

An earlier "Dear Boss" letter by another writer that claimed he was also Jack the Ripper was sent to the Central News Agency of London. It was dated 25th September and postmarked 27th September 1888. The letter was forwrded to Scotland Yard on 29th September.

The "Dear Boss" letter postmarked 27th September 1888.

Its content like most of the many alleged 'Ripper letters' that were later received, contains spelling and punctuation errors. It reads:

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha . The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck.

Yours truly
Jack the Ripper'
Dont mind me giving the trade name
PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now ha ha.

Initially this letter was considered a hoax like many others but when the body of Cathrine Eddowes was found on 30th September with a ear severed off, the writer's promise to "clip the ladys ears off" gained attention.

The Police then published handbills with facsimiles of it and the Saucy Jack Postcard (which was the first to refer to the earlier message) hoping someone would recognise the handwriting, but nothing came of this effort. Many newspapers also reprinted the text in whole or in part. These two messages gained worldwide notoriety after their publication. It was the first time the "Jack the Ripper" name had been used to refer to the killer, and the term captured the imagination of the public. This started an avalance of other letters claiming to be from "Jack the Ripper". This is a most unusual display of male attitude, there were hundreds of Englishmen actually taking the trouble to write in claiming to be the serial murderer. The serial murderer was given the status of a popular celebrity. It would be unthinkable today, it most probably reflected the male attitude then towards women and woman prostitutes in particular.

After investigation police officials announced that this letter and the postcard were hoaxes by a local journalist. These statement was not well publicized and the perception that the killer had sent messages taunting the police became one of the enduring legends of the Ripper case. Modern scholars are divided on which, if any, of the letters should be considered genuine, but the "Dear Boss" and "From Hell" letters are considered most frequently as potentially having been written by the killer. A number of authors try to advance their theories by comparing handwriting samples of their suspects to the writing found in this letter.

There were many earlier publications on Jack the Ripper case, none has ever linked it to the freemasons. The gist of Stephen Knight and Martin Short’s books is that besides being heretics, freemasons are corrupt and mutually self-serving. They claimed that freemasons placed their loyalty to their Masonic brethren above their public duties and alleged that freemason judges and policemen will allow criminals to evade justice if they had identified themselves as freemasons by secret signs. Short tells many stories of incidents which he claimed were told him by High Court judges who made him promise not to reveal their identities.

In one incident according to him a judge was hearing a petition for custody of the children in a divorce matter between husband and wife. The judge had indicated during the proceedings to show that he was strongly in favor of the wife’s petition until the husband brushed his hand through the hair, turning his hand as he did so to communicate by secret sign that he was a freemason. According to him as soon as the judge saw it, he immediately changed his attitude, and after a few more questions gave judgment in favor of the husband, awarding him the custody of the children. This seems like an unlikely incident and sounds like the type of story you hear at a bar after a few drinks. It is so easy to exaggerate such a story to help sell his book by conveniently citing an anonymous judge as his source.

A more twisted allegation from Knight’s book The Brotherhood is the case of the trial of poisoner Frederick Seddon before Justice Bucknill in 1912 for the murder of Mrs. Barrow. When found guilty, the judge asked Seddon if he had anything to say before he passed sentence. Seddon swore that he was not guilty “by the Great Architect of the Universe”. Justice Bucknill, a well known freemason then sentenced him to death. However, he was old and ill and had shown signs during the trial and summing up of being emotionally affected. Knight then speculated that his distress was caused by his sorrow that Seddon, the murderer had not revealed that he was a freemason at an earlier stage in the trial, if he had, Justice Bucknill could have summed up in his favor and handled the trial in such a way that the jury would not have arrived at a guilty verdict.[ii]

This is a most preposterous speculation. The verdict speaks for itself. A freemason judge sentenced a freemason murderer to death. There were two obvious reasons for the judge being in difficulties in his summing up and during the trial. He was old and ill and knowing that the murderer was a freemason like himself may have distressed, shamed and disappointed him to such an extend as to upset him; but that did no prevent him from performing his duty as a judge. It was obvious that Knight ignored the simple truth in this case and read what he had intended to read. He was in fact mocking the British judiciary system and insulting members of the jury more than sensationalizing Freemasonry.

Knight’s most serious allegation came from his book Jack the Ripper – The Final Solution in which he alleged that 5 or 6 prostitutes of White Chapel in the East End of London were murdered by freemasons and disemboweled in a manner according to Masonic initiation rituals in 1888. Historically, Jack the Ripper was never caught, his identity is still a mystery and therefore this subject matter is always of interest to readers who love detective stories. Many books and articles have been written guessing the identity of the killer before Knight worked on the Masonic angle to make his book into a best seller.

The cover of the September 21, 1889 issue of Puck Magazine, featuring cartoonist Tom Merry's depiction of the unidentified Whitechapel murderer Jack the Ripper.

Books on Knights Templar and freemasons because of their mysterious and secretive backgrounds have always a ready captive audience. One good recent example is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code which brought in more than 250 million dollars for the author. Other Jack the Ripper books usually identified the killer as a man who was afterwards caught and executed for another murder which had no connection with the Ripper killings. A popular belief in the 1890s was that Ripper was an eccentric clergyman who held open-air revivalist prayer meetings on the beach at Margate in the summer. According to author Jasper Ridley, “Stephen Knight, in Jack the Ripper, The Final Solution, put forward the most far-fetched theory of all – that the murders were committed by the freemasons at the instigation of Queen Victoria’s freemason doctor, Sir William Gull, and with the connivance of the freemason chief of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren.” [iii]

Knight’s ‘far-fetched theory’ was that Prince Albert Edward (a freemason), Duke of Clarence, son of the Prince of Wales, future King Edward VII had secretly married a Roman Catholic woman without the consent of his grandmother the Queen and had bore him a child. The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury (not a freemason), asked royal physician Dr Gull (a freemason) to imprison Edward’s secret bride in a private lunatic asylum. Unfortunately, five prostitutes came to know about this, and the Prime Minister asked Dr Gull to silence them. Dr Gull then obediently dispatched two freemasons to murder the five prostitutes.

The story gets more complicated on the night of the second murder on 30 September 1888, when a policeman found the disemboweled body of a prostitute, he also saw chalked on the wall in the square: “The Juwes are The Men That will not be blamed for nothing”. Sir Charles Warren ordered it to be washed off for fear that it might cause anti-Jewish riots in the East End.

Knight asserted that the "Juwes", a misspelling referred not to "Jews" but to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, who figured in the story of the assassination of Hiram Abiff, a legendary figure in Freemasonry in the building of King Solomon’ s temple. He alleged that it was a message written by the killer or killers as part of a Masonic consipracy, and that Warren realized that freemasons were the ones who committed the Ripper murders and quickly ordered that the writing be washed off and that the inscription about the Jews was kept secret for nearly 90 years until he himself discovered it in the secret files of Scotland Yard in the 1970s. He also stated that Warren did not give any explanation for erasing the writing on the wall. Knight’s claims were lies. How far fetched can you go? Knight’s theory can easily be debunked for the following reasons and facts.

1. The existence of the inscription on the wall was not kept secret for 90 years as he alleged, it was discussed in several books published in the 1930s and the reason given by Warren that he wanted to avoid anti-Jewish riots was also discussed. Despite this fact, Knight went further in his The Brotherhood to allege that “Warren impeded the Ripper investigation at every stage” and that there was “an official cover-up of immense proportions that confirms that Freemasonry really was the unseen power behind the throne and government alike”. [iv]

2. Why should Lord Salisbury, a non freemason, statesman and a devout member of the Church of England order the death of five prostitutes just to hush up a scandal involving a member of the royal family? Even if the scandal was true, it was just about a young prince who fell in love secretly and why on earth would a Prime Minister take such a risk and ordered the murder of the five prostitutes for an alleged juvenal indiscretion. He was the Prime Minister, elected into power by the people to serve the people and not the royal family. England was and still is a constitutional Monarchy. The power rests with parliament. He runs the country, reports to Parliament and is accountable to the people, not the Queen.

3. Similarly why should Sir William Gull, the royal physician obey such an order from the Prime Minister and ordered other freemasons to murder the gossiping prostitutes? Even if he was mad and stupid enough to obey such an order, why were the prostitutes treated as though they were freemasons. Surely as a senior freemason he was aware English Freemasonry does not permit women members.

4. Any historian or freemason should know that Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum are not referred to as ‘the Jews’ in the Masonic Hiram Abiff ritual. This idea has been rejected by experts, and there is no evidence that anyone prior to Knight had ever referred to those three figures by the term "Juwes".

5. Knight did not explain how the five murdered prostitutes came to know about Edward’s secret marriage to a Roman Catholic woman. Not even a hint.

6. Sir Charles Warren, Chief of the Metropolitan Police, was a dedicated historian and founder member of Lodge Quatuor Coronati, the research lodge well known for its informative and balanced articles on Masonic history would not have made the mistake Knight made with regards to item 4 above-mentioned.

7. Knight’s story was based almost entirely on artist Joseph Sickert’s story. Sickert claimed that his mother Alice Crook was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Clarence who had a clandestine relationship with his grand mother Annie Elizabeth Crook. Knight then a young journalist was so intrigued by Sickert’s story that he tracked down Joseph Sickert and wrote his story which became Jack the Ripper – The Final Solution. Joseph Sickert admitted to a Sunday Times journalist in 1977 that his Ripper story was an invention shortly before Knight’s publication in paperback. He again confirmed this fact with well known author Colin Wilson when they met in 1995.[v]

8. Simon Wood, editor of The Bloodhound who decided to track down information on Annie Elizabeth Crook (whom the Duke of Clarence was supposed to have secretly married and bore him a daughter), who according to Knight had been the victim of a brain operation by Gull to remove her memory and locked up in a lunatic asylum for the rest of her life discovered that Annie Crook had been alive and at liberty from late 1880s until her death in 1920. She was admitted briefly to the Endell Street Workhouse in 1889 with her daughter Alice and was sentenced to 14 days in prison in 1894 for an undisclosed offence. She died in a lunacy ward of the Fulham Road Workhouse in 1920 and the report of her death lists her religion as Church of England and not as Catholic as Knight claimed and gave as the reason for the Queen’s strong objection to the relationship between her and Clarence, the heir to the British throne. Wood confronted Knight in the early 1980s with his evidence but Knight was in Wood’s words, “smilingly unrepentant”. [vi]

Despite being discredited Knight repeated in the words of Colin Wilson “the whole preposterous theory in his bestselling book on the Freemasons, The Brotherhood in 1984”. Wilson had earlier in 1976 in a review in Books and Bookmen damned Knight’s book and among other things described his theory as “laughable and nonsense”. In his frustration over the case, Warren wrote to Sir James Fraser, his counterpart in the City, “We are inundated with suggestions and names of suspects!” on 9th October, 1888.[vii] Author Philip Sugden in his new edition Jack the Ripper reprinted a third time in 2002 concurred with, “It is a complaint that is as true today as it was a century ago”.

Sir Charles Warren, Metropolitan Polic Chief

Warren was the District Grand Master of the Eastern Archipelago based in Singapore from 1891 to 1895.[viii] He entered her Majesty’s service as an officer in the Royal Engineers in 1857, held the rank in Singapore of Major General and was the General Officer Commanding the British forces in the region. Knight’s Jack the Ripper – The Final solution is far from being the final solution according to more serious and professional writers. I concur with Colin Wilson’s opinion that Sugden’s book Jack the Ripper first printed in 1994 is by far the most balanced, factual and authoritative work on this case. According to Sugden, “I wrote this factual study of the Ripper case, now issued for the 3rd time as an antidote to the sensational identity theories and irresponsible journalism then in print”.

Sir Melville Macnaghten, second in command of the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) at Scotland Yard in June 1889 named the follwing as the most likely suspects: (1) Kosminski, a poor Polish Jew resident in Whitechapel; (2) Montague John Druitt, a 31 year old barrister and school teacher who committed suicide in December 1888; (3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian-born multi-pseudonymous thief and confidence trickster, believed to be 55 years old in 1888, and detained in asylums on several occasions.

Chief Inspector Donald Swan, the officer in charge of the case, believed Kosminski was certainly the chief suspect. The head of the C.I.D. then Dr. Robert Anderson supported Swan's case.

Freemasonry is dedicated to making good men better, teaching and practicing friendship, morality, brotherly love, relief of the distressed and truth. For centuries it has successfully fused together peoples from different races and religions to live together in peace and harmony under one roof. Hollywood is driven by the need for profit and celebrity status. Anyone who believes in things from sensational movies from Hollywood may have a problem facing the realities of life. I would not be surprised that after a few more years there will be another version of Jack the Ripper movie in the cinemas.

Endnotes

[i] Inside The Brotherhood, Martin Short, 16 - 21
[ii] Knight, The Brotherhood, 161 -6; Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons, 284 - 5
[iii] Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons, 281
[iv] Knight, The Brotherhood, 55; Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons, 282
[v] Maxim Jakubowski & Nathan Braund, The Mammoth Book of Jack The Ripper, 428
[vi] Ibid, 428.
[vii] Public Record Office (PRO) MEPO 1/48
[viii] The Lodge of St Michael No. 2933 E.C. Centenary Publication (2002), Singapore, 32

Allah or Jesus?

By Fu Ceyi

Below is a copy of an email I received a few times a few weeks ago. I believe it has been circulating in Singapore for a few months.


“This is an interesting Article and is well worth reading. The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States, especially in the minority races!!!

Allah or Jesus? By Rick Mathes

Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their belief systems.I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.

When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: "Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?" There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, "Non-believers!" I responded, "So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can go to Heaven. Is that correct?" The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He sheepishly replied, "Yes."

I then stated, "Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to Heaven!" The Imam was speechless.

I continued, "I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to Heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to Heaven and He wants you to be with me?" You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the 'Diversification' training seminar were not happy with Rick's way of dealing with the Islamic Imam and exposing the truth about the Muslim's beliefs. I think everyone should be required to read this, but with the liberal justice system, liberal media, and the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized.

Please pass this on to all your e-mail contacts.This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well known leader in prison ministry.”

I first received Rick Mathes controversial article two years ago. This incident did not happen last month but in early 2004. hhtp://www.truthorfiction.com categorized it as "disputed". I remember reading other versions of the incident which raised doubts on Mathes' story and I am surprised that it is still making its round.


One reason the Muslim religion is the fastest growing in the United States could well be that the innate compassionate human spirit tends to sympathize with victims of tragedies or the poor tends to sympathize with each other. Let us look at the macro picture within history and now to get a better perspective. Yahwehists (Jews, Muslims and Christians) have since the time of Moses been locked in internecine wars and conflicts. Since the days of Moses, the lands on which Yahweh fought for his chosen people, Jesus walked and taught and Mohammed drove his camels until today have been drenched with blood by devotees of Yahweh. Even today, if you put a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim in the same room and even though they all worship the same god Yahweh and no matter how devoted they are they would not be able to agree on what is truth and on how Yahweh is to be worshipped.

Yahwehism was founded on war; in the days of Moses, god himself was actively involved in battles. It took Yahweh and his chosen people forty years to conquer Canaan (present day Palestine) and created Judea. Yahweh if he is a god appears human and inhuman; a cruel, hateful, destructive, vengeful and jealous one. He is portrayed in Exodus, Isaiah and Zephaniah as a man of war, living in the midst of his people and as a warrior who gives victory.[i] Isaiah 42:13 proclaims his human characteristics, “The Lord goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury, he cries out, he shouts aloud and he shows himself mighty against the enemy.” The bad side of his human characteristic showing his vengefulness and hatred for his enemies is apparently reflected in Deuteronomy 32: 41-42, “...When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgement; I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders…” That was god speaking 3,500 years ago, is it not strange that a god that is attributed with creating the universe with billions and billions of suns can have mere humans as enemies?

Taking the heads of their enemies is still being practiced today by his Muslims devotees. I recall watching a video clip on the Internet two years ago when a Korean citizen was beheaded; I was upset for two days, then I realized that there were tens of thousands of Iraqis who were bombed to death by Americans and many of them in direct hits were torn to pieces. Prior to the beheading of the Korean and others in the Iraq war by Muslim terrorists, born again Christian American president George Bush II has acutually called for a world wide "jihad" or rather "crusade" on world wide TV stations against "Muslim terrorism" in 2001. Both "jihads" and "crusades" are terrorism dressed up in different clothing, one appears to be illegal, the other legal; both are certainly wrong, vulgar and cruel. The war on Iraq was initiated by Bush & Co. on lies, the official report on the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Tower in New York is now disputed by many professional engineers and specialists in explosives. Imminent American and European scholars have raised serious doubts on the official 9/11 report and many others have condemned it outright.

Refer http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html. and other internet sites.


Christianity was likewise established by Constantine in 325 (C.E.) in Nicaea. He declared Jesus divine and thereafter went home the same evening and murdered his mother and brother. Jesus’ cross became the Romans’ sword and the Roman Catholic Church became the state religion of the Roman Empire. All other competitive religious brands were ruthlessly wiped out by 391 (C.E.) under the rule of Theodosius and their properties confiscated and handed over to the Roman Catholic Church. Today, the Roman Catholic Church jealously guards its position as the mother of all Christian churches and is offended when other denominations referred to her as a sister church. Until today it teaches that the pope is "infallible" and there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church and other protestant Christians were proclaimed "defective" as recently as in 2000 and non Christians beyond redemption as they and their ancestors are deemed devil worshippers.

Prior to the advent of Christianity, the earlier Pagan ancestors of Christians were likewise considered devil worshippers; it is the only religion in the world that deemed its members' ancestors as devil worshippers. It was pope Innocent III elected pope in 1198 who fist proclaimed himself Vicaris Christi, Vicar of Christ. He believed at the age of 38 that as ‘supreme pontiff’, he had authority over the whole world. In his own words, ‘lower than God but higher than man: one who judges all, and is judged by no one’.[ii] By this announcement and other legislation at his Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 he elevated himself from a mere successor of Peter, the apostle to that of being the deputy of god and established his absolute power and the Church’s subsequent hegemony over Western Europe.


He now had both spiritual and temporal political power, the supreme monarchical authority – societas christiana, the feudal overlord of Europe; emperors, kings and barons submitted to him.[iii] Innocent III was the nephew of Pope Clement the III who made him a cardinal in 1190 when he was not even a priest but the incredible thing was that the cardinals elected him as pope in 1198 at the young age of 37 and before being consecrated as pope, he had to be ordained to the priesthood.[iv] His family produced eight popes. Despotism, nepotism and cronyism were rife in the Church in the dark ages. John Wycliffe (1329 - 1384 C.E.), a priest and lecturer in Oxford University called his pope the antichrist.

The corruption and decadence in the Roman Catholic Church led to its schism and finally to reformation and revolution which brought about the demise of the papacy and monarchy system of government in Europe and the establishment of secular democratic humanist system of governments. Voltaire in rallying the forces for change cried "Remember the cruelties". Many are familiar with Lord Acton's axiom, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" but not many may realize that he was referring to popes. According the Roman Catholic Church’s dogma, its authority comes from the first pope, Peter, the chief apostle of Jesus. Peter as we all know was a liar; he denied he knew Jesus three times before the cock crow to protect his own skin. Cain the first proverbial murderer on earth who murdered his own and only brother and sibling was also the fist builder of western civilization i.e. if you believe in the Old Testament.


Even when Europe was a Christian hegemony, Christians could not live in peace amongst themselves. The Roman Catholic Church had a monopoly for 1200 years as the only Christian church in Europe until 1520 when Martin Luther broke away and started the first protestant church. The founding father of Christian Protestantism when secured enough from the inquisitors of the Roman Catholic Church denounced all Christians who remained Catholics, all Jews who refused to accept Jesus as Messiah, and all other "protestant" Christians who were not Lutheran as "agents of Satan".

Now there are more than 2000 different denominations in the world. Some such denominations accuse each other of not being true Christians. Likewise, Muslims and Jews are similarly fragmented though not as much as Christians. The periods of the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, the dark ages of the inquisition, the wars between England, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, the hundreds of thousands of known battles in Europe and the Middle East had almost always been fought in the names of Jesus and Yahweh; the six centuries of colonialism world wide by the six Western Christian nations all indicate a propensity for lawlessness, torture, burning at the stakes and cannibalism; manifesting a culture rooted deeply from the beginning in religious violence based on their violent “holy” scriptures with harsh pronouncements, which sadly continues until today.


All three sides have a long list of deeply resented abuses committed by the other sides since ancient times. Every-time there is an abuse by one side, there will be a reciprocal abuse by the other side. With so much historical wars and genocides between them and amongst themselves, both real and imaginary, there are many nations and people of different races and religions suffering from wounded pride and perceived moral rectitude. Each knowing very well in details even the minor malefactions of the other but hardly ever admits its own sins and the sufferings its own policies have caused its people and especially others on the receiving end and the large majority of Earthlings caught in between. There are good and decent people in each side but they are usually subdued by the more ruthless hardliners and corrupted opportunistic characters who would not hesitate to use brute force, both physical and psychological to achieve their private agendas.

The hardliners and political opportunists on all sides either directly or through proxies in their respective national agencies of national propaganda fanned the hatred and fear of their people intentionally and misled them into believing their adversaries to be devilish and beyond redemption thus setting the conditions necessary for wars and conflicts. Each nation has its military and intelligence establishments usually working closely with large private sector defense contractors and manufacturers with vested interests, especially in the United States that evaluate dangers posed by the other sides. Such entrenched agencies have obvious incentives to exaggerate their adversaries’ capabilities and intention, they have in the past and present imagined and created enemies and dangers in order to boost military and intelligence spending and enriched themselves at the expense of tax payers.


America was likewise founded on war amongst Christians. When it was established, they promptly and ruthlessly proceeded to wipe out the Native Americans and stole their land. It does not matter that they have been living on their land for the last 20 - 30,000 years, way before the times of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Here again and again they did it in the name of Yahweh and Jesus. Here are some examples of the typical Christian attitude as illustrated by John Winthrop, the then governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and others towards the destruction of Native Americans. In 1634 he wrote: "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by the small pox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place" and puritan minister Increase Mather hailing the "miraculous" sign from god wrote: "God ended the controversy by sending the small pox amongst the Indians. Whole towns of them were swept away in some of them not so much as one soul escaping the destruction." Puritan author of On Plymouth Plantation (1632), William Bradford wrote: "... for it pleased god to afflict these Indians with such a deadly sickness, that out of 1,000, over 950 of them died, and many of them lay rotting above ground for want of burial."

Those not killed by the plagues were wiped out by Winchester rifles as the puritans moved further west into deep Indian territories. The Catholic Spanish conquistadores single handedly wiped out the ancient Incans and Aztecs in Mexico, stole thousands of their golden artifacts of tremendous archeological value and melted them into gold ingots, almost an entire cultural legacy vanished in their greedy hands .The plunder and destruction of ancient texts, relics and monuments of great archeological values by fervent Christian conquerors were lost forever, and with it the opportunities to decode their meaning and learn the truth about their ancient past and origin. According to author William McNeil, the native population of the Americas was about 100 million when Europeans first began their aggressive colonization in the early 1600s, today there are less than one million pureblood Native Americans left.[v] Charles Darwin in his travel and research observed in 1839, "Wherever the Europeans had trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal."


The incredible folly is that in the 21st century, Americans elected a Yahwehist "born again Christian" as president of the United States who went on world wide TV and called for a crusade against Muslim "terrorism" and threatened other sovereign national leaders and peoples with "You are either for us or against us". This brings us back to the days of pope Urban II who in 1095 called for the first crusade against the Muslims to recover the tomb of the pacifist Jesus. A few hundred thousand Muslims and thousands of Jews and Eastern Orthodox Christians along the way were put to the sword. Priests stationed along the route to Jerusalem kept reminding the crusaders who were given indulgences by the pope that "to kill an infidel is not murder."

George Bush believes that Yahweh wanted him to be president of the United States and to war against Afghanistan and Iraq. He claims he speaks for Yahweh. The first "holy" war and ethnic cleansing is recorded in Exodus 23: 33 when Yahweh screamed for the extermination of all Canaanites. The Israelites were told that the native Canaanites must not be permitted to live in their own country and the prophet Joshua was the chosen terminator: "Then Joshua came and wiped out the Anakim from the highlands, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anoth, from all the highlands of Judah and all the inhabitants of Israel; he delivered them and their towns over to the ban. No more Anakim were left in Israelite territory except at Gaza, Gath and Ashod."


If Bush really believes Yahweh speaks to him than the world is really in danger. Nothing in the world is more dangerous than having the most powerful man in the world with his finger on the nuclear buttons than a man who is motivated emotionally by sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. If he is just a typical proxy politician playing a dangerous game manipulating the neo-conservative Christian Zionist religious fundamentalists then we are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Removing him alone would not stop this dangerous game as there are more dangerous and powerful manipulators behind him.

Religion is without a doubt still a most powerful and pervasive force in the minds of humans; history has shown that religion has often been linked to the worst examples of human behavior. Religious ideologies and messianic missionary devotions are indisputably the core factors in the escalation of violence and evil on Earth. Right wing neo-conservative Christian coalition comprising the Catholic north and Southern protestants have hijacked the Republican party and with Bush as spokesman for Yahweh, the Republican party is now also referred to as GOP (God's Own Party).

American politicians driven by greed and self interest have forgotten and discarded Abraham Lincoln’s “With malice towards none and charity for all”. He spoke those words after experiencing the painful American civil war. Lincoln’s observation and caution “As a result of the war, corporations have now been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow … until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed” [vi] may destined to become a reality, not only for the USA but for the whole world as well if not prevented by independent thinking people in the world, especially by Americans, Britons and Australians.


Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilization gives us an extremely useful analysis of the huge nine civilization blocks: Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese. The interactions amongst these nine blocks would determine the direction of international politics, commerce, war and diplomacy. He correctly observed that what is often called "universalism" is in fact cleverly disguised western imperialism that is one civilization trying to impose its values on all others. He rejected the monotheistic western universal hegemony model and advocated a plural universalism integrating all the nine blocks; each mutually accepting, honoring and cherishing their differences and similarities, a kind of unity in diversity as manifested in the laws of nature, as is practiced in Freemasonry, a wonderful diversity, where we all have our own unique perceptions of the universe and truth yet united together in unity by our tenets of universal love and relief, fraternity, equality, liberty and justice. Such tenets and principles provide comfort, meaning and purpose in life without the false promises and threats of eternal salvation or damnation. It lifts us out of our narrow "holy" straits-jackets, helps us live together in unity - and that means not just the absence of conflict but the deep fellowship we enjoy when we relate cheerfully, positively and harmoniously to one another; on virtues that bring people together and not differences that keep us apart.


There will never ever going to be an absolute truth from one civilization block that will be accepted by everyone on earth. Absolute truth is for God alone, we humans will just have to live with our different religious "truth". Ask a person "What is truth?" and you would very likely get different answers from different people living in different parts of the world. There is no founder or leader of truth; there are only honest men and liars. Every one will consciously or unconsciously live his truth or lie. Only you can discover and live your truth, others can’t discover and live your truth for you and your “truth” will change with the shifting dynamics of the world. According to John the evangelist, two thousand years ago, at his trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus claimed, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” In response, Pontius Pilate, the brutal governor of Judea (26 - 36 C.E.) exonerated by gospel writers asked “What is truth? (It estin aletheia?) Unfortunately, there was no response from Jesus.[vii] According to the gospel of Matthew Jesus “gave no answer” and “made no reply, not even to a single charge, to the great amazement of the governor”.[viii]


Ask any person from any part of the world "Should a person be honest?" and the answer would invariably be "Yes". To be honest, I cannot possibly feel comfortable with some of the stories in the bible and the teachings of the church. We are not the center of the universe, our existence is not essential to God's existence and there is no reason to believe that a man now orbiting space in the flesh would return to destroy the existing universe and save only 144,000 Christians. 144,000 are about half the population of Toa Payoh town in Singapore. Billions who died would not be allowed to rest in peace; it is not enough that they were brutally tortured, burned on the stakes or violently murdered or simply died of diseases or old age, they would have to be resurrected to be sent to a newly created eternal hell.

The universe would not be destroyed just because a few evangelists 2000 years ago said so. If our civilization as we know it is wiped out by nuclear winter or global warming, the sun and all the planets including Earth would still be around. Scientists estimate that our sun burns about 400 tons of nuclear fuel every second. It may take another 5,000 or 20,000 years for earth to rejuvenate itself, 20,000 years is but a split nano second in the 6 billion years history of earth. There are about 6.4 billion of us on earth and earth is but a pale blue dot in our solar system and our sun is but one of the billions of suns in the Milky Way.


The other dangerous dogma is that we are born sinners and evil and only the Roman Catholic Church could provide salvation by baptism and confession, earth is a temporary abode ruled by Satan. This gives psychological license for humans to do evil and inevitably leads to corruption; "if we do not take advantage of the opportunity to enrich ourselves someone else will, we are naturally evil, selfish and opportunistic." Confucius teaches the opposite that humans are naturally born good, guided by our innate conscience; if you disagree with him, you may wish to consider that children are neither born good nor evil but will grow up to be good or evil according to their family upbringing, social and religious environment. We will then at least be empowered to take responsibility for our conduct and face the consequences of our wrong doings govern by the natural law of action and consequences, cause and effect.

There is absolutely no reason to degrade ourselves, believing ourselves to be weak and defective and live in fear of death, hell or Yahweh. There are nobility and strength in us, we all have the right to pursue our happiness differently here and now with duty and responsibility to each other, mutually respecting, searching and expanding the common values inherent in us, enjoying the rich tapestry of unity in diversity with equal emphasis on both diversity and unity thus centering us on a solid foundation of peaceful co-existence


Huntington’s analysis though brilliant, however, did not go deep enough in the exploration of the profound impact Yahwehism has on western minds that resist the harmonious integration of peoples of different races and religions. Yawehism represents the dark ages of inquisition, violent wars and destruction, ethnic cleansing, jealousy, bigotry and brutality. Yawehism is foreign to native Pagan Europeans. Countries in the Middle East are geographically referred to as Asian countries by Europeans though Asians would have a problem accepting countries in the Middle East as being part of Asia.

The high culture of Europeans is represented by the ancient Greeks, the Renaissance and the brief period of brilliance in the 18th century. It was the many philosophers and scientists including freemasons who risked their lives, the lives of family members who bravely resisted and toppled the corrupted powerful church and established the more tolerant and humane secular democratic forms of governments. Such democratic institutions are now once again threatened by the rise of the neo-conservative Christians working hand in hand with greedy capitalists who seek to establish a theocracy in the United States. Pat Buchanan, a Republican presidential candidate in 1993 chose the Christian Coalition national convention to state his stand clearly: “Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that sets men free.” Their goal for a Christian America seems to be the same as that of their Muslim and Jewish counterparts in wanting to establish a divinely ordained Islamic state and an expanded biblical state of Israel.


The obvious problem confronting us today is that we are armed with 21st century weapons of mass destruction and some of our world political and religious leaders are still being driven by violent intolerant primitive superstitious religious “absolute truth” dogmas written by dead men 2,000 years ago about dead men living 3,500 years ago when they then believed and practiced animal and human sacrifices to god, rode on camels, lived in tents and stoned members of their tribe to death when they were caught gathering firewood on Sabbath day. Our spiritual development is so lacking behind our scientific development, we have thousands of ready to launch nuclear guided missiles aiming at each other and many misguided politicians in power.


Extremes bring changes and the changes may be for the better. I am an optimist. More and more Americans are now awakening to the extreme folly of the Bush administration. His popularity is now at its lowest, hovering at about 35% approval. Putting Americans and everyone on earth in danger may be the catalyst that will awaken the people to transform their way of thinking. We need to think differently if we are to live harmoniously together; as Martin Luther Jr. put it, "We either learn to live together as brothers or die together as fools."

Earth, beautiful and sacred, created by God is cursed by Yawehists. It has supported life for millions of years; it now supports 6.4 billion of us and other species and asked for nothing in return. As Ghandi said, "There is enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed." There is no reason why tens of thousands of us are dying of starvation; billions are living below the poverty line whereas a few hundred Wall Street conglomerates, mostly American, own most of the wealth on earth. Change we must and we will.


Endnotes
[i] Exodus 15:3, Zephaniah 3:27
[ii] Cited by Saperstein, Moments of Crisis, 19; James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, 281.
[iii] The Templars (2001) 178, Innocent III, Sermon on the Consecration of a Pope, quoted by Brian Tierney, Englewood Cliffs, (N.J. Prentice Hall 1980), The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300, 132, James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword 280.
[iv] Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, 248 – 49, James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, 282.
[v] William McNeil, Plagues and Peoples, Doubleday, New York, 1997.
[vi] Quoted by Thom Hartmann, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001, 103.
[vii] John 18: 38.
[viii] Matthew 27 : 12-14

The Joshua, Giordano, Galileo and Freemasonry Story

By Fu Ceyi

This article is a result of an interesting exchange amongst participants and friends on the controversy of the “missing day” in the Bible. In modern times, the legend of the “missing day” first emerged in 1936 with a book entitled The Harmony of Science and Scripture written by Harry Rimmer. Rimmer cited an 1890 publication as his “proof” of the calculations behind the story. Scholars and scientists then dismissed Rimmer’s claim as baseless but despite being discredited the legend continues to spread amongst devoted Christians.

This legend was resurrected again by Harold Hill In 1974. In his book, How to Live like a King’s Kid, Hill devoted a whole chapter to claiming that “NASA scientists have discovered a ‘missing’ day in time that corresponds to Biblical accounts of the sun's standing still in the sky.” He was not a "consultant in the space program," and neither was he "involved (in the space program) from the start, through contractual arrangements with my company" as he claimed. He was President of the Curtis Engine Company which merely had a contract with NASA to service its electrical generators.


His version of the legend "missing day explained" spread amongst Christians via various church bulletins and was eventually picked up by the then mainstream media as well and now occasionally still makes its rounds in the internet via e-mail. Blinded by faith, devoted Christians kept it alive; faith ultimately is the inexplicable acceptance of something for which no proof exists and neither is proof required for the extremely gullible devotees. His claim has been debunked by http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm. as false. His claim of the “missing day explained” depends purely on dubious scientific processes, misrepresentation of his status and some very selective and questionable interpretations of scripture.


For the benefit of those not familiar with this “lost day” in time story, it originates from two passages taken from the Old Testament. The first is from the Book of Joshua and describes Joshua's defense of Gibeon from the five kings of the Amorites. In order to provide Joshua with additional daylight hours to finish off the Amorites before they could escape under cover of darkness, Yahweh provided the additional daylight by causing the sun to stand still in the sky for nearly a day:-


Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [i]


Interestingly this passage was also quoted by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) amongst others from the scripture in the indictment of both Bruno Giordano (1548 - 1600) and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). The inquisition cardinals found Father Bruno Giordano, a heretic who endured almost eight years of imprisonment and repeated torture by the inquisitors guilty on 8th February 1600. Giordano was charged with eight counts of heresy; amongst the eight included the Cathars' belief that the transubstantiation of bread into flesh and wine into blood was a falsehood, that the virgin birth was a myth and perhaps most damning of all, his conviction that we then lived in an infinite universe with the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Giordano refused to recant and was burnt at the stake. Most scholars maintained that Giordano was burnt more because of his Copernicanism and his belief in the infinity of inhabited worlds than the other heresies cited together.

Saint Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (1542 - 1621)

Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit professor of theology at the Collegium Romanum, personal theologian and advisor on all matters of doctrine to pope Clement VIII (1592 - 1605) despite his academic brilliance could not understand science and on that fateful day made Bruno the first scientific martyr supporting the cause of free thought. Bellarmine, besides the Lord Cardinal Severina, was the other leading theological "Hammer of Heretics" in the reign of Clement VIII. Clement VIII, a self proclaimed ascetic, suffered much from gout, moved his residence constantly, incurred household expenses four times greater than pope Sixtus V (1585 - 1590), appointed three of his nephews to cardinals, one at the age of fourteen. He ruined the papal finances by the extravagances of the gifts he bestow on them.[ii]


The "Holy See" on record has never sentenced a heretic to the stake directly; it was always done through the civil authority. The official statement with incredible characteristic hypocrisy from the Holy Office to the Governor of Rome never varies in text or consequences:-


Take him (the heretic) under your jurisdiction, subject to your decision, so as to be punished with the due chastisement; beseeching you, however, as we do earnestly beseech you, so to mitigate the severity of your sentence with respect to his body that there may be no danger of death or of the shedding of blood. So we Cardinals, Inquisitor and General, whose names written beneath decree. [iii]


This statement couched in euphemism was effectively an order to the secular court to take Bruno and burn him alive. Invariably throughout the centuries of inquisition, not a single governor or judge has ever failed to obey this disguised papal demand without exception. Not a single case exist where a such sentence was ever commuted, though empowered officially, no governor or judge dared to ignore the instruction of the Holy Office, they feared instant excommunication and perhaps the agony of having to face the same situation where they may find themselves facing the death sentence without "the shedding of blood".

Such hypocritical corrupted piety was always displayed in the church's official transactions, all confessions extracted from "witches" and "heretics" with horrendous instruments of torture by Hammers of Heretics were always recorded as given voluntarily. Though the most painful forms of torture were permitted, "the shedding of blood" must be avoided. This could have derived from the superstition that if a prisoner was cut and bled profusely, he might identify himself with Christ and thereby derive inner strength from it. The other possible reason is that by attentively avoiding the shedding of blood, the Inquisitors superstitiously believed that they were distancing themselves from any possible link to Christ's persecutors and torturers who shed Jesus' blood during the crucifixion.


The public burning of Giordano on 19th February, 1600, a feast day in Rome was a well publicized event. A newsletter, Avvisi e ricordi printed in advance announcing "An entertaining judicial burning was expected" was distributed to inform the people of the coming event. The route to the stake was packed with the "virtuous" and the curious and Bruno led in chains were mocked by the crowds. In response to their yelling, Bruno comforted himself with animated quotes from his books and the sayings of the ancient teachers. The procession was halted, a jailer with another two held Bruno's head rigid; a long metal spike was thrust through Bruno's left cheek pinning his tongue and going through the right cheek, another spike was then rammed vertically through his lips. Bruno was physically gagged with two iron spikes forming an iron cross even before he was burnt.[iv]

Bruno Giordano (1548 - 1600)

Bruno is perhaps best known for his system of mnemonics (art of memory) and as an early proponent of the idea of extra-solar planets and extraterrestrial life. From 1583 to 1585 he lived at the house of the French ambassador in London. It was during this period he published his two most important books, Cena de Le Ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper) and De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds). Both were published in 1584. In Cena de Le Ceneri, Bruno defended the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. In De l’Infinito, Universo e Mondi, he argued that the universe was infinite, that it contained an infinite number of worlds, and that these were inhabited by intelligent beings.


To Bruno, "Time gives all and takes all away; everything changes, but nothing perishes", all things are recycled and interdependent. "This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the centre of things." [v]

He was obviously very much into ancient Greek (Democritus & Heraclites) and other eastern mystical teachings. This position is akin to Indian (Death is no loss and birth is no gain) and Chinese teachings, especially the teachings of I Ching (The Book ofChanges) and Lau Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Like other Renaissance scholars and philosophers, he was very much against the use of violence by the church in enforcing its dogma on the populace:

"The procedure which the church uses today is not that which the Apostles used: for they converted the people with preaching and the example of a good life, but now whoever does not wish to be a Catholic must endure punishment and pain, for force is used and not love; the world cannot go on like this, for there is nothing but ignorance and no religion which is good." [vi]


Fifteen years later, Bellarmine instigated the arrest and trial of Galileo. Galileo after being shown the deep dark dungeons with rats the size of cats running around and the torture instruments recanted publicly, promised never to preach such "nonsense" about Copernicus heliocentric (sun-centered) system ever again and was spared the pain of torture and death by fire. Bellarmine and other powerful figures in the church feared Galileo as "the resurrected Giordano".

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) was a monk, astronomer, mathematician and classical scholar. His book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) published in 1543 banned by the church came to mark the starting point of modern astronomy and in turn of modern science encouraging young astronomers, scientists and scholars/philosophers to take a more skeptical attitude toward the established primitive superstitious church dogma which then permeated the lives of the populace in western Europe.

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium 2nd edition 1566 by Nicolaus Copernicus.

Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who formulated the basic law of falling bodies, which he verified by careful measurements. A professor of mathematics at the University of Padua (the University of the Republic of Venice) he taught mainly Euclid's geometry and geocentric astronomy. He constructed his own telescopes and during the summer and fall of 1609 and the winter of 1610 he focused his telescope on the night sky and began to make remarkable discoveries that would change the world. The astronomical discoveries he made with his telescopes were described in a short book called the Starry Messenger published in Venice in May 1610. This work caused a sensation. Galileo claimed to have seen mountains on the Moon, to have proved the Milky Way was made up of tiny stars, and to have seen four small bodies orbiting Jupiter.

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

In 1611, Galileo took his telescope with him and went to Rome to present his findings to the pontifical court. Initially many were impressed by his findings as they have yet to appreciate the implications this would have on their religious dogma. It was Cardinal Bellamine who first pointed to Galileo that “You can prove no such thing with your mathematics” and that “physical reality is explained not by mathematics but by the Scriptures and the Church Fathers.” [vii]

Galileo invited Bellarmine to look through his telescope, Bellarmine looked through the telescope and though he has the same physical eyes as we do, he saw only the scriptures. Or may be he saw what Galileo saw but realized the implications that it would be detrimental to his authority and the authority of the Church. Or else being a literalist he could not possibly accept the heliocentric theory because it contradicted the “divine” words of god in the bible. How could Galileo’s findings square with other biblical verses such as: “The world also is established, that it cannot be move”; “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose”; “He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down”?

As chief theologian, he must have been familiar with the teachings of 4th century St. Augustine. In The City of God, Augustine described the distinction between the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly which defined the life of man and his spiritual journey from the earthly realm to the heavenly one. Though Augustine’s distinction was certainly allegorical only, however, over the centuries, the church fathers have come to see the images as a reality.

The City of Man was located here beneath the moon. A temporary earthy abode for humankind; ruled by Satan, materialistic, sinful, painful and corrupted. Earth below the moon was chaotic, imperfect, unpredictable and changeable because the devil had disturbed god’s originally perfect world by persuading Eve and Adam (humankind’s first couple) to eat an apple (forbidden fruit of knowledge). Hence, all descendants of Eve and Adam are deemed to be born with original sin. The City of God was in the heavens above the moon, it shone in the night, was indestructible, unchangeable and always beautiful and pure reflecting god's perfection.

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition

The scripture said that the heavens and earth were created for the benefits of men; that earth is the center of the universe; that heaven and hell are actual physical locations and that Jesus defied the law of gravity and physically ascended into heaven. How could these be so if according to Galileo, earth was just another planet revolving around the sun? How are we to locate heaven and hell in the Copernican system? Where is the resurrected Jesus, heaven and hell? How are we to locate them amongst the billions and billions of stars and galaxies in existence? It is now not a simple case of just heaven above and earth below. According to Cardinal Bellarmine, “Hell is a subterranean place distinct from the tombs” and he concluded by saying that hell must be at the centre of the earth based on his so called “natural reason”:

The last is natural reason. There is no doubt that it is indeed reasonable that the place of devils and wicked damned men should be as far as possible from the place where angels and blessed men will be forever. The abode of the blessed (as our adversaries agree) is heaven, and no place is further removed from heaven than the centre of the earth.

Bellarmine’s argument is silly and awkward, earth is one of the billions of billions of planets in the heavens, and heavens are every where. Today, I believe it would be difficult even to find Christians who would believe in such primitive nonsense. While Mulla Sadra was teaching Muslims that heaven and hell exist in the minds of men, Bellarmine was strongly arguing that they have exact geographical locations. While Kabbalists were reinterpreting the bible symbolically, Catholics and Protestants were reading the bible literally as historical facts.

Spanish Inquisitor Leon of Castro asserted in 1576, “Nothing may be changed that disagrees with the Latin translation of the Vulgate, be it a single period, a single little conclusion or a single clause, a single word of expression, a single syllable or one iota.” To accept Galileo’s findings would be to accept that earth is orbiting in heaven and heaven is here, there and everywhere and that all planets in heaven are subjected to changes, destruction and renewal. How are we then to locate the City of God? Is not the City of Man already located in heaven?

For Bellarmine and the Church fathers, the City of God was the loveliest, the most desirable and magnificent thing in the universe their minds could imagine but could not describe whereas Galileo had little or no interest in Augustine’s City of God. For him, the heavens held an extraordinary splendor different from that as imagined by Bellarmine, for Galileo, the heavens with all its beauty could be studied, understood and appreciated with reverence and wonder.

Galileo was thrilled to observe the “inner workings” and processes of nature and the heavenly bodies. For those who have penetrated the "veil of darkness" as manifested in the invisible "inner workings" of nature/universe, the greatest beauty is found in reality, the "light is but darkness visible". If the findings of Galileo were accepted, the City of God would never again be viewed in the same way as taught by the church. Jesus said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God” but the church wanted the exclusive control of both the City of God and the City of Man, it ended with neither.


In 1616 Galileo wrote The Letter to the Grand Duchess in which he vigorously attacked the followers of Aristotle. In this work, addressed to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine, he argued strongly for "a non-literal interpretation of Holy Scripture when the literal interpretation would contradict facts about the physical world proved by mathematical science" in order to avoid “the terrible detriment for souls if people found themselves convinced by proof of something that it was made then a sin to believe.” Here, Galileo stated quite clearly that for him the Copernican theory is not just a mathematical calculating tool, but is a physical reality:-


I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover ... I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it.


The work described Galileo's new scientific method and contains a famous quote regarding mathematics:-


Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.


This surely is what got him into trouble with the church, “The Book of Nature” according to him “is written in mathematics” and geometry is the heart of mathematices, hence the idea that God may well be “The Grand Geometrician of the Universe.” Galileo was much more courageous than Copernicus and Descartes who wrote their books with obvious constraint. Galileo in contrast was actually asserting that the church had no authority to determine physical reality; he was actually defying the church’s authority in the physical realm leaving the church with influence only in the spiritual realm. It was obvious to the church fathers that if that was to be the case, the church would loose its authority on earth. For the church truth is not as important as control, thus Galileo and others have to be silenced.

In February 1632 Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican. Soon after its publication, the book was banned and Galileo was summoned by the inquisition office to Rome. Illness prevented him from traveling to Rome until 1633. Some admirers of Giordano see Galileo as a coward for recanting, this is a silly notion, and he was already old, frail and sick when summoned before the inquisition. Even a strong young man today if shown the deep dark dungeons and various instruments of torture in the torture chamber of Castel Sant' Angelo would submit.

For more than a thousand years, every important prisoner of the Vatican had been incarcerated within its metre-thick walls, Castel Sant' Angelo was home to prisoners of the inquisition. Within, the darkness is all pervading; passageways link tiny, low-ceilinged six foot square dark dank chambers. Beyond a dozen such chambers is a twenty foot square high-ceilinged torture chamber equipped with some of the most ingenious instruments of torture ever designed by men. The works of the inquisitors were carried out in absolute secrecy and no one knows exactly what horrors were perpetrated in the name of Jesus. In this dark chamber "may be found the very heart of darkness, the epicenter of Christian evil, the torture chamber of the Roman Inquisition."


After the burning of Giordano and persecution of Galileo, many European intellectuals, scientists and philosophers wanting to continue their research fled to England. They were reportedly given shelter by freemasons. Such Europeans together with their English counterparts including freemasons eventually became members of the "Invisible College". Members of the Invisible College subsequently petitioned the Crown and formed the Royal Society of London. The strong connection between the Royal Society and Freemasonry is well established.

Within this historical context, the Joshua story and Galileo's heresy may have been linked and found its way into Freemasonry's second degree ritual. The Q & A leading to the second degree appears to be a reaffirmation of Galileo's truth or rather "heresy", known and transmitted in secret and allegory to selected candidates at that time. This is of course a long shot in the dark; I believe only the author/authors that included this story into the ritual would know for sure its intended meaning and purpose. Some Masonic scholars read the Joshua story symbolically, the sun standing still is taken symbolically to mean meditation in stillness (timelessness) until the minds are purified of impure thoughts; enemies of men are their impure desires.

I wonder if such Zen like Buddhist notions were prevalent in the western minds of the Masonic authors at that time. Others see the obvious connection in the character of Pythagoras also known as Peter Gower in English. He is affectionately referred to as “Dear friend and Brother Pythagoras” by freemasons. Of the mystery schools in ancient Greece, the first major school of imminence was the Pythagorean School. Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher and mathematician. Besides mathematics and philosophy, he taught music and the doctrine of metempsychosis, that is the transmigration of souls or reincarnation. He then believed that he has been reincarnated four times. His religious philosophy is parallel to that of Siddhartha Gautama; and likewise, believes that earthly desires and material possessions are obstacles to the discovery of divine truths. Jesus also taught that "It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven that for a camel to go through the hole of a needle." This Joshua story is to be taken either symbolically or in allegory but not literally.


Galileo as professor of mathematics for twenty years at the University of the Republic of Venice must have taught many of his geometry students Euclid's 47th proposition which forms part of the English PMs jewel and is the most popular proof of Pythagoras' theorem. In case you have forgotten, when you build up squares on the sides of a right triangle, Pythagoras' Theorem then claims that the sum of (the areas of) two small squares equals (the area of) the large one. In algebraic terms, it means a2 + b2 = c2 where c is the hypotenuse while a and b are the sides of the triangle. Of the hundreds or rather possibly thousands of proofs of Pythagorean's Theorem, this basic proof first attributed to Euclid in 300 B.C.E. known as Elements I.47 (First Book, Proposition 47) is probably the most well known, it is also popularly known as Bride's Chair amongst other names.[viii]


In the second degree, Freemasonry is described as a progressive science integrating science with God, the science of darkness visible, the science of happiness, knowing, meaning and being. God is referred to as the "Grand Geometrician of the Universe" and is identified with the symbol of the compass and the square, and that as craftsmen, they are expected to make the liberal arts and sciences including mathematics and astronomy their future study in order that they may be enabled to discharge their duties as fit and regular members of societies and to estimate and appreciate the wonderful works of the Almighty.


What was a hidden mystery and secret known to a few is now common knowledge because of the demise of the papacy brought about by the reformation and revolution in Europe supported by freemasons. On 31 October 1992, 350 years after Galileo's death, the late Pope John Paul II gave an address on behalf of the Catholic Church in which he admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun and this is despite the fact that every school children now knows that earth orbits around the sun thus giving us the 365.24 days solar calendar. He did not mention anything about Giordano and towards the end of his life through his inquisition office in 2000 reiterated the infallibility of popes and reaffirmed that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church. Other non Catholic Christians even today are officially considered "defective".

Bellarmine, arrogant, ignorant and incapable of ascertaining truth was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1930, Giordano suffered the pain of torture and the agony of being burned to death, Galileo confined to house arrest died a lonely man. Both suffered so that others may progress and learn more truth about humankind and our universe.


Only keen historians of medieval European history would remember Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and pope Clement VIII whereas Giordano and Galileo are known by people old and young all over the world. Bruno Giordano’s T shirts are worn by millions in the world and NASA honors Galileo by naming one of their satellites Galileo. Truth will be made known and it will set you free from ignorance.

Cheers and happiness,

Fu Ceyi

Endnotes

[i] Joshua 10: 12-13 (King James Version)
[ii] Michael J Walsh, Lives of Popes, 214.
[iii] Michael White, The Pope and the Heretic, Little, Brown & Co., London, 2002, 4.
[iv] Ibid, 159/160.
[v] Bruno, De la causa, prinipio et uno (On Cause, Principle of Human Culture), London, 1584.
[vi] Quoted by Michael White, The Pope and the Heretic, Little, Brown & Co., London, 2002, 130.
[vii] Charles Van Doren, A History of Knowledge, Ballantine Books, New York, 1991, 201.
[viii] For more details on further proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem refer to W. Dunham, The
Mathematical Universe , John Wiley & Sons, NY, 1994. He cites a book The Pythagorean
Proposition by an early 20th century professor Elisha Scott Loomis. This book is a collection of
367 proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem and has been republished by NCTM in 1968.