Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry
John J. Robinson
Language: English
Pages: 376
ISBN: 1590771486
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Its mysterious symbols and rituals had been used in secret for centuries before Freemasonry revealed itself in London in 1717. Once known, Freemasonry spread throughout the world and attracted kings, emperors, and statesmen to take its sacred oaths. It also attracted great revolutionaries such as George Washington and Sam Houston in America, Juarez in Mexico, Garibaldi in Italy, and Bolivar in South America. It was outlawed over the centuries by Hitler, Mussolini, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. But where had this powerful organization come from? What was it doing in those secret centuries before it rose from underground more than 270 years ago? And why was Freemasonry attacked with such intense hatred by the Roman Catholic church?
This amazing detective story answers those questions and proves that the Knights Templar in Britain, fleeing arrest and torture by pope and king, formed a secret society of mutual protection that came to be called Freemasonry. Based on years of meticulous research, this book solves the last remaining mysteries of the Masons―their secret words, symbols, and allegories whose true meanings had been lost in antiquity. With a richly drawn background of the bloody battles, the opportunistic kings and scheming popes, the tortures and religious persecution throughout the Middle Ages, it is an important book that may require that we take a new look at the history of events leading to the Protestant Reformation.
of the Great Society xi Part t z THE KNIGHTS TEMPlAR CHAPTER 1: The Urge To Kill 3 CHAPTER 2: "For Now Is Tyme To Be War" 17 CHAPTER 3: "Whether Justly or Out of Hate" 37 CHAPTER 4: "First, and Above All ... The Destruction of .. the Hospitallers" 46 CHAPTER 5: The Knights ofthe Temple 63 CHAPTER 6: The Last Grand Master 79 CHAPTER 7: 4'The Hammer ofthe Scots" 99 CHAPTER 8: Four Vicars of Christ 116 CHAPTER 9: "Spare No Known Means of Torture" 127 CHAPTER 10: "No Violent Effusions of
reflected its principal objective over the past years: a stronger voice in the central government and greater influence on the se1ectionof men to serve in that. government: ."It suggested that the commons can be restored to quiet and peace by removing whenever they are known evil officers' and counsellors and putting better and more virtuous and more suffi· cient ones in their place, as well as removing all the evil circum stances from which the late disturbance and the other mischiefs befell
London 'Masons to throw off their ancient veil of secrecy and at the Londoners' presump tion that they could set themselves above all the Masonic lodges in England. The lodge at York considered itself to be the oldest lodge in the country, dating back to the seventh century and the building of York Cathedral. In 1725, the York lodge decided to assert itself and formed its own "Grand Lodge of All England." Much later, in 1767, the York Grand Secretary wrote that "this Lodge acknowledges no
this offer to the high court of Acre, the response was shouted insults and accusations of treason, which did not let up as Beaujeu stomped· from the hall. It seemed.that the Templar grand master was' wrong and the leaders ofAcre were right when word arrived at the city that Kala'un 'was dead~' He had moved out of Cairo at the head of his a.rmy on November 4, 1290, and had died within the week. His son, aI-Ashraf, however, had sworn to his dying father that he would take up the sword and carry out
lessons were taught by using the symbolism of the tools of the stonemason's trade, and Masonic expressions such as "on the square" became part of the common language. These mason's-tool symbols of morality were no part of Masonry before it came public in 1717, but they quickly took hold. The summation was reached in the symbol of the "ashlar," the building stone. The newly accepted Mason rep resented the just-quarried "rough ashlar" and was to use the sym bolic tools of morality to cut and