Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Freemasons

  • The Metaphor of Cain and Abel

    Shortly after I wrote The Coup is Complete, a helpful article was published on La Civiltà Cattolica entitled “Fraternity From Cain’s Perspective.”1 I think it’s obvious that the metaphor of Cain And Abel can help us understand the current political turmoil around the world. I would also argue that these two articles can be associated with Freemasonry. Neither article mentions Freemasonry but I will explain the connection.

    Freemasons don’t openly honor Cain, but they do celebrate Tubal Cain as the first blacksmith. Tubal-Cain is not a murderer like Cain but the descendants of Cain are portrayed as being outside the worship of God. In Genesis 4:22, Tubal-Cain (spelled Tubalcain in the Bible) was a descendant of Lamech and Zillah. I believe he was seven generations from Cain.

    Tubal Cain is a master craftsman and a forefather of all skilled workers. He also symbolizes the dedication to craft and the development of tools. Last but not least, he represents the transmission of knowledge and the foundational skills that contribute to the betterment of society.

    Addressing Political Violence

    In the story of Cain and Abel as analyzed by Vincent Anselmo SJ there is an important difference between the Biblical story of Cain and the lesson the Freemasons take from it. As presented by Anselmo, the story of Cain and Abel may not be as dark as we think. But according to some versions of Freemasonry it implies division.

    Freemasons don’t excuse Cain’s murder. They focus on Tubal-Cain’s skills and contributions and avoid talking about any perceived spiritual shortcomings connected to his lineage. But something positive is missing in their interpretation. No one mentions that Cain was no longer belligerent toward God by the end of the biblical story.

    Cain and Abel in the Bible

    In the Bible, Able is a shepherd and Cain is a farmer. The prominence given to Cain is an important part of the story.

    Cain is presented as the more important character not only because he is the first in order of birth, but also because of the kind of welcome he receives when he comes into the world. Eve greets the birth of her first son with a cry of exultation, as if in the presence of something prodigious.[4] The first man, born of woman, is introduced as an exceptional, almost divine being. The words pronounced by Eve can be translated with a shocking expression: “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man” (Gen 4:1). From Eve’s point of view, there seems to have been a  participation with  God in this exceptional birth. Abel, by contrast, is mentioned almost en passant, as the additional son. (Anselmo)

    The character of Abel is presented as barely solid. His very name suggests breath and vapor. The two brothers are not able to see one another as a brother. Instead, they see one another as a competitor and an adversary to be eliminated. Anselmo represents the clash between Cain and Abel as a clash of hierarchies and preferences.

    It is for this reason that it is surprising how the story of the first pair of brothers is presented from the point of view of the guilty one, that is, of Cain, who, by killing Abel, also eliminates the possibility of defining himself as a brother.[2] Moreover, in the biblical account  we do not see any justification of the murderer, as  for example, in the story of Romulus and Remus, but the serious responsibility of the murderer is highlighted in an authoritative way by God. (Anselmo)

    A Clash of Hierarchies

    I’m starting to think that our familiarity with the story causes us to overlook important information. We know how the story ends. Cain kills his brother Abel. Then he attempts to avoid God’s judgement. Cain’s efforts to evade responsibility for his brother’s death are futile and he is eventually banished from the and and from his parents.

    The trouble between them begins when they both present an offering to the Lord. We are told that the Lord looks with favor on Abel and his offering (Gen 4:3-5a). When the Lord reveals his preference it upsets the hierarchy between the brothers and Cain becomes angry. However, in Anselmo’s telling of the story God discerns Cain’s feelings and tries to intervene before Cain does something he will regret. God loves Cain.

    Eve’s firstborn is not left alone with himself to brood over his resentment and anger. God intervenes and speaks directly to Cain,[9] first of all through a double question that is an invitation to discuss the issue: “The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?’” (Gen 4:6).

    The Lord’s acknowledgement of Cain’s turmoil allows him to see his inner emotional state from an outside perspective. In this way, God invites Cain to reflect on what’s happening within himself.

     “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it?” (Gen 4:7).

    The Lord’s intervention has no effect and Cain remains gruff and dismissive. However, he does express remorse later in the story. When he considers the sentence of being driven from his home and becoming a ‘restless wanderer on the earth’, he speaks to God sincerely and acknowledges his loss.

    “Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me’.” (Gen 4:13-14).

    The Lord responds by putting a mark on Cain to protect him from the violence of strangers.

    “But whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance!” (Gen 4:15). Faced with the drama of evil and the gravity of its consequences, the Lord confirms that God is the God of life. God’s word has the effect of stopping an intensification of evil and of restarting the path of history. The reader is informed that Cain receives from the Lord a sign to protect him (cf. Gen 4:15).

    Cain was not a reprobate in the end. He was a repentant soul.

    Cain and Abel: The Esoteric Offshoots.

    In my article I wrote that those who have taken control of our government (and their supporters) can still change their minds. I believed we could all be reconciled if they would just stop tearing things down and help us build. And this line of thought reminded me of Cain. I wasn’t likening them to Cain. I was thinking of the promise made to him by the Lord: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”

    The Freemasons

    The Temple Legend of the Freemasons has been on my mind since the first time I read about it. The main thing that stayed with me is that the Freemasons identify with Cain’s lineage. And they consider the lineage of Cain superior to the other half of humanity.

    We have seen that the Old Testament’s picture of Cain almost encourages this view. As Anselmo said above, “The first man, born of woman, is introduced as an exceptional, almost divine being.” This establishes the sense of a hierarchy. However if it’s true that Cain accepted his guilt and repented, a lingering sense of competition and superiority has no parallel in the biblical story.

    The Legend of Hiram Abiff

    The original Temple Legend is quite old. It has been embellished over the years, but the key figure has always been Hiram Abiff. He was the master architect sent by Hiram, King of Tyre to help Solomon build the temple at Jerusalem. Hiram Abiff embodies the ideal of knowledge, integrity, and perseverance within the legend and serves as a pivotal figure in the Masonic Third Degree ritual. But this legend also has complications.

    Construction of the temple lasted for years and members of the craft were frustrated by the lengthy process and the time required to advance in their titles and expertise. Three of them demanded that Hiram Abiff immediately give them the knowledge of a Master Mason. When Hiram refused, they killed him. Although they tried to hide his body, it was eventually found and they were brought to justice.

    The Metaphor of Cain and Abel

    In Freemasonry, the Temple Legend is seen as an instructive legend about the past and future of human evolution. It’s not hard to argue that this view pits the Freemasons and the Church against each other. According to some tellings, a person either belongs to one group or the other from birth.

    The situation is described differently by the Catholic church. We have evidence of the division in letters exchanged by Pope Leo the XIII and the Grand Orient of Charleston in the State of South Carolina.

    Humanum Genus

    In April 1884, Pope Leo XIII wrote Humanum Genus2 as a warning to the human race. He said it had departed from God and divided itself into two different and opposing parties, one of which assiduously combats for truth and virtue, and the other for those things which are opposed to virtue and to truth. One is the kingdom of God on earth, (the Church of Jesus Christ) and the other is the kingdom of Satan. (De iv. Dei, lib. xiv., chap. 17.)

    The Grand Orient’s Reply

    Albert Pike answered in behalf of The Grand Orient in August 1884. He began by claiming that The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry had accepted the Apostolate of Civil and Religious Liberty more than a century ago. They had not been in a hurry to answer ‘the Bull of Excommunication’ because the letter itself is proof that there is no reason to fear it. Pike claimed the controversy only existed because it was forced by the Church of Rome, its Jesuit soldiery, and its Tribunals of the Holy Office. (The Inquisition is used over and over to reinforce various arguments.) But now, he says, these things have no power because the Church has lost its temporal and spiritual power.

    Apparently, English, German and French Masonry had answered the Pope’s encyclical by denying any claim to religious or political principles, and Pike said he regretted this. In his opinion, they had undergone a fruitless humiliation. Therefore, he felt it was the right of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Freemasonry to ‘carry the war into the quarters of error...’

    Later in this letter he actually says that the Roman Church is “the Kingdom of Satan,” and calls the encyclical a manifesto against every other church calling itself “Christian.” (In other words, he claims all of Protestantism in Freemasonry’s apostolate.)

    Therefore, whatsoever the Popes, our Predecessors, have decreed to hinder the designs and attemps of the Sect of Freemasons; whatsoever they have ordained to deter or recall persons from Societies of this kind, each and all we do ratify and confirm by our apostolic authority. 3 (Grant p. 284)

    The letter was signed THE GRAND COMMANDER, Albert Pike, 33°.

    The Hubris of Freemasonry has Become Ironic

    Here is one more quote from Albert Pike lamenting the Church’s lack of tolerance. I include it because it’s so ironic.

    It was believed that the Pope looked with at least tolerant and indulgent eyes upon the people of the great Protestant Kingdoms and Countries, upon the Clergy and Laity of other denominations of Christians, upon, even such Hebrews as Sir Moses Montefiore; felt that the Turk, the Moor, the Parsee or the Hebrew was entitled to somewhat more merciful consideration and greater immunity from torture and mutilation than the dog, the wolf or the hyaena; and no longer considered it to be contrary to the law of God for men to insist upon imposing constitutional restrictions upon Autocracies and Despotisms, and for the People to demand to have a voice in the making of laws.

    Pike includes in this letter the names of previous Popes who had written papal bulls against Freemasonry: In Eminenti of Clement XII. inApril, 1738; Providas of Benedict XIV. in May, 1751; the Edict of Pius VII. in 1821; the Apostolic Edict Quo Graviora of Leo XII. in 1825; Pius VII. in 1829; Gregory XVI. in 1832; and Pius IX. in 1846, 1865, etc. So, the battle lines were drawn long before the more esoteric versions of this myth were developed.

    Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the Temple Legend

    In Rudolf Steiner’s book, The New Cain,4 we learn that the Temple Legend was introduced into the cultural life of central Europe by Christian Rosenkreutz. (p. 9) At first it was intended as teaching material for small groups of students. It was an aid for instruction about the past and future of human evolution. Later it became the core of different types of masonic rituals.

    Rudolf Steiner reconstructed his own Temple Legend from his own ‘independent spiritual research’. It can be seen as an ‘occult-imaginative means to school and develop the soul’s spiritual capacities’.

    Cain and Abel: the Primal Opposition in Humanity’s Evolution

    The division of the human race into two types is made clear in this version. Steiner calls it ‘a primal opposition in humanity’s evolution. His book seems to say that the original Temple Legend had already described humanity’s dual origin. But here he makes clear that humans are either the children of Cain or the children of Abel. (I believe this is where anthroposophy branches off from Freemasonry.)

    The Influence of Theosophy

    According to Steiner, the children of Cain emerged from asexual procreation and the children of Abel emerged from dual-gender procreation. Steiner tells us that the sons of Cain belong to the pre-Lemurian period, and the sons of Abel, or Seth, belong to Lemurian times. (Again, I could be mistaken but I think this concept comes from Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be a distinction between Abel and Seth.)

    The aim of theosophy was to reconcile this opposition. Today the anthroposophic world impulse and a freemasonry renewed through anthroposophy have taken up the challenge.

    Is Reconciliation Really the Goal?

    In my opinion, the word reconcile may be misleading. We are told that the initiation developed by Steiner will eventually replace the vision of the sons of Abel-Seth. This line will fade away, or at least the vision of this line. However there doesn’t seem to have been much fading since this book was written. Fading away would be preferable to what’s actually been happening.

    ..The brazen or molten sea can stand as a symbol of what the human being would have become if the three treacherous powers of doubt, superstition and the illusion of a personal self had not come to occupy the soul. Through these powers, human evolution on earth developed the fire in Lemurian times that water processes cannot quench in the Atlantean period. Instead human earthly powers must evolve in such a way that the original condition present in Cain before the fratricide is at last recreated in the soul. Only the descendants of Cain, coming to full and real I development, can sustain themselves in the face of earthly forces. The dreamlike soul powers of the children of Abel-Seth are not able to do so.

    1. Anselmo, Vincent, SJ. “Fraternity From Cain’s Perspective.” La Civiltà Cattolica, Jan. 4, 2023, https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/fraternity-from-cains-perspective/ ↩︎
    2. Leo XIII, “Humanum Genus.” The Holy See, 20 Apr. 1884, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus.html ↩︎
    3. M. R. Grant, True Principles of Freemasonry: A Treatise on the History, Principles or Tenets of Freemasonry, For The Information of Those Who Are “Within the Veil,” As Well As Those Who Are Without. Truth Publishing Company, Mississippi city, Miss. 1927. ↩︎
    4. Rudolf Steiner, The New Cain: The Temple Legend as a spiritual and moral impuse for evolution and its completion. Temple House Publishing Ltd., Hillside House, The Square, Forest Row, RH18 5ES. ↩︎

  • Was the Enlightenment a Democratic Movement?

    According to Harold Kaplan, Americans do not question the effects on the United States of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. But was the Enlightenment a democratic movement? Kaplan wrote:

    “We do not question that the twin roots of American national history were the religious revolution, which broke the Catholic hegemony, and the secular Enlightenment, which finally broke the traditional political structures, monarchical and hierarchical, of Europe…” (p. 14)

    ((Harold Kaplan, Democratic Humanism and American Literature, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1972, p. 14))
    (more…)

  • What is Necessary to American Democracy and What Can be Changed?

    It seems to me the American left has some housecleaning or path-clearing to do, historically speaking.  Important questions must be asked if we want to feel confident about our course of action. Hopefully, answering these questions will supply the energy the left is lacking.  These questions have to do with the basis of American democracy and what is required of American citizens. In other words, what is necessary to preserve American democracy and what can be changed? For example, is it logical to criticize the Enlightenment, as I have done in the past and at the same time defend American democracy, which is based on Enlightenment principles? If we question the Enlightenment, what philosophical basis do we have for defending democracy? This question is a matter of self-defense today.  A main focus of the Enlightenment was to defend the right of self-governance against the influence of organized religion and the regime it supported.

    Is the left on solid footing regarding the Enlightenment? I think it’s safe to say Marxism didn’t experience the Enlightenment in the same way the West experienced it. Does the Marxist left have a philosophical basis for defending American democracy? What is that basis and what would their democracy look like? We should talk about that.

    The claim that we owe American democracy to the Enlightenment has definite implications about organized religion as well. The institution of the Catholic Church was part of the ruling regime the Enlightenment helped to replace. The Church doesn’t have that role any more, but historically the rise of democracy was at odds with organized religion and especially with the Catholic Church. Luckily, we’re not talking today about religious allegiances or beliefs. Thanks in part to the Enlightenment, we’ve overcome that inflammatory epoch. I propose that we should be talking about what makes political sense in our nation’s past, and therefore what makes sense for American defenders of democracy moving forward.

    The basic problem remains–American religion doesn’t play nice with democratic politics.  The Trump regime is a case in point, not to mention the Supreme Court. The justices are not at all conflicted in their adversarial relationship  with American democracy. As we contemplate their blatant efforts to enslave the population, it must be understood that the civilization they have in mind has nothing in common with Christian civilizations of the past. And even if it did, the United States doesn’t share any of the history behind the European civilization they claim to love. When the left resists their efforts it is truly conservative in the American context.

    By contrast, a faction of America’s so-called “conservatives” wants to obliterate American democracy. It’s as if their ‘Church’ has become the United States.  Strangely, these Conservatives ignore their pope’s efforts to guide the Church on the path of Vatican II, and instead they spend all their time and energy strong-arming a democratic people into religious obedience. Considering they don’t hold themselves to an ethical Christian standard, they seem to be cementing in place an upside down world. How can we hope to have a coherent narrative if we fail to mention such incoherence?

    Maybe because of its history, the left resists religious sympathies in the progressive conversation. It seems to me this is a peculiar weakness on their part. And what about Marxism? Not only does America not share Europe’s feudal past, she doesn’t have a strong Marxist or atheist tradition. On the other hand, the Christianity they use to oppose Marxism is not quite Christian in many ways. Americans are products of the Enlightenment, whether they know it or not. They are also religious.

    I can’t end this post without talking about the Freemasons. The Freemasons were at the forefront of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, they had a lot to do with the formation of our government. Does that translate into authority on their part?  Is this nation tied to the mythical past of the Freemasons’ and their peculiar version of democracy and religion?  Can their mythical (and secretive) past lead to the future we need?

    The point of all of this is to sound the alarm. We don’t have a coherent notion of where we’ve been and where we’re going.  Worse, we on the left are not clear about the basic assumptions of our allies. The future has never been so hazy, and we can’t afford to remain unclear about our foundations. Hopefully the political right is not beyond our reach, but at the least we can try to shape our own faction. Together we must clear the path ahead.

     

     

     

     

     

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