The Occult & Subversive Movements

Tradition & Counter-Tradition in the Struggle for World Power

Kerry Bolton

• Publisher: Black House Publishing Ltd
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781912759866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Public Law
• Index: Law

‘Conspiracy theory’ is now a widely familiar term, albeit generally referred to with sarcasm and scorn. Yet ‘criminal conspiracies’ are heard before law courts. The Mafia, the Thuggee in India, and Triads in China are all recognised criminal conspiracies that have ritualistic and religious elements. During the Cold War there were government investigations into a ‘communist conspiracy’.President Dwight Eisenhower in his ‘Farewell Address’ referred to a wide-ranging conspiracy he called the ‘military-industrial complex’. However, if political conspiracies are referred to that involve secret societies such as Freemasonry, the suggestion is met with derision. The situation is not helped when there are ‘conspiracy theorists’ who make outlandish claims and fail to support their allegations with reliable sources.In 'The Occult and Subversive Movements' Dr. Kerry Bolton applies scholarly methodology, in layman’s terms, to the question of conspiracies and the occult. Belief in magic, mysticism and the supernatural are unnecessary. What is relevant is that such notions are acted on by those who do believe them. Bolton uses reliable sources to marshal the evidence that there are occult initiates who have for centuries been fomenting revolutions, and using materialistic, rationalistic and communistic ideologies that appear contrary to occultism. Bolton examines the lineage of occult societies, occult doctrines of power conflict, the role of occult societies in revolutions, the undermining of traditional religions in pursuit of a one-world ‘syncretic religion’, the use of the United Nations and the European Union, and the centuries’ old dream of rebuilding the Temple of Solomon as the centre of a universal republic.Dr. Bolton understands the power of conspiracy and secrecy in history. All readers, from all traditions, will find this book worthy of attention. - Mark L. Mirabello, Ph.D., Professor of History.

Lineage of Secret Societies

Order of the Knights Templar

The Knights Templar are considered an occult society within the context of this study because:

1. The Templars, rightly or wrongly, were accused of secretly adhering to heretical doctrines.
2. There is evidence that the Templars incorporated Gnostic teachings, as indicated by the presence of pentagrams and other symbols.
3. Most importantly for this subject, the Templars are considered by occult societies as having been their forerunners. Such mythic perceptions are more important in this context than the historical reality.

Eliphas Levi, the nom de plume for Alphonse Louis Constant, the famous late 19th century French occult theorist whom, on the basis of his descriptions of certain occult societies, we may regard as being a Traditionalist at war with the Counter-Tradition, stated of Templarism in Masonic lore.

Masonry has not merely been profaned but has served as the veil and pretext of anarchic conspiracies descending from the secret influence of the vindicators of Jacques de Molay, and of those who continued the schismatic work of the Temple. In place of avenging the death of Hiram1 they have that of his assassins. The anarchists have resumed the rule, square and mallet, writing upon them the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – Liberty, that is to say, for all the lusts, Equality in degradation and Fraternity in the work of destruction. Such are the men whom the Church has condemned justly and will condemn forever. 2

The Knights Templar escort Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem

Levi is, then, in accord in his description of the Anti-Tradition of Masonry, with the opinions of Guénon, Evola, Steiner, and Crowley. Levi was here referring to the legend of the curse of the last Grand Master of the Order of Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, upon the King of France, Philip IV, and Pope Clement V as de Molay was about to be burned at the stake for heresy. This curse, whether real or entirely mythical, was adopted as the cause of subsequent secret societies claiming the Templar legacy. The curse broadened into the destruction of the Catholic Church and all monarchies and continued through the revolutionary societies of the 19th century and into the present. The Knights of the Temple of Solomon was an Order founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land from Muslim attack. They played a prominent part in the Crusades. Their primary goal was the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon. This work of rebuilding also happens to be the primary goal of Freemasonry, which will be examined later. The Templars amassed tremendous wealth as the financial middlemen between the commerce of Europe and the Middle East. Dr Peter Partner states: ‘The financial dealings of the Templars led them straight to the royal treasuries, of which they were frequently keepers. This financial influence lasted right up until the dissolution of the Templars in the 14th century’.3

Accusations of Heresy

Charges of heresy centred on the worship of an idol called Baphomet that, according to some Templar confessions, was described as a head.

While such charges of heresy have generally been dismissed as having been based on confessions under torture, the description of the alleged idol as a head is quite specific and could relate to the cult of John the Baptist, the Johannites. This is a heresy that the Templars could plausibly have adopted from their long stay in the Holy Land. The Bible relates that since the time of Jesus there were those among the followers of John the Baptist who regarded Jesus as a usurper, but were rebuked by John. The Biblical account states that disciples of John the Baptist came to him complaining, ‘he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him’.4 John the Baptist, according to the Biblical accounts, had been emphatic that he was not the Messiah, nor even a reborn prophet, but was preparing the way for the Messiah, replying to his disciples: ‘Ye yourselves hear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him…. This my joy is therefore fulfilled, He must increase, but I must decrease’.5 The Baptist was imprisoned by Herod and beheaded.6

The worshipping of a head as an idol becomes plausible if the Templars were influenced by the cult of John. According to Eliphas Levi the Johannites claimed that John, contrary to the Biblical account, had identified Jesus as a fraud. Levi states that the first Templar Grand Master Hugh de Payens was initiated into the Johannites by the sect’s ‘grand pontiff’, Theoclet: ‘Thus was the order of the Knights of the Temple tainted from the beginning with schism and conspiracy against kings’.7 Again, whether this is true or not is of less singifance as to it being part of Masonic lore. It is therefore plausible that Templars confessed to the Inquisition that at their initiation they were obliged to declare Jesus to be a ‘thief’. This accords with the teachings of the Johannites. Occult authority Lewis Spence states: ‘When we read over the numerous examinations of the Templars, in other countries, as well as in France, we cannot but feel convinced that some of these charges had a degree of foundation, though perhaps the circumstances upon which they were found were misunderstood’.8

The examination of the Templars began in 1316 in Paris. The accusations included that the Templars had to deny Christ at their reception into the Order, declaring that he was a ‘false prophet’, and was punished for his crimes, and that the Templar had to spit and trample upon the cross. Baphomet is described as having three faces, being a skull, or a head with a long beard and sparkling eyes, made of wood or metal. A French Templar stated that he had been shown the idol and told: ‘You must adore this as your saviour and as the saviour of the order of the Temple’. Another was told: ‘adore this head. This head is your God and your Mahomet’.9

Because Baphomet is possibly a corruption of the name Mohammed, sceptics claim that this was an attempt to smear the Templars as being in alliance with Islam. For example, Dr Partner writes of this:

The name given to the idol, ‘Baphomet’ (once or twice the form Mohamet is actually used by the witnesses in the trial), is one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence that the charges were used to ‘smear’ the Templars. It was impossible for the Templars to have ‘picked up in the East’ the practice of worshipping an idol bearing the name of the Prophet Muhammed, since no such idol existed anywhere in the Levant…10

However, Lewis Spence11 points out that Christians at the time used the word Mohammed to signify any idol. According to Spence, so-called ‘heads of Baphomet’ had been found in 1818 among forgotten antiquaries at the Imperial Museum of Vienna. Spence stated that one of these ‘gilded heads’ had long been preserved at Marseilles, having been seized when the Templars were fleeing the authorities.12 Regardless of the circumstances of the confessions by the Templars, many of the accusations in regard to denying Christ as a ‘false prophet’ are in keeping with the Johannite sect. An example of this Johannite tradition that Jesus is an ‘impostor’ having endured in the teachings of Masonry is indicated by the statement of Senator Auguste Delpech, president of the French Radical Party, and head of the Grand Orient de France,13 who in announcing ‘the death of the impostor God, the Galilean’, said in a speech of 20 September 1902:

The triumph of the Galilean has lasted twenty centuries. But now he dies in his turn. The mysterious voice announcing (to Julian the Apostate) the death of Pan, today announces the death of the impostor God who promised an era of justice and peace to those who believe in him. The illusion has lasted a long time. The mendacious god is now disappearing in his turn; he passes away to join in the dust of ages the divinities of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, who saw so many creatures prostrate before their altars. Bro. Masons we rejoice to state that we are not without our share in this overthrow of the false prophets. The Romish church, founded on the Galilean myth, began to decay very rapidly from the very day upon which the Masonic Association was established.14

Albert Pike, head of the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction (USA), who codified the rites and doctrine of the Scottish Rite, used words similar to those of Delpech in abjuring Christianity and Jesus, indicating that Delpech’s views were more than the rhetoric of a radical politician in the tradition of the revolutionary and humanistic doctrines of Grand Orient de France. Pike, in his celebrated magnum opus on Scottish Rite Masonry, explained what doctrines are taught on initiation to the 18°:

More than eighteen centuries have staggered away into the spectral realm of the Past, since Christ, teaching the Religion of Love, was crucif...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Occult & Subversive Movements
• Foreword
• Preamble
• Introduction
• Anti-Tradition & Counter-Tradition
• Are There ‘Conspiracies’?
• The Beginnings of Conspiratorial Theory
• Christian Responses to Masonry
• Debunking Debunkers
• Lineage of Secret Societies
• The Cult of the All-Seeing Eye
• Religious Foundations
• The Rebel in the Cosmos
• Communism Fermented in the Lodges
• Revolution
• Counterfeit Europe
• ‘Principle of Conflict’
• Universal Syncretic Religion
• Jerusalem: World Capital
• Conclusion
• References