History Lesson: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 12-17

At a certain point, a person no longer had to be a mason to be a Mason. The origin of Freemasonry is a difficult one to discover, only because all of the conspiracy theories have muddied up the search results. What I know, for sure, is that Freemasonry used to be something like a guild, and then at a certain point in the 17th century this was no longer a requirement. From then on, it was just a secret society of people--men, in Europe. The term "secret society" gets an unfair pejorative but the actual meaning is that they don't make public their enrollment. The wealthy club that I used to park cars for, was a secret society for this reason. 

I bring it up, because Robison does as well, only he takes much longer to say it. Robison talks a great deal concerning the generation of architecture and the role of the architect in societies from the Dionysiacs of Asia Minor (Eastern Turkey, including the kingdom of the famous Croesus) to Christian Europe and the British Isles. Robison doesn't reflect on why the change happened though he does mention the first time it did: a Mr. Ashmole--a famous antiquarian, and his father-in-law Colonel Mainwaring. I found a Hammon Mainwaring, that held the rank of Colonel in the English Civil War, and I have to assume this is who Robison means. The family itself is an old one that Wikipedia claims may have arrived in the British Isles with William the Conqueror. Ashmole is Elias Ashmole, the founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Are these people important? Kind of, they are both wealthy and influential people in English history but otherwise, they are the first people that Robison knows of that were not masons but became Masons. 

I'm guessing that it was Ashmole who engineered this. He made a gift of a museum to Oxford and someone had to design it. My thinking is that they made him an honorary member for his contribution, and he took it seriously and began a trend. Though Robison may be incorrect, again, researching this subject is tough because you have to use books like "Cracking the Masonic Code" which is written by a Scottish Mason so it's probably reliable, but then you have books like Freemasonry: the invisible cult, which tries to link them to the Templar Knights and I'm sure isn't a just a shittier version of a Dan Brown novel. No matter when this first admission of a non-mason occurred it's now standard that you don't have to be a mason to be a Mason (and I'll stop saying it like that now). 

One of the side effects that occurred because of this admission is that the enrollment in the brotherhood swelled. Robison points out that as this happened the group became more public. This meant that they were compelled to add to their oaths to make public the idea that Masonry existed, "that universal beneficence was the great aim of the order."

Here, I detect no sarcasm from Robison. I believe that he is attempting to give a fair and honest telling of the history of Masonry in the British Isles. This is to be contrasted with our previous book in which Allen had nothing but scorn, spite, and sarcasm: for any acts of altruism that the "elites" conducted. Robison admits, and I think he's absolutely correct, that the secrecy of Masonry added to their allure. All of the sudden a museum is being built with the weird triangle symbol? Who is doing it? Those people who won't say why or who is paying for it. Of course, that adds to the allure. If it were just wealthy Lord whatever it wouldn't have the same impact. 

This history moves on, and while it's interesting, it's not salient to the point that Robison wants to make. He traces Masonry as having originated in Britain (though the Scots may take issue with this claim), and then moved to the Continent when the English Civil War forced the men of import to flee the country. The thing about this history, which is very different than Allen's, is that I think Robison is being honest (as I said just above). One reason is that there are no questions here: this isn't Allen asking why a member of the Rockefeller family when to Russia shortly after the establishment of the Soviet Union. This is dry historical knowledge. 

In France, according to Robison, is where things in Masonry started getting flowerful. Masonry always had oaths, ranks, and ceremony; but, he claims, the zealousness by which the French adopted it worked both ways. Masonry had to adopt French ceremonial customs. The French "Ancien regime" loved its customs. There was a royal person who hung out with the king when he was taking a dump, the "valet du chamber," and this was a position of honor. To be fair the English and the Pope had this kind of position as well, but it just seems so culturally...French. What else happened in France is that more ranks or levels were added to Masonry. Now, there were three new degrees and seven receptions that a French Mason had to ascend, which they could easily do provided the member made a "handsome contribution" to the cause. 

Finally, Robison makes a claim that perks my ears up. He says, "The Knights Templars of Jerusalem, and the Knights of the Desert, whose office it was to protect pilgrims, and to defend the holy city, afforded very apt models for Masonic mimicry, because the Temple of Solomon, and the Holy Sepulchre, always shared the same fate."

This is very interesting because I've read numerous conspiracy theories that link the Templars and the Masons. The point of those theories was to claim that Masonry goes back thousands of years and that the Templars were the military wing (in some theories) or that Masonry goes back to the Crusades and the origin of it is in the Knights Templar. The Templars, when they were arrested by order of the King Philip IV of France and his puppet Pope Clement V; the Templars just struck their colors and became Masons. Robison is wiping away all of that bullshit, his claim is that French Masons knew of the Templars and their rites and just adopted them as a money-generating scheme. The more ranks there were to progress, the more people would pay to progress through them. The Scientologists did this in the 90s when all of a sudden they discovered more levels that people had to go through to become "clear." What's more interesting is that I've read books claiming the Mason-Templar link that cite the Robison book. Now, I am sure they never read this book and that alone is worth this long historical section. 

At this point, Robison blames the Jesuits, and we have to stop because this is where the conspiracy claims are going to start. So far though, I'm liking this work because it is a sober telling of a conspiracy theory rather than the panic of people like Allen, Cooper, or Jones.