Freemason defence of the Talmud...must read

[mgt23]

http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/van_hyning.html

it seems they dont like Freedman....ironic really i thought. .......and with all the religion debates recently about the OT, i thought this excerpt was pertenient.

Falsifiers of the Talmud
Antisemites such as Van Hyning, Nesta Webster, Benjamin H. Freedman and Wesley Swift have claimed that the Talmud has been systematically hidden from non-Jews, and that it is the supreme authority of Jewish law, philosophy and ethics. In truth, it is available in most good public libraries and most Jews regard it as simply one branch of Jewish theology, of limited interest outside of rabbinical seminaries.
The Talmud consists of two parts: the Mishnah, and its commentary, the Gemara. The Mishnah, compiled and edited by Judah Hanasi about 200 C.E., was the first Jewish code of laws since the Torah. There are two Gemaras, known as the Babylonian and the Palestinian. The former, completed about 500 C.E., is the record of the discussions of the Palestinian scholars. The Mishnah plus the Babylonian Gemara is known as the Babylonian Talmud; the Mishnah plus the Palestinian Gemara is known as the Palestinian Talmud. The two Talmuds have always been printed separately, and never together.
Van Hyning's leaflet was widely reprinted, excerpted, added to and quoted from or referenced throughout the 1950s and 1960s by such publications as The Cross and the Flag, Common Sense, and Thunderbolt. In the early 1970s the Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith continued to distribute a free tract quoting most of these lies. Rarely quoted today, these fabrications continue to be the foundation of many claims that Judaism is anti-Christian.
The following is Van Hyning's list. Both Pranaitøis and Freedman claim a longer list but the following list and refutations dispels the whole.
ACCUSATIONS   FACTS
   
"The Talmud refers to Jesus Christ as the bastard son of a harlot (Kallah, 1b, 18b)"       Kallah, 1b, 18b. The quotation does not exist in this volume. This is a complete fabrication, and even the reference numbers are fabricated.
   
"Jesus is blasphemed as a fool (Schabbath, 104b), a conjurer (Toldoth Jeshu), and idolater. (Sanhedrin 103a) and a seducer (Sanhedrin 107b)."       Schabbath, 104b. The correct spelling of this volume is Shabbath. It does not make an evaluation of anyone, but rather reports a dialogue; "It was taught, Rabbi Eliezer said to the Sages: But did not Ben Stada bring forth witchcraft from Egypt by means of scratches (in the form of charms) upon his flesh? He was a fool, answered they, and proof cannot be adduced from fools." The professional antisemites are relying on the theory that the Talmudic scholars meant Jesus when they referred to Ben Stada. A British scholar, R. Travers Herford, gives it as his opinion in "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash" (p. 37) that Ben Stada means Jesus of Nazareth. Further on, however, he says "...The Talmud has preserved only a very vague and confused recollection of Jesus" (p. 83). And he points out that some people argue "that there are in the Talmud two persons called Jesus, neither of whom is the historical Jesus of Nazareth" (p. 347).
Toldoth Jeshu is a book from the Middle Ages. It is not a part of the Talmud. [The Toledoth Yeshu is a polemic work written in about the 10th century. The Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion says of it, "..the work is an expression of vulgar polemics written in reaction to the no less vulgar attacks on Judaism in popular Christian teaching and writing [of that time]".]
Sanhedrin 103a. Van Hyning's claim that it calls Jesus an idolator is a complete fabrication.
Sanhedrin 107b. This is a distortion of the truth by Van Hyning based upon a legendary story in this portion of the Talmud. As it is actually related, Jesus and his teacher met a woman at a wayside inn; Jesus admired her extreme beauty. For this the teacher severely admonished him and dismissed him as a pupil. The rabbis in the Talmud sharply criticized the teacher for his harshness and severity towards Jesus.
   
"The Talmud teaches that Jesus died like a beast and was buried in that 'dirt heap'...where they throw the dead bodies of dogs and asses and where the sons of Ssau (the Christians) and of Ismael (the Turks), also Jesus and Mohammed, uncircumsized and unclean like dead dogs are buried (Zobar, III, 282).       Zohar, III, 282. This is a cabalistic work that came into being during the Middle Ages [13th c.]. It is not a part of the Talmud. This entire "quotation" is a complete fabrication.
   
"One of the basic doctrines of the Talmud is that all non-Talmudists rank as non-humans, that they are not like men, but beasts. (Kerithuth, 6b, p. 78)".       Kerithuth, 6b, p. 78. Even the numbering system is a fabrication. 6b means page 6, side 2. Consequently, page 78 can have no relationship to 6b. This claim is based upon a particular dialogue in which reference is made specifically to heathens in a fashion comparable to that of many Christian preachers who today still thunder away with the doctrine that only those who accept Jesus Christ will be "saved." Obviously no sane person with a semblance of decency would condemn present-day Jews for the dialogue of some individual religious philosophers 1700 years ago.
   
"A JEW WHO KILLS A CHRISTIAN COMMITS NO SIN, BUT OFFERS AN ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE TO GOD. 'Even the best of the non-Jews should be killed.' (Abhodah Zarah, 26b Tosepoth)."       Abhodah Zarah, 26b, Tosepoth. Tosepoth is not a part of the Talmud. It is a collection of commentaries on the Talmud. In a passage alluded to by Van Hyning, Tosepoth quotes a Talmudic source as stating that the command of killing all Canaanites was applicable only during the war against them.
   
"The following quotation from and about the Talmud should be of interest to all Christians. Note: 'GOY' means non-Jews; 'GOYIM' is plural for Goy."
"Jehovah Himself studies the Talmud standing, he has such respect for that book (Tract Mechilla)."       Tract Mechilla. No such book exists in the Talmud. Furthermore, the internal evidence in the alleged quotation suggests crude fabrication. The Talmud is not "that book"; it is a collection of volumes.
   
"Every goy who studies the Talmud and every Jew who helps him in it, ought to die. (Sanhedrin, 59a Abhodah Zarah 8-6)."       Abhodah Zarah 8-6. Insofar as this volume is concerned the quotation is a complete fabrication. Even the reference number is incorrect. It should read "Abhodah Zarah 8a or 8b." A number such as 8-6 can never exist in the Talmud.
Sanhedrin, 59a. Here is reported a dialogue between two Rabbis, the first of whom does indeed fanatically advocate death for a heathen who studies the Torah (the Pentateuch, not the Talmud), The second Rabbi effectively demolishes his colleague's argument by pointing out that the heathen who studies the Torah succeeds in elevating himself to the status of a High Priest.
   
"To communicate anything to a goy about our religious relations would be equal to the killing of all Jews, for if the goyim knew what we teach about them they would kill us openly. (Libbre David 37)."       Libbre David 37. This is a complete fabrication. No such book exists in the Talmud or in the entire Jewish literature.
   
"A Jew should and must make a false oath when the goyim asks if our books contain anything against them. (Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17)."       The Book of Jore Dia 17. No such statement appears, This is a complete fabrication.
Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17. There is no such book in the Talmud. These two words are part of the title of some 1500 books, but by themselves they mean only "responses."
   
"The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts. (Baba Mecia 114-6)."       Baba Mecia 114-6. This quotation is a complete fabrication. Even the numbering is incorrect. There can be no 114-6; it has to be 114a or 114b.
   
"When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves. (Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56D)."       Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56D. There is no such book in the Talmud. It is actually the name of a 10th century Bible commentator. The "fol. 56D" is an invention.
   
"Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would not have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night. (Midrash Talpioth, 225-L)."       Midrash Talpioth, 225-L. This is not a volume of the Talmud. It is something composed by a Turkish Jew in the 18th century. His name was Elijah ben Solomom Abraham, ha-Kohen.
   
"As soon as the King Messiah will declare himself, He will destroy Rome and make a wilderness of it. Thorns and weeds will grow in the Pope's palace. Then he will start a merciless war on non-Jews and will overpower them. He will slay them in masses, kill their kings and lay waste the whole Roman land. He will say to the Jews: 'I am the King Messiah for whom you have been waiting. Take the silver and the gold from the goyim.' (Josiah 60, Rabbi Abarbanel to Daniel 7, 13)."       Josiah 60. This is not a volume from the Talmud. There is no book of that title in existence.
   
"A Jew may do to a non-Jewess what he can do. He may treat her as he treats a piece of meat. (Nadarine, 20, B; Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348)."       Nadarine 20. The actual quotation is: "The Rabbis say: That whatever a man wants to do with his wife he may do; just as he can prepare meat to suit his fancy." This concept of male superiority of 1700 years ago bears no relationship to the philosophy and conduct of present-day Jewry. To represent this as the teachings of Judaism in the twentieth century is to perpetuate a palpable fraud. Van Hyning perpetrated the additional fraud of twisting it into a Jew vs. Gentile problem.
   
"A Jew may rob a goy--that is, he may cheat him in a bill, if unlikely to be perceived by him. (Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348)."       Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348. This is not a part of the Talmud. It is actually a part of a collection of Biblical commentaries in the sixteenth century. The actual text in this volume says that it is forbidden to steal even a small item from a Jew or non-Jew, from children or from adults. One of the commentators remarks that in dealing with an idolator it would be permissible to use artifice or stratagem to effect repayment of a loan. He then adds that others say that to do it intentionally is forbidden, but if the idolator makes a mistake in one's favor, it is proper to accept the advantage that accrues. However it is pointed out that the famous Rabbi Maimonedes is vigorously opposed to such procedures.
   
"All property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without scruples. An orthodox Jew is not bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other tribes. He may act contrary to morality, if profitable to himself or to Jews in general. (Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348)."       Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348. This is a complete fabrication.
   
"On the house of the goy one looks as on the fold of cattle. (Tosefta, Erubin VIII, I)."       Tosefta, Erubin VIII, I. This is a complete fabrication. Tosefta is not part of the Talmud.
   
"How to interpret the word 'robbery'. A goy is forbidden to steal, rob or take women slaves, etc., from a goy or Jew. But the Jew is NOT forbidden to do all this to a goy. (Tosefta, Abhodah Zarah VIII, 5)."       Tosefta, Abhodah Zarah VIII, 5. This is a complete fabrication. Tosefta is not part of the Talmud.
   
"All vows, oaths, promises, engagements, and swearing, which, beginning this very day of reconciliation, we intend to vow, promise, swear, and bind ourselves to fulfill, we repent of beforehand; let them be illegalized, acquitted, annihilated, abolished, valueless, unimportant. Our vows shall be no vows, and our oaths no oaths at all. (Schulchan Aruch, Edit. 1, 136)."       Schulchan Aruch, Edit. 1, 136. This is not from the Talmud. This is actually a garbled version of the Kon Nidre prayer. The reference to "Edit. 1, 136" is completely meaningless. [The Kon Nidre prayer, from the 8th century CE, did not release anyone from a judicial oath or obligation between people. It was intended to release a Jew from a vow made to God, specifically those made under duress to accept another faith.]
   
"At the time of the Cholhamoed the transaction of any kind of business is forbidden. But it is permitted to cheat a goy, because cheating of goyim at any time pleases the Lord. (Schulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 539)."       Schulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 539. This is a complete fabrication.
   
"If a Jew be called upon to explain any part of the rabbinic books, he ought to give only a false explanation. Who ever will violate this order shall be put to death. (Libbre David 37)."       Libbre David 37. There is no such book, as previously noted.
Excerpted from: The Hoaxers, Plain Liars, Fancy Liars and Damned Liars. Morris Kominsky. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. 1970. SBN 8283-1288-5 LCCCN 76-109134. HC 735pp. pp. 169-176. [leaflet reprinted on p. 166-176]
The following is taken from a 06 Feb 1999 newsgroup thread archived at http://crnews.pastornet.net.au/jmm/aasi/aasi0151.htm with rebuttal provided by Nigel B. Mitchell mailto:nbm@echidna.id.au">nbm@echidna.id.au
   
Abhodah Zarah (22a): Christians have intercourse with animals.       This fabrication is not in the text.
   
Sanhedrin 67a: Jesus referred to as the son of Pandira, a soldier. Mother a prostitute.       According to a footnote in the Talmud, this passage refers to a Jewish revolutionary named Ben Stada or Ben Padira who came from Egypt, claimed to be a prophet, led his followers to Mount Zion, and was executed by the Romans, about 100 years after the time of Jesus. The footnote also says that Christians have long misunderstood this passage as a reference to Jesus and tried to censor it or condemn the Jews because of it. Note the legend put about by Celsus, the Greek philosopher, who argued with Justin martyr in the 2nd century, and who repeated a tale that Jesus was the son of a Roman centurion called Panthera.
   
Kelhubath (11a-11b): "When a grown-up man has had intercourse with a little girl... It means this: When a grown up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this [see footnote] three years old it is as if one puts the finger into the eye [again see footnote] tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl three years old."       This is probably the most insidious quote in the whole list. The words are correctly quoted but completely out of context. All the words after [see footnote] actually appear in the footnote, and are therefore not part of the Talmud itself. This passage is a discussion of the penalties and consequences of adult-child sexual relations. The point being made is that if a man has sexual relations with a little girl, that is to be punished less harshly than if it is with an older child or an adult woman. Importantly, when she grows up, the child is to regarded as still having her virginity for legal and marriage purposes. She is not to suffer. In modern times it is quite shocking to think that the fine or reparation for raping an infant should be less than that for raping or seducing an older child, but that is the relative judgement that some of the rabbis made, and which is recorded in the Talmud. The following paragraphs continue to discuss this issue, and there does not seem to be a strong consensus on the issue. The important thing, though, is that whilst from a modern standpoint we (whether Christian, Jew or atheist) might deplore the medical and psychological ignorance which seems to inform this decision, it must be stressed that the Talmud in no sense condones such behaviour. The discussion is about how it should be punished.

[mgt23]

http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/webster_n.html

Nesta H. Webster's Secret Societies
      
hiddenmysteries.com
From The French Revolution : a study in democracy, published in 1919, to Spacious days : an autobiography published in 1949, the English author, Nesta Helen Webster née Bevan (1867-1960) [Mrs. Arthur Webster], promoted the plot theory of history. Perhaps her most influental book was Secret societies and subversive movements published in 1921 and reprinted in 1924, 1966, 1970, 1980 and 1989.
Nesta H. Webster, the last of fourteen children of Robert Cooper Lee Bevan and Francis Shuttleworth, in Hertfordshire, was a frequent contributor to the Morning Post, and author of a series of articles for the British Fascists' The Fascist Bulletin from May 1926 to January 1927. A member of the Anti-Socialist Union, she also became a member of the BF, contributing to The Patriot until the Second World War. 1.
Her Secret societies and subversive movements,, World Revolution, The plot against civilization, London 1921, and other books, trace all revolutionary upheavals through the Bavarian Illuminati to the Jews of Jesus' day. Her Surrender of an Empire, London 1931, identifies the Wafd, Sinn Fein, Zionism and Bolshevism as all the same threat. Often quoted or cited by conspiracy theorists and anti-masons to this day, Mrs. Webster's condemnation of Jews as anti-Christians, her condemnation of socialism in any form, her approval of Mussolini's fascism, and her disdain for non-English peoples or cultures, coupled with a belief that her version of Christianity is the only real form of civilization, has made her a popular yet controversial figure in conspiracy literature.
Webster's theory can be easily outlined. She believes that for the entire history of Christianity there has been a co-ordinated and continuous conspiracy of Jews to destroy Christianity and dominate the world. She has defined any stream of religious or philosophical thought that is not Trinitarian Christian as either Satanic or anti-Christian, and any political or economic theories that do not incorporate laisez faire capitalism as Communism, which, to her mind, is much the same thing. Having defined a broad spectrum of beliefs under the rubric of Satanic or anti-Christian, with a casual disregard for the many differences and a careful selection of superficial similarities, Webster believes she has discovered a history of conspiracy when she has only assembled a disparate collection of unrelated events and people.
Denying any antisemitism, Webster takes every opportunity to imply or suggest that many of the persons mentioned in her books were Jews. Denying that British Freemasonry is at all implicated in her accusations against European "Grand Orient" Masonry, she nonetheless makes constant references to "Freemasonry" without distinguishing the two, or noting the many other streams in Masonry. While denying her belief in the historical validity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, she also makes several references to the Protocols as if it was not a fraud.
With her lack of empirical proof, her demonstrated errors and her reliance on earlier published opinion, Mrs. Webster's arguments are easily identified, and discredited.2.
      
CLAIMS   .   FACTS
      
"The testimony of Professor Robinson and Abbé Barruel would doubtless have been considered as ample in any case...." [p. vii.]      John Robison and the Abbé Augustin Barruel (1741/10/02 - 1820/10/05) have been thoroughly discredited by the Rev. W.K. Firminger and John M. Roberts, amongst others.
      
"The East is the cradle of secret societies. [p. 3]
"It is the tendencies of all these sources [Talmud and Midrash] to belittle the person of Jesus by ascribing to Him illigitimate birth, magic, and a shameful death." [p. 20.]
"...the anti-Christian secret tradition in which, as we shall see, it has been perpetuated up to our own day." [p. 21.]
"...it was left to the Jews to inaugurate a campaign of vilification against the person of [Christianity's] Founder...." [p. 23.]       No documentation or citation is given for these broad generalizations.
Citing several non-existent texts in the Talmud and two 19th century authors, Graetz and D. Ginsburg, a Christian, does not establish a "secret tradition."
      
"A subtler device for discrediting Christianity and undermining belief in the divine Character of our Lord has been adopted by modern writers, principally Jewish, who set out to prove that he belonged to the sect of the Essenes...." [p. 23.]
"Now, we have only to study the Gospels carefully in order to realize that the teachings of Christ were totally different from those peculiar to the Essenes." [p. 24.]
"But it is in attributing to Christ the Communistic doctrines of the Essenes that Dr. Ginsburg's conclusions are the most misleading...." [p. 24.]
"The Essenes were therefore not Christians, but a secret society, practicing four degrees of initiation, and bound by terrible oaths not to divulge the sacred mysteries confided to them." [p. 27.]       Academic proposals of an historical theory are not de facto "anti-Christian or a "device for discrediting Christianity."
There is no citation for the claim that promoters of an Essene link are "principally Jewish." Note that Ginsburg is Christian.
Most of what is known of the Essenes comes from Flavius Josephus (b. 37/38, d. c.100) a member of the Pharisees who later was granted Roman citizenship, Philo of Alexandria, and Pliny the Elder. Their differences in significant details makes any claims regarding Essene practices unsupportable.
The non-Christianity of the Essenes does not preclude their association with him or the early Jerusalem Church.
      
"Indeed, the man generally recognized as the founder of Gnosticism, a Jew commonly known as Simon Magus, was not only a Cabalistic mystic but avowedly a magician."       Acts of the Apostles 8:9 describes Simon "who used magic" as being a Samaritan, not a Jew. Early Christian writings such as the Clementine literature identify Simon Magus as the founder of post-Christian Gnosticism. The Simon Magus legend depends on Justin Martyr (c.100-c.165) who makes him the source and originator of heresy. There is no historical foundation for linking the Simon Magus legend to the Simon of Acts. A.C. Headlam, in a lengthy article, details the arguments against the existence of an historical figure. [A Dictionary of the Bible ed. James Hastings. New York: Charles Scribnar's Sons, 1811 p. 520-27.]
      
"By way of systematically perverting the doctrines of the Christian faith the Gnostics claimed to posess the true versions of the Gospels...." [p. 31.]       Webster does not define which Gnostics and which Gospels.
Marcion (fl.140), who had Gnostic tendencies, set up a "canon" that repudiated the Old Testament and anything Jewish. The Diatessaron of Tatian (120-173 CE) was a compilation of all four Gospels used until the 5th century, showing that their form was not fixed in his time in Syria. It was not until Athanasius (b. c.293, d. 373) that the canon was delimited to the 27 books of the New Testament, although the Syriac canon did not come into agreement until the 7th century. "Quotations from the Church Fathers... account for more than 150,000 textual variants." [p. 815.] Verse-divisions were not invented till the sixteenth century.
Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th Ed., Chicago: 1989. Vol 14. pp754-858.
      
"Under the direction of the Dar ul Hikmat or Grand Lodge of Cairo, the Fatimites continued the plan of Abdullah ibn Maymun's secret society with the addition of two more degrees, making nine in all--which, as Claudio Jannet points out, "are absolutely those which Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, prescribed to the 'Insinuating Brothers'" [pp. 40-41.]
"The terrible Grand Lodge of Cairo before long became the centre of a new and extraordinary cult," [p. 43.]       Dar ul Hikmat translates as "House of Knowledge", not "Grand Lodge".
No details of the Fatimites and their "societies of wisdom", an 11th century branch of Islam, are supplied to justify terming them a secret society, or creating a link with Weishaupt.
      
"It is, however, as a secret society that the Druses enter into the scope of this book, for their organization presents analogies with that which we now know as 'masonic.'" [p. 44.]
The resemblance between this organization and Grand Orient Freemasonry is clearly apparent. The Druses also have modes of recognition which are common to Freemasonry...." [p. 44.]
      The only resemblence described is that Webster has labeled them both secret societies.
      
"...great secret society which was to become for ever infamous under the name of the Hashishiyin or Assassins. [p. 45.]
"their spiritual descendants, the Jacobins of 1793" [p. 46.]
"... an interesting analogy with the degrees of Freemasonry is provided." [p. 46.]
"The sect of Hasan Saba was the supreme model on which all systems of organized murder working through fanaticism such as the Carbonari and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were based, and the signs, the symbols, the initiations of the Grand Lodge of Cairo formed the groundwork for the great secret societies of Europe." [p. 48.]       No citations, no examples, no proof is given. Only an unproven claim is made.
No link is created; only a theory is claimed as fact.
Dar ul Hikmat translates as House of Knowledge, not Grand Lodge.
      
"The King acted from cupidity, the Pope from servility, and the Templars confessed from fear of torture — on these pure hypotheses defenders of the Order base their arguments.
The truth is, far more probably, that if the King had any additional reason for suppressing the Templars it was not envy of their wealth but fear of the immense power their wealth conferred; the Order dared even to defy the King and refuse to pay taxes. The Temple in fact constituted an imperium in imperio that threatened not only the royal authority but the whole social system." [p. 60.]
Through their proficiency in these matters--acquired very possibly from the Jews of Alexandria whom they must have met in the East-- the Templars had become the 'international capitalists' of their day; had they not been suppressed, all the evils now denounced by Socialists as peculiar to the system they describe as 'Capitolism'--trusts monopolies and 'corners'--would have in all probability have been inaugurated during the course of the fourteenth century". [p. 60.]
"...'those terrible conspirators' says Eliphas Lévi...." [p. 60.]
"...this band of dissolute and rapacious nobles."[p. 60-61.]
"The Templars thus remain the only body of capitalists, with the exception of the Jews, to be not only pardoned for their riches but exalted as noble victims of prejudice and envy. Is it merely because the Templars were the enemies of monarchy? Or is it that the world revolution, whilst attacking private owners of property, has never been opposed to International Finance, particularly when combined with anti-Christian tendencies?" [p. 61.]
      History's evaluation of King Philippe le bel and Pope Clement V's suppression of the Templars has not been as supportive. The acquisition and uses of wealth by the Templars bears little similarity to modern banking; Webster's speculations are simplistic and unfounded. The Templars' innocence of the charges brought against them in 1307-8 has been established since the work of the American historian Henry Charles Lea, published in 1889.
No link to Jews is demonstrated.
No foundation is supplied for claiming they were anti-Christian or the enemies of monarchy.
Cf. Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 c. 1978 ISBN: 0 521 45727 0 pbk, 312 p.
Piers Paul Read, The Templars. London: Weidenfeld & 1999.
ISBN: 0-297-84267-6. 350 p.
J. Michelet, Les Procès des Templiers, 2 vols. (Collection de Documents Inédits sur l'Histoire de France), Paris, 1841-51 [ notarial record of Paris hearings, October and November 1307 and hearings of papal commission between 1309 and 1311, based upon the copy deposited at Paris at the close of the papal commission.
Heinrich Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, vol. 2, Münster, 1907. letters, reports and proceedings of trial
K. Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, vol. 2, Berlin, 1887 (repr. 1970) proceedings at Poitiers, Brindisi, Cyprus and the Papal States
      
"It is the continued defence of the Templars which, to the present writer, appears the most convincing evidence against them."
"Are all these things then condoned because the Templars formed a link in the chain of world revolution?" [p. 61.]
"The Templars, as far as can be discovered, were anti-Christian deists...." [p. 63.]       Subsequent support of their innocence is not logical evidence of guilt.
No demonstrated link to an alleged "world revolution" is provided.
No supporting evidence of this claim is provided.
      
"The Bogomils and Luciferians were thus closely akin." [p. 64.]
"It was said that a black cat, the symbol of Satan, figured in their [p. 64.] ceremonies...."
"...a theory which would agree with Eliphas Lévi's assertian that the Templars were 'initiated into the mysterious doctrines of the Cabala.'" [p. 65.]       The Bogomil sect flourished in the Balkins between the 10th and 15th centuries. They taught that the visible, material world was created by the devil and were known for their moral austerity. Although they rejected Baptism, the Eucharist, and the whole organization of the Orthodox Church, they did not worship the devil.
No identification of "Luciferians" is given. In context it appears that Webster defines anyone who is not a Trinitatian Christian of her own stripe as being a Luciferian. See note below. The Templars were not educated enough to be interested in Mediaeval magic.
The articles of accusation drawn up after Philippe and Clement met in Poitiers in August 12, 1308 refer to the adoration of idols: a cat or head, sometimes having three faces. There is no mention of it being black and, except for confessions extracted under torture or threat of torture, this was unproven.
Lévi has no standing as an historian and provides no citations for his claims. Neither the accusations made by Philippe or Clement, nor the confessions make any reference to the Cabala.
      
"these statements are apparently founded on a legend which was first published early in the nineteenth century, when an association calling itself the Ordre du Temple and claiming direct descent from the original Templar Order published two works, the Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple in 1811, and the Lévitikon in 1831...." [p. 65.]       She quotes the "Charter of Larmenius", the claim to legitimacy of the Ordre du Temple and its Grand Master in 1811, Fabré Palaprat. Although on page 65 she refers to it as being a legend, by page 68 it provides her with "proof" that the Knights Templar were anti-Christian, cabalistic and "Johannite" heretics.
      
"It is also said that "Baphomets" were preserved in the masonic lodges of Hungary, where a debased form of Masonry, known as Johannite Masonry, survives to this day." [p. 72.]       Webster provides no citation for this claim.
      
"...the accusation of heresy brought against the Templars does not emanate solely from the Catholic Church, but also from the secret societies" [p. 73.]
Precisely then because the Gospel of St. John is the one of all the four which most insists on the divinity of Christ, the occult anti-Christian sects have habitually made it the basis of their rites." [p. 73.]       Lévi's quoted remarks refer to "all the initiates of the occult sciences." Lévi doesn't provide citation, and she translates "initiates of the occult sciences" as "secret societies", founding one undocumented generalization on another.
Webster provides no citation or example to justify this illogical claim, similar to those of other early chroniclers of the Order.
      
"It has been shown in the foregoing chapters that from the very early times occult sects had existed for two purposes--esoteric and political... had combined secrecy and occult rites with the political aim of domination. We shall find this double tradition running through all the secret society movement up to the present day.      The point has not been shown. The term "movement" implies a continuous historical organization, but the group is neither identified, nor proven to exist.
      
"Christians only in name, they adhered in secret to the Gnostic and Manichean doctrines of the earlier Cathari...." [p. 74.]
"...this 'Judaea of France,' as it has been called...." [p. 75.]       The Cathari and Bogomil Churches, dating from the early 11th century were an ascetic but popular movement, establishing 11 bishoprics in Italy and France by the 13th century. The Albigenses of the 12th and 13th century were an allied ascetic sect opposed to the corruption of the clergy of their time. There was no secret about their practices or beliefs. Viewed as a threat to the political institutions of the Roman Catholic Church, they were ruthlessly suppressed by the Albigensian Crusade in 1229. The Catholic Inquisition worked into the 14th century to destroy any lingering support. What little is known of them comes from the reports of their enemies.
      
"...the conspiracy of history, which denies in toto the existence of the Occult Power, discredits all revelations on this question, from whatever source they emanate, as the outcome of hysterical imagination." [p. 76.]
"These are not surmises, but actual facts of history."
"...actual Satanism--the love of evil for the sake of evil--which formed the doctrine of the sect known in Italy as la vecchia religione or the 'old religion.' Sorcery was adopted as a profession, and witches, not as is popularly supposed, sporadic growths, were trained in schools of magic to practice their art." [pp. 76-7.]
"Suffice it, then, to show that this cult had a very real existence, and if any further doubt remains on the matter, the life of Gilles de Rais supplies documentary evidence of the visible results of black magic in the Middle Ages. p. 77.]
"Eliphas Lévi... declares that 'the Jews, the most faithful trustees of the secret of the cabala, were almost always the real masters of magic in the Middle Ages.'" [p. 79.]
"It is curious that Sir James Frazer, in his vast compendium on magic, Golden Bough never once refers to any of the higher adepts--Jews, Rosicrucians, Satanists, etc., or to the Cabala as a source of inspiration." [n.p. 79.]       Webster appears to define any stream of philosophical or religious thought that does not adhere to her own views as being Satanism.
This "Occult Power" is nowhere defined.
As an example of an undefined school of magic Webster exaggerates the accusations of satanism made against Gilles de Rais (1404-1440). Like the confessions of the Templars, she discounts the possible influence of torture or threat of torture and accepts the accusations as proof of guilt.
Lévi is no authority, and provides no citation.
Frazer's omission is only curious if one's definition of magic encompasses everything not Trinitarian Christian.
      
"Demonology in Europe was in fact essentially a Jewish science...." [p. 80]
"...it was mainly through the Jews that these dark superstitions were imported to the West." [p. 80.]
"during the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the evidence of the existence of Satanism during this long period is overwhelming and rests on the actual facts of history." [p. 83.]       Although superstition was common, no citations or examples are noted that identify this as Satanism or as derived from Jewish sources.
These "facts of history" are not supplied.
      
"'Christian Cabalists,' who, from Raymond Lulli, the 'doctor illuminatus' of the thirteenth century, onward, drew their inspiration from the Cabala of the Jews." [p. 85.]       Ramón Llull (c.1235-1316) was known as the Enlightened Doctor. A Franciscan ascetic, he travelled widely as a missionary.
      
"Moreover, that they were a learned society, or even a society at all, is not certain, for they would appear to have possessed no organization...." [p. 91.]
"... brought on the Rosicrucians the suspician of being an anti-Christian body." [p. 92.]
"...this fraternity is a stratagem of the Jews and Cabalistic Hebrews...." [p. 93.]
"...it would be idle to deny that the cult itself existed." [p. 93]
"...it assumed in France a very tangible form in the series of mysterious dramas known as the 'Affaire des Poisons.' of which the first act took place in 1666...." [p. 93.]
"Is there no connexion between 'the Invisible Mountain of the Brethren' referred to elsewhere by Heydon and the Mountains of the Assassins and the Freemasons? between the Scriptural 'House of Wisdom' and the Dar-ul-Hikmat or Grand Lodge of Cairo, the model for Western masonic lodges?" [p. 98.]       An organization of practitioners of hermetic arts is first denied, then defined as an anti-Christian body without citation or example.
The link between the infamous murderess, the Marquise de Brinvilliers, and Rosicrucianism is unproven; that she used poison, that alchemists worked with poisons and that some Rosicrucians worked alchemy, does not constitute proof.
Webster poses a rhetorical question that, based on her lack of citations or examples must be answered in the negative.
      
Yet the seventeenth-century writer Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, expresses some suspicion with regard to the secrets of Freemasonry." [p. 102.]
"This was followed in 1717 by the great coup d'état when Grand Lodge was founded...." [p. 103.]
"The pillars of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz, which play so important a part in Craft Masonry, are symbols which occur in the Jewish Cabala...." [p. 107.]
"This is precisely the system by which the Cabala was handed down amongst the Jews." [p. 107.]
"How did this Rabbinic legend find its way into Freemasonry?" [p. 108.]
"...recognizing that modern Craft Masonry is largely founded on the Cabala...." [p. 109.]
There are, in fact, striking resemblances between Freemasonry and Essenism...." [p. 110.]       Plot's concerns are speculation without specific example or evidence.
The term coup d'état is an inappropriate word for an association that was entered into voluntarily.
Pillars are exclusive neither to Freemasonry nor the Cabala.
The foundation of Freemasonry on the Cabala has not been demonstrated.
Superficial resemblances based on assumptions about Essene practices does not prove any link or similarity of belief or practice.
      
"In fact the lodge at Cairo became the model of all the Lodges created afterwards in Christendom." [p. 114.]
"It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated to Craft Masonry through the Templars, whose connexion with the Assassins--offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat--was a matter of common knowledge." [p. 114.]
"It is difficult to believe that the points of resemblance with modern masonic ritual which may here be discerned can be a matter of mere coincidence." [p. 118.]       No citation or proof supplied.
Surmises do not constitute proof. The link between the Dar-ul-Hikmat and the Assassins has not been shown.
Websters' noted points of superficial similarity between masonic ritual and the Vehmgerichts, a tribunal established by Charlemagne in 772, are common to European literary and cultural traditions.
      
"...that the philosophical doctrine he professed was closely akin to Freemasonry is clearly apparent in his New Atlantis. The reference to the 'Wise Men of the Society of Solomon's House' cannot be mere coincidence." [p. 119.]
"...the source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala." [p. 124.]       Francis Bacon's writings and the ritual of Freemasonry were founded on existing Western traditions in literature. That is the only coincidence.
The source of inspiration is neither conclusive, nor demonstrated by the historical events cited.
      
"While Frederick the Great, the Freemasons, the Encyclopaedists, and the Orléonistes were working on the material plane to undermine the Church and monarchy in France...." [p. 165.]
"Although brought up in the Christian faith, [founder Martines de] Pasqually has been frequently described as a Jew." [p. 165.]       No citations or examples supplied that link these groups in a co-ordinated project.
This attempt to link Martinism to a "Jewish Conspiracy" is not cited. Her citation of the Baron de Gleichen that Pasqually was "perhaps of the Jewish race" is not conclusive.
      
"Beneath all these occult sects one common source of inspiration is to be found—the perverted and magical Cabala of the Jews...." [p. 166.]
"The part played by magicians during the period preceding the French Revolution is of course a matter of common knowledge and has never been disputed by official history." [p. 172.]
"...just as the philosophers were all Freemasons, the principle magicians were not only Freemasons but members of occult secret societies."       The alleged inspiration for Pernetti's "Illuminés d'Avignon and the Rite of Swedenborg is not demonstrated by the text.
She fails to define the part that is not disputed. This vagueness allows her to imply that such colourful charlatans as the Comptes de Saint-Germain and de Cagliostro were persons of influence and authority. She also claims, based on hearsay, that they were both Jews. She uses this as further proof of a Jewish inspiration for the prevalence of occultism and mysticism in pre-revolutionary Europe.
No citation or documentation is provided to substantiate her generalization about freemasons and magicians.
      
"Throughout the Middle Ages it is as sorcerers and userers that they incur the reproaches of the Christian world, and it is still in the same rôle, under the more modern terms of magicians and loan-mongers, that we detect their presence behind the scenes of revolution from the seventeenth century." [p. 178]       This general and unproven condemnation of the Jews is presented as a given, but it remains unproven by the text.
      
This extraordinary personage, known as the 'Ba'al Shem of London,' was a cabalist Jew named Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk...." [p. 185.]
"...is shown by documentary evidence to have been an initiate of Freemasonry and in direct contact with the leaders of the secret societies." [p. 185.]
"...in the Royal masonic Encyclopaedia by the Rosicrucian Kenneth Mackenzie that a lengthy and detailed article is devoted to Falk, though again without any reference to his connexion to Freemasonry. May we not conclude that in certain inner masonic circles the importance of Falk is recognized but must not be revealed to the uninitiated." [p. 189.]
Falk inded [sic] was far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate--the supreme oracle to which the secret societies applied for guidance." [p. 189.]       The "documentary evidence" that Dr. Falk (1708-1782) was a Freemason and "in contact with the leaders of the secret societies." is based solely on references in the private correspondence between Savalettes de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien. Webster further concludes that Falk was the source of Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite and the Duc d'Orléons' revolutionary pretensions.
Mackey quotes Gordon P.G. Hills in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Vil. XXVI, pages 93-130: "Mackenzie appears to make three individuals out of one personality. His dates are wrong...." [Mackey, Encyclopedia p. 350.]
No citation or documentation of this claim is provided.
      
"But already a vaster genius than Falk or Cagliostro, than Pasqually or Savalette de Langes, had arisen, who, gathering into his hands the threads of all the conspiracies, was able to weave them together into a gigantic scheme for the destruction of France and of the world." [p. 195.]
"...it will be evident that men aiming at the overthrow of the existing social order and of all accepted religion had existed from the earliest times, and that in the Cainites, the Carpocratians, the Manichaens, the Batinis, the Fatimites, and the Karmathites many of Weishaupt's ideas had already been foreshadowed." [pp. 196-7]
"Here [Kölmer] made a few disciples amongst the Illuminés and in the same year went on to Germany where he encountered Weishaupt and initiated him into all the mysteries of his secret doctrine." [p. 200.]
"...one is inclined to wonder whether he may not have been another of the Cabalistic Jews acting as the secret inspirers of the magicians who appeared in the limelight." [p. 200.]
"It is the unvarying rule of secret societies that the real authors never show themselves." [p. 200.]       This assumption of multiple secret societies controlled by the Illuminati Order of Bavaria is not demonstrated but only claimed.
Kölmer appears to exist only in the writings of Barruel and Lecouteulx de Canteleu. There is no other published reference to his existence or his meeting with Weishaupt.
The suggestion that Kölmer was a Jew is based on no more than his name's similarity to "Calmer", defined by Webster as a "well-known Jewish name."
This assumption, quoting M. André Baron, allows free reign to take minor historical personages and inflate their presumed influence and assumed goals. It is not proof.
      
"Now, as we have already seen, his first idea was to make Fire Worship the religion of Illuminism...." [p. 216.]       In Originalschriften des Illuminatebnordens, p. 230, Weishaupt mentions an idea of incorporating an allegory of fire worship into one of his degrees. This does not prove a religion of Fire Worship.
Webster interprets Weishaupt's humanism as anarchy, and his rationalism as anti-Christian. She is repelled by his political interpretation of Jesus' teachings. With selected quotes from the published correspondence she demonstrates that Weishaupt was not the paragon of virtue his panagyrists would portray him to be, but she provides no proof that the accusations of Robison and Barruel are justified. [pp. 223-27.]
      
"Whether, then, Weishaupt was directly inspired by Mendelsohn or any other Jew must remain for the present an open question. But the Jewish connexions of certain other Illuminati cannot be disputed. The most important of these was Mirabeau...." [p. 230.]       Other than Barruel's uncited claim, there is no proof that Mirabeau was a Freemason.
      
"the Congress of Wilhelmsbad convened on July 16, 1782, and attended by representatives of masonic bodies from all over the world". [p. 233.]
"This congress led to no very practical results, and a further and more secret one was convened in the following year at Frankfurt, where a Grand Lodge had been established in 1783, It was here that the deaths of Louis XVI and Gustavus III of Sweden are said to have been decreed." [p. 234.]
"Vanquished by this powerful rival, the Stricte Observance ceased temporarily to exist and Illuminism was left in possession of the field." [p. 234.]       All participants were from continental Europe.
Webster supplies no citation or documentation for this claim of death decrees.
Citing Mirabeau in his Historie de la Monarchie prussienne, V.73, Webster claims that the Illuminati took over the Strict Observance. The records of masonic bodies in Europe show that they either retained parts of the Strict Observance system or adopted the English system. None adopted Weishaupt's system of degrees.
      
"An evangelist preacher and Illuminatus named Lanze had been sent in July 1785 as an emissary of the Illuminati to Selesia, but on his journey he was struck down by lightning. The instructions of the Order were found on him and as a result its intrigues were conclusively revealed to the Government of Bavaria." [p. 235.]       Crediting this story to Eckert in his La Franc-Maconnerie dans sa véritable signification, Vol. II. p. 92, Webster ascribes the Elector of Bavaria's edicts of suppression to this exposure, apparently unaware that the edicts had been first issued on June 23, 1784, not in 1786 as she claims at several points in her narrative.
On June 23, 1784 the Bavarian Elector, Karl Theodor, published an edict forbidding his subjects to be members of secret or unauthorized associations. This was not specifically directed at the Illuminati but they suspended their meetings. Although Weishaupt approached the Elector and revealed most of its secrets, on March 2, 1785 another edict was published, this time condemning Freemasons and Illuminati explicitly.
Webster has also confused Johann Jakob Lanz (d.1785.), a non-illiminati secular priest and friend of Weishaupt, with Franz Georg Lang, a court advisor in Eichstätt and member of the Illuminati under the name Tamerlan. See A Bavarian Illuminati Primer for citation.
      
"The diabolical nature of Illuminism now remained no longer a matter of doubt."       This "diabolical" nature has not been detailed by Webster or her cited sources.
      
The first cover adopted was the lodge of the "Amis Réunis" in Paris, with which, as we have already seen, the Illuminati had established relations. But now in 1787 a definite alliance was effected by the aforementioned Illuminati, Bode and Busche, who in response to an invitation from the secret committee of the lodge arrived in Paris in February of this year." [p. 236.]
The rôle of the Amis Réunis was to collect together the subversives from all the other lodges". [p. 236.]
Fom this moment, says a further Bavarian report of the matter, a complete change took place in the Order of the 'Amis Réunis'" [p. 237.]       Bode and Busche attended a February 15, 1785 congress of the Strict Observance in Paris. The link to the "Amis Réunis" is not documented.
No citation for either of these claims.
      
"Were all these the ideas of Mirabeau, or were they, like the other documents of the Illuminati found amongst his papers, the programme of a conspiracy?" [p. 242.]
"It is this 'code of hell' set forth in the 'Projet de Révolution' that we shall find repeated in succeeding documents throughout the last hundred years--in the correspondence of the 'Alta Vendita,' in the Dialogues aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu by Maurice Joly, in the Revolutionary Catechism of Bakunin, in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and in the writings of the Russion Bolsheviks to-day." [p. 243.]
"...the methods described in this earliest "Protocol" have been carried out according to plan from that day to this." [p. 243.]       No proof of a continuing conspiracy has been previously cited to justify this question.
Joly's Dialogues, were intended as a political satire.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are a proven fraud.
      
"Behind the Convention, behind the clubs, behind the Revolutionary Tribunal, there existed, says Lombard de Langres, that "most secret convention [convention sécrétissime] which directed weverything after May 31, an occult and terrible power which was composed of the prime initiates of Illuminism." [p. 245.]
"What, then, was the rôle of Jews in the Revolution?" [p. 246.]
"But if the rôle of the Jews in the Revolution remains obscure there can be no doubt of the part played by the secret societies in the revolt against all religion, all moral laws, and social order, which had been reduced to a system in the councils of the Illuminati." [p. 251.]       Like Webster and her other sources, de Langres, in his Histoire des Jacobins [1820], fails to provide his opinions with detailed examples or specifics. The actual "secret convention" is not identified.
Listing a number of revolutionaries who may have been Jews and implying that Jews made up the greater number of moneylenders to the French government, Webster still fails to prove a connection.
What secret societies and what councils, Webster fails to note.
      
"...'a member of the sect of Bav.' has asked for information on a certain point of ritual." [p. 256.]       Webster purports to prove that the Illuminati continued its work behind the scenes. As proof she offers an 1808 letter to Pyron, representative in Paris of the Grand Orient of Italy, from Weishaupt. A request for ritual clarification hardly qualifies as proof of a conspiracy to foment revolution. [p. 256.]
      
"I have shown that the organization of this later outbreak of the secret societies is not a matter of surmise, but a fact admitted by all well-informed historians and by the members of the secret societies themselves." [p. 268.]       A careful review of the preceding pages reveals that she has shown no such thing.
      
"...policy of the Grand Orient is thus avowedly International Socialism," [p. 274.]
"...that the lodges of the Grand Orient are largely controlled by Jews is, however, certain." [p. 280.]
"...that the ideas they propagate are simply those of International Socialism." [p. 280.]
"It will be seen by the last of these extracts that Grand Orient Masonry is the enemy of Fascismo, which saved Italy in her hour of peril." [p. 282.]       No citation or example is given, although these quotes reveal Webster's personal politics.
      
"The Portuguese revolutions from 1910 to 1921 were organized under the direction of Freemasonry and the secret society of Carbonarios." [p. 283.]
"But whilst in Spain and Portugal Freemasory manifested itself in Anarchist outrages, in the East of Europe the lodges, largely under the control of Jews, followed the line of Marxian Socialism." [pp 283-4.]
"The Young Turk movement originated in the masonic lodges of Salonica under the direction of the Grand orient of Italy." [p. 284.]
"Amongst the strange survivals of Early Eastern sects are the Druses of Lebanon, who might indeed be described as the Freemasons of the East; their outer organization closely resembles that of the Craft Degrees in Western Masonry...."       No citation or examples provided.
      
"Only the application of Christian principles to human conduct can bring about a better order of things." [p. 293.]       A laudable sentiment, but not proof of an anti-Christian conspiracy.
      
"These terrible penalties, which many Freemasons themselves regret as a survival of barbarism...."
"In the opinion of M. Copin Albancelli, the abolition of the oath would go far to prevent penetration of British Masonry by the secret societies:" [p. 294.]       The usage of the obligations of Freemasonry, not "oaths", vary between jurisdictions. The "physical penalties" have always been symbolic and provide a valuable insight into the history of law and justice.
      
"It is obviously, then,...from Jewish Cabalists that these leaders of Theosophy have borrowed their ideas on Jesus Christ." [p. 300.]
"For the Theosophical Society is not a study group, but essentially a propagandist society which aims at substituting for the pure and simple teachings of Christianity the amazing compound of Eastern superstition, Cabalism, and eighteenth century charlatanism which Mrs. Besant and her coadjuters have devised."
      Quoting an ex-follower of Blavatsky, A.L. Cleather's charges of sexual perversion, Webster concludes, "It would appear, then, that these deplorable proclivities are peculiarly prevalent amongst aspirants to Theosophical knowledge." [p. 306.] She notes the socialist leanings of Theosophy, demonstrated by Besant's holding shares in the labour paper, Daily Herald and that an unidentified leading member of the Co-masonic "Order of the Star in the East" had "notified her intention of standing for [the Labour Party] in Parliament." [p. 307.]
Labeling people charlatans, perverts and socialists does not prove their association with secret societies plotting to overthrow governments.
      
"Although neither polical [sic] nor anti-Christian...the S.R.I.A, is nevertheless largely Cabalistic." [p. 312.]
"It is curious to notice that the eighties of the last century were marked by a simultaneous recrudescence of secret societies and of Socialist organizations. In 1880 Leopold Engel reorganized Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati, which, according to M. Guénon, played thenceforth 'an extremely suspect political role....'" [p. 311.]       The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia founded by Robert Wentworth Little in 1867, was a study group interested in all esoteric traditions.
It wasTheodor Reuss who "re-activated" the Order of Illuminati in Munich in 1880. Reuss was possibly a spy for the Prussian Police. Leopold Engel founded his World League of Illuminati in Berlin in 1893.
      
"This society, of which the name as well as its avowed aims are singularly reminiscent of Illuminism...." [p. 321.]
"Hence although the creed of the leaders is professedly Socialism, they readily co-operate with Syndicalists, Anarchists, or revolutionaries of any brand, carrying on propaganda in Trade Unions and various worker's organizations; some are secretly in the ranks of the Communists." [p. 322.]
"For the members of Clarté are as careful as were the adepts of Weishaupt to preserve their incognito and not be known as "Illuminati." [p. 322.]
"Although in the strictist sense a secret society, it is in no sense occult and therefore posesses no ritual of its own, but like the earlier Illuminati, recognizes the utility of working through Freemasonry. Clarté, in fact, forms an adjunct of the Grand Orient and owns a lodge under its jurisdiction in Paris." [p. 322.]       From the SRIA, Webster recounts a short history of the Golden Dawn, its offshoot, the Stella Matutina, Aleister Crowley's pro-German leanings during the first World War, and a "German-Jewish" society, Clarté.
A loose collection of socialist intellectuals influenced by noted author and pacifist, Henri Barbusse (1873-1935), Clarté never defined itself as Illuminati in any form. One of its better known members, Walter Nash, opened the Clarté Book Room in Wellington, New Zealand and later, as a proponant of Christian Socialism, served as Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1951-52 and again from 1957-62.
Clarté's relationship with the Grand Orient of France is not detailed and no citation is given.
      
"And have we not seen that investigations into the smaller secret societies frequently lead back to this greater masonic power." [p. 324.]
"The Stella Matutina may be only an obscure Fraternity, even the Theosophical Society with all its ramifications may not be of great importance in itself, but will anyone with a knowledge of European affairs seriously maintain that the Grand Orient is a small or unimportant organization?" [p. 324.]       Refering to the Grand Orient of France, Webster has not provided specific examples demonstrating their influence. This Grand Orient is a small and uninfluental organization. No proof otherwise is supplied.
      
"At any rate, the fact that they exist finally disposes of the contention that secret societies of a subversive and even of an abominable kind are a thing of the past. These amazing cults, these strange perverted rites which we associate with the dark ages, are going on around us to-day. Illuminism, Cabalism, and even Satanism are still realities." [p. 324.]       Webster's list of unrelated events and persons has not demonstrated the proof of any fact that effective secret societies existed or exist as she defines them
      
"In 1908 Monsieur Copin Albancelli stated that circumstances had afforded the proof that--'certain masonic societies exist which are Satanic....'" [p. 324.]       Albancelli claims to have "studied hundreds of documents relating to one of these societies, documents that I have not permission to publish...." [Le Pouvoir Occulte contre la France, p. 291.] This is not proof.
      
"How in the face of these declarations, coming from those inside the movement, can anyone maintain that Illuminism is dead and that secret societies present no danger to Christian civilization?" [p. 326.]       Quoting Albancelli's undocumented claim and one unidentified ex-member of Stella Matutina who revealed the group's alleged use of black magic, electro-magnetic power and hypnotism does not prove the group's danger, nor the danger of an unproven movement of secret societies.
      
it is impossible to ignore the resemblance between the theories not only of French but of modern British Socialism and the doctrines of illuminized Freemasonry." [p. 334.]       Webster has defined both Socialism and "illuminized Freemasonry" as anti-Christian and Luciferian. And then notes the resemblance between her own definitions.
      
"Moreover, the world revolution is not only founded on the doctrines of illuminized Freemasonry, but has adopted the same method of organization." [p. 337.]       Webster has not demonstrated the existence of an identifiable "world revolution" or "illuminized Freemasonry" and has only described their assumed organization in the broadest terms that could apply to almost any social group.
      
"The Protestant clergymen who profess 'Christian Socialism' are playing the same part. Doubtless without knowing it, they act as the agents of the Continental Illuminati and pave the way, as did the emissaries of Weishaupt, for the open attack on all forms of religion." [p. 341.]       No citations or examples provided that demonstrate either socialism or Weishaupt attacked anything other than the abuses of religion.
      
"Some years before the war, Monsieur de Lannoy, a member of an anti-masonic association in France, at a conference on 'the influence of judaeo-masonic sects in the theatre, in literature, in the fashions,' showed how 'orders of things which appear to have no connexion with each other are skilfully bound up together and directed by a single methodical movement towards a common end. This common end is the paganization of the universe, the destruction of all Christianity, the return to the loosest morals of antiquity."
The same glorification of vice has found exponents amongst the modern Illuminati in this country." [p. 344.]
"The attempt to pervert all conceptions of beauty in the sphere of art serves to pay the way for moral perversion." [p. 344.]
"We have already seen that occult practices may lead to the obliteration of all sense of truth and of normal sexual instincts." [p. 345.]
"The Freud theory is anti-Christian and subversive of organized society." [p. 345.]
"Thus birth control, which--if combined with the restriction of alien immigration and carried out under proper direction--would provide a solution to the frightful problem of overpopulation, can without these provisos become a source of national weakness and demoralization." "The campaign of race-suicide was thus combined with the undermining of morality." [p. 346.]       De Lannoy's concurance with Webster provides no proof of a conspiracy.
Webster's opinions on a number of social issues provides no proof of a conspiracy
      
"It is curious to notice that the apparently innocent invention of Esperanto receives support from the same quarter. This is not surprising since we know the idea of a universal language has long haunted the minds of Freemasons. I have myself seen a document emanating from a body of French Masons stating that Esperanto is directly under the control of the three masonic powers of France--the Grand Orient, the Grande Loge Nationale, and the Droit Humain. That it is frequently used for promoting Bolshevism has been frequently stated." [p. 346.]       No proof or documentation is cited for an interest by Freemasonry.
No proof or documentation is cited for a use by Bolshevism.
      
"What is the hidden influence behind the press, behind all the subversive movements going on around us? Are there several Powers at work? Or is there one Power, one invisible group directing all the rest--the circle of the real Initiates? [p. 349.]       This hidden influence is uncited and unproven.
      
"Finally [Père] Deschamps is lead to the conclusion that there is 'a secret council which directs all masonic societies,' that there are secret lairs where the chiefs of the sects agree together on their work of destruction.'" [p. 352.]       Deschamps provides no documentation or proof and Webster adds nothing further as citation or proof.
      
"...there are at the present moment five principal organized movements at work in the world with which ordered government has to contend, that may be summerized as follows:
1. Grand Orient Freemasonry.
2. Theosophy with its innumerable ramifications.
3. Nationalism of an aggressive kind, now represented by Pan-Germanism.
4. International Finance.
5. Social Revolution." [p. 352.]
"It is a highly significant fact that it was only when I had reached this stage of my work I discovered there were independent investigators who had arrived at precisely the same conclusions as myself." [p. 353.]
"Thus in reality each aspires to the dictatorship of the world." "...all contain a Jewish element..." "...all have a more or less decided antagonism to Christianity". [p. 353.]       Documented links between these interests has not been cited or demonstrated.
The significance that others hold her views is not given, nor is any citation for these other "independent investigators."
No citation, example, documentation, or proof has been provided for these claims.
      
"The connexion between German Imperialism, International Finance, Illuminism, Bolshevism, and certain sections of British Socialism is thus apparent," [p. 368.] "It is clear, then, that besides Pan-Germanism there is another power at work, a power far older, that seeks to destroy all national spirit, all ordered government in every country, Germany includes. What is this power? A large body of opinion replies: the Jewish power." [p. 369.]       This is opinion. No facts, no examples, no documentation, no proof.
      
"The Real Jewish Peril"
"...whether any definite proof exists that a concerted attempt is being made by Jewry to achieve world-domination and to obliterate the Christian faith." [p. 370.]
"That such a purpose has existed amongst the Jews in the past has been shown throughout the earlier chapters of this book." [p. 370.]
"But it is in the Cabala, still more than in the Talmud, that the Judaic dream of world-domination recurs with the greatest persistance." [p. 371.]
"...the Feast of Tabernacles is the period when Israel triumphs over the other people of the world..." [p. 371.]
"...according to several passages in the Cabala, all the goyim are to be swept off the face of the earth when Israel comes into its own." [p. 373.]
The Cabala also contains passages referring to Christ and to Mohammed so unspeakably foul that it would be impossible to quote them here." [p. 374.]       The Talmud was originally two collections of law, lore and commentary, one compiled in Palestine and completed around 400 CE, and the other compiled in Babylon a century later.
Quoting fifteen hundred year old commentaries from the Talmud and fictional excerpts from the Zohar, section Schemoth, folio 7 and 9b, section Beschalah, folio 58b (de Pauly's trans., III. 32, 36, 41, 260) doesn't prove a historical or present conspiracy. Cf.: The Hoaxers.
Cf. Falsifiers of the Talmud.
      
"Is there, then, any evidence that there exists amongst Jewry to-day and organized conspiracy having for its objects world-domination and the destruction of Christianity such as the famous Protocols of the Elders of Zion suggests?" [p. 382.]       Webster protests later that she views the fraudulant Protocols as an open question, but she refers to it several times as if its legitimacy is accepted.
      
"Disraeli, whose famous words have been quoted so frequently in this connexion: 'The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.'" [p. 383.]
"If, then, leading Jews persist in villifying everyone who reiterates the warnings uttered by so eminent a member of their race, it is inevitable that they should come to be suspected of having some interest in supressing further revelations." [p. 383.]       Disraeli (1804 -1881) was a popular novelist before he was prime minister of England (1868, 1874-80). In Coningsby p. 273 (1844), he created a secondary character named Sidonia who makes this remark in a conversation about the various undersecretaries, ministers and advisors to the European states. In context, there is no suggestion that these personages are in league, secretly or otherwise.
Expressions of innocence do not logically infer guilt.
      
"Now, we know for certain that the five powers before referred to--Grand Orient Masonry, Theosophy, Pan-Germanism, International Finance, and Social Revolution--have a very real existance and exercise a very definite influence on the affairs of the world. Here we are not dealing with hypothesis but with facts based on documentary evidence. We know in each case the names of many of the leaders, their methods of organization, their centres of direction, and the aims they are pursuing." [p. 383.]       Webster has reached this conclusion without having revealed more than a few names and no demonstration of documented connection or organized direction.
      
"But in considering the war on Capitolism it is essential to bear in mind that capitalists are of two kinds: national industrial capitalists--largely Gentiles and usually men of brains and energy who have built up flourishing businesses--and international loan-mongering capitolists, principally, though not exclusively, Jews who live by speculation." [p. 390.]       No citation or demonstration of this claim is provided.
      
"Are we not irrisistibly reminded of the passage in the Protocols...'Ours they will not touch, because the moment of attack will be known to us and we shall take measures to protect our own." [p. 390.]       Webster protests later that she views the fraudulant Protocols as an open question, but she refers to it several times as if its legitimacy is accepted.
      
"Jewish names" "massed forces of subversive Jewry" [p. 395.]       No citation or demonstration of these claims is provided.
      
"The Secret Service has overwhelming evidence on this last point, which under a Conservative Government might have been made public, but unseen influences in high places have ordained its suppression." [p. 400.]       Referring to the alien influences on socialism, Webster provides no citation or example while demonstrating a certain zenophobia.
      
"This comes perilously near to a fulfilment of the Protocols." [p. 401.]       Webster protests later that she views the fraudulant Protocols as an open question, but she refers to it several times as if its legitimacy is accepted.
      
"Fascismo triumphed in Italy, because it was not, as it has been absurdly represented, a reactionary movement, but because it was essentially democratic and progressive...." [p. 405.]       History has a less kind evaluation of fascism.
      
"For behind the concrete forces of revolution--whether Pan-German, Judaic, or Illuminist--beyond that invisible secret circle which perhaps directs them all, is there not yet another force, still more potent, that must be taken into account? In looking back back over the centuries at the dark episodes that have marked the history of the human race from its earliest origins--strange and horrible cults, waves of witchcraft, blasphemies, and desecrations--how is it possible to ignore the existence of an Occult Power at work in the world? Individuals, sects, or races fired with the desire of world domination, have provided the fighting forces of destruction, but behind them are the veritable powers of darkness in eternal conflict with the powers of light." [p. 406.]       All Webster's arguments come down to this: Evil exists as a physical force and is attempting to destroy Christianity.
      
"Contrary to the assertions of certain writers, I have never affirmed my belief in the authenticity of the Protocols, but have always treated it as an entirely open question." [p. 408.] "An International circle of of world revolutionaries working on the lines of the Illuminati, of which the existance has already been indicated, offers a perfectly possible alternative to the 'Learned Elders of Zion.'" [p. 413.] "It is evident then that the complete story of the Protocols has not yet been told, and that much remains to be discovered concerning this mysterious affair." [p. 414.]       Webster refers numerous times to the Protocals as if they are authentic. They are a proven fraud.
NOTES
Convent at Wilhelmsbad; July 16, 1782 - September 1, 1782: There were a total of 35 representatives present at this meeting of the various bodies working the Strict Observance system of degrees, all from Europe. Among them, Baron Von Knigge represented the Bavarian Illuminati. The major work of the convention was a declaration that Freemasonry was not the successor to the Knights Templars, and a reorganization of the system of degrees. This resulted in the Grand Lodge of Three Globes declaring its independence on January 30, 1784 and Italy partially reverting to the English system the following year. From this time practically moribund, the Strict Observance may be said to have continued to 1855 when the Danish Lodges adopted the Swedish Rite. In practice, it ceased to exist after the death of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in 1792. [Gould History of Freemasonry Vol. III p. 366-369, Chart I following p. 378] Any evaluation of French Freemasonry must take into account the large number of bodies claiming authority to confer degrees and warrant lodges: there were ten such bodies active in the days preceeding the French Revolution. Gould requires a fold-out chart to detail over thirty bodies that existed between 1725 and 1885, noting that he has only included those that exercised any considerable influence on the Grand Orient. Neither the Strict Observance nor the Bavarian Illuminati are mentioned by name although the Chapter of Cleremont is noted as briefly uniting with the Grande Loge de France and then dying out around 1780 while the Scots Directories are seen to have closed during the French Revolution and then dieing out around 1814. [Gould. Chart No. II following p. 440] ^
Gould, Robert Freke. The History of Freemasonry,Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, etc. Vol. III, New York, John C Yorston & Co., Publishers: 1886.
Hund, Karl Gotthelf, Baron von Hund und Alten-Grotkau. Born September 1, 1722, died October 28, 1776. (Mackey notes November 8.) His friend Von Springseisen claimed that Hund received the three degrees on March 20, 1742 in Union Lodge, Frankfurt but this has been disproven. He is assumed to have been initiated by an unchartered lodge then operating in Frankfurt.
Knigge, Adolph Franz Friederich Ludwig, Baron Von. (Adolphe-Francois-Frederic) Born in Brendenbeck on 16 October 1752, died on 6 May 1796. Initiated January 20, 1772 into a Lodge of Strict Observance at Cassel. Among the Illuminati, Knigge was known by the name of Philo. Knigge is also remembered in Germany as the author of a three-volume work on manners and etiquette entitled Ueber den umgang mit menschen, Hannover, HahnÕsche hofbuchhandlung, 1830.
Lucifer, also called Lucifer Calaritanus (d. c.370), bishop of Cagliari, Sardinia, who was a fierce opponent of the heresy of Arianism. To further his rigorously orthodox views, he founded the Luciferians, a sect that survived in scattered remnants into the early 5th century. It was attacked by St. Jerome in his polemic Altercatio Luciferiani et orthodoxi ("The Dispute of the Luciferian and the Orthodox"). Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. 7, p. 542. ^
Tatian, The Earliest Life of Christ, ever compiled from the four Gospels, being The Diatessaron of Tatian. Literally Translated from the Arabic Version and containing the Four Gospels woven into One Story. With an Introduction and Notes by The Rev. J. Hamlyn Hill, D.D.. Second Edition Abridged. T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street, Edinburgh: 1910. ^
Zahn thinks Tatian was born about 110 CE; the Christians at Rome excommunicated him as a heretic about 172 CE and it is thought that he died at Odessa about 180 CE. The Homilies of Aphraates, 337-345, and the Gospel Commentaries of Ephraem (d. 373) are believed to be based on the Diatessaron and it was widely used in fifth century Syria. A Latin version is known from the sixth century and an Eastern Frankish version from the ninth century. [cf. Vatican Library Arabic MS. XIV, 125 leaves, missing 17th and 118th.]
1. Feminine Fascism, Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923-1945. Julie V. Gottlieb. I.B. Tauris Publishers, London, New York. 2000. HB 378 pp. p. 13, 16, 22. Who's Who, p. 346. ISBN: 1-86064-544-55. Cf.: 'British Fascism, The Nineteenth Century and After, 97 (January 1925), 132-42. cited by Gottlieb, p. 13, 16, 22. Who's Who. Cf.: Spacious Days, An Autobiography, Nesta H. Webster. Hutchinson & Co. , n.d.. Also see Behind World revolution : the strange career of Nesta H. Webster, Richard M. Gilman. Ann Arbor : Insights Books, 1982-. v. 1 : ill. ; 23 cm. [Bibliography: v. 1, p. 101-111.] ISBN: 0910087008 (pbk. : v. 1) ^
2. Excerpted from Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. Nesta H. Webster. Christian Book Club of America: 1964 ISBN: 0 913022 05 5. ^

[mgt23]

http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/protocols.html

History of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
      
Freemasonry was linked to the Protocols by Sergei Aleksandrovich Nilus (1862-1929) when he included the Protocols as an appendix to the 1905 second edition of his 1901 autobiography, The Great in the Small: Antichrist considered as an imminent political possibility (Sergiev Posad, 1905). In the 1905 edition of his book, Nilus claimed that the meetings of the Elders of Zion referred to in the Protocols took place in 1902-03. He later claimed to have acquired the Protocols in 1901.
In the introduction to the 1911 edition of his book, Nilus says:
   

In 1901, I succeeded through an acquaintance of mine (the late Court Marshal Alexei Nocolayevitch Sukotin of Tchernigov) in getting a manuscript that exposed with unusual perfection and clarity the course and development of the secret Jewish Freemasonic conspiracy, which would bring this wicked world to its inevitable end. The person who gave me this manuscript guaranteed it to be a faithful translation of the original documents that were stolen by a woman from one of the highest and most influential leaders of the Freemasons at a secret meeting somewhere in France—the beloved nest of Freemasonic conspiracy. [Morris Kominsky The Hoaxers 1970. p. 209.]
   
Nilus further contradicts himself as to his sources in his 1917 edition. He asserts that the Protocols were presented at the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland in 1897 in "Circular 18", contradicting his original claims to their history. This congress was open to the public and was attended by a number of Christian clergy, political figures and reporters. The existence of "Circular 18" has not been documented. Nilus may have been as much a victim of the fraud as any, but there is no record that he ever renounced the Protocols, and Armand du Chayla records Nilus' belief that the source of the text was unimportant.
      
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, perhaps the most widely known work of modern antisemitism, is based on judeophobic beliefs of mediaeval Europe. Accusations that the Jews used blood of Christian children for the Feast of Passover, spread the plague and poisoned wells incited the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe. Other stories were circulated of secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians.
The conceptual inspiration for the Protocols can be traced back to the French Revolution period when the Abbé Augustin Barruel (1741/10/02 - 1820/10/05) published four books in 1797, the last two blaming the revolution on a conspiracy operating through the freemasons and Illuminati. Barruel's ideas were unsupportable. Before the revolution the lodges had been made up mostly of the nobility and landed gentry. By the time Napoleon declared the revolution over, most of the lodges had closed and many of their members were either dead or in exile. Barruel had not blamed the Jews in these books. However in 1806 Barruel circulated a forged letter — probably sent to him by members of the state police opposed to Napoleon Bonaparte's liberal policy toward the Jews — calling attention to the alleged part of the Jews in the conspiracy he had earlier attributed to the freemasons. This myth of an international Jewish conspiracy reappeared later in nineteenth century Europe. 1
The literary predecessor of the Protocols can be found in the pamphlet Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, published by the non-Jewish French satirist Maurice Joly (1829 ['21, '31]-1878) in 1864, although it appears that Joly plagiarized Eugène Sue's 1843 serialized novel, Les Mysteres de Paris. In Sue's work, the plotters were Jesuits.
In his Dialogues, which make no mention of the Jews, Joly attacked the political ambitions of the emperor Napoleon III using the imagery of a diabolical plot in Hell. The Dialogues were discovered by the French authorities soon after their publication and Joly was tried and sentenced to prison for his pamphlet.2
Joly's Dialogues, while intended as a political satire and defence of liberalism, was adopted by a German postal clerk and a spy for the Prussian secret police, Hermann Goedsche (1815-1878), writing under the name of Sir John Retcliffe. He had been forced to leave the postal service due to his part in forging evidence in the prosecution against the Democratic leader Benedict Waldeck in 1849. Goedsche adapted Joly's Dialogues into a mythical tale of a Jewish conspiracy as part of a series of novels entitled Biarritz, which appeared in 1868. In a chapter called The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, he concocts a secret centennial rabbinical conference which meets at midnight and whose purpose is to review the past hundred years and to make plans for the next century.
Goedsche's plagiary of Joly's Dialogues soon found its way to Russia. It was translated into Russian in 1872, and a consolidation of the Council of representatives under the name The Rabbi's Speech appeared in Russian in 1891. These works no doubt furnished the Okhrana, the Russian secret police, with a means with which to strengthen the position of the weak tsar Nicholas II and discredit the reforms of the liberals who sympathized with the Jews. During the Dreyfus afffair of 1893-1895, Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski (Mathieu Golovinski) (1865-1920), working for the Okhrana in Paris redacted the earlier works of Joly and Goedsche into a new edition in 1890 or 1891, which he called the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The manuscript of the Protocols was brought to Russia in 1895 and was printed privately in pamphlet form in 1897.3
The Protocols did not gain a wide audience until 1905, when Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese war was followed by the revolution in the same year, leading to the promulgation of a constitution and institution of the Duma. In the wake of these events, the reactionary "Union of the Russian Nation", or Black Hundreds organization, sought to incite popular feeling against the Jews, who they blamed for the Revolution and the constitution. To this end they used the Protocols, which was first published in a public edition by the self-styled mystic, Sergius Nilus, in 1905. The Protocols, published in the newspaper Znamia in 1905 and 1906, were part of a propaganda campaign which accompanied the Okhrana incited pogroms of 1905. A variant text of the Protocols was published by George V. Butmi in 1906 and again in 1907. The edition of 1906 was found among the tsar's collection, even though he had already recognized the work as a forgery. In his later editions, Nilus claimed that the Protocols had been read secretly at the First Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897, while Butmi, in his edition, wrote that they had no connection with the new Zionist movement, but rather were part of the masonic conspiracy.
In the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the reactionary White Armies made extensive use of the Protocols to incite widespread slaughters of Jews. At the same time, Russian emigrants brought the Protocols to western Europe, where the Nilus edition served as the basis for many translations, starting in 1920. Just after its appearance in London in 1920, Lucien Wolf exposed the Protocols as a plagiary of the earlier work of Joly and Goedsche, in a pamphlet of the Jewish Board of Deputies.4 The following year, on 16, 17 and 18 August 1921, the story of the forgery was published in a series of articles in the Times of London by Philip Graves, the paper's correspondent in Constantinople.5 A book documenting the forgery was published the same year in the United States by Herman Bernstein. Nevertheless, the Protocols continued to circulate widely. They were even sponsored by Henry Ford in the United States until 1927, and formed an important part of the Nazis' justification of genocide of the Jews in World War II.
In 1933 a suit was brought for libel and distributing "Schunliteratur" (smut literature) against Georg Bernard Haller, editor-in-chief of the Nazi-oriented Confederates of the Oath (Eidgenossen) and its publisher Theodor Fischer. Also named were Theodor Fritsch and Gottfried zur Beek, who died before the trial began.
The trial began in Berne on 29 October 1934, the plaintiffs being the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG), assisted by Prof. Hans Matti, and the local "Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bern, assisted by Georges Brunschvig. On 31 October the trial was adjourned until the end of April 1935. On 14 May 1935 the Cantonal Court of Berne declared the Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and libelous. In November 1937 the Court of Appeals overturned the earlier judgement on formal grounds but confirmed the previous findings that the Protocols were a fabrication.
Rabbi Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis gave testimony as a witness in a similar trial in Basel, the plaintiffs in this case being Dr. J. Dreyfus-Brodsky and Dr. Marcus Cohen; in a similar case in Grahamstown, South Africa in August 1934 the Court imposed fines totalling £1,775 ($4,500) on three men for concocting a modern version of the Protocols.6
A curious sidelight to the promotion of the Protocols is given by William Guy Carr (1895-1959) whose undocumented research purports to prove they "are the Long rang Plan of the Illuminati which was explained by Amschel Rothschild to his associates in Frankfort in 1773." [Pawns In The Game. Los Angeles, St. George Press: 1958. p. 157.] Carr may have taken his lead from the introduction to Victor E. Marsden's English translation where he writes under the heading "A Fifteenth Century "Protocol": "Here is one from the Fifteenth Century which Jews can hardly pronounce a forgery, seeing that it is taken from a Rothschild journal." This appears at the bottom of page 7 but when the reader turns to page 8, there is a new headline and an unrelated topic.
In the USA, the Protocols was republished in Milton William Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse. (1943/05/06 - 2001/11/06) Between August and November of 2002, the New Jersey based Arabic-language newspaper The Arab Voice published excerpts from the Protocols. In attempting to justify reprinting this hoax, editor and publisher Walid Rabah noted that "some major writers in the Arab nation accept the truth of the book."
1.Encyclopaedia Judaica. Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem (1971), entries on Antisemitism and Elders of Zion, Protocols of the Learned.
2.The Truth About "The Protocols of Zion", Herman Bernstein. (reprinted with introduction by Norman Cohn). Ktav Publishing House, New York (1971).
3.Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Norman Cohn. (Brown Judaic Studies, No. 23). Scholars Press, Chico, CA (1981). Also see 18 November 1999; "Les secrets d'une manipulation antisémite," Eric Conan, L'Express, 24 November 1999; "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Patrick Bishop The Washington Times, November 21, 199, p. C10; The London Telegraph, November 19, 1999.
4.The Jewish Bogey and the Forged Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, Lucien Wolf. Press Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies, London (1920).
5."The Truth About 'The Protocols': A Literary Forgery." The Times of August 16, 17, and 18, 1921. Printing House Square, London.
6.The Jewish World Conspiracy; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion before the Court in Berne, U. Bodung-Verlag, Erfurt, (1938). 22 pages. Also see Der Berner Prozess um die Protokole der Weisen von Zion, Acten und Gutachten, by H. J. von Freyenwald, published at Erfurt, (1939). A copy is in the Weiner Library. A typed copy of the 1937 judgement is in File 20 of the Freyenwald Collection in the Weiner Library, pp. 41-45.
These notes are excerpted, in part, from texts posted into various newsgroups by Danny Kerens and Andrew S. Hall. Further bibliographical sources are available at Nilus Bibliography.

[Michael K.]

Dear mgt23,

I have been trying to digest the voluminous contents of this post, and I am on my second day at it part-time.  I wanted to make a comment to encourage you that you are doing well to post this information.  It is critical to know the adversary's arguments and to be ready for problems.  

In the case of the first section, I have always been a little skeptical of the list of "Talmud Quotes" making its way around the internet without attribution of authorship.  The freemason author above clearly debunks several supposed citations as either being from ancillary rabbinical books, not in the Talmud proper, or being complete fabrications.  

On can discern the presence of propaganda and half-truth in this feemason's critique, however, in that he omits those quotes on the well known list which ARE accurate. By giving no objective overview of the whole list, and only presenting the faulty or weak references for critique, he is attempting to get his audience to accept a blanket invalidation of any criticism of the Talmud as a product of fiction.

[mgt23]

It is critical to know the adversary's arguments and to be ready for problems.

yes and thats why its up here. im glad you uderstand my MO in obtaining facts and strengthening a fact and conclusion nexus.

In the case of the first section, I have always been a little skeptical of the list of "Talmud Quotes" making its way around the internet without attribution of authorship. The freemason author above clearly debunks several supposed citations as either being from ancillary rabbinical books, not in the Talmud proper, or being complete fabrications.

people who lie about the Talmud and/or dont put into context the primary source and the quote ref are just as bad as the talmudists and indeedcould be said to be THEM. the reason we are on the moral high ground is that truth no matter how bad it is/ is always on our side as that is always the primary research marker. so if there are any fabrications one must look at the agenda of the primaray source. i will qualify this and say it is limited to the access and supervised Carbon dating of a document pre A/V media age(which can be faked digitally)

On can discern the presence of propaganda and half-truth in this feemason's critique, however, in that he omits those quotes on the well known list which ARE accurate. By giving no objective overview of the whole list, and only presenting the faulty or weak references for critique, he is attempting to get his audience to accept a blanket invalidation of any criticism of the Talmud as a product of fiction.

which is why i'm TIU and not a mason. TIU should be more than a moral political stance, i want it to be a methodolgy as well. Jewish Supremacism(Halakha) is still the goal and i see no defence of this here.

[pas]

Great posts Mgt, thanks.
I agree also with Micheal K.Know your enemy, especially their ''battle strategies'' on every level.