Popular Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories about Freemasonry attribute political upheavals or hidden control of society to Masonic organisations. They need to be distinguished from documented events involving particular lodges or members. Historical examples include explanations of the French Revolution, the fabricated revelations of Léo Taxil, and antisemitic propaganda which falsely combined Jews and Freemasons into a single directing power.[1]
Revolution and secret societies
Augustin Barruel and John Robison developed influential conspiracy accounts of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Barruel attributed its origins to a coordinated campaign by philosophes, Freemasons and Illuminati against monarchy and religion. Robison arrived independently at a similar explanation. These were the authors' allegations, rather than evidence of a unified Masonic policy. In her study of nineteenth-century conspiracy narratives, Rebecca Sugden describes the change in scale from accusations of particular political intrigues to theories of anonymous groups directing events across countries and generations.[2]
The Taxil hoax
The Taxil hoax provides a case in which the supposed evidence was deliberately manufactured. From 1885, Taxil produced sensational anti-Masonic material after announcing a religious conversion. His inventions included a supposed Satanic organisation called the Palladium and Diana Vaughan, a fictitious insider whose alleged experiences appeared to corroborate the story. Multiple publications and assumed authorial identities helped give the fabrications an appearance of independent support. Taxil publicly admitted the deception on 19 April 1897.[3]
Antisemitic propaganda and persecution
The forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion promoted a false Jewish world-conspiracy narrative and helped spread the associated accusation of Jewish–Masonic collaboration. The document is evidence of antisemitic propaganda, not of the activities it purported to expose.[1]
Under the Nazi regime, accusations of a Jewish–Masonic conspiracy accompanied the suppression of Freemasonry. On 17 August 1935, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick ordered the dissolution of the remaining German lodges and confiscation of their property. Confiscated collections subsequently supplied anti-Masonic exhibitions, including those in occupied Paris and Brussels. These exhibitions served the regime's propaganda purposes.[4]
The eye and unfinished pyramid on the reverse of the United States Great Seal often attract speculative interpretations. The seal has a documented design history: Congress adopted it on 20 June 1782 after work by successive committees and a final design assembled by Charles Thomson. The National Archives explains the pyramid as strength and endurance and the eye as Providence; the new era referred to in the motto concerns the new American republic. These recorded explanations provide a basis for interpreting the emblem.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Freemasonry, Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- ↑ Rebecca Sugden, Conspiracy in Balzac and Sand's July Monarchy Fiction, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018, pp. 16–18.
- ↑ Bibliothèque nationale de France, Le symbole au 19e siècle, section “Une mystification antimaçonnique”.
- ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Freemasonry under the Nazi Regime, Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- ↑ US National Archives, Original Design of the Great Seal of the United States (1782); The Great Seal: Celebrating 233 Years of a National Emblem, 20 June 2015.
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