Page 152 - Global Freemasonry

GLOBAL FREEMASONRY
THE MASONS' FALSE SUPPORT OF

HAECKEL

When we look at Masonic literature, apart from their blind attachment to the
theory of evolution, we are struck by its profound ignorance. For example, when we
examine Turkish sources, we see that evolutionist claims that were proved false in
the first quarter of the twentieth century are still defended passionately. One of
these is the story of Haeckel and his theory on embryos mentioned in nearly all Ma-
sonic publications.
The story is about a German biologist by the name of Ernst Haeckel, who was
a close friend and supporter of Charles Darwin, and one of the most prominent sup-
porters of the theory after Darwin's death. In order to establish the validity of the
theory, Haeckel examined the embryos of various living things, and proposed that
they all resembled one another and that each undergoes a miniature process of evo-
lution before birth. To support this claim, he drew a number of comparisons be-
tween different embryos, by means of which he persuaded many of the validity of
the theory of evolution in the first half of the twentieth century.
As we mentioned, Masonic sources place great importance on this embryol-
ogy thesis, which is termed "'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Master Naki
Cevad Akkerman, in an article entitled "The Concept of Truth and the Principles of
Masonry" in Mimar Sinan, calls this thesis a "law," that is, he raises it to the rank of
undisputable scientific fact. He writes:
…We will consider a very important natural law. This is the formula proposed by
Haeckel, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." If we take a human being as an example, the
meaning of the law is as follows: The morphological changes and changes in the order and func-
tion of the organs that a human being undergoes, from the first cellular formation in his
mother's womb, until he is born and during his life until he dies, is nothing more than a recapit-
ulation of the changes that he has undergone since the beginning, from his initial cellular forma-
tion in earth and in water until today. 1
Master Mason Selami Isindag also places great importance on Haeckel's the-
ory. In an article entitled "Masonic Doctrines" he writes "In his experiments, Darwin
proved that various species of animals first developed from a single cell and later
from a single species." Then he adds:
Haeckel made studies supporting all these experimental findings. He believed that the most basic
animal, the Monera, became an organic living thing from inorganic material elements. He
demonstrated that there was a unity at the basis of everything. This Monism is a combination of
matter and spirit. These are two aspects of the substance that forms their basis. What Masonry
believes is in conformity with these scientific and experimental findings. 2
In another Masonic text Haeckel is referred to as a "great scholar," and his the-
sis that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is claimed as proof of the theory of evo-
lution. 3

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