Page 165 - Global Freemasonry
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Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)
become distorted—preserved scholastic ideas and oppressive practices,
Masonry's hostility toward the Church was not founded on this but from
its hatred of traditional monotheist religions.
It suffices to look at the structure of Masonry and its rites and cere-
monies to come to an understanding of this matter.
EXAMPLE OF A MASONIC LODGE:
THE HELL-FIRE CLUB
In order to understand how eighteenth century Masonry was orga-
nized, and what it attempted to achieve, one of the things we must pro-
ceed to do is examine the various secret Masonic societies that came to be
at that period. One such society was the "Hell-Fire Club," that was active
in England in the middle of the eighteenth century. The Masonic structure
of this club and its anti-religious, pagan character, is described by the Ma-
sonic writer Daniel Willens in his article, "The Hell-Fire Club: Sex, Politics
and Religion in Eighteenth-Century in England." Here are some interest-
ing passages from that article published in Gnosis, a journal of Western
inner traditions:
On moonlit nights during the reign of England's King George III, im-
mensely powerful members of His Majesty's Government, important in-
tellectuals, and influential artists could sometimes be seen travelling up
the Thames River by gondola to a ruined abbey near West Wycombe.
There, to the sonorous tolling of the deconsecrated cloister's bell, they
dressed in monkish robes and indulged in every manner of depravity,
culminating in a Black Mass celebrated on... a debauched noblewoman
and presided over by that notorious rake Sir Francis Dashwood. Their
diabolical devotions concluded, the inner circle would adjourn to plot
the course of the British Empire.
This "unholy sodality," as it has been called, styled themselves, with
suitably Gothic flair, "The Friars of St. Francis of Medmenham,"
though they have been immortalized by their popular epithet "The
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