GODDESS SYMBOLISM WITHIN FREEMASONRY

BY WILLIAM BOND

A few years ago I came across a illustrated Freemasonry book in my local library and glanced through it, out of idle curiosity, I was surprised to find I was able to pick out Goddess symbolism within Mason images. Which was a surprise, because Freemasonry is suppose to be a male dominated secret society. So why would a organization that has steadfastly refused to allow female members within its ranks for hundreds of years, use Goddess symbolism? It didn't make sense. I began to read more about Freemasonry and found enough information about the connection between Freemasonry and Goddess worship to fill a book. This article is a taste of what I have discovered so far.

I am myself am not a Freemason so any knowledge and understanding from this article, only comes only from my interpretation of Mason symbols. I have had a deep interest in Goddess religions for nearly 30 years, so I am looking at Freemasonry from this point of view. Yet if my interpretation of the symbols are correct, they tell a very different story about Freemasonry, than what the general public is led to believe. They even had the audacity to erect a giant statue of a Sun Goddess in New York harbour. Which they called the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty was conceived, financed and built by Freemasons. They even had a Freemasonry ceremony when the statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886, by the then President of USA, Grover Cleveland. This colossus was initiated by French Freemason Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. Whom he claim, "he caught a vision of a magnificent goddess holding aloft a torch in one hand and welcoming all visitors to the land of freedom and opportunity". So clearly in his mind the statue was a Goddess. He also wanted to build a giant statue of the Goddess Isis in Egypt, but as Egypt was then, and now, a Moslem country, this wasn't a good idea, and it fell through. The cost of making and installing this Statue Of Liberty was enormous. The French Freemasons had to raise 3,500,000 French francs, while New York newspaper owner Joseph Pulitzer donated $100,000 which in the1870's was a lot of money.

The symbolism of the Statue shows she is a Sun Goddess. We can see this by the ray of the sun coming out of her head dress and the flaming torch she is holding. The significance of this is in pagan times there used to be sun-gods and moon-goddesses. With the sun-god being the dominant deity because the sun has the greater light. But in more ancient times there used to be sun-goddesses and moon-gods. So she would be a dominant Goddess taking us back to the Creatrix Great Mother.

Since then I have discovered I am not alone in realizing there is a hidden Goddess within Freemasonry. I have since gone on the Internet and by simply typing - Goddess, Freemasonry - in a search engine I have found web-sites saying very much the same thing. Many it seems from ex-Freemasons. Though I have to say these people seem to have a different perspective to what I have. Mostly they seem to be fundamentalist Christians who believe strongly that the Bible is the word of God. Then they become Freemasons and were shocked to discover its Goddess origins. Some of these men have gone as far as accusing Freemasons of being Satanist.

The above drawing is called Faith, Hope and Charity. As in other Mason drawings Faith, Hope and Charity are represented by angels or Goddesses. In this drawing we only see two Goddesses or angels so where is the third? The secret meaning within this drawing is that the third Goddess is Compass and Square imagine in the middle of the drawing. So why is does this image represent a Goddess?

The Compass and Square image is probably the most popular symbol in Freemasonry. The fundamentalist Pastor Ron Carlson, who has spoken about Freemasonry in evangelical churches in many parts of America, claims that the square represents the earth, the compasses represent the sky, and the square and compasses when united, represent the sky impregnating the earth with its showers. He goes on to state that this is a symbol of sexual intercourse. The official Freemason line is they are just tools of the Masonry Trade.

Within the space made by the square and compass sometimes a letter is put there. Mostly it is a G though sometimes it is a M. So what do these letters mean? Masons claim that G is the secret name of God. Which is a mystery in itself because clearly G would stand for God, so it is not a mystery at all. To make it a mystery suggests it must be another name. Masons themselves claimed that G stands for geometry. This is because Freemasons refer to God as the Great Architect and you need geometry to create a complex building like a Church.

It has been claimed that the word "Great Architect" was introduced into Freemasonry in 1723 by the Presbyterian minister, James Anderson, and that he got it from the works of John Calvin, one of the founders of Presbyterianism. Also the idea of geometry comes from the physics of Isaac Newton who showed that the movement of planets was caused by scientific laws and not by the hand of God as previously thought. Newton used geometry to calculate the movement of planets so if we replace geometry with God we would then assume that Freemasonry is a atheistic organization. As the physics of Isaac Newton along with the later Darwin's theory of evolution was used by atheists to prove that God didn't exist and the world was created by blind chance. Though the irony of this, is that Isaac Newton was a very religious man and would completely reject this claim.

Freemasonry is certainly not a atheist society and they even banned people from joining it who are atheists. In my opinion both the Great Architect and Geometry are really very poor names for the Creator. After all there is a vast difference in planning a building and creating life. They are names that wouldn't satisfy a person who has the imagination to wonder at the diversity and complexity of life and the universe. A better explanation comes from Gerald Gardner who was not only a Freemason but the originator of modern Witchcraft. At the end of a article about Witchcraft he was to write.-

"The Myth of Witchcraft seems to be the story of the goddess here quoted. I am forbidden to give her name, so I will call her G."

If that is true, then it gives us a clue to the meaning of the Compass and Square image. The letter G is framed by a Diamond shape. This shape must be important because Masons use the same shape using other tools. As we can see above where knives and forks are used to make the same shape. Which is strange because knives and forks and certainly not Mason tools. This then suggests that the shape that the objects makes, is more important the than objects that make the shape. So what is this shape trying to tell us? The V or triangle shape seems to be used a lot in Freemason symbolism.

A example of this is another important Mason symbol of the Trowel which off coarse is another triangle shape. Back in the Stone-Age archaeologists and palaeontologists have discovered many V and triangle shaped symbols and it seems they represent the triangle of a women's pubic hairs. While the diamond shape is similar to a open woman's vagina. We can find examples of this is images of the Sheela-Na-Gig.

The image called Sheela-Na-Gig, and is found, believe it or not, on ancient Christian Churches in Britain and Ireland. It is claimed by Christian Priests that this image was used to frighten away demons. Which might make sense to a Christian minded person who believe sex and everything to do with it, is "dirty" and evil. Yet to the ancients this was once a holy and sacred image. Many of these images are found on Churches dedicated to St Bridget. Who was once the pagan Goddess Brigit.

It has also been claimed that when the Christian Church first built the first stone Churches the workforce still followed pagan beliefs. So the workers were able to incorporate many of the pagan gods and goddesses within the decoration of the churches. As well as coded messages of pre-Christian teachings. So it seem the Church at the time didn't then have to power to prevent this. It has also been claimed that these pagan stone masons were the first Freemasons.

Freemasons today don't mind admitting that the Compass and Square symbol is also a disguise version of the Hexagram shape, if you put two horizontal line across the points of the compass and square. So why did the Freemasons in the past, need to disguise its shape? Although in the last 200 years the Hexagram has gained reasonable respectability as the Star Of David in Judaism, in pre-Christian times it was used by Pagan religions. So back in medieval times it would have been seen as a pagan symbol which would warranted a visit by the Inquisition, for anyone who dared to displayed it.

The Hexagram consists of 6 sides, 6 points and 6 smaller triangles, thus 666. Before Revelations in the Bible was written, 666 stood for the Triple Goddesses as 6 was a sacred number, and still is today in Hinduism and Buddhism. So the story of the Beast 666 in Book of Revelations was a attack on Goddess worship as 666 was also used to represent the Triple Babylonian Goddess Ishtar whom Revelations called, "The Great Whore Of Babylon". Hex is also associated with Witchcraft as it is another name for a Witch's spell and in German a Hexen is a Witch.

The Hexagram is very ancient is was used to represent sexual love. As we can see two triangles of the female pubic hairs joined together. This may be a ancient symbol of sisterhood or lesbian love. If you take away the two horizontal bars like the Freemasons have done. you once again have the diamond shape similar to a open vagina. The Hexagram is still used today by the Hindu Tantra as a symbol of sexual intercourse. Judaism only adopted the Star Of David as late as the 18th century, so they may not of known its original meaning.

In our Judeo-Christian world we assume that sex and religion don't have nothing to do with each other, because we have been taught, that sex is a sin. But in the ancient past sex was seen as a very sacred act, because it creates life. This is true even in Hinduism today as whole temples are devoted to the sacredness of sex.

As was also the vagina, because pre-historic people believed that the whole world was born from the womb of the Great Mother. For this reason they worshipped the vagina as the source of all life. The later patriarchal religions made sex a sin and claimed that the vagina was, "unclean" as an attack on the earlier Goddess religions.

This carving comes from India and represents the worship of the yoni. Even in modern times in Tantra, the yoni is seen as a sacred and revered object.

To many Christian minded people these carvings from India would be seen as obscene. The second one shows a woman with the muscles of her abdomen flexed in contraction as she is about to give birth. When ancient people believed that the Great Mother created the universe it was easy for them to imagine the Great Mother giving birth to the world. For this reason everything associated with giving birth became very sacred.

When humans first became self aware they began to ask themselves, "what created the world?" It then would be natural for them to assume that the intelligence that created our world would be feminine. This is because if we look at animal and human life we find that life is created within the bodies of females. In fact it must of seem to our ancestors that women had great magical powers to create life like this. So it would be logical for them to assume that the whole of creation was born from the body of what they called, "The Great Mother".

This belief it seems gave women great power and status in human societies. Because if the Creatrix was female then all women were created in the image of the Great Mother. This belief made women very holy because it was only women who could create life in the same way the Great Mother had done. This is seen clearly in the many images found in Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites. Where they show images of the sex-act, the genitalia of women represented as V of a women's pubic hair or slit symbols and the very many naked images of women themselves. The picture that comes from these ancient times is that people then regarded the sex-act, menstruation, child-birth and breast feeding as all being very sacred. When these images were first discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries they were dismissed by male scientists as just "fertility symbols", and many were thrown away. We only know about them because some academics saw them as works of arts and preserved them. Since then very large numbers of these symbols and images that have been found in many parts of he world. This has made some people realize that these were the images of a major world wide religion.

Some palaeontologists have speculated that people in the Stone Age were unaware that the sex act produced childbirth. So women suddenly producing children would be seen as a wondrous miracle. They also went on to imagine that when men realized this role in conception, he no longer worshipped women as magical beings and took over the role of Creator himself. To support this theory we do find in Ancient Egypt that the God Atum created the world in a act of masturbation. The problem is that we do find the sexual act portrayed in Stone-Age art. Also the numbers 13 and 9 are important numbers in cave art. There are 13 menstrual cycles or moon months in a year and it takes on average 9 months for a baby to conceive and be ready for birth. So the people then, may not be as daft as we assume they might be. Also the input of men in the act of creation can be over in a few seconds, (wham, bam, thank you ma'am). Which is not anywhere equal to women carrying a foetus for nine months, the pain and drama of childbirth itself and then the ability of the women to feed the new born baby from her breasts. Not to mention all the mysteries of menstruation, which was seen as something very holy and sacred in ancient societies, and something as unclean and taboo in later patriarchal societies.

So we can see from this, that the ancient religion of the Great Mother would be a very feminine religion and empathize the feminine and maternal instincts of compassion, caring, nurturing, loving and creativity. This is supported by the fact that in the first civilizations of the Neolithic age, warfare and violence was completely unknown. Archaeologists only begin to find weapons of war, fortifications and images of violence in the later bronze and iron ages. Where it seems people began to worship male warrior Gods.

It seems that men started to began to dominate our world about five thousand years ago through violence and conquest. They then also created male dominated religions that made the Creator a male and claimed that the sexual act, menstruation, child-birth and breast feeding were all unclean, sinful and taboo. This was to undermined the role of women. Even today few women dare to breast feed in public, while back in the 1950s and 60s male doctors all but banned breast feeding claiming that cow's milk was better for the child! It was only later, scientific research showed the obvious fact that that human milk was best for human babies. As it had been discovered that mothers pass on their immunity to disease through the breast milk. Unfortunately there is still resistance because mothers are still not encouraged to keep breast feeding too long, and to switch to cow's milk as soon as possible. In spite of the fact that the research shows that mothers keep on feeding their immunity to the baby right up to time the baby is weaned. Also more modern research shows that feeding babies cows milk contribute to cot baby deaths.

Some Christian women, as late as the 20th century would go to priests for a cleansing ritual, to clean them of the "sin" of childbirth. Children also go through the cleansing ritual of baptism, which originally was to clean them of the sin of being, "born of women". So we can see through patriarchal attitudes a attack on the importance of women's roles. As Feminists have pointed out so often, child rearing is the most devalued work in our society. When some Feminist in the 1960s and 70s suggested that women should be paid to bring up children they were laughed at and ridiculed. After all bringing children and caring for them is clearly not as important as the activities of men. Like generals who have trillions of dollars in which to buy exciting toys like machine guns, flame throwers, napalm bombs or nuclear weapons.

So this is the difference between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. The feminine Goddess religions were about the celebration of whole act of creation from the sexual act to giving birth and breast feeding. It also empathized the maternal instincts of women of compassion, caring and love. The masculine religions on the other hand have throughout history have been about the glorification of violence. Where religious wars have been commonplace and still goes on even today. The irony of this is that in Christianity, Jesus preached love and compassion yet Christianity has been one of the world's most violence religions, throughout it's history.

This has been the great tragedy of the last five thousand years. While humans believed that the world was created by the Great Mother, the feminine maternal instincts of compassion, nurturing and love became the ideal for everyone. Then people began to question this belief and accept that our Creator could be male. This allowed people to accept masculine principles and instincts of competition and aggression. In time this was allowed to grow until it turned into violence, and conquest. Creating the world we know throughout recorded history of war, oppression, poverty and suffering.

Modern scholars claimed that Goddess religions where only fertility cults because of the way ancient peoples used to worship images and carvings of vaginas. Probably with their Christian bias they may of thought that they were all sex-mad in these Goddess Religions.

Now many Freemasons claim that their roots are very ancient, going back to the first civilizations. The first civilizations were created in the Neolithic times where we find people then still worshipped the Great Mother. The V and the diamond shapes we see in the Compass and Square symbol are similar to what has been found in ancient Palaeolithic and Neolithic art.

So it suggests that the Freemasonry secret name of God would be Goddess. This then would be a true secret because Freemasonry is suppose to be a male dominated organization where women were not allowed into it until recent times. Also as Freemasonry originated in Christian countries they wouldn't want to be seen worshipping a Goddess in a sex-mad fertility cult.

The word God comes from the ancient Indo-Europeon languages and originally it meant vagina. So God was originally a female deity and only became a male later on. (The word "man" was also feminine in ancient Indo-European languages, and only came used for the male sex later on.) Even in North Indian today "Khod," (God) means Vulva; Female Organ of Regeneration, Creation and Eternal Beginning. So the secret name of God would be the Great Mother or Great Architect as the Freemasons call her, in coded form.

It would also make sense of why some Freemasons have put the letter M in the space between the two tools because M would stand for Mother which is the Ancient name for the Goddess. The word Mother is common in all ancient languages like Ma-ma, Mu, Mah, Maa, Mtat and Mana. They all mean both a mortal mother and the Great Mother.

New initiates of Freemasonry are told to search for the, "lost Word" which is apparently the real name of God. In the third degree initiation they are given a clue and told to look, "to that bright and Morning Star". Now the Morning Star is Venus who was a Roman Goddess. Though the Morning Star was also once called Lucifer, the god of light which people who claim that Freemasons are Devil worshippers, latch onto. Yet long before the creation of Lucifer it was the Babylonian Goddess Astarte who was the Morning Star. Further back in time she was known as the "Queen of the Star" and the Ancient Great Mother. (Jesus was also called the Morning Star in Revelations in the New Testament.)

So this is why Faith and Hope are represented by the two angels while Charity is represented by the vagina/Goddess symbol.

There are even more feminine symbols in the compass and the square or the knife and fork symbols. Because the top half clearly shows a the letter W and we have the letter M at the bottom. The first letter of woman is W and first letter of Mother is M. Symbols of the zig-zag goes back to palaeontology art and it seems this sign means water. It is from the zig-zag we get the letters W, M, Z and N. It also represented female vagina moisture and the fluid that surrounds a baby in the womb.

The square and compass in these images are laid in the center of the spine of the book and this implies another feminine symbol. Where the two pages meet in the spine is a valley suggesting a closed vagina within the compass and square space.

The above image could be seen as a form of blaspheme because if the square and compass image is a Goddess symbol then what is it doing on the Holy Bible? After all the Bible is all about a male God and ignore Goddesses completely. What is not so well known is that the Ancient people of Israel used to worship Goddesses and what seems to be the names of pagan Gods in the Bible are in fact Goddesses. Scholars have found that the Goddess Asherah appears 40 times in nine books of the Hebrew Bible - Exodus, Deuteronomy,. Judges, 1-2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and 2 Chronicles.

Asherah is a very ancient Goddess, in the ancient Ugaritic Texts she is called, "She Who Gives Birth to the Gods." Which is similar to what Roman Catholics say about the Virgin Mary in calling her, "The Mother of God". Asherah is also called "she who treads on the sea", which is exactly what Jesus Christ did, in the New Testament. In fact scholars have revealed that much of the Old Testament is about a religious war between the followers of the Goddess Asherah and the followers of the God Yahweh. In the end it was the followers of Yahweh who won, and it was they wrote the Bible as we know today.

Even in the New Testament there are Goddess overtones. We today only know about four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Yet before Christianity became a state religion it seem there was about 150 different Gospels. Some of them were about the Goddess Sophia whom it seems searched for her brother/lover Jesus in much the same way as the Egyptian Goddess Isis searched for her murdered lover Osiris. Other Gospels gave a more prominent role to Mary Magdalene and claimed there were female disciples.

Although it is not mentioned in the official Bible, there is a well known story that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Although there is no written proof of this in the Bible or in the Gnostic Gospels, so it would be easy to dismiss this story. Yet it also has to be remembered that when Christianity became a State religion there was at the time a vast amount of Christian text that the State officials had access to. Most of which was destroyed and only the what we know today as the New Testament was saved. Though in more recent time, parts of the Gnostic Gospels have also been found. So it could be possible that references of Mary Magdalene being a prostitute might be in these destroyed Christian writings.

If we take this story seriously what does this mean? We know that Jesus did mix with prostitutes, tax-collectors and the general outcasts of society. So is this then could just another example of his tolerance and compassion? This might be one explanation but prostitute had another meaning back in Biblical times.

It is clear in the Old Testament that the priests of the god Jehovah hated the Priestesses of Goddess temples. We know this from the story of Jezebel. She was Queen of Israel but she worshipped the Goddess Astarte. For this, she and her followers were murdered by the followers of Yahweh. Later on her daughter Athaliah also became Queen and she also worshipped Astarte and again she was murdered. In an attempt to slander Priestesses of Goddess the priests of Yahweh referred to them as Temple prostitutes because it was known that in many Goddess Temples they used sexual rituals. Because in Goddess religions sex was seen as a sacred act of creation. So in calling Mary Magdalene a prostitute, it strongly suggests that she was in fact a priestess of a Goddess religion.

The Gnostic Gospel called Pistis Sophia (Sophia was the Goddess of wisdom) is about a dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene whom he calls, "dearly beloved". In one dialogue Peter complained to Jesus that Mary Magdalene dominated the conversation with Jesus but Jesus rebukes him. In another Gnostics text called "Dialogue of the Saviour" she is portrayed as a very wise Woman who understood Jesus completely unlike the rest of Jesus' disciples. So it seems that Mary Magdalene was a very important member of early Christianity. To the degree that some modern scholars have suggested that she and Jesus were married.

We know from the Bible that Jesus spent most of his childhood in Egypt. A very important Egyptian religion of the time was the religion Isis and Osiris. Like Jesus, Osiris was a god who was murdered and then returned from the dead. Many scholars have commented on the similarities between Jesus and Osiris, in that both gods were known by there followers as the Good Shepherd.. One of the symbols of Osiris is the Shepherd's crook and it is also symbol of rank for Christian Bishops. The image of Jesus's mother Mary holding him as a baby is also the same image of Isis holding her baby Horus. Both Jesus and Horus traditionally have the same birthday of 25 December. Also in Christianity prayers are finished by the words Amen, which comes from the Egyptian God Amom. So was Jesus trying to introduce an Egyptian religion into Israel?

It all does indicate that perhaps both Jesus and Mary Magdalene were trained priest and priestess in Egypt. Probably in the Goddess religion of Isis. Then they were sent as missionaries to convert the savage Israelites to a more compassionate Goddess religion. They knew that to preach a Goddess religion would mean that they would be quickly killed. So they converted there religious beliefs to fit in with the beliefs of the Jews. This meant that they turned the Compassionate Mother Goddess into a loving father God. Perhaps Jesus may of fooled the common people in doing this but he clearly didn't fool the priests. They were probably very aware he was preaching a Goddess religion and when they got the chance, had him crucified. From the way Jesus reacted to his betrayal and execution, he knew he was on borrowed time, and was clearly prepared to die for his beliefs.

What happened to Mary Magdalene afterwards we do not know. It seems she did survive so she probably continued what Jesus started and secretly continued the teachings that both of them created. It is of interest that Christianity came back to Egypt where it grew into a strong religion until Christianity became the Roman state religion. Then the Roman Christians had all the Egyptian Christians slaughtered who didn't follow the Roman version of Christianity. Destroying also all the Egyptian Christian text which only a small amount has survived today. This result is the Roman version of Christianity becoming more like a Jewish religion. As they put more empathize on the Old Testament than the teachings of Jesus. So the compassionate Goddess teachings of Jesus became largely ignored by the Christian Church until modern times.

When archaeologists excavated Ancient Palestine and the area around it, the Canadian archaeologist John Holiday claims that, "biblical descriptions does not match what is found in the dirt". What came clear from archaeological evidence is that the Hebrew Bible was a very biased and heavily censored version of Jewish History.

The evidence unearthed shows that Goddess worship was commonplace in Israel right up to early Christian times. With large numbers of Goddess statues discovered in the homes of common people. Archaeologists have shown that the Hebrews worshipped the Goddesses Asherah and Astarte as much as the countries around Israel. So is this what this Freemason symbol is trying to tell us? That within the Bible is a hidden Goddess?

The beehive is another popular Freemasonry image. I am sure they will tell you that the beehive is a symbol of people working together industrially for the good of the whole. So it would represent hard work and good organization.

Yet again it would be another very good Goddess symbol. The beehive is ruled by the Queen bee and the worker bees are also female. The male bees are the drones, who have no role except to fertilize the Queen bee. The drones who are not used in this way are surplus to requirements and are killed by the worker bees. So it means that the beehive is in fact a Matriarchal Society. Which seems to be a strange symbol for what is suppose to be a male dominated organization.

Bees in Ancient times was the symbol of the Goddess Artemis. This was because she was once the Great Mother who created the world without the help of a male God. The ancients believed that bees created themselves through parthenogenesis, so bees became a symbol of the Virgin Creatrix Mother. Who has survived in Christianity in the personage of the Virgin Mary. She is called by the Roman Catholics, "The Mother of God" which comes from a pre-Christian saying that the Great Mother is the, "Mother of all Gods".

Some people have also claimed that the bee hive represents the pregnant belly of the Great Mother. In much the same way that the artificial Neolithic Silbury Hill in England is claimed to be, "the swollen pregnant belly of the Earth Mother." Images of pregnant Goddesses are found in Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.

This picture is called "The Three Great Lights in Masonry". This is what Masons themselves say about it:

"The Three Great Lights in Masonry are the Volume of Sacred Law, the Square and Compasses, and the sacred writings are understood to be those revered by the individual Mason. Although there are local variations in Freemasonry's symbolic structure, the Three Great Lights are universal. Taken together they form the most essential, as well as the most widely known, of the Masonic symbols. No Masonic Lodge can meet unless they are present and displayed."

On the top we have the beehive ruled by the Queen bee and the female worker bees representing either a matriarchal society or the ancient Goddess Artemis who was once the Great Mother. Then we have the compass and square on the open book which is a double vaginal symbol. Which is also a pre-historic symbol of the Great Mother. Then at the bottom we have Noah's ark. Noah's ark is a very ancient story that originally comes from Mesopotamia. Though it seems there are many similar stories about this all over the world.

It seems that with the ending of the last Ice-Age the great Glaciers that covered most of Northern Europe, Asia and North America began to melt. Resulting in oceans levels rising, as the ice trapped on the land turned into water and ran into the sea. Scientists have discovered that this rise in sea levels didn't happen slowly but happen suddenly in a series of dramatic floods. As the melted water would be trapped on land behind mountain ranges and ice barriers creating vast inland seas. Then when the vast ice barriers melted the water would suddenly be released in a great flood. The last time this happened was about 12 thousand years ago and accounts of this flood were probably the origins of stories like Noah's ark.

So the story of Noah's ark takes us back to the Neolithic age which was a age of Goddess worship, when people still worshipped the Great Mother. This suggests that "The Three Great Lights in Masonry" are symbols of the ancient Great Mother. And as there are three pictures they are probably are the triple Goddess.

The Triple Goddess is very Ancient Symbol, known originally as the Maid, Mother and Crone. They were also later known as The Three Grey Ones, The Three Harpies, The Three Fates, The Three Graces and The Three Maries. As well as Faith, Hope and Charity. This trinity was also adopted by patriarchal religions. In Ancient Egypt they had the trinity of Isis, Osiris and Horus. While in Christianity we have the trinity of Father , Son and Holy Spirit as well as the three Marys who witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus.

The name Mary comes from the Egyptian goddess Maat and the Mesopotamian Goddess Mami or Mammitu which means Mother. So Mary was originally a name for the Great Mother. The name Virgin Mary also has a interesting meaning

The ancient meaning of virgin is far different to what it means in Christianity. To the Christians a virgin is a woman who has never been penetrated by a man. Which then creates the problem in that Mary mother of Jesus was supposed to be a virgin when she conceived him. The Christian explanation is that God was the father of Jesus. This is not unusual in religions of this time, the Greeks had Zeus who would seduce or rape mortal women and from this union would come heroic demigods.

The Pagan meaning of virgin is a woman who is owned by no man. So therefore she was at liberty to have sex with any man she chooses. To the degree that when she gives birth she may not know or care whom the father is. The problem for the patriarchy in having women like this, was that property or inheritance could only be passed down the female line. Which meant that power and wealth was still being inherited by women. Because of this kingship was passed down the female line as we see in Ancient Egypt. So the patriarchal law of marriage was enforced where a women was expected to be faithful to one man. Which allows a husband to know who his children are. This then allowed property and titles to be passed down from father to son, keeping wealth and power in the hands of men.

This then suggests that the Virgin Mary was a women who wasn't restricted to the patriarchal custom of marriage and so probably belonged to a Goddess religion. Also the original meaning of the Virgin Mother was a name of the Ancient Great Mother who could give birth without the aid of a male God. Which raises a question, what is a the Ancient Great Mother doing in a Bible of a patriarchal religion? It suggests that people were probably still worshipping the ancient Great Mother in early Christian times and the Christians needed the Virgin Mary in their religion to attract these people.

Though there can be another interpretation of this the "Three Great lights of Masonry", if we read the work of Joachim of Fiore. He was a 12th century monk who wrote one of the most important commentaries on Book of the Apocalypse ever written, according to some theologians.

He wrote that the key to Revelations is in the concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He claims that the Father was the age of the Old Testament, The Son is the age of the New Testament after Jesus was born. Then after the return and defeat of the Anti-Christ, there will be a utopian age of the Holy Spirit.

So if we look at the Three Great lights again we see at the bottom the Noah's ark which is in the Old Testament, so this would be the age of the Father. In the middle we see a book with the word John on it, suggesting this was John in the New Testament, so this would be the age of the Son. While at the top would be the age of the Holy Spirit but why is that age represented by a Beehive? In some of the Gnostic the Holy Spirit is the Feminine force and as previous mentioned the Bees are associated with the Goddess Artemis who was once a tribal Great Mother. So in other word this image is telling us of the return of the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess.

In the book "The Secret Zodiacs Of Washington DC" by David Ovason, the author writes about all the Freemasonry architecture in Washington city. What is interesting it the very large amount of statues and symbols of the Zodiac sign Virgo. Which the author suggests means that Washington is under the sign of Virgo. The problem is that there is no astrological evidence that this is true. So is there another reason why there is such a empathize on Virgo in Washington? The author claims that all these Virgo symbols and statues, - "seems to follow a well-established custom of emphasizing the role of Virgo, insisting that Washington DC is under her rule and patronage".

As Virgo was once the ancient Virgin Mother, what is this telling us? Does it mean that the founders of Washington were worshippers of the ancient Great Mother?

The above are images of the "all seeing eye" or the "eye of god". Again frequently used by Freemasons and displayed right at the top of many of their symbolic drawings. The problem with this image is, why has god got one eye? Some claim it is, "the eye of Horus", but this is not a answer as it doesn't explain why the God Horus in inflicted with just a single eye? It would be more sensible to show him with two eyes because a one eyed person is seen in popular sayings as a very biased or bigoted person. So is this a comment on bigoted Christianity? Where some Christians assume that God is very judgmental and intolerant?

It might be, but again it can be seen as another vagina symbol. In popular sayings a woman's vagina is also called an eye, because it has the same shape. In other words, it is another symbol of the sacred vagina that from all life is created. Back in the Neolithic age archaeologists have found what is called "Eye Goddesses" these were Goddesses with very prominent eyes. In Mesopotamia she was known as the Goddess Mari, those eyes searched men's souls. In Egypt she was the Goddess Maat (Mother) and was the deity of truth and Justice and had a "all seeing eye".

The above picture is of the Dollar note, it is universally accepted that the images on it are Freemason symbols.

The problem with this image is that it has 13 stars above the eagle who also carries 13 arrows in one of this claws, while on the other claw is a olive branch with 13 leaves on it. There are also 13 bars and stripes in the shield and there are 13 letters in "E Plurabus Unum" on the ribbon clenched in the Eagle's jaw. Now people believe that 13 is a very unlucky number. To the degree that many hotels in USA do not have a number 13 room or floor. So what is a country like the USA doing having this unlucky number so many times on one of its bank notes? The official line is that there were 13 states of the Union when USA became independent from Britain, this is why their are 13 stripes on the USA flag. The problem is that the 13 stripe flag is older than the USA. It was first used by the East India Company which was started back in 1600 and become the most powerful international company in the world in the 18th century. Though why the USA adopted the East India Company's flag is never explained. So what is so important about the number 13?

One explanation is that the Knights Templar were destroyed on Friday March 13, by the French King, Phillip IV. Suggesting a connection between the Knights Templar, the East India Company and the Freemasons. But the importance of the number 13 is very ancient and goes back to Neolithic times and perhaps ever older when the first calendars were constructed. It is of interest that scientists have found that in Neolithic times and even back in the times of the old Stone-Age people then were obsessed with creating calendars. The most famous being Stonehenge but there were many stone circles built in Britain, Ireland, and France before Stonehenge. Scientists have even discovered markings on bone that clearly show Stone-Age people keeping track of the phases of the moon 30 thousand years ago. So why was Stone-Age people so obsessed with time and the phases of the moon? A obvious reason would be that Stone-Age women probably worked out that their menstruation period roughly fitted in with the phases of the moon.

The months of the year originally come from the cycles of the moon and there are 13 lunar months every year. Which worked out well, as every month was 28 days which is exactly 4 weeks, while 28 x 13 = 364, which is only 1¼ days short of 365¼ days in a year. In ancient times women became associated with the moon, because their menstrual period also takes about the same time as a lunar month. So the 13 months of the year was seen in ancient civilizations as a very feminine symbol. When patriarchy took complete control they adopted the a 12 month calendar instead, to rid itself of any feminine association in our calendar. Unfortunately when 12 goes into 365 we have 5 days left over instead of one. The result is we now have a hotchpotch of a calendar with some months being 30 days and others 31 and only one month was left at 28 days. While the days in a week no longer correspond with the days in a month, as 30 or 31 days do not fit in with the 7 day week.

So the number thirteen is strongly associated with the feminine in a time before patriarchy. It is also of interest that Friday the 13th is unlucky because Friday was named after the Nordic Goddess Freya. So it means that later patriarchal religions in a effort to discredit Goddess religions associated the feminine and Goddesses with bad luck.

Thirteen is also in the New Testament. Jesus had 12 disciples but if we add Jesus to this we have a group of 13 people. Which is interesting, as traditionally a Witch's coven is 13 Witches.

Masons themselves claim that the Eagle on the Great Seal is used to represent the Phoenix. We see in the picture the Eagle flying upwards, which is suppose to be, "the Phoenix rising from the ashes". Now in its original form the Phoenix was feminine. It is also a death and rebirth story we see a lot in Pagan religions and even in Christianity with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

This picture is the image on the other side of the USA one dollar note. And again we find 13 rows of stones in the pyramid below the Masonic "All-seeing Eye" and 13 letters in 'Annuit Caeptis', which means "God has prospered".

In this image we have a steep sided pyramid far steeper that the a tradition type of pyramid of ancient Egypt and South America. So the pyramid is more like that of a steeple of a church, which is a clear phallic symbol. The steeple goes back to pagan times when patriarchal cults would carve large penises to symbolize potent Gods like Pan. Even today in Hinduism the God Siva is still worshipped as a phallic symbol. This also goes back to Ancient Egypt, as a symbol of the Sky Goddess Nut mating with the earth god Geb. With images of Geb lying of the ground with his penis standing up straight and Nut representing the sky arching over him. It may even be the original reason for the pyramids. I know a pyramid is not much of a phallic symbol but the Egyptians did attempt to build taller steeper side pyramids until they discovered they were unstable. So the pyramids may be very large phallic symbol worthy of a Great Goddess and may be there attempt to attract her back to earth.

Nut & Geb

In this image the point of the pyramid or steeple is cut off and we have a cap-stone that is separated from the rest of the pyramid. Suggesting that if the lower section is Freemasonry then the upper section is another organization. Within the cap stone is the single eye which is a vagina symbol. Suggesting that the cap stone represents a Goddess organization. So this whole imagine seems to be saying that above the patriarchal Freemason organization is a Goddess organization. Another meaning for this, is that the pyramid is unfinished, symbolizing the unfinished work of the Freemasons. We see similar symbolism in the Mason story of Solomon's Temple that plays a major part in their initiation ceremonies.

What we see in this drawing is that to get to the Temple itself you have to pass through three separate gates as there are three walls protecting the Temple. Which is similar to Freemasonry itself because Masonry in its original form had three degrees before a candidate became a true Mason.

If Solomon's Temple represents Freemasonry itself. Then it could also have a deeper meaning. Perhaps it might be suggesting that most Masons only go as far as the outer courtyard of the Temple. A lesser number get within the second courtyard and only a few members get inside the Temple itself. What is interesting about the Solomon's Temple is that it was a Goddess Temple. This is the reason why Solomon was condemned in the Bible in his later years for turning his back on Yahweh. Because he worshipped the Goddess Asherah.

So this is similar to the pyramid image on the USA one dollar. The base of the pyramid is for the ordinary Freemasons which is the outer court yard. Then some become part of another organization that is represented by the capstone, which is the second courtyard. Then within this organizations is a Goddess organization. Represented by the eye and the case of the Temple image represented by Solomon's Goddess Temple.

In Freemason initiations they act out the murder of Hiram Abiff, the builder of Solomon's Temple. Hiram Abiff is referred to as "The son of the Widow", which is curious as in our patriarchal society a person is generally referred to by his father whom he carries on his name. So the reference to his mother suggests matrilinear succession, which was common in old matriarchal societies. Though Freemasons themselves have another explanation for this. In the Egyptians Legend of the Goddess Isis, her husband the God Osiris was killed by his brother Set and cut up into many pieces. Then Isis found all the pieces and put him back together again and mated with him. Then from this union was born the God Horus. So this suggests that son of the Widow would be Horus as his mother was a widow when he was born. This then suggests that Hiram Abiff was the God Horus, which doesn't take us anywhere and is probably a red herring.

Hiram Abiff was a King from another land and invited by Solomon to build his temple. So this tells us that Hiram Abiff wasn't a Jew.. He didn't come alone but also with a army of workers. Which is all a bit strange in having another King from another land coming to build a Temple with his own workers. It suggests a very close bond between the two kings. This wasn't the only ruler that visited Israel, the Queen of Sheba also came to meet Solomon. Though the importance of this visit was never made clear in the Bible. So it does suggests that Solomon was open to influences outside of Israel.

In the Bible it doesn't say Hiram Abiff was murdered and that the Temple was finished, while in Freemasonry tradition it says that because of the murder of Hiram Abiff, it was left unfinished. This discrepancy may be telling us the aim and purpose of Freemasonry. King Solomon may have tried to promote Goddess worship in Israel, but after his death the followers of Yahweh become increasingly stronger. Perhaps the unfinished Temple means the unfinished attempt by Solomon to re-establish Goddess worship, in Israel. The fact that Hiram Above was murdered, is probably a reference to how patriarchy gained ascendancy over matriarchy, that is by violence.

The murder of Hiram Abiff also has a controversial point to it. When he was murdered the assassins buried the body to conceal what they had done. When it was realized that he was missing a search was made for him and his body was discovered and reburied. Some people have seen the similarity between this story and the crucifixion of Jesus, claiming that this is a death and rebirth story. Masons deny this, pointing out that Hiram Abiff didn't come back to life and was only reburied. Though if Freemasons claim that Hiram Abiff is the Egyptian God Horus then he is part of a death/rebirth story.

The point about the story is that Hiram Abiff had a secret which he wouldn't reveal to his attackers. If this secret is Goddess worship, then it again reveals Freemasonry history. If Hiram Abiff represents the mystery teachings of Goddess religions, then in the past it was destroyed by violence, and buried underground. Freemasons have since re-discovered this body of knowledge and have reburied it in a safer place where they know where it is.

Even if the Freemasons started off with an ideal of returning a Goddess religion it doesn't necessarily mean that its leaders share this ideal today. Because if they are all men, then they would have to surrender their power to women. The only thing that really make sense is that there are people who want to preserve knowledge from very ancient times, so this knowledge can be revealed to the public when the time is right.

There's some justification for believing this; in the time of Renaissances in the 8th, 9th and 12th centuries, when the Church briefly relaxed its repression. A great deal of ancient knowledge was suddenly "discovered". Like the works of Greek philosophizes Aristotle and Plato. Strangely these work were preserved and translated by Islamic countries. Who at the time were far more enlightened and open-minded than the European Christians. So when the Church relaxed its dogma these works of Pagan authors were allowed into Europe once again.

It is well known that it was Freemasons who engineered the American War of Independence,. When the American constitution was drawn up it was stated within it that. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof". Since then nearly all other Western countries have passed laws giving its people the freedom to belong to any religion they want to. So in theory any knowledge of ancient Goddess religions could have been revealed in recent times with no fear of persecution. The fact that no such knowledge was revealed then, or since, means that this knowledge might of been lost and only the symbols still remain. Or the keepers of this knowledge, still think that Goddess worship is unacceptable to most people in our society.

When Pamela Suffield and I wrote "Gospel of the Goddess" at the end of the 1980s we put forward the idea that we are moving towards a new feminine matercentric age. Even many of our own friends found such a suggestion to be completely unacceptable. So if we are looking for a secret that is even still taboo in today's society then this would be a very strong possibility.

For years I have been interested in not only Goddess worship but the concept of a Matriarchal societies of the past. Unfortunately I have found that among scholars this is very much a taboo subject to the degree that there seems to be a campaign to censor this knowledge. As we can see through the treatment of the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas who was savagely attacked by other academics for daring to write books about what archaeologists have discovered about Neolithic civilizations.

Some Masons today claim that Freemasonry is no longer a secret society, as all its rituals and beliefs have be revealed to the public, in many books. But this may not be true, they might still have knowledge of ancient Goddess religions. And they might not want to reveal it because the leadership of Freemasonry has now become too patriarchal. But this may not stop individual members trying to bring back the Goddess. A case in point would be Gerald Gardner.

Now if some Freemasons do worship a hidden Goddess, this can could make sense of the behaviour of another well known Freemason called Gerald Gardner.

Back in the nineteen fifties, Gerald Gardner started Modern Witchcraft. He had a three degree hierarchy in his form of Witchcraft the same as within Freemasonry. Many of his rituals are apparently similar to Freemasonry and some Witches do know the secret hand signals that Freemasons use. Also there does seem to be a large number of Witches who are Freemasons. Witches are completely open in the fact that they worship the Goddess and unlike the Masons allow both men and women in their Covens. (Though there is today some Freemason groups who do now allow women in their ranks, and there are exclusive Female Freemasonry organizations).

So Gerald Gardner did successfully bring Goddess worship back to Western Civilizations. Though his version of the Goddess was watered down because his form of Witchcraft also worships a god. So she is not a Creatrix or Great Mother Goddess. But then he was very daring to re-introduce Witchcraft back in the 1950s. So perhaps he thought to bring back the Great Mother would be a step too far.

So even with the religious freedom of today we cannot rely on the leadership of Freemasonry to reveal what they know. We might have to rely in individual Freemasons like Gerald Gardner, who believe in the Goddess, to do this and bring out the ancient knowledge the Freemasons have.

DISCUSSIONS ON

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